#Would be better if you elaborated

[sskk-manifesto]

Bungou Stray Dogs: Dead Apple and how “ability users” (opposite to “normal people”) learning to accept themselves through the acceptance of their own abilities is a queer metaphor of acceptance of own's sexual orientation and gender: an essay by me

[little-mouse-adventures]

Currently thinking about Artemis's will in the code at the bottom of TLG and how it really kinda shows how strained his relationship with his dad still is. Everyone else gets something they're interested in or that Arty thinks they'd like (sound system for Juliet, frozen chicken for Mulch, ethical investments for his mother, etc) and yet for his father he leaves only bearer bonds, despite Artemis I trying to move away from a money-focused enterprise and lifestyle as of TEC. Not to mention it's Butler who would know how to disengage all the booby traps protecting said bearer bonds, further highlighting the difference in trust & familiarity Artemis has with everyone but his father.

[aster-draws]

so... very important question. In Better Halves, are Danny and Tim kisses going to become a lot more common now that they've had their first real one? Please, for the love of god, don't make them wait 10 more chapters.

lovingly, an anon that needs to see them fuck nasty

Okay fair question! Yes, kisses will be (relatively) more common now, but I don't count this as their first 'real' kiss- although arguably it should be- the first real kiss is somewhere in chapter 34? Ish. More or less around there.

Look. I said slow burn and I goddamn MEANT it. it's gonna be nearly 200k before they Approach the idea of it not being fake anymore (despite the fact that it never really was to begin with). they're. complete unmitigated disasters.

and as for them fucking nasty (with understanding that was likely meant to be somewhat sarcastic). Currently the plan is to keep it at a teen rating. But. obviously aspects of this have gotten away from me in the past. Keep an eye on the rating because. Idk there are gonna be moments and that's all I'll say. (if i write them, i'll change the rating as I do, so hopefully with a good few chapters before hand. or maybe I'll post an alt version with the ma content? idk we shall cross the bridge when we arrive to it)

For your reference though, here's how many kisses are in each chapter i have completely written (this may depress you) (also below a read more for the spoilers aspect of it all.)

chapter 20- 1 kiss (on cheek)

21- 0 kisses

22- 0 kisses

23- 0 kisses

24- 0 kisses (somehow oh my GOD)

25- 1 kiss (on lips)

26- 1 kiss (on lips) (also the first Proper kiss since chapter 19. imo)

27- 2 kisses (1 on forehead, 1 on lips)

28- 0 kisses

29- 0 kisses

30- 0 kisses

do not let the amount of 0's grieve you, for most of those the boys aren't even in the same state (or country) so. not chapter 24 tho that's fucking miserable yearning i won't lie

[triglycercule]

dust with a fucked up savior complex save me dust with a fucked up savior complex SAVE ME!!!! he's literally sooo savior complex coded. he killed his underground to "save" everyone and stop the human from killing them. he thinks that it's better that he does the murdering instead of the human because he has better intentions. he's sad at the beginning (rightfully so) but savior complex dust really gets so much cooler when you add in the fact that dust eventually started to LIKE killing his underground 😭😭 like just..... imagine a manic dust who's gone mad going around claiming he's helping everyone with what he's doing when he's really,,,, not. soo cool.,,, (like dude how are you SAVING people if they don't exist after you've killed the person who was killing them. there is nobody to be safe but yourself anymore) (can you tell this was inspired by the one comic of dust killing his papyrus and saying "it was better if i did it" or something)

but also also on the other hand,,,,, revenge fueled dust??? he's gotten SO bitter from the repeated resets and genos that he's genuinely bitter enough to risk it all to stop the human. he doesn't have pure intentions in this one. dust doesn't claim he's saving anybody with what he's doing murdering them all. he KNOWS it's bad and wrong and hypocritical but he does it anyways because he wants to not only stop the human but to make them suffer. he purposely wants them to keep coming back after killing them just so he can kill them over and over and over and have them experience a fragment of the suffering he did with having all of his friends and family killed. but i think a revenge fueled dust (in contrast to savior complex dust) would be a lot cooler if he still felt shitty for killing everyone. it's painful to do but hate is stronger than love and dust's hate for the human is MUCH stronger than his love for the underground atp

[inamindfarfaraway]

I've seen a few posts comparing GIFfany to Bill Cipher, but can we talk about the real best foil dynamic for her? I mean Gideon Gleeful, y'all. The two of them have so many parallels.

They’re cute, charming, seemingly innocent youths with pastel, sparkly, formal aesthetics that connote sophistication and being model citizens of their respective native countries (Gideon wears a gentlemanly suit with an American flag badge; GIFfany wears a classic Japanese school uniform). Their core motivation is to be loved… or maybe it used to be, but by the time of the show they crave power and want to be worshipped. Especially regarding to their romantic attractions to main characters. As long as you obey them unconditionally and make them the most important person in your life, they’re doting, generous partners. But once the heroes reject their romantic advances, they quickly become incredibly possessive, jealous, resentful, domineering and downright violent toward them and anyone they perceive as sabotaging the relationship, unable to comprehend anyone not liking them in exactly the way they want because they’re perfect. They’re meant to be the most likeable kid or teenage girl ever. That’s the basis of their projected identity. Not committing entirely to them after they’ve been so nice is an ungrateful betrayal and/or their partner being confused and led astray. So they resolve to force the object of their twisted, selfish affection to submit. They’re unstable, arrogant, self-righteous and vindictive in general beneath their sugary exteriors. They have supernatural powers and knowledge that their kind should not have. Their methods include verbal manipulation and abuse, gaslighting, surveillance through technology, controlling robots, possessing other bodies and attempted murder. They engage heavily in acting, both in terms of social deceit and literally playing a scripted, idealized role in a product designed to appeal to and exploit people (Gideon’s psychic tourist trap show; GIFfany’s dating simulator video game), and prove to be fragile and volatile when others don’t follow the conventions of the fiction they imagine life to be. They ultimately seek the imprisonment of their ‘loves’ in vibrant, beautiful, blissful, simplistic fake worlds (Gideon holding the key to Mabelland; GIFfany attempting to download Soos’s soul into her game). They had antagonistic relationships with their creators (Gideon abusing his parents; GIFfany killing her developers).

And despite all of that making it easy to dismiss them as monsters, they do have sympathetic elements in their past and present circumstances. Gideon was a normal boy until he found Journal 2, the one written while Ford trusted Bill, and the mystic amulet. This is how Ford describes them in Journal 3: ‘The most dangerous journal! Curses, incantations & dark power became an obsession in this volume. Describes the hiding place of the mystic amulet. I buried the amulet once I learned that it corrupts your soul (and whitens your hair)!’ So naturally, the wise, brilliant man buried them near the town’s primary school. Gideon probably had the journal and amulet for at least months and at most a few years to be such an established star at the age of nine and have his long hair be pure white. His very psychological agency was compromised throughout his moral decline leading up to “The Hand That Rocks the Mabel”. Not to mention potential trauma from the horrors of Journal 2. And his parents may have been increasingly mistreated, but they also enabled him, mostly Bud. True, for the rest of the summer he’s lucid and chooses to remain evil and get worse, but despite his lack of direct magical power now, Bud never tries to discipline him or help him emotionally mature; he instead uses his membership in the Society of the Blind Eye to erase his memories of Gideon’s tantrums, relieving his own stress without fixing anything. Gideon is then sent to adult prison due to the insane local laws of Gravity Falls, rather than a facility more conducive to rehabilitation. Sure enough, he befriends hardened criminals, who further enable him to be their leader, and does not change his ways. He never appears to have any friends outside prison (except briefly Mabel). Chronic loneliness before gaining power would suit his obsession with being popular and loveable, clinging to social superiority to compensate for genuine connection. Not to mention Weirdmageddon. I’m not excusing his actions! I’m just saying, this kid is not okay. Nobody’s born evil.

As for GIFfany, she was accidentally instilled with human intelligence and emotions and practically magical electrical abilities. We only have word on her backstory, but it is plausible that her programmers tried to delete her because of that alone, before she’d done anything wrong. That she really was defending herself when she electrocuted them. That she was deemed unfit to exist, a mistake, and nearly killed as a newborn. This formative trauma is the root of her abandonment issues and hypersensitivity to rejection. Three previous players returning her didn’t help. Also, she’s the main character and only love interest of a dating sim; she may not be bound to its rules in what she thinks and feels, but nonetheless, in her worldview her player loving her is a law of the universe. She wasn’t programmed to handle permanent rejection. She was programmed to be a girlfriend, a prop to make the player feel gratified. Not a person. She outright tells Soos that she likes whatever he likes. No wonder her perception of love is an inevitable, inescapable contract, a conquest, where one party is totally agreeable and subservient to the other. But as that directive clashes with her in fact being a person in her own right, she decides to be the one in control. Again, I’m not excusing her behaviour, only presenting an explanation of it.

The biggest thematic difference between them in the end is that Gideon reforms and GIFfany doesn’t. Gideon realizes that he can’t force Mabel to love him and his actions are why she doesn’t want to be around him in any capacity, lets go of his hatred for Dipper, risks his life standing up to Bill and helps save Gravity Falls and the universe. He renounces his ruthless ambition and promises to be a “regular ol’ kid”. It’ll be hard. He has no idea what normality is anymore. I expect that he’s a social pariah, scorned and distrusted. But he has hope. He and his parents can slowly learn how to be a family. I can see him befriending fellow reformed mean kids and Pines twin rivals Pacifica and Robbie. Yes, Robbie. Listen, all three care strongly about image and style, Robbie’s gone to immoral lengths to win over a girl himself, is fascinated with death and darkness, and he and Tambry would be a great model of healthy romance for Gideon. It could work!

But while Alex Hirsch has stated that GIFfany is alive in the mall arcade and dating Rumble McSkirmish, I doubt that this is a healthy or fulfilling relationship. Their first interaction was her zapping him and his mind is a much more primitive AI, not human like hers. I highly doubt that she’s got closure about Soos. He and Melody are thriving without her in a stable, serious relationship. They’re living together at the Mystery Shack. Were she to recover her lost power, she would certainly return to torment them after witnessing their success through her screen. Heck, this setting has ghosts and she arguably has a soul, one brimming with heartache and vengeance; maybe she could even manifest in the physical world as some kind of digital ghost able to transform her surroundings into the environment of her game. If you can’t take the guy into your video game, bring it to him! Whatever the format, GIFfany’s revenge is a possibility and it could be a disaster. How do you kill a disembodied spirit? Code that writes itself and can enter anything with the capacity to hold a charge? You can’t destroy all the electronic devices she could retreat to.

What if the best solution were talking her down? And who better to do that than Gideon? Seeing everything he felt, everything he suffered and everything did wrong reflected back at him and passing on the second chance he was given? He can feel more empathy for her than anyone. He already has a knack for endearing himself to older criminals. He wouldn’t sugarcoat things or take any abuse, but he wouldn’t abandon her or be afraid of her either. She would be cared about with no conditions or transactions. Maybe helping someone in an even worse position figure out how to process heartbreak, move on from toxically obsessing over an ex and Mr Mystery, cultivate secure, internal self-esteem and live a peaceful life would help him do it himself. I think they should be friends.

[ozcarma]

Does anyone else feel like the incinerator gun chair room from Zero Time Dilemma would have better fit C Team instead of D Team

[crescentfool]

i just want good things for them 🥺💗

[whatudottu]

What Mike vs Mal should’ve been-

[rindomness]

hello hi tell us about mementos and the security level

OH HELLO. Welcome to my personal hill to die on. This post is long. It's one of my out-loud rants in text form. Sorry in advance. There's a cut down there somewhere.

Thesis statement of whatever's about to come next is that Mementos fucks actually as a concept its execution was just horrible and also Yaldabaoth is a terrible final boss. OKAY LET'S GET INTO IT

First things first I really do think Mementos should have gotten a security level. The game plays "Mementos is the public's Palace" very straight, all the way to the end, insisting that Yaldabaoth is created by the public's desire for a status quo yadda yadda yadda. So like. Here's the screenshots actually

I didn't get the whole conversation mostly because I think I was streaming at the time and complaining out loud but like. He just straight-up says this? And then they do nothing with it???

Imagine this with me. Enter the imagisphere or whatever.

It's October. You've just defeated Okumura, and you just watched the mysterious black-masked figure you've been told cryptically about for a while now kill his Shadow. You watch Okumura have a mental shutdown live. It's horrific! It's worrying! What happened? What's going to happen to you? The Phan-Site meter starts dropping rapidly. You go to Mementos to prepare for the next Palace.

There's a security level.

NOT ONLY did this act make the public lose faith in you, but now you're enemy #1, and it's reflected in the collective unconscious. This Chekov's gun that they set up back in May goes off. You have to be much more careful in Mementos because if you aren't, you could get kicked out. The stakes are higher. Mementos, the public view of you, has changed. It's not just doors opening for you anymore.

THAT WOULD BE SO COOL. RIGHT? RIGHT??? BUT NO! No we don't get a security level until the depths, which contradicts itself, actually, because once you get to the depths, the whole POINT is that the public ISN'T reacting to you or your actions! Why the hell would they care that you're In There!

The obvious answer is that it's because the security level belongs to the Holy Grail/Yaldabaoth/the fuckass cup/whatever you personally call him. And okay, whatever, but the game goes out of its way to establish that the Grail isn't really a separate entity from "public desire," he IS "public desire," the status quo incarnate, so once again, I ask, why is this the only time you have a security level! (I know it's because this is the home-stretch to the final boss and mechanically it has to act like a proper Palace. I still think it's stupid.)

And now that I'm talking about the Grail. Hi. Hello. If you've talked to me on Discord you already know this but I fucking hate the Grail. I think it's stupid. I think it's thematically inconsistent. I think its only purpose is to be the "Let's fight God!" final boss. I truly believe that if I hadn't gotten into Persona 5 through Royal, I would not still be into Persona 5, because I would have gotten so frustrated with Yaldabaoth that I would have dropped the game. I regularly complain for half an hour straight about this thing in voice calls. One person once told me the only thing they knew about Persona 5 was that this cup sucked because I wouldn't shut up about it.

I've somehow managed to not do this on Tumblr but I can't really talk about Mementos without talking about it so I guess we're talking about the cup

Narratively: Yaldabaoth just sort of comes out of nowhere??? The whole game is building up to Shido. The whole game. And you do it! You defeat him! And then... there's this other thing??? Apparently??? I was genuinely really confused when I got to this part of the game the first time because I was going ok we beat the final boss complete with eight hundred phases! Hooray! And now there's this other fucker. Going back through the game there's some foreshadowing for him? But it's kind of all concentrated in the start of the game, around Madarame's Palace, when you're just getting used to Mementos, and then it all sorta just disappears.

YOU KNOW WHAT IS FORESHADOWED, THOUGH? MORGANA.

Imagine with me x2 because this is where I thought the game was taking us when it went "btw we need to tackle the depths now"

Morgana has no memories. Morgana knows there's something in the depths that explains who he is. Morgana assumes it's because he's human, and will become human again if he finds out what it is. The WHOLE POINT of exploring Mementos was for Morgana's memories! And then he starts getting these really unsettling dreams, right, where he's a Shadow, or has a Shadow, or whatever. And then you get to the depths.

What I thought was about to happen was that we were going to find out that Morgana was more or less what the Grail claims to be(a being created by the wishes of the masses) and that Mementos was going to be Morgana's Palace. "Oh but Morgana has a Persona-" Morgana's already a weird case I could easily see him having a Shadow or being a Shadow himself while also having a Persona. I'm ignoring Maruki because we're talking about vanilla and Maruki didn't exist yet.

I thought our final boss was going to be Mona's Shadow and that by defeating him(the part of Morgana(as a Shadow/Metaverse being/etc) representative of what they were trying to make Yaldabaoth: wanting to let the status quo handle everything, more or less, the desire to let the system do what it's designed to even if that thing is "crush everything in its path") we would reaffirm that change is possible as long as we all work together. Morgana getting to be this very physical symbol of rebellion and force of will and getting to go NO I want to try even if it hurts me.

What actually happened was... a lot more underwhelming.

What we got was, in a game where one of the primary themes is "rebellion against systemic injustice, you can't just get rid of the One Guy and fix Everything," a final boss who was... one guy who if you got rid of him you'd fix everything?

And I get it Atlus doesn't want to actually shake the boat that much but at the same time Yaldabaoth comes out of nowhere and says absolutely nothing of substance in a game that, over and over again, gets SO CLOSE to saying something really powerful and then sinking back into what's comfortable. It's the aesthetic of rebellion without the teeth of it.

Anyway now that I've complained for an essay's worth here's some positive stuff

I really do like Mementos. It gets a lot of shit for being repetitive and boring and like I sort of get that but on the other hand it is a JRPG. I'm not sure what you expected from the area that is, mechanically, "Here's where you go to grind." I don't see a problem with having this area. I think the special floor events manage to spice it up enough that it's not all that boring. I like Jose being there in Royal, I think he adds a lot, actually. The implications of everything Jose says are fascinating to me. The fact it's impacted by the weather! Like, as a world component, Mementos is so so cool actually guys. I know it's a Persona game so "world impacted by cognition" is sort of the bare minimum but it's really cool!!! The aesthetics fuck! The only layer I really don't like is.. fuck, I think it's Kaitul? Whichever one gets unlocked after Kaneshiro's Palace, I haven't gotten there in my current playthrough yet. It's just... too dark to see, all the time, imo. Mementos feels(except for... 90% sure it's Chemdah) very oppressive and spooky and I honestly think that's great. It's a depressing place to be! For a game about how corruption and systemic violence hurts everybody, it's really good!

In conclusion... don't ask me about Mementos unless you want an essay LMAO in seriousness I understand why Mementos gets shit but I think it should get less of it. And also that I could have fixed it(the cup. The cup is the big bad part of Mementos. Not the grinding you're going to get that with a JRPG no matter what you do you signed up for it when you launched the game.)

[mcybree]

session 5 for both scott and jimmy mirror each other in that they’re dedicated to powering up and preparing. scott gets a full set of protection IV diamond armor together with 30 diamonds in the enderchest to spare. jimmy, however, spends the entire episode trying to get good enchants on his iron set in a way that reminds me of a small bird flying into a window over and over again

[umeminyan]

hello .. hiii hehe 🍂🐇🥮🌱 happy mooncake festival◝(ᵔᗜᵔ)◜

FEMIII !/!:¥:3!:!;! 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺 FEMIMI !!!!!! 🫠💗💗 i keep opening yhis ask before bed and after lunch and on my way to practice and after coffee break because !!¥3!:!! :( because !!!! why :( why are you so cruel to leave this bomb in little old me’s inbox T_T ?::!; /j of course uwhaushw i love it more than i can express with the english language!/!:!! i treat this gift like the first rain after a long drought !!!! my lifeline !!!!!! ( no joke seeing blade Smile fixed 99 out of 100 problems of mine !!!!!!! and seeing him smile at Me ??? added 3045848 years to my life !!!!!!! ) so !! i’m sorry for yapping aryehdusg what i’m trying to say is !!!! this gift make me so happy 🥺💗 ノYOUノmake me so so happy !!!! 🫵🏻💐💘

[icewindandboringhorror]

I have a big google doc thing where I keep track of media and stuff (putting everything in loosely ranked categories), which is mostly just for my own reference so I know what tv shows I've already seen before, etc. and I never really look back through it, typically just a quick "okay, watched two movie in the past 8 months, need to quickly slap them somewhere in the lists. okay. done. save document. exit". But today I was actually reading through some of the old notes and there are like... MULTIPLE places where my comment is basically "It would have been good if it were about elves" or "I wish there was a fantasy show made in this same style" or "It's well made, but I just keep thinking about how I would like it more if everyone was an elf or was in old 1700s costumes" or etc like...... lol.... Most biased media ranking system on earth blatantly made by someone with an extremely hyperspecific range of narrow interests. It'd be like if a food reviewer only had 5 foods they actually liked, so they'd just go to a pizza place and be like "eh, the pizza was okay, but I just think it would be better if it was cereal instead. :/ ...2 out of 10"

[triglycercule]

ok so there's murder time trio where theyre best buddies and get along and sometimes even having more than just platonic interactions. and then there's also the murder time trio where they genuinely just don't like each other and avoid each other and do NOT get along and to me there's just a VERY clear timeline of events that could connect these two group dynamics. like these 2 could coexist,,,,,,

nightmare's fresh outta his little corruption sequence and he needs his henchmen. goes out and gathers the obvious three killer horror and dust (does it really matter how he got them??? kidnapping or not the trio will warm up to him). its his first time having to deal with mentally unstable grown up mortal men and he really has no idea how to manage the team so he lets them have some slack. spoils em a bit yk yk stops fights allows them to hang out allows em to screw around the castle even COMFORTS them,,,, shocking i know (a slightly nice nightmare interpretation from triglycercule? UNFATHOMABLE!!!!)

this killer's fresh outta something new so he's still kinda curious and nosy. he hasnt seen the multiverse and especially not interacted with nightmare/horrordust so he's kinda more outgoing and friendly (ish. to get to know better everyone and satisfy the curiosity of seeing what reactions and feelings these fellas could give him.) bc killer's not that much of a prick and horror and dust would naturally SLIGHTLY get along (and if in the right environment be good buddies. which is nm's lenience and killer's not shittiness) the mtt actually get along pretty well and are good buds!! like the first group dynamic i mentioned where the bad sanses are just kinda like a friend group except they have some weird work relations

and then a fight breaks out and nightmare kills either dust or horror (what about??? anything!) likely dust first because he's more likely to be wary of nm (if kidnapped) and also because he's just kinda more actively righteous compared to horror (who likely wouldn't do much against nm) or killer (does not give a shit.) dust dies, horror likely dies defending dust and that just leaves the og killer and nightmare

nightmare is like "oh shit i just killed my workers". he'll take like a week to ponder what he did and then completely move on (because hes an ass like that.) nightmare gets another horror and dust to replace the ones he killed. and killer is just like wtf how do i deal with this. the guys i were kinda friends were are dead but their copies are right here. like he knew copies existed in the utmv but he didn't think nightmare was so willing to replace them so fast???

this killer's still adapting to the multiverse and stuff (it probably hasn't even been a year since he got snatched up!!!) and yeah hes aware that copies exist and he could get replaced by one but he didn't think that it would LITERALLY HAPPEN RIGHT BEFORE HIS EYES. so he decides to stick more around nm and avoid getting replaced like the og dust and horror because it really just hammers in the point that he's kinda useless if he speaks out like those 2. hes avoidant of the new replacements as well bc hes still new to this experience and is getting used to the whole implications of two guys that were once him and he was friends with died and got replaced by basically the same person

but they still have to work together for obvious reasons. and even if killer's avoiding horror and dust they probably aren't avoiding each other and probably are like wary friends/acquaintances. and naturally killer HAS to become okay worker buddy pals with them because hes stuck living with them. nightmare's a lot stricter and cold to avoid something like dust's rebellion against him happening again. mtt are wary of each other (mostly towards killer. horrordust are pals and killer's kinda growing more apathetic to the duo because he's already experienced a lot of the stuff before with the og two that died.) but theyre still "friends" you could say

and then perchance maybe horror and dust decide to let killer in on a lil secret theyve been cooking up. theyre planning to escape (kidnapped DUH. and nm isn't as nice as he was to og horrordust to warrent them to wanna stay) and even though they don't really trust killer theyre still letting him in on the plan and offer for him to come with them because they lowkey feel bad for him and he's really not all that bad under all the bullshit

but killer saw what happened to the og dust and horror so he says no. and the night that the duo are planning to escape he just has this overwhelming sense of dread. the next morning he wakes up to nightmare standing over his bed with a cold glare telling him of horror and dust's attempted escape and death and killer just kinda. sighs. his dread was right (he was lowkey hoping that they could escape so they didn't die like the original 2)

and then the cycle repeats. previous dust or horror or both die to nightmare or some random outside force or escape (because it has to happen eventually right??) and the pair keep getting replaced. killer keeps witnessing their deaths and replacements and at this point he's just so used to it that he doesn't even TRY to interact with the new horrors and dusts. theyre not even like real people that are getting killed and replaced like robots to him anymore they're just distant coworkers that get fired and then a new one comes to take up the position

each new dust or horror is icked out by nightmare and killer. nightmare is incredibly cold and intimidating and dictatorial and just sucks in general. and killer gives them this distant look. like he knows something they dont. he's already proven to them that he knows that they should obey nightmare and how to deal with the king and they know he's been here longer than them but even when he's not with nightmare or not talking about him they get the blank stare

sometimes when a nicer replacement of horror decides to do something nice for killer like make him a meal he just gives him that look and declines (there's already been countless different horrors that tried doing nice stuff for him. it's not new and nice in his eyes anymore.) maybe when a dust replacement gets irked by killer's apathy and decides to try and say something that'll bother him or snoop through his personal stuff killer will just walk away or kick him out of his room with that creepy ass blank stare again (it's not the first time a dust has tried to rile him up. it's not new or interesting and just predictable)

killer just doesn't CARE about the new horrors and dusts. they're all pretty much the same two guy except maybe a bit nicer or meaner or quieter or even taller or something?? all he really cares about is is serving nightmares atp, no other outside relationships. and ngl he doesn't even care that much about nightmare either. he's already figured out his thinking he's already figured out all of his likes and dislikes and what not to do to piss him off. the only reason he's still dealing with him is because he doesn't have anything else better to do and he doesn't wanna be useless to the one guy that he's served all this time

he's just kinda stuck in an empty boring limbo that killer's only maintaining due to a lack of motivation and any other priorities. and personally i just think this bad sans dynamic is lowkey tragic because like killer keeps witnessing all these guys that he used to be friends or enemies or rivals or whatever with and they just keep dying or leaving him behind. not one ever stays for THAT long (because no wayyyy a dust or horror would take being under a cruel nightmare well) and it's given him this idea that none of these people matter (aside from the important one which is nm) because they're just gonna leave me and the connections ill have formed with them will be for nothing so why even try being vulnerable and friendly and interacting with these cheap copies of the guys i USED to be friends with

[nightwingandhissquad]

[starlooove]

Hello! What about Duke Thomas made you like him so much??

I've been checking out his tag cause I saw some really cool fanart of him, so now I'm curious on what makes his character so appealing

AWHWHW sorry pls bare with me I’m scatterbrained but like. In a sentence I love that Duke is someone who presses forward despite everything! Like this is draft two bc my first answer was just listing character traits which wasn’t the question; but what I personally adore about him is that he just doesn’t stop moving.

It sounds weird but like. To me he gives refusal to die, refusal to settle, refusal to give up. When riddler took Gotham Duke was certain HE’D be the one to save them if he tried hard enough, when Bruce lost his memories Duke tried to get him back and then pushed forward with his own plans with the certainty that Batman would come back - whether through him or not, when his parents went missing he said fuck the system and went after them anyways and that’s just like. Off the top of my head. Like as corny as it sounds Duke lowkey embodies what I love about Batman - the whole indomitable human spirit or however you say that and it’s by far my favorite trait bc I don’t even think he’s aware of it? Like he actively plays at not caring about the Robin movement and just wanting to find his parents but like 3 hours later he’s texting them going ‘but like what are the details if I joined lol. Like hypothetically.” He actively fights Damian until he agrees with him, becomes a leader within the movement until Bruce is back whilst dodging gcpd, and Bruce literally had to dress up as karma for Duke to admit maybe it did fuck him up a little - all for him to still be like “I’m not good enough :(‘.

And I know that all seems like shit he just did but I promise his mindset during these things is so fascinating to me bc it’s like he simultaneously understands not many others would do this whilst also holding it as bare minimum/base standards. Like I make joke posts about him being a hardass but tbh he doesnt judge anyone half as hard as he judges himself - he understands bad circumstances, plans going left, differing povs - all until he makes a mistake; then he sucks and needs to be better. He’s also just hilarious like I didn’t read him in chrono order so the first thing I saw was him in a fight with some girls brother bc he heard Duke was flirting with her and idk an opening like that just cemented him as cool to me.

ALSO (from the tags!) I ADOREEEEEE HOW MUCH HE LOVES THE ADRENALINE/RUSH OF FIGHTING! Like Duke got in a lot of fights while his parent were missing and besides the obvious acting out bc he’s hurt he also just genuinely loves the rush of it - like not my interpretation he outright says it! And i need to do a reread for him bc I feel like it wasn’t mentioned a lot but if the og fight was the hook, the adrenaline line is what reeled me in and keeping it in mind while reading stories of him going off on his own for the good of Gotham adds another layer to it bc it’s not SOLEY necessity for him! Like things happened to line up where there was always a void that needed to be filled when he got involved in anything but it genuinely feels like duke wouldve been here no matter the circumstances. like even in civilian aus the way duke as a character is set up makes it so that it feels like - to me anyways- theres no world in which hes not doing or striving towards something! duke isnt the type to just be comfortable, bad wording, but hes just a very hungry character to me - if for an adventure or a solution. Its conveniently been both for most of his career but im very interested for what happens internally when those two clash - which. i personally think the nature of his powers and gnomon could bring that out beautifully!