#but to be fair it's really interesting!!

[noodles-and-tea]

For the twins in time AU, I genuinely wonder what kind of people the young twins grow up into because of Stan’s/Ford’s influence. Especially if it takes years for the portal to get fixed.

(Sorry if it seems like I already sent this question, I don’t know if it got sent the first time I asked)

I haven’t fully fleshed out how Ford grows up in the past but I do have thoughts on Stan presently

[anghraine]

It's always been intriguing to me that, even when Elizabeth hates Darcy and thinks he's genuinely a monstrous, predatory human being, she does not ever perceive him as sexually predatory. In fact, literally no one in the novel suggests or believes he is sexually dangerous at any point. There's not the slightest hint of that as a factor in the rumors surrounding him, even though eighteenth-century fiction writers very often linked masculine villainy to a possibility of sexual predation in the subtext or just text*. Austen herself does this over and over when it comes to the true villains of her novels.

Even as a supposed villain, though, Darcy is broadly understood to be predatory and callous towards men who are weaker than him in status, power, and personality—with no real hint of sexual threat about it at all (certainly none towards women). Darcy's "villainy" is overwhelmingly about abusing his socioeconomic power over other men, like Wickham and Bingley. This can have secondhand effects on women's lives, but as collateral damage. Nobody thinks he's targeting women.

In addition, Elizabeth's interpretations of Darcy in the first half of the book tend to involve associating him with relatively prestigious women by contrast to the men in his life (he's seen as extremely dissimilar from his male friends and, as a villain, from his father). So Elizabeth understands Darcy-as-villain not in terms of the popular, often very sexualized images of masculine villainy at the time, but in terms of rich women she personally despises like Caroline Bingley and Lady Catherine de Bourgh (and even Georgiana Darcy; Elizabeth assumes a lot about Georgiana in service of her hatred of Darcy before ever meeting her).

The only people in Elizabeth's own community who side with Darcy at this time are, interestingly, both women, and likely the highest-status unmarried women in her community: Charlotte Lucas and Jane Bennet. Both have some temperamental affinities with Darcy, and while it's not clear if he recognizes this, he quietly approves of them without even knowing they've been sticking up for him behind the scenes.

This concept of Darcy-as-villain is not just Elizabeth's, either. Darcy is never seen by anyone as a sexual threat no matter how "bad" he's supposed to be. No one is concerned about any danger he might pose to their daughters or sisters. Kitty is afraid of him, but because she's easily intimidated rather than any sense of actual peril. Even another man, Mr Bennet, seems genuinely surprised to discover late in the novel that Darcy experiences attraction to anything other than his own ego.

I was thinking about this because of how often the concept of Darcy as an anti-hero before Elizabeth "fixes him" seems caught up in a hypermasculine, sexually dangerous, bad boy image of him that even people who actively hate him in the novel never subscribe to or remotely imply. Wickham doesn't suggest anything of the kind, Elizabeth doesn't, the various gossips of Meryton don't, Mr Bennet and the Gardiners don't, nobody does. If anything, he's perceived as cold and sexless.

Wickham in particular defines Darcy's villainy in opposition to the patriarchal ideal his father represented. Wickham's version of their history works to link Darcy to Lady Anne, Lady Catherine (primarily), and Georgiana rather than any kind of masculine sexuality. This version of Darcy is a villain who colludes with unsympathetic high-status women to harm men of less power than themselves, but villain!Darcy poses no direct threat to women of any kind.

It's always seemed to me that there's a very strong tendency among fans and academics to frame Darcy as this ultra-gendered figure with some kind of sexual menace going on, textually or subtextually. He's so often understood entirely in terms of masculinity and sexual desire, with his flaws closely tied to both (whether those flaws are his real ones, exaggerated, or entirely manufactured). Yet that doesn't seem to be his vibe to other characters in the story. There's a level at which he does not register to other characters as highly masculine in his affiliations, highly sexual, or in general as at all unsafe** to be around, even when they think he's a monster. And I kind of feel like this makes the revelations of his actual decency all along and his full-on heroism later easier to accept in the end.

------------

*The incompetently awful villain(?) in Sanditon, for instance, imagines himself another Lovelace (a reference to the famous rapist-villain of Samuel Richardson's Clarissa). Evelina's sheltered education and lack of protectors makes her vulnerable to sexual exploitation in Frances Burney's Evelina, though she ultimately manages to avoid it. There's frequently an element of sexual predation in Gothic novels even of very different kinds (e.g. Ann Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho and Matthew Lewis's The Monk both lean into this, in their wildly dissimilar styles). William Godwin's novel Caleb Williams, a book mostly about the destructive evils of class hierarchies and landowning classes specifically, depicts the mutual obsession of the genteel villain Falkland and working class hero Caleb in notoriously homoerotic terms (Godwin himself added a preface in 1832 saying, "Falkland was my Bluebeard, who had perpetrated atrocious crimes ... Caleb Williams was the wife"). This list could go on for a very long time.

**Darcy is also not usually perceived by other characters as a particularly sexual, highly masculine person in a safe way, either, even once his true character is known. Elizabeth emphasizes the resilience of Darcy's love for her more than the passionate intensity they both evidently feel; in the later book, she does sometimes makes assumptions about his true feelings or intentions based on his gender, but these assumptions are pretty much invariably shown to be wrong. In general the cast is completely oblivious to the attraction he does feel; even Charlotte, who wonders about something in that quarter, ends up doubting her own suspicions and wonders if he's just very absent-minded.

The novel emphasizes that he is physically attractive, but it goes to pains to distinguish this from Wickham's sex appeal or the charisma of a Bingley or Fitzwilliam. Mr Bennet (as mentioned above) seems to have assumed Darcy is functionally asexual, insofar as he has a concept of that. Most of the fandom-beloved moments in which Darcy is framed as highly sexual, or where he himself is sexualized for the audience, are very significantly changed in adaptation or just invented altogether for the adaptations they appear in. Darcy watching Elizabeth after his bath in the 1995 is invented for that version, him snapping at Elizabeth in their debates out of UST is a persistent change from his smiling banter with her in the book, the fencing to purge his feelings is invented, the pond swim/wet shirt is invented. In the 2005 P&P, the instant reaction to Elizabeth is invented, the hand flex of repressed passion is invented, the Netherfield Ball dance as anything but an exercise in mutual frustration is invented, the near-kiss after the proposal in invented, etc. And in those as well, he's never presented as sexually predatory, not even as a "villain."

[orb-weaving]

Recognition

[hivemindscape]

the buddy-buddy act ends now

[yekokataa]

rip walt disney, i know you would have loved using ai to eliminate jobs

[dandp]

Dan and Phil A-Z Ask Game:

I was craving a big ask game so had to go for the classic dnp format. Hope everyone enjoys!

A - Activity; You can choose to do one activity with Dan and Phil, what will you do?

B - Baking; Pitch a concept/outfit/etc. you want to see in a future baking video.

C - Conspiracy; What are your favorite and/or least favorite phannie conspiracies (past or present)?

D - Dan; What is your favorite video from Dan's main channel?

E - Emotion; What Dan and/or Phil moment has made you the most emotional?

F - Fashion; What are some of your favorite Dan and Phil looks?

G - Group; Dan and Phil are doing a collaboration video, who do you want it to be with and what will they do? (Could be someone they've collabed with before)

H - Home; What are some of your favorite domestic Dan and Phil moments?

I - Instagram; What are some of your favorite Instagram posts/stories?

J - Joke; What Dan and Phil moment(s) always make you laugh?

K - Keepsake; What type of merch item/design/theme/etc. would you most like Dan and Phil to make?

L - Lion; What is your favorite item/running gag/etc. that's ever been a part of Dan and Phil branding?

M - Manchester; What is your favorite early Dan and Phil moment?

N - Norman; If you could choose a pet for Dan and Phil to get, what would it be?

O - Opponent; What is your favorite Dan vs. Phil video?

P - Phil; What is your favorite video from Phil's main channel?

Q - Question; You can ask one question each to Dan and Phil and they will give you an honest answer, what will you ask?

R - Radio Show; What is the most iconic radio show moment to you?

S - Sims; You have to choose one of the three main storylines in the Sims (Dil/Tabs, Devan, Dalien) to never be revisited again, which one are you eliminating?

T - Tour; What is the best segment from each of their tours, in your opinion?

U - Underrated; What is the most underrated Dan and Phil video?

V - Video Game; What video game do you most want to see on dapg?

W - Wow; What have Dan and Phil done that surprised you the most?

X - Xylophone; What is your favorite music-related Dan and Phil moment?

Y - Youtube; If you could choose one YouTube video for dnp to make, what would it be? (Solo or joint content, your choice!)

Z - Zebra; What words or phrases have you picked up from dnp and/or always make you think of them?

[critter-wizard]

ep 43 had me tearing up in a fucking shopping centre ‼️‼️

b+w alt version that I truly couldn't decide if I liked it more . Also I included a lot of thoughts in the tags but they're somewhat incoherent<3

[overtake]

Hi!!!! I can't get over how much I love this fic and I was thinking about the first time they meet in the locker room at the practice rink. You wrote "Max looks up, cheeks flushing in surprise to find someone else in there. His eyes go big at seeing Daniel." and I was wondering if there's a chance we can read about Max's point of view sometime in the future ♥️ I would really love to read anything you want to share with us about this fic algjkshd ♥️

So late on answering this but I’d love to provide you with Max’s POV!

The first time Max talked to Daniel Ricciardo, Daniel was commanding attention in a cluster of hockey players at Max’s rookie season All-Star Game. To date, Max isn’t sure if his ears are just innately tuned to the frequency of his bright, honking laugh, or if his joy was truly louder than the announcement and subsequent crowd cheers for the start of the hardest shot competition.

Daniel’s helmet and gloves were carelessly abandoned somewhere. He was leaning his chin on the butt of his carelessly taped stick, and his curls were toeing the line between handsomly tousled and unruly. He was giving everyone who spoke his undivided attention, the bags under his warm brown eyes gently crinkling in time with his smiles. Max didn’t care that some annoying reporter kept trying to grab him over to the side for an interview. He had just wanted to know what it felt like to be in Daniel’s orbit.

Between Daniel and Lewis Hamilton was a space big enough for Max to worm his way into, and he didn’t care that he was crashing the conversation. Daniel wouldn’t care either, probably. Max knew lots of people who played with him, and everyone said the same gushing things about Daniel’s kindness.

Most of the guys just nodded at him and didn’t break their side conversations, but Daniel had flashed his bright white teeth at him. “Max Verstappen,” he said. He said Max’s name funny, more like Maksh Vershtappen, and grinned a little wider after Max scrunched his face up at it. “Nice of you to join us, but aren’t you in this competition?”

He nodded over at where Sebastian Vettel was lining up a shot. Max just shrugged. “Maybe if I hide in this circle, they won’t be able to find me.”

“Aw,” Daniel said. “Shucks, Verstappen. Too nice to show up Seb?”

“I could’ve been on a beach,” Max said mournfully. “And instead I am here.”

Daniel laughed again. He doled them out as easily as breathing, but Max still let himself glow at the reward of being its cause. “Normally people wait until at least year two to start complaining about the All Star Game.”

“Well, they keep saying I’m ahead of my peers, first overall pick and everythint,” Max joked. Daniel opened his mouth to respond — some chirp about Max being cocky, Max would’ve bet — but his name was being announced as the next competitor, and he was forced out of the circle to perform like a show pony for the crowd.

“Save my spot,” he told Daniel, who winked.

“Only if you win.”

Max had won, and by a solid few miles per hour over Seb’s previous record. By the time he returned to the circle, Daniel had been warbling some terrible version of the American anthem, and Lewis had kindly explained the Fergie backstory to him, and then Daniel darted off toward Sebastian before Max could grab his attention back and make the joke he’d been trying to formulate about winning.

Up until the day Daniel walked into the Leafs practice facilities, Max never spoke to Daniel again, but he’d remembered the way Daniel’s attention had made him feel.

He’d mentally separated sex and hockey long ago. It wasn’t even a conscious choice he needed to make. He was in the locker room to win, and attraction was a distraction. He’d always known that he was into guys, as easily as he recognized that his name was Max and his eyes were blue, but that had nothing to do with hockey.

Hockey players weren’t a dating pool. A hockey team was an ecosystem so delicate that one chirp gone too far could throw off the entire chemistry of the team and lose them the season. The opponents were the guys trying to stop them from winning, and Max would be damned before he let there be a single earthly chance that he fucks one of them and they somehow use it against him to win. Thus, hockey and sex did not co-exist. It wasn’t even a consideration. Like his name, and his eyes, and being gay, it was a fact of life that Max never had to consciously think about.

Daniel was the first time his stomach flipped being nearby a hockey player, and he’d allowed himself the guilty pleasure of a youtube deep dive when it hit two weeks after the All Star Game and Daniel hadn’t left his mind. It resulted in a shame-ridden jerkoff session over bad commercial acting and an orgasm over a compilation of Ricciardo game-winners.

Daniel wasn’t even in the Leafs conference, Max had told himself after that first time. Max could have this. It wasn’t actually combining sex and hockey, and he’d still smash Daniel against the boards if he ever tried to get near Max’s puck.

Then Daniel was in Edmonton, still the other conference but in Max’s country, and everyone was calling it lights out on Daniel’s career. In the faceoff circle, face framed in orange fabric and dark circles, Max saw that all the free joy Daniel had once doled out had soured into pungent melancholy.

Max only had a few games against Daniel as an Oiler, but one stood out. It couldn’t have been more than two weeks before Daniel entered the assistance program, but there was a steely scrap of fight in his eyes that Max hadn’t seen in the past year and a half.

Max had won the only faceoff he had against Daniel that game, but Daniel stole the puck from him five seconds later in a motion so smooth that it slotted perfectly in the highlight reels Max had rabidly consumed and that everyone claimed were a ghost of Daniel past. He was focused on racing Daniel down the ice to try and prevent the breakaway, but his first thought when he heaved himself over the boards at the end of his shift was that he couldn’t fathom how anyone could consider Daniel done after a move like that.

He only understood when he heard their dipshit coach ream out Daniel a second later. It was a strain to hear from their bench, even with Zak’s loud-ass voice, but he was lecturing Daniel for attempting the shot. Zak was stabbing his stubby pointer at a whiteboard and screaming himself red to argue that Daniel should’ve passed to a guy that had been covered by two defencemen. The useless rookie he was referencing hadn’t even caught the rebound of Daniel’s shot on net, but fucking genius idea: don’t let your open guy go for the goal that Esteban had stopped only by the luckiest glance off his goalie stick.

Max understood, then. Daniel’s talent wasn’t gone. It’d just been suffocated. He was trying to change his game to conform to a system of hockey that constrained him to a set of plays. They weren’t allowing him to trust his gut, to capitalize on unexpected chances and make the right plays. Daniel would leave, or they would trade him, and Max knew he’d be better for it.

And then it was June, and Max had a surprise call from Cyril and a contact card for Daniel Ricciardo saved into his phone. He let himself be excited instead of apprehensive, even though letting himself combine hockey and sexual desire, all by using the desperate justification that the guy was a conference away, was clearly Max daring the universe to make this happen.

Max is here in his locker room in the heart of summer, and Daniel Ricciardo walks in with a slight stumble of hesitancy that betrays his uncertainty at finding Max in his new surroundings.

He looks back to the guy that keeps the sun a willing hostage in his smile. His curls are long and shiny, his under eyes no longer hollowed, and Max can see muscle on his body where there was once only bone. Max is struck dumb with the reckoning that his stomach still churns the same way at the sight of Daniel, even when he’s picking at his cuticles and looking the closest to nervous that he’ll probably let himself show.

This, Max grimly considers, could maybe be a problem.

[admiral-bennetts-aide-de-camp]

a lot of people talk about abed comparing troy to comfort TV, but not enough people talk about the implication of how, by saying that, abed positions himself as a parasocial fan

[fumifooms]

Helki compilation

Helki is a prisoner-turned-servant. He’s a criminal canary and was implicitly one of Milsiril’s charges, and now that she’s retired he’s become her servant.

He must have gotten into Milsiril’s good graces, wether through attachment or convenience, which is a feat considering Milsiril’s a socially anxious recluse. Interesting since it’s not like he seems like the agreeable type, shifty upbeat delinquent style… We really don’t know much about him, not even what crimes he did, so there’s a lot of space for speculation on all grounds.

Edit: Shanghai QnA with Kui gave us a new juicy morsel of info!

Interesting… The original answer in japanese is: パッタドルと同じような杖を使っていました。今も同じものを支給されているのですが、すぐになくすのでもはや携帯していないようです。 That it’s written in japanese seems to say that there isn’t the same double translation issue there was last QnA, so if someone wants to look at the original phrasing and word choices it can be done. Perhaps Helki-Milsiril has a more protégé dynamic undertone than previously thought… "For various reasons", meaning circumstances that made it so the squad had to choose between saving him and saving their own skin, or like, "man this guy’s personality sucks we don’t really like him"? Likely to be a mix of several things, since ‘for various reasons’ implies the situation was either complex or they had multiple reasonings. In either case, the phrasing is very much that Milsiril couldn’t abandon him herself, and so a relationship sprung out of that. Another instance of outcasts seeking out and sticking with other outcasts in Dungeon Meshi. This could mean that it’s a bit less out of personal attachment and more out of a sense of duty on Milsiril’s side as well though.

Still edit: So then maybe him staying with Rin in that comic isn’t that much because of work ethics or that he cares for kids (or maybe he does because he feels kinship to them, alone and mistreated), but because he didn’t want to join the other canaries in that room chatting and laughing… Maybe the isolation was exacerbated because he became Milsiril’s favorite, teacher’s pet style, but I’d also be careful about assuming the others disproportionately dislike him, it could be that they just don’t really care for him. Why? Could be because of his personality, because he’s seen as shifty or unreliable or annoying, if an event, who knows who knows, but I like to think because of the Rin comic that he generally just tends to be a loner, that he’s "weird" in a neurodivergent vibe, he doesn’t conform to proper social behavior which in elven society seems especially alienating. He’s the only one with Rin to think of her sake, not only worth observing/caring for but also asks her to eat, but he does this with an offputting stare, not really emoting, and then well, the infamous alone with her staring munching covered in blood panel. He stands out. I’m a fan of the theory that it was a "Helki? Not that I dislike the guy but I’m not risking my skin for him" situation… Ok end edit back to older observations.

He seemed to be acting out of his own initiative in the Rin comic, he doesn’t look thrilled to be there in many post-canary comics but he also seems content enough. He restrains Milsiril in the Mithrun cleaning comic which is interesting to think of for their relationship.

It’s fun to notice how he’s the only one that didn’t get bored of looking after Rin, and then reports back about her condition… I’d say he was getting used to taking care of kids which would come with the job of serving Milsiril, but then, not enough for him to clean the blood off himself hah. In this way it’s interesting to think about his relationship to the idea of parenthood, he’s probably the closest thing to a father figure/male role model Kabru had growing up, without mentioning the other kids. I feel like he’d consider himself an older brother, cousin or uncle figure sooo much sooner than a father, but even then I do think it’s just his job and he’s not really invested or forming real relationships with any of them much.

It’s curious to note that he’s dressed in canary uniform presumably after having been pardoned and living with Milsiril? Which you can tell by the armor bits (the yellow strips of spider silk). In the Kabru training montage and the Rin comic specifically. It seems very implausible for him to have still been a canary while being a retired Milsiril’s servant and being with her all the time, and the cleaning with Mithrun comic (where he’s not in uniform) happens after Utaya so it could happen after Kabru was taken in but around the time of the Rin comic. So why uniform? It could be one of the best outfits he has, so it’d make sense to wear it around especially if you’re sparring or getting… Blood on you? Could just be because that's how Milsiril wants him to dress. But yeah we don't know when exactly Helki becoming Milsiril’s servant happened. We do see Mithrun’s charge Cithis be tasked with taking care of him, so a charge being given a servant-caretaker role doesn’t seem all that out of the ordinary, sometimes even prior to retiring.

Imo, if he doesn't work for Milsiril he goes back to jail/the canaries/has to try and get a job instead of just tending to her, so Helki is staying with Milsiril because she's the best option for him. He’s her milsiril's personal servant and does mostly dull tasks involved in that. He’s not particularly suited to the role but they’ve gotten used to each other to him so she took him with her, and he does prefer it to canary work so it works out decent for him. I think he’s used to reading her and managing her moods and he’s one of the rare social connection she has.

Under spoiler is stage 2 interpretation stuff, bigger speculation, in a reblog I’ll make soon I’ll go over my thoughts for stage 3 interpretation lol. Helsiril I’m coming for you

Translation of the canary hierachy chart used is by Thatsmimi, here

[babychosen]

save a horse (ride a cowboy)

8pm, Friday. Red dress. Booth near the end of the bar, by the dart board.

She forgot how demanding the text felt, but it had only encouraged her to want to show up even more.

[andrew-rannells-mustache]

Idk I just think it’s so interesting how Hickey uses names and titles as a tool to manipulate the people around him (especially the mutineers). Calling Tozer “sergeant” when he’s first convincing him to mutiny, to play into his desire to follow his rank and protect. Switching to “Solomon” when he’s trying to get Tozer to open up more about the Tuunbaq. Intentionally not calling Jopson “Lieutenant” after his promotion as a subtle dig. How often he says Billy’s name, especially during the ring scene and when Billy’s entertaining the idea of a mutiny before the walk out (“speak your mind, Billy”). Smugly directing his story about kidnapping Silna to “Captain Crozier” and only Captain Crozier, then after kidnapping him only referring to him as “Mr. Crozier” and making the mutineers do the same (but Hodgson, who’s not loyal but is at least complacent to Hickey, stays “Lieutenant Hodgson”). Calling Tommy, who’s always Tommy or Mr. Armitage, “Private Armitage” when he’s ordering him to brutalize Crozier, because Hickey knows he’s always wanted to be a marine, so in his camp he’s given him the rank of one. It adds an such an interesting layer to Hickey’s “reconfigure, reinvent, rearrange” speech.

[torturingpeople]

i've been thinking about how irrigo and violant work recently. so of course i had to make diagrams about it

i don't think the plaque is like a literal tangible thing like it is on your tooth or in your blood vessels, but it's more of a residue that either snaps the synapses immediately and makes it impossible to reconnect the memory or builds up over time on the synapse and makes it harder to access a memory

"with resistance" in this case refers to someone who uses or has been exposed to irrigo frequently over an extended period of time. it works in the same way as drug/antibiotic resistance does in the sense that your synapses grow more resilient to the effects of the plaque and don't just immediately break. think of it like going from dental floss to rope

i also think violant can provide resistance too - in this way it would more likely cancel out the effects of the plaque and it's like placing a casing over your synapse, but at the same time now you have both a violant casing (with violant being impossible to erase so the casing is there basically forever whether it's effective or not) and irrigo plaque on your synapses so it's not something you can do repeatedly without eventually damaging the synapse and doing something fucked up to your memory

there's also potential for the buildup of irrigo and violant causing toxic shock in the brain in the same way foreign objects do - it's only in a long-term sense and if left unchecked the body will start attacking itself and engaging an immune response to remove the buildup, which will in turn inevitably damage, weaken or break the synapse entirely

the way to treat violant+irrigo buildup is with exposure to apocyan. in essence this has the ability to remove the plaque buildup and the casing, essentially breaking it off your synapses, and can help to heal any damage caused by an immune response or the synapse being freed from the casing and plaque. in this it would return the neuron to its natural, unaffected state, and the pathway would neither have the benefits or drawbacks of using violant or irrigo

[bleue-flora]

i need ur opinion on angel cdream

I’ve literally had this for weeks and this is still all I got…

[arctic-bookclub]

oh also one thing that i realized just now: qbagi’s initial suspicion over what’s happening to qphil being tied to the federation is technically not wrong

you know what drew qphil’s deities’ interest to him and quesadilla island? the birdcage. rose said in her earliest message ”I could sense the bleeding heart of the one I once knew, far, far away”. the deities noticed qphil had disappeared, and maybe they were curious to know what had happened, but the thing that drove them to find him was rose’s want to help him. and if she really was the one that freed him from the cage (and it’s heavily hinted she was), that birdcage undeniably was the thing that launched all of this into action.

how the enderking figured out that qphil had been weakened? we don’t know, maybe he sensed it, maybe he had already been observing him, maybe he noticed rose leaving to look for qphil, it doesn’t really matter. what does matter is that the trauma qphil got from being locked in that cage is what gave the enderking the perfect opportunity to strike. and is what led us to where we are now in the story. so even thought the federation isn’t ultimately the one tormenting qphil right now, it can still all be traced back to them and their continual abuses of power :)

[vaguely-concerned]

in his and davrin's banters, lucanis exhibits a certain little shit energy I don't think we see him have with anyone else other than illario and honestly I am living for this