#why do I have to keep TRYING

[sisterdragonwithfeathers]

HOW am i meant to find photo reference for my stupid underfed old sweatshirt too-short jeans currently living his sad backstory 17-year old looser boy? What are the search terms for this?

[arsenicflame]

hit by the 'what is even the point of life anyway' bug again lol

[inkskinned]

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.

[bet-on-me-13]

Danny commits to the Bit a bit too hard...

So! For the first few weeks after his accident, whenever Danny would try to help the people of Amity Park, he would be treated as a Villain.

No matter if he had just defeated the Big Bad of the Week or saved a Cat from a tree, everybody in town only saw him as a Monster or Villain to he feared and hunted down. Danny was really getting sick of trying to get them on his side, until Sam made a suggestion.

"Why not just...play into it?" She said, barely looking up from painting her nails.

It was just an offhand suggestion, but it stuck with Danny. Why shouldn't he lean into it? The people of Amity Park already saw Ghosts as Evil, and they already assumed he was in cahoots with the Ghosts attacking the town. Why shouldn't he just...play into it?

So he does just that.

From that day on, whenever Phantom was spotted he would dramatically monologue about his Evil Plans, or claim that another Rogues attack on the City was his own act of terror.

Box Ghost destroys the towns Warehouses? It was on his orders.

Ember mind controls masses of Teenagers? All part of his Plans somehow.

Every Adult in Town is kidnapped by Young Blood? Danny gave them over to a friend as a Gift.

He crafts an identity for himself as the most Vile and Horrible Ghost that has ever attacked the City, using his own infamy to cement his legend even more firmly. The town only sees a Monsterous Villain, who has eveded capture near effortlessly for months on end, who constantly attacks their City and gets away with it.

Of course he still needs an excuse for how his plans keep getting stopped, and he gets it when his girlfriend Valerie becomes the Red Huntress. Before that, he just claimed infighting or the Fentons getting lucky, but Valerie becoming the Town's Hero meant he had a plausible excuse for how he kept getting "Foiled".

Val was suspicious, because she was not as involved as Phantom painted her to be, but in the end she had no proof of him faking his defeats. And she couldn't come up with any explanations for why he would do that in the first place. I mean, who would fake being a Supervillain? It had to he something else.

This did come back to bite him a while later, when the Justice League decided that enough was enough, and dispatched Justice League Dark to recruit Red Huntress and help Deal with him.

Coincidentally, that was the same day Pariah Dark attacked the Mortal Realm and sucked Amity Park into the Ghost Zone.

And honestly? Danny had spent over a Year proclaiming himself as a Villain who commanded Ghosts to attack the Human Realm, and he had heard about the Right of Conquest being Absolute in the Ghost Zone, so why not make it official? Why not overthrow the Ghost King, become the Ghost King, and cement his identity as a Villain while also forbidding Ghosts from entering the Human Realm without his permission?

He may have gotten a bit carried away and forgotten that the Villain thing was a disguise...but hey! He was still preventing Ghost Attacks! ...mostly. That's got to count for something right?

He may have let the Bit run a bit too far...

...

Check the tags for more context!

[koipepo]

That omake of little Kabru not being able to show off his howetown sweets because of Misril gets to me a lot so...

Here's a happier Kabru (and Lairu)

[lostlegendaerie]

there's something deeply gutting about being a writer right now. watching studio execs brag about starving people like you out of your very house just to not pay you anything above the pennies you currently make. watching some people cheer over AO3 being targeted for a DDOS attack. the complete lack of profitability of writing commissions or writing in general in transformative spaces, especially in contrast to fanart. the pivot of so many social media platforms to be video and image based near-exclusively.

I don't know. it just makes me sad to know that the hobby that kept me alive while growing up homeschooled with dial-up internet and local antenna TV... is only ever gonna be a side job with minimal engagement. I know this site is good about supporting libraries and the concept of books but, do me a favor? Reach out to a writer friend you know. Leave a comment on your last five read stories on your favorite website.

Tell us you care.

[cluedoenthusiast]

The little alien in Al's body fighting to escape + I spilt me beer on the radio (it looks like a little island) [X]

[turtleblogatlast]

Love the thought of Leo just casually being well traveled to absurd degrees. Like one day they’re facing their new Big Bad of the year and like, Draxum or whoever says that the key to their fight is located somewhere in, like, Latvia or some place, but no one knows where to start.

Then Leo’s like “oh I know a place” and when asked how the heck he could know of one it smash cuts to Leo falling through the ceiling of said place due to a portal mishap.

Also love the idea of Leo, being as accidentally (and then later, purposefully) well traveled as he is, sometimes taking his family on outings to different places all over, maybe to some new Yokai spots he found along the way.

In these places, Leo 100% lets his bros get scammed by tourist traps.

[zarla-s]

I did Karaoke for my birthday a bit back and had a lot of fun, so I got to thinking about what songs these two might do, and of course they'd do Pokemon songs! I immediately thought of OK! 2000 for Kabu since the singer screams at the top of her lungs right at the beginning, haha. Larry's voice is softer in Japanese than I expected, so I thought of something a bit quieter for him - Soko ni Sora ga Arukara. It turned out the lyrics for that kind of fit!

When you become tired from trying so hard, Look to the sky as you shed your tears. The wind brushes your cheeks, I'm sure it'll say: "It's okay if you fall. You are you and that makes you wonderful!" Those that haven't been hurt cannot see the blue sky. On a journey you hesitate to walk on, your life will shine.

The OK! lyrics are simpler.

OK! Let's move on OK! If we're together, we'll be all right OK! Even if the winds change OK! Our dream won't!

Since the lyrics were in Japanese I figured I should write them out for real instead of Romanizing them, which made me realize just how long it's been since I've written in Japanese, haha. I bet my handwriting is terrible...

[patreon]

[snekdood]

"if we make america worse and more of a dictatorship that will be even harder to unravel and make it the way we want the country to be, maybe then everyone will join our Glorious Revolution!" bb girl you cant even be in the same room with someone who thinks you should vote, how in tf do you think you're gonna unite people to fight in The Revolution with you? it's gonna be you and your 5 friends, i hate to break it to you.

[s-sextape]

i am writing an accidental haiku to attract haiku bot

[nonpoppie]

played the space train anime game . guess who i fixated on

[werewolf-transgenderism]

saying again that if a mobility aid or piece of assistive tech or whatever will improve your quality of life and make it easier to get through your day just fucking use them!! you don’t need a diagnosis to use something that will make your day-to-day life easier. a diagnosis will maybe give you some more specialized ideas for what assistive devices or mobility aids might be useful but you do not have to wait until you have one to start using things that reduce symptoms or make life easier to manage.

[astralzeraphias]

“You would place Cybertron at the center of the universe.”

“Cybertron is the center of my universe. How is it not at the heart of yours?”

[emdotcom]

Yeah, so while I was on my "I'm going to read into Vanny/Vanessa as much as possible" journey, I noticed an odd quirk in her animations in how she moves. At first, I thought it reminded me of a ballerina, 'cause she's kinda tip-toeing, & she has this way of keeping her head & chest in one place as she moves, but I looked again & realized --

That's not ballet! She's doing a tight-rope act. Like, look at this one:

This is like standing up on the wooden boards before you do the actual tight-rope walking, & the ring leader is hyping you up as you do some fun movement for the crowds. &, then, these:

These are all instances where she walks with one foot directly in front of the other. In that third, she's doing the "woaaah" wiggly-ass balance movements & everything, as if she's swaying up at the top of the tent, even though she's down on solid ground.

Idk, I feel like the way her feet are placed isn't accurate (pretty sure they should be pointed left & right, not both forwards...) doesn't make this 100% correct, but I like it. It also connects back with her first SB teaser, wherein she's up in the rafters.

[thatonechocogirl]

bers sleeping :)