#like what a run

[inkskinned]

i got rickrolled today but it didn't work because i have adblocker installed, so youtube just told me i violated the terms of service. yesterday i was trying to edit a picture as a joke for my girlfriend, and google made me check a box to prove i'm human because i wasn't "searching normally".

it isn't just that capitalism is killing fun and whimsy, it is that any element of entertainment or joy is being fed upon by this mosquito body, one that will suck you dry at any vulnerability.

do you want to meet new friends in your city? download this app, visit our website, sign up for our email list. pay for this class on making a terrarium, on candlemaking, on cooking. it will be 90 dollars a session. you can go to group fitness, but only under our specific gym membership. solve the puzzle, sign up for our puzzle-of-the-month-club. what is a club if not just a paid opportunity - you are all paying for the same thing, which makes you a community.

but you're like me, i know it - you're careful, you try the library meetings and the stuff at the local school and all of that. the problem is that you kind of want really specific opportunities that used to exist. you are so grateful for libraries and the publicly-funded things: they are, however, an exception - and everything they have, they've fought tooth-and-nail to protect. you read a headline about how in many other states, libraries have virtually nothing left.

do you want to meet up with your friends afterwards? gift your friends the discord app. you can choose to go to a cafe (buy a coffee, at least), a bar (money, alcohol) or you can all stay in and catch a movie (streaming) or you can all stay in bed (rent. don't get me started) and scream (noise complaint. ticket at least).

you want to read a new book, but the book has to have 124 buzzwords from tiktok readers that are, like, weirdly horny. you can purchase this audiobook on audible! your podcast isn't on spotify, it's on its own server, pay for a different site. fuck, at least you're supporting artists you like. the art museum just raised their ticket price. once, they had a temporary exhibit that acknowledged that ~85% of their permanent art galleries were from cis white men, and that they had thousands of works by women (even famous women, like frida! georgia o'keefe!) just rotting in their basement. that exhibit lasted for 3 months and then they put everything away again.

walmart proudly supports this strip of land by the street! here are some flowers with wilting leaves. its employees have to pay out-of-pocket for their uniforms. my friend once got fined by the city because she organized a community pick-up of the riverfront, which was technically private property.

no, you cannot afford to take that dance class, neither can i. by the way - i'm a teacher. i'm absolutely not saying "educators shouldn't be paid fairly." i'm saying that when i taught classes, renting a studio went from 20 bucks an hour to 180 in the span of 6 months. no significant changes to the studio were made, except they now list the place as updated and friendly. the heat still doesn't work in the building. i have literally never seen the landlord who ignores my emails. recently they've been renting it out at night as an "unusual nightclub; a once-in-a-lifetime close-knit party." they spent some of those 180 dollars on LEDs and called it renovating. the high heels they invite in have been ruining the marley.

do you want to experience the old internet? do you want to play flash games or get back the temporary joy of club penguin? you can, you just need to pay for it. i have a weird, neurodivergent obsession with occasionally checking in to watch the downfall and NFT-ification of neopets. if i'm honest with you all - i never got into webkins, my family didn't have the money to buy me a pointless elephant. people forget that "being poor" can mean literally "if i buy you that toy, i can't afford rent."

you and i don't have time to make good food, and we don't have the budget for it. we are not gonna be able to host dinner parties, we're not made of money, kid. do you want some kind of 3rd space? a space that isn't home or work or school? you could try being online, but - what places actually exist for you? tiktok counts as social media because you see other people on it, not because they actually talk to you.

there was a local winter tradition of sledding down the hill at my school. kids would use pizza boxes and jackets and whatever worked, howling and laughing. back in september, they made a big announcement that this time, rules were changing, and everyone must pay 10 dollars to participate. when im not scared shitless, i kind of appreciate the environmental irony - it hasn't gone below 40. so much for snow & joyriding.

i saw a bulletin for a local dogwalking group and, nervous about making a good first impression, showed up early. the first guy there grimaced at me. "sorry," he said. "there's a 30-dollar buy-in fee." i thought he was joking. wait. for what? the group doesn't offer anything except friendship and people with whom to walk around the city.

he didn't know the answer. just shrugged at me. "you know," he said. "these days, everything costs money."

[tanjir0se]

Disclaimer these are just a small sampling of some possible writer traits I’ve noticed either in myself or in fics I read. Also consider a rb for sample size !

[must-be-mr-boggins]

Taking a 5-second break from the Bagginshield angst to bring you this meme I created after an all-nighter, enjoy.

[sergle]

ALSO IMPORTANT TO NOTE, people dropping mad mad sums of money on gfms and charities and stuff are extremely impressive but that DOES NOT MEAN that putting like $5 towards someone's fund or any good cause is any less valuable, a lot of crowdfunding is about momentum and those single digits add up super fast, you do not need to be Rolling In The Dough to make someone's day!! moving the dial at all is extremely positive!!

[akanemnon]

Wow, not even 5 seconds in and they're already starting a fight.

FIRST - PREVIOUS - NEXT

MASTERPOST (for the full series / FAQ / reference sheets)

[taffywabbit]

reminding myself there are no truly "bad days", because every single day, someone somewhere in the world has taken a photo of an extremely tiny animal and shown it to someone else, and that's very good actually

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

going through my old journals as part of therapy homework and i'm reading a section written in the emotional wreckage of a full-on breakdown when i get hit with this line:

There is never a satisfying answer to ‘Why didn’t they love me?’

like wow babe. good fucking point

[wasabi-gumdrop]

Kabru has a secret admirer in the castle!

[nouverx]

Vox won the hottest Hazbin Hotel character poll on twitter against Lucifer in the final round and I can't stop thinking about it I love my pathetic TV Girl he deserves it

[jaypentaghast]

loumand thirtsday

[swiggity-swexual-i-am-asexual]

We all know the semi-canonical ‘all the Robins know to hide/duck inside of Batman’s cape, even as adults’ thing.

We also know that Danny ‘is LITERALLY a ghost’ Fenton sucks at remembering his own intangibility while ALSO forgetting to look ahead of him.

All I’m saying is, Danny Fenton (or Phantom, if you’d really like) would absolutely SLAM into Batman on accident while running on roof tops and Bruce ‘Brooding Instinct’ Wayne doesn’t even think twice about letting the kid hide and scanning around for danger before there’s a record scratch of ‘wait who tf is this?’ kicks in.

[hemi-demi]

I've seen it said in places that Jon and Martin's relationship (specifically Jon realizing he has feelings for Martin) feels rushed and out of nowhere, and there's a perspective here that I want to share.

I think some people see them as explicitly a gay couple and expect them both to react a certain way to each other, but I have some thoughts as to why Jon is different and their relationship might not look like a traditional MLM story.

I feel that Jon's affections for Martin are absolutely there and growing over time, but with him being acespec, possibly autistic (the "I feel...sad" moment screams alexithymia to me. He doesn't fully understand his internal feelings until they're too big to ignore), and trying very hard to not get murdered for several seasons, I think it's perfectly reasonable his feelings for Martin would take time to develop.

We do see him softening to Martin over time. We see him thinking about Martin unprompted when he's alone. We see him going from "this man is going to ruin this delicate facade I've put up to seem professional, and I want him gone immediately." to "Oh, you're actually capable. So capable you might be trying to kill me." To "I don't want him to get involved or he might get hurt. I need to keep my distance so he's safe." To "I'm going to make myself tea out of nowhere because the guy who usually made it for me all the time isn't here and now it's part of my routine and I want to keep that part of him around while I'm hiding out for murder."

But once he identifies his own feelings, he overcorrects right into hopeless romantic. He's pining hard all S4, because he finally realized himself that he's in love and it's at the worst possible time. It is abrupt. Dude only just figured it out and he's throwing his whole ass into this.

I think even without the autistic headcanon, the acespec nature of how he views relationships and his whole "I feel...sad" moment indicates clearly that he was just oblivious to his own feelings for a very long time.

I know it feels sudden, but some of us are oblivious, okay? I was friends with a girl for 2 years before my brain flipped the switch and Jon's reaction felt so familiar, and I love it. I just hardly ever get to see "me" in media, and it's a bummer when people say it feels unrealistic. It's not, it's just not the norm.

[agentravensong]

thinking about how the extra area added on to a pacifist run of undertale, the true lab, is about alphys's past mistakes. how it ends with the story reaffirming that, despite the pain she's caused, the thing that matters is that she has now made the choice to do the right thing. she's still worthy of her friends' love.

thinking about how undertale doesn't expect the player to get a pacifist ending for the first time. how it's more likely than not that the player will kill toriel the first time they battle her, how lots of players don't initially figure out how to end undyne's fight without killing her, etc. what it expects — not even expects, really, but hopes — is that the player, if they care enough, will use their canonically acknowledged power over time to make up for those mistakes.

no matter how many neutral runs a player has done before committing to the pacifist run, the thing that matters to the characters, to the story, is that you've chosen, now, to do the right thing.

compared to alphys, the player honestly gets off lightly, in that you're the only one (other than flowey) who really remembers any harm you might have caused. and any direct guilting the game could have done about it is long past at this point. instead, as undertale often does, it makes its point via parallels: alphys caused harm, and she knows it. she has committed to being better. in doing so, she has unlocked for herself a better ending to her story. and she deserves it. she's forgiven.

those structural narrative parallels are all over undertale, if you know where to look. and that's one of the things that makes it so fuckin' good.

[anna-scribbles]

emma dupain cheng on the brain😽🎀

more:

[dubioushonour]

"Can it run DOOM?" - boring, of course it can run DOOM, I've seen everything run DOOM from a knitted blanket to a pregnancy test to DNA

"Can it be used to recreate Bad Apple?" - exciting, imaginative, ALWAYS blows me away with the execution, an eternal banger, I am never expecting it and I am always pleasantly surprised to see Bad Apple in a new medium

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Ooh, you want to know what happens at the gay bar run by ex-pirates, ooh...You'll just have to read Tiger Tiger to find out...

(Inspired by this Disco Elysium comic)