I Think Chapter 2 Of TriMax Volume 6 Might Just Be My Favorite Thus Far. Everything In It Hinges On This

work hacks for massage therapists part 1 (joke)

It's a stinking hot summer afternoon and the client doesn't want the fan on, or perhaps a frosty winter morning with the heaters on full blast. It's time to get creative: your sweat dripping onto the client's back isn't sweat, it's essential oil. Sea salt and musk. Why yes, of course it's supposed to be this pungent, it's for clearing the sinuses. You're welcome.

put you in the spotlight |110823 - Collab with XPPEN on Twitter

he has the ultimate power

✨ print ✨

“look at it, you know i can’t!” consider this your daily reminder that disabled people are the funniest people on earth

saiki k fanfiction is visceral

The Disastrous Life of Saiki K is something like 75% gag with the rest being fluff and serious, and the fanfiction that focuses on the 25% is so fucking visceral.

The negative side effects of Saiki's powers are described with graphic depictions of migraines, nausea and dizziness. The slow, reluctant realization that his friends like him and he likes them is heavy, sad and joyous. Makoto and Kusuke's behavior goes from pathetic to dangerous, with the horror of it written so vividly I have to take a break from reading. The autism and aro/ace vibes, already present and relatable in canon are even stronger.

The difference between canon and fanfiction, wow.

GO HARD OR GO HOME.

Next year marks twenty years since the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory film was released, and I'm wondering what a 2025 remake would look like.

The kids still have their gimmicks, but on social media. Augustus has a food blog. Veruca posts her shopping hauls on Tiktok. Violet has her own chewing gum line. Mike streams his gaming.

The Bucket family have two, maybe three ancient flip top phones between them on the cheapest prepaid plan available.

At the factory entrance Wonka demands all phones be handed in or turned off inside, no filming allowed. Maybe the factory has its own, very weird intranet system that does odd things to outside devices when you try to secretly film stuff? Could be a good modern update to the story so long as social media adds to the wackiness instead of taking over.

New reality show idea: house renovation competition called "Generation Wars" and all the couples are, obviously, from different generations. They're all terrible at reno and their taste all embodies the worst stereotypes of their generation e.g. the millennial pair likes to paint everything beige or white.

Viewers will hate-watch the crap out of it and roast the contestants online after each episode. The contestants could use their tiktok to keep up the hype and hate between episodes.

Gen alpha are probably too young to compete, but maybe they could be assistants or guest judges?

have a vash (yet again)

Trigun: Stampede, Wolfwood, and Food

So, I think a major part of any worldbuilding should always involve food, and where it comes from. The worldbuilding around No Man's Land in Trigun: Stampede is a little tricky in this regard, since there's shown to be no real agriculture or plant life (Meryl's utter shock at the "flora" on Ship Three as a total foreign phenomenon suggests it's more rare than in the manga) so sustainable human-friendly food sources are rare and not really addressed. We see characters eating worms, and presumably there's whatever it is worms eat, and beyond that, it's suggested that pretty much all of humankind's nutrition comes from plants.

The desert dudes living off worm meat refer to "plant-based food" as an "extravagance" in the opening scene of episode 4 (aptly named "Hungry"). Meryl, by contrast, is grossed out by the idea of eating worm meat -- I think we can infer then, that Meryl, being a college-educated city girl, probably had regular access to Plant-generated food, while Outlanders are more dependent on alternative sources of nutrition.

Wolfwood, I think, falls closer to the latter category -- He's very used to eating worms, as we see in this episode, not even flinching at grabbing and devouring a whole worm, and even smoked dried worm legs as a kid in a later flashback, so supplementing his diet and other aspects of his life with worms is probably something he's used to doing for survival:

And I gotta say, the way Wolfwood antagonizes the others about eating worm-based food?

Yeah, it's a power play in some respects -- he's making a point to Vash about 'kill or be killed' to survive when he catches and throws a worm at him, and he's taunting Meryl to get a rise out of her with the roasted worm meat at the end of the episode.

But there's something very "Gross Big Brother" about it -- he's antagonizing them, but there's also some underlying level of care in it. He is showing Vash how Wolfwood thinks it's necessary to survive; he's bullying Meryl into eating the food that's available, because Wolfwood probably grew up with the understanding that you couldn't afford to turn your nose up at whatever food you got.

It's food, it's there, it's a valuable and scarce resource, and as much of an asshole as Stampede!Wolfwood is, he has those ingrained big brother instincts to look out for those around him. And food is an important part of that, because when you live with scarcity, food is life.

The whole bit with Zazie in disguise might be a charade (assuming Wolfwood already clocked Zazie from the get-go and it didn't take the worm devouring them for that card to be revealed) but it still pulls from Wolfwood's characterization in the '98 anime where he gives two of his last pieces of food to a couple of hungry-looking kids:

And the sentiment of "you still deserve to eat" as an expression of care is still real for him, especially given his smile when Vash repeats his words, finally eating some of the worm meat at the end of episode four:

Our worldbuilding implication is that food is scarce and rare in the Outlands, and Wolfwood is someone who knows how to survive by any means possible -- including eating whatever is available -- which is something he's nonetheless willing to share with others, because at his core he's a decent person who isn't as selfish as he may pretend to be.

And food is one hell of a love language.