#grump grump

[justanotherjaydrawing]

God, trying to figure out what caused a flare up and if it could have been avoided is the worst. Is it the change in the weather? Did I sleep poorly? Did I do too much recently? Is it the change in medication? Who knows? All I know is my bones hurt.

[cosmogyros]

Can we please make it illegal to put the phrase "'a' as in 'father'" in any language-learning textbook ever again? That is close to being the worst POSSIBLE word to phonetically represent the sound intended.

[befuddledcinnamonroll]

Can Pia please come and run my life? Look at her! So competent. Rawr.

Goddamit Boss! Look at what you did to Tul. Now he thinks you were faking your interest. You made a very sexy man think he is not sexy!

Speaking of sexy...

These two are so damn cute

and I just love their aesthetics together.

You know, I just can't say enough for Tinn's portrayal of Tul. We've gotten zero backstory, but the way his pain is just seeping through as he talks to Boss...

This is a man who has such a core of loyalty, yet you can tell he has been abandoned before and thinks himself unworthy of love. And despite his resistance to Boss' flirting, he was clearly weakening, and starting to feel wanted.

I'm also 100% on Tul's side here. Regret and apologies are a good start, but people have to show they are sorry via action & behaviors or it means nothing. Get to work Boss! Gotta prove that love! Tul deserves it.

Hmm, interesting that they're giving us backstory on Kenji.

So presumably the psychopath was always underneath, and came out once he had a bit of power... definitely a big contrast to Tul, and how despite having reasons to be loyal to Tew, Kenji only sees him as competition.

Oh ffs Tew. You're a gangster, and you didn't make sure he was dead?!

Also Wahl is being super sus here. I do not trust.

Hmm, Wahl, almost like the two you DON'T ALIGN!?!

Oh goddamit, this is one of the tropes I hate the most!

Blerg. Love in Translation did this too. I loathe the "I'm going to fake being an asshole who doesn't love you to protect you" bullshit, because 1) it never fucking works to actually protect the person, and 2) if you were honest and talked it all over with your allies you could actually come up with a decent plan to deal with your problem.

Oh, goddamit Boss!

I'm not going to get super mad here, because abuse dynamics are complicated and I get that Boss has been Kenji's victim for a while. But I'm still annoyed on Tul's behalf. That man deserves someone who will fight for him.

Also, dammit Wahl! I was so close to giving him some credit for acting like an actual friend.

and then you had to start moving in for the kiss. You don't do that when your friend is vulnerable, you little shit!

Guy needs to just go hang out with the gaming crew, screw both Wahl & Tew. Poor innocent little muffin. He just wants to love and be loved.

[shivunin]

Grarrr i need more music for Lenore's playlist

[chiseld]

Like... I'm sorry, is it just me, or is this the most ridiculously convoluted way to explain the concept of "HEAD" that has ever been seen?

(regarding this)

[anthropwashere]

heyyy in that post about fashion designs supporting palestine those are ALL ai generated. look at the text on the wall behind the models

Ah hell, I'm usually better at catching that. Thanks for letting me know

[prokopetz]

I've seen posts going around claiming that petting animals is basically tricking them into thinking they're being groomed, and it's bugging me because, like, there's no trickery afoot. Petting and scritching are grooming activities. They help to dislodge loose fur and foreign objects and more evenly distribute protective oils, among other things. Primates are social groomers, and the human impulse to scritch is the legacy of our primate ancestors. We see an animal we like, even a dangerous one, and the monkey brain says "groom that thing".

[roach-works]

it’s the boss’s fault for understaffing their workplace and for failing to anticipate and schedule for periods that need more labor. 

if your boss can’t staff your workplace well enough to handle their employees taking their breaks, vacations, and sick days, your boss fully sucks at their job. and should be shamed for it. if your boss can’t even anticipate and properly schedule enough workers for busy periods, to the point they’re playing the blame game with employees who don’t want to be called back to work at short notice for unscheduled overtime, your boss is the one who fucked up their job here. and you and your coworkers should let them know.

An employer might try a particularly nasty trick I like to call "class hostaging". It works like this. Suppose they ask you to come in for an extra shift. Suppose you don't want to do it, so you decline. Now comes the trick: the employer says, "But what about your coworkers? If you don't come in, they'll be so stressed out. We're already behind, you need to be a team player!" And if they're good at it, and especially if they drink their own kool-aid, they might be able to seriously sell it and play with your emotions. And they'll especially do this if you say you want to quit, if they don't have anything tangible they can threaten you with or a financial reason to entice you to stay.

Don't fall for this! You know your coworkers. You know this has happened to you before - is it anything less than admirable when one of your coworkers has the courage to walk off from a shitty job? Even if it does mean that your boss makes you work harder to make up for it? Remember: your boss is not your friend. You are a means to an end for the business. Don't let your boss make a hostage of your coworkers like that.

[roach-works]

'can we normalize this'

'we need to normalize that'

can you all shut the fuck up for a minute and reconsider how constantly demanding normalization only retrenches the moral position that weird = bad?

like no you're not actually going to be able to normalize a lot of stuff, because it's statistically unusual or aberrant. you can't normalize shit that is not by any definition normal.

what you need to do is fucking stand up for the weirdos, freaks, and deviants, and remind everyone who is normal that their position just makes them normal. not good, not right, not correct, not better, not perfect, not beyond reproach or improvement.

being weird isn't bad. stop normalizing that, already.

[microcosmiclymbic]

Ugh. I hate anger.

Time to clean to channel this energy somewhere

No spoons for cleaning

But my body can't afford to hold anything else right now

I have to force process as much as I can

[cicadabeats]

First Meeting

[cosmogyros]

It's fucking weird how rude people are about immigration sometimes. And I don't just mean bigots being biased and stuff. I mean that, on a REGULAR basis, people ask me if I'm thinking about "going back to the US". And I'm just like... no? What do you mean "back to the US"? I live in Germany. I LIVE IN GERMANY.

I literally fucking started learning German and obsessing on German culture in high school, then I went to college in the US and majored in German Studies, including two study-abroad programs in Germany, then I moved to Germany for grad school and lived there for three years and worked in various German-speaking jobs while studying, then I had to temporarily return to the US but found a German-translation-based job at the US branch of a German company, and made a bunch of German or at least German-speaking friends in my new US city, and then a few years later I was able to move back to Germany, where I got a work visa sponsored by my employer and a full-time salaried job, and after a few more years I acquired my permanent residency, and soon I'll be applying for citizenship.

And people still sometimes ask me whether I'm considering "going back to the US". Like... dude? Would you ask a Mexican living in the US about their plans for "going back to Mexico"? That is rude as fuck.

Immigration is fucking hard. Why on earth would I have gone through all this shit just to throw it up in the air like "Oh well, never mind!"

[supernowa-art]

it fit them too well to not draw it

[rageflippedtables]

That poor old man fell for updog...

[novelbear]

scenarios for that grump x sunshine dynamic

a prompt list by @novelbear ᵔᴥᵔ

letting their chatty partner ramble about their day, listening with a small smile

sunshine toppling over them with the biggest hug they could muster and grump just giving them tiny little pats to reciprocate

grumpy going out of their comfort zone to cheer up their sunshine who's having a bad day

^ "look, i made pancakes! i even made a smiley face out of the whipped cream, see?" "oh, that's what it's supposed to be? you're so cute.."

grumpy calling sunshine names (dummy, idiot, chatterbox) knowing they take no offense to them, but the moment someone else does, they snap

"are you always this happy?" "i try to be, but especially when i'm with you."

sunshine knowing when it's okay to push but never crosses a line when it comes to grumpy's boundaries

sunshine comforting the grump when they're a little more quiet and snappy than usual, leaving grump a flustered mess because they're used to people actually listening when they tell them to leave them alone

"i'm not leaving you like this, i care about you."

sunshine taking grumpy on more active dates than they're used to (like ice skating for example)

[while cloudgazing] "i see a duckling!" "literally how."

sunshine making lunch for grumpy in the cutest way possible (little notes, heart-shaped sandwiches, always adding their fave snack)

getting into arguments about how nice sunshine can be and where it gets out of hand

^ "i was just trying to be nice!" "they were clearly taking advantage of that!" "since when do you care so much?" "i'm trying to look out for you!"

grumpy letting sunshine play with/do their hair

when laundry piles up and grumpy has no choice but to borrow one of sunshine's colorful little sweaters

^ and of course, sunshine coos and smothers them all day over it

"i love you." "i know." "say it back!"