#but it does not look like an effective solution to the problem!!

[iwriteaboutfeminism]

I wanted to talk through some thoughts on the blitz of news that's come out in the last few days.

First, a reminder: It is not physically or intellectually possible to respond to every piece of news or proposed legislation or executive order that's come out recently. Even if it were, that would cause an immobilizing level of overwhelm. And any time you notice yourself feeling immobilized, that's an opportunity to reflect and redirect your focus.

And by "re-directing your focus," I don't mean to ignore all the problems. That's the strategy behind doing a blitz like this, so you don't want to walk right into that trap.

But let's say that you have a lot of strong feelings about a lot of the stuff that's happening or that's being proposed and you place a high value on speaking out and taking action against things you disagree with. All of that comes from a really good place, and I'm not discouraging that impulse.

But in order to do any of that effectively in a time like this, let's talk about the difference between "reaction" and "response."

Imagine you're at a batting cage, ready to work on your swing, but the pitching machine is throwing the balls way too frequently for you to actually get in a good, solid swing for each ball that's being thrown at you. You could try to hold the bat still so that you're bunting, but even if you make contact with more of the balls that way, you're not going to hit them very far.That's one way to think of the difference between reacting and responding.

If you're treating the dozens of new executive orders like a checklist you're going down and marking "against; against; against", yes, it's valuable to speak out against harmful actions, but if you were to fully express yourself on everything that's happening that you find on a spectrum of disagreeable to dangerous, I bet you're already feeling the exhaustion.

The solution isn't to give up, but it's also not to wear yourself out. Instead of reacting, respond.

Back to the batting cage- instead of trying and inevitably failing to swing at each fastball, you need to decide to respond by letting some of the balls fly by you and focusing your effort, skill, time, and attention on hitting the ones you can hit with a strong swing.

While this does require letting most of the balls fly by you, that DOES NOT MEAN that you're allowing those things to go without a strong response. This is because you are acting in community. You are taking the effort, skill, time, and attention required to hit the balls you are hitting SO THAT other people who you are in solidarity with can focus their effort, skill, time, and attention on the balls THEY'RE hitting.

This asks you to determine the difference between issues you can react to and issues you are capable of responding to. Once you've made that decision, there is less pressure and emotional weight on you to play whack-a-mole with each new bit of information. Remember, you're not ignoring or down-playing the importance of or not caring about the other issues (there will always be opportunities for collaboration!) but you are choosing to focus on what you are capable of responding to.

Start with the issue or issues that you have a level of personal experience with or have already spent some time learning about. You don't have to be an expert, but these are the issues you can speak about without having to study a list of talking points first. These are the issues that you know off the top of your head a list of resources or advocacy/activist/mutual aid groups or books/documentaries to recommend to people who are looking to learn and do more.

Start with those, and get in a few good swings. Share experiences with the people and groups who are taking swings at other issues. Learn from each other. Help each other. Take turns resting.

We're playing the long game. Together. And we're going to win.

[phaedo]

sorry not to be Like That but the "yuri olympics" event looks so badly run 💀

[junadeo]

YES!!

decriminalize:

sex work

addiction

criminalize: 

golf

[bombsonboard]

metal arm brrr

Summary: Every problem needs a solution. Bucky just isn't the biggest fan of yours.

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader

Word Count: 1k

Tags: Fluff in the highest degree, old married couple, Swearing (It's Bucky, duh)

A/N: I just needed to give you guys something, it's been too long since i've written on here and you guys are the best :) I've barely checked this over so I apologize for any typos.

*****

“Can you stop moving, please?” 

Bucky Barnes half asleep is not someone you want to mess with. The first time you shuffled he had hardly made a sound, the second you were met with a low grumble (a warning you knew well) and the third strike, he was thirty seconds from kicking you out of the bed. 

When Bucky had finally learnt to sleep in a bed again, mostly thanks to you, he steadily became a big fan of his beauty sleep and god help anyone who ended up disturbing him. He had a lot to catch up on. Once, you had violently shaken him awake because his phone was ringing and when he heard Sam on the other line, you were deemed a ‘sleep thief’ for a week and a half after. Bucky Barnes was a bitch when it came to his sleep. 

You usually wouldn't have any complaints about being in his vice grip but it was January and the nights were still cold and having a boyfriend with a metal arm meant that you were held to him with an ice cold grip around your waist. When the Summer came, it was a life saver, your own personal refrigerator but you still had a good few months to go before you were hanging off his arm everyday. 

“Sorry.” You mumbled and tried to convince yourself you were comfortable without another word.

Nope, can’t do it. You shift again. 

“You’re kidding- what is it?” He pulls away from you and sits up on his elbow, glaring, he dares you. “Go on.”

With the most innocent doe eyes you could muster you slip your bottom lip between your teeth and debate the argument you could spark when your gaze slips to his vibranium arm in the semi darkness.

He doesn’t miss a thing, you’ve come to realize.

“I swear if you say-”

“-It’s cold! I’m cold! It’s just too much cold!” You burst, arms flailing in desperation. 

“It’s my arm! You said you wanted to sleep on my left, this is my left arm, nothing I can do. Okay?”

“There has to be something.” You search the room for solutions, briefly lingering on the sock drawer. 

“Oh yeah, sorry, let me just take it off.” Bucky grunts, dripping with sarcasm. 

“...If you could?”

“Seriously, fuck you.” 

Bucky falls back into his beloved pillow, eyes shut and wishing he has chosen a partner that let him sleep peacefully, then again, why would he want that when you exist?

“Look, either come to the other side or deal with it.” 

Silence finally reaches your bedroom and Bucky is deeply in dreamland while you lie awake, scheming away. 

In the early hours, you slip out of bed without a sound and make a beeline for the sock drawer, knowing you had some old pairs of slipper socks stuffed at the back. Scissors in hand, you snipped off the toes and smiled at the D.I.Y leg warmers. Oh, he was gonna be mad. 

With nearly medical precision, you held out the slumbering Bucky’s arm in front of you and one by one, slid the fluffy socks up the freezing metal until it was sufficiently covered. Thanking the universe, he was a pretty heavy sleeper, you shuffled back under the covers and happily wrapped the soft arm back around your waist. 

You slept like a lamb after that.

*****

When the morning came, you woke up before him like usual and briefly left him to his own devices as you made coffee, two mugs sitting on the counter beside each other. 

Through the wall, you faintly hear the rising of the soldier before heavy footsteps quickly storm in your direction.

“The fuck is this?”

You look up to see him in the doorway, and find yourself the subject of a stare that would send millions running. Not you. The multicolored socks lined up his arm kind of softened his hoped effect and you had to stifle your laughter. 

“A solution?” You shrug.

“No.” He points at you with his flesh arm accusingly “Nu-uh. This? This is not how we solve things.”

“Is it not? I’m really digging the rainbow on you.” The giggle you had tried to push down had spilled over.

“You’re a fucking menace.” 

The giggle now a full bodied laugh that had you clutching at your chest as you were overcome with the image of your big, scary, ‘world’s most deadly assassin’ boyfriend glaring daggers at you while donning the most fluffy and most colorful socks up his arm.

Bucky was fighting a grin with all his might, your laughter was like an ugly disease, incredibly contagious, hard to avoid, and annoying.

Something soft hits you in the face and you halt your hysterics as you peer at the slipper sock now at your feet. Lifting your gaze, Bucky is smiling smugly, and working a second sock off his arm. 

“Bucky!” You yelp and duck under the counter as the rainbow sock flies in slow motion over your head. 

You probably shouldn’t poke the bear but-

“Y’know, for the best shot the United States army had ever seen you sure do miss a lot.” You taunt from your hiding spot.

When there's no response, you make a break for the couch and get shot squarely in the forehead.

“Say that again.” He dares with narrowed eyes.

“Okay, truce. Truce!” You raise your hands in surrender. 

“Say sorry for last night.” The pink ball of fluff in his hands, a deadly fate, and you’re consigned to concede

“I apologize for last night.” You sigh, approaching him with caution “Now, it’s been ten whole minutes and you still haven’t subjected me to your obscene morning breath.”

He beckons you with his head and you happily plod over, throwing your arms around his neck. The kiss is sweet, and full of promised mornings to come.

It’s welcomed by you. Until you feel the coldest thing known to man, his left arm, writhing under your shirt and sending immediate shivers down your back. 

“Bucky!” You screech and his strong laughter descends on your morning with malice.

Desperately wiggling out of his hold, you escape to the bedroom and yell from your stronghold:

“That was an act of war James Buchanan Barnes!”

[therealmylesmorales]

Loser!Vi Headcannons pt 2

Y’all gave so much love, I feel like I had to reward you guys ☺️

Warnings: uhhh same as last time, I guess. I’m too lazy to check what it was, masc4masc relationship

WC: 700

⭒ Vi is a chronic biter. You learned that pretty early in your relationship. And yet, you never know when it’s coming until it’s too late. She would act like she would be leaning in for a kiss…until she bit the closest part of your body; your cheeks, your arm, your ass

“OW— fuck Vi!”

”That didn’t hurt, you're being dramatic.”

⭒ Another cute but annoying thing Vi does is that she fake boxes you. Her fists will never come in contact with your face or body but she still finds it funny. She’ll even make sound effects while doing so. But the second you lightly punch her stomach to get her to stop, it’s the end of the world.

⭒ She cried like a baby when she got her nose pierced. You were with her and by how hard she clutched your hand, you would’ve thought she got shot. You made fun of her the entire time.

”Not only do you have a big ass back tattoo, you also have one on your face.”

“That’s DIFFERENT!”

⭒ Vi’s major changes every few months. She just loves doing new things and will get obsessed with it and unfortunately be bored with it in not too long after. However, she would probably get a degree in business so she could take over Vander’s bar once he decided to retire.

⭒ Sticking with the college theme for a second; you’re known around campus for being chill and somewhat friendly to others. Vi, on the other hand…people think she’s brash and her temper definitely doesn’t help. But people have noticed that when she’s around you, she’ll siphon off your energy and is a lot more pleasant to be around.

⭒ Vi likes kissing you more than actual sex. She’ll still never turn down the offer, but kissing you feels calming to her. After a day of classes or dealing with whatever, it is her favorite way to unwind.

⭒ Vi loves horror movies, and loves when you watch them with her (even if you hate them/are scared easily). Her favorite franchise is probably Friday the 13th but Ghostface is her favorite slasher. The only problem with her watching horror movies is her inability to easily fall asleep afterwards. Normally, it takes her five minutes to be knocked out.

”Cupcake, are you awake?”

”Vi, PLEASE go to sleep.”

⭒ Surprise to no one, she cuts her hair on her own. Every few weeks you’ll find her in the bathroom with scissors and a shaver in hand, trying her best to get her hair looking good. You help her with the back of her head and she appreciates you for that.

⭒ Vi is literally obsessed with you. Her entire camera roll is filled with pictures of you both or just you; pictures she took on dates or just candid ones. Her wallpaper is even one of you, a rare selfie you took and she cherished it as soon as you sent it. Vi even gave you a special ringtone and whenever you text or call her, she can’t help but kick her feet.

⭒ Like everyone, Vi has red flags. But her most noticeable one is that she’s hardheaded. She doesn’t like to listen, especially when she knows thinks she’s right. She will stand on business until she can’t…and when that happens, she’ll come back with her tail between her legs, hoping you’re not too mad at her.

“Hey…are you mad at me?”

”Did you learn your lesson?”

”I did. I’m sorry.”

A little something extra for my black!readers 🫶🏾

⭒ No matter how hard both you and Mel tried to teach her, she nor Jayce still understand Spades. Viktor got it down within thirty minutes, but those two were still clueless. So, you all decided on a more easier game, Uno!

Uno was banned that same night after you two almost broke up and she and Jayce almost got into a fist fight.

⭒ And someone said that Vi would take the fuchsia bonnet with the black headband, and that was totally the one I was talking about (cause I have the same one). She refused to give it back at that point so the only logical solution was to buy another.

[iluvmattsbeard]

replace him (c.s)

master list

chris sturniolo x reader

warnings: very heavy smut and strong language

preview: Chris was over you constantly running to him for help with your shitty boyfriend. so he decided to take matters into his own hands.

a/n: listen to song for full effect! trust me, it's worth it.

Chris' POV

i was laying down in bed scrolling through instagram as I see a text notification pop up. it was y/n. I roll my eyes as I read the text.

y/n

i'm so tired of him

i sigh to myself. she was always coming to me for help. her boyfriend constantly treats her like shit. sometimes I didn't even know what to say back. she was always texting about stupid shit he says. I really didn't understand why she stayed with him. I laid there for a bit with my eyes staying still on the text.

Chris

what he do now?

i see a text bubble pop up right away and it stays that way for a while. I guess since it's her first real relationship, if you even consider it that, I understood the attachment she had.

y/n

i'll tell you in person. you think you could come over?

i was confused by the short text since she was typing for so long.

Chris

sure. only because i'm a good friend. be there in 20.

i sigh getting out of bed, heading to my closet to put on a black hoodie and some dark washed jeans. I was sort of dreading it. as much as I cared for her, sometimes I just wanted to tell her to stop talking about him. obviously i can't say that. all I could do was stay supportive.

after a bit, I finally finish and head to Matt asking him for a ride. y/n didn't live that far.

"she's having problems again?" Matt asks getting up grabbing his keys, putting on his shoes. I sigh responding, "obviously. what do I even do?" he just chuckles as he says, "well just listen I guess." I nod as I slip on my shoes as well.

we get in the car and we head to her apartment. the sun was barely going down.

End of Chris' POV

time passes as Chris finally arrives knocking on your door. you open the door after a bit, with puffy eyes. he looks at you as he tenses up. he hated seeing you like this. Chris walks in as he embraces you with a hug. you hug back as you both just stand there in silence. he rubs your back softly. "lets go sit down and talk." he says pulling away. you nod as you walk over to the couch, him following behind.

you both sit down as you sniffle a bit. all he could do was stare at you waiting for you to speak. "he lied to me about where he was. he said he was going to grab lunch with his friends but I saw his location at some random house I haven't seen before." you pause for a bit, "I confronted him about it but he just got defensive. I have every right to be angry right?" Chris just nods. you cover your face as you sigh. "I gave him everything I could. he doesn't realize all I put up with." you say. you continue to rant as he just stays silent. Chris was frustrated listening to you complain over and over again about the same shit.

"and he-" you were interrupted by Chris clearing his throat. "y/n. this is getting ridiculous. how many times do I have to sit here listening to the same shit?" you were taken a back from his response. "all he does is treat you with no respect. do you really think I want to hear about it all the time? there's a simple solution to all of this." you stay silent with a blank look. he stays silent as he waits for a response. your phone rings. it was your boyfriend. you both look at the notification. you were going to reach for your phone, but Chris picks it up before you could. "hey-" you say to him but you stay silent in shock with what he does next. he answers the call.

"hello? y/n?" your boyfriend, Zach, speaks. "look Zach. all you do is make her upset. so do me a favor, don't call again." Chris says hanging up, throwing your phone to the other side of the couch. you sit there in shock. "why would you do that?" you exclaim. "he's still my boyfriend." Chris scoffs. "look at my face y/n. does it look like I give a fuck?" he says with a serious tone. "I know what you want y/n. it's for sure not him." he says shaking his head. "Chris, this is my relationship." you say. "I know it is. yet you bring me in between to constantly pick you up. so if you want me here, stop bringing him up. stop talking unless it's about us."

you have a confused look on your face. "us?" you ask. he lets out a fake chuckle before speaking, "yeah us. I know you're with him but, let me ask you something." he says getting up. "why stay with him, when you got me to replace him?" your eyes widen at the question. "I mean i'm constantly here for you. clearly, he's not." he continues. he walks over to you as he looks into your eyes with that same serious face. you sit up straight as you keep the eye contact. "I don't know what you want me to say. i'm still with Zach." you respond. he clenches his jaw as he lets out a scoff. "again. does it look like I give a fuck?" he says. all you could do was look down at your feet.

"you can stay with him. all I can do is just make things better." he says lifting your head up by your chin. making you look into his eyes. you swallow at his actions. "but I don't trust him." he says. he puts his hand on your cheek as he rubs it softly. "let me make you forget him." again, your eyes widen at the statement. next thing you know, he grabs your hand, making you get up. "do you want that?" he asks. you hesitate before nodding slowly.

he gives a sly smile as he turns you around, bending you over onto the couch. "he won't give you what I got for you right now." he says putting his hands on your shoulders, as he slides them down the side of your body slowly. you stayed silent, giving into the moment. your breathing was a bit uneven as you felt his touch. he then uses his hand to move your hair to one side. he leans in behind you, leaving kisses on your neck softly. "is this okay?" he whispers in your ear. you gulp as you say quietly, "yes". he then stands back up straight as he takes off his hoodie, a long with his shirt. "good". he responds taking in the sight of you in front of him.

he then pulls down your pajama pants slowly. leaving them hang at your ankles. he leans down grabbing your ass, leaving soft wet kisses on it. "perfect". he says. he then leans in behind you as he grabs your face making you look at him. he grips your face kissing you hungrily. you kiss back eagerly. you knew Zach never kissed you like this. as you continue kissing, he moves his hand down to your neck gripping it, still kissing you. you felt your hot core get wet. you never expected to be in this position. yeah, you were with Zach. but Chris was living up to his words. Zach left your mind. all you could think now was how badly you needed Chris. you hear your phone ringing. you wanted to pull away and look but he grips onto you harder. "no phones." he sternly says.

he gets off you, starting to unbutton his pants. it was very evident how hard you got him. just by looking at you, bent over in front of him. he lets his pants drop below him, hanging at his ankles. he then pulls your black panties down. his eyes were filled with lust and admiration. he groans quietly taking it in. "so beautiful". he says.

he licks his lips as he pulls down his boxers taking his dick into his hand. he strokes himself as he gets closer to you. he takes his tip and rubs it at your entrance, teasing you. you move slightly, wanting him to put it in already. he lets out a laugh, "be patient". he inserts his tip slowly taking it out shortly after. you whine at his movement. he smirks as he does it again, having you go crazy.

"Chris please..." you whine out quietly. "good to know you want it so badly." he responds. he then shoves his dick all the way into your wet core. you arch your back at the feeling, letting out a moan, shutting your eyes. his thrusts were slow, driving you insane. "fuck y/n. are you sure you still want to be with him?" he says groaning.

he continues thrusting slowly but deeply, having your arms get weak from holding yourself up. "Chris you feel so good stretching me out". you moan out. he lets out a small laugh as he pushes your head down into the couch picking up his pace, your arms giving out. "fuck!" you scream out. your eyes were clouding up as he continued to thrust faster. "you take it so good." he says with a single sweat drop slide down the side of his face.

you were a moaning mess. you never imagined Chris being this good. "you're so fucking hot y/n" he says putting his hands over yours as you both grip the couch beneath. you were enjoying every moment. you've never been treated so good. "is this what you needed to help you?" he asks keeping his pace. "yes!" you scream out. he slows down his thrusts leaning back up to leave kisses on your shoulder.

he then grips your waist as he pounds you slowly with his thrusts. you rolled your eyes with pleasure at the feeling. he grunts with every thrust. your legs started to get weak as you moan out, "i'm cumming Chris." he slaps your ass as he returns to his fast paced thrusts. you released all over his dick. he pulls out, stroking his dick on top of your ass, shooting his cum all over it. he throws his head back at the sensation.

your legs were shaking, as he chuckles with his breath uneven. he cleans you up, then collapsing next to you. you lay down staring at the ceiling. you stayed silent with a smile appearing on your face thinking to yourself, "wow." Chris then kisses you on the cheek asking you, "so... what's on your mind now?" you turn to look at him before replying, "you". he smiles at your response, kissing you gently.

"call me Mr. steal your girl from how I got you." he says with a sly smile. you both let out a loud laugh. your phone starts ringing again. you knew it was Zach. you let it ring. you didn't care. Chris grabs your phone and hangs it up. "remember, he can't give you what I got." he says.

a/n: sorry if this was short! likes and reblogs are highly appreciated. thank you!

[kyri45]

✨ShadowPeach Bio Parents Bio AU Q&A! 23/12✨

Welcome to the Q&A! A space where I can answer related or similar question about the Shadowpeach Bio Parents AU! If you submitted your ask anonimously, then you’ll have to check the whole post if it’s answered here, if it’s not, worry not! Your asks might have been used for a future comic or just in the queue~

@boonalina ha chiesto: Question: Why does Wukong's biblically accurate form have two faces? Also, was there some inspiration for you that made you want to design him like that? (Since I know he doesn't have any canonical Kaiju form in LMK) Also also, DAMN that Kaiju fight was so freaking pretty!! The colors were so well done!

thank you!! He has 3 actually, but in the panels you can see 2 bc the third is facing away from the camera aha.

Anonimo ha chiesto: would you make a Shadowpeach bio parents au zine?

yes I would. But it requires an enormeous amount of organization, plus you need multiple people to organize a zine, from contacting, to marketing, to production, to logistic etc… I don’t have the time right now as I’m already working.

@stro-lmk-enjoyer ha chiesto: Head canon that Red Son uses/used to use the ‘rubber duck’ method while working. The rubber duck method is: when making something by yourself you may get stuck/stressed out because you can’t find a solution to a problem. Have a rubber duck on your desk just so you can verbally explain your problem, which could help you solve it by actually hearing it out loud. But a side effect of this is now Red Son will talk to himself while he works, even if it does help it still freaks his parents out hearing him mumbling to himself when they pass his room. Just something I learned recently when watching a video about writing a characters backstory 👍 I thought you might like this too! Bye <3

i know need Red Son just talking about project to a cute rubber duck and MK finding it adorable.

Anonimo ha chiesto: Will LBD come back ? Even if it is just in a dream ?

maybe

Anonimo ha chiesto: how old is MK ? Like 18-21 ???

almost 22.

@haru7110 ha chiesto: IS MEI IMMORTAL LIKE MK AND REDSON IN THE SHADOWPEACH AU??? I NEED TO KNOW!! Fornoreasonwhatsoeverobviouslyhahahahaha (angst purposes)

no Mei is not immortal, but I would guess she has a lifespan slightly longer than average bc of her family.

@cutvdo ha chiesto: When you first draw Red Son in his human form he looked small, but later he looks bigger (probably from you getting more comfortable drawing him). I like to think he changed his human form a bit because he found out MK likes big man

this is the best conclusion ever. He would fr fr

Anonimo ha chiesto: Guess you could say MK got his own personal monkey tree

omfg-

@aizieweex ha chiesto: Hey Kyri!!! I LOVE your art, aaaand thanks for the recent repost of my animatic (or animatik?...I honestly don't know which is more correct, I'm not a native speaker at all), I literally screamed, lol (And still screaming). I wanted to ask, how many parts of the comic are you counting on? Do you already have a certain planned number of chapters? Anonimo ha chiesto: Hello! How long will the shadow peach bio parents au be?

there will be 9 parts in total. I don’t know the exact number of chapters left but I can assume around 30.

@copyrightedbystarkindustries ha chiesto: Love your art!!! Are you planning on putting shadowpeach au stuff on your redbubble in the future?

Yes I do! But first I need to finish my job which will be more or less on the 20th of January.

Anonimo ha chiesto: Does MK use a glamour to hide some scars or something his parents aren’t supposed to find out about ?

yes

@twilight-bai-he ha chiesto: When you said during the livestream that MK will have a new outfit when he is magical girl, What do you mean by that ?

that he will eventually own a new outfit as “official outfit” let’s say. That isn’t his temporary fighting outfit he has now.

@magician-kitty ha chiesto: You think Mac will get more flustered now that Wukong’s more muscular thanks to all that weight lifting from the previous chapters?

a little bit yes.

@whotookfinn ha chiesto: Hey!! I’m absolutely in love with your art, it’s so beautiful and wonderful and IM OBSESSED. Anyway, I’m not sure if you’ve been asked this before, but who’s your favorite lmk character to draw?

macaque and Mk, they fluffy.

Anonimo ha chiesto: I HAVE A QUESTION! after your shadowpeach AU will be finished will you do other lmk Au????

nope.

@cjtuy ha chiesto: My question is about tang and pigsy are they married I've always wondered this

no they are not married, but it’s something they have been thought for a little bit. They known each other for years and got together for one. They know they work very well as a couple, and marriage would only be a more “official” way to show their union. It’s on their mind, maybe they will plan it in the near future

Anonimo ha chiesto: Have you seen that Brandon Roger's clip where he loses his kid? I can just imagine macaque going through that right now with mk being kidnapped. "Mothers adrenaline is kicking in!!" "have you seen my son, he's about this tall, clearly gay but we haven't had the talk" https://youtu.be/dJJUFrENZ_o?si=lbacsYlJr8XpaDQQ (this is the sound just in case)

LMAO I know that video by heart yes absolutely those would be the parents.

Anonimo ha chiesto: In the Bioparents AU, is Redson actually going to be able to court so Mk in the end after the whole celestial situation?

they will have time to do their stuff after the heaven shenanigans.

@ashmeertheimp ha chiesto: I hope you are having a lovely day/night and are healthy and well AND TYSM FOR THAT SPICYNOODLES KISS I LOVED IT AND MY HEART WAS ABOUT TO BURST! Anyway I was wondering if mk and Redson parents are gonna have quality time with there Nephew in spirt/potential son in law?

mm yes. Post heaven shenanigans but yes.

@cpazy ha chiesto: About that,

It means that Mac and MK's powers have to do with the moon cycle, like on a full moon they get stronger or something like that? And if there is an eclipse where the moon turns red, their powers would go out of control?

Yes, but the opposite. On a full moon they are weaker, while on a new moon they are stronger.

Anonimo ha chiesto: Hello! Not a question but I just love and ADORE your shadowpeach bio parents au! ❤️ Recently you had posted about LMK fic recommendations, I wanted to recommend "The Constellations Within Us" and it's sequel "Epilogue: Axis" (ongoing) by cloud_somersault on AO3. It's one of my favorite LMK/Shadowpeach fics! The writing and world building are stellar and it includes similar themes as the ones in your comic, like the themes of reconciliation, shadowpeach angst and repairing their friendship and their joint custod- I mean- mentorship of MK! It's a really good fic and I highly recommend giving it a read! https://archiveofourown.org/works/48308065 And again, love your comic so much! Have a great day! ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

aaahhhh I will definetely check them out!

@astro-nomaly ha chiesto: Per ur Bio Parents AU, what happens when a courtnapping occurs, but the person getting napped isn’t actually into the courtnapper, and doesn’t want to be napped? Does courtnapping have a “leave whenever you want” clause or..? (I love ur au akshhenwb)

they are allowed to refuse anytime. If the kidnapper doesn’t allow the he’s a dick

@thecardboardbutterfly ha chiesto: Since everyone is starting to fear for tomorrow, I decided to share my convoluted thought I got yesterday night at like, 3AM to lighten the mood a bit (.3.)~* So Technically, given that Lmk is very much based on Journey to the West, maybe it's not that much of a stretch to call Lmk fan content of JTTW, like some kind of future AU or something. Which means your AU is fan content of Lmk. See where I'm getting at? Because your comic is so popular in the fandom, there is fan content of your AU out there, which is already fan content. Which means we reached a point where we have fan content (fanarts and various inspirations of the bio parents AU) of fan content (said bio parents AU) of fan content (Lmk) of a piece of content (JTTW). The chain is GETTING LONGER BOYS. I personally think it's funny. My apologies for everyone who lost their brain/ last remaining braincell reading this x)

omg. It’s a fan-inception!

Anonimo ha chiesto: Will Red Son and MK ever have a bad date?

I like to believe EVERY date will have would be comically bad. But I think that’s because they still need to understand that they don’t fall under the “typical demon date” or “amatonormativity” umbrella. The best date they could have is just them training and having lunch later, or them playing videogames or netflix and chill.

@sollythesalt ha chiesto: Dumb question but do you remember the scene in lmk where Wukong said he has stage fright? I wonder if you're gonna do something with that knowledge…. Ps: Keep doing your magic queen we love you and your art✌️💅

oh u bet I did

[beekeeperspicnic]

Can't believe this blog has existed THIS long, and I've somehow never shared this Sherlock Holmes fanfic by PG Wodehouse. As far as I know it predates Conan Doyle publishing any stories which mention Holmes retiring to keep bees, which presents the delightful possibility that ACD discussed his future plans for Holmes with his young friend Plum, whose first reaction was to go off and write (and publish) a cute parody of it.

The Adventure of the Missing Bee

Sherlock Holmes is to retire from public life after Christmas, and take to bee-farming in the country.

"It is a little hard, my dear Watson," said Holmes, stretching his long form on the sofa, and injecting another half-pint of morphia with the little jewelled syringe which the Prince of Piedmont had insisted on presenting to him as a reward for discovering who had stolen his nice new rattle; "it is just a little hard that an exhausted, overworked private detective, coming down to the country in search of peace and quiet, should be confronted in the first week by a problem so weird, so sinister, that for the moment it seems incapable of solution."

"You refer—?" I said.

"To the singular adventure of the missing bee, as anybody but an ex-army surgeon equipped with a brain of dough would have known without my telling him."

I readily forgave him his irritability, for the loss of his bee had had a terrible effect on his nerves. It was a black business. Immediately after arriving at our cottage, Holmes had purchased from the Army and Navy Stores a fine bee. It was docile, busy, and intelligent, and soon made itself quite a pet with us. Our consternation may, therefore, be imagined when, on going to take it out for its morning run, we found the hive empty. The bee had disappeared, collar and all. A glance at its bed showed that it had not been slept in that night. On the floor of the hive was a portion of the insect's steel chain, snapped. Everything pointed to sinister violence.

Holmes' first move had been to send me into the house while he examined the ground near the hive for footsteps. His search produced no result. Except for the small, neat tracks of the bee, the ground bore no marks. The mystery seemed one of those which are destined to remain unsolved through eternity.

But Holmes was ever a man of action.

"Watson," he said to me, about a week after the incident, "the plot thickens. What does the fact that a Frenchman has taken rooms at Farmer Scroggins' suggest to you?"

"That Farmer Scroggins is anxious to learn French," I hazarded.

"Idiot!" said Holmes, scornfully. "You've got a mind like a railway bun. No. If you wish to know the true significance of that Frenchman's visit, I will tell you. But, in the first place, can you name any eminent Frenchman who is interested in bees?"

I could answer that.

"Maeterlinck," I replied. "Only he is a Belgian."

"It is immaterial. You are quite right. M. Maeterlinck was the man I had in my mind. With him bees are a craze. Watson, that Frenchman is M. Maeterlinck's agent. He and Farmer Scroggins have conspired, and stolen that bee."

"Holmes!" I said, horrified. "But M. Maeterlinck is a man of the most rigid honesty."

"Nobody, my dear Watson, is entirely honest. He may seem so, because he never meets with just that temptation which would break through his honesty. I once knew a bishop who could not keep himself from stealing pins. Every man has his price. M. Maeterlinck's is bees. Pass the morphia."

"But Farmer Scroggins!" I protested. "A bluff, hearty English yeoman of the best type."

"May not his heartiness be all bluff?" said Holmes, keenly. "You may take it from me that there is literally nothing that that man would stick at. Murder? I have seen him kill a wasp with a spade, and he looked as if he enjoyed it. Arson? He has a fire in his kitchen every day. You have only to look at the knuckle of the third finger of his left hand to see him as he is. If he is an honest man, why does he wear a made-up tie on Sundays? If he is an upright man, why does he stoop when he digs potatoes? No, Watson, nothing that you can say can convince me that Farmer Scroggins has not a black heart. The visit of this Frenchman—who, as you can see in an instant if you look at his left shoulder-blade, has not only deserted his wife and a large family, but is at this very moment carrying on a clandestine correspondence with an American widow, who lives in Kalamazoo, Mich. — convinces me that I have arrived at the true solution of the mystery. I have written a short note to Farmer Scroggins, requesting him to send back the bee and explaining that all is discovered. And that," he broke off, "is, if I mistake not, his knock. Come in."

The door opened. There was a scuffling in the passage, and in bounded our missing bee, frisking with delight. Our housekeeper followed, bearing a letter. Holmes opened it.

"Listen to this, Watson," said Holmes, in a voice of triumph.

"'Mr. Giles Scroggins sends his compliments to Mr. Sherlock Holmes, an' it's quite true, I did steal that there bee, though how Mr. Holmes found out, Mr. G. Scroggins bean't able to understand. I am flying the country as requested. Please find enclosed 1 (one) bee, and kindly acknowledge receipt to 'Your obedient servant, 'G. Scroggins.

'Enclosure.'?"

"Holmes," I whispered, awe-struck, "you are one of the most remarkable men I ever met."

He smiled, lit his hookah, seized his violin, and to the slow music of that instrument turned once more to the examination of his test tubes.

Three days later we saw the following announcement in the papers: "M. Maeterlinck, the distinguished Belgian essayist, wishes it to be known that he has given up collecting bees, and has taken instead to picture postcards."

[goodolreliablejake]

Fantasy races are an uncomfortable concept, because they present a world that literally works the way racists think that it works. The attempts to mitigate this problem often fail to address the core concern, merely making the idea more palatable.

A big example is trying to correct by changing the language from "races" to "species." This attempt fails for two reasons:

1) Exactly! Racists think that people of other races are a different species. That's the foundation of "race science," phrenology, all of it.

2) Are demihumans different species, though? Like, the interactions between elves and dwarves don't resemble the interactions between different species in our world. They don't act like snakes and lemurs, or whales and krill, or even cats and dogs. More often we've got different groups of people, who may speak different languages and have different cultural practices, engaging in diplomacy or war and struggling to coexist. In practice, they are treated as nations: ethnicities. Except they're ethnicities who are biologically distinct enough to have objective differences in ability.

This is something that puts me on edge in Mass Effect, otherwise one of my favorite games. True, the game ultimately lands on condemning the genophage, and it's not subtle about that. I mean just look at the name... But it's still considered debatable, morally grey, and Mordin Solus remains one of the most charming and enduring heroes of the series. The setting has bent over backwards to make every racist stereotype and talking point as legitimate as possible. In this setting, it is objectively true, scientifically proven that it is in the DNA of Krogans to naturally be violent, warmongering killing machines whose explosively rapid breeding poses an existential threat to the galaxy. That in turn is meant to make us think that maybe forced sterilization is something worth considering. It's hard to ignore the parallels to real life racist propaganda. I don't think it's malicious, just ungrounded and thoughtless; the result of creators to whom these ideals are abstract thought experiments, rather than reflections of real history.

Another big example is Dark Elves. They try to make it okay, to mitigate the message by fleshing them out as characters, by scapegoating an abusive deity rather than an ingrained nature, by erasing the monster manual description that reads "Always Chaotic Evil," by trending skin tone away from black and towards purple, or gray, even pale white. But none of it really changes the core issue, does it? The idea of drow is to equate dark skin with evil, to fetishize that idea, and to tell a story about a subsect of people cast into darkness as a result of sin in a direct parallel to racist Christian beliefs about dark skin being a curse or punishment from God.

So, do I think we need to cancel Mass Effect and stop playing D&D or telling stories about drow? No, not really. I mean... I do all these things. Truth is, I don't have an actionable solution, for myself or anyone. But the dynamic is clearly present and worth describing. And the attempts to challenge it are often insufficient, more about making ourselves feel better about what we're already doing than enacting real change.

[ckret2]

Chapter 54 of everybody being really eager to kill their prisoner human Bill Cipher for good: the gang's trying a new way to create fuel for the one weapon guaranteed to destroy Bill.

It goes so great.

As Ford drove to Northwest Manor, Dipper skimmed through the introduction to Flatworld, where Edward Bishop Bishop was pretending that his book had been dictated to him by a sentient square; but he couldn't focus on it. He sighed, shut the book, and stared out the passenger window at the passing trees.

"Something on your mind?" Ford asked.

"I'm thinking about the Axolotl's poem again. The one about Bill."

"Ah. Still trying to remember the rest?"

"Kinda. Mabel and I are working on it together," Dipper said. "But it's not that. I've just been wondering... what if the poem is... you know, part of a prophecy about Bill or something? Mabel remembered another line of the poem—'A different form, a different time.' What if the Axolotl was telling us why Bill's back as a human? Maybe we need him here—to, to use his powers to fight off a bigger threat or something. Do you think that's possible?" He held back another question: what happens if we kill him before then?

Ford frowned thoughtfully. "I've been thinking about the Axolotl as well," he said. "About the worlds I visited that called it a god of criminals, tyrants, and luck. That sounds to me like the exact kind of being that would be Bill's ally. And it's odd how resistant Bill was to telling us anything about the Axolotl, when it simply passed over town for a few seconds and then moved on. Why the secrecy? How does Bill think it benefits him for us not to know about it?" Ford shook his head. "I think you're on to something, Dipper—I think whatever the Axolotl told you is important. The question is: important for whom?"

Dipper's stomach turned. The Axolotl had radiated such kindness; it was hard for Dipper to believe it could be up to anything evil with Bill. But then—Dipper clutched at Flatworld with the damning biography on the back—but then, how many people had Bill himself fooled with the benevolent teacher act?

Dipper understood now why "Don't Trust Bill" had so quickly turned into "Trust No One." Even when you knew that there was only one real enemy—even when you knew that most people out there were still reasonably honest and friendly—you could never tell just how far Bill's shadow stretched. "I guess that's true. We can't really know."

"We can't know yet. But it is worth trying to figure out," Ford said. "I wish I could tell you where to start looking for answers. For now... we'll just have to consider anything possible."

Ford was right. But all the same, every time Dipper paranoidly asked himself What if Grunkle Ford is right, what if the Axolotl really is on Bill's side, a second, even more paranoid, even more worried voice asked, But what if he isn't?

####

When they arrived, Fiddleford was already in his lab, hard at work on the miniature particle accelerator they'd come to see him about.

"The paradox what was powering it started yowling" Fiddleford said. "So obviously it ain't a paradox no more."

Ford grimaced. "That does lay to rest whether the cat is alive or dead."

"Sure does," Fiddleford said, sighing. "So I let the cat outside and I'm rebuilding the whole contraption to run on a more robust paradox. I hope you've got better news for me, Stanford."

"We hope so too. I think Dipper might have the solution to our fuel generation problem."

They briefly explained Dipper's unfortunate puppet incident last summer—Fiddleford had to take a break in the middle to grab a cup of coffee, "To steady my nerves,"—its ongoing effects on his sleep, and the new developments of the last few days, culminating in Dipper learning how to project his soul out of his body—

—which, Ford now realized, he probably should have expected Fiddleford to take poorly.

"Sweet sasparilla!" Fiddleford kicked over his chair while jumping onto the nearest table. "You're dead?!"

"What?" Dipper said. "No, I—"

"You're like a ghost possessing a zombie!"

Dipper thought that over. "Whoa..."

But, even though Fiddleford thought the whole affair went against the rightful order of the world, he agreed that it was a sound idea and worth trying. "It's lucky that my tater tot and I hunted out all the ghosts in this place during our spring cleaning," he said, opening a cabinet. He retrieved what looked like a pair of vacuums redesigned to be worn like backpacks with an assortment of random electronics dangling from wires. He held up a set of goggles and headphones hanging off one of the vacuums. "I invented these doohickeys that'll let you see and hear ghosts! They'll let us keep in contact with Dipper while he's out of his body." He set the vacuums on a table near the miniature particle accelerator and said, "First, though—Stanford, I need you to help me rebuild this machine."

"Of course." Ford turned away from the vacuum he'd been inspecting to look at the miniature particle accelerator.

Dipper said, "Wait, there are other ghosts in this mansion?"

"Yep!"

"I hunted one at the Northwests' big party last year," Dipper said. "How many more ghosts are in here?"

"We've caught, oh... thirty or forty so far."

"Seriously? That's amazing." Dipper was already thinking about the amazing Ghost Harassers episode this place could have been. Maybe even a miniseries.

"Aw, it weren't that hard. If you leave the TV on, they like to flock around it to watch. All you've gotta do is hide in the corner until a whole big bunch of 'em are gathered 'round—and then ya get them!"

"Oh," Dipper said. "Huh. I just tricked one into getting trapped in a silver mirror."

"Well, that's right impressive too. I never woulda thunk of that," Fiddleford said. "Me and Tate have been sucking them into cooling pouches in these here vacuums and then sticking the pouches in a chest freezer down in the dungeon! Maybe I oughta line the freezer with silver."

"This place has a dungeon?" Dipper asked.

Before Fiddleford could respond, Ford asked, "Which parts are we replacing?" He was inspecting the miniature particle accelerator.

"All of them!"

Ford gave Fiddleford a surprised look. "All of them?"

"Yep! Every last one!"

"Is the design changing that much?"

"Nope! It's staying exactly the same!"

"Then... why can't we just use the same machine we already have?"

"We will be using the same machine!" Fiddleford smiled mischievously. "Or will we?"

"Ah! I see! The particle accelerator of Theseus," Ford said. "Very clever."

"And kinder on the local stray cats, I reckon."

Dipper offered his assistance, but the work involved too much welding and buzzsawing for him to try untrained, so he was directed to sit a safe distance away with the first aid kit. At least it gave him a chance to read some more. He had to shove aside a couple flashlights and the glue grenade to reach where the slim book had slid to the bottom of his backpack during their walk from the car.

He skimmed over some of the worldbuilding looking for the story before he realized the story was the wordbuilding and looped back. It was a lot bleaker than he expected, even after Mabel's warning. Rigid class system, oppressive government, all kinds of horrifying shape prejudices... Frustrating dream visits to the ignorant line people in the first dimension who didn't believe in the second dimension, and to the self-absorbed King Zero in the point-sized zeroth dimension who thought a whole universe was contained inside him... A just as frustrating visit from a sphere who simply couldn't explain the third dimension in a way the square protagonist could understand, which was even more annoying since the square had just seen how the first dimension couldn't comprehend the second for the same reasons, so why couldn't he accept the possibility of a third dimension he couldn't imagine? Dipper got that it was supposed to be a metaphor to help three-dimensional readers understand that not being able to visualize a fourth dimension didn't mean it was impossible; but still. Come on, man. Don't be stupid.

On the other hand, at least now Dipper had a framework to understand the concept of higher dimensions and probably a leg up on next year's geometry. Would high school geometry cover four-dimensional space?

After a couple of hours of work and a break for lunch, the miniature particle accelerator was rebuilt and ready for another attempt to generate fuel. Fiddleford pulled on one of his ghost vacuums like a backpack, put on the set of connected headphones and goggles, and settled his glasses on over the goggles. "Y'all ready?"

"Ready," Ford said. He was seated at the accelerator's monitors, holding the jug that would contain any NowUSeeitNowUDontium they generated, and wearing the other vacuum—with the goggles over his glasses, and he was a bit worried about how Fiddleford had positioned his.

"Ready," Dipper said, a tad less certainly. What if he couldn't do it today? What if he'd never actually been able to do it last night and the whole thing really had been a dream?

But Fiddleford flipped the accelerator's power on, stepped back, and said, "All right! Do your thing!"

"Okay." Dipper stared straight at the machine, and—eugh—thought about degloving his body from his soul, peeling out of his skin fingers first.

This was only the second time he'd left his body deliberately. He'd observed in the past that the mindscape was strangely gray and still compared to the real world—but he'd never realized just how stark and swift the change was, like all the color and warmth had been abruptly sucked from reality. He shivered.

Ford inhaled sharply. Fiddleford stumbled back against the nearest table and yelped, "Flipping flapjacks!"

"You can both still see me?" Dipper said. "Can you hear me, too?"

"Loud and clear," Ford said.

"Like the voices of the dead." Fiddleford shuddered. "Welp, let's get this over with. I don't like all this ghost business. It ain't natural."

Ford gave him an amused look. "Since when have you ever been concerned about what's 'natural'? Didn't the engineering club vote you 'most likely to build a robot that flies in the face of God'?"

"You hush! There's nothing unnatural about iron, electromagnetism, and flamethrowers."

Dipper studied his body's face, its eyes pointed blankly toward the particle accelerator. "Well, I'm looking at the experiment, but I'm definitely not thinking about it. I think that's half of the paradox?"

"That's right," Fiddleford said. "Now, you just—float yerself on over to the other side of the accelerator, and think about it without looking at it."

"Right." Dipper positioned himself directly across the accelerator from his body, shut his eyes, and tried to think experimental thoughts. He didn't know much about Dontium besides what Ford had written about it in Journal 3—that it was inert when you were looking at it and radioactive when you weren't—so, if the miniature particle accelerator generated any, would he get blasted with radiation? Or was his body staring at the accelerator enough to keep it inert? But no—it was supposed to fill up the jug Ford was holding, right? Ford was observing it. Dipper tried to imagine what must be happening inside the accelerator; how did it work, would particles spontaneously generate in the tubes? Maybe they circled around until they fell into the hose to the jug...

He heard Ford gasp. "Fiddleford, look at this— Don't listen to me Dipper, just keep—keep thinking whatever you were thinking!"

"Is it working?"

"It was! Don't let us distract you."

Dipper tried to ignore the sound of Fiddleford running over to Ford, and started humming to drown out their hushed conversation. That was good, right? It meant the experiment was working. Keep thinking about that—experiment. Experiment. Expeeeriment. ... He wondered if trying to do the experiment by putting himself and Tyrone on either side of the accelerator would have worked, or if it had to be Dipper's soul and his body—

"Hot diggety!" Fiddleford shouted. "We've reached critical mass!"

"What does that mean, is it bad?" Dipper opened one eye a crack, trying to squint enough that he couldn't see the particle accelerator. "Is it gonna explode?"

Ford explained, "It means we've generated enough Dontium that it can sustain its own existence. Now, even if you get distracted, what we've already generated will remain. It can only go up from here."

"Wow," Dipper said. "That only took, what, a couple of minutes?"

"Less than that! During our last attempt, we tried for hours without reaching critical mass," Ford said. "Your idea was right on the money. Excellent work, Dipper."

Dipper grinned. After all that anxiety, it was almost a letdown how easy it was, but the coolness factor made up for it. He could just imagine the conversations the first week of high school: What did I do over summer break? Oh, nothing much. Just synthesized a new element. To fuel a weapon custom-designed to kill an immortal chaos god. And did I mention I was a ghost at the time? It didn't quite top last summer's adventures, but...

Then something went wrong.

There was a noise halfway between the electric buzz of a tesla coil and the rip of Velcro being torn apart. A stench like burning hair filled the air. A line of shifting colorful light began worming its way out of the center of the particle accelerator and up into the air.

"Oh no. Ohhh no!" Fiddleford grabbed his head. "The micro-rips! The threadbare fabric of reality! Our experiment put too much of a strain on it! We tore straight through!" One foot bounced agitatedly, "Ohhh, I knew I shoulda run some calculations before substituting in Dipper for you and Stanley."

Dipper gasped as the line of light began to agonizingly stretch open wider. Reality began seeping over its edges and dripping through into the kaleidoscopic miasma beyond. It developed a second horizontal rip across its middle as reality stretched beyond endurance in multiple directions. "What—is that?" He was afraid he knew.

"A dimensional rift," Fiddleford said.

"The Nightmare Realm," said Ford.

The last frayed thread holding reality together snapped apart, and the rift tore open wide, fully exposing the Earth to the roaring roiling chaos beyond. 

They screamed.

"Hello?" A giant set of dentures with stubby arms and legs leaned through the rift. "Oh hey! Aren't you the guys that killed Bill?"

They screamed again.

"Is screaming how humans say hi?" the monster asked. "I'm Teeth. Aaah!" He turned toward Ford. "Hey! Fingers! Lookin' less electrocuted than the last time I saw you—"

Ford socked Teeth in the incisor, knocking him back through the rift. "Back, you! You and your 'friends' are not welcome in this dimension!"

"Ow. What the heck, man."

Fiddleford shouted, "Don't stop observing the Dontium!" He bounded across the room on all four to scoop up the milk jug and stare at it. 

Ford nearly toppled through the rift, and had to grab onto the miniature particle accelerator as the heaviest nearby object to anchor himself. The rift sucked on reality like a vacuum, and the longer it was open the more powerful it grew.

Over the roar of the rift, Dipper yelled "What do we do?!"

"We have to seal it! Before it sucks all of Gravity Falls into the Nightmare Realm!"

"How?!"

Last summer, the instant Bill had no longer been around to maintain the dimensional rift, it had also sucked reality into it, starting with everything that properly belonged in the Nightmare Realm; but then it had also quickly sealed itself back shut. On the other hand, this rift was just opening wider and wider. Maybe it wasn't like the rift Bill had used to enter Gravity Falls, then? Maybe it was structured more like the wormholes that had been left behind after Weirdmageddon—

"I've got it!" Ford picked up Dipper's body—trying not to shudder at how lifeless it felt—and unzipped his backpack. "Is the alien adhesive grenade still in here?"

"It should be! Let me see." Dipper floated over to peer into his backpack.

The rift was already strong enough to drag at Ford's clothing. The lightest objects in the room lifted into the air and were sucked through. Papers. Pencils. Coffee mugs. Dipper's soul.

He screamed. "GRUNKLE FORD!"

"Dipper!" Ford grabbed for Dipper's ankle, but his hand passed right through. Ford's blood ran cold as Dipper tumbled head over heels into the Nightmare Realm.

"Look at that," Teeth said, watching Dipper soar by. "Dinner delivery."

There was no difference between the mindscape and reality in the Nightmare Realm, if Ford followed Dipper  through he'd be able to get a grip on Dipper there. But how would he carry Dipper back to Earth without him melting through Ford's grasp the moment they were through the rift? Didn't matter, grab Dipper first, then figure it out—

Fiddleford shoved the jug of Dontium in Ford's hands as he ran past. "Watch over this!"

"What—!"

Fiddleford jumped into the Nightmare Realm, the end of a long extension cord tied around his waist. He stretched out the hose of his ghost vacuum and flipped a switch, and with a yelp Dipper's soul was sucked inside. Ford gasped in relief.

Trying to keep as much of his attention on the potentially-radioactive jug as possible, Ford reeled Fiddleford back in, shoved the jug in his hands, and dug into Dipper's backpack again until he found the alien adhesive grenade. He pulled the pin and chucked it through the rift. "Duck!"

He shielded Dipper's body and Fiddleford shielded the Dontium jug as the grenade exploded. Even so, the force of it blew aside everything within ten feet of the rift and sent both of them sprawling. When Ford glanced back over his shoulder, the adhesive had gummed up the opening of the rift like a popped glowing magenta bubblegum bubble; and as he watched, it sucked the opening shut. In a few seconds the air was still and quiet, and the only sign the rift had ever existed was an immense, jagged vertical line in the air around which the light refracted wrong.

Fiddleford gingerly got back to his knees, then pulled off his glasses and pushed up his goggles. One of the lenses had been crushed, and the glasses' frame was bent beyond repair.

Ford heaved a long, heavy sigh. "A bit too familiar, wasn't it?"

Fiddleford blinked at him. "Wasn't what?"

"The—reeling you in from the Nightmare Realm?" Ford said. At Fiddleford's blank look, Ford said, "The portal test?"

"Oh." Fiddleford scratched his head. "I... still don't remember it too clearly."

"Ah. Yes. Of course." Ford's stomach churned with guilt as he looked away from Fiddleford. Over thirty years late was too late to apologize, wasn't it? (Over the past year he'd wondered, again and again; and again and again he'd decided that it was.) "Thank you for saving—" He gasped, "Dipper!"

"Oh, right!" Fiddleford took off his vacuum, dropped it on the floor, and unzipped its bag. The ghosts of a Northwest in a buckskin coat and a confused-looking hippie escaped into the air. "Hey," Fiddleford barked. "You get back here!" He raised the vacuum's hose and flipped its switch. He caught the hippie, but as soon as she was sucked in she flew out the unzipped bag and off to freedom again. Fiddleford lowered the hose and shook a fist at the retreating spirits. "I'll get you ectoplasmic varmints, just you wait!"

Ford knelt on the floor and held the bag open wider. Dipper floated out, arms crossed tight and shivering. "So... so cold... and dark... and really, really dusty."

"Let's get you back where you belong."

Ford held up Dipper's body as he lay back down in it. He could see the moment color flooded back into Dipper's cheeks and his eyes focused again. Dipper groaned.

Ford said, "You're never doing that again."

"I am never doing that again," Dipper said.

"We can't do that again," Fiddleford said. "The fabric of reality in this town is too unstable to handle another paradoxical physics experiment that powerful! We'd rip open another rift to the Nightmare Realm!"

"And we just tossed away all of our remaining alien adhesive," Ford sighed. It left Gravity Falls vulnerable if any more rips formed. Sometime soon he'd have to go back to the alien crash site and see if there was any more adhesive he could scrounge up; but even if he did, they couldn't risk wasting more of it like this.

"But did we get what we needed?" Dipper asked.

Fiddleford held up the milk jug of Dontium and shook it. It had a strange shifting color, wavering between cyan and orange depending on the lighting. "Looks like we got about three-fourths of a gallon," Fiddleford said.

"It's only enough to fully power one shot," Ford said. "But... one shot is all it'll take to destroy Bill." His stomach flipped nervously as he said it. He'd been anxious every other time he'd prepared to kill Bill, but that had always been because he'd been preparing to battle for the fate of the universe with a godlike monster who could easily kill him or worse. For the first time, he was preparing to execute a defenseless prisoner, and he didn't know whether it would make the universe any safer.

For half the summer he'd hoped Bill was harmless. Now he wished he had proof that Bill wasn't, so that he could lay his conscience to rest.

Dipper looked as uncomfortable as Ford felt; but when he caught Ford's gaze, he hardened his expression and nodded. Ford nodded back.

"WOOHOO!" Fiddleford leaped his full height straight up, making Ford and Dipper start. "We done it! YAHOO!" He waved his hat around ecstatically, doing a little jig in place. "YIPPEE! HIP HIP HURRrr—hey, how come you fellers ain't celebrating?"

Ford didn't know how to explain without making Fiddleford worry he was at risk of falling under Bill's spell again. "We'll celebrate when he's dead."

####

"Who was at the door?" 8 Ball shouted. When he didn't get a response, he paused his game. "Teeth?"

Teeth waddled into the game room. His face was completely plastered shut with some kind of glowing purple glue.

Pyronica cracked up and Paci-Fire chuckled darkly. 8 Ball sighed, "What'd you get into, you idiot?"

Teeth waved his hands emphatically.

"All right, okay." 8 Ball stood and stretched. "Does anyone have the number of that lamp guy Bill used to hook up with?"

Half an hour later, having lured over Lava Lamp Guy with the false promise of ping pong pool and illicit liquids, they cornered him in a bathroom, with Zanthar sitting in the tub restraining him while Paci-Fire struggled to hold his face still.

"Please!" Lava Lamp Guy screamed. "Let me go! I'll do anything you want! My neurologist said I can't take much more of this!"

"Cease your complaints," Paci-Fire said, as 8 Ball took off Lava Lamp Guy's bowler. "You shall not dissuade us. We do this because we have no choice in the matter."

"Why not?!"

"Because none of us feel like making the trip to a dimension with a drugstore."

8 Ball stuck a soup ladle into the open top of Lava Lamp Guy's head and fished around until he got a scoop of the red goo floating around in the thinner orange liquid. Lava Lamp Guy howled in agony. Zanthar heaved a weary sigh.

8 Ball carried the ladle over to where Teeth was sitting on the toilet lid kicking his feet. "Here you go, bud."

Teeth clapped his hands, grabbed an oversized toothbrush, and held it out for 8 Ball to pour the goop on. He scrubbed his teeth until the goop dissolved the adhesive. "Whew!" He stretched his jaw a few times, then jumped to his feet. "Thanks! I was worried I was gonna miss karaoke night." He looked in the sink mirror to scrub off the remaining scraps of adhesive.

8 Ball put Lava Lamp Guy's hat back on. Lava Lamp Guy groaned, "I think I forgot my third husband."

"You've only been married twice," Hectorgon lied.

"Oh." Confused, Lava Lamp Guy said, "Alright."

Teeth muttered, "Blech, divorce memories." He grabbed a bottle of mouthwash to clear out the taste.

"So what happened?" Kryptos asked. He was hovering in the doorway beside Pyronica.

"I'unno. I think the Dimension 46ers were messing around with their portal or something? They opened up a portal here."

"What? Uh-uh," Pyronica said. "It had to be some other dimension. We just invaded them, why would they open the portal again?"

"No no, that sounds like humans to me," Kryptos said. "If one of them pushes a button and immediately dies, the guy standing next to him will go, 'I wonder if it does that every time.' I've seen them do it."

"It was definitely them, I saw that local contractor Bill recruited for the portal who went nuts. Fingers or whoever."

8 Ball groaned. "You mean the guy that invaded the Quadrangle and tried to kill everybody?"

"Yeah. That guy. He told me I wasn't welcome on Earth and chucked a glue bomb in my face. I was like, well alright, buddy, I'm not the one who opened up a portal in your house, you could have just stayed home instead of ruining my day," Teeth said. "I didn't really say that to him. I thought it."

"So now the humans are invading us." Pyronica threw her hands in the air. "Great! This is just terrific! Bill teaches them how to make their own portals, they follow us home, and now we're about to have a pest problem that knows how to use tools! How long is it until this whole place is crawling with humans?! I'm going househunting, how many rooms should I look for? 8 Ball?"

"I'm in."

"Teeth?"

Teeth sighed, but said, "Yeah. The neighborhood's going downhill. Especially if we're gonna have a pest problem."

"Big Z?"

Zanthar gave a thumbs up.

Pyronica looked at Paci-Fire. He averted his gaze. Pyronica said, "Paci?"

Sullenly, he said, "We should ask Keyhole's opinion as well."

She laughed in disbelief. Nobody cared about Keyhole's opinion, he went with whatever everyone else went with. Appealing to Keyhole was just a delaying tactic. "Fine, sure. We'll get Keyhole's opinion."

"I'm not going," Hectorgon said, crossing his arms.

Relieved, Kryptos said, "Yeah. Me neither."

"You don't have to," Pyronica snapped. "You two and Morph can wait for Bill to come back from the dead as long as you want. But the rest of us are leaving."

Kryptos tilted toward the hall, gesturing for Hectorgon to follow him away from the others. "How long do you think we can hold this place without the outerplanars?" The Quadrangle was all that remained of Bill's turf. Without Bill's energy boosting them, none of the shapes were particularly powerful. They'd always depended upon the other Henchmaniacs to guard Bill's stronghold, the heavy-hitters like Zanthar and Pyronica. Even Bill preferred to let them fight his battles when he could; Bill's energy was much vaster, but less renewable.

Hectorgon grimaced uncertainly. "We've gotta think of something fast."

####

Dipper stared at the jug in his lap, ensuring it didn't turn radioactive before they got home. Bill practically seemed to have a radar for Ford—and on top of that, could see through walls—but as far as he cared Dipper may as well have not even existed; so they'd decided that Ford would go in the main door to ensure Bill's attention was turned away while Dipper went through the gift shop and took the elevator down to Ford's study. Ford had told Dipper where to find a lead locker that would keep the Dontium contained until Ford could use it to refuel the Quantum Destabilizer; all he had to do was put it in and stare through the crack until he'd slammed the door shut.

And once they'd decided on that, the drive home had fallen deathly silent.

As the Mystery Shack appeared through the trees, Dipper asked, "We're doing the right thing, right?" His voice was quiet. "I hate him, but—we owe him our lives. And there's that prophecy..."

"Lives can't be owed," Ford said. "Yesterday he may have saved us, but tomorrow he would still destroy our world in a heartbeat. We can be grateful to be alive—but we can't let that stop us."

"So, we're doing the right thing?"

Ford was silent for much longer than Dipper would have liked. "I hope so."

####

(We're moving toward some important stuff!! Hope y'all enjoyed and I'm looking forward to hearing your thoughts on this week's chapter!)

[megpricephotography]

It's so tough watching dogs get older... Flynn's had to start a new medication today & oh boy, I'm stressing out about it - hopefully unnecessarily! More under the cut - discussions of blood tests, urine samples, kidney issues, medication...

*UPDATE* 20th Dec also under the cut!!

Longtime followers may remember Flynnie only has 1 kidney. The other one was removed when he was 2.5 yrs old but it'd been effectively non-functional from when he was around 5 months old (due to an abscess forming in it). So for the vast majority of his life, Flynn's had 1 functioning kidney & it's worked like a champ! But. At 11.5 years old, age is perhaps catching up with him. Flynn's last blood test was done a couple of weeks ago & overall, his kidney function is, to use the vet's description: "great". However... for over a year now, we've been monitoring an issue with Flynn's urine. He has protein in his pee & that's not great - it means the fine structures in his kidney aren't filtering properly & as this issue continues, it will inevitably cause kidney damage. So, while Flynn does not currently have "chronic kidney disease"... it's a concern, particularly given at best his kidney function is 50% of a normal dog.

Unfortunately, Flynn's UPC level (the measurement of protein in urine) has risen recently. Not scarily high but vets feel drugs are now needed - especially as, although bloods were generally good, Flynn's blood albumin level (protein in the blood) was really quite low - indicating the loss in his urine is having an impact. He's already on a renal diet, so trying meds is the next step.

Anyway, the drugs are ACE-inhibitors - same stuff as humans take for high BP. The hope is they'll lower blood pressure in the kidney & that will help reduce protein loss. Sadly, meds won't fix the problem 100%, the aim is just to slow things down. I do think starting Flynn on the meds is for the best but I'm stressed because there's a small chance it could actually make things worse. Very occasionally dogs don't react well to ACE-inhibitors & the meds actually cause kidney damage. I'm going to monitor him closely & he'll be having bloods/urine rechecked in a couple of weeks but it's scary! Also... we've had to stop giving Flynn regular NSAIDs for his arthritis pain. He can take paracetamol (tylenol) but regularly combining ACE-inhibitors with NSAIDs increases risk of kidney damage. Once he's hopefully stable on the ACE-inhibitors, I'll ask about trying alternative painkillers - but I don't want to start him on multiple drugs at once. It's tough trying to juggle multiple different factors! I'm aware I'm more twitchy than I used to be about all this because in May 2023, Flynn had an appalling reaction to Librela (actually, that was when we picked up on the issue with his pee). Librela is a new-ish medication & usually a safe way to treat arthritic pain in dogs. It's given as a monthly injection. Flynn had 1 dose & unfortunately, it made him very sick. His bloods were checked a week prior & everything looked good - but within days of the injection, his kidney, liver & pancreas were struggling & he suffered kidney disease type symptoms. Luckily, everything - except the high protein in his urine - fully resolved within 2-3 months but the entire ordeal was awful & logical or not, I felt so guilty about it. I do not want to go through that again!

Anyway, if you've made it this far - thank you! I just needed to write my thoughts down really! For now all I can do is monitor Flynn until he has his next blood test, hope the ACE-inhibitors work well & help his kidney stay relatively healthy & that we can then also find a safe, effective way to keep him physically comfortable for a long time to come. It's just hard because there are no perfect solutions...

*THE UPDATE* Soo… Flynn's been on the new ACE-inhibitor for about 2.5 weeks now. He went in for a blood test on Tuesday & we also checked his urine this week. I got the results today (Dec 20th)… Good news is that his blood work is OK & his worryingly low blood protein level has risen. However… we started him on the new meds specifically to LOWER the amount of protein in his urine & unfortunately, his UPC level has actually gone UP!!! It's higher than ever… It's possible this is a blip, or the meds haven't had time to improve this issue but very occasionally, dogs react badly to it & it can actually reduce kidney function (& increase protein in urine) instead of helping. Anyway, physically, Flynn seems to feeling alright in himself, so that's something. He's actually coping very well off the NSAIDs - paracetamol/tylenol is keeping him comfortable enough. We've been told to carry on with the ACE-inhibitors for now & Flynn's got to go have his blood pressure checked on Dec 30th & I will request they check his pee again then. Guess if he's got worse, we may need to change the type of meds he takes at that point. I am just so stressed - really hoping things have improved by the time we go back to the vets!Gah!!! Pets… why do they get problems over the holidays?!! Think good thoughts for Flynnie!

[lastoneout]

It's also like super fucking infuriating to see people continue to argue that generative AI is the best way for disabled and/or poor people to make art because like, you know what helps make art more accessible? Giving poor and disabled people money.

Like take me for instance, I'm disabled. I get severe migraines and intense leg/back pain if I sit at my computer for too long, my hEDS makes holding pens and pencils hard, my ADHD makes it hard for me to start certain tasks and/or stop them before I potentially hurt myself, my neck also hurts if I look down too much, my dyslexia AND my ADHD both make it difficult to keep track of a story as I write and use correct spelling and grammar, plus, I need to prioritize taking care of myself and going to appointments and keeping my house clean and that takes up a lot of my free time. All of these things make creating the kind of art I want to create difficult if not occasionally impossible.

So what do you think would solve my problems better? Giving me money so that I can have a drawing tablet and desk chair that won't hurt my neck or back, another tablet + pen and a lap table and comfortable body pillows for drawing in bed, easier transportation to my doctors appointments, effective treatment for my chronic pain and migraines, the ability hire someone to help me keep my house clean, a spelling/grammar checker that isn't complete ass, and a therapist and psychatrist who can help me manage my ADHD better?

Or an AI program that takes my input and spits out a drawing or story made of stolen content glued together that, in the case of the art, I cannot meaningfully edit without starting over, which also destroys the environment in the process?

Seems pretty obvious to me. I don't need AI, I need help to manage the things that are actually stopping me from being able to write and draw.

Or take my mom. She's had severe rhumatoid arthritis since she was a small child, her hands are deformed and she relies on her wheelchair to get around. She doesn't need AI to help her paint, she needs special paint brushes she can actually hold, a table her wheelchair will fit at, and someone to help her with personal hygiene/keep her house clean/take her to doctors appointments so she actually has free time to paint.

Does that poor kid growing up in public housing with parents who are too poor to afford art classes or supplies or to send them to college really need a computer program to draw for them, or do they need support to help them take those classes, buy drawing supplies, and money so they can go to college.

Blind people can paint, deaf musicians exist, people with missing limbs find all sorts of ways to make art, people with parkinson's paint with typewriters, my mother can't hold a normal paintbrush and she makes some of the most beautiful watercolor paintings I've ever seen, Van Gogh had bipolar disorder and only sold like one painting when he was alive, I mean for real how many different artists have you heard of who's biographies start with them being born into poverty?

This is not meant to be inspiration porn, these people are just ones who were able to find ways to make art despite their struggles. They shouldn't have had to struggle at all, but god imagine how many more artisrs and writers we could have had if none of them had to overcome those struggles. It breaks my heart to think of all the wonderful art that never got to exist because no one helped the people who could have made it actually have the time, money, support, and safety they needed to make it. AI would not have saved them because making art isn't the problem, being disadvantaged is the problem. Living in a world that refuses to make room for you is the problem. Being fucking poor is the problem. Humans have always found ways to make art despite huge barriers, the solution isn't a computer that makes art for them, it's SUPPORT AND MONEY SO THEY CAN OVERCOME THOSE BARRIERS AND MAKE THEIR OWN ART.

As a last example: I love watching dancing and I would love to be able to dance, but I'm terrible at it(I got kicked off a dance team for not being able to learn the dance at all despite spending weeks on it, idk my brain wasn't made for dancing) and my disabled body makes it more pain than pleasure if not actively dangerous, anyway. Having a robot dressed to look like me dance next to me while I get to watch would not make me feel like I'm getting to dance. It would actually be extremely fucking demoralizing and frustrating. I would hate that!!

Having an AI spit out a painting or book would not make me feel like I got to paint or write a book. It's a fucking anamatronic doll running on stolen ideas and it will never be the same as getting to actually expirience the joy of creating art first hand. AI is not the solution. Helping people who need it is the solution. And I am CONSTANTLY pissed to think about all the time and money that goes into these fucking AI programs that would be better spent helping disabled and poor people get the help they need so they can make art themselves, all while the people running the nightmare plagiarism pollution machines pretend that their horrible inventions exist to help people like me.

[clinicse]

EYESURGERYANTALYA - GOLD

Are you considering eye laser surgery in Turkey? This bustling nation has rapidly become a top destination for individuals seeking advanced eye care treatments at affordable prices. Procedures such as eye laser surgery not only offer a chance for clearer vision but also feature state-of-the-art technology and highly qualified specialists. Additionally, options like trifocal lens surgery and blepharoplasty further enhance your overall eye health and appearance. With its rich culture and scenic beauty, Turkey makes for an appealing backdrop while you undergo transformative treatments.

Eye laser surgery turkey

When considering eye laser surgery Turkey, patients are often drawn by the combination of advanced technology and affordable prices. This type of surgery, often referred to as LASIK, uses state-of-the-art lasers to correct common vision problems such as nearsightedness, farsightedness, and astigmatism. Many clinics in Turkey offer experienced surgeons and modern facilities, making it a popular destination for those seeking improved vision.

One of the main advantages of choosing Turkey for eye laser surgery is the significant cost savings compared to many Western countries. Patients can expect to save anywhere from 30% to 70% on the total cost of the procedure, including travel expenses. This affordability often does not compromise quality, as many Turkish clinics adhere to international standards and boast accreditations from recognized bodies.

Additionally, the pre-operative consultations and post-operative care are typically thorough, ensuring that patients feel comfortable and informed throughout their journey. With a growing number of success stories, eye laser surgery in Turkey continues to gain popularity, making it an appealing option for those looking to enhance their vision safely and effectively.

Trifocal lens surgery turkey

Trifocal lens surgery Turkey is rapidly gaining recognition as an innovative solution for those seeking to improve their vision. This advanced surgical procedure allows patients to obtain clear vision at multiple distances, reducing the need for glasses or contact lenses. With the help of cutting-edge technology and skilled surgeons, many individuals are experiencing enhanced quality of life through this transformative surgery.

Many clinics in Turkey offer a comprehensive package for trifocal lens surgery, including pre-operative evaluations and post-operative care. These packages often come at a fraction of the cost compared to Western countries, making Turkey an attractive destination for medical tourism. Patients can not only experience substantial cost savings but also take advantage of the robust medical infrastructure available in the country, ensuring a safe and comfortable surgical experience.

Furthermore, the success rates for trifocal lens surgery in Turkey are impressive, with many patients achieving satisfactory results within days of the procedure. The procedure itself is typically quick, minimally invasive, and performed with precision, allowing for faster recovery times. As more individuals learn about the benefits of this procedure, Turkey continues to solidify its reputation as a leader in ophthalmic surgery.

Blepharoplasty turkey

Blepharoplasty, commonly known as eyelid surgery, is an increasingly popular cosmetic procedure in Turkey. It involves the removal of excess skin, fat, and muscle from either the upper or lower eyelids to enhance the appearance of the eyes and provide a more youthful look.

Turkey has become a top destination for blepharoplasty due to its combination of skilled surgeons and affordable prices. Many individuals from around the globe are seeking these procedures in major cities such as Istanbul, where advanced medical facilities and experienced professionals abound.

Patients considering blepharoplasty Turkey can expect a thorough consultation where doctors assess individual needs and create tailored treatment plans. Post-operative care and follow-ups are also essential components of the surgery, ensuring that patients achieve the best possible results with minimal complications.

[theflashjaygarrick]

It's a missed opportunity that despite Roy Harper and Jason Todd hanging out now there's been never any tension between about them or exploration of their differing approaches and perspectives on the drug crisis. Particularly because for both of them it is deeply personal.

Roy Harper.

Roy became addicted to drugs in the 1971 comic Snowbirds Don't Fly which was Neil Adam’s and Dennis O'neill's attempt to tackle the "youth's greatest problem!" drug use and addiction. I feel like all most people know is that Speedy took drugs and Ollie took it badly, but that honestly ignores the whole point of the story. The story challenged contextual stigma around addiction and drug use as a personal failing or something that only happened to weak people. It explored how it could happen to anyone, even a hero like Speedy. It focused on the social factors such as racism and poverty and how they push people into substance abuse as a way to cope. It even turns the trope of the evil foreign drug cartel on its head by making the guy behind the drug supply a wealthy white American man in who runs a Pharmaceutical company, doesn't do drugs, and actively mocks the people he profits off the suffering of.

The point therefore is twofold. Firstly, drug users are people just like you and me and it is vital to be compassionate to people struggling with addiction. Ollie who yells at and hits Roy and leaves him due to anger and fear is clearly in the wrong. Hal and Dinah who look after Roy and stand beside him at his friend's funeral and as he confronts Ollie are clearly in the right. Secondly, the solution is not to focus on the drugs but instead to deal with the systemic problems of inequality, oppression, trauma and disenfranchised youth.

Despite parts of it ageing bad (the use of slurs was to demonstrate the damage of racism, but I feel uncomfortable having slurs uncensored in a comic book written by white authors) it is a surprisingly progressive take on addiction for a mainstream 70s DC comic. It also clearly demonstrates Roy's opinion on the drug problem and how to deal with it. He sees anger and going after dealers/manufacturers (like Ollie did) to not be enough. Instead the real change comes from helping the people in that situation by improving their lives and compassionately helping them at their worst.

Enter Jason Todd.

For context Jason Todd has had almost his entire life shaped by trauma of substance abuse. His (adoptive) mother Catherine struggled with addiction and overdosed just months before he met Batman, effectively orphaning him. Soon after he was found by Batman who essentially drafted him into his crusade on crime, not considering that being a vigilante may be potentially damaging for an already traumatised child.

But when he came back in UTRH he decided he could best help Gotham if he killed (largely non-costumed) criminals and controlled the city's criminal underworld himself. After violently assuming control of the drug trade, Jason imposed his own rules for dealers, most famously that he would kill anyone who sold drugs to children or near schools. Later while incarcerated Jason Todd killed 82 Blackgate inmates (and harmed over a hundred) by poisoning the prison food. This mass murder was intrinsically indiscriminate and due to the US prison system it is reasonable to assume people charged with drug offences were included in the death count.

Jason does have deep childhood trauma associated with addiction and drug use and wants to help prevent suffering. That being said, his approach treats drugs as a criminal problem to be eradicated or controlled, not just a symptom of deeper social issues. He kills people who sell drugs to kids, rather than helping building a support system so kids aren't pushed into abusing substances to cope and people don't have to deal to survive.

What does this mean?

Scott Lobdell got details of Roy's addiction wrong and distorted him into a reckless idiot who has been ostracised from the community. But if it was done right their interaction and opposing perspectives/experiences could be really interesting. Both hate drugs and the drug trade, but the way they conceptualise this hatred differs significantly.

Roy focuses on helping the individual and addressing deeper social problems, seeing drugs as a devastating but ultimately symptomatic. Jason sees drug use as first and foremost a criminal issue, with true benefits being achieved through controlling the criminal underworld.

Roy's priority is therefore supporting people struggling with addiction and showing compassion for their situation. Jason doesn't really focus on ways to help the individuals suffering from addiction, as much as mitigating the overall harm and fitting the drug trade into parameters he views as acceptable.

I think it would add needed complexity to their relationship (and to Jason's redemption if we're going that route) as well as dealing with the more 'war-on-drug' elements of UTRH. Also it would help Roy stand on his own as a strong, articulate leader with a dark past rather than being (at least for a while) reduced to essentially Jason's sidekick.

[thesulkycroissant]

So there's this saying that the only time you see the middle of the road is when you're going from ditch to ditch, and that most of the time is how I feel about the canon v fanon debate.

Genuinely, I feel like people get so stagnanted in this idea that something isn't canon - which, what is comic canon anyway? I strain to unravel the mystery of which comics get to "count" and which do not - and focus on it so much that they miss any aspect of nuance.

Tim's parents are a great example. Tim's parents exist in the way they do for a simple out-of-universe reason: the writers wanted to avoid the mistakes they made with Jason by both differentiating him from Dick (making him not an orphan) and giving him a "buy-in" with Dick (something to connect them -> the circus). (Their logic was that Dick was the key to getting readers to like Tim, and that neglecting his buy-in was their misstep with Jason.) At the same time, Tim having parents is a problem because what parent is not going to notice their kid being gone all the time playing midnight vigilante? Solution: absentee parents. But now the shift to in-universe happens. Tim's parents are gone all the time, but it's not malicious; they're just kind of clueless. They love Tim. Tim loves them. But they are not around. And this out-of-universe choice, once you enter into the universe, logically can - maybe even should, if you're taking the characters seriously - effect how a character reads.

Tim's parents are gone all the time. There's every probability that would cause trauma. Unintentional, but fun to explore! The comics do a very little. I think fandoms can often make the mistake of believing subtle abuse (like neglect) is not sufficient, so it gets elevated to something physical. But your parents loving you and also causing you trauma is a relatable experience, I think. Even your parents doing their best and still causing you trauma is.

Jason being the angry Robin is another rough one. Because yeah, I agree, Scott Lobdell did some wacky and unkind things to Jason's backstory. But Jason, even going back to his original (not original, but his original non-just-Dick-but-blond) backstory, is a traumatized orphan willing to take the risk and steal tires from the Batmobile as a means of survival (in Gotham! In Crime Alley!). Why can't Jason be angry? In the throes of adolescence, at a time when he feels safe with Bruce, doesn't it make sense for his trauma to find its way out in anger? Can't he both believe Robin is magic and be angry? Can't he be sweet and angry both?

Dickie and anger. Yeah, anger plays a role in certain story arcs of his. In NTT, and in the first 80s Nightwing run, the stories take pains to show that the anger is triggered by something and channeled into brutal focus. And that it does not serve him. Dick's relationship with Kory in NTT nearly falls apart because of his anger. He treats her very poorly. I see a lot of people saying they want Dick to be angry, but not allowing Dick to learn how to control his anger is not giving the character his dues either.

And Damian. Shoot. Reading the One Bad Day comic for Ra's al Ghul kinda ruined me a bit because of how much Ra's obviously loves and respects animals, and how can you not see the echo of that in Damian's love of animals? Damian's League trauma is such a thing worth exploring, and I think the value of exploring it only goes up when you add in the complicated factor of the fact that Talia and Ra's do love him, and he does see them when he looks in the mirror, and every day Damian has to decide which parts of his family - his whole family - are good to keep and which are not.

Anyway. There's probably more, but this post is already pretty long lol. Nuance is cool, that's all.

[matan4il]

Daily update post:

Big news! The US, and right after it, Canada, Australia and Italy, as well as the UK and Finland, have ALL frozen their financial support of UNRWA, following evidence presented to them that some of the UN agency's employees participated in the Hamas massacre.

To add to the news, this is NOT the first scandal involving this agency. UNRWA facilities have been continuously used for terrorist activity, UNRWA teachers and employees have been repeatedly called out for their support of antisemitism and terrorism, the same goes for UNRWA textbooks and schools, where antisemitism and terrorism are encouraged. It's even been asked why UNRWA still exists. Palestinians are the only ones who get their own refugee agency. Every other refugee, from every other country in the world, including ones suffering far greater humanitarian disasters, are treated by the general UN refugees agency, UNHCR. And unlike UNHCR, UNRWA does not look to solve the plight of the refugees it claims to help. If it's not enough that it's unclear why should Palestinians get their own agency, and why does it perpetuate the problem of Paletsinian refugees rather than help solve it, or why is there a separate definition for Palestinian refugees than for all other ones, Palestinian refugees also get more funding (through UNRWA) than any other refugee in the world. Just to highlight the absurdity, celeb millionaires Bella and Gigi Hadid, and their millionaire father Mohamed, are all still considered Palestinian refugees according to UNRWA's definition, despite obviously being well integrated into other countries.

Something I wanna add is about proportions within the UN and UNRWA employment. Globally, the UN says it directly employees 37,000 people. UNRWA's website says over 30,000 people work for it, and most are Palestinians, "with a small number of internation staff." That means UNRWA seems internation and impartial thanks to being counted as a UN body, but in reality, it is a Palestinian orgnization. It could never be impartial, like it wants to appear. But then it gets quoted endlessly by other UN bodies, as if UNRWA's data is impartial and reliable. It's been said more than once that many Hamas members are also employed by UNRWA, and in fact, Hamas has already voiced its displeasure over the funding to UNRAW being stopped. If Hamas is unhappy about it, when Hamas has been killing its own population, that says Hamas has its own vested interest in this organization.

Funding for UNRWA has been frozen before, but then restored. So that's not a solution. This time, the UN should be pressured to dismantle UNRWA, and move Palestinian refugees to the same definition, the same budget and the same kind of care and solution granted to all other refugees under the UNHCR.

Just a reminder that thanks to the anti-Israel demonization, Jews are not safe anywhere. In London, three people were recently attacked for simply speaking Hebrew. So here's your reminder that Hebrew is the native language of Jews, there are many Jews who try to learn and speak it, and targeting people for just speaking Hebrew is by its very nature antisemitic.

A new study shows that about half of the Israeli citizens evacuated from the north are suffering from post traumatic stress disorder. I don't know of a similar current survey regarding the Israelis evacuated from the south, but given the massacre they survived, one can only assume the situation among them is even worse.

These are Lior (right) and his 79 years old dad Chaim Perry (left).

Lior's brother was murdered during the Hamas massacre on Oct 7, and his life long peace activist father Chaim was kidnapped. Lior was asked today what he thought of the International Court of Justice's call yesterday for Hamas to return all of the Israeli hostages, immediately and without any conditions. He said he also calls for the same thing, and it's about as effective.

This is Irena Maman.

She's a resident of the northern Israeli city of Kiryat Shmona, but when most of its people were evacuated, Irena refused to. With her husband's help, she's still working as a tailor, and inviting soldiers who need their uniforms fixed to come see her, offering her work to them pro bono.

These are Aviad (left) and Gideon ("Gigi," right) Rivlin.

Four Rivlin brothers went to the Nova music festival together, Aviad, Gigi, Yochai and Yinon. When the terrorist attack started, they were giving the wounded water. At a certain point, they dispersed, with each brother running in a different direction. Aviad and Gigi did not survive. In an interview, their father said he's stopped asking himself why did he lose two sons, and started being thankful for having gotten two back. Gigi was named after his uncle Gideon, who was murdered by a terrorist from Gaza.

May their memories be a blessing.

(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)