#there's no benefit to being loved by us

[potoman]

The inimitable four piece OXBOW are announcing their first new music in six years with the anticipated release of Love's Holiday.

Love’s Holiday is “an evolution in OXBOW's journey to make the most perfect paean to love ever… a record that loves you but then explains that there's no benefit to being loved by us.”

[moghedien]

Minthara says “in Her name” when you first meet her and she’s following the Absolute but when you recruit her and she expresses that she no longer follows any god, but she still has an intact paladin oath, and she says “in your name” occasionally because she’s no longer Lolth’s paladin or the Absolute’s paladin, she’s your paladin

[uncanny-tranny]

Periodic reminder from your friendly neighbourhood gymbro: The work you put in will come back. If you modify your workouts, the reward will still come to you.

So do knee pushups (no, we're not calling them "girl pushups"). Do weight machines. Put the resistance or weight low on machines.

The reward of fitness still benefits you because fitness is not a punishment. It should never be used or seen as a punishment for existing. Fitness is just... part of existence for many of us. However your fitness looks is fine. Don't let the broader fitness culture tell you that you need to do things their way. You'll be fine with what you're doing. If you stop needing modifications as you start doing more intense workouts, great! But if you never stop using modifications, then that's fine because fitness isn't a punishment or admittance of failure.

[florallylly]

less steve harrington "i try to be a good guy despite my past" and more steve harrington "i've always been a good person (albeit probs annoying asf), you just stereotyped me based on my interest in sports"

[st-hedge]

MGSV sketch dump. The brainrot is thriving

[moeblob]

Happy Birthday to Ferdinand von Aegir!

I actually made 33 emotes, affectionately known as Aegirglyphics to some, for my own personal use on discord. However, I figure why not share some of them! They're free to use for discord servers/icons/pfps or whatever. However, my only request is Do NOT use them as subscriber emotes on Twitch. You can make them free follower emotes but you are not to make them locked behind a paywall.

[codacheetah]

Redraw of a screenshot from "We Need To Talk"

[guardian-angle22]

Tarlos Wedding Celebration Event [Week 5] -> favorite s2 moment(s)-> all the flirty banter

[backpackingspace]

I am once again thinking about how odysseus who witnessed the horrors that the captured women went through (one of his main duties in the iliad was taking the women back home and making sure they were as comfortable as possible and safe because he was the only one trusted not to violate them further due to his devotion to penelope. And in the odyssey part of the reason circe sent him to the underworld was so that he'd have to listen to all these women's stories (before he could talk to the prophet) ). Who was one of the few that saw women as people and respected their space and opinions. And was then put in those exact same situations. I don't have the motivation right now to do a full literary analysis of this (I'll site the sources too) but oh man one day I'm going to write a full essay on this.

[coolcarabiner]

lesbians who are terfs will never make any sense to me crying about the supposed exclusivity of the “female experience” like my brother in christ she experienced an othered, lonely, confusing childhood where she was made to feel inadequate in her gender, sexuality, or both just the same as you and instead of letting this unify you against patriarchy you just enforce it on other people to maintain the sliver of “power” you think you have. how do u not see how dumb this is oh my god

[liedownquisition]

Jason Todd's timeline and "Age"

So, there's a lot of discussion of Jason Todd's age esp as relative to other sidekick vigilantes, particularly Tim and Mia. I believe the exact words are usually something about a "grown ass man beating up/trying to kill teenagers."

DISCLAIMER: This particular post is specifically regarding the "grown ass man vs teenagers" statement, I have posts regarding the "tried to kill them" portion and other stuff like "seriously Jason Todd is like being shot by a marshmallow gun compared to what goes on directly before and after him in these incidents, also you don't bitch about the right stuff, also a lot of you prop up characters who are Objectively Worse, and no that's not hate on your fave it's just me calling out hypocrisy". It just takes time to find digital copies of the panels I'm using. NOTE I AM NOT JUSTIFYING HIS ACTIONS. I'm just saying y'all blow it out of proportion for petty character hate. Like, shit, they're superheroes. Jason's soooo fuckin' tame. He's not even framed as a big deal to the teens it's only the adults that think it's that much of a problem.

Courtesy readmore post cut:

Now, to start off, we all know Jason died at 15 & a few months off from 16 (if you want me to dig up panels, sure, but I figured at this point that wasn't in question). Tim at this point is somewhere between 12-13, and we have this panel in Lonely Place of Dying which takes place a few months later:

So that's a ballpark of 2-3 years between Jason and Tim.

But Tim's age is really fucky and they keep de-aging him tbh. We can extrapolate that his confrontation with Jason was between the ages of 16-17 bcs it's after the arc where he has his incredibly shitty 16th birthday in Robin Vol2 #116 and before Red Robin where he's stated to be 17. This would put Jason between 18-19 at the time. (If you really want me to find panel sources for Tim's birthday and his age in RR then, sure, but I don't think they're necessary. I used it more as a guidepost for Jason's age, since we have a clear idea of what the age gap is.)

At least, on paper.

Mia for her part I've had a hard time finding like, on panel mentions of her age and if anyone can direct me to it being explicitly stated I'd love that. I'm rereading old comics but it's a LOT of comics to hunt down & dig through. To my understanding she was fifteen when Ollie first met her, and there's at Minimum of about a year and a half between that to her meeting Red Hood, more likely at least two? because there's at least few months between that and her joining the Titans, the Doctor Light stuff, then One Year Later, and then returned to Star some 3 months after Ollie came back to run for mayor? And then Jason not too long after. So, two years feels safe. Puts her at 17-ish, Jason at 19-20

Once again, I specify: on paper.

People would happily point out at this point that the upward stretch of a 4 year age gap is a "huge gap in maturity." And yeah, under normal circumstances, I'd agree.

But, and this is going to get contradictory bcs I found Two different timelines (BOTH written by Winick, lmao), and depending on how you read it it could be up to three different possibilities. Let's Start with Batman Annual #25: Daedalus & Icarus.

Timestamp before Jason's resurrection, which is pretty well known at this point:

Next, him waking up from a coma afterwards, when he escapes the hospital:

Now the above could be interpreted as either 1 year after he died if we're assuming that it's using the same "start" point to count as the resurrection (unlikely), or one year after he came back (more likely).

Next, the timestamp right before a guy recognizes him and sells him out:

And, finally, the timestamp before being put in the Pit:

That is, count it up, between 3-3 1/2 years where Jason was dead, in a coma, or otherwise not particularly... cognizant of the world around him. His ass is NOT developing emotionally, socially, or mentally like this, which pretty handily bridges the gaps there. Taken at face value, Jason's maturity level is going to be, unironically, younger than Tim's in the wake of these setbacks.

Now, if we go to Lost Days issue 1, it doesn't specify how long he was dead, nor how long he was in a coma, so we'll just carry those two over, what we DO have is this from just after Talia brought him home:

This puts him as being on the streets for five months, so we're at just shy of two years so far. And then we have this:

Which is right before Talia puts him in the Pit.

So, in summary: 6 months dead, 1 year coma, 5 months on the street, and something like 1-1 1/2 years with the League which...

Actually puts us on almost the exact same timeframe either way. 3 to 3 1/2 years. It just changes whether Jason was on the streets or with the League for longer.

And is utterly incomprehensible because comic timelines are a freaking nightmare.

If we're being generous, then that would put Jason at a minimum of 19, maybe toeing the line of 20 for UTRH, again, on paper, because like hell are you convincing me he did less than a year's worth of training abroad throughout Lost Days. Yeah maybe they trained him in fighting while he was catatonic, muscle memory and all that. But the other teachers that we KNOW of? The bombs, guns, probably something to get him up to date on handling all that tech we see him using, Egon, potentially arguably All-Caste if you want to draw from n52...

but you'd have to knock at least a year and a half off of his internal/personal development from death & coma, at minimum. Maybe you could argue he was somewhat developing while in his "the lights are on, but nobody's home" phase, you can't say it's at the same level as a normal person might when going about their day to day life, and it's difficult to measure. But he's not hitting the kind of milestones that he should be for his age. I wouldn't put him at anything less than two years behind. So if we use our upper estimates on Jason, and lower estimates on both the developmental setbacks and Tim/Mia's ages that gives us:

Jason toeing 20, mentally 18, fighting Tim at 16. 2 year gap, kind of stretching the physical age gap if we assume Tim had just barely turned 13 when he showed up to be Robin. - OR LESS

Jason maybe 21, mentally 19, fighting Mia at 17, two year age gap again. Honestly, still not that big of a difference - OR LESS

And, to be frank, that's not even counting the mental development issues that come from the intense physical trauma from dying - and I swear to fuck don't give me the "He's not the only one who died he's not special" speech.

HOW MANY OF THE OTHERS YOU'RE USING AS A GOTCHA LOST, *GESTURING AGGRESSIVELY ABOVE*, LITERALLY MULTIPLE YEARS OF THEIR LIFE.

Not counting adults, of course. Barry lost years, Hal lost years, Ollie I think also lost a couple years? but A) they came back still adults, bodies pretty much the same. B) While Jason's body didn't go through a magic growth spurt in canon, it did still grow esp while with the League.

I'll eventually get around to Titan's Tower & GA#72 (tbh, there are other people who've already done Titan's Tower and it'd probably be better than what I do, so I'm more going to focus on the latter, but there IS a specific part of the former that drives me nuts that I don't see brought up a lot), and maybe if we're feeling spicy all my issues with UTRH starting with how Winick is just as guilty of retroactively writing Jason as being inherently a bad penny since his Robin days as any of the other "modern" writers. Like, bud, Severe enough Head Trauma is legitimately enough to change someone's personality, not to mention trauma. It wouldn't hurt your narrative for that eerie difference, the Shade of What Once Was if you're really going for RH being Like that.

Final addition: I swear to god if you use my post to start up some kind of petty-ass ship war or flame other characters I will immediately turn off reblogs and replies I am Not Dealing With That Shit, please and thank you.

Anyways, @glitter-stained, your interest made me decide to actually put the work in now to pull it up rather than passively gather stuff to dump whenever discourse pushes me over the edge so, here ya are. Looks like you did have it closer on the mark than I did.

[ki1ldeer]

I need to do a research paper on the correlation between me taking a chemistry class and me drawing Finn being sad

[reverienco]

Have you thought of N getting his revenge on J for all the years he has been builled by her?

i don't think he ever would. N is a naturally very nice and forgiving person, specially so to a fault. i really don't think he holds/held a grudge against her or V for the way they've treated him prior to his meeting with uzi. the most negative we've gotten was his "J, you're sometimes kinda mean to me and I wish you weren't. Just some constructive criticism!" but even then, it was prompted by uzi and he did say "constructive criticism" lol

other than that, he has THANKED HER when she stepped on him, called him worthless and terrible and she'd kill him if company allowed it; when she LITERALLY almost kills him and never complained about her bullying in the manor. he stopped uzi from throwing (presumably) an insult towards eldritch J's appearance, was completely chill when she came back as a clone????

bottom line is, N doesn't seem like the type to hold grudges or plan revenge against anyone, even if they've actively hurt him for so long. he's always willing to give everyone even a little bit of a benefit of the doubt

[aspiringnexu]

Okay, so, Alastor theory. As far as I know nobody's discussed why Alastor ever made such an apparently disadvantageous deal.

I mean, his power is apparently leashed. He cannot access his true strength. He essentially handicapped himself in Hell. Alastor detests not being in control, he craves power because it nets him control and therefore nets him safety and security, a very rare commodity for a demon. Even an Overlord.

So why the hell would Alastor make such a shitty deal? He's a dealmaker, he knows how this works, it can't just be the result of tricky wording, there must have been something else at play.

Additionally, I'm in the camp that its Eve that has something to do with it. Lilith makes sense of a sort but why would she leash Alastor and then have him help Charlie with a project that would piss off Heaven? She's Lilith, she knows that trying to bypass the initial judgement and redeeming yourself would upset the bigwigs in Heaven. She knows they don't like having their rules bent and twisted. She gains nothing from pissing off the Heavenly Host by indirectly helping her daughter. She made a mysterious deal with Adam to get into Heaven, why would she knowingly jeopardise that?

But why would Eve care? Simple. She feels like Lucifer and Lilith betrayed her by gifting her the apple from the Tree of Knowledge. They betrayed her and she was forced into a life of pain and suffering with a husband who she realised didn't truly love her and children who started to turn on each other the moment they could. And then that same husband (or ex-husband by that point) turns around millennia later and gets Lilith into Heaven.

What the fuck?

So Eve decides that the best way to sort this out is to do what Lilith supposedly did. Betrayal disguised as assistance. Charlie is a well-known bleeding heart by now, all Eve need do is find a way to stoke that altruism until it becomes a Problem that Heaven needs to solve. Poke the altruistic bear enough and that Problem will blossom into a Shitstorm that'll drag Lilith off of her cosy perch in Heaven to sort out her wayward daughter and try to avoid Heaven deciding to exterminate every demon in Hell. Plus it'll give Adam a headache which is only a plus in Eve's eyes. And what better way to help the Princess than gift-wrapping Hell's most powerful Overlord and depositing him on her doorstep?

Her ultimate goal might be provoking an all-out war or simply petty-revenge that'll eventually get out of hand but I digress.

How does she persuade Alastor to accept such a shitty, hampering, restricting joke of a deal?

Again, simple. She's in Heaven and as such has access to angelic steel and a plethora of souls. Including Alastor's mother. The only person he ever truly loved in his life.

I'm willing to bet Alastor would do anything to safeguard his mother. Even selling his own soul.

Of course there's still the seven-year gap to tackle but who says Alastor didn't spend those seven years in Heaven? Maybe Eve managed to smuggle him up there and disguise him, let him enjoy seven years of bliss by his mother's side before blindsiding him with her ultimatum. Makes the clipped wings comment more literal.

Just my thoughts, of course, but I really can't see why else Alastor would sign his own soul away if not to protect the one person he lets himself love. He hardly made the deal for power if the deal restricted his powers and he was certainly in no danger from the other Overlords. So he made the deal, he saved his mother, but that doesn't mean he's not gonna try to find a way out of it.

[shalom-iamcominghome]

Guys great news, my school financial aid will be coming through and I'll likely have way more than enough over to pay for my jewish classes that will help facilitate my conversion (I have a phone call this friday to, g-d willing, work out the details)!

One must imagine a jew hater's tax money going to my being jewish to be absolutely hilarious and, frankly, poetic

[scorpionatori]

early series natori is fun cause he really does have good intentions mostly (like there’s undeniably some selfishness and manipulation behind his actions cause that’s what’s been hammered into him) but he’s also so fucking oblivious and inexperienced when it comes to human interaction and has never tried to befriend a single person in his life and he assumes natsume is his mini-me/younger clone who has the exact same desires as him and of course this child will want to be my best friend once he knows We’re The Same and I’m so pretty and charming why wouldn’t some teenager want to be friends with famous actor natori shuuichi [ends up pissing this kid off immensely and pushing all his buttons]