#do i need more of that

[proxissima]

Over and Done With

An excerpt from All but One by @aconstantstateofbladerunner... aka the fic with the rawest non-villain version of All Might I've personally had the pleasure of reading so far.

~~~~~

All for One’s ugly mug gazed confidently out the mansion’s floor-to-ceiling window like the untouchable god he thought he was for far too long.  Then he turned around, and sealed his fate.  The greatest villain Japan had ever known’s skull was no tougher than the glass Toshinori burst through compared to the raw force of One for All. 

He went flying, but steadied himself mid-air with some quirk.  “S-so,” he hacked.  “You must be the new pe-“

Toshinori caught the monster’s chin with a right hook.  Then he grabbed with the left. 

He crushed the jaw until it was practically liquid, then yanked what was left clean off.  All for One screamed, raw and unfiltered. 

An energy pulse pushed Toshinori back.  Some lackeys tried to come at him.  Toshinori backhanded a windblast that imbedded them in the walls.

All for One attempted hover away down the hall.  Every piece of glass in the room shattered with the force of Toshinori’s leap.  He went for the neck.  The bastard under his bloodied hands hacked fire and bile.  Shapes and shadows of a quirk danced at the corners of Toshinori’s vision.  Another slam into the floor cut it off.  He grabbed his hair-

Curly.  Dark.  No!

He grabbed a handful of his hair and yanked it off before digging the same fist deeper into his brains.  The marble floor cratered.  A sudden electrical shock loosened Toshinori’s grip just enough for All for One to force-jump away.  But he didn’t get far.  Toshinori was on him before he could even stumble.  He slammed his heel into the beast’s back; his spine snapped like a twig.  Gurgled wails almost drowned out the satisfying sound.

The floor collapsed and they fell into a kitchen.  More lackeys.  More hurricane-force winds.

All for One managed to flip himself over somewhat in the meantime.  He hurled some sort of metal spine.  Toshinori slapped it to the side.  A flurry of smaller spikes was blown away with a snap of his fingers.  He leapt over a fissure in the ground like he was jumping a puddle.  And he landed on the bastard’s knees.

Then Toshinori paused.  Ice crept into his veins.  Here was the man whose existence tormented him almost all his life. 

Jawless. 

The orchestrator behind thousands upon thousands of torturous crimes against humanity.

Head deflated.

The man who murdered my mother.

One eye dangling from its socket.

But there, under his remaining eye, was something Toshinori hadn’t ever noticed in their encounters.  Few and faded, but undeniably there.  Freckles.

The father of the greatest light of my life…

Toshinori hit him harder.  What was left of a face disappeared behind two falling fists.  He pulled back.  The walls around them were starting to melt.  All for One dug his nails into Toshinori’s costume while his skin spasmed, desperately trying to activate the right quirk.  Displaced teeth poked out of a gurgling bloody mass.  He hit him again.  And again.  And again.

All for One stopped swinging his arms at some point.  Toshinori wasn’t falling for that again.  His heel plunged into the monster’s chest, squishing and crunching organs beneath.  He didn’t let up until he was sloshing in a puddle.  Even then, it wasn’t over until all was still. 

So he waited, hovering over what was only a corpse in theory.  Long enough that blood on his face that wasn’t his cooled and crusted.  It was over far before Toshinori accepted it.  He couldn’t accept it.  It happened too fast.  There was a whole strategy ready to go.  He was going to trick him.  Use One for All in one part of his body at a time like Izuku did.  But the bastard just wouldn’t move.  No way it would be that easy.

And yet…

The investigators had to scrape up what was left into a bin. 

[bearvverine]

me and gang at the haunted house

[shadesofmauve]

I want to step away from the art-vs-artist side of the Gaiman issue for a bit, and talk about, well, the rest of it. Because those emotions you're feeling would be the same without the art; the art just adds another layer.

Source: I worked with a guy who turned out to be heavily involved in an international, multi-state sex-slavery/trafficking ring.

He was really nice.

Yeah.

It hits like a dumptruck of shit. You don't feel stable in your world anymore. How could someone you interacted with, liked, also be a truly horrible person? How could your judgement be that bad? How can real people, not stylized cartoon bogeymen, be actually doing this shit?

You have to sit with the fact that you couldn't, or probably couldn't, have known. You should have no guilt as part of this horror — but guilt is almost certainly part of that mess you're feeling, because our brains do this associative thing, and somehow "I liked [the version of] the guy [that I knew]", or his creations, becomes "I made a horrible mistake and should feel guilty."

You didn't, loves, you didn't.

We're human, and we can only go by the information we have. And the information we have is only the smallest glimpse into someone else's life.

I didn't work closely with the guy I knew at work, but we chatted. He wasn't just nice; he was one of the only people outside my tiny department who seemed genuinely nice in a workplace that was rapidly becoming incredibly toxic. He loaned me a bike trainer. Occasionally he'd see me at the bus stop and give me a lift home.

Yup. I was a young woman in my twenties and rode in this guy's car. More than once.

When I tell this story that part usually makes people gasp. "You must feel so scared about what could have happened to you!" "You're so lucky nothing happened!"

No, that's not how it worked. I was never in danger. This guy targeted Korean women with little-to-no English who were coerced and powerless. A white, fluent, US citizen coworker wasn't a potential victim. I got to be a person, not prey.

Y'know that little warning bell that goes off, when you're around someone who might be a danger to you? That animal sense that says "Something is off here, watch out"?

Yeah, that doesn't ping if the preferred prey isn't around.

That's what rattled me the most about this. I liked to think of myself as willing to stand up for people with less power than me. I worked with Japanese exchange students in college and put myself bodily between them and creeps, and I sure as hell got that little alarm when some asian-schoolgirl fetishist schmoozed on them. But we were all there.

I had to learn that the alarm won't go off when the hunter isn't hunting. That it's not the solid indicator I might've thought it was. That sometimes this is what the privilege of not being prey does; it completely masks your ability to detect the horrors that are going on.

A lot of people point out that 'people like that' have amazing charisma and ability to lie and manipulate, and that's true. Anyone who's gotten away with this shit for decades is going to be way smoother than the pathetic little hangers-on I dealt with in university. But it's not just that. I seriously, deeply believe that he saw me as a person, and he did not extend personhood to his victims. We didn't have a fake coworker relationship. We had a real one. And just like I don't know the ins-and-outs of most of my coworkers lives, I had no idea that what he did on his down time was perpetrate horrors.

I know this is getting off the topic, but it's so very important. Especially as a message to cis guys: please understand that you won't recognize a creep the way you might think you will. If you're not the preferred prey, the hind-brain alarm won't go off. You have to listen to victims, not your gut feeling that the person seems perfectly nice and normal. It doesn't mean there's never a false accusation, but face the fact that it's usually real, and you don't have enough information to say otherwise.

So, yeah. It fucking sucks. Writing about this twists my insides into tense knots, and it was almost a decade ago. I was never in danger. No one I knew was hurt!

Just countless, powerless women, horrifically abused by someone who was nice to me.

You don't trust your own judgement quite the same way, after. And as utterly shitty as it is, as twisted up and unstead-in-the-world as I felt the day I found out — I don't actually think that's a bad thing.

I think we all need to question our own judgement. It makes us better people.

I don't see villains around every corner just because I knew one, once. But I do own the fact that I can't know, really know, about anyone except those closest to me. They have their own full lives. They'll go from the pinnacles of kindness to the depths of depravity — and I won't know.

It's not a failing. It's just being human. Something to remember before you slap labels on people, before you condemn them or idolize them. Think about how much you can't know, and how flawed our judgement always is.

Grieve for victims, and the feeling of betrayal. But maybe let yourself off the hook, and be a bit slower to skewer others on it.

[saturnvs]

wild horses

[dirtytransmasc]

the men and boys are innocent too.

we cry "the innocent women and children" to appeal to the masses, to try and force their sympathy, but the men and boys are innocent too.

I have seen sons crying out for their mothers, their fathers, their siblings. I have seen them break down at the loss of their families. I have seen them cling to their dead and grieve.

I have seen fathers cradle their dead children, seen them kiss their faces and hold their little hands. I have seen them faint with grief when asked to identify the dead. I have seen them carry their sons and daughters. I have seen them fasting to provide what little they can for their families.

I have seen men and boys digging through the rubble with just their bare hands, I have seen them comforting strangers, playing with children, rocking them, hushing them, even if the face of such imminent danger. I have seen them cry, seen them grieve, seen them break down into each other's arms, seen them be selfless, beyond selfless, becoming something I don't have a word for.

I have seen the men who are doctors refuse to leave their patients, even when they have no medicine or supplies to give them, even when they're threatened with bombings. I have seen fathers who have lost all their children pick orphans up into their arms and proclaim them their child so they are not alone. I have seen men and boys digging pets out of the rubble.

the men are innocent too. the men and boys are being hurt and killed too. the men and boys are grieving too. the men and boys are scared too. the men and boys are fighting to save their people too. the men and boys deserve to be fought for too.

[ravenlilyrose]

Bruce is at a gala, okay, and he’s talking to a woman.

Random woman: “And we found out that we’re having another child!”

Bruce: *absolutely cackling inside, because this is about to be the funniest thing he’s done in weeks*

Brucie: “That’s wonderful! Where are they? Can I meet them? How old are they?”

Now Brucie is standing there, scanning the room for children with a huge grin on his face, while all of the random rich people stand around like ‘who’s going to explain to the adorable, well-meaning idiot that most people know they’re going to have children a few months before the children are born.’

And worse, who’s going to have to break the news to him that he can’t meet the kid today?

Because this man… this man has acquired all of his children with zero premeditation. Yes, he does have a bio kid, but that one showed up on his doorstep as a preteen. He did even less acquiring with that one than with the others.

Bruce has a blast acting out his disappointment, and has to turn some so that he can no longer see Tim and Cass leaning against each other and laughing, because otherwise he’s going to start laughing.

[stil-lindigo]

lead balloon (the tumblr post that saved me)

if this comic resonated with you, it would mean the world to me if you donated to this palestinian family's escape fund.

--

no creative notes because this isn't that kind of comic.

I know I don’t owe any of you anything but I still felt compelled to write about my long term absence. And I feel far enough away from the dangerous spot I was in to be able to make this comic. I have a therapist now, and she agreed that making this could be a very cathartic gesture, and the start of properly leaving these thoughts behind me. I am still, at seemingly random times, blindsided by fleeting desires to kill myself. They’re always passing urges, but it’s disarming, and uncomfortable. I worry sometimes that my brain’s spent so long thinking only about suicide that it’s forgotten how to think about anything else. Like, now that I've opened that door for myself, I'll never be able to fully shut it again. But I’m trying my best to encourage my mind in other directions. We'll see how that goes.

I am still donating all proceeds from my store to Palestinian causes. So far, I've donated over $15K, not including donations coming from my own pocket or the fundraising streams which jointly raised around $10K. In the time since I made my initial post about where this money would be going, the focus has shifted from aid organisations to directly donating to escape funds.

If you'd like to do the same, you can look at Operation Olive Branch, which hosts hundreds of Palestinian escape funds or donate to Safebow, which has helped facilitate the safe crossing and securing of important medical procedures for over 150 at-risk palestinians since the beginning of the genocide.

[bacchuschucklefuck]

couldnt draw my thang for mid-autumn so treated myself to a calne redesign instead

[hinamie]

post-graduation trip airport looks

[ionomycin]

phoenix and the priestess

[chloesimaginationthings]

Helpi and Rambley are gonna fight in FNAF

[jakeperalta]

I'm curious. what job would you do if money was no object (you just automatically had an income you could live comfortably on)? including work like volunteering, studying etc. please share in the tags :)

[tizzymcwizzy]

more ace attorney sketches!! :D i watched the turnabout spotlight stageplay and something possessed me

[egophiliac]

it's never the last time.

I was trying to justify to myself having Leona know how to use a waffle maker, and. well. sometimes you just gotta go where the flow takes you.

[sergle]

ALSO IMPORTANT TO NOTE, people dropping mad mad sums of money on gfms and charities and stuff are extremely impressive but that DOES NOT MEAN that putting like $5 towards someone's fund or any good cause is any less valuable, a lot of crowdfunding is about momentum and those single digits add up super fast, you do not need to be Rolling In The Dough to make someone's day!! moving the dial at all is extremely positive!!

[catboybiologist]

By now, there's lots of people have heard about the internal CDC memos for all newly prepared manuscripts (like future scientific papers waiting to be published):

There's so much to comment on, and I'm seeing it all right now. What the state of science is. What this means for the queer community. All of that.

But fuck, I think I might genuinely start crying over this. As a transgender biologist, this feels like a brutally personal blow. I slowly accepted my gender alongside my biology education. The more misinformation that was spewed about "biological sex" by mainstream media, the more my professors, colleagues, and primary sources would casually drop information that proved they have no idea what they're talking about. I'm not an expert on sex determination, gender, or transgender biology specifically by any means. But my worldview has been crafted by my studies in genetics and molecular biology.

Engaging with this research helped me demystify transition. It helped me optimize my transition. It helped me explain how HRT and other steps of trans healthcare work to other people. And it helped me overcome my own internalized transphobia, and finally start transitioning, despite knowing I wanted to since my preteen years.

Who knows how enforceable internal guidelines like this will be. But its certainly going to scare a lot of researchers away from transgender healthcare and science in the coming years, and that breaks my heart.

There's a lot I can say here, but fuck. I just needed to vent for a moment. Fuck.