#but is it so hard to write a more relatable ones

[alwaysmaybank]

soft rafe hours

soft!bf!rafe x reader

warnings: barely proofread, use of y/n once, really soft and mushy!

this is my first time actually writing anything fan fic related so idk if this is good or not.. sorry in advance for the people that follow me because of jj or "right in front of you" but when I made this blog I was in my jj phase and now I'm in my rafe one, so sorry! hope you like it !!

the title is so cringy help me

summary: nobody ever saw rafe like this—so soft. well, except for you, especially during soft rafe hours: at night after a long day, when you’re asleep, when he first wakes up, when you’re sick or hurt, after an argument, on rainy days, and even sometimes in bed. you loved this side of him, even if he only showed it to you. people see him as the confident, smug rafe cameron, but one phone call reveals just how different he truly is.

more under the cut!

after tossing and turning the entire night, slumber is finally taking over your eyelids. just as they start to close… ping! you could've sworn you left your phone on silent? after groaning about it and wondering who it could be, it clicks.

ping! it's rafe. this has become a familiar trend now, him not being able to sleep so he texts and texts until you reply.

ping! until you two call.

ping! you consider just ignoring it, ping! but how could you? it's rafe. plus, if you even tried to ignore him, he would come over and break the door down if he had to.

ping! you eventually open your phone, your eyes closing instinctively at the blinding brightness, six texts from rafe.

rafey:

2:14am

hey baby you up? i miss you

rafey:

2:32am

baby? are u up? y/n?

you saw him yesterday. you’re not sure what’s going on, but you suspect it has something to do with ward, given his clingy behavior.

2:35am

hey rafey

rafey:

did i wake you? sorry baby

you lie. you don't want to make him feel bad.

no no dw baby i was watching something

rafey:

oh okay can we call? couldnt sleep without you i miss you

five seconds later, you call him. “hey baby,” you hear his quiet, soft, yet raspy sleepy voice first.

“hi,” you reply tiredly.

“i missed you,” he says, and you can practically hear the radiant smile in his voice.

“how was your day?” you just had a blissfully lazy day today, some shopping on the side.

“good, i went shopping and saw that whiskey you like on the shelf, reminded me of you,” you grin over the phone.

“mm, good,” you hear him mumble out. “just missed your voice,” he continues. “couldn’t sleep without hearing you first, baby.” that’s cute.

“awh, i love you, baby,” you reply, your tired but don’t want to stay silent; you know he needs this.

“i missed you today,” rafe murmured after a beat, his voice rougher now, more raw. “whole day just felt wrong without you in it.” your chest tightened slightly, in the best way as a blush crept onto your cheeks. he said stuff like this all the time; you don’t think you would ever get over it.

“you make everything better, without even trying,” he pauses, taking in a soft breath. “like… just existing.” you didn’t know what to say, so you settled for a soft, “i missed you too, rafey.”

rafe hummed on the other side of the line, clearly content with that answer. the call goes silent for a minute, the only sound both of your soft breaths that blended together.

“don’t hang up,” he mumbled, his voice hard to get the point across but softened immensely. “jus’… stay, okay?” he whispered, and you agreed with a soft hum.

there was another long pause, and then, so quiet you could’ve thought you imagined it, a little, “love you so much, baby,” slipped past rafe’s lips. you held a chuckle in before responding, “i love you too, rafey, goodnight.” but by the time you said that, rafe was fast asleep, his breath slowing down as the gentle trance of sleep pulled him in.

as you lay there, wrapped in the warmth of his soothing voice, you felt your own eyelids grow heavy, surrendering to a peaceful slumber where everything felt right.

this is wayyyy too short stop

[earlgreylatte]

recs.

Stay - (Barry Allen/Reader) Loverboy Barry at his finest + being together in every reality! Really enjoyed flashsnikes exploration of Barry’s powers!

Want Want - (Hal Jordan/Reader) flashsnikes carrying with this series, a great read with so many emotions, loved every chapter!

A Lifetime In The Dreams Between - (Hal Jordan/Reader) so underrated, ragingbookdragon is just so creative, might be my fav hal/reader, miss when the tags were filled with their work

Conversations - (Kyle Rayner/Reader) messenger of babel can destroy readers so easily with their angst, and this is no exception…hurts so good

No, you! - (Booster Gold/Reader) Gilverr just has a brilliant mind, this fic had me melting…

A Moment Of Respite Between Struggles - (Ted Kord/Reader) it was hard to pick just one more work from ragingbookdragon’s masterlist, but this one in particular is what I always come back to…I want to spoil ted…

Heat of the Moment - (Peter Parker/Reader) Groundhog Day, final destination type deaths, and bf Peter, and a likeable reader?? The creativity is unmatched, I love timeloops and the exploration of death/increasing apathy!!

I Know I Always Come and Go - (Yandere Peter B. Parker/Reader) the best Yandere fic I’ve ever read?? Masterful tension, awesome dialogue, unheroic use of webshooters, I’ve read it seven times

Milky Blues Keep You Up - (Matt Murdock/Reader) some love for pretty boy comic Matt!!

Push & Pull - (Johnny Cage/Reader) great dynamic between Johnny and the reader, love the reader’s personality! (I feel like you could pretend it’s torch, that’s what I do with a lot of cage fics, lol…)

Chains - (Luis Serra/Reader) Love how they write Luis, so in character and charming, the tension here is soooo good

Race Against the Sunset - (Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Reader) criminally underrated, I adore all of songsofadelaide’s fe3h works, but this one is my fav, love the family dynamic, politics, and softness of Felix, also love that she uses ‘imogen’ instead of y/n bc it means ‘maiden’ or ‘girl’💙

An Outlaw and his Advisor - (Clive Rosfield/Reader) clive is so hot, and so in love…I want to eat him…

Beyond You - (Gintama Various/Reader) Aria never misses, my fav fic, the impact and purpose of every sentence, the metaphors, the look of love, sacrifice, comedy—a work of art

No Soft Sounds - (Gintama Various/Reader) so much love for this fic and the characters, the emotions, the dynamics, I’m in tears

The Amazing Graysons - (Invincible OCs) A masterpiece, if I read this before making EDS, I wouldn’t have bothered because this is peak family, big brother mark and sung have my heart—

Kind, Sober, and Fully Dressed - (SpideyTorch) Is it gay when your best friend asks if you want to watch his sextape together?

Just Married - (SpideyTorch) of course these two only confess after getting married…a must read for this ship

The Spider and the Last Spark - (SpideyTorch) Love exploration of darker versions of such good characters, Johnny is so tragic here, why does he need to be a hero😔

look what the cat dragged in - (Felicia/MJ) when her love language is gift giving, I just love these two together

When in Vegas - (Boostle) They’re slowly killing Max! JLI Boostle at its prime! Read all of ShibaScarf’s works!!

A Groovy Kind of Love - (Boostle) the Boostle fic, so much love for these two, jli, and music, was such an experience reading this!

‘Twas the Groundhog Day Before Christmas - (Boostle) TIME LOOP!! Ted centred and so good, love the appearance of other characters, the exploration of ted and his relations, and ofc how in love he and booster are

I Second That Emotion - (HalBarry) emotional spectrum ruining hal’s life but it gets him a bf

Just A Mark - (HalBarry) Civilian soulmate au?? Hal pining? He fell first, but he fell harder??

[rika-mmendmethings]

HELP IM FINDING THIS RN IM SO LATE AND VERY APOLOGETIC ABOUT IT 😭 Anyway, tysmmmm @blessdunrest for the tag, appreciate it very much, lovely 𐙚⋆°｡⋆♡

Name: While I can't give my name here for some reasons, one of my most used nicknames is Rika and that is why I go by it. In lads, I go by ae-ri which is just the middle part of my name flipped if that makes sense (Im crazy sry)

Vibe: a finance student doing part time internship in a corporate with a heart of literature because my mum is a lit prof. Fridays are the days where I give a damn about the world cuz there's too many files and my manager thinks I'm the second-coming of a supercomputer or shit and can sort them last minute. Always late, never ugly. My jewelry game never misses and I take pride in that. Very bubbly and a yapper until a migraine hits me.

Your favorite trope you'd die for: ANGST WITH A HAPPY ENDING (or not) Listen I'm probably the most carefree person you could meet but god my reading choices need to wreck me emotionally. Enemies to lovers, second fav period. I suck with a capital S while trying to write it and not get frazzled in the process (Mirage is an example) BUT I do love me a good yummy enemies to lovers. My third favorite trope has to be friends-to-lovers which is basically my love life in a book trope lol. I started reading murder mysteries a lot which also makes it also one of my fav tropes. I have lots and lots of more tropes that I could list here but it'd get too long.

The unhinged fic idea you haven’t written yet but think about daily: Listen fam, I have... lemme count... 21-25 fic ideas for all LaDS leads in my head rn, including series and one-shots. I'm a Sylus and Raf girlie through and through but also love each Ll's characters and wish to write for each one of them in future. Currently, the most prominent one in my head is a Sylus series where reader is a surrogate and ova donor for MC and Sylus' baby and a series of events follow during the one year she lives with the Qin family. I'll write a few filler chapters for this before releasing it.

Trauma dump (optional): My loyalty gets tested a lot and I usually find myself as the only one trying to keep friendships for a little longer. I have trucks of emotional trauma from my family mainly and I try to become more understanding but sometimes it becomes very hard not to break down. It's like this for me: "If I cry, who will wipe my loved ones' tears?" Academics is very stressful especially since I don't usually get that motivational drive but I manage. I have subjected myself to self-harm before when things got out of hand but am finally bringing myself out of that void.

That's all about me. Tell me sum about yourself. Don't really have any tags in mind rn I'm drowsy sry but whoever wants to join, feel free to do so!!! ✗♡✗♡

Tell me:

Your name (or just your vibe)

Your favorite trope you’d die for

The unhinged fic idea you haven’t written yet but think about daily

Or honestly? Just how you’re doing. Be feral. Be soft. Trauma dump in the tags. I’ll probably relate.

𝐆𝐄𝐓 𝐓𝐎 𝐊𝐍𝐎𝐖 𝐌𝐄

[ 𝐚𝐤𝐚 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐠𝐫𝐞𝐦𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐛𝐞𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐦𝐮𝐭𝐟𝐢𝐜𝐬 ]

Hi besties!

Since I'm currently procrastinating on my thesis in the most academically valid way (read: blogging about it instead of writing it), I thought now's the perfect time for a little get-to-know-me post!

Pull up a chair. Bring snacks. Let's trauma bond.

𝐧𝐚𝐦𝐞 : Elisabeth Eve (yes, it sounds like a tragid heroine, I'm doing my best to live up to it).

𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐧𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐬 : She/Her

𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐫 𝐬𝐢𝐠𝐧 : Pisces ♓—aka: intuitive, emotionally wrecked by fictional characters, would 100% fall in love with a brooding ghost in a crumbling manor. I cry about my own WIPs. No regrets.

𝐯𝐢𝐛𝐞 : Haunted victorian literature student, but she owns lip gloss and maybe a sword.

𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐈'𝐦 𝐝𝐨𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐦𝐲 𝐥𝐢𝐟𝐞 : Currently writing my english lit thesis on female sexuality in popular BookTok books—which is important, necessary work... that unfortunately requires me to say things like "breeding kink as empowerment" in front of my very, VERY male, very buttoned-up advisor who has definitely never read a romance novel in his life.

Every meeting is a delicate dance where I try to explain why it matters that women are allowed to be horny in fiction—without actually saying the word "horny." Spoiler: I fail every time.

He once asked, with the most innocent confusion, "And... these books... are popular?" and I had to sit there, maintaining eye contact, while explaining the plot of a 500-paged romantasy (with a shadow daddy) that sold out in Target.

The thesis itself? Genuienly about how female readers are carving out space to explore desire without shame. The process of writing it? 60% passion, 40% praying my advisor doesn't ask me to define "breeding kink" again.

𝐰𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐬𝐭𝐲𝐥𝐞 : Emotinally constipated men. Unresolved tension. Slow burns that drag everyone to hell and back—me included.

My stories are 50% poetic thirst, 30% internal monologue spirals, 20% lace, and 100% repressed longing.

If no one is whispering something devastating in the dark and then losing their entire will to live over a single wrist touch, did I even write it?

𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐣𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐬 𝐢'𝐦 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐜𝐫𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐨𝐧 :

a 6k Sylus fanfic that was supposed to be "just a drabble" and is now emotionally unwell.

a vampire x reincarnated soulmate novel where no one is okay, least of all me

hydrating like an adult.

𝐭𝐫𝐨𝐩𝐞𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐨𝐰𝐧 𝐦�� :

Enemies to lovers but they cry about it later.

"Touch her and die" but he's the one begging for scraps of affection

Lovers seperated by time/war/miscommunication/his repressed trauma

One bed, hand brush, forbidden glance, painful silence that says everything.

𝐟𝐮𝐧 𝐟𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐬 𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐦𝐞 :

I get emotionally attatched to one line of dialogue and it ruins my week.

I cannot write a single kiss without someone suffering first.

I will romanticize anything if you give me long enough and a vaguely dramatic soundtrack.

I hoard beautiful words like a magpie hoards shiny trash.

Okay but now I wanna know about you.

Who are you? What are you writing? What fictional character is currently living in your head rent-free and eating all your snacks?

Tell me:

Your name (or just your vibe)

Your favorite trope you’d die for

The unhinged fic idea you haven’t written yet but think about daily

Or honestly? Just how you’re doing. Be feral. Be soft. Trauma dump in the tags. I’ll probably relate.

Reblog with your answers, yell in the replies, or just send me asks like we’re already mutuals. Let’s emotionally spiral together 💌

@someprettyname @blessdunrest @wolfofcelestia @lovenstan @tsukiimonster OR anyone else who wants to hop on this little “get to know me” train—please. I’m begging. Distract me before I start monologuing to my thesis again. — Sylus Little Crow (aka Elisabeth Eve)

[prettyboysdontlookatexplosions]

Can you elaborate about your perspective on AI/ChatGPT? Do you use it? I have knee-jerk negative thoughts about people who rely on it to write everything for them or who talk to it like a friend, but I don’t want to be reactionary

i don't use it and in fact have never used it for the very specific reason of i heard you had to make an account and i'm lazy lmao, so i would not say that i have a super developed perspective either way. i think some concerns about chatGPT and similar programs are pretty well-founded and of ones that i share i would say they fall into two buckets:

(1) people talking to it like a friend, as you say - on the one hand, as i've said before, i think people saying things like "chatGPT helped me more than my therapist ever did" mostly just points out that a lot of therapists are not very good at their jobs. on the other i do think that for some people in particularly vulnerable frames of mind, it absolutely can wreak absolute psychological havoc on them to interact with something that feels really human but isn't. the recent story about that kid who killed himself and also had a longstanding "relationship" with a character-based chatbot (not GPT, some other site/program/whatever) is a pretty clear worst-case scenario and while it's obviously impossible to prove he wouldn't have killed himself without it, and while in any case like this there are a lot of factors at play, i don't think it's being alarmist to note that a young, lonely person finding what they view as the deepest emotional connection in their life with a robot cannot possibly be good for their individual mental health or for their developing ability to make connections with other real people (which is ultimately related to their mental health as well). and even in situations where the "ultimate" outcome is less devastating, i think it's a pretty real possibility that someone not currently socially comfortable who interfaces a lot with e.g. chatGPT becomes less likely over time to develop the skills to forge real human relationships, because if you have an "emotional" relationship "with" something that never, ever, ever demands anything of you, it's going to feel like an uncomfortable and unwarranted friction when other people do ("demand" here being as simple as like "have a different point of view"). this is a belief i have based largely on my time working in private school where i absolutely knew kids whose parents went so out of their way to prevent them from ever feeling uncomfortable that they experienced any kind of encroachment on Whatever They Wanted as a personal affront lol. a recent reddit (iirc) thread that was making the rounds on my dash of people worried about loved ones having their delusions validated by chatgpt points to another really genuinely worrisome (IMO) scenario - one that's already "real" to some degree because you would not believe the amazingly delusional things people are saying back and forth to each other on the weirdest parts of reddit but i can totally see the relative frictionlessness of making a chatgpt account and getting as much interaction as you want (as opposed to a reddit post where maybe no one comments, you have to find a community where people are receptive to this, etc.) accelerating this/making it more common. recently actually i was on the openAI subreddit and someone there made a comment to the degree of "recently i had this really cathartic venting session with chatGPT and what it did was just reflect back at me what i had written in such a way that i had a really powerful response to it and could see it in a different light; i am an engineer and i understand that it's just pulling out what i put in front of it but it's easy for me to imagine that if i didn't have a decent understanding of how these things work it would be very hard for me to keep in mind that this isn't 'real'."

(2) education.... i don't know guys it's really grim out there. i'm pretty blackpilled on ed stuff in general but this doesn't help. and actually the specific concerns i have are pretty similar to the social concerns, which is that like... once a student has internalized how easy something "should" be it's very difficult to convince them it should be harder. this is something i've encountered a bunch in working on reading with kids/teens - there are some kids who do have the skills to read text written for the educated layperson adult (the kinds of passages the ACT uses and the SAT used to) who it's very very clear are just not used to having someone at their shoulder forcing them to work as much as they need to in order to comprehend it. i wonder a lot about what happens to those kids in college when they're reading stuff they can't read but no longer have me asking them constant comprehension questions that they need to actually do cognitive work to answer. and one of the recurring traits of poor readers in general is that they are not used to thinking as they read and don't really know how to do it. they're totally lacking in the instinct that says "wait, i zoned out this sentence, let me read it again" or "who's talking? let me read back and figure it out." assuming they don't have any major decoding problems (not always the case - but it's very possible to be a reasonably fluent decoder who still can't functionally read) they are often students who think of reading as like "saying the words in your head" without any additional cognitive effort and it's really, really, really, really hard to get them to break that habit. so, like, yeah, i think growing up with the understanding that using chatGPT et al. for schoolwork is potentially super damaging intellectually in the long run. and the students i am worried about here are also i think not prime candidates for teaching them better uses of chatGPT which as i understand it also require delayed gratification/effort on the front end, not to mention like... i think it's really different to use chatGPT as an adult who has a healthy understanding of like how to fact-check when appropriate and also a broad knowledge set that makes fact-checking more doable (even if you "know how to fact-check" it's still really hard to parse which facts are checkable if you just don't know a lot of stuff IMO), than as a child/teen of basically any age who does not have this and whose teachers are almost definitely not equipped to teach them. and actually i feel like this is the scenario where i most feel shame is appropriate in that the only prophylactic i really see is parents positively brainwashing their kids into internalizing the belief that using chatGPT for schoolwork is really really really bad, the way that one hopes at least some parents currently do for, like, cheating and plagiarism. like it has to be instilled as a value that students find viscerally abhorrent the way that parents try to convince their kids in general that school is good. that's probably my most reactionary ai related take lmao.

other than that i find a lot of AI discourse just kind of like... i dunno. logically lacking. the employment stuff, i just am no longer open to employment related arguments that don't boil down to "time for UBI." people who use it to write stuff for them, case by case basis for me. like do i really care if customer service emails that were probably already being adapted from templates are now being crafted by a robot? do i think it makes the customer service email jobs people stupid to do that? no i don't. i can't imagine caring about that at all. i'm not sure how much of your life you have spent interfacing with "emails from the average adult" but FWIW i can tell literally just by the ask you sent that you have better written communication skills than a lot of people... do i care that someone who finds it really painful to write a 3 sentence email that will come across stilted and awkward to the person reading it (which describes MANY ADULTS including SEVERAL teachers i have worked with) now uses a robot to do it? no. the one case of writing i can actually completely envision myself using chatGPT for is student reports, which in the schools i worked in were super formulaic anyway, and were also a huge pain to write for me, a person comfortable with writing, and like truly excruciating for many of my colleagues. do i think a teacher, who is already probably overworked and underpaid, inputting their observations about a student into a robot that saves them hours that they could spend on lesson planning, assessing student work, or having a fucking life outside the classroom i an idiot who doesn't deserve their job? i do not. is it concerning that the people to whom we entrust the literacy skills of the youth are often really uncomfortable with email-level writing? idk maybe but i don't see that chatGPT has any effect on that either way once you're dealing with people who already have masters' degrees. a while ago i saw someone being like "if you use chatGPT to write lesson plans you shouldn't be a teacher" and like i have some real bad news for that person about where the lesson plans of america are coming from (is chatGPT worse than dumb slop you found on teacherspayteachers? is it worse than some bullshit from the mind of lucy calkins lmao?) and also many of them are already bad and also the public school job i quit four months in was always on my ass about having a written lesson plan on my desk whenever admin dropped by even when i was working off a 165-slide deck that i had clearly spent hours on so like yes i also could have seen myself using chatGPT to appease that idiot administration so that i would have more time to (1) do my actual job and (2) sleep. (not to mention like i actually think in a best case scenario as far as what runs a successful school, teachers should be doing minimal lesson planning because they should have a good curriculum to work from, because doing actual high quality lesson planning and curriculum planning takes more time than it is physically possible to spend while also actually teaching.)

so, like, i dunno. i'm not like super pro any particular tool or pro the concept of AI in general and i think there are some real problems here (the ethical stuff wrt training corpuses is something i haven't gotten into that i do think is like bad but it's bad on a company level not on like the... concept of ai or a chatbot?) and reasonable actually quite grim concerns and yet also i find a lot of the specific complaints people make about it to be revealing in terms of the complainers' own ignorance of how the world works or else just preachy and dumb (again i literally can't imagine giving a shit that people are using robots to write professional emails when most professional emails are like already formulaic and generic and that's not even a bad thing, like i don't want william faulkner in my inbox if i'm complaining that my highlighters grew mold lmao). i also think that the fact that people now use "ai" and "chatGPT" interchangeably is bad for the discourse on all sides which is why i keep saying chatGPT (et al.) because the reality is i have no fucking idea what other AI shit is being gotten up to and i have a pretty strong suspicion that like... at least some recent AI "controversies" are about things that would have been considered completely normal 5 years ago, especially in the realm of film where i sort of doubt the line between "human using a graphics/audio program" and "ai robot" is quite as strong as people think (the brutalist accent controversy in particular strikes me as like... ok you guys cannot possibly think the same concerns about chatGPT apply to altering a few syllables of hungarian....) i don't know if that clarifies things but that's kinda what i got! you can feel free to ask for more clarification but i do not promise it will make any more sense than what i have here.

oh PS i personally would never use ai in a creative endeavor because that would destroy the whole purpose but i feel like "i don't care what people do in their free time to get their rocks off" also applies to people asking chatGPT to write them stucky fic or whatever lmao. like ok your taste is bad but ? this does not affect me at all... to some degree the idea of "if you never internalize the idea that it being hard is normal you will never develop your skills" applies here i guess but i'm not really worried about that in the context of Fandom, A Weird Goofy Thing People Do For Fun

[steamworksfairy]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY VERDE!!! 🎂🥳🎉

This year writing wasn’t sticking so I decided to do a quick doodle. Of course that turned into this masterpiece. I don’t think I’ve ever been prouder of something I drew. I’m definitely growing as an artist. And becoming addicted to using watercolors. I tried to color it with my usual go-to’s but those were falling flat. From now on I’m a watercolor girlie. 

A few birthday headcanons for Verde + vague references to ocs under the cut <3

He hates his birthday. It always distracts from his research since everyone in the lab insists that they all have to stop what they’re doing, whip out a cake from the kitchen that Verde was no-so-subtly banned from entering, and then sing horribly out of tune before making him blow out the candles. 

Despite the obnoxious customs, Verde does appreciate that his lab thinks of him. He never really thought of himself as having friends but before he knew it he ended up with more than he knows what to do with.

Koenig, with a grumpy Innocenti, always comes barging in with yet another cake, cookies, and a present. 

The present is usually always research of some sort that he thinks Verde would enjoy. This is how Verde got his hands on Gepetto’s blueprints. 

- Innocenti absolutely hates being out of his lab, but despite his cold exterior he still gave Verde a card with some cash inside. It may seem impersonal but I promise the check was enough to fund an experiment. 

- Being realistic here, I really don’t think the Arcobaleno give him birthday wishes of any kind on his birthday. He never told them when he was born and it never really came up in conversation either. 

- His lab only knows his birthday because they searched for it. He had it locked up tight on his computer, but with a group effort and Verde taking pity on them to weaken the file’s defenses, they were able to hack in and learn the date. (This was also thanks to Verde’s close friend, an old oc I have named Cyril, who helped to convince him to do that via pointing out how hard these people were working for him just to learn a silly little date.)

- His ideal way to spend his birthday would be to work alone in his lab on an experiment 

-He’s now suffers once a year from surprise parties 

-His favorite cake is strawberry shortcake

-For some reason people keep giving him strawberry themed items and gift wrap. Every time he sees this, he gets war flashbacks to Fran’s fruity time gag and wonders with dread…do they know?

-His least favorite cake is chocolate. He doesn’t like the texture

-Meal wise, anything is fine with him but if pressed for a choice he’d choose pizza since it’s a staple party food. 

-He will however delight in an ice-cold cola and maybe some wine later.

- If made to swing at a pinata he will put together a robot for it instead. Why violently bludgeon something when an invention can do it for him? 

-He will be forced into karaoke. Can he sing? I’m not at liberty to discuss that. It breaches lab safety regulations. Don’t ask, you don’t want to know. 

-Verde is forced to be part of a group photo with everyone in his lab. While he isn't the sentimental type, he might have a scrapbook started.

-The party ends up becoming a sleepover and everyone takes out sleeping bags to camp out together in the common room. It's one of the few nights a year that Verde gets a good night’s sleep.

-Experiments with everyone involved defiantly do not happened on this night. No world ending monsters of any kind have accidentally gotten created. Especially not under the influence of alcohol. However, if you think you've spotted something that you believe is related to Lorenzini Labs, it is suggested that you call immediately so that we can investigate it thoroughly. While what you probably saw was swamp gas, we take these kinds of things seriously and won't hesitate to answer any questions or concerns you may have.

-They accidentally create a ton of terrible monstrosities while drunk. Some have reached apocalyptic levels of concern but are swiftly taken care and swept under the rug.

And that's it folks. Happy Birthday to my favorite khr character ever! Without him I wouldn't have gotten as far as I have with my art, nor would I have met all the amazing people I know in this fandom. Happy to be here and happy to celebrate yet another year of Verde. One way or another I will always find a way to do something for him <3

[phyyyyysics]

After finishing Doctor Who during Moffat's run, I think I see a pattern here for most (but not all) of his female characters choices in Doctor Who & Sherlock. I know people have already analyzed this before, but I want to do it myself so here we go.

There are primary three categories:

1. The first is the generic and the normal ones, according to him. Characters like Amy, Donna (silence in the library episode) from Doctor Who, Mary from Sherlock. These are the characters that will always stand with the good people, never straying, and whose life long dream is to settle down and have children. Mary of course is an outlier, because she had shot Sherlock and broke John's trust. But in the final season, it turned out that her hands had been forced, and she had been good all along.

For me, I think wanting to settle down to have a family of course is not necessarily a bad thing. I can't say for Mary and Amy because I couldn't relate to them personally, however, Donna's storyline in the Silence in the Library didn't sit well with me. When she was saved by the Computer, it sort of simulated a life that it thought she wanted. One where she had two beautiful children and a dotting husband. The problem here lies in the fact that she had been ridiculed and thought to be loud and brash and stupid all her life, and had been a temp for a long time. She literally ran to the TARDIS the second time she met the Doctor because she didn't like the life she had had, or the life her mom has been pressuring her to have. Can you see how reluctant she has been to pursue anything really? Do you really think her life-long dream, her secret desire is still to settle down and become a wife to someone? Maybe, but not before taking the chance to see the Universe with the Doctor. I actually have a feeling that finding a husband might have been on her list, but she could be doing that more out of obligation and societal expectations. Again, it's not a bad thing to want a family, but there's a recurring theme for his character choices that I can't help notice.

2. Second are the women who are smart and resourceful. These are the characters that are most of the time portrayed as sexy and intelligent, and most of all above all the others. Characters like Irene Adler and Mary (a little bit) in Sherlock, River and Clara in Doctor Who. I think there are many discussions we can have about the definition of strong, female, characters. However, I agree with many others that these women's lives all revolve around one man. And even if they are smart enough, we have to remember there will be one guy who can still tell them otherwise: which are Sherlock and the Doctor respectively.

3. The third type of women in Steven Moffat's writings are those who are too intelligent they become unpredictable and sometimes downright inhuman. Characters like Eurus in Sherlock, Missy in Doctor Who are in this category. They are extremely smart and morally questionable characters, and certainly, they have a lot of potential to explore. However, they are almost too smart that it becomes harder to relate to them. And since I don't think Moffat really knows how to deal with them, they are either put in a cage when they are being "naughty", or out of the cage at their male counterpart's side when they finally decide to stand with them, to be "good".

By the way, there is one addition that I think is relevant. It is fucking funny that with the way he wrote these women, they are most of the time too put together to really have any story to tell. From first glance, you wouldn't be able to really see what their backgrounds were like and what's on their minds, and as the story progressed nothing really developed. Since this is not good for story telling, he would give you some (in my opinion) unnecessary stories to compensate the lack of substances, such as family drama TM (the whole John and Mary arguments), or the boyfriend drama TM (why didn't you approve my choice of a boyfriend, Doctor? & OMG my boyfriend just been run over by cars because I said "I love you" to him). Those back and forth we didn't really see coming to distract us from the facts. However, this makes a lot of the stories feel disjointed and the time jump between episodes sometimes doesn't make sense. Also when the dramas are added, some audience (normally cis straight guys) can be like look, the main guys don't really care to deal with them and in comparison are way cooler, these girls just needed to be put in their places.

In conclusion, most of the women written by him are either categorized as:

(1) normal girls will -> get pregnant

(2) Smart & sexy powerful women will -> get beaten by the main character (who are always white, more superior and smarter)

(3) Unpredictable brainiacs (who deserve better) will-> get put into dungeons and cages 'cause they are crazy and "bad" (as in their beliefs are not aligned with the hero's). Oh and sometimes they can be sexy, too

[interlink-au]

I'm about to oversimplify these boys so much so I don't spend 5 hours on this.

Legend - He's prickly on the outside but soft on the inside. He has a lot of angst capabilities but he can also be very caring. Just gotta make sure other people don't notice how much he cares. 😤 Good for putting into situations. Angst or comedy, he can do both!

Wind - He's a silly lil guy! He knows how to bring up the positivity of the group. But he's also very capable.

Four - He just feels relatable somehow. Is he an INTP or something? Plus there's the fun splitting and Minish stuff, and it's fun to see how various people handle writing that.

Wild - He's chaos incarnate. He's good for whump and comedy.

Hyrule - I'm soft for the fluffy fairy boy. But he's also a kick-butt, surviving by the skin his teeth guy. (I think I might have combined two idioms. I'm tired.)

Twilight - He's a big brother! Great with kids. A friendly country boy! Plus wolf for shenanigans.

Warriors - His sassy perfectionist demeanor is really entertaining. There's also a lot of potential for backstory between him and Wind and Time.

Sky - He's nice but also has the capability for great rage. But mostly he's nice, and I like him for that.

Time - He has a lot going on inside. A lot of potential for mischief, for funny shenanigans, for angst... But he hides all the fun away behind his adult demeanor.

Now I've gotta do my kids. I can't help it. They're my boys.

Vet - Same reason as Legend

Mask - Similar reason as Legend, but with Wind's mischievousness mixed in x2. It's almost a tie between him and Vet. Mask inserts himself more into various story bits like the nosy little guy he is, though, so maybe he is first. But I'm in sassy mood, so it's Vet today.

Wind - Same as LU Wind

Wild - Same as LU Wild but even more chaos because he has the power of Zonai magic and creativity on his side.

Mini - He's a sweet little baby boy who likes being treated like one, but he can secretly kick butt. I have big respect for him holding onto his childhood despite everything.

Verdi - He's so... Gosh, how do I explain it in a few words... He's a fabulous guy who chooses kindness even when he wants to beat someone's head in and I think that's beautiful.

Twilight - Same reason as LU Twilight. And he has sooo many kids he can fuss over.

Aspect - He's a funky lil guy (I say despite him being the tallest.) He's an odd one with odd mannerisms and is socially awkward as heck. I relate to him lol.

The Four as a group because they get up to the most fun interactions together. Ember overshares and gets scolded, River tries to smooth things over, Quartz gets all logical, and Forest makes it all worse when he accidentally turns it into an argument. I think Quartz and Ember are the most fun though.

Mouse - He's awkward and self conscious but he has a strong sense of justice. Everything he experiences is complicated by fae instincts he doesn't realize are odd, which is fun to write.

Engineer - He is just so empty-headed. There is so little in his brain. I love him.

Echo - He's a very likeable and enthusiastic guy, and I can't wait to give him the tools to better express himself.

Junior - He irritates me by being such a mystery sometimes, but his backstory is so tragic and interesting and has so many implications. If I can just get inside his head, we'd have so much fun. Or misery. Maybe he's shutting me out as a defense mechanism. Actually, yeah, that's definitely a defense mechanism.

Gen - He's kind of tied with Sky, but I made up Gen's entire backstory with a theoretical game with mechanics and everything, so he beats Sky today just on that bias.

Sky - He's a bit hard for me to write if his mind isn't on certain things. I love him, but the others have him beat out for being more interesting to me. Yeah, he has a lot going on with all the stuff that happened in his adventure and what it means for the future and all that, but I'm not as drawn to that as I am some others. He's harder for me to throw into situations. He's in my top three go-to Link doodles though.

Cap - Again, I struggle with writing him. I like his interactions with Mask, because he is the first to call the kid out on his crap when he goes too far, and Mask has a certain respect for him for that. But he has so much self-loathing right now that he's not fun. He can be fun. I've written him in funny situations. But getting him from sad boy to (mostly) confident sassy man is a steep hill that I'm still trying to map out.

Ack, now I'm thinking of Mask too much. He's first now. Sorry Vet. It's a close thing.

And pretty sure I don't have anyone to tag who isn't already tagged, but if you want to join, go ahead!

Gonna try and start a tag game, so let's go!

We've all got our favorite Links, but I wanna know how ALL the LU Links rank for you.

I'll start! And just to note, I've only played Sky, Wild, and Twilight's games so far.

1. Sky- My favorite Link, though his game is my second favorite

2. Wild- Second favorite Link, but his games are my favorite

3. Warriors- Haven't played his games, but @crazylittlejester has made him one of my top three

4. Time- Gives big Dad vibes, he's just trying to keep his children out of trouble

5. Twilight- Absolutely the big brother

6. Legend- Not as bitter as I often see him portrayed. He's just a (older) kid whose been through a lot

7. Hyrule- Played his games a LONG time ago, never made it past the first dungeon. I don't really have much to say about him though

8. Wind- Cute kid, I like him but don't have much to day about him either

9. Four- I unfortunately don't know anything about him beyond LU, sorry Four!

Tagging:

@skyloftian-nutcase @crazylittlejester @skyward-floored @sprite-and-the-bunnydragons and anyone else is welcome to join as well!

[triglycercule]

horror is so BLESSED he's the only one out of the murder time trio that has actual good people trying to influence his story 💔💔 dust and killer were both driven to INSANITY because of the choices of their respective humans but horror??? every time without FAIL the polls for horrortale's plotline have always ended in a good place for aliza (either by bettering her relationships/reputation or for her to just. not DIE)

horrortale's potential alternate timelines my beLOVEd🙏🙏 they're SO lucky that we're being kind and benevolent hehe (≧ω≦) now where are the aus based off the possible different outcomes that could've happened in horrortale HUH???? (like how aliza couldve killed toriel or chosen horror's puzzle or gone with undyne to the core........)

[serpentface]

Two questions regarding the Wardi religion:

In addition to the bull and the lioness, what are the seven faces of god/sacrificial animals?

Given that white animals seem to be sacred, does that influence how albino humans/other sophents are treated by society?

The seven faces of God are as follows:

-the lunar, horned, or 'wild ox' face of God, which presides over the moons, and the fertility of the land, animals, and people. In pre-imperial times, this was functionally the most central face of God (replaced by the lion face/odomache). The most ideal sacrifice is a wild ox (especially white or albino) that has never been bred. -the ‘ox’ face of God, presides over agriculture and labor, as well as the domestic sphere. The most ideal sacrifice is a healthy plow oxen or khait who has never been yoked or bred (if the sacrifice is towards Ox-Face as the domestic sphere, this should be a heifer). -the lion face of God, presides over sovereignty, statehood, military might, and is most associated with the health and continuing existence of the imperial entity. The most ideal sacrifice is a maned lioness (functionally white, though this is a trait of the captive population). -the ocean or skimmer face of God, presides over the seas, winds, as well as fortune and mercantilism. The ideal sacrifice is the skimmer gull or an albatross, especially one taken from one of the sacred rocks in the 'mouth' of the Viper sea. -the serpent face of God, presides over the cosmos and divine Mysteries, associated with funerary rites and death. Also has a wildly disparate association with royalty (which is derived from entirely separate traditions and has not yet fully been reconciled into the faith). The ideal sacrifice is a two headed or melanistic snake, especially a venomous one (both would be MOST ideal, but this is rare beyond any practicality) -The solar face of God, presides over the sun, stars, and fire, also heavily associated with khait and mounted warriors. (this is a VERY direct import from the chief solar god in the Burri pantheon (who rides and/or is a khait with the sun between its horns), hence the seemingly random khait association). The ideal sacrifice is a healthy riding khait (especially with a white spotted coat), or alternatively a golden eagle. -The river face of God, presides over fresh water, seasonal flooding, and the rains. The ideal sacrifice is the migratory reed duck (which arrives at the onset of the wet season) or a freshwater hesperornis (ideally taken from one of the sacred waters). An-Nechoi are also occasionally given.

Though the core religion is monotheistic, each face of God is functionally a syncretic fusion of older ethnic Wardi beliefs, the Burri pantheon, and other regionally native traditions, which have not all been fully reconciled (the process of fusion is more or less still ongoing). Each face in of itself has dozens or more epithets with distinct features. For example, the river face has a specific epithet for each major riverway, each venerated as a distinct aspect of the Godhead. Functionally, common practice of the Wardi faith is pretty indistinguishable from polytheism, and most of the religious authority does not care as long as required orthopraxy is maintained (the central dogma of the religion does not care How you believe, but that the correct practices are enacted).

Also for reference, these are the specific animals taken on the pilgrimage in the story (transporting seven rare animals cross country can be fraught, so each had at least a few backups):

A pure white aurochs calf, found naturally born in a wild herd.

A massive, unbred and unyoked bull draft khait (dies en route, replaced by a less physically impressive backup with the same qualities)

A lioness with a full mane, from the white captive stock

A skimmer gull taken from a nest on the sacred rock in the waters of Od-Koto.

A baby two headed cobra (which dies en-route and is replaced with its backup, a melanistic viper)

A beautiful speckled riding khait mare whose horns form a near perfect circle (which is stolen en-route and replaced with its sister)

A rare wild hesperornis (haven't come up with an in-universe name yet) taken from the reeds of the Brilla river delta.

Anyway the sacrifices listed above are considered the absolute IDEALS when working with a specific face, but a great variety of animals will be sacrificed to various ends. There’s some very specific cultural/religious components to which animals are most valued, but in practice the value of a sacrifice is pretty close to 1:1 with the animal’s monetary value, at an intersection of utility and rarity.

So a young, healthy bull plow oxen who has never been bred or yoked is a more valued sacrifice than an old, experienced plow ox who has already sired offspring. You are giving up an extremely valuable animal and all its unused potential in a very practical sense, which makes the sacrifice more potent and valued. The 'virginal' status of the animal is key when the rite is SPECIFICALLY related to fertility, in the sense that the animal itself is sacrificing its unused fertility, allowing for the sacrifice-rebirth cycle to perpetuate. (Animals which Have been bred may be preferred in certain cases and rituals).

An animal with a rare coloration is usually going to be more valuable than one with more common genetics. This is the core root of why albino animals are of high value. It's less that white animals themselves are valued, just that rare genetics such as albinism = valuable sacrifice.

There are some specific exceptions where the color itself is significant (rather than just an extension of its rarity). God is specifically supposed to have taken the form of a white aurochs (itself emerged from the foam of the sea) during creation, so white oxen and wild oxen SPECIFICALLY have especially high value. Melanism or black scales are valued to the serpent face of God, which is associated with the cosmos and void behind the stars. (this stems from much, MUCH older beliefs in a cosmic serpent god in the region).

Animal sacrifice is a very significant part of the religious framework and involved in most rituals and prayers intended to affect significant change and transformation. (This is due in part to a deeply ingrained belief in the world being perpetually sustained in a cycle of sacrifice and rebirth, and in God Itself being the physical mechanism of rebirth and requiring sacrifice to be sustained). While blood itself is seen as potent, the nature of sacrifice isn't just 'spill blood and make thing happen', it's got a self contained value system and is very calculated and intentional in nature. You aren’t going to just grab a random rat and bleed it and pray, there needs to be a perceived ‘loss’. Sacrifice via killing is also not the only form, the most common day to day sacrifice is in (very minor) bloodletting and offerings of food and drink- the key is allowing a personal loss to sustain a greater cycle.

That being said, there is a HUGE trade system built up around the breeding and selling of animals solely for sacrifice. The industry revolves mostly around birds (doves are the cheapest, but also poultry, waterfowl, some birds of prey, a few select songbirds and ornamental birds), goats, sheep, and horses (the small, premodern kind). Cattle and camelids are a higher tier, and khait are among the highest of common sacrifices due to their great value.

Other animals that have no direct utility but are sacred are also bred or captured for sacrifice (hesperornis, lacetor, gulls and albatrosses, several kinds of snake, a bunch of wild ungulates, nechoi, etc). Some '''‘exotic’''' animals are imported specifically for this purpose, mostly as a means of displaying the wealth and reach of the state, with their sacrificial value rooted in the difficulty of acquisition. Animals taken from sacred sites are also prime candidates (ie cattle bred and grazed on the foothills of the Sons of Creation are VERY valuable).

---

So all that being said the importance of albino animals has come off a little overstated on my part, and doesn't have any particular impact on how albinism in people is regarded. It’s valued mainly for its rarity in the context of animal sacrifice, which would not have direct translations to how it’s perceived in people.

Albinism in people doesn’t have a super well defined significance in broader Imperial Wardi culture, but perspectives mostly skew negative and towards seeing it as a sign of ill fortune (physical differences in people tend to be seen as a result of being cursed in the womb). Imperial Wardin is culturally diverse (united mostly by a identity based in shared religion), so exact nuances would vary and this statement should not be taken as a universal.

Imperial Wardi population is mostly human (with its citizen population being MAYBE 5% elowey, 2% qilik, and a decimal point of caelin). Overall sentiment towards other sophonts by the human majority is not outright hostile, but is human-centric and tinged with xenophobia (as most qilik and elowey in the region are immigrants, with the only elowey ethnic group historically inhabiting the region (the Jazait) being regarded as 'heathens'). Albino elowey or qilik might be similarly seen as products of a curse, or may be given a 'wow how beautiful' treatment (in a heavily patronizing capacity) and seen as a curiosity, or otherwise just subject to varying perspectives on albinism in the region.

The one other thing I have established in this vein is that the semi-mythological hero Janise (sworn brother of other semi-mythological founder hero Erub) is said to have been albino. While he is positively regarded, he is supposed to have died young of a snakebite (assumed to be the product of a curse from his enemies) and this would not improve perceptions of albinism being related to ill fortune.

[motherish]

I really love writing for myself. I write bits and pieces about Goro just about everyday as I am walking into work. But right now I am stuck on a part of his story where I just.. don't know how he would react LOL and its funny cause this is all for me? Like no one else will ever read this. But I need this to be CORRECT. I need him to feel IN character!! So lately, as I pull out my phone to continue typing, I just read over what I wrote last time and go "would he fuckin say/do that?"

[the-warlock-syndicate]

I honestly feel like George is more interested in worldbuilding than characters, and I honestly relate to that so much. Like, the originals worked because (iirc his wife/SO was a masterful editor who made it work) the characters he was pulling together were pretty stock standard staples in the genre, blank slate well meaning farmboy protagonist, bossy princess with tsundere characteristics, rogue with a heart of gold, and wise old teacher who dies at the end of the first act. Where he went right was in set pieces, cinematic scenes, and he had quite compelling worldbuilding.

The prequels? They let Lucas off his leash. Like, the characters were honestly not much to write home about, one-note and flat for the most part. Don't get me wrong, there were tons of high-class actors who brought their individual characters up, Ewan McGregor in particular is sublime, but Samuel L Jackson and Christopher Lee are also memorable and seem to be doing their best. But the actors who aren't quite so experienced and are left in the hands of the script seem to have difficulties.

But the worldbuilding is where you can tell Lucas was putting in effort. We see several new worlds, each with new and exciting politics and dynamics. We have lore now, we have the structure of government, we have non-state entities, we have economic tensions. The clone wars are finally explained(as an aside, I am vaguely aware that a lot of people had some perception of what the clone wars would be prior to viewing, but I can't help but wonder if the plot was adjusted as an economic bent. Heavy use of early CGI, as Lucas was notorious for, benefitted substantially from one side being robots with mechanical and hard surfaces, and the other all being clones of one person, and then covered by rigid armor anyways).

Like, I honestly don't really have much of any problems with the worldbuilding. I think oddities pop up around the Jedi in particular, since they need to be sympathetic enough to not recontextualize the originals, but Anakin himself is supposed to be mildly sympathetic at times to lay the groundwork for future redemption. So they need to be both benevolent and antagonistic, but given how the original series had Anakin abandon the Order to become murderbot but then get redeemed at the end, this problem was baked in from the very beginning, and I think Lucas did an ok job threading the needle. I would have personally made different choices, but I get it.

I honestly feel like too many people hate Star Wars because George Lucas is so earnest. He isn't a particular elegant storyteller, but he's got these big huge themes that he tries to tackle and he doesn't always do it well but like, good on him for trying.

[wackywatchdotcom]

realizing just how LONG its been since ive posted a ragatha comic. i need to do that again its been too long despite the fact that i think most of my best work wrt tadc has been my ragatha stuff...

hey wait wtf i posted this and tumblr deleted like the last 12 tags. what the hell . that sucks. maybe i hit tag limit and it just didnt tell me or stop me from adding more tags...

[comradecowplant]

*** weewoo weewoo, Severance rant incoming, avoid or gather 'round depending on your preference, weewoo weewoo***

oofda Severance went from what's gotta be the best episode in the series-- visually, emotionally, character drive, general plot development, etc.-- to probably the weakest. Dgmw, I absolutely adore Patricia Arquette's performance as this sad off-putting woman and was eager for a Cobel check-in, but back-to-back bottleneck episodes leading up the finale was a TERRIBLE pacing choice, just completely missing the mark in a season that has already been plagued with pacing issues-- I'm lookin' at you, beloved by many but meh to me bc I have never been a melly shipper & thought it was a frustrating cut-away from the previous episode's dramatic final moment, Woe's Hollow-- & did not really provide much new information/plot momentum to make up for it-- yeah yeah Cobel lifelong Kier cultist, child labor & mommy issues, groomed & exploited scientific prowess, Lumon ruining anachronistic ether-huffing towns economically & spiritually; didn't really dig deeper or meaningfully build on anything we already know of in a away that needed to be a full break-away episode for, imo. Coulda & shoulda been the b-plot to a Milchick's continued spirit breaking/background to Ms. Huang (which would have very much thematically tied together to each!) -focused episode. And considering how short the episode is compared to the rest, I kind of suspect it might have began production that way but it was changed for some reason further along, but that's purely vibes based speculation.

These pacing issues paired with the knowledge that there are only nine episodes a season in this silly era of television, I am increasingly nervous about the finale, particularly considering ms dipshit mama bear super sibling withOUT a background in neuroscience who thinks she knows better than the scientist who was already digging around inside his noggin Devon followed through and reached Cobel 🤦‍♂️ like, clearly there are cracks in Cobel's Kier worship/Lumon militancy-- I think she has an ego that 1) cannot forgive how tossed away she was, especially with the newest detail of her being the overlooked inventor of the severance technology, & 2) despite the indoctrination, she has enough self-preservation to bridge the cognitive dissonance that rationalizes Lumon's abuses now that it's HER that might get locked away in the mind wipe torture basement-- but you're watching a different show in a different universe if you think we've gotten any evidence to strongly indicate that she is actually trustworthy. As the inventor of the chip she could be the perfect person to help Mark with the final reintegration steps... or, as I suspect will be more along the lines of what will happen, she could activate any of the other "modes" that have so far been only eluded to/cause further brain damage/betray mark & ragbhari to leverage herself into a better position with lumon/whatever will benefit her in her quest for... well, besides survival & credit for her invention, I really can't say for sure what her motivations currently are, but legitimate compassion & concern for Mark/the innies certainly are not among them.

Idk, just overall I think this season has put its hands in too many plot pies, especially now that the other outies have been given more character development time, a choice I've liked overall but that has not been 😏 integrated 😏 well with the rest of the story, largely because (forgive my repeating myself) of the pacing/9 episode limit-- we've gotten the central Mark reintegration plot, then we have melly romance b-plot, dylan emotional affair with his own wife c-plot, outie irv + his relationship to the testing floor & whatever the fuck is going on with burt/his husband d & e-plot, milchick being racially micro-aggressed f-plot, ms huang & the spectre of child labor g-plot, nasty lady helena eagan & her sinister side swept blunt bang h-plot, whatever cobel's deal is i-plot, the general overarching What Evil Mysterious Schemes is Lumon Up To j to whatever plot, and finally, the most pressing plot point to me that has been frustratingly shelved until episode 7, What's Happening to Gemma plot. I don't expect nor want wrapped packages with bows, but satisfying narratives involve give and take, and I simply don't have much confidence in the real estate provided by the 49 remaining minutes of the season that we'll get much of anywhere (except mad over what bad things are likely about to happen to Gemma, that is one thing I have begrudging confidence in 😔)

[jackett-slut]

it’s kind of like art imitating life and vice versa. the reaction matt and the general public in the show have towards dex is the same as a lot of the audience, and it’s the same as how a lot of people irl view mentally ill people in general. which makes dex and his story even more realistic and relatable. the same stuff that happens irl is happening in the show, and it’s also happening with part of the audience and they don’t even realize it.

and it’s how he and his story are written. like it’s written that way on purpose. he really isn’t a psychopathic killer. he’s very clearly not written that way. he is written and acted and portrayed as human, with struggles, with nuance, with complexity. like you said, he tried to be good. he tried so hard for so long. he knows how to manage himself, how to course-correct. but for a lot of people both in-universe and in the audience, it doesn’t matter. people aren’t gonna look at any of that. they don’t care. it’s easier for them to just write him off as evil/crazy/psycho/scary/one-dimensional. that’s how most people view him in the show, that’s how it is with part of the audience, and that’s how it often is in reality too. even though it is simply not accurate.

i feel like the difference between people who view dex as nothing but a psycho who kills for fun versus people who understand dex and see him and his story for what it genuinely is, is that the latter are usually people who have dealt with mental illness and/or neurodivergence themselves in some way. because we get it. we understand how he feels (even though it obviously doesn’t excuse his actions). we have sympathy for him. we see ourselves in him, and in how society - both in-show and irl - treats him. but people who have never dealt with it and don’t understand it just view him the way they view mentally ill people in general. and the same thing happens in the show, in-universe. so realistic it’s painful.

i’ve been thinking about dex’s story in born again.

how, in universe, the world saw dex after the events of josies, and after his trial. how quick everyone was to believe he just snapped and went on a revenge fueled rampage at josies. and the sad thing is, that makes sense in the worst possible way. because the world is always going to be more comfortable writing someone like dex off as just another mentally ill guy who lost control. that’s the story people are used to. it’s easier, simpler, and it doesn’t require any deep thought or empathy. it doesn’t ask them to look at who failed him, who used him, who broke him down. it doesn’t ask them to understand the difference between someone being dangerous and someone being made into a weapon. and most people just don’t care enough to look closer.

and what gets me is how many people refuse to hold both truths about dex at the same time. that he’s a victim and a perpetrator. that he did horrific things and was still deeply, painfully used. i hate how often people online will reduce it to “oh you just like him because he’s hot” when you try to talk about him with nuance. like no. dex is complex. he’s the wound and the knife. he is someone who’s suffered, been manipulated, abandoned, used like a tool, but that doesn’t erase what he’s done. it doesn’t mean people weren’t hurt, or that his violence didn’t matter. you can see his pain and still hold him accountable. you can understand where it came from and still be horrified by the outcome. none of that is contradictory. it’s just real. he’s a character full of contradictions, and that’s part of what makes him so compelling. reducing him to one thing, victim, villain, psycho, it just flattens him into a version of himself that isn’t true.

and even in the show, it’s like no one really wants to see the whole truth of who dex is. it’s easier for them to believe “crazy guy goes violent” than to admit that someone vulnerable was groomed and turned into a weapon by someone with more power. for example in episode 8 where matt slams dex’s head into the table, and when the guard walks in, matt lies and says dex did it to himself. and the guard doesn’t even hesitate to believe it. he just immediately goes, “you crazy asshole.” he doesn’t even question it. because that’s already the version of dex they’ve decided is true. they don’t need proof, they don’t need context. they hear “he hurt himself�� and go “of course he did.” and that’s what’s so brutal about it. even matt bought into that narrative at first. even though he knew dex had worked for fisk after the events of season three. and he listened to dex’s tapes. he believed that dex was a man who woke up one day on impulse and decided to kill foggy eight years after the events of season three. because he believed dex to be a violent and disturbed psychopath. because that’s the story society already believes. many people believe that mentally ill people are inherently dangerous. quiet violence is scarier than loud chaos. so people don’t ask questions. they just assume the worst. so dex being quiet and restrained in his rage in the trial scene just confirmed what they already thought about him. and that kind of widespread erasure makes dex’s story even more tragic. not just what happened to him, but how no one really sees it. not fully.

and that invisibility messes with him too. dex already struggles with identity. he barely knows who he is when no one’s giving him a script to follow. so when the whole world reduces him to nothing but a monster, a rampage shooter, it probably confirms the worst things he already fears about himself. even if he knows deep down it’s not the whole truth, it gets in his head. like maybe they’re right. maybe he really is just broken and dangerous and beyond saving. that he is an animal and nothing more. and that’s what hurts him. because he tried. he tried to be good. he tried to follow the rules. for so many years because he genuinely wanted to be a better version of himself. he tried to be useful, to matter, to be someone. and in the end, none of it mattered. no one remembers that he tried. they only see the end result. they only see the damage.

and that weight, the failure, the guilt, the grief of never being seen clearly, that’s something he has to carry alone. it’s what makes his story so heavy to sit with. and none of this is to say that dex isn’t still responsible for what he’s done. evidently he knew what he was doing. even if he was manipulated into it. he made choices, and those choices hurt people. he’s not innocent. he’s not good. he’s a villain. that’s who he is, that’s who he’s becoming, and he’s also someone with borderline personality disorder. someone who was manipulated, used, pushed to the edge, and weaponized. those things can all exist at once. he’s not either a tragic victim or an evil monster. he’s both. and when people act like empathizing with him or understanding where he came from is the same as excusing what he did, it’s just dishonest. like no one’s out here saying “my poor baby” and pretending he didn’t kill people. it’s just acknowledging that there’s more to him than what most are willing to see. that doesn’t absolve him. it just complicates him. and if that makes people uncomfortable, maybe they should ask why it’s so much easier to believe someone like dex is just a psycho killer than to accept that he’s human. flawed, dangerous, and human.

if people are saying that about comic bullseye, then yeah, it makes sense. that version of him is literally written to be an unstable psychopath who kills people for fun. he’s meant to be scary and empty and cruel, and that’s it. that’s what makes his character so fun to read. the needless violence, the grin on his face while he commits it. but dex isn’t only that. dex is bullseye, but he’s a version with so much more nuance and humanity. he is capable of everything that comic bullseye is capable of. but he has more contradictions, more depth. he’s not just evil for the sake of it. he’s broken and angry and used and spiraling, and all of that is still his responsibility, but it’s layered. he’s not just a killer. he’s a person. comic bullseye is the foundation, but dex was built on top of that. same character, same legacy, just finally given complexity. he has all the traits of his comic self, but there’s pain behind it now. there’s grief, there’s loneliness, there’s a desperate want to be seen and loved. he’s bullseye in every way, but now he’s also human and real.

[gudakdalee]

(just started s5 e1 of Miss Scarlet and the Duke)

and im surprised they brought in another young hotshot as inspector??!

I dont know whether I'm more surprised I didn't see it coming OR surprised they introduced a new potential.... "romantic" rival so quickly??

Which also begs the question, IS he supposed to be a romantic interest??

I think given Eliza's character traits and her professional pursuits and dynamics with any Scotland Yard worker, it feels like it should be unlikely, but I'm not sure whether that's just me being incredulous and teensy bit unwilling to let go of william lol. Still, it feels odd to "move on" so quickly, and I'm hoping showrunners will let Eliza be herself for some time without pressures to have to link up some man.

It's been refreshing (as an ace person) to see the focus of the writing on her hijinks and adventures, and while I enjoy a romance as much as an fanfic-reading fan, keeping her romantic life as second fiddle is what sets MSATD apart for me. (second fiddle in the best way)

Bc there's still romantic tension and banter and EEE glances, so I LOVE that, but I also love being confronted with a woman who pursues, struggles, loses, adapts, but doesn't compromise her professional passion (and seeing all the consequences from that).

[qcomicsy]

Lately I've only been wishing to grab a comic about my favorite character and just have a genuinely good time reading it.