#anyways I have to go teach now

[itspileofgoodthings]

anyways every time I think that I am fully a high school teacher who should stop teaching 8th graders something happens and I am reminded of how much I love 8th grade boys simply because they are still such kids and can be managed with sternness/fun.

[dozzerxb]

more dogman fanart but as old men and a teen

[iratempestatis]

I made a post about Xiao having the potential to be a shitty father, but you know what- the opposite is just as likely.

Again, it's difficult to emphasise the potency of his paranoia. He, better than anyone, would know just how fast and how suddenly things can go wrong. He could never be cautious enough. He could never love enough.

Mortals emulate the love they've received. For Xiao, love is a distant but incredibly fond memory.

His formative years were spent slaving away for a cruel god- those events were just a deluge of misery. He was taught, in his youth, that love was nothing but a fleeting fog- that it is power that forms the stuff of sweet dreams. His childhood was a deluge of misery.

He'd at least know what to avoid.

Sure, love found him in the form of his siblings- and you, of course- overwhelming adoration. But that's not the same as the love a parent has for their child, yes?

Xiao would need to fathom- on his own- what love would have to mean for him.

Xiao has no love to emulate from his childhood- and so he'd at least know what to avoid.

In his youth, his naivete was exploited- and so the child would never be punished for theirs. By the skies and the sands and the seas, he'd do anything, anything to keep them from feeling bad for knowing less, for being small. He'd listen intently to their mindless chatter, be an incredible attentive listener to the most puerile chatter, acknowledge every complaint with the utmost gravitas.

Being made to forego his own instincts, forget his own intelligence and just being forcibly morphed into a desperate bloodhound would be a most painful memory, and so the child would be given a startling amount of autonomy- within reason. Xiao does not have mortal parents, and an elder telling the baby “because I said so!” would make him froth at the mouth in a rage. He'd tell the tiny fucker every reason for every action if they asked. Sure, he can't really make it eloquent, but he can always try to at least answer.

“Why do I have to sleep at nine? I don't want to sleep at nine!”

“You have to sleep at nine because you have school tomorrow.”

“I won't go!”

“That's foolish.”

“Why.”

Every why would find a patient answer. Your baby would be the most articulate six year old on any playground pretty much anywhere.

Xiao would also never place any restraints on food- again, within reason. “You can't have candy for dinner because it's not good for your health, but if you want more chicken, that can be arranged.”

“We're out of chicken!” the child would howl and he'd tell them to say that again, politely, and when they acquiesced and quietly protested "but we're out of chicken!" he'd go off to buy and cook more.

The little runt gets caught stuffing food into their mouth at two in the night? He'd panic. Does he not feed the child enough? He's never been more ashamed of himself. He's a failure of a parent. You have to stop him from staring into space with an anguished expression and gently explain that kids- and well, adults too- just get hungry sometimes.

He'd sternly tell the tiny creature to wake him next time. Why? Because they're too small to use the stove on their own. Why? Because they're not old enough to have the motor skills to use it safely. Why? Because everyone needs to do some growing and get some practice before they can. Why? He really doesn't know. That's just how mortals are. He hopes that's a satisfactory answer.

The child's a picky eater? He'll try to convince them, but he'd never force them to eat something that really does disgust them. Even the thought of it is enough to spark echoes of the past, whispering voices that call for violence and stolen dreams. It makes him nauseous.

The child doesn't like boiled broccoli? That's fine. Would they prefer it cooked into cutlets? That's great. No boiled eggs? What do you have against boiled things, tiny creature? It feels gross? Fine. Would you prefer your eggs poached, on toast?

He discovers that's a messy thing to feed a child.

So much of his life has been spent in solitude. The cool sting of loneliness is an intimate friend, and so he'd let himself be summoned at a moment's notice. The child's bored? What would they prefer to do?

They have a tennis match? The thought of teeny tiny mortals swinging their minuscule arms at a ball flying all over the place nearly makes him smile. He bites it back on instinct, then sees the earnest expression on the ankle biter before him, and lets it escape. He'd never keep a smile from something so precious, so deserving of everything he can contrive and more, more, more.

Anyway, of course he shows up. Maybe not in the crowd with the other parents, but he watches regardless.

Xiao is strict about a curfew. It's one thing he'll never budge on, and it's the same for all his children, if for some reason you want more than one tiny creature running amok causing chaos, and expecting rationale from you before they acquiesce to your requests. He lives in terror of anything happening to the baby, and he's taken care to ensure his name always being on the tip of their tongue the moment they suspect danger.

He'd be so terrified of being a bad father that he'd end up being the very opposite.

(nuance in the reblogs thanks to @sizzles-z-4002 !! Thank you <3)

[humans-are-tasty]

[amoremagnificentbastard]

I didn't post about it when it happened because it was 3:30 AM and it took me several hours to make it happen, so I was very, very tired.

But your girl defeated Viconia DeVir and her horde of nasties this morning.

[peaches2217]

*gently opens the door, then kicks it the rest of the way open as dramatically as possible*

Mario normally being fully verbal but going nonverbal when his PTSD flares up so part of the reason he struggles to tell his loved ones when he’s struggling is because he physically *can’t* and this is a new development and he’s embarrassed so he just. Hides until it’s over and then pretends it never happened because he’s fucking terrible at balancing his pride and his coping mechanisms

This is now canon to my ‘verse.

[quibbs126]

Oh yeah, so I mentioned having an idea for that oplita kid in TF One

Well I did, but it’s also mostly characterized by the idea of: what if it’s the same timeline as Lux?

Like, I imagine Optimus and Elita being a thing only after Megatron’s fall and his and Optimus’ break up. And it’d probably be a bit before it officially starts happening. Meanwhile with Lux, she’s only supposed to happen on accident right at the tail end of Orion and D-16’s relationship

So after Megatron’s banishment, Optimus and Elita here get together, and eventually they have their son (who granted probably doesn’t have the exceptional size difference here since both he and Elita would be motorbikes). But also, unbeknownst to them, Megatron’s got his and Orion’s daughter in Lux, and who also is not aware that Optimus and Elita are actually together and have a kid of their own now

So like, there’s gonna be a lot of drama the day they do find out about the other kid

But meanwhile with the kids themselves, I imagine them just vibing together. And also them meeting first before their parents know about the other, like them both sneaking off and meeting the other. And they don’t know at first that the other is their half-sibling, but it just makes things better when they do find out in their eyes. Their friendship also could be how their parents find out about the whole situation

[spacedace]

another bit from the "Constantine adopts Elle au" idea I posted a snippet of yesterday:

The days immediately after the…loss of Elle’s brothers weren’t the hardest. It would, they’d all learn soon enough, only get worse as their friend’s mental state continued to deteroriate. At the time though, it had certainly felt like it couldn’t have gotten any worse.

Elle had always been, for as long as Lian had known the other girl, been a bright, energetic person. Even when being drug from bed in those ungodly hours that so easily could be labeled as late night and early morning equally to go fight some asshole who couldn’t wait for decent crime-spree hours. Elle had never been so cruel to the rest of them as to be chipper during those awful exhausted - and exhausting - incidents, but she’d always been upbeat. Rousing them into feeling more alive with a carefully currated playlist blasting over the comms and promises of delicious, greasy breakfasts at their favorite twenty-four hour diner that she always delivered on.

She was always vibrant, always excited for whatever came at her next, always dancing ahead of them all in search of a new hobby, a new special interest, a new once-in-a-lifetime experience. Her eternally burning hope that the horizon would have something better, something brighter not a foolish security blanket to hide behind but a weapon she weilded against the world. A spine of steal, a heart of a stellar nursery, a hand equally capable of being stretched out in friendship or clenched into a fist ready to deliver the nastiest left hook that side of Metropolis.

Elle Constantine was a lot of things - a good number of them questionable - but in every single one of them, she was full of life.

So seeing her so completely empty…

The Justice League had gotten roped in on their mission before they even realized the scope of it all. Grand-Bat looming and scowling and digging his grubby fingers into things, the rest of the League not much better as they wormed their way in on the case. For all the good it had done, when they’d been too late actually on the scene to be of any actual use. Only able to show up hours after their initial call for backup when the shit show was finally over and the world saved.

She and the team were all still reeling by the time the got there. Elle still crumpled on the ground, coverd in soot and blood in a writhing heap of pain no one else could even begin to understand. The still air rent by her ragged, broken voice wailing and keening like a banshee from the stories of old.

Screaming until she coughed up blood. Hands dripping red and green ripping at the dirt, at her clothes, at her hair, her skin. Shreiking in mindless, all consuming greif as they tried to calm her down, the only words anyone could make out the broken shapes of her brothers’ name.

Jon had to pin her arms to her side in the end, face pained as he tried hard not to hurt her while keeping her thrashing frame in place. Connor crouched before her cradling her tattered hands in his as he tried desperately to get her to follow his breathing, his own voice thick with barely contained tears. Damian, soft hearted beneath all his bluster and bristling, dropped to his knees beside her in the blood soaked ground and simply wrapped his arms around her in a hug.

There had been nothing Lian wanted more than to be with them in that moment. To join her team in trying to help their friend through the initial horror and agony of having a part of herself so cruelly ripped out and crushed before her very eyes. She wanted to wipe at the endless tears falling down Elle’s face and hold her hands and wrap her in a hug and weep with her over what had happend.

Wanted to get them all out of there, get them back to the Tower, get them all washed up and bundled in a protected, quiet corner where they could all cling to each other in the dark in a mess of blankets and pillows like the children they were. Wanted to shield Elle from the watching eyes of the Justice League members, the clean up crew, the gawking civilians and hungry press. To protect her while she was so horribly vulnerable, her friend ripped open and bleeding out in front of the world like a sideshow and not a girl who had just lost the only people in the world that had known and loved her since the very beggining of her fucked up life.

But Lian was the leader of the Titans. She was the one they trusted to make the hard calls. To look after them. To be their champion against not just their enemies but their allies too when it was called for.

So that’s what she did.

She stood with her feet planted firm on the slick, broken ground. Spine straight, shoulders back, head high and gaze full of hellfire. A sentry between her confused, greiving friends and the good intentioned but ultimately distructive attempts of the Justice League members before her to help.

Lian’s arm was broken in at least two places, hanging limply at her side from a dislocated shoulder. Her weapons buried in the flesh of one monster or other that they had faced that night. Her poison tipped nails split and torn, fingernails missing entirely on three fingers of her left hand. Her mask was cracked and broken somewhere in the debris, leaving her only with a domino that had nearly been clawed off with the rest of her face. Blood going cool and tacky where it had poured down her ragged cheeks, settling in the hollows and lines around her mouth. Pinking her teeth whenever she spoke and the gruesome evidence of the brutal fight found its way to curl insideious in her mouth, down her throat, into the cold pit in her chest.

When she met her grandfather’s grim, obscured face it was with her mother’s strength and her father’s stubbornness and her Pops’ willingness to shoot any motherfucker who dared to try.

Clark’s gaze was on the hunched crowd behind her, tight lines on his face as he stared at his son making it all to clear that he wanted to move past her and insert himself into the situation. To use his everything will be okay voice to command them like confused civilians or lost ducklings in need of a minder. He wanted to play the part he always played in times of disaster: shining beacon, untarnished champion. The last thing her team wanted, the last thing that Elle needed on top of everything else.

Lian’s good hand flexed by the pistol strapped to her thigh in a small warning. The Man of Steel knew well enough that there was glowing green waiting for him in the clip. Her gramps’ obsessive paranoia, her Pops’ good advice about big blue boyscouts who couldn’t keep their noses out of of other people’s business.

They stood in tense silence for long moments, the stillness only broken by Elle’s broken voice rising up in a keening wail for those she lost.

A stand-off that Lian knew that she’d win, one way or another.

Her gramps’ shoulders lowered, so minutely as to be inperceptible to anyone not in their family.

“Wonder Woman will be here shortly.” He said in his low rumbling voice. Beside him Clark finally drifted to the ground, a concession from both of them. “Justice League Dark went radio silent seven hours ago. Last transmission from Zantanna indicated they were dealing with an interdimensional issue and would be unreachable for at least three days.”

Elle’s dad - her family - were unreachable. John Constantine didn’t know that he’d lost his three sons in the span of a handful of minutes, that his daughter was being crushed beneath the weight of greif and trauma to the point of madness. Wouldn’t know for days what tragedy had struck his family, had destroyed the strange but happy life he and his adopted children had carved out for themselves.

John Constantine. Zantanna Zatara. Detective Bobo. Boston Brand. Asa the Nightmare Nurse. Elle’s family, out of reach while she writhed and wailed in agony. The only people who might come close to understand just how deep, how awful, the pain of her brothers’ loss truly was.

Diana was something, was someone, but the Amazon’s time being split between JL Light and Dark meant that she wasn’t a touchstone to Elle in the way the rest of the core members of the magical team were. Elle commented once that Diana was more like a fun aunt she barely saw growing up. Someone she was always excited to see and hang out with, someone she wanted to make proud, but not someone she felt especially close to in comparison to the rest of her family.

Lian did not give in to the pained urge to close her eyes and swear.

She was keenly aware that all it would take was a single crack, as narrow and insignificant as a strand of hair. The smallest hint that the crushing weight of everything that had happened - that was still happening - was effecting her and they’d be back at the attempts to push past her and take over. A desire to help, the restless urge to jump in and save the day, to ease the pain of those so clearly suffering, blinding them to how much worse they would make things in the process.

The intentions were good, but the ultimate results blistering and painful and too often overlooked as the next disaster pulled thier attentions away. Stubborn insistence that their experience overruled her and her team’s instincts. The hands of the older heroes always reaching, unaware that they were too sharp as they dug into the soft flesh of the Titans’ fresh wounds. Picking apart their flaws and failures in the name of bettering them, never stopping to consider the wounds they pressed hard against as part of their lecturing might still be open and raw. That while the men before her had hands in raising most of them, that did not mean they had perfect comprehension to who the Titans were or always knew what the members of her team really needed.

“Have Wonder Woman go to the Tower.” Lian said, knowing that her grandfather heard Selina’s cadence in her voice. A habit, a gamble. Catwoman had been her mentor for a time, had helped her sharpen her claws and her instincts and that budding part of her that would make her a leader one day. Sometimes it pushed Bruce into listening to her, sometimes it just led to him pushing back.

He’d find that latter option unwise at the moment, though.

Her beloved Grand-Bat or no, she knew where his armor was weakest. Knew how to make the single shot she’d manage to get off on him count. Knew just how far she’d go to make sure that Elle and the rest of her friends were sheilded from any and all harm when they were so vulnerable.

She was their champion, their sentry, their knight.

Batman, of all people, knew the lengths a knight was willing to go in the name of the oaths they took.

She watched him shift back. A silent, unseen signal between him and Clark having Superman step back too. Lian wasn’t sure if her grandfather had found the wall she presented him too strong to conted with, or if Elle’s heart wrenching screams of greif and agony made him decide against testing the wall at all. Whatever it was, Lian would take the small victory where she could. It was the only real one she might be able to claim that day.

[sssammich]

ongoing random topics of interests that i would love to write an essay about but probably won't touch for a long while, if ever, because of various reasons i won't disclose here but

far be it for me to support queerbait in any form without, idk, being a class traitor, but old school queerbait, terrible as it was, was also weirdly inclusive so that they get the queerbaiting right lmao

parasocial relationships with famous people (any famous person, they don't even have to be anyone of real skill or note) have rotted brains and critical thinking and, most notably, critical analysis of fictional characters. interchanging the interaction with one for the other is what i imagine is the reason why people push for fictional characters' independence and autonomy because real people's independence and autonomy are threatened all the time within parasocial relationships so this concept of vigilant protection of these people are being conflated with the needless protection of fictional characters

media literacy is not necessarily dead despite my grumbling, but i also know that being literate and fluent in media and communications at this point also relies on being information literate, being digitally literate, and being values literate and that's a lot and few of those things are being supported, especially in conjunction with each other

bananas ruin a smoothie

[thwispsings]

the idea came to me in a migraine induced dream but now im obsessed with the concept of a mu qingfang who knew the abuse bunhe was going through at the hands of og!shen qingqiu/shen jiu and did his best to treat the kid whenever he could (and bring his concerns to zhangmen shixiong, which were obviously very much ignored) and his constant worry over the situation means that when the qi deviation happens he is suspicious of shen qingqiu’s changes for all different reasons and very much protective of luo binghe -who is a sweet child and an earnest disciple who seems to always find the most incredible medicinal herbs to bring to his mu shishu as thanks for the care bestowed upon him- which means that when the whole shen qingqiu dying thing happens instead of bad mouthing luo binghe or fighting him at every chance he does his best to come over and keep an eye on things to try and help him and make sure luo binghe won’t kill himself trying to bring shen qingqiu back because he remembers that earnest kid and he’s witnessed luo binghe’s devotion to this shen qingqiu first hand and knows there is no way that the kid who cried when ning yingying found a bird with a broken wing and begged mu qingfang to fix it and the kid that would always borrow medical texts and try to find new herb combinations as if it was a game between him and qian cao disciples is actually doing anything nefarious to shen qingqiu’s corpse.

anyways in this essay i will-

[lovelyisadora]

Also when sep restarts his apprenticeship is he like. Okay so you rlly did cut out a lot of stuff huh. Wtf were u going to if I finished the apprenticeship. And marcia's like idk I didn't think that far ahead. Or like. What happens andjdndjfn I need More

quick context because this has been in my inbox for at least two years but this is about the apprenticeship arrangement in rewrite au (at least I am like 95 percent sure it is).

if Septimus had actually finished the apprenticeship, he wouldn’t have been able to take over as extraordinary wizard because of how she modified it to be age appropriate and because he went into it with little to no experience with or knowledge of magyk (in rewrite au, the extraordinary apprenticeship is more of an elite position; if the purpose is to train potential extraordinary wizards, then only apprentices who are top of their magyk classes or programs are considered). Marcia was never going to have him take over so young, but without the proper training, he couldn’t have taken over ever. so since she didn’t have a plan and never thought that far ahead anyway, and because the arrangement was always about his day to day functioning, she really was just figuring it out as she went (with no help from Silas or Sarah, but only because Marcia is the extraordinary wizard; the apprenticeship hiding the fact that she is his legal guardian is hers to figure out as far as they are concerned).

the hardest part, since she did want him to take over eventually, would have been keeping the arrangement a secret and finding how to prepare him in a way that qualified him without him realizing what was really going on. she would have pushed him to higher education, would have found ways to introduce new books and extra lessons and spells in a way that didn’t clue him in that she was teaching him the way he should have always been taught. anything, so that when she was ready and he expressed interest in replacing her, it could happen. but because he doesn’t have the easiest apprenticeship even modified as it is, none of this happens. it all falls apart because it wasn’t sustainable, but also because he wasn’t ready and neither was she (which she did warn Silas and Sarah about).

she tells him this, after the first three months of his restarted apprenticeship, but only when he asks. because he knew, after they finally talked about it when it all fell apart that the actual apprenticeship was different, but he hadn’t realized just how much. he’s taking magyk classes because Marcia warned him she wasn’t going to bridge his gap in knowledge. he would be more than prepared for some of it, but nowhere near ready for a lot of it. if he was serious about recommitting to the extraordinary apprenticeship then the extraordinary apprenticeship was what he was getting, nothing less, and he needs do the work he missed on his own. Marcia is also Marcia, so she pushes him harder and expects more of him than other extraordinary wizards might have expected of their apprentices if they were in this situation. his first three months are very difficult as a result and he starts realizing that being the extraordinary wizard is a lot harder than it looks, that the work required to get to that position is harder than he thought, and he’s like, oh my god, Marcia, were you going to throw me into that without any of this?

telling him the second part of it, that she still wouldn’t have told him about the arrangement had he finished his original apprenticeship, is almost as hard as it would have been to cover it up. he really does not like hearing that Marcia still would have lied by omission and kept it from him. he thinks that he would have deserved to know, had he not found out by accident when it fell apart.

Marcia ends the conversation there though, to his frustration, because there’s no point in talking about what would have been. he knows now. he’s doing the apprenticeship now, the right way. they’ve already discussed the arrangement, at length. they don’t need to discuss it any further.

except they do, because they resolved it without resolving it. if Marcia kept this from him, if she would have continued to keep this from him, what else must she be keeping from him? he never fully trusts her again.

[hawnks]

Logging out for a while, love you miss you <3

[egginfroggin]

*yeets this and runs*

My hand regrets my decision to try for more realistic wings, frankly

Transcriptions:

Mabel Pines - Steller's Jay

Dipper Pines - Blue Jay

fledglings

can't quite fly yet

wing's aren't adult-sized yet

Dipper often forgets to preen

Mabel likes to put glitter in her wings (and Dipper's, when possible)

Dipper collects his primaries to make quill pens

Mabel collects their feathers for crafting

Yeah so I'm just gonna drop this here and uhhhhh run, thanks for checking this, and I hope you have a good day

(program: krita; time taken: about 1 hr 45 minutes)

[reneesbooks]

9 lines 9 people

ok confession these games scare me bc tagging people still intimidates me but i'm being brave today here's some lines i wrote a while back from the dragons of kiltide. just fabin having a little teenage angst. also this is 9 (11 but shh the context!!) paragraphs bc i still don't know how to shut the fuck up. thank you @space-writes for the tag <3

the raedoran cycle

[Fabin] tilts his head, pressing his forehead to the window frame. “What are dreams like?” he asks quietly.

Emilia sits across from him, watching how his eyes stare through the window but see nothing. She thought he'd left that behind in the weeks and months after their parents were killed, thought the long silences were finally over. She tucks her arms against her sides. “They're...like memories. Only more vivid.”

His fingers close around the hilt of his sword. “What do you dream about?”

She rolls her shoulders. “Places I've never been. Things I've never seen.”

One of his hands presses against the glass. “Do you ever dream of...of humans?”

She studies him with a worried frown. “Is there something you want to talk about?”

He recoils, his expression twisting with anger before it closes off. “No. I'm fine. I don't have dreams.” He turns away from her. “Never mind.”

Emilia sighs. “I talked Muiris down. He doesn't want to kill you anymore.”

“Good for him.”

“You should apologize for breaking his foot.”

Fabin turns to face her again, his eyes wide. “I actually broke it?”

tagging @oh-no-another-idea @zmwrites @akindofmagictoo @writinglyra @k--havok @lyssa-ink @aether-wasteland-s @ink-flavored @avrablake to share 9 (or more or less or however many you feel like!) lines of writing <3

[itspileofgoodthings]

the funniest bag me and the students will sometimes be in is I’ll be poised to speak on something and I’ll start to and then I’ll say “no maybe I should wait until you’ve read a bit more/we’re farther along” (or something like that) and they’ll be like “no no! Say it now!”

[campbyler]

good news everyone, learning how to drive a stick shift monday