#and I'm allowed favorites

[starcurtain]

I think one of the funniest things about the Sabzeruz event is that the devs choose to go with Candace, Traveler, and Paimon having a whole "Ooh, two mysterious men are going into an alley to have a 'private' conversation; they must be bad guys!" only to then go "Oh just kidding, it was only Alhaitham and Kaveh doing typical Alhaitham and Kaveh things."

Except the "Alhaitham and Kaveh" thing in question this time was talking about Mehrak, a sentient robot that Kaveh built using absolutely forbidden technology, and which he then whole-heartedly willed would develop a consciousness of its own, violating one of the central taboos of his nation's governing agency, committing what amounts to an inherent and extreme felony punishable by law.

Alhaitham and Kaveh: Listen, we're not bad guys discussing illegal activity here. We're just two men having a private, personal conversation. Happens all the time.

Paimon, Candace, and Traveler: Oh cool, they're not doing a crime; they're just gay.

But they were, in fact, doing a crime.

[gaffney]

I could've won. It sucks the world will never know that. But I do. I did my best, fought with honor. If that lands me in second place, there's worst places to be.

[aliasmard]

tanz der vampire, but how I see them nowadays

also silly addition:

[myimaginationplain]

I've come to the conclusion that being assigned the fandom-mandated "sunshine character" is the worst possible fate a character could face

[celtrist]

*sigh* I feel a lil obligated to share this vid considering past ramblings. And I understand shippers of any aroace characters are VERY tired of the conversation, I get that and you should be free to have fun with the characters as you see fit. But there is a conversation I think both sides just never wanna get into. And I highly recommend EVERYONE, EVEN PEOPLE WHO ENJOY SHIPPING AND IDENTIFY AS ARO/ACE, to give this vid a watch. Like damn, the shit about Gwenpool was SO disheartening to hear.

It's never been the shipping itself that's the issue, it's the pushback against the aroace identity.

Just as a reminder, I (nor the video) are against shipping or spectrums and all that. There is just immense invisibility on the core parts of the aroace identity when it comes to popular characters, and (to me) the spectrum comment typically doesn't sound genuine but more of a hopeful defense that a character isn't aroace (from what I've seen). It always reads more like they're grasping as to have their favorite ship become valid or possible within the media the character is in. That's obviously not the case for EVERYONE and genuine-ness is difficult to read in text form, but that just happens to be how it typically seems to me when people make the spectrum case. And I think if having something like shipweeks is important, something like aroace weeks should be celebrated too! And they definitely exist! They're just severely ignored when compared to something like ship weeks.

The overabundance of shipping aroace characters can kinda feel like if, say, the most popular ships/ships that are everywhere in a fandom involve a gay character in straight relationships. By itself it is genuinely harmless. But there is a sort of underlying tone of being against that character being gay, even if not intentional. Everyone should be allowed to have their fun shipping characters however they like, no matter their orientation because they're not real. But there's an undeniable trend that if a character is popular, Their aroace identity will be challenged, ignored, or pushed back. Which doesn't really feel great (personally, not everyone is me and I don't speak for all).

Might I reiterate from my previous post on the subject:

The aro community is allowed the scraps but not the dinner.

[front-facing-pokemon]

[1111um]

"This is what success looks like."

(part i) (part ii)

[hey-heigo]

aoi and sakura!!! houghgsgh

i wasn't planning on giving them similar sailor-style uniforms but actually i like it now that i look at it. polar opposite girlfriends

aoi is the ultimate sukeban (female gangster). she started up to defend her younger brother from some bullies and ended up leading multiple gangs through sheer charisma

she prefers intimidation over violence, hence the kendo sword that she never got proper training on how to use (she mostly carries it around for dramatic effect)

is a little devious. will not hesitate to frame, injure, or throw someone under a bus if she thinks they've wronged her or someone she cares about

sakura is the ultimate moral compass, in this au her longtime friend kenshiro entrusted her with 'strongest human alive' but also with a message to uphold peace with that strength

she maintains a calm demeanor to seem more approachable to people. as a result, a lot of people trust her

is very careful of how she uses her strength. avoids fights whenever possible

[silverwhittlingknife]

The Bats Are Fighting (Distaff Edition)

some conflicts I enjoy:

Babs is pretty hostile/judgy toward Helena at first & is bitterly upset and hurt when Helena starts wearing a Bat costume - apparently a Batgirl costume - without asking her. Later on, Bruce chases Helena out of the costume, and Babs gives Cass the Batgirl costume with her explicit blessing. Helena and Cass never have a rivalry over this exactly, but I don't think they ever really get along, either

Babs and Helena eventually make up when Babs lets Helena join the Birds of Prey but it's rocky in the beginning - Babs dislikes Helena's methods and doesn't entirely trust her; Helena resents being kept on the outside

Steph is super-impressed by Cass and tries to get her to like her and they eventually get close, but Cass has a pretty low opinion of Steph-as-a-vigilante and doesn't hesitate to boss her around or knock her out, and she's super-hurt by Steph lying to her about what's going on during War Games (probably not unrelated: Cass is the only Bat to blame Steph instead of Bruce after Steph dies)

Babs and Cass get very close but also have tensions because Babs wants Cass to have the 'normal' life that Babs thinks she should've tried harder to have when she was younger, and Cass isn't entirely comfortable with this pressure, plus - this one I think is a bit more well-known - Babs spends a lot of time tutoring Cass and looking after her (awww), BUT ALSO in a tense moment she gets really nasty and harsh about Cass's reluctance to learn to read and calls her "stupid"

Dinah finds Steph REALLY annoying and wants her to stop tagging around after her... until she finds out about Steph's miserable home life, and then she appears like an avenging angel and kicks Steph's dad and his cronies out of the house

Babs decides to work with a guy who tortured Dinah because she thinks he's capable of redemption and Dinah is NOT HAPPY about it

Just generally, Steph and Helena are very much outsiders who don't get brought into the "core" Batfam and who aren't trusted with info like Bruce's secret identity. By contrast, Babs is an insider almost from Day 1 - she may have conflicts with Bruce, but she's also got his absolute trust - and Dinah is as insider as it gets, with a mom who was also Black Canary and a stint on the JLA

other general characterization notes that cause Conflict (TM):

Babs is pretty much a classic Bat - she's got a ton of control issues and she's an instinctively secretive workaholic

Helena is an adult who will kill people if she damn well feels it's necessary and she doesn't appreciate being lectured about it

Steph is a defensive teenage outsider with a bucketload of family problems - deadbeat evil dad! addict mom! - and when she's upset she's got a reckless self-destructive streak

Cass is very much like Bruce in that 1) she is wildly super mega good at fighting, 2) she's an instinctive loner who's comically bad at people AND YET she can nevertheless effortlessly manage to head off to a foreign country for a weekend and have a passionately-felt mutual love affair with some random criminal or something, and then that person dies & she goes home like nothing happened, 3) she cares about other people but completely sucks at communication & when in doubt will just go silent & take off or refuse to have conversations, 4) because she hates talking sometimes she'll just knock you out or hit you so that she won't have to do it, 5) she will spend an entire year planning to have a fight to the death with someone for Reasons and tell no one about it because why would she tell someone

anyway they're all terrible <3

[dootznbootz]

*sighs* I miss Penelope. I want Penelope :(

[arttsuka]

It's actually really strange to me how Junho doesn't have more fans. Like, what do you mean people like other characters that are half as interesting as him? Obviously, everyone can like whoever they want, this is fandom, so who cares. But it's still strange, a mystery (not really, I believe it's because a lot of new people got in the fandom after s02 and not everyone watched or rewatched s01. He basically did nothing in s02 so yeah, he wouldn't be my favorite either if I had only his s02 screen time in mind)

[boogermuscles]

its so funny to me that davekat has BEEN canon since Homestuck ended yet there are still people who are like "i hate post canon... but at least davekat is canon!". so they actually got shoved back into the closet!

[genericpuff]

vent post

[charlesemersonwinchesteriii]

What if Christos Lawton is the one responsible for putting I Say A Little Prayer For You on the official George Hodgson playlist. What then. On the one hand I would have to set myself on fire but on the other hand it would be FANTASTIC news for whoever authored my all time favorite post on the Cold Boys Kink Meme

[digo3d]

I actually really like the idea of G1 Gil having the big tank to breathe because as someone who's also disabled it's like a visual representation of the fact that being disabled is, in fact, inconvenient and some the equipment used to manage them (especially the ones I use) is awkward, clunky, expensive, and tends to illicit stares from rude adults and untrained children.

Also since he's a fish (or close enough to being one) the tank's more practical imo since 1. (At least in the movies) we can see the water being constantly oxygenated through the bubbles 2. Since there's more water, if something went wrong with the oxygenation system he would have time to fix it or replace it before he would start suffocating 3. It could be possible that he also needs water to be able to see/hear properly

I also really like that he sinks into it when he's nervous I love him so much grrr the tank gave him so much character ararararar

[disastergenius]

Because they are going to censor most if not all of the swearing in the Next to Normal proshot, please drop your favorite moment of swearing in the tags