#he can't take this shit

[welcometogrouchland]

(ID in alt) I literally said I was gonna post this month's ago and then never had the wherewithal to describe it and so I didn't Lmao (said with pain). But since I'm thinking of opening my commissions I figured I should remind ppl that I. Yknow. Can draw.

Lots of Steph here (I had major art block making all of these and my brain worms for her kept me going) + some sprinkles of stephcass for Cass nation to enjoy!

[verstappentime]

want to cry? here's an instagram post from ruth buscombe on the day charles announced he signed with ferrari

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Council of lovefools.

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[everchased]

at least it'll be wonderful while it lasts.

(a little post-game downtime discussion, when they have the time and space to talk about these things. also in my canon, scratch gets to stay. :/)

[inkskinned]

it is totally okay to be hurt and tired and fed up with the american schooling system but i need you to understand that we need to be better about loudly and routinely defending public education.

yes, many teachers suck, many schools utterly suck. i also got bullied and was absolutely not given the right support for my needs. i am not defending public education because it was kind to me. i am defending it because it needs to exist.

right-wing republicans do not want an educated population. they want kids to be homeschooled or in private school. there is a huge religious undertone to this.

the most common argument is that despite high costs, the "result" is not "good" enough. they point to failing schools as proof that public education is just never going to work out. there will be arguments made here that you actually agree with: that teachers can be bullies, that we taught online for 2 years and still charged the same amount of tuition, that we have no recourse for students to actually have agency or a voice, and that schools are now unsafe for kids due to risk of illness and gun violence.

these are all placing the blame in a fraudulent way, one intended to get your parents to homeschool you. the less kids in a school, the less federally-awarded funding for that school, the less any school succeeds. they will not mention the fact it is their legislation that takes away important funding opportunities, that teachers are living at or below the poverty line, that buildings are not kept up to code, that administration is overpaid and forces specific curriculums, that corporations like (my personal enemy) Pearson Education control certain classroom goals because teachers can't afford other options. they pretend to be ignorant of the gun violence and say "oh just get a gun" - but these are the same people who will be sending their child to a private school with a bulletproof backpack. they don't care if your kid dies, though. they "don't believe" in covid, but they did get their kid vaccinated, because of course they did.

it is a closed loop. conservative parents hear the fearmongering and remove children from the system. frequently these parents are also deeply religious. the kids are raised without access to other media & learn to parrot their parents. you have now created a new generation of conservatives. additionally, one of the parents/caregivers must stay home and homeschool the children, usually for free. i will give you 1 guess which parent tends to stay home to homeschool the children. these parents are encouraged to have many, many children. those children are most likely not getting access to safe sex ed.

we might laugh at fox news suggesting teachers are forcing children to use kitty litter but: first of all, there is kitty litter in the classroom. it's part of an emergency kit in case children are locked in due to a shooter. so that's fucking dystopian, and the fact they've completely reimagined the scenario to somehow make the teachers look bad when it's instead a fucking huge symbol of our failure as a country to protect our children.... it feels a little intentional.

secondly: don't just dismiss the situation. because, yeah, obviously, no teacher is encouraging kids to be a catboy. but the actual undertone that fox news is trying to sew is an outright distrust of teachers and of public education. they rely on the dehumanization of trans people as a common touchstone to hide the fact they're pushing two agendas at once. (which is ironic. because the thing they accuse teachers of. is pushing. an agenda.)

whenever someone tells you they want you to read less, you should be suspicious of that. when someone tries to separate you and your education, you should be suspicious of that. i don't even like incel rhetoric nor would i want my kids exposed to it - but i would not take away my child's (age-appropriate) access to the internet. i would just provide more educational materials, not less. the difference here is that i believe we can resolve ignorance with knowledge; whereas conservatives believe that ignorance is bliss.

they misappropriate funding and demonize teachers. they pull the same trick each time - the same thing we are seeing with anti-trans rhetoric. they do not want you to have access to safe sex ed, so they act horrified, claim sex ed teaches you how to thrust deep, claim that we have no idea what "age-appropriate" means. since the mid-nineties, the united states has spent at least 2 billion dollars on abstinence-only education, even though to quote the above link: "a preponderance of studies has found no effect of abstinence education at reducing adolescent pregnancy". conservatives want you to think less of any person struggling with addiction so they can continue their racist "war on drugs", so they spend up to $750 million dollars a year on the DARE program which has absolutely no effect. acting like teachers "must" be "grooming" children is just the same thing - so they can demand that funding either goes to their causes or the funding doesn't "exist" ("i'm not paying for our kids to learn that thing!")

and they want you to feel uncaring about this. they are aware that you will hate some parts of your school experience. pretty much everyone does. they want to lean into the parts that you hate so that you don't put up a fight about it when they take it away for not being "good enough."

i know i maybe sound like a conspiracy theorist. but truly. truly. it is beneficial for conservatives to reduce your faith in the american public schooling system.

one of the explicitly stated campaign promises of the conservative party: to axe the Department of Education in 2024.

i know we are all tired and burnt out and there is so much else wrong with their entire platform. but maybe just - pay attention to this one.

[shit-talker]

The 141 have a ridiculous run of inside jokes that is continuosly ruining their lives, such as;

1.) If someone says, "You love it really," to you, you immediately have to agree with them, no matter what the circumstances. Otherwise, you lose the ability to do it back. This has resulted in many weird fake confessions, including one time in which Soap got fed up with people making your mom jokes at him and went on a rant about it. Ghost glanced at him in front of a room full of cadets and just went, "You love it really, though," and Soap almost died as he sadly nodded and replied, "Yeah, I do."

2.) If something even remotely sexual sounding is said about you, you must always say, "You're damn right I do/am/will," back. This backfired once when they were in a defreif and Price said something about Gaz "coming through the back door" and Gaz, without think, winked and replied "You're damn right I did," In front of everyone and got in trouble for mild insubordination. (The others almost died laughing as he realised what he'd done, who he'd done it to, and who he'd done it in front of (aka Price's bosses))

3.) When talking about Roach, they will always act like he's died. He hasn't, but none of them can stop the joke, and it always makes all of them crack up, even Roach. This once caused major panic, as once when Ghost was discussing their latest mission with Laswell, he said, "It was fine because Roach - God rest his soul -" and Laswell had about two minutes where she thinks Roach has dropped dead and she didn't fucking know.

4.) They will always make up bad stories for how they met Ghost, if anyone ever asks. It doesn't matter what the truth is, or who they're speaking to, when asked, all three of them will reply with some made up, overly dramatic or down right boring story on how they met. These stories ranged from Ghost, saving them from a shark attack (Gaz), Ghost selling them assorted drugs as a teenager (Roach), and most devastatingly is when Soap told a distant relative of his that he met Ghost after "finding him with my older brother, behind his wifes back" he does not have an older brother, and so there is no wife.

5.) They always reference the "Malibu incident." None of them have ever been to Malibu. Nothing bad has ever happened there, but now they've created a whole conspiracy in the British Army about a coverup that happened in Malibu. Price knows about this one and finds it endlessly funny, so he goes along with it, never directly mentioning it but refusing to deny it when someone asks. If anyone ever asks about the details of it, they just give a deadpanned look as if the other person should already know and say; "Don't make me say it." There are rumours. Like, a lot of rumours.

6.) Roach claps every time someone says, "I'll be there for you" because once he clapped at the wrong time during the friends intro and had been paying the price ever since. It doesn't happen often, but sometimes you'll just hear him clapping - not even in the tune to the friends theme. Just random clapping. If any of the others hear it, they almost always reply with "That's a fuckin' joke" in a really disappointed tone. It's confused a lot of people.

[starry-bi-sky]

Blood Blossom Au: Baby's First Commissioner Meeting :)

TL:DR This Post: Danny (orphan) gets poisoned with blood blossom extract by Vlad. He runs away from him and ends up under the care of one Pre-Robin Battinson Batman! Starry is loudly pushing her batdad agenda.

(Also known as "Late At Night, When The Nightingale Sings" on my ao3!)

This was a fun rough idea I've been sitting on for weeks, thinking about how Commissioner Gordon and Nightingale's first meeting might go.

---------------

Commissioner Gordon likes to think that he's adjusting to the new normal of Gotham very well, -- the new normal being grown men running around dressed like bats, in military-grade strength body armor, committing acts of vigilantism, -- and slowly, little by little, he was no longer being surprised when this new normal pops up out of the shadows like the world's most terrifying daisy. His shaving lifespan thanks him for it.

....

The kid is a surprise though.

Granted, he seemed to be a surprise to the Bat too.

There's been a string of murders lately, -- which, in Gotham, is kind of like saying there's been another storm during monsoon season. And there's just been another; in some dilapidated building down in south Gotham, with the broken, boarded-up windows and mildew-crawling walls to match. The victim is a man in his thirties, multiple gunshot wounds to the chest, left in the center of the room for the blood to pool out around him.

The place is already secured when he arrives, the building swarmed with officers and the forensic detectives. The Bat emerges shortly after he does -- or, he might've been here the whole time, hiding someplace dark and shadowy. For his own sanity, Gordon doesn't think about it too hard.

The kid is a surprise, and he appears like a bolt of lightning.

He shows up in the middle of a conversation Gordon is having with the Bat.

A whistle, sharp and loud, slicing through the air, meant for open air rather than a confined space. Gordon's ears pierce and protest the sound, and the solemn, murmured chatter floating through the room abruptly cuts off like the swing of a gavel. As he turns towards the sound -- as they all do -- he swears, up and down, that he sees Batman's shoulders jump, just slightly.

At the source, perched on the window, is a boy. A boy in a gray-blue scarf and an oversized black hoodie, one that hangs off his frame and has ace bandages wrapped around the wrists in some attempt to cinch the sleeves. The hood is up, big like the rest of it, and threatens to swallow the upper half of the boy's face whole in the fabric. What upper half Gordon can see, is smeared with some kind of opaque, black face paint. He's holding onto the side of the frame with one hand, on his hip is a grappling hook. A familiar grappling hook.

Gordon has multiple questions, and his officers tense up.

Martinez puffs up, brows furrowing as his face shapes into a frown. Shoulders rolling back. "You can't be here, kid--"

The reaction is immediate, like a spark to gunpowder, the boy yanks his fingers from his mouth and his mouth twists into a scowl. Head snapping over to Officer Martinez, his hood manages to stay on but Gordon swears that as he bares his teeth, the glint makes them look sharper than they should be. His voice is rasp and quiet and harsh; snappish in its hissing; "Put a fuckin sock in it, Martinez. I'm not stayin."

Martinez reels back, and the boy immediately veers his attention off him. Like a switch, his demeanor drops. Despite half his face being covered, his mouth twists into a cringing, apologetic smile. Slanted and off-beat, embarrassed. It'd be disarming if this wasn't Gotham, and if he didn't just hiss at Martinez like he was about to bite his head off.

"Sorry." He whispers, voice deceptively polite and softer now. Gordon has to strain his ears to hear him. "I was looking for him."

He points his finger towards-- Gordon? No, Gordon follows the direction, and finds himself looking at -- the Bat.

The Bat, who always looks stiff as a pole, now looks even stiffer. Somehow. Well, the explains the grappling hook attached to the boy's waist.

"What are you doing here?" The Bat says, gruff and unable to completely smother the stumble of surprise in his tone.

The boy still holds a sheepish smile, and slips off the window ledge. His feet hit the creaky boards with a near-silent thud, the Batman finds his feet and rapidly begins crossing the room.

Gordon notes the slight tremble in the boy's legs as he straightens. He adjusts his scarf, which droops close to his knees now that he's standing, and slings a backpack -- how long has had that? -- off his shoulders. When the Bat reaches his side, he does as he always does, and looms over the boy like a spectre. A threatening mass of shadows cloaked in all-consuming black. Standing next to him, the boy looks teeny in comparison.

The Bat is a man who terrifies even the most hardened criminals, Gordon has seen grown men shiver in fear at the mention of his name. And yet when the boy looks up at him, he doesn't even flinch.

Instead, his sheepish smile melts away like ice under the sun, holding only traces of his previous embarrassment. It remains as a shadow on his face, a small upturn at the corners of his mouth. The boy pushes his hood back just enough to reveal glinting, ice-flint eyes surrounded in tar-black face paint. He holds the backpack up with one arm. "You forgot this."

[dreemurr-skelememer]

do you think dream never takes off his circlet because he symbolizes it as the weight of his sins

[breadandblankets]

there's a lot of Jason as a fanfic writer headcanons (which I love) but we're sleeping on the bat that is canonically not just a huge nerd but also a great writer: duke

where's he's at now he doesn't do hobbies he barely does humaning, he's The Signal practically full time, all his fics are on permanent hiatus

theres a better future where he learns to take breaks and has a note on his mega fic like "life ya know?" like No duke we Don't know

[littlelightfish]

I love that Kui tries to convince us that he is a tidy clean-looking man. He doesn't take baths. I won't buy it.

[backpackingspace]

Sometimes I revisit the tgcf source material and have to realize all over again that hua cheng is the sane ghost king. And it's not that he's a better person then the others, or like not insane. He just watched the other ghost kings and took notes on what not to do.

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

still unwell over the prospect of Howdy slowly putting the pieces together and having a complete mental breakdown over it. Laughingstock edition!

[pa-pa-plasma]

I know the concept of more supernatural/paranormal elements is cool but it will never stop being funny to me that in every series ever, when a ghost shows up the main characters have to do rituals & research the history of the haunted item or house or even whole town & use specific items like salt & incense & talisman to banish the ghost all dramatically & supernaturally, but in Danny Phantom this kid just shows up with nothing but his fists, a thermos, & pent up aggression. put em the fuck UP, you ectoplasmic son of a—

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

There is a platonic explanation for all this. Right?

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[kazanskyy]

iceman + his concern for maverick post-hop 31

[marley-manson]

Hawkeye not being emotionally repressed as a person, but still being emotionally repressed because he's in a situation that causes him to feel impossibly intense emotions that can't be fully expressed without ruining his or others' lives.

Because to really express his true feelings he'd have to scream until his voice gave out, desert, kill a general, etc. Constantly feeling like he's barely holding himself back, keeping himself from exploding through the relatively minor shows of rebellion and antagonism towards people like Frank, and his humour. "Joking is the only way I can open my mouth without screaming."

Hawkeye's breakdown in GFA is a fitting cap for his character for many reasons, and I think this is also one of them. It just makes narrative sense, as someone who does need to express his feelings and who is trapped in a war zone, that at some point he had to fully snap and drive a jeep through a wall.