#or disagree with it if you prefer

[lunarriviera]

Big Dumb Hot Cop & Effete Possibly Sociopathic Genius Consultant: A Manifesto

So it has recently come to my attention that this, my archetypal pairing formulation, has broken containment, probably because I've been flinging these terms around like a deranged person wielding a blunt instrument. Therefore it behooves me to explain what the hell I mean by all these adjectives, and who are some classic and contemporary examples of the idiots under discussion—who are by the way extremely in love with one another whether they realize it or not. (Don't you say "bromance." Don't you dare SAY that word to me.) I will use blorbo from my shows to illustrate.

I first realized that I am in fact a Big Dumb Hot Cop whisperer thanks to Chinese police procedural 猎罪图鉴 | Under the Skin (2022). Right away, it's very important to note that Big Dumb Hot Cop is NOT in fact all that dumb. He's only less intelligent IN COMPARISON to his Effete Slightly Sociopathic Genius Consultant, who is, as already stated, a genius. Big Dumb Hot Cop is in fact ruthlessly good at his job. He's driven, he obsesses about cases, he can walk into a crime scene and pick up on the one thing everyone else has missed. There is no suspect he cannot intimidate upon investigation. And he's even better when he's working with (or against, depending on what stage they're at) the genius consultant. They need each other, whether they're fighting or collaborating. They can only clear cases together.

Here are, then, police captain Du Cheng and his genius consultant, sketch artist Shen Yi, eyeing each other significantly as some witness is, I think, lying his face off? Honestly I can't even remember what's happening because the important thing here is their nonverbal communication. This is crucial for this pairing. They can think circles around each other without saying a word. Love that for them.

Effete Possibly Sociopathic Genius Consultant has two levels of Possibly Sociopathic. Most maddeningly of all, he has secrets. Sometimes many secrets. So at first, Big Dumb Hot Cop is going to think he's the criminal, or in some way involved in the wrongdoing. The second level is that he'll find Genius Consultant just worryingly, disturbingly good at predicting criminal behavior. And he will continue to be suspicious of him for exactly one or at most two episodes, until he's then swept off his big dumb feet by the rapidity and correctness of Effete Genius's deductions. There's nothing Big Dumb Hot Cop loves more than solving cases. Well, maybe beer. He also loves beer. Once he sees that Effete Consultant is useful, he'll do a 180º and stop complaining to his chief of police, and instead start demanding that Effete Consultant be his forever. He'll start hanging out in his office. He'll literally drag him to crime scenes by the wrist.

(And did I mention Effete Consultant must be very pretty? Did I mention that? He is lovely. Long, thin fingers to steeple while he thinks. Delicate features. Haunted dark eyes. Never sleeps. Shocking self-neglect. You may see where I am going with this.)

Another important attribute of Big Dumb Hot Cop: he's big. Or anyway strong, or a gifted fighter. Let's face it, he has to be, because Genius Consultant is going to be reckless with his own personal safety to the point of stupidity (now who's dumb, huh?). For example, consider another Chinese procedural, S.C.I. 谜案集 | S.C.I. Mystery (2018). Captain Bai Yutong is sort of impossibly physically talented (former fighter pilot! national sandu champion! runs over moving cars and then shoots at them, like some kind of weird urban biathlon!) and, like all good Big Dumb Hot Cops, his entire life is thrown upside down because he now has to drop everything to protect his effete consultant, criminal psychologist Dr. Zhan Yao, who's so careless with himself that in any another drama he would probably be driving Bai Yutong to drink. Thanks to the danmei on which SCI Mystery is based, however, we can safely assume Bai Yutong is taking it out on Zhan Yao in blow jobs.

Note that Bai Yutong is the cook, even though he's the gong, and that he moves in with Zhao Yan to "protect" him from...something, I can't ever remember what, and then just sort of forgets to move out again. For the length of the entire series.

I would argue that 镇魂 | Guardian (2018) is a procedural, even if it also has ghosts, a talking cat, snake lady, eerie dark energy that gets flung around like paintball splatters, and a whole bunch of other supernatural stuff that was not approved of by Big Red (it's based on a danmei of the same title by Priest, a novel which has been pulled from circulation for censorship). Further confusing matters, Zhao Yunlan isn't particularly Big or Dumb, nor is he even really a Cop, technically; but I'm claiming him for this genre not least because of his Effete (drop-dead gorgeous) Possibly Sociopathic (Chief Zhao thinks he's a suspect for a good third of the story) and Definitely Genius, Later Gangpressed into being a Consultant, chock-full of secrets Professor Shen Wei.

Once they finally team up, though, they do this genre/pairing proud. Why, there's nothing they can't solve except how to stay alive. Look at them here enjoying some fine nonverbal communication: "Oh my god, you're just like me—you too will fling yourself directly into bodily harm in order to save a clueless civilian. Okay this could be inconvenient for both of us. Also wow for a genetics professor you're really fucking built, do you lift my bro." (Yes. Yes he does lift.)

A final example: the cruelly short-lived 光渊 | Justice in the Dark (2023), which like Guardian is based on a danmei by Priest, 默读 | Silent Reading. I got baited into watching the eight (8) existing episodes by seeing a cut of Captain Luo Wenzhou taking on like forty guys with a champagne bottle, a pair of curtains, an axe handle, and a birthday cake, like some kind of cultivator. He's so big and hot, and he's so very dumb. He's also a cop, and ACAB (which is sort of the plot of Silent Reading); and Fei Du is possibly using him for his own nefarious ends (cf. possibly sociopathic and secretive). But underneath all of Fei Du's "I am the abyss, fear me, rawr!" scary posturing, like a puffed-up kitten, he's just a very pretty tender-hearted effete genius, and you can watch Luo Wenzhou melting, and practically pinpoint the exact moment when his whole heart flies out of his eyes and he decides: Yeah, okay, that's it for me. That one. The annoying little traumatized fuerdai with some kind of a death wish that I do not understand. I'll be throwing myself in front of bullets for him and/or cooking him dinner for the foreseeable future, thanks.

Priest is gonna mess with this dynamic of gong/shou caregiving and safeguarding, because that's what she does; but the fundamental beats are still there. Look at these ninnyhammers, just this second figuring out they're actually kind people who belong to each other.

Here they are confronting a suspect together. (You will notice the large butcher knife wavering in the foreground.) Luo Wenzhou, highly trained, nonetheless cannot de-escalate the situation. It takes a pretty playboy in an arm sling to come wandering into the room, and then, using his superb personal knowledge of what it's like to be traumatized to the point of insanity, getting the suspect to disarm. I just love the way they look at each other, incredulous (Luo Wenzhou) and mock-fascinated (Fei Du). If I ever meet the person who directed this scene I'm going to need to kiss them on the mouth.

Once you accept the gospel of Big Dumb Hot Cop and Effete Possibly Sociopathic Genius Consultant into your media-based life, you'll find it has many applications, not all of which have to be procedurals. Consider: characters from the Daomu Biji franchise, possibly (Hei Xiazi is the biggest dumbest hottest not-a-cop I've ever met). Leverage, in a weird OT3 way. Assorted combinations of Avengers. Teen Wolf fic, absolutely. Various Stargate incarnations. Several other Priest danmei, not only procedurals. Definitely Mysterious Lotus Casebook. Et cetera. (You're on your own with MXTX, though.)

This has gotten long and there are still so many nuances and features and wrinkles and problems with the theory that should be ironed out, but it'll have to do for now. I'll simply close by saying: yes, there is also a classic example and you already know exactly who it is.

[secriden]

so i wonder if anyone else has thoughts about mame's choices regarding sky vs tongrak's stories and how she tackled the complexity of loving and being loved.

when i first heard about love sea, i saw a lot of people say that fortpeat were just re-cast as sky and prapai but with tongrak being older and richer than mahasamut. personally, i think that's a pretty reductionist view because mame explored the idea of being afraid to love and be loved from very different angles and perspective in these two stories.

i will give that there are some similarities on the surface - peat's character does that whole 'pretends to hate it but secretly loves it' thing; the cat-like 'push and pull' thing and fort's character is still a overly excited, loveable golden retriever of a human being with a strong sense of self; also both sky and tongrak have had experiences which make them both fearful of 'love'.

but i think while sky's main fear is being loved, tongrak's is very much a fear of loving.

like, sky's story is very... raw. it's an exposed nerve, tender and painful and present. sky's fear is so immediately tied to his trauma which he's still in the throes of. the betrayal he faced was from the one who claimed to love him and it's telling that sky's first flashback is not triggered by his feelings FOR prapai but by prapai expressing his 'love' for him. this trauma is intimate and physical and close, but that means that the start of his healing journey can begin because of an external force (prapai) giving him that safety but also physically removing the threat. when sky begins to feel safe again, he is able to begin healing.

in contrast: tongrak's trauma is relatively... hmmm, separated (? not the best word but...) on a physical level. it doesn't make it less or even less painful (or more, or more painful), but his fear of love largely stems from how he sees the people immediately around him being hurt by love. he's internalised the idea that love doesn't last. mahasamut starts confessing his feelings pretty early on; like episode 4 mahasamut straight up goes, 'well you can't stop me from loving you' and tongrak's disapproving but he's not triggered. what's the difference between this and episode 10, i think, is that tongrak's actively fighting his own awareness of his feelings for mahasamut. it's why his fight or flight response is triggered by vie calling him out about his feelings in episode 8 and also why he tries to force parameters back into their relationship (my take: i don't care if you love me but i won't love you) in episode 10. but it's also why his healing doesn't actually come from an external force - yes, vie kind of knocks him out of his depressed stupor by hiding the bracelet, but note that tongrak's has that breakdown realisation ('please come back, i'm sorry, i'm sorry, can't you please come back to me? i'm afraid you'll end up hating me (emphasis added) if you love me') before he has that chat with vie. he's already realised that the root of his fear of mahasamut's love isn't the love itself, but the fear that if he admits his own love for mahasamut, it will eventually get betrayed. it's also why even after he resolves that he wants to try at a relationship with mahasamut, he still can't say it. at this point, his father's a non-entity in terms of the fear of him going after his loved ones - he's already been proven a weakling and a coward and also they're physically on the island so removed from jak that it shouldn't be an immediate fear anymore. no; this struggle is completely internal and it's why we linger on his heartbreaking attempts to confess (also, love sea had some pacing issues but i'm so so grateful they took time to show this part; bless fort for insisting on it!). tongrak's afraid to love but he pushes and pushes himself, and finally breaks through and its entirely on his own terms because of his own strength.

i'm not saying sky's weaker for (in a sense) needing someone else to rescue him before he could heal, but i think it just speaks to mame really telling quite a different story of healing with tongrak.

like... have you ever thought you'd healed from something and then it comes back in an unexpected way but then your response to the trigger is also different? the pain is there but it's... at once deeper but also more distant? a deep pulse rather than a high pitched shriek? and the way you go about beginning this new phase of healing is also different? i think that's whats happening here.

it's fascinating how us humans can fear vulnerability in so many ways, so many forms, on so many levels but i think the lesson mame's stories tell is that sometimes it really is worth it to become vulnerable. not with everyone, and not all the time (goodness, that would be foolish). but also, keep holding onto hope. keep looking for that right person, keep being kind to yourself and others. know that it's ok if your healing feels different, if you didn't catch it some point in the past, its not too late.

you'll be ok.

[falmerbrook]

I am a "the elves should look weird" TES truther, but not in my own art because my grasp of normal human faces is shaky as it is

[the-sacred-now]

An Open Letter to the Single-Issue Pro-Life Voter

What do you want more: For abortion to be illegal? Or for fewer abortions to occur?

There’s a reason so many of the Left think that all single issue pro-life voters are obsessed with controlling women’s bodies: because most of your official allies are more interested in punishing people for their pregnancies than in doing anything that could actually be called pro life.

But I know many of you really DO want to save lives, to make lives viable. I trust your hearts—because I used to be one of you.

I argued against abortion with the best of 'em, not because I wanted to push my religion into law, or to control anyone, but because of my belief in that life should be defended, and my genuine care for the unborn.

I’ve learned a lot. Some of my positions have changed, and some of them haven’t.

I’ve faced the fact that one person has the right withhold their own bodily resources as a matter of course. Even after our own death, in the United States, use of our body’s lifesaving resources is not legal without our prior consent.¹

I’ve faced the fact that “risk to the life of the mother” is a reality that stalks every pregnancy, always present and recently rising in the U.S., and a person has the right to refuse that risk.²

I’ve learned more about the dangers of ectopic pregnancies, the primary drivers of late-term abortions.³

I’ve learned the truth about blastocysts and how long it actually takes before an embryo resembles anything more than a bacterial culture, and what a 6 week pregnancy really looks like.⁴

I’ve learned that abortion was not even considered an issue for American Christians until after the religious Right lost the culture war around the Civil Rights movement.⁵

But even without all those factors, this counterintuitive fact would have stopped me in my tracks on the way to the voting booth: The number of abortions INCREASES the more legal restrictions there are.⁶

I’ve never actually stopped believing that human life begins at conception (however fragile, alien, and fleeting—especially if it fails to attach to the uterine wall, as happens to an estimated 30-70% of fertilized eggs). Ultimately, though, that’s just my opinion, founded in philosophical thought experiment and ~vibes~ and nothing else—not even the Bible.

But even if it were an objectively true and proven fact…

I would still be less interested in jailing the people who disagreed with me, and more interested in creating the world I want to see: a fair and free society, where sexual assault is rare, sexual education is clear and honest, unwanted pregnancies are few, healthcare is robust and continually improving, and children are desired and supported—before and after they’re born. And yes, in this world, abortions are as rare as they are free of fear and shame.

We may not be able to create this whole reality right now, but what we can do is decrease the number of abortions, in ways that are consistently shown to be reliable.

I’m pro-choice now. And I never had to give up on caring about babies.

I’m not asking anyone to let go of being pro-life. But I am asking you to join me in allying with the people whose policies support life in all its stages. Which is proven to inherently lower the number of abortions.

One party’s leaders push against contraception. Against the sex education that leads to more teens waiting longer before losing their virginity.⁷

Against creating infrastructure that supports people through pregnancy and beyond, against supporting people in feeding and educating their children.⁸

The other party wants to support people in making informed and independent choices about their bodies—which statistically leads to more confidence in saying “No,” or “I’m waiting,” or “Not without protection,” to sex.⁹

They want to support peoples’ health and well-being.¹⁰

They want to create a future in which children are a real option, an option compatible with getting an education, with keeping your income, with food and housing.¹¹

They want to rebuild a financial landscape in which a single income could take care of a whole family.¹²

I used to feel jarred and confused by having to choose between bundled-together policies that saved the lives of the unborn but left everyone else to struggle in a lack of support callously dubbed “freedom”, and policies that promoted abortion access as an important freedom, but aligned with my values of protecting and uplifting life in every other way.

Now that I know easy access to safe and legal abortion lowers rates of abortion, especially when paired with education, healthcare, and financial stability, my choice is more obvious than ever. My choice, as it always has been, is life.

*Sources linked in reblogs + replies.

[bxriles]

I gotta be honest, the ending of JJK isn’t doing it for me. It feels underwhelming. And before anyone freaks tf out and tells me that I “can’t read” or that I “didn’t understand the point of JJK” I can promise you that I did. I understand and I can read between the lines and make inferences. I can also promise you that I know just because the ending isn’t my cup of tea, does not mean that the ending is objectively bad. I get all of that.

And yet, I still think the execution was fumbled and I think that’s a bummer. In a desperate need to be *different* from the rest of Shonen manga, I think the last 10-15ish chapters have felt incredibly similar to the rest of the genre. At least, in my opinion they have.

Argue with the wall if this post pissed you off. I’m allowed to post my opinion on my blog.

[mokeonn]

Before I go to sleep I leave you all with this piece of advice: sometimes you don't actually have to answer big political questions, sometimes you can just say "I am not smart enough to know that, I just know the small things I do to help." Like you can often times completely avoid making a fool of yourself if you just say you don't know.

[lacunafiction]

who is W and "???" ..? I'm new here and an absolute idiot I apologise😭

Hi @bigflirtbigj3rk,

I hope you're doing well! 💚

Welcome to TFS, and no worries about your questions. Seeing asks about the W and ??? would be confusing to a new reader. These are characters you'll meet in Book One, including within the demo of it. The W is the waiter/waitress who works at the Fernweh Diner, except there is much more to them. (They have a romance pathway that can be hard to trigger, but they are a hidden/mystery RO. If you would like tips for how best to pursue them, check out the guide: here.)

The ??? is more of a mystery, yet ??? is technically the first character encountered in the series. It refers to the bold/italicized text and it seems to orchestrate the MC's nightmares/taunt them throughout.

Best wishes! 🥰

[zozoubbb]

once i saw a person saying the utena manga is better than the anime because "atleast in the manga anthy didnt stab utena for no reason at all". tell me you didnt understand rgu without telling me that. i get utena can be kind of confusing when you watch it for the first time, but it has so much simbolism to look into, resuming it to the plot or whatever isnt what you should do when talking about rgu.

[mswyrr]

lucy gray baird's philosophy

I want to "yes, and" this great meta post by @burst-of-iridescent​. Specifically this part:

by the end of the book, coriolanus gives in fully to dr gaul’s way of thinking simply because it excuses him from accepting blame for his actions. if he killed sejanus, it’s because he had no choice. if he betrayed lucy gray, it’s because she would’ve betrayed him first. coriolanus refuses to believe in the goodness of humanity because that would have meant accepting the goodness that existed within him, and with that came the potential for making a different, better choice - potential that he knew, deep down, he had wasted. attributing his crimes to an innate evil that no one can overcome means that he can’t be held accountable, because it’s out of his control.

This got me thinking about how much Lucy Gray's worldview rejects of this way of thinking (and of a Calvinist*/ableist "some people are just born evil" pov people try to impose on the text, which people think is condemning him but actually... accidentally agrees with him that he was born evil and therefore can't help it??????). The book begins with several quotes chosen by the author, but I believe the one that represents Lucy Gray's worldview is Rousseau, who believed people were born with fundamental goodness.

Here's a source on him:

(Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

And here's the quote Collins opens with:

“Man is born free; and everywhere he is in chains.” — Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract, 1762

That's Lucy Gray's pov she's come to through living and reflecting as an artist; someone can disagree with it (of course, all of these questions are open for endless debate; they have been debated endlessly!) however, it's important to respect that is where she's coming from, not being foolish or naive. It is a worthy pov that should be respected, even if you disagree. And that she came to this pov through a hard life and from much thinking and she expresses it beautifully in her art.

Here's the key exchange from the book, after Coriolanus has taken on the idea that people are just awful and her articulating her philosophy in response:

(Ballad, 495)

She's not naive. She recognizes the nuance that Rousseau does, that society shapes us. And Panem is pretty clearly a society led by people applying all the pressures they can think of on people toward evil. (And, after his heel turn, Coriolanus' is going to innovate some new pressures...) Clearly there are situations and circumstances that form us before we have much say in it, but that's not the same as being born evil.

The difference between inherent goodness and a corrupt society is, for Lucy Gray, a lot of hard work. It's a struggle. This repudiates both the version of "born evil" Coriolanus himself takes on, which relieves him of responsibility, and the self-righteous, Calvinist and/or ableist pov people keep arguing for, which makes "normal" people feel like they can be sure they're good (and ignore how we are all complicit in evil to some degree or another) because they have a "good" normal brain or they were just born so pure as a soul predestined for heaven. No, for her, everyone has to do the work. To her it's everyone's "life's challenge to try and stay on the right side of that line."

Even more pointedly, the love song she wrote him before his betrayal, "Pure as the Driven Snow," articulates her philosophy in the opening lines:

(Ballad, 481)

Again, we have her personal focus on the work of "staying on the right side" of good and evil after being born good into evil circumstances. She knows it hurts; she's led a hard life herself. "It's rough as a bair" to do that work, it's "like walkin' through fire." But it is doable.

Lucy Gray meant it as a love song but IMO "Pure as the Driven Snow" ends up a lament for the boy Coriolanus was and her love that he betrayed when he betrayed himself. And it is a direct rejection of his excuses, it is inadvertently reading him for filth for the lies he tells himself that all the world is the Games arena, all people are selfish and bad, and he isn't to blame for what he's done because he just wants to come out on top/be the victor of this "natural" "war of all against all" that is Gaul's philosophy (related to the Hobbes quote Collins begins with; I wrote a meta on that here) that he adopts.

I see her demeaned as a foolish girl who just "like bad boys" and I get so frustrated. I also get frustrated by the view that she must not have ever been sincere in loving or trusting him because IF SHE WAS then she would be a fool and his betrayal would somehow be her fault. And she'd reject the idea that she's "good" just because she's so pure or that anyone can claim we're good without doing a lot of hard work.

(Ballad, 482)

She is so thoughtful and interesting as a character. And she didn't just "like bad boys" - Coriolanus showed only his good side to her until the very end, once he'd decided to kill that part of himself. She had no way of knowing. Sometimes you trust someone and they betray you, it doesn't make you wrong, the shame is all theirs.

*Strict Calvinist predestination is some people are just predetermined to be bound for heaven and some for hell, some people are just born good and others are born bad. A lot of people in fandom seem to love Calvinism idk why. The ableism bit of this should be self-evident: there is no such thing as a "bad" brain type completely incapable of morality or a "good" brain and neurodivergence is not the source of all evil!

[rookflower]

im not really on the "i hope curlfeather killed her husband" train yet purely because i think they fumbled the bag with the pacing of her reveal a bit and i wish frostpaw had more time to emotionally grapple with it like she did with splashtail, and i think pushing her evil into cartoonish levels kind of removes any chance of that ever having the time to be more satisfying by fully cementing her as Pure Evil off the bat. i love curlfeather i think they've got a great setup for her as a villain i suport women's wrongs, but i want a look at her motives! if they are confidently never gonna show us an even more complex or interesting side to her though then Fine yeah okay let her kill jayclaw or whatever go off. but i think any kinda sympathetic backstory or revealed puzzle piece beyond the few pre-reveal glimpses of genuinity we've seen from her and besides "im evil so i want power" would be more interesting rn

[necrotic-nephilim]

do you ship helena bertinelli with anyone? if yes, then which characters and why? what's your favorite helena ship? do you have any helena rarepairs? (i know you've talked about helena/steph and you're so right about it, it's a very interesting ship)

!!!! i have so many ships for my best girl ever yes oh my god thank you for asking.

my top pairing is probably Vic Sage/the Question. Vic is the basic answer, but man. i love them so much. no couple has matched each other's freak like that have. Justice League Unlimited is a great adaptation of Helena in general, but it also did a great adaptation of Helena and Vic's relationship. how he just dedicates himself to helping her with no expected return, but also wants to make sure she doesn't go too far in a hunt for vengeance that never ends for her. i think a lot of characters often want to change Helena or expect things out of her for their own needs, like the Batfam and the BoP. but Vic is one of the few people who just wants her to be better for her own good. when he tries to stop her from killing it's not because of his morals, it's because he doesn't want this crusade to consume her. and i just. man i think about them a lot. Helena rlly likes weird little men who give themselves wholly to her.

Zinda Blake/Lady Blackhawk is also a top ship for me. tbh i just like Zinda. but i do love how Helena and Zinda interact, being the more rough and tumble members of the BoP. they're both outsiders, in different ways. Helena is an outsider of the Batfam and Zinda is literally from a different time and an outsider to the current world. their friendship is so genuine and i think if Babs and Dinah can have. whatever homoerotic nonsense going on during BoP, then Zinda and Helena deserve some homoerotic nonsense too. as a treat.

if we're willing to count New-52 Helena, then i enjoy Helena/Dick/Tiger. i think Helena and Dick being a past relationship is really important in pre-Flashpoint for Helena's development, though i don't ship them as a serious couple beyond a fling. but in the New-52, i think this throuple be fun. Helena and Tiger respect each other as two very driven, no-nonsense agents and then well. they both clearly have some kind of thing for Dick. so it's fun finding the balance of how they could all work together romantically.

and ofc. it's a crime to mention Helena ships and not mention Renee Montoya/the Question. every time they interact it's really fucking gay. it's so gay that Kate Kane, Renee's own ex, assumed Helena and Renee were gay. i cannot be convinced against this ship. i genuinely think this ship should be canon. i mean. DC did tease us with this moment from an alternate universe and it's lived rent for me since. fucking criminal for us to only get one panel of what we could have if DC let Helena be a fruit in the main universe. being in love with Helena Bertinelli should be a right of passage for the Question mantle, i personally believe. if you asked me like. genuinely who i want to see Helena date in the current comics, Renee is my top pick. (i would say Vic but he's fucking dead and the New-52 butchered him so rip my mans-)

lois lane (2019) #10

besides those ships, just about every ship for Helena probably falls into the category of rarepair. like you said i've talked about my love for Helena/Steph before bc god. i think it should be a thing more people ship. once i finish the fic i'm writing about them i will convince others to like it.

i also think Helena/Cass could be fun. in a *lot* of ways Helena and Cass are narrative parallels to each other. Helena was a victim of her family being murdered at about the same age Cass was forced to be a murderer. Helena grows up to believe in lethal justice because of this, and Cass grows up to be staunchly against it. Cass' Batgirl suit was made *by* Helena. they both want to be protectors of the most vulnerable people. they balance each other out in a lot of ways and i think they should kiss about it.

also probably a rarepair, i think Helena/Lady Shiva is fun. their fight during Birds of Prey (2010) had... questionable moments for Helena's characterization, but i do love so much that Helena knocks Shiva off her feet and gains a deep respect from Shiva. like. Shiva gives her a nickname and shows her admiration. i would like to see fanfic where Shiva continues to be weirdly admirable of Helena and bothering her non-stop. they could be a fun fucked up toxic yuri moment. this is just. so gay to me.

birds of prey (2010) #6

my most rare Helena pair would probably be Helena Wayne, actually. but specifically Helena Wayne of JSA (2022). ever since, for some reason, it was made canon that the current Helena Wayne was named after Helena Bertinelli and took the name Huntress to honor her i *cannot* stop thinking about them meeting. because in-universe it makes *no* fucking sense for Bruce to name his kid after *Helena Bertinelli*, someone he's regularly at odds with and doesn't like. it's clearly an awkward explanation to try to make the whole two Huntress situation make sense. (it's almost as bad as Helena Wayne in the New-52 using Helena Bertinelli as an alias.) but because it's such an odd choice, i do think it could be fun for Helena Wayne, when she's back in time to see Bruce, to find Helena Bertinelli to get to know the woman she was named after and Helena Bertinelli just being. baffled by the idea of *Batman* naming his kid after her. it could be a fun fucked up moment.

my other super rarepair is Kara Zor-L/Power Girl. they had like. one meaningful interaction of JSA Classified and it's been PLAGUING me. something about when Power Girl doesn't remember her past and she's seeking a friend, she instinctively goes to find Huntress? but it's wrong bc this isn't *her* Huntress and neither of them understand why Power Girl would seek Helena out? god it's so good. i'm always a big fan of ships where one person in the ship is *so* obviously using the other person as a replacement for someone they lost and they both know it. it's such a doomed angsty thing where you could play with Helena actually really liking Kara, but knowing that she's just a replacement for Kara's Helena Wayne. good fucked up shit man.

and lastly: i really ship her with Dawn Granger/Dove. there's no canon basis for this, they didn't have a ton of interactions even when they were both on the BoP. but there's a very kind innocence to Dawn that contrasts Helena's violence really well. and i do love a ship with a corruption kink vibe to it. let Helena corrupt Dawn. i could write such fucked up porn about these two.

[thresholdbb]

You know, I really don’t care how other people engage with their favorite media. Like everyone, I have my preferences and opinions about things that annoy me personally, but none of my posts should be read as prescriptive

You do you, boo-boo

[the-crystal-femmes]

I hope others realize that I don't automatically agree with opinions just because I'm your mutual. There are some opinions I ADAMANTLY disagree with, but I just don't discuss them because it's petty to me. /not aimed

[notbecauseofvictories]

stealingmirrors replied to your post “rolling cookie dough I made a few days ago into...”

that pasta you talked about in the tags sounds actually divine??? would that i could be a friend in your kitchen, that all sounds lovely

...it was really, really good, even reheated in the office kitchen or left on the countertop as I bustled about, working from home.

Honestly, I have yet to encounter a recipe from America’s Test Kitchen that isn’t good, easy to understand, and most importantly, flexible---I have Jamaican beef handpies in the freezer, I’ve left pastry proofing for forty-eight plus hours; even in the recipe below I basically kept stirring and adding pasta water until the cream sauce was exactly the consistency I wanted, no measurements required. I love a recipe so durable that you actually can’t fuck it up, unless you have truly no knowledge of cooking at all, in which case: sorry and also, thank you for supporting the takeout economy.

So in celebration of great recipes and the people who hate them, from America’s Test Kitchen Vegetables Illustrated:

[promiscuousasexual]

oh my fucking god lee are you seeing these rumors about esteban allegedly getting into physical fights and being difficult to work with? why the fuck are people just blindly believing one anon’s claims? like what fucking evidence is there for this shit? why would they renew esteban for 3 years if this shit was true? i’m genuinely getting really pissed off rn with this whole situation

and if people want to call it pulling the race card then fine but it makes me so uncomfortable that people are trying to painting someone with North African heritage as violent and aggressive…

are you fucking serious? i haven’t seen any of that and frankly i don’t believe any of it

although one things clear, the second anything negative is said about esteban whether there’s any evidence for it or not, people will absolutely jump at the chance to attack him. i saw so many people say they started hating esteban after dts and i was just ??? cause i thought we all agreed that we can’t just blindly trust dts?? and that most of it is bs?? but i guess when it’s esteban it’s a different story.

i try not reveal too much about my personal life on here, but as someone who has interned for multiple teams and circuits (and i mean A LOT), none of them have anything bad to say about esteban ever, almost every employee who has ever interacted with him has said how he’s so sweet and grateful and always makes sure to thank everyone around him, and when i interacted with him briefly, still in the context of working at a circuit, he was so welcoming and friendly. (and that’s honestly the reason he’s my fav)

people will always tell poc that we’re pulling the race card so atp speak your truth. f1 is so predominantly white and they will never listen to a single thing we say ever, i’ve seen so many people say we’re over dramatic for bringing up the racism and that there isn’t any but that’s also the same shit my white friends told me when i was the only poc in the friend group and they were excluding me so what does that say about them.

you’re so 100% right about how the portrayal of esteban as aggressive and violent is due to racism because there is quite literally no other reason for it. “oh it’s cause he’s aggressive on track” yeah, so is every other fucking driver cause it’s a fucking race, fuck right off i’ve never seen this shit with other drivers

[why-is-it-always-autumn]

I am once again reminding everyone that

"I think that character will regret that decision; I can see the bad consequences coming, and if they were a real person I would yell at them." (you were engaged enough with the characters that they feel like real people capable of making their own choices)

"I would have liked the story better if the character had made a different decision" (a matter of personal preference with no bearing on the quality of the writing itself, or even whether you agree with the decision that was made in-universe)

and "Given what we've seen from this character previously, the writer having them make that decision broke my immersion" (an actual critique)

are all different statements and do not mean the same thing, even if they can all be phrased as "I don't like that the character made that decision"