noah kahan really said growing up in a small, bitter hometown is about the rage and the hatred that's been sung about many times before but it's also about love and devotion and the 'all three of us were drowning and we didn't know how to save each other but there was an understanding that we were all drowning together' of it all and knowing people so intimately yet not being able to help anyone and he's morally grey at best in a lot of his songs and objectively the bad guy in others and that's just how it is and it's about substance abuse and normalised crime and teen suicide and country roads and failed exams and leaving and being left and love and hate and love and hate and love and
2K notes
·
View notes
Person A: “Out of all the people I thought I might have a chance of being saved by, I can say with utmost certainty that you are the last person I expected to actually do so.”
Person B: “What can I say, your insufferable sweetness grew on me.”
899 notes
·
View notes
Batman #149 by chip zdarsky is mostly unremarkable, but I'm really fascinated by how it makes a great case for 'good' endings not saving 'bad' stories*. Because there's a lot of interesting concepts in this issue (bruce having to deal with his rapidly aging and decaying clone making him think about his own life, re-establishing a 'nest' so to speak for his family after pushing them away, etc) but bc of the OOC slog that came before it, almost every moment w/ the batfamily comes off as unearned and disingenuous imo.
Like, everything with Damian is the perfect example in this. Because in isolation it's...fine. admittedly it's a missed opportunity to not go deeper into how Damian would feel about a clone of his dad who tried to kill considering Damian's relationships with clones of himself (the heretic rejects and respawn) or with former enemies who wanted him dead but who were manipulated and/or brainwashed (like suren and maya).
Zdarsky doesn't go into any of this but you could maybe excuse it as the issue not being about Damian. However, coupled with the previous bizarre characterizations of Damian in 147 and 148, it ends up not being fine- instead it starts to feel...icky how Damian (who, despite often being drawn and written as white, will never have his connection to the non-white al ghuls forgotten and will always be effected by racism even when not portrayed as a poc) is constantly written as overly violent, uncaring and narrow minded in this run. Coupled w/ trying to recanonize the morrison origin for Damian it's like. OH this is badly written and laden with subtle bigotry, sick**
That's me going into detail on it with Damian but it's applicable to other things in this issue- the way Cass, Steph and Duke have all been ignored or turned into jobbers makes their inclusion in the 'family' here feel hollow instead of satisfying. Bruce proclaiming that Zur was still a part of him and he needs to accept responsibility for his actions (when it means taking in clone son) wrings hollow when just last issue zdarsky was bending over backwards to separate Bruce and Zur bc otherwise the Jason thing would get really awkward. Ends are achieved through means that feel hollow or strange. I'm at my destination but damn why'd the bus have to do all that???
I only really have opinions on this latest arc of zdarskys Batman bc it's the one I've read the closest (bc I'm a hater, masochist and avid follower of even the bad damian storylines) but it's not saying great things.
Bc zdarsky can do one thing good in this book, and it's write Bruce and Tim. And yet this entire story, whether of his own volition or editorial mandate, includes other characters who aren't Bruce and Tim, the fabric starts to unravel in very telling ways.
(p.s, I think pennyworth manor is an interesting idea but I feel like in execution it's just gonna be 'bruce living in a house haunted by the memory of the people he couldn't save' but with a different dead guy this time. Illusion of change and whatnot)
*whether or not the ending is good is up to you ofc, as is your opinion on the proceeding arc! I saw some ppl complain that the ending was too "WFA" for them, which I get even if I dont think it'll literally be the same premise. If anything it's probably a lead into the new tec run. Likewise many ppl who aren't in the weeds of Damian and Jason characterization liked the previous arc! But I have my opinions and rest my case before the bench
**disclaimer, I'm white and portrayals of bigotry in comics are complicated and subjective, but I am basing my point here off what other poc comic fans on socmed have been saying about 149. Also the "sick" is sarcasm incase that wasn't obvious
49 notes
·
View notes
i think there's some humor in post-dsaf 3 evil ending. henry's been in the void for 40 years he doesn't know about any of this modern stuff. jacktrap has to teach him about the internet. How To Shitpost For 98 Year Old Murderers. personally i think henry would love teen titans go (just Saying jack and dave aren't the only ones with immature humor henry caused the blowtorch-urinal incident And called william Willy because it meant penis. he puts on a formal and collected appearance but he thinks that type of stuff is the funniest shit ever. he would love youtube poops)
56 notes
·
View notes
CYCLES OF VIOLENCE AND REVENGE
or: a scene where sulla and crasso measure each other up and decide to use each other
republikang romano remixed returns!
ALRIGHT SO the historical parallel for scene is crassus siding with & supporting sulla during sulla's civil war. the very brief summary of events are that crassus' family were victims to political violence (cinna, marius) while crassus survived on account of his age and went on to give everyone a very bad day.
but this is also fiction, it's set in the philippines, I get to throw in some teleserye drama if I want to.
originally, the line about crasso's age was supposed to be, 'you WERE so young,' but I fucked up the tense and wrote 'you ARE so young,' by accident. which is. not wrong, crasso is in his early-mid 20s here. he IS young, and it adds in some fun subtext because sulla's going to fuck crasso over later and turn his attentions to pompeyo, who is younger than crasso. subtext, baby!
speaking of the philippines tho, the thing about the tapping and the chicks is that if someone is murdered, you put chicks on the casket because the tapping of the pecking is supposed to eat away at the guilty party's conscience. it's also eating away at crasso because he's haunted (read: traumatized) by being forced to watch his family get murdered. the chicks are just vibing.
Plutarch, Life of Crassus
200 notes
·
View notes