#but i feel like shit because at a certain point

[jmtorres]

i just saw a post about how we just have to "live with" covid and wanting more protections from our government is unreasonable because we'll never wipe it out, it jumps species and is in all sorts of animal populations (like, true ok) so why even try to

and apparently the argument was aimed at people (who I haven't seen in the wild) who are arguing we should still be in lockdown. and i have mixed feelings about the idea of extended lockdown or attenuating isolations; but my main feeling at this point is not that the government should keep us apart but that the government should be trying to make it safer for us to be together

things the government could/should be doing about covid:

we know that ventilation/air movement helps a shitton. we should be incentivizing upgrades to ventilation systems in all public buildings with shit like rebates or tax deductions, while phasing in eventual legal requirements. (and uh. it has occurred to me that the US might actually be doing this sideways by there's currently this decade enormous tax incentives in re energy efficient upgrades for slowing climate change and you know. energy efficient hvac does tend to improve ventilation. extra point to biden here.)

mandatory paid sick leave so workers aren't under social or economic pressure to work when sick

passing out RT-LAMP tests like metrix that actually work instead of the rapid antigen tests that have become less and less reliable as the virus mutates

i don't know how you'd write this law but like 95% or more of computer-based work can be done remotely and companies should not be allowed to force people to return to the office. I know there's people who want to be back in person and I'm not saying they should be forced to stay home but ffs I know of at least two people CLOSE to me who worked remotely before the pandemic and at some point their workplaces tried to tell them they weren't allowed to do that anymore despite the pre-existing contracts. stop canceling remote work for people that want, need, or prefer it.

for that matter, every college lecture that was an online class during covid should still be offered as an online class, there is no reason to force students into auditoriums in person. you got the communications infrastructure up and running, why are you tearing it down. give people the OPTION. it increases accessibility for everyone!

covid vaccine immunity lasts about four months. this should be well-publicized and everyone should be able to re-up for free every four months. "every year, like the flu vaccine" is demonstrably not often enough. actually "for free" isn't good enough start handing out $10 gift cards you will be shocked at how many people who are resistant to the idea of vaccines will fold for $10 a shot

are there already laws on the books about masks in medical settings that some medical professionals are blatantly ignoring because they forgot what best practices were before the plague and they're 'tired of masking'? if not, pass laws. if so, fucking enforce them

oh another incentives for upgrades phasing into legal requirements thing: brass doorknobs and railings over stainless steel or whatever. microbes do not survive on brass surfaces

i mean. i know this one sounds too extreme to a lot of people but. UBI.

most if not all of these measures will prevent or ameliorate other pandemics of different diseases that may arise in the future. and just. generally improve our health and quality of life for other reasons.

I haven't felt safe to go to a concert since 2020. Maybe if I knew a venue was legally required to have ventilation to a certain standard and that none of the ticket takers and ushers were on the job sick to avoid risking loss of paycheck or job, and knew a larger percentage of the crowd had up to date vaccinations--maybe if any or all that, I might ever feel comfortable going to a show again.

wouldn't it be nice if those of us who have been disabled, by covid or other conditions, had accessible remote options but also occasionally felt safe enough to interact with and participate in wider society?

one of the arguments on the post I saw was how isolation was massively psychologically damaging and various strata of society were affected in all sorts of ways, from undersocialized kids to increased depression in--well across the board, I think. and here's the thing: WE KNOW. PEOPLE WITH CHRONIC HEALTH CONDITIONS, LONG COVID OR OTHERWISE, KNOW ISOLATION SUCKS REAL BAD. because we, both for our own health and due to disability ostracism, are still isolating and isolated more than most.

what are you as individuals or societies, what are our governments, doing to help make it safe and accessible to rejoin you????

[a-fangirltrash]

"Ford treated Fiddleford so bad!!" As if him treating Fidds like shit wasn't directly a product of being constantly gaslighted and abused by Bill.

I'm genuinely getting tired of people flaming Ford, but in a serious tone. Like people are acting like he's a toxic narcissist that used to put Fidd down... and... no he never did???

Ford ADMIRED Fiddleford, he TRUSTED his friend for what he described as "the project of his life" and Ford, being the most prideful man in the world, decided to ask for help because he knew how CAPABLE Fiddleford was.

When Fiddleford arrived Ford let him know how thankful he was that he was there with him, the man even took a bath and made sure to make him feel like he was at home. Ford even remembered his favorite bean brand?

When Fidd got traumatized by the gremoblin, Ford TRIED to help with what he knew. He tried to help him meditate, took days off for him, decided that they could go out and have some good time. Be mindful that this might've been the total OPPOSITE of what Bill wanted, and he still did for his friend sanity. Bill would make Ford work like CRAZY.

Also, for him it wasn't "putting him in danger!!" For him it was sharing adventures with his friend! Just like hi did with *cofcofSTANLEYcofcof*. That's love language all around.

Fiddleford could abandon the project anytime, but he didn't because he liked being there. And Ford is NOT the guilty one for Fidds creatinf the gun :/ it's nor his fault that fidd interpreted "using his creativity" in that way. Ford NEVER approved that gun.

Also, Ford noticed that RUBIK THING, HE APPREACITE HIM SO MUCH HE KNEW HIS HABITS. AND GOT CONCERNED RIGHT AHEAD.

"B-but he free Frilliam!" The portal was close, did you all READ how much gaslighted Ford was at that point? He didn't free it because "ugh i don't care about this shitty axolotl" but because Bill started to freak out and yell at him to get rid of it. Ford wrote "A friend" with a heart in the title??? Wdym he didn't appreciate it aaaagh

If Stanley took the diaries (i don't like this universe because...stanley:() he WOULD have looked for Fiddleford, they'd have made the Institute of Oddology, he'd have shared his success... with the man that helped him the most.

TBOB SPOILERS AHEAD

He got sad when Fiddleford told him he was gonna get back home to spent time with his family, he PLANNED holidays with him. Even if he DIDN'T like holidays.

He took a day off just to make him happy after his atrocious christmas party, he USED RESOURCES that as you know ford is the most practical mam in the world JUST to decorate the portal as a tree and make Fiddleford happy.

And that atuff of "h-he doesn't appreaciated Fiddleford gifts!" IS SO DUMB OMG, he wore the gloves in the snow and was incredibly thankful about them. When BILL that dumbass triangle pretty much LACERATED his hands, he used Fiddleford gloves as a way to hide those scars, and in a sense, probably to comfort himself because he was ALONE.

I think that was the reason of Fiddleford fast forgiveness, not only because he's a sweet heart, but because after fighting with Bill i think he noticed how BIG was the monster torturing his "partner".

And after all of this i'm not trying to excuse Ford treating him poorly and not listening to him in time

BUT FORD IS NOT A PERFECT VICTIM

Even if i believe he wasn't "the" (at least only) reason of Fiddleford becoming crazy, i know it could have been better for him and he could have avoided so much trauma. But can we please stop seeing Ford as a narcissist mad scientist and start seing him as a victim... of a terribly abusive relationship that checks in for all types of domestic abuse... please!!! Ford is not a perfect VICTIM Can we blame Bill!!!

All this rant is because there's certain ship... which i kinda like, but i just HATE HATE HATE the interpretation and how much they put Ford as a villian on it omg

[loserlvrss]

𝐄𝐀𝐓 𝐌𝐄 𝐔𝐏 ( 이희승 )

pairing : lee heeseung x fem!reader genre : drabble, [ MDNI 18+ ] smut warnings : oral ( fem rec ), petnames, language, overstimulation, slight fingering word count : 1.1k authors note : crazy for him… he’s just sooo

“hee,” you breathed out, threading your fingers through his hair, “hold on.” 

the way he dragged his lips along your collarbone and down to the hem of your shirt was making your brain short circuit. he wasn’t usually the one to initiate sex out of nowhere—because, out of you both, he knew how to hide his desires better than you did. however, almost ten minutes ago he’d gotten home from a company dinner where he happened to have a drink or two, leaving him slightly tipsy; it wasn’t nearly enough to impair his ability to think clearly. no, actually he’d never been clearer about what he wanted… 

you. under him. head between your legs. 

he had pleaded, compromising for the position. initially he wanted you to sit on his face, however you thought he might die in his current state. not that he seemed to mind much. he’d happily die if it meant you on his tongue. 

“baby,” you tugged just a little harder, getting him to lift his head with a groan. his eyes met yours, blown out and half-lidded. you knew you were fucked from the moment you met him, always giving him what he wanted if he so much as looked at you a certain way. 

his voice was barely over a whisper, peppering less intense kisses between words, “what’s wrong, angel?” 

truthfully, nothing. but you thought you needed him to hurry up before you lost your mind entirely. he’d taken his god forsaken time running his hands down, around and over your body before he even pressed his lips to your skin. you thought he was needy, but maybe he was just up to his same old shit, getting you frustrated and pliable enough to beg. 

and you would, you both knew that. 

“can you…” you couldn't even finish the sentence, heeseung pushing your shirt up entirely and attaching his mouth to your naval. you whimpered, feeling a smirk form against your skin. he watched as you threw your head back into the pillow, letting out a breath-filled moan. he loved you so embarrassingly much, he swore he’d never seen something prettier than you. nonetheless, you were just as deep in love… in reality, how could you not be? 

he laughed slightly, gripping your hips and dragging you down towards him. “can i, what?” he asked. except he knew you wouldn’t be able to answer with him sucking marks into your hips; just twist and turn. 

your whimpers and moans were only fuel to his flame, splaying his hands over your body to get you to stop moving too much. 

“c-can—you, fuck, hurry up?” 

his eyebrows rose in amusement, though you wouldn’t notice through closed eyes and a displayed neck. 

he thought your attempt to get what you want was admirable, and if he was completely sober—hiding his hips grinding against the sheets—then he’d make you clarify. but he was just as far gone, and borderline, needed it worse than you. 

he gave you one last kiss on the middle of your stomach before hooking his fingers in the waistband of your sweats. he dragged down both fabrics from your body, exposing your lower half fully to him. 

he fought back a groan that crept up his throat. “you’re so wet, my love.” your fingers curled into his hair tighter, and he couldn’t hold back the noise anymore. it hit your ears, but you played it off like you hadn’t noticed. though, he probably wouldn’t stop even if you made fun of him for being so down bad for pussy—at least he was getting some whenever he wanted, he’d think, in comparison to his single best friends. “is it for me?” 

“yes, heeseung! all for you baby.” you didn’t mean for it to border a shout, however you were beyond impatient at this point in time. “now, please wou—“ 

he cut you off by wrapping your thighs around his head, using his hands to keep them on his shoulders, and diving him. 

he dragged his tongue through your folds, (literally) testing the waters. you tried to follow with your hips, but every time he’d lightly smack your skin in response. until you got the hint. 

“hee, please.” and he smiled, knowing that he was finally getting what he wanted. “i need more, please, need it—you—so bad.” 

that was his cue, his undoing, and he sucked your clit into his mouth. he savored your taste, and basked in the sounds you made. he couldn’t help the grunts that left his throat every time you’d pull on his hair just right. he liked it. 

he liked it all. 

the way you kept saying his name. the way your legs got tighter as you kept him buried. the way you looked so ethereal just using him to your pleasure, rolling your hips so desperately. this is what he wanted, the exact vision he had in his mind almost twenty minutes ago. you needed it… but he needed it more. 

you grabbed at his hand on your leg, with the one not threaded through his dark locks, until he slotted his fingers between yours. you squeezed as an attempt to ground yourself from the sky-soaring pleasure. 

“s-shit,” you stuttered, “baby, i-i’m close,” 

he hummed, the vibrations only adding pleasure, and readjusted his body to be closer. if you weren’t so close to toppling over the edge, you might’ve laughed. 

he didn’t let up, in fact he got—somehow—better; alternating between kissing, sucking and licking. he knew you and your body too damn well, you thought. if you weren’t designed for him, you don’t know who would be.

“gonna cum,” you blurted, body tension under his grip, “hee—fuck!” 

however, when he would normally stop and fuck you, he didn’t. he kept his mouth firmly planted on your heat, savoring every last drop you had to offer… and then some. he just couldn’t will himself to pull away. not even when you pulled almost hard enough to take some locks with you. 

he listened to your pants and whines, but it was distant and cloudy. and when he broke away from your clenched hand to ghost two fingers at your entrance, you almost screamed. 

“no—“ you opted for pushing, but your boyfriend wouldn’t budge, “n-no more,” 

the overstimulation was painfully blissful. you both knew you liked it, after all you had an agreed on safe word that you hadn’t used. he could at least hear as much as that. but it didn’t even cross your mind. not even when he pushed in, scissoring and dragging his digits at a rapid pace. 

“fuck,” it’s like he came up for air—but not very far—his face glossed over. “you’re so beautiful, baby. give me another, please. i need it.” who were you to deny when it felt as good as it did? 

in reality, you had a feeling this was only the start of your night with him. 

please reblog and like <3 comments are appreciated ! thank you 4 reading © loserlvrss 2024 all rights reserved. 

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taglist : @yoursjaeyun @jakeify @hoonven @hursheys @mystarsohee @greentulip | send an ask to be added. 

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[gremlinmodetweeker]

König's Kids Headcanons

I think König, when he's there, would be a great dad. He's a bit of a gremlin, but this just makes him a better dad. He's also a bit of a menace at parent teacher meetings.

Anyways, have some silly headcanons

Art from This Post

König is a surprisingly good father (when he’s there). He’s strict, but also knows how to relax and let things slide. He will play-wrestle with his kids and make sure they have plenty of time to run around in nature and read books. He’s passionate about his kids’ hobbies and encourages them to learn and explore what they love.

He’s the type of dad to teach them how to fight but also play pretend games with them

He does not like having tea parties, but he will endure for his children. He will endure great hardship and pain for them, and if this includes sipping water from a plastic teacup while sitting on a tiny stool, so be it. He can endure. However, he draws the line at makeup. He can’t endure (nor can he sit still long enough)

When König is home from work, he drops his military titles at the door and focuses entirely on being an important part of their lives. The sad part is that you can see he’s actively trying to make up for time he’s lost. This is part of what leads to him retiring early to a local security job.

Without a steady father figure in their lives, his kids do grow up to struggle with certain things. However, all things considered, they turn out pretty well adjusted and healthy. Honestly, pretty solid people. They turn out to be the kind of people you feel like you can respect and appreciate.

But when they’re young his kids are little shits. They’re the type to break stuff for fun. They also will run and hide from you. At a certain point, you’ll have to resort to using child leashes because they will run away from you in public. So when they’re young, they’re terrors in your house. When they get older, they have their father’s streak of intelligence and are snarky assholes. They have brutal teenage years.

This is exacerbated by the fact that for the first ten years of his youngest kid’s life, he’s still in a PMC and going on military contracts, so the kids have large periods of time where they’re missing their father.

König realizes too late that he missed a lot of his kids’ development and chooses to retire to a more local security job to spend more time at home. It’s a big change in the household, but not an unwelcome one. His older kids struggle the most, but they do grow to form strong bonds with him because of his choice to stay home

König makes a good deal of money early on so he can go on to take a lower paying job later in life. His kids never have to worry about if they have money. They have to worry about whether or not their parents will say yes.

König is a pretty strict father. He’s a military man, a former colonel. He’s not going to be a horrible abusive father, but he will be a bit much sometimes. You might find yourself stepping in to defuse the tension sometimes.

Thankfully, König doesn’t yell at his kids (unless it’s something stupid and it’s pretty obviously a joke) or hit them. He’s actually pretty bad about disciplining his kids. You might have to take over in that department. Having been in the military for so long, König’s terrified of going overkill on his kids and doesn’t want to risk hurting them. He can dish it out, yes, but he’s extremely cautious when doing so.

He’s also quite fair. He does his best to treat his children equally. He’s surprisingly good. He focuses on encouraging their individual hobbies and finding their own personalities. They do grow up to be quite self-confident with their father’s teachings in their heads. They’re not arrogant, but they’re confident and assertive

They’re not popular in school, but not hated. They do pretty decently. Academics are a bit too easy for them, so König has to step in to teach them study habits and keep their passion for learning. Thankfully, his father was a professor, so he’s pretty good at this.

That said, König will sometimes be pretty silly when disciplining. Sometimes, you can hear his full colonel voice booming from outside about someone pulling some silly prank on him as he’s mowing the lawn. He’s not the type to pull pranks on his kids (but he’ll happily torment you) but he will play silly games with them. I think his kids learn that when he’s yelling, he’s not actually that angry, he’s just playing around. It still scares the shit out of your kids’ friends when he does it when they’re over

König has a tendency to scare children in public. He tries really hard to not make them nervous, but with the hood and the height and the tired look in his eyes? Nah he’s terrifying.

König’s kids grow up not being afraid of anyone because nobody’s as scary as their dad. This also means all the kids know that those kids have the scariest dad.

When your kids’ friends come over, they’re terrified of König. Unfortunately, he finds this slightly funny and takes advantage of this. You might have to step in and diffuse the tension to help those poor children realize that when König is yelling about things, he’s not actually mad. Maybe make cookies with him or something, it’ll help break the ice.

Your kids and their friends are all taken under König’s wings for protection. He’ll go up to bat for any of those kids. He genuinely cares so much about them. Having very select few friendships as a child himself, he’ll go out of his way to ensure his children have healthy social lives.

Sometimes the parents are unsettled by him. This is König’s unsettling form of social anxiety at play, so you’ll have to mediate between other parents and König to make sure they realize that no, he’s not an abusive monster, he just makes horrible jokes about his children. He has very dark humor but plays it straight, which is a horrible combination.

He has had a teacher call CPS on him before, but it was quickly resolved. However, most people are frightened by König when he steps into a room and it’s no different at parent-teacher interviews

He always blows teachers out of the water for how much he cares about his kids getting a quality education. He’s also quite receptive to their advice (if it’s good) and is willing to step in when needed. Teachers also typically find that he’s quite a fun parent volunteer to have on field trips (he is extremely popular)

Some of the more timid kids grow to like König because he tries to ensure all children are included when he’s around. He’s good at making sure everyone feels noticed.

Of course, as said, in the beginning everyone is terrified of the giant foreign soldier man. His kids have to teach their friends to not be afraid of their dad when he’s home.

Later on, this means in late high school his kids' friends consider him a DILF. He’s horrified. Flattered, but horrified. He has a serious talk with you about how to not be a DILF. He genuinely is so upset by the concept. His kids laugh at him all the time because he’s miserable about it.

Konig Dump

Konig Headcanons

[clangenrising]

have you considered slightly fixing your tone when it comes to addressing your audience? you push so back and argue against certain points so often, it's sort of inevitable that ppl are going to apologize even when asked not to

I'm sorry, "fixing my tone"???

There is nothing wrong with my tone. I regularly get people telling me that I am far more calm, fair, and measured than they would have patience to be. If me asserting boundaries or shutting down harmful opinions is upsetting to you, that's on you, not on me.

When I tell people not to apologize, it's not that I want them to stop being upset. It's totally valid to receive critique and be wounded by that. What isn't okay is for them to turn around and make me feel responsible for their emotional state. It's not my job to console them and what I'm ACTUALLY asking for is for my audience to act like mature adults and go manage their emotions in private instead of floundering for my approval or forgiveness.

A lot of fans online these days feel entitled to a relationship with the creators they like -- just look at the shit Chappell Roan is going through. Now, I'm not as big as celebrities like that and I luckily do not face nearly as much harassment as they do, but there is a similar attitude going on in parts of my audience (and I do mean Parts, most of my audience is lovely).

I'm not going to change what I believe or be quiet about my opinions in order to cater to my fans. This is my blog and I'm going to say what I want to. I'm not going to just passively let people say really problematic stuff in my asks, partially because I think having firm and honest discussions about those things is really important in order to shift attitudes and move towards progress.

So, no, I will not "fix my tone." I have and always will strive to speak with kindness and respect to my audience. Asserting my boundaries and pushing back on harmful stereotypes doesn't violate that. It would be less respectful if I treated you all with kid gloves and tip toed around trying not to upset anyone.

[maxwell-grant]

The Penguin: Episode 1 Breakdown

Thank you Lauren LeFranc, Mike Marino, Colin Farrell and Matt Reeves, we owe you the world for this, good God. It's finally here everyone and I've decided I'm gonna give each episode it's own post/breakdown of thoughts, because hahaha holy shit you guys this is beyond what I even dreamed of, and we're gonna be covering this for a while I think. I've worked out enough madness about this out of my system by talking with friends and I can't seem to be able to work on anything else till I get this done, so let's do it.

Bottom line: This isn't even just a must-watch if you like the Penguin or if you like The Batman, this is something I'd recommend to just about anyone in a heartbeat, something I can point to when people ask "why do you like The Penguin so much" and, instead of the elaborate nerd ramble that usually turns them off, I can just tell them to watch this. A friend of mine (who already loves Batman and digs the Penguin quite a bit) even told me as much, that he's starting to get why I love the character so much, and truly, is there a better feeling than this? Well, there is, and it's watching the show. Let's dig into this first episode:

Right upfront I'm gonna say that this doesn't really seem to be the Sopranos rip-off that people have been calling it before release, although there are definitely Sopranos comparisons to make here. I've spent the past months finally watching The Sopranos in order to get the comparison and definitely want to talk about those comparisons after I finish it (and this show ends). This thing aims to stand on it's own legs as a crime show and it's smashing out of the gate with an extremely promising first episode.

So this just casually opens with the reveal that all along, there was a second rich Gotham the whole time that was completely unaffected by everything we saw in the movie, already throwing a great twist on the events of that movie, and further reinforcing how fucking full of shit The Riddler was. All we saw Batman and the others deal with in the movie was just affecting the poorer parts of the city. All Eddie did was drown rats, and make life worse for the people already in the bottom, while never even getting close to targeting the systemic rot that ruined his life. He retains ideological worshippers in subways obsessed with the corruption of the city without doing anything to actually improve it, and because of him, the streets of Gotham are waterlogged shitholes while the rich Falcone suburbs are doing just fine, peachy even.

I said a while back that, in spite of having about 6 scenes/10 minutes of Penguin runtime, The Batman managed to squeeze impeccably controlled Penguin Trademark Scenes, and this show opens with the last one they didn't get to then: Penguin killing someone for making fun of him. In the movie, he tries doing that with Falcone and is beaten to the punch, so here he gets to actually do it to disastrous consequences.

Fucking adore that the inciting incident of the show is based on the fallout of Oswald killing someone for making fun of him. He pours his heart about the dream he lives his life for, his new boss makes fun of him for being an embarassment to their profession and then he does the most typical Penguin thing by killing him for it and laughing afterwards. And then he realizes how badly he fucked up, and then we get a fucking perfect titledrop with his musical theme, the exact moment we finish The Batman and enter The Penguin.

God it is so fucking cool how the make-up/lighting, the scar across his face, makes it look like he's got a genuine beak from certain angles, how they're able to achieve that effect without giving him a more literal beak for a nose. Everytime they talk about the character, Reeves and Farrell always emphasize how integral the make-up was to them figuring out what to do with Oz, how little they knew what to make of his six scenes until Marino created their monster and suddenly everything fell into place. Mike Marino fully deserves co-credit for the creation of Oz.

Pretty amusing that Victor, as designed to be Penguin's Robin, has exactly the same origin as Jason Todd, a poor street kid trying to steal the hubcaps off the Penguinmobile (I'm sure this bodes very well for his odds at survival), as is the way in which Oz goes on about his recruitment. He press-gangs this kid at gunpoint to help him bury a body arguing with himself and eventually the kid why shouldn't he just kill him to be safe, while trying to impress the kid with his car and air freshener and later that bullshit about "What, you think I hire any schmuck off the street?". From the tile drop onwards, he's doing everything on the fly while also spinning long-term plans set in motion as soon as he's on screen, he's taking this kid in out of sympathy and because he enjoys a power dynamic over someone weaker than him and because he very much needs someone to help him get stuff done. I'm extremely interested in exploring Penguin having a mentorship dynamic and I'm beyond curious as to what happens with Victor from this point onwards, but that poor kid is in for a terrible fucking time.

Found it very funny how much he half-asses the murder threat to Victor. Like it's his first time actually doing it and he's trying to be serious, but not too scary because he's already seeing himself in the poor kid with a stutter and wants the kid to think he's also a cool guy like he wants everyone to think he's a cool guy. I also think having Victor as the POV helps to sell moments like these, because it's still terrifying to him. Even as we follow their stories, these power players of Gotham are still big scary monsters to people caught in the dregs and Victor helps to reinforce that.

I enjoy Oz being friends with sex workers and drag queens off the street as much as I enjoy Oz being depicted as the kind of guy who deludes himself into thinking the prostitute he's with actually likes him, Lauren and Farrell launched into a bit about in on the podcast and I'm curious to see what's going on with him and Eve here.

Lots of perfect funny little character moments across the whole thing. Oz insulted by the idea of taking extra pickles off a poor kid's dirty mouth, but with zero hesitation whatsoever for picking jewelry off his boss' corpse. Dude is governed by principles even as he actively has to break them to survive.

"Technically it's plum." "He is the - or was the - new kingpin", "He's got nurse-like qualities." The show is not overtly trying to get you to find Penguin likeable as much as it wants you to find him engaging - making you think he's likeable is Colin Farrell's job and he's masterful at it, definitely a lot more matured within the character compared to the movie.

If there's anything in particular I'm thankful for regarding Gotham (well okay Gotham led directly to Telltale Penguin which was the basis for this one, so really I do have a lot more to be thankful with Gotham), it's the decision to give him a legit waddle via the broken foot, but the way they incorporate it here with the club foot does so much for him, so much as a modern day reinvention of The Penguin. Adds so much to why he's never been a serious candidate for mob leadership, why he kinda had to spend all his time in the Lounge, why he actually needs someone to help him run affairs, why he has such a gaping ego wound and is so murderously angry at people making fun of him / calling him a goddamn penguin, adds so much validation and so much darkness and nuance to Oswald's overwhelming anger and bitterness over how the world treats him (and so much power should he opt to reclaim it, in turn). It's the kind of thing that frankly feels like it should have always been part of the character, like what all the previous versions were itching closer to or trying to get at. Of course this is a guy gets called a penguin and he hates it badly enough to murder people over it, of course.

This gets to really highlight how differently Oz acts depending on who he's with. Traditionally, one of my favorite things about The Penguin, and one of the things that puts him above the other villains, is that, due to his position, he has to interact with a lot more people than the other Bat-villains. He has to manage a lot more relationships and dynamics, he has to play peacekeeper and puppetmaster. he's the only one in the United Underworld who's regularly interacting with and recruiting other villains to do business with. He's the guy who you pin stuff on like the Gangland Guardians, Team Penguin, doing betting pools with the Rogues taking cover in his Lounge while Joker War is happening, having to rig games to keep good standing with Maxie Zeus and Frenchy Blake in Batman Audio Adventures, and so on. So I greatly enjoy this beat here of him talking about how makes himself smaller before the Falcones, and that moment of him adjusting his outfit and practicing expressions in the mirror before meeting with them. How he contorts himself is present in all of his relationships, and retroactively adds to the way he carries himself in The Batman.

It seems that Oz is functionally regarded as the Paulie Walnuts of the Falcones: useful muscle, loyal for the most part and amusing to keep around, but largely an unstable self-serving dumb asskisser kept where he belongs, a liability if not kept on a short leash. I think the show does a good job of highlighting all the reasons why Oz has never been seriously regarded as a viable option for a boss, even putting aside his disability. He is a fundamentally embarassing person for these serious respectable criminals to be around and of course, the joke is ultimately on them..

Of course, there is only two people in the show who actually know what he's capable of, Francis Cobb and Sofia Falcone, said to be the central relationships defining the show moving forward. Both of them also a defining commonality with Oswald, being people who are looked down on and dehumanized, and characters who are underestimated until it's time to bear their fangs.

Extremely invested in where they're going with Sofia Falcone, Cristine Milioti's been killing it, and will in fact not stop killing it. What a perfect villain for Penguin they've set up with her, someone who has his Kryptonite: she does not underestimate him. Although we know in advance that Oz is going to live and be in the next movie, the question here isn't even so much who's going to win the gang war, and rather how much damage these two freaks will do to the city until Batman gets back. In many ways, Sofia represents the shape of things to come just as much as he does.

She is this embodiment of both the pristine unfathomable wealth and privilege and power that he both detests and strives for, as well as this brutal new breed of madness and violence attacking the streets that he has to survive against and make deals with (and is himself very much a part of, however he denies it). She is Falcone's legacy in every way that matters, both a Kingpin of Gotham whose existence creates the oppressive conditions under which a Batman or a Riddler are created, as well as the Arkham Rogue, the larger-than-life sadist with a tragic origin and a signature torture-murder method and an embarassing name for the papers.

Even the fact that she is The Hangman, and Carmine was defined around his penchant for brutally strangling women - regardless of whether or not she did the crimes that got her in Arkham, she's become this larger-than-life themed expression of a violent obsession in a way that sets her up as every bit the Batman villain that The Penguin is. The two champions of the two Gothams, duking it out in this new world The Batman and The Riddler made, The Penguin vs The Hangman.

I am so glad Lauren LeFranc made the call for binning Alberto in the first five minutes so the rest of the show can focus on Sofia and make a real character out of her in a way nobody's ever really done before, every step of the way so far LeFranc has been perfectly on the ball about where to take these characters and their conflict. And speaking of those,

I feel very confident in saying that this is the first time anyone's ever really had something worth doing with Oswald's mother as a character in her own right and not just a source of anguish for Penguin (Gotham was almost onto something with Gertrude, but not nearly enough). When it comes to Penguin origin stories, my favorite's always been the Pre-Crisis one, where he's poor and bullied but happy with his mom and birds until she dies and the government seizes everything he has, which doesn't necessarily involve her much. But here? Francine Cobb is a real character in what little time we get to know her, and what a character she is. We quickly understand the role she's playing in Oz's life, not just as his mom and person he loves and strives to protect, but the person who's sculpting him into the man he's going to become.

She is vulnerable and she does need meds and she's not quite all there, and Penguin's need to care for her is visible in other actions of his. But then they turn it around by showing how strong and demanding she is, how she is fiercely ambitious and pushing him to be something he would otherwise not be, how much she loves him and sees greatness in him. She knows he's a people pleaser, she knows how to push his buttons, and she wants him to be more, so of course he's going to be more, because he lives to please his mom.

Related to this is this absolute bullseye of a summation of The Penguin, that Lauren LeFranc delivered in the podcast: "Perhaps his greatest fear is that love is transactional. And that yet, everything he does, every decision he makes, is as if that's true. As if "love is transactional" is a truth he abides by". Oswald's conception of power is being loved and revered like Rex Calabrese, and the love he wants most in all the world is the one from his mother. So in turn this, and all extensions of it, drive him to greater and darker lengths.

He doesn't have that ambition quite down yet, it's his mom that does. She who's pushing him to take over the city and not just be a guy scraping by for survival. He's smart and ambitious and extremely good at slipping out of trouble, but she's pushing him to be the guy who will be taking the city by the horns because that's what he has to be for their sake. Her legacy to her son is nurturing him having that dog in him that will make him the supervillain who picks fights with Vengeance. She is the force that's turning Oswald into The Goddamn Penguin and I can't wait to see how she's developed.

Of course he reprimands Victor in that scene for lacking ambition, who do you think he gets it from?

Really love what they've done with Sal Maroni in here so far. I like adaptations that take these throwaway Batman backstory gangsters and make something out of them, in this case, with Clancy Brown lending his power and voice and reputation as The Grand Boss of Villainy to play the last Respectable Gangster of Gotham, this intimidating principled old tiger who's inversely proportional to how much of a petty and scummy piece of shit Carmine Falcone was. Extremely a guy I'd want to see playing a hand in the creation of Two-Face. Just as crucial is the fact that he is the one who gets the most effortlessly outplayed by Oz here, because this is The Penguin Show: no room for traditional or respectable gangsters anymore, their purpose is to be crapped all over by our wacko birdman.

There's a lot about this that re-contextualizes his behavior in The Batman and the one I'm gonna point out is: even though he can't be sure his plan didn't completely go to shit, he is still keeping his wits and not being terribly scared about being beaten up and tortured and staring down the scariest Falcone with a gun shoved in his throat. But he craps his pants at the sight of the Batmobile. He gets pain, he gets indignity, but he doesn't get Vengeance, what kind of sick freak would come up with the stuff that guy does. A gun in his mouth and Falcone torture is just Tuesday, but a car that wants to eat his soul is some psycho shit he's just not ready to deal with.

It is the delicious tasty fucking irony that Oswald thinks Vengeance is this weird freak who doesn't play or bend to any rules and is here to fuck up everything, just like the madman who flooded the city, and thinks of himself in turn as a justifiable guy standing for the respectable old-fashioned empathetic way of doing things, instead of the exact same thing that Riddler and Batman are. Only Sofia gets what he really is, the same thing as her, and that's why she is the arch-enemy / the biggest thing he's gotta defeat in life for now.

God, how fucking PERFECT it is that he gets caught and tortured because he, after stabbing out a man's eye and causing him to get run over by a schoolbus, stops to wave at the kids in that schoolbus while covered in blood. Just the Rex Calabrese of it all, the self-image, this guy who's both a mean nasty son of a bitch and also a real bleeding heart softie and in ways that ruin his life and allow him to slip and wriggle his way out of shit he has no right to, as demonstrated by the finale.

Thinking about Sofia chastizing Oz saying he thinks she is a toy to play with, while rattling off the ways in which she owns him and everything he has, all the ridiculous little accessories her daddy let him play him, and he in turn is a ridiculous little accessory for the family she is twisting until it breaks. Perfect fucking villain for him. Can't wait to see how badly these two are gonna burn Gotham.

I knew deep in my heart that all I wanted out of a Penguin show, the thing that I simply needed to have in it, was Penguin pulling a heist set-up in advance, and it fucking delivered. He doesn't even complain at Victor for being late, because if anything, getting captured and tortured while the car crashed was even better for him. No, he complains at Victor for not being sufficiently gruesome with the body. See, unlike other cowardly anti-hero reinventions of Bat-villains, the show never wants you to forget that Oz is a weird freak and a disgusting piece of shit, even if he is a very likeable and even aspirational one. Only by the most random stroke of fate it wasn't Victor that he fed to the wolves at that moment, that he sees himself in the kid isn't exactly ensuring that he's gonna make out of this in one piece.

Mr. Vengeance gets Nirvana, and Mr. Boniface gets Dolly Parton, perfect credits.

In conclusion: Out of everything they could have done following the thunderous success of The Batman and it's ensuing influence over the DCU, out of all the offers Reeves must have gotten to helm their new universe after delivering a megahit reinvention of their breadwinner blockbuster character, Matt Reeves went "Nah, I listened to my crew, and what we really want to do is 8 hours of television about the waddling freak who's in my movie for 10 minutes", and he and his crew deserve the world for that. I dreamed as a kid of getting to make a big Penguin story or show, a wild impossible idea that would never actually happen, and now it's here and it's better than anything I'd ever imagined.

I'm fit to burst with joy and riding a high of no longer having to hunt for scraps and washing away decades of put-downs for the character and enjoying a Penguin renaissance like one I never imagined happening. I am extremely not an unbiased reviewer here, this show rules and I've waited for it since I was a kid and it's here, drink it the fuck in cause it's only the beginning.

[iheartz4starzz]

EMBARRASSMENT 𝜗𝜚 ࣪˖ ִ𐙚

dazai osamu x f.reader (gakuen au)

SYNOPSIS: reader is sitting alone at lunch, a certain bandage for brains decides to sit with them.

NOTE: so like... i'm back <3

Embarrassment is always a feeling that would kick you in the backside every time it got the chance to, which is probably most frequently.

Take class today, for example. Your classroom was taking a 'surprise' quiz from your teacher which, by the way, you are totally going to fail because you didn't understand half the shit the questions said. You didn't know why, but the melody from 'Symphony' kept ringing through your brain. This resulted in you having to read the questions over and over again.

Before you knew it, half the class was already finished with their quiz. And on top of that, you were hungry as hell. Probably to the point where you could eat your test paper. While trying to focus on your test, your stomach began to grumble loudly. It sounded as if a battle horn was being played. And get this, the whole class was quiet! Everybody turned to you with a questionable look, while some people giggled or snickered.

Sinking into your seat, your face began to heat up from embarrassment. That is, until you were saved by the loud ringing of the bell. Students fled from the classroom with their friends to their well-deserved lunch break.

You let out a sigh of relief and sat up from your desk, grabbed your bento box, and made your way to your normal, lonely bench for lunch.

You're used to sitting by yourself at lunch for the most part. People come and go from your table, yet you remain the only one that stayed. You sat down, opened your bento box, whispered a quick prayer before beginning to dig into your meal. God, how you've been waiting for this the whole day.

But before you could even take even a bite from a piece of food, a voice interrupted your peace. "Hey, you're (Name), right?"

An irk mark appeared on your forehead as closed your eyes in annoyance. You were about to eat, and someone interrupted you before you could even take a bite! Man, how disrespectful people can be.

You turned the voice and was in the process to give them a piece of your mind before your eyes widened to see none other than one of the most popular kids, Dazai Osamu. He's loud, sociable, and most definitely handsome. He's also often described as the class clown and player in your grade.

You looked around, wondering if he was talking to somebody else who's named (Name). There had to be someone else in this school name (Name), right?

"Me. You're talking to me?" You asked, pointing at yourself as you stared at brunette, dumbfounded.

Dazai could only laugh at your clueless expression, a smirk tugging on the corners of his lips. "I think so. Unless your name isn't Mai."

"Nope, yeah! That's me! Sorry. It's not everyday when the one of the popular kids at this school talks to me, y'know?" (Name) chuckles awkwardly, rubbing the back of her head in embarrassment about the stupid mistake she made. Of course he was talking to you! His gaze was literally directed onto you. This was your one chance to make a good expression, and you already blew it.

Dazai raised an eyebrow before snickering, then letting out a laugh. "You're funny! Mind if I sit here?"

You motioned to the spot beside you. Dazai scooted next to you, causing you to blush at the close proximity he created. You cleared your throat and stuck your hand out for Dazai to shake.

"I'm (Name), by the way. Though, you already know that because..." You stopped halfway before you could say anything else in attempt to save yourself from embarrassment. You expectantly failed and cursed under your breath.

Dazai smiled at your flustered and embarrassed expression. He found it cute. He noticed the hand you pulled away and grabbed it, pulling it back and shaking your hand firmly.

"No need to stop! I appreciate the reintroduction." Dazai chuckled and let go of your hand.

"R-Right."

"Anyways, about the quiz today." Dazai started and rested his cheek in the palm of his hand, his elbow propped onto the table. "You seemed to be having trouble on it. It's pretty easy, to."

"I'm just a bit... distracted." You replied, looking away from Dazai. You didn't want him to think you were stupid because the melody of 'Symphony' was one of the many things that lived in your mind rent free.

"You must've been hungry by how loud your stomach growled in class." He added.

"Don't even start with that!" You wailed, burying your red face into your hands.

Dazai laughed. "We have those times, don't sweat it. Plus, I'm pretty sure everybody was feeling the same way to." You still were embarrassed from the situation, though you picked your face up from your palms and continued to eat your lunch.

You and Dazai continued to chat through the lunch period, laughter filling the area as he told jokes and teased you. Though it embarrassed you mostly, you couldn't help but laugh along to it.

"Hey Dazai, how come you decided to sit with me?" (Name) asked and closed her bento box.

"Hm? Why did I?" Dazai recalled and cupped his chin with his point and thumb finger, thinking. He then smirked and leaned closer to you. "You looked lonely, after all. Plus, I thought you look pretty cute all flustered."

You blushed at Dazai calling you cute and how close he was to you, which caused you to smile in a giddy way. Just then, your guys conversation was interrupted by the school bell, informing everyone to get back to class. You sighed and stood up, smiling at Dazai.

"Thanks for sitting with me." You thanked the brunette, and to which he nodded in response.

A silence engulfed the conversation. Beginning to rock your heels back and forth, your lips pursed as you then muster up the courage to say the next thing. "Would it be crazy if we maybe hang out after school sometime? Maybe go to the arcade and get some ice cream?"

Dazai blinked his eyes, registering the information. A small blush dusted across his cheeks as he then smiled. "Yeah, sure. How about this weekend?"

"Cool, cool, yeah of course." You replied in a chill tone, but your inner self was actually screaming and jumping up and down with excitement. "Uhm, I'll catch you later, then!"

You backed away, bumping into a trash in the process. You quickly caught the bin before it could topple over, and smiled awkwardly at Dazai before running off.

The brunette held his hand to say something else, but it was to late. He let out a sigh and chuckled, shaking his head and stuffing his hands into his pockets before approaching the same door you went through.

'Silly girl. Doesn't she remember we're in the same class?' He thought to himself and walked inside the building.

[thefinalwitness]

in general if your response to a certain type of character, especially any form of minority, is literally any variation whatsoever of "that doesn't exist/wouldn't be allowed in this setting" you're being a bigoted piece of shit. just to be super clear. and because my adderall is in full effect rn i will even do you the favor of going over some reasons why your reasoning is not only flawed and inaccurate to begin with, but extremely harmful to entire groups of people you claim to care about.

"that doesn't exist" first of all, who fucking cares if a piece of media has never depicted a lesbian or a nonbinary person or a black person in xyz region/world? just because the creators didn't do it doesn't make it Canonical Law. also, regardless of how fantastical and fictional a setting is, its audience will ALWAYS be from planet earth where lesbians and nonbinary people and black people exist, and those people's feelings and their deservingness to see and put themselves in their favorite stories IS, in fact, more important than some white-ass cishet make believe world.

"it wouldn't be allowed" subtler issue, but an issue nonetheless. just because the setting is hostile TO certain groups of people does not mean those people do not exist there. ask yourself, what is so important to you about certain kinds of people either not existing period, or having to be miserable (closet themselves, conceal certain features, etc), in a given setting. why is that so important to you. why do you think these people can only exist if they hate themselves and/or live their lives suffocated by the world around them. why is it so "lore incompliant" or "immersion breaking" to you. why are you so concerned with upholding real or perceived prejudices in a fictional society if you claim to care about the real people who these prejudices affect. "realism"? see point one.

NONE of the reasons you make up to justify your reinforcement of real world bigotry in a pretend world are even reasons that would ACTUALLY bar xyz group of people from existing in said world. ishgard only shut its gates to the rest of the world for 15 years before ARR. old sharlayan accepted people from tural into its closed society. the ancients could literally conjure up whatever the fuck they wanted inside and outside their bodies. fantasias are a canonical item in the game, as per the quest that literally talks about them and then gives you one. there are HUNDREDS of perfectly lore compliant ways any given type of person could be in any given setting. but more importantly, people shouldn't need to justify why things like sexuality or skin color CAN exist in a given setting, because if you're not harboring some very bigoted ideas about how minorities are allowed to or "supposed" to exist, you don't fucking care about shit like this. it's stupid, inaccurate, and most of all, just plain cruel to the very real people behind these characters.

racism, transphobia, etc already exist in staggering abundance in the real world; you do not need to enforce that cruelty in a random fucking video game unless you have some very fucked up feelings about those groups of people festering in your brain. if you're not a member of those groups, shame on you, do better to support your fellow human beings. if you ARE a member of those groups, i am so fucking sorry the world has rotted your sense of self so deeply as to make you believe you can only exist in misery. i really, sincerely hope you're able to work through that and know that your existence is an inherently joyful, beautiful thing, and people like you deserve to get to exist peacefully, everywhere in the real world and in any and all fictional settings. i know finding worth in ourselves is too often an extremely difficult process, so i ask instead that you start with others like you. be kind to them, support them, find things about them that you admire, and try to see yourself in them. you deserve to get to heal from the insidious, evil things this world has poisoned your heart with.

[torchwood-99]

From your Thematic Headcanon ask game:

hc + 😡 for a headcanon about something that makes them angry

I totally LOVE stuff to get angry about! And I’m having a chaotic day, so it feels fitting!

Oh yes here we go!!!!

Eomer

People who abuse women. His love for Eowyn and his inability to save his mother instilled him early on with a fierce hatred of people who mistreat women. A hatred that goes beyond rationality sometimes, if he sees someone treat their wife or daughter harshly he will act first, think later, barging in on the situation without considering the ramifications of his actions, and how his interference could cause harm. That said, in the aftermath, once his rage has cooled, he always tries to help in a constructive way as well. This results in several laws for the protection of wives, daughters and other female kin being passed in his day.

People making fun of his beard. Stealing this headcanon, @konartiste, because of his Numenorean blood, it took Eomer longer to grow a beard than his peers, and even after it grows in it's not so naturally lustrous as theirs. He spends hours trimming it and brushing it to give it volume, and he can't grow it too long because it comes in patchy.

People who mistreat horses. Needs no further elaboration.

Eowyn

Feeling boxed in, confined, mollycoddled, overlooked, underrated, left out, overworked, exploited or generally done shit by because of her sex. Not a headcanon just canon but it's such a pressure point (rightfully so) it has to be said.

Being sick. She hates being sick. Her relationship with her body is fraught, because on the one hand she has suffered from being relegated to certain roles because of her gender, with the onset of puberty in particular hailing a stronger enforcement of gender roles in her life, but through training and effort she has been able to give her body a great deal of strength and skill, and so any feeling of "weakness" causes her to feel like her body is betraying her. Her periods are actually quite irregular, but when they come they can be truly painful, and this she hates above all else. Working as a healer makes her more forgiving of her own weakness, and her marriage to Faramir, who never treats her as less because she is a woman, (and introduces her to a lot of fun stuff her body can do and feel) makes her more at peace with her sex, but her monthlies still cause her a fair bit of frustration, as it really does dredge up the worst feelings she has about sex and weakness. Her first period itself was pretty traumatic, without a mother or female relative to help her through it. With her mother and aunts all dead, and her entry into womanhood being marked with blood and pain, womanhood seems interconnected with suffering and death, and it takes her a long time to put that all into perspective.

Impractical shoes. She hates shoes that pinch or have high heels. She hates any female specific fashion that significantly impedes movement or comfort. If it's inflicted on men and women alike, she can stomach it (like high collars on formal occasions) but anything that singles women out for discomfort/lack of mobility is her sworn enemy.

Also, side-saddles. Absolutely detests them. Side-saddles at the end of the third age, beginning of the fourth age, are the ones that have women sit entirely facing the side, and give women riders significantly less control over their horse than front facing saddles. Lothiriel's time as queen sees the development of more practical side saddles, that allow women decent control over their horses, which Eowyn grudgingly accepts, but still holds in dislike. She actively fights against Rohan adopting them for widespread use, because the reasons for women riding side-saddle (to protect their chastity) is an attitude she rightfully sees as harmful to women. As a result of her influence, the side-saddle comes to be seen as a fashion accessory, to show off a lady's gown on formal or ceremonial occasions, and women for the most part ride astride for sport and day to day use.

Faramir

Intellectual debates. He says he's always up for an intellectual debate, he says he loves discussing ancient texts and laws and poetry, but in truth he can't stomach people having different ideas to him, whether it be philosophy, history, art etc... He tries to play it cool, and when someone says something wrong, he is happy to explain to them why they are wrong. But if they insist on being wrong, it sends him into a cold, hard fury. He maintains decorum in front of them, but then rants for hours to Eowyn about it afterwards. The thing is, he usually is right, and usually the people disagreeing with him are wrong and wilfully so, but nonetheless, it makes him a little tiresome. When he actually is wrong, and it's explained to him, he takes it on board with good grace. It's just most of the time, he's in the right, so it makes him come across as intolerant of other people's views.

People underestimating his wife. He knows that under Eowyn's proud veneer, she suffers from self-esteem issues, and he gets very angry at people dismissing her or overlooking her, because he knows it causes these issues to flame up. Also, he thinks she's absolutely amazing, and as we've established, he struggles with people having different opinions

He can camp out in absolutely filthy conditions, and put up with dirt and blood and grime as part of being a soldier, but at home and in court life, he likes things neat an orderly. He's actually a bit precious about his fine clothes, and if there's a smudge or a stain, it bothers him like an itch until it's sorted out. Eowyn sometimes teases him by wearing her coronet at an angle, and watching him resist the urge to straighten it for her. (She likes it when he does, because he's very gentle when he does it, and takes the opportunity to run his fingers through her hair.)

[vladdyissues]

Do you believe in the difference in behavior between couples compared to friends? I don't mean that he is more affectionate with his partner...

If rhetorically Danny with Vlad is super serious and almost silent since he pretends that he doesn't like him in public and gets along well with his friends, Do you think Vlad noticed and talked to him privately? [I got it from a fanfic Oops]

Oh, I certainly believe there's a behavioral difference when it comes to friends versus romantic partners, especially in public. Unless the couple are being very careful—e.g., if they're celebrities or billionaires, who have paparazzi stalking them night and day, and don't want the entire world to know their personal business—there are subtle signs in body language, eye contact, and physical touch that can reveal the depth of their relationship.

For myriad reasons—not the least of which being the enormous age difference as well as Vlad's high profile status—I think Danny would be very careful about how he looks in public when he's around Vlad. Probably as carefully as Vlad would behave. If you've ever had a crush as a teenager, you know how mortifying it can be when your crush even looks in your direction.

Person 1: Oh, shit, they're walking toward me! What do I do what do I do!? Act calm! Breathe! Should I say hi? Or would that be too— Person 2: *walks past Person 1 to throw something in a trash can*

Until someone works up the courage to interact with their crush, they'll have no idea they're even being crushed on.

Vlad, though, he would notice. Not only because he's older, he's been there, he knows all about crushes, pining, and unrequited love, but because he can probably sense a lot about Danny through their ghost halves. He's probably been getting blasted with spectral love signals from the boy for months, but he deliberately ignored them until he was/is absolutely certain that he isn't misinterpreting them—because not only does that have the potential to be disastrous for him, publicly and professionally, but he doesn't want to break Daniel's heart. Vlad has had his heart broken before. For over 20 years he suffered the fallout from it. As much as he and Danny clash, he doesn't want to hurt the boy. Not so deeply, not that way.

But how would he even be able to approach Daniel to talk to him about these feelings he's been picking up on? How direct would he dare to be? Would he warn him of the dangers? Rebuff him? Tell Danny to wait? Or would Vlad, in his desperation and impatience to be loved, throw caution to the wind, accept the risks, and enter into a dangerous—but fervent, intense and spectrally powerful—relationship with Danny? I suppose that's a question each and every one of us Pompep authors ask ourselves (and answer) at some point.

[burying-brightness]

.

[sugarcoatednightshade]

thinking about how Humans Are Space Orcs stories always talk about how indestructible humans are, our endurance, our ability to withstand common poisons, etc. and thats all well and good, its really fun to read, but it gets repetitive after a while because we aren't all like that.

And that got me thinking about why this trope is so common in the first place, and the conclusion I came to is actually kind of obvious if you think about it. Not everyone is allowed to go into space. This is true now, with the number of physical restrictions placed on astronauts (including height limits), but I imagine it's just as strict in some imaginary future where humans are first coming into contact with alien species. Because in that case there will definitely be military personnel alongside any possible diplomatic parties.

And I imagine that all interactions aliens have ever had up until this point have been with trained personnel. Even basic military troops conform to this standard, to some degree. So aliens meet us and they're shocked and horrified to discover that we have no obvious weaknesses, we're all either crazy smart or crazy strong (still always a little crazy, academia and war will do that to you), and not only that but we like, literally all the same height so there's no way to tell any of us apart.

And Humans Are Death Worlders stories spread throughout the galaxy. Years or decades or centuries of interspecies suspicion and hostilities preventing any alien from setting foot/claw/limb/appendage/etc. on Earth until slowly more beings are allowed to come through. And not just diplomats who keep to government buildings, but tourists. Exchange students. Temporary visitors granted permission to go wherever they please, so they go out in search of 'real terran culture' and what do they find?

Humans with innate heart defects that prevent them from drinking caffeine. Humans with chronic pain and chronic fatigue who lack the boundless endurance humans are supposedly famous for. Humans too tall or too short or too fat to be allowed into space. Humans who are so scared of the world they need to take pills just to function. Humans with IBS who can't stand spicy foods, capsaicin really is poison to them. Lactose intolerance and celiac disease, my god all the autoimmune disorders out there, humans who struggle to function because their own bodies fight them. Humans who bruise easily and take too long to heal. Humans who sustained one too many concussions and now struggle to talk and read and write. Humans who've had strokes. Humans who were born unable to talk or hear or speak, and humans who through some accident lost that ability later.

Aliens visit Earth, and do you know what they find? Humanity, in all its wholeness.

[valtsv]

Do you write stories?

occasionally, but mostly i just come up with ideas that never make it past the worldbuilding stage

[greenerteacups]

oooh please someday tell us what you think of GOT

oh, no, it's my fatal weakness! it's [checks notes] literally just the bare modicum of temptation! okay you got me.

SO. in order to tell what's wrong with game of thrones you kind of have to have read the books, because the books are the reason the show goes off the rails. i actually blame the showrunners relatively little in proportion to GRRM for how bad the show was (which I'm not gonna rehash here because if you're interested in GOT in any capacity you've already seen that horse flogged to death). people debate when GOT "got bad" in terms of writing, but regardless of when you think it dropped off, everyone agrees the quality declined sharply in season 8, and to a certain extent, season 7. these are the seasons that are more or less entirely spun from whole cloth, because season 7 marks the beginning of what will, if we ever see it, be the Winds of Winter storyline. it's the first part that isn't based on a book by George R.R. Martin. it's said that he gave the showrunners plot outlines, but we don't know how detailed they were, or how much the writers diverged from the blueprint — and honestly, considering the cumulative changes made to the story by that point, some stark divergence would have been required. (there's a reason for this. i'll get there in a sec.)

so far, i'm not saying anything all that original. a lot of people recognized how bad the show got as soon as they ran out of Book to adapt. (I think it's kind of weird that they agreed to make a show about an unfinished series in the first place — did GRRM figure that this was his one shot at a really good HBO adaptation, and forego misgivings about his ability to write two full books in however many years it took to adapt? did he think they would wait for him? did he not care that the series would eventually spoil his magnum opus, which he's spent the last three decades of his life writing? perplexing.) but the more interesting question is why the show got bad once it ran out of Book, because in my mind, that's not a given. a lot of great shows depart from the books they were based on. fanfiction does exactly that, all the time! if you have good writers who understand the characters they're working with, departure means a different story, not a worse one. now, the natural reply would be to say that the writers of GOT just aren't good, or at least aren't good at the things that make for great television, and that's why they needed the books as a structure, but I don't think that's true or fair, either. books and television are very different things. the pacing of a book is totally different from the pacing of a television show, and even an episodic book like ASOIAF is going to need a lot of work before it's remotely watchable as a series. bad writers cannot make great series of television, regardless of how good their source material is. sure, they didn't invent the characters of tyrion lannister and daenerys targaryen, but they sure as hell understood story structure well enough to write a damn compelling season of TV about them!

so but then: what gives? i actually do think it's a problem with the books! the show starts out as very faithful to the early books (namely, A Game of Thrones and A Clash of Kings) to the point that most plotlines are copied beat-for-beat. the story is constructed a little differently, and it's definitely condensed, but the meat is still there. and not surprisingly, the early books in ASOIAF are very tightly written. for how long they are, you wouldn't expect it, but on every page of those books, the plot is racing. you can practically watch george trying to beat the fucking clock. and he does! useful context here is that he originally thought GOT was going to be a trilogy, and so the scope of most threads in the first book or two would have been much smaller. it also helps that the first three books are in some respects self-contained stories. the first book is a mystery, the second and third are espionage and war dramas — and they're kept tight in order to serve those respective plots.

the trouble begins with A Feast for Crows, and arguably A Storm of Swords, because GRRM starts multiplying plotlines and treating the series as a story, rather than each individual book. he also massively underestimated the number of pages it would take him to get through certain plot beats — an assumption whose foundation is unclear, because from a reader's standpoint, there is a fucke tonne of shit in Feast and Dance that's spurious. I'm not talking about Brienne's Riverlands storyline (which I adore thematically but speaking honestly should have been its own novella, not a part of Feast proper). I'm talking about whole chapters where Tyrion is sitting on his ass in the river, just talking to people. (will I eat crow about this if these pay off in hugely satisfying ways in Winds or Dream? oh, totally. my brothers, i will gorge myself on sweet sweet corvid. i will wear a dunce cap in the square, and gleefully, if these turn out to not have been wastes of time. the fact that i am writing this means i am willing to stake a non-negligible amount of pride on the prediction that that will not happen). I'm talking about scenes where the characters stare at each other and talk idly about things that have already happened while the author describes things we already have seen in excruciating detail. i'm talking about threads that, while forgivable in a different novel, are unforgivable in this one, because you are neglecting your main characters and their story. and don't tell me you think that a day-by-day account tyrion's river cruise is necessary to telling his story, because in the count of monte cristo, the main guy disappears for nine years and comes hurtling back into the story as a vengeful aristocrat! and while time jumps like that don't work for everything, they certainly do work if what you're talking about isn't a major story thread!

now put aside whether or not all these meandering, unconcluded threads are enjoyable to read (as, in fairness, they often are!). think about them as if you're a tv showrunner. these bad boys are your worst nightmare. because while you know the author put them in for a reason, you haven't read the conclusion to the arc, so you don't know what that reason is. and even if the author tells you in broad strokes how things are going to end for any particular character (and this is a big "if," because GRRM's whole style is that he lets plots "develop as he goes," so I'm not actually convinced that he does have endings written out for most major characters), that still doesn't help you get them from point A (meandering storyline) to point B (actual conclusion). oh, and by the way, you have under a year to write this full season of television, while GRRM has been thinking about how to end the books for at least 10. all of this means you have to basically call an audible on whether or not certain arcs are going to pay off, and, if they are, whether they make for good television, and hence are worth writing. and you have to do that for every. single. unfinished. story. in the books.

here's an example: in the books, Quentin Martell goes on a quest to marry Daenerys and gain a dragon. many chapters are spent detailing this quest. spoiler alert: he fails, and he gets charbroiled by dragons. GRRM includes this plot to set up the actions of House Martell in Winds, but the problem is that we don't know what House Martell does in Winds, because (see above) the book DNE. So, although we can reliably bet that the showrunners understand (1) Daenerys is coming to Westeros with her 3 fantasy nukes, and (2) at some point they're gonna have to deal with the invasion of frozombies from Canada, that DOESN'T mean they necessarily know exactly what's going to happen to Dorne, or House Martell. i mean, fuck! we don't even know if Martin knows what's going to happen to Dorne or House Martell, because he's said he's the kind of writer who doesn't set shit out beforehand! so for every "Cersei defaults on millions of dragons in loans from the notorious Bank of Nobody Fucks With Us, assumes this will have no repercussions for her reign or Westerosi politics in general" plotline — which might as well have a big glaring THIS WILL BE IMPORTANT stamp on top of the chapter heading — you have Arianne Martell trying to do a coup/parent trap switcheroo with Myrcella, or Euron the Goffick Antichrist, or Faegon Targaryen and JonCon preparing a Blackfyre restoration, or anything else that might pan out — but might not! And while that uncertainty about what's important to the "overall story" might be a realistic way of depicting human beings in a world ruled by chance and not Destiny, it makes for much better reading than viewing, because Game of Thrones as a fantasy television series was based on the first three books, which are much more traditional "there is a plot and main characters and you can generally tell who they are" kind of book. I see Feast and Dance as a kind of soft reboot for the series in this respect, because they recenter the story around a much larger cast and cast a much broader net in terms of which characters "deserve" narrative attention.

but if you're making a season of television, you can't do that, because you've already set up the basic premise and pacing of your story, and you can't suddenly pivot into a long-form tone poem about the horrors of war. so you have to cut something. but what are you gonna cut? bear in mind that you can't just Forget About Dorne, or the Iron Islands, or the Vale, or the North, or pretty much any region of the story, because it's all interconnected, but to fit in everything from the books would require pacing of the sort that no reasonable audience would ever tolerate. and bear in mind that the later books sprout a lot more of these baby-plots that could go somewhere, but also might end up being secondary or tertiary to the "main story," which, at the end of the day, is about dragons and ice zombies and the rot at the heart of the feudal power system glorified in classical fantasy. that's the story that you as the showrunner absolutely must give them an end to, and that's the story that should be your priority 1.

so you do a hack and slash job, and you mortar over whatever you cut out with storylines that you cook up yourself, but you can't go too far afield, because you still need all the characters more or less in place for the final showdown. so you pinch here and push credulity there, and you do your best to put the characters in more or less the same place they would have been if you kept the original, but on a shorter timeframe. and is it as good as the first seasons? of course not! because the material that you have is not suited to TV like the first seasons are. and not only that, but you are now working with source material that is actively fighting your attempt to constrain a linear and well-paced narrative on it. the text that you're working with changed structure when you weren't looking, and now you have to find some way to shanghai this new sprawling behemoth of a Thing into a television show. oh, and by the way, don't think that the (living) author of the source material will be any help with this, because even though he's got years of experience working in television writing, he doesn't actually know how all of these threads will tie together, which is possibly the reason that the next book has taken over 8 years (now 13 and counting) to write. oh and also, your showrunners are sick of this (in fairness, very difficult) job and they want to go write for star wars instead, so they've refused the extra time the studio offered them for pre-production and pushed through a bunch of first-draft scripts, creating a crunch culture of the type that spawns entirely avoidable mistakes, like, say, some poor set designer leaving a starbucks cup in frame.

anyway, that's what I think went wrong with game of thrones.

[rolandkaros]

forever hilarious to me that tennis is promoted as this prestigious highbrow big-brain sport when most tennis fans these days are like. yeah this is my favorite player. yeah i don't know why they're like that. yes they are stupid. no i will not choose somebody else.

[quietwingsinthesky]

which is sort of but not really tied into why i’m sort of ???? about the particular kind of fic writers that will write like. Exclusively niche stuff that they enjoy specifically (rarepairs, weirds AUs, specific kinks) and then get upset that they don’t get much interaction in comments or kudos. like, my guy, this is what we signed up for when we wrote the ship only three people know about. you can’t be upset that you’re not raking in hundreds of clicks when you specifically chose to do the unpopular thing you were interested in. it’s fine not to have a lot of attention, you gotta get used to it happening, even if you think you worked real hard on a fic and it deserves it.