#i do. i need you.

[wistfulweaverwoman]

“She loves you, you know,” says Peeta. “She as good as told me after they whipped you.” “Don’t believe it,” Gale answers. “The way she kissed you in the Quarter Quell . . . well, she never kissed me like that.” “It was just part of the show,” Peeta tells him, although there’s an edge of doubt in his voice. “No, you won her over. Gave up everything for her. Maybe that’s the only way to convince her you love her.” There’s a long pause. “I should have volunteered to take your place in the first Games. Protected her then.” “You couldn’t,” says Peeta. “She’d never have forgiven you. You had to take care of her family. They matter more to her than her life.” “Well, it won’t be an issue much longer. I think it’s unlikely all three of us will be alive at the end of the war. And if we are, I guess it’s Katniss’s problem. Who to choose.” Gale yawns. “We should get some sleep.” “Yeah.” I hear Peeta’s handcuffs slide down the support as he settles in. “I wonder how she’ll make up her mind.” “Oh, that I do know.” I can just catch Gale’s last words through the layer of fur. “Katniss will pick whoever she thinks she can’t survive without.”

What an odd conversation for these two boys to have. Interestingly I think Gale already knows the answer. It must be on his mind often, the way he promptly mentions the beach kiss. The conversation Katniss and Peeta have directly before the kiss says just about everything we need to know about who Katniss thinks she needs.

“No one really needs me,” he says, and there’s no self-pity in his voice. It’s true his family doesn’t need him. They will mourn him, as will a handful of friends. But they will get on. Even Haymitch, with the help of a lot of white liquor, will get on. I realize only one person will be damaged beyond repair if Peeta dies. Me. “I do,” I say. “I need you.”

[wishfulsketching]

Girl dad Silco is a source of endless entertainment for me

Extra doodles:

Someone save Sevika, she is in hell

[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.

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

girl why the hell WEREN'T you at the devil's sacrament 👀 that's three sacraments in a row you've missed 👀 👀 👀

[napping-sapphic]

take your clothes off and get on the bed what no we aren’t having sex right now we’re cuddling and pressing every inch of skin together as close as possible for the next six hours

[batcavescolony]

Katniss is such an unreliable narrator. She says "Then something unexpected happens. At least, I don't expect it because I don't think of District 12 as a place that cares about me" girl you deliver strawberries to the Mayor, you hunt and trade for the district, when you fell at Prim being chosen someone caught you, when you went to Prim people parted for you, when you volunteered EVERYONE stopped. Idk how to tell you but I think you're a pillar of the community.

[reesiereads]

I need ya’ll to realize running back to TikTok like nothing fucking happened is exactly what this motherfucker wants. He wants you to run back and to be grateful. He wants you to forget that the Supreme Court has just passed something that indicates they can pursue intense censorship and remove our access to free speech and non-propagandized/monitored spaces whenever they want. He wants you to be so focused on all this that you completely forget that he’s about to pass at least a hundred horrific policies stripping us of our rights as soon as this week. He wants you to stop talking about Palestine who is still in danger and is in desperate need of aid despite the ceasefire. He wants you to turn your attention away from all the people in LA suffering thanks to the fires.

I don’t want to say it’s just an app, because it’s not. I was incredibly sad about losing TikTok yesterday. Many of us had a community that meant a great deal to us torn away suddenly and I am not saying we shouldn’t be upset about that. But I am saying that as much as the Supreme Court has more important things they should be focusing on over banning TikTok we have more important things to do then run back to an app that was obviously used for a publicity stunt by Trump and will inevitably be influenced by him and his fascism.

We’ve been discussing boycotting Instagram, Facebook, Twitter/X, and other Meta platforms due to their connections to Trump and his posse of billionaires. TikTok must be treated the same way so long as the CEO and company is in Trump’s pocket.

[badolmen]

WARNING 18+

19

[notrobinsomethingworse]

Dick, holding Wally’s hand while they lie in bed: God I love this bed. God I love this house. And you. Especially you.

Voice: How domestic.

Wally: God?

Damian in his Robin suit, holding his bleeding side: No. It’s me. May one of you please direct me to the nearest medical kit.

[Frantic scrambling]

[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.

[jacqcrisis]

Put salt in your baked goods. Put salt in your desserts. Just do it. Please. Salt isn't just for savory, it's literally a flavor enhancer so even a pinch can take a meh recipe to one people can't stop eating. Listen to me. Your cookies and cheesecake bars are bland and uninteresting. I'm taking your hand. I'm guiding you with a gentle touch to the back. We can do this together. Trust me.

[gongyussy]

(✿◕‿◕) die (ꈍ ꒳ ꈍ✿)

[eastgaysian]

[birdmenmanga]

they are putting yaoi in the city art museum and censoring nsfw content with heat-responsive material so you have to put your hands on it to see dick