#its interesting!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[lena-in-her-mind-palace]

can we talk about how Tim meets himself as gun batman who's entire philosophy is that sometimes you have to take extreme measures and the only way to stop crime is to kill. And then literally a few months later Jason shows up and the red hood operates on the exact same philosophy but in a more morally ambiguous way (re: not being a facist dictator tyrant)

[lluh-loyd]

WACKY FACTS ABOUT ME??

ur in luck I am pretty weird

I had an extra tooth so the dentist removed my real tooth to make space for it, he did wrong, I was stuck with a fang for a long time of my life (added trauma), bonus fun fact! why my oc has that detail, @liz-lives on that profile,

I have a genuine fear of humans, unless they are behind a screen. still prefer bots lol.

I sprain my ankle on average once a month, this month I sprained it 3 times...-gotta get it checked out-

I have no sense of taste or smell.

it's so weird to me that everyone on this website is a human person outside of their weird internet niche so rb this with a random bit of your lore

[comicaurora]

So uhh. If you feel like talking about it. As someone who lives in the US, how are you being kind to yourself on this upsetting morning <3

Checked in with my loved ones first and foremost.

It's interesting. The vibe I've been getting from my circle is very different from 2016. Much less… dread and horror at a realignment of the understanding of what can and can't happen here, now, in this place and day and age. More "fuck, guys. again? whatever. enjoy your consequences, maybe you'll manage to learn something this time."

Frustration and anger is not the most positive feeling, or even the most fair one to express, but it is a protective one. It hurts a lot less than most alternatives.

And it's quite a shift. It was earthshattering back then. How could this have been allowed to happen? Why couldn't it be stopped? Why couldn't we stop it? Why couldn't I stop it? Why couldn't everyone see what this meant? Why couldn't I make them understand? Did they really not care? What did that mean about humanity as a whole? Were we so thoughtless? How could anyone be trusted?

It seems… much less earthshattering to see it happen twice. Disappointing, sure. Frustrating. But nowhere near as devastating as the first time I saw it unfold. We already knew it could happen. I've already had time to digest the implications. Now I'm just freshly disappointed.

It also feels less indicative of Crushing Truths Of Reality this time. We've seen shit get bad. We've also seen shit get better from here! We know both outcomes are possible, even inevitable. We know hoping for a better future is always worthwhile. This isn't the apocalypse. It's an unremarkably bad turn of events brought on by unremarkably self-centered well-documented human impulses. It's utterly mundane in its unpleasantness. It doesn't need to be dignified with despair.

A democratic election, no matter the outcome or the side we're on, makes us all acutely aware of how outnumbered we are by people whose worldviews and priorities are demonstrably incomprehensible to us. And the first time you get outnumbered, it's a shock. Defeat is haunting. It didn't matter how badly you wanted it; by the very function of democracy, you do not have the power to override greater numbers. (insert electoral college caveat here)

The second time through, I find myself focusing on a different facet that has dramatically reduced the amount of spiralling I'm doing. I don't expect this to work for everyone, but for me specifically, it helped to crystallize a few thoughts:

You don't have the power to control anyone else. You don't. You can't share your worldview and your revelations with them. You can't make them think or understand anything. You can lay it all out for them, but you can't make them listen, and you can't make it click. A mentor can't make their student learn a lesson; that's why teaching is so complicated and hard. An active choice must be made by the person to enable themselves to understand, and they must put the pieces together in their own mind before it makes sense to them, and the pieces must have been presented in a way that makes sense to them in the first place. Lead a horse to water, can't make them drink.

These elections highlight a disconnect in what different groups of people care about; and no matter how clearly you explain yourself or how passionately you perform, caring cannot be forced on someone. Understanding and connection cannot be forced. You cannot make anything or anyone matter to someone. They have to choose to see how it matters in order to internalize it. If they choose not to, that is not your failing. You couldn't have made them do it by just Explaining Better. They are not your responsibility. They make their own choices. You can't reach inside their head and connect the dots for them.

I'm a storyteller. I make stories and put them out into the world. I hope people get something good out of them, but I have no control over what that something is. I want people to be thoughtful and kind and compassionate and hopeful and see themselves reflected in stranges, no matter their differences. I can craft stories that I hope encourage this. But that is the extent of my ability and the extent of my responsibility. I control no-one's actions but my own, and so while I am not having the best day, I am at least content that I am doing what I can, and I am not shattering myself against impossibilities trying to control the things I can't.

Sometimes, people make decisions that I think are really bad. I can't make that not happen. All I can do is try to make decisions that will result in things I think are good. Today, that means checking in on people, and not assigning too much dramatic narrative weight to an ultimately mundane set of unremarkable bad decisions outside of my control. We'll take life as it comes and help each other out when and how we can. Everything else is out of our hands.

[exhaled-spirals]

« When I think back on the year 1915, it seems to me that I still hear my friends tell me despondently: "I can't think of anything else! I can't read, I can't work, or find useful distractions (...), I only ruminate about our times, incessantly, until I'm nauseated (...). I've just had two hours of liberty—there was a time when I would have offered them to Tolstoy or Pascal. Today I read about [the war], or European colonial methods; issues that are entirely beyond my reach, but how to think of anything else?"

And perhaps we shouldn't strive to think of anything else; the point is not to turn our backs on our times, but to consider them calmly and thoughtfully. (...) It may be that the philosophy which absorbs you leaves no room for indulgence. Perhaps you feel yourself full of bitterness and rancour towards your fellow men, perhaps you have made up your mind to see in their activities nothing but greed and selfishness. (...) Do not be too eager to prove yourself right! Above everything, do not rejoice in being right in so dismal a fashion. (...) My only ambition is to beg the world to look for anything which can lighten the present and future distress of mankind, to find what interests the soul in a life burdened with troubles and disillusionments, to honour more than ever the faithful and imperishable resources of our inner life. (...)

The storm rages on, the events escalate, worsen, never cease. Never have they seemed more complex, more severe, more demanding. More dangerous. Wherever we turn, an opinion holds up its head and vehemently solicits our belief. (...) Our convictions, our certainties, are at each other's throats. (...) Yet mankind, even in these terrible hours, is only seeking happiness. Men have set off to conquer happiness, clutching in their hands the tools which will forever destroy it. (...) The wrong direction the world has taken is so obvious, so cruel, so vast (...)

Regardless, I would suggest not to lose hope—so long as a single wallflower still opens, in April, over the ruins of the world. Like algae, like mosses, like these laborious lichens which attach to the very ruins their infinite need for happiness, we will find joy in our present affliction and we will grow it, like a wind-battered plant in the parched soil of a wilted world. »

— Georges Duhamel, La Possession du monde (translation mine) Written in 1917 as he worked as an army surgeon.

[txttletale]

hey what DO you watch on youtube? seems like you'd have some neat recommendations :3

i really loathe the like super-highly edited sound effect post-mrbeast slop most of youtube is now so i mostly like stuff that's like... calm and sedate. stuff i've been watching lately in no particular order:

northernlion vods and clips. he's an OG. i especially like his react court series, i must have watched all of them like five times.

speaking of OGs i've been watching zero puncutation (now fully ramblomatic) for like ten years and if anything it's only gotten better. best game review content on the internet. been really enjoying his more recent, slightly longer and more thoughtful 'extra punctuation/semi-ramblomatic' series too.

any austin's skyrim unemployment rate videos. instant classics to me, it's just a guy going around in skyrim trying to figure out the unemployment rate in every town. it's a very dry kind of humour, he plays it admirably straight, and it's weirdly calming.

kitten arcader's foot the bill videos. in a kind of similar vein, he watches the saw movies and then produces an itemized bill for everything jigsaw needed to buy to make his traps. it's kind of like... if cinemasins was fundamentally curious instead of fundamentally incurious, it scratches a similar sort of nitpicky detail-oriented quantifying itch but without inimical to the concept of art.

shuffle up and play. it's a magic the gathering play series that has enough editing that the gamestate is actually legible but not enough editing (or at least, not enough obtrusive in-your-face editing) that its annoying. i also like that they reguilarly play non-edh formats like cube and pauper.

spice8rack. i'm pretty picky about video essays but spice8rack has very obviously actually read books and has interesting things to say about the topics it discusses (mostly magic: the gathering). sometimes it has a kind of grating Theater Kid Energy but the fact that it actually meaningfully structures essays and analysis to earn the silly long runtimes is a rare delight from a video essayist.

jenny nicholson is a long-time favourite and another permanent fixture in my rotation. she's just extremely, remarkably funny which makes her the only 'basically just summarizing a thing' youtuber i think is worth the time of day.

i watch some sketch comedy, mainly wizards with guns and aunty donna, who both consistently put out really funny stuff that's kind of ITYSL-adjacent in its barefaced absurdism and contenmpt for concepts like "stopping a joke at the logical punchline". i also really like alasdair beckett-king and binging the old clickhole backlog for short-form comedy on youtube.

wolfeyvgc is right on the edge of the level of editing i find tolerable but as a long-time fan of multiple esports he Has It, he's absolutelyt fantastic at t elling the narrative of a tournament, explaining plays clearly, and generally making competitive pokemon esports thrilling and interesting ti someone (me) who#s never played it and doesn't care about pkoemon that much

i religously watch every elliespectacular/dathings YTP, the absolute best in the game right now, top tier snetence mixing and really good at actually setting up and paying off jokes in a way it feels like a lot of ytp doesn't. verytallbart is also pretty good.

trapperdapper is a channel i recently binged, it's a really fucking funny parody of minecraft challenge content that veers slowly from obvious angles of parody into pure absurdism with tons of blink-and-you'll miss it subtle visual gags.

too much future is a great youtube series where the two guys from just king things/homestuck made this world play through every fallout game and analyze them in that context. extremely funny and also just top-tier very sharp analysis. really good

another one of the rare good video essayists is jan misali. they're really funny and will go into topics that kind of seem narrow or strange to begin with in such depth and make them so interesting that it's consistently astonishing.

oh and finally sarah z makes pretty good videos. 'the narcissist scare' is an absolutely brilliant deconstruction of one of the most annoying pop-psych phenomena of the last couple years. and remarkably well script supervised i think did anyone else watch it and think 'wow the script supervisor on this must have been, a mind geniuse'

ok i think that's all i've been watching lately. hope you like whcihever of these recs you check out :)

[traflawgar]

talking in your sleep.

when you accidentally confess while sleep-talking.

includes: law, zoro

TAGS: FLUFF, pre-relationship, gn.reader.

law

You were always a sleep talker. Ever since you were a child, there wasn't one night when you didn't spout nonsense. From intelligible words to downright terrifying things—Bepo still checked for mysterious shadows after the night you rose from the bed and mumbled about something following him—the crew had gotten used to it.

It was that why, after falling asleep on a book during a long night researching with Law, he didn't even flinch when you started mumbling. Not until you said, or he thought you said, his name. It could've been nothing more than random sounds strung together by your sleeping brain, but he found himself putting down the book and straining his ears anyway.

The silence stretched. You nuzzled into the book you had been reading. A soft sigh left your lips. Law leaned in closer.

"...ove you, Law... I love you."

Time slowed. His heart stopped, then resumed its beating full force. A lazy smile appeared on his face. He allowed himself to sink into the pure, deep love he felt for you.

"I won't say it back," he started, hand reaching to stroke your cheek. "Not until you're awake. Just you wait."

zoro

Zoro had long ceased to make up excuses to join you when it was your turn to keep watch. A simple "hey" replaced the clumsy "I couldn't sleep" and "You'll probably fall asleep anyways" he used to spout. A mutual understanding that no lies needed to cover up the truth: he liked to spend time with you. Quiet time with you, away from the loud and exuberant nature of the crew.

Eventually, you had started to join him on his rounds as well. Sitting peacefully side by side, sharing a bottle of sake from time to time. Nodding off on his shoulder when your eyelids became too heavy.

Zoro had taken to sitting close enough to you so that, when you eventually fell asleep, he could reposition your head on his solid shoulder and avoid any future neck pain. A gesture he struggled to convince himself was purely out of camaraderie. No ulterior motives, no hidden reasons. He'd do it for anyone on the crew, right?

It took hearing your asleep confession for him to accept that maybe, perhaps, it was possible he did feel something more for you. The moment he heard the soft "Zoro, I love you" come out of your mouth, he froze with the bottle of sake halfway to his lips. He sat like that, so still he could've been a statue, until he felt you cuddle closer to him.

Posture relaxing, he leaned his head into yours and went on keeping watch. Perhaps tomorrow would be more interesting than he had expected.

TRAFLAWGAR 2024

[gloomyamateur]

no she just focused too hard on appealing to the younger demographic and sort of alienated. everyone else. kind of a product of how late she came into the race. using the race/misogyny card as an end-all-be-all feels like a lazy cop-out but then again this is tumblr and instead of giving a rational explanation on how politics work you have to ruffle people’s feathers with some sociopolitical buzzwords 😭😭 ofc theres some of that involved but acting like that’s the WHOLE reason she didn’t win is immature and i think people should look more at actual statistics and like. pay attention to what happens ?? i make all of these jokes about not caring but i still pay attention to what’s going on bc its interesting to me. i fucking hate these app and these stupid ass takes from 14-year olds

i got too optimistic and forgot kamala harris was dealing with the combined powers of racism and misogyny

[phoenix-before-the-flame]

hello I’d love to hear about natsu. do you have any thoughts abt what he was like before we (and lucy) meet him in fairy tail? like with growing up in the guild and all that

You were the first one in here but I literally had to let your ask marinate in my head longer to answer it properly lol.

So we don't know much about Natsu's childhood, whether it be pre-guild with Igneel or pre- main story when he joined the guild apart from a spare handful of moments and facts, these being:

Makarov was evidently the one to find him.

That god forsaken scene of the others laughin at him for not being able to read.

His moments with Gildarts as a kid

Macao being a teacher to him at some point who taught him to use his fire other than to burn things ( hello Natsu vs Erigor )

Finding and raising Happy with his bestie Lisanna

He never officially formed a team with anyone in the guild before the main story.

I think I might be missing a spare few but you get the idea.

For a main character we know scarcely little about him. His thoughts, his views. Zero. Which honestly for such a long running series is so odd to not even get a peek at what's goin on in his head.

There's nothing absolutely solid about his past that we can get to use to dig into his head. Save for the fact that he loves his friends and his family.

Across the board for a lot of his moments in his past we know he's got a lotta love to give. He loves his Dad, he loves Happy, he loves his guild. But just because you have something doesn't mean you know how to work with it.

He loves Igneel. Igneel disappeared. And that forced him into a denial of his dad being dead so strong that up until present in the main story he still desperately searches for him even when the other slayers had accepted it. ( And i'm almost sure he got laughed at for over the years. Can you imagine? Saying your looking for a dragon in a dragonless world?)

He loves his friends. But I think after that damning moment (which honestly I think is a moment really early is his joining the guild. Like he hadn't gotten to know em 100% yet) of them laughing at him he clams up about certain things.

Any moment of vulnerability he could have with them down the line is tossed out to avoid something like that happening down the line.

Lisanna (lisanna, lisanna ilu. I should draw u more.) was a blessing in that she was working on getting those walls down and she was close! Then her incident happened and he clammed up again even fucking harder than before!

Man this is such a long winded way to answer your question but I think growing up in the guild for Natsu, I think as much as he loves everyone- and he does! He loves em all! Even the mfers who piss him off sometimes- I think even though he was there with everyone he didn't feel as though he could open up (or well risk opening up tbh) to them. So he played along to make things in general easier going forward. (Whether intentional or not is up in the air)

So whatever perceptions everyone had of him he rolled with it. He's a lil bit dumb, he's loud, he's inattentive, etc. He doesn't deny what's said about him. Hell he might even play it up. He just doesn't do anything to break the perception as time went on. And since no one really dug like Lisanna did there was no reason to break it.

So he grew up in the guild as the happy go lucky loner. Nothin more and supposedly, nothing less.

[allagashed]

whenever i say “screaming crying throwing up” this is what i mean

[amygdalae]

kind of hate my stupid caustic pussy for dissolving my underwear over time but it's kind of cool, like, scientifically

[pivol-34720]

I’m so tired of disco elsym or whatever it is relating to my themes .every time I see something interesting on the internet half of the comments are about disco elsyum .but I comment there “me” and it’s getting annoying .do I have to learn more about this .like …do I have to ? I’ve found out it’s a game but its a text game that is book length

literally wake up some nights in a cold sweat thinking about this

[artistotel]

hey! for todays protest, i made this little zine about palestine (holding just simple and basic information).

you can download the zine here, fold it yourself, and distribute it around.

no credit is needed. feel free to leave it around bars, protests, or wherever. simply print it (borderless) and fold it. here is a tutorial on how to do it.

dont stay silent. there is a genocide of horrendous, atrocious proportions going on. also if you are a zionist here to argue with me, i dont plan to entertain you at all, not on my art blog. fuck off, you'll be swiftly blocked. i see enough of you clowns on my main and i have no energy for you. you can skip the death threats too bc i dont give a shit.

(i'm off to get ready for a surgery now, i just wanted to post it before this. if you need anything, i might take a bit to reply)

[cozylittleartblog]

"content creator" is a corporate word.

we are artists.

[saikenakoego]

Said I was gonna do this later so here I am!!

I know nobody asked me but I'm gonna do it anyway. Because who's gonna stop me? Someone asking?

Hah!!

Im gonna do this with ALL my OC's. Because I can, and because I love all my little creations!

Starting with my currently favorite vampire gal!

Samantha Morales, a.k.a. Sammy Moors

vvvvvvvvvvvvvvv This gal vvvvvvvvvvvvvvv

With direct answers from the girl herself, for extra cringe roleplay. My favorite.

1. Do you sleep with a stuffed animal? If you have multiple, who's your favorite?

SM: I do sometimes. To try and remember what it felt to be human.

...

My favorite is my little green bunny. His name is Jacques.

2. Can you take care of a plant? What about a pet? Or a child?

SM: I can. But how well I'd do, can't tell. Being undead messes with your head a lot...

3. Can you describe your love interest?

SM: I could if I had one. Or if I could feel love. Or anything at all.

4. Do you look good in red?

SM: ...

SM: I prefer pink.

5. Speech, speech, speech! Will you give one? And what about?

SM: No. That kind of self-centered talk is for bloodsucker scum. You wouldn't catch me dead doing something as pretentious as that. They think they're so high and mighty, that they're superior to everything else. That they can take what they want and we'd never do anything about it. But they're nothing but insects, hiding away like cowards in the shadows while feeding off others like leeches. Disgusting and pathetic, weak little creatures unable to keep living by themselves. Parasites. Just the sight of them makes me want to rip them apart limb by limb, making them scream in agony as the life they've stolen leaves their body drop by drop, scurrying away and pleading for mercy as I crush their every bone to--

6. Who will you take advice from? And who WOULDN'T you take it from?

SM: I don't think anyone can really give me any advice that matters, but if I had to choose... Maybe Johnny. Kid's got a good head on his shoulders when it comes to the supernatural. Not like I need it though.

SM: But I'd never take advice from Silver. Too impulsive, and I already have me to worry about.

7. Describe yourself in three words

SM: Monster. Disgusting. Unsightly.

8. Do complex puzzles intrigue or frustrate you?

SM: I hate puzzles. Wastes of time.

9. Do you empathize with non-sentient things?

SM: More than empathize, I envy them. I'm already unable to feel anything, at least they get to not think about it either.

10. What age do you want to be the most right now?

SM: I wanna be 13 again. Go back to when everything was okay...

11. You won the lottery. Spend, or save?

SM: I dunno. Maybe spend? We do need more silver rounds...

12. Do you like romance in the books you read?

SM: I... I think I used to like it? I can't recall...

13. Name one thing your parents taught you.

SM: Family is everything.

14. Would you agree with the term 'guilty pleasure? Do you have any?

SM: I won't give in to it. I won't, no matter how good it smells. How delicious its crimson gleam looks. How it makes my mouth water at the mere thought of it, I won't. I won't. I won't I--

15. What would you consider a waste of time, other than school and work?

SM: Anything that's too complicated. I have all the time in the world, but every second I waste is another second they live.

16. If money wasn't a limit, what would you wear?

SM: I'n fine with my outfit. I think Silver would be someone better to ask this to.

17. Do you like children?

SM: No. They wound too frequently.

18. Kissing: Tongue or no tongue?

SM: No kissing. That's disgusting.

19. Do you study before tests?

SM: I haven't done any tests in 2 years.

20. What do you like that nobody else does?

SM: Rare meat in burgers isn't too bad... Don't tell Johnny I said that.

21. What would it take for you to break up with someone? What would be the last straw?

SM: Being a bloodsucker. Even if I can't feel anything, that's an immediate deal breaker.

22. Do you like being called pet names? Do you call others pet names? What's your go-to?

SM: I don't, but people have been calling me Sammy or Moors for so long that it feels weird when they don't do it. Old habits die hard, I guess. The only person I have a nickname for is Silver, and that's because he insists on being called Silver.

23. Stability or novelty?

SM: I've had my fill of novelty for a lifetime...

24. Honesty or charity?

SM: Honesty.

25. Safety or possibility?

SM: Safety.

26. Talent or effort?

SM: Effort.

27. Forgiveness or vengeance?

SM: VENGEANCE.

28. Would you date a fixer-upper?

SM: I'd rather not date anyone right now.

29. What recurring dreams do you have?

SM: The blood, it's everywhere... I'd rather not talk about it.

30. What would you do if you knew it would be forgiven?

SM: I... I'm not gonna answer that.

oc asks that reveal more than you think

Do they sleep with a stuffed animal? If they have multiple, who’s the favorite?

Can they take care of a plant? What about a pet? What about a child?

Ask them to describe their love interest.

Do they look good in red?

Speech! Speech! Speech! Speech! Will they give one, and what about?

Who will they take advice from, no matter what it is? Who won’t they take advice from, no matter what it is?

Describe them in three words. Now let them describe themself in three words.

Do complex puzzles intrigue or frustrate them?

Do they empathize with non-sentient things (dolls, plants, books…)?

What age do they most want to be right now?

They’ve won the lottery. Spend, or save?

Do they like romance in the books they read (or in the book they’re in)?

Name one thing their parents taught them.

Would they agree with the term ‘guilty pleasure’? Do they have any?

What would they consider a waste of time– other than school or work?

If money wasn’t a limit, what would they wear?

Do they like children?

Kissing: tongue or no tongue?

Do they study before tests? Practice before job interviews?

What do they like that nobody else does?

What would it take for them to break up with someone? What would be the last straw?

Do they like being called pet names? Do they call other people pet names? What’s their go-to?

Stability or novelty?

Honesty or charity?

Safety or possibility?

Talent or effort?

Forgiveness or vengeance (or…)?

Would they date a fixer-upper?

What recurring dreams do they have?

What would they do if they knew it would be forgiven?

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[zekuto]

i was obsessed the first time i saw someone post leon on that stupid panda rocker but i was never able to find raw footage of it lol, so i decided to compile leon with all the playground interactions because i love him <3