#Who ever receives

[stanthonywalnuttree]

Homily for Twenty-Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time - 2024

Our Lady of Lourdes Church, Carver MA “He began to ask them, “‘What were you arguing about on the way?’ They had been discussing among themselves on the way who was the greatest.” (Mark 9: 30). Every time I have read that sentence from the Gospel of Mark, I find myself wishing I could change a small part of that sentence. I have to believe that they were not “discussing” anything …..they were…

[wyllaztopia]

2025 is coming so i let my friend @kayseeye [new agdt mod and assistant!!] clear agdt's askbox

as devastating as it was to see a bunch of creative remarks and asks go down the drain - let's be real, i won't have time to answer them with how linear the story is becoming for ease of access [goodbye 500 asks... though kacey took screenshots of drawings you guys sent in our inbox!!!]

hooowever, there's also another key reason we had to clear the inbox

[^ satire btw]

very long and convoluted psa/ramble about this matter ahead! but also slightly important and i encourage you to read it if you think about using agdt's inbox as a way to vent or share things about your irl troubles

some people treat the blog's inbox as a venting area

it doesn't really make me uncomfortable, it's just something i prefer not seeing. i don't like sharing or being shared personal information especially from an anon or a stranger

this doesn't go for just agdt - it goes for all blogs you interact with: please don't make yourself vulnerable to a stranger on the internet. you are putting yourself in a dangerous spot.

if you need escapism or help, turn to a professional or someone close - going to a stranger can go horribly wrong in two ways: you make them uncomfortable and subject them to a responsibility they never signed up for, or you let someone use your vulnerabilities and personal information against you.

i can probably count like 100 or so asks of people sharing something overly personal and asking for comfort. i don't hate it, i'm not mad, i'm just worried and i hope the people who send them become aware that they should not send those asks knowing that if they're answered, they could be answered publicly with everyone and their mama being able to see that vulnerable moment in that ask.

"just ignore them, wyll! besides, you didn't have any rules abt yo blog anyway, yo!"

nah, i'd win

can't exactly ignore them when it's been almost a year of young impressionable users over sharing to a stranger who answers asks publicly [along with the fact that i hardly see people talk about this matter when it comes to rp/ask blogs.] also so they don't do this to another askblog that has another impressionable youngin running it and publicizes asks that contain personal life info.

we don't add rules to asks on agdt because we can pick and choose which ones we answer. a set of rules isn't going to stop an asshole from breaking them so i'm not wasting my time trying to enforce one. and that's not what i'm trying to do in this post either. i'm putting this out there because i don't want people making the irrational decision of making their life and weakest moments accessible to people who want to use it against them.

i'm not trying to make a big deal out of this either. i can just skip or delete asks that i know i shouldn't answer or won't be able to. but that's my side of responsibility as someone with a platform. i want to make it clear that the audience that decides to interact with these kinds of blogs should be aware that just because you're behind a screen and concealed by an internet persona, that doesn't mean you're any safer from other people using your vulnerabilities against you.

[deerspherestudios]

AAAA I’m always too shy to come off anon, but because I don’t have to for the moment, I just wanted to say that I love Mushroom Oasis so much!!!! Mycheal is just such a well fleshed out character - he isn’t the embodiment of a trope or presented as solely good or evil, but is both consistent and contradictory in a way that feels (ironically) very human. He is shown to act in accordance with a deeper set of core values rather than just the surface level opinions or feelings which might present themselves more obviously. He also has multiple of these core values that inform his decisions, which is shown very well in how he fights with himself and comes to conclusions in order to remedy those internal (and external) conflicts. He lies, he’s aware and unaware of certain aspects of himself, and he responds differently based on his current state but is always loyal to his underlying motivations and character traits. He’s good at certain things and bad at others, even within the same field, but has core strengths that inform these proficiencies. It’s hard to describe in words what all I’m referring to, but if I had to summarize it: Mycheal has a set of core, largely static values and capabilities shaped by his experiences that inform all of his decisions and behaviors. He also has temporary states of being, informed by his interpretations of past experiences and core values. You are able to keep these core values stable (while changing them, which is even harder to accomplish convincingly) as he responds differently to different situations, which is something I don’t think I see often in most characters. Mycheal is just so layered and his complexity is written beautifully!

Hopefully at least some of that made sense akdjdjs - ultimately, I just wanted to share the sentiment that your writing is phenomenal and that I explode every time I think of your mushroom man! He is beautiful both as a specimen for character study and as an individual to simp for, so thank you for sharing him with the world!

A shorter, but no less earnest, comment on Astronought: I ADORE how subversive it is! I never thought I’d see a VN where the love interest turned out to be multiple entities. Well. Kind of?They’re a Hivemind, so they’re only multiple entities in a sense. Gah, Atom is so cool! I can’t wait to hear more about them, even if only in asks every once in a while.

Genuinely, thank you so much for sharing your games with the community - I think I speak for all of us when I say that I really, really enjoy them. Have a wonderful rest of your day :)

Anon where are yuo anon come off anon so i can hold ur hand and thank you peersonally anon

Also, as I double check the queue I just realized today (22nd Feb) is the 2nd year anniversary for Mushroom Oasis!! So it's only fitting that it's my turn to thank the community alongside this person, for being here as I continue working on this project!

You're all wonderful people and I can't express enough how much the support means to me! ❤️🍄🎉

[starflungwaddledee]

from: @starflungwaddledee to: @post-it-notes7

message from santa: "happy holidays post-it-notes! 🎄🥳 i know you very politely only wished for a few modest things- characters high fiving, or struggling in christmas attire- but i hope you'll still enjoy this given that i kinda went the opposite direction entirely! i'm an enormous fan of your work and most times you post anything i wind up browsing your art tag from tip-to-tail in enraptured delight. as such, i thought it was only fair i give back something a little more significant in gratitude for all the joy your work has given me. i knew i wanted to do a comic, so i was thrilled you already had a whole storyverse for me to work from!! this scene seemed the most obvious choice (chapter 8 of "wishful thinking" on ao3) given that i enjoy a dramatic fight scene 😂 i tried to stick as beat-by-beat to the writing as i could and worked in as many details as possible; i hope it'll be fun to see it envisioned this way! merry christmas! ~starflung 🎀🔔 "

[zarvasace]

TAG NO TAG-BACKS

[bruciemilf]

@the spider verse crew BEGGING for a felicia hardy adaptation but like this strictly

[crossbackpoke-check]

blessed be (lorscher bienensegen) | telling the bees (wiþ ymbe)

"Bees" [remixed, abridged], Claudia Emerson // "Letter to Someone Living Fifty Years from Now" [remixed. abridged], Matthew Olzmann // "Letter to my Great, Great Grandchild" [remixed, abridged], J.P. Grasser | Len Redkole, Nina Weiss, Brian Babineau, Christian Peterson, Mitchell Leff, Dave Isaac, Megan DeRuchie

[caligvlasaqvarivm]

was rereading the convo dirk has with dave and was captivated by the subtle work done to indicate how very much this was not actually a good or productive convo for dirk, and a capstone on the toxic mess that is him and hal

in the exact same conversation that dave is explaining, and dirk is seemingly accepting, that beta!dirk/bro should not have been allowed near a child, dirk chooses to bring up hal. and he does it to be really shitty.

DIRK: Creating him was an interesting exercise I guess, but over the years I came to see his development as one of my biggest mistakes. DIRK: He sort of turned into a monster. But I could never bring myself to get rid of him, or even really blame him for being an asshole, because he wasn't actually that different from me.

like... hal is dirk's younger brother/kid, right?

that's part of the reason that when hal starts using a different color, it's dave's red. in one part, the orange/red split is evocative of dave/davesprite, casting dirk/hal as foils, but... i don't think the lil bro/"kid i'm responsible for" vibe is unintentional, either. especially when paired with the fact that the brainscan is of 13-year-old dirk, and that the words "nascent" and "emergent" are used to describe hal's consciousness, all implying an element of youthfulness or childishness to him that isn't applied to dirk.

hal is fully sapient, has real feelings (by dirk's own admission, too), and is also, like, completely his own guy. he's not a dirk splinter, he's a computer housing a dirk splinter, and he and dirk only think they're the same guy because their individual issues happen to perfectly align in the worst possible way.

so if you look at their relationship through that lens instead - a frankenstein/frankenstein's monster scenario (which is also directly and intentionally an exploration on parenthood) at best and dirk Pretty Much Actually Just Making A Child at worst - doesn't it become really fucked up that Dirk tried to kill him?

Doesn't it become really fucked up that Dirk is outright calling him a "mistake" and a "monster"?

the other really interesting thing here is when he talks about Jake - specifically, the way he chooses to "make it up to" jake. which is to say, he doesn't.

DIRK: I wouldn't be surprised if he was trying to avoid me as much as possible. DIRK: I'm sure that's for the best. DIRK: I think I need to stay out of his business for a good while, so I don't risk poisoning another innocent kid's life.

This isn't a solution. Hell, this isn't even an apology. This is just self-isolation, self-punishment, more of Dirk's martyrdom complex and teen boy diva bullshit.

yes, dirk hates himself, but the actual toxic loop he's stuck in is one where he doesn't address any of his problems. he identifies what his issues are, he feels really bad about them, he can enunciate them very clearly to other people, but then, instead of fixing them, he inflicts punishment on himself and then calls it a day.

We know that this is a bullshit thing to do to Jake because we know the situation from jake's side of things.

GT: Do you think you could relay the same sentiments to dirk? GT: I was thinking about all the stuff he said to me while we were all telling him to dance. GT: And yeah i was really being a prick when i ran away to lomax. GT: He was right about everything. I should have come clean about wanting some space.

jake wants reconciliation! jake wants to address the fact that he failed and apologize! jake wants to be friends again!

self-punishment is not a solution, and while I don't think dirk is entirely cognizant that he's doing it, by venting to dave - who literally has no idea what's been going on in dirk's group - he's able to frame the story - ahem, control the narrative - to justify his own shitty choice to not actually improve as a person, but instead to wallow in his own self-inflicted misery. If he'd said what he did about Hal to Jake, Roxy, or Jane - all of whom recognized hal's personhood and emotional reality to some degree, and spoke with him extensively - how would they respond? If they knew he'd tried to kill Hal, how would they respond?

The answer to that is why he doesn't tell them, and has got to be ticking in the background to explain why Dirk chooses to isolate himself from them. Put simply, I think the reason why he seems to think his friends never know the worst of him is because he deliberately avoids showing them. If he showed them, they wouldn't stay quiet, and if they didn't stay quiet, he'd actually have to... do something about it, instead of just indulging in some self-punishment and walking away feeling like the problem was solved.

and i think part of why he's so terrible to hal is because, on some level, he recognizes that he does kind of owe it to hal to be better. because, you see.

Hal is his kid.

hal's existence, hal's circumstances, and hal's suffering are a direct result of dirk's decisions, and hal is taking him to task for them. the things dirk really resents about hal are less the ways that hal is a reflection of dirk, though that's in there too, but the fact that hal is asking dirk to take responsibility. actual responsibility. that hal keeps confronting him with the fact that he's the one who caused hal's plight, he's the one with the power to fix it, and he's the one choosing inaction and avoidance.

TT: I'm guessing she's touching base to remind me about the party tomorrow. TT: I don't know what to tell her yet. Or Jane, for that matter. TT: It could get pretty awkward. TT: I have no idea if Jake will be there, and I'm not about to write another cringe-inducing message of desperation for him to ignore. AR: Would you like me to calculate the probability of his attendance? TT: Fuck no. AR: Are you sure? AR: My probabilities are extremely precise. TT: Your probabilities don't mean dick. AR: I could hack his chats, and determine what his plans are. TT: No. Don't do that either. [...] TT: Just don't do anything. Seriously. TT: No hacking, no calculations. Do absolutely nothing.

That's why Dirk takes such exception to the AI thing, too.

AR: In any case, my use of the responder responder is ironic. TT: It's not ironic. TT: YOU were ironic when I made you. TT: Then you became self-aware, and ruined irony forever.

then you became self-aware - in other words, "then you became a free-thinking entity and those jokes became reminders that your situation is fucked up, and i'm the one who put you in it". in other words, "and then you were born, and i had to be responsible for that". because, after all, the AI jokes that dirk hates so much? those aren't a reflection of dirk. that's all hal, baby. dirk can't use his "i hate you because i hate myself" excuse on that.

now i don't want to make it sound like i'm saying that dirk is a monster or anything. he does care, very fucking deeply, about his friends. and i think this conversation was genuinely very cathartic and helpful for dave. and it is, genuinely, very tragic that he does actually hate himself to the point where he finds it difficult to believe that he can get better, or even that he deserves to get better.

but those feelings have transformed into a vastly more harmful attitude of wilful, obstinate refusal to change, and even outright resentment and fear towards those that would ask him to. it's subtler than some of the others, but his convo with dave really highlights that dirk has not finished developing as a character yet. and i think it's really neat.

[fuumiku]

Harpy mickrin AU yay! Sorta loosely set in Aatom87's harpy & zookeeper AU- Rin is a sooty owl and Mickbell is a cockatiel. You know how parrots are...

The zoo keeps them in the same enclosure out of lack of funds to try and fix behavioral issues. Rin was being too self-isolating and Mickbell was starting shit with other harpies and bonded with zookeeper Kuro instead, which is unhealthy, so they put them in a side enclosure to bond together and assigned Kabru to it instead. Thus they are forced to have enrichment together.

Kabru has it tough since they both act like they hate him, except one is only a tsundere act lol. Mickbell like "huh?? You stealing my cagemate punk?? Wanna fight??" and he's not even wrong lol. Tiny bird very angry very aggressive, cue Kabru getting scratched every day... Kabru leaving their enclosure after a whole showdown of cockatiel Mick screaming scratching biting inflicting him little wounds and then Mick goes right back to "I'm just a little guy"ing @ Rin. Keep going buddy i'm sure... one day...... you'll win her over and make her laugh. Or something.

Although hmmm Kabru hating monsters would mean he wouldn't work there in the first place. Maybe.... He's there undercover to investigate the zoos for corruption or animal-monster abuse or smth... And the injured Mithrun harpy is evidence that he has to take under his wing ba dum tss <- this is how my AUs get out of control

I love Mickbell's stiff paintbrush of a ponytail so much

[autisticaradiamegido]

day 132

no regular art today bc i am feeling a lil sick BUT!! i can finally show off the completed ren faire aradia fit!! it's all finished and i finally got to put it together for the first time. i am really pleased with how all of it turned out, and it felt really nice wearing an outfit comprised only of stuff that i had made myself.

[queerprayers]

i want to say first of all that i fully respect a community's/denomination's/culture's right to have closed practices. i am not entitled to other people's traditions, and when i am a guest in a space i understand that everything is not automatically for me. and i know i do not have to understand to respect.

and also! when i go to a catholic church and can't receive communion i want to fall on the floor weeping. what do you mean i can't have him he's right there. sorry my baptism was the wrong kind of baptism. i'm hungry and you want me to become someone else before being fed.

[kaftan]

just dumping thoughts here but one of the most fascinating (to me) implications we get about the tai/fugue tai duality is in season one where tai wakes up in the tree as an adult for the first time — this stood out to me the very first time I watched it, and still does; her panic, her shakenness, the terrible job she does of scrubbing herself clean. the contrast is not explicitly spelled out for us, but we know it from context: fugue tai does this gracefully. she covers her tracks. she’s seen by sammy but not simone because she chooses to show herself to one and not the other. tai would like to have everyone believe it’s her fugue self who’s erratic, unpredictable, out of control — but it’s the other way around. fugue tai acts deliberately and intentionally. fugue tai has the patience for 1000-piece puzzles where tai wants to snap her fingers and have everything fall into place. tai is the one who barely keeps it together, who slips in the spilled blood when all is said and done. who can never determine when and how she’s seen. there isn’t a hidden part of herself that can’t control her actions; there’s just her.

[thatrandomblogsays]

I’ve got a story that’ll make you percabeth girlies go feral:

My closest friend has an anxious/avoidant attachment style. So constant fear that people don’t really love her. I once asked her if she ever doubted that I cared about her. Her response?

“No, you’ve always been so open and aggressive in expressing your love that I can never doubt it.” 🥹

& that’s how I see Annabeth & Percy’s friendship going. Congrats to Annabeth for making a friend that’ll love you unconditionally, warts and all, you deserve it.

[dontheckinswear]

Shoutout to my white-haired short blorbos who have scissors and star motifs, whose names start with S, who have a difficult time reading social queues, and die all the time :) read Sleepy Princess in the Demon Castle and play In Stars and Time

[kevinsdsy]

yk how tragic it is for me to think “omg i love shawn anderson i wonder if there are any new thoughts/headcanons under his tag!” just to realise that he hasn’t said a single line in the book and it’s ME who is providing the silly fanon thoughts………

[corpusdiem-seizethedead]

Angel: I always thought "happiness" started with an "h", so why does mine start with "u"? 😉

Husk:

Husk: I think you're fucking dyslexic.