#we have all the time in the world baby

[egophiliac]

starting off with an amuse-bouche of some of my initial favorite bits! y'all, this update was WILD.

[luck-of-the-drawings]

[<==PREV PAGES] [NEXT PAGE==>(not out yet.wait a year.or maybe more.imagine.]

saw alot of comments on prev pages; saying 'i HATE that mean teacher! im gonna FIGHT HIM!!' & i LOVE the energy!! it WOULD be nice. to have that catharsis. but the story of young tidestrider is Not one of catharsis. it is a story of being so small and so special and sucking so bad.

[moongothic]

...So Crocodile could beat Akainu

Good to know

Sidenote but that did make me realize how when we see the Impel Down prisoners in Level 4, Oda does semi-consistently draw everyone sweating their asses off, which makes sense, since they're in the Inferno Hell. It is focken hot in there.

But then there's Crocodile and dude never breaks a sweat

Like to be fair there are a few characters who don't seem to be bothered by the heat of Level 4 either (Iva-chan, Sadi-chan etc)

But when you considder the sheer amount of fucking layers this man is wearing, like. You know what. Crocodile being completely heat-resistant up to 1700 Celcius makes perfect sense to me, I'll add that to my worldview, it's canon to me now.

[thedeadthree]

𝐃𝐑𝐀𝐆𝐎𝐍 𝐀𝐆𝐄: 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐕𝐄𝐈𝐋𝐆𝐔𝐀𝐑𝐃 ➸ irulanne . the rook .

𝐌𝐎𝐔𝐑𝐍 𝐖𝐀𝐓𝐂𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐒 . 𝐄𝐋𝐅 . 𝐃𝐄𝐀𝐓𝐇 𝐂𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐄𝐑 𝐌𝐀𝐆𝐄 .

-`. template by @jacobseed . coloring . icons .

✧ ― 𝐓𝐀𝐆𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓 (ask to be added or removed or interact 𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞!!):

@pavus, @wlwaerith, @shadowsofrose, @grapecaseschoices, @nokstella

@queennymeria, @risingsh0t, @carrionsflower, @leviiackrman, @griffin-wood

@confidentandgood, @aceghosts, @tommyarashikage, @shadowglens, @yharnams

@anoras, @theelderhazelnut, @florbelles, @celticwoman, @pinkfey

@kyberinfinitygems, @cloudofbutterflies92, @carlosoliveiraa, @shellibisshe, @adelaidedrubman

@lavampira, @capelizabeth, @socially-awkward-skeleton, @statichvm, @unholymilf

@aezyrraeshh, @imogenkol, @aceghosts, @full---ofstarlight, @ellierenae

[nicnacsnonsense]

You know, I think Clark and Lex’s relationship really could have benefited from a safe word. Something either of them could have said to the other to communicate “your current line of inquiry is infringing on my privacy in a way I cannot elaborate on without further compromising my privacy, so I need you to redirect or drop it.”

[tortellinigirl]

i think the adult relationship to the childhood dog is something that is so tender and heart-wrenching and important. you are the last vestige of my childhood. you are the sacred keeper of the memories i hold dearest, but you can barely see or hear me anymore. who do i become once you’re gone? where do i turn to remember myself? you’re the last one sitting next to me at the door of a childhood home that no longer exists, waiting patiently for the return of a family that no longer exists. where can i live when you, too, no longer exist? i can’t let go. please don’t make me let go. i know you’ll leave soon. i wish you didn’t have to. but she’s just a dog. her life is short and i will witness her death and i’ve known this from the beginning. i didn’t think it would come so fast. am i ready? have i become someone yet? have i become unrecognizable to her yet? does she still see the child i was? i’m still the child i was. please, don’t forget the child i was. please don’t take her away from me.

[oatbugs]

Jack Marsh (2005), Friendship Otherwise - Toward a Levinasian Description of Personal Friendship

[oopsallmabari]

....why are the youtube comments so mad lol don't y'all like to have fun. don't we like to have fun here

[aq2003]

i saw a post saying boom was good bc it feels like it could be done with any doctor/companion duo and honestly that was one of the things i felt was wrong with it

[yellowocaballero]

Been a fan of your fics for YEARS. I was just telling my friend how despite how much I read fics I never actually love them, with some of your fics (especially TMA) as the exception. Felt the need to reread some of them and saw you reblogged some ISAT fanart. So. Any thoughts on ISAT you'd like to share?

Hope you have a wonderful day!! So happy I found your fics again!!

I avoided answering this for a while because I was trying to think of a way to cohesively and coherently vocalize my thoughts on In Stars and Time. I have given up because I don't want to hold everybody here all day and I have accepted that my thoughts are just pterodactyl screeching.

I love it so much. I have so much to say on it. It drove me bonkers for like a week straight. I have AUs. It's absolute Megbait. They're just a little Snufkin and they're having the worst experience of anybody's life. Ludonarratives my fucking beloved.

I am going to talk about the prologue.

The prologue is such a fascinating experience. You crack open the game and immediately begin checking off all of the little genre boxes: mage, warrior, researcher, you're the rogue...some little kid who's there for some reason...alright, you know the score. You're in yet another indie Earthbound RPG, these are your generic characters, let's get the ball rolling.

Except then you realize that these characters are people. You feel instantly how you've entered the game at its last dungeon, at the end of the adventure. They have their own in-jokes, histories, backgrounds, adventures. They get along well and they're obviously close, but not in a twee or unrealistic way. They have so much chemistry and spirit and life. I fell in love with them so quickly.

But Sif doesn't. Sif kind of hates them, because they will not stop saying the same damn thing. They walk the same paths, do the same things, make the same jokes, expect Sif to say the same lines. They keep referencing a Sif we do not see, with jokes we never see him make and heroic personality he never shows - they reference a Sif who is dead - and Sif can't handle that, so he kills them too.

They become only an exercise in tedious frustration. Sif button mashes through their dialogue, Sif mindlessly clicks the same dialogue options, Sif skips through the tutorial, Sif blows through the puzzles. Sif turns their world into a video game. Sif is playing a generic RPG. Sif forgets their names. They are no longer people with in-jokes, histories, backgrounds, adventures. They're the mage, the warrior, the researcher, and...some random kid.

I did not understand the Kid's presence at first. I had no idea what they contributed to the game. They didn't do anything. As a party member in a video game, they're a bit useless. Why is the Kid there?

Because Sif's life isn't a video game. Because the kid isn't 'the kid'. They're Bonnie. Bonnie, who the party loves. Why is Bonnie there? Because they love them. There is no room for Bonnie in the boring RPG that Sif is playing. And then you realize that Sif is wrong, and that they've lost something extremely important, and that they'll never escape without it.

Watching the prologue before watching ISAT gave ISAT the most unique air of dread and horror, because you crack open ISAT and you see the person Sif used to be. You realize that Sif used to be a person. Sif used to be the person who made jokes, who gave real smiles, who interacted with the world as if they are a part of it. And you know you are sitting down to watch Sif lose everything that made them a person, to lose everything that made them a member of this world, and turn them into a character in a video game who doesn't understand the point of Bonnie at all.

At the climax of the game, when the others realize that something is deeply wrong and that Sif physically cannot tell them, they realize that there is nothing they can do. So Bonnie declares snacktime. And for the first time they have snacktime.

What is snacktime? Classic JRPGs don't have snacktime. There's literally no point to a snacktime - not in a video game, and not in Sif's terrible life. It's not fixing this, because nothing can fix this. But Bonnie gives Sif a cookie and Sif eats it.

It's meaningless. It's a cutscene. It didn't save Sif and it didn't change a thing. It will make no difference in the end.

But it did make the difference. It made all of the difference in the world. Bonnie is a character who you really don't understand the point of before you realize that Bonnie was the entire point.

ISAT is about comfort media. Why do we play the same video games over and over again? Why do we avoid watching the finale of our favorite shows? What is truly comforting: a story with no conflict, or a story where you always know what is about to happen? Do you want to live in a scary, uncontrollable world, or do you want to play Stardew Valley? Do you want a person or a character?

When I beat Earthbound for the first time (and if you don't know, the prologue/ISAT battle system is just Mother) and watched the ending cutscene where the characters part ways and say goodbye...I felt a little bit sad. I wanted them to be together forever. But that's something only characters could ever be.

[flashanimated]

BEEN DOWN THIS ROAD BEFORE,

ALREADY KNOW THIS STORY.

[swampthingking]

the thought of cracking the spine of a book makes kevin nauseous. he like opens it just enough to see the words and holds the book at such uncomfortable angles to read— anything to keep the book pristine and intact. he does not let people borrow his books because he is a control freak (as a term of endearment) and does not trust them to take care of them the way he does.

and andrew is the complete opposite, cracking the spine as soon as he opens it. he annotates in pen. he dog ears the pages because who the fuck has time to find a bookmark. he throws books out of anger. he throws them at aaron for fun. he lets them get smashed and torn in his bag. he always keeps them, he just prefers them to look like they’ve been read.

[unfinishedslurs]

do u love the colors of the comphet

When it’s over, when Henry Creel is dead and dust and they’ve emerged battered and triumphant. When she and Jonathan have ended things. When there is no more fighting to be done, she and Steve give it another go. 

She knows he’s going to ask the same way she knew in ‘83. There’s no waiting this time, no need to wonder if Jonathan might want her too. They gave it the old college try (He lied to her. He was lying to her for months, and she knew something was wrong before that. She thought they could work it out. She’s so fucking sick of lying to herself being lied to). 

He asks with wide, hopeful eyes, running a nervous hand through his hair. He doesn’t have anything to be nervous about. She made up her mind before he even asked. 

She can do it right this time. She can love this boy the way she wants to. The way he wants her to. They’ve both grown in the years since. She’s going to do this right. 

That’s the mantra she keeps in her head when he picks her up and spins her. I can do this. 

She can’t do this. 

It’s somehow the same and different from when they dated the first time. They’re going through the same motions, but there’s something lacking. They’re both older, more jaded. They’re not kids anymore, and it shows. 

They rarely kiss. He hesitates now in a way he didn’t before. Sex is something they don’t bring up at all. Eddie makes a crude joke once, something or other about what Nancy is like in bed, and she and Steve make eye contact. There’s something there, something like mutual understanding, before Robin smacks Eddie upside the back of the head and the moment breaks. She keeps thinking about it long after. Whatever it is that they shared, they don’t talk about it. 

Maybe they’re lying to themselves, both of them. Puppets going through the motions, too stubborn to admit they’re play acting as real people. Still, she can’t give this up. She can’t make the same mistakes all over again. 

Robin corners her two months into the relationship. Part of Nancy is surprised it took her this long. The rest of her is angry she brings it up at all. 

Saying she’s cornered might be doing her a disservice. They’re having a sleepover, painting their nails and talking about boys. Everything a girl is supposed to do. Except Robin is awkward and fumbling, and every name she brings up sounds like a question. Nancy only has Steve to talk about, and barely talks about him at all. 

Finally Robin sighs and puts down the nail polish. “I feel like this subject is making us both miserable,” she declares. “I don’t want to talk about boys, I was just doing it because I thought that’s what you’re supposed to do at girl sleepovers. I haven’t actually been to a sleepover since I was in middle school and the other girls decided I was weird, but I’m pretty sure the point is to have fun. This is not fun. This is agonizing. We should talk about something else.”

“Steve isn’t making me miserable!” She snaps, before realizing she sounds way too defensive. 

Robin peers at her. “Yeah, see, that’s not what I said. That’s not even a little bit close to what I said. Maybe we should talk about this instead. What’s the deal with you and Steve?”

“What deal? There’s no deal.” She turns around and rummages through the nail polish selection. Robin doesn’t exactly have a variety. Her options are red, dark red, and black. She chooses the brighter red with the absent thought that the black would look good on Robin, with her long fingers and dark eyeliner. Then she banishes that thought away. 

“There’s definitely some kind of deal.”

“There isn’t.”

“Nance.” 

She can’t help but turn around then, drawn in by the tone of her voice. There’s a glass wall inside of her, and someone is pounding on it, trying to get out. She wants Robin to see it. She wants someone to see behind the glass. There’s something in her trying to get out. 

“Nancy,” she says again, eyes searing into her soul, “are you happy?”

She smiles, fake and fixed on her face. The glass stays firmly in place.  “Of course I am,” she replies. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

The next time Robin wants to hang out, she’s busy with college preparations. 

It’s not just Robin. She thinks everyone can tell something’s wrong with her. Eddie gives her these looks every time she and Steve are in front of him, like he’s putting together a puzzle. Her mom keeps trying to talk to her. Jonathan keeps trying to talk to her. 

They know, she thinks wildly, every time. She doesn’t know what it is they know. She doesn’t want to find out. 

She avoids them all. 

When she and Steve go to dinner, the waitress captivates her. 

Long, dark hair in braids. Long fingers tapping against the notepad. Dark eyes in a dark face. She’s always loved brown eyes. Nancy has never been one to be jealous of other girls (lie, lie, lie), but suddenly heat floods her body. She wants to be as gorgeous as this woman. She wants her full lips, popping gum. She wants the woman’s swaying hips as she turns and leaves their table. She wants— she wants—

She tears her gaze away to find Steve already looking at her. 

The heat is dosed by the ice that fills her veins. All her senses go on high alert until she realizes he’s actually staring past her. She turns around to see the bartender. He’s handsome, she thinks, tall with tan skin and brown hair carefully styled. He’s talking to a customer, teeth shining as he laughs. 

When she turns back, Steve has firmly fixed his eyes on her. She could almost believe he’d never been staring at the bartender at all. 

There’s something there. Something just out of reach, something she could put a finger out and touch if she were braver. She doesn’t. There’s no gun in her hand here, no adrenaline to keep her going after it all falls apart. 

“What did your dumb boyfriend do this time?” Mike demands, storming in her room. Nancy has half a mind to yell at him to knock first before she registers his words. 

“Steve is- Steve is fine,” she says, startled. “He’s great, actually. Nothings wrong.“

“Then why are you so miserable all the time?” Mike accuses. 

“I am not miserable!”

“You are! You both are, and neither of you will tell anyone what’s wrong, or why-“

“I don’t know why!” She shrieks. Mike falls silent, eyes wide, and Nancy suddenly realizes she’s crying. 

“I don’t know why,” she repeats. “Everything is fine. He’s like, the perfect fucking boyfriend. It’s me, I’m the problem. There’s something wrong with me. There’s a beautiful boy who loves me, and I’m- I’m trying. I’m trying so hard to love him back, but I can’t. I can’t. There’s something wrong with me.” She’s desperate now, wiping away tears as she curls into a ball. She feels pathetic, crying in front of her little brother. She’s the oldest, she should be keeping it together, she shouldn’t let him see her like this. But she can’t help it. There’s something in her screaming to get out. 

Mike, with all the grace and bewilderment of a newborn deer, gingerly pats her shoulder. 

“Have you…talked to Steve about it?”

She gives him a cutting look. It’s probably not as effective as she wants it to be, with her red eyes and tear streaked face. Mike holds his hands up. 

“I’m just saying! He’s your boyfriend, you should talk to him. And if you don’t want him to be your boyfriend, you should really talk to him.”

“I want him to be my boyfriend, I just need to get past whatever this is—“

“Nancy,” Mike says. “It’s not just you. He’s miserable too.”

“Because of me. I just need to—“

Mike shakes his head. “I don’t think it is. If it were because of you, he’d be acting different. More…kicked puppy, or whatever. He’s just being weird,  and won’t tell anyone why. Dustin said he asked Robin, and she doesn’t even know.”

Nancy doesn’t have anything to say to that. 

“I think you need to talk to him,” he says again. “I think you need to talk to each other.”

“When did you get so smart?” She asks, instead of crying again. 

“I’ve always been smarter than you.”

She kicks him for that blatant lie.

“Are we holding onto a dead thing?” She asks out loud. 

He rolls over and looks at her. She’s worried she’s hurt his feelings, broken his heart again, killed any chance they have at a relationship, romantic or not. Then he snorts. 

“Robin got to you too, huh?” He asks, flopping back onto his back to look up at the sky. 

“Mike, actually.”

“Mike? That shithead? What does he know about relationship problems?”

“Are we having relationship problems?”

“I mean,” he says, wry twist to his mouth, “we haven’t had any arguments.”

“Nope.”

“Or general drama.”

“That might be debatable.”

“There’s no need to spice up our sex life.”

She snacks him for that one, and he laughs. She props herself up to look him in the eye. His face is more open than she’s seen it the entire time they’ve been dating. 

“I think you have to be in a relationship to have ‘relationship problems,’” she tells him. “Are we in a relationship?”

He visibly considers this. “I mean, I asked you out, and you said yes. And we never broke up.”

“We haven’t kissed in at least two weeks.”

“Did you want to?”

She takes a moment to think about it. “Not really,” she admits, and his face splits into a grin. 

“Not that you’re not still wonderful, Nancy Wheeler,” he says, teeth shining, “but I don’t think I want to kiss you either. Isn’t that weird?”

When they dated in high school, it was like he couldn’t stand being away from her. He spent every moment he could kissing her, wherever he could. Sometimes it felt almost like a performance he put on for the people around them, lifting her up and spinning her just so everyone would know how in love they were. It was stifling at times, feeling like something to prove. Still, it was how he was, so in love he could burst with it. 

Now, she wonders if it was always a performance. Maybe they’ve both been on a stage, and neither of them noticed the lights blinding them until now. 

“It is a little weird,” she says finally.

“Right?!”

He holds out a hand to shake, the other one firmly in his pocket. God, she wishes she could love him. “Good go, eh Wheeler?” He asks, smile crooked and shaky. 

She snorts. “We made ourselves and everyone around us miserable,” she points out. But she takes his hand. 

[shima-draws]

So apparently my brain has decided to get back into Sonic again I say already 27 episodes through rewatching Sonic X. Anyway. I love my kids ESPECIALLY Chris to this day I do not understand why people hate on him so much. He’s baby

[hauntingblue]

Stampede aka another episode of luffy turning haters into dick riders just with his kind and big heart

[iwoulddieforienzo]

Something that makes reading TOA so devastating is how fucking much Apollo feels about Everything. There’s so MUCH. Like I don’t even know how to describe it to you if you haven’t read the books yourself. He has so many complicated thoughts and emotions about just about everything and he cares about everything so much and there is just SO MUCH going on in his head. And yet none of it ever reaches his mouth!!

He almost never says what he’s feeling. What little comes out of his mouth about his thoughts barely even scratches the surface of what he actually means. Like he’ll be having a long ass monologue about how incredible someone is, showing a deep understanding of them as a person and empathizing with them so hard you’d almost think it’s projection but it’s not he’s legitimately just mind melding with this random person he met like a week ago and he’s thinking the softest, kindest thoughts about them like he knows they’re fucking incredible - and what comes out of his mouth is just like, “you’re a wonderful friend :)” AND ITS LIKE. THERES SO MUCH MORE UNDER THE SURFACE. the sheer admiration and adoration he has for everyone around him……… UGHHH!!! But he never VOICES ANY OF IT!!!!!! He never tells anyone about what Zeus did to him……. He never tells anyone except the reader about his realization that Zeus is abusive…. He never even tells commodus about how much he adored him, not then and not now… he refuses to tell anyone when he’s in pain or tries to justify the things he does when he actually had Decent Reasons for why he did something… I’m. I’M. AUGH. AHHHHH

HE DOESN’T EVEN TELL US ALL OF HIS THOUGHTS IS THE THING. THERES EVEN MORE THAT HE IS NOT TELLING US!!!!! THE FUCKING OCEAN OF FEELINGS AND THOUGHTS HE HAS ABOUT EVERYTHING IS THE CLIFF NOTES VERSION. I AM IN DISTRESS.

And YET…. Even what slips out of his mouth is so fucking devastating it is SO devastating. He’s so fucking kind and gentle with Harley and Meg and and other younger Demis and his kids… he’ll act like an obstinate idiot and then turn around say something that drags the core of the person he’s talking to into the light like nail on the fucking HEAD like he reached into their soul and gave them the words to express something that they were struggling to say aloud or that they didn’t even realize about themself. Around the 2nd book he starts putting voice to some of his feelings and thoughts about others and even that tiny fucking sliver is overwhelming to the people he’s talking to bc he’s SO. AUGHHHH