#it's so great all these people are such disasters

[thisisadonaldduckblognow]

me thinking about the moment in the movie where leo is fighting krangified raph and he is feeling so much pressure and so much stress and guilt and he is so so scared for his family and for raph especially because he just wants to get raph out safely, he just wants his brother with him and their family unharmed and in one piece, but he can’t get through why won’t raph HEAR him why isn’t raph LISTENING he just wants to SAVE HIM why is he making things SO HARD--

and that is the moment where it finally fully clicks for leo, after all this, where raph was coming from at the start of the movie. that it wasn’t about being stubborn or wanting to call all the shots and be the boss, it wasn’t pettiness or raph being hard on them for no reason. it was always just raph wanting them to be safe, and getting scared and frustrated when doing that was difficult. or when, perhaps, certain stinker lil brothers seemed to be going out of their way to make it difficult.

like he really has that hard stop moment of realization while he’s looking directly at raph... at his own reflection u could say... love that

[theoptimisticdaydreamer]

when things go so badly all you can do is laugh

I really enjoyed the technical for the singular reason that all the bakers found humor in the disasterous results. It went so badly for everyone that everybody just broke out laughing. It uplifted my spirits to see them find the funny side to everything instead of feeling terrible about themselves for failing to execute Paul's stupid demands. Because sometimes finding the humor in a situation is the only way to make it through.

They laughed and they laughed together.

I love this baking family who are becoming tight knit right before my eyes!

[antique-symbolism]

(11.28.23)

Living in a dying body,

Stranded on a dying world,

What shall the dying do?

Grind our bleach-white coral bones,

Drown in rising water, our limbs too weak to tread?

How about this instead?

On New Year's Eve, my father, a doctor of the weather said: 

"I believe in the resilience of our atmosphere."

And thus began my year,

With a body set for ambush storms, and unprepared to take my cover,

Hopeful, kicking at the knees that wouldn't last the summer.

But if Dad can see the damning data and give us yet our chance, 

Then I will face the fates that are written in my scans,

Feed the sturgeon lunch at the museum,

Bend slowly to the waterline and whisper this to them:

"I believe in our resilience, too."

[skitskatdacat63]

Please god, can someone give me the strength to write ANOTHER 900 word essay in German, I DON'T WANNA I DONT WANNA PLEASE NO

[ivyithink]

I just want to let you know that I am obsessed with the reverse AU where Claudia is the adult and loustat are the teens in the family. It's such an interesting idea and loustat look so cute in your art! Thank you for making it

Thank you so so much, I’ve very glad you enjoy both the idea and the sketches for it!!! I gotta admit I’m kinda obsessed with it too, I would LOOOOOVE to read some fics exploring this new, very different dynamic! And, like, it obviously changes the plot as drastically as everything else, but wouldn’t it be interesting to try and keep certain key moments unchanged somehow (but reversed), and then how would it end ultimately? The same horrible way for the boys that it ended for Claudia? THE ANGST POTENTIAL. But in a different fic I literally just want to see a much better functioning (because Claudia’s running things) (though it still would not be totally healthy…) vamp fam taking Paris by storm, stealing Armand’s theatre (would he still even have it, without Lestat in the picture??? see so much stuff to explore!) and enjoying life being two proud vamps + one still a bit on the fence about it all, but at least his family loves him and lets him read quietly in the back row.

Anyway, sorry for this essay, as you can clearly see, I’m also quite fond of this au, so 1. might draw for it again, nobody be surprised! 2. if you have fics with this idea — gimme gimme gimme those links, I’m very curious!!

[poptartmochi]

hm.. closing thoughts. bennie deserved better 😔

[bmpmp3]

the really beautiful landscape/skyscape animation in makoto shinkai's works tends to be the big thing i see focused on and that is understandable and deserved like the weather and lighting effects are unREAL but i do think we should also appreciate how absolute insane the plotlines of his original movies get. at least two movies with in universe catastrophes with major ecological implications. the guns and explosions. theres that one movie i havent seen yet with the guy who turns into a chair (?)

[thethingything]

our brain's decided to freak out over shit that definitely feels ridiculous and like we're freaking out over something tiny and I can't even pinpoint why the thing is an issue but our brain clearly does not fucking like it.

but I just realised we missed some doses of one of our usual medications and from past experience that gives us wild mood swings and makes us get upset about tiny things and just have an overall shit time so I guess that explains at least some of what our brain's been doing today.

there's also just the fact that we're so overwhelmed with stress and pain and medication side effects and struggling to keep up with anything that even tiny things that wouldn't normally be an issue end up giving us panic attacks and being absolute hell to deal with.

but unfortunately I still have to deal with feeling like I'm being overly-dramatic and like people are judging me for it and it doesn't fucking help that we've already had so many instances over the last month where we've been told our triggers don't make sense and that we're too sensitive and need to just shut up and deal with things and should bottle up our emotions so other people don't have to deal with us being stressed and upset

[luvo27]

stress vs love cut scene concept from fabian's chapter!!

fabian's chapter ended up so much longer than i thought it would be. there was a scene concept where adaine and fabian break into rizs apartment to investigate and see if they can find out anything about baron, but it got scrapped for 1. time, 2. to avoid having to think about logistics, 3. the purpose it served for the plot/themes didnt work as much as i wanted it to, and while it probably would have worked out if i kept hammering at it, I'm happy with the chapter as it is. that being said, i have a few unfinished snippets to share!!

this scene was originally going to take place before the 2nd dream sequence:

“Whoever the fuck you are, I have a gun and I’m not afraid to use it—Fabian? Adaine?” “Hi, Riz’s mom.” “What the fuck?” “Hi, Mrs. Gukgak,” Adaine says sheepishly, getting up from the floor. “Sorry about your window.” “The window’s—kids, what in the world are you doing here?” “We’re, um. We’re worried about Riz.” Sklonda sighs and puts down her gun. “Yeah,” she says. “Me too. Do you guys—you, or any of the other kids, do you have any idea what’s happening? He’s been so…” she rubs her forehead. There are bags under her eyes, Fabian realizes. “He hasn’t been like himself,” Sklonda finishes. “Do you think we could…” “Kids…look, normally, I might say yes. I’m really glad he’s got friends like you in his corner, but it’s three in the morning and he’s asleep, so—” “We should let him sleep. Yeah.” “Plus there might be—” Adaine shoves Fabian in the side. “Ow!” He clutches his side. “What was that for?” Sklonda eyes them suspiciously. “Kids? Is there something I should know about?” “Maybe. We’re not sure yet.” “Is it something dangerous? Is Riz in danger?” Adaine hesitates. “Maybe,” she says. “We don’t—that’s why we’re here. We think it’s…it’s complicated,” she finishes lamely. “It’s Baron,” Fabian says. Adaine shoves him again. “Ow!” Sklonda’s eyes sharpen. “Riz’s boyfriend. Yeah. I talked to Jawbone about it, do you—you kids have met Baron, right? Do you know anything about them? Anything you haven’t told us?” Adaine and Fabian look at each other. “Not really,” Adaine says unhappily. “They’re dating Riz, and they’re probably not great, considering they’re like, Nightmare King adjacent or something. But we don’t know how, or what, or why—we don’t know what’s happening with Riz.” “Okay. Okay. I really…Riz could use all the rest he can get, so—” “Yeah, we weren’t really planning to talk to him tonight anyways, what with the powerful evil partner—-” “Powerful evil partner?” “Uh. Yeah. You know about the hands?” “The what? I mean, I guess Kristen mentioned something about hands a while ago—” “Yeah, exactly. Mrs. Gukgak, the point is, we don’t want to put Riz in danger. Or any more than he’s in already. We’re just…we need more information. Normally, Riz is the one who’d be breaking and entering—” “Fabian.” “Ahem! I mean, gathering information.”

“We should have brought Gorgug.” “We should steal Riz’s tie.” “We cannot steal Riz’s tie.” “He’s asleep! And we’re trying to help him.” “Yeah, and you were trying to help him when you asked about Baron during lunch.” Adaine goes silent. “Sorry. I didn’t—sorry. You, uh. You tried. It’s not your fault.”

“Mrs. Gukgak, have you been having problems with your heating system?” “No. Not that I’ve noticed.” “You’re sure? No problems with your heater, or like, windows opened, or anything? It’s been normal? You haven’t felt colder than usual?” “Well, I mean…we don’t turn the heat on super high here. But now that you mention it, I think I’ve been wearing warmer clothes inside than I usually do. And I think Riz has started wearing gloves, but I thought he was trying out a new look, and I didn’t want—you know how he gets, right?” Adaine nods. Sklonda lets out a breath. “Yeah,” she says. “It’s not—I don’t know if it’s something big enough for me to really notice, but if it helps, I do think it’s been a bit chillier than normal. Why?” “Just…thinking. It might be connected, I’m not sure.” “Right. Let me know if there’s anything else I can help with, alright?”

“That was useless. If we had Riz…” Fabian trails off. If they had Riz, they wouldn’t have had to do all this in the first place. “Yeah,” Adaine agrees.

plus an additional bit of fabian's voicemail at the end of the chapter from before the scene got cut :))

"We’ve been doing some investigation. Me and Adaine, that is. You’d be proud of us. Or maybe not, we did get caught almost immediately. And we were also breaking into your apartment, and I don’t know how you would feel about that. Maybe I shouldn’t have said that. How do you delete voicemails? Uh. Well, I thought I would tell you that, you know, we tried. Investigating’s hard, the Ball. Honestly, I don’t know how you do it. It’s, uh, a very impressive skill, I’m figuring out. It’s really cool that you’re so good at it."

[delyth88]

Jacinda just resigned.

[sophieswundergarten]

Mental Literature

Reynie had always had a habit of "writing things down" in his mind, he found it helped him remember important details and organize his thoughts. Certain words he liked, or ideas that came to him when he didn't have pen and paper handy. Often, these little notes become lists, or, less often, letters. After all, he had no one to write to at the orphanage.

The lists he used most commonly were the ones that contained new words he'd learned. When he came across one he didn't understand, he'd go get a dictionary from the reading room (One of the few books actually available at the orphanage, and one that had sat through many years of dusty disuse until Reynie had come along), looking it up and tracing the letters with his finger until he had fully absorbed the meaning.

One day, when he was sitting outside enjoying the pleasant weather while the other children ran around on the grass and played various games amongst themselves, he found himself cataloging their names. There was Susan Pennyworth, and Thomas Deerhart, and Jane Poll, and several others that moved about, swiftly engaging in a game of tag. A boy a few years older than Reynie himself walked up to where he was sitting under the ash tree. Vic Morgeroff, Reynie noted.

"What're you doing, Muldoon?" Vic asked in a bored way. Reynie wondered for a moment why he was asking, if he seemed so disinterested.

Quickly, he went through his list of new words, excited to try one out.

"I'm just enjoying the breeze under this large, deciduous ash tree, Vic. How are you doing today?"

Reynie hoped Vic would ask him what the word "deciduous" meant, as he himself had just learned earlier that day. Maybe he would even already know what it meant, since he was older than Reynie, and they could talk about it.

Vic's eyes sharpened as he listened to Reynie's response. "What did you just say, Muldoon? If that was a swear, I'm telling the director. Don't think just 'cause you're quiet and always hiding in one of your books you won't get in trouble."

"No, no," Reynie immediately jumped to correct him, "It's not a swear word, I promise. It's a word I learned this morning, it describes the tree, since it loses its leaves in the winter, as compared to an evergreen, which doesn't."

Somehow, this didn't seem to calm Vic.

"Oh? And what makes you think you can use that word, eh? Is it 'cause you're reading all the time? Think you'll impress someone? Knowing big words doesn't make you special, Muldoon. It- It just makes you a freak, who knows too much."

Apparently satisfied, Vic stalked off, shaking his head and muttering to himself, "Little weirdo, thinks he's better than everyone else."

Reynie watched him go, slightly stunned that his word had evoked such a violent outburst. After a few moments, he sighed, shoulders sagging as he shifted to lean against the tree trunk, closing his eyes. He started a new list. "Unpopular Words".

Months passed, and Reynie was summoned to the director's office.

Mr. Rutger was sitting behind his desk, tapping a pen on it when Reynie entered.

"Come in, come in." Mr. Rutger gestured with his free hand to the chair sitting across from him. Reynie sat down obediently, wondering what this was about. He hadn't caused any trouble lately, although his "Unpopular Words" list was beginning to get long enough that he'd had to start reciting it to himself in the mornings, so as to not forget any. He'd avoided Vic and his friends as much as he could, and continued to do well in all of his classes at the orphanage academy.

"Now, Reynard," Mr. Rutger set his pen down and steepled his hands together just below his face. "Do you know why I asked you to come have this little chat with me?"

Reynie shook his head. What strange thing adults do, he considered, to summon a child purposefully without telling them what is going on and then ask them what they think about it. How is the child supposed to respond?

Mr. Rutger frowned at him, as if that was the wrong answer.

"Well, Reynard, your teachers have reported to me that you've been asking about... opportunities." He said the word as though it was an oily worm that had slipped out of his mouth. "Opportunities to attend other schools. Now, why don't we talk about this? Here you're comfortable, you know how the system works. Your friends are here, and it wouldn't make sense to send you away. Besides, it's against policy for a student to be placed in an external education facility."

Reynie hadn't thought he was asking for "opportunities", he'd spoken to his teachers about taking extra classes only because he was nearing the end of the high school work books, and that was as far as the orphanage curriculum went. He was about to explain this to the director, and add that he didn't have any friends, but Mr. Rutger seemed to have decided that the conversation was over.

"There we are, Reynard." He clapped his hands together, leaning back in his chair, seemingly satisfied with his solution. "See? You'll be much happier here. Oh, and be a good lad and try to clean up that reading room you're always in; it's so dirty."

Reynie nodded, standing up and walking out of the office. He paused on the other side of the heavy doors, taking a deep breath before heading back to the room he shared with four other boys. He added "opportunities" to his list.

Not long after that, Reynie entered his first class of the day with the dull resignation to finish the last few pages of his geography workbook. He'd been trying to take as much time as possible and stretch out for as long as he could, since he knew that once this one was full he'd have to content himself with sitting in the back of the classroom and listening to the teacher go over material he had long since learned. However, upon wishing Mr. Green a good morning, he was told that he had been excused from his classes, and was to report to the main hall.

Reynie walked slowly on his way to the main part of the orphanage. He wasn't quite sure what had changed, but some part of him was hopeful that Mr. Rutget had changed his mind and would let him start taking classes somewhere else. He knew there was a local community college not too far, and he'd be happy to walk there if he could only get permission to attend.

His daydreams were shattered by the sudden image of the orphanage director's expression whenever he had approached him about... anything really. He'd asked, more than once, if they might be able to get a few more books for him to read, if the school kids might take a field trip to the museum, if there was any way that he could help pay for further education, he'd even offered to go through the orphanage's policies and Stonetown's bylaws himself to see if there was an exception or loophole that would allow him to attend the Boatwright Academy. All of these queries had ended with Mr. Rutger looking down at him, lips pursed in a sour pout. This had been going on for so long that Reynie noticed the same expression twisting Mr. Rutger's face every time he even entered the same room as Reynie.

He prepared himself to see that expression before opening the door to the main hall, but instead he found a woman. One he had never seen before and knew didn't work at the orphanage because she was wearing a lovely pink sweater over a floral patterned shirt. No one at the orphanage wore nice sweaters or bright colors. Everything there was drab, as if the color was leeched out of it upon crossing the threshold. This woman was certainly not drab, and smiled warmly at him as she rose from the table she was seated at.

Reynie smiled back at her shyly. He felt a slight, pleasant surprise at her seeming excitement to meet him. It had been a while since someone had smiled at seeing him.

"Hello, I'm Miss Perumal. I was told to wait here for a 'Reynard Muldoon'? Is that you?" The nice lady took a few steps toward him, smile faltering a bit as he hesitated.

"Oh," He started, shaking off his thoughts. "Yes, that's me. I'm Reynie." He hurried down the steps, stopping just in front of her. He paused, awkwardly trying to decide if he should shake her hand, or if she would find that "off-putting" and "too mature for a boy of his age", as his French teacher had once said.

Luckily, Miss Perumal stuck out her hand to him, her friendly smile returning in full force.

"Ah, I'm so glad. I was worried that you might have had somewhere else to be, and I was delaying you. As I said, my name is Miss Perumal, and I have been hired to be your new tutor. I am delighted to meet you Reynie. Do you prefer 'Reynie' to 'Reynard'? When I met the director he referred to you as 'Reynard', so I wanted to see what you'd like."

Reynie's mind was whirling with all that this woman said. She was "delighted" to meet him? And she wanted to know which name he preferred to be called, even after Mr. Rutger had spoken with her? He was stunned once again, and only pulled himself out of it when he realized that she was continuing to look at him, waiting for a response.

"Um, yeah. 'Reynie' is good, thank you, ma'am. You said you're my... tutor?"

Reynie wasn't entirely sure what a tutor was supposed to do. He had a vague concept of someone who is supposed to help students with their homework if they were struggling in school, because a teacher had once suggested he tutor his classmates, since he was so for ahead. It hadn't worked out, though, because only one student had approached him, and when Reynie had looked up in the middle of an excited explanation about the French Revolution, the boy had been staring at him in disgust, before abruptly pushing his chair back and leaving. Reynie had created a small mental note for himself, deciding that once he was able to think of the word without recalling that nightmarish, uncomfortable situation, he would find out exactly what the word "tutor" meant.

Miss Perumal nodded at him, her expression growing more serious.

"Yes, I am going to be your tutor. The word is often used to mean someone who will help students as a supplement to traditional teaching, but in our sense it is going to mean that I am a sort of private teacher, just for you."

Reynie appreciated that she had defined the word for him, but he was still a bit apprehensive about this strange woman. She seemed nice, but if she was just going to be a different kind of teacher, that likely meant that she would just hand him a new workbook and try to cover her surprise when he finished it in a few weeks. He didn't want her to be like that, she smiled at him and her eyes seemed kind, and he didn't want her to be just another adult who came to look at him with that distasteful expression that all of the other grown ups at the orphanage did.

But Miss Perumal wasn't finished yet.

"Now, Reynie, I understand that some students need a little bit of different help than most teachers can give them, but you aren't one of them. Mr. Rutger has shown me your transcripts, and you have excelled in every subject and class you've been placed in. You are a very gifted child, Reynie, and something tells me you haven't been given nearly enough opportunities."

She turned then, rummaging in the bag she carried over her shoulder, which Reynie had not noticed before. Producing a small book with a soft blue cloth cover, she handed it to Reynie.

"This," She explained, her smile back again, "Is for you. It's a book on Tamil, the language I grew up speaking. I really think that you'll enjoy learning it, and we might even be able to start having some conversations in it soon, if your record with the limited French available here is any indication."

Reynie accepted the book with a wondrous expression. This woman was willing to teach him, she gave him a book right after meeting him, she wanted to give him opportunities. He searched for a word to describe her, and he found so many good ones that he had to create a "Miss Perumal" list on the spot. She was glorious, she was exorbitantly compassionate, she was a paradigm he wished all adults followed, she was an assiduous researcher, and she was the antithesis to Mr. Rutger.

He took a deep breath, holding it in his chest next to the spark of hope he could feel glowing there. Running a hand over the book, he felt a smile growing on his own face. It had been a long time since he had smiled.

"Thank you, Miss Perumal. I would love to learn Tamil from you, as well as anything you'd want to teach me."

Miss Perumal looked excited, excited at the thought of teaching him. "Well, then, Reynie, I don't see any reason we shouldn't start right now." She gestured at the chair opposite the one she had been sitting in. "Why don't you begin reading through the introduction of that book, while I go over a few more of my papers. We can work on basic pronunciation once you're done."

Reynie sat down immediately, opening the book and still smiling to himself a little. He felt a lot less lonely as he began reading, and added "Friend?" to his Miss Perumal list.

[madame-mongoose]

How’d the rest of your shift go?

Good good!!! I'm training a new person this week so we've been getting everything done REALLY fast. Like I typically work the building alone so it takes me a reasonable amount of time to get done and I still have maybe an hour left to sit on my ass at the end of the night. But like we gone done VERY very early. And would've finished even earlier if I didn't have us procrastinate and sit around for the whole shift. It's very nice lmao

[musical-chick-13]

Thinking too hard about the fact that the best example I’ve ever seen of “Mentally Ill Lady is loved unconditionally-not in spite of, but because of, how fucked up she is” comes from a play that a) is over 400 years old that was written in a time where the cultural environment surrounding it wasn’t even fully past the “having OCD means you are communing with the devil” stage, and b) 90% of the people I know are only aware of because we had to read it in high school English class. Anyway, does Shakespeare know what he did by writing Lady Macbeth, DOES HE KNOW

[wingsoffirememes]

is it worth it to read the phyrria books or should I just skip it and read spoilers?

I mean I guess that depends on how interested you are on them? Tbh I used to love this series I grew up with it but I couldn’t get through the last arc like I know the last book is out but I genuinely have felt no urge to read it or even care about what happens. I think give the first one a try and if it doesn’t float your boat then just skip

[llycaons]

children's books that went downhill to the extent that they started to read like fanfiction for themselves

guardians of ga'hoole after book 6 (returned after a natural ending point)

maximum ride after book 3 (returned after a natural ending point)

percy jackson after the second series, and arguably the first (returned after a - well do I even have to say it)

[devotedlystrangewizard]

"being autistic is about being bad at reading social cues" "being autistic is about stimming & sensory overload" NO.

this is autism.