#life and times of bother

[inkskinned]

the thing about art is that it was always supposed to be about us, about the human-ness of us, the impossible and beautiful reality that we (for centuries) have stood still, transfixed by music. that we can close our eyes and cry about the same book passage; the events of which aren't real and never happened. theatre in shakespeare's time was as real as it is now; we all laugh at the same cue (pursued by bear), separated hundreds of years apart.

three years ago my housemates were jamming outdoors, just messing around with their instruments, mostly just making noise. our neighbors - shy, cautious, a little sheepish - sat down and started playing. i don't really know how it happened; i was somehow in charge of dancing, barefoot and laughing - but i looked up, and our yard was full of people. kids stacked on the shoulders of parents. old couples holding hands. someone had brought sidewalk chalk; our front walk became a riot of color. someone ran in with a flute and played the most astounding solo i've ever heard in my life, upright and wiggling, skipping as she did so. she only paused because the violin player was kicking his heels up and she was laughing too hard to continue.

two weeks ago my friend and i met in the basement of her apartment complex so she could work out a piece of choreography. we have a language barrier - i'm not as good at ASL as i'd like to be (i'm still learning!) so we communicate mostly through the notes app and this strange secret language of dancers - we have the same movement vocabulary. the two of us cracking jokes at each other, giggling. there were kids in the basement too, who had been playing soccer until we took up the far corner of the room. one by one they made their slow way over like feral cats - they laid down, belly-flat against the floor, just watching. my friend and i were not in tutus - we were in slouchy shirts and leggings and socks. nothing fancy. but when i asked the kids would you like to dance too? they were immediately on their feet and spinning. i love when people dance with abandon, the wild and leggy fervor of childhood. i think it is gorgeous.

their adults showed up eventually, and a few of them said hey, let's not bother the nice ladies. but they weren't bothering us, they were just having fun - so. a few of the adults started dancing awkwardly along, and then most of the adults. someone brought down a better sound system. someone opened a watermelon and started handing out slices. it was 8 PM on a tuesday and nothing about that day was particularly special; we might as well party.

one time i hosted a free "paint along party" and about 20 adults worked quietly while i taught them how to paint nessie. one time i taught community dance classes and so many people showed up we had to move the whole thing outside. we used chairs and coatracks to balance. one time i showed up to a random band playing in a random location, and the whole thing got packed so quickly we had to open every door and window in the place.

i don't think i can tell you how much people want to be making art and engaging with art. they want to, desperately. so many people would be stunning artists, but they are lied to and told from a very young age that art only matters if it is planned, purposeful, beautiful. that if you have an idea, you need to be able to express it perfectly. this is not true. you don't get only 1 chance to communicate. you can spend a lifetime trying to display exactly 1 thing you can never quite language. you can just express the "!!??!!!"-ing-ness of being alive; that is something none of us really have a full grasp on creating. and even when we can't make what we want - god, it feels fucking good to try. and even just enjoying other artists - art inherently rewards the act of participating.

i wasn't raised wealthy. whenever i make a post about art, someone inevitably says something along the lines of well some of us aren't that lucky. i am not lucky; i am dedicated. i have a chronic condition, my hands are constantly in pain. i am not neurotypical, nor was i raised safe. i worked 5-7 jobs while some of these memories happened. i chose art because it mattered to me more than anything on this fucking planet - i would work 80 hours a week just so i could afford to write in 3 of them.

and i am still telling you - if you are called to make art, you are called to the part of you that is human. you do not have to be good at it. you do not have to have enormous amounts of privilege. you can just... give yourself permission. you can just say i'm going to make something now and then - go out and make it. raquel it won't be good though that is okay, i don't make good things every time either. besides. who decides what good even is?

you weren't called to make something because you wanted it to be good, you were called to make something because it is a basic instinct. you were taught to judge its worth and over-value perfection. you are doing something impossible. a god's ability: from nothing springs creation.

a few months ago i found a piece of sidewalk chalk and started drawing. within an hour i had somehow collected a small classroom of young children. their adults often brought their own chalk. i looked up and about fifteen families had joined me from around the block. we drew scrangly unicorns and messed up flowers and one girl asked me to draw charizard. i am not good at drawing. i basically drew an orb with wings. you would have thought i drew her the mona lisa. she dragged her mother over and pointed and said look! look what she drew for me and, in the moment, i admit i flinched (sorry, i don't -). but the mother just grinned at me. he's beautiful. and then she sat down and started drawing.

someone took a picture of it. it was in the local newspaper. the summary underneath said joyful and spontaneous artwork from local artists springs up in public gallery. in the picture, a little girl covered in chalk dust has her head thrown back, delighted. laughing.

[figueroths]

not to be a high elf apologist but ​i have to say it’s actually kinda sweet that old man both expected to see gorgug again and made intentional (albeit goofy) effort to get his name right even if the best that’ll come out of his own mouth is grape nip

[worlddissolvingintoslime]

like looking in a mirror

[gazspookiebear]

Ugh I'm so sleepy. Eepy man. Enjoy this shit I cooked up in ten minutes.

You wake up, only to find yourself just as tired as you were a few hours ago. Your eyelids are heavy, and you're fighting back sleep with every blink. Exhaustion wracking your body with every movement.

You feel Simon groan and sit up next to you.

"Mmm... five more minutes?" You mumble sleepily, shivering at the sudden lack of warmth.

"'M sorry love, we've gotta get up"

"Please? I'm so tired..." You whine quietly

"Negative," he says, chuckling at your miserable pout.

"Please, Si?" You say it so sweetly. The nickname you rarely used. His weakness.

A moment passes before you finally hear a response.

"Fine."

You grin, knowing that you've won. He lays back down and wraps his arm around you, pulling your back to his chest. You close your eyes and sleep quickly overtakes you.

Of course, it was never just 'five more minutes'. Simon called your work shortly after and informed them that you wouldn't be coming in today. However that works.

[turtleblogatlast]

Big Mama must have lost some serious standing in the yokai underworld because it’s gotten apparent that she keeps being beaten by a small group of teenagers and the occasional rat man, and when it’s not them then she’s taking L’s from her own schemes working against her.

And in the ensuing power vacuum, the Hamatos accidentally become the most feared crime family known to all the big bads of the Hidden City.

After all, they’ve publicly outplayed Big Mama multiple times, a couple of them have taken out the heads of two of the most well known criminal organizations, one took out Heinous Green, two are responsible for the destruction of Witch Town, they have ties to both the infamous Baron Draxum and Captain Piel, they won the Doom Dome death race, they’re Battle Nexus Champions, they’ve displayed insane feats of power and defeated impossibly strong enemies, most of them have been to jail, and they regularly mingle with humans.

You can just imagine the notoriety they’d accumulate from word of mouth alone.

[violent138]

Bruce is just hanging out at Clark's place, and watches Clark as the alien busily fixes his sink. Bruce has definitely slept rough, travelled all over the place with minimal resources and trained in some of the worst conditions, but he's never had to do any of this.

Simple things like maintaining a flat, paying rent, arguing with a landlord, buying groceries, decorating a house, these aren't really a part of his life at all. When he catches Bruce staring, Clark defensively declares he likes making the repairs himself, and Bruce replies that he's just fascinated by all the components that make up Clark's life.

[anxioussailorsoldier]

captain link!! (introduced back in this comic but more info in tags)

[iatethepomegranate]

If I see one more take about Orym being "secretive" in taking the sword, I swear I might start screaming. The dude walked up to Chet in front of everyone, asked for access to the Bag of Holding, took the sword out (in front of everyone) and left with it. Then he came back with the sword strapped to his back... IN FRONT OF EVERYONE. There was ample time for someone to speak up if they wanted to and Orym, quite frankly, didn't have reason to expect it would be an issue. Laudna may have used the lack of discussion as part of her cycle of justifications for her actions, but that doesn't mean it was 1) the main issue she was actually dealing with or 2) an unsolvable problem that required a rash response even if that had been Laudna's primary issue.

[flowerflowerflo]

𓍢ִ໋♡𓂃 ࣪ ִ receiving your blessings! ୨🧸୧

˚₊‧꒰ა roots ໒꒱ ‧₊˚

• feeling guilty about being given things you supposedly "dont deserve", like lots of love or gifts or whatever it may be, comes from a lack mindset.

• that is where you feel there is not enough of these things like love, gifts, money, etc. to go around. you think of the world as though there is always "not enough" and feel the need to push away the blessings you receive for someone or something else, or hold on to every little scrap of everything you find bc you fear you wont find it again.

• this comes from having a lack of things like love, money, affection, etc. in childhood and continues on as you grow up & get older.

one thing i've noticed is a lot of people actually treat this as a normal thing to push away the things youre given because you think "this is too much" or "i dont deserve this" or anything along those lines.

🧸𓂃 ࣪˖ "i dont feel worthy of this" if you werent worthy it wouldnt be given to you. everyone and everything comes into your life for a reason, good or bad, and its your job to accept that and learn the lesson that comes from said thing or person. if someone offers you a gift, money, a job offer you've wanted, etc. if you know its safe then take it !!

── there are people with less money than you, less talent than you, less potential than you, out living your dreams just because you were too scared to take that opportunity you were given and just go for it. dont look back and think "oh, i should have taken that". dont let yourself have regrets when you know you can avoid them. life is to be lived, not feared.

🧸𓂃 ࣪˖ "im not sure if i should" the opportunity wouldnt arise if it wasnt 100% certain it would benefit you in someway. obviously if you feel its sketchy or unsafe for whatever reason stay away from it and obviously do not go through with it or take it but if you know its safe and fine but youre still not sure then what are you doing!!! take it!!!

── you are refusing the gifts being given for what? worry? worry about what? who are you to doubt the gifts you are being given when you know its safe and you should take it? would you be concerned if someone gave you a gift on your birthday? this is the same thing. every day is your birthday if youve got the right mindset 🫶

🧸𓂃 ࣪˖ "someone else deserves it more" what. think if you got a present on your birthday and it was something you'd wanted for aaaaages. would you sit there and think "no, someone else deserves this more than me"? if the answer's yes then you need to get your priorities straight ml im sorry. this was given to you for you. why are you doubting the universe- the world????? what???? girl what

── ok this can go two ways. if its something someone else genuinely needs because they dont have it and could heavily benefit from like fresh water, a job offer, a housing offer, fresh food, i would give it to them if i already had those resources for myself too because everybody needs those. they're basic necessities to live & thats basic empathy. but if its something you dont need to live but really really want and are being given the chance to obtain then what. are you doing. girl. take it! what is your problem!

🧸𓂃 ࣪˖ i think if you find yourself saying or thinking these things often, pause for a second and ask yourself why you think this. is it something to do with growing up, the people around you, your financial status.. whatever it may be, it always helps to find the root of the problem. ♡

treat yourself to whatever you wish! you deserve it just because you are alive. that is a difficult task in itself. you deserve it just because you want it. you work so hard, so why shouldnt you have the things you want? take that gift, take that money, take that date, take that offer. life is too short to regret what you could have had 🫶💕

lots of love 💘

[niuniente]

I've had the same hairstyle for over 10 years. Now, the hair has grown long and I don't really care about that but I have no idea what style to go for. I don't want to have the same cut again but nothing of the existing cuts excites me either. I've gone through so many style ideas from classic to alternative and from old fashioned to super modern and uuuugghghghghghfglfjghhghfgghfgg noooooooo

[cantagirldrawinpeace]

Mf with academic validation issues who grew up in an emotionally neglectful family gets 1 compliment once

Save my boy Deuce 🩵🩵🩵

[bibxrbie]

It is so difficult loving Luke Skywalker and being Jedi positive.

[betweenlands]

It takes exactly two seconds between Impulse looking up at the top of the Secret Keeper and him realizing what he's actually seeing up there to decide he is officially sick and tired of seeing ghosts.

There are seven entire ghosts around the thing today -- a couple appear to be tinkering with the secret delivery mechanisms. Impulse squints at them.

"What are you doing?" he says.

"Trying to figure out how to load more tasks into this thing," one of them replies, kicking one of the blocks with buttons on them. He's got a full beard and some weird green glowing mushrooms poking out of cracks in his face. It's definitely... a look, Impulse will give him that. Very Mycelium Resistance. "But whoever designed it used freakin' command blocks, and you can't even see the randomizer run."

"How many times did your randomizer break again?" one of the other ghosts calls from up on top of the Secret Keeper.

"Never!" the mushroom ghost protests, causing at least two other ghosts to crack up laughing. "It worked completely flawlessly except for user error."

One of the ghosts, someone who appears to have a floating cactus block for a head, snorts. "And programmer error."

"You shut it," the mushroom ghost responds.

"He's not wrong," the more normal-looking brown-haired ghost over by the command blocks says absently, purple eyes clearly focused on trying to trace the wiring back to the actual command blocks.

Impulse just stands there, bewildered -- both because the ghosts are actually talking to him, and also because these are extremely weird ghosts to be talking to who look nothing like anyone he's even vaguely heard of.

"Fine," he says, "you know what, I'll bite. Why are you guys here?"

"Checking in," a ghost sitting on one of the lower rocks says. He's wearing blue and yellow, looks to be a little more transparent than the others. "Y'know, new season and all that?"

Impulse squints at him. "No, I meant, why are you following me?"

"Ohhhh!" The ghost laughs. "Hadn't looked into what you were doing yet, and these guys wanted to see if they could get some of their tasks into the machine, so I just brought everyone along."

"That's not really a good answer," a ghost leaning inside the alcove under the Secret Keeper says. He's got a mask pulled up over his face, though his voice doesn't really sound muffled at all.

"What," the blue and yellow ghost says, "am I supposed to say something like it's because you're one of the people with no hard-and-fast thematic associations to stick to and therefore easier to facilitate a meeting with and freak him out more?"

Impulse squints harder. "Are you guys Watchers?"

The blue-and-yellow ghost snorts. "Hah! That's Martyn's lore, bud, not yours. Nope, nothing to do with the Watchers."

"Aren't you technically--" the ghost in the alcove starts.

"Tsssssshhhhhh," the other ghost replies by way of shushing him aggressively, "spoilers!"

"Alright," the alcove ghost says, spreading his hands in mock defeat, "fine, have it your way. He's right though. Not Watchers."

"Lowercase-w maybe," the brown-haired ghost still inspecting the redstone with the mushroom ghost says, "but otherwise, no."

Impulse is starting to feel like he's wandered into something way above his pay grade.

The alcove ghost snaps his fingers. Impulse notes somewhat absent-mindedly that he has, like, a lot of piercings on one ear. "Hey," he says, "come to think of it, we might be able to help you out with some stuff."

"I swear to God," another ghost says from on top of the Secret Keeper, "if you try to sell another person on your weird coffee god thing again-"

"I wasn't going to!" he responds. "Honest! I was just gonna say, it looks like there's a plains biome here, that means oxeye daisies, that means suspicious stew with regen if you can get a good source of mushrooms."

"Unfortunately," the mushroom ghost says, looking up from where he and the other ghost appear to now be trying to cram books into the ground, "the space for the hearts seems like it just kinda vanishes when people get hit. At least, if I'm not misunderstanding the programming."

"If you're misunderstanding the programming then we're both reading this code wrong," the brown-haired ghost says. "And I'm pretty sure I used something similar here for Dark Path stuff, so probably not?"

"Dang," the alcove ghost says, then tilts his head back towards Impulse. "Maybe make splash poison potions, then? That'll take out a good chunk of someone's health if they can't regen."

"He is green," the cactus-headed ghost says. "Why's he gotta make poison potions right now?"

A shrug in response. "Never hurts to prep early."

The blue-and-yellow ghost leans forward, squinting at him. "Alright," he says, "one of my wisps give you that idea or what?"

Another shrug. "I mean, what if they did?"

"Last time you started listening to his wisps," the brown-haired ghost says, "they told you to try and kill everyone just because I beefed it before the dragon fight."

"It would've worked if you hadn't warned them," the ghost in the alcove replies. "I can't believe you tried to sabotage my attempt at avenging you."

"I can't believe you listened to them in the first place," the blue-and-yellow ghost says. "They're bloodthirsty, they don't really give good advice."

"And I," Impulse says, having inched his way over towards the new task button, "am going to take my task and leave, because you guys are weird."

He hits the button and flips through the taskbook.

"End every sentence said to another player in a question?" he says, squinting down at it.

"You're already doing better than some of us were!" one of the ghosts on top of the Secret Keeper yells down.

"Oh my god, shut up!" the mushroom ghost yells back, and then turns to Impulse. "Hey, by the way, have you considered getting a pet parrot?"

"That's still a bad loophole and you know it," the blue-and-yellow ghost cuts in.

"I heard him just fine," the brown-haired ghost says. "Hey, hang on -- that's one of ours! It worked!"

Impulse decides he's not even going to bother trying to be polite about leaving. He has had entirely enough of these ghosts in particular.

[after-nine-at-the-oasis]

Those of you who haven't watched BigB's Secret Life episode I am begging you to do so.

He lied the entire episode, about everything, for absolutely no reason. It was insane, and hilarious

[pinoruno]

it is very important to me that we as a society think about the bit in the first yang episode when lassiter is trying so so hard to convince everyone that yang is calling out HIM, not shawn and not another detective, as lassiter throwing himself in front of the proverbial bullet. he saw what happened to the last guy yang targeted. he doesn’t want to see that happen to someone else.

[benveydraws]

i can't love you in this skin