Olivia's -- And Nix's -- Incredulity As She Discovers One By One The Various Shenanigans Open And Shut

It would be an interesting challenge to write a narrative of some kind where the adults are selfish assholes to the kids in the show, but nothing the adults do is illegal, nor is it socially or culturally inappropriate or bad. It's horrible, but all plausibly deniable.

The poor kids just have to bear it, maybe the focus is their coping mechanisms or something, like Bridge to Terabithia or something.

Pro tip:

Never confuse the War In the Pacific with the War Of the Pacific.

The Croaker's Revenge

The Croaker will be present at Dashcon 2, and will guard the ballpit, after a fashion… but nobody will notice or recognize them. Many cosplayers will attend as the Croaker, but none will be @the-muppet-joker, not even the one in full purple-leisure-suit Joker cosplay, with a Kermit puppet fastened to his fly like a codpiece.

@strange-aeons will be there, in full Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven-Way cosplay, guarding the ballpit and posing for mock battle photos with Brotherhood cosplayers, but nobody will claim to be the actual Muppet Joker. Things will be whispered into Master Strange's ear, but they will mostly be along the line of what a lovely couple she and her wife make. Perhaps Master Strange will lean down to hear one person whisper, "I think he's here," and she will turn around, but she will not be able to tell who she was leaning down to listen to.

The ballpit will be a hit. Not as big as the raccoon talk given by @raccoonmilf, but the organizers, @dashcon-two, knew that if they were going to have a ballpit, they'd have to go big and make it as nice as possible, and the party supply company will deliver the perfect thing. Among other activities, getting selfies with Homestuck cosplayers reenacting their time in the original Dashcon ballpit will be popular.

Nobody will urinate in the ballpit.

Nobody will think very hard about how the laconic, sullen young person in a polo shirt and work slacks, who set up the ballpit alone and unassisted, had bright green hair.

Nobody will think very hard about how this green-haired young person spent every day of the convention posted up against a wall in view of the ballpit, scrolling on their phone, not interacting with anyone.

Nobody will realize until after the con, that the party supply company did not contract to set the ballpit up for the organizers, or to provide a maintenance person for it.

Nobody at the party supply company will care, when the Dashcon 2 organizers tell them that whoever initially signed for the ballpit wasn't event staff. Nor will they have any idea who actually did sign for it.

After the con, everyone will assume that the young green-haired nonbinary person, who set up the ballpit and spent the entire con leaning on the wall in view of it, scrolling on their phone, will pack up the ballpit and load it into the party supply company's truck, but in fact, the ballpit will still be standing, quite abandoned, and the green-haired one will have vanished without a trace. Eventually, the organizers will find badge details matching the green-haired one in their records: a standard visitor pass with no special privileges, under the name of "John Smith."

After the con, over the next few weeks, the repercussions will start to become apparent. Bit by bit, the Croaker's devious, twisted, insane, magnificent, hilarious plan will come to fruition before the eyes of an astonished and terrified Tumblr community, and the Croaker will have revenge upon all of us.

Not telling your kid they have a learning disability, chronic illness, mental illness etc. so they can “feel normal” actually does the opposite. They will not feel normal if they do not have the context to understand that their normal will be different from that of their peers.

Good morning, fellow Americans! Are you enjoying each having a house and two cars? I like to mow my lawn

nosferatu? non. VOSferatu. c'est pas mon problème

Note that this does NOT say, "If a person cares about you, they will drop whatever they're doing, RIGHT NOW, and rush to your side for any reason you deem sufficiently important, and if they don't, then they don't care about you at all."

“No matter how busy a person is, if they care, they’ll find time for you.”

— Unknown

Him an angy boi, so, so angy!

"That bastard Liutprand, who I'm NOT done with" -OSP Blue, on the Overly Sarcastic Podcast.

Chibi portrait by OSP Red @comicaurora

My local library has thrown away its reference section. "That stuff is all online, now."

They have thrown away most of their archive. What remains is buried in the basement under junk, and all record of its contents is lost. They have no interest in doing anything with it.

For job hunting tips, we direct you to the three biggest job hunting websites.

Homework help and tutoring comes from a local NGO, when they can afford it, although they do use our building.

We do finally have crafts, though! We turned the quiet room and the young adult reading area into a luxurious crafting station.

Legal aid isn't available. We can refer you to a local lawyer, or that local NGO. But you can look up documents online, and print them for free!

I tried to provide compassionate human connection when I worked there, but that's one of the reasons I was let go. Apparently that's something patrons are supposed to provide each other.

And we still have books! We have more and more books about fewer and fewer things, and soon we will have more fiction than ever, we just have to get rid of all the useless nonfiction that's not about hobbies, home renovation, cooking, or poetry. Nobody ever reads those books, they're just taking up space we could use for James Patterson novels!

Truly, there's no better time to visit your local library.