#Love and Other Troubles

[notonlymice]

Emilie de Ravin as Sara in Love and Other Troubles (2012) [part 2]

[yokyopeli]

Hulluna Saraan/ Love and Other Troubles (2012) Written by Katri Manninen & Samuli Valkama

[inkskinned]

because sometimes there are invisible tests and invisible rules and you're just supposed to ... know the rule. someone you thought of as a friend asks you for book recommendations, so you give her a list of like 30 books, each with a brief blurb and why you like it. later, you find out she screenshotted the list and send it out to a group chat with the note: what an absolute freak can you believe this. you saw the responses: emojis where people are rolling over laughing. too much and obsessive and actually kind of creepy in the comments. you thought you'd been doing the right thing. she'd asked, right? an invisible rule: this is what happens when you get too excited.

you aren't supposed to laugh at your own jokes, so you don't, but then you're too serious. you're not supposed to be too loud, but then people say you're too quiet. you aren't supposed to get passionate about things, but then you're shy, boring. you aren't supposed to talk too much, but then people are mad when you're not good at replying.

you fold yourself into a prettier paper crane. since you never know what is "selfish" and what is "charity," you give yourself over, fully. you'd rather be empty and over-generous - you'd rather eat your own boundaries than have even one person believe that you're mean. since you don't know what the thing is that will make them hate you, you simply scrub yourself clean of any form of roughness. if you are perfect and smiling and funny, they can love you. if you are always there for them and never admit what's happening and never mention your past and never make them uncomfortable - you can make up for it. you can earn it.

don't fuck up. they're all testing you, always. they're tolerating you. whatever secret club happened, over a summer somewhere - during some activity you didn't get to attend - everyone else just... figured it out. like they got some kind of award or examination that allowed them to know how-to-be-normal. how to fit. and for the rest of your life, you've been playing catch-up. you've been trying to prove that - haha! you get it! that the joke they're telling, the people they are, the manual they got- yeah, you've totally read it.

if you can just divide yourself in two - the lovable one, and the one that is you - you can do this. you can walk the line. they can laugh and accept you. if you are always-balanced, never burdensome, a delight to have in class, champagne and glittering and never gawky or florescent or god-forbid cringe: you can get away with it.

you stare at your therapist, whom you can make jokes with, and who laughs at your jokes, because you are so fucking good at people-pleasing. you smile at her, and she asks you how you're doing, and you automatically say i'm good, thanks, how are you? while the answer swims somewhere in your little lizard brain:

how long have you been doing this now? mastering the art of your body and mind like you're piloting a puppet. has it worked? what do you mean that all you feel is... just exhausted. pick yourself up, the tightrope has no net. after all, you're cheating, somehow, but nobody seems to know you actually flunked the test. it's working!

aren't you happy yet?

[ruporas]

need to exist in your warmth (id in alt)

[1v31182m5]

On my planet, this is hilarious /starfire ref

Joke explanation in tags

[katebeckets]

how to say "I love you" in x-files [97/?] ⤷ 1.07 — “Ghost in the Machine”

[thenewgirl76]

Babies Having Raising Babies

Deciding to visit Amity Park and hang out with Danny for a bit before getting back to her globetrotting, Ellie arrives just in time to witness Plasmius ambush and abduct her original/big brother. Knowing a direct confrontation won't end well she opts to follow the older halfa from a greatly lengthened distance.

Once she makes it to the castle and sneaks into the lab she finds Danny out cold and now significantly younger, with Vlad standing over him holding an empty syringe. It takes everything in Ellie not to rush her demented creator right then and there and instead wait it out for an opportune moment to strike.

When Vlad's in the process of placing a rather nefarious looking device on the unconscious three year old's head is when Phantasm acts, grabbing up Vlad's spectral energy neutralizer and trapping him in it before he can get his guard back up. With the crazed billionaire subdued she then thoroughly wrecks the lab and takes off with Danny.

Even after she's well out of range of Wisconsin Ellie doesn't stop, continuing to fly at top speed until all her energy's been spent. She barely manages to avoid crash landing into the barn she came across before blacking out from sheer exhaustion.

She eventually stirs at the tantalizing aroma of freshly baked pie. The sight that greets her upon rousing is her now little brother wide awake and happily scarfing down a generous slice of pecan pie, as well as a boy her age holding the rest, watching them both from a respectful distance.

It's only through the frantic promise of telling no-one about them and offering of more food that Ellie doesn't go invisible, snatch up Danny, and hightail it out of the barn in a blind panic. The boy introduces himself after she calms down as Jon Kent, explaining she and Danny were currently in Kansas and in his grandparents' barn.

And true to his word, Jon keeps the two of them a secret and consistently supplies them with food, even goes a step further by giving some of his old clothes to Danny and periodically sneaking them into the house to use the shower.

Though suspicious of his kindness in the beginning, only taking advantage for Danny's sake, it isn't long before Ellie comes to trust the farmboy and feel quite a bit of guilt for taking so much and giving nothing in return, no matter how many times Jon tells her he doesn't mind and is happy to help.

Overtime the two teens grow comfortable enough to share the more secretive parts of their lives, Jon as Superboy and Ellie both as Phantasm and what led to her first crashing into the Kent's barn with Danny. Further along the way the half ghost and half kryptonian start to develop feelings for each other.

For the first time in her short life Ellie isn't so strongly against staying in one place for extended periods of time. Unconventional as the whole situation is, technically being a runaway along with now having someone she was responsible for, she could get used to all of this. The only downside is that Danny, having been stripped of nearly all his memories thanks to whatever Vlad injected into him and now too young to know any better won't stop calling her and Jon Mommy and Daddy. Jon sees no harm in it and thinks it's cute. But Ellie just knows anyone who hears is going to get the wrong idea.

This is unfortunately proven when one day Jon's dad finally returns from a team mission offworld and not too soon after must deal with Livewire. When Jon finds out and rushes off to help he doesn't realize Danny is following him invisibly, wanting to see him in action. Throughout the entirety of the fight Superboy is blissfully unaware of the presence of his girlfriend's little brother, only to be unpleasantly surprised once Livewires been taken down and Danny unexpectedly appears, cheering for him.

Before his dad can question him Phantasm makes her own appearance and proceeds to scold Danny for wandering off, adding to Superman's confusion and giving Jon a bad feeling. That's when the bomb drops as Danny, feeling properly contrite attempts to appease Ellie, apologizing to "Mommy" before expressing that he wanted to watch "Daddy" fight bad guys.

Immediately Jon finds himself cringing. He doesn't want to, but he has to. So he slowly turns to take in his father's expression. And just as he feared, his dad is looking deathly pale and seconds away from having a heart attack. Okay. Maybe Ellie had a point about nipping this in the bud before someone jumped to conclusions.

[palskippah]

Hi! Headcanon that Nimona does this some nights when Ballister's sleeping, and then he wakes up in the morning with more cowlicks than usual

Reference under the cut!

Based the thingy on this video of two cats that I found really cute jdfd especially with the background sound (whose translation could work as: sweet heart, sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet, heart or something like that sjdf)

Also here it is as a gif! One day of these I'll figure out how to keep the colors and fps correctly pipipi

That's it!

[thaly-does]

my favorite "viktor talis" headcanon is that it was an academy issue. academic rules of publications and citations in all sorts of scientific works are rather strict, and in piltover academy there aren't many zaunite students, them having no house names or surnames or anything. so, during his first years there, everything viktor has to publish he publishes under heimerdinger's name, as his student and his assistant. viktor is bitter about it - this is his independent research - yet he has to comply.

it's different with hextech. they do everything together, they share every sleepless night and every deadlock but every breakthrough and every achievement too. and viktor could be okay with all the recognition swirling around jayce's name. jayce is better for the public, for making speeches and smiling to investors, anyway. viktor is content with being his partner, even if it's not on paper.

jayce is the one who's not content. jayce is the one who argues and tries to go against the system, because hextech must be referred to as the work of jayce and viktor. alas, eventually trying to break the rules proves inefficient.

so jayce does the next best thing - he starts writing his surname next to viktor's name. every time. every paper. everywhere. he even signs vik's notes. jayce shares the family name with his partner the same way he shared his life-long dream - no hesitation.

viktor simply says "thank you", but oh he is so impressed. he starts to think he's never felt as seen as he does with jayce.

[notonlymice]

Emilie de Ravin as Sara in Love and Other Troubles (2012) [part 4]

[edorazzi]

Finally time for more Tracy Island comics!!! ✨🏝️✨

In which Gordon gets a little too intense on a longhaul flight with Alan; and Virgil is so good at remembering to reload Pod 4 but sometimes the simplest things just slip your mind!

John has a few emergency solutions but Gordon CANNOT miss his TV show and will kill him if Troy Tempest swoops in with the Stingray sub, all dashing and heroic to "rescue" his old co-pilot. So John will have to grit his teeth and agree to another of Lady Penelope's fancy social gatherings... 🪦

[ruoyeming]

Spirited Away! AU to heal my sad little heart <3

[liorlen]

Love seeing kcd2 getting some love but… my girl 🙏 I miss her

[casscainmainly]

"My long-held belief that Duke and Luke should not get along" <- could you please elaborate on this? I'm fond of both and I collect your thoughts and analyses like they're rare trading cards so I'm ready to be all 👀🫳🍿

First of all anon this might be my favourite ask ever, I've been dying to write my thoughts on these two so THANK YOU. Secondly my belief that Duke + Luke wouldn't get along actually stemmed from WFA, I was super annoyed with Luke giving Duke the pep talk in ep 76 because they have no relationship!!! Then I started thinking harder and realised they are a really interesting pair. In case anyone hasn't noticed I'm fond of giving Duke relationships where he's annoyed with the other person so 😭 this is very on brand.

The thing about Duke + Luke is they are, on the surface, similar - they are Black members of the Batfam who operate mostly independently, 'separate' from a legacy as Signal/Batwing (though I will deconstruct this later), devoted to their family, have a strong sense of justice, and view crime-fighting as a business. But I believe at their cores they are fundamental opposites - and it's this hidden opposition that makes me think they wouldn't vibe with each other. I'm focusing on We Are Robin Duke and Batwing Luke, though I will also refer to Duke's Signal days + Luke in Detective Comics.

(This is going to be a long post because this is lowkey my Luke + Duke thesis 😭)

Introductions

Duke and Luke were both introduced in the New 52, actually in the same year (2013!). What's really cool about their intros is that you already see how different they are. We first meet Duke in Zero Year, where he's fishing in the subway and then attacked by a gang; we then get the famous scene of him solving crosswords by Bruce's unconscious body. When Bruce tells Duke and his family to leave, Duke refuses, telling him they can't leave Duke's grandma and that all it takes is one riddle to free the city from Riddler's influence.

By contrast, we first meet Luke in the spotlight as he's wrestling for MMA in Batwing #19. He's been wrestling to get Batman's attention, refusing all job offers from his dad to do so (and thus creating some juicy father-son tension). In Batwing #20, we see he has two degrees from MIT, lives in a fancy apartment, and is really tech-oriented; his cover story for Batwing is that he's travelling the world.

Already, there are a couple things that already firmly separate them:

Class: Duke is from the Narrows whereas Luke is rich

Connection to Batman: Duke stumbled across Batman and gained his attention quite organically, whereas Luke was actively begging for Batman to notice him

Agency: Duke's actions were motivated by the extreme circumstances of Zero Year and a desire to help rooted in his material environment, whereas Luke's is a more internal, abstract wish to help (pointing to their class differences again)

Gotham: Duke refuses to leave his city, whereas Luke immediately packs up and travels the world

Intelligence: Both of them are fiercely intelligent, but in different ways - Duke loves puzzles and riddles whereas Luke is more inclined towards engineering and technology

And these differences only grow as they get older!!

Maturity

Duke is 16 (in my head, canonically it's vague but he's between Damian and Tim so 14-17) and Luke is 23. This age gap is honestly not that big, but I think it would feel big to both of them. And what's worse is that Duke is quite mature, but Luke is said to be immature:

Batwing #23

I don't think Luke is actually immature, but it's a recurring theme that other characters perceive him as unwilling to grow up; and I genuinely do think Batwing, for him, is kind of an adventure at first. Now compare this to Duke, whose circumstances disallowed him being childish. He had to grow up because his parents weren't around anymore, and he became quite jaded as a result. Even after he's mellowed out in his Signal days, I still don't think he could tolerate working with someone who comes off as light-hearted as Luke does. Duke would be annoyed by how he perceives Luke doesn't take things seriously, and Luke in turn would be annoyed when Duke inevitably criticises him for it.

Arc

Following on from above, their arcs are actually in total opposite directions. We first meet Duke alone and disillusioned with everything, putting his whole being into finding his parents. Then, through We Are Robin and Robin War, he begins to understand what Robin means as a symbol and finds community, leading to his brighter personality in Signal comics. Luke, however, begins very light-hearted (as seen above), with a huge respect for Batman and the Bat symbol. Once his family starts being torn apart, though, he becomes increasingly aggressive, more isolated, and in a much darker place. Compare a narration box from the last issues of both:

Batwing #34 / We Are Robin #12

These encapsulate their journeys: Duke learns that he doesn't have to act alone, whereas Luke struggles with accepting all that has happened since he put on his suit. Being a vigilante improves Duke's life, whereas it essentially ruins Luke's. This is why I don't think that WFA ep made sense!!! They have nothing in common in terms of the vigilante experience, and I think they would frustrate each other because they have such different conceptions of what the vigilante life is!!!!!!!

Batman and Robin

Okay so I said that Luke + Duke aren't legacies; even though Batwing is one, Luke doesn't actually talk to David Zavimbe, and his Batwing is not spiritually connected to David's really. But Luke and Duke both do take inspiration from other Batfam members - Batman and Robin, respectively.

Batwing #25 / Batman (2011) #45

Luke is the rare Batfam member whose motivations don't spring from tragedy - he's inspired one night when Batman saves him and he jumps in to help. Luke's love for Batman is wrapped up in Bruce himself, as a person rather than a symbol; he genuinely thinks Batman is awesome and wants to help people under his name.

Duke is the exact opposite - Robin is not a person for him but a symbol, and a symbol that can be spread to many people. It's also intimately tied with Duke's relationship to Gotham, because Batman is "on the gargoyle" and Robin is "on the street". Importantly, Duke says to Darryl that "I know you work for him, but you're us". Working for a singular person is in opposition to this 'us' that Duke believes in.

Luke, though not exactly an employee, literally wanted to work for Batman, Inc. Batwing is in many ways a 'job', an alternative to the corporate life Lucius wanted for him. Duke would, I think, take huge problems with Luke's philosophy as a whole. Separated from Gotham, attached to Batman as a person rather than as a symbol, Duke just literally wouldn't understand where Luke is coming from. And Luke, too, doesn't seem to respect Robin as a mantle (this is after someone mistakes him for Batman in Batwing #34):

I think Luke views Robin as firmly a kids' role, a sidekick for Batman; that would annoy the STUFFING out of Duke. I actually could write a whole post in itself about this incident and Luke being mistaken for Batman but that's for another day. The point is they are attached to the Batman and Robin legacies which in themselves are already vastly different, but Duke is kind of anti-Batman and Luke is a little anti-Robin, so they would not mix.

Family

One thing they do have in common is a deep love for family. But even then, their familial relationships are extremely different: Duke has a wonderful relationship with his parents, bolstered by the fact he lost them for a while, whereas Luke has a contentious relationship with his. Duke in some ways idealises his mom and dad, while Luke is sharply aware of his parents' shortcomings.

Batwing #20

Now this wouldn't be an issue normally, but Duke canonically has, like, a problem with judging other people's families. It's a really consistent (and somewhat hilarious) trait of his:

We Are Robin #5 / We Are Robin #5 / Gotham Nights #8

The Dre comment ("you're a mob kid?") is particularly telling. Because Duke has such a good relationship with his parents, and because he's shaped so much by them, I think he sees children as reflections of their parents/families. It's hard for him to see someone completely divorced from their family - you even see this a bit in Batman & The Outsiders, where although Duke understood Cass' disagreements with Shiva, I don't think he really got the nuances of what that felt like for Cass.

Luke's relationship with his father is complex and contentious. They love each other, but Lucius' desires for Luke just don't match what Luke wants, and Luke can't tell him about Batwing either so it's a constant back-and-forth. This secrecy is another thing Duke wouldn't get - I've made posts before about Duke and honesty, and it's a huge value of his. It's significant that as soon as his mom is healed she finds out about Signal; dishonesty is not really a factor in Duke's life, whereas it is Luke's central conflict. Luke's entire thing with his dad and his alter ego is something Duke has never had to deal with, and I think Duke would just be like 'tell him?? and make up??' and Luke would sigh so loud and hard.

Personality and Authority

But all of that aside, I just think their personalities wouldn't mix! Duke is a jaded teenager whose overt honesty and resistance to authority often give off a bad first impression (see his first encounters with Black Lightning, We Are Robin, Damian, even the Bruce train scene...). People do warm up to Duke quick, and once you love him you adore him, but there's a hurdle to becoming close to him that you have to leap first.

Luke, on the other hand, is affable and immediately likable. He's popular in school (as Russell mentions in #25), has experienced college social life, and is open and friendly. I think in an initial meeting Luke would find Duke off-putting and rude, while Duke would find Luke shallow and annoying. Luke is an extremely confident person, as shown in both Batwing and Detective Comics (particularly the latter). I think Duke would take this confidence as him being stuck-up, especially because Luke is rich.

Their class differences also separate their reactions to authority. Luke doesn't take authority at face value - he disobeys Bruce basically as much as Duke does. However, given his upbringing he isn't that anti-authority. Compare Luke and Duke's attitudes to cops:

Batwing #25 / We Are Robin #2

The Luke narration box is after the cops shoot him and accidentally make him kill his best friend 😭😭😭 like if that had happened to Duke his inner voice would NOT say that. This is another example of how their different upbringings and personalities cause them to have DRASTICALLY different outlooks on things. Batwing also sides with Batwoman when she kills Clayface in Detective Comics, something I think Duke would not do (he would've sided with Cass) so their ideologies often put them on opposite sides.

FINALLY, and least importantly, Luke is not a reader. This is a recurring thing and it's so funny:

Batwing #21

That's Tam telling Luke to "read a book". I think this exact interaction would happen with Duke taking the place of Tam, where he'd just be super annoyed that Luke doesn't enjoy literature. Honestly I think Duke might remind Luke of Tam in a lot of ways, since Duke is Bruce's golden child just like Tam is Lucius'. And that would annoy Luke, like he can't escape annoying younger siblings even as Batwing?? Bruce liking Duke more than Luke, even when Duke doesn't even care for Bruce's approval, would send Luke's blood pressure through the ROOF.

Conclusion

Um anyway I'm so so sorry this was so long but that's why I think Luke and Duke wouldn't get along!! It's mostly that they have such different outlooks on literally everything and their personalities clash. Anyway, if anyone bothered to read til the end here's your reward!! A little edit of what SHOULD have happened in WFA ep 76:

[themirepirate]

was reading Sherlock holmes and this popped into my head