#and i COULD also just call out but i don't like using my points

[zylphiacrowley]

Love.

<previous - next>

[cosmic-dust-poltergeist]

Another dp x dc cause why not. Tim is 19 and Jason is 22, and these murderous middle children are hanging out on patrol when the chaotic little shit that is a 16 y/o Danny Fenton crash lands on their roof. He detransformed while flying due to exhaustion.

Danny: Owwww

Jason: Holy shit, kid, are you alright??

Tim: Where did you fall from?

Danny, testing himself for injuries: Eh, I've had worse. Not even top five on my list of crash landings

Jason: That's not helping your case.

Danny, finally looks at the brothers mid getting up: Holy Shit! You're Red Hood and Red Robin! Man, I know so many people who are going to be soooo jealous.

Tim: Even of the crash landing part?

Danny, beaming: Crash landing is, like, the least embarrassing thing I could have done to meet y'all.

Jason: That sounds like a story.

Tim: Also incredibly unsafe. Are you sure you're okay?

Danny, shrugs: Yeah, I'm good. Just tired, probably gonna take a nap soon. Can you point me to the nearest graveyard?

Jason: Why.. why do you need to go to the nearest graveyard?

Danny: To nap?

Jason: Just- Why are you planning to nap in a graveyard?

Danny, realizing that what he said is not normal: ... because it helps? And I'm less likely to be harassed?

Tim, curiously: How does it help?

Danny: uuuh... don't tell batman?

Jason and Tim share a look and come to a silent agreement.

Tim: Only if you tell us how you ended up in Gotham.

Danny:.... Yeah, okay, fair. I didn't exactly know I was heading here? I was- I just needed to get away as fast and as far as I could. I picked a direction and flew til I obviously couldn't *gestures to the spot he landed*

Jason, concerned: What or who are you running from?

Danny: Eh, my parents? Local government? Both. My less-than-human-ness got exposed, and I wasn't testing out if my parents' obsession with ghosts would win over any parental love they may have felt. I got shot too many times when they didn't know to have faith in that knowing would help my situation.

Danny: Oh! So my parents are walking OSHA violations and I had an accident that should have killed me. I mean, it kind of did. Which is why graveyard naps help, the ambient ectoplasum makes me heal and regain my energy faster! The other ghosts call me a halfa since I'm an awkward middle ground between the living and dead and....um, I definitely have a concussion

Jason, weakly: What makes you say that?

Danny: My friends and sisters say I'm allergic to straight answers and I'm just putting it all out there. Also wavey

Tim, stepping closer: Wavey?

Danny, tracing invisible waves on a building: Wavey. Can we go to a graveyard now?

Jason, picking Danny up: Sure, kid. You said it helps?

Danny, let's it happen: Yeah.. it's not a cure-all, but it helps

Danny, waits til they're on the ground: Once my head clears, I can probably help with the weirdness of your ectoplasum. Nice to know I'm not alone in the "undead" hero gig

Jason, trips a little: You- wha- Kid?

Tim: Interesting. You can tell he died?

Danny: Yeah? I can sense ectoplasum, the dead, and the undead? It comes with the being dead thing

Jason, pressing a button so his bike has a high back that he can tie Danny to: You seem pretty alive to me

Danny: That's sweet, but if my vitals look anything like a normal human's, I'm actively dying. My heart rate and body temperature are closer to a corpse.

Tim, checks both those things and his eyes: okay, that's scary. And you definitely have a concussion. I believe we should take him to see Leslie, just to make sure his concussion isn't too bad.

Jason: He definitely should see the good doctor before we drop him off for a nap in the graveyard

Danny, panicking: No Doctors! No Hospitals!

Tim: She runs a small clinic, actually. We go to her if we get particularly injured.

Jason: Plus, she ain't no snitch

Danny: I don't know...

Tim: What would make you more comfortable with going?

Danny: I.... I don't know. It's been years since I went to a doctor or clinic.

Tim: Would it help if Hood or I stayed with you the whole time?

Danny: Aren't you supposed to be patrolling Gotham?

Jason: we can do that after we get you set up

Tim: I have a safe house he can stay at after he gets his nap

Jason: Sounds like a plan

Danny: Man, this feels like princess treatment

Tim, frowning: It's basic decency

Danny, head tilt: Is it?

Jason: Yes. How old even are you?

Danny: 16, why?

Tim and Jason share disbelieving looks. They would have pegged him at 13, maybe 14 if malnutrition was involved.

Jason: Dude, what have you been eating? I'm pretty sure Red was bigger than you and he's the smallest bird.

Tim: Asshole

Jason: Baby Bat is taller than you currently, and he's 4 years younger than you. Embrace your short king self, Red

Tim, pouting: Not all of us can have their childhood malnutrition and physical traumas erased by evil cool-aid

Jason: I don't know. Ra's likes you enough you could probably ask

Tim, makes a disgusted face: No thanks. Rather stay short than deal with that creep

Danny, mumbling: why does that name sound familiar? Ra's Ra's Ra's Ra's-

Danny, jolts: Al Gul???

Tim, suspicious: know him?

Danny: Yeah! Worst summoning ever!

Jason: You can be summoned?

Danny, embarrassed: Yeahhhhh, I beat the ghost king in single combat and now am technically king? Sort of? More prince, since I'm considered a baby. Who'd want a 2 year old ruling? I have people I trust making decisions on my behalf til I'm an adult by ghost standards

Jason: Kid.. How is your life even weirder than ours?

Danny, shrugs: I was doomed from birth.

Tim: We'll continue this conversation after Leslie checks you out

Danny: That's fair

Danny not only has a concussion, but his leg is broken (he didn't notice) and has some burns (from his escape). He gets his nap at the graveyard, which does speed up his healing, so Tim and Jason ferry him between the save house and the graveyard several times as he heals. Before Danny knows it, he's been adopted by these 2 vigilantes. Danny shows them his Phantom form at the same time Tim and Jason reveal their civilian IDs.

Tim and Jason gaslight the rest of the batfam about Danny always being there for shits and giggles, just take him to a family dinner and act like nothing is happening. Danny, always one for chaos, plays along. Damian is so mad about. Cass and Steph are delighted. Bruce, Dick, and Duke are so confused, but Duke is happy to not be the only Meta now. Alfred and Barbara learned about Danny beforehand because they know all.

[ilovedthestars]

I've gotten multiple responses to this post that are basically along the lines of, "I mostly agree with this, but calling close platonic relationships 'queer' still feels weird to me. That's not what 'queer' usually means and I don't know if I'd use it to describe relationships like this."

And like. I appreciate that people are listening to my point and being receptive to it, even if it feels a little Out There to them! I genuinely appreciate the folks who aren't sure they get this but are hearing me out.

But I also keep wanting to be like. Yeah, that's my point!

We don't use 'queer' to describe platonic relationships but I think we should. (Or at least, should be able to, when it fits the circumstances!) I know, and I acknowledge directly in the post, that this is not a widely accepted usage of the term. I am arguing for an expansion of the term.

I can only make guesses as to what people with this kind of reluctance are feeling, but my best guess is that they're used to "queer" (or at least "queer relationship") being used mostly in reference to gay/lesbian/same-gender love and attraction. A lot of people mostly associate the word "queer" with gay romance. And while that's a big subset of queer experiences, honestly, I think it's a shame that it's often the only type of queer experience that gets talked about.

Queer is an umbrella term for a reason! Is there any reason "queer relationships" shouldn't include, say, friendships between queer/trans people? Or romantic/sexual relationships that could be considered straight, but include one or more trans people? Or, as I make the argument above, relationships that are breaking down the normative ideas of what kinds of relationships a person is "allowed" to have, regardless of whether the people involved are themselves queer?

Maybe that last one is a leap for some people, and you think that a relationship can't be queer if the people in it don't identify with any of the LGBTQ+ labels. I understand that reservation, but honestly, I think that there's so much social pressure against non-normative relationships that people who break them should get to be considered queer / in a queer relationship if they want, and that we should get to apply queer interpretations to characters in that kind of relationship as well.

(Also, like, a lot of people in non-normative relationships are in fact queer, especially aromantic and asexual. But if we aspecs can have fun with our queer friendships and queerplatonic relationships, I don't see why anyone else shouldn't be able to!)

Anyway, all that to say that if this is pushing your definition of queer a little bit, good! That's what I was trying to do! And I hope people come away from this a little more open to the idea.

If you still aren't really convinced, that's okay. If it doesn't change what you personally use the word "queer" for, I hope you still get something else out of this post—like learning about amatonormativity and starting to see it around you, or considering friendships in media through a queer / anti-amatonormative lens of analysis when it feels relevant. (Or just being more chill about aro and ace people in fandoms who don't ship your ships. Please. We would really appreciate it.)

And I just want to say, while I'm here: Thank you for the incredible response to this post. It's just over 10k notes as I'm posting this and I'm so happy that so many people are interested in this topic & my thoughts on it (and so grateful that the response has been 99.99% positive so far). To all the aspec folks who have told me I've put something into words that you never could—thank you, I'm truly honored and I love you all 💜💚. To all the people who have told me I've opened their eyes to something new—thank you for being curious and willing to learn! And to all the people who still don't get it but are here anyway—thank you for listening to what I had to say. I'm glad you're here.

I wish it wasn’t a hot take that a story in which two characters of any gender prioritize their purely platonic relationship over any other romantic or sexual interests they might have is a textually queer story

[noxiatoxia]

okay, i’ve been obsessing over your komaeda translations and i must know… given the unsure way he talks in the japanese (lots of filler words), does his dialogue change much after he learns the truth? late ch4, i mean. when he starts being condescending to everyone. i’m also very curious about his big speech about wanting to be called the ultimate hope

Hello, anon! Thank you for the message and interesting question! And thank you for the patience!

So, there's three questions here if I'm understanding:

Does Komaeda's speech pattern (sounding softer and using filler words, or generally downplaying his words) change later into ch.4?

When Komaeda starts rambling about hope, does he speak more clearly and more confidently?

What is the nuance in Komaeda's "hope" speech on the laptop?

I will answer all 3 in this order.

(Also, for anybody confused.... here's my post talking about how Komaeda uses filler words, and here's my post talking about how Komaeda's speech was deliberately changed during the earlier beta to make him sound less confident in himself.)

So, question number one:

1. Does Komaeda talk more rudely, use less filler words, or talk more assuredly in ch.4?

Hmm...I don't think so. He still uses honorifics for everyone (-san for girls and -kun for boys), he still uses sa and ne to the same amount, and he does not seem to devote any sort of rude speech for the most part. It is only his words that change, and not the way he speaks them.

My memory is horrifically bad, so please keep that in mind...I asked my friend @kaiokentimesten for help, and was provided with a good number of lines he remembered from ch.4/5 of Komaeda saying rude things, and I looked them up in the Japanese version. All lines were said in his usual speech formations, so there was no change. Again, the words he spoke just happened to be ruder, but they were said in the same tone.

I will show an example.

KOMAEDA: おっと、安易にハムスターを例に出すと、 脱落した彼に怒られちゃうかな? KOMAEDA: Oops. How clumsy of me to use hamsters as an example. Do you think that loser* would've gotten mad at me if he were still here?

*Komaeda does say "dropout" and it's used for people who have been eliminated in a game, or failed a test/exam/otherwise didn't "make the cut". I just think "loser" works better as a translation.

Nothing changes about Komaeda's speech here, he talks the same as he always does. He's just saying meaner words.

(I don't know where the translators got "weakling" from...that's nowhere in the text.)

The only exception I can think of is the beginning of Trial 4. Souda remarks they talk about the murder weapon, and Komaeda three times goes, "Ha?"

It's a funny scene, but significant because, as far as I know, this is the only time Komaeda uses this word.

(I could be wrong, but I'm totally coming up empty right now...please correct me if I am!)

は ha, is very rude. It means "What?" or "Huh?" but is a very rude way to say it. People like Kuzuryuu and Oowada love using it, and Hinata uses it a fair amount, although even Hinata - who's whole design philosophy, as pointed out by the SDR2 artbook, is to be more masculine and ruder than Naegi was - uses え e more often.

え e, うん un, ん nn, あれ are, are more casual but non-rude ways to say "What?"

Komaeda always used one of those first four from what I can remember, or simply 何 nani, which is probably the most neutral way to say "What?"

So to see Komaeda use this is surprising.

This is different than ははは, はっ, or あはは which are normal laughing sounds.

Oh, before we move out of Chapter 4, here's a mistranslation I want to point out (or, less mistranslation, more very direct translation where the joke is lost in English).

KOMAEDA: じゃあ、始めようか。シンキングターイム...ってヤツだね。

Komaeda isn't a stranger to randomly injecting English words into his speech - a quirk that I feel is used to show he's a bookworm/otherwise intelligent (that's just my thought) - and in those instances, instead of translating directly (because using English in English loses the nuance that using English in Japanese does) I would replace it with bigger, more obscure English words.

But this is actually not one of those times.

Another thing Komaeda is no stranger to is making random pop culture references. He does it more than you would think for a character like him.

While "Thinking Time" isn't a reference to any specific Japanese media per se, it's Japanese game show lingo.

For example, a tough question is given to the contestants, and they have 30 seconds to think of the answer before being forced to give one. These 30 seconds are called "Thinking Time".

I don't know the English equivalent. I know there's a countdown timer in stuff like Jeopardy and Minute to Win It, but I don't think they say anything. Sometimes it's "You have [x] seconds, good luck!" Or "and...start!" or suchlike.

I guess in that case, this line is better localized as:

KOMAEDA: Let's start! You have 30 seconds on the clock...good luck!

(I chose 30 seconds because that's how long the "Make your Selection" part lasts maximum).

2. When ranting about hope, does Komaeda speak more clearly, more confidently?

Yes!

In scenes like post- Chapter 1 trial, where Komaeda monologues to the audience for a few minutes before being knocked out - where he is rambling on and on - his speech is noticeably smoother with less pauses or filler injections. I would also venture to say the way he speaks makes it sound like he is stating facts, that he is very confident in his assertions.

3. Komaeda's Hope Speech on the laptop

Firstly, I want to point somethings out...unrelated to the hope speech itself, but just fun to note.

The garbled, loud noise you hear sometimes where Komaeda is speaking is not gibberish (listen here, volume warning). For whatever reason, the English version did not have Bryce Papenbrook record lines for this, and still uses the Japanese version.

It doesn't reveal any new information, sadly. And I can't make out the second one...but it's highly likely in that line I linked that Komaeda is saying 希望は絶望なんかに負けないんだ or "Hope will never lose to despair."

When it comes to the scrambled text...I've never been much of a decoder, but I can point some stuff out.

For one, I'm 99% sure the Japanese team probably provided the translators with the full, unscrambled text so they could better translate it.

That said, it's not impossible to figure this out.

<まじむかつく+超Ｙさしい２こんなにEEものｇ１０２＄うRしｓ～＝～＋いｄｓねうれOｒｚ』

まじむかつく is a term that means "extremely irritated" hence "seriously pissing me off".

The + is the same in both version, I assume it means "and".

The next part needs a little explaining. In Japanese, all consonants (for the most part) are followed by a vowel. on a Japanese keyboard, if you do not finish typing the character, only the consonant shows up.

for example, な is "na". but if you only type the n and don't follow with the a, you get ｎ.

There's a lot of Japanese slang based off this. To type ん you have to type "n" twice. so, a slang form of konnichiwa (こんにちは) is shortened to こん, konn. But it got shortened even further to こｎ.

so, 超Ｙさしい requires a bit of guesswork, as there are several sounds that start with "y", like ゆ yu, よ yo, や ya. the さしい at the end tells us it's an adjective.

超 in this case means "very", like "very expensive" or "very awesome".

Likely, Yさしい is やさしい, which is either "kind" or "easy".

This makes 超Ｙさしい either "extremely kind/nice" or "extremely simply/easy".

Official translators wrote it as "hella nice", aka "very kind".

Beyond that I start to get bad at this xD I don't know where they get "I can't believe something odd like this is only $102".

The 2 may be に, as 2 in Japanese is pronounced に(ni), and に is a particle.

I think the ＥＥ Is to be read like いい (ii) in Japanese. And the ｇ might be が (ga)?

超やさしいにこんなにいいものが１０２＄

こんなにいいもの would be "Such nice stuff" or "Really good stuff".

が at the end could be "But..." or "However..." but if the 102$ is connected somehow, then it may be an object particle.

Maybe it's "Really good stuff gotten easy for $102"

But that isn't fully true to the official English version, so maybe they were provided with more clear words to translate from. Like I said, I'm no good at codes.

The last part is easy though. うRし follows the same rule as before. うれし Ur(e)shi(i), which means "happy". I don't know what the "s" is, since it seems the sentence picks back up at いｄｓね, as うれしい is the full word. "d s" is probably d(e)s(u) with the ne particle at the end. うれしいですね, which means "I'm happy!"

And I'm guessing Orz is the emoticon.

Okay, sorry for rambling. When it comes to the actual speech, there is something interesting to note, albiet small.

The English version is correct in its translation, and the only thing I have to offer is the nuance behind how Komaeda makes his requests.

He says stuff like, "Respect me" "Praise me" "Build a bronze statue of me" and such. And he requests all of these by saying ～てくれ ~tekure.

I don't think Komaeda ever uses this outside of this speech. てくれ can be seen as rather rude. Though the formation looks like an imperative (very rude), it is not, since at it's core, てくれ means you are asking someone to do something for you, not ordering them. It is still the rudest way you can "request" something though.

It's not as severe as Komaeda yelling 黙れよ (damare yo) in 2.5, but it's close behind.

It does show he is being very callous and assertive in this scene, truly a 180 from him being casual but still respectful. This sort of demanding request tone coming from Komaeda is surprising, I feel.

Otherwise...there isn't really any nuance to add, I'm afraid. The speech is rather straight forward and the English version translates it well.

I hope this answers your questions!

[soliadiaz]

a little 8x11 coda about buck calling eddie:

"hey, eddie, um- remember tommy?"

"what? yeah, i remember... him. why you asking?"

"soo... crazy thing happened, i run into him last night and we talked, and he said you stopped talking with him after we broke up, which is hot, thank you for that, anyway, you know i kinda felt lonely and i was drunk so i took him to our house, sorry, your house, sorry, my house now i guess, anywayyy yeah things happened, you know, things, whatever, not the point here, and then he, hear that, says that we could try again now that the competition's is out of the way, and like what the fuck does that mean? he thought you were a competition, he thought he was a competition to you. but like that's not it at all, right? cause first of all you're straight, like duh, and it's not like i'm once again living in my invisible partner's house, cause it's not like that, right? it's not. and then, can you believe it, i talked about it with maddie, and she said it wouldn't be that crazy if i was in love with you. her words, not mine! well, not entirely her words but whatever cause it would be crazy, right? right? but then i said i thought about calling tommy again- no, don't interrupt me, i know, i didn't- and she said i should call you instead, and well, now i'm calling you, aren't i?"

"..."

"you don't have to say anything, i just needed to talk to you but i don't actually know what i'm saying."

"um... that's a lot to take in but... first of all, a competition? pff, like he'd stand a chance."

"yeah, exactly! wait, what?"

"what?"

"what do you mean like he'd stand a chance? you're not competing with him here."

"yeah, cause i'd win anyway. that's what i'm saying."

"no, wait, like- what are you winning here?"

"well... you, i guess?"

*buck chokes*

"what do you mean me?"

"why are you acting weird about that?"

"i'm acting weird? eddie, you just said you would win me as if you would compete for me. romantically."

"oh..."

"yeah... oh..."

*silence*

"eddie, did you hear what i said before? cause i don't think you would say that if you actually heard."

"heard what?"

"i said tommy and maddie implied that i'm in love with you. and you're here saying that you'd win me. when you're straight."

"well..."

"well what?"

"i wouldn't be so sure..."

"about what? me not being in love with you?"

"what? no, i meant the other thing."

"what other thing? you don't think that you'd win me now?"

"buck. don't make me say it."

"eddie... i need you to tell me exactly what you mean."

"okay- okay, i meant that i wouldn't be so sure about me being straight."

"eddie... are you saying... what i think you're saying?"

"that depends on what you think i'm saying."

"i think you're saying that you're not straight and that you would compete for me. like these two things can be related."

"i mean... they could be."

"eddie, i'm losing my mind, what do you mean they could be? you made it clear that you're not an option for me!"

"when the hell did i say that? also me being an option for you? you just said you're not in love with me!"

"you said me liking guys doesn't change a thing between us! and do you want me to be?"

"i was being supportive! and what if i do?!"

"eddie…"

"what?!"

*long silence*

“you really don't have to compete.”

“is this you saying i don't have a chance?”

“eddie, you have all the chances but you don't need them. you won the very first round with no competition. you won the very first shift.”

“buck…”

“eddie, i miss you. so much.”

“i miss you too… but can i say something?”

“go ahead.”

“it wouldn't be that crazy if i was in love with you too.”

[disease-danger-darkness-silence]

The Homeless Post

Hey, guys. I've been working up the nerve to post this for a while. I'm putting most of it under a cut but I'll give the TLDR up here:

We are going to be homeless for an unspecified amount of time due to some legal issues - whole separate post. We will be living out of the car and a tent, so essentially long-term camping. We need some gear and other assorted items. Here is our wishlist.

Signal boosting is appreciated for obvious reasons.

I have a Paypal.me and a Ko-Fi; the Ko-Fi has a store that will soon have stuff available on it, and a subscription model. I also have Chime, Paypal, and Cashapp, all with the cashtag NovasPrime. At a later date I may set up a gofundme but I don't really want to right now, because guilt and self-internalized ableism is a helluva drug.

On to the story.

So, we were told (mid-December) that we needed to be out by the end of February, from the place we were living in, or eviction would be filed. I don't want an eviction on my record, so I started the process of working towards that goal.

I quickly realized that there was an Issue, and the Issue was that we simply cannot get into any of the low-income housing because… Raven has a felony "failure to comply" warrant in Oregon.

We were surprised, because we thought they were in compliance, but it turns out… No. No, they were not. The records of their attending therapy and anger management were not being sent to the place. On top of that, I discovered that they had ordered Raven to do community service, and even though they were helping with lots of causes and orgs down here, it doesn't count.

Why, you may ask? Well, for one, it wasn't being documented. Not a huge issue, it can be. But also…. They wanted Raven to do THEIR community service.

Which they wanted to charge $40 a day for.

Raven is a disabled veteran. They are limited in the type of volunteer work they can do, but also? They can't afford $40 a day for 30 days. Who the hell can? Why would that be a thing?

After a couple of phone calls, I realized we just needed to go to Oregon. So I began planning for THAT. Our roomie was still adamant about the end of February, so I started planning. We got a storage unit and started sorting shit, and packing it, and slowly transferring it to the storage unit.

And then Shit happened, as it does. The car started overheating. It has also come due for an oil change. It needs a transmission flush, too. And new brakes. Some of this I can do myself, but some of it I can't. I have a friend who could help me do most or all of it, but he's on house arrest until March 25th (he is in recovery now, but drunk driving is a bad thing, guys. Don't do it). He said he'll help after he gets off, which is awesome of him, but like. That's still about a week away (as of right now, because he works) before I can even get the overheating taken care of, let alone the rest.

In the midst of all of this, I was also trying to figure out a timeline... and realized I couldn't, because we had no idea how long we were going to be in Oregon. I have a few friends scattered throughout the state, but I wasn't counting on being able to stay with anyone. We have three cats and two people. What to do?

A friend of mine agreed to watch two of the cats for me for as long as it takes. She has her own house and cats of her own. So, until the car started overheating, we brought the two girl cats over once a week to get used to the place and meet her cats.

But we weren't packing fast enough. Winter is a rough time for both of us because of our disabilities; the weather makes it painful to move. We also had to sort through 20 years of assorted shit; at one point I had a life that hadn't fallen fully apart, so I kept everything. Plus, I had all of my dad's shit that I inherited. I've finally accepted that I can part with most of the useless stuff, but some of it I can't bear to. TLDR: our stuff is mostly still at the old place.

I was able to work out a deal with the friend who's taking care of our cats, to crash at her house for a month. WE and the CATS were out of the old place by March 1, but our shit wasn't, and we've had issues packing it up and moving it. Luckily, old roomie has agreed to just tack an extra month of rent onto what I owe him (to be paid back when we get back from the debacle in Oregon) so we're slowly moving things to storage. I'm just constantly filling the car with water to keep it from overheating and praying that the engine can take it.

However, here's the thing. The Big Thing.

We're technically homeless now, and we'll be Real Homeless as of April 1. The car cannot currently make it to Oregon (honestly? I'd rather buy a cheap minivan or SUV, and leave the car here with my kid, but I simply don't have the money, even though there's a ton of them for sale around here in good shape).

We're going to have to rough it for a while. Raven can get a pass to camp for free at all Nevada State Parks for $30 a year, so we're getting that on payday, and we have a decent tent and sleeping bag (singular, but it'll do). I have some assorted camping gear, even. But there's a lot we do need to just….fix our shit and be able to get to Oregon. Oregon has one of these as well, and it allows 10 days of camping per month. It's free and we've already applied for it. California has one too, but you have to apply in-person if you're not a CA resident. So that'll happen in a bit.

But we are gonna need… help. Raven gets VA disability. $2200ish a month. Sounds like a lot right? It's not. It's really not.

Between car insurance, gas, fixing the car, general car maintenance, phone bills, food (we qualify for a whopping $26 a month in SNAP benefits), things we have to buy to fulfill our end of bargains here, and the camping gear we DON'T have, next month is looking pretty awful.

While Raven is in jail, they get no benefits. I'm also disabled, but juuuust disabled enough on paper that I can't get disability (as you can guess, this is going to be even harder now in the Trump administration, so I'm just working on geting documentation of my disabilities so that when he's gone I can apply). I can't hold down more than really really part-time work because of pain and mental health issues, even though I have been desperately trying to find one. So I'm going to have to survive off of doordash, most likely.

If Raven's jail time isn't going to be that long, it's not that big a deal.

They could be in jail for up to six months.

So, why this post?

One, to explain that my posting will be very sporadic and frenzied when I do. More than usual, anyway.

Two, because I'm going to need your help. There are several ways to help.

Encouraging notes! Currently we have a PO Box, listed above. When we go to Oregon, if we're going to be there for more than a week or so, I'm getting another PO Box and getting mail forwarded from that one to the Oregon one. Digital notes are nice too. I just really like postcards, little cards, letters, etc. Pictures of cool shit where you live. Whatever. Something to keep my spirits up. Anything.

I have set up a wishlist, as seen above. I know, we don't like Amazon, but I don't know where else to do a wishlist that doesn't like. Give out a home address. Since I'm having this stuff shipped to a friend's house, I really don't want to do that. Once I'm in OR, I'll find out where I can have things shipped. PO Boxes are hit-and-miss with Amazon.

As noted above, I am accepting donations and I have a Ko-Fi store and subscriptions. I am working on getting things put onto the Ko-Fi store on a pay-what-you-can model; anything from short fiction to Am Adult instruction sheets to 3D designs, whatever I can manage at any given time. Raven will also be doing drawings and such. I'm also working on making things available to anyone who chooses to subscribe!

Signal boosting this post. I need as many people to see it as possible, not just for monetary benefit, but so I can find people in Oregon maybe willing to let me and my one cat crash on their couch or pitch the tent in their back yard. I'm also going to be documenting all of this and getting documentation on the case in the first place, because Raven shouldn't have even been arrested. So I need people to see this so that word gets out about this kind of thing. Oregon needs to change some shit.

Thanks for reading. I'll have updates as I can.

[amyisherenowitsokay]

This is random as fuck but i love the Suez Canal meme shit because at the time, I was working for a glorified drop-shipping company masquerading as a customization/swag branding company, and it was a genuinely hilarious, surreal, and giddy experience to answer phones (i was both customer service and customization specialist because I was the only one willing to listen to our vendors explain how their jobs worked, and tell people 'no you can't embroider at less than 1/4" tall letters and still be legible, yes I know you can PRINT smaller than that but that's PAPER and INK and this is THREAD and that's not how that works') and be like "hey sorry no we can't do that, we don't have that item in stock"

and they'd be like "okay well you're the fucking fifth assholes I've called to tell me that, what the fuck is wrong with all of you, don't you keep track of your inventory????"

and i'd physically bounce in my chair and get to go "so have you heard of the Ever Given?" and hear "What the fuck does the Ever Given have to do with my undyed cotton sweatpants that I need to make tie-dye bullshit on etsy????"

And in their foolishness, they activated my trap card, where I held them hostage for the next 10 minutes explaining precisely what the Ever Given has to do with their shitty etsy store and the collapse of every indie tie-dyer in the fuckin nation, apparently

So all of the actual manufacturers we worked with and who who actually had warehouses with product in them had trackers on their boats, and we were in contact with them daily for updates on what was going on . All of the boats with the inventory everyone was looking for were stuck behind the Ever Given. Like to the point we were almost sure what position in 'line' they were behind this fuckin boat. My manager and I would spend our downtime when we were at the edge of our rope fielding calls about inventory trying to figure out if we could see 'our' boats in the published satellite images or on the news. I would also play this game with the vendors, because we were all going insane fielding calls about this one specific item that I'll tell you about now

For those of you unfamiliar with larger scale inventory, all shipments are ordered basically 3 months ahead of time, meaning items for Fall for example began production in early Summer, and delivery windows to warehouses were expected just before Fall, like say the end of August, to be sorted and ready for shipping out by the time projected orders were expected to roll in.

But since the ETA for these ships to dock and unload product was, for example, the 30th, they and hundreds of other ships missed their delivery window, and ports were a mess trying to shove in the now-late ships for docking, and i learned so much about how boats and deliveries work because for 8 fucking months after the Ever Given fiasco began, a chain-shock reaction of white undyed cotton sweatpants were basically unavailable for months, and when we did get them in stock, they were gone within basically minutes of us announcing we had them, and people were hounding us literally daily for these fucking specific sweatpants that were apparently ideal for tie-dying. Dozens of people. An absurd amount of people, sometimes multiple times a day. Every other call, if not every call, was about these sweatpants. I was getting offers to Venmo me, personally, $100 or more if I was willing to bump them on the waitlist. I didn't, because 1) that's insane, 2) I wasn't the purchaser for the company anyways, and 3) the bribers were usually mean to me and I didn't believe they'd really give me and let me keep the money. (The ones who were nice to me regardless of being told 'no, we don't have them, and the waitlist currently has 54 people' though did get calls notifying them when items came in, because I was too busy to write emails, and if you placed the order with me on the phone, protocol meant I notified our purchaser directly, and she was too slammed to keep track of the waitlist, and would usually just bump that person to the front of the line and couldn't be fucked to keep track in her head of who was ACTUALLY next.)

Anyways you also activated my trap card listening to this, hope you enjoyed. Miss you Ever Given, you made 8 months of my life hell and I'll never forget the Jerzees white 100% cotton undyed sweatpants shortage of '21.

Also if you ever want to embroider a logo on a hat, make sure your text isn't smaller than your pinky finger. Mwa mwa mwa kisses

a collection of my favorite tweets regarding the Ever Given in the Suez Canal

[acourtofthought]

I think what bothers Gwynriel is that you have to call Gwyn underdeveloped just to justify Elain’s underdeveloped character. Of course Gwyn isn’t fully developed she’s only appeared in one book, while Elain has been around in all of them. Calling gwyn one-dimensional out of nowhere feels petty, especially when not just some Gwynriel but many people in this fandom struggle to define Elain’s personality beyond being kind and just there. Also it’s weird that you assume all your anons are Gwynriels and talk about Gwyn that way as a result, when it’s probably not even them.Just people who find it odd that you said Nyx should interact with Elain before Gwyn as if Elain automatically has a claim to his interactions just because she lives with him and was present at his birth and related by blood. I am not a Gwynriel. I love Lucien which is why I see your posts all the time. But this time you fumbled hard by talking like that in your post and replies to those anons—tearing down a female character just to make Elain seem better. You keep saying that this is your post and youre entitled to your opinion, yet you also usually go around commenting on other people’s posts about their opinions on Elain, explaining why you think they’re wrong. Tit for tat and all that dont you think.

So when you guys call Elain underdeveloped and say she isn't ready for a book, it's alright and we should all just sit down and shut our mouths. But if I merely point out the hypocrisy in that statement, how other characters are equally developed or underdeveloped depending on how you want to look at it, it's petty and out of nowhere.

Also, to rephrase, Gwyn isn't necessarily underdeveloped. I just don't think we've seen all her layers. And that means she's no better off than Elain right now because we need a pov for both to fully understand them.

And you're damn right. I am absolutely allowed to say I'd like to see Nyx interactions from an Elain pov before anyone else. Just like you love to claim Gwyn will ride a pegusus before Lucien though they belong to his father or she'll discover her Autumn heritage before he reunites with his mother.

Clearly we all have our headcanons but when you use the wrong tags, when the Elain and Lucien tag is filled with anti rhetoric or "they're just going to have to accept waiting until after Gwynriel" you should expect push back. I did not use any Gwynriel tags on the posts that caused such uproar so I'm not sure what else I could have done when sharing my own headcanon or thoughts on Elucien. I guess you'd prefer Elucien's just never say a single thing outside their own ship while you seem to have no issues with others saying whatever they want outside their OTP.

You should probably just stop with the anons because all you do is continue proving how guilty you are of double standards.

Again, there are many amazing Gwynriels in this fandom but your behavior is not it. You are acting like the bullies you claim to hate from the e/riel side of things.

[angelofverdum]

Yellowjackets 3x07

"I'm not family but we have a very intense trauma bond."

This episode was very entertaining and full of rush. I blinked and it was over, but it was clearly a set-up episode for the shit that it's about to go down for the rest of the season.

The adult timeline is usually the weakest point of the show but I feel they went hand in hand with the teens this time. I wish they spent the whole season together.

Misty and Shauna are so fun to watch. Melanie and Christina's chemistry is insane. I wish Misty had gone with Shauna so we can see more bickering but I'm sure Tai is gonna need Misty more than Shauna.

Btw, Shauna is fucking crazy for going to that woman's house ready to put that knife to use. Like c'mon Shauna, that woman that lives in Virginia locked you up in a freezer and cut your breaks.

They're finally doing something with Tai, the most wasted storyline in the show. She definitely is going to start killing people to save Van, and those people need to understand that we need Van alive.

Is Walter lying about Shauna? or maybe Lottie took something from Shauna's house and that's how her DNA ended up at the crime scene. I think it'd be too messed up that one of the Yellowjackets killed Lottie unless it was other Tai.

Hilary Swank is definitely playing adult Melissa (I hope I'm wrong) because there's no way she's connected to those scientists. And why did they need to say out loud that Mel and Gen are dead? I want to know now.

The teen timeline was so delicious to watch.

Lottie is going crazier each day. She killed that man because the wilderness wasn't vibing with him. Maybe now the girls will see that Lottie is almost gone, to quote Nat "She is clinically insane".

Van broke my heart in this episode, adult and teen. One version just wants to go home, and the other just wants to live with her wife but without killing anyone.

Melisa asked Shauna to not leave her, and when Shauna obviously did because she cared but not that much then she got mad. I've seen people reading the "If she dies you died" as Shauna caring about her but c'mon she didn't even stop to check or look at her. She reacted because Melisa called her name. She could have stayed with her, even tho they'd need Shauna the butcher, as usual, but of course, she didn't bc she was more hype about hunting people.

Jackie had to drag Shauna out of the plane bc she didn't want to leave Van. Oh Jackie Taylor you are so missed.

Why the hell was Misty in that hunt? She didn't have a torch or a weapon, they left her alone and then broke her glasses. She should have been on camp taking care of Melissa.

Joel McHale is very lucky that Shauna didn't find him.

Also, it was very interesting to see the Yellowjackets from another perspective. To me, they are my beloved family, but they do look very crazy and cannibalistic from the outside.

They confirmed the three explorers died there. I'm dying to see the horrors they are going to face, and how the woman is going to manage these crazy girls. She is very smart and I feel she'd understand the dynamic pretty fast. She probably knows who they are.

This is my reaction every time I remember the hunting sequence:

I Loved seeing the girls hunt those people without actually communicating they know each other so well. Nat leading the hunt because yes, that's her role The Hunter. Uff that was Cheff's kiss.

They don't need the fire, because they know this woods like the palm of their hands by now.

Imagine if, at the beginning of the episode, we see them playing soccer together and then in the wilderness we see them using those skills to hunt people.

- If Melissa is alive why would Shauna cover for her?

- Gen is dead because she pushed Nat

- Misty saying "That's not good" when Van was coughing blood was hilarious.

- Shauna and Misty discussing murder in front of the police. They don't give a fuck.

- There have been 2 deaths so far, and Shauna's hands are clean.

- Shauna keeping the strand of hair. She's making her antler queen outfit iktr.

- They were worshipping frogs fucking.

- Shauna + Knife is one of my favorite pairs.

Jennifer Morrison is directing? Of course, another lesbian is about to die. Jmo never beating those allegations I fear.

- "I don't know where you end and I begin" That's the most romantic thing Shauna has said so far. Don't play with me.

[gayspacepiratesss]

OC Tag Game

Thank you for tagging me, @dudewheresmynug !! I love Lydia and it was fun to learn more about her 🥰

I think a lot of people I know have already been tagged, BUT I want to hear more about @jeyradan @buckynats @uniquelyuninspired @master-of-the-elements @thepoetskettle @antivan-sprig and anyone else who wants to play, if you haven't already!

Also, I only have two photos of Eann on my phone (I'm traveling this weekend) and I took them both before I realized my hair settings were on medium, so... just imagine her with stranded hair 😅😅💕

Name: Eann Aldwir

Alias: Nuglet, sometimes Nuggles or Nuggie or just Nug. Don't tell Neve (EVER) but Eann is small and pinkish with big ears and when she first started working with Strife she'd get put on cave duty a lot because she could fit in tight spaces. The team started calling her Nuglet, etc. She hates this nickname. Neve would love it. DON'T TELL NEVE.

Gender: Female

Sexual Orientation: Lesbian/Queer (mainly interested in women but not gender essentialist about these things)

Age: 32? 33? A little younger than Neve (and me lol), probably, but old enough not to care.

Spoken language: Common, some Elvish, a few interesting curses in various languages picked up from Varric (she's making Taash teach her more Quniat swears).

Occupation: Muck-about mage. Good at squeezing into tight spaces, encouraging people, and making bad jokes in worse situations. Eann was never a circle mage, and barely thinks of herself as a mage at all. She mainly uses magic as the most natural and intuitive way of bashing at dangerous things. She was raised among the Dalish, but her mother had been a city elf; she escaped to the clans when Eann showed signs of magical talent as a toddler, and Eann inherited a certain gritty disenchantment from her mum. She has tattoos but not vallaslin (more on that in a minute), and she loves Arlathan but doesn't love the Dalish obsession with Elvhen culture and history. She's not especially distressed that the gods are false, although she wishes they could have been, like, cheap con-men instead of the worst people alive.

FAVORITE:

Color: Peachy pink! Rose. Salmon. Burnt orange. She is a whole bouquet of warm colors, not really on purpose but because her hair and skintone makes any other palette seem cold. If she COULD, though, she'd wear slate blue like the Grey Wardens. She likes their look.

Entertainment: I hate to say this, but pranks. Cute ones, not mean ones, but... pranks. Wisps in the pantry, training Assan to hide Davrin's favorite carvings on the roof, swapping out every halla figurine for one of Manfred just to see who notices. Taash and Harding will sometimes help, Emmrich is never not surprised, Neve and Davrin roll their eyes.

Pastime: She's quite keen on exercise and trains a lot in her spare time (needs those biceps for dragging herself up off the edge of every cliff in the world lol). She also is just really interested in people and will spend HOURS chatting up strangers and learning their life stories. She collects and dries herbs for custom tisanes (herbal teas) -- not medicinal, just tasty, and a way to keep her friends up talking until the wee hours.

Food: Oh, ANYthing. Yum. Except not mint, and not nug meat. Nugs are too cute. Also she identifies too strongly with them at this point.

Drink: Tea (see above), coffee strong enough to punch you in the face, a good Tevinter white. Also ale. Can't go wrong with pub ale, really. (Note: Eann is incorrect about this. You can go wrong. VERY wrong, and she has. But never mind.)

HAVE THEY...

Passed university: I meeean... the Dalish University of hard knocks? Basically no. Eann can read and write and has Veil Jumper training, but she was never very good at formal studies and her teachers were often exasperated with her. She's smart, and she has an eye for getting out of tight spaces/situations (again, cave duty) but she's not an academic by any stretch of the imagination.

Had sex: God yes. Eann loves people, in all senses of the word. She's a terrible flirt and she follows up. Gentle, though. If she sees you're shy or sensitive, she'll be careful with you.

Had sex in public: Well. There was a haycart once. But there was a LOT of hay, and they were subtle about it. She's pretty sure, anyway. (Mainly she thinks, why not a lovely soft bed if you have one?)

Gotten tattoos: Both her arms have light gold sleeves in the shape of wings! When she stretches, they shimmer in the light. No one really knows if it's because she loves Assan or wishes she was a Crow or just likes birds, and Eann won't tell. (But really. Who doesn't want to feel a little free?)

Gotten piercings: No, but not for any good reason. She probably would if you dared her.

Gotten scarred: Really a fact of life more than anything, at this point. A particularly bad one on her left thigh. Her scars heal well, though, and she's avoided anything on her face so far.

Had a broken heart: Eann generally bounces back quickly. She'll love someone until they seem not interested anymore and then she's on to the next thing and best of luck to you. But deep down she believes love is just a temporary kindness. The world is hard and hurtful and unpredictable, and we lose things even when we try not to. She'll do her best to protect you. She'll break her heart doing it. But that's not your fault, and she doesn't blame you.

ARE THEY

A cuddler: Oh sure, always. Touchy-feely as hell. But Eann is uncannily good at reading people so she'll also leave you be if she senses that's not the thing to do.

Scared easily: Well. She'll happily fight almost anything, doesn't startle, doesn't scream. But she gets CREEPED OUT by gross things, including the blight. Especially the blight. Also very susceptible to ghost stories, which Neve takes unfair advantage of.

Jealous easily: Nah. If you love her, you love her. If you don't, she's off. (But she does get her feelings hurt sometimes if people leave her out of things. She likes to feel connected and included.)

Trustworthy: More than she'd like you to know. Eann keeps secrets to the grave, and masks a deep seriousness with a few too many poorly timed jokes, but you can see it. Varric could see it. She's a bit like him, in that way.

FAMILY:

Parents/Siblings: Just her and her mother and the Aldwir clan. She sees a bit of herself in Taash in this way, both raised by single parents in a community that both did and didn't belong to them (although she also recognizes Taash has gone through a lot of shit she never did). Eann loves her mother, who's getting on just fine without her as armorsmith back home, but the clan was always full of children and other people who knew her. She was never really alone, even if she WANTED to be.

Children: Eann raising a child would be the cutest way to give Neve Gallus an actual heart attack. They'd all survive but at least two of them would nearly go over a cliff/ catch on fire/ raise a demon every day. It seems... possible? But more likely they'd find an orphan in need of a family than that they'd sit down and plan one. Definitely no pregnancy for Eann, ever.

Pets: EVERYTHING! A nug, a halla, a weird Hossberg lizard thingy, a Minrathous cat -- Eann accepts all comers. Neve might need a bigger apartment. 😻

[lyricwritesprose]

"Karim?" Joey says very quietly. We're both pretending to use the library computers. Neither of us are. We're here because it's fucking freezing out there and it's warm in here, and the librarians are pretty good about not throwing anyone out unless they're making noise or causing trouble. Freezing doesn't matter to me but I worry about Joey, he's got things going on that turn his self-care skills into pure shit.

"Yeah?" I say, just as quietly.

"Need a reality check."

Yeah, that's one of the things that's going on. Joey gets more or less anchored depending on the day. "Go ahead," I say.

"Thought I saw you fly off yesterday." Joey frowns. "Yesterday? Maybe Monday. Shit, what day is it?"

It's a fast struggle but a surprisingly difficult one. I don't like life on the street any more than the rest of us, but Seriously Bad Things could happen if my real name gets out. I could just lie to Joey. He'd believe me. It might not even bother him that much. He's hallucinated before. All I'd have to do…

Is lie to him about the state of his own brain.

Yeah. No. "Yeah, you saw that."

Joey thinks about this for a moment. He's scrambled at times but nobody ever said he was dumb. He's got a degree in astronomy. Planets sometimes talk to him but when he's on top of his game, he's sharp. "Shit."

"I'd like it not to get around."

"Why the hell not? You could be a star!"

"I could also be an experimental subject or a guy whose family is strapped to a big machine with a laser pointed at them. Prefer to avoid."

"Yeah, but—but why stay here?"

"Same as everyone else, I'm dead broke. Look, even if it weren't for ADHD issues it is really hard to hold down a job when you might have to disappear at any given second to save someone's life. You know? And I won't take money from my sister, she's barely scraping by already." And has mixed feelings about me ever since I terrorized her nasty piece of work ex, since she's bright enough to figure out that I couldn't have done that without some sort of power.

"I guess you can't just rob a bank," Joey muses. "I mean, I guess you could, but—"

I sigh. "The truth is, if some costume figures out how to do that without violence, I usually give 'em a lecture and let 'em go. Just because I won't do it doesn't mean I don't get it. Way I see it, I'm here to protect people, not things."

Joey nods. "Seems like there should be ways you could make life easier for yourself, though."

"Mm. Sometimes. There are some ways it is easier. I don't feel the cold and I don't feel the heat, that's something."

"Lucky motherfucker," Joey says without rancor.

"And, well, you've probably noticed. That things do tend to happen to those bullshit benches."

I see the start of a smile on his face. "The ones you can't lie down on."

"Yeah, those. The dividers get ripped out eventually and nobody knows how, you know? Honestly it's a stupid idea anyway, even if it wasn't for us, who wants a bench where you can't even sit next to your date? A bench where you can't sit next to someone is called a fuckin' chair, and what sort of bitch goes to city hall and says, "I'd like to install a park chair?" Who's ever heard of a park chair? Dumbfucks."

Joey nods in perfect understanding. Then he says, a little hesitantly, "You know the Golden Tomato?"

"I couldn't afford that kind of yuppie food even when I had a place, but yeah, I know it."

"They've put spikes out front. Like, little nubbles in the concrete so people can't sit down under their awning."

I think about this. On the one hand, I've got to be very careful about the favors I do, but this is a good cause…

"Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if something happens to those, but, Joey? Really keep it under your hat."

"Even if I wanted to tell, nobody believes a schizophrenic," Joey pointed out. "Especially one with the twitches. Fucking bitch doctors." Tardive dyskinesia virtually always happens because some son of a bitch screws up on dosage, and—as Joey can tell you—it's also an instant ticket out of a job interview.

There are reasons I look out for Joey. Beyond, you know. Liking him. Kind of useless as fuck anyway, liking him, I'm ninety-nine percent certain he's straight, but it would take a real shitful asshole to drop a friend just because I'm never going to get in his pants. We've got each other's backs, that's what's important.

"I worry a lot about people getting scooped up and questioned," I admit. I could probably stand to talk to a psychologist about it, actually, but…who? "Don't worry about it. I trust you."

And I will probably never admit to Joey exactly how much that took to say.

You're a superhero. While in your suit, you're beloved by the city, but outside of it? You're a homeless man, unable to get a job nor pay rent because of your duties.

[pluckyredhead]

You know, I’ve heard for a long time now about how Devin Grayson tried to adapt Daredevil Born Again to Nightwing while missing the whole point of it (something about ignoring all of Dick’s connections in the hero community?). Is that more fandom slander?

It's hard for me to answer this without knowing exactly what people are saying about Born Again, but sure, you can look at Devin's run as a riff on Born Again, I think that's absolutely fair. But it was Chuck Dixon who turned Blockbuster into a Kingpin-esque villain to begin with, so to blame her for riffing on another storyline and not him is...well, it's the same "men get a pass but Devin Grayson MUST be canceled" shit all over again.

Also, again, I don't know exactly what argument people are making here, but Born Again is definitely not about Daredevil's connections in the hero community! That man doesn't have friends lol. But more to the point, Born Again is very much about how Matt is strategically isolated by Kingpin, and Devin's Nightwing arc is also deliberately about Dick's isolation, first because uhhhh Blockbuster kills a bunch of his loved ones and then because of the shame and trauma of Blockbuster's murder and the rape. Like, the story is very much about how sexual assault can cause the victim to feel isolated. That is the point.

Also, the fact that Dick was constantly calling Babs and the Titans to solve his problems for him was in fact one of the major weaknesses of the Taylor run. It doesn't make it seem like he has friends, it makes it seem like he's incompetent - just like if Batman called Superman to help with every Arkham breakout, those would not be good Batman stories.

Anyway, superhero comic books have been around for nearly 90 years, and there is a finite number of potential plotlines, so I don't actually think it's a problem to riff on a previous one. Hell, there's a long history of both DC and Marvel literally reusing stories panel for panel because they figured the original readers had all grown up and moved on, so they could get away with it. However, I think it's worth looking at whether the riff has anything new or interesting to say that sets it apart from the previous one, and when I look at those three stories, I see:

Frank Miller: "What if the villain finds out the hero's secret identity and uses it to destroy his life, breaking down his sanity in the process, but the hero finds the inner strength (and arguably Jesus) to come back fighting and save the woman he loves?"

Devin Grayson: "What if the villain finds out the hero's secret identity and uses it to destroy his life, breaking down his sanity in the process - and what if the villain's 'defeat' just makes everything worse, and the violation of the hero's moral code becomes entangled with the violation of his body, leading to a further downward spiral that no one around him can understand, because he's too traumatized and ashamed to tell his loved ones what happened?"

Tom Taylor: "What if the villain finds out the hero's secret identity, but nothing bad happens because of it, and the hero gets beaten up but not fundamentally broken down in any real way and can still totally win a fist fight, and then someone else kills the villain but not in a way where the hero has to feel bad about it, and so the hero never has to make any hard decisions or experience loss or failure, but in exchange is not the agent of his own salvation or that of his city? Also, what if when you hit Dick Grayson hard enough his mask goes SPLOOT and flies off?"

And look, the Devin version is dark. It's not for everyone and that's fine. I personally prefer the Miller version as a story. But the Taylor version is infuriating to me, because it feels like such a waste of my time.

AND FINALLY, even if you (not you personally, anon) want to accuse Devin Grayson of copying Frank Miller, Tom Taylor is therefore copying Devin Grayson copying Frank Miller, which is surely worse? And as the post I reblogged from @dickgraysonsptsd pointed out, Taylor got all sorts of awards and accolades for his toothless writing (elevated by the artistic brilliance of Bruno Redondo, who deserves so much better) while Devin still has people accusing her of all sorts of buckwild nonsense 21 years later.

[altruistic-meme]

damn i heard the hurricane rn is even bigger than Hurrican Katrina and ya gotta go to work?? fucked up 😔

it's even worse than I thought this morning 😭

Hurricane Helene is now a cat 3, and I've heard it's expected to hit a cat 4 before it makes landfall. from what i saw, it's definitely bigger than Idalia, but I haven't seen any comparisons to Katrina yet.

what gets me is how far INLAND the eye of the storm will be though. I'm so used to having them follow the coast, where we'd get the arms more than anything, but the projected path for Helene goes DIRECTLY over Atlanta. that's how far in it's supposed to go. which is nuts to me.

but all that to say; yeah I have to work :( not even just today, which was bad enough i had to drive home with my hazards on, but even if the lines don't work tomorrow, because I got moved off the lines and into material, I MAY VERY LIKELY STILL HAVE TO WORK. and even if I DON'T my new supervisor told us to just come in anyway and they'll decide from there ;;;; which is dumb af cus if the lines aren't running then that means that it's too dangerous ??? so why would material have to come in if it's dangerous???? urgh.

its so dumb :(( and we can't even just call the holiness the way the lines don't bc it won't specify for material :((( which means again like. even if they decide we won't work we still have to drive out there and home!! on the morning of friday, which is right in the middle of when the storms are expected to be the worst!!!!!

[egophiliac]

still ruminating over Lost In the Book With Spooky Skeletons Part 1, so here's a selection of some of my favorite little bits! (...some more loosely paraphrased than others) (I just feel like Idia has no room to criticize in general, okay)

anyway, I'm sure we're just going to have a fun time celebrating Halloween and nothing bad is going to happen whatsoever! :)

[evilminji]

It's in the same camp as "I want Nice Shizun" yet not! It's the "confusing the thrill of the hunt/longstanding issues with being denied things that he's violently over correcting for, at everyone else's expense" thing!

He doesn't WANT Aria. He wants the IDEA of Aria. The PRIZE. The happiness and victory he thinks he'll get at the end. Like a drug high that, by it's very nature, can never last. Because he built it all on shards of glass.

She's never going to love him.

There is no scenario in which he "wins". He can't FORCE reality to be kind and beautiful to him. To "make up" for what it's "done".

Doesn't matter that he's the Protagonist. His ACTIONS? Make him the villian of this world. The monster, good people must stand against. It's a story she's had baked into her BONES.

It's? Also? A pretty common Otome story.

"The rise of the Demon Lord". The "princess" or female lead being forced to flee, grow stronger, come back with a bunch of hunky boys to defeat him.

She?? Maybe have been a Fuck Up~! ᐠ( ᐛ )ᐟ Whoops~☆

(What the fuck do you MEAN WHOO-!!!)

Because like? If she, an Otome Nerd? Was SUPPOSED to be Reincarnated into an OTOME game world? And, say, her BROTHER wasn't? If someone BADLY fucked up and her brother is now Suffering™ in a world of Hunky Boys and Lace? Villianess tropes and vague European Aesthetics? Then... wait...

Σ(;Φ ω Φ) THIS ISN'T "ALL IS FAIR IN LACE AND WAR!" PLEASE HOLD!

The system trying to "pls pls pls PLS PLS-!" Her along RIGHT out of this story and back were her soul belongs? Would be hilarious. It can't give her SHIT here. All her missions are a universe or 315 over. This... this ISNT EVEN THE RIGHT DEPARTMENT. It's gonna get such a bad quarterly revieeeeew .·°՞(¯□¯)՞°·.

But then? It's... actually... kinda having? Fun? Ooooh~ all these Xanxia clothes are PRETTY~☆! The DRAMA! The New Jewelry!!! Otome System... c-could maybe... uuuh *cough* be pursued to... to NOT mention anything.... for one of those jade hair pieces. ( ◇.◇)

Like? Cucumber out here. Risking his life. Horrified and dying. And you just pan over? To Aria, suffering, because she has to barter 3 hours of listening to gossip and two butterfly hair pins for the B points she needs.

This is her System's "oh fuck I got on the wrong plane! We're stuck in...! A..a tropical paradise? Oh. Oh no, wait. Actually? I think I'm fine with this. Carry on."

She gets away with SO MUCH SHIT. The other System's are SO MAD. You can't DO THAT! (What? Gonna complain to my boss? Do it. I fucking dare you. I don't even work here!) (You FLOWERY B-!)

And like? If she's in PIDM? With another System? Then obviously they haven't bumped up the "oh wow. It's ALL gone to shit." Difficulty rating. So it's Just Some Dude. Who... probably doesn't make it.

She's probably the last Transmigrator standing. At like? The "edge of the world." Which? I REALLY like your idea? That their IS one? And the gods are either dead or gone? But in the sense of "the Heavenly Demons were created from Shit Going Down in heaven. We are STILL rebuilding. Everything is in shambles. There are BARELY any of us left. Far too few ascending to help replenish the gutted ranks. It will take TIME. Time we... we dont HAVE."

So when "Heavenly Demon(s), The Fuckening Of Everything; Take Two" began to occur? The CURRENT Jade Emperor? Called a retreat.

That little BASTARD was trying to fucking COLLAPSE Reality itself! Put LIFE itself into the metaphorical blender and spin. The rubble? It wasn't going anywhere. But this? THIS was their Sacred Task. Their One Penultimate Duty. They Were and ARE GODS.

They CAN NOT allow everything to unravel. So? Like a hole being punched in the fabric of reality. They contained the damage. Sewed the edges shut. Just as once they had created the Abyss... so too, do they create... This.

But! Of COURSE there is an edge. And there are God's. LOTS of them, patrolling it. To keep that little fucker IN. Cause if he wants to throw his weight around and trash the place? Fine. Wallow in the muck of your own creation, demon. While WE fix everything else.

After ALL? They had to flee SOMEWHERE right? Such as? Other pantheons. Because what Swede would ascend to join the Jade Emperor's court? Aboriginal soul? They have their own paths to take, thank you. Not to say they COULDN'T mind you. But like... why would they want to?

No. The God's here? Fled to their neighbors, as it were. Who were VERY alarmed. Put the word out. War gods from all over patrol those mind bending walls. Those "that which IS and Is Not" borders.

Probably the climactic scene? Racing that final stretch. Her defensive arrays being broken and torn away, bit by bit. Tired and worn. The end in sight. Death at her back. Wondering if she'll be trapped... trapped against an impossible wall. Her hand... around the anchor.

Ready to cast it through.

Because if nothing else? At... at least the others... will make it.

Falling just short. Scrambling in the dirt. A cornered animal. The anchor, flying to safety. Blood on her teeth, but at least it's her own. Broken leg, yet still she kicks. Crawls with ragged nails. The Demon with a mad smile and a cackling, victorious, certainty that he's WON.

Then? Like the striking of a hammer. The crash of thunder. All fury and long overdue ass whoopings to come?

FROM THE HIGH BAR!

Lui Qingge, now an ACTUAL War God!

You killed his martial Brothers and Sisters, twisted and perverted is BLOOD sister, BURNED his beloved Sect to the ground! And now you hunt all that remains? Ha ha... oh FUCK NO. Come and DIE, Demon! He's gonna feed you EACH OF YOUR BONES INDIVIDUALLY.

It starts a fucking RAIN of deities come to kick ass. With a side of "betcha thought you saw the last of ME, didn't ya?" Cause whoop! Godhood's funny like that! No, they will NOT explain! Bleed FASTER, whelp!

And? It ends how it started. "Not my circus, not my monkeys." *painful crawl across the border. Collapse where binghe can't reach. Passes out*

Probably ends with her desperately running from "oh we're so greatful! .... have some Power and Responsibility!" *Aria cold sweating* "n-nah, really. I'm good. Just leave me and my beautiful wife, the craft rooms, alone, kay? No... NO! Get AWAY FROM ME WITH THAT PAPWRWORK! AaaaaaAAAAAAA-" *terrified screaming*

God, I am... so obsessed? (SI-OC thoughts)

PIDM/SVSSS/Xanxia let me gooooo .·°՞(¯□¯)՞°·.

Back on my bullshit, with another Treasures Maker™. But like... make um TANK. Go ALL in. No being coy about it. No holding back. Balls to the wall, batshit insane Treasure Maker.

A real "w-why would you..." Sort of creator. Tentacle with a knife sort of "....wanted to see what would happen." Kind of gal. No one is safe and EVERYONE is nervous. Put the crafting supplies DOWN, shimei! Back AWAY from the crafting rooms! You KNOW you have to be supervised in there!

No one wants another... Incident™! (WE DO NOT SPEAK OF THE INCIDENT™!!!)

Cause like?

They? Had a brother. That brother? Was gross. We love um, but teenagers, man. Violence and boobs. 2 Edgy 4 U media. That sort of shit. It was his bread and butter for like... Puberty.

Not! To say he was a bad kid! God, no! But he WAS basicly soaking in sweat, hormones, and teenage "oh god I'm so horny I couldd die but also AaaaaaAAAAAAA-!!!!" Brain fuckery. Not fun. She survived it, does NOT recommend, but still retains the Sisterly right to ROAST his deeply shit reading tastes (lightly).

After all? Who amongst us? Has not read terrible, terrible Smut based power fantasies? People in glass houses and all that.

.....she DOES wish she, you know, stuck it out. Read that trashfire COMPLETELY. Not just the spark notes, wiki, and that hilarious rant compilation of the Honorable Cucumber Bro (A Legend, we stan. God, what a psycho(affectionate)). But like... not her genre, man. She's an otome nerd. Her Meta knowledge aint worth SHIT.

But! Trying to relate to her brother? Listening to him excitedly talk about the latest chapters and current arcs? DID leave her with SOME knowledge. Enough knowledge.

Specifically?

This world is SHIT to women.

Like? A legit horror reality. Everyone has somehow? Still got that bullshit, purity culture, your honor is stored in your virginal, mint condition, breeding stock hoo-haa. While being surrounded by more natural aphrodisiacs then any Hentai universe could excuse! Like? EXCUSE ME!?

You can't SPIT, without hitting three Fuck Or Die plants and the aphrodisiac poisoning monster that LIVES IN UM!

But we, the WOMAN, would be a whore, should we be struck by the damn near inevitable? Airplane... you sexist HACK! (*Qinghau... feels like he's in danger*)(He swears he DIDNT MEAN IT! He just didn't think of the implications! About A LOT OF SHIT!)

Not to MENTION?

The fucking (quite literally) BODY HORROR fuckboi Protagonist! With his MONSTER DICK! Like? Look... she is a GROWN ASS WOMAN, okay? She KNOWS how sex works! Apparently, she is one of the privileged few in this universe who DOES. And while her little brother and that hack author may buy into the troupe "all women want huuuuuge, big, improbable, monster dicks"?

Ha ha! GOD, No. They do NOT. That is PURELY a male thing! It's a masculinity thing. Some power fantasy, male envy, "look how manly I am" bullshit. WOMEN? Have ORGANS. And while there ARE outliers (gods bless, we salute you. Go for greatness, you mad, mad queens.) MOST of us? Like bits that FIT.

You know... WITHOUT the Protagonist's so called "blood Gu". (Thanks! That's a HORRIFYING THOUGHT! Both on the "what do MEAN he, a non medically trained fuckboi, LITERALLY REARRANGED THEIR INSIDES?" lvl AND on the "WHAT DO YOU MEAN PARASITES IN THE BLOOD‽‽‽" lvl.)

So SI-OC? Rightfully? Wants Mr "All Women Are Belong To Me" NO WHERE near her. The fact that he's a demon? Irrelevant. The fact that he's an unrepentant MONSTER of a man? With a body horror dick? VERY relevant.

BEGONE XANXIA SATAN.

Leave her and her orifices the FUCK ALONE. You psychotic, sect murdering, realities destroying, selfish, narcissistic Fuckboi!

Not that she remembers much of the "cool motive, still murder" Phase of his life. Nor does she care, with how many people he fucks over. She wants to get far, FAR away from that mess. And more SPECIFICALLY? She wants to SURVIVE that mess. Which requires power.

She doesn't HAVE power.

But? She DOES have some Meta knowledge... and a shit ton of patience.

Cause after all, what is better then a protection talisman sewn onto a robe? Ten Thousand Protection Talismans sewn onto a robe, which is only ONE of a SET. And that? She can do.

To hell with pretty embroidery. Flowers and bamboo. Birds in flight. No, with Qi enhanced sight, and steady hands? The finest needle and the strongest, thinnest, thread? Script so tight and small it light grains of rice. Over and over and OVER. Each of her layers, holding thousands upon thousands of words. So small it's near impossible to read.

Which, of course, is to say nothing of the ribbons. Such long HAIR, after all! Only a FOOL wouldn't make USE of that space. Portioning out her head into hundreds of tiny braids, talisman written ribbons woven all the way down.

Every bit and piece of her clothing, a masterwork of steady repetition and patience. A fortress, built brick by brick. Not inconquerable. But strong enough, that even the heavens would strain.

Of course... only so long... as she's WEARING such armor.

Everyone must sleep eventually. Must bathe. You can not wear only one thing FOREVER. And that IS the difference between the strength you create and the strength you simply possess. One of them? Is always with you.

And like? Imagine it.

Big Sister. The penultimate Immovable Object facing off against Bingme's Unstoppable Force. Her DECADES of quite preparation unfurling like the waking of a slumbering GOD. All those traitors to the Sect. Women who BETRAYED their own. Betrayed their bothers and sisters, the CHILDREN they were supposed to guide and teach. For DICK. Having their attacks against her turned back against them.

Lethally.

As the remaining Peak Lords fight, a literal beacon of power. Of Safety. Sweeping through and grabbing survivors. Tossing them into a hidden realm she's literally wearing around her neck. Small but stable, her graduates work in progress. It's sparse in there. More bare earth and barely planted medical plants then anything. A few fruit trees.

But? It's beyond the reach of these invaders. And unless Luo Binghe kills her? Gets past her every defense and prys the anchor from her cold dead hands? Then they are safe. For now.

The sect may be lost. At least in terms of buildings, land. But it's PEOPLE? The important part? Not so long as she lives. The selfish dramas of demons and men are none of her concern. She has students, children, and the injured to protect.

And obviously, this makes her a target. She's shining like a God damn mini sun. It's not subtle. But the sect is burning, there's demons everywhere, she kinda expected that. At least she gets to kill a few of those traitorous "wives" on her way out.

(They betrayed their sisters. Their students. Their FRIENDS! This was their FUCKING HOME!! If they thought the Sect unforgivable? They should have LEFT. Not attacked as children fled for their lives. Cultivators are meant to kill monsters, not BECOME them.)

She takes them, her copies of as much of the libraries as she could manage on her own (it's not enough. Forgive her. She had to prioritize.) and heads for the border of the map. As fast as Cultivation can travel.

Did the Realms truely merge? Or did this portion collapse together? If they fly far enough, will they find the edge? And should it ALL have collapsed... he's not explored it yet. They have time to rebuild. Heal. Train and grow stronger..

All is not lost. Not yet.

Besides...

Who's to say that Fuckboi is the only Protagonist in this world? The only child of the Heavens? Maybe there are other gods. Maybe... maybe those gods are pissed. At the presumption. The arrogance. Maybe... just maybe, those gods will help. Who can say? It's never been done.

But is that not the duty of a righteous cultivator? To do what is right? To fight against monsters? What greater monster is there then this? The child not embraced by the village, will come to burn it down. But Luo Binghe? He has decided to burn the WORLD to ashes. And such madness must be stopped.

It doesn't matter how it began. They're gonna end it.

Together.

@mayfay @legitimatesatanspawn @spidori @babbling-babull @hdgnj @leftnotright

[onesnoopyaday]

I AM AT MY LIMIT

Snoopy #90

30/12/2024

description under the cut

[description: a cartoon-style drawing of Snoopy's head. Snoopy is a white dog with black ears. His eyes are shut and his mouth is a horizontal line. There are two large blue teardrops, one under each eye. The text "I am at my limit" is handwritten across the top of the image.]