#sigh all right let’s see

[whentherewerebicycles]

my little loaf :)) my beloved guy :))))

I finished my rec letters last night and then hung out with my sister and ordered Indian food. got up early this morning and worked quite hard from 6:30-11:30 at work finishing a presentation draft + a round of revisions for this big project we’re wrapping up in the next few weeks. I might do just a little bit more work on it today—I’d like to go through the doc and make a detailed revision to-do list for myself so I have it all in one place—but then I’ll be done for the week.

as I was working on that project this morning I noticed that I was experiencing a deep sense of satisfaction & fulfillment, and it struck me that this will be the first time I’ve completed a big writing project (the kind involving multiple rounds of feedback and revision) since february 2022. I almost have happy tears in my eyes just recalling and re-experiencing the feeling now lol. my creative output has been been mostly stalled for nine months now and I’ve been thinking of that stalledness largely in terms of products—I’m not producing good work, I’m not producing stories or drafts, I’m not even really producing good story concepts. but I think what I really miss and feel the absence of in these creatively fallow periods are the rhythms of writing work itself. there’s something about that cycle of planning, drafting, revising, drafting, revising, drafting, revising that feels intensely good and pleasurable to me—that calm, relaxed yet deeply focused flow state where you are continually assessing your own work and making small purposeful changes and then assessing the changes. I love the work itself and when I am cut off from it, internally or externally, I feel like an important part of myself starts to wither. I know this stalled state isn’t forever (it never is), but I would be so much happier and calmer if I were absorbed in work 😩 but then also who knows—maybe this small little revelation will unlock something for me and help me figure out how to bring writing back into my daily life, even if it’s not in the fiction-writing mode that I’ve been trying to make myself work in.

[lunarharp]

if i just told you i love you would this world change

[satorisoup]

people will think im ordinary until they say one (1) thing about tmnt and all of a sudden im explaining the entire lore starting from the 1990’s movie & why donatello is the best turtle i fear… T^T

tag limit fights me… i must yap… please listen… SOB </3

[whimsicalwavess]

I be needing some horse girl Felix in my life it’s not leaving my brain it must exist in reality

[whoslaurapalmer]

laura (1944) / laura by vera caspary -- waldo and laura meet

bonus deleted scene from the movie script, with a third interpretation of their meeting --

[spocks-kaathyra]

.

[tamaharu]

okay thats interesting! in the SF try-outs during the song "legally blonde" she sings about how she cant be legally blonde, while in the official version AND THE DEMO she sings about letting her be legally blonde. which means that at some point they changed the lyrics around, and then changed them back! laurence o'keefe.... nell benjamin.... what occurs in your twisted minds

[whysamwhy123]

.

[bigskydreaming]

That last reblog has me now contemplating.

What if to mess with his shiny new little brother, but like....gently....when they first started hanging out Dick told Jason a couple of slight falsehoods as umm. A training exercise. That’s it. It was about helping Jason get up to speed with his information gathering skills and also his bullshit detection. So in the interest of being helpful and A Good Big Brother, Obviously....Dick sowed a few.....less-than-entirely-factual details about the more fantastical elements of their lives. The stuff that isn’t common or public knowledge to most of the DC Earth. And then he just.....waited to see how long it took Jason to realize Dick had fed him a handful of straight up lies when briefing him about All Things Superhero.

Look, it was for Science. That’s Dick’s story and he’s sticking to it.

Thus, for the first couple months of their new sibling relationship, Dick had Jason convinced that Atlanteans were actually aliens who landed here thousands of years ago, speedsters can run so fast they can travel back in time, and Superman once accidentally let out a burp so forceful it created a shockwave that shattered every glass in a quarter mile radius so whenever he starts to look....gassy....your best course of action is to hit the deck. Don’t even hesitate for a second, just dive to the ground and grab some floor until he’s got it back under control. And oh yeah, Diana has her Lasso of Truth, but Donna’s version of truth-related powers is that she can sense when people are up to no good....only, the way this manifests for her is she suddenly registers a distinct bad smell in her vicinity, alerting her that bullshit is afoot.

“You’re kidding,” Jason said flatly. “You expect me to believe that Donna can literally smell bullshit?”

Dick just raised an eyebrow. “Like that’s somehow less plausible than Gar being able to change into any kind of animal but only in shades of green? And oh yeah, speaking of green, Green Lanterns can do just about anything with their rings....except protect themselves from yellow paint? I don’t make the rules, Jace. The truth is sometimes superpowers aren’t super-glamorous and not everything related to magic or gods or other planets is as....sophisticated...as we presume. I mean, its not like these things exist just to match up to our expectations for them. Why should alien civilizations or the rules of magic be influenced by whether or not our society would find something weird or ridiculous?”

Jason chewed his lower lip contemplatively. He lacked an official bullshit detecting power himself, but he did have good instincts. Unfortunately for him, his shiny new big brother gave good Lying-to-your-face Face.

“Plus, if you really think about it, it does make a kind of sense,” Dick continued to explain helpfully. But only according to certain specific interpretations of ‘helpfully’ that actually mean ‘like a liar.’ “Our brains are constantly translating all kinds of input and stimuli into shapes or patterns we can actually process in a way that means something to us. So we can make use of that information. This is just the same thing. Donna’s power takes however many variables are involved in registering something as false or something she needs to be wary of...and just condenses it into a simple ‘red alert’ indicator that takes all that abstract, ephemeral data and makes it something actionable. Something she can actually do something with. Her power - or how her brain perceives it - just didn’t actually consult her or give her a choice of notification settings, because why would it?”

“I guess that makes sense,” Jason begrudgingly agreed, with a frown that suggested this particular ‘truth’ Offended his sensibilities.

“I mean, you can ask Donna to explain it herself if you want,” Dick said with a shrug. “Just a heads-up though....she’s not really a fan of how that power works either. Its not exactly a superpower anyone wants to be known for, and she’s heard allllll the jokes about it by now. Roy, Wally and I were perhaps....not the most sensitive when we were younger and she was honing that particular skillset? Though in our defense, I maintain that most of our jokes were hilarious. But anyway, just saying. If you wanna bring it up with her directly, go right ahead! Its definitely one of her favorite topics and Amazons are for sure known for how well they handle being self-conscious.”

And that’s the story of the three months Jason spent convinced that Atlanteans were from another planet, confusing the hell out of Garth with his occasional references to ‘your homeworld’ and his numerous questions about all the Atlantean Green Lanterns that he for some reason seemed convinced the Green Lantern Corps must obviously have a long history of.

And its also why Jason spent those same three months getting wide-eyed and nervous any time he noticed Donna’s nose so much as twitch when he was around. Which it did a lot more often than usual, thanks to how often Dick got horseradish to go with whatever he was having for lunch, knowing full well that Donna can not stand the smell of horseradish. (Dick’s actually not a fan either, and he hates how it tastes, but he’s not afraid to Suffer for the sake of Shenanigans. Its a fundamental part of the Robin experience and persona, after all.)

But it was the Donna thing that gave Dick away, ultimately. No matter how hard he tried to keep a lid on how entertaining he now found the sight of Donna’s occasional nose twitch...even a Batkid poker face can’t keep an empath and telepath from finding this a mystery worth untangling after the tenth time it happens.

(Not that Lilith or Raven are gonna apologize for prying any time soon. They had an obligation as his friends and teammates to investigate when he’s acting bizarre, y’see. What if its because he was brainwashed again? “We’re intrusive because we love,” Lilith insists with zero shame. Raven clarifies: “I was intrusive because she was already doing it so there seemed no point not to.” Lilith points out that this could also be construed as a sign of strong leadership potential. Dick glowers. Lilith waves a hand dismissively. “We can circle back to that later. That’s fine.”)

Anyway, the truth came out at last, Jason cites this as the Moral Justification for every single time and way he was a pain in the ass to Dick in the years to come, and Donna - who was Not Amused - gave a pointed sniff and called bullshit when Dick tried to claim this was an important Bonding Opportunity for he and Jason, wherein they became brothers ‘for real’ instead of just via Bruce. “There are intricate sibling rituals to be observed,” Dick insisted. “I did my research! We had so much time to make up for, I had to speedrun through my shenanigans to get us all caught up! Would I have done all this if I didn’t care?”

Every Titan in the room, familiar with the lengths he’d gone to when messing with Rogues and randos as Robin and thus distinctly unimpressed: Yes. Absolutely. One hundred percent.

Dick foraged on heroically. “Regardless! That’s not the case here, as all of this was clearly done in the name of brotherhood and bonding! We’ll laugh about this someday, you’ll see!”

Ten years later, after Jason’s returned as the Red Hood and reintegrated with the Batfamily to varying degrees, enough so that he accompanies Dick and the rest of the OG Titans on a mission where they’re ambushed, captured and trapped in a supervillain dungeon they’re now trying to escape...

Dick: Definitely kicking myself for not seeing that ambush coming. Where’s a bullshit-sniffing power when you really need it, huh?

Jason: Still not laughing yet.

Dick: Oh come on!

As far as the rest goes, Jason does get a kick out of the speedsters discovering that actually, they can run fast enough to travel through time. He’s like, despite your best efforts you accidentally got one right. And Dick’s all ‘was it an accident or did I actually know or have strong suspicions all along’....but Jason shuts that down. “Nope. Not giving you this one. Try it with someone else.”

However, that still left one last card in play, long after everyone - even Dick and Jason themselves - had all but forgotten about it.

See, every Batkid knows that the best lies contain elements of truth. And that’s why Dick only peppered in his fake trivia very, very sparingly amidst a massive info-dump of actually accurate and useful info he gave Jason about all that stuff, way back when.

So despite the handful of things Dick had told him that Jason eventually discovered to be untrue...the vast majority of it did check out.

Which means even once he did catch on to Dick’s game....that didn’t change his acceptance of the stuff that had turned out to be true or verified by others. But in the end, there was only one little fib that slipped under the radar. Because the scenario it was based on just never happened to come up until long after Jason had returned....and thus Jason never had reason to put much thought into actually questioning whether or not it was true. Not until long after he’d stopped scrutinizing stuff Dick had told him, in search of possible ‘traps.’

And THAT is the story of how Jason - on one of the rare occasions that he joined the Titans and Justice League for an all-hands-on-deck kinda teamup - just happened to be in the right wrong place at the right wrong time to notice Superman suddenly start to look queasy after trying some alien cuisine....

And without a second thought, Jason just instinctively dove for the floor. With this followed by Clark letting out an extremely normal-sounding burp and a sheepish apology.

Everyone else, staring at the infamous Red Hood ducking for cover because Clark had a moment of indigestion: umm. wut

Dick, staring wide-eyed at his brother and trying not to laugh: Oh shit. I totally forgot all about that.

Jason, almost conversationally, while climbing to his feet and stalking ominously towards his big bro: Hey can you believe that after all the shit we’ve been through and all the times we’ve fought over like...actual life and death stuff, THIS is the thing I’m actually gonna kill you for?

Dick, backing away, hands raised placatingly: Hey, c’mon now, Jace, we called a truce about all this ages ago, remember? It was a much younger, dumber me who did all that in the first place, y’know? You’re better than this!

Jason: I’m really not.

Dick: Well then can I just take this opportunity to mention again how sorry I am for any creative embellishments I might have once come up with, in the mistaken belief that I was honoring important traditions of brotherhood, and....

Jason: Hey, where’s Donna? Can anyone see if her nose is twitching?

Donna and the rest of the Titans, blatantly amused and offering no explanation to the very confused Justice League: Oh, bullshit absolutely detected. In the interests of Truth and Justice, you should totally proceed.

Dick, jabbing his finger at his teammates before dashing for the door: Betrayal! J’accuse!

Donna, shrugging: Sorry, Rob. Justice demands impartiality. Our hands are tied.

Jason, running out the door and down the hallway in pursuit of his fleeing brother: Yeah you better run! I’ve waited ten fucking years to get back at you for this shit. Where you going anyway, bro? I thought you wanted to laugh about this someday!

Dick (offscreen): I regret nothing! It was all worth it! You should have seen your face!

Jason (offscreen): You couldn’t even see my face, idiot! I’m wearing my fucking helmet!

Dick (offscreen): Semantics! If something’s funny enough, you can sense what someone’s face probably looks like! If you know, you know!

Jason (offscreen): Oh yeah, go ahead and make up some more shit, Grayson, that’s definitely the right way to go here!

Batman, looking to the Titans and waving his hand at...whatever all that is offscreen: Explain.

Roy: Hey don’t look at us. You’re the one who made them brothers. This is on you.

Batman: What does that even mean.

Lilith: If you know, you know. Dick’s right about that much at least.

The Titans all nod like an actual, self-evident truth was just expressed. Bruce pinches the bridge of his nose, and starts muttering under his breath.

“You need to encourage Dick to seek out and make like-minded friends, Alfred said. It’ll be good for him, he said. Its what he needs and definitely not the point everything starts to go downhill.”

Lilith picks it up loud and clear, because of course she does, and incidentally, the smug, obnoxious know-it-all teenage psychic who started hanging out with Dick when they were teenagers has absolutely nothing to do with Bruce’s profound dislike of telepaths, nooooo, that would be ridiculous and irrational, to bear a grudge against everyone with a particular skillset because one of your son’s childhood friends was a royal pain in the -

Lilith: Oh, that’s adorable. He thinks we’re the reason Dick’s so profoundly weird and inexplicable.

The Titans, in unison: LOL.

Roy: The self-deluding, it is strong in that family.

Bruce is suddenly extra glad he’s wearing a cowl that hides what is definitely not a pout but might be mistaken for one by the uninformed thus its better to just dodge that issue entirely. He crosses his arms and stares down the collection of his eldest son’s friends, whom he has been unfairly plagued by since most of them were pre-pubescent little demons. Literally no one has suffered like he has.

“I don’t like you,” he informs them officiously. Not sulkily. Officiously.

Several of them snort. There’s a couple giggles. An eye roll from Roy. An aborted response hastily turns into Wally coughing into his hand. Blatant dismissal from Victor, his attention clearly on whatever he’s browsing online. Three varying shades of raised eyebrows: unflappable bemusement from the sorceress, patronizing amusement from the psychic, naked incredulity from Donna. Garth gazing off into an empty corner which he has on very good authority is basically the Atlantean version of the middle finger.

“Yeah, no shit,” Roy drawls, apparently on behalf of the whole group.

Ugh, they’re just. The worst. Why couldn’t Clark have had a kid Dick’s age so he never had to go looking elsewhere for socialization? That’s it. Clearly this was all Clark’s fault. He can’t believe he never realized that before.

Dammit Clark.

[creature-from-unknown-orgins]

Zzzzzzz mimimimimi

[seventh-district]

it’s finally getting cold enough that i can bring my cardigan collection back into rotation without feeling like i’m gonna melt into a puddle the second i step outside!!!

[chiropteracupola]

interesting how the internet archive has the eagle of the ninth as a tv series from the seventies and as a radio program from 2010 and as the full text of the book in FRENCH... but not the original book :(

[barghest-land]

i thought i was gonna draw a lot in august when i'm out of the city, and now im there and all i wanna do 24/7 is say "wow ur so cool" to every bug i see and that's it

[trollbreak]

SITS HERE

[altruistic-meme]

i want to get started on the Full Hands List but i am waiting on my apartment people for scheduled maintenance and i don't really want to start until they leave but i also have no idea what time they'll make it to my apartment so we're just playing the waiting game now

[mashmouths]

is it an adhd thing to need to reinvent the concept of a study space so you have any chance of actually studying or just a facet of being alive that no one warned me about