#How is this even a talking point

[rotzaprachim]

that “you survived four years of trump” video that’s going around like idk what to tell you but many people did not. many people did not do this

[littlemizzlinguistics]

Studying linguistics is actually so wonderful because when you explain youth slang to older professors, instead of complaining about how "your generation can't speak right/ you're butchering the language" they light up and go “really? That’s so wonderful! What an innovative construction! Isn't language wonderful?"

[paintedcrows]

Holiday Classics

Been thinking about Ford watching the 70s Animated Lord of the Rings Movies... (companion comic to this post!)

[starry-bi-sky]

I am loudly pushing the batdad agenda i am loudly pushing the— DPxDC Prompt

“Woah. You look like shit."

Granted, that’s probably not the first thing Danny should be saying to the guy that just bit the curb, but in his defense; he’s not running on 100% right now either.

The man -- tall, towering, and broader than Danny is tall -- whips around on his heel, black frayed cape flaring out impressively. Danny would've whistled in appreciation, but he takes the time instead to wipe the back of his hand across his mouth, smearing the blood running from his nose across his cheek.

"Sorry." He blinks widely, not even flinching as the man with the horns zeroes in on him. "That was rude of me. I have a really bad brain-to-mouth filter; Sam says its what always gets me into trouble."

And she's not wrong either, per say. His smart mouth is what landed him in this situation -- with blood blossom extract running through his veins and cannibalizing the ectoplasm in his bloodstream. Thanks Vlad.

The man grunts at him; a short, curt "hm" that shouldn't make Danny smile, but he does because he's somewhat delirious and probably concussed. The man keeps some kind of distance, sinking towards the shadows of Gotham's alleyway like he dares to melt right into it.

If it's supposed to scare Danny, it doesn't work. Danny's never been afraid of the dark; he's always been able to hide himself in it. He blinks slowly at the mass of shadows.

"You look hurt." The shadows says, blurring together around the edges. Danny squints, and licks his lips to get the blood dripping down his chin off. Ugh, he hates the taste of blood.

"I am." He says, "My godfather poisoned me. M'dying." The agony of the blood blossom eating him from the inside out looped back around to numbing a while ago, so all he feels is half-awake and dazed.

"Hey," Danny stumbles forward towards the man, a bloodied hand reaching out to him. "You-- you're a hero, right? You're not attacking me; which is more than I can say for most costumed people I've met." Maybe it's a poor bar to judge someone at, but he's already established that Danny's not in his right mind.

The man makes no change in expression, but Danny realizes blearily that it's hard to tell with the shadows on his face. He stays still long enough for Danny to latch onto the cape -- stretchy, but almost soft under his fingers.

He looks up blearily into the whites of the man's eyes. "Can you help me? I don't-- I don't wanna die." Again. He doesn't wanna die again. He blinks slow and lizard-like. "I mean- I'll probably get to see mom and dad again, but I told them I'd at least try and make it to adulthood."

There's a clatter down the street, and Danny's ghost sense chills up his spine and leaves a bitter, ashy taste in his mouth. He immediately knows who it belongs to even before the deceptively gentle; "Daniel?" echoes down the way.

"Daniel? Quit your games, badger, Gotham is dangerous for children."

Danny's mouth pulls back, and blood spills against his tongue. "Please." He rasps, and grabs onto the shadow's cape with both hands. "Please. He's going to kill me. Please--"

"Daniel? Is that you?"

His lips part, dragging in air to plead with the darkness again. He doesn't need to, the whites of his eyes narrow, and the cape whirls around him before Danny can blink. Soon swaddled in shadows, the Night lifts him up, and steals him away.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Look what we've become.

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[kingkrillin]

just need to share how much I dislike this post lol

people will fully expect trans men to put ourselves on the line for everyone else and meanwhile the only time they acknowledge our existence is to talk about how "low risk" we are (obviously untrue) or to volunteer us out as a community for potentially dangerous activist endeavors that they wouldn't risk doing themselves

"we need to get uncomfortable!" and what's actually being discussed is convincing a subset of the community to be uncomfortable on your behalf while you do nothing to show solidarity with us

[ladystoneboobs]

so, one aspect of catelyn which i think is underrated (certainly the biggest adaptation loss which nobody talks about) is her, let's say superstitiousness, or better yet, let's call it genre-savviness, being one of the few adult characters open to magic and the supernatural in this fantasy world. we first meet her in the godswood, home of gods which are not truly hers, yet she is still very aware of their power. when she and ned talk of the deserter he killed, he hopes he won't have to go with the nw to deal with mance rayder, but she has even more fear of that idea bc there are worse things beyond the wall than just wildlings. ned scoffs and says she's been listening to old nan too much, but she's right. we already know from the prologue that she's right! and here she is, understanding the genre of their world better than her husband, who was actually born and spent his earliest years in this northern land of deep magic, listening to old nan's stories. same with the direwolves, where she was uncomfortable with them at first, but later believed in them as guardians from the old gods even after robb had lost his own faith. and once again, we know she's right even if she doesn't know the evidence to back up her instincts, bc summer and shaggydog did not fail bran and rickon and robb was almost certainly a warg like his brothers. (perhaps making it more fitting that she's the one brought back as a fantasy vengeance monster, not ned and robb, the most unbelieving dead starks.) and in her 2nd agot chapter, everyone focuses on her ambition in wanting ned to agree to the hand job (pun intended) and sansa's betrothal, and while she does recognize the value of their daughter being a future queen more than ned does, that's only her stated argument bc she thinks it's rational enough for ned to listen to. (if ambitious matchmaking were as important to her as to her father she never would have made those frey betrothals fandom loves to blame her for.) in her own head there's a deeper urge driving her. she keeps thinking of the dead direwolf with antlers in its throat, an omen which filled her with dread from the first she heard of it, before robert's arrival, and thinking of it again is what makes her desperate to convince ned not to refuse robert. she had to make him see. and really, she's not wrong, as jon snow would say. the dead direwolf was an omen of ned and robert getting each other killed. it's just one of those misread portents, with no way of knowing the danger to ned was in his loyalty to robert, not conflict with him. BUT the next time she's dealing with baratheons, she knows exactly what she's talking about. it's catelyn, not brienne, who sees the shadow slaying renly, and explains that it was stannis who did that through some dark magic. with no way of knowing how it was achieved and no prior expectation that such a thing were ever possible, she realizes with no hestitation that stannis was guilty and that his red witch was capable of pulling this off somehow. really, the only instinct of the supernatural she's wholly wrong about is her insistence that varys gathered his knowledge through some dark enchantment. however, though that might offend varys, given his own personal experience with a sorcerer, i'd say it's a reasonable assumption without knowing the dude had children moving through walls everywhere like oversized rodents. and imo it just shows she had a healthy respect and awe for varys's power which most other characters lack.

oh, oh, and let's not forget that she also believed in the curse of harrenhal, from her own childhood and the stories old nan told her kids. "and every house that held Harrenhal since had come to misfortune. Strong it might be, but it was a dark place, and cursed. 'I would not have Robb fight a battle in the shadow of that keep,' Catelyn admitted." sure, that wasn't enough to save robb, but he did not die from the curse of harrenhal. that doom was meant for his enemies from tywin lannister to roose bolton.

[brainrotcharacters]

Mothers and fuckers of the ketchup and mustard household (I'm going even more insane than usual)

[unicornpopcorn14]

Chuuya's reaction to Dazai getting hurt during the Lovecraft fight has always been so interesting to me...

Because it's the kind of worry you'd never expect from a character as gruff as Chuuya, who had displayed nothing but hostility towards Dazai so far. Usually, characters that are labelled as "angry" or "anger issues" (which Chuuya is much more complex than that but you get my point) act more as a tsundere type of way when the one they "don't care about" gets hurt. And show their care in very, very subtle ways (ex. their eyes widen, their mouth parts and closes again, etc) before putting up their front once more.

Chuuya, however, is open, and vocal about it. His worry is clear not only to us, but to Dazai himself, the one he shouldn't be displaying the concern to (as per the cliche). Shouldn't it be some sort of secret that Chuuya does care? Isn't that what skk's dynamic has been shaping up to be until now?

I'm telling you- the way my mind blanked when Chuuya just casually.... showed concern not once, but twice, was a sight to see.

Besides, the context makes it much more confusing, because Dazai isn't some rookie, and Chuuya knows that more than anybody. He was the youngest executive in Port Mafia's history, of course he can handle a hit or two. Of course he'd seen him handle a hit or two, sometimes without batting an eye.

Heck, Chuuya himself was hurling Dazai like a ragdoll in their reunion, which was their last meeting. And you could argue that he was going easy on him, but Dazai has mostly withstood the same damage (as far as I could see), and Chuuya was as bitter as ever.

So that kind of contradicts both what we knew of Chuuya so far, and how their dynamic was shaped to be. I mean, that just makes Chuuya a hypocrite, yeah? What makes him care now, all of a sudden? What makes him care at all?

Well, to me, this backasswards reaction implies one (or more) of the following:

- Dazai rarely got physically hurt during their partnership and thus this is an unexpected thing for him to see (during a mission).

- The four years of separation made Chuuya unsure of how much Dazai can withstand physically now. Also the fact that he isn't in the mafia anymore, aka fighting enemy organizations on the weekly, would naturally make Dazai lose his touch in a way, what prompts Chuuya's reaction.

- Dazai getting taken off guard took him off guard which led to panic. Especially since the situation was (momentarily) out of their depth. Seriously wtf even was Lovecraft?

- During the dungeon scene Dazai was an enemy, while in the Lovecraft fight he was as an ally. The difference might be significant to Chuuya.

- This has always been Chuuya's reaction to Dazai getting hurt regardless of the situation.

- "Only I can hurt him like that" ahh logic

- Asagiri was still experimenting with their dynamic and thus there are some inconsistencies.

This scenario didn't play out again (after their reunion) for me to exactly determine which one is more plausible, but it is 100% canon for Chuuya to shamelessly show his concern and run to Dazai to check on him before properly dealing with their opponent, which I find to be such an appealing layer to their dynamic, and a good spin on the type of character he gets stereotyped as.

Bonus: Dazai also becomes a softy when Chuuya's hurt, especially post corruption. Dead Apple alone displays that multiple times.

All in all, Skk are doing a terrible job at maintaining their 'hostile' and 'antagonistic' relationship post their reunion. Freaks.

[lostlegendaerie]

there's something deeply gutting about being a writer right now. watching studio execs brag about starving people like you out of your very house just to not pay you anything above the pennies you currently make. watching some people cheer over AO3 being targeted for a DDOS attack. the complete lack of profitability of writing commissions or writing in general in transformative spaces, especially in contrast to fanart. the pivot of so many social media platforms to be video and image based near-exclusively.

I don't know. it just makes me sad to know that the hobby that kept me alive while growing up homeschooled with dial-up internet and local antenna TV... is only ever gonna be a side job with minimal engagement. I know this site is good about supporting libraries and the concept of books but, do me a favor? Reach out to a writer friend you know. Leave a comment on your last five read stories on your favorite website.

Tell us you care.

[slfcare]

the most difficult thing about growing as a person socially, as in getting out of your shell and noticing that you are, is that there will still be times when it doesn’t feel like you’ve grown at all! times when you can’t really connect with anyone around you, times when you fail to enter into an existing conversation, times when you say the wrong thing (or nothing at all when in hindsight you probably should’ve). but that’s also kind of the best thing, because that’s the thing that helps you realize that sometimes, it’s not you or your lack of skills or any shortcoming. sometimes certain environments just aren’t for you and certain people aren’t your people, and that’s okay. that’s human. it’s okay to not feel the progress you have made all the time.

[buttercupshands]

can you even call it a warm up if I'm going to bed without drawing anything big

and a sketch I made while sitting in the park today

[sesamestreep]

I really feel like one of the best details in “A Scandal in Bohemia” that I never see people fixate on enough is that the story starts with Watson stopping in to see Holmes at Baker Street on a complete whim, because he happens to see that he’s home (and Watson is now married and living elsewhere). Like he doesn’t send word first, he’s not invited, he just shows up and surprises Holmes. Which is not that weird but then Holmes is like “oh good, I’ve got a case anyway, you might as well hang out!” which just makes it funnier when the King shows up and is like “I’d really rather speak to you alone, actually” and Watson tries to leave and Holmes is just like “anything you can say to me, you can say to my best friend John Watson, and if you ask him to leave, I would consider it a grave insult, you would be my enemy and I will not help you ever!!” And the king is like “…ok” and just moves on.

like, that is crazy behavior. Holmes is talking about how there’s probably lots of money in this case, and then almost turns away the client for…not knowing who the fuck Watson is?? He’s not even supposed to be there?? He just came to say hi?? “It is both or none”… girl, GET UP.

[sugarcoatednightshade]

thinking about how Humans Are Space Orcs stories always talk about how indestructible humans are, our endurance, our ability to withstand common poisons, etc. and thats all well and good, its really fun to read, but it gets repetitive after a while because we aren't all like that.

And that got me thinking about why this trope is so common in the first place, and the conclusion I came to is actually kind of obvious if you think about it. Not everyone is allowed to go into space. This is true now, with the number of physical restrictions placed on astronauts (including height limits), but I imagine it's just as strict in some imaginary future where humans are first coming into contact with alien species. Because in that case there will definitely be military personnel alongside any possible diplomatic parties.

And I imagine that all interactions aliens have ever had up until this point have been with trained personnel. Even basic military troops conform to this standard, to some degree. So aliens meet us and they're shocked and horrified to discover that we have no obvious weaknesses, we're all either crazy smart or crazy strong (still always a little crazy, academia and war will do that to you), and not only that but we like, literally all the same height so there's no way to tell any of us apart.

And Humans Are Death Worlders stories spread throughout the galaxy. Years or decades or centuries of interspecies suspicion and hostilities preventing any alien from setting foot/claw/limb/appendage/etc. on Earth until slowly more beings are allowed to come through. And not just diplomats who keep to government buildings, but tourists. Exchange students. Temporary visitors granted permission to go wherever they please, so they go out in search of 'real terran culture' and what do they find?

Humans with innate heart defects that prevent them from drinking caffeine. Humans with chronic pain and chronic fatigue who lack the boundless endurance humans are supposedly famous for. Humans too tall or too short or too fat to be allowed into space. Humans who are so scared of the world they need to take pills just to function. Humans with IBS who can't stand spicy foods, capsaicin really is poison to them. Lactose intolerance and celiac disease, my god all the autoimmune disorders out there, humans who struggle to function because their own bodies fight them. Humans who bruise easily and take too long to heal. Humans who sustained one too many concussions and now struggle to talk and read and write. Humans who've had strokes. Humans who were born unable to talk or hear or speak, and humans who through some accident lost that ability later.

Aliens visit Earth, and do you know what they find? Humanity, in all its wholeness.

[starry-bi-sky]

my martha knight au in a nutshell:

Danny/Martha: see up here?

Danny/Martha: *taps skull*

Danny/Martha: intense psychological damage

-----------

Danny/Martha: *upon finding out she's pregnant*

Danny/Martha: oh my god i cant be a mom, I'm fifteen and homeless--

Danny/Martha: im going to be a terrible mother--

Danny/Martha: i live in a cAR--

Danny/Martha: what if the baby inherits my powers? Oh no--

-------------

Danny/Martha post giving birth: i've only had Bruce for a minute and a half but if anything were to happen to him i won't even need to fuse with Vlad, I'm razing this goddamn planet to the ground myself

Danny, to Baby Bruce: you are the last remaining thread of my sanity. I'm going to give you the world :)

---------------

Danny/Martha prior to getting pregnant: Fuck it, if everything in my life has led to this moment, i'm allowed to make one stupid decision. I'm getting drunk and getting laid

---------------

Danny/Martha while Bruce was a toddler: i swear to fucking god i am going to kill the next person who talks to me--

Bruce: hi mommy!! i brought you something!!!

Danny/Martha, immediately flipping on a dime: hi baby!! what do you have?

Bruce, a weird child like his mother: a spider :)

---------------

Danny/Martha, talking to Falcone after he made an unsavory comment at her and Bruce: If you ever come near me or my son again, I will dig up your shithead father's corpse and make you eat his skin.

Danny/Martha: do you understand me

Falcone:... crystal, ma'am

---------------

Danny/Martha new in Gotham: *getting mugged*

Danny/Martha: *grabs man's arm*

Danny/Martha: I AM GOING TO BREAK YOU IN HALF LIKE A TWIG, FUCK BOY, DO YOU HEAR THE WORDS COMING OUT OF MY MOUTH--

(she then proceeds to terrorize Gotham's night life for the next extended period of time, mostly unintentionally)

---------------

Danny/Martha: Danny Fenton?? No. you must be mistaken, my name is Martha Knight.

Danny/Martha: this here is my littlest knight, Bruce.

Danny/Martha: I made him all by myself :]