At the gate for my flight home from visiting friends and there's a woman here with a service Shiba Inu. No pics because he has a Do Not Disturb vest and taking pics of strangers is illegal but I need to stress how ON DUTY this animal is. Ears up. Eyes doing Lazer scans of everything. Examining everyone who passes within 10ft like a security guard. Ass planted on her feet. I have never seen a dog with such intense chivalric guardian energy before. He has tiny eyebrows and they are FURROWED with concentration.

Man behind me having unhinged phone conversation. There is an internationally famous dairy in the area I was visiting and he was commissioned by the lady on the other end of the phone to collect specific cheeses from there. The lady is very high strung about the type and condition of the cheese.

The man does not know from cheese. The man "ain't never seen no cheese but orange before" and "I showed ya list to the cheese lady so if it's wrong it's her fault ok?"

I am 80% sure she sent him there for a really specific bleu cheese, 40% sure he does not have the very specific bleu cheese, and 100% sure he's done with her shit.

Our flight is delayed.

He does not have the cheeses in a cooler, just a regular backpack.

I need to emphasize that there is no cooler bag in the backpack. He has Jansport backpack that is jam-packed with cheeses. There is apparently $405 dollars worth of cheeses in that backpack, which I know because he has been trying to get the lady to venmo him the expense, which she has failed to do. It is unclear whether his relation to the lady is romantic, familial or what, but I'm leaning towards "what".

Two more people have joined us. One is a very elegant man with a perfect manicure in a tailored business suit, the other is a neon-haired person of indeterminate gender wearing a fox kirigumi. The Shiba Inu has been staring at the latter for three minutes now.

Uh oh.

Cheese man has been demanding payment because apparently he went like six hours out of his way and paid with his own money and between the cheese and price of gas, he is pretty sure he does not have enough money in his account for an Uber home.

The lady is FLABBERGASTED that he is demanding payment at all, as she was under the impression he was doing this for her out of the goodness of his heart.

He's not having it. He's insisting she told him she would pay him back- he would have gotten her maybe one cheese somewhere closer to his business in the area out of love, but he went out of his way because she agreed to pay him costs+ extra to cover it.

HE RECORDED THE CONVERSATION IN WHICH SHE PROMISED TO PAY FOR THE CHEESE, SHE'S THAT MUCH OF A FLAKE.

I am about to offer this man cash for some of these cheeses because our flight is now more delayed.

"YOU ALWAYS DO THIS! YOU ALWAYS DO THIS AND I FALL FOR IT EVERY TIME! NO! NO! FUCK YOU! IF YOU'RE NOT GONNA PAY ME, YOU DON'T GET FANCY CHEESE."

"OR ELSE WHAT?"

"I'm gonna-? THE BABY SHOWER? MONICA CAN'T EVEN HAVE THIS CHEESE SHE'S PREGNANT!"

"The cheese lady asked if it was for someone because the mushrooms or whatever in the cheese are dangerous for the baby or something?? You wanna poison Monica?"

"WHY WOULD I LIE ABOUT THAT?"

"YEAH OF COURSE I GOT THE CHEESE, THATS WHY I DON'T GOT MONEY FOR UBER!"

"YEAH, GO TELL! GO TELL MOMMA I STOPPED YOUR STUPID ASS FROM KILLING MONICA OR THE BABY! FUCK!"

*hangs up phone*

*head in hands, borderline hyperventilating*

The man in the three piece suit is in the chair next to him. He waits a moment, then reaches into his carryon and pulls out an entire bottle of wine with the TSA pre check sticker on it, and taps cheese guy on the shoulder.

"If your friend doesn't want it, would you be amenable to having it right now?"

Naturally, I have volunteered my box of wheat thins and offered to buy one of the harder cheeses which should be fine if it makes it home.

Meanwhile, Kirigumi has noticed that the Shiba Inu is staring at her and is correctly intimidated.

1. This is some fucking great Camembert. I have compensated cheese guy accordingly. So have like six other people. He's recouped like half his losses.

2. Cheese guy is crying a little about the cash and opening up about his problems. The cheese lady is his younger sister. Suit guy is being very generous with his Pinot Blanc. We are having a picnic/improv family therapy session.

3. This is apparently the latest in a long string of his sister asking for something and then flaking when he asks to be paid back. Started with paying him back only some of what he was owed, then claiming something she paid for him was of equal value when it was not, then recently telling him his memory is wrong and he said it was a gift or that he'd do it for free.

"Yeah, the specific thing of trying to convince you your memory is unreliable is called gaslighting and it's really fucked up." I say

"yeeeeah. The other stuff I forgave because she's never really had a good job so she can't pay me back all the time but at least she was making an effort y'know? But that was. That was over the line."

"If you haven't already, check on the rest of your family's finances. My brother started trying to gaslight everyone when he started stealing from our parents." Says Pinot Blanc.

4. Shiba Inu Lady has purchased a cheddar. Apparently, the dog's name is Donut, and he's her service dog because she's severely visually impaired.

"Oh, he's a guide dog?" Asks cheese guy.

"oh, no." She laughs. "He's too short, and the way my eyes are, it's easier for me to navigate with a cane. No, the problem I have is that some morally impaired people see the cane and think they can get away with stealing my bag or assaulting me because I wouldn't be able to give a description- which is wrong, but rather than deal with that I got Donut, and he helps me by howling at anyone who gets in my personal space and biting anyone who grabs me!"

"Uh." Says Kirigumi. "He's been staring at me do I need to back up or..?"

"Ohdear! No, no- He wasn't looking at you! He loves cheese but he knows he's not supposed to beg so he decided the way to deal with something he wants but can't have is to stare in the other direction."

"OKAY!" Says Kirigumi. "I'm wearing fox pajamas and thought like. He thought I was another dog or something."

"No, no- he doesn't care about dogs, and you get a warning before he goes for the calves. Very helpful, when I was living in Italy!"

"Oh what part? I have family in Tuscany." Says Pinot.

"Does he want a cheese? There is still so much cheese." Says cheese guy.

Plane may be arriving. I am paying for in flight WiFi to keep y'all updated.

1. Cheese guy has sold all but two or three cheeses that he an Pinot are going to eat on the flight.

2. I know they're planning to continue because Pinot talked to the gate agent so he and cheese guy can sit together and talk about family drama and cheese.

3. Pinot has been teaching him about different types of cheese and how to enjoy them.

4. Cheese guy apparently repairs computers and other technology devices for a living and is currently doing the software version of scraping barnacles and other crap off Pinot'macbook.

5. Pinot is now convinced that cheese guy is the smartest and most interesting man in the world.

Ok so the Wifi wasn't working on the plane (also like, nonstop turbulence) and also they got seated in a different row from me, but:

:)

Anyway, it's 2AM, I need to sleep, if you feel like supporting this kind of hard-hitting reporting, I have a Tip Jar!

all of the avengers are t-shirt-stealing gremlins 😤

all the tags are like omg 2012 avengers i miss you... welcome to my house, new friends. 2012 avengers never left

#oh thank god 2012 avengers fandom #I've had the most terrible dream... (via @jackironsides​)

Let me tell you about one of my high school friends’ old Dungeons and Dragons PCs.

Olaf Olafson was your pretty straightforward Northman Barbarian type. Huge, strong, pale, red-haired and with a tremendous beard. What made Olaf special was the little things.

Despite living in a world with clerical magic, demons, and other powerful alignment-based Outsiders, Olaf was an atheist. This was because his people believed the last world had already ended and the gods went with it (basically post-Ragnarok). All that was left were ‘spirits’. Powerful spirits. Who could grant deific magic. But they weren’t gods, and you didn’t have to worship them- in fact you shouldn’t, because it would just inflate their already swollen egos.

Despite being an enormous, frightening, powerful man with dubious hygeine and a propensity for going literally berserk in combat, Olaf was a gentle fellow in towns and villages, had a deep fondness for small fluffy animals and children, and was a generous tipper.

Olaf liked to drink. Not mead, but wine. He liked to sip it. It made him feel ‘civilized’. He never drank it quickly enough to get drunk. His meals almost invariably consisted of “Wine. Meat. Cheese.” Which was what he would order in literally every tavern. They’d ask him to clarify, what sort of wine? What sort of meat? What sort of- Olaf would raise a hand and repeat, slowly, as if to a fool: “Wine. Meat. Cheese.” 

Olaf spoke broken common, more or less Hulk-speak, referred to himself in the third person almost exclusively, all that fun stuff. Then we had a story arc where I sent them up to Olaf’s homeland, where everyone spoke ‘Northman’ or whatever the hell I called it. While up there, he was incredibly fluent. Even poetic. “My brothers! I have returned from the decadent lands of the south, bearing riches and glory, and tales of great deeds!” The other players caught on and talked like a pack of movie Frankensteins, barely able to communicate in the foreign tongue.

For a long time, Olaf was the most financially stable member of the party. Because he bought a tavern in their home-base-town, hired the senior barmaid/waitress lady to be the manager, and funneled the profits back into the business. He kept his adventuring money and his tavern money separate, except when he would sometimes spend adventuring money to expand the tavern. 

 There’s not a lot to do in 3rd edition with skill ranks when you’re a barbarian, so eventually Olaf sank a point into Healing on a lark. A few sessions later, they captured an important enemy NPC, but he’d lost an arm in the fighting and was about to die. Their cleric had been captured and their NPC paladin wasn’t around, either. There was no magical healing available, and no one else had any ranks in healing. The dude was about to die, and take with him the knowledge of where their friends had been taken. Olaf- with a  single rank in Healing I remind you -offered to save his life in exchange for the location, and the guy agreed. Olaf then stuck a sword in the fire, said “Olaf see this once,” and cauterized the wound.

It worked, of course. I didn’t even make him roll. I was too busy trying not to piss myself laughing. “Olaf see this once.” Jesus Christ.

I deleted this post from my blog back in the days when a popular post would make your dashboard just… just unusable due to notification spam, but I remain pleased that it struck a chord with so many people. I haven’t talked to Olaf’s player in many years, but I think he’d be pleased to see his boy’s success, too.

Spicy-brained friends, I would like to propose an update to the very useful ‘if you hate everyone, eat, if everyone hates you, sleep, and if you hate yourself, shower’ mantra to live by

Have you suddenly become a petty, hateful little gremlin who thinks people should face the firing squad for (checks notes) leaving teabags on the counter, breathing loudly, or daring to exist in the same space as you? Perhaps mundane and reasonable requests like ‘hey, we agreed to hang out now, let’s hang out’ make you want to scream and move to a yurt in the woods.

You. Are. Overstimulated.

People talk a lot about being overstimulated, and the physical/mental effects of it. What I haven’t seen is people talking about what it does emotionally, and it took me an embarassingly long time to link up those nitpicky, resentful emotions with the state of overstimulation/meltdown/shutdown.

These feelings do not mean that you’re a bad person! They probably aren’t how you actually feel about the people around you. They probably do mean that your nervous system is at its absolute limit and any request/demand/stimulus is Too Much and taking you into fight or flight territory.

Go lie down in a dark room for an hour, or find somewhere safe and familiar to stim for a bit. If it’s happening a lot, schedule yourself regular low-stimulation shutdown time

Signed: someone who moved in with their nearest and dearest only to have a massive crisis of faith about Suddenly Hating All of Them. I don’t hate them, it’s just overstimulating living with people. If I can spare anyone else a similar 9 months of suspecting that they may actually be a bit of a shit person, then this post is worth it!

you might especially feel this way if someone picks up on your bad mood, but all their kind suggestions make you want to bite and scream. in my experience that’s not because you hate them or even the suggestion, it’s probably because *any* new information or ideas, no matter how gentle, is just Too Many Thoughts. this is when it helps a lot to have a plan in advance, even if the plan is just “take medication” or “go to hidey-hole,” because trying to think of a solution in the moment might be beyond you.

(also if ur overstimulated, it’s often worth checking if you need to eat/sleep/shower as well, because that might be part of what’s overstimulating you!)

chronic pain is also a source of overstimulation

I just know the weekly pharmacy delivery Alfred gets for the Manor is full of several types of opiates, ADHD meds, like 16 different anti-depressants, and a whole bucket of prescription-grade sleeping pills.

awkward scenario the batfam shut down a prescription meds smuggling operation that was alfred's controlled substance supplier

@audreycritter gets it

just found fanfic written on clay tablets in cuneiform and then the pictures were uploaded to ao3 the good omens fandom is insane

this is the fic if you were wondering

THIS IS SO FUCKING FUNNY. DEDICATION TO THE BIT

EA-NASIR?!

I was watching a stream of a small waterhole in the namib desert. a warthog showed up started bathing in the waterhole and turning the drinkable water into mud. this INFURIATED chat. everyone was pissed on behalf of the oryxes. the power of technology is incredible

you just missed the zebras. they told me to tell you they say hi

hyenas are whooping on stream and chat is LIVING

I hate that I’m always trying to find cool biology themed stuff to wear but all the “nature inspired” clothing companies just have like two crossed arrows or a minimalistic mountain on a sweatshirt. Fucking lame, that’s barely even nature-adjacent. Put the life cycle of a salamander on a jacket, put hyena skeleton patterns on leggings, put a damn field guide of birds of prey on a peacoat and THEN you can have my money. Do NOT give me a shirt with a leaf on it that says “stay wild” or some bullshit I would much prefer clothing that broadcasts to everyone around me how many teeth an adult Jaguar has or how some pitcher plants can catch and digest rats.

recommendations from the notes :)

In 1944 a kitten named George (short for General Electric) was saved from drowning by a U.S. Navy crew member. George was then photographed and given a liberty card and detailed health record. Source.

cc: @petermorwood

i know how to identify all of the barksies now.

Is this on a separate axis or what

you know what day it is……….

had a shit day yesterday and ended up going bonkers insane on the wikipedia entry for soup. did you guys know that the original french word "restaurant" meant a type of soup!!!!! i know the word is difficult to pronounce for non-speakers (ppl here in germany have trouble with it too) but try to think of it as a form of "restore." and now youre eating a "restorant." something that's supposed to restore your energy. that's more or less how the word is pronounced, because that's the type of soup it was!!!!!! and then in 1765 a guy in paris opened up a shop where you could eat restaurant and other places started to copy it and call themselves restaurants!!! and now every time you eat anywhere youre AT SOUP!!!!!!! arent humans so fucking good i love it here. my body hurts so much but i am no longer crying about it because there will always be someone somewhere in the world who desperately wants to help me with soup

WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU’RE AT SOUP

WHY ARE YOU BUYING CLOTHES AT THE RESTAURANT

Love untagged fandom posts with generic-named blorbos and absolutely no context clues. Is that Steve Irwin? Steve Harrington? Steve Rogers? Steve from Blues Clues? My mom's best friend's second husband Steve?

HOW DARE YOU LEAVE A MAJESTIC IDEA LIKE THAT IN THE TAGS

Finally, my tags passed peer review!

Manga as Penguin Classics

*INCREDIBLY LOUD INCORRECT BUZZER*

obviously it's the wildlife wrestling federation.

Trail cam catching a deer fawn with the zoomies