#If you don't follow them you should

[collophora]

Do yourself a favor and go read the entire fanfic work of @fanfoolishness

(In order: Under sun and shade, Blind Side, and Breathless (patching up is one of my fav too, I just had no cool sketch idea for it)

[allthepandasintheworld]

tonight's mood is listening to disease by lady gaga on repeat (i probably wont finish this sketch but like. guys)

[triangular-static]

look i understand if people just don't like the idea of billford, i think we have a different internal concept of what shipping means (they're not good for each other at all but i need to dissect their dynamic like a bug. you understand. it's fun) but it's fine to avoid things you don't like, good for you genuinely

however people saying they like. don't see it. like. i'm not saying there's no platonic way to read it, i'm aroace spec myself i'm all for reading things in different ways. but i do think saying they weren't partners in any queer sense at all is trying too hard to go against what the narrative is trying to say, or missing it. somehow

anyway media literacy time if a character makes a joke like this

and the previous context of that joke within the show is that it's about an ex wife. what connection do you think the text is trying to get you to make.

and that's just from a writing point of view. not even noting that from an in universe perspective ford likely knows the joke from the same source as stan. and is therefore. placing himself in that role of the joke are you seeing where i'm coming from

(not to mention bill's side of this text which is. extremely manipulative but also does not read very platonic. again, it can technically be read as platonic! bill literally can manipulate ford's feelings. but the specific wording used is very much meant to look like possessive ex partner wording whether the character means it that way or not. it's coding. look again i'm not saying it was good for them i'm just saying there was something there.)

and then there's also the divorce/break up/rock bottom input on the website. like. how else is that supposed to be read. and the corresponding page in the book itself.

the language being used here. like yes he's saying it in a joking way but then there's the other side that isn't joking which is him crying at the bar. it's the both sides (the very coded language on top of the very genuine emotions and dynamic beneath)

i know most of us are on the same page with this i've just seen a couple people saying they don't see it when this is some of the most clear cut coding i've ever seen. and these are just the things that explicitly reference a relationship off the top of my head i'm not even including the general vibes of Everything

tl;dr it's barely even subtext anymore it's all but straight up text. what's not clicking have we forgotten what coding is (lighthearted i just enjoy the phrase what's not clicking. what's not clicking)

[breannastewart]

just some vets and their rookie, feat. jewell + nneka + nika 🥹

[blacknedsoul-blog]

Montresor is the Bad Ending of White Raven

So Montresor has a religious trauma. And from what little we know of the flashback to his death, the man was apparently a corrupt preacher.

What that tells me about his life made me crack my knuckles, because holy shit, this guy is an even better villain than I expected. And not for the reasons I thought at first.

Montresor's possible backstory

A fun fact: "unholy men" used to be called "sons of Belial". Same as Monty's Spectre type, so there's the initial connection, but with what we saw in chapter 87, this phrase from his mother resonates quite a bit:

Montresor was most likely a bastard (literally), and if he was raised in a religious community, that immediately made him and his mother outcasts. Possibly his mother hated him for "ruining her life". Whether this is true or not, the implication is that he grew up a victim of a system that decided he was sucked by the devil from birth.

In this light, Montresor's attitude towards the world is actually a logical consequence: he has decided that abuse is the only way to relate, and you can either be the victim or the victimizer. Of course, he is now the victimizer.

But he decided that because life taught him two lessons that were important enough to make him the person he is now.

"I know this game better than anybody"

We know from the clothes and hat in his flashback, and the cross around his neck, that Montresor was a preacher. And I would venture to say an excellent one: he has heard all his life that he is a demon, he knows better than anyone what terror hell produces in people, so he knows exactly what to say (or not say) to manipulate others through that fear.

Montresor, like Annabel, is someone who exploits his own traumas.

Annabel has been almost conditioned to behave like the perfect high-society lady, and that includes going to impressive extremes if it means getting something in return. She has engineered her way through life by identifying the currency of the people around her and knowing exactly what to give them so that they will, in her words "kissing her rings".

Loyalty gained through fear vs. loyalty gained through pretended sympathy.

Same goal.

If the world has made them that way, both Annabel and Montresor will use every last footnote of knowledge gained through trauma to get what they want.

But then there's something else they have in common: this deep knowledge of the rules of the game has also made them both know that the odds are too stacked against them to ever win. In the past, we've seen Annabel throw in the towel on her arranged marriage, but Montresor took a different path, much more along the lines of…

"So I'm not afraid to cheat."

Montresor decided that if people wanted a demon. He would give them one. The worst demon of all, because this one knows the rules: he knows how to play the game, he knows how to cheat and get away with it. We don't know the extent of his atrocities, but given what happened in the flashback and the fact that his idea of a sleepover is stuffing someone behind a wall to slowly suffocate, this guy must have a long rap sheet.

So long, in fact, that he was tied to the tracks of a train to be torn to shreds without even a trial.

Because if the rules are just there to screw you, then screw them: the only option left is to cheat.

Which is exactly what Lenore did when she burned down her house and pretended to be a man to go after Annabel. Lenore jeopardized everything Annabel said was important to her.

And she got away with it. At least until they were both killed (or, if those of us with our chips on Annabel's childhood friend, they may have both died without anyone knowing).

Now, in Nevermore, Lenore is still doing that, as we can see in her reluctance to kill or destroy Montresor: she refuses to play the game, refuses to follow the rules.

She will look for ways to cheat here, as she did before (something Annabel actually expects her to do). The woman is too stubborn to bend, and so far she seems to have the wind at her back (the question is, for how long?).

The bad ending

These elements make Montresor a complete exhibition of the ultimate consequences of taking Annabel and Lenore's attitudes to the extreme: a person who instrumentalizes her own traumas to unravel and try to inflict them on others, and who is not afraid to cheat for her own benefit if it means getting what she wants.

The only thing that separates Annabel and Lenore from Montresor is that they both still use these attitudes in the name of other people: Annabel for Lenore herself, and Lenore for the people she cares about. That both of them (still) seem to have their hearts in the right place.

But if Annabel continues to use her vast knowledge of this twisted game to work her way through people without caring, and Lenore still believes she's above all rules, here's Montresor to show them (and us) what's waiting for them at the end of the road.

[finalgirlsamwinchester]

guy who so desperately tries to find god. who wants to have faith in a higher authority to guide him out of the hole he's in. from the weight of guilt from simply existing, as the person he is. but every time he thinks he's answered his higher calling it turns out he's made the Morally Incorrect choice and his path to goodness and holiness was the road to the devil all along

[chiyana]

Bruce: now, for the last part of this meeting

Dick, Jason, Tim, Stephanie, Damian, Cass, and Duke: ?

Bruce: -turns around to bring up a power point presentation, the title card of which just reads 'Please Be Normal About Tim'-

Bruce: -turns back around-

Bruce: ...Tim why are you the only one still here

Tim: I just like power point presentations

[cobra-creampuff]

the fact that they made it illegal to make ads louder than programs on tv in 2010 but haven't updated it to apply the same regulation to streaming. who do i have to call.

[teddybeartoji]

whining abt seeing things that don't belong in the x reader tag and then tagging your own post with every x reader tag known to mankind is fucking ridiculoushadhsdjshdhah

[kirby-the-gorb]

[immult]

it's crazy to me that the only way you can fail the matron's test is by trusting your best friend or mother and caring for their plight. but not as crazy when you know they're a follower of the betrayer and a ruidusborn though, right?

imogen sounds so defeated when she asked if trusting her mother was bad. then imogen repeating the same again to the hells with this really helpless look. because the matron, a near-omniscient being, has written off her mother as something too rotten to be trusted.

"you know your mother best in the end" the way that does not change the fact that YOU have viewed her mother in the worst light. it's killing me but i have to love the consistent portrayal of the holy, at every level of the realm, putting the burden on others to find goodness or redemption in ruidusborns. but until proven otherwise they are personally fine with reducing ruidusborns to caricatures of an evil turncoat.

the matron of ravens was not there when the gods, despite luz/sarenrae's insistence to give it a chance, decided to distrust the rotten fruit and plucked it right off from its tree, setting off their own end.

[austenpoppy]

Dick and Bette Kane - part 1

I started writing this as an answer to the people who claim they love Dick's "petty" side/him not being welcoming to specific people he supposedly has a grudge against. The problem is, those same people tend to mention Helena Bertinelli or Jean-Paul Valley as examples of that happening, when it doesn't reflect at all the relationship he had with either of them in the New Earth continuity (which is generally the one being referred to).

I will do a breakdown of Dick's relationship with those two in separate posts, but it got me thinking about a "heroic" character Dick's been consistently uncomfortable around in that same continuity, and one he openly doesn't appreciate much : Bette Kane, a.k.a Flamebird. Yet people do not seem to ever list her among the characters Dick's not very fond (for very good reasons).

Bette Kane's an interesting concept as a character, because she's not a very good super-heroin, but she's extremely competent in other areas of her life. As a teenager, she began playing tennis in competitions, and she was so good at it she quickly became "a pro", and was considered something of a celebrity.

Yet Bette dreamed of something very different. She openly admired Robin (Dick) and wanted to imitate him by becoming a super-heroin of her own. She even designed her costume as a tribute to him, and chose the code name Flamebird. That's somewhat ironic considering Flamebird was originally Nightwing's partner back when Nightwing was an identity Superman had used.

Bette as Flamebird's New Earth origins are recounted in Secret Origins, vol. 2 annual 3, which is focused on a mental attack Dick suffers at the hands of the Gargoyle. Here Gargoyle narrates one of the first acts Bette did as Flamebird, which was saving Navy men hanging to lifelines attached to an air-craft carrier that was being lifted into the air. Other super-heroes helped resolve the situation, and that teamwork is what prompted the creation of Titans West.

Secret Origins, Vol. 2 Annual 3

Interestingly, you can see that Dick wasn't really aware of how much he'd inspired Bette, and this mental fight with the Gargoyle happened several years after his first meeting with Bette as leader of the Titans, and years after his first meeting with Bette at all.

At first glance, this may seem surprising, given that Bette was obsessed with Robin and wasn't remotely subtle about it. After becoming Flamebird and rescuing the Navy men, she was part of the unofficial first meeting of Titans West along with Gar, Hank, Dove, Charley, and Lilith. And her first reaction was to be delighted at the idea of seeing "Robin" again, calling him "a cute hunk". When Lilith asked her to tone it down and be serious, she instead went further by commenting on Dick's legs.

Secret Origins, Vol. 2 Annual 3

Then when it became clear the newly formed Titans West would have to seek help and go see the official Titans in New York, all Bette cared about was that she was going to work with Robin.

Secret Origins, Vol. 2 Annual 3

When the two teams finally met, it wasn't love at first sight. Once they finally started discussing the case they were working on, Dick suggested a plan of action that involved the two teams splitting up. Bette cut him off as soon as he said it to contradict him and affirm that she was going with him, which she ended up doing.

Her behaviour was honestly creepy. She cut off Dick just because she'd decided that she was going with him. She didn't refer to him by his code name, but only by the part of his body she'd commented on before, calling him "legs". She took his face between her fingers. And the sentence "I've waited too long for this", coupled with the nickname, would've made my skin crawl. It sounds like she'd fantasized about Dick for a while, was going to have what she wanted no matter what, and had no problem announcing it out loud.

Secret Origins, Vol. 2 Annual 3

After the case was over, the two teams had a fight over what team had done more to solve it, and over the legitimacy of Titans West. Wally criticized the way they'd come into the headquarters like they belonged, Bette said they did because they were Titans too, and appealed to Dick to validate her opinion - calling him "legs" again, which implies that this was the nickname she gave him the entire time they worked together.

Dick said he wasn't sure whether it was a good idea for the others to be Titans, because he wasn't sure he would be able to lead two teams, one of them long-distance. Members of Titans West were affronted by Dick's speech, including Bette. She went with the others, talking to Dick again to tell him that "[he'd] never know what [he'd] missed", making her departure partly about a romantic/sexual golden opportunity Dick didn't take. Appreciate the fact that she called him "Robin" again now that she was irritated by him.

Secret Origins, Vol. 2 Annual 3

Titans and Titans West had a couple other team-ups before Titans West disbanded, during which Bette learned Dick's secret identity. From the way Bette acted during the one team-up recounted in details in New Titans #56, we can deduce that every time she met Dick she kept trying to seduce him, persistently, relentlessly, in obnoxious ways that sometimes border on sexual harassment.

It was well-known that Bette was obsessed with Dick - not like Bette was trying to be subtle about it, she had no problem making her intentions clear and that publicly. There's a panel I couldn't include in which Hank scoffs at the idea that Lilith "trusts" Dick and tells Charley that "she's got the hots for him. Just like Bette."

I'm sad I couldn't include it because there's this hilarious exchange after in which Hank bemoans "Man. That burns me. What's he got that I haven't ?" and Charley answers "Look in the mirror and weep" (lmao).

But as I was saying, Bette kept trying to hit on Dick. In the panel below she asked him whether he needed help (the "sure" implying it's not the first time she asked the question), only to say that it was "[his] loss" when he said no. Dick was very polite in his answer, thanking her for her offer, but was turning her down all the same.

New Titans #56

Not long after, Dick told off Hank and Charley who'd gone in an argument over leadership and about their association with the Titans, before having the conversation about Dick I mentioned above. Bette immediately cheered him on, calling him "handsome" as she got close to him. Dick ignored her.

New Titans #56

During a fight she called out to Dick to warn him about an assailant, and had to sneak in a comment about his butt (whoever said this kind of things was recent was lying). Dick was clearly uncomfortable, answering with an embarrassed "Uhh, thanks, Flamebird" - the "uhh" plus the two commas in a three-word sentence indicate he didn't know what to make of her comment. He also corrected her to make sure she knew he'd seen the assailant she was talking about. It was a way for him to reaffirm his skills as a crimefighter (she's not the first one he said those things to), but also a way for him to reject her attention.

New Titans #56

She was also very physical around Dick. I can't include all panels of her, but she seemed to be near Dick most of the time, would touch his shoulder for no reason when they came in a lab, or, like in the panel below, latch onto his arm. Dick wasn't shown shaking her off, but he wasn't seen reciprocating either.

New Titans #56

So in the end, it's not a surprise Dick had no idea Bette'd wanted to become a super-heroin because she'd been inspired by him. Not when most of their interactions revolved around her attraction for him, not when she kept making comments about his looks.

As an aside, this is one of the reasons I can't take seriously anyone who says it's Devin Grayson's fault if Dick's been sexualized. Hard to do that when you have an entire character who could've been one of the best tennis players in the world but decided to become a crimefighter because she was obsessed with Dick, and kept gushing over his legs and butt. Dick's been dealing with that kind of things since the 80's, guys.

Part 2

Part 3

[smugraccoon137]

Tell me she wasn't waiting for that call

Becky tagging Char in her Tiktok, we're back! 🙌

[front-facing-pokemon]

[mamawasatesttube]

kon sweetie im so fucking sorry that someone would even say something stupid like that oh my god.

[soraya-snape]

There was this HP creator on TikTok that I was starting to really like. But then she said that “Snape is not a good guy (OK kinda agree but the way she said it sounded more like “he is a bad or even really bad guy” which is obviously not true) and that he only tried to save Harry which was the least he could do” and this is the part where I was like?!?!?!

He might have started off only trying to save Harry (actually Lily at first) but then he actually tries to save the whole wizarding world. Like remember that time he told Dumbledore “Lately only those I couldn't save.” or when he tried to save Lupin at the beginning of DHp1 or told Phineas Niggelus Black to not call Hermione a mud blood. And let's not forget how he spied for Dumbledore during the first and second war, which is definitely more than the least he could do. I could go on but I think people with enough braincells get that he was not just trying to save that one boy but actively going against Voldemort's values and also kinda his own (or at least the once he was taught as a kid/teen). And like the example with Lupin shows also protecting those who, from his perspective might not deserve his help (considering Remus was a bystander at his bullying who actually had the power and the duty to stop it and also while mostly being civil towards Snape in later years still made his life extremely hard [I still love Remus but let's not ignore his flaws]).

Yes maybe he was a cruel teacher even bully to some of his students (we actually canonically only know of the trio and Neville) but at the same time also beloved and admired by some (mainly Slytherin but considering how badly they were treated by almost everyone else I actually think it's good of Snape to favour them especially considering what he went through during school simply because he was Slytherin. If you have a problem with that, perhaps you should complain first about everyone mistreating the Slytherins before complaining about someone treating them nicely, even if it is unfair). 

But besides that his position in the second war (and also the end of the first one) on the good side is clear and not only to save Harry but also everyone he simply could save. And if you don't see it, maybe you should get your eyes checked, or I don't know...