#not an age crisis so much as its like. its been another fucking year?? also it literally JUST was 2014

[violasmirabiles]

less than three weeks till i turn 29. huh.

[ao3-top-batfam-ships-bracket]

My problem with Bat/ Bat ships isn't that they exist, it's how many people like them.

Wait! Hear me out. I swear I have a reason.

I'm good at ignoring ships that squick me, so I do. I also want to make it very clear I am not I am not hating on individuums who ship Bat/ Bat.

But to me, how much people ship them is kind of indicative of how little we value adopted children in our society. People say they aren't "really related" so it's fine.

Because you just don't see that level of engagement with ships involving biologically related family.

And it's that attitude shining through more than the shipping itself I dislike.

"Fiction isn't reality" no, it isn't, write the darkest thing you want. Explore fucked up concepts. That doesn't make you a bad person. It's completely normal.

However oftentimes Fiction is often still a reflection of reality. From reading, we can learn about our society (or other societies, if we venture beyond our own culture.) It says something, whether the author meant for it to mean something or not.

We understand where you're coming from and agree that adopted children/siblings are real family and shouldn't be valued less. We also agree that fiction mirrors reality which mirrors fiction, although that process is much more complex than many people claim.

However, 1) not every family is your typical nuclear family. Everybody defines their family and their relationships with its members in their own way. Some people call all adults that are close to them uncles and aunts, regardless of any actual biological connection. Someone could have been raised by their biological parents, but don't claim them as parents because of personal reasons and even view other adults who filled the parental roles better as their actual parents. Someone could have a biological sibling that is much older than them, grow up without them in their life and due to that think of them as more of a cool friend than a sibling. (All examples are taken from our own personal experiences.)

It's especially apparent in cases of found family, which batfamily certainly is. Tim and Jason haven't met until Jason was 18 and Tim was 16. Both were adopted by the same man, but they didn't know each other. Does that automatically makes them brothers? Even though without the adoption papers they would be total strangers? If Jason's death invalidated the adoption papers does it mean he and Bruce stopped thinking of each other as parent and child? Bruce and Dick have an age difference between 10 to 20 years and viewed each other more as brothers, partners and mentor/mentee at first. Bruce and Tim for a long time also thought of each other as mentor/mentee, especially since Tim still had a living father. That was also the case of Dick and Damian. Tim had a crush on Cass in the comics at the beginning of their friendship. Jason and Dick were technically brothers before Jason's death, but they weren't close at all and only met a few times. Barbara is a mother/sister figure to Cass even when she was dating Cass' adopted brother Dick. We don't think Jason and Cass even met once in post-crisis comics, despite technically being siblings. (Sorry we're only mentioning that one era, we aren't as knowledgeable about new52 and rebirth.)

The recent push to make the batfamily a nuclear family in our opinion does a huge disservice to the characters and their interesting and complicated relationships that can't fit neatly into boxes labeled "sibling" or "parent".

2) some people think of batfamily as a family AND still ship them at the same time. Yes, some claim they aren't "really related", but there's another side that absolutely views them as related and wants to explore what happens when two brothers or a father and son fall in love.

3) there's actually a pretty big engagement with ships involving biologically related family. Wincest (ship between biological brothers Sam and Dean from Supernatural) is the 15th most popular ship on AO3 of all time. We still remember how prominent the fandom discourse about shipping the Weasley twins from Harry Potter was. In almost every fandom, there're at least a few incest ships. Are they more popular than adopted sibling incest ships? We don't know, but if anyone wants to measure it in some way, we'd love to find out.

Edit: 4) as people have rightfully pointed out in the comments and reblogs, a lot of fics are AUs where one or both characters weren't even adopted and met in different circumstances. You can see that in a lot of fandoms, people will imagine close friends or even strangers as biological family and vice versa: write biological or adopted family as just friends or even strangers.

We're looking forward to hearing what other people think about this topic!

[drunkenskunk]

So there's a fanfic I've been trying to write for the last several years, and I haven't been making much progress. On average, I've been writing 5000 words in it every 6 months or so. I keep trying to make progress, but it's difficult to find the motivation to continue, since it seems like nobody gives a shit. And it's just a feedback loop of the longer it takes me to write, the less interest there is, and the harder it is for me to motivate myself, which takes me longer to write...

But there's also another project I've been working on: creating a whole bunch of redacted documents about an OC of mine, and then putting them all together in a physical file folder, as if some fictional agency of multiverse space cops has been building an intelligence dossier. The latest document is a 10-page-long transcript of an operation where they tried to capture her, but it went very wrong.

But also, I've been trying to work on a short story about the character I've been playing in the weekly Lancer game. It's called "Scarlet's Last Normal Day on Hell's Gate," and it is exactly what it sounds like from the title: following her life on the station, the literal day before the Class 2 Printer breaks, and the campaign of In Golden Flame kicks off.

But also, I've been stressed about my computer so much that I haven't streamed in over a week. This in itself has caused a slight crisis, because see it's making me question if this whole streaming habit hobby is even worth it. I've been doing it for 2 years, and haven't seen any tangible results. It's just made me more stressed and tired and it takes up valuable time I don't have that I could've been spent trying to write or draw and oh god the streaming is why my hands haven't been working in years, isn't it?

But the computer situation is also stressful. See, I'm just knowledgeable enough about my computer to get me into trouble, but I'm not knowledgeable enough to get me out. I think there's some kind of overheating issue: sometimes, when I play or stream some games, my computer will unexpectedly stop. The fans spin like a jet engine, everything freezes, the monitors go black and display the words "DVI NO SIGNAL" and the only input it will accept is me holding down the power button to force shut down. And it's like, I don't know what the problem is. Is it the case fans that need replacing? Is it a problem with the fans and/or heat sink on the graphics card? Is there a fault in the liquid cooling system? Has the thermal paste on the CPU worn out because the computer is just over 5 years old? Or is it something else entirely that I'm just not knowledgeable enough to even be aware of?

So that means there's the issue of what to do about this computer. Because even getting it to a shop to figure out what's wrong is going to be tricky, as I don't own (can't afford) a car, so how would I get it there? And even if I somehow found a way to get it there and back, is getting it fixed to keep this old bitch limping along for a few more years even worth it? Even before (what I assume are) the overheating issues, it was still showing its age. The computer might be 5 years old, but the graphics card was low-mid range, even when I got it. And it's becoming increasingly clear that 4 tb of space split between 2 hard drives might have been fine in 2019, it absolutely isn't enough now.

But if I decide to get a new computer, the only way I'd be able to pay for it is by pulling money from what used to be the "Emergency Bug Out Fund," an amount of money I had squirreled away in case of "emergency." Problem is, that moment of "emergency" where that money could've been useful already came and went. It's not enough for me to escape the United States. And even if it was enough, I never made a proper plan, because I was too busy surviving. And even if I had enough and put together a proper plan... where the fuck could I even escape? Setting aside how hostile to trans people most of the world seems to be now anyway, the reach of the Imperial American Hegemony is global, and they've proven time and again that they do not give a shit about sovereignty or international law. And it's only going to get worse after the election...

Pulling from that fund feels like me admitting defeat. I'm going to be stuck here in this hostile police state of a country, working until I die, desperately trying to make just enough money to pay off my increasingly absurd ransom rent each month, as it feels like all the things that used to bring me joy are just causing me stress.

I'm so tired.

[honourablejester]

Starfinder Character Concept: A Borai, an Almost Marooned One

“Death is for quitters. Yon hungry ghost can eat its own foot.”

Okay. Marooned Ones are fucking cool? Sci-fi horror makes me happy, nautical space undead, the remnants of spacers left to die slowly in derelict ships and on barren asteroids. Bearing signs of their stubborn attempts to stay alive, motivated by fury and a desire to share their lonely ends with the living. They like to lure in ships, cull out one member, and arrange for them to be stranded/marooned/abandoned in their turn, so that the Marooned One can watch them suffer as they suffered, until their victim finally dies and becomes another Marooned One themselves. So if you’re exploring an abandoned space hulk, looking for salvage, you might find yourself separated out from your crew, and lured somewhere they won’t find you again …

And then there’s the Borai player race. Which, again, is a space undead. Well, half-alive, half-dead. Some of them come from Eox, or result from botched resurrections, but others were ‘people who were simply too stubborn to fully die when their time came’.

… The Marooned One lured her there, and her ship left like the idiots they are, but fuck that space ghost, and fuck her crew, this bitch is not going down. If I have to become undead, I’m gonna do it on my terms, and you can shove yourself out an airlock. Not that it’d make any difference to you, Mr Already-Dead, but it’s the thought that counts. Death is for quitters. I’m not going down just ‘cause you got lonely out here.

Basically, I want a scrappy borai who became only half-undead out of sheer spite for the creature who stranded her. A spacer, a salvager, who doesn’t give a good goddamn about your tragic end, how dare you try to drag her down too. Just for that, she’s not going to go. She’s just not going to die. No. Fuck you.

For the class, I figured mechanic. She’s a spacer, and she’s a salvager, and she’s a stubborn-ass survivalist, and she’s just going to build her way out of death.

Character Concept: Bertha Mourne, the Almost-Marooned-One

Name: Bertha Mourne

Age: 53

Starting Statistics:

Strength 10, Dexterity 14, Constitution 13, Intelligence 16, Wisdom 8, Charisma 12

The Wisdom flaw is a little bit painful because I do want her to have Survival/Perception, but our theme and class can compensate for that a bit.

Starting Skills:

Acrobatics, Athletics, Computers, Engineering, Medicine, Perception, Stealth, Survival

Race: Borai

Neither alive nor dead, but just too stubborn to quit. She’s going to be an ex-human borai, so we’ll get Skilled as well, for an extra skill rank per level. It’s been a few years since she ‘died’, and she’s in her fifties now, but she still looks 47. One benefit of being half-dead, you don’t show the passing of time as much.

From Borai we’re going to get darkvision, a +1 racial bonus to saves against various conditions, immunity to negative damage, no penalties from energy drains, and the ability to be healed and resurrected like a still-living person, though we can also be affected by both things that affect the living and things that affect undead.

Description:

A short, stocky ex-human woman, apparently middle aged, wearing battered but well-maintained spacer gear. When she was more alive than she is currently, her skin was a light brown, and it's still trying to be, but there's a definite grey undertone now, and black veins web across her features. Wires, too. Her eyes are brown, sharp, and tired, and her normal resting expression could politely be described as ‘set’. And less politely described as ‘pugnacious’.

Theme: Crisis Refugee

I’m going to theme it slightly differently, it’s less that she was thrown somewhere by the Drift Crisis, and more than she was marooned by a Marooned One on a derelict ship for a while, became half-undead, and now has no place to go because of the leeriness around borai. It’s not that her homeworld is physically unreachable anymore (she’s from the Diaspora, I just like the Diaspora), it’s that it’s socially unreachable now. Like many of the half-dead, she is looking for somewhere new to call home, but in the meantime she’ll stubbornly carve out a space for herself. And, maybe, find a better crew, one that won’t abandon her.

So at first level, we’re going to get +1 to Con, Survival as a class skill, and we can reduce the DC of culture checks about new/unfamiliar cultures.

Class: Mechanic

A space scrapper, salvager and engineer, Bertha wasn’t going to let a little thing like a derelict ship and a homicidal undead stop her from going anywhere. While the limits of her resources on the ship did result in her not-quite-death, she did eventually manage to hijack the distress beacon the Marooned One had used to lure her ship in in the first place, and get a mostly-dead shuttle out to meet them without that undead arsehole interfering, and managed to augment herself to survive long enough for a new ship to reach her.

I did flipflop a lot on exocortex vs drone. A drone would make sense for a starving salvager who wanted access to places she maybe couldn’t go herself, but … The thing with borai is, it’s a physical metamorphosis. Which kind of makes me want to have her focus on herself? Trying to rebuild herself to try and survive, to get via machinery what flesh couldn’t manage. So … I think exocortex. When she felt herself starting to fail, she started trying to mechanically arrest the process. It didn’t work, and in the end it was raw stubborn that actually stopped her slow slide into death, spit and vinegar more than ingenuity, but hey. She tried.

So as a baby exocortex mechanic, we get proficiency in light and heavy armour, small and longarms, basic melee weapons, grenades and shields. We’ll get Skill Focus in a skill via our exocortex memory module, which we can change every level, but for the minute I think we’ll put it in Perception to help compensate for our Wisdom, and because she was stuck on a ship with a hostile undead, so she built her exocortex to help her track her surroundings. We get a bonus to Computers and Engineering, and a Custom Rig, which counts as personal comm, hacking kit and engineering kit all rolled into one. The Custom Rig can be external, but it can also be an augmentation, in brain, eyes or arm. Given how we’ve already gone with exocortex, I think we’ll install it in our arm. Bertha wanted everything she needed to be part of her, if at all possible.

Starting Feat: Toughness

We’re surviving on spit and vinegar here. We’re still even as barely alive as we are on raw stubborn. Of course it’s toughness. Bertha’s made of leather and spite and homemade wiring over here.

Summary:

I’ll be honest, I saw that one line in the borai description, someone just too stubborn to fully die, and it merged with the Marooned One in my head, and Bertha’s entire character concept fell out whole cloth. She’s smart, yeah, but more than that she’s just plain stubborn. This undead jackass wants her to die? Well then she’s just gonna not.

I do also want to play with the whole … borai searching for a home and acceptance, and the crisis refugee theme of relying on and helping others, and the Marooned Ones dying alone, that their rage and their grief is that no one came and they were left to slowly die alone, and have her … decide to be stubborn about that too. Her crew flew blithely off without her and left her to die, but sod that. She’ll find a new crew. A better one. One that won’t. People flinch from her mostly-dead ass? She’ll find someone who doesn’t. She’s not welcome in her old home anymore? Well, time to find an unclaimed asteroid and build a town there. Not a house, a town. She’s not dying alone. She’s not dying full stop, but she’s also not dying alone. She plans to be stubborn about this.

And if she sometimes wonders how much difference there is between that and the Marooned One luring people towards itself, well. She’s not planning on letting people slowly die, so she’s already a step up, right?

So. Bertha Mourne. The almost, but not quite, Marooned One. Heh.

[dizzybevvie]

apollo. beverly. buddy. omg... please feel free to explain what the easily solvable issue is cuz omg...... Big Deal it seems

OK THIS IS KIND OF EMBARRASSING BUT BEVERLY (15, boy scout, uhhh my blorbo my little meow meow) HAS THIS BOYFRIEND IN THE CAMPAIGN. HIS NAME IS ERLIN, HE IS ALSO A BOYSCOUT (the in universe alt is Green Teen lmao), HES GINGER, I CARE ABOUT HIM VERY MUCH. I care about this relationship so deeply. I love them I literally cannot NOT gush about Bev and Erlin theyre adorable theyre amazing i adore them.

Im not gonna cover everything, but for context when Bev & Erlin got together (~ep 20?) there was a big war going on in their home city. technically the war is still happening but it has since moved. Beverly's house gets bombed etc etc, they have to flee to escape the city. They split up, with Erlin and his family fleeing, Bev's dad and the other Green Teens are sent to a different dimension (THROUGH A KISS FROM BEV AND ERLIN MIGHT I ADD), and Beverly and the rest of the party go somewhere else that isnt important rn.

Since that episode, Beverly has been collecting things for him. A book about his interests, a poster, some drugs?? i think??? Just little trinkets he thinks Erlin would like for when he next sees him. The DM and player of Beverly have said that the relationship was never planned, it just sort of happened, but after that theyve discussed a long standing mutual crush and other stuff that makes me weep.

Bit of a time skip to around episode 50? By this point, theyve had a few more adventures, and have ventured into this other dimension to try to find Beverly's dad and their friends. They do, and after a lot of hardship and other stuff, they have a big celebration. Beverly, in his defense, is a LITTLE drunk, and meets this autumn looking boy. To be perfectly honest they hit it off. At the end of the bit, the boy tries to kiss him, and Beverly very maturely says something to the effect of, "Im sorry. theres someone else." and leaves. at this point im sweating fucking bullets. I am way too invested in Beverly and Erlin to be normal. But im thinking, oh, sweet, a breath of fresh air. And then he doubles back and kisses him.

And there are so many factors to this. I am fully aware that Beverly is 15. I am fully aware it is both his and Erlin's FIRST relationship. I am fully aware that they will probably be fine after a couple of conversations. but the BETRAYAL 😭 I was heartbroken im not even gonna lie LMAO. I paused the episode and I called Raya to rant about this stulid bullshit 💀. Am i angry at Beverly the character? No. Do i think Erlin's gonna be fucking DISTRAUGHT? Yes.

For me, if it was in the moment and then a, 'fuck, sorry, i shouldnt have-" Thatd be more acceptable. but its the fact that he clearly chose not too and then changed his mind. 😭😭😭

And yes. Beverly has gone through a lot in the past couple of days. His dad and friends aged 25 years in a month. His Dad keeps telling him, after being away from him for several months, that if they are to let anyone die, to let it be him. Another one of his father figures is going through a MASSIVE identity crisis. A war is happening. Beings that are as close to gods without being gods are putting expectations and pressure on his shoulders. I fully understand that this is a situation that is not as bad as i have presented it and that it is fairly easily fixed. but I was so fucking sad? We havent seen Erlin in like, 30 episodes. Hes literally a refugee rn. hes going to be so sad. He is going to be sooooo sad. 😭😭😭

TLDR: I have an unhealthily strong obsession with DND boyscout bfs, and one of them cheated, and I am so unreasonably sad.

[forestlingincorporated]

I wanna talk about Janet Drake

I’m not against exaggeratedly evil versions of Tim’s parents, tbh. It’s fanfiction, if we can depict an Exaggeratedly Good version of Bruce (which we can, and I do, and I love) then we can depict the Drakes as Exaggeratedly Bad. As someone who personally identifies with Tim, and his brand of complicated parental abuse in particular, I find it cathartic to uncomplicate that abuse and rescue him from the Obviously Evil Bad People. 

That said, since much of comics lore is passed down word of mouth, the oral tradition surrounding Tim has developed this idea of Janet as The Worse Parent between her and Jack that was never really present in the comics. We see much LESS of Janet, and we have 20 years worth of comics depicting Jack as a neglectful hotheaded idiot who ultimate does love his son. More importantly, Jack isn’t very much LIKE Tim, so there is a habit to attribute Tim’s traits to his mother... and, as someone who really really identifies with Tim, Tim has... some negative traits. Tim can be a bitch sometimes. He’s fiercely intelligent and sweet and kind, with a strong sense of justice, but he can be cold and judgmental and unthinking - he fights those traits, but he does have them. 

And it is perfectly fine to depict Janet that way. I’ve enjoyed depictions of Cold Calculating Janet Drake, but it’s not the ONLY option, and I want to challenge fans to consider different avenues. Tim could pick up these traits from anywhere: a nanny, Mrs. Mc Ilvaine (”Mrs. Mac”), a teacher, tv, Sherlock Holmes novels, Bruce Wayne himself. Tim is capable of not being like EITHER parent. 

So, what do we KNOW about Janet? (I’ll also touch on Jack, but only in scenes he appears with Janet.) 

When Janet was first introduced she was depicted as a gentle but “modern” woman. This was written in 1989, told by a 13 year old Tim, so this theoretically was meant to take place in 1979. I’m not here to give a lecture on the history of sex discrimination in the united states, but much of the legislation protecting women in the workforce or surrounding women’s bodily autonomy would have been very very new in this initial depiction. 

Here, Janet is shown to be encouraging, emotional, maternal, and projects her own feelings onto Tim. Jack is shown to be slightly sexist, possibly discouraging, but not overbearing. And the artist is shown not to know how to draw children. 

To insert some speculation, I think it’s important to note all the Drakes witnessed a terrible murder/accident that day. I point this out, because this is the last time Jack and Janet are depicted this way. It’s possible they changed as a result of this event specifically. 

However, this is also a story being told by Tim. It’s also possible these events aren’t really “real” at all, and Tim is misremembering what his parents were like as a three-year-old, possibly projecting a more palatable version of his parents into the narrative. This is entirely up to personal interpretation. 

In fact, the Drakes are shown in Legend of the Dark Knight attending Haly’s Circus, and the artist knows what a toddler looks like and they’re depicted as already having a slightly strained relationship. Jack is clearly on the defensive, and Janet seems to be passive-aggressive, though she could just be attempting to explain the situation to her toddler honestly. The intended tone isn’t especially clear. 

I do want to point out, in this depiction, Tim isn’t being carried like he was in the previous one. He’s walking ahead of his parents, which isn’t a terrible horrible crime, but could be dangerous in a crowded place like the circus. Might be a subtle hint to his parents overall neglect. 

Back to A Lonely Place of Dying, in Tim’s memories of the night he discovered Robin and Dick Grayson were the same person at nine-years-old, his parents are home, and watching TV together while Tim played... trucks, idk, in the living room with them. (This is semi-interesting, because you could say “oh, Tim liked vehicle toys as a kid” or you could extrapolate that this is another subtle indication of Jack’s sexism, providing Tim with appropriately “boy toys.” Either interpretation is valid. If Tim was assigned female at birth, would they have been given “girl toys,” or allowed to play with whatever they wanted?) 

This is, to my knowledge, the only panel of the Drakes when Tim is between ages 3 and 13. They’re all together, which might indicate that the Drakes were home more often when Tim was 9, only later going on business trips when Tim was “old enough” but... 

This is Tim’s boarding school when he’s 13. While most boarding schools in the US are for grades 9-12, Tim is clearly not a freshman at age 13; look how much younger the other kids in this panel are. In the US, the youngest you can attend most boarding schools is 7. 

That means Tim could have begun going to boarding school anytime between 7 and 13. He most likely spent all of middle school in boarding school, at least. There are an almost infinite number of possible ways the Drakes handled having a business that required lots of international travel, an archeology hobby, AND a very young child. Janet staying home until Tim was 7, 11, 13, is equally possible as the Drakes having a nanny until 7, 11, 13. Tim just doesn’t talk about that period of his life very much.

(”What about Mrs. Mac?” - it is unclear when Mrs. Mac begins working for the Drakes. We only see her when Jack comes out of his coma. She could either be a long standing staff member, or a recent hire.) 

Note: I’ve seen it said that it’s canon that “According to Tim, when his parents were home, they made a point to try and include him in their activities, bringing him along to events that were normally adults only.” I have never seen this panel, or I don’t remember it, so I cannot confirm, but I also cannot debunk this because... comics. 

By the time Tim is 13, Jack and Janet are away on business trips a lot, with limited communication, and no firm return date. If I’m feeling generous, I’d say it was harder to communicate internationally in 1990 than it is today. If I’m not feeling generous, I’d say the Drakes are extremely wealthy, and international communication was easier than ever before in the 80s and 90s. They’re not even going home to see Tim in a week or two, they’re going home and calling Tim at boarding school in a week or two. 

Even Bruce thinks its weird, though he doesn’t say so to Tim’s face. It’s written almost as if Tim’s parents’ neglect was meant to be a plot point that just got forgotten about. 

Tim’s parents are fighting at this point (their poor assistant), but Janet still goes with Jack on these business trips. And she’s clearly involved in the business, somehow, but the comics never SAY what Janet’s JOB is. We’re told Jack is the exec, but Janet is ONLY ever referred to as Jack’s wife, though they’re later described as the “heads” of the company, plural. 

Just to be clear, this is Jack’s business. There’s a perception that Jack is a bad business man because he and Janet fight over company decisions, and Jack looses the business after Janet dies, but Jack looses the company YEARS after Janet dies, and maintains it for about a year after No Man’s Land at that. We’re not told how Jack looses the business, but he’s got to be doing something right. Janet isn’t necessarily the “real brains” of Drake Industries. 

And I’m not... gonna... touch the... exploitation and racism because... I’m not qualified to do that. But, here’s the panel. The Drakes sure seem exploitative and racist in their business decisions. Someone else can... analyze that with more nuance. 

Regardless how how long they’ve been fighting, when their lives are in danger, the Drakes fall back into a loving husband and wife. Their marriage may be falling apart, but they do care about each other. 

I want to show these panels because it shows that Tim and Jack do have things in common. They’re both level headed in a crisis and can be somewhat cold in their practicality. Janet meanwhile and silent. Jack is later willing rant and rave at their captors, but Janet remains silent. 

That is, until they’re alone, and she finally lets herself fall apart. 

God, Jack can be obnoxious. Janet just looks miserable and resigned. I actually think Tim takes after his parents in this respect in equal measure. Tim can have a temper, but he can also be fairly melancholy and defeatist. 

Jack keeps reminding Janet to be strong and in control, which could be period typical sexism? But Jack seems so practiced and ready with the words of encouragement, and with Tim’s history with depression, I wonder if Janet has an inclination towards it as well. 

As the end approaches, when Jack brings up Tim, Janet seems to have a lot of regret. She talks about “wasting” the good things, and I don’t think it’s too big of a stretch to assume she’s talking about time spent with her only child. 

From this point on, Janet is at times spoken of, but not seen. Like here, when Jack says Janet wouldn’t approve of him and Tim being so “far apart.” He says this after he tells him he takes back his threat to send him back to boarding school, which might imply Janet was against the idea of boarding school? Though she obviously lost that argument when she was alive. 

Jack will of course renege on this later, but that’s Jack Drake for you. 

Or here in Tim’s illness induced dream, where he gets everything he wants. Though, since this is a fantasy of Tim’s, where his father and girlfriend are both more accepting and understanding than they are in real life, I would take this depiction of Janet with a grain of salt. 

After loosing Drake Industries, Jack thinks about Janet (though, they call her Catherine/Cathy for some fucking reason) during his depressive episode. And... uh... 

Hallucinates a Valkyrie???? Is this symbolic of suicidal thoughts, or is she... real? Or is he seriously hallucinating? 

Anyway, we’re not here to discuss Jack’s mental state, the fact that he forgot Tim’s birthday, or that concerning “I was going to knock some sense into you but you’re still bigger than me” statement from Tim, we’re here to talk about Janet. And even though this entire arc is about Jack mourning his first wife, they don’t SAY anything about Janet herself at all. I mean, they don’t even get her name right, so I guess what was I expecting. 

Then there’s Origins and Omens, which also doesn’t say anything about Janet, except that Tim’s memory of her is faulty - Janet was poisoned, her assistant Jeremy’s throat was slit on television, but Tim seems to have conflated the death he did see with the death he didn’t. 

The only piece of canon to suggest that Janet might be cold, is Tim compares her to Thalia. And even then, he’s really just saying Janet was protective of him. It’s kind of a scary look to make at your kid, but Bruce does the same thing, so. 

I do want to say... it’s not 100% clear if Tim is even talking about Janet. He could be talking about Dana. Dana was observably protective of Tim, though I don’t think he’s ever called her mom. He PROBABLY means Janet. 

And finally we have Tim visiting his mother’s grave (in a duel Christian/Jewish cemetery, make of that what you will), where Tim says she was “a little religious.”

And that’s it! That is all we know about Janet Drake in New Earth. Hardly the Mom From Hell, but she isn’t perfect. I’d be interested in seeing some alternate depictions of her within the fandom. 

I’m still gonna eat up Terrible Parents From Hell like a starving puppy dog, though. Just some food for creative thought. 

[stxleslyds]

Also, the writers' failure to understand, every crime Jason committed had a motive. Attack other criminals? Holy warrior destined to purify the world of evil. Attack Bruce? Joker's still alive. (Oh, Jason, it's much worse than that.) Attack Tim? A parody of what he once was. He wasn't just a "bad boy". He was dangerously insane.

Hi, Anon! Yup, there seems to be a lot of things that writers have gotten confused about Jason Todd/Red Hood and the biggest one is his motivations to kill certain criminals.

Let’s be honest, Judd Winick set a golden path for the upcoming Red Hood writers. But each and every writer that used Red Hood in their stories completely missed the point of Jason’s character. All of them. It’s so incredibly wild to me that every other writer read UtRH and came up with whichever version of Jason they came up with.

Let’s list the writers that completely missed the point.

Geoff Johns in Teen Titans vol.3 #29.

Geoff Johns was one of the first to completely mischaracterize Jason, why on earth would Jason go to the Titans Tower to beat up Tim? This is not me saying that Jason would never do that because Jason thinks of Tim as his brother or a friend or the person that he can trust the most from the Bat-Clan (can you believe Lobdell tried to sell us that one?), this is me saying that Jason wouldn’t have done that because he couldn’t have given less of a fuck about Tim’s existence.

When Jason found out that Bruce had another Robin he wasn’t bothered by his “replacement” he was mad at Bruce for having another child playing hero after he lost his life as a fifteen-year-old. Jason didn’t even think of Tim as his replacement as fandom likes to make us believe, Jason called Tim “pretender”. And that was that, but to go from minimal recognition to go out of his way to beat him up at Titans Tower is a massive mischaracterization.

Paul Dini in Countdown (to Final Crisis).

Paul Dini in Countdown did absolutely nothing with Jason, I am sorry but that’s all he did. Him writing Jason was like watching a dog trying to catch their own tail. He started with a pretty basic take on UtRH Jason, then he added a bit of Jason being an annoying man with Donna, then we had the jealousy arc because apparently, Jason had the hots for Donna but she didn’t want anything to do with him and he was all angsty when she paid attention to Kyle instead of him, and then, later on, he had that whole Red Robin bullshit (I am sorry about this, but I absolutely hated that, it was so dumb, I am so glad it didn’t last long because it was just too bad), and after all that mix of just not interesting stuff he went right back to the Jason that he had at the very start. It was a waste of time, but I guess that he had to be there because he was an anomaly and all that. I just think that was DC’s first try at making Jason Todd/Red Hood something more than just a street-level vigilante and they failed miserably.

Tony S. Daniel in Batman: Battle for the Cowl.

Even though the first two did make mistakes with Jason’s characterizations, this man was the first to just throw UtRH out of the window and make up his very own version of Jason Todd. And his version was horrendous, that Jason had no problem with attempting to kill children and innocent people, he also really wanted to be Batman because Gotham needed a Batman and he wanted to be the person to wear the Cowl and he was looking for a Robin for himself.

I know, the whole concept is the perfect opposite of what Jason Todd and Red Hood were in UtRH. Every aspect of BftC Jason is based on nothing.

Jason wanting to be Batman because Gotham needed Batman is just the beginning of what’s wrong in this book. Jason became the Red Hood (in part) because he believed that Batman and his ways weren’t what Gotham needed so he made a better version of Batman with Red Hood (according to him) because Red Hood did what Batman refused to do. Another thing that is just wrong is Jason wanting, Damian, Tim or Dick to be his Robin, there is just so much wrong with this, first of all, Jason wanted Batman to stop having Robin because child soldiers ran the risk of dying at a very young age and that’s exactly how he saw the whole thing because that was what had happened to him. Second, if Jason was mad at Bruce for getting another Robin why would he now want one of his own to team up with his Batman? Damian was a child, Tim was someone that apparently Jason hated (because Jason beating Tim was mentioned in this event), and then Jason actually asked Dick Grayson, Nightwing, to be his Robin? Listen, there is no way that was Jason, nothing about him makes sense, even taking into account that Jason had beaten Tim already in this event Jason actually tried to kill both Tim and Damian (it might have been just one of them but yeah, it still doesn’t make sense).

I just don’t think that Tony S. Daniel knew who Jason Todd was, maybe he got confused but the thing is, his “villainous” and deranged version of Jason Todd allowed a villainous and deranged version of Red Hood to happen with the next writer that I will be talking about.

Grant Morrison in Batman and Robin vol.1 #3-6.

This was the birth of the villainous, deranged and bloodthirsty Red Hood. There is absolutely no trace of UtRH Jason here, not even if we are looking at the opposite of things like we could do with Daniel’s Jason. Grant Morrison wanted Dick and Damian to have a villain to match their Batman and Robin and they decided to give us a red-haired-pill-headed-red hood. Everything from Morrison’s characterization of Jason is crazy, from the red hair (hello pre-crisis) to the awful Joker’s Red Hood looking suit, everything was just weird.

I still don’t believe that was Jason, to be honest, I would rather think that version of Jason was actually a rouge Skrull that came all the way from the Marvel Universe and lost his way in Gotham City. Maybe when he made the jump between universes, he got too much information and got confused and took the form of the wonkiest Jason Todd he could come up with.

This Jason was absolutely deranged, he knew exactly what he was doing and he didn’t care if innocents died. This Jason was the one that got locked up in Arkham. This is the Jason that Dick put in Arkham for Jason and everybody else’s safety.

Dick putting that Jason in Arkham wasn’t a bad thing or something that anyone can use to shit on Dick Grayson (not on this house). This Arkham was reformed and that Jason knew that if he stayed in that new Arkham he would stay away from trouble, but here is the thing, that Jason loved trouble, so he took all the tests to prove he wasn’t insane and asked to be transferred to Blackgate (where all the Red Hood’s enemies were). That Jason didn’t ask to be sent to Blackgate because the Joker was a cell away from his in Arkham, he did it so he could go on a killing spree in Blackgate (which he did when he got there).

Skrull Jason was just bloodthirsty and nothing like UtRH Jason, he had no motive other than just killing for fun or whatever. He didn’t want to protect Gotham and he couldn’t have cared less about the drug trade in Gotham. In Batman and Robin vol.1. Jason Todd was unrecognizable. And luckily, we never saw him again.

Scott Lobdell in Everything that he ever wrote about Red Hood.

This one is pretty self-explanatory. Lobdell was the king of overpowering Jason, he was the one that drove Red Hood farther and farther away from his street-level vigilante status. He continuously added more to him, he was a big deal because he was meant to take down Ra’s al Ghul, he was a big deal because he was the only human to train in the All-Castle and learned to summon the All-Blades.

This Red Hood’s morals and ideals were kind of gone, there just wasn’t any kind of interest in Jason to get rid of drugs or try to control its trade in Gotham, he just had no interest in street-level threats, everything was extraordinary in both New 52 and Rebirth. If he wasn’t in space he was in some mystical land. His friends and allies became even more and more powerful, his level of power was completely off compared to the others. His personality was ever-changing and quite honestly you could barely see the Jason that he once was.

This Jason also was very inconsistent in the way that he felt towards people (obviously because Lobdell is a shitty writer), he wanted to follow Batman’s rules and was shown as someone that still had fond memories of his life with Bruce before he died but was also willing to let those memories go, to move on? Maybe? I don’t know. But he changed his mind about Bruce and following his rules or not for a very long time. Jason was also a little bitch about Dick, and he was a little bitch because he (Lobdell) never gave the reader or anyone a concrete reason as to why he hated him so much and then in Rebirth he decided that Dick wasn’t that bad. Also, Jason went from “Willis Todd, abusive husband and father that deserved to die” to “Willis Todd abusive husband and father but he sent me letters when he was in prison and Penguin had him killed so now, I really want to avenge him”. Yeah, I don’t really know why that happened and like most of Lobdell’s arcs and stuff it was never really completed or well thought out.

Lobdell’s Jason characterization was a mess for ten years and that’s the prime reason why Jason is a character with no solid background, story or future.

James Tynion IV in Red Hood and the Outlaws.

Tynion’s Jason Todd was a hero, he was like a mini Tom King Batman. Everything he did was right and there was just no way that you could bamboozle him. This Jason was able to hold to Blades that drained his soul as well as hosting the Untitled in his body (that were able to drain his soul too) and on top of all that he completed his journey of the Chosen One by making those ancient martial arts moves that he learned before he was Robin even though Talia hadn’t been able to master it yet.

Scott Snyder, Tim Seeley in Batman Eternal and Batman and Robin Eternal.

A mess, this was pure New 52 levels of bullshit and they all just wanted to push the “Batfamily” and while Dick was gone, they were trying to make Jason fill the void that Dick left in Batman events. It didn’t work at all and all they did was mess around with Jason’s characterization more.

Geoff Johns in Three Jokers.

I have talked enough about Johns’ takes on Jason Todd and Red Hood, but let me tell you something real quick, if a writer thinks that the best they can do with a character is make them give up their morals/ideals for an unrequited love interest, then they can keep that idea for themselves. Geoff Johns wrote a book that was absolutely not needed and then proceeded to butcher every characterization that he could, Three Jokers was three issues long and he managed to add more trauma to Jason’s torture, push the narrative of Jason being at fault for his own murder and make Jason’s motivations to be the Red Hood weak enough to make him want to give up his work for a woman that he barely knows (and doesn’t like him at all).

Joshua Williamson in Future State: Red Hood and Robin #5.

Now, with Williamson I have issues only when he writes Jason, not because his stories are bad, don’t get me wrong, I would have completely enjoyed FS: Red Hood if it weren’t for the completely unnecessary Rose/Jason side plot he had going on. Jason was clearly working undercover for some people that he hated working with. He had to arrest or kill “masks” (vigilantes, just like he “used” to be) for the Magistrate.

His ideas were pretty solid, Jason did the job but he never killed the masks and actively didn’t trust the Magistrate but he was working there to tear them apart from within, and that’s amazing if Williamson had given us Jason Todd/Red Hood working undercover to dismantle an organization I would have been really happy.

But that’s not all he gave us, even if I just forget about his failed attempt at giving Jason a relationship, I can still see that Williamson is the kind of writer that wants (or is just following DC) to make the “Batfamily” happen no matter how dumb and out of place it looks in comics’ canon. So, I am a little bit weary, any writer that leans too much towards making Jason and Bruce work together and become a family makes me want to scream, but I do understand that is just me, many people want those two to be buddy-buddy, I, personally, would love to see Jason kick Bruce in the balls and tell him to lose his number.

Chip Zdarsky in Urban Legends: Cheer.

Ah, yes, I remember the days in which I thought that this could have been something good. Well, I was utterly wrong and I suffered all the way through this mini. I feel like now I can safely say that Zdarsky only wanted to write a Batman book but DC told him, “Hey you can write Batman but it has to be within a Red Hood story, but don’t worry, you don’t have to know much about the Hood guy, just come up with something and write Batman around that”.

I know that’s what happened because I read that story and all we got from it was horrible characterizations for pre-Robin Jason, Robin Jason, Jason Todd and Red Hood. I don’t know how he did it but yes, he managed to mess it all up.

From Jason not really wanting to be Robin and acting recklessly every step of the way, to secret desires of a perfect family with Bruce and so many other people that he couldn’t care about, Urban Legends: Cheer is the perfect book to avoid at all costs if you believe that the concept of “Batfamily” is the biggest lie, DC is trying to profit off this time around.

Zdarsky also nerfed Jason in ways that I thought DC only wanted to nerf Dick Grayson. But I was able to see that I was wrong. Zdarsky’s run also pushed some of the most disastrous narratives that DC really wants readers to believe like: Robin Jason wasn’t good at his job, he was too reckless and ultimately his death was his own fault. Yay! I want to cry!

I will give Zdarsky two points for at the very least showing that Red Hood wants to protect children and that he has a huge issue with how the drug trade is controlled and abused in Gotham City, it had been a while since we had seen that aspect of Jason’s Red Hood make an appearance.

-

It’s just too many writers completely missing the point of Red Hood’s character or simply writers agreeing to destroy Jason’s uniqueness in the DC Universe so DC (as the publisher) can further push the abomination that is the “Batfamily” in comics’ canon.

I do agree with you Anon when you say that Jason isn’t just a “bad boy” but I also don’t think that we can call UtRH Jason “dangerously insane”. Personally, I will only use that last description for BftC and Batman and Robin Jason, those two were dangerously insane indeed.

UtRH Jason was very meticulous in who he wanted dead and who got to live. He entered Gotham’s most dangerous world and he had to make a big entrance, he invited the eight most prosperous street dealers to a meeting, showed up with the decapitated heads of each of their right-hand men and an AK-47 and said:

“I am offering you a deal. I will be running the drug trade from now on. You will go about your business as usual. You will kick up forty percent to me. That is a much better deal than the Black Mask will give you. In return, you will have total protection from both the Black Mask and Batman. The catch? You stay away from kids and schoolyards. No dealing to children, got it? If you do, you’re dead.”

This was Red Hood! Red Hood wanted to control the drug trade in Gotham because he knew that Gotham is far too corrupt and filled with drug lords for him to just want to eradicate drugs from Gotham. If he had tried that he would have been a dumbass, but he wasn’t. He didn’t want to start a gang war and get innocent people killed because of it, he wanted to set the rules of his new Empire and he had to start with the street-level drug dealers, from there he grew until he became a major pain in Black Mask’s ass.

We went from Jason wanting to control the drug trade and take over Gotham’s underworld so people like Black mask couldn’t have people work for him (or being dependent on him) when they were still in high school or were in a vulnerable position, to Jason fighting a war for a mystic land because he was their “Chosen One”. DC really wanted to do something grand (yet boring) with Jason instead of sticking to a street-level vigilante that could have become a Drug Lord to control the drug trade of a city that is so filled with crime and corruption that it can’t be saved by anyone.

Batman doesn’t eradicate crime, he “controls” it, puts a blank it over it, lets it nap up until it wakes up once more to make more mess.

Red Hood had other plans, certain criminals didn’t get to nap, or, better said, they would get to nap forever.

So, no. I wouldn’t call that “dangerously insane”, I will call that “vigilante that believes himself judge, jury and executioner” of a city that is drowning in crime and corruption.

Anyway, I hope you have a really nice week Anon and thank you so much for sending me this ask!

[royal-confessions]

“Prince William said that war NEW to Europe but normal in Africa and Asia , literally EVERY single war happend in Africa and Asia for the past 200 years even more , was because of his great vile Britain , just sick of those hypocritical scum , and they still want to go to commonwealth tour .” - Submitted by Anonymous

“If Prince William is comfortable saying such racist remarks in public. God knows what vile things he has said in private.” - Submitted by Anonymous

“This is not a one-time offense. William has been casually racist several times and no one has ever held him accountable for it. The ethnically diverse UK and Commonwealth deserve better than a bigoted Head of State, Head of Commonwealth and King. Our last hope lies with George.” - Submitted by Anonymous

“I love that the only time Prince William trends on Twitter is when he’s being a massive racist. Not even his stepford trophy wife can save him from this lol” - Submitted by Anonymous

“William should follow his wife’s lead and just be quiet and look pretty in pictures. The minute the idiot opens his mouth all hell breaks loose because he’s an utter moron.” - Submitted by Anonymous

“William’s comments about Africa and Asia are so ridiculously ignorant that he is not doing himself any favors of dodging those rumors that he's the one in the royal family who asked about Archie's skin color.” - Submitted by Anonymous

“Everything William does feels fake and disingenuous, which is probably why he only trends on Twitter when he says something ridiculously racist.” - Submitted by Anonymous

“I am a war child from Bosnia who can never put her foot in her home because I would be murdered. Every July, bones are buried in Srebrenica where boys and men between the ages of 13 and 72 were murdered because they were Muslims. 8372 is the number. Prince Willam talks about the unusual nature of war in Europe. In what world does he live in? What did he learn in school?” - Submitted by djeniiscorner

“Look at William outing himself with a racist comment about nonwhite continents exactly one year to the day of his damage control, narrative spinning photo-op with the black teacher and the multiethnic London school and his infamous "we're very much not a racist family" statement. Racists are fundamentally stupid people who will make stupid mistakes and say stupid stuff, all you have to do is just sit and wait for them to mess up.” - Submitted by Anonymous

“Well this explains his "we're very much not a racist family" comment: William's clearly never opened a history textbook in his life if he thinks war "is alien to Europe" so poor man doesn't really know what his family and ancestors have been up to in Africa, Asia and the Caribbean.” - Submitted by Anonymous

“Prince William: “We’re not a racist family.” Also Prince William: “Africans and Asians are more violent than us Europeans.”” - Submitted by Anonymous

“This is a pattern and people should just connect the dots at this point. 2017: African population comment suggesting the growth of Africa's population is endangering wildlife. 2018-19: someone was worried about how the skintone of a future family member would reflect on him. 2021:another African population comment suggesting its growth is causing the climate crisis. 2022: "War is alien to Europe" implicitly suggesting it's normal everywhere else which is wrong not only factually but also morally” - Submitted by Anonymous

“This is it. William's words: "War is alien to Europe" prove just how racist he actually is and how he thinks it's normal to see and has no sympathy for nonwhite populations suffering though conflicts (that by the way are a direct consequence of the havoc european royal families like his wreaked in the African continent). William Windsor is trash and he will NEVER be my king: REFERENDUM 4 JAMAICA! And also while we're at it FUCKING REPARATIONS!” - Submitted by Anonymous

“The thing with racists in public roles is that they can try to hide it but us non-whites can spot a racist when they let it slip that "it's normal to see bloodshed and war in Africa and Asia but not in Europe" (has he even ever opened a history book? Doesn't he know that wars make up most of European history?) and paraphrasing "Hope Harry's baby isn't too dark because how would that affect how people view our family" and also "The climate is being ruined by Africans having too many children".” - Submitted by Anonymous

“After William said that whole "it's normal to see bloodshed in Asia and Africa but not in Europe", as an Asian I just want to say William please read a history book in any of your family's multiple libraries. Like what an awful take. You definitely deserve that hairline the universe gave you.” - Submitted by Anonymous

“Seems to me Prince William is really baffled that there would be violence in a country that the British Empire did not specifically steal from and commit genocide in.” - Submitted by Anonymous

“With the stupid shit William says maybe it’s a good thing Kate almost never speaks” - Submitted by skrewuranonymity

“Prince William needs to shut up. Every time he opens his privileged mouth he spouts nonsense.” - Submitted by Anonymous

“As a senior working royal and a future king, what Prince William says matters. So saying racist tone deaf comments about Ukraine looks incredibly bad especially given Britain’s history in brutal colonization and I wouldn’t be surprised if more commonwealth countries end up leaving. At his big age he should know better by now, it’s not a high expectation for him to have critical thinking skills. This man is supposed to be king one day it’s not unfair to have high expectations for him.” - Submitted by Anonymous

[nothing-more-than-hot-leaf-juice]

here lies the complete story of the Crocverse (AtLA zukka modern AU)

The general facts are as follows: 

Iroh owns a croc store and Zuko works there

Sokka works at Trader Joe’s and loves crocs

Bending is a thing

Jeong Jeong owns an antique store and is furious the croc store ruined the vibe of the strip mall

Sokka and Zuko go on a date to Olive Garden

Toph and Zuko hate crocs

Bumi owns a Jamba Juice

Worldbuilding 

This takes place in Florida

Bending is a thing, but it is unclear whether or not the Avatar is a thing 

The 2008 financial crisis was a thing that happened in this universe 

Characters 

Iroh is the new owner of the strip mall Croc store. He loves and appreciates crocs in a big dorky way. 

Zuko is his disgruntled nephew who works at the Croc store. He hates crocs with a passion and is in kind of a Linkin Park phase. (He is not an eboy, no one is an eboy, society has moved past the need for eboys.) 

Sokka works at the local Trader Joe’s. He wears Hawaiian shirts all the gd time. He is incredibly excited about the croc store and gets addicted to buying crocs. He also likes wearing a ‘men want me, fish fear me’ hat and sometimes completes his ensembles with fanny packs. 

Katara works at a Petsmart. 

Jeong Jeong owns an antique store next to the croc store and is pissed that the croc store ruined the vibe of the strip mall. 

It is undecided whether or not Aang works at Bumi’s Jamba Juice or if he works at the Trader Joe’s bakery. Regardless, he’s more of a Birkenstocks guy and finds that crocs and airbending don’t really work together. 

Piandao is the Trader Joe’s manager. 

Hakoda is currently deployed and Sokka is trying his best to cope (with unhealthy shopping habits). 

Dynamics 

Zuko goes to Jamba Juice a lot. Toph also goes to Jamba Juice a lot. They become buds because they go ‘well we’re both loners going into school with few or no friends and we both love Jamba Juice and hate crocs, that’s as good a place as any to start a friendship’ 

Sokka loves to explore Jeong Jeong’s antique store. Jeong Jeong considers Sokka to be a local menace (and he’d never say it but he’s his local menace and would be hurt if Sokka started poking around another antique store). 

Iroh really wants to be friends with Jeong Jeong (who could honestly use a friend, he’s kind of a hermit). Jeong Jeong is firmly annoyed that Iroh ruined the vibe of the strip mall. 

Zuko likes hanging out at the antique store and occasionally runs into Sokka. He voices his displeasure for the croc store on multiple occasions and Jeong Jeong feels incredibly validated. 

Zuko has kind of just planned to not have friends for his senior year. Iroh thinks that unacceptable. 

Iroh loves Sokka’s outfits a whole lot and compliments them all the time (while also trying to set him up with Zuko as friends). 

Sokka initially thinks Zuko is just kind of weird and asocial, but then one day at Petsmart he’s bothering Katara at work and he sees Zuko sitting on the floor of the reptile section just looking at all the tanks. Katara tells Sokka that Zuko basically does this every other day and Sokka realizes how soft this guy is and just kind of goes ‘oh’. 

Sokka goes to the crocstore and buys some pride crocs to send a message to Zuko. Zuko is oblivious. 

Eventually, Sokka pulls the “so… do you want to do an activity together?” and Iroh comes over with a “he’d LOVE to” and gives them an Olive Garden gift card. 

Sokka hopes Zuko thinks this is an actual date, Zuko is unclear on whether or not this is a date but puts on a button down shirt just in case, and Iroh doesn’t realize it’s 100% a date until Zuko comes out with his shirt and Iroh decides that it is of the utmost importance that he does Zuko’s hair. 

The details of the date have been decided on….but @animegenork is writing the actual fic and if you really want the sweet, soft zukka details you’ll have to wait. All I’ll say is there are turtleducks and smooching involved.��

Relevant Backstory 

Iroh didn’t actually want to own a croc store. He used to own his own tea/coffee store, but when the economy tanked and his son died, it ended up going bust. 

Iroh didn’t have much contact with his brother after Lu Ten died because Ozai was an unsympathetic asshole about it. The last time he saw his brother’s family was at Azulon’s funeral. 

A few years after the falling out with Ozai (and Iroh’s contact with his niece and nephew being basically reduced to birthday phone calls) Iroh finally upgrades to an iPhone with Facetime. When he calls for Zuko’s birthday, Iroh is VERY FUCKING DISPLEASED to see that someone has burned off half of Zuko’s face (and it doesn’t take much thinking for him to guess who). 

Iroh scoops Zuko up ASAP and Zuko moves in with him. 

Iroh attempts to bring Azula, but she firmly does not want to go with him and Iroh can’t exactly just kidnap a child in this day and age. 

So instead of reinvesting in a new tea shop, Iroh invests his time in legal work to go after Ozai for being the Fucking Worst™. 

He also puts Zuko in therapy, because god knows the kid needs it. 

Iroh worked in middle management for various retail stores and landed a management position in a croc store. Eventually, he opened up his own branch in Florida (which is where our story starts). 

And really, it wasn’t Iroh’s dream to own a croc store, but he accepts that life doesn’t always go exactly how you plan it. Iroh recognizes that what he can focus on is bringing joy to people and trying to project kindness into the world every day. Maybe you end up onwing a croc store. Maybe you’re in a bunch of bs legal crap because your brother is a monster and there are two kids who need someone, but you can make the best of it and it doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy simple pleasure where you find them. 

Other details 

The Crocverse is a Mouth Wheat Boy Free Zone. Jet is just not a croc person. Jet has no reason to enter the croc store. This AU does not have room for Jet. I’m sorry Jet stans. (I’m not.) 

Zuko and Sokka are upcoming high school seniors (age 17). 

Katara is an upcoming junior (16), Aang is an upcoming sophomore (15), and Toph is an upcoming freshman (14). 

The swampbenders are frequent patrons of the croc store because they’re good for marshy areas.

The only people who are actually croc enthusiest in this world are Sokka and Iroh. 

Sokka likes wearing neon turquoise crocs the most. 

Sometimes Iroh wears rainbow tie dye crocs to support his gay nephew .

Final words 

This is what I meant when I said the Crocverse was never really about the crocs. The crocs were just a framing device, they’re just how we got here. At its core, the crocverse is about these characters and their struggles, and more importantly how they find each other despite the struggles. It’s about Zuko learning how to make friends. It’s about Iroh wanting the best for his nephew and trying to make the best of a less than ideal situation. It’s about Sokka trying to figure out what to do now that his dad is gone and learning how to open up about it instead of cope with unhealthy shopping habits and deflection. It’s about going to Petsmart and spending an hour looking at the reptiles because you deserve it. It’s about going to Jamba Juice and making friends with the other loners. It’s about learning that you don’t have to be alone. It’s about ditching Olive Garden for a better date somewhere else and smooching the ridiculous Hawaiian shirt Trader Joe’s employee because he’s funny and caring and maybe, just maybe, you deserve that. It’s about letting new people enter your life when you think you have to be alone. It’s about being teenagers together before life starts for real. It’s about, above all else, finding those weirdos who will be there for you and accept you for all your quirks and baggage. 

And that’s the Crocverse. I will shut up about it forever now. 

[qqueenofhades]

Everytime I read "Nicolo di Genova" my brain glitches and I read "Nicolo do Genovia" instead so /whispers/ Kaysanova Princess Diaries AU?

...yes. Did someone say Gay Champagne Romcom? Because that is my Brand.

Nicolò is an Italian-American graduate student living in New York City with his widowed Italian mother and working on an engineering degree at NYU. He was thinking about joining the priesthood for a few years and recently dropped out of seminary and is feeling that Millennial Crisis that all of us know about. He has gone on a few Tinder/Grindr dates, but it’s hard enough to meet someone in this city even when you’re not a gay ex-priest engineering student living in his mother’s rent-controlled apartment in Morningside Heights because have you seen the property prices in New York. Plus WHENEVER he brings a nice boy home, HEY PRESTO there’s his mom waiting eagerly up in the front room, “NICOLÒ WHO IS THIS HANDSOME YOUNG MAN, DOES HE HAVE GOOD PARENTS, IS HE A CATHOLIC NICOLÒ” and of course that instantly kills any kind of romantic mood. Nicolò is like “let’s just go over to yours PLEASE.” But he tends not to see his dates again anyway, and it’s equally depressing, and it’s nice that his mom isn’t homophobic or anything, but he’d like to just meet someone without his mother instantly planning the Big Fat Gay Italian Wedding, and yes he knows this is a nice problem to have but STILL

Anyway, then of course the Dead Dad Circus rolls into town, and Nicolò learns that he’s not actually the son of a nice hardworking Italian immigrant, but of His Serene Highness Prince Domenico Grimaldi of Genovia, who wouldn’t you know it, has recently died too young from cancer and left no legitimate heir except the result of his rebellious teen fling with a cocktail waitress in Capri – which would be, you guessed it, Nicolò. While Nicolò is still processing the horrifying mental image of his mother being a cocktail waitress in Capri and having to look up Genovia on a map, the rest of the royal machine is kicking into overdrive. This involves a very awkward meeting in a very fancy Manhattan hotel with Nicolò’s magnificent but rather out-of-touch royal grandmother, Her Serene Highness The Queen Mother Maria Elisabetta Henrietta Julia Victoria Mignonette Grimaldi of Genovia. She’s basically Julie Andrews because obviously. She informs Nicolò of his Solemn Duty to return to Genovia and become Prince Nicolò and eventually be prepared to take the throne and submit to a fascinating life of minor European royal family ribbon-cutting duties. Oh, and getting married and producing more heirs to the throne, on pain of breaking a thousand-year-old bloodline, though she doesn’t say this out loud. Her loyal right-hand man, driver, and general bodyguard/fixer/man about town, Sebastien le Livre aka Booker, gives Nicolò various sympathetic looks but does not interrupt.

Nicolò obviously freaks out and runs off to call up his best friend at NYU, Andy. Andy is some indeterminate degree of years older than him, in some indeterminable stage of her Classics PhD, and sometimes says weird things like how badly the Library of Alexandria had already been defunded by the Roman emperors before it finally burned, like she was there and holds a personal grudge about it. She is a cranky vodka-drinking lesbian who rides a motorcycle, gets them into periodic scrapes, and understands his shit dating life. She deeply empathizes with all his “I’m not going to run away and leave my life in New York to become part of some creakingly antique regressive imperial monarchic system of racist and homophobic oppression, NO SIR!” Fight the power, Nicolò. Fuck those guys.

Of course, however, Julie Andrews Grandmother Maria prevails and Nicolò is forced to take Prince Lessons, which he hates but tries to be a good sport about, because, well, he’s Nicolò and he’s a good person. He is then whisked off on a private plane to Genovia, because they want to see him in situ before they make a final decision on accepting him as their prince. There of course we have the high-life palaces and parks and snooty clueless aristocrats who look at Nicolò like he’s a prize racehorse and have absolutely zero clue, none, nada, about the real world. Just as Nicolò is about to firmly decide that this is a complete crock of shit and he’s going back to NYU, he meets….

Prince Yusuf “call me Joe” al-Kaysani.

Joe is a minor member of one of the Middle Eastern royal families, some fictional tiny Gulf kingdom that is super SUPER oil rich. He has a title and a lot of money but doesn’t have a clearly defined role in the family, other than that he’s been ordered not to embarrass it. Nicky does not know this when they first meet, but obviously it’s not possible to be an out gay prince in a conservative Arabian-peninsula Islamic kingdom, and therefore the fixers have arranged for Joe to be publicly dating a daughter of the Malaysian sultan, Quynh. (We are making her Malaysian in this instance so she can also be Muslim and hence an appropriate match for Joe.) Except Princess Quynh is also hella lesbian and is getting the same thing out of the fake dating with Joe that he is, i.e. throwing people off the scent of their real selves. They spend their time together in private eating popcorn, commiserating about their lives and crazy royal families and the press invading their privacy, watching romcoms, and Judging the Straights. They’re actually best friends and text each other all the time, so at the royal function where Joe runs into the stiff and nervous and clearly overcompensating New Guy who’s evidently the New Prince of Genovia, and oh my god Q he’s the Most stuck up person I’ve EVER MET, Quynh is the first to hear ALL about it. She immediately suspects that Joe doth protest too much.

Meanwhile, Nicky meets Nile Freeman, another young American (from Chicago, obvs) who is working at some important EU institution currently headquartered in Genovia. They also hit it off and Nile tells Nicky about the things she wants to do to help change the world and why she’s here, and he is moved by her kindness and altruism and remembers that that was what he wanted too, and why he joined the priesthood in the first place. He opens up to her about the shock of learning the truth about his now-dead dad and the crazy whirlwind he’s been sucked into and how he doesn’t know what to do, and their friendship is beautiful and we love it.

Meanwhile, of course, Nicky and Joe keep running into each other and getting on each other’s nerves, Nicky is thisclose to calling up Booker and ordering him to deport Joe because why is he always here (Booker, of course, will eventually become a secret ally in helping them see each other, but that is not quite yet). There is some Shenanigan where they end up both getting into trouble, Grandmother Julie Andrews is not amused, and finally they are forced to sit next to each other for a whole state dinner and Be Polite, because Genovia is trying to forge better relations with Joe’s kingdom. (Genovia is tiny, ancient, and broke, Joe’s kingdom has obviously a ton of money, there are old historical ties between them, some Genovians traveled to the kingdom in the past, Genovia’s trying to improve its human rights record and take in more refugees, etc. Nile is also helping with this last). So Nicky and Joe get ordered to fake a highly convincing bromance and pretend they’ve been best buddies all along (think Red White and Royal Blue) and that means they have to actually learn about each other and spend time together and ugh, he’s a spoiled rich playboy brat, and ugh, he’s a clueless American who thinks he’s better than us, and…

Oh no.

Yes, of course they fall in love, they deny it as hard as they can, Nile and Quynh and Booker are all increasingly exasperated by their attempts to pretend they’re not, and finally they kiss and make love and admit their feelings and that they want to be together. Then of course they get outed by some scheming evil cabinet minister (Merrick) who doesn’t want Nicky to become king and disapproves of him dating (gasp) a MUSLIM WHO IS ALSO A MAN, and there’s a huge scandal and a ton of drama and the usual Romcom Breakup Angst as they decide whether they can still see each other. Andy flies out to Genovia to comfort Nicky, Booker has a Word With The Queen, and Joe hides in his room until Quynh (along with Nile, who she’s met and hit it off with) appears to tell him that he has to be brave, she’ll help.

Anyway, etc etc., Drama, “I love him no matter what, if you don’t accept him you don’t accept me and your STUPID BLOODLINE CAN CHOKE” speeches from Nicky, Julie Andrews sees the light, they decide that Nicky and Joe can keep seeing each other, and it’s all rather sweet. There’s a lot of public relations to be managed and whether Joe’s family is going to disown him and what this will mean for the whole international relations thing, but… one thing at a time.

Nicky agrees to become Prince of Genovia as long as he can be with Joe, Joe decides that hey, he likes Nile too and there’s plenty of meaningful work to be had here and the three of them can join forces to do good things and he’s going to stay, and the Genovian public obviously comes around and loves them. Nobody can find Princess Quynh. It’s rumored she ran off to America with a cranky vodka-drinking PhD student of indeterminate age and was last seen on the back of a motorcycle heading west.

Everyone lives happily and gayly ever after.

The End.

[swimfuel]

okay humanstuck thoughts under the cut

i owe a lot of this to @/rhythmic-idealist's kankri/vantasposting bc holy shit theyve got such a big brain (ill link to their individual posts when im on desktop since im using this to keep all my thoughts straight and i agree with most of what they say wholeheartedly)

general status quo stuff:

signless works in an extremely demanding career involving helping others (i'm leaning towards an attorney who works with organizations and does pro bono work), and is also extensively involved in social justice work outside of his job... he is very rarely home

he loves and cares for his children deeply and tries to express it whenever they're face to face, but the couch in his cramped and messy office has seen far too much use over the years for him to have been able to say it enough

his habits of working himself to the point of exhaustion are handily passed down to his kids btw

the kids had to grow up quickly because signless was out of the house so often and so consistently—kankri, who was already pretty high-strung, has to learn to take care of himself and karkat

they grow up near ms firuzeh maryam, who's their pseudoaunt/grandma (she took in a nine year old kavana vantas when she was about twenty), but they just call her ms rosa

they spent a lot of time in the maryam house growing up, with miss rosa's two nieces. porrim is a year older than kankri, while kanaya and karkat are the same age

kankri grows kinda sensitive to people trying to mother him since it rubs against the notion that he's the "adult of the house" and that he can take care of himself and karkat just fine

(and it also kinda underlines the fact that kankri has no idea what he's doing at the best of times)

and ironically enough, kankri becomes overbearing and naggy towards karkat in his own right, which forestalls them becoming close in any brotherly sort of way

they grow up really just... unable to communicate with one another clearly

karkat develops his ornery exterior in response to kankri's constant stream of opinions and frantic attempts at making up for the presence of a guardian in the house

i think there would actually be some really interesting parallels with rose in this au.. maybe i'm drawing from my own experiences as well but i think he'd begin to assume that every time his brother opens his mouth, he's going to criticize karkat

but instead of reacting like rose with the "making yourself more of a puzzle"/passive aggressive stuff, he gets a more defensive/hackles raised/"argue with you before you can argue with me" approach

and the thing is that they do love each other and would take a bullet for the other etc etc etc.. but they don't know how to express it because they've fallen into these shitty patterns

and it really doesn't help that kankri has grown somewhat resentful of signless over the years... that mix of resentment and fear and love gets more extreme and more polar every time signless gets injured during a political demonstration

i think kankri and signless would also be slightly closer than karkat and signless, as signless' job really only started to ramp up when karkat was less than years old and kankri was in his early double digits

kankri autistic btw its word of god (i am god)

karkat has a pet crab. its name is also karkat. he vents his frustrations to it.

i feel like the vantases exemplify both the best and worst parts of their aspects with one another as well... the strength of their bonds keeps them together and grounded, but TOO grounded. [insert Blood rant here]

the Blood rant:

i define Blood as bonds, responsibility, and the "core". if Life is the fertile soil and everything living on a planet's surface, then Blood is the gravitational core of the planet keeping everything together

i also think Blood, Heart, & Mind work in tandem to define a person just as blood serves to connect the pieces of the human body... Heart is the soul and the self, Mind is the application of one's self through active choices (agency), while Blood defines both the self and the choices one makes in greater detail [and, as an aside, Life provides the physical spark of life needed to keep the heart pumping blood]

OKAY wow that got tangential anyways

SO BASICALLY! too much Blood makes you stagnate, so for example:

kankri is split between staying home with karkat or going to college across the country and being truly unbound for the first time in years

another crisis of Blood: signless is caught between his empathy and responsibility to the whole world and his responsibility to his own children

okay so here's more status quo stuff:

the maryam and vantas kids grow up together and its hilarious because you'll see them all together and its just like (girlboss) (girlboss) (physical manlet) (emotional manlet)

the maryam girls are actually miss rosa's nieces but she took them in when they were both pretty young

the pyropes know the vantases well enough considering pyrope senior and sign have known one another from their respective legal practices for years, but they live on the other side of town

the leijons lived in town when kankri and meulin were very young, but they moved and travelled for a long time before coming back and reestablishing their roots

the captors (psii being one of sign's oldest and closest friends) move into town with the peixes family pretty early on though

the condesce is.. a horrible spouse and guardian, to put it plainly. she's very emotionally manipulative and isn't averse to smacking people around, including her own family. she moves herself and her perfect little family into town so she can properly oversee a new business venture close by

feferi is one of the best young swimmers in the country and has a pretty good shot of getting onto the olympic team.. a lot of this drive to be perfect and to be better results from the condesce's unrelenting pressure and thinly veiled resentment throughout her whole life

so yeah psii, )(ic, feferi, and sollux all live together and it's really not great for anyone involved. (meenah ran away years ago, and crashed on aranea's couch for a pretty long while—mituna moved out with latula for college before psii and the condesce got married)

it gets bad to the point of sollux staying with the maryams for two months while the adults try to sort out that absolute clusterfuck and get the divorce proceedings going (meenah finally convinces feferi to get out and come stay with her and aranea for the duration as well)

in terms of relationships i think latula and porrim were really really close in high school, and probably had some kind of unacknowledged thing going on for a while that never actually turned into anything because latula and mituna were going steady

kankri has had a crush on latula for years but never acted on it for similar reasons

meenah still carries a lot of that give no fucks attitude (it's developed moreso as a defense mechanism here) and can't understand why feferi refuses to leave the condesce with her

okay back to VANTAS MANPAIN i also think that karkat feels the weight of a lot of expectations on his shoulders as well

he feels responsible to live up to the example his dad and his brother set, even if it's to his own detriment—and kankri's oblivious rambling about his grades and his teachers and all his clubs certainly aren't helping the matter

kankri is one of those overinvolved kids taking a million AP's while simultaneously shitting on the collegeboard at every single step

hes this super overachiever anal retentive perfectionist type dude and (just as karkat preemptively criticizes others to forestall their criticisms of him only to harshly criticize himself) kankri subconsciously holds the people around him to the same expectations he holds for himself

so karkat also develops this sense of lacking which, in combination with everything else, culminates in self loathing and thinking he has to solve everyone else's problems and getting horribly mad at himself for every little mistake

GOD i have a lot more but lemme post this before i accidentally close out of the app and lose it all

more little details:

vriska's mom and terezi's mom HATE each other like HATE HATE HATE one another it's so bad

karkat wrote a ten page review of my immortal in middle school

jade is one of nepeta's best online friends

sollux can't raise one eyebrow at a time.. karkat gives him so much grief about it

the vantases eat a lot of shitty renditions of persian dishes until karkat learns to cook because literally the only person in the world with a CHANCE of getting KANKRI VANTAS to make an EDIBLE DISH is miss rosa

kanaya is really good at persian dance too but is VERY VERY embarassed to perform in front of people.. however porrim definitely is not

karkat has insomnia while kankri just stays up stupidly late for assignments that really shouldnt be taken that seriously.. but they both have the same rumination/sleep anxiety thing where your brain goes insane with horrible and depressing scenarios as you try to sleep

and more ideas that i thought were interesting but idk how to fit in the context of this au:

signless and disciple getting married pretty late in life after having been in love for years, the vantases move in with the leijons and karkat suddenly has two sisters

nepeta and karkat are both juniors at this point, meulin is probably in her third year at a local college nearby while kankri is about to start his second year at a university pretty far away

the kids in general honestly but ill figure it out

more random hcs this time with kids:

kanaya and rose get into a flame war online that gradually settles into elaborate courtship rituals

also nepeta + jade online besties

also bec can inexplicably still teleport

the first sbahj movie comes out and the next six months of dave strider junior's high school career are absolute hell

actually hc that dave senior goes by d strider professionally. the d stands for a lot of things

aradia and dave frequent a lot of the same forums but never end up really interacting

meanwhile karkat and john frequent a lot of the same forums and DEFINITELY end up interacting. this turns into grudging (at least on karkat's part) friendship after they find themselves fighting for their lives defending an objectively shitty movie together on the same thread

[electronicdelusionstarlight]

In a way the whole "Izuku is the Dragonborn" fic would need to leave most of the backstory of Izuku the 4-14 years old dragon slayer on luck or Inko doing all the work while Izuku is, like, put in a position of safety (he still needs to eat dragon souls tho, same for Miraaks... How would that work even?) So I might need to move things around a bit.

Basically here's the backstory on all major shit:

Helgen: Inko and Izuku run away with Hadvar. They are not scheduled for execution because, you know, Hadvar might not go out of his way for a stranger but there is a small kid involved, younger than his cousin dammit, way younger than your usual Stormcloak Child Soldier Conscript from Dawnstar (an actual canon thing believe it or not) so he puts his foot down. In the keep Hadvar does most of the work obviously, even if Inko does, in her desperation, cut down people getting dangerously close to Izuku. She is a better lockpick than she expected, especially with her Quirk, and Izuku in his curiosity ends up pawing off the book and a strange, mysterious ring inside the Mage's cell. They then go to Riverwood with Hadvar, where they are directed to both Farengar and the College for matters regarding magical space travel, so to speak.

Riverwood: However, they are pennyless and alone in a foreign world, so Inko tries first to make money by working at the local lumber mill as she sends a courier to Whiterun for the Dragon Thing. Assume we are playing with my modded version of the game, which means Riverwood is currently the home of one Triss Merigold from the Witcher. She is also spacially displaced as of late, and is searching for Yennefer, Ciri and Geralt, with whom she jumped into this reality before getting lost from them. Dorthe and Frodnar will direct the small Izuku to her, since Dorthe is the one "babysitting" Izuku while his mother works so he's playing with the slightly older kids. Basically, they know she is a mage of some sort since she showed them some sort of light show, and Inko still needs to make money if she wants to leave with the proper equipment so they can't even go to Farengarym yet.

This allows us to 1) Set up the Triss Merigold X Midoriya Inko endgame and NO I AM NOR FUCKING STUTTERING and 2) Give Inko a competent bodyguard of sorts before she actually does get used to the unforgiving land of Skyrim and starts giving people heart attacks with her Quirk.

Of the Major Guilds:

Companions: Inko Joins as a way to make money for Izuku. With the mercenary work she manages to buy the house in Whiterun, so now Izuku can be left in a safe location, with "Aunt" Lydia as his babysitter. Whiterun Shenanigans ensue with Izuku befriending Lucia and Lars. Also Braith but, like, after lots of character development. Lucia is obviously the first to be adopted.

Inko is the one who becomes a werewolf and the Harbinger in the end, Izuku is not involved in this Storyline outside of some encounters with "Aunt" Aela and "Uncles" Vilkas and Farkas. Inko renounces her condition in the end.

College of Winterhold: They move to winterhold together since Farengar can't help them. Izuku is actually a quick study, as exemplified to that one spell book he found in helgen that thought him within seconds how to shoot lightning from his hands, much to his mother's worry. He ends up killing a bandit in self defense that way when he's barely 5. It was either do that or let them get to his mom.

Anyway, Inko is enrolled, but so is Izuku, the two now living on College Grounds. Triss is also there as an honorary lecturer. Anyway, Whe most of the adventuring is still done by Inko, is Izuku who receives the visit of the Psijic Order and, ultimately, he is the one to kill Ancano and close the eye of Magnus. Inko becomes Archmage still, even if she tries her hardest to have Toldfir step up instead.

The way Izuku kills Ancano is actually more based on guile than actual magical prowess. He is the only one not paralyzed in the boss fight, so what he does, is grab one of J'Zargo experimental Scrolls, summon a Skeleton Minion (Oblivion spell he was recently taught so to have someone protecting him in times of crisis), and then run with it against Ancano, too busy as he is being a megalomaniac, suicide bombing himself. He survives, but only thanks to the Restoration Professor quick intervention as Ancano dies and the paralysis falters.

Restoration magic did save the day in the end.

J'Zargo, who is usually aloof and snarky over his experiments, is actually horrified his rival's son almost got killed because of him, so he pledges he will do everything in his power to find a way to help them with their issue. He is a great magician after all, and his class is one of the brightest to date, they can find a way out for them.

Dragon War: Since all they can do now is wait for the College, Inko returns to Whiterun with Izuku and Triss, but on the way the watchtower is attacked, Mirmulmir is slain, and Izuku absorbs his dragon soul. This jumpstarts the events of Skyrim, with Izuku and Inko having to go on a pilgrimage to High Hrothgar to better understand what is happening to her son, who is now terrified of talking least he blew his mother apart with his voice.

A 5 years old kid makes a poor warrior, so the Greybeard offer to train him for his destiny, but Inko refuses. They don't need her son to kill dragons, just to eat their souls, so what she can do, is do the actual dragon slaying, and then have Izuku eat the souls. This still forces her to bring Izuku on her adventures, which isn't ideal, but only the dragon related ones. Izuku still learns the shouts of unrelenting force and whirlwind sprint as well as Dragonrend, but is Inko the one wielding the blade.

As a side note, Paarthurnax, for once not having to deal with a 4th era Nord, can finally give the unadulterated lore of the order rather than the imperialized, akatosh centric one, which leads Izuku to grow interested in Kyne, Warrior-Widow of Shor, for how much she reminds him of his mom.

Anyway, Inko is the one doing most of the stuff, Paarthurnax isn't killed, and Izuku gets two dragon buddies, one a wise and aging mentor war criminal, the other a brash and snarky red dragon he can call with his voice.

Izuku and Inko go both to Sovengarde. Inko meets back Kodlak, but also Ysgramor, who she now recognizes as a war criminal bastard, and she is the one dealing the killing blow on Alduin. Inko, Breath of Kyne, is the one sand in the songs now, the mother of the dragonborn who delivered them from evil.

Thieves Guild: Inko also does it all, but is the start of Izuku's involvement with Daedras. Inko takes the pledge to Nocturnal, so her soul is now bound to her realm, but is her son that catches the Prince's eye. Inko also tries to reform the guild back to its old robin hood ways, with divergent results.

Explorer Guild: This is the Legacy of the Dragonborn Mod. Inko founds the explorers guild and moves to the now bigger home in the Museum in Solitude. Proudspire manor has been bought by Yennefer, now advisor to Queen Elisif, who thanks to her influence has grown more confident. Girlboss helping Girlboss prosper and all that. She lives there with husband and daughter, and there's a reunion with Triss. Usual angst about "is she going to leave me? Are our adventures over?" But Triss stays because she cares about Inko and shit.

Anyway, inko is the one doing most of the stuff here too, but she now has a big enough home to adopt more than just Lucia.

She adopts every orphan, as well as Sissel and Britte in Rorikstead after murdering their abusive father. She then kills Grelod in Riften, so to also be able to adopt the orphans at the orphanage. To do so, she catches the attention of the Dark Brotherhood since she just stolen their contact. She of course adopts Aventus Aretino too.

Dark Brotherhood: All Inko. Unlike thieves guild, Izuku isn't even aware she's doing this, since he's back in Solitude with his new siblings.

Princes:

Izuku does Sheogorath. He's playing in the streets with his siblings and the other Solitude kids, when he finds Sheogorath abandoned follower. So he sneaks in the blue palace, gets to the forbidden wing, and meets Sheogorath, the Hero of Kvatch. Does his quest since it's a pretty easy quest even for a 5 years old kid, and then gets the Wabbajack in exchange.

Inko does Sanguine. The sham marriage is actually to Triss this time, which leads to more angst obviously.

Inko also does Vaermina (destroying the staff), Dagon (Destroying the Razor), Hircine (Gets the Ring), Malacath, Namira (Saves the priest and kills the cannibals), Molag Bal (Just... Never completes his quest and leaves the bastard hanging), Boethia (sacrifices one of the two racist dudes in Windhelm after trucking him into following her), Azura (Uncorrupted Star) and Peryte.

Izuku finds Meridia's Beacon but it's Inko who does the quest.

Izuku is the one meeting Barbas and they have "A boy and his dog" adventures together before he manages to bring him back to Clavicus Vile and convince him to take him back without needing to do his quest. He gets the Mask as a Result, but also a dog in the form of Styx, the spectral wolf, another mod.

Izuku does Mephala, pretty early on too. He befriends Baalgruf's bastard son while still living in Whiterun, who tells him about the whispering door, and after a couple of deceptions he gets the blade. He never charges it tho.

While is Inko the one getting the Ogma Infinium, she can't open it, and is Izuku the one opening it and gaining the boost in knowledge, as well as becoming Herma Mora champion.

Dawnguard and Dragonborn are also done by Inko, but is Midoriya who is sent to Apocrypha when she opens a black book. There he has a odd "Older Sibling trying to murder Younger Sibling" relationship with Miraak, and is ultimately forced to see him get killed by Herma Mora. Aunt Serana becomes a permanent fixture in the house.

Bard College is done by Inko but Izuku is also part of the college now.

Most quests are done by Inko, but the misc quests that require either speech or guile are done by Izuku, especially if they involve children. This includes stuff like paying for Erik the Slayer armor in Rorikstead, or cheering up that girl in Solitude whose uncle was executed for aiding in regicide.

Speaking of which:

Civil War: Inko does it obviously, and she sides with the empire, because 1) Hadvar, 2) Baalgruf, and 3) Elisif.

And also because she went to Windhelm one time to stop a serial killer and gods she couldn't believe how racist those fuckers were.

Modded followers are obviously Inigo, Lucien and Shirley Curry, to name a few.

Forgotten City is done by Inko, Izuku is not even in the time loop. Project AHO is done by Inko and ends with her freeing the slaves and murdering every single slaver in the settlement. Most modded quest mods are done by her honestly.

Izuku obviously keeps himself up to date with his magical studies, which means around 8-10 years old he moves back to winterhold, still waiting for a way home, so J'Zargo can study him to reverse engineer his quirk, and he can learn more spells. Most of his siblings are almost of age by now too, and his mother has started calming down in her worry, since she trusts her old coursemates and teacher to keek Izuku safe...

Ok, no, she trusts Onmund and Toldfir to keep Izuku safe, in this order, but it's still more people she would trust if he started living with any of her other guilds.

Anyway, can't think of much else.

[queenmylovely]

Okay okay okay i have a blurb request - reader and rog are chilling out and shes like playing with his hair and discovers *dun dun dun* a grey hair and has to talk roger down from a midlife crisis or whatever lmao

I was a little worried I wouldn’t be able to turn this into smut other than the usual “I’ll show you I'm not old” railing (which I love) but never fear, cause I’m actually very happy with where this ended up. Thank you babe for a great prompt and for being my smut muse as always 

warnings are smut (18+), cussing, and it’s 1.9k 

☆☆☆

As much as Roger thought he could always go go go, there were days that he preferred to hang out at your place the whole day. These days were usually after a big concert, several long days in the studio, or a big party. This time it was a party. To be more specific, Freddie had thrown a Hanukkah party. Even though he wasn’t Jewish and to your knowledge knew almost nothing about the holiday, he argued that it was only fair to throw a Hanukkah party if he was going to throw a Christmas one.

His decorations were blue and white with giant menorahs and dreidels. As well as the usual food, there was latkes, his chef’s interpretation of sufganiyot doughnuts, and gelt everywhere. Freddie had also made sure that all the food was kosher compliant, which you thought was good of him.

Somehow, this Hanukkah party had ended up even wilder than his typical ones, and Roger had paid the price. Normally, he would’ve made it over to yours around 1:00pm the day after a party, but this time he didn’t even come until a day later, though at 9:00am.

He brought with him coffee and muffins so you let him in with a smile instead of grumbling about how he woke you up. Then the day passed pretty much doing nothing. You lounged in your bed sharing breakfast until you were ready to get ready for the day, had a precarious and giggly romp with each other in the shower, made sandwiches and cut up fruit together in the kitchen for lunch, and finally sat on the couch half-watching Christmas movies as they came on the tv.

While you had both started sitting up, Roger had slowly leaned over onto you until eventually his head was resting in your lap. Because you knew it was what he wanted and because it gave your hands something to do, you started playing with his hair. At first, you did it mindlessly, just feeling your fingers comb through his soft hair. But when the movie switched to one that you had seen a million times before, you paid more attention.

Roger’s hair was shorter than it had been in years past, and while you liked how it looked now, you were a little sad that gone were the days of long, wavy, pretty hair. Still, it was long enough for you to braid little tiny braids into it, especially in the back and on top. That’s what you were doing now, giggling as his head became covered in one inch long braids. Roger didn’t seem to mind, but that was probably because it felt good and he was more than half asleep anyway.

You finally made it to the hair just above his temples, sectioning out the hair that was long enough to braid. That’s when you saw it, a single grey hair among all the bleached and natural blonde.

Before you could help it, you gasped and Roger immediately jerked awake.

“What? What’s wrong?” Roger asked quickly, though his voice was still filled with sleep.

“Oh nothing, nothing’s wrong,” you claimed hurriedly.

“Then why did you gasp like that?”

“It was just the tv, very exciting part.”

He looked at the tv, “One, you’ve seen this thousands of times. Two, this is not an exciting part, nor has there been an exciting part for the last five minutes. So what is it?”

“Well, it’s just that-- I just,” you tried to stall but Roger gave you a look. “... I found a grey hair on your head.”

Roger shot up, both hands going to his head, “What the fuck, no you didn’t!”

“I did,” you grimaced. Then touched his arm, “But it’s okay, it was just the one.”

“No, if there’s one, there’s got to be more!” Roger said, trying to run his fingers through his hair but having trouble. “What the fuck did you do to my hair?”

You had to cover your mouth to keep yourself from bursting out laughing, but when he still looked at you for an answer, you had to reply through laughs, “They’re just little braids.”

“Arghh! Help me!” Roger demanded because as dexterous as his hands usually were, they apparently weren’t very good at undoing braids.

“Here, here, let me,” you said, batting his hands away with a few final giggles. You moved so you were kneeling beside him on the couch so you could reach his hair. It only took a couple minutes to do, during which you could see Roger frowning deeply. You thought about telling him he shouldn’t so he didn’t get frown lines but decided that probably wouldn’t help in the current situation.

“There you go,” you said, sitting back on your heels, smoothing his hair away from his face a final time.

He was still pouting so you thought for a second before speaking again.

“You know, Rog, 31 seems like a very reasonable age to start getting grey hairs. Some people get them in their twenties.”

Roger just looked at his hands.

So you tried a different approach, “And you know, I think you’d look pretty hot with grey hair.”

As you spoke, you placed your hand on Roger’s wrist and he looked up at you, raising his eyebrows.

“Really?”

“Yeah, you’d look sophisticated and confident,” you took a slow breath in. “Like you’re totally in control.”

Roger watched you closely, feeling how the energy in the room was shifting. Then he grabbed the hand that was on his wrist, pulling you closer until you got the idea and slung a leg over so you were straddling him.

“In control of what?” he asked, lowering his gaze ever so slightly towards you and lifting a finger to brush along your jawline.

“Whatever you want,” you almost whispered, waiting until he tilted your chin up before you moved closer and kissed him.

He kissed you back, but kept it slow and controlled. Keeping one hand right on your jaw, Roger moved the other to your waist to pull your body close to his. He pulled his thumb on your chin, parting your mouth enough for his tongue to run along the inside of your lower lip. You breathed in sharply and parted your mouth further, just hoping that he would deepen the kiss. To your great relief, he did and you sighed further into the kiss.

The hand that was on your waist started roaming, and whether it was to brush his thumb against your nipple, to splay his fingers across your ass and squeeze before landing a sharp spank, or to reach up and pull on your hair, every move caused a moan to be pulled from you.

You had fully lost yourself in the kiss when Roger’s hand crept in between the two of you, so his thumb pressing along your slit until it reached your clit made you gasp and pull away from the kiss for a second. His thumb rubbed you through your sweatpants and your brow furrowed as you focused on the feeling.

“Does that feel good?” Roger murmured, and when you looked at him there was a confident glint in his eyes that made you swallow thickly.

You nodded and Roger waited expectantly so you continued, “Yes, so good.”

“Good ‘cause that's what I wanted. To control your pleasure by giving you all of it,” his words and the way he was touching you made you shiver.

Suddenly, he pushed you to stand but he started pushing down your pants and underwear and you hurried to help. You tried to do the same with his, but he shook his head and stood up.

Roger motioned to the arm of the couch, “Lay back there.”

You did as he said, putting down a throw pillow first to cushion your back. You leaned back, legs in front of you and bent at the knee, your feet resting on the couch cushions. Roger laid down on the couch in front of you on his stomach. To fit he had to bend his knees too and so he crossed his ankles in the air. You thought it was cute but before you could say anything or laugh Roger licked right up your slit from your entrance to your clit.

There were no light kisses and licks to work you up to more; instead, he just latched his lips onto your clit and started sucking, your hips jumping up underneath him. So Roger used his left hand to press down on your hips and keep you from moving too much. His lips felt so good that you couldn’t resist tangling your fingers in his hair to keep him close.

After a minute, Roger lifted his head a little, but it was just to let some of his spit drip onto your pussy. It was kind of a strange feeling since there was so little pressure, but then his right hand came up between your thighs and as he got his first two fingers wet, you understood what it was for.

Roger pushed his fingers in together, going slow enough so you could adjust, but the stretch still made you groan quietly and open your legs wider. He thrusted them in and out of you two more times and the slight pain was gone, letting you appreciate the feeling of fullness his fingers gave you.

His tongue found its way back to your clit, circling it before pressing down on it with broad licks. Roger was searching for your g spot with his fingers and once he did, he started sucking your clit at the same time.

The feeling turned your moan into a cry of pleasure, “Ah, Roger!”

His only response was to hum against you, and the buzz of the vibrations made a bolt of pleasure run throughout your entire body. Roger kept up this routine, making you moan and whine and whimper and then rewarding you with a hum every time you did. It all became overwhelming when he added another finger, stretching you further and increasing the pressure and pleasure on your g spot.

“I’m-- fuck--”

“You’re close?” Roger asked to confirm.

“Yes, yeah, ohhhh--”

“Come,” he told you, returning his lips to your clit, fingering you deftly, and humming against you, stronger this time.

You had told him he was in control, and it was true because as soon as he did that, you were coming, your legs involuntarily wrapping around his head as the pleasure ran through you, leaving you moaning and breathless.

Roger kept going until you let your legs down, placing a kiss to the inside of your thigh before smiling up at you. You reached for him and he acquiesced, finding your lips and kissing you deeply as you wrapped your arms around his shoulders.

Breaking away from the kiss, you looked between you to his boner that was still present in his sweatpants, “Do you want me to suck you off?”

“That’d be nice,” Roger said nonchalantly, and you hit his shoulder lightly.

He got up, pushing down his sweatpants and briefs, kicking them to the side. You sat on the edge of the couch, figuring it’d be easiest to do with him standing and you sitting.

Placing your hands on the sides of his thighs, you looked up at him with only slight hesitation,“Do you-- can you control this too?”

Roger grinned.

★★★

[pinkasrenzo]

mid-year book freak out tag

ty for the tag @bloody-wonder! time to rant about books ayy

1. Best Book You've Read So Far in 2021?

It has to be This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone. Loved everything about it, the style the story (even if it did take me a while to understand what was going on) the characters the absolute yearning it was just. perfect.

But also The King’s Men by Nora Sakavic for a lot of reasons I still don’t really know how to put into words? I still need some time to process this series ig

2. Best Sequel You've Read So Far in 2021?

The Golden Yarn by Cornelia Funke, I’ve waited so long to read this and finally (fINALLY!) I did and it did not disappoint. The worldbuilding was just fantastic, loved how the mirror world geography/political asset was based on early 8th century history I’m so weak for this. Also I just,,, missed the mess that is Jacob Reckless so much my boy my precious son give him some fucking rest.

(And ofc honourable mention part 2 The Raven King by Nora Sakavic this book really was a gut punch)

3. New Release You Haven't Read Yet, But Want To?

The Silver Tracks by Cornelia Funke, I’ve been waiting for this book for like 5? years now? I just need to read this if only the English translation came out sooner hhhhhh

4. Most Anticipated Release For Second Half of 2021?

Leviathan Falls by James S.A. Corey which I’m also dreading cause it’s the last book of this series and I Do Not Want It To End I’m so not ready for it I know it’ll be so painful and I will cry and I am so worried for specifically One Character cause his story took A Turn already and I Am Fear.

Also Aristotle and Dante Dive Into the Waters of the World by Benjamin Alire Sáenz cause I was not expecting a sequel this year but !!!!! love those boys can’t wait to read about them again njhknjkhk

5. Biggest Disappointment?

Time’s Convert by Deborah Harkness, it did have good parts tbh but overall it was just Not Great. It was very slow paced and flat all around? I wanted Marcus’ backstory and I mean yeah its there but,,, Phoebe’s story was just so boring I liked her in the main trilogy and was interested when the book started with her POV but then she just,,, idk she could’ve been a great character with a new perspective on vampires but she just felt like Bella Swan 2.0 and I am not a fan. Also this book was just unnecessary long, the story was stretched out and went on for way more than it should have

6. Biggest Surprise?

Oh for sure All For the Game series by Nora Sakavic. I started it thinking “oh a fun and light read” but I was a fOOL I was Not expecting,,, anything? that’s in the series? went in thinking it was just another YA about sports and gays and maybe a bit trashy and got suckerpunched with mafia wars, the most sane and healthy relationship I’ve ever seen, great consent and boundaries talk, ace rep??? actually good ace rep?? best trauma handling ive seen in ages, got an existential crisis, started and solved a sexuality crisis (and sort ofa gender crisis i didn't know i had?), a few more personal realisations and honestly just,,, came out of it a complete and utter mess I finished it in April and I am still not over it I literally cannot physically start any other book I just keep going back to this series and its characters I,,, damn Nora

7. Favourite New Author?

I guess it’s pretty fair to say Nora Sakavic at this point

8. Newest Fictional Crush?

uh don’t really get fictional crushes?

9. Newest Favourite Character?

Oh man. I’m going to be predictable but Andrew Minyard and Neil Josten. I just,,, am so emotional about these two but also they’re so complex and multifaceted they’re honestly Great Characters and I’ll never get tired or reading/talking meta about them there’s so much to explore and say about them I’m !!!!!

Also all the foxes have a special place in my heart I love them all ç_ç

10. Book That Made You Cry?

Well of course All For the Game by Nora Sakavic was a rollercoaster I cried a lot for lots of different reasons I do talk about other things besides aftg usually I’m just having a moment ok but also The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid had me in tears, especially reading Harry’s part was,,, a lot. I had a feeling something was going to happen with/to him and then I read the subtitle for his chapter and. i just started crying and didn’t stop it was. yeah.

11. Book That Made You Happy?

Zeus Grants Stupid Wishes by Cory O’Brien, making fun of greek mythology never gets old lmao

Also! Didnt make me happy exactly (it was v painful) but I had the most fun reading The Maze Runner series by James Dashner after I put it off for so long (2021 is the year I’m catching up to YAs apparently) and it was just. you know when you read something and think “this author really did not have a plan uh”? That’s TMZ. I feel like Dashner wrote the first book and had this great idea about this maze and it’s brilliant honestly the first book is great but then,,, well he had to write two more right? And he had to get them out of the maze. And that’s when he realised he had to actually think about what was out of the maze, do some actual worldbuilding and fix his plot holes. And he Was Not Prepared For That. At All. like plot holes aside, some choices were just,,, why. Like the scene where Thomas is in that cafe and security goes “there’s an infected everyone evacuate”?? that’s nOT HOW YOU HANDLE AN AIRBORNE VIRUS JAMES (reading this during lockdown truly was an experience)

12. Favourite Book Adaptation You Saw This Year?

Uhh nothing yet but I want to watch And Then There Were None and I’m hYPED

13. Favourite Review You've Written This Year?

Bold of you to assume I write reviews

14. Most Beautiful Book You Bought So Far This Year?

Wanted to pick French back up so I got La Vie Suspendue and Les Yeux d’Elisha by Timothée de Fombelle in the omnibus edition and the cover is actually a map folded on itself and it’s double faced and when unfolded it’s hUGE it reaches to my knees?? Peak Design

15. What Books Do You Need To Read By The End of The Year?

Oh boy so many but I’m most hyped for:

An Unkindness of Ghosts by River Solomon cause nonbinary in space? Sign Me Up

Bunny by Mona Awad cause I’ve been promised batshit horror and I Am Here For It

the Grishaverse books by Leigh Bardugo cause 1) gay heist 2) fantastic worldbuilding 3) I refuse to watch the series and not read the books (also I’ve read lots of mixed reviews about it so ofc I need to know)

The 7 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton cause I do am weak for intricate time loops and impossible murder mysteries

All the Crooked Saints by Maggie Stiefvater cause I’ve yet to read anything by her and this seems like the right vibe to start with (also the cover is great)

tagging @theblackswanuniverse (I know you have opinions) @pollyna @novishu @butallmystars

[gayenerd]

These are “outtakes” from Billie Joe’s 2010 Out Magazine interview. The link is still up, but for some reason they took out his answers about masculinity and femininity????? And those are obviously the most interesting answers! Anyway, here’s the whole thing I had saved in a doc

March 19, 2010

Billie Joe Armstrong Tells All

Photo: Kurt Iswarienko

Our April Broadway issue features Green Day's front man Billie Joe Armstrong chatting about music, politics, and the new musical, <i>American Idiot,</i> based on the band's last two albums. The writer of the piece (and former Popnography editor) Shana Naomi Krochmal filed the following exclusive extras from her interview with Armstrong that didn't make it into the piece. In them, Billie Joe touches on masculinity, his queer influences, and meeting Lady Gaga:

ON MASCULINITY:

Out: Is masculinity important to you?

Billie Joe Armstrong: I think it can come in handy, if it’s used the right way.

What’s the right way?

I think you learn a lot from Little League baseball. Like how to be a good team player, what do you do in situations when you’re at bat and it’s just you and another person. When you lose, how do you deal with losing? When you win, are you a good winner? And a graceful winner? How do you contribute to a team situation selflessly? I think there’s a lot of leadership skills in that. I don’t know if that’s masculinity or just good leadership or just life lessons. I just used Little League baseball because it’s male dominated.

Do your kids play?

They did. My oldest is done now, and my youngest one does. It was a real good bonding experience. I think masculinity is a lot more feminine than people give it credit for. Or it can be. Jim Morrison seemed very masculine to me, but also completely feminine at the same time. That balance in between -- and it’s not those morons on the bus in Borat. That’s not masculinity, that’s insecurity at its worse. Masculinity is something that women can have.

What is feminine about you?

I’m not sure. Let me think. It’s all about being a well rounded a person. I think being a singer is very feminine. Being a singer is a very feminine thing -- performing is definitely. Women have a lot more courage I think than men do, in a lot of ways -- if you think about what Madonna does or Lady Gaga or Beyonce. Women have a much easier time of reinventing themselves than I think men do. Hmm, I think -- a little bit of eyeliner. [Laughs] But I think there’s a big difference between vanity and femininity. I think that feminine side has served me a lot more than my masculine side has in a lot of ways.

ON PERFORMING AT THE GRAMMYS:

That was such a great night. There’s a whole thing where you’re worried about the awards part of it, and it can make you kind of irritable, kind of stressed out. But the great thing is that we had a chance to play with the cast, which has never really been done before.

ON THE MOST EMOTIONAL PARTS OF THE SHOW:

When Rebecca [Naomi Jones] sings “Letterbomb,” that really blows me away. The scene where Tunny’s on the gurneys and they’re singing “Before the Lobotomy.” And “Last Night on Earth” is an amazing scene with the couple doing this heroin dance. Tony [Vincent] is singing the song -- the first verse while they’re slamming smack -- and then the next verse is Mary coming out with a baby that she’s had with a guy who turns out to be a loser father. I get chills thinking about it right now. The juxtaposition between the two scenes is like -- wow.

ON WRITING AN ORIGINAL MUSICAL:

I’d definitely be interested in it. I think we’re in a really rare situation where this is gaining momentum. I don’t want to screw it up by working on something else. I’d love to do something with Michael [Mayer]. I’ve always wanted to see what it would be like to score a film -- but this, this is even more special, I think.

ON KNOWING TOO MUCH:

When you start getting into politics, what I’ve realized is that if it seems to be black and white, it’s shooting off into so many different directions. You can’t really keep up with what’s happening in the House of Representatives. Things like Hurricane Katrina, Haiti, troops in Afghanistan, financial crisis -- even Tiger Woods. It seems to be one thing after the next.

ON HIS QUEER INFLUENCES:

My uncle. There were different punk singers, from a guy named Cretin Chaos in Social Unrest to guys like Morrissey. And also guys that would genderbend a little, like Bowie, or Mike Ness from Social Distortion wearing makeup. I’ve always liked music that was non-gender specific, like the Replacements song called “Androgynous.” It was just always those little things or people that were willing to make you think, whoa, that’s not what I’m hearing on the radio these days.

ON MEETING LADY GAGA AT THE MTV VIDEO MUSIC AWARDS:

She had this outfit on -- she had so much shit on her when she walked by! She couldn’t move her arm because she was going on to do her performance, and it was like shaking hands with someone in a cast. She had this handler that was like, “Don’t touch the costume! Don’t touch the costume!” She said something about how she loved Dookie so much she used to lick the pages. I thought it was really cool. She’s influencing a lot of young people, and she’s doing it in a way that’s provocative. And a lot of people don’t realize that she’s an artist, and she’s been one for a really long time. She’s taking something that Bowie or Madonna did and taking it a step further.

ON WHAT IT MEANS TO BE “PUNK ROCK”:

That’s like a 10 part answer. I think of it as something that you need to have of your own. For me it’s about community. I think it’s kind of spiritual in its own way, because people fight over it so much and the meaning of it. It’s a sense of self-discovery. But also a new set of ideas and a new poetry, a new music that you discover that you notice that no one else is really into, or goes against what other people are normally into. It’s like you’re free to be an individual and taking on new ideas and challenging old ideas. I think it has a lot to do with burning down the establishment to create something new. But at the same time, you find relationships within that too. It’s something that’s supposed to empower you. It’s about starting something new. Part of the problem with a lot of punk rock is that people believe that it’s supposed to be one thing. Everything for me starts off with punk rock when I’m writing songs -- it’s almost like I’m stripped down to the bare bones of music again. It’s kind of in my DNA in this point.

ON HIS WIFE, ADRIENNE:

She’s great. She’s beautiful. Without her, I don’t know what I’d do. She empowers me to challenge myself in a lot of ways. She inspired the song “American Idiot” by playing me this Midnight Oil song that she really loved. She runs a store called Atomic Garden, all about sustainable living. She’s really active in NRDC, politically. Sometimes I think she’s a hell of a lot more interesting and a cooler person than I am.

ON HIS “MISERABLE” HIGH SCHOOL EXPERIENCE:

Academically you have to completely re-figure out how to prioritize your life. And suddenly you feel like the whole fucking world is against you because they’re prioritizing for you. And it’s forced on you. And if you don’t get it at that age, if you don’t catch it -- that’s what happened to me, I didn’t prioritize anything. I just got to a breaking point where it was like, by my later high school years, “You’re all full of shit anyway. Everyone’s full of shit. I know what I’m doing, and fuck school, and fuck schoolwork, and I’m not going to go to fucking college anyway, and I’m gonna play in a rock band, and you’re all gonna be sorry.” You get vengeful -- it’s a natural instinct, all those hormones going and shit.

ON BEING HAPPIER AT AGE 38:

I kind of feel like things are getting better. It goes in stages. I loved my early twenties. I hated my late twenties. I was a drunk. I was trying to figure out how to be a father, a husband, but I still wanted to live my life like a crazy punk rock rock star. You start noticing things about yourself. You have to change your health habits. But you don’t want to change. In your twenties, change is hitting you over the head whether you like it or not. Right when I got to about 30 I was like, thank God that’s over. But it gets complicated again.

[a-simple-complexity]

South Park Headcanons I'm Using For My Aged-Up (Obviously) Fic

- By the time highschool rolls around Christophe and Gregory become kinda like Michaels group in Burn Notice. You want a job done? With a little cash or a promise of something they'll get it done. Bebe and Wendy (primarily Wendy) are in on it too every once in a while. They also have another foreign kid, a Ukrainian chick who's always getting called a Russian by Cartman (she has kicked his ass for that)

- The Ukrainian chick, Yeva "Eve" Lauren, recently moved to South Park with her mother and her mother's husband (they're only married so Yeva and her mother can stay in America). Her mother was a gun runner back in the day and has been teaching Yeva everything. Naturally, she's been around it all her life and thinks it's normal for a 16-17 year old to own a 10mm named Dimitri and an AK-47 named Mulligan. She also has two Quaker parrots named Mike and Fi (yes that's a reference to a reference). More about her later.

- Also Christophe knows how to dance. Gregory taught him when they were about 12 or 13. This plays a very adorable role in the fic.

- The goths are still The Goths and the only color they wear besides black, red, and (rarely) white is gothic pink. Its rare and they don't wear much of it but they do wear it. A group of kids who believe themselves to be werewolves have their back and are loyal to them just as dog is to mankind. Cartman called them furries and they brought up the coon. Cartman no longer calls them furries.

- Damien's back! He has an emotional support hellhound that takes the shape of a corgi named Bones. Being the Dark Prince with a short temper caused his dad to eventually get him a support hound so he could at least make it through school. At first he didn't really want the dog seeing as, "That's something MORTALS do!"....he watched a dog show and got obsessed and now his whole life revolves around Bones the hell-corgi. The dog is immortal just as he is and has a tendency to morph into the creepiest fucking hound you ever did see. Still looks corgi-ish in this state tho. He and Pip are together.

- Garrison had another identity crisis and now identifies as Nonbinary. They are proud of who they are and it's caused a few kids to come out (at school at least). They has a few pride flags around the class room and Mr. Slave is very supportive.

- Chef isn't dead (bc I said so).

- Cartman still doesn't understand girls. Which kicks off the entire story. Hey! As long as the Christophe, Gregory, and Yeva are getting paid they really don't give a fuck. This of course spirals from him not understanding girls to, of course, getting very out of hand bc of him stealing something very priceless from Bebe.