#rage inducing.

[charlietheepicwriter7]

S̶̤̋̉t̸o̶̝̍r̵̛͠m̸̠͌͝

Look, I know I promised a continuation of "Get in the Water," but I had this idea and just had to write it, okay? So this is the non-canon sequel, the canon one is still in progress.

They escaped. Batman dragged Damian's frozen body away from the Lazarus Pit and through the tunnels as Danyal's screams-sobs-wails echoed behind them. Eventually the sound ebbed away and they emerged to the surface.

A debrief was demanded from everyone; even Todd was in the Cave. Damian trembled, his only sign of distress, his mind stuck on Danyal's face, his brother's voice rebounding around his head.

Father's debrief had been rough. Damian could barely explain what happened, why he was drawn to the waters, why Danyal wanted to drown him. He'd only explained the Danyal was someone he'd killed while with the League, and Father was the only one to doubt his explanation.

Damian took the first opportunity to escape to the showers. Stripping down, Damian turned the faucet and the bathroom lit up bright green.

He flinched away, and when he opened his eyes, the water was just water. A stone sunk into his stomach.

The next day, while Father was consulting with Justice League Dark, Grayson and Drake returned to the caves for their own investigation of the Pits. And while they found the cavern--found by tracking the batarang Father threw--it was desert dry. There was no sign of Lazarus Water, nor did it look like it had ever been there.

That night, as Damian was washing his face before bed, he filled the sink basin with water. He turned away for one second, but when he looked back, he almost dipped his face under the green slime oozing out the spout. He bolted, and when he returned with a startled Father, the water had returned to normal.

Grayson insisted on taking him out for lunch the following day, citing that Damian needed a "break." Damian was furious, but allowed it; Justice League Dark was visiting the cave to discuss the... incident, and Damian wanted to interrogate them. He... he needed to know if that was really Danyal or not. If his sweet brother could have been twisted after his murder into that monster, that Siren crooning at him to choose to die.

He'd never contemplated the fate of his brother's immortal soul before. Had he done this to him? Could Damian had avoided this by killing him honorably, instead of cowardly poisoning Danyal so he'd pass away in his sleep?

Damian allowed Grayson order for him. He wasn't hungry. The clouds above swirled ominously as he followed Grayson to a nearby awning with a picnic bench underneath.

Grayson took a bite of his gyro. "So? How have you been coping these past few days?"

"I'm not an invalid, Grayson," Damian hissed, glaring. "I'm fine."

A frozen breath brushed across his ear. "Ĺ̶̥̲̪̀̐ỉ̷̢̜̚a̴̧͖͛r̶̺̫̾͗̃͜,̶͕̐" Danyal whispered in his ear.

Grayson didn't notice or hear Danyal's voice. "You see, I don't believe you. One of your dead League friends is supernaturally gunning for you, Dami; it's normal to feel out of sorts."

Damian scoffed. "Nothing about this situation is normal."

He looked down at his food and sighed. "Yeah, that's for sure. I'm sorry, Damian. I wish this wasn't happening to you."

"And I wish the creature would just attack already," Damian griped. "It's the waiting that will kill me, not that fake."

Like someone had been listening, the sky opened up and it rained green throughout Gotham.

[ewwww-what]

I mean??? That’s one way to get him to stop picking on you I guess?????

[earlgraytay]

Oh, my godddd, miss me with this shit.

Stimming just means 'self-stimulating behaviour". It is anything one does to give oneself A Good Sensory Feeling. That can mean flapping and rocking and spinning but it can also mean twirling your hair, chewing your pencil, blinking repeatedly, singing (under your breath or otherwise), and playing with fucking stim toys...

and everyone stims. I mean everyone. Your mom stims. Your therapist stims. Ableist Neurotypical Steve From Marketing stims. e v e r y o n e no exceptions.

autistic people stim MORE often than neurotypical people and in different ways, for a wide variety of reasons. but you can't gatekeep basic human behaviour because you're tired of people on the internet thinking you're cringe or whatever, jfc

[mikakuna]

i am once again begging for jason fic recs but this time i'm gonna be more specific. pls plsss share any fics you guys have read that doesn't include pit madness, jason apologizing to tim, jason feeling bad about what he did to tim, or anything to do with tim. if it has to do with tim, i hope it's someone acknowledging tim's role in badmouthing robin jason (literally impossible i think) or them only having a relationship if it's not built on jason feeling guilty and tim being a baby twink

[anghraine]

Is there a good post outlining all the evidence against Gaiman? I know the podcast has it and that's what people pointed to me, but considering it has been days I was wondering if someone had gathered it all into seperate post so one does not have to listen to someone advertising their work every few minutes in order to listen to the important parts.

Belatedly (given that at least three other women have accused him since my post), there are some. The best of the original ones is probably "Manufacturing Consent" by Annabel Ross, but there are also transcriptions of the original accusations that, iirc, weed out some of the editorializing and focus on the raw material (which is, just be warned, very raw).

This (long) thread provides the important links in terms of the accusations conveyed by Tortoise, I think (a more to-the-point list is here at muccamukk's Dreamwidth account). I included the long thread because I'm in strong agreement with the final person in the chain that, Tortoise's many failings notwithstanding, they provided enough evidence for the SF/F community to judge and respond more appropriately than with a collective blanket of silence punctuated by occasional cavalier or desperate dismissals of the accusers, before the other accusations broke.

In all honesty, I'm pretty appalled by the idea that, well, now there's enough to start talking about it with a modicum of decency and respect but wasn't before, because apparently it was okay to use trans people (who had nothing to do with any of this) to justify defending a cis guy beloved of fandom from very thorough rape accusations.

I particularly feel this way about the parts of the community dedicated to publicizing news and major ongoing discussions that simply said and did nothing. Scalzi's "I'm horrified, might take awhile to process, here's a link to RAINN" personal statement was fine (Vernon's wasn't), and I don't think every random author was obligated to make their own statement as such. But spaces that exist specifically for covering ongoing discussions and news in the SF/F community not saying anything at all—even that the allegations existed—was far worse and really disheartening. So I wanted to link to a discussion that acknowledges how very few people lived up to their stated principles when there was solid evidence against an influential, popular man in their own circles who knows the right catchphrases and terminology.

I was particularly unimpressed with Mike Glyer's handling of discussion at File 770 and, as far as I could tell, Tor only acknowledging the whole thing on their German-language site. The German article seems to be very good, but ... they're based in NYC and Gaiman is an English-language writer, why was their only commentary for weeks shunted away from the English site? US law should absolutely cover acknowledging the existence of the accusations.

There was, let's say, a lot of disappointment to go around, so I'm also grateful for the other women who kept the ball rolling, awful as it is that they a) had similar experiences and b) had to reveal those to get the whole thing taken seriously.

[seldompathic]

Coffee beans for breakfast ☕️

[dathomirdumpsterfire]

i feel like maul would get into tea because the perfectionism and theatre of good tea making would appeal to his inner neurotic thespian. he would also just enjoy flavors, after knowing food scarcity. a small 6oz cup is probably the right rate of hydration for him post lotho minor, on fuckin repeat all day of course, so i imagine he picked the habit up naturally.

[higgsbison]

It's always interesting to see the different interpretations of Sam Vimes. Especially as some draw him beefier than he's been described. I like to headcanon Sybil's healthy diet has been helping and he doesn't notice.

tbh I remember him described anywhere from a skinny alchoholic mess in early books to a bit soft in later ones, but considering he's super active there was probably an ab moment somewhere in between too, all vimes build valid

[samaelwinchester]

i love the idea of angry sam but when it's just "sam should have gotten angry and confronted everybody" i'm sorry but that's rookie shit. sam should have gotten so blindingly furious his powers came back in full force, lights blowing out, glass shattering, everybody in the room feeling like their chest is collapsing. he wouldn't even be able to get a word out beyond screaming and spitting and cursing and being unrecognizable from the meek, withdrawn individual who was keeping this unfathomable rage down all these years

[throwawayasoiafaccount]

When I see stuff like this I kinda want to bash my head into a wall:

To start off, I’m not sure whether this person was commenting on book or show Cersei, but honestly, it doesn’t even matter because she’s so much more than the ‘ambitious villain’ or the ‘murderous girlboss’ tropes in both the book and show.

(Of course, I do have my issues with the way Cersei was written in the show like most people but this is simply a rant post so I’m not going to go through the differences of Show vs Book Cersei)

Cersei is a female character who was shaped by her environment, who’s insecurities were created by her environment, and she’s a woman who’s idiotic mistakes can be traced back to how her environment shaped her. She’s much more than a murderous girlboss, she’s both a victim of the system and also a beneficiary of it, while also acting as an agent of it to keep the status quo while also desiring what the system denied her.

Cersei is NUANCED and complicated and even now people hate that about her and want her to have been a purely evil woman handcrafted in a vacuum, ignoring the context of her life because readers would rather not engage with Cersei’s victimhood and nuances because that ruins their idea of: She Was The Problem and Always The Problem. (People would rather say that she deserved her walk of shame instead of interacting meaningfully with the theme of systematic gender-based violence that is so prevalent in Cersei’s story. The exploration of patriarchal violence in Show Alicent’s story is done so horribly in comparison.)

And what really pissed me off about these tags is that this person has clearly decided that they don’t care to interact with the nuance of Cersei and are fine with flattening her, and yet they shit on others for not liking Alicent.

Because of the way Alicent is written in this show, she almost always has a ‘woe is me I can do no wrong’ attitude, which of course drives people away from the character (woe is me I deserve to take a child’s eye 🥺). However, what actually annoys me is how she’s made out to be stupid, foolish, ignorant, and inconsistent due to the horrible writing of this show, all of which are deviations from her book characterization. Also, I despise it when people want me to support writing decisions and changes made in adaptations that are downright misogynistic and are meant to attract the male gaze.

But what pisses many people, including myself, off is how the changes made negatively impacted many other characters. Alicent’s terrible characterization is like a black hole that distorts and warps the whole story! It’s annoying af!

So when people like this say: ‘She’s nuanced and people just can’t handle it 🙄;’ I say: No. She’s horribly written and a different character from the book and people have a right to be critical about these changes that stripped a female character of 1) her agency and 2) her intelligence!

And the thing is, there was little reason for the writers to have made all these changes to Alicent’s characterization! In the book she is an interesting character with clear motives and understandable reactions. She’s cunning and ambitious and acts the way a noble lady who became queen would. And despite her clear ambitions and dislike of Rhaenyra, she still makes a comment wondering about who would protect the Princess from Ser Criston, and yet she then takes Cole into her service after his falling out with Rhaenyra. That’s a perfect example of nuance! Show Alicent could never compare to book Alicent’s clear moral values and consistent disregard of said moral values in pursuit of power.

And because of this, Book Alicent isn’t easy to stomach. It’s hard for most people to come to terms with a character like her and it’s even harder for people to feel sympathetic for her at the end when she went mad with grief.

On the other hand, Show Alicent was designed in a way to garner pity, and when the writers felt like her current arc wouldn’t be enough to garner the specific reaction they wanted they would then throw in a time skip and suddenly she’s completely different and yet still Thee victim. She’s designed to be as sympathetic as fucking possible! The camera angles, the background music, and the lighting is set up in a way to make sure you the viewer feels pity or sympathy for her! Cause that’s her role in this series! She’s thee Ultimate Victim!

But too bad for the writers as many people are fed up with this kind of inconsistent writing. Even when the writers created a whole new challenge for Alicent where she’s shitted on by the green council and forced to face the beast she helped to raise, I and many others could never feel any satisfaction as it was clear that once again Alicent was being made to be Thee Ultimate Victim who was just led astray by the patriarchy and was a victim of it and was only just realizing it so don’t you pity her don’t you feel sad for her and now she’s trying to do the right thing so pls pls pls pity her 🥺~ So it shouldn’t be surprising that many people are annoyed by these eNLiGhtEnEd changes that have led to a complete deviation from the source material.

To summarize: Cersei is an excellent fucking character who’s by no means easy to stomach, and because she’s not easy to stomach she’s often reduced to annoying ass tropes by dumbasses who are reading above their comprehension level. But when you actually try to understand her, you can easily see why she turned out the way she did and you can feel sympathy for her while understanding that she’s both victim and perpetrator! On the other hand, Show Alicent is a mess and HOTD is trying to make her serve a different narrative role than she did in the books so ofc people are going to be unhappy with the changes as book readers are once again faced with the annoying reality that the writers don’t give a fuck about the source material.

[otrtbs]

there’s already like 20* carts on etsy that have bought your ahb 😢

yeah and i can’t really do anything about that…

when i decided to write fanfic it’s because it was something that sounded fun and i had a silly story i wanted to tell

i did not sign up for policing every website under the sun where people could sell my works against my consent and i definitely didn’t sign up for spending hours of my time arguing with sellers and calling customer support and filling out forms to get my fic taken down just to have 2 more sellers pop up the next day.

literally the other day some etsy seller told me my family would die due to my selfishness when i asked them to stop selling my fanfiction. it’s so absurd and i don’t want to deal with it anymore.

at this point, i feel like the burden isn’t on me. it’s on the people buying the fanfic. people wouldn’t sell it if others didn’t wanna buy it.

but people are dicks and don’t respect fandom spaces and would rather ruin it for everyone because they feel like they can.

i’m super over it

[feliformiaboy]

needy streamer overload redraw w/ pebbles ..

[glitteringpoet1685]

I hope we get Lestat's "Mummy please come back to me :(" song from qotd in the show, and I hope it has equally atrocious lyrics as the book and everyone cancels him on Twitter for it.

[rotzaprachim]

shows which were cancelled before their time and I will never stop being angry about: the get down, bbc class, timeless, sense8, 1899

shows which I think had a decent run or did tell their story well but really wish at more people knew about because they are criminally underrated: bad sisters (only meant to be one season), station eleven (ditto and soooo good), good behavior (only two seasons but where it went in those two seasons…)

shows with decent early seasons which ought to have been put down seasons before they ended from sheer mercy: supernatural, élite, la casa de papel, misfits

[sporkberries]

I just know their "debates" were insufferable

[er0dedc0pper]

Disabled Marinette is actually so important to me. Need her getting unusually heated during a fight and collapsing, than immediately getting back to beating the fuck out of HawkMoth. Her having the most thick and blinding brain fog, so she doesn’t even attempt to explain her insane lucky charm plans, instead muttering a few words and hoping Chat understands. He does, like 99% of the time. The nightmares she has are insane, like her body is so heat intolerant that she absolutely embraces the cold nights she spends with Chat. It’s fine, the cool wind helps balance her lack of temperature regulation! I also feel like after particularly hard fights, migraines and nausea enveloped her. But I also feel like the power from tikki gives her the energy too continue when Marinette wouldn’t. Ladybug definitely masks her chronic illness, like sorry I threw up! My lunch wasn’t sitting right! And with Tikki’s power, it’s easy to act abled! Though even sometimes, her disability overcomes the tiny god’s abilities!

Also; Ladybug using her luck charm too summon a mobility aid only to beat the crap out of what ever villain is terrorizing Paris.

Meanwhile, Marinette is very open about her disability, though I feel like it would be in character for literally no one to catch on about it. Like Marinette? Yeah she’s just super clumsy! She’s super ditzy and forgetful too! She also misses a lot of school and sleeps like 15 hours! But that’s just Marinette for you! The only ones to actually notice would probably be Félix, Kagami, and surprisingly, Chloe. Though Luka is suspicious of her constant state of fatigue!

Even with all of that, Marinette still helps her families bakery, sews, draws, and does super heroine things! It’s a mix of “I’m actually capable of doing things” and an unhealthy obsession with being hyper independent. Because resting and relying on someone feels like a burden, and the hero of Paris must always be useful!

This of course, ensues a nasty and straight up horrific burn out. Yikes! She’d looks like a walking corpse after HawkMoths defeat…