Plotting

Who’s more sexually desirable: Scar or Thanos?

No context; no middle ground. Choose your fighter.

there are 2 main types of waves. wind waves and swell. wind waves (called chop when the period is short) are caused by present wind kicking up the surface of the water. this is where you see little whitecaps and generally pointy, uneven waves. swell is caused by powerful sustained wind whose waves have traveled a long way and developed into consistent self-perpetuating wave forms, and looks like long smooth waves; the energy is coming from the sea itself. swell is the thing that makes you feel like the entire ocean is heaving & is what throws ships around. the sea state is usually described as a combination of swell (the ground movement of the sea) and chop (the movement of the surface) so you might say we have a 4 foot swell (measured from the trough at the bottom to the crest at the top of a large heap of water) plus 2 foot chop (smaller waves closer together on top of the swell). swell is the hardest to get in photo or video in a way that shows its true size, especially if you're shooting on your phone for an instagram story from the bridge of a ship, but if you were say making a 70mm film adaptation of a story where the main character is being tortured by the ocean itself you would probably want to figure that out. because you generally need swell in order to get any kind of impressive motion going on*

*EXCEPT in storms, when the winds are so strong that the wind waves themselves "heap up" and can become mountainous without a preexisting ground swell (when the waves escape the storm or the storm ends these waves will sort themselves out and continue as swell). wind waves obviously behave differently and have different features in higher winds. the beaufort scale is the tool used internationally by mariners and meteorologists to determine wind speed in unprotected waters and describes the features of gale-force, storm-force, hurricane-force winds.

so for example when i'm driving a small work boat at my job, if i notice long streaks of foam starting to run down the backs of the waves, that's my cue to call in and consider ending operations for the day, because on paper my operational limit is sustained 30 knot winds (in that anything higher increases my level of risk). you can see how things get more impressive the higher the winds get, and based on this you can imagine the kind of things we'd expect odysseus to encounter. spindrift is when the wind is so strong that it breaks the surface tension of the water without interacting with any object and all the crests look like they're steaming, it's super cool to see. here's a really good video of the waves caused by "violent storm" winds so you can get a sense of what it might look like if the ocean was mad at you. we want mountainous waves blocking out the horizon.

here's a shot of a "storm" from the odyssey trailer.

so check the scale. this is literally described as a Gentle Breeze. like a Moderate Breeze if we're being generous. what else can you say. this is 2 seconds after a guy gets swept overboard by a wave. obviously the trailer doesn't represent the entire movie but i watched the whole three hours of that and i would say that the bigger seas occasionally got up to 3 foot swell with 2 foot chop, but usually just a 1-4ft chop on flat ocean. it's possible that it got up to force 6 but definitely not above that and im not sure it got that high, i mostly just remember confused seas with a lot of quick, smooth chop (this kind of behavior doesn't affect boats at all). occasionally it looked like they would try to use a powerboat wake to simulate swell but they shot way too close to the origin (and you can't get big swell that way) and just ended up with more sharp, confused-looking waves

as for the on-deck shots, the behavior of the ship and the conditions on deck were obviously totally inconsistent with the environment, but also comically inaccurate even for the conditions they were pretending to be in? so like first of all the ship was almost always rolling side to side, which IS the scariest and most dangerous type of motion especially in a boat shaped like that, but if you're in a storm you should be turning your boat to point into the waves so that you're pitching fore and aft instead of killing everyone on board. we should be seeing the prow dive into the front of a wave and have green water flood the front of the ship and then see nothing but sky a second later. in a ton of these "matt damon is wet and getting splashed with white water" scenes you can see the flat sea in the background and they often stop trying to make it look like the ship is moving at all from one shot to the next. the spray they throw at the crew is imo not enough to snatch someone off a deck like that, and it all looks like white water that comes from waves hitting the side of a boat and splashing up, but in a lot of cases the direction it comes from makes no physical sense. maybe that's poseidon idk. what you should see instead in this kind of situation is a whole wave breaking OVER the side of the boat and basically a solid wall of water sweeping people away, but you need big waves for that.

this is stuff that directors of maritime films work hard to perfect. even major directors like ridley scott (white squall), peter weir (master and commander), baltasar kormákur (adrift -- similar size ship to the odyssey btw), ang lee (life of pi) have developed and used strategies for showing us waves and storms that are exciting and impressive and scary. it IS understood to be an essential element of competence in this kind of film. of all these The Odyssey should be the most epic. it's The Odyssey. all maritime literature is descended from The Odyssey. but christopher nolan didn't seem interested in spending more than $100 of his thousand morbillion dollar budget on the main antagonist of the story.

(you do not have to follow the beliefs associated with the style if that style has associated beliefs. The wheel curse does not affect anything like that.)

Nightlight 💡

Jason and Duke sleeping inspired by something I read where Jason used Duke as a reading light but I’ve been searching for like an hour and I can’t find it for the life of me idk if it was a fic or on tumblr😭. If anyone knows what it is PLSS lmkk🙏🙏

Without the glowing below vv

I GOT FANART!!! I'm gonna cry! It's so perfect! That's exactly how I imagined Duke's glow 😍😍😍

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

I'm going to add this to the fic right now.

You may need to learn how to set up your paints and such… but this is what people did, live, while the show aired. That’s what the show was for. I had family members create lovely works of art they enjoyed, which I still have on my walls, because William Alexander and Bob Ross both said:

SCREW METICULOUS CLASSICAL ART PRACTICES — JUST GRAB A PALETTE KNIFE AND BIG OLD BRUSH AND PAINT!

They freed a whole generation of people who were taught to paint detail and realism and exact representation of reality — people who largely gave up this kind of thing because it got tedious.

I watched the joy of family members as they rediscovered art as a messy fun spontaneous half hour activity.

“Chief Hakoda?” the Prince of the Kill It With Fire Nation repeats, like his brain is as stupid as his face. Or like he just realized he’s taken a high-value hostage, redeemable for one (1) ransom against an enemy leader.

“Did I say Chief Hakoda?” Sokka laughs, nervously. “I meant, ah—”

“Shut up, peasant,” the prince shouts. And then sort of… chokes on his own words, getting redder and redder.

---

“Perhaps a break, Prince Zuko?” says Uncle, like this is… like this is the tea-time social he’s set the table for. 

Zuko is in the hallway with the door slammed behind him before he can think. Thinking. Thinking is a thing he needs to do, and Uncle’s proverbs only ever leave his thoughts feeling twisted around, and—

And that is not a peasant that sacrificed himself, to give the Avatar a chance to flee. That’s a fellow prince, or whatever the Water Tribe would call him.

---

“So,” Sokka says, spinning the teacup between his cuffed hands contemplatively. “How much poison would you say is in here? And what kind?”

The old man is sputtering indignantly, but Sokka is very seriously considering taking his first sip. If it’s laced with something to loosen his tongue, well, can’t get much worse there. It’s not like he knows where his dad is. Or anything useful. Certainly not more useful than handing the Fire Nation the son of their fleet’s leader. And if it’s something deadly, well...

He doesn’t know what his dad would do or give to get him back. But it wouldn’t be good, for the war or the world or their tribe.

He figured he’d die, when he’d shouted at Katara to go, take him and go. He hadn’t realized how much worse this could get. Was getting. Because the son and heir of Fire Lord Burn Them All was out in the hallway, thinking. 

---

Zuko thinks. About what his own father would do, if he were to receive a ransom letter. The disappointment. The… repercussions. 

---

“You’re what?” Sokka asks. 

“I am releasing you,” His Shoutiness repeats, through clenched and grinding teeth.

“Huh,” Sokka says, and takes another sip from his cup, because oh, this is hallucinogenic tea. Good stuff. “Care to explain that?”

---

No, Zuko wants to shout. But this is the fellow son of a world leader. Zuko hasn’t had many friends, and he’s not looking to add the Water Prince to that atrophied number, but. 

But he could understand.

“You stood and fought when you could not win, for a cause you believed in,” Zuko said, and he didn’t know why Uncle suddenly looked so pained. “I will not demand trinkets from your father for your return. If he hears of this, it will not be from me. You will be released at the nearest neutral port.”

---

Like an undersized fish, Sokka did not say. 

#the nearest neutral port just so happens to be kyoshi island #why say aang and katara what are YOU doing here??

Zuko is grinding his teeth SO HARD he did not come here to start an international incident and he WON'T start one stop looking at him like that Uncle he is doing something Honorable the Southern Prince said so and so help him he is going to KEEP BEING HONORABLE while the other boy is watching even as the Avatar creeps closer and closer one little side step at a time looking all curious and hopeful

like an actual child

THE BENDING PRODIGY SISTER IS THANKING HIM REPEAT ZUKO IS IN THE SIGHTS OF THE BENDING PRODIGY SISTER

she is smiling at him and sounds incredibly sincere

(and also confused)

and he KNOWS what "sincere" smiles from sisters mean

abort abort abort

maybe he can get his ship away from here before she "accidentally" sinks it

(clearly her bending fumbling at his ship was a clever disguise, if she'd REALLY been that bad she'd have been CAPTURED, had she been MOCKING his crew? clearly that was the only--WHY IS THE AVATAR STANDING AT HIS ELBOW)

No really WHY is the unfathomably powerful (literal child) right next to his elbow and GRINNING up at him

And talking about how Zuko is a prince. And Sokka is a prince.

(the sister is laughing behind her hand REPEAT the sister is laughing abort abort abort--)

And since there's two princes and an Avatar here on this neutral island why don't they have

why don't they have

peace talks

"I will make tea!" Uncle beams and instead of using that as cover to retreat back to their ship goes to do so IN THE VILLAGE and Zuko

Zuko can't leave him alone with these people

So there he is. On Kyoshi Island. Incapable of admitting in front of Prince Sokka and Princess Katara and Avatar, The that he might

maybe

not have the ability to create legally binding agreements like a real prince should

which is about when Zhao shows up. And you know who doesn't have the legal right to INTERRUPT peace talks?

Motherturtleducking Zhao

which is to say

he is sincerely sorry, Father, for the overstep of his position

and rest assured no formal promises were made

but please see the enclosed First Draft treaty between the Fire Nation and the United Southern Water Tribes

(as well as a small request for reparations to Kyoshi Island, for peace talk hosting and minor fire damage)

And rest further assured that he has taken the joint advice of Avatar Aang and General Iroh

And will be traveling with the Avatar to facilitate communication with the Dragon Throne

Until such time as the Fire Lord commands him not to

Sincerely,

Your Most Loyal And Obedient Son

Re-creating my first webcomic from 12 years ago, "Hair Expectations vs Reality."

I can't help but feel all kinds of emotions after re-visiting the original comic: the one that started it all. A lot has changed since then, and I feel so fortunate to still create art and tell stories for a living. Thanks for your support, and sticking around for so long ❤️

Check out the other versions:

2014 (OG)