#I’ve seen some based on parrots…no.

[benbamboozled]

i am partial to "Crow" being Tim's new identity after reading one very convincing post so now i am imagining Martha making up some fucked up story of why crows are associated with funerals or why a group of them is called a murder which Bruce tells to Tim after Tim came back from attending 80th funeral of a dearly departed loved one

See, “Crow” doesn’t work for me as a name for two reasons.

The first is this guy—

The second is that (and this is a problem I’ve had with pretty much all fan-names I’ve seen, and several “official” hero names)—it’s just not punchy enough.

It just kinda…thuds. And like, crows are cool! I love crows! But just “Crow” is…it’s just not enough.

A good hero name (or villain name, even), IMO, has to have a good mouthfeel and a good brainfeel.

“Good mouthfeel” meaning it needs to flow, it needs to feel good to say it. (Probably something to do with syllable endings and iambic pentameter or something idk.)

“Good brainfeel” meaning it has to have an interesting set of connotations behind it that are a complementary match to the hero (or villain) who’s using it. Also, IMO, it should be pretty self-explanatory. (People would ask wtf a “Corvid” is.)

Like—Robin. In the words of Ghost-maker, not even a scary bird! But it has a good mouthfeel and when combined with a chirpy lil kid sidekick, it works.

I think a lot of people go with “good brainfeel” and they neglect the “good mouthfeel” aspect. Even the comics do it—I’m convinced that Owlman hasn’t caught on more because it sounds awkward as hell!

(“Talon,” otoh…that name fucks.)

Anyway, I do very much like the idea of Bruce waxing poetic about weird shit his mom told him to Tim about crows. I’ll take that!

[moonstruckme]

hi! could i please request dr!remus with reader who’s just had eye surgery? i have one coming up soon and im super scared for it and need like a million kisses from him😭😭

thank u <333

Hi lovely, I hope I posted this soon enough and if I haven't I hope it went okay!! I tried to research the recovery for eye surgery but it differs a lot based on what kind of surgery it is so I decided to leave it sort of vague. Hope this is alright!

cw: mention of eye surgery, irritation, nothing descriptive

doctor!Remus x fem!reader ♡ 357 words

You get shy when Remus walks into the post-op room. 

“Hi,” you say softly, wary of disturbing the other patients. 

He sits down on your bed, rubbing your leg through the blanket. “Hi, dovey.” 

“Do I look like a pirate?” 

He grins. “A little,” he admits. “But a very pretty pirate. Or, one could say, you also look like someone who’s recently had eye surgery.” 

“Mm.” You pretend to consider this. “Not as interesting. Will you get me a parrot so I can commit to the look?” 

“If it’ll make you happy.” Remus kisses above your eyebrow tenderly. “How do you feel?” 

The touch of his lips threatens to make you deliquesce into a puddle right there on the hospital bed, but you try to pass it off as a shrug. “Okay.” 

“Does your eye hurt?” 

“Not really? It just feels weird.” The numbing medicine they’d used on your eye is still wearing off, but you can feel the plastic cover over your eye digging into the skin and your eye itself feels slightly itchy. “I can’t say I’m a fan.” 

Remus makes a sympathetic sound, leaning over to kiss your cheek. “It’s normal for it to feel a bit irritated after, but Doctor Abara should give you some drops to help. Have I beat her in here?” 

“You’re the first person I’ve seen other than the nurse.” 

A tiny crease appears between your boyfriend’s brows. He cranes his neck, looking around the room. You catch onto what he’s thinking, covering his hand on your leg with your own. 

“Stay here, please,” you say quietly. 

Remus softens. He splays his fingers, rubbing up and down. “I will,” he assures you. “It wasn’t as scary as you thought it’d be, yeah?” 

“No,” you admit. 

“No?” He ducks his head down to see you, grinning at your reluctance. “Told you. What can I do to help, sweet girl?” 

You look at him bashfully. “I could use a few more kisses.” 

Remus heaves a great sigh. He scoots closer. “Well, usually my treatment plans are a bit more complex,” he says with feigned exasperation, “but if that’s what you need…” 

[skygoldart]

First time posting here and I wanted to start off with one of my favorite recent projects: Grian’s elytra

I also want to show off more of my progress with builds since I don’t do that often anywhere else

The idea

To say this project was painful is accurate, but the final result was well worth it.

Many Grian cosplays I’ve seen have the full parrot wings, but I was inspired by a Mumbo cosplayer I briefly met at a convention in 2022 who had a set of elytra wings on his back, and I wanted to make a version that was a “what if the hermits customized their elytras”. Hence, the parrot theme stayed with the mini layers of feathers at the top

The process

To start a cosplay I will often sketch out a character reference that is fairly accurate to the final build. What’s not shown here are the 10+ pages in my sketchbooks with the different designs for the wings, outfit variations, many accessories, as well as a visual breakdown of all the layer and steps to things.

Out of all the wing designs, I picked my favorite and traced my sketchbook design of the wings onto an digital art program an cut it into 8.5x11 pages, printed it, and cut it out.

I then used some very incompatible and tricky fabrics to cut and sew each side.

The inner side of the elytra has a holographic vinyl layer and the outer side has a layer of cotton with some shimmery toile on top.

The insect wing detailing could have been drawn on and then stitched over, but I decided to freehand the majority of it with some guide points dotted here and there to make it mostly symmetrical based on the original sketch.

To finish it off, I made some feather layers from flannel and stitched them along the top

The final step was to add the harness the elytra connects to since I wanted it to be obvious these wings were not a part of the character, rather just an accessory.

Using a pattern from this Etsy listing, I cut faux leather using it and used rivets and cording to keep it together

And there you have it! My Grian elytra!

The full cosplay project isn’t fully done yet, but at least the wings are

Bonus:

Obligatory cosplay selfie in a car

More projects coming in the future!

[minty364]

DPXDC Prompt #108 Part 2

The thought sounded ridiculous and yet Damian found himself unable to completely scoff at the idea. He himself had seen some strange things in his lifetime and it wouldn’t be fair to completely dismiss the idea outright. 

“I’m unsure what your point is but I guess I suppose they exist.” Damian eventually said.

Danny chuckled at this, “I guess you're not from Amity Park huh?” he joked.

Damian scoffed, “I’ve never even heard of that place but I gather that’s where I am at the moment?” He mentally filed the name to search later. 

“Yeah, born and raised. Anyways, we’re the most haunted city in America. Ghost’s are real, you’ll probably meet one at some point. They’re uh… kind of attracted to me? Kind of like… “ He trailed off for a moment, likely lost in thought trying to come up with an example. Damian was going to call him out for spacing, they were probably running out of time before one of his siblings or Pennyworth came to check on him. Luckily Danny continued, “Hey, what city am I in right now, maybe there’s a comparison I can use?” Danny asked.

“Tt, did you not even think to use GPS to find your location before calling me?” Damian scoffed, his supposed ‘soulmate’ was incompetent, “You're in Gotham.”

“Gotham? Well I guess you could compare them to Batman’s rogues then, however they tend to play a little rough. It’s kind of how ghost’s bond.” Danny’s explanation made it sound like he was the one roughhousing with these ghosts. He wasn’t quite sure where this was going but he let him continue, “so well… this next part’s kind of hard to explain especially without proof but well… I’m what the other ghost’s call a halfa. I’m half ghost half human.”

Damian opened his mouth to retort, the notion that you could be half dead was ridiculous really. But as soon as he opened his mouth a cold blue wisp wafted out of his mouth shocking him. An unfamiliar feeling washes over him and he looked down in terror as he started sinking into the bed.

“Explain your power’s now, I appear to be sinking into your bed.” Damian demanded. The feeling was odd, it was almost as if the bed didn’t exist. 

“Uh, right, Okay… so, it’s kind of emotion based? Take a few deep breaths and you’ll be able to ease yourself back out.” 

Damian did just as Danny instructed and took a few deep breaths. Soon he was able to solidify and sit back up on the bed. Suddenly, a knocking sound was heard through the phone. 

Shit, just like he thought, they took too long and one of his siblings came to check on him. He thought it was sweet that they cared, but he’d never voice this thought out loud to anyone. 

“Danny, I need you to listen very carefully. I need you to open the door and hand the phone over to them. Don’t say anything, understand?” 

“Uh Okay?” Damian could tell Danny was raising an eyebrow at this but he did as Damian told him anyway.

“Uh, Hello?” The voice on the phone said, Damian recognized it as Tim Drake-Waynes. 

“Drake, Please step into the room and listen to my instructions,” Damian waited a moment as he heard the door shut. “Alright, meet my soulmate Danny, apparently his parents study soulmates and they did something and now we’re in each other’s bodies.”

He heard Danny sigh, “It was only supposed to strengthen the soulmate pull. It’s not my fault they don’t know about my weird biology.” 

“Weird Biology?” Drake parroted, “do they not know you're a meta?”

There was a pause before Danny spoke, “No, I’m not a meta… but for the simplicity of things, and this conversation, sure, you can call me a meta.” There was a tiredness to his voice, as if he had this conversation with someone else before.

“The name’s Tim,” he told Danny, then Drake suddenly said in an excited voice, “hey, let’s let him in on the family secret and prank Bruce. Let’s tell everyone else about it and see how long it takes him to figure out it isn’t you… we’ll have to train Danny of course. If he really is your soulmate he’s going to find out eventually and it might be good to prepare him ahead of time” The idea sounded ridiculous to Damian but at the same time, he was recently having some doubts about his Father’s attention on him. Drake had a point, if Danny really was his soulmate, he’d find out eventually. 

__________________________

Danny wasn’t sure what was going on, after he handed the phone off to Tim, they talked about some family secret. Soon Tim hung up the phone and turned to Danny, “Damian say’s Sam and Tucker are there and they’ll call back when he’s back up to speed which means that we need to get up to speed ourselves,” he glared at Danny. Danny, who was still wearing Pajamas stood there as Tim approached him. Once they were a yard apart Tim spoke again, “Listen, the secret I’m about to tell you must not be told to anyone outside of this house, got it?” He fixed a hard glare at Danny.

Danny shrunk back for a moment before a thought occurred to him, “why don’t I tell you my secret as well? Damian is already learning by now and since you're his brother you’ll probably be able to help out.” Secrets for secrets, that way they would both be afforded some leverage in the situation. 

Tim seemed to think for a moment with a hand on his chin, he nodded for a moment before looking up at Danny, “Alright, but tell me yours first.” 

[songofsoma]

until you see stars

pairing: karlach x f!tav words: 2,402 rating: explicit

read it on ao3

“I have something for you upstairs.”

She turned the words over in her mind as Daefina lingered outside the closed door. Karlach had disappeared into the room after making her promise to wait a few minutes before entering—apparently, it all had to be perfect. 

Daefina thought Karlach was already perfect. 

She had listened wordlessly to the sound of rustling fabric as she presumed clothes were being dropped to the floor. Her mouth salivated at the thought of her girlfriend’s bare body just on the other side of the door. 

Was she naked, though? Or was the surprise some sort of lingerie? Karlach in a strappy leather number that covered absolutely nothing flitted across her imagination. If it weren’t that, Daefina would have to change that soon. 

“Okay, you can come in.” Karlach’s voice filtered through into the hallway. Even muffled, she could hear the nerves intertwined with every word. It only piqued her curiosity more. 

Daefina slowly pushed the door open, making it a point to linger in the doorway as the anticipation in the room built. When she finally looked to see what awaited her, her breath caught in her throat. 

There sat Karlach on the edge of a four-poster bed. Her body was bare besides the harness around her hips, the black dildo swaying as she fidgeted. Golden eyes were wide with anxiety and excitement. 

Neither of them said anything for a long moment. Daefina was too busy burning the image before her to memory. She wished she had a lick of artistic talent to memorialize the scene before her so that she could look at it whenever she desired. 

“Do you…like it?” Karlach asked tentatively.

Daefina shut the door tightly behind her, flipping the lock into place for good measure. No one was going to interrupt them tonight. 

“Do I like it?” she parroted, coming closer to Karlach until she stood between her legs. “I think this is the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen.” Hands rested on muscular shoulders, Karlach’s skin hot to the touch as usual. 

Karlach caught Daefina’s hips, large hands splayed over her ass. “Gods, I’m glad. I was worried it would scare you off.”

Her eyes dropped from her face to the strap between them. There was something odd about it. Almost as if it were encapsulated by some sort of magical aura. Curiously, Daefina circled the tip with a finger and gawked as Karlach’s hips jolted and a harsh breath was sucked in through her teeth. 

“Paid extra for an enchantment that lets me feel everything,” she said through gritted teeth as Daefina stroked the shaft. “Definitely not used to that.”

A wicked smile curled Daefina’s lips. Slowly, she began to loosen the ties in the front of her corset top before inviting Karlach to be the one to undress her. 

Piece by piece, Karlach discarded the druid’s clothes, fingers trembling in anticipation as she did so until Daefina stood before her naked. 

“This may have been my surprise,” Daefina murmured, leaning down so her lips brushed Karlach’s ear. “But I am going to make you come so many times you won’t be able to walk tomorrow.” She nibbled on her earlobe and between that and her sultry words Karlach groaned. 

“I am so fucked.” She heard her mutter, much to her amusement, fingers flexing on Daefina’s hips.

Daefina began to drag slow kisses down her neck, gently scraping her teeth against the tender flesh. She could hear Karlach’s breathing turn uneven when she sucked on a particular spot and she didn’t stop until there was a dark bruise left behind, marking Karlach as hers. 

Pleased with herself, Daefina pulled away, enjoying the hazy look in Karlach’s heavy-lidded eyes. That gaze turned curious when she dropped to her knees and pulled the tiefling’s hips closer to the edge of the bed. 

“I bet I can make you come just like this,” Daefina teased as she lightly ran her finger up and down the base of the toy. “Since you can feel every single thing.”

Proving her point, Karlach’s thighs already clenched around her at the smallest of touches. 

With a grin, Daefina leaned forward to brush a soft kiss against the tip, never breaking eye contact. Karlach swallowed hard. Then, as her hand wrapped around the base to keep it steady, Daefina bent her head and swirled her tongue around the plastic head. 

A strangled noise left Karlach and her hips bucked, but Daefina’s hands kept her in place. 

She dragged her tongue up her cock once, twice, and then a third until Karlach squirmed. 

Finally, her lips wrapped around the toy as she took it into her mouth, not minding the saliva that had already dribbled from her mouth to trail down her cock and pooling on her hand. When she began to bob her head, Karlach’s moans filled the room. 

“Fuck, baby,” she cried out, a hand going to grip Daefina’s hair, but then deciding against it. It was clear she wasn’t sure what to do. 

Daefina fumbled for that hand and placed it on the back of her head, inviting Karlach to use her for her own pleasure. 

Clawed fingers threaded through her hair. She was glad she had undone her braids earlier that night so she could feel the sting in her scalp as Karlach tugged at the loose tendrils. 

Her moans and gasps were making things hotter by the second. Daefina could feel her thighs becoming slick as her desire surmounted with every erotic noise. She would finish Karlach off like this and then ride her until she saw stars. And from the way things were looking, it wouldn’t be long.

Planting her hands on both Karlach’s thighs, Daefina braced herself before taking as much of her cock as she could. She gagged around the toy which made Karlach shudder and openly gape at her.

Using the hand wrapped in her hair, Karlach guided Daefina’s head up, marveling at the line of spit that clung to the tip and her mouth as she came up for air. 

“Are you okay?” Karlach asked, bewildered.

Daefina snorted. “I’ve gagged on a hot woman’s strap before. But not one that can feel every little thing.” Hands caressed the sides of her thighs. “And not one that I was madly in love with.”

The look on her face softened and she smiled. Quickly, she leaned down to catch Daefina’s wet lips in a kiss, hands cradling her cheeks. 

Daefina hummed into the kiss, allowing for a moment of sweetness. That was until Karlach’s breathing stuttered as her hand began to pump the length of the cock. 

“You want me to finish you off just like this?” she murmured, eyes still closed as their lips were a whisper apart. Her other hand curled around the back of Karlach’s neck, keeping her in place. 

Frantically she nodded while muttering something about being close.

The hand on her neck fell away and slipped between Karlach’s legs. The harness had left her cunt still exposed, allowing Daefina to easily push two fingers inside her from just how wet she was. She wanted to feel Karlach come around her hand, wanted to feel just how much she affected her. It helped that she had access to finger her while still taking advantage of the enchantment whatever wonderful wizard sold Karlach. 

Karlach moaned and bucked and shook as her orgasm rocked her. She was gasping for air like she had never breathed before in her life. Claws gripped the sheets so tightly, that Daefina was surprised the fabric didn’t tear. 

She let Karlach regain herself as she planted kisses on sweaty thighs before removing her fingers so she could taste her prize. Karlach hadn’t seemed to notice as she slowly re-entered the plane of existence. 

“So, I’m guessing the enchantment was worth it, hmm?” she teased.

Karlach looked down at her and nodded. “Fuck yeah. Never experienced anything like that ever.”

“That’s good.” Daefina rose and planted a hand on the center of Karlach’s chest. “Because I’m just getting started.”

Her eyes widened as Daefina climbed onto her lap, arms winding around her neck to kiss her passionately. Fingers tangled into Karlach’s coarse black hair, tugging gently to force soft groans to echo in the back of her throat. 

“Am I not allowed to fuck you now?” Karlach joked as lips found her neck once more.

“Not yet.” Her words were muffled by skin as she was concentrating on leaving another hickey next to its predecessor. 

When she was satisfied with her work, Daefina pulled back and looked between them. Using Karlach as leverage, she adjusted so she knelt just above the toy. With one hand keeping it steady, she slowly sank onto it, their moans melding together until their hips met. 

“Oh hells,” Karlach gasped, hands gripping Daefina’s hips for dear life. “There’s no way I’m going to last long.”

Chuckled breathlessly, Daefina rocked her hips experimentally, watching as Karlach’s face twisted in pleasure. Just grinding their hips together was maddening and knowing she could feel every inch of her was euphoric.

Finally, she pushed herself up, drawing out the motion to maximize the feeling, and sank back down.

“Fuck,” Karlach rasped, those hands holding her moved to cup her ass as Daefina set a steady pace, dragging out each movement. 

She allowed Karlach to aid her at a quicker pace, taking advantage of the strength in her arms from years of swinging battleaxes. 

Daefina ignored the burning strain in her thighs. Every muscle in her legs began to ache with the exertion. She would not let up, not until she was finished. 

Karlach’s hips moved to meet hers with every thrust as she searched for that second impending climax. Daefina could see it written all over her face in the way her bottom lip was caught between her teeth and the line between furrowed brows. Her breathing was labored as she buried her face in Daefina’s breasts to muffle the sounds of ecstasy unable to be contained by traitorous lips. 

“Fina—” Her cry was smothered by skin. And finally, the hands that had been guiding her pulled Daefina’s hips down hard to meet hers as she came, shoulders quivering. 

Daefina soothingly stroked Karlach’s hair, rolling her hips to milk out every last bit of pleasure, loving the way she shuddered with every movement. 

When she was steady enough to sit up once more, a dazed look still hung in her eye. “You’re trying to kill me.”

She shrugged with an innocent smile. “I hope not, I’m not finished.” 

Karlach allowed herself to be shoved back onto the mattress, amusement glittering in her amber gaze. She scooted back so her legs no longer hung off the bed and that her lover would have better leverage.

“At least kiss me first before you use me, she teased, fingers dancing over Daefina’s hips and thighs. 

Who was she to deny such a request? 

Daefina leaned forward, hands planted on either side of Karlach’s head, and she kissed her sweetly. “I love you,” she whispered after a moment and felt Karlach’s lips turn into a smile. 

“Happy to hear that with the way you’re torturing me.”

She laughed, pulling herself back up as hands came to rest on the ridges of muscle carved into her stomach. “Oh yeah, you hate this so much, huh?” Just for added effect, Daefina ground her hips into hers. It made Karlach’s smugness break with a throaty groan. 

“Okay, maybe it isn’t so bad,” she rasped, hands clutching her thighs for dear life. 

“Good, because I’m not stopping until I come too.”

There was no time to answer as she pushed herself up again and eased herself back down. Karlach, still being sensitive, arched her back with a gasp. It only egged Daefina on.

She bounced herself at as steady of pace as she could manage, her poor legs begging for a reprieve soon. But she was too occupied chasing her impending orgasm. 

Daefina tipped her head back, moaning and groping her own breasts. Pinching and twisting her nipples for added sensation. Frustratingly, it wasn’t enough. 

“Touch me, Karlach. Please ,” she whimpered. 

“Gods,” Karlach groaned. “My name in your mouth is so sexy.” She obeyed, a hand sneaking in between Daefina’s legs to begin rubbing her clit.

Her cries intensified as pleasure surged through her body. She was so close she could almost taste her release.

“That’s it, baby. Use me,” Karlach groaned, drinking in every little detail. 

A feeling like lightning shot through her as she tipped over the edge into ecstasy. Her vision blurred and her limbs went numb as she collapsed against Karlach’s chest, heaving and gasping for air. 

It was Karlach’s turn to soothe her, a hand caressing her back as she nuzzled the top of her head. 

“I don’t think I’ve had an orgasm like that in ages,” Daefina finally whispered. Her words were still broken as she struggled to even out her breathing. 

Karlach barked a laugh. “You’re fucking telling me.”

Slowly, Daefina pushed herself up to look at her, nearly melting at the adoration inscribed on every inch of her face. She kissed her again, long and slow, savoring every second their breaths melded into one. 

Hands slid up Daefina’s back, sharp nails lightly scratching the skin. It made her shiver.

Karlach’s kisses slipped from her lips to move to the corner of her mouth and then her jaw. “Another round?” she murmured. 

It was Daefina’s turn to laugh. “Yeah, but you have to fuck me instead, my legs are tired.”

Words turned into a squeal as she was rolled off and onto her back. Karlach hovered over her, their bodies flush against one another. “I think I can live with that. Why do you think I work out so much?”

“Oh, is that the reason you wake me up every morning grunting outside our tent to do pushups?” she asked with a grin, a fingertip tracing over the slope of Karlach’s nose. “The first time you got me all excited, only to find out you were just exercising.” Daefina rolled her eyes in mock annoyance. 

“Sorry to disappoint, but I think I can make that up to you. I refuse to leave a lady disappointed,” Karlach proclaimed before catching Daefina’s lips in a kiss once more, prepared to prove just how worth it those early morning pushups were.

[vitalazam]

Mapicc tries to ignore the ever increasing ache in his back, trying to distract himself by trading with villagers for spare gear sets. It’s a dull, but constant and pressing pain, and it’s making his damn head pound. Only after stumbling into a crafting table right in front of him does he decide the correct course of action is to curl up under his covers and wait until the pain subsides.

He’s not injured, he’s not bleeding, he was fine after his last respawn, so it’s not that either. It doesn’t really feel like he’s sick either, it’s just the pain that’s making him nauseous. Probably. God, is this what old people mean when they talk about back pain? He can’t be fucking old, he’s still a teenager.

At some point he registers Bacon return to the base; the other’s footsteps are familiar to him even through the fog in his head. Mapicc doesn’t move from his curled up spot. He could if he wanted to, he just – doesn’t want to. He stays there, until Bacon comes over to the bed.

“Are you just sulking, or is something actually wrong?” Bacon asks, not completely unkindly. Mapicc doesn’t sulk, so he doesn’t dignify the question with an answer. Bacon lifts up the covers instead, and Mapicc growls at him when the blinding light of the room hits his eyes and makes it feel like his brain is being stabbed. “Okay! Something is wrong. Got it.” He drops the covers, and Mapicc returns to blissful darkness. “Wanna talk about it?”

Mapicc doesn’t, really, but he’s not so pathetic that he’ll refuse to admit he could do with some help. “My back hurts.” He bites out eventually.

“Can I take a look at it?” Mapicc slowly decides to concede to the request, pushing himself, not without effort, deliberately pulling the blanket over his head to shade his eyes from the light. It has the bonus effect of meaning he doesn’t have to look Bacon in the eye. Bacon lifts the back of his shirt up gently, ignoring Mapicc’s hisses of pain. “There’s lumps here.” Bacon’s hand ghosts over Mapicc’s upper back and he nearly jumps up from the jolt of pain that goes through him. He also swears, colourfully.

Mapicc checked his back, when it first started to hurt, and had seen nothing in the mirror, no bruises, no scars, and definitely no lumps, so that wasn’t good news.

“Huh. I’ve never seen that before.” Bacon adds. “I might ask Parrot about it.” He pauses after that, as if to give Mapicc time to voice his complaints about the idea, but Mapicc just wants to not be in this pain anymore. If Parrot has any bright ideas, he’ll listen to that dumbass. “Here, a golden apple might help.” Mapicc takes the proffered fruit and sinks his teeth into the sickly sweet flesh. It does take the edge off, but his back still throbs, and the light still makes his head pound. He decides to lie back down, face down on the bed, head buried in the pillow.

“Turn the light off.” He mumbles into his pillowcase, but Bacon seems to understand the instruction. Mapicc is left alone then, other than Bacon leaving golden apples and water by his bedside. Bacon doesn’t leave the room, though, not for a while, at least. When he does, it’s only for a few moments, and he returns with Parrot. They don’t make him talk, thankfully. He would definitely try biting them if they poke at him too much right now.

God, he hates being like this.

As time passes, the constant ache slowly turns into a sharper and sharper pain. He munches on golden apples, but doesn’t want to get reliant on them, so waits as long as he can bear in between them. Neither Bacon nor Parrot are ones for fussing, and Mapicc is absolutely not one for being fussed over, but he silently appreciates their company. Bacon brings over the occasional cold, damp rag, which feel fucking incredible, Mapicc will happily admit that.

Eventually, the pain has to come to a climax. Mapicc doesn’t know how exactly he knows this is the end, some instinct maybe, but he’s sure of it when the time comes. He scrabbles at his shirt, pulling it away from his back as something under his skin pushes and pushes –

It’s over in a matter of seconds, the stabbing pain washing over him and ebbing away to a mere dull discomfort in moments. He looks in shock at the small, leathery red wings now decorating his back, right below his shoulder blades. He glances over to Bacon and Parrot, staring back at him with equal disbelief on their faces.

“I guess you’re gonna have to cut holes in your clothes now.” Bacon says after a moment of dead silence.

“You know you’re still not allowed to fly with those, right?” Parrot adds, ever the fucking hall monitor.

“Does it look like I can fly with these, dumbass?!”

[ripplestitchskein]

Brace yourselves Stolitz fans, I think it’s gonna get bumpy. We kind of already knew that but I think it might go longer than we hoped?

So last night I shared my Stolitz pic with my DnD group, I’m doing art for their characters and we have an art space in our game discord and a few of them watch Hazbin and HB. An IRL friend who is also an HB fan asked about the OC in the pic and I shared it was based on the rumor that Stolas is getting a new boyfriend, they could be a parrot potentially voiced by Harvey Guillen but that this was not confirmed or anything. He said “HMMMM that jives with what her assistant told us.”

I’m like “What! Tell me. “

I guess while waiting in line for her to sign for the person in front of them at Mega they were chatting with an assistant and said they loved Look My Way and were interested in where the Stolas and Blitzø story was going. The assistant said they had seen the rest of Season 2 and “You may not love the way it goes if you like the coupling”.

I spiraled immediately, like full on upset. Bitch I cried. I’ve spent hours analyzing this cartoon and that broke me a bit. I’m not necessarily concerned with my ships being “endgame”, I’ve shipped lots of couples that rarely interact just for interesting dynamics. Or couples where one half is literally dead in canon, where they are mortal enemies and not in an enemies to lovers way etc. It just seemed so final and is contradictory to everything the show has setup so far and what I’ve been enjoying about the show and it really fucked me up if I’m honest. I also have a really bad brain though and I know this. I’m not equipped to rationally think about it.

I hesitated to even share what was said because I dislike bumming anyone out but as a speculation and spoiler goblin I’d also like people to share with me so I can prepare myself?

Ive had some time to sit and process and cope a bit “is that information really that different than what we have already?” And the short answer is no, not really. It’s also like their job to tease fans. It was also one sentence I didn’t even actually hear with my own ears lol. My brain just did what it does and took it to the worst place. I took it as “they are killing it completely” and are about to destroy the only reason I enjoy this show so much. Which maaaaay have been an over reaction but I can’t like, help that.

I just honestly cannot fathom how they could so sharply pivot at this point and have it make sense? I can’t fathom why they even would. I don’t even know what role Stolas could possibly have in that scenario. I think that was what upset me the most, Stolas is my favorite and his entire character within the world of the show is completely dependent on his ties to Blitzø to be part of the narrative because he has no ties to IMP outside of it. The idea of him being shelved, even temporarily, is upsetting to me. The show so far is not setup to view characters lives outside of Blitzø and IMP so I can’t see them having Stolas go off and do his own thing without removing him from the narrative completely.

I’m just sad about it and I think I’m putting too much thought into it. Maybe they just meant what we’ve thought all along and that we wouldn’t be happy because of the boyfriend character, and as I’ve said before the split up absolutely has to happen for them to reconcile and come back together. It is actually a good thing story wise for that to happen but the phrasing (though second hand) just depressed the fuck out of me so I wanted to vent a bit and maybe get some outside perspective from people who’s brains work better than mine. It’s possible this is a situation where i know a thing “Stolas is getting a new boyfriend” because I am terminally online and gobble up every like react and ambiguous emoji and assign meaning to it, and the assistant was just talking about that same information assuming my friend didn’t know that (he didn’t) but because I already knew it I’m assigning new meaning to it as if it’s additional different information. That’s a distinct possibility.

Even if it’s the worst case scenario, I’m not a hate watcher, if I don’t like the direction something is going I bitch a bit in mourning and then remove myself completely. So I’ll see how it plays out and see if it makes sense narratively. Maybe I’ll love the direction, who knows. If it what’s we originally speculated based on the narrative setup so far, the boyfriend character is a catalyst to help Blitzø reconcile his feelings and to let Stolas do his own healing and character development but it all that leads to the completion of the story they’ve been telling up to this point that’s perfect. If it leads to less Stolas and a completely different direction than what we’ve spent 1.5 seasons on so far, I don’t know how I would feel about that. I want it clear though I wouldn’t be mad at the creators, it’s their story they can do what they want, and I’m sure others will enjoy whatever they offer up but I personally would just quietly move on to something else.

I’m interested in how others view the response. Just a tease about the boyfriend, and thinking we’ll be unhappy because of that but ultimately it’s going how its been setup? Or should I break out my violin and start up “Nearer, my God, to thee”. I just really need some better brains to give me some perspective,

[mutable-manifestation]

Hello, I’m Ameera a 23 years old Muslim lesbian who is trying to come out, I’ve been in the closet with my girlfriend for way too long, because of how dangerous and hard it is to come out as a lesbian to a religious Muslim family, but me and my girlfriend have decided to do whatever it takes and risk it all to come out, do you mind supporting and encouraging us?, though I know we all have what we dealing with, so I’m not imposing we just need all the support and encouragement we can get, check my pinned post for more information on how you can support, if you are a Muslim queer and you are out, please help with tips on how to make it less complicated, any word of advice is also really needed, we really wanna come out but we need y’all 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ pride please come through for us, I believe pride is for all

Hi Ameera!

I saw on one of your other posts that you already have an exit strategy and are prepared to move out and cut contact should that be necessary for your safety, so I don't see any reason why you shouldn't come out if it's what you want!

I shall be wishing for your family to surprise you with acceptance and support, and for your contingencies to be unnecessary.

I am a Christian rather than a Muslim, so I can't speak to the specifics of your situation, but - if you haven't already - I'd recommend looking into what your religious text(s?) say about the LGBT+ community.

The first thing I did when I realized I was a lesbian was research.

The most I'd ever heard about gay people growing up was "gay marriage bad >:(" and even that only seemed to crop up around when gay marriage beginning to get legalized, so I looked into all of the relevant verses and tried to reconcile my sexuality with my faith.

I didn't want to go looking for validation, I just wanted answers, information, so I could gather my thoughts from there. So I looked at both sides.

The arguments I found that explained the bible as not against LGBT+ were all rooted in study and logic - meanings of words that were oversimplified in translation, historical contexts that I had been lacking prior, etc. All of it was rooted in trying to understand the original texts as and when they were written.

The arguments against LGBT+ all seemed to parrot the modern bible and "homosexuality is a sin" with no other arguments - or at least, no other arguments that could be applied only to homosexual people (example: "but gay couples can't have children!!!" yeah okay neither can infertile/sterile people and they can still get married/it isn't a sin for them to be in relationships). They were also all written with a hostile, hateful undertone (or overtone in some cases). Which. Christians are supposed to be known for our love, so any rhetoric based in hatred... and not even logic to back it? yeah. No.

The arguments explaining gay = okay were all based in love, compassion, and understanding - in logic and research.

So.

It was easy enough for me to reconcile my faith and my sexuality because, as it happens, there was nothing incompatible about the two!

(To any side b or x christians who may read this: this isn't an invite to debate, you literally cannot change my mind and also I will simply block you. This is not my Theological Discussions account)

I'm not quite sure how Islam sees the LGBT+ community in terms of religious rhetoric - from my (very) brief research the only thing I could find was a quote or two about Sodom and Gomorrah, which I've seen plenty of break-downs regarding, though what the Quran (or other Islamic texts?) says may differ.

Once you've done your research and come to terms with the information as needed (again, if you haven't already), I'd write a list of common questions and arguments you're family might make and come up with responses.

I don't know your family. They may shut down and simply tell you to get out and never return. (the worst case scenario [I hope - I don't know your family but if you think there is any possibility of physical violence I would definitely recommend either a video call - so you can see facial expressions - or staying near an exit while coming out])

They might ask you for space to think (okay scenario - kinda in limbo here).

They may surprise you with acceptance (best case scenario)

But they may ask questions and try to argue (middling case scenario).

They may ask things like why you're gay, argue that it's against your religion, etc. In this case, you have a chance to talk them into being supportive.

So.

Lists.

Brainstorm questions with your girlfriend - as many as you both can think of - and go through them. A lot of answers will be easy, some you might need to think more about/do research on (at least, that's my experience). But at least you'll both be armed with all the information you might need in the middling scenario (and it makes it harder for them to make you doubt yourselves, if that's something either of you might struggle with).

Of course, if you've already accepted the possible need to cut contact and gotten ready to move out you might've already thought of all this. Still, I hope this has been of at least some help to you, even if that's just by serving as a reminder that you aren't alone in this and that there's a community out here that supports you.

I'll be wishing you luck; I hope both you and your girlfriend get the best case scenario :)

[just-antithings]

Someone made a tweet about how young queer people should maybe attempt to form friendships irl with queer people who are at least 35 years old (not saying that 35 is old) and the qrts got mad at this person for suggesting they should form bonds with people who’d sexualize them

1) this was nowhere mentioned in the tweet. AT ALL

2) why are older queers sexual predators and why are you young queers parroting conservatives?

3) I’ve also seen people who generalize older queers based on their own bad experience, but just because some older queers were bad doesn’t mean all are?

The tweet was literally just talking about platonic friendships but instead many teens jumped straight to “older queers are predators and want to sexualize me”.

It’s astonishing to me that they couldn’t even think of real life examples, like a lesbian being friends with a gay boy. They wouldn’t have to worry about sexual predation! And older queers can also benefit from younger queers’ experience! Intergenerational friendships among queers have mutual benefit!

it’s the homophobia and queerphobia

[mossbiin]

layers

individual frames under cut

parrot wings is the obvious and most common wing choice for grian since he spent s7 in the jungle

angel/white wings are less common but also go with his alter ego poultry man

sculk and rock wings are a nod to his s9 base. i’ve seen some people making him with rock wings like the boulders

watcher/eye wings are a watcher/evo reference as well as the neon purple being a subtle reference to the rifts “corruption” that i see sometimes on tumblr

[scrambleseggy]

It took me some time to learn this since I haven’t even had my first HRT appointment yet but I do think transmisogyny is an issue that is more directly targeted and severe and while I think trans men deal with a lot of shit I do think trans men who end up “passing” (whatever that might mention) have some responsibility in protecting their trans sisters more readily due to the societal shift they CAN experience based on appearances. I don’t like some of the rhetoric I’ve seen that does play these games of “but we can have it just as bad!!” Because quite frankly, even if that’s true, it’s not really what you should be parroting around if you have even a shred of empathy for some of the pushback and violence we’ve seen against trans women specifically for so long and Im not AT ALL saying trans men don’t experience transphobia, but mainly that I don’t trust peoples politics when they seem to derive heavily from a victim complex and personal anecdotes solely and never from any of the stories and lives that surround us. Doing backflips to talk about yourself as a marginalized person can just feel a little off to me considering the bigger things at stake. I do think there’s a lot of people on here who need to pull their head out of their ass and realize the ways they specifically can be privileged compared to others as well. I find when people aren’t capable of this, they tend to be the most unnecessarily conspiratorial and also usually the most online —- might be a bit of a rough take, but I have some some straaange MRA rhetoric on here since exploring trans men resources specifically on tumblr. The support system being trash is a problem in itself that I wish was addressed more. And I can see how this can domino effects into toxic masculine attitudes as well.

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

Armando Iannucci’s written a new play, which I’ve been reading about and it’s had me thinking about his politics lately. I’ve been thinking a lot about political comedy in general in the past year or so, because I’ve always loved it, and maybe hadn’t spent as much time as I should critically considering whether it’s always responsible. I certainly don’t think it’s always a bad thing, and I still think it can be a very good thing, getting people to engage with politics when they might not have otherwise. When done really well, it can get people to see politics from an angle they hadn’t before and understand some of the flaws.

And even when it doesn’t do all that, it can just do what any comedy can do, which is entertain. And it can provide a little relief. Paying attention to politics is difficult and painful and mentally exhausting. It’s cathartic to finish that and then hear someone rip it apart, say all the things you think but say them in a way that’s funny and articulate and makes you laugh instead of cry (or at least, laugh alongside crying).

“So you just want the comedians to parrot back your own views instead of expanding your horizons?” When it comes to political comedy, pretty much. There are lots of political issues where reasonable people can disagree and I want to hear all sides of a story to form an informed opinion, but I’ll get those from the real news, not from comedy. And there are other political issues where I don’t think the opposite side from me is reasonable but I should still know what that side is saying so I can recognize those ideas when I hear them around me in various, sometimes subtle forms, but again, I’ll do my listening to that in more serious ways. I don't go to comedy shows to have my views challenged and shaped, because I don't form my political opinions based on comedy shows. No one should do that.

When I’m listening to comedians, I don’t want to worry about challenging my views and listening to people be terrible. I want to be entertained. I do find it entertaining to hear people say my views in a way that’s smart and funny and well put together, which is why I am a proponent of “But this person is just repeating the audience’s views back!” comedy. I only like it when it’s done well, obviously, but that applies to any type of comedy. Any type of comedy can be done badly, and I think this type of comedy is done badly when comedians forget to be funny, and just literally repeat those views without any jokes or deeper insights or relatable observations other things that make people laugh. But I have seen plenty of comedy routines that were choc-full of those things – the jokes and the relatable observations and the stuff that gets laughs – get called “This isn’t comedy, it’s just repeating the audience’s political views!” No, it’s repeating those views in a funny way, you just don’t find it funny if you don’t share those views. So go listen to something else and let us have our entertainment.

I am a huge proponent of the idea that news should be boring because proper journalism matters, and proper journalism avoids sensationalism. It doesn’t have to be 100% dispassionate, or pretend every piece of information is equal and none has any emotional weight to it. But it should present the facts in a way that is proportionate to their significance, and careful and measured. Topical comedy, of course, shouldn’t be any of those things. I listen to topical comedy after I get the actual news (from CBC, a source that isn’t always 100% perfect because no one is, but I do trust their journalistic integrity), as a bit of relief from it all. If topical comedy were where I learned the news, I’d have a pretty skewed perspective. I think the best topical comedy shows don’t even try that hard to explain the news, they just assume everyone knows the stories already and then make jokes about them. Because everyone should know the stories already. Because you shouldn’t learn it from a comedy show. Or from social media or from clickbait-ridden entertainment sites, because proper journalism matters.

I think my first exposure to comedy about the news was the Rick Mercer Report, a Canadian topical comedy show that aired when I was quite young. I was maybe twelve years old, I’d only just started following the news, my dad worked in the civil service so he talked to me about how government worked (and showed me all of Yes Minister) from when I was quite young, so I was able to get a few more government-based jokes than maybe a lot of twelve-year-olds did, though I’m sure many more went over my head. I found Rick Mercer hilarious and watched him every night.

I was slightly older than that when my mother first showed me The Daily Show, which she introduced to me as “like an American Rick Mercer”, and only now as I write this do I realize how funny it was for her to call Jon Stewart “the American Rick Mercer”. The Colbert Report came on right after The Daily Show, and from around the beginning of high school, I watched both those shows every day. My mother would tape them on the TV, so I’d come home from school and watch the previous night’s episodes. When I started having practice every day after school so wouldn’t get home until late, I’d still put on the previous night’s Daily Show while I did my homework late into the night, and usually catch up on Colbert on the weekends. I loved it.

It was around 2009 when my dad got me into The News Quiz, and from there I started listening to The Now Show as well, though I could never get into Dead Ringers so I’d skip it during those weeks. I loved those shows too, and I quite liked that I could name ministers in the British cabinet, as though I actually knew what I was talking about. I didn’t, of course. I mainly knew that I liked the lesbians on the radio (this was during the Toksvig era with frequent appearances from Perkins and Calman and later Lyons, I was recently out and had never heard so many lesbians in one place and I loved it).

As I got into these shows, I was more informed about American and British news than I’d ever been before, which is not informed enough because like I said you shouldn’t get your news from fucking comedy shows. But in my defense, I was a teenager. I wasn’t going to listen to a bunch of boring regular news podcasts. These comedy shows got me to engage with stories about the government when otherwise I’d have had no engagement at all. Which is probably enough, if you’re a teenager who does not have, or only recently acquired, the right to vote.

It wasn’t until my early twenties that I subscribed to some CBC podcasts and started stayed significantly informed about the actual news. When I did, I was able to understand the stories better because those topical comedy shows had normalized the everyday-ness of government stories in my mind, and had made me find it interesting. I think I’m a lot better off for my engagement with CBC news shows, and I don’t know if I’d have come to that without the comedy shows. So I do think, in my case, topical comedy was a net gain for how informed I am.

What I maybe haven’t thought about enough is how it doesn’t work that way for everyone. Lots of people do get their news from comedy shows and not elsewhere, in a world where standards-adhering journalism is dying. And of course that’s dangerous. Topical comedy can’t get you the news in a proper journalistic way, because as I said, proper journalism has to be boring. It has to be balanced, not in an “all sides are equal, let’s have this racist debate a racial minority” way, but in a way that shows all sides in proportion to their genuine significance. And that isn’t funny. Journalism has to focus on the stuff that matters most, which is rarely the stuff that’s funniest. Topical comedy has to be free from the responsibility to do that, because otherwise it can’t be funny.

I understand why people like Jon Stewart and John Oliver push back so hard against the idea that they’re journalists. There are many reasons to object to that idea (for one thing, it devalues the idea of journalism, and the standards to which it needs to adhere, and therefore devalues actual journalists), but one of them is that if Jon Stewart (or Trevor Noah, or whoever the hell is doing it this week) is the one educating a nation about the news, then Jon Stewart would need to sacrifice humour in order to make sure the most important facts get across. And no political comedian wants to do that. The political comedians (the good ones, anyway) want to perform to a public that already knows the facts, so can get the jokes about them.

At this point, I’d like a brief digression to say this does apply to John Oliver too (as he is constantly the first to admit, and for that matter insist). It bugs me sometimes, when I see people say Last Week Tonight is amazing because it does long-form reporting on important issues and is actually informative and highbrow. It does those things a lot more than most comedy shows. It’s longer and more informative and you’ll get a lot more information, and there are a lot of issues where everything I know about them is what got covered on Last Week Tonight, because he goes into such specific issues that I’m not going to research every one of them to get the full story. And that is great! It is great that he does that. It is great that he is bringing public attention to all these issues that would otherwise go under the radar. But still, a 20-30-minute talk about one subject, where that talk is filled with jokes and sketches and other things to make a comedy show, should not count as a “deep dive” or “longform reporting” that’s just as good as what journalists do. The fact that it gets called those things says something bad about what’s happened to the level in which most people want to dive into most news stories. I don’t want to be all “social media’s ruined everyone’s attention spans and I am 100 years old”, but I social media has ruined everyone's attention spans and I feel 100 years old.

Anyway. Those are some things that I think about topical comedy. I think it led to a greater problem of the entertainment-ification of news. Jon Stewart started putting news into comedy shows, the public started wanting to be entertained while they get their news, and then, news organizations started putting more and more entertainment into news shows. Throw in a shitload more factors (really, lots and lots more factors, I am not saying this is entirely Jon Stewart’s fault), and you end up with actual news institutions riddled with clickbait. People getting news from sketches on social media. Sources of news that aren’t long-running institutions, that popped up during the age of entertainment/news being blended, and that don’t even pretend to be proper journalists, that don’t even do basic fact checking. And now we’re here, and maybe The Daily Show wasn’t worth it.

The other issue with topical comedy, of course (well, an other issue, there are lots) is it makes a joke out of the news. The famous example is Boris Johnson, of course, that he went on Have I Got News For You to be bumbling and humorous, that The News Quiz made years of jokes about his hair and the zipline thing and the rugby thing and all of that made him more famous and got him more attention and made everyone think of him as funny and therefore fun, and that raised his profile in a way that contributed to, you know, everything. Making people a central figure in a news story raises their profile, and making them the central figure in a topical comedy news story raises their profile and pairs them with entertainment in an audience’s mind. I think in the last few years, actual news organizations and decent topical comedy shows have become more aware of that, and started trying to be more responsible, ignoring some stories that aren’t significant and will be made worse by attention, and trying to cover others in a way that isn’t just free publicity. But it’s hard. It’s really really hard to cover a story in a way that doesn’t give it free publicity, because that’s what publicity is.

There’s been a reckoning, then last few years, as everyone looks at the fucking mess around us and tries to figure out the causes, and it’s really unfortunate that those causes involve a lot of things we like, a lot of things I liked. “Fake news” used to just be The Onion. I love The Onion and a few other similar news sites (The Beaverton, Reductress), but when I look at the number of satirical articles that get shared by people who think they’re real, I wonder if a little bit of humour has been worth all the confusion.

A huge part of this is the proliferation of the internet, of course. Stewart-era Daily Show began before the internet was widely used. They could make a joke about a stupid politician without turning that person into a meme. That's one of the biggest things they didn't count on - entering an era in which any joke, even a joke about someone being terrible, can become a meme, and people think it's funny to sneak silly little memes into important places. Jon Stewart's Daily Show was not ready for the memes, and by the time we as a society started to figure this out, a massive amount of damage had already been done. And despite the reckoning, the efforts by some people to start being a bit more responsible, massive amounts of damage are still being done constantly.

Has anyone seen the sitcom Great News? Great News deals with this whole issue in a fun way. I am 100% aware of the irony of me recommending a sitcom that deals with this issue in a fun way as a good way to learn about a serious issue, while I write this exact post. But it is a good show.

Anyway. There’s a difference between topical comedy shows and fictional political comedy, but they have many of the same issues, especially when a fictional comedy show can map too specifically onto real-life parties/people/governments/policies. And that brings me to my favourite TV show in the whole world, The Thick of It. I first got into it in my late teens, I watched In the Loop in the local cinema when it was released (I hardly ever go to movie theatres so this has stuck in my mind even though it was 2009), and I watched every episode over and over and over. I still do watch it regularly. It’s still my favourite show.

I liked it because it showed the government for what I thought it probably was. There’s the West Wing view of the government/politicians, that they’re noble heroes fighting for ideals, and there’s the House of Cards view, that they’re Machiavellian cutthroat 4D Chess-playing murders. And then there’s The Thick of It (and In the Loop, Veep, and its predecessor Yes Minister) view, that they’re all a bunch of people running around trying not to get fired, just like in every other job. My dad was a civil servant for most of my life, though when I was a young kid he was advisor to some politicians. Based on what I saw from him, and how I heard him talk about his job, I was pretty sure The Thick of It had the right idea about the government.

I remember when season 4 of The Thick of It came out, in 2012. I remember watch the last couple of episodes, and going online to see what people thought of it. I saw those episodes very differently from a lot of people on the internet. I remember all these people saying it was a tragic ending that a hero like Malcolm Tucker would be brought down by the establishment, red tape ruining a great man who truly had the nation’s best interests at heart.

I didn’t think that was the case. I thought those episodes made it clear, though you had to read between the lines a bit. Malcolm Tucker made some big, impassioned speeches in those last couple of episodes, about doing what he did for the good of the country, civilians just don’t understand what needs to be done, because all this bureaucracy gets in the way. But it turned out he was lying. The central part of his biggest speech, the claim that he will ruthlessly go after immoral politicians because they need to be held to account, but he’d never leak that nurse’s medical records because he was a civilian and Malcolm protects civilians rather than hurting them – the audience didn’t know, when Malcolm made that speech, whether it was true. So it was a big reveal for us as well as the characters when later on, Malcolm was presented with proof that he had, in fact, leaked the medical records. Everything he said in that speech was bullshit. He was making it up to save his own skin, like always.

I thought it was pretty clear that the show’s writers meant for us to see it that way. For the reveal to be impactful because it makes us understand that Malcolm Tucker’s impressive-sounding speech was just bullshit, that he’s just an immoral man who broke the law. But the internet, or at least the parts of it I found while looking up people talking about The Thick of It right after that episode aired, was full of people calling him a hero who was tragically brought down.

When writing this post, I was pretty sure I remembered reading multiple instances of Armando Iannucci repeatedly saying that he doesn't like how Malcolm Tucker became such a popular character. But then I thought I might be making that up, so I did a quick Google. I immediately found an article called "Malcolm Tucker was a warning, not a hero: Thick of It creator", containing the quote from Iannucci:

People like Malcolm Tucker have become heroes to people going into politics … They start modelling themselves on Malcolm Tucker and I say to them ‘Malcolm Tucker is the problem. He’s not the solution. In fact, in every episode of The Thick of It, even though you think Malcolm is the fixer, it’s when he steps in and tries to repair the damage, it falls apart.'

I found that a bunch more articles like it, I was right to remember that Iannucci has repeatedly said Malcolm Tucker shouldn't be seen as a hero. I'm pretty sure Peter Capaldi has said similar things. But still, if Armando Iannucci created a show that portrayed Malcolm Tucker as a hero, then he can't be shocked if people see it that way. I guess there's a good argument that says he should have done a better job of making it clear to the audience that they're not supposed to be impressed by this guy.

I thought the finale also made this clear in Malcolm Tucker's final confrontation with Ollie. When Malcolm tried to pull that argument he pulled all the time, that he was doing what needed to be done and no one else had the guts to do it, and Ollie, for once, just said no. You're wrong, Malcolm. Times have changed, it doesn't have to be that way anymore, you've made everything worse. I remember watching that scene and thinking it was an interesting character arc to end on Ollie being right for the first time ever. But given that Ollie has been wrong about everything else, and is also a terrible person, I guess I can see how other people would watch that scene and think Ollie doesn't know what he's talking about so this is more proof that Malcolm Tucker is right.

(Obligatory note: I'm talking here about people who think Malcolm Tucker was a great hero that the government needed and we'd be better off in real life if he were real and in charge of things, and he's a fictional example of the real phenomenon of the bureaucratic establishment keeping people down when they do what needs to be done. Obviously, there is nothing wrong with just enjoying the character as the fucked up horrible person he is, because horrible people in fiction can be fun. My favourite fictional character in the world is Malcolm Tucker's right-hand man Jamie MacDonald, and he shouldn't be put in charge of a toy car, much less a nation.)

Obviously, there are also more issues with The Thick of It than just whether we should think Malcolm Tucker's cool. Fifteen years ago, ten years ago, twelve years ago, I thought "just a bunch of people running around trying not to get fired" really was what government and politics were like. I'm not so sure anymore. I look at who's been getting elected lately, at the highest levels but also at the lowest levels, and I think that somehow, and incredibly bleak and cynical show like The Thick of It went too easy on them.

I still love the show. I'd just been thinking about some of these things in general lately, thinking I should probably be more critical than I had been before of political comedy and its effect on society. And then I read some stuff about this new play that Ianucci's written, and that made me think those things even more, and then I wrote them down. I tend to be an apologist for the more panned parts of Iannucci's work - I saw some minor-to-major flaws in Avenue 5 but I still quite enjoyed the show and wished it had had time to grow into itself, I think it could have been great. I enormously enjoyed the one episode of Gash I've been able to find. I saw Death of Stalin in that same cinema and thought it was brilliant. But yeah, I have to admit this play looks like it probably sucks in all the ways I've gotten into in this post. It's disappointing, but not shocking. Maybe the satire fans deserve better than Iannucci in this increasingly fucked up world.

[flock-talk]

Hi, had an interesting vet visit today that I was hoping to get your opinion on. I have a Quaker parrot and my vet recommended I feed him pieces of cooked chicken, potato and sweet potato, cottage cheese and was kind of meh about vegetables and fruits. He said if I can get him to eat the veg that’s fine, but to focus on the cottage cheese, chicken and potato. Ive seen very mixed results about feeding cottage cheese online, but this vet is also the vet for our local aquarium so he’s famous in our area for his expertise in birds and reptiles. My bill was also quite high, I was charged $50 for a restraining fee and $7 for a biohazard waste disposal? He had blood work, a fecal sample and a vitamin shot done so I was expecting the bill to be high, but I was surprised by those charges. This is all completely different from my old vet who no longer sees patients, which is why I had to switch. Any insight would be greatly appreciated!!

That is a really odd set of recommendations I would ask more as to why that’s their preference. There are some species of parrot who eat bugs but cooked meats are pretty fatty and they can struggle to properly digest a lot of animal proteins so that strikes me as odd. Parrots can’t digest lactose so suggesting cheese is again a really bizarre recommendation. Cooked Sweet potato is a common suggestion and I love using it since the Vit A is great for feather pigment and most birds find it tasty so it works well for veggie transitions.

Being meh towards veggies is again strange since most parrots are not true granivores and eat primarily sprouts, grasses, leaves and other vegetation. There was one study done that showed that eating veggies had little nutritional impact when pellets were fed as a base since most veggies are mostly water it didn’t drastically mess up the balanced vitamins in the pellets. So that could be their reasoning for being meh towards it?

That being said I don’t have a world of experience with Quakers so maybe there’s bits I’m not fully understanding there.

The restraining fee for such a tiny bird is also strange unless your bird was excessively aggressive and required extra time/ special handling. There could be reason for that but I’ve not had that experience myself.

I’ve also never seen a biohazard waste fee but that could be a provincial/ state/ country difference that I’m not familiar with.

I’d likely ask more questions, as a whole things aren’t really adding up!

[thecreaturecodex]

Tentaspouter

“Dungeons and Dragons Monsters - 62″ © Tim Morris, accessed at his deviantArt gallery here

[The last of the Tim Morris D&D monsters commissioned by @glarnboudin​. I wanted to do this one because it reminds me of some toys I had as a kid. They were little rubber aliens or monsters with long snouts. All three of the ones I had had legs (some with toes, some insect-like), but I’ve seen tentacled ones more like this in passing. But I never knew who made them or where to get them (I got mine as prizes at Chuck E Cheeze, but never saw them after like one summer). I just looked up “rubber monster with snout” and apparently they were called Slurfies? I might need to buy some to reward my inner child for solving this more than 20 year old mystery.]

Tentaspouter CR 3 N Aberration This creature is vaguely like an octopus, with eight tentacles, but two of them are larger than the others and tipped with claws. It has eight eyes overlooking a long siphon, which is mobile and flexible.

Tentaspouters are cephalopod-like ambush predators that live by the water’s edge. They are most common in fresh water systems, although some do move into estuaries or salt marshes. Their hunting strategy consists of using powerful blasts of water to bludgeon and push prey around, preferably into the waiting arms of one of their kin. Only two of their tentacles are large and strong enough to strike from a distance, but once prey is grappled, all of the limbs come into play, as does the tentaspouter’s beak. The beak is much more like a stylet than the parrot-like beak of an octopus, and can drain blood at an impressive rate.

Tentaspouters are social creatures, and typically live and hunt in groups. These “gauntlets” are so called because they usually set up outposts running along a natural or constructed bridge, hoping to catch passing organisms on land. Tentaspouters can speak, albeit only to a limited degree, and supplement their speech with tentacle gestures and shifts in color. They are not inherently evil, but only a few of them realize that humanoids are different from animal prey. They do not value treasure, but valuable items may be found near their lairs, still held or carried by desiccated victims.

Tentaspouter       CR 3 XP 800 N Medium aberration (aquatic) Init +2; Senses darkvision 60 ft., Perception +6 Defense        AC 15, touch 12, flat-footed 13 (+2 Dex, +3 natural) hp 30 (4d8+12) Fort +4, Ref +3, Will +5 DR 5/slashing or piercing Offense Speed 20 ft., swim 40 ft. Melee 2 claws +5 (1d4+2 plus grab) Ranged waterspout +5 (2d6+3 plus bull rush) Special Attacks blood drain (1d3 Con), constrict (1d4+3) Statistics Str 15, Dex 15, Con 16, Int 5, Wis 12, Cha 10 Base Atk +3; CMB +5 (+9 grapple); CMD 17 (23 vs. trip) Feats Point Blank Shot, Stealthy Skills Climb +6, Escape Artist +14, Perception +6, Stealth +14, Swim +14; Racial Modifiers +4 Escape Artist, +4 Stealth Languages Aquan SQ water dependent Ecology Environment aquatic and underground Organization solitary, pair or gauntlet (3-12) Treasure incidental Special Abilities Waterspout (Ex) As a standard action, a tentaspouter can spray a blast of water at a single opponent. Treat this as a ranged attack with a range of 30 feet and no range increment. A tentaspouter does not provoke attacks of opportunity for using this ability when threatened by an enemy. A creature struck takes 2d6+3 points of bludgeoning damage and is subject to a bull rush attempt by the tentaspouter. A tentaspouter must refill itself with water as a move action before using this ability again.

[deathfavor]

@yeonban​ said:  "The idea of alternate universes sure seems to be the talk of the town. I wonder what brought it on?"  A single stroll through the city is enough to hear the same words over and over a few dozen times, and although Shalnark couldn't care less about the alleged alternate universes if he couldn't gain something from their existence (knowledge or access to them), it is an intriguing enough concept to ponder on with someone well-known for thinking outside the box. Something to dispel their growing boredom with. The sixth spider hums then, smile bright as ever, and instead of inquiring about the source of the concept as he's subtly implied he would (which he's certain is either a fictional story, an experiment or a rumor), Shalnark asks something a tad more challenging of the leader. “What’s alternate universe you doing right now?”

   “  There was a release of a new movie that dabbled in the idea of alternate versions and identity. A complex subject matter handled with intriguing care. Well received by those aware of the concepts, but perhaps a bit too much for the casual movie-goer.“  Chrollo answers calmly, seeming entirely prepared for the question to be tossed towards him.  And, evidently, he had likely seen it when he offers words of praise. Chrollo wasn’t the type to offer simple praise either, his value laid no so much with the population’s opinions so much as his own. He was more inclined to call a tome of text beautiful over some modern golden sculpture (ancient, however, might change it depending on his interest). He wouldn’t simply parrot back praise he’d read or heard. It would be based on his own opinions.  “  I assume that is the source.  “  But then again, one never entirely knew.

   Chrollo’s head turns towards Shalnark with surprise as the question asked of him. Surprise, and a gleam. He has always liked a challenge, and this was certainly that. Shalnark had offered no perimeters to this question. No details, no restrictions. Anything and everything, anything that Chrollo could imagine, it could be. Such vast, open-endedness was bound to lead to him needing to put more thought into it. It also would, inevitably, reveal something about himself. Even if it was unconsciously.

   What would he be doing? Stealing from a castle? Teaching literature and ancient studies? Sailing the seven seas in search of treasure? Collecting the souls of the dead? Human? Siren? Dragon? Harpy?  “  Studying a new discovery. Something from what feels like an entirely different world than mine up to that point. I don’t know what it is, only that it’s come from creatures I’ve seen from a distance. I’ll add it to my collection. A collection that doesn’t look like much Other’s don’t find value in it. But others don’t see it, just me. “  There’s an intentional vagueness ; he makes no implication of what he is. Only that he is something. Yet it exists as a vague concept.  “  What are you doing?  “  He tosses back, intrigued. As silly and ultimately pointless as it was, he was curious to the insight. Especially from Shalnark.

[mochiwrites]

Do you have official designs for parrot's coven? I'd love to draw them! And I was wondering how you felt abt ppl speculating/discussing the au with others? Like friends? I've seen some authors & au makers dislike it, so I thought I'd ask!

Also, I know I've sent a message here before and commented on your fics (burnthawkwings), but my GOD are you a fucking amazing writer. You're extraordinarily talented and your ability to write not only stories but scenes and details without giving away the plot is insane. I admire to be as much of a fucking fantastic writer as you are! Your descriptions are inspiring, and your writing style is gorgeous. You give hints to your stories and aus and plots but never spoil or give anything away fully, and you drop seeds of information along the way! It's like reading published novels, with how great you are. I love your stories and your aus are all unique and fascinating <33!!

SOBS SO LOUD AT YOU???? /pos

I’m 1000% okay with discussion and speculation with others, absolutely!! and yes, I technically have official designs?¿? it’s all in the description of my writing, though I do have art of grian saved on the parrot coven master post that some of his design is based on! I don’t have anything else to help visually outside of what I’ve written in the fic unfortunately ;-;

but ueueue uwahhhh thank you sm 🥹🥹 I’m so???? sitting here speechless rn, that’s super sweet and kind and 🥺🥺🥺🥺💕💕💕