#Why try to maintain anything remotely like consistency of character

[cephalog0d]

DC writers deciding what the relationship between Bruce and Jason (or Jason and the rest of the Bats, for that matter) is like in any given issue.

[waka-chan-out]

for the mini event: 23 and atsumu please! congrats on 300 you deserve every one of them!

300 Follower Event

Miya Atsumu

Prompt 23: “Wanna make a bet?”

this fic was part of my 300 follower event. check out the rest of the submissions here.

post-timeskip, obviously.

word count: 1.5k

content warnings: established relationship, gamer!atsumu, teasing, hand job, blowjob, atsumu miya continues to be a stubborn bastard and i love him for it

thank you so much anon 🥺 that’s so sweet of you to say. i’m sorry this took a while to write, but i hope you enjoy :)

“I’m telling ya, you’re not gonna beat me.”

“Yeah?” you said, then shoved at Atsumu’s arm. His cart on the screen went flying off of the road and he yelled in frustration.

“You’re cheating’!”

“Street rules, ‘Tsumu. Anything goes.”

“Physical violence wasn’t part of the deal.” He slowly gained speed as you crossed the finish line. You smiled as the screen scrolled through highlights of Atsumu falling off the map and getting hit.

He let out a frustrated groan and jumped on you, pinning you against his couch.

“I don’t like playin’ with you.”

“Why? Cause you lose?”

“A little.”

You ruffled his hair and he buried his face into your chest. He let out another groan, then propped his chin up on your sternum.

“I’ve got an idea.”

“Yeah? What’s your idea?”

He grinned.

“Wanna make a bet?”

You carded a hand through his hair.

“What’s the bet?” you asked.

“We play another three tracks. Whoever wins gets to be in charge.”

“In charge of what?”

He smirked.

“You know what.”

You raised your eyebrows.

“Can I distract you?” you asked.

“Yes, but I’m going to do the same. And you aren’t allowed to interfere with what the other person is doing. Offense only. No defense.”

“Oh, easy. I’m winning.”

He pushed himself off of you and braced his arms on either side of your head.

“How can you be so confident about this?”

“Because I’m very good at this and you aren’t. I’m going to win.”

“I wouldn’t be too sure about that, sweetheart,” he said. He ran a large hand up your side to gently squeeze around your neck. “I’ve got some tricks up my sleeve.”

You smiled.

“Prove it.”

He rolled his eyes and sat up.

“I will. Don’t cry when ya lose.”

“I don’t think I need to be the one worried about that, ‘Tsumu.”

“Shut up and let me start the game.”

You settled next to him as he opened up the game.

“What track are we playin?” he asked. You leaned over and placed a hand on his inner thigh.

“I don’t care. You choose.”

He glanced at you out of the corner of his eye.

“It’s cheatin’ to start early.”

“Says who?” You sat up on your knees and leaned in, placing a few quick kisses on his neck.

“You’re a pain,” he grumbled.

“You made the deal, babe. Now pick your stupid character.”

He grinned and you groaned.

“Not Waluigi this time!”

“What? I always play him.” He laughed to himself. “Scared the shit out of ‘Samu when we were little.”

“Fine. Remember that when you have to listen to his defeated yells.”

“So competitive. Are you going to be a sore loser when I kick yer ass?”

“You seem confident, babe, but the game is about to start and you haven’t even picked up your remote.”

“Shit!”

Atsumu scrambled to begin as you pulled ahead immediately, laughing as you went.

He shoved you a few times and managed to knock you off of the track once, but you maintained a comfortable lead.

“I don’t think I thought this through,” Atsumu said.

“Why’s that?”

“I can’t do anything while I’m playing besides push you around a little.”

You smiled to yourself and took your hand off of your controller.

“Are you sure about that?”

“I need two hands to play, stupid.”

You grinned and set your hand between his legs.

“Are you sure about that?”

“Jokes on you, now I’m gonna win,” he said. You began to rub him with your hand. He took a deep breath. “Keep that up and you’ll fall off the track.” You laughed.

“I don’t think I’m the one who needs to worry about that.” You steered with one hand and continued moving your hand against him. You could feel him getting hard quickly. He always was eager about this kind of thing. Your palm kept consistent pressure on him while your fingers shifted, touching him everywhere you could. He swore and leaned forward, like he was trying to speed up his cart with his mind.

“How the hell am I still behind you?” he said. You smiled and tilted the remote to go around a curve.

“I’m incredibly talented. Give up yet?”

“Absolutely not.” He cursed and fell off the track. You laughed as you rounded the curve to the finish line. He threw up his hands in disbelief and yelled. “How do you do this?”

You set your remote down in your lap and laid a kiss on his shoulder.

“I told you you weren’t going to win.”

“Bullshit. I’ve got you in the next two.”

“Sure you do, babe.” You reached over into his lap and started to unbutton his pants.

“Woah, what’s up?” he said, catching your wrist. You sat up so your eyes were level with his.

“No defense, Miya.”

His face screwed up into a frown and he moved his hand away. You finished undoing his pants and pulled down the front of his boxers.

“Doesn’t this feel like cheating?” he asked. You shook your head and licked your hand. He took a deep breath. “Not at all. You decided on a game. I’m just playing.” You wrapped your hand around him. He swore and made a frustrated face.

“Fuck you. Now I have to win.”

“Good luck with that.” You repositioned the remote in your other hand as the next race started.

Atsumu had a significantly harder time with this track. He ran into wall after wall and fell off the map repeatedly, all while trying to hold in small gasps as you slowly pumped his cock. You did as well as you could while having to keep a steady pace between his legs. It was so fun to watch him squirm, to see his thighs trying to close but realizing that wouldn’t help at all.

You passed the finish line first and pulled your hand away. He gasped at the lack of contact and turned to face you with frustration in his eyes. He opened his mouth to speak, but you cut him off.

“Before you say anything.” You held your hand up between you. “I have a proposal.” He raised his eyebrows.

“What is it?”

“We play an all-or-nothing round.”

He leaned away from you, unsure.

“What’s the catch?”

“New rules. I try to distract you. If you can win against the computer, you win the bet. You don’t, you lose.”

“You’re not playin?”

“Close your eyes.” You avoided the question and he hesitantly complied. You adjusted the settings and handed the controller back to him. “Go ahead and choose the track you’re best at.” He frowned and did as you asked. For the first time in a long time, Atsumu looked nervous.

“Comfortable?” you asked.

“I guess so.”

“Good.” You slid off the couch and settled between his legs.

“You’re kiddin’ me, right?”

“Start the race or I’ll accept my win.”

He inhaled deeply and pressed start. As the countdown began, you wrapped your lips around the head of his cock.

He inhaled shakily and began steering over your head. You closed your eyes and ignored the obnoxious sounds of music and rotating boxes. You didn’t hesitate in setting a quick pace, your lips making lewd noises as you moved. He tried to hold back and pretend it didn’t affect him, but when you ran your tongue around the head again he let out a quiet sound and his character nearly stopped moving.

You had to stop yourself from smiling as you continued, moving your mouth and tongue exactly the way he liked it and hearing him respond as unenthusiastically as he could. You’d never seen him so stubborn, so determined to not show how you affected him.

“Almost . . . done,” he groaned. You quickened your pace, just enough to throw him off. His hand fell from the remote into your hair and tugged slightly. You hollowed out your cheeks and his grip tightened. You were starting to think he might finish until you heard the familiar sound of the race ending. You pulled off of him and wiped your mouth. He stared down at you with pink cheeks and glazed over eyes.

“How’d you do?” you asked. He shook his head lazily like even he didn’t know. You turned around and looked at the screen. You smiled. “First place?”

He ran a hand through his hair.

“Pretty good for a guy gettin’ head.”

You smiled and kissed his leg.

“I have to agree with that.”

You moved upwards and straddled him.

“I think I’m okay accepting your win.”

His brows raised. He looked genuinely shocked.

“Are ya serious?”

You pressed a short but heated kiss against his lips. His hands settled on your hips. You pulled back and smiled.

“You won, didn’t you?” You leaned in so your lips were barely brushing his ear. “Now have your way with me.”

“Oh, fuck,” he whispered. He looped an arm around your waist and threw you down on the couch, following close behind.

You didn’t tell him you had adjusted all the settings to easy.

[twstandsh0ut]

Savanaclaw Kink Headcanons

Hi~ So I'm finally getting around to continuing these. I'd like to say I'll be more consistent with these posts but between my work schedule and making the banners I use for these posts myself (not that they're hard, but I definitely spend a good chunk of time going 'How to make this prettier') I can be a bit sporadic. I do however plan to start posting scenarios soon as well, along with more character analyses. And possibly finally post something to ao3 as well, which will be linked here once done. Anyways, on to the headcanons under the cut!

Leona Kingscholar

100% into marking his partner and that is a hill I will die on. (tbh I'm pretty sure this is a common headcanon for him anyways)

Will he make you do most of the work? Good chance depending on his mood. But don't get complacent. The instant he thinks you're getting too cocky he's going to flip the tables on you. So you could say... Be prepared

That said, when he's being more active Leona is definitely going to be into more rougher sex. Expect to be bruised, bitten, scratched, and extremely sore the next day. And you know when you run into him in the halls he's going to be smirking at how stiffly you're walking.

He's another one who would probably be into using remote controlled vibes on you. Especially if he's asked you to do something for him. Would definitely enjoy watching his herbivore struggle to complete a simple task due to nonstop messing around with the settings. Plus he can easily force all sorts of faces out of you without having to get up from where he's lounging

Definitely into cock warming. While cuddling. And he's going to fall asleep during it... so enjoy! Hopefully you're into being forced to wait

Sadist. I mean... Look at literally any of his interactions with Azul. He loves seeing others squirm, especially if they're powerful/think they have the upper hand.

Dom, but like... the kind that will command you to come to him and won't chase after you if you don't. Then when you do return will feign surprise and demand you prove to him how badly you want him.

Would prefer a service sub/switch. He wants to be doted on and played with while still maintaining control. At the same time, he wants someone that will look up to and adore him. He wants to be his partner's king

Jack Howl

Sooo you know how I said Deuce is one of the most vanilla characters in the game? Meet the other one. He's also the most monogamous of the cast (I may do a post on that later with my headcanons). If you're with him... he's not sharing.

Jack appears rough on the outside, but would most likely be a pretty gentle partner. He may get slightly rough when he loses control, but the instant he sees any bruises appear is immediately slowing down and kissing them

He's also the least likely of the cast to use toys or other items. If a partner asked I could see him once in a while, but I feel he'd never be fully comfortable and would only be doing it to please a partner rather than getting anything out of it

I don't really see him as much of a sadist or masochist. He has very slight tendencies of both, slightly more on the masochist side in that he doesn't appear to mind being teased by those he cares about/respects (Yuu, Vil, Ruggie, etc)... but again, I see that as only slight and not something he would be really into/put up with a lot.

I see Jack as being a switch with slight Dom tendencies

I also see Jack as being pretty flexible with a partner. I could see him with a switch, a Dom, a sub... but, his partner definitely has to be someone who can handle his tsundere personality and should be open to a ton of affection. I feel once he finds "the one" he's going to turn really romantic and pour affection on that person... and absolutely destroy anyone who dares to harm his significant other.

Ruggie Bucchi

Hopefully you're into wild rides, because Ruggie is definitely the kinkiest in Savanaclaw. He's willing to try anything once, and definitely has a few diy toys. Why waste money on some expensive vibrator when he can make his own and enchant it with magic? Or you know, take one of Leona's or something.

Experimentalist to the extreme, get ready to try any and all positions he hears about or can come up with

He's also totally going to use his unique magic at some point, whether to force you to touch yourself or stop you from touching yourself. I could see him using it to make a partner hold a toy on themself as well, or to keep their hands above their head so as not to remove a toy.

Ruggie is another one who isn't quite a sadist or a masochist. Sure, he enjoys teasing, but I haven't seen anything in the game that screams sadist to me. At the most he's a light sadist. Same with masochism, he definitely has tolerance (he did say he prefers working for someone like Leona to someone like Kalim) but I don't see him particularly enjoying pain.

Ruggie is one of the characters I see as being a pure switch without tendencies either way

I think he would prefer a partner who is also a switch. Definitely a fellow experimentalist as well. He's looking for someone flexible in more ways than one...

[small-round-and-angry]

My opinions about the Loki (2021) series. Spoilers and all that.

I took some time off the fandom until I felt it was time to make this post, if only to get it out of my system, so I can finally rest. I thought, since I was so pumped for the series to begin with, before it was launched and everything, and how I waited to expectantly for every episode that was airing weekly, that the empty feeling I was experiencing after it was all done was just because, well, it was all done.

I thought maybe it was the normal empty-chested-feeling you get when you finish a movie, series, or book that you really liked / waited a lot for.

It was not it. It didn’t pass. It got worse.

I’m going to put this under a cut, and under the anti-tags, because I know some people liked this show and not everyone has to be miserable with me.

I want to preface this by saying that I respect everyone that was involved in this project, and I know that it may be gut-wrenching to receive criticism on something that you worked in, but I feel cheated. I feel lied to. It’s one thing to work hard and be thoughtful and still receive bad reviews, but I don’t think this is the case at all.

To start it all, I was so excited to see Loki again. He’s the only character that I maintained any attachment to throughout so long, sometimes more, sometimes less, but I always considered myself a fan since I saw The Avengers (2012) with my parents in the theaters, at the ripe age of 12. To be honest, Loki was what got me into superhero movies, and into the marvel fandom at all. And I knew, or at least suspected, that they would do something different with the character. I was ready for that, after reading the comics and realizing that MCU Loki and Comics Loki are two different versions of the same character (more on that later). And I thought it was even going to be for the best, since Tom Hiddleston, bless his heart, was one of the executive producers and, I thought, would have more of a say on Loki’s character arc during the series.

What I watched was, to be completely fair with myself, not Loki. I couldn’t really pinpoint it at the time, but I keep expecting something to happen after he was captured by the TVA to show us his mind at work. A scheme, a plan, anything remotely smart that he cooked up. And yet, nothing. He kept acting…Not Loki. As time passed, I hoped he was biding his time, fooling everyone, that he would reveal his masterplan at the season finale and go back to the main timeline. The series ended and I didn’t see Loki, any of them, act as Loki once.

Maybe it’s because I am a fan of the older version of MCU Loki. The darker, more complicated one. I didn’t want a redeeming arc at all, I don’t think all villains or anti villains need a redeeming arc. That’s boring. And, to my interpretation of his character, shouldn’t be in his future at all. Loki thrives on the gray area. I love not knowing what he is to the other characters, the chaos, the lying and manipulation, the grand schemes. This new content we’ve been getting, since Ragnarok, depict him as a more comedic, campy character (which is …fine? Meh, I don’t care for it).

And of course, that’s not to say Tom Hiddleston didn’t do a good job. Poor man did his best with what was given to him by the writers. It’s hard to keep a character consistent, however, when every director and screenwriter seems to have a different idea of who they are. He kept it together fairly well when Taika attempted to assassinate Loki’s character, but Kate Herron snapped his neck harder than Thanos ever could. And for what?

Sylvie.

Now, hear me out. There’s nothing wrong with the concepts of Sylvie, Lady Loki, and a Love interest. Separately. In trying to bring everything together in one character, the writers not only could not come up with a compelling woman character, but also had to bring down an already well established character, the TITULAR character, no less, so she could look somewhat presentable, which is insulting. And they Still failed. I don’t like the pairing either, but that’s not what I’m talking about (right now). The truth is, I don’t know Sylvie. She just got here, I have no emotional attachment to her whatsoever, so I won’t feel for her the same I feel for Loki, who’ve I watched for almost a decade. And instead of trying to build an emotional connection between Sylvie and the viewer, they chose to spoon-feed us a romance between her and Loki.

Well, more between Loki and Her, and not even that. I felt like Loki was always trailing her like a lost puppy, and big eyes and expectations, and she was giving him…Absolutely nothing. All the sweet moments between them were initiated by him, all the talking about feeling were done by him, all the looks and gestures…And although I understand Sylvie grew up in apocalypses and Loki grew up in a palace, she still claimed to have romantic partners. Multiple, man and women. And still, showed no visible interest in Loki up until the kiss scene, which I suspect was more to shut him up and send him flying that anything.

Excuse me if I want Loki to have a love interest who is actually invested in him too.

And Why make her a Loki variant at all if she is adamant she isn’t Loki? Why go to the extent of dying her hair blonde (where in the apocalypse did she manage to get her hair blonde? WHY?) and then give her horns? If she was taken as a child, where did she get the very Asgardian like leather armor she used? WHERE IS THIS INFORMATION?

If they were going to go so far to alienate her from the identity of being a Loki variant just so they could pair her with Loki and it not be weird (it was), why make her a variant at all? If you’re going to make a selfcest pairing, at least commit to it. Sylvie Lushton, from where they got the name, isn’t a Loki Variant, if anything She’s an Amora Variant. Why name her Sylvie if she has no relation to Amora?

The plot has so many holes and is so disappointing. I was promising Loki playing around and causing havoc with time traveling. When I saw Richard E. Grant had been cast, I imagined the big bad would be King Loki, like in the comics! Something about Loki seeing what he becomes if he let darkness completely consume him, and finding balance in his chaos, after all. The premise of Loki healing though observing himself, or variants of himself, was honestly good. His variants, however, where so underused, poorly used, made Loki look like a fool. Even he was ashamed of their interactions. And Kid Loki apparently Killed Thor, which makes him the leader (???) and that’s never mentioned again. President Loki, who was a big part of the appeal of the trailer, is gone in two minutes. And then there’s the mirror scene from the trailer, that didn’t even make it to the series.

There are other things that bother me a lot about this too, but it’s not my place to discuss them in dept. To list, if anyone is interested in knowing: The underdevelopment of black character, and the reaction of the fandom, to my knowledge, to said black characters, in special Ravonna and Boastful Loki. The misrepresentation of gender fluid people, which if I can recall was one of the points they sold to us as something they would touch into Loki’s characterization. Some people have pointed out that it was biphobic to pair Loki with a woman after he “came out” on screen as bisexual. I am bisexual, and I disagree, but I can see why it’s an issue for a lot of people, as mlm relationships are rare in MCU canon. What I thought was Biphobic, however, was having Loki not show us he was bi, rather than telling us.

In summary, I am very disappointed, and I am mourning. This series managed to do what End Game didn’t, which was kill all hope I had to ever have Loki back. He’s gone.

[ethanesimp]

THE OAK TREE // ZERO E.T. 

Pairing: Ethan Torchio x GN! Reader

Summary: Everyone at the Oakes Academy is aware of the rivalry that exists between two of the school’s best students, Ethan Torchio and Y/N L/N. What nobody knows is what a brilliant team they are when they’re at risk of their reputations being damaged and a killer’s on the loose.

Word Count: 2.6k

Warnings: Just Ethan and Y/N behaving like children, mentions of killing someone (as a joke), swearing.

Masterlist // Taglist link in bio

TEASER

A/N: This is the first chapter of The Oak Tree! I hope you guys enjoy :) Huge thanks to @night-girl-301​ for proofreading this and cheering me on! I was like... scared as shit to post it so yeah.

Taglist (strike means it won’t let me tag you):  @oro-e-diamanti @gretavanfleetlove @victoriadeangeliswifey @cheese-toastie-11 @selenophiliaxx @superchrystaldrug @petit-poussin @bidet-and-legolas @fallingforyou123 @ethaneskin @soft-boy-ethan @teenyweenynightghost @reputationdamiano @cantaraiilmionome @tabi-toast @queen-of-brokenhearts @geklutst-ei @juststalking @cruz-ata @ohtorchio​ @ethan-torchio-angelo​ @unitermoonshine​ @everythingisdefinitelynotfine​

It was only a few minutes past two-thirty when you managed to open the door that led to the greenhouse. The key, more often than not, would get stuck in the lock, and you’d have to spend a few minutes trying to yank it free, but this time around luck seemed to be on your side.

You placed your large black backpack on the stool that was always by the door before closing the entrance again. Mr. Murphy was still watering the plants, completely oblivious to your presence thanks to the loud music coming from the small stereo he kept near the gardening tools. You tapped his shoulder gently not to startle him; it wouldn’t be the first time you’d come into the place unannounced and you didn’t want to be the reason why he had to walk around with a cast on his arm again. 

He smiled fondly at you and adjusted his large glasses that were starting to slide down his nose. Mr. Murphy was an old man with long white hair and kind blue eyes, he’d been in charge of the greenhouse at the Oakes Academy for almost twenty years and had been the first person to show you kindness after you first arrived at the place years back.

“I thought I told you to take the afternoon free, Y/N,” He shook his head disapprovingly and you could only shrug. You had to work at the greenhouse at least three hours a week to maintain your scholarship per the Academy’s rules and it’d been long since it stopped being a task and instead became your favorite part of each day. 

“We were let out of Philosophy earlier so I thought I’d come by before I go study. Can I help with anything?” The older man sighed but nodded. He adjusted his glasses once again and wiped the dirt from his jeans.

He pointed at the corner where all the pink anthuriums were kept, shielded from direct sunlight, “Please water those, put a bit of fertilizer on the ones that arrived on Wednesday, and if you’ve got time, can you please feed the worms?” 

“Sure thing, anything else?”

“Just those three things. I’ve got to go help unload the groceries so please lock up both doors once you’re done,” He asked with a smile on his face as he buttoned his coat and grabbed his walking cane from where he’d dumped it on the floor right next to him. Back when you’d only known him for a few days, you’d always rushed to his side to pick up his cane and help him, but quickly realized it was a thing that annoyed him because of how independent and stubborn he was. “Oh and, before I forget, the kid’s outside. I don't want to come back and see you two trying to tear each other's heads off."

A laugh escaped past your lips and you shook your head as you tilted your head to the side so you could look through the hole in one of the windows. Just like he’d said, the boy with the long hair was sitting outside by the oak tree reading a book. You looked back at Mr. Murphy and shrugged, "No promises."

"I'm serious. You're smart Y/N, and I'm pretty sure you could easily find something you've got in common. That much hatred isn't good for either of you." Those were Mr. Murphy's last words before he walked out of the room.

You stood by the plants for a few minutes as you played around with the headphones that hung around your neck. You’d already sort of been startled by the topic you’d seen during Philosophy that day and you hoped that being at the greenhouse would serve as a little distraction but Mr. Murphy’s words hadn’t helped much.

You huffed and looked around for the hose to water the pretty anthuriums to get your mind off of everything that had gone down that day.

-

Hours later, you were still unable to shake Mr. Murphy’s words off. It wasn’t the first time he’d insisted on voicing his thoughts against that rivalry you had going on with the person standing between you and your biggest dream coming true. The thing that pissed you off though, was that his words had reminded you of what your best friend, Rory, had told you just the previous night while you did your usual hate rant. According to them, it was a good way to destress yourself.

You scoffed at the thought alone and let your chin rest on your palm as a frown appeared on your forehead. There was not a thing you could name that made you even remotely similar to the person sitting only a few feet away from you at the quiet school library. Ethan Torchio, a.k.a. Your archnemesis, the person you disliked the most in the face of the earth, was biting on the tip of his pencil as he concentrated hard on the thin black book he was holding up. Those dark eyes that shone honey whenever light hit them just right and those long strands of hair that graciously fell down his back accompanied by his signature turtlenecks and pretty smile were enough to make someone’s knees weak, but they only made you gag. 

You were sure he felt your eyes bore holes into the dark depths of his soul because it didn’t take long for him to look over his shoulder and meet your stare. Ethan smirked and his eyebrows shot up as he sent you a wink and a small wave. You knew that expression of his, he was teasing you, riling you up, hell, maybe he was trying to intimidate you. As crazy —and maybe a bit pathetic— as it made you sound, a simple smirk wasn’t just that when it came to him, never had been. Those dark eyes of his communicated his devilish intentions to you while he looked like an innocent child who’d never break a plate to anyone else.

You held his stare and mirrored his expression, which made him chuckle softly. It was nothing more than a silly game you’d play with one another to see who’d get tired of it first. The stare-off didn’t last too long that time around because his attention was stolen by one of his friends, Thomas. You simply shrugged and went back annotating on your copy of the black book. It was nothing more than one of those books written for the sole purpose of boring people to death. You loved reading, but when it came to those school-issued books that took around three pages to describe the sky-blue sofas in the main character’s living room, you couldn’t read more than a few pages before wanting to aggressively chuck it out the window. 

In a desperate attempt to distract yourself from the book that did nothing other than make you feel miserable, you stood up. You walked over to the large window that went from floor to ceiling. To your delight, the curtains were drawn back, which allowed sunlight to illuminate the otherwise dark library with its beautiful hues of orange and yellow. The librarian was a grumpy woman that loved when the curtains covered all the windows and blocked any source of light that wasn’t the soft glow of the lamps placed all over the dark room. You were almost convinced this woman had never felt the warmth of the sun against her pale and ashy skin, sometimes you even thought of her as a vampire that’d burn to death if she dared to stand outside for a few minutes. 

You looked out the window and admired the green gardens that adorned the front yard of the Academy’s largest building. The Oakes Academy was old and had been around since 1057. However, unlike most ancient schools like this one, the school board hadn’t been too interested in renovating the place outside of simply reinforcing the structure enough to fulfill the basic safety guidelines and the installation of optical fiber wires for a better internet connection. Even then, it was still considered to be one of the most prestigious schools to study at, and if it hadn’t been for the generous scholarship you were offered, you wouldn’t have been able to afford it anyway.

“Still plotting that little plan of yours to end the human race?” You bit down on your bottom lip to stop the colorful curse words from spilling as you turned sideways to look at Ethan. He’d decided to wear one of those annoyingly tight black turtlenecks of his and a pair of plaid trousers that made him look taller than he already was.

“Yes, and I’ll start with you first,” You smiled sarcastically at him, “In fact, I’ll swing by your dorm and murder you in your sleep,” You added while you choked the air for dramatic effect.

Ethan laughed and rolled his eyes. He had that spark of hate in his eyes that was always present when he was talking to you. That look alone told you that all that hatred and disgust you felt towards him was returned in the same magnitude. This rivalry of yours that consisted of dirty looks and constant arguments had been going on since eighth grade and it just seemed to get progressively worse as graduation approached. 

Everyone at Oakes knew how much Ethan and you despised each other, it wasn’t a secret. Even the Head Professor had been a witness of plenty of your many petty fights and you didn’t doubt that the people in charge of the Student Welfare department were sick of the many reports you’d filed against each other for breaking the ‘student rules of politeness’. No one remotely important cared much about your reports anyways because they were far from serious and, more often than not, childish.

“How cute. Although I don’t think that’d work too well for you, would it amore? If something were to happen to me they’d know it was you,” He commented. You shrugged and bit your lip in anger at the nickname he knew very well you detested. 

You casually leaned against the window, “Meh, it’d be worth it if I knew I wouldn’t have to see your face again. Now please get away before someone starts getting the sick idea that we’re friends.”

Ethan rolled his eyes but backed up a few steps either way, “God forbid someone would think such a horrific thing," He scoffed and raised his hand only to show you his middle finger when he knew the librarian wasn’t looking.

Before either of you could utter out another word, Damiano, one of Ethan’s closest friends, walked up to where you two were standing, effectively ending the conversation between you.

He waved at you and offered you a kind smile, which you immediately returned. Unlike his best friend, Damiano was a delight to be around. He was one of the kindest and nicest people you had ever met. You were quite close thanks to the fact that he’d been dating Rory for a while and you got used to spending long nights with the two of them doing silly things like playing board games or watching films. You were basically their third wheel, but neither of you minded much, if at all. 

“Hey, what’s up?” Damiano smacked Ethan on the shoulder as he started a conversation with him. You took it as your chance to leave and just awkwardly walked away after mumbling something about having to find Rory. They had told you something about eating dinner together, and while you’d initially refused because you were supposed to finish the book and start on your report, you were tempted to accept their offer and forget about the stupid book for a little bit more.

Just as you were about to leave the library, your phone vibrated inside the pocket of your warm cardigan. You took it out and chuckled when you read Rory’s message about their new phone but groaned when you realized they wanted to see you after curfew. You sighed and left the library as you tried to think of a great excuse to tell your roommate Emilia so she’d cover for you while you snuck out.

Ethan had his eyes focused on your figure as you left the library but turned back to look at Damiano when he spoke up, “If you’d only talk to them Ethan, I-” He sighed and interrupted his best friend, already irritated by the conversation he’d had with you.

“No, I will not talk to them, okay? Not like we can even talk because we start arguing like two toddlers,” Ethan mumbled out the last part and took a deep breath in. Truth be told, no part of him wanted to talk to you. You were annoying, rude, and didn’t seem to have more than one brain cell in his eyes, so why lose his time talking to you? Not like there’d be anything to talk about.

“They’re just so exasperating!” He spoke up and Damiano rolled his eyes as he saw his hate rant start approaching. They were both aware that once he started, he wouldn’t be able to stop, “I just- They try so hard and it’s annoying. Like I swear they’re also a huge hypocrite. I know you don’t see it but I do, I’ve never met anyone mo-”

Before he could end his last sentence, he felt a body slam into his and arms snake around his waist. Ethan huffed at the impact but wrapped his arms around her frame once he noticed it was Adeline Rossi, or Addie as everyone liked to call her. 

She pulled back and looked at both Damiano and Ethan excitedly, “You will never believe this but the craziest thing just happened… Hey, where’s Vic?” She trailed off as she started looking around for her friend.

Ethan chuckled lightly when he saw Thomas quietly approach Addie while she was distracted. They all knew she was the easiest person to scare, so it didn’t take more than a slight push and a soft boo for her green eyes to go wide and for her to jump. She was quick to turn to where Thomas was standing and didn’t think twice before smacking his shoulder with the heavy book she was carrying.

Thomas put his hands up in defeat as he took a step back and rubbed his shoulder, “Okay, okay shit. Stop, that actually hurts,” He whined and Addie only shrugged as Damiano and Ethan watched the whole interaction with amusement. 

“Right, so, ignoring all that,” Addie spoke up once again and shifted her attention back to Ethan, “Since she is nowhere to be seen, could you please help me with some stuff? It’s just this little interview for one class of mine and I’ve already interviewed Damià and Thomas but I need just one more.”

He nodded and said a quick goodbye to his two best friends before following the shorter girl out of the library. However, while he was walking, he felt his phone vibrate inside the pocket of his jeans. He fished it out and frowned as he read the text that had just been sent to him but laughed once he noticed it was only his girlfriend Emilia from her new phone. 

Then he sighed and rolled his eyes once he realized she wanted to see him past curfew again and he knew Will would ask him for money in exchange for not ratting him out. He quickly texted her back and slipped his phone back into his pocket as he followed Addie to her dorm.

Next

GOOGLE DRIVE 

[rpbetter]

I often see multis post that they want to make a new muse, at the same time as they're backed up on threads and asks, and they get their followers to "enable" them to make that muse in the post replies. What is your take on this? Is it a they-can-do-what-they-want situation, or is it reasonable to be annoyed when I see this? Or both?

Hey, Anon!

Both.

I mean, as usual, this is my opinion of an opinion-based matter. This isn't an equation that has an objectively right to wrong scale, it isn't actually hurting any living person or thing. But...it is incredibly annoying and can be hurtful.

They can totally do what they want, and much of the nature of genuine creativity is exactly that - the allowance of doing whatever you so desire. It's something I support rather adamantly, but it's also something I support trying our best to do responsibly and without being hurtful to anyone in a hobby that involves more than ourselves.

This isn't deciding to write another fic when you've not finished the previous four or five that others were interested in, or never finishing any of your original fiction, but continually starting new projects. While others might be enjoying those things as well, you didn't agree to interact with them. They're audience members, not participants.

When others are participants in a hobby that has to work both ways, it's different. Your actions do affect other, real human beings.

So, I totally feel like you've a right to be annoyed every time you see that happening. I do. I tend to unfollow people who do that repeatedly, as we're not pursuing the hobby in the same way. I'll argue all day that someone has a right to their, sometimes literally, eighty-plus muses they never develop or stick to, but that doesn't mean I want to engage with them as a writing partner.

For those of us who want long-term writing partners with the same, well-developed muses, this kind of thing just is annoying. As is everything else that comes with it.

As in...

They're constantly posting "talk me out of adding x" as code for "talk me into writing x."

No one actually wants to be talked out of it, which was probably more obvious to everyone else here than it was me for a little while lmao I tend to take things rather literally. This was, as one can imagine, not appreciated! Telling someone in total earnestness, "I really don't think that's a good choice. You're always saying how overwhelmed you are and just dropped multiple threads yesterday, so adding another muse is going to make you feel worse eventually. Don't do it! :)" is so not what they were looking for. As was evident by the return meltdown over how they could do what they wanted, like I said they couldn't or had any authority over what they're doing with their time.

It's an obnoxious bit of pandering for a foregone conclusion.

Have you ever seen anyone who posts that sort of thing not pick up that muse? I haven't. I've only seen muns who are legitimately on the fence about it asking others in private conversations or testing out the muse decide against it. The thing that makes this incredibly irritating is the attention-seeking and need to validate something they must know isn't a great choice, otherwise, they'd just do it. They're aware that they're behind on drafts, asks, and other things - aware that this is maybe a dick move when they owe everyone already. So, they're seeking "permission" with full knowledge that multiple mutuals are going to hop on that post with encouragement, even some of the ones being messed over by this choice.

It puts people in a bad situation.

Some of those people genuinely don't care, they just want to interact with any muse, and I'm going to be awful and say it - they don't care about totally interchangeable muses and have them themselves. That's fine, this isn't a problem for them. It is for the mutuals who are hoping that maybe if their writing partner gets into this new muse, they'll get a reply to their threads with that energy, or that they'll stick to this one and they can have consistent interactions with them. It is for the mutuals who feel pressured to respond positively because they fear not responding at all will make them seem like bad rpers.

One more thing playing into the counter logic excuse for shitty behavior of "it's just a hobby" is one more thing too many, and it does exactly that.

No one wants to be accused of being remotely too invested in RP anymore, of taking it too seriously, or having any emotional investment in muses, stories, or muns. Not accepting every choice someone makes that negatively impacts you with a grin on your face while you dump confetti on them for it just isn't a comfortable option for a lot of muns anymore. Honesty isn't a comfortable option. While the other option isn't either, it seems better than that mutual noticing you're the only writing partner who didn't hop onto that post with support any of the multiple times they reblogged it. It's only a hobby in which everyone can do what they want until what one wants clashes. Then, you're getting a callout for being addicted to RP.

And the way it tends to clash most is in having expectations of others. Ones that would be totally normal in any other hobby requiring interaction with other people.

Like not overburdening yourself at the expense not only of yourself but those on your "team." That's what is being done when someone knows they cannot keep up with themselves, but continues to add to the situation with new muses.

Not only are you no longer getting responses already while they're intending to add even more to their overflowing plate, you'll be dropped again when they have to "fresh start" their blog because they're burned out.

I have to put that in quotations because I don't know how it's a fresh start when you keep everything but the blog layout the same. All the muses and all the behaviors, including adding a new one despite not having the time or interest necessary to do so, is inevitably maintaining the problems that led to burnout. Dropping every thread, changing the URL, a new blog layout, new aesthetics, isn't fixing the issue even if it temporarily reinvigorates the mun.

The mun is definitely doing things that are not helpful to them, it's stressful and upsetting to experience burnout, but it's at least that mun's choice. Both to do it and to become defensive over fixing it, thus, never fixing it. It isn't anyone else's choice to be repeatedly dropped or ignored, though...unless they just keep sticking around for it.

Again, we're supposed to respect everyone's choices. That's fine when it really works that way, when it is truly everyone. But it's not an acceptable decision to see a multimuse of twenty or more muses and say that's your limit, that you've experienced too many muns who are serial muse-adders not being able to keep up with themselves, so you don't interact with these blogs. If one feels that way, they had better not put it in their rules or ever be upfront about this as a reason, when one is demanded, for not following back or interacting.

It's not acceptable to see a writing partner adding another muse after they've owed you for months, just wiped their inbox, and keep expressing being overwhelmed/behind and become annoyed. Let alone dropping them or explaining to them why you are doing so.

The only "acceptable" course of action is hoping that they totally forget you exist so you can quietly slip away.

I don't feel like that's especially fair or mature. It certainly isn't helping the communication problem we absolutely do have here in the RPC when only one party is allowed to communicate without fear of being labeled, rather ironically, as a bad RP partner.

While this problem seems to be most prevalent in more casual RPers, it's certainly not isolated there. I feel like it's necessary to say that I've had muns I both interacted with and were simply on my dash alike who were not on that more casual side who went from being multis to being muse collectors. Once they hit over fifteen of them or so, they stopped even bothering to try to refrain from picking up at least one muse from every new piece of media they consumed or were inspired by.

It was more annoying because they had been capable of writing truly unique characters they stuck to, and even if they were, with full and upfront admission before interaction, slower to respond, those responses were well worth any wait for the quality of writing and storytelling going on. That's so much worse than someone who was always at a lower skill level as a writer, didn't have a good grasp on characterization, and wasn't especially dedicated to anything. It's depressing and disappointing, but it's also not what you think you're getting into when trying to carefully pick who to write with. Like everyone else, my time to enjoy this hobby is far from twenty-four-seven as well. It's important to me to try to choose muns I'll work out with well so that neither of us is wasting the other's time. And that's what it feels like - the investment of time was a waste because their hobby became adding infinite muses, or rather, the idea of muses.

So, yes, while it is fully everyone's right to write what and how they want to (even if it amounts to not writing at all), it'd be nice if we were all as committed to doing so in a way that was adult enough to respect commitments we've made to each other as we are, as a RPC, to losing our minds when someone merely drops the words "commitments" or "respect."

For the inevitable muse-collectors running across this:

Fiction is inspiring! That doesn't mean you needn't be inspired by anything, just that picking up or creating a whole other muse might not be the best way to follow this inspiration.

If you're considering another muse, but you find yourself already behind and/or overwhelmed? Try one of these instead:

create a plot based on it! Write up the idea and put it in your wanted plots/wishlist tag. Bring it up to partners you think might be interested in it as well, or seek out a crossover from that fandom

make it a new verse for an existing muse! This is as close as you get to creating a new muse without actually doing so, and in many ways, it takes even more creativity. How is your muse different in this AU than they are in canon, how are they the same? In the ways that they are the same, what similar events but done in a way that is natural/logical to this universe have happened to maintain that? Get really creative!

for either/both of these, make some moodboards and aesthetics with that energy while you're waiting on someone to take you up on these new things. Answer some HC asks or tag games using your new verse, or write an independent HC for the verse or plot

talk to writing partners who already love that muse about their new verse/your desired plot! No, not pressuring talk, just normal conversation between friends, but maybe they will be interested in starting a thread

simply be inspired to include some aspect of what you liked in an existent thread. A particular scene you could pull ideas from, the overall mood of a film, or the way something was written in a book - include that in your replies somehow! RP is creative writing, be creative

There are so many, honestly more organic, directions to take inspiration than bluntly adding a new muse. Especially when you're already overburdened, not holding up your end of replies, and/or not able to portray each muse as their own character properly.

Sometimes, it's not just not a great idea to add a whole new muse, and that's alright. There seems to be a serious problem with fomo going on with this whole issue, too. You're not going to miss out if you do not immediately add this character to your multi, and you're never going to fully keep up with what is trending anyway. Do it because you still want to write this muse in four months instead, they're obviously not going anywhere if that's the case, and they'll be a better developed, interesting portrayal for that.

And people do have a right to be annoyed when they feel sidelined by you seeing a shiny object and repeatedly pandering for validation in dropping them for it. Particularly if you're a mun who, further, expects everyone to be just as interested in every new muse you make as the last. As in, you're annoyed when you keep creating muses no one is falling over themselves to interact with, guilting, shaming, or outright demanding that this new muse is interacted with before they have access to the previous ones.

They don't have a right to be mean you to, but they have a right to be annoyed and to drop you. They even have a right to politely decline explaining this to you if they feel unsafe, or to politely explain it to you before they move on.

Absolutely everyone's right to pursue RP and every facet of it as they so please, but no one else has to like what you're doing.

If this response grates on some of you out there? Consider the other options you have, how you might be making others feel, and that it's actually completely okay to tell yourself no. You won't perish if you tell yourself no to taking on a new muse when you, honestly, should not! It'll be okay! Maybe, you just need to evaluate if there is another muse, or more than one, you should remove before adding one. Maybe, you just need some time to reorganize how you reply before you add this one. "No" when told to yourself can simply mean "no, not right now, it isn't a good time/situation."

[linkspooky]

Put on a Happy Face

We talk alot about how shigaraki is told to hold on to his trauma and emotions forever and carry them as a burden, but are we gonna talk about how Deku is told not to express his emotions either by […] Toshinori Yagi?

Are we gonna talk about how that kid despite all his tears and emotions is still being told to just smile through it all? No wonder Toshi is such a terrible teacher. @sweetened-apples​ [x]

A response to a post by sweetened-apples, who made a wonderful point that I want to expand on. Both the main hero and the main villain of this story, are constantly told to hold onto their painful emotions inside of them and never let them out. Which has led to both Deku, and Shigaraki alway smiling when they are hurt or distressed. 

Shigaraki and Deku were both taught the same faulty coping mechanism their mentors, and because they do not allow themselves to feel it leads directly to their self harming tendencies. Both the hero and villain of this story smile when they are in pain. 

1. The Failures of the Mentors

When I say that Deku is forced to always smile, I don’t mean that it is a bad thing to smile while saving someone to reassure them. However, the manga has consistently shown that even outside of fighting, those who follows Toshinori’s teachings are encouraged to always smile. Crying or feeling sad is a waste of time when you can be smiling. That’s not smiling to comfort someone else or reassure them, that’s not smiling in a show of determination. That is just repression. 

Psychological repression is a defense mechanism in which we unconsciously push away painful or traumatic memories, thoughts or desires. [x]  

Simply put there is a difference between working through your emotions, crying, and then eventually having to smile again, or forcing yourself to smile because crying is a waste of time. One of them feels your emotions and works through them, the other just denies having emotions in the first place. 

Yes, the ability to keep smiling and stay hopeful can be a sign of strength. But it can also be denying weakness. There are good and bad sides to every piece of advice given. For exmaple this is the well intentioned advice that Night-eye gives Mirio while Mirio is mourning the death of an incredibly close mentor. 

This is how Mirio acts the next day. One whole day after someone precious to him died. 

It’s good to see he got through the entire grieving process in twenty four hours. At this point Mirio has not processed his loss in any way. He is not so much able to smile after everything he has lost, but denying the fact that he wants to cry. He’s pushing his sad feelings away rather than dealing with them. 

While yes, it makes Mirio appear more optimistic if he’s always smiling from now on rather than just sitting around, mourning his losses the point is those feelings are not just something that can be shoved down or go away. Mirio has not learned how to cope with these feelings in any healthy way. In fact the opposite, he has been taught by his mentor that his feelings are a burden on others and that he can only ever show them his smile. 

In the heat of the moment it makes sense not to cry, but what about afterwards? Are heroes just neer supposed to get hurt, or never feel pain all of their lives even when they are not being heroes? Mirio has been taught an incredibly unhealthy way of dealing with his emotions by his mentor. 

Coping techniques can be adaptive, which increase functioning while decreasing the of perceived level of stress, or maladative which do not increase functioning, but rather temporarily decrease the symptoms of stress while the stressor maintains it strength, or worsens.

Simply smiling does not make the pain go away, in fact it’s a way of holding the pain close in the exact same way Shigaraki was taught to. Both Deku and Shigaraki are taught extremely maladative coping mechanisms from their mentors that make them incapable of dealing with their pain. 

But All Might was the strongest hero and he was always smiling! Except, that All Might while being well-intentioned is extremely emotionally immature. All Might is expected to be the adult figure in Midoriya’s life, and yet All Might can’t even handle the simplest of confrontations. 

His primary strategy for dealing with literally anything remotely emotionally challenging, like the sidekick he lost in the past, or telling Midoriya information that might endanger him or disappoint him is to just avoid the conversation entirely. All MIght one of the most brave and heroic characters in the series, is a coward who runs away at any show of complicated feelings.

All Might is so obsessed with being a symbol that he literally cannot function as a person. That is why All Might and All for One parallel each other. They both have tremendous strength and exist in the symbols of good and evil, and yet, their real selves are incredibly injured, broken bodies, frail and barely clinging to life. 

This is exactly what he was meant to learn from Mirio. All might isn’t being heroic here, he’s refusing to accept anybody’s else, because that would be an admission that he was weak. He’s not trying to heal, he’s just refusing to believe he was ever injured in the first place. 

All Might just cannot accept help, or cannot accept that he is weak like a proper adult. The result of repressing his emotions his entire life, he does not know how to handle any negative emotion at all. He does not know how to admit when he’s not strong. He leaves out extremely critical information and keeps secrets, not because he thinks it’s for the best but because it’s just difficult for him to hold a human conversation. 

Theseare also habits that lead to All Might’s self harm. Fighting until the point that he’s coughing and spewing up blood. Not caring about the condition of his body at all. It’s no longer a selfless sacrifice, it becomes an act of self harm. 

All Might despite having already experienced what a tragedy it was to keep fighting until your body was broken, and his fall out with Nighteye does not try to teach Midoriya to be better than him in this regard. Instead, he encourages and pushes on the same unhealthy attitudes to his protege.  

He’s pushing this emntality on a kid who is young, and doesn’t know any better. All Might who should have learned from all of his mistakes, instead unawarely, passively, passes on the exact same mindset that lead to his demise. 

All Might says he can’t give Deku all the answers, when he literally has not given him any. Even in his attempt to teach Deku, he does not admit he made a lot of mistakes in his life and his philosophy could be wrong. He just… tells Deku to stop punching and kick with his feet instead. 

All for One actively encourages Shigaraki towards self destruction. However, All Might passively pushes the same self destructive mindset onto Deku without being aware of it. He does not go out of his way to stop a child from repeating the mistakes that he an adult has mad, and instead constantly throws Deku straight into sink or swim methods of teaching and expects him to learn it all by himself. Which is no wonder why we have seen Deku repeat the same self harming behaviors, and continually breaking his own body to save others, over, and over again with no one attempting to stop him or curbing his behavior. 

Yes this is not intentional on All Might’s part the same way it is for All For One, but it is still something he should know better. All for One’s manipulations are particularly effective because they actually prevent Shigaraki from healing, or moving past his pain in any significant way while at the same time telling him that this is the only way for him to heal. 

Shigaraki has been influenced to believe that he will always be in pain, and rather than trying to let go of that pain he should keep it inside of him because there’s no true way for him to release it. 

This was an intentional manipulation on All for One’s part, so Shigaraki would never grow up, and never develop into anything but the exact kind of successor All for One wanted him to be. He would forever remain a powerless child lashing out, unable to be reasoned with, and unable to heal in any way. 

The reason Shigaraki smiles when he is inflicting pain on others is because he is coping the same way that Deku does. He believes that when he lashes out, it’s the only way he’s capable of feeling good, that if he lashes out enough the pain will go away.

That feeling is the temporary relief from the emotions that he constantly feels inside of him. He has been taught that the only freedom for him will come by holding all of his painful emotions close to him and never letting go. But All for One’s manipulations show he cannot work through his stress in any meaningful way, because he always has to hold his stress close, the moment he relieves it he starts to pile it up again. The same way that All Might by denying his pain keeps fighting until he is broken, Shigaraki by always holding onto his pain believes that there’s no such thing in comfort for him in life and his pain will never go away. That there is nothing in this world that can truly make him feel good again. All of his smiles are faked, all of his smiles are forced as he tries to enjoy destruction like he was told he would enjoy it. As he tries to feel better about the things sensei told him would make him feel better. 

That rather than being a crying weak child, he needs to become stronger than anyone else. That these emotions cannot effect him if he is powerful. It’s the mirror image of All Might’s own philosophy.  Deku and Shigaraki smile for the same reasons, because both of them are told if they put on a smile and force themselves to enjoy things, then the pain will go away. They’re both taught that pain is something that they have to hold close to their heart and never let show, or let go of. 

2. Shigaraki and Deku’s Self Destruction

Due to the fact that both of them constantly repress their own pain and do not allow themselves to feel it, they also ignore the warning signs that their body gives them and constantly break their bodies when they fight. Not in a brave, or heroic way, but a way that’s simply unhealthy and could destroy them if left unchecked. 

Yes, these  acts where Deku sacrifices his body for the sake of others look heroic at first, but at the same time this is always Deku’s first go too response. He always thinks it’s best if he’s the one who’s hurt. It’s fine if he’s the only one who is hurting. 

And let’s say in the fight against Muscle he had no choice because a kid was there and he had to save him. Even if you give Deku that concession look at how Deku immediately acts when he is out of danger with both arms broken. When he really needs to run away and give himself a chance to heal because he could seriously die in this condition. 

He rides piggy back on Shouji with two broken arms, even though there are others heroes fighting too. His decision is not to get himself to safety, but throw himself back in harm’s way again because that is always Deku’s response. 

Deku when the battle ends does not work through his emotions in any kind of meaningful way, and he does not learn from them. Which is why every single time that someone is endanger, he will repeat the same, reckless, habit of throwing himself into harm’s way without thinking of the consequences on his body. For Deku smiling is not being strong, it’s just flipping a switch that turns his emotions off. 

Yes, in the moment you might have to smile and stay calm, the point is even after battles the switch stays flipped off. Deku isn’t told to learn from his mistakes and take better care of himself, and not end up the same way All Might did, he’s only ever told, get stronger, get stronger, get stronger, as if strength is all that matters to being a hero. 

Which is why we see even as far as the Chisaki arc, Deku still has not learned better. His response to a situation of danger is to recklessly throw himself in and the result of that is he nearly dies once again when Eri’s quirk goes out of control. 

Deku never learns from his pain, and therefore the source of his pain is never removed. He acts like he has grown stronger when he just succumbs to the same mistakes over and over again. Then there is Shigaraki, who desperately seeks to be liberated from his burdens and yet at the same time lets those burdens pile up.

Shigaraki’s destruction and lashing out in the end never relieves him. Even if he’s smiling, even if he’s laughing and enjoying himself in the moment inevitably the itch always comes back. 

Shigaraki’s attempts to deny and escape his pain only aggravate his psychological wounds further, and due ot that fact the itch always comes back when he’s come down. The character who seems the freest in the manga, is actually the most burdened. He’s trapped in a cycle of abuse he cannot escape from, or grow past in any meaningful way because he never faces his emotions just like Deku, he just tries to deny them, vent them, or throw everything away. 

And from that we can see, Shigaraki fights almost the exact same way Deku does. He throws himself straight into danger, he fights until his body is in pieces. A month before Deika, he fought Gigantomachi exposed in the mountains without eating, sleeping.

As a result of that it’s clear both Shigaraki’s mind and body are breaking down, but his response to that is just to throw himself into another fight yet again at the next available oppurtunity. 

We see Shigaraki literally losing his mind and breaking down in the middle of battle, and what is his response to that. He throws himself into danger once again even while he’s in the middle of breaking apart, and fights Re-Destro head on. Re-destro even comments, that Shigaraki does not dodge attacks that he should dodge because he’s too focused on fighting and inflciting damage and cares little about what happens to his own body as a result.

ANd Shigaraki denies that he is in pain. He denies that anything bad has happened to him. He instead chooses to keep fighting and loses his mind, smiling and laughing while everything breaks around him and he breaks. 

And this is the result of Shigaraki’s failed coping. He fights until he is completely in tatters, and then has broken his body so much that in the aftermath of the body, covered in bandages he can barely stand up. 

Even then he hides his pain and pretends he’s just fine, and still walks around when he should be recovering. Shigaraki is the extreme result of what Deku ignoring his own pain can lead to, but in the end both of them are coping the exact same way. 

Denying their weakness does not make them strong, in fact it does the opposite as it is something that can get them killed. 

[ganymedesclock]

So it’s been a while since I’ve really posted about some goshdang rocks on this blog but I have been staying posted with Steven Universe and it’s really starting to bother me how often I’ve seen people in the fandom insinuating Change Your Mind, or the show at large, is naively idealistic in the way that it handles talking to dangerous people.

Here’s the thing: I don’t think there’s anything naive or idealistic about SU as a show and how it depicts talking to people.

First and foremost, Steven does not ever successfully talk to people in a situation where he hasn’t protected himself. When he does, it’s a bad thing. Steven doesn’t get the upper hand on White because he makes bambi eyes at her and sniffles a little and goes��“oh granny won’t you be nice to me” and she immediately falls over herself to go “oh my goodness you beautiful baby child how could I ever have thought to wrong you.”

White endangers Steven. And at that point, Steven makes considerable emphasis to protect himself and his friends. Neither half of split Steven waste much time looking at White or acknowledging her. Their focus is on each other. Steven takes care of himself first. He makes sure he’s safe and healthy.

Thing is? Pink split Steven makes it clear that White can’t hurt him. She literally tries. She gets steamrolled. She’s lying unconscious on the floor at the point that Steven’s halves reconcile.

Steven at no point neglects protecting himself to negotiate with people. Even as early as Monster Buddy half of his argument at protecting Nephrite is the awareness that she’s obviously not trying to hurt him and becomes dangerous when she’s triggered by the senior CGs’ overbearing interventions. Steven not attacking Nephrite is literally the sensible thing here and the Crystal Gems are wrong because they assume that being violent will fix everything in absence of factual evidence. Steven is in no danger. The reason things go to hell at the climax of Monster Buddy is because Garnet’s earlier violent behavior meant that the sight of her summoning her weapons was a trigger for Nephrite- and, even then, she still protects Steven, the person who was consistently nice to her.

This is not a whimsical fantasy scenario. If you use brute force to push people around, they will remember, and will either resent you or panic when it seems like you’re about to hurt them again. If you’re up against someone who is motivated primarily by fear, don’t scare them.

“Violence isn’t the solution here” in this case is not an arbitrary nicey-pants talking point where “oh but see if you just sing songs and hold people’s hands they will all universally like you!” it’s talking about the fact that you need to actually meaningfully develop your response to situations based on information. Nephrite is a traumatized soldier suffering from an affliction that makes her easily startled. When she’s able to maintain a clear head, Steven is readily able to observe that she is friendly and willing to work with him. Steven not being violent to Nephrite is based in the fact that she is not a threat, and the Gems are failing to reevaluate because they’re just assuming she’s a threat based on prior behavior (and likely some bias- both out of the assumption that corruption can’t be cured and out of knowing Nephrite is a Homeworld soldier) and they’ve stopped observing what she’s actually doing.

The show doesn’t even exaggerate how much or how well talking to people works. We see people rebuff Steven (e.g. Jasper in Earthlings). We see people indifferently stonewall his overtures of friendship (Peridot in Marble Madness). We see people who take fondly to him because he’s nice to them but frankly trust him as far as they could throw him and don’t feel that bad selling out his friends (Lapis in The Return).

We see people give him a blank look of “are you actually kidding me” when he tries to talk to them (Aquamarine in Stuck Together)

Heck- the entire thesis of Beach City Drift is that Stevonnie needs to reevaluate the way they’re responding to Kevin because he’s engaging with them in bad faith and using it as an opportunity to mess with them.

The idea that this is unrealistic because, we guess Stevonnie doesn’t decide that Kevin messing with them means they need to take him out back and extrajudicially execute him on the spot just tells us something: Our culture has been spoonfed the idea, over and over and over again and mostly through popular cartoons, that violence is the default solution for problems.

This is an idea that SU is deliberately deconstructing like in Monster Buddy. Because- why are Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl just assuming Nephrite can’t be trusted? In-universe, they have their reasons, but those reasons are also wrong.

However, we have to consider that Steven was clearly operating on the assumption all the monsters are bad even though he was able to observe that some of the monsters were only dangerous by accident (the worm from Bubble Buddies).

He assumed the monsters were dangerous even though time and time again, they largely only targeted the Crystal Gems, and most of them were in remote environments hiding, and only are drawn out of hiding because the Crystal Gems deliberately hunt them down.

And this is an assumption so pervasive that when given starkly contradictory evidence in Monster Buddies, his initial reflex is to defend this viewpoint- saying Nephrite “isn’t like the other monsters” and then trying to tell her “you’re not a monster any more!” when she never was in the first place. She only seemed “like a monster” because Steven was fed a specific narrative from people who were in some ways ignorant to the reality of Nephrite’s situation, and in others withholding information. And Steven is not a gullible, unobservant, or callous person. 

Here’s the thing: before we as an audience are told anything about the Gem monsters, we accept that. We take it as a given the Red Eye is going to crash into Beach City just because it’s bad. We assume the “Centipeetles” are hostile even though Nephrite’s drones are frankly no more aggressive than you’d expect a stray cat loose in your house to be, and Pearl is the one calmly standing there snapping one’s neck.

Personally, I grew up with the high fantasy genre. Heavy door-stopper books with dragons on the cover, and games like Final Fantasy. This is a genre that most popular codifying installments of give you broad, sweeping pastoral environments chock full of monsters that live exclusively to fight and kill you, and you need to kill them first. Anything that you shouldn’t kill on sight is going to immediately broadly flag you down so that you know not to murder this one. And killing monsters is never wrong. The ones that you aren’t supposed to kill, the narrative will coddle you so that you could never even think they might be just like the intrusive offal.

Sometimes you’re explained these monsters, they’re especially bad, because they did this bad thing or caused that bad thing to happen. Often you don’t actually witness it. Sometimes there’s simply no explanation given at all, but they are called “goblins” and they look strange and pointy and dangerous compared to the pretty likable-looking Heroes, and that’s supposed to be all the evidence you need to never worry if your heroes run them through.

We don’t worry, even if these monsters are actually people. We don’t worry even if they will directly talk to you and make it clear they believe they’re doing the right thing. After all, they have an entry in the in-game bestiary, and if they were really good, the game wouldn’t have given us the option to kill them, right?

When I hear people talk about “villains” and which villains are entitled to “redemption arcs”, what I hear overwhelmingly is thinking that sprouted from that genre, those games and those books. I hear, basically, the indoctrination that we just accept that worlds just have a bunch of Evil Things and the way to solve Evil is to kill it, and that the world will gently guide our hand so if it’s not actually Evil, then it will throw up its hands and drop to the floor and the battle music will stop and all of our combat commands will lock up.

We accept that Nephrite is evil, going in. Even though, actually watching that first episode, she’s standing on the outside of the Gem Temple, and doesn’t attack until the Crystal Gems barge out to threaten her. Nephrite is written from the very beginning of the show as an expression of its thesis statement.

Nephrite does not fling herself to the ground and whimper for mercy and try to stagger back to her proper Gem form as soon as she’s encountered. Nephrite is written, deliberately, as a monster. We accept that she’s here to be a threat for Steven to beat to prove himself. We accept that her pain doesn’t matter because she’s a monster.

We accept, in effect, that she is not a character with a life or a story. We accept that she is merely an empty receptacle for Steven’s fighting capabilities and inventiveness.

That’s preposterous. That’s ridiculous. If you suggest someone disagreeing with you is actually just an empty caricature of a person here to galvanize your growth as a person, or just show off what you’ve learned or accomplished since your past, people would look at you like you’d grown another head and rightfully so. There’s nothing “realistic” about that.

But it’s pervasive. It’s everywhere. And when patterns are repeated endlessly and repeatedly and constantly we get used to them.

It’s why Steven Universe, why Undertale, why even Off are treated as subversive narratives, even though they’re actually more realistic.

“But Clockie,” you say, “the Diamonds were so willing to talk and listen to Steven! That’s preposterous!”

“They sure weren’t in The Trial, or most of Reunited,” I say. “In fact the only reason they’re shown to have changed their mind so quickly is because Steven had a direct personal connection to them, and is that really so unlikely- that these people who have been alive for thousands of years and live at the heart of a densely populated empire would actually have connections with other people, who would not all homogeneously believe the same thing? That they could meet and interact with others who might change their opinions even slightly?”

And even then both Blue and Yellow try to talk Steven out of actually trying to say anything to White. And Steven literally points out why he’s doing this: because they tried fighting White, they tried fleeing White, and none of that worked. It failed to meaningfully change anything. And forcing change through by murdering White and standing on her corpse would just repeat the doomed rebellion because the staged murder of Pink Diamond just entrenched more people against the Crystal Gems.

Steven literally criticizes the refusal to attempt any form of negotiation as impractical. Because it is. The only reason people genuinely think violence as a narrative cure-all works is because we are basically raised in narratives- even narratives that are otherwise optimistic, friendly, and colorful- where the only solution is murder. 

[thisnerdsadventures]

On being enough

For most of my freshman and sophomore year, I never felt like enough. Even two days before my internship at literal G00Gle, I recall wondering whether or when I'd ever stop feeling like I needed to chase some goal that was always moving further and further into the distance, from getting into the top colleges, to chasing the top internships, and to.... to what? Would I feel pressure to be the top “intern”???? How ridiculous would that be? What does that even mean??? And I would then drown in self-doubt about how ridiculous the thought even was and why I couldn’t be good enough for myself.

Looking back, I wish I knew and internalized that I was doing all right and that I was doing enough. From my sophomore IAP, when I got rejected from Jane Street Insight and GTL and every externship I applied to, to even freshman spring when I saw people getting internships left and right and I couldn't get a single interview. To sophomore spring, when I had secured a really great internship for the summer, yet 6.046 constantly made me feel like I was never enough, that I still needed to get better. It felt like a constant race to some light at the end of the tunnel. But I never really knew what that light or that tunnel I was in was.

That attitude isn't all bad - a drive to always improve is generally a good thing. But I've had to learn how to recognize that what I've done and what I've been able to accomplish is enough to be proud of myself for. That didn't come until after my sophomore summer when I had finally broken out of the MIT bubble. The bubble is sometimes good - the people are amazing and you learn a lot and are constantly pushed. But the bubble also encourages this idea of "look at what all these other people are doing!! And what are YOU doing.... hmmm?" After that summer, the voice in my head started changing to "Oh. I guess what I am doing is generally decent and in the grand scheme of things, pretty cool." I started getting actual positive feedback from my intern managers who thought I was doing a great job, and, at the time, I was /shook/ to hear anything positive about myself.

Being enough on the academic side was one thing, but even as a human, it was hard to believe I was ever doing enough. From balancing time between friends/family and getting exercise and eating well, I always felt like I was on the brink of having it crumble to the floor during my sophomore year. I rarely had it together, I was waking up at 1pm on weekdays, eating 1.5 meals a day, and forgetting to call my parents more often than remembering. Some people in my life made me feel like I wasn’t doing enough to support them, even though I was already stretched completely thin. I constantly felt like a shitty person. But with the circumstances and what I was going through at the time, it was all I could do, and that's enough. I know that now. I got up out of bed. I finished my classes. I survived. 

And once things got better in junior spring, I found myself able to do more, to wake up earlier, to maintain a healthier lifestyle, to call my family more. The types of people I surrounded myself with changed, and with that, the things demanded of me were lightened and I felt relief as I could put back together the various pieces of my life. People dragging me down turned into friends pushing me forward. Getting through every day became getting through every week, started becoming looking forward to the weekend, started becoming looking forward to the week, and finally became looking forward to every day. My productivity increased dramatically, but that isn’t to say that I wasn’t doing enough back during sophomore year - I was doing the most given whatever I was faced with at the time, and that’s enough.

Starting my MEng research now in COVID has been really hard to say the least, but recognizing that what I've accomplished (albeit not nearly as much as I'd wanted or expected) is enough. I think sophomore me would be drowning in self-doubt right now, fixating on everyone else seeming to float on by doing great, wanting to drop out or stay wallowing in self-pity. Not that I haven't been, but after a couple months, I've recognized that there are some things out of my control, like the literal pandemic and constant sense of national chaos. And how I've never been so burnt out, as I haven't had a break in nearly a year, especially when summer actually took a toll rather than refreshed me given the emotional and mental burden of whatever every day of summer 2020 decided to be. And oh how difficult it actually is to ramp up to a new job or new degree program remotely. And that when I need fifteen hours of sleep after literally two hours of work, it's probably a sign that I am just tired and getting through this degree program, although doing much closer to the minimum of what's expected than what I usually can do, is ENOUGH. And that is ok.

So even though I spent the majority of my last two years doing pretty well and having my “enough” mean slightly more than what it had been previously, COVID came and dragged me back down to calling my “enough” being able to get out of bed and produce one (1) productive thing out of the day. And that is ok, because quite frankly, it is a really f’d up time and we ought to celebrate every small thing we get done in these times and stop beating ourselves up about all the things we didn’t get done. It didn’t feel great to have to consciously go back to the getting through “one day at a time” mentality, but it’s what I needed to get through these pandemic times, and that’s ok.

I think a couple things led to this kind of character development - 1 being breaking out of the bubble and consistently remembering to break out of it every now and then through internships or externships or other opportunities and 2 being surrounding myself with people of different interests, majors and goals, especially those that hype up every small thing you accomplish (even the ones you've forgotten/overlooked), which are actually also quite impressive to accomplish. A lot of that helped me reframe my mentality over the past couple years, and I’m really thankful that I got to do that, especially before this pandemic, otherwise I think I’d be struggling a hell of a lot more than I already am (and I definitely already am). It’s still definitely an ongoing active effort to remind myself every day that hey, I am enough and I am doing enough. But I’m getting there, and I have good people around me to keep me there.

I remembered this point today because around this day 3 years ago, I was on a bus to a Celtics game when I got the call with my G00gle offer. Prior to that, I had just gotten rejected from literally every company except for one (1), got rejected from INSIGHT, got rejected from clubs, externships, and was fighting really hard to keep up in 6.006 and (likely) crying every week, and I look back and want to go back in time to pull my past self up and tell her that she was already doing great, that she was killing it in the UROP game, that she was trying out the clubs she did get into, and that’s already an accomplishment to try new things, that getting flown out as a sophomore is A BIG DEAL and not to be understated even if I didn’t get the offer, and that I recognized every spare moment I had was dedicated to trying to check on the people around me, and that was a very admirable thing to do, even though people didn’t seem to think I was putting in enough. I want to go back to her and tell her that she was doing enough.

[lesbianrobin]

☕️ steve’s beautiful character arc

god bless you for sending this ask also i am so sorry this is gonna be long as FUCK and it’s not gonna be REMOTELY coherent

TL;DR: steve’s arc is the second-best in the show behind el, largely because he maintains his crucial traits and motivations while changing his actions and beliefs to try and be a better person

okay to start off i’m obviously biased as fuck because steve is my main hoe and i love him to death. that being said i genuinely think steve has the most solid character arc in the entire show save for el, and i think the biggest factor in that is the fact that joe keery has been so involved in the shaping and direction of steve’s character ever since he was cast. obviously every actor brings a lot to their character, but what’s unique about steve is that he was initially meant to be a true villain and die in s1, and joe convinced the duffers to change that. joe’s done an excellent job of keeping steve’s most basic traits consistent as the writers developed his character so that Steve feels real.

what makes steve’s character arc so good and believable is that, at his core, he... doesn’t really change That much? throughout the show, his defining character traits never really change: he’s loyal, he pays a lot of attention to other people and what they think of him, he’s more of a doer than a thinker, he has some issues with his father, he doesn’t have a personal vision for the future so he tries to stick to the designated path of “success,” and he wants to be a good person. what changes isn’t necessarily his intrinsic motivations, but his actions and thought processes, which makes for an excellent character arc!!

to start off with: controversial opinion, but i don’t think steve was That much of an asshole in s1. he was definitely an asshole! he just wasn’t evil or a total piece of shit like b*lly. he was just a dickhead high school kid, yknow? he was short-sighted, selfish, and didn’t take anything seriously. at the same time, he clearly cared a lot about other people (and what they thought of him)- demonstrated in little things like him sharing his lunch with his friends without them even asking, and the fact that he went to apologize to nancy after he blew off her concerns about barb because he was too preoccupied with not getting in trouble. he goes along with the crowd and does whatever he thinks he Should do, like letting tommy and carol vandalize the marquee (i can’t recall the exact dialogue but i think he says like “i shouldn’t have let carol do it” or whatever anyways it wasn’t his idea but he didn’t stop his friends). the fight with jonathan is steve’s only real Asshole moment for me. obviously he was dismissive of barb being missing which was shitty but he had no real reason to think that barb was dead yknow? he was approaching the situation from the stance of a teenager in a small town where bad things don’t usually happen. he was blinded by his own petty concerns of getting in trouble, and while insensitive to nancy, i think it was an understandable offense for a teenager (and one he apologized for).

and... since i Must address the camera thing... i personally think steve 100% had the right to break jonathan’s camera. of course he said some shitty things that he didn’t need to, and a lot of people argue that since jonathan was taking pictures of nancy, steve had no right to be outraged on her behalf, but i disagree with that argument. just because nancy was willing to forgive jonathan doesn’t let him off the hook! he was in steve’s backyard, taking pictures of an intimate moment through steve’s bedroom window. steve’s privacy was violated just as much as nancy’s. so, even if you don’t think that “sticking up for nancy” and being protective of her was a valid motivation, i still think it was justified. so yeah anyways.

back to the fight!!! steve lashes out and says like the meanest shit he can think of to jonathan because he’s so deeply hurt by nancy’s perceived betrayal and he Wants to get into a fight, which goes along with his deep sense of loyalty, preoccupation with what other people (his shitty friends mostly) think of him, his tendency to do whatever he’s “supposed” to do, and his desire to act rather than sit around and ruminate. some guy sleeps with your girlfriend, you’re supposed to kick his ass, and if you don’t then you’re a pussy, and if you can’t hit him to let out the anger and heartbreak then you have to sit in it and think about it and feel it. so basically what makes steve so cool is that these traits of his fuel both his biggest mistakes and his biggest hero moments!!

what many people see as steve’s total 180 at the end of s1 is actually, in my view, very consistent with his character up until that point. he went to nancy’s house to apologize earlier in the season, and this time he does the same thing for jonathan, because he’s realized how shitty he was and he knows that he doesn’t want to be that guy. once he’s there, he’s worried about nancy (consistent with prior protective/concerned behavior), and of course he chooses to run back inside! he cared enough to look up jonathan’s address and go to his house at night just to apologize after jonathan beat the shit out of him just hours ago, which is pretty serious- as someone who clearly feels guilt pretty deeply and wants to make things right, someone confident in his athletic ability, someone who thinks he might love nancy wheeler... why the fuck would he not go back in the help them?

his development in s2-s3 is a lot more about, like, being better to himself than it is about being better to others like it was in s1. at the beginning of s2, he basically defines his future in relation to nancy and his father. after he gets his heart broken (and i’m not gonna go into why he and nancy were incompatible bc that’s a whole other post and this shit is already ungodly long) and loses his “king” reputation, dustin and the other kids give him something to believe in, fight for, and care about. something that has nothing to do with the prescribed outline for success (popularity, sports, marrying a nice girl, working in the family business) that steve’s been basing his whole life on. he still misses nancy by the end of the season, but he’s realized that their picture-perfect future was never gonna happen, and he’s content with her finding her true happiness even if it’s not with him. also when he takes dustin to the snow ball he’s super encouraging and when he notices that dustin is feeling insecure, he shuts that shit DOWN and reassures him that he looks amazing which is just... so precious...

as he finds people to care about and things that bring him real joy in life (basically the kids and robin), steve also grows more and more expressive throughout the show, dressing more stylishly/flamboyantly, allowing his hair to become more and more wild, and goofing around/laughing a lot more. he’s basically a fucking angel in s3 and he finally lets go of all the high school bullshit that he was allowing to define him! he’s still very loyal, still pays very close attention to the people around him and how they feel, but now this is less about protecting his reputation and more about being a good friend. much like how he reassured dustin in s2, he prioritizes robin’s comfort and happiness during the bathroom scene in s3. he still acts fast in a pinch and tries to do the right thing whenever possible, always taking responsibility for his mistakes, and even though he doesn’t have a vision for his future, he’s okay with living in the moment and enjoying his life even though he hasn’t attained traditional “success” of any sort. he still has all of the same core character traits as he did in s1, he’s just learned how to be kinder, less selfish, and less concerned with fitting into a certain mold.

so yeah uh this was a goddamn mess and i’m sorry and i hope it all makes sense!!! thank you again for asking lmao

[per-ineptia-ad-astra]

@trek-tracks

I'd read your rant! Also, you should see Beyond. I haven't seen ID, but I'm confident Beyond is WAY better than ST:2009 and, from what I've heard about ID (that it is a garbage fire), Beyond is not the one of the three to not see.

Yeah, I have heard that about Beyond, and I keep meaning to watch it. I’m not like actively avoiding it, it just sort of...hasn’t happened. I have a To Watch list about five miles long at this point that I just keep foregoing in favor of watching gaming videos on YouTube. It’s a sad life.

But here’s the rant (feel free to skip if you didn’t follow this blog to hear me complain about AOS):

My strong impression from the first two movies was that the writers misunderstood--or just, for whatever reason, chose to discard-- the dynamic that Kirk, Spock and Bones actually had in TOS.

In TOS there’s a very deliberate balance wherein Spock and Bones are on opposite ends of a spectrum of logic vs emotion/ lawful vs chaotic, and Kirk sits in the middle of that spectrum, getting the input from both ends and then turning that into balanced decision-making. (I know it’s deliberate because of that whole “I took one man and wrote him as three people” quote from Roddenberry.) It’s a great setup when it’s being used correctly because it gives you a built-in method of examining any situation that comes up in the show from multiple angles without sacrificing the drive of any of the characters.

Trying to write one single character covering the same total perspective as Spock, McCoy and Kirk can create combined would necessarily result in either a character who appears to be wildly indecisive at best and lacking in any consistent characterization at worst, or in paring down the range of that perspective to avoid the first thing happening. This is all especially important in a show with the set-up of Star Trek, where not only do you not have much time to deliberate because everything has to be solved in under 60 minutes and no we will NOT be revisiting any of it later, but your lead character is in a position of formal command, meaning you have very little room to allow him to be hesitant or indecisive in his decisions before he starts to look like he shouldn’t be in that job. Indeed, it’s made explicitly clear multiple times that any sign of hesitation on Kirk’s part will be taken by not just him but most of the crew and Starfleet as a sign that he’s losing ability to command. Because Spock and McCoy have different roles not just as characters but as crewmembers, they can give full attention to their respective angles in a way that Kirk alone could not without it looking like he was dithering, with the bonus that you can write it all as a natural (and entertaining) conversation rather than it coming off as forced exposition. You don’t need to have those kinds of discussions all the time--there are plenty of times when one or more of the trio is absent and things tick along just fine--but there are also times, IMO, when someone being missing or just poorly written makes things falter quite obviously, Where No Man Has Gone Before being the biggest example that comes to mind.

But instead of having Kirk be in the middle of this spectrum I may have just sort of made up, the AOS movies seem to take the tack of having Spock be at one end and Kirk at the other end. They’re portrayed as being complete opposites to such an extent that they’re at odds practically the minute they meet, and spend the entire first movie at each other’s throats because AOS!Kirk’s brash, reckless, emotion-driven, rules-ignoring personality clashes incompatibly with Spock being deliberate, logical, and law-abiding to the letter. There’s absolutely no indication in TOS that Kirk and Spock ever had that kind of relationship or that they had to get over any sense of rivalry before they became friends. Granted, TOS had such a lackadaisical approach to backstory that we don’t really know anything about how they did become friends, but we are told on more than one occasion (which, for TOS, is practically hammering the point in) that Kirk was himself was so serious and focused as a student (”positively grim”) that he attracted bullying for it. In other words, for as little solid backstory as we get, one thing TOS is clear on is that Kirk did not have an arc of being reckless and wild and having to learn some patience and sense--if anything he seems to have had an arc in the complete opposite direction, although not so much that he isn’t still a total workaholic.

So that of course very much impacts Kirk and Spock’s characterizations and dynamic, but it also impacts McCoy, because by sticking Kirk in McCoy’s usual role, McCoy himself is now left with very little to do but make snarky comments and stick hyposprays in people from time to time (which he does very well, but, still). Which is sort of both cause and effect, because the fact that the writers put Kirk in that position to begin with indicates to me that they didn’t understand and/or didn’t value the importance of McCoy, specifically, being in that spot in the first place. But it is important that McCoy is in that spot because I love him and he deserves it because McCoy as a character is in a much more natural position to serve that role than Kirk is.

This may seem like a tangent, but stick with me here: McCoy inherently has a different perspective towards Starfleet than Kirk. Than everyone in the main cast, really, but especially Kirk. Kirk’s character, his perspective, his role in life, his arc, his backstory, all are closely tied to his being in Starfleet. Kirk’s position in relation to Starfleet is so important that it’s part of if not the entirety of practically every bit of story or backstory he has. When we hear about Kirk’s history, we mostly hear about it in terms of where he was in Starfleet at the time: at the Academy, serving his first assignment as an ensign, being a lieutenant on the Farragut, etc. Kirk’s career is very much on his mind all the time and threats to it are the subject of conflict multiple times, not because he cares about climbing in rank for rank’s sake but because he needs that career, and that good relationship with Starfleet, to do the thing he is most meant to do in life: be a starship captain. It’s not a position he could have outside of Starfleet--maybe he could go command an independent ship of some kind, but it wouldn’t be the same thing, not really. Kirk’s not meant to be doing supply runs or carrying passengers or what have you; he wants to explore, he wants to be out there checking out the weirdest shit the universe has to offer, he wants to be doing something important. This is why it’s such a big deal that Kirk is willing to sacrifice his career to save Spock in the movies, because that career is his life.

Yes, Kirk doesn’t always agree with Starfleet, and he’s willing to break their rules if he really has to. But Kirk could never exist in the position he is in TOS, and he certainly couldn’t maintain that position, if he couldn’t agree with Starfleet on most things, and conduct himself in a way that they in turn found agreeable. You don’t get to be the captain of one of the most important ships in the fleet by fucking around. And he didn’t. He worked his ass off to get there! TOS Kirk might be a bit young to be a captain but not so much so that he didn’t have to climb up the ranks the old-fashioned way to get there. Meanwhile AOS had to have Kirk sneak onto a ship he wasn’t supposed to be on and then get rid of practically everyone else on said ship, right up to provoking the acting captain into a fistfight, to get Kirk into a position where it would be remotely plausible for him to be in command of the Enterprise. In AOS Kirk is characterized as being so at odds with Starfleet and the Starfleet way of doing things that it takes some very extreme circumstances to get him in a position to command the ship because there’s no way Starfleet would have actually chosen for him to do that.

The reason I’m putting all this emphasis on Starfleet is that in TOS, when it comes to questions of Following The Rules vs Doing What’s Right, Starfleet is the rules. If it’s a matter of Lawful vs Chaotic, Starfleet is going to be the law. Any time the characters are in a situation where they have to ask “Is it the right thing to do what the rules say we should be doing here? Could the rules be wrong?” the rules they’re debating are almost always going to be Starfleet rules. (When it comes to following non-Starfleet rules it’s usually not so much a moral matter as “okay following the rules might be the only way we’ll get this done but we’re not going to act like we like or agree with those rules.”)

So when it comes to putting a character in the position of being the one who’s emotional rather than logical, who’s the voice of Hang The Rules, I’m Doing The Right Thing, who’s there to say things that need to be said but aren’t really appropriate to just say in the societal rules we’re working under here--Kirk can do that to some degree, but it really doesn’t make sense for him to be the one on the far end of that spectrum. To have been in the Starfleet environment as long as he has, and to have been as successful in that environment as he has, he has to be someone who can thrive in that environment, who finds it more acceptable to work with than not, or at least can do a good job faking it.

But McCoy? McCoy’s coming at it from a completely different angle. McCoy didn’t join Starfleet out of any kind of lifelong pursuit, he basically did it on impulse because fuck it, he had nothing better to do with his life at the time. Being in Starfleet informs McCoy’s characterization far less than everyone else’s in the show; mostly it just informs his current physical location. His identity isn’t really wrapped up in being Starfleet personnel. His identity is wrapped up in being a doctor. He was a doctor long before he was Starfleet, and when being in Starfleet stops being a viable option he goes to be a doctor somewhere else (and to make regrettable fashion choices but that’s another topic entirely).

There’s a lot of little ways that McCoy shows that he doesn’t care a whole lot about the Starfleet way of doing things. He’s casually insubordinate to people who seriously outrank him. He inserts himself into situations and discussions that aren’t what his actual job calls for--there’s no real reason why the CMO would need to hang out on the bridge all the time but there he is. He complains about the dress uniforms. He usually forgoes referring to other crewmembers by their ranks if he can get away with using their first name instead. He doesn’t even sit right.

[ID: 1. McCoy sitting on the edge of Spock’s console on the bridge, 2. McCoy sitting on the edge of the briefing table with a cup of coffee, 3. McCoy sitting sideways in a shuttle chair while talking to Spock.]

And he has very little interest in his own rank, or in commanding anyone, or in generally behaving as if he’s a member of a military organization, something reflected in the fact that he in turn hardly ever gets referred to by his actual rank. McCoy is okay with ordering people around as a doctor--he’ll pull rank to get someone in for a physical, or make them sit down and rest when they’re injured, Jim, and since he has to he’ll run the rest of the medical department, whatever there is of it. But I think he sees that first and foremost as being a doctor, who just happens to have a few extra tools at his disposal to make his patients behave so hey, might as well use ‘em. But on the one occasion* when he’s called upon to actually act as a ranking officer in a completely non-doctoring-related matter, he gets so flustered about the whole thing that he has to ask the person he’s supposed to be ordering if he did it right. He’s not really interested in being in charge of anyone in any formal sense.

*The one occasion in the main show, at least, which doesn’t take into account Diane Duane’s extremely excellent novel Doctor’s Orders, in which McCoy winds up in charge of the Enterprise because Shenanigans, and spends the rest of the book having a massive extended anxiety attack about it. It’s so great.

So McCoy doesn’t look at things tactically in the same way that Kirk does. He doesn’t have to. It’s not his job. Not to say that McCoy never has to make any hard decisions, but as a character he functions much better than Kirk as the one who’s looking at the emotional aspect of things because most of the time, McCoy’s not the one who has to turn The Right Thing To Do into standing orders for 430 people that can actually be practically acted upon. He tends to have a more immediate, short-range focus, contrasting the way Spock tends to look at the biggest picture and Kirk, again, lands somewhere in the middle. McCoy thinks about individual people first and foremost. If the Enterprise is about to get into a skirmish with a Klingon ship, Kirk has to be thinking about what the outcome of that battle will mean for Federation-Klingon relations, about what he can do now that might save more lives down the road even if it puts some in danger right now, but McCoy will be thinking about the people who are about to be hurt, maybe killed, right now. Which is a great perspective for a doctor to have, and an important perspective for a captain to keep in mind, but it could never be the only perspective for a captain.

McCoy’s viewpoint is a very important one in the Watsonian sense that it’s useful for Kirk and in the Doylist sense that it contributes to the specific tone that TOS wanted to achieve. But it’s a viewpoint that has to be balanced for it to be effective both practically speaking and in story-telling terms. AOS missed that balance; by putting all their emphasis on Kirk and Spock being opposites they made McCoy more or less redundant. Which is a crying shame, because it’s an unforgivable waste of Karl Urban’s goddamn amazing performance. The thought of what he could have done if he’d had something more to work with is heartbreaking to me.

But McCoy goes unappreciated far too often in general. You know I once went looking for a TOS McCoy Funko Pop and they didn’t have one? They had a generic Andorian but they didn’t have McCoy. It’s an outrage! I had to make my own out of a Munny.

[angelofberlin2000]

In his 14 minutes of screentime in Always Be My Maybe, Netflix’s latest rom-com phenomenon, 54-year-old Keanu Reeves — now 30 years into his stardom — skewers and subverts the personas we’ve come to attach to him.

Reeves, playing an outsized version of himself, cuts an imposing figure in his introduction. Time slows to a crawl. All eyes gravitate toward the velvet-jacketed figure with striking beauty and prickly charisma. After his entrance — a show for everyone in the farcical restaurant Maximal — he slides toward Ali Wong’s celebrity chef Sasha, offering spiritual platitudes in the face of her unfettered lust. “I missed your thumbs,” she breathily exhales. “I missed your soul” is his reply.

It’s a maniacally delightful performance that both reminds audiences of Reeves’s place in Asian-American Hollywood history and allows him to flex improvisational skills as he cycles through the various masks we have grafted onto him. There’s the impossibly otherworldly Keanu, who says with utmost sincerity, “The only stars that matter are the ones that you see when you dream.” There’s action-star Keanu, who smashes a vase against his own head in a game of Icebreaker and easily puts the jealous protagonist, Marcus (Randall Park), in a headlock — fully committed, physically graceful, and beautifully dangerous. The Keanu of internet memes and viral threads is here, too, in the very fact that he’s playing himself.

Reeves is having a dynamite year with the success of Always Be My Maybe, the outrageously violent John Wick Chapter 3: Parabellum, and Toy Story 4, in which he plays Canada’s greatest stunt driver, Duke Caboom. (Another sly nod perhaps? While born in Beirut, Reeves — who is of Chinese-Hawaiian and British ancestry — was raised in Toronto.) The actor’s more recent evolution into a meme may flatten his complexities, but it does signal why he has endured all this time, despite the persistent claim that he’s a bad actor, or just a limited one. As I’ve contended in the past, this is a gross misreading of a great actor. In her tremendous 2007 masterwork The Star Machine, film professor and historian Jeanine Basinger praises Reeves amongst his generational contemporaries: “Reeves is a neo-star fighting the concept of stardom itself, working steadily against persona to the point where no one has a clear idea of who Reeves is onscreen anymore. This has hurt him, but it has also allowed him to maintain versatility that means more to him than fame. […] His career would have been limited, and thus short lived. Instead, he has used his freedom to move on and slowly force audiences to accept him as a real actor.”

  Just take a look at the arc of his career — as a teenager going through an existential crisis in the blackhearted wonder River’s Edge (1986); the affably dimwitted Theodore “Ted” Logan from Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure (1989) and its sequel; the bodaciously supple and yearning FBI agent and surfer Johnny Utah in Point Break (1991); a bruisingly courteous SWAT officer in Speed (1994); the beatific savior Neo in The Matrix (1999);  the violent redneck in The Gift (2000); an occult detective radiating self-loathing and suicidal yearnings in Constantine (2005); and of course, the titular tenderhearted and violently dangerous assassin of the John Wick franchise. In looking at all of his performances, I am reminded of what the great Roger Ebert wrote in his review of the Bill & Ted sequel back in the early ‘90s: “I have seen Keanu Reeves in vastly different roles (the FBI man in the current Point Break, for example), and am a little astonished by the range of these performances.”

Throughout his career, Reeves has eschewed obvious transformation in favor of something trickier and more subtle. What has allowed him to remain a star, 30 years later, is a blend of virility, vulnerability, and an aura of mystery, hearkening to a bygone era of stardom that contradicts the current moment, which requires stars to seem endlessly accessible; his sheer joy for the medium that makes him a cinematic sensualist; his racial dimensions as a star; and his gimlet-eyed understanding of the female gaze. These qualities are unique in the current market of stardom in Hollywood, allowing him to straddle various cinematic contexts with ease — mainstream romantic comedies, somber indie flicks, gloriously decadent action flicks.

They come through in one of his earliest films, My Own Private Idaho, a meditative character study about two young hustlers — Mike Waters (River Phoenix), a shy narcoleptic in search of a sense of home, and the strikingly beautiful Scott Favor (Reeves), a trust-fund kid slumming it until his inheritance kicks in at 21. Reeves and his late co-star imbue their characters with a particular mix of virility, vulnerability, and mystery. I’d argue that all the greatest leading men in the annals of Hollywood stardom have existed at this intersection to varying degrees — something I feel has been lacking from modern male stars, partially because they are being formed in franchises that lack interest in the visceral aspects of humanity. (It helps that Reeves has declined offers to join Marvel, even though they’ve been trying to woo him to their stable for years.) Humphrey Bogart’s cool is consistently undercut by his own anger and self-loathing. William Holden held something dark behind his megawatt smile and gleaming blond locks. Paul Newman always felt a touch remote, like he was hiding bruised aspects of himself from the audience. Marlon Brando, of course, epitomizes these qualities. Reeves is brimming with similar contradictions. He reflects this tradition by being at once beatifically still and emotionally expressive, defined by loneliness and a yearning to be saved from it.

In My Own Private Idaho, Reeves is the object of desire not only for Mike but the camera itself. Deep into the film, Mike timidly reveals his love to Scott while they camp out in the desert, a fire crackling before them. Phoenix plays Mike as wild with energy he has no real outlet for, leading to an awkward physicality. Reeves grants his character a languid brio. He takes up space, laying close to the fire, his head dipped back to study Mike as he timidly expresses his feelings. He’s outstretched, willowy, and aware of Mike’s gaze; he examines the weight of it. The scene reveals one of Reeves’s greatest skills as an actor: being an active listener. As he studies Mike, he invites and toys with his feelings. “I only have sex with a guy for money,” he notes offhandedly as if it were a random truth, not a response to a declaration of love. But just as the prickliness of his character comes into view (foreshadowing later betrayals), Reeves displays a burnishing sincerity. Arms outstretched, he says, “Let’s go to sleep,” and proceeds to cradle Mike.

The full-bodied listening Reeves exhibits in My Own Private Idaho is a hallmark of his work opposite women as well. Reeves is a great example of what Roswell New Mexico writer Alanna Bennett deemed The Look: “The number one thing a man in a romcom needs, TV or movie, is the ability to look at their love interest REALLY WELL. The man barely even needs to speak if he just knows how LOOK at a person.” Reeves has given that look in multiple contexts — his face is bright with awe when he looks at Carrie-Anne Moss’s Trinity in the Matrix films; it has a touch of admiration when he gazes at Sandra Bullock in Speed; and it is filled with unmitigated desire for Diane Keaton’s Erica Barry in Something’s Gotta Give.

Nancy Meyer’s 2003 ode to beachside property and an older woman’s sensual awakening stars Keaton as a successful playwright who finds herself falling for two very different men — Harry Sanborn (Jack Nicholson), who briefly dated her daughter (how this didn’t disqualify him immediately continues to baffle me) and has to go through a damn heart attack before he can see what’s attractive in a woman around his own age; and Julian Mercer (Reeves), a sweet doctor with a penchant for black turtlenecks who is immediately smitten when they meet.

In the film, Reeves is attuned to the female gaze in its most literal incarnation — an understanding of how women see the world, what they want from it, and how they make sense of desire. During a dinner scene with Julian, Erica’s face and neck are flush. She’s skittish and nervous in the face of his undeniable — but never disrespectful — sexual and romantic interest. Reeves’s face shows the depth and breadth of The Look, as he glides from teasing lust to a spark of genuine intellectual attraction. At one point, when their conversations turns to women his own age, he says, “I’ve never met one I’ve reacted to” — stumbling for a moment, as if shocked by the depth of his own feeling — “… quite like this. When something happens to you that hasn’t happened before, don’t you have to at least find out what it is?” He’s a man overcome and humbled by his own desire. Is there anything sexier? Then he leans in, his face going soft, gently kissing the groove where her neck meets her shoulder. “I knew you’d smell good,” he whispers. Only Reeves could pull off a line like that.

Many actors of Reeves’s caliber are too invested in being in the spotlight of a scene to play a romantic lead like this. After the fall of the studio system in the 1960s, Hollywood no longer looked at women as a viable market, and while romantic comedies continued to get made, going forward, there was a notable shift in whose desire was centered — and how little male actors seemed interested in exploring romance and desire. Reeves’s willingness brought another layer of intimacy to his relationship with his audience, offering a more flexible, vulnerable portrait of masculinity that sets him apart from other name stars.

That intimacy is key to Reeves’s longevity. It’s what makes him such a great cinematic sensualist. In 2009, Matt Zoller Seitz argued that directors Michael Mann, Terrence Malick, David Lynch, Wong Kar-wai, and Hou Hsiao-hsien were the “the decade’s best sensualists filmmakers.” He wrote, “They share a defining trait: a lyrical gift for showing life in the moment, for capturing experience as it happens and as we remember it. The sensualists are bored with dramatic housekeeping. They’re interested in sensations and emotions, occurrences and memories of occurrences.” I’d argue that being a cinematic sensualist is a distinction that can apply to acting as well. For actors, it is about bringing texture and complication to a film, existing wholly in the moment, and a keen interest in the human body.

When we watch films, the body keeps score as much as the mind does. Reeves demonstrates an understanding of this. This is apparent in the delicate neck kiss in Something’s Gotta Give; the careful way his hand skitters across broken glass before deciding on which shard to slit his wrists with in Constantine; the calm he engenders with merely the sound of his voice in Thumbsucker. But it’s most impactful in his career as an action star. In many ways, the John Wick franchise is the perfect marriage of director and star. The third film is a tactile feast. Consider a scene early in John Wick 3, in which Reeves methodically takes apart and reassembles a gun for a single shot. This scene is, of course, a testament to the character’s skill as an assassin. But it also acts as a reminder of how out of step John is with the world around him, betraying a desire for the quieter moments in life — despite the brutal milieu he finds himself in — and a strange empathy for the world around him, whether it be object or animal. This allows a humanity to glitter throughout his performances that often feels absent from many action franchises that sacrifice character on the altar of plot.

There’s another part of Reeves’s star image I suspect has played into our abiding fascination with him. Until Always Be My Maybe, the most under-discussed part of Reeves’s persona was his race. Late in his slim but potent book-length essay Mixed-Race Superman: Keanu, Obama, and Multicultural Experience, Will Harris astutely writes about a particular aspect of the 2005 film A Scanner Darkly that, metatextually, speaks to Reeves’s whole career:

“To be mixed-race is to exist in a state of paradox. Race is an illusion that depends on purity and singleness. […] In A Scanner Darkly, set in a paranoid surveillance state in the near-future, Keanu plays a government agent called Bob Arctor, who because he works undercover, has to wear a ‘scramble suit’ in the office. The suit projecting 1.5 million constantly shifting representations of different people — male and female, black, white, Latinx — keeps his identity cloaked. Even the people he works with have no idea who he is.”

Like his persona, Reeves’s face itself is considered unplaceable. Growing up, he never read as white to me, but he has read that way to Hollywood, which allowed his career to be mutable in ways that very few people of color ever experience. But for much of the moviegoing audience, seeing his face has always been a point of connection. It’s the undercurrent of why his turn in Always Be My Maybe felt like such a significant moment in his career. It was as though something had been revealed about him for the first time, even though it had been present all along. That it was such a joyful, brazenly comedic role added yet another twist on his image. There was a sense that, even after 30 years in the spotlight, Reeves can still surprise us.

[bigskydreaming]

antifamutantdown replied to your post:

Thanks to a friend I got my grubby little hands on...

Kalen… You must review the rest I can’t do this anymore

So far the only other ones I’ve read are X-Men #1 and Marauders #1, and I have very little thoughts on them!

My X-Men #1 thoughts can be summed up as cool space house, Krakoan dish soap is neat idea but also gross, we don’t need to see that, why is Havok there, why is Havok anywhere, die Havok die, yay Gabe! Its so weird that I like megalomaniacal actually canon despot and father killer Gabriel Summers better than Alex but like, in his defense Corsair is a shitty father, the Shi’ar Empire is a shitty empire, and like, spending a decade entombed on an asteroid while Xavier mindwipes everyone into forgetting you ever even existed would make anyone cranky, also like, could be worse, at least he’s not Alex. But also, why is he talking like that, its so weird and unnecessary, and also also, I do need SOME context for why he’s suddenly bbq-ing on the moon with his brothers and dad like he never once flambeed said dad like he’s currently searing those steaks, like....did he just Get Over Everything or did Xavier give him a homicidal-otomy before sticking his consciousness back in a shiny new body? I need answers! 

But also lolol at him trolling Logan, even if it was in that weird ‘yo, Shakespeare’s dead, we don’t have to talk like this anymore’ kinda way. But also, Teen Cable calling Scott Dad and Jean Mom and asking them if he can trade guns with Raza and finally getting a chance to be parented the way Cable’s always deserved IS MY EVERYTHING, WHY AM I SO WEAK, and him and Rachel getting to be actual siblings and them all FINALLY having a chance to be an actual, somewhat normal FAMILY, like, this is the literal first time in any of their histories that they’ve all been together and just...enjoying a meal together, its....ugh. This is the good food. THIS is the food I’ve been waiting for. But now plz hurry up and tell me if they’re all being mind controlled by Evil Chucky, this is highly critical information and I need it and want it, please can I have it.

Meanwhile, my Marauders #1 thoughts can be summed up as:

Kitty being all yo-ho-yo-ho a pirate’s life for me in a sailboat is random as fuck, I don’t care about the story’s explanation, it just is. Also a million snores to the OH NOES, AM I EVEN A MUTANT AT ALL plot that I had hoped died with the Neo and all the other nonsense Claremont plot bunnies that never needed to be brought to fruition. I am TIRED. I do not CARE. Points to Bobby for making the Only Valid Top Joke, nobody needs to make any others ever, but minus those same points for the random switch of the Pyro that is gay and has slept with Bobby and has Sexual Tension with him for the Pyro that was basically just dead for twenty years, juuuuuuust in time for Bobby and the Not Gay Pyro to be teammates in the same book whereas the ‘Bobby just hit that fairly recently and you’d think this merited followup’ Pyro is once more, nowhere to be found. I am SUSPICIOUS.

But also, death times infinity to the equally inexplicable plot point of Why Is Kitty In Charge When Ororo, Whomst Canonically Is Like The Literal Best Leader The X-Men Have Ever Had and Also Has Actual Queen and Goddess On Her Resume....is like....literally standing right there. We get it. Kitty is amazing, she is the most amazingest maybe!mutant who ever did live, even if she’s not even a mutant or whatever. Like, I actually like Kitty, but part of that like is me maintaining that she would be equally Valid as a character even if she’s NOT the Most Important Maybe!Mutant in all the land, even when she is not on land, but is being a pirate on a sailboat. I just do not get this constant obsessive need to push her as the ultimate successor of Xavier’s dream, like, the figurehead of the next generation of X-Men....when the older generations of X-Men ARE STILL RIGHT HERE. 

Its okay to just have her be a super genius spy computer hacker and also canon ninja ghost girl! She doesn’t also have to be Head Honcho In Charge Of All The X-Men Even Though We Refuse To Render a Hard Verdict On Whether Or Not She’s Canonically Old Enough To Drink Yet. We promise to be impressed by her regardless! I am TIRED. I do not CARE. Let Ororo be the leader she’s always been and always should be, instead of just having her stand behind Punky Brewster: The College Years and co-sign her Important Declarations with an “I’m With Her” T-shirt because lol why even give Ororo dialogue if you don’t need to, am I right, X-writers? 

Like....you put Kitty in charge of a lineup that consists of Ororo, Bobby and Bishop, literally ALL of whom are older than her, more powerful than her, have decades more experience than her, AND have experience being team leaders themselves (yes, even BOBBY, albeit his experience wasn’t with an ‘official’ team lineup, but its well established that he was defacto leader of his oddball lineup during the O:ZT era, and he managed to get them all the way to the Final Boss Fight and win the day without a single one of the mutants under his care kicking the bucket in the betwixt time which is like, more than 90% of mutant leaders can say about their team lineups). 

I’M JUST SAYING that like, even if you want Kitty to be team leader because she’s obviously qualified, like I’m not even disputing that, I’m just being like bwuh, why THIS particular team though? Its so random and like, none of these characters need the girl they all used to babysit to hold their hands and tell them where to go next and who to zap with some of the most potent mutant powers in all of mutant-dom, all of which carry a degree of responsibility that she’s never had to struggle with herself and never will because like....she can’t accidentally wipe a city off the map when she sneezes.

LOOK I HAVE A LOT OF THOUGHTS AND FEELINGS ABOUT THIS PARTICULAR PLOT POINT THAT’S BARELY EVEN A PLOT POINT, I just...I don’t get Ultimate Boss Lady Kitty Pryde. I mean, again, its NOT remotely about whether or not she’s capable of the job, she’s more than qualified and competent out the wazoo, I just don’t get the seeming NEED they have to push her as Big Bad Boss Lady when again...Ororo is STANDING RIGHT THERE. It doesn’t make SENSE. 

Also, the colorist on this issue SUCKETH THE BIG ONES and needs to go back to coloring school until they can learn to shade and color Ororo’s skin tones appropriately. She should not look like she and Kitty go to the same tanning salon and then get called away to save the day before anything close to a tan is even gotten. Like, what in all the fucks in the great kingdom of Here’s A Lotta Fucks, was up with that fucking colorist. Who hurt you? Whomever told them it was okay for Ororo to look like that deserves a swift kick in the Oh No You Don’t’s.

Okay there you go! My review of the other two that I’ve read so far. Last week was pretty shitty for me so I didn’t even try to read Excalibur #1, because all I knew is it had Apocalypse ‘on the team’ and I noped in the other direction whilst saying, Lord, I do not have the patience this week to see what the fuck they come up with to justify Apoca-freaking-lypse just kicking it around the island and then being all yeah sure, let’s totally team up to go have magical shenanigans in Otherworld, like, I’m sure there’s a reason, but I do not have the brain cells to spare right now on the off chance that the reason is so dumb, multiple of my brain cells simply give up and willfully expire on the spot, rather than try and make sense of the idiocy.

Sooooo, I could just not be giving that premise enough credit, or I could be giving it too much. Time will tell. As for the rest, that about wraps up the current state of my thoughts on all things Dawn of X, with my ultimate takeaway being mostly cool stories so far dudes, but also, just FYI, I refuse to let myself get too too invested in any of this yet, on the off chance that Evil Chucky ISN’T riding shotgun in everyone’s brains and occasionally taking the wheel to use them all to make weird ass decisions like life is one giant game of Grand Theft Auto for him. Because if he’s NOT playing Gepetto to their Pinocchios, there are some WEIRD ASS character beats and story choices going down, and I actually Dislike instead of Like, so making a ruling on just how much of this is Evil Chucky vs how much of this is just Shitty Writing is like....pretty fucking key and I would like enough info to render a verdict on that matter, like, post fucking haste, so plz feel free to stand and deliver on that any day now, Marvel.

[iknowiknowiknowiknowiknow-blog1]

"Pit bull terrier bites were responsible for a significantly higher number of orthopaedic injuries and resulted in an amputation and/or bony injury in 66% of patients treated, whereas bites from law enforcement dogs and other breeds were less associated with severe injuries."

"Among the breeds identified, pit bulls are proportionally linked with more severe bite injuries."

"47.8% of pit bull injuries required operative repair, which was 3 times more than other breeds."

"Pit bulls are more likely to cause severe injuries that require operative repairs."

"Of the 9 patients with extended hospitalization, 6 (66.7%) were caused by a pit bull...confirms our theory that this breed results in the most devastating injuries at our center."

"Our data were consistent with others, in that an operative intervention was more than 3 times as likely to be associated with a pit bull injury than with any other breed. Half of the operations performed on children in this study as well as the only mortality resulted from a pit bull injury."

"Our data revealed that pit bull breeds were more than 2.5 times as likely as other breeds to bite in multiple anatomical locations. Although other breeds may bite with the same or higher frequency, the injury that a pit bull inflicts per bite is often more severe."

"Of the more than 8 different breeds identified, one-third were caused by pit bull terriers and resulted in the highest rate of consultation (94%) and had 5 times the relative rate of surgical intervention."

"Unlike all other breeds, pit bull terriers were relatively more likely to attack an unknown individual (+31%), and without provocation (+48%)."

"Although a number of dog breeds were identified, the largest group were pit bull terriers, whose resultant injuries were more severe and resulted from unprovoked, unknown dogs."

"The findings of this study are consistent with and extend from previous publications...Dog bites from pit bull terriers, compared to bites from all other dogs, are more common, more severe, and not related to the dog being provoked."

"Compared with attacks by other breeds of dogs, attacks by pit bulls were associated with a higher median Injury Severity Scale score (4 vs. 1; P = 0.002), a higher risk of an admission Glasgow Coma Scale score of 8 or lower (17.2% vs. 0%; P = 0.006), higher median hospital charges ($10,500 vs. $7200; P = 0.003), and a higher risk of death (10.3% vs. 0%; P = 0.041)."

"Attacks by pit bulls are associated with higher morbidity rates, higher hospital charges, and a higher risk of death than are attacks by other breeds of dogs. Strict regulation of pit bulls may substantially reduce the US mortality rates related to dog bites."

In this controlled temperament test, pit bulls were at least twice as likely to attack as Dobermans, three times more likely to attack than Rottweilers, and nearly ten times more likely to attack than golden retrievers. Note that the anti-breed ban activist authors found "no significant difference" between breeds when the definition of "aggression" was watered down to the point that even whining was considered aggressive. But pay close attention to Table 5 on page 138: out of all the breeds tested, pit bulls were markedly the worst when it came to the percentage of dogs that actually attempted to bite or attack. Close to one out of seven pit bulls reached level 5 during the one hour test compared to only one out of the seventy goldens tested. "Staffordshire terrier" is what some breed registries call the pit bull terrier.

The interactive dangerous dogs map kept by the city of Minneapolis is maintained in a "breed-neutral" way in that MSP does not "discriminate against" pit bulls. Still, 70% of the dogs listed as dangerous are pit bulls; 81% are pit bulls plus closely-related bully breeds. In fact, this list has always been over half pit bulls since it was launched in 2015.

In fact, pit bulls dominate animal control dangerous dog reports throughout the U.S.: I've just singled out Minneapolis so folks can't pull the usual "but pit bulls are always misidentified" excuse because this list shows clear photos of each pit bull.

People scoff at dogsbite links, and admittedly, the editorializations on Dogsbite.org can be quite unprofessional and I disagree with many of the opinions expressed. But the matters of fact cited on Dogsbite.org are generally independently verifiable and the site generally makes clear efforts to link to and archive the original source. For example, this list of animal control reports is a good source: the data are reported directly from animal control departments and departments of agriculture.

Dogsbite.org also publishes photos of dogs that kill people on its website. If you wanted to put together a 12-month calendar of the most popular breeds in the U.S., it would look like this. But when you make that same image using the most recent reasonably clear and credible photos of the dogs that killed people in the U.S., it's considerably less diverse.

Note that these aren't the most recent deadly dog attacks, they're the most recent deadly attacks where either law enforcement or a news outlet published its own photos of the fatally-attacking dog(s). See more recent photos, including ones taken from owners' and victims' social media, here. The American Veterinary Medical Association has essentially acted as an animal breeding industry lobbying arm since 2003: the AVMA published and its position paper continues to misleadingly reference an incredibly deceptive study authored entirely by pit bull activists without mentioning their conflicts of interest or addressing any of these problems with the study.When someone "rescues" a pit bull, they're still buying a dog: a dog for whom they'll need to buy food, supplies, and veterinary care for the rest of its life. The conflicts of interest the pet care industry has in defending pit bulls is obvious. I'd be much more impressed with a ringing endorsement for pit bull innocence from any human health or public safety organizations, but literally none of them say anything remotely close to "actually, pit bulls are safe." The most comprehensive research to date on BSL in North America, conducted 2012, found a significant decrease in dog bite injury hospitalizations in regions where pit bulls are banned. The lead author, Malathi Raghavan, is assistant director of research and education for the American Veterinary Medical Association:“What we found is where the legislation was enacted, then the number of bites was reduced relative to places where the legislation wasn’t enacted,” said Dan Chateau, one of the authors of the study and a research scientist at the Manitoba Centre for Health Policy. “How strongly we can claim that one caused the other, that is a little bit still up for debate but the relationship is definitely there.” From 1984 to 2006, the total number of dog bite hospitalizations per year fell by about 20 per cent, from 3.47 to 2.84 for every 100,000 people.“ Hospitalizations for dog bites are really rare. A 20 per cent reduction in anything is good, particularly with dog bites,” Chateau said. “I would think it’s a substantial reduction.” The “crusade against pit bulls” ...is hilarious to hear about in light of the fact that pit bull lobbyists spend millions of dollars every year to pimp pit bulls in cable TV and in the news and in coffee table books with insipid titles like I'm a Good Dog: Pit Bulls, America's Most Beautiful (and Misunderstood) Pet and in feature films and with an invented history as sugary and fake and absurd as "nanny dog" and "American icon."...while anti-pit bull crusading is pretty much limited to Dogsbite.org, which gets less than $50,000 in funding annually, and news reports on severe and fatal dog attacks. What other breed has a lobby backing it up? Why would a breed need lobbying on its behalf? Why is there no historical evidence to support either "nanny dogs" or the idea that pit bulls weren't historically stigmatized?The Little Rascals? They weren't just any kids, they were scruffy troublemakers from the "wrong side of the tracks." So was their dog. And the dog symbolizing the U.S. in WWI posters? In other posters, this dog bears much more similarity to a white bullterrier than the pit bull, and at the time, show bull terriers were considered distinct from "pit" bull terriers. If the pit bull terrier was such an "icon," why isn't the dog shown in those posters unambiguously a pit bull? Why isn't it labeled as a pit bull terrier, and why is it white and not colored like a typical pit bull? Why was a pit bull cast as the companion to poor kids who often clashed with others around them?Why didn't the American Kennel Club recognize pit bulls until 1936? Why did the AKC only agree to admit them under the star-spangled name of..."Staffordshire terrier?" Staffordshire is in England. Why didn't Americans want to take credit for "America's Dog?" Why didn't the American Kennel Club give this "American icon" an American name? The general public is under the impression that this breed is carnivorous, vicious, and, fed on a diet of raw meat, will devour a human being...When the pit bull terrier was introduced into America, he was more commonly found to be owned by prize fighters, saloon keepers and habitues, sporting men and the like. From the start the breed earned an unjust reputation due to his fighting ability and the character of the owner. To this day he is still trying to live down an unjust and undeserved reputation. Joseph Colby, The American Pit Bull Terrier, published 1936. Colby was then one of the world's best-known pit bull breeders, and when he addresses the pit bull's reputation, he makes two key points: Pit bulls had a bad ("unjust") reputation "from the start" (or about the mid-1800s) and pit bulls still had a negative reputation a century after the type originated. A "pit" bulldog belongs to a strain of dogs which have been trained to fight each other in bloody battle to death in a dog pit. Around this pit, or arena, inhuman humans, more brutal than the brutes that they are brutalized, assembled to gratify an evil lust for blood and rejoice in the suffering and death of the wretched animals they had trained to cruelly and ferocity...Small wonder that pit bulldogs have inherited the ferocity of their masters, who trained them to brutality...no pit bulldog should be ever made the companion of a child. Milwaukee Sentinel, Feb. 17 1945 

The bull-and-terrier type, which later became the pit bull, arose because dogfighting became popular after bull-baiting was banned.

The original bulldogs, however, strongly resemble pit bulls and at the time they had a strikingly similar reputation (attacking without provocation, not letting go, not warning before an attack, et cetera.)

In his 1792 A General History of Quadrupeds, Thomas Bewick referred to bulldogs as "the fiercest of all the Dog kind.”

in British Field Sports, an 1818 guide to hunting, William Henry Scott described these dogs as “devoted solely to the most barbarous and infamous purposes” and “the real blackguard of his species." He also argued that the bulldog possessed “no claim upon utility, humanity, or common sense” and concluded that “the total extinction of the breed is a desirable consummation.”

Writes William Bingley in Memoirs of British Quadrupeds (1809: "The Bulldog is remarkable for the undaunted and savage pertinacity with which he will provoke and continue a combat with other animals, and when once he has fixed his bite, it is not without extreme difficulty that he can be disengaged from his antagonist...He is oftentimes fierce and cruel, and seems to possess very little of the generosity and disposition so remarkable and so celebrated in dog species.”

Bingley also warned that bulldogs were especially prone to unprovoked attacks on humans, arguing that this breed “frequently makes his attack without giving the least previous warning." Bewick, too, wrote that “the bull-dog always makes his attack without barking” and because of this, “it is very dangerous to approach him alone.”

The entry for “bulldog” in the fourth edition of The New American Cyclopedia:

So strongly marked is this peculiarity that an able recent writer on the dog considers the bull-dog a sort of abnormal canine monster, a dog idiot, yielding to uncontrollable physical impulses, now of blind ferocity, now of equally blind and undiscriminating maudlin tenderness, which renders him more addicted to licking, slobbering, and mumbling the hand, the boot, or any other part of any person to whom he takes a sudden and causeless liking, and whom he is just as likely to assault the next moment than any other of his species.

Editor George Ripley argued that “the bull-dog does not display the usual intelligence nor fidelity of the dog; since he will capriciously attack his master." It is not true that pit bulls have a special locking mechanism in their jaw but it is true that they hold on when they bite and they won’t let go. In fact, experts recommend that pit bull owners carry something called a "break stick" around at all times: that's literally a tool used to pry a pit bull's jaws open during an attack and they're pretty much just for pit bulls. As to the myth that pit bulls who were man biters were culled by dogfighters, here, this blogger put together a documented list of famously human-aggressive fighting dogs who not only weren't "culled" but were bred so often that they produced over 1,200 known, registered offspring:"The man-biters were culled and the pit bulls were not bred for human aggression myths were created from thin air, complete fabrications. There is not a sliver of truth in the myth that dogmen culled man-biters. Not only weren't human aggressive pit fighters NOT culled, but a talented man-biter was heavily bred, his stud services were in high demand and the stud fees commanded a premium. The progeny of man-biters are still sought out long after he or she has passed away. This Italian game-dog website lists their choice for the Best Ever fighting dogs, three of the five are known man-biters and the other two trace their origins to the others on their "Best" list. Some famous man-biters have their own facebook fan pages. If you happen to be a 10x winner with 3 kills and scratching on the carcass, people tend to overlook a little thing like the danger she poses to people and she is also likely to be nominated for the cover of this month's International Sporting Dog Journal. Some famous man-biters not only have a facebook fan page, they have their own promotional merchandise too."

Let's lay aside the on-its-face absurdity of the "no one knows what a pit bull looks like" shtick: Appellate courts have consistently ruled that people "of ordinary intelligence" can identify pit bulls as pit bulls. Pit bull apologists have spent literally millions of dollars to teach us not only what pit bulls look like but also why we should adopt one and proselytize on social media about how "sweet" and "misunderstood" they are. You can't have this massive multi-million, multi-decade rebranding campaign on social media, TV, movies, books, and everywhere else...and then claim that most people have no clue what a pit bull is.

Here are some of those rulings:

Vanater v. Village of South Point, Ohio: Village criminal ordinance, which prohibited the owning or harboring of pit bull terriers or other vicious dogs within village limits, was not overbroad, even though identification of a "pit bull" may be difficult in some situations.

Toledo v. Tellings, Ohio: The Court found the state and the city have a legitimate interest in protecting citizens against unsafe conditions caused by pit bulls. The evidence presented in the trial court supports the conclusion that pit bulls pose a serious danger to the safety of citizens.

Hearn v. City of Overland Park, Kansas: The court held: (1) the ordinance is not unconstitutionally vague or overbroad; (2) the ordinance does not violate the due process rights of plaintiffs under the United States and Kansas Constitutions; (3) the ordinance does not violate the equal protection clauses of the United States.

Dog Federation of Wisconsin, Inc. v. City of South Milwaukee, Wisconsin: The court found that reference to recognized breeds provides sufficient specifics to withstand a vagueness challenge. With regard to equal protection, the court held that the ordinance is founded on “substantial distinctions” between the breeds of dog covered by the ordinance and other breeds of dog. Moreover, the ordinance is “germane” to the underlying purpose of the ordinance to protect persons and animals from dangerous dogs.

Colorado Dog Fanciers v. City and County of Denver, Colorado: The court found the ordinance to be a valid police power exercise to protect the health and safety of the citizens since the evidence showed pit bulls to be inherently dangerous.

American Dog Owners Ass'n, Inc. v. Dade County , Florida: The District Court held that ordinance sufficiently defined “pit bull” dogs by specifically referencing three breeds recognized by kennel clubs, including a description of the characteristics of such dogs, and provided a mechanism for verification of whether a particular dog was included. The uncontradicted testimony of the various veterinarians reflected that most dog owners know the breed of their dog and that most dog owners look for and select a dog of a particular breed. The Court found that the law afforded fair warning of what is proscribed. I find it kind of funny when people say calling pitbulls dangerous is racist because pitbulls are associated with POC, but here’s an interesting fact: The Ku Klux Klan is inextricably linked to pit bull and dogfighting culture and to this day, the image of a pit bull is still listed as a hate symbol by the Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Found this on reddit:

Pit Bull Owners More Likely to Show Sociopathic Tendencies

A significant difference in criminal behavior was found based on dog ownership type. Owners of high risk dog breeds were significantly more likely to admit to violent criminal behavior, compared to large dog owners, small dog owners, and people who did not own dogs. The high risk dog breed owner sample also reported that they engaged in more types of criminal behavior compared to all other participant groups of criminal behavior (i.e., violent, property, drug, and status).

The interesting addition to our knowledge that that this study provides has to do with the personality characteristics of the high risk dog owners. In general high risk dog breed owners were significantly more likely to engage in sensation seeking and risky behaviors. As a group they were also more careless, selfish and had stronger manipulative tendencies. - Psychological Characteristics Owners of Aggressive Dog Breeds, Psychology Today

"Owners of cited high-risk ("vicious") dogs had significantly more criminal convictions than owners of licensed low-risk dogs." - Ownership of high-risk ("vicious") dogs as a marker for deviant behaviors: implications for risk assessment. - Full text PDF

" Findings revealed vicious dog owners reported significantly more criminal behaviors than other dog owners. Vicious dog owners were higher in sensation seeking and primary psychopathy. Study results suggest that vicious dog ownership may be a simple marker of broader social deviance." - Vicious Dogs: The Antisocial Behaviors and Psychological Characteristics of Owners - Full text PDF

"Vicious dog owners reported significantly higher criminal thinking, entitlement, sentimentality, and superoptimism tendencies. Vicious dog owners were arrested, engaged in physical fights, and used marijuana significantly more than other dog owners." - Vicious Dogs Part 2: Criminal Thinking, Callousness, and Personality Styles of Their Owners

Also see: Personality and Behavioral Characteristics of Owners of Vicious Breeds of Dog (dogbitelaw.com) I’ll edit this for formatting and add to it in the future.

[lorentzenlorentzen7-blog]

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[extasiswings]

Hi I’m curious to hear your thoughts about the episode because it seems like you’re not enjoying how they’re writing Lyatt and honestly same?? Also want to hear your garcy thoughts as always

Hooooooooooo boy. Okay. I’ve been avoiding writing exactly this post, but I’m basically a mountain of pure salt at this point so I’m putting this under a cut.  SINCE YOU ASKED:

Lucy and Wyatt right now are the EPITOME of “Tell, don’t show” writing. We had minor development of their growing friendship and subsequent feelings in S1 and we ended on “open to possibilities” which was sweet and cute and even if they’ve been predictable from the beginning, I was willing to get on board. Except, now we’re in season 2 and after a 6-week time skip the writers/producers/cast/everyone are telling us how in love they are. We went from “open to possibilities” and Wyatt calling Jess the person he loves most in the world to “ZOMG they’re so in love” with ZERO actual on-screen development. And I get that it’s a compressed season, but that’s an awfully big leap from point A to point B and I don’t buy “there was this big, dramatic event that made them both realize how they felt” as a shortcut. It’s bad writing. It’s lazy. That’s the first thing.

But the second is really the more important piece of all this and where I have an even bigger bee in my bonnet. Because, you know what, ignore what I said up there. Let’s go with the premise that they had great, realistic, thoughtful development and are very much in love. 

Wyatt ditched Lucy immediately. Immediately. No second thought. And to be fair, he did apologize, no doubt realizing that it was a dick move to drop the woman you just slept with like a hot potato. And Lucy tells him that he should be with Jess because he’s always loved her and wanted her back. Okay. Cool. 

But then what does Wyatt do? He brings Jess to the bunker. To the place where Lucy lives. As someone else said, “go be with her” is NOT “bring her here so I have to see her/the two of you together at all times while you try to fix things.” I understand why Wyatt did it, but it was cruel. It was cruel. And Lucy deserves better than that. 

And now we get to this episode. Where Wyatt is STILL trying to have his cake and eat it too re: Jess and Lucy. And Lucy, while she got a few (deservedly) snarky comments off, seems to have completely forgiven him for everything by the end of the episode, which…what? And for Wyatt to say he has no regrets about anything when his choices have hurt Lucy so much? Honestly, how dare he. At the very LEAST he should regret that he hurt her. At the very LEAST he should have apologized again. But there is absolutely no acknowledgment that he’s doing anything wrong in this situation (when he’s fucking things up with BOTH these amazing women). And then AGAIN we have Lucy letting him off the hook. We have Lucy cutting out pieces of herself so that Wyatt can be happy and comfortable and have his life with Jess while maintaining their friendship. And to me that’s just…infuriating. 

To everyone out here commenting on how it’s noble and selfless and lovely that Lucy is doing all this, yes, I agree. BUT. “When you really love someone, you put their happiness first” is NOT a fair response when only one person is doing that. Good, healthy, strong relationships should be equal. And that’s not remotely what is being written here. Instead we have a beautiful, independent, amazing woman CONSTANTLY sacrificing her own happiness and needs for a man and getting NOTHING in return. To me, that is NOT romantic. It’s frustrating and at least vaguely sexist and I’m not here for it. 

And my other issue (besides the fact that all this soap opera romance nonsense takes away from other characters and other relationships and other development that is super important, not to mention detracting from the actual PLOT), is that I cannot see how they’re going to fix this in a way that feels right. Wyatt has abandoned Lucy consistently. He has allowed her to put him first with no reciprocation CONSISTENTLY. The way this entire relationship has been written this season is grossly one-sided. And yet, there’s no acknowledgment that I’ve seen from the writers/cast/most of the fans that that’s a problem. There’s no acknowledgment that Wyatt needs to sit down and do some serious self-reflection and deal with his bullshit before he and Lucy can even have a SHOT at having a healthy and solid romantic relationship. But given the way this road seems to be going and the fact that we only have 5 episodes left (which…please god don’t let them continue to focus on this arc because it’s not relevant ffs) I have…absolutely no real hope that this will resolve in a way that acknowledges Lucy’s sacrifices and atones for the pain he’s caused her. No hope whatsoever. And I’m pissed because it’s SUCH a disservice to Lucy’s entire character.

(Side note about other Wyatt moments in this episode that irritated me: Failing to take the shot. Was Lucy in danger? Sure. But he’s shown that he can make those shots before. And you know what puts Lucy in MORE danger? Not taking out major RH players when they have the chance. And the fact that he failed to take the shot because he “loved her too much to put her in danger” or whatever? Even when Lucy was literally begging him to take it because she understands what is at stake and is willing to do what it takes to win? Yeah, explicitly ignoring what the person you “love” asks you to do for your own selfish reasons is also not romantic, and that’s the fucking tea about that mmkay.) 

So, to sum up why I’m not enjoying the writing for this ship: 1) it’s lazy “Tell, don’t show” and has been from the beginning of the season; 2) Wyatt doesn’t listen to Lucy and doesn’t seem to care about the fact that he hurt her and keeps twisting the knife deeper because it lets him off the hook; 3) In the year of our Lord 2k18 I should not have to be explaining why a grown-ass woman shouldn’t cut herself down so a man can feel comfortable but here we are, and; 4) it’s taken Lucy away from all her other main focuses (i.e. Amy, stopping RH, etc) and the fact that she’s hurting herself so Wyatt can be happy with no reciprocation is not a good basis for a relationship. (And if anyone wants to know what made me an expert, it was quite literally my job for two years to teach people about healthy relationships so)

…that was…a lot. But, anyway. Turning to the Garcy of it all.

A) This episode (and this season) was criminally devoid of Flynn. B) What we did get was everything I love about their relationship and everything I like to see in relationships in general. Contrary to all of the above with Lucy and Wyatt, Flynn is being a support system. He’s not trying to make her talk, he’s not there with any sort of expectation, he’s not trying to make things difficult. He’s just there. To quietly show her she can lean on him if she wants. That she’s not alone. He did the same thing in his little show of solidarity at the end of the last episode when he walked her down the stairs and away from Wyatt. Unlike Wyatt, who apparently can only think of himself, Flynn is putting Lucy first. I’m sure he’s tired after a day fighting in 1934. I’m sure he probably wants to be alone as well. But instead, he sees that Lucy is hurting and goes to her because that matters more. 

And it’s not one-sided either, because Lucy has done that for him in the past. Differently, to be sure. But she has risked herself, her safety, etc, to help him on more than one occasion. She’s fought for him, she’s supported him, she’s trusted him even when no one else was willing to. And when we finally find out about the journal, I’m assuming that older Lucy was there for him in a similar way to how he’s there for Lucy now, giving him support and options and an outlet for his pain and grief. 

As I’ve said before, does Lucy and Flynn’s relationship have to be romantic? No. But as it stands now, this whole mutual support and trust and care thing they have going on is FAR more of a solid basis for a romantic relationship (and exactly what I like to see in romance) than everything with Lucy and Wyatt right now. 

Mutual support and putting the other person first vs. “Let me put myself first while you set yourself on fire to keep me warm” is how I would describe the differences. Shocking how I’m not into the second.