#which one and when?

[inkskinned]

because sometimes there are invisible tests and invisible rules and you're just supposed to ... know the rule. someone you thought of as a friend asks you for book recommendations, so you give her a list of like 30 books, each with a brief blurb and why you like it. later, you find out she screenshotted the list and send it out to a group chat with the note: what an absolute freak can you believe this. you saw the responses: emojis where people are rolling over laughing. too much and obsessive and actually kind of creepy in the comments. you thought you'd been doing the right thing. she'd asked, right? an invisible rule: this is what happens when you get too excited.

you aren't supposed to laugh at your own jokes, so you don't, but then you're too serious. you're not supposed to be too loud, but then people say you're too quiet. you aren't supposed to get passionate about things, but then you're shy, boring. you aren't supposed to talk too much, but then people are mad when you're not good at replying.

you fold yourself into a prettier paper crane. since you never know what is "selfish" and what is "charity," you give yourself over, fully. you'd rather be empty and over-generous - you'd rather eat your own boundaries than have even one person believe that you're mean. since you don't know what the thing is that will make them hate you, you simply scrub yourself clean of any form of roughness. if you are perfect and smiling and funny, they can love you. if you are always there for them and never admit what's happening and never mention your past and never make them uncomfortable - you can make up for it. you can earn it.

don't fuck up. they're all testing you, always. they're tolerating you. whatever secret club happened, over a summer somewhere - during some activity you didn't get to attend - everyone else just... figured it out. like they got some kind of award or examination that allowed them to know how-to-be-normal. how to fit. and for the rest of your life, you've been playing catch-up. you've been trying to prove that - haha! you get it! that the joke they're telling, the people they are, the manual they got- yeah, you've totally read it.

if you can just divide yourself in two - the lovable one, and the one that is you - you can do this. you can walk the line. they can laugh and accept you. if you are always-balanced, never burdensome, a delight to have in class, champagne and glittering and never gawky or florescent or god-forbid cringe: you can get away with it.

you stare at your therapist, whom you can make jokes with, and who laughs at your jokes, because you are so fucking good at people-pleasing. you smile at her, and she asks you how you're doing, and you automatically say i'm good, thanks, how are you? while the answer swims somewhere in your little lizard brain:

how long have you been doing this now? mastering the art of your body and mind like you're piloting a puppet. has it worked? what do you mean that all you feel is... just exhausted. pick yourself up, the tightrope has no net. after all, you're cheating, somehow, but nobody seems to know you actually flunked the test. it's working!

aren't you happy yet?

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

The squad of all time has arrived on scene.

[demaparbat-hp]

He truly did.

[lazylittledragon]

if i had a nickel for every au spawned from twitter that i SWORE i was going to be normal about

[chloesimaginationthings]

Elizabeth Afton bets on losing dogs in FNAF..

[darishima]

made a chart of the straw hats' skin tones with the colors being screencapped directly from the episodes, to show how much they've lightened. this is more than just an "artstyle change" or "design evolution" or "just the timeskip" this is blatant racism/colorism. it's fucking ridiculous and i don't understand how toei is continuously getting away with it please reblog btw, i think this is something people should see

[junodoom]

swordtember day 8: sun

[july-19th-club]

seriously have been thinking about this all night long. call me autistic but the fact that 90% of workplaces the point is not to get your work done and then be done doing it but to instead perform an elaborate social dance in which you find something to do even when you're done doing everything you need to do in order to show your fellow workers that you, too, are Working . because you are at Work . disgusting why cant we all agree that if there is no work immediately to be done. we just dont do anything

[crumb-crumblet-s-crumbington]

return to sub level 50

[monkesupreme]

Making Bruce the kind of guy to work through his thoughts out loud when he knows hes allowed to. This leads to him rubberducking off of anyone who will let him, including, but not limited to his boys and assorted JL members. He latches on, and suddenly, this is not Bruce's Case, its Our case.

Despite him doing this to anyone that will listen, Clark tends to be the most available victim due to his extreme patience, his investigative skills, and love of listening to people ramble at him <3

[weaver-z]

I do understand that "intelligence tests" are inaccurate and stupid. That being said, does anyone want to see the IQ test question so terrible that I felt I had to stand up and leave the room?

[puppyeared]

renaissance dogys

characters belong to @canisalbus

[starry-bi-sky]

I am loudly pushing the batdad agenda i am loudly pushing the— DPxDC Prompt

“Woah. You look like shit."

Granted, that’s probably not the first thing Danny should be saying to the guy that just bit the curb, but in his defense; he’s not running on 100% right now either.

The man -- tall, towering, and broader than Danny is tall -- whips around on his heel, black frayed cape flaring out impressively. Danny would've whistled in appreciation, but he takes the time instead to wipe the back of his hand across his mouth, smearing the blood running from his nose across his cheek.

"Sorry." He blinks widely, not even flinching as the man with the horns zeroes in on him. "That was rude of me. I have a really bad brain-to-mouth filter; Sam says its what always gets me into trouble."

And she's not wrong either, per say. His smart mouth is what landed him in this situation -- with blood blossom extract running through his veins and cannibalizing the ectoplasm in his bloodstream. Thanks Vlad.

The man grunts at him; a short, curt "hm" that shouldn't make Danny smile, but he does because he's somewhat delirious and probably concussed. The man keeps some kind of distance, sinking towards the shadows of Gotham's alleyway like he dares to melt right into it.

If it's supposed to scare Danny, it doesn't work. Danny's never been afraid of the dark; he's always been able to hide himself in it. He blinks slowly at the mass of shadows.

"You look hurt." The shadows says, blurring together around the edges. Danny squints, and licks his lips to get the blood dripping down his chin off. Ugh, he hates the taste of blood.

"I am." He says, "My godfather poisoned me. M'dying." The agony of the blood blossom eating him from the inside out looped back around to numbing a while ago, so all he feels is half-awake and dazed.

"Hey," Danny stumbles forward towards the man, a bloodied hand reaching out to him. "You-- you're a hero, right? You're not attacking me; which is more than I can say for most costumed people I've met." Maybe it's a poor bar to judge someone at, but he's already established that Danny's not in his right mind.

The man makes no change in expression, but Danny realizes blearily that it's hard to tell with the shadows on his face. He stays still long enough for Danny to latch onto the cape -- stretchy, but almost soft under his fingers.

He looks up blearily into the whites of the man's eyes. "Can you help me? I don't-- I don't wanna die." Again. He doesn't wanna die again. He blinks slow and lizard-like. "I mean- I'll probably get to see mom and dad again, but I told them I'd at least try and make it to adulthood."

There's a clatter down the street, and Danny's ghost sense chills up his spine and leaves a bitter, ashy taste in his mouth. He immediately knows who it belongs to even before the deceptively gentle; "Daniel?" echoes down the way.

"Daniel? Quit your games, badger, Gotham is dangerous for children."

Danny's mouth pulls back, and blood spills against his tongue. "Please." He rasps, and grabs onto the shadow's cape with both hands. "Please. He's going to kill me. Please--"

"Daniel? Is that you?"

His lips part, dragging in air to plead with the darkness again. He doesn't need to, the whites of his eyes narrow, and the cape whirls around him before Danny can blink. Soon swaddled in shadows, the Night lifts him up, and steals him away.

[theoldkyokodied]

The Allegiance of the Ascended Vampire and the New God of Magic

[spielzeugkaiser]

Being on the nostalgia train this week really helped stretching my artistic legs again. So here, have some old things and some new! For now I'm done with this.

[booksapphic]

YOU GET IT!! My biggest issue with a lot of Fratt fics is they either write Karen out, underplay her role, or make her the villain. I love Kastle, but in a Fratt context it's so easy for them to just be friends who adore eachother or even exes who stayed close and are fond of eachother just in a more platonic way now. Karen is so important to both Matt and Frank and she adds a lot of fun potential to Fratts dynamic, stop throwing her in the trash!!

OH 100% YES

(under the cut bc this got long i have so many thoughts about them)

And yes, I understand some fic concepts don't lend to her inclusion which is completely fine but, and luckily i haven't seen any that make her the villain but it's so insane to me bc in my mind, when I think about post-canon how are Matt and Frank actually going to start working together? how do they end up in each other's orbits again? It's Karen. It's all Karen, it has to be Karen. Even if Frank's back in the city he'd probably stay out of Hell's Kitchen as much as possible, and it's not like Matt would seek him out if he's in another part of the city. They'd never reach out for help on their own bc they're way to proud for that, each of them. But Karen? Karen would get them both to her apartment and basically strongarm them into working together and Frank would give her anything she wants because he always does and Matt would probably try to protest but eventually give in bc they're trying to be friends again, and Matt's trying he is, and he knows Karen just wants to help. Meanwhile, Karen orchestrated this whole thing bc two of the most important people in her life exist on the same tiny island and they both do something deadly every single day and she just wants them to live so goddamit she's going to strongarm them into working together. She'll pull a compromise to kill only in self-defense out of Frank and a nod out of Matt and any time she finds something in her PI work and/or reporting work (bc in my mind she stays a freelancer) that she guesses they're gonna get involved in she tags them in on it until they exchange their numbers and she doesn't have to play middleman (yes i have already written this scene for an upcoming fic how could you tell).

Also re: Kastle as exes--I like equally as well the amiable exes and the decided-to-stay-friends route. I think of Luulapants' Fratt fic A Crateful of Grenades in which Karen makes the decision to be only friends with both of them and I like that a lot for several reasons. Primarily, it's important to me that Karen has the agency in relationships with either of them, considering they've both had previous love interests be fridged. I don't think Matt would pursue her again based on how their relationship ended in s2, and I don't think Frank would pursue so much as make it clear he loves her and leave it on her to make the decision. (For the record, I do think Karen would be the one to eventually break it off, bc I don't think Frank would give her any information regarding his work outside of what's reported in the news. Even if he's credited with killings that he didn't do, I don't think he'd tell Karen nor do I think he would answer her questions about them. The complete honesty that's so important to her, that drive for truth--I think it'd spell their downfall in the same way it spelled matt and karen's.) There's deliciousness to be had in the resulting dynamic either way. If kastle dates for a time and then eventually breaks up, while they're dating I can see that adding such an interesting dynamic to Frank and Matt's friendship--they are tentative allies but this is possibly someone who will be around in their life permanently, depending on how kastle's relationship goes. Them mentioning her ("tell Karen goodnight for me" "let Karen know i'm going to be late tomorrow bc of my injuries" "Karen mentioned your client whose story isn't adding up. We're going after him tonight, yeah?" etc.) and to some degree bonding over her, giving the other person a chance bc they trust her so much is so important to me. Once kastle breaks up and Matt begins to catch feelings for Frank it turns into "i should not date my best friend's ex." and then "i need to make sure Karen doesn't mind me dating her ex." If they're just friends then from both Matt and Frank's perspective she's the one I could see them talking about their feelings (would they? no, or only in an incredibly roundabout way. but if they were going to, that's who they'd go to.) Either way, too, we get Foggy being like "pls get another friend/date someone else. someone who's not a mass murderer. I know he's hot, but god, is it really worth it?" (they answer, yes he really is, you don't get it, but-- Both Karen and Matt look a little red-faced and hazy-eyed and Foggy's like that's not what I meant dear lord pls don't share that information with me ever again). This, again, opens up for the TOP TIER DYNAMIC of Karen, Matt, and Frank each being one of the most important people in the others' lives and Foggy is horrifyingly along for the ride. Frank doesn't really understand why Matt and Karen are so committed to Foggy, but that could be bc Foggy just glares at him anytime they're in the same space.

FINALLY with your last point, another part of the fratt dynamic i would love to see karen explored more is that she is just as insane as both of them. she is just as likely to commit crimes, she just doesn't have the training they do. i would LOVE to see her getting herself involved in more investigative reporting that leads to her calling Matt and Frank as back-up, or as her being the person who gives them a lot of leads--Frank will break up drug deals, and Matt will punch muggers, and Karen will be dropping all the information necessary for them to take down rampant corruption in the NYC mayor's office right into their laps like "i have a job for you" and they'll look at her with stars in her eyes. (Matt: "... how did you get some of this information?" karen: "i broke into the mayor's house during her lunch break and also made some minor threats to her wife." Frank: "WHAT?" "... on second thought don't worry about it :)") Neither frank nor matt would ever tag her in intentionally, but if they let something slip about something they're working on and it catches her interest? now they're the ones along for the ride.

(ALSO i've talked about how i can't actually imagine fratt getting married but if they have a wedding, Karen's their maid of honor. which one-? yes.)

ANYWAY i have to go to bed but thank you for letting me rant about them i love them so much goddamn