#don't ask me how i know this: the post

[qqueenofhades]

For creative writing purposes, can you go into what a typical day is for a professor? Like what their teaching schedule looks like, when most fit in their research time, etc?

Ahaha, well. I don't want to just say "you can completely make it up," but also.... you can pretty much just make it up, and what is the case for one professor is definitely not going to be true for another. I have known people who will send emails at 1am and/or 4am, and actually finding and fitting in research time for most academics is also "lololololol what." So I can give you a roster of typical daily academic tasks and categories, and then let you know if that if you want to throw them up in the air and scatter them around in literally whatever-the-fuck order, there is probably a beleaguered academic who has done that, but with an even worse sleep schedule. So:

Most permanent faculty at a university are hired as assistant (tenure-track) professors. Once they pass the tenure-committee review (usually about 5 years into the job) they are appointed as associate (tenured) professors. Full professors are considerably senior and/or have been in the field for a long time and have a distinguished service record, excluding various wunderkinds who get it early (but are not common).

If the faculty is just teaching one class a semester or has an irregular appointment, i.e. they step in to teach when the university needs them, they are adjunct professors. You can gain a lot of cred and/or commiserating groaning in your AO3 comments by complaining about how little money the adjunct faculty makes, how erratic their schedule is, and how there is generally little-to-no actual career advancement possible in that position, unless they manage to reapply to a permanent post.

There are also a lot of Visiting Assistant Professors (and similar title), for 2- or 3-year/non-permanent appointments. Many institutions now also offer 1-year VAPs with only a possibility of renewal for 1 additional year or not at all. Those institutions should go straight to hell.

Most professors have 3/3 teaching loads, i.e. they'll teach 3 classes per semester (assuming winter/spring semester). Others have 2/2/2 loads for trimesters (also known as quarters). It can be more, i.e. 4/4, but that's for sucky entry-level teaching-only positions and someone in that role would be unlikely to have any research or service (i.e. institutional committee or internal college) commitments. They would probably also mostly be teaching introductory or freshman-year general survey courses. It depends on how much you want to torture your fictional academic.

Free food? Yes. You will see a healthy amount of the department there, whether faculty or student.

Please remember to have your fictional academic receive approximately 50 student emails a day wherein they ask something that is clearly answered in the syllabus or on the course website, and to see how polite they can possibly be in telling said student this.

Most grading is now done online, so the red pen is only metaphorical, but you can leave SO many Pointed Comments on Canvas Speed Grader. But if you want to torture Dr. Blorbo, you can have the e-grading system suddenly stop working, so they have to grade three classes' worth of introductory freshman history essays by hand. Not based on real events.

Likewise, there will be endless bullshit with the dean's office and/or central university administration, wherein there will be so many Urgent Budget Updates and Breaking News From The Chancellor and We Regret To Inform You We Cannot Hire Someone For That Position.

Related to the budget woes: they will ask you to do things like "make sure you print on both sides of the paper!" or otherwise "economize." Contemplating murder is acceptable and encouraged.

The administrative assistant in each department holds the entire department together. They will be extremely indispensable. Your fictional academic, if they know what's good for them, will befriend that person and/or grovel at their feet. Said person is also usually responsible for scheduling classrooms, which can cause all kinds of juicy drama in the academic fandom if there is One Particular Classroom that everyone hates and lo and behold, Dr. Blorbo is stuck there yet again. They will then probably also fire off multiple passive-aggressive emails attempting to correct the problem. The administrative assistant can grant and/or ignore these requests at their discretion, depending on how much beef they have with Dr. Blorbo and/or how motivated they are to solve their problems.

Department meetings! Who asked for them? Nobody! Who has to attend them? Everybody! They go on for two hours every other week (possibly more depending on how meeting-happy your department chair is) and you will wish for death!

Likewise, the department staff sending out passive-aggressive emails about how they really NEED one more volunteer for (insert university event here). Dr. Blorbo, if they are smart, will delete these emails and pretend they never saw them, but sometimes it may be unavoidable. Bitching and moaning will follow.

For research: it really depends on what academic field Dr. Blorbo is in, since the hard sciences, etc. look quite different and I, as a humanities person, can't speak to that. Most academics aim to fairly regularly publish a piece in a peer-reviewed journal; you can check Dr. Blorbo's field to see what journals they might be trying to submit a journal article (usually max. 8000 words, sometimes more) to.

This will go through a process called Peer Review, wherein two anonymous academics review your work (also anonymized to them) to make sure that you are not talking out of your ass. It is a running joke that Reviewer 2 will always, ALWAYS be more grumpy and critical and otherwise annoying. Invoking the specter of Dr. Blorbo receiving a peer review evaluation for their article will send a shiver down every academic's spine.

If Dr. Blorbo has recently finished their PhD, they may be working on converting their PhD thesis into an academic monograph. The most horrible part of this process, hands down, is reviewing proofs to make an index. Don't ask me how I know this.

However, academic monographs take a lot of time and work and most academics are mostly focused on publishing journal articles, book chapters (in collected volumes) or editing/working in collaboration with other projects.

Likewise: Dr. Blorbo will have to write book reviews. This is accomplished by the very scientific method of subscribing to various industry publications and/or email lists that will sometimes send out lists of books that need to be reviewed and solicit people to sign up. You will then receive a hard copy of the book (usually) and have 3 months or so to read it and write a review. The first 2 months of this, give or take, will consist of the book sitting untouched on the academic's desk as they remind themselves that they still have plenty of time to do it.

There can, however, be INCREDIBLE beef in book reviews, and while the standards of professional courtesy dictate that you don't go great-guns-flaming calling someone else in your field a moron (in more technical language), sometimes it is unavoidable.

Do they get paid for any of this extra intellectual work? Lol. No. No they do not. They don't get paid enough for their actual job.

Dr. Blorbo will inevitably hear some Hot Gossip about what nonsense has recently happened at which field-specific conference (where academics go to present research papers and network with other academics and make regrettable decisions at the open bar). They will then rush to secretly text all their other academic friends with OOH JUICY ACADEMIC DRAMA. Their friends will do the same whenever the opportunity arises to reciprocate.

Removing the coffee machine from the break room/faculty kitchen is grounds for mutiny.

Anyway. I am sure there are many, MANY more, but if you want an authentic slice of long-suffering academic life for Dr. Blorbo, this is all a good place to start.

[jojaxcola]

"no one told me back then that i was in the glory days."

[ jojamart mockumentary #14 ]

[ prev ]

[originalartblog]

Apparently much-needed reminder that reposting artists' art (by saving the images or screenshotting them and reuploading them yourself) on other platforms without the artists' expressed permission and without credit is theft and an insult to their passion and craft. You are profiting (in views, in attention, in feedback) from someone else's work and ideas, who do not get that feedback for sharing their creation.

If you are an art reposter, you are a thief and I have no respect for you.

[pinbones]

I've seen a few posts about women and pants now and many of them are very good, and not to nitpick those posts or downplay religious sexism or anything, but I have to emphasise:

Somebody who DOESN'T live in a controlling religious country/cult/family is also affected by sexism. We all know that, right? Secular parts of the first world also have opinions about how women dress, including when it comes to trousers, especially in childhood and in institutions like schools and the workplace

Me and many people my age (20s) remember being forced into skirts, punished and shamed by parents & teachers & peers & possibly then bosses about what we wear not being feminine enough, and it wasn't by deeply religious sects. Many updates to dress codes are very new and sexist views are still in place in many institutions. Normalised societal misogyny wants women (and people they want to treat as women) to dress femininely, down to what KIND of pants they're allowed to wear (compare a pink top and jeggings to mens jeans and tell me these two women are treated the same. Hating women in pantsuits is still a sexist office joke today, and even those outfits are feminine compared to male suits, which raise eyebrows when worn by women). The women I know who wear trousers regularly are literally otherwise feminine, and all wear dresses to events.

I know trousers have become much more normalised over the past few decades in secular society (yay!! the result of many many years of effort and lawbreaking) but let's not be absolute when we talk about the pants concept lol. Especially within a larger conversation about female/transmasc/intersex/transfem masculinity and social perceptions, especially in an age of rising fascism

[inkskinned]

crows use tools and like to slide down snowy hills. today we saw a goose with a hurt foot who was kept safe by his flock - before taking off, they waited for him to catch up. there are colors only butterflies see. reindeer are matriarchical. cows have best friends and 4 stomachs and like jazz music. i watched a video recently of an octopus making himself a door out of a coconut shell.

i am a little soft, okay. but sometimes i can't talk either. the world is like fractal light to me, and passes through my skin in tendrils. i feel certain small things like a catapult; i skirt around the big things and somehow arrive in crisis without ever realizing i'm in pain.

in 5th grade we read The Curious Incident of the Dog In The Night-time, which is about a young autistic boy. it is how they introduced us to empathy about neurotypes, which was well-timed: around 10 years old was when i started having my life fully ruined by symptoms. people started noticing.

i wonder if birds can tell if another bird is odd. like the phrase odd duck. i have to believe that all odd ducks are still very much loved by the other normal ducks. i have to believe that, or i will cry.

i remember my 5th grade teacher holding the curious incident up, dazzled by the language written by someone who is neurotypical. my teacher said: "sometimes i want to cut open their mind to know exactly how autistics are thinking. it's just so different! they must see the world so strangely!" later, at 22, in my education classes, we were taught to say a person with autism or a person on the spectrum or neurodivergent. i actually personally kind of like person-first language - it implies the other person is trying to protect me from myself. i know they had to teach themselves that pattern of speech, is all, and it shows they're at least trying. and i was a person first, even if i wasn't good at it.

plants learn information. they must encode data somehow, but where would they store it? when you cut open a sapling, you cannot find the how they think - if they "think" at all. they learn, but do not think. i want to paint that process - i think it would be mostly purple and blue.

the book was not about me, it was about a young boy. his life was patterned into a different set of categories. he did not cry about the tag on his shirt. i remember reading it and saying to myself: i am wrong, and broken, but it isn't in this way. something else is wrong with me instead. later, in that same person-first education class, my teacher would bring up the curious incident and mention that it is now widely panned as being inaccurate and stereotypical. she frowned and said we might not know how a person with autism thinks, but it is unlikely to be expressed in that way. this book was written with the best intentions by a special-ed teacher, but there's some debate as to if somebody who was on the spectrum would be even able to write something like this.

we might not understand it, but crows and ravens have developed their own language. this is also true of whales, dolphins, and many other species. i do not know how a crow thinks, but we do know they can problem solve. (is "thinking" equal to "problem solving"? or is "thinking" data processing? data management?) i do not know how my dog thinks, either, but we "talk" all the same - i know what he is asking for, even if he only asks once.

i am not a dolphin or reindeer or a dog in the nighttime, but i am an odd duck. in the ugly duckling, she grows up and comes home and is beautiful and finds her soulmate. all that ugliness she experienced lives in downy feathers inside of her, staining everything a muted grey. she is beautiful eventually, though, so she is loved. they do not want to cut her open to see how she thinks.

a while ago i got into an argument with a classmate about that weird sia music video about autism. my classmate said she thought it was good to raise awareness. i told her they should have just hired someone else to do it. she said it's not fair to an autistic person to expect them to be able to handle that kind of a thing.

today i saw a goose, and he was limping. i want to be loved like a flock loves a wounded creature: the phrase taken under a wing. which is to say i have always known i am not normal. desperate, mewling - i want to be loved beyond words.

loved beyond thinking.

[beargregor]

wait i'm curious, what makes you say that gregor doesn't like everyone else (if i read that post right)? just curious since i've never seen anyone else say that

i don't necessarily think gregor dislikes everyone else at lcb but i do think that gregor is an incredibly petty person that isn't nearly as close to the rest of the sinners and even outright dislikes some of them cough cough rodya cough cough which a lot of people just Refuse to see because he's as much of a doormat as he is. there's several examples i could get into to try and prove my point however i'll just focus on what i personally think to be the biggest ones.

additionally, this is going to be kind of long, so i'm adding a read more. read more! read it. sorry for being so wordy. i have several diseases.

Pt1. gregor is the type to try and get along at least decently with everyone, especially if he gets a good first impression from them.

this is less a point in favor of gregor's distance w/ the rest of the sinners and more just a contributing factor to it. once again there's several examples i could point to here but i think the most in your face one happened in canto I with yuri, as several people have pointed out. even before gregor comes clean about growing attached to her as quickly as he did because she reminds him of his sister, we get this interaction.

i'll go ahead and make the disclaimer now that i don't necessarily think gregor is the most reliable of narrators, especially when it comes to his feelings and interactions with most people, but from the way he acts when the topic of yuri comes up (and the way we still see him act even all the way up to c7, nearly a whole year after yuri's death) i don't see reason to question his sentiment here. gregor immediately got that aya and yuri were close, potentially even taking note of their traded belts, and went out of his way to get something nice for yuri despite hardly knowing her.

i feel like a lot of people have forgotten as much, especially since it's been so long since c1, but gregor actually spent a good bit of season 1 doing the exact same thing with the other sinners! gregor reads a connection between him and ishmael pretty quickly despite getting off to a rocky start

mostly because gregor can tell that ishmael is pretty sardonic in a very similar way to him. there's been multiple instances where ishmael and gregor have essentially expressed the same sentiment at different moments, most notably gregor's little argument after ishmael got shot with a decay ampule in c4

and ishmael's response to pilot talking about self-sacrifice in c5

i could go ahead and pull up more examples, but in general pm has gone out of their way to show us that gregor and ishmael are pretty similar, so it makes sense for gregor to assume that they're friends, right?

this will be pushpin 1. keep note of this for Later.

ishmael's only the first sinner we see gregor trying to do this with in s1, we also see him try it out with heathcliff, sinclair, and ryoushuu

he's tried to get along with charon, being one of very few sinners that we've seen actually try to establish a connection with her at all

even rodya, despite my insistence that gregor doesn't like her nearly as much as the fandom thinks he does

all of these seem pretty fine and dandy, right? sure it frequently leans towards self-degradation, micromanaging, and commiseration, but gregor can at least be pretty chummy with most of the sinners, can't he?

Pt2. hell's chicken was more than just comic relief guys please

i'm fully aware that this is quite the hot take, but i think hell's chicken deserves a lot more credit for character writing than the fandom gives it. hell's chicken gave us foreshadowing for several events, such as the donqui bloodfiend reveal

heathcliff's distortion in c6 (as well as hong lu's highly speculated distortion at some point in the future)

and ryoushuu and sinclair's continued connection by making him the odd one out on her team

which, hey! that implies something about gregor's odd one out, don quixote, too, doesn't it? yes. yes it does. that's pushpin 2. keep note of that for later.

speaking of pushpins, hey! that's pushpin 1!

splitting into teams is one of the major events in hell's chicken, and most of the sinner's choices are either motivated by very little, backhanded, or motivated primarily by not wanting to be on the opposite leader's side. i didn't include all of the picks, just because i feel like including most of them already gets this across, but i think gregor took one major thing from this: most of the sinners, when push comes to shove, will only side with gregor when they refuse to or can't take his opponent's side.

now, don't get me wrong, i'm fully aware that this is primarily intended to be comedic relief, but when gregor is being described as having his trust broken by ishmael or nearly crying because no one on his team properly sided with him for him, i feel like it's pretty fair to read into this.

something that i think is pretty important to remember in conjunction with this is that we know that gregor is the type to hold a grudge, both from his general attitude towards the G corp soldiers in c1 as well as his continued distaste for vergilius

even beyond the splitting into teams of hell's chicken, the sinners have given gregor plenty of reasons to feel bitter. i feel like this is something people have noticed but haven't really put a finger on, but it's kind of wild just how often the rest of the sinners make gregor the butt of the joke

and sure, we could argue that a fair few of these aren't really made with any ill intent. quite a bit of it could have been meant as harmless teasing, but with gregor being more sensitive than most, it coming from nearly all sides, and as often as it does? yeah, i think he's prone to taking it a bit personally.

Pt3. yes i do still think gregor was the third most important character in canto VII you guys gotta hear me out okay

of course, all of this leads up to the bit of the story i highlighted, doesn't it? c7? i totally get why people haven't really picked up on all the gregor things i did in it, seeing as they were mostly not *directly* said about him or by him.

personally, i think that gregor's distaste for talking about himself on any serious level and thus leading to him getting sort of "sidelined" narratively (which i take issue with that claim, but still. it's effective for getting what i mean across atm) is supposed to lead players to take a deeper look at the times gregor gets held up to other characters and compare and contrast what's being said about them by the matchup. as i showed earlier with his immediate latching onto ishmael, i think this is something gregor himself is at least partially aware of too.

so, that begs the question, who was gregor compared to in canto VII that makes me think it's one of the most critical pieces in understanding his character?

really, i'd like to avoid getting too lost in the analysis of this canto specifically, since i'd like to do a proper post about this later, but i figure i can bury the lede a little before doing it properly.

c7 features several characters being made to perform in sansón's play, acting out the relevant backstory for this segment of the plot. a lot of these characters have rather direct, degrading reasons for playing the roles they do.

outis, a character with an inflated ego who wants her journey to have a purpose, is made to play an aimlessly wandering villager with a single line.

hong lu and ryoushuu, two characters for whom families and the expectations placed upon them are likely going to play a major role, are made to play bloodfiends.

rodya, a character who resents her lot in life and is constantly shown to be eager to leave her destitution behind her and become someone special, is made to play a helpless villager that's too poor to even offer any money to the hero that saves her.

heathcliff, a character that has spent most of his life getting dehumanized by comparing him to beastly animals, is made to play a literal bear whose sole purpose in the plot is to get beat up and then quickly left by the wayside.

sinclair, a character that has two opposed parties essentially treating him as a macguffin to procure for their side, is made to play the character who was arguably the catalyst for this entire canto, not to mention playing a decently major role in ruina.

our star don quixote is made to play her father, the first kindred, but there's someone by their side the entire time, isn't there? don quixote's dear, steadfastly loyal companion. a character which don quixote has tasked themself with getting to come out of their shell?

hello again, pushpin 2.

gregor has been made to play our unreachable star, sancho. someone had to, of course. you can't really tell a story without it's main character, now can you?

now, i should once again give a disclaimer. i am not trying to say that i think adapting what happens to donqui/sancho in c7 to gregor is the road pm is going to take here, not only would that toe a bit past the line of foreshadowing, but it'd also just amount to rehashing that plotline again, which i don't think would make for a particularly exciting story.

what i DO think is that we can take a lot of the things that are said to either directly be the case for sancho and use them to inform how we see gregor.

and god, does playing sancho have some fucking implications for our favorite ossan archetype.

starting off, the earliest moment we get to see of sancho is quite literally her just waiting for death to take her in a pile of ashes.

which, i should remind everyone, is actually pretty damn close to what happens to gregor's literary counterpart at the end of the metamorphosis. gregor samsa experiences one final breaking point that pushes him over the edge and makes him decide to just wait for starvation to take him.

gregor and sancho both consider themselves to no longer be human, something which sancho goes out of her way to highlight repeatedly throughout the canto and gregor is quick to get defensive on her behalf for when outis starts really tearing into her

sancho spends quite a lot of this story denying herself the joys of community and friendship, despite knowing that, even with the rest of the sinners frequently making jokes at her expense and outright insulting her, they were things that she desperately craved.

and, while this is getting into my "outis is a red herring meant to distract us from gregor's eventual betrayal" theorizing, i also think it's worth noting for this discussion that sancho's fellow kindreds, her family, all seem to be under the impression that she dislikes them and ultimately her departure was an act of betrayal

and that, despite gregor being one of LCB's resident mood makers and attempted conflict de-escalators, one of the sinners that's most prone to making appeals to the bonds they've all forged together, only him and faust remained silent during everyone's speech

so yeah, i think there's quite a lot of little details and hints building up to the reveal that gregor's not quite as fond of everyone as he presents himself to be. i do think a lot of this ultimately comes down to gregor getting in the way of his own happiness, similarly to donqui, particularly because he's been frequently portrayed as something of a self fulfilling prophecy, especially by giving him as many christ allegories as they have by way of priest and garden of thorns. gregor is convinced that the rest of the sinners don't like him because he's not convinced anyone could like him, so he convinces himself that he hates them because why should he care if someone that he hates hates him too?

a lot of this ultimately ties back to my personal interpretation of what happens in the metamorphosis as well as my own theories regarding all the times gregor has made weird callbacks and references to lobcorp and ruina, but yeah. i think about this guy and his deeper characterization a fairly normal amount, i think.

to end this off i'll highlight one of my favorite little "gregor is fucking seething and trying so hard to keep it cool" moments, in the credits CG for c7 we see rodya teasing him by drawing a little horse on his window and actively pointing and laughing at it, which gregor really doesn't seem all too pleased about.

i personally think this ties into the other cruel part of sansón forcing gregor to play rocinante, which is the more literal "he's actually just straight up playing rocinante" side of things. gregor was quite literally made to play something less than human, less than even animal really, as he was reduced to nothing more than the shoes don quixote wore as she got to play the leading role. sansón directly makes jokes about gregor being nothing more than shoes in the play twice, which adds to this reading, i think.

this, imo, really plays into the adaptation of the metamorphosis! i've seen a lot of readings for the book that posit that, despite being the protagonist, gregor samsa can't really be considered the main character due to nearly everything he experiences in it being used to further his family's character development at his expense, which i think fits nicely with limbus gregor seemingly having the most said about him through indirect means by holding him up to other characters. also it's rodya carelessly making fun of His Big Major Insecurities™ again like she did in c1 which i always find fun. rodya i love you but god you're the worst.

[erinwantstowrite]

if you want people to get into the canon comics and lead everyone away from fanon misinterpretation (which is a losing battle because there will ALWAYS be this) then why not be helpful instead of being a dick about it 🤨

the comics are hard to get into because it's hard to know where to start, and there's so much content that people are able to fill themselves in by reading fanfic or watching something on tiktok or seeing posts about it on here. perhaps instead of telling people they're stupid for not realizing your favorite character is being mishandled by others, you could write up a list of your favorite comics and/or how, if you could read them for the first time again, you would order your favorite comics to get the best reading experience. and also write your own fanfiction and draw your own fanart or make a passionate post, answer questions politely

[nostalgiaclown]

the way I was having this conversation with my friend weeks ago and said I think mint choc chip or rum raisin... he's so cute...

[kettlefire]

Bullets & Babies. (Dpxdc)

This was not what Dan had planned for the rest of his life. When the old stopwatch released him from his prison, Dan had a specific idea in mind.

He wanted to go out into the world. Visit every place he never had the chance to before he had decimated it in his own timeline.

Honestly, what's so wrong with just wanting to sip mai tais on a beach?

And Clockwork, for the vagueness he could muster, barely told Dan anything about what was happening. Being told he needed to take Danny and Ellie somewhere safe and protect them until the time was right wasn't exactly much information.

That also didn't explain why two babies were shoved into his arms. It didn't take a genius to figure out who was who.

The little dipsticks still make it easy to tell, even in their less than helpful age. Dan was going to argue. He really was. Barely holding the infant Danny and Ellie by their legs. Almost like a gross piece of meat.

Except, before Dan would utter a single complaint, he wasn't in the Clocktower anymore. Instead, he found himself in a fully furnished two bedroom apartment.

An annoying green sticky note lay on the coffee table. A note that Dan had immediately burned up in his hand. It only added fuel to the boiling anger Dan felt.

"Good Luck :) - CW"

Dan made a vow that the next time he saw the snakey little bastard, he was going to clock him straight on the nose. Screw if it got him tossed back into that thermos.

He wasn't a goddamn babysitter. He didn't have a clue how to handle babies, let alone take care of them for an undetermined time period.

Dan was still seething with anger when baby Ellie had started to cry. The wailing only grated on his nerves more. Of course, baby Danny had to chime in with his wails.

It took annoyingly long for Dan to figure out what was wrong. Ellie needed a diaper change, and Danny was just crying because she was crying.

Dan still muttered curses on Clockwork's name as he did the job. Listen, he might be a monster. He might have destroyed a whole world in a different timeline. He might not have had any qualms in killing children back then.

But that was forever ago, okay? And there was one thing killing a child quick and moving on. It was a completely different thing to let a child sit in their own filth and suffer.

That's how Dan found himself building a life in Gotham City. He tried to set Danny and Ellie up in a daycare, but the two squirts just had to still have their powers.

Living in a shady place like Crime Alley made it easy for Dan to locate a shady babysitter. Now, of course, he didn't hire some random off the street. He did his due diligence and made sure that the two would be in relatively safe hands.

And really, the tiny squirt of a drug runner was nothing against Dan. The kid just needed cash, and Dan had plenty of it. Even if he didn't obtain the cash in the best way possible.

It didn't take long before Dan made a name for himself on the streets. Nothing too crazy, mostly muscle for higher. He tried to keep a low profile, he really did.

But when you take a bullet for a client, word gets around. Apparently, dedicated bodyguards were far and few between. No one needed to know that Dan only took the bullet because he really wanted the second half of the money.

Or that a bullet was nothing for someone like him. He was healed up and back to work the next day. It really was easy money, and Dan would not trade it for a cashier job. He'd rather still be in the thermos.

It took a few months before Dan finally felt like he was killing this. He had a good system. The teen drug runner (now ex drug runner, Dan really out here turning around lives) would watch the kids whenever Dan needed to go out.

Dan had a good flow of jobs and cash coming his was. Danny and Ellie were both healthy and happy. Dan had even caught Danny's first assisted steps on camera, not that he was proud of the little twerp or anything.

Ellie was more of a mess. Her powers kept acting up whenever she got emotional. Not that it was that hard to just ghost baby proof the apartment.

Dan was absolutely killing it at this whole single father of two thing. His days started becoming more routine. He made sure to put effort into making sure the two kids hit the milestones they needed to.

The library and the internet became his best friend. His home bookshelf was just filled with parenting books. Dan might not care about the little parasites, but he wasn't going to half-ass the job either.

Because that's what this was. Just a job. And Dan always completes a job.

Things were going great until they weren't. It was supposed to be a simple job, Dan was just escorting a massive shipment of drugs. His job was to just make sure the supply landed safely, that's all.

Except, his babysitter had to call off for the first time ever. Leaving Dan with a job he needed to do, he already got his first payment. And two babies with no one to watch after.

It probably would have been smart for Dan to have a backup sitter. But this is his first time, okay, sue him for not planning ahead.

So yea, maybe it's not smart to bring along two babies on a rather dangerous escort job. Maybe it is a little weird seeing a massive tank of a man with two babies strapped on his back, and a semi-automatic in hand.

But Dan had made a name for himself. Despite the strange glances, no one said a word about it. Things went smooth from there.

No hiccups. No attempted jacking. Nothing. Which was a little strange for something like this. Keeping Dan on high alert. Despite that, the few guys that were along for the job all seemed relaxed.

The drop-off went just as smoothly. Unloading and reloading the boxes into a new truck. Dan was getting close to being done, he just needed to watch the truck leave unbothered for him to get his second payment.

The two twerps were surprisingly calm throughout it all. Barely so much as sneezing, still dead asleep in the holders. The calmness only put Dan even more on edge.

When the sound of squealing tires broke the calm night air, Dan had moved fast. Dislodging Danny and Ellie, tucking them away inside on empty shipping container.

It might not have been ideal, but Dan figured that was better than getting into a gunfight with the two still on him.

Even if Dan had managed not to get hit, and the truck drove off in his view seemingly safe. That's all that mattered. If this helmeted freak wanted to go after it, that's fine.

Dan did his job. He was getting paid regardless if the shipment made it to its secondary location. They only hired him for the first half. It's on those idiots if they lose it.

He was certain that Red Hood would take off after the truck once Dan stopped giving cover fire. He was just muscle for hire, there was no reason for Red Hood to stick around.

So when Dan made his way back to the shipping container. He was determined to pick up his kids and head back home for a much needed shower. Maybe take a week off work and just relax.

He was not prepared to find that annoying helmeted freak standing over a sleeping Danny. Or, even worse, holding a giggling Ellie. The girl's hands running over the smooth surface of the man's helmet.

Dan didn't even need to think about it. He reacted instinctively, gun raised and aimed directly at Red Hood's chest.

"Put the twerp down. Now."

Maybe Dan's tone comes out a little more protective and angry than he intended. Again, it's not like he really cared for the useless babies. His reaction was solely because it's his job to take care of the two.

That anger and need to protect had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that he had been moonlighting as their father. He was not feeling fatherly feelings, he was not.

Red Hood had moved just as quickly as Dan had. Even before the words left Dan, he was staring down the barrel of a gun. Unlike Hood, Dan didn't have protection against getting his brains blown away.

Dan totally did not notice the way Hood had shifted his position. Ellie was out of any direct line of a gun, shielded slightly behind Red Hood's own bulk. The still sleeping Danny now behind Hood's legs.

Dan absolutely did not notice it. He had no thoughts or feelings about seeing the vigilante instinctively protect the two babies. His babies.

The two men stood there for a moment, guns aimed and tension in the air. A brief stalemate that felt longer than it was. Dan had no intentions of lowering his weapon until those two twerps were by his side again. And it was clear Red Hood had a similar thought.

That was until Ellie decided now was the time to start wailing like a banshee. Her tiny fists knocking against Hood's helmet. And she didn't stop there. No, that would be too simple.

Ellie chooses then to suddenly float out of Hood's grasp, heading straight for Dan. Because that's what Dan needed right now. Not just Red Hood knowing about the two kids. But now also knowing that at least one of them was a possible meta.

Dan was going to kill Clockwork.

[toms-topic]

I love reminding tumblr users that Will Wood scrolls through the Will Wood tag on tumblr sometimes like yeah he's here and hiding somewhere. Maybe he's the one liking your WW art posts with a reblog that has "literally me" in the tags, but hey you can never be sure

[firestorm09890]

Y'ALL. Y'ALL so for a long time I've believed that "the sun" in Meursault's story is Carmen, and I went to check Hell's Chicken's dialogue to see exactly how he said that he'd dealt with distortions before, and... you know what else he said?

To my knowledge, it is a phenomenon where an individual morphs into a form often unfit to be considered “human”. It has no known causes, and the appearances were all different.

Unfit to be considered human.

Meursault, who, in his book, was judged by the court to be soulless.

Meursault, who has EGO for Cyborgs who have been so mutilated they barely act like people anymore; a murderer who was experimented on until ceasing to be human; a sheep named after Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, a novel about the humanity of androids and the inhumanity of humans; and now a rose that can't help its bloodsucking nature, based on Carmilla, a vampire whose story emphasized the duality between her vampiric traits and her human ones.

Meursault, who answered Heathcliff's ironic question of if he had metal for brains like this:

I'm placing my bets now, that line from Hell's Chicken is foreshadowing for Meursault's canto even more than "I have witnessed a number of [distortion] cases in the past" was

[starry-bi-sky]

Clone^2 - Separation Strikes

"Why do I have to go?" Damian asks, surly and accent-thick, it sounds more like a demand and a whine at the same time. Sitting on the kitchen table with his arms crossed, in a green t-shirt that Danny bought him at a whim when he was at a thrift shop, and black shorts, he's never looked more like a kid. There's a little backpack leaning against the table leg, Damian begrudgingly picked it out when they went shopping.

His English has grown in leaps and bounds since Danny found him -- er, or more accurately; since Damian was spat out in front of him. -- and very little did they have to use the translator on Danny's phone these days.

Which meant one thing: Damian can start attending school comfortably now. And 'go' was the Amity Smiles Child Care Center. Danny and Jazz went as kids until they were twelve, and Mom and Dad actually managed to convince the center director to let Damian enroll for the summer.

And it was summer; Damian starts today.

"Because," Danny says, trying and failing to hide the smile pulling on his face, his heart warm and soft, and also laughing at Damian's expense; "being cooped up in the house all day isn't good for you, and you're starting school in the Fall. And, in Jazz's words: you need to have interactions with other kids your age for the benefit of your social development. And besides, it's only for the morning."

Damian's nose scrunches up, and his eyes roll so violently that for a moment, Danny thinks about joking that he'll get his eyes stuck like that. He holds his tongue; his little brother already looks like he's five seconds away from committing an act of violence.

"I don't need social interaction." Damian sneers, his cheek in his hand; a neverend pool of pride. "I am--"

"The Blood of the Demon Heir, better than everyone else." Danny cuts off, waving his hand in dismissive circles, his voice mockingly deep. Damian's brown skin darkens in embarrassment, and he scowls at Danny. "I know, bud. But Jazz is right, -- don't tell her I said that, -- you should be around kids your age."

Especially when he starts First Grade in the Fall. Honestly -- Danny was a little nervous to send him to the center. Damian's long since cut the habit of trying to kill or otherwise maim people, his palms ache-burn with gentle reminder, but his tongue was as sharp and as cutting as his sword. He still struggles with trying to quell it when he's upset. Vicious child-weapon that he once was, and will never be again.

Danny knows that it comes from a place of fear and defense, that Damian lashes out because that's what he's been taught. That at the end of the day, he doesn't really mean what he says, and he's learning to express himself better. But the other kids don't know that, and kids can be unforgiving and cruel.

Danny just...

His slow beating heart sighs, melancholy settles behind his lungs.

He doesn't want Damian to be outcasted. He doesn't want him to be alone.

Not like he was.

Damian sneers again, but says nothing, his shoulders crawling up to hide his ears like a turtle receding into his shell. Danny watches him silently, leaning against the kitchen counter with his own arms crossed. The clock hanging on the wall ticks in their ears -- it's almost time to go.

He watches Damian, careful, and so he sees it when his little brother's stone-shell pride and petulance shudders, and cracks. The darkened furrow of Damian's brows weakens, and for a moment, slants back.

Ah, Danny thinks, his own shoulders slumping. Epiphany washes over him, and his sad-heart soothes in warm understanding. So that's what it is.

His head tilts, and his hair spills over his shoulders, messy and fluffy, tickling his neck. Some of his bangs fall into his face. "Hal 'ant easabiatan ya habibi?" He asks, voice low and soft. Just as Damian's English has improved, so has Danny's Arabic. He still stumbles over himself some days, and Damian says his accent is trash, but they can have whole conversations now in Damian's mothertongue.

(Danny was incredibly proud of himself for it.)

Damian's face darkens, his blush spreading across the rest of his face, and he ducks his head down. Grown-out curls, black-brown and springy, falls over his eyes. "La!" He yells, loud and indignant, and not at all convincingly. "La 'asheur bialtawaturi!"

He was nervous. Danny can see it now, in the hunch of his shoulders and the tightness of his face, and faintly, he can feel it too. In the ecto-rich air of the Fentonworks House, it thrums, barely-there, like a hummingbird behind his lungs.

Danny can't stop the little, fond smile that forces itself across his lips and upticks the corner of his mouth. "It's okay to be nervous, little brother." He says, he sounds like Jazz when he says that. He doesn't think she'll mind him borrowing the nickname.

He pushes himself off the counter, and Damian refuses to look at him, hiding behind his hair and in his shoulders. It takes three long strides for him to reach the table, and Danny turns, plants his hands on the ledge, and hoists himself up. Right next to Damian.

Damian leans into him easily when Danny's arm wraps around his shoulders and tucks him close to his heart. He can feel his ear against his ribs. Danny hunches over him, resting his chin on Damian's head. "It's so okay to be nervous, actually. I was nervous, Jazz was nervous." He tells him, scratching the blunt edge of his nails across his scalp. "Everyone gets nervous."

"'Ana last aljumiea." Damian mumbles, as small and feeble as he was the night on the OPS Center balcony, realizing that his mom and the League weren't coming for him. Realizing that he was replaceable.

Danny's half-working heart squeezes; in grief, in rage, and his faucet eyes sting. He breathes in carefully, and presses his nose into Damian's hair in a loving faux-kiss. "You're right, you're not everyone." He says, steady and strong, because if he's not a pillar for his family, who else is he?

He can feel Damian's eyes flick up to him, and Danny smiles into his black-brown curls. Tilts his head to squish his cheek against him instead, hand dropping to thumb below Damian's lashes. "You're Damian Fenton," Because the adoption went through a few weeks ago, and he's still riding that high, "You're my baby brother. O' Artist Extraordinaire, Kickass with a Sword, Vegetarian and Wonderful Co-Ghost Hunter."

Damian tries to stifle a smile, and fails. Score! Triumph gathers in Danny's gut, his smile grows wider. He squeezes Damian tight, and only releases him so he can look him in the eyes. "And if anyone gives you a hard time at school, and I mean anyone--"

Danny has bad memories of the teachers looking the other way when the other kids were bullying him, all because he was a Fenton.

And Danny, bleeding heart, bleeding hands, loves his family more than he will ever love himself, will never let Damian experience the same injustice. Not if he can help it.

His eyes narrow, and the buzzy-film of ectoplasm covers his eyes, making them glow, "--You tell me. And as your awesome great big brother-and-technically-dad-but-only-biologically, I will handle it."

Damian, wonderfully made, full of light, his little brother Damian, giggles weakly at him. A sound that's worth it's weight in gold. The scary eyes dissipate, and Danny matches the sound with a cock-eyed, impish grin, dragging Damian into a soul-crushing, too-tight hug. The kind that only annoying older brothers can give. "Got it?"

That gets a proper, if short, laugh out of Damian. He wriggles in Danny's arms, trying to break free. But Danny does calisthenics, his arms are as big as Damian's head, so it doesn't work. "Understood, now, daeni 'adhhab ya 'akhi!"

Danny laughs, loud and bright, and loosens his hold just a smidge, only so he can adjust his grip and hop off the table with Damian still in arm.

"Never!" He crows, hoisting Damian slightly. One eye flick at the clock, and in one quick move, he secures Damian under one arm like a football, and hooks his foot under the strap of his backpack. Kicking it up, he tosses it into the air and catches it with his free hand, and slings it over his shoulder. "Now, to the car, my boy! Before we're late and Mom and Dad get charged."

Damian groans, childish and dramatic and long, but his face is all squished up with a wide grin and glee. Danny can taste his joy beneath his tongue.

"And, if my little pep talk didn't encourage you," He says, reaching the door to the garage, flipping Damian up onto his hip instead. "If you have a good day today, I'll make you bal mithai when you get back."

Like all kids at the promise of sweets, Damian's eyes widen and glitter. Danny loves seeing Damian be a kid, it's his favorite thing in the world. "I will!"

[accirax]

🌟🍬🤖🎈Congrats to Wonderlands x Showtime for finishing their 4x4!🌟🍬🤖🎈

[gray-thistleclan]

as warmup ive been drawing some gtc cats as humans!! (mostly cherrystar)

[malasdose]

what's with your face?

[royaldollybox]

Good day, I bring ye more The heart killer text posts

This time featuring Kant and Style becuase I am facinated by their friendship

I have yet to recover from my madness

Post 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8