#you'd better love me

[mydadlistenstothis]

New podcast episode is up! This week, we go to 1960s Vegas to pay tribute to our pallie James Darren aka Vic Fontaine on Deep Space 9 and discuss his album of American Standards, This One's from the Heart.

[howtokillavampire]

but what if i read one of your fanfics and then went to your ao3 account and read all of your fanfics and left a comment on every single chapter of every single one and you got spam emails from all of my kudos and comments and it made you smile, what then? what if i brighten your day with my words like you did mine, what then???

[steviebunny]

I'm so tired of watching some of that interview with the vampire discourse. They are flawed characters for a reason they literally have eternity. Obviously they're going to be immensely flawed. You can both love lestat for his good moments, his affection, his ability to see beauty everywhere, and have empathy for his childhood , what Magnus did to him all while acknowledging that he was a toxic partner to Louis and guardian to Claudia. You can feel empathy for Louis, and acknowledge his rage and quiet resentment as a flaw. You can love Claudia and criticize that she murdered her parental figure. You can feel for Armand and want to give that poor boy a hug after the 500 years of suffering he's had at the hand of everyone who was supposed to care for him while also being upset he's a manipulative gaslighting bastard.

The only two least flawed characters internal struggles we even get a look at are Daniel and Madeline. Who are both remarkably human for the majority of the show.

Not to mention for a majority of the centuries each of these vampires have been alive. Therapy has not existed! For most of these characters, the peak of their own self-reflection is Claudia's journaling or finding themselves through art, be that music, directing, or photography.

We all know people in the year of our Lord 2024 who don't go to therapy because they think it's useless or just for the "crazies" If you thought your toxic gay vampire franchise would be beyond that you're delusional.

[cozylittleartblog]

For gabriel, do you hate V1 or... Are you guys just friends?

i dont know why this is worded like i'm an ask blog but i think they're insufferable boyfriends

[me and the machine i pulled by being a traitorous heathen.png]

[inkskinned]

it mattered because when my brother asked me what if this is the happiest you'll ever be? the best you'll ever get? the thing i felt was fear, not peace. everybody thought you were so perfect for me. even i thought you were "helping me grow". i had to challenge every internal clock. make myself more thoughtful, more kind, more beautiful.

i told my therapist it was good because i like the changes i made and there's something so strong about saying i did that. the problem is that i can like the difference all i want, but i changed for you. something akin to getting your name tattooed, all my progress is stamped with fuck you.

it was the happiest i'd ever been and also the best i'd ever gotten. i would still get in the car and think what the fuck just happened.

[liedownquisition]

Jason Todd's timeline and "Age"

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

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

Courtesy readmore post cut:

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

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

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

At least, on paper.

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

Once again, I specify: on paper.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Which is right before Talia puts him in the Pit.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[oneluckydragon]

Thinking about how these two met. Get adopted, idiot.

More human!Echo.

[spookythesillyfella]

if tony ever had the motivation to bake . no doubt he'd try doing this

★ original meme under cut

[catocappuccino]

1-BOO altered my brain

[brighteststar707]

Parallels

You carry parts of past lives with you. You can't help it, you're made up of all the people you've loved before.

A reset theory idea I revived from a years-old draft about picking up traits from people you spend a lot of time around (as I'm quite prone to doing🤭).

There has always been this strange familiarity to you. Even back in the early days, it always felt like you were someone Saeyoung had known for years.

He likes to tease you about being easy to read, but it's more than that. The things he recognises in you are things he has grown to love so much in his closest friends.

He loves to tell silly jokes just to hear you laugh. When he promised you a life that would be happy and without worry, he meant it. Your laugh is infectious, addicting even. A laugh from you is an affirmation to someone as insecure as him.

It took him a while to catch on to the way your giggles resemble Yoosung's sometimes. It's not every time, but more than enough times to be a noticeable quirk of yours. The slight hiss of air escaping through your teeth, the precursor to a proper, real laugh.

That was the first parallel he drew. But it was not the last.

He thought he was imagining things at first, making connections where there weren't any to be made. But then you teasingly called him honey for the first time, truly affectionate and sugary-sweet and it was impossible to not think about how he had seen Zen do the same thing before to make fans of his blush. Of course, this trick worked just as well on him when you did it. When you were in these moods, you were magnetic, more so than even Zen could be.

There is something about how, during discussions, you pause to gather your thoughts right before you're about to conclude a point. You have told him you do it to try and collect your thoughts into a coherent sentence so you don't jumble everything up. He thinks it's smart (and cute). It's something he is trying to implement in his life now.

He also knows it's something Jumin practices and advises others to do too. On occasion, during RFA gatherings, Saeyoung watches you and Jumin have a conversation and fall into similar patterns of speech. It's mesmerising, like watching two mirror images.

It is only after a few years, after getting closer to Jaehee at all that realises there are similarities between the two of you too.

He sees a small echo of her in the way that you tackle challenges, not just the resilience he has always known you're capable of but the way you can dissect a problem down to its core and handle it piece by piece. In the tone and cadence you use when instructing others, kind but deliberate, with no room for doubt.

But she's also in your excitement, in the way your voice builds up and rises in pitch when you're talking about something you love. If it wasn't something he recognised from your first weeks together, he'd attribute it to your many musical movie nights.

It wouldn't be fair to say that these traits are identical to theirs. They're things that are so inherent to you, he couldn't imagine you without your funny hiss-laugh or the cadence of your voice when you're measuring out your words. He finds comfort all the same in the little overlap between you and his friends. It may puzzle him sometimes, but he wouldn't change it for the world.

The cherry on the cake was one day when you were chatting and you scrunched your nose before telling a joke, in the same way he knows he does sometimes. His heart swelled three sizes that day and he wouldn't stop teasing you about it.

[andorerso]

always thinking about Jyn choosing to die with Cassian despite not being critically injured instead of like… trying to find a way to survive. after like a few days of knowing him? their codependency is insane. idk what they'd be like if they actually had the chance to know and love each other, but I just know they wouldn't wanna live without each other

[lily-on-the-fence]

I wrote a thing!!

I wrote a fluffy and slightly smutty korrasami thing snd I want people to read it! It's lretty simple, Asami has trouble disconnecting from work, which keaves Korra feeling kinda lonely and distant, so she comes up with a lovely evening togather to reconnect and help Asami find some work-life balance.

Chapter will take a couple weeks unfortunately, but will feature (get ready for it) 🎊🎉 more smut!! 🎉🎊

[definegodliness]

Had a dream last night

Best movie you'll never see

[synthshenanigans]

Is this ur evil twin? /j

Oh no. That is my close best buddy. I use to play Saxophone so me & Sax Shenanigans go WAY back

This fucker however-

[steamworksfairy]

When you think about it the Arcobaleno are Verde's handlers. A job neither one of them wanted, especially Verde, but someone had to do it.

I mean look at Verde.

If left to his own devices for too long he will create something insane like the anti-trininesette formula. Not even on purpose. He just fucked around and found out. Or at least that's the impression I got from the anime.

To keep things like this from happening at least one Arcobaleno checks in with him daily. In person. If they call he's just going to hide it.

There isn't any real schedule for who visits him when. It's mostly if you're free and in the area do it. It winds up being Lal and Fon most of the time.

Which is for the best. Out of all the Arcobaleno these two are the ones who can keep Verde grounded/stop his experiments from getting out of hand.

You'd think Verde would hate this, and tbh he does, but he also loves it. Not that he'd admit that. It keeps him on his toes and challenges him to think of ways to surprise them. As well as helps him to think of ways to hide things better.

The worst Arcobaleno to watch him is shockingly not Skull, but Mammon. Why? Because Mammon can smell a good business opportunity and Verde has sold his soul for less. If he's able to work on what he wants then he doesn't really care how much he makes from it. Especially if he's too caught up in what he's doing. Hell, he's probably pulling from his own pockets...

So yeah to avoid Verde pulling a box weapons disaster 2.0, Mammon and Verde can NOT be left alone. Ever! Verde is too bad a businessman to be trusted with the esper. And Mammon knows how to scam people too well.

(That said, that does NOT mean I head canon Mammon being behind the bad business decisions that were mentioned as having been made with the box weapons during Future Arc. That's on Koenig, Innocenti, and Verde tbh)