brace yourselves it's the "emotional damage" page

no cuz the absolute TERROR here in poor Jekyll's eyes… and the apple guy is now reporting him along with the Blackfog crew which means he now knows that being seen with them would not only mean himself getting captured, but them as well. Yeah maybe the Blackfog crew can break out but Hyde cannot, also meaning that he wouldn't be able to compensate them.

when I tell you my heart fucking SANK when I saw this panel. I knew it was coming. I called it hours before the update. And yet it still hurt like a hole through my heart (hahah get it-)

LITERALLY HE WOKE UP AND FOUND OUT HIS BOYFRIEND WASN'T THERE AFTER ALL THEY HAD TOGETHER LAST NIGHT-

I think that little "…darling?" just ripped apart my heart to shreds, stepped on it, burnt it and scattered the ashes to the wind…

Honestly Jekyll was really nothing more than just a massive asshole to leave without even a note, making Lanyon think he's left all over again, for no apparent reason this time. Jekyll literally cannot explain his way out of this without revealing his secret about Hyde and you know what? He deserves it.

Also who's ringing the doorbell? The police? "I'm sorry sir but we are here because you are guilty of gay sex." ????

Today my therapist introduced me to a concept surrounding disability that she called "hLep".

Which is when you - in this case, you are a disabled person - ask someone for help ("I can't drink almond milk so can you get me some whole milk?", or "Please call Donna and ask her to pick up the car for me."), and they say yes, and then they do something that is not what you asked for but is what they think you should have asked for ("I know you said you wanted whole, but I got you skim milk because it's better for you!", "I didn't want to ruin Donna's day by asking her that, so I spent your money on an expensive towing service!") And then if you get annoyed at them for ignoring what you actually asked for - and often it has already happened repeatedly - they get angry because they "were just helping you! You should be grateful!!"

And my therapist pointed out that this is not "help", it's "hLep".

Sure, it looks like help; it kind of sounds like help too; and if it was adjusted just a little bit, it could be help. But it's not help. It's hLep.

At its best, it is patronizing and makes a person feel unvalued and un-listened-to. Always, it reinforces the false idea that disabled people can't be trusted with our own care. And at its worst, it results in disabled people losing our freedom and control over our lives, and also being unable to actually access what we need to survive.

So please, when a disabled person asks you for help on something, don't be a hLeper, be a helper! In other words: they know better than you what they need, and the best way you can honor the trust they've put in you is to believe that!

Also, I want to be very clear that the "getting angry at a disabled person's attempts to point out harmful behavior" part of this makes the whole thing WAY worse. Like it'd be one thing if my roommate bought me some passive-aggressive skim milk, but then they heard what I had to say, and they apologized and did better in the future - our relationship could bounce back from that. But it is very much another thing to have a crying shouting match with someone who is furious at you for saying something they did was ableist. Like, Christ, Jessica, remind me to never ask for your support ever again! You make me feel like if I asked you to call 911, you'd order a pizza because you know I'll feel better once I eat something!!

Edit: crediting my therapist by name with her permission - this term was coined by Nahime Aguirre Mtanous!

Edit again: I made an optional follow-up to this post after seeing the responses. Might help somebody. CW for me frankly talking about how dangerous hLep really is.

What do you think of Rook's savanaclaw card? <333

I didn't get him (and I need to save my keys for Silver's birthday, sob) so I looked up his groovy, and I'm not over how incredibly dramatic and epic and cool it looks in direct contrast to the absolutely ridiculous context. just look at that dynamic action and his majestic sparkling tears and keep in mind that this is pretty much right after a bunch of characters have been dance battling for his soul.

and then even the actual moment of the groovy is just like

this is NOT a negative in the slightest, I love it all, this truly was an incredible update in so many ways

Happy Pride, Ch’en Hui Chieh

Regarding Mina's description of Dracula and why it's problematic, a good starting point would be to read the Wikipedia article for physiognomy, which is the outdated pseudoscience of face reading that is unfortunately rooted in racism, antisemitism, ableism, etc., and was very popular during the Victorian era as a way to judge moral character based on facial features.

So when Mina says 'His face was not a good face', she is not just saying that Dracula is ugly (though concepts of ugliness and beauty are not value-neutral either), but that she can tell that he is evil based on his facial features; note that one of the facial features she singles out is a 'beaky nose', which comes from Cesare Lombroso's idea that among other traits, hawk-like noses are a marker of criminality on the basis of criminals being evolutionary throwbacks who are less evolved than non-criminals; many of these allegedly 'criminal' and 'degenerate' facial features are obviously racialized and not associated with Gentile whiteness, but in opposition to it.

Stoker was definitely interested in physiognomy and uses it as a narrative device to show how certain heroic characters are intelligent, perceptive, and educated on the latest (pseudo)sciences (the modernity theme again) - namely Mina and Van Helsing, but also Jonathan to a lesser degree; we will definitely see this idea come up several more times, including explicit references to Lombroso himself.

It is also important to remember that linking physical appearance and morality still happens today - think about how many people say they can tell someone is a bad person bc they're ugly or that 'People get the face they deserve' where good people age gracefully and bad people age poorly, even though aging has nothing to do with personal character.

"Both Oakes and Grainger have always done well when given the right material, and each has some terrifically frightening silent moments: an uncontrollable clenching of fists from Juan as he is exiled to Spain, a subtle grin from Lucrezia as she hears her brother's groans of pleasure shift to agony." — The A.V club

I am a simple fanfic reader. I see any variation of "Creepy Mori Ougai", "Mori Ougai is his own warning", or "Bad Person Mori Ougai", and I just scroll past

this is my naruto oc age 12 and age like 15 lmao she goes through it

gotta say, I think the framing of Imogen's childhood as one lacking in all parental love and care because Liliana wasn't there is something that strikes me as both highly unlikely and as a far less interesting way of reading Imogen's early life with her father. If things were always as chilly and distant between them as they were after Imogen's powers developed, then there isn't much change in their relationship at all. But if we acknowledge that in her childhood she had a largely normal, functional, and loving relationship with her father, their estrangement after her powers becomes all the more heart wrenching. Yes, he's emotionally reserved and "was never the master of parental affection," as Matt said, but he's dependable. He cares for her, with actions over words. He's her dad and he's there for her entire childhood, making dinner for her, working to take care of her, teaching her how to ride, bandaging her up when she gets hurt.

Then the powers come. The night terrors that sound familiar to him, this terrifying pain that she's in, the way he doesn't actually know what's wrong with her because Liliana didn't know and she'd barely told him these powers so much as existed before she left him. Being close to Imogen hurts her and it also means she can root around in his head--so he puts distance between them. And that hurts like hell for a kid, to have their father pull away from them like that even though it's more comfortable, physically, that way. A gulf forms. Trust shatters. Their relationship deteriorates and deteriorates. More time passes--eight years of this--and they're further away from each other than they ever have been. Neither of them go into town or talk to people all that much because Imogen doesn't want to hear what people are thinking or deal with the pain of it and Relvin doesn't want to bring home what other townsfolk have said that she might be able to skim off him.

That's shattering for both of them. And so, so, so much more tragic than if there was never care or love between them to begin with. It hurts so much because it used to be so much better than this. There was a comfortable familial love between them before, and now it just feels like empty air

pretty girl (who has clawed her way through multiple chest cavities)

there’s a lot of things people made for me i haven’t posted recently and i need to get better at sharing them 💔💔💔 but here’s a c0mm from zuzofait on twt that made the soul leave my body 🫶🏽🌼🌊

Was it love at first sight for Mikey and the tots? Did it take Mikey some time to warm up to them? Super cute AU!!

It was kind of hectic when Mikey saw the tots for the first time ever, while also being emotionally stunted, so the warming up is kind of a slow but surely process!

Batman: Demon (1996)

Me trying to explain to people that Mahiru’s character should be recognized for the complexity that she offers and that she should not be demonized or completely infantilized because she too is written to be human

That her bf was not able to communicate his boundaries and needs to Mappi and that Mappi failed to notice these things, but that it wasn’t her fault that he didn’t communicate those to her, but also that she was reckless and overbearing/obsessive in her first relationship and that she needs to recognize this and learn to do better in her next one because relationships are not the fairy tale/romanticized thing that’s in her head from being sheltered all her life

AND THAT Mappi RECOGNIZES that she did do something wrong, but she can’t really understand it fully, or even more, she doesn’t want “her love” be seen as a bad thing, but she still recognizes that she fucked up in some way and someone needs to explain that to her fully so she can understand and not make that same mistake again WHILE also realizing that her love and her identity in and of itself is not something that should be inherently demonized

AND THAT MORE IMPORTANTLY she should not hinge her entire self worth and identity on this idea of romantic love and her partner

People need to recognize that at the end of the day, Mappi is just a girl who fucked up but she cannot understand why 😭 she is not evil, she is not manipulative, and she is not completely and utterly controlling of others. She is supposed to show these aspects of kindness and selfishness, and how these things reflect on how nuanced and realistic she’s written to be

I know everyone likes to make fun of Ezra for believing Maul, but I honestly really liked that, because. Like. He's been working so hard to learn to trust people again. His new-found family is teaching him how to open up and how to let himself love others without being too afraid of losing them to connect

And he doesn't immediatly trust Maul, which shows that even if his trust issues are much better now, he's still not stupid and knows to be careful around strangers, especially if you found them inside a Sith Temple

But. Maul shows and tells him what he wants to see; he acts kind with him, reassures him when he's in doubt, and manipulates Ezra (who is a CHILD) into beliving in him so he could get what he wanted

Then he betrays him, and by blinding Kanan, he proves Ezra's 'little me' right

Does it burn?