#shunte

[maxpadelchampion]

the way I’m slowly processing the race and realizing that max was so patient trying to pass Charles and absolutely lost it when trying to pass lewis… like……..

[the-meme-monarch]

oh boy i sure hope this doesn’t ruin frisk’s perception of their place in the world and reveal horrible truths about the very nature of their existence and i really sure do hope this doesn’t cause them to perpetuate this cycle with beings deemed “less important” than they were

just kidding get strange someone’d idiot

[savaralyn2]

Dungeon Meshi - Volume 14 background art

[slavhew]

boys cry. real men weep.

[nidbaesenpai]

got some loop dialogue that didnt flow well with what we were doing the current loop so i made this to kinda smooth it out

[singingcicadas]

Megatron's Opposite Day

"I free slaves"

This is Soundwave binding Ratbat but seeing as Megatron did the same thing to Pentius by putting his spark into Trypticon and reformatted Rumble and Frenzy into cassettes against their will I think he approves a lot of this practice

Megatron on Optimus and humans, after his defeat in All Hail Megatron ⬇️

he really salty

"I implant ideology" aka brainwashing

Decepticon cause = Megatron. nuff said.

"I liberate cities" says the person who let Nyon burn to make a point

Cities are too small, think bigger

Holding New York hostage.

"Like Autobots, they believe in the sanctity of life" which he doesn't. Kudos for being honest.

Allowing troops to do free-rein massacre is a reward for conquest. Nothing like some easy murder for de-stressing.

The Simanzi massacre which halved the Cybertronian population is off-screen so it doesn't deserve its own pic

"The revolution"

"We only feel good when we stand with a blade in one hand and a throat in another" "Let's make the entire face of the planet into our new gladiator arena"

What nice, confidence-inspiring revolutionaries. I'm sure they'll rule the population with benevolence after they've killed all the Necessary People with Necessary Violence. Final interpretation of what constitutes as Necessary is reserved for the sole discretion of Megatron, ofc.

Good goals.

Sentinel might be an absolute asshole but at least he's got one thing right: they're literally a gang of thugs who gets high off murder.

"The people are my utmost concern"

'The people': ................

"Battling for freedom"

Freedom of what? Function? Autonomy?

Religion?

the ability to choose whether to fight? on which side to fight?

Idk why they used the word "pogrom" for this, it's way too specific

Anyways it doesn't matter, they won't be missed.

Good for Bumblebee for calling him out. Screenshotted this just to appreciate Megatron's bitchy face ⬇️

Other urban legends:

"Megatron loves Cybertron" let's just burrrrn it

He did fight to save Cybertron in Chaos Theory but also made it pretty clear why he did it. It's not out of the goodness of his heart or any sentimental reasons like that. It's an ego/dominance thing.

Plus his wording when he's trying to convince Optimus to let him go with the Lost Light: "I broke the planet. And that, Optimus, is why I owe it to you - to everyone - to find a replacement."

Replacement.

In other words: I made a mess and can't be bothered to clean it up, so I want to get away from it and find somewhere new to start clean.

I don't think Optimus appreciates the favour.

"Megatron tore down a corrupt government" which is true, just too bad that he's worse

He's also, um, a closeted Zeta admirer?

"Megatron advocates equality" ???

Megatron x dictatorship is literally his OTP. They were inseparable for four million years. A lot of people died trying.

"Megatron cares about the Decepticons" no he doesn't. Not his troops nor its cause.

Like for one thing he treats them with complete scorn

Admits that the most useful thing about keeping Starscream around is that he can bully underlings into line

Wants to use the humans' nuke to get rid of his troops and reformat them into peaceful drones after they outlive their use because they were "too ruthless" for his perfect peaceful society

Has zero scruples about fighting Deceptigod, just affronted that his own soldiers are being used against him

And basically just drops the Decepticons like a bag of vermin after he surrenders. He never once mentions them of his own accord, other than to insist he has nothing to do with them. Even his surrender speech is something Optimus makes him do as exchange b/c he wants to go on parole. He wasn't planning on making a public address otherwise, he was just going to leave them hanging.

Looking at the publication timeline, Megatron started out as an established Evil McEvilson-type villain similar to how he is in G1 and it's not until Chaos Theory in 2011 that JRo really gave him a sympathetic backstory that drew his characterization away from the bloodthirsty pugno ergo sum warlord into someone who once held ideals about societal reform and remains convinced of his own moral supremacy throughout the 4 mill years of death and war, adding worldbuilding such as Functionism/oppression/government corruption as justification for the beginning of the Decepticon movement. But because the start of the Decepticons was already written in Megatron Origins and every evil thing he'd done up till Chaos Theory can't be retracted and they had to keep Megatron as a villain until his story was no longer central to the Autobot-Decepticon war line, and JRo didn't try to downplay the atrocities he'd committed (some of the most sadistically disturbing things Megatron did were exclusively in MTMTE flashbacks), but rather tried to distance him from them and placed the focus on the juxtapositions to emphasize change, this as a whole just resulted in Evil McEvilson getting turned into Hyper McHypocrite.

[sanepersonhere]

A walk in the Sun

[bloomfish]

It's so weird that in angel s5e2 they do a little flashback to Spike's blaze of glory moment in the last episode of Buffy... but they leave out Buffy saying "I love you". It's such a blatant omission, the ONLY omission from that scene, that it feels totally deliberate and kind of dishonest. Considering a lot of the Spike and Angel moments in S5 revolve around their jealousy and rivalry towards each other, and a LOT of that is to do with Buffy like... Why would you leave it out? It's a pretty big moment for Spike's character in general.

As far as I recall they don't even mention it, they just mention the fact that Spike and Buffy have had a lot of sex compared to bangel's ONE disastrous time (that they remember) but it does kind of cheapen it for Spike. A big motivation for him not leaving LA could have been him not wanting to hold Buffy to her words, since he clearly doesn't believe that she loves him (even though she does, as per Whedon). He presumably thinks she only said that to make him feel better in his final moments, because she wouldn't have to actually follow through on her words. Which is sad. But it makes much more sense as a motivation than the weird 'it cheapens my moment of glory' excuse like since when does spike give a shit about that

[sepia-stained-sunset]

DC: Paris? Did you say Paris??? Paris?? Someone call Tim Drake!!

[rb9]

max said i’m number 1 actually

[sunflowervc]

why yes, this has sat unfinished in my WIPs for three months since m9 reunited was announced! thank you for asking!

[ellynneversweet]

One last scholomance thing that I have to dislodge into a post: El’s sarcastic commentary is often incredibly prescient, which could be narrative foreshadowing, but also…She’s also the daughter of a family known for its seers. She’s a fucking seer. She just doesn’t know it because she’s too busy going ‘that is a ridiculous scenario that will never come to pass.’

[kyluxtrashpit]

Kens? I think you mean... RENS

[saym0-0]

this was important to me (template here and under the cut)

[redlyriumidol]

Sera and character development

So Sera is a character who (imo) gets somewhat the short end of the stick in terms of character development. She's a very polarising character and many people can't stand her- personally I love her now but I wasn't keen on her at all when the game came out. She's brash, rude, has very strong opinions and freely expresses them to the Inquisitor and to others. Sera is also very young, the youngest out of the companions, and I think her immaturity is obvious. She's got internalised racism up to her eyeballs and this makes it particularly unpleasant to romance her as a female elf, which I think was a disappointment to many.

I don't think this initial characterisation is a problem, the problem is that unlike some of the other characters we never really see her tackle her issues over the course of the game. It's easy to blame her for her opinions about elves, but realistically, this hatred includes herself, and therefore it must actually be very painful for her. it's also somewhat antithetical to her goals as a character as someone who stands for the little people- anyone can see that in Thedas, these are disproportionately elves, so caring about elves would actually be logical in her position. Sera's alienation from her identity as an elf is severe, and while I actually do think her feelings are worthy of sympathy (again, this is internalised racism, not a human character who is bigoted towards elves) they're not healthy, they actively obstruct her self-realisation. it's herself that Sera blames for the situation with the baker, it's herself that she hates, her own identity. she's from the alienage but hates people from the alienage. that's really sad, honestly.

In the breakup dialogue with her she says (about herself) "You'd get it if you were smarter. If you understood what it meant to be elven." That's pretty telling of her insecurities and self-hatred, in my opinion.

I think it was a massive wasted opportunity in terms of writing and character development not to give her a questline that interrogates this issue and helps her move past it. The temple of mythal is very personally, viscerally upsetting to her. Despite her repeated denial of it, she does feel connected in some ways to her heritage and I think it's obvious that it's painful for her. So why is it never explored??

In Trespasser, two years on, we do see a Sera who is beginning to grow up. She's very likable in Trespasser imo, her diary gives her a lot of depth. She cares about absolutely everyone. If the Inquisitor is an elf, this is added: "Is s/he all right with the elfy stuff?" and she even shows empathy for the dalish at one point: "Not as bad for dwarves as was for Dalish. Maybe." That's coming from someone who once reacted with disdain towards an elf inquisitor. She's still sceptical, but is slowly becoming less extreme. I'd just have liked for us to see it more explicitly in the actual game.

[casscainmainly]

Just asking for fun cuz I think you being really interesting points abt so many of the bats to the table: who do you think should be Batman if 1) Bruce Died, 2) Bruce voluntarily steps down (old age / debilitating injury) or any other scenarios you would like to explore.

It's an age old question, it's fun to see who thinks what and what thoughts they bring to the table :)

Such a great question!! Though honestly I'm not sure I have any original or good thoughts haha. For me the Batman successor should be one of two people: Cassandra Cain (I am a Cass blog) or Dick Grayson.

For Cass the reason is obvious. So many people have written about how Batman is the culmination of her arc about agency and controlling her destiny - for a girl who was raised to be nothing, to be a tool for other people, becoming the centre of the narrative is an incredibly poignant and wonderful conclusion. She wants to be Batman, she has the ability to be Batman, she believes in Batman; she is as clear a successor as you could get.

Dick is more debatable. His feelings on being Batman have always been tangled up in his frustrations with Bruce, in a way Cass (who is more able, albeit imperfectly, to separate the man from the symbol) doesn't deal with. So I think there's some panels of him saying he doesn't want to be Batman, doesn't like doing it, etc.

However, in my mind he does like being Batman, he just doesn't like being Bruce's version of Batman. He comes to this conclusion in Gates of Gotham, and the back parts of Batman and Robin (2009) is basically him having fun once Bruce is alive. It was Bruce's death that made things difficult, not the mantle itself. Where Cass can be Batman now, Dick can elevate the mantle; and it's no secret that Bruce himself views Dick as his clear successor.

I honestly think both should wield the mantle. I love the idea of Cass being Gotham's Batman while Dick is the Justice League/wider world's Batman. This plays to their strengths, and solidifies their arcs: Cass finds a permanent home and a place she loves that loves her back, and Dick gets to travel again, using his leadership and interpersonal skills to save people.

In the case of Bruce's retirement, this would be the perfect set-up. For his death, though, I think it would be complicated by both Dick and Cass' grief. Look at the Batman Reborn era: the Dick and Cass parallels were actually insane. They were both told not to wield the Bat mantle - Dick by Bruce's message, and Cass by Bruce asking her to give Batgirl to Steph. This hurt them immensely, but they tried to follow Bruce's orders. The only difference was that Tim (and Jason) forced Dick's hand into disobeying Bruce, while Cass was already gone.

In an ideal world, Tim should've been asking them both to take up the mantle. His meeting with Cass in HK should've kickstarted her journey home, and she would've arrived back for angsty talks with Dick about who the Bat symbol belongs to or something. This basically happens in Gates of Gotham: Cass' conversation with Dick in the car is about not letting Gotham (and, I would argue, Bruce) dictate who they can or cannot be. They both want the mantle, and this was an acknowledgment that they both deserved it, too.

So, long story short, Cass and Dick are my picks for Batman successor. Them simultaneously being Batman would be so fun too, given their complicated relationship. They would be keeping score of who's the better Bat, and Cass would probably lob Dick out a window again, but they'd also have a shared understanding and deep compassion for each other's circumstances and desires. Curious to hear other people's thoughts!

(Also Duke Thomas should be their Robin but that's a post for another day).