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Was bored and realized I hadn't done a cover song in over 3 years. So here's one I've been meaning to record for a while.

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this is so sad alexa play everytime we touch

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Gregorian monks singing “Boulevard of Broken Dreams.”

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why i hate betta fish, and other thoughts about my mom

so obviously the problem with listening to country music too much is that it is a constant reminder of my wayward youth growing up on a farm in virginia, and all the stupid shit i used to get up to while my poor mother ran after me waving her hands in the air shouting things like, "why are there eggs on the garage door????“ and, “HOW did you end up in LOUISA COUNTY??? YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO BE IN SCHOOL,” and, “YOU’RE GOING TO GET THE PLAGUE IF YOU DON’T GET THAT PIGEON BLOOD OFF YOUR HANDS.”

just girly things!

anyway, i’ve been thinking about my mother.

THINGS I HAVE LEARNED FROM MY MOTHER:

all my best swear words

how to make midnight snacks with nothing but condiments, weird leftovers, and a goddamn dream

how to take a shot without flinching

The Drunk Dance (CLAP YA HANDS)

every word to every joni mitchell song

7 alternative spellings of the word “laugh”

how to BETRAY your FAMILY by leaving them to DIE ALONE in FIRES.

rewind.

the year was 2005. my dad brought eleven of his students to spend the night at my mom’s house (my parents are amicably divorced) because they were flying out of DC early the next day and my mother was closer to the airport by about 4 hours. they were all asleep in the rooms upstairs; i had slept on the couch, my father in the guest room, and my aunt in her apartment (which was attached to the kitchen).

the point is: we had a full house, and my mother decided to make everybody a big farm breakfast. which would have been a really sweet gesture, except of course that the stove in the house is incredibly temperamental and sometimes lights things on fire that aren’t meant to be on fire.

SORRY ABOUT YOUR SHIRT, SKIP

“SHIT,” said my mother.

i woke up, somewhat groggily, to the fire alarm. “is the house on fire?” i asked.

“EVERYTHING’S FINE,” said my mother.

“is the house on fire?”

“IT’S UNDER CONTROL,” said my mother.

i got off the couch, rubbing my dear sweet little 12-year-old eyes, not yet aware that i was about to be faced with the terrible truth about my own position in the household hierarchy. my stepdad was in the kitchen, fanning smoke out of the windows, while my mother poked at charred bacon.

i sat down at the island, stretching my hands out to steal a pancake. “hey,” i said through a mouthful, suddenly noticing: “where are the jerrys?”

the thing is, my mother and i go through phases of liking things where that thing is the only thing we like, to exclusion of all other things. examples of this include nacho cheese, the billy gilman christmas album, and, when i was in high school, 4 betta fish which for the purposes of this story are all named jerry.

my mother LOVED these fish. she talked to them all the time. “are you hungry, jerry?” she would ask.

“i’m hungry, mom,” i would say.

“there’s bread and probably some condiments in the fridge,” she would answer, cooing at the stupid betta fish while it flared its dumb neckbeard like an IDIOT. you’re the YOUTUBE COMMENTS OF FISH, JERRY. “or if you want we have fruit.”

FRUIT? FRUIT???? I’M TWELVE, I DON’T WANT FRUIT UNLESS IT’S IN A PIE AND SMOTHERED IN CINNAMON.

each jerry had their own little tank, even though it made using the island for anything but fish-viewing completely impossible. did you want to eat? TOO BAD. YOU HAVE ENTERED THE JERRYS’ DOMAIN, AND YOU MUST LIVE BY THEIR LAW.

smug fucker.

back in 2005, just moments after the alarm has begun to ring: YOU HAVE FIVE MINUTES TO COLLECT WHATEVER THINGS IN THE HOUSE YOU LOVE MOST, said my mother’s brain. EVERYTHING ELSE MUST BURN.

the most precious items in the house that by no means could be sacrificed to fire, a complete list:

FOUR PIECE OF SHIT BETTA FISH ALL NAMED JERRY.

items that MIGHT, to SOME PARTIES, be considered SIGNIFICANTLY MORE PRECIOUS than 4 betta fish named jerry, an incomplete list:

myself, her only daughter

her ex-husband

her ex-husband’s gaggle of ELEVEN INNOCENT MIDDLE SCHOOLERS

her SISTER

the dogs?????????

48 years of tax returns, FOR EXAMPLE, I’M JUST SPITBALLING HERE

my mother made four trips, in and out of the smokey kitchen. FOUR. she rescued FOUR LIVING CREATURES from her house and they were ALL AQUATIC FUCKING NECKBEARD FISH.

look, i know my mother loves me. i know my mother does not prefer the company of the jerrys to the company of her daughter. of course i know that.

BUT COME ON!!!

FOUR TRIPS!!! SHE MADE FOUR TRIPS!!!

MY MOTHER HAD FOUR CHANCES TO SELECT HER MOST PRECIOUS CARGO AND SHE CHOSE HYPER-AGGRESSIVE WATER ANIMALS WHO ARE SO FUCKING STUPID THEY WILL OCCASIONALLY FIGHT THEIR OWN REFLECTION.

LOOK I MAY HAVE RUN OVER VINCENT ON THE FOUR WHEELER ONCE OR TWICE BUT AT LEAST I NEVER TRIED TO FIGHT MY OWN—

whoops, okay, one time i did try to fight my own reflection after reacting badly to ambien but that is NOT THE POINT.

the point is never let your parents near betta fish, because they will BETRAY YOU.

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Spot on.

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Okay so I’m really excited about this!

The dream of finding a nude underwear that isn’t terrible may finally be at my very fingertips!

They’re adorable and pretty affordable, selling at $18-$22.

Check them out at www.naja.co

(Shout out to Catalina Girald & Gina Rodriguez!)

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honestly I don’t even care why ao3 was created, if you defend their policy of not deleting horrible works, or are otherwise completely uncritical/forgiving of their mistakes because “but they’re by fans for fans”, you’re a piece of shit

horrible tropes and abuse have always been a part of fandom and fanworks, but it’s super gross that a bunch of fandom elders (who are most likely at least in their thirties) continue the tradition of citing “don’t like don’t read” as a good enough excuse to write child porn, abuse, rape, sexual slavery, etc. AND they collect thousands of dollars each year to fund this through donations

like. they are literally putting money into abusive content being published on their site. where people of any age, even pre-teens, can access it. for example, I could never report people posting alec/women stuff despite it being homophobic, because it doesn’t violate their terms. I can’t report pretty much anything, because as long as you’re not plagiarizing, it’s all good

yeah, ao3 is great as a concept, but allowing abusive, homophobic, racist, etc. material to be published on your site because “fuck the pc police/moral crusaders” is appalling and fuck ao3 tbh. not to mention they’ve had really disgusting people as members on their board, so it’s pretty obvious what kind of people are in charge of this site

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With some of this stuff it’s hard to tell if it’s ironic detachment or genuine racism, but at some point, what’s the f***king difference?

https://safe.txmblr.com/svc/embed/inline/https%3A%2F%2Fyoutu.be%2F6aVEx2BqSSE#embed-58016b838d371408111155

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honestly? rapists deserve nothing. not family, not friends, not clothes, not food, not shelter, not education, not health services, just nothing. nothing. nothing.

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i hate when customers at work hand me a 100 dollar bill and then scoff when i check the watermark. like, lady, i will break out the counterfeit pen. i’ll draw your god damn portrait over benjamin franklin’s before i make a ruling. i’ll get a second opinion from a coworker on the opposite side of the store. i’ll call the mint like, “heyy…it’s daniel…you guys print any hundreds lately? i got a lady here with a hundred, just making sure it’s one of yours…haha cool just checking. so how are the wife and kids?” the people that make a fuss are always like, obviously rich too and you know that’s why they have a problem. like the nerve of me to doubt a rich person’s money. how dare i lump them in with a normal person with a hundred dollar bill. eventually one of them is going to let it slip. i’ll take the bill from them and go to hold it up to the light or feel it between my fingers or something and they’ll laugh and go, “oh, no, no no no i’m wealthy.”

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Rush Hour bloopers.

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Some good tips about comic lettering from Nate Piekos of Blambot.com

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Why did I became a super popular meme in US presidential campaign? 1) I live and work in Belgium. 2) I work in my own tattoo shop. 3) I don’t give a flying fuck about US politics. 4) In the case I’d had to express an opinion, I’d say that Donald Trump is a nazi

… so, I have a job, Trump is indeed a racist, and the media that support his campaign all lie.

AND if you’re a US citizen, are poor or middleclass, you need to be a fucking idiot to believe that a billionaire will solve your problems. Billionaires will never solve your problems, they ARE the problem.

Please share to reinform.

– Rouslan Toumaniantz

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In case you forgot Mike Pence is human garbage…

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Okay, this is in incredibly petty nitpick, but: if you’re writing a fantasy setting with same-sex marriage, a same-sex noble or royal couple typically would not have titles of the same rank - e.g., a prince and a prince, or two queens.

It depends on which system of ranking you use, of course (there are several), but in most systems there’s actually a rule covering this scenario: in the event that a consort’s courtesy title being of the same rank as their spouse’s would potentially create confusion over who holds the title by right and who by courtesy, the consort instead receives the next-highest title on the ladder.

So the husband of a prince would be a duke; the wife of a queen, a princess; and so forth.

(You actually see this rule in practice in the United Kingdom, albeit not in the context of a same-sex marriage; the Queen’s husband is styled a prince because if he were a king, folks might get confused about which of them was the reigning monarch.)

The only common situation where you’d expect to see, for example, two queens in the same marriage is if the reigning monarchs of two different realms married each other - and even then, you’d more likely end up with a complicated arrangement where each party is technically a princess of the other’s realm in addition to being queen of her own.

You’ve gotta keep it nice and unambiguous who’s actually in charge!

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