#read all the tags

[hiddenarchivist]

If fanfiction has taught me anything, it has taught me to appreciate the little details. The correct usage of definitely/defiantly now brings me immense joy.

It has also taught me to read the tags before I accidentally scar myself and wish for bleach.

[aesethewitch]

When I was a kid, we moved into a house that had a huge lilac tree out front. It was mostly rotten, and it needed to be taken down before it fell. It took a while, but eventually, it was gone.

Mostly. A couple years later, little lilac babies popped out of the ground in its place. My mom was determined to get rid of them, because she'd planted a beautiful flower garden there, and the lilac trees would overshadow and kill the whole garden. I insisted on saving at least a few saplings. She said fine, but I had to dig them out and put them in pots myself.

So, I did. I spent days digging little lilac bushes out of the ground and putting them into pots. Some couldn't be saved, but some could. When all was said and done, I had five brand-new lilac saplings. Seven or eight years old, and it was my absolute pride and joy.

Three died due to sun scorching, severe drought that no amount of watering could save, and perhaps just being moved from their place in the ground. But two survived, and I was awfully proud of them! I'd go out and talk to them every single day. I watered them by hand and made sure they were fertilized properly. I learned all about their favored environments, and I was determined to make sure they lived.

One of my mom's friends saw what I was doing with the lilacs. She asked if she could have one to put in her backyard, and I agreed on the condition that she take very, very good care of it.

It's now fucking enormous. I'm talking ten feet tall and bursting with beautiful purple flowers every spring. My mom still gets updates each year as they start to bloom, which she forwards to me. And all I can think is, "That's my friend! Thriving some twenty years on, there it is."

The other tree nearly died, too. It lived in a pot for far, far too long. I wanted to plant it somewhere in my parents' yard, but my mom was reluctant. Eventually, we agreed to put it in the far back garden. It grew okay for many years, despite the shade, but in all these years, it's never bloomed.

Last year, the massive tree casting massive shadows over the lilac and the garden cracked in half and fell. It tumbled into the garden, crushing part of the nearby shed and destroying a few plants beneath it.

It missed my lilac by inches.

The clean-up is long done. The rest of the tree has been cut down, and my lilac has full sunlight for the first time in fifteen years. It won't bloom this year, I know. But it's got new shoots up. It's taller than ever. I spent half an hour a few weeks ago praising it for surviving all this time, dreaming about its future and telling it how I believe it'll become the tall beauty it's always been meant to be.

I think next year, I'll see flowers.

[zkyeline]

a couple of eepies

[doyouknowthisdragartist]

"what's the appeal of drag kings" because women are my favorite guy next question

[howsublime]

Excited to share my first linocut, based on the three meme kittens that I love.

Update: T-shirt requests.

[everwalldigan]

I love the idea of all the robins kinda being clones of each other with just a few differences and a concussed Bruce not being able to tell who he’s squinting at so he just says generic statements and avoids saying any names

Bruce (sitting at the breakfast table): so… how’s the weather… dick?

Jason (grinning): you do know I’m gonna hold this against you for like, the next 2 months right

Bruce: (groans into his hands)

Bruce (walking into the living room): hey have you read through the files I gave you yesterday?

Dick: (confused cause he took a day off to surprise Bruce) ?

Bruce: so?

Dick: er… no?

Bruce: Dick?? What are you doing here?

Bruce (walks into the kitchen with a fresh concussion): Jason? I thought you were on a mission with the outlaws?

Tim: (frozen through mid fridge raid, having assumed they were past Bruce calling him Jason since yk. He’s a shit brickhouse now and Tim is, well, obviously not): uh?

Bruce: *turns around and leaves*

Bruce: Oh hey Cass, when did you arrive from Babs’?

Damian: (slowly turns around in the black hoodie he’s wearing) we’re not even the same gender

Bruce: (under his breath) yeah but the same height

[keferon]

Don’t mind me I just like to see him go bananas about cartoonish Autobot rules

Maaan…..if Prowl was in tfp he would spontaneously combust at least once a day

[notherpuppet]

@/coma_0423’s cursed cat alastor will bring you happiness ♥️

Lulu scolds the cat

[stageturn]

(slides u a jon) got time for a draw this in your style?

use #stageturnDTIYS to participate :D

HAVE FUN!!!!! (closeups under the cut :3)

and here's the actual doodle of s1 Jon

[ahsokalegend]

One of my favorite choices the Apothecary Diaries made was making the Emperor a “normal guy” (as far as I know as an anime-only). He’s not evil. He’s not hindering Mao Mao’s journey. He respects the concubines.

If anything his lack of autonomy and presence as the most powerful person in the country further enhances the show’s themes of working within the confines of class and gender inequality.

The previous emperor was a horrible, horrible pervert. Okay, then this emperor only weds women of age… Until he’s forced to take his father’s precious wife due to politics. The current emperor reasonably avoids her.

Eunuchs exist? Bam! now the surgery is outlawed, but this will create a reduction in male labor around the palace.

The emperor clearly favors few women. Well, now he must recognize a concubine with a powerful politician father playing the system.

He supports Mao Mao toeing the line of social expectations for women, but hasn’t removed the law against women preparing medicine. It makes one think, if he wanted to, could he make the change at all? For every two steps forward, he’s forced to take one step back.

In this universe even the Emperor is limited by social pressure and the expectations of his station. His life and that of his children is out of his control, and if that isn’t such a compelling piece of world building I don’t know what is.

If that’s how the author twists the narrative of the Emperor you better believe her female characters dealing with women’s issues in this society are even better written.

[1alchemistart]

HEHE NEW CHAPTER

tbh if they end up dancing im going to expect them to be goofy JKAKLSDFK but waltz drawing OBLIGATORY obv

have this little anya too

[deanmarywinchester]

hobbies include: close reading the Redwall series to answer my most burning questions. such as:

- can I replicate any of these delicious-sounding foodstuffs and would they in fact be delicious if I was able to

- corollary to the above: are we just supposed to read “oat cream” and “nut cheese” every time we see the words “cream” and “cheese”? I think so. bc if not, what tha hell are their livestock animals

- what is Society like? I don’t think we ever see a Mouse City or even Mouse Town though we do see castles and obviously an abbey. are we supposed to believe that most creatures are either in wandering bands or these societies based around a single structure (castle/abbey?)

- they appear to have an idea of what currency is (the bad guys always want treasure — maybe just to have, not to sell? but less ambiguous is some dialogue I just read, “acorn for your thoughts?” “you can have them for free”) but again, we never see anyone using money or making goods for the market. is this after the fall of Mouse Capitalism? are the bad guys (the idea of rat pirates gives me a headache, vis a vis the political/economic systems needed to power piracy) raiding preindustrial mouse societies for treasure/meat?

- corollary to the above: the abbey creatures have oats and wheat but we don’t see anybody farming or trading for farm goods on a large enough scale. is the abbey “orchard” really a like an indigenous forest farm of mixed foodstuffs? is that possible if you live in the same place the whole year or only if you travel each season? I have to do some googling

- both the lack of mixed-species families and the idea of mixed-species families give me a headache. has a squirrel never fallen for a handsome otter? what is the culture shock like if you marry into a subterranean mole family?

- this is the least “important” question but this read through I’ve been desperately trying to figure out What Size Everything Else Is. i’ve come to the conclusion that everything other than animals are at mouse scale, given that they can make seaworthy vessels their own size (a mouse sized vessel with real-world-sized waves seems impossible) and pick and eat apples and plums. but so far it seems like they’ve avoided mentioning how tall trees are — like a person compared to a tree or a mouse compared to a tree?

[eyes-of-nine]

pls assume i'm thinking about this moment 24/7 all week every week

[guiltyidealist]

On your MOST FOLLOWED blog on Tumblr,

[z13lovebot]

Go fish

[givemeureyes]

day 1 without ao3: i have gone through all 5 stages of grief multiple times and have invented a 6th. i will not disclose what the 6th stage of grief is.