#and that war crimes are bad. i think all of that stuff!

[dracomusic325]

⚠️ SPOILERS FOR WONDERLUST EPISODE 16 ⚠️

FUCK IT, I'll just copy and paste my shit because that's just easier, so enjoy my notes for Wonderlust! Apologies for not posting for the last episode, I've been busy irl, BUT I AM BACK WITH IT! Also, I love WD and Ripley, I need them to kiss at least once in this campaign or I will call Bizly homophobic (/hj). Enjoy!

Troy Lougferd (He/Him)

- His real name is Tramilton Lougferd

- Presumably captured by Aeon (Bizly said 'she' for the person who captured Troy), who forces him to stay with Blink

- How does Aeon know his real name?

- There are theories that he's clockwork, just like the soldiers

- If he fails to stay with Blink, he can't go home

- Perhaps that's why he clings to Blink's side, out of fear of what will happen to him if he fails

- He doesn't have a good relationship with his father

- Troy has committed war crimes??

- He has ulterior motives

- Dislikes snakes

- I feel like he knows more than he's letting on

- I don't trust him

- Charlie has mentioned that he will get worse as the campaign continues, but just how bad will he get?

- Did not hesitate to harass Lint after coming back just because he did something to become popular

- Dangerous and always seems to do reckless things that get other people hurt, including his teammates

- He doesn't care about the consequences of his actions (i.e., getting Runt, Blink, and Ripley banned from Oasis Flora)

- Dumb as fuck

- He licked fucking acid, wtf is wrong with him (he blamed Runt lmao)

- Genuinely insane, holy shit

- He's able to override the clockwork soldiers with a command

- "Lougferd Override: Level 3/4/5/6"

- Motherfucker thinks he's a Disney princess with all the animals he's collecting lol

- Envies Grey's relationship with his father (daddy issues, let's goooo)

- Bro downed a potion that made him grow, oh my god-

- He fucking pissed on a fire elemental because he thought it was funny, I genuinely wonder what is wrong with this man (a lot, obviously)

- He is not a girls girl

- The weird creature he got in Oasis Flora is now attached to his body

- That isn't concerning at all, nope, totally not /sar

- Bro's in his male wife era, awesome

- He has a spoiler on his sled now :0

Runt (She/Her)

- She has cousins in the Street Rats, Doppler, and Pinch (he's the leader, I think)

- She lives with her Uncle Threestrings, and her grandmother works at the apothecary

- Due to her failing the mission, she is kicked out of the Street Rats and is no longer allowed to visit their headquarters

- Doppler gets captured when they go up to the surface and disappears

- Troy tells her that the clockwork soldiers just throw stuff back into the hole, so why hasn't Doppler turned up?

- She found a purple crystal known as Wonder Coal while she was on the surface

- Distrusting of Troy after finding out both he and Blink lied about who he truly is (specifically, that he's not Yort or from Reclaim/Cogtopolis)

- Claims to be Is the smartest girl in the city

- Scared of Troy because of his actions and how he's constantly putting everyone in danger

- Hates being called little or anything to do with the fact that she's different

- Needs a doctor (will be discussed in a later episode)

- Her leg braces help her walk, run, and jump better

- She coughed up blood at the end of episode 10 (holy shit, don't kill my gal, I will begin sobbing)

- Her grandma knows that she's ill

- It might be a disease either in her lungs or in her throat

- She's essentially dying (if she dies, I will not be okay)

- Her condition began to worsen about 2 months before episode 1

- That's also when she started trying to join the Street Rats

- The cold does not help her condition (obviously lol)

- Grey admires her strength and her will to keep going, despite her illness (awwww)

- Found admiration in what Troy can do (I love her so much)

- There's an herb on the mountain that can help treat her illness, but it won't cure it

- It lowered the DC of Con Saves and can override a point of exhaustion 3 times

- SHE QUOTED TAL FROM THE BALDUR'S GATE 3 VIDEO, LET'S GOOOO

- I think Troy turned her religious-

- I'm so confused TwT

- Nevermind, she's good now

- She has made it to Cogtopolis, let's go! Time to find the Inventor!

- She referenced Troy's "You dude!" Oh mah gaw

- Nobody believes her when she says that Apollo brought her to Cogtopolis

- She thinks Apollo is very pretty (that's so sweet, aw)

Blink (He/Him)

- Knows a lot of people in the Sorting District

- Has a history with Aeon, the leader of the Vixens

- They used to be friends, so what the hell caused them to have a falling out?

- Their mutual friend, Candle, was killed because Blink made a mistake

- Lives a life of struggle (evidently, he doesn't even have a house, and Graphite lets him spend nights at his place)

- He's very willing to help people out, no matter what (Granny Granite, Troy, etc.)

- Very paranoid and cautious all the time, probably because of the Vixens

- Knows of and (probably) works for The Inventor, but has no knowledge about him

- At risk for a heart attack because of his device and from getting electrocuted

- In a situationship with the Overseer?? Maybe?

- He doesn't have a thing for feet (as Condi said so aggressively lmao)

- Bro is fucking done with Troy (based lol)

- Medusa gave him the confidence to stand up to Troy

- She trained his ass to beat Troy's ass, awesome

- They're besties now, I love that (they do be shit talking Troy)

WD (She/Her)

- She is a fox-hybrid played by Milo :0

- She lives in Cogtopolis and is working on a way out by getting rid of the cave-in

- Friends with a koala hybrid named Carpet

- She's old friends with Ripley, but they got separated because of the cave-in

- She called Ripley really pretty, so I have a feeling that they might be gay :3

- Knows her way around Cogtopolis pretty easily and knows a lot of people

- She works for The Inventor in his secondary lab in Cogtopolis

- A lot of her tools were made by Ripley (we love lesbians)

- She definitely seems to have feelings for Ripley (yippee, lesbians!)

- She hasn't seen Ripley for a while and is desperate to get out of Cogtopolis and find her

Other:

- Clockwork soldiers are patrolling more frequently and can now speak

- The Inventor is missing after using the teleporter

- Mai is missing after going back home to The Hole

- There are no more races until she is found

- She was in the dungeon that Troy was sent down

- Mai, and Doppler, are at this "Overseer Island"

- The Street Rats are referred to as Relicites by the citizens of Wonder

- People say that they aren't real

- Borris mentions The Overseer, but who the hell is that?

- The Overseer is obtaining information from the Street Rats. He has sketches of The Inventor, Ripley, Professor Cross, and Troy

- Why does he have sketches of those people??

- How does he know about the civilization in the hole??

- The Overseer is suspicious, the way he acts and speaks seems very calculated. It freaks me out

- The Overseer needs The Inventor and needs Ripley captured

- He needs The Inventor because The Inventor will give him power

- The Overseer wants Aeon removed from her position of power

- Pinch is working for The Overseer???

- The Overseer hired him to find the Inventor

- He struck a deal with The Overseer to keep Doppler safe

- Mai is from Reclaim, a bunny-human hybrid

- The Overseer and his soldiers know everything about the Street Rats, including where they live

- It could also be that he has known this entire time that there is a city below his very feet

- The Mountaineers are a group of people who live near a mountain that is seemingly very dangerous. They also harvest the Wonderous Coal that is used for power

- There's a chance that since the Wonderous Coal powers everything in Wonder and Reclaim, the forest on the first tier of the Mountain is magical from the coal's properties

- The Mountain has 4 tiers, each different from each other. The first tier is a warm, forest area that gave the group 1d10 temporary hit points

- I wonder what the other tiers are like

- The Wonderous Coal isn't natural, it just appeared out of nowhere. When it originally showed up, no one knew what to do with it

- The forest has vague remnants of a place called Farindell (probably spelled that wrong lmao). None of the party has heard of that place

- They also don't know what elves are

- Dark Elves fought Farindell, their place was called Holdstead

- Fire, Water, and Earth elementals exist in a cave within the forest :0

- There's a stone that controls them

- The statues are of Dakota Cole, William Wisp, Vyncent Sol, and Ashe Winters (I need to get a job and watch this show, wtf-)

- THEY'RE AT THE PRIME DEFENDERS BASE, TF?? (I need to watch Prime Defenders-)

- Fartbo is there and there's a hologram of Tide talking about the Prime Force

- The layers in order are: Prime Defenders, Blood In The Bayou, (to be added to in the next episode)

- APOLLO??? LIKE THE GREEK GOD?? HOLY SHIT, LET'S GOO

- Medusa is here, yippee! We love Medusa

- She is so done with Troy (real)

- She gave Blink a brace that can cast Mage Armor, let's goooo

- She's a girls girl fr

- She's so fucking cool

- Julius and Medusa are both cursed to remain within the maze until one of them can best the other and win the Gods' favor to set them free

- GRIZZLY HAS A NEW CHARACTER?! WTF?!

- His name is Julius :0

- He better not replace mah girl (he probably won't, it's most likely just like Goobleck)

- Full name: Damian Augustus Julius Caesar (:0 reference holy shit)

- He ded (I got attached to him TwT)

- Aeon is at the University of Dreamers and Doers

- H O W?!

- The people are angry with the Future Thinkers because they are so focused on getting out without causing another cave-in

- Cogtopolis is entirely within the clock in Airhart. It extends down to Reclaim and this is where the Future Thinkers reside

- It seems like the cave-in has prevented food from getting into the city

- There are mostly Reclaim citizens, as far as Runt can tell

- Ripley is human, so would that mean the Inventor could be too?

- The Future Thinkers believe there is only one right way to do things and disregard anything or anyone that says otherwise, such as Ripley (she deserves better 😤)

[coldwind-shiningstars]

not to get uncharacteristically spicy on my Tumblr dot com blog but the tumblr "piss on the poor" thing is frustrating with fiction and fictional discourse but with rl stuff I am really begging everyone to Please Think Through The Implications Of What You Are Reblogging

[butts-bouncing-on-the-beltway]

Yesterday my wife and I were discussing the abject nonsense that is the Designated Survivor tv show (I like trash because it's trash fuck off) and I was talking about like. The motivations and informatics of warfare tactics [some people are War Guys TM because they like nazis, I'm a War Guy TM because I think strategy is a fun way to occupy my brain when it's about a war that already ended] and wifey was just like "Yeah, obviously the Geneva Conventions are just a suggestion" to which I replied "as in all things, I remain unconventional" so now whenever she sees me around the house she points at me and goes "most likely to commit a war crime for fun and profit" AND I CAN'T EVEN ARGUE I DID THIS TO ME

[r0semultiverse]

I hope Jorge keeps the streams up until the next live stream like he did with the last Saga.

I had trouble getting into Epic: The Musical without the visual aid of the animatics as visuals help me absorb the material. I kinda wish he would upload each song with the lyrics and animatics in them instead of just the animatics by themselves without the full song, but maybe that’s just me. I’m an audio and visual gal otherwise I have trouble absorbing information. Besides the streams there’s no current way to watch the musical seamlessly with actual visuals and yet it is called a musical. A medium I’ve kinda expected to have visuals by this point, that was my one big criticism going into this series was “so it’s just songs? And I have to watch the script as I listen to know what’s happening? That’s hard to keep up with.”

Though if this is a consistent change going forward of having the full musical with visuals until the next iteration premiers, then great & honestly my only criticisms are a lack of trans voice actors (seemingly but I could be wrong) and a lack of fat characters in the animatics because Aphrodite was fat in her depictions throughout history in the very least. Which I’m not even sure if this counts as a criticism so much as an observation and something that gives me a bit of pause? Again, not series ruining, but just more an observation I guess?

That being said, I’m super excited for the Vengeance Saga tonight! Probably gonna stay up just to watch it! Sleep be damned I wanna see it as it comes out! 💜

Edit: Okay actually not risking tummy issues by napping and can’t stay awake any longer. If I have tummy issues I couldn’t even watch it as it premieres anyway because I’d be fighting for my life in the bathroom. ANYWAY DON’T GO ATTACKING ANYONE INVOLVED WITH THE PROJECT, I WAS JUST MAKING AN OBSERVATION.

[belovedblabber]

Ok the way some of y'all talk about Chappell Roan on here is so transparently just like, people having some internalized fucking HATRED for lesbians

[the-hawks-rye]

i know it's been said a gazillion times and said more eloquently than me but god the amount of missed potential in the sequel trilogy. thinking about how anakin became a villain because he felt he had no other choice (and the tragedy being that he always had a choice, and his character arc concluding with him deciding to stand up for what's right by saving luke), meanwhile kylo grew up surrounded by a loving family full of positive role models and chose evil knowingly because he craved power for power's sake. kylo idolizing the tragic figure of darth vader all the while burning the world around him. there was so much you could do with that but instead they had to sacrifice rey's character to make the movies about her fixing the genocidal white boy who never wanted to be saved

[comradecowplant]

i've still been feeling bad about things not working out with the sad neighbor lady with the busted leg, even though SHE was the one who 180ed and pushed me away, but then i start thinking about all the shitty little -isms (mostly race) she said, some of which i confronted in the moment & some that i picked my battles over given the circumstances, and then i feel less bad :)

[101maverick]

Hi! Saw your newest post, so thought I might as well try to help with your writers block :)

How about headcanons of the bat boys dating a broke reader? Alternatively, batboys x bimbo!reader?

Hope this helps you get out of your slump, enjoy the rest of your day and take your time if you ain't up for it :]

A/n: Tysm for the request! Hope you enjoy :)

Dick Grayson

Being resident in Bludhaven, he's financially independent and certainly not rich. He refuses to depend on Bruce.

This means he hasn't got any trust fund money to give you, but he'd definitely help you out any way he can

He'd buy you practical gifts as well as normal ones whenever he's got the chance, and if you're living together the way you divide the living costs would definitely be proportional to your spending power

Dick isn't rich but he's not broke either: the average annual salary for cops in the us is roughly $66.000, but he owns the two-bedroom apartment you live in so the only thing you guys need to pay is taxes and bills, no rent to worry about. You're also not at home for most of the day, seeing as he works as a cop and you have your own job that takes up a good chunk of your day, so the electricity bill isn't very high.

I personally think Reader would not enjoy not having to pay for anything seeing as the money comes out of Dick's own pocket, so she'd at the very least insist on paying for groceries and helping out more in the house with laundry, dishes, cleaning et cetera, to even out the responsibilities as much as possible

He'd support you as much as possible if you're getting a degree, he'd be like your own personal cheerleader, and after you get it he'd organise this huge surprise graduation party for you and then help you get a job in the field of your degree

like if you became a lawyer he'd hook you up with some judges/attorneys he knows aren't corrupt and get you a job in their law firm (paid intern of course, after having worked so hard you want to make it yourself in the world)

I think you two would have tons of fun at the thrift! You wouldn't feel bad about him insisting to spend his money, and you would have the best time just perusing the racks and laughing at all the insane stuff you find plus trying on some genuinely nice clothes

One thing he splurges on though is making sure you have a state-of-the-art home gym, in fact that is why he buys your building's basement and equips it with every work-out machine under the sun plus a trapeze and equipment to practice a ton of other dynamic sports of the sort

————————————

Jason Todd

He's a crime lord so it's safe to say this dude is filthy rich

He obviously doesn't show it though and apart from having a lot of it as an emergency fund for when he needs to defend himself in gang wars I believe he anonymously donates the rest to charities

I go with the canon of Jason being catholic so I believe he gives to the Church, but it could obviously be something else like one of the many Wayne foundations (cause as much as he holds a grudge against his father he knows he's obviously not corrupt and actually helps people)

apart from this he definitely still has a lot of money

He'd refuse to see you struggle financially

He's been through that, he knows how awful it is and does not hear no for an answer when he goes to hand you insane amounts of cash

If you live together then he makes sure to get a nice apartment in the respectable parts of town, blending in with the rest of the neighbourhood to make sure the location is safe and as untraceable as possible

He handles everything and refuses to even let you pay for groceries, insisting that you concentrate on your studies and not worry about having to sustain yourself

To him you guys being a team means that you hold each other up any way you can, and you already support him immensely just by being by his side and loving him, so to him this is just doing his part and supporting you (on top of loving you like crazy of course)

One thing he'd do is make sure your house has enough space to host an insane amount of books though

On this topic I think he'd absolutely spoil you with book hauls, just taking you to every book store you can find and buying piles and piles of books

I'm talking those beautiful gold-leaf covered editions of centuries-old classics, and it doesn't matter if you already have the stories per-se in your library cause it's the edition that matters in this case, ya know?

Like sometimes you want to feel regal and distinguished reading the gold-lined hardcover Commedia, sometimes you want to feel quirky with your penguin edition Jane Eyre, other times you just want to embrace your inner sewer rat and read Macbeth from the shitty mass-produced paperbacks and Jason acknowledges and embraces it

————————————

Tim Drake

Tim, like Jason, is also filthy rich, in virtue of being the owner of Drake Industries and the representative C.E.O. for Bruce at Wayne Enterprises

You'd both live in his Nest, and given the horrendous amount of electricity it consumes it's all already paid for by his company so no need to worry about that

He would only accept "payment" for everything he does for you in the form of you making sure he goes to sleep at decent amounts of time when he's elbow-deep in a case (and tons of love, obviously)

Like Jason, he'd just hands you wads of cash

EXCEPT! He does it for the most mundane stuff. Timothy Jackson Drake is a nepo baby, no way around that. Sure, while he spent his time stalking Batman and Robin through the rougher parts of Gotham he learnt street-safety 101, but he always carried anything he needed for those nightly strolls in his backpack, and he never really learned the real value of money. "$2.70 for a small bottle of water? Sounds reasonable!" is his thought process to this day.

You two would often have these moments of 'culture shock', with Tim slowly discovering how much things should cost every time you two go out to run errands together and you discovering about the insane things the rich buy and do just because Tim decided to recount some childhood stories/told you about some stuff socialites did ad a gala

Since I think Tim's love language is quality time I think he'd take you on these absurd trips whenever possible, that to you are to absurd places but to him it's a very normal trip because "my parents always went there twice a year? It's an extremely normal vacation spot?" Meanwhile it's the Maldives or a private island in Greece or something

This being Tim you also HAVE to have a state-of-the-art phone, with tons of features you will never need to use since you're a civilian but it makes him more at ease, knowing that if the need arises you have the ability to disarm a bomb with the click of a button on your display

————————————

Damian Wayne-Al Ghul

Oh he'd absolutely refuse to have you living anywhere but a castle

It'd take convincing for him to have you living in anything less than a penthouse in the diamond district

He's not against the idea of you working, but he doesn't think that it's necessary for you to slave away at a minimum-wage job while you could be spending all your time in luxury while studying for your degree

After you get your degree he'd help you find a job at one of the most important places for your specialisation, pulling the needed strings just to make sure your resume isn't overlooked (nothing more, he's of the idea that his partner should be strong, plus he believes you to be extremely capable and so thinks that pulling strings to get you the job would be a disservice and an offence to you)

Absolutely spoils you with gifts, and by that I mean: clothes, jewellery, if you like cars he'll buy you a carpark, anything you look at for more than two seconds he'll buy

Damian's way of showing love is through gestures, so you rejecting his gifts would hurt him and he'd take it to mean that you are rejecting him/are unsatisfied with him

Like with Tim, you both would have "Culture shocks" over stuff like the worth of money, lifestyle and stuff like that

Because Damian is basically a royal (or at the very least was raised like one, I don't know what's happened to the LoA in current canon) I think he'd lowkey try to get you an armed guard for when you need to go out as a sign of love lol

"Damian I've been feeling watched while going out as of late" "Don't worry Beloved, that's just the armed guard" "Oh ok-I'm sorry what?!"

Things like anniversaries, birthdays and big events are celebrated in the most lavish settings but in a private way still, like he'll absolutely spoil you and take you to visit this super famous castle for your birthday, matter of fact he'll rent it out for the occasion

For real he does this because when you're alone he can be himself and he loves doing that when you're both experiencing something that makes you happy-- But! Those are head canons for another time hehe >:)

————————————

Bruce Wayne

I believe he's the only one in the bat family who knows the worth of money while having being rich his entire life (ya know, having to use all the disguises he does and going undercover as a normal person a lot of the time)

He definitely offers you a job at Wayne Enterprises, and if you accept he agrees to keeping your relationship under wraps so that no one will start saying that you 'sleep with him for the job'

On that topic if the relationship ever goes public and people start saying that, he will fire them without hesitation

And if it's business partners joking with him about it, he won't stop dealing with them for the sole purpose of covertly crippling their reputation so badly they'll have no choice but to sell their companies to him

You obviously live with him at the Manor, and he insists that everything be paid for by himself only (ya know, richest man in New Jersey and probably the world soooo....)

Bruce is really bad with his emotions, he tends to really repress them whenever he deems them something he's not 'worthy' of feeling or whenever he perceives he has failed at something or failed someone, so the mere fact he confessed his feelings towards you and that he doesn't shun your love is a huge step forward for him. This doesn't mean that he's good at expressing his emotions when he doesn't repress them though, especially not with words.

This is why his main love languages are gift-giving and acts of service, because he shows his love through actions.

Gift-giving as an important love language for him happens because he's very busy both during the day and the night, so sometimes your schedules just don't align or he even has to go off-world with the Justice League and stuff, so he 'makes up' those missed acts of service with lavish gifts

Usually this could be seen as 'throwing money at the problem and hoping it fixes itself' but the thing is that Bruce's gifts are pretty much always spontaneous. He's out and about in his public persona or patrolling as batman, and he sees a storefront with something that reminds him of you or that he thinks you would like. The next logical step is obviously buying it for you as soon as possible and getting it to the manor. Because Bruce is really bad at showing it but the people he loves are always at the forefront of his mind (when he's not being an asshole and repressing his emotions as if the fate of humankind depended on his ability to give his family the cold shoulder and communicating only in grunts and sighs)

———————————— A/n: this was so fun! I love writing head canons because there is no pressure with story flow and how much description and feeling you're putting into it, it's very similar to sharing your thoughts with a friend and that's what endears the format to me so much :) Hope you enjoyed! If you like my work, please consider reblogging and checking out my other works through the master list in my pinned post<3 Love you all🩷

Total word count: 2009

[yourplayersaidwhat]

Cleric: “I think you’ll like this idea.”

Me (DM): “…I’m already concerned but okay.”

Cleric: “So you used to work it wildlife rehabilitation so you know about diseases and stuff that are asymptomatic in cats but not in humans, and the big bad’s army is mostly human but I’m tabaxi…”

Me (DM): “Okay so you want to take advantage of my love of nature to bend the rules on disease in DnD and commit war crimes by using biological warfare.”

Cleric: “I want to wipe out the enemy army with all the illnesses.”

Me (DM): “Welp you are no longer neutral aligned that’s for sure.”

Cleric: *Proceeds to eat nearly every monster the party kills in hopes of catching diseases.*

Me (DM): *Proceeds to show how spreading disease affects allies and not just enemies.*

[azula-hates-men]

a lot of people don’t understand why caitlyn gets so much criticism for her actions in s2. while it is true that she was being manipulated by ambessa, caitlyn was already taking a dark turn before ambessa suggested martial law and appointed caitlyn as a general. in ep 1 she uses “us v them” rhetoric to describe piltovans and zaunites when she tells vi “i thought you were on our side” and later refers to zaunites as animals. in ep 3, her turn to fascism is cemented when she gasses zaun (which is a war crime) and threatens heenot when he was being cooperative. it’s very infantilizing to blame all the bad stuff she does in s2 to ambessa’s influence when we are shown countless examples that prove otherwise and caitlyn herself has always been pretty classist. while it does make sense that caitlyn would grow wary of putting the city under martial law, we should’ve seen the process that lead her to that position instead of having time skip after she becomes the dictator of piltover. it’s even more frustrating when she never faces any consequences for her actions in s2. i know a popular argument is that caitlyn is “redeemed” by giving sevika a seat on the council, my problem with that argument is that the audience can’t deduce bc it is the background of an EPILOGUE instead of being a full scene in an episode. additionally, i don’t think that caitlyn “giving” sevika a council seat is actual redemption since she is the only zaunite on the council and it is still dominated by the wealthiest clans in the city. caitlyn is apart of one the richest families in piltover, she could have easily redeemed herself by quitting the police force and using her wealth to improve zaun; it would’ve been a logical conclusion to her character arc bc in s1, after learning about the struggles zaunites go through, she works with vi to try to improve things. in s2, she should be fully aware of why brutally occupying zaun was wrong and amend her wrongs by helping heal the city like she promised in s1 ep7.

[rye-bread-soda-iceberg]

I saw some light discourse going around hsrtwt about Ratio being bad/good/morally ambiguous

I'm not gonna comment on that too much cause I wanna talk about smth else but clearly he's a good person, probably one of the nicest people we meet compared to the war criminals and murderers. his major crime is that he's blunt, mean and makes his students cry (which is something about him I don't particularly enjoy for personal reasons, but still)

what I like, something that i feel like people tend to forget, is that he's very openly kind and caring

of course there's the basic stuff, like the fact that he pours his whole heart into making the universe a better place, has eradicated a whole illness called 'the king of illnesses' (so, supposedly, very deadly) and the entire not getting into the genius society because he cares about humanity too much. but also, you know

first of all, he has canonically made various statues depicting himself making a heart with his hands while smiling warmly. I've always found it endearing how he mildly prides himself on 'keeping the world at bay' and just being generally mean while also doing this so casually. I mean, it's a clear message: 'I love you' that's what he's saying, and he's saying it in a silly way

something a bit more hidden is these quotes from hoyolab's post. we all know the 'ignorance is an ailment' quote is directly taken from his character stories, making it canon. that subsequently makes the other two just as canon. obviously it's an official post, but I sometimes see people doubting the validity of these silly little snippets into the hsr universe

I don't particularly know if he is saying those last two quotes in general or to someone/a group of people in particular, but it's like... one of the sweetest (and corniest) things ever, and it makes me giggle a little bit. it almost felt out of character to me the first time I've seen these, but if you think about it, it's always been there

this one is from the valentines day ""event"" on twitter from earlier this year. I like his reaction to the gift for he still has some of his usual, you know, 'I cannot bear to hear such foolish questions'. he's being nice in his own way here, his demeanor is just barely reserved but the sentiment behind his words remains a positive one

another quick thing, though I don't have more examples for this one. he's always going on about how you should always consider whether the question you're about to ask already has an answer (so encouraging you to think for yourself) but he's still Always offering to help. in this and, if I remember correctly, in the mail description you get when you used to receive him for free he's making it clear that he's willing to help you discuss things for you to understand them better and will answer any question as long as it's not a 'stupid' one. he is a teacher, after all. the biggest thing about him is that he wants people to do better. other than this, despite his slight reluctance to help others himself, he does say in his character trailer that sometimes a little encouragement is required

and he does encourage people openly when they do good! no 'I suppose this is acceptable' nor 'I guess you did good'. when someone or something impresses him, he genuinely expresses it. I like to point this out because I see so many people say he's self absorbed or puts himself above others, when that is simply not true. which, I mean, can also be seen in his small little interactions with Herta, Ruan Mei and Screwllum (he literally praises them)

then he also says this a couple times. I don't exactly know what he considers courtesy or discourtesy, but it's clear that at least not all his blunt or mean words are meant to offend. this is something I'd love to look further into, but for now simply want to put here with the rest cause it's an interesting thing about him. he is already described as elegant, which implies a certain level of basic courtesy and politeness when interacting with others, though this just slightly crashes with his 'rude' demeanor

supposedly, you could make the argument that while he canonically realizes how non-endearing he can be (knows his own shortcomings, one of the exact traits he praises) perhaps he actively struggles with coming off as nice. and seeing all I've pointed out so far, maybe all those instances of him being nice are how he'd prefer to come off as (some times). that is unless I missed some bits of canon dialogue where it's implied otherwise

this isn't that detailed or well made of a post, nor the first time someone has pointed out this stuff. in fact I reblogged an incredibly good, lengthy post some time ago that talks more in depth about how nice/kind of a person Veritas Ratio really is

I simply cannot stand when he is described as cold, uncaring, selfish, self-centered or someone incapable of being gentle and loving. and it's not nearly as subtle as people seem to think it is

[glitter-stained]

Ngl it really peeves me when the debate about Jason's ethics regarding killing in the batfam mixes up the question of him being a moral character in regards to sticking to his own philosophy (aka compromising with what he thinks is right to salvage relationships, but also exploding trains to evade capture, killing random goons in a gang war, etc) and the question of him being a moral character in regards to whether his philosophy is right. And even with regards to his philosophy there is his philosophy on politics, crime control and harm reduction, and his ethical philosophy itself (utilitarianism, aka focusing on intended positive consequences of actions for the greater good rather than the action being fundamentally moral or immoral in itself). Those are different things. Those require different debates and should not be conflated together. I'm not even saying Jason is right! I think utilitarianism and deontology both suck and fail at providing sufficient guidelines for moral behaviour. ("Everybody still loses" like the nihilist clown says. The symbolism of that one scene is pretty cool on that regard.)

And I think some people at dc would very much like for you to make the connection that because Jason is harming civilians/killing unnamed goons, he is a bad person, and as such you don't need to examine the way his stance on moral philosophy (utilitarianism) opposes Batman's. But that's not right, they don't get to wiggle out of the fact that utilitarianism vs deontology is a complicated debate that has been going on for ages, that there is no clear-cut answer where Batman fundamentally comes out on top, they don't get to use the fact that Jason (in the era currently discussed) is a villain to saddle us with a false dichotomy of "well jason is wrong about stuff so batman has to be right" to avoid addressing the actual question. The traits of the people being tied on the tracks do not change the shape of the trolley problem. The traits of the person deciding to pull the lever do not change the shape of the trolley problem. It's still one lever, three people tied on one track, one on the other, do you pull the lever. That's it. Yes, bending the metaphor to address other questions (such as "who keeps tying people to the tracks" to question systemic violence or "how does my bias, my prejudice and empathy impact my decision to pull the lever depending on who is on the tracks") are interesting but that's not what the debate is about. If I wrote an essay about the trolley problem in high school and focused primarily on the nature of the people being tied on the tracks, I'd get a big fat zero with "off-topic" written in red all over my essay, so I'm not inclined to allow DC comics to get away with it.

[guppybibi]

Tattoo artist!Johnny who had already met you a year ago when you made an impulsive decision of getting a tattoo with your current boyfriend's name.

This was nothing new for Johnny having seen this numerous times before, in both men and women, and he knows they'll come crawling back to get them covered up after a nasty breakup. It's been a running game in the shop, all of the workers betting their money on how long it'll take before the customer comes back to cover up the tattoo.

Nothing new, right? Then why was Johnny so surprised when he saw you walk into the shop, the door chimes ringing when you swing the door open to reveal you. Eyes still red and puffy while you sniffled, not doing a very good job on hiding the fact you had been crying. His coworkers shot him a knowing look, recalling the bet from last year.

"Pretty thing, ain't she?" One of Johnny's coworkers commented, looking at the back of your figure as you stepped out of the shop with a huge grin on your face. Probably excited to show the tattoo of your boyfriend's name to him.

"Yeah, too bad she's taken. Lucky man better be treatin' her right." Johnny remarks, noticing the look he was given. "Not for long, I bet. I'm giving them a year max." Johnny blinks once, then again. "Fine, I'm giving them five years." Of course, his coworker was pretty shocked from that. Out of all the people they've bet on, this was probably the longest bet Johnny had ever put.

"Seriously? Don't ya think that's too long?" His coworker asks skeptically, raising a brow at Johnny. "Aye, the gal is lovely. If her boyfriend drops her then that's like committing a war crime." Well, his coworker couldn't really disagree with him on that.

Johnny shoots his coworker a glare that simply said he had more important matters to attend to. Luckily, Johnny was a charmer so cooing a birdie like you into comfort shouldn't be that hard, right?

I mean, it's a break up, not exactly the end of the world here. Plus, you're a gorgeous gal, plenty of fish out there you could probably catch in less than an hour.

"Morning, lass! Welcome back, I see that you've got a little problem, huh?" He points out, seeing you nod subtly. "Alright, I'm assuming it's a cover up for the tattoo you got done a year ago?"

He clearly wasn't surprised when you nodded, having seen this too many times before. He wrote down some stuff, not caring about the paperwork much..before leading you further into the parlor.

The two of you discussed how you wanted the previous tattoo to get covered up, Johnny nudging in to suggest some stylistic choices a few times, which you gladly didn't mind.

Then began the process once you agreed with the design choice, you wanted to get this over with. To remove a past mistake from your life.

Johnny cleansed your skin, disinfecting it with a cold gel. He could see you squirming and struggling not to make a sound. He also does notice another tattoo covered up above your previous tattoo, curiosity swirling around in his mind now.

He tried hushing it, it wasn't any of his business. He's here to do his job, nothing else.

He was quiet for most of the process, aside from some rather awkward small talk about the weather and a few details of what happened between you and your boyfriend. Not that it helped, it really just made Johnny even more curious.

And finally, after who knows how long, the tattoo was covered up now! You seemed to have gotten rid of the nerves from earlier, looking a lot more calmer now.

"Alright, lass. I'm sure y'know how the caring process goes so I'll leave it up to ye." He said, cleaning up all his materials in a snap. He gives in to his curiosity, finding the courage in him to ask you about the other covered up tattoo.

"Uh..before you go lass, mind if I ask ye somethin'? It's about the other tattoo you got 'ere.." You immediately knew which one he was referring to, face reddening in embarrassment as you recalled the immature decision..

"Aah..sure, go ahead." You replied awkwardly, a sheepish smile gracing your face. "Thanks, lass. Mind if ye tell me what was written on there? I- I just noticed that the way it was covered up. The artist did a great job, I'm jealous."

Yeah okay he was just making excuses to get things flowing..never mind that.

"Oo..oh! I don't mind at all, don't worry. That's all in the past..can't really reverse it, you know? It was my ex-boyfriend's name." You answer, shrugging it off. Seems like you were the type of gal to move on from a relationship quick.

"I see, glad you were willing to share that. I wonder if I know who he is." He chuckles, evidently not expecting you to actually tell him who it was. Sure, Johnny was the type to encourage people to loosen up and get comfortable. But..maybe not to this extent.

"His name was Simon, Simon Riley—" And practically everything you said after that was unheard of.

Looks like Johnny needs to pay Simon a visit at the pub tonight.

[phoenixyfriend]

I had a very long Star Wars dream last night. Baffling level of narrative coherency for a dream.

Started out with Obi-Wan Kenobi, our bespectacled thirty-something, going to a university for a Grad Student thing. He's been working for nonprofits for some time, and wants to get a degree to further his work.

He gets to an advisor's office, (which is a Generic Salt-And-Pepper White Man buuuuuut we could probably swap out for an actual AU, maybe make it Mace?) who walks him through the courses and prereqs and so on. Great. All going good. He goes out to some kind of program meeting with his fellow grad students (some straight out of undergrad, some his age) and a sort of team lead person who is… Anakin Skywalker.

And it is. Tense. Like 'everyone can feel it' tense. Anakin's doing something Doctoral, whatever, and his purpose right now is to Program Manage these grad students in another department (Anakin does some analytics and database stuff for the department), and one of those students is Obi-Wan Kenobi and nobody can figure out what the damage is.

They attempt professionalism. They are… cordial. They avoid each other otherwise.

Several weeks in, there's a "we should talk confrontation" and Anakin blows up because the time to talk was years ago, Obi-Wan! Like five to ten years ago! When shit went down!

FLASHBACK TIME: These two were doing crime. It was a team of seven. I don't remember all of whom were involved but it was definitely them two, Rex and Cody, maybe Quinlan? and a few other people. (Not Ahsoka, she was excluded for safety because teenager).

They were probably doing some kind of Leverage stuff but also possibly some domestic terrorism. A job went bad, Cody died, and they all kinda split to do their own things. Partly this was to dodge law enforcement, but partly it was because they were all fucked up and grieving.

Obi-Wan wanted to take some time to himself to grieve, which Anakin was upset about because they're not just brothers in arms, they're basically brothers, at least in Anakin's eyes, and they had a huge blow-up fight about it. They haven't spoken since.

(Rex is in Anakin's life again. He acts as an Uncle figure to the twins. He is also… not in the best mental space, considering his own dead brother.)

Obi-Wan ends up getting pulled aside to talk to someone, probably Mace or Yoda, and a no-criminal-activity version of the story spills out. And it's very 'well what the fuck am I supposed to do with that' because the person pulling him aside was thinking it was like… they had a one-night stand before the program started and now they don't know how to navigate the power dynamic, not grief and distance and family bullshit.

IDK where it was gonna go from there, I think they were still circling each other like feral cats trying to decide what to do when I woke up.

(There was a sideplot about Padme and the twins doing fun things in the basement, but the fun things included a well that they'd use to act out Alice in Wonderland and other insane stuff. Which they loved but was weird. Why do you have a well that's at least ten feet deep in your basement, Padme. Why are you putting your kids in there. Also I had to run away from a bunch of wasps into a pool.)

Rex and Cody! Are just! Background Grief Bullshit! But it hovers over the entire fic.

I think Quinlan should bully his way back into Obi-Wan's life before the plot starts.

And he's the one that angles Obi-Wan into going to This Specific University. That Anakin's at.

He didn't expect them to be that close contact, just wanted them to run into each other in the hall and make amends. In my mind, the timeline is that the crime group broke up for opsec, then a year or two later Quinlan shows up on Obi-Wan's doorstep with intent to Friendship.

Obi-Wan would have done the same with Anakin but their fight was so big and horrible that he doesn't think he'd be welcome.

NGL even in the dream I was like "wow this seems like a really intense Obikin fic concept," but every time I thought about it, the dream would hammer in on the BROTHERS thing again.

[historicity-was-already-taken]

Received this question just now. Posting my response sans askers' username per their request:

Hi, as you are a holocaust historian, and as you mentioned in a recent post, words mean things, I was sort of wondering what you thought about people saying that what’s happening in Palestine isn’t genocide because the holocaust was genocide/6 million Jews was genocide. I’ve seen a couple people saying stuff along the lines of ‘if what’s happening in Palestine is genocide, we need another word for the holocaust’. I’m not worried about you knowing it’s me asking (like asking on anon) because I think you talk to people pretty reasonably but if you could answer it in private or without my name on the ask I would appreciate it, people seeing it could get… unpleasant, talking about this stuff and I try to stay out of the line of fire to the best of my ability. Totally fine if you don’t want to answer, I don’t want you hounded about Palestine either, it just seemed like you might have an interesting take with your studies

Anyone is capable of genocide, of following orders to commit human rights abuses, of attacking civilians, etc. No identity groups’ past—however violent and traumatic—makes them incapable of committing war crimes. Referring to what’s happening in Gaza as genocide doesn’t invalidate Jewish communal thought regarding the Holocaust. Moreover, the fact that the State of Israel has built Holocaust memory into its nation-building doesn’t mean that that country is inherently incapable of crimes against humanity. There is a cohort of primarily 65+ Jews who hold a trauma-induced belief that Israel could never be capable of these crimes because everything Israel does is in the interest of protecting the Jewish people. It’s a pretty thought, and one I used to hold, but it’s not reality. Many as well would argue that, because the October 7 attack was inherently genocidal, Israel was moral and just doing what it needed to do to bring the hostages home and stamp out Hamas cells. Indeed, these hypothetical individuals would continue, the fact that Hamas has built itself into the civilian architecture of Gaza means that Hamas is using Palestinian civilians as human shields; not that Israel is committing genocide. I personally think that’s wishful thinking. Hamas 800% bases itself near structures like hospitals and kindergartens so Israel will look bad when it attacks those places,* thus willfully allowing the people it governs to exist as human shields. HOWEVER, I don’t believe for one minute that the Israeli military doesn’t have the technology needed to seek out evidence of heat, heartbeats, etc, in hidden subterranean areas. Their counter-attack was always going to happen, but the way it’s been fought? Naw man it’s indefensible.

You know I don't do comparisons or Holocaust inversion, but I do have feelings and emotional responses which don't care about my Serious Intellectual Historian views on comparisons and Holocaust inversion. And, there's a very disturbing moment in one of my primary sources for my book where a woman describes a Nazi attack on a hospital in the Warsaw Ghetto. She describes the screaming and the panic and the civilians begging to be euthanized. Similar readings and sources exist for hospitals in Warsaw during the 1944 Warsaw Uprising when the Germans were destroying the city. I suspect similar descriptions exist of any hospital of a densely populated civilian area under siege. And, even if I was still bullheadedly in my Zionist era, I wouldn't have been able to simultaneously do the work I do, watch Israeli soldiers attacking hospitals, and emerge completely fine with everything. All of that doesn’t erase the simultaneous facts that: 1) the Holocaust happened and was a traumatic moment in Jewish History, the memory of which will endure throughout the millennia; and 2) the October 7 attacks were carried out by Hamas with genocidal intent.

What you’re seeing is people within our community dealing with cognitive dissonance. And honestly the experience of watching people lash out is stage 1 of that process (or as I call it, the Cognitive Dissonance Temper Tantrum). It’s no fun to witness, but can be positive if the person doing the temper tantrum chooses to learn from it. 

ETA: When I discuss things I felt/believed in my "Zionist Era," I'm discussing stuff from when I was like, under 21 years old. For reference I am currently 35.

No one has my permission to use my words to silence other Jewish people. You have no obligation to stick around for people having cognitive dissonance freakouts or saying shitty things about Palestinians, but I see part of my...duty as being available to work with Jewish individuals who want to deal productively with their cognitive dissonance once the freakout period dies down, if they want help.

*Here my Unnamed I/P Reader notes that it’s quite a bit more complicated than stated here in part due to Gaza’s pre-Oct. 7 2023 population density.

[turtle--soup]

Okay.

I have not seen ROTTMNT yet, but I've picked up some stuff from just floating around the fandom. Something I've learned, which is discussed in this post here, is that Rise Leo is generally considered - and considers himself the 'Face Man' of the team. (GIFs below are swiped from the linked post by @risestarkiss - I couldn't find them in tumblr's gif search function...)

Anyway. This is interesting to me because I am, for my sins, also a fan of The A-Team.

(I promise this is going somewhere! If you want to find out where I'm going with this, I'll put the rest of the post under a cut because it got a little long...)

For those of you unfamiliar with The A-Team, it's a (very silly) 80s TV series about a group of Vietnam War veterans who are on the run from the government after being convicted of a crime they didn't commit. The four of them spend their lives in hiding, making a living by using their combat skills to help people in need.

Here they are:

Left: Colonel John 'Hannibal' Smith, leader of the team, brains of the outfit and most likely to have become an evil mastermind in an alternate timeline.

Right: Sergeant B.A. Baracus. Nicknamed 'Bad Attitude' due to his lack of patience for bullshit, B.A. is the resident tough guy but also an absolute teddy bear of a man, and is always ready to help people, especially children and the elderly.

Left: Captain H.M. 'Howling Mad' Murdock is the team's pilot and can fly just about anything. As his nickname suggests, he's considered a bit eccentric and is a silly kind of guy. (He's also a permanent resident of a psychiatric hospital but let's not get into that right now.)

Right: Lieutenant Templeton Peck. His role in the team is to provide them with whatever they need, whether that be vehicles, weapons, tools or access to places. He usually achieves this using his charm and wit, gaining him the nickname 'Face Man.'

Okay, so bearing these descriptions in mind, look at Leo's dialogue in this GIF:

I'm assuming that Donnie is the brainy guy, Raph is the smashy guy, and Mikey is the 'eats peanut butter with his fingers guy'. And Leo is the Face Man. That's his role.

But these descriptions fit the members of The A-Team too. Hannibal is the brainy guy, B.A. is the smashy guy, Murdock is the guy who absolutely eats peanut butter with his fingers (while maintaining unbroken eye contact throughout). And then there's Face.

How is this in any way relevant?

Well.

It just so happens that someone else is a fan of The A-Team...

Of course the Mirage turtles watched The A-Team! It was a popular show in the mid-80s, and you have to admit - they do have a lot in common, being four guys fighting injustice from the shadows and all... The A-Team even have a friend on the outside who helps them out - Amy Allen.

She's a reporter. Like someone else we know...

But which of the Mirage turtles in the image above is suggesting they should watch The A-Team?

According to this bio card from 1990 that coincides with the 1987 series...

... it might be Leo!

Was this intentional on the part of the Rise writers? I don't know!

Is it relevant? Probably not!

Does this tentative link between these two silly 80s series make me ridiculously happy? Yes!

Was this entire post just leading up to this? Yeah... sorry...

I like to think that the link is intentional. I've heard that Rise makes reference to other iterations of TMNT, as they all do. I would just personally love it if someone on the team wanted to draw parallels between these two series on purpose!

Anyway.

I just noticed that and really needed to get it off my chest! Thank you to everyone who stuck with this longer-than-intended post right to the end! 💙💜❤🧡