#read paragraphs of it

[snooopbloggyblog]

my secret shame is I sometimes go on the 4chan paranormal board because the wild rambling and talk of cryptids just smooths my brain out nicely

[tadfools]

You guys are commenting on the fics you read right? You’re at least leaving kudos on the Astarion smut and the pairs that have less than 20 fics for them too? You’re bookmarking stories you really like that are still being updated and ones that haven’t been touched in over a year right?

You know that even the smallest interactions are like cocaine to fic writers right? You understand how important a string of emoji hearts left behind on chapter at three am is right?? Right????

You’re treating AO3 like a community and not a content factory….right?

[holdoncallfailed]

SPILLED.

[secondbeatsongs]

as a bi person, the bisexual flag brings me infinite joy and always puts a smile on my face, however as a person who has a Passion for Graphic Design, that undersaturated shade of purple infuriates me when it's used digitally

like, on an actual flag - which was its original purpose - it looks great!

those look fine! lovely, even! with the semi-transparent fabric, the way it catches the sunlight, it looks beautiful!

but now look at how it looks digitally

the pink and blue are so vibrant compared to the sad, lonely lavender!

and let's look at this statement from Michael Page, the creator of the bi flag:

(sidenote: he created this flag in 1998, so if his takes on bisexuality is different from yours, it's okay to notice that! a lot has changed since the 90s when it comes to lived experiences and the way we describe them. but, it's also important to respect his thoughts about this and the way he presented them, even if today, we'd probably not say that bi people "blend unnoticeably into both the gay/lesbian and straight communities.")

so in pantone colors, the pink is 226 C, the blue is 286 C, and the purple of the flag is 258 C.

but...here's the deal

Michael talks here about how the key to understanding the symbolism is to know that the purple blends into both the pink and blue. and on a physical flag, I think you can see that!

but digitally, it absolutely does not blend. it clashes badly, and looks oddly separate from the other two colors.

which got me wondering...what purple do you get if you actually blend 226 C and 286 C?

oh! oh, my god.

look at that! look at how nicely it fits between those colors!

look at it next to the original color scheme! look at how much more vibrant the purple is!

and friends. this is just blending through rgb! you get even more purple variations when you use other color spaces!

let's compare all of them:

(top: original, lab. middle: lrgb, lch. bottom: rgb, hsl)

look at all of the different purple options you can get just by combining these two colors!

if you want almost too-vibrant saturation, you can go hsl, if you want something more relaxed that's closer to the original, you can go lab or lrgb. and if you want to split the difference, lch is bright and violet, while rgb is there with its saturated but darker purple.

anyway, I guess I don't really have a point here? this isn't so much an informational post as it is Me Getting Weird About Colors, but I think it is a useful lesson about how colors look very different on screens compared to how they look on objects in real life.

and sometimes, I think it's okay to compensate for that.

out of all of these, this is my favorite bi flag:

it's the one where the colors were blended in lab color space. for me, the lighter, softer purple is close enough to the original bi flag purple, while also feeling like a smoother blend of the blue and pink

but that's just me! and it might not even look the same to you, since every screen is different, because technology is a nightmare!

anyway, thank you for coming with me on this colorful journey! I will now retreat back to inkscape and make pained sounds about inkstitch gradients until something tangible pulls me back into reality

[starrystevie]

eddie knows his crush on steve harrington is a hopeless cause, okay?

he's somehow been friends with steve long enough to know what he looks like when he's flirting, what he looks like when he has a crush, when his sights are set on someone very non-eddie munson shaped. he also now knows how to hide his jealousy in a fake smirk that he flashes steve's way when yet another pretty girl walks their way with her sights set on him and a smirk of her own.

eddie always watches as steve reaches out a hand just so to gently brush it against a lovely lady's arm with that charming fucking smile and sees how that lovely lady will always melt at the touch. and who could blame her? certainly not eddie, the same eddie who's had his own sights set on steve harrington for what feels like a life time. if anyone knows how painfully a heart can beat when it sees him from across the room and imagines a date and a future and a life with steve, it would be eddie.

but that's where it ends. steve harrington, the ladies man that he is, always stops things there with a smile and a wave thrown in the woman's direction as she walks away. it throws eddie for a loop every time. he would watch the two flirt for minutes that that felt like torturous hours for him only for it to end with a disappointed look on her face and steve turning his attention back to eddie like nothing had happened.

it makes no sense.

"i don't get it, man," he says one day as steve lets yet another girl walk away down to the opposite end of the grocery store aisle they're in. steve's turned back to staring at the shopping list in his hand and is muttering to himself instead of watching her walk away like eddie is, disbelief coloring his face.

"don't get what?" steve asks back, not bothering to look up until the silence goes on for too long. his eyes land on eddie's and he frowns slightly, shaking his head slowly. "... did i miss something?"

eddie reels back, eyebrows furrowing together and motions his arms every which way, from the girl's retreating form to the empty space around them.

"steve, you're just going to let her walk away and not get her number? she was obviously hitting on you, dude."

he watches as steve's face crinkles slightly before smoothing out and shrugs his shoulders, turning back to grab the cat food eddie feeds to the strays off the shelf. he lurches forward and places his hands on steve's shoulders to face him, watching as his eyes go wide.

"what do you want me to say?" steve shrugs again and eddie can feel the movement under his hands. "i guess i wasn't feeling it."

eddie sighs, scrubbing a hand down his face before returning it back to steve's shoulder. "wasn't feeling it... steve, i'm gay, not blind. you two obviously were hitting it off with your fucking charming lines and flirty eyes. you always do this and it makes zero fucking sense-"

"-you're gay?"

steve says a bit too loud for eddie's liking even if they are currently hidden in the pet food aisle. heat floods his cheeks and he throws a hand cover steve's mouth while shushing him to keep him from saying it again. he sees steve's eyes go even wider and feels warmth spreading under his fingers.

is steve...

"you knew this!" eddie accuses in a whisper and tries to breathe evenly while steve's gaze travels all over his face. "we talked about it with robin that one time!"

... is he blushing?

there's a sudden pressure at his side and he looks down to see steve's fingers curling over his waist. eddie takes in a stuttering breath and brings his own wide eyes up to meet steve's. it's like looking in a fun house mirror, seeing his flush creeping up steve's neck and watching steve blink in time with him. he can feel when steve tries to say something, his lips ghosting over his palm and eddie pulls back like he's been burned, but steve's hand stays right where it is on his side.

"i absolutely would have remembered if you told me that before," he says and his voice is a little breathless. "there's no way i was there when you guys talked about it."

eddie thinks back to the party when he and robin were huddled up on their couch together. argyle and nancy were dancing in their socks on the living room floor, bouncing around to some experimental track that had been badly recorded on a cassette. jonathan was sitting at the coffee table snapping photos of them, joint hanging from his lips and easy smile spreading on his face.

eddie's trying to pinpoint where steve is in this memory and that's usually the easiest thing for him to remember, but he can't...

until suddenly he can, because steve walked in through the sliding door with his shirt over his shoulder and his swim trunks low on his hips and water dripping down his chest and a cigarette behind his ear and the sunset bleeding in through the windows was painting him golden and he was walking over to dance with nancy with a wide grin pulling at his cheeks and-

"god, i'm gay," eddie had breathed out. robin followed his line of sight and nodded because she gets it like she has a steve problem of her own and that was that.

eddie focuses back in on steve while they stand in the fucking pet food aisle, focuses on the shrill jingle pouring out of the grocery store speakers and not on the way he can hear his heartbeat in his ears, focuses on the way steve can look good even in harsh fluorescent lights.

"well, now you know," is all he can breath out.

steve smiles, all white teeth and crinkled eyes, and his fingers curl even tighter around eddie's waist as he takes a half step even further into his personal space.

"you're why," steve says back easily and eddie reminds himself to breathe as the other side of his waist suddenly has a hand covering it, too. "i don't take their numbers, i don't give them mine, i don't go on the stupid dates they ask me out on because..."

the fingers dance up his side and eddie can't breathe.

"... they're not you, so why would i?"

eddie sends up a silent thank you to whoever is listening that they're hidden away from prying eyes in the pet food aisle so he can lean it and learn for the first time what steve's smile tastes like.

[svtskneecaps]

i also just want to point out the qsmp members' commitment to like never letting the inactive members die. like dantdm logged on twice and is canonically dead and everyone continues to blame mysterious happenstance on him. spreen is canonically dead and yet people are still like namedropping him even tho the house façade he built has been demolished and also probably consumed by a mountain. they meme on kameto who's barely been on except that time he was a fed spy that was iconic as hell. they just immortalize their members and they're always so happy to see old faces come back and it lowkey makes me emotional lmfaoo like missa barely logged on for a while but goddamn nobody forgot his name bc philza can't go one day without mentioning him and mariana barely logs on but every time fit saw the homeless mariana in roier's city no matter what he'd stop dead and tell it "come home" and when slime came back to the server for elections after having logged off for the last like two months everyone was still excited to meet him bc the others had kept his memories on the server fresh and alive, maxo died canonically in the nuke and pierre pasted his face all over the server, luzu vanished for months and we never forgot him either thanks to the computers and foolish's wack ass family tree. like when purgatory teams were chosen and team red constantly joked about how it would be so over for the other teams once germán logged on despite the fact that germán had only ever logged on ONCE, the way they cheered when they snatched rubius in the split of green despite the fact that rubius hadn't logged on more than twice since march. they just keep the names alive all the time and it's like

it just makes me really happy to see. like it makes me really happy. like the admin team and the members alike are like 'no way in HELL are we letting your memory go' like damn once ur on isla quesadilla you really are stuck as an islander forever :D

[cutleta]

[sawsdoe]

what is this apparent compulsion some people have to come online and announce how fucking stupid they are

[mobydyke]

[sexting] no live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.

[steveyockey]

“Feel free to share your positive feelings about the film on Twitter after the screening,” said the usher introducing the London press preview screening of Barbie, Greta Gerwig’s Mattel-produced film. The embargo for reviews, however, would not be lifted until two days later, closer to the film’s release. The audience generally didn’t bat an eyelid and it wasn’t the first time my colleagues and I had heard such directives, yet we were left feeling censored: if they won’t allow for our negative reactions, why should they get our positive ones?

The purpose of this strategy barely needs specifying: in addition to the film’s omnipresent marketing campaign, positive reactions on social media were to seal the deal and ensure that the most dubious potential spectators would be persuaded to turn up to the cinema on the opening weekend, the most crucial days for a film’s box office success. The fact that the audience at this preview screening consisted mostly of influencers was another blatant marketing strategy, which would not have been as insulting were it not for the fact that it meant many film critics were unable to see the film before its release. The phenomenon occurred in other cities as well. A few days before the film’s release, Parisian writers were dumbfounded to see some colleagues sharing glowing takes on the film on Twitter, after being told there would be no advance screenings for any of the press. Moreover, what were presented as exclusive interviews with the cast turned out to be prerecorded and pre-approved by the studio. Ahead of its release, the film was to be seen only through pink-tinted glasses.

While it is customary for film studios to try to control the narrative by organising advance screenings if they believe in a film or avoiding them if they don’t, the methods employed for the release of Barbie were more extreme. They are symptomatic of a trend that has been evolving over the past few years and that concerns not only the film criticism profession, but culture at large. If all discussion of a film’s merits before release is left to influencers, whose driving ambition is to receive free merchandise by speaking well of the studio’s products, what can we expect the film landscape to look like? Where will engaging, challenging and, if not completely unbiased then at least impartial conversation about cinema take place, and how is the audience to think critically of what is being sold to it?

[bambiraptorx]

i have an assignment that's due tonight and would take me 5-10 minutes to complete, so naturally I've spent like 3 hours researching prosthetic arms instead

[sanjifucker42069]

Looks Like Lingerie to Me - Sanji x Reader

Word count: 854

We gender-neutral and short af today boys. This is crack treated semi-seriously lmao, and an actual drabble. I love idiot!readers, there isn't enough rep for us dumbasses. This is written with OPLA!Sanji in mind bc I dig the super effective suave vibe

Suggestive, there's swearing, the word cock is used once. Brief description. (Ha! Brief!)

Let's be real...Sanji might wears shirt stays....and that's hot as fuck

It was midday when you found yourself outside the men's quarters. You had been lounging around on the upper deck when Usopp had asked you to grab a wrench he'd left in his room. Fair enough, you weren't doing anything, wouldn't hurt to help. And so you padded off, making your way to the bedroom. It was the middle of the day, no one should be in there. You'd passed Zoro napping against some bags, you could still hear Luffy. Sanji definitely had to be in his domain of the kitchen. Still, you offered a quick courteous knock as you flung open the door to the men's quarters, wandering into the space with no preamble.

"Sorry boys, I gotta grab Usopp's- Holy shit!"

Sanji's head shot up to stare at you, cheeks lightly pink. He was stooped over, pants pooling at his knees. Sure, his thick thighs were enticing, and his position stuck that gorgeous ass out at a delicious angle, but your eyes were fixated on the crossing fabric that adorned his upper legs. Was that…a garter belt? You felt lightheaded at the view before you. He looked delectable. The cook quirked an eyebrow at your staring.

"See something you like, love?" He drawled, sending you a cocky grin. Sanji felt his ego swell when you tripped over your words. Had you actually paid attention, you'd notice how his usual clothes were covered in flour, but you weren't exactly the most perceptive.

"I…thighs." You spoke dumbly, causing you to mentally smack yourself. "I mean, sorry. I didn't think anyone would be in here at this time." 

With great hardship, you tore your eyes away from the garment. It looked like a garter belt, had to be! You always knew Sanji liked fashion, and that he could be a pervert, but you didn't expect him to be unembarrassed at being caught wearing lingerie. As if they were possessed, your eyes trailed their way back to his thighs. The elastic was biting into his thigh meat, bulk deliciously spilling over the edges. Saliva flooded your mouth. What you wouldn't give to touch them. To bite them. Fuck what if you-

Wait. 

Sanji had said something.

"Wha?" 

Nice going idiot.

Sanji had abandoned his grip on the trousers, gracefully dropping them and stepping out of the puddle of fabric. Your breath hitched as he turned to you.

Abort mission! 

Fuck you didn't even look at his underwear. Shit, fuck, that…that was clearly the outline of his cock, a pair of grey boxer briefs doing a horrible job at hiding his silhouette. You were thankful that the length of his dress shirt covered the majority, or you'd be due a visit to chopper from fainting.

"I said can I help you, love?"

An awkward cackle escaped your throat and you blushed. Oh, he could help you alright. Instead, you opened your dumb mouth again.

"Is that…why are you wearing a garter belt?"

Sanji froze. An uncomfortable silence filled the room.

Oh shit! Oh fuck!

You opened your mouth to apologise when that bell-like laugh permeated the awkwardness. 

"What?" He laughed incredulously. "They are shirt stays."

Sanji felt his heart squeeze when you cocked your head confused. You really had no idea how cute you were, did you? Trying to be polite and stop laughing, he coughed into his fist.

"They keep my shirt tucked in sweet thing. Can't be looking unprofessional around you cuties." Sanji winked, smirking with satisfaction as your face grew redder. He expected an 'oh' or a 'sorry'. He certainly didn't expect a;

"I'd call having no pants but lingerie on unprofessional."

"You were the one who bust in here!" He argued. "And it's not lingerie!"

"Ah…sorry about that. I meant to grab a wrench Usopp left in here. I…uh…I should go."

"Mmhmm." 

You wandered stiffly to where Usopp slept, finding the tool with ease, and trying desperately to not look at the cook. Sanji watched you, amusement clear on his face at your robotic movements. Wasting no time, you rushed back to the door. 

"Oh, uh, Sanji?" The man hummed in response. "I, uh, I'm sorry for thinking you were wearing lingerie. Not! Not that there's anything wrong if you were, you'd look hot in it. I mean! I….uh…no, you'd definitely look hot in it. What was I saying?"

Silence. Sanji was staring at you with wide eyes, face now red from your comments. You clicked your fingers.

"Right, right! You should probably put some clothes on. Don't want you catching a cold ha ha." You forced out a robotic laugh. "Sorry again."

You slammed the door shut, leaving a confused and slightly aroused man in your wake. Sanji sighed, making his way back to his sleeping area to change into clean clothes. The door creaked back open. Sanji groaned quietly. Who now?

"You have to admit, they are kinda slutty though, right? Sorry! Bye again!"

You were gone before Sanji could even process your words properly. He groaned audibly this time, raking his hands down his face. He needed a fucking smoke. You were going to be the death of him.

[ricky-mortis]

Ok but Agent Curt Mega with long hair though?

[azaisya]

@just-another-linguist and @melestasflight both requested Fingon which was v exciting. Fingon is one of the characters that really stuck with me the first time I read the Silm, but I’ve never actually drawn him. In my mind this is like a Valinor-era Fingon!

[why-the-heck-not]

I’ve noticed that whenever I have to write anything, the amount of caffeine I drink pretty much doubles, so I think this spring semester is going to be the end of me actually (lots of writing)

[g0nta-g0kuhara]

The burden of finding the truth

(Vaguely inspired by a section of ch17 of Amalgamate.)