#day of school"

[marypsue]

Keep seeing that post where OP starts like 'Thinking about...grieving the undead' and then adds on about like. Real life situations where people have not died but have left your life and you would have reason to grieve them.

All respect, that's an important concept, but that is not what I am thinking about when I read 'grieving the undead'.

[kiwi]

everybodys gotta get back into the practice of using pseudonyms online... i remember the time of screen names where u never ever told anyone ur real name and that was just understood as basic internet safety. plus having a screen name is fun because sometimes it sticks so well that it becomes part of ur identity that u can use in whatever facet of ur life you choose. it rocks to pick your own name

[mysharona1987]

[overlymetaromantic]

Dungeon Meshi, or as I like to call it, Marcille's-increasingly-difficult-to-ignore-revelations-that-her-endless-devotion-to-Falin-may-in-fact-be-more-rooted-in-lesbianism-than-she-originally-thought

[indigo6f00ff]

need to share an experience i had 30 minutes ago

(edit: thanks to @walks-the-ages for providing and reminding me to put alt text, sorry it slips my mind alot lol)

[heaven-helpus]

i don't think my blog is big enough for this but wtvr I'm curious

add what generation u r in the tags if u want 👍

[corkinavoid]

DPxDC "Pick Me Up"

The stream goes live on the first day of the school year. It's the usual song and dance - mad laughing, threats, poor jokes, terror, and about thirty kids huddled together in a classroom behind Joker's back. Tim recognizes it as one of the Gotham Academy classrooms. Dick can't imagine the horror those kids' parents must be feeling right now. Jason jokes about middle school traumatic experiences. Damian is feeling very justified for skipping classes today.

Bruce, all suited up in his Batman garb, is making his way to the Academy as fast as he possibly can. Those are kids.

Gotham is once again anxiously kept on the edge of their seats, watching as Joker decides to interview the kids on their learning experience so far. Something about leaving a good first impression on the new generation or some other bullshit. Most kids stutter over their words - it's true that Gothamites are way more composed when facing life-threatening events, but those kids are only fourteen or fifteen for the most part. They are not old enough to keep their cool in the face of a murder clown.

That is, until Joker points his camera at one of the girls. Black hair in a high ponytail, blue eyes without a trace of fear, a slightly displeased, even bored expression on her face. She looks straight into the camera, not even waiting for the laughing madman to finish his question, and deadpans:

"I don't think I like school. Pick me up, please."

Joker sputters.

"Not so scared, I see," he sneers, and, in the next moment, a comically large gun painted in purples and greens is pointed to the girl's forehead, "How about now?"

The girl scrunches her nose and makes a so-so gesture.

"It's kinda meh," she admits, "Like, yeah, points for style, but you know, size doesn't matter. It's all in the technique."

Dick snorts over the comms. It's a bad time for laughing, sure, but the phrase caught him off-guard. This is not what you'd expect to hear from a teen, and definitely not something you'd expect anyone to say to the Joker. Jason's comms are muted, but Barbara knows he also laughed a little.

"Technique, you say?" Joker hisses, pressing the gun closer to the girl's head, and she winces, leaning away from it, almost as if she is disgusted by the touch.

"Yeah, I mean, guns are not that scary anyway. What are you gonna do with them, blast my brains all over the floor? Been there, done that," the girl shrugs, "Kinda nasty, but overall, it's just like slime, only sticky." She pauses and looks to the side, seemingly lost in thought, "Huh, maybe we should have added Borax to it. Or was it baking soda?.."

"Listen here, you little brat," Joker's fingers catch the girl's chin, and his voice becomes sickeningly menacing. Bruce is almost there, just two more minutes. Tim is already grappling onto the wall.

But none of them get to finish.

"Put your dirty fingers away from my sister," a low, cold, and even in a way that speaks of barely contained fury, voice comes from out of the screen.

The camera spins, like whoever is holding it turned really fast, and everyone watching the stream sees a fairly normal guy standing by the window - a turtleneck and ripped jeans, same black hair as the girl, same blue eyes... Wait, they are not blue.

And that's not a guy.

The camera falls down to the floor, and there are a lot of panicked screams coming from the broadcast now, but none of them sound like children's voices. It's the screams of adults, of grown-ass men, and later, someone even claimed they heard Joker's scream among them, too. The picture on camera glitches a few times, and the angle is awkward, but everyone still gets to see how shadows in the room morph into eyes, wide open and green, and how the darkness grows sharp teeth, countless grinning mouths that don't belong to any faces.

Screams turn into gargling and then to quiet whispers, filling the ears of all those listening with countless words in languages they don't know.

Red Robin turns off the recording and looks to that same guy from the levestream, sitting across him on the couch. The guy - Daniel, or Danny, as he introduced himself - looks him in the eyes and raises an eyebrow.

"Okay, and?"

"How did you do it?" Tim asks for the third time this evening. Danny blinks.

"Did what?" He asks, completely incomprehending. Tim groans. He's been trying to get his answers, any answers at this point, from the guy for thirty fucking minutes already. So far, he's got nothing. Danny, whoever the fuck he is, proves to be the most annoying human being on Earth.

"Seven people in a coma, including Joker himself, with no physical injuries and none of the children remember a thing! How?!" He demands, and a girl's face peeks from around the corner:

"I remember!"

Tim snaps his head at her, "What do you remember?"

The girl pauses, blinks, and looks to Danny. Then shrugs, "My brother picked me up from school."

Tim drops his head down and breathes out in frustration. He can't force the information out of civilians, he is a vigilante, not a mafia.

"Would it make you feel better if I promise not to do it again?" Danny asks, and his voice is way too innocent for Tim to believe him. He raises his head to look the guy in his shameless, amused eyes.

"I hate you."

"Thanks," Danny grins.

[juliaxyn]

It is time to take the books and start studying, you will achieve your goals!!!

[teaboot]

When I was a kid, I regularly lost reading privileges for "having an attitude" and "acting out".

It wasn't as simple as being told not to read during other activities- one of the first times it happened, I remember being six years old, watching my stepfather pull fistfuls of books off my bookshelf and throw them to the floor in a heaping mess while I cried and asked him to stop.

It was weird. Every other adult I knew described me as exceptionally well-behaved, but at home, it was the opposite, and it was blamed on "learning bad habits from that shit you're reading".

Because I couldn't read at home, I spent all my free time at school in the library, reading with my friends.

When I grew up and moved away, I realized that my family life was toxic and abusive, and the "attitudes" I was being punished for were standing up for myself, standing up for my younger siblings, and resisting actual, real-life psychological abuse. Because I'd learned from what I'd read that my family wasn't normal, not like my parents said it was, and in my stories, the heroes were the people who spoke out when it was hard to.

It is insane to me that there are students right now who can't access books. It is insane that books are being outlawed. It is perverse that we are stealing away an entire generation's ability to contextualize their lives, to learn about the world around them, to develop critical thinking skills and express themselves and feel connected to the world or escape from it, whatever and whenever and however they need.

That is not how you raise a compassionate, thoughtful, powerful society.

That's how you process cattle.

It's fucking disgusting.

[sorryitisandy]

Been thinking about how Rise spent every spare moment at school absolutely WRESTLING with the intrusive thoughts telling her to crank that fire alarm

[scarlct-vvitch]

in honor of ace week id like to shoutout every asexual who first thought they were bi/pan because they looked at all the genders and felt no difference and zero is equal to zero so they said "huh. must be bisexual" and then shoved their sexuality back under the rug for 3-5 years

[batshaped]

the continued adventures of an internet user who was frozen in 2004 and defrosted in 2021: some things are just the way you left them

previous 2004 internet user comics are here: one, two, three, four, five; or just in my 2004 tag

[ducktollers]

best friends

[decapod-appreciator]

Ally Beardsley once again playing the most gender character of all time

[apollos-boyfriend]