#where's that post that's like “people be saying things so definitively. i just think it's not that simple”

[erwinsvow]

i love langdons little sister but i started thinking robby’s very little sister :( they probably didn’t grow up very close so like Lexi and Meredith they probably have to start developing their relationship while they work together :( i can imagine the first time robby acts truly like a big brother is to say “you can’t date my baby sister dude!!!” and it’s like upsetting that he doesn’t approve of the relationship but also you can’t help but be happy he called you his baby sister for once :((((

omg!!! more gold!!!! we are all hell bent on making robby’s family jack’s family aren’t we. this is sooooooooo wow!!!!!! sooooo let’s see. we have the adopted after had already left for college idea. divorced parents and someone remarried and had another baby when he was already a grown man. could be a godparents had to adopt the kid after her parents died situation. all of which work just wonderfully fine. the point is that you see robby on calendar holidays, and it’s not that he doesn’t like you but it’s just that you’re kind of just. there. you were growing up when he was in medical school and residency. you were a still a kid at his wedding probably. the age difference means you have absolutely nothing to talk about, nothing in common besides some overlap in music that you both inherited from your parents and your careers. you remember reaching out to ask him about some questions when you were applying to medical school but a lot had changed and he had to hang up because there was an emergency and you had been trying for a while to get back in touch but. robby’s very busy and you’re still an annoying kid in his eyes probably and so you don’t really talk to him about the whole thinking about emergency medicine, thinking about pittsburgh thing. just surprise! there for an audition where you, of course, impress everyone. at first people think you’re a long lost daughter but you’re kind of used to that and even though you haven’t really talked to your brother much over the last couple years besides the occasional how’s school, how’s work small talk, you still get very bright eyed and happy telling them that’s your big brother. you hear how it “runs in your blood” and of course you match there and then during your first few months you start working on the type of relationship you want to have with robby. and robby’s not mean!!! he’s so nice and he has a big heart and he feels a lot for everyone but when it comes to you he’s kinda just head empty. he doesn’t know much about you and it’s also overwhelming and he definitely doesn’t like his private life being talked about at work and now because you’re here it’s talked about all the time and he hates questions so it’s just very overwhelming for you. & we know how robby is with his female mentees (which is fascinating and helps my case here a lot). so he’s trying but not really trying and you do get yelled at sort of a lot and you’ve got thick skin but you’re still just feeling like the little kid nagging someone to play with you. you don’t even remember what it feels like to nag robby because you’ve never had a chance to do so, never bothered him because he was never around. so maybe it just builds up (just like with mer and lexie!) and maybe he kind of explodes on you (he’s thinking about the shit with frank and the horrible months upcoming and post pittfest his relationship with jake and heather and all these things) and it kinda hits you that maybe all of this was a mistake. everyone else loves you beside the one person you wanted to get closer with.

so then you go on the night shift!!!!!!!! and man. oh wow. your education does a 180. you get so much more confident and you actually enjoy going to work and you get to avoid robby which secretly hurts you but you avoid thinking about it when you can. because dr. abbot is so nice!!! and of course he knows you’re robby’s very little sister. you’re practically a kid (you’re the same age as the other residents but you still feel like a kid to him. robby’s mentioned you… three times? four? in all the years he’s known him? twice it was an “ah, fuck, forgot about my little sister’s birthday” and maybe another time how you were in medical school. and then once it had come up during a drunken conversation about kids and families, how he would never do what his parents did and have you so late in their life because it just fucks everything up. of course, he never mentions any of this to you. it would hurt your feelings. and jack is very keen on your feelings.) but there’s no favoritism, nothing that makes you feel like you’re not where you deserve to be. and it doesn’t help that you and jack actually have a lot in common. music, duh. you take your coffee the same way he takes his (something you picked up since you had older parents in the house and they take theirs like him too, something you don’t mention because he might thing you’re calling him old. and you would never want to do that) and he’s surprisingly read all the books you bring on your shifts with you (a couple of classics, a mystery someone had got you for christmas, and very surprisingly one of those vampire romances where there’s two boys fighting for one girl. and he has opinions, which you try to listen to while keeping a straight face and giggle for an hour afterwards. because who would have thought?) but really, who would have thought that jack abbot would become your favorite part of each shift? that the quiet conversations you have all throughout the night are the best part of coming into work. that him borrowing a book for his day off and coming back with lots of commentary would bring you such joy. that he brings in a record for you from his own collection because he thinks you’d like it (and that you listen to it all day and all night and when you look at him, the songs play in your head on repeat). and well, some things are inevitable—life, death, taxes, falling in love with jack abbot. it’s six months of night shifts, listening to his record hum in the background while you brush your teeth at 8 in the morning, to understand that. another two months of beating around the bush. maybe it’s when he gets you a better gift than your own brother does for your birthday that you can’t take it any longer. kissing him silly when he walks you home for the millionth time because he likes to make sure you get home safe (you fuck him silly when he shows up on his day off to walk you home). and then maybe at some point in the year, maybe right as you’re heading into r2 & robby’s doing some deep thinking and having conversations with jack about what he should do about you too often, that your relationship with robby slightly changes. he lingers at shift change to ask you how your morning was, takes you to get a coffee one day and pays how a big brother would. learns about what medical school was like for you and how night shift is going. he says he hopes dr abbot is treating you good or he’ll have words and you laugh into your coffee and get flustered and he kinda… gets suspicious for a moment. finds out when everyone else does, someone telling him that it’s a bummer they lost the pool because they were so sure you and jack would make it another three weeks hiding. and robby goes hiding what? and the guy scurries away. cue the are you kidding me, jack? my sister? my little sister? and jack kind of looks at you like can I get some help here? and you’re still staring at robby because he called you his little sister!!!!!!!! anyways. it’s kinda funny because robby is the best man at your wedding

[a-man-in-the-crowd]

Plural Lenore Plural Lenore Plural Lenore? Talk more about that

this reminded me that i STILL haven't made that long post about why i think lenore is plural guys i'm 💔

an assorted list of things that make me think lenore is plural (only off the top of my head, there's probably other stuff i'm forgetting rn) for the sake of answering your question anon:

in multiple episodes we see her 'inner voice' speaking, often addressing her as 'you' as if the voice is someone separate (annabel has had her inner voice shown once too but that was one time when she was spiralling)

in earlier episodes the inner voice's colour seems to shift

adding onto this, in my opinion it seems there are MULTIPLE of those inner voices. i don't have my notebook on me rn but i believe the three i picked out were the problem-solver voice, the observer voice, and the self-doubt voice

self-doubt voice specifically tends to refer to lenore as 'you'

in episode four, lenore goes through her suitcase and wonders "what kind of person even was i" in a way that suggests she'd never own this stuff — which is odd, because later we see morella immediately identify her locket. i don't see much reason why lenore's stuff wouldn't be stuff she'd want with her, especially considering the two other suitcases we've seen have stuff that definitely belongs to their owners

in the ring the bell arc annabel lee says something very odd: "you look like lenore. you speak like lenore does. you act like lenore, especially around everybody else. but there's something missing."

just the WHOLE THING about leo

like the vibes between leo and lenore are so different that other people have differentiated them

the fact lenore's inner voice says her mother always said she was touched in the head makes me think there's been Something with her for a while and cdds are known to develop in childhood

there's a some tiny little interactions lenore has with herself that makes me go "real."

the beginning of the dementophobia trial where she's trying to console her past self and literally talks to her like she's a separate person... and the past self responds in kind

hope you enjoy anon! <3 i really do wanna make a longer, more organized post abt it but i have sm on my to-do list. i'll really really try though bc this is a hc i hold very dear to me and it feels strange i haven't gotten to properly sharing it yet

[alexanderwales]

are you like, perfectly sure you're neurotypical

Depends on how you define terms. I struggle with anxiety and depression, but have only ever had a clinical diagnosis for depression. The way I've seen the term used on tumblr, "neurodivergent" generally does not include depression under the umbrella, but maybe I'm wrong there: I've seen it overwhelmingly applied to ADHD and autism.

I am fairly sure I'm not autistic. About a year ago we were having my son tested for autism, so I spent a bunch of time looking at the diagnostic criteria, and while that's not really the same as taking tests and speaking with specialists myself, there's a whole lot of things there where I just think "no, this really does not apply to me". I've also met a lot of autistic people, and don't see myself in them, so if I were autistic I would be at the end of the spectrum where it's very difficult to actually tell.

I'm also fairly sure I don't have ADHD. I struggle with executive function sometimes, and definitely hyperfixate on things, but I think that's part of a pattern of addictive behaviors. (And yes, ADHD is often comorbid with addiction.) I think my hyperfixation is subclinical and within the bounds of neurotypical.

Anything else, I don't know, and haven't really looked into.

When I was a teenager I was institutionalized after a suicide attempt, and so spent about a month 1) with therapists watching me carefully and 2) around other people with various mental issues that were obvious to me. And while I think it would be incredibly likely for them and subsequent therapists to have missed a diagnosis, I've been around the mental health professionals enough that I would have expected them to float the possibility.

I would say that I have a cluster of personality traits that might make people waggle their eyebrows, but a lot of it is well within the range of neurotypical. I'm rules-oriented, I like research, I like evidence, I hate being wrong, I can be overly serious about things, I usually prefer explicit and clear communication as opposed to leaving things unspoken or implied, but like ... I don't know. I think I see a lot of people post stuff that goes "my autistic ass:" and then a completely normal human emotion or experience? Like "my autistic ass didn't know she was flirting", and then I sit there shaking my head because this is extremely relatable to almost everyone, you can go into any /r/AskReddit thread and there will be thousands of people talking about their experience with the opacity of flirtation. If I were self-diagnosing, I think I would have to reach toward stuff that is just squarely within the realm of the neurotypical.

tl;dr: neurotypical unless you count depression, which most people don't seem to (?), and above the baseline of normal anxiety, but probably not clinically so

[brekwrites]

Roxy u failed me in that baby episode girl do better

(A lot of other posts have summed up why this episode made me uncomfortable pretty well, so I don’t have much to say (subtle foreshadowing—I was lying to myself here). One thing I will mention is that the tone of this episode was NOTICEABLY different from other transformation videos. Even ones with Eclipse himself.

Yes, he was pissed when he got turned into a furry and Puppet was teasing him. But the tone was much more lighthearted and he didn’t attack anyone. Even in the episode where Charlie turns him into a girl, he bitched and endured some light teasing and then was turned back. Also, that was an accident, and this was clearly intentional.

The number of people there definitely contributed, as well as the nature of their teasing and the fact that he was physically attacking people. There was also way more forced contact, and his reaction was much more negative (Charlie touching his back, Roxanne carrying him off, etc.). Roxy carrying him away yelling also really showed how helpless he was.

Also, I think it’s interesting that he came out of his lab of his own volition, and Charlie seemed nervous for the others to find out at first. He was seeking help from anyone there, which he’s had frequent trouble with, and that speaks to how desperate he was. Charlie’s reaction to him having crawled out makes me wonder if she just meant to transform him, stall him for a bit (like Ruin asked), and come back in a bit to change him back?

Obviously, the way he’s been treating Charlie is not okay, especially because she’s a child and he’s an adult. And he’s not willing to talk about it or correct the behavior right now, so I’m sure she feels helpless in the situation, and we know she’s angry. Plus, she just found out she might have to kill a man for the greater good, which would be hard on anyone. The situation overall just read as incredibly tense, not good-natured, and like we’re heading towards some sort of explosion from him (and/or Charlie).

I can’t tell how much was intentional, so I’m not sure how much weight to give it plot-wise. Maybe I’m misinterpreting a purely goofy episode? Or maybe the undertones will contribute to something in Eclipse’s arc down the line and were intended to be there. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Anyway that’s my thoughts? Just word-vomited out.

Finally, Nadine’s baby models are super cute, and I think they could probably be used for more good-natured shenanigans over on tsams.)

[project-sekai-takes]

i feel like a lot of characters have undexplored/underutilized angst. this post is going to be extremely biased™️towards my favorites, but characters like ichika, kohane, and all of more more jump really but especially minori and shizuku are who i'm talking about. i'm not saying that proseka should be needlessly slapping angst onto their stories just for shock value and fun because that's just pointless and not enjoyable to read; i just think that the angst these characters already have is usually underexplored by the fandom and game itself.

i know that ichika and kohane had the majority of their angst material covered/resolved in the main story (kohane also had vbs wl2 so it's probably covered there too but i havent actually reaad it), but i think we as a fandom should dwell on what they were like and what they were experiencing back then more often fr 🗣️. i think this kind of angst allows exploration of certain character aspects that are usually left forgotten or undiscussed. (bro ichikas closest friends left her with no real explanation so she she thought it was her fault and was extremely lonely because of it man can we talk about that please 😭)

minori is another example. i know mmjs overall story and her themes especially revolve around hope and not giving up, but c'mon she had her auditions rejected 50 times and she still kept going strong. that takes some serious passion, determination, and willpower, and i feel like that should be acknowledged more often because if i was rejected like that for at most 10 times i would have straight up folded and given up. minoris first focus and airis first focus both have a lot of minori struggle that i just never see talked about?? (read: "sorry we're not hiring your team because of that faceless amateur. we'll hire everyone else individually if you kick her out though 😁) its just a shame because its so important to her character and the angst potential is crazy!! (ok im sorry lmao)

shizuku also has a lot of angst material in early game (main story argument with airi, masking perfection, the entire thing with her old group in general) that i was really surprised wasnt featured in like...those angsty tiktoks and fanfics LMAO. i did end up finding some for her but the roots of the angst were mostly fanmade and not completely applicable to her character. i personally don't have any issues with making up tragic backstories/angst material for characters (in fact i love to see it and actively do it myself) but like the canon material is right there, there's a lot to work with already it doesnt have to be completely fanon lol /nm /lh

i know the rest of leo/need is probably also lacking in good angst content, but honami and shiho already got a ramble from me so they're on standby for now smh /lh. (airi and haruka might also be lacking but iirc airis the most popular mmj character and the recent haruka events have some good angst coverage so idk about their current standings). saki has a weird situation where her angst content definitely isnt lacking but most of the time its only used to fuel tsukasa angst. i don't actually think theres anything wrong with that because so much of his motivations were initially based off of her (wanting to be a star and making other people smile), but once it becomes only about him and has nothing to do with her, who is actually the one suffering, i just dont feel like it's used fairly. angstkasa is wonderful and all but saki is her own character :[

anyway sorry that was kind of an incoherent rant about my favorite characters, but i really enjoy angst and would absoultely love to see more depictions of it for the blorbos. thank you for reading o7

-🕊️

.

[tillwehavefaces]

So I’m mostly a multi-shipper at this point. I know a lot of people will hate me just for saying this, but I will be happy with Buddie or with BuckTommy. I wasn’t at first – I’ve been a Buddie shipper for years and I thought (and still mostly think) that Tommy is a plot device to help Buck realize he’s bi and ultimately bring about Buddie. But I also have enjoyed how Buck and Tommy’s relationship progressed and wouldn’t be upset if that’s how things played out. That being said, I so love the long game of how Buck and Eddie’s relationship has developed over the years and I believe that there are genuine feelings there, and I'm secretly rooting for a Buddie endgame.

However.

If Buddie goes canon in the S8 finale, I am going to be livid.

Now? After Eddie treated Buck like shit and then made up for it by shoving Chris and Pepa’s affection at him? No. Just no.

I have a lot of thoughts* about the kitchen fight scene. (If you can even call it that, because Buck wasn’t even fighting back.) I won’t get too into the weeds here, but suffice it to say that I fall somewhere in the middle of “Eddie is an abuser who’s as terrible as Doug was” and “Eddie was right and that scene was romantic” (and if you’re one of those people who thinks that Eddie should have actually hit Buck, or that Buck was turned on by the whole thing … ewwww).

It’s not just about an apology. I think that there are multiple ways of apologizing, and Eddie flying Chris out was his way of doing that. I also think that what Buck needs, more than an apology, is to hear that Eddie was feeling sad and guilty and angry at himself and that he lashed out at Buck even though Buck was doing nothing wrong.

There are a number of other posts on here that demonstrate how Buck has been doing nothing but thinking about his friends in the aftermath of Bobby’s death (and doing so genuinely, even if there are better ways that he could have gone about it … but imo, intentions count), so I won’t get into that here.

But I will say that a large part of Eddie’s implication here was that Buck would make it about himself if Eddie told him he was offered the firefighter position in El Paso. And to be fair, Buck definitely did screw things up with how he acted when Eddie first started getting ready to move to Texas. But then he made up for it. And not just by distracting Eddie from what he’d done. He went through the effort and expense to move out of his loft so Eddie would have a subletter and could afford the house in Texas. When Eddie told Buck that he thought he might be better off coming back to LA even though he hadn’t fixed things with Chris, Buck was the one to tell him he needed to stay for his son.

I would love to see Buddie go canon. But until Eddie makes up for the things he said to Buck and for taking his own emotions out on Buck (the same way Buck has made up for it when he's screwed up in the past), I hope it doesn’t happen. Because until Eddie does that, you won’t be able to convince me that Buck hasn’t internalized everything Eddie said, and Buck deserves better than that. He deserves someone who thinks he’s wonderful.

To be honest, they both deserve better than that. They deserve a beginning that isn’t marred by what happened during that exchange. Eddie deserves better than getting into a relationship with someone he cares deeply about when he still hasn’t dealt with his anger issues and all of the underlying grief for Shannon that made him go after Kim in the first place and resulted in him driving Christopher all the way to Texas. Buck deserves better than getting into a relationship with someone who’s just drilled into his head that he’s a shit person. He deserves better than to enter a relationship where he’s always going to worry that he’s being selfish and making things about him, where he feels like he constantly has to make up for being himself in order to deserve Eddie’s love.

If they show early signs of Buddie canon like Eddie realizes his feelings for Buck, or Buck realizes that Tommy and Maddie were right and he loves Eddie, but he’s not very happy about it at this point, that’ll be awesome. It’ll indicate that Buddie is going canon but that they’re going to do it in a way that is healthy and joyful for both of these men. But if they have a kiss or a love confession or whatever, and suddenly they both forget about that fight … I’ll hate the writers forever for making Eddie regress into his past angry, violent persona and hurting Buck right before he and Buck get together.

[azaharinflames]

If we don't get something for BuckTommy in the finale than I feel it would be healthier for me to just put down the show.

I don't know if I'll be able to do it but I do think maybe it's better for me to just leave the show to the Buddies. They have their army, their journos are their generals, and they will never stop, never relent, even if the show never gives them what they want.

With all my heart I believe the very best they will ever get is some one-sided confession from Buck at the very last episode of the series. Maybe on his deathbed. But those are wilfully blind will not see.

And the show will probably never shut them down properly. It got close in the last few episodes, and maybe it can still pull the trigger in the finale and send them spiralling off into the void. Here's hoping. But if they don't, then I don't see how this to and fro can continue for me.

I can't watch with their fandom as a bugbear on my back. I want to talk and read about the show but there is literally no space where they aren't being generally awful.

They really are close to breaking down the last of my resistance. I want to stay out of obstinance, because I know that it's exactly their goal to destroy people's hope, but it's just so hard.

Really need Tommy to be in the finale in a real way or else the relationship dropped. I can hold on to hope if there's something tangible to hold on to. I can throw away all hope and just hang around as an unrepentant hater of the show, or leave entirely. But this liminal space where the show can't make up it's mind is torturous.

They either need to give me something or tell me to fuck off so I can actually have an emotional reaction.

Sorry that this ended up being a stream of consciousness.

don’t worry, nonnie, it made sense. and i have to agree and share the sentiment. and i’m happy you can vent here <3

I don’t necessarily share the part of buddie with you. mostly because i refuse to think about them or give them that power, tbh. though i will agree that they are not getting buddie canon, and atp, and especially after last episode, that’s painfully obvious.

so. does it matter if the ‘journos’ are on their side? if bts sometimes posts them? if they’re sent together to do promo (which i will argue it’s not a ‘gift’ to them but them doing promo)? the show is clearly telling them something, as much as we can argue that they still give them small things. if you watch the show it’s rather obvious how they feel about them. therefore leaving to me is not giving them a victory. it’s knowing that it wouldn’t even be a battle to be had, because we exist in two different realms.

that being said. i am waiting on 818 to fully determine what i do with this show.

and to be quite honest, this is not entirely about bucktommy. partly, it is, because i would hate to feel like i’ve been dragged along for this long without a proper reason to - because to bring back tommy after 806 and keep him around for the whole season when there was no reason for it, if they just want him to suddenly disappear is cruel. and it would definitely put me off the show, if anything just because i wouldn’t want my time to be wasted like that.

but it is more than that to me. it would be wasted time, but also it would be watching a show that is hit after hit to my favorite character, with no pay-off or any type of joy. it would be rewarding the behaviors around buck, even, and showing that the way they treated him was right. and i’m simply not okay with that, and i wouldn’t be okay with watching the show if that happened.

ultimately, it would be me being tired of seeing a show that goes nowhere, because that’s how it would feel. and knowing when to stop if it doesn’t bring me joy anymore.

not to say 818 will be bad. i don’t think it will be. but just. in a hypothetical case, i agree.

[aricharmm]

for context, before i say what i'm about to say, this post just randomly landed on my feed so please don't take this reblog personally — i don't know you. i'm just sharing my take to put it out into the universe.

i'm an adult on and off recovery with a multitude of diagnosed complex psychiatric disorders (bpd, cptsd, and so on) and i only ever knew about/semi-engaged with these kinds of online spaces (shedtwt/blr, jirai, etc.) throughout adulthood. when i was a minor, i definitely was in my fair share of communities where mental illness was a core issue so many of us shared and bonded with. but never to the extent of modern shed communities.

reading this post kinda stung because of course it's worded with such hostility, but more importantly, it made my heart ache since i've been in these kinds of shoes before. as a kid, you think you're safe and you feel comfortable in this kind of community because you relate to others going through similar, very traumatic things that not most kids would ever really understand. and yes, while i empathize with the desire to connect with others who indulge in such a niche community, there's a blurry line between consuming content and talking to others in the space as a way to feel seen and recognized, or glorifying it and enabling such a tragic epidemic that kills children and teens in greater numbers as the years go on.

the only way i ever understood what suicide and self harm was as a child was because i was exposed to it via internet communities (before shedtwt/blr was ever a thing), and constantly being exposed to it eventually made me worse. that's something i'm not proud to admit because it was something so preventable that was fully in my control, but then again, i was a child. i wouldn't have known that i needed to save myself before it was too late.

as an adult, i know now that surrounding myself in things that make me worse just makes life so much harder than it needs to be. i can safely engage in these communities as a coping mechanism because i know when to pull away for my own safety. please, i urge this entire community, especially if you are a minor, to learn that skill. i know it might seem like you will never make it to adulthood, or it may seem like you will never have a "real" life. but life changes, and it changes fast. when you get into my shoes where you end up living beyond your expectations but are ill equipped with handling it because your adolesence was littered with enablers and communities that simply exist to hurt you, you're going to have a really horrific reality check. and from the bottom of my heart, i worry for you, our next generation, because as social media becomes more predatory, it's difficult to tell what is reality and what isn't. yet i completely understand. i seriously feel for you.

it absolutely shatters my heart seeing such violently graphic posts, comments, and thinking patterns from kids as young as 12 to 15 on here. like. if you are a minor, you in fact do NOT have a personality disorder. no, self harm is not fun nor pretty, and you should not be posting photos of it for the whole world to see if you are still a child, nor should you be complimenting other people about their active self harm. and yes, people who are pro-recovery should be allowed into this space and you shouldn't make fun of them for it, nor should you try to get them to relapse. call me an opp if you want but yes — a lot of you ARE too young for this kind of space if you can't see reason in those last three points i've made. you SHOULD reconsider your choices if you are cognizant enough to do so.

it makes me tear up thinking that many of you in this community don't realize that this kind of space does more harm than good if your frontal lobe is objectively not developed enough to safely stay within it. i want you to live the rest of the childhood and adolescent years that you deserve to have. but despite anything that has ever happened to you, you are the only person in control of your present and future. don't take that for granted.

it's never too early or too late to recover, seek help, and seek validation in healthier ways. i'm not here to "whine" or force anyone to do anything if they don't fully believe in it. if you thought that reading this was a waste of time, be my guest: fuck around and find out when life really hits you when you're older.

but if reading this even changed your mind a little bit about this community, i encourage you to explore that feeling a little more. i believe in you.

take care.

“Kids shouldn’t be on jiraiblr!” You’re right, they shouldn’t. They should be enjoying life as a kid. But they’re not, they’re fucking miserable, so shut the fuck up and stop complaining. If that’s all you whine about get the hell off jiraiblr, nobody wants you here.

[charlesemersonwinchesteriii]

if Crozier had a nickel for every time someone close to him kept a mortal wound secret from him he'd have two nickels which isn't a lot but it's definitely enough to give him some very specific trauma for the rest of his life

[cecoeur]

Thinking about how Daniel made the photo of him with Pierre and Patrick as the first image in that dump. He could’ve made it the helmet swap with Oscar, a group photo, or the 3 on the garage floor. Any of those probably would’ve made more sense from an engagement or aesthetic standpoint. But no he specifically chose a candid moment with the two guys who were with him every second he was in that car. Two guys who would be relatively unknown to the casual fan, but who were integral to Daniel and shared the ups and downs of this journey with him.

[clumsypuppy]

i feel like im not making any sense but does anyone else feel like there are stories that let u run with them and ones that spell everything out for you

[devine-fem]

Now… Due to my birdflash fixation, I have completely struck out and decided to make this post to explain why I read/headcanon them as exes. I now realize that this is going to be a long, drawn out way of saying “I think they have explored each other’s bodies,” well, it’s a little bit more than that 😭. In my head, I always felt as though Wally and Dick’s relationship sometimes read to me as two people who felt greatly for each other in their youths then over time found other people and new purpose and continued to pull away from the other.

Sometimes they treat each other kind of like how I’d treat an ex boyfriend or girlfriend, especially in Flash/Nightwing years.

Now I think it’s important to talk about their roles as Robin and Kid Flash, they are characters created to be relatable, the whole sidekick schtick was about appealing to the younger audience. It was such an early era that it should be noted that Dick and Wally did not have anyone else. Unlike now, Dick has a plethora of Robins to have seperate and distinct relationships with, same thing with Wally, any insecurities and worries can make someone feel extremely lonely. They did not have anyone, anyone but each other.

The early years for Robin and Kid Flash must had been confusing for the both of them so they had to confide in each other. Around this time I feel like it could be easier to fall more into a queerplatonic relationship with someone, Dick could feel confused and lonely, as he does then seeks and finds in Wally, with emotions hitting a peak I could totally see them accidentally falling for the other and sharing a relationship that’s a little more than friends…

It’s a big contrast. Wally has shown this big obligation for helping Dick and being there for him. This has always been strange to me. His inclination to try and be that person for him, which to me can feel like someone clinging to a relationship they know is slipping away.

It’s important to note that as Nightwing, the people there for Dick was not Wally, by this time, Wally became the Flash, found family, found love and entered the JLA. He was moving on and so was Dick but they still feel this inclination to call each other “best friends” though all the evidence says otherwise. It feels like one is clinging to a broken friendship to me.

He’s always so concerned for Dick because he knows how often he represses his emotions.

It’s why in my head, I can totally see Dick and Wally in their Robin/Kid Flash eras, losing their way, getting confused and confiding in each other in let’s say: a romantic way and now as adults they don’t know how to deal with it.

I know Dick is just thinking here but like, they do this A LOT. Like what is the need for this constant tension in the air with these two? Why is it so awkward? Why does it feel like there is something they want to say but can’t bring themselves to say it?

It makes my mind want to fill in the blanks…

Here they are saying flatly that it feels like an obligation. This is the closest they’ve gotten to really talking about how their dynamic has changed. It’s very sweet. It’d also be due to outside factors, like DC not knowing what to do with these two and refusing to let these two acknowledge that they are not best friends anymore and their lives have changed greatly. The thing about Superhero comics is that there’s so much fighting that the characters never get a chance to sit and just talk so it’s more the writers constantly trying to cling on to what they remember the Robin/Kid Flash dynamic to be and making it seem like these characters are clinging to their relationship.

Thry gush about the progress they make a lot and Wally feels like… I don’t know, his pride may fill the void the graysons left behind? Like he’s kind of a subtle replacement. It helps with my idea that Dick could be greiving his parents then quickly subconsciously seek and confide in Wally. Their relationship just is distinctly different from all their other friends in a way I can never pin down or the writers refuse to acknowledge. How Dick is much closer to Donna and Roy but they both still are mindlessly attached to one another like there’s this secret third thing keeping them together.

Wally has fully moved on and found his soulmate. Dick found Kory and fell pathetically in love but now he has nothing again and in canon still does this “Oh my best best friend to ever was, Wally~” It feels very much like someone hasn’t gotten over their little break up… 🙄 Even now they still comfort and talk about each other with a little bit more love and affection then they might do their other friends for this same weird reason.

Although, there’s one Wally West panel that Birdflash shippers had taken out of context: the one where Wally says “I got married and he didn’t.”

It’s not saying that Wally wishes he got married to Dick, 😭 but even then that goes into the little foulder of evidence that proves I think Wally and Dick’s relationship is ex-coded because it’s literally a bunch of thought bubbles about how Wally is heartbroken that he has moved on with his life and his life with Dick and they are no longer as close as they once were at all. (I can’t fit the panel in this post so I can just hope you know what I’m talking about) <- but my point is: Birdflash as a ship could be so much better if we stopped ignoring Linda and started treating them as exes instead. It’s so much more interesting. This is what I mean when I say they are my favorite exes.

[sieglinde-freud]

i love laslow and nyx’s supports and i love how they go from trauma dump central in the b support

to making fun of their angst in the a

like theyre soooo lame and it makes me emo and every time i watch this support i kick my feet and twirl my hair theyre SOOOOOOO SICKENING. WHO WROTE THIS. WHOOOOOOO

[butchvamp]

Davrin's and Bellara's banters are so good it's a shame they don't actually let them have any of these conversations in cutscenes considering how much more it tells you about Davrin's character and also how interesting it would be for the both of them to discuss the gods, how they feel about them, and their difference of opinion. he does clearly feel a lot of fondness for the Dalish, even if he doesn't necessarily believe in the gods, and i don't know why they don't let him say this stuff during his quest when he goes to visit Eldrin or when he's talking about his purpose with the griffons and the Grey Wardens.

Bellara: What about the people? Davrin: I missed the sense of common purpose. A clan acting as one. Everywhere else, people were in it for themselves. Davrin: It's a reason I joined the Grey Wardens. Guess I needed that purpose again. The shared fight.

him discussing his time away from his clan and comparing his experiences with Bellara both as Dalish elves and as Grey Warden and Veil Jumper and bonding over their different perspectives and the things they have in common...

Davrin: I'll always be Dalish. That'll never change. The sight of an aravel still brings back memories.

also interesting they have him specifically say "I don't regret the life I've lived" when Bellara asks if he misses his clan (considering the entire game is about regrets), but he does remark that he wishes he could "do both." (why can't he? is he not still serving his clan as a Grey Warden? this game loves its false dichotomies. however, i do think this is just what he personally thinks, we just never get to ask him) he also goes on to say this:

Davrin: The thing about being Dalish-- I needed to see the rest of the world to understand why the Dalish part of it was so special.

compare that with his dialogue with Taash, where he just complains about the Dalish "doing the same thing all the time just because it was tradition." they also go back and forth and complain about the lessons they had to take as kids (Taash complaining about their Qunari lessons, Davrin complaining about the elves "always talking about the past." they love saying this about the specifically indigenous-coded elves lol) however, when he mentions honoring the hunt, Taash counters this and says it sounds interesting, and Davrin ends the dialogue by remarking "I didn't say I was the brightest kid."

back with Bellara, he then talks about what he took for granted before leaving, ominously states it was "...different," (since he is one of the few characters that actually brings up the discrimination elves face and comments about how the gods will make it worse and also lays into Solas about it, i assume that may be what he's vaguely referring to here), and then you get the dialogue about him joining the Grey Wardens— the world wasn’t what he thought it would be, and he needed to see good in people and have that shared purpose again... and perhaps he also wanted to find a place that wouldn't look down on him for being Dalish.

you get the barest slivers of this when you talk to him after Weisshaupt (before his quest pivots to just focusing on Assan) but this banter gives you so much more insight-- he talks about his purpose as a sharpened blade striking true, but it's also this shared fight with his fellow Grey Wardens that means so much to him... except they're all dead now, and he's not. he killed the archdemon, but he's still here, and they're not..... he also seems to carry some guilt about leaving his clan, implying that he "rejected them," and now he feels that he can never go back; i wish this was something we could discuss with him, considering he can potentially leave the griffons with the Dalish. Eldrin lives separately from the clan, but i think that could have been an interesting conversation, and also play a part in Davrin's grief after Weisshaupt (he feels like he can never go back to his clan, and now he doesn't even have Weisshaupt to go back to, either).

[purpurussy]

the number of posts i have saved to my drafts over the last few days and managed to stop myself from unleashing. being a phannie is going to kill me

[eveningrainstorm]

Listen. Swansea is great; he's a well-written character and I like him a lot. But it's weird to me how much fan content I see about him that seems to make him out to be a lot nicer than he's actually shown to be in the game, and nowhere is this more obvious than in how people depict his relationship with Anya.

I've seen other people address the whole "If Anya had told Swansea what happened he'd have killed Jimmy" thing (she did. he didn't.) but there's a larger issue where people act like Swansea cared a lot more about Anya and was a lot closer with her than is actually the case in canon. And sure, the game leaves a lot of room for differing interpretations of things and imaginings of what could have happened offscreen, but I've seen so many people act like this idea of Swansea and Anya being close is something actually depicted in canon which. It very much is not.

Like okay. Let's talk about this. What does the game itself actually show us about Anya and Swansea's relationship?

Well, we don't see much of their dynamic before the crash aside from them just being coworkers with some level of familiarity with each other. They do stand together at the birthday party, and Anya playfully tells Curly that “Swansea really likes that cake. Don’t tell anyone,” to which Swansea only "hmph"s in response. From this we can gather that the two of them are friendly enough that Anya feels comfortable teasing him. Even so, she certainly isn't an exception to his characteristic harshness and brutal honesty — take an interaction later in the same scene, where a distressed Anya says she has no savings and asks if Pony Express can really fire them like this and Swansea, not cruelly but certainly bluntly, tells her that Pony Express going under has been a long time coming.

Of more importance, perhaps, is the game's first "2 months after the crash" segment, where we are first introduced to both of them — and where the game makes it quite apparent just how little Swansea respects Anya. The very first scene, in fact, features Swansea interrupting Anya and mocking her when she tries to explain why opening the cargo hold is a good idea. Later, when talking to Jimmy, Swansea calls Anya "our so-called nurse" and says that "it's in one ear and out the other" when talking about how she nearly got injured on the broken vent. And if you get the code scanner before talking to her Swansea will tell you to get her before opening the cargo hold but specifically with the justification that "even she couldn't make the situation worse with her presence." None of this is really uncharacteristic of Swansea, given he talks about Daisuke in much the same way, but it's not something that can just be swept under the rug — and yet, seemingly, everyone does. I hardly ever see anyone even mention Swansea insulting her here.

Of course, none of these scenes are where the idea that Swansea and Anya are particularly close comes from. No, that idea comes from a single scene: "3 months after", when Jimmy finds the two of them talking in the cockpit at night. We only see the end of this conversation, where Anya, apparently crying, is saying “No. I understand completely. If that’s how it has to be—”

The game never reveals exactly what the two of them were talking about; the two main theories I've seen are that Swansea was telling her that he was saving the cryopod for Daisuke or that she had told Swansea that Jimmy assaulted her and Swansea was saying she'd just have to put up with being around him for the time being. Personally, I think the latter is much more likely, but either way, the end result is the same: regardless of how much Swansea cares about Anya, her well-being is not his first priority.

We never see any follow-up on this conversation; if Anya and Swansea meet up behind Jimmy's back at any other point, we don't see it or hear it referenced. "4 months after" offers no interaction between the two of them at all, with Swansea busy dancing drunkenly while Anya, on the other side of the lounge, tells Jimmy about the extra medicine cabinet. "5 months after", Anya commits suicide in Medical while Swansea sits drunk and oblivious in front of Utility. The only reference to Anya and Swansea's conversation — and the closest we get to a confirmation of what it was about — comes after Daisuke's death, when Jimmy uses "telling Anya who knows what" as a sign of shady behavior from Swansea, and Swansea agrees that he did talk to Anya, "but it was her telling me all sorts of things instead, wasn't it?", the implication being that she told Swansea about Jimmy raping her.

This line is interesting. Swansea is referencing what Jimmy did to Anya here, and implicitly condemning him for it, and yet... well, Anya's already dead. Swansea isn't doing anything for her, really; he doesn't seem particularly emotional or angry about it, either. All it really is, when it comes down to it, is a spiteful jab at Jimmy — just Swansea, still angry over Daisuke's death, trying to get under Jimmy's skin.

We never see Swansea react to Anya's death. This isn't surprising; we aren't shown what happened when Daisuke got the door to Medical open, and afterwards Swansea is understandably preoccupied with Daisuke's fatal injuries. The first thing Swansea says about Anya after her death is the line about her telling him things. And, well... here's the problem.

That line? Is also the last thing Swansea says about Anya.

He never mentions her again. That one line, the one that doesn't even mention her death, the one that seems more about getting at Jimmy than mourning her — that's the last we hear of her from Swansea. And maybe he does care, maybe her death is just as much a catalyst for him trying to kill Jimmy as Daisuke's is. But he never says anything about her. He doesn't mention her in his death scene. Sure, that last portion of the game is largely filtered through Jimmy's mind, his disregard for Anya keeping her out of focus, but Swansea's death — a moment of sharp, simple clarity in which Swansea says all the things Jimmy doesn't want to hear — doesn't have that excuse. Swansea doesn't say a thing about her, because in the end, he's not focused on her either.

So that's what we have. They don't seem to be that close, before or after the crash, though they theoretically could be. Anya telling him specifically about what Jimmy did could be considered a notable show of trust, but then again she could have just wanted to tell someone and considered him her best option, and in any case if she was hoping for him to do anything about it, he didn't. And despite a large portion of the fandom believing it to be the case, there isn't actually anything indicating that he told Anya about the cryo pod — if anything, his assertion that it was Anya who told him things rather than the other way around is evidence against it. Technically, anything's possible — Swansea could have comforted Anya when she told him about Jimmy, he could have offered her the cryo pod, he could have grieved her just as much as Daisuke — but looking at what the game itself presents, the picture it paints is far different from the one typically seen in the fandom.

We don't know what's going on in Swansea's head. We don't know what happens in the time between the moments the game shows us. But what the game does show us is this: Swansea repeatedly is disrespectful and rude to or about Anya; Swansea doesn't do anything after she tells him what Jimmy did to her; Swansea doesn't have any real reaction to Anya's death. Does he care about her? Probably. I'd like to believe so. But she's not the one he decides to kill Jimmy over, she's not the one he has regrets for in his dying moments, she's not the one he's saving the cryo pod for.

Maybe Swansea cares about Anya, but she's not his first priority. And isn't that sort of the point? This is what the game has been showing us the whole time: Anya is no one's first priority, except her own.