#and we find our ways to cope with it

[vahingoniloinenlapsi]

The idea for this has been buzzing around in my head for the past week, so I finally drew it

[weirdmageddon]

how do people even find partners. i dont want a bullshit answer, like really

[dirtytransmasc]

modern got au in which asha is a "teen parent"

or more accurately, asha and theon have a much larger age gap, 10/15-ish years, type of age gap (she's at least 18/19 and theon's only like 4/5), and in a series of freak events, their lives are turned on its head.

their brothers were dead. their mother and father were ruled incompetent, the former left a shell of herself after the loss of her sons, no longer able to care for her remaining children, the latter was never a father to begin with and he didn't seem to have any wish to become one now.

she was an adult by law, meaning she was free from the hell that was the system. her kid brother - the one who smiled at her for seemingly no reason, the one who crawled into her bed when thunder rattled the house, the brother who held her hand on their rare family outings - was not.

she couldn't leave him there, even if she wanted to, even if it would make her life so much easier. she wouldn't abandon him like the rest of their shitty family. he was blood for fucks sake, she'd die before she let's him get taken away from her and given away to strangers to be used and exploited or treated like a shelter puppy to be pitied and fawned over.

cue asha fighting for custody of her baby brother, doing whatever it takes to be deemed a suitable guardian, and the two of them taking on the world together.

more thoughts:

they have to find an apartment cause they can't afford to keep their family home. moving into the cheapest place they can find with only the stuff they can fit in asha's truck, sharing an air matress and eating off of a coffee table while watching movies they rented from the library.

asha cleaning her brother up before his first day at his new school, trying to get him to look suitable, but not really knowing what suitable means for a kid going into kindergarten/first grade

theon comforting his sister when she gets overwhelmed with it all, doing his best to ease her tears. the night ending with them both curled around each other, just two scared little kids trying their best.

asha fighting anyone she has to to keep custody of theon, whether it be the social worker, the judge, people who called cps to report her. she doesn't care, no one will take away her baby brother.

asha taking theon to work with her (she works in a boat shop cause she already knows what she's doing) and having to keep him entertained while she works so they don't get sent home.

their first christmas/birthdays by themselves. theon putting together gifts at school (finger paintings or paper mache or something of the like) and asha cherishing it forever. asha spending all the money left to her name each time to get him something nice so eh can feel like a normal kid.

theon doing sports in school (little league or something) and asha making sure she goes to every damn game, being the loudest in the stands.

asha getting more and more used to being physically affectionate with her brother at time goes on. before everything she'd tense up when he'd hug her legs or hold her hand, but now she scoops him up like a rag doll, ruffles his hair, kisses his forehead, without a second thought.

{I'm so normal about them I swear}

[sangelune]

Also the more I think about it, the more I realize I really don't want to lean into anything fluff/gentle/fix-it with Ghost. It's just not inherently his character to me and I just? Don't fuckin care for it. I lose my interest in it so fast and I can't pin why I just know it's not up my alley for him. His journey is not one that gets a happy ending. He's damaged, broken beyond repair, and it's about acknowledging that and learning to live with it. Some things are too late to be repaired. There are other ways to live and still live up to the fullest. There are people with jagged edges that fit his jagged edges. It's bloody and it's rough and that's what he needs. He lives and breathes a bloody and violent existence, he needs someone to slot that back in with.

There are like one or two exceptions I've had to the rule but... I mostly find myself struggling to connect if it goes too mushy with him. Wherein Ghost himself would pull back and push against it. Not want it. Because it's foreign. It's? Disgusting to him in a way. It's not him, it feels like a perversion of what he is. To think he wants that in any way has him curling up his lips, sneering. It's not him.

So I think I might? Lean more into going through that arc and journey with him. His was never a healing story. And it never will be. It's coming to terms. Finding your way around that. Flaws that are cemented, flaws that someone else can work with.

[thethingything]

I'm absolutely determined to pay attention to all the seasonal changes and embrace them as much as possible this year and to try and romanaticise it. we've tried to do the same for the last couple of years too but I think we're getting better at it over time

[wheelercore]

Theory with no coherent proof on my part: brenner only visibly ages rapidly when a portal is open.

[seven-oomen]

Listen I get that you have BPD. I get that you have a mental illness. But that doesn't excuse rude or shitty behavior.

I kinda get why people are fed up with you.

[lucky-aces]

.

[pass1onepr1ncess]

And what if I draw Trish with mobility aides? What then? Who's gonna stop me? Absolutely no one, that's who

[cum-villain]

having a yoo joonghyuk body pillow wouldnt fix me but i'd feel better

[orangetintedglasses]

What does abandonware mean? o-o

( Basically 'software no longer supported by it's developer'. I call old lore stuff done with my ex 'abandonware' because we don't use it now that we don't talk LMAO

but I'm down to repurpose it because it was good and I'm not letting cool shit that I worked on for years go to waste )

[fail-front-door]

Bading ding! Ding ding! Bading!

[lastoneout]

Like I know we all love making ADHD seem cool but like, don't forget it's actually a disability? My ADHD is bad enough I've nearly been evicted for forgetting to mail the rent check to the property manager, I've forgotten to pay the utility bills and had my water or power get turned off or had to pay fines bcs I missed a credit card payment. Once I was supposed to cat sit for a friend and I lost the house key she gave me but didn't realize until she was already out of town, and she had to call the apartment office to get someone to give me the spare so her cats would have food for the week. When I'm unmedicated I can't even get myself to shower half the time, forget eating or cleaning. Before I started living with my fiance I'd just like, not eat for days because I didn't have anyone to remind me to eat or go buy me food. I've forgotten to turn the stove off so many times and ruined kettles and tbh been DAMN fucking lucky the house didn't burn down. I've done stupid, impulsive shit that's nearly gotten me KILLED. I can't remember to close the shower curtain reliably even through my fiance points out every single time I forget, and he's almost out of soap rn bcs for the last MONTH neither of us have been able to remember to order more once we get out of the shower.

I've had such bad memory my entire life that to this day someone suggesting I forgot something because I simply didn't care enough is a legitimate trigger that, in the worst cases, makes me have a breakdown.

I get that for some of you this is just something that makes studying hard or you forget to take a pee break when you're playing Minecraft or whatever, that's still a valid struggle and you do deserve help and understanding, but like, ADHD is a disability. It's disabling. It's not impossible to improve and learn coping skills, meds help a lot, there are great accommodations out there(LIKE CLEANING SERVICES), but not every case of ADHD is the same, and a lot of them are pretty ugly ngl, and just because you managed to do something doesn't mean someone else is gonna be able to manage it too, or that they're being lazy for struggling. And that obviously doesn't mean ADHD people have a free pass to never work on themselves and make everyone cater to their every need or whatever, but we do deserve some understanding when we explain that our disability is actually disabling in ways that aren't palatable to you. So like, idk, maybe don't immediately recoil in horror when you find out that someone with ADHD can't keep their house clean. And for fucks sake don't ridicule them for it.

[drdemonprince]

any advice for coping with being on the receiving end of a public callout ?

Oh yes:

Do not acknowledge the callout publicly. It will only further its spread, lend it legitimacy, cause you to be interpreted as guilty, and convey to anyone who bears you ill will that you are rattled and feeling socially threatened.

Do not act out of urgency. One of the ways that cancelled people get themselves in far worse trouble is by spiraling due to anxiety and rushing to issue a statement about what has happened, or to attempt to socially manage public impressions about what has happened. Do not do this. Anything that you say will be picked apart and used against you. The situation is truly not as urgent as it might feel. A lot of times, doing nothing and being quiet is the best way to proceed, and the dust will settle better if you do.

Do not issue a public apology. If you truly feel that you have wronged someone, that conflict should be worked out in private with the people you have directly affected. You do not owe the anonymous public audience a damn thing. Do not apologize for something you don't honestly believe that you have done wrong. Take time and really think about what happened, and seek the counsel of people whom you trust in PRIVATE.

Do not attempt to disprove the callout unless you have crystal clear, smoking gun evidence that the person who accused you is actually victimizing you. And even then, probably don't do it. I have only seen a disproof of a callout work ONCE, and that was when Juniper Abernathy revealed the person cancelling her had been abusing her. Even if the facts are on your side, acknowledging the accusations will only make more people aware of them, give your detractors ground to criticize your every word, and will muddy the waters and make people find the situation confusing and troubling rather than clear.

GET THE FUCK OFFLINE. Delete your social media apps for the time being. Turn off notifications. Turn off DMs requests. Change your settings so that you only ever hear from people you already follow (I do this, on the advice of Philosophy Tube). Get away from the computer.

Connect with IRL friends. When you're wrapped up in a cancellation, the negative opinions of a handful of foaming at the mouth freaks loom way larger than they actually are. And social media dramatically skews our sense of social priorities such that the approval rating of complete strangers starts to seem more important than people we actually know, and trust, and who actually know us. Go get a meal with a buddy. Watch a dumb movie. Talk to your grandma about her plans for her garden. Surround yourself with real people you care about and focus on their life and problems, to help put things in perspective.

Find distracting, active, rewarding activities that bring you out of the digital space and into physical reality. Not everyone is talking about you, not everybody hates you, most people have no fucking clue what has been said about you, and most people do not give a fuck about you (that's good). There are so many areas of life that are completely fucking untouched by what a bunch of social media power users have to say online. Go volunteer to clean up a park, run some errands, take an exercise class, foster a dog, regrout your bathroom, knit a hat. Even if the worst case scenario happens and a cancellation sticks, it's really only among a certain very vocal group of miserable fucking people. There is a whole world around you that will not ever care, and you will have a life outside of this.

Good luck!!

[queeniewithabeanie]

The Dreamcatcher

Dpxdc Prompt #26

All vigilantes get bad dreams. Of the ones they couldn't save, the criminals that got away, even of their fellow heroes dying. When you take up the cape you are practically signing an agreement for nightmares to haunt your sleep.

It's apart of the job, no matter how terrible.

One night after a long patrol, when the Bats were all dreading sleep, it was Steph that brought it up.

"We should get dreamcatchers. Hang em up on our doors, they'd help."

No one responded immediately, every single one of them knew that was a pipedream, including Steph.

"If it makes you feel better, go for it Steph." Dick finally obliged, after a too-long awkward silence.

When the intricate dreamcatchers appeared on the doors to their bedrooms a week later no one took them down. They all had ways to cope and if Steph giving all of them dreamcatchers gave her comfort who were they to deny it? Plus it was nice to have a bit of hope, no matter how fragile.

They didn't expect the dreamcatchers to actually work.

Danny had been dragged, beaten, and broken beyond repair by the GIW. He barely escaped their clutches with his half-life still intact and ran off to the closest city he could find, Gotham.

He built a life there, and slowly but surely the threat of the GIW only appeared as a background thought of his waking mind. It was a different story, however, when he was asleep.

They still hurt him every night, only difference was they weren't there to document it and look at him like guinea pig.

So Danny, like the problem-solver he was, made his own solution. After a few too many close calls with Nocturn he had found a way to infuse dreamcatchers with just enough ectoplasm to make them actually work. If they could repel an ancient ghost what was a few bad nightmares? He didn't have money to spare to buy one so he made his own and hung it up by his door.

He started sleeping better, with no nightmares of his own to haunt him, but that didn't mean his nights stopped being interrupted by screams. Not his own, no, apparently living in a city with so much crime and grime could lead to it's own traumatic experiences.

His neighbor's daughter had been kidnapped and trafficked, only recently brought back into his custody. She was 5 and Danny's heart broke every time he woke up to her shrieking.

So he made her a dreamcatcher too.

And then she told some of her friends who had also been hurt by someone, because who in Gotham hadn't, and they requested some dreamcatchers from him as well.

Word spread and soon Danny had a suitably profitable business on his hands.

He didn't charge much, most of his clientele could barely afford food, but he still needed to eat too.

Then the vigilante Spoiler came up to him and asked if he did custom orders.

Danny could see the hope behind the white eyes of her domino, desperation from years of built of pain and suffering.

"No usually, no, but if it's for the heroes of Gotham I can make an exception."

[hazzasultimatekiwi]

no one needs to read this i’m just talking into the universe tbh