#i also know that people often of course don't have any bad intentions and it's not like i've never accidentally said something ignorant

[vexingvorta]

Im not a fan of every argument made here on either side, so first I'll get a few things out of the way;

1, that abuse victims often go on to be abusers themselves if they don't put in the work necessary to heal from their own abuse, that's what people are talking about when they refer to the CYCLE of abuse. To deny that is... Also uncomfortable. Being a victim of abuse does not make you exempt from abusing other people. 2, I wish we'd stop equating toxic with abusive because there is a difference. 3, i don't think autistic coding is really a fair defense of said toxic traits I'm gonna be real. There's nothing wrong with headcanons and projection but just to focus on what actually happened in the series without using headcanon to excuse harmful behavior. I don't know what traits are being referred to as "autistic coded" here so honestly I'm not gonna touch that with a ten foot pole and just focus on what we see;

Its hard for people to accept, but abuse does not happen on accident. Abuse is an intentional choice one makes. And over all, no, Ford isn't abusive. He, throughout the series and due to a combination of his self-centeredness and being a victim of abuse (hell, his self-centeredness was weaponized against him as part of the abuse) was absolutely toxic for most of the time we've seen him.

The argument that he abused Fiddleford is so stupid I'm not even going to acknowledge it. The thing with Stan is, he frankly wasn't around him enough to actually abuse him. A one time event is not abuse. A single fight is not abuse. Abuse is long and drawn out and, as I said earlier, intentional. And, like what was already pointed out, Ford was in a bad state. He'd reached the point of Bill going fully mask off, so to speak, and the abuse now being at it's worst. He was fully isolated and sleep deprived and it made him crazy. Yes, his unwillingness to destroy the journals was deeply selfish and another mark of how self-centered he is. It's the definition of irrational. But, once again, he wasn't in a spot where he could think rationally. (Granted, even if he was, I still don't think he would've been willing to destroy the journals because his self importance and self centeredness is one of his biggest flaws and an important part of his character)

The closest Ford ever comes to being abusive is, yes, with dipper. He starts telling him a lot of the same things we know Bill told him at the start of their partnership; you're special, we need each other, these other people are only holding you back. Nobody understands you like I do. When Dipper expresses concern for Mabel, Ford is immediately dismissive. He looks at Dipper and all he sees is himself, and all he sees in Mabel is Stan. He is the one who pushed that dichotomy, because he really couldn't think outside of himself.

His greatest flaw is that he's self centered and self obsessed. But the thing is, is that he learns his lesson. It takes literal apocalypse to get there, but he does learn and he does reflect and he does apologize and try to do better. He course corrects. Gravity falls, ultimately, is about family bonds and breaking the cycle of abuse. Ford almost continued that cycle with Dipper, but he stopped before any permanent damage could be done, both to their relationship, and to Dipper and Mabels. He fixed his relationship with Stan.

He did in fact have abusive tendencies and toxic traits but ultimately he put in the work to fix them and be better. Ford is a well written and well balanced character. He displays how someone even with good intentions can unintentionally fall back into cruel and toxic habits, and can start repeating the abuse they were put through. He also shows that you can come back from that. That starting down that path doesn't mean you have to stay there. That it's possible to heal and get better.

None of what I'm saying is an indictment of Ford's character. The opposite: he is complex and well written and imperfect, and I love him and his character arc. He could've been so easily made into an irredeemable villain, a no good bastard who's just horrible and abusive. He had all those pieces laid out. But the choice and skill to actually have him go through the motions of falling into abusive tendencies and then getting better is amazing on Alex Hirsch's part, and a testament to his ability to write deep and complex characters.

(also this is just kind of my own aside but the use of "autistic-coded" as like an excuse for how a character acts is really annoying to me for a number of reasons? For one, just off the bat, it's an attempt to make your headcanon sound more canon than it is, but by nature of being a headcanon, it's not really a fair or valid argument here. Second, there are ways to make a legitimate argument and analysis of a characters actions in canon and debate criticisms of their actions without saying "they're autism coded so actually you must hate autistic people", like it's okay, you're allowed to make a legitimate argument. Also, "character did shitty thing because they're autistic" isn't the win you think it is, because let's be real, you're either implying that they have no autonomy over their actions because of their autism, or that you think autism makes people shitty or toxic, neither of which is the win you think it is. Ironically lack of media literacy applies in both cases here, just for different reasons. Okay side rant over, just wanted to throw that out there because holy hell it's something that is used so much in fandom and it gets grating after a while.)

The tldr here is that Ford isn't an abuser. He was abused, he had toxic and abusive traits, but he put in the work to heal and better himself. He's by no means perfect and that's okay, he's a good character, and he's actually trying to be better.

Today in "I hate autistic-coded abuse victims", this shitty take.

Ford did not abuse Stan. He did not abuse Fiddleford. He did not try to drive a wedge in Dipper and Mabel's relationship (he was doing what he thought was best for Dipper and thought Mabel would be fine).

Just admit you hate autistic people and have no compassion for abuse victims. And admit you have no media literacy.

Also, calling a canonical abuse victim an abuser is...uncomfortable, to say the least. Especially with how you're just making him out to be abusive for...not handling personal interactions perfectly. You're demonizing autistic traits. And you need to research how abuse can effect people.

(Also, I know Ford's not perfect. But you don't seem to know that he's flawed but ultimately a good person. You just want a "perfect victim" when it comes to abuse victims, and it's obvious)

[jitteryfool]

Something something about everyone always assuming i'm an international exchange student which by itself is nothing bad but it gets very Annoying because I KNOW that they often only assume that because I'm asian and then they get so surprised to hear that no, I am a regular full-time student who lives here and have been living here since my birth, thank you very much. It's the same when sometimes I go to a store, hear the cashier speak in french to the people in front of me but they then upon seeing me always switch to english. It's the assumption I am a Visitor in a country I grew up in and consider to be my home, the way people always assume I surely am not a native that just. Gets to me sometimes.

[creature-wizard]

Closet Witchcraft: How To Get Witchy When You Can't Come Out Of The Broom Closet

Some basic/general tips for being a closet witch. (If you are in a severely abusive household, be sure to scroll down to the end.)

Cultivate some skills

Many skills can be put to witchy purposes if you're determined. Consider gardening, cooking, sewing, crochet, scrapbooking, painting, drawing, calligraphy, woodworking, carving, or literally any craft skill you can start practicing. If you knit a scarf with colors chosen for their magical symbolism or make a little owl sculpture as a charm to help you retain knowledge, nobody but you has to know.

Study and learn about nature

Start learning about plants, animals, geology, ecology, or whatever catches your interest. Get into the habit of observing nature wherever you are, and observing how humans and nature interact and affect each other.

Use everyday items where you can

You can practice divination with poker cards or dice, and your phone can serve as a scrying mirror. You can use a pendant or metal washer for pendulum divination.

As for cleansing, a literal wash in water is fine for any object that won't get damaged. You can use literally any cleaning tool or method with magical intent.

You can use your fingers in place of prayer beads, using either whole fingers or individual knuckles.

You can also use your fingers to trace symbols and runes on stuff.

You can represent your deities using art or knickknacks representing their symbols, like a small cat statue for Bast.

On keeping witchy literature (grimoires, Books of Shadows, printed books, etc.)

Keeping an online grimoire/BOS and getting witchy books in ebook format is often a good option.

Certain methods of practice can also reduce the amount of literature you need to keep on hand. (For example, learning correspondence through observation, using this model of deity/entity work, or practicing energy work.)

If no one is likely to go through your things, keeping your grimoire/BOS in a plain three-ring binder may be enough to avoid detection. (Camouflage is a great friend when hiding things.)

More on hiding things

So you might want something a little fancy, like a tarot deck or a more witchy-looking piece of decor.

If people aren't likely to go through your stuff or come in without knocking, you can keep a lot of things in a drawer or small storage box when you have to. Simple padlocks will be enough to keep small children and the typical casual guest out of your things.

To hide small objects, you can also get an opaque vase and fake flowers, put your witchy stuff in the bottom of the vase, and put the flowers on top.

You can also place a toilet paper tube inside a glass jar and fill it with something like small rocks, seashells, beads, buttons, or candies. (There's a tutorial for this kind of here. Though you won't need to wrap the toilet paper tube in wrapping paper, of course.)

If the jar is higher than the tube, you can glue a circle of cardboard to the bottom of the tube so you can rest it on top a layer of your filling so that it comes up to the jar's mouth.

If you want to use something like a sauce jar and want to take the label off completely, remember that oil will dissolve the adhesive.

Stuffed animals can be turned into hiding spaces. There are many tutorials out there for this.

Pieces of paper can be slipped into books. Thus you can conceal witchy reference sheets.

If you are in a seriously unhealthy situation

I wrote the above with people who don't live in severely abusive homes in mind. Like maybe the people you live with would flip out if they discovered that you're practicing witchcraft and maybe then you might be in danger, but they aren't likely to go snooping through all of your stuff and aren't going to hurt you because you breathed wrong. If you do live in a highly abusive household, I recommend checking out my post "I'm in a bad place and need to get out, what can I do?" and checking out this thread of abusive home survival tips. (These aren't witchcraft resources - they're resources to help you survive and escape.)

[jeonscatalyst]

About the ham/pink sausage thing I'd love to know if you think bucking up at ur partner(Assuming jkk are couple or have romantic feelings for e/o) like that in front of other ppl can happen btw couples...... friends? Yes. Siblings? Yes. But couples? I wonder......if my partner does that (jk was kinda pissed because they questioned his knowledge of food or wtv that is) in front of other ppl I'd feel disrespectful maybe not by siblings and friends but definitely by my partner. Of course i don't believe any of the members have that kinda nature where they hit someone that's completely false I believe that. Can you imagine you and your partner in their place? Your partner bucking up at you like that in public? You won't feel disrespected? And i know you'll say jk was joking, he joked when he did it second time but the first time was his honest reaction. It irritated him that they didn't belive he was right.

Hi anon,

Short answer to your question is yes, it can happen. I’ve seen so many people give so many takes about the pink sausage/ham moment but I refrained from saying anything about it until I got my thoughts in order. So many times when people judge other’s actions they look at it from a perspective that they are used to or through a particular lens that makes sense to them forgetting that in this big world with over 7 billion people, there are different people, different cultures and ways of life so what might mean one thing to you, might mean something else to a different person.

I don’t understand why that was a big deal to people ( I mean I do kinda but…) because anyone who has watched even one kdrama or knows even a little bit about Koreans in general knows that koreans do that alot when they are mad or irritated. They buck at other people like they are going to hit them with no intention of actually hitting them. Parents do it to kids, siblings do it to each other and even people in seasoned relationships relationships do it as well. Jk wasn’t going to hit Jimin, that’s for sure. It’s just that was a knee jerk reaction at that point and from the reactions of Tae and Jimin, that wasn’t something Jungkook did often because Jimin didn’t seem used to it judging from his reaction.

I understand what you mean about feeling disrespected especially if that is something that happens in public but I doubt some koreans will see it that way mostly because it is something they are used to. Plus, sometimes people could be intentionally or unintentionally disrespectful to their partners, that isn’t news.

While that moment left a bad taste in some people’s mouths, I actually found it cute….not necessarily because Jungkook bucked at Jimin but because when you watch that scene, you notice that Tae was the one who started saying it was ham and he was also the one who kept insisting it was while Jimin only said it once but that one time Jimin said it was the only time Jungkook doubted himself about it. I also found it interesting that even though Tae was the one who repeatedly insisted that it wasn’t pink sausage, we only saw Jk’s emotions towards Jimin and nothing towards Tae. Now, most people whom I like to call shallow or fickle would rejoice at the fact that Tae didn’t react to Tae who was the instigator but reacted to Jimin who only said it once but to anyone who understands human emotions and knows a little bit of something about life, that single moment right there was more than enough to tell whom among the two Jungkook is emotionally closer to.

That moment to me will go down in history as one of the biggest moments that showed just how close and comfortable Jikook are with each other.

Typically, you are more likely to get annoyed at someone you are closer to because you have more expectations of them than the ones you are not as close to. There is also an emotional investment. Being closer to someone usually means you care more about their opinions and actions so when they do something that bothers you, it impacts you more deeply. You generally also feel more comfortable expressing or showing your frustration at someone you feel closest to because your relationship with them feels secure so you are not worried about how you might come off because you both know each other extremely well, while with a friend you are not as close to, you tend to be more forgiving or less affected by their behavior because your emotional investment is lower, and your expectations might not be as high. Anyone who watches that clip would wonder why on earth Jk only expressed his annoyance at Jimin and not Tae who actually started and instigated the whole thing and this is not to say Taekook aren’t close because we know they are but Jikook just have an insanely deeper emotional connection and bond.

Some people think Jungkook was just joking but I think he was truly annoyed and maybe even a little hurt, and his annoyance (though might sound abit silly) probably came from the fact that he expected Jimin to side with him but Jimin didn’t or expected Jimin to trust his judgement more. To so many people it might have just been a silly argument about ham and pink sausage bit to Jungkook, it was probably more and some might to relate or understand his annoyance but that doesn’t mean his feelings about the whole thing shouldn’t be respected.

Jimin’s reaction was also very telling and even though he handled things in a funny and dramatic way, I think Jungkook’s actions shocked him to a certain extent and he probably felt bad about it but he must have understood at some point why Jungkook reacted so intensely. Jimin’s actions also shows how much he knows and is emotionally close to Jungkook because if that were another person, Jimin would have probably cussed them out but he had this extra patience with Jungkook probably because he understood why Jungkook got like that. Compare the way Tae reacted after Jungkook made a statement about him being weak to Jimin’s reaction. One of them was clearly the reaction of a friend (Tae straight up warned Jungkook not to take things far else someone would see blood) but Jimin’s reaction was more….emotional. Jungkook’s reaction in the two cases too were telling. With Tae he was quick to say “yes sir” when Tae called him out but with Jimin, he didn’t look like he was ready to let go of the annoyance yet and even after they finished eating he kept glaring at Jimin till Jimin apologized.

Reminds me of that Live from May 2019 in Newjersey where Jimin and Jin turned off the Live before Jk arrived and Jk was so pissed he went to start his own Live. All Jin had to do to get Jk’s forgiveness was apologize once while Jimin had to follow him to his room apologizing yet Jk still didn’t let him off easy. These are things that could seem very trivial to people but that shows you that Jungkook might just have more expectations when it comes to Jimin while he doesn’t really get that affected by other’s actions. The rainy day story is also a good example that shows how Jimin’s opinions affect Jungkook differently. He has mentioned so many times that he tries to emulate Jimin’s actions so that already says alot about how much he values Jimin’s opinions and how much expectations he generally has when it comes to him so when he feels disappointed, it just triggers a more emotional response. It also gets a little weirder when you remember that Jimin is actually Jungkook’s hyung which means that Jimin could have easily scolded him like Tae did with Jk realizing that he had just been disrespectful to someone older and ready to apologize yet that is not the reaction we got from them at all.

So anon, I can see why you would see things the way you do but you always have to consider context and the context here would be that, different things are acceptable in different cultures or societies and things have different meanings to different people. And yes, if Jimin is Jungkook’s lover he might have felt disrespected sometimes things like that happen in relationships anyway so it’s nothing new imo.

[waokevale]

Looks at you with my eyes sitting in front of you like I'm interrogating you (but it's actually a really nice cozy room). I have heard tale of this WXwood ship. Tell me what you find compelling about the ship I'm considering joining you in WXwood land. Literally just say words at me I'm listening

Alright, very well then, so I shall! 🫡

At first, I only shipped them ironically, because they seemed like the classic "opposites attract" trope, which I favor 👍

But then I got digging, and I realized they're not actually that different after all. In fact, they share plenty of common traits and interests. What many people overlook initially, is that neither of them is actually a black&white character. None of the DST cast is, to be fair. 🩶

So it was inevitable, I became enthralled with this ship and now it's probably my nr 1 of all time.

Here's a list of my reasonings and what I found out about these guys thus far (updated):

1. WX-78 is actually a bit of a softie if you spend some time reading through their quotes. They act tough and logical to presumably hide whatever ounce of empathy they have left, that didn't escape them completely. (But they're not doing too good of a job)

They either use this uncharacteristically soft tone or hide a kind gesture or well-intentioned thought behind robotically constructed sentences and insults.

Even when they are threatening someone/something, they're all bark no bite. They might be very rude, but most of the time they won't actually go through with what they say.

And of course, I don't think I need to show the quotes for machines or metallic structures, since WX-78 openly sees them as their family and acts basically the same as Wormwood does with his plant friends.

2. Speaking of, Wormwood isn't always an empathetic creature. He can sometimes be callous, apathetic and even have favorites amongst plants (and people too), though he doesn't directly state that. He also isn't as dumb as he portrays himself to be, he definitely knows something, but either has too limited English speaking skills or is actively choosing not to say much.

He often sobs or cries when a creature dies, but there are times he reacts with either "whoops", "oh" or "too bad" like it's a small inconvenience at best.

And those are only some of the examples. If you'd like I could always try and find more of these specific quotes at another time.

3. Despite seeming vastly different at first, they would eventually become good friends.

And why do I think that? Because WX-78 actually likes plenty of things that correspond with Wormwood!

Bees (If we were to go back to their previous quote I've shown). Fun fact, WX-78 has a lot of quotes where they express how much they like/respect bees! And since Wormwood blooms, there's countless of them surrounding him at those times. It's a welcome bonus while hanging out around him. (Though maybe not in Spring)

Their quote for green gem is: "PRESSURE AND IMPURITIES HAVE PRODUCED PLEASING PERFECTION" which is. well. Something.

They're very fond of pumpkins, describing them as: "IT HAS A PLEASANT SHAPE" while their seed as "IT IS A SOURCE CODE FOR PLEASING PLANTS" And guess who just happens to have a pumpkin skin ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯

The lunar affinity. If I didn't know any better, I'd assume WX-78 was outright worshipping the moon. They have dozens of quotes describing how THE MOON IS SUPERIOR, INORGANIC AND GOOD, I wouldn't be able to fit all of them into this post, (just trust me on that). Regardless, they're still deeply attached to it. it wouldn't be surprising that, if they found out about this aspect about him, they'd become very fascinated with him, because c'mon, it's the moon, and he's from it!

Despite acting like it, WX-78 doesn't actually hate all organic life. Plants in particular, are actually some of the organisms they seem to hate the least. They're partial to potatoes and lureplants; the former because they say they can relate to them, and the latter because "AWW, IT'S JUST AS EVIL AS I AM". They even recognize the beauty of certain flowers, even if they say it in a mocking tone. So then, would it be too farfetched of a concept for them to grow to appreciate organic life with Wormwood's influence ?

And yeah, they might not like him at first due to the whole "Filthy Organic" attribute, but that's just how they are with everyone! And that's what we're here for! That slowburn! With the two of them getting to know each other and realizing they have shared interests and know similiar struggles!

Going back to Wormwood. His quote for the W.A.R.B.I.S armor and head gear suggests that he highly admires WX and would like to be strong like they are.

–Wormwood, examining the W.A.R.B.I.S. Head Gear: "Just like robot friend!"

–Wormwood, examining the W.A.R.B.I.S. Armor: "Be strong, like robot friend!"

There's also his quote for the Nautopilot where he's the only one who shows genuine concern for WX-78's perturbation:

–WX-78, when examining the Nautopilot: THIS IS A TERRIBLE IDEA

–WX-78, when examining an active Nautopilot: I THINK THAT RIDICULOUS SCIENTIST IS TRYING TO KILL ME

–Wormwood: Robot friend doesn't like Pull Rock

5. The survivors' farming animation is quite charming, I certainly loved their small interaction there. They're also shown in the official Return Of Them vignette, farming on the side.

6.. I like the fact that one of them is afraid of water and the other of fire. Adds an interesting dynamic.

7. As @benzybenny mentioned, it's a cute idea that they could make each other's favorite foods. Wormwood has the resources for making a butter muffin practically instantly available, due to his Bee King and Berry Bush crafting skills. And WX-78 is perfectly fitted for the ruins, yes! Them fetching bananas (definitely only to spite the monkeys, not for Wormwood and Wendy specifically) sounds very plausible to me. 😁

8. They just work. Despite claiming they want to "DOMINATE ALL ORGANIC LIFE" WX-78 appreciates people who can stand up for themselves. I'd guess Wormwood would be a huge pushover at first, no doubt, but with their influence, he would certainly have to grow a spine (metaphorically speaking)

Likewise, WX-78 struggles to show kindness to non-robotic creatures, because they fear they might come off as WEAK and SENTIMENTAL. Things they loathe to expose about themself. Wormwood could help them show that it's okay to love organic friends and be nice to others! (sometimes at least.)

I'd say they balance out each other perfectly and that is quite rare to see in modern ships.

While they'd definitely struggle to get along at first, they'd surely grow fond of the other one day :)

I hope this convinced you. if not, I'll try and dig up some more stuff. Then again, keep in mind that there aren't many canon character interactions besides whatever crumbs we've got from their quotes and official animations.

[anneapocalypse]

6 and 8 for Dragon Age! Choose violence!!!!

🔥 Choose Violence Ask Meme 🔥

6. which ship fans are the most annoying?

I'm gonna be perfectly honest: I have drawn my little circle of Dragon Age fandom such that I really don't find any shippers annoying. I also basically like all of the canon romances I've played on some level and there are none that I have a visceral Nope about, and as far as non-canon romances I cannot find it in myself to get bent out of shape about rare pairs, which is what most non-canon ships end up as, realistically.

My hot take is that in this fandom, anyone who leads with "X shippers are the WORST EVER--" is about to be far more annoying than any of the shippers I know.

8. common fandom opinion that everyone is wrong about

Wicked Eyes and Wicked Hearts is a good quest.

In many ways, I think it's actually comparable to playing A Paragon of Her Kind as a non-dwarf. In both quests, people often complain about not having access to all the information about the candidates, by which they mean that the game does not hand them a piece of paper explaining to them why one candidate is the Good One and the other Bad, what's that noise oh it's me banging trash can lids together in your backyard and hollering THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A BENEVOLENT MONARCHY, THERE IS NO GOOD MONARCH, POWER THAT CONCENTRATED CAN ONLY BE SUSTAINED WITH BLOOD, ALL YOU CAN DO IS DECIDE WHICH ONE IS GOING TO DO THE LEAST HARM AND/OR IS MOST EASILY MANIPULATED BY PARTIES YOU WISH TO SUPPORT.

Coughs. What I mean is, the frustrating lack of information given to you, an outsider, is kind of the point. No matter who you play as the Inquisitor, you are canonically not Orlesian and you do not know the Imperial Court intimately no matter how politically savvy your character may be. You are an outsider, and to many people a dangerous one. You are here as a guest; you were not invited with the intent of letting you choose the ruler of a sovereign nation, and people are not simply going to hand you information to that end. Even some of your advisors may have personal motivations for withholding information that you would have liked to know, perhaps because of their own involvement or complicity in certain events. You know. Perhaps.

So you have to do your own digging. You have to climb trellises and sneak into locked rooms. You might get lucky opening the right doors and finding something really useful, or you might not. You might say the right thing to the right person and get a valuable lead, or you might fumble it never knowing what you could have had.

We love to poke fun at the RPG tropes of every NPC immediately giving you their life story and asking you to solve all their problems. Isn't it kind of interesting when a game doesn't do that--when you have to take your own initiative if you want a specific outcome, when other characters aren't just dumping information on you and assuming that you'll act on it in a specific way?

I think one of the most interesting aspects of WEWH is that you can in fact choose to do nothing. Yes, you have to follow the basic outline of the quest, but at the critical moment you can just not intervene and allow Florianne to stab Celene and Gaspard to take the throne--effectively, letting things play out as they would have had the Inquisition done nothing. Gaspard of course winks and treats you as an ally because you assumes you're complicit, but you could in fact just have been indifferent. Game mechanics make it obvious you're making a choice, but in-universe it's simply that you have chosen not to act.

And if you do choose to act, you do not get a guaranteed Good Option. No, you don't get to flip the tables and completely overturn the social order of a sovereign nation of which, again, you are not even a citizen. You have to work with the situation you're in, and try to bend it to whatever advantage you see fit. You get no guarantees.

Sure, there a few places where I think WEWH fumbles the ball, but on the whole I think it's a brilliant union of storytelling and creative game mechanics.

[dismissivedestroyer]

Hi! So I want to make a Spooky Month OC but I suck at drawing, do you have any tips or advices about drawing characters in the Spooky Month artstyle?

Okay so, I might not be the right person for this, cause I also am not all that great at drawing in the Spooky Month artstyle, but I did some character design at school so I might be able to give a few tips! Please do take everything I say with a grain of salt tho!

Spooky Month's strong suit is definitely character design. It's SO expressive and well done it's genuinely unreal. You might want to know exactly what your character is gonna be doing, or how their personality is gonna be like, because character design in Spooky Month cares a lot about things like these. For example: Radford works at a cinema, so of course he's wearing 3D glasses, but also his HAIR IS LITERALLY SHAPED LIKE A POPCORN.

So maybe decide on a job for your character, and try to start from there, get crazy with shapes and have fun! Spooky Month characters have designs that are both extremely simple to draw, since they use mostly basic shapes, but also are extremely thought out and meaningful. Another example of great character design is Pump

Now, I have no idea if you already had an OC in mind, but make sure to choose the right shapes to represent it. Something I see around in the fandom is people making these OCs that are like, serial killers and dangerous people and stuff, but then give them the "Lila"-like oval head. And honestly, nothing wrong with that, that's a choice you can use! But still, shapes allow us to understand a lot about how a character is just by looking at them. So you might want to experiment around a bit!

Ovals in Spooky Month are the "good" shape, let's just say. Most character with an oval head are sweet, helpful, kind-natured! It's often paired with oval eyes, so it's mostly a shape that's used for not villainous characters.

Circles are a bit more complicated, because Spooky Month subvertes the Circle Characters. While yes, they're also used to draw children, such as Skid and Pump, so they may come off as unthreatening at first, most main villains, such as Eyes, Bob and Dexter Doll (which is meant to represent the likes of a child, so that's a nice contrast), are mostly circle-shaped.

There's a very wide range of Square characters in Spooky Month. Square characters are usually bulky, big and strong. They often come off as threatening (such as Moloch), but there are so many other fun things you can do with them. Like, take Frank. EVERYTHING in his design should alarm us, him being square-shaped, the black eyes, the wide smile. Yet, he has a shape of the eyes that's very relaxed and chill, so we end up trusting him. As for Dexter, he's a mix of circles and squares, so we can't really understand his intentions right away, because he's shaped in the most confusing way possible. He's just made to be unsettling and leaving us to wonder if he's a bad guy or just an oddball.

You can do SO MANY fun things by mixing up shapes of faces and eyes it's INSANE. Also, you can mix up other characters' features to create a new one, if you're planning to do a fankid or stuff like that. Look at Ross, he's literally a mixture of all his parents' features!

My main tips for drawing in the Spooky Month artstyle are mostly

1) Play around with shapes. Be as cartoony as possible.

2) Try to be consistent with proportions, because, based on personal experience, if you draw the pupils of the eyes slightly off it changes the whole character's expression drastically

3) don't worry too much about details, Spooky Month has a very simple artstyle. You don't have to draw a perfectly anatomically correct hand, just whip up some cartoony three-to-four fingers and you're good to go

4) try to redraw some pre-existing screenshots from the serie to get familiarity with the way Pelo draws expressions. It helps a bunch.

So yeah, that's all! Good luck with your oc :)

[nelyos-right-hand]

I've been reading post-reembodiement fics lately, and Fëanor trying to fix his relationship with his sons/ making amends for his mistakes is a pretty common occurrence in them.

Whenever that happens Curufin is almost always the first to forgive his father, and if Fëanor starts to make stupid choices again, he is often the first to support him.

And I see why many people see it that way. In the Silm, Celegorm and Curufin are their father's strongest supporters and the most ruthless when it comes to following their oath. Curufin is also described to be Fëanor Junior and they probably had a very close relationship.

But what if that changes after the first age?

Through the entire first age, Curufin continued to believe in the oath and their father. Sure, the others followed the oath as well, but I don't think that any of them did it because they actually believed in it.

Maedhros did it because Fingon was dead and he had stopped caring. Maglor, Caranthir and the Ambarussar did it because the oath was driving them. Celegorm did it because he was no longer sane and wanted revenge and bloodshed. He did it because he was hurting and now it was time for others to hurt.

But Curufin still did it for Fëanor. Because yes, right now things were looking pretty bad, but in the end everything would turn out fine. They were going to get the Silmaril, and then they were going to defeat Morgoth, fulfill their oath and make their father proud. Things were still going according to plan. Curufin himself might be unable to see it right now, but that's just because Fëanor was a genius. He had planned for this because he wouldn't have made them swear the oath if he hadn't, right? Everything was gonna be fine, all he had to do was trust his father.

But then suddenly he turned around just in time to see Dior drive his sword through Celegorm's chest. And he didn't even have time to process that because in the next moment he was hit by an arrow, and another, and another, and another.

Curufin didn't live very long after that, maybe two or three seconds. But in that time he realized something.

Things were not going according to plan. They couldn't because there was no plan. Fëanor didn't have any idea what he was doing when he swore the oath. And he most certainly didn't have his sons' welfare in mind at that moment.

They wouldn't get the Silmarils, not even one of them. They wouldn't fulfill the oath and they wouldn't defeat Morgoth. They wouldn't even survive.

Celegorm was dead and Curufin was dying and their other brothers would die soon too, and it would all be for nothing. He had spend the last five-hundred years believing in and fighting for a purpose that wasn't even a real purpose but the fantasies of a dead madman.

He had been betrayed by the person he loved most and now he would die for him.

(Hint-Celebrimbor-hint)

(Alright, so Fëanor didn't actually betray Curufin because that would mean that he did it on purpose or that he had any ill intentions towards him. That, of course, wasn't the case because Fëanor did love his sons dearly, he just, you know, went absolutely mad after Finwë's death. Curufin just feels betrayed because he is dying and stuff.)

So back in Valinor Curufin has the most trouble forgiving his father. That surprises Fëanor as much as the rest of the family cause it kind of contradicts his actions in his previous life but maybe death does that to people.

In the end he does forgive him of course, but it takes some time to fix their relationship and it takes way longer for him to trust Fëanor again then it did for the rest of his sons.

These are just some loose thoughts cause it's the middle of the night and I'm bored but I think it's interesting because it's different from what we usually see of Curufin.

[no-name-is-me]

LOA explained for Neurodivergent people

This will be a break down on LOA/Manifestation that is more understandable for a majority of neurodivergent people just like myself. I personally struggled with wording and vagueness when reading peoples LOA posts, especially with all the wording and phrases for everything. FYI, I personally have OCD and Autism, so what you struggle with might not align with the tips here. But I found my struggles overlapped with other neurodivergent manifestors, so I'll share as much as I can. The best way to explain LOA, is by pl4net's chart. But I personally changed it to be simpler. Affirmations/Visualizing/Manifestation methods ⇢ Thoughts Thoughts (persisted) ⇢ Dominant thoughts Dominant thoughts ⇢ Mindset Mindset ⇢ Your reality (3D) The terms might differ, and depending on your beliefs you mind switch out some steps, but this is the basic principle of LOA (Assumption = Reality) most easily understood to me. I will also use terms such as "State of your desires", which is just persisting that you have the mindset that someone with your desires would have. All of my tips/suggestions

Use your obsession

I obsess like crazy over 99% of my manifestations, yet I still manifest all of them. I think the advice "don't obsess" comes from people who don't understand why it's bad. Obsessing can be about anything, you can obsess over your desire in the same way you can obsess over anything else you have. The problem comes when the obsession leads you to negative thoughts, or thought that go against your desire. EXAMPLE: You're manifesting silky soft hair, and you're obsessed with the idea of it being as soft as a doll like you always wanted. If you obsess in the mirror and say "why isn't is silky soft yet"? and you do that often, then you have affirmed more for course hair than silky hair.. But you can also look in the mirror and brush your hair, and repeat how silky it is. And repeat every single time you think of your desire (for me it's like... every 3 minutes) that it's so soft, and you're obsessed with your silky hair. Visualize/affirm while being obsessed, create peace with yourself About emotion If you're manifesting a good grade on a test you didn't study for, being nervous is normal. Even when nervous, sad, angry, upset, or completely done with everything - you are still manifesting. Emotions are only outlets of thoughts, and as you manifest, you change your thoughts. I know if you have a disorder/are in a period of your life with heavy or frequent mood swings, you can feel proud of your manifestation one moment, affirming and being in the state of your desire, and then you crash. Persisting is easy, in theory at least. For people that get autism meltdowns, so I would strongly advise going to the quietest room you can and laying flat on your back or stomach. give yourself 5 - 20 minutes to just breathe, and as your thoughts come in about whatever went wrong, slowly flip them. Toxic positivity is everywhere in the LOA community, always give yourself a few minutes to feel, before letting go. Motivation I used to follow the advice to read lot's of success stories, but I would advise the opposite. I would binge tens, hundreds, and thousands of stories while manifesting and wouldn't feel any more secure or less doubtful in my manifestations for more than a few minutes. It's important to truly imagine yourself with your desires when you lose motivation, If you imagine your SP going on trips with you, just think in any format (visual or other senses, imaginary conversations, etc) them bike riding with you as you smile ear to ear. truly imagine it, how happy you would be with your desire. if you're manifesting winning a contest, imagine you won the contest and you're proud, embody that. Intention Pick anything to intend right now. Whatever device you're reading this on, tell yourself you will press a button on it. I've picked the 'W' key. W, w, w, w, w, all I say is "I will press the W key" and I press it. How do you apply this to manifestation? the same way you press that button. You intend, you know, and you do. The biggest reason people cannot utilize their intention is because they doubt themselves. You are limitless, you do not need any method or tool. Truly absorb that, maybe you find that in yourself through meditation, connecting with the outdoors, but look around and know you are limitless. Your intention is strong enough to intend to write a 5 hour thesis, there is no reason you can't intend to manifest or shift.

I'm sorry if this post is sloppy, I'm kind of rushing this out here before it's stuck in my drafts forever. I also have no idea if it's just me seeing all the formatting problems Tumblr gives me... if you have any other questions about anything or would like clarity on the wording, please let me know.

Thank you!

[scribblestatic]

Okay, we are so back on my amputee!SY train.

Also, for Cai Minyue, which you'll read below, it's spelled and pronounced 蔡 珉月 (Cài Mínyuè).

Prev: Part 4

---

The day of the crowning ceremony is one most of the remaining wives had come to expect. Sure, none of them were going to be empress, but honestly? Good for Shen Yuan. As much as the man called himself lazy, they knew of people with limbs substantially less dedicated to ecological maintenance, foreign diplomacy, and proper record-keeping.

Sure, he'd had to have a servant write for him at first, but he very much preferred writing through qi control, especially since, once he got the hang of it, he was much faster at getting his own words on paper. And boy does he have a lot to say.

His efficiency at the position aside, he also genuinely loves Luo Binghe.

In lieu of hands, he'll press his forehead against Luo Binghe's when he suspects that the latter's qi is unsettled. Although Binghe acts like he's an open book, Shen Yuan picks up on his moods easier, even the minute things. He's also very, very indulgent of him, but nobody's perfect.

But, perhaps it's that indulgence that has helped Binghe heal into the better person he's becoming.

Fantastic. Good for them, honestly.

Though, that didn't mean Shen Yuan wasn't, somehow, inexplicably still unsure as to why Luo Binghe wanted to make him empress despite having been married to him for several months by this point.

"He could do better," he insists as the servants dry his hair.

"Like, on the chance I really am Shen Jiu somehow, this really isn't something I deserve—" he pauses, voice wavering slightly as the Sha Hualing huffs at him to be still and puts the liner more cleanly around his eyes.

"Seriously, he has you and Liu Mingyan and Ning Yingying and Cai Minyue—"

"Are you complimenting the Little Palace Mistress right now?" Liu Mingyan asks, pinning his hair crown in place.

"She's rough around the edges, yes, but she's not a bad person."

"She hates you, though," Sha Hualing reminds him.

"And that's fair! If I expected to become empress at some point since he grew his empire on the remains of Huan Hua Palace, only to have my husband do some spells on his abusive shizun, marry him, then make him empress when he'd been imprisoned in the Water Prison for the crimes said shizun did against said husband, I'd hate me, too!"

At Sha Hualing's sigh and roll of her eyes, Liu Mingyan leaned from behind him toward his left side, where his remaining eye was.

"Do you love Binghe?"

"Of course I do," he says easily.

"And you trust him to make his own decisions?"

"Yes, he's a grown demon emperor. But—"

"And you trust that he loves you?"

"I...well..." He glances away, his thin face already starting to redden. "I don't get why, but—"

"But you trust that he loves you, yes?"

A simple but elegant fan rises up from the nearby table and opens in front of his face, hiding his nose and mouth from view.

"...Yes."

"Then, that's all the reason needed for him to make you his empress, is it not?"

"Well...it's just..." He starts fanning himself. "...from a political standpoint—"

"You can just say you're nervous, idiot," Sha Hualing snarls heatlessly, pinning another flower near his crown.

He keeps complaining and trying to reason with why he shouldn't be empress despite being perfectly suitable and wanted for the position, but it's not like he actually fights the process. By this point, the remaining wives closest to him knows he avoids and extrapolates and spins his own mind in place, but his actions often say more than his words do.

More than once, he's huffed and griped at them without any harmful intent. He's called Binghe "shameless" while allowing him to do as he pleased. Whenever the demon emperor would call him "wife," he'd huff and hide his face behind his fan and say "Who's your wife?" while turning away, only to lean in when his husband went to kiss him.

He only really said "No" when he truly thought or meant it, giving weak and petulant excuses when he seemed to not want to verbally agree in an almost coquettish display. And, when flustered, he rarely gave his agreement in simple language. If one didn't read between the lines, they could call him a hot-and-cold sort of spouse, but anyone who knew his language could tell he was almost always, unfathomably, full of warmth.

Even on quiet days—when his qi feels jagged and he seems overstimulated by the smallest things, strung tight and unfocused, his words coming out with more bite than intended—he was still warm underneath it.

Sha Hualing and Liu Mingyan watched as that warmth faltered upon the interruption of Cang Qiong Sect, their qi rolling and swords unsheathed as they protested his crowning, arriving right before it was set to add to the one already in his hair as a representation of his elevating status.

Yue Qingyuan's immense qi bowled some of the guards over, guests falling to their knees with others scrambling to get out of the way. Several other peak lords were also in attendance. Liu Mingyan's eyes narrowed upon seeing her shifu, Qi Qingqi giving her a look like a betrayed mother.

"Luo Binghe, you have long gone too far!" the sect leader bellowed, his voice commanding attention.

But Binghe himself just smiled, his eyes crinkling despite the light not reaching them.

"My, Sect Leader Yue. If this lord recalls, he did not invite you to this occasion. In fact, I explicitly remember banning you and the rest of Cang Qiong Sect from attendance."

"Shen Qingqiu was a member of our sect and your shizun. Yet, after debasing him to such a degree, you dare make a mockery of him in this manner? Your idea of just punishment has strayed too far. Cease this humiliation immediately!"

"This lord doesn't understand what you mean by 'humiliation.' I am not so wasteful as to pay such attention and money for an empress crowning ceremony as a paltry joke."

"So you intend to make a mind-broken man the empress to your throne? Hah. It seems you truly are more of a blasphemous fool than even I expected," Qi Qingqi said, her eyes ablaze.

As the two groups continued fighting, Liu Mingyan looked to Shen Yuan, who was mysteriously quiet, his shoulders hunched. From the way he was turned, seated to face Luo Binghe as he placed the crown in his hair, his blind side was to the sect now proclaiming their grievances in his stead.

Yu Qingyuan's pressure increased, and Luo Binghe spread his qi to match. The air churned and coiled with it, some guests having fainted while others hid beneath their seats and nearby tables or other such places. The ones who could somewhat withstand it armed themselves against the sect members, considering most attendees were demonic in nature. That said, the ones more sensitive to qi were looking pale and ill.

"Binghe."

Immediately, Luo Binghe reined in his pressure, turning toward Shen Yuan, adoration plain in his eyes. As though the others weren't there, he returned to his side and got to his knee before him as he often did so Shen Yuan did not have to crane his neck to look up at him.

Whatever look was on his face caused Binghe's expression to sour with concern.

"Yes, this lord is here."

A moment, then Shen Yuan sat up, his shoulders lowering as he straightened his posture. A fan laid still on Shen Yuan's lap. Liu Mingyan could almost imagine how he'd be sitting: his hands politely still, legs tucked slightly under the chair.

The very image of an ethereal, untouchable immortal.

"Our guests are suffering. Perhaps we should have this discussion elsewhere."

"But, your crowning..."

"It can wait until tomorrow. It can't be helped as it is."

"...If it's what you wish."

"Thank you."

Binghe's smile returned, though it was one of his softer, more genuine ones.

"You need not thank me, my beloved."

He lightly held Shen Yuan's chin, and he kissed his forehead, right where his huadian dyed his skin red. Some of the sect members choked in outrage, and Yue Qingyuan's pressure strengthened even further.

"Sect Leader Yue, restrain yourself," Luo Binghe called out. "You invade my palace and harm my guests by throwing your weight around. Have you no shame as a righteous cultivator?"

"You—"

"My beloved requests your acquiescence."

"You dare to call him as such after what you sent to me... After what you've done to him—"

The fan on Shen Yuan's lap raised up, opening slowly before snapping shut. The sound echoed in the area, powered by qi. After all, as the former Qing Jing Peak lord, the arts, and sound, were something he studied immensely, if he was indeed some incarnation of Shen Jiu.

"Yue Qingyuan, cease."

And, as though flipping a switch, the sect leader's qi calmed, pulling back in as though he never let it out. Though, perhaps it was less out of obedience toward him and more out of shock for the irritation in his voice. After all, he sounded...quite sane.

Shen Yuan turned toward them, finally looking at them with his eye, the fan opening back as it hid the lower half of his face. From Liu Mingyan's angle, she could see the unhappy frown on his balmed and lightly painted lips.

"...It seems you wish to protest."

"What?" Qi Qingqi murmured.

"If you want to do so, we can at an appropriate setting. However, here is not it. We've invited these people here for a celebration, not to be harmed."

Wei Qingwei looked firmly at Shen Yuan, likely thinking him possessed by some spirit...and wouldn't he be able to tell? If only Hong Jing could leave the mountain. Maybe Shen Yuan's confusion could also be resolved. Meanwhile, the murmurs and whispers from the sect were already referring to him as brainwashed and incapable of making judgements.

Luo Binghe quickly silenced the whispers by calling out orders, directing servants to tend to their crowning guests as the meeting would occur in the court hall.

Binghe shot a look toward Liu Mingyan, and she nodded back, leaving to find two people they needed for this.

Well...she hoped it wouldn't happen, as did Luo Binghe to a certain extent. However, since the sect did indeed come, they might as well use what they'd prepared.

---

It clicked to Shen Yuan as he was set in his seat beside Binghe's throne that, perhaps, this was all something that Binghe planned.

The court hall was already prepared, and the curtains hanging from the walls were more luxurious than usual. Maybe he could've put it off as simple decorating changes, but there was a nagging feeling in his gut that this had been carefully staged. Not in a fake or false sense, but in a sense that it had been carefully prepared.

He looked up toward Binghe as he placed him on the cushion, his husband carefully settling his clothes before gazing at him with dark eyes full of a profound regard that made him almost feel like crying.

"Hmm?"

Shen Yuan opened his fan, floating it in front of his face as he turned away.

"Nothing."

When his eye slid back over to Binghe's face, he saw the demon emperor's grin as he leaned in and kissed him on his cheek. If his fan lowered to allow him to do so, no it didn't.

"My A-Yuan is so magnanimous. Don't worry, we will certainly have you crowned by tomorrow, if not tonight."

"Who's telling you to rush, ah? Sit, Binghe. People are entering."

The chuckle that rumbled low in Binghe's chest thrummed in his own. After the demon emperor placed one more kiss on his cheek, this time closer to his ear—despite knowing they had become more sensitive since his other senses were muted, you menace—he sat on his throne and, once their guests settled, directed that the sect be allowed to enter.

The doors opened, and they were allowed to enter, but Shen Yuan found it difficult to keep looking at them.

The memory—dream—of them standing in the central crowd overlapped with the current situation. Though, they were a bit displaced. Back then, in the dream, he'd been lower down, bound in immortal binding cables and forced to kneel on knees he no longer had, coughing from continued exposure with the acidic air of the lowest depths of the Water Prison.

This time, though, outside of the dream, he was sitting on a throne of his own. One soon to be completely his in an official sense.

Yue Qingyuan sent him an imploring look, as though he hadn't failed to show up for him again.

...Why hadn't he showed up for him? The book never explained it. Hell, it never explained why Shen Qingqiu had hated Luo Binghe, nor had it explained why Shen Qingqiu felt so betrayed and snappy toward Yue Qingyuan. So many blasted plot holes.

At least now, through the dreams, he was able to get some context.

But Yue Qingyuan was always there, wasn't he? And Shen Qingqiu...he'd definitely asked why he didn't come save him. Yue Qingyuan would always just give him that same, imploring, apologetic look.

He was beginning to understand why the original goods had been so disgusted by it. Having it directed at him now felt similarly irritating.

"Now that we've uprooted our plans for these righteous cultivators, this lord would love to hear why you all have come to a crowning you were not invited to," Binghe sneered, seeming to also dislike the look Yue Qingyuan was sending him.

Or, well, maybe he had a personal reason to dislike him...

Ah. That was very possible, wasn't it? After all, he despised Qing Jing Peak, but he hated Cang Qiong entirely, with some sort of incident having interrupted his plans to raze it to the ground.

Yue Qingyuan, as the sect leader and someone personally involved in his life, had to have known what Shen Qingqiu was doing to Luo Binghe. And he did nothing.

Hmm.

"—to defile your shizun in this manner. We already gave you justice during his trial years back. What more do you want from him?"

"To become my empress, clearly," Binghe humored.

Many in the witnessing crowd laughed, while others tried to conceal their discomfort, perhaps swayed by whatever Yue Qingyuan said. Or maybe they'd always felt a bit uncomfortable about the idea of him as empress. Who knew?

"If we're to speak of justice, then Cang Qiong should consider their judgement overdue... And Shen Qingqiu's justice long ignored."

Eh?

Wait, Binghe, what's this??

"As uninvited as you all are, this lord is grateful for your impudence. Before the crowning of my empress, shall we have a retrial?"

Ehhh??

----

Binghe: Trap card activated.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5: here Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10

Part 11+: links on Part 10

AO3

[mousemannation]

Ben has literally liked transphobic posts by Vivek Ramaswamy. People like to uwu him for transphobia but he’s no better than Andrey. Just smarter for keeping it under wraps

DISCLAIMER: this is a long ass post im so sorry anon I kind of used this ask to talk about what I expect from players in general.

as i was writing that post i was like someone is definitely going to send me an anon about something problematic he did. this is no slight on u dear anon but let me explain why i still made the post.

on the most basic level, the post was hyperbolic, I think we all know this. Any sort of definitive statement like that is going to have exceptions. So my first reason to still make the post is that people will generally know to take it with a grain of salt.

The second reason is that I am not looking to sportspeople as beacons of morality. Whether our opinions align can and often does affect my support of them, but my support of them as an athlete is never a blanket support of them as a person. I don't know them and I almost certainly never will; i just like watching them hit a ball.

The third reason, and one that isn't always applicable but I'd say is extra applicable to someone like Ben is that I am willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. I'm a generally forgiving person, which has its pros and cons, but it means im naturally inclined to see the best in people. Ben is young, he's my age actually, and he lives a life that i could never hope to imagine. All these athletes do. Is that an excuse for prejudice? No, but it gives me hope that that prejudice comes from a place of ignorance not hatred.

The last three incidents of player prejudice (at least that I know of) have been Andrey, Paula and now Ben although i have not personally seen proof of this. Two counts of transphobia and one of anti-asian racism. I'm trans and asian (not Chinese, which is worth mentioning since Paula's incident was ostensibly anti-chinese, but is also an act used indiscriminately against all Asians).

Maybe I should expect more, but I'm almost always operating on the basis that a celebrity would hatecrime me, intentionally or not. I'm never really surprised when it comes out that a player did something problematic. And in these specific instances they are prejudices against groups I am a part of (or sort of adjacent to, not that white people know the difference between East Asians and South East Asians lol).

I am still mad at Andrey for his transphobic remarks against Imane because they were rash, uninformed, and very public. But I also don't think he's a terrible person. He's done a lot of things I don't agree with, but I'm not personally totally blanking him from my support, just sort of toning it down.

I was never that mad at Paula for that photo, again, maybe I should have been but to me it never came off as hateful, just ignorant. I mean i don't think she would have let the photo be taken and posted if she'd done it with intentional prejudice. I know the post got deleted but I don't know if she ever officially apologised, I wasn't keeping up, but I do think she should have. To me, that was the action of a sheltered western european white woman who wouldn't recognise intersectionality if you hit her over the head with it.

Now on to the man in question. You say he liked posts by a transphobe. Liking a post can mean many things, and it doesn't always mean unequivocal support. Liking several posts does, admittedly, get a little murkier. But my relationship with celebrities does not and can not account for their private beliefs. If a famous person is a bigot but they never mention it anywhere and there's no way for me to know what am I supposed to do? Sure, for some the absence of word or action against prejudice is bad enough (and this is a totally valid position to take) but I must refer you back to point 2. I'm simply not expecting explicit social justice from professional athletes. Am I positively jubilant when they do engage with it? Of course! But these are people so far removed from regular society. They spend every waking hour either hitting a ball or thinking about hitting a ball. I follow them to watch them hit said ball. (It also feels pertinent to mention that i only speak English and many of these players do not have english as a mother tongue. I can't expect perfect nuanced conversations this way).

So. Ben liked some transphobic posts. Could he be transphobic? Maybe. But also maybe not. Or maybe with a couple conversations he could learn to not be. I can't affect that. What I can do is find him funny and nice enough in videos, and talented at tennis. I can recognise that he is young, and deals with a lot of racism himself, which I'd hope would make him more sympathetic to people experiencing other kinds of prejudice. I can decide to continue to support him. Despite what I said in my last post about him, you do not have to.

TLDR my support for a tennis player is not unequivocal support for them as a person

[sockiestupidity]

Eating Habits-Miguel O'Hara x platonic!teen reader

sequel to my last fic???-am i fr going to make this a series👁️👁️

Miguel notices a change in your eating patterns😧

warnings-bad writing/grammar/dialogue, angst, bad eating patterns, possible ed???, ooc miguel???, implied abuse/neglect (reader has bad eating patterns bc of fam), might be triggering for some, dw they end up happy again i promise, the word mijo is used like once???

again implied nonverbal reader (nonverbal rep bc i said so🫡) making this up as i go tbh-reader may use aac or communication cards

autistic coded reader????

AGAIN, ENGLISH MAY BE MY FIRST LANGUAGE BUT THAT DOES NOT MEAN THAT IM GOOD AT IT(AGAIN, JUST MAKE THIS CLEAR, I AM INDEED A NO SABO KID🥴)

povs may possibly change at times-lowercase intented as usual🤩(possibly no use of y/n in this one🤷‍♂️) IM SO TEHE AB THIS MAN (AND SPOT BUT WE DONT TALK AB THAT) sorry for all the warnings, just wanna make sure yall know what to expect

over time, you and miguel had.. unexpectedly started to bond more and more, which surprised a lot of spiders. the two of you were both equally closed off, but even then miguel had interacted with more spider people than you had. since your arrival, miguel had been the only spider person you had interacted with due to your mistrust.

most of the spiders had decided to simply not acknowledge your new friendship with miguel..simply because miguel had scared them off for you.

with you and miguel forming a new bond, he started to notice something about you..

while you enjoyed all types of cooking and baking, you never really ate much. miguel had chosen not to acknowledge it because he thought you just had a smaller appetite than most spiders, and he also thought his judgement was just clouded due to the fact that he had to eat more than most spiders did.

maybe your portions just looked small because of his size? he glazed over the thought, but it didn't make much sense, he ignored until..

your eating habits became worse, he had now come to the realization when he decided to treat you to a hamburger and you only ate a couple of fries..days later he noticed that when you had cooked something for the rest of the spiders, you hadn't plated any food for yourself. he felt a heavy pang in his heart, he knew the signs, because he would often neglet his humger needs due to his work.

when he brought up his concern that you were not giving yourself food you simply pulled out your cards, flipping to a card that said "no" and another that said "hungry". (A/N-i refuse to believe that reader would have "not" on their card bc "no" is way more conventional so pls dont come at more for this)

miguel heavily sighed, if course he didn't believe you, he could see the fear and sadness in your eyes. when he saw that look, he knew he had to do something.

a couple days had passed and you had stopped cooking and baking all together. you were simply just sitting on a couch that was placed in the HQ living quarters for everyone to use when suddenly you saw a large figure in your peripheral vision. you instantly knew that it was miguel. (A/N: MANS LITERALLY WEARS HIS SUIT EVERYWHERE OK?😭)

once he was in front of you, you decided to look up to him, furrowing your eyebrows to indicate your confusion. he wore an expression that you still were not used to identifying.

sympathy.

he pinched the brige of his nose, this was going to be harder than he thought, "we have to talk, mijo".

you pulled out your phone, getting your acc app ready incase if you need to respond to whatever he was about to announce. trying to do so calmly, as to not make him worry.

you gave him a nod, as to let him know that you were listening. he moved in order to sit next to you on the couch, his weight making a significant shift on the cushions.

"i need you to look at me alright? you don't even have to give me eye contact" he didn't want to pressure you, because he knew how much stress eye contact gave you at times.

you looked in his direction and tilted your body towards him.

he took another deep breath in and out before saying, "i noticed that you've been.. eating less, i mean, eating less than you usually eat.." he trailed off, he had to think carefully about his next words.

as soon as he said this, you looked away with a pained expression on your face.

he touched your cheek, and you flinched at the movement. "hey, none of that alright? i just want to make sure that everything is fine, mijo. has there been something on your mind recently?" he removed his hand from your cheek, wanting you to be able to fully process everything.

you let out a sigh and clicked one of the words you had preset on your app. "family" the robot voice spoke.

miguel nodded, although he hadn't seen everything that had happened he knew that overall, it wasnt the best situation. there was a pause before the robot voice began to speak again.

"food. bad" miguel's heart broke, and his strong stature had softened. he wanted to hug you, but he wasn't sure if he was overstepping your boundaries.

he carefully thought over his words before speaking, "never let anyone ever tell you that good is bad for you, alright mijo? it gives you strength, and helps you live" he looked right at you, making sure you digested every word he had said. he could see you blinking tears away, but they just continued flowing.

abruptly, you began to hug him. miguel was caught by surprise at this, as you buried your head into his chest. he awkwardly patted you on the back.

"from now on, i'll help you out" he stated. he felt you nod your head in agreement, head still buried in his chest.

from then on miguel made sure to coach you during mealtimes, giving you praise when you started to eat normal portions. (a/n hes channeling his inner sport mom vibes🥰). with miguels help, you started to feel more comfortable treating yourself to small treats, and even eating infront of people without caring what they thought about you.

at this moment you realized that, miguel might be your true family.

A/N: CURRENTLY SOBBING DID NOT MEAN TO MAKE THIS SO SAD IM SO SORRY PEOPLE.

on a realer note:if reader is just like u fr id encourage you to please seek some form of help/support system💞its important that u take care of urself-there are multiple free resources that you can find online just with a simple google search

small explanation ab readers fam: due to neglect, reader was never given a lot of food, and the food they made would be for their fam. and their fam would often shame them when they were allowed to eat (again, if reader is just like u fr, pls seek some sort of help)

also if we could please refrain from using the comment section to trauma dump/nbr (i am not a professional, nor am iequipped to handle other's problems)

[rapha-reads]

I tried to resist the urge but at the end of the day ranting about Romeo and Juliet is my most favourite thing to do, and ranting about vampires is also in my top 10 regular hobbies, so...

Louis, Lestat, Armand and Balthasar, or, a R&J x IWTV unplanned rant.

Under the "read more" because it got long.

Balthasar is introduced in the play as "Romeo's man", often modernised in various adaptations as his valet or his page. The footnote in The Arden Shakespeare 2012 edition states that:

"Shakespeare introduced the name for the part in the play, though it is not, of course, his invention. The name, which is also found in Comedy Of Errors, Merchant of Venice and Much Ado, occurs only once in the text of R&J, even though the character speaks nearly 30 lines in the final act."

Three things from that only: it's a common enough name, at least in Shakespearian texts, that the character could be switched for another one; he's so inconsequential that he barely even managed to make his name known ; yet despite his apparent unimportance, his role at the end is extremely crucial in closing in the tragedy.

What lines does Balthasar speaks and whom does he speak to throughout the play?

Man waits until Act III scene 1 to make his entrance. Given his function as Romeo's man, you'd think he'd be a bit more present before that point, but no, Balthy waits until everything's gone bad to arrive like "Grandma, it's me".

Romeo asks him "How doth my Juliet? That I ask again, / For nothing can be ill if she is well." The beginning of his answer could lead you to think that he's about to lie so that Romeo can still be "all well", but, naaaah, sike, he's here to deliver news and he's going to do his job. And the way he does it doesn't leave any details to the imagination:

"Then she is well and nothing can be ill. Her body sleeps in Capel's monument, And her immortal soul part with angels lives. I saw her laid low in her kindred's vault, And presently took post to tell it to you. O, pardon me for bringing these ill news, Since you did leave it for my office, sir."

"Her immortal soul"... We'll come back to that point when we'll get to the vampires. Interesting to note that he says he saw with his own eyes Jules' laid down in the Capulet's tomb, but there's no indication in the text prior to that line that he really did. Some stage adaptations have Balthasar lurking around as Capulet and Cie put her in it, most movies totally ignore Balthasar's entire role - which I will come back to in the second part too. In a way, one could think that Balthy didn't see anything, he just heard the news like any other Veronese people, and didn't wait for more information or even actual confirmation and hurried on ("took post") to tell his master. Which, he does say it himself, that's his job, to keep Romeo informed of the going-ons of Verona in general and Juliet in particular. But, man, what are your sources, actually? Whose your informant? What authenticity does your information have, except from "source: myself"?

And then homeboy has the audacity to tell a desperate and ready to commit all kinds of violence Romeo to "have patience. / Your looks are pale and wild, and do import / Some misadventure." You think?? After this we lose track of Balthy while Romeo goes soliloquising looking for his cuppa poison. ... I don't want to tell you how to do your job, Balthy, but aren't you supposed to always follow your master closely...? How are you losing him so easily? Well, to be fair to him, Romeo does send him to "hire those horses", but that's a really thin excuse.

Balthasar reappears then in the Comedy of Situations that is "everybody and their mothers come visit Juliet's body" (you know, Warm Bodies did have a point; the zombies and necrophilia jokes do write themselves). First he enters with Romeo, and then for once shows some working brain cells when Romeo tells him to peace out and he tells himself "For all the same, I'll hide me hereabout. / His looks I fear, and his intents I doubt." Yes, thank you Balthy, maybe stay inside the crypt itself... Nope, okay, I don't know where he hid but Paris "14yo is perfectly acceptable to marry when I'm 30" Escalus makes his own appearance unbothered and unstopped. Great scouting skills there. Granted, he was the first on the scene actually, but if Balthy really hid close by, he should have witnessed the altercation and maaaaybe stop it. But no. I think he's having a drink with Paris' page. Current body count: 3 (yeah, Juliet's not dead yet, for those following).

Then Friar Laurence arrives on the scene. Oh, hello, Friar My-Ideas-Will-Definitely-Work-Trust-Me-Bro. Balthy emerges from the shadows (from where? Who knows, not me and certainly not Willie the Bard himself; homeboy was lurking, planning the best moment to reappear to create maximum chaos I guess). Their discussion goes something like this:

Laurie: who're you? Balthy: come on bro, you know me. Laurie: oh, hey Balth, so nice to see you? But what the heck are you doing here? Balthy: yeah I'm here with Romeo that fail emo lord lol. Laurie: Romeo? Whaaaat? How long has he been here? Balthy: eeh, 30 minutes? Maybe 45? Dunno but it's been a while. Laurie: Jesus fucking H Christ, okay, let's get into the fucking crypt. Balthy: no thanks, without me. I told Romeo I was leaving and if he sees me still here he's going to break my neck. Laurie: ugh, fine, you coward. I'll go alone and I'm not even afraid. Actually I lied I'm scared out of my mind but I'm better than you so nah! I'm going in. Balthy, walking away: oh yeah, another thing, I was napping, ahem, keeping watch, and I think I dreamed, I mean, hallucinated Romeo killing another dude. But I don't think that's real. Anyway, hasta la vista, losers! [Exit] (sadly not pursued by a bear)

I paraphrased, naturally. And... That's Balthasar's last lines. So to recap: he's supposedly Romeo's man, hence, by his job's function, supposed to always be with him and protect him; he only appears at the end of the story to make sure that no one else can get to Romeo first and maybe tell him about Laurence's plot. He always says he's going to keep an eye on Romeo, or tries to get him to stop, but actually never does anything. Literally, by his own admission, while he's supposed to make sure Romeo doesn't do anything drastic visiting Juliet's tomb, he took a nap: "As I did sleep under this yew tree here"! And the only two people he speaks to are Romeo, whose sole purpose at this point is to die, and Friar Laurence, whose role is to fake-kill Juliet, which leads to both of them dying.

Given all of those elements, one could then consider Balthasar's role in the play as an agent of Death. Death being a character in Her own right in the play, according to some readings (I admit, the idea of Death being the one pulling the strings as Fate would do is something I very much like but is very much inspired by the French musical).

So. Balthasar, agent of Death, purposefully or accidentally, but undeniably, leading the main character to his own death and carefully not stopping nor even interacting with characters who could stop the final act.

And that's who Louis-as-Lestat compares HIMSELF to. Yeah, Louis calls himself Balthasar, let that sink in. So, spoiler alert for those like me who haven't read the books, but Armand later on is going to lie and tell Louis that Lestat died in the fire that burned down the theatre, lie that Louis will totally believe and that will certainly influence the decades of his relationship with Armand. We know Louis is absolutely not over Lestat, we know Lestat is weak at this point, and wants to scare Louis but also get him back, and we know Armand is a lying liar who lies and twist the truth to better serves him. And we know Armand was jilted by Lestat and while he (genuinely?) loves Louis, he's also bitter that Louis got what he himself couldn't get. We also know that Louis is extremely conflicted by his vampiric nature, that he's a stone cold killer but he's also constantly trying to get away from it, that he hates himself and all vampires but also hates humans and all of humanity. We know Louis feels immense guilt at what he thinks is Lestat's murder, and that this guilt is weighing on him enought hat he conjures up a mental Lestat to follow him around and sass, bitch, moan, comment and critique for him.

So, why is it interesting that Dreamstat calls Louis a Balthasar?

Let's go back to two points already evoked earlier. Balthasar makes a point of mentioning Juliet's immortal soul - in the text, it's evident enough, they're Catholics, Heaven, Hell, bla bla bla. Transposed to the idea of vampires, it does lead one to question first if vampires have souls, secondly, what are the limits of immortality. It links to Louis' questioning of his faith, the morals that he fiercely defends but abandons rather quickly when they don't suit him anymore, and his survivor's guilt vis-à-vis his brother first and Lestat secondly.

The second thing is the way Balthasar is generally erased from the known Romeo and Juliet narrative. From an intradiegetic POV, Louis could mean it as "I'm Balthasar because this story is not my story, I barely even appear, only at the very end, and even then, I'm not important, and I certainly do not want to be the focus of attention" (which could also be linked to the coven complaining that Louis hunts sloppily and will expose them all, and that's actually a point in the Death's emissary column, huh). From an extradiegetic POV, the writers might have chosen to compare Louis to Balthasar because in most screen adaptations, the first part of his role is given to Benvolio (announcing Juliet's death) and the second part (talking with Laurie) is totally erased. Which means that people who haven't read the play (or have but aren't totally obsessed with it *cough cough*) and only know the story through the movies or the musical, would have NO idea who Balthasar is. And that's what Louis tries to be: a nobody, a Monsieur-Tout-Le-Monde, unimportant, invisible, unknown. The way Balthasar is for everybody. Quasi inexisting.

And the final part of the parallel, and that one is definitely extradiegetic, is that Louis brings Death wherever he goes (although maybe in a way, after Lestat and the woman vampire in Romania, Louis thinks that of himself too, but let's not go there just yet). His arrival in Paris is what disturbs the equilibrium of the coven, makes Armand questions what he's doing here and how long he can keep going like this, drives Claudia even more away from him, and intensifies the resentment and inner conflicts of the coven. Which will all lead to the theatre burning dow, the coven dying, Claudia dying, Lestat presumed dead and 70 years of toxic married Loumand. Unintentionally, the way Balthasar seemingly unintentionally too, doesn't protect Romeo, which leads to not only his and Juliet's but also Tybalt and Mercutio's deaths (and Paris too). Unintenionally, but who's pulling Balthasar's strings, Death, Fate itself? Who's pulling Louis' strings? Armand? Lestat? Or is he such an unreliable narrator that he's passing himself as a victim of circumstances while the reality is that he's fully aware of what he's doing...? To be determined.

If you've made it to here, thank you so much and don't hesitate to tell me what you think! You can find my Tybalt/Mercutio fic here, and my essay on adaptations of Tybalt and Mercutio on screen here.

[boyfridged]

this is perhaps completely obvious, but the comparison of pre-crisis vs post-crisis jason runs is such a poignant illustration of how the intentions of the writers make a world of difference.

pre-crisis jay was, ironically, at the beginning of his career much more of a thrill-seeker and much less serious about his motivations behind his desire to be a sidekick than post-crisis jay ever was. he was also much more reckless. he said, for instance, that studying crime was even worse than doing homework, and what interested him was going after "action." he didn't like the thought of not being credited for his actions. but he was still a character written with so much sympathy and enthusiasm – with so much open and continuous consideration for his youth, his past, his feelings. and the readers saw that! so many of them loved him! when you look at the back pages of these issues, issues in which jay often committed mistakes during patrols, in which he was at times petty and moody, you see with how much compassion they looked at him. there were letters that started with hate about the art or the storytelling, and ended with warm and attentive analyses of jay's character.

and the thing is, reactions to post-crisis might have been worse, but i don't think it was ever a matter of people disliking any iteration of jason todd from the start (even if some were certainly prejudiced as dick grayson fans. and as bigots); it's simply that post-crisis jay has never been written with a similar amount of care. o'neil saying that "people really hated jason" and that "he didn't know why" is absurd because (well, first of all, i don't think that he was ever that hated, and second of all) he was specifically written in a way that prevented a lot of casual readers to connect with him. pre-crisis, we see jay's perspective all the time, also beyond the patrols. he's much meaner than post-crisis jay a lot of times! for example, he tells julia (alfred's daughter), who is at the time staying at the manor, that he saw new flat listings, insinuating that she should move out because he is bothered by her presence. and that's rude. that's a reason why someone could think that he is a spoilt child (which imo pre-crisis jay actually very much is. i don't think it's a bad thing). but we also see him in his bed later, wondering "how could i have said something like that to her?" so naturally we see it from his side too.

on the contrary, when it comes to post-crisis jay, we have almost no insight into his head up until a death in the family. and of course, starlin admitted that he did want to make him unlikable; so suddenly everything jay does, including acting against orders, is written to make him seem like a difficult, unpleasant kid. but something you really have to understand is that the same attitude, when previously displayed by pre-crisis jay or even dick (!) was seen as endearing; a sign of bravery and an honest heart. in the first issues by collins, as well as barr's detective comics run, there's a semblance of recognition for that. beyond that, the whole narrative of his (very short) published history gets hostile. and starlin might not have written any of that outright, but you see that shift. all of a sudden a decision that would make you go "aww" if moench or barr wrote it, makes you displeased. i think one thing to take away from that is asking if it were depicted in the same tone if dick or tim did the same thing, for example. it's content that requires a much more critical attitude from the reader, that's for sure.

[just-sp-in-inginthevoid]

Hey!! So these days I’ve remembered a joke that was quite popular in the fandom about Shinichiro not being able to get a girl because Wakasa was always with him and they would choose Waka over Shin. I just wonder how much of this could be true, since we don’t have any info of Wakasa interest in this topic or if he know he is good-looking and uses it to his favor.

Idk it is nice to hear your thoughts about it.

Hi there!!

First of all, I love the idea that Shinichiro got rejected so many time because of a bunch of different reasons, one being that his flirting skills are so bad his awkwardness somehow surpasses his good looks (I'll argue that in-canon he was meant to embody any average Japanese man with no specific physical trait (despite having a mixed-race dad) but like, scratch that, Shinichiro is handsome. Perhaps not in an outstanding, eye-catching way, but he is very good looking.) and leads to girls basically running away because he's being overly head over heels for a first meeting, is being a tiny bit too hopelessly romantic than it's acceptable (and sounds desperate sometimes) or starts talking about bikes because he saw an opportunity to and he lovesss talking about them (and the only other conversation topic that comes easily to him is his siblings) so it can go on for hours - so they leave. Shame on them.

(Another reason is because he goes up to girls he saw from afar before confessing his love and they reject him because.. they don't know him - at most they know his face but he barely if ever spoke with them. He's a loser, I love him)

Secondly: Wakasa's part in all of this.

We already know Wakasa loves to mess with people, to troll them (it's in the guide book), and we also know that Wakasa - alongside Benkei - made fun of Shinichiro rather often (teen Wakasa and teen Benkei's sole two lines are really just this lol (chapter 230 and 269)). I'd find it hard to believe for Wakasa to not be aware of his attractiveness. I don't see him looking for a relationship, but he must know the impact he has on others - even only objectively speaking.

So honestly? I think he'd do it, yeah, just to laugh at Shinichiro (playfully of course, he has no ill intent). It also helps to sort girls who'd go to other (more attractive or not) men given the chance. Shinichiro would do bad with casual relationships, he wants to give all of his heart to the person he loves, he doesn't want one that can end. Wakasa rather have Shinichiro cry because 'it's unfair!! a girl was finally interested in me, why did you have to steal her heart?!!' than get his heart broken because he thought they had something only for her to leave once she found someone else.

(Alternatively, Shinichiro simply whining that if Wakasa wasn't there, he'd have a girlfriend by now because they wouldn't just all focus on Wakasa - whether he did anything for them to focus on him or not)

It robs Shinichiro from possible relationships, but it's more of a test from Wakasa than a mean joke. Because Shinichiro is his dear friend and he deserves the best. He gets hurt easily, and one of Wakasa's job - as a friend and as one of Black Dragon member - is to protect him to the best of his capacities. Physical and emotional wounds both

Also it's funny to see Shinichiro's reactions to it.

And it's not like he does something everytime - people look at him more than they look at Shinichiro whether he intends for it or not! He's not stopping it, though

I may have gotten too serious about a fandom joke, oopsies

[cleromancy]

saw a post that was like. "jason probably wouldn't have ACTUALLY killed the joker if the joker had killed Bruce and jason had lived" using willis and harvey as an example and while i can see where that's coming from i do not agree at all for a couple of reasons.

firstly. jason finds out about willis's probable death in batman 410, which opens only 6 months after moving in with bruce; the 2-issue felipe plotline directly precedes the first issue of the death in the family arc, during which canonically the incident with felipe leads directly to jason being benched and seeking out his bio mom. most peoples sense of personal morals develops drastically from ages ~13 to 15, and we have direct evidence of this happening for jason whether you believe he killed felipe himself or not (more on this in a bit).

but going back to the two face incident and Willis. jason's still calling bruce "mr. wayne" at the beginning of this issue (bruce actually tells him to call him bruce *directly* before jason finds the file), and after the training montage they actually start talking about harvey after jason asks about the giant penny:

so one of the first things jason learns about harvey is that his benefactor and mentor, in whose house he currently lives, cares about Harvey as a person and believes he doesn't necessarily have to be this way. i don't think this is the main factor in Jason's decisions wrt harvey in 411, but i want to make note that it *is* a factor, and revisit it down the line.

moreover, bruce is making the case that harvey does villainous things because he's unwell, not because he's just a bad or selfish person.

this got long! cut for length.

of course we know jason at first still *does* want to kill harvey (batman 411):

this is however depicted as a very robin buildup of emotion, rather than a decision he made with a clear head and the intent to follow through. theres no indication this was a decision Jason thought through or a certainty that harvey had to die--theres no indication he even considered it before he got there and was physically facing him.

after the mission:

the thing that breaks through Jason's defensive shell is the word 'trust,' and it's there that Jason explodes and explains--and expresses how hurt he was by *bruces* actions. by *bruces* perceived lack of trust.

and there's a resolution which i'll describe and elaborate in a little bit, but this is bruce's assessment following that:

(...also worth noting that in 410 alfred adminishes bruce for comparing jason too often to "the first robin". there's evidence here jason's already feeling pressure to live up to dick's example, those high standards, or at least the version of them bruce has told him about, which almost certainly wouldn't have included that dick at one point wanted zucco dead, himself.)

and I cant post the entire sequence without running out of images, but to recap, jasons on-panel emotional progression after finding out two face killed his dad goes from shock at the discovery, stewing and fuming without telling bruce what was wrong, the furious outburst above when he and batman run into harvey, the tough guy facade, then a tearful fight where he accuses Bruce of hiding willis's death from him bc he doesn't trust him. pausing here to get into more detail on that last:

a thing you often see in traumatized/abused people, particularly children, is a conviction that any transgression will lead to disproportionate consequences, a constant sense that the rug could be pulled out from under them at any time. an invisible line they could trip over and lose everything. given his age and the complexity of the situation, jason most likely conflated a jumble of feelings here without the maturity or emotional management skills to untangle them. the ones we specifically get to see are jason feeling betrayed by bruce, angry at both bruce and harvey, and insecurity over whether hes still good enough to be robin. however, i think its reasonable to assume two further things: one, that jason hadn't been entirely confident in his place at wayne manor up to this point, and two, that he'd conflated being robin with that security. pretty clearly when jason asks if he's a washed-up robin, he's worried his outburst meant he might not be good enough for it anymore, and extrapolating further from that, hes possibly worried he might lose that level of security, of usefulness, of connection. so hes got a lot of really big, really upsetting emotions rn.

then the resolution of that fight pictured above is bruce telling jason he was wrong to keep willis's death from him, explaining his intentions, and then what you see in the above panels where jason asks for, and receives, reassurance, followed by them making a new plan of how to proceed together.

so the other thing that changes jason's mind to my reading, though this is extrapolation, is bruce reaffirming the trust between them, reassuring Jason that he has *not* crossed the invisible line that would make bruce hate him or kick him out, and jason feeling secure enough to leave that mental space of recklessness, of feeling like he had nothing left to lose. and that would be proceeds which is jason following bruce's lead as his adult guardian, with a clear head:

so summing up my thoughts on jason and harvey. 1) he's insecure enough in his place with bruce, and young enough to defer to adult perspectives on morality over developing his own, that his decision was more about following bruce's lead than the beliefs he would develop as he aged, and 2) that even when the emotions did boil over it wasn't exclusively about willis, and the deciding factor was not, in fact, "doing it because he took me away from you."

(speaking of that last point, about "took me away from you," we do also know that Jason didnt *expect* Willis to be around consistently or there for him bc in post-crisis Jason's debut issue when bruce asks where his parents are jason says that he doesn't know where Willis is but says derisively that hes probably back in prison. the consistency and presence in jasons life is key here.)

OKAY!!!! ONTO FELIPE GARZONAS!!!!!

so time has passed and now jason's the age he will be when he's murdered, either 14 or 15 depending on the version of his death certificate you go by. (i, like most people, go by 15.) either way, he's now demonstrating the maturity to be developing his own sense of morality independent of Bruce's, which we see in batman 422, when bruce relays the story of judy koslosky killing the unrepentant serial rapist who murdered her sister, and who she had baited into choosing her as his next victim:

i put a particular emphasis on this because judy's perspective is one that jason goes on to paraphrase to talia in lost days: "I didn't *'murder'* him. you murder *people.* i... ...*put that reptile down.* don't *tell me* the world isn't better off." evidently her perspective stuck with him.

with that in mind, i now argue that it is irrelevant for the purposes of this post whether jason pushed felipe or "spooked him" and he slipped. either way, we have evidence that Jason believes that sometimes a person's death, and therefore causing that death, can be the just course of action. but what i actually want to talk about is that in the case of felipe, batman 424 is ALL ABOUT how Felipe can't be touched for the rape and battery of gloria stanson.

essentially, the law's hands are tied, so batman and robin try a different avenue. the garzonases have been smuggling drugs or whatever--war on drugs propaganda not important--so theyre trying to deport Felipe for that. jason points out, "that's *not much* of a punishment," and bruce replies, "I'm afraid it's the *best* we can do."

so for the moment, Jason is focused on punishment--just retribution for the pain felipes caused to whatever degree the law and batman can deliver. he's willing to settle for that, at least up until they book Felipe and he makes a point of making a phone call in front if them to harass gloria.

and, well, then they rush to gloria to offer protection and tell her felipe was on his way back out of the country, only to discover gloria hanged herself rather than experience felipe a second time.

this is the point at which robin gives batman the slip and follows felipe to his hotel room, where we the readers witness him talking wistfully about how he'll miss american cocaine and american women. (*cough*PROPAGANDA*cough*)

again, it's irrelevant for my purposes whether Jason pushed felipe or not. what is relevant, is that when jason saw that the man they were trying to send away from his victim used the opportunity to victimize her agajn, and she took her own life as a result, jason arrived on felipes balcony. whether he intended to kill him or not, jason weighed the life of one of felipes victims against, at minimum, the potential fallout of a diplomatic incident bc Jason showed up at *all.* remember, they persecuted him on a lesser crime bc the law, and batman, can't prosecute for the one that left a woman dead. this is jason acting outside of that agreement.

the other reason we needed to talk about Felipe was bc the issue following, batman 425, has some... poorly written fallout where starlin was *trying* to show that 3 more people died bc of Felipe's death but in practice looked more like bruces carelessness/incompetence lol. but it's relevant rn that bruce made a point of telling jason that actions like that can have unintended consequences that he'd bear responsibility for. so that's a factor in play too at this point.

so to my mind, there are three major factors to Jason's decision on whether or not to kill the man who killed bruce. 1) personal hurt; "because he took me away from you," 2) the relative morality of the killer (motives, circumstances, and Do They Deserve It?), and 3) whether or not the world would be better off (which would have worse consequences, to kill them, or to let them live?)

(post-resurrection jason is a different story because lost days explicitly shows us Jason choosing not to kill the joker because then it'd be *over*; he goes on to tell talia that the world would be better off, "but i don't really give a *crap* about the world." and while we can't take him completely at his word there, because he spent the entirety of lost days leading up to that *extremely* giving a crap about the world despite his best efforts, at this point jason has made the choice to prioritize his hurt over the greater good. so while lost days jason would be less concerned with things like potential fallout because he has no intention of fixing any of the messes he made, we'll assume that the alternate Jason would still be in hero mode, and would take responsibility for them upon himself.)

on the topic of if the world would be better off, i dont... really have any interest in arguing whether Jason would believe the world is better off without the joker. he *would* believe that, full stop. where bruce told jason back in 410 to think about the tragedy behind harvey doing the things that he does, the joker... simply does not have one. by utrh *at least* jason fully believes that the joker caused pain for pains sake and filled graveyards just to fill them. and they had yet to fully build the joker up by that point to the unrepentant, uncomplicated monster that he is today, so I won't apply that retroactively, but by then he had already shot and paralyzed barbara. furthermore even if jason didn't kill the joker for killing bruce at the tender age of 15, as the jokers crimes and body count escalated Jason would be repeatedly facing *this same decision* each time. so let's take it as read that Jason would at some point weigh the joker's death against the deaths of uncountable future victims, and choose the side of the victims.

but right now we're arguing whether or not jason would kill the joker *for killing bruce,* specifically. so to be clear what im focusing on for the moment is reasons he might talk himself out of it--so, moving on to the next part of that: diplomatic immunity?

one of the reasons post-jasons death bruce doesn't rain holy hell on the joker is-- okay let me just say this whole plotline is blatant propaganda against the middle east. but if you take the conditions the story lays out at their word, Iran made the joker their embassador to the UN so he has total diplomatic immunity to any crimes committed before or after being appointed to that post, meaning he couldn't even be prosecuted, and any unlawful pursuit despite this could cause an international incident. and SUPERMAN HIMSELF comes down to tell bruce this. for our alternate Jason, we already know he's willing to cause those consequences even if hes not necessarily prepared to face them.

so recapping, jason 1) believes that killing someone can be the right thing to do if it means the world is better off, 2) was not deterred by the possibility of a diplomatic incident when seeking justice for gloria, and 3) has no sympathy for the joker in particular. *eye* think thats enough evidence, but i actually do want to go back to Jason's personal hurt re bruce and how it is presented differently to willis.

all the way back at the beginning of this post i talked about Jason's feelings of betrayal, how the perceived lack of trust was what finally made him break and tell bruce everything. this is, to me, a big deal. by contrast, we have no evidence that jason ever had or expected any kind of trust from willis; he didn't know Willis's whereabouts and assumed he had wound up in prison again without feeling the need to tell jason or catherine. willis was not someone Jason had ever had consistently in his life, and losing him to two-face was not functionally different from losing him to the justice of the state.

i do not believe the fleeting rage or feelings that he had a right to know what happened to willis would be *at all* comparable to the tidal wave of emotion Jason would feel, at this point, at losing Bruce.

"because they took me away from you."