Image: Cowboy State Daily
Although my Ohio residency is close to 20 years, I’m an Upstate NY girl. When I went to college at SUNY Geneseo, the Buffalo Bills were at their zenith under quarterback Jim Kelly, Coach Marv Levy, and a list of all-star players. The Superbowl against the Giants when the Bills missed the kick?
My dorm shook.
No lie.
Now that my kids are grown and I have time, I’ve…
A sleeping kiddo on the shoulder of a Daddy carrying them carefully from the car into the house.
When I saw a dead bird on the sidewalk outside of Giant and told the worker about it he said, “Well, now he don’t got nothing to worry about no more.”
I found a neighbor working to better secure my art that is hanging in the garden.
The golden light of the sun setting on the oak trees in a quiet alley.
Listening to shared delights with my big kid, some of which were also familiar to my little kid.
Finding sour gherkin cucs still growing at a free community garden just when I was needing a snack.
The kindness and patience of the people around the free table at market.
A squirrel leapt seemingly for no reason at all and caused my big kid to exclaim with joy.
Danny pinched the bridge of his nose, taking a deep breath, counting to ten and then letting it out. Why was this always his luck? Alright. Okay.
Time to move again thanks to Dan pushing his body too far again, and ending up in his core. This was not how he was expecting to spend his days when he ghost-adopted his clone and sort-of son now actual son. Welp, he’ll throw a dart at the map to figure out where he’ll go next.
Hm. Well, pack up Ellie! They’re moving to a place called Smallville, you always wanted a horse, right?
Good People Doing Good Things -- In Linda Taylor's Neighborhood
Good People Doing Good Things — In Linda Taylor’s Neighborhood
Today I have just one good people story, but the story has lots ‘n lots of good people and is guaranteed to bring a smile to your face. And at the end, I have an idea that I need your help with!
It’s amazing what people can do when they work together to help someone. Linda Taylor, at 70 years of age, was given two months’ notice from her landlord to vacate the Minneapolis house she has lived…
getting some responses on my post about kristen and her parents conversation, specifically the "isn't it kinda funny that helio chose you and you were the one to bring the daytime back" and I think it's really interesting how different people responded to it like. maybe it's because I live in the southern united states but. there is a lot of religion, specifically christianity, as that is the obvious analogue to the helioic faith, that is downright evil, I agree. and obviously the prevalence of it is harmful to a lot a lot a lot of people, just as it's harmful to kristen in fiction.
but you have to understand that the individual people are deluded, they genuinely believe what they're doing is right. it's really easy to be like "ugh they sicken me it makes me so mad" in a theoretical sense but. do you have drive through workers wishing you a blessed day. do you have people see your kt tape and offer to pray for your pain to go away. like. idk I just think we have to have a little bit of compassion and understanding for people that are so entrenched in their faith that they do truly believe from the bottom of their heart that what they're preaching is true. especially in a world where divine magic is real!! kristen TALKED to helio. she makes literal miracles happen on the daily. so faith in that world is gonna be heightened to a crazy degree.
obviously I condemn their human-supremacy and their cult practices etc etc etc but in that little moment I felt for the applebees. it didn't make me mad or disgusted or annoyed. it made me sad. because they saw their daughter perform a miracle of the sun and it meant nothing to her. that "that doesn't feel special at all to you?" wasn't from a place of arrogance. they weren't lauding it over kristen. they were pleading. begging her to see it from their eyes: she is the chosen one. she is a prophet of helio and has been doubting and they want what's best for her. she's their savior. she brought the sun back from the endless night. that doesn't feel special at all to you?
I AM SPINNING I AM PACING I AM FULL ON FROLICKING IM SO EXCITED
@d1sc0rd1a THANK U FOR THESE TAGS
okayokayokayokay so pretty much all of these questions will be Officially Answered properly in the character design/intro pages im working on but also i am physically vibrating with excitement about the fact that you noticed all these details and i have very little self control so! lore dump time!!!
(minor tw for mentions of leos self-harm/self-destructive anxious behaviors and unhealthy coping skills)
- mikey does indeed have curly fur! i believe he would be considered a 'rex' rat (pictured on the left) for this trait? though the curls can be more easily seen on mice (pictured on the right). or, at least it seems that way. have not delved too deeply into the details of rodent genes and husbandry, but id assume its the same sort of mutation considering curly haired mice are also referred to as rex sometimes? either way hes a extra floofy bby 🧡
-as for raphie, unfortunately being more fluff and less shell than the average rapheal comes with its downsides. especially if you and your brothers occasionally encounter things like territorial dogs, hungry cats, or sewer crocodiles while exploring places ur dad said not supposed to go. (most of his scars will have more ninja related stories, but his ear i think got messed up from something very animal. probably around age 11 ish? old enough to sneak out from dads protection but young enough to not fully know how to handle himself alone against real danger. thankfully his ear injury looks worse than it actually is for the most part, as the damage was largely to the outer ear. his hearing wasnt super affected, except that he now has a bit of a harder time being able to track/pinpoint noises origins if its on his right side.)
-also yep! dons got some glasses that just clip/rest on the bridge of his nose! theyre mostly just for home use, as they do fall off if hes knocked around. in the field he has some goggles he tends to use (theyre helpful as they have multiple additional functions like heat-imaging, extra zoom/telescoping, and recording capabilities. but also theyll give him headaches if he wears them for too long without breaks). contacts are theoretically also an option but he absolutely hates the sensation of putting them in. so sometimes when hes tired he'll just not bother with either clips or goggles and just squint and struggle. leo hates when he does that lol.
-speaking of leo, he is def an anxious baby :) he has a few patches of fur missing on his hand cos he has the tendency to tug on it while hes thinking. he yanked and chewed on his own tail a lot when he was younger too, which is why when hes older he usually wears some wraps to cover the scars left from that behavior. he finds those scars specifically to be kinda embarrassing and shameful because they werent from any battle or life-lesson, just his own 'inability to control himself'. all of his brothers have repeatedly called him out on the fact that that is not a healthy way to think about his anxiety or mental health, but leo insists hes fine. hes kinda convinced himself that a proper warrior always has control over his own body* and his own thoughts, thus he should be able to just like willpower-brute-force his way into 'being better'. (this line of thinking pisses raph off so much he has to leave and go hit something)
Splinter also tries to talk him through some of that internalized guilt/shame/everything, but splinters very metaphorical, poetic, and indirect when it comes to talking about Big Things, which combined with how much leo gets caught in his own head, makes it kinda hard to gauge how much these talks actually help
*this is made extra fun considering leos also ftm trans, so he is faced with a body that fundamentally disobeys him perhaps more than the average rat-man.
-and im still going back and forth between a few species for splinter, but im leaning mostly towards an African Spurred Tortoise! they have these beautiful if kinda subtle geometric shell patterns and are the third largest species of tortoise in the world. the only thing that doesnt fit perfectly with Splints is that (allegedly) their lifespan in captivity is around 50ish years, whereas im p sure Tortoise Splinter is well over 75, probably closer to 90 when the boys are born and hes mutated into Old Man Papa.
but maybe hes just a particularly long lasting African Spurred Tortoise.
the Hamato family has taken very good care of him for many decades after all. :)
(well. until everything all fell apart, that is.....)
Recently, Clockwork started treating dimensional events like a TV show. He could be time itself but he wasn't going to take care of all the dimensions; considering the number of times they destroyed themselves it really didn't make sense.
Danny accompanied him, it was quite funny, and there was a dimension that he liked to observe, Clockwork called him "How to die a thousand times" but the halfa only called it "Detective Comics" or "DC" for short. Everything about it reminded him of a comic if he was being honest.
It was a messy dimension, it had been reset so many times it was worrying and had several alternate line screens that ended very badly. Danny winced at the DC Zombies screen combining with another, that dimension worked in weird ways.
Both he and Clocky prepared for the season finale, a reveal about a hero named "Batman", when he saw Clockwork throw his popcorn at Alfred's death. His mentor was devastated, he used to avoid using his future vision to not "spoil" the ending, but it was obvious that Alfred was his favorite character.
When all of it ended horribly for the original dimension, Danny and Clockwork looked at each other. That ending was very unsatisfying, so they decided to...change it. They had some time to waste after all.
They disguised themselves as a couple of normal civilians, went back to the start of the problems, and started changing all the bad endings they could find (without interfering with some things, even if Danny wanted to save Jason, Red Hood had to happen).
Spoiler alert: Those heroes die a lot, and apparently they're determined to die!