Turning off the reblogs on this. At the time I wrote it, it felt like what I needed to say. There's not as much activity on the post now, but when there is, I feel...sort of hollow. We're so far past the point where this even means anything.
having a child has taught me that every toddler is completely justified in their frustrations and tantrums because learning how to do something you have literally never encountered or heard of before is insane. and being expected to be completely calm in the face of this constant barrage of overwhelming information is doubly insane.
i got charlie a sticker activity book and it occurred to me i have to TEACH someone how to unpeel stickers. it's SKILL that requires DEXTERITY and FINE MOTOR ABILITY. i thought it was obvious that you have to curl the page a little bit to create a break in the cut so the sticker comes up.
obviously a fucking BABY wouldn't know that because they have no background experience to inform their thought process. OBVIOUSLY. and OBVIOUSLY the LITERAL BABY wouldn't get it right the first few times. it would OBVIOUSLY take practice. lots of it.
i hate this feeling. it's so obvious. why are children treated so badly when they're learning everything for the first fucking time. why do people treat children so horribly and expect so much. they're brand new. why didn't i get the same grace i give to my child? why did no one have patience for me? why, when it's this easy?
At least half of all posts where people comment "this website's userbase is aging" have me going like. Actually I definitely had a favorite stove burner by the time I was eight at the absolute latest. Not sure how you avoided that aspect of the human experience. Did you grow up with a butler or something.
we should talk more about cities that are vampires. cities that are cold and wet and sink into your bones and stay there. cities that are hungry and want to live. dead cities that dont know they're dead and suck the life force of their people to maintain the delusion. cities with harbors that are actually mouths; one-way entries. cities that are devastatingly lonely and see consumption as love
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.
Imagine if the GIW started gunning for Jason without the Batfam ever meeting Phantom. Like, Bruce has to figure out on his own that the guys in white suits with Lazarus guns are 1. a legitimate government agency, and 2. are perfectly within their rights to hunt Jason like an animal, because 3. there's secret government legislation that says that since Jason's body processes ectaplasm, he's classified as non-sapient and has no legal protections.
Bruce calling up Clark like
Bruce: I am currently in the process of breaking into a government facility in order to dismantle their operations.
Clark: Okay? Do you need... help?
Bruce: Yes.
Clark: Sure, I'll be right there.
Bruce: Not that kind of help. Oracle is sending you the files now. I'd like you and Ms. Lane to make these people wish they were never born.
Clark: [speed-reading the documents] Oh yeah, can do. This is truly disgusting. If the public is half as outraged as I am, we'll get this sorted as fast as the courts can manage.
So Clark Kent acts as a whistle-blower, the Justice League publicly condems the Anti-Ecto Acts as inhumane, the GIW is disbanded, and Batman gets pardoned for all of those crimes that he technically did by assaulting federal agents. And after all that gets sorted, some white haired kid pops up in the Watchtower like "haha thanks for that I really didn't want a war between Earth and the Infinite Realms" and the League are like "wait what"
The ship dynamic of "I love you but I will always choose the world over you. I love you but my conscience binds me to the greater good in a way I can never escape. I love you but I would sacrifice you to save the world if I had to, even though it would kill me and I would never forgive myself. I love you and a part of me wishes that I could be the kind of person who would sacrifice everything for you. But I'm not, and I never will be, and if you're going to love me I need you to understand that."
[VD: A grayscale Magnus Archives animatic of Jon and Gerry talking in episode 111 of The Magnus Archives. Gerry, a ghostly goth, and Jon, a thin brown man in a graphic T-shirt, sit together at a table. Gerry says scornfully, "Playing politics with things they didn’t understand. Reckoned her tradition was less the academic and more the, uh…" Jon offers dryly, "V-Village witch?"
Gerry laughs, pleased, and asks, "You sure you don’t know her?" He sighs, sobers, and says, "Yeah. But deep down what she wanted wasn’t all that different from the ivory tower idiots she hated. Y’know, I think, secretly, she dreamed of starting a little mystic dynasty of her own." He grimaces. "With me."
Jon says a little eagerly, "Like the, the Lukases? Or the Fairchilds?" Gerry corrects, "Well, Fairchild’s just a name, they’re not really family." Then he does a finger gun and says, "The Lukases, though, yeah."
He turns away, pensive and frowning, and says, "Thing is, it’s harder than it looks. What’s out there… doesn’t care about blood." Jon, grinning a little, says, "Well, I-I mean, except for the vampires…" Gerry scowls, "Yeah, obviously except for the vampires." Jon looks abashed, and Gerry looks down sorrowfully to say, "But they care about your choices, your fears, not your parents." End VD]
[ID: A still of the scene where Gerry scowls and says "Yeah, obviously except for the vampires" to an embarrassed Jon. End ID]
Idc about taylor swift and I think all private jets should be cannibalized for scrap metal but in particular I don’t think singers and bands etc should have private jets. They should only have shitty tour buses in which incalculable drama and bad decisions go down
i think its so funny that no one knows that fionna and cake are real except simon. imagine if he forgets to tell marcy and just gives her a heart attack one day
Possibly The most surprising thing I have discovered on the internet is the number of people who will unironically refer to others as "degenerates" without expecting anyone reading this to immediately assume that they are a straight-up fascist