#dulling

[sixth-light]

so one of the things I was vaguely aware of before reproducing was that people hold a lot of anxiety around the gender of babies and 'wrongly' gendering babies (i.e. failing to guess correctly based on their clothes and appearance what their genital configuration is) and having now had a baby: wow, yes, they really do.

I take an extremely laissez-faire approach to baby clothes because like, they are constantly being thrown up on and grown out of and so on, what matters is that they are clean and easy to put on and I am not spending $$$$$ on them. as long as the colour/design is not directly offensive, it's fine. what this means is that people are quite frequently 'misgendering' the baby and then falling over themselves to apologise about it.

and, like, I haven't even had a chance to dress him in anything pink yet; this is based on rules I didn't expect like 'anything with flowers or sparkly bits on it is for girls only'. equally, I do not care when this happens because it's an irrelevancy, but THEY care to make sure I am not offended. so I have started telling them "look, he's only [x] months old; his gender is baby."

and you know what? you'd be surprised how many otherwise average heterosexual people process this and go "huh, yeah, I guess it is." there is a tiny amount of hope for the future after all.

[glassiskies]

immediately thought of that one meme when I watched this scene in episode 2 LMAO

[idiotsonlyevent]

i really like this detail in chapter 51 where tall-man chilchuck pulls ahead of the party as they're walking.

i know it's in part because there are gaps and grates in the floors, and since he's physically larger, it's easier for him to walk around or over them, and his step length has increased, but it also makes me think that he's had to adopt a faster walking speed to compensate for his size. now that he's larger, he's turned into the dungeon's faster speed walker lol

[animatedtext]

[fairycosmos]

being in love must be so crazy. all my life i have observed what it does to people and it’s like they have a sickness it’s like theyre high it’s like their whole being is feverish with it. i am terrified of it and also terrified of never experiencing it

[ahfrickenfrick]

everyone who knows dick personally knows he is very smart, analytical, and geeky

however the news outlets have been spouting off ‘richie wayne’ ever since dick was taken in as bruce’s ward, and tend to write him as the ‘dumb hot’ stereotype

one night talk show gets dick onto it, under the premise that the money from that show would be going to charity, they put him up against random college students about topics they are majoring in

everyone expects dick to flirt or joke his way through the questions, so when he starts buzzing in first and answering correctly, they eventually question him

and with a shrug he says, “grew up traveling around the world, was vice president to the mathletes club that took nationals in high school at 14, and was actually in training to take up either a head aspect or a tech aspect of wayne enterprises; had to do classes and work for that, my best friend and i played video games and coded our own, also social media is easy to keep up with with my siblings and such” he finishes with a dismissive wave and smile, quickly running through the subjects that he was quizzed on

it quickly goes viral, and dick left that studio with a lighter chest and a bright smile

[neil-gaiman]

Our trailer for Good Omens Season 2 has just been released. It is moderately entertaining and may help pass a couple of otherwise uneventful minutes.

[reloaderror]

💫despite not going here. here i am

[junorsky]

yes I was sober when I made this

[crumpledroses]

Avengers (2012)

Deadpool and Wolverine (2024)

The cameos and references killed me

[maxphilippa]

art style test

[thebibliosphere]

Apropos of nothing and certainly not the hilarious ask I just got but I find it so funny when the worst insult someone can come up with is "all your faves looks like dusty old men" like yes, and?

Have you considered I'm a dusty, dusty old crone, and I'm just thirsting in my own lane?

[amourcherie606]

i know nothing about zenless zone zero but these two are so pooki

[magicicephoenix]

dca who (doctor who) au!!! it’s happening!! sound the alarms!!!

Sun comes much later in the au once y/n and Moon become closer… but i couldn’t just NOT draw him :)

[kiras-monkey-bum-face]

"oooh doctor who is finally campy and fun again!" tell me you didn't watch 13s era without telling me you didn't watch 13s era, there was a sentient frog, a man birthing a child and calling it avocado, a snarky doctor who keeps forgetting she's not a man, and the master dancing to bony m dressed as rasputin. I cannot wait for the day this era is properly appreciated the way it should have been in the first place

[avelera]

Man, there’s all these little beats in OFMD S2 1-3 where people keep EXPECTING Stede to be upset or horrified about Ed’s actions and then he’s just. Not. In a way that reminded me of how a lot of fanon kept softening Stede into someone who doesn’t swear and is horrified at Ed for setting those ships on fire when imo to my eyes he was horrified for Ed because Ed was still so clearly distressed about it.

- Zheng Yi Sao asks Stede how he’s doing now that he knows Ed did horrible things to his crew and there’s this beat and Stede just pivots to, oh yeah, sometimes Ed is troubled. Like it didn’t occur to him to be upset on the crew’s behalf he’s worried about Ed.

- Izzy keeps trying to spare Stede’s feelings and cover up Ed’s spiral, but Stede clocked what was going on with Ed immediately and wasn’t the least bit intimidated or bothered. The knives brought the room together. Of course Ed’s trying to burn the world down or die trying. Duh. And I genuinely don’t think the STUFF in the Revenge mattered even a fraction to Stede as much as the signs of Ed’s breakdown broke his heart. It’s just STUFF, who cares.

- Lucius had to SPECIFICALLY call out Stede for not being surprised or bothered by what happened to him. What Ed did. Stede has to almost consciously remind himself to express polite concern. He just doesn’t actually care, instinctively or automatically, about what happened to Lucius. Part of it is he blames himself more than Ed. Part of it is he just doesn’t care, Ed is the priority.

They’re little blink and you’ll miss it pauses in some cases. Micro-expressions. The absence of a reaction. But honestly, I will scream it to the end of time, Stede is not some nonviolent creampuff scared or upset by Ed’s evil ways. He wants to join Ed in the atrocities. The man ran away to become a pirate. He asked if Lucius was taking notes during a murderous raid.

Stede’s at least a little on some kind of whackadoodle pirate comedy neurodivergence spectrum to the point where he actually really actually struggles to empathize with people, even people he cares about!, if their feelings conflict with his hyperfixation (piracy) and the love of his life (Ed Teach). He’s always, ALWAYS going to pick Ed over Lucius or Izzy or his crew or even his own feelings, if the option is there. He will literally throw himself overboard to get to Ed’s side. No pause. No consideration of anyone else or even his own safety.

Stede sometimes seems to have to consciously remind himself things like, oh yeah, the crew, I need to see to them. Not because he’s heartless or doesn’t care, but because it takes a bit of conscious effort for him to see beyond the laser-focused spotlight of what and who he does care most about, he has to remind himself of social niceties and other people’s feelings (just see him running away in the first place!) when he gets an idea in his head. It’s as if he had to train himself to consciously care about some things other people care about and as a neurodivergent person myself, that felt very familiar in a comedically writ large sort of way. I’d even argue that’s where all his aristocratic social niceties come from. They were his guidebook for how to do things “right” in a world that otherwise made no sense to him outside his hyperfixations. He practiced being a person through the aristocratic training because it was all so foreign to him from the start, including caring, actually caring, about the needs of others. Not because he’s consciously evil or consciously a jerk. The instinct just isn’t there unless he practices at it until it becomes reflex to ask how others are doing, because on his own his brain just doesn’t really notice or care.

I just… hope the fandom notes and has as much FUN as I do noticing all the little moments where even people inside the story of OFMD expect Stede to act in a normal way and instead he remains unhinged, laser-focused on Ed.

Stede’s not just an Ed apologist, he truly doesn’t blame Ed for any of it. He blames only himself. He doesn’t always voice this but he really really only cares about anyone else including the crew as a DISTANT second and he has to consciously REMIND himself to do so. He is able to rally to take action, to care about their physical needs like safety during the rescue, but he still struggles, deeply struggles, to remember to show empathy in a non-performative way for anyone except his special person, Ed.

Stede’s not a creampuff, not a nice guy, not some emotionally or morally perfect angel. He has to consciously practice caring about literally anything else but what he wants to do and his special person. And to me that’s a thousand times more interesting than shoving him in a box labeled “the blond, pacifist do-gooder good guy” in their relationship.