#i don't really make an impact on people's lives i think. nothing good at least 🤔

[daz4i]

starting to suspect the only person whose life would be affected negatively if i died is my mom ngl

[stinkbeck]

heartbroken in such a difficult way. like man. my parents have 2 wake up. i’m fucking old ok. i’m not a 12-year-old you can mold into having the dream job u never had. i’m really sorry u all slept through my childhood but i’m an adult now. there is no more time 2 sow your seeds.

[starcurtain]

I wish everyone collectively understood aventurine’s character like you…things would be so much easier! I genuinely don’t understand how people keep getting his motivations wrong??? Could it be because some of the most popular Aven fanfics were written prior to his release? That could have contributed to some of the takes we tend to see about him…thoughts?

I struggled all day to come up with a concise way to answer this and couldn't think of one, so here, have a long-winded ramble:

I don't think early fic writers have much impact in the situation with Aventurine's character now, since most people can look at when a story was posted and go "Oh, this was before we had ____ information."

I think that Aventurine's problem is being a male character in a gacha game. Gacha game characters are designed to sell. Hoyo can sell female characters very, very easily. Give her huge tits and a visible underwear strap and you're good to go. I love all my guy friends, but I'm not gonna sugarcoat it: straight men are not the hardest audience to please. Hit a particular fetish (feet, spandex, dommy mommy), and you're gucci.

Nah, we all know why Jade's trailer is Like That.™

Male characters in gacha are harder to sell because women as consumers are a little harder to predict. Does every woman want a tall, ripped hunk? Shit, no, small cute boyish models like Aventurine are selling better now? Why?! Would a bad boy be more popular than a nice guy??? It's harder to account for women's tastes, especially because they are often (a little) less visually-oriented.

Hoyo is good at what they do though, and they've figured out that male characters sell very well when they possess at least one of two specific traits:

Endearing vulnerability/helplessness

Gay ship tease

Give a character both, like Aventurine? They might as well be printing money.

That sound you hear is Hoyo's stock prices rising.

So, from the very beginning, Hoyo is incentivized to create a character that appeals to people, a character people will want to crack their wallets open for. And they achieved this, first and foremost, by giving Aventurine traits that female players (in particular, but men too), find especially appealing: emotional and physical vulnerability.

We see Aventurine's pain. We sympathize with his grief. We identify with his struggle to make meaning of his difficult life. He's our woobie, blorbo, babygirl, whatever the hell they're calling it now.

He can't hide his suffering anymore. He's on the very edge. He's a dude in distress. He's surrounded by enemies! He misses his mama! He's been betrayed! No one understands him like you do, dear player!

The ultimate feeling evoked is: He needs to be saved.

When people talk about male power fantasies, I think they forget that women can experience them too, and "Emotionally vulnerable man that only I (or my favorite character) can fix" is actually a female power fantasy.

And from there it's really easy, right: the people who shell out cash to buy warps for their harmed-husbando feel like they've saved him; the people who are into mlm ships look for the nearest hot dude to be the savior Ratio was waiting for his time lol.

Morally and intellectually, this type of deep-down-golden-hearted, emotionally-wounded male character is very easy to digest. There is nothing to dislike about this type of character or role in the story: this character is a good guy who has just gone through so many terrible situations, whose victim status makes him endearing, and whose lack of agency means that any of the questionable or downright bad things he does are always the result of someone else forcing his hand, and never something he would have chosen himself.

His motivations are always clear and consistent: get free, heal, and live happily ever after.

Insert the Wreck-It Ralph meme: "Do people assume all your problems got solved when a big strong man showed up?" But to be fair, a big strong man did kind of solve Aventurine's problem, so--

Anyway, it's simple. It's straightforward. Morally, it's pretty cut and dry, black and white: Aventurine is our hero, which means everyone dictating the course of his miserable life is evil.

Hoyo is not remotely discouraging people from literally buying into this emotional appeal.

And trust me, I get it. I'll be the first to admit that hurt-comfort is its own entire genre in fandom because it is so appealing. People eat up Aventurine's tragic backstory like candy! The idea of watching a character go through hell at the hands of bad guys just to finally find a happy end is like the definition of everyone's favorite story.

In fact... people love Aventurine's suffering so much, they have invented whole new ways for him to suffer that aren't even in the game.

This is where we get all the headcanons that Aventurine was a sex slave, every single person he meets hates him because of his race, the Stonehearts are executioners holding knives to his throat, Jade enslaved him to the IPC with a lifelong contract, his material possessions belong to the company, the IPC is forcing him to take only the most dangerous missions where he is being required by his evil jailers to continually put his life on the line... You name it and I promise you, I can find a fanfic where Aventurine suffers from it. 😂

Bro can't even sleep in on his day off; life is so hard for this man.

Being serious: if the game is telling us that Aventurine is a victim... Why not make him the perfect victim?

Why not envision an Aventurine with no freedom, who bears no responsibility for any of the horrible situations he is in or any of the dubious things he does?

It's so natural to like that version of Aventurine, so appealing to see a totally powerless underdog use his own wits and charms to claw his way up to freedom. Or, if you're the kind who really relishes angst: It's even appealing to see Aventurine lose more. To delight in fics where he loses his wealth, where the IPC punishes him for past crimes while he's powerless to stop them... (I assure you, this is many people's cup of tea and the fanfics prove it!)

Ultimately, there's nothing wrong with liking characters who are exactly this straightforward! It's completely fine to embrace characters that are intentionally written to be morally above-board, whose primary role in the story is to generate angst by being a good person who suffers, or those characters who never show unlikable traits, bad decisions, or contradictory actions.

The problem is that that's just not who the game is telling us Aventurine is.

Hoyo may be capitalizing off people who love to envision poor Aventurine still living his life as a slave... But the game also needs to tell a complicated enough story overall to appeal to people who don't care about this specific husbando--Aventurine's role in the actual game's plot has to be interesting enough for almost everyone to appreciate it, not just Aventurine's simp squad. (Don't get mad, I'm in the simp squad with you.)

So his character doesn't stop at just being a pure-hearted victim who is still waiting to be saved.

Aventurine is not that easy to label, and I think the biggest struggle in this character's fandom right now is between people who prefer the even-more-angsty, still-a-slave Aventurine versus people who want a morally grey, self-destructive character instead.

To me personally, while I greatly understand the appeal of fanon!Aventurine and the joy of a really juicy angst fic where characters lose it all, I think that missing out on the depth that canon is suggesting would be a real loss on the fandom's part.

The character motivations that Aventurine shows in the game are complicated. They cancel each other out. They're basically self-harm! He makes almost every situation he's in worse for himself--on purpose.

He is a good person, but also a person who has done unspeakable things. He does have morals, but he's not above allowing those who don't have them to use him to their advantage.

He's both the victim and the victor. He's his own worst enemy. He's a lost little boy who's been making terrible decisions for himself since he was like eight years old, and a grown ass man who is barely managing to fake his way through an existence that destiny is not letting him quit.

This kind of character is a lot harder to embrace. He's done things that most people would find appalling--like willingly joining up with the organization that let his entire race be massacred. He's invented a whole new peacock persona to frivolously flaunt riches he doesn't even care about (Poison Dart Frog Self-Defense 101). He actively plays into racist stereotypes about his people to manipulate others through their preconceived expectations. He's made a mockery of his mother's and sister's hopes and dreams by endlessly trying to throw his own life away.

He has flaws! He bet everything he had on a ploy without doing his homework to find out if the people he was risking his life for were even still around. (Maybe he already knew, and couldn't bear to admit it, even to himself.) He's intentionally off-putting and obnoxious to everyone he meets (Poison Dart Frog Self-Defense 102). He terrifies everyone who gets close to him by (seemingly) carelessly throwing himself into the jaws of death without the slightest provocation.

He knowingly allows the IPC to exploit his power and talents for profit. Did everyone forget that his role in the Strategic Investment Department is asset liquidation?! Like, his actual day-to-day job is ruining people's lives. Canonically, Aventurine kills people when his deals go bad.

His motivations change off-screen in two lines of story text. We're told in one line that his biggest reason for joining the IPC was to make money to save the Avgin, then in the next line we find out that's impossible. And... then what? What motivations does he even have now? The whole point of his character arc from 2.0-2.1 is that he was on the edge of giving in to utter despair and nihilism because he couldn't even perceive a single reason to stay alive. He has no purpose in life before Penacony, and that didn't start with the Stonehearts at all??

People keep saying Aventurine was held in the IPC by golden handcuffs, but how do you tie down someone for whom profit is meaningless? What can you offer to a man whose only desire is to bring back something already lost forever? How do you imprison someone whose only definition of freedom is, canonically, death?

Working for the Stonehearts is obviously not healthy. But that's why Aventurine was doing it--because taking dangerous missions allowed him to put himself at risk. The job that he originally pursued hoping to save his people became a direct means to self-harm, and the IPC's only real role in that was just happily profiting off the results.

The journal entries for Aventurine's quests are there deliberately to tell the player what is on his mind, and none of it has to do with escaping from his job:

Like... Work is the least of this man's problems.

At really the risk of rambling on too long now, he's also just a massive walking contradiction:

Aventurine is among the most explicitly religious characters in the game, yet he's one of the only people in the entire game that we have ever seen actively question his people's aeon.

You might be tempted to think Aventurine's risky gambles with his life as an adult are a result of giving up after finding out about the Avgin massacre... Butttt no, Hoyo makes sure to tell us that even at knee-high in the Sigonian desert, Kakavasha was already willing to risk himself in a fight to the death against monsters because even back then he found his own life to have less value than a single memento.

He's the "chosen one" who will lead his people to prosperity... except they're all dead.

He's explicitly suicidal... andddd also a pathstrider of Preservation.

He wants to die... He doesn't want to die. He wants to make it end, yet goes to staggering lengths to continually survive. (Every plan risks his life on purpose--but every plan's win condition is also to live.) He life is the chip tossed down, but his hand is trembling beneath the table. When faced with an otherwise unsurvivable situation, Aventurine literally became a winner of the Hunger Games. He beat other innocent people to death with his own chain-bound hands just to come out alive.

He knows the IPC failed the Avgin and left them to die... and he still willingly sought out a position of power in their organization. Maybe he really is after revenge... but maybe not.

He starts his journey in the IPC with a truly noble goal in mind: to help his people using his newfound wealth and power. He's a good guy who did genuinely want to save the Avgin and repay all those who helped him. But once it became clear he was too late, once it was obvious he would have no use at all for that monetary wealth and power he risked his life to get... What did he do with it? Unlike Jade, we don't see him over here donating to orphanages. (I'm not that heartless; I'm sure he does actually do a lot of good things with his money on the side, but the point is that the game does not show us that--it shows us, over and over again, Aventurine putting on a wasteful, over-indulgent persona toward wealth. We've supposed to feel how meaningless money is to him, how meaningless everything is becoming to him.)

He outright refuses to use underhanded tactics or to cheat at gambles, which is meant to show us that's he's more morally upright than his coworkers. There's an entire exchange where he says that he'll never stoop to using manipulation the way Opal does. But... he doesn't have any issue fulfilling Opal's exact agenda. He was never remotely morally conflicted about denying the Penaconians their freedom by dragging Penacony back under IPC control.

He's willing to risk his own life, which is one thing--but he's also willing to risk other people's well-being. Topaz accuses him of constantly egging their clients on into dangerous situations; we've actively seen him shove a gun into Ratio's hands and pull the trigger with no care for how Ratio would feel about that on their very first meeting... Dragging the Astral Express crew into the entire Penacony plan in the first place was exceedingly dangerous...

To me, I just think it's vital to understand his character through the lens of these contradictions because they demonstrate the extreme polarity of Aventurine's life: from rags to riches, from powerless to empowered by multiple aeons, from willing to kill to survive to killing himself... He has quite literally lived a life of "all or nothing," and while he is the victim of many terrible situations out of his control, his arc as a character involves facing the truth of himself and the future his own actions are hurtling him toward.

Frankly, the Aventurine that canon is suggesting is a little annoying. You want to grab him by the shoulders, shake him, and say "Why are you like this?!" And he won't even have an answer for you, because he doesn't even know why he's still alive.

In the end, to me, this is so, so much more interesting. I can read an endless supply of hurt-comfort fics where Aventurine escapes the evil IPC and Ratio is there to fill the void in his life with the power of love and catcakes and be a perfectly happy clam online, but I want canon to continue to serve us this incredible mess of a man who constantly takes one step forward and two steps back.

Who is fully aware of his role as a cog in the grotesque profit-wheel of cosmic capitalism and still manages to say he never changed from the rags-wearing desert rat of the Sigonian wastes.

Who over and over again flirts with nihility but, ultimately, even if he has to wrest it from the grip of the gods themselves with bloody, chain-bound hands, chooses life.

[meta-squash]

I think two of the most important things about Jack Harkness, two things that inform almost everything he does and the choices he makes, are this: that he is a soldier NOT a leader, and that his entire life since childhood has been awash in survivor's guilt (and his whole existence after becoming immortal is an even more extreme version of survivor's guilt).

Jack is not a natural leader. He can think on the fly and he's good at getting people to listen to him, but he's not good at control, or at being objective. He's a natural second in command, he's a soldier. He was brought up to do what other people told him to, and to improvise if he had to (Time Agency, etc). But I really don't think he wants to be the leader of Torchwood. Unfortunately, everything about him means that he has to be. He knows from experience that others having control over him is dangerous, others knowing about his immortality while he's a subordinate to them is dangerous, and he also knows that his own immortality gives him an advantage as a leader. But I don't think he's good at leading. He tries to be. But he's fumbling along, in a time period he's not native to and a planet he's not native to and an unfathomable lifespan, and as charming as he is I think he's often not good with people. He's detached where he should be personal and emotional where he should be detached (or at least more level-headed). He's often too extreme or not harsh enough when it comes to things like discipline or dealing with the problems/traumas/mistakes of his employees or even civilians. He can't handle his employees seeing him uncertain/vulnerable and it makes for huge problems over and over again.

But all of this does make sense because I think in the back of Jack's mind there's always this wheel spinning, these gears turning and turning and calculating the impact and trauma each of his actions or decisions or the events around him are going to have on his own emotions for far longer than normal humans tend to consider. Because the catalyst for any part of the life we see him leading is survivor's guilt. He lost his father and his brother on the same day, joined the military and lost his best friend, joined the Time Agency and lost his memories (and maybe thinks he did something terrible). Then he died, and when Rose brought him back, he was all alone on the satellite with nothing but the corpses of the people who had fought beside him and zero explanation as to why he survived, and he had lost Rose and the Doctor besides. And then all his life on earth since, he has lost coworkers and lovers and civilians he tried and failed to save and probably also aliens he tried and failed to save. And I think by the time he becomes reluctant leader of Torchwood, every action is, whether conscious or subconscious, taken with the intent of minimizing that kind of trauma and the impact of loss.

Except that I think that the survivor's guilt has another layer to it, which is that feeling of needing to sacrifice or absolve himself in some way. No one else is willing to make the difficult decisions, no one else will move forward with the painful and unpleasant actions, even if there's no other way, even though they will someday perish and no longer see the ripples of their actions. But Jack - who cannot die, who must live with the guilt or the pain or the trauma of those actions and decisions for the rest of his very very very long life - is the one who realizes that he must take on those painful responsibilities and must do certain things even though they're terrible, because it ends up being the sacrifice of one over the whole world. And every single time, he's guilty about it, and that makes him want even more to sacrifice his own hurt for the grief and loss of others.

So it's this strange cycle of wanting to protect himself from hurt and from loss and from the survivor's guilt, but being driven by guilt towards painful and/or self-sacrificing actions. Which then makes him fear being seen as vulnerable or uncertain, and he struggles to do things on a smaller scale or in a more level-headed way, because he's not supposed to be leading like this, it's not something that comes naturally, and if he makes emotional connections by being a leader, he'll end up trapped in survivor's guilt yet again each time one of his employees or friends or lovers dies.

It's just a terrible cycle and he's trapped in it for the rest of his existence. Although if he really is the Face Of Boe, then I imagine at some point he eventually finds peace with it all or something, but I think so long as he has a human-form he's stuck with this cycle of leadership and loss and sacrifice and mistakes.

I think it's really important that Jack is not good at his job as a leader. He makes a ton of mistakes, he fucks up so much and his employees or even civilians end up collateral damage, whether physically or just emotionally. He wants to be a good leader, I think, and he's trying, but he's fallible, and he's a stranger in literally every sense, and I think a really big part of his character is that he constantly is forced to live in this bizarre dichotomy where he has to be both very distant and cold and detached, and also very emotional and intense and personal. And any other person would collapse under the stress of repeating that over and over and over again for decades, but he has to figure out how to navigate this weight as an infinite existence that can't ever collapse or let it burn him up and kill him.

[rosesnbooks]

Astrology observations #1

-gemini moons talk A LOT, or at least, so many things are in their head..i feel sorry for them lol.

-3rd house placements are usually really good at something, and others praise them for this. very smart individuals. may be good with words or memorising lots of info

-libra rising know how to dress and they have their own unique style. even if they are wearing something basic, the outfit fits like a glove

-scorpio mars are either highly sexual or aspec, i feel like there is nothing in between. i'm a scorpio mars and my bestie is a scorpio rising and we are both aspec

-aquarius rising always give off this mysterious and private vibe, and when they start talking you realise there's so much more to them

-11th house stelliums may focus a lot on friendships in their lifetime, and they often leave a strong impact on them. but they need to choose them more carefully

-taurus mercury and their voices are so sweet and pretty. men's voices are deep and calming.

-taurus moon people? i love you, never change. the way these people are so welcoming and kind, so grounded yet soft and sensitive. you feel like coming home in the best way possible.

-sagittarius mars people are all over the place. even if they have introverted placements, i feel like they want a lot from life, a lot of excitement.

-aries moons want to be in charge wherever they go. if you make them feel small, they will cut you off from their lives. also, i think they focus their identity on specific things they like, such as music and films

-scorpio venus and their love can be addicting and suffocating at the same time. as if they want to become one with their partner. honestly, a lot of people can deal with this intensity, and if well-developed, this love can be rewarding

-capricorn mercury seem very mature when they speak, people always listen to them and trust them with their opinion. however, they are so stubborn sometimes and they don't even see it. it takes a lot of effort to change their opinion

-i think cancer moons worry too much about how people feel all the time, it drains them. very sensitive and moody folks, but so loving and attentive

-leo venus shine so bright, and they want a lot of fun. romance is important to them, and they seem like a kid when in love. it's really sweet. they just need to find someone who would provide them this idealistic view of love, otherwise they'd get bored and disappointed

-virgo placements are so hard on themselves, such perfectionists. some are harsh on others too, while others observe people's flaws easily but accept them momentarily.

-gemini moons, surrounding themselves with knowledgeable people makes them inspired

-capricorn venus are really loyal. they don't want to settle, their standards are high. if you seem flaky to them, they won't waste their time with you

[allwormdiet]

Worm Cast Impressions (Arcs 1 to 7)

Easy money says some of these characters are about to fucking die so I'm pausing now to jot down my impressions of everybody who's managed to make an impact (and one or two characters whose lack of impact is kind of impressive)

Undersiders

Taylor Hebert: Character of all time. Simultaneously sanest and least sane person in the entire universe. Deeply concerned about keeping hold of her moral core, constantly innovating in ways to inflict violence on her enemies real and imagined. Has never fully finished thinking her actions through once in her entire life, people keep thinking she's the most cautious girl they know. Her first kiss was partly because she liked the boy and partly because she wanted to piss off her bully. I am cheering for her more often than not and I am so scared of what this story is going to do to her.

Brian Laborn: I want to study him in a lab. Team leader entirely by default, as near as I can tell. Hates using violence as a means of control, really good at using violence as a means of control, seems to default to using violence as a means of control when he's upset. I don't think he's normal about women. Desperately trying to be so so so boring, thinks he's perfectly rational even though he is just as unhinged as his teammates, I suspect that he has built a mental prison with twenty layers of protection around all thoughts that would suggest he is anything other than Normal and Strong and Reliable. Maybe turned on by efficient displays of violence?

Lisa Wilbourn: She is so charming and I am so scared of what's actually going on in her head. I think Taylor's best friend but definitely her biggest enabler. Stop lying and let me know what is going on in your head, I know more about Alec and Rachel than I know about you. Concerned that she's only nominally concerned about Coil being a heinous fucker. Desperately hoping the air can be cleared so I stop worrying about whether she's going to destroy Taylor or something. She has to know Taylor is a wannabe hero.

Alec: The fact that he's really only done one thing that I consider morally in the wrong is kind of incredible when looking at the fact that he's a recovering sex cult enforcer who started living something approaching a normal human life as a homeless preteen. He's had three years to jury rig a sense of humanity and morality mostly on his own and the end result is a selfish lazy jerk, and yet the fact that this is what he's managed to come up with on his own is, without sarcasm, worthy of a fucking prize. He's actually really good at this all things considered. Actually a little bummed that he didn't oppose Coil for the whole Dinah creepfest.

Rachel Lindt: Rachel Lindt is maybe the best character so far. Autistic dog girl who only tolerates human society so she can better feed and care for her animals. I'd say something like "I'd kill for her" but there's no way I could do that any better than her dogs and she'd call me stupid. Only thing against her at this point is the slur usage, which is rough to deal with, but I suspect part of that is just being written in 2011.

Loved Ones

Danny Hebert: You sad bastard. Please survive long enough to reconcile with your daughter. I know he can't provide any material support for the problems his daughter has been dealing with, that the bullies are too well-protected and there's basically nothing that he can do about parahuman shit, but I wish she would allow him to be there for her. Maybe he'd be uncool about it, sure, but maybe not. Makes me sad to think about.

Aisha Laborn: This girl is in dire need of someone to have her back and also, like, pay attention to her; Brian is the closest one to actually doing it but I don't think his best efforts are enough. I know she's gonna be an Undersider in the future so hopefully I get to have a more thorough impression of her, and one that's not marred by the fucking Mercedes metaphor, Jesus Christ that was a rough passage to get through.

Protectorate

Armsmaster: I'd probably like him more if he wasn't so up his own ass about being in charge and earning glory. My suspicion is that he's basically a good guy with some bad habits that nobody can check him on, which has spiraled out of control. Might unironically consider a teenage criminal his nemesis, which is funny but not a great sign of his priorities.

Miss Militia: My prior complaints about her possibly inappropriate response to holding Regent hostage are entirely subsumed by the fact that the last twenty-six years of her life have been lived on terms set by the Protectorate. She was nearly devoured by the machinery of empire and now she's become a component of empire that feeds upon others, and she hasn't even realized it. She never had a goddamn chance.

Velocity: Nothing to really say about him, except there has to have been a way to design his costume so that a teenager with unaugmented strength couldn't take him out with a single blow to the testicles.

Assault and Battery: The name theming feels a bit weird (what, if they got a third would their name be Coercion?) but whatever. I like the idea of a duo with complementary powers, I guess, but there's not really much else here.

Dragon: On the one hand she's in charge of the Birdcage and is friends with Armsmaster, but on the other hand she clearly hates the Birdcage for what it's made her complicit in, and maybe Armsmaster is good to have as a friend. Jury's out, unlike on Canary.

Wards

Gallant: The best way I can think to describe this guy is "blandly nice." It's like if "inoffensive" could be a personality trait. Glory Girl could do better than him, probably, but to be fair she could also do a lot worse.

Clockblocker: I think he's the funny one? Or at least the deliberately unserious one, which is the same thing. The first character confirmed to have developed entomophobia as a result of Skitter, probably not the last. Stopped a bomb from destroying the East Coast which feels like it should get more attention.

Vista: World's most powerful thirteen-year-old. Who deployed her to stop that bomb and fight those Nazis. I want names.

Kid Win: No sense of proportion on this kid, my god. Shooting a laser cannon meant to deal with threats that are theoretically rated higher than Lung into a bank filled with hostages? He's lucky nobody died.

Shadow Stalker: What the actual fuck is going on with her. Who hunts other human beings with broadhead arrows? That's for making someone bleed to death. If she was doing it to the fucking Nazis then that'd be fine, but no, it's Grue and Taylor we've either seen or heard about her getting rough with. Either the Protectorate knows she's a maniac and is letting it rock until she gets herself caught, or else they don't realize what she's doing in which case someone is not doing their job.

Browbeat: Absolute nonentity, to the point it's almost distracting. The description of the bank fight suggests he lost to Regent, which I think means that Regent got close enough to a guy with super strength to knock him out with a taser and didn't get his block knocked off. No wonder the Protectorate wants to trade him out, dude's got nothing going on.

PRT

Director Piggot: I don't like the organization she works for, because the vibes beyond the city level feel rancid, but for Piggot I mostly just sympathize with her. She's trying to corral a bunch of teenagers and adults, who all have some kind of horrific trauma shaping them and also giving them powers that are baseline as dangerous as a fucking gun, into something resembling a fully effective government agency, with no signs of support from the other cities or the higher-ups despite the fact that the literal fucking Nazis have her heroes outnumbered and have apparently had it that way for decades. Let this woman take a vacation or something.

New Wave

Glory Girl: Absolute nerd who seems to love being a superhero, and also making Nazis ragdoll in her spare time. I'd love to end it there, but unfortunately she's got some bad habits; girl desperately needs to kill the cop in her brain and get her impulsiveness under control, the fact that she ragdolled the Nazi on accident and threatened to pull favors in the judicial system to send a first-time offender (and Tattletale) into the Birdcage don't reflect great on her ability to keep a lock on things in high-stress situations.

Panacea: Pathetic girl who is clearly sitting on a pressure cooker of issues. I know what those all are but I'm not going to comment on any of it until we're actually there. For now it's mostly just a pity thing.

Azn Bad Boys

Lung: I was harsh on his characterization at first but I'll admit with time and context I'm not nearly as quick about that. He definitely still sucks, the guy literally murders his lieutenant as a matter of bruised pride and making his life more convenient. Also still cannot shake the feeling that he was basically idling in Brockton Bay for most of his career with the kind of power he has on tap.

Bakuda: She's a monster, but that also kind of oversimplifies things. She's clever, arrogant, grandstanding, and gleefully violent, even as she has the capacity to admire the architecture that another Tinker has crafted and to treat Lung as something resembling a friend. I don't think there's a world where she triggers and is, like, a good person, but I think this was one of the worse lives she could have wound up living. Also, y'know, she's dead.

Empire Eighty-Eight

Kaiser: Rancid smug piece of Nazi shit. Stupid too btw, why are you bothering with street-level robberies and extortion when you own a fucking pharmaceutical corporation? Why are you fighting out in the streets and meeting with other Nazi capes when you could be acting through proxies and bankrolling far-right parahuman cells across the country? Like I'm glad he isn't smart enough to think like that but fuck me.

Purity: Like, actually for real dumb as a bag of hammers. Kaiser barely has to try to wrap her back around his finger and she divorced him; Tattletale barely has to try to get her to back down and she thinks Tattletale exposed her identity to the public. Truly nothing in that skull of hers.

Hookwolf: Nazi capes fuck off

Stormtiger: Nazi capes fuck off

Cricket: Nazi capes fuck off

Rune: Nazi capes fuck off

Night: Nazi capes fuck off

Fog: Nazi capes fuck off

Wait does Coil's gang genuinely not have a name

Coil: Everything about this guy just pisses me the fuck off honestly. He presents himself as some kind of lesser evil, a firm but gentle hand that can guide all facets of the city to a brighter future, but he doesn't have the intelligence or vision to back any of it up; he displays nothing but brute force manipulation tactics involving bribery and blackmail, he's tunnel-visioned and cruel to the point that it ruins his own long-term plans, and before I forget everything about his thing with Dinah gives me fucking hives and I want to beat his skull in with my bare hands. I hope Taylor gets to kill him. Oh, or maybe Dinah.

Nameless sniper: Actively cooler and more competent than Coil.

Travelers

Trickster: genuinely cannot trust a man wearing a top hat in the year 2011, not even as a bit

Sundancer: what the fuck went so wrong with your life that your power is The Fucking Sun

Faultline and Co.

Faultline: Ironically not a super strong read off of her in terms of personality. Seems generally pretty cool going off of how she interacts with and leads her team. Very funny that she has a rivalry with Tattletale.

Newter: Little worried that he's selling his body secretions as a drug to other teenagers but if a parahuman only has one red flag that's pretty good actually

Gregor the Snail: This dude rocks, actually, love the vibes he gives off. Shame that people hate him for being fat and a mutant.

Labyrinth: Would like to see more of her when she's back in reality, otherwise not much to go off of. Cool power.

Other Parahumans

Scion: Fucking creepy

Marquis: probably Panacea's dad, calling that shot.

Paige McAbee: Justice For Paige McAbee.

Dinah Alcott: not really a character yet so much as a particularly horrifying MacGuffin but Jesus Christ what an awful fate

Uber and Leet: Gamers should be more oppressed. Also they beat the shit out of sex workers on a livestream and aren't considered serious enough threats to be consigned to the Birdcage, which feels pretty bad.

Heartbreaker: Haven't even met this guy and he sounds fucking awful. Please god somebody take him down.

Normal Humans

Emma Barnes: I need to understand what's wrong with her. Something happened that gave her the temperament and skillset of a CIA torture technician before freshman year of high school and she turned that onto her best friend for reasons totally unbeknownst to us.

Sophia Hess: I don't know I feel that the one bully who does the most physical harm and acts the most aggressive is the black one. Pretty bad I think. She's also clearly got something going on in her head but tbh that feels like it's going to be more straightforward than whatever is wrong with Emma.

Madison Clements: I feel like she's just here so that Taylor could be bullied without overusing the other two. What's your stake in this? Why do you give a shit? Does it matter? Probably not.

Mr. Gladly: I hated every teacher I ever knew who acted like this and I hate him even more for being utterly useless in protecting a student from blatant harassment. Fuck off.

[butterflysonnets]

yes i'm rooting for m*leven breakup because byler is neat but mostly? i'm rooting for m*leven breakup for the sake of el and mike.

to me, their romance was always a puppy love born out of a combination of social pressures, naïve curiosity, and a lack of true understanding regarding intimacy and romantic love and what it really is. it was real in that they do truly, deeply care about each other and they are close friends, maybe even shared an attraction, but a maturing romance is so much more than that. they've grown up and out of being boyfriend/girlfriend, and that's okay! i think television/film needs to show more often that most of us don't have definite "soulmates" or first childhood loves that we spend our whole lives with. it doesn't mean these relationships meant nothing and didn't impact us, it just means they've run their course and that something else is in the cards, and this is part of life!

i've always felt el was at her best and most confident self when broken up with mike, discovering who she was and what she liked alongside another girl her age instead of just relying on mike for mentorship on how to live in the real world. she deserves more of an opportunity to find herself, her autonomy, and her independence, and to love who she is, and she's made it clear she's felt insecure in the relationship with mike because she isn't being loved and understood the way she wants, needs, and deserves from someone who is her partner.

also, it's okay if mike doesn't love her in "the way he should". he is not obligated to love her romantically and stay in a relationship with her just because she's a girl, because she "needed someone", or because he cares about her a lot. he shouldn't be pressured into a romance if it's not truly coming from his heart. he deserves freedom to find out and honour who he is, too, instead of just staying in his non-functional first relationship — one he got into as a child, essentially — and defining himself that way because it's what's expected when a boy and a girl are close. he loves her in some way, yes, but it's okay if he doesn't feel comfortable or secure being her boyfriend anymore, for whatever reason that is. he's felt insecure too, and that's valid and it matters.

they are their own people and are steadily growing and changing every day. they need time to figure out who those people are, and it's become clear (at least in my opinion) that those people aren't meant to be a couple at this stage.

they deserve freedom. they deserve to grow up and be authentic to themselves and not feel like they need to lie for the sake of a relationship. they deserve to move on from this version of their relationship that isn't making them happy and rekindle the best part of their bond: their strong, beautiful friendship. they don't have to be a couple if it doesn't make them stronger and better and happier people.

i think it would be healthy and wonderful for a show, especially one consumed frequently by young adults, to show a relationship starting, progressing, and ending on good terms in this way. sometimes things don't work out, and that is okay.

[drdemonprince]

I am feeling very conflicted because I want to do more activism but I live in a very isolated area, and the one organization that works here that I even remotely align with politically has had some issues with the people it's supposed to serve (immigrants in this case) complaining that it doesn't provide many services needed and some people in it are dicks. Also, the options they have to collaborate are very much not autistic friendly. At the same time, I hate the thought of sitting back and doing nothing -beyond what I already do, which is limited to people I know- because the option to do something is not perfect. What would you recommend?

It sounds as though the organization you are looking at is a nonprofit that provides social services. I would not consider working with such an organization to be activism, usually. They will present volunteering your time with them as "activism," but it's really just free labor, somewhere on the spectrum between being charitable with your time and labor exploitation.

There is very little that most nonprofits do to advance any kind of social or political change of any kind. For the most part, nonprofits function to maintain their own operations, with a side hustle of dispensing very limited resources to marginalized people who will remain just as marginalized afterward.

More on this:

If you'd like to be involved more in your community in a way that feels meaningful and that works with your disability, I would encourage you to think far more broadly than merely joining an existing easily-findable organization. That kind of search will tend to skew toward liberal, nonprofit-led, politically toothless efforts. Instead, think of what you can do to make greater contact with the people in your area who are marginalized and share struggles with you.

Can you give homeless people meals in the park and ask them how they're doing? Can you get involved in your local parks or nature reserves? (there if you're volunteering your time, at least it can be for something enriching and beneficial). Is there a local Food Not Bombs chapter? A local Muslim community center that could use safety marshalls? A local abortion clinic that could use the same? Do you have neighbors who are single parents and need childcare help? Dogsitting? Does the senior down the street need their lawn mowed?

Is there a local Facebook group where you can offer help to people in your community in need? Start saying hello to people. Asking them about their day. Asking about what's going on in the neighborhood. What needs done, who needs help, what problems are plaguing the area that nobody is doing anything about? Are there any local businesses that are discriminatory and need to be taken to account publicly? Are there forests you can help protect from deforestation with tree spiking? Is there a jail near you where you can provide jail support, handing out food and clothes and water and letting released prisoners make phone calls?

Some of this stuff might not seem like activism in the most obvious, in-your-face, picket-signs-and-banners-in-the-streets sense. But it's a lot more impactful than a lot of that is on its own. It's community building. I'd also recommend reading some stuff on the Anarchist Library website about building one's own affinity groups. You don't need a big formal organization to make a difference -- in fact, for many structural and economic reasons, it can be harder to make a difference within a large group that faces public exposure and the risk of legal censure. A few new homies in your town who care as much as you do can do a whole lot of good.

Some reading:

[generalluxun]

I know it wasn't intended by the writers and even from a purely in universe perspective it was likely not a conscious decision but...

It really does feel like Andre was setting Chloe up for failure.

There's obviously letting doing Sabrina most of Chloe's labor for her thing.

But we also have that whole aspect where he taught her explicitly to cheat, extort, threaten and bribe her way to victory. A strategy that works for him because he's not doing that stuff to the people he wants to vote for him, but that ends up making Chloe hated by her peers.

Similarly, there's encouraging her Audrey impersonation, which even if we ignore the creep factor. Still means he is rewarding her for engaging in damaging and anti social behavior that only serves to make her miserable and more dependent on him.

His total tolerance for Audrey's overt cruelty towards her can also feel like it feeds into this. Again I don't think he is necessarily aware of or planning it, but this still serves to, A, not make Audrey upset with him, and B, mean he remains Chloe's primary source of affirmation and affection.

Add in him in season 1 being willing to act against her if she impacted 'him' negatively and it really does kind of feel like he, at least subconsciously, wanted Chloe to need to hang off of him forever and to generally lack other support networks or avenues of self sufficiency.

I mean, yes. There's a reason I'm very much on the 'Audrey's behavior is bad and abusive, but André's is worse' wagon.

Audrey is openly abusive to those around her, that is clear. She also wants absolutely nothing to do with kids. She removes herself from her daughters lives. She does it out of selfishness, but the net result is she she does not *make* herself a role model.

André on the other hand loves having a kid! They play great with the press. They make for awesome photo opportunities, and now and then he can play family just like in movies! What he doesn't like is *raising* a kid. He himself is horrible an self centered, so he doesn't think that maybe he needs to change his behaviors for the child, so he passes all of his Andreness on to them.

I know guys who were pretty useless until they had a kid, I know guys who are pretty useless with anything that *isn't their kid, but both groups still realize that *parenting* is something you have to do right, something worth changing or at least concealing your worst-self behaviors from. André can't even go that far.

André goes past 'oops haha silly me' or 'overworked parent' tropes too. The man is filthy rich. He could *make* time for his daughter if he wanted to. He also fails so completely on the very basics of parenting when *he has the resources to get help*. It shows he hasn't even really tried.

Well, he tries like a 4yr old tries when they don't want to do something. One half-hearted attempt, then they whine.

How do we have obvious proof, canonically, that this is on André? Look at Zoé. She had as much if not more contact with Audrey, and we are not giving her credit for being a *good* influence, are we? So then it comes down to the influence of the other parent, and what differences does canon show us there? Hmmm.

Look like André is a net negative in a child's life.

Oh and miss me anyone who claims children are just 'bad seeds'. That line of thinking can go jump in a wood chipper.

[anyoldfandom]

I am actually. I am so emotional over the Salazar parents and I need to share this to tumblr too.

A lot of stories where the MC is adopted I feel. Either dismiss the biological parents and the impact they have on the kid's life, or makes them evil and abusive, framing the loss of the bio parents as a good thing, or at least something we shouldn't think about just look at this new family.

But Genrex doesn't do that. From the start, Rex wanted to find out more about his parents - it's one of his primary character motivations, next to helping people. He loves them, even though he doesn't know them.

And the more he finds out about them, the more he realizes they loved him. Rylander is consumed by guilt but as Rex's first connection to his pre-Event life, the first thing he does is hug him. And when he tells Rex about his parents, the two things Rex knows is that 1) they were scientists, and 2) that when he was in danger, they were desperate enough to use their secret, experimental technology to save him. Technology built from their desire to help the world, to save countless lives and end countless suffering.

And then. When he finds out that they were dead, he doesn't stop caring. It'd be so easy, too, to tie it up there - his parents were good people, he got his answer about them, the end. But they don't. He doesn't. Because the show is saying once again that they are his parents. He still calls them mom and dad, even as the show makes it clear Holiday and Six adopted Rex as their son. Even as the show even parallels Six and One with Rex and Six (and I will talk about that more later if I don't forget, trust me), to really drive home how much they're family. Rex even says he considers the two of them family, and later that he considers Noah, Claire and Annie family.

He has new family, the show tells us, but his old family still matters to him. He's upset that he never has the chance to meet his parents, that everything he hears about them, about his time with them, is secondhand knowledge. It tells us clearly that not only does Rex still love them, but that he still wants to know them. And everything we find out about them reinforces the love that they had for each other.

We see Abuela and the family in Mexico, who connect him to his birth family and tell him that he was so loved back then, and still is now. We see their office in Abysus through Rex's eyes. The picture of him and his dad on his desk. The drawing Rex drew, proudly pinned to the wall.

We see it in the familiarity of the drawing. That that robot, that build, was what Rex created when he was lost and scared and alone - that it was made to keep him safe. That it first appeared in his mind in a place he felt safe.

The show says, tenderly and softly, that the love is still there. That the fact these people died was nothing but a tragedy, that their love is a big part of what made Rex who he is today - that every molecule in his body is filled with their final gift to him. That every time he cures someone, every time he uses a build, every time he makes a machine - we see the love that they had for him.

And the way he quietly absorbs his father's face. The way he freezes and whispers "Mamá?" when he finds out Zag-Rs has their mother's voice. The fact that she even has her voice as a testament to Caesar's love, too - that it was meant to bring comfort and safety. The way Rex yells at Caesar when he finds out they have a family property, a connection to their past, the way he fights to protect it.

And, none of this takes away still from Six and Holiday being Rex's family too. None of this removes the work either set of parents did for him, the love either set has - the show says that it was unfair that the Salazar parents were lost. That Six and Holiday are not replacements, that they still love him as parents but play different roles in his life. They can not, and have no desire to, replace the Salazars. But Rex needs parents, he needs protectors, and so they will do what they can for him - at first out of necessity, to keep this kid they barely know safe, but then out of love. They aren't replacing what was lost, but are doing their best to do what Rex's bio parents would do. And they do mess up in it - they mess up in ways Rex's bio parents might not have. Six is clearly bad with showing affection, affection we saw the Salazars give Rex so easily, and Holiday is overworked and stressed constantly, sometimes breaking under the pressure and snapping at Rex and Six, things we never saw the Salazars do.

It's just. It's about how sometimes things will not be the same. They will be different. That doesn't mean the people you lost aren't still with you.

[sporesgalaxy]

I know this is something u were probably asked before but as the guy that has a good relationship with art....how do you do that??? I mean I get that this question is vague but how do you not care if it looks bad? Do you just?? Keep on going till it looks like you want it to look? Despite the agonies? You seem like you enjoy talking abt this thats why im asking, dont feel the need to answer if u dont wanna

hmmmm. You know, I don't think about the agonies much these days. But it's not that I don't care. I guess I've become a freak who sees beauty in the agonies, sorta? It's kind of complicated! I will do my best to explain!

First of all, I know that I have the unfair advantage of having no ambition. I don't have a goal for my art besides making art when I feel like it. That makes it easy to be less judgemental-- I remember having a rockier relationship to my own art during the time when I thought I would make it my career.

This is why I like talking about my perspective, though!! I think it's important to try not to let yourself be consumed by self-criticism as an artist, even if self-criticism is necessary for you, and hopefully my carefree way of looking at things can help balance things out haha.

Anyways, ambition or not-- and I know how this sounds but bear with me-- art doesn't ever look bad.

(Barring ethically harmful art, ugh, I don't want to get into ethics so just-- surely you know what I mean!!!)

Art gets a lot less stressful if you can tell yourself that no art is bad, and remember the reasoning behind that until you really believe it. It isn't a fast process, but it's very worth the work.

The truth is that art either looks how you want it to look, or it looks different from the way you want it to look, but both are ultimately neutral. You CAN make art that looks different from what you wanted, that you still feel pleased with.

When art looks different from how you wanted, the gut reaction you have is often to call it bad or get frustrated. And of course it's frustrating! Maybe you feel it's not as effective at communicating something as you'd hoped, or you feel it's not as visually impactful as you imagined...but it's important to remember those things are only your perception. Not an objective fact. And art is a two-way street! A communication between creator and observer! And communication is really weird and complicated.

•••

Other people's perception of your work won't ever be exactly the same as yours. Sometimes this is desireable and sometimes it isn't! Maybe your art will communicate the thing better to someone than anything they've ever seen-- even if a more effective version could theoretically exist, the "imperfect" version that actually exists and communicates is all that matters to the observer. Or, maybe a feature that turned out exactly how you wanted it to will fly completely over an observer's head, and not have the effect you wanted at all. A lot of the time, you'll never even know.

An artist can NEVER fully control an observer's perspective, so at a certain point you have to live with what you have. You already do this, to some degree, if you have ever EVER decided to stop working on a piece of art and share it. You can always keep adding to something. You can always keep editing. But sometimes, you stop. And perfection doesn't exist, so when you stop it must be because the art is good enough for now. And nothing about "good enough" is objective!

And is that really so bad? Surely people who grow fruit understand that a fruit which is smaller than they imagined can still feed somebody-- that at the very least it will feed bugs and microorganisms and be useful as fertilizer to grow more apples. Your art still means something, still accomplishes something, is still worth making whether it turns out how you imagined or not.

A lot of art is learning when to quit and move on. As a habitual perfectionist, this was something I had to learn early, to stop myself from erasing holes into every piece of paper I drew on.

There's this rule I was taught in middle school drama class: if you fuck up, act like you didn't fuck up. The audience doesn't have your script memorized, so odds are they won't have any idea you fucked up unless you tell them. Other art works the same way. No one knows what you wanted to make but you. And more importantly, a "perfect" version of your art doesn't exist (no "perfect" version of anyone's art exists, or ever will).

The version you made exists, so you have to find what's worth loving about that version. You have found what's worth loving in the imperfect art of others many times. Many observers will treat your art the same way you treat others' art. Why not treat your own art that way, too?

It sounds really REALLY corny, but I try not to think of this as embracing "mistakes." I think of it as celebrating coincidences.

I really really like coincidences. I like that every circumstance wasn't guaranteed to happen, that everything comes down to chance. I think all the little random things are beautiful because they turned out however they did, and not any of the millions of other ways things might have turned out. It's a coincidence that my genes expressed the way they did. It's a coincidence that my parents met in college. It's a coincidence that my oldest friend and I both got to middle school early every day, and stayed close even when we didn't share any classes.

Art is full of coincidences! I try to draw a straight line. The line does not turn out straight, because of the way my hand is shaped and the way my muscles contracted, because my body is not exactly like anyone else's in the world. No one else would have drawn that slightly not-straight line just exactly how I did. It's mine, and it's crookedness is what makes my art mine. Okay, maybe it's a little too crooked for what I want this time-- I'll erase it and draw a new crooked line at a bit of a different angle. There we go, I like that! Now it's my beautiful, irreplaceable crooked line! And the ghost of its predecessor guides the eye just so, and no one else's two crooked lines would guide your eye the same way, only mine! Isn't that nice on its own? Just to have made something that can't ever be replicated? To have made something no one else has ever made before?

You can also apply this in a bit less dreamy and more practical ways, I promise haha.

For example...I've never been a canvas flipper, as a digital character artist. I don't mirror my canvases to see if they still look preportional to me from either direction. I also don't usually draw visual novel character sprites that need to look good mirrored in either direction to serve their function, so it's never been a practical concern of mine.

I consider many kinds of distortion on a character I've drawn to be a good part of the visual flow of the image. Like a smear frame in animation, distoriton in the right places can make character art look dynamic and energized because it can lead the eye through a certain visual flow over the form of the character. If I were to flip the canvas, that eye-leading effect might hit differently because my American eye is used to reading from left to right-- perhaps it doesn't feel as "smooth" going in the opposite direction. This doesn't mean I need to change the distortion necessarily, it just means I prefer not to flip the canvas.

Often, these distortions aren't intentional. They're a coincidence of how my muscles move as I draw, and the areas my left-to-right American eyeballs instinctively pay more attention to. But the effect is still desireable to me. So, happy coincidence!

I think...that's the best I've got for now? Feel free to ask for clarification. I hope it's not total nonsense!

[antianakin]

There is exactly one criticism that I agree with my, very anti-Jedi, cousin on and that's the Jedi were TERRIBLE Generals. Generals may TRY to make sure their men mostly come back. But useless sacrifices are not only acceptable, but expected, the men are mostly expandable in war. The Jedi did not consider sacrifices like that acceptable or expected. Sure it did happen. It was WAR. But they tried their best to make sure it DIDN'T. The Jedi were terrible Generals. But they were the teachers and Leaders the CLONES NEEDED.

I'm not sure I'd ENTIRELY agree with that. I think I'd be willing to agree that the Jedi were perhaps less CONVENTIONAL Generals, and they definitely do seem to at least TRY to place the lives of their men above just tossing them away for an easy victory, but you can just as easily claim that keeping the men alive to keep fighting is a good strategy in and of itself.

The biggest piece of evidence I'd point to that the Jedi were actually perfectly good Generals is the Citadel arc and Tarkin's criticisms. The one real criticism he makes of the Jedi as military leaders is that they're occasionally too soft and will abandon a mission if it looks impossible to win without near total casualties (on either side). But he's generally fairly positive about the Jedi and if they were truly awful at their jobs, I don't think TARKIN of all people would hold back on saying so, even to the Jedi's faces.

And we DO see the Jedi willing to make sacrifices and accepting that this is a necessary part of war. The Citadel arc is, again, a perfectly good example of this. Obi-Wan and Anakin go in with like 3-4 men each I think and they come back with a grand total of 3 (Rex, Cody, and Fives). A LOT of clones die on this mission that they all KNEW was basically a suicide mission because the Jedi themselves decided that getting the information about the hyperspace lanes was vital enough to the war that it was worth losing multiple lives over (including their own).

So it's not that the Jedi don't understand that sacrifices are necessary in war or even that they avoid it entirely, they just avoid what they see as UNNECESSARY sacrifice for what might amount to a fairly minor victory. Keeping more of their men alive might, in the long run, be a better strategic choice than losing all of them on one campaign, especially if it's over like one uninhabited moon or something like that. There's nothing to say that the losses the Jedi deem acceptable are things that would've changed the entire tide of the war had they chosen to push forward instead.

The other good evidence that the Jedi acting this way would've been the WORSE choice is the Umbara arc. We are told and then see that Krell IS the kind of General who is willing to lose a lot of clones in order to gain victories in battle, and the clones do recognize that he has a lot of victories under his belt. But never once do they discuss whether those victories really MEANT anything or had a large impact on the war effort. It certainly never seems that the Republic is majorly pushing back the Separatists because of Krell's victories, nobody ever mentions that Krell gained them a major advantage with those victories or took out anyone of any consequence on the Separatist side with his strategies. And by the time he gets to Umbara, he's explicitly using this strategy to WEAKEN the Republic side and cause a loss. Several of his strategies WOULD'VE meant the Republic lost on Umbara and it's only the clones utilizing different strategies that put fewer of them at risk that they actually end up continuing to HAVE victories at all.

I'll also point out that the Jedi continuously getting their men killed en masse would've bankrupted the Republic a LOT earlier because they'd have to be paying for more clones a LOT more often than they did in canon and I can't imagine anyone would've considered that a particularly sound strategy and at some point I'm sure the Senate would've felt obligated to put a stop to it anyway and insisted on strategies that kept more clones alive for longer. So I'm not sure it's fair to claim the Jedi were utilizing BAD strategy by not just exclusively using tactics that meant most of their men were killed for every single victory.

So the ONLY criticism we EVER see of the Jedi's ability as military leaders is Tarkin claiming they're "too soft" and Tarkin is the kind of person who would likely say that until the Jedi started carpet bombing entire Separatist planets. Would it give them a victory? Yeah, sure, maybe, but that's the exact same strategy the Separatists are using and look how well that works out for THEM. Everything else we ever see seems to showcase that the Jedi are in fact perfectly good Generals, not just in that they're kind to the clones and are unwilling to carpet bomb Separatist planets, but also because they're just... good at this. They CAN be strategic, they CAN run wars if they want to. And I think that's the whole point of the Jedi in some ways is that yes, they CAN make war when they need to, they just actively choose NOT TO every time they can. THIS is why Qui-Gon tells Padme that he and Obi-Wan are there to protect her but that they can't win this war for her and they end up going off to fight off a Sith while Padme has to actually win the war with her own people and the Gungans instead. The Jedi don't WANT to be in the position of doing nothing but fighting, but they're absolutely capable of this kind of work.

That's the tragedy of the war in some ways, the Jedi ARE good at this no matter how much they wish they weren't sometimes. But being good at it means they can actually protect the Republic, their own men, and even the Separatist civilians better, so they're not going to just sit there and do things that will screw over a bunch of people. Yes, they're going to fight the war in such a way that they reduce casualties as much as possible, but reducing casualties also requires doing enough to not LOSE the damn war, too. It's a delicate balance they're trying to hold on to and I'd argue they manage it better than anybody else would've ever done in their position.

[petervintonjr]

"I was working for Mr. T. L. Kearny on the morning of the day of the election, and did not think of voting until he came out to the stable where I was attending to the horses and advised me to go to the polls and exercise a citizen's privilege."

Good god, people. I sure misjudged a hell of a lot of you; it is obvious more studying is called for. Way more. As in, "lessons-that-may-soon-be-illegal" way more.

Since we're already fresh on the subject of elections, let's get right into it with a look at the life of Thomas Mundy Peterson. Born enslaved in 1826 New Jersey, Peterson and his family were later manumitted upon their owner's passing, and moved to Perth Amboy. Peterson married and worked as a custodian and general handyman at Perth Amboy's very first public school. Active in local politics, at the age of 46 Peterson had been a participant in a local ballot initiative to revise the town's existing charter; in this instance, whether or not to abandon their 1798 charter entirely and reincorporate as a township. (Spoiler alert: they did neither and became a city in 1844.)

On March 30, 1871, less than two months after the ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment, Peterson voted in favor of retaining the town's existing charter --thereby making him the very first Black American to cast a ballot in any kind of post-Civil War election.

But for one unsurprising anecdote about a white voter at the polling place crumpling up their own ballot in disgust at the sight, Peterson's civic action went largely unremarked-upon (in fact Peterson even went on to be elected to the local city council). It was as true then, as it is now, that local elections are where the most immediate consequences happen. But gradually over time, the symbolism and the larger historical impact of Peterson's quiet moment took on much greater national significance. In 1884 the community raised the equivalent of $1800.00 to present Peterson with a medal featuring Abraham Lincoln's profile in recognition of his milestone --this medal is now part of the collection of Xavier University. In 1989 the public school at which Peterson once worked (P.S. No. 1), was renamed after him.

====

And further to the above subject: Fascism is a hell of a drug, people. One really doesn't see it for what it is when it finally arrives --no concept of just what it is that you've invited into your lives, just because eggs are inconveniently pricey or because you'd rather your kids not be exposed to history lessons like this one. Fascism never merely visits; it takes up permanent residence. Our Black brothers and sisters (especially the sisters) understood that deep in their bones prior to the Civil War, during Reconstruction, during Jim Crow, and during the Civil Rights movement. The rest of us need to internalize that, too. The past 400 years aren't "just" Black history, as if it all only belonged to a specific segment of the population. It is our history. All of us; inextricably connected to it. If we don't study it and learn about it; if we pivot to the deliberate ignorance that fascism so gleefully celebrates, then we all lose.

Racism (and all its cousins: anti-Semitism, xenophobia, homophobia, etc.) has been emboldened, running unchecked --to say nothing of truly terrifying old-school misogyny. (And yeah, go look up the word misogynoir if you haven't already). Of more immediate concern we've got... what, 70 days or so? 70 days to recalibrate, retool, get at least some guardrails up. In that time interval, please reach out to one another --check on your communities and keep a close eye on local issues, not unlike Thomas Mundy Peterson. Offer what help you can spare. Lotta desperation and panic floating about; folks are afraid of losing a lot of things in 2025 and beyond --you know, minor trifles like health care, insurance, income, savings, civil rights, autonomy. They're going to be looking for a connection. If studying these Black biographies these past 4+ years has taught me one thing, it is that authoritarianism flourishes when people isolate --whether forced upon them or on one's own. The moment folks break that pattern and start connecting with one another, the bullies proveably take a cautious step back. (Notice I didn't naïvely use the word retreat.) So look out for one another and keep each other afloat; the bullies hate that.

In the meantime for my part I'm going to keep doing the two things I know I am legitimately good at: teaching and drawing. Therefore I'll keep providing this resource until I am forcibly stopped from doing so.

If you're new to this series, start here.

[joyswonderland1108]

Drama. Drama everywhere.

Hello Loves, hope you are all doing okay and having a good life.

Quite honestly i was not going to talk about this because i was trying to stay drama-free for the longest time as i've been busy with uni but also wanted a bit of a break from all the bullshit while i continue to support, appreciate and wait for our boys peacefully.

My reactions for this situation were :

This shit is funny af because here we go again making a scene out of basically nothing.

As much as the situation is funny it is also unfunny when we're looking at the whole scene from different angles.

So to begin we all know why this shit is funny, same story, different day. People will continuously feel pressed about Jimin or Junkook or Jimin AND Jungkook, people always have this obsession of bringing down their bond because for some reason people can't even accept them as two bandmates, it HAS to be two strangers or nothing to them.

The whole "we do not support content that has shipping material" argument is silly to me because darling, if you see member X with member Z doing something totally normal that anyone can do and can still call it "shipping material" that's a you problem, you must be having serious untreated problems and should seek help from a therapist ASAP.

To think that "Tteokbokki by JK" caused so much fire and for what? We've all been knew that the members have been eating together many times before and it wouldn't be the first time that a member would've cooked something that was appreciated by other members. We were even able to see through the moments the boys decided to share with us that Jungkook did in fact cook for Jimin and if anything to me whether it was Jimin who said it or any other member, picking the Tteokbokki by JK as his favourite dish, that to me at least is a really good praise for JK because this could only mean his Tteokbokki is a banger!!

Now moving on to why it is also unfunny and i'm not even going to get into the details that we talk about every single time about how both Jimin and JK get unnecessary hate but i'm going to talk more about the fans.

We should all keep in mind that stan accounts are run by actual people not bots, so this whole thing about making a big deal out of a very small thing and making up lies to justify this hate is absolutely mental. People are receiving death threats through their dms, they're being lied about, they're being doxxed and basically their lives could be in danger and over what? Childish behaviors that are not assumed.

What irks me is those with big platforms who can't bother to do things correctly, and i'm not saying they should not do any mistakes, we're human we do make mistakes and it's okay but what's not okay is knowing damn well we are wrong and not apologizing for it, being able to fix it and not even try but instead proceeding to block the people they were wrong about.

I don't want anyone to tell me that those people behind those big accounts are not responsible, when you have a certain amount of followers you become responsible of the behavior they show after they followed YOUR advise. Like any influencer on the internet, they are responsible for their audience, as the word itself is "influence" which means that the behavior, decisions, actions, etc.. of the audience can be diverted by this person.

Seeing how these big accounts caused a lot of damage to many people over false information that they did not bother to fact check before but even worse didn't even think about making a follow up post apologizing not only for the misinformation but also to the people who have been impacted by it, this says a lot about what kind of people they are and the type of values they grew up with. Because those accounts are owned by real people too, which means that the posts are also influenced by their personality and values, knowing damn well that because of YOU people are being sent death threats and not even a simple "Sorry"?

It is quite sad actually because we're seeing fewer and fewer big accounts in this fandom being completely honest and unproblematic. Ship whoever you want, stan whoever you want, heck if you want to be a solo go ahead no one is stopping you as long as there is no disrespect out there, as long as there are limits, literally no one gives a fuck what you chose to do or believe in.

A this point i feel like i used up all of my energy in writing this post and if i go any longer it would no longer make sense so i'm stopping here. Please, let's do better for our boys, i know there's like a whole year for us to wait for all of them to be together again but i swear a year is not as long as you think it is, so in the meantime please let's work hard for them, if we can't be present on social media as in actively posting and all that's fine but at least let's be supportive and let them know that we did NOT forget them and we are still here for them, we still love them and we will continue to do so.

With that being said, take care of yourselves and have a very nice day.

[effervescentdragon]

I loove in the reflection, WHy did you get bad comments ? Are people mad?

Alright so I've been thinking since last night whether or not to answer this, but I got a comment this morning that cemented the decision for me, because I want to explain what I mean and you asked very nicely.

First of all, thank you for your kind words, im super happy you like my writing! That makes me genuinely happy, because when I write, I write so I can bring at least a piece of joy I feel while writing to the people who are reading my works.

Thats very kind of you to ask about the comments, too, and here we go.

When I said i got bad comments, i did not mean outright hate or "your writing sucks". That is obviously not true and wouldn't impact me, plus, only registered users can comment on my fics and people are much less inclined to be hateful when not on anon. It was comments like these:

These were left on a couple of my wips, and there are more like this but these are the first two i could find. These comments are bad in a sense that they are entitled, demoralising, and prone to make me much less inclined to write anything any time soon.

Writers and authors live on feedback. We feed on it and there is nothing that makes us happier than knowing that people enjoy our work. When the readers tell us this, it genuinely feels like we are on top of the world. A simple heart emoji in the comments is enough to make my day, and not to speak of in-depth analyses that I cherish with my whole being and re-read every time I'm in a slump or need a pick-me-up. All these comments, short and long, are inspiring and make me want to write more. People discussing my fics with me makes me want to write more. Anyone saying "this brought me joy" makes me want to write more and give more joy out in the universe. The loop is neverending.

However, comments like these have the exact opposite effect. I (and other fanfiction writers, but let me talk about me here, and my writer friends may add whatever they want, if they are so inclined) do this for free. I do this in my free time for the sheer joy of sharing a story in my head. I write for myself and for the story I'm telling, but I appreciate knowing that that story brought someone joy, or relief, or a way to put names to the feelings they may be feeling. What I do not appreciate is being made to feel like I am a content producing machine. What I don't appreciate is demands for updates cloaked in seemingly harmless compliments that really aren't that. I "forced you to leave a comment"? What does that mean? "My heart dropped when I saw [this was a wip]"? Why do you project your feelings on me? Why do you think I would be flattered that you left a comment that is, at its basis, just a demand for more content? I am taking these in as good faith as I can, but impact always trumps intent, and the impact of these comments on me personally is "I don't want to write anything in these universes again".

Fic writing is a community. It's a two way relationship between writers and readers, and, like any ecosystem, it thrives on mutual recognition and appreciation. I do not feel appreciated when I get a comment like this. I feel guilty for not writing, which is insane since I am and adult person with a full life who does this for fun and for free. I feel angry, because it makes me feel like I should be putting out 20k works every other day to stay "relevant", and what does that relevance even mean? I've been writing fics for years. AO3 is an archive. It's not an algortihm driven site that favours only new "content". I read fics from 2009 and comment regularly, because that's how an archive and fandom works. It's not tiktok, it's not instagram. So I refuse to bow to the demand of "write something new immediately or basically fuck you". It makes me feel disheartened, because I am a writer, and I hold myself to a certain standard, and a good story takes time.

Now don't get me wrong. For every one of these comments I get at least two lovely ones. And I focus on those because they are the ones that give me inspiration and joy. But I am also human, and sometimes, I am so fucking tired, and I can't just ignore this.

Did you know, well, you didn't, you can't, but I'll tell you anyways. I have been itching to write lately but I never got the time, and so I cleared up my day today to deal with some administrative things I need to do in rl and left the rest of the day free for myself to write? I thought I might finally finish this one chapter of a wip I've been writing on and off. And then I wake up to a comment like the ones above, and guess what? I'm not writing shit :) all my inpiration flew out of the window and burned in the heat of this obscene summer, and that's it. That's what these kinds of comments do. That's why I call them bad. Because they are bad.

I am lucky to have faith in my skills as a writer, so I am not worried about that. I know I am a comparatively good writer, and I personally like the things I write. But I wonder what comments like these do to people who are less certain and more insecure in their writing skills? I wonder how it impacts them? I wonder how many people stopped writing because they couldn't cope with the guilt and the pressure these kinds of comments produce?

So there. That's my answer. And I want it stated clearly that I didn't post these comments to call anyone out personally. I posted them because I needed to show them as examples and to explain and maybe make some people understand what your thoughtlessness and entitlement does. Food for thought, innit?

[betustamorla]

(Updated 01-07) Arkham Batman Beta reader/editor/consultant wanted

Genre: Drama, family, romance, hurt/comfort, action, slight canon divergence (in ages of the characters mainly)

Main characters: Jason and Helena

Pairings: Jason Todd/Helena Wayne (past/future), Dick Grayson/Koriand'r, Tim Drake/Barbara Gordon, Bruce Wayne/Selina Kyle (past)

Summary: Batman left Gotham to his proteges, no one knows if he is still alive. It's up to them to pick up the pieces, help each other, and sort their lives before big trouble threatens Earth.

Estimated length: 90,000< words.

Progress: 60,000< words.

Plan of finishing the first draft: End of July. First chapter release plan date: 31 of October

First scene sample:

This Arkham Knight was very troublesome, he was as dangerous as Batman, no, he was more dangerous than Batman, he was ready to kill, even eager to. Huntress touched her side, and a stinging pain answered her, but nothing to worry about for now. Her breathing was accelerated, her senses wired thin, her gaze fixed on the man in front of her ready to respond at his slightest movement.

"Move aside." His modified voice seemed to hiss.

"Sorry, but I don't feel like it." Of course, she had to goad him more, as if things weren't hard enough already.

"My business is with the Bat." 

She felt slightly confused at his seeming reluctance to fight her, but she squashed it to the back of her mind until she could be in a safe environment to ruminate. "You're endangering a lot of people with this... business of yours. So no, I won't be moving any time soon." She said flatly.

"That's too bad." It seemed like she had reached the limit of his patience. He lunged again at her. She dodged and threw a kick to his abdomen, he blocked it with his elbow, by instinct she flipped back, it was the right thing for his fist to fly inches from her face.

Still, she knew she wouldn't win this fight, her strength lay in the careful preparation of traps and sigil of her prey, even if she was a good fighter she wasn't, well, Batman. Now that there was some distance between them she started shooting bolts towards his legs, he dodged those easily and shot his grappling gun toward the nearest building and pulled upwards.

"Oh no, you won't!" She quickly changed her bolt to an explosive one and shot to where the grappling gun had hooked. He fell again into the roof they were on, rolling to minimize the impact.

"Now you really pissed me off," He growled and charged towards her.

Again they danced in a mix of punches, kicks, and dodges before he finally gained the upper hand and slammed her against the floor, stars danced in her vision, and his hand wrapped around her neck, cutting her air supply. Helena struggled, but to no avail, as he was at least fifty pounds heavier than her, but she had tricks up her sleeve, in fact, very literally. When pulling her wrist upwards a high voltage discharge would shoot on whoever was the unfortunate recipient of its full power would end up knocked out, which in this case was the Arkham Knight. She wasn't surprised when after receiving the electrical hit, he backed off but did not faint, the armor probably was designed as hers; to withstand the worst of such dangers.

"You have some tricks don't you?" He laughed, and she didn't like the sound of it. "But I think you won't have one for this." He gripped her by the neck again and pulled out a vial, unluckily, Helena wasn't fast enough to move out of his reach. The glass shattered between his fingers, and the contents immediately volatilized and turned into a gas. She didn't have any other option but to breathe at least a little, but guessing what it was, she knew it was more than enough to make its nasty effect kick into work.

She was shoved back, falling into her back, coughing at the acrid taste the fear gas left, her heartbeat quickened when the faint blurred sound of a familiar melody started to ring in her ears followed by a voice she thought she would never hear again.

“Here again my dear Angel?” The honied voice seemed to whisper against her ear, then a chuckle, and there, looming over her was the white-masked figure with amber eyes.

“You’re dead.” She breathed and gritted her teeth.

“Of course. You killed me. Remember?” Then his hand reached for her chin and turned her face towards one side and her heart stopped and seemed to come to the back of her throat at the same time. There in a chair tied with barber wire was Jason.

“Help me!” 

“Stop. Stop. Stop.” 

“Just kill me already.”

“Jason!”

She nearly choked. Get a grip, Helena, this is a hallucination! She felt her suit starting to slow down her increasingly accelerating heart, she knew that the fear gas she had inhaled was but a small dose, and yet it was messing this much with her head even with the Bíos pumping through her system already. This new formula was very, very dangerous, the whispers of Jason still lingered in the background, sometimes interrupted by the explosion that was imprinted like a hot iron in her body and mind. 

Then she felt the burning sensation of electrical currents run through her body to counter the other poison in her veins, the burning sensation of it made her gasp. But now she was able to take a coherent look at her opponent, he hadn't taken this opening to attack her, to end her, making her believe again that he didn't want to kill her. He was just standing there, looking at her. The knight was tense as if waiting for something, she was completely clueless at what it could be but she would use this to her advantage.

~•~•~•~

Jason watched as the gas kicked into action and she crawled away, then her breath hitched and she shook her head. Whatever it was, she didn't want to hear, she clapped her hands to her ears and closed her eyes, it would be so easy to kill her now… To put the broken body of his daughter in front of him, would break him like nothing else, he was sure. But he couldn't even bring himself to lift his gun and point at her, he didn't want to kill her, she had been- What?

It didn't matter, he had better things to do. He turned and started to walk away when he heard her breath his name.

“Jason!”

He clenched his fists, they had abandoned him to that fucking clown, they had replaced him and she had left, forgotten completely about him. But something was pulling in him to go and shake her, to tell her he was right here, that he wasn't a damned nightmarish apparition. He took in a shaky breath and cocked his head to one side, stretching his neck; an anxious tick he had developed. That was enough to strengthen his resolve to keep going on, she was just a part of his past that would disappear along the Bat. Bringing her to Scarecrow and making Bruce see his only daughter be tortured by her worst fears would be even worse than death for him.

Jason turned to her again, she was silent now but her respiration was agitated, she was very still, which was odd for someone with fear gas in their system. He walked closer, pulling his gun out. Maybe he should just blow her head up and throw her dead body in front of her father. The echoing of laughter surged in the back of his mind and the scar on his face burned like the same day the hot iron had sizzled against his skin.

The illusion broke when Helena launched herself at him, he was so unprepared that he tripped and fell on his back with her on top of him.

“Don't you ever dare to do something like that again asshole!” She hissed and punched his helmet hard enough to make his vision rattle a little. How she had fought off the effects of the gas he had no idea nor was interested to know right now, he curled his arms and then threw her off him. She rolled like a fucking cat and pulled her whip out.

“Oh fuck.” He muttered as he rolled out of the way of the crackling weapon. Maybe she was tougher to get than he had originally believed, at least she was more so than his replacement. Jason knew that whip wasn't just any normal leather thing, it seemed to be made of some metallic alignment, as if on queue the whip came down again, he dodged again though not fast enough as it graced his armor over his shoulder and the fucking plate had been sliced a piece off. Fuck, if that thing could slice off part of his armor it probably could slice his arm off as well, no wonder she hadn't used it until now. The no-killing rule was just as strictly embedded in her as her father. That thought made his anger burst.

Why? Why did they refuse to do what was needed to protect? To save people from fuckers like the Joker? If only Batman had killed the Joker the first chance he got he wouldn't had-!

He snapped and lunged at her quick enough to avoid the arch of the crackling shit and barrelled into her, she flew back at least a couple of meters landing painfully on her back. Disoriented enough to become too slow to react in time to make space between them to gain the advantage of her weapons, which were long-ranged tools, up close Jason was completely in control. He took full advantage of it, he punched her in the gut making her double over even with the armor mitigating some of the power from the hit, he didn’t pause, consumed by the red haze that felt so good to let loose. He pulled her head down to connect with his rising knee, she probably would have passed out if not for the face-guard over her forehead and eyes, Jason hit her back with his elbow making her go down. 

She was wheezing for air.

“Is it hard to breathe? Don’t you feel like you’re drowning? Like some cold hand is closing around you and pulling every last bit of life in you?” He remembered how it felt, to be hit over and over again until you couldn’t even seem to make your lungs work.

She coughed and choked- No, she was laughing. She was laughing.

Had she gone mad?

“It’s not so bad, you know.” She gasped and spat at his feet.

All the burning anger seemed to die out, leaving an empty cold feeling. His arm seemed to move on its own, grasping her by the nape of her neck, he started to lift her and she struggled uselessly as she still was too winded to gather her strength or wits. They were at the edge of the ten-story department building, it was at least a 30-meter drop from there to the cold concrete below. Time seemed to freeze, he took in her smaller frame, she seemed so small and frail compared to him, she always had…

Jason! Will you wait for me?

Then he pushed her, the back of her legs hit the small barrier of the edge and then she was gone. He stood there a moment then he heard the sound of crashing metal meters underneath. His heart felt like it stopped for a second.

~•~•~•~

DM if interested/curious or repost/share if you think someone else might.

:)

Check some of my previous works