#Internal Wellness

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

It's just guys night talk! Don't worry about it!

(Read Tiger Tiger and shake this man awake so he can finish that thought!)

[callmeizukunotdeku]

"You're lying," Damian said. 

And honestly, Tim had to laugh, "I don't know why you think I am. I asked to keep a cat, Alfred said no, and that was that."

"But that..." Damian furrowed his brow. Tim's voice was taking on a different tenor than usual. Something a bit more strained. "He let me have a cat."

"Yeah," Tim said, cringing when his voice cracked on the word, before trying to play it off with a casual shrug, "you're his son."

And Damian was fooled for a moment. He had his mouth half open to reply that he was the blood son. He was different. Superior. 

But he paused upon the fact that Tim hadn't just made that point for him, he'd given him an example. 

The cat. 

Tim had wanted one and been refused. Damian had wanted one and had been obliged. 

He had wanted a dragon and been obliged. 

But Tim couldn't have a cat, and Damian, whenever he asserted his superiority, had thought he was lying. 

He was lying in a way. They were the same. Tim was a well-respected associate of his father, but... 

You're his son. 

But that didn't mean as much as Damian assumed it did. 

Damian assessed his options before doing something he usually avoided. He swallowed his pride, looked at Tim, and said, "I...don't fully understand what your place is here."

Tim gave him a smile filled with enough sympathy to make something ugly roll in Damian's gut. "Me neither, kid. Me neither."

[dcxdpdabbles]

Danny on Phone: Pick up. Pick up. Pick up. Pick up, please Jazz for once in your life pick up the phone- Jazz's Voicemail: The number you have dialed is not available. Please leave a message- Danny: NO! Ugh, okay, hey Jazz, it's ya boi, Danny. Could you come to Gotham and pick me up, please? Now I know I said I could handle the summer internship, and I know you said that it was a dangerous city, and you were right, so you don't have to gloat, but I really need you to come get me, okay? Code: Green Dog. If you call back and I don't answer, they got me. Love you. Tim waiting patiently, tied up in front of Danny: Does this "Jazz" not answer their phone often? I'm sorry, it's really frustrating when they do that. Danny: She usually has her phone on Do not disturb at this hour-wait! Stop trying to emotionally connect with me, I kidnapped you! Tim: I'm not trying to emotionally connect with you. I'm just making conversation. Danny: Well, stop it! Tim: Why? Danny: Because you don't have casual conversations with your kidnappers! Tim: Really? I always do whenever I get kidnapped. Plus, you've been rather considerate. You only tied my ankles and wrists together, and when you threw me into the truck of your car, you put in a pillow for my head. Danny: How....how often does this happen to you? Tim shrugging: Once or twice a week. Danny: A WEEK!? Tim: Why did you take me anyway? Danny: Um, you know Phantom- the ghost guy? He overheard the Mad Hatter bragging about using mind control on the Waynes. He ordered them to kill you in your sleep, but when I tried to warn your security team, they didn't believe me. I took you to protect you. Tim: I see. And how does "Jazz" fit into all this? You already had me in the trunk of a getaway car. Danny: First of all, it's not a getaway car. It's a rental, and the Mad Hatter put a hit out on us. We have to leave the city, which would be tracable in a rental. Tim: Hmmm. Is this the part where you knock me out before you tell me not to fall in love with you? Danny, horrified: No. Tim: Pity.

[maythedreadwolftakeyou]

look i love Varric. with all my heart. so when I call him the “poster dwarf for centrism” what i mean is. he went through all the events of DA2, and then everything in and following DAI, and was still utterly convinced that people railing against injustice in the world just need a serious chat in order to see his side of not wanting things to change actually. and then they’d stop doing all that nonsense

[fconvicted]

some people!

[slfcare]

the most difficult thing about growing as a person socially, as in getting out of your shell and noticing that you are, is that there will still be times when it doesn’t feel like you’ve grown at all! times when you can’t really connect with anyone around you, times when you fail to enter into an existing conversation, times when you say the wrong thing (or nothing at all when in hindsight you probably should’ve). but that’s also kind of the best thing, because that’s the thing that helps you realize that sometimes, it’s not you or your lack of skills or any shortcoming. sometimes certain environments just aren’t for you and certain people aren’t your people, and that’s okay. that’s human. it’s okay to not feel the progress you have made all the time.

[vaguely-concerned]

the strength it must have taken for illario to not immediately go full 'lmao since when have you even had a kiss hello lucanis' sibling violence mode during the café talk. inspirational. rook and lucanis really were doing all that right in front of his salad huh

[newgroundstier]

wakes up thinks about them until i get lightheaded and pass out repeat 1000000x

[remcadll]

Gen obsessed with how.. *dead* your Jason's color pallete is. Like, that's corpse pale right there. Not a spec of blood left flowing in there (also father Todd's skin being full of color in comparison is a nice touch)

THANK YOU I love making him look a bit ghoulish. Guy who's not supposed to be alive but yes he is. no he isn't <3

[cheesenchalk]

i never know how to phrase it but something about the way beatles biographers and people in general view paul's reflexive placating persona and determination to smooth things over as manipulative or duplicitous and john's reflexive barbed persona and habit of lashing out as brave and subversive despite both being equally defensive mechanisms to shield themselves from the world that resulted in them saying things that weren't true says more about how we culturally view kindness or friendliness as inherently untrustworthy or flimsy and anger and carelessness as more believable as someone's true nature than it says about either of them in actuality

[bluueejayart]

April 8th- International Romani Day

Today, April 8th, is International Romani Day !

April 8th, specifically, is dedicated to drawing attention and participating in the celebration, well-regard, and remembrance of the Romani people, their histories, their strengths, their continued perseverance, as well as supporting the many Romani communities!

Today is, plainly, dedicated to remembering, respecting, and understanding the continued resilience and strength of the Romani people, honoring their rich histories and cultures, as well as paying honor and tribute to the strength of those who have overcome all genocides, enslavement, continued injustice, and calling for the rights and regards of Romani peoples to be observed and respected.

Lots of love and regard to my Roma friends, mutuals, followers, and all beyond 💙❤💚

[neon-sunsets]

it’s actually insane to me in retrospect that viktor got the arc he did. I need to go back and count his screen time minutes, but it’s clear that he’s up there numerically, and his story has so much weight within the narrative outside of just numbers as well.

beyond that, though, is the fact that viktor's narrative is fundamentally one about internalized ableism and the systemic structures that encourage it.

(obligatory disclaimer #1 that I have a significant mobility disability and a progressive chronic illness, but I am only one disabled person.)

imagine this: you are a child. you are disabled. the world you live in is one where you cannot afford healthcare; no one is there to teach you how to even use your cane correctly. your world is inaccessible and, worse, even the people who would normally show class solidarity with you don't, because you are not even able to do what they expect from you. characters like vi, powder, claggor, ekko, and mylo are all shown care and solidarity that viktor isn't — because they are able-bodied and therefore able to "pull their own weight."

this, at least, is an environment that can probably be overcome or mitigated by age and meeting people in your community who do care about you. this is an environment comparable to that of many, many, many disabled people who manage to thrive in a deeply unfair and ableist world.

but then you encounter a man who sees that you have talent and tells you as much. he does not ask much of you and he does not care that you are disabled. all he asks is for some help, which you give, and in return he teaches you the things he knows. what comes of this, after all is said and done and your understanding of the world has been fundamentally changed, is that you do have something you can give to your community, to the world. you have a talent which you can use to make yourself useful. you're not strong or sturdy but you can make machines, and that is always in need.

but you can't skate by on being useful like a normal child. the onus is always on you to prove that you're worth the air you breathe and the space you take up, that it's worthwhile to keep you alive. and the place to go to make yourself the most useful, where the most change can be made, is not a place you have any traditional way of accessing. you, through tenacity and grit, manage to get there anyways. (the show doesn't depict this, but any way viktor would have managed to get to the academy would have involved significant difficulty and possibly deception).

and when you get there, to that towering city of bronze, you find that nothing you do actually matters all that much.

everyone looks at you and sees your disability. everyone looks at you and sees where you're from. no matter how smart or accomplished or helpful you are, your behavior will always be, in their eyes, representative of your people. you could handle the stares, the rejection. but their judgement is dangerous to you and your people.

so, in order to survive, you must be perfect. you must project confidence or at least indifference to their cruelty. you must do as you're told and accept meager promotions and toil away as an assistant. you might be the only disabled zaunite they'll ever meet, so you have to make it count. if you fail, if they decide everyone from the undercity is lazy and useless, it's your fault.

you tell yourself you won't let them get to you. you tell yourself that you believe in your abilities.

it's a convenient narrative, and it's wholly untrue.

you, after all, are only a human being. a lifetime of the chips stacked against you is nearly impossible to overcome.

and so the image you build of yourself is that of a man far more self-confident than you, one who is quiet and reserved but proud of his accomplishments. the man you actually are, though, is one desperate for acceptance. desperate to assimilate. you chase your dreams, yes, but you can't bear to take credit, can't bear to be the face of them. you don't let yourself get close to anyone except the man you've built all of this with, who you love more than anyone else. you don't let anyone touch you (except him) and you don't touch anyone. you convince yourself you don't deserve his love or anyone's, that you're not whole enough for that.

you take it so far that, when you finally have the technology you think can cure your terminal illness, the first thing you try to fix is your leg. not the thing eating at your lungs and cutting short the time you thought you had, but the leg which has marked you as Other your entire life. and even though it doesn't quite work, even though it still causes you pain with every step, you force yourself to run on it — faster and faster until you're outrunning the ships and screaming because you may have visibly "fixed" your leg but it still hurts the same.

and when the system is not only oppressive in the material sense but also set up to make you hate yourself, there is almost no escaping this cycle of self-hatred. throw in the fact that in season 2 viktor keeps getting tossed from resurrection to resurrection against his will and it's no wonder the man did the things he did. it doesn't excuse them by any means, but arcane is not interested in excuses — it's interested in what makes people do the things they do. everything that he did to the people in the commune was a reflection of his own self-hatred, both because he still possessed it after death but also because, since he was programming the hexcore to try and save his life but started with "fixing" his leg, it is designed to make people as physically "normal" as possible. the faceless, identical machine people are a metaphorical representation of the ideology viktor has bought into in his pursuit of self-hatred and internalized ableism. his whole arc across both seasons is a demonstration and condemnation of the ways that systems of oppression reinforce self-hatred in the people they are oppressing.

obligatory disclaimer #2 that I don't think arcane did everything right. I'm frustrated with the direction of season 2 away from the piltover/zaun class conflict and towards the broader league of legends universe. but I do think, as a disabled person with a very similar experience of my disability to viktor, that this arc is well-done and very compelling. in the end, what saves the world is viktor accepting that he is deserving of being loved. I'm going to be thinking about this one for a good long while.

[boarloved-art]

Wei Wuxian should be able to get drunk for once. I think he'd either be singing bawdy drinking songs on the roof of the Jingshi or he'd be getting irrevocably lost no matter where he is. He's found in the bushes behind the mountains like a cryptid, and then he's like "I can't believe you all got lost" (extremely slurred) as if he didn't get embarrassed by something Lan Wangji had said and just somehow disappeared when everyone looked back at him

oh ABSOLUTELY im walking with u and nodding and agreeing, i can see him becoming an absolute menace to keep track of at his drunkest.

anyway heres wonderwall The Gang (Wangxian & their fave group of ducklings) in a city known for its STRONG wine and wuxian being like well. ur all grown now, youre technically not juniors anymore. we have to see whos lasting the longest against this stuff!, smash cut to a suspiciously wei ying-less group of the worlds drunkest cultivators being wrangled through the woods by designated driver hanguang-jun, with at least 2 of them clinging to his robes at all times.

[wu-does-art]

misc solangelo pen doodles

[sunlight-shunlight]

anyway i think i got more followers since the last time i mentioned this! and it is one of the funniest parts of dai, to me. everyone needs to know about the temple(?) jail(?) where solas pretends to be illiterate

"indecipherable" yeah. i'm sure.

[megamindsupremacy]

The funniest thing about Captain Marvel’s powers is that he can always, in every situation where he does something weird or suspicious, claim “a wizard did it”. And not only can the League not argue with this for lack of proof, but something like 70% of the time, a wizard actually literally did this. This guy has to deal with The Wizard who will just randomly magic at him and nobody can stop him.