#and the fact that i'm an english major

[notmoreflippingelves]

Actually going insane over the implications of Jason asking Dick to be the Robin to his Batman in Battle for the Cowl.

Like I initially took it at the purely surface-level of Jason wanting a partner in the general sense. Which made sense, it's a huge responsibility and a lonely one so an assistant/sidekick/partner seems a no-brainer if you can get one.

But then I really thought about it, because Jason is not asking Dick to be his partner in the general sense; he's not even asking Dick to be his Nightwing. He's asking Dick to be his Robin.

And they both know exactly what Jason means: "Be the light to my darkness. Be the smile to my scowl. Be the hope to my fear. "

He's saying "Be 'Robin'; be the embodiment of Love and Justice and Goodness. Be the exceptional person that you have always been. Be the slightly-less exceptional person that I was when I wore your colors. Be the person that I was in the process of becoming and might have been (or might still be), if only Joker hadn't clipped my wings."

He's saying "I am prepared to become vengeance, become the Night. And I will go further than Bruce ever dared to, because it is what is needed. I will be the necessary evil. But you don't have to be. If Batman is Gotham's curse, Robin has always been its blessing. I will be the brutal punishment to our world, and I am asking you to be its incandescent gift."

He's saying, "Be for me, what we were for Him. Be my anchor, my comfort, my hope. Remind me what it's all for, why it's all worth it. And remind yourself as well."

He's saying "Be 'Robin' again--for both of our sakes."

[rahabs]

The Tudors ran so Wulf Hall could shuffle awkwardly around reiterating the same tired old Tudor stereotypes while claiming to be something new.

[pennyserenade]

doing homework at 9 o'clock at night because i fucked around and now i'm finding out

[imaginejolls]

so far getting a library card has been a major fucking letdown so uh. is the Libby app US-only or do people outside of the US use it?

[honeylemonbutte]

New Fernweh Saga (@lacunafiction) MC: Joshua Wei ("Bugs" is a nickname he gained in college)

(I have used my original MC, January Cohen, for every playthru - making different choices, different personalities, from max to least resistance and every romance option. All of the sudden, January sees James as family (her cousin/her brother) and cannot romance him.)

As soon as Joshua learned what a crush was, and realized the difference between liking someone and like-liking someone, he knew he had a crush on Jane Corvin. He never said anything, not believing that Jane would like him back - a weird kid with big ears who was obsessed with insects. (The best way to impress your crush is to show her the best caterpillars and stick bugs... right...?) He did throw away the matching necklace in an effort to put those feelings behind him and to forget about Fernweh.

Joshua did well in school and his parents encouraged him to pursue the musical instrument of his choice. He doesn't know why but he attracted the attention of Reese Verner. The "rivalry" mainly annoyed kid-Joshua, he was a shy kid and wished Reese would not be so intense and competitive. Returning Visitor Joshua is in denial that there could be an attraction there. (Joshua also outgrew most of his shyness and is more willing to quip back at Reese.)

Joshua met Beckett Warrick in college, they were randomly assigned the same dormitory and met at an introductory event for incoming freshmen. They found out they had similar tastes in TV and bonded over a shared love of watching the Great British Bake-Off and Anthony Bourdain shows.

While growing up, Joshua always got along with Sofia Dorran, but he often didn't know what to say in social situations. Thankfully, Sofia didn't seem to mind that Joshua's quiet personality. They spent many afternoons together, Sofia reading and Joshua pouring over bug encyclopedias. Joshua always hoped for a deeper and less shallow friendship.

There is something about the diner's waiter/waitress that makes Joshua uneasy and makes him feel like a nervous child again. He remains polite but not too friendly, making him just another customer.

[jorvikzelda]

think I may be finished writing this FUCKING text...

[homosociallyyours]

Have a crazed g-ylor theory that i want to post BUT i am also ALLERGIC to engaging in discourse and do not want to be perceived by my fellow fans, lest they think I'm actually taking any of this seriously

[graham--folger]

i love looking back at old writing i've completely forgotten about and squinting at it like. damn. whoever wrote this shit was pretty good

[thebirdandhersong]

"minimum twelve sources" I hate this

[notmoreflippingelves]

I need to ramble more about Esteban Flores, because everything about this character and his arc seem as though it was tailor-made for me and specifically designed to make me absolutely feral.

This going below the cut, both because I do not want to spoil the entire show for my friend who is think of watching Elena of Avalor and because I go full-on apologist here and I feel like that will annoy some people.

Imagine making the absolute worst mistake than anyone could possibly make, because you are 18 and scared and stupid and tired of being ignored. And it results in you losing your family and your freedom and what little self-respect you had left because you know all of this is very much your own fault.

 And so you proceed to spend the next 41(!) years eking out a miserable existence in an oppressive state. Upon fear for your life, you are forced to be the reluctant right-hand of the evil witch-queen who conquered your country, killed your aunt and uncle and trapped your cousin in magical prison. In spite of this, you nevertheless do everything within your limited power trying to hold the kingdom together and make sure the people don't starve, because the queen certainly doesn't care about anything except greedily bleeding your country dry.

And no exaggeration, this is just what canon explicitly gives us outright in the pilot. Like that's not even getting into head canons/interpretations/common sense of what exactly this sort of life entailed for you. Because this is a children's show so there's only so much they will let us imply about living under that kind of system. Especially as a young, attractive, terrified person who is the last living member of the previous royal family who is likely being kept alive partly as a combination trophy/punching bag for the evil queen (even if the show never actually states this outright).

And then by some miracle, what's left of your family comes back after all this time. The evil queen is overthrown, partly because you yourself finally stood up to her at a critical moment. You and your country are finally free again, and what's more, you and your family are finally together again after over 4 decades. But you still feel like an outsider--partly because you always were an outsider in your family even in the better times and partly because  over the past 41(!) years, time stood still for all of them except you.

And as a result, no one ever cares to ask what those 41 years were like for you or even just if you’re doing okay. Not only because your family can’t even begin to comprehend what it must have been like, but also because they don’t care to even *try* to understand. Because the narrative has decided that everyone else’s respective traumas is worth way more than your own.  (Though tbf the narrative really doesn’t dwell much on anyone’s trauma in general but yours gets especially neglected , except to briefly play it for laughs or to remind you that your trauma is *your own fault and only your own*).

For a little while, life is pretty okay. It’s weird not having to watch your step every instant to make sure you’re not putting a toe out of line. And so you never really fully break out of your “survival mode” conditioning, making sure that you are still considered important and valuable enough to keep around.

But all the while, you know that your past—and especially your terrible little secret—is eventually going to come back to haunt you. And it does. First via blackmail and then via the return  of the evil witch-queen herself. Fortunately, she is defeated for good before she can take avenge your “betrayal of her” but you still have to deal with seeing the ghost from the past who terrorized you for 41(!) years.

And then, your secret finally comes out in the open and you are disowned by your family—the family you *just* got back a few years ago—for an admittedly super bad decision that you made over four decades ago and have regretted ever since.  Rather than face the rest of your life in isolation (as though you didn’t already have enough of that during the previous regime), you escape before you can be sent into exile. This puts you directly in the path of *another* terrifying, evil magical milf who you are forced to ally yourself with. Because you have 40+ years of conditioning that when a woman like that says “jump,” you say “how high?” if you are to have any hope of survival.  Especially given that the only people who could’ve protected you from her are the family and friends who have just definitively washed their hands of you.

Despite this, you are still trying to seek your cousin’s forgiveness and to protect her in the little ways that you can. But you are constantly getting rebuffed over and over again, and if anything, your attempts at reconciliation only seem to make your cousin angrier, and she now hates you just as much as—if not MORE than—the woman who actually murdered her parents.

Your cousin is so angry at you specifically that she actively ignores the greater threat of Witchy Milf 2.0, because she happens to see your face and is enraged. This ends up backfiring spectacularly for you both, though it does indirectly lead to the defeat of said Witchy Milf 2.0.

But guess what?  There’s no time to breathe or celebrate, because her defeat occurred during the successful summoning of a third power-mad, feminine-presenting magical humanoid and her allies. At least, this one treats you with some initial respect and actually gives you outright what you-think-you’ve-thought-you-always wanted. But she also turns your family and friends to stone in front of you as a warning of what’s to come if you dare to defy her.

But this time, you are finally done with this, have finally lost enough that you have paradoxically found your courage. You sacrifice yourself to save your cousin, and she is finally able to accept that you’ve sacrificed and changed enough that she can forgive you. And her forgiveness is so powerful and pure that it not only restores you to life but also undoes all the other evil magic. Together, you defeat this final enemy, paradoxically by banishing her to the same Underworld where your mistakes accidentally sent your aunt and uncle and her parents long ago.  Peace has been restored. You have returned for good and are finally secure in your family’s love.

And after all that, there are *still* people (both presumably in universe and in the fandom outside of it) who say it's too little, too late and that it would've been better for everyone if you'd simply stayed dead.

Like I'm just... are we really victim-blaming the character who has 45 years of unprocessed trauma and guilt (both survivor's guilt and guilt in general) because of a decision he made when his brain was still developing and he was being manipulated by an older, much more powerful person?

[moonstormsx]

i got a bit more written for chapter 3 of my ongoing fic, so yay to that! about 1.2k in, and i'm aiming for about 5-9k on this chapter so not too bad, all things considered. if you all are interested, this fic is essentially just me trying to be as medically accurate as possible about the aftermath of that crackstone fight. in other words, wednesday should've been waaaay more injured than what she's shown to be in the show. there will also be a bit of obvious pining, some panic attacks, some oblivious pining, etc... if that sounds like your thing, give it a look!

[junekissed]

for the made up fic title thing: what about…. “such haunted halls we walk” 👀

or if you want something silly: “i put the ‘ass’ in ‘astrophysics’” ddssfhhgdhjfh

HELPMNKJDFSN 😭 i'll put this under a cut bc both of them got kinda long hehe

also fair warning the first one is soo sad pure angst there is not a hint of happiness skdgjfs skip to the second divider if you don't want to read it

send me a title and i'll tell you what i would write for it!

ooh i really like the first one!! i'm thinking a historical au. some kind of period piece a la jane austen featuring vernon as mr. darcy and it's super angsty, kinda like a cautionary tale about life and love and loss. it's told in a series of flashbacks as he walks down a hallway in a house; even though it's daytime outside, the curtains are drawn and it's just dark and dreary, reflecting his mood as he looks at each portrait hung on the wall and thinks about the memories that should be good and happy, but they're tainted as he looks back on them and remembers all the bad things that came afterwards instead. i'm thinking at the very end there's a reveal that's like, you ended up parting ways, not for some big, dramatic reason, but you just fell out of love with him and you didn't want him to feel like his love for you wasn't reciprocated and that he deserved someone who would give back to him all the love he has to give. it was such a clean break that he shouldn't have any reason to be so melancholy (it's not like you cheated on him or ran away with his brother), but it's such an unsatisfying end that he almost wishes you'd had a huge argument and blown up at him; he wishes he would have some reason to be mad at you, to hate you, but you did nothing wrong but give him a chance to experience what it feels like to be loved, because that's something you knew you wouldn't be able give him. so like a theme throughout this one is that in each painting and each memory he looks back on, he's remembering it and wondering when exactly you stopped loving him and why didn't he realize it sooner. ooh actually adding on, maybe he used to be a semi-successful painter and people would hire him to paint their portraits, but after you left he hasn't been able to pick up a brush since, and everything he tries to create comes out dark and tangled and choppy, nothing like the beautiful, bright, joyful paintings he used to make. so not only does he lose someone who brought love and joy into his life, he lost the ability to create art that captures that love and joy. so for the rest of his days all he can do is walk that hallway, staring at the portraits that remind him of better days and wishing he would've known some way to make you love him back.

(tagging @duhnova for this one i want u to suffer cheol thots) okay ass-trophysics is about economics major seungcheol who has to fulfill his lab credits and of course he waited until the last possible second and every other class was waitlisted so the only class available is an analytical physics class. by some miracle the prerequisites for that class are ones he's already taken for his degree and his schedule lines up perfectly for him to take this class. reader is a physics major or something so this class is required for them. you show up bright and early on the first day of the semester and you're getting out your notebook and laptop and stuff and in walks this insanely built frat-looking dude with the fattest juiciest ass you've ever seen in your entire goddamn life, and he plops down in the seat next to you and introduces himself like he isn't the most gorgeous man you've ever seen walk into a math classroom. and the semester goes on and you kinda become friends but not really friends more like classroom friends yk? and you know cheol is smart as hell but for some reason he just doesn't understand this one concept and it sucks because the entire course is pretty much built around understanding this concept. and so you try to help him pass the class and you start becoming closer, and maybe you have a crush on him but you really definitely don't btw. later maybe there's an angsty run-in with an ex girlfriend who makes all these crazy threats and tells you to stay away from him because she knows he'll come back to her, he always does, and you're like "girl i'm literally just helping him learn physics wtf do you want from me please" and she's like "i know what you're REALLY doing... back off" and so you're like. jesus okay fine whatever. so you start making excuses for not being able to help him on the weekends and evenings and days off anymore and he gets pouty and sulky like :( my bffp (best friend from physics) what did i do? and one day he's had enough and he finally manages to corner you at your favorite place to eat on campus and he's like. tell me why you're avoiding me. and you're like "well tell your dumbass girlfriend to stop sending me death threats and i'll help you with your hw again" and he's like "??? what girlfriend i haven't dated anyone since i met you at the beginning of the semester" and so you describe her and cheol lets out the biggest longest most aggravated sigh and he explains that she is his ex but she's literally insane and he has no intention of getting back with her ever and then more drama etc etc but then FINALLY they get things figured out, there's a big moment where he passes his final and you go to hug him but he goes in to kiss you and it's 🧍‍♀️ Awkward and he gets all shy and pouty again and your face is so damn hot and you're like "why did you just try to kiss me" and he has this whole speech about how he really appreciated your help over the semester but he was hoping you would go out with him because he thinks you're really smart and pretty and he just goes on and on about what he likes about you and you're just standing there shocked thinking. this man with the ass of a kardashian is professing his love to me in the middle of a starbucks and a barista is definitely giving me the side eye but oh my god yeah i kinda really do wanna kiss him and then 🫶 kissing happy ending etc etc

[silverior968]

Self indulgent voice hc time: I think Anton Shudder sounds like Timo Torikka as Snufkin in the 90s YLE TV Finnish dub of Adventures in Moomin Valley.

Here's a compilation with english subtitles:

And he also has an amazing singing voice:

That song is a duet with Miitta Sorvali for a summer theatre LOTR play from the late 80s (oh how I wish I could see the play it sounds so Fun). The title translates to "Return to me"

[h-f-k]

Nins I've been thinking about this since you mentioned struggling with it and I just want you to know - your written English is really good. It's better than a lot of people I know who only speak English. Your grammar is almost always correct, and you even understand slang/sayings in a way that is very natural, which is really hard to do in a second language. I genuinely did not know English wasn't your first language for a long time. Also you speak and write in more than one language!! Which puts you miles ahead of like 90% of people whose first language is English. Don't be so hard on yourself about it, I guess is what I'm saying. You're better at it than you think you are!

steph!! this is so nice of u 🥹🥹🥹 i'm confident in my english but writing it is another story lmfao, i've been wanting to expand my vocabulary bc i realized i talk like a 12 year old boy lmao so i started reading in english but having worked with said language for two years kinda fried my brain and it takes me forever to finish a book (since i started working remotely most of my dreams are in english which is bizarre lmfao)

[masked-disciple]

I both love and hate worldbuilding so much.

Like, I'm thinking about how I want to do languages in the Aethel, and I'm like, "there's language groups and usually language just drifts, it's rare people up and intentionally make a new language and it catches on, although trade and politics definitely can help a region's power swap from one common language to another" but if I want to make diverse languages, even if they don't actually appear front-and-centre, I have to do all this goddamn research.

Like, cuneiform looks like That because they used hexagonal 'pens' of sorts to press into clay, and kanji looks like That because they use brushes, and Irish ogham looks like That because it was typically carved into rocks, and Latin cursive looks like That because we used feather pens. But did we diverge alphabets from each other in the proto-indo-european days because of different tools, or was writing invented repeatedly in different places and that's why it's different?

Furthermore, what shapes language itself? Icelandic is a very gutteral language that hasn't really changed in a thousand years because it doesn't need to, but Japanese is a very melodic language with a very firm consonant-vowel-consonant-vowel structure. Why's that? They're both island cultures who kept to themselves for a good chunk of history. What made them different? Why is it that only like five languages use a tongue-click as a sound, and only some roll Rs? What happened to make these naturally happen, and why aren't they more common?

Why is it Japanese is an incredibly indirect language but also incredibly concise, whereas Hebrew and English are both typically pretty direct? Why do some languages not even have relational left/right, and only ever use cardinal directions? Aren't there a few completely atemporal languages? Why is it that English only has a few tonal indicators, but if you fuck up any tones at all in Cantonese, it changes everything you just said? Whose idea was that, and why did it stick around?

These are all questions that absolutely build and help make worldbuilding that much more natural and realistic. But answering them is going to require a goddamn linguistic anthropology degree. I can't just wikipedia this shit in one night and then keep going.

It's worse once you get different species in the mix. A draconic language is not likely to sound anything like a human language, and may not be at all possible for any human ever to speak. I've been writing Denellic almost entirely as "what if Icelandic people got the ability to roll every single consonant that exists, and also knew Latin, and aggressively wanted to insult Latin at every point, and was a language intentionally made to do so, but also the species that primarily speaks it has seven distinct arcanobiological genders with cultural meaning and expects you to stack them on every noun because being neutral on a topic is culturally unacceptable".

I'm literally dying. Am I having so so so much fun? Absolutely. But I'm also literally dying, and if anyone wants to help a worldbuilder out and knows the answers to some of these questions, please please please tell me it'll make my worldbuilding cooler.

[mishkakagehishka]

With the language speaking poll, it varies from country (and state/county in the US)

In my area you're required 2 years of a language course

Most kids take it but do the bare minimum or just don't remember it. Usually you grow up knowing that language/being taught it young. Sometimes we learn jt in school and remember enough to keep taking to learn and remember. We usually offer use it or lose it languages, which most kids don't use it and then they lose it and then no one speaks other languages

Huh! That makes sense, actually, i feel like 2 years is not nearly enough to retain enough knowledge, and not even enough to learn a lot. I think when i started studying italian in 4th grade, we didn't even get to subjunctives by the time i was 8th grade, and subjunctives are a surprisingly common form. At least to the way I speak. And even among those who took the elective third language, i know a lot of folks who don't remember a thing about it, i'm assuming because even four years of a once-per-week class isn't enough for retention.

Well, it's sad, at least to me who is linguistically inclined. Quot linguas calles tot homines vales is something i take personally lololol but right! I guess it's the sort of inertion that happens to speakers of a lingua franca, there's no "need" to learn a foreign language, so even those who are talented for languages might never find out :/

Well, I hope thanks to globalisation, at least those who like foreign languages can find ways to learn even outside of formal schooling :>