#and because conflict is more fun to write

[heathensimmer]

Tired of Sims 2 Part-Time Job Hours? TRY THIS

3-6, 3-6, 3-6 WHYYY ... I mean, I know why, it's because part-time jobs were allowed for teens, and they were in school before 1.

But it's still annoying when I just wanted my Sim to have a part-time job when her son is in school.

So here is an edit of the Education career that came with Sims 2 Seasons. It allows Sims a part-time job that is in the mornings! I can release more if people need me to, or other career-related requests. I would love to write a custom career ... I have an idea for "WooHoo Worker" but not gross ... like actually Sim-y and grounded in their world and fun!

The only things I edited in this career was the build-up of Vacation Days - which was strangely the same as a full-time career (I'm going to have to check if this is vanilla coding for other careers) - the hours and the skill needed to progress to level 2, Teacher's Aide, requiring 1 point of Cleaning instead of nothing. And I think I tweaked the weekly schedule as well.

It's the same Teen-Elder Part-Time Career as in vanilla Sims 2. The chance cards were actually written right this time! Imagine that (EA pleaseee I love you so much)

When choosing this custom career using the newspaper, computer, shift clicking the newspaper with boolprop testingcheatsenabled true, or any other way of selecting a career, the career is simply named "Education (Mornings)"

This career has a new GUID and shouldn't overwrite any other careers. The reason I did this is because I still wanted players, and myself, to be able to have teens work at a job afterschool as well!

I can upload another mod with a career that OVERWRITES the Education part-time career if you don't want a lot of careers clogging your selection, if requested.

Requirements: At least Sims 2 Seasons

Conflicts: Careers with the same GUID as mine which is 0xD243BFD1

Job Description:

Playground monitor 10 am - 1 pm

Teacher's Aide - 8 am- 11 am

Substitute Teacher 8 am - 12 pm

Have fun!

Below is a link to a folder on my SimFileShare. It contains my two Uni career edits, Natural Science and Oceanography, as well as my Part-Time Education (Mornings) Career.

[blu3-ja3]

I'm adding more because I want to write Tim

"What did you do!?"

It took Tim a moment to realize it wasn't Bruce screaming, that it wasn't his mind playing tricks on him from drug induced hallucinations. It took Tim longer than normal for him to process that the words weren't directed towards him or Dick whose hand stopped the soothing pattern of petting his hair. They weren't for Damian who was clutching his hand almost painful hard. They weren't for Jason...

The words were Jason, whose standing between Bruce and the rest of them. Tim could tell Jason was scared, of course the kid who'd stalked Jason since he was Robin knew that, but more than the fear. There was anger, true anger, a familiar anger that still gives Tim chills when he remembers the night at Titans Towers. When Tim was on the other side of that anger, it wasn't fun.

"What did you do Bruce," Jason says his name with such venom, it felt like if Bruce wasn't careful enough he'd get bit and there was no saving him from what came next.

Tim's hazey on the details of what led him to the infirmary in the cave. Tim remembers getting gassed, then it's just vivid hallucinations of Bruce... When he wasn't in the best place. It was less hallucinations and Tim reliving his start to Robin. Even thinking about it makes Tim's hands sweat and his throat dry, Damian noticed of course he did. His little brother gently squeezes Tim's hand and Tim is pulled back to himself.

"I- he... Jason I-" Bruce seemed genuinely stumped like he couldn't get the words out, but Tim could even without meaning to

"He wasn't in the best place Jason," Tim watched Jason's shoulders drop as he turned around, Tim continued, "Bruce had lost you, he wasn't doing okay and Batman needed a Robin. So I became Robin," Tim leaves the rest unspoken but Jason picks up on it, they all do. A house full of detectives.

"What did you do Bruce, I want to hear you say it," Jason didn't turn around to face the man, Bruce himself looked like he had been gutted like a fish.

"I didn't mean to-" Bruce started but Jason wasn't having it.

"Liar! Tell me the truth! What did you do Bruce?!" Jason whirled around to face Bruce. The man seemed to shrink even further into himself and Jason scoffed before turning around to face the rest of them. His sharp gaze cut over to Alfred.

"You knew, you allowed it to happen. Probably helped Tim bandage himself up and turn a blind eye." Alfred didn't flinch but he became almost impercivably more stiff and ridged. Jason scoffed and cut his gaze to Dick.

"Did you know?" Jason's tone was low, the anger and venom wasn't as potent. Still there but under-cut with a desperate plea to his older brother. Dick flinched before speaking.

"I- Jaybird it- you were-" Dick stumbled over his words and suddenly the fury had returned.

"Did you know Richard?" The same venom dripped from Jason's mouth as he spat out Dick's real name. Dick didn't say anything but he hung his head pulling away slowly from Tim.

"Akhi?" Damian's small voice cried out, Tim didn't know what to do at the moment. Jason's eyes were glowing a sickly green. But Damian kept going, "Akhi, how do I help?"

Jason's eyes flicked to Tim and for a small moment Tim was prepared to feel the same venom dripping from his name. But something in Jason's eyes softened, he walked over to Tim and picked him up in one arm. Then he reached down and picked up Damian in the other.

"We're leaving," Jason words were a growl, low and lethal, like a wolf protecting their young. Tim was shocked by how safe he felt in that moment.

"Little wing-" Tim watched Bruce place a hand on Dick's shoulder and Dick stopped what he was going to say. There was clear conflict in Dick's eyes then it became stead fast resolve and Dick stepped forwards.

Again Bruce's hand reached out but just as quickly as it reached a fist met his face and Bruce stumbled backwards clutching his jaw. Alfred immediately rushed to Bruce's side as Dick made long strides towards the rest of them. Jason tensed again but relaxed when Dick only followed from a distance.

"We'll talk once we're out of here," Dick just nodded solemnly at Jason's instructions.

Jason placed Tim onto the back of his bike before placing Damian on the front, reaching into his saddle bag and placing one helmet on Damian's head and then grabbing Tim's helmet from his bike and doing the same.

Then Jason got onto the bike and started it. Tim clutched onto Jason and buried his head into the back of Jason. Dick followed on his own bike. They were driving for a while and eventually Tim noticed they were crossing Gotham bridge, they were leaving Gotham city.

"Where are we going?" Tim's voice was small but he knew Jason heard it over their coms.

"Somewhere safe," was all Jason said.

They drove for hours eventually the road went from paved to gravel to dirt, the trees became thicker and more dense as they pushed further in. Jason never once drove recklessly, keeping a calm level head as he navigated the road with precision. They eventually reach a small clearing with a log cabin. Parking Jason gets off and once again picks up Tim, this time though he lets Damian walk but he holds the younger boy's hand.

Once they get to the door Jason pulls a key from somewhere and unlocks it, opening he sets Tim down and then intertwines his and Damian's hands. Gently he pushes them into the cabin while speaking.

"You two go inside, there's clothes in the back room for you to change into Tim. Sorry if they're a bit big, there's two freezers full of food for you two to eat. Me and Richard need to talk."

Damian simply nods and starts walking further into the cabin, still clutching Tim's hand.

"Come Timothy, you need to shower I'll find you something suitable to wear,"

Tim does shower quickly and finds clean clothes on the counter along with his Red Robin suit missing. The clothes are very baggy but Tim doesn't mind, he likes how he's almost drowning in the Gotham Knights sweater and the basketball shorts can be tied tight enough for them not the slip of.

Tim finds Damian sitting in the front room with a book on his lap, Tim catches the name of the book when Damian closes it: The Catcher in the Rye. Damian has also changed though Tim's pretty sure he just stole one of Jason's hoodies and that was it.

"What do you want to eat?" Tim wasn't hungry but he knew he needed to eat something.

"What are our options?" Tim shrugs so the two boys together set out to work digging through the freezes filled with food.

Eventually they find a bag of frozen tamales, the two of them instantly know it was very likely Jason's cooking and agreed to that. They followed the instructions written in Jason's hand writing and decided to make enough for all four of them, even if the younger two weren't sure if Dick would be joining them.

Eventually the food was warming up and the two boys moved to sit at the small table to wait when the door swings open, Jason comes stalking in a stack of chopped wood under one arm. Dick follows sheepishly behind, seemingly hesitant, also carrying a stack of wood. Jason drops his stack next to the first place before moving to take the stack from Dick.

"Go shower Dickhead, you stink," Jason nods towards the back, Dick just nods and walks off to grab a clean change of clothes and a shower.

Jason doesn't say anything, just stacking wood next to the first place then leaving and coming back with another stack of wood. He repeats the pattern for a bit before moving to the fire pace and checking that nothing was in the chimney, once satisfied he gets to work building a fire. He finishes right as Dick comes out of the shower. He's wearing a wonder woman t-shirt and a pair of joggers, both are slightly baggy on him. Not like Jason's clothes are on Tim and Damian but still Jason is comparably larger than Dick is and it shows.

"Watch the fire for a moment, I need to get the smell of Gotham off of me," Dick just nods and goes to crouch next to the fireplace. Tim and Damian watch Dick's face slowly go slack as he stares into the fire. Tim is the one to approach Dick, the younger boy sits down and gently leans against Dick. Laying his head gently on Dick's shoulder Tim starts humming a tune he's heard Dick hum to him before.

"I'm sorry, Tim, I'm so sorry," Dick's voice cracks with shame as tears roll down his cheeks and his body shakes, "I'm sorry I didn't protect you, I'm sorry-"

"It's okay Dick, it was complicated for you... You weren't around much. I don't blame you for what happened, you weren't in the right state of mind. You couldn't have known," Tim spoke softly and allowed Dick to pull Tim into a hug. The two jumped slightly when the oven beeped signaling that the food was done warming up. Jason appeared right on cue wearing a black tank top and wonder woman sweats.

The four all moved to the table and ate together, not much conversation being had. Tim had noticed the green glow was no longer present in Jason's eyes and he was slightly more relaxed. Once they were finished eating Jason had Dick help him drag the mattress off the bed and brought it to the living room. They all gathered pillows and blankets, creating the ultimate cuddle pile.

While waiting for Damian to finish showering, Tim found himself leaning against Jason watching the fire dance, he hadn't noticed the arm draped around him or himself drifting off until Jason spoke.

"Tim?" The boy in question hummed to single to Jason he was aware and listening.

"I'm sorry," Tim sat up and looked at Jason confused.

"For what?" Jason stared at Tim for a moment in disbelief before pulling him into a hug.

"I'm sorry for a lot of things, little wing, but mostly I'm sorry I attacked you and I'm sorry you suffered so much," Tim's grip on Jason's shirt tightened as he buried his head into Jason's chest.

"I forgave you a long time ago Jason, but thank you... Thank you,"

The four brothers held each other close that night, they didn't know what would await them in the morning. If there would be change from the one constant in their lives or if he would continue on like nothing had happened. They all hoped for the best but agreed and regardless of change or not, they had each other.

They had each other and each of them fit together like puzzle pieces, helping to rebuild one of them should one of them crumble and fall apart. They weren't perfect, no one was, but they were changing. Growing together as brothers.

someone who has the motivation to write a fic or draw please do something for me

tim and jason are on mission and tim gets fear gassed. he starts panicking when jason tries to help him and jason is afraid it’s because tim is scared of him (tim has told him a million times he’s over the titans tower incident but jason doesn’t believe him). but the reality is tim doesn’t see jason but the batman he knew when he first became robin

[mutopians]

why does marinette get all the crossover fics. what if I want an angsty fic of adrien finding out everyone he loves betrayed him and then him running away to some other fandom. THEN what-

[sergle]

man, you know, nobody asked me, but I have such conflicting opinions on some of the fat falin art, where on one hand: it's always nice to see A Fat Body in fanart anywhere + it's being done in positive ways, for funsies and on the other hand, there is something so familiar about how you are automatically The Fat One if you are a woman simply standing next to a more petite woman, bc I've had a 0% hitrate in seeing people change Marcille's body type and keep Falin's, or change both of them. it's just Falin

[iwoulddieforienzo]

Something really great about the persona 2 cast is that they all individually fucking SUCK to talk to casually. Every single one of them. They are all infuriating. We have:

Tatsuya, who will stare at you blankly if you try to initiate conversation (IS) and will dip without saying a word afterward (EP)

Batsuya, who will scoff and brush you off/otherwise act dismissive

Eikichi, who might honestly be the best to talk to in the IS crew and that is not saying much, who WILL talk extremely loudly over you (probably not on purpose?) and will not be paying particularly close attention to the conversation beyond whatever he wants to say (gets points for talking about his gf. gets points taken away for constantly talking about his gf)

Lisa, who will automatically assume bad faith and will be rude to you the entire conversation unless you manage to defuse her temper (good luck)

Jun, who is uncommunicative at BEST and requires an encyclopedic knowledge of flowers, metaphor and body language just to get a HINT on what he’s thinking, and who will be extremely polite but completely unhelpful. If you tried asking him what he wants for dinner I guarantee it will be the longest 30 minutes of your life as he goes “oh I have no opinion :) whatever you want. :))” EXCEPT HE DOES HAVE OPINIONS. He has SO MANY OPINIONS. He is Expecting you to be able to pick up on his “obvious” clues. He will be passive aggressive if you don’t. (Jun babygirl you suck so bad I love u)

Maya, who is a delight but will very quickly become grating if you try to talk to her about anything serious as she hits you with the white suburban mom's "how to live a happy, healthy life" lifecoach slogans. You can’t even mention, like, stepping in a puddle or something without her hitting you with the positivity beam.

Yukino is great actually. 10/10. She’s fabulous we love her. Incredible conversationalist, chill and fun and easy to get along with. But she’s from Persona One, she doesn’t Count.

Ulala, who WILL bring up her relationship problems in every conversation within 10 minutes at least once. Any longer and she will start talking about Maya.

Do I even need to explain Baofu. Have you seen him.

And finally, Katsuya, who is a cop and a kiss ass and Very Obvious about these things. Also he can't talk to women. He can barely talk to men. Help Him.

And yet they all work wonderfully as a group. They are so annoying I love them

[silverwhittlingknife]

hi Silver! o/ because that fanart made me wonder - would you happen to know when/where Dick's stuffed elephant plush Zitka turns up in the comics?

GREETINGS CAM <3333 THAT ART WAS SO CUTE

Yeah, I think your instincts are right - it's a truly adorable bit of transformative fandom, but I'm 95% percent sure it's not comics canon. Barbara has canon plushies, but I don't think anyone else does.

I got kinda invested in the investigation (it's hard to prove a negative!) and I ended up typing out an entire History of Elinore/Zitka, so, uh, if you're curious, meet me below the cut for:

Where does Elinore / Zitka - the animal - appear in comics?

Did Dick ever have a stuffed elephant toy in comics?

Where does Elinore / Zitka appear in comics?

We're gonna go in chronological order!

Dick's circus elephant friend was first created for practical reasons: in Batman 436, Marv Wolfman does a big expanded flashback to Dick's circus backstory as a way to subtly show us Tim before officially introducing him (so that we can have a technically-solvable mystery-of-Tim's-identity in LPoD). In this comic, there's an elephant named Elinore who loves Dick:

Aww. Such a cute elephant!

Batman 436 comes out in August 1989. New Titans 60 comes out a few months later, in November, and guess what? When Dick visits the circus, he is suddenly surprised by an unexpected blast from the past! It turns out that even though it's been years, Elinore still remembers him!

Here's the part where Elinore remembers Dick:

SUCH a cute elephant. I love her.

(Guess who else still remembers Dick even though it was so long ago. Guess which other character is about to be an unexpected blast from the past. Guess which character Elinore is directly paralleling guess guess guess sorry everything is about Dick and Tim in my mind but I can focus I swear)

Four years later, in 1993, Batman: The Animated Series retells Dick's origin story. They like and keep Wolfman's elephant, but they change her name to Zitka:

Wolfman doesn't return to the elephant beyond those two appearances, and a few years down the line, New Titans gets cancelled and Wolfman's not writing Dick anymore anyway. So the animal gets abandoned for a while, until Devin Grayson, a fan of both Wolfman and B:tAS, revives the Wolfman-era Titans team in JLA/Titans and then the ongoing series Titans 1999.

Grayson then brings back the elephant in a flashback to Dick's past in Titans 16 (Jun 2000), where she imports the B:tAS name. Sometimes I'm skeptical of TV-to-comics imports, but honestly, I endorse this one. You lose the alliteration, which is a shame, but IMO Zitka is a better elephant name than Elinore.

Here's Dick with the newly-christened Zitka in Titans 16:

Grayson also briefly references the elephant in Gotham Knights 20 and - in a final angsty callback - in Nightwing 88 (Feb 2004), where Zitka tries futilely to comfort Dick in the midst of his trauma conga line:

... And... honestly, I think that's it for comic appearances? The two Wolfman comics plus the three Grayson comics.

Both Wolfman and Grayson are writing multiple titles - Batman, New Titans, Titans, Gotham Knights, and Nightwing between the two of them, spanning a big chunk of Dick's post-Crisis canon - and both writers use the elephant for heartwarming moments of nostalgia, which means if you're doing a post-Crisis readthrough for Dick, Elinore/Zitka feels memorable. But I don't think she actually shows up that much.

For post-2011, I am not as well-informed - throwing this out to the dash? anyone know? - but I feel like Zitka the heartwarming symbol of Dick's heartwarming circus past is, uh, thematically very at odds with the Court of Owls evil!circus vibes, so my instinct is that this story element was almost certainly dropped in the reboot.

Did Dick ever have a stuffed elephant toy in comics?

In WFA, yes; in main comics continuity, no. Technically, I have not read every comic ever published, so I could be wrong!! But I don't think so.

Below, find my rambling reasoning on the tonal vibes of pre-Crisis, post-Crisis, and post-2011, and why this particular story element doesn't seem right to me for the first two.

Pre-Crisis (...okay, mostly the Silver Age): stuffed animal, yes or no?

tl;dr no, requires too much background knowledge on the part of the reader, plus the elephant wasn't a thing until later

Elinore doesn't get created until post-Crisis, but also just generally, pre-Crisis callbacks are more along the lines of this reference in Batman 129 (published in 1960), where, wow, Batman and Robin are hunting jewel thieves - and it turns out Robin recognized this strongman! BUT HOW?!

The comic goes on to recap Dick's entire origin story in flashback, on the assumption that you may not know it.

(BTW, if you'd like to know more about Haly's Circus throughout the years, nightwingology has a great post here summarizing a lot of fun plotlines and characters!)

Basically: Silver Age comics are very self-consciously episodic and kid-friendly; they're not generally gonna do overly-elaborate callbacks because they don't know what comics their kid readers may have randomly picked up or remember.

By the time of post-Crisis, comic books were being written for an adult audience buying from the direct market, i.e. readers who are collecting whole runs & don't need or want Dick's origin story to be recapped to us in full every time it's referenced. That's why in post-Crisis, we get stuff like "hey, neat, this particular soda brand is getting mentioned in several different books!!" or "in order to understand this story arc, buy SIXTEEN DIFFERENT COMICS in FIVE DIFFERENT RUNS and read them ALL ACCORDING TO A NUMBERED ORDER and also you better be following the individual plotlines and recognize these five minor characters who we don't bother to introduce!! Good luck!!" But the elaborate post-Crisis plotlines - and subtler worldbuilding like a stuffed animal callback to Dick's backstory - don't make a lot of story sense UNLESS you're imagining your readers as completionist adult fans.

So IMO a stuffed animal wouldn't be a pre-Crisis thing unless it was The Episodic Story Of the Week, and I don't think a stuffed animal is action-adventure-y enough for the fast-paced storytelling of the Silver Age. (Unless it, like, came to life and tried to eat you or something.)

Post-Crisis: stuffed animals, yes or no?

tl;dr: no, Dick's a manly tough guy, he's not gonna have a stuffed animal, that'd be lame, like something Tim might do

Part of the edgy grimdark adult vibes in 80s/90s comics is that some characters who used to be kinda silly & goofy & lighthearted - like Batman and Robin - get reimagined as Serious and Angsty and Edgy in a Tough Cool Manly Brooding Way. This massively affects characterization for Bruce, Dick, and Bruce and Dick's relationship.

(I obviously love this change & love the tense Bruce-and-Dick interactions, but plenty of fans of the earlier fluffy comics really disliked the edgy retcons of Miller / Wolfman / Starlin / et al.)

The upshot is that post-Crisis is a period when you could have a recurring reference like a stuffed elephant, but you wouldn't have a stuffed elephant, not for Dick. I think a toy like that would be too cutesy / childish / effeminate to give a male character in post-Crisis, unless you were poking fun at him.

Now, you could probably let Tim have a stuffed animal, because Tim is sometimes cool but also sometimes a tryhard loser who is faking being cool and not entirely pulling it off (see e.g. the Robin comic where he practices tough-guy faces in the mirror, or the Teen Titans comic where Conner discovers his cringy Enya CD, or when he's fanboying over Connor and it's awkward, etc etc.). A stuffed animal would be deeply embarrassing, and you'd have to be careful to compensate by having Tim do something cool afterward - but Tim's character concept allows for "he's kind of a loser sometimes."

But Dick isn't!! In post-Crisis, Dick's a tough / impressive / "cool guy" character, the kind of guy anyone would want to be, even in the flashbacks where he's Robin, and even in the stories where he's more lighthearted than angsty. It'd be kinda lame for Dick to have a stuffed elephant, so he wouldn't. I feel like Dick would be more likely to poke fun at it if someone had one, like when he's making fun of Wally for liking the Hardy Boys. Dick could have a Batman action figure, at most, and if he had one he would have it ironically.

Basically: in post-Crisis, a male character hugging a stuffed elephant feels more likely to be a punchline to me, not something poignant. (Even with Tim, Tim could have an embarrassing stuffed animal, but he couldn't hug it when sad - that's too far. Maybe Booster Gold might do this. Probably he wouldn't, but spiritually, he would. Sorry Booster ilu! <3)

Instead, Dick instinctively deals with his inner turmoil like the TORTURED ACTION HERO he is: by punching things and brooding and yelling and joining the mob and sleeping on rooftops and going on obsessive secret missions and acquiring Angsty Stubble!! Just like Batman!

(Technically I don't know if Bruce ever joined the mob but you know he would.)

Anyway as you know this is my favorite continuity and I am poking fun affectionately, but uh, yeah sdfsfdsfs. No stuffed animals.

Post-2011 / Infinite Frontier / Wayne Family Adventures: stuffed animals, yes or no?

tl;dr it's in WFA! Probably not anywhere else, but it could be.

Post-2011 stuff tends to be cutesier overall, most of all in the current Infinite Frontier era. So I don't feel like this would be tonally out-of-line with IF comics. Taylor tends to go for more meme-y references rather than fanfic references, though.

So the obvious best fit is WFA, which is aiming for a rough approximation of Silver Age family-friendly vibes - wholesome, episodic plots, Teaching Good Moral Lessons For The Youth, etc. - plus lots of Easter eggs for fanfic readers and some comic references.

And look, here we are:

Aww.

Whew - that's everything I could find!

Anyway as you can probably tell, I LOVE the elephant, so this was a very entertaining rabbit hole to go down, thank you <3

[simcardiac-arrested]

growing up is like, every single thing you thought would be so complicated and unmanageable and unthinkably difficult turns out to be, actually, pretty simple. and every single thing you thought was so simple and easy to understand and how come adults don’t get this turns out to be painfully hard to deal with, to actually understand and internalize.

the thing you thought you had all figured out—somehow, you forget the right way to handle it. the thing you thought would dictate the course of your entire life, the thing you thought would ruin you forever—you move on in 2 months. the worst thing to ever happen to you hasn’t caught up yet. maybe it never will. maybe life shouldn’t be based on which worst thing happens when.

a hobby you thought would be a silly one-off becomes an all-time favorite. a genre you could never see yourself getting into can offer you the best story you’ve ever experienced. an inherent belief you thought you’d never budge on starts getting cracks. a person you’ve only ever seen in passing and had short conversations with can become your closest three, five, seven years later.

everything you thought about yourself can turn out to be wrong. you’ll get better in ways you didn’t know you could. you’ll slip and fall just as much, get new scrapes along the way as you survive yet another mess of a job, a situation, a relationship. it might be fear, or it might be happiness when you’ll look at yourself in the mirror and not recognize who it is.

so yeah, i guess, if i had to describe what growing up feels like, i could say i’m closer to figuring my life out, or i’m even more lost than before, or that it’s like a rebirth, i’m becoming a new person, i’m finally getting to know myself, or the many, many other things people say when you ask them.

and they’re all right, of course—the future you dreamed for yourself at age 12 is no longer there to guide you anymore, but sometimes it does feel like you see things clearer, like the pieces occasionally click in your head even if you can never comprehend the puzzle. you’re still who you were at your core, but you’re also starting to peel back the layers, to find such things that you never even imagined could be you.

so yeah, i guess, growing up is all of those things and more. it never stops to wait for you to realize it’s happening. it’s changing, changing in a way you can never anticipate, changing in a way that will simultaneously ache deeply and make you the happiest you’ve ever been. it’s the most complex, most intricate experience a human could have.

but, like most complicated things, it’s also actually pretty simple.

i mean—it’s just plain fun, isn’t it?

[timbourinedrake]

Finally posting the Talia focused animatic I have been working on, because I don't know when I'll get time to finish it and I like it too much to let it rot in my folder.

This is based on the events of Batman: Son of the Demon and the song is Wife by Mitski

I have a whole lot of thoughts on how this song reflects Talia's treatment as a character both within comics and outside of them, and how she is always treated as the mother/daughter/love interest rather than an individual in her own right. These roles are important to her but she is also more than them, she is her own person. I think it's super interesting to look at how Talia would wrestle with balancing these roles whilst also not letting them be her own defining trait.

[essayofthoughts]

There's this thing, sometimes, when reading fic - not shitfic, because I do read that and I know what to expect from it, but fic with actual thought and nuance, which cares about exploring trauma and fucked up emotional consequences, evenwhen when they're ugly and uncomfortable and awful -, when you realise that while the fic is willing to have the protagonists be angry but get over it with some characters, they just refuse to with others. And it can make sense to a degree - there's always one character that gets under another's skin, and there's gonna be some disagreements that just, due to individual perspectives, are that much harder to overcome. Even though having them work through it - having a character admit how and when and where they fucked up, and how severely, and the degree to which they recognise this, the internal complex, contradictory fuckery - can be fun! Can be nuanced and messy and delicious.

Then you see the fic says "[X Character] Bashing" and you realise you're never gonna get that. That those crunchy, messy, complex, fun scenes in your head? Will never leave it, because the author has decided that while they'll put in all this engaging messy nuance for (so far) literally every other character... for this single one, a flat one-sided view of a character is all they can be arsed to write.

I dunno, yeah, it's fic and you can write what you like, but bashing has always felt incredibly, astoundingly lazy to me.

[fg083nrt]

What ships from Naruto do you like, except Kakuhida? I'm asking out of curiosity :)

Also your art makes me want to eat tables!!! RAAH!!!!! (/pos)

This is a surprisingly loaded question because I have so many and some of them span for almost 20 years now.

Also, as usual, disclaimer, since I've seen all the ship wars and holywars, THESE ARE ALL PERSONAL OPINION. PERSONAL OPINION ONLY.

(endless yapping below the cut)

In the past:

My first ship when I was 12 was Pain/Konan, and I think that was the first smut I've ever read like period. I was a big cheerleader of Hinata and Naruto/Hinata because I liked that Hinata just minded her business and stayed in her lane while everyone else was going thru shit (Team 8 had the best work-life balance, I think, they just clocked in and clocked out, no shenanigans). Obviously, Temari/Shikamaru and I loved Neiji/Tenten. I think as a kid these were like really fun dynamics. Once the anime reached the Akatsuki I was all over the Akatsuki LMAO.

But now, as a grown adult, I am almost 99% just KKHD, and Akatsuki ships are like the default absolute truth to me, but recently, I've been obsessed with more Naruto Yuri.

Love Ino/Sakura for that double-income spy who owns a secret flower shop/doctor dynamic; it's just nice. Like I am a firm believer that they could have solved their differences by scissoring or something. Also like, I think their backstory is like an insane missed opportunity (but what's written cannot be unwritten, so whatever) because these pages made me feel like I was reading some kind of josei backstory. Like, go ahead and read these pretending this is not from Naruto, and tell me where do u think this could be from.

Like "pussy from a girl who treats you like a small stupid animal (good until psychic damage hits)"

Like, I would be like, this is either a shoujo manga, or the next page is older Sakura crying in the kitchen with a photo of Ino or something, and then by the end of the story, they, like fuck in the field or something while Sakura is like "I can't believe my toxic female friend from school has 4 fingers up my pussy!", but this could just be projecting, but I still like the ship. On a serious note, Sakura being a crybaby who was picked on would have been a fun opportunity to play with her character and create more empathy for Naruto within her, but her role was more like tying the two characters together, which worked well, but lots of people were salty, but it pushed people to support her character more so it evens out.

Tsunade/Shizune is like my next super fave, especially after rewatching the Tsunade arc. Tsunade's character is just so well done when it comes to how people cope with grief by doing destructive things, I loved it; Kishimoto is fantastic at mature story beats like this weaved between magical ninja fights. But yeah I loved their dynamic like Shizune is essentially her attendant/pet girl/assistant who is extremely loyal to her, but also nagging in a way and also Shizune is just very animated and kinda dorky while Tsunade is a calm mommy- sorry a mature rich woman of status who needs to be taken care of (nearly blacked out writing this). Their back and forth is just chef kiss, too. Honestly, I think that's my favourite Naruto arc; the first part of Naruto is great when it comes to mundane details that I now have more appreciation for.

Their auntie banter!

GODDDDD THAT WAS SO LIKE IT HURTS SEEING OTHERS LIVING THE LIFE YOU DREAM OF

And obviously still love Temari/Shikamaru! I loved that Shikamaru was always very tsundere and going on about how much he hates girls, but deep down is actually like, "Me when a bad bitch tells me to do anything." it's a satisfying way to play with his "character flaw". Seeing him go soft on Temari was like a mini character arc within his already happening character arc during Sasuke's pursuit, like we saw him grow up twice, great stuff!

The entire chapter 235 is just an amazing growth for Shikamaru in elevating the like "men/women" way of thinking to like "what makes a person who they are" way of thinking I really love that. The character is also a great reminder for those afraid of failing btw.

Kakashi/Iruka is my fave, 50% from a historical standpoint; the fact that you can find Kakairu fanfic on Geocities from 2001, and I have some doujins in my collection that are more than 20 years old now is fascinating to me. Love how incredibly loyal the Japanese fans are to Iruka; these guys were holding onto hope for so many years till the Pain arc and then, boom, Studio Pierrot's final Naruto arc!!! It's just incredible fandom history. I love that kinda stuff, love the ship itself too, it's very homey to me, some of the legendary fic they had was fantastic, like entire book's length, incredibly loyal fans.

[lakecoded]

okay honestly. and i promise i will stop thinking about the deeply mediocre film argylle after this. but people have been talking about how confusing and how meta it is. but it isn't even that weird or meta????? like grow up! watch weirder movies

[midmorningsong]

fuck meee I got some brainworms at work thinking about a trigun game of thrones au (when house targaryen is ruling westeros because dragons make story go brrr), and just opened a wee word document to throw up some bullet points for this 'WW being Vash's sworn shield in this politically uneasy time' short story, then I blink and it's been 2hrs, I'm dehydrated, there's 10 tabs open about various GOT lore and locations, the document has become two pages long with character backgrounds, motivations and storybeats. sending out a flare for help rn

[juuheizou]

i had an idea i couldn't get out of my head and ended up writing a belated suzumutsu halloween oneshot in one sitting

[mediterraneanmenace]

Going WILD for the description of this piece (which is going to be finished Soon), if you're into duality in ships Raphael and Raksha are so going to be your thing lmao

So far my favorite symbolism (besides her being the sacred to his profane, Raksha's a Holy Inquisitor after all) is how Raphael describes her as "strong as mistral wind, as fickle as the sea itself" because he's the opposite with the whole being a Devil with fire, hell and all of that.

He wants to control, chain her to him but also loves her strong personality and independence. Which is why when she eventually goes into hiding to escape him he becomes full on obsessed to find her (but still, in his words, "I can't bring myself to hate you").

[onewomancitadel]

I'll reserve judgement until I actually play TOTK but they did a story-heavy Zelda once which elevated the gameplay and its mechanics and it was great, without leaning into twee anime tropes

[royalreef]

(( Also another reminder that I treat all ships as occurring in their own contained universes/timelines. If a crossover occurs with another ship or muse, I also consider this a different ‘verse, independent from the others. It keeps the timeline easier to remember for me, and prevents things like cheating plots. If I ever send an ask to someone or have a thread with Miranda and a muse discussing another muse, unless otherwise specified, these are considered their own thing and entirely “optional”.

The only real “exception” is the Union Verse, which is considered primarily crack/noncanon to begin with and operates as a low-stakes, low-plot setting to let Miranda’s harem various partners interact.