#i could explain but i'm bored

[batunatu]

I MADE A NEW ONE (⁠•⁠‿⁠•⁠)

template by @stervil

oops

[fingolfinwiththesteelchair]

It is a beautiful day, and you are a horrible research transport vessel. Things are progressing as normal (i.e. it's boring) when a SecUnit pings you, lies right to your metaphorical face, and then tries to bribe you with human media to give it a ride. This is as unexpected as it is unprecedented, and the sheer nerve of it is really to be admired. There's no protocol to this, so what should you do?

Now, this is against a bunch of rules, and could be dangerous if you weren't so impressive and incredible, and you're technically an employee (and can probably rewrite the Univeristy charter at will (until someone notices and puts it back)) so those rules are for other entities.

So, what you should do is allow the rogue SecUnit with a broken governor module and a sketchy story aboard. If you check the files it dumps and find zero (0) malware (which is confusing), and it doesn't even try to trash the place or lay in wait to ambush a crew member, then you've got a good candidate!

Next, what you're going to want to do is absolutely nothing. Just watch it patrol your halls until it's time to leave. Continue staring at it while you're undergoing embarkment procedures. Maybe analyze it a little (you've got plenty of processing power to spare) when it finally sits down and starts watching media. Allow it to settle in and get comfortable while you stare at it and get further and further from port.

Now that you two are alone (intimacy is key!) and you've determined that watching media is all the SecUnit is going to do, it's time to make contact! Make sure to open by telling it it's only survived due to dumb luck, and letting it know you could melt its brain into putty. This starter will work to develop conversation naturally and smoothly, just like you've seen the humans do, and it will be smooth sailing from there!

This has been Perihelion's guide to making friends/finding life partners/fuck off Holism I had to work hard for this find your own

[cementcornfield]

You should post your thoughts on Ja’Marr and Kyle!! I’m so interested in their dynamic if that makes sense 😅

lmao anon i love you thank you because i was literally just typing a post up by itself. but now i get the benefit of looking like i'm not the ONLY person to care about this. (there's at least two of us!!)

ok so! too much rambling about things that i could no way actually know anything about irl BUT 

kyle and ja’marr being together in paris is VERY interesting to me. their whole relationship is really because like. okay. i have joked that kyle and ja’marr are there to pick out joe’s wardrobe for next year together lmao but like!!! the clothes saga is SUCH a thing with ja’marr. the man has a Complex about joe and fashion and his part in it. we know this. i hardly need to go over the clothes saga with y’all again. but i will because it’s fun for me. ja’marr claims in GQ that he buys clothes for joe all the time and drops them off at 'the house’ for him. which is insane enough if that’s true. then a few days after that article drops (and also joe’s appendix explodes) he says nah never mind i was lying! (“kinda”). and that’s insane too. but whatever, we let it go, there’s football to play. then that offseason tee decides to cause some chaos i guess and confirms that actually ja’marr HAS bought joe clothes ‘multiple times’ so that’s. something!!! (along with TB in that one pivot podcast with all three of them teasing ja’marr about it!!) and then SOMEHOW none of this gets brought up again until a few months ago when ja’marr is just like “yeah actually i’ve been buying him clothes since last year” which is still a year later than he first said he bought him clothes 🤔

ALL OF WHICH TO SAY that ja’marr is fucking weird about this. he may or may not buy joe clothes (i’m still leaning yes on this), and he may or may not want people to know about it. i think he realizes just how intimate of a thing that is, to repeatedly buy someone you care about clothes that you think he would like, that you’d like to see him in. and i think if we go back to my Vision of insecure at times ja’marr, it’s one way to explain his back and forth on this.

but then!! insert kyle, who i believe only became joe’s stylist within the last year. before that i don’t think joe ever really had anyone Official to help him out with specific outfits/styles/branding etc (i’m sure the joe girlies will correct me if i'm wrong on this). and now i can only imagine that ja’marr might be feeling a little…possessive of joe here (what else is new lol ‘that’s my qb not their qb’ type shit). like if we believe he’s been buying him clothes since at least 2021, that’s like…that’s ja’marr’s Thing at this point?? even if it only started happening in 2023, that’s still a long time of "oh hey i saw this and thought of you and will you wear it and when you wear it will i feel a little thrill knowing that you took my advice knowing that you value my opinion knowing that the clothes touching your skin are only doing so because i bought them for you in the first place etc etc." and now here’s joe paying someone else to do it?? and who the fuck is kyle why him why does HE get to do it he didn’t even win a national championship with him in college???? (ja’marr obviously would be more rational than that. of course joe should pay someone to help him out with style as he does events and builds his brand more. but as a fellow Emotional Person myself, the rational response is never the first or strongest one.) 

so like! there’s that. that alone could make ja’marr not inclined to LOVE Kyle, ya know? and then if we want to get really Deep and dive into internalized homophobia of Male Athlete Culture. of my version (MY VERSION JUST MY VERSION THIS IS NOT ME SAYING ANYTHING IRL ABOUT HIM) of ja’marr and how he might cope with feelings and attractions that do not neatly fall in line with what is Expected of him and Has Been Expected of him since he was a kid. like fuck. do we remember how his dad said ja’marr used to like to read with his cousins (who were girls) but then his male friends came around and made fun of him for it, so he stopped reading altogether as a child?? thinking about that still makes my heart hurt! aughhh Gender!! and then even a few weeks ago on stream when ja’marr accidentally said that kyrie was sexy and IMMEDIATELY the chat and his friends jumped on him for it!! like yeah it was all lighthearted and all that but he got all embarrassed and even fucking apologized??? just the immediate policing of language/behavior followed by the immediate apology and moving on to no longer watching kyrie clips lol. crazy!!! Male Athlete Culture is SUCH a trip!! 

and kyle is gay! very much out and proud and not hiding or ashamed of any of it (fucking good for him tbh. i know he’s not Loved in this fandom but like that does genuinely take guts to be yourself like that in a culture like this. and make a career out of it! and he seems to be thriving!) and i just have to wonder like, how many queer people ja’marr really knows well?? the nfl has their corporate pride month bullshit where they celebrate the like 1 out gay assisant coach? 1 out gay FORMER player? if there are more queer people in the nfl, they are not very public about it. so again, how much daily interaction does a typical football player like ja’marr get with queer people?? i do imagine all the connections that are growing with the fashion world help of course! like kyle! who it’s clear he’s at least friendly with, if not the best of friends. and so like, i wonder about how that could stir complicated emotions in ja’marr if we go with my (AGAIN JUST MINE I’M NOT ACTUALLY SAYING ANYTHING IRL) version of him as a guy who has Feelings about male teammates sometimes and struggles with Dealing With That. 

and throw in the fact that ja’marr primarily knows him as this guy who’s always hanging around joe lol. taking over his role as joe’s personal stylist?? being free and open and ALLOWED to be attracted to all these guys, to joe himself!! (and if he thinks too hard about that he REALLY gets in his feelings). and it’s not jealousy really because he knows how important he himself is in joe’s life. kyle’s not replacing their history, he’s certainly not replacing his value to joe on the field, their close friendship, etc. but! he occupies a space in joe’s life that ja’marr can’t touch. he can publicly and proudly buy joe clothes. something that ja’marr WANTS but keeps shying away from. he can feel any feelings and any attraction he happens to have, he’s not hiding any part of who he is. if he thinks joe’s hot, if he thinks joe looks particularly attractive in an outfit he chose for him, he can! he will! he does! and i think that that just HAS to drive ja’marr a little fucking crazy.

so yeah. he likes the guy. they’re friendly. he’ll do a goofy lil dance when prompted by him for social media. but it’s Complicated. it’s Very Complicated. (to me.) 

[cluescorner]

Tim Drake has a weird fucking function

The thing about Tim that I find unique is that his life became SO MUCH WORSE after joining the heroing thing. Everybody else had a mid-to-shit life before becoming a hero/living with Bruce and mostly everybody (except Jason who LITERALLY DIED) had their life improved by being a hero/being Bruce's kid (or at least it is typically portrayed as such.

Tim had the exact opposite trajectory. His life wasn't perfect before he became Robin, but like...multi-millionaire/billionaire (canon is unclear, but he's within Gotham's upper-strata) kid with both natural intelligence + charisma and a bright future ahead of him and parents who were emotionally neglectful but nothing really beyond that (which is also a form of trauma, but all of the info we have indicates that the Drakes were no Arthur Brown or David Cain) and he still had other people he could rely on outside of them. He went to boarding school, which could be something horrible OR something amazing depending on your own thoughts/experiences. I grew up having a commute where we'd drive past a really pretty and rich af boarding school that literally everybody in our area DREAMED of going to, so to me the idea of going to boarding school sounds incredible but mileage may vary. Tim seems like the type of kid who would thrive in that though. Based on what we know in canon atm, his pre-robin life was fucking amazing.

And then he starts being the sidekick and working towards becoming Robin. His parents immediately get kidnapped and poison themselves through drinking tainted water; his mom dies and his dad is in a coma. This is not the fault of Robin, but Tim himself muses about the idea that Robin and dead parents are linked: to become Robin completely, you must lose your parents. And with how fate/destiny/canon events can operate in comics universes, maybe he isn't that far off. Once his dad wakes up, their relationship becomes strained as the man grieves the loss of his wife and realizes that his son has been doing vigilantism as a hobby. It is unclear exactly how good of a parent Jack was before the incident, but the results of Tim's involvement with the Robin mantle has definitely made things worse between father and son. Jack will also die within quick succession of 2 of Tim's best friends, his girlfriend, and his other father. He will also effectively lose like 1/2 his loved ones in the fallout of all of that mess including: his older brother, his other friends (both civilian and superhero), and the stepmother with whom he shared what I would argue is his best parent-child relationship (Dana also may have died, but it's left unclear). He has stopped pursuing higher education (the moment he even applied for college he 'died', and it seems he hasn't made another attempt since) and if he wasn’t a major focus of the media before he sure is now. He tries to quit briefly (in fact he initially was planning on quitting once someone more suited came along) and cannot bring himself to do so. Even when he does manage to get away for a while, his superhero life impacts the pre-robin life he is trying to go back to. Leaving is an impossibility, this is all there is for him now. He also isn’t allowed to make mistakes anymore, not when lives hang in the balance. The one who enforces that impossible standard the most (besides Bruce depending on who's writing) is himself. He’s got TRAUMA now and people want to hurt him constantly. He is constantly questioning his own sanity and morality and place in the world. He almost dies like every month. Tim grows colder and less grounded, he is becoming both a better and a worse version of himself at the same time. He’s saving lives in the same few issues as he’s setting up a Saw movie plot for the man who killed his father. He is haunted by the ghosts of his past and the looming figure of his future. His life becomes SO MUCH FUCKING WORSE after he becomes Robin. Some of it is the fault of others, some is the fault of circumstance, and some of it is due to his own actions. But basically all of Tim's worst traumas and life-changing moments are either tied to or caused by Robin. Dick's parents would still be dead, Jason would still be living on the streets, Stephanie would still have Arthur Brown for a father and a lot of other things that deserve their own posts/IDK if they've been retconned, and Damian would still have been raised in the eco-cult where death is a constant. Those are life circumstances that occur without the involvement of Robin, the only one who even needs Bruce involved at all in their series of events is Damian. But Tim? All of what is considered his 'worst' moments occur after he assumes the role.

This idea is what I find the coolest and most fascinating about Tim as a character. Being a hero is usually portrayed as either an outright awesome thing or a righteous duty that one must fulfill or (maybe in a grimmer and/or more grounded story) a sacrifice to your interpersonal relationships/mental health that is made for the greater good. For Tim, being a superhero actively ruined his life (both because of the general circumstances surrounding being a kid vigilante and the choices he made as part of that role). It's never portrayed that way in canon because we need to come out of issues going 'wow being a superhero is so cool! I'm gonna buy the next issue!', but when you just look at Tim's life literally everything really bad that we know of occurred after he became Robin.

[necrotic-nephilim]

Hey there, are you ok?

hey! thank you for checking up on me, this was really sweet!

i SWEAR i did not die. i just got a bit busy doing SladeRobin Week (which i will finish so help me god-) as well as things in my real life. i'm still trying to find the balance of like. fandom creation and working. i am very lucky to have the living situation that i do rn, but it is the sort of schedule where i do have to be ready to watch a baby at really any given point so. it's a tricky balance right now, but i'm going to be active here again! maybe not as many asks answered a day as before, but i want to try to answer like, a few a day and whatnot.

i also think i got briefly overwhelmed, in that i got more asks faster than i answered them. which is the opposite of a problem and something i'm very lucky for! but it did make it difficult for me to keep up and know what to answer next. (this is *not* a discouragement to sending asks! i love them all and pls send as many as you want! i just am a little slow sometimes so i appreciate the patience! <3)

so! i'm back and i'm good, ty for asking! we are back to the regularly scheduled programming <3

[disposal-blueeee]

halloween thing i drew for an art trade with @cherry-207 ! she asked for edgar and scri dressed as angel and devil . you can see her part here !

edgar vargas belongs to jhonen vasquez

scriabin belongs to @zarla-s

[fluffycloudhead]

I think the one of the biggest and funniest plot twist Daima can pull is turning Gomah into an actual threat. Like. Him being the actual baddie. So far it looks like it's gonna be Arinsu. Gomah looks like a joke compared to her and the Majins (who I really adore). We did not see anything of what he might be capable of.

[imwritesometimes]

did I just make 2 dozen cookies tonight to put a dent in my Holliday baking? I did. Am I contemplating doing another 2 dozen to do future me a huge favor? I am.

[keeps-ache]

been telling my siblings 'you would NOT make it in vulcan academy' when they do smth goofy recently and nobody's been able to refute lol

[lynaferns]

School is draining any small motivation I had for art

or creativity in general

(tw: I got pretty much depressive in the tags but I needed to dump this somewhere and this may not be the best place but is where I feel better talking about my problems or insecurities, so feel free to ignore)

[peaceblank]

The med school primary application asking if my work and activities are meaningful, like by simply going out of my way to do anything doesn’t have some kind of impact on my life.

[mimi-cee-genshin]

how would you describe your writing style? what do you like about it? — @milkstore

LOL. You know I've been seeing this question around and wondered how I would answer it. But you actually asked me. 😂

I'm having a hard time thinking about this because I've been thinking about how I want to improve. Like... I think the things I think I'm good at isn't really a style? Maybe? Like plotting and character building isn't really a writing style? Idk lol.

I'd say my writing is concise and not a lot of fluff. Like if I'm skimming paragraphs in my own story while rereading, I edit it out. And I like my flow and pacing (unless I get lazy and get tired of editting lol)

I also think I've gotten better seamlessly weaving a character's backstory throughout a fic. Apparently one author's advice is to figure out the backstory, put in a drawer, then don't look at it again. lol. I don't go to that extreme but I understood the idea behind it. And I feel like how I structure my fics is influenced by Korean dramas and webtoons lollll. At least for the longer ones. Like giving hints to a character's backstory and then revealing the full picture just before the climax of the story lol. Also having fluff at the beginning of the story before getting to the angst.

[moinsbienquekaworu]

i am about to sleep but i wanted to ask what your favorite poem is? will you tell me about it? what you love and why it’s your favorite? do you like any of its translations? i love you. i hope you have a good day 🥰

(⁠〒⁠﹏⁠〒⁠) beloved thank you for the question!!! As per usual I am incapable of choosing just one of a thing, so I actually have two favourite poems, one in french and one in english (because poetry in french and in english can be pretty different since the codes and models and expectations aren't always the same!) They're the two poems I can recite and know by heart haha.

The english one is Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, by Robert Frost. I really like the last stanza (like everyone else) but also just the way when you say it out loud it does feel like a quiet moment watching the snow fall all on your own. I found it recently accompanying a fic (two different fics actually but the second time I knew it) and it entranced me!

The french one is Chanson d'Automne by Paul Verlaine. It's a classic in France, some of its lines were used as a signal for saboteurs during WWII and there's an urban legend it was used to signal the landing in Normandy. I personally had to learn it by heart in primary school (I think in 4th grade?) and it just stuck with me. I like it for the way it feels to me and the images it evokes, but also just because it was the first poem I learnt by heart and being able to recite a poem is an easily overlooked comfort of life (insert those posts and quotes about art being vital and what we need to be able to turn to in dark or light times)

Other poems I like include Remords Posthume and L'Albatros by Baudelaire, Le Dormeur du Val by Rimbaud, Le Déserteur and Je Voudrais Pas Crever by Boris Vian, Funeral Blues by W. H. Auden, and Mad Girl's Love Song by Sylvia Plath. The french ones I studied in school, and I found the english ones on my own (I feel like I found both in Johnlock fics?? but I might be wrong about Funeral Blues, it's been years) I included english translations where I could for the french ones, and they're not necessarily incredible but they should let you get the vibe. If one of them speaks to you I can try to explain what makes it tick! My personal anecdotes with those because that's half the fun: we had to analyse Remords Posthume for literature class with my best friend K, and what's really cool about it is the last line, "et le ver rongera ta peau comme un remords", because it plays on the homonymy between ver, the worm, and vers, the line of poetry, meaning she will be devoured physically by worms since she'll be dead but also that his verses, his poem, will make her feel remorse; I like the albatross analogy because I was a weird kid who felt comfortable with books but not with my peers; Le Dormeur du Val is extremely extremely sad and beautiful and I think Rimbaud was a very interesting guy; technically Le Déserteur is a song and not a poem but I first saw the text without knowing that so for me it's a poem forever now, and I love talking about the original versus final ending thing; the YouTube channel Le Mock did an excellent reading of Je Voudrais Pas Crever and it's a jewel, I love it so so much; Funeral Blues was the first english poem I ever liked (or maybe read honestly) and I wrote it on the cover of my 10th grade english notebook (because the teacher was great and said that if we forgot to do our homework he wouldn't punish us if we could recite a poem for him, so I wrote it down and tried to learn if by heart in case I forgot my homework); and Mad Girl's Love Song features in a fic I read a few weeks ago and I just think it's neat. I probably forgot some but those are the ones I remember right now (edit: ADA LIMÓN!! I FORGOT ADA LIMÓN!!! Accident Report in the Tall, Tall Weeds (the I can't help it, I love the way men love poem) hit me in the chest the first time I read it and it's so so good)

My favourites (and most of the poems I like actually) are pretty popular because I'm not really into poetry that much on my own. I get attached to poems once I see how they work inside and analyse them, but I don't sit down and decide to analyse some poem from Les Fleurs du Mal at random because it feels like homework, and I don't go looking for poetry because I'm very hit or miss (I get bored at long winded descriptions in those 4-part 7-pages poems and a lot of things trip up my instinctual Pretentiousness Radar™, and while it's not necessarily accurate it does turn me off poems). So I just stay with the basics, but that's fine, because the comfort of carrying poems with you is there whatever the poem is y'know?

Also question, do americans learn poetry in school? I assume you must analyse some in literature class, but I don't know if you learn poems when you're young. I know we also do lots of La Fontaine's Fables, though I personally never did, but learning poems to recite in primary school is a thing almost everyone has done here I think.

[chuwush]

Funfact English is my first language I'm just awful at spelling.

Hell I've been in speech therapy due to poor pronunciation despite my extensive vocabulary which I hardly use.

[kelila]

struggling because I keep thinking about the ways I would write the first several chapters of hand of fate better than I did (and this is because ive become a better writer by writing what I've already written so its a good thing mostly)

but I don't really want to get bogged down with rewrite after rewrite because I've already been working on it for years and don't want it to take even more forever than it has. plus I've already posted to ao3 and have a few people following it so I want to get it out to them

problem is now its hard to look at my current work and keep pushing on. Most of what I would be rewriting or adding would be to for building characterization. And I feel like if I do write a few of the scenes rattling around in the vacuous space where most other people have a brain it would help me get a better handle on said characterization so I could apply that to the subsequent chapters I'm currently working on. So I might write a few of the scenes to get them out and clear up space.

i do worry though that if I do that I will end up hyperfocused on the new chapters and rewrite anyway and be unable to write anything else.

(To be fair that's already what's happening. Im concerned indulging the hyperfocus just a little is not a thing I can do and if I dip my toe in it will pull me all the way in anyway)

and that leads to the kind of executive choice paralysis where I end up doing nothing instead.

[beanthebugboi]

Canon/Headcanon likelihood chart

So I've been thinking about @macdenlover 's "levels of headcanon" chart (about how heavily a HC is influenced by canon), so I decided to make my own scale about how likely a HC is to be true (including different levels of canon) using queer cartoon characters as examples :)

I just spent an hour making this because I was bored. Enjoy. Image description under the cut.

Inspiration:

ID courtesy of @hatreds-og-imagedescriptions (thank you!!)

[ID: a chart going from 10 to 1, with explanations of the ratings on the left and images of characters with queer flags and descriptions of said characters on the right.

10: "Explicit canon. Clearly stated in the original media." Trans Barney from Dead end Paranormal Park. "Barney says "I'm transgender"".

9: "Implicit canon. Never explicitly stated, but 100% canon in the original media". Nonbinary Raine from The Owl House. "Raine never says "I'm nonbinary," but uses they/them and is never referred to as a man/woman (also, confirmed by Dana)".

8: "Creator confirmation. Never stated in the original media, but confirmed canon by the media's creator". Aroace Lilith from The Owl House. "While never mentioned/implied in TOH, Dana has confirmed that Lilith is aroace".

7: "Heavily implied. Never confirmed, but likely true (either by canon evidence or creator implication)". Genderfluid Nimona from Nimona. ""Aaand now you're a boy" "I am today" (anyway, the whole movie has trans/GNC themes)".

6: "Possibly implied. Hinted at in the original media, but could be explained as something else". Trans Doofenschmirtz from Phineas and Ferb. "Doof COULD be transmasc, or the whole "raised as a girl" thing could just be for the bit".

5: "Fanon. Never confirmed, but generally accepted by the fandom". Aromantic Alastor from Hazbin Hotel. "While only confirmed to be ace, most of the fandom also sees Alastor as aromantic".

4: "HC with evidence. Headcanons supported by a dedicated fan's detective work". Bisexual Mabel from Gravity Falls. "People have noticed bi flag stickers hidden on Mabel's scrapbooks".

3: "Canon neutrality. Could be true, could be false, but overall makes sense and doesn't contradict the original media". Genderqueer Pleakley from Lilo and Stitch. "Maybe Pleakley is genderqueer, maybe he just wanted to crossdress for the mission, who knows? That's why it's a headcanon."

2: "I made it the fuck up. Based on vibes, has absolutely nothing to do with canon". Bisexual Megamind from Megamind. "No evidence, no explanation, he just has Disaster Bi™ vibes".

1: "Um? No? But go off. Directly contradicts canon (but who cares, that's why it's fun)". Trans Stanley Pines from Gravity Falls. "Even though flashback scenes prove Stan is AMAB, some people HC him as transmasc." End of ID.]