#or out onto the counter

[rat-hand]

They should Invent a sink wide enough to wash baking sheets

[luminarai]

Me, sprinting around my flat with a handful of treats to hide in weird places to enrich my indoor cat: The things I do for this strange creature…

My cat, sprinting after me: The things I do for this strange creature…

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

cant scribble it out bc its too Involved but here's a Laughingstock thought that just feels Right:

im imagining them sitting down and going through a list of pet names to use for each other. like Howdy has a clipboard, Barnaby's sitting across the counter, they're going through the list and striking out the ones that don't work. playfully teasing each other about certain suggestions, losing it over a Bit where they try to call each other the names in the most sickeningly sweet lovey-dovey voices and see who cracks first, mutually making fun of some options, getting flustered when they find one they like. yeah <3

[conkreetmonkey]

I have a weird, muddy opinion on how people on this site call The United States of America "USAmerica." Yeah, it works, and it removes any confusion about whether you're talking about the country or the landmass, but at the same time, it feels clunky? USAmerica just feels... idk, it's like you couldn't say it out loud without sounding goofy? You can say "the USA" out loud and it sounds good and makes sense, but at the same time the "the" makes it a bit awkward gramatically, and you can't just say "I'm from USA," but you can say, in text form, "I'm from USAmerica."

THEN there's the fact that people from that country are typically referred to as "Americans," and things from there as "American." When someone says "America," you don't think about the two connected continents the term could technically be referring to, you just think about the United States of America. It's an unusually "built" country within the region, made up of 51 smaller, unified nation-states that have combined into one very large, culturally and geographically disjointed country under one sprawling government, where every state, now functionally more of a province, retains the ability to have differing laws and economic policies, yet must answer to the grand government that controls them all as a whole, like if every country in Europe was ruled by one overseeing organization but were free to remain distinct as mini-nations rather than homogenized provinces. Two USAmerican states are far more different in legislation and culture than, say, two Canadian provinces are.

Given this, it makes sense for the country to simply be named "The United States of America." It's a bunch of states from America that are united into one big Voltron of a nation. Of course, though, you can't just say something like "this book is a great work of United States of America-ian literature," due to the way the English language works. Within the framework of English grammar, ideally, a country needs an adjective form of its name to concisely describe people and things from there, and while there are no hard rules as to how to go about that to my knowledge, there are a few different ways. You can apply a prefix to the country's name such as "ish" (British, Scottish, Turkish), "ian" (Brazillian, Russian, Indian), "ese" (Chinese, Japanese, Portuguese), "i" (Pakistani, Somali, Yemeni), or "an" (Guatemalan, German, Mexican), or if it sounds good you can just get funky with it and change a vowel or two (Norse, French, Dutch, Malagasy). And then there's Iceland with the "ic" (because they're special).

So BASICALLY, from THAT standpoint, using "American" as the USA's adjective makes sense. It flows well, does what it needs to. The problem, of course, is the overlap with the name of the landmasses. Technically, when one says "South American," they could be referring to either the continent of South America, or the south of the USA. Same with "North American." Now, nobody actually uses either of those terms to describe regions of the country, probably due to this overlap. A USAmerican could simply say "I'm from the north" or "I'm from a southern state," and you would understand given the context of them being a USAmerican. But then again, they couldn't just simply drop the country and compass-ional (whatever tf the term is) region in the same clause like people from any other country could without it sounding weird. "I'm from South France" makes sense as a sentence, as does "This plant grows in Northern Australia." "I was born in the South of the United States of America" is clunky and overly verbose, yet the lack of a proper country name without a "the" throws a wrench into that.

So what do we (typically) do? Just say "American" and let context do the work, clarifying if neccesary. "I'm from Southern America" obviously is not intended to apply to the continents, although it technically could. The reader, simply due to the context of knowing that South America is a continent and "America" usually refers to the USA unless otherwise stated, understands that the writer almost certainly means they're from a place like Texas or Louisiana, rather than Argentina or Chile. This way of writing/speaking is imprecise and requires unspoken context, but it gets the job done. America the country is a weird case in terms of its makeup, and that's reflected in its name. You're not referring to one country, you're referring to 51 micro-nations held together with one big fat federal government spread over them, like the thick plastic wrap holding a pallet of crates, boxes and sacks together as one shippable unit. And besides, nobody ever says "America" to refer to both continents, even though they technically could. They say "The Americas," because while technically one region, NA and SA are both very distinct and barely physically connected at all, held together by a single small landbridge (that has a canal though it now anyways, so you can't walk from one continent to the other without crossing water anymore).

So, in conclusion, idk, the term "USAmerica" removes the needless complexity of situational context, but it's somehow clunkier-feeling than the preexisting norm of just saying "America." I use and will continue to use the term USAmerica for brevity's sake since it's the norm on this site, but I'd certainly never use it anywhere else. America is an unusual country, and its name reflects that. A square peg in a language made of round holes, that can still fit if you turn it sideways a little. idk. I suppose the only real lesson here is that a) American exceptionalism is unintentionally portrayed in the language the country speaks, and b) English has a weird grammar system where things that are objectively correct within it sometimes don't "feel right" for no reason other than lacking succinctness.

[kelbunny]

Beat the minor circuit in Punch Out Wii. But since I've not really gotten the hang of star punches yet I'm practicing against Glass Joe.

I might take a break though and go draw, bc I haven't drawn anything for a while haha.

[cherry-treelane]

everytime i feel bad and stressed about my life i remember that i might be in a troubling situation and having a bad time but im not season 4 fiona gallagher in the clink after leaving crack on the counter which my 3 year old baby brother happened to ingest resulting in a fatal near-death experience thats wracked me with never-ending guilt and forever altered my life

[fearandhungies]

every time the new guy at work does something so unbelievably brainless that all i can do is stare at it with my mouth fucking hanging open, all i can hear internally is when he confidently told me "yknow, [perfectly competent other coworker] hes just not all there. he just acts without thinking. i dont do Anything without thinking it through first. 😏."

[whatwillyousing]

transmasc readings of coda are so prominent and it baffles me

[sinnbaddie]

There’s two wolves inside you

One is telling you that you can’t be that angry that Shoko is thrown aside in favor of stsg in fanarts because that’s exactly what Gege wrote her as; a third wheel

The other one is screaming about how it’s unfair and thinly veiled misogyny to gloss over Shoko and her very unique ability to heal only to make her personality that of cardboard in favor of a twink and a racist

[home-and-having-tea]

Going fucking insane, there are stains and onion peels and whole ingredient bits just. left on the counter. My roommate signed the chore chart saying she would clean them. She obviously did not and I texted her saying "hey you said youd do this chore can you do it next time youre in the apartment" and she had the GALL to text me back "why? whats wrong with them?" THERE ARE CRUSTY BITS OF DRIED SAUCE AND RICE GRAINS JUST. SITTING ON THE COUNTER IT IS CLEAR YOU DID NOT CLEAN THEM JFC. THERE IS A STAIN OF SOME SORT THAT HAS BEEN ON THE COUNTER ALL WEEK SO I KNOW DAMN WELL YOU HAVENT CLEANED IN A FUCKING WEEK. IM GOING TO CRY

[starlytenight]

Damm mirror Orion(I forgot whatver mir Orion was reffred to by dark or shadow)is fucking crazy man . Bro straight up seemed to want to kill the two

Also really random but when I saw dark vald and Mir orion interact I thought "discord mod and his kitten" LMAO it way the way dark vald spoke to Mir orion that made the connection for me

Basically in my AU all the Mirrors/reflection just call each other by their names but the "Lights" or originals refer to them as Shadow and Dark based on their behavior and how bad/messed up they are. If they're off the deep end, they are called "Dark." If they're salvageable and just small traits they can work on, they're "Shadows." Technically they all start as Shadows and can progressively get worse if their other selves suck at self-care or get into toxic thought patterns that just won't leave.

In other words, they need therapy the most.

And yes, Orion Knight does have some nasty thoughts as his Dark Self showed, but DMK also demonstrated that too in his own rant. If a character sometimes contemplates darker things, their other self might act on it. It's just the Mirror Selves' lives are attached to the originals so that leads to a whole other dark mess.

Their darker traits reflect in their reflected relationships as well, Vlad's more manipulative side happily taking advantage of Dark Orion's vulnerabilities and self hatred, Dark Meta Knight exploiting Shadow Galacta's own insecurities and love-bombing him when it's convenient or pretending to 'not really' be in love with him despite being in deep. That isn't to say these twisted reflections don't love each other, but they show off what our originals could become if they don't watch themselves and some of their bad habits.

[gar-a-ash]

Hear a crash in the kitchen. Hatchet comes sprinting into the living room with an ACTUAL KNIFE IN HIS MOUTH.

[moonlust-demon]

.

[exopelagic]

okay I severely misjudged spaghetti guy he’s actually just really cool

[rustedguillotines]

NEED...

[deus-ex-mona]

it’s that time of week again…