#and for her own safety in the US

[pinacoladamatata]

blink and you'll miss it moments around skyhold....

[shesnake]

"Wait."

The Acolyte (2024) by Leslye Headland

[be-an-echo]

Merry Christmas guyyyss🎄

[coochiequeens]

There's something satisfying about when an abusive man is called out by other men. Or at least one man.

Rest In Infamy, You Haunted Castle

Why I believe the Neil Gaiman accusations

By GRAHAM LINEHAN JUL 19, 2024

I only met Neil Gaiman once, at an upscale dinner party where Derren Brown had been hired to do magic tricks like in the old-timey days. Between astonishments, Gaiman and I withdrew to a quiet corner where I pretended to be pleased that he was giving me a signed copy of ‘Sandman’. One of the unexpected advantages of being cancelled is telling people who took part in my harassment what I really think about their work, but this was a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, so I said the right things and we went back to being bamboozled by Brown’s invisible craft.

To give credit where it’s due, I later read Gaiman’s ‘Coraline’ to my kids which had them simultaneously terrified and hooked, and thanked him for it. Whatever my feelings about his earlier work, he was a real writer, practising his own invisible craft. From the evidence of that book, I thought he was probably a decent person too, an impression that continued until 2022, when we started to get into it over The Issue.

I may have asked why he wasn’t speaking out on behalf of JK Rowling, who was undergoing one of her regular cancellations for refusing to pander to the spoilt brats who loved her books but missed their meaning. A big name like his might have shifted the conversation and given her some much-needed support. He might perhaps have persuaded some of his fans to give the matter another look. This was when I assumed people like him acknowledged biological reality but worried about ‘coming out of the closet’, as it were. It took me years to realise that almost every celebrity mate of mine believed, or was pretending to believe, in the fashionable, American mind-cancer of ’gender’.

But back then, I was still astonished to find that he was a carrier of the virus, the mass delusion that by sheer coincidence, turned up after the arrival of the Internet. Whether it was Bill Bailey or Neil Hannon, Robin Ince or Matt Lucas, Arthur Mathews or Jimmy Mulville, it was always the same story. A sudden cloud of amnesia would form around my celebrity mates, a real peasouper, from which they suddenly could not see why we need female-only spaces, or why unhappy teenage girls will not find a miraculous cure for their woes in a double mastectomy. Far from sharing any of my urgency in the need to stop children from being irreversibly harmed in gender clinics, they instead downplayed, deflected and dismissed. “I never ask you to join in with my animal activism” grumbled Neil Hannon on one of the occasions I begged for his support.

“Couldn’t you pretend women and children are animals?” I thought.

My usual trajectory during these conversations saw me shifting from gobsmacked disbelief to fury and despair. The disloyalty made me angry, but knowing my friends did not care about their own daughters, wives, sisters and mothers was, and continues to be, destabilising in the extreme.

Gaiman went one step further. I can’t find the tweet, so I may be paraphrasing, but he said

"I hope you're kinder if your daughter ever hopes to transition."

I can think of no uglier thing to say to a parent. For girls, ‘transition’ means double mastectomies in their teens, hysterectomies in their mid-twenties, early menopause and a four times greater chance of having a heart attack than males of the same age. To have this decaying goth wish that horror on my daughter was more than I could bear. I wanted to rip his throat out.

Like a pair of grappling cowboys falling off a rooftop, our fight spilled into email. I sent Gaiman this article about the Tavistock. It was clear when he wrote back that he hadn’t absorbed it Like most celebrities in this fight, he appeared to have lost the ability to read.

“As I said before Graham, I hope that you'd be kinder if it was one of your kids who wanted to transition. “

He actually said it again. The piece was right there, detailing exactly what was happening to the children unlucky enough to wander through the Tavistock’s doors, and he chose to repeat that disgusting thing. Why?

That same year, just months before Gaiman was advising me on the value of kindness, a 22-year-old woman (‘Scarlett’ in the podcast) arrived at his Waiheke Island home in New Zealand for a babysitting job. Upon her arrival, she discovered that Gaiman’s wife of the time, Amanda Palmer, had suddenly remembered a sleepover, an appointment the child was apparently eager to attend.

So she and junior drove out of view, leaving the 23 -year-old Scarlett alone with Gaiman for the night. Within a few hours the 61-year-old man, without warning or invitation, appeared fully naked and slipped into the other end of her bath. Scarlett alleges that over the next three weeks, they embarked on a semi-consensual relationship, where Gaiman routinely ignored the boundaries she set. She alleges that he became angry when she would refuse these demands, used a belt to beat her, insisted she call him ‘Master’ and once sexually assaulted her so violently that she lost consciousness.

“… (the sex) was so painful and so violent that I fainted. I passed out, lost consciousness, ringing in the ears, black vision, the pain was celestial, you know, which is a strange word to use, but I couldn't even describe it in language. And when I regained consciousness and I was on the ground, I looked up and he was watching the rehearsals from Scotland of whatever they were filming, I don't fucking know. And he didn't even notice that I was passed out. And you know…there was blood. It was so so, so traumatic, and I asked him to stop. I said it was too much.”

Scarlett is a compelling witness despite, or because of, her contradictions. Certain things paint a picture of consent—she sexted Gaiman, to which he would send careful replies—and she laughs nervously when she talks about the alleged abuse. But when Gaiman’s side of the story is put to her, she turns cold as a knife and shows flashes of fury that she—in her telling—young, inexperienced and dazzled by Palmer and Gaiman’s fame and lifestyle, was used so casually and so brutally.

A few years back, I wrote about becoming a sort of Jessica Fletcher figure on Twitter. ‘Murder, She Wrote” but with paedophiles and predators. “Just as murderers seemed drawn to any location Jessica presented herself, “ I said. “My opining about women's rights and safety on Twitter appeared to attract the kind of men who can't sit still during a spelling bee.”

Among my adversaries was Peter Bright, the Ars Technica writer now doing twelve years for trying to buy two children to abuse. Luckily the children didn’t exist and the parents were actually FBI agents. Our exchange was brief and concerned safeguarding. I’m sure you’re all astonished to discover that he was against it.

Then there was ex-Labour MP Eric Joyce, who argued with me about the safety of mixed-sex loos in schools and was done for possessing the worst kind of child abuse images. More recently, I tangled with ‘Lexi’, who is now serving time for rape.

They all had one thing in common. They couldn’t leave alone those of us who were actively opposing the trans movement's assault on safeguarding, an assault that chimed nicely with their plans for the future. Each was returning to the scene of a crime not yet committed, each picking at a scab on their own character.

In 2018, at the height of #MeToo, Gaiman tweeted “On a day like today it’s worth saying, I believe survivors. Men must not close their eyes and minds to what happens to women in this world. We must fight, alongside them, for them to be believed, at the ballot box, and with art, and by listening, and change this world for the better.”

Well said. I certainly believe the women in ‘Master’. During my Jessica Fletcher period (a period which continues) no-one except Gaiman ever mentioned my kids. I think he knew it would cause me distress, and the second time he said it was just a twisting of the knife. Many of my colleagues in the media joined in with the trashing of my reputation, but Gaiman went that extra mile. I believe this is because he is a sadist. I think he is a man who finds pleasure in the suffering of others, and a man who does not see women and girls as fully human.

This was my final letter to him.

Dear Neil

I notice you’re still pretending you can’t read the Tavistock story. If you ever try and lay that curse on my kids again I will certainly share our exchange. Your privileged beliefs are harming children so to paraphrase Will Smith, keep their names out of your fucking mouth.

Thank you for giving me one last chance to say that JK Rowling will be remembered as a hero and you as a traitor to the kids who loved your books.

Rest in infamy, you haunted castle.

All the best,

Graham.

[yashley]

laura bailey in grounded II: making the last of us part II

[thrillerhark]

Kafka being the goofy, supportive dad Kikoru never got to have is really good

[swan2swan]

Had the realization last night that one of the main reasons why Zuko had to take a lightning bolt for Katara was because he wasn't used to fighting on a team.

Pretty much every battle he'd fought before was a one-on-one or a free-for-all. Even before he went rogue, it wasn't like he was worried about his soldiers, or facing anyone who was an actual threat.

So it didn't even enter his mind that someone else was in lightning range.

He goaded his sister into attacking him, forgetting that he wasn't a lone wolf anymore, and that every attack he allowed Azula to make was a danger to those around him.

[razzle-zazzle]

wait what's the betrothal au??

I'm glad you asked! The premise of the Betrothal AU, in a single sentence, is thus:

Cole and Skylor are arranged to marry each other by a contract made before either of them were born, and they take issue with this.

Of course, there's more to the AU than just the premise—how the whole contract was made and how Skylor and Cole feel about it are major questions I wanna explore in the AU, so I'll do my best to summarize them a bit here:

The contract was made by Chen and Cole's Currently Unnamed Grandfather (I used to call him Shane but I'm not liking that name as much now tbh); Chen had the upper hand in those negotiations. Like it was clear from start to finish who was in control. He initially asked for Lilly's hand, but her father threw a fit and managed to change the terms to "Chen's child will marry Lilly's youngest child by the time both are 20" (but with. more legalese). Because surely, Unnamed Grandfather thought, Chen couldn't possibly have children as an exiled-to-an-island war criminal, and surely, if Chen did find a way to father offspring, Lilly would have multiple children and her eldest would inherit the power of earth, thus preventing the earth master line from getting tangled up with the likes of Chen.

Except then about six months after Skylor was born Chen sent several baby pictures to Unnamed Grandfather to gloat. And Lilly only had Cole because she and Lou only ever wanted one child. So Cole and Skylor are engaged from... not quite birth because Skylor was born almost a year earlier and Chen waited to see if Lilly would have any other children, but definitely since they were both young enough to toddle.

Sooooo... how do Skylor and Cole feel about this? Well, for the most part.. they're kids. Yeah, they meet when they're both five and they're given their halves of a pendant and told that one day they're gonna marry each other, but at that point they were literally just children. Marriage was more of a concept to them, a silly thing they could pretend to do and think about that otherwise didn't really impact them. Especially since they only saw each other once a year (and Lou & Lilly would always throw a fit when Unnamed Grandfather took Cole to Chen's island. But Unnamed Grandfather is going to honor his debts, dammit, even the ones that suck).

But even as they did get to be kids, even as Skylor would eagerly await the 2-4 weeks every year when Unnamed Grandfather would visit with Cole in tow, even as they would run around the labyrinth and into the jungle and all over Chen's compound like the kids they were... well, Chen's a dick. Oh, sure, he wasn't trying to make them feel bad about the engagement, but he definitely wouldn't let them forget it.

So the marriage became a sort of inevitability, for Cole & Skylor. When they were 11-12, they had these cute puppy crushes on each other that they would not have had were it not for the whole "you two are going to one day marry and then spend the rest of your life together" thing hanging over their heads.

And then Unnamed Grandfather dies, and Lilly's fallen ill, and Lou is absolutely not going to go to Chen's island under any circumstances. So Cole and Skylor haven't seen each other in person since they were 13, and wrote letters instead.

So they inevitably drifted. For Skylor, the marriage was an inevitability, but one that she could deal with later—being Chen's daughter gives her way more pressing concerns to deal with daily, anyway. And it was the same for Cole—the engagement, when he thought about it (which wasn't super often) was a distant sort of inevitability, like a project due at the end of the semester that you don't think about until then because you've got assignments due now to worry about.

When Chen invites the ninja to his tournament, when Cole and Skylor see each other on that ferry...

Skylor had been sort of vaguely aware that she wasn't interested in Cole that way. From her memory, he was sweet and rowdy, and her only childhood friend her age. Not the worst person to be tied to on the legal level of marriage, but not exactly someone she was interested in. Seeing Cole in person for the first time in years, and connecting that familiar face with the most recent letters—it crystalizes, for Skylor, that she's not into him that way.

But her father always gets what he wants, and the contract is airtight. So Skylor grits her teeth, swallows her venom, and sidles over to Cole to test the waters. Hope he's not as into her as she remembers feeling about him once, when they were younger and friendlier and liked to talk about what they wanted for their wedding together while digging in the mud for cool jungle bugs.

Cole hadn't thought about his engagement as often—sure, he used the new pendant half that Chen sent him after the monastery burned down to finance every meal the grieving ninja ate at Chen's, and sure, he sent letters monthly at least. But the notion of marriage has become so distant and unimportant in the wake of Garmadon, the Great Devourer, the Overlord, and Zane's death. When he sees Skylor, standing off to the side in a cloak but nonetheless recognizable, it hits him—they really hadn't seen each other in years, and he doesn't feel anything romantic for her.

But Chen has Zane, or might have Zane and be lying—and Cole can't chance that. He needs to know for sure if Zane is alive, so he hopped on the ferry alongside the others, pendant half in hand in case it'd come in handy. But now that the reality of his engagement is staring him in the face and sidling over to him—oh, Cole just knows it's going to cause problems. He's always been good at running away from problems—but he can't run away now, can he?

so yeah tl;dr chen's a little bitch and cole & skylor are gonna have to try and work around that

[maideninorange]

Something I occasionally think about is why the spacesuits throughout the Pikmin series are Designed like that (in-universe I mean). Like, what features do a whistle and a glowing antenna like that have as something apparently part of the standard design? So here's my silly headcanon: mainly, they are intended to be safety features.

The antenna? It's meant to be a bright beacon that alerts potential rescuers right to someone in distress, especially when it's somewhere dark like a cave or the dark vacuum of space. It's this latter, probably very common, scenario that would inspire such a design feature. Especially considering how common place space travel is.

And as for the whistle? If the antenna is a distress beacon for the eyes, than the whistle is that for the ears. It's a built-in way to, assuming you are still conscious, let people know where you are. After all, what good will screaming do when you are drifting through space? No one can hear you scream in space...but they can hear a loud, sharp whistle! Also, assuming you are with a group of people, a great way to let them know where you are if you were to get separated during a worst case scenario. Especially since those helmets probably muffle your voice if you're far enough away. It's an easy way to play the hot-cold game of finding a sound's source going in places where such is usually perilous.

It just so happens that these safety features come quite in handy when you get stranded on a planet full of carrot creatures with tall, similarly built stems and respond well to the aforementioned whistle.

[capaldiera]

i started reading this fucking out of character thick of it fanfic like a week ago bc even tho i could tell from first glance it was going to be ooc i was just curious and it sounded kind of funny slash tragic. (how are you tagging grief child death domestic violence attempted suicide on a ttoi fic hello?) and i dooo like complaining And for the most part if it weren't supposed to be about those guys it would just be pretty good so im not Regretting it? but i didn't realise how many stories were in the series and im probably 150k words in. and not much more than halfway through

[kvroii]

I was struggling to draw (on the day I scheduled this post) so I drew a quick warmup sketch of Althea Eigengrau, the personal cyborg secretary of the Ares CEO.

[azol-otl]

Random Jason Hijinks I either wish would happen someday or find amusing to think about.

Rose and Jason break Eddie out of hell and steal his soul back from Neron. Jaime is dragged along by Rose because he and Eddie were “friends a few reboots ago”. Jason asked Roy who sent him Connor who is suffering™.

Pre-Red Hood Jason and Pre-Green Arrow Connor first meet up back when Jason was part of the All-Caste hunting a demon. It’s a one-shot adventure and the things you have to know are:  

a) this is before Jason’s growth spurt so he’s over a head shorter than Connor.

b) Connor isn’t a cape so excuse him for not understanding demons and fucking up hilariously a few times.

c) When Jason tries to kill the demon who is possessing the human, he and Connor fight about it. The fight ends when the demon explodes out of the person like the Pus of Man from Dark Souls 3.

d) Talia is the one who finds and picks up Jason from the adventure (Connor thinks she’s his mom and Jason just didn’t inherit the melanin) and is also the one who gives Connor contact information for Jason because she wants him to have some sort of friend.

e) They never actually learned the other’s name so anytime they’d hear about Red Hood or Green Arrow they literally don’t know it’s that guy they met as teenagers.

Jason decides to actually dust off his mystic training when Dick walks in and Jason gets hit with so many bad vibes he’s genuinely worried something is wrong with Dick.  

Jason: “Did they not fix the Brother Blood mind control thing fully? Did Raven miss something? Isn’t Dick friends with a million people? How have they all missed this????”

It ends with bringing Danny Chase back to life and the only person remotely happy about it is Jason and even that’s a stretch.

Rose, why are you part of the Wild Hunt?!!!

What do you mean Biz got taken by the fae?!

Roy, why is this werewolf saying he’s your husband?!

Eddie, why didn’t you tell me you were a prince of hell? What do you mean that one of Trigon’s sons is buried in Gotham?!!! No wait, you still haven’t told me how you’re a prince of hell!

Jason and Talia's road trip where Jason comes to the uncomfortable realization that he views Talia as a mother/aunt figure.

Bonus Artemis suffering Jason’s Mom Has it Going On.

Jason gets a new dog named Ellie and he loves her and Dog very much. What do you mean she’s a Blue Lantern!?

Ellie is short for Elpis and she’s absolutely Hope Corgi.

Roy finds out that he has a whole-ass checking account under one of his aliases that he never knew about. Turns out Jason created it for him years ago and Roy’s actually under W.E.  employed as an independent contractor and he’s been making 6 figures for years because Jason never bothered telling anyone that he still owns Wayne R&D.

Jason slowly but surely claims Park Row and the surrounding areas as his territory. It has the unforeseen consequence of magical folk moving into the neighborhood because Gotham is a nightmare to live in normally, Magic Gotham is even worse and the only people who can survive are big hitters like Blood, Zatanna, and Ivy or small fries like the kitchen witch near Leslie’s. Welcome to the big leagues, Jason.

Jason keeps getting mistaken for Jason Blood and it is annoying. One day some demon hunters threw something at Jason and did anyone know Jason used to be in heaven because he sure didn’t and these angel wings are a fucking nightmare.

Rose busts a gut laughing because she somehow became friends with the least demon-y demon Eddie and Jason as an angel.

Jason, Ivy, Sideways, and Impulse (Impulse voice: “Why am I even here?”) vs the Madness Wavelength in Arkham.

Jason kills Joker and finds out that he cannot. Not as in “He doesn’t die” or “There will be a new one” but a secret third option, “The universe literally resets the day every time he’s killed.” Instead of being a tragedy, it becomes a comedy as killing Joker slowly becomes Jason’s go-to when shit goes wrong/killing him is good stress relief. Stephanie discovers what happens because she’s had to write the same essay nine times once. Instead of being horrified they (and then Helena, Tim, Duke, etc.) make killing Joker a gag. The only ones not allowed to kill the Joker are Dick and Bruce because then the universe decides it’s the bad timeline instead of just resetting again.

Tim: *drops his latte on a hot guy and then embarrasses himself in public trying to apologize and becomes a meme.*

Tim: I guess I have to kill Joker now.

Jason and Kory remeeting and wow it’s really awkward that we only got close because of a universe meddler and then you dipped and never contacted me again even though I was a hundred percent serious that you were one of my first friends and are very important to me.

Oh no. Not the talking. Not communication! Kory take mercy on me and just drop me like a bad memory don’t have us open a dialogue where we reconcile all of the bullshit that happened to us and the fact that we did genuinely get close at very low points in our lives and be willing to try and be friends again!

Give! Kory! All! The! Friends! She doesn’t care if you think it’s a bad idea, it's her life!

Gotham Vigilante Tabletop Club (GVTC) featuring Jason, Tim, Stephanie, Duke, Helena, and Harper. They each get a turn as dm and every one of them brings in a different game.

Why is Damian’s friend (Colin) asking me for love advice? I’m a gay disaster ask anyone else please. ??? I guess I can try to help??? Who’s your crush?

It’s Lian and Jason regrets agreeing to help because Roy is going to murder him.

Countdown 2 Electric Boogaloo. Except for this time they were all shoved into the dimension separately and by separate events and there is no danger. It is just a multiversal road trip with the people who vexed you greatly but are slightly grown up now.

Bonus scene includes Jason’s gleeful face when he realizes he understands what all of those words Donna keeps muttering under her breath mean because Artemis was a bro and taught him Themysciran Greek.

[jyou-no-sonoko19]

Reference to The Shining in The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina 4.1

[tjerra14]

really wish I had more time for individual patients sometimes

[spotlightstudios]

I did it boys, three weeks of feverishly thinking about him at work, 12 stickynotes, and a few hours of digitalization and he's alive! (Goofy Ahh Sidekick-)

And some bonus info! Because I do believe with my whole heart that Leon would dress up in that goofy lil wizard costume for his entire school career and then realize it was hella impractical last second and completely rebrand himself.

In the School Era doodles he's about 15-18, and his Pro Hero doodles are ages 19-??? (Whenever he retires or dies ig???)

[pollenallergie]

look i dislike idolizing celebrities but when i tell you that alana hadid means everything to me, i fucking mean it.