probably time for this story i guess but when i was a kid there was a summer that my brother was really into making smoothies and milkshakes. part of this was that we didn't have AC and couldn't afford to run fans all day so it was kind of important to get good at making Cool Down Concoctions.
we also had a patch of mint, and he had two impressionable little sisters who had the attitude of "fuck it, might as well."
at one point, for fun, this 16 year old boy with a dream in his eye and scientific fervor in heart just wanted to see how far one could push the idea of "vanilla mint smoothie". how much vanilla extract and how much mint can go into a blender before it truly is inedible.
the answer is 3 cups of vanilla extract, 1/2 cup milk alternative, and about 50 sprigs (not leaves, whole spring) of mint. add ice and the courage of a child. idk, it was summer and we were bored.
the word i would use to describe the feeling of drinking it would maybe be "violent" or perhaps, like. "triangular." my nose felt pristine. inhaling following the first sip was like trying to sculpt a new face. i was ensconced in a mesh of horror. it was something beyond taste. for years after, i assumed those commercials that said "this is how it feels to chew five gum" were referencing the exact experience of this singular viscous smoothie.
what's worse is that we knew our mother would hate that we wasted so much vanilla extract. so we had to make it worth it. we had to actually finish the drink. it wasn't "wasting" it if we actually drank it, right? we huddled around outside in the blistering sun, gagging and passing around a single green potion, shivering with disgust. each sip was transcendent, but in a sort of non-euclidean way. i think this is where i lost my binary gender. it eroded certain parts of me in an acidic gut ecology collapse.
here's the thing about love and trust: the next day my brother made a different shake, and i drank it without complaint. it's been like 15 years. he's now a genuinely skilled cook. sometimes one of the three of us will fuck up in the kitchen or find something horrible or make a terrible smoothie mistake and then we pass it to each other, single potion bottle, and we say try it it's delicious. it always smells disgusting. and then, cerimonious, we drink it together. because that's what family does.
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Danny ends up a doctor like his parents, just not the type of doctor they were expecting.
Danny becomes an archeologist.
He couldn't help it! Most of his friends were dead people, some from as far back as ancient Mesopotamia! He automatically knew every dead language by virtue of being a ghost! The way his friends talked, he wanted to know more about their lives. So he goes looking and makes a name for himself.
He becomes a well known archeologist. As a grad student, he works for the Drakes, even babysitting their son, Tim. He goes to Janet's, and later Jack's, funeral, offering to take Tim in, which the boy is grateful for but declines in favor of a bio-uncle. Eventually, Danny discovers the remains of an ancient cult in the Middle East.
Ra's learns that the remains of the original League of Shadows has been uncovered by a group of archeologists. Originally visiting the dig site to ensure the group doesn't discover any traces of the modern-day League, he finds himself intrigued by the young Dr. Fenton leading the dig. He's smart and bright and the first person in 400 years that can speak Ra's birth language. He becomes fond of the good doctor, even more so when he discovers that Danny's a conservationist and is skilled with a Xiphos (all Pandora's doing). How strange that their spars often end up with them retreating to Danny's tent to be alone...
And then Danny invites Tim Drake to visit, worried about the boy being a teen CEO with no breaks. Tim agrees.
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people r saying the pranged role quests are the weakest and that’s probably true but to me they were worth absolutely everything bc the turali people are like ‘well, you’re a strong enough adventurer, maybe together we have a very slight chance of standing up to these people please help 🥺’ and then you go back to gyr abania and that one resistance person is like ‘Warrior of Light. Look at me-no no no, Look At Me. You Can Not Vaporize these petty thieves you’re going after. do you understand me. I need you at your worst grey parse. I want you to use the first button on your hotbar and NOTHING else. tell me you understand. you Can Not just fucking Vaporize these guys like you normally do.’
and I just have to believe your turali pal is like. what.
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"Never be Alone"
Started on the sixth of January and planned to be finished on the fourteenth, but landed up not doing that. Somewhere on the sixteenth, I basically said "haha whoops" and pumped out twenty panels. According to Procreate, it took 15 hours and 37 minutes to finish Panels 1-10; 27 hours and 15 minutes on Panels 11-20; and 34 hours and 8 minutes for Panels 21-30.
In total, I have no idea. I just know it took some serious time.
Unlike with She's Gone, I wrote a script. Well, all I wrote was dialogue and some minor actions for Panels 5-23, though lines were changed "in post." Everything else was by the seat of my pants. However, I can say for sure that I was planning on ending it with N being hopeful, but all I had room for was him crying. He cannot catch a break.
(also to those who suspected uzi was still in there, guess you were right all along.)
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you were raised in comparison.
it wasn't always obvious (well. except for the times that it was), but you internalized it young. you had to eat what you didn't like, other people are going hungry, and you should be grateful. you had to suck it up and walk on the twisted ankle, it wasn't broken, you were just being a baby. you were never actually suffering, people obviously had it worse than you did.
you had a roof over your head - imagine! with the way you behaved, with how you talked back to your parents? you're lucky they didn't kick you out on your ass. they had friends who had to deal with that. hell, you have friends who had to deal with that. and how dare you imply your father isn't there for you - just because he doesn't ever actually talk to you and just because he's completely emotionally checked out of your life doesn't mean you're not fucking lucky. think about your cousins, who don't even get to speak to their dad. so what if yours has a mean streak; is aggressive and rude. at least you have a father to be rude to you.
you really think you're hurting? you were raised in a home! you had access to clean water! you never so much as came close to experiencing a real problem. sure, okay. you have this "mental illness" thing, but teenagers are always depressed, right. it's a phase, you'll move on with your life.
what do you mean you feel burnt out at work. what do you mean you mean you never "formed healthy coping mechanisms?" we raised you better than that. you were supposed to just shoulder through things. to hold yourself to high expectations. "burning out" is for people with real jobs and real stress. burnout is for people who have sick kids and people who have high-paying jobs and people who are actually experiencing something difficult. recently you almost cried because you couldn't find your fucking car keys. you just have lost your sense of gratitude, and honestly, we're kind of hurt. we tell you we love you, isn't that enough? if you want us to stick around, you need to be better about proving it. you need to shut up about how your mental health is ruined.
it could be worse! what if you were actually experiencing executive dysfunction. if you were really actually sick, would you even be able to look at things on the internet about it? you just spend too much time on webMD. you just like to freak yourself out and feel like you belong to something. you just like playing the victim. this is always how you have been - you've always been so fucking dramatic. you have no idea how good you have it - you're too fucking sensitive.
you were like, maybe too good of a kid. unwilling to make a real fuss. and the whole time - the little points, the little validations - they went unnoticed. it isn't that you were looking for love, specifically - more like you'd just wanted any one person to actually listen. that was all you'd really need. you just needed to be witnessed. it wasn't that you couldn't withstand the burden, but you did want to know that anyone was watching. these days, you are so accustomed to the idea of comparison - you don't even think you belong in your own communities. someone always fits better than you do. you're always the outlier. they made these places safe, and then you go in, and you are just not... quite the same way that would actually-fit.
you watch the little white ocean of your numbness lap at your ankles. the tide has been coming in for a while, you need to do something about it. what you want to do is take a nap. what you want to do is develop some kind of time machine - it's not like you want your life to stop, not completely, but it would really nice if you could just get everything to freeze, just for a little while, just until you're finished resting. but at least you're not the worst you've been. at least you have anything. you're so fucking lucky. do you have any concept of the amount of global suffering?
a little ant dies at the side of your kitchen sink. you look at its strange chitinous body and think - if you could just somehow convince yourself it is enough, it will finally be enough and you can be happy. no changes will have to be made. you just need to remember what you could lose. what is still precious to you.
you can't stop staring at the ant. you could be an ant instead of a person, that is how lucky you are. it's just - you didn't know the name of the ant, did you. it's just - ants spend their whole life working, and never complain. never pull the car over to weep.
it's just - when it died, it curled up into a tight little ball.
something kind of uncomfortable: you do that when you sleep.
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something something specific species of rove beetle mimic the appearance, odor and behavior of certain species of ants in order to infiltrate colonies
aka @somerandomdudelmao's most recent marble sky part is on my mind and i can't stop thinking about oscar in relation to rove beetles. he may not be trying to eat marmor young but hey. imitation beetle funny
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