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?

A h-heartfelt reunion..?

Bonus

Drew a bunch of Marinettes in a bunch of different artists styles it was a lot of fun!!

Artists who's styles I mimicked: @buggachat @hamsternamedmarinette @ladybeug @sabertoothwalrus and @anna-scribbles all epic artists 🤟😎

btw if you borrow dvds or cds from library you can rip them onto your own blanks or onto your hard drive or whatever. librarians don’t care and they won’t know if you do it or not

happy valentines day y'all

recipe for disaster 💥

read from left to right!

littlest furth shop

@laikascomet

idk if this is accurate but i’ve felt like in previous seasons riz & gorgug have been one of the inter-bad kids dynamics we’ve seen the least of & this season has been so great in that aspect. gorgug having helped make some of riz’s magic gear. riz helping gorgug with his studies. the shared birthday party. gorgug’s gift to riz being something he himself made to protect riz. riz’s gift to gorgug being something he illegally grabbed to protect gorgug. gorgug who utilizes rage to put his body on the line for his friends & riz who will take deep levels of mental stress for his friends. even though it was within the context of a joke, riz calling gorgug an “absolute sweetie.” like yea they might not be in a band together or both part of a presidential campaign team or owlbears teammates, but they’d go to war for each other, because they’re best friends.

i think what i adore about ladynoir beyond high school age (18 and over) is the opportunity it leaves for some of the most DELICIOUS best friends to lovers scenarios. because, like, two people who've been fighting side by side for years? who've known each other long enough to make jokes about it, haha remember when we were fourteen and you-- we AGREED to never speak of it!!!! who've spent so long learning each other inside out, even, in chat noir's case, getting over feelings, that the idea of anything romantic between them is so far off the radar that they don't feel the need for certain boundaries, because why would it matter if they made jokes about how attractive they find each other, about getting married, about how they could totally mess with the rest of the miracle team by pretending they're hooking up because it's so far out of the realm of possibility.

but then there would be that imperceptible shift. the moment where one of them makes a joke and it feels just a bit more loaded than it should. gazes lingering where they never lingered and playful smiles turning curious. the sudden awareness that, while maybe they were cuddling on a rooftop with their best friend, they were also wrapped up in the arms of someone they trust with their lives, and is extremely attractive, and, wait, if the only reason it was platonic before was because there were no feelings, what does THIS mean?

THE TENSION. THE PINING. THE INHERENT MESS OF BEING IN YOUR TWENTIES. PLEASEEEE

toby fox needs to add like a bit of narration in deltarune abt kris like "they themmed they/themily down the stheirs" cus i cant go on seeing them constantly get he/himmed in yt comment sections

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.

2023 favorites

DP x DC Prompt: The Watchlist

Batman has a watchlist. A list that contains every individual who could become a rouge and a contingency plan for if they did.  

And while they, his children, often make fun of his paranoia and him for having it, they totally understand why he did. They lived in Gotham, for Christ's sake. Where everyone’s just a pin drop away from being the city’s next big villain, forcing the bats to scratch their heads while playing cat and mouse with a sicko for a good few weeks. And while they won’t admit it, the list has helped them a few times. 

But that won’t stop them from making fun of any of the list’s new developments. Because you see, there was a new list. And it wasn’t just a watchlist. No, no, no. It was The Watchlist.

It was a new development after he and Robin went on an out-of-state mission to investigate some town in bum fuck nowhere Illinois. And it was under some pretty tight security as well, so they were expecting something good, like mad scientists or evil mayors. Not profiles of the kids who lived in the town. And while there were a few metas and vigilantes that made the list interesting, by the end of it all they just seemed to be teenagers. 

Until they saw Damian. They hadn’t seen him since he came back from the mission with B. He looked tired. Like ‘Tim hasn’t slept in a week and is surviving on just coffee beans’ tired.

“Ah, I see you all have found it. Good. A few of them will be arriving next week as they’re a part of Gotham Academy’s student exchange program. At least three of them will be staying in the manor with us. Father will need you all to be on standby and to be ready for any possible scenario. Please, for the love of all that is good, do not encourage them in any way, shape, or form. And please do not dismiss them either. The outcome of doing that will be much worse. Is there more that I should add? Yes. Will I? No, because you won’t understand. Not until you've seen what I have.” 

The demon child sighed, then looked them dead in the eyes. “Godspeed to us all.” Then walked away.

Okay, they were scared now.

Escaped clone au

You know all those fics where Danny and Damian are twins but everyone first assumes Danny must be a clone? How about an au where Danny is Damian's clone who escaped the League after he was assumed dead. Damian could even have been the one to have "killed" him, back when Danny was a newly created, fully brainwashed clone minion and trying to kill Damian himself.

Danny gets adopted by the Fentons and canon goes on as normal, until Dan. Witnessing what would happen to the world should he turn evil really drove home to Danny how dangerous he is.

Even if he was confident he could be trusted with his absurd amount of power (which he isn't), what if the League of Assassins found out about him? Does he still have programming triggers from his evil assassin clone conditioning?

So, Danny does the responsible thing: he goes to Batman to turn himself in.

Cue Danny showing up on Bruce's doorstep with ghost hunting equipment, intel on the afterlife, and an almost unbelievable backstory. Somehow he still managed to be more well-adjusted than Damian.

More thoughts under the read more

Here's how I'm thinking Danny leaving the League went down:

After surviving his wounds but failing his mission, Danny (then an unnamed potential Damian replacement) knew there was no point in returning to the League. As a failure, he was meant to be disposed of. He even thought of simply allowing himself to perish, since that was what the League would do.

But he couldn't help but feel as though that would be a waste of a resource. Surely he could be of more use to the League alive than dead?

That tiny bit of rebellious logic is what caused Danny to go into hiding, only living on based on the off chance he would find opportunities to further the League's goals. Obviously, that mentality didn't last long after being exposed to the real world and meeting one Jazz Fenton.

Being adopted by the Fentons was the best cover Danny could have asked for, since any odd behavior he couldn't hide while he was learning how to be "normal" was totally overshadowed by the sheer bizarre eccentricity of his new parents. He was still the neighborhood weird kid, but even that was a major upgrade from disposable tool, so Danny considered it a win.

Anyway, if anyone likes this idea, please feel free to have at it! Interpret it as you please :)

Leftists on tumblr: listen to marginalized people about their own oppression

Jewish person: X thing is super antisemitic

Those very same leftists on tumblr: OH SO YOU SUPPORT MURDERING BABIES THEN? GENOCIDE APOLOGIST

Jewish person: here's an exhaustive list of sources going back thousands of years proving that X is antisemitic.

Leftists on tumblr: Doesn't count, colonizer!!!!!! /gets X tattooed on their forehead, puts an X bumper sticker on their car, calls people Genocide Supporters when they say "hey X is not allowed here because it's antisemitic"

Leftists on tumblr: "Why do Jews keep complaining about leftist antisemitism? I don't see it; it's clearly a distraction from talking about those Noble Savage Palestinians. Prove to me you're oppressed, X! X X X X!! CHANTS X FROM THE ROOFT0PS"

Jews: we don't super trust you guys not to call for our extermination, since you have repeatedly at every past opportunity

Leftists on tumblr: Look, I know antisemitism is annoying, but now is not the time to discuss blood libel when those Evil Jews are eating Palestinian babies!!! HASHTAG X

Jewish person: *rubs forehead as Turning from les mis plays in the background* (nothing changes, nothing ever can / round about the roundabout and back where you began)

Leftists on tumblr: SEE? THEY WON'T EVEN HAVE A GOOD FAITH DISCUSSION WITH ME 😭

Leftists on tumblr: "anyway discussions of antisemitism are a DISTRACTION. I am good person who is being very helpful and only hurting bad people who deserve it, like those filthy Jews— I mean zionists"

Leftists on tumblr: Why, oh why are people calling us antisemitic? 🥺