#its hit me today how close it actually is to the new year i am now romanicising a lot sorry</3

[dangaer]

the inhernt feeling of being known during roleplay.

[devilishchaos]

BABYYY drop the daddy Ruben fic, don't be shy <3

Calls | Dad!Rúben Dias imagine

Rating / genre: pure fluff

Pairings: Reader x Rúben Dias

Summary: Rúben goes on a business trip. Me and our son George are sad he is away, so we face time him.

Warnings: use of pet names "babe", "baby"

Word Count: 1 347 words

This is a work of fiction. The story, names, characters and incidents either are product or the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

While begging my husband to go on this 3 day business trip, I thought to myself "What can happen in the span of 3 days, right?"  Well, a lot. 

I'm currently 27 weeks pregnant with twins and have a year and a half year old baby-toddler that needs my attention 24/7. Not that I am complaining but the pregnancy alone is being hard on me and my beautiful son throwing constant tantrums about missing his dad doesn't help my situation. Now, I was usually the preferred parent, but George had the tendency to not want to eat and nap while Rúben was away.

Today was going to be a long and hard day for me, I just knew it. I woke up from my nap at 7:00 am, got ready and headed to wake George up because I had an appointment with my OBGYN in an hour and had no one to look after him while I was gone, so I had to take him with me. 

It was a battle but I somehow managed to get him ready for the day, made it to my appointment safely and on time and both of us were back in the coziness of our household before we knew it. 

The moment we stepped through the door - the nausea hit me. And my head started spinning. I somehow made it to the bedroom and laid down on the bed and tried to take deep breaths in hopes for it to go away faster. I closed your eyes for a second and out of nowhere a loud cry pierced the silence. 

With eyes wide open, all my senses on alert, I sat up in the bed and looked at the door to see George standing there, tears falling from his eyes and his tiny hands holding his favorite stuffed animal close to his chest. 

"What happened baby? Are you okay?" I asked, holding out my hands in his direction. 

"Dada.." he managed to say in between wheezing. 

I gave him a sad knowing look. Ever since he was born he was a mama's boy but ever since I got pregnant again he looked up to Rúben more and more, and wanted to do everything that he was doing whether it was directed towards me or other people. And Rúben was the happiest person on earth, soaking in every moment because he knew that it could be taken away from him just as fast as it came. 

"You miss daddy, huh bud?" I softly asked as I helped him get up on the bed to join me. 

He nodded, the movement making his tiny curls shake a little. 

"How about we call him? Would that make you feel better?" 

"Yeah.." George mumbled, while wiping his eyes.

I was already reaching for my phone before I got an answer from him. Since Rúben is in New York and we are in Manchester there is a 5 hour time difference, but it was now way after noon in Manchester and knowing Rúben, he had been awake for some time, so that's why I suggested calling him. Okay and maybe because I miss him too and want to talk to him, but that's another topic. 

I dialed his contact and gave George the phone. After two rings I saw Rúben's gorgeous face and he saw a head full of curls and two big dark eyes watching closely the screen, since George held the phone so close to him. 

"Hey, gorg-" your husband started "-oh, hello big man. What are you doing with mama's phone?" you saw him smiling widly. 

"Dada, miss you." George said and started crying again. 

"Oh, no. Don't cry buddy. I miss you so much too." 

"Home." 

"I'm coming home tomorrow, baby and I'm not going anywhere after that, okay?" Rúben asked as a sad smile made its way on his face. 

"Home now?" George asked as he tilted his head slightly the exact same way Rúben does and it made your heart throb. 

"I wish buddy, but I have one more thing to do and then I promise I'm gonna catch the first flight back home and I'm coming straight to you. But I need you to do something for me, okay. You have to eat lunch and dinner, and you have to go to sleep when mommy says. Can you do that for me? That way I'm going to come home faster. Do we have a deal, G?" Rúben asked, slightly raising his eyebrows. 

"A deal.." his son responded while rubbing his eye "Now play." 

"Okay, you can go and play now. Loves you." your husband said as he leaned into the camera and kissed it, your guys's little tradition that now George did too. 

"Loves you." George said cutely and kissed your front camera. He gave you the phone and ran out of your bedroom and into his playroom. 

I took the phone and positioned it against my big water bottle in front of me as I greeted my hansome husband "Hi, meu amor." 

"Hey, mama. How are you holding up? Big man giving you a hard time?" Rúben asked you giving you sad eyes. 

"He just misses you." I exhaled "Nothing changed after the call yesterday, we're going to see what happens today. I miss you too, tho. We miss you too." I simply explained rubbing my round belly.  

"I'm sorry babe. I miss all of you. Can't wait to be back home. I'm never leaving again." he shook his head as to make it more believable.

"Rúben, we talked about this. What you're doing right now is for your career and for us. So that you can take more time off while the twins come, just as you did when we welcomed George. Don't feel guilty, you're not doing anything wrong, babe. We'll get through this. We have to. In fact it's almost over." I smiled at him trying to lighten the mood. 

"This is why I made you my wife. Eu te amo muito." Rúben said looking lovingly at the screen in front of him. 

"I love you more." 

"Period." he said while snapping his fingers, which made both of you to start giggling.

"Stop. I'm gonna pee my pants!" I said in between laughing. 

"Okay, okay. So how did the appointment go? Everything alright?" Rúben's face went completely serious in a spare of seconds. 

"Yes. Babies are doing just fine." I said and took a breathing break "I however, am struggling. Babe, I'm 27 weeks into this pregnancy and do you know what my doctor told me? That I'm measuring full term compared to a singleton pregnancy. That's very overwhelming considering that I hopefully have 8 or 9, 10 weeks left in the absolute ideal case scenario. And technically I am still 6 months pregnant. At the very end of my 6th month. Can you believe this?" I looked at him with a questioning face. 

Rúben's eyes went wide "Wow." 

"Wow indeed. I mean..that's what I get for having children with a freaking giant, I guess." 

"Hey. You looooove this giant. And the babies that you both made." Rúben winked at me, eyes going soft and a smile appearing on his lips "Everything will be okay. Just try not to overwork yourself. And no, I'm not saying don't do nothing and just lay in bed all day. But you are very pregnant and are taking care of a fussy baby-toddler. Please, just take it easy while I'm away. When I come back it will be different." 

"I'm gonna try my best. Now I have to go to make a snack because I'm starving and you have work to do. So talk to you later. You also take it easy, okay." I lovingly smiled at him, damn I can't wait for it to be tomorrow already. 

"Alright, talk to you later. Loves you." 

"Loves you." both of us said at the same time, smiling at each other, leaning in and kissing the front cameras on our phones, sharing a virtual kiss and ending the call.

[starryrain]

a long night

a cute little fic i wrote today! it is set like a year after s2 of good omens and you can read it just under the cut !! both of them are male presenting in this, but i might write a fem one because i am a sucker for sapphic stuff.

let me know if you want a part 2 !!

description: aziraphale and crowley aren't talking, but they decide to meet one final time.

Crowley looked out of the window of the Bentley, their glasses slung low. He turned his head, the phone in his palm buzzing absurdly. With a clench of his jaw, he flung it into the backseat, where it undoubtedly hit one of his new plants. 

“Sorry, darlings,” he said, patting a leaf. “But that’s what happens when leaves go the slightest tinge of yellow.” He sighed, slamming his foot down on the accelerator. He didn’t know where he was going. He didn’t care. 

A chirpy, familiar voice rang through the speakers of the phone. “I don’t have leaves, Crowley. And I’m a singular being!” 

A skid of tyres against asphalt. A chain of hastily muttered curses. And the scramble into the backseat to retrieve his phone. 

“I wasn’t talking to you!” He yelled into the phone. “I don’t talk to…to-” 

“What? Your friends?” Aziraphale’s voice was soft, and Crowley hated himself for having missed it. 

No. No. You did not miss a thing. You do not miss that cowardly bastard. 

“You are not my friend. I don’t have friends. I despise you.”

A soft laugh and a twinge struck the heart that Crowley didn’t have. “So you’ll talk to your plants, but not me?” 

He hung up the phone with no words, only a sigh, resting his hands on his temples. Flipping off the cars that were honking behind him through the window, he set his foot onto the pedal, heading for his flat, where he would put his new plant, and then drink copious amounts of alcohol. Whisky, preferably. Crowley likes whisky. Aziraphale hated whisky and had always complained about the sharp- 

NO! No thinking of that useless slop! He bit down on his tongue, driving faster and skidding as he parked the Bentley in front of his flat.

The door flew open with a flick of his hand, and Crowley walked through the hallway, his new plant in hand. Setting them down, Crowley flung himself onto his chair, taking his glasses off before leaning his head back and closing his eyes, before opening them again to find one of his bottles of Talisker. 

The Talisker was smooth and everything that Crowley needed. Before he knew it, night had begun to drape its’ sleepy embrace over London. And if he could see the stars, Crowley would’ve laid back on the roof of his flat, watching his creations dull out with the light pollution of the city. It was a punishment of the highest cruelty, but he had accepted it long ago. Running a hand through his crimson hair, Crowley cradled the half-empty bottle, his peace undisturbed. 

Well, his peace was undisturbed until the answering machine rang. He frowned, letting the caller talk. 

“Crowley! You answered!” Crowley shot up in his chair at the sound of hearing the angel’s voice for the second time that day. 

“No! I am not talking to you!” He went to hang up, but he tripped on the chair, hitting his head on the edge of his desk. “Fuck!” 

“Are you alright, dear?” 

“Shut up!” 

Crowley could practically hear Aziraphale’s eyebrows raising. “Very well.” He sighed and gritted his teeth. 

“Why are you calling, Angel?” 

A pause. Silence that Crowley hated. “It’s been a while since one of our dinners. I thought we could go somewhere and eat. The Ritz-” 

“Things have changed,” choked Crowley. “It’s like you said, nothing lasts forever.” 

A sigh came from the answering machine. “Just one last time? Then I’ll never talk to you again.” 

What was once a threat, now an offer. How the tables turned. Though it still felt like a threat.

Crowley sighed. “Just this one time. And then we’ll never see each other again.” 

“Done.” 

Aziraphale paced around the bookshop, ignoring the concerned look that Muriel was giving him.

“You haven’t actually sold any books, have you?” He asked, frowning. 

Muriel shook their head with a smile. “Of course not! Crowley comes in every week to check in, too! We’ve decided to keep it open one day a week and close the rest! And nobody even cares!” They let out a laugh. “Humans are so interesting!

Aziraphale continued pacing, adjusting his bowtie. The last time. It’s the last time. And then we’ll never talk again. That’s good, right? 

The door swung open, and a bell rang. “We’re closed-!” 

“I know, Angel,” remarked Crowley dryly, and Aziraphale spun on his heel, finding Crowley at the door, leaning against the frame, in an all black double-breasted suit that looked oddly similar to the one that he wore on their 1941 escapade. 

And Aziraphale was back in the same spot as a year ago, and the ghost of Crowley’s pressed his lips on his. It ran a shudder down his spine. Shaking himself out of the memory, Aziraphale smiled at Crowley, locking the shop up and sitting in the Bentley for a second before Crowley flashed a grim smile at him and slammed his foot down on the pedal. 

The Ritz twinkled with many lights, and as they passed through the building, Crowley settled into the familiar feeling of being with Aziraphale. They sat themselves at a miraculously empty table, ordering quietly and waiting for their food to arrive. In the meantime, Crowley popped open a bottle of champagne that he had swiped from someone else’s table, gave himself a generous serving of the drink, and then poured the same into Aziraphale’s glass, ignoring his bright smile. 

Bless him and his smiles, scorned Crowley. Stupid, pretty angel. 

“For the record, this doesn’t mean I like you,” he said, sipping on his champagne. 

Aziraphale shrugged. “Nor do I. The feeling is mutual.” 

“Very mutual. But I don’t like you more than you don’t like me.” 

Aziraphale frowned. “That doesn’t make sense.” He sipped his own drink, eyeing Crowley carefully. 

FUCK.

“So, what’s new?” He asked, setting down his glass and slouching further in his chair. “Y’know, in Heaven. Because you went there. And left me.” He smirked, drinking some more champagne and saying nothing, only making a bemused expression at Aziraphale’s face. 

“Well, doesn’t the food look lovely?” grinned Aziraphale as his plate was set on the table. Crowley rolled his eyes. It was going to be a long night.

Aziraphale and Crowley were both terribly, horribly full. And awkward. The drive back to the bookshop was quiet between the two of them; the air was heavy with tension. Crowley had played on Aziraphale’s feelings, and he seemed actually regretful about his actions. Aziraphale couldn’t do much; he could only eat his food and drink the alcohol. So he settled for looking at Crowley the entire night. 

Crowley noticed, of course. He noticed anything Aziraphale did.

It wasn’t hard; he looked fantastic. Of course, Aziraphale wouldn’t admit that out loud. Well, he would, with the right amount of alcohol and coercion. But Crowley didn’t really feel like coercing his… whatever Aziraphale and he were into admitting that he looked fantastic.

He parked a block away from the bookshop, a habit that he had clearly not forgotten. In comfortable silence, they walked inside and settled on chairs. Crowley’s chair crinkled with a sound of paper, and he realised that it was because he was sitting on a note. Standing up and tossing his glasses aside, he read the note aloud:

Mr. Sir Aziraphale, 

I am out for a walk to go communicate with the funny humans down the road. They said I can stay ‘for the night’, so I am going to do that, whatever it is. Mr. ‘I’m Not Nice’ Crowley knows what I mean. I think. Thank you!!!

-Muriel :)

Crowley raised his eyebrows. “Mr. Sir Aziraphale?” He laughed, putting the note away. 

Aziraphale shook his head. “Mr. ‘I’m Not Nice’?”

“Oh, shut up.” 

Aziraphale smiled that fucking smile. That. Fucking. Smile. And the fact that, from the angle he was at, it looked like he was kneeling- 

Crowley looked away, giving himself a moment to regain composure. “Why did you leave, Angel?” 

Aziraphale’s smile dropped. “Why didn’t you stay, Angel? I…I needed you!” He choked out, blinking hard. 

Crowley shook his head, clearing his throat. “And yet, you still have nothing to say.” 

“I didn’t have a choice.” 

Crowley scoffed. “Yes, you bloody did!” 

Aziraphale stood up, his hands trembling. “No. Look at me, Crowley.” Crowley, against his will, looked at Aziraphale. “I. Didn’t. Have. A. Choice.” 

“You still left,” sulked Crowley. Aziraphale threw his hands up, scoffing. 

“What are you scoffing for? I have a genuine issue, and you’re all, ‘Oh, it’s not my fault’, like that’s going to help!” 

Crowley was frowning now, his hands on his hips as he ranted. Aziraphale had turned around, pressing his hands to his temples.

“And you’re all wishy-washy and nice, and-” 

Crowley stopped talking. Because Aziraphale was holding his head in his hands. And he was kissing him. And Crowley was kissing him back. 

“Oh, shut up, will you?” Aziraphale whispered, his breath tickling Crowley, before kissing him again.

Crowley pulled back, his chest heaving with heavy and rapid breaths. Clenching his jaw, he pushed a confused-looking Aziraphale back onto his chair, cradling the angel’s jaw. 

“I still don’t like you,” he whispered. "But... there are some things I need to do,” he said, before clambering on top of Aziraphale. 

Oh, it was going to be a long night.

[bryce-bucher]

Midwest Lost Post #5

Stepfather:

For the past month I've been pretty busy, so I've mainly just been focusing on working on Midwest Lost whenever I have a chance. In this time I finally got the character model for the stepfather mostly complete and in the game. In this fight he is "unwinding" after work so he's ditched his pants and put on a bathrobe, but he was too dejected to change out of his work shirt. He's an abusive guy with a messy life, and he often takes his anger out on whoever he thinks he can have power over. Unlucky for the protagonist, this often means he's the target of his rage. Luckily for the protagonist, he has a big ass sword.

The Face:

For a while now I've been pretty concerned on how I am going to handle face textures in this game. I need the characters to be expressive for the various cinematics and for certain emotional beats to hit properly, but creating proper detailed faces is a bit of a wild west territory for me. Because of this, I decided to try an experiment. Recently I've been trying to learn how to paint properly using a VR painting tool called Vermillion, It's proven to be a really powerful and relaxing way to paint, so I was wondering if it would be feasible for me to paint character textures in it. At my current skill level I honestly thought it wouldn't work out at all, but surprisingly it did!

As you can see here, I spent a good 4-5 hours painting this face texture in VR. It looked pretty horrible until like the last 40 minutes of the process or so. I guess that's how its supposed to go, but it really surprised me that it came together at all.

After I got that base texture completed, I exported it and touched it up a bit to better fit the model. I then added a pair of eyes and eyebrows on top of the texture in Affinity Photo. They are a lot more cartoony / simplistic than the base texture so that I can change them out and create new expressions easily. I was honestly unsure if that would clash too hard with the painted face, but I think it looks pretty good. This was a really fun process, and It's got me excited for the amount of opportunities it has afforded me. Character creation is my favorite, but until now I really never thought I'd be able to paint the more detailed organic aspects of certain characters / animals. Oh yeah I also painted his knees in the same way lol, but I think going into detail about that would be redundant.

Heavy Attacks:

The last major thing I did recently was finally implement some heavy attacks. Rather than have separate inputs for light and heavy attacks, the attack button causes a light or heavy attack to occur based on whether or not you are currently holding the stance/strafe button. The heavy attacks I decided on are meant to be able to close in a considerable gap between you and the enemy, so that you can get in there more easily after slowly strafing around. Alternatively, you can just use heavy attacks whenever as long as you just press the strafe and attack buttons at the same time, so really they are for whenever you feel as though you can afford the wind up and cooldown of the animations. But yeah, as you can see in the gif above, the heavy attacks currently take the form of a two swing combo where you can lunge forward with the sword pointing outwards and then follow it up by swinging it back over your head and slamming it down. I think they are pretty satisfying to use as of now, but I might consider extending the combo in the future.

Conclusion:

That is all 4 today. I really want to get more work done on all of these games. I'm really tired of being stuck in the same debug scene in all of them. Hopefully this year I can dedicate more time to all this, and maybe I can make a second scene for one of them lol. Next time I post one of these it will probably be midwest lost again, but if not I'll be working on J(a)SON next. A big part of me being busy this month is that I'm actually attending GDC alongside Quinn K. If any of u mutuals out there want to meetup at GDC lmk.

[idrellegames]

Wayfarer Dev Log 2023.03.06

Hi friends!

It’s been a while since my last proper update in January. I am recovered from illness and mostly back to normal; with the days getting longer and actually having sunlight now, it’s easier to stay focused than it was in the winter. A lot of developments have happened in the interim, so I’m hoping this dev log will serve to get you caught up on things I’ve been keeping under wraps until now.

✦ New Blog Reveal

My blog’s desktop theme has been redesigned and updated! Huge thank you to @ethereal-themes for taking this on, I am in love with the new look.

Desktop theme

About

Navigation (with updated tags!)

FAQ

Character Roster (updated with Episode 2 characters + sortable, including by romance type)

These pages cannot be viewed in the tumblr mobile app, but they can be viewed by inputting the link into your mobile browser. Mobile versions of the updated FAQ information and tag list are forthcoming.

Many thanks to @memaidraws for my new blog portrait of Alexia. 💕

Additionally, I am no longer tracking the tag "wayfarer" for community content. The tag has become overrun with bots that makes it very difficult to filter. If you've created something you'd like me to see, please use the "wayfarer if" tag or tag my blog!

✦ The Public Build

A new patch should be coming sometime in March to fix lingering bugs and issues in Episode 2. This patch will require a full restart of the game. Once it releases, you should not use old saves otherwise you may encounter continuity errors and bugs in later episodes.

✦ The Alpha Build

Work on the next alpha update is progressing. I am still writing slower than I usually do, but I am coming up on the end of a major branch. There should be a new alpha release later in March that will cover one half of Episode 3 Part 1.

Even though not all possible routes will be included, the update will add over 300,000 words of new playable content to the game.

✦ Development Changes

Until recently, Wayfarer was planned to be a free game. This is no longer the case. Though I am not ready to announce the full details yet, the game will be eventually be moving to a free demo + paid full game model later in its development cycle.

Act 1 (which includes the Prologue and Episodes 1-3) will remain free to play. Future pricing for non-Patreon early access to later episodes while the game is in development is TBD.

Because this change impacts some behind-the-scenes things, I am need to gauge how much of Wayfarer’s playerbase plays the game on their phone versus a computer.

If you would like to help me out, check out this poll here and let me know what device you regularly play on!

✦ Wayfarer 2023 Pin-Up Calendar

The Wayfarer Calendar is now closed! A huge thank you to our contributing artists and everyone who donated. Altogether, we raised $1094.54 USD. These proceeds were donated today to the Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice.

I am so honoured that the calendar was a huge hit. On behalf of our organizers, I would like to thank everyone for their passion and excitement for this project. It’s too soon to announce whether we will do something like this again for next year, but there may be another calendar on the horizon…

If you’ve enjoyed Wayfarer, used my tutorials, or would like to support my work, please consider supporting me on Patreon. Patrons receive access to the alpha build, a private Discord server, exclusive previews, bonus content, side stories, and other benefits.

(Please note that if you are pledging solely for access to the alpha build, the alpha and the public build currently contain the same content.)

Wayfarer is a passion project and creating it is a full-time commitment. Any little bit goes a long way to help me bring it to fruition.

If you aren’t in a position to support financially, reblogs, shares, ratings and comments, and spreading the word about the game are much appreciated and do a lot to help me out! 💕

[beautifulpersonpeach]

Me yesterday after an 8 hr shift: oooh, jikook in tokyo and then sapporo. Yes, pretty, pretty winter view. What? New jikook clips from PTD US? Yes, yes. Mm-hmm. Of course, there are tons of jikook moments. As usual.

Me after waking up this morning with one eye open: what? there's more?? Jikook still jikooking?? What do you mean that was like half of the dvd?? *drowns in jikook content but still wants to keep it coming* 😤😭

*

Ask 2:

I can't help but remember all your posts from the past 2 years saying jikook hasn't changed really. Let this be lesson no 999 for me to not doubt jikook,, I prayed for days like this

*

Ask 3:

BPP the change in sentiment on my tl is like night and day. My moot basically turned into a PJM last month and was dragging JK 247, but now she is reposting PTD vids about how she misses BTS and always knew they loved each other yada yada.

Am I in the twilight zone? Did the lack of OT7 content this year really make people go crazy and forget how BTS are with each other? I asked my moot if she's still a PJM that hates JK and she started denying she ever hated them! But her rants calling him a 'Bongo sucker who has no talent and backstabs his friends' was up on her profile until she deleted the posts today.

***

Hi Anon(s),

It's starting to feel a lot like Christmas, isn't it?

With all that footage coming in, ARMY twitter feels a bit more like its former state, of BTS fans awwing and ooohing over all seven guys and their interactions with each other, while gaining more respect for BTS after seeing how hard they work (and play) together. ARMY twt still feels like a shadow of its former self though, partly because:

Most ARMYs are actually off Twitter. Using a personal anecdote, about half of my Twitter mutuals have been dormant since Butter era (when many fans were fairly certain BTS would begin enlisting), and even more have left Twitter since the Festa Dinner. Looking at likes on BTS posts from early 2021 which could easily crack 2 million, and on ARMY tweets that regularly hit 350k, compared to now when the most engagement peaks at <100k on average. And this is on Musk's X, where bots are even more rampant.

There's fewer genuine fans. Using the moot of anon in ask 3 as an example, there's so many stans exactly like that. Like I keep saying, the way a lot of people behave in fandom has more to do with them than anything actually happening with jikook or BTS. All that footage is from a time when people claimed BTS hated working with each other and wanted to leave the group or claimed that jikook weren't close anymore. Those narratives were everywhere despite what in reality was happening with BTS and jikook, which, again as I keep saying, just drives home the fact that a lot of people here, a lot of k-pop stans generally, have no real idea on what they're talking about. The way we see BTS in that footage is consistent with how they've been with each other for years, so anybody asserting doom in paradise during PTD era was high on their own supply.

It's the same with BTS in Chapter 2 btw. For anybody actually paying attention.

[sunnyrosewritesstuff]

Friends to Lovers: Two characters have been friends for years and value their friendship above everything. Unfortunately, they’ve both also secretly fallen in love with each other - but are both too scared to confess because it feels like a betrayal of their friendship.

Remember, I'm utilizing this prompt list. I probably won't hit all, but I am trying to get to the highest voted ones in my polls. Trying to use different ships, but feel free to shoot me an ask or DM if there's a specific ship you would like to see for any of the prompts.

Betrayal to Our Friendship

Ship: Haddotin

Rating: G

Warnings: N/A

Words: 1610

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Without a doubt, the worst mistake of Tintin’s life. He wasn’t even quite sure how it happened. After all, Captain Haddock had been nothing more than a friend. Certainly Tintin had noticed his admirable bravery, his charming whimsicality, even his breath-catching kindness. However, he had thought it was…professional. Or if it was personal, not anything that would affect him to this degree. 

However, their trip to Tibet had thrown everything on its head, and a fact that Tintin hadn’t given much thought to at the time, was finally able to worm its way into his mind. He was in love with Haddock. It was the only explanation for the way his heart had shattered when he thought Haddock was going to cut his line, only to turn around and soar when he actually came back after Tintin tried to push him away. After all, he had possessed a single-minded determination to find his dear friend, Chang, but it hadn’t destroyed him like the thought of Haddock being lost to him had. The warmth he had felt reuniting with Chang again had been a different kind of warmth than when he was with the captain. Like the very air was charged with an invisible pull that always kept him close. Like magnets, like gravity, it was a law of attraction that Tintin had somehow managed to ignore…until now.

Tintin groaned, flipping himself over in bed as he tried to bury his head deeper under his pillow. He supposed to some, this would be an enlightening discovery. The chance to pursue something new and exciting, but he couldn’t. Not with Haddock. There was absolutely no way the older man saw him the same way. The gap between their ages certainly wasn’t off putting to Tintin, he couldn’t say the same for Haddock. His friendly touches probably meant to be more…of a mentor than Tintin clearly interpreted them. No, confessing would only ruin perhaps the best thing in Tintin’s life. He couldn’t let Haddock know how he felt.

Snowy clearly had enough of Tintin’s pity party, choosing to pounce on his chest, licking at his neck as he attempted to dig Tintin out from beneath the pillow.

“Alright, Snowy. Okay.” Tintin laughed, rolling over onto his back as he reached up to scratch the pup’s ears. “We should do something fun today. Maybe go to our favorite park? What do you think, boy?”

Snowy yipped his approval of the choice before hopping down and running to the door, pawing at it and whining. Tintin shook his head. 

“Let me get dressed at least first.”

***

Tintin enjoyed being outside. It was cleansing to him, having the sun warm his skin as he passed through various shades of green. It was part of the reason why he had never been able to accept a desk job. How could he possibly think when there was a world just beyond those doors beckoning him to explore? It was actually pure chance when he managed to land his dream job. 

He had just graduated from university and wanted to take a couple of weeks to enjoy living before he was forced to go out job hunting. He happened upon a human trafficking operation, got himself out of a bind, and wrote a story over it that he tried to sell to the local paper. He does a lot of that now. Selling stories to any paper willing to publish him, which now that he’s made a name for himself is quite a bit. However, at that time, the paper he was trying to sell the story to wanted their own people to write it up, not an amatuer. Instead, he sent it back home to his local paper who were overjoyed to publish such a piece! Since then, Le Vingtième Siècle is always his first call for giving him his first big break.

Snowy, who had his nose to the ground, suddenly perked up before he gave happy yips racing towards whatever had caught his interest. Tintin took off after him, about to shout for him to come back when he heard another voice beat him to it.

“Snowy! Calm down, you excitable pup! Where’s your master?”

Tintin froze, coming around the corner and confirming that it was in fact Captain Haddock. His throat felt tight as his earlier realization seemed to blare to the forefront of his thoughts. Which was ridiculous. Nothing had to change. If Tintin didn’t let his initial attraction to Haddock stand in the way of their friendship, there should be no reason for this to be any different. Still, his movements felt robotic and smile felt forced as he pushed himself forward to greet the man.

“Captain! What are you doing here?”

It was almost like watching Tintin’s own emotions in reverse as the easy smile fell, and Haddock froze at Tintin’s approach. Tintin stopped, acknowledging the distance between them and wondering what exactly could be going through the older man’s mind. 

“There ya are, Tintin. I’ve been looking for you. I think there’s something we need to talk about.”

Thorin took in Haddock’s guarded stance, his hands fisted in his pockets, and his refusal to meet Tintin’s eyes. Ice traveled straight down the nerve in his back making Tintin feel more like a livewire. How…how did he know already? What did Tintin do to betray himself? Numbly, he nodded before moving towards the nearby park bench taking a seat on the very edge. Haddock followed the movement, making sure to leave considerable space between the two. Tintin felt something inside him hiccup as his brain raced to find a way to salvage their friendship.

Snowy let his eyes drift between the two with a peculiar look before deciding his time would be better spent chasing one of the squirrels up a tree. Silence sat thick over the duo, each lost to their own thoughts. Just when Tintin had worked out an amenable solution, Haddock began, his words nearly tearing Tintin in two.

“I don’t think it would be a good idea for me to continue joining you on your adventures.”

Tintin breathed past the invisible fingers gripping his vocal cords as he answered as calmly as he could.

“That’s fine, Captain. I’d never want to force you to join me.”

“It’s not that.” Haddock snapped, reaching for his pipe but not yet lighting it. “I came to realize something. Something that had changed after…our last adventure.”

Tintin’s eyes squeezed shut. He didn’t want to hear it. He didn’t want to have to sit through the captain’s rejection. It was his fault for letting his emotions get the better of him. He knew Haddock would never want someone so much younger than him. Although, there was a bitterness in Tintin that wanted to remind the good captain that he at least acted more adult than most, present company included.

“This isn’t easy to say, because I do value our friendship. But I feel like not saying anything would be more of a betrayal, and I can’t do that to you.”

Here it comes. Tintin braced himself for the blow that would surely cut deeper than any injury he’s had before.

“I’m in love with you, Auggie.”

Wait…what? The roaring in his ears, the build-up in his chest, it all just…disappeared to be replaced with something lighter that swooped right through his belly.

“What did you say?” Tintin gasped.

Haddock turned to look at him, his bright eyes hard and resigned.

“I love you.”

It was something more glorious to hear a second time. Haddock broke contact though, shaking his head.

“It’s alright. You don’t have to say anything. I know you don’t want to be saddled with an old sea dog like myself. I just thought you deserved to know which is why I should stay away for a little while. Give you some space. I’ll miss your company of course, but you deserve to live the life you want without being bogged down by…”

“Archie.” Tintin demanded, interrupting the captain’s self-deprecating rant.

The older man slowly turned to him, fear haunting his every movement right before Tintin leaned forward and kissed him. It wasn’t a long kiss, more of a gentle press of lips, but it was enough for Tintin as he categorized the captain’s chapped lips, the tickle of his mustache and beard, and the lingering scent of pipe tobacco even though Haddock hadn’t actually smoked in front of him. When he pulled away, he couldn’t help startling at the tears that welled in Haddock’s eyes but had yet to fall.

“Tintin, you don’t have to…”

In a panic, Tintin realized Haddock thought he was humoring him. He quickly grabbed his hand while shaking his hand.

“No! Archie, I…I feel the same. I thought…I thought you were saying this because you learned of my…regard. Please…please, don’t leave.”

Tintin squeezed his eyes shut, hoping his faltering words were enough to convince Haddock. He wasn’t good with expressing his emotions, but he hoped Haddock knew him well enough to understand this. After what felt like a long moment, Haddock slipped his hand to cup Tintin behind the neck, forcing his head forward until it gently bumped against Haddock’s own. 

“I won’t. I’m yours for as long as you’ll have me.”

Tintin smiled brightly wishing he had something he could say that would convey the same sentiment. Instead he put his hands around Haddock’s neck, trying to bring the man closer. A relieved chuckle in his ear let him know his efforts were received and appreciated. 

[sneakerdoodle]

the extremism bill has started fully hitting LGBTQ+ advocates, organizations and community centers in Russia; one of the most prominent transgender activists and organizers has left the country (though Centre T is still operating thank goodness), LGBTQ+ establishments are getting raided and now compiled into a ready database in order to be mass-reported, and today i got word that the LGBTQIA Resource, a major community network in Moscow that would host and coordinate regular cultural events and support groups, is closing down. they've been consistently there for as long as i knew i was gay, and for much longer before that; i had my gripes with certain members of the community, but still, i visited their events to listen to songs and poetry, to watch movies, to listen to people's stories; i shared home-made matcha cookies at a New Year session of the English speaking club and exchanged small soft gifts with strangers. the main purpose of the Resource has always been support groups for all members of the community. it taught me what a 'support group' actually looks like, and how to talk about myself and respond to others' pain without unintentional violation. it is surreal that this space, both in its many physical venues and as a general ephemeral network of it, no longer exists.

Queer Svit, a Black-led organization that is dedicated to assisting queer people and people of color affected by political repression and war, are getting overwhelmed with requests of help from people that wish to flee Russia; they are unable to provide help at an adequate pace, and fear they wouldn't be able to do anything should someone need immediate urgent evacuation. they are asking for monetary support.

i am grateful there are still networks, shelters and legal centers, still willing to continue their work. it is ultimately reassuring that these days, these groups and organizations may persevere even if their founders have to leave the country entirely. it is heartbreaking we can no longer gather in person, "for the organizers' sake and our own".

the NGOs that continue their work under intense legislative pressure and limitation need all the help they can get. starting January 10th, any person within Russia who wishes to donate to keep them going may face legal persecution for funding extremist activity. foreign support will remain the very last sustainable source of donations

the world is a terrifying place right now, and you should put whatever spare money you have wherever you feel it is most needed; it would be beautiful if some of it could go to hard-working volunteers desperate to ensure their community's relative safety, and help those in desperate need to escape.

[virtie333]

One Year Ago

I almost didn't post this. I wrote it for catharsis, but a friend said I should post it as it may help others. I can count on one hand the number of people who know about this. I don't know, maybe I'll delete it....

One year ago today, while cleaning Chester’s paddock, I made plans.

A few days earlier, I had received an email from my brother-in-law that involved some very hurtful and offensive accusations. My sister responded a few days after that, but not with an apology. She defended him, and added her own opinions.

When someone you have loved and trusted your whole life essentially says you are worthless, then it must be true.

So, the next day, I made plans.

I would have to complete my will, first. I would have to make sure Chester went to a local rescue. He wasn’t ridable and though I know a friend might take him as a ‘pasture pet,’ if push comes to shove and they ran short on money, he would be the first to go. The rescue would care for him, and I would make sure that if ever they could no longer do so, they would euthanize him.

My brother would get the other animals and all my belongings. He could sell my truck, trailer, etc. and use the funds to care for my dog Jackson, my cat Rodney, and Stache, the barn cat I had just brought home from work a month earlier. He would take care and love them.

It would have to look like an accident so my life insurance would pay out. God forbid my sister would have to pay for my funeral! I am an avid hiker, and there are trails very close that follow the canyon rim, with a 60 to 100 foot drop straight down. I usually hike with Jackson, but I could say I was leaving him home because he was sore. It would be very easy to slip while checking out the view. It’s happened before up there.

Could I actually do it? Was I brave enough? It was the only way. And I needed to do it soon.

That was my plan.

But wait. I can’t do it right away. Moon Knight just started, and I waited so long for this show and it’s even better than I had hoped and only two episodes have aired so far. I really want to see the rest. It takes my mind off the pain. I’ll wait.

Then I started posting a new story I had written. I didn’t think it would be very popular, as it was very different from my last, popular one, but I have loyal readers. I can’t just leave it unfinished, and have them wondering what happened to me. And I can’t post it all at once, because that will give away the fact that it was planned. So, I’ll wait.

An acquaintance that hated Moon Knight complained and criticized it over and over and I finally broke. I said things. I don’t regret them, because they were the truth, but I immediately became the villain to the rest of the group. Once more, I was reminded that I was unimportant, that my thoughts and feelings were inconsequential. How could I tell them? How could I explain this show literally kept me alive?

So, I waited.

A spark of hope. My brother and I worked toward a future we could both live with. I prayed, and found that I began to believe again for the first time in a long time. The story I was posting, the one I thought would not do well, became my greatest hit. Not only did its success thrill me, but once again, I had something to thank for keeping me alive.

Though low on funds, I made a trip west, to California, to meet up with my best friends in the world. They were the only people I told about my plans. They made sure to let me know how grateful they were I hadn’t followed through. I loved every minute of Galaxy’s Edge and I continued to hope for a better future. And I waited.

The hope was realized just before Christmas. My future wasn’t as dark and scary as it had been. Unfortunately, the loss of Rodney just before New Years kept me down. I was still depressed and full of non-stop anxiety, and on the anniversary of my mother’s death, I once more started falling into that darkness. I left a group I cared a great deal about because I realized a lot of my anxiety was coming from there; it’s hard caring more about people than they do about you. I bawled my eyes out while I clicked that ‘leave’ button, but I don’t regret it. It’s been over two months and only two people have even noticed I left. That says something right there.

Now, for the first time since Tariq got very sick in November 2020, I actually have the desire to do things. I’m not working and writing just to keep sane. I’m reading again. I’m playing with Chester. I’m taking Jackson on walks. I’m going back to mass, not because I have to but because I want to. I still resent my brother-in-law, and I’m still waiting for an apology from my sister, but I’m not holding my breath. I’m still alone. I’m still uncertain of my worth. But I have my animals, including two new cats, and my home. I have plans. New plans. Better plans.

One year ago today, while cleaning Chester’s paddock, I made plans.

But today I’m alive. And I’m happy. All because I waited.

Don’t give up. Things WILL get better.

[chatterbox-73]

Simptember 2022.

Day 2 - Future.

Zeke Jaeger x Fem!Reader

This story is a smut story for simptember, I’ll be writing more characters x reader one shots for simptember and if you want to see a character please let me know...

You must be 18 years or older to read this...

🔞⚠️NO MINORS ALLOWED⚠️🔞

A/N: why yes another part two my friends… part two to dirty talk from kinktober 2021. (read the other part for some context)

Sorry if it’s a bit rushed, work didn’t do me too kind today🥲

Summary: Zeke ruins the surprise he worked so hard to make just to further spite his father.

Word count: 1.3k

CW: NSFW and adult content, slightly arguing, sappy future stuff, happy crying, more fluff then smut, floor sex, loud sex and drinking alcohol.

It had almost been a two weeks since Zeke’s door was taken and the both of you had started apartment hunting, in this time you’d both gone cold Turkey, as your current living situation was able to house both you and him, however your roommate absolutely hated Zeke and made little effort to hide it, this had resulted in the both of you taking that next step in your relationship and moving in together.

You sat cuddled up close to Zeke on the couch as he finished writing a work email, you smiled as he sent off the email and kissed his cheek, “have to heard anything about the house, I’m really praying we get that five bedroom we bid on” you hummed as you rested your head on his shoulder and Zeke chuckled while he shut off his laptop, “yeah it was perfect for us… I can’t wait to live together, it’s well overdue” he’s arm reached around you to pull you closer and he rested a finger under your chin then softly kissing your lips but before anything could go further you were both interrupted, “alright enough!” Grisha scolded as he walked into the living room. Zeke was yet to tell his family he was moving out, though he did want to wait until you both officially owned a house.

You helped Carla place the food on the table before taking your seat next to Zeke and his grandmother, the table was filled with light chatter about everyone’s day until a harsh ringing filled the space, Zeke quickly grabbed his phone and excused himself before hurrying out of the kitchen, everyone was quiet until Zeke renter the room with a large grin on his face and sat back down next to you, “who was that my boy?” Zeke’s grandfather mirrored his smile, “it was the real estate agent” he chuckled and grabbed your hand, you snapped your head towards Zeke and gave him an expecting look, “did we?” You asked and Zeke nodded, “we got the 5 bedroom… we can go in after dinner to sign and get our keys” he beamed and you squealed before wrapping your arms wrapped him tightly, you felt tears prick at the corner of your eyes as you realised you’d both made the first step towards your future together, “did you two find a rental you liked” Mikasa asked and you shook your head, “no we actually just bought a house” Zeke continued to beam with joy. The table filled with awes and praises that was until Grisha spoke up, “you bought a house together… aren’t you two moving a little too fast” he narrowed his eyes and you saw Carla softly hit his shoulder, “actually we’re not ‘moving too fast’… are you forgetting we’ve been together since the end of our freshman year of high school, that’s about nine almost ten year together” Zeke snapped back at his father, “finally decided to look to your future… and all it took was me taking your door off its hinges” Grisha chuckled and the both of you glared at the older man, “no it didn’t, I’d been planning to buy a home for us, for quite some time…” Zeke fixed his glasses on his face, “…and I was going to wait until we got to the new place to do this, but hey just to show you how ready for the future I am…” he stood to his feet and knelt down, “I sorry it’s not exactly romantic and I was going to wait, but marry me” Zeke pulled a black velvet ring box from his pocket and opened it to show an old engagement ring, that you instantly recognised as Zeke grandmother’s engagement ring. You were lost for words as you sat there with tear streaming down your face, “I… we… how…” you sobbed before turning to Zeke’s grandparents to see their smiling faces “did you… oh my god” they nodded and you fell into Zeke’s arms, “is that a yes sweetheart?” He whispered and you nodded before continuing to cry. It took some time for you to pull yourself together, but when you did Zeke slipped the ring on your finger before wiping your eyes and nose with his handkerchief “what an ugly face” he chuckled as he cupped your face and continued to wipe away tears, “stop…” you sniffed and lightly kicked his leg.

For the rest of the dinner Grisha stayed silent while everyone else laughed and congratulated you, after the meal Zeke and you said your goodbyes as you both had to go pick up the keys for your new place. When you got in the car and Zeke started driving you realise he was going in the wrong direction, “where are you going?” Asked confused and he only laughed, you watched out the window before you noticed he turned down a familiar street and then pulled up in front of your new house, Zeke stepped out of the car and walked around to your side, opening the door for you “are we meeting the real estate agent here?” You asked as you stepped out, “I hope not” grabbed your hand. Walking to the front door Zeke gave you a set of keys, “I don’t understand” you reached to unlocked the door, you both stepped into the house and when to did you saw the house had been filled with furniture, “is this supposed to be here?” You asked and received a nod from Zeke, “yes, I may have lied about when we got the house… we actually go to a week ago and both mine and your friends helped me move all the furniture in” he said and ushers to into the living room, “I was supposed to propose to you here, but Grisha was really getting on my nerves” he pulled you to sit down on a fluffy grey rug that sat in front of the large fireplace that had been lit, you watched as Zeke grabbed the two glasses and the bottle of wine off the coffee table before sitting back next to you.

“I love you so much” you smiled as you placed both the empty wine glasses off to the side and climbed on top of Zeke’s lap, the man’s arms wrapped tightly around you and he kissed your neck, Zeke’s hands slowly pulled your shirt and bar over your head before pushing you onto your back, kissing down your chest and stomach he undid your pants, then he pulled down your pants and underwear before quickly stripping himself. Zeke reached for his pant pocket and pulled out a condom, he leaned back and slipped it on before spitting on his hand and massaging his saliva on his member, “know you’d get lucky huh?” You chuckled and he nodded as he moved your legs onto his shoulders, “I could only hope, it’s been too long” he whispered as to separated your lower lips with his thumbs before pushing himself into your opening, you moaned out before quickly covering your mouth, Zeke grabbed your hands and kissed you before speaking “it’s just us, it our place, be as loud as you can” he began to find his pace.

You moaned out as your nails dug into Zeke’s back, “you sound so beautiful” he groan loudly as his grip on your legs tightened, his pace sped up the louder you got and you could feel yourself close to finishing, which is why it was no surprise you came as soon as he started rubbing your clit. Zeke continued rubbing you until he released himself with a very loud breathy moan, you both stay still for a moment until he pulled out of you and getting up leaving the room for a moment, before coming back with a blanket and a towelette, the man wiped your body down before laying the blanket over the both of you.

“You’re amazing Zeke Jaeger” you hummed as you cuddled into your fiancé and he kissed the top of your head, “thanks for putting up with me” he whispered and hugged you tight before you both dozed off to sleep.

Simptember masterlist (Coming soon)

Day 1 - Beast in men’s clothing:Sebastian Michaelis

Day 3 - Heat wave:Keigo Takami

[dangoarts]

@marbarmars asked for it therefore fawful brainrot infection time

mention bc haha you paid 1 millisecond of attention to me now i'm gonna bug you

quick doodle separation featuring post bis fawful design concepts

design notes before headcannon infodump the left fullbody is reminiscent of his dark appearance but none sleeve and is kinda like his "i'm feeling especially confident today" fit and the right fullbody is self explanatory

additionally his glasses are now a lavender tint bc of residual dark star corruption adding a bit of red into his normal blue color

✶ After the events of BiS, Fawful did die. However, I really like the idea Super Paper Mario implemented, where characters who died, or "game overed," are sent to the Underwhere, and villains whose games end are basically trapped by Jaydes for eternity. Unless they escape of course. If a prisoner does manage to outsmart her and escape, Jaydes will respectfully let them live another life, knowing full well they'll be back eventually for her to punish ;)

✶ Fawful escaped the Underwhere and wound up getting ejected in the Mushroom Kingdom. He couldn't go back to the Beanbean Kingdom since he was a wanted criminal, and he couldn't stay in the Mushroom Kingdom for the same reasons. Therefore, he hopped a Bonneton airship and completely vanished off of the radar before his old enemies could find him again.

✶ He met up with Midbus again in the Sand Kingdom, surprisingly on a Bonneton delivery ship he snuck onto where he worked as a heavy lifter. Midbus left his job to stay with him, still extremely loyal even after he thought he was dead for years.

✶ Fawful ended up opening a repair shop in New Donk City after attempting to work under an engineering corporation, but quickly grew frustrated at how they "restricted his creativity." He still makes the occasional weapon to sell on the black market for emergency cash (and for himself).

✶ Leftover remnants of the Dark Star still live inside of him. It grants him a VERY weakened version of its abilities, but he can still kick ass in a fight with them. His main ability is creating dark lightning, but he can also summon the portals he used in his boss fight in-game. The portals have to be within his eyesight, however (if you've watched Wakfu, it's kinda like how Yugo's portals work). He’s very bad at controlling both powers, though, with the lightning either being only a singular spark or a sudden explosion of electricity, and the portals rarely teleporting him where he wants to go (has almost died multiple times from teleporting off of cliffs accidentally).

✶ Absolutely adores capes. It makes him feel powerful.

✶ Nearsighted as hell. Cannot see anything without his glasses unless it is inches away from his face.

✶ Has a bad overbite. If he closes his mouth fully, his upper row of teeth will stick out. (ik in-game art lines up his teeth n stuff but SHUTUP fawful with overbite is hella cute)

✶ Loud. Shouts constantly. Doesn't give two shits about what people think of him. Very quick temper. Literally vibrates like a chihuahua if he's not doing something. Absolutely feral.

✶ short king ✨✨ (i have no idea what the average size/mario’s in-game height is i’m not making an estimate but he’s definitely shorter than mario)

✶ I am hitting him with the aroace beam actually, as I do with all my favorites.

✶ Appreciates Midbus's company a lot. Sure it was only strictly professional (as professional as an evil villain with a lackey can get) at first, but he's glad that he has at least one friend. (i cannot see this as a potential ship at all like no way in hell). Midbus helps with his anger issues by listening to him scream-vent and acting as a punching bag since Fawful has no physical strength whatsoever.

✶ Toadsworth occasionally visits him once he discovers he's alive again. This is another whole big headcannon that I never shared with anyone where Toadsworth started this whole villain monitoring thing where he documents and keeps a watch over all of the villains the Bros/Peach/Bowser have faced over the years. They're tea besties.

✶ Those are slippers he's wearing. Not even actual shoes, just straight up slippers that you'd wear around the house while you get ready for bed. He is a fashion disaster and shouldn't be allowed to dress himself. He doesn't go outside of his house/shop often anyway.  

✶ If he and Dimentio met, Dimentio would probably try to kill him on the spot, especially with the headcannon I have where Dimentio's death made him "lose" all of his magic while Fawful's death granted him magic. (lose is in quotations because it's more like he subconsciously forgot how to use it again, kind of like how Zuko "forgot" to firebend in ATLA season 3)

the cinematic universe of headcannons i've built up about connecting the three mario franchises is insane

[ddarker-dreams]

hi locke how r u ??? im not sure if its asked before but with reading, writing, playing genshin, and schoolworks... how do find the time to do all of these 😭 asking for advice bc i need to fix my time management too

hello !!! i am actually doing well today, thank you for asking even if this ask is a few days old hjkmtlgr,e

to be honest, i'm not sure how much longer i'll be able to balance things well since i plan on getting a job at the start of the new year 💀 but as of right now, i just divide my days up into a rough schedule. tuesday/wednesday/thursday is all for volunteering, friday and the weekend is for schoolwork, with my hobbies in between to split it up. i've been doing online college ever since covid hit and haven't really seen the reason in switching to physical college yet when this is so much cheaper, which also helps. they just throw some digital textbooks at me and tell me to write papers, aka the only two academic things i'm good at.

until it's time for me to take my required math course............................................... that'll be the end of me.

i think a part of it might just be this very weird idiosyncrasy i have where i cannot focus on anything if i know i have something looming over my head. i might procrastinate, but once i finally get started on it, i'm sticking with it until it's finished. i'm just a very schedule based person.

i wish i could give good, universal advice, but i honestly feel like it’s dependent on every person?? that being said, what i feel works for me is sitting through with a task until it’s finished/closed to being finished. i know i’m screwed if i keep taking breaks and my time starts ticking away. but i know this can be extremely hard for some people depending on what our brain is up to. i’m sorry if this isn’t too helpful, i feel it’d just be tone-deaf to go ‘just focus lol’ 

[smolcinnamonchipmunk]

I realized today one of the main reasons why I get so heated when it comes to JP/JW fans disregarding paleobiology and especially some of the responses to Prehistoric Planet. It's because they *legitimately* are so mentally distanced from these prehistoric animals that they fucking think they're fantasy creatures. Oh, they might know that dinosaurs exist, know that they were around 65+ million years ago, but it doesn't mentally click that these were living, breathing animals. Now, when I say dinosaurs, I'm NOT including Pteranodon or other pterosaurs, nor am I including Mosasaurus which is a Mosasaur and not related to dinosaurs as closely since dinosaurs generally only refer to the land dwelling. Those are also incredibly inaccurate, but more specifics would take longer.

I'm not going to screenshot or link the comment, but it was on a Twitter post comparing some of the dinosaurs from JWD and Prehistoric Planet (I.e. Rex, Carnotaurus, Atricoraptor, etc). And someone had said something along the lines of "I don't see why it's such a big deal on how JWD presents its dinosaurs compared to Prehistoric Planet." And, it hit me. 

Due to Jurassic Parks mainstream popularity, some people have taken those designs, that starting base of screen dinosaurs as *fact*. Now, were they trying to be scientifically accurate for the time period? Yes, and no. They worked with what they had, dinosaurs weren't linked to birds yet and not many feather imprints had been found. Jack Horner, the paleontologist advisor for the movies, said that Spielberg purposefully made the dinosaurs shades of grey and brown because vibrantly colored dinosaurs didn't sound scary to him. Spielberg also based the Velociraptors off of another Dromeosaur, Deinonychus, but said it should be bigger (From 6ft length to 10ft) and that they would use the name Velociraptor because it sounded scarier as a creature name. These were choices for Hollywood, not because they "didn't know any better" for the time. 

Some people I’ve talked to bring up the fact that they’re not pure dinosaurs, and, again, that’d be fine if that’s what people SAW them as. Some modern amalgamation of dinosaur, lizards, frogs, and other stuff. No one talks about how Indominus Rex is the best factual dinosaur, everyone treats her as an actual hybrid. But so many people see the Jurassic Franchise as factual, which I don’t GET.

Ever since the premiere and popularity of Jurassic Park, paleontology has continued. This has led to the discoveries of several new species and aspects of Prehistoric life. Many dinosaurs had feathers, they were likely bulkier due to fat and muscle deposits not fossilizing, dinosaurs held some sort of care/tolerance for their offspring including T. Rex, and Spinosaurus likely walked on all fours due to short limbs compared to the bipedal reenactment that defeated the T. Rex in the JP series.

And these discoveries ‘ruin’ dinosaurs for people, as though these extinct creatures lived for their entertainment millions of years ago.

I’m not saying you can’t enjoy JP or JW. Hell, I like the first JP movie and the first JW movie both! A lot! What I’m saying is please stop fucking taking these creatures as your own fact and then call Prehistoric Planet a disgrace to dinosaurs just because it shows them as living, breathing creatures that didn’t have territory fights every fucking minute. 

I’m tired of people saying shit like “It’s so boring, they’re just sleeping or eating in most of this”. Like, yeah, Chad. That’s what animals do. Fuck, that’s probably what YOU do a lot. It’s a documentary based on what we know, not a fucking dinosaur MMA to satisfy your need for something exciting in your boring ass life while you have a mid-life crisis. 

If it’s not for you, fine, I get that. I’m not a fan of space movies. But I don’t fucking bash every single one just because it doesn’t have what I want, I’ll bash egregious plot holes. I just watch the shit I want, and if some new fact comes out, even if I don’t like it, I just go “Aight, cool”. Do I like that Carno had scaly skin? Not really, I like the thought of feathery dinosaurs. But, there’s been actual skin imprints for Carnotaurus that supported little to no feather development.

I don’t know. I’m tired, achy and angry. Rant over, I’m taking another fucking nap.

[187days]

Day One Hundred Thirty-Seven

It’s supposedly going to start snowing in a couple hours, and even the born-and-raised north country kids I teach just want it to warm up already and stop doing that. The spring athletes are especially frustrated. No one’s on the fields, we’re barely on the track (my sprinters did 150m repeats today in the cold), I get it. So I’m crossing my fingers that it’s just rain, not snow, but the forecast isn’t looking good.

Aside from grumblings about the weather, though, the only other issue I had today was a minor incident Block 2. There are two boys who constantly play-fight (despite having been asked to stop), and today one hit the other harder than he meant to, the other swore at the top of his lungs, I sent them both to the office to talk to Dean 1. They came back about twenty minutes later and apologized, and we moved on. Five minutes later, we’re cracking jokes and doing work, it’s all good.

The assignment today was an information hunt- so it doubled as citation practice- about the US government. I prefaced it with a quick lecture through the history that led up to the drafting of the Constitution, and explained that the information they’re supposed to find addressed the challenges the country was facing at the time of its drafting, as well as future challenges. We’ll go over the answers tomorrow, then talk more about other democratic republics in the world, and how they differ from ours.

Oh, and during my Block 3 class I gave into the online chess craze. Two of my students finished the assignment with about fifteen minutes to spare, and they were playing against each other, so I said I wanted to play the winner. I wasn’t actually sure I could win- I’m a decent player, but it’s been a while- and it was a close match, but I pulled it off. 

Instant cred for me. 

Heh.

Block 4, my APGOV students and I started class by discussing the former president’s arraignment, then shifted to discussing the state of civil rights in this country. There was a tangent, too, about divisive concepts laws. I showed them the one on the books in our state, and an addition that was proposed last year but didn’t pass (and they remarked that, had it passed, I’d have broken the law repeatedly). Lastly, we did a bit of test review, since there’s a full-sized practice exam in their immediate futures: MCQs tomorrow, FRQs on Friday. 

Amusing: I post a review outline at the start of each unit, with any new concepts highlighted and bolded, and during test review I tell them they can ask me anything about it. Today they realized that, despite the fact that there are obviously more concepts on each test, the review sheet has never been more than a page with two columns of information, and it doesn’t seem like I’m changing the font.

I am, of course, but only slightly, and obviously I didn’t admit to that. Instead, I told them that I’m a wizard.

Which is also accurate.

[dausy]

This is my weekend post I was too lazy to post about until today. Ill start it with a quick drawing I did in procreate. I can't draw while out of the house. Its just not my safespace but heres a drawing just to keep my blog somewhat art themed.

So I lived in Savannah all during my entirety of my social media hiatus. Quit doing art at that time. Now I kinda regret it. But since I've been away for 3ish years..omg I'm so jealous everything has grown sooo muuuch. So I get adverts all the time for the brand Vuori and last year maybe? we drove to Montgomery Al to explore since we live vaguely close and I had no idea that Vuori sold in real life locations and there they were at this one shop in Montgomery! I thought that was just some sort of internet brand (very expensive too btw) but I love the few items I got from there and I had been thinking about buying some of the same items but in different colors. Since I knew I was going to visit Savannah I had small hopes that maybe it was a bougie enough town to maybe have a boutique that also sold Vuori...sounded like that was too specific too happen. Thought maybe I'd drag by husband around river street while he complained I was taking too long looking for a specific brand that I'd never find..I also kinda wanted to try the OnCloud brand shoes too..I thought Onclouds would be more readily available for shopping purposes..anywho, we go to see a movie and afterwards since we were in the area my hubby was like "oh I wanna show you this store at the tanger outlets I saw the last time I was here" and lobehold!!! it was a store that sold both Vuori and Onclouds..in one store..I just about died..I don't want to tell you how much money I spent on 2 pairs of shorts, pants and a pair of shoes. Then we ran over to hottopic so I can buy another lougefly I dont need.

movie we saw btw was the Buzz Lightyear movie and I absolutely loved it. It was a great movie.

Then the next day we went and had brunch at the cutest little french inspired place called The Emporium. I'd never been before but I loved it.

Then we went to the art stores. Also hit up a super kroger which I miss tremendously and wish I had one nearby. I bought so much junk food to bring back with me. I am a bloated sugar bomb right now.

I did go check out the Sailor Moon Vans but didn't actually buy any.

Then we visited St Augustine Florida. We've gone on many trips where we were like "oh we should have brought the dog" and this time I was adamant we brought the dog. This was probably the time I really shouldn't have brought the dog. I was asking for parking tips on facebook because I get anxious about trying to find parking in new places and the local facebook let me have it about being a bad pet owner and taking my dog to walk on the beach when its hot outside. I ignored the haters because my dog has booties and a backpack! but it did shake me up 8( ngl. I did feel horrible for her. It was really hot outside but it wasn't the heat that got to her it was the fact that we went to the pirate museum and they had pretend canon fire and just within the past 2 years my dogs decided loud noises were going to scare her. The fake canon fire absolutely freaked her out. She didn't do anything, she just looked petrified the rest of the day. So we cut our day short. We did get to go on a tour which she looked like she had fun and we walked around the fort. But as soon as we did that one museum, any noise had her shaking and glued unable to move. Wasn't anticipating that. So anyway..it was overall a fairly good weekend.

[valerie]

TWITL - week 2 - felt a bit dragged

TUESDAY - 9 January I'm thinking maybe I need a new format for my blog. Maybe not post daily but perhaps write something randomly and do a wrap up at the end of the week. If I write during the week, then I might not have as much to do at the end of the week besides some short musings or the like. Let's try it this week. I did screenshots before bed last night of a Canadian show called STAT because Thomas Beaudoin, my new Muse apparently, made an appearance and of course I just had to have a gander. I was just going to skim to his scenes, do the screenshots, then go along my merry way. When I saw French subtitles, I frowned a little because the words were getting in the way of the screenshots. At this point, I popped on my AirPods and turned up the audio to find that Docteur Davis, his character, was speaking French AND English, which meant the French subtitles were for the folks who don't understand English. Neat! https://flic.kr/p/2prqhE3 I must say, the fact that he can go from English to French so smoothly was just lovely to hear. I was quite happy to watch his scenes even if I had no idea what was going. Actually, I figured out the gist of it from the English bits but the whole thing was still chaos to me because I think the show is a bit on the soap opera side and the episode seemed to start in the middle of the action. Anyhoo, he looked rather nice all scruffy while wearing military BDUs. Way to hit my fangirl buttons, whew! https://flic.kr/p/2prqU3K Adan Canto died yesterday. I remember him best on his turn in the show The Following and I will always remember thinking how much he reminded me of "my" Kevin Smith ("Ares" on Xena and Hercules). I didn't follow his career very closely but I saw his work over the years and figured he'd appear in something I was watching sooner or later. Alas, it will not be. Journey well into the next, Adan... Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Tonight's episode was another good one! It was lovely seeing Timothy Omundson as Hephaestus and I will always have a soft spot for the character of Ares because of the aforementioned Kevin Smith. Adam Copeland's turn as the god of war was a joy to watch. I am very seriously enjoying this show. WEDNESDAY - 10 January https://flic.kr/p/2prG6Vx We had a bit of rain today. Nothing too serious. Since I've upgraded my webhost, I feel like I need to update this website. Maybe I should revive Moonlit Jazz, which has been languishing in its current state for... over 8 years. Eight years?! In its last iteration, it was the place where I dropped my daily photos for Project 365. I now do Project 365 at my secondary Instagram (@vasiakiari). Now it just sits as it has since 2015. Back to this place though, kiari.com. I'm using a different theme but I think it's a work in progress at this point. Maybe I'll keep hunting around for more inspirational themes. We'll see if I settle on anything for more than a day. THURSDAY - 11 January Oh, Xena: Warrior Princess and Hercules: The Legendary Journeys is streaming on Amazon Prime! I already own XWP on iTunes (and DVD!) but I never did pony up the money for HTLJ. Now when I'm feeling nostalgic, I can head to Amazon Prime to watch either of those two shows. Oh, and do screenshots. For some reason, I felt like doing screenshots of Hades, as played by Erik Thomson. I marvel how back in the late 90s, it took FOREVER to do screenshots. Now it's just minutes, depending on how many scenes my subject is in. It's wild! https://flic.kr/p/2prYUcR from the Xena: Warrior Princess episode, "Adventures in the Sin Trade" I should do a re-watch of both HTLJ and XWP. I'll have to compartmentalize myself a bit and forget about how the one playing Hercules didn't turn out so well and just enjoy the episodes. XWP will be easier to re-watch because it was always the stronger show to me, in terms of characters and plots, though Michael Hurst (Iolaus) did make me cry in an episode of HTLJ. Just doing these screenshots brushed aside the veil of time to remind me of how it felt when the shows first aired. https://flic.kr/p/2prZ7tV from the Hercules: The Legendary Journey episode, "The Other Side" Honestly, soon after I started watching the shows, I found that I gravitated towards the guest stars, especially Erik Thomson and the late Kevin Smith, who played Ares. They were the reason I watched. They were the reason I started chatting online with like minded fans. They were the reason I started my website. They are part of the me that is Kiari. I made lifelong friends because of the show, the conventions, the mutual love for the guest stars. And I will ever be grateful... FRIDAY - 12 January It's finally the weekend! Yes, it's Friday evening and I have three whole days without work. Good times! Don't have any real plans. Maybe I'll clean. Maybe I'll do some laundry. Maybe I'll take lots of naps. We shall see! https://flic.kr/p/2ps4UmV wearing my favorite vest jacket Since I was feeling nostalgic after doing those screenshots, I pulled out my Hercules/Xena crew vest jacket. I always LOVE wearing this vest jacket, as I'm sure I've said plenty of times here. I love all the pockets. I love all the details. I love that it crossed space and time to become mine. And I love that Chris Conrad sent it to me. I still marvel at that last point. So very sweet of him. It makes me smile to wear it. SUNDAY - 14 January https://flic.kr/p/2pmyEv2 Luis Gerardo Méndez y Miguel Ángel Silvestre en la primera temporada de Los Enviados Los Enviados/The Envoys - We binge watched the second season today. I liked it! I might have liked it better than the first season. The nun had a bigger part and she was a delight. The ending felt a little as if they'd be back in the little town. The Brotherhood seemed to be unfinished business. I'd love another season of the two priests and the nun... 30 Monedas/30 Coins - We started another Miguel Ángel Silvestre show. Second season again. The first few episodes were a bit heavy on the monster-like imagery. Effectively creepy, especially if you're religious in the Catholic way. It's an adjustment going from Simón Antequera (Los Enviados) to Paco (30 Monedas). Despite being played by Miguel Ángel Silvestre, the two characters are so very different... https://flic.kr/p/2oSKgLE Miguel Ángel Silvestre en la primera temporado de 30 Monedas And that's week number two of 2024 in the books! Time for bed... Read the full article