All those "spend just 35 minutes doing a bunch of really hard exercises and you'll feel great forever!" videos are really discouraging. I usually end up doing like, 2 minutes of some of his while waiting for my shower to heat up, and ykw?
That's 2 minutes more than I would have done otherwise.
oh hey I have a thing like that last one that I like to do sometimes, but I do it lying down in bed. it's a very satisfying pop/shift in my hips/lower back, but doesn't always work. maybe I will try his version and see if it is more effective for me
A little something that came to me in a burst of inspiration a few evenings ago. I had so much fun writing this one 🤭🤭 Hope you enjoy! (And to the person reading this whose creativity inspires me every day, thank you. The circus has come to town.)
SYN: A giant castle guard tries to win the princess's heart by using every cunning insight he has into her own.
OC content | Premature themes (14+) | ~1,300 words
Winning Affections
Bellametre
“A hundred men,” the giant began, leaning against the castle wall beside Eleanor’s balcony. His guard’s helmet was tucked beneath one arm, and his gauntlets hung from his belt. He tipped his head back with a smile, bright blue eyes flashing as though he could feel her watching him. “Did you know giants have the strength of a hundred men?”
“So with a hundred and one soldiers,” Eleanor said coolly, looking away as the glow in his eyes brightened, “I could cut you down and carve out your heart?”
The giant chuckled. “That’s not very princessy of you.”
Eleanor sighed and turned her attention back to her mirror, fingers massaging around the half-finished braid plaited along her aching temples. She had sent her ladies-in-waiting to fetch lavender oil, honey cakes, and mulled wine.
“Adopted princess,” she corrected.
“Fine,” the giant said. “And yes—you could carve out my heart. But giants are terribly sentimental about their hearts. You’d have to run off with it over the mountains.”
A pause. Eleanor lowered her hands.
“Don’t,” she warned softly.
“What?” the giant said, all innocence. “You’re inferring things, Ellie. I didn’t do anything.”
“You were going to. Don’t pretend—”
“Oh, Majesty,” the giant simpered, spreading his hands. “I’ve been such a monster. Fetch the fire and pitchforks and we’ll get right to the slaying.”
“I’m not queen yet. You can’t call me Majesty.”
The giant lifted an eyebrow. “How about masquerador?”
Eleanor twitched. “Quit it.”
“Oh, you find me charming,” the giant said, standing to stretch his back. He set down his helmet and stepped in front of the balcony. It reached only his chest, and his face filled nearly the entire window.
Eleanor’s eyes flicked toward him despite herself.
“Face it,” he said, grinning. “You’re entranced. I’m glorious. Otherworldly. And I know exactly how to coax you away from your noble responsibilities.”
“Name a single time that’s worked,” Eleanor said dryly.
“Winning the heart of the queen herself? The most famous maiden in the land?”
“I’m not quee—”
“Progress is being made,” he cut in with a shrug. “I’ve had a tactical advantage ever since I joined the personal guard.”
Eleanor snorted.
“You’re not very resourceful,” the giant chided. “You’d miss me if I wasn’t here.”
“I doubt that very much.”
There was the turn of a heel, then a swift and surprisingly silent departure, and Eleanor was alone. The air stirred where he had stood, lifting the apple blossoms scattered across the tiles. A few fluttered down onto her coverlet.
Eleanor gripped the seam of her dress, her heart beginning to pound. She rose and hurried to the railing, the stone cool beneath her palms as she leaned over the edge.
“See, now that’s something,” the giant said, suddenly popping up from below the balcony.
Eleanor jumped and stumbled back, nearly tangling herself in her robes. Her cheeks reddened, and a scolding about leaving a princess unguarded welled up in her mouth, but then the giant smirked, and the words died on her tongue.
“What is?” she asked, defeated.
“Awfully archaic traditions, don’t you think?” the giant went on, lifting a hand beside his face to gesture toward her. “Stuffy gowns. Heavy jewels. Scalp-tearing braids. It’s all a bit much.”
“It’s my coronation.”
“A coronation you don’t have to attend,” the giant said quietly. His eyes were all sky and ocean. “Come on, Ellie. I could whisk you away anywhere you want to go. You only have to ask.”
Eleanor studied him for a long moment. “Why?”
“Hm?”
“That’s what I want,” Eleanor said. “Answers. You’re a guard of the highest rank, a position every other giant in the kingdom covets. Every need you have is provided for tenfold. Why are you so determined to lose that by persuading me to desert?”
The giant tilted his head to the side. “Why do you think?”
Eleanor threw up a hand. “To say you did it! That you persuaded a member of the royal family the monarchy is nothing but folly. That you convinced me to run away of my own volition. That you accomplished something… impossible.”
“Or,” the giant said, stepping closer, “maybe it’s because, since the day you appointed me, I noticed the shadows under your eyes. Or how you sit on this balcony and look toward the mountains whenever you have a free moment. Or how, at the end of the day, you still manage kindness to me, even though this burden is killing you.”
He paused.
“Maybe I thought it was time someone returned the favour.”
Eleanor shook her head, but she couldn't tear her gaze from his eyes. They were too blue, like lapis set into living marble by a master sculptor. Eyes made for bewitching. For promising wild, crystal-cold adventure in places far beyond the mountains.
“Maybe it’s destiny,” the giant continued, inclining toward her. “Maybe it’s because you’re meant to accomplish something impossible.”
Eleanor shifted her weight, but she didn’t move away. “I’m meant to accomplish the impossible?”
“Uh-huh,” the giant whispered. His breath drifted over Eleanor’s bare arms and neck, rustling her hair.
And then his hand. It rose over the balcony slowly, carefully closing the distance and curving behind her, hovering, not quite touching. It was calloused, clean, and larger than her whole body.
“Something perfectly impossible.”
“What?” Eleanor asked, turning her head toward the creases and whorls of his fingers. He smelled of leather and rainclouds, nothing like the monstrous things the kingdom’s gossip liked to imagine. “What impossibility is that?”
The giant’s eyes caught the light. They glowed so blue it seemed they were the only points of light in the world.
“Fly away.”
Eleanor inhaled sharply. She felt the weight of his palm as it finally settled against her from heel to crown, each pulse in his veins a slow, steady rhythm where their skin touched. Her own heartbeat roared in her ears. For a moment she imagined his enormous fingers curling around her waist—firm, but gentle—and the rush of wind lifting her hair as he carried her into the open sky.
She could scarcely catch her breath.
“Lydan…”
“Ellie,” he answered softly. “A hundred men, Ellie. They’d never stop us.”
And then Eleanor laughed.
The giant paused, then pulled back to consider her, his expression searching.
Eleanor shook her head. “I can’t believe you managed to turn that into another proposal.”
“What?” the giant asked, letting Eleanor push his hand away. “I’m easily the greatest opportunity you’re ever going to come across.”
“Don’t,” Eleanor warned, though she was still smiling.
“Well, you can commission me to pillage the castle and steal you away anytime you like,” the giant went on, entirely unperturbed. “Right in the middle of your coronation ceremony. Maybe even—”
“Enough!” Eleanor said. “You’re insufferable.”
“Naturally.”
“And distracting.”
“You like it.”
“Perhaps,” Eleanor admitted. “But that doesn’t mean I’ll—uh—“
The giant laughed. “Run away with the resident monster?”
“Yes,” Eleanor said. “I won’t be running away.”
“So you say,” the giant remarked.
“But I appreciate the effort. And I enjoy your company.”
“I know you do,” the giant said easily. “I wouldn’t bother you if you didn’t.”
“You wouldn’t?”
“No.” He reached out with one last experimental finger to brush gingerly against her side. “What are you so afraid of, Ellie?”
Eleanor sighed and stepped back. “I take my oaths tonight.”
“Ah, yes,” the giant murmured, standing back to his full height. “And then you’ll be a proper queen.”
“I will.”
“And you’ll leave this tower for the throne room.”
“Yes.” Eleanor hesitated. Swallowed. She knew she had command, but… “What will you do?”
The giant grinned.
“Oh, I’m following you there too,” he said lightly. “Winning a queen’s affections sounds far more interesting than winning a princess’s.”
__________________
You can also find this story on my Wattpad under the same username, in my G/t oneshots collection Offset. Constructive comments and feedback are always welcome.
Hey guys you should totally get into this thing i like. Yeah it's mid at best. It also aged poorly. You'll get nothing out of it at all. You'll like the idea of it more than the actual thing. But at least only takes half your natural lifespan to finish it
c!Dream is often viewed as a force of nature, something that can't be tamed (actually pretty true all things considered) which is why it's so alluring when he gets "broken in" or at least appears to be. Someone harnessed the storm, someone tamed the monster in the woods. A being of destruction and havoc is sitting calmly in your living room, wearing the clothes you gave him, and trying not to flinch from your touch
"Hiiiiii Callahan, Hiiiiii!" Sapnap mocks, voice pitched high to imitate Daq's earlier greeting to their shop mechanic. The din of the shop is loud as he strides into the back room of the clubhouse. The door closes too quickly behind him, clacking sharply in the dingy room, but thankfully, it muffles the incessant engine noises.
Daquavis scoffs, even as his cheeks warm. "I did NOT sound like that, bro."
Callahan is hot—he can fix bikes; he likes comic books. He is literally Daq's dream guy. Everybody in this clubhouse can make fun of him for a thousand years over his dumb crush—it's their loss (and his gain) that nobody else seems to see it. He WILL get this quiet, nerdy mechanic to notice him, eventually.
"Sure, Daquavis." Sapnap chuckles, throwing his iconic flame-wreathed helmet onto the messed-up couch—nobody sits there unless they're up for a few springs up their butt. Not that anybody here had bothered to warn him when he was first initiated into the club. Jerks.
Apparently done mocking him for his obvious crush on Callahan (for now), Sapnap shucks off his riding jacket and neatly hangs it up on it's dedicated hook. Daquavis has never seen him put his jacket anywhere else in the place—if it's not over his shoulders, it's up on that exact hook. He's weirdly neat for a guy who doesn't usually bother brushing his hair.
"How are the roads?" Daquavis asks, wanting to change the subject as quickly as possible.
Sapnap soothes down his thick mustache with a wide hand, turning his gaze to meet him. Daq absentmindedly mirrors him, hand stopping it's picking at a thread in the couch to reach for his own face instead. His mustache is thinner than Sapnap's, but it's there.
One day.
"Roads were awesome. Dry as bone!" Sapnap pulls his arm across his chest to stretch out his shoulder. He has a dark patch of sweat around the collar of his t-shirt and between his pecs. "We should set up a circuit in the back—we could test your racing—"
"My racing is fine, bro."
Sapnap's eyebrows rise into his mess of bangs, he grins wide. "Oh yeah? You kinda—I'm just gonna say, you kinda pussied out last time."
"Bro—" Daquavis stutters, but the other man is already interrupting him.
"Nuh-uh, put your jacket on, pussy." Sapnap grabs his own jacket again, yanking it off it's dedicated hook. "Prove it. Show me you know how to race."
I've had my Borderlands AU for a while now, and I've been working on a lot of things dedicated to it.
It's a passion project of mine that combines everything I love and crave in media: an old-fashioned cartoon look, 2D animation, Atlantis- and Sinbad-inspired visuals and storytelling, and characters and dynamics that I personally enjoy. My dream is to create an actual cartoon one day, but for now, that's too much work for one person xD
I started learning animation because I wanted to bring Vaughn, Hedwig and my other characters to life, and I'm slowly getting there 🐸 I haven't posted everything here, and there's a lot more on my Patreon, take a look if you're interested.
I’ve also spent most of this summer struggling with my health after being diagnosed with an autoimmune disease, which is why I haven't posted in a while. I'm slowly getting better now, though. Working on this project gives me life and helps take my mind off things 💀💅
P.S. The three-eyed mutant frog is supposed to search the ground for truffles and other edible things, like chicken-flavored larvae, lol. That was my idea.
Don't forget to look for more frogs hidden in some of the artwork!
canon is what happens in the text. e.g. merlin tries to poison morgana
a headcanon is a fact that you have personally made up as an elaboration of canon. it is your invention. e.g. i think morgana and gwen had a teenage lesbian situationship before the events of canon. or, i think modern morgana would love evanesence.
an interpretation is how one reads the existing text. it is not an invented fact nor is it a headcanon, it is a reading. e.g. i think merlin tries to poison morgana out of misplaced self-hatred. or, i think that one line was delivered with suppressed malice and shows a nuanced relationship.
fanon is the general fandom’s accepted headcanons and interpretations that elaborate or recontextualize canon. e.g. merlin is a badass waif and morgana is a bitch.
these are all different words with different meanings.
Rewatching the November 16th stream and made crazy by how much prodding Dream does of Techno. He knows Techno wouldn't stand for any of this and just craves the chaos that he can create. He knows Techno and his ideals that well. He knew that even if for whatever reason Wil didn't hit the button, it didn't matter. He knew how the people who started L'Manburg were, and he knew how Techno would respond to their desires. They just. I love them
honestly, i think c!techno was too close to the situation to see how things were going to go. like, he clearly knew things were off and he had all the warning signs, but i've said it before that sometimes he overlooks things that conflict with what he wants because he doesn't want that conflict between him and the people he considers a friend.
and c!dream was well aware of what was going to happen! so yeah, he was telling techno that. he was letting him know 'i have your back' - he said that outright. when it goes the way he knows it's gonna go, techno will know that he's on the same side.
It lets people access scientific articles for free. This is dangerous. It helps the free flow of knowledge and reduces the competitive edge of all the people who worked really hard to have been born into a wealth.
Like, it’s literally a website where you can type in the DOI of an article and read it, without ever having to pay the publisher who exploited the author.
So, again, do not, under any circumstance, use Sci-Hub. I mean, can you imagine a world where knowledge is free and easily accessible to everyone? Even, y'know, poor people?
Libgen also has many books online, including textbooks, searchable by name, author, and ISBN. Can you imagine textbook companies not getting their hard-earned income from poor college students? Here is the link just so you make sure that you never accidentally stumble across this horrible, unethical website.
Oh, and while we’re talking about books, if you’ve managed to stay clear from Libgen, definitely don’t go to zlibrary, where you can also find a lot of textbooks, but unfortunately they’re completely free.
Another inside tip from academia: Those papers in really expensive journals that are effectively inaccessible to anyone not in a university network? Depending on the discipline it’s very likely that same paper is on a “preprint” server somewhere, with no access restrictions.
Like if you want to read basically any physics, math, or CS paper, arXiv.org will have you covered, because everyone uploads their papers there before submitting to a journal (and generally updates it after peer review). I know all of my papers are on there. This is such common practice that journals have it baked into their licensing agreements that authors retain the right to upload their work to these places.
So the next time you get hit with that paywall, you may not even need sci-hub, just click the arxiv link on google scholar instead.
if for some reason none of this works, the old “send a email nicely asking for the paper to the author” is always a good trick. remember most scientists hate the commercialisation of scientific knowledge
Many authors of papers are on ResearchGate! You can ask for papers there, if they don’t just post a copy to download. If they’re associated with a college, you can usually find their email addresses in the department directory, also.
I like to think that AO3 and fanfiction are a bastion against dead internet theory. Sure, there's the AI and the bots, but at its heart fandom is still a community of passionate people going "LOOK AT WHAT I MADE" and having people go "THAT'S SO COOL" right back.
So yeah. You wanna beat the bots? Make things. Comment. The internet's not dead as long as you're still here making noise.
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