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The other night husband and I were watching a documentary about the yeti where they were doing DNA analysis of samples of supposed yeti fur, and every one of them came back as bears.

Anyway, the next night we watched a thing about some pig man who is supposed to live in Vermont. People said it had claws and a pig nose but walked upright like a man. Now, I happen to know that sideshows used to shave bears and present them as pig men. So every piece of evidence they gave of this monster sounds to me like a bear with mange.

So now the running joke in our house is that everything is bears. Aliens? Bears. Loch Ness monster? Bear. Every cryptozoological mystery is just a very crafty bear.

Bears. They’re everywhere. Be wary. Anyone or anything could be a bear.

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i’m sorry kink fans but i just can’t see the suffix ‘con’ without thinking it means convention

‘dubcon’ will skrillex be there??

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I really like the whole “other members of the Batfam can mimic the Robin, report! to a degree where they actually respond as if it’s Batman,” but I raise you:

What if other Gothamites learned to do the same thing?

The first time it happens, Jim is panicking. He’s got an injured bird on his hands and no idea where Batman is. The kid isn’t responding no matter who asks questions, and suddenly the GCPD is treated to Commissioner Gordon doing a scarily good Batman impression, to the point Robin immediately responds

Word doesn’t necessarily get out right away. It happened in the precinct building, so the only witnesses were cops. But the rumors start in bars with drunk men telling anecdotes, with officers coming home with stories, and it spreads from there.

Eventually, people know that if you channel Batman and go “Robin, report!” the bird will go from gasping desperately in pain to a robotic list of injuries. EMTs learn to do this as part of their training. The Bats don’t go to hospitals, but they will let someone do emergency first aid on them.

Interestingly, it doesn’t just work on Robin. Gotham knows, regardless of what the rest of the world thinks, that their little birds grow up to become other Bats. It’s why their rivalry with Blüdhaven over Nightwing is so vicious. That’s their little bird the city is claiming. Blüdhaven did not raise him, Gotham did.

Of course, not all of the Bats were Robin. Signal flipped someone off for trying the trick, and Black Bat pulled out a sharpie and drew a sad face on a civilian’s hand when they were trying to see how injured she was after falling several stories due to a snapped grapple line. So, the trick isn’t universal.

The most surprising one was when someone found Red Hood, half-buried in rubble with a slash across his neck, and barked out the order in a panic and he immediately complied.

It wasn’t Batman who told the city he was their dead little bird. It was the panic of a passerby just trying to do the right thing.

After all, Gotham may not acknowledge it, but all of them love their birds. They are protectors, and not just from the rogues. They help with the murders, yes, but they also do small stuff. Stop muggings. Talk people down. Slip résumés into the right hands, guide people to the right clinics.

And just how the Bats protect and help the people of Gotham, Her citizens help and protect them.

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i really like looking at google image searches for “firemen rescuing cats” or something because you get super cute pictures like

AND THEN THERE’S THIS ONE

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Bruce's Adoption Instinct

Basically, I was tired and had the thought of "what if the adoption instinct is actually like the Spider-Sense and a real thing?" and now this exists.

It started, as so much else had, with Haley's Circus. Bruce watched the acts, surveyed the crowd, and everything was normal. Then a small boy skirted past him, just barely stumbling before rolling forward into a controlled tumble and bouncing up into a few flips. The boy had made eye contact, clearly looking for some kind of applause or coin.

Bruce offered neither. Everything had frozen, time standing still for just a moment, as black and blue feathers filled every inch of his vision around that child. Something electric crackled in his ears as the feathers danced before it faded faster than it had appeared.

Later, Bruce watched that same boy rush toward the crumpled bodies of his parents, cameras flashing all around, and couldn't turn away. There was something about that child, who reminded him so much of himself in that alley, who had filled his senses with blue and black and flight and a shock of energy. He took the boy home.

-=o0o=-

Dick had moved out, taking up a more permanent role with the Titans and leaving Bruce's evening patrols feeling empty. He made his way back to where he'd left the Batmobile, only to find a small figure working at the tires, 3 hubcaps already removed and leaning against the alley's wall.

Bruce made his next step scuff on the ground, drawing the kid's gaze. They made eye contact and, for the second time, Bruce's vision filled. This time, the boy was outlined in red that seeped and stained the black metal shards all around him, a quick succession of gunshots echoing in Bruce's ears before it all faded. Bruce needed to know what that was. He'd never figured it out with Dick, but this was a second chance. He took the boy, Jason, home.

Weeks later, Bruce saw a blurry picture in the news showing Blüdhaven's new black-and-blue clad vigilante, electricity arcing from the escrima stick that swung in one hand. Something clicked in his mind, drawing a connection he'd been hunting for years.

Those vignettes, when he first saw the boys, were the future. Dick was always going to become Nightwing, at least since that first moment Bruce looked him in the eye. That meant Jason...

Spreading red, black scraps of metal, gunshots echoing in the night...

Bruce tightened the reins, shortened patrols, and encouraged Jason to stay in the house more. It wasn't hard, admittedly. Jason happily took to the new additions to the library.

Then he was gone and Bruce was looking for him and there was a flight to Ethiopia and Bruce was too late and he'd failed Jason. He'd failed to defy fate.

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new ebbits! new site!

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Little Girl Part 1

The manor was all too silent, too suspicious. Dick crept into the manor after having not heard a single thing in the main room, which is usually occupied by someone. It seemed that everyone was out, which was suspicious, as everyone was indoor if they were in their civilian forms.

He tried to look for a sign of life in the manor, going through the hallways one by one, until he came upon a door whose lights were turned on.

He opened the door just a bit and peeked in. His eyes widened in surprise at what he saw.

"Daddy, Daddy! Look at my new dress. Isn't it pretty?" A little girl spun around in front of Bruce, who was crouched on the floor, his gaze as soft and sweet as cotton candy. Alfred was beside him, taking clothes from mountains of shipping boxes.

The little girl's hair was up in twin tails, with a little yellow ribbon attached to each tail. She was dressed in a black and yellow Batman tutu that looked so adorable on her.

Immediately, Bruce's eyes darted to meet Dick's and he looked guilty. Dick, having been caught, opened the door wider, making the girl spin around to look at him, then run into Bruce's open arms.

"Don't tell me you got lonely because of an empty nest?" Dick accused, glare only softening when he looked at the girl who looked confused.

"Daddy, who's that?" The girl spun around to look at Bruce, who silently took the hit to the face when her hair hit him.

"....He's your big brother."

"But he's not Dan?"

"There's another one?" Dick mouthed at Bruce. But Dick decided to step up before Bruce decides to make the most stupidest decision ever, like not telling anyone that he decided to take in a little girl as his little sister. How long ago did anyone last visit Bruce, and how long ago did he even take in this girl?

"Hey, there. I'm Dick! What's your name?" He said softly, approaching the two of them. The girl spun around once more, whipping her hair at Bruce's face to look at him, before settling her head on Bruce's neck. Dick had to hold in a coo at the sight.

"I'm Ellie. I'm 3!" She said, holding up her hands for him to shake.

Dick took her little hands, "Nice to meet you."

Dick looked at Bruce, who looked a bit troubled.

"Ellie, could you stay with Alfred for a bit? I have to talk with your big brother." Ellie nodded before reaching for Alfred, who took her to play with the toys Bruce must have bought through express and excessive shipping.

Bruce and Dick walked a bit further away to talk. They were close enough to still be in the same room as Ellie, but still had a bit of privacy to themselves.

"What the hell, Bruce?" Dick immediately whisper-yelled at Bruce, keeping his face still smiling and pleasant so as not to worry Ellie.

"She suddenly appeared in the Batcave through a portal," Bruce explained. "She came in with pajamas and called me 'Daddy'. So I took a sample immediately, and she is mine."

"When did you even conceive her?" Dick asked, a bit disgusted that Bruce, once more, didn't bother using any protection. Thinking back to the timeline, there was no way that Bruce had any relations during that time period.

"I didn't."

"Do you think she was conceived through cloning or like Damian?"

"..."

Dick looked at the girl. If she had been conceived through any of those methods, then she wouldn't be that bright, bubbly girl who was currently giggling as she twirled around and played with her new toys that Alfred had given her.

"I'm telling everyone."

"Hm."

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Alright, I think I like tumblr now.

A pun post crossed my dash, and I reblogged it with an equally bad pun in return. A couple of my followers find it funny, it's a good day for everyone.

That was on July 7th.

Virality on Reddit was entirely algorithmic. You could garner a couple crossposts, but the success of a post was entirely dependent on whether or not it hit r/all--the main page of Reddit. If your post does that, it's immediately exposed to 10x the number of people and immediately gets upvoted.

On my pun post, I get a couple reblogs. And those reblogs get a couple reblogs--nobody really adds any content to the post, it just gets a couple reblogs here and there.

There's a specific chain of reblogs that I'd like to focus on. The most popular post on this chain has about 25 reblogs on it. Half the posts have three reblogs or fewer. Five posts in this chain have just one reblog total.

But the reblog chain keeps going. And going. It breaches containment many times over. And finally, after a chain THIRTY SIX posts long, at 9:30 AM, July 22nd this morning, it hits a popular account.

99% percent of the people who have seen the post--virtually unchanged from how it left my dash--have seen it because it was curated by 36 different people. That's insane to me.

None of those 36 people know that they're part of this chain. They saw a post, reblogged it, and moved on. If any one of these people had not reblogged, the post would have a fraction of the impact it has.

And yet, after two weeks, the post has effectively hit the main page of tumblr. It was picked up, only because people liked it enough to show it to their followers. There were no algorithms necessary.

You really, truly, cannot get this on any other website.

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btw if you're on this site it is your duty to reblog any post that has been prophecied to reach 10k notes. let's all annoy op

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You also have these baby teenage mutant ninja turtles to protect you.

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Very Silly Concept: a show called "Accessibility Nightmares" but it's structured exactly like Kitchen Nightmares. An accessibility specialist goes to different establishments and helps them make their businesses more accessible.

The accessibility specialist asks why the door at the top of the small set of stairs has a wheelchair symbol on it. The owner replies that's the accessible bathroom. The camera zooms in on the specialist as they process this information.

A customer with a service dog comes in to a restaurant. The hostess tells them they don't allow dogs. The accessibly specialist looks over at the hostess like

And there are web accessibility episodes too. The accessibility specialist stares at the white text on the light pink background of the home page like

The specialist asks why not a single product picture has alt text, and the business owner says "Well I mean, it's makeup, why would a blind person be shopping for makeup?" The specialist just

The specialist asks the web designer how a screen reader user is supposed to complete the captcha portion of the password reset process when there is no audio alternative. The designer admits they don't know.

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Short DPXDC Prompts #682

Tucker finally gets his hands on a Wayne Tech phone. It’s far more powerful than his PDA. The universe trembles in fear with what he can do with just a little upgrade.

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I honestly don’t understand why there aren’t more people who, when given the platform to discuss minimum wage, don’t simply distill it to the simplest of facts:

A forty hour work week is considered full time.

It’s considered as such because it takes up the amount of time we as a society have agreed should be considered the maximum work schedule required of an employee. (this, of course, does not always bear out practically, but just follow me here)

A person working the maximum amount of time required should earn enough for that labor to be able to survive. Phrased this way, I doubt even most conservatives could effectively argue against it, and out of the mouth of someone verbally deft enough to dance around the pathos-based jabs conservative pundits like to use to avoid actually debating, it could actually get opps thinking.

Therefore, if an employee is being paid less than [number of dollars needed for the post-tax total to pay for the basic necessities in a given area divided by forty] per hour, they are being ripped off and essentially having their labor, productivity, and profit generation value stolen by their employer.

Wages are a business expense, and if a company cannot afford to pay for its labor, it is by definition a failing business. A company stealing labor to stay afloat (without even touching those that do so simply to increase profit margins and/or management/executive pay/bonuses) is no more ethical than a failing construction company breaking into a lumber yard and stealing wood.

Our goal as a society should be to protect each other, especially those that most need protection, not to subsidize failing businesses whose owners could quite well subsidize them on their own.

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parallel play (liking and reblogging your mutual's posts but not talking to them)

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This is the most powerful call to ratio I've ever seen. It's like she's performing an incantation.