Inspired by this post I saw circulating today. @circism @imsodishy @andromedaspark @stranger-rants (and anyone else who added inspiration in the tags who I may have missed)

Billy likes dangly earrings.

Remembers when his mom would wear them—how they’d swing as she moved. When she caught him watching once, when he was small, she let him try on this old clip-on pair that had belonged to his grandmother. He couldn’t look away from himself in the mirror—tilting his chin this way and that so they caught the light as they moved.

She made him take them off before Neil came home.

He only got his ear pierced for real a couple years after she left. Partly to piss Neil off. Partly because he’d unearthed a box of clutter that had survived the purge—when Neil tossed all the stuff she’d left behind.

All the stuff except for Billy, though he might as well have.

Anyway. Amongst the detritus—the flattened souvenir pennies from the pier, the old receipts, the spare key to nothing, never done to-do lists—had been a few uncoupled earrings. He’d never considered how so with socks, so too with anything that came in pairs: the inevitable loss of one. And here lay the poor abandoned souls, forever parted from their partners.

One was a small silver stud, which he pocketed. The other was clearly from her free-wheeling hippie days—this slender gold feather hanging from a short chain. He’d kept it safe, and when the piercing healed, he’d tipped his head, fed the post through his earlobe as he’d walked to the bathroom. Stared at his reflection in the vanity awhile.

He still has them—those two incomplete pairs. And in the years since, he’d made a habit of adding to the collection whenever the opportunity arose. That bitch who mocked him for crying after sex sophomore year? He took one of her favorite platinum hoops, over an inch big across. Felt like a pirate whenever he had it in (but goofy, like Pirates of Penzance, so he only wore that one in private). Or if he saw a tempting set hanging in a rack at the department store, it was too easy to snag one, leave the other bereft. Gave him a thrill, like he was some deranged crow hoarding a very specific kind of shine.

He knows Neil hates the dangly ones. Barely tolerates the tiny ones, the studs or hoops, but hates the dangly ones. Because something about the way they sway from from Billy’s ear—it translates to his hips, to his stride. Which would be enough to set Neil off, the tight-ass, but all that, coupled with the wild fall of Billy’s hair, his shirt unbuttoned down to there, the drip of jewelry at his ear…

Makes him see red.

For a time there, Billy was careful what to wear, and when. Didn’t want to poke the bear. But at some point he realized—the bear didn’t need poking to attack. And that was freeing, in a way.

So now he rocks the dangly ones whenever he wants. Whenever the mood strikes, and if Neil strikes back—well. At least Billy saved him some time, didn’t need to go looking for an excuse.

And it’s worth it, to bear this sign that rings so right. The swing of the earring. The swing of his mind. His moods. The swing of his fist. Whose fist? Who cares. The swing of his walk. The swing of the wheel. The swing of his heart.

Locked in place, swinging free.

i don't really like when people say dungeon meshi is accidentally good autistic representation, because while i understand not wanting to make conclusions without explicit confirmation from the author, there's always the weird assumption that non-western authors somehow don't know about things like neurodivergency/queerness/etc. (on top of the assumptions that east asian authors are somehow more naive or oblivious to "western" social issues).

given that dungeon meshi started being published in 2014, it's not really a "work belonging to its times"—it's as contemporary as any other media we discuss on this site, which means it should be fair to assume it engages with contemporary topics (and at the very least, you shouldn't say that the representation is accidental with so much confidence)

but anyways, the chapter "perfect communication" in ryoko kui's "terrarium in a drawer" is some of the most straightforward autistic representation I've seen, and from now on I'm going to assume that laios's character writing is absolutely intentional in that regard:

but you can't keep holding on like this.

My Mane 6 Redesigns all together! I was going to post them separately but ended up finishing them all before I got around to it lol

Saw a post about helping people that used the analogy of "if you see someone fall off a cruiseship and theres a life preserver ring on the wall next to you do you walk away or do you throw them the life preserver? Of course you throw them the life preserver." And i dont want to add to or tag the post with any sort of correction because its literally not the point at all but i am desperate to say that the first thing they teach you when you work on a cruise ship is that if someone falls overboard you Do Not Look Away

If theres a life preserver nearby but you have to turn your back to get it, tough luck. If theres someone nearby who can't hear you but you could run and get them, absolutely not. You see someone go overboard you point at them and never ever let them out of your sight because looking away even once could mean losing them forever, so you just have to trust that someone will hear you scream for help but you cant for any reason look away

And maybe that adds to the life preserver metaphor somehow but mostly i just need you to know if you spot someone in the water you point at them and you watch them close and you scream for help

best trope is the one where the character’s godlike power is also killing them btw. they don’t even lift a hand to kill the monster but now they’re delirious with fever. they save a friend’s life and said friend immediately finds them emergency medical care. they raze the enemy to nothing and it takes far too long to find their pulse with all the bruising. their friends just constantly having to patch them up and worrying over which feat will be their last. et cetera

Source: Eden: It's an Endless World! エデン

by Hiroki Endo

Rare pity, mercy and compassion of the giants called humanity

imagine: you get your memories back after years of amnesia to find out your whole species is dead and earth doesn’t exist anymore. that the only thing left of your culture is your weird ex and his busted honda civic that barely even works that he stole from the government when he was 13. And he’s been taking members of an alien species for trips in his honda civic and they’re all like “woah it’s so cool” and you get upset because it’s NOT COOL it’s a honda civic, the turn signals don’t even work “wow it can go up hills” yeah OF COURSE IT CAN GO UP HILLS EVERY CAR COULD DO THAT. but they’ve never seen a car before so everything it does is the coolest thing ever. And your ex’s only tool is a fucking screwdriver which is somehow also cool to this dumbass alien species even though it’s a fucking screwdriver so you just look like an idiot screaming about how none of this is even cool it’s actually really shitty but your whole planet is gone so you can’t even prove it but also you’ve had a constant drumming sounding in your head since you were 10 slowly driving you insane. I would become evil too.

Folks announcing they're leaving Tumblr because they're unhappy with the Twitter clone dashboard on desktop. (I don't blame you, it's broken af.) Meanwhile, the day this hellsite finally does close, staff are going to have to pry me out of the air vents like a rabid raccoon that's adapted to survive on drinking air conditioning coolant and whatever trash is left lying around in the breakroom.

(teaching my art class)

me: and what’s the number one rule when designing characters with wings? …well?

a handful of students, sighing reluctantly: no good fa-

me (interrupting them): NO good-faith attempts at realism, EVER. you want all the bird dweebs and physicists jumping ship as EARLY AS POSSIBLE so they’re not around to cinemasins your ass when you get to the cool parts of your story, and…ugh, what now, gerald

gerald (my least favorite student): why not just do some minimal research instead of-

me: listen you little shit i can and will singlehandedly tank your 4.0 gpa

Costco has these artisanal peaches. My betrothed and I first had them while staying with some friends. They’re the platonic ideal of what an amazing peach should be. They’re peeled and preserved in juice whole, and somehow they taste slightly like vanilla.

When we got home from our visit we picked up a jar for ourselves. They lasted a good long while. We finally went to get more- and they were gone. I was devastated. That was two years ago.

Every Costco trip since then has included a hopeful look for the amazing peaches. I never stopped dreaming they’d come back.

My health has gotten better and with my improved energy I’ve finally been able to take over some of the chores. So when my betrothed lamented not having time for a Costco trip last week I volunteered to go alone.

I was meandering down the aisle and then I saw them. The peaches. The promised fruit I had been denied for two years, perfect and golden in that Costco aisle. Orchestral music swelled in my mind and everything around me faded away as I beelined toward them.

I was stricken with peach madness. I got four jars. Sitting in the car afterward I tallied the expense. The peaches were fully a quarter of the Costco bill. I texted my betrothed to apologize for absolutely losing my head. They reassured me over and over that it was a luxury I deserved to indulge and that it was okay.

Tonight while holding a dripping perfect peach in my hands, eating it while standing over the counter, each bite the exact ripeness to have a little give but not too much, and my mouth full of vanilla and peaches I contemplated going to buy more.

wild few days to be a casual watcher fan