#and that thing is stuck in there good >>

[nitrozem]

I gotta clean the dust off my PC fan mesh....AGAIN

[inbabylontheywept]

Babylon and the Duck of Butter

I have a gift for falling in love with random objects. One time, my aunt got me a little rubber chicken, and whenever I squoze it, a little egg thing popped out. Very silly. Except that chicken became something like my best friend. I carried it with me to school, and I kept it with me in my pocket, and whatever social hazards there were about Being The Guy Who Got Stressed Whenever His Rubber Chicken Was Missing were far outweighed by being The Guy Who ALWAYS Had a Rubber Chicken On Him. There's a lot of comedic opportunity that comes with always having a good prop on your person.

Of course, the chicken did eventually. Explode. And such was my grief that I did not eat for 36 hours. This was very stressful for many people. Mostly my mom. I was a very strange child to work with. She took parenting so incredibly seriously, and then I'd pitch her these curve balls like refusing to eat for a day and a half because my rubber chicken died. No parenting book tells you what to do when that happens. You just have to feel it in your heart.

A less tragic story of an object that I fell in love with was a large, foam toad that I found in a trinket shop. The toad was the size of a very large grapefruit. Much too large to carry with me to school (thank god) but enough that I could move it around the house, to keep me company during my solitary pursuits. If I was reading, the toad was there, and if I was tinkering with legos, the toad was there, and even when I slept, I would wrap the toad up in layers and layers of blankets, and then spoon it. I did this until the rubber coating on the foam started to wear out, and the foam started to get brittle and break down and leak this repulsive yellow powder. Then I simply put the toad in the playroom and would consult it on matters of great importance. Eventually I stopped doing that, and someone took the opportunity to dispose of it. Not sure who. By the time I noticed its absence, too much time had passed for me to actually be sad. As an adult, part of me thinks I would have maybe liked burying the toad, but part of me also thinks I might have refused to part with the toad, which would have resulted in it leaking more repulsive yellow powder into the house. So I understand why that decision was made. 

I want to state that this does not happen often, and it does not happen on purpose. I don't choose to fall in love with random objects. And it's always a little bit embarrassing when it happens. 

Which brings me to my wife. 

Before meeting my wife, I did not often go to places with crowds. I didn't really think of it as avoiding them - those places just didn't seem fun to me. But she liked those places, and I really liked her, and being with someone who really likes something can kind of sell you on liking it too, so I'd take her to places and watch her Visibly Enjoy the Fair and go: Alright. The fair is pretty sweet.  

Which is a thing that happened. After fourish months of dating, I took her to the fair. And she fell very visibly in love with a large series of quilts, and she stayed near them for a while, which she thought was very embarrassing, and I got to pretend to be understanding as an outsider, because I thought it would be much more impressive than also being the type of person that would fall in love with a quilt. 

Do not do this. The gods punishment for my hubris was that the room next to the quilts was full of butter sculptures, which was an entirely new thing to me, and I immediately fell embarrassingly in love with all of them. It was like the biggest, sappiest non-sexual crush you've ever had, but not only did the other person not recipropcate, they could not, because they were made of butter. I actually got yelled at for pressing my face against the glass, which is fair, but also, I hadn't realized I was pressing my face on the glass, I just started leaning forward because after approximately 30 minutes of staring wistfully at a cow made of butter my legs got tired. And I think I should be given some grace for that.

Anyway. My wife was very patient with me taking more time to look at the butter sculptures than the average person might spent at the Louvre, and she also felt much less embarrassed over falling in love with a quilt, and we had a good laugh about it on the ferris wheel. 

A few weeks after that was my birthday. And I don't know what I expected, exactly - but I did not expect what she did. 

Dear reader, she made me a butter sculpture. Of a duck.

She picked a duck, because our first kiss was at a Japanese friendship garden. It was our second date, and she'd made up her mind not to do any kissing until the third date, but as we sat on the grass, a duck walked past me, and I'd just seen the hold-duck-gentle-like-hamgurber meme,

so I sort of impulsively reached out and snatched it. I honestly didn't think it would work. I don't know who was more flabbergasted, me or the duck. But we looked at each other, and then I looked at her, and then she looked at the duck, and she looked so incredibly envious that I assumed that must have wanted the duck so I just handed it to her.

It turned out she was actually envious of the ability to just grab a duck as it walked by, but she accepted the duck and stroked it a few times before releasing it. (She also made up her mind to kiss me in that moment, which was very nice.)  

Anyway.

She made me a butter duck of my own. Obviously, I fell in love with it immediately. I cleared out all of the freezer-portion of my mini fridge, and I put the duck in there, and for the next several months, when I felt sad, or lonely, I would open the door up and spent some quality time. Just me and my duck.

But this is, of course, not the end of the story. 

Because.

After several months. 

The mini fridge died. 

I really didn't use it that often. It was mostly my duck storage container. But one day, I walked by it, and it struck me that it wasn't humming. So I opened the door, and it was just. Far, far too late. The duck was dead. Dead dead. Turned into a foul-smelling slime dead. 

I cried. I did. After the rubber chicken thing, I thought I had changed, but I had not changed, and the unexpected death of my butter buddy left me pretty shook. I texted my then-girlfriend now-wife about how sad I was, and she actually came over to help me say goodbye. We didn't even bother scraping the duck out of the mini-fridge, we just said our goodbyes to both and threw them together in the nice dumpster behind the chapel, because it seemed appropriate to put it in God's dumpster. And it did actually help quite a bit. I certainly did not go 36 hours without eating again. 

And that was, for some time, the end of the butter duck. 

However. Three (or four?) years ago, for my birthday, my wife was looking around thrift stores. And she found something interesting. 

The original butter duck had an odd pose. She'd sculpted it laying flat, intending to raise it up later. But the butter was less flexible than she thought, and she was afraid of cracking it so she left it down which left the duck with a very elongated, very in-motion appearance. And she found a brass statue of a duck in the same, running posture.

It wasn't the original. But it was oddly on the nose. It was a yellow brass, it had the same strange posture, the same crude little face feathers. 

I think it was $3, but it remains perhaps the most thoughtful gift I have ever received. I got very choked up when I unwrapped Butter Duck, The UnDying. 

Pic provided.

[xxplastic-cubexx]

filler

[hinamie]

can't believe im saying this but long time no megumi

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Lan Wangji goes to Lotus Pier (No relation to the AU of the same name)

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[theriu]

It has just occurred to me that tumblr's mascot should be a tumbleweed. Think about it:

We're considered a ghost town by the rest of the internet.

Everybody has seen posts (tumbleweeds) from here even if they don't know where they come from.

Tumblr people can seem quiet for long stretches only to descend en masse on topics of interest.

(imagine this house is Dracula Daily or Goncharov)

And of course because it's only one letter away from tumblrweed!!!

[swiggity-swexual-i-am-asexual]

Danny Fenton, aka Phantom, has been given a new task!

In short, literally no one in the Ghost Zone/Infinite Realms wants their mostly peaceful afterlife to be rocked by a certain Gotham rogue named Joker. Which, when he dies, is almost sure to happen because of whatever the hell was in that vat he dropped in included ectoplasm. So, yay, he’s also a little ghostly too, meaning he *is* pretty hard to kill. Unfortunately, there’s also a certain vigilante that is quite keen to murder him in recent years.

So now Danny has to keep the mass murderer trauma clown alive for as long as he possibly can while attempting to keep the Joker from. Well. Being the Joker.

Oh, and naturally, Danny got this assignment AFTER Joker got out of Arkham. Again. And entirely blew up the asylum. Time to join the Goonion, he is NOT doing this without getting PAID, thank you.

[daftpatience]

i lov planning outfits the same way i love drawing diagrams for rearranging furniture. its plotting and scheming

[kelpermoosee]

My friend labeled this “toxic aromantic yaoi” and I couldn’t agree more

[gayofthefae]

Okay but can we talk about Dustin in season 1? He, at one point or another, believed that every individual one of his friends was going to die. Some VERY close. Will died. Lucas was knocked out by El and not waking up. Mike walked off a cliff. El died.

I always think about that whenever I see him screaming "DON'T DO IT MIKE. SERIOUSLY, MAN DON'T DO IT!" And his reaction after Mike goes over.

Dustin almost lost every single one of his best friends individually over the course of season 1.

[cometblaster2070]

madame morrible has the worst fucking luck ever and I CAN'T because first of all after decades and decades of waiting she finally gets her most promising student yet right; she finally gets someone who actually has magic and who might actually be able to read the grimmerie and help further her and the wizard's plans and COINCIDENTALLY this student (bless her heart) is shunned and ostracized by literally EVERYONE including her own family and is desperately craving some form of parental love and affection and validation and acceptance and so madame morrible is like 'ooh this is fucking PERFECT this girl is going to be SO easy to manipulate into doing what I want what could possibly go wrong wow.'

and in comes the fucking pink lesbian.

because elphaba is shunned and hated and all of her peers avoid and detest her because she's weird and green BUT then all of a sudden?? out of nowhere??? she and her pink roommate who, mind you, had a choreographed song and dance routine which involved the entire student body in which they detailed how much they really really hate each other, got really fucking close??? now they go everywhere and do everything together??? they are attached at the hip and looking longingly into each other's eyes WHAT IS HAPPENING????

you are madame morrible and you think galinda upland is in love with your student and what is worse is that your student might be in love with galinda upland and that fucking SUCKS because how the fuck are you supposed to properly emotionally manipulate her now. and it makes absolutely zero sense to you because WHY is galinda upland, the most popular girl at shiz taking an interest in your student??? WHY IS SHE HERE, WHY IS THE FRUITY BITCH RUINING YOUR PLANS???

glinda's very EXISTENCE is a thorn in your side; her simply being herself and interacting with elphaba is probably the reason why you feel a headache coming every time you see them together and is perhaps the reason why you scream into your pillow at night because this absolute loser lesbian just being there might upend a huge fucking chunk of what you've been planning for years.

and then the fucking cherry on top of all of this your student decides to play vigilante and flies off into the sunset and then that leaves you stuck WITH her situationship who you hate more than anyone in the world and you're forced to sort of team up with her for a bit except she doesn't really know magic and she's just being sad and gay and moping about missing her girlfriend and you're sitting there FUMING thinking about how all these fucking witches are fruitier than fuck and all of them are useless to you at this point.

like this is just madame morrible at shiz after elphaba asks her to include glinda in their study sessions just realizing 'dear god I am going to be ping-ponging between these lesbians for the rest of my fucking life aren't I.'

ik she needed elphaba for the plot and for her dastardly plans but in all honesty if I was her and elphaba came up to me at 1am and was like yes please I need you to include my roommate with whom I have a homoerotic relationship in our study sessions or else I will quit right now. also, you have to go down to our party this very instant and tell her in person yourself bye and thanks, I would've just handed in my resignation letter right then and there and cut my losses.

[lycoristyx]

Posting this Ortho so I can get back to drawing another Ortho 🔥

[nellasbookplanet]

I've been thinking about Mollymauk, as I'm periodically wont to do, and the fandom discussion about him as a moral compass. Because the interesting thing here is, Molly wasn’t a very moral character. He was an unrepentant scammer. He had no respect for interpersonal boundaries and would deliberately push and break them. Generally, he was an asshole. As far as actually having a strong moral stance I would say Fjord was the standout of early m9, and to some extent Beau.

But here’s the thing: almost all of early m9 thought of themselves as horrible people. Fjord had been bullied so bad growing up that he still dealt with self-hate from it, and now suffered from survivor's guilt to boot. Caleb had killed his own parents. Beau, while she hated her dad, also had internalized self-hate and on some level thought she’d been such a shitty daughter she deserved his treatment. Nott was stuck in a body she considered monstrous. Yasha had survivor's guilt and knew she’d done bad things in her blank spots. Even when they did good, they didn’t think of themselves as good. Most of them were suspicious and asocial and faced the world with the same kind of distrust they expected to be (and were experienced in being) met with. (Jester was an exception, an agent of neither good nor bad but of amoral chaos)

But Molly was different. He was outspoken about loving life and people. He wanted to spread joy, even to people he didnt know or had even met: he slipped coin into people's pockets, hid a silver in a tree just so some stranger would one day be happy to find it. He openly cared for the party early on; was one of the first to step in and help Caleb when he went catatonic in battle. Above all, Molly had rules: where everyone else would agonize over what was the right or wrong or smart thing to do, Molly loudly proclaimed we don't leave people behind, and we leave every place better than we found it.

But the thing about Molly’s rules was, they were largely a cover. While the rest of the m9 thought they were bad even as they did good, Molly thought of himself as good even as he did bad. He scammed people, but made it a good and memorable experience, therefore thinking he gave more than he took. He charmed Nott and Fjord without consent, and when confronted would claim it was to help them. Out of the group, Beau saw through this, not because she was a better person but because she was a cynic. She saw that he caused harm, just as she did, and was personally affronted that he still thought of himself as good and tried to leave people happy, whereas she deliberately left every place worse than she found it.

I see Molly as a moral compass of the group not because he was actually any more moral than them, but because they made him their template. He was joy and brightness and he died trying to save them because it was the right thing to do, and they all chose to honor him by emulating his rules more than Molly himself ever did, because to them it was more than just a cover, backed up by genuine moral thought and discussion rather than small gestures. He taught them that it was possible to be kind of a shit person and still be good, to still love yourself and others. The idealized Molly they created never existed, and finally died for good when they resurrected him in the end and were met with a stranger, who they welcomed with the same love and care they would've expected Molly to show them.

[blueskittlesart]

oh btw heres some more school art!! this was my character design final, a 3-phase video game boss and an environment to go along with it! my prompt words for this assignment were "demonic swamp" lol

[hinamie]

shows up a day early with a nobara birthday tribute

[drenched-in-sunlight]

probably a weird read of all the mending rune endings but I feel like Marika guided a Tarnished of no renown to become the next Elden Lord because, should the new Age still has her as a God, at least the new Lord would not prioritize their feelings for her over the world anymore (like Godfrey & Radagon did).

as Ansbach said “a Lord not for Gods, but for men”.

She’s already a really flawed God with too much love and hatred and humanity even after her ascension, a God who is willing to break rules for her loved ones (at least from my interpretation), and 2 previous Lords are…too involved with her. No matter if one interprets that as love or duty, you can’t deny those two guys act in accordance with their interest in her. Look how well that turned out.

So I feel like the reason a random Tarnished got the chance to become the next Lord is because Marika wanted them to know the Lands Between first, to love this land & the life within on their own term, with their own journey separate from her.

We don’t need to love or to know her at all.

And so she can trust us to always choose the greater good over her.

(But joke is on her I’ll suck af as a Lord I love her too much I’ll literally just be Godfrey Radagon 2.0 😭😭)