#but i guess i also inherented them from my dad

[ct-multifandom]

Big day for annoying people (me)

The two new eps of ML were good? Like wow it’s been great so far except ep 3 was comparatively a flop imo. Werepapas was so, idk, enticing lore-wise but I don’t have much to say that other people haven’t except that they’re clearly NOT neglecting past plot points, making the tone too silly goofy all the time, nor retconning important stuff like some people worried they would. We have been FED. I’m sure Felix is involved in that ring bs somehow, but idk if his intentions are pure or not.

Warning for the only salty thing I’m gonna say on this post: I’m so tired of going into the fandom tag and seeing people whining about “bad writing” problems that literally never happened based entirely on their own incorrect predictions they made up to make themselves mad. Ugh anyway. This post is gonna be about small details I latched onto in Daddycop!

We got to see glimpses of Sabrina and Max’s rooms this ep! Max’s room looks like a Star Trek spaceship but the books on his bookshelf are kinda giving those reference books at the library of like, archived government documents or research papers iykwim whereas the books in Alya’s room look like manga. An interesting thing I noticed in Sabrina’s room is that she has a line of framed certificates on the wall, maybe academic awards or something similar

Did they ever say if Markov can see Kaalki or not? I’m sure they will eventually but idk which option I like better. It’d be cute if they were friends but it’d be pretty funny if he had to watch Max talk to the secret floating ghost who lives with them now and not question it

List of things Sabrina dumps in the trash: yellow nail polish, the brooch Chloe gifted to her/bribed her with in season 1, the cat ear headband from her Chat Noir cosplay when she and Chloe were roleplaying as him and Ladybug in season 3, a beret, maybe the one Chloe tried to bribe her with in s1, Chloe-style sunglasses, a Queen Bee doll, a photo of them together in the old animation, and a mug/tumbler? Maybe a gift from her as well idk maybe they’re selling Queen Bee-themed Stanley cups over there.

:((((( Aw Sabrina nooo I hate seeing her so sad and the way she lied to her dad so he would think she’s happy and has friends

I think this might be the first time the show referred to Fire Captain Hessenpy by name?

Marinette’s scooter has the T+S logo on it and a sticker that says Boulangerie Paris

Between eps 2 and 4 I’m getting the sense that Sabrina uses Miss Hound as an escape kinda like CN where she feels like she can become instantly likeable, trustworthy, helpful, and useful through the inherent credibility of being a superhero. She has anonymity, can sort of start over on a blank slate, and is automatically implied to be a good person since Ladybug entrusted her. I’m guessing we’re gonna see more of that blank slate idea with other characters and what they’ll do with it, but it’s telling that Sabrina decides to transform to resolve people’s minor inconveniences, especially when she’s feeling bad about herself. It’s like she’s proving a point to herself but also giving herself something productive to do.

The GIRLS Ahhhhh let’s go lesbians

Noticing a clear absence of Alix. Ik the special implied she has to keep hiding in the burrow from Lila but she’s all normal-looking in the intro and they can’t shelve her forever. I feel like something is gonna change to make her be able to return.

^^^ ALSO she’s the only hero with zero design updates and my theory is that the purpose of that is so she can do contrived time nonsense like going back to earlier seasons and going forward without contradicting anything or revealing which time period she’s actually from

I gotta say the side character writing has progressively been better and better throughout the show. Atp they really feel like actual people with their own opinions and motivations. In the early days they felt more like lovable NPCs who talked occasionally but now they’re real characters? With free will? I feel like I just watched Pinocchio get turned into a real boy

The pro-healthy eating censorship/propaganda/whatever in this show is so funny omg. Juleka: I brought fruit tea Mylene: wow that’s so much better than the sugary soda we had last time LMAO. To balance out Rose holding a bag of popcorn they gave Zoe two burlap sacks full of oranges which tbf I’d rather snack on those during a movie than popcorn but still. I saw a vid recently about gravity falls adding random bowls of fruit next to characters eating junk food because they were getting flagged as promoting unhealthy habits. I keep thinking about that moment in Ikari Gozen when Mari asks Kagami out for “juice” when any normal teen would’ve said “coffee” like nope no caffeine in my good Christian miraculous

Love Kagami being a pretentious film nerd go hang out with Nino

RED ALERT YOU GUYS Mylene has an inclusive pride flag pin on her overall strap. Like the rainbow flag with the trans triangle and the black stripe. It’s not subtle or anything it’s just right there wow. Damn

The pin above it reminds me of Timebreaker’s logo. I wonder what some of these pins mean

Ok last season they seem to have established that Sabrina became friends with Marc and Nathaniel who were both explicit Sabrina Supporters since their akuma episodes, so it feels sort of convenient that they were written out of the narrative for this ep. I do see the whole Girl Squad thing and how she feels excluded when all the girls in the group hang out together without her, doing traditional girl things like movie night sleepovers, so I do think it’s totally valid. Her having absolutely zero friends is hyperbolized though.

On that note I have to wonder if the school might have several lunch periods because none of the male characters expect Adrien and Nino were there. Or maybe they just stage the scene with whoever is convenient. They might have flexible lunch schedules and all the other characters are off somewhere else.

Rose mentioned a girl whose name I didn’t recognize and after rewinding i can’t tell what she said. Aglie? New character? Maybe she’s that black girl with pink hair who was sitting with Adrien, Nino, and Sublime at lunch

KAGAMI AND ONDINE ARE CANONICALLY FRIENDS this is like the Superbowl for me. I’m so excited for Sleeping/Princess Syren I need to see her.

God the girls were so messy in that scene where they didn’t want to invite Sabrina lol I kinda love it I can’t even be mad

Zoe, your lab safety is atrocious. Not only are you taking your goggles off while still in the lab, but then you *leave the room* and *touch someone* with your gloves still on?! Diabolical. What are they even doing, soldering computer chips?

Marinette when I catch you Marinette

Roger’s relationship with Sabrina is actually so cute even though he’s kinda misguided as a person GOD when he’s on his way to console his crying daughter and Lila enters his mind space and he’s cradling his arms like he’s clearly seeing her as his baby 🥺 nobody talk to me

Alexa play I bet on losing dogs by mitski. Myyyy baby my baby…

We got a glimpse of the baddest bitch in Paris Xavier Ramier I’m so happy

Sabrina shapeshifted her necklace into a brooch. Huh. I guess you can just do that

The power of believing in herself allowed her to yassify her own character design into a cuter and more fashionable superhero! This is basically just like real life if you think about it

Her ball has a doggy nose on it awww

Lila telling Roger to turn around so she could back him up and fire the anti akuma was badass okay

I’m not sold on the loud ass makeup they have a lot of the characters wearing so I’m glad we got to see the girls with clean faces at the end there. Wow they look so normal! I’m also loving the pajama designs. I had to pause and look at all of them.

Zoe had to stop and hit Sabrina with that rizz stare to make sure Sabrina wouldn’t be coming up with any platonic explanations for her behavior

I never thought I’d say these words, but I think a love triangle between Sabrina, Zoe, and Max would be fun. Imagine Zoe is into Sabrina, Sabrina isn’t exactly catching the hint and sees Zoe as a really nice friend, Sabrina kinda likes Max, and Max is like damn these bitches gay. Good for them.

The end card is so baby omg

I TOLD YOU GUYS Sabrina was gonna get a makeover and people were like uH No iTs JUsT An aNimATioN eRroR oF a ScRApPEd DeSiGn girl why the hell would they leave a scrapped design in the intro, and there’s no way they would accidentally not notice that much less repeat it

Mark my words white haired Caprikid is not an error either he’s real and he’s gonna collect all the chaos emeralds to get that way

A new diabolical twink has hit the scene. Ray’s pompous ass immediately reminded me of Preminger from Barbie. He looks like he rides horses. Like he tells people he’s into sports but then you find out the sport is just horse riding. Immediately invested. Who is this diva. I want him to get hit by a bus.

Ooooo Zoe was up to some Delinquent Shit in America this is so juicy. I looove when suspiciously perfect characters get revealed to be secretly fucked up that’s the best. I’ve always loved those types of headcanons, that she was expelled from her last school and moved to a different country all of a sudden for her mom’s PR. If you think about it, that’s exactly what happened to Chloe damn. Daughter commits PR disaster, do zero parenting about it, relocate daughter far away to start over with little consequence! I wanna see some parallels. I feel like she made it sound like she moved because she was getting bullied at her old school, but what if that was a lie, or at least a partial lie? You know shit’s serious when the exposition is in the post-post-endcard scene

The pacing of these episodes has been satisfying compared to previous seasons, especially 5. They aren’t trying to shove too much in, but there’s still a lot happening and fiiiinally a nice mix of plot and fighting. I was getting irritated by how rushed a lot of the fights were last season like might as well just not have them at all

Late edit: back to the pajamas because I forgot to analyze them, I have noticed that Juleka’s pants have bats on them :) frickin bats. They also have like… a crescent moon with something sitting on it? idk what that is. It’s like a pattern of cute spooky Halloween imagery. But the pants and her black lace tank top versus Rose’s sparkly pink unicorn onesie is adorb.

Zoe has a yellow tank and seems to be wearing her usual leggings under running shorts um? Outside clothes in bed? And her pink slides give the whole thing a sans undertale vibe. Oh what the fuck why do the feet of her tights have individual toes lmao. The horror. I hate it.

I can’t tell what Mylene is wearing except a black t-shirt that might have something white on it. OMG EDIT 2 ITS IVAN’S T-SHIRT FROM HIS OLD DESIGN YOU GUYS SHES WEARING HER BF’S OLD BAND TEE AS PAJAMAS. This is headline news myvan nation. She has maybe pink shorts and her slippers look like Uggs.

Kagami’s silk pjs look luxurious. I love how her clothes this season went from just preppy to being very obviously EXPENSIVE like she’s blending in with the gang but she’s still clearly rich af.

Sabrina’s pjs are a classic set with her usual argyle pattern on them. 10/10 would give her a warm glass of milk and read her a bedtime story. I wonder what she needs eye drops for because she told Roger she needs to pack them.

Excited to see more yay! I love the little details. It’s kinda a bummer that Sabrina spent most of her hero focus ep sobbing but we ball (see what I did there) and the end was so cutesy. So excited to probably watch episode 11 before episode 6

[blackfilmmakers]

(Do want to point out I'm Korean on my mom's side. I'm biracial in a sense my mom is Blasian and my dad is Afro Latino, so, Black)

Hi, it's always fun to talk about Blasian identities, seeing as how of all the mixed identities, that's the one you see the least in media. And I can't help but feel it's because we have to always focus on white people one way or another in stories. Same thing with interracial love stories

Here are some things to consider when writing about Blasian characters:

1) Physical features - This is something people struggle the most when it comes to biracial Black characters in general. Everyone just assumes the "Blackness" washes away the moment another race is mixed in. That's not how genetics works people. First off, Black and Asian people come in a widerange of skintones and hair textures, yes this includes East Asians. Second, you can't determine how a Black and Asian couple's baby will turn out. You can probably have a guess as to how, but you can never guarantee they will come out lightskinned with straight wavy hair.

Yes you can have someone like my mom who is very lightskinned and Asian passing(is that a word?). You can also have someone like Naomi Osaka who has monolid eyes but a deep brown skin tone. Or you can have someone like like Miss Universe Vietnam, Huýnh Thị Câm Tiên, who is darkskinned and has more predominant Black features. If anything I definitely encourage you to give them dark brown skin and Black features, only because colorism is a bitch in media.

But definitely don't do the thing where you make Blasian girls inherently lightskinned and more mixed in appearance, while the Blasian boys are allowed to be darkskinned and unapologetically Black. That's colorism, and racism. Equating Blackness with masculinity, yeah, don't do that. It hurts both communities

2) Don't ignore your Blasian character's Blackness - Essentially don’t put so much focus on their nonBlack heritage, you practically forget they are Black. No, there is no one way to be "Black enough". But a Black character's Blackness is something you have to consider through their design, personality, worldbuilding and story all the way through. Take Kipo from Kipo and the Age of the Wonderbeasts for instance. I like Kipo. I like how she is Korean and Black, cuz shout out to me specifically ❤️. But if it weren't for the fact we've seen her Black dad, no one would think she is also Black. You have a sense she's Korean the moment she named her pig mutant companion "Mandu," but what about Kipo celebrates her Blackness? Her skin is dark pink, but that just tells us she's not lightskinned(glares at fanartists that whitewash her). She has Black friends, and the show's music track has a lot of hip hop, but like.....gestures to Black entertainment used by everyone worldwide.

I wish I can find the fanart, but there was this drawing someone did where Kipo is braiding Wolf's(a darkskinned Black younger sister figure character in the show) hair. And I wish the show had moments like that. Kipo doesn't need to braid her own hair into cornrows, and she doesn't necessarily have to have an afro based hair texture, but braiding hair of someone close to you does show a celebration and unity of her Black identity. When you don't consider your Blasian character's Blackness in their writing, you miss out on effective, subtle characterizations like that. If you think I'm accusing Kipo of "not being Black enough" btw, the show creators literally admitted that making Kipo Black was a last-minute decision, which as a Black and Korean person, I picked that up quickly.

I don't want to say you have to sacrifice your Blasian character's Asian identity either, but it's one of those things where everyone wants to get rid of any trace of Blackness so badly, they would figure that "Asian" is the closest thing to whiteness, thus the more important heritage to focus on. Case in point, Kipo.

The other issue when writers do that is that they ultimately dilute the Asian identity as well. Like Kipo names a pig Mandu and likes Kimchi and listens to K-pop cool, so does every white kpop fan. Was there anything else about Korean culture the writers could have established for Kipo's personality and story?

They did this with G3 Clawdeen Wolf too, where her latina heritage is what they focused on mainly cuz "it's not Black" (even though latina isn't a race, and Afro Latines exist). At the same time, they have her eat an entire tamale with the entire husk still on.......on multiple occasions, demonstrating they did little research on even her latina heritage

3) Avoid making them quirky - It's overdone and colorist at this point. The idea that a Black character can only be weird and quirky when they are mixed with a nonblack identity and divorced from their Blackness is all antiBlack racism. This doesn't mean they can't be odd in the sense that main characters stick out from the background characters naturally. But don't make them quirky to be palatable for white audiences. It also comes off as “because they are mixed they are weird” 😕. Have a good understanding of your characters’ different heritages before giving them a trait that makes them “weird” too cuz that’s how you end up calling different races odd too 🫤

4) No anime references - At least not in a sense where because they are Asian that gives you the excuse to have their entire characterization be nothing but Japanese animation references. Like the moment Lars from Steven Universe was confirmed to be Filipino and has a whole character arc of what that means to him, struggling to fit in- they killed him, turned him pink when revived, and changed his entire personality to just space anime protagonist. Don't do that. Again, it's just another way to make the character of color palatable for white audiences, this time through orientalism

5)Take note where your character lives - Like any other character you write, you need to do research on where they live and how that affects them as a person. No character lives in a bubble. Do they live in the Asian country one of their parents is from? Do they live somewhere in the West or global South? Are their parents/grandparents immigrants? Are they themselves immigrants? What language(s) or dialect(s) do they speak? How do they interact with the community? Again, it's all stuff you have to consider writing any character. Even if it's not necessarily important to the story, you as the creator need a good understanding of your character

6) Who is this story for? - Are you writing this character to actually uplift unheard mixed people's stories? Or are you doing this for brownie points?

Keep in mind when you write about a Blasian character, you are not just writing for Blasians. You are writing for Black and Asian groups as well. You need to understand the connection between Black and Asian groups, which goes back to point 5 a bit. Like how did the parents of your Blasian character meet? Do they both live in LA in neighboring communities? Was one parent and African migrant that moved to an Asian country?

You want to make a biracial character, you're gonna have to do a lot of work to research both sides of that heritage.

There's some ugly in that history, but there is also community and solidarity at times

7) Stop only giving them white friends/love interests - W/o fail you have these characters live in such a diverse environments, only to somehow be surrounded by white people. I’ll give Kipo credit here for having mainly Black friends. It's again the need to force white people take up the main focus of the story. Frankly I’m tired of it 🥱

Note this is not a thorough “How to Write Blasians” check off list because I’m just one Blasian with my own one experience. Seek out more Blasians, and Blasian writers. Most of this has to do with how much research you are willing to put into

Hi,any help on writing Biracial,Blasian in particular characters?I can only find some about Black-White Biracial characters but not really about Blasian characters.Thanks in advance.

Unfortunately I only have my lesson on multicultural Blackness! @blackfilmmakers might have more direction on this point!

Also, it may help you to direct your research towards a specific group (e.g. where from in Asia?) as you can then narrow in on aspects of both cultures, and then research the experience within that community. Typing in "Blasian" won't be more than generally helpful because Asia is a gigantic continent with a LOT of peoples within it, so there's no One experience.

[secriden]

*cracks knuckles* Okay lets talk about the elephant in the room: Style going to the support group for those who've suffered loss and telling what appears to be a fake story about losing his pet dog.

I'm going to point out a few things that I think provide a framework for Style's actions here. Not because I think it excuses what he did, but because I think a nuanced read is what the character deserves.

Point 1: An irresistible opportunity

The subs put the "Support Group for Loss" on the image in the notebook, but I'm not sure there's anything to suggest that Style would've known that was what this image represents until he showed up and saw the sign on top of the door.

In episode 2, Bison says, "He plans everything down from years, months, weeks to days" and then tells Kant:

So Style is literally just going to addresses/locations at given days and times, potentially not knowing what to expect. And as much as Fadel is certainly attending this meeting as a response to having that heartbreaking flashback (😭), this is also something he attends regularly and has planned to attend way in advance. So Style has no reason to think Fadel is attending this meeting because of a recent resurfacing of his pain.

What we, the audience, and what the characters know are very different things.

Now, should Style have turned his cute ass right around once he realised what this meeting was? Of course he should. But that wouldn't have been true to Style's character. We've been told by his best friend that he is "crazy" and been shown repeatedly that he lives right up to that description.

Style is impulsive. He's all base instinct and he acts on his desires without thought or contemplation. And by this point he is desperate for a deeper connection with Fadel. He's fascinated, captivated by the mystery that is Fadel and this is an excellent opportunity to finally see behind the wall Fadel so carefully maintains.

When Style sees the sign above the door, Style looks at the notebook (which, again, shows nothing but people sitting in a circle with the words RISE UP) like he's just realising what it means. He then gets this amused, almost rueful look on his face (like he's thinking "am I really going to do this?") before it shifts to determination and he walks through the door.

(My soul for the ability to once again gif something because FUCK Dunk is doing SO MUCH in this show!!)

To Style, this is just too good of an opportunity to give up.

Because let's be real, Fadel is so clearly lying and hiding something:

Fadel is shady as FUCK. He is simultaneously actually a really good cook (Style finally tries his burger so he knows, now), and also has the skills to work at a strip host club, and also can take on 3 guys in a fight, and also can break a man's arm with his thighs. Can you honestly blame Style for losing his mind just a little bit about wanting to get his hands on something, anything, to figure this man out?

Style is being absolutely consistent in his persistence to understand Fadel. This isn't about the car or about finally 'winning' the fight (thank you @airenyah for giving such a detailed framework to understand what Style's been doing until this point) anymore. This is about Style wanting to know Fadel himself.

Point 2: The potential implications of the setting

Now, what might give us a bit of insight as to why Style is this way? I have a theory (albeit one that could prove to be very wrong, but hear me out). I think this whole entire show is set in what could potentially be quite a small town/suburb.

There's a few things that make this theory plausible:

(1) Fadel and Bison are in hiding after Bison blew their previous cover. They're probably on the run from some section of the authorities and so it makes sense to settle in a quiet/out of the way place.

(2) Style seems to be really familiar with the people in the area. Like he grew up there and its the kind of small town where everyone knows everyone and everyone is in everyone else's business.

(3) Style is clearly the darling of the market aunties and uncles.

Style just lost her a sale and potentially a loyal customer, and she's still rooting for him? In episode 2, when Style asks the uncle to let him borrow his cart, it takes nothing but his word for the uncle to give Style his entire cart of produce for his ridiculous scheme.

Style is so clearly someone they all know well and have great affection for, and a very plausible explanation for this is that they all watched him grow up and the entire market (town/village) is fond of him.

And honestly?? Yeah, we see the way Style is actually quite sweet in that careless, guileless, thoughtless way. He goes the extra mile to fix his mistake with Fadel by replacing his car parts for free in episode 1. He helps out by taking orders in episode 2 without being asked and takes it seriously. In episode 3, he tries to drive more business to Fadel's store (bless him, he so clearly does NOT understand how restaurants work, but he MEANS well!!), and can we all acknowledge that it works?? He understands how to appeal to potential customers in the area because he knows the people there. It's not (entirely) his fault that Fadel wasn't remotely prepared for an actual rush crowd and Bison was off getting kinky with Kant and not doing his (fake) job. He is so clear about not judging Fadel's host job and tries his hardest to help him (to absolutely NO effect, but still) when the 3 guys gang up on Fadel.

Style is so loved and more importantly so very loveable.

Point 3: What this could mean for Style's character

So, potentially, Style is someone who grew up in a small town, who has been well loved, potentially spoiled and coddled, but also very much kept within the confines of the narrow viewpoint that a quiet, country town places on you.

It's in the way his dad scolds him as if he was still a child when he's at least in his mid to late 20s. It's in the way Style was so mad at Fadel for scolding him ("thanks for the lecture, dad"), like that hit a sore point for Style. It's in the way no one in the market takes him seriously; they're fond, but he's still a kid in their eyes. It's in the way he has an abundance of free time like he doesn't REALLY need to work at his dad's shop. It's in the way he sees Fadel beat 3 guys up with ease, starts wondering if Fadel is an assassin or a hitman, and is completely unfazed like he doesn't quite have a handle on reality.

It's in the way his best friend is a man who has no qualms about lying to him and putting his life in danger, and how Style seems to have no other friends or people (aside from his dad) in his life.

@wuxian-vs-wangji made a comment to me about Style being desperate for a meaningful connection, and I think she hit the nail on the head. Because along comes Fadel, a mysterious stranger with a suspiciously versatile set of skills who is also very hot and keeps giving Style these wonderfully complex reactions? Who sometimes wants nothing to do with Style, but at other times seems to be at war within himself about desperately wanting him? Who treats Style with anything but apathy?

This is catnip to Style; he never had any hope of resisting this.

Breaking news: Style is a complex and imperfect character...

Here's the thing, though: he was never going to try. The show has been incredibly upfront about who Style is as a person. Regardless of whether I'm correct about why he is this way (ie. that he is very much the product of the environment that didn't know how to handle a kid with Style's personality), episode 3 shouldn't have surprised anyone about Style. He's been incredibly consistent and true to himself.

He wants Fadel and he's "crazy" enough to go all in, no holds barred about it, and the Support Group was the biggest doorway to finally discovering something REAL about Fadel.

And its not just about sex or to prove his superiority anymore. Because if it was just that, then Style would have reacted very differently to their first time.

In this scene, Style is pleased and evidently enjoying himself, but he isn't exuberant. He isn't overcome with joy. If anything, he was more happy and excited when Fadel let him help out in the diner (I mentioned this in the tags in this post too) than he was when Fadel is literally fucking him. He lets Fadel set the pace; barely moves to touch Fadel except to hold him close. Almost like he doesn't want to accidentally mess this up, like he's worried he'll take too much, so he'll take what Fadel gives him and no more (please appreciate @braceletofteeth's amazing tags on this post). For a character that has been so aggressively on the offensive, this is shocking until you realise that sleeping with Fadel - while it's a step in the right direction - isn't Style's end goal anymore.

And he makes that abundantly clear in this episode:

Does Style even fully realise the weight of this desire? I doubt it. But I do believe that Style is in earnest. He doesn't fully understand his own feelings, but he also doesn't really care to either. All he knows is that he wants Fadel, wants his attention and his passion and his focus and his heart.

...but Style is also kind of, sort of, perfect.

Because he's exactly, precisely, breathtakingly exactly what Fadel needs.

Because Fadel is hurt and broken and bleeding inside. Because Fadel is barely holding it all together for Bison's sake, but has already given up hope for any true happiness for himself. Because Fadel can't trust anyone or anything in his life, when he's been used and used and used by the family who should've loved and cared and protected him.

Because it's going to take nothing short of this kind of unwavering, unshakable, uncomplicated determination to give Fadel even a chance of healing and opening his heart to love again.

[frownyalfred]

Hi, you said "no I don't know him"/"he's my dad" and dealt me immediate psychic damage please say more words that hopefully make this better

(spoiler alert: nothing can erase the inherent tragedy of this)

the ask/prompt was about Dick and Bruce not acknowledging each other in the League, right? so kind of playing with this identity porn idea of Batman and Nightwing both being separate vigilantes working with the League with no outward, immediately obvious, or self-professed connection between them other than both being from Gotham (which might not even be something they reveal, for OpSec reasons).

Why would they choose to do this? Maybe Bruce wants to eliminate any connections between them to make it even harder to guess their secret identities. Having two pieces of the puzzle always makes it easier to solve than if you only have one.

Maybe Dick wants to be his own vigilante, separate from Batman's influence, and stand on his own with the League. Maybe he wants to put space between him and Robin, and asks Bruce not to fully acknowledge him outside of Gotham.

Maybe it's a mix of both? Or maybe it just never truly comes up, and both of them are too smart and well-trained as a default to give anything away in front of the League. Maybe the League knows that they know each other, that they've worked together before, but nothing more than that.

And what even ties Nightwing to Batman, really? Funding, the suit, the relationship to Robin, but none of those are immediately apparent. Gotham is a common denominator, but there are multiple vigilantes in most major US cities and Nightwing largely operates in Bludhaven. Training/fighting style? Also hard to identify without being in the know. Essentially, if they don't say anything to the League, how much can the average person even infer, much less notice?

So those two lines stuck out to me. In response to a well-meaning or confused League member asking if Dick knows Batman, he really only has two possible responses: "No, I don't know him" or the truth.

That there is a connection between them, and it's actually damn near sacred. He was, is, Batman's partner. He knows Bruce like almost no one else does. They're spoken about in the same breath. Or they were, once upon a time. They have mirrored beginnings, twin motivations. They fallback on each other, even when they're fighting bitterly. Dick is still who Alfred calls, when Bruce is in a self-destructive rut. And vice versa.

But what would prompt Dick to break that code of silence? I guess it depends on why it exists. And so for that second response -- "That's my dad" -- I was thinking of a situation where it was because of Dick's need to be separate from Batman. And Bruce obliges the secrecy, because it's logical and also Dick asked. But one day Bruce is injured on a mission, or hurting somehow, and the League is panicked trying to figure out what to do and Dick is right there. Batman's partner is a foot away and nobody knows. And Dick suddenly has to make a decision that is, in that instant, more easy than anything he's ever done.

"That's my dad."

[mossyeyeballs]

TW: mentions of pretty much everything terrible. 🍇, trafficking, all of the above.

CLASS OF 09 RANT, FLIP SIDE SPOILERS

Ok not my usual post (I’ve posted twice ik but shush) but what the freak was the flip side??….. I was a huge fan of class of 09 + the re up but this game was so.. what’s the word….. dog shit? Even if we ignore half of the game being about the creators weird foot fetish, the sl@ve ending was so unnecessary. I feel like the only thing in that route that was worth writing was the issue in retail work and that wasn’t even the star focus, let alone side focus. The main plot of that route was the counselor having some weird illegal 🌽 warehouse, jecka finding it, and then him blackmailing her into human 🚙 🚙 ing?

The only ending I thought was necessary IF THAT was when Jecka found Nicole after the sue a side ending from re up. I thought it did a decent job at talking about sue a side victims, and how nobody really cares about them until it’s too late, And even then they only care for a week or so and then move on.

But the Jeffery dying one was the most out of place in my opinion (unfortunately it beats the foot ending.) For starters, Nicole was really out of character imo, like yeah she’s talked about wishing Jeffery was dead before, but her actually killing him just out of boredom is so odd. Her entire character is “I don’t put effort into anything unless it benefits me.” Killing Jeffrey was not only ALOT of effort, but she gained absolutely nothing. On top of that, saying it’s different than doing. Like how she talked about wishing her mom was dead, but then when she had a heart attack, she panicked. Plus, she PLANNED on making Jecka take some of the blame on his death, which she stated in past games she wouldn’t do. She literally never put Jecka in harms way, let alone jail if it didn’t also benefit them both. But this didn’t, she just did it to do it.

While we’re talking about Nicole being out of character, I feel it valid to mention her and Jeckas dad. For obvious (and gross) reasons, I won’t be detailing this, but her doing that to Jecka wasn’t fully out of character, but still odd. Like I mentioned earlier, Nicole never really did anything to spite Nicole, so I find it odd that she did in this game. You could blame it on “oh she’s a sociopath she doesn’t care.” But I don’t think that’s inherently true. Yeah, I guess it’s canon she’s a sociopath, but in that case they do a bad job at consistency. She’s shown in both games 1 and 2 caring about people she’s close with, whether it’s Jecka, her mom, or even Emily in one segment. So I find it completely random that she did this to Jecka over something as small as not sharing how she got into foot work. Jeckas done much worse stuff to Nicole, and Nicole just didn’t care because they were friends, or didn’t feel the need to put effort into doing something if she did care. So yeah, Nicole basically screwing Jeckas dad over something so little felt out of character.

One of the few things that bothered me the least, but I feel the need to mention was the foot work stuff. Not because it was out of character, i fear I’ve seen worse stuff mentioned in that game. But I guess the way it was portrayed as less of a story plot and more of the creator trying to live out his fantasies. He himself has stated Jeffrey is basically a self insert, so the whole being sexually obsessed with Jecka and her feet felt REALLY weird. Compared to Nicole’s my space favor thing, this just felt dirty. For comparison. Both Jecka and Nicole took up sex work to keep a home life or lackthereof, they both got money from strangers to do sexual things, and they both hated doing it. But why did Jeckas feel so much more personal and gross? Because the actual sex work was shown. In graphic detail. And all of Jeffrey’s (the creators) personal thoughts were stated with no backlash. Jeffery literally asked Jecka if she would 🍒feed him, and he was excused. When Nicole was asked the same hing from the same guy, he was insulted, yelled at, even told to leave.

So, creepy creator who’s obsessed with his barely legal characters, Jecka being sold to 🚙 🚙ing agaisnt her will, Jeffrey being murdered for no reason other than a giggle or two from his haters, Jecka accidentally killing Ari cause she was drunk driving, feet fan service, and fan service in general aside, the game is left only with the regular drug and alcohol abusage we always see. which in the game that was advertised as a new experience felt really stale and honestly left me bored. The ONE SINGULAR time during this game that I giggled was when the hat man appeared in the Ari route.

If you’ve fully ignored everything I said in this, maybe didn’t care, or didn’t even read it. Id just like to mention for everyone that the creator of this game said that anybody who disliked him, his games, his writing, or his humor were kid diddlers. In full seriousness. So yeah, no shock this game was bad, but I guess I shouldn’t have expected better from someone who thinks his haters are all child likers. All this being said, I enjoyed class of 09, and the re up. I’m hoping the anime episode that comes out soon with be a decent save. all of THAT being said, I don’t support this creator. I don’t support his actions, I think he’s a shitty person who’s made some shitty jokes, but made some not so shitty games that I decently enjoyed. I also haven’t bought them, so none of my money has gone towards him or his projects. I in NO WAY support him. Thanks for reading.

Feel free to comment down some of your own opinions if you feel so inclined, I’m interested in what everyone else thought of this game :))

[eldritchmochi]

i have the seasons soup mugs from 2000, which are squatter and wider than your average coffee mug by a significant amount, and also dont have that eyecatching label design, so it doesnt really look like a novelty *coffee* mug

the thing that im so baffled by about it is the bit about how this mug (at one point mugs, but one got lost in a move) have always been with my bowls, always on a different shelf than my regular mugs, frequently in a different cabinet from both my regular mugs and my standard glasses, AND i pretty much always give specific directions on where to find glasses for water because my kitchen organization isnt quite intuitive compared to a lot of people's since, while im tall, i have hella joint issues that means common use items have to be as low as possible. how people always go to the wrong cabinet and without fail unearthed my damn soup mug from behind other shit where i stash it because its not common use, i havent the foggiest

i have much more eyecatching and goofy coffee mugs *right there*, and currently my glasses are really cool too so why??

[captainuranium543]

Looking back erza and laxus had INSANE beef. Legit I counted and early on almost every single time he's on screen hes slandering her for no damn reason. I thought this was kinda funny cuz like, my man what is your damage??? But then I thought about it and it makes sense.

Imagine you are laxus at 15, your father is constantly preaching that the guild isn't strong enough and all these weaklings are dragging it down. You believe him of course because he is your father and obviously we all need to be strong, that's why dad forcibly implanted a lacrima into your skull because you needed to be stronger to remain in the guild. Then enter gods most pathetic kid who barely speaks, knows almost nothing about magic and looks like she's been run over by a bus a couple times and the master just, let's her in?? How on earth is that gonna make this guild stronger old man. Ivan was probably pissed and laxus just picked it up by extension.

Not only that this little jerk who should be like, inherently weaker then you by your fathers logic, manages to make s class only 2 years after you, making her the youngest wizard in fairy tail history to become an s class at 15 (cough a title that used to be yours).

Oh and also, as time goes on word spreads about how powerful she is and people start calling her titania queen of the fairies, while you are literally in line to inherit it. if anyone is the queen it should be you.

You finally have enough of this and at 23 years old you create this whole elaborate plan to become the guild master you hold the entire city hostage with a ring of insanely volatile lacrima around the city that will nuke whoever attacks them so they can't be removed from the sky. Perfect plan right? Wrong. That same fucking ginger destroys 89% of them even after you inform her that she will die she does it anyway and has the nerve to survive. That asshole.

Years later all that is behind you, sure you'd love to be guild master but the guild has disbanded and honestly you aren't totally sure you deserve it. You joined blue Pegasus with some of your buddies and it's going ok until suddenly a hoard of your old guildmates burst in and tell you fairy tail is back! Great news! Except who's the guild master? Well you're never gonna guess.

[lollytea]

Please, your finale Huntlow thoughts, my liege. We poor peasants beg of you, our bowls are empty and your tables full; if we might have but a crumb of your succulent meal to fill our bellies in these cold December nights.

ASGCDHBDJNK JESUS FUCKING CHRIST OKAY

I got a few asks about this but I guess I'll answer this one cuz it's phrased the funniest. I just wasn't too pressed about giving my Thoughts about finale Huntlow because I am fully a part of the Huntlow hivemind. Like I feel the way everyone else feels. I'm ecstatic, I'm delighted, I'm overwhelmed, I'm emotional, I'm so happy for them, I got everything I could have wanted. I won. We won.

(I HAVE TOO MANY PICS. I'LL RB WITH PART 2)

First of all this scene is so special to me, you have no idea.

It isn't inherently romantic but it's still so sweet and shows how much these two care for each other. Here's Willow, who's spent the last special Atlasing and repressing and refusing to rely on anyone else. But then she had her breakdown in front of Hunter and he realized just how stressed and scared she's been this whole time. She's visibly anxious and upset here, likely worrying up a storm because she hasn't found her Dads yet. And Hunter is right here beside her. He's seen her meltdown, he's felt her pain, he's heard her cry. He knows that Willow is in a fragile state at the moment. He knows she's been holding in a lot. He knows she's scared. I love that he's not only standing by her side and helping her search, but holding her too. It could be that she vocally expressed how worried she was to him, or maybe he just saw it on her face, but he probably placed that hand on her back to comfort her, let her knows he's right here, grounding her. And Willow, who's still learning how to depend on others, is letting him.

The way Hunter lights up when he sees Harvey and Gilbert, thrilled by how happy he knows she's going to be and his soft smile when he points them out to her. And then THIS!

Like Hunter is devastated. He feels alone and out of place here. He really thinks he has nobody. But Willow being happy can still bring a smile to his face. He just loves her so much!!!

And I know I already talked about the grom photo but UGHH!!!

I got a pic in better definition. I'm pretty sure this is Hunter's first grom. So likely a few months after the events of WAD. And it's so cute to think about Hunter and Willow very awkwardly but eagerly navigating a romantic relationship. I love how grabby and flirty Willow looks here, messing with his bowtie. She clearly LOVES the floral suit, thinking he's like the hottest man alive. She needs to smooch him and NOW. Or she's just like "Oh my, what a nice collarbone you have!!" Idk the ambiguity of what exactly Willow is doing here but the vibe and general intentions being very obvious is my favourite part of this pic. You can speculate for years on this. Oh and Hunter's face, I love it so much. His dumb little blush is like an old friend. He's fucking THRILLED that he's getting so much attention from her. He's very excited about where this is going. But he's also like. So nervous he's gonna pass out. But overall he's having the time of his life. Bi rights!

Also epilogue Huntlow....guys....guys epilogue Huntlow....are you guys still listening to me at this point?

God I love this scene. Its so natural and smooth, giving the characters a chance to breathe and exist and providing a glimpse of how they go about their daily lives. It's soft and lighthearted but it establishes so much about where Willow and Hunter are currently at in their relationship. They've been dating for like....3 years at the very least. And they're clearly very happy together!!

The way Willow casually slides on to the scene, giving the impression that she's often dropped in on him while he's working. And why wouldn't she? That's her sweetheart. What if she requires emergency smooches? What then? And of course, there's Hunter beaming at the sight of her. Seems he never gets tired of his girlfriend stopping by to visit. Or maybe he's sick to death of Willow the menace showing up to distract him while he's trying to work and he's just excited about the prospect of Luz's party. Either way, it's an adorable expression.

Something else I love about epilogue Huntlow is how equally distributed the affection is between both of them. Back when FTF dropped I gushed about how sweet it was to see Hunter taking initiative with Willow and the significance of something as simple pressing his backhand against hers during the pinky hold. And God, this sequence here says it all. From what I can tell, as Hunter runs towards her, they both reached out at the same time and linked hands immediately, implying that holding hands has become the automatic gesture for them whenever they meet up. They're in love, you're honor.

I love the huge carefree grins as they skate down the hill (still holding hands). They might have grown a lot since we last saw them but they're still young adults, they still love to have fun doing dumb reckless stuff. And even better, they love to have fun doing dumb reckless stuff together. All the handholding and fluffy cuteness is wonderful but I also love knowing that they seem to genuinely enjoy just hanging out and spending their youth with each other. Zeno was right, they ARE besties. Who knows how much shit Hunter and Willow get up to together? Being a pair of thrill seeking athletes, it's probably a lot.

This part is just so silly and ridiculous. After they go stumbling, Willow's first instinct is to grab Hunter and hold on for dear life. Her intense scrunched up expression is just so funny. "I will protect you, my love. No big dumb hill is going to harm a hair on your pretty head. Your girl is here." And Hunter barely acknowledging it (it probably happens a lot) because his life is currently flashing before his eyes. GOD they're just such nerds.

Oh and this frame is just SO adorable. The way Willow's hold on him lingers for a moment before he walks towards the grave, Hunter's heart eyes. They're clearly still so soft and touchy with each other. And this is after three years. I know they were insufferable when they started dating as teens.

[alacants]

The source of those rumors is a guy from Carlos's family's tennis club who is close to Kiko Navarro & knows some members of Carlos's team & is a regular collaborator with Punto de Break. According to him (he's said this before) Carlos & Juanki had a significant fight towards the end of 2023. But the claim that they nearly split up back then came from someone else who's less reliable.

As for 2025, the first guy says Carlos's dad has apparently not been happy with what Juanki is doing for a while... but it seems like Carlos doesn't agree. If things don't turn around after clay season his family might push for changes to the team.

From my perspective it's hard to understand the coaching strategy sometimes. Like you said Juanki's strength is not tactics but it seems like that's what Carlos really needs. This is just one example but I think it's crazy that he sat on court in silence for three sets without suggesting Carlos change his return position v Djokovic - Carlos eventually figured it out... in the last game of the match. And that was honestly the main factor in him losing. You could argue Juanki wanted him to figure it out himself but why on earth did they not discuss that beforehand when it also cost him massively at the Olympics (which Carlos said he didn't even think about before the match?)

I know Juanki's whole thing is treating team like family but there are a lot top coaches who say that after 5ish years a coach has nothing to give a player anymore & I wonder if their partnership has run its natural course. Carlos doesn't seem any more tactically equipped than he was two years ago & his technicals have mostly not improved either (return... backhand...).

thanks for this background - after replying to some earlier asks i dug around and saw some folks citing punto de break but not any specifics so this is appreciated. this does immediately increase the credibility to me bc i know pdb values their access and would not jeopardize it for nothing lmao. tho if it's like, a guy who sometimes writes for them and is mostly posting on his own time... i guess that's somewhere in the middle. (btw i still haven't seen anything other than reports of reports of reports? if you've got links i would very much appreciate them!)

as usual i think we're looking at two questions here: could carlos benefit from a different coach, and does carlos want a different coach.

i think we are all in agreement that for carlos to continue to develop as a player he needs something he's not getting at the moment, whether we're thinking in terms of incorporating a new addition to the team or making a wholesale switch. and i don't disagree with you at all about the natural lifespan of a coaching relationship. i've cited this before in discussions of juanki's own career (stuck with one guy; was it a mistake?) and of ferru's (split but waited too long; chalked the delay up to personal feelings).

but as long as it's presented to carlos as an all-or-nothing choice i don't think he's there yet and i would not be surprised to find out that his recent post-match declarations were a message. (tbc it very much MIGHT be an all-or-nothing choice, regulars here know i have plenty of thoughts about the academy lmao.)

the thing is that at this point the unknowns are still really, really risky. if you've had the same coach for most of your teen/adult years and you're ready to strike out and try something new, then that's exciting and stimulating and you're in a good place to make the best of it. but if you're dragging your feet? if you feel like you've been pushed? maybe someone else could give you more, but you have to be ready to receive it, you know? if you're an environment that you know enables you overall to perform at a high level (4 grand slams), where you feel overall confident and supported even if you're lacking direction in some big matches, where you get value from your coach's presence above and beyond the specifics of tennis--it is inherently going to be a risk to make a big change and if you're not all in on doing so the risks will be even more likely to find you.

that's why i keep saying is that i don't see it happening unless carlos' results gets much worse than this--or, potentially, unless a voice that holds as much weight with him as juanki's (so, his dad) gets strong enough that he listens to it. that might be where we're headed!

(incidentally i have feinted at this without saying so explicitly, but there is an unbelievable amount of money riding on carlos' success or lack thereof--i don't mean prize money, i mean his brand as a star--and it would be naive to pretend that's not a factor in decision-making. that's one of the reasons i've pointed to a sustained slump, rather than one or two disappointing slams. when the results start to affect the brand.)

just talked this over with friend who compared the ideal set-up to darren/simone for jannik--supervisory coach + tactical/court coach. if so, then the question is whether they come to that same conclusion and get the set-up in place before the decision is out of their hands, so to speak.

[copperbadge]

RE watching thoughts: I’m not 100% sure, but it might be that the whole “I am not my thoughts” is about engaging and identifying with your metacognition MORE than your initial thoughts. Because I get where you’re coming from - what is a consciousness but a collection of thoughts and feelings? But you can also have thoughts about your own thoughts that are more useful for dealing with whatever situation you’re in, I guess. (Random aside - every time I start thinking about thinking about thinking my brain inevitably starts thinking about Tiffany Aching and The Wee Free Men.)

I really should have replied to this ask sooner because it's going to seem like a non-sequitur now (this was sent much earlier in March) but I'm kind of glad I didn't, because I've been chatting with people about this and I think I understand more why there's an emphasis in some therapies on the idea that we are not our thoughts.

(I uh, haven't read the Tiffany books so I'm not much help there.)

I am coming to understand that many, perhaps most, people judge themselves, comprehensively and harshly, based on their thoughts. Perhaps it's just a lot of people who struggle with mental health, but given the commonality of the sentiment I don't know if I'd confine it that tightly; generally it appears that people cannot conceive of themselves as anything other than a binary of good or bad. So many people I've talked to about this portion of DBT, the watching-questioning-identifying thoughts portion, say that it helps to snap them out of a spiral of "I'm a horrible person, I deserve to suffer/die, I can never be redeemed" after they've failed at something, or had a negative thought, or reacted poorly to an unexpected event.

That is not something I've ever experienced. I mean, jokingly maybe, but not in a real, internal sense.

And that's not to brag -- I'm not saying I think I'm a good person, either, because I don't think I'm a good person. I don't conceive of myself in terms of good or bad. I never cuddle my cats and think "I'm such a good cat dad" or forget to feed them and think "I should die now." I have a perpetual morally neutral attitude towards my own existence; my thoughts and actions might trend me one direction or another but I'm aware of the temporary nature of that. If I fuck up I'll worry about who I might have hurt or whether I'll be fired or what's going to happen as a consequence, if I am polite to someone who didn't deserve it I know I was acting kindly in the moment, but I don't make an inherent moral judgement of myself based on that. And it seems like the vast majority of people do. Which you would think would make me feel pretty good about myself, but honestly...I don't know.

A lot of people I know who have ADHD or are Autistic have talked about seeing themselves as other, as alien -- like that one webcomic artist who draws themself with little antennae to indicate they're strange and different. I've always understood why one might do that, but I never felt that way myself, before or after the diagnosis. After all, let's remember, I was The Normal* Child of my siblings, and if I was The Normal One before the diagnosis, why wouldn't I remain Mostly Normal after?

* As ever, I'm using "normal" as a cultural term, to indicate what we think of as mainstream, not because normal is a thing that really exists.

My life has been relatively solitary -- I have friends and family and I love them but I'm rarely part of a large group, I don't spend a lot of time out in public interacting with people, I'm not a big socializer. Before the Adderall, I really couldn't be, I took too much psychic damage from interpersonal interaction, so I chose those very carefully. And now my DBT class has been a rare moment when I'm encountering contradictions to a lot of my assumptions about the way human beings in our society interact, react, and behave. I just...don't fit that mold very well. I think of it as having crossed wiring, not in the sense that I'm faulty but just in the sense that I'm very, very different. Not Normal. It's not exactly a bad feeling but it's certainly not a great one, internalizing the sensation of alienness.

DBT is proving to be a mixed bag but not in the way I or my therapist intended -- it seems to be either things I was already instinctively doing or things that simply do not apply to me. In one way it's disappointing because it means there isn't much help to be had (we're a little over halfway through the course and I keep thinking "Maybe next class will be useful") but on the other hand it's validating that so much of what I came up with myself as unconscious coping mechanisms is literally what I would have been told to do anyway.

Sometimes it's a combination of both, though, which really blows. I guess most people, if they reframe another person's actions, actually find emotional relief in that, and I don't. An example from the class is that if someone is rude to you, you can consider how they might be having a hard day, and be polite in return; that's great, in terms of defusing a situation, and it's something I do a fair amount of. But apparently it's also something that for most people results in feeling less awful about the interaction, and that's not the case for me. Which is why so much of DBT feels to me like lying to oneself. It's not lying for most people.

So, yeah. I'm going to finish out the course and keep trying things with the therapist but I suspect given everything, I might already be at "as good as it gets" in terms of emotional work. Which isn't the worst thing in the world, and there is still the option to try medication that could help, but I think there will come a point where I'm going to have to deal with the fallout of just how different I am, and how that has impacted my life. Might end up a good thing; something I've really been trying to resolve is unhappiness over being unpartnered and highly likely to remain that way, and at least if this provides a better understanding of why, then perhaps I can process that and put it to rest in a way I've been trying to do but not succeeding well at.

So, we'll see. But I find it both fascinating and kind of horrifying how many people can believe they are irredeemably bad, even if the belief is only temporary, simply because they had an uncharitable thought or impulse. It makes me somewhat grateful for the crossed wires, at least.

[luckybyler]

I’ve watched up to 4x03 so far + latest episodes of season 8, and I’ve come to the conclusion that Buck is the baby of the 118 family because he was assigned that role by them, not because of any inherent traits of him.

I’m not saying he isn’t impulsive and sometimes an idiot because he is, I’m saying that he’s not worse than everyone else, and yet they all keep the privilege of being treated like adults afterwards. And being the baby of the group can be a good thing, but it’s a bad thing when it makes people not take you seriously of treat you condescendingly, which is often the case with Buck.

I’ve seen Maddie stalk a 911 caller, Eddie became an illegal fighter and almost killed a guy, Hen PERFORM AN IMPROVISED TRACHEOTOMY INSIDE A MOVING VEHICLE, AS A PARAMEDIC, Bobby missed a shift because he relapsed in his binge drinking, Athena wiped her ass with police procedure several times, Abby got Buck’s number unethically to say the least… that’s what I remember from the top of my head right now. I’m sure there was more stuff. Most of them were reprimanded in some way of course, but again, all were treated like adults. Had Buck been in their place he would’ve never heard the end of it.

On the other hand, Buck constantly does adult things that are ignored or dismissed. Like, he gets along with children and is good at taking care of them. If this was any other guy, everyone would say “he’s a great dad/he’ll make a great dad one day”. But because it’s Buck, it means he’s “one of the kids” and gets the funny music. Or Maddie’s called “basically Buck’s mom” even though our introduction to her involved her arriving unannounced at his (Abby’s, but still) place, and Buck letting her stay with him, hooking her up with a job and helping her find and move to a new apartment, as normal brothers and sisters do. Or the lawsuit era of “you’re a selfish child who can’t understand that we’re doing this for your own good, also my son and I need you and you weren’t there to bail me out of jail”; or when he helped Athena organize a secret Christmas dinner at the 118 with all their loved ones and the group home, etc. and at the end she was like “see what you can do when you use your brain for good?” like, why don’t you just say “thank you Buck for helping me make Christmas happen” like a normal person, *Athena*? Why not keep the condescending comment to yourself? Or when Chim kicked him out of his house after half a day and then overstaying his welcome for at least a month the next season, then having his brother stay there. And I’m glad Bobby wasn’t affected by the radiation, but Buck had a point about the nosebleed.

And speaking of Bobby, I cannot emphasize enough how much he has never had to give Buck a shower (at least as far as episode 4x03), and yet Buck *has* had to give *Bobby* a shower at least once because he was so drunk he didn’t know who he was neighbours with. And how much if I was in Bobby’s place I wouldn’t be able to look at Buck in the eye afterwards and think “yes, I am the father in this relationship”.

I guess I relate to Buck’s situation a lot, but yeah. I’m not saying Buck is perfect or everyone should be so grateful to Buck or even that they can’t see him as the baby in a way, a good way. As in whimsy and baby blues. But he is an adult **and he acts like it**, so they need to start seeing him more as an equal.

[lionheartedmusings]

i will never not be endlessly fascinated with pomme and q!bad's dynamic, especially now after the egg disappearance, purgatory, and returning to the island.

because pomme's adoption wasn't this huge emotional moment or him stepping in for someone who wasn't there, their bond was built out of time and care and love, to the point that it was just the next natural step in their relationship. even after that, it took a while for pomme to call q!bad dad because she was nervous and wanted it to be at the right time -- q!bad was aware of it too, because when she did call him dad for the first time he melted, took a photo of the sign, and made it not a big deal per se but acknowledged that it was a meaningful moment between them. then they moved on and kept going as usual.

their time together is cherished and not an afterthought -- yes, when her french parents are on pomme will always do the rounds with them! of course, she wants to spend time with them! q!bad's time with her is after, and they both know that in an inherently healthy and comforting way. it's their schedule, and even if she's with q!bad and one of her other parents log on off stream she'll go to hang out and q!bad only *once* interrupted that time, and it was to ask for her opinion on footage when he thought someone was in his house.

pomme is also both a mini-bad in a lot of ways inherently, and his absolute antithesis. they both share vicious anger when those they love are endangered, are fiercely protective and paranoid, are planners and worries to a fault... i don't think pomme would be surprised to hear what her dad did in purgatory at all, even if it would make her sad. that's where they're not similar at all: pomme is vengeful too, don't get me wrong, she's an eye for an eye girlie *but* she has a level of restraint that q!bad doesn't, and a moral compass that actually sees right and wrong vs. something i care about and something i don't. q!bad has been anchored by pomme before, brought to heel so to speak, in a way that needed no convincing because there's a level of trust there that's inherent.

and yet pomme knows and q!bad has acknowledged that dapper is his priority -- not in terms of love, never that, but still a priority. and that's just okay. pomme knows she's loved, she knows her dad adores her and she also knows that she has other parents that love her whereas ultimately dapper doesn't. she knows her mom q!baghera would prioritise her, and so would q!antoine, and q!aypierre, and q!etoiles -- it's okay that q!bad doesn't because he's looking out for her brother and she loves her brother more than anything.

the one thing that's interesting to me about their dynamic is the fact that pomme is loud and proud about being q!bad's daughter and has expressed frustration that people don't know / acknowledge her as his kid, but q!bad is almost reluctant to say she's his more often than not.

i can count on one hand the times he's corrected someone when they mention only dapper, or added that pomme is his too... and yet in private to him it's always dapper and pomme. he grieved them both in their time away, left pomme a message, checked her room too. he sang her happy birthday and got her the flowers she likes. he lost it when the eggs went missing not at seeing dapper's empty bed, but pomme's. he, in the throes of his memory loss and confusion, proudly said "this has got to be pomme's, this is exactly how my daughter would organise things" about the egg rooms.

there's a duality there that is fascinating and confusing and seems... purposeful on q!bad's behalf in a way i truly can't figure out entirely.

maybe he's trying to protect her, to distance himself from her in the rest of the island's minds so if something goes wrong she can be safe in a way he knows dapper could never be -- after all, elquackity didn't take pomme, he had no idea she was his.

i guess it's all about love, anyway.

[coraniaid]

I really don't understand how popular it seems to be to suggest that Cordelia was a Potential Slayer (and that, somehow, despite not being an teenager when Buffy died in The Gift, she might have been called at that point?). Or that Dawn should have been a Potential in Season 7, either. (I don't really get the appeal of Willow as a Slayer either, as I gather happens at some point in the AU comics, but I don't see anybody arguing for that in regards to the original show.)

The only characters we see on the show who are not identified explicitly as Slayers or Potentials that I think make any particular narrative or thematic or in-universe sense as (Potential or former) Slayers are, in no particular order:

Drusilla. Season 2 establishes Buffy and Drusilla share a lot (including cryptic visions of the future and shared dreams, something Buffy otherwise only ever experiences with Faith, a fellow Slayer). Not something I think hugely credible -- Dru was having her visions as a human, but Slayers don't get them until after being called and it seems pretty clear that Drusilla wasn't a full Slayer when Angel[us] sired her -- but, still, not inherently ridiculous as an idea I suppose.

Ampata (or, rather, the girl whose real name we never learn but who pretends to be Ampata in Inca Mummy Girl). Her fate as a living human sacrifice to ward against evil pretty obviously parallels Buffy's own situation as a Slayer, especially in light of Prophecy Girl which aired just a couple of episodes prior to Ampata's appearance. More of a metaphorical connection than anything else, but ... I guess it's possible?

Sunday (the vampire from The Freshman). No real reason for this except that I once saw (somewhere?) a suggestion that this was the original plan for her character (or, more specifically, that she'd be a former Slayer turned vampire, which I think might have been interesting to see? Okay, okay, I just wish there was more Sunday in Season 4.

Kit Holburn, the girl Dawn befriends in Season 7's Lessons who never appears on the show again. I can only assume there was some sort of casting issue, because the plot of Potential works a lot better if Amanda is somebody Dawn already knows. This also helps set up Dawn, Kit and Carlos as (to some extent) a 'next generation' version of Willow, Buffy and Xander, which I think fits Dawn (we know how much she looks up to Willow).

Gwendolyn Post, Faith's unnamed Watcher and Giles's grandmother. Yeah, these are my dark horse picks for ex-Potentials. We know that the Watchers train some Potentials for years who are never called as Slayers, after all, and what else are they going to do with them later but recruit them as Watchers? (Also notable that Giles and his dad were both explicitly Watchers because a parent was, but we don't get a similar suggestion that that's why his grandmother was a Watcher.) Would also provide an in-universe explanation for why an otherwise intentionally male-dominated and patriarchal organization like the Council might accept women as members. Don't think it's an intended reading, and it's not something I really find that interesting, but I think it makes sense?

Oh the other hand, characters like Cordelia and Dawn -- despite a lot of people suggesting them as plausible Potential Slayers -- make absolutely no sense in this role, because they both (in different ways) literally exist in the story for the primary narrative purpose of being versions of Buffy who are not Slayers.

Cordelia is the popular but self-centred cheerleader who Buffy repeatedly admits she used to be herself (and, at least until the Season 1 finale Prophecy Girl and arguably all the way up to Season 3's Homecoming still sometimes wishes she could become again). Dawn is, quite explicitly, the part of Buffy who never had to be a Slayer, the innocent girl who got the normal childhood and the relationship with her mother that Buffy wishes she could have had. Making either of them Potentials adds nothing to their story -- the whole point of Cordelia's arc after leaving Sunnydale is that she grows up and moves beyond her high school persona and her similarity to Buffy, and making her be secretly a Potential after all reverses so much of that --and robs them of a lot of thematic consistency.

(Dawn not being a Potential is one of Season 7's better decisions, frankly. I don't think the lack of focus on Dawn is great, but I do think that focusing on her by forcing her into the Potential role would have been worse.)

[moodymisty]

Something i find very interesting about the Horus Heresy is the general absence of female influences. The core characters are all male, and conduct themselves in typically masculine ways. Excepting the general absence of libido, (most of) the Primarchs are pure manliness.

I find this dynamic very interesting. Men behave differently towards each other when women aren't around to observe them. Sometimes this is positive (e.g. brotherly affection), but sometimes it's negative (e.g. resorting to violence as a means of conflict resolution). The same is roughly true of women when men aren't around, except that women exhibit different behaviours (e.g. cattiness rather than violence).

If you have mixed group of men and women, the two sides tend to temper each other. Men break up female conflicts, and women break up male conflicts. Likewise, the presence of men motivates women in unique ways, and the presence of women motivates men in equally unique ways. This motivation isn't always positive (e.g. a woman could spread malicious gossip about her romantic rival), but it can certainly be positive in many cases.

This isn't a hard rule, as everyone is different, but it's a tendency i've witnessed. Men and women affect each other just by being around each other. It's just human nature.

On this basis, then, the Horus Heresy is interesting because it essentially represents how men react when there aren't women around to temper them. Lots of ego clashes, lots of petty one-upmanship, lots of violence, and very little consideration given for anything other than dominance. Even though there are certainly respectable female characters present in 30k, many of whom influence the Astartes and Primarchs around them, they don't play any tangible role within the politics of the Legions, and there is no female equal to the Primarchs whom they would have reason to listen to. They are all "mortals", and therefore not of any great concern to most of them, even in the best of cases.

(For the record, i'm not arguing that masculinity is inherently barbaric and ego-driven. I'm just saying that such is the "dark side" of manliness. An example of the "light side" of manliness is chivalry, which - you've guessed it - is partly motivated by the presence of women.)

In essence, the Horus Heresy is - to me - a story about what happens when masculinity is left to run rampant without a female voice present to call out all the shitty behaviour, and make the men feel bad about their childishness. It's basically like Lord of the Flies, but the fate of humanity is at stake. That's what makes 30k so tragic and engaging; it's all so avoidable.

The closest thing the Primarchs have to such an influence is The Emperor, who fulfils the role of a father figure. Although patriarchal (fatherly) figures are necessarily judgemental and punitive when necessary, it's not the same as being scolded by a mother figure or a spousal figure. Being scolded by Dad feels different to being scolded by Mum, or by your wife. With the exception of Guilliman, mother figures are not present in the lives of the Primarchs, and it reeeaaally shows. Also, the Emperor is a very absent parental figure to the Primarchs, meaning that they're mostly left to their own devices despite behaving like teenagers. This is another reason why 30k feels like Lord of the Flies.

Now this is purely speculation on my part, but if the Primarchs started getting married off to stable and well-adjusted women close to an equal footing with themselves (say, powerful perpetuals), the women would be a positive influence on them, and the Horus Heresy would be much more mild, if it happened at all. Sure, you might get different stories (such as Horus being deceived by a daemon disguised as his late wife), but that's not what Warhammer is about. Warhammer is about big men/robots/aliens hitting each other for assorted reasons, and the tempering influence of women would detract from this, in some areas. So... No wish fulfilment dreams for us :'(

I love the idea that the HH never happens because a few of the primarchs actually got pussy.

[sophsicle]

About the Tom riddle ask (I’m not the person who sent it, but it got em thinking). Do you think he cared about the idea of his mom as a child at least? Or maybe his dad before he met him? He interests me in his youth. I can also see him caring about Nagini. Maybe he met someone at the orphanage that he cared about but lost and that strengthened his desire for power and his hunger for full control over everything, including any potential past or future attachments he might make.

Also, out of curiosity, what quality or characteristic drew you to write so beautifully about Slytherin that you think is lacking in Tom?

just from like, my point of view, his feelings about his mom, while complicated and important, aren’t enough to carry a story, because she dies basically immediately after he’s born so there’s no active relationship to write about

As far as canon is concerned, Tom has no relationship with his father who doesn’t even know he exists really until Tom kills him, which again is like, not disinteresting but, isn’t a relationship that can carry a story

You could make up an oc he meets in the orphanage, but what’s the tension, you know? I guess if you could pull a grant Chapman and like, write an oc that feels natural enough and is also fleshed out enough that the readers are invested in them enough to make them want to read the story but idk atyd has Sirius, that’s the tension of the relationship between remus and grant that really makes it compelling so idk what Tom and this oc would have

I guess he could have cared about nagini tho she is just a vessel holding his soul so, that makes it less compelling to me, it’s still essentially just him caring about his own immortality

The reason I am drawn to Salazar is because a) I like playing around with the idea of witch hunts and how that would impact magical peoples’ views and relationships with muggles b) the four founders are friends at some point who decide to found this school and then have a falling out and that is inherently an interesting premise to me

I just dont think Tom riddle has that? Like there is nothing about his character that doesn’t feel like it could be filled out in the background, he does not have main character energy to me

[a-loose-collection-of-ants]

Ok. Shit.

I get the feeling I'm not gonna sleep tonight, and who knows, I might regret this tomorrow but I need to get some thoughts out.

I've tried to retain this idea that most people are inherently good. Some of this is the remnants of whatever religious faith I was brought up in, and some of it is just what I tell myself to stay sane. It's getting harder to think that way, but I am trying to hold on to it.

There's this image I keep replaying in my head. My dad and I were visiting family down south shortly after he had wrapped up his cancer treatment. We stopped by my aunt's house in South Carolina, and she told me with tears in her eyes about how she had started gardening again after my dad's diagnosis. There was a Trump flag flying from her roof.

On another visit to the same family members, we were visiting a college and walked by a gender neutral bathroom. My uncle made some off-color joke about it and then quickly moved on when nobody laughed. My sister (a sort of closeted trans woman) looked at me with an expression of both deep sadness, and whatever face you make when you watch a bird fly head-first into a window.

My point is, I know these people aren't filled with hatred and malice. It's not constructive to waste your energy hating them when their greatest sin is ignorance.

I barely remember the Obergerfell decision, but I remember being in middle school around the time it happened. Attitudes towards queer people weren't great, but they changed so rapidly that I barely noticed. Maybe the fact that this was when I realized I was queer gave me a false sense of security when it came to the "moral arc of the universe", or maybe it's the example I have to hold onto about how fast things can change.

It's easy for people to fall into patterns of hate when they lack exposure, and the media landscape right now is making easier to avoid that sort of exposure. The basis of the fight against extremism is education, and I think it has to also be compassion.

Don't get me wrong, I also have family that are more than likely not worth the effort ("they" control the weather and all that), but those aren't most people. Most people are exhausted by politics. They see the price of groceries and vote for the other guy regardless of who's name is on the ballot. Or they're like a classmate of mine, who didn't really like either candidate and was having trouble just voting for the "better" one.

If anything, I guess this is a reminder to myself to hold on to empathy despite everything. It's fine to feel angry. Hell, it's probably good if it gets you moving. But we cannot respond to dehumanization with more dehumanization.

I'm not really all that religious anymore, but I hold on to some things. One of them is this: All things, by virtue of being crafted by God's hands, have value. Or, as my dad said it "God don't make no shit". This goes for yourself, as well as everyone else. I can't let myself lose that right now.

I don't want to belabor my point too much, but I do want to say that I saw people saying things like "it's all over if trump wins". I'm not going to lie, it's bad and people are going to get hurt and die because of this. America was waiting for the results of it's biopsy and we found out it's cancer... but we're not dead yet. I don't have a specific action I can advocate for, but please, don't give up. Authoritarianism is a longstanding wound on this country and it festers in apathy.

Take a deep breath. Regardless of what happens, time moves forward and the sun will rise in the morning. I am going to go to work, make some dinner, and hopefully find some way to work volunteering into my schedule.

Recommended listening if you want to cry right now