#and then she is also just an asshole???

[comradetoad]

Kai Winn is one of the scariest, most sinister villains in all of Star Trek, and did a lot of horrible things, but her talking down to Kira about mourning for her boyfriend who died a horrible traumatic death just a few months ago is what makes me hate her the most

[madscientistenthusiast]

Personally I think that Azula should have been redeemed simply so that she can become Zuko's horrible little advisor who whispers evil little plans to him so that he can do the exact opposite

[kettlefire]

Prepare for the unexpected. (DPxDC)

Everyone knew about the reign of Pariah Dark. Even those who did not dabble in those realms have heard the tale of the tyrant. A power-hungry man who ruled over the dead with an iron fist.

Following the rise of Pariah Dark, his realm had been effectively cut off from communication. Many mystics and magic users knew better than to open the door of nightmares that could arise if Pariah Dark's reach went further than his own realm.

Except, the universe had plans to bring the realm of the dead back into the cards.

A new opponent, one that had all of Earth's heroes scrambling for options. A being with powers of a god over weather, destruction was on the horizon. A world ending threat.

It's the only reason the Justice League was doing this. In a deep bunker, far from close civilization as a precaution, the heroes looked on with grim expressions.

The world was already being threatened. It would be destroyed regardless of what the league did. So it only made sense to make the last ditch effort. To summon someone strong enough to defeat the threat.

No one wanted to do it. No one wanted to be the one to pull the realm of the dead back to the living. The consequences were untold if this succeeded. If Pariah Dark was freed and defeated the threat, whose to say he won't want control?

That was a problem for later. For the aftermath. For now, the league could only watch on with bated breath as Constantine completely the summon ritual.

They watched on as the shadows in the room seemed to darken and grow. As the sigil sputtered to life with a glow that was growing increasingly brighter. A sudden gust of wind rushed through the room, the temperature began to drop with eaching ticking second.

And then it was all gone.

The room stood perfectly still. Just as it had been moments before. Nothing changed. No giant king standing before them, no sign that the ritual worked.

The room stood deadly still for another beat before the murmurs started. The team trying to make sense of the situation, figure out what went wrong.

Constantine swore up and down that this was the correct ritual, taking offense that they would even think the problem was on his end. It only made it better when it finally happened.

A loud sound ripped through the room, pulling everyone's attention back to the summoning circle. Just in time to see a tear appear in the space above the circle.

A thin tear that ran the length of eight feet. The fabric of the dimension seems to curl at the edges, pulling back to reveal a deep glowing swirl of greens. A dark gloved hand reached through, fingers curling around the edge of the tear, stretching it even further.

A portal. The ritual had worked, but there had been a delay. A delay that had every hero nerves on edge. Each team member tensed, weapons at the ready as they watched the being stretch the portal to the right size.

Then, a foot stepped out with a heavy thud. A dark boot that looked otherworldly despite its similarity to mortal clothing. A deep black that seemed never-ending. A second foot quickly followed before a full body emerged from the portal.

Not many people in the room have ever seen Pariah Dark, let alone know what to expect. Based on what Constantine and Zatara had said, this wasn't Pariah Dark.

A man had stepped out of the portal, standing at almost seven feet tall, and built like a brick house. One glance at the glowing white hair, deadly red eyes, and shard teeth was enough to know this being was not to be messed with.

But there was no giant show of armor or royal garbs. There is no large crown at the top of his head or jewelry from the infinite realms laced around his neck.

Instead, the man stood before them in combat boots, worn-in ripped jeans, a graphic t-shirt, and a spiked leather jacket. Despite his almost normal clothing choice, the man's jacket seemed to be a never-ending depth of the dark night sky. If one was to look closely enough, the cosmos could almost be made out in the sea of darkness.

None of that would have prepared them for when the man spoke. His tone sounded more bored than anything as he took a step forward.

"Oh, so now you need the help of the dead." The man had spoken, running a hand through his hair. When Batman took a step forward to speak, the man raised a hand. Immediately commanding silence in the single gesture. "I'm on babysitting duty and have yet to have a cup of coffee. I'll be right back."

Just like that, both the man and portal vanished into thin air. Leaving behind a group of stunned heroes. Not only was the man not Pariah Dark, but he was also supposedly babysitting.

"Did that just-"

The Flash had been the first voice to speak up, his eyes trained on where the man had once stood. Except he had barely made it through the first few words before the man was suddenly back.

The man that now had a child hanging off his shoulders and another teen being held up by his scruff. Unlike the man, these kids looked human.

Too human for Bruce's liking. The dark black hair and bright blue eyes had every heroes eyes flickering to Batman for just the briefest moment.

"This isn't fair! I'm not even the king. Why do I have to be here!" The teenager had been complaining the moment the man had reappeared. Arms crossed tight over his chest and seemingly used to being held dangling. "Besides, who brings kids to a show down! Wait til I tell mom about this."

"Aw, come on, Danny. This is gonna be fun!!" The younger girl seemed in much better spirits than the teen, Danny. She had climbed up the large man, sitting on his shoulders and resting her arms on the mess of glowing hair. "It's like take your kids to work day! Ooo, Dan! Can we fight too!?"

Unlike the two kids, the man looked purely exhausted and annoyed. The man, Dan, dropped Danny like a sack of potatoes as he took a long drink from the travel cup in his hand.

It didn't take a genius to recognize the look of an exhausted parent in Dan's expression. A look many of the league members were well acquainted to. A look that even had Batman grimacing with sympathy.

"Can it, little shits. You two were grounded, remember." Dan had growled at the kids before shifting his focus back on the team of heroes before them. His glowing eyes set in a deadly glare. "Pariah Dark isn't coming, and he never will. He's been dethroned and banished. We're the best you've got."

A summoning that started with a group of on edge and scared heroes looking for the ghost king, ended in a way no one expected.

No one was even sure if it made any sense. They weren't sure if they should feel hopeful or in despair.

Because truly, what was a ghostly man with two seemingly human children against a godlike foe with the control over the weather?

The unspoken question of power and ability seemed to vanish following Dan downing the metal travel cup of coffee, and crushing it in his fist.

He tossed it to the side, straighting up his posture as he looked over the heroes. Dan might not be a hero, but he's been playing family for too long.

An almost feral, bloodhungry grin spread across the man's face, sharp fangs on full display. The look made the man suddenly look even less human. He looked closer to a demon from the pits of hell rather than the exhausted parent he looked just a few seconds ago.

"Point me in the direction of this bastard. It's been too long since I let loose and had some fun."

[bigfatbreak]

Birds of a Feather previous / next

[seamistgale]

Bernard was being haunted.

His sus-o-meter isn't up to 100%, but if he's being real, it never is. The downside of being into conspiracy theories was that you were only partially sure which one was more skewed than the other. One day he could be convinced Batman is more cryptid than man, and then he'd stumble on some fascinating witness accounts that make him rethink the Vampire hypothesis.

This time, however, he's fairly sure this sort of freaky shit only happens to people in those cookie-cutter horror movies.

… Except this particular ghost might be of midwestern decent, or something, because they sucked at properly haunting.

Example number one:

It was rare that Bernard had dishes piled up. He lived alone, and occasionally Tim would come to his apartment; with a couple of games, some takeout boxes, and a movie later, there would be way more things to clean up than a whole weekend on his own.

The last time Tim came over, Bernard didn't bother cleaning up for the night, and then the trash just…. Disappeared.

Not like 'a burglar broke in for some weird fetish reason, and my trash is now gone' gone, but more 'the trash is in bags, the dishes are clean, and I swear the air smells fresher' gone.

That was strike one.

He brushed it off because Tim had been there. It was unlikely he just went on a stress cleaning spree at Bernard's place but… Well, Bernard's caught him doing way weirder shit. It's fine.

(it's not fine. You just didn't move things around on someone else's turf.

"…Clean up?" Tim echoed back from the phone, sounding as confused as Bernard felt the following morning. "I-- no, of course not!" and then hurriedly continued to reassure Bernard he'd never do that. Because Tim was nice like that, even after Bernard low-key accused him of giving him the Gotham equivalent of pissing in someone else's yard.

So, that was strike one in the back of his hindbrain that something was up.)

Strike two and three came together.

See, in Gotham's economy, sometimes your employer doesn't have your paycheck the week it should be. Who cares if you need to pay rent through or your landlord will double your rent? Neither your boss nor the landlord in question, obviously. So what he usually did was have a nest egg the size of his rent just in case.

But this month Bernard had splurged a little too much, so he was short. It was nothing big, he was just five bucks short.

The issue was, that his landlord was paranoid and was already breathing down his neck for not paying the next month's rent the day before the new month started. Like clockwork, his landlord put a warning under his door, ready to evict him the same day the month started if Bernard didn't have the rent in cash the next morning.

He knew the eviction notice was at the door, but chose to ignore it because it didn't matter, he'd get those five one way or another by the end of the day.

By the time he came back, two things were out of place. The first was the eviction notice on his table. Again, no one moved someone else's shit around.

Strike three happened while counting his nest egg, and would you look at that! He had more money than he'd counted. Nothing ridiculous, just… He had those five bucks now.

All these little things were easy to miss, or misremember, but Bernard was not most people. But the catch here was… All these things were good things. Sort of.

So not only was this happening when he wasn't around, but they were happening to his… Advantage? He'd even call it good fortune if one was willing to ignore the lack of privacy… And maybe he would have, if this wasn't Gotham. Privacy was a mix between a luxury and a currency. Sometimes a kindness.

In some ways maybe it would have been an effective scare tactic, to mess someone's shit up, but this was not the way he'd personally go about it if he wanted someone to leave the building.

So here Bernard was, staring again at the dishes he had placed as bait, because he wasn't an idiot and tempting a ghost into anything remotely violent was stupid. The dishes were cleaned.

He squinted at the ceiling, then at the rest of his apartment, trying to gauge whether trying to make first contact was going to get him more haunted, killed, or turn him into a Saturday morning cartoon.

Finally, he picked up a cup. Not a glass cup, because why would he give the ghost any ammunition, but a couple of fairly clear plastic cups, a marker, two sticky notes, and filled both cups with tap water decently enough so a mild tremble would be noticeable.

The first sticky note said "Yes", and the second, predictably, said "No."

"So." Bernard sat in front of the cups, feeling halfway like a dumbass for doing this in the first place, and halfway like he's about to do the worst decision of his life because it might just work. "You from out of town, or are you just really shitty at this?"

[paperglader]

they really put alicent in bridgerton blue on the reunion and genuinely expected me to think that she didn’t in fact march all the way to dragonstone to get wifed up? bfr

[zoe-oneesama]

Also, curiosity, what’s your take on Amelie’s personality for Scarlet Lady? Just curiosity. Cause siblings in canon are usually opposites. So, this mean SL!Amelie, instead of main character syndrome, has background character syndrome? Or low self-Steem?

I'd put SL Amelie as So Normal. Like she's born into this bizarre English family that still does arranged marriages in this day and age (not totally knocking the practice, but it's definitely implied it's being done against Emilie's and Amelie's wishes), has a super dramatic sister who runs off with her equally dramatic husband (who Amelie barely likes) to become a fashion mogul's actress wife, rubbing elbows with the Mayor of Paris and a bunch of weird rich people who throw bizarre Diamond Dances to show off their kids as if they're a spectacle and holding Eyes Wide Shut parties in their house.

And Amelie's just like "anyway" on the sideline.

[kalofi]

happy pride month here’s my contribution of trans nanami who didn’t transition until after he left jjtech and so when he comes back a brick shithouse it throws everyone for a loop. the group chat and i have dubbed this pre-t version of him nananiña. naniña for short

[casart]

What's got you fuming, buddy? What's got you raging, dude?( ͡° ꒳ ͡°)

[qiu-yan]

MDZS and asshole victims: thoughts on the second siege of the burial mounds scene

this post is not about morality judgments. this post is about reader sympathies only.

one rather clever rhetorical trick MDZS employs is putting all the more background "surviving victims of wei wuxian's actions" into one big angry mob at the second siege of the burial mounds, instead of letting them crop up anywhere else in the story. it's easy for a first-time reader to write off the guy who lost a leg at nightless city, or the guy whose parents died at nightless city, because both of those guys are being dicks. they're part of an angry mob baying for wei wuxian's blood--unfairly baying for wei wuxian's blood, because this time he didn't even do the thing they're saying he did. by putting these two victims into a mob of not just fellow victims but also unaffected individuals (ie. sect leader yao, who just showed up for kicks), the story can effectively equate these victims' grievances (ie. "you killed my parents") with unreasonable mob rule--even if these two things might not actually be equivalent.

the effect of this rhetorical trick, then, is that the reader can at once perceive the themes about mob mentality MXTX wishes to convey, and also effectively write off the victims' complaints. "yes, i did that to you, but i literally died already, what more do you want me to do? shall i walk on my knees repenting?" becomes easier for the reader to accept. and more importantly--wei wuxian's likability as a moral and just protagonist is not impacted.

ngl tho. it would be a bit more difficult for the reader to write off these victims' complaints if, instead of meeting said victims in an angry mob, the reader instead met these victims almost anywhere else. imagine if, instead of meeting mr. "you killed my parents" at the second siege of the burial mounds, we instead met him getting smashed at the local bar and crying about how his parents are dead. imagine if, instead of meeting mr. "you chopped off my leg" as a member of an angry mob, we instead met him begging for alms on the side of the road because his disability rendered him unable to work in a wuxia-esque setting. or imagine--if either of these background characters, overcome with survivor's guilt and trauma from nightless city, hung himself in his bedroom, and the next day his body was discovered by his 15-year-old daughter.

all of these scenarios are entirely plausible. you could easily include any of them into the story without changing the main plot at all. but suddenly shit just got a lot more depressing.

however, no such scene would ever be included in MDZS. the reason is that, as a work of fiction, MDZS's single most ardent goal is for us the readers to conclude not just that "we like wei wuxian as a character," but also that "wei wuxian is ultimately a morally righteous person." when the narrative focus shifts onto the people who were actually helped by wei wuxian's actions (mianmian and her family, lan sizhui, the few months of dignity the wen remnants were afforded) this becomes much easier for us to conclude; wei wuxian does indeed look like a hero. but the more narrative focus is given to the negative impacts of wei wuxian's actions--the more the "victims of wei wuxian" (whether actual victims or not) are given a face, instead of abstracted away by broad summaries--the more the reader might side-eye wei wuxian instead. every new victim given a name, given narrative attention that isn't just focused on making them look like an asshole, arouses the reader's sympathies in the opposite direction--and thus increases the risk that the reader might ultimately disagree with the novel's conclusion of "wei wuxian is a righteous person."

tbh, this does not seem like a risk MXTX particularly wants to take. instead, she's mastered the art of writing Asshole Victims.

which is an entirely valid writing decision, because imo basically every work of genre fiction out there does this to some extent.

[black-thoroughbred]

I have a massive soft spot for misunderstood mares, "she's a bitch" "she's such a chestnut mare" "she's so mareish" well I think she's trying to tell you something and maybe you should listen.

[laniidae-passerine]

know that it’s not the point of the movie but I really hope they establish ken is indeed barbie’s boyfriend. she doesn’t need to kiss him or hold his hand or say I love you but we need that true devoted obsessed boyfriend + badass girlfriend to be canon because you know Ryan Gosling’s Ken would let Margot Robbie’s Barbie commit war crimes in the name of being a supportive partner

[rainedropsart]

something something, side effects of superpowers

bonus doodle

[yuridovewing]

i really hate how the fandom’s excuse for jayfeather’s shitty behavior (and outright medical malpractice in certain cases. looking at the time he refused to help squilf in labour bc he couldnt be bothered and later blamed her for how bad it was) is “well the clan was ableist to him growing up, so fuck them!” ok how does that excuse him screaming at and berating the cats that didnt do any of that. or the babies.

[galehowl]

in the darkest night, guiding stars

Some rambling about Tailmon's and Caedemon's complicated relationship in Aurora below~

Tailmon and Caedemon are two of some of the oldest Digimon aligned with both their own and mankind in Aurora, and their relationship goes far back to the very genesis of the Digital World.

As Huanglongmon's creations and members of the Archangels, both of them served them and the four Great Beasts as guardians of their world, alongside the other eight of their kind. For thousands of years, they were the guiding light for all the other Digimon to look up to, until Lucemon's betrayal, and the other six Archangels siding with him. Having discovered what would later become known as the Dark Area - an eldritch, mysterious and volatile dimension existing apart from the Digital and human worlds, yet intertwined with them - he chose to keep it secret, and, in time, his own desires, made worse by the influence of the Area, made him turn against his world and creators. The six others that succumbed to it all the same chose to follow their leader, and nearly laid waste to the Digital World by breaching the dimensional walls and unleashing the Area upon it, but were ultimately stopped by the remaining three Archangels, the world's inhabitants, and Huanglongmon's ultimate sacrifice to seal the Dark Area away, along with the traitors.

Ophanimon perished in those battles, but was reborn in the far future, though without memories of her past.

It was the actions of mankind that called her to action once more, and what awakened Caedemon from his eternal slumber deep within the Dark Area. It was when humans, upon discovering its existence, breached it in an attempt to take control of its powers and Caedemon himself - and sealed the fate of both worlds.

Caedemon, like his brethren, was never meant to be awakened, and Tailmon was mortified upon eventually figuring out the identity of the decaying beast. In her eyes, rightfully, not only was he a traitor, but also even alone a serious danger to both worlds, having become part of the Dark Area itself, but he was also absolutely not fit to be a Tamer's Digimon, especially to a child.

Caedemon initially also did little to soothe her concerns, even with her disdain and suspicions for him obvious, as he exhibited a selfish, troubled and nihilistic personality, caring little for their own kind, and consistently questioning whether or not humanity is even worth saving, with all they've learned about it - a big contrast to her more optimistic outlook on things, a love for all living beings, and a desire to seek out good in everyone, even to the detriment of herself and others.

Though they do eventually mend their once broken friendship, it takes a long time for things to get better, and a lot of change ( namely for Caedemon ) for them to find a way to complement each other in working together - two beings plucked from past long gone - to guide both worlds into a better future.

[caramelldansenu]

bonus