theawkwardvirgin

[theawkwardvirgin]

an illustration for a fic i wrote that i’ve finally had the time to actually draw many days after the fact (ao3 link)

[theawkwardvirgin]

yall gotta be nicer about m/f  bc sometimes u guys like the blandest gay sutff ive ever seen in my life

[theawkwardvirgin]

how abt some brotherly affection between jason & damian?

he is happy to see his lil brother

[theawkwardvirgin]

I wonder: Do Americans know about american school buses? Not their existence in general, but how they're seen overseas.

Over here, they're one of the symbols of America, on par with the Statue of Liberty, the flag, the Eagle, and well ahead of any chain restaurant you can name. People won't know any US states, but they will know these vehicles.

The thing is, here in Germany, we don't have dedicated school buses. The general idea is that kids go to school on their own. When that's not practical, they're expected to use (and given free tickets for) public transit. Public transit is designed around this requirement; there are many places where there is a bus, and anyone can get on it, but the route and timetable really only makes sense for school children. In case a dedicated school bus is really needed, that's generally subcontracted out, and the lines either use something like a Sprinter Van for smaller routes, or a normal city or interurban bus (often a used one that's a bit older). School trips are normal public transit, or a rented bus, typically a coach or regional bus.

It's not a perfect system, in the past couple of years there's been an epidemic of people bringing their kids to school in their cars instead of letting them walk, which is less than ideal. It is what it is. But building a dedicated network of public transit lines only for students, and building dedicated vehicles only for that, has never occurred to anyone here.

Of course we know about these buses, from movies and such, but they're as foreign here as cacti or pick-up trucks (actually we're seeing more and more of these here) or yellow cabs (all europeans will assume all cabs in the US are yellow until they actually visit).

You do see these buses here at times, because people still generally like the idea of the US, even if they have a lot of issues with a lot of details, and so folks bring them over, along with stretch limos and stuff (also not really a thing here). And of course, if someone goes to all that trouble, they don't do it to haul school kids, they rent it out for city tours or as a party bus or whatever.

So you see these yellow things as a symbol of faraway places, scenic vistas, some vague undefined idea of freedom that doesn't necessarily hold up to any contact with reality, and it's just a huge part of the whole US aesthetic.

And then you go to a student exchange with the US, and you finally get the chance: You yourself get to ride in one of these iconic chrome yellow buses! It looks just like in the movies! You get in, you drive in them a little…

…and you realise they're shit. Just the worst buses in the western world. Terrible suspension. Uncomfortable seats with weirdly high backs (so they don't have to put seatbelts in, they just restrict how far kids can fly in an accident). Everything made out of the cheapest materials. Turns out the reason why the US uses school buses like that instead of normal modern city buses, which the US has, is to save money and because they just hate kids.

And then it hits you why US Americans say "as American as apple pie", a dish that is made and enjoyed literally anywhere in the world, instead of "as American as yellow school buses". Of course the Americans already knew all this. They got tortured by these things forever. It would never occur to them to see this as a symbol of America, it's just a normal part of life for them. It's a symbol of school and school life and sometimes normalcy, and tells us that these actors getting out of it are supposed to be teenagers, nothing more.

But most people in Europe have, of course, never ridden on these buses. So when they see them in movies and TV, that's a giant big yellow signifier that we're not in Hessen or Wallonia or wherever anymore. A symbol of a different world, one that may be at most a once-in-a-lifetime-experience for most people, just like a picture of a tropical beach, Incan Pyramids, the Great Wall of China, or Hildesheim (there's no reason to go there twice). And I think Americans don't know that, and that's fascinating.

[theawkwardvirgin]

I noticed you haven’t been online in 10 hours, is therapy finally working?

this websites hate mail game is ruthless

[theawkwardvirgin]

sometimes i think about dick's intense hatred of cucumber sandwiches

[theawkwardvirgin]

within fifteen minutes i have found two different grown adult men who have dating app profiles that say their worst fear is:

werewolves.

one was funny. two is like... hang on, do we actually have a werewolf problem in this town?

[theawkwardvirgin]

they need to invent a writing that is easy. and fast also

[theawkwardvirgin]

So I just saw a post by a random personal blog that said “don’t follow me if we never even had a conversation before” and?????? Not to be rude but literally what the fuck??????????

I’ve had people (non-pornbots) try to strike conversation out of nowhere in my DMs recently, and now I’m wondering if they were doing that because they wanted to follow me and thought they needed to interact first. I feel compelled to say, just in case, that it’s totally okay to follow this blog (or my side blog, for that matter) even if we’ve never talked before.

Also, I’m legit confused. Is this how follow culture works right now? It was worded like it’s common sense but is that really a thing?

[theawkwardvirgin]

[theawkwardvirgin]

mutual 1: I want to turn that man's prostate into silly putty

mutual 2: here's smth i doodled during science class lol

mutual 3: pls remember that you personally can drink milk and still be a lactose intolerance ally!! anyone who tells you otherwise doesn't know their history :]

mutual 4: fucking a robot girl in the ass call that backend programming

mutual 5: holy shit I need him so fucking bad holy shit holyyy shit oh my god

mutual 6: anyone get kind of horny putting the ignition key in the car....it's so intimate....turning him on....

mutual 7: so lets talk about where scrimblo's arc is realistically going- I know a lot of people are trying to argue that he's being manipulated but this ignores the fact that there is clearly unresolved conflict between him and bleebus about their moralities

mutual 8: happy propeller penis thursday

mutual 9: "scrimblo and bleebus need to discuss their morality" god forbid a pathetic boywife does some torture 🙄🙄

mutual 10: WHO IS HYPED FOR THE NEW ALBUM LETS FUCKING GO

mutual 11: guys we're not getting a new album

mutual 12: please stop sending me death threats

mutual 13: why is my whole dash talking about this band I don't even listen to.....

mutual 14: hey boy nice knife wound can i put my tongue in it

mutual 15: i'm going to fall into lake michigan

[theawkwardvirgin]

[theawkwardvirgin]

I just don’t get it. How can our society act so goddamned normal about seahorses. How can anybody so casually accept that that’s a fish???

This is one of nature’s most anatomically perverse of all beasts. A FISH, like a carp or a bass or a beta is a fish, but it bent its body straight up only to bend its head permanently back down. It stretched its skull into a pipe. It tapered its tail like a lizard, specifically like a chameleon. It can also move its eyes independently by the way, you know, like a chameleon. Fun fact, it can change color to express its mood, like you know whatever does that. It doesn’t properly swim anymore. It buzzes its few remaining fins like an insect’s wings to float itself around at a snail’s pace. It lives its whole life clinging to coral branches or seaweed, which means it decided to become a “tree dweller” in an environment where gravity didn’t even matter anyway. The males get pregnant. They make noises at each other by rubbing some of their neck bones together. Every day, EVERY DAY a mated pair does a little dance and a little neck bone song so they remember which two seahorses they were. They’re a beautiful precious obscenity. Nothing so adorable ever made such a strong case against a logical creator.

They have as little skin and meat as they could get away with. Their skeleton is almost all they are.

#Great work everyone #“Nothing so adorable ever made such a strong case against a logical creator.” #I would actually argue that this is a point in favor of an intelligent creator XD #bc what the fuck conditions would make THIS the optimal thing to evolve into? #But God being like “you know what would be fun? Horse but make it fish”? #That I can see #He’s just having fun with his blorbos guys #Now I’m imagining God sitting there gradually tweaking the environment to encourage a fish to ever-so-slowly evolve into this precise shape #And it’s hilarious #World’s longest DeviantArt WIP

[theawkwardvirgin]

[theawkwardvirgin]

Cassandra Cain inspired by Tim Sale's artwork

[theawkwardvirgin]

I LOVE THIS

[theawkwardvirgin]

things to ask yourself when designing a female character:

how much blood is she covered in

are her eyes filled with madness

can she rip things to shreds with her fingernails