#i don't know why i think constantine should specifically have the power

[unpretty]

Honestly, if I was a wizard or something, I would have a magic screen to scroll tumblr with and tell people I don't have a phone

it's probably funniest if he's just straight up blatantly lying but i think it's also funny if constantine has somehow installed tiktok on an ipod touch he stole from someone who forgot they still had it in the back of a drawer somewhere

[lwh-writing]

Batman: Why didn't you think of this possibility before? Maybe, I don't know, one of the original dozens of times someone called for help?

Constantine: Look, mate, I kept getting calls about beings called "ghosts" doing things that ghosts can't fucking do. And the computers said they were all coming from the same area, so I figured it was just some punk teenager who wanted to stir up trouble and get a superhero's autograph. I didn't expect it to be fucking Realms beings!

Batman: The calls were made from various different phone numbers of people with various different backgrounds. You had everyone from young children to retired grannies desperately calling us for help, and your best argument for this blatant neglect was that you thought it was a prank?! Did it even occur to you that it could have been something else? That it could've been these Realms beings you're talking about now, or even just a new villain claiming to be a ghost to cover their tracks?

Constantine: You specifically designed the call system to obscure the number of the caller but not the location so that a caller can stay anonymous but we can still track a call if we need to. "Punk teenager with friends and/or is good at mimicking voices" was more believable in my mind than "dozens of Realms beings trying to take over a small city in the American Midwest". And besides, it'd be impossible for so many Realms beings to pop up like that. That can only happen if there's a natural portal to the Infinite Realms in the first place. And yeah, the veil is thinner in Amity Park than it is in most places on Earth, but it's not thin enough for that. Otherwise, this problem would've popped up way sooner.

Batman: 'Natural portal'. That implies the theoretical possibility of an artificial portal.

Constantine: Maybe. But anyone smart enough to make one should also be smart enough to realize that doing that would be a bad fucking idea. You'd have to be a special kind of crazy to go through with it, let alone use it enough to cause this.

Batman: *checks phone*

Batman: According to Oracle's most basic investigation, it looks like Dr. and Dr. Fenton are just that brand of crazy. Oh, and it seems I'm getting a text from Red Robin. Hm. Constantine, what are the ramifications of a corrupt government agency trying to send a nuclear missile into the Infinite Realms? Because according to our victim from Amity Park, that's exactly what this Ghost Investigation Ward has attempted to do.

Constantine: *starts sweating*

Batman: It seems multiple very powerful 'ghosts' have attacked Amity Park but were luckily repelled by the city's ghostly protector. Some names include an 'Overgrowth', a 'Vortex', and a 'Nocturn'. Do those names mean anything?

Constantine: *sweats even harder*

Batman: Another text. It also appears that at one point a Pariah Dark pulled the entirety of Amity Park into the Infinite Realms, and that the only reason the city returned to this plane of existence was because the city's ghostly protector defeated him in single combat. Would that change how we approach this situation?

Constantine: .....

Batman: .....

Constantine: *softly, but with deep feeling* ....fuck.

With the GIW hot on his heels, Danny decides the best course of action is to take to the water. Only one problem, he's fresh out of money. Guess it's time to resort to theft. He finds a nice little house boat that doesn't look like anyone's currently living in it and sets to work untethering it. Only to be immediately caught by the presumed owner.

"I was gonna give it back!" He blurted. "....Eventually."

Tim Drake was having such a long night that for once, all he wanted to do was sleep. Unfortunately for him, life has other plans as he gets back just in time to see a boy trying to steal his boat.

[venus-of-the-hrdsell]

1, 4, and 39 for the salt asks?👀🍿

Omg thank u for the asks 💗 Okay so buckle up because I'm channeling my inner hater right now.

1. How has DC/Marvel/publishing company wronged you, specifically?

Okay, first spot: closing Vertigo. Black Label doesn't have the range this imprint used to have in regards to their books, the content, the topics. You can't tell Black Label belongs to DC because of the 10 batbooks it has, but Vertigo? People would be surprised to find out they were part of DC. Second, choosing certain writers to write Constantine on his Vertigo comic (Azzarello and Milligan should burn in hell, for all I know, Ennis is on thin ice. Never ever let white edgy men touch Constantine again, it's a crime against me specifically).

Third place could be choosing Scott Lobdell to butcher Jason Todd's character in New52, giving him zero significant development and therefore causing hundreds of Batfam Stans building up a new canon on Tumblr.

Fourth? Pushing the "happy batfamily" as a concept drawn from the depths of this website into the comics. I want to see being dysfunctional again, it's so boring to read those comics nowadays. I don't even touch them anymore. Giving Tumblr stans power has been the worst thing DC has ever done.

Okay I swear I'm done now but I could be giving a full list!

4. Worst decision for [x]’s “new direction”?

I've also got a few options here

-Making Zatanna a full time superhero ever since JLD. The appeal of her character is that she has different facets of her life (including the celebrity part) and I think the team book milks too much on the tragedy on her life. We've seen writers use the "dead father Zatara" card EVERY TIME as if we haven't seen that plot for each major story Zatanna has ever had.

- New52 Constantine...do I need to say more? What's with DC oversimplifying a three dimensional character into a simple irredeemable asshole who happens to be an edgy/sarcastic Doctor Strange? Like, DC strips him out from his humanity, from how political his comics used to be and to make him the go-to- main magic user on DC, when Zatanna is right there! He works better on his own, not on Cape shit team books

- Whatever the hell was Grant Morrison's Talia Al Ghul.

- Making Elektra Daredevil. I know that for plot reasons it was a natural progression, but to want her to stay as that for her status quo? She should stay as an Assassin, that's her character. And I say this as someone who loved the new suit.

- I should shut up about him already but making Jason Todd not to kill and to drop the guns forever ...man, the editorial has turned him into "red Nightwing" at this point.

- Why do they keep wanting to shiver Harley Quinn as part of the bat flock? 😭

39. Which character do you get the most defensive of?

... Constantine, yeah 😭 Danny Ketch, Emma Frost, Elektra and Matt Murdock as well, actually.

I would say Zatanna as well but don't let anyone hear it because some of her fans freak me out. 🥴🥴 I want her to be free.

Thank you for the ask! I feel like I've perhaps overexplained myself.

[hws-cernunnos]

Following an advice given by my friend @flamaflavio I've decided to dedicate a series of posts on Northern Italy(because there's a serious lack of them in the fandom:(),whether they might be about culture,history,folklore,stereotypes(could be an interesting addition to characterization)or misconceptions*? Maybe even cuisine ahah

In this post I'll expain what we intend for North Italy, why it doesn't line up perfectly with canon and most importantly why Feli gets called "Italy" way more often than Mano.

Let's start by stating that in our country by North Italy we mean the regions of: Aosta Valley (Valle d'Aosta), Emilia-Romagna, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Liguria(the region your girl's from), Lombardy(Lombardia), Piedmont (Piemonte), Veneto and Trentino Alto-Adige.

So you might ask me, why is it that in Hetalia Chibitalia has been shown as Florence as well??? Is it a mistake made by Hima?? Yes.. But actually no ahah! In this post I'll cover how we came to such a perception of the North in our country and why Tuscany and the rest of Central Italy, isn't included in it and doesn't consider themselves part of it :D

I won't talk about all history until nowadays of course (I'll definitely make future historical posts) I'll simply give you basic information based on early history to have an understanding of how us italians divide our country and why in canon other nations refer to Feliciano as Italy more commonly than they do with Romano(it is indeed based in history, it's not mean spirited!!).

So during the centuries prior to romanization North Italy was inhabited by a different bunch of cultures, among them the long haired Ligures(whose origin is unsure,Celtic?? Or simply celtified by their neighbors uhmm?? Talking about them in detail would take a whole ass post) the Veneti who were known for their commerce of amber and horse breeding, the Etruscans who, coming from Tuscany, colonised parts of the North and founded cities such as Bologna and in a later period a swarm of Gaulish tribes(generally referred to as the Celts).

The latter(most likely the Insubres) founded Milan in 590 BC, naming it Medhelan(the place in the middle of the plain, or among rivers) or Mediolanum as the Roman would call it later(Meśiolano as a Celtic engraving informs us) keep Milan in mind we'll come back to her later. Their domain extended from the Alps to the Adriatic sea.

This would be stopped by roman conquest that would culminate in 194 BC in the foundation of a province under the name of Gallia Cisalpina**,Cisalpine Gaul, id est Gaul on the hither side of the Alps(from the Romans point of view) that pretty much contained the regions which nowadays we consider North Italy.

The area became one of the most influential and rich provinces in the empire and it's strategic role is emphasized by the fact that in 286 the capital of the Western Roman Empire is moved from Rome to,guess where, Milan the main city in Gallia Cisalpina(and later on in Ravenna from 402 to the fall).

Is this why Grandpa is shown to leave poor Romano behind in canon in favour of his little brother??? Most likely!!! Btw if you're interested in the subject you should totally check out jjblue's Italia Annonaria (baby Feli) and Italia Suburbicaria (baby Mano) profiles on DA.

It's really unfair that the other characters call only Feliciano Italy:/ It's actually not true, as my friend flama has talked about in one her posts both Germany and America have called him Italy in the past. The fact that this behavior hurts Romano is long lasting misunderstanding in the fandom: he really doesn't care.

What annoys him it's that he's often referred to as "Italy's older brother" but not because he's Italy as well, but because that takes away his individuality: he's peeved by the fact he's only considered in relation to his brother, he's Romano besides being Feliciano's older brother ahah.

If his identity as Italy truly mattered to him he would have some kind of reaction out of being called Italy, especially by someone he has a bad relationship with like Germany, but he was left completely indifferent by that. I've often seen fanfictions where he's moved to tears by such action by it actually seems like he doesn't mind. He just wants people to understand he has a persona outside being Feli's big brother ahah.

There's actually a reason why Feli is "Italy" and it has been actually brought up recently in the fandom. Let's go back to history ahah.

A germanic general named Odoacer overthrew the last Roman Emperor, whose name for some reason I always found funnee, Romulus Augustulus.

Now the Eastern Roman Empire was having none of that and decided to invite Theodoric the Great of the Ostrogoths to rule over Italy under their approval(btw if you'll ever visit Ravenna do check out Sant'Apollinare Nuovo and Theodoric's Mausoleum). Ostrogothic rule was short lived (lasted pretty much Theodoric's reign) but greatly improved the economy and the arts. . . Too good to be true of course, because Justinian I(Eastern Roman emperor)decided he wanted to revive the glory ™ of the empire and this brings us to Gothic Wars.

Italy, especially the North, was left devastated by them, as they brought death(duh),poverty and were accompanied by a good dose of famine and plague. Byzantine rule wouldn't last long as a Germanic tribe***, the Lombards, took advantage of their weakness and took over italy and gave birth to a reign, which had Pavia as capital.

Said reign was called Langobardia, in particular North and Central Italy were named Langobardia Maior(The great Langobardia), which is the name under which North italy would be known as for a good part of the middle age and that gives the name to the modern region Milan and Pavia are located, Lombardia/Lombardy.

For example Boccaccio in his Decameron(in particular in the first novella) uses Lombards when referring to Italian merchants because that's the name they were given even if most of them came from Piedmont and Tuscany.

Lombard language and culture slowly was assimilated into the previous one and that can be seen in names, words and laws created in that period. This came to an end in 774 when Charles the Great, king of the Franks(and future Holy Roman Emperor), conquered Pavia and annexed the Lombard kingdom... Under the name of Kingdom of Italy!

So in other words the reason why our boy is the one who's called Italy the most is because he's simply been "Italy" for longer or more specifically for more than once(as I explain in the notes:)!!). Mano on the other hand would have most likely known as Kingdom of Sicily, Kingdom of Naples or Kingdom of the two Sicilies :). And I'm very much sure he would have been proud of such identity.

But what about central Italy??? You see the Papal States forged a document the Donation of Constantine, according to which Emperor Constantine assured Pope Silvester I(in 321) and his successors the exclusive domain over the city of Rome(btw Rome isn't part of southern Italy!!the fact South Italy is called Romano is really weird and so is North Italy as Veneziano ngl). This gave the Church access to "temporal power",id est material power and with it came territorial power. And so little by little (with the exception of Tuscany that flourished on it's own) it ate up the whole of Central Italy, which would develop a linguistic group, a culture and history of its own.

And that's pretty much what you need to know to understand Hetalia's confusing lore ahah. It's not everything I could go on explaining the era of the Commons and the Renaissance and go all through medieval and modern history to make you fully grasp it but I think it's enough for today:D let me know if you want me to talk about the subjects I mentioned in detail and if you want me to go on. Read the notes :)!!!

*I've often seen Feli wearing tarantella clothes, because it's probably assumed as the italian™ traditional dance and the music is misused in videos about Italy(all of Italy!!)when it's really characteristic of the South:)! Would be nice to see more fan arts of Mano in those garments lol really nice

**Napoleon would found in the 18th century the Cisalpine Republic in North Italy, a sister republic of France, that would later become known as the Italian Republic and then the (napoleonic!!!)Kingdom of Italy:) not to be confused with the Kingdom of Italy that would be born on the 17th of March 1861,ring a bell ahah???Read Hetalia's Risorgimento strips if you want to know about that:)))Milan djdbdb was once again the capital of all these.

***considering Romano is stated to have Arabic blood which is definitely brought by the moorish occupation, I'd assume Feli's Germanic one has to do with daddy Lombards. The longobards ruled over the South as well so ehhh, but hey it's Hima we're talking about. Genetics work in a weird way in hetalia, they're like acquired??? Hima explains that Canada, America and Seychelles don't have England's bushy eyebrows because of France's influence. Wtf. Oh btw if you might be interested in the Lombards' origin in Historia Langobardorum Paulus Diaconus informs us they came from Scania(a region in Sweden) and the settled in "Scoringa".

[tibby]

i want the trr meta though i used to be obsessed w that game in 2019 until trf pissed me off and i quit (should i go back and finish the series btw?)

okay here is a little rant that's been bothering me for awhile and it's not really meta but if you want specific thoughts on things i can give you those too <3 also i personally was very disappointed with trf and don't consider it in my personal canon and it's hands down the weakest book in the series, so i guess it comes down to if you care enough to see everything wrapped up nicely. happy to go into more detail about why i didn't like it if you so desire but the only win we really got from it was canon bisexual olivia.

anyway!

so i'm in the middle of replaying trr3 and i am so overwhelmed by how much kiara’s actions contradict everything she ends up saying and doing in trh3, and it just proves that they created her trh 3 issues just to create conflict without...actually considering how they work within the narrative.

like the whole point in trr3 is that kiara is understandably scared of being back at court after getting stabbed, and it's something that becomes even harder for her when the bombing occurs on her first night back at court. but she considers getting help for her ptsd after talking with mc and drake, and eventually agrees to stay. it's made very clear that this is because she feels safe with the cordonian crew, and thinks that mc's ability to bring people together is admirable and something she wants to be part of. if you marry hana, she's part of the wedding party and everything.

and then they just don’t really mention her trauma again for two books and suddenly it’s like “actually idk if you’re very diplomatic but maybe if you judged this flower festival :/” like...WHAT? the fact mc has successfully helped to lead a country and thwart numerous attacks for two years suddenly isn't enough? suddenly she's putting all her faith in a guy who was comatose for twenty years (obviously she has no idea at this point that barthelemy faked it, but he's still hardly the best candidate. kiara's a diplomat! she's friends with all of them! she's seen them in action! it's just such a stupid fucking story decision and makes no sense for who kiara is. cordonia was never attacked because of mc and liam, and taking them out of the equation to give power to one of constantine's closest friends (who, you know, was there when constantine made all his awful decisions) is just...so incredibly dumb and so not kiara.

it's made even more frustrating by the fact she’s the only one you can’t forgive. mc either doesn’t get over it or basically tells kiara to work for it. and even as poorly written as her reasoning for voting against mc was, it was still way more justifiable than house ebrim being fucking pussies. and that's not even taking into account how you’re guilted into forgiving penelope for the tariq fiasco when she had NO idea what could have happened - she just knew she was allowing a man to sneak into mc's room without her knowledge. how is that forgivable but kiara being kind of bitchy in the first two books and traumatised later on isn't?

also i love olivia and madeleine but they treated mc far worse than kiara ever did and it's weird that they get more free passes than her. i know that by trh3 that olivia is a trusted ally and mc is basically her best friend, but you have the option to forgive her pretty quickly in trr2 when she spent the entire social season antagonising mc, hana, and drake. and sure it's foreplay with drake but come on now.

and then with madeleine it’s like...in her own way she was trying to be a better person as early as trr3 and did show that she cared about mc from trh1 onwards. but her treatment of hana was absolutely horrible and inexcusable and i can understand why mc and the gang would hold a grudge against her for that, and why it could impact the way people treat her in trh2/trh3 when she's in her fragile mental state. BUT INSTEAD it seems like the cordonian crew's issues with her are based in things that weren’t actually her fault. like her engagement to prince bc of mc being slutshamed (madeleine even defended mc over the way the press behaved) or her father being a murderer when the whole thing clearly fucked her up, and she helped with his arrest. like if you choose to be mean to her in trh2/trh3 it’s not even “you were cruel to my wife/best friend and i have no desire to be friendly with you” it’s “haha ugly loser you’ll amount to nothing because your dad fucking sucked” which just feels incredibly fucking bizarre. madeleine doesn’t deserve forgiveness (which she does acknowledge at the end of trr3) for certain things she did but for some reason the book is like. Actually hating her is okay...but ONLY if it’s because of things she played no role in and was deeply hurt by :) and it kind of gets to the point where if madeleine betrays them, then honestly...i don't blame her.

tl;dr: it's just gross and transparent that olivia and penelope and madeleine are granted the option of forgiveness and kindness but kiara isn’t, and any issues that the mc has with the noble ladies are never really with the actual bad things they've done.

[simonjadis]

I've always felt divided on shaming others for shipping "problematic ships." Don't get me wrong. I get the icky implications of Reylo but at the same time, well, I don't want to be that "No Fun Allowed" guy to teens and young adults who are just chilling. Sure, plenty of those shippers can be problematic (see how Finn is villainized unlike Kylo) but they don't speak for everyone.

That is super fair!

To be honest, I don’t really see Reylo as falling under the major “problematic” umbrellas. Imo, most Reylo shippers are thirsting after one or both parties, which is fine. My Star Wars OTP is Sheev/Vader. I don’t ship Reylo but it’s not a NOTP for me by any means. (I find Kylo and Snek disappointing as characters and as the only Dark Side representation in the series, but Kylo has nice hair and nicer tatas)

I remember seeing arguments after TFA came out where people equated Kylo’s (attempted!) mind-reading to sexual assault or to abuse. While it’s very fair to not want to ship someone with their abuser, I think that an enemy from the opposing faction is a very different concept, and that fantasy violence between enemies should not be misconstrued (remember the hubub about Mystique vs Apocalypse in 2016? That kind of sentiment is what made female superheroes relegated to having long-range energy powers and then passing out for decades. Let’s not go back to that).

I absolutely agree that it’s horrifying to see Finn, who has literally done nothing wrong, be villainized. It’s always a mistake to pretend that a rival ship is awful so that you can feel more secure about your own, but it’s extra bad when it’s the series’ first leading black character. That said, from my perception, I don’t think that those condemning Finn represent the majority of Reylos.

More generally, I think that what someone ships, in their imagination, only rarely reflects who they are as a person or their real-life values. It’s pretend.

While we’re right to judge books, films, shows, and games on things like representation, those pieces of media are not the same as fanfic, let alone smutfic. Fanworks are distinct in multiple ways.

Gonna get into this: cw for a reference to incest

For example, when Supernatural first launched, I watched the pilot live in 2005 (I am 1000 years old) and immediately shipped the only two actual characters, who both happened to be hot guys: Sam and Dean.

(Note: I don’t actually ship them anymore, but tbh I haven’t watched the show since Season 8 and even before that, I had grown to despise them both – one of the perils of writing a very long-running show with lots of personal drama is that characters do things that cannot be forgiven by some viewers. But that’s irrelevant.)

Only later would I learn that they were largely inspired and even named after Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarty, two bisexual main characters from On The Road who were lovers, and who were based upon real men who were also lovers. (Which goes into part of why Supernatural is fucked up – notably, Castiel was also inspired by Constantine; another case of a straight character based upon a bi character, and that’s without getting into the issues with race, gender, and worldbuilding)

At that point, fandom culture (in my experience at the time) only treated incest as a squick – something that some people personally disliked, as one might be turned off by mpreg or watersports, etc.

Why wasn’t it a squick for me? Who knows tbh. I have zero brothers and I’m gay, so I never had to develop a feeling of aversion like that.That’s my best guess. I didn’t exactly fetishize those ships, but if there were only two hot dudes in a story, I didn’t think anything of it.

(Note: I think that incest ships may be specifically appealing to some fans because the bond between the characters is already secure? A similar appeal to the “found family” trope but the opposite thing. That’s just a theory)

However, upon coming to Tumblr, once I got over my culture shock of seeing people treat imaginary pairings as not squicks but moral indictments, I did come to understand where a lot of people are coming from with this!

For some people, it’s not just a personal squick, it’s an extra-strong aversion because they’re leery of incest being fetishized (for example, most real-life twins do not find twincest jokes funny!). More often, it’s people who were abused in real-world incest and cannot fathom why it would be someone’s kink or even factor into someone’s ship.

The solution to any sort of ship that’s going to remind someone of the worst moments of their lives is to do what I did in bold, above: use a content warning. If your fic contains sex abuse or incest or whatever, please tag your work. The same is true with fanart. If you want to share your other media with friends or the fandom at large but worry that your kinks may be off-putting, literally just make a second art/writing account or a separate blog to share those.

Don’t deliberately take people bag to the worst moments of their lives.

HOWEVER

We’ve seen a lot of people write about how they don’t want to see fandom treated like Catholicism (or, alternatively, as Protestantism; the word that they’re looking for is orthodoxy).

People have every right to ship whatever vile things they like. That goes for things that personally horrify or squick me. All that they need to do is be respectful in public spaces and to upload their work/commentary in the appropriate places with the appropriate tags, warnings, and readmores.

I think that people who don’t feel especially powerful or in control in life are the ones who get the biggest kick out of things like gatekeeping, exclusionist rhetoric, and being fandom police. Others are simply well-intentioned but became carried away. Not all antis are bad people, but it’s not a healthy thing about which to frame your personality and your online brand.

Your personal dislike of something doesn’t make you a morally superior person. As someone who hates mushrooms, I know that it’s tempting to believe otherwise, but it’s true.

And wielding social justice language as a cudgel, especially one that just happens to validate your opinions on a piece of fiction, is disingenuous and harmful in so many ways.

Ships (or kinks, etc) don’t equate to someone’s real-life values.

(Side note: anyone else notice that people who wouldn’t bat an eye at someone writing Age-Appropriate Wolf fanfic, when the characters are highschoolers but played by adults, are quick to condemn people who ship cartoon teens together, even though those teens are literally ink on paper and are absolutely voiced by and drawn like adults? I’m not sure what that’s all about, but it needs to stop. It’s literally just pretend!)

(Other side note: I understand that a lot of people are uncomfortable with shipping real people, even though said shipping has been a part of culture for millennia. My thoughts on that is: literally just act like an adult about it! Don’t tweet them fic or fanart, and don’t show it to them at conventions or whatever. The same thing goes for actors who play fictional characters. Talk show hosts should also maybe stop showing fanart for shock value but that’s a whole other conversation)

If you’ve gotten carried away with fandom-policing or something else, hey, that’s part of being a person. I’ve done it too! What matters is to be a better person. Making mistakes and becoming a better person are part of what it means to exist.