I’ve Been Working On Being More Conscious Of How I Write Emails, And Made This Handy Printable Guide!

I have stretch marks.

Reblog if you do too. Just to prove that it is more normal than what people actually think.

I think part of what makes the McElroys so lovable for millennials and gen z is that they’re a REAL underdog success story. All the ones about Bill Gates and Steve Jobs starting Apple and Microsoft from sheds and Jeff Bezos starting Amazon from a shed are wrong. They all came from well-off backgrounds with upper-class privilege coming out their goddamn ears, but the brothers didn’t.

They really were just three ordinary boys from West Virginia, and if you listen to Griffin’s Florida State lecture (the whole thing’s on youtube) he talks about how rough things were for them when they started their podcast. He mentions how they were in mourning over their mother, fighting all the time, and ready to separate forever, but held on and decided not to abandon each other in the thick of it. And things were still rough, because their father had to work stupid hours at the radio station to support himself, and the brothers were trying to make it in game journalism.

And then they started MBMBaM, a goofy bad advice podcast full of improvised bits and comedy segments, and it blew up. They started TAZ, a fun D&D podcast where they played with their dad, and were able to bond together and let him retire comfortably on the revenue it generated, and now Clint oversees the TAZ graphic novel series that’s still releasing issues and spends boatloads of quality time with his three sons. Monster Factory is just a funny game stream where Justin and Griffin try to destroy character creators as much as possible, but it’s one of their biggest IPs. Their TV show was short-lived but explosively popular among their fanbase.

They sell out entire stadiums and Lin-Manuel Miranda plays them We Didn’t Start the Fire parodies as they walk on and people lose their collective minds. Tom Holland fanboys over them at SDCC. People come from all over the place to hear them perform, and that performance never got less authentic. It’s just three brothers and their dad being goofy together and trying to make each other laugh. And the laughter and love they carried for each other was so contagious that it made an entire world of people love them, too. 

Maybe they’re a bit weird, and their jokes don’t always land, but they’re not always supposed to, because it really is just a tight-knit family living in the moment. And in this world where our two generations may be close to each other but horribly disadvantaged socio-economically, the idea that these three boys carved out a way for themselves through the sheer force of their own happiness out of such a dark place is more hopeful than any “millennials are killing the mayo industry” article ever written.

holy fucking shit people simulated the 302 neurons in a worm’s brain with software, put it in a Lego robot and it behaves like a worm

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/weve-put-worms-mind-lego-robot-body-180953399/?no-ist

i like him

assorted bad kids and co. hc’s:

kristen is supposed to wear a retainer (had braces for all of middle school) but is so bad about it so the gap in her front teeth has shifted back. when she does wear her retainer she has a pretty intense lisp

adaine likes to be carried (this is canon) but where riz prefers riding on shoulders, adaine is a piggyback lover. she gets scared she’s gonna fall on shoulders

fabian is really good at tying knots and is in charge of tying off the bracelets that kristen makes (he is also incredible at balloon animals but the bad kids will never know this if he can help it)

tracker hates thunder and loud noises (dog) and will wear a compression suit about it (gods longest compression socks + compression vest + weighted blanket)

gorgug is the god of “just smack it till you fix it” way of tinkering. the amount of times he has come ever the gukgaks to just give their shitty fridge a good knock to get it to turn back on… truly uncountable

besides riz, fig is the best climber of the group. she loves to climb shit she is not supposed to and constantly has scabby knees because of this (does not accept heals in the name of “kristen they look cool”)

figs climbing deeply stresses riz out the same way his friends handling guns stresses him out. that’s his highly dangerous thing to be good at, he’s half convinced if they do it their gonna die (he only expresses this is his little 😬 face)

when ragh moved to bastion city he very quickly became “that hot guy from the news” cuz he kept winding up as an eye witness and getting interviewed. he may or may not be a meme on fantasy twitter. this does get him on a parade float for bastion pride tho

i have more. these dudes just. live in my head always <3

HAPPY INDIGENOUS PEOPLE’S DAY!!!!

Number 16 for Alfred plz

Short, contemporary set fic. Alfred wakes from a nightmare and Matt knows what to say. On ao3 here. From prompt 16. “Are you afraid to fall asleep because you think you’re gonna have a nightmare?”

21st Century, Ottawa.

Mathew's bedroom was still and dark when he woke, and he stared at the dim glow filtering through the blinds. The light of the streetlamps was tinted blue in the storm, and he wondered why he'd woken. Kuma was still dead asleep on his memory foam sheepskin bed just next to the vent. If there'd been any intrusion in his space, he'd have been up, hackles raised and howling. Oh. He had to piss. Fuck, he must still be drunk. Groaning and cursing himself for not taking a pit stop when he and Alfred had finally put the beers and video game controllers down to go to sleep, he finally peeled himself out of bed. The room was cold, and peeling off the duvet made his thoughts switch languages and wish for a quick death in French.

Shaking the drama off, he shoved his feet into his indoor boots and shuffled down the hall, rubbing at his eyes and letting the. Business completed, he was turning off the water and drying his hands when he thought he heard something. He stumbled, still groggy, down the hall, away from the bedroom. Again, Kuma didn't howl or join him.

The TV, mounted above the fireplace, was on and thew an eerie cast over the living room as Matt approached, poking his head in. There was Alfred, hunched over.

"The fuck are you doing up?" Matt asked, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. Alfred glanced up, expression inscrutable.

"I couldn't sleep," He said, sounding wrecked, like he'd been throwing up or crying.

"You good?" Matt asked, frowning.

"Fine."

"Fucken liar," Matt replied. Alfred's gaze flashed up, the hint of Cherenkov radiation flashing in anger.

"Don't give me that face, o mighty superpower." Matt laughed, rubbing a hand down his face, incredulous. "Christ. You know, I'd normally be happy to do the usual song and dance where you deny everything until I hit a nerve. And then you can have your semi-annual mental breakdown on my couch, but it's 3 in the fucken morning. So get your ass up, turn off the TV, put your butt in a chair in the kitchen and spill your guts while I make us hot chocolate, and then we can go the fuck back to sleep. Okay?"

Whatever it was that made Alfred their kind's weird undying version of superman seemed to drain from him, and his shoulders slumped. It was like watching someone drain the water from a nuclear reactor and shut it down.

"Yeah, all right."

In the kitchen, Alfred sat at the old kitchen table. Matt raided the cabinets and dumped milk, cream, and chocolate into a pot, breathing in a bit of the soothing steam as it warmed.

"You going to start talking?"

"I'm organizing my thoughts," Alfred said as he stared at the kitchen table, tracing the grain of a knot Matt had sanded smooth himself with two fingers. He glared at the wood. "Or I'm trying too."

"Okay. Take your time. This will take a minute." Matt's heart ached, and he opened another cabinet. There was vanilla extract there, but glancing at his brother and full of something softer, he selected one of the vanilla beans he had purchased on his last trip to Mexico and scraped it clean. In it went with the chilli and clove and cinnamon to simmer away.

"Doing okay?" Matt asked. Alfred's hand had gone still on the table, balling into a fist.

"Yeah," Alfred said.

Deciding his brother needed more time, Matt took down a bowl and whipped the living hell out of the rest of the cream until his arm shook. It was always a process. His brother's emotions were structured with the strongest joy on earth on a delicate pedestal of half-processed memories. He stirred the hot chocolate, and now melted together and velvety, it clung to the sides of the pot.

"Okay," Alfred said at last. "Okay, fuck."

He quickly poured two terracotta mugs, scooped on the hand-churned whipped cream and even dusted them with more cinnamon. He sat across the table from Alfred, shaking his left hand out. It was sore from all the whisking now.

"Damn, Matt. You were busier than a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest. That's amazing."

"Have to do something while you brood," Matt replied, pulling his hoodie sleeves back down. "Now, what's the fucken problem?"

"I had a nightmare," Alfred said plainly. Well, that'd been easier than usual.

"The 'showing up to the Armed Forces Committee with no pants' nightmare or the 'I got hung for witchcraft and dad presented the head of the fuck who sentenced me on a silver platter' nightmare."

"Neither," Alfred said, scrubbing a hand through his hair. He sighed and took another long drink.

"Alfred," Matt said. "Talk."

"I'm trying," He whispered. "It feels like if I say it, it'll come true."

"That's bullshit," Matt replied. "Out with it."

Alfred sighed. "You're a piss ass when you don't sleep, you know that, right?"

"I'm going to be puking chilis and tequila when I wake up. I'm allowed to be cranky." He countered. "Saint Bibiana can't do shit about it. Now, what was this nightmare?"

"I dreamt I woke up, and the world ended while I slept," Alfred said. "Russians yeet some ICBM at me, I tossed some back, the world burned."

"You've had that nightmare since the Russians dropped their first bomb."

"Yup," Alfred said. "But usually, in the dream, I cross from New York into Quebec, and you're there. A little crispier than usual, but there and mostly okay. This time..."

Matt stared at Alfred over his mug.

"This time, what?"

"This time... nothing. No survivors. No glowing zombies, no gas-masked raiders, nothing." He paused, and Matt was silent.

"No you either," Alfred said, pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes and leaning into the table. "Just ash."

"Alfred," Matt said gently, softly. His brother didn't look up. "Alfred, look at me."

Watery blue eyes appeared from behind his hands. Alfred sniffed, and Matt gave him a sympathetic look. "I'm not going to die,"

"I'm stronger than you," Alfred said. "I'm stronger than everyone. If anyone would survive and be alone, it'd be me."

"So you're afraid that if you go to sleep, you'll have another nightmare about this?"

"I'm scared that if I fall asleep, I'll wake up alone." Alfred scrubbed his hair and looked on the verge of tears again. "Just me on planet earth."

"Alfred, you didn't die on me. I won't die on you, much less the entire planet."

"When the hell would I have died?"

"Does the American Civil War ring a bell?" Matt replied. "You were dead for four days after Gettysburg. But you lived."

"No one was firing nukes at Gettysburg."

"No one is firing nukes now," Matthew said. "If you're okay, I'm okay."

"Can you just... can you promise me you won't die?" Alfred said. Sometimes there was something so childlike about his mind. "Just promise you won't leave me here by myself."

"Cross my heart and hope to live, bud." Matt made the motion of the cross over his heart. He smiled. "Happy?"

Alfred nodded. "Swear to god, though, I will fucking kill you if you die before me."

"Hard same." Matt returned. "I'll set your ass on fire and make DC look like a bathroom candle if you leave me here alone."

Alfred took another sip of hot cholate and shook his head. "You're a firebug, you know that, right?"

"Well yeah, I had to settle for pyromaniac since my big brother is the one with the nuclear hellfire in his back pocket." Matt knuckled his chest and swallowed bile. "But I might be getting there. Holy shit, this is giving me heartburn."

"It's not even spicy." Alfred laughed.

"You know damn well chilli powder, and I don't get along." Matt exhaled, trying to get rid of the taste of bile in his mouth.

"Why'd you make it if you knew it'd give you heartburn?"

"I'm not the one who needed cheering up," Matt shrugged. "Hang on a second. I need antacids."

"Jesus Christ, gringo."

"Hey," Matt flung open the drawer he kept various bottles of over-the-counter pills and tablets and popped something he'd hoped would help. "That's tabernaco to you, Tex-Mex."

Alfred snorted. "Did Mari start calling you that before or after you vomited Salsa Verde all over her nice floor?"

"I put in that floor for her," Matt said. "And it was before if you must know."

"You've got too much slav in you."

"Eh," Matt countered, sitting back down, this time with a glass of water. He shoved his still-hot mug at his brother, and Alfred took it to finish it off. "Katya hasn't pegged me in a while, actually."

Alfred snorted hot chocolate so hard he choked. "Ew, dude, gross."

Matt smacked him on the shoulder. "Finish that up, and you can come huddle for warmth like we're fucken four,"

"Fucking heat-seeking missile,"

"Goddamn right."

I need a fic of various nations going on live tv interviews / guest staring in shit like the late night show or whatever so fucking badly

This was recorded by the Portsmouth Sinfonia in an experiment where all the members of the orchestra would swap instruments with each other and attempt to play them to the best of their ability.