#oh very good

[glitter-stained]

Random goon: Hey boss, were you the one to pick that name as an alias? And why this one?

Red Hood : I used to have another name, before... A long time ago. But that person is dead now. I get to choose for myself now, they can't take that from me. I won't let them.

Goon: Huh.

***

Random Goon: Say boss, why do you never take off your shirt in front of us?

Red Hood: Well uh, I actually have that really fucked scar on my chest and I'm not comfortable with...

Random Goon: Don't worry boss, we get it, you don't have to explain yourself to us.

***

Red Hood, high on some toxin: God, I wish my family...

Random Goon (on boss-sitting duty): why not try reaching out to them?

Red Hood: They would never accept me as I am now... They wouldn't agree with my so-called "life choices". Besides, they don't miss me, they miss the person they think I used to be... I wasn't even a man when I last saw them.

Random Goon: Damn boss, that sucks.

***

And then the goons throw the Red Hood a party on trans visibility day and Jason is so confused he straight up cries.

[eric-the-disposable-demon]

Uh-

just found out my cousin (who lives in England) is in the art department of a bunch of shows??? And she worked oN DOCTOR WHO? AND HAD LUNCH WITH DAVID TENNANT???? and she just told me so casually because she's interested in the art, not the show? I mean, excuse me? She worked on SHERLOCK???? FOR A WHOLE SEASON?? She worked on Peaky Blinders and Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones??? And probably other things because she has a shitty memory and according to her everything is a blur?? AND AT ONE POINT SHE WAS LIKE: "oh and have you ever heard of Neil Gaiman?" And I was trying not to scream, because yes, of course I've heard of Neil, he's only my favorite author, I've only read like all of his books multiple times, and if you say you worked on Good Omens or the Sandman I'm going to lose it completely. So I said "yeah I've read a couple of his books," -you know, like a liar- "what about him?" and she goes "well I worked on one of his shows and he's brilliant i just can't remember which one" and i go "w-what do you mean he's brilliant? You're.. you're talking about his writing... his writing is brilliant, right?" And she cheerfully says "oh no I don't read books, I ment he was really nice and brilliant when I talked to him" and i go "WHAT DID YOU TALK ABOUT WHAT DID YOU TALK ABOUT" and she thinks for a moment and goes "oh! BRICKS" WHAT IN THE WORLD YES NO THAT MAKES SENSE YOU GET TO WORK AND TALK WITH NEIL FUCKING GAIMAN AND YOU TALK ABOUT BRICKS? NO THAT'S TOTALLY NORMAL I'M NOT MAD ".... it was what I was designing at the time, I needed to know what vibe the bricks should have. Anyway want to see the spinning fireplace I made for doctor who" WHAT THE FUCK.

@neil-gaiman do you remember any brick conversations by any chance

[egophiliac]

still ruminating over Lost In the Book With Spooky Skeletons Part 1, so here's a selection of some of my favorite little bits! (...some more loosely paraphrased than others) (I just feel like Idia has no room to criticize in general, okay)

anyway, I'm sure we're just going to have a fun time celebrating Halloween and nothing bad is going to happen whatsoever! :)

[secondbeatsongs]

for anyone too young to know this: watching The Truman Show is a vastly different experience now, compared to how it was before youtube and social media influencers became normal

before it was like, "what a horrifying thing to do to a human being! to take away their autonomy and privacy, all for the sake of profits! to create fake scenarios for them to react to, just to retain viewership! to ruin their happiness just so some corporate entity could harvest money from their very humanity! how could anyone do something so evil?"

and now it's like, "ah, yeah. this is still deeply fucked up, but it's pretty much what every influencer has been doing to their kids for a decade now. probably bad that we've normalized this experience"

[hinamie]

in spite of everything, I had fun <3

[inkskinned]

probably time for this story i guess but when i was a kid there was a summer that my brother was really into making smoothies and milkshakes. part of this was that we didn't have AC and couldn't afford to run fans all day so it was kind of important to get good at making Cool Down Concoctions.

we also had a patch of mint, and he had two impressionable little sisters who had the attitude of "fuck it, might as well."

at one point, for fun, this 16 year old boy with a dream in his eye and scientific fervor in heart just wanted to see how far one could push the idea of "vanilla mint smoothie". how much vanilla extract and how much mint can go into a blender before it truly is inedible.

the answer is 3 cups of vanilla extract, 1/2 cup milk alternative, and about 50 sprigs (not leaves, whole spring) of mint. add ice and the courage of a child. idk, it was summer and we were bored.

the word i would use to describe the feeling of drinking it would maybe be "violent" or perhaps, like. "triangular." my nose felt pristine. inhaling following the first sip was like trying to sculpt a new face. i was ensconced in a mesh of horror. it was something beyond taste. for years after, i assumed those commercials that said "this is how it feels to chew five gum" were referencing the exact experience of this singular viscous smoothie.

what's worse is that we knew our mother would hate that we wasted so much vanilla extract. so we had to make it worth it. we had to actually finish the drink. it wasn't "wasting" it if we actually drank it, right? we huddled around outside in the blistering sun, gagging and passing around a single green potion, shivering with disgust. each sip was transcendent, but in a sort of non-euclidean way. i think this is where i lost my binary gender. it eroded certain parts of me in an acidic gut ecology collapse.

here's the thing about love and trust: the next day my brother made a different shake, and i drank it without complaint. it's been like 15 years. he's now a genuinely skilled cook. sometimes one of the three of us will fuck up in the kitchen or find something horrible or make a terrible smoothie mistake and then we pass it to each other, single potion bottle, and we say try it it's delicious. it always smells disgusting. and then, cerimonious, we drink it together. because that's what family does.

[caprart1]

I love a man who needs to be put in a mental ward but looks angelic being insane

[aysrin]

happy birthday ISAT !!

extras:

PIOU PIOU

[florbe-triz]

Finally!! let me share with you the Trigun playlist I made! It's called NoMan's Land and you can listen to it HERE It's an evergrowing playlist, hope you enjoy!

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

i vote that next year instead of reading Dracula we do a Jeeves & Wooster Book Club. those two never got the rabid tumblr shipping fandom they deserved (disqualified for the sheer technicality of being published a century too soon). we must correct this injustice

[theabigailthorn]

"Good" Acting

i have a theory that a lot of people say acting is "good" when they're emotionally moved by it, and a lot of cishet white people have a lifelong habit of not listening or empathising when minoritised people speak, so minority actors get called "bad" even when they display some pretty fucking amazing technical skill

[kensatou]

you think YOU had a bad day at work?

bonus: sid shrieking "no!!!! NO!!!!!" loud enough to be heard in the stands and on camera

[hothammies]

stress baker

[markscherz]

I put it to you that Scaphiophryne marmorata is peak frog.

Why?

Well first, it's pretty round, which is key.

Now get a load of those fingers.

Big, expanded discs at the end, ideal for climbing.

But what's happening back there with those toes? No discs there. Those are good for walking and hopping around on the ground.

Now, let's gently turn them over

First, excellent tum, 17 out of 10, no notes.

But what's that at the base of the foot? Those big projections? Yep, those are spades. This climbing, hopping frog is an excellent digger!

I like to think of these Scaphiophryne as all-terrain frogs. They're basically good at everything. They defy our categorical labels of 'arboreal', 'terrestrial', or 'fossorial', and say 'por qué no los tres?'—but in Malagasy, so 'nahoana no tsy izy telo?'

[hinamie]

spiraling

[inkskinned]

you're in the habit of denying yourself things.

if someone asked you directly, you would say that you love a little treat. you like iced coffee and getting the cookie. you drink juice out of a fancy cup sometimes, and often do use your candles until they gutter out helplessly.

but you hesitate about buying the 20 dollar hand mixer because, like. you could just use your arms. you weren't raised rich. you don't get to just spend the 20 dollars (remember when that could cover lunch?), at least - you don't spend that without agonizing over it first, trying to figure out the cost-benefits like you are defending yourself in front of a jury. yes, this rice cooker could seriously help you. but you do know how to make stovetop rice and it really isn't that hard. how many pies or brownies would you actually make, in order to make that hand mixer worthwhile?

what's wild is that if the money was for a friend, it would already be spent. you'd fork over 40 without blinking an eye, just to make them happy. the difference is that it's for you, so you need to justify it.

and it sneaks in. you ration yourself without meaning to - you don't finish the pint of ice cream, even though you want to. the next time you go to the store, you say ah, i really shouldn't, and then you walk away. you save little bits of your precious things - just in case. sometimes you even go so far as putting that one thing in your shopping cart. and then just leaving it there, because maybe-one-day, but not right now, there's other stuff going on.

you do self-care, of course. but you don't do it more than like, 3 days in a row. after that it just feels a little bit over-the-edge. like. you can't live in decadence, the economy is so bad right now, kid.

so you don't buy the rice cooker. you can-and-will spend the time over the stove. you can withstand the little sorrows. denial and discipline are practically synonyms. and you're not spoiled.

it's just - it's not always a rice cooker. sometimes it is a person or a job or a hug. sometimes it is asking for help. sometimes it is the summer and your college degree. sometimes it is looking down at scabbed knees and feeling a strange kind of falling, like you can't even recognize the girl you used to be. sometimes it is your handprint looking unsteady.

sometimes it is tuesday, and you didn't get fired, and you want to celebrate. but what is it you like, even? you search around your little heart and come up empty. you're so used to denying that all your desires draw a blank.

oh fuck. see, this is the perfect opportunity. if you had a mixer, you'd make a cake.