#i haven't read the comics yet either this is just based on what i know in the show

[kelaeri]

The Many Languages of Dick Grayson

Apparently, according to Nightwing #54, he can speak 12, so I went on a little quest to see just how many I could identify.

Starting off with The Essential Batman Encyclopedia, the entry for Dick Grayson lists him as being trained in French, Spanish, Russian, Japanese, Mandarin, and Cantonese with having some proficiency in an unknown Romani dialect. Given there are multiple examples of him speaking these languages throughout the comics, I am inclined to trust this claim. To start, we've got several examples of French (Gotham Knights #14, Detective Comics Annual #12, Nightwing #73, Grayson #10-- also featuring Spanish)

In Grayson #1 he speaks Russian only briefly, but in Detective Comics #36 he speaks it throughout.

As far as the Chinese languages go, while I believe Dick can speak Mandarin and/or Cantonese fairly well (Batman/Superman World's Finest #3), his Hanzi recognition and literacy could use some work.

Similarly, when the Titans head off to Japan in Titans Annual #1, we have Nightwing speaking Japanese in battle; however, when it comes to the prospective job of being a manga translator in Nightwing #125, he claims he doesn't know Japanese, which leads me to believe he is only proficient in speaking Japanese/Chinese and struggles with the writing systems.

So what about the languages not covered in the encyclopedia? To start, we have another romance language: Italian (Nightwing #72).

Followed by some alleged German (Nightwing #51, JLA #44)

And conversations in Farsi (Robin #175)

While I've seen some Tumblr and Reddit posts claim he knows Kikuyu, The Power Company: Manhunter #1 only says he "brushed up" on his Kikuyu before going to Kenya, so it is unknown how much of the language he actually speaks, but to me it doesn't seem likely to be a lot.

He also, to some unknown degree, speaks Tamaranean-- at least enough to hack into an alien computer (Action Comics #842).

As far as unspoken languages go, Dick is fluent in ASL, which is proven numerous times when he communicates with Jericho (New Teen Titans 1984).

And lastly, the two languages that remain rather uncertain are Romani and Cant-- largely due to the nature of the languages themselves and their representation in comics. "Romani," for instance, has several different dialects, and when Devin Grayson introduced it for Dick (Gotham Knights #20-21, Nightwing #91), she never specified which, and based on the lines she wrote, her research into the language was questionable at best. Writers since have recognized Dick's Romani heritage, but have not otherwise suggested he retained much of the language to be considered fluent.

Cant is an even wider term than Romani and can be seen as more of jargon for a particular language than a language itself, sometimes even being called a "pseudo-language." The colloquial term for American circus cant is Carny, or "Carny speak" as Boston Brand puts it in Batman: The Brave and the Bold #14 when he and Nightwing encounter a kid who speaks it.

So... this leaves us with 11 languages Dick has notable proficiency in: English, French, Spanish, Italian, Russian, German, Japanese, Mandarin, Cantonese, Farsi, and ASL. And ~3 languages he has unknown proficiency in: Tamaranean, Kikuyu, Romani, and Carny/Cant (if you want to count it).

Maybe memory-loss Dick was including either Tamaranean or Kikuyu in that count from Nightwing #54, or maybe he knows some other language we haven't seen yet. Given how close the family is to the Al Ghuls, I personally think it would be cool if one of them was Arabic.

But anyway, hope you enjoyed this post! A lot I've seen covering this topic are very surface-level and label some of his more iffy languages as "fluent," so I hope this cleared things up. I've read tons of Nightwing, and I swear there are more examples, but sifting through the 1,000+ comics I've read of him is a lot haha. If y'all know of some others, let me know!

[punkitt-is-here]

Read These Frequently Asked Questions Before You Send An Ask!

Patreon | Ko-Fi | Youtube

Heyo! I get a TON of asks each day, so I'm making this post so that folks know what's already been asked so my followers don't have to see the same stuff over and over, haha.

Hi! I'm Punkitt! I'm a game developer, artist, editor, director, and a bunch of other stuff! I'm working on an RPG called Astral Guard, a platformer called Susan Taxpayer, and I have a couple more fun projects in my pocket like Happup and Super Mario Death Row.

Did you know you look like weird al?

YES jesus fucking christ i get told this every day. if u send me a message in my inbox saying i look like weird al im killing you with like wizard spells and shit.

Why do you have so many hats? Do you know you have that many hats?

ye i like hats. :) free tumblr badges for one pea i like one piece and took as many as i could. free.

Where can I find your art/game development/horsecomix?

Great question! Everything I make that's my own and not a reblog is under "my posts", every bit of art I do is under "my art", any game development I do is under "gamedev", you can find all my MLP art under "mlp, my art" or "horsecomix" for the best stuff. I also have an "animations" tag and a "shitposts" tab. I also properly tag all my asks to be asks and write out the asker's name, so if you don't wanna see those just mute the ask tag.

Do you have a Patreon or a Ko-Fi?

I do have a ko-fi here! I also JUST launched a Patreon, which you can find here :)

What do you use for your art?

I use FireAlpaca and Paint.net for misc. effects!

What are you using to make your games?

I use FireAlpaca do make my assets! Astral Guard, Happup, and any other top-down RPG games I make are all made in RPGMaker 2003. Susan Taxpayer is made in SMBX2 Beta 4, a Mario fangame engine with lua support!

Why are you using a 2-decade-plus engine to make games?

It's fun!

Do you have a sideblog or something for your art?

Not right now! What you see is what you get. I do have a sideblog for Astral Guard though, if you want to follow that game specifically! @astral-guard

Can I make an OC based on your work? ABSOLUTELY!!!!!!! THATS THE COOLEST THING EVER!!!! LET ME KNOW IF YOU DO!!!! I WANNA SEE!!!!

Can I do dubs/redraws of your comics? As long as you credit me! I get a ton of notifs each day, so if you wanna show me (and PLEASE i so do wanna see fun dubs and redraws!!!) tag me or DM me!

Can I use your art as a PFP? Sure! Just credit me somewhere. :D

Are you the one who trapped her coworkers in a room and made them listen to TF2 lore?

Yep! Everyone had a blast actually. :]

Did you make that comic where Fluttershy eats the weed brownie/Rainbow Dash has a male living space/someone has a cutie mark that says they'll kill Ronald Reagan?

Yep! That's me.

Where are you in MLP right now?

Currently just finished Season 7! Haven't watched the movie yet.

Have you watched Equestria Girls?

Yep! Thought it was super cute. I watched up to Rainbow Rocks and plan on watching more.

What's your opinion on MLP so far?

I love it! I think it's cute. I really don't agree that there was some sort of huge quality drop after season 2 or whatever.

What do you think of G5?

Not my style! I don't really like either animation types and it just seems like I'm not in the audience anymore. That's totally chill, but it just doesn't grab me!

Have you watched any other MLP stuff from previous generations?

Nope! But I did see a compilation called Minty Being Autistic for Six Minutes Straight that I loved. she's perfect.

Favorite pony?

Don't got one, I love all the Mane Six a LOT, but I'm particularly fond of Fluttershy, Applejack, and Rarity!

Favorite episode/season?

I'm so bad at picking favorites! But any season past Season 1 I have a blast with because I feel like it's just more my style. I don't have a favorite episode, but the most recent one I can remember LOVING is the one where Starlight bottles up her emotions because it was REALLY funny.

Do you like Pony.mov?

Nope! And stop saying my stuff reminds you of it, it's a lil annoying!

Have you watched the Mentally Advanced Series/Friendship is Witchcraft/Other fandom vids?

Probably not! My interaction with the MLP fandom prior to last year was pretty minimal, so I'm making my way through the show first!

What do you think of Fallout: Equestria?

I think it's super weird but really fun because of that. I've never properly read any of it but it's very fascinating to me.

Are you transgender?

Yep! I go by she/her, I'm a trans woman. Have been for many years, but I only recently came out online!

Are you a lesbian?

Nah, I'm bisexual!

Can I commission you?

Yeah! I only have my commissions available on my Ko-Fi at certain times though, so keep an eye out! I usually announce slots being open at least 12 hours beforehand. Slots are usually first come first serve, but we'll see.

Can I use your art as a Discord emote?

Yeah man i'm not scouring every discord on the planet to find stickers of my work. i think it owns if people take my stuff and make it stupid injoke emotes between friends that makes me very happy.

Can I send you an ask inquiring about gender dysphoria?

I feel like this is beyond my capabilities of advice! I'm actually very comfortable with my body and I have been for many years, so I don't know if I can give any good or helpful advice on that front. Apologies, but there are many resources out there where you can ask about those things if you look for them, like Discord channels!

Favorite Color?

I'm a sucker for blue!

Favorite coffee?

Can't drink coffee, my stomach is cringe.

Favorite tea?

I'm lame and can't drink most tea but I love this one orange-flavored tea a lot. I also LOVE ice tea.

Can I say you're horsegender/punkittgender/a little gender goblin void thing?

Well, I can't stop you, but I'm kind of beyond that phase now! I really am a boring ol' plain she/her girl, and I like it that way. It's not much, but it's honest gender.

What's your favorite game series?

Mother, Kingdom Hearts, Mario, and I USED to say Fallout, but I found out I'm really only a big Fallout New Vegas fan.

Favorite game from those?

Mother 3 is one of my fave games of all time! I love KHII, and I'm tied for SMB3 and SMW. Also Fallout New Vegas fucks hard.

Any other favs?

Bug Fables, SLARPG, and TF2!

Favorite Movie?

Everything Everywhere All At Once, no question.

Oh, are you going to college?

Yep! I'm a film/theater major.

Do you have a YouTube channel?

Yeah! Click right here for it, I stream there and upload footage of my games/animations/my film projects + other stuff.

What is that little orange creature I see?

That's bweenop, my little persona that I use when I'm feeling a little scrunkly.

Do you have a ponysona?

Yep! Her name is Star Magnolia, you can search her on the blog to see art of her.

When will Susan Taxpayer/Astral Guard/etc. be out?

No clue! I take things slow, that's just how I am.

How do you work on so many things at once?

I make small, satisfying amounts of progress! I never try to complete one giant thing all at once, I just like doing small bursts of fun stuff. I got ADHD, so I learn to work with it.

Did you know you look like Weird Al?

Im going to run you over with a clown car watch out

WHY do you work on so many things at once?

Fun! I like learning, I like making cool stuff, and I like showing it to people :)

Do you need any help with your projects?

Potentially! I'll probably put out a post asking for help if I need it.

If you could be a horse, would you?

You kidding me? Several ton beasts with the frailty of a sickly Victorian boy; my clumsy ass would never survive.

Are you some sort of...furry?

yeag

Why do you reblog so much?

Brother I LOVE posting. that's just how it is.

Fav music artists?

It changes literally ALL the time but I will recommend ANYTHING by Vylet Pony, its music is incredible and probably the reason I'm a weird niche microcelebrity now.

Why are you like this?

theater kid + having a lot of fun on the internet makes you a bit silly hehe hoo

SUSAN TAXPAYER QUESTIONS

Is it out? Not yet! But hopefully sometime in the next year. I dunno! I take things at my own pace and keep stuff fun. :)

What are you using to make it? SMBX2! It's a free fangame engine for Mario episodes, but it's incredibly versatile and has a wonderful community, so I decided to make Susan Taxpayer in it.

Is there a demo? You betcha! You can find it right here. I'll also probably put it up on my itch.io.

How do I install it? I made a post here about how to run the SAGE '23 demo!

[sasaranurude]

Okay. I've been playing Tokyo Debunker today, since the release happened to catch me on a day when all I'd planned to do was write fanfiction. I just finished reading the game story prologue (it was longer than expected!), so here's a review type post. If you're reading this post not having seen a single thing about this game: it's a story-based joseimuke gacha mobile game that just released globally today. It's about a girl who suddenly finds herself attending a magic school and mingling with elite, superhuman students known as ghouls. If you look in the tumblr tag for the game you'll see what appears to be a completely different game from 2019 or so: they retooled it completely midway through development, changing just about everything about it due to "escalating competition within the gaming industry."

I'll talk about how this looks like a blatant twst clone at the end.

Starting with the positive: The story is charming. I enjoyed it thoroughly the entire time and am excited to read more. The mix between visual novel segments and motion comics was really nice--it broke things up and added a lot of oomph to the action or atmospheric scenes that visual novels generally lack. I like the art in the comic parts a lot. the live2d in the visual novel parts is... passable. Tone-wise, I think the story was a little bit all over the place and would like to see more of the horror that it opened on, but I didn't mind the comedic direction it went in either. The translation is completely seamless. The characters so far all have unique voices and are just super fun and cute. Of the ones who've had larger roles in the story so far, there's not a single one I dislike. It's all fully voiced in Japanese and the acting is solid. (I don't recognize any voices, and can't seem to find any seiyuu credits, so it seems they're not big names, but they deliver nonetheless.) Kaito in particular I found I was laughing at his lines a ton, both the voicing and the writing.

He's looking for a girlfriend btw. Spreading the word.

The problem is like. The gameplay is the worst dark-pattern microtransaction-riddled bullshit I've ever seen. Hundred passive timers going at all times. Fifty different item-currencies. Trying to get you to spend absurd amounts of real world money at every turn. There's like five different indicators that take you to various real-money shop items that I don't know how to dismiss the indicator, I guess you just have to spend money, wtaf. Bajillion different interlocking systems mean you have zero sense of relative value of all the different item-currencies. I did over the course of the day get enough diamonds for one ten-pull, which I haven't used yet. Buying enough diamonds for a ten-pull costs a bit under $60 (presumably USD, but there's a chance the interface is automatically making that CAD for me--not gonna spend the money to check lmfao), with an SSR rate of 1%. BULLSHIIIIIT.

There's like a goddamn thousand-word essay explaining the dozen different types of character upgrades and equippables and equippables for the equippables!! Bad! Bad game design! That's just overcomplicating bullshit to trick people into thinking they're doing something other than clicking button to make number go up! That is not gameplay!

In terms of the actual gameplay, there is none. The battle system is full auto. There might be teambuilding, but from what I've seen so far, most of that consists of hoping you pull good cards from gacha and then clicking button to make number go up. There's occasional rhythm segments but there's no original music, it's just remixes of public domain classical music lmao. I'd describe the rhythm gameplay as "at least more engaging than twisted wonderland's," which is not a high bar

At least there's a cat in the rhythm bit.

And like, ok, I gotta remark on how derivative it is. Like I mentioned in my post earlier, this game is unabashedly aping twisted wonderland's setting and aesthetic. (That said, most of the stuff it steals from twst is magic school stuff that twst also basically stole from Harry Potter, so...?) However, it isn't exactly like twst: in this one, the characters say fuck a lot and bleed all over the place and do violence. Basically, the tone is a fair bit more adult than twst's kid-friendly vibe. (Not, like, adult adult, and I probably wouldn't even call it dark--it's still rated Teen lol. Just more adult than twst.)

Rather than just being students at magic school, the ghouls also go out into the mundane world to go on missions where they fight and investigate monsters and cryptids. Honestly, the magic school setting feels pretty tacked-on. The things that are enjoyable about this would've been just as enjoyable in about any other setting--you can tell this whole aspect was a late trend-chasing addition, lmao. So, yeah, it's blatantly copying twst to try to steal some players, but... Eh, I found myself not caring that much. Someone more (or less) into twst than me may find it grating.

Character-wise, eh, sure, yeah, they're a bit derivative in that aspect too, but it's a joseimuke game, the characters are always derivative. Thus far the writing & execution has been solid enough that I didn't care if they were tropey. If I were to compare it to something else, I'd say the relationship between the protagonist and the ghouls feels more like that of the sage and wizards in mahoyaku than anything from twst. There's some mystery in exactly what "ghouls" are and their place in this world that has me intrigued and wanting to know more about this setting and how each of the characters feels about it. I have a bad habit of getting my hopes up for stories that put big ideas on the table and then being disappointed when they don't follow through in a way that lives up to my expectations, though.

So, my final verdict: I kind of just hope someone uploads all the story segments right onto youtube so nobody has to deal with the dogshit predatory game to get the genuinely decent story lol. Give it a play just for the story if you have faith in your ability to resist dark patterns. Avoid at all costs if you know you're vulnerable to gacha, microtransactions, or timesinks.

[galadrieljones]

Zabel Interview, Team Delusional Round-up, re: the past few weeks (months?) 💫

(Based on an ask from @natural-blue-26! This post contains spoilers, pertaining to the script leak. If you don't want them, turn back!!)

First, let me say that @twdmusicboxmystery has posted an excellent video covering this topic over at her youtube channel. This post is jumping off of that, with some additional takes and analysis by me!

Also, note that I wanted to wait to post or to talk about this too much publicly until today, as I think there are a lot of genuine shippers who might be let down right now. Not all c*rylers are unhappy, unruly people. Many are shippers just like us, and even though I don't ship it, I support them. I am only putting this in the Team Delusional tag, so anyone who sees this is seeing it either because they follow me, follow the tag, follow someone who follows me, or they went looking for it themselves. I am not making drama or inciting a "ship war." If you're here out of anger, I suggest you turn back. I am just going to go over what I see.

The Facts

There has been a recent spate of events that have lead Team Delusional to a rare and more than modest resurgence. Until now, we were mostly just working with templates and symbolism, with a healthy dose of informed meta and speculation: We were seeing how the season 4/5 template was beginning to unfold toward the Grady arc, which includes Carol in a major role.

BUT. Let's check in with what's been going on over the past six months. A lot of this new resurgence starts with Emily's multiple trips to Europe for TWD cons in the past six months, integrated with her (yet unrealized) insinuation that she has been in studio recording one or more songs that Beth sang on TWD. Massive financial burdens aside, these are unusual undertakings for Emily. While she has done many fan cons over the years, visiting Europe twice in a four month period is bizarre (as well as expensive). She also talked openly and excitedly in the panel at French comic-con about how cool it would be if Beth returned. Further, Emily's "re-recording" of "Parting Glass" and possibly other TWD songs was a fairly big announcement for us at the time, but we haven't seen any more on it since. Speculation went everywhere from "She'll be singing in a flashback in Daryl Dixon season 2" to "Her songs will be part of the soundtrack" to "She'll actually BE in season 2, singing, in the present moment."

A lot of these things, if they were spread out over a 5 year period, wouldn't matter at all. But the fact that they're all taking place in the six-month run-up to Daryl Dixon s. 2, when we've already been able to speculate her tenuous return based on templates and other tells, is exciting. It's been almost ten years to the day of Beth's *death.* Why now? The timing on all of this is very suspicious.

Now, a few weeks ago, there was a LEAKED SCRIPT excerpt, which was claimed to be the final scene of DD 2.6. In the script, we learn that Isabelle has died and is appearing to Daryl in the form of a hallucination while he fights walkers in the Chunnel. This was confusing for many reasons. First, we already know, given their ruthless advertisement of the fact, that season 3 is already being filmed in Spain. So why are they headed to England? Also, where the hell is Laurent? Further, Isabelle's death, while unsurprising to many of us, creates some new questions. Many members of a certain *other* ship were ecstatic to learn about Isabelle's death, as Daryl/Isabelle ship rumors have been rampant in the fandom basically since season 1. Forget the fact that the same ship FREAKED out over Daryl/Leah three years ago (a clear nothingburger). Any time another female character even comes into contact with Daryl, a notable portion of fans must make their "displeasure" widely known.

Moving on. Yesterday, an article came out summarizing a yet-unreleased interview with David Zabel in SFX magazine. You can read it here. In the interview, Zabel makes the following comment about "C*ryl":

"The obvious thing to do, and the easier thing to do would be, 'Okay, now they're falling in love and they're a couple.' But I always felt like that would be a mistake, because it would feel like you were going into the TV book of tricks," he explains. "To me, there was never a question that [their connection] was something other than what it is, and what it seems to want to be, and why it works so well."

Zabel then goes on to hint at a highly-contentious romance with Daryl and Isabelle:

"What happened in season one was that you could see a connection forming, for sure," he says. "We didn't manufacture that but we left room for it. A lot of season two is about the development of that and where that relationship goes, and that little surrogate family of Isabelle, Daryl and Laurent."

Now, the full interview doesn't come out until September 4, at which point, we may get a clearer picture of what's going on. However, it seems that Zabel is politely declining the "C*ryl as romance" narrative. In the quote, he uses the excuse of wanting to avoid TV tropes; however, he then goes on to say (in a portion of the quote that is being wildly misinterpreted among the c*ryl ship) that "To [him]," there was "never a question that [their connection was something other than what it is." He then equates "what it is" with "what it seems to want to be" and "why it works so well." The misinterpretation is coming with that second part. "What it is" = friendship. Zabel is clearly saying that c*ryl "seems to want to be" exactly "what it is," aka: a sacred friendship and nothing more. He's basically saying that this already "works so well," and so why fix what ain't broke? Why create a romance between two characters who are clearly just very, very good friends when he could go another, more interesting direction?

Certain c*ryl accounts have misinterpreted that section of the quote. They seem to think he's saying that the c*ryl ship "seems to want to be" something else, something other than what it is. But if you follow the grammatical logic of the sentence, you can see that they're wrong here. It wants to be what it already is, which is friendship. Of course, to c*rylers, what it already is = romance, but that isn't canon. There's no proof of this. In fact, there's more proof to the contrary, that they're best friends. They're family. Carol was married to somebody else, raised a child with him, still holds a contentious relationship with the other man, allowed Daryl to toil away in the woods alone for five years because she needed to stay with her husband...

In addition to factual evidence from the show, the C*ryl Friendship Campaign has been going strong on social media for MONTHS. In her video this morning, twdmusicboxmystery also goes over quasi-recent comments from Angela Kang which are UNSUPPORTIVE of a c*ryl romance. The notion that this perspective is coming out of nowhere, which some fans are claiming as a way of blaming Zabel for either lying or betraying his fanbase (and the actors), is, frankly, absurd.

Please note that I'm not saying that nobody should ship c*ryl just because it isn't canon. That would be silly. I ship non-canon ships all the time. BETHYL is a non-canon ship! I've written whole fanfics for Beth and Daryl (well, I've tried lol, but most remain unfinished). It's one of the funnest parts of being in a fandom.

What I'm saying is that c*ryl is NOT CANON. It never has been. And the people who get angry about this, who want to get professionals fired over this, who think that they're entitled to getting exactly what they want, lest the show perish, are wrong. They're doing it wrong. It's totalitarian and, frankly, obsessive. This is not how you be in a fandom, and my interpretation here of the Zabel interview in conjunction with the C*ryl Friendship Campaign is that they are TRYING to let this highly volatile and frankly unpleasant faction of the fandom down lightly in an effort to get them off tptb's AND the actors' backs. They don't want to deal with this shit anymore. And by the way, they're actually not leading anyone on. They've been insanely clear here, in their rebranding of c*ryl to a platonic ship, as to what's happening and what's going on, and while I really do feel for the good people who may feel let down by this, I am GLAD to see that the showrunners aren't going to heed the demands of one tiny, loud faction of a giant fandom, and that despite the haters, they're going to tell the story they want to tell.

ANYWAY.

Over the past 48 hours, things have gotten...weird. Zabel's interview dropped less than a day after the TWD Skybound social media accounts appear to have...posted a Bethyl edit out of nowhere. @sweetz1919 also posted early this morning, bringing together a few more Beth-related posts on either official accounts or *near* official accounts, which post promotional material, and which are followed by AMC TWD. One of these posts is a repost on twitter by Scott Gimple, who so rarely posts on social media, that any time he does, it's like a unicorn, symbolically notable and certainly important.

Now, pertaining to the Zabel interview, another wide complaint taking place in the c*ryl camp is that Zabel is likely LYING or he is being taken grossly out of context, because if c*ryl isn't happening, AND Isabelle is going to die, then how could Daryl POSSIBLY get his happy ending?

THIS is where Team Delusional comes in. Of course, we have our theories. Most people think WE'RE the delusional ones. And maybe we are! Lol. I don't really care. Most of our theories are crafted through a TON of hard, circumstantial, pattern-driven, and symbolic evidence, evidence taken from IRL sources, and hypotheses made after paying very close attention to what's been going on and making LOTS and LOTS of connections over a period of many years. Me, myself, I've only been here for four, but some of you guys have been doing this for almost ten, and for that, I salute you! As I said earlier, TD has been theorizing Beth's "return" in DD2 based greatly on symbolic and template-driven evidence alone for a while. A lot of what we're seeing now on social media is playing directly into our hand.

Emily in Europe multiple times in a 4mo period, including a trip to Paris, with her latest stint being just a week before "official" filming for season 3 was set to begin? Emily re-recording tracks from TWD? Leaked script pages in which Daryl mentions Beth specifically AND suggest that Isabelle is going to die? Romantic!C*ryl = not happening? HOW could Daryl possibly get his happy ending now? The rest is TD theory, ie: WHY we think Beth will come back to manifest Daryl's "happy ending." Speculation and theories on how she could come back, the connection to Spain/England/France, that's basically all we talk about lol, each of us with our own interests and niche perspectives, all arriving at the same point.

SO while there is still no proof that she is coming back, all of this is a Good thing, actually. For us. Because while everyone is looking around, freaking out, wondering what's going to happen next, we are seeing and able to read a LOT of signs that others ignore. And rightly so! There's no reason the rest of the GA needs to think that Beth is legitimately coming back. That would overshadow Carol's role in season 2, which is significant. It's just important that the GA REMEMBERS who Beth IS, that she was important to Daryl, and that hey, people used to really like Beth, and they liked Beth and Daryl together, and that was hopeful, and nice for him, and he hasn't had much "hope" or "niceness" since, and wouldn't it be nice if he could have that again...? All of these things are really there to do just this: let the c*ryl ship down easy, and remind people that Daryl once held a very strong connection to a woman whose life "ended" too soon, and who has really never been mentioned again.

While I really have no idea what's coming next, I wonder if we'll begin to see more astroturfed discussion on Beth's *death.* How weird it was, what the hell was going on at Grady, etc. If we don't see it in promotional material, we may hear about it in-show. Because if Daryl is casually mentioning Beth (along with Merle and Glenn) to Isabelle's ghost/vision in episode 2.6, then this likely implies that he's told her about Beth before, and that he's talked to her about what happened. It implies that Isabelle knows who Beth is, which would be a truly insane development, since he's literally never talked about her to anyone, including Carol, as far as we know.

So anyway, as usual, we should all just keep our heads down, chins to our chest, keep hope alive, but with a balanced sense of anticipation. We still really don't know what's going to happen, so it's important to be rational, but it also won't hurt to have a little faith 💫

[thechekhov]

you mentioned in recent tags about a horror comic you drew- i understand not wanting to link publicly to it to avoid creating MORE misinterpretations, but i really like your storytelling and now i’m curious?? so if you could, that’d be great! no pressure either way!

(i’m sending this off anon so you have the choice to respond to it privately anyways) (love your art thanks) (and the dungeon meshi reacts)

Thanks for the kind message! And it's not a secret or anything, it's straight up this post:

I used language comparing humans and other animals as two separate things (for the sake of drawing the narrative conclusions I needed to, in order to make the concept understood in only a few pages), like this:

But because of this simplified language, people drew their OWN wild conclusions about me as a person.

For example, this guy on twitter:

I never actually said humans WEREN'T animals, never said humans were somehow 'above' biology...I was simply putting them into a separate category capable of a specific set of skills for the sake of the comparison I made in the last couple of pages as the punchline.

But they decided that it must "clearly" mean I believe X, Y and Z.

This has happened MORE than enough times!

Writing is difficult, and writing for varied audiences with different dialects, different levels of reading ability, and different attention spans is hard! Sometimes, people don't want to sit through 2 pages of 'well humans are animals but due to a specific evolutionary niche we fill our ability to use language and calculate mathematical equations to the degree that we do is really unique--'

Now, mind you... I STILL got grief for trying to be soft-boiled in my delivery. People (who don't have a linguistics degree) IMMEDIATELY also messaged me to tell me that chimps CAN learn language - and haven't I seen that one video with the gorilla, the dolphin, etc?

And that's it's own can of worms. (No, other animals cannot learn language the way humans can. Yes, they can communicate in complex ways. No, language is a very specific human thing as far as leading scientists are concerned, at least based on current data. Yes, I went to University for this. I have a degree. Please just trust me.)

It happens, I'm not actively mad about it... Humans tend to take whatever we read and run with it.

But we make this mistake often! I know I also make this mistake. We come conclusions based on scarce evidence! We jump to the worst case scenario! We presume that we know better than that person what they believe, based on minimal interaction with them.

It's yet another thing that's unique to humans thanks to... wait for it... language!

It's the price we pay for having memes.

[boneyardbob]

Marble Hornet headcanons everyone come gobble em up before they get cold!!! @forgottenporkbun @monszsterz

So my headcanons for MH are a lot less conceret than those for the creepypastas cause ngl, I'm still trying to figure out wtf happened in MH. I haven't read the comics yet so I'm going off the main videos only. I've rewatched them a few times and read the theories but I'm still left with a few questions, and some theories I have fall apart when paired against certain videos SO take everything with a grain of salt. Even WORSE is I'm still playing around with how I want to write these scenarios and dynamics because they change drastically based on what theory I'm going with at the time.

Starting off, I think The Operator (TO) is doing a lot of experimentation. Each person in MH is affected differently cause no two people have the exact same type of TO disease. The closest are probably Jay and Brian, funny enough, because both were infected by Tim. Tim is patient zero for the disease in the sense that he doesn't just have it, he IS IT. Each cell in Tim's body contains a little speck of TO that, when transferred to others, can multiply and spread into a spiritual parasite. It reacts differently to Alex because he's also hand picked by TO. We know Alex had been stalked by him from an early age, maybe his whole life. When he got infected it triggered a sleeper agent type parasite in him. He's a lot more aggressive, violent, and bold. I think the difference stems from where the seed of The Operator has been planted. For Tim its the body, and Alex I honestly think its the soul. I could say mind but I actually think that applies better to Seth (and Ticci Toby but I'm trying not to include creepypastas in this rn). If the disease works through the bodies of Tim, Brian, and Jay it makes sense why normal prescription medication works to stop it. If that's the case why isn't everyone infected and wipes out the world? We were nearly at the end of MH by the time Jay started REALLY showing signs of no return. At almost any point he could have left got some medication, and probably get over it! I mean its like, entry 80 before we see him wandering around in a daze and hallucinating, right? His symptoms always get worse when he's in an infected area or around Tim for a prolonged amount of time. Jessica on the other hand seems to catch it really fast. Like REALLY fast. A single interaction in Rosswood has her just as bad as Jay, who had been on the run for almost two years surrounding himself with this shit. She has also been stalked by TO since a young age. I won't be able to get into her more until I read the comics tho.

I see a lot of people confused as to what Brian's status ends up being with both The Operator and his friends cause me too tbh. His motives are constantly bouncing around. One thing I know is he is still buddy buddy with TO. Some people say he's fighting against him but I don't get that at all from the videos. He's either using special powers he was given or TO is monitoring him and stepping in when possible to teleport him to safety. If TO is wanting followers then it makes sense he'd encourage Brian to lure Tim back into it with him. The issue is Alex is ALSO a follower. The Operator finds himself in a pickle when his girls are fighting one another. This is where I really get thrown off. An easy answer would be The Operator is an inhumane, eldrich, perhaps fae monster with no understanding of how humans really work. This, paired with the fact his followers have NO idea what he really wants them to do, means miscommunication and chaos ensue. When Tim is killing Alex in the final entries TO bounces around BOTH of them to get in their way. We know he's fully capable of tossing Tim off to the other side of the woods, or snatching Alex out of danger, but he doesn't. He's watching....I think he wants to see which style of infection is better. Tim's disease, or Alex's corruption. Which makes a better follower. This falls apart when you remember how close Brian came to killing Alex and he got saved by TO. Again you can sweep this under the rug by saying either A: He wans't done having fun yet or B: It had to be Tim. The OP doesn't give a FUCK about Jay dying, he lets him get shot and then scoops him up for devouring. Same about Brian, he lets him *fall*. They're supplemental to the game. Its all about Tim and Alex.

Now my FAVORITE headcanon of all time I use everywhere no matter WHAT...Tim is The Operator's favorite. If we wanna include pre-MH lore about Slenderman, aka his origins in the photoshop contest, then we learn he's been trying to do something like this for a very long time. Tim may be the first person ever directly infected by The Operator to live to adulthood. He may also be the first one to consistently fall back into a state of obedience, aka, a masked state where he's being crazy in Rosswood in the middle of the night. That makes him the favorite child. He is disobedient to The Operator, curses him, openly hates him, and physically fights against him throughout ALL of Marble Hornets and yet Tim never gets killed or devoured. He definitely comes close to both. I think him being teleported around is The Operator's most merciful form of punishment to shake some sense into his first follower. Its basically evil time out lmao. He just ALMOST snags two more followers in Brian and Jay but alas we know how that ends. In most people's "fix it" au, or "no one dies" au, that isn't an issue. My "no one dies" au transfers into creepypastas and the mansion and there is a direct tie in there with Ticci Toby, his similarities to Tim, their relationship, and how The Operator acts. The best way I explain it (and the way that makes me laugh the most) is saying TO is like parents who were cruel af to their eldest child, but by their youngest, they're completely different people and wonderful parents. I wouldn't call Slenderman a wonderful parent even in a very wholesome creepypasta mansion Au but he's definitely BETTER THAN WHATEVER THE FUCK WAS HAPPENING IN MH!!! This results in the younger children (pastas) having no idea why the eldest children (Tim and Brian) fucking hate their parents. Its a very good silly dynamic to wrap up the most gut wrenching, tragic yaoi I have ever watched.

[lucianalight]

This is something my friend and I were discussing, but since neither of us watched the show and we just watched Ruth's clips because we love her 😅 I figured I would ask you.

How does Night Nurse's employment work in this universe? Is she a slave to Tamlyn Tomita's character? If she, at the end, said she didn't want to stay with the boys on Earth, would she get to make that choice?

As always this answer turned out longer that I expected🤦🏻😅 so TLDR; it's not clear how the employment works but the Night Nurse has to follow her superior's orders. Whether she can make her own choices depends on her origins and how Afterlife works but we don't have a definitive answer for either one of these questions yet. And I haven't read the comics so what I wrote are mostly speculations based on The Sandman and dbd TV shows.

Here's the long answer:

It is not clear how exactly Afterlife works. I would have said it's under Death of the Endless' supervision but the whole strict, bureaucratic theme of the office doesn't really match her vibes. It's clear that the people there, despite their power, do not have the freedom to do what they want. For example to get permission to go to Earth the Night Nurse had to have a specific location of the ghosts she wanted to retrieve. But does she have free will to disobey her orders? To answer this I have to make a detour first.

The Night Nurse works in the Lost and Found Department and her superior-Tamlyn Tomita's character-who is said to be very busy and has the number "002" on her office's door is in fact Niko. Niko was infected by dandelion sprites and was saved by dead boy detectives. As a result of her near death experience she could see the ghosts and became the dbd's friend. She had died just a few days ago protecting them.

So this powerful entity who according to her, could do anything she wanted was human once. The curious thing is that she didn't remember the boys, not until she saw her human name on their wall as one of the closed cases. So we can assume that all the other people in that department were also human once. A pair of twins that are mentioned as one of the closed cases can be further proof of that. The twins work under the Night Nurse could possibly be the same twins.

But why are these people working there? The Night Nurse mentions that death isn't an option available to her and technically she can live for eons. Maybe it is a place for the ones who can't actually find their afterlife? We see Niko dies but we never see her meeting Death or the blue light that comes with her. Instead we see Niko with the dandelion sprites in an igloo. This is probably the result of the polar bear lucky charm she had with her when she died but what that lucky charm did and why the sprites were there and how she aged or why she didn't remember the boys at first are all questions that we don't know the answer to.

All of this though can give of us some clues. Like wherever Niko went, time doesn't work the same and she could age. She somehow existed before she was born and died on Earth. So can the Night Nurse be one of the future cases the boys haven't helped yet? She has the ability to see people's traumas and when Crystal tries to see inside her head she sees a skeleton with lots baby hands inside her that terrifies her. I wouldn't be surprised if her human life is tied to sth traumatic involving children.

It is also interesting that one of her main interactions is with Kashi, someone in a terrible situation with no trauma, someone kind with no alterior motive that helps her sees and considers different ways to what is always been done. Free will and doing what one's like to do are also topics that are mentioned in relation to her character. So if there's a second season those are some of the themes that can be explored with her character.

But I think it also matters who the number one is Afterlife is. Dream of the Endless decided to give free will to his subjects. Whoever the number one is in Afterlife, is probably the one who has the last say in this.

[gffa]

Dearest gffa, you are the only person I know whose been reading Batfamily comics. (Though I do read some of the fanfic haha). The destiel meme informed me that Bad Things just happened in the latest comics. Is there a primer to the latest drama? (Everyone seems upset). Are you ok?

Best wishes, your fandom neighbor on Star Wars Street

I assume this is about the Batman #148 leaks? I haven't seen a ton of drama (other than a couple of posts, including the Destiel meme notification that got me to go see what was happening) but if that's it, it's kind of funny, because okay. As far as I've seen (the issue isn't even out yet, so I can't read it until tomorrow, I'm only going on the leaked panels I've seen) what happens in the issue is that Failsafe-- okay, let me back up. In the current Batman run (written by Chip Zdarsky), awhile back Bruce created a super powerful robot that was meant to be activated in the case of him going rogue so that it could take him down, and it's very coldly logical, based on his patterns, so it knows him extremely well and is hard to beat. It's powerful enough that it apparently took out the Justice League awhile back (I haven't read that arc yet, so take that with a grain of salt), which means now that Failsafe has gone rogue in the current Batman series that Zdarsky's writing, Bruce is having a hell of a time fighting it, especially with his "backup personality" Zur-En-Arrh (Bruce is a paranoid shit and I love him the most) is also running amok in his head and he's fighting back against that. Back up further--in late 2023, there was an event called "Gotham War" that was basically, "Bruce has been through a lot of shit lately, so he was out of commission for several months, in that time Selina stepped up in Gotham and started training crooks to be cat burglars instead of rogues' goons, Bruce woke up, thought this was bullshit, despite that crime was down, and they basically had a turf war while Bruce was losing his goddamned mind because of what he'd been through and because Zur-En-Arrh was literally ratting the bars of the cage of his mind, and part of the fallout being that Bruce dosed Jason with a gas that basically made his adrenaline go wild any time he would do anything dangerous, so that he could no longer be in this life of crime or vigilantism, because Jason had killed a lot of people, but Bruce couldn't bear to send him to jail, so this was the only way he could live with taking Jason out of the life they lived". Gotham War was extremely controversial--I had fun with it, because it was BONKERS and I fuckin' love bonkers stuff in the "punching people in the face solves crime" genre, but a lot of people were really angry about how Jason was treated in the arc. Zdarsky co-wrote Gotham War, so this is a continuation of a lot of people's frustration and anger towards how Jason has been treated by DC especially by this author.

There's also a lot of lingering frustration and resentment in fandom because Jason is not always written well or frequently. He doesn't have his own solo book these days, half of what's written about him is written by authors with VASTLY different takes from the other half of the writers out there, and there's a lot of fanon that goes around with Jason's sub-section of fandom where I think it furthers the divide because the fic that's written about Jason delves deep into his character in specific ways that the canon doesn't match and I think it can set expectations for some fans that are just not matched by DC themselves, either because they see Jason differently or because Jason just doesn't have a lot of fans at the company itself, I couldn't say for sure. So, now comes Batman #148 leaks (it's not actually out until tomorrow), where Failsafe kills Jason and Bruce has a dramatic reaction to it, and a lot of people are furious that DC would kill Jason at all, much less with such little fanfare, after how little focus he's gotten over the last several years. The thing is, though, that Jason doesn't stay dead, he's alive again by the end of the issue (I've seen panels from later in the issue) and I'm not sure how many people are reacting just to seeing the posts flying around fandom versus how many people have actually seen the whole context. Because context is slowly rolling out, but people generally aren't soothed by that, given the lead-up to this moment. Basically, years of Jason not getting much focus in the comics + the events of Gotham War have led to a powderkeg of a situation and the contextless leaks (ie, without the panel where Jason's alive again) took a match to the whole thing. And that's what's going on, as far as I know! I personally am having a great time because I was extremely skeptical that they would actually kill Jason without any fanfare and also I like Jason as a hot mess with crunchy relationships with people and that he's done bad things and had bad things done to him/been a victim as well, so all this messy drama in the story has me living for it. (This would have been a very different situation if I'd thought Jason was really dead, but I didn't, so I'm doing fine right now. Also, my Blorbo is Dick Grayson, so I've already been through this wringer and I'm still mad at DiDio for it, so it's Jason-Blorbo's time now.)

[pastafossa]

pasta who do you see as matt's endgame in the mcu? do you think he'd ever settle down?

Ooooh this is an interesting one.

Ok, so I have a feeling that in Netflix!Era DD, endgame was likely Karen, or that's the vibe I got based on S3, although Elektra was still a possibility. But the MCU entrance has obviously thrown that into the air and added a TON of possibilities, including some we haven't seen yet, and a few established comic characters that are showing up in Born Again like Heather Glenn and Kirsten McDuffie, so we have a TON of options here.

Required: these are all just guesses. I get ships are personal so if you ship one of the ones I'm guessing won't happen, just know I get it and I could be wrong (my favorite ship in the Netflix shows were Matt/Claire and my not-gonna-happen-but-fun-to-imagine Ship was Matt/Jessica, neither of which will happen in the MCU era, so I'm not going based on my own favorites).

Karen Page: I'm going to be honest, and this is just a guess: my intuition says their endgame won't be Karen. I don't have much to go on other than rumors that Karen may not be a permanent stick-around character, and those set photos of the Matt kiss scene with Heather, which means that even though Karen was around, Matt or Karen (or both) have seemingly moved on (Karen with Frank maybe?). So I don't think that's going to be the Matt romance endgame.

Jen Walters: I don't think it's going to be Jen, either. I get the feeling, as cute as I think they were, that that was meant to be a permanent thing and Disney's been pretty clear they won't be making another She-Hulk even if she makes some cameos elsewhere, which rules her out as a romance.

Heather Glenn: They've said he's going to be involved with Heather Glenn in Born Again this upcoming season, a new character to the show/this particular variation of Daredevil. She is an established character in the comics so it's not like this doesn't have backing, but I just don't feel like it'll have the impact Disney would want when looking at endgame. Supposedly now with the rewrites, they've leaned much more heavily into making it dark like the Netflix shows and following that general mythos, and that to me means they're likely to bring back:

Elektra Nachios: now this is our big wildcard since she's not confirmed, but she's where I'm leaning towards putting my money. She's insanely popular in the comics, she's well established, her relationship with Matt is a classic and a staple of Matt's various arcs, and Mattlektra might be an easy win for Dis after some lower ratings on their stuff. I've also read a few rumors that Elodie was spotted on the Born Again set, though whether that's for a cameo or not is unclear. Still, that makes it sound like she's going to be back. If I had to guess, it will be a, 'I would have been with you if you were here', and once she is back, that's where Matt's liable to head towards even if he's with someone else. Especially if our older Born Again Matt is just a little more jaded, a little more tired and lonely when it comes to love and what seems like his failures to keep Fisk behind bars - someone like Elektra who he feels understands him so well would be very hard for him to resist. And if his relationship with Heather Glenn is anything less than super solid in the coming season, Elektra's going to be able to get in there, and it would admittedly be interesting to see an older Elektra that's grown just like Matt has.

Matt stays solo: god I don't want this to be endgame because i want this man to have someone to love on him after a hard day, but this is entirely possible and in some ways, it would be a way for them to kinda easily dodge the ship question. I could absolutely see Matt trying to pull a tragic, 'my life is too dangerous for love' but I don't think this is where they'll go. They like the romance thing more, but maybe that's wishful thinking.

Other options: various comic characters are going to show up, and again, Kirsten's a possibility although I haven't seen any noise on her being a romance in Born Again, although if they have excellent chemistry that might be something they lean into down the line. As it stands though, I'm going to put my money on the writers bringing back Elektra for a Mattlektra tragic, fated love endgame.

[fallloverfic]

The way folks are, again, unsurprisingly shitting on the Omniscient Reader manhwa while shitting on the live-action based on what appears to be 1-2 posters and a title just says so much.

I also think it's funny folks are stating that the studio who is making the live-action movies didn't read "the source material" when a sizeable chunk of non-Korean fandom has likely only read the unrevised version of ORV, since that's what the popular English fan translation is based on. So when you are furious the movie crew didn't read the "source material", like... who are you mad at, exactly, cause statistically speaking, you probably didn't read it either?

Like it's fine to criticize the live-action stuff, I'm not trying to defend it, and it's fine to not be a fan of the title or the posters or even dislike it when it releases (personally, I'm not into live-action adaptations of most things, especially when they were already adapted into comics; I prefer full animation every time). This is just a bizarre reaction, and little different to how people reacted after the anime announcement and casting announcements/speculation for the live-action. Maybe the movie crew didn't read the source material, or at least not fully. Maybe they just made some very weird decisions. It's live-action, that happens. And adaptations are seldom going to be exactly the same as the source material. They're adaptations. That's what they do.

The only official English translation of ORV of any kind, particularly based on the revision, at this point in time, is in the manhwa. It's not perfect, and it's fine to criticize it or not be into it, but it's fucking hilarious that people think it is ruining ORV in comparison to, what, a fan translation based on a different version of the story? Assuming it's even possible to "ruin" an existing novel that is not going anywhere.

The freely available and massively hyped manhwa brought in a ton of fans to the fandom. It probably brought in a lot of folks who wrote and drew your favorite fanworks. If you think it is somehow ruining ORV, you are the problem, because you just hate other fans. And manhwa-first fans see you. Like it's fine to not get along with other fans, it's fine to disagree with their interpretations, particularly if they're basing it off of a different version of the story. This is not my first fandom where a large chunk of the fandom came first from an adaptation, and I get what it's like to be frustrated with popular fan interpretations from chunks of fandom who focus on adaptations or are adaptation-first, particularly when massive changes are made for the adaptation. But rather than write angry screeds about how the adaptation (one of which we haven't even seen yet, a poster /= a movie, let alone a series of movies) ruined the source material, you can just use your block button. There are in fact plenty of people who have interpretations of the novel you probably don't agree with, too.

But also for folks mad about "The Prophet", maybe you need a refresher?

Also for folks confused, singNsong announced on 3 February 2020 that it was a 5-part live-action movie deal. How Dokja knows what he knows about what's going to happen is an important part of a good chunk of the story, including the opening. He gets questioned about it a lot. It makes some sense they'd title the first part of five about this. I assume the other movies will have different titles.

The live-action is probably going to bring in a new wave of fans. It's a simple reality that some mediums (e.g., an 800 chapter, ongoing novel) is less inviting to people than other mediums, such as film, and folks may be interested when they see the film. A chunk of them will probably check out the novel (and the manhwa). They may even love the novel more. They may write your favorite fanfic or draw your favorite piece of art or write a great essay of thoughts on thoughts. It's happened before, many, many times. Relax.

[pluckyredhead]

Shipping ask: Tim/Bernard?

Hoo boy. Don't ship it, alas.

Why don't you ship it?

Listen. I WOULD LOVE TO. I am thrilled that Tim has finally been allowed to come out after being really really queer for...oh, 33 years? But DC has just completely dropped the ball. @irolltwenties said a lot of what I'm feeling here, but I'm opinionated so I'm gonna say it myself, too.

The short version: DC refuses to let Bernard have a personality or let Tim have any relationship with him beyond the most superficial, empty window dressing possible.

The long version: I remember Bernard, y'all. I'm an old lady who was actually reading his original appearances when they came out! He was a weird, annoying kid who thought that being aggressively "quirky" made him cool when it actually just made him obnoxious...which allowed him to circle back around to being endearing. He liked to hear himself talk. He enjoyed being a tour guide, gossiping, and conspiracy theories - he's the guy who likes to know things, or at least seem like he does. Whether you liked him or not (I liked him), he was specific.

Now? The only thing recent comics will tell you about Bernard is that he's blond. Tim might as well be dating a cardboard cutout, or a post-it that says "Boyfriend" on it. Is he gay or bi, or does he prefer a different label, or none at all? Did he always have a crush on Tim, or is this new? Was his vocal interest in Darla and Tim's stepmother Dana just performative, or was he actually into them? What does he do when he's not smiling blandly under a narration box full of exposition? Does he have hobbies? Does he have a personality?

I do have to disagree with my beloved @irolltwenties on one thing: I don't think Tim is getting all the development in this relationship. I don't think Tim's gotten any, either. He told Bernard that he wanted to date him in August of 2021, but have we progressed in any significant way with his character since then? He spent three issues of Urban Legends agonizing over his sexuality in a way that was so repressed he wouldn't even admit that was what he was doing, but how does he feel about it now? He hasn't said in a comic whether he's gay or bi or pan or even queer - and look, I'm not saying he needs to know what label he prefers, or whether he needs to use one at all. But that should be a character choice too! We don't know if he has an identity he's comfortable with, or isn't sure yet, or is rejecting all of them, or is refusing to think about it. We literally don't know anything about Tim's sexuality except that it includes Bernard, including how Tim feels about it.

We also haven't gotten to see him come out to a single person. Again, I don't want to reduce queer narratives to cliches, but like...it's very weird that it's happened off-panel repeatedly? With Bruce, with Steph, with Young Justice. I'm assuming the rest of his family knows, based on...exposition about Damian that doesn't even make sense. We don't get to see this fucking conversation with Dick? Are you KIDDING me? Some of us have been waiting literal decades for Tim to come out and we get absolutely zero of the emotional catharsis of that? It feels like we're being cheated, honestly it does.

And speaking of being cheated...we never did get to see that Tim and Bernard date. Or a conversation about their history, or liking boys, or literally anything ever. When was their first kiss? I WOULD HAVE LIKED TO SEE THE FIRST TIME TIM KISSED A BOY. I THINK A LOT OF PEOPLE WOULD HAVE LIKED THAT. We don't even know how long they've been dating - Tim's current mini said it's been "months" and "a month" in the same issue. Go, DC, give us nothing!

I don't know why Tim's sexuality and his relationship with Bernard are being handled like this. Is it because they're afraid that if they allow it to be three dimensional it won't be sealed in its "unproblematic queer rep" mylar bag and board anymore? Is it because they're trying to get credit for Bi Tim while leaving it as vague as possible to not offend homophobes? Is it because they're just doing a crappy job? It's so strange to me because that first Urban Legends story was so good, and I really was rooting for Meghan Fitzmartin because it is so, so hard to be a woman in comics. But so far, it's just been a disappointment.

2. What would have made you like it?

If we had actually gotten weird, annoying OG Bernard, I feel like that would have been very entertaining - Tim is such a reserved character that I always enjoy seeing him play off against someone chaotic (Steph, Kon and Bart, even Jason to an extent). Also just like...seeing the actual relationship on the page??? I'm begging here, DC.

3. Despite not shipping it, do you have anything positive to say about it?

I am strongly in favor of the concept! Tim dating a boy is long overdue. I just need DC to give me specific characters in a specific relationship, ON THE PAGE.

[rriavian]

Why a Vortex? - The Corinthian in 1x10

This was intended to continue my last post about the Corinthian being smart about how he handled the fight with Dream but it got derailed so. Yeah. Still writing part 2. I'm gonna have to reorganise my blog to make things easier to find. As always this is show based because while I know comic spoilers I haven't read them yet. Is this also technically part 1 of a series of posts discussing the final convention confrontation?

Erm. I’ve already had to shift the theme of this so it might be.

I’m focusing on the plan to use Rose to fight Dream because I’ve always thought the plan itself was more than a little stupid. It might be because we never really understand enough about what a dream vortex is (which yeah I have thoughts about), but the whole ‘replace Morpheus as the heart of the dreaming’ always felt like an assumption rather than a truth. Rose can pull down barriers between dreams and, when taught to, restore them but she can’t control the dreams themselves. She can’t replace Dream. It's made very clear that her powers would destroy her too, eventually, alongside everything else.

This is a bit of an aside from the main point but, while I think the existence of a vortex is a massively unfair and sadistic phenomenon, I do think it serves to show what Dream is quite nicely. He’s not only managing the incredible amounts of information in the subconscious but he’s keeping it separate. Distinct. Preserving individuality.

He allows privacy.

You can yearn in peace, fear in peace, not alone but…protected. The most innermost self is allowed to remain hidden. But the vortex strips that away. It’s an invasion, a deconstruction.

But back to the main point.

So the Corinthian may (in my opinion) have a stupid plan. But it’s indicative of his own perspective and interpretation of Dream and links directly to why he’s rebelling in the first place. I don’t actually think he entirely believed that Rose could replace Dream. I think he thought she could wound him, maybe even kill him, but not become him. The Corinthian’s final taunt about being regretful he won’t be around to watch Rose destroy Dream is—interesting to me, because I never believed she really could, and I think even for the Corinthian it’s a lovely fantasy that he’s enjoying.

He wants Rose to force Dream to feel how he feels.

The Corinthian wants to set Dream up against his own terrifyingly powerful opponent. His own inescapable threat. He wants Dream to try and fight someone who’s already decided they’re against him and will not be swayed. Which is also interesting because it’s concentrating on the result, allows for an interpretation to go either way, compatible with both positioning Dream as wrong, or Dream as right. If Rose is right to destroy Dream then it suggests the Corinthian does understand why he’s being uncreated. But if Rose is wrong to do it, just as Dream is wrong to do it, then perhaps he wants Dream to understand that through the threat of a vortex.

Either way it’s an attempted lesson.

An attempted nightmare - at giving Dream one of his very own, to prey upon something the Corinthian thinks needs fixing in his creator. Arguably a nightmare that started the moment he decided to ensure Dream would remain trapped by Burgess for a significant length of time.

For all he told Lucienne she would be unable to change Dream, the Corinthian is still seemingly acting to argue his own case.

Perhaps deciding whether uncreation is right or wrong in the traditional sense isn’t the point at all. Or not the whole point. In the context of the rest of the exchange at the convention the Corinthian's original intent might have been a mix of critiquing Dream's reasoning as well as his chosen method of punishment. The core of that might be that it’s not actually about the morality of the decision (that’s a conundrum for the one making the choice) but more the feeling of the one being acted upon. To me, his point is more 'your reasons make sense to you but your actions in response to them are still wrong' and I've got a 100 year long thesis on why I am actually still performing my function perfectly.

Here is my presentation on my conclusions so glad you can attend.

But Dream's response, while giving more of an explanation as to why those conclusions are wrong, essentially is 'yeah no you haven't proven what you think you have, you may have actually proven you're worse, and I'm still going to uncreate you'

So the Corinthian is like fine.

Here's my back up thesis have fun dealing with a vortex.

So then we get the 'I'm only sorry that I won't be around to watch Rose do the same to you' line.

You could say that when the Corinthan's attempt at demonstrating why he's right doesn't work he closes the attempt at a dialogue entirely. The nightmare/lesson he's set up will still come to pass though. Last words are important, and these are the one's the Corinthian chooses. He’s making his rejection clear by supporting Rose, but also still wants Dream to understand him, chooses words that allow him both. Even if his creator still doesn't understand his position, the Corinthian has found someone else who is going to make him understand it.

In the end he at least wants Dream to see that whether right or wrong it's a position of complete powerlessness.

No agency, no recourse to alter one's fate; it’s uncreation, it’s complete destruction, and that’s what really matters about it. The Corinthian wants Dream to really feel that. To feel something other than what he sees as ‘just another Tuesday as the ruler of the Dreaming’ because to the Corinthian that final moment is everything. Right or wrong it’s wiping away all that he is. The last line is his way of being like 'see how you like it'.

It’s ‘you destroyed me’.

It’s ‘You destroyed me and I wish I could stick around long enough to finally watch you understand the desperation of what that feels like’.

[thisbelongsto-nohbodys]

What do Azura's friends from the Boiling Isles (the ones from your Azura headcanon sketchdump) think of Lily? I'm assuming they've met her, or at least heard about her from either Azura or Luz.

I've been meaning to make a few comics and incorrect quotes with them but haven't gotten around to it yet.

So far based on what I know about them atm it's like, Evangeline "Eva" (the girl with horns, she's in the Oracle and Illusion track), she likes Lily and thinks she's cool (for a human) and likes to tease Azura about Lily and her's "relationship" even doing fake oracle readings saying/showing that in the future the two get married (maybe a lie, who knows). However she only does those jokes when not around Wulfrik because she knows about his crush on Azura.

Wulfrik (the tall, gangly beast witchling in the Abomination and Potion track) isn't a fan of Lily but that's just the jealousy talking. He gets along fine with her younger siblings but not her. Maybe one day the issue will be resolved but who knows.

Krist (the demon witchling whose in the Healing and Bard track) is neutral towards Lily and often forgets who she is because she's too busy with her studies.

[conventionalwisdomcomic]

Weekly Digimon Comic: Digimon Tamers - page 0.5

Okay, the act of posting these pages is going to feel a bit weird for me over the next several weeks.  In case you missed me saying so in the previous comic, what the general public is going to experience one piece at a time over the course of a month was originally cranked out to Patreon in just over a week.  There's every chance that these will end up reading in this new context than they did when they all came out in one big blur, so that'll be fun to find out.  I mean, we're already half a month into this and I still haven't technically started talking about the first episode yet.  (Speaking of which, in case you also missed THIS last time, I'm gonna try adding "point five" or whatever to pages where I've got more than one comic out of an episode to try and keep the page count and episode number in sync) But yeah, Digimon was my first experience actively plugged in to a fandom, by which I mean directly interacting with a community at large as the franchise was active and popular.  Like, I'd been a fan OF plenty of things, but I was either a passive observer or it was something too old and obscure for there to be any new developments to keep up with.  Even with Pokemon, all I ever really did was consume the product.  Digimon was my first experience truly interacting with the fandom of a property that was actively pumping out new content for that fandom to have an opinion over.  Unfortunately, that mean it was ALSO my first experience with fandom drama, and it was a bit deflating to watch whole chunks of the community I'd seen build itself around the first two seasons crumble away because they just didn't like Tamers.  I realize it probably sounds really quaint of me, by I must reiterate that I spent most of my childhood consuming media that already hadn't been popular for decades by the time I got around it.  This sort of real-time flame out was a whole new thing to me.  And sadly, it was far from the last one I'd witness.  It was especially unfortunately for Tamers, though, since the implosion of Saban and Fox Kids meant there wasn't anywhere near enough promotion to draw in NEW viewers to replace the ones who were rage quitting.  But that's something we'll presumably get into later.

Also, just to be clear, it genuinely WAS a frequent complaint that the lore people had built up around their fan characters based on the previous shows wasn't compatible with the new setting.  And that's especially ironic giving something I KNOW we'll be get into very soon! Conventional Wisdom / Patreon

[chibivesicle]

Gokinjo Monogatari got an English release. I am just - feeling like I got my wish from 1998.

That's right, I'm alive but not very active on the meta for the time being. 2023 sped up for the second half; work got crazy busy for Q4. I worked up to Dec 18th through several weekends so yeah, needed some recharge time.

I don't know how I missed this, but thanks to watching Coleen's Manga Recs, I discovered that the one shoujo manga title that I had been wanting an English release for has finally arrived. Gokinjo Monogatari by Ai Yazawa!

I discovered Gokinjo Monogatari in '98. One of the local comic stores had the first three tankobons and I bought them based on the cover artwork alone.

It wasn't until undergrad I was able to meet a few more people and figure out more than just the name and artist. I tried to find the translation of the manga online, but was unsuccessful. I have to remind people that before scanlations, you had to buy a tankobon and hope you found the text based translation which would have the text according to page number and what panel location. I read a fair bit of Kenshin that way, but sadly, this series was not that popular with readers in the States. I've been moving my entire adult life hauling my three precious volumes of the manga hoping that someday I would first, collect volume 4-7 to complete the picture and that I'd have my matching English version. Granted, I haven't done a good job of looking for volumes 4-7 when I've been in Japan . . . or using the internet either.

As if to spite me, the follow up manga, Paradise Kiss, did get a translation in 2002 from Tokyo Pop which exists in the same universe as Gokinjo Monogatari. Note that a previous manga's characters show up at the Flea Market in Monogatari as well and Yazawa likes to keep a lot of her series tied together. Eventually, the scanlation of the series appeared and I read it around 2011. I'd only found an episode or two of the anime during the golden age of file sharing, but didn't follow through on it. I wanted to read the manga before watching the anime. In 2017, I visited the Manga Museum in Kyoto, got to see a cool display about Ribon magazine and of course they had Gokinjo Monogatari merch! I bought the file folder set and stickers! I bought the Gokinjo Monogatari UT shirt from Uniqlo featuring Ribon series. Yet each time I found more stuff, the universe got the last laugh. Japan released the collectors set with four volumes, there was a French translation, German etc and never one for English. So, you have to realize how I absolutely lost my mind when the thing I'd figured would never happen, happened! Not only was it a thing, I'd even missed the December 2023 release date -at least I didn't have to wait for a pre-order to get volume 1.

I'm happy to see that this version included some of the original color pages!

It has a few more at the end with a photo wall of Mikako's outfits. Everything about the style of this manga, I absolutely love. The fashion goes so hard even now. I get nostalgic with all of the mid-90s Japanese street fashion which has a mix of 60s mod and 70s flare. I think the series also does a good job of capturing that awkward time in your teenage life when you are trying to figure out how to act with people you are interested in. But failing to sort things out. Unlike a lot of other high school manga series, this one stands out with the much more "normal" appearance of the students. I remember picking it up and thinking that the characters looked like they could be my peers; though there is no way Mikako's outfits would pass my high school's own liberal dress code where dyed hair and piercings were permitted. Her bare midriff would get her in trouble . . . Funny how now when I look at it, this is a very unusual high school set up for a Japanese reader likely coming from a more regimented school environment with a uniform and strict dress code. I never thought about it at the time. More that I was plotting my own hair dying plans for when I moved out of the house for undergrad just like the characters had - while still in high school. I did read Parakiss back when it came out from 2002-2005; however, it never really resonated with me the same way a series that I couldn't even find a decent translation for. I started to watch Nana but couldn't get into it at all. Maybe it was my mindset or the fact that I wasn't the mood for young twenty-somethings figuring their shit out.

Yet, here I am in the winter of 2024, and I have volume 1 of the collectors edition format of Gokinjo Monogatari and I'm still loving every little bit of the story as I read it. Perhaps, Parakiss and Nana were more edgier/grittier than something like this which is why they never quite clicked with me. I wanted my fashionable shoujo drama but not over the top. I'm not sure what I'll write about it. It isn't a well known series both due to the fact it is from the 90s and that it is shoujo but perhaps I can reflect on what I was drawn to it all those years ago and what I think about it now.

[fandoomrants]

Okay, so ep 7 of AAA revealed some things and I'm both confused and have some theories.

I haven't read the comics or additional stuff so some of these might have been answered somewhere.

Also, spoilers for ep 7, so...

Let's start with the facts:

-Rio IS Death. Tbh, I only binged the previous 6 episodes last weekend while feverish and tired (my friends can't promote a show to save their lives, SAY THERE ARE QUEERS AND MILFS, FFS) but since then I've seen so many posts about how she is Death that I thought it's something I've missed being mentioned. Just earlier today, a couple of hours before watching the episode, I learned that's not the case. So, was it actually confirmed before that orr???

-This explains why she disappeared in the end of ep 5 and isn't present now! Had to collect Alice's body (tbh, gotta give a friend credits, he realised before me). Also Agatha most likely knew, because when Billy/William/Teen asked where she is, the answer was something like "I can't tell you" (Edit: she says "Not that question" bit yk, same meaning) and not "I don't know", and by the end of the episode, we learned Agatha knows who Rio is.

And this leads to the theories:

-The thing Rio did which hurt Agatha was collecting her son's body. Idk, it's more of a fact for me, rather than theory but we don't have really solid confirmation yet.

Now, for the next, I really lack info of the timeline but the way I see it, the Salem coven and her absorbing the powers of the other witches happened before her son so I have three theories about her and the Road:

-I'm not sure if it was mentioned on the show or people believe she lost her son in the end of the first walk on the Road but I think something else happened there (if it's not confirmed that's when she lost her son. If it is. I still have a theory that's including the scenario).

-I had this theory before that Rio was with her the first time she walked the Road. I guess, now it's another fact, since we know Agatha is the only one that survived, meaning the others died and Rio is Death. BUT.

>Theory 1: What if the first time Agatha walked the Road, it was with her original Salem coven?? The one including her mother. And the flashback in WandaVision and now again in AAA is from the end of it??? What if that's why she said one (her) survived because that's how it ended?

-What if she asked the Road for power and the Road gave her this power??

>Theory 2: The first time she walked the Road, she was, after all, with her son, and something happened. I don't believe she actually sacrificed him but maybe the Road took it as some type of exchange.

-Addition to #2 is, it could still be the scenario from #1 but with her son too. And maybe the Road made it look as if she did give him for power and that's how the whole thing with her mother telling her she's evil came from, plus the rumours she sacrificed him.

>Theory 3: The thing that Billy/etc said in this episode made me wonder... What if she, in fact, didn't walk the Road before at all?

-She seems to know a lot about it but also doesn't look as if she has faced these things before. She looks confused by some things. And doesn't say "last time..."

-Either that, or the Road manifests in a completely different way this time (the houses, etc).

And apart from the Road theories:

-I think that in any case, the first time Rio met Agatha was when the thing with the Salem witches happened.

-The second theory is the one I lean into the least and I could easily debunk it because:

-It looks as if Rio and Agatha were once a thing for real, not just into each other. And I believe it was before whatever happened with Agatha's son. Like, she wouldn't be with Rio after Rio took her son.

-UNLESS Agatha found out who Rio is later, and that hurt even more.

-Also, Agatha's mother basically trying to kill her because Agatha herself presumably sacrificed her son sounds a bit weird. Ofc, if it's based on intentions and reasons, it can pass as her thinking her daughter went too far.

-But I believe Agatha was young when Salem happened so I think her son was after all of it.

-There's also a chance that Agatha's coven turned against her after they found out about Rio but I think that Agatha and Rio were a thing after the coven, following my theory of they meeting there.

Additionally:

-I saw theories of Rio being the last trial and you know what, I can see it.

-I also have a feeling only one makes it to the end of the Road.

-I think in the end there is always some price to pay (for Agatha it was her coven or son, I lean towards coven, if theory 1 is closer to the truth), and I thought it's gonna be something with Rio where Agatha would have to lose her.

-Now we know that's not the case.

-But I think there's a chance that with Alice and Lilia already gone, Jen also wouldn't survive and maybe Agatha might not make it either :/

-I also keep going back to the line Rio says in ep 1 "I have a heart. It's black and it beats for you." I KNOW Billy is confirmed to be the Black Heart. But I feel like:

1) Agatha might not know it (even if she did suspect who he is, how could she know something between him and his bf?)

2) It was some word game. Billy had to cease to exist and William had to die but Billy somehow got into his body and now they coexist (?). In any case, there had to be death and there wasn't.

-So I think in the end, the black heart that "beats only for her" might mean something more. And maybe Agatha would have to make a choice. And sacrifice herself or sth.