#I'm digressing though

[sentientcave]

Hm hello October Scorpio, how many Walmarts have you considered burning down… 👀🤭

For legal purposes, zero. But between you and me, I wouldn't be sad to see them all go up in flame.

[egophiliac]

another one that I'm not super happy with, but continuing to mess with it isn't going to help! so here he is! 🦇 there was a lot I was trying to get across in this one, so uhhhhh hopefully it reads.

we're almost out of unique magics now...just Ace (and maybe Grim?) left!

[legalownerofufoemoji]

I think I am actually the funniest person alive for this one fellas

[silverwhittlingknife]

hi Silver! o/ because that fanart made me wonder - would you happen to know when/where Dick's stuffed elephant plush Zitka turns up in the comics?

GREETINGS CAM <3333 THAT ART WAS SO CUTE

Yeah, I think your instincts are right - it's a truly adorable bit of transformative fandom, but I'm 95% percent sure it's not comics canon. Barbara has canon plushies, but I don't think anyone else does.

I got kinda invested in the investigation (it's hard to prove a negative!) and I ended up typing out an entire History of Elinore/Zitka, so, uh, if you're curious, meet me below the cut for:

Where does Elinore / Zitka - the animal - appear in comics?

Did Dick ever have a stuffed elephant toy in comics?

Where does Elinore / Zitka appear in comics?

We're gonna go in chronological order!

Dick's circus elephant friend was first created for practical reasons: in Batman 436, Marv Wolfman does a big expanded flashback to Dick's circus backstory as a way to subtly show us Tim before officially introducing him (so that we can have a technically-solvable mystery-of-Tim's-identity in LPoD). In this comic, there's an elephant named Elinore who loves Dick:

Aww. Such a cute elephant!

Batman 436 comes out in August 1989. New Titans 60 comes out a few months later, in November, and guess what? When Dick visits the circus, he is suddenly surprised by an unexpected blast from the past! It turns out that even though it's been years, Elinore still remembers him!

Here's the part where Elinore remembers Dick:

SUCH a cute elephant. I love her.

(Guess who else still remembers Dick even though it was so long ago. Guess which other character is about to be an unexpected blast from the past. Guess which character Elinore is directly paralleling guess guess guess sorry everything is about Dick and Tim in my mind but I can focus I swear)

Four years later, in 1993, Batman: The Animated Series retells Dick's origin story. They like and keep Wolfman's elephant, but they change her name to Zitka:

Wolfman doesn't return to the elephant beyond those two appearances, and a few years down the line, New Titans gets cancelled and Wolfman's not writing Dick anymore anyway. So the animal gets abandoned for a while, until Devin Grayson, a fan of both Wolfman and B:tAS, revives the Wolfman-era Titans team in JLA/Titans and then the ongoing series Titans 1999.

Grayson then brings back the elephant in a flashback to Dick's past in Titans 16 (Jun 2000), where she imports the B:tAS name. Sometimes I'm skeptical of TV-to-comics imports, but honestly, I endorse this one. You lose the alliteration, which is a shame, but IMO Zitka is a better elephant name than Elinore.

Here's Dick with the newly-christened Zitka in Titans 16:

Grayson also briefly references the elephant in Gotham Knights 20 and - in a final angsty callback - in Nightwing 88 (Feb 2004), where Zitka tries futilely to comfort Dick in the midst of his trauma conga line:

... And... honestly, I think that's it for comic appearances? The two Wolfman comics plus the three Grayson comics.

Both Wolfman and Grayson are writing multiple titles - Batman, New Titans, Titans, Gotham Knights, and Nightwing between the two of them, spanning a big chunk of Dick's post-Crisis canon - and both writers use the elephant for heartwarming moments of nostalgia, which means if you're doing a post-Crisis readthrough for Dick, Elinore/Zitka feels memorable. But I don't think she actually shows up that much.

For post-2011, I am not as well-informed - throwing this out to the dash? anyone know? - but I feel like Zitka the heartwarming symbol of Dick's heartwarming circus past is, uh, thematically very at odds with the Court of Owls evil!circus vibes, so my instinct is that this story element was almost certainly dropped in the reboot.

Did Dick ever have a stuffed elephant toy in comics?

In WFA, yes; in main comics continuity, no. Technically, I have not read every comic ever published, so I could be wrong!! But I don't think so.

Below, find my rambling reasoning on the tonal vibes of pre-Crisis, post-Crisis, and post-2011, and why this particular story element doesn't seem right to me for the first two.

Pre-Crisis (...okay, mostly the Silver Age): stuffed animal, yes or no?

tl;dr no, requires too much background knowledge on the part of the reader, plus the elephant wasn't a thing until later

Elinore doesn't get created until post-Crisis, but also just generally, pre-Crisis callbacks are more along the lines of this reference in Batman 129 (published in 1960), where, wow, Batman and Robin are hunting jewel thieves - and it turns out Robin recognized this strongman! BUT HOW?!

The comic goes on to recap Dick's entire origin story in flashback, on the assumption that you may not know it.

(BTW, if you'd like to know more about Haly's Circus throughout the years, nightwingology has a great post here summarizing a lot of fun plotlines and characters!)

Basically: Silver Age comics are very self-consciously episodic and kid-friendly; they're not generally gonna do overly-elaborate callbacks because they don't know what comics their kid readers may have randomly picked up or remember.

By the time of post-Crisis, comic books were being written for an adult audience buying from the direct market, i.e. readers who are collecting whole runs & don't need or want Dick's origin story to be recapped to us in full every time it's referenced. That's why in post-Crisis, we get stuff like "hey, neat, this particular soda brand is getting mentioned in several different books!!" or "in order to understand this story arc, buy SIXTEEN DIFFERENT COMICS in FIVE DIFFERENT RUNS and read them ALL ACCORDING TO A NUMBERED ORDER and also you better be following the individual plotlines and recognize these five minor characters who we don't bother to introduce!! Good luck!!" But the elaborate post-Crisis plotlines - and subtler worldbuilding like a stuffed animal callback to Dick's backstory - don't make a lot of story sense UNLESS you're imagining your readers as completionist adult fans.

So IMO a stuffed animal wouldn't be a pre-Crisis thing unless it was The Episodic Story Of the Week, and I don't think a stuffed animal is action-adventure-y enough for the fast-paced storytelling of the Silver Age. (Unless it, like, came to life and tried to eat you or something.)

Post-Crisis: stuffed animals, yes or no?

tl;dr: no, Dick's a manly tough guy, he's not gonna have a stuffed animal, that'd be lame, like something Tim might do

Part of the edgy grimdark adult vibes in 80s/90s comics is that some characters who used to be kinda silly & goofy & lighthearted - like Batman and Robin - get reimagined as Serious and Angsty and Edgy in a Tough Cool Manly Brooding Way. This massively affects characterization for Bruce, Dick, and Bruce and Dick's relationship.

(I obviously love this change & love the tense Bruce-and-Dick interactions, but plenty of fans of the earlier fluffy comics really disliked the edgy retcons of Miller / Wolfman / Starlin / et al.)

The upshot is that post-Crisis is a period when you could have a recurring reference like a stuffed elephant, but you wouldn't have a stuffed elephant, not for Dick. I think a toy like that would be too cutesy / childish / effeminate to give a male character in post-Crisis, unless you were poking fun at him.

Now, you could probably let Tim have a stuffed animal, because Tim is sometimes cool but also sometimes a tryhard loser who is faking being cool and not entirely pulling it off (see e.g. the Robin comic where he practices tough-guy faces in the mirror, or the Teen Titans comic where Conner discovers his cringy Enya CD, or when he's fanboying over Connor and it's awkward, etc etc.). A stuffed animal would be deeply embarrassing, and you'd have to be careful to compensate by having Tim do something cool afterward - but Tim's character concept allows for "he's kind of a loser sometimes."

But Dick isn't!! In post-Crisis, Dick's a tough / impressive / "cool guy" character, the kind of guy anyone would want to be, even in the flashbacks where he's Robin, and even in the stories where he's more lighthearted than angsty. It'd be kinda lame for Dick to have a stuffed elephant, so he wouldn't. I feel like Dick would be more likely to poke fun at it if someone had one, like when he's making fun of Wally for liking the Hardy Boys. Dick could have a Batman action figure, at most, and if he had one he would have it ironically.

Basically: in post-Crisis, a male character hugging a stuffed elephant feels more likely to be a punchline to me, not something poignant. (Even with Tim, Tim could have an embarrassing stuffed animal, but he couldn't hug it when sad - that's too far. Maybe Booster Gold might do this. Probably he wouldn't, but spiritually, he would. Sorry Booster ilu! <3)

Instead, Dick instinctively deals with his inner turmoil like the TORTURED ACTION HERO he is: by punching things and brooding and yelling and joining the mob and sleeping on rooftops and going on obsessive secret missions and acquiring Angsty Stubble!! Just like Batman!

(Technically I don't know if Bruce ever joined the mob but you know he would.)

Anyway as you know this is my favorite continuity and I am poking fun affectionately, but uh, yeah sdfsfdsfs. No stuffed animals.

Post-2011 / Infinite Frontier / Wayne Family Adventures: stuffed animals, yes or no?

tl;dr it's in WFA! Probably not anywhere else, but it could be.

Post-2011 stuff tends to be cutesier overall, most of all in the current Infinite Frontier era. So I don't feel like this would be tonally out-of-line with IF comics. Taylor tends to go for more meme-y references rather than fanfic references, though.

So the obvious best fit is WFA, which is aiming for a rough approximation of Silver Age family-friendly vibes - wholesome, episodic plots, Teaching Good Moral Lessons For The Youth, etc. - plus lots of Easter eggs for fanfic readers and some comic references.

And look, here we are:

Aww.

Whew - that's everything I could find!

Anyway as you can probably tell, I LOVE the elephant, so this was a very entertaining rabbit hole to go down, thank you <3

[mxtxfanatic]

Hi! If you don't mind me asking:

What does mxtx says about jc's character? Like some jc stans claim that she has said he has a knife tounge and tofu heart, (I don't believe it still) is it true? I don't know where to find her interviews, so I asked you instead:)

Thank you 💕

MXTX speaks on Jiang Cheng’s character in two places that I know: the old version of the postscript of the novel (absent from the official 7seas release) and an interview from before she left socials.

In the postscript, she only has this to say about Jiang Cheng:

Everyone should know what Jiang Cheng’s keyword is without me saying it. In the beginning, I thought with with XY’s [Xue Yang] existence, Jiang Cheng’s negative energy would definitely seem skimpy. Who knew he became the ultimate superstar of the comment section? Compared to him, XY was almost a poor, has-been idol. Only now and then would someone decide to drag him out again. Of course, in the end, under the combined PDA attacks of WWX and LWJ, the past and present superstars were obliterated.

And in this interview, she goes more in-depth. Sidenote: while I appreciate the interview for what it, I do not appreciate the ways in which they insert their own opinions about how they think MXTX should feel about Jiang Cheng into the actual interview commentary, and it shows how much of a bias even the interviewer had towards his character to have asked so many leading questions in an attempt to get a positive response out of her about him.

Anyways, here's some expansion by @jiangwanyinscatmom on the nuance of what mxtx meant by “not heinous/evil” that was lost in translation here and some more re-translation (still of the same interview as above):

墨香铜臭：本性不是特别坏，但是有人要讨厌他的话，那也没办法。因为你讨不讨厌一个人，也是……也是自己的问题。

He is not a 坏 (basically spoiled broken, corrupt) person by nature, but if someone wants to dislike him, there is nothing I can do about it. Because whether you dislike someone or not is also... your own choice.

MXTX's answer about why Jiang Cheng never could marry and how she sees him as a character (parenthesis section for jiangwanyinscatmom's own translation notes):

墨香铜臭：就性格比较差劲吧，谈了几个，吹了。 (He just has an 差劲 (average/lame/disappointing, let down) temperament, he dated several times but they were all failures) 墨香铜臭：我眼中的江澄……我眼中的江澄，就……其实没怎么样，我写文还是比较客观的。我看他……我看他就、就像是在看一个作品。 女主持：如果让大大本人来介绍江澄这个人的话，你会怎么介绍他？ 墨香铜臭：我觉得他是一个负能量比较……重……的人。 女主持：这么简单吗？ 墨香铜臭：对，负能量比较重，但是也不是个、也不是个十恶不赦的人吧。对。 MXTX: In my eyes, Jiang Cheng... In my eyes, Jiang Cheng is... Actually, it's nothing special. I am relatively objective when writing. When I look at him... When I look at him, it's like looking at a work of art. Female host: If you were to introduce Jiang Cheng, how would you introduce him? MXTX: I think he is a person with a lot of negative energy... Female host: Is it that simple? MXTX: Yes, he has a lot of negative energy, but he is not a heinous person. Yes.

In short: MXTX describes Jiang Cheng as a character that is filled with negativity and unable to date, but he is not inherently evil nor to the point of being irredeemable. He is a product of the story and fulfills the role he was created to fulfill in the plot. He's not a good person, not overtly and not secretly. That's it.

[valyrfia]

exactly if I wanted best friends I would be into piarles which is probably the charles ship i'm least interested in even tho pierre is very obviously the driver charles is closest to in real life

I'm simply not compelled by Piarles, but I've never been compelled by friends to lovers type ships because that's not what I enjoy. I think Piarles makes for an excellent friends to lovers, as does Maxiel but considering my taste in ships outside of F1 is all Rhaenicent, Drarry, Stevetony–Lestappen was going to be a no brainer for me. If I thought their dynamic was just 'best friends', I wouldn't enjoy it. Simple as.

[remedialchaoticscreaming]

first time being called aroace. yay. this feels like an alloaro right of passage

[ovkl]

It hasn't been long but I like how it feels to not be actively pursuing a relationship. If shit happens then it happens. Endless favors that promise thrill and all that.

[pocketramblr]

I always found it slightly awkward how media makes siblings or people who see each other as siblings call each other brother/sister all the time as in real life you almost never see people do that with their own siblings (maybe someone out there like that)

In the case of Arkham Shadows I see why they did though because Bruce quite literally tells Harvey he loves him and Harvey says it back. Can't have the audience think Batman is in love with the DA.

They had Bruce pay for his college, pay for his campaign, pay for his surgery, pay for his therapy and had Harvey have him as his best man at his wedding. Wow..... Sugar baby Harvey is real.....

The calling sibling title thing is less common in English than in some other languages for sure- me and a couple of my siblings do it on occasion, but it's for a bit then. More common is when I call one of my close family friends "my sister" or "my nephew" when talking about them to someone else because it's faster and easier to say that than to say "my friend who I've known since she was born and lived with for a few years and consider a little sister" or "child of a close family friend who considers me an aunt" to someone who doesn't know them. Which is a lot of words to say that if they wanted to fully sell me on the brothers thing they should have either had a different bit or should have referred to the other as "my brother" when talking to an unrelated character instead.

But "oh no we have to make Bruce not look gay" has been a problem DC has struggled with more than once for many decades and it basically never works so I guess at least they didn't try to solve it this time by having Bruce pick a lady love over Harvey or cutting the holding hands thing

Because I saw that scrapbook! I know Harvey has been Bruce's sugar baby since he was ten years old! But we can't have Bruce take Harvey's hand and call him the love of his life because ok technically that's Gotham but also because gay. And we can't have Bruce take Harvey's hand and call him his best friend because they're not ten anymore and somehow that seems gay also. So brothers it is, I guess. Even if I think my brothers would bite my finger if I ever tried to pay for everything for them on that scale, guess it's different at billionaire levels

[incesthemes]

ok tumblr deleted most of my tag essay on this post, so i've recreated and expanded upon it in its own post.

so the op of the post made a great point which really touched on why i've been feeling that i had a fundamentally different takeaway of season 9 compared to the rest of the fandom. i have a lot to say in response to this, not in argument but in support and synthesis of it.

i'll start with dean at the beginning of season 9: he has a great struggle in 901 regarding gadreel possessing sam, more so than any other struggle he's faced when saving sam's life, which points to me as him being aware of and conflicted about sam's history of possession. he understands this is crossing a line because it's similar to lucifer and meg, and so accepting gadreel's deal is violating sam to a length dean hasn't gone to before. dean by and large is the one who has this particular ethical problem (shown throughout the first half of season 9), not sam. hell, dean is the one who leaves sam once gadreel's out, without even waiting for input because his self-loathing is that strong.

sam, on the other hand, is more textually concerned in his 912/913 arguments with the lack of trust ("i can't trust you, not the way i thought i could") and dean's selfishness ("you did it for you"). this is an ongoing conflict sam has with dean, since the beginning of the show. dean doesn't trust sam to make his own decisions and therefore makes them for him, without sam's consent or knowledge. sam wants to be trusted to stand on his own, and he wants dean to put the same faith in him that he puts in dean. this is the core of sam's needs; the violation of autonomy is just an externalization of these needs and this conflict.

and i don't entirely disagree with the connection between going behind sam's back to keep him alive against his will and a rape narrative. both involve a lack of consent and a violation of agency. however, it really doesn't stop there, and it's a lot more complex than that.

and that's what rubs me wrong about more common interpretations of season 9 that i've seen. because this isn't really what the season is about. this violation on its own isn't the point. or if it is on the surface, it's equally about sam lying to himself about what it's actually about. he's consistently left out of major decisions regarding his own life and then lied to about it "for his own good," and he wants the right to choose his own path.

except, as we learn, that's not true. he lied about it. because the point of the whole season is that sam and dean are the same. they will make the same decisions to save each other over and over again. the point of the whole season is that sam has been lying to himself.

i said this in another post, but i think a big reason sam was able to lie to himself about this fact is because he's had the opportunity to let dean go on several occasions. he's been unable to save dean the way dean has saved sam. he fails where dean succeeds. sam has been forced to endure a grief that dean has never had to experience because dean always brings sam back. and so because sam has endured these experiences maybe he's more comfortable letting dean choose death in the abstract—the hypothetical. but in reality when it comes to that point, sam can't actually follow through, because he's just as dependent on dean being there for him as dean is dependent on sam.

and that's what season 9 is about. sam has been lying to himself about this reality from the start. this is why 1019 parallels 311 regarding how insane sam is about dean. it's reiterating the facts we've known but with a new perspective, now that sam is done deluding himself. he needs to accept that he was lying to himself and to dean, and this is what allows season 9 to close and for season 10 to begin, because season 10 is a response to sam's realization. he chooses dean over everything else in a monumental display of hypocrisy and genuine understanding of himself and who dean is to him.

seasons 8-10 should be taken as a single, cohesive unit, and the show goes to great lengths to enforce this. season 9 mirrors season 8, and season 10 acts as a response to and therefore a continuation of season 9. you can see this in the way charlie's death mirrors kevin's (one brother's lies and deceptions leads to increasing stakes that could have been avoided through honesty and openness, which culminates in the death of their beloved ally, and the deceptive brother blames himself for that death because his own unethical actions led to it), or how both of them undergo a change in their physiology as a result of godlike power entering their bodies which mutilate them from the inside and have fatal consequences (sam with the trials, dean with the mark of cain) which can only reasonably be resolved with their deaths (and they both even enter the final stages of this conflict by going to confession). also the plot structures of seasons 8 and 9 on their own mirror each other very closely.

this is all very important because it outlines the purpose of each of these two seasons. it's about them being fundamentally betrayed by their brother, causing that brother to become desperate and feel rejected and unloved, only for them to get what they need out of each other to reaffirm their love. they have to function as a unit, because otherwise both season's primary conflicts (as in, the conflicts established in the first half of each season) are left unresolved. instead, sam gets what he needs from dean in 823, which means that in return dean gets what he needs from sam in 923, thus closing the circle that was opened in 801.

dean reaffirmed that sam is the most important person in the world to him in sacrifice, that he would choose sam over every single other person on earth—this is what sam needed to hear, because it's the foundation of the conflict in season 8, since sam thinks dean chose benny over him and this sent him spiraling into a suicidal depression and self-loathing. so season 9, consequentially, is about dean getting what he needs from sam: he needs to know that sam will do anything in his power to save dean, which is a conflict that began in season 8 (with sam not searching for dean in purgatory) and is reasserted in 913 when sam tells him that he wouldn't violate his agency if the situations were reversed.

and this is exactly what dean gets in 923, when sam says he lied about all of that. dean gets the affirmation that sam's love for dean goes beyond petty ethics, which translates to "dean is more important to sam than anything else in the world" where the "anything else" includes sam's own moral boundaries. this is important to dean because dean eschews his own moral boundaries for sam's sake and safety over and over again throughout the series, and this is a major source of his own character development (see: 122, 203, 214, 222, et cetera et cetera). sam repeatedly denies that he's the same way, and has proven at least once that he wouldn't do the same, so this is an important affirmation for sam to give and it's why dean had spiraled into a suicidal depression and self-loathing (look, another parallel).

so season 8-9 are mirrors of each other, and they have to be mirrors of each other in order to work structurally and for any of the conflicts presented to be resolved. season 10 then is a response to this which shows the consequences of those dual resolutions: aka, sam acts just as unethically as dean does in the rest of the show, except this time knowingly and intentionally instead of subconsciously as he has been doing up to now (see: 1001, 1003, 1004, 1018, 1020, et cetera et cetera).

in order for all of this to work, the conflicts in season 8 and season 9 have to be equal. i.e. dean has to violate sam and his ethics as badly as sam violated dean and his ethics. it also has to be suitably Bad because it's revisiting a conflict that's existed in various iterations across the entire show. this is why it's also deeply important that 923 dean's death also parallels 222 sam's death, because it highlights how this conflict has always existed and how sam and dean are similar to each other. they both make the same choices under pressure and go to equally unethical lengths. which is why season 9 couldn't end until crowley told the audience that sam was trying to make a deal with him to bring dean back to life, specifically after dean begged sam to let him die. the point, then, was never about the violation itself: sam disregards dean's right to choose death just as much as dean disregards it. the season is about how sam and dean are at their cores the same, and it's about sam becoming aware of that reality and then actively, consciously choosing it. which is what sam reiterates across season 10, as a response to his choice in 923.

he only realizes that this is a Bad Thing in 1101 (i.e. after the response has run its course) when he says they both have to change. and the "both" is important because they are the same, fundamentally. sam isn't innocent of this violation of agency and obsessive deception of his brother, and he needs to understand that before actionable change can be made, which is what season 10 is all about.

and there's something poignant that can be said about 1023 being titled "brother's keeper," because this episode is about sam playing the role of brother's keeper, only for it to blow up so spectacularly in their faces that it causes the apocalypse 2.0. it forces sam to recognize that his original conclusion (that dean was right, and that he was lying) was not actually the correct and moral way to continue living. the significance of 1101 only reveals itself in the foundation laid by seasons 8-10, because these are the seasons about sam discovering just how down bad he is for his brother and accepting it wholeheartedly. season 11 then seeks to fix what seasons 8-10 broke, which is of course the entire fucking planet.

and this is the problem: the first apocalypse was caused by the absence of love, and the second was caused by too much love. their love is a destructive force that has world-ending consequences. that's the point of these seasons, what it all comes back to. in receiving the exact type and strength of love they needed from each other, they ended the world. and this is the conflict they need to resolve in season 11, or at least try to. because their love for each other can, has, and will destroy the world, over and over and over again. this theme can't exist unless seasons 8 and 9 mirror each other, unless season 9 is about sam's hypocrisy.

without that world-ending love, they couldn't have started the second apocalypse. if sam weren't a liar, he would have respected dean's choices, and he would have let dean die. if sam truly cared about bodily autonomy, dean would have died in 923 when he begged sam to let him. but he doesn't; that's not the point of the narrative. of course the violation of autonomy is important, because it provides the foundation for the conflict. but the violation is itself a metaphor, a triple whammy of symbolism: the possession is a metaphor for violation, and the violation is a metaphor for betrayal (as seen through the lens of deception).

the point of season 9 is not that dean metaphorically raped his helpless little brother; rather it's that the violation of agency goes both ways, and sam is a hypocrite for trying to maintain his autonomy while stripping it from dean. it's a continuation of season 8, which thus compacts his guilt over "abandoning" dean in purgatory and his self-loathing and fears of not being good enough or worthy enough of dean's love, which thus causes him to act recklessly and injuriously toward himself and dean. it's not a positive conclusion by any means; like i said, this is what causes the second apocalypse, and it's only after they've ended the world twice that sam finally sits down and says maybe they were wrong about this whole thing. maybe their love is too destructive.

in 912, sam says: "something's broken here [...] we don't see things the same way anymore."

in 1101, sam says: "this isn't on you. it's on us. we have to change."

sam goes from blaming dean to blaming both of them, because he realizes that they're both equal partners in their toxic, fucked up love. season 8 and season 9 allowed them to become equals by giving each other the affirmations they desperately needed to achieve true enmeshment, and season 10 is the consequence of that unhealthy relationship.

the point was never that dean violated sam. he does that over and over again throughout the series without destroying their relationship. the point is that sam is willing to violate dean all the same, and he had to face that reality head-on and accept it to resolve the conflict between them and give dean the affirmation he needed, just like dean gave sam the affirmation he needed in 823. the violation was simply a vehicle through which the conflict could come to a head, and the most provocative symbol this show could possibly use was the metaphor of sexual assault and rape, given sam's history with it via meg and especially via lucifer.

i've probably written enough now. the tl;dr is that season 9 invokes what can be interpreted as a rape metaphor not to vilify dean or even really to continue sam's ongoing rape narrative (though the violation that occurs in season 9 uses this as a foundation for the conflict and that's important to understanding the gravity of the situation), but rather to give appropriate stakes to mirror the primary conflict of season 8 and provide grounds for dean to get resolution for the conflict that began in 801 and continued through 923. god i hope this makes sense because now i've written this essay twice and i'm so miserable because of it.

my apologies if any of this is repetitive or meandering or lacking in any way; i tried really really hard to recreate my original essay and also provide more evidence and groundwork for my argument but obviously i'm sure i've missed some details and overlooked structure in many places. if you read this far, i love you and please talk to me about seasons 8-10. i'm losing my mind

[tonberrykins]

Hey, I get I've been raving about Astarion a lot but, like, are there ACTUALLY people out here who hate Gale and are calling him an incel? Is this a thing? Thank God I apparently curate well bc holy fucking shit I would be having heart palpitations DAILY out of SHEER ANGER.

So, like, we're always going to make fun of our faves and whatnot bc lbr "bro, you were banging Mystra and fucked up that bad?" THOUGH TO BE FAIR, if you're a wizard it isn't that hard to bang Mystra. It's kind of her thing. P sure her banging Elminster as many times as she has is the main reason he's still kicking and out being the Faerûnian Gandalf that he is in-game. Mystra's bodycount aside (especially since that has ZERO bearing on ANYTHING least of all her portfolio and purpose), like, Gale is a very intelligent man. He is also what we would consider as an objectively good person. Save the kids, help the tieflings, be kind and compassionate to those the average "good" aligned folks would consider "worthy" and yeah. He is literally the Alistair Theirin of BG3 if you Fusion Danced him together with Awakening Anders.

That being said, he is also very deeply flawed in that he KNOWS he is brilliant and in that brilliance, knowing his own talent, he thinks he knows better than even his own goddess BUT-! But, but, but, he is mortal, is young enough and in an age to not be able to wrack up the accomplishments of, say, Elminster whom he clearly knows on a fairly personal level so, like anyone who knows they are capable of doing great things, he feels INFERIOR bc he hasn't, in his mind, PROVEN that he is as great as he knows he is. And that's the hubris of mortality.

Objectively, LOGICALLY, he knows that he's more than proven himself capable. Mystra wouldn't have started a relationship with him otherwise, and she never asked him to prove himself. It was his own desperation to prove that he was worthy of her and thinking he knew EVERYTHING that lead to his terrible situation. Is he very clinical and logical about it? Yes. Is he squirrelly about it in the beginning? Very much, yes. Hell, I would be. No one wants to be friends with a literal ticking time bomb and the man is VERY lonely. Hell, that's the name of the game baybee! Baldur's Gate 3: These Bitches Need a Hug; YES EVEN LAE'ZEL, I WILL FIGHT Y'ALL!

Back to Gale, your friendship with him is something he very much treasures and when he starts all his finger wiggling and magic talk he's like any nerd sharing the thing he is most passionate about. He is also the first to admit he fucked up. HOWEVER, that does not (imo) warrant him needing to sacrifice himself all for Mystra's forgiveness, and even Elminster isn't on board with that. And, like, when he talks about Mystra it's never in an accusatory manner towards her. He clearly still loves her, likely always will, but that never negates his love for the PC who chooses to romance him. He is also very much prone to falling into the same pitfall of hubris that got him before and very clearly needs guidance that, yes, Mystra clearly did neglect in giving him. But he never outright blames her, at least he's not in my playthroughs thus far even after having spoken with her in the temple. He's just a sad, lonely nerd and that does not automatically make him an incel; y'all just don't know how to read, listen, or understand nuance. Apparently.

tl;dr

Gale deserves as much love as Astarion but bc he isn't evil "babygirl" material that's "fixable" he's just called an incel when he can be a very genuine friend, but what are those nowadays I guess?

[dnangelic]

dark obviously hates being called dark-kun over literally anything else like dark-sama or Just Dark but it's also nice when a muse recognizes that he is or at least should be just like. 17.

[egophiliac]

Sorry, most likely my memory being poor, but I thought Malleus' mom (don't know how to spell her name and too lazy to check how to spell it) was already an adult when Lilia ""proposed""?? Like I was always under the assumption that it was like a one-sided child crush on somebody completely out of your league you tend to have as a kid 💀

I don't think they say how old she was? although it's entirely possible I just misunderstood; my Japanese is...shaky. :') the actual line is "幼い頃に私に求婚したのは偽りか?", which I read as "isn't it true that you proposed to me as a kid?", and took as her being older than him, but not necessarily an adult (like, I was thinking of Lilia as being not quite a preteen and Mel being preteen/young teen). although I don't know if there's a connotation or something I'm missing that implies a bigger age gap, if that makes sense!

(and of course, I might also just be forgetting some other line -- if someone else knows, then please correct me! I need to know which headcanons need adjusting 👀)

BUT YEAH in a canon-y sense, Malleus is 178 and around the third-years developmentally. which makes me think that even though dragons have a way longer lifespan, they go through childhood at about the same rate as most fae (or at least the kind that Lilia is) and just kinda...slow waaaaay down once they hit adulthood. so it makes sense in my brain that he and Meleanor could've basically grown up together!

...it makes it angstier that way, anyway. :)

[ineffablydelighted]

[How exploring the Ineffable Husbands' dynamic in Good Omens can help us figure out what the show/book is all about, Part 3.1/?]

Also called: This human has, apparently, too much time on her hands and will be trying to Effable the Ineffable for [...] hours.

Hiya, Angels! 👋

Hope you're all doing well!

First of all, if you randomly came across this analysis, I guess you would expect me to entice you to read the first two parts beforehand... And you would be absolutely right.

"Obviosleh."

And since I'm nice [and because I fully understand the importance of saving people as much effort as possible to catch a larger audience - Duh 😇], here are the links for Part 1 and Part 2 🥰 so that everyone is on the same page as we dive into Part 3.

As I previously announced, we'll dissect our favorite pair's next two encounters today which are S1 3004 BC (Noa's Arch, The Flood) and S2 2500 BC (Job's ca-

[future me rereading this before dropping - Yep, nope, not happening just yet]

By doing that, I will try my best to prove to you the main point of my analysis I've revealed at the end of Part 2.

Repeat after me: Good Omens is a philosophical essay disguised as comedic/satyric/romantic fiction.

[Yeah... here she is, already giving orders strong recommendations... I'm so Metatroning you right now.]

[And, since I'm at my best when I'm Metatroning people, this is the moment I'm gonna take to strongly recommend you to ingest the human matter of your choosing - Num num num.]

*In Crowley's voice* OOookaay, let's start!

3004 BC (Mesopotamia - Noa's Arch, The Flood)

In S1, Right before this encounter happens, the scene starts by making us, the audience, witness Aziraphale very badly lying to God about the flaming sword, an event that I already mentioned in part 2 because of the contrast it was considering he did tell the truth to a newly Demonized Crawley in comparison.

BUT [Yay, first "but" of Part 3! Are you having fun?], I really want to talk about this bit some more because that remains one of the scenes that, to this day, bugs me THE MOST in Good Omens as a whole.

To sum things up, you're telling me that GOD:

BOTHERED to pop in to ask one of their Angels a question.

That the said Angel seemed suuuuper anxious about from the start: looking everywhere aimlessly, almost asking them WHAT A DAMN SWORD EVEN WAS... basically giving away EVERY TELLTALE SIGN, both in their voice, mannerisms, and the simple fact that they were literally back to the wall, that they were about to LIE, proceeded to give God the UNanswerest answer EVER:

"Oh, must have, uh, must have put it down here somewhere."

And God just... just... LEFT THAT LYING ANGEL ALONE?! Just as quickly as they arrived?! No arguments, no further questions, no reckoning, just... NOTHING. HAPPENED?!

HUH?

WOT?!

WHO?!

WHO THE F DOES THAT?!

WHO DOES THAT?! That is a real question! WHO?!

IT DOESN'T MAKE ANY. SENSE!

THE F-

I mea-

I'll never recover from it.

Oof. Okay, I'm fini-

I NEED an answer in Season 3! This is all I ask! I don't need the world to be saved, I don't need Alpha Centauri, man, I don't even need Aziracrow to reuni- [okay, no, can't say that, even if I like being dramatic, I take that back, this is all I want and all I've ever wanted, please, I just need to see Aziraphale in a white dress and Crowley demanding him to remove his 200 yo jacket on top of it because it "absolutely ruins it", please!] I. NEED. ANSWERS.

*clears her throat* Yeah. So. I'm perfectly fine with this scene. Moving on!

Aziraphale and Crawley meet in Mesopotamia during the year 3004 BC.

Crawley is the first to notice and to greet Aziraphale VERY enthusiastically. Which is, first of all, cute, but also an indicator that they haven't seen each other in a very long time, more precisely, since Eden (a thousand years prior to be exact). We know that because the first thing Crawley says after his "Hello, Aziraphale!" is the direct continuation of their conversation back in Eden:

"So, giving the mortals a flaming sword. How did that work out for you?"

Aziraphale answers what will never cease to bug me:

"The Almighty has never actually mentioned it again."

Which still peaks my interest because it could mean two things, and pretty different things at that:

One, God and Aziraphale never directly interacted again and nobody from the Main Office ever asked him about the flaming sword at all, which made Aziraphale believe that God never asked them anything about it.

OR

Two, God and Aziraphale DID directly interact again but the flaming sword subject has never been brought up once more.

Given the way this sentence is constructed and the emphasis on "actually mentioned it again," I'm more inclined to believe in the second option, which would be a very interesting thing to pounder:

Aziraphale might have a "privileged" relationship with God considering they probably interacted somewhat directly and more than once.

I'll go back to it later because we need to keep that in mind for the Job's case encounter.

Crawley says that it is "probably a good thing" until his attention is drawn to what is happening around them.

Then, they will debate the subject of the day, which is pretty much the same thing as before but formulated differently and condensed:

What is the point of Good and Bad? Do these concepts even have a meaning or not?

The main difference between the two previous encounters compared to this one is that this time, Aziraphale and Crawley are both active in the debate and do find common grounds here and there. It is shown cinematographically: they share the screen.

Aziraphale explains to Crawley that God got "a bit tetchy" and wants to drown the human race (well, at least the Middle Eastern humans) and Crawley takes that announcement astonishingly, which still aligns with his creator-at-heart persona.

"All of them?"

Insists Crawley.

Aziraphale first tries to mitigate what appears to Crawley as an extreme reaction by stating that Noah, his family, and their spouses will be spared but you can see that he, himself, doesn't really believe in what he tries to say.

"But they're drowning everybody else?"

Crawley really, really cannot comprehend what is happening.

"Not the kids. You can't kill kids."

This reminds us of their very first meeting because Crawley, here, judges God and tries to put himself in their place. Again.

Aziraphale answers with a worried nod: both because he is scared (his Fear of God cannot be anything but present at that moment) and because... he agrees.

And THEN, Crawley says that:

"Well, that's more the kind of thing you'd expect my lot to do."

Now that Aziraphale is more inclined to be part of the debate, Crawley tends to be more forthright about his opinion:

If God can do what Satan and his demons do, what is the point of separating the two? Are they, really, that different?

And, more so:

Is God a Good being anyway?

If Good or Bad exists, of course. [Oh, yes, I know I'm annoying. 100% aware. 😁]

To Aziraphale, it is clearly the case, and that is why he tries, again, to mitigate God's actions:

"The Almighty's going to put up a new thing, called a rainbow. As a promise not to drown everyone again."

A rainbow, huh? How interesting...

A rainbow is basically a demonstration of the union between Water and Fire. God and Satan. Good and Bad. Blah blah blah.

Almost as if...

Nahhh...

Almost as if they both needed to exist at all times!

Also, Aziraphale almost sounds like he is interpreting the rainbow as God's excuse for having a tantrum.

Which Crawley responds with a very sarcastic:

"How kind."

That's when Aziraphale cannot bring himself to follow Crawley's opinion any further (even if it is clearly shown he DOES agree, he is just SCARED to be).

After telling Crawley that he cannot judge God, that's when the "Ineffable" word is brought up again. This time, by Crawley. Because he already knows what Ineffable means to Aziraphale:

I am not important, or mighty enough to judge God and I am not supposed to. I am supposed to do what I am told, no questions asked.

Does it sound repetitive? Yeah, because it is 😅 That is Good Omen's main theme, after all.

This story is, as I mentioned before, a satire. Of religion, but also, of the concept of hierarchy, and the danger of ideologies as a whole. "Ineffable" is an ideology. "Ineffable" literally means "so emotionally overwhelming and powerful that you cannot translate into words"...

But Good Omens wants to bring you to ask yourself: cannot or don't want to?

Aziraphale is a character who doesn't want to think by himself because he is scared of a higher power (hierarchy). But he cannot just... stop thinking. Oppositely to Crowley, who kind of always, naturally had that ability.

Therefore, that makes it difficult for the both of them to understand each other [Oh yes, we'll talk about that further when we finally talk about that S2 finale that left us traumatized. According to my rhythm and how my Muse is an erratic bench, I'd say this conversation will occur in about a year or two.] Just as it is difficult for any of us to understand the people who think dramatically differently than us. Good Omens is an invitation to debate with people who do not share our views. That is how we stay open-minded and prompt to change.

Basically, folks: don't blindly stay in the boxes you're in.

Hierarchy is heavily criticized too, because it is a big cause - if not the main one - of people staying put in their respective boxes. Religion is a box among many others, hence the fact I prefer to say that GO mocks ideologies as a whole.

But hierarchy can be different things, and, more so, can use many different tones towards its subordinates: hierarchy can be nice, and affectionate (family, for instance - or not, definitely not always). Hierarchy can also be threatening, physically or mentally, or both (dictatorship, for instance).

Basically: hierarchy can either come from love or fear.

Or... well, both. That's how you get... propaganda? That is the most blatant example that came to my mind. We tend to associate love with good. We also tend to forget how often love has been used as a weapon.

Good and bad are...

[You know the end of the sentence, now, do you? If not, it means I haven't harassed you enough, so let me remind you]

Good and Bad are always mixed up. If they exist.

Anyway, I feel like I'm starting to digress.

.... Actually? I'm not done with that segment just yet.

[You right now.]

Hierarchy can also come from... habits. History. Some hierarchies that we are under today are still there because of how long they have been installed, but not really because they are that relevant anymore. I am not going to bring examples here because I do not want to offend anybody and because you are more than capable of interpreting this statement in a way that speaks to you.

We'll talk about this more when we'll reach the... Jim/Gabriel subject. [In about a year and a half.]

ANYWAY. Moving on to a lighter reflection:

Romantically speaking, Aziraphale remembers that encounter because Crawley displayed strong empathy and concern during that whole meeting.

He asked Aziraphale how he was after the flaming sword incident,

He could not comprehend how killing kids was okay,

He bothered to alert Noah about the escaping unicorn.

[Also, maybe, because damn - Also, it might come as a surprise to you who have seen me fangirling over Crowley for the last 3 parts but my favorite is actually Aziraphale 🤣]

After this conversation, The Flood starts and neither of them is protecting the other from it. Because of habits (after a thousand years spent on earth, they know this will not hurt any of them), but also as a way to tell us, the audience: they have started to realize they were in this together.

[Insert the "We're all in this together" Disney's High School Musical song right here... Yeah! I'm a Millennial, how could you possibly have guessed?!]

They are Equals.

Another really important topic in Good Omens, by the way, but it is time to dive into one of my favorite encounters between Aziraphale and Crowley and-

Huhhhh. I feel like analyzing two meetings including a whole episode in only one part might feel too heavy (to me, at least). So... I guess see you next time? 😅

Bye, Angels!

[No, no, I'm not saying you are "sssuckersss" okay? Just wanted a Crowley gif.]

Need help to find the rest of this analysis? I've got you covered! Follow me, Angel 😇

Previous - Beginning - Next

[is-this-tf]

Most underrated type of tf, GO!!

Oh my GOD- okay first off to be clear: everyone has one of these. Everyone has an opinion on what kind of TF is underrated, what kind they want to see more of and what they think deserves more love, and they're all right. TF is a wide as hell interest, and like god damn we're insatiable, but that's alright because it really IS good. (so long as it isn't hurting people but that's a given.)

That said.

Fucking. OC TF. I want to TF into your OCs. I WANT TO TF INTO SO MANY OF YOUR OCS SO BAD THEY'RE SO COOL OR HOT OR CUTE OR GENDER OR WELL CRAFTED OR ALL OF THE ABOVE AND EVERYTHING, and holy GOD I wish people made more TF content for their extremely extremely TFable OCs. Fursonas or sonas in general, dnd characters, original content characters, in-universe self inserts or other OCs made for canon material, the list goes on and on and on and ON. OC TF IS SO, SO UNDERRATED.

(I suffer from what I like to call 'chronic fast TF mood metabolism' and it's terminal. It's forever. I'm in this for the long haul. I see a hot character or a fat OC or a fuzzy AU of a character or a goddamn cool half-finished sketch of a design for something (usually ANYTHING) and I pick that TF mood up so fucking fast. I'm so FUCKED, you have to understand. Please, please make TF content of your extremely TFable OCs I am STARVING.)

OC TF is the Best TF, and you can quote me on this because I am RIGHT!

[fadebolt]

A thingy I made for the RW Discord's Artfight-like event. The giant Snake-terator belongs to Discord user pebble3494.