#i know it can sometimes take a while

[igbylicious]

…ngl, i got the bad feeling this one might not be showing up in the tags

[swordsonnet]

i'm sorry but i don't think we should call this the "autism website" when there's still posts with tons of notes mocking people who:

struggle with social skills / have anxiety around social settings

are unemployed / unable to work certain jobs

have intense or "age-inappropriate" interests

haven't had certain life experiences that are deemed universal/essential

struggle with personal hygiene

don't have any friends or dating experience

don't go outside much or at all

take things literally / don't get sarcasm/jokes

have unusual ways of speaking

generally aren't "normal"

[professorjirt]

I’ve discovered my favorite genre of Bagginshield art is where Thorin is a lovesick idiot who is Losing It and Bilbo is unbothered or oblivious to Thorin’s suffering LMAO

[densewentz]

more dreamling dad au bc thats just what i do now apparently i like lazy afternoon naps and so do our boys

[scificrows]

Okay, my brain refuses to think about anything other than Murderbot, so I looked at every use of the word "friend[s]" in TMBD and... created some pie charts. Normal human activities.

Some Thoughts™ I had while putting this together (under the cut):

In All Systems Red, Murderbot notes that the PresAux crew are all close friends (twice! and goes on to explain their internal relationships which I think is very cute). This is pretty much the only use of 'friends' in ASR, except for when Murderbot says that SecUnits can't be friends with each other.

It seems that this may be one of the first times Murderbot has ever really been around a group of friends before? Murderbot notes that this is not the norm for its contracts and admits that the fact that they are all friends and the way they interact with each other make it actually enjoy that contract (before!!!! the hostile attack, so it already enjoys this contract before they start seeing it as a person etc ghghhhh). [Inference: Friendship seems enjoyable.]

The first character that calls Murderbot its friend is ART in Artificial Condition. Murderbot immediately refutes this (and then goes on to call ART its friend to its clients for the rest of the book). [Inference: Maybe ART is Murderbot's friend. And maybe that is... agreeable]

Rogue Protocol has more than twice as many instances of the word 'friend' as any of the other novellas. Why? Miki. Friendship and its implications for non-humans are a central theme because Miki is friends with everyone. Murderbot initially scoffs at the notion that Miki and Miki's humans are friends. At the end of the book, after witnessing how desperately Don Abene tried to stop Miki from trying to save them, and her grief after its death, Murderbot has to admit that she had in fact been Miki's friend. [Inference: Humans can be friends with bots and can sincerely care about them]

In Exit Strategy, Murderbot tentatively uses the word "friends" for its humans for the first time (several times actually). It questions whether it can actually call them its friends or not and later realizes that it had been afraid what admitting that the humans are its friends would do to it. At the end of the book, Mensah tells Murderbot the PresAux crew are its friends, which is the first time a human has directly said that to it (at least on-page). [Inference: Humans can and want to be Murderbot's friends]

In Network Effect, Murderbot seems to be more habituated to the word 'friend', confidently calling ART and Ratthi its friends, like it is no longer just trying the concept on unsure if it fits. There are many instances in which other characters refer to MB as ART's friend or the other way around and Murderbot's humans refer to Murderbot as their friend several times. Generally, there seems to be less hesitancy, because yes, all of them are Murderbot's friends, why wouldn't they be. [Inference: SecUnits can have friends. This SecUnit has friends. They care about it a lot.]

Conclusion: The Murderbot Diaries tell the story of a construct that does not seem to consider the possibility of friendship for itself and is fine with that - until it accidentally starts caring a little too much and suddenly more and more people annex it as a friend (ew) to the point where it can no longer deny that this is happening and has to begrudgingly admit that yes, it has friends now and maybe that is actually not a bad thing.

[mrmeepsmadmind]

soundwave having to be co leader of the decepticons with shockwave while megatron is fucking frozen somewhere & he's forced to keep giving out commands to crazy people he doesn't like bcs they aren't just his cassettes

oh he's so upset ...

[pinkd3mon]

Bonus piece from this art

[rubydubydoo122]

I think the funniest thing about how the Fandom perceives Tim (especially obnoxious Tim fans) is that he is was deeply hurt by the actions Jason, Damian, and Dick have done to him, but lowkey that’s just the fandom projecting

Tim lowkey did not give a fuck. Maybe a little at first, but he definitely does not hold a grudge against any of them.

[tarraxahum]

This was gonna be a reply to a reply but I thought maybe I should just make my own post. Yes this is about Vi again.

It's no secret that "Vi should've fought for Zaun" and the expectation of her being Vander's prodigy and feeling like the plot dropped the ball on her in that regard and the betrayal at the fact that she's living comfortably in Piltover now are. Frequent sentiments in the fandom. Which I get, but also I feel that this line of expectations is. Diverging from who Vi actually is by the end and what she was realistically capable of.

Vi in season 2 is basically running on fumes and because she has no other options. It is a well known thing in irl activist spaces that to participate in any kind of fight for justice you need to take care of yourself, otherwise you won't have the energy to be any kind of useful to your community. Ekko also says this - "It's not enough to give people what they need to survive, you have to give them what they need to live". Vi has been surviving and not living in any shape or form for years, she's exhausted and broken in places. That's no mental state to fight for Zaun or make any kinda change. I think it's extremely realistic and human and hardly a flaw of writing or the character if by the end the only thing she was able to do was collapse into the safety and peace she was offered for the first time in forever (aka Caitlyn). It's clear that in her last scene she's still recovering mentally - Cait seems to be excited to have any sign of life (singing) from her at all, and the "Are you still in this fight?" question is very loaded. (But it's indicated that Vi is very much still in the fight, so? It's really anyone's guess what she'll do once she's healed and remembers how to live. And don't bring up LoL's Vi brutality thing, it's clear they're different characters).

I think in wanting to see Vi stand up for Zaun or be Vander's prodigy we often deny her the flaw of being a breakable human and forget just how much she's held together by duct tape. Just because she was full of this 'fuck Piltover' fire as a kid doesn't mean she is still capable of matching that energy. Sometimes after lots of trauma humans grow up into tired adults who just want to sit down and feel safe regardless of where it happens and how questionable it might look (re: living in Piltover). Not to mention, that even as a child Vi's main reason for fuming at the Topside was wanting safety for her family and herself. Well, now she's all out of family, she's estranged from the community of Zaun thanks to being in prison for 7 years and Silco changing the place so much, and the only person who's offering her safety and not more fighting (which she's exhausted and thoroughly burnt out from!) is Caitlyn, so. How is where she ended up any kind of surprising or a failure of her writing/character?

Yes, a lot of people wanted a revolutionary, no, Vi isn't one. Dare I say, never really was one. At her lowest, when she's got no one left to protect, she's not trying to fill in that void by taking on protecting Zaun and becoming a vigilante or something, no, she spirals. That is not something on her radar, that's not something she's visibly cut out to do, she cares so so much but on a smaller scale. Even the whole shimmer factory debacle was less about Zaun and more about her desire to hurt Silco personally for what he'd done to her family. If Jinx agreed to run away with her back at the tea party Vi would ditch the entirety of Zaun (potentially leaving it to Silco forever since he's still alive at that point) in a heartbeat to keep her sister and save Cait in one move. She puts on an enforcer uniform BECAUSE she cares for Jinx (through convincing herself that at the very least she should take her out of her misery herself rather than leaving it to people who don't care, yes) and Cait both.

Perhaps a hot take, but not becoming a leader despite being good at taking hits to the head and caring about people in general and being a daughter of one does not make Vi a badly written character or a bad person. It just makes her a person. And a character whose arc culminated in choosing herself. And choosing yourself sometimes means leaving the fight to others (perhaps temporarily, considering the final dialogue). And that's okay.

Arcane is tragedy about flawed people, not a feel-good story about a successful revolution and rich people paying for their crap, and it was never going to be. Ergo one of our main character isn't an upcoming hero in shining armor who was allegedly robbed of her potential. She's just a broken young woman who barely knows how to keep her own little life together and her biggest victory by the end is allowing herself to take a breath and live for once. Yes, while her home down there is still in shambles. Yes, that sounds selfish. For some people a bit of selfishness is the greatest thing they can ever learn for themselves.

[epickiya722]

I think about how some people actually hate on Yuji, Nobara and Megumi and get confused because I went into JJK and by episode 3 I adored them.

[pyrosomatic-metamorphosis]

tbh i think that even unwinnable fights should be winnable. some of the BEST fights i've ever run as a dm were ones i built kill the players (in a fun way. I had some cutscenes prepped so even the loss would be a different flavour of win)- but then they were clever bastards and managed to either win the fights or pull themselves out of trouble. I think it's perfectly fine to plan for a fight that players aren't supposed to win, but you need to let them. if they can't win, they can't lose, and the meaning of that encounter is diminished. do that too many times, and they stop trusting you to give them roleplay prompts and start expecting to sit there waiting while you drive the story for them.

but if they can win... if there is always the chance to win, no matter how impossible the odds, then they ALWAYS have hope. they always get invested. they feel the big emotions of success or the big emotions of failure, and you fucking Win as a dm/roleplay prompter/lead bastard.

[an-na-ko]

I'm so sorry for your loss. I lost my cat of 16 years a few weeks ago. He was a stray that gradually became OK with being a house cat, and he was so loved. I hadn't been able to cry for him (my meds make crying a near impossible thing) until I read your comic. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

(I hope you don't mind a masterpost of replies! I know pet loss is extremely difficult for a lot of people, and I didn't want to fill up people's dashes with each reply, but know that each message means so much to me. We all love in such profound ways and losing our little companions hurts to a degree that is immeasurable.)

For the anons above, thank you for such a heartfelt message! One of the things that helped me through the worst of my grief was seeing other people who talked about their pet loss too. It made me feel so much less alone, especially in thoughts that echoed mine, but it also helped me see things in perspectives I've never considered.

I posted this comic in hopes that someone out there who needed it would feel seen and understood, and that it would maybe help process their loss. So it really means a lot to me to see that my comic has helped, in whatever way it could. I'm so sorry that we all understand this feeling, but I hope you never feel alone in missing the little lives that mean so much to you.

For anon above, I can't imagine how difficult that is. Lyra was a surrender, but it was very obvious from how well-loved, affectionate, and well-looked-after she was that her previous family had loved her.

I hope you don't feel like you failed your girl; there are circumstances that no one can control no matter what. Cats (and most pets in general) have an amazing ability that, despite language barriers, seem to know how much you love them, just as easily as we know how much they love us even if they can't say it. Your girl knows you love her. I don't fully know her circumstances or yours, but I truly hope you find that closure. 🫂

I haven't met a lot of people with cats named Lyra! I hope it didn't bother you too much to read such a painful comic about a cat with the same name, haha. I hope your little Lyra is healthy and happy, and please give her a little kiss for me! 🤍

thank you anons for reading my comic despite the heavy content, for connecting with it the way you did, and for the kind words! 🫂 I truly wasn't sure if anyone would want to read such a painful, raw comic about loss, but these messages really brighten my day. I hope your days are bright as well.

[jash-updates]

Most normal energy drink consumer

[ganondoodle]

i feel so silly (derogatory) barely doing a shitty doodle a day while others just .. make entire comics in the same time

not as in wishing them ill, i just , god, i wish that was me lol

[javierduffy]

I have been having... a very bad day. Any spare fluffy headcanons for the boys? (and maybe some nsfw ones if you're up to it-)

ohh no my dear helena !!! its unfortunate that you’re having a rough day today :( remember that everything is temporary and that this day, like every other hard day before (and all following after), will pass in its own time.

i can absolutely spare some fluff ! that’s all i’ve got !

• javier goes to bed at about the same time that kieran is waking up every morning, right before dawn, and it’s a common occurrence that he will forget to untie his hair before laying down for bed, especially after a long night of guard duty. kieran will notice every time, and knows himself how easily long hair can get matted, so he will beckon javier over so that he can untie his bow. usually, he’ll also take the time to run his fingers through javier’s hair to detangle it as well, so that he’s even less likely to wake up to knots. javier adores it, teetering with the weight of his head and leaning hard into kieran’s legs on each side of his shoulders- sometimes kieran will even indulge himself in giving javier a head massage. javier never sleeps better, and coincidentally, he began forgetting to take his hair down a lot more after moving out to clemen’s point ….

• javier snuck kieran his first bowl of pearson’s stew after ‘making a social call’. john kicked kieran off his horse at the entrance of camp and javier watched as the latter dredged himself through the brush to what would become his usual resting place behind the rock by the horses. he looked miserable, dead on his feet, and javier knew by then he’d been weeks without a meal. he was a dirty, disloyal, unholy traitor of an o’driscoll, but something about his sunken eyes, the shake in his hand as he lit his first cigarette as a free man again- likely to quell off the hunger- it urged javier to act in a way that he’d never felt before. javier could kill a man in cold blood easier than he could stand to watch fear starve a man even after his hands are free to reach for the bowl. the study for learned helplessness in psychology will come years later, but javier understands himself now through watching kieran’s instinctual desire to survive be beat out of him by the gang javier dedicates his life to. with a healthy amount of spite to himself, he scoops a heaping amount of fresh stew into the cleanest bowl he can find, and sets out to add a fresh layer of flesh to kieran’s prominent bones.

• following this, cooking for kieran is one of javier’s favourite things to do when they get together. javier will cook for him traditional mexican dishes from home (as best he can. both with his limited skills and also with his limited accessibility to the proper ingredients. (probably for the best that he can’t get authentic chili peppers from home and has to use a less spicy chili native to this northern climate. kieran does okay with spice but it isn’t in his genetics to truly have a high tolerance.)) and not only will it be an unknown love language from javier, to feed kieran and make sure he is full, but it will also be a love language from kieran, to let javi share a piece of home with him.

• ^ also applies to modern au javieran ! javier loves cooking, and especially for kieran. they would cook together, but kieran struggles to cook with other people in the room, and javier gets so absorbed in it that he’d likely be running into kieran or otherwise being unhelpful in aiding in making sure the dish is being cooked correctly because he’s too Locked In to guide kieran LOL but they’re more happy to simply keep each other company, anyway. kieran on the counter/table/floor, watching javier sing and dance to the music he’s blasting from their speaker. cue dancing in the kitchen when the love songs come on (here’s a good one (rip javier escuella you would have loved dannylux)). the parallel play and quality time with these two is off the charts

• come mid/late clemens point, the way javieran make most of their money for the camp is by going on days-long fishing dates, laughing and laying close to one another in the grass under a tree on the riverbank in the shroud of darkness. they come back to camp flushed as all get out but with stacks of cash in their hands wadded up so thick no one dares to ask where it came from. kieran will get excited at even the smallest of fish, perking up and sharing/asking javier for tidbits on the species. they never miss a bite, either. one time one of the bells on their bobber rods rang once and they both broke out of a very hot and heavy make-out sesh so fast that javier tripped on kieran and nearly broke both of their wrists. they laughed so hard about it, javier was certain that by the time he arrived to his rod, the fish had already successfully ripped the bait off of his hook. he reeled in a boot, at the end of it all. he never lives it down.

• kieran is ambidextrous, and javier is fascinated by it. javier stumbled upon kieran writing on one rare occasion, and noticed immediately that he was writing with his left. “left handed, huh ?” kieran cocks his head at him in thought. javier wonders why on earth he would have to stop and think about a question like that. “uhh, not really ?” well, now javier is simply confused. “right, then ? is something wrong with your dominant hand ?” “um … no, that’s not it either …” and at this point, javier is demanding kieran explain what the hell he’s talking about, and why he’s pulling a prank on him. cue kieran explaining and javier making him do all kinds of silly “tests” like writing, shooting, playing guitar (as if kieran is going to any better with either when neither of them can do it right to begin with) because he finds it so cool.

• modern au kieran gets overstimulated incredibly easily, so he’s got a pair of noise canceling over-ear headphones that he often wears to dampen sensory input and ground himself when there’s a lot going on. when it’s cleaning day, generally no matter what he’s doing, he HAS to wear his headphones. javier is left to dodge him the same way he has to dodge the cats when they’re weaving in and out of between his feet. it also leaves him to dance to his own tunes when kieran suddenly swoops or sways or dips him to the music only he can hear- though just as often, javier will catch kieran dancing by himself and he will simply be unable not to join him, even though he can’t hear what it is he’s dancing to. as overwhelming as they can be, cleaning days for javieran somehow always end up feeling more like a date than anything.

• on a similar note, kieran also wears his headphones to bed, and listens to asmr/white noise to sleep. the pressure helps him feel safe, and the silence of a room makes him anxious. he also has a terrible bedhead and rbf in the morning. both of these things javier finds incredibly charming, and if he ever does wake up when/before kieran does (incredibly rare), this is his pov (right before he tries to kiss kieran’s face off and gets shoved away with a sleepy giggle that only bolsters his aggression);

nsfw under the cut !

and how could i resist a chance to finally talk about this ;3€ ?? i’ll try to keep them fluffy !

(context, i hc both of them as tguys usually (though im content with writing javier as amab too), with both of them being absolute, unabashed switches. they have little preferences anywhere in terms of bottoming/topping, though kieran has a preference for subbing, and javier has no qualms with domming more frequently.)

• as much raunchy, animalistic sex that javieran have, they have double as much slow, loving, tender sex. and most times between, they’re having raunchy, loving, animalistic sex.

• javi loves to turn kieran’s brain off, he loves more than anything to make kieran feel so overwhelmingly pleasured that he forgets everything that ever has, ever could, or ever will happen to him. nothing gets javier off quite like seeing the face of bliss kieran makes when all he can think about is javier’s mouth/hands/cock working overtime just to make him feel good.

• both of them i think are quite vocal when they’re able to be, and kieran tends to be vocal whether he’s supposed to be or not. both of them often dissolve into whimpers and “i love you”s and praise like “you feel/sound/taste so good” by the end. their love for each other has a carnal grasp on every aspect of their sex lives as well <3 so they’re always speaking so sweetly to each other, even if the way they growl it seems violent

• javier LOVES love bites. he loves to mark kieran up and he especially loves to bite and lick and suck on his neck, not only because of the primal aspect of his jugular being so close (as well as the warmth of his pulse thrumming against his mouth), but also because it arouses kieran to the point of making him shiver nearly every time. javier has permission to bite him hard, but it’s pretty rare that he ever does, and it’s only late into their relationship does javier feel like it will be more pleasure for him than it would just be pain. sometimes he can’t help it though, he’ll get so worked up that he just latches on and the way that kieran tightens around him is mind-numbing.

• unironically i think kieran is a GREAT soft dom, and that is something that javier generally had never experienced prior to getting with kieran. javi thinks it’s hot to be man-handled and roughed up, and kieran can do his very best (despite the constant guilt and fear) if javier is really feeling it, but where he really excels is soft domming. once the nerves melt off, he’s so gentle with javier that it makes the latter’s skin hot all over. constantly praising him, cooing at him, asking him nicely, rewarding him for good behavior, all the while touching him oh-so-gently, it all makes javier feel so awkward but so, so good. kieran makes him feel so loved and worshipped that the world in which he has anything to question simply just fades away, and all he has to think about is doing what meager tasks kieran asks of him.

• they find so much peace in each other’s bodies. in every rib and wrinkle and sunspot, these two will spend hours simply exploring and enjoying the body of the other in whatever the closest form of “privacy” they can manage to acquire. turns out, kieran has sunspots all over him. turns out, javier has a keloid scar on the back of his bicep. turns out, kieran has a mole on his scalp right where his part is (this is canon btw i saw it once when i was studying him in photo mode like a specimen in a petri dish), and javier has back dimples, and kieran’s ribs stutter and dance beautifully when he laughs, and the flex of javier’s thighs warps his skin like a marble statue. javier escuella and kieran duffy love like artists, and they spend hours just learning and looking and studying each other, like a painter with his muse, like a writer with his words, like the last things they want to see while they’re dying are all the hours they spent learning the beauty of the other.

i could honestly come up with more but it would never leave my drafts, so i hope u like these that i came up with as quick as i could :’) ! i hope you’re feeling better and have gotten some good rest !! thank you for the ask !!!!!

[buwheal]

We can't hear it Spam, but it's real to you. I get auditory hallucinations a lot, and usually what helps me is a distraction. Maybe... name 5 things you can see? Or make paper airplanes with old messages, or draw some pictures. Otherwise, I'm sure someone has a crossword or story they can send you to help you out!