#thread: a child

[descended-from-fairytales]

A Child

Waylon pulls up to a secluded place a bit away from where he's headed and parks his truck, killing the lights and taking a moment to breathe before he gets out. He's been casing this guy for weeks. He knows his schedule in and out. This is going to be the perfect time to grab him and make him pay for all the shit he's done. Violet picked him out because he was a serial abuser, and Waylon was more than happy to oblige in taking care of him.

He follows the man until they're alone, quickly knocking him out and carrying him back to the truck. This should be an easy job, take him somewhere secluded, torture and kill him, dispose of the body, and be on his merry way.

But when he opens the back of the truck, there's more than zip ties and rope waiting for him. He stares at the young girl in his truck bed for several moments. "What the fuck are you doing in my truck?"

@fxirytxlcfxtc

[nxttheendxfthestxry]

Double Open Starter: A Child (Genevieve, Holly)

“Um, ‘scuse me?”

Holly glances up with a raised eyebrow from her book that she’s only half-absorbing, looking at the girl in front of her in confusion. “...yeah?”

“Um... this is for you.” The girl holds out something. A sticker?

...a sticker. Holly frowns, eyebrows furrowing a moment as she takes it. “Uh... thanks...?”

“I see you out here like, all of the time forever, when I’m playing my games and stuff and... and I saw you eating your snack and you don’t usually do that so...” Genevieve shrugs. “Good job.”

Holly blinks. “...uh.” What? Did that just... did she just...? “...thanks, kid.”

“I’m Genevieve! Let’s be bestest friends.” Genevieve extends her hand.

Holly pauses, slowly shaking her hand. “Holly. I don’t know if you wanna do that to yourself. People around here don’t like me much. They might not be very nice to you.”

“How come?” Genevieve cocks her head in confusion, looking up when she sees someone else coming over. “Hello!”

[embroid-away]

from Secret Empire #10 (2017) by Nick Spencer and Rod Reis

A 2021 Marvel Trumps Hate ( @marveltrumpshate​ ) commission - Part 1 of 2

Completed with embroidery floss, watercolors, acrylics, gouache, and iridescent fabric on 22-ct aida cloth in a 5″ diameter bamboo hoop.

Bonus for the sparkles and shine:

[serialreblogger]

the thing about the joker

is that - well, even canonically, he’s not actually “insane.” in the most canonical version of his backstory (bc there are many conflicting incarnations, but this one is the touchstone for a lot of later canon), he was part of a street gang before falling into a vat of Nondescript Toxic Waste that damaged his melanin production and That’s It. he supposedly “lost his mind” after seeing his reflection, which is absurd on many levels. no. he’s not “insane.” what he is, is an angry white boy.

the thing about the joker is that he exults in his own uncontainability. He laughs, because all of gotham - all the world - is built to be his playground. the only lunatic thing about him is the lunacy of ~Society~, to borrow from the joker’s own playbook; the lunacy of the joker lies in the world that grants him power: in the inheritance of loss: in white privilege, and what it means for everyone else.

“to prove a point.” those were the joker’s exact words, when he shot and paralyzed Barbara Gordon. she asked why: he laughed. “to prove a point.”

because that’s all he ever does. he hurts people because he can. and because all the power in the world can’t save him from getting hurt - and isn’t that just peachy?

because the thing about the joker is that he can get hurt. he has been hurt. but he has so much more capacity to harm than to be harmed. he is immortal. he and he alone will never have to face the consequences of the hurt that he inflicts on other people.

so then: why not hurt them? misery loves company, after all.

the joker is the embodiment and end result of our own social system: the madness of the exception: the laughter of the white man: the imprecation to smile, as he kills you.

(no one ever says it, i find, but it’s still true: barbara deserves to kill him.)

and who, then, is the batman? if the joker is the yin to his yang? if they’re two sides of one irredeemable coin, if they represent the “balance” of an unjustifiable system - who is he if not another white man?

because he is. Bruce Wayne is a white boy born into unspeakable privilege and forced to endure suffering anyway; who copes with his suffering by taking it out on others; who copes with his suffering, not by taking advantage of the world as it is, but by attempting to reshape it. to make it in his own image - as if it isn’t already his, as if claiming it further will crush out the pain.

the batman is the benevolent oppressor to the joker’s malevolent one. he changes nothing, in the end. two privileged white boys with their own respective navel-gazing grudges - where, after all, lies the difference between benevolence and malevolence?

because they are not “chaos” and “order.” not really. They are laissez-faire laughter and law. Joker exults in the disease of the system, Batman seeks to treat its symptoms, but neither of them will ever change anything about the root cause. because they may have suffered the faults of this system, but they still benefit so much more from it as it exists. Uphold it or break it, neither of them wants to change the law.

but the law is only as good as the people it’s made to protect. and who does that law protect, really?

waylon jones is, in one issue, explicitly depicted as Black. between that and his skin disorder, there has never once been room for his character to be any more than a monster: king croc is, always, a character to be violated and brutalized, over and over and over and still - always - written as the villain. (he tried so hard to scrape out a place for himself, so many times, in so many incarnations, and each and every time he finds himself relegated once more to the sewers. he will never be anyone’s king. there is no place under the sun for people like him.)

victor fries only ever wanted to save his wife, and a capitalist mogul decided a few extra numbers on his eight-digit paycheck were more important than the people whose lives depended on that money. fries’ body was damaged to disability by that choice, left without the resources to find a cure for his wife, and he robbed banks because there was no other option available to him. we seem to have forgotten, or maybe never really understood, why that matters. why a desperate man trying to save his life and that of his loved ones under the crushing gears of capitalism is a villain, and the one who stops him is our hero. why, under the law batman upholds, a bank vault and a CEO’s hoard is worth more than a life.

poison ivy just wants to live, too. wants a life not defined by the devastation of her body, of the beings that exist as extensions of her, a life where green and growing things are not commodities to be plowed up and poisoned and destroyed for the sake of another man’s profit. these are villains; they are written as such. these are their motives.

who does batman fight for, really? who is our hero, this emblem of our law?

is he our hero? ours, the broken and bleeding members of the world he claims to protect?

who does the law protect, except him - him, and the joker?

[ponds-of-ink]

*Evan followed a few steps behind. He kept glancing over his shoulder, but there didn't seem to be anymore footsteps. Good. The staircase looked unusually long, and Agonia looked like he might need help, but Evan didn't know if he'd be allowed to do so.

Agonia looked behind. The boy still seemed uneasy, though that was understandable. They were in new territory, after all.

But, not wanting to be uncaring, he stopped and waited for Evan to catch up. He put his fists together, then waved his hands. “How are you doing?”

[jewfrogs]

saw a crushing post on AITD (repost from r/regretfulparents of someone wishing they could kill their disabled child) and i was frustrated because people in the comments were rightly horrified but were saying that the op is “in a bad place” and has “caregiver burnout,” that they’re venting or ranting and this shouldn’t be taken as sincere, that they can understand feeling anger or frustration etc. (but not wanting to murder them), and they feel sorry for them—and i truly do not understand how everybody’s first response isn’t horror for that child. i do not give a shit how the parent feels when they are at risk of committing filicide. and that risk is real. painfully real. over 100 disabled people were murdered by family members in 2022 (that were reported). and it is so telling that abled people will sympathize with a parent who is actively, violently ableist and a danger to their child than with the disabled child. from the ASAN’s anti-filicide toolkit, which says what i want to say better than i can:

Our society’s reactions to filicide reflect our beliefs about disability. When parents of kids without disabilities murder their children, we are universally united in condemnation. It is only when the victim is disabled that we pause. It is only when the victim is disabled that we are encouraged to understand. This is a double standard, and it reveals dangerous things about our beliefs.

When we say every parent of a disabled child has had moments like this or walk a mile in our shoes or the system failed everyone or but you have to understand how hard it is, we are excusing a parent murdering their child. It does not matter how many times we say not that I would ever condone this: if we attempt to make a parent murdering their child understandable, if we ever attempt to position it as a comprehensible or inevitable or normal thing, if we take and normalize the perspective and the side of abusers and murderers, we are minimizing and excusing this act. Doing so puts the lives of disabled people everywhere in danger.

There are absolutely things we should understand about filicide. There are absolutely people with whom we should empathize. We should understand that filicide is not committed by loving parents. We should empathize with the victims. But to say, “I don’t condone the murder but I understand it,” is to say, “This is bad, but it isn’t so bad if we put it in context.”

We do not believe that this is a good way to talk about murder.

[noxalyss]

from here

[cherry-chaos-cola]

Does anyone have the direct Japanese to English translation of Ghirahim's dialogue? I can only find deleted sources from the threads talking about them :(

[brokehorrorfan]

True love never dies with Loudmouth Threads’ Bride of Chucky design by Blake Austin. T-shirts ($27) and hoodies ($60) are available through tomorrow, January 20.

[pastaxandria]

The Red Thread: Chapter 143

The Library of Pastaxandria has recorded for its shelves: Chapter 143 of The Red Thread.

Ship: Matt Murdock x F!Reader

Chapter Summary:

The open door of the Kennel yawned wide, solid steel lines rising up above you. A pall of shadow hung heavy within like a physical thing, a sea of black that pushed back against the brilliant, stark burn of the fluorescents in the hall. There was no light that might penetrate this darkness, this cage formed by padded walls and hopelessness, and you’d long since given up hope that some hint of that light might follow you inside.

You stared at that doorway for a long moment, metal cold under your bare feet. “Why? I behaved.”

Hair rasped behind you as Anthony reached up to scratch at his head. “You did,” he acknowledged, sounding at least vaguely sympathetic. “But you were loud coming up. You know what happens when you scream around him. You broke the rules.”

Wordcount: 5,060

Warnings for this chapter: dealing with some flashbacks to her time as an experiment and the Kennel so the usual Child Abuse warnings apply. Not too bad but it’s there.

Read me on AO3 because that’s where penguins hang out

[tea-cat-arts]

(Image found on Haresbeloved's page over on Instagram)

WE WERE ROBBED!!! It's not perfect, and it still has some "limited range of color values" issues, but with a couple more revisions I think the one on the bottom right really could've turned into something special

[filurig]

saw a very pareidoliacoded thread

[pastafossa]

“you knew my daughter needed you”

MY DAUGHTER

DAUGHTER

when i read this my heart literally stopped and i just stared at the wall for a minute in complete shock, this is so emotional

We've definitely been building to that one for a while, and it's something Jane and him have kinda danced around - subconsciously, she's supressed that she truly sees him that way because she's not allowed to want family, to want a dad, to want her dad (because let's face it, that's what Ciro is) while on the run, because it will only make things harder. She doesn't ever let herself think of him as Dad despite getting close with 'father figure' and an in-law joke. Ciro for his part knows that. He knows that if she knew he thought of her not just as family but as his daughter, it would hurt her. Not only would it be something she couldn't have, but it would essentially be an acknowledgement that she'd been forced away from a father twice - the father she doesn't really remember, and the father she managed to find. Ciro refuses to do that to her, and tbh he didn't even mean to say that to Matt. But sometimes when you're angry, you just... slip. And it puts a lot of his behavior into perspective.

[imthebestofboth]

Cal usedthe spare key to let himself into Variel's apartment. "V," he called to announce himself. "You home?"

((because how could I resist yeeting an angel at her when she's been de-aged? Mwahahahaha))

@discordantweave

The apartment was strangely silent for a moment or two before just the faintest little 'squeeeeak' as a door opened was heard from down the hallway where the bedrooms were. A sliver of soft purple light now being cast onto the floor

"Nooooo, no one is home. Please go away" Came a quiet and obviously panicked high pitched reply before the previously opened door was shut again.

[mysteriousgrl444]

y2k beachy core 🦈🦄🌺

[gingerdusk]

Going to do Skyrim tonight playing as Lambert from the Witcher. I’ve got my mods all in order.

Planned companions:

Caryalind Thallery

Kaidan (just 2, not Extended)

Lucien Flavius

Caesia

Inigo the Brave

Rufus