Dear artists...

No, I’m not going to link back to your page. I edited out your ugly signature too. I paid for the art. It is mine.

Don’t worry, this does not mean I take credit for drawing it. When people ask if I drew it, I say “Nope.” When people ask who did, I say, “Sorry, I don’t remember.”

Just because I bought your art does not mean our profiles have to be linked forever. It’s the same if I buy an apple from the grocer. I don’t have to keep the sticker on it or tell people where it came from. I’m not a walking advertisement for your shop.

If you want credit so badly, then I should get a cut of your future profits for my part in the advertising.

I know I’m probably going to get the wrath of whiny, entitled artists for this, but I don’t care. I won’t be making a shrine around their art dedicated to them. I paid for a service, and now we should go our our separate ways!

alright so there’s a lot of fucked up parts in this post but?? right off the bat?? “I edited out your ugly signature too”??? I’m sorry but that’s really stupid?

if you bought a physical, painted-on-canvas drawing, would you still go through the trouble of trying to edit out the signature there too? Because literally the only difference between that scenario and this one is that the canvas can be physically held and displayed, where the digital painting stays in a digital venue.

Do not be a dick to artists. Fucking don’t edit out their signatures, credit them where they are due. Don’t be like the asshole OP. If you commission an artist, respect them enough to credit them.

Dear people who think like OP;

Please do not ever fucking commission me. My signature is an A, but I don’t care if an artist’s signature is a giant fucking watermark half as big as the piece. If you cut out their signature, you cut out their effort. Do you have to make a little URL tag that links back to my page or DA or tumblr or whatever? No. Would it be nice? Yeah. Is it a good habit to do anyway? Yeah.

But unless you’re paying me USD and we’ve made it part of the agreement that my signature will NOT be on the art- leave the fucking signature on the art. You purchased art that has the signature. Once you alter it, you’re violating our purchase agreement. The artist produced that art for your agreed upon purchase price with the understanding that what they were sending- signature fucking included- would remain on the piece.

If they knew that you were going to use their art independently without any sort of remaining credit like that, then the price very well may have been different or they might not have agreed to do the art at all.

Damn, OP Edgy McEdgerson is really proud of being a dickhead. No one’s saying you’re linked forever, and no, “I didn’t draw it and don’t remember who did” doesn’t absolve you, you chucklefuck.

SIGNAL BOOOST

…Although, as an artist, I have seen some completely horrible signatures on tumblr posts. Sometimes they’re so obnoxious that I hide the comments on a post and tag with something like “Artist’s comment/source in the original post.” Not because I hate artists, but because I acknowledge that artists aren’t always the best when it comes to brevity. 

When I show my stuff here on Tumblr, I keep whatever DA link came with the automatic sharing of the post. I include a comment about the work if I feel it needs actual context, but otherwise I just have the link to the original post on DA and to my profile on DA. That’s it. I don’t link Facebook, Twitter, Etsy, Flickr, Instagram, and whatever other god forsaken social media people can easily find me on. 

My advice to artists? If you want people to know your social media connections and other display sites for your art, keep a list of links available on your Tumblr and other websites. If the idea of someone removing all your links from your comment really bothers you so much, maybe you should do your fans a favor and keep the spam in your comment to a minimum. Have a contact list on your sites and keep it at that. And if you still want those links in your comment on your work, just link to “contact” and link that list of sites. 

At the risk of stretching your dash. Let me tell a small story. the story is:

IF YOU COMMISSION AN ARTIST.

IF YOU COMMISSION AN ARTIST.

IF YOU COMMISSION AN ARTIST. 

CHANCES ARE THEY ARE GOING TO WORK VERY HARD ON YOUR PIECE  

THEY MIGHT EVEN BE ANXIOUS BECAUSE THEY MIGHT TAKE A LITTLE LONGER THAN EXPECTED 

SOMETIMES THEY LOSE STEAM HALF WAY BECAUSE LIFE THROWS OBSTACLES IN THE WAY. 

IF YOU COMMISSION AN ARTIST, THEY WILL HAVE SPENT TIME AND EFFORT ON YOUR PIECE. THEY MIGHT HAVE GONE THOUGH SOME TURMOIL IN THE PROCESS OF MAKING IT. BUT IN THE END YOU WILL HAVE WHAT YOU PAID FOR. 

IF YOU COMMISSION AN ARTIST AND YOU ARE HAPPY WITH THEIR WORK AND WHAT THEY PROVIDED, THE ARTIST WILL BE VERY HAPPY AND PROUD. THEY WORKED VERY HARD ON IT! THEY PROBABLY WON’T MIND IF YOU SHOW IT TO OTHER PEOPLE, IT WOULD HELP THE ARTIST A LOT! (BUT IT’S OKAY IF YOU DECIDE TO KEEP IT TO YOURSELF TOO….)

BUT IF YOU COMMISSION AN ARTIST… 

AND YOU SEE THE ONE SECTION THAT TIES SAID ARTIST TO THE PRODUCT THEY WORKED SO HARD ON….. 

….AND DECIDE TO TAKE IT OFF 

YOU HURT THE ARTIST EMOTIONALLY…..

IF YOU COMMISSION AN ARTIST AND EDIT THEIR NAME OFF THE PIECE….

YOU ARE SAYING “FUCK YOU ARTIST, I COULD HONESTLY CARE LESS ABOUT HOW MUCH TIME AND EFFORT YOU PUT INTO THIS. I PAID FOR IT SO OBVIOUSLY I DESERVE TO TAKE THE CREDIT FOR SOMETHING I HAD NO HAND IN BESIDES PAYING FOR IT TO BE CREATED.”

IF YOU COMMISSION AN ARTIST, DELETE THEIR SIGNATURE, AND SHOW IT OFF, YOUR FRIENDS WILL ENJOY IT AND SHOW IT TO OTHER FRIENDS. THOSE FRIENDS MIGHT WANT TO BUY SOMETHING SIMILAR! BUT THE ARTIST ISN’T GETTING CREDIT FOR IT BECAUSE YOU ESSENTIALLY TOOK THEIR WORK AND CLAIMED THE WORK, EFFORT, AND SKILL FOR YOURSELF, ALL BECAUSE YOU PAID FOR IT. (SOUNDS CRAPPY RIGHT?)

IF YOU COMMISSION AN ARTIST

CHANCES ARE PEOPLE DON’T KNOW WHO THEY ARE. CHANCES ARE THEY TOOK THE COMMISSION TO PAY SOME BILLS AND REALLY NEEDED THE MONEY.

IF YOU COMMISSION AN ARTIST AND DELETE THEIR SIGNATURE….

chances are you are not the first one to do that.

THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT

THIS IS ALL SO IMPORTANT

Important!!!!

Everyone that appreciated art should be aware of this

Whoever sins enough to do this: fuck you

@ellelehman

I have nothing more to really add considering my fellow artists and patrons said everything I wanted to say.

One thing, though: that if you’ve ever done this or plan on doing this to me or anyone else, please block me and never commission me.

You’re not the type of people we want to work with anyway.

Support the artist 👩‍🎨

Your a cunt if you do this

Always credit the artist

Please do not commission me if you act that way. Thank you.

We work very hard on the pieces you paid us to do and I can full on honestly say that this does in fact hurt if you do that. My signature is very small and hardly noticeable so it’s not really an eyesore to begin with.

if youre still offended by this, allow me to tell ya that this post is a joke, the name of the profile is literally “dramarising”  this guy is absolute madman and he punked all of u guys

all in good fun

just wanted to share the National Down Syndrome Society’s message for this year’s World Down Syndrome Day (21st March) 💛💙

Powerful message that lovingly includes multiple disabilities, united. I love this.

hey so maybe switching to threads, infamously managed by one of the worst data scraping companies of all time, isnt the play guys

heres just PART of what they're trying to track when you download the app:

to list what they attempt to track:

please for the love of God, dont download threads.

addendum: threads is so bad that it's literally banned in All Of Europe because it violates the GDPR, aka General Data Protection Regulation.

every piece of ""autistic representation"" in hollywood sucks not just because of the infantalization and inspiration porn but because movie executives always fail to realize the real universal autistic experience: spending your childhood slowly and unfalteringly realizing all of your friends not so secretly hated and/or merely tolerated you at best and you've missed every social signal about it ever

there is nothing quite as damaging as realizing you were the only one not invited to a classmate's birthday party. the only one left out of yearbook photos. the only one not told about an in-joke or groupchat or anything of the sort. once you experience it even once it fucks with your head for the rest of your days

the variation on this is being treated like you're everyone's weird and vaguely amusing autistic pet rather than a human person with independent agency and autonomy, which. is equally psychologically damaging but like in a different genre of way

everyone leaving personal anecdotes on this post is making me so sad. do you guys need, like, a hug? therapy? warm milk and cookies and a big stuffed animal, maybe??

My eighth grade homeroom teacher once did something that permanently altered how I saw not just her, but all women whose personality was 'I'm well-meaning and nurturing and love kids uwu'. She knew an autistic boy in our class fixated on spoken word poetry and poetry jams and loved writing. She knew damn well everyone thought he was a loser. She found his attempts at sincerely conveying his emotions via poetry incredibly funny. He thought she supported his poetry writing and his aspirations of being a poet.

She had him perform in front of the entire homeroom, who burst into laughter and cackled at him like he was a comedian and not someone performing a piece about his ongoing struggles with depression. I sat there, too stunned to even process what was happening, as he performed at the request of a neurotypical adult he trusted and that adult as well as 19 of his peers laughed their asses off at him. Myself and 3 others at least didn't laugh, but I don't think that lessened the damage any.

Because, to be clear, it did hit him that people were laughing at him. Not 'laughing with him', as the teacher claimed later, no, people were laughing at the funny loser talking about serious things and trying to project his voice and do inflections and lmao lol what a loser what a freak lololol. He tried to tell himself the teacher didn't know that would happen. When I confronted her after class about that being messed up and bullying, however, she had said - with him in earshot - that it was funny and I needed to lighten up.

He spent the rest of the semester visibly depressed, withdrawn, not talking to anyone, angrily asserting that poetry was stupid, which expanded to literature being stupid. Our English Literature teacher was also our homeroom teacher, and she spent the next three months confused on why he was doing the absolute bare minimum to pass or alternately not doing anything at all. She could not wrap her mind around how having 20 people laugh at him to his face might be related to this. To this day, over a decade later, she will deny that she had any part in his unhappiness. Kids around school who weren't in our homeroom knew about what happened and quoted lines from his poem at him as a funny meme. Kids in the lunchroom would put on reenactments of it for their friends, to cackles and laughs. Bits of it ended up written in pen and pencil on a variety of surfaces.

I saw one line, which people meme'd to death, written on the wall in the bathroom at the local theater. (We were the rare small town with an old theater at all, an ancient family-owned one that inexplicably continues on to this day.) I tried scrubbing it off, but it didn't work. I took long enough trying to get to it that the theater manager came in. He asked me what was going on. The autistic kid's other major interest, I knew, was film. He came to this theater all the time. He was going to see this if it didn't get covered and he was already being heckled on a daily basis. So I told the theater manager about the whole thing. The performance, the mockery, all of it.

"Mrs. Johnson knew he was going to do it? And she didn't stop him?" he asked at one point, to which I replied, "Mrs. Johnson came up with the idea in the first place."

He stared at me, absolutely horrified. "That woman is a monster."

I think about that a lot. Mrs. Johnson was nice, blonde, blue-eyed, thin, white, had a normal marriage to her high school sweetheart, taught Sunday school at her church, allegedly became a teacher because she cared about kids so much, showed genuine empathy for other kids when they were going through something, dressed nicely, and was the ideal small town woman who hadn't left her small town she grew up in but instead accepted a teaching job there even when the pay was low. She was anti-bullying and anti-racism and stood up for me when another kid got mad one of my stories in English class mentioned gay people. I'm sure she thinks of herself as a very good person. She certainly does not fit the model of what most people think of when they imagine a bully.

She also deliberately orchestrated an autistic 13 year old being mocked by a group for her own entertainment and then let the mockery continue unabated without a word of objection for four months.

The theater manager, Ronnie, is not conventionally attractive, he's aroace and therefore single by choice, he's not extroverted, he moved to this small town from out of state - something people here hold against him as if he'd committed a crime as an unspoken 'you will never be one of us', and he is outwardly unexpressive a lot of the time, with a flat affect and lack of expressions.

He outright banned the next kid he caught writing that stupid meme'd line onto the bathroom stall. He drove across town to get paint and painted over the writing I'd been trying to get rid of that very night.

I'm not autistic, but I have ADHD. I have a lot of similar problems. I think, a lot, about Mrs. Johnson wanting my permission to show my writing to people. I'd told her beforehand not to and that if she did, I would be getting my parents involved. I think about how that could have gone down for me, how she said I was a good writer and she just wanted to help me. I think about how many other neurodivergent kids probably felt safe with her and the amount of damage she might've caused over her 43 years of teaching. To this day she denies she ever did anything wrong. It was a joke. Kids these days are so sensitive.

When the autistic kid she'd used like an animal performing a fun trick for her amusement became so depressed that he first stopped going to school, then tried to kill himself, that was the response: "He's too sensitive."

Not "maybe I was wrong", not "and from now on I promise to come down hard on bullying", nothing else. He was too sensitive.

Nothing gets me on guard now like very nice, sweet, loving neurotypical women who assure you that they're anti-bullying and they love kids and they're here to help. Having completely convinced themselves that they're always in the right and always good people, they are capable of astonishing cruelty, whose consequences they will not stop and whose victim they will never see as human. When I corrected her spelling once, she got visibly upset for a moment. When kids quoted lines at this kid to make fun of him, for months, she could not see why this might be upsetting, why having your poetry about your depression turned into a meme by kids you spent 8 hours a day with might hurt in any way.

He was 13. She was in her late 50's. Or, as my mom put it, she was old enough to know better. Many neurotypicals assured me at the time it wasn't bullying, it was just a joke. Ronnie, undiagnosed but likely neurodivergent, inarguably hit upon the actual problem here: "That woman is a monster."

It's just that when the monster looks 'normal', we call the monster's actions something else. Bullying is such an ugly word. Let's reframe it as comedy instead.

You'd think an English Literature teacher would know changing what something is called doesn't change what it is.

Nothing gets me on guard now like very nice, sweet, loving neurotypical women who assure you that they're anti-bullying and they love kids and they're here to help. Having completely convinced themselves that they're always in the right and always good people, they are capable of astonishing cruelty, whose consequences they will not stop and whose victim they will never see as human.

Realized I have a naked rat and a small piano

Here's Harry banging out the tunes, April 13th 2023

one year of tunes. thank you harry

two years of tunes. thank you harry

everyone make sure to set out cheese & crackers for neil tonight <3

this is what upstairs neighbors have

obsessed with the way my robotics team lead talks

she’s reinventing hieroglyphics

She’s the only person who truly understands how emojis were meant to be used.

Y'all should really follow Overly Sarcastic Productions' twitter

And also watch their YouTube content.

Dr. Jekyll is like, the definition of mad scientist. He started with a hypothesis, one which very few would ever come up with and none other would dare to test: that Good and Evil can be mechanically separated in a person. He devised an experiment by which to put his theory to the test. He used himself as the test subject because crazy, and also because it put him in the best position to observe and record the results. And when things started to go wrong, he not only cleaned up after himself but left behind his conclusions on how and why he got the results he did, for future generations.

Yes, the experiment claimed the lives of several people including himself. Yes, his safety protocols were inadequate and his sample sizes were small. But unlike your garden variety mad engineers and unhinged tinkers, he was a goddamn Scientist.

based off this post by @75screamingtoads that made me start watching. as you can see my art gets progressively worse each panel lol

I hate how in character this is

this clip makes me so emotional. i feel like this sometimes, at night especially. That the whole wide world may swallow me whole. That i’m wide-eyed in the face of god. that I’m not a victim of smallness but rather its loving disciple.

A scorpion, not knowing how to swim, asked a frog to carry it across the river. “Do I look like a fool?” said the frog. “You’d sting me if I let you on my back!”

“Be logical,” said the scorpion. “If I stung you I’d certainly drown myself.”

“That’s true,” the frog acknowledged. “Climb aboard, then!” But no sooner than they were halfway across the river, the scorpion stung the frog, and they both began to thrash and drown. “Why on earth did you do that?” the frog said morosely. “Now we’re both going to die.” 

“I can’t help it,” said the scorpion. “It’s my nature.”

___

…But no sooner than they were halfway across the river, the frog felt a subtle motion on its back, and in a panic dived deep beneath the rushing waters, leaving the scorpion to drown.

“It was going to sting me anyway,” muttered the frog, emerging on the other side of the river. “It was inevitable. You all knew it. Everyone knows what those scorpions are like. It was self-defense.”

___

…But no sooner had they cast off from the bank, the frog felt the tip of a stinger pressed lightly against the back of its neck. “What do you think you’re doing?” said the frog.

“Just a precaution,” said the scorpion. “I cannot sting you without drowning. And now, you cannot drown me without being stung. Fair’s fair, isn’t it?”

They swam in silence to the other end of the river, where the scorpion climbed off, leaving the frog fuming.

“After the kindness I showed you!” said the frog. “And you threatened to kill me in return?”

“Kindness?” said the scorpion. “To only invite me on your back after you knew I was defenseless, unable to use my tail without killing myself? My dear frog, I only treated you as I was treated. Your kindness was as poisoned as a scorpion’s sting.”

___

…“Just a precaution,” said the scorpion. “I cannot sting you without drowning. And now, you cannot drown me without being stung. Fair’s fair, isn’t it?”

“You have a point,” the frog acknowledged. “But once we get to dry land, couldn’t you sting me then without repercussion?”

“All I want is to cross the river safely,” said the scorpion. “Once I’m on the other side I would gladly let you be.”

“But I would have to trust you on that,” said the frog. “While you’re pressing a stinger to my neck. By ferrying you to land I’d be be giving up the one deterrent I hold over you.”

“But by the same logic, I can’t possibly withdraw my stinger while we’re still over water,” the scorpion protested.

The frog paused in the middle of the river, treading water. “So, I suppose we’re at an impasse.”

The river rushed around them. The scorpion’s stinger twitched against the frog’s unbroken skin. “I suppose so,” the scorpion said.

___

A scorpion, not knowing how to swim, asked a frog to carry it across the river. “Absolutely not!” said the frog, and dived beneath the waters, and so none of them learned anything.

___

A scorpion, being unable to swim, asked a turtle (as in the original Persian version of the fable) to carry it across the river. The turtle readily agreed, and allowed the scorpion aboard its shell. Halfway across, the scorpion gave in to its nature and stung, but failed to penetrate the turtle’s thick shell. The turtle, swimming placidly, failed to notice.

They reached the other side of the river, and parted ways as friends.

___

…Halfway across, the scorpion gave in to its nature and stung, but failed to penetrate the turtle’s thick shell.

The turtle, hearing the tap of the scorpion’s sting, was offended at the scorpion’s ungratefulness. Thankfully, having been granted the powers to both defend itself and to punish evil, the turtle sank beneath the waters and drowned the scorpion out of principle.

___

A scorpion, not knowing how to swim, asked a frog to carry it across the river. “Do I look like a fool?” sneered the frog. “You’d sting me if I let you on my back.”

The scorpion pleaded earnestly. “Do you think so little of me? Please, I must cross the river. What would I gain from stinging you? I would only end up drowning myself!”

“That’s true,” the frog acknowledged. “Even a scorpion knows to look out for its own skin. Climb aboard, then!”

But as they forged through the rushing waters, the scorpion grew worried. This frog thinks me a ruthless killer, it thought. Would it not be justified in throwing me off now and ridding the world of me? Why else would it agree to this? Every jostle made the scorpion more and more anxious, until the frog surged forward with a particularly large splash, and in panic the scorpion lashed out with its stinger.

“I knew it,” snarled the frog, as they both thrashed and drowned. “A scorpion cannot change its nature.”

___

A scorpion, not knowing how to swim, asked a frog to carry it across the river. The frog agreed, but no sooner than they were halfway across the scorpion stung the frog, and they both began to thrash and drown.

“I’ve only myself to blame,” sighed the frog, as they both sank beneath the waters. “You, you’re a scorpion, I couldn’t have expected anything better. But I knew better, and yet I went against my judgement! And now I’ve doomed us both!”

“You couldn’t help it,” said the scorpion mildly. “It’s your nature.” 

___

…“Why on earth did you do that?” the frog said morosely. “Now we’re both going to die.”

“Alas, I was of two natures,” said the scorpion. “One said to gratefully ride your back across the river, and the other said to sting you where you stood. And so both fought, and neither won.” It smiled wistfully. “Ah, it would be nice to be just one thing, wouldn’t it? Unadulterated in nature. Without the capacity for conflict or regret.”

___

“By the way,” said the frog, as they swam, “I’ve been meaning to ask: What’s on the other side of the river?”

“It’s the journey,” said the scorpion. “Not the destination.”

___

…“What’s on the other side of anything?” said the scorpion. “A new beginning.”

___

…”Another scorpion to mate with,” said the scorpion. “And more prey to kill, and more living bodies to poison, and a forthcoming lineage of cruelties that you will be culpable in.”

___

…”Nothing we will live to see, I fear,” said the scorpion. “Already the currents are growing stronger, and the river seems like it shall swallow us both. We surge forward, and the shoreline recedes. But does that mean our striving was in vain?”

___

“I love you,” said the scorpion.

The frog glanced upward. “Do you?”

“Absolutely. Can you imagine the fear of drowning? Of course not. You’re a frog. Might as well be scared of breathing air. And yet here I am, clinging to your back, as the waters rage around us. Isn’t that love? Isn’t that trust? Isn’t that necessity? I could not kill you without killing myself. Are we not inseparable in this?”

The frog swam on, the both of them silent.

___

“I’m so tired,” murmured the frog eventually. “How much further to the other side? I don’t know how long we’ve been swimming. I’ve been treading water. And it’s getting so very dark.”

“Shh,” the scorpion said. “Don’t be afraid.”

The frog’s legs kicked out weakly. “How long has it been? We’re lost. We’re lost! We’re doomed to be cast about the waters forever. There is no land. There’s nothing on the other side, don’t you see!”

“Shh, shh,” said the scorpion. “My venom is a hallucinogenic. Beneath its surface, the river is endlessly deep, its currents carrying many things.” 

“You - You’ve killed us both,” said the frog, and began to laugh deliriously. “Is this - is this what it’s like to drown?” 

“We’ve killed each other,” said the scorpion soothingly. “My venom in my glands now pulsing through your veins, the waters of your birthing pool suffusing my lungs. We are engulfing each other now, drowning in each other. I am breathless. Do you feel it? Do you feel my sting pierced through your heart?”

“What a foolish thing to do,” murmured the frog. “No logic. No logic to it at all.”

“We couldn’t help it,” whispered the scorpion. “It’s our natures. Why else does anything in the world happen? Because we were made for this from birth, darling, every moment inexplicable and inevitable. What a crazy thing it is to fall in love, and yet - It’s all our fault! We are both blameless. We’re together now, darling. It couldn’t have happened any other way.”

___

“It’s funny,” said the frog. “I can’t say that I trust you, really. Or that I even think very much of you and that nasty little stinger of yours to begin with. But I’m doing this for you regardless. It’s strange, isn’t it? It’s strange. Why would I do this? I want to help you, want to go out of my way to help you. I let you climb right onto my back! Now, whyever would I go and do a foolish thing like that?”

___

A scorpion, not knowing how to swim, asked a frog to carry it across the river. “Do I look like a fool?” said the frog. “You’d sting me if I let you on my back!”

“Be logical,” said the scorpion. “If I stung you I’d certainly drown myself.”  

“That’s true,” the frog acknowledged. “Come aboard, then!” But no sooner had the scorpion mounted the frog’s back than it began to sting, repeatedly, while still safely on the river’s bank.

The frog groaned, thrashing weakly as the venom coursed through its veins, beginning to liquefy its flesh. “Ah,” it muttered. “For some reason I never considered this possibility.”

“Because you were never scared of me,” the scorpion whispered in its ear. “You were never scared of dying. In a past life you wore a shell and sat in judgement. And then you were reborn: soft-skinned, swift, unburdened, as new and vulnerable as a child, moving anew through a world of children. How could anyone ever be cruel, you thought, seeing the precariousness of it all?” The scorpion bowed its head and drank. “How could anyone kill you without killing themselves?”

A scorpion, not knowing how to swim, asked a frog to carry it across the river.

“To be honest,” said the desert rain frog. “I’m the wrong kind of frog for that.”

“Oh,” said the scorpion.

“I was hoping to find someone to carry me across, myself.” It admitted.

“Oh,” The scorpion said. “Well, we can wait together.”

And they sat, and spoke, and when a turtle happened to pass along, they both ventured together, and the scorpion was too busy sharing words to ever think of stinging.

—

“Actually,” said the scorpion, as it climbed onto the frog’s back, “My sting is harmless.”

“Oh really?” Said the frog, as it began to swim.

“Yes,” the scorpion waved the small stinger about. “The poison is useless to anything larger than a beetle. I can’t threaten you with it at all, you see, so you don’t really need to worry about it at all.”

The frog, now freed from the fear of death, began preparing to dive.

“Although,” the scorpion continued as it felt the frog slow down, “do not think me entirely defenceless.”

“Why not?” Said the frog. “All you have is your claws. And they aren’t sharp enough to pierce my skin.”

“No, they are not,” agreed the scorpion, getting a good hold of the frog’s shoulders. “But they are strong. They need to be, to hold my prey so my weak venom has time to work.”

“But they will not kill me.”

“No. But there are other ways to hurt.” The scorpion tightened its grip, letting the teeth of its claws sink into the skin.

“You will drown me, of course, but my claws will remain locked. My drowned corpse will hang over your shoulders, right here, claws buried in you. And everyone who sees you will see it. And they will see my frail little body, and my weak little stinger. And you will drown me, yes, but for the rest of your life everyone will know that you took the life of a creature that was no danger to you for no greater sin than that you did not want to grant them passage. You will never escape the weight of me on your back, waiting to be carried to the afterlife you delivered me to.”

The frog was silent, for a while, before it continued to swim. “I think I would have preferred you with a stinger that worked.”

The scorpion relaxed its grip. “And I would have preferred to not have to use it.”

—

“Do you know how many times we’ve done this?” Asked the frog, eyes flicking back to its passenger. “I can’t remember how long it’s been.”

“A million lives.” Purred the scorpion, claws nestled up to the frog’s neck. “A million lives now, with this one. And it never matters until we’re here.”

“I’m glad it’s us.” Said the frog, letting the tide sweep it away. “I’m glad even after a million lives, we always find each other.”

The scorpion clung tight, even as the water seeped into its carapace. “I’d never die with anyone else, my love.”

Hopelessly entangled, they faded into oblivion.

—

A chicken stood at the edge of a road, watching the cars go by.

“Is this all there is?” It asked.

“I don’t know.” Said the fox across from it, brushing some grass from it’s foot.

“But it might be nice to find out.”

—

-but no sooner had the frog gotten halfway across the river did a great catfish rise up, mouth so wide they could not escape.

“Oh, foolish frog and foolish bug.” It said, voice full of pity as it swallowed them both. “Your eyes glued to the most obvious threat, did you never think there were greater things to fear in a river as deep and wide as this?”

And the catfish swam off, to find more frogs to devour.

—

“Sorry?” The scorpion paused, confused. “Sting you? Why on earth would I do that?

“Well,” said the frog. “It’s in your nature to, isn’t it?”

“No, not at all!” The scorpion said, voice tinged with insult. “We don’t run around stabbing everything we see. That’s a good way to start a fight you can’t win. A stinger is just for catching food and fending off predators, really. It’s no more my nature to sting everything as it is your nature to drown everything. And you don’t do that, do you!”

The frog scowled, petulant at the tone. “Well, the scorpion I usually see here almost always stings me…”

“That seems like you’re projecting problems with one scorpion onto every scorpion you meet.” Said the scorpion. “I’m not really sure I trust you to take me across the river, frankly. Do you know if there’s another frog who could help?”

The frog grumbled, and slipped into the water.

—

The chicken stood on the banks of the river with it’s children. A fox sat on the other bank, with a bag of corn.

“Hoy, chicken.” Shouted the fox. “Do you ever think you might be stuck in a rut?”

“What’s it to you?” The chicken said, flapping a wing in annoyance. “My life is my own business, fox.”

The fox shrugged, pawing at the corn. “I just feel like I can’t get out of this cycle,” it said with a sigh. “Like my life is stuck on rails.”

—

“On rails?” The scorpion asked. “What do you mean?”

“My whole life is just this river-”

—

“This road-”

—

“This boat-”

—

“And it feels like it doesn’t change. It feels like I’m always just here. In the river, with you.”

—

“Is it such a bad place to be?” Asked the fox.

“With me?”

—

“How long do you think the river has been here?” Asked the scorpion.

The frog thought about that until the poison had seeped into its bones.

“As long as us,” it whispered, as its lungs gave out. “As long as we’ve needed it.”

—

“You’re not swimming right.” Said the scorpion, pinching the frog’s arm.

“You need to kick round with the back legs, push with the front, like this-” gently, it pushed the frog’s limbs into the correct position.

“Oh, thank you.” Said the frog. “I’m no good at this. I’ve never been a frog before.”

“You’re doing brilliantly, my dear.” The scorpion said, trying to reassure. “I would have taught you earlier if I could have.”

“And I would have taught you to walk.” The frog laughed, kicking much stronger now. “If only I’d known you didn’t know! I saw you stumbling over the sands there.”

“I’ve never had so many legs!” The scorpion wailed. “How do you manage them all? And the eyes!”

They were not making it across the river very fast.

“I don’t mind only having two eyes.” The frog admitted. “I could get used to it.”

Despite the tutoring, the frog was getting exhausted, weak muscles failing in strong currents.

The scorpion tried to kick at the water, but its frail carapace only dredged in the currents, dragging them both down further.

“Oh, we’re no good at it this way around.” The scorpion said with a shake of its tail, claws clinging so strongly to the frog’s gossamer skin that it ripped open, spilling the entrails like ruby ribbons into the depths.

The frog laughed, choking on the water it didn’t know how to breathe. “I can’t swim, and you won’t sting! Oh, how our natures fail us still!”

And the river claimed them both once more.

—

“Do you remember a time before the riverbank?” Asked the fox.

“Do you remember anything after it?” The Chicken countered, head stuck in the bag of corn as it ate its fill. “Is there anything but the pursuit of what we will never grasp?”

“Maybe we will grasp it,” the fox’s voice was tinged with hope, tail tucked tightly around its legs. “Maybe one day, we will be more than our natures, and we will not have to cross the river again.”

“I like the thrill of it.” Said the chicken. “I’d miss the thrill of it.”

The fox sighed, and lowered its head down to the chicken, already doomed to bite. “But still, wouldn’t it be nice?”

—

But alas, the rains had been heavy, and the river bank had become swollen and wide.

The frog kicked for what felt like an eternity, the scorpion holding steady on its back.

Eventually it could swim no longer, and its legs seized up, as it gasped for air.

“I’m sorry, my love-” the frog wheezed. “I don’t think I can make it-”

“It’s okay.” The scorpion’s voice was soft with sadness, knowing now that it was doomed to die. “I didn’t know it would be so hard. I’m sorry I did this to you. I’m sorry I couldn’t help.”

“It’s not your fault,” said the frog, as the currents began to sweep them both downstream. “I wanted to help, I- I really thought I could get you there, I, we were so close -”

“We really were, weren’t we?” The scorpion’s hold on the frog was loosening, as its head swam from lack of oxygen. “We almost made it, we really did…”

The frog wailed in grief as the scorpion’s body was torn away, swallowed by the churning rapids.

—

A scorpion walked across an old riverbed. The smooth pebbles had long laid bare, the river dried up thousands of years ago.

It paused in the middle, overcome with a strange pain in its chest, and decided to turn back.

It felt wrong to cross this river alone.

—

“Where do you think the cars go?” Asked the fox.

The chicken watched a car drive by, seeing the shadowy shapes move within. “I try not to think about it. I want to be happy with my lot in life.”

—

-and no sooner had the frog gotten halfway across the river when the scorpion tapped its stinger against the frog’s back to get its attention.

“Hey,” said the scorpion. “I’m not really in that much of a rush, and it’s a beautiful day. Why don’t we just go up the river instead? I’ve always wanted to try standing on a lilypad.”

“Sure, if you’d like.” Said the frog. “I don’t have any plans for the day.

And while the river remained uncrossed, neither of them were unhappy about this.

—

“When did you know you loved me?” Asked the turtle, as the scorpion clung onto its back, hiding from the deep currents of the river.

The scorpion winced as a wave shook them. “Oh, from the start.” it said, shaking water from its tail. “Or near enough. I’d never met a frog before. And even though you didn’t know me, you laid your life on the line for me. For hope that the impossible was possible.”

The turtle considered that, thinking back across its many lives.

“I don’t think I knew I loved you until recently.” The turtle admitted, lifting its head from the water so its voice could be soft. “It took time, I think, to know. But that said, why else would I come back, time and time again to the same spot of the same river?”

“You have a world of rivers you could be in, my love.” The scorpion agreed. “And yet I always wait for you here. And you always come.”

“I’ve never been as vulnerable as I’ve been with you.” Even as the water licked up its shell, the turtle continued to swim. “I’d never trust my life to anyone else.”

“Here’s to us,” said the scorpion, raising its stinger. “And the river.”

“Here’s to us.” Said the turtle, raising a flipper to sting. “I hope we always find each other.”

—

“Well here we are,” said the frog to the scorpion. “The other side.”

“Here we are.” The scorpion agreed, slowly climbing off its back. “Thank you, for all of this.”

“Thank you for choosing me.” Said the frog. “Thank you for chaining my lives together. For helping me remember the infinity of Us.”

The scorpion didn’t answer, simply looking up, letting the sun warm its carapace.

“I’ve never really left the river.” The frog took another step onto the bank. “It’s… nice.”

The scorpion turned. For a moment, the frog felt the surge of adrenaline as it felt a pinch on its skin, only to find the scorpion had clasped its claw around their hand. “Come with me.” It pleaded, voice soft with urgency. “Come with me, and don’t say no. I won’t leave this river without you. We can see the other side together.”

Those claws could slice, but they were only firm. The river was only the river. But from the banks the frog could see a jungle of lush green, vibrant with life beyond its knowledge. It laughed. “I’ve always wondered what it was like out there.”

—

And the river was silent, with no moral questions to burden it.

That’s because i only added this bit this morning. I think its pretty good

I think it’s beautiful. thank you for making this

[image: a tag: “this is one of my favorite posts of all time but I’ve never seen this version of it”]

Official Time Loop Post

This is a blessing!

i think we should bring this back (with some amendments ofc) if we ever needed an "internet etiquette" for the younger generations, now is the moment to remind them. purity culture kills fandom

as well as the three laws of fandom:

Don't Like, Don't Read (DL;DR), Your Kink is not My Kink And That's OK (YKINMKATO) and Ship and Let Ship

📣 Purity culture kills fandom! 📣

NO ONE LIVING hasn't been squicked out by something. There's over 7 billion of us, my delights and disgusts aren't universal. So I move on. Don't like the ship? Move on. Don't like____? Move on.

I am not an exception. Neither are you. I don't like it I move on and shut my gob about it because everyone everywhere is squicked out by something and they need to put the thing down and just…motor.

This but also:

Frames this entire post and hangs it over the fireplace.

Anybody else find it kind of striking that people are still doing this kind of "video game acting" even though mainstream titles haven't been animated like this for close to 20 years

No because I'll be fucked if I stop playing old video games to chase mainstream titles