#rough on rats

[my-52-weeks-with-christie]

Rough on Rats: (Un)Truth In Advertising

Ever wondered how ‘snake oil’ came to epitomize quack medicine? Or who the first snake oil salesman was? (Well, thanks to a great book called Quackery and some research, I can tell you.) During the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago, a man named Clark Stanley took to one of the Fair’s many stages. Dressed in the height of frontier fashion, he produced a rattlesnake from a bag and then proceeded to slit…

[sohannabarberaesque]

"Uh, like, wouldn't it have been more effective to call it 'Rough on Meeces'?"

--Mr. Jinks

But still, "those meeces" (Pixie and Dixie) can manage to elude Jinksie, and then some.

[auroratigress]

[artharakka]

“Äiti itki. Isä lähti huoneesta. Vivian istui nurkassa ja kuunteli vaiti. Kissamme Minni hyppäsi vuoteelle ja käpertyi jalkojeni päälle ja kehräsi, sillä kehräämällä parannetaan sairaita.” — Emmi Itäranta. Kuunpäivän kirjeet

“Mom cried. Dad left the room. Vivian sat in the corner and listened quietly. Our cat Minni jumped on the bed and curled up on my legs and purred, for through purring the sick are healed.” — Emmi Itäranta. The Moonday Letters. Quote tranlated by me (unofficial)

[starry-bi-sky]

Blood Blossom Au: Baby's First Commissioner Meeting :)

TL:DR This Post: Danny (orphan) gets poisoned with blood blossom extract by Vlad. He runs away from him and ends up under the care of one Pre-Robin Battinson Batman! Starry is loudly pushing her batdad agenda.

(Also known as "Late At Night, When The Nightingale Sings" on my ao3!)

This was a fun rough idea I've been sitting on for weeks, thinking about how Commissioner Gordon and Nightingale's first meeting might go.

---------------

Commissioner Gordon likes to think that he's adjusting to the new normal of Gotham very well, -- the new normal being grown men running around dressed like bats, in military-grade strength body armor, committing acts of vigilantism, -- and slowly, little by little, he was no longer being surprised when this new normal pops up out of the shadows like the world's most terrifying daisy. His shaving lifespan thanks him for it.

....

The kid is a surprise though.

Granted, he seemed to be a surprise to the Bat too.

There's been a string of murders lately, -- which, in Gotham, is kind of like saying there's been another storm during monsoon season. And there's just been another; in some dilapidated building down in south Gotham, with the broken, boarded-up windows and mildew-crawling walls to match. The victim is a man in his thirties, multiple gunshot wounds to the chest, left in the center of the room for the blood to pool out around him.

The place is already secured when he arrives, the building swarmed with officers and the forensic detectives. The Bat emerges shortly after he does -- or, he might've been here the whole time, hiding someplace dark and shadowy. For his own sanity, Gordon doesn't think about it too hard.

The kid is a surprise, and he appears like a bolt of lightning.

He shows up in the middle of a conversation Gordon is having with the Bat.

A whistle, sharp and loud, slicing through the air, meant for open air rather than a confined space. Gordon's ears pierce and protest the sound, and the solemn, murmured chatter floating through the room abruptly cuts off like the swing of a gavel. As he turns towards the sound -- as they all do -- he swears, up and down, that he sees Batman's shoulders jump, just slightly.

At the source, perched on the window, is a boy. A boy in a gray-blue scarf and an oversized black hoodie, one that hangs off his frame and has ace bandages wrapped around the wrists in some attempt to cinch the sleeves. The hood is up, big like the rest of it, and threatens to swallow the upper half of the boy's face whole in the fabric. What upper half Gordon can see, is smeared with some kind of opaque, black face paint. He's holding onto the side of the frame with one hand, on his hip is a grappling hook. A familiar grappling hook.

Gordon has multiple questions, and his officers tense up.

Martinez puffs up, brows furrowing as his face shapes into a frown. Shoulders rolling back. "You can't be here, kid--"

The reaction is immediate, like a spark to gunpowder, the boy yanks his fingers from his mouth and his mouth twists into a scowl. Head snapping over to Officer Martinez, his hood manages to stay on but Gordon swears that as he bares his teeth, the glint makes them look sharper than they should be. His voice is rasp and quiet and harsh; snappish in its hissing; "Put a fuckin sock in it, Martinez. I'm not stayin."

Martinez reels back, and the boy immediately veers his attention off him. Like a switch, his demeanor drops. Despite half his face being covered, his mouth twists into a cringing, apologetic smile. Slanted and off-beat, embarrassed. It'd be disarming if this wasn't Gotham, and if he didn't just hiss at Martinez like he was about to bite his head off.

"Sorry." He whispers, voice deceptively polite and softer now. Gordon has to strain his ears to hear him. "I was looking for him."

He points his finger towards-- Gordon? No, Gordon follows the direction, and finds himself looking at -- the Bat.

The Bat, who always looks stiff as a pole, now looks even stiffer. Somehow. Well, the explains the grappling hook attached to the boy's waist.

"What are you doing here?" The Bat says, gruff and unable to completely smother the stumble of surprise in his tone.

The boy still holds a sheepish smile, and slips off the window ledge. His feet hit the creaky boards with a near-silent thud, the Batman finds his feet and rapidly begins crossing the room.

Gordon notes the slight tremble in the boy's legs as he straightens. He adjusts his scarf, which droops close to his knees now that he's standing, and slings a backpack -- how long has had that? -- off his shoulders. When the Bat reaches his side, he does as he always does, and looms over the boy like a spectre. A threatening mass of shadows cloaked in all-consuming black. Standing next to him, the boy looks teeny in comparison.

The Bat is a man who terrifies even the most hardened criminals, Gordon has seen grown men shiver in fear at the mention of his name. And yet when the boy looks up at him, he doesn't even flinch.

Instead, his sheepish smile melts away like ice under the sun, holding only traces of his previous embarrassment. It remains as a shadow on his face, a small upturn at the corners of his mouth. The boy pushes his hood back just enough to reveal glinting, ice-flint eyes surrounded in tar-black face paint. He holds the backpack up with one arm. "You forgot this."

[mischiefdaily]

Fantastic id like 6 more of them please

[starlos-hat]

returning to my roots

[gingermaple]

design concepts for the watcher etho au!

[blighted-elf]

I just wanted to draw rats, but I suppose my Nosferatu is pretty cool too

[mrghostrat]

how ✨spicy✨ is vampire AU gonna be? we talkin flawless levels? 👀

(im so so pumped about this au!!! You write pining so well and it FEEDS ME 🩸)

HMMM i haven’t fully decided how explicit the spicy scenes are gonna be, but there are at least three fucks in the fic 👁️👁️ and waaaayy more ideas for bonus/epilogue scenes

[my-52-weeks-with-christie]

Rough on Rats: From the Office of Cynical Speculation

Since using dangerous and/or addictive compounds in patent “medicines” was common and we know Ephraim had large quantities of arsenic on his hands, I wonder how many of his other products contained traces of this dangerous element. A number of the claims made in the ads for Wells’ beauty aids and “medicines” sound remarkably similar to the effects (the crazy people during the Victorian era)…

[sohannabarberaesque]

Out and about with Dirty Dog and Ratso

RATSO, expressing sheer frustration while pillaging through a garbage dump: Sheesh, Dirty--I just hope Officer Bullhorn didn't have the old Rough on Rats mixed in with the garbage this time!! DIRTY DOG: I take it you mean the rat poison. RATSO: Yes, Dirty, I DO mean the rat poison!! Is nothing sacred anymore?

[babykittenteach]

Post fuck bath

[alverrann]

Was thinking abt it, and Jim is not a rat. Jim has moments where he acts like one, but generally he doesn't, and isn't.

Unlike Spock and Bones.

Perhaps two of the biggest rats to ever exist. Their names even sound Rattish. Just look at Bones! Everything about him bespeaks "rat" (or wet dog).

And Spock, by commonly stating that he isn't a rat, has most people fooled. But he is probably the biggest rat of them all. If u kno u kno

... anyway. I had the thought, and the muse struck yet again

[spikes-got-anger-issues]

It's another Sit & Chat episode with Kelli! Go and watch the entire thing because it's just great to listen to these guys and they're funny, but I went ahead and put timestamps to the parts where they talked about LR, MM, or LR:EF

47:06-54:35 This entire chunk is just them talking about their shows in general, including more specific stuff below

53:30-53:53 Kelli asks if the producers called the LR:EF cast up to wrap up LR:EF, would they (Bradley and Jake) do it. Bradley and Jake immediately say "No", but they also say that if they were asked to do just one more episode then they would do it (Kelli agrees she would do one more too). Bradley then begins to ask about what if LR:EF got wrapped up as a feature film instead, to which Kelli begins to share her thoughts about Bradley's proposal of the idea but never finishes what she was going to say

53:53-53:59 (I just thought that Bradley saying this was so funny lmao)

Bradley: "I think it'd be even funnier- cause, like- the last line was, like 'We're gonna go to war-' or something like that-"

Jake: "-'We'll give'em one!'"

Bradley: "-I think it should have just cut back to all of us dead"

53:59-54:35 They joke about Billy living in the wilderness because of how reclusive he is now. None of them know where Billy is, and he doesn't keep in contact with them and vice versa. Jake had recently seen Billy's brother Eric and asked him how Billy was doing, but apparently Billy is doing fine and just hanging out. Bradley and Jake would love to talk with Billy again though

1:04:10- 1:06:20 Kelli says that if she could go back in time with the knowledge she has now she would go back to Lab Rats and do things differently, like be more serious and ask more questions about the show and its production

[tabl3]

ways the rats' neurodivergencies manifest

chase: autism, OCD, insomnia

autism: chase is intrinsically one of the kindest characters in the series. he deeply cares for his family and friends. however one of the manifestations of his autism is low empathy. he's very intelligent, and can tell when one of his loved ones is upset, but isn't great at approaching them in a more emotionally intelligent way. on top of that he struggles to show his own emotions, as well as deeply understand others (also a result of living in a basement for 14-odd years) his siblings are good at understanding him nowadays though, and gets when he is trying to help or express affection :) (mostly because tasha taught them how) this is one of the ways that having a partner like kaz is a double-edged sword. on the one hand, he's more comfortable expressing himself and has more of an ability to as well from spending time with kaz, who is the most passionate person he's ever met. on the other he struggles sometimes to understand how kaz feels and can unintentionally be insensitive. kaz is also pretty patient though :) he also has severe sensory issues and can go nonverbal at times. douglas has been working on ways to help the sensory things, like calibrating his nose against pet allergies

OCD: chase has a very specific way of doing things and specific expectations for how other things get done. he likes having certain things under his control and having protocol be followed, because without it he struggles to function (just like me fr) his thumbnail biting habit is a result of this and his anxiety

insomnia: chase has a hard time sleeping because of the rate that thoughts travel through his mind, his touch, sight, and hearing being intense, and his physical back pain. he also frequently has nightmares (due to both trauma and intrusive thoughts) and knows he doesn't need as much sleep as regular humans, making him not too keen on trying that hard to sleep. he does sleep well when he's with kaz though <3

extras - stims: flappy hands/the little jumping giggle thing show chase does when he's happy, lip biting/arm folding whenever, rocking when he's overwhelmed/upset. special interests: science, inventing, space, bugs

bree: ADHD (hyperactive), arrhythmia

ADHD: bree's bionics mixes with her ADHD. she is always moving in some way: touching her hair, tapping her foot, messing with her fingers. she chews gum to keep herself busy when she wants to be still. she also "glitches" a lot, jumping, twitching, etc. this is why skylar is a good partner for her, both because she's a very calm individual and can't be hurt if bree accidentally hits her from glitching. it was worse when she was younger, and she was jealous of her brothers: chase because he could peacefully put puzzles together without glitching and tossing the whole thing to the floor, and adam because he seemed carefree like his brain wasn't producing thoughts a million miles an hour. she can also be forgetful (not as much as adam) donald figured this was all linked to her bionics, but as soon as tasha met her she got her fidget toys to help her stay busy during school. this also has to do with bree being an artist. she likes the constant of moving her hand.

arrhythmia: this one is linked to her bionics and is a side effect of them: her heart sometimes beats too fast, especially when her overactive metabolism is out of fuel (which is why chase keeps snacks on hand for her)

extra - special interests: bree's fluctuate a lot. she likes one thing for a little, then another. but she's always hyperfixated on something

adam: ADHD (inattentive), dyslexia

ADHD: adam seems on the outside to lack intelligence. he isn't as book or street smart as his siblings, but he certainly isn't stupid by any means. he has great emotional intelligence (despite the emotional repression donald somewhat forced on him and the other two) and actually notices a lot. the reason he seemed dumb when he was younger is due to the spacey nature his ADHD gives him. he's often lost in his own thoughts and is very forgetful of short-term things. he doesn't ever pay much attention to anything unless it's something the specifically interests him, because he knows that chase and bree paid enough attention for all three of them. he also often asked for things to be repeated, which took another shot at his perceived intelligence. even though he's emotionally intelligent he also misses a lot of social cues (also a symptom of basement)

dyslexia: aside from struggling to pay attention in class, his dyslexia made doing schoolwork a huge difficulty. so he stopped caring because he wasn't interested in it anyway, dropping his grades, adding to the fuel of everyone thinking he was stupid. he could've asked chase for help, but he didn't want to be made fun of. now that they've both grown up, matured, and mended their relationship, he often calls chase to tutor him through his college courses, which chase does (as patiently as he can, though he does get frustrated sometimes bc autism lol)

extra - special interests: animals (esp dogs), cars (lesser), flowers, sports (he's in school to be a P.E. teacher) tasha gifted him a stim necklace to bite on when he started college because it helps him focus