#anyway thanks for coming to my TED talk

[markscherz]

You are everything I aspire to be

If parenting has taught me anything, it is the importance of getting down on your hands and knees and teaching not just facts, but love and enthusiasm for the natural world.

This is my son Q and me. I have dozens of photos like this by now, even though he is just two years old.

Every chance I get, I will kneel down with him and show him the little creatures all around us. Especially when they are frogs. He loves frogs for some reason. No idea why.

It is important that we all see this together. It is beautiful. It is magnificent. We are here. It is improbable to the highest degree. It is fleeting, but it is everything we get. And we can get so, so much of it. If we just get our faces into it and really absorb it.

So that's what l'm trying to do here, I guess. Get all of you to join me in the reeds. And I am so happy to have so many of you along for the journey.

[blairaptor]

Crosshair and Echo acting like me with my brother

[that-really-dungeons-my-dragons]

I can not explain how obsessed I am with Chip's first subclass feature being Fancy Footwork and how it ties into his character. I've talked about it before, but just...

It fits him so well. He's a character who survives by compartmentalizing a lot. If something is hard to deal with, or inconvenient, or scary to him, he just puts it in a box and leaves it there. He evades. He avoids.

The reality of his appearance now as an undead? Don't want to think about that too seriously. Stick a magic bandana on that shit and cover it up!

The likelihood of Arlin being either dead or Worse? He literally can't process that thought. Stick it in a box and bury it with false optimism and hope that even he's not sure he really believes.

Accidental marriage he doesn't want to be a part of? He will be faking his death and fleeing and then denying it being real at every opportunity.

Best friend gives him the best kiss of his life? He will be shutting down any subsequent attempt to talk about it and pretending it never happened, thank you!

Like this is just a handful of examples, there are many more. He has to be really pushed, either by other characters or the circumstances, to confront things like this. So the concept of his go-to move being about getting out of Situations like that is just so... it fits him. Like yeah, that's Chip. I want to tear my own hair out at how well he's been crafted to blend his mechanics with his roleplay flavor.

[wander-wren]

bothers me in trc fandom when people refer to “ronan’s suicide attempt” because it was pretty importantly NOT a suicide attempt. gansey, noah, adam, they all assumed it was, which is why gansey freaks out when ronan goes missing overnight at the beginning of trb, but it is not. it was a dream creature he brought back that had clawed him up.

i’m sure you could argue that that’s just an indirect suicide attempt, ronan’s subconscious, etc (opal tells him the night horrors are him), but i don’t see it that way. ronan is angry and grieving and violent in the wake of niall’s death. the night horrors, to my knowledge, don’t target ronan so much as they target any soft, living thing they can destroy. we don’t see this scene happen. we don’t see the day or the nightmare that comes before. we just have ronan’s word, and ronan says it wasn’t a suicide attempt, so it wasn’t.

and we can talk in circles then about whether ronan is suicidal actually—personally i think he has a sort of reckless disregard for his own life (see: drag racing, dream drugs) and has internalized a lot of the ideas about him being a “bad kid,” but i don’t think he’s actively suicidal. and that’s important to me. it’s important that ronan doesn’t actually want to die. i think he’s struggling to see the point of what everyone wants him to do (school), and struggling to envision a future for himself.

if ANYTHING was going to make ronan suicidal, truly, it should have been the dreamer trilogy. he’s isolated from all of his loved ones, literally starts dying if he’s not careful with the ley lines, and also the world is ending. we can see his same thought patterns repeating (“you’re always the car crash, ronan”) and we see him struggling with reality and identity (every conversation with bryde, who remember is part of ronan’s psyche, and also the looping dream with the mirror). and he’s not suicidal in the dreamer trilogy.

we talk a lot in this fandom about “gansey kind of wanted to live.” i think we should talk about how, despite everything, so did ronan.

[haventacluewhatimdoing]

Okay, okay, so hear me out: asexual Wilson.

He's not repulsed by sex, clearly, as seen in canon. But is he ever ACTUALLY sexually attracted to someone? From what we can tell (and what House keeps pushing), Wilson accidentally falls into relationships with people he has some form of emotional connection with. And then the sex follows, because that's what you do in a relationship, right?

Bonnie said that he was an amazing partner in bed because he always pleased the other person. Now, this could just be a continuation of Wilson's 'I would give a kidney to a stranger' level of people-pleasing, but I think it's more than that. I think that, while he doesn't MIND having sex, he mainly does it to please his partner, rather than from any attraction to them himself.

And I think that's why he has so many affairs as well. Because he sees someone, has some emotional connection with them, and goes 'well this must be that sexual attraction that everyone is talking about'. And he thinks that maybe THIS time, he will get something out of it too, because it's got to happen eventually. Doesn't it?

And then I think this all comes to a head in that episode with the asexual couple (which I am still seething about btw). He reads an article on asexuality. Then another. Then he searches for every single blog post, article, tweet, ANYTHING, on asexuality, because 'hey, isn't that just what everyone feels like though?'. He discovers the difference between aethestic, sensual and sexual attraction, and that asexual people may still have sex, and...

Oh. Oh shit. He's asexual.

[angstydisaster02]

An analysis about why Bakudeku is one of the most inspirational relationships. (Manga spoilers)

First part : my thoughts

Tbh, I really have this impression the manga is coming to an end very soon, which breaks my heart because I don’t know what I’ll do without my daily leaks. However, I trust Horikoshi about the rest of the story and I do think he’ll make an open ending about which “ship” is canon, even if we all know that the biggest and most developed relationship in the manga is bkdk.

It would be interesting to see the “after” of this war, the hospital beds, the tears because they lost people, the relief because it’s over and the final conversation beg the ending. Knowing Horikoshi until now, never made things randomly because everyone is thinking in advance, including the conversation between Izuku Midoriya and Katsuki Bakugo.

You can’t tell me the author of this manga who always did things with a smart brain will put aside such an important detail about the dynamic between his characters.

A part of me hopes we’ll have the bkdk talk at the hospital or somewhere else because there’s no way these two idiots keep living their lives as if nothing happened. I have high expectations due to the fanfics, but I’m pretty sure I’ll never be the same once the chapter with the bkdk talk comes.

Second part : the analysis feat manga panels

looking forward, it’s incredible how Izuku Midoriya and Katsuki’s relationship started in the worst way (I’m not including the childhood memories) and…Ended up being something like that.

I’m emotional when I think about everything they’ve been through, the many realizations about losing each other, the development of their relationship after an emotional scene such as Deku Vs Kacchan 2, the way they need to push each other’s up to be the best version of themselves in any situation.

It’s not a surprise if these two are mean to be canon (in a platonic or romantic to way, depends about your opinion !) and each little moment highlights this statement.

Think about it : they all learned one of few important things with the other’s presence by their side, on purpose or not. Their dynamic is something unique you can’t find in others shonen or mangas, because they have this specific bond, the one getting stronger though the years because their mistakes became a reason to improve and be a better person for this childhood friend they knew since the early days.

Izuku Midoriya needs Katsuki Bakugo like Katsuki Bakugo needs Izuku Midoriya.

You can’t take away this part of their soul, and even when people like AFO tried, they ended up paying the price by revealing how much they care about each other.

Don’t startd with the Heroees rising thing because I can write an entire novel about them, but this is another proof of how they’re made for each other. Their relationship improve though the years and it’s only the beginning, I can’t help but imagine how future bkdk will have an amazing relationship once they figured out everything and untold truths.

They’re each other’s pillars, holding the other up to do the best and watch from afar their other’s improvement.

That’s why the hospital conversation might be the peak of their relationship: the moment when they’ll both break their shield, welcoming the tears and listening how life is a fragile line on a thread.

None of them refuse to break this meaningful thread, because this is something they’ve built for years, and it’s their biggest strength (and biggest weakness like Shigaraki pulled out)

In conclusion: they’re driving me crazy and I have no regrets following their journey because it’s probably one of the best relationships I’ve seen (and I watched a lot of anime/manga, read a lot of books and they’re still superior !)

Thanks for reading my analysis because it’s one of my guilty pleasures when I’m passionate about something, especially my comfort ship ! Take care of yourself <3

[kingofanemptyworld]

Rin, identity issues, and the complications of being an isolated, alienated teenager

It feels sort of weird to say but I generally don’t head canon characters as having particular sexualities. Whatever people go for in fics is usually fine with me - gay, lesbian, bi, pan, something more general like queer. As long as it makes sense for the story they’ve built and the character they’ve shaped to fit it, I’m good. Unless you’re ignoring a canon LGBTQ+ sexuality, in which case, yeah, I’ll take issue with that.

But anyway. Rin.

I’ve got my personal ship for him (BonRin my beloved), but regardless of the pairing I see him as bisexual. He’s so open with his infatuation with Shiemi, and okay, sure, fandom likes to ignore the love interest in shounen for the most part because we’ve got gay ships to peddle. But I don’t see the point in that unless it really reads like it’s a front, or a result of a character suppressing themselves for one reason or another. And with Rin, I think it’s pretty clear his affection for Shiemi is sincere. You technically have the in-universe evidence of the demon that brought out his true desires to back that up, but even without it, Rin likes her. It’s complicated because of Yukio and Shiemi’s own inexperience with romance, and yet I never once doubt he really likes her.

That being said… he’s very appreciative of the guys in his life, too. (Peddling my gay ship here) Bon in particular, considering he’s often admiring how cool he thinks Bon is, that his haircut suits him whether it’s the blonde rooster look or the undercut. If you don’t want to see it as romantic interest, that’s your prerogative, but to me Rin comes across as seeing cool and cute as different traits he finds attractive (in Bon and Shiemi respectively).

I also think his bisexuality would fit neatly into his narrative struggles to “pass” throughout the early parts of the series. Rin has grown up as the neighborhood problem child, ostracized for being violent, and eventually he decides he’s fine with just his brother and his father — and the rest of the monastery, presumably — for company. (Except that’s absolutely not true and clearly he’s starved for friendship and support.) People looked at him and saw a monster, even before his demonic heritage made an appearance; why would he bother giving them even more ammunition when it comes to reasons to hate him? So no matter when he figured out his attraction to guys, he’s not going to lean into it, because he also likes girls, right? (Ignoring for a moment that bisexuality is a lot more nuanced than that.)

Rin likes girls, Rin is human — that’s what’s going to get people to like him, or at the very least tolerate him. That he likes guys, that he’s half demon, he can shove that shit down and pretend it doesn’t exist. Lock up any stray thoughts and keep the sword sheathed around anyone who doesn’t already know.

(Excuse me for being amused by Rin wielding his humanity and supposed heterosexuality as a sword and shield.)

The problem, of course, is that he can’t keep up the facade forever. The narrative won’t let him. Rin has to embrace his demonic side, because it’s the only way to move forward and to continue to help his loved ones. And once he’s moved past the issue of his friends being upset over the deception, when they understand he’s still Rin despite what he’d hidden from them, Rin is finally allowed to be himself. He uses his flames, he lets his tail move freely in the open around the Cram School kids. Rin still doesn’t like this side of himself — it’s inextricably tied to every moment of pain and isolation he’s dealt with his entire life, including the death of Father Fujimoto (and, y’know, his mom). But he is moving forward, he’s trying to adapt.

And isn’t that some great fucking subtext for his bisexuality, too?

[sleepyistinky]

ima need yall to start cosplaying dc characters on Roblox besides just Batman and the very rare and elusive Robin I can't be the only one serving cunt on here like

[bitchthefuck1]

Six of Crows fans start treating Kaz's cane like a mobility aid and not a quirky accessory challenge

[coladaminx]

It's such a shame grizzly teacher isn't alive because after years of not seeing Ron THIS IS WHAT HE HEARS! I would have a lot of questions lol and even after asking toto what they are to each other even he doesn't seem to believe it

[multi-fandom-bi]

I have to go on a rant here for a second.

I think we all know that "I would have come for you" speech that Kaz gives to Inej in Crooked Kingdom, right?

Except, that isn't the quote.

The actual quote says "I would come for you" and the only reason everyone remebers the "would have come for you" is because Freddy read it wrong when he read it on his IG story.

The problem with this is that the way Freddy said the quote changes the original meaning.

The original meaning to the quote is that Kaz said that he "would come for her" meaning that he would always come for her. Meaning he would also come for her in the future, in a way (a very Kaz-way) trying to reasure Inej that even in the future he would be there by her side.

Now, the way Freddy read it is "I would have come for you" saying that Kaz would have come for her then, but not promising to do so in the future, not giving her any reasurence that he would be by her side.

In the original meaning Kaz is, in a way, laying down a piece of armour (albeit a small one) by saying that he would be there for her in the future, if she would let him. This meaning feels more personal, it gives the feeling that he said the whole speech with a hand on his hard, an oath of sorts.

In the quote that Freddy said, Kaz's whole speech is feeling like he is saying "I would do this only this time because you are needed in my scheme". It just doesn't make it sound as reasuring. From a grammar stand point this second speech feels more robotic more like "a thing I need to do" speech.

In case some of you need evidence that Freddy read the whole thing wrong, here you go:

[ambriel-angstwitch]

Anya and Gleb weren’t endgame, and I think that was clear.

This is not me hating on Gleb. I love Gleb his songs are my most listened to.

But!

He wasn’t originally in the movie so it’s pretty clear that they would end the play with the character that she was with in the movie

Like I love the dynamic and its very interesting to explore but that doesn’t make them endgame.

A ship doesn’t need to be together in canon for you to enjoy it. It just confuses me that I’ll see shippers saying they should have ended up together. No they shouldn’t have. I don’t think we would have gotten a very plausible happy ending with the two of them. Russia would have noticed both of them disappearing.

[fatherphaniel]

obviously that question wouldn't have been there if they didn't want it to, but i still think it's a stupid question bc why do you need anyone to explain their relationship status to you? even irl i find it weird to ask other ppl if they're dating. maybe it's the aromanticism in me but it doesn't matter to me what other ppl are to each other unless i'm close friends with them. it's not "homophobic" of dnp to not explicitly say "yeah we're together" bc like?? they literally have a mortgage together?? whether they were dating/in a qpr/best friends doesn't change anything. they're clearly in this for life and they love each other. and we know what they're about, but why would ppl outside the phandom care? i think that's their point with not answering the question, and they kept it in to make that clear like: shut up, if you're not part of this community, it doesn't fucking concern you

[hungrydogs-if]

had an acquaintance ask me why i don't just use ai writing to finish my book (it's not a book, it's a game, hanna) quicker and i just.

*inhale*

[don1t1red]

I know that this is a very unpopular opinion but hear me out!

I think not enough people consider Corvo as an unreliable narrator. We see the story from his point of view and all we know about Jessamine Kaldwin comes from his perspective. So, to think on that, do we really know how good Jessamine was as the Empress? 

I know that she is usually portrayed as a good person if not a saint but what if it wasn't that way? A lot of people in the streets are indifferent towards her image, if not hostile; the situation with Delilah; how both Geoff Curnow and Corvo are treated because of their nationality; two hatters recalling how greatly Corvo dealt with workers uprising under her command  – a lot of things are a tell-tale signs that something is not quite right. 

And at this point I have to clarify that I'm not saying things like "boo no I hate Jessamine". No, it's actually quite the opposite, I love her character. But the way it is usually portrayed seems to be so dull and static. Let her not be a saint. 

Let her be manipulative. Let her tell Corvo that "he is not like other serkonans, he is sooo special and that's why he is where he is and not somewhere deep in the silver mine", while being (just as any nobility in Gristol) not very welcome to any outlanders. 

Let her be power-hungry and afraid to lose this power. Remember a bonecharm in her hidden room in the Tower? Who knows how it ended up here! Maybe she knew (or felt) that Delilah was coming, capable of overpowering and taking everything from her. Maybe Jessamine was so afraid to lose her posh life that she was ready to use some kind of a black magic! 

Let her be disloyal. Obviously, she and Corvo developed some kind of codependency. But along with that, she was the Empress so who could stop her from having an affair or two? And Corvo was just the safest option, with a way less unnecessary risks and questions. 

Let her be an imperfect person. 

Obviously, Jessamine could be easily born a perfect ruler and a perfect loving woman for her chosen one and her daughter. But maybe she had to learn it the hard way. 

Maybe she changed along with Corvo. Maybe the plague was a critical point for her character, maybe those months without Corvo made her rethink a lot of things. 

And isn't it tragic, finally understanding and becoming the Empress everyone wants to see in you, just to be killed the other day, because all those changes have been seen as a weakness? Have nothing but faith in your closest one, faith that these people will be more wise than she was? 

Give her some development, give her some motion! She could easily  be a saint, static point.  But in my opinion, she deserves to be not perfect but in constant motion. Trying and learning, understanding and making mistakes. She was too young when she became the Empress, she was a part of gristolian nobility, not so kind to anyone but themselves, she literally had no prerequisites to become a good person. And yet somehow she did. 

It's always so easy to be a "saint" from the very beginning. And it's always so hard to learn how to become one.

[undertalepinkhorsepro123]

You know what I think is astounding about Undertale? The fact that the character you play, Frisk, is probably the biggest mystery character. Even Gaster and Chara, one who you only hear vague snippets of, and the other you interact once with in the entire game, we know more of than the main character.

The only things we know for sure about them are their name, that they most likely are nonbinary (i think Toby confirmed it but I'm unsure) that their soul is Determination, and that they are a child. We don't know their age, personality, or anything about their backstory. Everything that we go through in the game is controlled by us, the player. We pick what Frisk does, their words, everything. We literally never see what they are like. There are some actions where Frisk moves, makes facial expressions, or does things without the player doing anything, but does that necessarily mean that they are the one doing it? Same as we have no clue if Chara is the one doing the last few things in the genocide route, we have no clue if Frisk is really the ones doing them.

The real question is, is Frisk actually their own person? The only fact that seems to say they are is Flowey at the end of the pacifist when you turn the game back on saying to let Frisk be happy and live their life.

If they are then, I wonder if we'll ever know them for real. Deltarune is it's own universe, and Kris seems like the mix of Frisk and Chara, but does that mean they don't exist there either?

I think to me this is the biggest and coolest mystery, cause I've never seen a video game, story, movie, or anything where you know little to nothing about the protagonist. And most of the things we think we know about them, is either just confirmed by Toby Fox himself or is seemingly implied.

I think that's another thing I really like about Deltarune, with Kris it's taking that mystery and turning it on it's head. We only know about Kris' past actions and personality through context clues and how others act with them. But they are still less of a mystery about Frisk, as they have much more actions that we don't do, and we KNOW that they are the one doing it for sure unlike Frisk's actions.

Anyway thanks for listening to my ramble, I really hope to learn more about the humans but especially Frisk.