#I know that is the no. 1 ship and I get it but I also...just don't.

[mellowdiplomattrashpsychic]

It's funny with all the sudden parents and all, but think about how Danny being Calico is an open secret. It has so much potential.

Like- everyone knows. They dont say, nobody arrests him, but everyone knows and he knows that they know. It a Gotham secret.

And its just- imagine that it helps cover up the bats' identities? Because Bruce adopted WAY too many by now for people to not make any connections.

I bet the only thing holding them off is bad picture quality, stress of surviving everyday, simply not caring, and/or fanfiction. You can't tell me that people haven't shipped Bruce/Batman. You know how hard-core fans could be.

But now? Now it's "more concrete" that Bruce isn't Batman and the kids aren't the other vigilantes. After all, why would Batman keep a rogue as a child?

It's a stupid thing to think about considering Red Hood is still around and Robin (Damian) has a sword. But really, imagine it?

And its hilarious because people are actively cheering on the chaos gremlin. This is what they want! Sure, Bruce does great things with his charities, mass donations, and the WE stuff going (the last one they think is credited more on Tim and Damian though).

But it's not enough. Legal stuff is slow. Inventing and innovating things is difficult. The whole system is corrupt for fucks sake! It takes a hell of a lot more time to get shit done. I mean- look at the parks and plants around! Barely any, and Poison Ivy was out there killing because of all that pollution and plant killing!

Red Hood was making a difference. Sure, it was still dangerous in Crime Alley, but there was a huge difference from back then. It even impacted outside territories, too. So he didn't only help Crime Alley, but Gotham in general with the whole killing thing.

They needed more anti-heroes that made that large-scale change. And that's what Danny provided as Calico.

Also, the original post had "daylight vigilante turned dark" in it. Phantom is an obvious choice to think about but... but what if he wasn't?

Think about it. What other name could he have that he could commit to the bit to?

I just think it would be funny if he had another name. Not related to bats, birds, or (now) cats, but something like Signal in a way. Definitely a change of wardrobe. Probably uses the Phantom alias for big problems (alien invasions, Darkseid, big world catastrophe shit, ghost or magic stuff)

What if he did deal with magic? He's slowly getting rid of the curses in Gotham which is easier in the day since light weakens them (maybe).

That got off track, but yeah, imagine the drama he could cook up with not 1, not 2, not 3-

With 3 aliases!

(Familiar to anyone? Sorry, had to do it)

Just, just about the chaos he could brew. Duplication isn't that hard now that he has time to practice with decent enough sleep ;)

"And? What did you decide on?" Duke asks, fork slipping from his mouth and chewing, focused on Danny.

The boy in question hums. "Oh yeah, I'm totally joining in on the nightlife."

The statement has all of them stopping in their tracks, blatantly staring at the still eating boy.

"This will be my emo arc, daylight vigilante turned dark."

Tim snorts, Jason gives a smirk, nudging the eldest sibling next to him from his frozen state.

"Ooooh," Steph leans forward. "Have you decided? Bat or Bird?"

"New name?" Cass jumps in on the questioning with a small smile, eyes crinkling.

"Will you be joining us tonight then, danyal?" His twin speaks up for the first time during dinner, eyes narrowed and calculating.

"Yes." Is the short reply, with the way damian's lips turn down and displeasure makes itself clear, the intention of giving such a short answer has been met.

"Danny," Bruce gains the attention, leaning forward with his fingers interlocked and brows furrowed with what must be worry.

"Are you sure? I don't want you to feel pressured into this just because everyone else is—"

"I'm more than sure, B!"

The man sighs. "And I won't be able to stop you?"

"Mhm." He gives a nod.

"Okay," his shoulders sag in defeat. "Do you have everything then—?"

"Yep!"

"Even—"

"B, I'm pretty sure I got everything, you can, if in your opinion I am missing something, give it to me later!"

Danny grins, pushing himself up from the table and rounding around towards the door.

"Besides! My whole get up will be a suprise!! So stay awake folks because I'm gonna blow ya all away."

As he leaves, Steph and Duke make sounds of anticipation, curiosity eating at all of them.

(They dont know whats gonna hit 'em.)

"I'm betting 50 bucks that he's gonna be a bat."

Alfred shakes his head at the newfound excitement.

—

What an exciting night.

There is still no sight of their newest, despite oracle's teasing, having apparently already been included in the suprise.

"Well well well," a sly, yet teasing voice makes itself into the open. Catwoman, in all her glory, walks up to the group of bats and birds.

"If it isn't the bat, what's with the gloomy face?"

Batman gives her a nod. "Cat."

Her eyes roam the group and she tilts her head. "Everyone seems to be here tonight." She comments.

"We're waiting," the man shares. "Our newest decided to be more secretive about his debut."

Catwoman gives him a smug smirk. "So I have heard," a chuckle. "I've come here to introduce you to someone, truthfully."

"Oh? Who is it?" Nightwing perks up, having finally decided to join in.

"Me."

Some yelp, whip their head around and away from the lady in black, gasps and cooing (particularly from steph) fill the roof and Danny joins them.

He wears black combat boots, they're heavy just from the look, but make no sound as he jumps around. The front of the boots look like cat paws, they're reaching up to his knees.

Then comes the baggy black pants, knees protected by poleyn and his belt acting as a cats tail. The hoodie he is wearing is also black, with fingerless gloves (only the middle finger is covered) and reaching up to his neck.

Instead of a domino mask, he wears a hood with cat ears and a dark face mask. Cass claps, knowing fully well he took inspiration from her own get up.

The whole outfit is detailed with orange spots, some parts brown and others grayish.

"Meet my new mentee, Calico."

Danny, Calico, waves.

[wingedshadowfan]

⚠️arcane s2 act iii spoilers⚠️

i've seen the edits but i've not heard a single soul talk abt caitlyn fighting ambessa in the last battle. so i will: first abt how she was able to do what she did, and then the fight itself and what i think it symbolizes for her.

ppl complained abt caitlyn getting too close to ambessa on the noxian ship to zaun, all friendly like this was a mother-daughter sparring lesson, but let's not forget caitlyn is an amazing strategist. she saw an opportunity to not only improve her own hand-to-hand combat skills by learning from ambessa, a formidable warrior (bcuz caitlyn is a long range sharpshooter and even tho she's an excellent shot, she isn't a strong opponent in melee and she knows it), but also because to make herself familiar with ambessa's fighting style would mean to know what to expect.

when ambessa fights dirty as part of her lesson, caitlyn takes her anger out on her immediately and attacks her from the back to show two can play that game. this is a great moment of foreshadowing - caitlyn's patience is wearing thin, she's frustrated with ambessa. she might turn on her, betray her and use her own tricks to do it (of course, her and vi's unconditional trust in each other, something foreign to ambessa, is what sells it). this is just my interpretation and i don't know when but i think at one point caitlyn realized she might eventually have to fight ambessa for real - their disagreements were becoming more frequent, the tension between them more palpable and if she really knew ambessa was manipulating her the entire time like she said...

fast forward and caitlyn's got the element of surprise, sure, but all vi's been doing since the last time they saw each other is bashing people's skulls in at an underground boxing ring (and getting drunk, i guess). vi has always been a much stronger opponent in hand-to-hand combat, she "blocks with her face" and isn't scared to take a punch bcuz she's extremely good at it. she's tough and willing to take a lot of damage as a trade off if she can deal a lot back. caitlyn is a more careful and less robust type. but if you look more closely, she tackles vi to the ground brutally using the same exact combo she learnt from ambessa during their earlier spar. fast learner.

in the last fight, caitlyn gets roughed up, gassed up (here's how she fights in melee in low vision just before that by the way, already so much improvement from season 1), she gets stabbed in the side and leaves the dagger in there (rightfully so - smart choice for a smart character). she's brought to her knees with a gun to her head, and as soon as maddie falls dead on her, she's up again and fighting. but it's not like that doesn't affect her, she becomes slower, shakier, and proceeds to take the most hits she's ever taken on screen, potentially the hardest ones too, even with mel's help and shields. she falls and falls and keeps getting up, showing insane resilience. ambessa can't put her down for good. she's fighting like a woman gone mad, female rage and all that, having forgotten all self-preservation.

like she's got a death wish, she punches ambessa mid-sentence and tells her to shut up and fight. caitlyn kiramman interrupted a warmonger's villain speech bcuz she's bleeding out and has no time for this shit. all she can do before she goes down is try to buy mel time, give her a good opportunity to use the black rose necklace. she's centimeters away from getting stabbed in the eye and she can't overpower ambessa whose dagger is sticking through mel's shield when she realizes the talismans on ambessa's arm are protecting her. so she pushes forward, literally trading her eye off to find herself within range, and she takes the dagger out of her own side to slice the talisman free. she's literally bleeding out at this point but one smart decision, a few tremendous sacrificies and it's over.

in my interpretation, caitlyn regrets going too far in her pursuit of jinx, making vi a cop, gassing up the undercity, shooting with isha on top of jinx, hurting vi, joining ambessa and all the atrocities that came out of their partnership when caitlyn became commander. she wishes she'd never made those mistakes but she knows she can't undo them now. the way caitlyn fights against ambessa here - reckless, desparate, like she's got nothing to lose - shows how much she wishes to fix things because that's all she can do now. that's her purpose, her salvation from her guilt, but also the right thing to do.

it reminds me of her talk with imprisoned jinx and then her talk with vi after that. caitlyn seems to be projecting onto jinx bcuz of her own guilt for what she's done when she tells her she can't turn back time, undo her mistakes or make up for what's already done. no one can. but vi asks her, "who are you to decide who gets a second chance and who doesn't?" and it makes caitlyn realize she still has agency. she can always attempt to fix things, right her wrongs to the best of her abilities. and what does she do immediately after that conversation? she sends all the guards to the hex gates so vi can free jinx.

UPDATE: here's another post talking about what cait sending those guards away meant, how much she sacrificed in her attempts to do right by vi, including a comment about what it means for a sniper to lose her eye that i found brilliant.

[beanarie]

i never wanted water once part 3

tommy is also breakup baking, prompted by my dear @sanguinarysanguinity

tw: mention of parent death, mention of child abuse

part 1

part 2

~

Gutierrez eyes him on his way out of the locker room. "Feel like no one ever sees you anymore. You coming back to the pickup game or what?"

"Oh." Tommy gives his damp hair one last rub from the towel. "I wasn't planning on it, to be honest. Too awkward."

Gutierrez frowns. "Why?"

"You know," Tommy says, wishing he didn't have to, "Eddie Diaz. I broke up with his best friend."

"Diaz hasn't shown in weeks. Probably got injured. You know how that crew is."

And that. Well. He and Eddie were friends. They became tight very quickly in a way Tommy hasn't experienced with many people. He shouldn't have thrown a connection like that away without at least trying to salvage it.

He sends a text, a polite, generic one asking about his welfare. Worst thing that can happen is Eddie tells him to fuck off and he's back where he started. He fully expects to be left on read.

He does not expect Eddie to tell him he's moving back to Texas because he's given up on his son deciding to come home. Eddie invites him to a pre-going away dinner at a bar and grill before he goes down South for a few days to scout out homes. And, no, absolutely not. But Tommy proposes getting a drink, just the two of them. Eddie very validly explains that he can't spare the time, since he's already started packing up his life and he's working overtime to save up for a down payment. Tommy gets it. He does.

The day after the dinner, Eddie calls him. "Hey, man. I know we're like two ships passing in the night, but I didn't want to leave without a proper goodbye. I still got some more shifts before I move for good, but the time will go by quick. We'll just stay on the line, okay? Keep me company while I go through my kitchen cabinets."

"It's good to hear from you," Tommy says honestly.

"So yeah." Eddie hums. "Why'd you do it?"

"Text you?" Tommy says. "I heard that-"

"Kinard," Eddie says, unamused.

"Yeah. Sorry."

"You just didn't seem the type to flee."

None of you know me as well as you thought you did, Tommy doesn't say. That's not fair to any of them. "I wasn't, in the past. Well, I tried not being that. A couple times. It didn't work out."

"Oh," Eddie says. "There it is."

"There what is?"

"You've got shit."

"Haven't we all?"

"Hey, I am not denying that." Eddie chuckles. "Do you plan on dealing with it, or letting it blow up every good thing you find until you die?"

"Jesus, Eddie."

"What's the point in mincing words? You did something dumb and destructive. What kinda friend would I be if I let that go without saying anything?"

"So what's the weather even like in El Paso? Does it ever get below 100?"

After a groan, Eddie lets Tommy talk about his shit, about Texas, parenthood, and chess clubs, for the rest of the call. Tommy can't say that he'll miss him. He missed him already and now he gets to continue doing so. All of this sucks.

Tommy tries his hand at gnocchi made with ricotta, lemon, and pepper that subsequently almost causes a fistfight during B shift.

Demetra favors him with a warm smile, taking in the large box in his hands. "Tom, right? Welcome! What's all this?"

"Tommy," he says easily, impressed she remembered his name at all. He hasn't been to this slightly dusty community center in five or six years. "Uh, this is garlic knots and mini calzones."

"Well, hey. You're even more welcome than before. Come take a seat."

December is a stupid time to rejoin group, many of the participants close to the edge from a cocktail of seasonal depression, missing dead loved ones, and generalized loneliness. Tommy knew it would be like this going in. He counted on it. Everyone will have so much to say that there likely won't be any time for him to open his mouth. He's not ready to spill. It will help to just soak in the atmosphere of unashamed honesty for a while.

At his third meeting, Cal, a slender guy in his mid twenties with a curly mohawk, keeps bringing up his mother. "She never wanted me to enlist," he says, "and now that I'm back home and struggling, she can't stop being all 'I told you so' morning, noon, and night. She never says it, but she is thinking it."

"Is she?" Tommy finds himself asking. "Or are you putting something on her that isn't there?"

"Maybe so." Cal pops one of Tommy's fried ravioli in his mouth and chews thoughtfully. "I don't know, I should probably give her a chance, think first about what she's actually saying before I react. But it's hard in the moment, you know?"

"Tommy?" Demetra says a minute later, making him feel like a kid being called on by the teacher. "How's your relationship with your mom?"

"Nonexistent. She died when I was fifteen." He crosses his ankles. "Fell asleep in the car on our way back from an away game and we couldn't wake her up. Heart attack."

Demetra frowns sympathetically. "That must've been hard for a kid to witness."

"I've seen so much worse since then. People shot in the head by machine guns, people covered in burns over most of their bodies..."

Demetra shakes her head slightly. "They weren't your mom."

He ducks his head, pressing his lips together. "True. It's just- That's not- It's not trauma. I don't fear falling asleep and not waking up."

"What do you fear?" Cal asks.

Being left, being hurt, being validated in his belief that no one will ever see him for all he is and choose to stick around. "Standard stuff, really. Clowns, taxes, drivers on the freeway."

He gets a pity laugh, a groan or two, and one outright glare. "Okay, okay." He exhales loudly. "Ending up alone by someone else's choice rather than mine."

"So you're cool with being on your own, as long as you're the one keeping everyone away," Cal says.

God, that sounds idiotic. "Yes?"

"You prefer it like this?" asks a woman about his own age wearing a green bomber jacket.

He shrugs. "It's not ideal, but as far as worst case scenarios go, it's okay. It's fine."

"It's spineless," says a gray-haired man with a Desert Storm hat.

Tommy doesn't flinch. "Yeah, that's kind of an inherent character trait. I keep thinking I got it licked, then it shows up wearing another face. Scared of my dad, so I joined the army and became someone he couldn't hurt anymore. Scared of people knowing I was gay, so I waited to come out until I was surrounded by brand new people. Scared of my boyfriend leaving, so." He pushes at the skin above his knees, kneading it. "So I left him first."

"You fall back," says Bomber Jacket. Her name is Annie or Angie. She has conflicted feelings about dating a man with kids. "It's easy to stop being scared when the thing that scared you is far away."

He hears Eddie. You just didn't seem the type to flee.

Demetra holds up a hand. Tommy's face must be doing something concerning. "No one here faults you for what you did to survive. Is it still serving you, is the question, or is that just what you're used to?"

He doesn't bake when he gets home. He drinks half the beers in his fridge and does a shockingly efficient job of cleaning his house, while drafting and deleting twenty-seven different texts. He then wakes up the next day, and goes to the pickup game.

Gutierrez scores four rebounds on him and doesn't shut up about it for the rest of their next shift. Tommy grumbles, and talks shit, and promises he won't have much to brag about next time.

[insanescriptist]

Flip the Table

Casually eavesdropping on what should be highly secure frequencies, Jason sipped his beer in a sleezy saloon style sports bar somewhere on the Vegas strip, nominally watching college(?) football; he's a hockey fan because baseball's boring as shit to watch and he's never got the appeal about American football. Football to the rest of the world was at least worth watching for the drama. Something had the Justice League in a tizzy and Zatanna -the one who normally covered Vegas when it came to the costumed crazies- was off world; Jason didn't have the details exactly but it sounded like Zatanna was dealing with some magical planar stuff and was not expected back for at least six more days. Assuming all went well.

So like any reasonable person who's going away for a time, she turned on her home security, had the alerts wired over to a friend -in this case Justice League Dark- gave a list of what was needed to be done and when -the pick up my mail and mow my lawn equivalants- went on her trip, trusting that the JLD were watching over her city and it wouldn't be on fire when she got back.

Such glorious hope.

And thus something happened so when Jason pulled into Vegas proper to investigate a desperate -read last hope- lead on a missing person's case, Jason happened to spy one of the lesser members of the JLD losing their shit in the sky. And so in a moment of civic duty, Jason started spying on them.

Magic was not something anyone trained by the Bat really ever got comfortable about, but chances were magic bullshit was going to intervene in his case. Justice League shit spilled over everything, all the time. Ghost cultists tripping Zatanna's necromancy alarms or whatever they were, was not Jason's business. Not unless the presumed cultists -those that had survived- had the person he was looking for.

No, he was looking at a missing person's case and his lead was 1. cold and 2. a longshot and 3. in a city full of tourists and catering staff, where "seen anything unusual lately" could be "there was this trio of tourists arguing how sex with your best friend doesn't count as cheating," or "someone having a meltdown over the delayed shipping of organic blueberries to the hotel," or "Sarah Maria got murdered a couple weeks ago on the job, but I haven't seen any notice about her funeral stuff on her social media, why yes, I do know she's dead, oh, she's dead and I'm an idiot for expecting someone dead to post on their socials their funeral deets."

Point was, he could look and ask all he wanted, beat feet for days, but the chances of this lead panning out were basically so minuscule that Jason could treat this more as a hobby case while on vacation. He still did his due diligence, asked the staff a few questions, called the guests on the same floor during the time period of their stay about how they found their stay, ran into the dead end of shitty business practices -they recorded over their own records every two weeks- and so unless Jason got the ability to do magic and do a "point me!" spell, the case would turn cold. It sucked when it happened but sometimes the evidence wasn't there. Or wasn't noticed or was destroyed before it could be collected. Sometimes people just didn't remember shit until three weeks later, which with some follow up digging gave him the lead to the hotel. Which got him nothing after that.

As Jason Todd didn't gain an innate ability to do magic that he was aware of that actually counted as magic bullshit magic instead of a couple cantrips, all he could do was get a beer and some food in a Vegas style Texas saloon bar. Which not his first choice, but it was full enough no one really paid attention to anyone. Technically a sport's bar but also very much was not. It was also busy enough that Jason ended up getting asked if someone could set with him at his table -which real Jason said hell no to, but cover Jason did agree to-

Oh. Meta. Jason realized quickly. Oh no, he's hot.

His hair is on fire!

How did the server miss that? Most metas don't casually out themselves like that! Too many people willing to target them for whatever power.

That hair was flaming, tied back in a low tail; Jason blinked and the hair flickered color, looked like normal hair -black- and then back to white fire, then black fire, some tv static abomination of color, white hair and then black hair. Another blink and it appeared to be black flames for hair and yeah, Jason closed his eyes. Pointedly ignored the hair thing. If the meta asked, Jason was judging him for the stupid little goatee.

The rest of the meta was built along the same lines as Jason himself, tall, broad and built. Packed with muscle, which was something to make note of; metas usually were more durable and could hit harder, so Jason casually made note to not get hit if a fight broke out.

Which it might, or probably would.

That's just how Jason's luck ran. To shit.

Said meta also ordered food and a beer, didn't even get asked for ID -unfair bias- and judging by the sound, turned in the seat to look at the American football screen that Jason had been ignoring. His hair had at least settled to black flames instead of the glitchy hair.

Of course as this was Vegas, people gambled on outcomes of games too. Which is how Jason learned the meta was rich enough to blow a couple grand -not expensive in the world of supers- but more than what the average person would be comfortable betting.

There were better ways to piss away money than gambling on sports. Like on over priced burgers and onion rings with an order of mozzerella sticks. The burger was good, admittedly Jason's had better and then some party of guys was yelling at the ref on a screen. And yup, that's some altercation with another table but the barman broke it up with a couple of words.

His tablemate muttered something about the ref having made the right call if one of the players wanted to continue a career professionally and Jason used that as social leverage to get a name -Dan, no last name given- and a bit more in-depth explanation on what stakes were going on; he's a hockey guy, not a football guy.

Some time later, Dan had caught him up on the football drama -nothing compared to the hockey drama- and conversation had drifted significantly from sports, lightly touched on family -Dan had siblings he shared little about other than they existed, which fair, they could also be metas and at risk- much like Jason did -he had siblings that existed, no further details- and parents weren't mentioned. Instead a lot of engineering talk, a slide into ethics -Dan's opinion on killing super villains was very much that some people needed Ended- and some small talk about how Dan's high school English teacher cursed in classical book titles.

Soon the easy joy of potential friendship ended when his phone rang; that was the Batman ringtone and Jason felt no guilt hanging up on him. And again. And again.

Then Dick rang and nope. He was not dealing with their shit. Dick would just sweeten up whatever shit B wanted to shovel.

And then Oracle's ringtone rang. Oh, now that was serious. Justice League shit spilling into his life again. No fucking doubt about it.

"Uh-huh, so what's up? Because I gotta say, I am a couple drinks in and the whole bar is waiting for one of the football teams to fumble or foul up their next play so they can throw down."

"Jay-" She started because much like Bruce, she would rather go straight into the mission, and Jason absolutely had wrong-footed her. Because instead of making excuses to leave, Jason had absolutely stayed. So now she had to rephrase things on the fly because who knows who might be listening in. "Hey, it's on the news that the Justice League is showing up in Vegas; something about investigating something magical showing up."

"Uh-huh, that's not a surprise. There was some magic ninny flying in a panic earlier. I decided it wasn't my business."

"I hadn't heard that," -bullshit, she just hadn't double-checked that herself yet- "but what I did hear that some cult might have succeeded in bringing something over."

"Uh-huh. Well, no one's praying to Cthulu yet, there's been no troublemaking beyond the usual human malice and nothing's on fire."

"We were just concer-" And Jason hung up on Oracle.

He'd pay for that later, but petty was satisfying now.

"Sounded important."

"Was bullshit."

"So an entity summoned by a cult that tripped a bunch of magicians into a tizzy-"

Yeah, those sharp ears were not for show. Enhanced hearing check. "That's a bunch of incompetents panicking." Time for his good guess to hit or miss. "You're not going to decide to destroy Vegas, are you?"

"Done it before, doing it again seems pointlessly petty." Statements Jason wasn't going to prod further right now.

"And what if Wisconson University loses?"

"Might flip the table." Dan shrugged.

"More beer?" Jason asked.

"Sure."

[owlets-outlet]

my mouthwashing good ending headcanons:

on the tulpar:

1. anya tells swansea and daisuke about the assault pretty much immediatelly after the crash. the crew seals jimmy in his room with insulation foam until they get rescued.

( i was thinking about letting the crew kill j*mmy, however. he doesnt deserve that mercy. so he lives and is jailed forever. )

2. the crew dont know what to do about the baby. anya doesnt want to use pills for diy abortion, mainly because thats what jimbo told her to do and she doesnt want to listen to him.

in a dangerous twist of fate, she miscarries, because of stress and low bodyweight. its not a dramatic miscarriage, the fetus just dies in the uterus. anya suspects she miscarried, but doesnt tell the crew so they dont worry about her.

3. the crew gets rescued just in time- anya was on the verge of dying from the infection that started festering inside her from the miscarriage.

immediately after rescue:

anya and curly are rushed to the hospital. they got treatment on the rescue ship already, but that was only the bare minimum. pony express pays only for the bare minimum treatments.

curly is hooked up to a sci-fi mind reading communication device. its not perfect, but they manage to find out what happened. jimmy is arrested.

swansea:

after losing his job and breaking his dry streak, hes surprisingly okay. using his severance pay and his savings, he opens a small business, becoming a freelance electrician.

he doesnt drink as much as he used to, but he drinks regularly. he still buys himself sneakers on his soberversary though.

daisuke didnt even have to beg him too hard to be accepted as his apprentice, really.

daisuke becomes his other child, basically, he visits daisuke and regularly treats the him and the crew to meals, just like he does with his bio kids.

he also takes daisuke thrifting sometimes, judging his outfits on a scale of 1-10.

daisuke:

hes back to living with his parents.

daisuke really wanted to continue being swanseas apprentice, not just because he liked swansea, but because he really wanted to feel useful somehow.

he doesnt really vibe with most swanseas kids, but hes polite everytime they visit the shop where he helps swansea.

him and anya do gaming nights, often hopping on discord call in the late evening.

he still struggles with impostor syndrome, feeling like he didnt do enough for the crew of the tulpar.

curly:

he struggles with his mental health extensively. hes traumatized by being forced into being a bystander and his new disability keeps reminding him of that fact. his old crew encourages him to keep going though, and daisukes family pays for his therapy sessions.

he underwent many surgeries, mainly skin transplants (he still looks. uncanny though), rhinoplasty (more like. he just got a whole new nose altogether) and added eyelids (made his eye look smaller than before) and lips.

while this IS the Future, many of the cool 'solutions' to his disability are too expensive. pony express only paid for curlys wheelchair with a communicator and a cheap pair of prosthetic arms. the motor abilites of these arms are limited, as he cannot even write with them. theyre purely there just so he can operate his wheelchair by himself.

he wants to save money to buy new legs and arms, mostly just because he'd love to get back into weightlifting again.

after being fired, he mostly relies on disability pay and benefits.

he dropped many of his old friends, because they sympathised with jimmy, but he still has a close knit group of friends, with whom he lives.

he wanted to quit being a pilot long before the crash, and his old crew convinced him that he should pursue something new, to help him move on.

with the financial support of daisukes parents (daisuke begged them), curly enrolls in med school. he chose a proffession where he would help people.

thanks to this he grew even closer to anya.

anya:

tried to distance herself from the crew, because she felt like dead weight, but they didnt let her. daisuke talked her and curly into therapy.

she couldnt afford to try to get into med school again, and even then, she wasnt sure if she even wanted to do that anymore.

but, due to his disability, curly needed a notetaker and, well. the stars just aligned.

being his notetaker, anya gets to attend all the lectures with curly, helping him with his studies while she absorbs all the knowledge. this gave her the confidence she needed to decide to try again, sometine in the future.

asides from this, anya took up running again. she runs regularly, planning to run a marathon one day. she also gained a lot of weight after coming back, resulting in a mean bulk, gaining quite a lot of muscle.

sometimes she runs together with curly and daisuke, and curly also coaches anya in the gym on occassion.

the whole crew regularly meet up for brunches and birthdays. :)

[sbd-laytall]

No hate to anyone who ships DickBabs, but I just can never get behind it, and no, it's not because I enjoy the pairings of DickKory and DinahBabs (I am a multishipper at heart). I think one of the reasons why I just don't like DickBabs is because of the way that some writers will warp both of their characters.

Batman: Gotham City Secret Files And Origins (2000) #1

Barbara is definitely someone who can overstep boundaries, but considering she got so angry at Bruce for spying on her, I just feel like it doesn't really make sense for to put cameras in Dick's apartment without his knowledge. To my knowledge, this has never been brought up in comics again, but I guarantee that Dick would not be happy if he found out because he's a guy who values respect and privacy. Also, if this was a guy spying on a girl, people would have more of a problem because it would be acknowledged as messed up.

Birds Of Prey (1999) #19

Dick is someone who has been jealous on some occasions in his canon relationships, but the fact that he's written to get jealous over Ted and Barbara being friends, despite never having seen them interact or having met Ted is just not good writing to me. Yeah, I know that characterizations shift with comics, but it feels so wrong for his character and disgusting for him to have a problem with Barbara being friends with a man.

[malk1ns]

november 22 vs jets, 4-1 loss

someone was in a mood.

this is omegaverse. it's also not entirely what i set out to write, but i got a little lost in in the setup at the start and then sid got a little less feral-alpha and more i've-been-pining at the end there so...here we are. also not nearly as long of a sex scene as i'd planned but sometimes i don't actually decide what gets written! hope you enjoy it anyway :)

Zhenya doesn’t trust the team’s new dynamic specialist.

He’s an omega—they often are, omegas tend to get funneled into career paths that involve heightened sensitivity to smell and emotions young, just like alphas are encouraged towards sports—but that’s not why Zhenya doesn’t trust him, not at all. 

Kris had laughed at him when he first brought it up, patted his shoulder and said that Zhenya had no reason to be jealous, he was still everyone’s favorite omega no matter how many specialists the team brings in. Zhenya had socked him on the arm hard enough to bruise.

He’s never been that kind of omega. Most omegas he knows aren’t, actually—the stereotype that they’re all fawning after alphas, tripping over themselves for attention and picking fights with other omegas at the drop of a hat, isn’t based in any sort of reality that Zhenya’s experienced. He’s been surrounded by ‘traditional’ omegas his whole life, been treated by them and trained by them and gone to them for help regulating his cycle, and they’ve all been fiercely protective of him, gone out of their way to make sure that he’s taken care of and safe.

So, no, it’s not that Zhenya distrusts this guy because he’s an omega. Zhenya doesn’t trust him because he’s a fan.

The Penguins are usually pretty good at weeding out people who are going to be weird about working with the players from their employee pool. Fans are inevitable, especially with the emphasis the team puts on hiring local, but there’s a difference between being a fan and a fan. 

Zhenya’s not sure how this one got through. And to be fair, the guy hasn’t done anything egregious—he’s not touchy, he’s not flirting, nobody’s said anything about feeling uncomfortable with him—but Zhenya can see the stars in his eyes when he looks at Sid, and when Zhenya had his own check-in, the kid barely even pushed back on Zhenya’s treatment plan, just accepted when Zhenya said he was fine and didn’t need any adjustments made.

Zhneya reported the official severance of his mate-bond over the summer. Their last specialist would have subjected him to hours of questions and testing to verify that he truly didn’t need his hormone-balancers changed, but this kid had taken him at his word so quickly that Zhenya was uneasy. If Sid’s checkup went any differently, Zhenya will eat his hat.

Even with that type of deference, though, Zhenya would expect him to have noticed that Sid’s heading towards early rut.

Omegas are always the first to notice when alphas enter pre-rut. It’s less a difference in smell than it is a difference in intensity, in presence. Sid already looms large enough in Zhenya’s subconscious, but when he’s nearing rut it becomes almost unbearable, especially if he doesn’t notice in time to take the pills that suppress the worst of it.

Zhenya can’t believe nobody else has noticed. Then again, he’s been hyper-sensitive to Sid for the last year and a half, ever since he and Anna first separated.

An omega fixating on an alpha like that is something a competent dynamics specialist should have been able to suss out, demand information on, and put together a treatment plan to rectify. This new guy hasn’t noticed a thing, and it’s embarrassing enough that Zhenya certainly isn’t going to bring it up on his own.

Sid’s also normally more on top of his cycle, but he’s stressed this season, fielding calls left and right from guys he hasn’t spoken to in years trying to get info on if he’s planning on jumping ship and being the public face of a team that’s underperforming so drastically it’s a national story every night, so Zhenya isn’t all that surprised.

Sully gives them the day after the Lightning game off, and only half the guys get scheduled for on-ice work the day before the Jets come to town. By the time the special teams units are done with extra video review, Zhenya’s practically dizzy with Sid’s pheromones, and even Kris is starting to wrinkle his nose and cast sidelong looks of concern Sid’s way.

Sid books it for the gym before anyone can corner him, though, which means Zhenya has no choice but to track down the specialist with his concerns.

Kris comes with as back-up, like he always does. One too many instances of Zhenya slinking out of offices with his tail between his legs and rage written on his face after being written off for being overly-emotional their rookie year has made it a habit for them; Zhenya takes point on laying out any problems they have, but Kris is there to lend support and legitimacy.

The specialist—Ben, his nametag says—listens as Zhenya stumbles through what he’s noticing, face getting paler and paler as Zhenya makes it perfectly, unavoidably clear how badly he’s dropped the ball.

“I’ll have to run his bloodwork, but…” Ben hesitates, but Zhenya’s glare gets him babbling. “It’s only, I don’t think—the service doesn’t have any omegas available this week. They send the list every Monday, you know, which of their contractors are around for breakthroughs, but we got a note Sunday night that there weren’t going to be any omegas until next week—some scheduling problem, I don’t know, but there’s nobody they can send for Sid.” He looks between Zhenya and Kris in desperation. “Are you sure? I mean, you’re not just thinking because you—”

Kris growls under his breath, and Ben shuts his mouth. “G knows Sid better than anyone,” Kris says, crossing his arms and managing to loom even from where he’s leaning against the wall across the room. “If he says Sid’s going into rut, he’s going into rut. Not his job to tell people, but we have each other’s backs.”

Zhenya will be surprised if Ben is still employed with the team when 2025 starts.

Ben’s fretting over his computer when Kris and Zhenya leave, muttering to himself as he types out different search queries, trying to find an emergency agency that has a hope of getting approved by the team on such short notice.

He won’t. They only go through one service provider for a reason.

“We’re fucked,” Kris mutters. “That kid doesn’t know anything, Sid’s gonna end up missing a whole week. He’s going to be furious.”

Zhenya doesn’t reply. He has a really, really bad idea.

—

It wouldn’t be the first time Zhenya helped Sid through rut. Zhenya’s own heat is as regular as clockwork and meticulously controlled, has been since he turned 14 and presented for the first time, but Sid spent his teenage years and first few seasons in the league going from medication to medication until his cycle stabilized on its own. There had been a few times when there was no one else available, and they were young and dumb and, as those times proved, painfully compatible.

He’s done it before. No reason he can’t do it again. He was always able to get Sid’s rut to break overnight; if Sid can make it through the Jets game without losing it completely, they might not even miss the second half of this week’s back-to-back.

Convincing Sid will be the hardest part, Zhenya thinks as he goes through his pre-game routine. Sid’s always been respectful to the point of insult about Zhenya’s status as an omega, shutting down locker room talk and off-color jokes firmly and skirting the reality of Zhenya’s heats with a level of avoidance that would make Zhenya think he were a virgin if it weren’t for Zhenya’s hands-on experience. Sid had shut down their hookups Zhenya’s second year so politely that Zhenya hadn’t even realized what was happening at first, but when he’d picked through the conversation later he’d realized that Sid had been concerned he was taking advantage of Zhenya.

He hadn’t been. Zhenya can take care of himself. He thought about getting offended by the implication, about challenging Sid on it and forcing the issue, but then he got back together with Oksana, and after that fizzled out for the final time he met Anna, and it just never felt worth putting a wedge in their friendship just to prove a point.

Zhenya’s prepared to wedge it wide open now. When Sid picks a fight with some Winnipeg forward three minutes into the third, though, he’s shamefully relieved that it probably won’t take much arguing to get Sid to come home with him. Sid’s usually so logical that any arguments they have end with Zhenya losing before they even truly get going.

Zhenya shifts on the bench. They’re losing again, and Sid’s angry and half out of his mind with rut-haze, but seeing him throw punches and snarl his dominance in someone else’s face will never not be hot, no matter the circumstances.

Kris elbows him hard enough to feel it through his pads. “You’re going to do something stupid, huh,” he hisses, and Zhenya nods, watching as Sid barks at the ref on his way to the box. No point pretending, Sid’s going to zero in on him the second he realizes Zhenya’s interested after the game. “Fuck,” Kris sighs, elbowing Zhenya again. “I’ll try to cover for you. Get him out of here as soon as you can, he’s going to cause a riot with the crowd if he hangs around for too long.”

—

Sid’s the first one down the tunnel after the final horn goes off. Zhenya had kept his distance at the end of the game, not wanting to push Sid even further into rut, but even with space between them he could tell that Sid was quickly losing coherency, his big eyes all pupil and his nostrils flaring, snapping at Ricky and Rusty whenever either of them try to talk through a play with him. He spent the last few minutes of the game shoving off the training staff who tried to talk to him, and it took Kris frantically whispering to Sully to get everyone to back off.

Zhenya barely makes it through his shower before Sid gets a whiff of his scent. Kris runs interference, blocking the rest of the team from the change room as Zhenya somehow manages to dress them both while fending off Sid’s advances and keeping his own instinctual fawn response in check.

He’d vaguely thought about having someone from the car service drive them home, but the idea of sharing space with anyone other than Sid is intolerable, so he white-knuckles the drive home, Sid’s scent rising in the close air of his car. It’s suffocating.

“How did you know?” Sid asks suddenly as they turn into Zhenya’s neighborhood. He sounds perfectly lucid, like they’re just having a casual everyday conversation and not like Zhenya’s driving them home so he can sit on Sid’s dick for the next six hours. “I barely even noticed, and you…how?”

Zhenya glances to his left and immediately regrets it, because Sid’s got one hand down his own pants and is stroking himself off. His other hand is braced against the dashboard, almost like he’s stopping himself from reaching for Zhenya.

Shaking his head to clear the fog, Zhenya focuses back on the road. Just a few more turns and they’re home. “Since last year I’m notice you more,” he says plainly. “You know, when Anna and I break up, like, you’re smell so much more to me than before.”

Sid groans in response, and Zhenya skids up his driveway so fast he scatters gravel everywhere when he brakes.

“I never stopped noticing you,” Sid gasps in his ear when they finally make it to Zhenya’s bedroom and Sid’s got him pinned down to the mattress, frantically ripping at his clothes to get them skin-on-skin. “I shouldn’t have told you we had to stop, you were mine and—fuck, god, you should have been mine this whole time.”

“Shh,” Zhenya soothes, arching his back to rub along Sid’s body and tilting his head to one side to expose his neck. He gets to watch in real-time the way Sid fixates on his scent gland, the way his pupils dilate even more and his Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows.

Zhenya was happy in his relationships. Perfectly satisfied, genuinely in love. He doesn’t regret them. But there had been a part of him that never let go of Sid.

It’s all instinct the way he spreads his legs, purring enticements as Sid clumsily lines up and moaning as Sid sinks into him too fast, the stretch painful and so good. Sid was always a little careless during his ruts, always a little more selfish than he’d probably care to admit to being with his lovers, and Zhenya missed the rough treatment, missed the way Sid took what he wanted.

He’s going to be sore tomorrow. He won’t skate well, won’t score again, and he’ll have to listen to Sully scold him for yet another disappointing performance in front of their home crowd.

But Sid’s teeth are scraping over his scent gland, and Sid’s knot is swelling inside him, and Zhenya can’t bring himself to care about anything else.

[royalthedemigod]

alright, so I was thinking about beetlebabes. and, how could anyone not ship it? so, everyone talks about how in love beetlejuice is. but, what about lydia? i mean, surely, she did fall in love with Richard (astrids dad) at one point (obviously). but, after that, rory was just a rebound. here are some examples:

Scene 1: She could've gone to any other ghost (cause, you know, she has that ability), but she doesn't. She goes to Beetlejuice. and, immediately shows him and asks what everything means. cause, he must know everything, right? he knew everything last time. everyone thinks this was an "only hope" thing, but I don't think it was. No, not with Lydia.

and, she's terrified of the other side. she wasn't terrified of him. she stayed close to him the whole time.

Scene 2: as soon as he tells her the directions, she asks "where are you going?!" now, this could mean anything, i suppose. but, he was supposed to be by her side the whole time. "where are you going? weren't you supposed to lead me to her? i thought you weren't leaving?" Until he says "I'm going to the little boys room". Obviously, she gets annoyed at this and just finds Astrid anyway. Cause, she can't make him go with her....but he should've.....

Scene 3: This is the part where Beetlejuice shoots Rory with truth serum. Now, I don't exactly know if she saw what he was doing to Rory or not. So, I'm leaving that out. But, notice how, instead of moving away from Beetlejuice, she moves closer to him. She could've moved closer to her mom, or daughter, but no. She chose to move towards Beetlejuice. After, when he gave her that boxing glove, she punches Rory ONLY. She still hasn't hurt Beetlejuice in any way.

The fact that nothing is making her stay near him. She willingly stays there behind him. Still hasn't done a single thing to him. (i mean, neither has Delia and Astrid. They're all willingly standing there with him.)

Scene 4: This is where Astrid gets ahold of the book, and decides to summon a sandworm. Now, the reason Astrid did this was to to distract everyone so they (Delia, Her, and Lydia) can leave. Lydia thinks way differently. When she notices what they're doing, she looks to Rory and Rory only. Like, "yeah, you're screwed!" She doesn't look at anyone else, not even Beetlejuice.

Last Scene: After Astrid tells him off, Lydia rejects him. But, the only reason she does is because of the "6,000 year age gap". Not "Oh, you did stuff to my family", not any other reason. Because of the age gap.

Once she says his name 3 times, he blows and leaves. She looks back at him like "oh, that look like it hurt". Cause she thinks it did. Obviously, it didn't, but she doesn't think that.

Final Thoughts: I think she's just scared of genuine love. I mean, the last time she had genuine love was with Richard. And, they barely lasted. She said so herself "Our marriage was over before the accident". And, because Rory clearly didn't give her shit, she got scared. Not of Beetlejuice, but of what Beetlejuice is showing her.

If there ever is a 3rd movie, I really hope they get married. It's very well deserved for these 2.

This is the song I was listening to when thinking about beetlebabes, btw. (it also reminds me of Aziracrow. but, thats just me!)

[showsandstuff]

WHAT'S UP!

Welcome to my post where I praise the fanon original league version of Jayvik!!!

I'm gonna be real, I will miss the Og machine herald Viktor. I never played league, and I'm not going to, but before season 2 came out I read his lore and he's actually a pretty fun character.

Then after season two act 1 came out, I dove into the world of fanfiction cause I started shipping Jayvik and found kind a few fics about the league of legend versions of the characters. And here is what I will say.

If we go with fanon alone, I actually prefer the league versions.

League Viktor and League Jayce are actual enemies for most of the time. They used to be colleagues, then Viktor was getting into brainwashing whilst Jayce was a dick and got him kicked out of the academy. He also didn't speak up when some other scientist took credit of Viktors invention. Oh and there were misunderstandings about some crystal...

Long story short, they don't like each other. But in the fics they often times either clear the misunderstandings and make up or yearn for each other whilst on opposite sites. Or they fight each other which leads to make out sessions because why not.

The characters are also generally more fun to read about.

Jayce is a huge dick, that is literally his most defining personality trade. He is a cocky bastard and people like him until they get to know him because he's just such an asshole.

And Viktor is just... Really fucking silly. He wants to get rid of his emotions and says that he already did get rid off them, but then Jayce pisses him off and you can tell no way?? Where did you get rid off your emotions? You've been whining non stop. There's also still love, kindness and empathy within Viktor, but he somehow convinces himself that he is emotionless. It gets especially good when that's played for comedy, which it oftentimes is!

Also, the nicknames! They still call each other Jayce and Viktor but Viktor also calls Jayce "Defender" short for "Defender of tomorrow" which is jayces title, and Jayce calls him either V or Machine Herald, depending on the mood.

Arcane season 2 was too rushed and packed with so many seperate story lines that we didn't have enough time for the characters. We needed at least one more season.

But the fanon for the league version, as someone who never played it, gives me this huge time frame of them being enemies but they used to be colleagues or friends (or more than friends depending on the writer), and then a huge time frame of them being enemies.

Og machine herald League Viktor though??? PEAK, WHAT A FUNNY CRINGEFAIL LOSER!

Now more to Arcane...

I think as much as I love Jayvik there, it's all just too sad, especially if you don't necessarily want to read act 1 fanfictions or AUs.

Also Viktor is super hard to characterize because his personally changes with almost every act. That's why I don't buy it when people complain about the way he is characterized because Ik all yall want is sassy S1 Act 1 Viktor, but I prefer the less confident and workaholic Act 2 Viktor. We are not the same.

The Fanon of League is just, somehow, more consistent in a way, because it has existed just much longer and people probably get inspired by the same shippers for how to write their dynamic.

Arcane fics though depend on how the individual interprets the characters, and with characters whose arcs were rushed sm it's just impossible.

So Og machine herald Viktor, you will be missed. I hope people don't stop writing for them and drawing fanart!!

[oscconfessions]

honestly i dont know if this is just autism blowing things out of proportion but OJ AJHDHDJDHDHJFHF. SALT FHJDUDUDHDUUDUD. THEY NEED TO HAVE AN INTERACTION WITH EACHOTHER. like remember in episode 2 of season 1 when salt was yapping to oj. like why did she choose him of all people AND DONT SAY IT WAS BECAUSE OF THE CRUSH THAT DIDNT EXIST UNTIL EP 9. also why did oj willingly choose to just stay there and let her yap. their dynamic interests me. NOT IN A SHIP WAY AT ALL THOUGH DO NOT TAG THIS AS SHIP. tbh i just want them to actually fucking talk to each other and maybe even become friends? if that's even possible? like maybe we can get a salt improvement arc and we can learn more about her. like why oj. like i know it's her code to be in love with oj but i wanna hear her reasoning. also how exactly does oj feel about her like does he hate her is he afraid of her like I WANNA KNOW MORE!!!!! like i want to know just how down bad salt is and if she can be saved. can they be homies. would they hate eacgother like. ii team i am begging you for the deetz. GIVE ME THE LORE. also only partly related but i feel like if salt somehow got what she wanted with oj they would both be fucking miserable. that is a gay man x closeted lesbian ship if i have ever seen one.

also what if saltpep and payjay were narrative parallels/foils wouldn't that be fucked up

.

[silentmouthpiece]

AND ANOTHER THING

1) Jimmy is not naturally sadistic. He's an asshole of epic proportions but he's not a sadist. Nor is he a senseless killer. Would Jimmy have killed Anya if he had access to the gun? It's likely. We dont know that for sure, but if he were to kill her there would be too many questions, too much time left on the ship to avoid facing immediate consequences (and lose respect from the rest of the crew) and he'd have to fight and kill everyone else. That's just too much for a man who's concerned about his image. If he killed himself though... no matter what happens afterwards he wouldn't have to deal with the fallout.

Crash the ship and everyone dies? No fallout from the crew or consequences.

Crash the ship and everyone but the captain (who was in on the plan until the last second) comes out unscathed? "It's Curly's fault! I'm good, he's not!" and Jimmy gets to avoid that fallout for a bit. And then Anya starts talking and fuuuuck, he cant get out of this one now can he? But he's captain now, so he's gonna take this second chance and not let anyone take it from him. Granted... Granted he did cause the crew to die, but the only intentional death was Swansea's. I dont think Jimmy would've put Curly in the cryopod if he understood that Curly would freeze to death so there's that, too.

Jimmy is manipulative but he's also delusional. This man believes in his bullshit and that made him so dangerous.

He wasn't always just doom and gloom. We mostly only saw him after getting the worst news of his life twice and tossed into a pressure cooker hell of his own making. That he swore he wanted, btw. Delusional. He was weird but chill before the Pony Express announcement.

This man's main coping mechanism is when he's not in control of a situation is denial and when that doesnt work he lashes out. How can anyone confront him when he doesn't even want to confront himself? I know his mind goes blank before he makes all kinds of excuses for his mind to eat up. It's that panic. That moment of realization that lashes at his hind brain and he has to build a wall to protect it. When the wall isnt enough he has no idea where to channel that frustration except through outburts and violence. Someone should've given him a journal or some shit.

Jimmy was hallucinating Daisuke's grave before the kid even died, lord have mercy. He did not mean for that to happen and the guilt was attacking him immediately. He still went in denial mode tho, trying to save him with that damn mouthwash. That being said, the denial mode was weakening and the guilt was coming for Jimmy tenfold. He couldn't even commit to the whole "It's Swansea's fault" bit. Reality was breaking through his denial door and Jimmy couldn't stop it. And it was thus when he lashed out at Swansea with the gun.

And damn... that speech Swansea gave him. A reality that Jimmy couldn't accept. If Jimmy was in a better state of mind maybe he would have understood what Swansea was trying to tell him, but I think Jimmy heard Swansea say "this ideal life I worked so hard and so long for wasn't what I wanted" and Jimmy's first thought was "I'll fix it... with a gun".

... Makes me think how long Jimmy thought death was a way of fixing things.

[xxmisukii]

Oh boy…. being a Jayvik shipper is hard (especially on twitter)

I can understand if people see them as platonic, romantic,… but brothers? When I and my sister heard that ppl see them as brothers, we looked at each other with disgust (we’re not the only one). And everytime I see post on tik tok or twitter that is aimed for shippers, there is ALWAYS at least one comment that says “oh but they’re like brothers” (if u see them like that, then ok it’s your opinion idc, but if you proceed to argue about it NON STOP with the shippers, calling them stupid and delusional, then something’s wrong with you, if you can’t even respect someone’s opinion)

AND they always use these same arguments whenever they can:

Argument numero uno: “but Jayce said he’s like his brother”

like yeah we get it, he said it, but what was the last time he called him that ? In season 1.

He stopped calling him that after.

(And it happens in real life too, you can change how you see someone after some time)

Number 2 “but writters said they aren’t canon”

when did they said that? (I’m genuinely asking)

and so what? it’s not illegal to ship characters even when the creators says it’s not canon. go argue about it with some animators, music creators, voice actors,… because they ship it too (btw same thing happened with Luca)

Also did they forgot about concept of “shipping”?? it doesn’t matter if they end up together or not. Ppl shipped Elsa and Jack Frost, FFS

If Jayvik was heterosexual pair, no one would fvcking deny it, everyone would say that they’re romantic and more than friends (I know this argument is used a lot, but it’s the reality)

Argument number 3: “Men nowadays can’t be just friends”

Yeah sure, but girls and boys always have to be something more than friends, right?

(The homophobia is loud)

The reason why many ppl ship it, is because they have good chemistry, dynamic, lore, etc. and not because they’re both dudes

If the creators want them to be just a friends, then they should interpret in the show more

If you can’t live with the fact that ppl ship two male characters, then don’t interact, easy

(Anyway this is all, sorry about this long rant, but I’m tired hearing the same things EVERY.DAMN.TIME😀 these ppl make me feel like shi sometimes)

[thegreatcaptainusopp]

The Water 7 Fight: An Analysis

So. Water 7. There’s a lot to be said about the Usopp vs Luffy fight, their motivations, and the right vs wrong of it all…it’s a complex situation, and so I wanted to share some thoughts:

The Set Up

The growing tension and activity that led to the fight between Luffy and Usopp is so so well explored in the scenes right before it happened. Of course, events are kicked off by Usopp’s abduction by the Franky Family, and his subsequent beating and losing the money. This, on top of the many many clues sprinkled throughout the early bits of the arc and earlier arcs regarding his own feelings of inadequacy as well as his connection to the Merry, is the straw that breaks the camel’s back for Usopp in my opinion. This was one of his deepest fears, finally realized: he felt that he had finally crossed the line into more than just useless but an active liability to the crew. He admits as much to Nami when he sees her: he’s ashamed more than anything else. He can’t face the others.

Nami’s reaction in this moment is also really interesting. She sees Usopp at possibly one of his most vulnerable moments ever, and she reacts so kindly: she tells him it’s not his fault, that it’s going to be okay, that she’ll get him some help. It’s such a mature and responsible response and out of everyone here I think she reacted most rationally to this whole situation. I think if she had been a little more confident she could’ve engaged in some really good conflict resolution practices with everyone.

At the same time, everyone slowly gets the bad news about the Merry, and their differing reactions are interesting: they’re all upset, and openly discuss that. Sanji even notes that Usopp is going to be particularly upset to hear this, so they’re all already aware that this is going to be quite bad. What’s interesting, though, is Luffy’s reaction: he goes through a similar emotional journey that Usopp does when getting the news, but their ultimate destination is what differs greatly here. I think the difference here is probably down to two factors: 1. Luffy does not have the same particular insecurities that Usopp does and 2. Luffy is the ultimate authority in the decisions here, Usopp is not.

Then, Usopp picks himself back up, badly wounded, to return to the Franky family to try to get the money back. This is a big moment too, because it showcases that he is the type of person to fight even when he knows he isn’t going to win, which is what ends up happening here. Even the moment where he burst in really felt paralleled to the moment he stares down Luffy in a fight later: it’s a really good set up.

And then he gets injured even more, and chopper has to check if he’s even alive when they find him, which is important to note because his physical condition is just dire right now.

I found the reactions of Luffy, Zoro, Sanji, and Chopper interesting too because they get super angry, obviously, partly because of the money but more because of how Usopp is hurt. In one sense it’s funny that they just left him there while they took revenge for him, but on another it’s a little tragic because that wasn’t what he needed in that moment. I don’t think he ever finds out about it either if my memory served me correctly. There’s another layer of irony in the way they all leap to fight to save their crewmate but we’ll get to that later.

I also think it’s notable that Luffy locks in his decision to get a new ship here, right after they destroy the Franky family’s hideout. I think he felt a sense of responsibility for what happened, maybe believing that if he’d been more decisive in his leadership, then Usopp wouldn’t have been this badly hurt. Which is also just oof. Extremely ironic.

So they take Usopp back and it takes him a while to even wake up, and when he does he’s all apologies. The physical framing of it is interesting too, because he’s on his knees and hugging Zoro’s legs and stuff. He’s not outwardly expressing his shame like he did with Nami earlier but it’s close. He’s not really standing up at all.

And everything seems to be going ok, and Usopp is asking about next steps and then…and then Luffy drops the bomb. And that changes everything.

The Confrontation

Usopp starts the whole argument in full denial. It’s a pretty classic gamut of emotions here: he goes full tilt into the cycles of grief, starting with just straight up denying that Luffy would do this, to bargaining by asking if he was at fault in this situation and trying to convince the others to let him continue fixing the ship. He’s clearly feeling a lot of guilt here: he believes he is directly responsible for the Merry’s “death” as it were and is scrambling trying to take responsibility for fixing her. I think everyone else was taken aback by the level that this guilt went and were wholly unprepared to deal with it. Luffy yelling that he isn’t a carpenter I think was him trying to talk him down but ultimately had the exact opposite effect: all Usopp heard was he had no expertise in this and was useless, and may have even harmed Merry further or out her in this situation to begin with.

This snaps Usopp into the anger stage, and this is where it really starts to get ugly. It’s notable to me that he’s the one that escalated by grabbing at Luffy’s shirt and yelling at him that he excepted better, which were intended to hurt I think. Luffy though gives as good as he gets, and is the one that actually turns the confrontation violent: knocking a grave injured Usopp down. In short: he doesn’t descalate or calm the situation, but instead adds to it. The way his temper is so hair trigger in this scene is extremely interesting to me.

Nobody else intervenes either (at least not yet). All of them try on occasion to tell them to calm down or stop fighting but not more than that. Not even Zoro steps in at this stage, which I found super interesting. Nami tries to tell Usopp at one point that Luffy had a similar emotional reaction ti him about this choice, but Luffy stops her. Funnily enough I think if he hadn’t she may have been able to calm things down a bit here.

It’s not until Luffy is right about to tell Usopp to leave, it’s practically already left his mouth, that someone actually steps in here. And it’s SANJI. Sanji, who knows very well how it feels to be told you don’t belong somewhere anymore. Sanji physically knocks Luffy back and he does it with FORCE, and it’s him who desperately tries to wrangle some control back of the situation. And the thing is: it almost works! Everyone listens to him, nobody objects to his methods, and Luffy actually starts to reign himself back and apologizes!

But it’s a bell that can’t be unrung at this point. Usopp has heard what he heard and has made his decision. What’s interesting here though, and what I realized upon rereading it, was how self aware Usopp was at this stage about the whole thing? Like he was fully aware that he was substituting himself in for the Merry and straight up tells the crew that he thinks he’s useless and that they should get rid of him in the same way that the did the ship. Like…he’s not subtle at ALL about this, and about the reasons why he’s behaving the way he does. He knows exactly why! And he tells them! I honestly credit him for that in a way…he’s spiraling here but he’s aware of it, and he’s aware of exactly what he’s feeling and why. The way this fight is remembered and discussed in fandom I feel is he’s characterized as throwing a tantrum about it but this really isn’t what happened here at all.

Nobody really pulls him back on his statements: I think they were too shocked here to really know what to do. Chopper is falling apart emotionally, Nami is trying to get him to hang back and wait, Sanji even starts yelling at Usopp to come back. Zoro…Zoro says nothing, which interested me a lot too. He does however have a flashback to him being the one to invite Usopp on board, which I have a LOT of thoughts about. From Alabasta, Zoro has been privy to a lot of Usopp moments that were important turning points for him: carrying dalton up the mountain, expressing doubt after long ring long land, etc. I think he’s thinking of those things here too. I think he’s feeling a sense of responsibility here that he doesn’t know what to do with.

Luffy says nothing too. He looks angry, which I think is a cover for upset, but his silence is fascinating. He’s letting things play out here because I think he’s still in fight mode but also because I think he’s letting Usopp make his own choices here, as he should. I think he’s trying to be captainlike here. But…also not quite. He’s spiraling just as bad as Usopp here, imho.

And then, Usopp issues his duel request. There’s a few interesting bits in between where Nami is trying convince Luffy to not go through with it, but he’s very dedicated to doing so anyway. She’s telling LUFFY to apologize which is interesting thinking of the fandom recollection of this fight. She’s trying conflict resolution here but it’s a bit too late for that.

I also like that Sanji and Zoro are fighting about this too, blaming each other for what happened. I think it’s a form of tension release for the two of them, and Nami stopping them shows it’s still a bit of a sensitive time for it anyway. Which leads to:

The Fight

This fight is one of my favorites in OP, insofar as actual fighting techniques/approaches go. It’s unique to the series and so emotional and just hits different. Luffy’s later fight against Sanji hits similar notes but this one stands out specifically because it’s Usopp, who is very much not a fighter in the same way Sanji is.

For one, Usopp’s a ranged fighter, and he’s fighting Luffy at close quarters. He’s already at a MASSIVE disadvantage and he knows this, Luffy knows this, the straw hats know this. It’s his fight to lose, and he picks it anyway. And I think this is what’s so key to this entire conflict, from start to finish: Usopp KNEW he was going to lose. He knew it from the start. He knew Merry was doomed. He knew that from the start too. But he did all of that anyway. Why? I think the why is so incredibly nuanced, from loyalty to pride to fear of rejection to abandonment issues. But it also highlights his tendency to bullheadedly get things done if he thinks he’s the only one left who hasn’t given up on something. And I think that’s so important to him as a character, and it’s this realization and this specific fight that made Usopp into my favorite character. It’s also why I don’t think there’s a black and white wrong and right side to this conflict. From one end, Luffy’s the boss so they need to follow his instructions without question. From another, I like it better when Luffy’s challenged by his crew for both story and character purposes for all involved. I think Luffy needed this to happen, not because he needed to assert his authority as captain, but because he needed to fuck up as a leader and learn from that.

For another, Usopp is also on the brink of collapse this entire time. The fight ends when Luffy gets a single hit in, which means Usopp was on his last legs and he still went through with it. That is super admirable to me and a testament to his super tanking abilities and determination when it counts. He had the deck stacked against him here and he still went for it.

Now: fight techniques. Usopp took this fight seriously, like for real seriously. He pulled every weapon out of his arsenal and went for it, from lying to caltrops to dials and actual honest to god explosions. It was interesting to see the crew be so surprised at him doing so well at the start. He even uses Luffy’s care for his injuries against him which was a notable part of it for me. The impact dial bit is one of my favorites: it’s such a powerful moment to me.

And then he loses, and is probably actively dying as a result lol. Everyone’s absolute devastation, expressed in different ways, was really fascinating to watch. Chopper just trying to run over and fix things and Nami unable to watch hit hard. Zoro being super composed on the outside and holding Luffy together but…yeah he’s not pleased about this. Sanji telling chopper not to go because Usopp doesn’t need pity. Luffy crying…which always is very emotional. Them giving Usopp the ship and moving on to demonstrate that they took all his words seriously but also to acknowledge his dedication to the Merry. Ooof.

Anyway this arc physically hurts. 10/10 experience. Destroys me every time.

[usafphantom2]

#TomcatTuesday

#TomcatTails

First Night Launch Off the Boat

It was 1993 and I’d just graduated from the VF-124 Gunfighters at NAS Miramar. VF-124 was the RAG or Readiness Air Group back then, more recently called the FRS or Fleet Replacement Squadron now and was the F-14 training squadron. It had been an eventful January as I’d been assigned to the VF-24 Renegades, part of Carrier Air Group (CAG) 9 onboard USS NIMITZ (CVN-68) but still had some RAG Tactics hops to finish. Flying with VF-124 during the day doing a few 2 versus or 4 versus unknown syllabus hops (some good stories there!) and doing Field Carrier Landing Practice (FCLP) hops at night with VF=24. We were heading out on cruise on the 1st February so we had to get worked up and ready.

After a quick Carrier Qualification in VF-24, we were off on my first Western Pacific (WESTPAC) cruise, destined for places like Hong Kong, Singapore, Dubai, and more. The picture in this post is me on this first cruise. I was never much of a shutterbug so photos of me on the job are rare! Note here I’m standing by the trusty AIM-54C Phoenix missile mounted on the belly of the Tomcat. At this stage in the F-14’s life, she was just getting into the air-to-mud mission so was very much still a primary air-to-air platform so we’d be doing most of the fighter stuff for this cruise. Standard combat load at that time was “2/2/2” which translated to 2 x AIM-9 Sidewinder 2 x AIM-7 Sparrow, and 2 x AIM-54 Phoenix (I think I got that order right….been a while!)

As we start our trek west, cruise begins. My first. I’d gotten carrier landings in the T-2 Buckeye and A-4 Skyhawk (both day only), had done CQ in VF-124 in the Tomcat (day and night), and had just recently re-qualified in VF-24 (day and night) so it’s not like I was TOTALLY unfamiliar with night landings. But mentally you have to factor in that this is the first REAL night flight from the boat on cruise. Up until that time, every CQ evolution was a training environment. All the movement, people, ships, deck crews, fuel, etc. were all focused on YOU to get you up to speed. Now was different. We were headed west. We’re not near a divert field. This was real. I liken it to the difference between banging golf balls with your driver at the range and teeing off on the #1 at Augusta during the Masters. Same movement, same club, same ball…..but VERY different.

Also, this was a bit ago and the focus on the Nuggets (new guys) was intense. They flew the sh*t out of you off the boat. Every day, every night. The worse the conditions, the more Nuggets they’d launch. Trial by fire, m’fer. Every flight was an opportunity to learn something, and since Nuggets didn’t know sh*t, launch ‘em!! It might still be like that......dunno.

My first scheduled cruise night flight is with the Maintenance Officer (an O4, Lieutenant Commander, senior RIO) “Butch”. I can’t recall the mission but likely just a night AIC (Air Intercept Control) flight against another fighter, with probably 12 or 14 other airplanes scheduled to launch. The brief went pretty well, but I’m just focused on getting back the ship without (a) shining my ass or (b) killing myself and Butch. True Fighter Guys will know that of those two, (a) is WAY worse than (b). “I’d rather die than look bad” was an oft repeated phrase. I did note during the brief that the metro guys (meteorological dudes or “weather guessers”) said that the weather would include “some clouds and rain”. Of note, the ship can actually avoid weather, we just didn’t that night. Thanks, ship.

So Butch and I suit up and head for the roof. Our ready room on NIMITZ was “Ready 8” all the way at the back of the ship so that’s where the jets were always parked (Tomcats on the back of the boat because there’s more room). He pops the hatch and HOLY SH*T that wind is blowing hard……and DAMN that’s a lot of rain…..blowing sideways. Gulp.

We crouch down against the wind and rain, climb up to the flight deck, spot our plane and start the preflight. Once done (and soaking wet) we both climb in and I notice that in addition to the high winds and driving sideways rain, we have a LOT of movement of the flight deck through the heavy seas. Great. Dark, rainy, windy, and pitching deck. Sidebar – during a carrier landing, if everything is perfectly steady and you’re perfectly on glide slop and on speed, your tailhook misses the back of the ship by 11 feet 7 inches. Well, tonight the deck is moving probably 10-15 deck up and down. You do the math.

So the canopy finally closes out the wind and rain and we get power on the jet. Butch is in full “encouragement mode” at this point because he knows I’m his ride home (back where the food is, as we say) and he’s GOT to keep me pumped up. “THIS IS F**KING AWESOME MAN!!!”, he shouts. I ask him if he really thinks we’re going and he’s like “Oh yean, man! This is gonna be GREAT!!”

I’m skeptical. There’s no WAY they’d launch us in these conditions.

THESE are the thoughts that we stupid Nuggets think. Silly Nugget.

Jet is started, final checks are done, and we signal to the yellow shirt (aircraft directors wear yellow shirts, more colors for different jobs….purple for fuel, brown for Plane Captain, white for medical/final checker, etc.). I’m still skeptical they’re going to send us. “Butch, you really think they’re gonna send us?”

“Oh yeah, man! We goin’ FLYIN! You can’t BUY training like this!”. That’s because know one is dumb enough to try and sell it, to be honest.

I look over and sure enough the director gives the signal to remove chocks and chains and signals for us to pull forward. Gulp again. While the rain is still hitting the cockpit from the side and the deck is doing its little dance, we make our way to Cat 3 (3 of 4 catapults on the boat). The director then passes me to the director on the CAT who stands in front of the jet, guiding me into the shuttle (hunk of steel connected to the catapult system below decks that will fling us off the boat, accelerating from 0 to 150 in 1.4 seconds).

He calls for wings out, flaps down and then we're turned over to the launch officer. He calls for full power, then full afterburner. I do my control wipe out, finally convinced that yes, we’re probably doing this. Everything looks good, so I turn on the external lights (off until that point) indicating I’m ready for launch and………BOOM, off we go into the blackness.

Throttle out of afterburner, gear up, flaps up and start the climb out going into the clouds at about 500 feet. Butch is doing his RIO thing and we keep climbing through the goo (clouds). We eventually break out of the clouds at around 26,000 feet and gosh it’s a beautiful night up here. Big, shiny moon, pretty stars. Down stairs? Not so much, but really nice way up here. Butch calls back to the ship and tells them that we broke out at 26K and the boat comes back with “Roger that, launch is canceled. Turn left 180 and we’ll start vectors for recovery”.

What? Launch canceled? Butch now teaches me about the idea of “the sacrificial Tomcat”. If the weather is not so good, shoot a Tomcat off the boat to go investigate the weather. It’s dual crewed and has LOTS of gas, so what could possibly go wrong, right? F**k.

So now we gotta get home back to the boat. That’s where the food is, and that’s where your stuff is, and there’s really no place else to go. We get vectors to final while dumping gas to get down to max trap weight. The maximum landing weight for the Tomcat was 54,000 pounds and a landing is called a “trap”, hence “max trap���. Empty weight is about 45,000 pounds and you carried 20,000 pounds of gas so we had to dump quite a bit.

Vectors complete, we wind up behind the boat at about 2 miles and are on glide slope coming down the chute. Another tidbit; everyone on the boat knows they launched the sacrificial Tomcat AND they know who’s in the jet….a Nugget. So all eyes are going to be on the ships TV that broadcasts every landing from a camera that’s recessed into the flight deck and looks right up the glide slope at the approaching aircraft. To say The Nugget Night Trap in Shitty Weather Show is popular is an understatement. It’s Must See TV.

Great.

Things actually went pretty well. I was always a good instrument flyer (looking only at the cockpit instruments), and for landing you lined up crosshairs on your screen so that they formed a perfect plus sign +. Drift left and the vertical needle moves to the right to tell you to come back right. Go low, and the horizontal needle goes up to tell you to add power to get back up on glide slope. Pretty straight forward, right?

By about a mile out, Butch is doing the soothing voice “loooookin good, bud……little high……there ya go…..loooooking gooood.” For me, that’s actually kind of helpful and it validates that I’m not completely out to lunch. The problem is that eventually you have to come off instruments and actually look at the ship to land. At about mile out and 500 feet, the ship is finally visible. At three-quarter mile, Butch calls the ball: “Two-oh-two, Tomcat ball, five-oh”, which translates to “I’m Jet # 202, we’re in a Tomcat and can see the visual landing aide/ball, and we have 5,000 pounds of gas). This is when I start my “transition scan” where you gently look up to make sure the boat is actually there, come back in one more time to verify the needles are centered and everything looks good, then come back out for the last time to start flying glide slope (“meatball”), centerline (“lineup”) speed (“angle of attack”) all the way to touch down.

This is NOT a picture I’d seen much and I had DEFINITELY never landed on a pitching deck.

“Gee, what do you know, you can actually SEE the deck moving waaaay down and then waaaay back up and HOLY SH*T WHY AM I LOOKING AT THE DECK GET BACK TO MEATBALL, LINEUP, ANGLE OF ATTACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”.

If you look at the deck while landing (“deck spotters”), there’s a better than average chance you’ll hit the back of the ship because it’s moving away from you at 20mph. That's not good.

Some lineup corrections, a couple “little power” calls from the LSO (Landing Signal Officer) and a couple more “looooking goods” from Butch and we cross the ramp (didn’t hit it, thank you), land in the wires and trap, going to full power in the wires in case we’d missed them all (“boltered”). Whew!!! Wings back, flaps up, and follow the director to parking. We shut down and Butch is again back to “That was AWESOME, MAN!!” He was likely just happy to be alive. And so was I after my first night launch on cruise.

And for the Naval Aviators out there, Paddles gave me a Fair Deuce.

DISCLAIMER - any inaccuracies in technical details are due soley to poor memory and being old.

@RSE_VB via X

[water-lemon-alex]

It’s finished! Welcome to II-blr’s…

PRE-II18 MINI-Q&A!

A set of 18 QUESTIONS celebrating 18 EPISODES that I’ve prepared for the entire fandom!!! Reblogs are definitely appreciated! As a bonus, you can go into my ask box and ask me any of the questions that *I* made!

You can answer as many questions as you want! Answer one, two, or maybe all of them!

There are no right or wrong answers! Everyone in the II fandom is welcome! (just no rule-breaking responses, please!)

STRICTLY NO LEAKS OR SPOILERS FOR THE UPCOMING EPISODE!!! Please be respectful to those who weren’t able to see the the theatrical releases! (including myself!)

Transcript + Description:

1. Favorite character/s? (bonus: give one that debuted in each season)

Everyone in the fandom has this character that they love a tiny bit over the others. Who is YOUR favorite character? Or characters, if you have many.

2. Favorite season? (S1, S2 or S3?)

Between Inanimate Insanity, Inanimate Insanity 2 and Inanimate Insanity Invitational, which one of them did you like the most, and why? Is it their charm? Their artstyle and animation? Or is it because you enjoy it the most? There’s no wrong answers!

3. Favorite episode? (bonus: give one from each season)

Inanimate Insanity has 54 (about to be 55!) episodes in total! (not including S1 Ep. 5.5.) Out of all those episodes, which one did you enjoy the most, and why?

4. Favorite scene/s? (bonus: give one from each season)

Every episode is made out of SCENES! Was there a specific scene that you really liked, and why? From the emotions, the voice direction, your connection to the scene, or ALL OF THEM?

5. Favorite team? (across all seasons?)

Between Season One’s Team Epic and Team Chicken Leg, Season Two’s Bright Lights and Grand Slams, and Invitational’s (Old OR New) Sinkers, Thinkers and Pinkers, which among all these teams were the best among the rest?

6. Favorite ship/s and/or friendship/s?

You can’t have a fandom without ships! What are YOUR favorite ships? If romantic pairs aren’t your thing, give some friendships that you really loved.

7. A character you’d like to know more about?

With all the characters within the show, we’ve been dying to know more about the characters that didn’t get as much screentime as the others! Who do YOU want to know more about?

8. Favorite non-contestant? (Host, Co-Host, Misc., etc.)

Let’s give some love to those who don’t partake in the game! Your favorite non-contestant could also be the same as your favorite character! They could be hosts, co-hosts, background characters, other Meeple products— HECK, maybe Steve Cobs himself! There are a lot of characters out there that aren’t in the premises of the game.

9. Favorite voice for a character / favorite voice actor?

Let’s give some love to our beloved crew members who made the show possible! There was DEFINITELY that one character who you really like solely from their voice. Who is your favorite voice for a character, or your favorite voice actor?

10. Favorite song/s?

Let’s get musical! Without the people behind the music of II, these bangers would’ve never been possible! What is a song from the show that you’d put on repeat?

11. If you’d like to go to any location in the show, where would it be?

From the mysterious underground Gemory Cave to the Meeple Headquarters found in the sky, the world of II is endless! Maybe you want to go to a contest area to try a few challenges yourself. Or you want to relax and explore Hotel OJ!

12. Favorite canon divergence / AUs in the fandom (if any)

Now let’s give some love to our artists and writers in this very app! There’s a lot of awesome alternate universes in this fandom. (heck, I have an AU myself! the WTI au! check it out pspspspsps /nf) What are some alternate scenarios you’ve thought of that would make a GREAT AU? Or maybe some existing ones that you’ve followed for a while now?

13. How were you introduced to I.I.?

Were you introduced to the show when you were a child? Or maybe you’ve just learned about it pretty recently? Everyone starts somewhere!

14. What is a crossover (any crossover!) that you’d love to see?

We all have interests outside of II. Let it be shows, games, movies, books, or other interests! Even if it would absolutely NEVER happen in reality, what media do you think should have a crossover or collaboration with the show?

15. If you could get any merch you want, what are you getting?

Imagine this. You have won a raffle, and your prize is ANYTHING YOU WANT that has been sold during II’s runtime! Let it be t-shirts or mugs that aren’t being sold anymore, plushies that got sold out or on sale right now, or all the cool merch that is being sold this holiday season! Heck, you can ask for a merch item that hasn’t existed yet! Like your favorite character that doesn’t have a plushie yet! What are YOU getting?

16. Would you recommend the show to your friends/family?

Maybe you’re too shy to show it to people you’re close to, and that’s fine! But would you recommend the show to others?

17. What do you want to see more from the show that didn’t happen?

This is related to the AU question! Maybe it could be a scenario that happens after the movie, or a look into the daily lives of the contestants. Let’s hope that after II18, we’ll still have post-movie content…

18. How much does I.I. mean to you?

This fandom has grown to be a vast space full of talented creators big and small. You may have made a friend or two, maybe you just joined the fandom. There are no wrong answers. What is Inanimate Insanity to you? It could be as small as a simple show you’re interested in, or as big as the show having changed your life.

Thank you for reading through! Reblogs appreciated of course! To prove that you’ve read through the whole post…

[srslylini]

yeah for example I especially loved how they made Caitlyn a fascist dictator and never addressed that ever again to be honest.

The way they suddenly made Jinx only freak out when the plot needed it, that's how THAT works, they did sooo well here.

or how they made the people of Zaun come together to fight after The Grey thing, to have them then shipped of to Stillwater and... then ignore that they ever wanted to fight against Piltover at all? That was so good. It is so realistic that a protest and a revolution gets stopped after another injustice happens on top of the injustice they first wanted to fight over. Wow they really out done themselves, didn't they?

I also think we absolutely need to praise how "Jinx as a symbol" gets dropped immediately when it isn't needed anymore.

or, you know, how they wrote women in general this season, that was soooo good. Sevika was just not there anymore, Mel had a out of the blue story line that shoved her aside, Vi's Trauma got ignored and sidelined, Caitlyn got to be a war crime fascist and never had to face real consequences, Jinx even got to kill herself in the end like she ALWAYS wanted, isn't that a WIN????

they introduced women and girls to get killed. Isha, because that was also just wow. Lest also really had all the time in the world to shine, it was good that she never came back. Wow guys such a good show for women this time around, Mel even got called a sex object for Jayce, he only used before understanding he actually loved a man❤️❤️❤️

I especially loved all the hype they created around the pit fight, cause damn they really showed everything they were gonna do with that in all the trailers, are we not all happy with that? I'm happy that was just a 3 minute montage, Vi really does not deserve more than that, like I don't know, an entire episode? god damn, they did good no one wants to see that, crisis averted.

lets also not forget that in this season they finally introduced us to a filler episode, god I was yearning for that in season 1.

A 9 episode show really needs its filler.

The people praising Arcane seem to always only focus on specific stuff so I want to ask anyone to praise this:

1. Sevika's story, please go on. Praise it. Tell me how good she was after episode 4, I am waiting?

2. The firelights. Go ahead tell me how much we saw them and how the Tree came back and was tied into the story, tell me how they got screen time and how their story got told?

3. Ekko. Tell me how good it was to make him ignore his home after he went to Jayce to get it fixed. Tell me how great his character arc was after they got rid of everything else he liked.

4. Mel. I want you to praise how much screen time she had and how the black rose didn't come out of no where. I want you to tell me it didn't feel like they wrote her out of the story and I want you to look me in the eyes and praise how well they treated her in the last act. You know, with Jayce apparently only seeing her as a sex object. Women really won.

5. Praise the Robots.

6. Go ahead tell me how good it was to kill off all the suicidal characters.

7. I need to hear people praise the time loop/travel. It was so good and made so much sense and time travel isn't mostly a weird way to not resolve anything.

8. Talk nice about the side characters, please. Maddie, Loris, Isha, Steb, Lest. You know all of them were so necessary and weren't only there for one thing and then got killed or just never to be seen again. Praise how good their writing was, go on.

9. Go ahead and tell me how well they handled Vi's character. How they didn't just completely ignore her. Praise how they made her an alcoholic for 3 seconds and then she was just able to stop, isn't she an inspiration?

10. Go ahead, tell me how well they resolved anything that happened in the first 3 episodes. The Grey is just never mentioned again outside of it being used in the last war. Tell me how the people of Zaun just supporting Piltover is worthy of Praise.

11. Vi and Ekko never interacting was so good, wasn't it? So perfectly in character for Vi to rush right past him in the finale. That was perfect.

12. Praise it how good it was that Caitlyn just completely forgets her mother in the end, you know the reason the first 3 episodes happened. Praise it how her father is off hand mentioned in episode 8, never to be seen again. You know... the parents, her reason to go nuts like this. Damn that was good

13. Jinx getting to apologize in prison to Caitlyn. What a scene am I right?

go ahead, there is so much to praise, it must be tiring only focusing on one or two things