#This requires no response

[ofswordsandpens]

thinking about a world in which RR actually committed to the path he set Percy on in hoo (wherein Percy has become jaded, angry, and resentful at the gods for breaking their sworn promises, is frequently sympathizing with Luke, is getting more and more powerful, and frequently losing himself to wrath) and instead of the subsequent Percy Jackson books being about getting recommendation letters, we could have gotten a trilogy exploring a fallen hero arc for Percy (that would ultimately have a positive resolution to it.)

[trans-axolotl]

Antipsychiatry must include prison abolition as a guiding value. I'm tired of seeing people organize around antipsychiatry while throwing other incarcerated people under the bus. Criticizing psych wards for "treating us like criminals while we haven't broken to law" ignores the real problem: that the tools of restraint, strip searches, solitary confinement, and incarceration are violent no matter who they are forced upon. No one should be treated that way, no matter what form of incarceration you're surviving, whether that's in a prison, a psych ward, or any other institutions of total control. We are not inherently morally better than people incarcerated in prisons, and we have to build intentional solidarity to ensure we don't just replace one cage with another.

[gomzdrawfr]

Fish talk.

Price likes rainbow trout that he cooked himself in garlic and butter in a ration tin over an open fire. Nothin better than trout you caught, gutted and cooked yourself on the river bank. Bonus points for a bottle of something cold and hoppy to go along with it while he eats it on the river bank, still wearing his wellies and waders.

For Nik, it's calamari and grilled sea bass with a glass of white wine, maybe a sauvignon blanc from France, in some swanky hotel on the Adriatic coast. Just sitting there in beige chinos, an open shirt and bare feet, skin still warm from where he was basking in the sun all day, not even checking the bill before he pays for it.

Fish recipes by the one and only, now visualised (somewhat) hehe

bonus of my reaction:

[newtscamandersbf]

saw this ss on twt and im sorry but im starting to think some of yall actually like when characters are predators cause first it was accusing afo of p3dophilia / sa (despite the fact grooming can be non-sexual) and now its this shit 😭😭

like this is actually crazy yall we are told MULTIPLE times that toga feels safe with the league because they are the only ones who accepted her for who she was 😭😭 its not like she was the only woman or kid in the league either like at some point there were magne and mustard. the league lets anyone in regardless of background this is soo ..

[mikkeneko]

Don't want to put this on the post itself for risk of derailing it, but that post the other day about Terry Pratchett's early work really stuck in my mind. OP had sent in an ask saying that they heard some of Pratchett's earlier works had problematic elements (not unusual for a male english writer in the 80s) and they weren't sure whether to go ahead with reading the work anyway.

What I really want to ask that person, or indeed all persons who are hesitating over whether or not to read problematic works or works by imperfect authors:

What are you worried about happening, if you read a work with problematic elements?

I'm worried that if I read this art, I will run across hateful images or words that will shock or upset me

I'm worried that I will spend money on a work of art that then financially supports a bad person, and that thought makes me uncomfortable or upset

I'm worried that I will read works of art written by a bad person, and comment or react on them, and other people will see what I am reading and will think less of me because of it, or will assume that I hold the same bad beliefs as the author

I'm worried that I will read works of art written by a bad person, and I will enjoy them, and the author will find out about my enjoyment and feel emboldened to do bad things because of it

I'm worried that I will read works of art written by a bad person, and their badness will contaminate my way of thinking and make me a worse person in turn

Because these are all different answers and some of them are more actionable than others

[shitpostingkats]

Alabasta Ace is so funny.

Like the strawhats keep commenting that Ace is so polite and restrained compared to Luffy but like. This dude drags himself out of the ocean just to thank them for looking after his brother and offer to help wash dishes. Mans asks "Are these guys bothering you?" and proceeds to blow up an entire fleet with his bare hands. He trips over himself to make sure all of Luffy's crew likes him and no, really, you don't mind that he's a weirdo???? That we, I mean he, are feral little insane guys who take up space and emotional labor and are kind hard to handle? Really???? Cool cool cool hey just a reminder I can help out with anything that needs doing. I got lost in the desert but donnut worry in the 0.6 seconds since you last saw me I have somehow acquired water and provisions for several weeks. Don't ask me how!

Peak oldest sibling behavior.

[ilikedetectives]

"This bond we share…I believe it is alurlssrin. If that is so, it will last as long as we do."

[littlecrittereli]

ougghhh guysssssss

Thinking about this AU idea again

(Dont worry I'm not done with Reprogrammed yet BUT THIS HAS SO MUCH POTENTIAL IT HAS NOT LEFT MY BRAIN)

I can smell the dramatic "YOU'RE NOT MY DAD!!!" exclamation from here

[epiphainie]

literally makes me sick how bluntly tommy dumps buck... the "buck" at the end is so cruel. reverting to the worst version of yourself because you're confronted with your insecurities without even making that conscious choice, it coming out like instinct and breaking both hearts in the process. it's so juicy delicious gorgeous

[flamingpudding]

Fictober23 Prompt: 28 - "I may not get another chance to say this."

Fandom: DPxDC

Rating: T

Warnings: -

A/N: Plays into the Forgotten Twin AU setting. Basically for this: Danny was sent to the Fentons as a mission when he was seven and Damian forgot about it until someone found an old mission report from Danny. Their first meeting didn't go well… But Damian has his reasons wanting Danny to come to Gotham with him that are not all completely selfish. I tried to make this little scene sort of funny with a bit of angst in it.

"So…" Danny floated next to a giant Cujo while 'sitting' cross legged in the air doing his best to suppress the growing grin on his face. "Are you convinced yet?"

He heard an inaudible grumble and laughed doing a little air flip before 'laying' in the air and resting his head in his hands. "I didn't catch that Dami, can you repeat that?"

"Get him off me!"

"Who? Cujo?" The dog licked Danny across his entire head before laying down on and making himself comfortable on his twin brother who grunted and Danny chuckled. "Didn't you say handling a ghost animal won't be any different than handling an actual animals?"

His twin grunted once more but did not say anything else. Danny grinned as he looked away from Damian and Cujo towards the rest his twin hand brought with him to Amity, he hadn't bothered learning their names when Damian had introduced them the first, second, third and fourth time. All in an attempt to convince him, he was surprised that his biological father didn't appear before him as often as Damian did after he told them no.

Red helmet guy, Danny believed his civilian name was something with J, was currently getting chased around the Main Street by Johnny on his motorcycle and Shadow trying to trip the poor guy up. He had heard the guy curse and complain very loudly that he was not happy about his bullets not working.

Another guy in blue who's hero name was something with Wing but his nickname was Dick, a fun fact that funnily enough made his name the easiest to remember, was currently doing a bunch of flips dodging Skulker. He wasn't entirely sure but with the way Skulker was glaring he was pretty sure that the other ghost was now hunting the guy out of annoyance for real instead of just as a favor to Danny.

The third guy Damian had brought with him to Amity, who's hero name was also that of a dinner, was locked in a weird tech battle with Technus. Danny was pretty sure he had heard that guy yell something about upgrading Wayne Tech to the point that Technus would never be able to take control of it. Good luck with that, Danny thought, so far his parents' and with his own ectoplasm infused tech were the only ones that could resist that ghost's control.

"Danyal, this is ridiculous!" Looking toward Cujo again, Danny found that Damian had managed to dig his way out from under him.

"Well you're the one that bet that you could handle some 'silly' ghosts, to convince me to go to Gotham with you. That there wouldn't be a problem if I left Amity Park behind." Danny moved to float before his brother spread his arms out. "Do you see now that I can't just leave? That I have a responsibility here? That I have a perfectly good life here? You didn't care for years that I lived here and now suddenly out of the blue you keep pestering me to come with you to Gotham."

Danny heard something muffled but he hadn't been able to make out what exactly his twin had said. Instead of asking he slowly floated down until his feet touched the ground and then proceeded to sit with his knees drawn in so that his head could rest on them on the ground. His head was slightly tilted as he watched his twin blankly, the same way grandfather had him do when he had been way younger.

Danny knew this was a habit left over from the League, something Jazz wouldn't have been able to help him get rid off without Damian around.

Damian was obviously struggling, trying to push that giant ghost dog off him so he could have a proper talk with his twin, muttering how a 'ghost' dog could be this heavy or solid. Yet even if Damian was late, there were things he needed to explain. Things he needed Danny to know, things he had only learned after he had started living with father, after he had left the League for good. Even if he didn't deserve his twin's forgiveness, he finally could be the brother his twin deserved. Besides he had made a promise to his twin's sister on his second visit, when Jasmine had been the one to sit him down and talk when Danyal refused. She tried to figure out why Damian had appeared so obsessed about taking Danny with him to Gotham and in the end she had made him promise something for Danyals health.

"I may not get another chance to say this. With you pinned under Cujo and your siblings distracted by my rogues this might be my only chance for now. I was convinced I hated you yet was loyal to a default until Jazz thought me I actually didn't hate you but cared in a messed up way." Danny started watching how his twin stilled. "It took Jazz exactly one year to mostly undo the mindset the league trained into me, she shouldn't have to but she wanted to for her new little brother and took all the steps needed to ensure my mental well being when she was nine and I seven. After that year I was sorta lost. A limbo between wanting a normal life and the duty that had been trained into me towards you. I didn't know what to do and then Tucker picked up the slack, showing me what 'normal' was. Well after I sort of went feral on Dash during my first day in grade school."

Damian looked up at his twin who wasn't even looking at him but sported a far away look. Seeing but unseeing at the same time as he remembered a childhood he knew nothing about. "I kept sending reports, not out of duty but hoping to protect the live Jazz had offered me. When they stopped responding, I also stopped reporting and grew wary."

Laughing humorlessly Danny returned his gaze back on Damian. "At first I believed grandfather gave up on me. That he would send you to kill me. After all, I was just a disposable spare. But no one ever came."

"Me appearing after years must have been shocking." Damian admitted, by now he had given up trying to get that giant dog to move off him, less he embarrassed himself like his elder brothers were currently doing. "That was why you attacked without waiting to hear me out once we were in a secluded area during our first meeting."

"Can't blame me. I thought you were still with the League and brainwashed into the perfect hire grandfather wanted." Damian huffed at that causing Danny to chuckle lightheartedly.

"Valid reasoning." His twin agreed. The half ghost signaled to Cujo, the dog only tilting his head before licking his tongue over the entirety of Danny's head once more, not moving an inch off of Damian. "I would most likely have done the same if the roles had been reversed."

"I got a family here now, Damian and you got yours with our bio-Dad and all the siblings you have been trying to introduce to me." Danny voiced after a moment of silence between them. In that moment Cujo finally changed size and moved to cuddle up to his twin, giving Damian a chance to sit up on his own.

"Danyal."

"No Damian. I will not go with you to Gotham. You tried to show me that others could take care of Amity. But look at those you took with you? They don't even have the equipment needed to handle ghosts." Danny was looking over his shoulder watching Damian's brothers. "Amity Park is my responsibility, the same way Gotham is Batmans."

"It is a responsibility you shouldn't shoulder alone. Father has us in Gotham but who do you have?" Damian watched his twin from the corner of his eyes. "It would be better and safer for you to come with us."

"Damian, I can't just-"

"Jasmine has made me aware of the danger to your physical as well as mental health here the longer you stay. She has inquired with us to see if we could help you to start thinking more about your safety than the safety of everyone around you but yourself."

"Of course Jazz would. Look I can handle my parents and the GIW, it's not like-"

"She has stressed the fact that you have been returning injured more often. Injuries not caused by your ghost rogues." Damian cut him off. "You are a lot more like father than I am but there is one fact we both clearly have inherited from him in the same way?"

"Oh, really now?"

"We are both quite stubborn and won't give up easily." Damian smirked as he stood up and dusted off his pants. He took a couple steps forward towards his elder siblings before turning to look back at his twin. "I believe the bet was that if we could prove to you that other hero's could also handle these ghosts that you would reconsider your stance on coming to Gotham with us?"

"Wha-?"

"IT WORKED! He's in my mini computer! I trapped him in my mini computer!"

"HA! Not so fun getting chased by your own bike, is it?"

"Oh come on dude, this isn't that much of a tied situation. I just roped your own weapon around you. No need to be so headless."

Danny blinked slightly unbelieving, Johnny and Shadow where now the once getting chased around, Technus was apparently stuck in one single little computer and Skulker was tied up with one of his own weapons, aktual Skulker not the hulk of his mech suit.

"Danyal. I… We want to make it up to you. For all the years of mistreatment during our childhood as well as forgetting about your existence for nearly half a decade. All I am asking is to give father and me a chance. According to your sister, your foster parents as well as this GIW organization are posing a threat to you. My siblings are just as capable as father and I, so allow us to help your situation… please."

Once again Danny was blinking in disbelief, this time though he was blinking at his twin he hadn't seen in years, he had sort of resented at first but came to sort of love and miss him through Jazz's constant help and deprogrammed in his childhood.

"Wow… you must have swallowed a lot of your pride to say that." Danny couldn't help but mutter. None of his twin's behavior matched what he remembers from his childhood with the League but maybe it was better this way. What did Jazz tell him a couple days ago? To give it a fresh and new start? To at least listen to them?

"Danyal, if you speak one word of what I told you to any of them, I will kill you."

"And there is the Dami, I remember."

Damian clicked his tongue and Danny laughed as he finally stood up with Cujo in his arms to stand next to his twin.

[charmac]

Which episodes have the best Dennis and Mac ship moments?

I wouldn't necessarily say Mac and Dennis have "ship moments" that you can pick and label as the "best" (other than what would make sense as scenes for compilations/edits?) and I'll defer to @psymachine's answer to a question similar to this: don't watch this show for Macdennis moments/episodes.

I can pretty confidently say that Mac and Dennis (and the show) will be lost on whomever decides to go at it through the lens of "best ship moments". Because what is considered a good "ship moment" for something as fucked as their relationship?

Mac is canonically admittedly in love with Dennis, so it's not hard to pull a ton of "ship moments" from his relentless pursuit: you have attempted kissing, erotic dreams, baby trapping, sex doll Dennis, room trapping...all stellar attempts on Mac's side and all important aspects for their relationship (Gets Romantic being one of my favourite episodes), but those moments are almost all, in the most blatant way to put it, sexual harassment. Sexual harassment of Dennis that was essentially born and grown from Dennis' conditioning of Mac's sex life in the seasons before: making and recording sex tapes for him, teaching him the best way to get sex is through carefully orchestrated systems and schemes made up of lies and deceit, that getting off has very little to do with a second (willing) participant.

Barring their individual personalities and mental illnesses, what ends up coming from Mac heavily relies on what comes from Dennis years before, and what is eventually ongoing between both of them (reaching batshit levels of sex chicken) exists among and within that all. IMO, placing any specific "best" on a moment for them as a ship is almost impossible without reference to everything before it (and an actual understanding of it all).

That being all said, what I would call the best ship moments for the two of them are what's hidden between and underneath the hard punches of their back and forth, the subtleties that are continually ongoing (mostly the ones that lead you to understand that Dennis is in it, even when Mac is on the offensive), this shit that's impossible to pin out of context:

The way Dennis gets even stupider when he's wrapped up in an idea with Mac (Timeshare, for example) and the way he attempts to cut off his outbursts when dealing with Mac's own stupidity (see Frank Retires) (and Recession is great for both of these). The fact that Dennis will push past his own grievances for little reason other than to make Mac happy (Suburbs) and the fact that at the end of it all, he's always going to end up going home with Mac (Divorced.. mm). (For all of this in one shot: Inflates)

And for Mac, in more recent events with Dennis on the offensive, when his ever desperate vie for Dennis' attention and affection is pushed back on in favour of being the Mac Dennis truly wants. The Mac Dennis fell in love with decades ago.

[oscconfessions]

what the hell iz going on in the ii-neg blog. why r ppl calling ii the nazi show now. what happened dude

it’s because they’ve created a space that values insults over genuine criticism. they’re so deep in their hatred that they’re willing to forgo fact in favor of feeling morally superior. i’m convinced that you could tell them that the ii crew is full of serial killers and they’ll endorse it. There’s no line, there’s no reason, and there’s no critical thinking.

take this as a lesson: if you’re going to hate something, do your work and make sure it’s accurate. especially if you’re handling serious accusations.

-🫒

[tanadrin]

What response would you recommend to people attacking shipping? For that matter, what response would you recommend to Hamas doing that thing they did last October, which everyone has decided didn't happen and wouldn't matter if it did? I don't think the current response is good, but the alternative being offered is literally "roll over and die."

We are so far past a reasonable response to what Hamas did in October that “well what would you have done?” feels like a question that’s in extraordinarily bad faith, whether or not you mean it that way. A policy genuinely aimed at preventing massacres like the one in October starts with not illegally occupying territory, stalling a peace process indefinitely, and persistently dehumanizing and abusing a large civilian population—by the time we’re asking “how do you respond to a group like Hamas attacking civilians” we are already in the realm of abject policy failures, because a group like Hamas only exists because of Israeli policies. An honest response would be something like “fundamentally reassess our approach to Palestine.”

But if Israel has the kind of politics, and Netanyahu was the kind of leader, capable of doing that, it’s hard to imagine things getting this bad in the first place. This is one reason it’s important to put pressure on governments like the UK and US to criticize Israel’s actions, because the push for restraint is not going to come from within Israeli politics.

[rutadales]

So instead of sending an ask clearing up misinformation on these tags bc that would be pointless and serve to only make people upset, instead I am going to illustrate to all of you how short, quippy, and wrong statements completely control the conversation. Any attempt to clear up misinfo is going to take twice as long and be a lot less clipable (tbc this person isn't doing this intentionally doing this (at least to my knowledge) but it goes to show how pervasive these quick and wrong statements are). Watch:

"dream gave gumball's va alcohol" completely wrong, dream and gumball here both went to a birthday party of a mutual friend and met 20 minutes prior to the interaction in the Uber. There's nothing to show that Dream even brought alcohol to the event, let alone saught out a 20 year old to give it to him.

"VA is underage" technically correct in the specific context of America's legal drinking age, but so misleading it feels intentional. For most people underage means below 18, a minor, and not a 20 year old adult making the decsion to drink a year before it's legal. Any reasonable person is going to assume 17 or younger here.

"VA had a bipolar swing" There's nothing to suggest this besides people decided it. You can't diagnose a manic episode from a 4 minute clip and the majority of you are not capable of diagnosing anytime at all. No one has confirmed this, not even gold statue Michaelangelo (who by the way has deleted every tweet involving the situation). But even in the scenario where he is manic in those clips, being manic is not a free pass to verbal harass minimum wage workers and be freely antisemitic, ablest, and homophobic. But I digress.

"and called Dream a faggot" yeah that parts true

Even more additional context that is relevant is Dream was physically assaulted by Gumball's VA. Gumball's VA directly asked if Dream was Jewish after saying Dream would never get rid of his money, called the Uber driver the r slur and said the Uber driver had down syndrome. He then threatened to kill or paralyze Dream.

See how long that took? Almost 400 words to counter 4 lines. And I'm giving the original commentor the benefit of the doubt here and assuming they're just repeating what they heard but you see how that's dangerous? You see how this method of controlling interactions keeps the flow on the side of the person who is factually wrong?

And I didn't even get into how this is a tactic of the alt right, how it serves to normalize using faggot as a weapon, how it actively desensitizes people to bigotry if the person on the receiving end "deserves it". Or how harmful instantly trying to make the assaulter in this situation the victim, or using mental illness as an excuse to assault and threaten to kill people is also bad! Because even though that is all true and absolutely necessary in this conversation, I can't get into it! Because it would take even longer and "I ain't reading all that" is the most annoying, damaging phrase on twitter right now.

[mollysunder]

In s2, Ekko receeded into his own bubble like Jinx and Viktor have, and just like the latter, instead of have him further engage with Zaun his relationship with it becomes largely symbolic. Sure, we know in Act 1 that he and the Firelights have been using their base as a safe haven for Zaunites to escape the violence of the gang war, which is good but it's evident that they don't have any plans for Zaun. They've been leading people into their base blindfolded to protect their anonymity from the greater populace of Zaun, and so they ran into capacity issues.

Instead of fighting for more space in Zaun (or Zaun on general), his story has him fight for a tree. It's fine for him to be concerned about the health of the tree, because he lives in it, but in the hierarchy of issues plaguing Zaun, which includes the fact that Caitlyn (someone he recently provided aid to) was gassing it while Ekko was still around, this shouldn't have been his absolute top priority.

But the tree, for which it's value is largely symbolic to the Firelights (they didn't even grow it they found it) is what makes Ekko move in the story. And when Ekko does confront someone with power, it's Jayce... who resigned from the Council. Then he's unceremoniously thrust into another timeline where his relationship with Jinx, Zaun, and Jinx as a metaphor for Zaun are explored through Not-Zaun and Not-Jinx, rather than engage with the former two.

I could see Ekko's story work better if it was done with the intention to contrast Zaun's other two most influential figures, Jinx and Viktor, and how they all miss the mark with Zaun in some way. Jinx refuses to actually engage with the community despite becoming a powerful symbol of rebellion, and it's nearly irrelevant to her story. Viktor believes in doing good, and was able to build a community, however his power stole the ability for any of followers to dissent in anyway and thus never actually engaged with Zaun's populace they were just puppets. Meanwhile Ekko's style has translated into addressing the symptoms (some of which are benign by act 2) of Zaun's problems rather than the root cause.

But I won't hold my breath with that one as the writers have asserted that the alt!timeline was where the correct choices were made. By that logic, Vander and Ekko's similarities in leadership means the showrunners believed Ekko was making the uncontestable right decisions as well.

[snekjin]

my favourite genre of Frank images is when he is patiently waiting to be asked a question