#because he is one of the most important people to dave

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Trumpism’s healthcare fracture-lines

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/12/20/clinical-trial-by-ordeal/#spoiled-his-brand-new-rattle

There was never any question as to whether Trump would implement Project 2025, the 900-page brick of terrifying and unhinged policy prescriptions edited by the Heritage Foundation. He would not implement it, because he could not implement it. No one could. It's impossible.

This isn't a statement about constitutional limits on executive authority or the realpolitik of getting bizarre and stupid policies past judges or through a hair-thin Congressional majority. This is a statement about the incoherence of Project 2025 itself. You probably haven't read it. Few have. Realistically, few people are going to read a 900-page group work of neofeudalist fanfic shit out by the most esoteric Fedsoc weirdos the world has ever seen.

But one person who did read Project 2025 was the leftist historian Rick Perlstein, who was the first person to really dig into what a fucking mess that thing is:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/07/14/fracture-lines/#disassembly-manual

Perlstein's excellent analysis doesn't claim that Project 2025's authors aren't sincere in their intentions to wreak great harm upon the nation and its people; rather, his point is that Project 2025 is filled with contradictory, mutually exclusive proposals written by people who fundamentally disagree with one another, and who each have enough power within the Trump coalition that all of thier proposals have to be included in a document like this:

https://prospect.org/politics/2024-07-10-project-2025-republican-presidencies-tradition/

Project 2025 isn't just a guide to the masturbatory fantasies of the worst people in American politics – far more importantly, it is a detailed map of the fracture lines in the GOP coalition, the places where it is liable to split and shatter. This is an important point if you want to do more about Trumpism than run around feeling miserable and scared. If you want to fight, Project 2025 is a guide to the weak spots where an attack will do the most damage.

Perlstein's insight continues to be borne out as the Trump regime makes ready to take power. In a new story for KFF News, Stephanie Armour and Julie Rovner describe the irreconcilable differences among Trump's picks for the country's top public health authorities:

https://kffhealthnews.org/news/article/trump-rfk-kennedy-health-hhs-fda-cdc-vaccines-covid-weldon/

The brain-worm-infected-elephant in the room is, of course, RFK Jr, who has been announced as Trump's head of Health and Human Services. RFK Jr is a notorious antivaxer, chairman of Children’s Health Defense, a notorious anti-vaccine group. Kennedy's view is shared by Trump's chosen CDC boss, Dave Weldon, a physician who has repeated the dangerous lie that vaccinations cause autism. Mehmet "Dr Oz" Oz, the TV "physician" Trump wants to put in charge of Medicare/Medicaid, calls vaccines "oversold" and advocates for treating covid with hydroxychloroquine, another thoroughly debunked hoax:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2024/12/17/hydroxychloroquine-study-covid-19-retracted-trump/77051671007/

However, other top Trump public health picks emphatically support vaccines. Marty Makary is Trump's choice for FDA commissioner; he's a Johns Hopkins trained surgeon who says vaccines "save lives" (but he peddles the lethal, unscientific hoax that childhood vaccines should be "spread out"). Jay Bhattacharya, the economist/MD whom Trump wants to put in charge of the NIH, supports vaccines (he is also one of the country's leading proponents of the eugenicist idea of accepting the mass death of elderly, sick and disabled people rather than imposing quarantines during epidemics). Then there's Janette Nesheiwat, whom Trump has asked to serve as the nation's surgeon general; she calls vaccines "a gift from God."

Like "Bidenism," Trumpism is a fragile coalition of people who thoroughly and irreconcilably disagree with one another. During the Biden administration, this resulted in self-inflicted injuries like appointing the brilliant trustbuster Lina Khan to run the FTC, but also appointing the pro-monopoly corporate lawyer Jacqueline Scott Corley to a lifetime seat as a federal judge, from which perch she ruled against Khan's no-brainer suit to block the Microsoft-Activision merger:

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/judge-rules-for-microsoft-mergers

The Trump coalition is even broader than the Biden coalition. That's how he won the 2024 election. But that also means that Trumpism is more fractious and off-balance, and hence will be easier to disrupt, because it is riven by people in senior positions who hate one another and are actively working for each others' political demise.

The Trump coalition is a coalition of *cranks*. I'm using "crank" here in a technical, non-pejorative sense. I am a crank, after all. A crank is someone who is overwhelmingly passionate about a single issue, whose uncrossable bright lines are not broadly shared. Cranks can be right or they can be wrong, but we're hard to be in coalition with, because we are uncompromisingly passionate about things that other people largely don't even notice, let alone care about. You can be a crank whose single issue is eliminating water fluoridation, even though this is very, very stupid and dangerous:

https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/the-fluoride-debate

Or you can be a crank about digital rights, a subject that, for decades, was viewed as by turns either unserious or as a sneaky way of shilling for Big Tech (thankfully, that's changing):

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/18/greetings-fellow-pirates/#arrrrrrrrrr

Cranks make hard coalition partners. Trump's cranks are cranked up about different things - vaccines, culture war trans panics, eugenics - and are total normies about other things. The eugenicist MD/economist who wants to "let 'er rip" rather than engage in nonpharmaceutical pandemic interventions is gonna be horrified by total abortion bans and antivax. These cranks are on a collision course with one another.

This is on prominent display in these public health appointments, and we're very likely about to get a test of the cohesiveness and capability of the second Trump administration, thanks to bird flu. Now that bird flu has infected humans in multiple US states, there is every chance that we will have to confront a public health emergency in the coming weeks. If that happens, the Trump public health divisions over masking, quarantine and (especially) vaccines (Kennedy called the covid vaccine the "deadliest" ever made, without any evidence) will become the most important issue in the country, under constant and pitiless scrutiny, and criticism.

Trump's public health shambles is by no means unique. The lesson of Project 2025 is that the entire Trump project is one factional squabble away from collapse at all times.

[disneytva]

Phineas And Ferb New York Comic-Con Panel Gets The Band Back Together To Discuss The Upcoming Revival

Today at New York Comic Con, Disney Branded Television officially revealed the voice cast for the highly anticipated new season of “Phineas and Ferb.” For the first time in over a decade, co-creators and executive producers Dan Povenmire and Jeff “Swampy” Marsh reunited with the rest of the beloved cast at their NYCC panel today, which also included an exclusive sneak peek of the new season.

Photos by 📷Galileo908

Phineas And Ferb panel was packed with the whole cast and crew on stage as the panel showcases interviews when the show debuted all the way back in 2008.

Vincent Martella calls the show “the most important thing” he’s ever worked on.

Ashley Tisdale mentions that she's very joyful to be here with the fans after giving birth just 6 weeks ago.

Caroline Rhea mentions that the series is one of her favorites to ever be a part of. Rhea jokes "Don't tell Sabrina"

Dee Bradley Baker says that the show has been “perfect” since the start. "there's timelessness to it, i feel it will make it go on forever"

Alyson Stoner recalls that multiple people go up to her and quote Isabella in different languages all the time

Dave Errigo Jr gets emotional on the opportunity of joining the Phineas & Ferb family all way back in 2018 with "The Phineas and Ferb Effect" from "Milo Murphy's Law"

Vincent Martella jokingly says that he has been spiraling since the show ended even he had no idea if the show would come back.

Candace is Ashley Tisdale's favorite character beacuse it allows her to be "crazy"

As previously reported, Dan & Swampy confirm that the revival takes place one year later during the duo’s next summer vacation.

Povenmire & Swampy mention that “Things are elevated”. They tease the incorporation of new stories, dynamics and ideas that they couldn’t quite figure out how to do them on the original run.

Dan Povenmire & Jeff Swampy Marsh tease that the music for Season 5 has been their favorite so far.

Dan Povenmire & Jeff Swampy Marsh show a clip of the first episode of the revival. The clip starts with Phineas, Ferb and the gang on their last day of school.

Doof spent the last year being good, now he’s evil again

“We’re Getting The Band Back Together.” is one of Dan and Swampy's favorite episodes because "it’s so thematically rich."

When asked about why there are 104 days of summer vacation within the show. "Nobody checked. It just sounded right" - The whole cast and crew confess

During the final question Dan and Swampy acknowledge Candace’s flip phone. They agree that it’s obsolete but say that at the time the show was created everyone had one.

Swampy says that the work he and Dan Povenmire have done on the show have made him feel incredibly lucky. Swampy mentions that he would love to continue working on the show forever.

Ashley Tisdale closes the panel screaming “Mom, Phineas and Ferb are making another season!” in Candace's voice.

 “Phineas and Ferb” Season 5 is scheduled to debut next year on Disney Channel and Disney+.

[codenameseance]

[kicks down the door] AND ANOTHER THING!!!!

why the FUCK did they include a shot in ep1 of Klaus pulling his dog tags out of the box of artifacts and staring at them longingly (why the fuck did he lose them in the first place? the same reason his tattoos disappeared? because steve blackman said 'fuck it'?) but then HE DOESN'T EVEN WEAR THEM FOR THE REST OF THE SEASON????

like, it's one thing to forget about a character's entire existence (rip Eudora Patch) but it's like. so unbelievably disrespectful to purposefully include an acknowledgement of one of the most important people in klaus' life and then just.......throw it to the wayside?? it genuinely would have hurt LESS if they didn't even do anything for Dave in the first place.

[relaxxattack]

via the last ask, is Karkat a freak or would it just be a form of troll polyamory? or am I forgetting some important quadrant lore or smth and this is a dumb question

KIDS REALLY DON’T KNOW THAT KARKAT’S GAY ANYMORE… i joked about this earlier but i didn't think it was true 😭😭

ok i don't blame you for not knowing since, imo, fandom seems to have forgotten this when it comes to karkat and alternian analysis. somehow. even though it's his whole thing.. let me explain.

basically, karkat vantas is queer.

his arc sort of pointedly mirrors dave’s in that it’s about how hard he’s compensating for that - constantly obsessing over romance and “doing it right”, then enforcing that on himself and others.

karkat starts as a bootlicker. he wants to be in the military, he wants to fill his quadrants, he wants to lead, he wants to be the best and most successful troll that's ever lived... to make up for the fact that he's mutated. this isn't just implied, it's stated; karkat is desperate to prove he can be the Standard Alternian Troll.

karkat is a mutant marked for extermination, which obviously is different to sexuality. but it's worth noting that karkat's arc is already about putting up fronts for things about him that are "wrong"...

...especially when it's revealed that his sexuality is also "wrong".

trolls believe in having one destined partner per quadrant- four separate relationships that must not mix. it's enforced both culturally and by drones. but the concept of a troll romance that goes "beyond the four quadrants" is introduced to us by karkat's ancestor. we come to realize that karkat's romantic issues might not just be circumstantial-- they might be a legitimately different form of attraction he feels.

towards the end of the story, when davekat is officially canonized, the story plays a little cheekily about "nobody knowing" which quadrant dave and karkat settled in.

because just like how dave came to terms with how bullshit the cultural restrictions of human sexuality are, and talks about this at length; karkat may have realized that it's okay to break the rules.

while some people think that this means karkat was destined for "human romance"... i personally think that's a bit silly, since karkat has proven he can't stick to pure red feelings for someone. it's more likely that his new relationship involves all those quadrants he loves, simultaneously. who cares about rules?

TL;DR: yes, karkat vantas is queer for a troll and that's all there is to say on the matter.

[ssa-neeks-prentiss]

Prompt: someone on the team has a secret child (the reader) and the team is shocked, but Hotch get into dad mode/uncle mode and has the child wrapped around his finger in minutes.

You choose the age of the child. I mean they could be an adult I guess.

Note : I might make this into a series and sorry if your name is Eleanor! I've also decided to stray and now she has three kids instead of one... Sooooo! I've also got like a little storyline and backstory planned out so it's like a 90 percent chance it will be a series! I also may have strayed a little of track :3

Aaron Hotchner x fem!reader

Word Count : 1.1k

AARON'S POV

He had been at work for roughly three hours by the time the team started to file in. He was always early, always getting there earlier than Spencer or Dave. It was a normal Tuesday. Except Tuesday meant paper work day. Despite how the team viewed him, he, in fact, did not like paperwork. At all. But he suffered through, wanting to be the best agent.

But he knew he wouldn't be. You were there. Wait, no, that sounded like jealousy. Okay, it kind of was. But you were just perfect. You were deterimined, young, agile and creative. The perfect agent. He was honestly surprised at the fact you hadn't been move up or been transferred to a higher department by now. But, their loss was a win to him.

He was then dragged from his thoughts as he heard a commotion from outside his office. Confused, he stood up and stepped outside. He looked down to meet the deep blue eyes of a young girl. His brows shot up in surprise as he spoke with a gentle tone.

"Hello?" He tried to not let his demeanor scare the girl and sighed in relief as the girl didn't seem to care, instead opting to grin and wave at him.

"Hello! I'm Eleanor, but everyone calls me Ellie! What's your name?"

He smiled at her introduction, the innocence of a little child always seemed to amaze him. He then leaned down.

"I'm Aaron. Nice to meet you."

She grinned up at him.

"You're Aaron! My mama told me about you!"

He looked perplexed.

"Your mama? Who's your mama?"

She looked at him with an incredulous look as if he had said the most stupidest thing ever.

"My mama? You don't know mama?"

He shook his head.

"Not by the name Mama. I would know her by a different name."

Eleanor nodded in an understanding way.

"Sorry, I don't know my mamas real name. I just call her mama."

She spoke with a shrug. He frowned.

"Can I pick you up? Then we can try and find your mama."

Her eyes lit up and she nodded.

"Okay! I don't know where mama went. She told me to stay put but I got Distracted."

He smiled softly as he picked her up as rested her on his hip. He then straightened up as he saw Derek walk up to them.

"What the.. You know.. I'm not even gonna ask."

Derek spoke with his hands up as he turned away but he paused when Eleanor spoke.

"You're Derek, right? Mama told me about you! She says you like.. Kicking doors down?"

Aaron chuckled quietly as he turned back around with a smile, well, it was more of a smirk.

"She did? Well, who is your mama?"

She shrugged.

"I don't know her name. Me and Aaron are going to find her! Do you wanna come? Ooh! Can I go on your shoulders? My uncle Azrael let's me go on his shoulders while he carries my sister!"

Aaron stopped and frowned.

"Your sister? Where is she?"

She looked up at him.

"Oh, she's at school, but mine was shut because of... Uh.. Stuff!"

Derek laughed at her explanation.

"But Azrael had this important job thingy or whatever so I got to go to her job with her! Which is this. But then I got lost. So I don't know where mama is now!"

The two shared looks of amusement at the girls words and her nonchalant tone while speaking. Aaron cleared his throat as he spoke.

"So, can you describe your mother?"

Eleanor nodded eagerly.

"She has Y/H/C hair!"

Aaron nodded. So that was still about half of the people in the building.

Eleanor moved to jump down and Aaron let her. She scrambled away surprisingly quickly for a little kid and Aaron and Derek shared a glance before a mutual agreement was made as the two jogged after her. The two caught up to her quickly and they decided to just walk around. Eleanor ranted to them as they walked, she was similar to Spencer in that way, constantly having something to rant about.

"Oh! And we have a dog! A German Shepherd! He's called Rex! He's a police dog for my Uncle Azrael but he stays with us so he's technically my dog!"

Aaron paused. He swears he had heard of a police dog called Rex. It was definitely mentioned by someone on the team... Who though? He couldn't for the life of him remember, which annoyed him because it was important in the moment.

She skipped as she had a hand in Derek's and a hand in his. Then then heard a familiar voice frantically calling the girls name.

"Eleanor?! Ellie?! Els?!"

They used multiple nicknames and they paused. Eleanor's face lit up as she called.

"Mama!"

Eleanor let go of the twos hands as she ran.. Right to you.. You sighed what he assumed as relief.

"Eleanor! Don't you dare run from me again!"

She spoke in a cross tone but she hugged Eleanor nonetheless. Derek's face shifted into one of surprise and Aaron could feel his do the same. You clearly hadn't noticed them until Eleanor grinned at you.

"Look who I met!"

She then pointed to then and you stood up to thank them until you saw who it was and you froze.

Aaron raised a brow and Derek voiced their question.

"You have a kid?!"

"Two kids?"

Aaron added after as he remembered Eleanor talking about a sister. You then grimaced.

"Three."

Aaron's eyes widened in surprise and so did Derek's.

"Why didn't you tell us?!"

She shrugged.

"It was on my information when I applied?"

She added meekly. Aaron rolled his eyes.

"What's going on about kids?"

The commotion had attracted Spencer and Penelope. Derek turned to the two of them.

"Y/N has three kids! Three!"

Penelope's eyes widened.

"Really?! I wanna meet them!"

Eleanor grinned from where she was beside you.

"I like your dress!"

Penelope's head snapped to you and Eleanor as she squealed and jogged to you.

"Who's this bundle of joy? Why did you hide her from us!"

She immediately leaned down to wrap her arms around Eleanor who did the same and accepted the hug with a grin. You smiled at the two and when the hug broke she put Eleanor on her waist. She then turned to Spencer.

"You can do magic tricks right? Can I see one? I wanna do magic!"

She spoke excitedly and Spencer's eyes lit up. He smiled as he nodded eagerly and Eleanor immediately jumped off of her mother and ran to Spencer who waved his hands excitedly as he spoke to the little girl. Her turned back to you and saw you watch the two with fondness in your gaze.

He smiled and walked over to you. You looked at him and smiled greatfully.

"Thank you for looking after her."

"It was no problem."

And it wasn't because he loved you. And he would do anything for you, and, by extension, your children as well.

[propheticclown]

Gamzee Makara: The Bard of Rage and Puppet of Faith

I've seen a lot of people talk about certain characters classpects and how it plays into their characters. Usually, it's about how Eridan as a Prince of Hope is destined for misery. But I wanna talk about how it relates to Gamzee as a Bard of Rage. Rage is described as this: "Those bound to the aspect of Rage are bringers of chaos. They possess great contempt for lies or false ideas, including the stability that false ideas can impart. To them, the true is far more important than the good; they would tear down a system just to destabilize it if, by their reckoning, it is built on faulty premises. Often the Rage-bound prefer anarchy to any of the alternate forms of civilization, which they believe to be riddled with lies and foolishness and obedient masses. They are bringers of confusion and doubt, and they can be frustratingly difficult to convince otherwise when they have attached themselves to an idea. If they sound dangerous, they are. The Rage-bound tend to be the most volatile and unpredictable of the aspects. At their best, they are original, revolutionary, and fearless. At their worst, they are cruel, uncompromising, and vicious." To summarize; Rage is quite similar to Light in a way, but instead of wanting information, they want the truth. They are skeptical until all possible doubts are not just cleared, but destroyed. So how does this apply to destroyer classes like Bard and Prince? Well, for a Prince of Rage, destroying rage is like destroying skepticism. Obliterating motivation for questions until there is only one true belief, which we see in Kurloz through his unwavering faith. But for Bards, as a passive class, instead of destroying rage actively, they destroy it passively. How do they do that? Simple. Through belief in everything. Saying that Gamzee is gullible is an understatement. As long as it's under the guise of "mIrAcLeS" he'll believe it. As he's dragged along for the ride, his aspect manifests as his observations and passively noting things that don't add up, which we can see through his breakdown during Act 5 Act 2, when Dave shows him the ICP video. He's also shown to be easily mind-controlled and manipulated and that's where the tragedy of the clown shines through. Gamzee is destined to be nothing more than a means to an end. His purpose is to serve and nothing more. If he dares not to do so, he is punished severely. As a Bard of Rage, he is relegated to that of subservience to everyone and everything, due to his lovingly gullible nature. He is more of a puppet than Lil Cal. His breakdown in Act 5 Act 2 was the beginning of his loss of freedom, being controlled by Lord English to kill and bring about his arrival. Gamzee Makara is a character who pleads to have free will and is given nothing but neglect because he is nothing more than a plot device to a cruel story. His own.

[dear-ao3]

hi. you did not ask for it but i feel inclined to share with you some bits and pieces of indycar lore.

-georgina. georgina is a mannequin that hangs on a bridge at barber motorsports park, one of the tracks we race at, during the 2024 race there she fell down in the middle of the race and onto the track, a driver ran her wrist over and shredded it, the safety team loaded her up into the back of their truck, and later the driver who hit her (scott mclaughlin) posted a photo of him holding her hand up.

-will power ‘double birds’. it’s self explanatory, will power is a menace in the purest form of the word, and he is NOT afraid to flip off fellow drivers or, most famously, race control.

-the firestone firehawk, aka murderhawk. highly loved by fans and drivers, the mascot for firestone tires (which is what indycar uses) who is always at indycar races, frequently seen looming ominously around whoever they can get their hands on, hence the nickname murderhawk.

-bus bros. cannot even begin to explain the depths of lore here but im sure someone would be happy to. once a youtube series and friendship between drivers and teammates scott mclaughlin and josef newgarden (highly recommend watching the videos, very funny) it ended rather abruptly after rumors about their demise had been circulating, teammates who once hugged after every race win won’t even sit beside each other anymore.

-the AMR safety team. that’s all. they are amazing and we love them, SO fast and incredible, if nobody got me ik the AMR safety team got me!

-santino ferrucci. we all hate the guy, hes an absolute asshole, homophobic, racist, etc. most recently he put hands on a driver and then called said driver’s teammate his ‘little boyfriend teammate’. there’s a video of it on indycar’s youtube channel called ‘tempers flare between santino ferrucci and kyle kirkwood’ if you’re curious.

-arrow mclaren curse. this team is just… something.. their drivers have good personalities, but oh my! is the team itself horrifying! and this year we had 4(?) 5(?) drivers that all had the same seat! obviously at different times but it was Scary.

-we all love the month of may. the indy 500 is held in may, which brings a whole month of celebration and racing, from the indy gp, to parades to practice to qualifying to so many other events to the 500 itself, it’s an amazing month full of so much energy i cannot even begin to describe.

-bus lot pranks. speaking of the indy 500, during may, the drivers live in a bus lot at IMS, in their fancy RV’s, it’s like a frat house, which obviously leads to pranks, my personal favorite is when they filled conor daly’s hot tub with orbeez.

-it’s also important to note that indycar is small, the community is small, the drivers frequently interact with fans both in person and online, which is great! but it also means watch what you say because there’s a very high chance a driver will see it, our series is welcoming and non toxic! we want to keep it that way. 

-david’s bike. david malukas signed for arrow mclaren, but never actually got to race for them because he broke his wrist biking. he frequently makes jokes about it as he is very chronically online. he is also dubbed lil dave, that has nothing to do with his bike i just thought it was important.

-the milk gimp.. an absolutely terrifying indy 500 ad from 2014.

-the hate cauldron. back in 2022 three andretti drivers all made contact with each other during a race, which led to chaos, thus the birth of the hate cauldron, theres a video of it on here somewhere, and also when it was reborn this year!

doesn’t even scratch the surface, i’m just running out of brain power here, also a team got raided by the fbi this year.

oh and indycar’s youtube channel has tons of full races posted, they’re currently uploading the ones from this year, i recommend watching the 2016 indy 500, and i’m sure people would be happy to share their fav races to watch !!

by george. thats a lot of fun facts. thank you very very much send as many as u want (again pointing you to @ainti-pretty to send any and all fun facts)🫶💞 particularly enraptured by the bike saga (is david...still in indycar? did he just get launched off the face of the earth except to meme on twitter?) and the bus bros drama. seems bonkers. also to clarify your social media point.........do you mean on like twitter/instagram. or have they infiltrated tumblr. thank u bestie 🫶💞

[hotchfiles]

ˏˋ°•*⁀➷ ❝ [CHOICELESS HOPE] ❞ — three. need in the devotee.

pairing: aaron hotchner x bau!reader. summ.: the moment leading up to the kiss, the drumroll, is as good as the kiss itself. it's certainly more innocent. it's completely harmless. cw: canon divergent. emotional cheating. right person wrong time. no use of y/n. wc: 1k+.

previously

    First cases were always an awkward matter, getting to know new people, having them wonder if you were nice or not and wondering the same thing about them. You thought maybe having Dave around would make it less clunky. Irrevocably wrong you were, as you had to explain the divorce from your cheating husband when he asked how the bastard was.

    Everytime you thought about your divorce it made something in your brain twitch, it had been finalized four years prior but it still hurt, and you got mad at yourself for being hurt, not only because it was a hit to your gut, your non trusting nature decided to trust this one man and he broke it so easily. But it hurt more as deep down you felt like you deserved it. Like it was your karma. 

    “I watched you speak about the importance of profiling for crisis negotiation once. You seemed very passionate about it, almost like Hotch–” You held in a sigh as the genius boy possibly every unit had heard of spoke. You were an expert. A leader in your field. It just happened that your field was the one Hotchner literally wrote the book about. You would have to deal with the comparison constantly now. “Why did you transfer?” 

    “Not the pay, that I can assure you.” That earned you your first group laugh, some of them looking over at Rossi, possibly understanding now why he looked so enthusiastic about your transfer, or because he was the one who mostly talked about the fact the pay was shit. 

    “She was the only one available with experience, and she was forced to.” Aaron clarifies from his seat on the jet, having thoroughly read your paperwork by now. You nod in confirmation, not caring that it wasn’t the best look to have been forced into their unit. It was yours first anyway.

    “Familiarity with the way Hotch works was a factor too, it seems.” Some things don’t come written on paper, only the influence of being one of the unit’s founders, like Dave, guaranteed that type of information, or at least you thought so, as that fact didn’t come to you as reasoning. Still, you wouldn’t lose the opportunity to tease Aaron, even if only a bit. 

    “Familiarity is a way to put it, huh? Most of his methodology was created with me.” Scoffing loudly was his response while he shook his head in disbelief, the rest of the team glancing from you to him in curiosity. 

    “Maybe write a book about it then.” Two hours into the first jet flight and you could possibly punch him in the face to get that little shit eating grin out of it. Or maybe kiss him. 

    “I thought working with you two together would make me feel young again. It doesn’t. I’m too old for this now.” Dave points to you both and looks back to the files, bringing the conversation back to the case in hand. 

    First two months he tries not to favor your presence, sending you off with Derek, Dave or Spencer to check crime scenes, talk to suspects, witnesses, but like magnets you two always ended up beside each other, too close, shoulders touching while reading files and completing each other’s thoughts for the profiles. 

    You do try to keep your distance as best as you can as well, favoring sitting alone on the jet, talking to Emily or losing to Reid at chess, bonding with the team was an important part of what made any work the best work possible. And it’s not as in better workplace, but better at the job.

    Connecting with the team made profiling better, faster, that was why you and Hotch were quick to make connections, quick to see holes, patterns, when you were together. 

    Still you catch his annoying glances that he makes no effort to conceal when you lock eyes with him, instead he smiles with his teeth and waits for you to look away. And you usually do. 

    Las Vegas being the final destiny though, you had your mind set on not looking away when he did his well known dance of glancing and waiting for you to look back, instead getting up to your feet and walking over to him, savoring the soft, almost shy smile he gave you as he took in your every move, from your seat to the one by his side.

    You take a spray bottle out of the pocket of your FBI jacket and hand him without a word, trying to ignore the way he makes it his job to linger the soft brush your fingers against his as he read the information. 

    “Sunscreen? You know I don’t–” 

    “Don’t like the feeling on your skin, yeah, that’s a spray one, not sticky, not liquidy and it dries out completely.” Aaron listens to you intently, but still has his suspicions, being shown clearly by the way he furrowed his brows even though his heart was skipping several beats by your actions. 

    “What about the smell?” He’s properly fiddling with the bottle as if he was a kid with a toy, taking the cap off and trying to smell it through the sprayer, you roll your eyes and extend your arm to him. 

    “It’s unscented, touch and smell my arm, I’m wearing it.” You’re not really thinking it through when you almost shove your forearm on his nose, he obliges it and takes a deep breath, you feel the air leaving his nose in your skin and get suddenly shy. 

    His cheeks flush in warm pink, the product might be unscented but your skin smells like… You. He could recognize it from a mile away. He thinks to himself for a second and realizes that maybe if sunscreens had your scent he wouldn’t mind using them. And when his fingers softly touch your wrist, getting hold of it to lower it down, he is reminded of how soft you feel so he has no choice but to drop it or else he would be holding onto it for as long as you’d let him.

[zan0tix]

I yap so much about the comic and the importance i find in its contents but i hope when i write dirk or jake or rlly any of them it doesnt come off as me dumbing them down😭

I know the core internal mechanisms at which they all operate from otherwise i wouldnt understand why they even do what they do and why they speak how they do since that is so crucial to analysis of their behaviour and Why they were written.

But i mostly write silly scenarios so the deeper messier parts dont get to show much😭 working on deeper things tho rest assured i am locking in🫡🫡🫡

I try to match the tones of how i believe the characters would act continuing off the ending of homestuck. With dirk and jake specifically i try to write them to where they still both kinda dont say everything they need to but they dont have the weight of narrative destiny on their shoulders anymore so they can admit they like spending time together and have actually confessed like normal people and got out those apologies they kept yammering on about in the last half of act 6

I try to reinvoke the ridiculous nature of the one time we really see the real dirk and jake talk (which was actually a dreambubble memory. jake is so gay.) but i try to make it feel how that did, they really do love spending time together and just being weird and cringe and bantering about stupid shit ❤️(the most we see dirk type laugh in the comic)

(Always Highly recommend reading this log if you havent in a while. Its just such good writing theyre so funny) https://www.homestuck.com/story/4844

I feel like the Best Bros part of dirkjake kinda gets lost alot of the time considering THEY NEVER SPEAK DIRECTLY (which is insane that hussie could craft this universe bending gender norm shattering yaoi with no fucking interactions wtf anyway) but there is alot you can gleam from jakes interactions with hal and this one log to tell us how they usually speak

Dirk always veers into making homoerotic comments because.. i dunno he might have feelings for jake or something whos to say. and when jake presses him dirk immediately diverts. I think from being around dave and everything daves realised thats bullshit about masculine standards and heroism that let him have a healthier relationship to masculinity, hearing abt that would loosen dirk up about Actually being affectionate to jake

But hes still somehow trying to no homo his way out of things that are incredibly homo just in a subtler way, not immediately going “Haha, what? I never said that. Anyway.” (Its both out of his fear for what his true identity means about him as a man but also because he doesnt think he deserves to get such affections cough thinks himself an evil)

And jake was always going with the flow. If his friends socially decreed something as okay to talk about then the fucking damn burst open and he couldnt keep it in anymore but they had to Very Clearly Clarify with him about it. So i think dirk going down a more positive road would lead jake there too seeing that if its okay for dirk to be less restrictive with his feelings jake can be too.

The Epilogues has a highly specific premise and was being manned by caliborn and calliope 2.0 cranked to the max in the deranged fanfic behaviour so. Of course it would not be a healthy environment for characters to grow💀 anyone who takes it as full confirmation about how theyd act or become as adults and ignores the fact of its premise Being “Homestuck but Sick and Twisted; The Fanfiction” is kind of stupid its like saying homosuck was in character. Ofc everybodys lives goes to shit because the two running the show dont know how the hell to be good puppeteers 😭

Said it on twitter but you can tell how much a dirk hates himself based on his relationship to a jake. Because tho ult dirk wouldnt ever admit it jake is dirks anchor of self worth just as dirk is jakes. When they show compassion and kindness to one another its a step closer to self acceptance because Jake is quite frankly a living embodiment of EVERYTHING that is “wrong” (queer, cringe, sincere, feminine) about Dirk to himself in his saviour complex surrounding manhood. (See Everything caliborn says about jake) jakes always waiting for dirk. If dirk were to step down and admit his own humanity itd mean hed have to accept he is capable of growing and isnt inherently evil, and jake would be ready to embrace that about himself too

Anyway all that to say. Even in my simple silly writing i at least do try to retain dirk and jakes strange emotional dodging olympics but also its just on a smaller level since theyve inching their way to fully internalising that Its Okay to be Cringe and Gay Together❤️ because the World isnt Ending anymore. Its in the little things they dont say because haha im the one who makes them say words.

Dirk and jake hate themselves because theyre not men in the right way but their love is because of them not being men in the right way so.. nerm.. Whos flying the plane?

[meowcatmutie]

hello. here's a post about homestuck characters' typing styles, but mostly focusing on punctuation because that's something i see a lot of people get wrong when they write homestuck characters

read this post if you care about writing them perfectly! if you don't give a shit about this feel free to scroll past. I'm very autistic about all of the little things in homestuck like this so maybe i'm the only one who always notices these things. idk! i want to talk about this anyway

john/june types in all lowercase and generally uses all proper punctuation.

dave almost never uses punctuation or capitalization! this is very important! he does not use apostrophes or periods practically ever unless it's in an ellipsis (instead of separating his sentences with a period, he just writes each sentence in a new message), commas very rarely, and he only uses question marks when they improve the clarity of a sentence (i.e. if it wouldn't have been easily understood as a question otherwise). he may use exclamation points or all caps if he is shouting, but he doesn't shout often. he also very occasionally writes a word in all caps for EMPHASIS.

jade almost never uses apostrophes or periods (unless in an ellipsis), and types in all lowercase unless she is shouting. she DOES use question marks and commas, and she uses exclamation points liberally.

rose, dirk, and jane all use perfect grammar. this is pretty obvious.

jake capitalizes the first letter of each sentence and puts a period (or whatever else) at the end, but in between those there is Nothing. no commas or apostrophes, and he doesn't capitalize proper nouns.

roxy types in all lowercase, doesn't use apostrophes or periods (unless in an ellipsis), only sometimes uses question marks, and uses exclamation points frequently. her typing style is the least consistent otherwise.

aradia's typing style is very similar to dave's, but with slightly more exclamation points.

mostly everything about tavros's typing style is pretty obvious and also not all that consistent so i don't have much to say about this, except that the word "i" is always lowercase, and he uses apostrophes in their normal places.

sollux uses periods at the ends of his sentences, but he uses apostrophes inconsistently.

karkat uses all proper punctuation, but on rare occasions might omit the period at the end of a sentence.

nepeta doesn't use apostrophes or periods (except in an ellipsis), DOES use commas, and uses exclamation points VERY frequently. also, she uses cat puns, but she doesn't shoehorn a cat pun in every 3 words, and she doesn't tend to replace very common words with cat words. (yes, this is about people having her replace "you" with "mew". it bothers me)

kanaya is pretty obvious, but i'm going to iterate anyway that she almost never uses any punctuation at all.

terezi DOESN'T use periods (except in an ellipsis), and frequently omits apostrophes, but not always. also, most people know this already, but sometimes i see people get it wrong, so i will note that she only replaces the letters A, I, and E with 413.

vriska uses perfect grammar and uses exclamation points liberally. her usage of 8s to replace letters is typically confined to only B and eight/ait/ate sounds, she ONLY replaces other vowels with 8s when she is very agitated/angry/upset. often, when an "eight" sound is in the middle of a word, the T will be retained, e.g. "explan8tion", "rel8tionship", "n8ture".

equius uses almost perfect grammar, except that he ALWAYS omits punctuation at the ends of his sentences.

gamzee uses all proper punctuation.

eridan NEVER uses any punctuation.

feferi mostly uses perfect grammar. obviously she uses a lot of exclamation points too, because she is -EXCIT-ED.

thx for reading. if you ask me to beta your fic i will do it btw

[charmikarma]

Breath as Influence and John in the Epilogues

Breath is probably one of the better understood aspects. “What is it?” someone asks – and the whole fandom is like, “Oh, Breath is about freedom and wind and detachment.” Which I don't disagree with. But I think most people miss a key piece of it – Breath as influence.

I'm no seasoned classpector, but I am a Mage of Breath, so I feel like I have a deep and personal understanding of Breath, particularly because of how it has manifested in my life. Yeah, I know, claiming I'm an authority on the subject because of my self-imposed alignment within a fake typology system makes me sound like an asshole. But I'll have to ask you to trust me, because if I start talking about my own experiences, I'll sound like even more of an asshole.

Anyway, let's kick this off with the official description of Breath, per the Extended Zodiac:

In summary: the Breath-bound are flexible, driven, detached, and maybe a little self-centered. Also, other people tend to get caught up in their personal development, which tends to make them good leaders. But the most important thing here for the point I'm making is this:

others ... feel inspired by them.

This word, inspired, has been rolling around in my brain for the past few weeks, because of its connection to Breath. Hey, did you know that “inspire” comes from Latin spirare, meaning "breathe"? And if we include the Latin prefix in-, it becomes "breathe into."

The Breath-bound have an ability to breathe into, or inspire others. They're not aware of it – after all, they are just living their lives for themselves. But wherever they go, they are inspiring people. Or, more accurately, they are influencing people. Actually, the influence of Breath goes beyond just people. I could even get meta with it (and I will. I apologize in advance). But let's start small for now.

Tavros Nitram

So, Tavros. Page of Breath. Pretty much all of Tavros's contributions to Homestuck as a story happen as a result of someone doing something to him. Vriska paralyzes him, which kickstarts the whole FLARP cycle of revenge arc. And again when the truce is broken in Act 5 Act 2, it is because Vriska kills Tavros. If this doesn't sound like influence to you, you're right. Tavros has very little influence. He's a Page, after all, and if there's one thing I know about Pages, it's that they're weak as shit until they reach their "true potential," which is pretty much always something stupidly overpowered. Y'know, like Jake overpowering Jade's first guardian powers. That was pretty batshit, I'd say.

But Tavros's contributions don't end there. He actually does reach his true Page-y potential right at the very end of Homestuck, when he gathers an army of ghosts – honestly, probably every single ghost in the furthest ring – by just talking to them. Was this something of a punchline to a very long joke? Probably. But it is also a pretty good example of the kinds of things Breath players typically do.

On a meta level, though, this argument kind of falls apart, because... As far as I can tell, the army of ghosts doesn't really do anything. Nothing important, anyway. Lord English's defeat is pretty much entirely at the hands of John, Dave, Davepetasprite^2, and alt!Calliope in the body of Jade, as described in the Epilogues. The ghost army just isn't relevant, in the end.

But you know what is relevant? Vriska.

Half the people reading this just groaned, I can feel it. Why are we talking about Vriska, a Light player, on a post about Breath?? I hear your question and I raise you this: Why the fuck is Vriska so obsessed with Breath players???? Personally, I think it's because she has an innate sense for their passive ability to decide what's relevant.

But before we get into Vriska, let's talk about John.

John Egbert

John, Heir of Breath. The protagonist of the story. In the context of my thesis of "Breath as influence," isn't it interesting that the protagonist is a hero of Breath? And even beyond that, he's an Heir, a class typically interpreted as "becoming" their Aspect, or "inheriting" it. If you find my argument compelling, you could even say John is the influence that drives the story. Which is exactly what a protagonist does - after all, what is a story without a protagonist?

This question is actually addressed in Homestuck, kind of. At some point in Act 4, Terezi manipulates John into visiting his denizen early, which gets him killed. The story is left without its protagonist, and progress grinds to a screeching halt. Jade doesn't enter the Medium and presumably dies. The reckoning never happens. Dave and Rose are trapped in a doomed timeline. They lose contact with the trolls. For what is a world without the breeze, without air, but a place of complete standstill? The story needs John to continue. Okay, it needs Rose and Dave and Jade just as much. But it's interesting that the story makes a point of John's death being the turning point that makes this particular timeline doomed.

Okay, sorry for the wait. It’s Vriska time. Vriska's driving motivation is to be relevant. She does everything in her power to steal the spotlight, which may or may not be related to the fact that she's a Thief of Light. Again, I'm not an experienced classpecter. I only really have a surface level understanding of Light. But I'm getting off topic here.

In Act 5 Act 2, Vriska starts talking to John. Why? Well, partially because she wants to compete with Terezi, who is talking to Dave. But there's also the fact that she wants to be the force responsible for Bec Noir. And also for John reaching god tier. And everything relevant really??? She's really fucking good at being relevant, I'll give her that. Or at least presenting the illusion of relevance, but that's a big topic that I think I should save for another day. Another essay, maybe. The point here is, John has a tremendous amount of influence over Things That Happen just by existing, and Vriska knows it. Maybe she torments Tavros because she senses the same sort of potential in him, but that's probably a stretch.

In any case, this is baby shit. There's better evidence than this. Let’s talk retcon powers.

You could argue that the retcon powers are separate from John's abilities related to his classpect, and on some level you'd be right. But in a game that "knows" everything that is going to happen, I have to question if extraneous powers like this are taken into consideration when Sburb "decides" what classpect it gives a player. I feel similarly about Jade's First Guardian powers. Teleportation is a pretty space-y power, in my opinion. And definitely one that... "breaks rules," I guess. Among all the other things First Guardians get to do. Once again, I'm no classpector. But Jade getting access to First Guardian powers upon reaching God Tier strikes me as very Witch of Space-y. I feel similarly about John's retcon powers - they strike me as very Heir of Breath-y.

And not just because I view Breath as influence, though that is definitely the most obvious way the retcon powers could be interpreted as Breath-y. Even on a surface level, they're pretty Breath-y. When John first talks to Roxy, he gives a whole spiel about everything he's been to up until this point, most of which is obscured by "blah blah blah." But little phrases come through occasionally, and when he starts talking about his brand new retcon powers, he uses the phrase "UNSTUCK FROM CANON." Which sounds a lot to me like "freedom from the narrative." But maybe more telling is the fact that John's quest as an Heir of Breath requires that he use his retcon powers. Getting rid of the oil, freeing the fireflies - his quest as established at the very beginning was always intended (in universe at least; I can't speak for Hussie's intentions) to be solved by his retcon powers.

So retcon powers are at the very least Breath-adjacent. What’s that got to do with Breath as influence? I’m sure you see where I’m going with this. Retcon powers are basically the ability to do whatever the fuck you want to any point of any timeline. I’d call this influence but I’d sound silly, actually. It goes way beyond influence. It’s way less subtle. I guess you could call direct intervention like this influence at its most powerful. Well, almost. There’s one step above this that John never really taps into. Which brings us to...

The Epilogues

For better or for worse, I fucking love the Epilogues. I think Candy, on its own, is a fantastic and surreal deep dive into a mind high on depression. And as for Meat, I’m an absolute sucker for metafiction and narrative fuckery. I eat that shit right up. My favorite anime is Princess Tutu, etc., etc. This is your warning: Yes, this section will contain evidence toward my claim that Breath is influence. It also doubles as an Epilogues analysis. It kind of turns into one at the end. Sorry, but I needed to get it out of my system.

So, in case you missed it, the step above retcon powers that John never taps into is direct narrative control, like we see Dirk engaging in throughout the Meat side of the Epilogues. The fact that Dirk is revealed to be the narrator of Meat begs the question: who is narrating Candy? It’s never outright stated, but it’s probably alt!Calliope. Unlike Dirk, alt!Calliope doesn’t have an agenda, as far as we’re aware. So why is Candy so fucked up and weird? Why is everyone out of character? I know this comes as a shock, but: it’s probably John’s passive influence over the narrative.

Before the Epilogues even begin, John’s been wasting away in his house all day, every day. He’s depressed as hell. Sort of dissatisfied with how artificial and "perfect" Earth C is. Some have suggested he also feels disconnected from the post-retcon versions of his friends, and I think this holds some merit. It would explain why he feels disconnected from reality in Candy.

(Candy, 11)

Depression colors your view of reality. It darkens some parts, brightens others. People who look happy will appear so to an unsettling degree. Fucked up things will appear even more fucked up. Depression ups the contrast, if you will. And that’s pretty much what happens in Candy. Jane’s pretty bad in Meat, but she’s like a billion times worse in Candy. Jade causes some awkward moments in Meat, but she is pretty much a sex pest in Candy. The positive parallels are a bit harder to find, since Meat pretty much sucks too, but you could speculate that John perceives Rosemary to be happier together than they actually are, so they’re, like, uber happy together in Candy and raising a daughter and shit. It is John’s warped perception of reality that in turn warps it beyond recognition.

This isn’t just me theorizing, by the way. There’s pretty compelling evidence to suggest that this idea is accurate to what is happening. It’s pretty clear in a conversation between (Vriska), who has just arrived on Earth C via the black hole in the furthest ring and her descendant/clone Vriska (aka Vrissy in HS:BC). The two of them stare up at the sky, pointing out clouds and what they are shaped like, when (Vriska) has a realization.

(Candy, 37)

John’s influence over the reality is so absolute, even the clouds bend to his will. I think Vriska only notices it because she’s a new arrival to Johntown. It isn’t long before she’s absorbed into the John-ness of the timeline. And then, she goes on to say exactly what I’ve been saying this whole time. Remember earlier, when I said Vriska knew that John had an incredible amount of influence over Things That Happen?

(Candy, 37)

Yeah. That wasn’t speculation.

The last thing she says, though, that he’d be relevant even if he was dead, is actually a reference to Meat. So let’s talk about it!

As we know, Meat is narrated by Dirk. Dirk’s narrative style is a lot of fun for me, personally. He’s sassy, kind of an asshole, and has no time for bullshit. The second John puts that meat in his mouth, he gets to work, pulling the strings of his little puppet show.

(Meat, 1)

He wastes no time putting words in John’s mouth, writing him out of the story of Earth C as quickly as possible. It’s almost with a sense of urgency that he pushes John to complete his mission. Which is probably necessary, seeing as the sanctity of canon relies on him going back to tie up the loose end that is Lord English. But I think Dirk has ulterior motives. I don’t think Dirk has the ability to impose his will so overbearingly with John around, because for some reason, John’s power of passive influence prevents him from doing so. Is John more powerful than Dirk, even after his ascension to Ultimate Selfhood? Maybe. I certainly think so.

But John’s pretty gullible. He’s easily influenced. He doesn’t have the same safeguard around his own mind, for some reason. Or maybe he does, and it’s just taken Dirk this long to crack him? This is speculation at this point. Not important.

So Dirk eventually kills John. Why? Well, first of all, it’s harder to control the narrative with him around. Though I speculate that’s not very important to Dirk anymore since he fucks off to who knows where around when John comes back. I think, more likely, Dirk finds John’s influence on the narrative unsavory. I mean, just look at Candy. What an absolute disaster of a timeline. Maybe his awareness is such that he knows that letting John live will result in a similar degradation of his friends’ personalities as he knows them. I can’t really say one way or another. It’d explain why he wants John’s body on the ship with him, though. Y’know, to make sure he never gets revived. And yes, he wants him on that ship. He pretty much tells Terezi outright to captchalogue his body before convincing her to join him.

(Meat, 35)

There’s one problem, though. I don’t think John being dead even erased his influence on the narrative?

(Meat, 36)

Right there at the end:

The gentle breeze is all she can hear. It’s louder than my voice, and in some understated way, makes my case for me more persuasively.

I don’t think there’s any other way to read this than the breeze representing John. This is a literal manifestation of John’s influence. I guess it could be symbolic – like Terezi doing a “what would John do?” kind of thought process. But I dunno, Dirk doesn’t strike me as that kind of narrator. Besides... It’s a little too on the nose. Say what you will about the Epilogues, but I believe a great amount of care went into them. This certainly isn’t a throwaway line.

Conclusion

Okay, sorry. I really went off the deep end into Epilogues Analysis Land there. You may have noticed that I didn’t talk about Homestuck: Beyond Canon. That’s partly because I haven’t gotten there in my reread, but mostly because I’m not yet convinced that it has – or will have – nearly the level of plot consistency of its predecessors. We’ll see, I guess.

In any case... Breath as influence, huh? There’s probably more evidence for this hidden away somewhere. I probably could have talked about Rufioh. I didn’t want to though. I also probably could have pointed out the word inspire from the Extended Zodiac thing and called it a day, but instead I blacked out and wrote this. Weird!

If you read all, uh... *checks word count* 2.7k words of this??? Jesus fuck. If you read all this, thank you for reading. I’m open to feedback! I’d love to discuss some of this more! Especially the Epilogues stuff. I have a million thoughts. Bye!

[letsgobarbs]

Historical Romances & Pedro Pascal

So, a lot of people agreed with wanting to see Pedro Pascal in a Historical Romance. I agree, agree, agree with all the Jane Austen heroes. They could remake all the Austen movies and star him as the lead and I would watch them and pass them on to my children like heirlooms. But as an avid reader of Historical Romances, I thought to share a few books that made me think of him. I've read these recently, or re-read them recently so this is off the top of my head.

Note: The heroes of these books don't physically resemble Pedro Pascal but based off of the vibes of the book it made me think of a few of his characters. Feel free to take this as a book rec if you are interested in reading Historical Romances. But most importantly, I hope this helps bring some inspo to some very creative writers who would want to make something out of this. And if you do, PLEASE tag me <3

Joel Miller as Gabriel from Tempting Fate By Kerrigan Byrne 

Gabriel was disfigured in the fighting pits when he was young and is now the head of a smuggling syndicate. He ends up really liking the Heroine, Felicity, who is painfully shy and introverted, when he saved her life once. Felicity unexpectedly becomes an heiress and people are dying to marry her— and she’s getting threatening letters. He ends up interviewing to be her bodyguard, and she hires him without any struggle— it might be because her glasses were broken, and she couldn’t see just how disfigured he was. 

Joel Miller as William Nye from A Bride For The Prizefighter by Alice Coldbreath

JOEL MILLER AS A PRIZEFIGHTER. JOEL MILLER BOXING IN THE RING. He runs a disreputable inn called the The Merry Harlot. And marries a fucking school teacher to get his inheritance. He is also unfortunately caught up with smugglers. The heroine’s dad died and her half-brother marries her off to get her off his hands and basically threatens Will to do it if he wants his property. He’s surly and secretive and so very broad and handsome. And she’s is clutching her pearls and being so hardworking I wanted to give her a hug and a kiss. This one is Victorian era and with middle-class, not-so-rich characters instead of the Lord and Ladies of the ton.

Dave York as Valentine from Duke of Sin by Elizabeth Hoyt

The summary of the book describes him as devastatingly handsome. Vain. Unscrupulous. Need I say more? He’s a villain— like literally, in the other books of the series, he is a villain. At one point, he holds a gun to the Prince of England to end his exile. He’s funny. He’s hilarious. He makes me giggle and twirl my hair. He falls in love with his housekeeper— who is secretly the illegitimate child of someone important. She was in his house to gather incriminating evidence against him to protect her mother. The book was sexy, steamy and it made me think of Dave York.

Marcus Pike as Turner from The Secret Diaries of Miss Miranda Cheever by Julia Quinn (the author of Bridgerton)

Oof, this one was angsty. Miranda has been in love with her best friend’s older brother since she was a child— ever since he was so very kind to her after she was bullied for her plain looks. But he’s not so kind anymore, he’s bitter after the death of his wife. And he was burned because of her betrayals. He had been young when he got married to her, thinking she was carrying his child (but she was not). He’s attracted to Miranda, and selfish enough to sleep with her. He does the honourable thing and promises to marry her as well. But she doesn’t want him without love. And even when she is forced to marry him (he chases after her all the way to Scotland)— her husband can’t muster up the words of love she so desperately wants to hear, even if it is just empty words. 

Marcus Pike as Adam from To Wed A Wicked Earl by Olivia Parker

This one was really cute. Adam is a rake— and his grandma threatens him with his inheritance! He will be utterly penniless if he doesn’t get married immediately. He fakes getting married to the one woman he has always loved— but she would never want a rake like him… Plus, she was part of this big competition to marry his friend. Charlotte is a wallflower, who was unfortunately very publicly rejected at said public competition. She believes Adam would never want a wallflower like her. So she strikes up a friendship with him and decides to help him get together with the woman she thinks he loves— her neighbour. They were friends to lovers.

Note: I have more. I HAVE MORE. I just need to dig into my Goodreads. But, boy, do I have so many.

[more-sonorous]

It seems the people want my rant, since 100% of you answered yes to the poll— so here goes, and please don’t flame me too bad! I know uksies is beloved but after talking to @jackmkelly I gotta share my opinion

here goes

I really do not like Davey’s costume in uksies. I don’t despise all of it- I like the shape of his sleeves, the proper cut of his pants and the height of his collar, but I especially hate his color palette. Actually I sort of despise his color palette, or lack of one. Uksies colors Jack, Katherine, and Crutchie pretty well, and I’m only saying that because they manage to stand out splendidly against the mass of miserable, bland gray and black and white. In my opinion, they fucked Davey’s color palette up so incredibly hard— like WHY is Davey gray and brown like a background newsie? Why doesn’t he have any color at all?

(Take a moment to admire Ryan’s beauty and perfect Davey portrayal before rejoining me on my soapbox. Does this not look positively gray? It’s so *bland*.)

Okay so either I’m colorblind, or this is just the most boring, nondescript pallete known to man. why, even in act 2, is he still blending in with the background? You’d be hard pressed to spot bro in a group of newsies, which doesn’t make any sense because he’s co-leading a strike at this point.

in livesies (and also in 92sies), we see Davey’s personality journey in his costume. In livesies he adopts Jack’s signature blue, rolls his sleeves up and unbuttons his waistcoat to show that he’s truly grown into his position as leader. In 92sies, Davey’s silhouette also changes to mimic the casualty of Jack’s costume. The color symbolism in the film and in 92sies is really important to me and I think it shows off Dave’s journey as a character very well.

In uksies he just remains so boring and it makes me so angry because it’s literally blatant Davey erasure imho. Why doesn’t he get a smidge of Jack’s red? Or literally any other color? Just a necktie or some suspenders would suffice. Some sort of visible change. Why can’t he roll up his sleeves or unbutton his collar? I’ve seen people saying his color is green (I haven’t seen any physical green on his costume but I could be missing something. @make-friends-with-the-rats sent me a picture that looks fairly green but that disappears under the stage lighting, as you can see in the pics above) but idk. It just rubs me the wrong way that the only change we see is an unbuttoned vest.

Where’s the determination? Where’s the assimilation into the rest of the group? Ryan Kopel’s Davey is anxious, yeah, but he gets angry and frustrated in act 2. He has character growth that is not acknowledged in his costume.

Anyways, rant over. This has bothered me since I watched the bootleg. It’s probably not a big deal in the end but those are my thoughts lol. If you have a potential explanation for this choice pls do lmk

(Uksies lovers please do not flame me too hard, I love Ryan’s portrayal of Davey I just think they did bro dirty with the black and white fit. I have huge gripes with their costuming in general but this is the biggest offense to me. Again— love the production. It made serious strides and it was very well done. But this costume… :( )

[adobe-outdesign]

Nigel: The Muppets' Most Interesting Uninteresting Character

(This was supposed to be a fun little post about an obscure Muppet character but now I fell down a hole doing too much research and sunk cost fallacy won't let me live it down unless I include all of the useless information I've learned so enjoy knowing more about this character than you ever have or ever will want to know)

Nigel was created to be the host of the Muppet Show's Sex and Violence pilot instead of Kermit (who only appears in the pilot for like 30 seconds)

He was originally puppeteered by Jim Henson himself, giving him a vaguely Kermit-esq voice initially

Nigel Voice Count: 1

Nigel is a yellow... something. You’d assume he’s just a stylized human Muppet but in S4E18 Sam refers to him as a “thing”

He actually looks near-identical to a Fraggle minus the tail. I don’t know what to do with this information

Nigel was diagnosed with terminal Boring Personality disease due to the following attributes:

He’s very meek. Unlike Kermit, who will freak out and tell people they suck to their faces, Nigel raises his voice one (1) time and mostly relies on Sam the Eagle and Crazy Harry to deal with the assorted chaos

His face is flexible like Kermit’s, but he has permanently partially-lidded eyes that leave him looking exhausted in every scene he’s in

He’s generally unenthusiastic and seems like he wants to go home constantly

Jim Henson: The Works describes him as "lacking in spunk and charisma," which is hilariously cruel yet 100% accurate

What’s surprising at this point is that instead of scrapping him, he instead took on the role of orchestra conductor on the show proper, where he proceeds to do almost nothing for five seasons

The Muppets Character Encyclopedia actually provides a canon reason for this: Nigel lost the job of host due to his “shy manner”, and Kermit, feeling bad for replacing him, gave him his new job

He can technically be seen in basically every episode during the theme song, but aside from that, he often pops up in the chorus during songs

Which is funny when you consider he should be in the pit Doing His Job during those sequences

A quick list of his more important (if you can even call them that) appearances:

S1E2: He has Zoot play a song called “Sax and Violence” b/c pilot references

It’s actually implied the Mayhem falls under his jurisdiction as he threatens to fire Zoot, but this never comes up again

S1E24: Playing the part of a library patron noisily chewing gum (despite not having teeth. idk you figure it out). This one’s only notable because he’s wearing the same outfit from the pilot

S3E16: Nigel’s eyelids are not connected to the rest of his body and he’s facing backwards through the entire backstage segment so you’re uncomfortably aware of this

S1E23 has Floyd complaining that the theme song is cringe(TM), at which point it’s casually revealed that Nigel wrote it?? how is this character so important and unimportant at the exact same time

If you’ve seen this episode and aren’t deaf you might have noticed he has a completely different voice here. This is because John Lovelady has taken over as his puppeteer, presumably because Jim was busy Running The Entire Show

Nigel Voice Count: 2

Nigel has a talent for whistling, which is shown off in S2E18 during a performance with Floyd (this is the only time he comes on stage to perform that isn’t with a crowd)

He shows this off again in S4E18 to participate in the age-old sport of Annoying Sam the Eagle backstage

As of the 2011 movie Walter takes over as the show’s resident whistler because Nigel isn’t allowed to have character traits

He briefly shows up during the credits of The Muppet Movie (now puppeteered by Dave Goelz). Because of this, in the UK version of the end credits, he has another completely different voice

Nigel Voice Count: 3

After a brief background appearance in The Jim Henson Hour (S1E12), Nigel proceeded to completely disappear for 20 years

I’m guessing the reason was that his puppet was becoming unusable. The foam used for the muppets disintegrates over time, and his puppet was ~15 years old at this point

Things were particularly bleak for him in the 90s because Muppets Tonight came out with a new unrelated TV director character named... Nigel. Because Jim had passed away at this point and I think everyone working on the show literally Forgot they already had a character named that

Not that it would be that big of a problem, seeing as the chances of yellow Nigel returning were bleak. who was gonna spend time and money rebuilding an incredibly minor background character like him

TRICK QUESTION because he was rebuilt for The Muppets (2011), which is pretty amazing when you consider that he does Nothing during this movie

The new puppet looks pretty similar to the old one. I think the face is a bit rounder/more structured but I could also be losing my mind

(Side note: shoutout to whoever decided to give him a scarf in this scene. that’s such an unnecessary detail)

What’s great is that now that the puppet’s been rebuilt he’s shown up in a lot of stuff because they have no reason not to include him. Some of the more notable examples include:

The music video for OK Go’s cover of the theme song (which I certainly hope he would show up in I mean. it’s his song)

In the live shows (The Muppets Take the Bowl and The Muppets Take the O2) there’s a parade of overlooked characters, which includes Nigel. I just find it funny that:

A) The writers fully acknowledge that he’s King of the Background Characters

B) The in-universe implication that Kermit was like “no one knows who you are, wanna be in a parade celebrating that fact” and Nigel was like “okay”

His most recent appearance was in Muppets Haunted Mansion, where he’s dead (don’t worry about it). More importantly, he gets an entire shot to himself conducting some skulls, which I think is the first time the camera’s been focused solely on him in literally 40 years. Good job, buddy!

Here’s some other misc appearances that I couldn’t fit elsewhere:

He appears alongside Jim and a few other Muppets in a 1977 commercial for American Express (once again wearing his pilot outfit), which is particularly strange considering he’s the only character there that used to be puppeteered by Jim

In 2010 he got a somewhat important role in the first issue of Muppet Sherlock Holmes, playing the part of a butler suspected of poisoning the head of the house

He gets one whole page in The Muppets Character Encyclopedia from 2014 (right next to other Nigel). In addition to the aforementioned info bridging the gap between the pilot and the show proper, it also states that he’s susceptible to hypnosis and he trained at the Tommy Newsom Academy for Music and Charisma

In terms of future projects: there is both a Jim Henson biopic and documentary coming in the future (side note: why???), so it’s possible he might be discussed briefly in one of those

I have no thesis statement or reason for writing this, but I guess I’ll close out by saying that I find it fascinating that a failed main character from a pilot episode is still appearing in recent Muppet productions but solely as a background character. I hope that in 2073 I can put on some Muppet media and Nigel will still be there still doing absolutely nothing

thanks for coming to my TED talk

[poopingonthefloor]

Davesport is Toxic NOT abusive

(((WARNING: PRETTY LONG POST UNDER THE CUT.))) I've seen some people making the claims that Davesport is comship/proship (ok well i've more seen people bitching about it) and im tired of the Davesport slander so this will be an analysis of their relationship. My motive isn't to force anyone to ship it or anything- i really dont care what you do with your life, my frustration is just when people try to make up REASONS why they don't like the ship, even though its literally canon (and not badly written). My main point is -- You can hate what you want. You don't need a reason, and it doesn't need to be bad just because you don't like it. But I will not take any slander on their ship nor any slander of people who like davesport. Davesport is absolutely toxic-- No DSAF fan would disagree. They are literally child murderers with little to no souls and literally are physically disfigured to the point they don't have the capacity to feel proper humanity anymore. You cant expect 2 men who live their lives willingly murdering and then partying in vegas to celebrate on repeat to be gentle and kind to themselves or anyone else.

However, its NOT abusive. I've seen multiple people (mostly from twitter screenshots) claim that Davesport is abusive or the way people portray it is in a fetishy or romanticizing way of abuse, when that's just not the case. I don't blame a lot of people, since a lot of it comes from reading context and intent of the artist, which not everyone is good at-- BUT I'm here to assure you that MOST people don't intend to do that much and just like to portray how their dynamic is canonically like or portray Daves obsession with Jack. Another argument I've seen (by a twitter screenshot...) is that people are comshipping Davesport because people draw Jack annoyed a lot at Dave when...thats not true? That's just Jack's personality, first off:

(From the Dave x Reader fanfic by Directdoggo)

"Jack is a bastardman not very touchy-feely. We can see this in many scenes, where Dave more or less says “I love you” and Jack responds with deflecting humour, or outright scorn. When Dave says it for the final time, this time, Jack tries to say it back, but can’t outright, only getting out: “Why is this so hard?” and “I hope you can find peace with what you’ve done.” Which Dave understood the meaning of. (Hey, better than Henry (LEGACY Jack) hearing “I love you” and proceeding to tear Dave limb from limb, huh?"

(Directdoggo describing Jack's personality)

I know it can be a little confusing to some people, but as someone who struggles with similar issues, just because he struggles to express intimately doesn't mean he can't love anything. Sometimes people are just different and communicating like that doesn't come as easily, even to the people you're closest to. To make it as easy as possible to comprehend-- He's quite literally a tsundere. (Minus the exaggerated ridiculousness in anime) He loves Dave, he just cant bring himself to say or act like it. The dismissiveness or rudeness in response to Dave's affection is not abuse, it's just a defensive response since he doesn't know how to say it back. (His way of being "shy") -- Also note its important that Dave UNDERSTANDS this about him by that point.

However Jack isn't the only thing I've seen regarding the claims that their ship is abusive-- and to debunk all of those I'm going to explain the three points that keep Davesport from being abusive, and I'll use Henry x Dave (which is what I'll call it to prevent it getting confused for FNAF willry) as an example alongside it since its super obvious why that one is messed up. Firstly, They are both bad people. By this point, Dave and Jack are murderers. It's just not surprising that they will be willing to kill each other at at least some point, considering they are willing to kill 5 year olds without remorse- and they'll both deserve it. It's only their own faults that they teamed up with the other, and it's meant to be the ultimate irony when Jack becomes even worse than Dave by "An ending". My point is- they're bad people. It's not like they're owed perfect company or would choose wholesome people to hang out with when they're literally both child murderers. Dave wasn't evil and didn't want to kill by the time he teamed up with Henry (and even after it was Henry's fault), so by that point his suffering was absolutely undeserved.

Secondly, They're lacking any specific power dynamic. Unlike Henry and Dave- whom have several levels of "Age, Father figure, and Employer", the most important one is that Henry is Dave's abuser. He manipulated him and purposefully harmed him both mentally and physically, whereas Dave never had any intention of doing either because Dave loved him and didn't want to lose him (because he had nobody else) This obviously much different with Dave and Jack, whom other than being taller and several years older than (which you can argue their 6 year age gap is weird but they didnt get to know each other till they were both older than 30 so by that point age difference doesnt rlly matter and (also theyre "mentally" like 24 and 22 canonically anyways (as much as I usually hate that argument)) Other then that they are only co-workers. This is a bit more arguable during DSAF 1, where Dave comes across more threatening and comes across like he's manipulating Jack, but I don't exactly count that because I wouldn't say theyre "shippable" or in their "situationship*" by that point (but also because them even being a ship was barely considered by the creator at that point obviously)-- whereas Dave is certainly more easily recognized as sincere to Jack in DSAF 2. Jack also is not someone who is afraid to defend himself against Dave, as shown by the fact he's willing to call out Dave's ridiculous behaviors (which is reasonable of him to do).

(Also from the Dave x reader fanfic) (I just think this specific screenshot debunks any sort of "power dynamic" claim)

My Third and Final point: There is a CHOICE involved I haven't really done much Dave defense in this post, but his defense is very simple: He is literally physically unable to comprehend guilt or conscience. Dave didn't want to murder anyone in the first place, but it was Henry who fucked with his (literal) head so much to the point he stopped being able to feel guilt. He doesn't care about murder and doing wrong because he CAN'T care. You can't really let that reflect Dave as a character when he's really not in control of himself in the first place. Now with that, that doesn't change the fact he could certainly affect and hurt people, and it's fully up to Jack as to whether or not he wants to deal with this purple man's freakish life choices and hobbies or not. And that's honestly super dependent on the ending you decide to base Jack on. Most people see the 'canon' endings to be: Gnarly ending (DSAF 1) -> An ending (DSAF 2) -> Good ending (DSAF 3) Where in all of these, Jack DOES choose to deal with Dave and basically is completely cool with murder. You don't have to follow those endings if you don't want to, but that's just typically what the modern "Davesport" is known for, but its what I'm using for my defense (considering this is a defense of both fandom and canon Davesport.) Though as opposed with Henry and Dave- Dave had no choice. Henry only ever manipulated him into thinking he did, and Henry made sure to feed this whole 'we will be a family' ideal into Dave (who never had one) so that Dave would be terrified to lose him. Jack never manipulates Dave (when teamed up with him), and Dave never manipulates Jack (tho arguable in DSAF 1 as well). They stay with each other despite all of their issues, and I believe its due to some co-dependency (imo I think Jack is also obsessed with Dave just in a different way before DSAF 3) Which isn't healthy, but not...inherently abusive.

I believe my main three points kind of cover the most of why I dont consider Davesport to be inherently a bad ship, but like I said- if you don't like it, none of that matters anyways. You dont NEED a reason to like something, and I wont try to convince you why you should ship something because I like it. Just don't hate it just because of what someone else says-- 90% of the dsaf fandom aren't comshippers, and Davesport isn't gross or "toxic /neg" just because it's not healthy. I think "Don't fetishize/romanticize literal abuse like its normal or sexy" and "We should explore more complicated and unhealthy dynamics" can and SHOULD coincide with each other!!!! I think Davesport is great because of how bittersweet it is that these two people finally found solace and acceptance in each other but couldn't get past the self-sabotaging nature of what Henry turned them both into, ultimately making it impossible to work out forever. I think embracing the Davesport makes the (kind of aged) trilogy a lot more enjoyable of an experience and I DO encourage any davesport skeptics to keep an open mind. [Pretend I wrapped this up super nicely I can never do that--- Also this is open for conversation and/or debate, and also yada yada my bad if i said something randomly terrible I have extremely poor social skills lol let me know so I dont do it again yada yada] *Also if anyone doesnt know a situationship is (at least in the context im using it in ive heard other definitions for it but its not a real word so i actually dont care) when 2(or more) people basically treat eachother like lovers but they never communicate this outright and dont technically officially date but like they treat and commit to eachother like a partner would) (So its kind of what all those people who playfully flirt and call each other their spouses as a commited running joke are in)

[caligvlasaqvarivm]

Granted the possibility that Eridan, Vriska and Aradia could be friends, by extension, could Eridan have the possibility to become friends with Tavros?

Unfortunately, no 😔 and what it comes down to is this: Eridan is REALLY STRESSFUL to be around if you aren't Karkat (even for people who like him, which is why such an important quality in his platonic friend group is an ability to set and maintain hard boundaries), and Tavros is REALLY BAD at dealing with stress.

Tavros often gets mischaracterized as being really sweet and kind, and I think that's a little south of where he actually is. His main character trait is avoidance, not acceptance. When the going gets tough, Tavros gets going, either physically (leaving Vriska to bleed out, or ghosting Gamzee after being put off by his offer to make out a little, or blocking Dave after getting scared by his sexual remarks) or mentally (his reliance on his imaginary friend, and the way he turns to them for comfort while being tormented by Vriska). He doesn't actually LIKE Vriska at all, and is actually pretty vocal about DISliking her, but he's too afraid of real confrontation to actually mount a resistance until well after it's too late, resulting in his death.

He's still a lot nicer than most of the trolls, but it's a low bar. And he deserved to be treated better, but that's also all of them. Let's not forget that once he really grows a spine after being combined with Vriska for a little bit, he flips her off. Even then, however, his response to things he doesn't like is still, like. Leaving. Growing a spine just lets him actually do that, instead of meekly expressing that he would like to, and then getting bullied into not.

And Eridan is just stressful to be around. He's basically a weeping geyser of emotional sincerity and neediness 24/7. Even the people in his life that like him need to set and maintain hard boundaries with him so they don't exhaust themselves, and this is even true of his romantic interests (with the exception of Karkat). Even Roxy gets stressed by him, even if it's good stress (excitement, fun).

And the thing is, even at his absolute best, most therapized, Eridan is still going to be the team's Murder Advocate. More intimately than anybody else, he understands the connection between sacrifice, duty, and the greater good. A lot of people seem to think Eridan's ultimate character arc should lead to him refuting violence, but I disagree; there are times where violence, and even murder, are necessary (for an easy example, killing Condy, and for a very personal example, killing lusii/trolls so his species/friends could stay alive). He's the teammate that reminds the rest of the team that violence and murder are viable, and sometimes the only, option; who offers to do the dirty work himself and shoulder that burden; and who has a powerful driving force of duty, responsibility, and - that most hopeful of qualities - CONVICTION.

His character arc doesn't lead to him refuting his prior beliefs, but gaining clarity on them: exactly what he believes in and why, disentangling it from his shitty society and the expectations it placed upon him. This inevitably leads to him having a very strong personality that clashes with a lot of his teammates, even post-character development, and unfortunately, Tavros is one of them.

So if we're talking Tavros before he grows a spine - they would definitely not be friends. Eridan would be able to trap Tavros into conversation, but if Tavros already doesn't like Vriska for being an asshole with empathy problems, there's no way he'd like Eridan, who's that turned up to eleven. I mean, let's be real, do you think Eridan "refuses to have fun and is also a hipster and also phrases things in a hostile and aggressive way as a default" Ampora would not wind up 1) insulting fiduspawn, 2) insulting tinkerbull/bringing up that he kills lusii regularly and that Tavros is really lucky tinkerbull is so small because it made them not a target, and/or 3) insulting Tavros for his spinelessness in an effort to pitch flirt, or even just as a factual observation?

And if we're talking Tavros after he grows a spine, all that would change is that he'd voice outright that he doesn't really like Eridan and doesn't want to talk to him. And then leave, probably.

And that'd be a problem for Eridan, before or after his character development, because he desperately craves attention, and Tavros's whole thing is avoiding the stuff he doesn't like. This is also why he wouldn't get along particularly well with people like Sollux or Equius; they don't really give him attention, good OR bad, and either tell him to fuck off, or fuck off themselves. Let's remember how Vriska ghosting him on accident led to him having an anxiety episode where he beats himself up for being SO STUPID!!!!!!! People who don't really like him and simply withhold attention from him are the people he feels the worst interacting with.

And that's BEFORE Gamzee gets added to the mix LOL