#Yes that's a thing & that's a problem. same but reverse also exists & is also a problem.

[gender-euphowrya]

y'all are so fucking stupid Disrespectfully

[ayel-goetia]

❌HELLBORNS❌

---Helluva Boss AU---

"Hey you! Yes, YOU, average, ordinary citizen of hell! Are you tired of your boss treating you like a constant walking piece of shit? Has your wife cheated on you for the fifth time this week? Your neighbor's hellhound won't stop defecating in your garden? Well, stop crying and complaining about your existence like a little whore in this pit of hopelessness and eternal suffering and call HELLBORNS now! We will take care of all your ills once and for all in the quickest or most tortuous way possible, it's up to you!

HELLBORNS is a company of assassins specialized in different branches of the art of murder, everyone here is a certified professional, we are legally qualified to practice this profession and we are not accepting contracts from sinners in a secret and illegal way to murder people on earth. We guarantee safe and quality work while respecting 100% the law exercised in hell.

What are you waiting for? Call HELLBORNS today and let the people who were born to do it take care of your problems forever!

Once the murder is done, there are no refunds. We are not responsible if one of our specialized assassins kills a client."

—Black Swan Company.

✨ Hey guys!✨

Well, I finally did it, I brought this AU!

One day I thought about how it would be if I swapped the roles of IMP with the "antagonists" (Verosika is still one?)

But not only that, I also wanted to give it a few differences from the original so that it would have something new and different and not just a simple swap.

So...

⭕What's HELLBORNS?

HELLBORNS is an alternate universe where the roles are reversed, now, Striker will take the place of Blitzø, Chaz will take the place of Moxxie, Verosika will take the place of Millie and finally, Vortex will take the place of Loona.

However, they don't completely take the role of the original. For example: Vortex wasn't adopted by Striker as Loona was by Blitzø.

Characters like Stolas and Stella, for example, do not swap roles, they remain the same. Only the characters mentioned at the beginning (and those involved in their backgrounds) have the swap.

⭕What's the diference?

Many things, actually! For example, they are no longer an independent company that works only killing humans! Now, they work for someone, they also do murders in hell and on earth, and they don't use the book, thanks to the Asmodeus crystal that Verosika possesses.

⭕Is there a difference in relationships?

Of course! In fact, only two of the HELLBORNS group have any relationship beyond coworkers during the beginning, and it's family.

Regarding ships, this AU is already a Straz (StrikerxChaz) AU, so this will be the main ship. The Stoliz will still be present, as well as M&M or practically any relationship already canonized in the series...

Of course, I will take the liberties of developing them in a different way ;-)

(Image without the final details.)

•Characters•

These are the first designs, and I'll admit I made them at a time where I didn't think I would take it any further, so they are redrawn over the official images lol, sorry...

Here they are drawn one hundred percent by me, and also with the designs that I consider the final ones!

Yes, I know, I forgot to add Vortex, but I haven't done it yet... Because I was a bit tired and lazy haha.

Well, that's all for now, I'll probably keep uploading content about this alternate universe. I hope you liked it and found it interesting!

✨See you later and have a spectacular day!✨

[gurggggleburgle]

Every time I think about the return to childhood extra I'm reminded that the reason it's no fun for Luo Binghe is that it forces this budding and progressive communication and understanding going on between the two to a standstill and in some ways reverses it.

And it's simply because Binghe has already been the doting child of Shizun before. He already knows what it's like to be seen as the fluffy kid hanging around his Master. He already knows what it's like to feel powerless and on an uneven ground with his Shizun. Binghe wants to turn back ASAP because he is finally getting to have an adult relationship and be seen as equal. He doesn't like being helpless (he may cry for attention but hes not helpless) but he also doesn't like being back where he was when he was a disciple.

And yeah it would suck. He can't be romantic with his own husband. He can't express himself and be taken seriously. Everyone is quick to pinch his cheeks and try to steal his husband. Your body isn't tall enough to reach the shelf you placed the pots and pans on. The knife is awkward in your child sized palms. Brooms are too tall. You can't scare off any of the people you dislike and you don't have a network of friends you can explain this too because you're a super scary demon lord and your closest possible friends are your coworkers and you happen to be their boss (and right now they might try to kill you) so you can't be vulnerable with them.

And yes. You can be open with your husband but he doesn't see the big deal the same way. He doesn't get it because functionally this is a good enough time for him because you're a cute dumpling and it's temporary. And yeah it is but also it's that you feel your husband is being nostalgic for a version of yourself that exists in the past that you don't necessarily want to repeat. Not to mention Binghe had a frankly shitty childhood. Yes his life improved once he moved in with Shizun for 3 years but that's 3 out 17. Most of that was spent in poverty and being stepped on by everyone else around him. He doesn't have a nostalgia for childhood. He doesn't miss being a kid. What he wants from that time is the lack of animosity and misunderstanding, the simplicity, that came from the abyss which by this point is mostly a mute desire. So it has to hurt being stuck in a situation like this. An emotional limbo of expression where you can't really say what's on your mind and people basically express the same opinions you're certain they already would say to your face as you stand smoll in the room. That has to hurt. That has to make you doubt things in your relationship. To hear every bias you have built in your head that others have confirmed constantly but now directly to your face while they think you're your own son.

It's a baad time.

If Shen Qingqiu had turned into a kid honestly I think Luo Binghe would have had a marginally better time. He'd love to see and dote on a tiny Shizun and pinch their cheeks and tease. But he'd be over it by the end of the week for almost the exact same reasons. Like yeah he can attic wife his husband so easy right now but he doesn't care about Shen Qingqiu being a kid. He has no reason to be invested in that experience. He doesn't get anything out if it. He still doesn't get to do what he wants which is an adult relationship with the person he loves that he can show people and present this to the world. Binghe doesn't get anything out of a child Shizun. It becomes a stall in exploring and learning each other which is the point of the extras. Yes, it probably be a wholesome good time but the same problems would happen but Shen Yuan isn't likely to nearly the same reaction because he's already a trophy husband. It's not like he's cooking or cleaning. He's already used to everyone wistfully staring at Binghe with interest. This doesn't effect how Shen Yuan processes their relationship.

It makes the fact that Luo Binghe still thinks that Shen Yuan will say no to marriage even after everything just hit harder. Because even after everything he's still thinking of that probably. There are more extras assuring him but that doubt remains and it's so juicy.

[mysticstronomy]

HOW TO DESTROY A BLACK HOLE??

Blog#460

Saturday, December 7th, 2024

Welcome back,

Black holes want to absorb all matter and energy in the Universe. It’s just a matter of time. So what can we do to fight back? What superweapons have been devised to destroy black holes?

Black holes are the natural enemies of all spacefaring races. With their bottomless capacity to consume all light and matter, it’s just a few septillion years before all things in the Universe have found their way into the cavernous maw of a black hole, crushed into the infinitely dense singularity. If Star Trek has taught us anything, it’s that it’s mankind’s imperative to survive against all odds.

So will we take this lying down?

Heck no!

Will we strike first and destroy the black holes before they destroy us?

Heck yes!

But how? How could you kill a black hole?

This… gets a little tricky.

For a black hole, any matter entering the event horizon is added to the mass. Shoot bullets at a black hole, and you just make a slightly more massive, slightly more dangerous black hole. Detonate a nuclear bomb inside the event horizon, and you only make the black hole more massive.

Fire your forward phasers at the black hole, and that’ll still make it even more massive. Swap those bullets in for lasers and black holes don’t care. Within the event horizon, energy and matter are one, and those very same black holes can convert that energy into mass. So all your projectiles and energy weapons inevitably just make it more dangerous.

What if we crashed a star into it? Would that fill it up, or burn it out? Nope. It would just gobble that star up, and go on with its business. If we smashed another black hole into it? Would that tear it apart? The cause is also the cure? Not even maybe. As soon as black holes get within each other’s event horizons, they’ll just merge into a more massive, and even nastier, meaner black hole.

Number 1, it’s time to bring out the big guns. Reverse the particle flow, flood the dilithium chamber with exotic particles and route it through the main deflector dish, and construct your own black hole out of antimatter. Then kamikaze this new antimatter black hole right into a the black hole you want to destroy. Would that do it? Would that solve our problem?

As you probably know, when you crash matter into antimatter, you get an explosion of pure energy. It’s the most perfect energy weapon we can envision. Unsurprisingly, this brings its own set of complications. It’s not entirely clear you’ve still have antimatter in your antimatter black hole. It’s possibly been converted into a regular flavour black hole.

Still, if you *could* crash an antimatter and regular matter black hole together, you would get an incomprehensible explosion. Converting that entire dense and gigantic mass into pure energy, as calculated by Einstein. As soon as you did, all that energy would be immediately converted… into more black hole.

Nothing, not even light itself can escape a black hole. That includes all your magnificent explosion energy from your antimatter impact. You wouldn’t even see it happen. You’d just end up with a black hole with twice the mass. And that might be just what it wants.

As we learned in a previous episode, we can extract angular momentum from a black hole. By dropping material into the event horizon, we can remove energy and slow its rotation. We can even bring it to a stop. So we can slow down its spin, but that won’t make it go away.

So, is that it, are we out of options? Good news, we have one last strategy, and it’s so crazy it just might work. According to Stephen Hawking, black holes can actually evaporate over enormous periods of time.

Virtual pairs of particles are constantly popping into existence all around us. Then they recombine in a flash and disappear from the Universe. When one of these particle pairs appears right on the edge of a black hole, one particle falls into the black hole, and the other is free to fly off into space. And here’s the amazing thing. This might actually reduce the overall mass of the black hole.

So, over an incomprehensible period of time, even the most supermassive of the black holes will have evaporated away into a harmless soup of particles. It turns out, in order to defeat the black hole menace, all we need to do is ignore them, and they’ll go away all on their own.

Originally published on https://www.universetoday.com

COMING UP!!

(Wednesday, December 11th, 2024)

"HOW ARE BLACK HOLES CREATED, AND HOW DO THEY GROW??"

[odusseus-xvi]

Just saw a post saying that it didn't feel right for q!Baghera to bond with q!Jaiden about their neutrality for Cucurucho especially considering what recenty happened to q!Forever. And at first, yeah okay, it's definitely unealthy, I understand, HOWEVER what made me do a double take is the later comment "It makes sense for q!Jaiden because it's her character but I'm disappointed in q!Baghera." And I was confused, because her pov makes sense in that. And then I saw the "I don't watch her pov, it's just what I see of her character." and that's where I went "OH, I can help with that ! :D" Because it does make sense form her pov.

So, time to clarify :

First of all, talking about Baghera (it's the character from now on) and Cucurucho's relationship, she has never been anti Cucurucho. She has always shown compassion for him. HOWEVER it was never in the way "he's a perfect little guy, it can do no wrong" but more in a "They might not have free will, someone or something might be suffering under all this. "

Because that's the thing, Cucurucho is not just Evil Guy tm that uses the fact he's nice to people in order to manipulate people on his side, it's a anthropomorphic white bear, with a robotic voice, godlike powers, and that might not even have free will or anything. To her POV there might be someone suffering. Does it know what it's doing, Can it make choices on it's own, Was something transformed against their will to become this. Are all those acts Cucurcho or the Federation using him ?

Their is then the shock and the recent revelation. You have to realise it's not just "the trauma she rediscovered is blinding her a little bit on some subjetcs." It's so much more intense. The PTSD was so intense she dissociated for 2 full weeks. The Federation had to go fetch her in order for her not to die. It was clear that this happened before AND can happen again. This is one of the reasons she tends to just clock out important and negative details that can induce stress, ESPECIALLY since she discovered she was created entirely by the Federation, in her pov yes Forever is part of her chosen family, but at the same time a BOMB of an information was dropped on her and the first reaction you have is not "It's okay, they are not my chosen family, I'm gonna focus on the people I care about." It's "WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK DOES THAT MEAN ABOUT ME" And that might be something she sees in Cucurucho, it might have raised her. And it might be in a similar situation. She was also so Anti-Federation for so long that now that she knows she was made by them, that she can't escape them, she is so terrified that people would start seeing the Federation in her the same way they see it in Cucurucho.

In a way it's a bit like realising years later your parents are complete assholes, but in reverse. She realised the Federation are the reason she is alive, the reason she exists. She might know they are evil, but they raised her.. She HAS to find some good in them, there has to be right ? If she is of them, there has to be some good.

In a similar way the "Cucurucho has never done anything bad to me" is not JUST reassuring herself and blocking out the problems of the others (it's partly that, and I agree it's very unealthy, that's why we are cheering, we want the angst) but it's also "I know they are capable of good, I've seen it, there has to be a way to point it towards that good and fight the Federation's influence". Imagine the "I can fix him" meme but infinitely more fucked up.

I want to be very clear everyone who follows her POV realises everything she is doing is VERY unealthy and unfair to a lot of people (to q!Forever, among others yes, q!Etoiles himself commented on how she acted strange recently), BUT it does make sense from her pov, and because she hides things to the others, I do realise now that YES, from other povs it feels like a shift, and her just not caring, but she does care, she is just REALLY lost, confused and scared at the moment. And that is partly why we are all SO interested and invested in her bonding with Jaiden, because it's terribly unealthy and it offers two amazing possibilities, either they get out of it together, with some help or not and it's beautiful, OR they make each other worse.

I can't wait to see where they go with it.

[maxwell-grant]

"porous and easy-to-transplant like Spidey's villains" is it just me does Marvel have more of these guys than DC? Like we can just have random buff list villains go after a a variety of different characters?

Oh yes, Marvel absolutely has the advantage when it comes to rogues gallery transplants, it's not even a contest. That's in large part because Marvel existed as a shared universe from the get-go: DC didn't quite jump on that wagon for a while. For most of the Silver Age, there was little to no cross-pollination between Superman and Batman, the existence of the Justice League not really mattering in their titles, where as Marvel was crossover town from day one. They each offer different kinds of narrative real state for their villains to exist in.

The DCU's defining figures, Superman and Batman, live in opposite cities with opposite tones and opposite casts and everybody else has to occupy the space between their two extremes, and most of the other bigger heroes have their own cities: your Star Cities and Central Cities and Hub Cities and Bludhavens and whatnot. Thus most of their villains and villain casts are centralized, and sometimes they even have formal agreements about this kind of stuff. There's almost like a Venture Bros-esque union thing going on sometimes in the DCU where most of their popular villains and heroes are fairly exclusive to one another, with characters like Killer Frost, Gentleman Ghost and Solomon Grundy who transcend this being mostly such due to their heroes being more absorbed and integrated into ensembles than their own adventures.

The major exceptions for these tend to be villains specifically made or set to menace the entire universe, like Superboy Prime or Perpetua or, Amanda Waller this month I guess, and Event Villains are kind of their own thing (and mostly not very good). DC doesn't have a Doctor Doom, in the sense of a big great iconic villain for the whole universe and specific heroes in it who also can and will fight anyone and it will pretty much always be great no matter who he's fighting. They try to make cosmic baddies like Brainiac into those kinds of figures and it never works as well, it always just makes them too generic, there's no spark to the ensuing dynamic. Vandal Savage is probably the closest to one that works and, love the guy, but he's sporadically great and simply not up to the standard this requires.

Marvel, in turn, has been in the business of regularly loaning out bad guys, maybe ever since Sandman joined up the Frightful Four? He wasn't just a one-off thing like that time Daredevil and Doctor Doom swapped bodies and fought, no he was regularly showing up as a villain in F4, in a new costume even. Marvel already started with all of their major defining characters living in the same sandbox, everybody is within a few blocks away from each other most of the time, and so everybody is everybody's problem most of the time, it's the bastardverse and they are all crammed together, and it's not terribly surprising why they fight all the goddamn time. All the major Marvel villains are shooting to rule the same city/planet and destroy more or less the same people and therefore they kinda have to be on a first-name basis with each other, and all the middle-leaguer/second-stringer baddies are getting beaten up by the same people in the same city. Reverse-Flash and Joker going after anyone other than their respective arch-enemies feels fake and perfunctory, but guys like Ultron and Norman Osborn, who also have specific arch-enemies, can transit between individual problems for different heroes and larger-scale problems for everybody just fine. A DC hero will rarely be in Lex Luthor's line of sight unless they are specifically doing something that will piss him off, where as if you are a Marvel hero, it's a fact that sometimes you'll just randomly orbit Wilson Fisk's business and thus you gotta dodge gunfire for it that day.

This especially applies for the smaller-scale villains, not too strongly attached to the hero they may have started out with to the point they become ensemble villains, the ones that easily and eventually become someone else's problem. Your Mr. Hydes and Absorbing Men and Arcades and High Evolutionaries and whatnot, Spider-Man is stuffed with these. Sometimes these characters will click so well with specific heroes they'll achieve wholly different kinds of stardom or characterization (Kingpin in Miller's Daredevil, Brain Drain and Kraven in Squirrel Girl, etc), and sometimes they'll graduate into the position of supporting character or even main character. The peak example of this is Taskmaster, because while the likes of Loki and Venom can claim greater stardom, they did so by becoming anti-heroes and are generally still attached at hip to their heroes of origin, where as Taskmaster is a midcard villain to the bone and it's extremely easy to forget he was an Avengers villain at first, he is just fully A Guy in his own right who will go anywhere and menace anyone for the right price (except Moon Knight, because he is too scary), he'll scale up and down and be everyone's problem until he's not being paid to do so and then it's cool. DC doesn't really have an equivalent to him (they kinda try with Deathstroke but, pfft, please, that guy is a diehard obsessive Teen Titans villain and that's not even the more embarassing thing about him). They have countless midcarders just picking dust within their respective rogues galleries that could easily be migrated elsewhere.

But on the other hand, Marvel doesn't quite have what you'd call a Legion of Doom/Injustice League, in the sense of being able to pair all of it's biggest villains from the biggest corners of the world together in a team-up and have it work. There's been attempts over the years to make things like the Masters of Evil and the Cabal land as such and they never really stuck, the closest you get to an iconic Big Villain Team is the likes of the Sinister Six and the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, groups tailored to menace specific heroes or hero teams, or things like The Black Order and the Dark Avengers, ultimately extensions of bigger villains (the Thunderbolts are their own thing). Maybe it's because Marvel doesn't really have a major concentrated dominant heroic force on the level of the Justice League that would demand all their villains to put everything aside to try and stop it (although DC can't really justify the Legion of Doom/Injustice League as an ongoing thing most of the time, they don't exist as a regular thing). It might be a mismatch of priorities, that it doesn't have a Lex Luthor as a a clear-cut Union Chief to properly call in and command other arch-enemies who would be willing to pay union dues and work together to better destroy the specific guys they individually hate. Marvel's major villains are a clutch of arch-bastards all trying to be king of the world who hate each other as much, if not more, as they hate their heroes and the only one who could rise above them to the top leadership position is Doctor Doom, who has no need to be leading or participating in something like this. Loki had to put on a whole charade of pretending to be subservient to each of them in order to pull off the gathering he did in Acts of Vengeance, and that only worked once.

Another obvious immediate answer for why is that, as Acts of Vengeance and other stories have shown time and time again, you kinda can't gather all of Marvel's biggest villains in one place and not include the Red Skull, and thus other villains jumping over themselves to murder him the second he walks into the room. But they've done attempts without him or a significant Nazi villain in the room, and they still largely didn't land. It might be overall that, the point of the Legion of Doom is to force all the separate characters and domains of the DCU to join forces to oppose it and that's why they have to be a threat to the Justice League, with none of it's villains exactly meeting that standard on their own, but Marvel's heroes are already all crammed together in cliques on the same places and fighting/putting differences aside to tackle bigger threats all the time, and so there's not really a point of forcing that through a especially big villain gathering.

There isn't really a unity among the Marvel heroes comparable to the one that demands Lex Luthor to call in all the other arch-enemies to try and break, and the one time Norman Osborn attempted to call in one at the height of his power, it was repeteadly emphasized how stupid he was to expect to be able to gather and control and command said people (and when Namor tried to revive the Cabal for the sake of succeeding where the Illuminati failed, things went even worse for him). In the end, Marvel is just too chaotic for the villains to exist in a centralized ruling body like that, if the heroes can't agree on anything why would their villains be any different.

[prince-liest]

since you acknowledged vox and valentino as a uh. less than healthy relationship (lol) several times (going feral over what vox was implying in that latest 666 fic), do you think there's ever the chance of alastor feeling... probably not protective haha but maybe possessive over vox the next time he's a little banged up? alternatively, how else do you think alastor would react if whatever they were getting up to is halted by vox nursing some kind of injury from one of his and val's fights? - ✨

I think it really depends on how Vox presents the situation, to be honest! They, uh, bang each other up a lot themselves, hahaha, and Alastor doesn't really register it as problematic. A lot of writing 666 is balancing the idea that these guys are living an existence where the a real life normal-meter really can't accurately be applied, and also maintaining that they still do have personal boundaries and lines that might be crossed.

A reminder of some (but not all) of the fucked up things that Vox and Alastor have done to each other over the course of 666:

One murder attempt that Vox didn't draw a line in the sand over

Vox got annoyed and slapped Alastor across the face hard enough to knock him down, with no warning or prelude, in a sexual context

Vox slammed Alastor's skull into the ground, out of anger, several times until he was dazed and bleeding

Alastor literally tried to eat a chunk of Vox's shoulder, most likely resulting in the reverse of the scenario you're describing: Vox having to take it easier with Val because he has a gaping shoulder wound courtesy of Alastor and can't lift his arm

About three dozen bucketfuls of severely under-negotiated and sometimes not-at-all negotiated edgeplay (as in, not safe-sane-consensual) kink from both ends, including but not limited to: choking (via hands and via dick), fearplay, deliberate boundary-crossing wrt touch, hypnosis, painplay, bloodplay, wounding, and gaslighting for the purpose of humiliation

Like, Vox asking "I want to make sure I didn't cross any boundaries!" in the second 666 fic does not in any way absolve him of having deliberately crossed about thirty of them immediately prior, and the fact that Alastor enjoyed it is mostly just because Alastor is also fucked up. Some people seemed quite surprised at Alastor crossing so many boundaries in the wireplay fic compared to all the shit Vox had pulled prior to that point, and I think it's because he, unlike Vox, didn't pay lip service to it, though they both do about the same amount of actual "keeping an eye on things".

Them caring about each other does not mean that their concept of "boundaries" or even "okay things to do to another person in an intimate setting or otherwise" aren't very, very colored by them being demonic overlords who live in hell and haven't so much as waved 'hello' to a single healthy intimate relationship in the past hundred years.

Vox having to take a breather because he has some kind of injury from Val is, unless he's actively making a 'this is fucked up and I'm opening up to be vulnerable and unhappy about it' kind of deal about it, is not really going to ping on Alastor's radar as a problem.

And Vox isn't going to make that kind of deal about it because that isn't how he sees his relationship with Valentino. Yes, Val often treats Vox in abusive ways in 666. That is also colored by both of them being demonic overlords who live in hell, and Vox treats certain aspects of it as frustrating and upsetting (and often takes that out on Valentino - hence the frequent off-again-on-again nature of their relationship), but he doesn't actually, like, see their relationship the way that we do.

He loves Val. Val loves him. To him, the rest is either normal overlord behavior or their own damage, and they've found a balance where the general response to a shitty happening is, "Eh, we've worked through worse."

TL;DR: Valentino, Vox, and Alastor all need to have "DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME!" stapled across their foreheads. To paraphrase Bay: They're in hell. The insane acts of violence are basically a love language at this point.

[coraniaid]

for the ask meme: principal snyder

[Reverse unpopular opinion meme.]

Not sure how unpopular a take this is but I really like Principal Snyder.  He is genuinely one of my favorite minor characters on the show.

There are, I guess, a few different reasons for that.

The first is just a question of good timing. Snyder arrives during the second half of the first season, which is – to my mind, anyway – the point where the show really starts to find its feet.  (This is also, I suspect, part of the reason I’m so fond of Jenny Calendar, who shows up at around the same time.)  And he’s a recurring figure throughout the show’s second and third seasons too, which – while they might not be objectively the show’s best years – are certainly the seasons I personally have the most nostalgic feeling for and whose failings I’m most willing to overlook.  Snyder’s part of my favorite two and half seasons of the show, so I’m predisposed to enjoy him as a character.

Second, and along similar lines, Snyder is a type of character that I think that the latter seasons don’t really have: a recurring character who is somewhat important to Buffy’s regular life but entirely ignorant of the supernatural side of that life. Yes, we find out early in Season 2 that Snyder knows more about vampires than he lets on, and that he’s reporting directly to the Mayor; but that connection doesn’t seem to add up to him being in on the Mayor’s big Ascenion plan and he doesn’t show any sign of knowing that Buffy herself is the Slayer.

After the high school seasons, who else is there like this?  Parker Abrams, I guess, very early in Season 4, but … that’s it, right?  There are characters who could have taken up Snyder's mantle – Dawn’s social worker, for example, or Buffy’s second manager at the Doublemeat Palace, both in Season 6 – but for whatever reason nobody does. Almost everyone else Buffy meets after high school either turns out to be deeply connected to the supernatural -- other than Parker everyone she spends any time with in college turns out to be a demon, a witch or a member of the Initiative; the next Principal of Sunnydale High is the son of a previous Slayer, the doctor she starts talking to when her Mom gets sick is the mortal vessel of a hell god -- or just not a regular part of the show at all. I can’t even remember the name of any of Buffy’s college professors other than Maggie Walsh. 

And I think that’s a shame, because the existence of Principal Snyder as a low-level recurring antagonist makes Buffy’s life as a regular teenage girl feel a lot more consequential than it otherwise might.  If Buffy only had problems with one-off teachers we’d never seen or heard of before, or if she frequently complained about getting into trouble with an off-screen principal we never got to see on screen, the world of the show would just feel a little less grounded. And, in particular, Snyder's function as the show's clear unsympathetic authority figure implicitly helps make both Buffy's Mom and her Watcher much more sympathetic than they might otherwise be

More important than either of those points though, I think Snyder is just really fun to watch?  For my money, the writers strike almost the ideal balance between making him an unpleasant self-important bully and making him a ridiculous comic figure (one who, crucially, at no point shows any sign of being in on the joke).  Armin Shimerman is unfailingly great in the role from his very first appearance, and he gets such wonderfully silly lines to say. 

Some of my favorites:

“There are some things I can just smell.  It’s like a sixth sense.”   

“What are you, ghouls?  There are no dead students here … this week.” 

“That’s the kind of wooly-headed liberal thinking that leads to being eaten.” 

"Children everywhere ... Like locusts, crawling around, mindlessly bent on feeding and mating, destroying everything in sight in their relentless, pointless desire to exist."

“Why couldn’t you be dealing drugs like normal people?” 

"This is a time of celebration. So sit still and be quiet."

“There are things I will not tolerate: students loitering on campus after school, horrible murders with hearts being removed. And also smoking.”

Finally, I really like the fact that – unlike, say, Shimerman’s other big 90s genre TV role, Quark on Deep Space 9, and unlike somebody like Jonathan who was also a recurring character in the high school years who didn’t (then) know that Buffy was the Slayer – Snyder really never gets any more depth or attempts to make him sympathetic.  He never gets fully brought into the magical world or gets given some sort of character arc or has any previously well-hidden virtues suddenly revealed.

Yes, okay, there’s the aforementioned ties to the Mayor and the brief glimpse we get of teenage Snyder in Band Candy. But for all practical purposes the Principal Snyder we see in Season 1’s The Puppet Show – delighting in causing Buffy and her friends problems for no reason while boasting about how, unlike his predecessor, he’s too tough and disciplined to ever get eaten – is the same Principal Snyder we see in Season 3’s Graduation Day, getting eaten.

[lunarsilkscreen]

On Social Capital, The a Military, Executive Hazing, and the Illuminati

I assure you; this is not going where you want it to go.

Beginning before my last enlistment and enrollment in a training materials development squadron; many of us (My Team) were selected to be placed on terrorists watch lists.

Some of you were placed there because of me, and some where placed there because of you. It's hard to tell since us derps were marked as an elaborate underground group thanks to us just being Online Derps, Derping online together.

Even though we didn't know we were each other; the government, especially the NSA knew. And because of this; and black hat hackers; 4-chan; Guy Faukes; Anonymous; and Reddit

Because the NSA knew we were linked in all these ways; but we didn't; we looked like this amorphous blob of *Scary*.

And then Bread Tube popped into existence.

Guess who's responsible for making breadtube?

I mean, guess who the fans of Bread Tube are?

Guess who the incels and Manosphere is?

It us; *we* are the problem; We are *also* not the problem.

That's why we're here right now.

Because after frustrating ALL THE THREE-LETTER-AGENECIES with so much random bullshit you will learn at a later date; and just... Laugh at how obvious it is in hindsight.

Because that's all we can do *is* laugh... When you find out your literal life was on the line because of the way you played video games.

That's why we scare the agencies. Because we figured it out *while* they were still piecing things together. Because we are literally expert tactical minds who have been literally training in secret for decades...

My Fellow Americans... We *are* the Battle School to European Hogwarts. And yes; that sounded exactly as stupid as I thought it would despite the truth that makes it reality.

And instead of doing terrorist things... We did reverse Terrorism*every* step of the way. We literally passed the prisoner's dilemma with flying colors because of the "Power of Friendship" and having played too many psychological thrillers...

Mostly because we didn't know what the fuck was going on; and because of our desire to make the world around us a better place.

For me; They took away my Pets, My Family, My Belongings, and even made it impossible for me to get any money for several months where I literally starved.

If you're wondering why I lost all that weight...

And then they did the same things to my friends...

They also found *my* wife in the process. Which... Let me tell you... Was a *whole thing*...

Imagine somebody arrests and interrogates you for being *my*(of all people's) love interest... And then you find out that you actually hate that person because they're your Rival.

And then your Rival is also your teammate; and now you have to spend two years of therapy just to make sure it isn't some *elaborate* Stockholm syndrome...

Yeah, I through up at the mushiness of it all too. It's absolutely dizzying and terrifying.

This particular system the NSA has perfected to Identify people like *us*... Literally "Dark Celebrities." It has been used *solely* for the purposes of Anti-Terrorism and Anti-Narcotic endeavors.

And we have a chance to dismantle or change this system to work better for all Americans.

Congrats everyone, We're popular. Yay. It's everything we ever dreamed it would be.

Get ready to go to work.

[thelunarfairy]

Holiii, For a long time I have thought that JSHK's ending tells us or makes a metaphor for the end of the story.

So I decided to do a quick analysis of what the ending can tell us :)

First we see Nene walking and how she leaves her friends behind and how the further she goes things get worse, as if something bad was going to happen, because even though they are on the surface they are not safe.

In the next scene we see Tsukasa and Hanako walking towards where the other is, they get together and there is something bad, a problem, a catastrophe, as if in the place where they are both everything goes wrong.

Then there is the scene where Kou encounters Mitsuba but he disappears, while Kou remains on the surface and continues moving forward, which from my perception tells me that he will move forward with his life and will only be left with the memory of Mitsuba.

Then Nene is left alone and begins to join Hanakp, going deeper into the other side, giving what seems like a kiss with Hanako.

But they begin to sink and get deeper into this.

Nene transforms into a fish and leaves Hanako's hands, watching as Nene gradually moves away from him.

He takes it again to get it out of there, wanting to take it to the surface.

But it doesn't reach the surface, Hanako can no longer do anything but watch as she sinks deeper to the bottom.

Nene reaches the sky, he cries and there is a sun, but neither Hanako nor Nene are present.

What I understand is that Hanako made a new attempt to save Nene, but again it doesn't go well, he sees that Nene is in danger and tries to get her out of where she is with him, but she dies anyway, which will be a hard blow for him, that's why he sinks or maybe he sacrificed himself for the good of Nene's soul but that means he will cease to exist.

Another theory I have (that you already know) is that Nene will sacrifice herself for Hanako or to reverse the catastrophe that is happening.

There is a lot of symbolism in the ending, I would like you to give me your vision of what the ending can say :)

In fact there is a video in Spanish explaining certain ending things.

Is called: Teoria sobre la muerte de Yashiro nene, It's on YouTube and it's from the user Me No.

It seems to have a direct relationship with the day of separation.

Right at the beginning we see the sun and moon completing each other, then they are covered by clouds that rain in reverse, yes, the raindrops go up instead of going down. This could mean the return of time, or travel from it.

The near bank and the far bank, they oscillate at certain times, keeping this in mind, let's define that the light part is the near bank, life, and the red part is the far bank, death.

Yashiro is the only one who has a white reflection on the red part, representing that she will die soon. When the banks waver and the light part becomes dark, we see Nene being represented by a fish, showing the bond she created with Hanako and that she becomes a type of supernatural.

Following that, we have the twins part. Both are being represented in life, but for some reason, the margins are backwards, the light part is at the bottom and the red part is at the top. Perhaps this could mean the distant past (a hypothesis)

Or, a situation where both were alive but were already supernatural. The union of the twins results in a kind of large hitodama, as if the four were united, at the same time as two flowers (?) bloom on each side. They are also shaped very similar to a heart, so it is open to interpretation.

The moment this happens, the margins change again. We have the red part and the black part, inverted compared to Nene's.

Perhaps the flowers represent the twins and the hitodama the creature that is linked to them both. Assuming the two come together when the seal is removed, not just Tsukasa's but Hanako's as well, something could happen. And it doesn't look good. Both going in opposite directions.

We see Kou meeting Mitsuba, who after death becomes a camera that follows Kou, it's self-explanatory.

Then, we have Nene crossing to the far bank, where Hanako is.

This is where the key is.

The moment of the kiss

Nene went to the far shore to find Hanako and save Aoi. When the two reunite, they kiss. Just like what happened to them at the end.

Then Nene becomes a fish and Hanako throws her away, then sinks.

At this moment we can see a representation of previous events. There are two birds and two fish, they change positions simultaneously between the banks, which could mean the exchange of Aoi's life for Nene's.

Hanako pushes Yashiro away, throwing her into the clear part, part of life, it could represent the moment in which he saves Nene's life, leaves and closes the gates of the supernatural world.

We see Nene crying in the clouds, far from the banks, the drops fall normally, at the right time.

It suggests that it refers to the moment when Hanako tries to sacrifice Aoi and moves away from Nene, closing all the gates (most) to the distant bank. She cries about being away from him and her friend.

The only thing that is out of order is the kiss, considering that the ending scene is a kiss, if it is a hug, it fits perfectly, as they say goodbye with a hug before Hanako disappears.

If it's a kiss, it could just be the anticipation of the moment of reunion.

The order of events is not precise, so this opens up possibilities for discussions

[amethystina]

"Han fattas mig."

One of the compliments I often get on my writing is just that — my writing. My word choices, my sentence structure, my imagery, my rhythm, my originality, etc. Now, I never thought I'd reach a point where I’d become that good at the craft itself, especially not in a language that's not even my native tongue. Partly because of imposter syndrome but also because I'm usually such a perfectionist that I never thought I’d dare to write something that doesn't strictly and stiltedly follow the rules.

Sentence fragments? Words used in unusual contexts? Odd or highly specific imagery? No can do!

Except, clearly, I can. I should, even.

And I want to share one of the monumental pieces of writing that made me realise that. And it’s not even a whole work. It's just one sentence, really:

"Han fattas mig."

Now, that probably looks a bit weird to those of you who don't understand Swedish, so let me explain.

That's a quote from the children's book Ronja the Robber's Daughter written by the famous Swedish author Astrid Lindgren. It was published back in 1981 and while I didn't actually read the book as a kid, I DID watch the Swedish live-action movie many times. But, even then, it took until my adult years to fully grasp the utter and heart-breaking brilliance of that quote.

For some context, the book/movie is about Ronja who, surprise surprise, is the young daughter of a robber chief. That quote is said by her father, Mattis, when one of the old robbers of their clan suddenly dies. Now, this old robber, Skalle-Per (uh... I guess the translation would be Bald Pete?), is clearly a father figure for Mattis. A wise old man who, while gloriously snarky, is also incredibly nurturing and emotionally mature. Which stands in stark contrast to Mattis who is the somewhat traditionally dominant, macho man. He HAS to be, on account of being the chief for a clan of rough and tough robbers. They, in many ways, complete each other, where Skalle-Per is kind, thoughtful, and sensible while Mattis is brash, violent, and impulsive.

Now, predictably, when Skalle-Per dies, Mattis throws a full-on tantrum. The kind that shows just how inexperienced he is with dealing with emotions without Skalle-Per to help him work through them. And, since the whole problem is that Skalle-Per is now dead? Mattis has absolutely no idea what to do.

He starts pacing back and forth, crying, flailing his arms, and yelling things like: "He's always been here! He's always existed, and now he doesn't!" And no amount of calming words from his wife soothes him and, eventually, he says that line:

"Han fattas mig."

And there is no direct translation I can give you that fully conveys the amount of raw, almost childlike, grief in that one sentence. This sentence was the one that made me realise that following the rules doesn't matter because, strictly speaking, this one doesn't. The words used are unusual to the point where they're even a little odd at first glance but, once you look deeper, also so incredibly impactful.

The rough translation would probably be "I miss him" but, as said, that doesn't convey the sheer desperation that those words do in Swedish. First of all, it throws the words around, completely changing the focus and weight of the sentence. "Han" is "he" and "mig" is "I." So saying "I miss him" reverses the order where the emphasis SHOULD be put on "him" but the main subject of the sentence now becomes "I" (i.e. less about the loss and more about how "I" am feeling). In “Han fattas mig” the “he” is the most important part.

Second, you have the word "fattas" which, yes, directly translated means "missing." But not the kind of missing that we Swedes normally use for grief. We have another word for that called "saknar." If you miss someone who has died, you'd say: "Jag saknar honom." Which is basically the same as the English “I miss him.” The word "fattas" is for a completely different context — a much more mundane one, with almost no emotional stakes. It's what we use when a piece is missing or something is lacking a required component. Kind of like you would say: "This stew is missing something" when it doesn't taste the way you want it to. But it can also mean "lost" as in "there's one puzzle piece missing."

So when Mattis says those words, he doesn't say "I miss him." He's saying: "He is a part of me and he is now missing," and "he is a part of me and I lost him," and "he is a part of me and now there is a hole where he used to be."

He is saying: "I will never be complete again."

Because "fattas" is also the word we use when something is missing and the thing won't be complete until you add it/return it/get it back. And, in this case, since the man in question is dead, you know Mattis will never get that chance. He will never be whole again. Which, sure, is a rather terrifying take on grief, but also not an untrue one. Grief will lessen over time, but the loss will still be there.

And this isn't me doing some sort of complex linguistic analysis — I don't have to. Because it's all there. It's so simple yet so effective. And yet, somehow, no one had really thought to use the word "fattas" to describe grief before. Because it's just a simple and mundane word we use for entirely different things, not big, painful emotions, right? Except Astrid Lindgren did. And while she no doubt did so to make it easier for children to grasp the concept — since most kids can relate to the feeling of losing something in the context of "fattas," which is much more direct and real than the elusive emotion of "saknar" — it also changes how an adult can view grief and loss.

Not even "I lost him" can fully encompass the absolute BRUTALITY of the grief found in the sentence "Han fattas mig."

And that is why I give fewer and fewer fucks about the rules. Now, obviously, I doubt I'll ever come up with something as brilliant as this sentence (it honestly rocks me to my core sometimes) BUT it's worth trying. It's worth being creative and experiment with the words you know and in what order you place them. Just maybe, you'll end up with something really cool. That's not to say you should ignore any and all rules, but it's okay to play around. It's okay to do the unexpected.

I think it's important to remember that. Writing is creative. We write to express things — to find ways to describe and explain complex emotions, grand adventures, and sweeping love stories. It connect us and gives us a way to share our experiences, thoughts, and feelings. And, sometimes, the set boundaries won't be enough. Sometimes, we might just need someone to look at how we describe grief and go: "I can make it simpler and, at the same time, so much more painful."

And it doesn't always have to be complex. It doesn't have to be difficult words and purple prose. Sometimes, all you need is three words so easy that a child can understand them and, somehow, you will describe a sense of loss so deep and so fundamental to that character that you KNOW that they will never be the same ever again.

So experiment. Be bold. And, above all else, have fun.

And, one final heart-wrenching fact to wrap this all up: The actor who played Skalle-Per — Allan Edwall — was in almost ALL of the movies/shows based on Astrid Lindgren's books. He played different roles, of course, but he was a staple — synonymous with her works. And, when the actor died back in 1997, Astrid Lindgren was asked how she was handling the loss and her reply was the same as Mattis’s:

"Han fattas mig."

[fanboyvini]

i'm seeing a lot of posts about how huntlow is heteronormative or not canon, so here are my thoughts

First of all, "Heteronormativity is what makes heterosexuality seem coherent, natural and privileged. It involves the assumption that everyone is 'naturally' heterosexual, and that heterosexuality is an ideal, superior to lgbt."

A f/m couple is not heteronormative, it is something normal and will always exist as well as queer couples

"But it makes it seem like girls and boys can't be friends!"

Gus is friends with Willow, Amity and Luz. Hunter is friends with Luz and Amity

Luz and Amity being queer and being in a queer relationship is not like they are an exception for being queer, but exactly one of the reasons why the show (and huntlow) is not heteronormative, by using the right definition of the word

"They don't blush anymore"

Nor Raeda and Lumity. It's what happens in real life too, when we're in a long term relationship we don't end up blushing as much as we did at the beginning.

"But they didn't even kiss on the cheek!"

Well yes, but why can a romantic relationship only be confirmed canon if there's a kiss?

I honestly liked Dana's choice, and that's what happened with Shera 2018 season finale as well. In many media, queer characters are implicitly confirmed, but we all know they are queer canon. While non-queer characters and couples are explicitly confirmed.

Dana (and ND) simply reversed the roles by making f/m couples non-explicitly confirmed while queer couples are explicitly confirmed. This is brilliant!

"Willow becomes a damsel in distress who needs a guy's help!"

I'm going to have to stop you right here.

Willow's character arc is that she saw herself as weak and managed to get stronger physically and emotionally as time went on. On the one hand this is great, but as time went on Willow was no longer allowing herself to show "weakness" and talk about her feelings, because she didn't want to go back to being weak.

This also kinda happens with Hunter, the fear of being vulnerable.

Hell, this even happens to Amity in season one and even halfway through season two! (off topic i also want to make a post on amity about this later)

Being vulnerable with people who love you and not having that need to be strong all the time is not a bad thing! It's totally healthy!

And many times Hunter protects Willow, Willow protects him in others scenes too! (i can make a post about this scenes later too)

"Huntlow says that only romantic love heals!"

Eh... no? Hunter has several key moments with Luz and Gus (I think he would even have more with Amity and even Vee if the show wasn't cancelled).

Just rewatch Eclipse Lake (Amity tries to help Hunter), Hollow Mind (Luz and Eda tries to help Hunter), Labyrinth Runners (Gus helps Hunter with an anxiety breathing technique, and then Hunter helps Gus later in the ep), Thanks to them (Luz helps Hunter and then says he's family too) and For the Future (Gus and Willow talk about Flapjack and that they don't care if Hunter is a grimwalker, and then while Willow vents, Gus is there helping her too!!)

And what about Lumity and Raeda? Did the characters' problems go away when they got into a relationship and does the romantic love heal everything? of course not! the same goes for Huntlow

You're forgetting (or ignoring) the canon, and all the character development and their relationships

Just because the characters are in a romantic relationship doesn't mean they're implying that a romantic relationship is the only kind of relationship that matters or anything like that

[doctorofmagic]

TW: racism, antiziganism, whitewashing, uses of g slur, fatphobia, misgendering, ageism, toxic fandom, long post.

This post is a bit off topic but, as someone who has been following Marvel’s comic book industry for almost ten years now, I feel like it’s my duty to use my voice and not be quiet about the blatant shit show that is happening to a character that is also a member of the magic community and has been suffering a lot lately in the hands of people who have little to no regard towards her heritage.

It was just a rumor back then (and Donny Cates even denied it in the past) but it does seem that Feige is using the MCU to influence comic books in most recent runs, ESPECIALLY regarding certain characters.

Now, let’s be honest. This is not new. We all remember when the cast of the Fantastic Four reboot died in a explosion in the pages of Punisher #12, eight years ago. A clear retaliation at the movie and FOX’s terrible decisions. We all know that this is probably the reason why the first family book was cancelled as well. The group remained in the shadows and only Reed had a decent spotlight thanks to New Avengers v3 and Secret Wars, disappearing next along with Sue, the kids and the Future Foundation. They only returned fully with a new volume in 2018, and most fans’ dreams and hopes slowly died out with Dan Slott’s bad takes and writing (erasing Franklin’s X gene, putting three women to fight over a man, reversing Infamous Doom to his villain self and throwing away his character development just because he wanted Victor as a villain etc etc etc).

Very well. Still, the FF survived. No one reversed Galactus into a cosmic cloud. No one turned Victor into a metallic guy with electric powers who wanted to marry Sue (thank the Vishanti). And whatever happened in the reboot (which I didn’t watch) certainly wasn’t adapted into comics.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not here to gatekeep comic books. In fact, I’ve been committed to introducing them to my followers since day 1 on this hellsite. Unlike many fans, I didn’t grow up with them. Movies had a huge influence on me and I had a long journey. Movies and animated TV shows are part of the reason I dove into this universe, in the first place. Which is fine. I can take a bad adaption and move on.

What I can’t take is what they’re trying to do with Wanda, because it reeks of racism.

The whole point of this new Wanda volume is to give her the proper representation and atone for the years of colorism, a systematic problem that keeps happening in the industry. Just because she was portrayed as white in the past, it doesn’t mean she’s not a woc, especially when it’s said in canon that she has dark skin. There are plenty of roma people talking on this matter and how it’s meaningful to acknowledge that Wanda is brown, even when white roma people exist (1, 2, 3, 4).

The crew is in fact very committed to it, as stated by Steve Orlando here:

Now, what is happening to the new Scarlet Witch volume? Two things. The blatant whitewashing in variant covers and their need to push the MCU into 616!Wanda, first by introducing Darcy and now deaging Agatha.

Let’s be clear. There was a MASSIVE effort from the team to portray Wanda's heritage, which has been constantly dismissed by the lack of effort from the artists.

Here’s one example, from Jeehyung Lee, tracing what I think is a k-pop singer (but I don't really remember her name so correct me if I’m wrong). In any case, she was traced over a korean woman. This is not the first problem with this artist since he also made the same with Storm’s model in MFF by tracing Charlize Theron over Ororo.

In addition to anti-blackness, this is also an issue of interchangeable ethnicity, the same that happened to America Chavez, when she’s established as Puerto Rican, not Mexican, as the pin on her jacket suggests (and yes, her cast is also filled with anti-blackness. Nothing against Xochitl, but I touched this matter before when I wrote about DSIMOM. And yes, TAO’s MCU is also bad, very bad, very very very bad).

I just keep seeing this over and over again. You shouldn't be defending her whiteness. You *SHOULDN'T*. Unless you have a problem that Wanda is a brown romani woman. It’s imperative that people understand that representation matters and poc have been time and time whitewashed in this very same industry (Sunspot/Roberto da Costa is just one example and was also whitewashed in that terrible New Mutants adaptation).

The issue here is to push a problematic and harmful portrayal of Wanda on her comic book version. And it’s only happening to her due to the popularity of said character and artist.

More thant that, her stans ARE using Olsen’s Wanda to shield racism. Some of you are actually not even hiding it. The following is a list of racist comments and accounts. I’ll leave them under the cut in case people don’t want to see it.

Regarding the WV variant cover for Wanda #3 by David Nakamura:

And plain racism overall:

On a side note...

Just today I was harassed by this troll here. And no, I’m not hiding your @ because you went to MY post and felt compelled to misgender me, be fatphobic and also god knows why felt entitled to call Wanda ableist (????)

As I said, I didn’t grow up with comics. When I first met Wanda, I didn’t know she was neither Roma, Jewish or brown. And this itself is a problem because it should be clear, it should have been portrayed in the comics, it should have been common knowledge. All it takes is just to listen to people and understand the systematic racism and whitewashing in the comic book and cinema industries.

They ALWAYS double down on Wanda’s whiteness. No, darling, it’s not okay to stan two versions of the same character when time and time the marginalized one is a target of racism. When they weaponize every single attempt at calling out the harm that MCU has caused on her character to the point of even using reverse racism, ableism and many other blatant lies to slander 616!Wanda, when her MCU can do pretty much whatever she wishes because she’s white so that’s okay. And don’t even dare bring feminism here because you don’t care about woc. You only care about white women.

In any case, I just want to shed light on this matter because this effort of pushing MCU into comics isn’t happening to any other Marvel character, ESPECIALLY when the change is for the better. Wong is powerful, body-positive and having more than one-dimensional relationship in the MCU. Where’s the effort to do that in comics? Layla is literally the best part of Moon Knight. Where is she?

Why they want so bad to push a white woman on a book that is supposed to praise Wanda’s romani heritage? It’s obvious that they want to sell and some execs are siding with the portion of this toxic and racist fandom.

Comics are not perfect, we know that. But there has been a huge effort to support the marginalized voices in this industry. Marvel’s Voices, pride and heritage are all examples. Besides, they’ve always been political. Always.

What they’re doing to Wanda is evil and lazy. As an artist and colorist, it’s YOUR DUTY to search and at least be aware of what characters you’re trying to conceive. There’s no way variant artists didn’t see the main cover for issue #1 by Dauterman.

This is not just ignorance. It’s a statement. A statement that it’s okay to ignore a marginalized group and its attempt to give visibility to said group. And Orlando knew that when he said he didn’t have control over the rest of the creative team.

It’s fine if the MCU wants to push some elements like they did in the past. But this is not just any element. It’s harmful and I’ll not be quiet about it. 616!Wanda is getting more and more marginalized, whereas her whitewashed version is praised and loved. And now there’s an attempt at reconciling both as if it was okay. It’s not. MCU!Wanda doesn’t know racism. MCU!Wanda joined Hydra. MCU!Wanda has the privilege 616!Wanda could never afford for being a brown roma woman. And now the racist fandom wants to claim both in order to erase 616!Wanda’s heritage and history of fighting racism.

All I can ask is, if you’re buying this comic book, DO NOT SUPPORT the variant covers. Let them rot. We know the racists are not supporting the book anyways. They’ll just buy the variant cover and that’s it.

PS: I’m not Roma so feel free to correct me in any aspect. Just using my voice to boost awareness.

PS²: Olsen stans DNI or else will be blocked at sight. I’m done with every single of you.

[misrepresentedmorallygrey]

PROPAGANDA

Rose Propaganda

"We saw her character arc in reverse!! We first saw all the good she did and then learned of her terrible actions in the past. If her story was told the other way around, it would have been a great redemption arc. Yes, she did some terrible things, but she had no choice. She did everything she could to stop the colonization of earth peacefully buy nothing worked. Blue and yellow diamond just didn't listen to her and when they did, THEY were the ones who made the zoo and shit. Rose wanted to free them but couldn't get to them after the war! And with the corruption, there's no way she could have known that'd happen. There's so many things she wanted to do but just couldn't. And with spinel, yes it was shitty to leave her alone for so long, but again, between running her court, running the rebellion, dealing with earth, she likely wasn't a very high priority and like with the zoo, there was no way to get to her after the war since the galaxy warp was destroyed. And don't forget, she was practically a child around this time. You're saying you didn't do any stupid, selfish, or harmful things as a kid? She learned from her experiences and grew, we just saw that growth in reverse, leaving us as viewers with a poor perception of her."

"Rose Quartz is Steven Universe’s dead mom. Initially, she’s set up as sort of an ethereal perfect figure who everyone misses and compares him to. Later we get to see more of her backstory and discover that she’s actually like, a person, with flaws, who has done some bad things, but she did those bad things largely in the course of trying to escape an abusive home life and save the people and planet that she fell in love with. It’s very clear that despite her flaws she was trying to do the right thing and that she deeply cared about others. Unfortunately, a woman who was not a Perfect Martyr was way too much for the Steven Universe fandom to handle. She pretty much set off the wave of SU crit blogs because these people were furious either that she had taken violent measures to solve her problems, that she hadn’t taken violent enough measures to solve her problems, or both somehow. Lots of “Why didn’t she just murder her abusive parental figures?” Lots of “She was evil for having a baby even though she knew she’d die in childbirth!” Lots of “She should’ve been able to protect everyone from a magic nuclear weapon with the power of love somehow.” Lots of “She shouldn’t have rebelled (even though not rebelling would’ve meant the destruction of Earth) because her abusers retaliated and that’s her fault.” LOTS of people drawing her as stick thin even though she was fat in the show. People treated her like she was on the same level or even worse than her abusive parental figures who were also the main villains of the show. It was unbearable to witness."

Feferi Propaganda

"While Feferi isn't completely innocent, a lot of people in the fandom only use acknowledge her existence to make her ex look like a pitiful sad boi. He's literally a racist facist that made plans for genocide. She is not a selfish beach who only wanted him to do stuff for her; she dated to save lives and keep him from murdering innocents."

[trust-and-jump]

The reasons to need to write and read Reverse Robins AU

Damian having a place with his long-awaited father. A father who is not neglectful and who still can show he cares. Who can still talk to him. And a father he doesn't have to share with someone, yet. and this.

_^

Bruce having to mature in order to be a parent. And NOT having Dick Grayson as a ward. At least not now. Bruce adapting to the idea of having his own family. Bruce having to actually talk and explain things to the little creature who was raised in a VERY different environment. Bruce getting out of his head a little. Growing up a little before getting a kid. Because Bruce can't have 8-12 y o Damian being 24 y o himself, sorry.

Exploring Tim Drake's potential outside of a very weird comic character who is loved by many people on Ao3 but non-existent on it. Outside of Robin, too. Also: Tim Drake Can Do Wrong. Tim Drake Does Wrong. Letting him be an interesting character.

Letting Jason Todd be a Robin (or Shrike, or whatever Batman's partner called in different RR!AUs) he used to be before DC decided he was just an angry incompetent sidekick Who Didn't Listen and Got Himself Killed. Letting him be good again. And yes, he was good. and I absolutely adore the idea of Damian as a big brother.

Dick getting a big family of very different people who have different opinions - after a terrible loss. Dick growing up healthier than he did. Dick not jumping into vigilante life. Or at least not for long. Or at least not in SUCH YOUNG AGE, BATMAN. Dick getting a whole bunch of people who have no problem with him at all and who start to love him almost immediately. And looking after him better so he doesn't get a chance to run without pants on the Gotham streets.

Very different roles of Barbara Gordon, Cassandra Cain and Stephanie Brown.

How did Cassandra Cain end up in Gotham? Did No Man's Land happen? WILL it happen? Does she have a name? Who named her if not Barbara Gordon? Did she get ability to speak? Did she die like comic version? Was she a Batgirl?

STEPHANIE BROWN GETTING BETTER TREATMENT, DC!!!!! Did she become a Robin (/whatever you call it) as well? Did she get the same relationship with Damian as canon? Who is she as a young girl without canon!Bruce's and canon!Tim's bullshit? Do she and Cassandra Cain get along? Is she a Batfamily member in the AU or does she have canon-like role outside of it?

Do the Birds of Prey exist?

Exploring how Damian's Robin (/whatever you call it) would look like; and how it would affect the Bat-Clan.

Exploring the relationships between Robins (/whatever you call it) and other young heroes. Exploring the other hero families who most likely are reversed too.

The hero names. Capes. Histories.

Exploring how all of it would affect Gotham and Gotham's criminals. Rogues, too.

What the hell is going on with Duke Thomas???? I honestly have no idea how I would put him into my AU... but he's also part of Rebirth if I'm not mistaken? so I actually don't have too. He is a wonderful character (HE IS SO COOL. SO. COOL.) and my lack of imagination has nothing to do with me loving or hating him.

Talia al Ghul.

Talia al Ghul.

Talia al Ghul.

Changing events without changing what you like about it.

also I don't care about Ra's al Ghul BUT Batman Chronicles #8 make me think about him a lot.

inspired by @msfcatlover's AUs. And some others. And mine, too.

[itsclydebitches]

losing my mind over the "you could just be a human or a cat" line. the implications are boggling.

I don't even know what to do with that line. I mean yes, Remnant has a fairy tale in which faunus were created by combining humans and animals of comparable human intelligence (which, notably, is information that doesn't exist in RWBY proper), so from that very limited perspective there's a division within the faunus. But really, that's a fictional moral. A metaphor. In-world Blake is an allegory for a minority character; she's a human with characteristics that other her due to bias and systemic discrimination. To paraphrase another post I saw tonight, that's like telling a person of color, "You could be a human or the color black." What are you even talking about?

I can't even get into how this is presumably stemming from Blake's own subconscious, or how she suddenly thinks she needs to be a "bridge" between humans and faunus when she hasn't mentioned her "culture" since Volume 5 - a culture that doesn't exist when set against humans or other faunus. Faunus with cat ears live precisely the same as those with bunny ears who are the same as those with color changing abilities... who are culturally indistinguishable from humans. Is Blake's "culture" then that she's biologically addicted to fish? Will follow a laser pointer? Inevitably terrifies mice?

That's actually the worst part of this for me. We could have grimaced at this, but ultimately chalked it up as one, incredibly ill-thought-out line. However, in four episodes we've already had Blake present herself as a Literal Cat twice more: once when Little freaks out and Blake doesn't correct them and then again in this episode when she tries to steer the Curious Cat by speaking "one cat to another." Everyone remembers "Stop calling him a rapscallion. Stop calling him a degenerate. He's a person!" yeah? After years of having Blake fighting for the equal treatment of faunus and the understanding that they're not animals, now she's reversed to literally talking about herself like she is, in fact, at least half animal, while also being tempted to fully become one.

It's by no means a new problem, but seeing the girls' old designs really hammered home how the writing has betrayed their core personalities and motivations. Blake hasn't cared about faunus rights for four Volumes and has no problem with being thought of as an actual cat. Yang went from accepting that her disability is a part of her to claiming it's unimportant and, weirdly, saying she has to find things in her future rather than just acknowledging that, yes, she did suffer an actual, literal loss and has since worked through that? Weiss is no longer our slowly improving Ice Queen but Nora Lite, making the same broad claims about rehabilitating the Schnee name as she had back in Volume 2, but with none of the acknowledgement of how tainted that name has become after [gestures vaguely] everything she's been through. And our simple soul no longer has enough hope to fill a jar. The last reversal is at least compelling in terms of the potential character development, but considering that Volume 9 has, thus far, interrupted that development at every turn (meeting Little, fainting, walking away from conversations, being saved by the Curious Cat) I am not feeling very hopeful this week.