#you should probably tell them what the misinformation was

[alexanderwales]

My web serial, Worth the Candle, has been adapted into a webcomic. This was thanks to my agent, who I have a great fondness for, since without him I would have to spend time trying to make connections and call people and do a bunch of work that I don't know how to do and am not good at.

I was offered the chance to write the webcomic, but declined, mostly because writing Worth the Candle had taken four years and was pretty draining, and was a story that I feel like I'm done with, minus some editorial stuff, answering fan questions, and the odd bit of promotion. So my level of involvement is that I get the pages as they come in, make some comments on them, and generally just give feedback which they are free to ignore.

So let's talk about some of the adaptational changes! You can read the first three issues on Webtoon here, or the first eight issues if you're willing to pay, and the books start here, but I'll assume that you haven't read either, and there won't be substantial spoilers because I'm talking about stuff from the very beginning. Actually, I guess there will be some spoilers, but later on, and I'll mark them, mostly having to do with some foreshadowing that the webcomic does which I didn't do.

(I licensed the rights to make the webcomic to WebToon and took my money upfront, they didn't ask me to write this post, I have not actually asked the artist/writer why they made these changes, it's just me guessing and commenting, for fun. Edit: My agent has informed me that I'm mistaken, I do get a cut. So apologies for the misinformation, and hooray for me, I guess I signed the contract ages ago and just forgot the details.)

Character Design

Here's how Juniper Smith is described in the books, ch 2:

I won’t belabor my physical description. My friend Greg had once said that I looked like someone had chosen ‘default’ for every option in the character creator, which I’d tried to laugh at but cut kind of deep. I wasn’t handsome, I wasn’t ugly, none of my features were very prominent, my eyes were blue, my hair was brown, average build, average height … After Greg had made his comment at one of our D&D games, my nickname had been ‘default’ for a while, at least until I stopped pretending to find it funny, and even after that my friends would use similar lines to trash talk me, saying that I was “the most generic man alive”, “a white bread with skim milk motherfucker”, or “the human equivalent of vanilla ice cream”. Not that I was any less of an asshole to them.

This is how he looks in the comic:

I would more or less give this full marks.

In terms of other aspects of character design, Juniper is here given a black shirt with a red symbol on it rather than the stock white t-shirt he's wearing in the opening chapters of the first book, probably in the interests of adding in some visual variety. On the page, it's perfectly fine that every person in the first 50k words is wearing basically the same stock outfit. In a visual medium, I do think that you need that pop. I do think it's interesting that Juniper is wearing the same clothes in the classroom as he is on the plane, implying that when he transmigrated his clothes ... came with him? I don't know.

The other major character of the first section is Amaryllis, who is a major character in the entire work. Here's her description in the book:

Standing by a workbench, among various car parts, tools, and cans of unidentified fluids, was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen.

I’m not really sure what protocol is here, in terms of prose. I mean, I don’t want to sound like a creep, so maybe I should stay as generic as possible and tell you about her dark red hair pulled back in a braid, the glacial blue of her eyes, how starkly alert she looked as she peered over the parts in front of her, or her grease-smeared clothes. Save for her eyes, I wasn’t really focused on any of that. My mind was consumed by tracing her curves, the shape of her chest in her blood-stained t-shirt, the fullness of her lips and the delicate way she had them parted -- and yeah, it was pretty fucked up that the splatter of blood on her shirt wasn’t worth rating much of a mention. I was consumed with staring at her and thinking how gorgeous she was, until I noticed that she was having a powerful effect on me, at which point different parts of my mind were given over to marveling at the sensation of being so attracted to a girl, and others were still focused on her.

Imagine that someone spent a few years studying your likes and dislikes, running through video of your every private moment, somehow surreptitiously hooking up EKGs to measure your physiological responses without you knowing. Then imagine that they sat down with that data and the best photo manipulation artists in the world and made the absolute perfect picture to cause your heart rate to spike, a jolt to run up your spine, butterflies in your stomach, and a cold sweat on your palms. Then imagine that they did this again, over and over in slight variations, until they had a full 4K 60fps 3D movie to show you. That was what it was like watching her.

And here she is (as she's introduced) in the comic:

Aside from the change in clothes, which in the book are the same white t-shirt and blue jeans that everyone else is wearing, Amaryllis has a scar on her face, of unknown provenance. This was probably added for visual variety, but I do find scars to be very fetching, and in one of the early versions of Worth the Candle she did have one (patterned off a woman with an extremely attractive facial scar I had met, the kind of facial scar that looked like it was applied by a Hollywood makeup artist specifically to give a touch of the exotic and mysterious, except she was a just a Midwestern mom).

And of course Amaryllis was always going to be an adaptational challenge, because the books are told through Juniper's eyes, and she's The Most Beautiful Girl in the World to him, and conventionally attractive to everyone else. Juniper tries to be normal about this. But if you're in the visual medium, you have to show both how Juniper feels and how she actually looks, and attractiveness is just so incredibly personal. My wife and I get in these kinds of discussions a lot, where she'll think someone is good-looking and I'll say "him?" or vice versa.

I think the above panel in particular is a good middle ground, a glamour shot that snaps back to the reality of their first meeting:

(The void gun she's holding there is much different from the one described in the book, not something cobbled together from spare parts and void equipment, but this is another very minor change that I would assume is meant for communicating immediately that this is a lethal weapon, and there's probably not a place for explaining how and from what it was cobbled together, which is also under-explained in the book for reasons of pacing.)

Story

I've read the first nine episodes, and overall, it's hewing very closely. There are a few bits in particular that stand out to me in how they're handled.

Spoilers for later in the series follow, I guess.

These are the opening lines of the webcomic. This is much stronger foreshadowing than I used, and I like it. Part of Juniper's backstory is that he's been deeply depressed and self-destructive, and he's slow to open up about this with other characters or the reader. The "it" that he couldn't go through with is, then, suicide. In the books? This comes very very late. Juniper being depressed after Arthur's death is brought up after the first major arc, halfway through what's now Book 1, and gets more explicit as the books go on, eventually getting to Juniper talking about his attempted suicide with people and grappling with it like ... almost halfway through?

I don't know what the plans for the webcomic are, but my guess is that they're setting up for much, much later on in a way that I didn't. This was always a background element, something that informed Juniper's character, not so much the suicide attempt as the feeling that came after, this understanding that yes, he did want to live, a heady, energizing kind of "I guess I don't have the way out that I thought I did" sort of thing.

So I take it as a good sign that this is the opening line. It points toward them understanding where they're going.

One of the other major adaptational changes is that they signpost Arthur's death with a memorial on his desk:

When I was getting pages, this was one of the first moments where I was like "yes, this is a good change, visual storytelling to replace my walls of text, flows and offers indirect information". I am very happy with the adaptation thus far, and stuff like this is what I love about adaptation in general, the need to grapple with the strengths and weaknesses of the medium.

Content Rating

Worth the Candle gets grim and dark in places. It at least attempts to grapple with serious things. The webcomic is rated Young Adult, and I'm not sure how they're going to handle the later stuff, but I can talk about how they're handling the stuff now, and what I think it means overall.

First, there's a lot less swearing. Worth the Candle in its entirety uses the word "fuck" ~1200 times. Granted, this is over the course of 1.6 million words, so a fuck density of one every 1.3k words, and some of those are in the verb "soulfuck" rather used descriptively, as exclamations, etc. My personal feeling is that this doesn't matter basically at all. I don't think I notice when someone isn't swearing unless they're using corny substitutions or trying to get cute with it.

Second, the violence is toned down in that YA way, where they're still showing much of the same things, just not with the same level of visceral detail. When a Marvel comic has someone thrown into a wall, they're no blood or snapping of bones or mangling of bodies, at least if it's a comic at a certain rating (I have definitely read some edgy 90s comics that do go hard on the violence). I think, overall, that this isn't my preference, which might be obvious from the way that I try to write fight scenes and such. But I'm also sort of inured to this toning down of violence, since it's omnipresent.

Third, there's the sex stuff, and ... well, it hasn't come up in the webcomic yet. I think I laid out my reasoning for why I think sex scenes should be written/included in Why to Write a Sex Scene, but the brief version is that sometimes you're showing how characters relate to each other, what they think of each other, and the sex scene shouldn't always just be something that's skipped over and left to the reader's imagination, because things happen, there are moments of communication, it can and does develop a relationship in the moment rather than after the fact. Plus a little titillation is, in my opinion, usually good.

The great thing about writing webfic is that no one can stop you from just including three solid chapters of hardcore pornography in the middle of your story. I have never done that, but I could is the point, and I would only get complaints from people who have no power over me. That same freedom doesn't exist here, and ... yeah, it makes my heart sink a little bit.

Fourth, there's some of the more mature content stuff, the topics that might not be broached. I don't know how they're handling that, so I reserve judgment, but I think my opinion is probably going to be "well, you do what you have to do", and if my version of the story is superior because there are no brakes, then I can be smugly superior about that.

Conclusion

This is already a fairly long post, and there are a few other things that I could have remarked on, but I think this is all the most interesting stuff.

Alright, just one real quick: Arthur is adaptationally more attractive, though this is also how Juniper sees Arthur and I think by the standards of webcomics, this is actually sort of necessary. Most of the flashback cast is not described until much later on, and by then you kind of know and understand them from the things they've said, if you can keep track of them. Many of the flashbacks are nearly disembodied. But if you're showing Arthur early, then the first impression he's going to make is in his appearance, and that really anchors people.

So overall, I am happy with the adaptation. There are challenges ahead, and I'm thankful that I'm not the one who needs to tackle those challenges.

[monitorkernelaccess]

me when i dont know basic south american history and also dont google things

Hi what is this referring to?

[chemicalarospec]

.

[inazuma-fulgur]

Normally I truly just ignore shitty opinions

But sometimes I see so many shitty takes, so many posts preaching and shaming, I wonder if there even are any others outside of those and shallow entertainment, goofy jokes

Ie. Everything is either for fun (good) or serious nonsense

And I realize there are serious and good and thoughtful posts out there, they even get shared, I have shared them. But I can't unfeel that they never start discussions, get people talking and rethinking, even when that is their stated goal

To me it seems people are always just searching for the next appealing, popular post to *unironically* integrate into their belief system the way they meet it. No being picky about takes, no taking only the parts you like, no self reflection and merging the new knowledge with the old, always replace everything.

Got a new personality and political opinion for free from my favorite (insert ideology here) influencer

Like genuinely, to me the reason why Hbomb is popular on here is not because he's good (he is though) but because it's good easy drama, comes with a target and moralization (or at least a villain which can be targeted and who's action can be moralized) in a format that is so large most of us aren't even used to comprehending such thorough takes, how could we possibly critically examine and compare them?

And no matter what hbomb says, someone will find a way to deliberately misunderstand him, someone will be lazy and self righteous about it

If you found out from Hbombs video that James Somerton is full of shit, didn't manage to do that on your own, do you really think just by watching that once or twice you've figured out and learned everything about scammers? About fact checking? You probably didn't even fact check his video because everything aligned with your beliefs, you just needed to make the new information fit in somehow.

It's probably pointless to say this, but he isn't infallible, and he knows he isn't, he admits he isn't, still his videos are gospel to people. All Harris gives you is an idea, a starting point, a concept from where you can expand. He doesn't know what's right, he just knows that what James and Illuminaughti did definitely ain't it.

And that's cool y'know, I don't expect anything more. Only if his watchers could stop pretending he is all of the above, no different from Vaush* fans or whoever. Philosophy Tube fans, very much the same. And Abby and others definitely, maliciously or not, profit off of that, actively keep it that way because it makes YouTube safe as a source of income. It also makes for more efficient and easier branding

*not saying hbomb is like vaush. He isn't

But y'know, Harris and Abby are white british people how could they be wrong about anything amiright

Tumblr, I call you out, do the thing you preach and start fact checking and thinking critically

[i-hope-this-is-a-phase]

Regarding the GeorgeNotFound Situation

This entire conversation should not have happened publicly.

It was clear from Caiti's initial post that there was a breakdown in communication rather than any "assault" or "molestation." In her own testimony, she never described explicitly stating no, nor giving any indication besides "getting up" to stop the attention (which was later disproved).

That does not mean she wasn't uncomfortable. That does not mean she was not hurt by George's actions. It also does not mean George is a molester because of it.

From Caiti and George's statements, it is clear that this took place over a couple of hours (3-4), and besides the texting afterward, there were no further physical interactions between them. To use a single incident to describe George's behavior is a stretch at best and downright misinformation at worst. In the Wilbur situation, the violations of Shelby's boundaries happened over months with repeated attempts to tell him to stop.

In George's situation, it happened over four hours, in which there were no explicit tells to stop.

That said, I do hope George takes this incident and rethinks his behavior with strangers. Even if it should not be described as molesting, it still hurt Caiti, and if I were him, I would make strides to not repeat the mistakes made here.

Moreover, I think that some parties involved should not have been. Some individuals used the volatile situation to spread their own hate toward the Dream Team. They used Caiti's story to push their own agenda, which, in no way, is supporting a victim. Her friends should have helped her find closure by seeking reconciliation from her "abuser;" instead, they made the situation a public massacre where she would most likely be harassed after already feeling vulnerable.

My hope is that, behind the scenes, the two will talk about what happened and try to find peace. George clearly did not know he hurt Caiti, and he apologized for making her feel uncomfortable. That does not make him a villain: it makes him a person who made a mistake.

The moral of this whole fiasco is not to support or not support victims. Support can be weaponized for personal gain, and to support blindly is almost as bad as not supporting at all.

Instead, we need to listen. From the beginning, Caiti's story was a plea for an apology from George, and all she needed was George's apology (which she received). She did not need people calling him an abuser, she did not need her friends to utilize her pain to attack George's friend Dream, and she did not need people to pry into both her and George's life for answers.

All of this could, and should, have happened off-screen where the two parties could reconcile and heal.

To Caiti: I wish this had not happened to you. I am sorry you are in pain, and I am sorry your friends used your pain for their gain. I hope you find peace from George's apology, and if you do not, I hope you find peace in life.

To George: I wish this did not happen in the public light. Your mistake did not need to be publicized and scrutinized and instead should have been between you and Caiti. I hope you will help Caiti find peace, and if she does not want it, I hope you grow as a person and do not make this mistake again.

As of right now, this blog will remain positive about the Dream Team. I probably will not be supporting George enthusiastically right now (since I want to be certain this isn't a repetitive behavior and just one incident). However, I will be happy to talk about any fandom content regarding him and the other members.

It has been a rough few days, and I am grateful for the lovely positivity we created between my anons and followers. I give you all many squishes of happiness. Thank you for being kind.

Now, let us all move on to a better and brighter future in this fandom. We have a lot of content coming up, and I'm very excited. Feel free to send any asks regarding the situation; I would love to read your opinions.

TL;DR This conversation should have happened off-camera. Caiti's story should not have been used for clout, and George should not have been attacked for clout. Both need to heal off-camera, and we should support that.

[whateversawesome]

Spy x Family Ch 105.1: Kiss! Kiss! and More Kissing!

Have you noticed that often, when Yor is in a chapter, there's a slight mention about kissing? I wonder why that is 🤔

Maybe Endo is trying to brainwash Yor into kissing her husband 😆Not that she needs a lot of convincing 😏 She just has to realize she wants to kiss him and overcome her shyness. And to give her a little push, it's necessary to raise the stakes!

Well, it looks like Yor is going to have to kiss Twilight for world peace 🕊️(You can do it, Yor! Smooch that man!)

Let's also notice that this piece of misinformation fell in the hands of Anya Forger 😂What will Anya do with it?

I'm so proud of Yor. She's now asking the right questions:

Yes, Yor, that's totally normal. Now go kiss your man many times for world peace!

Martha looked surprised and flustered with that question. I wonder if later she'll realize that a married woman should probably know this. And also, I wonder what she's thinking here. A possibility is that this panel tells us that she didn't have anyone after Henry or...maybe she's thinking about someone else...coughs (McMahon!).

The topic about kissing was all over this short mission.

This panel even looks like the tags on my fics !🤣

This shows exactly how each of them feels about romance and kissing in particular.

Martha: I've seen this 😑

Becky: Total Romance Brain 😍

Anya: 🥱😴

Yor:

Joking aside, another topic in this short mission was about male/female stereotypes and female empowerment.

According to Becky and what she has learned in dramas and movies, a boy should protect the girl and the girl should let him play that role in order to get the boy.

Nevertheless, neither Yor, Anya, or Martha fit that role. Anya immediate voices she prefers to be the protector. Yor and Martha already are the protectors because they are strong women.

Which brings us back to...

Lucky for Yor, she's married to a man who understands these are people's expectations, not really obligations. I think this is also the reason why Yor feels comfortable enough at home to be herself.

It would be wonderful that someone like Yor, a strong protector who doesn't fit into a woman's stereotype of that time, to get the boy 😊

And when this happens, of course there has to be kissing, kissing and more kissing!

[yeloenk]

i want to apologize more formally for answering the anon who gave me a false list of proshippers.

ever since making a post asking proshippers to please block me (i had some who were following me), people have been anonymously sending me some lists of proshippers/controversial people in the UTMV fandom.

i have answered a few, but only those that were calling out proshippers that have actually confirmed to be proshippers.

when i received this ask in particular, i just saw someone giving me a list with no ill-intent behind it. so, without giving much thought, i replied to the ask.

my intention with this was to let others know who to block/avoid; not to harass, witch-hunt, etc. i am aware that these kinds of lists can encourage this behavior, which i take responsibility for. i genuinely apologize for using my platform in this way—even if it was done unintentionally, it was still wrong of me to do.

this being said, i do NOT stand for harassment in any way, shape, or form. even if it is directed towards proshippers, that is no way to solve the real issue. proshippers need help, they do not need more reason to need help. purposefully going out of your way to stalk, bully, send threats, or ANYTHING of that nature is wrong.

i made my first apology in a panicked rush, once i saw people telling me that the anon was spreading misinformation. however, in that blog, i did not acknowledge how my actions could have harmed people listed (especially ones who were listed falsely).

if you were affected in any way by my response to this anon, i apologize personally to you. please know this was not my intent: even if you are a proshipper, my only thoughts regarding that ask was "hey! cool, a free blocklist."

everyone is human, and nobody should be treated this way. although i think proshippers are morally wrong, and need help/therapy, they are still real people behind the screen. real people affected by your actions: mine included. the best thing you can do in the situation of seeing a proshipper is blocking them instead of instigating interaction.

i will no longer be doing anything like this again now that i am taking into consideration that some people are using these lists as witch-hunt lists. i should have checked all of the names before replying, especially since the list included no proof whatsoever. in the future, i do promise to be mindful and very cautious when addressing topics like these, especially when it comes to checking facts.

i do hope i can be forgiven, but i understand if not. i understand my actions have consequences, and i understand i was in the wrong taking a hand in spreading false information and encouraging harassment.

the purpose of this apology is to acknowledge what i did wrong, learn from it, and move on. and, to clear up why i replied to the list. keep in mind that it is not an excuse for my actions, but a reason for them. i still made the choice to answer this ask and not at least clarify to block them instead of harassing them.

to the anon who sent that ask: do not spread false information, please. it only hurts those who are involved, nothing good comes out of it for either side.

one more thing i wish to add:

to the grown adults sending me asks, insulting me: what is wrong with you? i am a 16 year old. i am going to make mistakes. it's a part of life, a part of learning. if you seriously think you're doing good by being nasty to a kid on tumblr because of a stupid choice they made, you further strengthen my belief that proshippers need help.

there's also been people just blatantly insulting things about me that are unrelated to the situation as a whole? my art, for example. please stop.

i don't want my blog to be focused on drama, so i'm not going to post much at all about stuff like proshippers anymore. i'll probably just be sharing art for the most part.

[snorlaxlovesme]

alright everybody, it's time we talked about Hostage. (buckle up because this is going to be long, but it'll be worth it)

season 2 episode 8 of Link Click was one of the most confounding episodes in the entire season while airing. starting with Lu Guang's insane boat crash/martial arts smackdown rescue of Cheng Xiaoshi and ending with Cheng Xiaoshi diving into a photo to possess Lu Guang to get answers for his actions, from start to finish it was a wild ass ride where we, the fandom, AND the characters spent the whole time questioning Lu Guang and his motives

and...puzzlingly... didn't really get an answers by the end of the season

Lu Guang wasn't granted any post-climax time to explain what happened that day from his perspective, and while Cheng Xiaoshi was possessing him he didn't get any answers because he literally WAS Lu Guang, just doing whatever the hell he thought he needed to do.

the thing about Hostage that has always felt extremely off to me, is that we DO get explanations for Lu Guang's actions during the episode, but they're from people wholly unqualified to be giving them.

Captain Xiao finds Lu Guang's phone, hidden in a folded towel, and concludes that Lu Guang had left them clues. Qiao Ling, after seeing that Lu Guang had taken a photo that night, came to the conclusion that Cheng Xiaoshi must have been the one possessing Lu Guang during his deranged rescue plan at the pier, seeing as Lu Guang wasn't an adept fighter at the dojo and he was acting extremely impulsive. She even goes so far to say, later in the episode, that Cheng Xiaoshi HAS to dive into the photo, because it's already happened, and needs to follow Lu Guang's words to not change the timeline.

all of these assumptions, to me, are horseshit

I refuse to listen to ANYTHING Captain Xiao says. one, because he simply does not know these kids and should not be making assumptions about them, and two he is in fact the worst cop in the world. and Qiao Ling, bless her heart, has only found out how their powers work mere DAYS ago and doesn't understand the nuances of them at all

so I'm gonna debunk all that nonsense and explain to you what Lu Guang's REAL actions were that night, and what was up with that cryptic photo he took

now you might be thinking, Kelly, you're not even starting in the right place, because those weren't Lu Guang's actions, they were always Cheng Xiaoshi's, just in Lu Guang's body!

FALSE. on two counts! we have evidence of Lu Guang and Cheng Xiaoshi performing the act of escaping the hospital differently. Lu Guang does not use the kettle to break the window to distract the cops. we're not sure what he uses, but that kettle is still there.

Lu Guang also places his phone face down in the towel

while Cheng Xiaoshi places it faceup

so by the end of the episode we have literal, physical evidence that these two performed this timeline differently, and therefore it was not "Cheng Xiaoshi the whole time" like Qiao Ling tried to misinform us to believe. i also have another Big Brain post [x] that explains why Lu Guang being an impulsive, supposedly "good" fighter during that pier rescue scene are both in-character for him.

(and if we wanna get really nitpicky about how an injured Lu Guang could have raced across town in his condition, i simply believe that Lu Guang was smarter about it that Cheng Xiaoshi, and probably took a bus or cab. Cheng Xiaoshi, pure of heart and dumb of ass, ran because HE physically could while inhabiting Lu Guang's body. our injured catboy did not sprint across town while holding his organs in place)

so if we already have all this cold, hard evidence stating that Lu Guang really is THAT bitch and did all that shit on his own, what the hell is my problem? why can I not let this episode go?

BECAUSE I WANNA KNOW WHY LU GUANG TOOK THAT PHOTO

Captain Useless seems to think that Lu Guang took that photo as some sort of helpful clue left behind for the gang

but what, pray tell, was this photo supposed to tell us without someone with Lu Guang's powers there to interpret it? without Lu Guang to tell him what to do, Cheng Xiaoshi left to his own devices knows just as much as himself as he does possessing Lu Guang

and, the bigger question, is if this was supposed to be some sort of almighty clue for the gang, why did he not text this photo to either Qiao Ling or Cheng Xiaoshi before escaping the hospital? he took the time to text Qiao Ling the location of the boat, did he not? why not the photo too? seems like a crappy way to clue someone in, to take a photo and save it on your password protected phone that you just went out of your way to hide from plain sight

because that's the thing! after the season finale we discover that Lu Guang's password is literally a reminder of his dive, or even more specifically, a reminder of his trauma. we KNOW that he didn't share his password with Cheng Xiaoshi, he just just happened to figure it out on his own

so tell me how Lu Guang expected this trauma-password protected phone, with it's one singular picture, to get in the hands of Cheng Xiaoshi, hmm? riddle me THAT

so we've established by now that 1. Lu Guang's actions in the beginning of episode 8 were indeed his own and 2. that photo was never meant to be seen by Cheng Xiaoshi, who shouldn't have known Lu Guang's passcode

given the trauma-passcode, we have to believe that the only person ever meant to see this photo was Lu Guang. i've made ANOTHER post previously [x] stating that Lu Guang might have used his powers in a way we haven't known possible, by taking a photo and using his Blue Eyes White Dragon powers to see 12 hours into the immediate future

plausible, but not what i'm about to propose now.

because I think Lu Guang took that photo as a contingency plan

listen, the only person who had ANY credentials to theorize what Lu Guang was up to that night was his trusted partner. while Qiao Ling and Captain Xiao spouted their nonsense theories, Cheng Xiaoshi said the only smart thing that entire brainstorming session

and I think Cheng Xiaoshi was right. he wasn't wrong in assuming this photo was a Save Point of sorts, the only thing he was wrong about was who would be using it

the only other person in this show capable of diving into a photo, we find out during the finale, is Lu Guang

we also find out in the finale that powers are transferrable, and it looks like they transfer when the owner of that power dies in someone else's arms

Lu Guang took that photo that night NOT for Cheng Xiaoshi to find and use, but for LU GUANG himself to use. i believe Lu Guang firmly believed that Cheng Xiaoshi was to die that night, and he would do everything in his power to make sure he had a chance to change it again if he needed to.

that meant:

1.taking a photo on his phone as a Save Point.

2. hiding his phone in the hospital bathroom so it could not be taken from him or busted later in the night. and

3. racing to where he knew Cheng Xiaoshi would be, so he could either

4. a.) rescue him, or b.) ensure that during CXS's death, the diving power was transferred back to him so he could do the night over again.

Lu Guang took that photo as contingency plan to save Cheng Xiaoshi's life should he get killed that night.

but that plan was botched when Cheng Xiaoshi used it instead to possess Lu Guang, because each photo can only be used once.

which might also explain why Lu Guang was SO DISTRAUGHT when Cheng Xiaoshi was shot

they had deleted all their photos earlier that week to prevent the twins from possessing them remotely

that was the last photo Lu Guang had taken. the ONLY photo on his phone. if Cheng Xiaoshi died that night, there would have been no Save Point to return to

[balkanradfem]

I was sitting with the woman I care for in the lounge, while the horrible male and the neighbour discussed the news and politics loudly in the kitchen.

'Ugh, they always have to talk about the news.' She complained, irritated.

'Oh they're not saying anything smart.' I reassure her, already having heard their little 'debates'.

'Don't say that!' She was shocked by my judgment. 'I just don't know why they just have to discuss it, it's all so horrible.'

'They're not discussing it. They're having a debate on who has the most correct opinion of it.' I assert.

'No they're just asking each other "Have you seen this? Have you seen that?"' She kindly misquotes them.

'and "What did I tell you, I said this was going to happen, I knew it would be like this, those people are idiots, if they only did x"' I quote them more accurately. 'They're using the news to prove their superior intelect to the other.'

She said nothing in response, unwilling to entertain my claim. I guess it felt too painful to imagine, that while we cared deeply about the disasters in the news, to the males in the kitchen they were only a stage on which to assert superiority over each other. I even caught them antagonizing each other and blatantly misrepresenting their own opinion just to have a 'superior' opinion to the other.

I'm used to males primarily approaching world issues in order to assert to current company about how well informed, smart and superior they are. They never offer empathy or legitimate solutions, only assert how everything would have been better if the male was asked his opinion first (said in deep hindsight), how they should just do x (something cruel or impossible for the circumstances) and how everything is going to go bad now (can be said about anything, no consequences for him if he's wrong). 

This is not only exhausting, unnecesary, shallow, misinformative and annoying, but also shuts down any meaningful or resolution-seeking discussion about the issue. It also fails people who do not want to talk about the issue because they understand its not an issue they could contribute to or solve, and it's reductive and ignorant to talk about people going trough it as if we know better than them. A concept fully incomprehensible to a male seeking validation on what a special smart boy he is for watching the news and trashing the people in it.

I feel that for women it's often alienating, intimidating or difficult to understand when males start discussing politics, but I promise you its always just this. It's on purpose done to seem intimidating, non-understandable and alienating because thats what gives them the control over the conversation and how they get to waste your time and energy. 

They're not saying anything smart. All of their discussions are copy-paste because they're just trying to affirm their superiority over anyone trying to participate in the conversation. They want you to feel dumb in comparison and they'll say just about anything to make it happen. 

You're not dumb. You probably understand it on a deeper level than they do and you're forced to entertain their toddler level of obsrvation skill.

[howlsofbloodhounds]

THANK YOU for pointing out that killer probably wouldn't be diagnosed with DID bc he was an adult when all the bullshit happened

As a system I am honestly kinda tired of people saying he has DID especially since alot of them can't even tell you what it means

Of course. I’ve heard from both singlets (people who aren’t systems) and systems both for and against the idea of Killer having DID/OSDD1/being a system/being plural, and as im not a system, im not gonna comment on or control how systems choose to interpret or headcanon Killer.

But I am of the belief that misinformation should avoid being spread—both of Killer’s canon (not only purely on the basis of not being true, but because if people start believing Killer is canonically a system/has DID/OSDD1 and also is a literal serial killer, that has an understandably bad rep but it may cause people to harass or spread rumors about rahafwabas that aren’t true), and of already misunderstood stigmatized disorders. It also has fantasy themes such as magic, souls, monsters, time travel, Resetting, coming back from the dead multiple times, etc.

Killer is a character involved in themes of heavy abuse (captivity, high control groups, kidnapping, labor trafficking, cult elements, organized crime, etc) and these are all elements that require nuance and care in depicting seriously and respectively—which can be hard to do while also having to keep in mind stigma surrounding the idea of “murderous” or “evil” alter(s)—because these types of abusive controlling environments very often require victims to partake in illegal or harmful acts and behaviors to survive. And this can also very easily to maladaptive coping mechanisms that aren’t easily understood or pretty.

So im of the opinion that if people want to write killer as if he is plural/system and aren’t one themselves, they should both do research and speak to any plurals/systems willing to help them out—and in the actual writing, avoid using terms associated with the actual disorders such as DID, OSDD1, alter, host, persecutor, etc.

Not only because 1. killer was an adult when the trauma and abuse happened, so therefore he’s unlikely to be professionally diagnosed with those disorders even if he shows symptoms and presentations similar to them, and 2. killer himself wouldn’t know what he has and wouldn’t use those terms in relation to himself and his experiences.

He is not in any position to seek diagnosis or treatment or support —under Nightmare and with Chara, he is surviving. He may have a chance of that with Color and the Chromatic Crew in the Omega Timeline, but again—unless this is deliberately an AU where all this trauma happened and stuff when he was an actual child—he likely wouldn’t be diagnosed with it.

So instead it’d be best to focus on his lived experiences regardless of what dissociative disorder one decides to write him with—and use the terms he applies to himself or ones he may apply to himself, such as his numbered hierarchical understanding of his SOUL and its Stages (either something he came up with to make sense of his own experiences, or something that was decided for him by external forces such as Chara or Nightmare.) and perhaps use words like “my stage(s),” “my other,” “my other half,” “when I’m like that,” etc.

And if the topic of Killer having DID ever comes up in the story, such as another character asking him or another Stage if he has it, dont feel the need to confirm it. Not only because Killer himself likely wouldn’t know, but also because he likely doesn’t exactly fit the full criteria for a diagnosis in a canon adjacent story where he was an adult when it all happened.

Of course that’s my opinion, not really important in the grand scheme of things—im not a system—but there it is. Systems, as always, can add and chime in as they wish—and correct any misinformation or misunderstanding if they want.

[about-faces]

Batman: Caped Crusader, Episodes 1-2 thoughts (SPOILERS)

First things first, Harvey is as bad as I’d expected. I honestly can’t tell whether this is worse than the version we got in the last Timm-produced animated Batman show, “Beware the Batman.” That Harvey was a humorless prick straight out of the William Atherton school of jerkasses, while this one is a smug sleazebag who would be someone you’d love to hate if he weren’t also a complete inversion of a great tragic hero turned villain.

I’m just so sick of people portraying Harvey as a politician first and foremost, performing for the cameras and thinking about his career ambitions. I’m sick of him being a corrupt asshole and even an authoritarian. I’m sick him being two-faced, when the irony of his character is that he himself never WAS. Now that that’s out of my system, I’ll move on, because I know he has an arc in store that may prove more interesting than the usual Asshole Harvey takes.

They tried several things with the Penguin, and I’m not sure they gelled into anything that worked for me this time out. Making her a woman, that’s no problem, and I appreciate her classic style and appearance in a time when everyone just wants to turn Cobblepot into a boring Tony Soprano knockoff.

Ultimately, though, it all just served to make her a standard “Ma Barker” archetype. You know, the alleged matriarchal crime boss who was killed by Hoover’s FBI, who may have dragged her name through the mud to excuse their killing of an old woman? There used to be several takes on her in pop culture, although nowadays the only famous one is probably Ma Beagle from “DuckTales.”

With that in mind, they should have just cast Margo Martindale. Excuse me, didn’t use her full name: Beloved Character Actress Margo Martindale. Minnie Driver is a fantastic actress (I’m still mad that “The Riches” was not only cancelled but totally forgotten), but it was a waste not to let her use her real accent. As it was, she was fine, but she didn’t bring anything special to match the physical design. As an actress, she deserved more to play with.

Also, “Oswalda” is a terrible fake name. Like come on guys, you can do better. That’s on par with Revolver Ocelot’s real Russian name being “Adamska.”

The biggest problem with this take on Penguin is that she’s set up as some kind of brilliant mastermind, only to act incredibly stupid, reckless, and gullible. She kills not one but two innocent goons, including her own son, without so much as an investigation or even keeping tabs on the suspected rats to use them as pawns against Thorne! To paraphrase Dijkstra from the “Witcher” books, you don’t kill spies, you USE them. You feed them misinformation! You blackmail them into being double agents! This Penguin is bad at her job, so no wonder she loses everything within hours. It’s amazing she was able to build a crime empire in the first place!

I also dislike Bullock being a corrupt cop in the mob’s pocket. That fits Flass perfectly, but Bullock? Fuck no. Bullock IS dirty, but he’s dirty in a very acceptable way to cops. He’s brutal, he cuts corners, he’s crass, and he’s probably not above planting or concealing evidence, but selling out to the mob? Hell no. That’s just wrong. Hate that choice. Unless it’s a misdirection. This show sure does love its misdirections from what I’ve seen so far.

Batman himself is… fine. He’s Batman. He’s not a bad Batman. He’s serviceable but unremarkable. But at least he wasn’t an irritating asshole, which is more than I can say for most Batman depictions these days. I liked Bruce trying his “falling off a boat” joke a second time, delivered verbatim after it flopped with Barbara.

Barbara being a defense attorney is a rather contrived choice, one that gets to put her at odds with Harvey while also giving her a professional in with both Batman and Gordon. Essentially, she’s in the role Harvey Dent is supposed to play. Except here she’s a defense attorney, which SHOULD put her at odds with her dad, since lawyers and cops don’t seem to like one another, for SOME reason!

And Harvey, even as District Attorney, can’t be in the role of legal ally to either Gordon, because the story is far more focused on making him a mayoral candidate who throws people under the bus for his own advancement! Feh.

Anyway, that was episode one. It was fine, I guess.

The screenplay is by novelist and DC veteran Greg Rucka, so of course Renee Montoya is the central focus. Seeing her interact with Sleazebag Harvey gave me war flashbacks to what Rucka did with Renee and Harvey in the comics: setting them up with a poignant dynamic of tenuous respect and kindness before dashing it all with “Gotham Central: Half a Life,” which solidified the perception of Harvey as a creepy, obsessive stalker for a generation of fans. That version of them was very much of display here. Sigh.

Also, Lucius Fox is Bruce’s lawyer now? Why? And also, what the hell? God, poor Lucius. He starts off in comics as the guy actually running Wayne Enterprises, then “Batman: The Animated Series” makes him Bruce’s right-hand-man, then Nolan and Goyer get the inspired idea to make him the Q to Bruce’s 007, while the comics don’t know what to do with him and even make him an authoritarian to cause friction with his vigilante son, and now this? It’s such a random choice. There’s no reason why this character should be Lucius. Hell, Lucius could have shown up there WITH the lawyer and that would have been fine. As it is, it’s just weird.

That said! I overall liked this episode an awful lot! For DECADES now, I’ve wanted to see someone remember that Basil Karlo was an older actor in the classic horror movie vein (his name is literally a combination of Basil Rathbone and Boris Karloff), but ever since “Batman: The Animated Series,” everyone has just tried to make him BTAS’ Matt Hagen. Like, I really liked the “One Bad Day” issue for Clayface, where he gradually killed his way to the top of Hollywood stardom, but even that was still BTAS Hagen, the Serious Actor, not Karlo, the old horror ham actor.

But with this episode, someone finally drew on the old Hollywood horror roots of the character, and they found a way to combine his shape shifting abilities into the mix! I’m so happy!

Of course, this is me, so I still have criticisms. Like, I think it was unnecessary to frame it as a mystery, because that added unnecessary complications. I know the original Clayface story was a whodunnit and you can’t do that now that everyone knows that Karlo is Clayface. I was annoyed by the misdirection of Karlo’s “death,” in part because I feared this would be another Clever Subversion, just like how the animated adaptations of “Gotham By Gaslight,” “Hush,” and “The Long Halloween” purposely went against expectations from the source material in stupid ways. Hell, they’re doing the same thing now with Penguin (“But wait, there’s a twist: she’s a woman!”) and Harvey (“But wait, there’s a twist: he’s an asshole!”), so I was afraid this Clayface would end up being someone else entirely. I was okay with it in the end, but I’m annoyed at the cheap fakeout as a plot point.

Furthermore, I don’t get why Basil disguised himself as the doctor (whose name I don’t remember) for the benefit of the actress (whose name I don’t remember) he had chained up in his hideout. What benefit was there in making her think he was the doctor? She was already aware she was a prisoner and was scared, so why the facade? It served no purpose in context, only just to misdirect the viewers.

This is what happens when you try to make something a mystery when it would work better as a thriller. Stop trying to wow audiences with twists and surprises when you could just be focusing on telling a good story. So what if everyone figures out Karlo is Clayface? Who cares! Just go with it! Let them be in on it while Batman and Montoya figure it out themselves, that’s where the tension lies! Stop trying to be clever.

Regardless, I really liked this episode. I want this to now be the canon comics origin for Basil Karlo’s Clayface. Just explain that the treatments for his face gradually affected his whole body, and boom, you’ve successfully explained how classic Slasher Clayface became Mud Monster Clayface. This is how Karlo should always be written from now on. If you really want a sensitive, angsty lug Clayface, bring back Hagen. Let Karlo be the gloriously hammy monster with aspirations of stardom.

[catboymoments]

Me: Asks you to educate yourself, providing easy access to videos that, turns out, directly address the issues that make you dislike vivziepop and provide more context than tumblr and twitter hate threads ever do

You responded to that quickly I know you didn't bother watching. Bruh. I told you a lot of the hate around Vivziepop isn't valid and you don't check it out? See if any of your concerns fell under the one video I directly recommended?? The creator had timestamps too.

Going to the video would have told you the one nazi oc was from eight years ago. And it wasn't even hers! The Vivziepop drama playlist goes in depth about the updates concerning the people Vivziepop has worked with. Which SEVERAL people that worked with her came out to defend her and provide their experiences

You'd find out if you had just watched the videos, the proof, that people love to hate on Vivizie for clout and to farm likes and attention. They take screenshots out of context, go on tangents without proof, etc.

And expect you to believe them.

SO I'll do this one more time to address what specifically you said you disliked about Vivzie.

This playlist has all the videos I will talk about and more. So, if you know of any other drama and controversy surrounding Vivziepop you should probably consult that before forming your opinion: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOWIXPh0p7CzgQoUIl7rqd8oz2Ym6V9XY&si=lhDApDPhX5sWyTHA

Again, it can be found by typing into the Youtube search bar, "ayy lmao vivziepop drama"

You'll find their playlist "Vivziepop Drama Playlist" right there or even just going to the youtube channel "Ayy Lmao" and looking through the playlists.

Specifically addressing what makes you dislike Vivziepop:

The one Nazi oc, the only one to exist, is discussed in "Why everyone hates Vivziepop" at 20:07 and in "The Truth Behind Vivziepop" at 5:07 The latter has more information on that and it only takes TWO MINUTES to watch! With screenshots and proof and everything.

If you heard somewhere that there were multiple, did where you heard that have a source? To, y'know, back up the claim? If you can find it that would be lovely otherwise that is just an allegation either someone told you or you are misremembering.

The drama concerning their workplace goes mainly from the beginning of the playlist to "Vivziepop Erin Frost Drama Round 3"

Multiple artists and people that worked with Vivziepop come out in support of Vivziepop and debunk claims made by others in "Helluva boss employees debunk Vivziepop allegations (Vivziepop drama Part 4)"

I'm not sure what you are referring to when you say "the way she treats her friends" and since you haven't provided any sort of source I can only guess that you may be thinking about the ugly situation covered in "Vivziepop Spindlehorse Drama Explained"

I can already tell by the amount of people responding to the first ask I sent that you have a platform, at least a larger audience compared to the average user. If you have problems with x y and z thing about Vivziepop, provide links and proof to what concerns you in the future.

If you don't remember or can't find that proof. Watch the videos. That simple. Put it on in the background, educate yourself, before you spread any more misinformation. Please.

Then form your opinion. It's a lot and I know it is a lot but you need to know this before jumping on the bandwagon of canceling someone. Especially if you have a large audience.

Vivziepop drama and hatedom is so exhausting you wouldn't BELIEVE IT. People are constantly spewing hate without providing PROOF. THEY'RE ALLEGATIONS! Even with "proof" most are out of context and bad faith. There is a motive to lie about someone as well known as Vivziepop

I'm not asking you to like her I'm asking you to educate yourself before repeating what you've heard and provide sources to back them up.

[wendynerdwrites]

If I didn't think Somerton was a scumbag before...

According to Gita Jackson, one of his biggest plaguarism targets, he's done exactly nothing to reach out to them or other victims. According to Kat, Hbomb's editor/researcher, he has not reached out to them about contributing to the fund. You'd think if fixing his mess was his main priority, he'd have done THAT before making a video.

This twit spent years stealing, launching harassment campaigns against his critics, dolling out misinformation that targetted women, lesbians, transmascs, NB's, WWII soldiers, Bisexuals, Asexuals and SURVIVORS OF THE GODDAMN AIDS EPIDEMIC while fetishizing Nazis and blowing smoke up the ass of a CEO scumbag. Oh, and setting himself up as a representative of the queer community despite going out of his way to shit all over about 85% of it.

How do we think the victims of his plagairism and harassment felt? Their mental health probably suffered severely when they got trashed and labeled as bigots when they tried to defend themselves and their work.

There is no way Somerton did not know he hurt people when he took active measures to do so.

He did not take active measures to actually fix things. He couldn't even be assed to provide a link to HBomb's fund for his victims in his video description.

He should not hurt himself. No one ever should. And I dont want to see harm come to him. Just earned comeuppence. DEATH or self harm doesn't fall into that category. I wish him a full recovery.

But aside from that, I also wish for all of his ill gotten gains to go to all he has hurt. I wish for him to leave the internet permanently. I wish for him to never be allowed into the fields of media study or entertainment again and be laughed out of the room if he ever tries again. I wish for an investigation into his "film studio."

The fact that he opened his so called apology talking about his self-harm/su*cide is sheer manipulation. He minimized his actions throughout his so called apology, blamed his misinformation and bigotry on his partner, and put his patreon up again. and anyone who buys that "It's so you can unsubscribe!" line is a moron. All he has to do to make sure people who hate him now arent charged is to shut it down completely. But instead, he makes his ex-fans do the work for him. And we know why.

The man's first priorities in his so called quest to make it right isn't to reach out to his victims, help with their funding, or even raise awareness of the funds for them. It was to film himself downplaying and making excuses for his actions and to reactivate his Patreon.

If that doesn't tell you who he is, I don't know what to tell you.

[qqueenofhades]

Is it normal that I’m legitimately so scared of saying pretty morally tame things like “I don’t want to talk about genocide because it makes me severely uncomfortable” or in general expressing my political opinion.

Like i’m not even kidding when I say that all my drafts are just my possibly offensive (probably not) political takes i’m just so scared of everyone leaving me it’s not even funny.

Anyway i also think that if you talk about Palestine but not Ukraine you are a victim of Russian Propaganda™️

I’m sorry I don’t know why i did this have a nice day ok baiiiiiii

Here's the thing. You and every other average social media user should not have to masquerade as a sudden in-depth expert on every single social, political, humanitarian, etc. crisis that we are dealing with in this wretchedly miserable excuse for a timeline. It should not be a baseline expectation on you that when you log onto your little social media in your little average life, you have to come up with The Correct Opinions on everything and if you don't, you're "perpetrating oppression" by not vigorously spreading misinformation, instead of simply admitting that you don't know what to do, you as an average citizen are not in a position of making this change and therefore don't actually have to spend every waking minute obsessing about it, and that maybe, just maybe, you'd like to spend more time informing yourself until and/or IF you decide you want to talk about it. This is the same as the Instagram Activists (TM) who traumatize themselves to the point of PTSD by constantly consuming torture and/or war porn and/or graphic content about murdered children because they "don't have the right to look away." Actually, you do. You are able to make choices to control your personal social media use and to set boundaries as to what you do and do not want to do and/or see, rather than insisting that the only moral choice is to literally mentally destroy yourself with all the weight of human suffering in the world and then expected to act as a de facto expert on all of it, on pain of being Cancelled. This is a stupid, irrational, unhealthy, and generally idiotic expectation. You should not have to take part in it. Nobody should.

Likewise, I think that this is a large part of why people are so scared to voice any opinion that goes against the Prevailing Groupthink: they are afraid of losing friends, of having nasty bad-faith internet trolls say mean things about them, being accused of being a "bad person," or otherwise being guilt-tripped, shamed, and blamed for not centering their entire existence around something that they cannot actually do anything about. Once again, people think the only way you can be Known to Oppose Something Problematic (tm) is if you post on social media about it all the time. Forget whatever you might be doing offline, in your real life, or otherwise; it "doesn't count" if you don't make a big virtuous display of your Rightthink, or you will be viciously harassed. Now, look, I am old and/or tired enough that I don't give a shit what stupid internet users say about me, but I can tell you that I sure did when I was younger, it was incredibly painful to be on the end of those kinds of attacks, and it's (again!) not something you should just have to expect as a baseline level of gaslighting and harassment. As I have said. This is Tumblr. It is a stupid blue website mostly for fandom and/or three in-jokes. This is not a platform where we are expected To Do Social Justice all the time, nor should it be. As for Elon Musk's Twitter: yeah. No.

Also: yes, if you do spend all your waking moments obsessing over Palestine, but say nothing whatsoever about Ukraine and/or openly support Russia, you are in fact very much a victim of Russian Propaganda and you 100% support genocide when it's done by an "anti-western" state that you support for that reason alone. You only care because you can use the cause to make yourself look morally superior, and it has nothing whatsoever to do with opposing genocide on a basic, universal, or fundamental level. The end.

(I hope you have a nice day too. The anger in this is not directed at you. I support everything you've said here and hope that you're able to set healthy boundaries and protect yourself.)

[hermionesmoon]

i think i’m 100% done with shiftok i was just on there and a… certain big shiftoker was talking about how permashifting is bad and yada yada then there was ppl in the comments saying how permashifting makes it harder to shift and it’s harmful, and unfortunately things like this still get to me so imma speak in it here. most of those people have good lives in their cr, they have friends, nice family, a good stable job, but unfortunately it’s not like that with a lot of us. i’m not gonna go into detail about my cr life but let’s just say some people are going through horrible things in their cr and they can’t escape it physically so they want to permashift and i’m just so tired and annoyed by these shiftokers that don’t even think about that and they’re usually like “it’s a bad influence on the kid shifters y’all are making them want to leave their cr permanently” and this is a very touchy topic cause for me personally i found out about shifting at 15 and it saved my life especially after i found out about permashifting and now i’ll be 19 in a few weeks and i have a clearer mind and i will still be permashifting and i may get hate for this but i don’t really see the huge deal because you could always come back??? and i think if a kid wants to permashift most likely they have a rough home life and want to escape it like obviously i do think people should think about it first but even then it’s not really that deep cause you could just come back to your cr with no time passed… i’m sorry i’m just so confused about all the hate towards permashifting when you could literally come back at anytime. like i genuinely can’t see a kid permashifting for no reason they are probably going through something horrible at home and unfortunately cps doesn’t help a lot of children so they try to help themselves i don’t see a problem with kids permashifting to a better cr where they have a nice loving home life and they’re happy like please tell me if i’m in the wrong for thinking that but just between us i don’t think they really care about “the kids” because most shifters on tiktok are like 16+ i think the anti-permashifters are the people i talked about in my other permashifting post where they think this reality is “superior”. but yea this is my take on it and this kinda sucks cause i really used to like the person i’m talking about and i try to stay open minded with a lot of shifting opinions but i just can’t stand how they’re stuck in their own head they can’t see that not everyone is living with sunshine and rainbows oh and also they liked the comment that said permashifting makes it harder to shift LIKE WHAT 🤦🏽‍♀️ this is what i can’t stand about shifttok they literally made up “shifting blockages” they love criticizing 2020 shifttok but they can’t see that it’s repeating with all this misinformation and close mindedness.

[vaguely-concerned]

Garashir ficlet, PG, context is that Garak is about to go do… Something on his own (specifics very much ????? but probably something foolhardy and secretive and doomed ala Improbable Cause) and Julian is Not Having It this time. Probably fits into some of the later seasons vibes-wise. 

Julian said tightly: “My Kardasi might still need some work, but — ”

“Oh, no at all, considering how recently you started your studies your efforts are downright impressive, if, ah — charmingly archaic at times. If that’s to be laid at anyone’s feet it should be mine, probably, remind me to recommend you something written within the last few centuries sometime soon.” 

Giving this attempt at diversion exactly as much consideration as it deserved, Julian completely ignored him and finished his own line of thought: “ — but at this point I have a veritable doctorate in Garakese. There’s something you’re not telling me.” 

“Many things, I’m sure. If I’d known you had any interest in the optimal soil composition in which to grow Lovalan roses, I would have gladly shared my insight. All you had to do is ask, my dear. In the spirit of cross-cultural knowledge exchange, I always stand ready to chip in and do my par — ”

“Elim.” 

That made Garak blink, just that split second too long, even as his face remained perfectly still and smiling around it. It was subtle enough that an unaugmented eye might not have caught it, but Julian’s did.

No longer bothering to hide his own desperation, Julian pressed on: “Elim, please. You’ve got me worried with this. I want to help in any way I can, and — and I don’t like to think about what might happen if I can’t.”

There was a moment of silence between them in which Julian could hear his own quickened breathing too loudly in his ears. 

“That’s… characteristically kind of you, Doctor,” Garak said eventually, voice slightly hushed, like someone trying not to wake a sleeping child in another room. “But there is nothing to worry about. Really.” 

“Brush me off if you really feel like you have to, but please, at least do me the courtesy of not going out of your way to insult my intelligence while you’re at it,” Julian snapped. “How stupid do you think I am? How do you expect me to just close my eyes and sit back like nothing’s wrong while you — ”

Garak sighed. “You’re right, that was unworthy of me. Please, put it down to old habit, not a lack of respect. Very well, then let me rephrase what I was trying to say slightly, in order to be more precise — whatever might or might not be going on, there’s absolutely nothing you can do, and I really would rather you stayed out of it. Knowing you to be safely out of the line of fire would provide me with infinitely more comfort and utility than anything you could actively do to help. Which, again, is nothing.”

“But — ”

“Julian. Please.” 

Julian would have been thrown less off-balance if Garak had punched him square in the jaw. “Oh, that’s a dirty trick,” he said, unsteadily. 

“And here I thought ‘turnabout is fair play’ was a guiding Human principle,” Garak said, and his tone was light but his eyes were soft and very sad. “I see I have been misinformed.”    

The idea that Julian’s initial exposure to the Cardassian language leaves him speaking it like the equivalent of a Regency era novel or something to contemporary Cardassian ears in the beginning is a headcanon that is so dear to me