#i hate hate hate hate hate when people do that sort of thing

[every-cool-name-is-taken]

Death of the author applies only when you don’t continue giving them money.

I have fond memories of Harry Potter, and it was so awful to learn that the author of those was such a nasty, horrible bigot.

A lot of people have fond memories of the books, and that’s alright. It doesn’t make us bad people. We were young so it was easy for us not to see the warning signs. We didn’t know what sort of a person we were supporting. We don’t need to feel guilty about what we didn’t see for what it was when we were children.

But it IS important for us to see that now and to not let our memories blind us to the absolutely abhorrent things she’s doing. We now DO know who she really is, and we can respond in kind by refusing to support hate.

It’s okay to remember the books as good memories.

Just don’t give her any money.

Don’t buy anything official and don’t stream the movies from anywhere official.

I haven't purchased a HP item in close to a decade - I use the books I already had as doorstops or to prop a laptop up for meetings nowadays.

There is NO "death of the author" with JK Rowling - she controls and continues to profit from her IP, and uses that money to fund hate groups.

[aninipanin1]

I think that Anri begs adult manager! reader to force Ego to eat an actual meal that isn’t those instant noodles

EW, VEGETABLES...?

Notes: I actually love this so much, anon lol

"Good morning, Anri-san. How may I help you today?"

You greeted your fellow female manager, figure hunched over the washing machine, scrubbing the white linen sheets from the many rooms around the facility, especially the one that legit had an oyster sauce spill, leaving a spot darkened.

Anri gave her a large smile, one that is familiar, at first before her, she reached some sort of 'Eureka' moment, and her smile turned into one of disappointment she did not think of it earlier along with a hint of mischief in it.

"Actually, can you help me with something, Y/n?"

"Oh, of course! What do I do?"

The redhaired manager motioned for her to come closer, to which she followed. Cupping her hand around your ear, Anri whispered the 'task' she wanted you to do.

As she spoke, the wider your eyes became. How will you even pull this off?

"But, Anri-san..! You know how much he loves his noodles...and how he doesn't really like me."

You always thought that Ego Jinpachi, the head and director of the Blue Lock facility, never seemed to like you. He wasn't rude to you (you think because he talked to you the way he did to everyone else), but you can definitely see that he would go out of his way to avoid talking to you, approaching you or anything related to talking with you alone without Anri, unless it was something prefessional and work-related.

He also always scolds you. You know, it was just because of the betterment of the project. But why did he have to scold you for just being around Noel Noa or any of the master strikers? They were the ones handling the improvement of the boys. Of course, you need to be around them! Well, it was one of the many things you noticed, but you digressed. After all, you know you cannot please everyone, especially in a workplace environment.

So, you were a little shocked when Anri tilted her head at you, confused about your claim.

"Ego-san...doesn't like you?"

"Um, isn't it obvious, Anri-san? He doesn't really like talking to me at all, and when you aren't there with us, he will always avoid talking to me even if I try to make casual conversations! Also, he always scolds me for the stupidest reasons! Why does he get mad when I talk to Noa-san, Snuffy-san, Prince-san, or even Lavinho-san, I will never understand! It's my job to make sure that the boys are doing well and I can only make sure of that through the master strikers!"

You did not know when you started ranting, but you did. Anri, who listened to you with open ears, could not help but chuckle on the inside. She felt quite amused and also disappointed at Ego. But, she cannot say she was not surprised. Ego was one, if not the most emotionally constipated person she had ever met. It was not a surprise that he would try to avoid you.

But, why did he have to do all those things? It wasn't helping his cause at all!

'You better thank me for what I am doing, Ego-san.'

"Ego-san! Um..."

You stood there in the office where the said man was watching the many screens, watching over the progress of the players who were all training in their own ways. In your hands was a tray filled with sautéed vegetables, a bowl of rice, and some chicken in a bowl you cooked just for the man.

Even if you think he hates you, you can not just ignore someone who is literally putting their life in danger because they don't want to eat healthy things. You aren't messed up like that!

But, you did not know how to approach this, much less him. How will you even ask him to do this, much less with the strained relationship you two had? This was a really bad idea! Why did Anri have to approach you of all people for this-

"What is it?"

He turned his swivel chair to face you, his eyes a bit lidded to show that he was not that happy for being interrupted.

"I made some extra food, and uh...I thought you may want to have it."

'That's so stupid, Y/n!'

He raised an eyebrow at this, and it did not help that the look on his face showed that he did not approve of eating the pallate on the tray.

"Y/n-chan, you know I don't eat those things."

"I know...! I just didn't want to waste it. Anri-san said she already ate so..."

Ego did not say anything, turning his swivel chair to face the screens again. Just as you were about to give up and leave the room thinking that he would not accept the food at all, he raised his arm and pointed to an empty space on the desk.

"Put it there. Don't blame me if I don't eat it and it becomes rotten."

Blinking at his words, you just nodded your head, a bit dazed that he actually considered even being near the food. You did as he told before bowing and leaving to do your other chores and duties.

Needless to say, when Anri entered Ego's office, she was shocked to see the man munching on a bowl of rice with chicken and vegetables on top. His eyes were still focused on the screen, back hunched in a weird position, but he was indeed eating.

"Did Y/n pass by here..?"

"She did. Dropped this...abomination and her paperwork."

Ego answered, pointing to the food that he called 'abomination,' yet he was still eating the food, cheeks round with food. Anri nodded, yet it was obvious she did not believe the disgusted look in his face to which he only glared at her for.

"You're the one who said it. The facility should not waste food." He pointed his chopstick at her.

"Yeah, yeah. It's totally not because you favour her, definitely not." Anri shrugged, a cheeky smile as she headed out the room once she dropped the paperwork.

'I'm surrounded by simps, haahh...' She inwardly sighed.

ADDITIONAL TIME!

Anri: You like her.

Ego: No, I don't.

Also Ego: *proceeds to hoard every single thing Y/n gave him, yes, even if it was the inkless pen she passed to him to throw in the trash.*

I'm sorry if this was too short, hahaha. I didn't really know how to go deeper into this. But I hope you loved this!

Blue Lock is WRITTEN by Kaneshiro Muneyuki and ILLUSTRATED by Nomura Yusuke. All credits to the both of them.

[bugslaststraw]

See it's funny because in the games, and in any other assorted media before the movies came out, everyone low-key just hates Robotnik. And not even in the fun dedicated way like they all seem to think he's a bit of a failure. Which sounds weird if you don't know anything about Sonic (and certainly sounded weird to me three weeks ago when I was one of those people) but it really is just genuinely the case. I think?

Obviously his family all hate him. Movie-only fans will have an idea about this one; we've got good old Geralt Robotnik who didn't give a rats ass about him in favour of his long-dead cousin Maria, whom he wants revenge for. Geralt manipulated him and used him and said "oh Ivo you're no Maria" even though Ivo probably doesn't even know who the fuck Maria is in the movie universe and so on, et cetera. Geralt sucks just as much in the games and did approximately the same thing there.

What you may or may not know is that in one of the games, Eggman runs into a descendant of his from generations into the future. That guy's name is Eggman Nega, and he absolutely hates his ancestor. He thinks he's cramping his style? He's trying to go back in time and kill him to restore his reputation as far as I remember. Not to mention he has other family and cousins, none of whom give a flying fuck what happens to him. I distinctly remember someone who's name was Collin but who's nickname was Snively and who also worked with Eggman at some point, but hated him, and then later betrayed him. I can't remember a single family member of Eggman's that actually seemed to like or even tolerate him.

He's had a lot of henchpeople too. Most of them were robots. A lot of them, like Omega, and Gamma, and Sage to an extent (although she was more like a robot daughter he built for himself) betrayed him and joined the good guys too (Sage is another outlier, she isn't exactly switching over I mean she definitely likes him but she definitely isn't loyal either so.??) I mean, Eggman isn't even surprised by the fourth time. Smaller minions like Orbot (and Cubot? another outlier) and their predecessors weren't able to betray Eggman, but definitely would've if they could've because they all disliked him because he's allegedly a shit boss. (Who says he isn't. He's evil after all.)

He "contracts" a lot of spies and stuff too. Animal characters. They all hate him as well, but he tends to hate them in return, so at least those are entirely fair game.

Not to mention all the villains he's conveniently happened to need the same thing as at the start of the game, but become inconvenient to towards the end, so they betray him as quickly as possible to get ready for their final boss fight with Sonic towards the conclusion of the story. There's more of those than I can count or care to remember. He meets his alternative universe self once and they hate each other. There's even a moment in I think the comics where Eggman loses all his memories and temporarily becomes nice, and hangs out in a village and builds things for the furry people who live there. He makes a wooden puppet style robot that also becomes like a daughter to him. She's good at engineering, just like him. Of course when he gets his memories back and becomes evil again she leaves as quickly as possible and later helps Sonic & co. She's very resentful about it all, I've heard.

None of that is surprising, of course. Eggman is an evil villain to the heroes and a loser to the villains. It's funny! It's a joke. They need to introduce scarier villains in the games to ramp up tension but they can't exactly just drop Sonic's nemesis down a hole somewhere, being as iconic as he is... So he sticks around. But as a joke, rather than an actual threat. And it's a little sad, yeah. But he deserves it! He's trying to create some sort of totalitarian egg-state and he bullies Sonic for having friends, for Christ's sake. Why should anyone want to stay loyal to a guy like that- and why should anyone do it at all? Joining the heroes is the cool thing to do! Shadow does it, Knuckles does it, Omega kinda sorta does it, Sage is toeing the damn line from what I've heard, it's...

Okay, it's kind of a lot? I mean I understand having nobody that's a good guy like the villain, but like... Not even his damn henchpeople robots? In a lot of the animated shows and comics he keeps building robot wives for himself that are explicitly created just to like him, by him. That or he's into someone who's into one of the animals, or similar. I mean, it's that bad. And it's like... Nobody? Not even once in like thirty years did anyone come up with the idea to give Eggman?? This behemoth among famous pop culture characters? A loyal henchman?

And- well, okay, nowadays this isn't true anymore. I'm sure we all know why. And that's kind of fun; in 2020, Doctor Robotnik gained his first and only loyal henchperson. Great! But...

Jeff Fowler is a Sonic fan, isn't he. Would he know..?

Would anyone involved in making the movies know that Eggman famously... Doesn't have any friends? That nobody seems to like him? That he's apparently infinitely betrayable? Do they know? Do they know? Is that why the third movie is written like that? Is it not just a character complex pulled out of someone's- I mean, when movie Eggman says that there's only ever been one person who actually liked him and one person who actually cared about him... He's quite literally right, isn't he. As in... Since 1991... Like 34 years since conception as a handful of red pixels in the hottest new platformer game there's actually, literally only been one character..? ooh I think I need to lie down for a bit

[operahousebookworm]

I was endeavoring to explain elsewhere why "13yo girls devouring the works of Stephen King" was such a common millennial experience, and I think a big part of it is his novels are ALL interiority. Yeah there's supernatural forces and creepy setpieces and all, but especially in his monologues, it's all internal monologue and deep memory and so so much voice. And this is all fascinating as hell when you're just starting to realize there's an adult world out there and trying to sort out how people move through it. (Especially when packaged with the aforementioned horror elements.)

You really see it in the Kubrick film of The Shining vs. the book. The film is about an evil hotel. There's not really a rhyme or reason to why these specific creepy things are happening, they're just creepy and look cool. Its primary vibe is discomfort and there also just happen to be these people here who low-key hate each other. Stans try to talk about how it's all about the psychological effects of isolation but the characters are broken and shut-off from each other from the beginning.

(These people are all ready to draw blood right this second and you cannot convince me otherwise.)

The book, meanwhile, is an absolute masterpiece of interiority, consisting (mostly) of three interweaving internal monologues of very distinct people who desperately want to connect with each other and cannot manage it. Jack loves his wife and adores his kid so goddamn much but he cannot control his rage and addiction, which leaves him constantly trying to make up for things he barely remembers doing. Wendy sees that her son has a special bond with his father that she cannot replicate or share, even though she's been the dependable one taking care of him. She sees herself repeating a pattern from her own upbringing and she hates it so much but she cannot will the jealousy away. Danny sees his parents breaking and wants to fix things, thinks he could fix things if he were either more gifted or more normal. They are all struggling against the forces that shaped them, swimming upstream with everything they have even as they're inexorably pushed toward the sea.

The hotel is merely feeding on them. Not on their anger or paranoia, but on their frustrated and helpless love. The fact that they keep trying to connect and keep getting it exactly wrong is what creates the opportunities for the evil to slip in and amplify those things they all hate about themselves, widening the gaps between them. They refuse to give up on each other, their chapters all show how badly they want to make things work, and that makes the tragedy inevitable.

And I should probably shut up now BUT this is why so many people remember the topiary scene as the most terrifying part of the novel, and why it's not in the movie. Because in the novel it is a sloooooow build of dread as Jack faces their impending isolation and tries to fulfill his duties as caretaker. The wrongness is just lurking at the edges until it starts rapidly closing in, and the increased intensity is Jack working himself into an absolute panic at the thought that if he could just push his limits just a little further and see them all at once, he could render this whole threat harmless. Sure, a thing that only moves when you're not looking at it is scary, but it's terrifying to Jack because the sense of being millimeters shy of your own salvation and still falling short is his whole damage.

And on film it would die completely. Increasingly close-up shots of shrubbery, intercut with a dude losing his entire mind about it, is pure B-movie camp. Small wonder it didn't make it in.

A lot of fiction these days reads as if—as I saw Peter Raleigh put it the other day, and as I’ve discussed it before—the author is trying to describe a video playing in their mind. Often there is little or no interiority. Scenes play out in “real time” without summary. First-person POV stories describe things the character can’t see, but a distant camera could. There’s an overemphasis on characters’ outfits and facial expressions, including my personal pet peeve: the “reaction shot round-up” in which we get a description of every character’s reaction to something as if a camera was cutting between sitcom actors.

When I talk with other creative writing professors, we all seem to agree that interiority is disappearing. Even in first-person POV stories, younger writers often skip describing their character’s hopes, dreams, fears, thoughts, memories, or reactions. This trend is hardly limited to young writers though. I was speaking to an editor yesterday who agreed interiority has largely vanished from commercial fiction, and I think you increasingly notice its absence even in works shelved as “literary fiction.” When interiority does appear on the page, it is often brief and redundant with the dialogue and action. All of this is a great shame. Interiority is perhaps the prime example of an advantage prose as a medium holds over other artforms.

fascinated by this article, "Turning Off the TV in Your Mind," about the influences of visual narratives on writing prose narratives. i def notice the two things i excerpted above in fanfic, which i guess makes even more sense as most of the fic i read is for tv and film. i will also be thinking about its discussion of time in prose - i think that's something i often struggle with and i will try to be more conscious of the differences between screen and page next time i'm writing.

[robinsgrl]

anyways i talked to my friends and they’ve been angels through all of this. supporting me and being honest with me when even i was being immature. also talked to my sister and she pretty much said to suck it up lol love her. i know myself and my work and this whole credit thing on a concept that’s been done for years is insane.

im coming back and bringing all my series back up. i shouldn’t stop myself from doing what i love because people can be entitled lol!!!!!

any hate towards anyone is not tolerated. if you’ve sent any of these creators any sort of hate then block me. i will never stand for hate of any kind. hate is not you supporting me. you are making the situation worse.

[oli-ribbun-ver]

TADC Ep 4 Ramble! (?)

OKAY!! ive been wanting to yap about this for a while so!!

FIRST!! what finally got me to make this post!

the difference between how jax and ragatha worded it when they said something about gangle being happy!!

as you can see here, jax says "I like you better when you're sad."

but why am i thinking about this so much?

jax doesn't really say "i hate when youre happy," or anything of that sort! he just says "i like you better when you're sad." is there really that much of a difference? well, yes!

there's actually a BIG difference!

"I hate when you're happy," would mean that Jax ONLY likes Gangle when she's sad and that he makes her sad BECAUSE she's happy, which isn't the case!

We KNOW that Jax doesn't do it because he dislikes when she's happy (although that MIGHT be the case, he definitely doesnt overall HATE when she's happy) because he says in Ep 1;

"I'm fine with doing whatever, as long as I get to see funny things happen to people."

AND at the beginning of Ep 3, he has absolutely no issue with her being happy in any way. You can even visually see the reason he throws her mask is because he thinks it's funny.

(he literally dgaf)

Hell, you can tell he wasn't even considering throwing her mask until Gangle mentioned the doors and he was like "oh stars yknow what would be funny..."

oh stars wait i didnt know there was a pic limit hokd on

okay had to delete some SORYR wait does fhis mean this has to be a seperate part thing??? how do i even do fhat... oh dear... THATS OKAY ILL FIGURE IT OUT!! anyways

I'm sure you get my point! Yes, in Ep 2, he seems a bit happier with her being sad, he LITERALLY SAYS "Aren't you supposed to be submissive and agreeable?", but also remember he SPECIFICALLY says

"I like you better when you're sad." not that he ONLY likes her when she's sad, which is kinda my point with this.

Now, what makes it so different to Ragatha's comment about her being happy?

"You're kind of annoying when you have your happy mask."

Yeah. Kind of a big difference.

She just straight up says she thinks Gangle is annoying when she has her happy mask.

It can be argued that it's because Ragatha was hit with the good ol' stupid sauce, but if you haven't noticed, it's not that it made her stupid(although it sorta did), it just made her brutally honest with how she felt.

Gangle already knows that Ragatha is a people pleaser. Kind of everyone knows that. But regardless, Gangle considers Ragatha a friend. Sure, she could've expected it from Jax, but from RAGATHA?

Yeah. I wouldn't expect it either.

Because again, unlike Jax, Ragatha says she finds Gangle annoying when she's happy. Jax does not. And we know Jax is typically at least somewhat honest about how he feels. He literally has no reason to lie to Gangle about that, though. Like literally no reason.

"I like you better when you're sad" is a BIG difference than "You're kind of annoying when you have your happy mask."

Before anyone mentions it, although yes Ragatha DOES say happy MASK, Gangle doesn't exactly show she's sad when she has her happy mask on. She seems happier than when she doesn't have it, but we can pretty confidently assume that's not the case. I'll get into her mask later, though.

Regardless, what we know so far is that nobody really knows her happy mask doesn't actually make her happy except (now) Pomni and MAYBE Zooble.

Although I sorta doubt the Zooble thing because Ep 4 allowed us to learn that Gangle has a bigger mood drop the longer she's 'happy' for, since happiness isn't what she truly feels most of the time.

OKAY next post so i can put more images.

[narfin-frood]

another wave of swap doodles from another late night drawing sesh!

talking abt my new thoughts for the au also under the cut :))))))

so i've been thinking on the big catastrophic event. and i've landed on this:

i think the big catastrophic event is caused by the hat. the hat is never scooped up and adopted by wander during the big dispute the previous "owners" had, so it instead lands in the hands of jeff. jeff in the au is already a pretty normal, chill dude, with a band and a life. he's been friends with wander for a while, but during a lull where they don't see each other for a while, he gets ahold of the hat, and the possibilities overcome him. he Didn't Know how Good it feels to be Bad. and he's making up for lost time by tricking out his little ship with guns and thrusters and all sorts of evil stuff.

wander is taken into custody by sylvia, who is working for some organization like the men in black. she interrogates him, and realizes he doesn't know the first thing about what jeff has been up to in his absence, though she has pictures of them hanging out from years back.

they'd search for jeff, who announces himself as major threat when they finally catch up with him, and would attempt to produce some kind of enormous doomsday weapon from the hat. this would be like the last nail in the coffin for the hat, which was already within an inch of blowing up anyway, and it would explode and flatten the entire solar system and surrounding area, taking major threat with it.

sylvia and wander take shelter in a cave right before the blast hits, and when they come out, it's devastation all around. wander's been wrung out, now. his oldest friend is gone, and he feels to some degree responsible for the whole mess, even when sylvia assures him he isn't. they take a trip around and realize just how much damage the hat's explosion had done, and how far it stretches, and that's when wander starts to spiral. surely there's something he could've done to prevent it, and how dare he continue on when who knows how many wonderful people have just been vaporized in the midst of their "battle"(basically just yelling at major threat from a distance Not to Do It).

they come to rest on a planet that still has some firewood left, and sylvia goes off to gather it while wander takes shelter in another cave. A very damp cave, a dark cave, one that seems almost entirely untouched by time. and in the cave, there's one glowing orange mushroom.

anyway, that's about how long sylvia and wander know each other before the cult's inception. i think they only get to have a couple moments where they're just buds on a mission, and then it's all downhill. sylvia readily quits the men in black at some point between meeting wander and meeting major threat, but she retains the skills that made her such a good fit for it. and now, she doesn't have to wear those awful shoes that she hates.

honestly it's taken me so long to come up with something for it because, like i've said before, the wander over yonders are just kind of. backstory-less, largely. we get just enough backstory to want to know more, like with major threat and wander One Thousand Years Ago Exactly and sylvia's past as a bounty hunter, but. like. not much more than that.

and a lot of that has to do with the programming slot this show was given and how little time it actually spent on the air, like a lot of things, but also, y'know. tone. the show is aaaaaalmost a pure comedy, which i love it for, and the bits of tragedy and lore are almost always undercut with n jokes per minute. which!! again!!11! i like! i think it's fun and i like to be happy and have fun. and it also makes those moments of Ohhhh Ouchie my Feelings hit that much harder to have them entirely surrounded by peace love and funny joke.

so anyway. i kinda fear this backstory is just a little too #serious and makes too little #sense to me, but it's the closest i've come to something that makes sense for how wander turned out in the au. Shrugs. We shall see.

and all of this is from a little blurb i wrote for fun so like Please Dont Think This Is The Final Decision please. ill probably change All of this in some way or another bc i fear this gives sylvia very little time to be happy and i want her. to be happy. at some point. i need her to be happy more.

[conkreetmonkey]

Honestly, I envy these people. Imagine being THIS passionate about your profession. Imagine getting to do your favorite thing every day, all day, and getting paid good money for it. Imagine having an easily monetizeable special interest that obviously, unquestionably and tangibly has a positive impact on society.

Like, I'm over here geeking out about... wait a minute. I love building materials, interior design and architecture, and while I'm not employed in the field, I AM strongly considering going to college for architectural engineering, and I DO spend hours playing shit like House Flipper 2, Tiny Glade, and Fallout 4 (almost exclusively for the settlement building, fuck my bitch-ass son he can stay lost there's roofs to patch and scrap to jerry-rig into beautiful furniture, bitch), meticulously arranging things to be square and true by individual degrees and game units and cycling through countertop and wood stain options for hours...

...shit, I think this post has genuinely helped me figure something out about myself. Why the fuck do I feel all self conscious about my deep yearning to fix shit, it's a great passion to have. I SHOULD become an architectural engineer or something. Like, I was spackling up dents in the drywall for fun the other day and feeling guilty about it. What the fuck. Why have I been feeling like this is some sort of stupid, silly passion to have. 95% of people fucking hate doing home repairs and building fences and mapping out paving block patterns, yet the design, construction and maintainence of buildings is wholly neccesary for society to function.

...ok like legitimately, I have some things to think about now... some soul searching to do... thank you, Farm Simulator post. If the youth employment program I'm signing up for allows it, I may finally bite the bullet and contact my local Habitat For Humanity about volunteer opportunities... I've wanted to for years, but have been afraid of getting shit on for "working for free" (when I know I'd enjoy every second of it)...

...I think I really DO wanna go back to college. Oh my god.

just learned about farming simulator

I mean, I already knew about it, but I just learned about it

Did you know that the target audience for Farming Simulator is actual real-world farmers? Because I didn’t. I just assumed that farmers probably don’t want to go home from a day of farming to do some (presumably highly inaccurate) virtual farming?

Like, imagine if the target audience for Power Washing Simulator was actual professional power washers.

Farming Sim gets sponsored by companies and shit to put ads in their games. But since the game is for farmers, all of the ads target farmers. Advertising products that, realistically, only farmers would be interested in. Aka John Deere tractors and shit.

There’s a fucking farming sim esports league. Where do they play? Agriculture conventions. not gaming conventions. agriculture conventions.

[todelve-intomy-monthlyfixations]

While Damian might have very questionable morals due to his upbringing in the league, one thing that I believe he is firm about is equality between a man and a woman.

Think about it. His mother, who trained him mercilessly, is also one of the best fighters to exist. People fear talia. Like, actually, fear her. But at the same time, his mother was the only real parental figure he knew for a long time and while her affections may have not always been transparent, they were still there. Hence, he regards his mother very highly. She raised Damian single handedly, and Damian views this as another display of his mother's strength and endurance. Then, there is his sister Cassandra, who continuously leaves him impressed with her skills, though he will never say it out loud. Not to mention Stephanie with her determination and Babs with her intellect. Then there's Raven, Selina, Diana, Kori, etc. Basically, every female that he has ever had an encounter with, is completely badass and amazing — further proving his upbringing of believing men and women are equal.

Damian thinks this is common knowledge with the way that the rest of his family acts as well, because they can often be seen working alongside strong female partners, so he has never had the idea that people may think otherwise. It isn't until Cass and him are facing a D-list villain who makes a petty comment about how women shouldn't be in this field or should just sit still and stay pretty, that Damian realised that some people in this world are really THAT fucking stupid. He doesn't understand how someone could look at his amazing sister (who is clearly kicking that villain's ass), or women in general, and view them less than simply because they are women. It shocks him. When this villian slips out this comment, he's slightly frozen, and all he can do is look over to Cass. Cass, who seems like she is unbothered, but Damian doesn't miss the way her jaw tenses and fists tighten out of anger, ever so slightly, though she tries to remain level-headed (something which, one again, Damian is amazed by). After handing over the villian to custody, he still feels tense and appalled at the nonsense the villain says so he brings it up with Cass and asks her how often she has to deal with ignorant idiots like that and how she handles it because he wouldn't be able to stand it if his skills were constantly questioned. Cass offers him a strained smile and places a hand on his shoulder before saying "more often than you will ever know."

Following this, Cass's words sort of stick with Damian and he begins to just become more attentive — on the field and at school. It is then that he realises how unfair the world is to women. He begins to hear the small, backhanded taunts a few of his classmates make, hears the disgusting things that his sister and teammates have to put up with, and he hates it. But he realises that staying silent is no better than adding to it so he does his best to do better. The next time he's faced with one of his peers belittling a female classmate, he makes it known that it is in fact because of that very female classmate, their school has a national title in debate. Next time on patrol when he hears stupid things being said about his sister or partners, he makes sure the opponent sees just how truly amazing the women he (proudly) fights alongside are.

[letteredlettered]

In an answer to an ask, I was describing a WIP of mine that's about a friend of the protagonist who is completely in the dark about the protagonist's relationship with another friend of theirs. The fic is about the fact that though the friend is very close to the protagonist and thinks deeply about their feelings, they are still not able to see what is going on.

I think the reason I was interested in this fic was I really dislike the tropes like "A/B think they're being sneaky about dating but all their friends know," or "their friends knew A/B were meant for each other before they did" or "their friends try to get A/B together because they know A and B like each other." The fic I wanted to write was sort of the opposite of all of those, where the friend, despite being very close to the protagonist and deeply concerned about his welfare, is wrong about everything.

I think I have a lot of feelings about the tropes I listed, some of which are related to what I think friendship is and should be, others related to what friendship has been for me, all related to how I operate in this world, I think. First of all, most stories that employ those sort of tropes have friends going behind their friend's back and manipulating them. I would hate to find out that a friend manipulated me into some kind of meet-cute or confession instead of just having and open and honest conversation about it.

These stories often also have friends mistrusting their friends and not believing them; the protagonist will say, "I don't like him like that!" or "I don't see how we'd work as a couple!" and instead of taking the protagonist at their word, the friends decide they know the protagonist better than they know themself. And you know what, sometimes your friends do know you better than yourself; it can be very helpful that they do. It can be very helpful when they nudge you in a direction you thought you couldn't go, because you didn't know you could handle it or didn't know you needed it. But in the end, I find it offensive if someone doesn't believe with what I'm saying, if they're not engaging with what I'm thinking, if they're deciding they know better. Because even if they do know better, I still think and feel these things, and I want my feelings to be addressed, not ignored--even if they're wrong sometimes.

Which brings me to how I move through the world. I often feel I move in darkness. I don't know what other people think unless they tell me or make obvious demonstrations. And I feel that way partly because I so often feel misunderstood, because people read my expressions, or my tone, or don't listen carefully to the nuance of my words, and they assume things about me that I don't feel, that don't describe me, that have more to do with them than with me. And then there is so much of me going on under the surface that I don't know how to express in day to day life, things I feel and think about that other people don't guess. Lots of times, other people don't even seem interested.

I've never had people in my life speculate about whom I might be romantically interested in--at least, not to my face, unless they were my wife. I've never been asked if I like someone after middle school. I didn't date for 35 years, and was never asked to my face why, or whether I was interested, or why I wasn't with anyone, except a few times very gently by my mother. When I started dating a woman, no one said anything about me being gay. No one had questions. No one seemed interested in my sexuality or journey to get there.

Throughout my life, I never felt like I have been treated like a person who could have a romance, a person who could have sex, a person who could have a relationship. Was I too ugly? Was I too fat? Was it because I didn't present in a feminine way? Was I too loud? Was I too confident? Was I too intellectual? Was I too weird? Too awkward? Too unlike those around me? Was it because I'd never been with someone? Was it because I didn't talk about wanting it? Was it because I was too content, too happy? Was there something about me that screamed asexual, aromantic, this is someone who will never have a love story?

Around 10 years ago, I was talking to a friend with whom I'd never talked about any of this. We talked about work and our mutual acquaintances, her kids, my theater, and art. But one day she brought up a mutual friend of ours who was in her thirties, wanting to have babies and get married, but was having trouble finding a partner. My friend said something that gave me pause, something like, "Everyone wants to be with someone; no one wants to be alone. She just wants the life everyone has." And I said, "I don't have that life." And my friend instantly said, "Oh, but you're different."

I asked her why, and she couldn't say, only that I just didn't seem to want it. But what made her think that? What was it about me? I could understand if she was surrounded by people saying "I want this" over and over again, and she had never heard me saying that, maybe she drew some conclusions about me. But it felt strange. It felt hurtful--not because I need marriage and babies, but because I am automatically sorted in the category of "different" in this person's mind. They were just one person, but this seemed to also be the case with dozens of other people. Hundreds. Everyone wants this; it's normal--except for you, lettered. You're obviously different.

I know I'm actually very lucky. Many people would love to have my "problem." Many people who are asexual or aromantic, many people who haven't figured it out yet, many people who have been in a series of bad relationships and feel hopeless, many people who can't find someone to date at all, might love to have been in those shoes. They would love to not be asked "who are you dating, when will you marry, when can I expect grandkids?" they would love to escape "why don't you settle down? why don't you have a boyfriend? how can you still be single?" Maybe they would love to be told by my friend, "Oh, you're different, in the world of people we all expect to be paired up with other people, you just don't count."

But knowing that's what other people get asked, knowing that other people get constant questions about their love lives, so much so that it's annoying for them--and then knowing that no one ever asked me (except for my mother, gently and kindly, a few times, careful not to exert pressure) feels bad. Was I the sidekick in some story, the one no one expects to have a love story of their own? Could no one imagine me as a romantic interest? A sexual object? Am I the platonic ideal of a woman, untouchable and perfect in every way? Am I Mary Poppins?

Anyway, the simple answer is probably just that people are mainly self-centered, and if you don't bring it up, it doesn't occur to them. And to tell you the truth, I didn't often bring it up because while I would like to have been with someone, but I really don't need it; I just thought it would be nice. It wasn't a burning interest of mine, so maybe I shouldn't have even felt so bad that people seemed to make assumptions about me. (I'm just glad my wife didn't make assumptions like that; everything changed when my fire wife attacked.)

But since I am already a person who felt largely in the dark about how others feel, and feel that others are largely in the dark about me, this aspect of myself just felt like another facet of a blind operation. I often feel that I'm trapped in my own world, and you are trapped in yours, and we are all groping blindly for things we can never fully grasp, because you can never fully enter my world, and I can never enter yours.

And I recognize that the "friends know about their feelings" trope and the "friends get them together" trope is in some ways wish fulfillment--maybe everyone feels blind, feels unseen, and unknown, and they wish people would see them in this way, and know them. They wish people would step into their world and offer a hand, and lead them to another person's world, where they will never be alone.

But I, personally, find it very comforting to read about that blindness, to know that I'm not alone because we're all blind, and yet we still find ways to reach out to each other regardless.

[darthbob88]

And no, the star of david is not "synonymous with mass murder" nor is Judaism becoming "inherently genocidal" because of Israel or Zionism. It is you antisemites to try to paint it that way because you can't comprehend that disagreeing with the actions of the Israeli government in the Israel-Palestine conflict and the current war in Gaza does not give you the right to hate Jews and Judaism. Stop the victim blaming.

No, that's happening because Israel and its supporters do their best to associate Israel and its actions with all of Judaism.

Some days ago on Twitter, I encountered somebody waxing lyrical about a picture showing some IDF personnel arranging the ruins of a building in Gaza into a menorah, with the first "candle" lit. They praised it as showing the perseverance of "the Jewish people" and their determination to maintain their holy days even in war. To me, though, it showed that "the Jewish people" had destroyed a large building, driving those people from their homes/offices, and more broadly that "the Jewish people" had killed tens of thousands of people and displaced more than a million in their invasion of Gaza.

A month or three ago, I saw a poster with a picture of a pager and the message "Don't fuck with the Jews", making clear reference to the Lebanon pager attack. I am aware what they intended, but I do not feel that bragging about an attack that killed 12 civilians, including 2 children, puts "the Jews" in the best light.

I am well aware that this sort of thing is incorrect, that "the Jewish people" as a group are not responsible for any of the horrors I've heard about in Gaza and Lebanon, and that it is purely an Israeli operation. However, I do not feel that you can get upset when people listen to Zionist bragging about what "the Jews" have done to those who would oppose them, and draw their own conclusions about "the Jews".

I do think the zionist project is really perhaps the most successful antisemitic project in the world. make the star of david synonymous with mass murder. make accusations of antisemitism and nazism laughable, define the jewish religion as inherintly genocidal

[millylotus]

Batfam Favorite Colors

I've been thinking about this mostly cause I don't think Duke like, really likes yellow ya know. And then I realized how many people in the batfam like the color red/have it in like their top two.

Duke! - My guy! My boy! I think his favorite colors are Red & Orange, & like black as an accent color. He doesn't were white often because that's like not easy to clean, and he never really got into the habit even when he started living with the Waynes. The most is like a graphic-tee or basic tee, or undershirt, something that he needs for specific fits ya know. When he was a kid Donnie was his favorite turtle, but Raph is a very close second mainly cause he was the red one. He liked yellow well enough. But when Bruce gave him the Signal suit his feelings on the color changed over time. Signal never really felt like his own thing. He didn't even get to choose the name, and the yellow, and the light and his complicated relationship with both Bruce & Gnomon made him sort of uncomfortable with yellow. He doesn't wear it much out of the suit and he tends to even stray from gold jewelry, sticking to silver and black. He wouldn't say he hates it, both a bit scared & unsure on what that might mean. But nothing in his room is yellow except gifts from those who really don't know him well.

-----

Jason! Jason likes Red, he's always liked red, but when he was younger he like Yellow a bit more. It was the color of the cape [basically a cloak lets be honest] he wore as Robin. And Robin gave him magic. The cape was protection and light all at once. It made him feel special. When he died and came back yellow lost it's luster, it was innocence, it was naivety it was dead magic. And he just wasn't gonna go back to it once he became Red Hood. That perfect little Robin needed his color to be kept sacred. So Jason doesn't wear yellow anymore. Like at all, he avoids it and even gold in most cases. He likes red, cause it's red and it's pretty and once before it might have meant a beating heart, now it meant fresh blood & he doesn't think he deserves any other connotation.

-----

Timbit! - How I lo(v)(th)e you :)))) Tim's favorite colors are Red, Brown & Gold. He says he likes red more, and he does love red really, but at his heart of hearts it Brown, Gold & Blue. But he felt a need as a child to conform to what the batfamily wanted. He vaguely understood how siblings where with each other & knew he could only have one color to call his own. So he chose red, cause Dick likes Blue, & Jason liked Yellow, & Babs likes Purple. Cause what other color was there. He grew to love Blue because of Dick, that's his brother and that specific shade of electric/sky blue felt like home. But he really likes browns, like genuinely shades of brown are his favorite and his entire house-boat has such nice shades of brown wood. He shrinks away from using white in anything but a clinical setting, and fills all that space with a nice beige or pale gold. Gold & Brown just go so well together how could he not love them both. He loves brown eyes and for a long time unknowingly went for people with brown eyes alot [not me pushing my brown-eyed steph propaganda].

-----

Dami-baby! Damian's favorite colors are Green, Brown, Black, & Gold. I know most don't like the Al Ghuls, and yeah they're fucked up but so is the Bat-Family, and honestly I think Damian cares about both sides of his family. Sometimes when he's laying in bed, not even trying to sleep he looks at his rooms and yearns lightly for the perfect brown stone walls of his childhood bedroom. Of the beams, columns & spandrels of dark brown, engraved with images of his favorite animals. Of the curtains and fabrics dyed emerald green, with golden cross-stitching. It feels like home. And as times goes on he makes peace with his homesickness, doing so by bringing that green into his things at the manor. Up against the dark brown walls that he'd go and put bright paintings over. He likes black though, never really thought he would and more so forced himself to when he was younger and still trying to be his father. But at some point he grew to genuinely love the color of shadow black. It began to mean home & protection, along the previous danger & deception [though in a better light]. He'd wear it more with a casual air and not so much overthinking about it. They really just are his favorite colors

-----

Casssssandra! Cass likes Black, White & Rose Gold. Basic as it may seem to you I think she likes them quite alot. She unironically has a very luxury taste for things. She like fine jewelry and master made clothes. Everything in her life is expensive, she lives in the lap of luxury. And that's not in some dumb way where she doesn't know how much things cost. She does & she's very aware, she's just always had this. David Cain might not have taught her how to do much more than fight but every weapon needs far above optimal care. She likes the uniformity of black, the pretty simplicity of it, how it hides shape and movement, a secret all of it's own. She likes white because it accentuates shape, white gets shadows, shadows that show off the light of white. She likes the way they make her feel, all mysterious but also open and accepting. Rose Gold is just the prettiest to her, it's so rich & soft, & bright & mute, it's her favorite metal and any jewelry she has will be made of it.

-----

Babsy - Bad seed watchu gonna do, got a bully on our tail gotta run we gotta bail! I think her favorite colors are Purple & Green. She grew up loving purple, it was in all of her clothes and accessories. She had strips of her hair dyed purple as a kid & then got those adjustable scene kid extensions in purple. Her Batgirl fit is all purple because she had more purple than black and she wasn't gonna change that. To this day purple is her favorite color, but she'll have seconds here and there. Green is a close second fave, it grew on her as she got older. When she was trying to set her self up as Oracle, it was green that people often associated with Oracles & Tech at the time. So she ran with it for consistency and it eventually became a favorite. It melded in with purple and about a little less than half of her once purple things are now green.

-----

STE-PHA-NIE-AH! Steph likes Purple, and she's sweet on Black. She's always been a pretty feminine person, a finding herself as a femme latter in life. And Purple was her girly Pink. It just spoke to her it made her feel happy. She wears as much Purple as she can get her hands, and every major item in her wardrobe in Purple. Of course in a coordinated way so it doesn't look ridiculous but still. Black was just a nice accent color for her, before it grew to mean safety & deception, and in a way it compliments her bombastic & free Purple she so loves.

-----

Hickory-Dick-ory! Dick's favorite colors as a child are Red, Green, & Yellow. Because that's him, that Robin, that's the Graysons. His family legacy carried on in one other iconic performance outfits. For a long time he would never dream of not being in those colors of being Robin. But of course everyone changes, and Dick's favorite colors change. He loves being Robin but he's grown older, in a sense he's molting those colorful feathers. He wants to be a grown man [even though he's still a teenager, somewhere between 16-19], but to the whole world Robin is a child & will always be a child, Batman's sunshine, Batman's hope. Robin is nothing without Batman in that era and Dick knows that. And he still loves Robin he truly deeply does, but he can't be Robin without being seen as a child & he can't fucking stand that he can't have that. So he makes a bit of a pivot. He gets a deepcut V-Neck and skin tight Drag-King fit that honestly absolutely fucks. And he choses a name both so edgy & so cool, and he picks a different costume to base this new him on. And he falls absolutely in love with Blue. And he never falls out of it, he still like Red, Green, & Yellow. But Blue has somehow taken his heart away & is never gonna give it back. Needless to say his wardrobe has done a complete 180 in comparison to when he was 12.

-----

Bruce. o_o His fave is Black, I know a shocker truly, who could have guessed! But he also has a complicated relationship with literally ever other color. Black is simple, it's straight forward, gets the job done. He finds comfort in it's shadow & cover & protection. Of the caves & bats he once found terrifying now bringing him so much peace. But it isn't a solely void color, it's built up of the vibrancy & intensity of every color ever. And with different blacks there are more colors that show through. He likes a nice blue-black, he's been told it goes well with his eyes, but it's also the color of Martha's favorite velvet dress. He gravitates towards red-black because many of his children enjoy that color. In fact if you look close enough & graph it you'll notice Bruce wears specif hues of black depending on which child is most around him.

-----

Random Disclaimer~ - I'm gonna speed blitz the rest of these bat-bitches Kate K! - Red & Black, but in the way that she uses Red to try & recapture her fear of it and use to scare others. Watching he mom blead out red, and her hair in that blood fucked her up. But now she looks like the bloody demon that haunted her. Martha W - She likes creams & pearly colors, and has a special spot for dark blues and such. And enjoys a nice velvet sheen to any and all colors Talia AlG - Her faves are Pink, White, Green, & Gold. Absolutely adores those colors, you will find them everywhere in her wardrobe, but they aren't all she has of course she's a fashionista. Femininity is her, truly.

[patchworkcuddlebug]

Humanity

[CW: Passive suicidal ideation.]

Being a person feels... heavy. Like I'm always full of something. It didn't have to be gross, but it usually was. Sometimes it was something with an easy word to it, like disdain or cowardice, but usually it was more vague. Some sort of congealed, disgusting mass that's been slowly accumulating for as long as I've been alive, weighing my guts down until I'm too stressed to eat and too tired to sleep.

I don't want to die. Death sounds too painful, and I'm scared of commitment. But, as I looked out into the bay, waiting for the traffic on the toll bridge to advance, I can't help but daydream. If I drove into the river, just by some freak accident out of my control, I... wouldn't do much to fight it. I would just let whatever happens happen as I sit still. Let this heaviness in my chest weigh me down and drown me.

My whole life was like that, really. Just moment after moment of letting things out of my control happen to me. My parents never really let me do much, either because we didn't have money, or they decided it wasn't right. I had to move out young after they died, and that didn't give me much of a choice in where to work and where to rent. I didn't even have a chance to think about what my major would've been.

Being a waitress meant doing what you're told when you're told, which table to go to and what to bring them, and what to clean. The work itself was fine, it's just... everything around it. The same awful people just as trapped here as I am, the same inconsiderate boss that barely pays me enough to buy vegetables, the same disgusting smell of fish and chips, all building up and coagulating little by little.

The only way I could get through an average work day was by shutting my brain off and just letting my body move on its own. The years I've worked there have just been the same fog of meaningless obedience. It's a sort of torture, suppressing your ego all just to become your work, for the sake of people you hate. Just feeling full and heavy and gross.

That's how I survived most of my life. Ever since I started school, I learned quick that you keep your head down and go with the flow. Don't be too loud, too big, too anything. Just look pretty and do what you're told without thinking too hard about what you're doing. Try not to feel too much.

Of course dying isn't that big of a deal. I don't feel like I was ever truly alive, ever something that could really be called a person.

Oh, I'm home.

God it's so cold out. It's like the wind is trying to bite me through my coat. I really wish our heating worked, but I've given up trying to fight for it a long time ago.

I can hear the music from here. I swear to fucking god if she's throwing another party I'm going to scream. She can't keep doing this, she really can't.

I fumble with my keys because it's too cold in the hallway, and I struggle with the lock because it hasn't been replaced in over a decade. This is the right key, and I keep trying to turn it, but it won't unlock and my fingers are starting to hurt.

Today needs to end. Please. I just need to stop, after everything, I just need things to stop and let me be still for a single fucking-

Finally.

I leave the door open for as little time as I can. I don't even take my coat off before I march into the living room. She's there, on the couch with more friends than I've ever met. They're all smiling, talking with each other, and having fun. They're smoking weed inside.

I need to stop looking at the one sitting on the arm of the couch, she's not important right now.

"Hey, what the fuck?!" I raise my voice to be heard over the music and drunken ramblings. "I told you that you can't keep doing this, I'M the one who gets in shit for this with the landlord!"

She looked around her, gauging her guests' reactions. She forces a timid smile. "Hey, you don't have to make a big deal out of this, alright? Nothing's gonna happen if nobody tells on us, so just relax." She turns away from me, back to the others. To the woman on the arm of the couch. My roommate falls into this sort of drunken fawning, trying to excuse my behaviour, but that woman on the arm of the couch doesn't join in with them exaggeratedly rolling their eyes or shooing me away.

"I'm not the bad guy here! You're the one who keeps...!" I wince, bringing a hand over my eyes as I recoil into the door frame. It's so loud. "Fuck it, I can't do this with you, I'm going to bed." I turn and leave and slam my door and lock it. She turns the music back up. I'm ordering food and going to sleep.

After I stop crying.

. . . . .

"Do you like your life, darling?"

I'm floating. I'm naked. I can't tell where I am. I don't think I'm anywhere.

"...No."

The woman from earlier. I couldn't stop thinking about her all night. The way she looked, how she carried herself, it was just stuck in my brain.

She's so... big. She's towering over me. I'm like a toy, barely up to her shins.

This isn't a dream. She's there. I can feel her in front of me, almost more real than being awake. I've never been more lucid before.

"Such a poor thing..." She looks so sad. For me?

She's kneeling. "Let me take all that hurt away. I've always wanted nothing more than to help someone like you live the life they deserve." I should be scared. I shouldn't trust her. "I already know you'd make such a good doll~"

I look down at my body. It's fluctuating, moving in and out as I look at myself. My torso is flat and wooden like a marionette, but with each breath in it expands with cloth instead of skin. I can feel the seems of my stitches, the plastic of my joints, the clattering of my porcelain, all at once. It feels... welcome.

She's reaching for me. I know I should flinch, I should be scared of her crushing me as she wraps her hands around me like a doll, but I can't even remember what such a distrust would feel like. She's pulling me to eye level.

Why does her touch feel so... nice?

I feel a breach, like I've just come up for air. I can feel my soul hack and sputter, and finally begin to breathe. I've never felt so light, so emptied. Everything disgusting inside of myself was drained away. Have I been drowning all this time?

"Meet me whenever you're ready, darling." I know where she means. I see her manor, grand and sprawling, but tucked away just out of sight. I can see it so perfectly. "I'll be waiting for you there."

Her hands start to loosen, and I start to fall, further and further away from Miss.

I inhale sharply, way too deeply, as I wake up. It feels like I'm gasping for air. My whole body... hurts is the wrong word, there's a heavy rawness pulsating through me. It's not the heaviness normally in my chest. I'm in a puddle of sweat. I can feel my heartbeat behind my eyes.

My phone says it's 4:37 am. I don't care. I need to see her.

. . . . .

It's a blur. I'm on autopilot, too wired to think. This doesn't feel like before, this isn't the fog. This is pure intention.

I find myself in my car, driving to her. I know where to go, I know. I need to get there. I can't afford to waste any time.

I leave my car parked on a dirt road and wander into the forest just as the sun starts to rise. I didn't bother grabbing anything I didn't need to get here, and I left what i did grab in the car anyway. I didn't even take the keys out of the ignition. Whatever happens, I'm not coming back.

It's a few minutes of walking from the road to her manor. I have plenty of time to reconsider. It's not too late to go back. I'm afraid, of course. My self-preservation is trying to restrain me by my neck. But every time I think about giving into that fear, that complacency stopping me from stepping into the unknown, the idea of returning to what was... I keep walking. I couldn't explain why. Too much momentum, too heavy to bother stopping.

I'm here. Oh god, this is really happening. I lean against the house on an outstretched arm as I stare at the front door. It's thick and wooden, like something from a fairy tale. I close my eyes, take a deep breath, and raise a fist. She opens the door before I can knock.

This is really happening.

"Oh, I'm so happy you came, darling!" She quickly reaches an arm around me and ushers me through the door. "And so quick, too! I knew I made the right choice."

She sits me down on the couch and disappears just a room away. Before I can even admire the decor, she returns with two glasses, and a jug of iced tea. She sits down beside me, pours herself a glass, and sets the jug out of my reach.

She takes a swig of her drink, leaning back and swirling it in her cup. She stretches her arm across the back of the couch. I could cuddle up to her so easily, and I've never before felt this tempted to do that with someone. "Tell me what you know about dolls."

I feel something I've never felt before. Just a little, just enough.

"U-uh..." I try to gather everything I can. I don't know why I'm so caught off guard by the question, I came here for a reason. But saying it out loud, actually articulating these feelings, is something totally foreign.

"A doll is like a person, but... not." I take a deep breath. I feel like I'm standing in front of a stadium of thousands. "Witches use their magic to turn people into dolls so they can have servants. And... there are rules to being a doll, like how you have to call yourself an object, and do everything you're told."

I look at her for approval. She's waiting for me to continue. "Am I gonna be a doll?"

The witch almost... melts. She has such a kind, compassionate smile. She sets her drink down and turns her body to face me as much as she can. "Do you want to be a doll, darling?"

"I... I mean, I, uh..." I have never felt more like prey. Why is my face so warm? I'd do anything for her.

She reaches out and takes my hands, that I was holding up to my chest defensively. I leave them limp, just letting her grab them. I feel my shoulders start to lower just a little bit. She's so warm.

"Dolls are empty spaces shaped like people." She teaches me. "Dolls are objects that are obedient and docile. There's a special feeling they have called stillness, where your thoughts go away and you just feel happy." She starts to smile, a tender eagerness. "Can you feel it now?"

I feel it. I feel it. I feel it, I feel it. The stillness. She's making me still. It's gone. I don't feel heavy. I'm empty in such a wonderful way. I feel like I could float through the breeze for the rest of my life and be perfectly happy. Like I could do anything, and I would be happy. Is this what life was supposed to feel like? All this time?

"It's a big decision, darling." Her voice is so... magical. It's calming, it's exciting, it's everything to me. "This can only happen if you want it to. Think about your old life, everything you'll leave behind. This is your last chance."

I think about being a human. I think about everything that comes with being a human, the things I'll lose. My autonomy, my identity, things I was never granted in the first place. The privilege of destroying my self just a little every day, all to save myself the trouble of feeling. More than anything, that disgusting heavy feeling, the filth so deeply compacted inside me I thought it was inherent to being.

"Y... y-yes... yes, I want to be a doll!" I'm smiling so wide. Crying hasn't felt this good in a long, long time.

The witch smiles back at me. She pulls me into her, hugging me so tenderly. She's soft, and warm, and so many things.

"You're going to become such a good doll."

Good doll. I can finally feel good.

[wirewitchviolet]

The Big Lie of Transphobia

There is a lot of really horrifying transphobic stuff going on at the moment, even relative to the baseline. Like arrests and federal repression in the U.S. and don't even get me started on that new policy from Facebook and the propaganda amplification that's going to do. So you may find yourself wondering what you can do to help.

As always the real answer to that is to just give all the money and other material aid you possibly can to every trans person you are personally aware of. Individually. Don't look for a charity to donate to, there really isn't one. Make those patreon pledges and write those checks and empty those wallets and cosign for those houses, go!

But if what you're really asking is, what can you do that won't personally inconvenience you, the best thing you can probably do is to really internalize that the Big Lie backing up all the transphobia out there is a complete lie, and convince everyone else you can too. And what's the Big Lie behind transphobia? "Trans women are men who believe they are women." As usual with these, I'm going to expound on that a ton under the fold here.

It really is the lynchpin of everything transphobes have to push. If you don't believe it, none of the things they're pushing for makes even the slightest bit of sense, but if you DO believe it, even if you aren't all in on the other hate stuff, it's going to warp the hell out of your perspective and make you a crappy ally. And wow is it ever deeply embedded in there.

So for what it's worth, as a reminder, when people make statements like "trans women are women" that is stating an actual fact. That's not some weird feel-good slogan that "really" means "you should treat trans women like they are real women" or something. It's just what we freaking are. We aren't men who have some strange mental illness that makes us think of ourselves as women, we aren't people who start out as men and for some reason make some kind of decision to become women. We're just women, always have been, just like any other woman.

If you've met a number of trans women, you can very clearly and plainly see that's true, but the thing is, most people haven't. And the lie gets pushed damn hard. Most people's idea of what a trans woman is, and for that matter, most other things about life, comes from what they see in TV and movies and the like, and on those occasions where a work of fiction features someone they'll call a trans woman, they tend to get some dude to put on a dress to play the part, which is usually also some sort of weird crazy murderous sex worker. Movies and TV also tend to depict cars as prone to burst into massive fireballs if anything goes wrong with them, glass windows as something you can jump through without being sliced up so badly by the shards you're basically going to die instantly, police as caring helpful people who try to solve crimes and return people's stolen stuff and such, and people with albinism as having strange magical powers. None of this is actually true in reality.

So yeah, it's not even a little bit true. If you look at the people who insist the loudest that it is, you'll notice they are completely out of touch with reality and preach all kinds of ridiculous BS. Get it into your head that there isn't even a sliver of truth to it, and it's easier to get on the right side of a lot of things.

Are trans women trustworthy? Yeah? I mean, as much as the next person. Why wouldn't we be? Because some freaking weirdo is sharing all kinds of weird conspiracy theories and setting up weird freaking stalker shrines about us? Pretty clear who it is you shouldn't be trusting there.

Is it OK for trans women to play sports? Yeah? Why would that even be a problem? We don't have superpowers or anything. We're just regular freaking women. Well OK a lot of us have pretty nasty health problems leaving us a bit less physically fit than most women, but you know, doing athletic stuff should help with that.

Is it OK for trans women to use public restrooms? Yeah? Like honestly, I know a lot of guys get weird about women going to the bathroom in groups sometimes but there's nothing sinister about that, just sometimes you need to pull someone aside to ask if you can borrow some embarrassing thing or double check makeup or check if someone's date is as big a creep as they come off and you need to run interference. Mostly though people just need to pee sometimes, and society generally prefers that people do so in a toilet and not the street or whatever.

What about children being trans? Like... everyone's a child at some point? A lot of the downsides to being trans come from associated medical issues which can be totally prevented if spotted early, so it's actually very good to have kids look out for whether they might be dealing with those and get the appropriate medication, which is true for basically anything.

Well what about [whatever stupid BS derailment]? Yeah I'm addressing a group of people who actually need to have it explained to them that women are in fact women and not men, let's not go confusing people with whatever weird sidetrack you want to get onto.

[nightingale-prompts]

(Ooo, I love it. You did great. Harvey is complex and I'm still learning too.)

Living a double life isn't easy. Sure, he isn't running around doing petty bank robberies these days despite what his Associate wants. Harvey has been keeping up a good image with a few backroom deals. No better than any other lawyer in Gotham. He placates his other half with plans to kill Batman as it is still his nature to destroy order as he is chaos.

But one thing he knew that would improve his reputation is to take a page out of Bruce's book. Take in a ward. The bonus was that the teen is just like him. A matching set. A two of a kind. A perfect match.

Just like he liked it.

His new ward was guarded but he was offered a fair trade. He helps Harvey with what he needs the boy for and the boy gets room and board.

"You're not some rich fruitloop, are you?

He beared his sharp canines at Harvey be fore his face softened.

"We don't like being around rich people."

Harvey laughed.

"Me neither but their money is good. I'd say wealthy, but not rich. Enough that you will end up in private school whether you want it or not."

"He sure complains a lot." The voice of his Associate rang out internally.

After a few weeks of waiting and paperwork the (not actually) orphaned Danny was now Danny Dent or Double D as Harvey called him. Danny hated the nickname and the amusement it gave his adopted father.

Danny wasn't even surprised when Harvey was revealed to be a bad guy. It wasn't the first time a crazy rich guy wanted to adopt him. At least Harvey didn't want to kill his dad and date his mom. Harvey wasn't obsessed with him either and preferred to leave him to his own devices while he worked.

At least Danny wasn't nearly important enough to be on TV like the Wayne brats.

Harvey even gave Danny his own set of goons to order around when he took off that prosthetic and let his Two-Face persona out. Danny felt almost jealous how liberating it must have been.

Call it misguided but Danny helps Two-Face when he decides to hold up the Gotham art auction. It was money laundering anyways and Two-Face promised Danny a hefty allowance. But Batman had to show up and stop them. Sure, it was robbery but it's the rich, they don't count. They steal all the time and they aren't killing anyone.

It ended up being a face-off with Robin who was definitely surprised to see him.

"Who are you?" He questioned between blows.

"Call us Twofold." They said.

Twofold as in twice as great. A sort of jab at Two-Face but even that monster couldn't help but laugh when he heard it.

"Twice as great? You're just in two. You have to prove to me you deserve that name but I'll allow it. For now."

The heist went well and Penguin now had a nice collection of art to fence for them. The Dents get the money and none of the risk of holding the art. Harvey wasn't willing to stain his reputation with Two-Faces actions and warned Twofold to do the same.

"Be nice. Keep your other half quiet today. We are meeting with the Waynes today."

"Those brats?"

"Yes, Bruce has been my friend for many years and we will keep it that way. These may come a time we're you will find the Wayne children helpful to your career."

"And kiss their ass?!"

"Don't argue with us!"

"Sorry, mister Dent. We'll nice. Promise."

"I know YOU will but keep the other under raps, even if they make you mad."

"Fine, but if they call me Double D I'm punching them."

"Don't say that. We need to be nice. Just tell them to stop."

"But it's more fun to hit them."

Harvey ruffled Danny's hair. He guessed he could understand Bruce at least a little. A kid was at least entertaining.

After Image AU- DCxDP prompt

"Do you hate me?" He asked rolling to face Danny.

"No." Danny said simply "Go to sleep."

They had found shelter for the night, it was only temporary though. It was an old abandoned church next to a cemetery.

"But it's all my fault."

"Hush. Hating you would be the same as hating myself."

"They could have separated us."

"That would have killed us both. I may not like sharing a body but we are meant to stay together."

Danny knew they were wrong. That's what happens when your conciseness was split in two. One remained alive the other dead. They had the same memories and emotions but they were so different. The other's logic just diverged when it came to ghosts vs mortals. More then that neither knew who was the original. If there even was an original. Maybe the Danny from before no longer existed and the split made them imprints of what was no longer there.

Now they were Danny. They both had to believe they were the original. Because if they weren't...what were they.

But after everything that happened at least they weren't alone.

"We ruined everything"

"We survived."

"I miss them."

"I'll protect us."

That's all that matters anymore. Survive.

They weren't heros or villains. They were just victims of a situation they couldn't change. They had to figure something out soon though. Gotham was their best bet so far. If there was anywhere where they could live normally it was here. They disagreed about how to do it though.

"Being a goon for a bit might get us enough money."

"And what? We won't be able to get out and who's going to hire a 16 year old?"

"Plenty I bet. What is your plan then?"

"Maybe join the league. We have powers and-"

"And what? Study us? Separate us?!"

"You don't know."

"You don't either."

So who could they go to? They looked like they were nothing more than a homeless mentally ill teenager. Talking to himself wasn't helping his case. At this rate they'll end up at Arkham.

[aaronstveit]

so you want to read more this year!

i answered an ask about this recently, but i thought i would make a post about it so i could (hopefully) be a bit more clear and helpful. i specifically wanna help people who used to read a lot, but have fallen off for a while now. obviously everyone is different, but i hope at least a few of these tips can help you.

let yourself read slowly. you don't have to speedrun every book you read; in fact, it's usually better if you don't. forget the way that you used to race through books when you were younger. let yourself take time with them now. especially if you haven't read much lately, it's going to take you longer to read now than it used to. and that's okay! a lot of stories are better when they are experienced slowly, so you can absorb them more.

stop viewing reading as a competition. you aren't trying to win a pizza party or special field trip now, so there is no need to compete with other readers. so what if someone else read 10 books in the time it took you to read 1? other readers have nothing to do with you. the only person you should be "competing with" is yourself.

that said, setting goals and challenges for yourself can be a life-changer. i'm not just talking about a goodreads goal, although setting a numerical goal is often helpful. but i mean setting more broad goals, like reading more books of certain genres, or more books by authors of color. setting goals without specified quantities can help you because it's not a pass-fail situation, it's just a personal challenge. there are also all sorts of reading challenges you can try, like reading a book for every letter of the alphabet. you can find any sort of reading challenge on the internet; the storygraph has a whole section dedicated to challenges, both site-run and user-run. you can even create your own! popsugar also runs a very popular year-long reading challenge.

experiment with book formats. physical books, e-books, and audiobooks allow several different formats for people to try out! figuring out which formats work best for you help you to enjoy reading and gain more from the experience. don't listen to people who say audiobooks aren't "reading." if you enjoy audiobooks, listen to them! the only person you have to answer to is yourself.

experiment with different genres. even if you think you know exactly what genres you like and don't like, try branching out and trying books outside of your comfort zone, especially if you haven't read a lot lately. you never know when your tastes might change!

don't be afraid to DNF or pause a book. the thing about reading as a hobby is that it's supposed to be fun. yes, you should read books that challenge you, but this doesn't mean you have to make it to the end of every book. if you're hating a book, if you dread picking it up, if it bores you: just quit. that way, you can find a book you actually enjoy to read. trying to force your way through a book you're hating just usually makes you read less in the long run.

utilize your public library if you have one. this one always feels obvious, and yet people always seem to forget it. libraries exist for a reason! a lot of libraries have apps where you can check out e-books and audiobooks, so definitely use those if you have them. if you want to read a physical copy of a book that your library doesn't have, you can probably request an interlibrary loan! and if they still don't have it, you can usually request that your library order a book.

take advantage of books in the public domain. most classics are now in the public domain, which means that you can read them for free on Project Gutenberg, and if you use apple products, you can usually find them as free ebooks on Apple Books as well. if you're looking for audiobooks, Project Gutenberg also has those. you can also check out LibriVox, which is a volunteer-based organization that provides free audiobooks of public domain books. you can find a lot of their books as free podcasts on spotify!

reread old favorites. this is my personal favorite way to get out of a reading slump. familiar favorites are great for getting your brain back into reading mode without having to introduce yourself to a brand new story. you can also take the opportunity to annotate, if you're into that! speaking of which:

don't let the idea of annotation intimidate you. if you're not being graded, you can do whatever you want with annotations! i know some people who choose specific themes and tab them in their books, which is cool. some people just highlight favorite quotes and passages, and that's good too! you can pick out foreshadowing, make notes on things you find funny or interesting, even draw on the pages! if it's your copy of a book, then you can do whatever you like with it.

challenge yourself to write reviews. even if it's only a few sentences, it makes you engage more with the story, which is a good thing! you don't have to share these reviews, you can keep them in a private journal or document if you like. but it's good to make you think more about the book you've just read.

check the trigger warnings. if you have any triggers whatsoever, you definitely want to check trigger warnings before you read a book. you can usually find them by scrolling through goodreads reviews, or by googling "[book name] trigger warnings."

let yourself get distracted sometimes. i know this sounds counterintuitive, but hear me out. if you're in the middle of reading and suddenly you start thinking about scrolling through social media or something, finish your chapter and then let yourself scroll for a few minutes. it's better to give yourself a few minutes to scroll and then come back to your book, rather than continue "reading" while just thinking about scrolling. i'm not saying to put down your book and devote yourself to your instagram feed for the rest of the day; just take a few minutes, then get back to your book. do it between every chapter if you have to. or, if you decide you want a snack or something to drink, go get it! you don't have to sit still for hours on end if that doesn't work for you.

find someone, anyone, that you can talk to about books. it can be a person irl or online, a friend or coworker or family member. you can join a book club or a discord server. just, if you can, find someone to talk to about the books you're reading. this is another way to engage more with your reading material, because you're thinking about it in conversation, and it's also a way to get more excited about the things you're reading! you don't even have to be reading the same books. you can also recommend books to each other, and discover new favorites this way.

try reading more than one book at a time. mix and match genres, time periods, and styles so that you have different books going for different moods. that way, if one book isn't holding your attention, you have another one that will.

social media is cool, but don't let it control you. let social media bring you new book recommendations and friends, but don't let it dictate what you read or how you organize your bookshelves. just because everyone else is reading something doesn't mean you have to, if you don't want to; just because everyone else has a picture-perfect reading nook doesn't mean you need one, too. you aren't less of a reader because you don't spend hundreds of dollars on new books, or because you don't read the most popular genres and authors. you also aren't less of a reader for reading what's most popular! again, you aren't in competition with anyone else. don't let bookfluencers steal your joy.

obviously, this list isn't all-encompassing or universal. this is just the advice that helped me get back into reading after years of barely touching a book. i hope there is something on this list that can help you, if you need it. happy reading!