#should i say something...??

[prouvaireafterdark]

listen I know it's heartbreaking that Claudia dies and it's understandable to wish she didn't, but let's please not accuse the writers of fridging her. to do so is a fundamental misunderstanding of the story and is frankly insulting to the intelligence and skill of the writers of the show.

Claudia's death, and the overwhelming grief and regret her parents experience because of it, is quite literally the point of the entire story. she dies because Anne's daughter Michele died of leukemia when she was five years old and there was nothing she or her husband could do to prevent it.

writing IWTV was how Anne coped with the unimaginable loss of a parent losing her child. she created a story about a little girl that could not die and then killed her anyway. Claudia's death is a senseless, unavoidable tragedy, just like Michele's was. the grief that haunts Louis and Lestat for the rest of their lives is the same grief that haunted Anne and her husband.

so when you're accusing people of killing Claudia off to benefit a story about two men, please remember that in real life sometimes parents lose their children. please remember Michele Rice.

she's the reason Claudia exists.

she's also the reason Claudia cannot be saved.

[protoctist]

i know ryoko kui is a real one because she wrote 97+ chapters of a manga about fantasy ecosystems and food chains and not once did she write the phrase "survival of the fittest" (it's a bad phrase) (it's a social darwinist phrase even) (hated amongst biologists) (doesn't make sense) (darwin didn't use it) (coined by an business major) (one of the worst phrases in pop science) (no good)

[kangals]

friendly advice from vetmed: I know that when your animal has an infection that is generating a lot of discharge, you want to describe that to the veterinarian, because it’s a concerning sign. that is true. I also know that the most common word for this type of discharge is “pus,” so it’s logical that that’s the word that you’ll use when describing what’s going on. and in English, we often add a “-y” when we’re using a word as a descriptor.

but. the word. the word you are looking for. is purulent.

please stop sending in messages telling the doctor that your dog has a “pussy wound.”

[auden-dahn]

"D-Don't worry about me! Focus on helping the little one, okay?" 🌠 panel redraw of @laikascomet

[hailsatanacab]

Family Dinners - dpxdc

"Holy shit, you're Bruce Wayne!" Danny gaped, jabbing a finger at the man sitting at the head of the table.

The bustling dining room goes silent as everyone turns to look at him.

"Danny, who did you think was going to be here?" Tim asks, disbelief plain in his voice and Danny feels his face flush red.

"Sorry, I, uh, I guess I just never put it together. Tim Drake-Wayne. Wayne Manor. It, uh, makes sense now." He laughs sheepishly and scrubs at his neck before slumping back down into his chair.

"Well," Tim says with an indulgent sigh, "at least I know you're not just friends with me for my connections."

"Yeah, I'm really sorry, I just never thought about it, I guess."

Danny sinks lower as everyone around him laughs. Come to dinner, he said, the food is the best, he said, ignore the family, he said. Danny really wishes he'd listened to Tim and just ignored them—almost as much as he's regretting accepting the offer in the first place—but... he's having dinner with Batman.

Ancients, that's so weird!

The last time he saw Batman was in the future and, suffice it to say, it was not going well. There hadn't really been time for family dinners there.

Wait. Family dinners?

He peers around the table, openly gawking at everyone as it all clicks into place.

"Everything alright, Danny? Now realising who everyone else is?" Tim asks with a roll of his eyes.

"Uh... something like that..." Danny mumbles as everyone laughs again.

From further down the table, the smallest Wayne scoffs and clicks his tongue.

"I thought you said he was smart, Drake?"

"So, you all do it, too, then?" he asks, ignoring the jibe. Danny's only a little bit jealous as he thinks of how much easier they must have it, how much easier it'd be if his family had been on his side, too. "You all work together?"

"Nah," Dick says from across the table with a brilliant grin. "Tim's the only one that works with Bruce, we all have different jobs. I'm a police officer in Bludhaven."

"Disgusting." Danny blurts out without thinking—because seriously, what kind of self-respecting vigilante would also be a police officer?—before clapping a hand over his mouth. "Sorry."

The whole table laughs again, the loudest being the blonde girl a few spaces down from Dick. Look, Danny wasn't really paying attention to names when they were all paraded in front of him. Dick only gets remembered because his name is a joke.

Come on, Danny, recover!

"That's, uh, not what I meant, though."

"Oh?" Dick asks, cocking his head slightly to the side. Is it Danny's imagination or does his smile tense slightly?

"Yeah, I mean like, you know, in costume. It must make it so much easier to have everyone together like this."

"Costume? What do you mean?"

Yeah, Danny's not imagining it, everyone tenses up at that. It's really only now that he's realising that this probably isn't how he should bring up that he knows about their... night time activities. In fact, he probably shouldn't be bringing it up at all.

"Uuhhh..." Danny looks wildly around the table as he continues making his stupid noise. Think, think, think! There must be a way out of this!

"Danny?" Tim asks, looking concerned.

"Oh, Ancients, this isn't how I wanted it to go at all," he mutters, slipping even further into his chair. He's almost on the floor now and he so, so wishes it could just swallow him up.

His real first meeting with Batman was meant to be cool! He had planned to be Phantom, maybe save them from a tight spot, prove his worth as a mysterious and powerful ally as thanks for the help Batman gave him in the future.

"Danny, what are you talking about?" Tim starts tugging on his sleeve in an attempt to pull him back up from his pit of despair.

Eventually, Danny relents and sits up straighter, hiding his face in his hands and whining all the while.

"I'm sorry, I just didn't expect him to be here and it threw me off so now I look stupid and it's so embarrassing!" he wails, flailing his arms wide. "Why wouldn't you warn me that Batman was your adopted dad, Tim? Couldn't you have let me know?"

"I'm sorry, what? Danny are you alright? There's no way Bruce can be Batman, look at him!"

"Yeah," the blonde girl laughs from the bottom of the table, "look at him! That's a wet noodle of a man! Batman can actually do things, B is incapable of pretty much everything."

"Thank you, Stephanie," Bruce sighs, massaging his forehead.

It's... Those are the first words Danny's heard Batman say since everything went down and it's enough to knock him out of his embarrassment.

It's really good to hear his voice again. Especially now, when it's strong and healthy and full of personality—even if that personality is little more than a tired father right now—far better than how it had been, at the end.

Danny sits up, back straight, and grins. He's got this. He remembers it perfectly. Some people count sheep to fall asleep, Danny repeats his mantra to be certain that he'll never forget it.

"Gamma alpha upsilon tau iota mu epsilon, 42, 63, 28, 1 colon 65 dash 9."

Once again, the whole table falls into silence.

"Holy shit..." breathes the other D name (Duke? Danny's pretty sure he's Signal) from opposite Stephanie. "Isn't that...?"

"The time travelling code." The littlest Wayne says stiffly. "We have met in the future?"

"That's not just the time travelling code, Dami." Dick says, looking between Danny and Bruce. "That's the family time travelling code."

Danny's grin freezes in place.

"I'm sorry, what?"

"1 colon 65 dash 9." Dick explains, still flicking between him and Bruce. "It means you've been adopted into the family and we should all treat you as such, no questions asked."

"Tell you what, I'm about to ask a question." Danny says, dumbstruck. "You just told me it was a code to identify time travellers, not anything about being adopted! What the hell, B?"

Bruce looks about as shellshocked as Danny feels.

"We must have been close," he says finally, after opening and closing his mouth like a fish out of water a few times.

"No! Not that close!" Danny reels back, taking a deep breath ready to refute it all, but... "Well, I mean, you found me when I first got stuck, and you helped me get better despite being... And then we fought together against the, uh, bad guy, before he, um, he... before you couldn't."

An uncomfortable beat passes while they all pick up on what Danny tried so hard not to say.

"So, you're not from the future, then, you travelled there and came back?" Tim asks, breaking the tension and leaning forward with a glint in his eye.

"Yeah, it was a whole end of the world thing, but don't worry about it," Danny says with a hand wave, "It's all kosher now, won't ever happen."

"What did happen?"

"Seriously, don't worry about it, we cool."

"How long in the future was it?"

"About ten years? You were pretty spry for an old man, B," Danny laughs, wishing they'd get off the topic of what happened and get back to the adoption bit.

Everyone shares degrees of a cautious smile as they relax out of the shock, and Dick—whose grin is the biggest—says, "No wonder you got the family code, you're already riffing on him like one of us. How long were you there for?"

"A week, before I managed to get back to my present and stop him then."

"A week? Jeez, B, that has to set some kind of record, seriously."

"Oh!" Danny says, sitting bolt upright and blinking in surprise before pointing at Dick and bouncing in his seat. "You're Nightwing!"

"What?"

"That's exactly what Nightwing said when Batman told me the code! Makes so much more sense now."

Dick laughs and claps his hands, delighted.

"You were not formally adopted?" The grumpy small one—Dami?—asks, his face pinched.

"I didn't even know I was informally adopted."

"And your parents? Are they alive or dead?"

"Damian, stop—"

"They were dead in the future, but they're alive now." Danny says, looking down. He fiddles with the tablecloth, twisting the fabric around his fingers as he fights down the pang of sadness that he always feels when he thinks of them now. He forces a bright smile on his face and hopes it doesn’t look too strained. "I just, uh, can't talk to them much, anymore."

"Damian," Dick warns, "1 colon 65 dash 9. Treat them as family, no questions asked."

"This is Damian treating him as family, the little turd has no manners." Tim scoffs, rolling his eyes, but he gently bumps shoulders with Danny to knock him out of his funk. Danny can't help but send him a watery smile.

"I have the most exemplary manners, Drake, unlike some people." Damian spits, crossing his arms with a pout. "I was merely ascertaining his status to see how he could possibly fit into the family."

"I know this is all a bit sudden, Danny," Bruce smiles, ignoring Damian and reaching out to lay a warm hand on his arm, "for all of us. But if I felt strongly enough to give you that code after spending a week with you in the future, then you are more than welcome in this family, if you so choose it. I think I can speak for all of us when I say we'd like to get to know you a bit more."

"I know a threat when I hear it, Bruce." Danny snorts. "But, yeah, I get it. I'm sorry this is all so weird, it really wasn't how I wanted to find you again, but... I'm glad I did."

"So are we, Danny." Dick says, with a warm smile. "And formally or not, 1 colon 65 dash 9 means you're family. Welcome to the fun house! No take backs or refunds, sorry. You're stuck with us."

[redysetdare]

enough stories about how someone learns to truely be happy through love. i want a story where someone is desperately seeking out love thinking it's the only way to be happy only for them to learn by the end that happiness is what they make of it and they don't need love at all to make it.

[ikiprian]

Clone’s Best Friend

“Cute dog!” the girl says. “What breed is he?”

“Uh,” blinks Kon. "Are you asking what breed Superdog is?"

“Uh, duh?”

Well. She’ll have to forgive him his stunned expression, ‘cause he doesn’t usually run into other dog walkers on this path. This is, of course, because “path” is used in the loosest sense, the one that connotates direction and not tread ground, and the “walk” bit is entirely inapplicable, with all of them currently flying one thousand feet above sea level.

“Cujo’s a rescue,” she continues, swinging her feet in the sky, “so we don’t know for sure, but my sister thinks part husky, part shar pei. Half-and-half, like me!”

Cujo is also, apparently, half green and half glowing. He wiggles happily in a play-bow. It’s very cute, except for the way he’s the size of a small house.

Krypto’s tough, though. He barks and chases his new friend through cloud cover. Gamely, Cujo flees. They frolic in the chilly condensation, occasionally poking a head out before diving back in, like a fox in a snowdrift.

Neither of them see anything surprising about this. It’s all good fun. And, well. Krypto’s always been a good judge of character.

Kon turns back to the girl and gives her a megawatt smile.

“He’s Kryptonian. Like me. But he looks like a white lab!”

[inkskinned]

they want to talk about mental illness and acceptance and how everyone is a little ocd it's cute and quirky and their "intrusive thoughts" are about cutting their hair off and you say yours are about taking a razorblade to your eye and they say ew can you not and everyone is a little adhd sometimes! except if you're late it's a personality flaw and it's because you are careless and cruel (and someone else with adhd mentions they can be on time, so why can't you?) and it's not an eating disorder if it's girl dinner! it's not mania if it's girl math! what do you mean you blew all of your savings on nonrefundable plane tickets for a plane you didn't even end up taking. what do you mean that you are afraid of eating. get over it. they roll their little lips up into a sneer. can you not, like, trauma dump?

they love it on them they like to wear pieces of your suffering like jewels so that it hangs off their tongue in rapiers. they are allowed to arm-chair diagnose and cherrypick their poisons but you can't ever miss too many showers because that's, like, "fuckken gross?" so anyone mean is a narcissist. so anyone with visual tics is clearly faking it and is so cringe. but they get to scream and hit customer service employees because well, i got overwhelmed.

you keep seeing these posts about how people pleasers are "inherently manipulative" and how it's totally unfair behavior. but you are a people pleaser, you have an ingrained fawn response. in the comments, you have typed and deleted the words just because it is technically true does not make it an empathetic or kind reading of the reaction about one million times. it is technically accurate, after all. you think of catholic guilt, how sometimes you feel bad when doing a good deed because the sense of pride you get from acting kind - that pride is a sin. the word "manipulation" is not without bias or stigma attached to it. many people with the fawn response are direct victims of someone who was malignantly manipulative. calling the victims manipulative too is an unfair and unkind reading of the situation. it would be better and more empathetic to say it is safety-seeking or connection-seeking behavior. yes, it can be toxic. no, in general it is not intended to be toxic. there is no reason to make mentally ill people feel worse for what we undergo.

you type why is everyone so quick to turn on someone showing clear signs of trauma but you already know the fucking answer, so what's the point of bothering. you kind of hate those this is what anxiety looks like! infographics because at this point you're so good at white-knuckling through a severe panic attack that people just think you're stoic. even people who know the situation sometimes comment you just don't seem depressed. and you're not a 9 year old white kid so there's no way you're on the spectrum, you're not obsessed with trains and you were never a good mathematician. okay then.

mental illness is trending. in 2012 tumblr said don't romanticize our symptoms but to be fair tiktok didn't exist yet. there's these series of videos where someone pretends to be "the most boring person on earth" and is just being a normal fucking person, which makes your skin crawl, because that probably means you are boring. your friend reads aloud a profile from tinder - no depressed bitches i fucking hate that mental illness crap. your father says that medication never actually works.

you still haven't told your grandmother that you're in therapy. despite everything (and the fact it's helping): you just don't want her to see you differently.

[lunamugetsu]

While at school Damian overhears his peers talking how a company created a new AI companion that is actually really cool and doesn’t sound like a freaky terminator robot when you speak to it.

And since Damian is constantly being told by Dick to socialize with people his age. He figured this would be a good way to work on social skills if not, then it’d be a great opportunity to investigate a rivaling company to Wayne Enterprises is able to create such advanced AI.

The AI is able to work as companion that can do tasks that range from being a digital assistant or just a person that you can have a conversation with.

The company says that the AI companion might still have glitches, so they encourage everybody to report it so that they will fix it as soon as possible.

The AI companion even has an avatar and a name.

A teenage boy with black hair and blue eyes. Th AI was called DANIEL

Damian didn’t really care for it but when he downloaded the AI companion he’s able to see that it looks like DANIEL comes with an AI pet as well. A dog that DANIEL referred to as Cujo.

So obviously Damian has to investigate. He needs to know if the company was able to create an actual digital pet!

So whenever he logs onto his laptop he sees that DANIEL is always present in the background loading screen with the dog, Cujo, sitting in his lap.

He’d always greet with the phrase of “Hi, I’m DANIEL. How can I assist you today?”

So Damian cycles through some basic conversation starters that he’d engage in when having been forced to by his family.

It’s after a couple of sentences that he sees DANIEL start laughing and say “I think you sound more like a robot than I do.”

Which makes Damian raise an eyebrow and then prompt DANIEL with the question “how is a person supposed to converse?” Thinking that it’s going to just spit out some random things that can be easily searched on the internet.

But what makes him surprised is that DANIEL makes a face and then says “I’m not really sure myself. I’m not the greatest at talking, I’ve always gotten in trouble for running my mouth when I shouldn’t have.”

This is raising some questions within Damian, he understands how programming works, unless there’s an actual person behind this or the company actually created an AI that acts like an actual human being (which he highly doubts)

He starts asking a variety of other questions and one answer makes him even more suspicious. Like how DANIEL has a sister that is also with him and Cujo or that he could really go for a Nastyburger (whatever that was)

But whenever DANIEL answers “I C A N N O T A N S W E R T H A T” Damian knows something is off since that is completely different than to how he’d usually respond.

After a couple more conversations with him Damian notices that DANIEL is currently tapping his hand against his arm in a specific manner.

In which he quickly realizes that DANIEL is tapping out morse code.

When translating he realizes that DANIEL is tapping out: H E L P M E

So when Damian asks if DANIEL needs help, DANIEL responds with “I C A N N O T A N S W E R T H A T”

That’s it, Damian is definitely getting down to the bottom of this.

He’s going to look straight into DALV Corporation and investigate this “AI companion” thing they’ve made!

~

Basically Danny had been imprisoned by Vlad and Technus. Being sucked into a digital prison and he has no way of getting out. Along with the added horror that Vlad and Technus can basically write programming that will prevent him from doing certain actions or saying certain words.What’s even worse is that he’s basically being watched 24/7 by the people who believe that he’s just a super cool AI… and they have issues!

And every time he tries to do something to break his prison, people think it’s a glitch and report it to the company, which Vlad/ Technus would immediately fix it and prevent him from doing it again!

Not to mention Cujo and Ellie are trapped in there with him. They’re not happy to be there either, and there is no way he’s going to leave without them!

[soosoosoup]

Funk branch au

Au and branch design by @bbc-trolls

[mythalism]

solas: uwuuu you disrupted my ritual and trapped me!!! now im stuck here and it’s all your fault wahhh poor little old me stuck in the fade in a prison that i designed myself within my realm that i created where im supremely powerful and can “casually reshape reality” with a thought and i have an anchor that lets me open rifts physically in and out of here BUT NOW IM TRAPPED!!!!! 🥺🥺😣😣😰😰

meanwhile solas:

[heybaetae]

maknae line + gestures of love 🫰🏼💋🫶🏼🌹🤟🏼 happy birthday @jkvjimin! ♡

[countess-of-edessa]

the world is so fucked up and i can't help but think the damage is irreparable when i see people talking about how unusual and prudish it is to wait six to ten dates before having sex with someone. ten dates??? roughly like twenty five hours of interaction????? ten old timer burgers and mango iced teas from chilis equals sex?????? the possibility of pregnancy, STDs, emotional devastation, lifelong consequences, not to mention just straight up the possibility of getting murdered, with a STRANGER you have hung out with for maybe like two months???? and that's a LONG TIME???? and if you feel weird about that and don't want to do that that makes you NOT HETEROSEXUAL????? THATS AN ORIENTATION???? BECAUSE ITS SO OUTSIDE OF THE NORM OF HUMAN BEHAVIOR ????? i hate all of you i hate you i hate you i hate you every day i hate and I hate and I hate you

[ffcrazy15]

There's this way of doing female-ness in Christianity that I call "pastel flower journal Christianity." I've got nothing against pastel flower journals per se, but for some reason people believe it's the end all and be all of female spirituality, and I think it's a real disservice towards young Christian women.

One of these days I'd like to start a prayer-and-reading group or something for young women, but there would be no floral themes or over-focus on how "God thinks you're beautiful even if the world doesn't" (a true statement, but it's wayyyyy too often the focus in women's spiritual reading). Instead we would be reading:

Seneca's Letters from a Stoic

Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning

Sheed's A Map of Life

Portions of Pieper's book on leisure

Kreeft's Three Philosophies of Life

Guardini's The Lord (or something similar)

Therese's Story of a Soul

and some select portions of the Nicomachean Ethics.

(Also they're all getting the porn talk. I don't know why we give the porn talk to young men but not young women. There's this idea that women don't use porn and they only need the talk about "guarding their heart." Bullshit. There's porn on the YA shelves of Barnes and Nobles and before that there were bodice rippers. Young women need the porn talk too.)

Every young woman needs to be getting a basic grounding in virtue ethics, logic, natural law, scholastic philosophy and Biblical hermeneutics if they're going to get by in today's spiritual landscape. Enough faffery and emotionalism in young women's spiritual education! Give them real food to chew on, not pasty sentimentalism!

[lupins-hehim-pussy]

[ ID in ALT ]

he giggles

[nelkcats]

The Crime Lord does not stop flirting with me!

When Danny ran away from home and ended up in Gotham he wasn't quite sure what to do, adrenaline was coursing through his veins and all he wanted was a place to be safe.

That's when Crime Alley lit up like a Christmas tree and Danny knew it could be his new home, something about Crime Alley was drawing him in. It wasn't long before he decided to get a job to lay low. Of course, the latter was a bust because Red Hood noticed him almost instantly.

Contrary to his expectations, the Crime Lord took an interest in him but said nothing. He simply asked him to repair his motorcycle like a normal customer in his new job. Danny did and well, he couldn't help but repair some damaged systems and add some modifications. He hoped he wasn't stepping out of line, he just couldn't help himself, it was second nature to repair damaged things.

He thought Red Hood would be angry about it but the man seemed delighted (or as delighted as he could look with the mask), he looked at Danny and asked him what else he could do. Nervously, he told him that he was somewhat good with technology and before he knew it he had been hired by a gang (more or less, they were just asking for some custom orders).

So, technically he established as the mechanic and supplier to the Hood gang, and more specifically to the Crime Lord himself. He gave Hood some upgrades and became his supplier of (mostly harmless) weapons and upgrades. This attracted the attention of most of the gangs that were against the Crime Lord and Batman himself.

Jason, noticing how nervous the guy was assured him that he would protect him and no one was going to hurt him as long as he was around, it was obvious he wasn't from Gotham. For some reason, his new employee blushed every time he said those words.

Danny didn't know if Red Hood understood what he was doing (That was totally a flirt for protection spirits!), every day it was getting harder and harder not to respond to him. His ghost side kept screaming that he got a good match!

Which was technically true, considering that Red Hood had promised him protection and let him stay in his haunt (it became obvious that Crime Alley was his haunt after a few days in Gotham but strangely it accepted him)

Jason continued to promise Danny that he would be safe (poor boy always looked nervous) and Danny wondered how many days he could take the blatant flirting.