#can someone explain to me ����

[thebroccolination]

OH YEAH

HE WAS

[starry-bi-sky]

I am loudly pushing the batdad agenda i am loudly pushing the— DPxDC Prompt

“Woah. You look like shit."

Granted, that’s probably not the first thing Danny should be saying to the guy that just bit the curb, but in his defense; he’s not running on 100% right now either.

The man -- tall, towering, and broader than Danny is tall -- whips around on his heel, black frayed cape flaring out impressively. Danny would've whistled in appreciation, but he takes the time instead to wipe the back of his hand across his mouth, smearing the blood running from his nose across his cheek.

"Sorry." He blinks widely, not even flinching as the man with the horns zeroes in on him. "That was rude of me. I have a really bad brain-to-mouth filter; Sam says its what always gets me into trouble."

And she's not wrong either, per say. His smart mouth is what landed him in this situation -- with blood blossom extract running through his veins and cannibalizing the ectoplasm in his bloodstream. Thanks Vlad.

The man grunts at him; a short, curt "hm" that shouldn't make Danny smile, but he does because he's somewhat delirious and probably concussed. The man keeps some kind of distance, sinking towards the shadows of Gotham's alleyway like he dares to melt right into it.

If it's supposed to scare Danny, it doesn't work. Danny's never been afraid of the dark; he's always been able to hide himself in it. He blinks slowly at the mass of shadows.

"You look hurt." The shadows says, blurring together around the edges. Danny squints, and licks his lips to get the blood dripping down his chin off. Ugh, he hates the taste of blood.

"I am." He says, "My godfather poisoned me. M'dying." The agony of the blood blossom eating him from the inside out looped back around to numbing a while ago, so all he feels is half-awake and dazed.

"Hey," Danny stumbles forward towards the man, a bloodied hand reaching out to him. "You-- you're a hero, right? You're not attacking me; which is more than I can say for most costumed people I've met." Maybe it's a poor bar to judge someone at, but he's already established that Danny's not in his right mind.

The man makes no change in expression, but Danny realizes blearily that it's hard to tell with the shadows on his face. He stays still long enough for Danny to latch onto the cape -- stretchy, but almost soft under his fingers.

He looks up blearily into the whites of the man's eyes. "Can you help me? I don't-- I don't wanna die." Again. He doesn't wanna die again. He blinks slow and lizard-like. "I mean- I'll probably get to see mom and dad again, but I told them I'd at least try and make it to adulthood."

There's a clatter down the street, and Danny's ghost sense chills up his spine and leaves a bitter, ashy taste in his mouth. He immediately knows who it belongs to even before the deceptively gentle; "Daniel?" echoes down the way.

"Daniel? Quit your games, badger, Gotham is dangerous for children."

Danny's mouth pulls back, and blood spills against his tongue. "Please." He rasps, and grabs onto the shadow's cape with both hands. "Please. He's going to kill me. Please--"

"Daniel? Is that you?"

His lips part, dragging in air to plead with the darkness again. He doesn't need to, the whites of his eyes narrow, and the cape whirls around him before Danny can blink. Soon swaddled in shadows, the Night lifts him up, and steals him away.

[giantkillerjack]

Today my therapist introduced me to a concept surrounding disability that she called "hLep".

[plain-text version of this post can be found under the cut]

Which is when you - in this case, you are a disabled person - ask someone for help ("I can't drink almond milk so can you get me some whole milk?", or "Please call Donna and ask her to pick up the car for me."), and they say yes, and then they do something that is not what you asked for but is what they think you should have asked for ("I know you said you wanted whole, but I got you skim milk because it's better for you!", "I didn't want to ruin Donna's day by asking her that, so I spent your money on an expensive towing service!") And then if you get annoyed at them for ignoring what you actually asked for - and often it has already happened repeatedly - they get angry because they "were just helping you! You should be grateful!!"

And my therapist pointed out that this is not "help", it's "hLep".

Sure, it looks like help; it kind of sounds like help too; and if it was adjusted just a little bit, it could be help. But it's not help. It's hLep.

At its best, it is patronizing and makes a person feel unvalued and un-listened-to. Always, it reinforces the false idea that disabled people can't be trusted with our own care. And at its worst, it results in disabled people losing our freedom and control over our lives, and also being unable to actually access what we need to survive.

So please, when a disabled person asks you for help on something, don't be a hLeper, be a helper! In other words: they know better than you what they need, and the best way you can honor the trust they've put in you is to believe that!

Also, I want to be very clear that the "getting angry at a disabled person's attempts to point out harmful behavior" part of this makes the whole thing WAY worse. Like it'd be one thing if my roommate bought me some passive-aggressive skim milk, but then they heard what I had to say, and they apologized and did better in the future - our relationship could bounce back from that. But it is very much another thing to have a crying shouting match with someone who is furious at you for saying something they did was ableist. Like, Christ, Jessica, remind me to never ask for your support ever again! You make me feel like if I asked you to call 911, you'd order a pizza because you know I'll feel better once I eat something!!

Edit: crediting my therapist by name with her permission - this term was coined by Nahime Aguirre Mtanous!

Edit again: I made an optional follow-up to this post after seeing the responses. Might help somebody. CW for me frankly talking about how dangerous hLep really is.

Plain-text version:

Today my therapist introduced me to a concept surrounding disability that she called "hLep".

Which is when you - in this case, you are a disabled person - ask someone for help ("I can't drink almond milk so can you get me some whole milk?", or "Please call Donna and ask her to pick up the car for me."), and they say yes, and then they do something that is not what you asked for but is what they think you should have asked for ("I know you said you wanted whole, but I got you skim milk because it's better for you!", "I didn't want to ruin Donna's day by asking her that, so I spent your money on an expensive towing service!") And then if you get annoyed at them for ignoring what you actually asked for - and often it has already happened repeatedly - they get angry because they "were just helping you! You should be grateful!!"

And my therapist pointed out that this is not "help", it's "hLep".

Sure, it looks like help; it kind of sounds like help too; and if it was adjusted just a little bit, it could be help. But it's not help. It's hLep.

At its best, it is patronizing and makes a person feel unvalued and un-listened-to. Always, it reinforces the false idea that disabled people can't be trusted with our own care. And at its worst, it results in disabled people losing our freedom and control over our lives, and also being unable to actually access what we need to survive.

So please, when a disabled person asks you for help on something, don't be a hLeper, be a helper! In other words: they know better than you what they need, and the best way you can honor the trust they've put in you is to believe that!

P.S. Also, I want to be very clear that the "getting angry at a disabled person's attempts to point out harmful behavior" part of this makes the whole thing WAY worse. Like it'd be one thing if my roommate bought me some passive-aggressive skim milk, but then they heard what I had to say, and they apologized and did better in the future - our relationship could bounce back from that. But it is very much another thing to have a crying shouting match with someone who is furious at you for saying something they did was ableist. Like, Christ, Jessica, remind me to never ask for your support ever again! You make me feel like if I asked you to call 911, you'd order a pizza because you know I'll feel better once I eat something!!

Edit: crediting my therapist by name with her permission - this term was coined by Nahime Aguirre Mtanous!

Edit again: I made an optional follow-up to this post after seeing the responses. Might help somebody. CW for me frankly talking about how dangerous hLep really is.

[lazylittledragon]

ok someone please correct me if i'm wrong but am i weird for thinking those 'audiobooks don't count as reading' posts are ableist as fuck????

[heavyheavycream]

feedist kinktober 23 : bonfire bash

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Hello Madam. Sorry Madam.

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[buggachat]

can someone explain the "I'm bald" thing to me like i'm the village fool

[technically-human]

Comfort and safety and such things

This one was actually a commission! I had a lot of fun working with such a cute concept

[nachobsns]

Hello - I was impressed and extremely relieved by what you wrote in the post about the cult mentality of the Left RE Israel and accusations of genocide. You mentioned that you bought into the mindset until recently. If it's all right for me to ask, what was it that helped you break out of it? (Please feel free to delete/ignore if you'd rather not answer!)

thank you!! and no worries about asking— i think i put something in my pinned post about how people are welcome to send asks about this stuff, although my story isn’t super interesting. i fell down the typical online rabbithole, a couple weeks after october 7; i knew what had happened, at least vaguely, but the posts trickling onto my dash were all about the (undeniably tragic) loss of life in gaza, with little to no acknowledgment of the hamas atrocities that had started the war, so my narrative was pretty one-sided from the beginning. it just continued to snowball as the months went on and people became more radicalized, calling into question the reality of the 10/7 attacks and the humanity of all israelis. i never went all the way down the pipeline to full-on endorsing hamas or justifying their attacks, at least on a personal level, thank god, but i would reblog other people’s posts referring to hamas as a “resistance movement” and calls to boycott starbucks and mcdonald’s and condemnation of the “zionist media” etc etc etc. what pulled me out of it wasn’t any one thing— if someone had directly called me on my flawed logic and antisemitic biases while i was in this mindset, i doubt it would have done much, just reinforced my belief that i was on the “right side of history” and zionists were aggressors who couldn’t be reasoned with. it was mostly just passive observance and a slow exposure to other perspectives. i’m pretty sure the first post that led me to question my thinking was an ask on jewish-vents, which popped up on my dash in like, late july. this led me down another rabbithole, first scouring every single post on jewish-vents, then moving on to more popular jewish blogs that i had seen on “zionist blocklists” (applesauce42069, xclowniex, and spacelazarwolf were probably some of the blogs that influenced me the most, though i told myself i was just hate-scrolling at first, lol). i felt incredibly guilty seeing all the harm the movement i was a part of had caused to random jews and israelis just trying to live their lives and i realized how it went against everything i believed about how minority groups should be treated. from there, the aspect of actually undoing my thinking and changing my behavior for the better still took several weeks. denial of jewish indigenity to the levant in the face of tantamount archeological and cultural evidence was the first to go, as well as any ambiguity in my feelings about hamas. after that, it’s mostly been a slow process of redefining the idf’s actions from a “genocide” to a “war.” i still believe that what’s happening in gaza is unconscionable and horrific, and that too many innocent civilians have died, but i also understand how difficult it is to fight against a terrorist group that systematically embeds itself in civilian populations, and that the ratio of militant to civilian deaths is incredibly low compared to most urban warfare. i quietly deleted my old blog in early august— if i had directly engaged in harassment against jews, i likely would have kept it to make amends to the harmed parties and put a face to my actions, but as was, i had just contributed to the larger atmosphere of antisemitism on this site, and i felt uncomfortable knowing that i had a blog full of sentiments that no longer matched my values and beliefs. i decided i would be better if i took my endorsement out of the equation entirely, because when you’re looking through the notes of a post, it obviously doesn’t matter if someone who’s reblogged it no longer agrees with what was said— their notes still count as tacit approval, and i did not want approval of this “activism” attached to my online presence. i still have unwanted kneejerk reactions that crop up sometimes, particularly around the fundraiser posts from people “in gaza”; even though i know logically that they have all the markers of scams, there is still a part of me that really wants to believe i could help.

[mellowwillowy]

“RABU”

Original story by @merakiui

So my dumbass didn't reread the fic and forgot Reader was 44 already. So here we are, young and fresh.

Funny story 2, I forgot what Rabu was until I finished all the drafts and realized, “It’s love isn't it??” (right?)

Rabu might not be categorized as my fave (coughs SK series coughs) but the ending makes me think late at night, how many options did Reader have?

So here I am, spawned to speed-run the vision in my head. Azul’s hair is too annoying so I'd rather have Floyb first (even though I really want to see Zuzu smoking). Jade’s route(?) is still vague in my mind so he’s no good as well.

I just love the idea of Papa Leech caring more about his sons, doesn't matter what Jade does, Papa Leech will forever cover his track. In this case, Papa Leech didn't care about Reader’s well-being at all, it was probably something done by Jade anyway. That’s Papa Leech’s love~.

Anyway, as I said in my previous RB, long live the seafood (by Chef Meraki!)

[spuffybot]

It will never not be super ridiculous that Buffy had to single-handedly protect the world from demons, raise her teenage sister, manage a household, and work a full time job, all at the age of 22 and everyone around her is like “god Buffy just grow up and deal with it, stop acting like it’s hard.”

[morsmortish]

when regulus complains about ‘walking in on’ barty and evan, he’s not talking about discovering them fucking in their room (although that does happen a fair amount). he talking about the times he’s entered their dorm to see evan stood over his boyfriend with his fingers probing around in barty’s mouth, whilst the latter sits on his own hands on a wooden chair in order to stop himself from squirming. he’s talking about having to witness, on multiple occasions, barty lying down on the floor, shirtless and flushed whilst evan’s traces over the key parts of his anatomy with a permanent marker, explaining each label in a monotone voice as barty blushes more and more. he’s talking about being subjected to the sight of barty lying in an ice bath, shivering but grinning ear to ear as evan lazily flicks through a book on his bed as he waits for barty’s body temperature to drop low enough to resemble a corpse. the worst part about living with these two freaks is not their disturbing sex life, but their disturbing everyday life.

[stormsthatrage]

Have a Bleach extended-winter-war time-travel-fix-it idea. In this AU Kaien's death happened before the whole turn-back-the-pendulum arc. (Yes, another Bleach time-travel AU, I know, shut up.)

As Ichigo and Kisuke are planning to go back to the past, Kisuke makes sure to emphasize to Ichigo that they have to protect Shiba Kaien. Apparently, it's of the utmost importance.

Ichigo doesn't know exactly how Kaien's continued well-being plays into saving the future. Kisuke never really explains it, or gives him a straight answer when he asks. But Ichigo knows that the Shiba Clan-Head carried a great deal of political power, and Ichigo also knows that Kaien -- according to Kukaku and Rukia -- was highly competent, incredibly noble, and fundamentally kind. It's not exactly unintuitive that a person like that could be important to bringing down Aizen.

So Ichigo listens, when Kisuke tells him to protect Shiba Kaien. He memorizes how Kaien died in the original timeline. He's attentive as Kisuke reiterates for the thousandth time that Aizen will keep trying to assassinate Kaien until he succeeds. He takes notes when Kisuke hypothesizes about what Aizen's various assassination attempts might look like -- poison during a meal, hired assassins at night, an ambush during a mission.

Ichigo ingrains the assignment into his core: protect Shiba Kaien, because if Kaien falls, the mission fails.

So when Kisuke slips a paralytic into Ichigo's tea and places Ichigo in the middle of the time-travel kido array and drains the entirety of his own spiritual energy to activate the array, a sacrifice that Ichigo never would have agreed to--

Well. The first thing Ichigo does when he arrives back in the past, numb and alone and only able to function by focusing on the duty that is his purpose -- is track down Shiba Kaien.

After all, if Ichigo is going to kill Aizen -- and he is, no matter what it takes -- he needs to keep Kaien alive.

Ichigo goes straight to the Shiba family grounds. In true Shiba fashion, they accept him immediately as family. They tend to his wounds and give him a meal and welcome him home. They let him get away with his weak excuses and explanations, and they defend his presence to the rest of Soul Society.

Kaien, in accordance with everything Ichigo has heard about the man, personally takes the newest addition to the family under his wing.

Ichigo's plans to deal with Aizen take shape around his need to keep an eye on Kaien.

Ichigo, instead of running as far and fast as he can from the Shiba clan, accepts the offer to live in the Shiba compound. He gets to know every clan member and retainer, subtly vetting for traitors. He sleeps in a room near Kaien's, allowing him to both guard against assassins at night and place warding runes around Kaien's door without having to worry about being caught somewhere he has no business being.

He joins the Court Guard in the 13th division instead of the 5th, because the only real way to protect Kaien on a mission is to be there with him. Ichigo knows that if there's an ambush, or if the mission details have been tampered with, he'll be more than enough fire power to get Kaien out of it. And it's easy to always get paired with Kaien; Kaien -- reliably taking every opportunity to hover around Ichigo that he's offered -- does most of the work, leveraging his status as lieutenant and Ichigo's combat ability to keep them together.

Ichigo finds himself frequently taking meals with Kaien and Kaien's friends. Kaien always invites Ichigo, and Ichigo accepts so he can subtly check the food for poison.

(Ichigo does not tell Kaien about Aizen. Ichigo is still unsure what Kaien's role is in the whole fight, and in the meantime, telling him about Aizen is a sure way to get him killed.)

Things heat up. Ichigo prevents both Miyako and Kaien's death, killing Metastacia before it can hurt anyone. Ichigo's shadow war against Aizen gets more intense. Ichigo sneaks out regularly to dismantle Aizen's illusions, destroy his labs, and attack his network of power, slowly weakening him.

Ichigo waits for the assassination attempts against Kaien, but they don't come, even several weeks after Metastacia fails. Ichigo takes it as a sign that he's got Aizen distracted.

Things continue for a while. Ichigo falls into a strange routine.

(And Ichigo tries not to break, seeing so many of his loved ones alive and unknowing of him. It is agony, to be around Shunsui, who is not his mentor, and the Visored, who are neither visored nor pack.

But the worst is when Captains Urahara and Shihouin catch on to his war against Aizen. He finds himself working with them as allies.

Allies. Mere allies, instead of --

Well. Not that it matters anymore.

All that matters is his duty.)

Time passes. Aizen weakens. There are no attempts on Kaien's life yet.

And then Aizen's web has unraveled enough for Ichigo to attack.

It's a long battle. It's a bloody battle. It's a very public battle.

Ichigo wins.

And it's only after it's all over -- after Aizen's crimes are revealed and Soul Society is at peace and the future is saved; after Ichigo finds himself still alive and adrift, with nothing left obligating him to keep going and everything telling him to give up; as Kaien refuses to leave Ichigo alone and escorts him to regular appointments with Unohana and forces him to talk about the truth of his past --

It's only then that it clicks.

Ichigo is whispering secrets about the future into Kaien's chest, Kaien's arms wrapped tight around him, when Ichigo confesses that he messed up, that he put the Shiba clan in unnecessary danger. Ichigo tells Kaien about his death in the original timeline. He talks about how Kisuke told him that in this timeline, Aizen would try and kill Kaien again if the first attempt failed. Ichigo promises desperately that he never would have sought out the family -- would have kept the danger far, far away from them -- if he hadn't thought he had to watch Kaien's movements so closely.

And Ichigo admits that Aizen never actually tried again. Ichigo admits that he and Kisuke miscalculated, that Ichigo brought danger to the Shiba's doorstep for nothing.

It happens like this:

First, the words leave his lips, "Kisuke" and "miscalculated" in the same sentence. Hearing himself say it lays bare the absurdity of its premise.

Then, Kaien draws away slightly, to look Ichigo in the eyes. Ichigo sees, plain on Kaien's face, a terrible, damning gratefulness.

Then, Kaien says -- fierce and defiant in the face of what could have been -- "I am so glad you came home."

And it clicks. At last, Kisuke's final manipulation reveals itself to Ichigo's eyes.

The emotions flash through him: the sting of betrayal; a flavor of love that bursts across his tastebuds as hurt; a familiar brand of exasperation that, a split second later, has his knees giving out under the weight of old pain made fresh.

Kaien catches Ichigo before he hits the ground and holds him as he shatters. And Ichigo can barely breathe through the knowledge that Kisuke would have been so smug to see them.

A sob rips itself from Ichigo's chest, and it's followed by another, and another.

Ichigo's older cousin holds him, in the home of their family, through it all.

_________

THE END except not really.

This must immediately be followed by a whole arc where Kaien, much to his own dismay, finds himself trying to hook Urahara up with his little cousin.

After all, Future-Urahara sent Ichigo to the Shiba clan. Future-Urahara tricked his little cousin into bypassing his own self-destructive tendencies to seek out family and love and support. Clearly, Urahara would actually be good for Ichigo.

And, you know, Ichigo clearly loves Younger-Urahara, judging by Ichigo's whole... well, everything, whenever the two interact.

(This whole matchmaking endeavor is made easier by the fact that 1) Kisuke is already infatuated, fascinated, and not a tiny-bit madly in love, and 2) Yoruichi is also, from the other end, trying to set Kisuke up with Ichigo.

This whole endeavor is made more difficult by the fact that 1) Ichigo is in denial that he loves this younger Kisuke since he never thought this younger Kisuke could also fall in love with him, 2) Kisuke is in denial that he loves Ichigo because that is a Shiba and he himself is a creepy low-born ex-assassin mad-scientist, and 3) neither Ichigo nor Kisuke know what it looks like when someone is interested in them.)

Poor Kaien. He succeeds eventually, but not before witnessing truly legendary social ineptitude.

[elodieunderglass]

[kaddyssammlung]

Vessel just looking good Budapest - November 2024

[jevilowo]

I love dates in the tf2 lore. I love knowing exactly when stuff happened. Which makes THIS THING I JUST FOUND a BEAUTIFUL MIRACLE

You've seen this image before, but have you noticed the dates on the prison card thingies? Presumably this is written the American Way (the writers are so american they make Scout and Sniper both call their mothers "mom" despite preferring "ma" and "mum" respectively, as shown previously SEVERal times), so Spy and Scout were arrested on

The 7th of September, 1972.

We can do a lot with this information.

Mann Co was taken over by Grey and Olivia half a month before this: roughly the 23rd of August

Contrary to popular belief, most of the comics have to take place in 1973! Seeing as 6 months after late August is late February.

This also means Scout had to have been born in 1946/7. Not sure about Sniper, I have yet to overanalyse the New Zealand timeline paragraph. I'll get to it eventually.

Medic implies in comic 6 that our mercs have worked together for "at least eight years", while talking about the lore breaking Demo eyeball halloween thing. Assuming the "at least" confusion is over the 1972 Halloween they missed while not working together, the Teufort Nine were hired in 1964.

(I've almost mentally rationalised the lore breaking eyeball as a thing they do at like 4am after regular Scream Fortress shenanigans. Almost.)

Scout claims he has known Ms Pauling for six years. During the War! update, Demoman is unfamiliar with Ms Pauling (he knows she works for the administrator, but thats it), so we can assume that is the point she started working more closely with the mercs, and also 1966/7

I really need to go back to actively working on my timeline instead of passively wondering at 11pm "hey what time of year is it in the comics" and going down a rabbit hole.

Uh if you want to build off this, feel free to, but tell society twas I, the great and nobel Jevil_Owo, who first conceptualised all this.

UPDATE! This post seems to be picking up reblog steam again, so now is a good time to say I was WRONG about the mercs being hired around 1964.

This blog post from 2009 claims the WAR update took place in 1962, meaning the mercs have to have been hired in early 1962 at the latest.

Seeing as Scout would have been 15/16 in 1962, and as that's kind of the youngest one can be hired for just about anything, I'd assume it actually is 1962 they were hired. Ok thats enough I just felt it was my duty as Person Timelining to update people on this Discovery.

SECOND UPDATE!!

Okay this is lowkey blowing up again and I just wanted to add that Valve themselves are not aware of the comics taking place in 1973. Idiots! This is why "7 years later" is 1979 instead of 1980 like it should be. Sigh.

I had already figured that out from a few other things (see the timeline in my pinned post, I point it out a couple of times), but this solidified it lmao.