#but it is interesting nonetheless

[feelingtheaster99]

The idea that different monsters sense different things, that they prey on each demigod’s weakness is interesting…

[platoapproved]

What was that you said about memory? "A monster," was it?

[noerixo]

[the-judicial-assistants-notebook]

not enough discussion about the gavins' complicated relationship with feminine-coded/beauty products, i don't think.

[immunorabbit]

jordyn-mae thomas - extremely common surname in general, both given name and surname are mostly found in the US

kairi herring - japanese given name, surname also mostly found in the US. kairi is also often seen in india, estonia and many african countries

tahira rashid - both given name and surname are of arabic origin. both are pretty common but are mostly seen in countries like pakistan, bangladesh and india

freyja maria mendoza - icelandic given name, but surname is hyspanic and the middle name also suggests the same. maria is extremely common so it's hard to say, but mendoza is most often seen in mexico, venezuela and peru

nora qu - name really common in the US while qu is a common chinese surname. also seen in taiwan

morgan moretti - same as above name is really common in the US, surname also found in the US but it's of italian origin where it's also most common

mayra tikuna - given name is mostly seen in mexico, but both seem to be mostly common in brazil. surname seems to be quite rare though. might also be related to the indigenous people ticuna (also sometimes spelled tikuna) and since mayra is 2spirit i thought it was worth mentioning

joy sinclair - given name is pretty common but most common in nigeria and kenya. surname is most common in the US and jamaica

nataana nchoko - both given name and surname seem to be very rare. both are most common in kenya. interesting how the girl with the least info also has a name that's hard to find info on...

and of course.

xiomara huapaya - not as common as the others (minus nataana). surname seems to be most common in peru and costa rica, while given name is mostly seen in cuba, nicaragua, and some other central american countries

[luxurystark-jackson]

only on spn can you get the 6’4 muscle boy getting jumped and almost killed by a gandhi impersonator

bonus: the other muscle boy gets jumped and tied to a tree by paris hilton

[rinisdrawing]

the golden princess & the sorcerer prince

[canisalbus]

as a 16th century clergyman what does machete think of the printing press

I think by the time he was born the printing press had been around for almost a century and a half, so I'd reckon the society as a whole was largely past it's initial novelty and controversy. Machete himself is bookish and nerdy, he's very invested in gathering knowledge about various topics and trying to piece together a good picture of how the world works. Getting access to reading material would be a lot harder if every book was still copied individually by hand. His standards are pretty high though, there's a lot of poorly translated, shoddily printed and flimsily bound books around and he's prone to scrunching his nose at them.

[farshootergotme]

https://www.tumblr.com/ruestheday/765956792656265216/one-of-the-biggest-lies-the-fandom-will-tell-you

Opinions on this post?

I'd say that I agree with what this person is saying. As much as I give Bruce shit for his parental skills (which are flawed and shouldn't be overlooked, don't get me wrong), we can say Alfred is partially one of the main reasons why Bruce is the way he is.

I won't say anything about "Alfred should've/could've taken Bruce to therapy" because then we gotta consider a lot of things about the decade when Alfred was introduced and his age in-universe, as Alfred might've not lived in a period in which therapy was widely accepted and even recommended. But I won't dwell too much on that.

Now, I don't think Alfred is necessarily an evil person, but he can be quite selfish and a coward when it comes to facing consequences (which he rarely gets, if ever).

When shit hits the fan, he's the first one to back out. Why should he be responsible? He's only a mere butler (until he goes and calls Bruce "his son").

He's always detached just enough from the situation that nobody will look at him when looking for someone to blame for a problem that Alfred was most likely involved in.

Bruce might be the Batman, but it's Alfred who works from the shadows and leaves the responsibility of his decisions to the rest.

Does he do this on purpose?

Hard to say. I think he's in a way aware of his cowardice and harmful tendencies, but he doesn't have an active intention of hurting others. However, lack of intention does not mean lack of action, and despite whatever he might feel or believe, he does many things that end up in someone's hurt and even death.

And don't many consider it, but to me it doesn't come as a surprise that Bruce is so emotionally constipated and an unavailable father when he never had someone to learn from about proper parental skills.

Bruce never knew where he stood with Alfred, and Alfred didn't help to make it clear. At first, Bruce was just his master. A responsibility left behind by his parents, but still with the authority to order around the person who's supposed to be his caretaker. And Alfred? We know how much of an enabler he is, but also how inconsistent he can be when it comes to letting Bruce get away with things. And how confusing that must've been for a child? To never have clear boundaries to respect, rules to follow and his behavior corrected.

Kids learn from habit and patterns, and I don't believe he'd see much of that with Alfred, who jumps from his role as a father to his position as a butler way too often for a young mind to fully comprehend. Add to that the fact Bruce already had a position as a rich kid, which would've led to even more people forgetting to set boundaries with him due to his influence.

Now it's not so weird to see him getting away with his toxic behavior towards his children instead of confronting his mistakes like a parent should, right? But I digress.

So, moving onto the next point: child soldiers.

The post you sent mentions Alfred's involvement in the later creation of Robins. But how can he normalize sending kids out there to fight a war that isn't theirs? Well, that's when you remember Alfred joined the army at quite a young age, and there he must've seen even younger kids working as soldiers. What are the chances he has a messed up view on what children should and shouldn't (have to) do?

Subconsciously, he must've internalized this idea of children fighting for their country, and when he saw Robin for the first time, it might've brought back that idea and so he allowed this child to fight for a city that was not even his yet. And then came Jason, then Tim, then Steph, Cass, Damian, Duke... They just kept coming, and Alfred kept pushing this idea.

Jason died? That's a shame, but war is unrelenting, and soldiers are expected to die. It doesn't mean the rest should stop fighting, right?

"Jason Todd, a good soldier".

On top of all that, Robin is good for Batman. Robin is the light Batman needs. Robin can help Bruce, his boy. His son. And who's Alfred if not a messed up man? He'll put the children at risk if it means helping the boy he failed to help before. And when he gets attached to said children, it'll be too late to try pull them out, and then they'll be just another repetition of what Batman came to be when he allowed Bruce to leave.

As for Julia Pennyworth, Alfred was separated from Marie—his then partner—due to war, and found out about Julia's existence only two years after she was born. Their relationship had been distant since then. Julia didn't know about Alfred, but he requested a friend to take care of her and kept sending money all the years to come after making his friend promise not to tell Julia about him, his real father. Why didn't he ever go to see her? That's because, according to Alfred, he was afraid to disrupt her life. But if I'm being honest, I think he also didn't feel ready for the responsibility. And when he became Bruce's guardian, he still was not ready, but Martha and Thomas were his friends, so there must've been a sense of responsibility and guilt influencing his decision.

To summarize, Alfred Pennyworth is an extremely flawed individual and he should not be absolved from any of his mistakes.

[mswyrr]

After twenty years, the thing I still don't get is that everything cruel that can be said and has been said against Zutara romance can also be said against their friendship--and Zuko's friendships with the other characters!--and yet somehow friendship is always good and pure but romance would immediately make their healthy friendship dynamic bad and abusive???

But that's not how relationships work. If they can have a healthy friendship, then they could have a healthy romance. If any romance is inherently unhealthy, then the friendship must be inherently unhealthy too.

You've got the original writers saying women who think that Katara and Zuko should be together will forever have "failed relationships"... and then, at the same time, those same writers are like yay let's write them bonding and building a friendship.

People calling a brutally abused child who went on a redemption arc and turned against his father's ways a "colo/nizer" when it's a romance, but when it's friendship it's all good somehow. If lips never touch, it's not possible for a relationship to be toxic??? But if lips DO touch, then a healthy friendship based on mutual respect immediately becomes a Lifetime movie about toxic boyfriends...

The only way this logic works is if you think romantic love immediately "corrupts" or "taints" in a way friend love doesn't. And that's an incredibly ugly, sad idea to push.

[opbackgrounds]

Robin knows

[thunderstomm]

What’s with the Wells siblings and falling into fountains with their best friends?

[aroanthy]

i genuinely can’t think about nanami and akio for too long or i do think i will keel over and die but the thing is. when he drives his car into the kiryuu mansion before her car sequence (‘it’s time for your ride’, akio says when he would ordinarily say nothing at this point), nanami says ‘it’s you’. it’s you. obvious interpretation here is ‘you’re end/s of the world’, and that’s certainly part of it. but i think it’s more so like. It’s You. as in, you’re everywhere. you have a hand in everything. you brought me into your home under the guise of protecting me, and in doing so traumatised me, and harmed me, and now you’re in my home, and everyone i have spoken to about you loves you, wishes to protect you, sees no issue with the things that you do. of course it’s you. as much as touga might try to resist nanami’s attempts to sincerely understand him, this moment gives her the first real opportunity she’s ever had to do that. here is a sliver of the ‘real’ version of her brother, in proximity to and aligning himself with this man. it’s you. it’s you. i feel like a rabid dog rn

[emry-stars-art]

Emey can I change you and ask for number 5 with Seth/Allison? I understand if not considering you don't draw Seth often <3

Maybe not but that is not to say I won’t draw him 😘

Requests are open until the end of Dec ‘23 💕

[cactusringed]

Painty practice

[nightwonder7]

So seeing as how you've fallen into the Norton/Alice rabbit hole...thoughts on the theory Norton was hired to kill Alice?

Okay, so there are two possibilities of who might've hired Norton to eliminate Alice, assuming the "arrogant woman" he talks about in the second letter isn't Melly. Note: I'm basing some of these thoughts off of sirenjose's posts (their IDV analysis are really good!)

One, it could be Orpheus. As we saw in AoM2, Norton was working for or together with him, so it would check out that Orpheus is the one directing him. He could've thus be the one who ordered him to eliminate Alice. However, this does contradict what is implied to be Orpheus' motives for Alice. In his and Alice's letters, he was trying to set her free from where she was being kept and make her remember him. He wants his childhood best friend back, maybe to redeem himself from what transpired when the manor was under attack. Also, I'm pretty sure he knows who Alice is in AoM now, with the Lamb note appearing on her desk at the end, so it's not like he thinks she is her colleague. So why would he then order someone to kill her? I could dig deeper into Orpheus potentially having his perception skewed, having to obey someone higher than him in the manor games or setting Norton up to be the villain so he can become the hero in the story, but I'll refrain from straying too far.

Two, it could be someone else entirely, and the main suspect would be Villhelm Lamb; AKA Alice's adoptive father. From Evelyn's background trailer, we learn that Villhelm is ruling over an organisation of spies working for him. Once Alice escapes from him, someone were sent out to observe her or eliminate her; perhaps to prevent her from spilling out whatever dark secrets he possesses. These people could be this spy group. From Alice's deduction, it seems that she knows she is being watched, and so they never get a chance to eliminate her.

And then we have Norton. Norton would not turn down a large sum of money if offered to him. And after the incident in the mines, one could say his moral compass became a little misguided. Agreeing to kill someone for a life changing amount of money does not seem unlikely of him at this point in life, whether said pay would come from Orpheus or Villhelm.

The ONLY THING I just cannot wrap my head around is where the heck did they find this guy?? Technically, Norton is just a random person from the working class, so how did they even find him? I doubt they put up an "Assassin needed! Commission pay!" flyer on the wall. I mean, they could've just made an ad with the sum of money and no job specifications, but I struggle to see how that would even work when the task is so grizzly. Another thing I can't comprehend is how this employer would think someone like Norton would be more skilled and capable of assassination of someone as sharp as Alice than, say a group of spies. But maybe Norton really is just that; a guy they randomly picked for the job for whatever reason.

I've probably left something out, but those are my initial thoughts. Would be interesting if Alice somehow allies with Norton and Melly to put an end to the manor games. But I'm also preparing for the most tragic ending to this story fdshjfghsd