#they don't care about outside world

[satoshy12]

Martian Danny? 

Danny was just 1-2 years old by ghost age. People who heard about that thought he was a Martian baby. 

J'onn thinks he is a prodigy but wants to know why he is hidden. It doesn't matter if he is a green or white Martian; someone with so much talent would show off on Mars. So he was confused about it. 

Danny was just confused about why new people are hunting him and not just Ghost, who wants to play and fight. 

Well, he found more people to fight! So, good news!

Amity Park doesn't care for the outside world, so Danny had no idea about the Justice League or anything like that. Just new fights! 

[sweetlullabyebye]

Those two were so unexpectedly sweet they just kinda adopted each other with the third game like yeah we're in this together now

[myimaginationplain]

I've come to the conclusion that being assigned the fandom-mandated "sunshine character" is the worst possible fate a character could face

[seleneprince]

"I wonder what kind of sleepovers they have in Slytherin. Bet they spend the night worshipping the Dark Lord and preaching the importance of blood purity"

"Yeah, they probably just have silly tea parties and talk shit about the rest of us, those pompous snakes"

Meanwhile, the Slytherin dorms on a normal day:

(Spoiler: Pandora and Snape are the ones to suggest it everytime, and the rest of girls follow out of curiosity)

[brw]

I know it's common for comic readers (and writers) to speak very confidently and with unearned authority on characters they've clearly not read–I've inevitably done it before myself–but Man is it not annoying as hell.

Just saw someone send an ask, very confidently claiming "We've never seen Vision mourn for Billy and Tommy like Wanda!" which is just... false. Not a lot other to say about it. It's just a factually incorrect statement. And I know it's incorrect because I've actually read the comic that gets into Vision's grief a little more; Avengers: Celestial Quest.

Vision also clearly is in a state of grief in the Avengers Assemble annual too.

It's just frustrating to me. I do not deny that Vision can and should be more active in Billy and Tommy's lives... but it's weird to me to act like this is a problem of Vision's character and not representative of the fact that while some people do care about Vision, those are very rarely the people who care about Billy and Tommy, by virtue of Vision being dead when those two were being introduced to comics. Wanda, unfortunately because she was so mistreated during Disassembled and House of M, has cultivated a tone among a lot of her writers that they need to fix her relationship with the twins, because it was so poisoned by those books. Vision never had that same energy, and indeed had their corpse stuck in a box in a warehouse for years just sort of. sitting there.

I do not think anyone is under any obligation to like Vision as a character, or anything, I just think that you shouldn't act so confident when the only real Vision comic you've actually read is Tom King, which is a comic with frankly zero value unless you're looking to deconstruct and criticise King's racist mindset and worldview.

[trappedinafantasy37]

All forms of media (video games, TV shows, art, movies, books, etc) are all meant to be social and/or political commentaries. In fact, I can't think of an example of a recent creation that isn't political in some way. And Baldur's Gate 3 is not an exception. It is political. And if you think it is not, it is because you are not paying attention, or you are failing to extrapolate the lessons of the game into real life. One of the points of fiction and entertainment is to provide us with a safe way to view and interact with the evils of the world. To show us how evil happens to begin with, and how it is allowed at all. If we can see what evil looks like, and how it comes to pass, then we will be able to recognize it in real life and potentially stop it.

No, I'm not saying that Larian made this game to be a commentary of the US specifically. The things that happen in the game are happening somewhere in the world. Right. Now. It is fantasy for some, but reality to many others.

There is a reason why so many people, most especially women, flock to a character like Astarion. And no, it's not just because he's a pretty bad boy vampire. But because millions of women (and men) in the world understand what it's like to be sexually assaulted. To be enslaved. To be someone's property and a toy. To be used and abused and denied your autonomy. To scream and cry and yell and shout and beg for mercy from the gods. But no one is listening. No one cares. And they say that it is all your fault. Women cling to him because they find comfort in his story and they see a reflection of themselves in him. And they have extrapolated his character into their personal lives to help them heal from their traumas. Astarion is not real. But he represents the millions of people in the world who have been raped.

There are many different ways you can interpret Shadowheart's story, but I always found it to be an allegory for queerness / transness. She knows who she is deep down, but she has been beaten and indoctrinated over and over to believe that who she is wrong. Everytime she exerted a will of her own, she was forced into conversion therapy and had her mind wiped so she can be reprogrammed. And when that began to fail, her god inserted a permanent tether into her soul. To remind her that god is always watching, and will punish her for her sins. Shadowheart rejects Shar because she feels that she is in a safe environment to do so. That those who are around her will not judge her, ridicule her, or treat her like she ha a moral failure for just being who she is. But that rejection comes at a price where she has to choose her parents or chronic pain for the rest of her life. But if Shadowheart does not feel safe to live as herself, she goes into the closet forever and denies herself and has to put up an act for as long as she may live. She forces herself to subscribe to this dogma because she feels she has no other choice, and to be a blind follower means to be without pain. Shadowheart is not real. But she represents the millions of gay and trans people in the world who have been outcasted and abused by religion and the law. Where they feel it safer to deny who they are, then run the risk of the wrong person finding out who they love.

The grove conflict, is a very real reality right now. Innocent people are experiencing a genocide. And the people conducting such genocide have framed these innocent people as evil monsters. These actual literal genocidal lunatics truly to their core believe that they have the god given right to kill these innocent people because they are an affront to their god and that the land they occupy does not belong to them. There are children in the world right now who are burning alive in a genocide because the people who are burning them believe these children to have been born evil. Of course they claim that these refugees are hiding weapons of mass destruction, how else are they going to justify destroying safe places like schools, hospitals, and actual refugee camps? And the people who have the power to do something to protect these innocent refugees, would rather they be tossed out and left vulnerable to their murderers, because that is more convenient than helping them. That the people who can help are purposefully closing their borders, because they too see these refugees as lures for danger. The tieflings are not real. But they represent the millions of Palestinians and many others who are dying in a genocide right now.

And this man is not real, but he is the president elect of the United States. Gortash won. The Absolute won.

And I wish we had a simple and easy explanation of 72 million Americans have tadpoles in their brains and were forced to vote for Gortash. But in reality, not everyone in the Absolute had a tadpole. Not everyone was a True Soul. A mass majority were willing participants of the Absolute. They never once communed with the elder brain and have never received direct orders from it. They saw what the Absolute is, they saw what it can do, and it was not a deal breaker for them. They chose to follow along with it willingly, thinking that the Absolute was here for them. They were not mind controlled, but they were brainwashed in their own way. And for those who are not brainwashed, they simply do not care. They want to revel in the Absolute's cruelty and how it is going to hurt the people of the world because they themselves want to deal the cruelty.

Gortash is a slaver and a tyrant and he is very up front and in your face about it. He feels no guilt, he feels no shame, and he is well aware of how he induces suffering on those around him. And the moment he became Archduke, he slaughtered everyone who got him into power because he didn't want to share it nor run the risk of them turning against him. You may be able to make a deal with Gortash but he was never going to keep up his end of the bargain. Just like an embraced Durge betrays their romance partner, Gortash would have betrayed you (and even Durge). Because tyrants do not share, and they do not step down. Tyrants are not just tyrants only on day one or for just one term. They are tyrannical always and will do everything they can to stay in power permanently. Tyrants do not play fair. They get into power through perceivingly legitimate means. But when you find out it wasn't legitimate, it's too late. They've removed your ability to not only remove them from power, but prevent you from getting anyone else to replace them.

Gortash didn't just come from nowhere. He has been a duke in the city for a very long time. People know who he is and what he is about. The people at his coronation were there out of genuine support for him, knowing exactly who he is and saw no issue with what he was doing because they all benefited from it. The only one at that coronation who was not a willing participate, was Ulder Ravengard (A BLACK MAN). Gortash used a literal puppet government to get himself into power and silenced all dissent.

I do not know about you, but who Gortash represents was pretty damn obvious to me. The game demonstrated how people like Gortash can get into power at all and remain in power. Gortash manipulated people's fear of the world, and he used religion to do it. He implemented the Steel Watch and militarized the police, and to have constant surveillance on the people. Where any slight transgression will be met with hostility, and the people will cheer because they see violence as a necessary means of keeping the peace. Where if you just didn't step out of line, then maybe the Steel Watcher wouldn't need to pulverize you in the street. He uses the media and is constantly pumping out propaganda to love him. He created a problem, news of the problem spread, and then he sold a solution. He promised to keep everyone safe, protected, and made promises of law and order against this unruly chaos (a chaos he created). Where any opposing opinion is othered and regarded as being too radical to be a sane or legitimate opinion. He enslaved a group of racial minorities and used the livelihoods of their children as collateral. And instead of putting the blame on the slaver, radicals like Wulbren put the blame on the slaves.

The events surrounding Gortash and the Absolute have been unfolding here in the States for a very long time and all of this did not just come out of nowhere. This didn't just start happening 8 years ago in 2016, this was decades in the making and there is still plans for more to come. This wasn't an accident, everything is working by design.

Gortash is not real. But Donald Trump is. That should scare you.

[ruvviks]

// oc deep dive.

tagged by; @aztarion and @devilbrakers, thank you so much!!

tagging; @mojaves, @deadrlngers, @ordinarymaine, @claudiawolf, @adelaidedrubman and YOU!

What common/uncommon fear do they have?

Nathan has a lot of fears stemming from his paranoia. Tangible ones such as getting captured or killed by MOBIUS, his friends walking away from him, or someone following him home; as well as more unrealistic ones, such as somehow ending up back in STEM, or getting stuck in a time loop, or a giant sinkhole all the way to the core of the earth opening up right at his feet.

It also happens often enough that certain actions don’t necessarily scare him, but make him uncomfortable or highly on edge (often with good reason); think of someone locking the door of the room he’s in– especially when it’s just them two– or getting too close without warning. He often fears people he gets too close to will end up treating him like the Administrator did, which is why it takes a while for him to let Sebastian get any closer physically, despite warming up to him relatively fast.

A more uncommon fear he has is waking up one morning and having lost one of his senses or his ability to speak. Aside from the mental erosion that had become a growing issue among Union citizens, MOBIUS observed a similar kind of process in its agents who regularly jumped in and out of STEM for general maintenance and the like– presumably caused by the constant changes in brain activity, which more than often led to exactly what Nathan’s fear mentioned above describes. While he was among the agents who worked both in and outside of STEM on the Union environment, he was lucky enough to never suffer the consequences.

Lastly, he is deadly afraid of Anima. Despite not having shown any other symptom of succumbing to the STEM domination process, Nathan would have started seeing her around sometime before Lily vanished– presumably got her attention after some of his escapades in the secret labs in the Marrow– and he has not been able to sleep soundly in STEM ever since. While his fear of her mostly acts up when he’s in a STEM environment, it definitely translates over to the real world as well; during bad mental health episodes he has auditory hallucinations of her, and she makes regular appearances in his nightmares too.

Do they have any pet peeves?

When people are too passive. Nathan can’t stand it when he’s expected to initiate everything, from conversations to taking action, both in a work context (scheduling meetings, deploying new code) as well as personal context (scheduling to hang out, doing household chores). He also doesn’t like having to constantly ask people to do what they’re supposed to do– though this irritation more than often extends a little too far, to things he is expecting of people but never told them about.

Loud and unexpected noises, especially when done on purpose. Fireworks would be a great example of this, and they piss Nathan off no end. He gets snippy when people raise their voice at him for no reason, or when they keep banging their fist on a surface to get others’ attention.

Getting cut off in traffic. Nathan’s road rage is easily awakened and he can get a little drastic with it. His reflexes are fast enough to brake on time to avoid ending up in someone’s trunk, but will in that same breath speed right back up to crash into them on purpose as revenge for pissing him off.

What are three items you can find in their bedroom?

A large ring binder full of old code snippets, notes from various projects he worked on back at MOBIUS, and all his research ranging from neuroscience all the way to electrical engineering. Nathan is a little old-school in that regard– he’d much rather have all his research physically with him than save it all to some online storage platform and risk losing it like that.

A jigsaw puzzle, made entirely out of different pieces that he’s collected over the years (stolen from others’ puzzles, found in various locations, stolen directly from the store, etc). The full piece would total up to nearly 2000 pieces, though it is still missing a large chunk in the center; the result is an abstract piece containing mostly darker colors, though with various bursts of color scattered around like flowers in a field. Nathan isn’t the artistic type, but the project keeps him busy and he considers it a type of self-expression.

The knife he killed his parents with when he was sixteen years old. He’s not entirely sure why he kept it all those years– perhaps to remind himself what got him to where he is now, or because it’s the only thing he still has from that time of his life. Either way, it’s kept safe in the top drawer of his nightstand, easy enough to reach in case someone breaks into his apartment.

What do they notice first in a person?

First: State of mind, overall mood. How approachable do they look; can he afford to lower his guard or does he need to tread with caution, can he get close without worrying about a knife to the stomach or should he keep his distance? Nathan rarely shows immediate interest in someone’s overall personality, he would rather want to know which of their emotions he’s gonna have to deal with during their interaction(s).

Second: Body language. Ties in with the first thing mentioned– cautiously watching for threats, waiting to see if they make a move to touch (or harm) him so he can step out of their range. But it also extends a little further; Nathan tends to mimic others’ body language in conversation to make himself appear more approachable. If someone gestures a lot, he will do the same.

Third: Their smile, if relevant. Smiling is an eye-catching action to him, since he’s not one to quickly do so himself. It’s attractive to him; if someone smiles at him, you’ll be able to catch him staring.

Fourth: Scars, and other (skin) details. Nathan isn’t one to ask about them, of course– but they’ll catch his attention anyway, for a brief moment, since some of them already tell a story on their own even without words.

Fifth: Nervous tics, if relevant. By this point he’s been in conversation long enough to pick up on the little details– a slight thrill or shakiness to their voice, a thumb running over the side of their index finger, a nose twitch. In some cases it eases his mind, knowing the other person isn’t confident in their conversation either; in other cases it sets off alarms in his mind, and makes him wonder if there’s more going on than what they’re showing or telling him.

On a scale of 1 to 10, how high is their pain tolerance?

Physically: 7. While he doesn’t quite look like it, Nathan can take a hit or two. Most of his injuries happen in STEM– though with the way the technology works, the pain is very much real, and in some cases the scars are lasting even in the real world despite the damage having been sustained in STEM. To an extent, Nathan even enjoys the pain; it’s grounding for him, and keeps him from dissociating. When it gets too much to handle he simply drinks it away.

Mentally: 10. Nathan’s life has been a constant downward spiral; sent to a youth detention center after being wrongfully accused of killing his younger sister, and he was bullied relentlessly there, which continued until long after his release both at school and at home. At MOBIUS, he was required to work shifts in their HQ as well as in the Marrow, in the Union STEM environment– he was required to be mentally strong, or he would have already started suffering from mental erosion by long-term STEM exposure after his first few trips in. It takes a lot to break him (or so he likes to believe).

Emotionally: 4. Once you get past all the barriers, Nathan is pretty sensitive. He doesn’t deal well with rejection or misunderstanding, and is prone to assuming things are all his fault the second something goes wrong. It’s easy to upset him, though he won’t easily show; but the damage often takes a while to repair.

Do they go into fight or flight mode when under pressure? (Or freeze or fawn?)

Fight, more than often; though it may appear as flight at first, since Nathan’s favored combat approach is stealth and he will always find cover before doing anything rash. In certain cases, however, he would be more likely to freeze; especially anything related to Anima or an enemy type like her, where fighting is out of the question, and he knows that a single wrong move can mean his demise.

It translates to non-combat situations too– often willing to talk to people but his initial response is to get defensive and close himself off, and if not given a moment to regain himself it can lead to either fighting or freezing; biting back with similar ferocity or shutting down altogether, unable to pick up his rational train of thought in the heat of the moment.

It really depends on the type of confrontation, though; taking his own state of mind and who else is involved into consideration. He’s known to fawn when a situation starts feeling a little too familiar– generally surrounding the abuse he suffered from partially his parents, but mostly the Administrator.

What animal represents them best?

Wolf; bordering on dog motif, but cautiously so, requiring infinite patience and understanding to win his trust. Nathan is loyal and guarding to those he cares about, but he values his freedom– his choices and decisions are his and his alone, and anyone who tries to take that away from him will suffer the necessary consequences.

How would a stranger likely describe them?

Curious, above anything else. Distant, reserved; surprisingly well-spoken, almost technical in his interactions with others as if the whole conversation is pre-programmed in his mind. Nathan isn’t necessarily cold towards others, but people would also not be quick to describe him as kind; though there is a certain warmth to the way he speaks and looks at people, despite the fact he very rarely smiles and isn’t one to quickly compliment someone else.

Appearance-wise, people tend to notice the white strands in his black hair first. They’re clustered at the front of his head, and match with the white hairs in his left eyebrow and the white eyelashes in the outer corner of his left eye. Nathan has very pale and rough skin, patchy but dark facial hair covering up most of his acne (/scarring); and part of the skin around his left eyebrow is lacking pigment, though it’s a little hard to see. He has very pale and bright blue eyes, which can be a little unnerving when staring at them for too long. Many people cannot maintain eye contact with him for very long.

Do they have any hobbies?

Nathan’s career is directly intertwined with his hobbies, and he enjoys working on code even long after cutting ties with MOBIUS. Software development, application optimization– his laptop runs on an operating system that he coded entirely himself, and whenever he has some time to spare he can be found tweaking and optimizing it and adding new features.

To no one’s surprise, he’s a gamer. Shooters, roguelikes, survival horror– he does not play all too often as his schedule often doesn’t allow for it, but he generally doesn’t have a hard time playing on higher difficulties and enjoys the challenge. Nathan has tried his hand at game design and development too, but stopped quickly when he found it too similar to developing the Union environment in STEM.

And last, surprisingly, would be writing. Journaling, some sort of attempt at poetry, or articles he would want to send in to some website or appropriate magazine but never does– a lot of Nathan’s writing is for his eyes alone, but it helps as an outlet, it keeps him grounded. For a while after leaving MOBIUS, he worked on writing tech manuals for various employers to earn some extra cash, which also ties directly into his interests.

[getintok]

I think it's funny how mad people get at all the support Checo gets

[beanghostprincess]

Sometimes I think that even if shanks was asked by buggy for help because of the cross guild he would probably do nothing that useful since mihawk is his other close bond and he wouldn’t want to go against him and I get for some reason kinda sad

Agree to disagree, anon, because this is saying that hypothetically Buggy would ask Shanks for help because of the Cross Guild. A thing that could never happen in a million years and Buggy would rather die than ask Shanks anything. But let's say that Buggy (reluctantly) asks Shanks for help.

There are a lot of outcomes here, tbh, since it's hard for me to picture this situation but-- If Buggy is seriously in a big problem with Cross Guild I think Shanks wouldn't hesitate to help him? He won't kill Mihawk, obviously, but I don't see why Shanks wouldn't fight him if talking doesn't work. They get along but they're still pirates and if Buggy is in actual deadly danger he's going to help him out. I love Shanks and Mihawk too but, like, story-wise and canonically Shanks' bond with Buggy is a lot more crucial and important (as I see it) and I don't see why his bond with Mihawk would affect his decision here, tbh.

It's either that or he sends Beck and goes "haha Buggy how could you say you're in danger??? I trust you can get out of this one alone 🙏🏻 And also I don't wanna go, so here's my first mate to keep an eye on you. Don't stab him, please". And Beck wants to die a little bit because why the hell does he have to do this-

But if Shanks knew Buggy was in real deadly danger, he would help. Also, the fact that Buggy is asking him for help is enough sign of something going extremely wrong, so-

[lostandbackagain]

valkyrie moodboard part 4 🎉🎉🎉

pt. 1 pt. 2 pt. 3

[sciderman]

I’m sorry you’ve had to deal with so much Iranian hate and drama <:[

oh anon. hate to break it to you (a lot of people make this mistake) but iran and iraq are two entirely separate nations.

and also i think reducing it to the words "hate and drama" kind of doesn't cover it, anon.

[winepresswrath]

i am absolutely a nicki girl by the way it's just that much like show!lestat my love for him is so pure he doesn't even have to be hot. he can be an ugly crier with a floppy lil wig it only inspires tenderness.

[macabrevampire]

when your parents tried to instill into your head that family is the only important thing, that everyone else besides those you're related to only want to hurt you and most people you meet WILL hurt you, therefore you should only rely on & be close to your family but those very same people who were supposed to protect you from the outside world are the ones who abused and beat you down until you became a shell of a human

[ettadunham]

sometimes i remember the hunger games and how nobody actually paid attention to what was in those books

[dukeofthomas]

"He hurts you because he loves you" classic excuse for abuse, not an interesting angle to go at a story with, boring, annoying, makes me hate anyone who says this shit. "He loves you but he still hurt you" beautiful, amazing, empowering. Love is not a pure, good, flawless emotion, actions matter more than intent, and caring for someone doesn't mean you can't or won't hurt them, and in my opinion, it makes hurting them worse.

[biscuit-o]

I'm hugging you all. We are going to get through this somehow, I hope