#i just think it sort of veers into a different sort of show territory

[lunar-years]

whenever I think about how Jamie (nor really anyone) knows about Rebecca's actions I get even more and more annoyed with the writers. Jamie deserved to be hurt, he was literally a pawn in other people's games without his knowledge.

yeah, I get this. I do think it is really beautiful of Ted to not get angry with her and to also not go around exposing Rebecca's actions to everyone else on the team, rather offering her wholehearted, blanket forgiveness. That is such a wonderful and meaningful standout moment in the show. That said, of course Rebecca's actions weren't only Ted's to forgive. They affected the entire team. All the player's careers (Jamie's especially because of her sending him back, yes, but literally all of them), Beard, Higgins, Keeley. That said, from the perspective of the show, this is actually an instance where I understand why the writers let the matter lie instead of sending Rebecca on an apology tour, because I think it would have been really hard to write that organically. Like, Keeley knows and doesn't tell Roy. Ted knows and doesn't tell Beard. I think those they choose to keep it quiet not *just* to protect Rebecca but because they know it would do much more harm than good to tell other people. Beard and Roy I think in particular would have had a really really difficult time forgiving Rebecca after that, and the show wanted to move the story forward.

Similarly, Rebecca and Jamie don't talk to one another on the show, lol. Rebecca has no idea she sent Jamie back to a situation of abuse, from her pov she probably convinced herself she was actually helping Jamie by returning him to a better team. So I guess what I'm trying to say is that from the writers standpoint, I get that it would be really hard to write a scene where Rebecca calls Jamie into her office to be like "hey, by the way....you don't know me well or know that i did this to you, but i'm sorry for it!" in a way that doesn't read as super weird and forced. Ultimately, who would that have even served? Because I don't think it actually would have helped Jamie to know that.

Personally, I was most let down by how quickly Keeley forgave her. I think it would have been more impactful to let Keeley really be angry at her for her betrayal for longer. they tend to forgive extremely quickly on this show, don't they? lol. And I think Rebecca's s2 arc should have been more focused on taking active involvement with the team and their success as opposed to romance, to better demonstrate the weight of her change.

[vechter]

thoughts on girldad dick grayson? god it holds such a special place in my heart i could talk about it for agess! also i think dick wanting to start a family eventually but his life always being too "unstable" is really interesting. dc had SO MANY opportunities to give this man a daughter but its only canon in elseworlds! i dont wanna take away from roys whole shtick but dick having daughters would be such a fun direction to go in if its written while. like he would definitely mess up and have a lot of problems but he would love with his whole heart. a fic ive always wanted to read is a different ending with sophia or even dick getting to keep the grayson desert baby and raising it like ahhh chewing on my nails.

also any headcanons on dick + rose + sophia or dick and olivia desmond or the grayson desert baby? BASICALLY ANY HCS OF DICK WITH A DAUGHTER(S) AAA.

ur gonna wanna kill me for this but in most of my imaginings before n52, a biological daughter is not in the cards for dick. one of my fav headcanons for dick is long-term consequences of being at ground zero during chemo (briefly talk about this here). so, a possible consequence for that is sterility. i need him to have crazy feelings about being the last flying grayson.

but to answer your question properly, i think dick adopting a girl could be soooo interesting if done by someone other than taylor (olivia desmond who). just look at how hard his dynamic goes with sophia tevis.

if we veer into headcanon territory for this:

one of my fav ideas would be dick keeping in touch with sophia after blüdhaven got nuked (briefly talk about this here). possibly during the one year later arc... maybe he takes sophia to new york with him (instead of his no stakes arc of being on yachts with tim & bruce lol). he doesn't send her to boarding school immediately and instead, they spend time trying to recover from the shit-show their lives have been recently.

oooh, maybe a rlly fun arc where sophia gets past her hero worship/crush and properly considers dick's role in what happened to her family... which wars with how much she knows he cares about her (how he visited her at the halfway house, how he saved her from chemo, how he made sure she healed from the radiation). shared grief over how their fathers loved them but often failed them.

you can have some great rose stuff here too. instead of joining the teen titans, she follows dick to new york and ends up becoming a regular presence in his shitty little apartment where she bullies dick about how he lives. she gets to know sophia and comes to care for her. maybe a kidnapping plot where she's the one who saves sophia from some mobsters who didn't get the tevis family memo.

a lot of bullying from the og titans (esp donna and roy who are also in new york) about dick essentially parenting two teenage girls. at dick's insistence, rose hesitantly reaches out to people she sort of let down during her evil era but only after she pulls an uno reverse on dick saying she'll only do it if he does it. she mocks him a lot by calling him 'renegade'. it never fails to make sophia laugh who calls him 'crutches' occasionally too.

sophia eventually joins a public high school in new york. dick and rose make rlly embarrassing banners for her graduation only for sophia to mock them saying wow look at how much you care... aren't you embarrassed?

also, i love the desert baby arc soooo much but i think the weight of dick saving this little girl + all the costs he bore to make that happen... is much more impactful if he never meets her again. maybe he does occasionally check up on how she's doing (is she loved? is she safe?) but only from a distance. the people who adopt her often get random tidbits of information about raising a meta-human and the family collectively refers to dick as their guardian angel.

i would be remiss if i didn't mention mar'i grayson bc she had me hooked with just that cameo in titans '99.

ur right anon... dick should be a girldad.

[rimeiii]

I hate beating up a dead horse (and in fear of incurring the wrath of the fandom once more) but the way WHB handles content warnings is just...

Where are the detailed content warnings? Not just for the angels, but for everything? Because honestly, I think the game would've garnered less backlash for having them - a "this game is made for mature audiences, viewer discretion is advised" screen before logging in would be the bare minimum honestly.

Say what you want about the angel cards including dub/non-con content and the cards themselves veering towards that sort of territory but at least give a fucking warning about it? I've always criticized the devs for not having 18+ rating all across the board when clearly mature games like Limbus Company get the 18+ rating. If WHB is NSFW because of the sex and kinky stuff, Limbus is NSFW because of the immense amount of gore and dark content.

"But they have content warnings-" ONLY FOR SEX. AND PAIRED WITH 16+.

It would be perfectly reasonable to assume that, for people who played this game without following any of the pre-release contents, with this combination THERE WON'T BE ANY DETAILED DUB/NON-CON.

This is in Indonesia's Google Play Store, and if it's different in other regions, then it also begs the question - why the FUCK is it not just rated 18+ across the board?!

Limbus Company, the closest comparison I can think of being with their devs (Project Moon) also being a Korean indie company that created a gacha with mature content that has a staff team the size of a high school class (in fact I wager Limbus has less staff working on the game because around half of their staff works almost exclusively at their merch café), only had warnings for extreme violence and strong language, but at least they had the decency to put more warnings in their earliest trailers and the game website - and it's always common courtesy in the fandom to warn potential players with one particular image I'll show down below, containing a list of the game's content warnings.

Oh, and they're rated 18+ across the board, including a Mature Content Description on Steam.

And sure, you can make the argument of "well you know what you're getting into upon looking at the card art", but therein lies the issue of not warning at the very start of the game - nobody knew for sure what triggers would be in the game upon startup.

Whatever way you slice it, dub/non-con is a genuine trigger for other people despite it also being a kink (I personally don't get it and it's a no-no for me even in fiction, but you do you). Adding clear content warnings would literally harm no one and helps people avoid things they know they don't want to consume. Yes, despite the in-game context clues providing hints, a clear indicator is still preferable.

Take, for example, the Lobelia summer skin controversy in Granblue Fantasy. People already know Lobelia as the twisted Evoker who not only murdered his own parents but recorded their dying screams of pain in his conch shells, doing the same thing to his countless victims afterwards. All of this is mentioned during the Fate Episodes to recruit him. You want to know the problem with his summer skin, Danger Beckons by the Shore, though?

There's a home screen voiceline where he offers one of his conch shells for the player to listen to, wherein you will hear the pained and tortured screams of one of his victims as she's attacked and later on eaten alive by a shark. Keep in mind, this sort of voiceline wasn't even in his base art, and while his Fate Episodes had tortured screams it wasn't even half as bad as this particular voiceline.

It's even given a content warning in the wiki.

For a rather significant amount of players who bought the skin, the inclusion of this voiceline despite the subtle warning in the skin blurb (which, fyi, is only accessible AFTER you bought the skin) hampers their enjoyment of the skin when they put it on their home screens then tap Lobelia - which many people who get character skins do. Mostly because there wasn't any clear indicator of the scream and a lot of people never appreciated the sudden jumpscare scream. The fact that Lobelia is a psychopath and doing this shit is in character for him should also be able to stand together with the fact that including a scream out of nowhere is pretty scummy and not a good time. Especially for non-JP speaking players, who essentially got jumpscared by a scream out of nowhere, as they never understood the fact that Lobelia was offering one of his conch shells.

Back to the rating issue, though. Why not rate WHB as 18+ if you're going to include content that could very much be considered controversial, like non-con? Like, say, Limbus Company (which I hate bringing up again bc fuck kjh)? Which not only has the warnings in the app store but plastered in the earliest trailers (still viewable on Steam and Project Moon's YouTube channel but not on the Google Play Store) and the official game website?

And sure. Some of these trigger warnings sound silly (reference to traffic accidents is more or less Charon driving Mephi like a maniac iirc based on the content we already have in the game). But I did genuinely appreciate the warning because let's talk about the first three Cantos after the prologue, hmm?

Canto 1 already includes cannibalism, war, torture, and body modifications, among other things! Canto 2 has references to alcohol and gambling, as well as mentions of homicide - despite being a lighter Canto overall! And in Canto 3, we experienced discriminatory violence, more body modifications, enforced ideologies and/or actions, and religious torture and violence among other things!

I can stomach gore easier compared to non-con and even I appreciate the warning, particularly with regards to Canto 3. Kromer's fascination with everything pure (i.e. no body modifications), all stemming from seeing...something...in the basement of Sinclair's old mansion, the cult behaviour that led to mass murder and torture by the faction she leads (up to and including brainwashing as detailed by Kleinhammer Heathcliff's Identity story) Kromer's obssession with Sinclair and him standing beside her as an ally...it's all genuinely so unnerving, and are story beats the game handles really well despite how disturbing it all really is when you stop and think about it.

"But you should've known considering the game's aesthetics-"

Maybe, especially considering one of Gregor's launch cards is literally this, and most if not all Uptie II arts are gory at the very least.

However, again, I have to underline the importance of content warnings - this time with an irl example.

I have a friend who was interested in Limbus Company. I've talked extensively about Gregor and how much I love him, and it started because I have a drawing I made of him in the back of my phone case and Liu Gregor's Uptie II art as my phone background at the time. They said they were interested, then I had to explain the sorts of contents she would encounter in my native language, Indonesian.

"Blood and gore, violence, a lot of mental health issues - Gregor has PTSD and his chapter depicted it pretty well, human experimentation, homicide, so Nagel und Hammer is basically the Inquisition and kills people to 'purify' them, oh yeah cannibalism is also a thing-"

"Stop, stop, I'm not playing if that's the content I'm going to see. I don't think I can handle it."

This same friend was also interested in playing If On a Winter's Night, Four Travelers - a free point-and-click adventure game that deals with themes like depression, homophobia, racism, and suicide. She was willing to try that game out because it wasn't as gory as Limbus Company. For context, the Mature Content Description for this game on Steam:

In both cases, I had to personally explain the content warnings in Indonesian since my friend isn't the most fluent in English and she has a far lower limit for dark content compared to me, but I did send that image of content warnings for Limbus Company and urged people to read the Mature Content Descriptions on Steam for anyone who wanted to try any of the two games and is fluent in English. Why?

Because it's basic human decency to try and keep people informed of any potential triggers and content they might not be comfortable seeing.

Either way, main takeaway from this issue:

Dub/non-con might be your kink, but it might not be for others - it might be uncomfortable or downright triggering as all hell for others, in fact. So, clear content warnings (in particular for any and all triggering content) harm nobody, especially as it helps people avoid story beats where their turn-offs and, more importantly, their triggers.

[revlischarm]

Behold, Morro for season 4 in the Lego Monkie Kid au!!

Below the cut I’ve put some details about the season, as well as their design.

• So, Morro gets trapped in the scroll along with everyone else!! Inspired by what one of my friends on discord mentioned, apparently the scrolls work for all memories, not just for recording JTTW stuff.

• Therefore. We’re gonna get some Morro trauma. Since the scroll can put you in the worst memories you had/in some kind of past life, I thought, “what better than to hurl Morro back into his misdeeds as a ghost?”

- That’s why when Morro’s in the scroll, he’s gonna be walking around in his old gi from the show. I didn’t give him a cloak or anything for the sole reason of me having a hard time drawing it

• Boy oh boy Morro absolutely hates having to be dressed in the robes of his past. He’s been trying to move away from what he did, to forge his own identity and life. Yet now he gets put right back where he was, at the peak of his darkest times, and MK and Mei end up bearing witness to it, no less!

• Long story short Morro just. Is going to be miserable this whole season. Their past got dredged up in such a messy way for all to see.

• I don’t wanna give away too much since this post is mainly just for Morro’s season 4 design, hehe.

• You want more info?? Send in asks! I will devour them and answer back dutifully.

• Now onto design talk, tw for some blood stains and detailed description of death for a bit

• The only details I’ll really say for Morro’s scroll design are that his outfit is fairly burnt and torn up in many places, due to how he died. Well, more so the condition his clothes were in when he passed away.

- The front of Morro’s gi is stained with dried blood because of how he died, which I personally believe to be due to the kethanol gas in the Caves of Despair. There’s more info about it on the wiki, but the effects I’ve given to it basically are that prolonged exposure will cause someone to bleed out, with blood coming from the nose and mouth and the eventual exsanguination is the cause of death. So yeah, you just. Drown in your own blood, can’t get enough actual air and asphyxiate, bleed out, etc. The gas can kill you in a number of ways I’d say

• Moving past all that…Morro gets longer ribbons now!! He added on a new ribbon, since he bonded with Red Son at the end of Season 3, and off-screen between the last season and this one, lol. Think of their friendship as…fanning the flames. They kinda just hype each other up and it’s very chaotic.

• Morro actually trains with Macaque to learn some shadow magic!! They’re super interested in learning teleportation via shadows because it’s cool as hell, and they just generally like to spend time with Macaque. After some time, Morro finds that his eye markings are getting kinda…larger and discolored.

- Surprise the universe/gods saw Macaque taking in Morro and went “oh successor??? The Six-Eared Macaque has a successor??” And long story short, after an initial bout of extreme panicking, Morro realizes that he’s now got some cooler new markings!!

- Yes, I’m contractually obligated to change Morro’s eye markings with each new design at this point, lay off me

- I’m very happy with this marking design tho!! It looks very nice and is easy for me to draw. The markings actually manifest themselves in the way of like…scar stuff. And I tried to have them resemble Morro’s actual cursed markings as much as I could, but it was hard to do that when it kept veering into flame territory (which I wasn’t aiming for). So yeah!

- I also added a little chart at the bottom to demonstrate the differences between the markings and also how Macaque’s and Morro’s purples are different. Mac’s is more on the blue hued scale, while Morro’s has more pink tones to it. There!

• And last but not least, the tail(s) of Morro’s sash got longer!! I did this for the purpose of giving their silhouette a more monkey-like appearance, with the longer sash acting as a sort of faux shadow tail. This works great for any silhouette shots!

• So yeah! That’s that! Feel free to ask anymore questions, I’ll be glad to answer!!!

• Oh also I forgot to draw it in but you know how everyone else gets a cool weapon during season 4 from the scroll? Yeah, Morro’s taking the memory of the Sword of Sanctuary with him.

[drabbles-of-writing]

For the actor AU, how does Hunter feel about him and Willow and their interactions on script? I keep getting this mental image that he is just an absolute DISASTER around Willow off-screen, the poor guy can handle acting on camera with no problems but becomes a flustered mess the moment Willow is on set

Cracks my knuckles. I came up with a few different ideas around Hunter and Willow. Predictably, I chose the one I thought was the funniest.

Hunter and Willow get along very well. They're buddies! Both of them haven't been acting very long so they gotta stick together! The friendship on screen was scripted but it went way smoother than anticipated due to genuine friendship off-set. The romance arc was one planned to happen later on and something to be wrapped up near the end of the show, it just had to get worked around bc y'know. cancellation.

Hunter was prepared for this! He was! He was totally cool and not at all flustered or embarrassed in the weeks coming up to when they would get those scripts and start acting those scenes. He's never acted this before. But he figures, okay, this is fine. His method of acting is often through associating with events and emotions he's familiar with, a sort of "here's how I think I would react if this was real, here's how I expect to see how this reaction would look on another person, and now I just...amplify it" and this is already slightly veering into iffy territory, and its Hunter so, y'know, he does it to a bit of an unhealthy degree before hes knocked out of it. but right then the game plan is: think about what its like to act with a crush. act with a crush.

He has no fucking idea how to act like he has a crush. Not a one. Gus finds him losing his mind over it in the breakroom. Never had a crush! So, he has zero idea what the hell he's doing. Every time he tries to follow the exact script it feels robotic to him, and when he tries the ol' "act like those other characters on tv" it never feels like it fits. like its a bad kind of awkward or clumsy or what have you. mans doesn't know how to act like he has a crush on his cool friend and even before he realized this he was a mess over it. Willow is very nice but she also bullies his ass into the ground about it. He expected nothing less.

So, he researches. Lottsss and lots of research. Digs around a bit. Goes on a full like week-long spree of trying to get this down. He can nail practically every other role, he can do this. It's weirding him out that he can't. Something just out of reach that isn't clicking and he Needs To Find It Right Now.

This is how Luz finds him, a week later, laying on his back in the dressing room, script strewn out around him, phone abandoned on the floor, staring blank-eyed at the ceiling. She sheepishly asks if he's okay. He slowly turns his head to her, the eyes of a man whos gone through the depths of hell to find something precious to him only to realize that precious thing was just hidden under a box in his bed and he went through the horrors for reasons he truly did not have to do. He stares at her and says, slowly; "I think I don't like....people"

And that is how Hunter realizes hes aroace, thank you and goodnight

[thegeminisage]

ok, tng update time. i'm quite behind! monday we did "deja q," tuesday we did "a matter of perspective," and then wednesday was "yesterday's enterprise."

deja q: NOT as bad as i feared but still not great. turning q into a human was a fantastic idea because in general it helps facilitate empathy when you see a character suffer, which worked a little on me, and then also i greatly enjoyed seeing him suffer because he was so annoying before, lol. guinan and worf kicking him when he was down were the best <3

another smart choice was to have data be the only one who had any sympathy for him - precisely because data's "feelings" ""can't"" be hurt and he's less likely to hold grudges. also, because data is wonderful and it's easy to get behind his cause of reforming q into some kind of functional being

AND it was good that the first time q felt shame it was because data almost died for his ungrateful fucking ass...correct response

unfortunately i still have many problems. during that section right before data's sacrifice move, all of the goodwill q generated by being fun to laugh at kind of evaporated because he was being annoying

SECONDLY, i have realized the reason i dislike q is because his main two personality traits have aged horribly. firstly is the "randumb~ XD" humor (the mariachi band at the end of this ep, the random napoleon soldiers from the other ep, his various costumes...). i think the only person who could ever do that kind of humor well was robin williams and they didn't cast him as q and also he's dead now, so knock it off. his second personality trait is that he's smarter and more powerful than anybody else in the room which he (and the people writing him) seems to think is a license to be an asshole to them, as long as it is charming assholery. think t*ony st*rk, house, bbc sh*rlock. this of course is a deeply flawed premise to begin with, but he doesn't even do it WELL. nothing about his assholery is charming. specifically i am thinking of all the "worf is dumb because he's a big brutish klingon" jokes, which are for sure fantasy racism and border on ACTUAL racism, because they're derivative of horrible antiblack stereotypes. not that q is the only source of this kind of stuff aimed at worf, but it's really damning that it's ALWAYS the first thing out of his mouth and played for laughs and made his "but worf i'm a klingon at heart too!" bit extra unfunny

anyway, bringing in a SECOND q to praise him for his "selfless" act is eeehh considering one q is already one too many and the act wasn't even that selfless. it would've been better if he said the only reason he was doing it was for data, specifically, so he could stop feeling shame - that's more genuine than trying to get me to believe he'd give himself up for that ship of people even if really what he was mostly doing was committing suicide.

nonetheless i DID really enjoy getting to see data laugh at the end. GOOD for him <3 also lmao, the moon is falling, so true. JUST like majoras mask

a matter of perspective: the one thing i don't understand here is the bit where picard is a horrible painter and then data insults his art. like yes it was funny but i thought it would have something to do with the main plot. riker sees events this way and that lady sees them this way. not unlike in the art room where everyone interpreted the nude model in a different manner!

ALSO, WHY IS THERE A NUDE MODEL. does that woman not live and work on this starship. does she not have to command respect from her coworkers the rest of the time. they didn't even do this in the holodeck where that sort of thing would have made sense!! the one time you WANT the holodeck around...

anyway, i thought this episode veered dangerously close to dud territory. trial drama is fine, even though it begs the question of why no lie detector in tng. holodeck recreation also fine in this instance, as was the murder mystery

but why ON EARTH did they feel the need to show a fake version of riker attempting to rape this lady and then have deanna go well that's the way she remembers it because i sense no dishonesty from her :) this is just the true way each of you remembers it :)

LIKE THERE IS A CANYON OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN RIKER'S VERSION AND THAT LADY'S VERSION. it's not like they can both partially be true. in one instance she flung herself at him despite his clearly being uncomfortable and in the other he forced her despite her asking him to stop!!! like in this case what you do is believe the woman except because riker's our protagonist we know he didn't do it except they never CLARIFY that he didn't do it??? obviously i don't think for a minute that he did, but of all the fucking things to leave open...

anyway i hated it. i actually hated it more than catherine did which may be a first for tng

yesterday's enterprise: TASHA YAR?????????????????????????????

ok, the premise of this was kinda confusing at first, but i don't give a single fuck. TASHA YAR!!!!!!

i was so happy and confused to see her but the more scenes she had...man. like, ok, they did not HAVE to have her make out with this guy. even in death they will not stop doing this to her. but the whole thing where guinan was like your death was meaningless and empty in this timeline so she decides to go back and die in the past instead...GOOD for her

also, i'm a little confused on my canon - i think the battle that other enterprise went back to die in was the one that worf's parents were killed in? which is why he wasn't on the bridge because he fuckin DIED at age 6 or whatever? i guess they must have done enough good to save at least some people??

anyway, ABSOLUTELY adored this one. tasha yar redemption arc. that was the LAST thing i EVER expected to see on tng but here we are. they even made that other captain a woman although lmao in the end they refridged tasha nd this other captain. STILL. if shes gotta die let it be better than the death she got in canon. i'll miss you queen

my one gripe, aside from her boyfriend, is that she and data had a lil scene in the elevator and im mad we could not infer from it whether or not they had fucked in this timeline. rip :(

NEXT TIME: "the offspring" and "sins of the father," which is a normal title that does not at all match the title of a merlin episode i wrote a 130k coda about

[depthbuffer]

I absolutely love how clearly you can hear the progression of ideas, confidence, and access to equipment operating so clearly when listening to Radiohead's albums in chronological order.

Starting way back with Pablo Honey where they were little more than an above-average guitar & drum indie ensemble with some catchy song writing.

Then the opening bars of Planet Telex on The Bends hit, and it's like, what the balls? There are feedback loops, phasers, flangers, filters, echoes and delays all over that. I don't know what sort of gear they used, and feel like looking it up would remove a little of the magic, but it seems like the kind of stuff you could fairly easily do with access to little more than a decent console, a reel-to-reel recorder, and a larger collection of guitar pedals than they had before, and I choose to hold on to that headcanon.

The album as a whole frequently veers back into familiar live ensemble territory, but there are all these little touches here and there that show them starting to branch out into new (to them) techniques, and I like to think they knew exactly what they were doing when choosing the heaviest showcase for all of that as the opener.

Then comes OK Computer. The use of layering really shines here; they're clearly getting comfortable with using the studio to "perform" as a much larger ensemble than they really are. Again, every track is littered with these little touches of filter sweeps in the background, haunting one-off appearances of things that might be sampled vocals, might be theremins, might be synths.

And of course the vocals on Fitter Happier.

Then a three year gap. Which isn't actually as large as I remember: there had been two years gaps between each of the previous three albums, but this one will always feel longer to me because I didn't discover them until the OK Computer days. It was actually the first time I started paying attention to contemporary music; up until that point I'd payed recorder in school (as in, I was the nerdy one who could actually play and kind of enjoyed it, in a class of kids who had it forced upon them and didn't care, as was the done thing in British schools of the era), liked the idea of classical but didn't really love it, had a singular played to death Kraftwerk cassette (The Mix), and knew I didn't care for what I was hearing on radio or TV.

Kid A. What a rollercoaster. Does the opening track, Everything in its Right Place, contain a single acoustic instrument apart from Thom's voice? Again, I think they knew exactly what they were doing putting this one front & centre. It's synths, but it's not synth pop in any way, shape or form. These aren't the cheesy FM presets of the 80s. They were a medium different from the guitars and drums that had come before, but the message is still unmistakably Radiated. To anyone who'd been paying attention, anyway: people fucking hated it. Even I didn't know what to make of it at first.

Then they doubled down a year later with Amnesiac, like a massive middle finger to all the haters who just wanted them to keep doing what they'd been doing.

Which, ironically, is exactly what they were doing: but what they'd been doing all along was growing and evolving, they just took a bigger step this time.

Years later people have come round; to Kid A, at least. But they took their time. Amnesiac still gets little love, but go back and give it another chance. Pyramid Song. Knives Out. Dollars and Cents. Even the meandering two-minute one guitar, one synth noodle that is Hunting Bears. It's not the monument people wanted, but I maintain that it IS a monument.

I could go on, but I won't. It's a shame that Radiohead as a band barely exist any more; they've all started various side projects, the gaps been albums are getting longer. A Moon Shaped Pool came out seven years ago. But sadly it makes sense, given that their whole thing was always about finding new ways to express themselves.

[polkadotpatterson]

ok it’s been a while since I did some late-night reblase-fuelled fic-rotating unhinged angstposting so here’s some of that. which ended up almost veering into Actual Fic Territory whoops

thinking about. abner and parker. what if you were part of the team that cursed a guy and then you died because of it. what if you were both dragged back into this hell to face each other in a pointless showcase game and then you both got thrown back in the league and were even on the same team for a while and watched the coin melt and maybe sort of almost forgave each other for a moment before the world ended.

what if you fell to some weird moist team and made some weird friends in a weird garden and just when things felt almost okay he fell to a new team too and you waited for the league to burn again. and then you didn’t face each other all season but at the end of it they opened the book like they always do because there’s no escape from this game, not ever, not even after you all killed a god. you’ll always be here playing and burning and being puppeted around on their little stage for everyone’s amusement.

and what if back when you fell you had said to yourself no, I’m not doing this again, I’m not going to be their star. maybe some part of you was afraid you couldn’t live up to that anymore, but you buried that deep beneath the part of yourself that was so tired and angry, so it became easy to say no, you’ll pitch how you want. not terrible, but bad enough to be off their radar. you’ll put on a show, but not the kind they want.

but the gods can’t be so easily defied, not even after you’ve proven they can be killed. they love to forge stars, design their pretty little constellations. they look at you on the day the book opens and they set you alight in a new way, different from your first team’s spark that still burns inside you, different from the flames that consumed you when you died.

they say you’re a star again. they say he isn’t. he’s just some guy. not a firewalker. just a batter for the crabs. you can be just some guy, too. watch! you barely win your first two games. you give up ten runs to the millennials. the gods have given you something, some new understanding of the game, something stranger than your own magic, but you do not let it rule you. you will never stop fighting with all that you have.

you did not know velasquez alstott, but donna did. there was no one to protect her this time, no trace of her fire eater ability left to save her. on tv, you watch the firewalker step up to bat. you watch vela burn. you watch the firewalker hit a home run before her ashes have time to settle. donna is crying. she’s dead, and donna is crying, and the firewalker is being the perfect golden boy again, hitting his little home runs as everything burns around him.

you said you wouldn’t be a star again, but that doesn’t mean you won’t stand on the mound two days later and stare him down and do your damndest to strike him the fuck out.

he’s spent so long looking away from you. he’s looking at you this time. maybe remembering how you cursed him. maybe remembering how you burned. you’d throw the ball right at his perfect little face if you could. maybe you try to. it sure doesn’t land anywhere near the strike zone.

(he was just a kid)

he swings weakly.

(he’s still just a kid, even after two thousand years)

he swings again. 1-2. you can almost taste the strikeout. 

(it wasn’t your team. not really. it was the fans. they voted for it)

it tastes like ashes.

(that’s what you tell yourself, sometimes)

he hits the pitch. he always hits the fucking pitch. that’s what he does. star player. burned brighter than you ever could, while you were burning in the background.

vela burned, too, and he still hit the fucking pitch.

donna’s thinking about her. she misses the ball when Winters hits it. she lets him score. you don’t blame her for it.

(who do you blame, Abner Pothos?)

if he’s going to look at you, you’re going to look back. you’ll stare him down until one of you breaks.

(maybe both of you)

[dulcewrites]

I spent nearly 2 hours on Tumblr on tag Aemond × oc and guess what 99% of them are Aemond and his sister/twin sister/niece. It's really hard task to find non Targaryen/Velaryon oc. At this point I am just fed up with this fandom. I actually did a little experiment and searched Aegon × oc tag and when it comes to Aegon it's versatile because oc isn't Aegon's sister or niece and I can't believe that I like Aemond as character more than Aegon, but I avoid Aemond fic or one shots (except fmo naturally) and read a lot about Aegon and all this fics about Aegon changing himself for his love interest made me love Aegon. This fandom is really crazy, I love him as character but I can't enjoy it because all these writers thought that Aemond could only fall in love with member of his close family. I knew that his words about doing his duty if Alicent only betrothed him and Helaena will cause all fandom to think he is so much into incest, but I hadn't realised how big is that. So I just keep reading Aegon's fics because they are the only ones that don't have incest basically bombarding all the readers. They are my refuge after seeing so much insert with Aemond

I understand your frustration. I do think there is slight lack of diversity (in many avenues) when it comes to Aemond, which is unfortunate bc he is such a fascinating character. Taking into account the book and show, there is a lot of stories you can tell through him. I do think this tends to happen with popular characters, regardless of the fandom. There seems to be a trend or trope that gets sort of placed on them, whether it is considered out of character or not.

I’m still shocked that “I would perform my duty (basically if mother wanted me to)” line got turned into yep he’d def fuck his close family member. He’s like 11, no dragon to his name, and clearly drinking the koolaid of “these are the things ‘real’ targs” do. It’s ironic that this is the storyline being placed one of the of the few targs (in this part of history) that never had to/was never groomed to want a family member. It’s just… ??? Idk a choice I guess. I see this more in the hotd side versus the asoiaf/got side but it seems like a lot of people take the incest as sort of an endorsement/a need to have a Targ story be interesting versus a cautionary tale about the family.

Aegon is an interesting person the sense that he is so… anti targ. He very clearly begins to spiral after he is forced to marry and sleep with his sister (though that does not negate his actions. Helaena also had to marry her brother and didn’t do what he did. If we are going based off the show).

Aemond (along with haelena and Rhaenyra imo) start to veer into self insert territory but in different ways. Helaena and Rhaenyra often get stripped of anything so they can be placed in relationships with the popular guys (Aemond and Daemon). And Aemond’s feelings get distorted to fit whatever narrative. He gets shipped with anyone and everyone even if it makes no sense.

Now this is ok but fanfic is just that… fan fiction. People can write and read what they want. It is all self indulgent to a certain extent. Even the stuff I write. That being said, it can get repetitive and sometimes harmful depending on the content we are talking about.

[daechwitatamic]

This chapter was a masterpiece. You had me crying literal tears of pain at some moments and my heart absolutely melting at others. How dare you make me experience so many emotions on a Friday! As punishment, you must read my novel of a reaction below.

Wow. Taehyung. Just wow. Let me tell you, his reaction to this situation is worse than I even expected. When Y/N pushed him away, instead of him trying to explain his feelings, he just got so mean. "You said we're the same as we've always been? You're a fucking liar." WOW. I gasped. The man deserves to get slapped. Proof that the kiss wasn't because he cares about her, it's because he's trying to punish her because he has some twisted belief he's been wronged. And the man is also giving me whiplash. His text messages seemed so apologetic and caring, but then when he showed up at their apartment his attitude had done a total one-eighty and he was just so awful to both of them. The man has some serious work on himself to do. 😤

Also this Namjoon is perfection. I could never imagine someone possibly reacting in a more mature, supportive, and helpful way to this entire situation than he has. And honestly Y/N too has been so mature and self-aware, questioning the healthiness and validity of her own self-doubts before acting. It's beautiful to see two characters like this. At every point where I thought things between them were going to veer off into a point of miscommunication or misunderstanding, they worked through it together.

I loved their moments at the pond and especially when Namjoon confessed that Y/N makes him feel like he can just be his unfiltered, nerdy self with her and hasn't felt that way around anyone else. We've seen so much of Namjoon being there for Y/N throughout the story that it was so sweet to see him acknowledge how she's made him feel supported and seen as well, even if it wasn't through any particular hardship.

As for the POVs, I'm so glad you are thinking of writing the Taehyung one, I think this would be so interesting to see and I really want to know what is going on inside that man's head because his actions are... not it. Maybe it's because I have it so down bad for Taehyung, or maybe it's because I have a soft spot for an emotionally illiterate idiot best friend who doesn't realize he's in love with the girl until it's too late (and just read @foxymoxynoona's very different but also amazing story around this concept, "Tell Me What Changed", highly recommend), but I am still holding out hope for some sort of a redemption arc for him. You're right that you do give us a lot of Namjoon's perspective already, and that unlike Taehyung one of the beautiful things about him is that he actually communicates his thoughts and feelings (imagine that!) to Y/N, so we don't have to guess what's going on inside his head. But I think Namjoon's character is someone who is so careful and thoughtful with their words, I'd be curious to get a peek into his raw, unfiltered thoughts. Like what was he really thinking after their steamy night together, on their date, when he was outwardly being so mature about letting her meet up with Taehyung, etc. But I think you answered some of those questions in this chapter as we saw Namjoon process the aftermath of seeing the kiss, so I perhaps spoke too soon! Also I live for the teaser updates almost as much as I do the new chapters. It sounds like Taehyung is hopefully read to be a bit more mature about things, but we'll have to see, I've been fooled before. I cannot believe we only have one chapter left!!! Hope life is treating you well, Jo! <3 🌴

okay listen i'm gonna put this whole response behind a cut because i'm gonna talk a LOT about my characterization of taehyung and it MIGHT delve kind of into spoiler territory so if you want to wait and read what i have to say after NEXT friday that's totally fair.

SPOILERS PROBABLY HAPPENING BELOW OKAY

"punishment" pls i wish every reader did this lol

okay i have a LOT to say about taehyung. if you got this far and didn't expect me to come back with a "yes, but -" about him.... idk what to tell you because i've been doing this since the drop lol

"instead of trying to explain his feelings, he just got mean" so let's talk about this!!!! because you're right! he got nasty! something i tried to write into this taehyung is that he bites when he's scared, hurt, or embarrassed. and in that moment, when his life-long best friend physically pushes him away and curses at him and MEANS it, he's suddenly all three of those at once. like people aren't perfect, and i meant for this taehyung to be very not perfect. but it's real, right? i know people like this. they aren't bad people but they have to work on themselves to fight that instinct! and it's kind of a callback to the chapter when the guys were like "what if she moves on from you" and he was - scared, embarrassed to be called out, and he reacted this way too.

a step sideways for a second - let's examine what he's SAYING though!!!!!!! she told him "we're the same as we've always been". what does that actually mean? i'm still in love with you? i'm still following you around in hope that you'll want me? you're still my whole wide world? maybe taehyung didn't say it NICELY but at the end of the day he's RIGHT - she's lying. he's losing her in real time, watching it happen, and she's lying to his face about it! ANYWAY

back to the original thought - if you look again at the scene in the hallway, there's something i want to point out. Taehyung's nasty - to Namjoon. He is! Super nasty! I am not contesting that AT ALL. But - but. The second reader steps into the hallway all that bite vanishes on the spot and he goes straight to pleading with her to hear him out. even after he swallows the fact that he can't talk to her without an audience (the audience that he is FURIOUS at/about, that he sees as the reason he's losing His Person) once he's talking to HER all he does is beg her to talk alone and apologize again! he actually isn't nasty at all to READER in that moment! Only to Joonie!

As for "proof that the kiss wasn't..." I'm not gonna speak to that part - his motivation - until after next chapter. i promise it will be addressed IN FULL.

listen so we're far enough in the story that i can say this. it was VERY important to me when i wrote this story that the conflict was never between reader and namjoon. once they started shit, they were fine, they were a team, they were gonna handle shit together. in many, many ways, this is really the story of taehyung and reader since that's where the main conflict lies. the story of how their friendship has to navigate this part of their lives that would have been weird and difficult even if it hadn't been namjoon. i almost put tae also on the banner because it is, in my eyes, equally his story - but i didn't want to encourage anyone who thought reader should've picked him lolll.

okay this might be spoilers I guess!!! i just want to say... i don't know that i wrote taehyung a redemption arc? i think i'm leaning to say that i did not? and it's just kind of.... idk in real life not everyone gets redemption redemption? sometimes the best we can do is say 'wow i was wrong for that', apologize, and try to make little babystep changes in our life to try and do better going forward? and that doesn't feel like a ~redemption arc~ necessarily but maybe that's the best we can do sometimes? NOT THAT I'M SAYING THAT'S WHAT WILL HAPPEN FOR TAE >_>

I ALSO CAN'T BELIEVE THERE'S ONLY ONE LEFT asjfhkasfhajkfh i'm UPSET

thank you so so much for coming along this craziness with me, i absolutely live to hear your thoughts, and i'm sorry i am Like This about defending taehyung lmfaoooo

hope you've been well!!!! <3

[suffarustuffaru]

oh this is so cool ty op!! :o gonna add some random thoughts as well!!!

and of course for at least some of these it quickly veers into psychological horror for a bit (see: emilia, whose hopeful bittersweet romance story has some Hidden Darkness behind it due to the sheer amount of times shes attacked + certain things she doesnt know about her family - namely what became of her parental figures between puck, petelgeuse, and fortuna alsdjfls)

i think otto would be a pathetic antihero figure in a mystery/psychological thriller disguised as a straightfoward adventure/slice of life story!! so not that much different from canon but now we get to see him play detective and balance the things he does behind his new friends' backs. you think its some sort of self-actualization story in the beginning where a kind anxious little guy finds himself some friends and a new home and finally makes something of himself - but really this is a tragedy of his own making because his biggest virtue (loyalty and dedication) is now the Worst Thing Ever <3 was he even a nice person in the first place??? yes and no, because the further you get into the story the more you realize hes been exactly the same this whole time. you start wondering if you should still root for him at all.

heinkel aka the Almost Protagonist of Rezero is. its very much a tragedy. probably the kind where we start when hes Already Horrible and then we go back and forth between the past and the present so we see exactly how he got here (as hes continually bashed into the ground in the present). hes the extremely flawed protagonist that you initially hate/dislike at first but then you pity him and wonder if he'll ever improve or die to all his flaws and trauma.... or you can start from the very beginning of his story and you Continually get the sense that something will go Very Very Wrong eventually.

reinhard is. i feel like his story would have the tone of a light hearted slice of life story except it rings hollow because almost Everything about his life is absolutely miserable. its a tragedy. its a horror story. and of course the one person hes ever met that treats him normally still Also recognizes him as a monster. and reinhard doesnt even know that the two of them are Both incomprehensible immortals... but the entire time the tone feels Light for the vast majority of it because reinhard is so used to being miserable and it seems like a fun fantasy story with a powerful but kind protagonist who lives a peaceful life. only for the veil to be ripped right off the moment someone is horrible to reinhard for the first time on screen and reinhard just reacts a little too serenely to it because hes Used To This. the cheerful music in the background is still playing. wait this show isnt fun anymore why are they all acting like the trauma is normal.

rem is odd because. well its a sweet romance in the beginning where both rem and subaru grow as people because of each other, despite rem's painful past and insecurities, but the cracks start filtering in - rem's a little too obsessive, theres something Very Wrong with her love interest, then she falls comatose. but then the audience gets a harsh cut to her waking up from her coma, remembering nothing, and its been a Whole Year, and her former love interest is now some dangerous stranger that she cant trust at all while theyre in already dangerous territory. and its all a rollercoaster from there as she (and the audience) try to piece together wtf is happening now!! wait actually that sounds super fun can you imagine the whiplash both rem and the audience would get post-coma.

Wanna discuss how the Re:Zero storyline would look like (and how it would be marketed, lol) with any of the others as the main characters? I’ll go first:

For Emilia this is one of those wish-fulfillment romance books where a young, ostracized girl meets a powerful, mysterious, monstrous boy who is inexplicably devoted to her in his entirety. At first he doesn’t understand that she is a person and not a thing to be hoarded, but he soon realizes how he hurts her by failing to understand her as a human being and manages to change his monstrous ways for her sake. She and her maids have to teach him basic things like what is considered common courtesy, what is socially unacceptable, how to read… It is a story about a woman who has managed to be kind even in a world that seems intent on hurting her at every turn being rewarded for her kindness with a love interest who ��� admittedly has to learn to NOT be horribly toxic to her, but who does put in the work to do so, and who is always utterly in love with her.

For Roswaal it is a story about a very twisted protagonist who has been carefully making this time-traveling weapon of a boy in his own image — only for his plan to fail as his weapon gains a mind of its own and starts to rebel. And then as the rebellion succeeds, it becomes a story of a battle of wills, of him and the boy wrestling their wants and desires in order to achieve the best possible future for them both.

For Garfiel it’s a shonen sort of romp where things begin by his mysterious and powerful mentor character tearing down his walls and dragging him into the light practically kicking and screaming, introducing him into a world where he very well may not be the strongest thing alive anymore. He makes new friends, faces new foes, and grows stronger and stronger with each hurdle crossed as he trains and trains for his Captain and his Captain’s kind-hearted Lady, his reunited sister, the strong-willed girl he’s crushing on for years, his newfound brother figure — but all the while, and for all he looks up to the guy, it seems as though nobody can ever really put a finger on what exactly his Captain’s whole deal is.

For Beatrice it’s a story about how her life is turned around when the most annoying boy in existence shows up and gives her a way out of a prison that has kept her in her library for the past 400 years. This brat is very strange, even incomprehensible at times, but they slowly develop a brother-sister relationship as she grows more and more affectionate towards this mysterious stray brat of a contracted partner.

For Ram it’s some sort of sitcom surrounding the great resurrected Oni God, now living as the subordinate of the man who conquered her village years ago. Starring the loud boy next door with an obvious crush on her, her own conqueror/crush being a pathetic wet sock of a man with the moral backbone of a chocolate eclair, an incredibly annoying little brother figure who is her new coworker and also slightly insane, an alcoholic wet cat of a merchant, the young girl she is serving who slowly becomes her best friend — and also her comatose sister who has apparently always existed but whom she has no memory of past a few months ago.

For Petra it’s some sort of fairytale surrounding a young girl who is watching a mysterious stranger save her village time and time again. She thinks he’s just the coolest.

[collisiondiscourse]

on the wonder duo (part 1)

(BNHA Analysis Post Ahead! This isn’t explicitly romantic, but it is an analysis of the relationship between the two most popular characters in BNHA--Katsuki Bakugou and Izuku Midoriya. Split into two posts because I realized that this was gonna be long as HELL)

yall ever think about the fact that the wonder duo is perfectly set up in so that bakugou and deku together are the better version of all might?

bc like. ive been thinking.

everyone knows the win to save and save to win parallel. How they are supposedly two halves of a whole perfect hero (which, previously, was defined as all might)

but ever since bakugou and deku started working as one—growing together to win AND save and continuously reminding each other that they shouldnt try to do things alone, ive realized that its BECAUSE theres two of them that they surpass all might. its not a case of deku and bakugou both being 50% of an ideal hero, but rather i think that they are 100% of what all might SHOULD HAVE BEEN from the very beginning.

as early as the AM v AFO battle in kamino, we see the effects of all mights flawed existence. the fact that he, the greatest and supposedly infallible symbol of peace, was destroyed—society had begun to collapse. there was suddenly no pillar to hold people together and the impacts were so severe that even in the latest chapters of mha it keeps on getting worse. the truth is, all mights biggest mistake was the burden he placed on his own shoulders

with bakugou and deku... its different.

its different for them because down to their attributions, they seem like two halves of a whole person.

i think that the wonder duo are going to surpass all might because of the fact that they work together.

@bakugoukatsuki-rising @svpercraigus @tybee​ @isaustraliaathing​

(batshit crazy and conspiratorial essay under the cut !)

1. Complementary Colors

I’d like to first preface literally everything I say by the fact that I am not an expert analyzer or literary major in any way. I am literally just some random fan on the internet who has wayyy too much time and looks wayyy too deep into things, but here we go!

A common thing we see when we talk about bakugou and deku is the way they are... sort of an inverse of one another.

Down to the design of their features and the way they move, Deku is the obviously softer of the two. There’s an intentional contrast between the two of them, in the way that Deku’s drawn with round shapes and curvy hair and the way Bakugou is literally all spikes and half-mast eyes and rough muscles. Bakugou’s movements too are languid and showy, with the way he leans when he walks and splays his legs and kicks open doors. Katsuki, in a casual sense, is loud and dramatic. 

Deku on the other hand s finicky. He jitters when he walks and he’s often fidgeting and mumbling. Comparatively, the aura he radiates is energetic and frenzied, even self-conscious to a point unlike Bakugou’s calm and confident movements.

the point is, there’s a clear difference in how either of them are designed and what exactly they are supposed to represent. They utterly complement each other down to the way they behave and even their main colors (red-orange and blue-green) being literal complementary colors.

Now, moving to my more ungrounded points, this is quite a bit of a stretch so I’ll try as much as possible to make sense of these with hyperlinked sources because. yeah.

Down to their names, I think Deku and Bakugou both symbolize something deeper. I think that the way Hori expresses characters and what they’re meant to do is something that we have to pay close attention to when we talk about the Wonder Duo’s rise to success.

Izuku Midoriya (緑谷 出久), as some of us may know, does have an interesting meaning when broken up. According to a lovely fan translation of his name, ‘Izuku’--while not an actual name used commonly in real life--means to ‘Come out’ or ‘Long time’. ‘Midoriya’ on the other hand means (Midori) ‘Green’ and (ya) ‘valley’. The translator further pointed out that his first name ‘Izuku’ could be a reference to him being the first legendary hero to come out of the long-running All Might Era. (or, if you’ve been reading @/bakugoukatsuki-rising’s posts, the first significant anime protag in a long while to come out as queer, ppfft)

but that isn’t my focus right now.

We know that Hori LOVES telling stories with names, and more often than not in the BNHA universe, names alone tell us a lot of things about the characters. When referring to Izuku’s last name, Midoriya, it’s important I think to step back and realize that hey, maybe there’s something more to Green Valley than just the fact that his motif is all green.

After searching for a lil on the specifics of green valley, I’ve found out that across many cultures, the colour green and valleys in general tend to represent life. From dream analysts, to Christianity, and even old Taoist teachings, valleys are seen as areas of fertility and escape. They are seen as safe havens and often escapes for people to come to after running away from bad circumstances.

(Sound familiar?)

Deku, in essence represents life and peace. He represents being the “salvation” that the world in BNHA needed. To me, it sounds like Horikoshi is trying to say that he is the long-awaited hero in the sense. The one that people can feel will create a society that feels safe for everyone after years of All Might just saving people from themselves as a band-aid solution.

On the other hand, we have Katsuki Bakugou (爆豪 勝己), who’s name we commonly know means (Katsuki) Winner and (Bakugou) Explosion Master. He is essentially, the champion. The power. His name means success and power and all the things that make up winning.

When putting them side by side, it then becomes increasingly... interesting to me how their names almost perfectly slot into All Might’s save to win and win to save mantra, and how they are both quintessential parts to what made All Might as a hero.

2. Hero Too!

Now, I’m not even gonna really TOUCH much of what happens in canon. If you want me to do a step by step breakdown of their arcs in regards to the plot of manga and anime, feel free to send me a gratuitous ko-fi tip so I can pay for the headache I get after trying to organize my thoughts into word vomit.

What I WILL talk about on the other hand, is the subtle shift both of them slowly have in regards to how they look. Bakugou and Deku, while growing up, seem to have MANY many parallels--but before I elaborate on all of that, I wanna talk about something else.

Detour: Deku’s Red Shoes 

We all know the iconic symbol being Deku’s red shoes. For all his life, save for some outfits like his hero one, we see Deku more often than not wearing his signature red sneakers which have become a running joke in fandom.

But the funny thing is, in Japan, red shoes seem to have an interesting connotation.

In 1922, a popular Japanese nursery rhyme was written, called “Red Shoes”. The interesting part to me about this song was the symbolism that, in my tiny pea-sized brain, I could connect to the story of BNHA.

The story goes that there was a little girl with red shoes named ‘Kimi’. She was from Shizuoka prefecture (which, if you didn’t know, is most likely where Musutafu supposedly is) and was raised by a single mother. When she was young, her mother had to entrust her with a foreigner under the impression that they would give her a better life in America. The stranger is a man named Charles Hewitt (who was described to have blue eyes) and supposedly took her away. 

The singer of the song (supposedly the mother, but some argue it was written from the perspective of a childhood friend) believes that Kimi is happy and living a better life away from them, when the reality of the situation was much worse. The young girl with red shoes in actuality had Tuberculosis, and thus the foreigner whom she was entrusted to had left her to fend for herself and eventually left her to go to America while she died alone and orphaned.

“When I see red shoes, I think of her.”

A very interesting story with very interesting implications indeed.

-

Anyway, moving on to the more... “nuanced” and connected parts of this section, I have every reason to believe that Bakugou and Deku were simply MEANT to be working together down to how they dress. Now, I’d like to discuss their hero costumes.

At the start of their series, using these godawful pics for reference, it’s clear to see that neither of them seem alike in any way--reflecting the dissonance in their relationship at that point in canon.

ough. deku why. (yes we know why its because you love your mom you stupid little bunny <3)

Anyway, we see an immediate gap in how the two of them are. Deku’s first costume is one that reflects how he treated his dream of being a hero. He was still in that childlike idolization phase, the one where his dreams and aspirations were hinged on pure feelings and inspiration from All Might. Katsuki on the other hand was a lot more tactical--professional to an extent. The gap between their respective development with their quirks is something that is clearly felt in every fashion decision they’d made.

(Notice how Deku’s green is a lot brighter and less like the green accents Katsuki has all over his costume.)

As time progressed however... their costumes changed. The colors, the silhouettes, the practical functions, most things.

(Deku’s Gamma Costume and Bakugou’s Winter Costume used respectively)

we begin to notice a few similarities.

As the show goes on and we see more evolutions of their costumes, it almost seems like they begin to look like a matching pair. Deku’s green grows darker and almost teal in nature, while Bakugou’s orange is veering towards red territory. This is important to note because red-orange and blue-green as I said earlier were complementary colors as compared to simply orange and green. The minute shift is something I really wasn’t quite sure was intentional, but something I find interesting to pick up nonetheless as the colors they used to accent their costumes begin to match up.

Secondly, I think and important thing to note is silhouettes. The way that both Bakugou and Deku’s costumes are designed follow a lot of parallels that typically we don’t see with the rest of 1-A. For one, they both have a combination of tight long-sleeved tops with a bulkier set of bottoms. They also share the use of utility belts and metal pieces typically worn around their necks. Deku has his bunny-eared hood that mimics All Might’s hair, while Bakugou has his orange and black explosion ear-pieces that mimic his own quirk.

i don’t think any other people in class 1-A match each other as subtly yet strongly as these two. Uraraka and Deku and Bakugou and Kirishima do come close however.

“But Codi, you fucking knob!” I hear you plea. “This is such a reach and tells us practically NOTHING!” And yes, I’m inclined to agree with you! You’d be sort of right in the idea that this is a reach. Maybe I am looking too much into this, and maybe it really isn’t that deep--but I do think that them subconsciously matching outfits means something quite brilliant.

In the way that their costumes are designed, each aspect of either outfits have a very logical explanation. The changes were strategic and made with their fighting styles vividly in mind, so what that tells me is that BECAUSE these costumes are so complementary or similar in nature (Bakugou’s reinforcing his arms while Deku reinforces his legs), these two are implicitly showing the audience that their combat styles are complementary as well. 

The evolution of their design choices and similarities tell us that even unknowingly, their minds line up in strategy on the battlefield--a clear exhibit for why they would be INCREDIBLY POWERFUL as a Hero Duo to begin with.

When I look at their hero costumes side by side, I see a mirror. I see the way that these two are reflections of each other and are strong where the other isn’t. The point I see in BNHA repeatedly is that EVERYONE HAS A WEAKNESS. Nothing is infallible, regardless of how hard you train or how powerful your quirk is. Everyone will always have a weakness, but the significant difference I see when fandom discusses the future of Pro-Hero Society is that the new generation is finally raising itself to be RELIANT on each other. 

Observing their fighting styles and the simple use of their quirks, its obvious that they are indeed two parts of a whole hero. Bakugou, who’s quirk emphasized his arms and hands and the power that comes from it, while Deku who’s quirk now emphasizes his legs and lower body and the way he’s always running to save people.

IN CONCLUSION:

As they become heroes, it is easy to assume that if nothing else, Bakugou and Deku will cover each other’s weak spots (especially when you consider the way Deku probably won’t be able to keep using his arms with the way both the anime and manga are going...) (also chapter 285, anyone?)

-

Part Two: Interactions, OfA

kofi || commission details

[vampiremourning]

yall okay so im. okay u know that writer thing you do where whenever you have an Experience in life you keep like. tabs and notes on it in a semi-dissociative state to file away for future reference in case it ever pops up in a story and you need to descrbe the emotions and experience? ive been thinking of vampires and Food. (this veers into ED territory so im gonna drop it under the cut just in case)

(this is copy pasted from discord for my own filing purposes )

 so mitchell, in case this was missed, is a former sufferer of a restrictive based ed. i only say former bc yknow, vampirism makes food impossible now. it was definitely a way she felt like she could control her environment and possibly conform to enough beauty standards to be deemed memorable and worthy of attention. i think being the odd one out personality wise gave her a complicated fixation w surface level beauty. she's underweight at the time of her embrace and it shows, tho she wasn't at hospitalization level yet--just kinda felt bad overall (brain fog, mood swings, anemia, vertigo, bad circulation, etc.) 

 and i think that like, while she knows now she looks visibly unhealthy, she's also got a distinct part of her brain that enjoys the fact that she got to be frozen in her illness? it's not progressing so there's no danger, she can just enjoy what she's hazardously cultivated. she also can't grasp that there are fledglings who miss having to intake food. it never tasted good enough to motivate her to eat, the mental energy and willpower was rarely there for cooking, and most textures were abhorrent to her. there's a period where she's more ashamed of the fact that drinking blood is somehow easier than eating ever was, and shouldn't she feel like a monster for that? isn't she supposed to mourn the fact that something so human was forcibly removed from her?

shouldn't she want to look healthier to keep up the illusion of humanity? 

 but like the thing is she doesn't lmao. she definitely wasn't at the stage where she was ready to get Help when she was embraced, but she did have enough self awareness to know she was playing with fire--she was just unfortunately too busy enjoying the suffering. i think on some level she believed that if she struggled enough, she would be able to assimilate & gain some sort of social status in her life instead of being alone constantly. 

 i dont think she would talk about this with other kindred tbh. she likes the fact that she's retained a high humanity level and the type of kindred who revels in the blood consumption typically hasn't been the sort she wants to associate with. she just can't relate to everyone else & would rather process that quietly over the risk of being ostracized again. she swings wildly between feeling as though she should have wanted to recover more/still want to recover now, vs feeling kind of relived that she never had to deal with it.

im honestly not too sure where i was going with this meta lmao. but it definitely carries through with mitchell's motif of being constantly torn about how she views herself & going between self flagellation and neutrality. at this point, her version of recovery would likely just consist of making peace with what's happened and that she doesn't need to carry forward a different version of her previous consumption-based guilt.

[flashfuture]

So I just wanted to ask how you would best “sum up” Hal? Like, what are the key traits to his character? I pretty much only read Flash comics so I have no idea where to even begin with on an accurate assessment of him 😔

A chance to rant about my disaster boy? Yes please

Okay so Harold “Hal” Jordan aka Highball aka the Green Lantern

He is seemingly a man of contradictions. Which I think is actually different writers thinking that Hal is who he presents himself to be and others thinking Hal is putting on an act so it differs

But Hal is a very complex character.

He is incredibly stubborn which he gets from his mama. Hal wanted to fly and he knew his mother would stop talking to him if he did. But he chose his path over a relationship with his mother

Hal got his love of flying and freedom from his dad.

Hal is always going to go for what he wants. His determination is what makes him such a strong lantern.

One thing people note is his string of girlfriends lol. Hal is incredibly charming. He’s got an aura around him that makes people just wanna be with him or be his friend even. He makes friends with all sorts of people. His friendships can vary from antagonistic to warm at any given moment but he’s still very close to everyone he spends his time with. For example Hal and Guy Gardner bicker all the time but they’re still very close friends who do love each other.

Here is another contradiction as well. Hal is very against the idea of getting married because he doesn’t like the commitment. But he’s committed his life to flying and to the corps. And even in the relationship front he told his buddy Tom that Barry could count on Hal’s friendship till they died. So it’s the romantic entanglements Hal isn’t sure he wants the life long with I guess

Hal is incredibly confident in his abilities. Say what you will about his self worth but Hal knows he’s the best of the best. Hal knows he’s gonna win cause he’s Hal it’s just in him. Some would call is show boating which is a part of it. But Hal tends to lead the charges in fights because he wants the guns pointed at him.

Which leads into the next point Hal is extremely protective. He is protective of his brothers and their kids. He’s protective of his fellow corpsmen Kyle most notably who Hal treats like a kid brother. He’s protective of the corps as a whole.

Hal will always do whatever it takes to get the job done even if it veers into grayer territory. He’ll kill if he thinks it’s the best course of action. Hal can go to extreme lengths to do things. ie pre the retcon Parallax was Hal trying to reset the universe to the pre crisis timeline because he thought that would be best for everyone. Coast City would be back, Barry would be back etc.

Now let’s circle back to that self worth thing I mentioned. So Hal is very much aware of his worth as a superhero and Green Lantern. Even as a pilot. He’s never doubted his own skills really

But as a person that’s where Hal’s insecurities come into play. Hal from a young age was being compared to his older brother Jack who to put it as nicely as I can is an asshole.

Hal then started comparing himself to other heroes like Clark and Barry. Most notably Barry who Hal believes to be the very best not just of the heroes but of humanity itself. Hal has made comments that make it clear he doesn’t think he measures up to Barry’s level of “goodness”

(Which I like to think as a bit of meta play because in the late 50s every character was changed or created to model after Barry for sales purposes so no one is gonna measure up lol)

Anyways yeah now onto the fear thing. Older comics bought into the Man with no Fear thing but I think Daredevil has that trademarked. Hal having no fear was one thing that was said to have annoyed Bruce the most.

Hal was very reckless not because he had any death wish but because he wasn’t registering the inherent danger of a situation. It wasn’t so much not looking before he leapt but more not thinking that he should look or looking and then going. A gun pointed at him for example he knew could kill him but that didn’t scare him even when he was a teenager and didn’t have his ring or anything.

Hal could be afraid in the moment that’s for sure when Barry is in danger for example. (It’s that one fear t-shirt meme with them) Or if one of his nieces or nephews might be hurt. But it’s more like a panicked state than having fear

Like there was a complete disconnect in his mind which is a very interesting psyche I’d wished they’d explored it a little more

Modern comics would have you believe Hal is pretending to not be afraid because they really want to push the overcome great fear thing. But I think they went a little far saying Hal is scared every time he flies because if there is one thing about Hal that’s always consistent it’s that he loves loves loves flying.

I have thoughts here if you wanna read more on that rant lol

But yeah so Hal is stubborn, determined, protective, charming, reckless, self assured in his abilities but self deprecating in his personality, willing to walk those lines of morality, and depending on the writer fearless or a damn good actor

Hope that helps lol. His character varies a lot cause writers aren’t so sure how to handle him all the time so yeah.

Any other Hal readers/fans can feel free to jump in if they feel like I’ve missed something or got something way wrong but this is what I’ve got from reading Hal

[thiswaycomessomethingwicked]

Eh, sure why not.

Salty ask: 19, 21(if you know any), 25. I'd ask for Star Wars but I don't know if you care about it so LotR and/or any other fandom if you prefer.

Oh I love Star Wars. I just love very particular, limited aspects of Star Wars.

19. What is the one thing you hate most about your fandom?

As with all fandoms, this is aside from the racism, sexism etc. that runs rampant through it.

Everything that has to do with Kylo Ren. Are you pro Kylo? Anti Kylo? I don't care. I'm going to be an old man and shake my stick at the kids on the lawn.

I'm pretty cursory to Star Wars, and I tend to just hang with fellow Tarkin, Krennic, Veers people, so I manage to steer clear of a lot of the bullshit that goes on (see: the sith people v the jedi people). Which means I have little to kvetch about. At least - off the top of my head.

I love my corner and I have little interest in leaving it.

But I suppose, if I had to choose an additional point, the black and white thinking, the rabid-ness of certain corners of the fandom against anyone who thinks differently, that sort of thing - that I hate. The usual bullshit that plagues almost all fandoms.

21. What are your thoughts on crack ships?

Oh they're fun! I love them! Hands down, the best.

Palpatine/Jar Jar Binks? Fucking cracks me up. Darth Vader/Han Solo? I'm into it. Go hog wild. Leia/Krennic? Fucking have fun my dudes. Live your best life. Tarkin/That Carcass He Slept In On Eriadu? Someone had to do it. Might as well be you.

I enjoy the whimsical nature of crack ships and think it helps remind people that fandom is meant to be fun and silly and something we engage in because it brings us joy and laughter.

Crack ships are one of the saving graces of all fandoms.

25. How would you end XXX/Would you change the ending of XXX?

Well, I am a huge proponent of Krennic living after Rogue One solely because he is a menace and I love his chaotic energy. Also the bureaucratic cat fighting between him and Tarkin is something I relish. Thrawn is just like "oh my god can you please stop acting like you're in Mean Girls."

Krennic: Absolutely not.

Tarkin: I don't know that reference and I refuse to engage with it. Director Krennic, on the other hand, can get punted into a black hole.

Vader: I'm just here for the show.

Krennic: the emperor’s robes are so big because they’re full of lies. 

etc.

As a civil servant working on a very large infrastructure project that is bound to go over time and over budget, I really relate to Krennic.

A thing I would change, which isn't an ending but more a plot point, is the destruction of Alderaan. Tarkin is supposed to be this brilliant tactician and, on the side, politician, yet he destroys this planet that is chock full of resources? Around which rebels will rally? But mostly the resources? There are a lot of things with that decision that don't line up with how he is presented to us as a character with later extrapolations on the canon. That's something I would change to either be out of his hands, i.e. Palps ordered it, or make it a smaller target - like a city or province/territory (yet another mining accident?? So many, these days).

-

Thank you so much for the ask! <3 <3

salty ask meme

[iamnotawomanimagod]

okay mAAAAAJOR spoilers for the end of s3 of You below so I can rant about it.

seriously if you haven’t finished watching keep scrolling

Sooo I found the ending to be totally anticlimactic and disappointing. I definitely think that this show is going to veer into Dexter territory - as in, the main protagonist white guy who thinks his killing is justified is going to keep getting away, over and over, to the point where it’s unrealistic, and they’re going to try to find some way to let the guy go off and live somewhere he can’t be held responsible for what he’s done.

They set up such an interesting plot line and dynamic with s2 and introducing Love. Giving Joe someone who is essentially his match was really smart. It gave his character something to do and focus on besides just being a total creep. It humanized him while also allowing him to do worse and worse things to keep his cover. And all the wacky scenarios possible came out of his and Love’s relationship. It was a really interesting plotline and honestly saved the show. That sort of doomed Joker-and-Harley ‘let’s out crazy each other’ dynamic made everything about Joe more interesting.

I just feel like they went with the most obvious, painfully predictable ending possible. Was there ever any doubt that Joe would kill Love? After she got out of the second season alive, yes, absolutely, there was doubt! Once she became the mother of his child it changed the game!! It made Love untouchable! And it gave Joe something to live for besides his own selfish whims! And that made him and his murder tendencies more interesting, because it changed the stakes and made his choices about so much more than just him.

And I feel like by killing Love they basically just undid that whole storyline. Joe gets to abandon his baby. He gets away with killing more people, not to mention several other felonies. It’s like s2 and s3 didn’t even happen.

I’m not interested in Joe in France, because the location of the show has rarely, if ever, mattered to me at all. I know the show has this thing it’s doing where it show us different places - New York, LA, the ‘burbs - and tries to expose the awful things about those places, but it’s definitely not the main draw of the show for me.

If this was the end of the show, which I don’t imagine it will be, it was an incredibly weak and unsatisfying ending because it’s like “oh the blandly handsome white guy wins again” and that’s the end of every show. ever.

I wanted Love to kill Joe. or for one of their victims to rat them out. or SOMEthing to happen, besides the same thing we’ve seen happen in the previous two finales now.

they need to figure out how they want Joe Goldberg to go out and they need to write themselves to a place where that can still happen.

otherwise we’ll have another sad lumberjack on our hands.

(also the original reason I started watching was for Victoria Pedretti and my interest in the show died with Love lol)