#he's fascinated by this tbh

[beaulesbian]

One Piece ep. 257 || "That was really something. They don't call themselves pirates for nothing."

manga ch. 367

It was cute Luffy really did the peace sign in the manga as well!

+Bonus "That was fun."

"No human could pull that off"

[yellowvixen]

person who loves listening + person who infodumps = perfect match. if they weren't so oblivious lol

[gingermintpepper]

“Your hair’s gotten longer.” 

It’s conscious effort that keeps him from tucking the strands behind his ear, from taking the knife at his hip and shearing it all off. He keeps his stance focused, attentive, there’s little else he can do when he’s taken so completely after his mother when it comes to his hair. His father scratches his chin, the clouds of his beard snaking about his finger like mist parting for mountain-peaks. Ares’ chin is still child-smooth. He can feel the tickle of his over-long fringe against his soft jaw. There’s no heart in his chest, but still he feels as though a pulse is lodged in his throat. 

Father sighs, put-upon, disappointed, and Ares feels a slight tremor start in his calves from holding himself so tense. “Well done, Ares. Go clean yourself up and get some rest. Phoebus will want to look you over later.” 

He should be ecstatic to be praised by his father. Over-the-moon with joy. There should be pride emanating from every pore of his body, the blood on his skin should be sweeter than ambrosia. 

Instead, he bows, manages a soft ‘thank you, Father’ around the lump in his throat and immediately flees the room. A mild ‘make sure to trim your hair’ hits the back of his head like a spear through the skull. He almost wishes the great door had slammed on his foot so he would have reason to feel this horrid in his retreat.  

Phoebus Apollo is waiting for him in his infirmary. 

He’s gilded as ever, gold from crown to heel. Perfect like the statues they carve of him in his temples. He has a smile for Ares when he sees him, a crinkle at the edges of his pretty eyes from the weight of his joy. Ares is waiting to see the crack in the marble, to see if that’s the chip that’ll reveal his fangs.

“Brother,” he greets, and his voice is warm - like the arms that embrace him, his voice is so warm, “Welcome back. I’ve heard you’ve done well.”  

There’s a tremble in Ares’ fingers he hadn’t noticed before. Strain from carrying his sword for so many days, a throb from wounds he hadn’t noticed he’d accrued. “Heard? There’s already gossip?” 

Phoebus blinks, disarming, demure, coquettish, “But of course,” and Phoebus’ voice is honey to Ares’ gravel, the juxtaposition is grating on his skin, “It’s Olympus. The gossip began long before you set your course.” Those warm hands lead him further into the room, bodily sits him on the chaise, pulls his helmet from his head. It’s all one, unbroken motion, “It’s summer alas, so I could not watch your war myself, but I hear it was quite the decisive victory.” 

A thousand thoughts run on horseback through his mind then. 

Did Father overhear some terrible slander that pre-emptively disappointed him? Was Ares’ victory merely a rumour, a bet his father hadn’t bothered to take? Was the gossip more enticing than the stark truth? That Ares wasn’t some child toddling about in the shadow of his sister, that his sword and spear weren’t merely for show - he’d think such a thing would warrant celebration. Not -

“Oh my,” Phoebus is in front of him, pleasant warmth more sticky heat with how close he’s pressed himself into Ares’ space. From this angle, Ares can see the multi-coloured flecks of his eyes, like shards of golden glass suspended in ichor. From this angle, with his hand so gently holding his hair, were Ares to blink too hard, he’d swear Phoebus looked just like his mother. “Your hair’s grown long again.” 

He pushes Phoebus off with such force that he bangs into the wall. It’s Phoebus, it won’t make even the impression of a scratch on him, but Ares wishes it would. Wishes he’d hit his shoulder or crack his neck or hit his head just hard enough for all that perfect, gilded gold to bleed. 

“I’m only here for you to heal me,” the tremble in his hand extends to his shoulder now. He flexes and unflexes his palm. Gods what he would give to just have a sword - “Don’t waste time with the pleasant-work.” 

Phoebus huffs, adjusts the fit of his himation, “...Only because we’re meant to be celebrating your victory.” He crosses the room in two great strides, his hair a swirling tempest behind him as he gathers his poultices and wraps. “The only reason I’ll not throw you from the window is because we are meant to be celebrating your victory.”  

There’s not enough acid in his tone for this to truly be a fight. Ares’ jaw clenches, he bites out a terse, “How benevolent.” 

“Aren’t I?” He’s got nectar and his sutures in hand, that focused look falling upon his face when he switches from overbearing busybody to Paeon of the Gods. “Now strip unfaltering Ares, let us see the measure of damage done to your indomitable flesh.” 

(Somewhere between the fifth set of stitches and the gentle frown that crosses Phoebus’ face when he notices the persistent tremble in his fingers, Ares pins his eyes to the far wall and asks, “What does it mean when Father says ‘well done’?” 

Any other sibling would mock before they gave a true response. Any other sibling would laugh and dismiss it, would say that praise is praise and any lingering ill feeling is just the worst of the war still fogging his mind. Phoebus does not answer immediately. He doesn’t make a single sound. The question settles like fetid water between them, unignorable, the scent right there on the tip of the tongue yet firmly unacknowledged. Ares closes his eyes and tries again to settle his squirming so he does not interfere with Phoebus’ work.  The metallic snip of scissors cutting thread breaks the silence. Phoebus bids him to sit up and slides his warm palms up his back until his fingers tangle gently in the ends of his hair. He twists the dark red strands until he’s gathered it all into a neat handful, holding it loosely as he switches his scissors for his shearing blade. “You should know it was not praise,” Phoebus says softly. The first of Ares cut hairs fall like viscera from his head. Phoebus treats each cutting with the sacredness of a blood-sacrifice. If he focused on the moment of tension right before the blade cuts though, Ares thinks he can imagine the agony of his sister’s sacred birth. “It is acknowledgement. Father thinks you’ve done well so he says ‘well done’.”

Gently, Phoebus releases him. Ruffles his head so all the extra hairs fall like red rain to the floor. Ares runs his fingers through the ends now curling against his ear. “Has he ever told you ‘well done’?” 

A laugh, warm and gilded, “No, and it would not make you feel better if he had.” 

Ares swallows down a thousand different questions. Phoebus wouldn’t answer them, he’s infuriating like that. Instead, he clenches his teeth, the phantom of Father’s dizzying tangle of grey cloud-hairs persistent in the corner of his eyes. “Cut it shorter.”

Phoebus doesn’t protest. He never seems to say a word when it really matters.)

[sualne]

(wip) a comic about a haircut im procrastinating

[aroaceleovaldez]

i think a lot about how early-series, demigods are referred to pretty equally as "demigods," "half-bloods," and "godlings," - the last used particularly by gods at demigods - but after that "godlings" is almost exclusively used to refer to minor gods.

something something i am literally always chewing on the concept of the line between immortals/demigods/monsters/etc being thinner than it appears

[luck-of-the-drawings]

"I think this is the most inhuman; and human, that I've ever felt.." MUCH CAN HAPPEN IN A YEAR. IN FIVE YEARS. A DECADE. imagine how much can happen in a century. just ONE (1). How will you grow? what phases do you find? even in 5 years, you will find patterns.

[bzil111]

i see a lot of debate on komaeda’s music taste, and i want you all to consider a komaeda that exclusively listens to classical music.

he doesn’t know what’s popular or mainstream, you pass him the aux chord and he starts playing shostakovich like it’s lady gaga. bed time? he puts on his night gown and cap and starts blasting prokofiev’s dance of the knights. class 77-b throws a party and everyone knows that komaeda added a song to the playlist because coriolan overture starts playing in the middle of rave music and he’s giggling and clapping his hands talking about how it represents despair vs hope

[oneshotgremlin]

Up and Down

Thoughts on how beings generally perceive their world one spatial dimension lower than the dimensionality of the space they inhabit:

In the flatlands, the way people perceive the world around them is through lines, and so visual receptors HAVE to be on the edges of their shapes

Otherwise by all accounts the person would be effectively blind

So Mrs.Red and Mr.Blue have this strange yellow boy

Who appears to be born with no eyes

(It’s directly in his center, but without tests and doctors nobody can see it)

And for all intents and purposes, the boy is blind

He has to feel his way around buildings and people (in his hand a black cane that his parents bought to aid him)

And he doesn’t know what his parents look like, and only knows them by their voice as they guide him

They love him all the same, regardless

(Meanwhile, he stares up at the infinite expanse of the night sky. But the thing about infinity is that it makes where you stand so infinitesimally tiny in comparison, and no matter how far you run side to side the stars do not move an inch for you. And if they’re all someone sees, the only logical conclusion that can be drawn is that where they are is unspeakably, claustrophobically small)

(It doesn’t matter if the kids at school bully him and the adults look at him with pity and disdain that he can’t even see, because don’t they know how SMALL they are? Don’t they know how small EVERYTHING is?)

And so, with years and years and nowhere else to go, Bill reaches UP

(And no-one else has tried before, because why would they? There is no up or down to conceive, only forwards and backwards and left and right.)

It takes unimaginable amounts of energy to punch a rift into a dimension. In a time and space unmeasurably far away, a six fingered man and his five fingered twin would learn that lesson well

In the flatlands, it’s less of an interdimensional portal looming ominously in a metal room and more of a calculation

l is for length. w is for width. h is for height

And like a computer told to divide by zero, everything falls apart

Did you know that when energetic particles that erupt from the stars collide with a sufficiently nitrogen rich atmosphere, it produces the color blue?

Did you know the only reason the flatlanders didn’t drift off into the freezing cold yet boiling hot void of space, despite not having a planet with the volume and mass needed to produce a gravitational field, is their dimension’s lack of third dimensionality?

Like insects pinned underneath glass, yet the glass protected their corpses from falling apart?

They scream. He cries. He laughs. They die.

It’s an old saying: “When gravity falls and earth becomes sky beware the beast with just one eye”

And when little Billy looks away from the stars, looks down to finally see his tiny, minuscule home

For the first and last time, he sees a blue triangle with a hat, and a red triangle with a bow.

[maximura]

[foe-paw]

I CAN FIX ANYTHING!

[mightybeaujester]

Comparing Mechs fans spotify wrapped with others shows us scientifically that we're something else

A friend of mine is in the top 0.05% of Sleeping At Last (almost 8mio monthly listeners) with 7.4k minutes

I'm just in the top 0.5% of the Mechanisms (36k monthly listeners) with 9.3k minutes

This means that you needed less minutes to be a way higher listener of an artist with 205 times as many listeners.

So there aren't many of us, but I can almost guarantee that not a single one of us is even remotely normal.

[quasarzt]

i love making the lamest character cooler then he actually is

[gingermintpepper]

So, one of the most interesting things that's come from my recent exercises in writing the Olympians as young deities is all of the very fun and somewhat painful conversations that come from the young deities acquiring and consequently settling into their domains.

Apollo and Artemis especially have been really fascinating under the microscope. They start off identically, with extremely similar interests and similar domains over the hunt and wilderness. They spend their days under the stars and foraging for fruit and dancing and singing in the fields, two rustic god-children exploring and learning together. Then Apollo goes off on his own to slay Python.

Now, a lot of things change when Apollo kills Python. That is the act which transforms the bow from a tool of survival and sport to an instrument of murder, bloodshed and ultimately war. It is Apollo's first act of wrath which separates him from Artemis - both spiritually because she has not yet shed blood herself as a goddess and physically because it leads to his exile. Most importantly however, the slaying of Python is the act that grants Apollo his knowledge.

If violence is what first separates Apollo from Artemis then it is knowledge which keeps them apart.

This can refer to a lot of things; that Artemis continued to be at home with the wild beasts of the forests and mountains while Apollo grew to prefer the domesticated sheep and cattle, that Artemis continued to avoid mortals while Apollo grew to know their ways and endeavoured to teach them more. The point that has been the most interesting to me however has been Artemis, who remains free of slaughter, and thus remains pure and Apollo, who becomes acutely and entirely too aware of it, and thus must be constantly purified.

Apollo's infatuation with medicine specifically is the place where this becomes most apparent. When he leaves for his exile to travel as a mortal, without nectar or ambrosia, without power, Apollo is without the privileges of the divine for the very first time. He sweats, he smells, he grows weary when he travels, he grows hungry and thirsty. He experiences fatigue and nausea, the fever of sickness, the chill of infection, the delirium of poison. The blood Apollo shed does not only make him impure spiritually, it strips him of the purity of his birth and station. Likewise, medicine is not a divine practice. What use do the unkillable immortals have for something as finicky as medicine when they have nectar and ambrosia? Apollo however, knows of the pains of the flesh and the suffering of the mortal coil. He pursues medicine in all its horrors and difficulties because of the knowledge he gained with blood.

Artemis then, cannot understand the medical Apollo. When her brother returns possessed by this spectre of ill-gained knowledge, she does not recognise him. Who is this boy who scores the deer and studies the shape of their intestines before he cooks them? What good is there in rescuing a chick with a broken wing? The Apollo-of-the-Wild in her memories would have done the correct thing and left the thing for dead - let the forest take what is its due. Who is this Apollo whose hands are always stained to the wrist in the blood and gore of the living? What is his fascination with the mechanics of mortal bodies? Artemis does not know and Apollo does not tell her.

That has, by far, been my favourite effect of the whole Python watershed moment to explore recently.

[kadextra]

thinking about how q!bad today was shooting a gun around, pomme got scared and told him to stop bc the explosion sound is traumatic, then he laughed and pointed it at her as a joke?? hello??? afterwards he apologized and said the “toothpaste” (infection) got in his ears and interrupted his brain which is math (whatever that means?) and sang the one half of sunshine that he remembered. my guy is so broken 😭

[thyandrawrites]

It's all about Nagi living alone in a tiny one bedroom, one bathroom apartment with zero personality and Reo having a whole floor for himself but still living surrounded by tacky-expensive home decor with no apparent traces of his actual personality, either. It's all about how Nagi's parents haven't visited him in 2 years nor taken an interest in his life since, while Reo's are content to live floors apart from their teenage son, only taking an interest in what value he can bring to Mikage Corp but being otherwise uninvolved in / dismissive of his actual life. It's all about them being surrounded by people and still not knowing how to form a meaningful connection with another person before meeting each other. It's all about them being so starved for genuine human warmth to combat their bone-deep loneliness that they both treasure memories of tiny, inconsequential moments where they were spending time with their parents. Something something it's this line,

and how it describes them both despite being said about Reo. It's them being awkward 17-year-olds who had never before had an equal who would just respect them as they are and unconditionally look their way. In this essay I will-

[paarthursass]

my controversial tdv opinion is that mark seibert's krolock is good, actually. like i get why we clown on mark. i do. i do. but his krolock is actually. he's a bitch. he's a clown. he has the STRONGEST dad energy. he will PERFECTLY play the part of the lovestruck hero for sarah if that's what she wants and then will go and hiss at a bunch of vampires like they're misbehaving kittens.

other krolocks might have more consistent performances, but BECAUSE he switches it up so often it gives his krolock the feeling of being a fucking chameleon. he will lure you in by pretending to be so earnest and sincere and a little bit goofy and then he'll rip your throat out. and then he'll turn and go back to being a little goofy with his son.