#i mean it makes sense bc foil is the most Traditional One but it's also the one style i haven't fenced at all.

[transkholins]

rereading gideon the ninth and using my five months of fencing to slowly figure out what fencing style the cavaliers are primarily using (it's foil btw)

[thattripleabattery]

Thinking about these very famous Batman Rogues Gallery vs Spiderman Rogues Gallery posts because of all the Spiderman villains talk. I am a huge supervillain fan by my own admission (my dad owns 5000+ comics and I imprinted on the villains like a baby duckling, rather than the heroes like my dad hoped), so supervillain Nerm is godtier (they deserve to go apeshit after all they've been through).

As a side note, I find it super funny how the second one frames Batman villains as not also specializing in STEM. Like don't get me wrong, they're right that Batman villains are theater kids, but also the two Batman villains they used as an example are Jonathan Crane (my boy!!!) and Oswald Cobblepot, who do have a PhD in Psychology/MD in Psychiatry (very different degrees, but DC doesn't understand the difference) and a Masters in Ornithology respectively. Like listen, maybe they're not as "Pure STEM" as all the engineers and physicists in Spiderman's Rogues Gallery, but most Batman Rogues do have advanced degrees in STEM fields as well if we're going to get technical about it. I could also make this case for Spiderman Rogues being theater kids, but honestly no Rogues Gallery is as showy overall as the Batman Rogues imo.

I do also love how many supervillains in general have PhDs. Like there are so many reasons for it (I have literally written essays for school about the traditional framing in comics about academics turning evil and where that comes from historically, what that means in the context of modern culture, etc), but also I love just mentally framing it as superheroes loving beating up nerds, despite most superheroes being nerds who are written by nerds and have exclusively nerd fans irl. Like I'm super nerdy irl (it comes with the autism), so my fucked up sense of humor is just like, "Damn Spiderman, turning on your own kind, so disappointing 😔".

This ask got way off track from what it was originally about, but I hope you still get something out of this 😅

THIS IS LITERALLY THE BEST ASK??? DONT APOLOGIZE!

I’m also a superhero nerd which comes with my adhd :D

Newt should be allowed to be a supervillain at least once a year as a treat! Let him wreak havoc as doc ock!

Let him destroy shit as venom or lizard damnit!

It makes sense since each of the heroes have to have foil ie batman having talkative villains and spiderman having non talkative villains (kinda)

Also while both Batman and spiderman have a no killing policy (most of the time) they both go about it differently like spiderman usually tries to deescalate the situation with talking and such while batman tried to physically deescalate

Like spiderman saying shit like “you know for a guy with clown make up and named the joker, you’re not very funny”,

“You’ve come a long way from wonderland, hatter,” and “usually my first thought with cat woman is a old woman, like 20 cats, lives in a big house, probably smells like tuna”

I would love to see batman fighting venom or doc ock though bc they wouldn’t stand a chance against him

I genuinely think that if spiderman talked to Batman’s villains for at least 30 mins they would rethink their ways bc spiderman is a sweet guy and lets be honest most of Batman’s villain just need someone to talk to (except joker)

[sanstropfremir]

Hey! I hops life has been treating you well! And warning for a long and convoluted ask incoming (which is pretty par for the course for me). I’ve been going down a Yunho (U-Know Yunho to be precise lol) rabbit hole and I’m curious how you think he compares to other male SM solo artists especially Taemin (though I think it would be interesting to compare all SM solo artists like BOA or Taeyeon and Hyoyeon for the purpose of this ask im just thinking about the dudes). Cause I feel like him, Taemin, and Kai all fall on different ends of the same spectrum that’s distinct from some of the other SM solos like the other Exos (except I might add Baekhyun in there but I’m just not familiar enough with him) as they tend to tackle that darker sexier sound. I’ve been thinking about how when people say a male solo artists is making taemin lite music it’s usually actually closer to Yunho’s more recent stuff. Like taemin has kind of become short hand for dark male solo concept especially if it’s on the sexier or high concept side when that’s not always an accurate comparison. I’ve seen this especially with Wonho which is really interesting to me cause in my mind he falls way more on the Yunho end of the spectrum than Taemin (by like a long shot). And this could also be cause the kpop circles I run in are way less familiar with Yunho to make that comparison in the first place, I was just wondering if others like you that knew Yunho would agree with me. I also found it interesting that Taemin went solo before Yunho even though TVXQ are the older group so I wonder he affected Yunho’s music at all. Cause Yunho kind of seems like a more, I don’t want to say masculine, definitely more of a player, conventionally sexy foil to taemin’s more unhinged (satanic?? Fantasy? Horror-adjacent? I can’t really describe it accurately but I mean TVXQ has down their share of that too) sensual side and I can’t tell if it’s cause of the age difference between them, their group concepts (I mean TVXQ are the grown men of the kpop industry in my mind and I have no doubt they play a role in inspiring any “manly” or mature concept and Yunho’s concepts seems to follow pretty closely to TVXQ’s image in a way that Taemin doesn’t at all with Shinee), or their own artist personas and careers- taemin has always been viewed as the “feminine” one and you’ve talked a lot about how he’s both rejected and embraced that image overtime in his career. And to further complicate this I don’t really know where to put Kai between them cause he has the more overt sex appeal in Mmmh, and in his image over all, that Yunho has but also is more sensual and softer (subtle?) dance style that seems closer to taemin (or at least taemin’s image I’ll be the first to admit that my understanding of him as an artists doesnt always align with his actual output and the expectations I project on him) so I guess he goes in the middle. But peaches does really stand out as a sort of softer lighter storybook concept (which I love cause I feel like we don’t see traditional concepts that are more feel good) so that kind of throws a wrench into my theory and I guess thats what I get for treating artists’ output as a monolith and for comparing them😅. This ask is getting very very long and I’m late for class so I won’t continue but I did have some idea about where Xiumin’s recent comeback fits into this roster of artists but I’ll save that for another day lol. As always thanks for your input and I hope this makes at least some sense to you!

i stopped photo editing to answer this lmao bc i think this a very interesting question/thought experiment etc etc

firstly, most people will make the taemin comparison for male soloist because he is significantly more well known as a soloist, and part of that is that he's famous for being a soloist; an extension of which is the disparity between his solo work and his group work. now there are two points i want to fork off into from here:

-> the first is that it's a flawed comparison to place yunho, taemin, and kai on a spectrum because they're not derivatives of each other in the way that a spectrum would imply; what they all are is derivatives of rain. every dance-based male soloist is, via some lineage, a descendant of rain, whether it's through the skills line (taemin) or the 'masculinity' line (yunho) or a mix (kai). baekhyun doesn't factor in here because he's almost purely rnb based and therefore a kangta derivative.

-> the second is that it is valid for people to be making that comparison to taemin because most younger idols are going to be using him as reference, and because a lot of these younger idols are following his method of creating a separate solo persona from their group. yunho does not have that distinction. he is quite literally the face of tvxq, and therefore inextricably bound to the group's identity because there are literally only two of them. if they were, for example, still a five member group, he might have had more a chance to diversify himself a bit, but that's a bygone point because we don't live in that world. the reason tvxq made it through the split and maintained being an extremely successful group is very likely because of yunho's singlehanded determination. obviously changmin does care about the group, but as we've seen with his solo work, he's much more of a musical chameleon; he's more focused on dabbling in widely different genres that interest him. yunho's solo music however, is pretty consistent in sound and also not all that surprising of a leap from who he is in tvxq. so by that observation, i would say there isn't actually a difference between uknow yunho and uknow the soloist. his artistic identity is tvxq, in a way that he can't separate, unlike how taemin can separate from shinee. and following that point through, no younger soloist can really be compared to him because his history and group image are so integral to what he does. that's why there's like a negative number of young idols that every attempt to cover a yunho song, bc the vibes of something like follow or thank u would OBLITERATE anyone under the age of 30.

if you were to look at just aesthetics and music styles, sure on the surface there are some younger idols that unintentionally skew more towards some of the stuff that yunho has done, but in the end that's because they're all under the rain umbrella.

[rahleeyah]

Howdy!

Mkay so not to sound like a total square but what does ABO mean? I’ve seen a few of your anon replies mentioning it but i have no clue what it means pls help 😂

Thank you so much for all your lovely work! ❤️❤️❤️

you are not a square at all! this is a fic trope that is really big in some fandom spaces and non-existent in others. it's sort of notorious bc it can be...well, friend, it's a lot. i am sure you're not the only person who's wondering! let me see if i can break this down in a way that makes any kind of sense. just trying to think of how to explain this without a 50 slide power point presentation on the history of fandom. ok let's just start at the beginning.

there's gonna be some sex stuff here so i'm gonna go ahead and put in a read more this is not safe for work

ok so first of all, abo stands for alpha/beta/omega. the fanlore wiki describes it as a "kink trope" which ok, i guess it is - please bear with me - in which some people have defined biological roles. the words alpha beta omega and what they mean in this context come from outdated theories about the hierarchical structures of wolf packs.

please note, despite everything i'm about to type, in abo everybody is still fully human. just with some extra features.

so alpha is pretty obvious, right? it's the "dominant" role. what that means (oh my god i can't believe i'm gonna type this) is that in most abo fics, if the alpha character is a male. well. biologically. he's a little different. male alphas, generally - i say generally bc there are a million different ways to write abo - will. Jesus this is difficult to type. i'm like actually embarrassed.

so in some verses this only happens under specific circumstances and sometimes it happens every single time but when the male alpha is aroused he will have what is referred to in abo as a knot. which is. basically. thank you to abo tiktok. when the base of the penis swells up so that when inserted it won't/can't come back out again until he's done. even after he's finished, the knot will take some time to go back down, and he may become aroused again while he's still locked with his partner, and the cycle may keep going. being knotted, physically linked together and unable to separate, is a big feature in abo fics.

so if you're still with me i'm gonna skip to omegas. we'll get back to betas later.

so the omega is the foil for the alpha. sometimes "submissive", coded feminine but not always female - just as alphas are not always male. the omega is the one who breeds, the one who accepts the alpha's advances. so the biological difference for omegas is they go into heat. which is exactly what it sounds like. sometimes the alpha only knots when he's in rut, and sometimes the rut is only triggered by an omega's heat, and sometimes an omega can only get pregnant during a heat. there is power in being an omega, and being chosen by the alpha. or sometimes omegas are like. bottom of the hierarchy. i keep saying it varies but it really does.

another biological difference that comes into play in a lot of abo stuff is biting. if an alpha bites an omega, that omega is claimed. it is often a mark that does not fade. it is known to others. once an omega has been claimed, generally, people know. in some verses, omegas can only conceive if they have sex with an alpha, in some verses it doesn't matter. there really is so much variation.

scent also plays a huge role in all this.

circling back to the betas, then. betas are subordinate to alphas in the hierarchical chain, and generally have "normal" human anatomy. no heat, no rut, no knot. some verses have no betas at all, some verses betas are the norm and alphas and omegas are rare.

so that's the bare bones of it. but what it really is, honestly, in addition to the sexy tropes of extra big dick, being physically locked together, physically needing one another, is, imo, a way to explore relationship dynamics and traditional gender roles. even though a ton of - perhaps the majority of - abo fic is m/m, it's still breaking down what it means to be dominant or submissive, and examining where that comes from and whether those roles are as fixed as we think.

alphas are dominant, leaders of the pack - but they need a pack to lead. they need people. they are protective of what's theirs. but they also can't just take that role; a wolf pack will oust an abusive alpha, just as a human society will overthrow an unjust leader. it's a position of power but it's a power built on the trust of others, and that power can be taken away.

omegas are understood to be in the submissive role, but would you get between a mama wolf and her pups? omegas can also be fiercely protective, and will not necessarily go along with an alpha who's not treating them well just because he's an alpha.

i hope this hasn't scared you off lmao