This is perfection

I can’t get into it without outing myself and my job, but damn I wish people could figure out how to break the rules on their own. If you involve me, if you tell me you’re going to violate a contract, I am required to do something. I’m not a cop! I’m not a narc! You could simply not tell me this shit! I am begging you to not tell me! Don’t send me an email to my work address that says “I’m going to violate our contract, how would you suggest I do it?” Well first things first don’t fucking tell me

Like one time I was working at the bar years before weed was legal. The owner hated pot and pot smokers. And this regular was standing in front of the front door smoking his little glass pipe

“Hey man, go around the corner”

“Naw it’s cool”

“It’s really not. (The owner) will ban you if he sees you doing this in front of his bar like an idiot”

“He won’t see me”

“Yeah but I see you. And I’m asking you to go around the corner so you’re not right in front of the fucking bar”

“It’s just weed. Are you scared of weed?”

“Listen you stupid hippie I use drugs that would blow your burnout mind. I don’t give a shit about weed. But do not fucking involve me, do not involve the bar. Just take seven steps to the corner and smoke your heart out”

“Naw man it’s cool”

Then the owner came outside and blew his fucking stack and the guy was barred for life. And then the owner got mad at me for not running to him and telling him hippie Dave was burning it down in front of the bar. I’m just begging you to not involve me in your poorly thought-out crimes in a way that will get us both in serious trouble. I am begging you

Bringing this back in a general way to remind people who might be considering breaking rules that maybe not telling strangers you are about to break some rules might be wise. Because you do not know where that information is going to end up

When I still had an active security clearance, I had to beg people to please not tell me when they did illegal shit. Do not make me, with my unreasonably good memory, have to choose between you and my livelihood if someone asks me about crimes. Do Not put me in that position when I am telling you I am subject to polygraphs and I'm supposed to be a mandatory reporter. Don't do that to me. Don't do that to anyone who hasn't volunteered to be part of your crimes. Not everyone is going to agree with your principled stand, and even if we do some of us are all that stands between our loved ones and homelessness.

When I was in a class taught by a DEA agent, she would stress to us over and over how we should NOT admit to doing any of the drugs talked about in class. She was a DEA agent and therefore, a mandatory reporter. She became a DEA agent, not out of a huge sense of morality or need to "keep the streets clean" but because she was a psychology researcher first and foremost and wanted to study the effects that drugs had on human behavior. To do that, to be able to access heroine or meth or cocaine to feed to rats and run experiments legally, she had to become a DEA agent.

She would stress, heavily, almost once a month, never to implicate an identifiable individual in a "neat story" because all this woman wanted to do was cool experiments on her darling lab rats, not organize a sting operation on her dumbass students and then fill out piles of paperwork that kept her from her research. That said, she would tell us that we could and should share stories of our "friends".

"My friend had sex rolling on molly and said it ruined sex for them. Is that true?" a student might ask.

And because they had been vague she could look that student in the eye and reply, "I don't want to tell you yes.... But I will tell you that your friend isn't a liar".

Don't be stupid. Don't implicate yourself in illegal things to people who MUST report you for their livelihood. If you must, share your thoughts or plans or illegal doings using "your friend" as a placeholder. Give the person you're talking to plausible deniability about your involvement if you can keep it to yourself for godsake. And if you can't, if you have to fucking share, don't then dunk on the person you put in the shitiest position of reporting you.

Starfire can learn any language via kissing someone. This is great news as the glowing specter teenager in the Titans Tower is speaking in a language no one can understands (ghost speak). Bad news: The team does their best to explain to the ghost this so they can communicate with him easier and Danny is VERY confused.

After seeing the boy shoot what look like star bolts and green beams from his eyes, Starfire is convinced he is a lost Tameranian.

Thankfully, he doesn't seem to be hostile once he finishes with a strange piece of technology that sucked in a glowing creature while speaking a language Starfire had never heard before. Starfire flies over to him, excited at the prospect of meeting another from her planet, but as she approaches, he backs off, eyeing her wearily in the air. She tries speaking in her native tongue, but his weariness transforms into confusion.

She understands the problem immediately. He must be from one of the distant regions of Tameran. "Kiss. Kiss. For language, you must kiss." Starfire points at her lips, tapping them.

There was no comprehension on his face, but he moved closer, clearly curious at what she was trying to say. He must have been from the truly isolated tribes to not know such a basic skill. Even if he didn't do it right, it would allow her to speak his language.

Deciding a demonstration would work best, she takes his hand and leads him back to the top of Titans where the rest of the Titans are waiting.

Hearing Starfire speaking in Tamerainian, they keep silent and wait. This is when Starfire pulls Robin forward, kisses him the way she had when she first arrived on earth to learn his language. She points for the floating boy to do the same.

The boy is taken aback even backing up a little in shock, but Starfire repeats everything while gesturing more emphatically with each repetition.

Until the boy approaches Robin and Starfire, clearly absolutely lost and bewildered with the situation, but willing to go along with it. Before anybody can react, he grabs Robin by his shirt and kisses him. Everyone is momentarily stunned by the action.

Pulling back, he asks in perfect English, "So... why did I need to do that?"

Starfire clapped her hands, "It worked!"

"Why is it always him?" Beastboy crosses his arms, "Why can’t I be the one to get a little smooch action from a cute alien? Save some for the rest of us Boy Wonder." He grumbled.

Robin cleared his throat, "It was for Starfire to learn your language." He coughed. "But I guess you learning English works, too."

"Huh? Why didn't you just ask? My English is fine despite what my grades say. I just didn't have a clue what she was saying.” The mysterious boy pointed at Starfire. “I still don’t get what the ‘kissing’ was about."

Raven facepalms without a word. Honestly, she should have expected that.

"You are a Tameranian, are you not?"

"What's a Tameranian?"

Huge shit-eating grins spread across Beastboy's and Cyborg's faces. They look at each other and nod in sync. Arm in arm they start singing. "Boy Wonder and Wonder Boy, sittin' in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G~"

Starfire clasps both of her hands over her mouth with a gasp. "I give you many sorrows, dear Robin. I believed him a Tameranian and intended to be the participant of the language transfer."

"No. It's okay." Robin tries to salvage what was left of his dignity, but it was somewhat undermined by the red spreading on his cheaks and the laughter behind him. Turning to the newly dubbed Wonder Boy, he inclined his head. "I'm sorry for the confusion. We should have checked before subjecting you to such embarrassment."

A wide grin spreads across Wonder Boy's face, "I wouldn't call that kiss an embarrassment, but it definitely needs work. Try using more tongue next time."

Cyborg and Beastboy collapse to the floor in howls of laughter at Robin's expense. It was rare for them to find anything to tease Mr. Perfect with. Now, they had the best ammunition of a lifetime.

The Wonder Boy, who they learned was named Danny, turned out to be a pretty cool dude. He had a truly insane number of powers, but he never joined in their battles. He mostly came by to hang out occasionally.

But his impact was always felt even when he wasn't around. Every time any of the titans spotted something flying, be it hero, villain, meta, alien, flock of birds, chunk of miscellaneous debris, one of them had to ask Robin if he planned on kissing this one, too.

Raven was the only one to spare him from this torture. That was until two months after the incident.

They all lay in the debris field of one of their most difficult battles yet. It had been an incomprehensible mass of tendrils and colors their brains couldn’t understand from beyond reality that drifted across the city. They were all too exhausted to do much more than breathe and stare up at the reddening sky as the sun set.

The silence was eventually broken by Raven, "You should have tried using tongue."

"Not you too!" Robin buried his face in his hands, letting out a sobbing groan. 'They have to get tired of this eventually.' He told himself. It was his only comfort and salvation.

They never get tired of it.

(the above is based on mine and a few other people's comments on the original post. I just fleshed it out a little :)

I absolutely LOVE LOVE LOVE presumed alien Danny, and i really neeeeeed a fic of this concept, except when Danny kisses Robin and speaks English, he doesn't let them know he already knew it. Maybe he's running from GIW/DrsFenton, maybe he's been accidentally punted through a portal into another dimension, maybe CW sent him to this dimension to hide or rest. And when they explain the language transfer he just goes 'why not?' and goes along with it.

Does he pretend to be from an isolated Tamerian tribe? Does he pretend to be some other species of alien? Does he hand-wave an explanation of being some kind of interdimensional alien and use the Infinite Realms as his home realm/planet?

At this point, he thinks this is the perfect opportunity! He can basically hide in plain sight, the Titans or the Bats could set him up a completely new "human" identity. He could join the Titans and keep his protection and space obsessions well fed. Friends his age that understand the hero/superpowers stuff, supportive adults to ask advice from, a reliable place to sleep/eat, Raven could teach him the more supernatural aspects, etc. Bonus points if this is after vivisection/experimentation and Starfire (who has been there before) goes apeshit on the GIW/DrsFenton, and the Titans and the Bats/JL get rid of them and the Anti-Ecto Acts.

(I LOVE alien or presumed alien danny, if anyone has recs, let me know? Ive only found like... 6 fics on Ao3 and i need mooooore.)

the rapid disintegration of rainbow capitalism pretty much encapsulates the problem with rainbow capitalism in the first place: it is and always was performative fair-weather allyship that evaporated in the face of any real political pressure

Problem? It was never a problem, unless you had unrealistic expectations for what it meant. It was a symptom, and a good one. — Be strategic and think about this deeper for a minute.

It was absolutely performative fair-weather allyship. But it was a bellwether that the pink dollar was worth taking over any hypothetical backlash a business might face for supporting the queers. For some, and at some times in the past, it was a reassurance that they would do business with you even if they knew you were gay, and that was a huge issue if you eg. wanted to buy a house or a car. And it helped make queerness both more visible and more normalised in society, instead of trying to sweep teh gays back into the closet.

You’re not going to get rid of cynical cash grabs so long as capitalism is around, so you might as well be clear-eyed about it and recognise that while rainbow merch is totally unreliable for actual support, it was a sign that the smart money was betting in your favour.

You can always trust a business to find a sort of middle space that's vaguely agreeable to most of its customers and sit there avoiding all controversy in the absolute most craven and soulless way possible.

This means that a business is in fact a very good indicator of what's vaguely agreeable to most of its customers and what counts as controversy.

Don't think of them as allies. They aren't people. They can't be. Think of them as a barometer. If the barometer is up, you've probably got sunny skies. When the barometer starts dropping, prepare for heavy weather moving in.

i like working at plant store. sometimes you ring up someone and there's a slug on their plant and so you're like "Oh haha you've got a friend there let me get that for you" and you put the slug on your hand for safekeeping but then its really busy and you dont have time to take the slug outside before the next customer in line so you just have a slug chilling on your hand for 15 minutes. really makes you feel at peace with nature. also it means sometimes i get to say my favorite line which is "would you like this free slug with your purchase"

@holyknuckled you get it. lterally what are we here on earth for if not to occasionally impose gastropods upon unsuspecting customers. this story is delightful

@holyknuckled like that?

oh? my god???

yeah, Exactly like that

god forbid 5000 year old girls do anything

holy shit bronze age pro sheep bone gamer girl

this is hilarious but also im gonna cry like this teenage gamer died and they buried her with her high score. no one took back the pot or divided it up because no one would play against her again. her family and friends buried her with her wins. im crying

PILOT ANIMATIC'S OUT NOW!!!!!!!!

Aika's fine guys dw

So JKR is anti asexual now to

Anti-asexual discourse has always been a canary in the mine when it comes to anti-LGBTQ stances. First it's trans people, than ace people, then gender non-conforming people, then bi people... it will just keep going until it's every queer person.

I looked up the tweet to confirm it was real (because even now it was shocking), and she doubles down (as she always does) in follow up tweets.

It’s always felt like the way TERFs hate Asexuals is related to the fact that we kinda fuck with their narrative by existing.

They can’t spread transphobia on the back of gender essentialism that says people with penises are animals with no impulse control, if simultaneously it’s generally understood that some people (which includes some people with penises) just don’t have that sexual impulse.

If asexuality is real then a lot of Radfem rhetoric starts falling apart.

True. I mean this is an outgrowth of the fact that, if reality is real, a lot of radfem rhetoric starts to fall apart, but the specificity is important.

My mom got phished in an EXTREMELY refined scam that pretty much anyone could fall for-- basically her account was already pre-hacked and they spoofed the bank's number exactly, called her pretending there was fraud, and read back legitimate and fake transactions and personal info so she wouldn't suspect they weren't the bank. Then discouraged her from logging in claiming the account was locked so they could investigate the fraud-- all so she wouldnt catch them making massive purchases using her stolen info.

We have the same boss and when she told him what happened he recommended she call the bank directly, so she did and they managed to catch it in time before $20k of transactions went through. Very scary

I guess the lesson here is never ever answer your phone, I love that fraud is so rampant an entire form of mass communication is now useless

ANYONE can fall for phishing scams- my mom is extremely smart and we discuss common scams that target her age demographic and she still fell for this. If it happened to me I may have fallen for it too. Always be careful!

that's EXACTLY what happened to me last spring. it's dire out there....

that’s EXACTLY what

happened to me last spring.

it’s dire out there….

Beep boop! I look for accidental haiku posts. Sometimes I mess up.

If you EVER get ANY call from ANYONE claiming to be a bank or other important group asking you for anything, tell them you will call them back and call them yourself. Do not call a number they give you, look it up yourself.

Banks don't call people, IME. They send emails and texts and put notices on your online account. Credit cards sometimes do I believe, but in that case, just call the number on your card back.

Never take a call from anyone and assume they are who they say. Period. These people are skilled at social manipulation. They will always tell you there is a crisis.

And don't just google the number, use your bank's official site! A lot of search engines are now providing phone numbers of scams instead of legit ones. Also make sure the url of the site matches the one available on cards and other papers you've been given by your bank because fake sites can look VERY convincing.

FYI: the U.S. government will not call you. Is someone calls and says they're the IRS? They're lying. They say they're the sheriff? Lying. ICE? Lying.

The United States will mail you information. If the government needs to reach you, check your mailbox.

The IRS are generally pretty forgiving and will accept that humans make errors. They will never demand immediate payment for back taxes, ever. They know that's not feasible for most people, so they'll usually make a payment plan and help you out. (This is, of course, assuming you're an individual who fucked up their taxes, not someone running a massive tax fraud scheme.)

There’s also a scam going around right now for folks in the USA who use toll roads. NONE of the texts are real, the EZPass website has a huge banner on the site saying they’re all scams.

You think THATS a denim jacket?

Surely you

That punchline hit me like a sack of wet mice

Like a sack of what

I wish we could teach each other how to love the way we can teach animals that aren’t supposed to be able to feel it.

@kaijutegu is this cute? I know you deal with tegus and not iguanas, but I didn't know who else to ask

This is precious.

So, first thing you need to know is that is a very visibly healthy adult green iguana. Every part of the iguana is sharp. The claws evolved to haul a ten pound lizard up a tree. The spines are like tiny icepicks. The tail is a bullwhip. The teeth evolved to shred leaves, but they'll just as easily shred your flesh. Good luck making a healthy adult iguana do anything they don't wanna. That puts us on our first thing to look at- is the animal capable of defense and getting away, physically? Yes, definitely.

Next thing to know is what does a threatened or scared iguana look like? When an iguana is threatened, it doesn't stand on its hind legs like that; it stands on all fours and puffs itself up to look bigger, aggressively bobs its head (note: head bobbing is a behavior used for a LOT of things, it does need context- for example, they also head bob as part of mating displays), there is hissing, there is tail whipping- iguanas are not subtle creatures. None of this is the behavior of an iguana that feels threatened or is being a threat!

So what does standing like that mean? That's just simple reaching. The iguana sees something they want and is attempting to reach it, and what they want appears to be uppies, because they settle into the human's grip immediately.

Then, we see some GREAT handling from the human. There's really great communication happening between the two of them! The person picks up the iguana very securely- pelvis and pectoral girdles are well supported, and he doesn't grab. (Iguanas typically do NOT like being grabbed around the sides; many of their predators are birds and coming at them from above or gripping the sides is scary!)

As he goes in for the pet, he lets the iguana support their back half on his knee. The hold is secure but not tight; at any point, if the iggy was distressed, they could leave. But they don't- instead, you see them leaning into the pets, actively participating in the behavior. They're not even closing their eyes to block stimulus. They want this to happen.

This is the kind of bond that's possible when you can prove to a big lizard that you're trustworthy, and easily the best iguana video I've seen in a long time. Thank you for tagging me in!

Some green iguana body language resources under the jump!

egg magical girl where she's like "man, i wish i could be a girl all the time, this is so fun! sucks im a guy the rest of the time when im not in uniform."

her name is like. sparkle sparkle sunshine and she's so insanely miserable in her day to day life. her teammates, sparkle sparkle moonlight, sparkle sparkle loveheart and sparkle sparkle stardust don't know she's a "guy" and she's mortified of them finding out. so while the three of them hang out outside of uniform, she isolates herself.

her whole thing is fighting darkness with the Truth and her "sparkle friend" is a little sun shaped lion thing named beam who's incapable of telling lies, which puts a lot of pressure on her. she keeps telling herself and beam that she'll tell her teammates eventually, but... not right now.

sparkle sparkle transgenderism

the hatching starts when beam offhand mentions she's a girl and she's like "but you can't lie??"

YOU GET EXACTLY WHAT I WAS GOING FOR THERE

matt just fired half the remaining tumblr support staff lmao

from my sources adjacent to tumblr--from which i can spread rumors and insider information freely because i dont give a fuck about ever working in the tech sector--im hearing this round of firings was focused on purging the senior staff, and not just from support but from the entire remaining tumblr workforce. i'm hearing there are about 25 people left.

This is important, people. Please don't scroll past this one.

While I don't think that Tumblr is about to shut down anytime soon, as a fandom old who lost my community and my people when the fandom diaspora happened from LiveJournal, I want to urge that you do something NOW:

I mean this with all my heart. Get this done now. Get set up and find your people now. Tumblr is the home of fandom now, just as LiveJournal was the home of fandom way back. And you could end up losing your fandom home just as easily and quickly as us old LJ people did way back then.

It's a horrible feeling, and most old LJ users still mourn the loss of it to this day.

The rest of this gets a bit long, so it needs to go behind a cut, but please take a moment out of your scrolling to read it.

Mine: Bluesky --- Dreamwidth --- Medium --- AO3

I truly hope the worst doesn't happen, but in case it does, feel free to tell me wherever I can find you in the after of it all.

I AM SO TIRED OF MIGRATING SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS WHY IS THE INTERNET ENDLESSLY LIKE THIS

I am earlgreytea68 on Dreamwidth and Bluesky (and I assume you know my AO3).

I would really prefer not to leave this place, though, it's the only original home I have left lol, both Dreamwidth and Bluesky are themselves the backup homes from the fallen social media platforms where they originated.

To be clear: I'm not leaving until they, like, turn the servers off on us. I also don't think we're there yet. I like the people and the vibe around here too much to want to leave. It just felt wise to put out my calling card and ask for others' in return. But please, please, please, and said in my best David Tennant voice: I don't want to go.

look at this wonderful gif of scallops getting scared and scattering like a flock pigeons

whatever. go my scallops