Scientists Can't Explain This

Getting into the comic side of a fandom is so hard. Like, yeah I want to see Harley Quinn having divious fun with Cat and Ivy robbing Bruce, but I also want to see her murder the Joker! What do you mean it's not the same story!!!!

You want me to pay HOW MUCH for the entire time line?!

“Please, let him be soft. I know you made him with gunmetal bones and wolf’s teeth. I know you made him to be a warrior a soldier a hero. But even gunmetal can warp and even wolf’s teeth can dull and I do not want to see him break the way old and worn and overused things do. I do not want to see him go up in flames the way all heroes end up martyrs. I know that you will tell me that the world needs him. The world needs his heart and his faith and his courage and his strength and his bones and his teeth and his blood and his voice and his– The world needs anything he will give them. Damn the world, and damn you too. Damn anyone that ever asked anything of him, damn anyone that ever took anything from him, damn anyone that ever prayed to his name. You know that he will give them everything until there is nothing left of him but the imprint of dust where his feet once trod. You know that he will bear the world like Atlas until his shoulders collapse and his knees buckle and he is crushed by all he used to carry. Dear God, you have already made an Atlas. You have already made an Achilles and an Icarus and a Hercules. You have already made so many heroes, and you can make another again. You can have your pick of heroes. So please, I beg you– he is all that I have, and you have so many heroes and the world has so many more. Let him be soft, and let him be mine.”

— Please, let him be happy ( j.p. )

thank god or the universe or whatever for cycles and seasons though like yeah life right now is unbearable. but every two years the olympics come around again, and every december i have christmas and every year there is an autumn where leaves change and fall and the air is crisp. every year has a halloween, and a national pie day, and my cat's birthday, and national star wars day, and the arbitrary date in february when my family watches the princess bride together, and every fall i watch over the garden wall. next year i'll see my second total solar eclipse. there will be new tomatoes next summer and fresh applesauce the season after that. the sun will come back even when march seems like it will never end. don't go yet. it will be your day off soon. the olympics are next year. it'll be someone's birthday soon. everything changes and everything will come back around again, if you stick around to let it.

Ginger bread bathtub

A friend once asked me for a sign

That the universe loved us.

I told her I had taken a bath today.

The water was green and the perfect temperature

The sky was darkening and the light was on

The room smelled like the ginger bread I had brought from the kitchen

Mixed with the eucalyptus of my bath oil.

A song played

It reminded me of a home we moved out of when I was eight.

It reminded me of my nanny teaching me how to paint my nails when my parents left the house

I would sit on a bar stool

My toes would barely brush the ground.

Oh, the universe loves us

The bath water was the perfect temperature today.

my uncle was somewhat of a rascal. we were hanging out on the roof of his barn when i was ten, and we saw some shooting stars. he told me they were angels carrying messages from god. then he handed me his old hunting rifle and taught me how to nick one out of the sky, even when it was travelling all fast like that, and how to triangulate its location — taking me out in his rusty truck down dirt roads, unerring and unceasing, until we saw that gleaming lantern. he pocketed the note from god and took me down to a pinboard where he was working on deciphering the language with his friend who was a linguistics major but got kicked out of grad school. after they shook hands, they held on for just a bit too long and i started wondering why my aunt doesn’t live with my uncle anymore, but then my uncle took me back up stairs and taught me how to fry the angel up real nice, halo and all. it was tasty

“the ending is always the same”

war of the foxes - richard silken / waterloo - ABBA / euripides’ medea - the little theatre / anne carson / the three fates - luca cambiaso / the oresteia - aeschylus / road to hell II - hadestown / when i met you - mira lightner / andersen’s fairy tale anthology

You know, Tumblr says some pretty wild stuff. And wild stuff that sounds sane, but actually doesn't hold up.

Not this line. I've thought about it over and over since I saw it on Pinterest once, and it's solid. It works in every situation. If you wouldn't go to someone for advice, don't take their criticism either.

If you wouldn't go to someone for advice, don't take their criticism either.

obsessed with mass market paperbacks. their pleasing rectangular proportions. how they fit badly in a hoodie pocket so you can drag them around everywhere with you like a temporary little buddy. the way they fit in your hand because they're MADE for human hands and not as bookshelf decoration. the way the pages feel when you riffle them gently with your thumb. How pristine and crisp they look when you get them and how creased and folded they look when you're done, even if you try to be nice to them. how that wear is okay, how that's correct actually, because they're made with the philosophy that books aren't meant to be PRETTY, they're meant to be read. that little ripple new ones get on the left side from where you hold them when you're reading, the way the ripple only goes as far as you've read, because u change stories by reading as they are changing you. how you can find thousands of these creased and folded and loved little dudes in every thrift store and used book shop and neighborhood library and you can instantly see the ones that someone carried around in a backpack for weeks or read to pieces or gave up on halfway through because they wear being read like fresh snow wears footprints. I love these poorly made, subpar little rectangles so much. truly the people's books.

unavoidable that you will be the villain in someone else's story. You will be painted in an unfavorable light. You will be the irredeemable one. and all of this will happen despite how nice you might usually be or how kind or how respectful or how warm. and you will just have to move on.

I don't quite- I. Okay. Hm. Hmmm.

hello. you left a neon pink post-it with pgs 194-359 due 9/12 in the book, by the way. it is now May 23rd and the library's printer is running out of ink. it jammed and tore my passport application. one of the librarians dutifully blacked out all my information (front and back!) before proceeding to use every unmarred inch as scrap paper.

i think maybe our (plural, inclusive) lives are connected. all of them. i have been thinking a lot about borrowing. about how people move through the world in waves, filling in the same spaces. i have probably stood on the same subway platform as you. we held the same book. all of us stand in the same line at the grocery, at the gas station. how many feet have stood washing dishes in my kitchen?

i hope you are doing well. the pen you used was a nice red, maybe a glitter pen? you have loopy, curling handwriting. i sometimes wonder if it is true that you can tell a personality by the shape of our letters. i'm borrowing my brother's car. he's got scrangly engineer handwriting (you know the one). it's a yellow-orange ford mustang boss. when i got out of the building, some kids were posing with it for a selfie. i felt a little bird grow in me and had to pause and pretend to be busy with my phone to give them more time for their laughing.

i have a habit of asking people what's the last good book you read? the librarian's handwriting on the back of my smeared-and-chewed passport application says the glass house in small undercase. i usually go for fantasy/sci fi, but she was glowing when she suggested it. i found your post-it on page 26, so i really hope you didn't have to read up to 359 in that particular book. i hope you're like me and just have a weird "random piece of trash" "bookmark" that somehow makes it through like, 58 books.

i wish the concept of soul mates was bigger. i wish it was about how my soul and your soul are reading the same work. how i actually put down that book at the same time you did - page 26 was like, all exposition. i wish we were soul mates with every person on the same train. how magical to exist and borrow the same space together. i like the idea that somewhere, someone is using the shirts i donated. i like the idea that every time i see a nice view and say oh gosh look at the view, you (plural, inclusive) said that too.

the kids hollered when i beeped the car. oh dude you set off the alarm, oh shit is she - dude that's her car!! one was extremely polite. "i like your car, Miss. i'm sorry we touched it." i said i wasn't busy, finish up the pictures. i folded your post-it into a paper crane while i waited. i thought about how my brother's a kind person but his handwriting looks angry. i thought about how for an entire year i drove someone to work every day - and i didn't even think to ask for gas money. my handwriting is straight capital letters.

i thought about how i can make a paper crane because i was taught by someone who was taught by someone else.

the kids asked me to rev the engine and you know i did. the way they reacted? you would have thought i brought the sun from the sky and poured it into a waterglass. i went home smiling about it. i later gave your post it-turned-bird to a tiny child on the bus. she put it in her mouth immediately.

how easy, standing in your shadow, casting my own. how our hands pass over each other in the same minor folds. i wonder how many of the same books you and i have read. i wonder how many people have the same favorite six songs or have been in the same restaurant or have attended the same movie premier. the other day i mentioned the Book Mill from a small town in western massachusetts - a lot of people knew of it. i wonder if i've ever passed you - and didn't even notice it.

i hope whatever i leave behind makes you happy. i hope my hands only leave gentle prints. i hope you and i get the same feeling when the sun comes out. soulmates across all of it.