#BUT we also know that they’re identical

[inamindfarfaraway]

“Tim was Duke’s Robin” No offence to Tim, but I’m pretty sure We Are Robin were Duke’s Robins? Like, he never specifically mentions Tim as an inspiration. He never shows particular admiration of him in Robin War. The way Duke talks about Robin (“Batman is on the gargoyle, Robin is on the street”) relates to his personal ideal of the Robin identity, which the WAR collective embodies most of all as heroes for, by and of the common people. Pre-Signal, out of all the individual Bats he’s more interested in Batman himself than any of his Robins. Robin War associates him with Dick, with whom he has numerous parallels, and Damian, who he befriends but doesn’t even recognise as the official Robin at first. He doesn’t really keep track of the Bats at this point!

Tim’s philosophy of Robin is that Batman needs a Robin, that existing as the Dynamic Duo is optimal if not necessary for both roles. Duke thinks those roles are independent. He never works with Batman as a Robin and doesn’t want to. So we know that he isn’t trying to follow in the footsteps of a version of Robin that was first and foremost Batman’s Partner.

You know who he is emulating? The other WAR members, because he didn’t found it. He is the last to join his team. Before meeting them he’s a jaded, self-destructive loner full of directionless anger, constantly getting into fights, getting expelled and running away to look for his parents because he doesn’t trust anyone else. He’s in darkness. Then boom, kids just like him are saving his life. Willing to sacrifice their lives for what’s right. Being the change they want to see in their city, their community. Bringing him light. The heroes aren’t looming or flying above him anymore, they’re around him, on his level - and he can be on theirs. He can channel his anger, find hope, learn to trust. Duke is his own Robin; Troy, Izzy, Dre, Dax and Riko are also his Robins; and so are dozens, maybe hundreds, of other kids. They’re all each other’s Robins! That’s what the series is about!

[paigegonerogue]

Phenomenal Episode

I saw other people posting their thoughts and stuff, so I wanted to as well lmao

Just a bunch of random stuff I wanted to talk about that I couldn’t dedicate a full post to! I adored this episode, so I’m just spreading the love.

If you were telling someone about me, you could say “I feel her love for The Last of Us”…

…sorry

Spoilers!!

Right off the bat, a stellar opening scene. Isaac already has so much presence. The way he just walks to the tank, throws the grenades in, and shuts the doors so calmly is utterly fantastic to watch. Jeffrey Wright is one of my all time favorite actors, and him being in my favorite show is just such a treat.

I posted before about how meaty the characters’ dynamics with queerness are, and this episode feels like a thesis statement to that fact. Everything about it is so well done. Apocalypse kids not knowing about pride and struggling with their identities even after the collapse of society because people cling onto the way the world worked before. Dina’s arc with Ellie is so beautiful, and the way the show handles queerness is just unparalleled.

Ellie’s comment about Apollo 13😭🤣 I’m so glad we got one episode of Ellie being, if not “okay”, then almost managing at times. It’s going to make her downward spiral all that much more painful. We can see how if she just leaves, she might be okay. She might be able to make herself a happy life, but we know she won’t. She’s going to tear herself apart, and seeing the paper worn but still intact beforehand just adds to the hurt.

Take on Me made me choke up. I’m not totally sure why, but that scene exudes this palpable tenderness that is, just, unbelievably beautiful. Also, holy shit, Bella’s voice is angelic. A perfect scene.

The tv station to subway sequence was so tense! My heart was pounding the whole time. It was fantastic! The editing of that scene, the visuals. Right before the infected attacked and we saw the blue lights shining through the red smoke was one of my favorite visual moments from the entire series. It was genuinely unreal.

Isaac’s interrogation scene is so stellar. Like I said, Jeffrey Wright absolutely exudes stage presence. He’s just giving us so much. He looks fantastic, not gonna lie. The sweater, the cooking, the screaming, that perfectly sets the tone of a character.

Ellie getting bit to protect Dina😭 Bella and Isabella are unreal, despite knowing they weren’t gonna die, the part right after where Dina holds Ellie at gunpoint kept my heart in my throat. When Dina begged Ellie not to fight, to not make it any harder on her, it was just about all I could do not to explode. And oh boy, the confessions. Ellie’s “sometimes I wish it wasn’t true, but tomorrow I’ll wake up exactly the same as I am now” is so telling. It’s such a blink and you’ll miss it line, but it tells us so much about Ellie as a character.

They did incredible with the sex scene. You could feel the tension rising up before them. How it was so imperfect, fueled by adrenaline and raw emotion and the need to be close and be together. The Last of Us has really cracked the code for how to do sex scenes well, and that’s not to make them sex scenes at all. They aren’t there for enjoyment, they’re there for the characters. It was really, really well written.

“I’m gonna be a dad”😭🤣 I would die for Ellie. And I probably will die, because oh my gosh Craig is twisting the knife!

I genuinely deeply love every single episode, but this is one of my new favorites. It was just pitch-perfect. 10/10, 100%, 5 stars, masterpiece.

[andrewsleftarmband]

Everytime someone draws the twinyards as the twinkyards I take psychic damage

[emmaspolaroid]

happy birthday to my favorite white haired anime boy 🤍🦉♟️

[selkie-tea-tin]

‘Danmei is mlm fantasy written by and for straight women’ is a lie. It’s written for transmascs and lesbians obviously.

[specialagentartemis]

When I write book/podcast/etc recommendations, I try to write them how I would want to see something pitched to me—what convinces me to read/listen to a work. And I’ve got a basic formula down:

Genre

Basic plot premise, 1-2 sentences for a short pitch or a paragraph for a long one.

What does it feel like to read? Is it fast-paced and action-y, or slow and sad, or dense and weird? Did it give me the shivers, or make me laugh, or break my heart, or go confusingly in-depth about the mechanics of wastewater treatment plant operation?

Something I particularly like about what it did. If the worldbuilding was particularly interesting, or if the narrative voice was compelling and distinctive, or the humor was constantly on-point, or the characterization was consistently well-done.

Talk about the queer identities of the main characters after I have done all of these things. This one is optional.

[gumy-shark]

"i love thinking about my mp100 tma concept au" wait come back. keep talking 👀👀👀

ok so first off i want to note that im calling it a concept au bc i dont really plan to do anything with it myself, its just fun concepts to think about, and at this stage its pretty much just entity assignments (with help from skye candyskiez in dms) and a fun venue for characterization. like seriously i don’t even know if it’s better for mob to still have psychic powers or not in this au tbh

so anyways the assignments

buried mob/desolation ???%. in world domination arc, he literally says out Loud how afraid he is of losing everything he cares about (and it being by his own hand/not being strong enough to protect them. both very desolation core). but at the same time the level of repression he’s putting himself through to feel like that won’t happen are suffocating him throughout the entire series. therefore the two sides of shigeo get their own entities and represent the other side’s greatest fear. never becomes full avatar of either but gets close to desolation in confession arc

stranger ritsu. this one was skye’s (i originally liked web ritsu for his control issues) and is bc of his Identity Issues (i mean hell big cleanup arc started because ritsu realized he didn’t know who he was underneath what everyone else thought of him!!). my favorite thing to rotate with this one is like. The Incident (or a version of it if i want to go full au) happening and ritsu justifying it how he does in canon, with “that wasn’t my brother. it looked like him but it wasn’t.” and then ritsu gets back from the hospital and mob is Different now and he just goes “that’s Still not my brother”.

reigen is. see it’s hard here bc his entire bit is that he Doesn’t Have Powers. so he’d have to be unaligned/a normal guy. but ALSO i think the lonely and the web are constantly trying to contact him about his cars extended warranty. so there’s that

dimple. he’s dimple! (leaning towards web for the brainwashing or end bc. well bc hes a ghost. but ALSO because hes afraid of being satisfied and reaching that final end! like thats why he does the whole divine tree arc!)

teru is, in my heart, like if adelard dekker was an annoying teenager. actively working to keep himself unaligned with any Fears and to stop rituals/keep avatars from gaining too much power. vulnerable to the lonely and the hunt but mostly manages to stay human

desolation shou. which yeah mobs also desolation but like. he did very much burn that guys house down. so it can be in a different way. in this au he’d be an agnes/gerry type guy, being raised into the desolation and then going “oh this fucking sucks. im going to stop this.” he and teru are vaguely aware of each other but don’t communicate

[laniidae-passerine]

god did not give me a computer strong enough to run Baldur’s Gate 3 on it because they knew the second I realised that I couldn’t court and keep both Wyll and Astarion, I’d burst into tears

[lavenderjewels]

my only general predictions for jjk is that Yuuji will be able to target the different souls in Sukuna’s body to be able to reach Megumi’s suppressed soul and attack sukuna’s. Im actually interested in how this will all go down, especially with Higuruma in the mix, since these fights can’t be as simple as two overpowered characters with the loss of multiple special grade sorcerers. With the potential of a court trial domain or Yuuji’s knowledge of the soul, I imagine it’ll become more psychological or metaphysical in the fighting, with a lot of good insight into sukuna and/or yuuji, megumi, etc. As for Kenjaku, I have NO idea where their story is going (apart from Yuuta wanting to kill them), but i enjoy that part of the story being unpredictable—it fits their character

[sanchoyo]

whys ygo the only fandom I’m in that’s really populated with crackships/rarepairs out the wazoo. Like there’s ofc A Lot of popular ships but no one looks twice at ‘weirder’ ones like ones where the charas never spoke. More fandoms could learn from this 😔

[fierykitten2]

Apparently Help Wanted 2 comes out on the 14th. Now if only there had been some actual promotion for The Indigo Disk, I would’ve suggested a Barbenheimer-style fandom crossover thing

Instead, can I turn your attention to the fact that F-Zero 99 was shadowdropped the day after The Teal Mask released?

[rotzaprachim]

Jewlipinoly saying. Ashkenazigalogly saying. I think there’s way to easy a slap dashing of a “white” label or identity on mestize and Jewish people for various semantic points

[streetsandsodiumlights]

(tags from @no-1-rosalind-lang-apologist)

By the way "some aroace people still date and have sex" and "it's weird how internet spaces makes every single aroace character romance and sex favourable" can and should co-exist. Sincerely, an aroace person

[lemonynuggets]

pjsk fans don’t misgender Mizuki impossible challenge

[aliosne]

Came out to my mum 5: electric boogalive

[autball]

MASKING MYTHS BUSTED: “Masking = Acting NT.”

FALSE.

Autistic masking does not necessarily mean “pretending to be allistic/neurotypical," although you’d definitely be forgiven for thinking it does.

Non-autistic researchers have been referring to it as “camouflaging” for years, framing it as an intentional choice to suppress autistic traits and replace them with allistic ones in order to “blend in.” Doing an internet search on the term will return several similar results.

But now, Autistic researchers are in the game, and their take is much more nuanced and comprehensive than that. (Funny how that happens, isn’t it?)

They’ve found that:

- It CAN be intentional but is often subconscious and involuntary 

- It is a protective response to trauma and feeling unsafe 

- It is often about suppressing more than just autistic traits 

- It is about identity management and being able to predict how people will treat you, not just “blending in”

Some people will lean into being “the bad kid” because they know that’s what people expect of them. Some people will even act “more autistic” because they know that’s what people expect of them. Others still will do things to attract attention in controllable, more “acceptable” ways to avoid attracting attention in unsafe, more stigmatizing ways. Not because they WANT to be that way, but because it lets them predict people’s responses better, which feels safer.

Also, there are Autistic people who can’t “pass” for non-autistic no matter how hard they try. That doesn’t mean they’re not masking. They may actually be working hard to suppress A LOT, they just can’t do everything to neuronormative standards.

None of these people will be accused of “blending in,” yet they are still masking their hearts out. When we assume they are not, we miss all the harm that masking is causing them. But they are suppressing themselves and suffering the consequences of that just as much as any Autistic person whose mask successfully says, “Hey, I’m just like you!”

(For more on this, please see the work of Dr. Amy Pearson and Kieran Rose.)