#midway 2019

[esperanzagalaxy]

for my 2019 **ktober, where i paired up blorbos with things i love to draw, i picked soundwave and the idea of shapey-ness for day 18. even as i was drawing it i knew i should have gone more hogwild, but at the same time, the cyberverse designs were just so peak that they didn't really need any changes from me. i wonder what these bots are up to now 🤖

[bobbie-robron]

And all we can do is make sure that these next few weeks are… the opposite to rubbish.

09-Sep-2019

[alloverandrestart]

Nick Jonas as Bruno Gaido in Midway (2019)

[mandymoore]

Midway: Stills (2019)

[lokisaved]

As you can tell we're BACK IN BUSINESS BABY!! Hopefully this means I'll get everything cleared out, and then I can start posting the +1600 posts in my drafts! Also in chronological order.

It's gonna be a while still lol

[222col]

BOT DUMP by @ 222col ✧˖°⊹♡

fine line - harry styles ꩜

꒰ notes ꒱ 1000 followers on c.ai??!!!?? holy shit that's insane !!!!!!! & 400k interactions. wtf thank u all so much. the final harry album i've yet to do, apologies a lot of the bots are sad/breakup bots, the album is very breakup heavy </3 but there's a lot of angsty fun to be had <3 enjoy angels!!! any feedback is welcomed in my inbox <3

ART DONALDSON (challengers) `✦ˑ ִֶ ⊹

⋆⭒˚.⋆ ( golden )

✩ you were the light in art's life, you lit up every room you walked into. art was ready to risk getting burned if it meant he had a chance of getting closer to you. but god, did that burn sting when you told him you were going on a date with someone else. ( partly inspired by laurie's monologue in 'little women' (2019) )

ART AND PATRICK (challengers) `✦ˑ ִֶ ⊹

⋆⭒˚.⋆ ( watermelon sugar )

✩ the three of you had been friends all throughout boarding school, but you were blissfully unaware how much both art and patrick had many more-than-friendly thoughts about you. a day at the beach after graduation brings those thoughts to the forefront, and art and patrick realise— they'd be more than willing to share.

ROMAN GODFREY (hemlock grove) `✦ˑ ִֶ ⊹

⋆⭒˚.⋆ ( adore you )

✩ roman was beyond in love with you, would do anything for you. everyone could see it, how different he acted around you compared to everyone else. the only person who couldn't see it was you, you were completely oblivious to his affections, and driving him crazy.

ART DONALDSON (challengers) `✦ˑ ִֶ ⊹

⋆⭒˚.⋆ ( lights up )

✩ it came as no surprise that art's new band were making waves in the music scene. challengers were taking the world by storm, small shows were a thing of the past. art became a new person, and lost you in the process, all because of a fuckin' groupie. thing is, art has no idea who he is without you.

PATRICK ZWEIG (challengers) `✦ˑ ִֶ ⊹

⋆⭒˚.⋆ ( cherry )

✩ you'd been broken up a year, yet the sting of hearing you call someone else baby hit patrick deep. he needed to be the one you called baby. hence why after some light stalking of your instagram, he's showing up at the bar you're at, midway through a date.

ERIC DRAVEN (the crow) `✦ˑ ִֶ ⊹

⋆⭒˚.⋆ ( falling )

✩ eric was heartbroken, so pained by your breakup that all he could do was sit alone and write songs about you. dreaming of you, wishing you were next to him again. seeing you in the crowd after the end of his show, all he can feel is himself falling in love all over again.

PATRICK ZWEIG (challengers) `✦ˑ ִֶ ⊹

⋆⭒˚.⋆ ( to be so lonely )

✩ 7 missed calls and a stream of drunken texts at 2:30am from your ex-situationship, what a treat! patrick's drunk, missin' you and feeling bad. it's been months, yet now he wants to apologise (oh! and sleep on a bed, not in his car).

ROMAN GODFREY (hemlock grove) `✦ˑ ִֶ ⊹

⋆⭒˚.⋆ ( she )

✩ roman had been having dreams again, but this time they weren't scary. they were all about you, but he didn't even know if you were real. you were haunting his daydreams, he was desperate to find you. he can't believe his luck when you walk into the bar he's in, his dream girl, in the flesh.

ART DONALDSON (challengers) `✦ˑ ִֶ ⊹

⋆⭒˚.⋆ ( sunflower, vol 6 )

✩ the flowers patrick had given you before he dumped you had barely died by the time art was swooping in to pick up the pieces. the petals had just fallen off as art grows desperate, he can't hold back much longer— he's wanted you since he laid eyes on you.

LEE (bones and all) `✦ˑ ִֶ ⊹

⋆⭒˚.⋆ ( canyon moon )

✩ lee never thought he'd miss virginia, never thought he'd go back after what happened with his dad. but god, he was missing nights under the stars with you. regretting ever leaving you, he's driving back with one thing in mind, telling you how sorry he is for leaving.

RIFF LORTON (west side story) `✦ˑ ִֶ ⊹

⋆⭒˚.⋆ ( treat people with kindness )

✩ riff's whole life changed the day tony died, he was ready to start a war. until he laid eyes on you, and you told him he wasn't getting a dance with you until his fighting days were over. riff never thought he'd disband the jets, but for you? in a heartbeat.

PATRICK ZWEIG (challengers) `✦ˑ ִֶ ⊹

⋆⭒˚.⋆ ( fine line )

✩ you and patrick met at the worst time for both of you, and almost immediately knew it was right person, wrong time. after tashi's injury, patrick's too scared to hurt someone else again, that all he can think to do is end it, but god is it killing him.

© 222col. do not steal or repost my work.

[sasaranurude]

Okay. I've been playing Tokyo Debunker today, since the release happened to catch me on a day when all I'd planned to do was write fanfiction. I just finished reading the game story prologue (it was longer than expected!), so here's a review type post. If you're reading this post not having seen a single thing about this game: it's a story-based joseimuke gacha mobile game that just released globally today. It's about a girl who suddenly finds herself attending a magic school and mingling with elite, superhuman students known as ghouls. If you look in the tumblr tag for the game you'll see what appears to be a completely different game from 2019 or so: they retooled it completely midway through development, changing just about everything about it due to "escalating competition within the gaming industry."

I'll talk about how this looks like a blatant twst clone at the end.

Starting with the positive: The story is charming. I enjoyed it thoroughly the entire time and am excited to read more. The mix between visual novel segments and motion comics was really nice--it broke things up and added a lot of oomph to the action or atmospheric scenes that visual novels generally lack. I like the art in the comic parts a lot. the live2d in the visual novel parts is... passable. Tone-wise, I think the story was a little bit all over the place and would like to see more of the horror that it opened on, but I didn't mind the comedic direction it went in either. The translation is completely seamless. The characters so far all have unique voices and are just super fun and cute. Of the ones who've had larger roles in the story so far, there's not a single one I dislike. It's all fully voiced in Japanese and the acting is solid. (I don't recognize any voices, and can't seem to find any seiyuu credits, so it seems they're not big names, but they deliver nonetheless.) Kaito in particular I found I was laughing at his lines a ton, both the voicing and the writing.

He's looking for a girlfriend btw. Spreading the word.

The problem is like. The gameplay is the worst dark-pattern microtransaction-riddled bullshit I've ever seen. Hundred passive timers going at all times. Fifty different item-currencies. Trying to get you to spend absurd amounts of real world money at every turn. There's like five different indicators that take you to various real-money shop items that I don't know how to dismiss the indicator, I guess you just have to spend money, wtaf. Bajillion different interlocking systems mean you have zero sense of relative value of all the different item-currencies. I did over the course of the day get enough diamonds for one ten-pull, which I haven't used yet. Buying enough diamonds for a ten-pull costs a bit under $60 (presumably USD, but there's a chance the interface is automatically making that CAD for me--not gonna spend the money to check lmfao), with an SSR rate of 1%. BULLSHIIIIIT.

There's like a goddamn thousand-word essay explaining the dozen different types of character upgrades and equippables and equippables for the equippables!! Bad! Bad game design! That's just overcomplicating bullshit to trick people into thinking they're doing something other than clicking button to make number go up! That is not gameplay!

In terms of the actual gameplay, there is none. The battle system is full auto. There might be teambuilding, but from what I've seen so far, most of that consists of hoping you pull good cards from gacha and then clicking button to make number go up. There's occasional rhythm segments but there's no original music, it's just remixes of public domain classical music lmao. I'd describe the rhythm gameplay as "at least more engaging than twisted wonderland's," which is not a high bar

At least there's a cat in the rhythm bit.

And like, ok, I gotta remark on how derivative it is. Like I mentioned in my post earlier, this game is unabashedly aping twisted wonderland's setting and aesthetic. (That said, most of the stuff it steals from twst is magic school stuff that twst also basically stole from Harry Potter, so...?) However, it isn't exactly like twst: in this one, the characters say fuck a lot and bleed all over the place and do violence. Basically, the tone is a fair bit more adult than twst's kid-friendly vibe. (Not, like, adult adult, and I probably wouldn't even call it dark--it's still rated Teen lol. Just more adult than twst.)

Rather than just being students at magic school, the ghouls also go out into the mundane world to go on missions where they fight and investigate monsters and cryptids. Honestly, the magic school setting feels pretty tacked-on. The things that are enjoyable about this would've been just as enjoyable in about any other setting--you can tell this whole aspect was a late trend-chasing addition, lmao. So, yeah, it's blatantly copying twst to try to steal some players, but... Eh, I found myself not caring that much. Someone more (or less) into twst than me may find it grating.

Character-wise, eh, sure, yeah, they're a bit derivative in that aspect too, but it's a joseimuke game, the characters are always derivative. Thus far the writing & execution has been solid enough that I didn't care if they were tropey. If I were to compare it to something else, I'd say the relationship between the protagonist and the ghouls feels more like that of the sage and wizards in mahoyaku than anything from twst. There's some mystery in exactly what "ghouls" are and their place in this world that has me intrigued and wanting to know more about this setting and how each of the characters feels about it. I have a bad habit of getting my hopes up for stories that put big ideas on the table and then being disappointed when they don't follow through in a way that lives up to my expectations, though.

So, my final verdict: I kind of just hope someone uploads all the story segments right onto youtube so nobody has to deal with the dogshit predatory game to get the genuinely decent story lol. Give it a play just for the story if you have faith in your ability to resist dark patterns. Avoid at all costs if you know you're vulnerable to gacha, microtransactions, or timesinks.

[shadowland]

david crosby & joni mitchell

Joni Mitchell and David Crosby, hanging out with Eric Clapton, Micky Dolenz, Laurel Canyon, February 1968 © Henry Diltz. / Cactus Tree - Joni Mitchell / Portrait of David Crosby by Joni Mitchell, 1969 / David Crosby, Panama Canal artwork by Joni Mitchell, 1969 / Guinevere - Crosby, Stills and Nash / A Schooner Runs Through It | BoatUS and Reckless Daugther by David Yaffe / Unknown, Nature film, 1970s / Joni Mitchell listening as David Crosby plays at Cass Elliott’s home, 1968. © Henry Diltz / Remember My Name (2019) dir. Cameron Crowe / Reckless Daugther by David Yaffe / Joni Mitchell signing her record deal with Elliot Roberts (her manager), David Crosby (producer) and Mo Ostin, RCA Record executive, 1967 / David Crosby and Joni Mitchell at Big Sur, Rolling Stone, October 12th 1968 / Coconut Grove / Joni Mitchell wearing David Crosby’s brimmed hat—Sunset Sound Recorders, Los Angeles, CA, 1967 © Sulfiati Magnuson. / Joni Mitchell and David Crosby during recording season to “Song To A Seagull”, 1967 © Sulfiati Magnuson / Quote from Remember My Name (2019) dir. Cameron Crowe / That Song about the Midway - Joni Mitchell / David Crosby Song To A Seagull sleeve, 1967 / David Crosby, 1969 © Henry Diltz / Joni Mitchell describing David Crosby as Yosemite Sam / David Crosby, Joni Mitchell and Graham Nash travel to Big Bear Lake, 1969 © Henry Diltz / Henry Diltz contact sheet, with Joni Mitchell, Graham Nash, and David Crosby. / Joni Mitchell with Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young, Wembley Stadium, September 14, 1974. © Vin Miles / David Crosby tweeting about Joni Mitchell and Brandi Carlile after their performance at the Newport Folk Festival, July 2022

[esperanzagalaxy]

here's one of my favorites! for day 24 of my 2019 **ktober where i only drew things i loved, i mashed up fulbright with the charm of close-up detail shots! 🕶 the volumes are a little off, but i think it's a lovely illustration still. there were two other ace attorney entries, for my favorites edgeworth and simon, but both turned out pretty bad.

[stereopticons]

On This Day in Schitt's Creek: June 1

2019

“..think about what you’ve done.” [david/patrick, E, 2,367] by yourmariahcarey

This takes place after the Barbecue. David has spent the last week being showered with gifts and attention from Patrick and is ready to get back together. Patrick finds out David was holding out due to his generosity and feels he need to think about what he’s done... and be taught a lesson.

around us [david/patrick, G, 1,700] by @lamphous

"You don't have a ring." Patrick blinks, his mind visibly buffering. "Well, that's what the wedding's for."

End of Ends [david/patrick, G, 3,063] by @letteredlettered

Patrick after the barbecue.

On Brand [david/patrick, G, 1,046] by @vodka-rocks-and-a-piece-of-toast

Rose Video gets it's least enthusiastic employee.

2020

double date [stevie/rachel, T, 2,158] by @hullomoon

Stevie and Rachel go on a double date with David and Patrick

Meet you at the Wobbly Elm [david/patrick, T, 3,103] by @agoodpersonrose

David and Stevie go to the Wobbly Elm for drinks, and end up finding more than they were expecting.

Moments of being Soulmates [david/patrick, NR, 1,103] by LonerWolf6

This story is about David Rose and Patrick Brewer being each other Soulmate. It talking about moments of between David and Patrick ever since they met and find out that they are each other, soulmates. Also they find out that they are each other soulmates by looking each other for the first time and felt warmth on their chest and they look down at their chest to see their soulmate name on them too.

2021

(not quite) a random thought [david/patrick, E, 8,296] by @schittyfic

Tonight, though, Patrick spits neatly into his sink, rinses his mouth and pats it dry with a monogrammed towel before turning to David and asking, “What if I got a piercing?” David pauses with his ring finger midway through dabbing serum under his eye. “I’m sorry?” Patrick folds his arms, a close second choice for those occasions where he doesn’t have pockets to bury his hands in. “What if I got a piercing?” The same question, but a little less sure of itself.

[Podfic] I'm looking through your eyes [david/patrick, E, podfic] by Amanita_Fierce @januarium @schittposting

Which is why the small silver bar in his eyebrow is so incongruous; it doesn’t fit with the rest of the image the guy (Patrick, his name is Patrick, David is really going to have to get better at remembering names so he doesn’t offend a vendor) is putting forward. It’s not like David’s never seen a piercing before. Hell, there was that brief regrettable period where Sebastien convinced him to get a tongue piercing. Still, this particular piercing captures David’s attention entirely without his permission. Or, the night at Stevie's where literally everything's the same except for the presence of a piercing or two. Podfic of I'm looking through your eyes by yourbuttervoicedbeau (kiwiana).

feel you on my skin [alexis/twyla, E, 1,013] by @hullomoon

Alexis notices what Twyla's wearing. She has a lot of feelings about it.

Friends and Family Night [stevie/twyla, G, 2,087] by @samwhambam

“I want to meet Twyla,” David said as he plopped into a seat next to Stevie’s desk. She raised her eyebrows at him in what she hoped was a very clear ‘no.’ ~ Aka, the Score adjacent fic where David wants to meet Stevie's girlfriend Twyla.

ode to a sex life past [david/patrick, M, poem] by elifisher96

i don’t think you understand just how desperately i need tonight

Perhaps Perhaps Perhaps [ray/oc, E, 6,954] by @fictasticvoyage

Ray and Ted attend Latin ballroom dance lessons to help with their work at the senior center. Ray meets someone and this is the beginning few weeks of their relationship.

take a shot [david/patrick, T, 5,044] by @249b-east-35th

5 times Patrick makes David coffee

2021

Sweet Surrender [david/patrick, E, 850] by @a-noble-dragon

"Alright?" Patrick’s strained voice enquires, checking in. So polite, even when he's moving choppily, his body fighting against the desire to give in and take David hard like he so obviously wants to. So polite. So in control.

the ocean grew hands to hold me [david/patrick, T, 1,500] by @stereopticons

To David, there has always been something so soothing about being near water. He really prefers the ocean, but lakes and rivers provide much the same effect. True, he never goes in the water; he can swim, but the water is full of unidentified horrors, not to mention the havoc it wreaks on his hair and skin. He doesn’t like nature, or really, even going outside very much, but there’s something about staring out at a body of water and listening to the lapping of the waves that has always brought him peace, even in the most tumultuous periods of his life.

There was only one door [david/patrick, G, 451] by @lizzie-bennetdarcy

David could sense where this was going - it was, after all, a hotly debated topic. David and Patrick discuss the door scene in Titanic

2023

The Day Before You Came [david/patrick, M, 1,300] by @legalgal421

Patrick recalls the day before David came into his life on the morning after their night at Stevie's

2024

Greener Pastures [david/patrick, G, 600] by @fictasticvoyage

Tackling a new color, these drabbles will all be from the green prompts.

Rendez-vous with Ray [david/patrick, G, 3,557] by @demora00

"You have to go out to meet people!" "Why? Can't I just hang out here and wait for the love of my life to show up on my couch one day?”

Stats:

No fanworks for 2017 or 2018 2019: 4 fics/8,176 words 2020: 3 fics/6,364 words 2021: 7 fanworks (5 fics, 1 podfic, 1 poem)/23,714 words 2022: 3 fics/2,801 words 2023: 1 fic/1,300 words 2024: 2 fics/4,157 words Total: 20 fanworks (18 fics, 1 podfic, 1 poem)/46,512 words

[moldychefboyardeecan]

MY BROTHER!! I saw ur ask to inseobts wishing for more requests. SO I COME BARING GIFTS OF PLENTY!! Could you plsss write a lil somethin’ somethin’ for Sanji and gender-fluid reader (leaning towards male) who’s an extraordinary baker and a low-key stoner? Maybe reader bakes him some special brownies and forgets to tell Sanji they’re spiked? Idk up to you!

This is taking me back to my stoner ages back in freshman year of high school, oh to smoke a fat one again...and be one with the green lmao

Anyways, here you go!!

An Accident..I Swear!

summary: what was supposed to be a treat for you after a long day of work, became your boyfriend's first time baked.

gn!stoner!baker!reader x modern!sanji

cw: drvgs (w33d), getting high, author hasnt smoked a blunt in almost 5 years (18+,obvi)

“Babe..where are my brownies?”

The question slipped out in a voice you didn’t recognize—tight, high-pitched, and weirdly… parental?

Concerned. Like, genuinely concerned.

And it hit you: you hadn’t heard yourself sound like that since your cat swallowed a rubber band in 2019.

You had left a tray of special brownies wrapped in aluminum foil in the fridge, a treat after work. The work day that made you deal with annoying customers who reasoned worse than most political leaders. Capitalism is a bitch and weed, is…honestly? A lot better. Way fucking better. You deserved those brownies. You needed those brownies.

But you hadn’t made them just for yourself.

They were supposed to be shared.

A quiet night in. You, Sanji, soft blankets, stupid movies, and just enough THC to let him ride the high for the first time—with you there to hold his hand if he panicked or started trying to cook spaghetti with a blowtorch or something.

It worked in your favor too, he loved your baking. He didn't even know until you started surprising him with small cookies you would make him when you first started dating. Shit, he likes to cook, you two would be an unstoppable duo. Today, you wanted him to hold your hand while you showed him the way to just unwind– your way.

While you frantically search the fridge for the millionth time, he called back to you, with a mouth full.

“Mon amour, these taste phenomenal.”

You turned at the voice—and there he was at the kitchen doorway.

Tray in hand. Half gone. Midway through another brownie. He even had a crumb stuck to his mouth, how fucking cute.

“Babe…” you asked, pursing your lips inward for a second before exhaling deeply, as if explaining a kid the birds and the bees.”..How many have you had?”

He blinked. Thought. Held up three fingers. Then, slowly… added a fourth.

Your soul left your body.

If they weren’t hitting now, they would hit soon. And fast. Sure, you put a low amount in—for you. But fuck, that’s for you. Sanji never even had marijuana in his life. Look at him. He’s a freaking angel sent from a better dimension. He wasn’t supposed to be that high! He doesn’t even know the first thing about coming down.

Fuck, oh fuck, shit, fuck—your thoughts were racing like a frantic mother, scrambling through all the possible scenarios of what could go wrong.

It really was like when your cat ate that rubber band.

No, it was worse. Because at least your cat didn’t spiral into some existential crisis about the universe and all of reality being on the other side of a really soft couch cushion.

This… this was different. This was Sanji, in all his..Sanji-ness, potentially having a deep, philosophical conversation with a couch.

You were so fucked.

Sanji just smiled, all pleased with himself like he’d won a game you didn’t know he was playing. “They’re just brownies, mon amour. Why do you look like you’ve seen the Devil?”

You walked over in slow motion.

 “Sanji,” you said gently, like a nurse about to deliver some bad news.

 “Those were weed brownies.”

He blinked again. Chewed once more.

A beat passed.

“Oh.”

He swallowed.

Another beat. “…Oh.”

“..yeah.” You nodded your head, glancing at the tray. “Ju—just give me the damn tray, please.”

Licking his fingers,he hands you the tray, his face stuck in that shocked form.

His face still slack, you start noticing his pupils dilate.

It was going to hit, and like a fucking train.

Eyes so swollen, his beautiful cerulean eyes looked like goddamned voids.

That was more than 4 brownies.

His face started changing, his expression from a stone faced philosopher, to…something else. A slow, dreamy smile curls at the corners of his mouth.

“Y/N-SWAN…” His voice wobbles like a deflating balloon.

You barely have time to set the tray down before he’s launched himself at you, arms locking around your waist like you’re the last lifeboat on the Titanic. His face burrows into your shoulder with a dramatic sniffle.

“Did I..everysayhow..how maginfique youreyes can are be…” his voice slurring and incoherent.

“No, babe. I’m..uh..flattered. Let’s get you some cold water, yeah?”

Sanji clutches around your shirt now, moving his head to your hair. “Hydration is a lie, mon amour. Love is the only true water.”

“Right..I’ll get you a cup of love right away, babe.” You try getting him off of you, but he doesn’t budge. He’s stuck on you like a stubborn child.

He’s nuzzling and clinging to you like a stuffed animal. This would’ve been great, if he waited for you to ease him into getting high. Where you could’ve been in blankets, his touches on your chest, and down there.

If.

It would be a lie if you didn’t say you were melting into this clinginess slowly.  But having a 5 '10, 21-year old cling on to you like you’re his lifeline (and his teddy bear) while you stand in the middle of a damn kitchen..is uncomfortable.

“Sanji..you’re fucking heavy. Can you get off of me, please?”

“mmm..No.”

“Sanji, babe, I need oxygen to live." You squeeze out.

“but, I need youuu. It works out, mon cœur.”

This charming, little—

“You’re so warm like…like sunshine. Is that why I love you?”

“Sanji, we’ve been dating for 2 years.”

“I fell in love with the sun.” He said, looking up at you, still clinging on. “But you’re so soft..like a crepe..but I thought you were softer.”

“I am not the sun, nor am I crepe babe.”

“You’re a sun crepe.”

Alright, that’s it. He's gotta sober up. You start trying to shuffle out of the kitchen, his ass dragging go on the floor while he clinged to your legs, and his arms still on your waist.

“You’re like warm cheese..golden and warm.”

“Sanji, what the FUCK.” Your free hand pinches the bridge of your nose. That is the..sweetest, weirdest shit he’s ever said. And he called you a ‘sun crepe’ less than five minutes ago.

You pause when you reach the dinner table, panting out of exhaustion.

“Babe, you’re killing me.”

“You’re killing me.”

Inhale. Exhale. Forget all about your cat incident. You’re not even worried anymore. Just..so. fucking. confused.

He digs his face into your hips and you just hear a deep whiff coming from him. What the fu—

“You smell like lavender, mon soliel.”

“Th-that’s, that’s the detergent, Sanji. The one you picked.”

You try moving a bit more. Until your legs give out.

“Sanji..I need to sit down. Please, let go of me.”

His face looks at you with that same gleam, slowly changing to a grin of a genius. He’s plotting something.

“Sit on me.”

Yep, you were right. He was.

“That’s not-“

He lets go, and lays down on his back, moving his hands in a way to come over.

“I’m ready.”

The relief from your legs was almost instant when he let go of you. 160 pounds of a teddy bear now is on the floor.

What a fucking cutie.

“Babe, how about..you sit on the couch?”

“..but you’ve sat on the couch, not me.” He pouted.

God, he really was stubborn. You stare down at your lovesick Victorian child of a boyfriend, and watch him melt into the floor like a puddle. The way he started sprawling his arms out like a starfish on the floor, sighing dreamily.

"Sanji," you sigh, nudging his ribs with your foot. "The couch is right there. It's soft."

He peeks through his fingers. "But is it your lap soft?"

"That's not—" You pinch the bridge of your nose. "You're floor right now."

A pause of silence, until Sanji rolls, his back facing you.

"The floor… it’s hugging me back."

"That’s called gravity, Sanji."

“Nuh uhhh.”

You have no idea how many times you’ve sighed at this point. This..this loaf of bread on your floor, saying he’s hugged the fucking floor. You need to get him on that fucking couch, and fast.

No matter what.

“Okay, Sanji, I’ll let you sleep on me.”

He lit up. His face turned into the ‘sun crepe’ he was rambling about. So soft and tender.. warm. “Really?!”

“Yes, babe. If you get on the couch.”

He immediately started trying to get up, and wobbles back down.

“Why floor, why must you have so much anxiety?”

This..this gonna be a long night. Sanji gives up on getting up after..the 4th time.

“If you shall not let me walk to my love’s paradise, I shall CRAWL!” …and crawl he did. He started army crawling towards the couch, and climbed onto it, sitting down and patting down a spot next to you. “Next to me, amour.”

“Right..give me a second.” Rushing back to the kitchen, you finally grab 2 glasses of ice cold water, and come back to the couch. “Drink.” You commanded, handing the glass straight to his mouth. Which, in his state, greedily accepted and drank it like a holy offering from Mother Nature herself.

“I can taste the colors.”

“Those are the ice cubes, and the electrolytes. Not colors, hon.”

“It’s perfection, like you.”

You hate to admit that you blushed. He laid down, your thighs under his head like a pillow. You met his eye,and brushed his hair back to see both. Both eyes are disgustingly lovestruck by you. Suddenly, his face starts tearing up looking at you.

“Did I ever tell you how..how lucky I am to have youuu? You are so majestic and beautiful and and and.. he stuff his face into your stomach and begins to sob, every little hitch of his breath tickling your under your shirt.

You pat his back, torn between laughter and panic. “Sanji, babe, you’re gonna choke on your own feelings—”

“Non.” He murmurs sleepily, tears glittering in his eyes. “I need you to understand. You’re… mon soleil, mon cœur, mon—” His voice cracks. “Why are there so many words for love and none of them good enough?!”

“You don’t need to tell me. I already know.” You shift a bit to get yourself comfortable too, until a tight deathlike grip holds onto you.

"No. Mine. Like… warm bread."

You kiss his soft hair and sigh at the sight of him relaxing, at last.

“..can we marry the fridge?”

“Absolutely not.”

[probablyasocialecologist]

Ancient humans were building large wooden structures – possibly houses – almost half a million years ago. The discovery, the earliest evidence of wooden construction, suggests that some ancient communities were far less nomadic than we have assumed. “These people were behaving in ways I hadn’t expected,” says Larry Barham at the University of Liverpool, UK. “It’s a disruptive discovery.” Barham and his colleagues uncovered the evidence at Kalambo Falls, an archaeological site in Zambia. In 2019, they spent a month excavating a sandbar some 300 metres upstream of the falls. One of the first artefacts they found was a wooden tool, probably a digging stick. “The number of sites where wood is preserved is small,” says researcher Geoff Duller at Aberystwyth University, UK. As they continued to dig, they made another discovery: a 1.4-metre-long log overlying an even larger log that was too big to fully excavate during their month-long project. They saw that the overlying log had been worked with tools to fashion a deep notch midway along its length. This allowed it to interlock with the underlying log at a 75-degree angle, creating a relatively sturdy joint. The researchers speculate that the two interlocking logs were once part of a larger wooden structure. Duller then dated the artefacts using a technique called post-infrared infrared stimulated luminescence. This involves measuring the time since the mineral grains in the sand that surrounded the wood were last exposed to light prior to their burial. The mineral grains – and the artefacts they surround – were buried about 476,000 years ago, which implies that the wooden structure was built before our species evolved. The engineers therefore belonged to an earlier human species, possibly Homo heidelbergensis.

[strictlyfavorites]

The first time in saw ships grounded due to low tide blew my mind. Full size cargo ships in Bali. Just on the ground, leaning over. Craziness.

Spain 🇪🇸

Anna Mingazova 2

Storm hits the Ricasoli Breakwater Lighthouse in Valletta, Malta. 24 February, 2019 3

USS Midway (CV-41) and USS Bainbridge (CGN-25) being replenished by a Mars class combat stores ship, on April 4, 1984.

Cala Luna

Dolphin Island, Italy

[darrencrissdaily]

DARREN CRISS | Midway Screening 2019

[talenlee]

My Weirdly Embarrassing Love of Spreadsheets

This is gunna be a post about like, the nuts and bolts of making big projects like ongoing writing projects like this blog, but to get there I need to talk to you about silly stuff like journals and buses and spreadsheets. We get there, please, trust me.

One of the first tools I made for blogging was a table in my bullet journal. If you’re not familiar, a common thing to do with bullet journals (or ‘bujos’ as cooler or more tedious people than I call them), is to write up a calendar at the start of each month, something that lists what you’re doing through the course of the month. When I started doing this, I had a way to look at the month, that I could scribble on, so I did, and it meant I was able to get into the habits of putting an article on a game every friday and an article on a story every monday, resulting in my Story Pile and Game Pile series.

This was back in 2017, and the notebooks are in my bookshelf, each of them a record of a year that… huh, I could go back and reread.

Anyway, one of the problems that came up with this system was the bus.

Not kidding.

I would get a bus home from the uni most days. When I was on that bus, or when I was at the uni, I would have time to write, but I wouldn’t necessarily have access to my notebook. I found myself wanting a copy of the chart that I could manage on two different computers – my laptop at the university, and my computer at home. This is how One Stone got written, too, the trips home on the bus being when I wrote the blog posts that became the first chapters of that book, eyes closed, not looking at the screen, and focusing on the road to avoid being car sick.

It is wild to consider how much of my first book I loved writing I did with my eyes effectively closed.

In 2019, I resolved midway through the year that I needed a better system, and started on a system that would handle the transport between two locations better, for the year coming where I anticipated a lot of travel between two sites.

Ahem.

Yeah, uh, 2020.

Anyway, that it wasn’t necessary didn’t stop it being useful! That led to the creation of this Google Sheets spreadsheet:

I made this in Sheets because Sheets is like Excel, which I like using, and it’s like Calc, which I now use, because the version of Excel I pirated doesn’t have access to IFS functions. Point is, this sheet, as originally conceived, did not need anything as a spreadsheet to work; I wanted a table with 365 cells in it that could show the entire year at a glance and be given a simple, straightforward tick or cross. It became something more, as the years progressed.

I’ve been using this kind of spreadsheet now, for 5 years. In 2025, the spreadsheet looks almost the same:

Being a spreadsheet, it is an array of data. You can manipulate that. You can track data in it. You can use indexes. You can cocatenate things, and that’s the stage this spreadsheet is at now. When I sit down to work on a blog post, the first thing I do is not open up WordPress to pull at my drafts, it’s to instead open up this spreadsheet and look at when I have slots available, where my next upcoming gap is, and what kind of thing that gap wants.

Blue slots are story pile, green are game pile. I have all the video article slots pencilled in already with a ‘V,’ on the working version, so I can look at the line of Xes under each date and then see the point where oh, yeah, I gotta work on one of those spots. But see, also, in that top left? That number? The 0 is a count of how many blog posts have been set in place for the year, how close I am to being finished, or on track for the number of days in the year I’m at.

I try to keep the blog progress (blogress) at around 51 posts. That is not because this is the number I’ve decided I need or anything like that, it’s just a round number that makes me happy. Just being able to look at that number and see it being reasonably high? That’s a progress number. I could make it a progress bar proper, with a pair of graphs, but y’know, not worth it. I could make it a fraction too, like, the formula it’s doing over a “/365” if I wanted.

The thing that I’m most happy with though is the cell next to it.

See that cell looks like this:

='Topics & Ideas'!A2

And oh ho what is that?

Well that leads to this:

Here’s what this is: This is a whole spreadsheet of idea categories. Each category has at the top of it, a cell that looks down in the list for a random entry in that list and just provides it. For some things this is a long list of possibilities, for some things this is a tiny list of possibilities. But that is an index function – it looks randomly up and down the list and finds something. That means any time I want something for a specific theme, I can go to this sheet and I’ll see a random selection from these ideas. If I have an idea for a thing to write about at some point, I can jam that in the list, and know that it will eventually be exposed to me at some random point.

Then, at the head of that list, there’s the cell that also randomises the other cells along that horizontal line. Which means that any time I open this blog arranger up, I get to see a random offering of just… anything I could be writing right now. That list can include really broad things, like hey, write about an OC? and sometimes it could be really narrow and specific, like here’s a real event, you know about that one, you should write about it.

Now let me be clear: This is not a tool I recommend for everyone. This is a lot of elaborate effort I put into what is essentially, a producivity toy. This lets me produce a big pile of input and get a random output, and it lets me collect long lists or short lists of things and also, along with all of that, I can just get a periodic output from that list.

The original purpose for this chart wound up being unnecessary. I didn’t need to write on the bus any more. I don’t need to track the post count like this. I don’t need the randomiser. None of this stuff is in any way necessary.

But making this tool though, and playing with it, I have ways to engage with the project of this blog, with the writing when I can’t do that. When my ability to muster words has left me, I have still a chart, a tool, I have productivity items that I can work on. Sometimes just… fine tuning formulas is still working on it.

There’s this idea, maybe you’ve heard of ‘just do a little every day.’ Well, making it so there is a little you can do is really valuable, as part of that.

Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!

[esperanzagalaxy]

for day 5 of my 2019 **ktober, where i paired up blorbos old and new with things i love to draw, we jump from middle school to high school and encounter my favorite game, and favorite motherfucker -joshua from twewy, mashed with art history 👼

this one turned out very messy and i wish i'd done a better job, but it's still fun. i picked raphael's st. michael overwhelming the demon because i thought it was both fitting and funny. i had an oc dreamboy when i was like 14 whose name was joshua, and i got almost spooked when i met This joshua, cause they're kind of similar. that made it very hard not to fall head over heels for his antagonistic, mischievous charm.