#people won't know or care to check out

[einaudis]

ALL OF US STRANGERS (2023) dir. ANDREW HAIGH

[rmbunnie]

Red Hood Characterization

This is really long so I'm putting a cut here, I've been thinking about Jason Todd's character motivations and the question of whether or not his actions are based in a Moral Code (I don't think so, not to say he's without any morality) and I talk about that in more depth here.

I saw someone say on here that Titans: Beast World: Gotham City was some of the best Jason Todd internal writing they'd seen in a while, and I've been a Red Hood fan for 8 years or so now? pretty much since I read comics for the first time, so I went and checked out and I thought it was good! The way the person I saw talking about it as if it was rare and unusual made me wonder though, because as well-written as i thought his stances on crime were, there wasn't really anything in it that went against the way I conceptualize Jason?

This kinda plays into a larger question I've been thinking about for a while with Jason though, which is that, do people think that the killing is part of a fundamental worldview that motivates him a la batman, and that worldview is the reason he does the things he does?? Because 8 years ago i was a middle schooler engaging with fiction on the level that a middle schooler does, so I simply did not put much thought into it beyond "poor guy :(" but ever since I actually started trying to understand consistent characterization, I don't really see Jason as someone who's motivated by a moral code in his actions the way batman or superman is!

tbh my personal read is that he's a very socially-motivated guy, his actions from resurrection to his Joker-Batman ultimatum in utrh always seemed to me like every choice made leading up to his identity reveal was either a. to give him the leverage and skill necessary to pull off his identity reveal successfully, or b. to twist the knife that little bit more when he does let Bruce find out who he is. Like iirc there's a Judd Winick tweet like "yeah tldr he chose Red Hood as his identity because it's the lowest blow he could think of." And I think that's awesome, I think character motivations rooted so deeply in character's relationships and emotions are really fun to read! I also think it's where the stagnation/flatness of his character comes from in certain comics, because if his main motivation is one event in one relationship that passes, and he is not particularly attached to anything in his life or the world by the time that comes to pass, it's a little harder to come up with a direction to go with the character after that, because there isn't much of a direction that aligns with something the character would reasonably want? But I do think solving this by saying "all of the morally-off emotionally driven cruelty he did on his way to spite Batman was actually reflective of his own version of Batman's stance that's exactly the same except he thinks it's GOOD to kill people" isn't ideal. To be fully honest, it seems to me like he never particularly cared one way or the other about killing people to "clean Gotham of crime," he just did everything he could to get the power necessary to pull off his personal plans, and took out any particularly heinous people he encountered along the way (like in Lost Days.) Not to say I think the fact he killed people keeps him up at night anymore than everything else in his life events, I just never really thought he was out there wholeheartedly kneecapping some dude selling weed or random guy robbing a tv store for justice.

Looping wayyy back to my question, Is this (^) contradictory to the way he's written/the overall average perception of the character? Because like I enjoyed his writing in Beast World i have zero significant issue with anything there, I just didn't believe it would be a hot take, like yeah, that is Jason. It's been a while since I've read utrh and lost days, but I don't think my takeaway directly contradicts either of those too bad iirc. Idk all this to say I think Jason killing and being alright with killing is an obvious and objective fact, but i guess i've always seen it as more of a practical tactic than a moral belief, and I think taking the actions made during the lowest points of a character's life where he is obsessively focused on this ONEEEE thing and trying to apply it as a Motivating Stance to everything he's done after that, doesn't really follow logically for me.

[magnusbae]

I don't know who needs to hear this but if you share Instagram links it will tell people your name in a huge pop message in the middle of their screen. (You can test it out by pasting your own url into an incognito window without logging into ig). The only way to avoid it is to manually edit the urls you share and remove this entire portion of text and all that follows from your url: /?igsh=

Anyway, happy not doxxing yourselves 👏🏻👏🏻

[everyryuujisuguro]

[pokimoko]

I have had it with these motherfucking spam bots on this motherfucking site.

[softgothbabe]

Just so people know: If you've ever sent me a really kind/sweet ask that I HAVEN'T posted/responded to, it's cause I like to keep them all in one spot to re-read when I'm feeling sad/struggling 🖤 I DO see them and I SO appreciate them 🥺

[insipid-drivel]

What Happened

I'm in a very bad place psychologically and emotionally, and I can't just be vague or not talk about it anywhere to anyone anymore:

One of the people I thought was on the route toward becoming like an older sibling to me invited me to a discord group.

Everything seemed wonderful for the first couple of weeks. I hadn't made any friends or been in touch with more than one or two people in over 6 years, I'm mentally ill, queer, trans, and have a lot of social strikes against me as a result, so I was thankful to be in a small server of other queer and neurodivergent people.

We shared ideas of stress-managing and fun things to do, from cup stacking to cat's cradling. There were memes. I could talk about myself and feel safe.

My older sister was extremely cruel and abusive toward me from the time I was a baby, as well as my biological father. She resented me for taking our mother's attention away from her and never got over it. She often punished me in secret for infractions like spending too long with our mom's attention, or being too liked by her school friends and taking attention away from her.

As a result, I developed a pretty intense phobia of being the center of attention. I always feel like someone is going to come out of a crowd or the shadows and try to hurt me if I talk about myself too long, or attract positive attention from more than one person that everyone else isn't already ignoring.

I started to relax. The people I was getting to know were really, really nice to me. They were interested in what I had to say, and didn't punish me for talking too much. My ideas were received with welcome. My jokes got laughs. I started to feel like a person for the first time in my life.

Then, one day, while sharing information I'd been reading about Swedish royal history in the 1300s, which had not been validated yet and I was simply sharing due to a tenuous genetic link I happen to have and that my mom has spent a lot of her adult life researching.

I was paraphrasing in general chat to my new friends. I wasn't checking citations or anything, and the stories we were finding were still not validated, but they were interesting and added more intrigue to my family's old backstory.

Out of nowhere, a member of this server who had never introduced himself to me or spoken to me personally began attacking me. He demanded to know sources. He demanded to know how I could validate what I was being heard read to me, as if he were interrogating me for suspicion of heresy or something.

I cried. I backpedaled and apologized to him profusely while ceding the subject to him. I promised I'd never talk about it again and that I was so, so sorry for making him mad (my sister was right. my sister was right. i'm bad. i can't be safe anywhere. i'm a monster. she was right. oh god she was right. i'm a fucking monster). I showed my belly and pathetically begged him to take his Champion Argument Starter trophy and leave me alone.

He gave me a weak "Sorry," for being so cruel to me, but the damage was done.

I sat in silence in the server for weeks. Nothing was done. 2 of the 3 posted server rules were to Be Polite and Don't Be An Asshole. I hoped I would hear from a moderator that he'd been spoken to.

I wound up leaving, alone. The friends that I did like stayed behind, and aren't my friends anymore, because they chose to stay in a server with the guy that attacked me, triggered me, and sent me spiraling and sobbing and fighting blind fury at the same time.

I don't feel safe with them anymore.

A couple of members have come forward with gentle words, but I haven't had the stomach for any of them. I don't want to be attacked again. I don't want to be stupid enough to be lured into something like that again. I'm so, so painfully lonely and desperate for friends, but not that.

Please not that.

Where were you? Why didn't you help me? Why did you let that happen to me? Why didn't you stop it?

I thought we were friends.

Someone please be kind to me and mean it.

Please?

[pardonmydelays]

IN THE HEIGHTS countdown: 22 DAYS!

song for today:

so how can i say that while i was away i had so much to hide? hey guys, it’s me the biggest disappointment you know the kid couldn’t hack it she’s back and she’s walkin’ real slow welcome home, just breathe

[puppys-rhythm-heaven]

i am being so fucking autistic about a video game i've only played an hour and a half of and have absorbed like 99% of my information about through osmosis from my bestie(s. it's complicated) and fanfiction. catastrophic levels of autism. i can't stress this in words i don't think y'all understand. or care honestly sdflkjfdskdfsjsfdkj-

[medicinemane]

I'm sorry but I just want to highlight that the phrase "know you rights too well" is inherently chilling

No matter what the circumstance, first off in an ideal world people shouldn't even have to know their rights to have them respected because they are... rights, in an ideal world law enforcement would be actively working to protect people's rights

However, even if an irredeemable serial killer "knows their rights too well"... that's still better than them having their rights trampled all over, no matter how awful the person is

Rights are rights, and I shouldn't only get due process because I say the right words

In fact I didn't want to be misconstruing his words off a tweet, so from multiple sources here's what he said:

“They call it ‘Know Your Rights.’ I call it ‘how to escape arrest’ ”

Which as I've said... to me that's chilling, that's alarm bells going off, that's cops asking people minding their own business doing nothing for ID, then arresting them for not showing ID for no reason

"Escape arrest", you phrase it like you've got a right to arrest people, not a duty to prove they've done something that warrants it

[fantabulisticity]

I had grand plans for working all day and going to Karaoke tonight, which would be my first Karaoke night back since my trip, and then I wanted to play in the snow this weekend. But although my chest congestion was WAY better yesterday, it's bad again today (but not as bad as it was Tuesday). So I had to come home sick from work after 2 hours, and I won't get to go to Karaoke or play in the snow unless I get better. Definitely not Karaoke bc that's tonight (or tomorrow night) and 8 hours is NOT enough time to be over an illness enough to be in public. I'm so fucking tired of this.

I don't even feel that bad? I'm the normal amount of tired I would expect to be if I weren't sick, I don't have a fever or any stomach issues, and I can breathe fine most of the time. I'm just congested in my nose, eustachian tubes, and chest, and I have a cough. I'm annoyed and stuffy but not miserable. But I can't pass this around, either, so I can't just go about life as usual without putting people at risk. I'm young and healthy and will get over this eventually, but that isn't the case for everyone, so I have to stay home and be SO BORED and not even be able to sing bc my voice is shitty right now and I don't want to cause any more damage. Apparently sleeping in late and lying on the couch playing video games wasn't enough rest. So I'm going to sleep a bunch today and this weekend and hope I can sleep it off. UGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

[vaspider]

Listen to me. Listen very carefully:

They are trying to wear you out.

They are trying to wear you out, and they own most major social media now, along with many major media outlets. The disinformation machine is cranking along. You are going to have to slow the fuck down and read things before you help them wear out other people, too.

So you just saw a post about a real scary bill, hunh? Republicans want to make it a capital offense to pet dogs and repeal The Sky Is Blue Act of 1793, declaring the new official color of the sky to be squant? Damn, that sounds scary.

Let's go look up this fictitious "Make The Sky Squant Again Act" on GovTracker* & on the official legislative tracker on congress.gov!

Well, let's see... GovTracker estimates it has a 1% chance of even getting out of committee and a 0% chance of being enacted, while congress.gov says this bill has 2 cosponsors who have been in the House and combined total of less than a month. The bill doesn't have any actual text, and it was referred to 5 different committees.

That fictitious bill and a hundred others like it are quite literally not worth your time, and more than that, continuing to wring your hands about it and tell other people about the scary scary squant sky bill only does their work for them. It scares people, it makes them spend time and energy on it, and it wears them out. It is a legislative Gish Gallop, meant to throw so many things at people that we can't keep up.

Even calling or messaging your Rep in this case means their staffer has to waste time responding to you and letting you know that Representative Buttzonheads definitely won't support making petting dogs a capital offense, a thing that will never, ever happen regardless.

Staying engaged in this environment is going to require protecting your heart and protecting your energy, yes, but also protecting the energy of others. This is why WWII propaganda posters also included ones taking people to task for spreading panicky rumors and undermining morale.

Do you know why most observant Jews don't eat chicken and dairy together, even though the ban is on red meat and dairy together bc you're not supposed to cook the calf in the milk of its mother?** It's not because we think that chicken might secretly lactate or Just Because. It's because the rabbis decided that if I'm sitting out in public and eating turkey and cheese together, someone might glance at the turkey and mistake it for red meat and think, "oh, well, I know that Spider is a good Jew, there must have been a change, or maybe I can just justify it to myself that if Spider does it, it must be permissible to bend the rules just that much." And I would then be accidentally leading my fellow Jew astray. We are responsible for being even more careful for the sake of others than we are for ourselves.

It's the same principle here. We need to really be careful about the information we are spreading and check things past reading a news site. Is it true? Is it relevant? Is it meaningful? Is the news site one I recognize? Can I find meaningful independent corroboration on another site, which is to say, if I find an article about it on a second site, is it just quoting or rephrasing this site?

Yeah, that is a lot. But that's how we keep them from using us to lead our fellows astray.

*GovTracker is an independent site. They explain their methodology in their About section.

**I cannot say enough how I am not at this time interested in going on a Jewish Side Quest About Dietary Laws on this post. Usually, I love it, but hold off this time, please, y'all. Let's stay on target this once.

[samwisethewitch]

Homemaking, gardening, and self-sufficiency resources that won't radicalize you into a hate group

It seems like self-sufficiency and homemaking skills are blowing up right now. With the COVID-19 pandemic and the current economic crisis, a lot of folks, especially young people, are looking to develop skills that will help them be a little bit less dependent on our consumerist economy. And I think that's generally a good thing. I think more of us should know how to cook a meal from scratch, grow our own vegetables, and mend our own clothes. Those are good skills to have.

Unfortunately, these "self-sufficiency" skills are often used as a recruiting tactic by white supremacists, TERFs, and other hate groups. They become a way to reconnect to or relive the "good old days," a romanticized (false) past before modern society and civil rights. And for a lot of people, these skills are inseparably connected to their politics and may even be used as a tool to indoctrinate new people.

In the spirit of building safe communities, here's a complete list of the safe resources I've found for learning homemaking, gardening, and related skills. Safe for me means queer- and trans-friendly, inclusive of different races and cultures, does not contain Christian preaching, and does not contain white supremacist or TERF dog whistles.

Homemaking/Housekeeping/Caring for your home:

Making It by Kelly Coyne and Erik Knutzen [book] (The big crunchy household DIY book; includes every level of self-sufficiency from making your own toothpaste and laundry soap to setting up raised beds to butchering a chicken. Authors are explicitly left-leaning.)

Safe and Sound: A Renter-Friendly Guide to Home Repair by Mercury Stardust [book] (A guide to simple home repair tasks, written with rentals in mind; very compassionate and accessible language.)

How To Keep House While Drowning by KC Davis [book] (The book about cleaning and housework for people who get overwhelmed by cleaning and housework, based on the premise that messiness is not a moral failing; disability and neurodivergence friendly; genuinely changed how I approach cleaning tasks.)

Gardening

Rebel Gardening by Alessandro Vitale [book] (Really great introduction to urban gardening; explicitly discusses renter-friendly garden designs in small spaces; lots of DIY solutions using recycled materials; note that the author lives in England, so check if plants are invasive in your area before putting them in the ground.)

Country/Rural Living:

Woodsqueer by Gretchen Legler [book] (Memoir of a lesbian who lives and works on a rural farm in Maine with her wife; does a good job of showing what it's like to be queer in a rural space; CW for mentions of domestic violence, infidelity/cheating, and internalized homophobia)

"Debunking the Off-Grid Fantasy" by Maggie Mae Fish [video essay] (Deconstructs the off-grid lifestyle and the myth of self-reliance)

Sewing/Mending:

Annika Victoria [YouTube channel] (No longer active, but their videos are still a great resource for anyone learning to sew; check out the beginner project playlist to start. This is where I learned a lot of what I know about sewing.)

Make, Sew, and Mend by Bernadette Banner [book] (A very thorough written introduction to hand-sewing, written by a clothing historian; lots of fun garment history facts; explicitly inclusive of BIPOC, queer, and trans sewists.)

Sustainability/Land Stewardship

Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer [book] (Most of you have probably already read this one or had it recommended to you, but it really is that good; excellent example of how traditional animist beliefs -- in this case, indigenous American beliefs -- can exist in healthy symbiosis with science; more philosophy than how-to, but a great foundational resource.)

Wild Witchcraft by Rebecca Beyer [book] (This one is for my fellow witches; one of my favorite witchcraft books, and an excellent example of a place-based practice deeply rooted in the land.)

Avoiding the "Crunchy to Alt Right Pipeline"

Note: the "crunchy to alt-right pipeline" is a term used to describe how white supremacists and other far right groups use "crunchy" spaces (i.e., spaces dedicated to farming, homemaking, alternative medicine, simple living/slow living, etc.) to recruit and indoctrinate people into their movements. Knowing how this recruitment works can help you recognize it when you do encounter it and avoid being influenced by it.

"The Crunchy-to-Alt-Right Pipeline" by Kathleen Belew [magazine article] (Good, short introduction to this issue and its history.)

Sisters in Hate by Seyward Darby (I feel like I need to give a content warning: this book contains explicit descriptions of racism, white supremacy, and Neo Nazis, and it's a very difficult read, but it really is a great, in-depth breakdown of the role women play in the alt-right; also explicitly addresses the crunchy to alt-right pipeline.)

These are just the resources I've personally found helpful, so if anyone else has any they want to add, please, please do!

[mayspicer]

Ok, the boss is no more! There were some super stressful moments but surprisingly we all survived o:

My animal companion got hit with disintegrate, but we had hero points to make him avoid it. I would cry actually, because disintegrate means no resurrection x_x

The war is prevented! At least this one, because Cayden's party is right at the center of a much bigger one just starting. Today we saved the country. Cayden is trying to not even save the whole world, just maybe slow the whole thing down and save as much people as possible...

[nightingale-prompts]

Danny lives in a horror movie-DC x DP prompt

Based on my favorite book series "tales from the gas station"

It's not every day that a mission requires the league to travel to middle America in a bid to obtain a highly cursed artifact but it certainly is today.

Locating the Seal of Silent Ashes was a task usually given to Justice League Dark but Constantine was currently busy. So that meant it was left to the poster boys to get this done. They dressed in civilian attire to investigate the last location of the seal starting with the first building on the edge of town. A small dusty gas station near the woods.

The inside had an awful smell, like death and cleaning fluid. The lights gave off a greenish-blue tint. Rats could be seen out of the corner of your eyes. Most of the chips were offbrand and crappy.

Behind the counter was the teenage boy chewing gum. He looked up at the group before going back to reading his book. He had clearly seen better days but didn't show signs of caring about the state of his hair or bags under his eyes. He drank his coffee.

The air felt off.

"Hey kiddo, do you mind giving us directions?" Clark started.

The kid narrowed his eyes as he popped his gum.

"You're not from here. That or you're from that cult in the woods. Listen I'm not joining. Seriously, cosmic nihilism and fatalism sounds doomed. Hey wait-" the teen checked his notes " No, the cult killed themselves in that mass suicide 2 weeks ago. I forgot, sorry."

The teen didn't say anything else as he went back to his book.

The horrified look of the adults shared was almost hilarious. At least to the teen if he looked up.

"Oh, and stay out of the woods. I don't want the police to come back and ask about who saw you last. Seriously if whatever is in there tears you apart I won't feel bad. I put those signs out forever ago and if I get one more girl covered in blood running in here screaming about her dead friends I'll get a headache." The teen shrugged turning the page.

"What do you mean?! Why would-?! Who's killing people?!" Barry asked frantically as Bruce serched for more reports of missing people in the area.

"I don't know. Why would I know? If you want to go in the cursed forest go ahead. I mean that's how they all die. It isn't my job to stop you. My job is to sit here and watch this store." The teen huffed in annoyance.

Before anymore questions were asked the signal of the radio was disrupted and a demonic howl screeched through the radio.

"God damnit. That cunt is back. Stay here." The teen growled as he grabbed his bat from under the counter and walked out the back door. "String bean! Get off the fucking roof you bastard! You know that radio is all I have here!"

A chattering laugh like a death rattle was heard and the sound of 2 sets of feet was heard on the roof then they lept down.

"Come here so I can beat you to death!" The teen ran around the building towards the front of the gas station chasing-what the fuck is that!

It was like a human that was twisted to crabwalk on all fours backwards. Its face was contorted into a black stretched-out smile with no teeth. It had no eyes just black sockets. All its limbs were stretched out to an extra meter in length. It was a skinwalker of some kind with chalk-white skin. It was skittering away from the teen who was swinging his bat at its head.

"Stop running! I told you before what would happen if I found you fucking with me again!" The boy meant it as he finally landed a hit and began wacking it over and over it.

The skin walker screeched and tried to run for its life but couldn't.

After reducing the monster into a black puddle the black-stained teen came back inside to sit back down not paying anymore to the monster blood he was covered in.

"Sorry about that. Most of the freaks around here have learned to stay away from this place. That one is new and he doesn't listen. You'd think they'd learn but Sting Bean thinks he can torment me. Petty bastard." The teen sighed "anyways are going to buy anything or are you going to waste what oxygen we get in here with this shitty ventilation.

Diana couldn't help but admire the boldness of the boy. He had no hesitation or fear against the beasts of this area even if was crude.

"Does Constantine have a cousin or something? Just a more angry one" Barry whispered to Hal.

[miraeism]

when my coworker remembers my name.... major shawna win