#every time an example of this happens to something famous enough for them to care about too

[feluka]

the sisyphean task of explaining egypt's military rule to foreigners every time something happens to a monument that's famous enough for the rest of the world to care about while we have to deal with this shit on a daily basis

[prettylittlels]

I Can See You

summary: You meet Rachel's costar at the academy gala, what will happen next? (tom blyth x actress!reader)

inspired by I Can See You (Taylor's Version) by Taylor Swift

💋⚘️❤️‍🔥💥🍬💄

As an actress, I spend a 70% of my time meeting and interacting with actors, actresses, singers, directors, producers, and people who work in the same industry as i do. A 90% of those people are just passers, travelers that only visited my life. Only very few manage to stay, important enough to make me care for and about them: true friends. Like Rachel Zegler, for example. I met her at the 2022 Golden Globes afterparty, and we kicked off a nice friendship. And a rather weird one, might i add. Rach and I enjoy playing rather exquisite games: i make her try the most horrendous food i find, and she tries to find the perfect man for me.

-Rach, I already told you- i tell her, laughing without even trying - I've lost hope! You gotta accept that i don't have a love life!-

-You're lying to yourself! - she smiles with me- You think I haven't seen the way you look at every couple we meet?-

Maybe she was right. I haven't had a boyfriend in years, maybe I am a little touch-starved. But that was until I met him.

You brush past me in the hallway

And you don't think I, I, I can see ya, do ya?

I've been watchin' you for ages

And I spend my time tryin' not to feel it

As an actress, i spend a lot of time bring invited to galas and events. Tonights entertainment was the Academy's annual gala. I picked out a gorgeous black sparkly dress that caught everyones attention, as I imagined. Getting out lf the car, I slowly made my way to the red carpet, starting to pose for the flashing cameras. Shouts and screams came from everywhere i went. Not only for me, of course; in fact, thay were yelling Rachel's name too when i arrived. She came up to me and gave me a big hug, as we started to take pictures together. I also noticed that a certain co-star of hers, was looking our way. Don't you think I can't see you?

But what would you do if I went to touch you now?

What would you do if they never found us out?

What would you do if we never made a sound?

As an famous actress, I can't just do whatever I want and say whatever i please. The cameras are everywhere. But God, did I want to go talk to you.

'Cause I can see you waitin' down the hall from me

And I could see you up against the wall with me

And what would you do, baby, if you only knew?

That I can see you

As an actress, people expect me to be there when they need me, available for everyone and waiting for directions. But, only this time, I was waiting for something else to happen. When I walked down the hidden hallway on my way to the women's bathroom, you were there. I didn't want to do anything reckless! But here we are.

And we kept everything professional

But something's changed, it's somethin' I, I like

They keep watchful eyes on us

So it's best that we move fast and keep quiet

You won't believe half the things I see inside my head

Wait 'til you see half the things that haven't happened yet

Tom and I started dating shortly after the gala. Being with him was everything I needed: he's a gentleman, a caring person, a funny one, and of course, a very sexy one. The weeks passed and we were both as happy as ever. After the night we met, the cameras that caught our longing stares published the photos and the public strted going crazy, speculating and giving their opinion about our encounter. Oh, they have no idea.

That I could see you throw your jacket on the floor

I could see you make me want you even more

What would you do, baby, if you only knew?

That I can see you

They had no idea that how it was being In a relationship with tom. The envious fangirls wished they were me. They don't I know that I can see him for what he truly is. They don't know that I can see him discarding his clothes on the floor. Yes, even that leather jacket of his that I love so much

I could see you in your suit and your necktie

Passed me a note saying, "Meet me tonight"

Then we kiss, and you know I won't ever tell, yeah

And I could see you being my addiction

You can see me as a secret mission

Hide away and I will start behaving myself

I remember how I pulled you closer by your tie, and unbuttoned your shirt. How you admitted you've been watching me for ages. How we agreed to keep this a sceret, However, I knew he'd be like a drug. And I get drunk on it whenever he's around

I can see you.

I can see you, Tom.

[dearweirdme]

https://www.tumblr.com/dearweirdme/745564059210055680/so-when-r-yall-gonna-accept-that-taehyung-and?source=share

Although I don't think they are still together, this kind of questions makes no sense!

We know nothing about any member relationship. NOTHING. Like, literally nothing. Does that imply that they never dated anyone before? I hope not. So, we can assume that they are all probably very careful and Hybe has Dispatch on their pocket.

Imo, there was 1 credible rumor about a member rs and I believe that after that they got even more careful.

(I will not consider Jk x Tatoo artist, Taennie and JK x girl on his apartment as rumors because imo is more a matter of ppl believing what they want because we have "proof" that something happened (in the way that it was not just whispers and gossip), ppl just disagree on what that was.)

Also, ppl usually forgot that they are real ppl and that real ppl don't need to make sense to us, especially ppl that we know nothing about.

Considering what was logical, just a silly example, the whole fandom was certain that JK couldn't be a smoker - and jkkrs would love to point it out that he would never date Tae also because of that. "BUT HE ASKED HIS FATHER TO STOP SMOKING?!!" And?

For example, I do believe that all members genuinely like each other, but I wouldn't be surprised if we found out that some pairs had some terrible arguments over the years and were not on good terms for some time. They are professional enough to not let it show and even if they were not, there's always BH editors to fix things after (and no, I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing). So, to hide a rs, it's not that hard. And like was said a million times before: they are 2 men from the same group that people accept as friends, they can get away with basically anything. As long as they don't kiss in public, nothing is real evidence.

I knew a lesbian couple (not close friends of mine, just colleagues) that no one could tell that they were dating, because one of them wouldn't want ppl to know. I just knew when they actually told me. And they've been together for ~10 years. There're no suspicious lingering looks, hidden touches, nothing. Closeting is a real thing, anon. And there are a lot of famous gay ppl that we will never know about.

I think that many ppl that have similar reactions as anon, is because they can't really accept how much Bangtan can hide from us and how little we actually know about their lives. We know nothing, anon, and they basically hide their whole personal lives.

Every Suchwita episode ppl were surprised that Yoongi not only knew, but were friends with those ppl. A lot of famous ppl. And we never knew about. Not even 1 picture, 1 mention, nothing.

Hi anon!

Great points!

[majaloveschris]

Yeah, I do think it's PR, but I don't know if it's PR. Nobody does. Nobody knows whether it's PR or real. The reason I say "if it's PR" is because I don't know for a fact that it is.//

See I think it started as PR but turned ‘real’ enough to get married. It can still be real with PR but if they are just PR they are not doing a great job at selling it - where are all the articles and I mean constant, the endless pap pics (think Taylor PR), her actually posting recently on IG, appearing at numerous events alone or with him. There is nothing to a level that indicates a PR relationship to me that’s just one of the reasons I don’t buy totally into a PR relationship.🤷🏾

I get what you are saying, but considering Chris's past relationships and behavior, much more has happened than it used to with his exes. Chris had never posted scare video dumps or pictures and videos of his then-current partner on Instagram before Alba. Based on everything that had happened with his ex, where is the privacy? I doubt if this were something real; there would've been so many articles about their wedding, for example. Want to keep it secret and private, yet there are hundreds of articles out about it? And yet you talk about it at Comic Con? You are either private or not. Chris had always been a private person, especially when it came to his relationships, and they still want to present themselves as if they are, but they aren't. Nothing is private about this thing.

And yeah, he was also seen with Minka on a number of occasions, which seemed like too much at the time, but at least they looked happy together. Do Chris and Alba ever? Because every single time they are spotted together and aren't posing for a photo that could've been the 100th one posted, they look like they don't even want to be around each other. This is one of the reasons why it's hard for me to believe they are real. They don't look happy. And then adding all the weird stuff and the fact that they are trying so hard to prove this is real.

They don't do too much, but more than he'd ever done with anybody, and yeah, maybe I would understand this if he was so happy with her, but he looked way happier with any of his past girlfriends. He just wants to do the bare minimum (for understandable reasons), and he doesn't seem to want to sell this whole thing.

Talking about Taylor. Are they PR, or is she just too famous, or is he just comfortable with the attention that comes from dating her? I don't know that much about their relationship or their past behavior to make a statement, but she obviously wants to support her boyfriend and be there for him. She is way more famous than Chris, Alba, or Travis, so yeah, her going to a football game will make a big noise, especially now that they are seemingly dating. Travis seems to be okay with being seen with her, and he doesn't care about the fact that there are many people waiting for them, watching, or whatever. She doesn't want to keep this relationship private, and that's okay. They are fine with being out together and talking about each other. She was in a private relationship with Joe, but let's be honest, Taylor herself was never a private person, which is okay.

I feel like the two situations aren't even comparable considering that Taylor was never a really private person, unlike Chris, and even if it's PR, Taylor and Travis at least look like two people who enjoy being around each other. They look like two people who, at least, like each other.

I obviously respect your opinion; I just wanted to let you know my take on the things you've mentioned 😊

[akookminsupporter]

The attacks against Jungkook as an artist and as a person by Solos have gone too far.

What is currently happening in the fandom is what I feared would happen once jungkook officially debuted as a solo artist, I thought I was overreacting but I realised I was underreacting. It scares me to think what will happen when he finally releases his album.

I understand many people's annoyance with how the agency and the company have handled the members' solo debut. I understand the frustration and anger, but what I will never understand is the hatred they are throwing at the members directly. In this case Jungkook.

I have received Asks for a few days now accusing Jungkook of selling his soul, of using payola to be number one everywhere. I have received Asks accusing him of being selfish, envious, a nepo baby. Ignorance will always be bold, right? But if it's the artist's fault, then Jimin is to blame for everything he was accused of during his album promotions and how he got X benefits and Hobi didn't, for example? So RM is to blame for having so much hype and content for his album? So Hobi is to blame that his debut was at a major festival and everyone else's wasn't? So Yoongi is to blame that Jimin's album promotions only lasted for 1 month? If we're going to apportion blame then let's be fair, shall we? Or they don't like it that way. The problem is Jungkook.

The problem has always been Jungkook, let's not lie to ourselves. He has always been accused of being the favourite, the one with the most lines in the songs, the one who always takes the lead in everything, thus demonstrating their ignorance or lack of understanding of how the group dynamics work and what position everyone plays within the group. Ignoring all these complaints what the members themselves have said about Jungkook's role within the group. But it is also true that these people don't care what their supposed favourites say, they obviously know more than they do and, moreover, they know that they say these things because the agency forces them to and they don't care that about these they are reducing their favourites to mere puppets who don't know how to defend themselves and who don't know what they want, let alone what they deserve. For all this, is why I blame the Solos, in case it is not clear.

Back to the present time. Jungkook's song is being pushed on the radio, he hasn't had much trouble with playlisting or even YouTube views so it obviously means they are paying for all that to happen and therefore it's all his fault. Jungkook does have control of absolutely everything that happens in his project, but the other members had no control over things that other fans claimed their favourites didn't have. Double standards will always reign in this fandom.

The problem is also Scooter. I think we all hate Scooter, on that one we can all agree, but because scooter is actively involved in Jungkook's debut it means there has been fraud. It means that Jungkook from bts, one of the most famous idols in the world, the one who generates the most views on his Wlives, the one who makes almost everything he wears immediately sell out agreed to pendejo Scooter using payola to push his song because Jungkook was afraid he wouldn't do so well. The dozens of records he breaks and sets every time he releases something were not enough to assure him that he would do well with just the support of his fans. He needed help. That sounds about right, doesn't it? That makes total sense.

Common Sense is not a strong suit of Solos as far as I can see.

You can be upset that your favourite artist didn't get X benefits or help from the agency, and you can be upset that X member obviously suffered sabotage that his agency didn't seem to do anything about. You can get upset because for months you have been asking for X thing for your artist and nothing happens, but learn who you have to direct that annoyance to, it's not the artist, it's the agency. I don't doubt for a moment that the members are involved in many or almost all things concerning their debuts, Yoongi confirmed if I remember correctly but things about promotions of what is or isn't sent to radio, how playlists are handled on Spotify etc., I don't think they have any involvement in that. That's their agency's job, their company's job ergo they are the ones to blame, not the artist.

The sad part of all this is the insinuation that one of the members actively wanted to harm another. That there is envy or competition between them. I firmly believe that there is room for everyone in the industry because as solo artists their artistry is different.

I can be open to having these kinds of discussions on my blog as long as they are respectful, as long as your anger, your annoyance is directed at the right people. I will never allow insults towards one of the members, let alone Jungkook and Jimin. My blog is about the two of them so it is extremely presumptuous of you to think that I would allow my blog to be used to insult one of them. Any of the members really. Know your line and respect mine.

[hypermania]

Omg Court you have to watch The Newsreader. It's like The Newsroom but with disaster bisexuals.

so i actually just blew through both seasons based on a rec by @pynkhues and i had a lot of fun watching but i was also really frustrated the entire time and i couldn't quite put my finger on why. i kept restructuring and rewriting the episodes in my head as i was watching them. at first i thought the problem was that the news station itself wasn't really a character in the show and that made it feel like something was missing, but after watching season two i think i've figured out the real issue: there are no stakes. well, that's not entirely true. there are stakes. i just don't know what they are. i have a vague idea of what some of the characters' goals are but i have no idea why.

i know dale watched the news every night when he was a kid and now wants to be a newsreader but i have literally no idea why. does he want to be famous? does he want to make his family proud in a public way after what happened in high school? does he just want to be rich? does he actually care about the news? did watching the news as a child give him a sense of comfort he wants to give other people? no idea.

i know helen wants to do more hard-hitting news but, again, i have literally no idea why. was journalism always important to her? doesn't really seem like it based on the comments about her being a game show host prior to this. is it not actually about the news itself but her wanting to be taken seriously because she's a woman and believing that's the only way it can happen? is it about her actual politics?

and on that same note, is she actually a nightmare to work with? has she actually had trouble doing her job in the past? is it just garden variety misogyny? i have literally no idea. lindsay makes comments constantly but nothing is actually substantiated. there's never a moment where someone is like "remember that time in '85 when she broke down and we had to cut to dead air?" nobody ever says anything that clarifies whether or not she is actually a problem outside of what we see (and what we see, in my opinion, is her being 10x more professional than almost everybody else, just with a side of tears because she's a mess in her personal life lol).

what about noelene? has it always been her dream to be a big shot producer or is this just a job to her? does she actually care about her career? she says she does but i don't really get that feeling. and how does she feel about rob's casual racism? she makes a comment about him not staying in contact with any of his aboriginal teammates but there is zero follow through on it. is being with him more important to her than her job? if he hadn't apologized and supported her, would she have gone to america? i don't know! and i have no idea why her father doesn't like rob. is it because he's white? because he's older? because he's not good enough for her? is it because he wants more for his daughter? would he feel that way about any guy? or is it rob specifically? no idea!

and those are just the character stakes. there's also a lack of situational stakes that's a problem. i think the best example of this is the episode where they do the election coverage. towards the end, there's a moment that's supposed to be tense while they're waiting to hear about the ratings, but it doesn't feel tense because until that moment, i had no idea that was a concern for them. i mean, i know ratings are a concern because i understand how television programming works, but it wasn't a stake that was set up at all in the episode. the characters should've all been making little comments about the ratings and how important it was to them that they beat geoff throughout the entire episode so that when lindsay finally got that call and everyone was quietly holding their breath, the audience would also be holding their breath along with them to see if they pulled it off. but instead it was just like "oh yeah i guess ratings are probably important? are they trying to be number one? are they trying to get a certain number? oh they just wanted to beat geoff. well that makes sense." it all just fell flat.

anyway, you didn't ask for this critique or my complaints but i needed to get it off my chest. i still greatly enjoyed the show. i love having unapologetic disaster women on my screen. i love seeing what the big news stories were in australia in the eighties. i love how atrocious the fashion is. etc. i had a lot of fun. i'm excited for more episodes.

[gossipgirloff1]

Sainz, Lando, Albon and Oscar eating McDonald together after Oscar win is so disappointing tbh. I know they are rich men and probably don’t give a fuck about boycott and what’s happening in Palestine but still 😐 //

probably this doesn't fit the topic of this blog, but since anon mentioned this theme i want to add my perspective.

i am ukrainian and i absolutely tired how wars are perceiving now. for most people it’s just “annoying shit” (it’s a real quote from message that i reviewed) that doesn’t need attention. for people its just a joke, they don’t care that in Ukraine, Palestine, Syria and bunch of other countries people are literally dying just because someone from other more powerful country decided that.

most this famous people doesn’t actually care about us. for them it seems enough to post a story on a “first day” with a bunch of hashtags. but there a lot of truly amazing celebrities who really helping one way or another. by constantly sharing info, helping by donating, helping shelters etc. (probably one of not many good thing that kelly doing is sharing info, sometimes lol. but still sharing)

answering on your anon ask, i feel this pain every single time while seeing how you guys fangirling over russia, russian aesthetic, communism and russians, for example irina shayk (she is modeling for russian brands which sponsoring war in Ukraine), daniil kvyat and lots lots of other russians. how you making jokes about us begging for help, for every our move, word being criticised.

lots of people don’t really know how it feels to share the border with russia. the war started in 2014 and i was NINE, past sunday i turned NINETEEN. i would never forget how i was going to the shop at summer’14 at my grandma’s town and saw tanks and military vehicles riding through the streets. you know i probably would never see my grandparents again? because my town is occupied. my mother would probably never see her parents again.

most part of the world i guess know about 24 february 2022. i woke up at 4:50 to get a drink and at 5:08 was first missile strike on out biggest airport. i don’t think that my father would forget me asking him “is that fireworks?”.

you know earlier this july russia purposely striked into biggest child oncology clinic in Ukraine? probably no, but i don’t blame you, seriously.

i hate how people comparing Palestine and Ukraine. like guys what the fuck are you doing? posting photo from Gaza and fucking San Francisco, claiming that its Kyiv. search about Mariupol or Bakhmut. people dying is fucking joke? or how we posting about missile attacks in out cities and some of you running to write that its fake? that we are not suffering like Palestine? my country is actually sending to Palestine humanitarian aid.

i am scared leaving my room at night during air raid alert, because if something happens i would not be able to protect my little sister. you know its so fucking terrifying when you hear missile flying over and you begging that it wouldn’t be your home which be destroyed.

i am tired of people comparing, hating, ignoring, pretending wars aren’t real. we need stuck together, not tear each other apart.

please be kind to each other.

ps from me: sorry for this long ask, i think i needed to put my thoughts into something. when i wrote “you” i am not directly talking to anon or you, owner of this blog, just general appeal. i am not trying to be mean, sorry if you feel so.

ps 2 from me: i really like your blog!!! i am a big gossiper so your account is a treasure for my soul!!! don’t worry about all that mean asks, they just can’t stand that here are different opinions and we are not kissing ass their favs!!

have a nice part of a day!!!!

Thank you for speaking up about your experience about war and how you feel about this I love that we can talk anything and any subject in this blog and no one says please stick with the gossip

I know I have never been feel or experienced what you have been through only think we can say is I feel for you and help both your country and Palestine about donations but if you don’t feel okay and need someone to talk to I am always here (this includes all people in this blog btw) i know these things can mentally do to our brains so I want you all to know I’m here

Thank you for your kind words about the blog and thank you to the anons of this blog for being here ❤️

Have nice day/night 😊

[burritosandpeppermint]

I feel like every little thing with my job sets me off now, so I'm sorry if you're tired of me ranting about it and then continuing to work here. I'll keep this "below the fold" so you can move on if you're not interested. I really won't be offended and I have no true way of knowing which of the dozen or so of you will read this anyway. Also, it's me so I'm not looking for sympathy but I'm also trying to learn not to push away other people's affection so...do what you want?

Also, if you feel like this is something that could be part of some larger conversation about work and capitalism or whatever, then please feel free to reblog it. I don't really think this will be enough to explode my career, and if it does, then it was on shaky enough ground anyway.

The company I work for got acquired by another, much larger and more famous company (and a rather infamous one here on Tumblr) about five years ago. Eh, why am I being cagey? I work in email compliance and privacy for Marketo and we got acquired by Adobe.

Anyway, I'd been through a couple of acquisitions before but this one was pretty cool. A big name Silicon Valley company! A cool campus to tour in San Jose! A new office space in the same city I lived in, and with only a 45 minute walk from home to office! Really, pretty cool.

Over time the excitement on my part and Adobe's part seemed to wane a bit. There were new acquisitions and we were no longer in the spotlight. That's alright, things happen, time moves on, and ultimately I just kept working, because abuse never stops and companies keep buying lists.

But after my mentor left for another company we got a new manager, and he's great, but he's been with Adobe for a while, and most of his focus is on the Adobe part of the business that he manages, and he cares about us and fights for us when he can, but we're definitely not his primary focus. Also, in the past couple of years the workload that myself and my one coworker/colleague do has steadily increased. To make things worse this year they finally implemented a huge change in what CRM we're using and it's causing all kinds of havoc because most of us who are directly working with customers now have to manage two portals or figure out which customer matches with which or educate yet another person on where to go to accomplish what they need. We also started getting direct feedback loop (FBL) reports from a new company that seems to only send them in a new-ish format that has been accepted across the industry but is honestly not really used by it, but our system can't parse it so we have to process every single one manually rather than feed it to a bot that can automatically process it, further increasing our workload. We've also been told that there's a team who can help us to automate certain aspects of our work, so we submitted examples of what we need help with and they said it seemed doable and since then...nothing. To top it off, during a recent "town hall" quarterly all-hands I asked a question in the chat that was basically "In light of the strong performance we've done can we hire more people to support our customers and colleagues?" and the answer is "No, because we don't want to have to lay people off if there's any kind of downturn."

Okay, so...not great.

So now, today, the day before Thanksgiving, the week after Open Enrollment closed, the day after I accepted the Year End Check In on my calendar - which will be grueling because, as noted above, we've been over worked and under staffed so I haven't been able to get to any of the projects that I was hoping to get to this year - I saw an email from Adobe that looked like it was part of the corporate spam we get every freaking day, and it was from the HR company/portal we use, so I clicked on it and

OOPS

Looks like you clicked on an Adobe Phishing Test Link

Read here to see how you could have prevented this...

And I'm incensed right before a holiday, and I just hate it.

Because as much as I hate to admit it I really bought into the corporate capitalism of America from a young age, bought into the shiny toys and apps and promises of "helping" people ("And if we happen to turn a profit, that's great, too!") to the point that my dissolution with capitalism has been a long, slow, denial-ridden journey.

And that's because it can be all too easy to regard those earning the joke that is minimum wage as being the only victims of capitalism and wage theft, but if we're being honest just about anyone who isn't making millions of dollars a year to tell the world and their subordinates how great their company is is really just sitting in a pot of water that is slowly getting hotter.

We're all being paid the least amount of money that companies believe they can get away with while trying to extract the most work out of us they can legally get away with, and they're probably getting even more than that if we're being honest.

So to get regular emails about how this organization put us on a list of the best places to work for or another invitation to another seminar about how I can work on being more efficient or less sad because, you know, that's apparently 100% my doing, and then get an email that I don't bother to really scan because, like I said, given everything it seems pretty legitimate, to be told "Well, you fucked up" was just the one more thing that I didn't need this year.

I really hate to sound like the middle-aged white man that I am, but I'm just tired of not being respected for the working professional that I am. I've been in this role for eight years. I know how to talk to customers about the actions they've taken that have caused harm to their reputation, or what abuse has been foisted upon them by malicious actors; I know how to engage with Support and customer managers and run Compliance Team meetings that focus on what's important; I know what blocklists are important and actually affect our customers; I know, engage with, and am friends with people who run the email servers at companies you know and might actually use; I'm one of two people who manage thousands of IPs and domains for thousands of customers, trying to protect the network's reputation and safety from the customer's own actions and also outside actions of people who would do nothing but abuse our systems all day if they could.

And what am I told by my company?

"We can't help you because it would make us sad if we had to let people go! :("

"Have you considered not having the feelings you're experiencing during work time and just working more instead?"

"Uh, oh! We send you so much spam that you fell for our trick! This is all your fault."

What does the company value? Is it me and my time?

No surprise, AI is the buzzword of 2023 in the tech world, and email is seen as more of a forgotten backbone that I think people believe is 100% automated. Meanwhile the valiant few of us are knee deep in water in the bottom of the boat with duct tape and Gatorade.

When I've complained about work or my career in the past it's felt more like angry grunts; this is kind of the most articulate that I can really be about it.

I'll be 46 next year when I take my sabbatical. If something doesn't really change at all I might have to make some tough choices.

I'm afraid of trying to change careers or companies (if I even can; people much more experienced than I am are being laid off right now).

I'm afraid of trying to go back to school while I'm working because I just don't think I'll have the bandwidth for it, and I don't know what I'd go to school for, or if it would pay what I'm earning now.

I'm afraid of staying where I am.

I know I earn okay. I know I have benefits and that I can work from home in my pajamas.

But I also know that the good times I have with work are less and less these days, and opening my laptop is more of an invitation to an assault on my confidence and self-worth than ever before. And that's just not sustainable.

[beevean]

I think people usually confuse delving into darker subjects in writing as the same thing as making a story more mature, when there's actually a difference between the two. You can introduce darker elements into a story, or have it shift to a darker tone. But it's not going to be effective if you don't have enough of an understanding of what makes what you're trying to tackle is so fucked up in the first place, or why the introduction of it is significant and carries so much weight. Without tackling it with finesse, it will come off as immature if anything, like a kid who just discovered curse words.

Every time IDW tries to do this it feels more like it's more for shock value. Another thing it seems to be falling into that over half of the pre-reboot run of the Archie comics did. But at least with Archie there was the spectacle of it having some of the most certifiably insane shit happen.

Friendly reminder that when Flynn got sick of the criticism against the way he wrote the moral dilemma in #50, he justified himself with "it's a children's fantasy, if you adult want something deeper go read something else".

Which says a lot about how much he cares about the stuff he wrote.

My man. No one forced you to write everyone getting pissed at Sonic for not killing Mr. Tinker and whether or not it would be justified to murder a man who doesn't remember his own war crimes. No one forced you to write gruesome scenes such as Vector trapping an infected woman TWD-style, or everything happening to Cream. No one forced you to come up with Surge and Kit and their horrifying nature of being brainwashed into being caricatures, with Surge being forced to feel homicidial hatred for someone he doesn't know and Kit being forced to be an extension of Surge herself. No one forced you to "explore" Sonic's supposed "principle" of giving everyone freedom. You want a dark story? Commit. Children cartoons have done it. Just to make one famous example, AtLA's whole backdrop revolves around exploring the consequences of war and imperialism.

Hell what about Sonic himself? The Storybook games? One with an abusive relationship, and the other brushing over the fear of death? They might not go very deep into these topics, but it doesn't come off as haphazard either!

The MV arc simply didn't matter in the long run! The only consequence of it is that Starline decided to show Eggman who's the better evil scientist by creating Surge and Kit, but there was zero need for all that drawn out angst. Cream herself is completely fine and happy after watching her mother die! Surge and Kit will come back in a few months so we'll see what happens with them, but the story barely explored their fucked up nature, and it only highlighted what a piece of shit IDW Sonic is by being so callous towards both of them. And by giving random angst to Surge via Starline hallucinations that, once again, did not matter at all - Stanley simply really wanted to draw Surge scared and crying.

It's amateurish. I have no other word for it.

[leatherbookmark]

i’m picky and probably an asshole, especially when it comes to jgy, but people really like scenarios where Someone Does Something and jgy’s situation is improved. which is... cool, in general, but i often have a hard time believing it, because it often is something i don’t really see that particular character doing. like the famous and fandom-beloved example of jyl and by extension jzx aggressively showing jgy affection. i get it, i understand the appeal, and none of the pov characters were present for it so technically it could have happened (well--in a subtler form, like jyl being kind to jgy), but the thing is, it... probably didn’t. or it wasn’t enough.

(that’s the cool thing abt mdzs, i feel: you’d have to work hard to make some significant divergences work, simply because the characters are in such difficult situations that they often have no real choice other than the one they’re canonically making. it’s lovely, but there’s no real possibility for jc to save the wens and yunmeng jiang’s reputation and political power at the same time.)

another thing is that mdzs kind of relies on the fact that society is what it is, that people do what they do; and if you make the society magically more open-minded, sex-positive and equal, it makes a lot of things in the original story kinda stupid. and yeah, every once in a while it is nice to read a story where everything is easier and softer, but it often seems so... flat. jgy as a character is so interesting and tragic because of his relationship with society, because of his position and struggles within it, and it sorta erases a lot of that to just have all his problems solved with the help of other people (xuanli’s sibling affection, lxc’s... well, marriage offer) when in canon, nothing like that could even have happened.

i think i’m talking in circles.

ANYWAY i went from “yeah jzx is nice ig, he was cute to jyl at the end of his life” to “jzx is GREAT, why are people even criticizing him, xuanli5ever” to “actually jzx is kinda overrated and given way too much traits that could be or Are already in jgy’s possession, and politically-wise he’s bafflingly Doing Nothing. good for jyl but i kind of don’t care about them that much anymore” so. myeah

[chutkiandchotte]

The Alia/Ranbir Conversation

To begin with, I need to eye roll several times about how this entire issue has snowballed based on pure speculation. I personally believe this type of speculation is harmful - no matter what the truth is. I get that a few people are coming from a place of concern and good faith, but the majority seem to be participating in this discussion in a completely tactless and insensitive way, with no care that THESE ARE REAL PEOPLE not fictional characters, first of all, and secondly, the issue at hand is abuse which requires a certain amount of sensitivity to discuss. Even if you don't give two hoots about the trials and tribulations of rich, famous Bollywood stars...you are nevertheless participating in a conversation about abuse. Your thoughts on this topic have a good chance of reaching the ears of people in real life abusive situations; victims, abusers, and others who have the capacity to help. Your words on such topics are not merely words. They have a capacity to do harm or good that directly impacts people.

So keeping that in my mind, I want have a little rant today about why, in all of these conversations about toxic/abusive men in Bollywood and their partners, do we ALWAYS center the women and HER behavior, her flaws, her mistakes, again and again and again? What did SHE do, what is HER problem, WHY does she endure this...a hyper focus on HER character. And over and over again, the refrain of "why didn't she leave?".

There's barely any acknowledgement of the tremendous difficulties women in such relationships have to content with. If you are going to talk about abusive dynamics, then you damn well better talk from a place of information and understanding, not judgement and derision. Yet in the larger public discussions, there is zero empathy. Surviving a toxic relationship, with abusive dynamics, is extremely difficult for reasons that an outsider would not easily be able to understand. Remember, the view from inside out is WAY different from outside in. For example, many of these women now have kids with these toxic men. When kids get involved, they bring with them the weight of desi social conditioning, times ten, to keep a woman in a situation that is against her every personal happiness. It gets incredibly emotionally complicated to navigate. They might have had to weigh the happiness of their family against their own dignity, even safety, at so many different points in their life.

But none of this matters in front of the fact that she is a woman. And therefore MUST have done something to deserve it. ( /s) A popular blame thrown about is that she was "dumb" enough to fall in love with an obviously toxic, potentially abusive guy. So therefore, everything that happened subsequently, is her bed to lie in. A real psychopathic take IMO but really popular too! So, she made a mistake with her choice of husband and love; maybe she was "stupid" in love. But did the punishment fit the crime? A lifetime of heart break, emotional abuse, and tough choices! And all we can do is mock her, apparently. Yeah, not everybody is a perfect victim like we'd like them to be. Not everybody is on the same point in the angelic scale; some are more flawed, or self destructive, than others. That STILL doesn't make them worthy of blame for other people's controlling or abusive actions.

Why did they stay, why did they stay, why did they stay - society loves to scream this as an accusation, but are we ready to hear the real reason? It is a very emotionally loaded question and the answer might just be too devastating to comprehend for the majority of us. "Oh, she never once tried to get out" is lobbied as an insult - how on earth can you know this? What do you know about what they might have tried or not? What stopped them? What their partners might have done to stop them (for the kids custody, to avoid paying alimony etc etc).

That's part of the problem. The sad/pitying/mocking tone of talking about her, the focus on her as if she alone is to blame for all of this? Like this latest conversation about Ralia is all speculation. But even within that murky realm, it seems logical to focus on the flaws and mistakes of the person we all are imagining as the perpetrator, Ranbir. If you're so hell bent on speculation at all, why not speculate about the man, then??? We are always so very concerned with what SHE did wrong, as opposed to what HE did. But the attitude towards him is like OF COURSE he is like that (because boys will be boys), but SHE should have known better. If Ranbir got 25% of the mocking over this controversy that Alia did, maybe next time the next Bollywood asshole will think twice before acting in this way.

And I want to reiterate that it's really not about Ranbir Alia and whatever their relationship is actually like. Unfounded speculation serves no purpose. But for me, the more relevant matter is how this all has highlighted the way we talk about female abuse victims in this country. The derision and the subtle tone of "she deserved it" for her; and for him, unlimited forgiveness and unlimited chances to prove himself a better man.

If we can't give these women empathy - then at least let us not give them blame. If we can't understand them, at least let's not disrespect them.

[meret118]

But creating something smarter than us, which may have the ability to deceive and mislead us — and then just hoping it doesn’t want to hurt us — is a terrible plan. We need to design systems whose internals we understand and whose goals we are able to shape to be safe ones. However, we currently don’t understand the systems we’re building well enough to know if we’ve designed them safely before it’s too late.

. . .

“The worry is that if we create and lose control of such agents, and their objectives are problematic, the result won’t just be damage of the type that occurs, for example, when a plane crashes, or a nuclear plant melts down — damage which, for all its costs, remains passive,” Joseph Carlsmith, a research analyst at the Open Philanthropy Project studying artificial intelligence, argues in a recent paper.

“Rather, the result will be highly-capable, non-human agents actively working to gain and maintain power over their environment —agents in an adversarial relationship with humans who don’t want them to succeed. Nuclear contamination is hard to clean up, and to stop from spreading. But it isn’t trying to not get cleaned up, or trying to spread — and especially not with greater intelligence than the humans trying to contain it.”

. . .

In the famous paper where he put forth his eponymous test for determining if an artificial system is truly “intelligent,” the pioneering AI scientist Alan Turing wrote:

Let us now assume, for the sake of argument, that these machines are a genuine possibility, and look at the consequences of constructing them. … There would be plenty to do in trying, say, to keep one’s intelligence up to the standard set by the machines, for it seems probable that once the machine thinking method had started, it would not take long to outstrip our feeble powers. … At some stage therefore we should have to expect the machines to take control.

. . .

How do we get from “extremely powerful AI systems” to “human extinction”? “The primary concern [with highly advanced AI] is not spooky emergent consciousness but simply the ability to make high-quality decisions.” Stuart Russell, a leading AI researcher at UC Berkeley’s Center for Human-Compatible Artificial Intelligence, writes.

By “high quality,” he means that the AI is able to achieve what it wants to achieve; the AI successfully anticipates and avoids interference, makes plans that will succeed, and affects the world in the way it intended. This is precisely what we are trying to train AI systems to do. They need not be “conscious”; in some respects, they can even still be “stupid.” They just need to become very good at affecting the world and have goal systems that are not well understood and not in alignment with human goals (including the human goal of not going extinct).

From there, Russell has a rather technical description of what will go wrong: “A system that is optimizing a function of n variables, where the objective depends on a subset of size k<n, will often set the remaining unconstrained variables to extreme values; if one of those unconstrained variables is actually something we care about, the solution found may be highly undesirable.

”So a powerful AI system that is trying to do something, while having goals that aren’t precisely the goals we intended it to have, may do that something in a manner that is unfathomably destructive. This is not because it hates humans and wants us to die, but because it didn’t care and was willing to, say, poison the entire atmosphere, or unleash a plague, if that happened to be the best way to do the things it was trying to do.

. . .

DeepMind founder Demis Hassabis, in a recent interview about the promise and perils of AI, offered a note of caution. “I think a lot of times, especially in Silicon Valley, there’s this sort of hacker mentality of like ‘We’ll just hack it and put it out there and then see what happens.’ And I think that’s exactly the wrong approach for technologies as impactful and potentially powerful as AI. … I think it’s going to be the most beneficial thing ever to humanity, things like curing diseases, helping with climate, all of this stuff. But it’s a dual-use technology — it depends on how, as a society, we decide to deploy it — and what we use it for.”

. . .

But while divides remain over what to expect from AI — and even many leading experts are highly uncertain — there’s a growing consensus that things could go really, really badly. In a summer 2022 survey of machine learning researchers, the median respondent thought that AI was more likely to be good than bad but had a genuine risk of being catastrophic. Forty-eight percent of respondents said they thought there was a 10 percent or greater chance that the effects of AI would be “extremely bad (e.g., human extinction).

”It’s worth pausing on that for a moment. Nearly half of the smartest people working on AI believe there is a 1 in 10 chance or greater that their life’s work could end up contributing to the annihilation of humanity.It might seem bizarre, given the stakes, that the industry has been basically left to self-regulate. If nearly half of researchers say there’s a 10 percent chance their work will lead to human extinction, why is it proceeding practically without oversight? It’s not legal for a tech company to build a nuclear weapon on its own. But private companies are building systems that they themselves acknowledge will likely become much more dangerous than nuclear weapons.

More at the link. I encourage everyone to read this!

----

This scares shit out of me. As an exercise, the author asks the AI what it would do to destroy humanity. The answers are chilling. There's no way dictators won't use this to help them rule.

Even if it doesn't destroy humanity outright, it's still going to be a disaster. I think artists and writers will start losing work this year. Now the article talks about solving medical and engineering problems better than doctors and engineers. Are there going to be any job left for people that don't involve the service industry or physical labor?

[chucktaylorupset]

So fun fact: I was really surprised to see this screenshot because I thought I remembered reblogging this post, only in the reblog chain I saw instead claimed that the origin of the xenomorph was from Dan O’Bannon’s experience as a disabled man with Crohn’s disease.

it turns out that there was straight up a different original poster for my version, which explains why I couldn’t find this set of reblogs.  So which was the true authorial intent?

Well, if you search the reblogs of the version of the post I saw, you get a quote from Dan O’Bannon that’s featured in a Cracked.com article which labels its sourced being from the documentary The “Alien” Saga. 

"One thing that people are all disturbed about is sex... I said 'That's how I'm going to attack the audience; I'm going to attack them sexually. And I'm not going to go after the women in the audience, I'm going to attack the men. I am going to put in every image I can think of to make the men in the audience cross their legs. Homosexual oral rape, birth. The thing lays its eggs down your throat, the whole number.'"

The odds of this all checking out are very probable, although I’m not quite at the point yet where I care enough to watch an entire documentary.

If you search for Dan O’Bannon and Crohn’s the articles are mostly obituaries like this one from The New York Times which speaks about O’Bannon having Crohn’s disease and his passing happening due to complications, that last part being stated by his wife and also has this quote

“I love gore films and I grew up with ’50s monster movies,” Mr. O’Bannon told the journal Cinefantastique in 1979, speaking of the film’s origins. “The idea for the monster in ‘Alien’ originally came from a stomach ache I had.”

But there’s also a bit in the LA Times obit that says it was after parasitic microorganisms.

O’Bannon said in a 2003 interview that he modeled the alien’s behavior after the life cycle of parasitic microorganisms.

“One thing I realized hadn’t been exploited in science fiction movies were the physical aspects,” he told the Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J. “The real world offered many examples which were extremely loathsome, and I thought, if it’s good enough for Mother Nature, maybe it will work on an audience.

Back to the stomach ache, best source for this I could find is a DenOfGeek.Com article that no longer exists on anything but the WaybackMachine.  A lot of the sourcing is taken from the author doing direct interviews with O’Bannon and Chris Foss, a film designer who worked on Alien. However the wayback machine copy of the article does not preserve the author’s name.

This blog post gets a prize for, despite probably being just some guy(s), actually has citations for its sources.  I ran into so many randos writing a blog post with a paragraph of summary with no direct quotes, and no citations.  Some of the sources on this blog are to print publications in Spanish I’m not going to try to tangle with, but assuming this is reliable, or at least represents a greater deal of effort to fabricate, O’Bannon would not be officially diagnosed with Crohn’s until after the after production on Alien, but would have been experiencing symptoms, so this accounts for why it is attributed to “food poisoning” or a “stomach ache,” because he wouldn’t yet have the diagnosis to inform the framework of these experiences, I can’t get better certainty without reading an actual biography.

Speaking of, one of the citations brings us to the closest thing to a direct source, an article from The Observer reviewing the book Shock Value by Jason Zinoman.   Which is presumably the source from which it derives claims like

Mr. O’Bannon, who died in 2009, was afflicted with Crohn’s disease and suffered its symptoms for decades: “The digestion process felt like something bubbling inside of him struggling to get out.” That’s how the most famous element of Alien—the creature hatching out of a man’s stomach—was born.

And is also the source of the claim on Dan O’Bannon’s wikipedia page.

tl;dr there is good reason to believe that screenwriter O’Bannon was inspired by parasites, his experience with crohn’s, and then also created sexual undertones in order to to discomfit his audience.

I have never seen the movie Alien.

https://beyoncescock.tumblr.com/post/690434966949117952/i-mean-id-be-scared-too

https://www.cracked.com/article_18932_alien-film-franchise-based-entirely-rape.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/21/movies/21obannon.html

https://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-xpm-2009-dec-19-la-me-dan-obannon19-2009dec19-story.html

https://web.archive.org/web/20221005060816/https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/did-the-alien-franchise-come-from-a-bad-hamburger/

https://www.chrisfossart.com/

http://alienexplorations.blogspot.com/1979/06/chestburster-medical-inspiration.html

https://observer.com/2011/07/the-horror-the-horror-fright-flicks-finally-get-their-due/

\m/

[an-ascension-of-larks]

More random thoughts with L:

I know a lot of people like the idea that nothing matters and that they can do whatever they want with their life. And I am not hating on that in any way, I think that’s a cool idea, and if you apply that philosophy to ur life then great! Awesome.

But that idea terrifies me. I want to matter, yk? I don’t want to be forgotten. I want to live on after I’m dead. I don’t want my life to be meaningless.

Anyways, I was laying on my bed, scrolling thru Pinterest and thinking about life and death and reality and all that jazz, and thoughts occurred and I wanna share them bc I see a lot of posts abt “nothing stays! Everyone will forget you! Do what you want!” But never see posts abt being remembered or living on. (Maybe I’m just not on that side of the internet idk) So here u go (and if leaving a lasting mark on the planet isn’t something u wanna think abt then scroll awayyyyy) :

Yk the whole ripple effect theory of time travel? How if you interact with literally anything or change anything it could have massive consequences etc etc? Well. Time is a constant thing, and maybe the ripple effect theory doesn’t have to only apply to time travel. So I like to think (and by that I mean that for the past 45 minutes I’ve been thinking abt this and it’s helped reduce my anxiety and dread by a little bit) that maybe every little thing you do affects the universe a little bit. When you interact with reality and the universe and shit, which we are doing constantly, you change it a little bit. You change what’s gonna happen in the future. It’s like leaving a little bit of your soul in everything you do, if that makes sense. Like, maybe nobody will remember you in 100 years, but things you did will still affect them, and in that way it’s like you’re still being remembered.

For example, if I were to accidentally drop a quarter somewhere, maybe a few days later someone could find it, and spend it on like. Some candy or something. And maybe they’d share that candy with someone they care about. And maybe that brings those two people closer together. Maybe years later, they decide to start a family. And raise kids. And maybe one of those kids goes on to become a music artist or something. Maybe one of that kid’s songs helps someone they don’t even know get through a hard time in their life. Idfk. Maybe it’s a stretch, but you get what I mean. You live on through the way you interact with the universe around you. Everything you do sets other things in motion, and even after you’re dead, your life is still affecting the universe. Your life made a difference. Your life mattered.

I used to think that I would have to become famous or do something extraordinary and revolutionary with my life in order to matter. In order to change anything or like make an impact on the universe. But maybe that’s not true, maybe I can just exist without all the pressure of feeling like I have to change the world, maybe that’s enough. Maybe I’m changing the world in little ways simply by being here, maybe my life inherently has meaning simply because I exist, maybe I’m making my mark on the world simply by living in it. And maybe that’s its own kind of immortality.

[aalghul]

Jason Todd’s Childhood Friends

I’m pretty sure these are all of them but if I missed any, let me know!

EDIT: I forgot Chris, so thanks @leoruby-draws for reminding me. (This is another edit actually. I just saw this get a reblog and I suddenly remembered where Danny and Jason being friends came from.) @janestvalentine reminded me of Donald Brinks.

While I’m here again anyways, I just want to say that I’m not including Roy based off that one three page short story. Roy was a whole adult with a child when Jason was 11 going on Titans missions with them. N52 is on something else and I’m not acknowledging it.

In chronological order:

Donald Brinks: Batman (1940) Annual #9 mentions that Jason worked on a school project with Donald. It’s probably not enough proof, but Bruce remembered him kindly. I wouldn’t doubt that Bruce just memorizes any name Jason ever dropped, but we can pretend.

Eddie: In Blue Devil #19, we have Kid Devil and Robin being the absolute cutest babies the world of sidekicks has to offer, and finding out (through their letters, because they’re adorable pen-pals) that they’re after the same criminal. I can guarantee that you have never seen anything more adorable than the tiny pen-pal wonder and his also tiny friend.

Rena: First appearing in Detective Comics #561, Rena was an immediate love interest of Jason’s (literally at first sight lol), and then she instantly invited Jason to get high with her after school. Spoiler: they didn’t, Jason eventually ends up busting the gang that was putting pressure on her, then they’re a couple (of babies). She moved around a lot, every year or so, because of her dad’s job, so she had a bit of a problem with loneliness and not fitting in. Despite all of the drug talk, my girl really was a good kid.

Danny Chase: Right before he figured out that Jason had died, he mentioned that he had called Jason, “Toddster”, earlier that week. The casual phone call and nickname do lean in favour of them being friends, despite never having interacted (because Jason’s time on the Titans had been explicitly confirmed to have carried over from pre-crisis, but he didn’t interact with any of them on panel post-crisis).

Chris: I originally forgot him, but honestly that’s probably for the best. N52 is famous for bad decisions and not knowing how time works, and a very good example of that is Red Hood and the Outlaws (2011) #25 (Zero Year tie-in) having taken place before Jason was even adopted by Bruce, but for some reason he’s already fifteen. That’s not even mentioning how annoying I found the way Talia’s fighting ability was downgraded. Moving onto Chris, himself, though. I’m sure people could argue that he’s a good foil for Jason as a street kid, but I think it’s stupid + he’s annoying. I’ll give him points for including Jason in his (stupid) idea because he wanted him to benefit too, and that he sided with Jason at the end when he could have just ignored him and stayed with the other Red Hoods. But then he only gets more annoying, so.

Gabby: Red Hood/Arsenal #4 shows us Jason being recognized by a waitress at a diner in Gotham, him also remembering her as soon as she did so. Everything about their interaction and the quick flashback is so important because it’s calling back Jason characterization as a kid who had to be rough to help himself and others, all aspects of that being a defence mechanism of some sort. Jason takes a moment to ruminate over how much better his life would be if Batman hadn’t taken him in, not muse that he would be some sort of criminal. I would love to see more that, if writers want to talk about what would have happened to Jason without Bruce so bad. The fact that Gabby triggered that thought in him, as well as reminded him that he was a good kid and helped people long before the cape, really shows that she had weight in his life. She even knew and cared about him enough to deal with when he lashed out. I would complain about Jason implying that he doesn’t care about people, but with the context of the rest of their interaction, it’s obvious that Jason’s self perception is not intended to match the reality. I like what that says about how he perceives his actions and how he thinks others might. His choosing to just help her out with that money but decide to stay out of her life is so typical Jason. I mean that both fondly and derogatorily.

Numbers: Gotham Nights #11. In a home like Ma Gunn’s, while we know he was already a target for the other residents and undoubtedly other people as well, he chose to take the punishment for something he knew Jason had done. All because Jason had been the first to show him kindness after he had already been beaten down by life as a child. It wasn’t the most clear or well done, but I liked that there was subtle commentary on how some people didn’t get to escape a life of crime when conditions force them into it. This story provides proof for why Jason wouldn’t just kill henchmen and people he didn’t deem personally deserving by having chosen to commit unforgivable acts. It’s proof of that choice being the more interesting concept, at least. As with Gabby, Jason doesn’t give Numbers the option of reconnecting with Jason after he has helped Numbers. Not surprising since we’ve seen Jason leave people before they leave him often (example: how he broke it off with Roy Harper).

Dana: She only existed for Red Hood: Outlaw #52 and #52, but she is easily the best original character to come out of RHATO. She’s my personal favourite for so many reasons (it’s literally two issues, please read them), but her friendship with Jason is wonderful too. Considering Dana’s filling him on everything, introducing him to her friends, and that he didn’t know about her being a vigilante before #52 or her dad’s leg, we know they didn’t really get to catch up before Jason left Gotham after UTRH. It’s probable that Dana didn’t even know he was alive until the Iceberg Lounge thing. We know she’s been watching over his old apartment, possibly since he first got adopted by Bruce. They were probably very close when they were kids if that’s the case. Especially since her dad remembered him easily and even characterized him as “polite” and having been “skinny”, all immediately after meeting him again. Same goes for Dana’s sister, Denise, who Jason got along with easily as soon as she showed up, even though they hadn’t talked in years.

Max: Oh, Max. Firstly, I hate this art. Now. Truth & Justice as a whole was a mess because it missed its intention by a whole lot. Seriously, I know DC wanted people to think of it, and I also know that they put effort into making it clear that they don’t care. #10-13 are about Jason attempting to solve the murder of his childhood best friend, Max Dawkins. Max’s death was set up to look like an overdose, but Jason knew that Max would never touch drugs so he set off to find his killer. He does eventually find that killer, Scarecrow, and then there’s some fear gas, an “I trust you.” from Batman, blah blah. Jason is very emotional throughout the entire story, not even attempting to hide how torn up he is over Max’s death. Max gets nothing but praise for Jason and the narrative itself. However, none of that erases that Max’s death was just to give a white boy something to be sad about. It’s more white bs in a comic filled with white saviourism at every turn.

That aside, their friendship truly is beautiful. Jason straight up says that Max was someone he could always trust to be there for him on the streets, and Jason doesn’t usually say stuff like that. This is another case of Jason walking out of someone’s life while helping them, but it feels more tragic because there’s no possibility for a resolution. Just little Robin helping his friend from the shadows and watching his grow.

[headcannonballs]

I know the hobbit movies make a big deal about how angsty teen Legolas is and completely screwed his relationship with his dad Thranduil. But whenever I read the Lord of the Rings I cannot help but think: my goodness, but Thranduil must have really spoiled Legolas rotten.

We first meet Legolas at the Council of Elrond. He is dressed simply and for light travel, and does not choose to wear his title as a Prince, instead identifying himself as a messenger from Thranduil, his king. Indeed he often chooses to call Thranduil his king rather than his father, which many have taken as a sign that relations between the two are strained.

However, I propose the direct opposite - that his many mentions of Thranduil as his Elven-Lord demonstrates not only his love for Thranduil, but also his respect and admiration of what a great king his father is for his people.

Consider this: whenever he mentions Thranduil or Mirkwood it is always with warmth and a subtle longing. He doesn't ever speak of his home in anything other than good terms, even if it has been marred and fallen into becoming Mirkwood (as opposed to Greenwood the Great).

And it isn't just to maintain pride in front of outsiders. When you contrast the way Boromir speaks of Gondor and his father the steward Denethor, to the way Legolas speaks of Mirkwood and Thranduil, it becomes clearer. Boromir is proud of his family, country and heritage and boasts of it. He claims Gondor is the main protector of Middle-earth, and that they have been fighting Mordor the hardest. But deep down he is questioning his father's rule, and is uncertain of Gondor's future.

Legolas is almost the opposite. He doesn't ever boast of his country, although Mirkwood, just like Gondor, is right at Mordor's doorstep. Instead he shares with the company personal anecdotes that show (not tell) exactly how good life is there despite the Shadow. He doesn't waver in his believe of his people's strength; indeed only he and Aragorn could face Galadriel without any fear or hesitation.

I think the reason why Legolas always mentions Thranduil as a king or lord is not because he doesn't want to acknowledge Thranduil is his father. It is that Legolas is so in awe of Thranduil and so respectful of him that whenever he is mentioned Legolas' first thought is not 'that's my dad and we're related', but instead is 'that's my king and my hero and he's so awesome'.

He doesn't consciously mention Thranduil as his father because his mind frame is not to introduce the company to Thranduil the way you would introduce your friends to your parents. He doesn't want them to think of him as just a nice uncle who is the father of a friend.

Legolas introduces Thranduil as his king because he wants the company to respect him as such, as the ruler of a great country who has done great deeds. He wants the company to see Thranduil as someone in-charge, as someone who is capable and should be given the proper courtesies accorded to him.

Some may question, in that case why doesn't Legolas call him 'my father the king'? It would highlight both Legolas' relationship to Thranduil as well as Thranduil's kingship.

I think this has to do with the circumstances as well as Legolas' humble personality. It is true that he doesn't ever make a big deal out of being prince, but at the same time this title means nothing much in the fellowship company. There is Aragorn, who would be king of Gondor. Boromir, eldest son of the ruling Steward of Gondor. Gimli, cousin of Balin who is the Lord of Moria. Gandalf, member of the Istari and councilor of many kingdoms. Peregrin, son of the Thain of Shire. Meriadoc, son of the Master of Buckland. Frodo, heir to Bilbo and a celebrity (of sorts) of the Shire.

Virtually everyone in the fellowship had a title (except Sam) and there is really no point in highlighting it among themselves when it doesn't matter. The only time where Legolas being Prince of Mirkwood would matter is when meeting other elves or when meeting allies of Mirkwood (like Dale for example). In which case in the former, Legolas being son of Thranduil is more than enough recognition for Elrond and Celeborn (as both of them were Sindar elves, and thus kin of Thranduil). And for the latter there wasn't any opportunity to do so.

Thus Legolas not mentioning the king is also his father is his way of downplaying his title as Prince, something which signifies his humility as well.

Finally, what makes me certain that Thranduil is a very caring father is Legolas' personality itself. Galadriel mentions that Legolas had always lived in joy, and this is very evident throughout the book.

In the entire journey, Legolas is shown to never despair. The only moment of fear was when he saw the Balrog (a famous elves bane) but otherwise he was also never fearful. This is despite the overwhelming circumstances the company finds themselves in. He always sees the bright side in every situation, frequently makes jokes and funny quips, and is in an overall joyful mood.

From the Hobbit, we learn that this cheerful outlook is shared by the Mirkwood elves, regardless of the growing Shadow. The only person who was affected at all was Thranduil himself, who was always wary of Mordor rising again. But he took careful pains to never affect his people, and they were always in good spirits despite the war that was happening.

I think Legolas was very well loved as a child, and always carefully sheltered. Not from the horrors and realities of war like death and destruction (because we can see he is a very capable warrior). No, he was instead sheltered from the despair and sorrow that would normally accompany death and destruction.

Legolas would see death and elves dying in battle, and Thranduil would tell him of the halls of Mandos and how death is just a path back to the Valar. He would look at the destruction of the woods and the land, and Thranduil would tell him it is like the passage of winter, but spring would come and the land would flourish again.

Legolas would have grown up knowing that even though bad things are happening, good things are still to come, and that's why he always has such hope in him and such joy. Unlike the mortal lives of Men and Dwarves, Elves are immortal and they can afford to wait for the end of the Shadow. There is no hurry, and because Mirkwood is untouched by any of the Rings, they don't need to worry about the power of the Three fading.

Legolas is happy and joyful because he is beloved, and I think that is a consequence of Thranduil's nurturing personality. It just makes much more sense when you compare him to the other characters who had lost both parents (Aragorn and Eomer), or had a stern and demanding father (Boromir and Faramir).

Legolas remains unchanged for the most part at the end of the journey because he was already in such a good place to start with. I think that is quite a comforting thought.