#a timely intervention

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Just your average male living space.

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[raynewolferune]

DC x DP Prompt: Bruce is bad at emoting but at least ghosts are empathic (too bad bat kids are not)

Was reading Twincognito on AO3 when I stumbled across this gem again:

~

" “Danny, Tim. I was just…checking in. Is everything alright?” Curse his inability to make meaningful conversation when it wasn’t a life or death situation.

They glanced at each other and shrugged.

Then Danny hauled himself out of the bed and walked over to Bruce.

Bruce tried not to let too much excitement show on his face. "

~

Now I really want to read a story where Bruce adopts Danny post Meta trafficking and is being his usual emotionally constipated self. His kids keep getting mad at him because he's treating their new meta brother who was trafficked poorly (generally being stilted in conversation with him, walking away hurriedly mid-conversation, avoiding Danny when he's feeling really awkward, etc). They think Bruce is discriminating against Danny for being a civilian, meta, dealer's pick, but really it's just Bruce being horribly socially awkward. Danny knows this because of ghost empathy and find the whole thing hilarious. The whole thing comes to a head with the Bat Kids staging an intervention in the Bat Cave.

[starcurtain]

Teyvat's "Most Down Bad" Award Goes to Alhaitham for a Second Year Running

Seeing everyone making fun of Alhaitham for his "stalkerish" tendencies in this event is funny, because I feel like a lot of people missed that "Be literally everywhere Kaveh is" has been Alhaitham's MO from the day Kaveh appeared in the game.

From only grabbing his house keys after Kaveh returned from the desert (he couldn't have had both sets of keys at the end of the Archon Quest unless he went home and got Kaveh's copy) to ditching conversations to get back to his house only after Kaveh came home, to showing up without any warning or explanation in Kaveh's hangout with some ridiculous excuse about hearing his voice through noise-cancelling headphones... Refusing to offer any help in the Temple of Silence story quest other than staying in the library with Kaveh...

Since when does Alhaitham willingly cover anyone else's duties?

But this trend of "Be everywhere Kaveh is" didn't start when they were adults. It was already in place when they were still Akademiya students--and it's a trend that didn't end even when they had their fight.

Even when they weren't speaking, Alhaitham dogged Kaveh's every step through published responses to Kaveh's research articles in academic journals. He insisted on keeping a line of communication between himself and Kaveh open, even if the only way to do that was through very public ideological clashes. Pulling Kaveh's pigtails to get his attention lolol. It's implied that, for at least the few years between their fight and Kaveh moving in, this was the only communication between them--Alhaitham's refusal to allow their connection to entirely fade away. (And the fact that this is revealed in Kaveh's character stories--through his precious journal that records the moments of his life that had the most impact on him--shows just how deeply he values the fact that Alhaitham didn't give up.)

Another relevant side note: Alhaitham never asked Kaveh to give up his half of their house. Knowing half of it belonged to Kaveh, knowing that Kaveh may one day want to reclaim his part of it, knowing that it was listed as theirs, Alhaitham moved into the house and made zero effort to change its ownership. He was completely fine with living in "his and Kaveh's house." The stories suggest it was only months later (or even longer) that Kaveh even noticed he had the house, and he transferred away ownership of his portion without Alhaitham ever asking him (or even seemingly wanting him) to do so.

Please, let that sink in. Alhaitham actively left his grandmother's (presumably comfortable) house to move into "his and Kaveh's house," with no apparent explanation for why, and after doing so, he made no attempt to change that "his and Kaveh's" label. He moved into the house with no promise that Kaveh wouldn't show up on the doorstep the very next day and move in too. It almost feels like another deliberate provocation--I've moved into our house, are you going to come stop me? LBR, if Alhaitham had had his way, Kaveh would have been living there with him from Day 1...

There's also the fact that Kaveh literally can't write on a single message board anywhere in the entire nation of Sumeru without Alhaitham hunting his messages down and responding to them (which absolutely no one else does, by the way).

"NUH-UH!" "UH-HUH." "NUH-UH!"

Alhaitham's own character stories tell us explicitly that one of Alhaitham's defining character traits is "He is never where you need him to be," yet somehow...

Shot, and chaser:

Any time Kaveh is in the slightest bit of need or danger or just wants Alhaitham near, Alhaitham is "coincidentally" exactly where Kaveh needs him to be, whenever Kaveh needs him to be there.

Alhaitham didn't just "happen" to run into Kaveh in Port Ormos, an entirely different city from where he was supposed to be working. He didn't just "happen" to read the same terrible book as Kaveh when we know he otherwise would not waste a moment of his time on poorly-written literature...

He didn't just "happen" to appear when Kaveh was upset and needed a distraction in the House of Daena during Kaveh's hangout. He didn't just "happen" to be sitting around waiting when Kaveh needed answers after the Archon Quest. He didn't just "happen" to find Kaveh's academic publications and every single message board posting and respond to them at length and in public.

Which is exactly what Kaveh's mother told Kaveh he needed.

What level of down bad is "Abusing your powers as an Akademiya employee to keep tabs on your crush's library loans"? Just asking for a friend.

The only person for whom Alhaitham just "happens" to be available is Kaveh, over and over and over again--because he is very deliberately making himself a constant presence in Kaveh's life.

(Like, out of all things, I think people really underestimate the devs deliberately paralleling the romantic relationship between Kaveh's mother and father with Kaveh and Alhaitham's relationship. If you want to point to one thing that says "These two characters are intentionally queer-coded," it doesn't get any more obvious than this.)

Alhaitham, are you not embarrassed to be this transparent??? 🫣

[radiance1]

"Okay, so." Danny began slowly, very, very slowly. Testing the rope that bound his arms behind his back. "This is new... Ish."

"Sorry, sorry." The kid Danny had, unfortunately (but also fortunately), saved from multiple kidnappings from cultists. Said, hands raised in his direction but also not going any further and instead fidgeting in place. "Are they too tight? Do you want me to loosen them?"

"No, no. They're fine." Danny shrugged, silently hoping the Infinite Realms isn't going to smite the unfortunate boy across from him for, you know, kidnapping Danny and all that. "I would say this is one of the more comfortable kidnappings, to be honest."

"Oh, okay. That's good." The kid nodded slowly, though a bit hesitant before deciding not to follow that line of conversation. "Alright, so, my name's Billy." Billy introduced him, rubbing the back of his neck with his hand as he gave an awkward smile. "Y'know, the guy you saved from multiple kidnappings and, uh, kidnapped you too."

"Cool, cool." Danny hummed lightly, leaning back against the wall. "Name's Danny, nice to meet you Billy."

"I thought your name was Phantom?" Billy asked, understandably confused.

"It is." Danny confirmed.

"But your name is also, Danny?" Billy tilted his head a bit.

"Yes." Danny said, unhelpfully.

"Is Danny your secret identity?" Billy asked.

"Nope."

"Is Phantom your secret identity?"

"Yes but no."

A beat.

"That makes no sense." Billy said flatly.

"What can I say," Danny shrugged. "Not a lot of things in my life make sense."

"Right, yea." Billy nodded politely, drumming his fingers against his leg. "Interdimensional prince and stuff."

"Yea."

A moment of silence.

"So-" Billy began.

"No, the Ghost King isn't going to hunt you down. No, every other ghost in existence isn't going to hunt you down either and, no. This isn't going to start a war."

Billy blinked.

"Not what I was going to ask, but okay. That's nice to know." He nodded, a certain amount of relief unknotting unknown pressure in his chest he only knew till now.

"Oh." Danny blinked, then tilted his head. "Soooo, what did you want to ask then?"

"Do you want to be my boyfriend-"

"Yes."

===

"Let's fucking GOOOOOO!" Zeus roared, throwing his fists into the air. "Haha! Take that Solomon! I told you it would work!"

Solomon pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed in exasperation, reaching into his robe and pulling out 5 gold coins.

"Thank-a you!" Mercury swiped the money right out of his hands then hid them... Somewhere, on his body. Then gave Solomon a wink. "Pleasure doing business with ya!"

===

"Oh, it finally happened." Clockwork remarked calmly, barely pausing as he continued to run the comb through hair.

"The Realms seem out of sorts." Pariah Dark said slowly, twisting his head to try to look back at Clockwork only to turn it right back from the gentle whack of Clockwork's staff. "Should I be concerned?"

"No," Clockwork said casually, running the comb through his king's hair. Honestly, it amazed him that Eons of Eternal Slumber, yet his hair wasn't a rat's nest. "Let it sort itself out, it shall be done in the next century, or the next two millennium, either or."

"You're unsure?" Pariah tilted his head forwards the slightest amount, doing so very carefully as to not disturb the Master of Time's work.

"A rough estimate, though I can give a more accurate statement," Clockwork hummed lightly as he combed through the few knots left. "It is unimportant."

"Ah," Pariah Dark, both trusting and not knowing enough about said subject seeing as he does not have dominion over time, nodded slightly. "I see."

===

The Infinite Realms was very, very happy to see one of its blorbos gain a lover.

It knew interrupting various kidnappings and marking the boy as a good Realms token so they could meet would work out eventually!

[evilconcubinemk]

Oh my god! This is a masterpiece. :) If anybody ever wonders what hurt/comfort looks like, this art is the epitome of it. The facial expressions are so well-done, too. And all of the details, of course.

Thank you for drawing and sharing this. I'm so happy you liked that story, and I hope you're going to find more stories with them to enjoy among my fanfiction and other authors', too. :)

Reading some Subsmoke smut on AO3 has really rotted my brain, I can’t get enough of them as disturbing as it sounds! 😂😂😂. But it does keep me grounded in these uncertain times. Recently read one by @evilconcubinemk and I believe you can tell by this pic what the story is about. 😜😜😜

[yashley]

campaign 3 episode 120: Imogen Temult, Exaltant Hope of the Red Storm (hot girl shit)

[lizardbrainlabs]

Your interpretation of Hector talking with Bauhauzzo post-game (if you can see that happening) would be neat!!

oh the horrors of knowing no one can fix the problem except for you

[naamahdarling]

You know what? You know what I think?

I think that if we lived as we were meant to, in larger intimate ("extended family") groups and with more shared labor and time to do it (UBI NOW) people like me would not feel so useless and burdensome because there would be people around to help and to do what neurodivergent people can't while making valuable space for the neurodivergent to do what they ARE good at.

The way we live right now, all right, the way we live right now forces units of two adults to be able to do EVERYTHING or PAY to have someone come do it for them. I have to do the housework. I have to do it! But I am having to do a million different things and most of them I am not good at. I suck at them.

I wouldn't feel like shit, okay, if I had more than one other person around who was not a child and who could do the things I can't, like do the yard and cook and do repairs and basic maintenance; and someone else to split everything else that I like but is too much for me. It would free me to do what I am good at and enjoy. Cleaning, as in the sink and toilet, the windows, the blinds. Taking out trash. Folding, hanging, and sorting laundry.

But because all the shit I can do often relies on other shit being done first, and I can't do or have trouble doing those things, the shit I can do often can't be done. And even the shit I can do, I can't do ALL of it. So I can't keep up, and things get very bad.

We aren't meant to live like this. We are not meant to live like this.

That thought hurts so much because being able to flee the birth family is integral to survival for so many people. I'm so afraid that living in larger family groups would create more opportunities for, say, queer kids to be isolated, rejected, bullied, and abused. But if we gave people enough money to survive, and stopped considering children the property of their parents with no system in place to help them escape bad situations except a system that is often just as bad, just different.

I'm aware that communes and collectives aren't all that successful and are kind of a joke. I don't mean that. I mean a fundamental shift to multigenerational families where taking in "strays" (which my family did) is also normalized so people escaping abuse into existing households was accepted, with these families centered in maybe a couple of different larger residences so not everyone has to buy and maintain their own fucking washing machine and vacuum cleaner, and so people can benefit from large group meals that yield leftovers, and so child and elder care can also be centralized.

Then disabled people and the neurodivergent and sick and injured people, and pregnant people, and grieving people, would not have to either labor through all those stressors or consign themselves to living off an unlivable pittance or being put under legal guardianship.

I'm not saying anything new. People live like this in other parts of the world and maybe it sucks and I am wrong. But I'm just really mad right now because I can either do laundry or clean the sink but not both, and I really think we could improve society somewhat by making it so I did not have to choose one without sacrificing the other.

[4bsurdcreature]

Narrative Foils

Based off of This Post

[gael-garcia]

The Time That Remains (2009), dir. Elia Suleiman

[arch-official]

Hot take: Arch Linux isn't inherently unstable, YOUR install of Arch is unstable because you installed it at 1:00 and didn't understand what you were doing when you installed it.

If you take the time to Read The Fucking Friendly Manuel (scary concept I know) and understand what you are doing Arch is just as stable as other Oses such as Debian or Fedora.

If you build a house by yourself and it collapses, it's not because houses are inherently unstable, it's because you built it and didn't check to see if you built it correctly.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Lan Wangji Goes To Lotus Pier AU: Part 4: Deranged Bedfellows

(Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4.5)

[starry-bi-sky]

more clone^2 memes because i think they're funny

[achillesisnotcomingdown]

It's crazy that no one told me that David painted Andromache Mourning Hector

Resting against the bed Hector's body lies on, are his helmet, sword and belt. Under his feet you see, craved in the wooden frame, a battle scene. On his hair lays the laurel crown of victories. Even in death, Hector shall not escape war.

Look at Astyanax, reaching for his mother's chest, asking for her tender affection, but she's not looking at him. She's looking up, as she points to Hector's body. She asks the gods above "why did you have to do that to him ? Has he not served you well enough?"

And then there's Hector. He doesn't look like a corpse that has been dragged on the ground for days, actually, he barely looks dead at all. The wound on his clavicle is clean from any blood, his skin isn't any whiter than Andromache's, and his expression doesn't show any pain or fear (he looks resigned, that's all.)

Hector, the prince, the warrior, lays in a perfect athletic shape next to his gear. He looks like he's ready to get up and head back to the battlefield anytime now.

Because of her clothing and the lighting, Andromache stands out from the darkness of the scene. The painting tells you don't look at Hector, the symbol of the Trojan war, looks at her, the powerless mother and wife. It's her tragedy before anyone else's.

[lyculuscaelus]

With all these “anime screams” in 600 Strike of Epic the musical, I’d say Odysseus is getting to be good with war-cries (or if you will, a master of the war-cry). Plus the fact that he’s literally stabbing a god, using a trident to tame the god of horses?

Diomedes is suspiciously behind all this. Verily.

[tryingahandinholdingapen]

unless explicitly stated otherwise, please assume that all my warring clans era aus include Hashirama and/or Tobirama working towards overthrowing Senju Butsuma and being absolutely justified in doing so

anyway. tobiizu au in which they're both sort of using each other but they both benefit so it's fine. specifically Izuna is like wow I'm so good at this we'll totally be able to defeat the Senju with this info/help! we've already managed to separate them from some of their allies! meanwhile Tobirama is there like I'm going to get a good mark in betraying my clan, something that is normal to want and possible to achieve-

(He's using Izuna to get rid of Butsuma's loyalists and/or members of his clan that can't be trusted/are far too casual about committing crimes that Tobirama and or his brother are Not Cool With. The allies that Izuna destroyed Senju relations with were actively betraying the Senju clan anyway but Tobirama hadn't been able to convince Butsuma that a) he was telling the truth about the betrayal and b) they should break that alliance off before it irreparably fucked them over)

Arguably Tobirama is kind of winning at the whole game of manipulating each other because like he's getting everything he wants, politically speaking. The Senju aren't exactly in a better situation than before he started leaking info to/helping Izuna (Butsuma's loyalists + war criminals or not, fucking over or outright killing members of your own clan is still not optimal) but nor are they in a worse situation (a lot of problems are being solved. mostly by telling the Uchiha "look at this shiny important thing" to get them to destroy whatever the problem is, admittedly). When Tobirama's finished with Izuna, Butsuma will be dead, Hashirama will be able to smoothly take over the Senju clan without significant loss in power/resources/reputation, and then Hashirama will be able to properly seek peace with the Uchiha who might even accept because they probably feel like they're winning/the Senju are losing

This isn't to say that Izuna is LOSING at the manipulation game, exactly? Like he may be unknowingly helping the Senju clan, but he's also NOT in any way fucking over his own clan, if anything he is also helping his own clan and like once they make peace (he will probably pitch a bit of a tantrum about this and possibly have to be bribed with a marriage to Tobirama or something, but it WILL be happening Izuna get over it-) any advantage the Senju have will kind of also be the Uchiha's by extension. So as far as the political + resource etc side of things go, Tobirama is definitely winning, but Izuna isn't quite losing

Also I think Izuna is definitely winning on a more personal level lmao he essentially has Tobirama wrapped around his finger by the end of all this. He's getting a lot of wins as far as their relationship kind of stuff and also getting Tobirama to do random tasks for him/his clan and prove his devotion/loyalty like noooo of course Tobirama isn't secretly a double agent for the Senju whatttt look he did all your random tasks and he loves you so much! So yeah Izuna is winning on the personal front. Though at least some of the time I think Tobirama definitely knows that Izuna is like, blatantly angling for something and plays along anyway despite not actually falling for it, which actually pleases Izuna even more

Hashirama does not know any of this is happening btw. Madara does, and most of the Uchiha for that matter (Izuna couldn't avoid fessing up to where he was getting all the info/how he was achieving things at a certain point) but Hashirama? Hashirama is in the middle of staging a coup + building up his own power base whilst simultaneously trying to convince Butsuma he's totally still loyal to him. Hashirama trusts Tobirama entirely so when Tobirama was like "don't worry Anija, you focus on our allies and I'll focus on dealing with our enemies" Hashirama essentially just went "okay <3 yay <3" and didn't think of it again for just, ages. If his brother says he's dealing with it he will! Tobirama is so smart and sneaky after all-

Can't decide if it's funnier if in the end it comes out that Hashirama had absolutely no clue what Tobirama was doing for him or if he's in like peace negotiations with the Uchiha and just rolling with it like yes obviously I knew about that thing my baby brother did last summer he acted with my full authority at all times (has no idea what event Madara is even referring to)

It's important to me that at some point when they're still Very Much at war and the Uchiha don't yet know what's going on with Tobirama seemingly switching sides, Izuna goes on a solo mission. Tobirama is also on a solo mission (may be a fake self-assigned mission or he may have just completed the actual mission way faster than anticipated and then not gone back to the clan yet after finishing) so he could meet Izuna. A couple of Uchiha had had another mission in vaguely the same area as Izuna and so decided "hey since we're meant to finish our missions around the same time why don't we find Izuna and all go home together?"

And that's how one or more unprepared Uchiha walk into a room only to see the White Demon of the Senju sprawled at their heir's feet on a rug by the fire, looking completely unphased by Izuna fucking with his hair/outfit whilst he recites Senju patrol routes (???) and weak points of the agreement the Senju have with an allied clan (?!?!) and their heir looks very pleased with himself but...not like any of this is a surprise occurence?...

Izuna and the Demon seem to notice them at the same time and the Senju cuts off his recitation in favour of them both staring at the Uchiha squad. Who stare back. After a few moments the Uchiha squad kind of awkwardly give a quick bow to Izuna and blurt out something about "nice to see you're fine after your mission see you back at the compound UH bye!" and just. Close the door and leave

(They can just about hear Tobirama resuming his recitation as they exit the building)

(what the hell)

This au ends with Konoha being formed partially on the basis of a marriage alliance (Izuna demands Tobirama be given to him and his request is basically immediately granted (Hashirama still doesn't 100% know all of what's been going on but he HAS managed to extract the information from Tobirama that he's been sort of kinda courting Izuna for years and the Uchiha had technically helped make peace, and that Tobirama "wouldn't object" if Izuna really wanted Tobirama's hand which from Tobirama is BASICALLY a full on romantic proposal with fireworks and all. If that's what his baby brother wants then that's what he gets!! Hashirama is so happy everyone's getting their happy ending <3) and it's all good

It should also be noted here that the Uchiha clan as a whole are mildly bewildered by this. Like they're not going to SAY anything because this works for them but... The Senju want to give them/Izuna Tobirama? Really? Are we just, ignoring the bit where Tobirama was actively betraying their clan for literal years, via Izuna? Okay then...

(The Senju don't care or are actively happy about it because at this point they're mostly composed of people who either simply do not give a shit about politics in general or the whole "betrayal" thing in particular, or like Hashirama view the "betrayal" as Tobirama actually doing the ultimate risky play to free them from Butsuma's Terrible leadership and bring them peace. The few dissidents are for the most part smart enough to keep their fucking mouths shut and those that don't learn quickly)

Anyway Konoha is set up with Senju and Uchiha being equal to each other (and other clans are also there + equal etc but that's not that important rn) and it's all good it's nice. There's actually very little trouble from warmongers or anything in either of the two founding clans? In the Senju they're mostly either afraid of retaliation (they're Aware of a tiny bit about what happened to Butsuma's followers okay) or have reluctantly been won over to "wow we're doing better than we were before, and I guess Hashirama+Tobirama aren't as bad as I thought...okay. I don't like this but I can live with it and see what they do next. On the Uchiha side of things, those who are still like "grrrrr kill all Senju blah blah blah" are mostly under the impression (due to the whole "betrayal" thing, the fact that Hashirama handed his brother over to him, etc) that they've actually successfully subjugated the Senju and the morons just don't realise it. This is factually incorrect but everyone else in the village has decided it's easier to not correct them about this because then the bitter bastards might start actually causing problems for peace; let them live in their delusions

Izuna gets Tobirama as his wife and absolutely tries to push any and every boundary and just generally get his way/manipulate Tobirama into doing v minor but vaguely demeaning or inconvenient things like, all the time. Izuna is NOT as subtle about this as he thinks he is but he will likely never learn this because Tobirama indulges him constantly; he generally finds Izuna's antics to be somewhere on a scale from "this could not matter less to me and therefore I don't mind" to "sexy" to "that's really funny actually" to "that's kind of cute in a stupid way/the same way a v small child or dumb animal is"

People who care about Tobirama (for example Mito, Hashirama, Touka) MIGHT be more concerned about the fact that Izuna and Tobirama are barely even trying to hide the fact that their relationship isn't exactly typical/normal nor healthy....except they both seem really happy? Also they RECOGNISE that look of fond/amused indulgence on Tobirama's face, tho admittedly previously when they saw it it was usually aimed at like, his summons or young students or something, but still. Clearly he's not actually doing anything he doesn't want to do or that distresses him so they'll leave their brother to his bizarre relationship

(Also the occasional sheer Glee or look of mischief or smugness on Izuna's face is kind of funny. He looks like a cat that Got Away With It it's hilarious)

People on Izuna's side of things (Madara, Hikaku, etc) are considerably less at ease about this because they do Not know Tobirama enough to fully understand his expressions or realise that half the time he's knowingly going along with Izuna's bullshit for his own amusement/pleasure/curiosity. This relationship is clearly neither normal or healthy! But like, IZUNA is clearly very, very happy and is perpetrating most of the unhealthy/obsessive/weird bullshit, meanwhile Tobirama+his people don't seem to be objecting to any of this so...uh...what can they even do here??? It would be weird to try to 'save' Tobirama from Izuna right? They shouldn't do that. Or maybe they should?... They're all kind of stressed about it and Madara in particular is also just Extremely Uncomfortable bc I've decided now that Izuna+Tobirama have not actually moved out (yet?) and so he's witness to just, so much more of their bullshit than anyone else and he wants NONE OF IT thanks