#and you also like question yourself

[a-shakespearean-in-paris]

One of the things that absolutely sucks when you are a “gifted” kid that you won’t know about until college or when you’re in the workforce is that you’re probably not used to receiving criticism so when you do get it later in life you do not know how to handle it.

[wardensantoineandevka]

is that piece of media actually bad, or is it just not following the blueprint you projected onto it? is that work actually not good, or are you just demanding something from it that is absolutely antithetical to its themes, genre, tone, and narrative goal? is that story actually poorly written, or do you just dislike that it is not the specific things you wanted from it that it never set out to be, never was, and never is going to become? is it actually bad, or is it actually well-executed and you just dislike the story it chose to be because it isn't catering to your specific desires and expectations?

[knockknockitsnickels]

"Sacrifice the Yourself" (title pending), the hip new slay the princess swap AU, in which you and the girlies must decide if you're gonna let a giant bird stab you (and maybe.... find love?!)

[dukeofthomas]

I find the fact that the confrontation at the end of UTRH is often summarized as Jason asking Bruce to kill the Joker for him fascinating.

Because that's not what happened.

Jason holds a gun up to Joker's head, gives Bruce another, and tells him that if Bruce doesn't do something (shoot Jason), he will kill Joker.

Jason doesn't give the gun to Bruce so that he would shoot Joker. He isn't expecting Bruce to pull the trigger on the clown. He's asking Bruce to do nothing. To be inactive. Because that will still be a choice, and despite having done nothing, everybody clearly agrees that Bruce would still, at least in part, be responsible for Joker's death.

...And to me, this moment is a kind of- microcosm, of the rest of Jason's point. Because after being captured and carted off to Arkham, the villain will escape again, and will kill more people. The only way to truly prevent that from happening would be to kill them; Bruce refuses to do so, and I respect his right to choose such a thing for himself, but it is still a choice, and if we agree that Bruce's inaction during the confrontation would leave him at least partly responsible for the Joker's death, then we must also agree that his inaction in permanently preventing the Rogues from killing more people means he is also, partly, responsible for all of those deaths.

[mohntilyet]

i have to be so real. sometimes you have to outright not give a shit what the author thinks. i’m not saying to disregard how a character is portrayed and give into fanon characterisations but sometimes i will see fans be like “(head writer) omggg do you think this character is a good person?” “how would this character react if xyz happened?” as though that’s not a question you can and have to answer for yourself.! any character can contain multitudes and if you keep limiting your perception of them solely on word of god its not fun for the writer or even yourself anymore. THINK FOR YOURSELF. INVENT NEW WAYS TO FUCK YOUR FAVORITE CHARACTERS OVER

[benevolenterrancy]

("Always. Continuously. With increasing apprehension, and decreasing hope. I will love you if I never see you again, and I will love you if I see you every Tuesday. I will love you as a corpse loves the beak of the vulture. I will love you no matter what happens to you, and no matter how I discover what happens to you, and no matter what happens to me as I discover this." -- paraphrased from The Beatrice Letters, Lemony Snicket)

[starry-bi-sky]

do yall ever think about bruce/batman!clone danny standing in front of his bathroom mirror after finding out he was a clone and silently tracing his face. The slope of his jaw and point of his chin. The high angle of his cheekbones and the shape of his eyes, the curve of his brow bones and the shape of his nose. The volume of his hair and the way it curls and gets fluffy when it gets too long.

His hair is black the same way a crow's wing is black. His dad's hair is black the same way a black bear's fur is black. His dad's eyes are blue like the ocean is blue. Danny's eyes are blue the same way a glacier is blue.

His dad has a square jaw and straight flat hair, and he tans and gets a face full of freckles when he's out in the sun for too long. Danny burns like a lobster and his face remains untouched. Danny has a sharp jaw and tall cheekbones, and Sam says when he's not smiling there's almost something regal about him. You would never call Jack Fenton "regal" when he's not smiling.

Sam says when he's not smiling he looks scary the same way a stone statue is. Jack Fenton when he's not smiling looks scary the same way that german shepherd staring at you across the street is.

Do you ever think he grew up wondering if he was adopted. Because of course, he has black hair and blue eyes like his dad. But having the same color doesn't make you someone's child.

Or, worse, things he's heard from the other kids and the other parents and even some of his teachers growing up; that he was the product of an affair. And that his dad was just too stupid to notice. And Danny would defend his parents until the day he died, because Jack Fenton wasn't an idiot and Maddie Fenton wasn't a cheater.

But doubt comes in with fickle tongue. his parents swear up and down that he is their child when he asks about either. That Danny just had his grandparents' features, but he was their son and they loved him.

But Danny doesn't look like either of his parents. His mom's eyes are blue like an aquamarine and Jazz's too. And they burn like lobsters in the sun too, but Jazz gets freckles on her face and so does Maddie. And as Danny grows up he doesn't bulk up or get stocky like his dad did, and when he hits puberty he doesn't shoot up like a tree like Jack Fenton did.

He stays small, and they say he's a late bloomer (and he is), or that he just has his mom's height. But he's fast and has good stamina, and some days it feels like he's built entirely different from his family. That the things they went through growing up just didn't apply to him. Jack and Maddie Fenton both had acne and breakouts when they hit puberty, and Jazz inherits it and he's seen the amount of skincare products she keeps on her side of the bathroom.

And then he hits puberty and breaks out maybe once or twice, but his skin stays clear for the most part and the problems and changes his dad went through just don't happen to him.

And the truth is worse than all of the lies.

How horrifying.

[lazylittledragon]

i think thats supposed to be about sex things but Not One Of Those, this is the fourth, fifth? couple youve given a lil baby and i think you maybe love lil babys

i too, give the Characters lil babys, because i love them

as well as the myriad of Situations it puts the blorbos in

fourth or fifth publicly/in recent memory, i've been doing it for Years in art i haven't posted akfdhdjhd

i do just really love putting them in Situations you're right

[anna-scribbles]

particularly inspired moment from ch 2 of mine and @sha-nwa‘s new enemies au fic call it even 🫶

[quibbs126]

How likely would you say it is for the TF One Decepticons to be radicalized into saying “yeah you know what? I think we’re just gonna call off this whole war idea” by meeting their alternate selves from other universes

Because like, in comparison to the High Guard. Megatron is an absolute violent psychopath who still can’t get over his ex and is doing space crack from robo-Satan in one universe, Starscream has for the most part gone full pathetic, even if still powerful, Shockwave is on the milk carton in like half of these universes (though granted it depends on when in the story), Soundwave is probably the only one doing relatively fine. But either way, everyone’s become the worst versions of themselves. Not to mention, Cybertron is either dying or dead (well except TFA), to the point where they’ve had to leave their home planet, and they’ve been fighting a war for millions of years and there’s still no victor, Optimus and Megatron are both still alive; all that’s been accomplished is the destruction of their home and people

Like I don’t know how off the deep end everyone from TF One is, but I feel like all this, and them also getting a very clear general picture of what their future will hold, would at least make them second guess the whole declaring war thing. At least the High Guard command trio I think, if not Megatron realizing he did not think through his actions

[wardensantoineandevka]

related to my longer post just now, but it is also kinda funny when people try to frame Lucanis as being reluctant to be First Talon because he is struggling with a conflict between a gentler spirit and the work of being a killer when one of the reasons Lucanis preferred not to be First Talon is because it would cut into the time he spends stabbing people to death. like, he likes the killing people part of the job so much that he's trying to turn down a promotion that might affect how much directly killing people he'd be doing.

[asgardian--angels]

yknow on that note, there's been so many theories about 'in all timelines, in all possibilities' with regards to how many Jayces have visited mage Viktor, whether his words imply all but our Jayce have failed or whether it's Jayce in all timelines that succeed.

And I just want to put this tidbit out there - if many Jayces have met mage Viktor atop the hexgates and received his instructions, and tried & failed to kill Viktor in the commune, you'd need a lot of hammers.

Now, true, we don't know if our Jayce is the only one who fell into the ravine and dismantled his own hammer, hence why he had to take husk Jayce's. As many have speculated, that could have been why he ultimately succeeded - he was hardened and enlightened by the experience of having to walk a literal mile in Viktor's footsteps, retracing his hardships through life. Maybe it was a test, mage Viktor closely monitoring him to make sure he didn't die but understanding this was necessary to prepare Jayce for what lay ahead. But there's only one corrupted mercury hammer, and given that we see husk Jayce's fingers literally break off and get stuck to the hammer when he releases it, it's clear this hammer has never left his grip since he knelt down there ages ago.

I've recently seen this screencap going around:

One of many of Jayce's potential 'divergence point' moments - but is it really? I love the idea, especially given the following moment of his face splitting into many screaming thrashing versions of himself. It's certainly set up visually to invoke divergence points. But idk it just doesn't add up to me!! We can't see the hammer design on these Jayces, and also, why would they all look exactly like our Jayce who was stuck in the ravine for weeks/months? If many Jayces spent time in the cavern there'd be evidence, and they'd have an equal chance of succeeding. Would mage Viktor let so many Jayces die, after the grief and pain of losing just one - his own, after going through the trouble of saving young Jayce when he could easily avoid all of this by just, not rescuing him?

It comes back to 'in all timelines, in all possibilities, only you can show me this.' Many have pointed out the wording is very specific here, vs something like 'out of all timelines and possibilities' which would imply our Jayce is the only version of Jayce that can succeed. This is such a big sticking point for me because the fandom really cannot seem to agree on or even figure out what the hell's going on. The wording we got implies that in all timelines it's always Jayce who brings him back from the brink, and Viktor sets it up that way because he always saves young Jayce and gives him a rune to start his journey. And yet, we get radically different interpretations of this scene that are basically opposites - either Jayce always fails or he always succeeds. You'd think that if Jayce can't do it by attempt number five hundred Viktor would start rethinking his strategy. The romanticism of it stems from Jayce succeeding in other timelines - so why is the more common interpretation that he usually fails? And I'm not pinning this on the fandom - I think the show could have given us something just a tad more explicit (about literally all of this) to let viewers know what was really going on here.

It also feeds into the separate but connected ongoing speculation about Mage Viktor's existence in general. I've seen it postulated that our Jayce succeeding broke a cycle and somehow erased the ruined timeline from existence (and I've heard this one often enough that a fair amount of people must believe it). I just don't see why that would happen. From what I've heard, it comes from the fan idea that all anomalies are connected or are the same anomaly, thus destroying one destroys them all, which, we have no evidence that's the case in any way. Even if so, destroying the anomaly wouldn't destroy the timeline. Mage Viktor now exists in the arcane, he is outside of time and space. Even, even, if his timeline ceased to exist, he's basically immortal. I think this all stemmed from the shot where the corrupted hammer crumbles into dust atop the hexgates, having served its purpose. And yes, I do think it's symbolic of breaking the cycle, but I don't think we can take that and say that timeline doesn't exist anymore (esp when Swain's raven takes the hexgem from it whoops).

these are just some disorganized thoughts. I really like analyzing these things but most of the fandom's on twitter and not only do I have zero footprint on there to help my posts get any traction, but it's not exactly the best platform for long-form meta. anyway.

[bitchthefuck1]

I know babying grown men is like this website's favorite pastime but I'm begging y'all to put just an ounce more thought into how you talk about disabled characters

[noknowshame]

I recently finished reading heart of darkness and I found it such an interesting and complicated read. it's like the narrator is fighting desperately to meaningfully express the horrors of colonialism, but he has no vocabulary to describe what he witnessed that isn't in the language of the oppressor. the whole novella is haunted by this underlying – and ultimately correct – fear that the superiority of white "civilization" is an illusion hiding something much more insidious beneath it, but there's a fog of deeply, deeply entrenched racism that is preventing the narrator from clearly identifying where that illusion begins and ends. there's something ironic about it that I find really effective, in spite of (or perhaps even because of) it seeming to be a byproduct of the author's own ignorance

[wannabemylover]

rewatching the first episode of Hannibal and holy shit I forgot how good this is but it's actually insane that Brian fuller set up the ep like this, he introduces will and Hannibal by first briefly showing them at their core, at the darkest, most vile part of them---we get a glimpse behind the curtain---and then its gone, the curtain is snapped shut and we see their masks, their human suits.

Will empathizes with killers because he likes it, and he wants to kill but he refuses to give into the urge because he knows how much he'll like it and he won't be able to stop. So he lives vicariously through other killers, satisfying his own dark urge by feeding it little morsels of secondhand blood lust. Every crime scene he works gives the urge something that satisfies it, not enough for it to grow, but enough for it be sate. Enough that he can ignore it for long enough that he can walk around and be Professor Will Graham who is Weird, Brash, and Non-sociable.

And Hannibal is a cannibal at night and a psychiatrist by morning.

[hijinxinprogress]

Civilian Gothamites realizing they can get vengeance through Sword!Robin

Gothamites figuring out if they happen to mention a rogue treating animals poorly within hearing range of sword!Robin that rogue will be in custody with at least four fractures and a concussion and Damian being completely aware that like 63% of these people are lying but it’s the only way he can get experience with the nonlethal takedowns he’s experimenting with bc everyone keeps complaining about how he treats his opponents and allies 

Like he’s guiding a civilian to safety and they mention that “this would be the worst thing to happen to me today if riddler didn’t stab my fucking cat” and this civilian does not own a cat but they did own a car that was just paid off but riddler fucking crushed it with a stupid ass hot air balloon that’s shaped like a fucking question mark and Damian is aware of this bc he was the one that verified the insurance claim (but he’s been looking for a reason to punch Nygma in the throat since his last Arkham escape when he called Damian a moron)

And he also knows that if he plays along with it and says ‘as if I’d let that gaudy and tactless imbecile get away with committing such atrocities’ when prompted that he’ll get away with barely a slap on the wrist like he gets three half hearted but long lectures he’s not going to listen to and an online sensitivity training seminar he goads Tim into completing (Damian and Tim 100% try to trick each other into doing work they don’t want to do and full heartedly believe the other has no idea what they’re doing)

Bruce’s tendency for finding small crashouts at risk of becoming future rogues in Gotham and deciding they need love & supervision but what actually happens bc he’s so fucking awkward is they get almost the same amount of supervision just with like an hour of intense helicopter parenting a week but honestly besides that they just have more money and resources to do fuck shit

Tim 🤝🏾 Damian: using the manipulation tactics they learned from their mothers then later improved on with help from an assassin cult and bat/cape interrogation questioning techniques on the homies