#i am a middle child AND this gives me the perspective of what it's like to be the older child but i was also the youngest once

[batarangsoundsdumb]

damian's characterisation really only makes sense if he's the youngest child. this is why reverse robin aus do not make sense to me, if he was the oldest he would not be Like That

#youngest children have the devil in them #its why he is that way #damian wayne #<3 beloved boy #i am a middle child AND this gives me the perspective of what it's like to be the older child but i was also the youngest once #my younger sibling is batshit crazy and reminds me of damian in that if it were not for the laws of this land i would have been murdered

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

Cater, Ruggie: The Secret in a Smile

Caycay, bestie… I am so sorry that SSR Crowley stole your spotlight 😭 (Is that why Cater looks so Mean Girls in his groovy... He's seeking petty revenge against Crowley/j)

Some cute stuff from the vignettes that I wasn't able to include in this fic: Cater makes a reference to TsumTsums! He mentions being into this mobile game with cute round creatures. Cater also tells a story about a 5-year old girl giving him a flower after his club's performance at a cultural festival (omg, do they mean the one in book 5?!). Ruggie teases him and says Cater must have been that little girl's first crush 😂

A Tale as Old as Time.

“Ne, ne, Ruggie-kun! Check this one out~ It's all the way from the Queendom of Roses!"

Cater jabbed a thumb at a painting of a young blonde girl dressed in a modest sky blue frock and apron, a small black bow in her hair. She couldn’t have been older than 10 years of age, still petite enough to squish inside a glass bottle with a narrow neck. The bottled child was adrift in a sudsy sea, her face frozen in an expression of slight worry.

Ruggie took one look at the artwork, then wrinkled his nose. “Sure sucks to be in her shoes. What’s this even supposed to show us, anyway? Doesn’t make a whole lotta sense to me.”

"Not a lot from the Queendom does if you aren't already familiar with its topsy-turvy stories~" Cater placed a hand on his hip and leaned forward, grinning. "This one is pretty popular! It's about a girl that wants an audience with the Queen of Hearts. She gets lost on the journey there, meets strange people and experiences even stranger things on the way. This is just one leg of that trip!"

"Wouldn’t the castle be further inland? How'd she end up in the middle of the ocean?"

“It’s about the perspective of the shot.” Cater formed a frame with his hands, catching his underclassman in it. He pulled back, creating the illusion of sizing Ruggie down. “She drank this bottled liquid she found and that shrank her down—so really, the ocean isn’t that big.”

A grimace.

“Man, talk about no sense of self preservation. She just chugged an unlabeled bottle without a second thought. Must’ve been real desperate.” Ruggie paused. “Weeeell, not like I’m one to talk about being desperate. You really can’t afford to be picky sometimes. If it fills your stomach, it fills your stomach.”

“You’d drink it too, huh… I don’t think I could do that. I’d at least want to see how the menu describes it before I order—though I guess it also depends on how ‘cammable the drink is! And hey, think about all the cool pics I could grab from a worm's eye point of view!”

"Heh, you don't seem too pressed about living life as an ant."

"Cay-kun likes to look on the bright side of things!" he declared with a wink and a peace sign. "The lost girl... she worried so much about finding her destination, she forgets to stop and smell the roses. She overlooks a lot of the fun people she could have spent time with."

Hopping from place to place, missed people—familiar elements, resurfacing a childhood of being uprooted and dragged about. Never to fully settle.

A tea party here, a brief convo there. Just enough to keep him placated, but not enough to see beyond the surface of the looking glass.

His curiosity still left wanting.

She got into so much trouble, but didn't have any real friends to come and help her.

Sadness tugged at his heartstrings, but Cater's smile didn’t waver.

"... I can’t help but kinda pity the poor thing," he said quietly. Then, brightening in the next moment, "All her issues could've been avoided if she just looked before she leapt and made some connections."

“Yeah, she definitely should’ve played smarter, not harder. Maybe if she kissed up to the locals, they’d have come to her rescue." Ruggie shrugged. "It works for me and Leona-san."

“Right? A smile goes a long way to getting what you want!” Cater poked the corners of his mouth. “You totes get me.”

“Cuz it takes a trickster to know another one on sight.”

"Wow, it sounds so mean when you put it like that. We're not tricksters, we just know how to use our smiles to problem-solve~"

"Giving a word a fresh coat of paint doesn't make it any less shady. At least be honest with yourself," the hyena smirked.

“Eeeh, I’m always honest!”

They shared a laugh—Ruggie, a snicker. Cater, lighter, more bubbly, like a carbonated mystery drink. When the effervescence died down, he cast another glance at the painting.

Too big for her small world of the sea, too small for the big world that loomed beyond it. Trapped within glass walls. Curled into herself in her delicate chambers.

Her perspective and his, one and the same.

Poor thing, poor thing, poor thing.

Cater summoned his strength and bore the full brunt of his smile.

“I’m sure she’ll find what she’s looking for… one day.”

#twst #twisted wonderland #Cater Diamond #twst imagines #twst scenarios #twisted wonderland imagines #disney twisted wonderland #disney twst #Cater birthday takeover #something no one asked for #spoilers #twisted wonderland scenarios #Ruggie Bucchi

[explorationsoftheid]

Autism: A Senior Perspective

Recently there was a post on here where someone was saying how everyone automatically hates us because of our autism. How they may act nice to our face, but trash talk us once we’re out of earshot. How everyone will abuse, even kill us, because they can’t stand our autism. I replied that they were just wrong about that. That everyone doesn’t automatically hate us.

The more I thought about it though, the more I saw this was an opportunity for those of us who are older and are autistic, to share our perspectives, our experiences. I think it might help those who are young to know what we went through, how we coped, how our lives have turned out. Most importantly that it can get better.

I’ll start:

I’m 62 years old. Looking back with what I know now it’s clear that I was definitely autistic as a child. Today, my teachers would have pressed to get me tested, but in the 1970s, well autism wasn’t on anyones radar. I doubt my parents would have gone along with that anyway. They were the, “Straighten up and do what you’re supposed to”, and “Boys don’t cry” attitude so common of their generation. I had significant trouble with social interactions, I stuttered, and fought like hell to not melt down in loud and overwhelming situations. Public school was unfortunately full of those. I liked procedure and process, there was a right way and a wrong way to do things and I would get upset if someone broke ‘the rules’. I would obsess over particular subjects. Actually I drove some of my teachers nuts. They would give me a writing assignment and I would turn in a top quality report, but I would have somehow twisted what they wanted into what I wanted to write about.

High School was very confusing. People started dating and going to dances, and all that. I kept asking, only half as a joke if I had missed a class or something because it was all so strange to me. I went off to University and really did well there. My grades weren’t good, (I had to work well over full time to afford to stay in school) but I loved academia. The order, the quiet of the library, being able to study a subject that I was totally onto because I had chosen it as my major. The people I worked with, at all of my jobs, grew to understand my ‘quirks’ and were fine with them. I only wish I hadn’t had to work so much. My middling grades meant that by the time I graduated, I was mentally exhausted, and didn’t qualify for Grad School.

So, I got a job and had to move across the country. There I met someone who I have spent the succeeding 36 years with. They understand me, accept that sometimes I’m a bit odd. Sometimes I react badly to things. Sometimes I just have to say no, and they roll with that.

So I’m now approaching retirement. In the last few years I finally figured out that autism was the reason for all the trouble I’ve had over the years. I’m not lazy, or dumb, or anything like that, I’m autistic. I’m neurodivergent, and that’s the way it is. The worst time frankly was in my childhood and my teens. Since then I’ve learned how to deal with the world. I’ve found people who like me for me, people I don’t have to mask or put on an act around. I’ve found other autistic people and am not the only one anymore. I figured out what jobs suited my talents, and limitations (Retail? No! Computer Wizard or someone who makes things work in the background? Yes!) I’m approaching retirement and honestly things are going pretty well now.

So fellow Autistic Seniors, (That is to say anyone that thinks of themselves as older than most), what was your experience living your life as an autistic person? How have things turned out for you? What advice would you give to children or teens that are struggling to cope?

#autistic adult #autistic community #autism community #autism #autistic experiences #autistic #neurodivergent #autistic feels #actually autistic #autistic culture

[sophieinwonderland]

The Plurality of... Diones (Skyward)

Art by bdonoho

Major spoilers for Starsight (Skyward Book 2)

The Skyward series is a young adult space opera in the style of Top Gun with a bit of eldritch horror and superpowers mixed in. Book 2 introduces a new alien race known as the Diones with one of the most fascinating reproductive processes I've heard in fiction.

Diones are a species that reproduce by melding together. They don't have male or female genders, but instead have changing colors. They also exclusively use they/them pronouns. When they decide to have a child, a red and blue Dione combine into a Draft.

Whenever a Draft is created, it gains a personality. A mixture of both of its parents in a random way, but also something new. Drafts are split down the middle, with a red half from one parent and a blue half from the other. Rather than referring to a mom or dad, as they don't have gender, they refer to their parents as "rightparent" and "leftparent." (I don't know if Diones continue to do this after they're born, or if those terms are just used by the Drafts. The other Diones in Starsight don't talk about their parents.)

If the parents or extended family don't like that particular Draft, they'll be redrafted. If they do, they give birth to them as a new child that will carry memories from its time as a Draft.

This is a point of conflict in the story as one Dione Draft, Morriumur, feels compelled to prove themselves to their family to show that they deserve to be born as a separate person.

Even though the Draft is a new personality, the parents still exist in their head too, watching, as explained by Morriumur when asked if they could feel their parents.

“Kind of,” Morriumur said. “It is difficult to describe. I’m made up of them. In the end, they will decide whether to give birth, or whether to pupate and try again. So they’re watching, and they’re conscious—but at the same time they are not. Because I am using their brains to think, as I am using their melded bodies to move.”

Art by Jillustrations

One of the later interludes in the book is written from Morriumur's perspective and describes an even more plural experience.

Being two people was an uncomfortable experience for Morriumur. On the left, one could argue that Morriumur had never known anything different. On the right, one could point out that one’s separate halves—and the memories they had inherited—knew precisely how odd the experience was. Two minds thinking together, but blending memories and experiences from the past. Only some from each parent, a stew of personality and memory. Occasionally their instincts fought against one another. Earlier in the day, Morriumur had reached to scratch their head—but both hands had tried to do it at once. And before that, at the sound of a loud bang—just a dish being dropped—Morriumur had tried to both dodge for cover and jump up to help at the same time.

Both parents are still there. The instincts of both influence Morriumur.

At this point in the book, Morriumur is about to be undergo the redrafting process themselves.

Morriumur asks at one point what will happen when redrafted.

“When I come back out, will I remember these months?” “Faintly,” Numiga said. “Like fragments of a dream.”

The description of remembering it faintly like fragments of a dream feels very dissociative to me. A personality was created and existed for these months. Then it's replaced by a new one that will only faintly remember the past few months, likely as if those months happened to somebody else.

Morriumur also hears internal communication they believe is from their parents, although they're unsure which is which.

You’d have been too frightened to fight a delver anyway, a part of them—perhaps one of their parents—thought. Too aggressive for dione society. Too paranoid to fight. Redrafting is for the best. For the best, another part of them thought.

The fact that Morriumur doesn't know is actually one of the more interesting aspects of plurality that isn't often covered in fiction. The frequent blendiness and just not knowing if a voice in your head is from you or someone else, and not knowing who it came from.

Massive Spoilers Ahead. If you haven't read Starsight but plan to later... you shouldn't have read this far, but seriously... stop reading here...

Into The Delver

Art by u/MagicalSpaceWizard

In the Skyward books, there are planet-destroying monsters called Delvers. The Delvers appear as indescribable dark masses the size of moons that cause hallucinations in any who fly into them.

This is how Morriumur reacted to a Delver appearing overhead in the sky:

It’s a delver! one mind trembled. Run! Flee! the other mind screamed. Around Morriumur, relatives scrambled away, running—though how did you run from something like this? Within moments, only Morriumur was standing there before the building, alone. Their minds continued to panic, but Morriumur didn’t let go, and slowly their minds relaxed and knit back together.

While the parents' minds are screaming to run away, Morriumur stands firm.

After this, Morriumur flies up to fight the Delver.

When training to fight Delvers, pilots were always instructed to bring a wingmate to help them differentiate between reality and the hallucinations. You would need two people since the hallucinations wouldn't be the same for each.

But Morriumur's unique circumstances made Morriumur immune to this.

“Two people…,” I whispered, holding my head. “You need—” “That’s the thing, Alanik,” Morriumur said. “I am two people.”

In the end, Morriumur's plurality made them perfect for combating the Delver. All Morriumur saw was overlaying shadowy images.

Morality Of Drafting

I love Morriumur's plurality in this book, and how it was depicted as such a positive thing in the climax of the story, despite seeming so alien to the main character.

Having said that, Dione society and how they treat Drafts bothers me. At one point, the characters have this exchange:

“But if they decide to try again, instead of having you, it’s kind of the same thing as you dying.” “No, not really,” Morriumur said, cocking their head. “And even if it were, I can’t really be killed—I’m a hypothetical personality, not a final one.”

The book doesn't really tell you whose perspective is right. To Morriumur, this is normal. Later, when about to be redrafted though, Morriumur is scared and doesn't want to go.

As far as I'm concerned, Morriumur is a person. That time they exist isn't just a hypothetical personality but a real one, and Morriumur being redrafted feels like the equivalent of a death.

But this itself is a debate within the plural and tulpamancy communities, if dissipating or getting rid of a headmate/tulpa/alter/personality is really the same as an actual death. What about accidental permanent dormancy? What about fusion? What about de-fusion? What a death is when it comes to plurality is complicated.

And ultimately, I like that the book didn't try to answer this type of question. We have the main character's human perspective. We have Morriumur's Dione perspective, and the perspectives of their family and culture.

But it doesn't feel like we're told what is right. The morality of their culture's practices are messy and complicated, and the book doesn't try to convince you who's right or who's wrong. It just presents them as two different conflicting perspectives.

Conclusion

The Skyward series is fantastic, as is its handling of this unique form of plurality that, while alien, is also deeply relatable to us as a system.

While the morality of Drafting is complicated, the plurality itself is treated as positive thing that was ultimately integral to the book's plot.

It was nice for the book to give us an interlude in Morriumur's head to really get a feel for their internal experiences. The book was written in 1st person in the main chapters, and this was the only alien whose perspective we ever get to see so directly. (There were other interludes but those focused on other human characters.)

So I'm really grateful Morriumur's interlude was included, and more generally, just absolutely love their character.

#pluralgang #brandon sanderson #skyward #starsight #cytoverse #dione #plurality #plural #endogenic #multiplicity #systems #plural system #endogenic system #tulpa #fiction #novels #books #sysblr #sci fi #science fiction

[aita-blorbos]

AITA for refusing to join my dad's bootcamp?

I am adult, and F. When I was still a toddler, my dad (T) got thrown out of the house by the head of family (i don't actually think i'm related to the head of family? it's more like three or four large families living in the same place tbh) because he had killed a guy (intentionally) and disabled a girl for life (accidentally - well she wasn't the one he was targeting).

Anyway, I didn't know that when T came back at the head of his own group of families (he'd basically been chosen by another, already formed group, to take over their head of family who had died of sickness) and he asked that my twin brother (B, same age as me, at the time we were teens) and I join him because we were his children and it was only fair. Nothing was said about our mom being allowed to come too or anything? It was a bit fishy and people refused to let us go anyway.

But the thing is, ever since T had been banished, the whole group/family has been treating B and I like complete, utter garbage. The only person who treated us well was our mom. B even got an adult assigned to watching over him so he didn't because some psycho killer or something, just because he looks like our dad ig. Now, having an adult watching over each child as they are teens is a thing in the group i'm in, it's not shocking, but there's a relationship based on trust supposed to be born of this care, and here it was the contrary, so it sucked. PLUS! We didn't know why we were being treated like that, because no one told us what had happened to our dad! The adult who didn't trust B only took us aside when we were like 12 to explain to us that the guy was a monster. And he only did it because our dad had been trying to contact us and he wanted us to hear our family's side of the story before T's.

When I was around 15, I snuck away in the middle of the night to join my dad because i was sick of the bullying/harassment/mistrust. When it became public, B was put on the spot (he didn't know i'd left for that either) and refused to join me, which stung but you know. That's his choice and I respect him. It seems that everyone trusts him much more now that he's made a public display of loyalty.

When I came to live with T, I realized he was, actually, a complete POS and I shouldn't have come. But also, people in his group actually treated me well, so I didn't regret my choice. When T realized I didn't want to become a mini version of him, we became rather distant, until he left the group entirely (through no choice of his, may i add).

I learned later that, before I joined his group, he found a side chick with whom he had twins too, but she left before he knew she was pregnant. I learned that when she outed the boy twin (H, at the time a young adult, he's what... twleve years younger than us?) as T's son at a public gathering, like six months ago.

Since then, I've learned that T has been rekindling contact with B and H, when he took contact with me too. He basically tried to persuade all three of us (no sign of his other daughter, but she's in medschool so i suppose that's not the profile he was looking for) to join his bootcamp in which he'd teach us how to become "better versions of ourselves". Because he's an AH and because I've been learning all these years since he left that I shouldn't build my life around what others want me to be, I refused to join his bootcamp, and I advised B to refuse too (i'm not close enough from H to give him this kind of advice).

But now i'm thinking that, since he couldn't spend our childhoods with any of us, maybe he's just trying to keep in contact, you know, through teaching us and bonding with us, with sports and workout being the only things he knew how to do so that's what he focused on. Maybe I'm making a mistake, and seeing, as an adult, what he's like, would give me more perspective? What if i'm being as narrow minded as the bullies from my childhood? IDK what to do.

AITA for not joining my dad's bootcamp?

#aita #am i the asshole #unreality

[cleromancy]

while from the doylist perspective the stories are specifically propping tim up compared to jason by doing this... i am obviously still very interested in, and compelled by, jason canonically having a pretty high opinion of tim going all the way back to their first meeting.

(for the record, absolutely nothing in-universe justifies jason having this opinion of tim up until tim springs him from prison imo. he beat the snot out of tim in tt29 and it wasn't even hard and yet for some fucking reason he still walks away thinking tim is a Better Robin than he was? like... ok. sure. more thoughts on this later in the post tho)

so the new earth (post-crisis pre-reboot) continuity tim-jason interactions we have, in order, are batman 617-618 (from batman: hush, this ones a retcon and barely counts, its just jason holding tim hostage with a batarang to his throat; and you might also get a glimpse of jay doing this in batman annual 25 lol but its in the other room so im not checking), tt29 (published in the middle of uth coming out, lol), tt47 (countdown tie-in), robin 177 and 182-183 (post-countdown, immediately after jason dumps his red robin costume and one of tims rogues fishes it out of the dumpster to wear, correctly intuiting *for some reason* that this will get to tim), and......... sigh. stupid battle for the stupid cowl.

(and, since were talking about jasons perspective, theres also the picture wall in lost days. i dont know what issue it is because to me lost days is not "made up" of "issues", it is one book i simply open to devour whole whilst weeping.)

i think tt 29 is the interaction i find the most frustrating because... we have an idea what tt29 would have been like if it were good. bc we have ga01 69-72. and granted Tim is such a cocky little shit (affectionate) that jason simply. Would probably not have been able to scare him no matter what, lol... but imagine if this fucking issue had been good.

ok cutting 4 length

the problem with johns. .......the FIRST problem with johns. is that he regularly has interesting ideas and his execution of them completely falls flat. the second problem with johns is that he can't write dialogue. the third problem with johns is that it was really really important to him that you understood what a Talented And Special Boy tim is but instead of showing you that he just forced other characters to. tell you. over and over. jason is not johns' only victim in this quest. (and johns was also not the only perpetrator, as we will see when i get to fuckin fabnic.)

but like i said i *am* actually interested in the potential here, because i do think there is potential.

and i also think that--at least when you read into it as deeply as i do--jason is sympathetic in this issue. (don't give me "hes beating up a child" crap here btw. jason's only 2-3 years older, tims a peer to him, they could easily have gone to high school together if jason hadnt fuckin died.) johns deliberately shows us Jason hoping raven gets a reprieve from the nightmares, and he certainly was *trying* to show us how much it would fucking suck to be remembered as the Bad Robin, forgotten except to be a cautionary tale, what kind of things that would do to a person emotionally. AND he makes a point of highlighting Jason's loneliness and isolation as robin, and. tbh i dont think the issue itself rly blames Jason for that. (you most certainly do not gotta hand it to him though. under no circumstances do you gotta hand it to johns for anything.)

and while jason tearing off his clothes to reveal his party city knockoff robin costume--the better to beat you with, my dear--was, erm. falling mostly on the wrong side of the line btwn camp and cringe... i do think jason writing his own name in blood on the wall was right on the money, *especially* because it was obviously not tims blood. like, tim wasnt bleeding anywhere near enough for that. it was either fake blood or jason prepped his own beforehand for them to DNA test--but also if they saw it before they saw tim, to make them fear for tims life, as a reminder of the risks theyre dealing with here.

oh but i was planning on talking specifically about like. what Jason might actually have seen in tim that left him with a positive impression. as-written? kinda nothing. lmao. or well the one thing imo is this

just kidding i couldn't find the panelz somehow despite posting them literally like yesterday and i ran into this lol:

>:| got distracted again. by this.

anyway i give up ill add the pics later. but its the exchange where jason has *decisively* won the fight, tims crumpled on the floor concussed and winded, and jason demands if tim *really* thinks he was good enough to tail bruce unnoticed for weeks.

and tim says "yes." hes beat up enough he can barely talk but there's still no hesitation whatsoever. and jason is *really* down on himself in this issue--he calls himself a failure, he feels like no one cared about his death, he feels unremembered. and jasons stated intentions here were to get the measure of tim but i also stand by the interpretation that he wanted to warn tim off of the sidekick gig, to remind him you uh. you have to be dick fucking grayson to survive it. (i dont believe either of them mentions him by name, but hey, dicks shadow is big enough for the both of them.)

i think what jason finds worthy of respect here--and, on top of that, intriguing enough that in robin 177 he entreats tim to join him--is the confidence, and also? at absolutely no point does tim believe jason is there to kill him. not a fuckin high bar, i know, but like i said i do think jason had *planned* to try and scare tim off (just also mega derailed himself by accident bc he got too in his feelings about the statue room 🥺), and... its not a bar he would have expected Tim to clear, is all im saying. particularly because while it is *possible* this took place in the middle of uth (tt 29 was released in november 05, between batman 646 and 647, which is the part where slade shows up bc black mask hired him to take jason out, so tt29 couldnt have happened in the middle of those two specific issues, but there are several other points at which jason could have taken a break in menacing gotham to fly to san Francisco), with Jason talking so negatively about himself i have to assume this is after the end of uth.

(you might be able to place this in the in-universe chronology by if/when teen titans mentions chemo dropping on bludhaven, which happens immediately before the bruce-jason-joker final showdown. however i dont feel like poking around for that or any other details to anchor tt29 to the other events happening at the time rn.)

i just also think so much of what jasons doing in this issue is like--he doesn't know *what* hes there to do. he had a plan and hes kinda fumbling it, not because tim is being especially resourceful but because jasons still licking his emotional wounds from uth, and titans tower is bringing up ones i dont think he ever realized hadnt healed. hes feeling everything at once. hes angry and hurt and full of self loathing but i think by the time tim simply says "yes," jason hits the stage of just being... burnt out. done lashing out, fucking tired, just wants to go home, if he can ever find it.

but i do think that "yes" would stick in his craw for a long time afterwards.

tt47: tim kicks jason in the nuts and pretty much declares them even for tt29 lolol. you may have seen my post about how jason only *sometimes* wears armor in countdown--hes drawn in the armored turtleneck and tac pants in tt47, but there are times in countdown hes out there fighting aliens and metas and shit in his jacket, a *t-shirt,* and *jeans.* just a squishy regular degular baseline human doing this and no one ever brings it up. but anyway. do i think tim would have seen jason wearing the equivalent of civvies plus a domino mask, narrow in on that, and immediately decide to kick him in the balls? i sure do. do i also think that this would make him rise in jasons estimation?

yeah. yeah, i really do. lol

anyway after this! after this is jasons briefish world-hopping stint as red robin saving the universe being a big damn hero and getting paid dust by everyone around him, in countdown; i think i mentioned before in this post that at the end he abandons the red robin suit in a dumpster, where it gets picked up by one of tims rogues. this storyline sucks and fabnic is a hack unfortunately. the rogue did it bc he wants tims attention or whatever. not important except for how irritating it is that fabnic fumbled a concept this juicy (tim inheriting and eventually purposely adopting The Bad Robin Mantle) which is also further fumbled by stupid battle for the stupid cowl, and the people who it falls to to salvage it are. johns again, in adventure comics 3, and yost, who is a better writer than johns or fabnic but not by like a huge margin.

and while i do think tim having a bad opinion of jason at this point was inevitable i find it so frustrating the way it was executed... like so often with Bad Tim Writing and also fuckin DC Editorial's Jason Slander Agenda shit it wasn't because in-universe thats how the characters would feel, the writer was using tim as a mouthpiece, and jasons competence and things he cares about arent taken seriously... BUT WHATEVER the point is that when Tim goes to stop Jason from his villainous scheme to reduce crime or whatevr jason has such a high opinion of him that he asks tim to join him:

and jasons loneliness, his desperation to be heard, is such a theme for him in the new earth/post crisis era and i wish it had been. Handled better lol are you noticig a theme here its that Jason has been written badly. (tim too, tbh.) and when tim says no jasons dejected but unsurprised acceptance breaks my heart. but to me the most interesting part of jasons appearance at the end of tims robin series is in 182, when tim--for absolutely no good reason--gives jason the means to break out of prison.

he says something about how its what Bruce would have wanted, but for. reasons i wont get too deeply into rn, that absolutely does not hold water.

anyway i just think there's no way jason doesn't start crushing on tim at least a little at this point. shrug.

bftc sucks and i dont want to look at it rn. but its also got examples of jasons high opinion of tim. and also im mad at it bc both countdown AND his appearances in robin feel like they could have been taking jason to a like. more of an antihero type of role and then we get bftc and morrison and its kind of. fucking hard to get jason anywhere near back on track after that for those of us who still like playibg in the post-crisis pre-reboot sandbox. and i wouldnt be mad about that if bftc had been good bc Jason absolutely does make an incredibly interesting and effective and tragic antagonist when handled well but well. he wasnt. and i have no idea what bftc would.have even been like if it was good bc it was so off the wall and dumb and assassinated actually *everyones* characters. so.

anyway

im just going to roll back to robin 183 now

jasons referring to the damage tim got when he got a little bit exploded in 180, this pretty nasty burn on the back of his head, which was actually why he wore jasons RR cowl for the first time (he was still robin). but what you do see here--aside from Tims narration which puts him *firmly* on the side of obnoxiously arrogant and judgmental instead of charmingly cocky in this issue, to my estimation, thanks for nothing fabnic--is the two of them on firmly cordial terms. jason still thinks more highly than tim does of him, but theyre asking each other about their injuries... tim caring about the wellbeing of people he doesn't even like is par for the course with him, ofc, but once again Jason doesn't really get that a whole lot. constantly haunted by this panel from countdown btw:

does he though!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

here is another jaytim preboot canon interactions post from a few months ago with some more thoughts, some repeated lol.

anyway. incoherent rambling complete for now. however. jaytim time is all the time 👍 i will revisit this.

#dc #text #jaytim again? no problem #jaytim #meta #jaytim text

[polysyndetonaddictsupportgroup]

this is probably off topic but like i was rereading sea glass gardens & i was just giggling at the fact that kamo (the good one ofc not the one who took back shots for the greater evil) is just…obsessed with getting this middle school delinquent approval & MEGUMI JUST NOT REMEMBERING HIS NAME???

like imagine dedicating your spare time to impress the adopted child of the strongest who is also the zenin’s heir (if gojo fucking goes crazy or kicks the bucket) who is also the ten shadows user, trying to compliment him, hyping up his skills by saying he has more potential than the current zenin head, only for him to not know your name 😭. & the fact he apologized for it? i’m cacklingggg. you truly embraced megumi’s silent menace tendencies. tbh i was so convinced that kamo had a crush on megumi & was just flirting with him for the whole exchange event 😭.

(also maki’s little story of her interaction with megumi in their childhood? i cried a little. like the fact megumi being a menace to naoya & the clan & taking mai away was like mai’s happiest memory? i really can’t wait to see mai’s appearance here)

also i can’t believe megumi is half dead & blind & he’s already known as “yuuta’s boy”. this is giving when you’re a high school senior & you just forcibly take a underclassmen under your wing & everyone just calls that underclassmen your school kid.

like imagine in a happier universe where shibuya didn’t happen & yuuta pops tf out & introduces himself to the first years. imagine the hilarity of nobara & yuuji trying to figure out how tf yuuta is able to cling onto megs, tease him, & knows little details about him without getting his head chewed off 😭.

honestly..yuuta’s unhealthy platonic feelings about megs makes me wonder gojo’s reaction bc i imagine him being so insufferable like he just assumes that “omg my distant relative have a crush on my emotional support child”

ANYWAYS I LOVE YOUR STORY !! i can’t wait for the next update, your writing is literally so beautiful that i have to re read it multiple times to take everything in (i’m kinda slow). it’s gotten to the point where i accepted your fic as canon 😭. i promise you in a few months your fic is gonna be known as THE JJK FIC. i’m manifesting it. <3

So I’m never gonna get there in the fic because sea glass gardens cuts off pre season 1, but I like to headcanon that Yuuta desperately wants yuuji to like him (he’s megumis friend and also Yuuta feels an obligation to look out for him because they were both sentenced to death) but yuuji is just NOT having it because he’s the one person in the world that yuuji feels almost seething jealousy for. He is not a jealous person. He has never been a jealous person. But Yuuta is living his perfect life, which is a fact that Yuuta would be surprised to learn, because he is not living anyone’s perfect life. From yuujis perspective, Yuuta is:

Inexplicably close to Megumi. Megumi is somehow his boy. Yuuji didn’t think Megumi would tolerate being anyone’s boy.

(He doesn’t tolerate it it’s somehow the best and worst kept secret in the school. Everyone knows Megumi is Yuuta’s boy except for Megumi himself. Megumi insists Yuuta’s like this with everyone while panda silently shakes his head where Megumi can’t see him.)

He’s got some kind of secret history with Megumi that no one will talk about (since I imagine that the second years would legitimately keep their word and not talk about what the Zenin did to him behind his back) but whatever it is it makes Megumi trust and rely on him more than anyone else??? How is the son of a bitch doing it???

He was also sentenced to death but got it suspended and like. Yeah. Yuuji would like to live that dream existence.

The fucking legally adopted child of Nanamin??? How?????

It’s a lot of

Yuuji, glaring at him angrily from across the room: he’s the perfect man

Nobara: why do you say that like you’re mad

Yuuji: why am I not him!!!

Yuuta’s just. Despondent. He wanted yuuji to like him so so bad.

Considering canon Megumi didn’t tell them he had an entire sister until they were at his old school and people were asking after her, I doubt that even waterboarding could get out of him “yeah so I met the second years when my bio family violated the no contact protocol that started because of how dangerously abusive they were and basically tortured me for a week, up to the point of my Actual Death. I was blind for a while. I guess okkotsu senpais protective of me because when we first met he Literally Had To Restart My Heart and Lungs. Also we held hands multiple times in the immediate aftermath.” So I think Yuuji and Nobara would be aware that there’s something weird about how Yuuta and Megumi met but have absolutely no idea what that weird thing is.

(Panda: look it’s really not weird how protective Yuuta is of Megumi considering all that Megumi was going through when they first met

Nobara: What was Megumi going through when they first met

Panda:

Nobara:

Panda: I’ve said too much.)

I have a serious reading of Kamo and a self indulgent reading of Kamo and a Kamo that’s somewhere in the middle.

The serious reading of Kamo is that Kamo was a kid who grew up in a bad situation with very little control over his own life and saw Megumi as the one who could possibly understand him. They both were born outside of their clans but their inherited technique had the ability to elevate them to clan heir. He persisted in trying to compliment him and form common grounds with him out of isolation and a desire for someone to understand his lot in life. Megumi, meanwhile, would see Kamo as exactly who he doesn’t want to become. Kamo has accepted his place in his clan; megumi is violently rejecting it. He doesn’t want to be the same as Kamo because he doesn’t want to be anywhere near the Zenin clan.

The thing is that out of all the characters, Kamo’s really the best one we have to kind of represent the more common views of the jujutsu world. like, he very consistently is shown to be able to make his own assessments about what judgment call the higher ups and the wider jujutsu elite are going to make or expect, and part of it is his desire to fulfill his role as kamo clan heir. And Kamo? Accepts out of hand that Megumi is going to be formally brought into the Zenin clan once he graduates.

Like, he's in the fight during the goodwill event, and he's just like "yeah so when we both graduate we'll both be working to support a major clan in the jujutsu world" and megumi's like "the hell are you talking about. i'm going to kill you with this elephant."

It is probably a common expectation that gojo keeping Megumi from the Zenin clan is not going to stretch into perpetuity. Like. Right now, megumi is a minor. Gojo very easily can control who has access to him. When he’s an adult working in the society, the same trick of preventing all contact isn’t gonna work. Those are his coworkers now. They’re going to get more and more opportunities to bring him back into the fold. The Zenin are just playing a waiting game to get Megumi back and everyone sort of has just accepted that fact.

Kamo is what the Zenin clan expect Megumi to one day be for them, and I think it puts Megumi a bit at odds with him. Megumi has no interest in living the way Kamo does, and a little internalized fear about it happening anyway. Refusing the Zenin clan is the only control he’s ever really exerted over his life and future. He never got to pick being a jujutsu sorcerer, but he chose not to go with them. All of kamos priorities and mindset remind Megumi of all the things he’s messed up about, and it sets them at odds.

The self indulgent reading is that Kamo had a huge crush on Megumi and spent the entire goodwill event trying to execute his four year long plan towards holding his hand only to be thwarted by the fact that Megumi was completely dazzled by a himbo he knew for less than two weeks three months ago.

And the reading above is just the serious reading with the added fact that Kamo also had a huge crush on Megumi.

The thing with Mai partially came from something that Gege apparently released as background lore. In the goodwill event, Mai says that she never told maki when she had her first love, and i was like "that's weirdly specific, I wonder who that is" and then I googled it, and the answer was apparently either Megumi or Maki herself, and I said, "Huh, I Don't Like That" and decided we weren't doing that.

Now, to be clear, I do get making that decision on a level as a writer. Like, the Zenin clan is enormously fucked up and explicitly practices intermarriage. That is the kind of thing where you may include it because it's so fucked up and perfectly exemplifies how fucked up it is. a clan that explicitly is practicing incest is going to heavily skew how relationships amongst family members develop and form and it's going to be a fucked up dynamic amongst closely related people.

But also I Don't Like It And We're Not Doing That.

I did like the idea of Megumi and Maki occupying a somewhat similar place in Mai's mind. Like, Maki is in a league of her own, there's too much history there for anyone to come close to her in a relationship, but Mai's fondest memories of Maki were specifically with Maki occupying a sort of companion and protector role. Maki was in the same "level" as mai. They were both vulnerable kids in a bad situation who were looked down on by their family. They were both fast tracked to be servants. But Maki was the brave one, the capable one, the one who guided her when she was afraid and promised to always be there, and that's where a lot of mai's complex emotions around maki come from: mai was afraid and maki was strong and maki was there to hold her hand, and then suddenly she wasn't anymore.

Once I put Megumi in the Zenin compound as a little kid (since it's unclear what contact Megumi had with his bio family pre-season 1 and how extensive it was), I knew that 1) the zenin would not be putting him anywhere near Mai and Maki, and 2) that I wanted them to have met anyway.

So I liked the idea of Maki and Megumi occupying similar spaces in mai's mind because they both had briefly been viewed by Mai as companions and protectors. Megumi's contact with Mai was way more limited than Maki's was, but Megumi sort of swept into her life at a time where Mai really did need it most.

Mai would have been right at the age where most kids get their technique, if they get any at all, and we can sort of assume that mai may have figured out what hers was late if Maki didn't know about it. She just failed to get the ten shadows technique, and was a freshly confirmed failure in terms of power. She was just feeling the sting of her family's rejection, and Megumi, meanwhile, was the one who was supposed to be the most special and blessed of them all.

And he was the only one who didn't reject her out of hand, other than her sister. He stuck his own neck out to protect her. They all played together. There's not a lot of good memories than any of the three of them have on the Zenin compound, but I think that all of them secretly thought of that day as one of the best they can remember from childhood.

And it sort of was a huge deal for Mai. Everyone was treating her like she was dirt under their heel, but there was Megumi, the presumptive heir to the clan, the Ten Shadows himself, and he played with her. He was her friend. I think that would have been kind of a landmark moment for little mai. not only is that the acceptance and kindness she desperately needed, but I think it was also sort of source of hope for her that she could have a place in the Zenin compound one day without it being utter garbage. Megumi was assumed to take over the entire clan one day, and he was kind to her. He was her friend. He didn't let Naoya treat her badly, when Naoya was the one who was likely going to be heir if Megumi hadn't inherited the ten shadows. Naoya was at the top of the food chain, but Megumi still stood up for her, even though her own parents wouldn't have. So maybe when he grew up and became clan head, he wouldn't let people mistreat her and maki anymore. They could all be happy together, and Mai couldn't imagine a future where she and maki got to be happy before. Even though the clan leadership cracked down pretty hard on them for that stunt, it didn't make a dent in how overwhelmingly happy it made her.

Megumi going no contact probably would have been a huge blow, especially considering her age. She lost her hope and her only friend who wasn't her sister in one fell swoop, and she really was too young to have the tools to understand just how much Megumi needed to be kept away from her family for his own safety.

Mai, back then, was living in such a warped life that she didn't really realize how bad her family was, especially to Megumi. and that's not so much a comment as to how bad it was for her there versus him, but more that she had very little context as to what his life there was like. she was never supposed to meet him. She mostly heard about him secondhand, and that's all being filtered through the zenin's unique. All she ever heard was about how the ten shadows had finally been reborn, and how the clan was blessed for it, and how upset they all were that they had to give him back to gojo. No one even wanted her. Megumi seemed like he was living a much better life than anyone at the zenin compound could expect, so what cause would gojo have to take him away?

She was just a little girl who didn't really have friends other than her sister and him. She wanted to play with him again. She didn't understand much outside of that.

Of course, she's had time to grow up and kind of put her memories of the past in a more reasoned context. Maki came to the conclusion that Megumi probably didn't have the best time there a while ago, and this incident has really put it into perspective for her that he must have cut off the zenin because they were dangerously abusive towards him. Like, she mostly never saw him, but she has a lot of memories of him 1) being hauled out of a training room unconscious 2) being on sixteen hour days at the age of six, and 3) being violently unhappy whenever he was in the compound. Mai, to a lesser extent, likely has a similar awareness that he didn't go no contact for shits and giggles, it was because her family's fucking bonkers and abused him badly enough for gojo to pull the plug. of course, how that's shaped mai's mindset towards megumi now is still yet to be seen.

I know what it is, of course. it is seen for me. you all have yet to see it.

Gojo can and will make his own existence everyone else's problem and yuuta is sooo right to not want him to know. like. he wouldn't kick yuuta's ass. but that doesn't mean he'd be good about it.

I'm so glad you like the story! thank you for your kind words!!!

#sea glass gardens #I have this entire self indulgent continuation that's just yuuta breathing into a paperbag in africa about what the fuck is going on #he keeps trying to confiscate the first years to africa with him #like mostly megumi #megumi is his boy #but he LOVES that megumi has friends like he WANTED megumi to find what he had in his class he adores nobara and yuuji #whoever the fuck they are #he doesn't want to take megumi from his friends so he will simply take all of them #look obviously the others tried their best but they failed and lost the privilege okay the first years just need to come to africa where he #can take care of them properly #yuuta was locked and fucking loaded to be the world's greatest senpai only to get kneecapped with a study abroad trip #the other second years have to play rock paper scissors to decide who has to tell yuuta that megumi fought fucking sukuna twice within two #weeks of the first day of school. /sukuna/. sukuna hasn't been a problem for a thousand years and megumi has fought him TWICE. #he was shirtless both times. literally no one wants to be the one to tell yuuta they are all so afraid. #all yuuji and nobara know about him is that everyone talks about him wistfully and he keeps trying to confiscate them to africa #Maki: look you have to understand that yuuta loves his boy #Panda: he fucking loves his boy #nobara: and we may have to... go to africa about that #maki: you very well may #yuuji tries to ask megumi why they call him yuuta's boy and inumaki jumps out a 3rd floor window to tackle him because he still doesn't kno #i have this crack au in my head where Yuuta figures out teleportation during the goodwill event bc he can't take waiting to find out #if everyone's alive. the first thing he does is save his friends the second he does is hug them the third he does is hit them very hard #yuuta: you promised me you would take care of him! #Panda: we did! #Yuuta: why are there ROOTS in him #Panda sweating: look the thing is--TODO was the one who punted him through a wall for not being an ass man #maki had to sit on inumaki to stop his homosexuality from telling yuuta about that one and she did it not out of love for todo but out of #her conviction that yuuta would murder todo and then feel guilty and then she'd have to /hear/ about it and that's too much effort #all that work gone to shit because panda needed someone to throw under the bus

[thebroccolination]

Key! I wanted to ask what your interpretation of that scene when Team cut/hurt his foot and after Win says that "its not an excuse to not train", Team then says "don't worry, I'll be running around in no time" but then Win looks up at him, stands up slowly and then looms over Team with this sort of irritated/fierce/angry look on his face- which to me feel unprovoked- and even Team kind of notices it for a second before his friends come back...

What do you think that was all about?

Do you think Win was angry that Team didn't defend himself by saying he couldn't participate in training and instead brushed off an injury that (objectively) could affect the entire team or (subjectively) shows Win Team's lack of self worth and/or self sabotage??? Or do you think maybe Team reminds him of his nong so he feels kind of angry about the lack of self care? Do you think that was an entirely emotionally detached response and Win is just pissed off Team is sabotaging the team?

What'd'ya think?

OH BOY, ANON, AM I HAPPY YOU ASKED THIS.

I was about to go to sleep but I want to talk about this more.

Okay SO. I've said this elsewhere but after writing WinTeam fic for almost three years based on their unfinished novel and their limited screentime in UWMA, I was fully prepared and excited to accept that canon characterization in their series would likely be different from how I'd seen them and imagined them to be.

This scene was a perfect example of characterization that I didn't expect, and I LOVE THAT!!! It means there's still a lot to explore about these characters and a lot to think about regarding where they're coming from and how their larger character arcs influence each other.

NOW. THE INJURY SCENE.

So, here's my take based on the only episode we have so far.

I think this whole exchange was meant to hint at Win's larger problem when it comes to his interest in Team.

As stated in the synopsis:

Win is a middle child who only knows how to give love but never receives it. He only knows how to treat people equally, making it harder to approach Team.

So at the top of this exchange, Win crouches down and takes Team's injured foot in his hand, intent on helping him. He doesn't hesitate, so I assume he's probably had to do similar things as an older brother and as the club's vice president. For him, this is both his responsibility and a way of showing affection.

But that's what makes this interesting: Win would do this for anyone in his care, and only Win knows his own motivations. It isn't clear to Team or anyone else observing his actions that at this moment, Win is taking care of Team because he's starting to care about Team as a person. From anyone else's perspective, Win's just taking care of a first-year who hurt his foot.

So then we have Team's reaction: "phi, I'm fine," and "my feet are dirty (/bloody, probably)".

Regarding the honorific, we already know that Team will permanently drop "P'Win" after this episode and change to "Hia Win" instead. Culturally, "hia" implies a closer relationship than "phi", so it's significant that Win wants Team to call him that. In the novel, Win tells his younger brother View, "I'm only nice to those who call me 'hia'." So I think it's a pretty strong sign that Win's inviting a closer relationship in the only way he knows how. It's possible that as Win starts to feel more and more drawn to Team, the "phi" honorific is bothering him more and more, too.

Next, I think Team politely telling Win that he doesn't have to touch his bloody foot comes across to Win as Team dismissing his help. And again, I think Win sees this action as one of care, but Team probably sees it as Win just helping him out of obligation. As club president. Because Team's his nong, and his responsibility. So to Team, he's saying, "Hey, you don't have to go out of your way," but to Win, that's essentially saying, "I don't need you."

And Win's whole thing is that he wants to feel wanted.

I think the expression he gives Team is mostly hurt. Because this, caring for people, is all he knows. The only person he's this gentle with is View, who openly and happily relies on him. The fact that Win's trying to do the same thing for someone new, someone outside his family, and that person is rejecting it probably hurts him.

I love that Win just silently goes about this next part. Grabs a bottle, opens it, pours water over the cut. Team hisses, and then Win says this:

I think here he's falling back on what he'd say to any of the members as their club's vice president. Because as much as Win might want it, he and Team aren't close yet, and Win doesn't know how to get to the place he wants to be with Team.

Then my favorite part:

This is quick and subtle, but I love Prem and his eye-acting choices, so I'm going to read into it. I think Team's trying to gauge what Win wants from him because he truly has no idea what Win's deal is at this point. From their first interaction, Win's been kind of a jerk, and Team's been nothing but polite and deferential in return. From Team's perspective, what kind of person must Win come across as?

We know Team's good with people. He made at least five friends (that we saw!!) on his first day of university without hesitation. That's not something a lot of people can do! Team's not shy or introverted. So I wonder if Win is especially frustrating to him because he refuses to treat Team nicely like most people do.

Then he says this, and I think that's the funnest part of this scene.

I think Team thought, "If I agree with him and brush this off, he'll approve," but Win interpreted it as, "I don't need you, I'd be fine without your help."

And I think it would explain why here:

Team seems confused and Win seems upset.

Win doesn't realize that his act of care is too subtle for Team to catch. Team doesn't know him yet. He has no reason to think Win wouldn't do the exact same thing for literally any member of the club. And I think Win, a whole twenty-one-year-old, just hasn't learned how to communicate his emotions with anyone let alone his eighteen-year-old junior.

That's why his parting shot is:

He wanted to be the only one taking care of Team. That's why he sent the ABC gang away to get the first aid kit. He's never had anyone important to him. He's never had something that's only his. I think without being fully conscious of it, he's lashing out because Team dismissed his help twice (while likely thinking it's what would get Win's approval).

Then Team does a smart thing:

It's in the synopsis!

Team helps Win feel wanted.

He understood as Win was leaving what he hadn't done yet: acknowledged his help.

And yeah, this could have been a lot clearer to Team if Win had just said what he wanted. The thing is, though, Win can't even explain himself to Dean, his best friend. He doesn't even realize he's been keeping people at arm's length until Dean suggests it later that night.

And I think that conversation is heavily on Win's mind for the rest of the episode.

Up to the point where he repeats his earlier taunt:

He keeps saying this: "Just do it yourself, then." He's blatantly telegraphing to Team that he wants the opposite. He wants Team to rely on him, to come to him, to need him for something, anything. Even if it's just cleaning the blood from his foot or getting off for the night. Win doesn't realize how lonely he is, or how much he needs someone who sees him and appreciates him as Win. Not the club vice president, not the heir of his family's business, not his brothers' caretaker. Just himself: a boy in his own right who's barely into his twenties and shouldn't be shouldering this much responsibility with only a motorcycle to substitute someone making him feel special.

That's why he asks this:

He just wants Team to want him.

That's my take for the moment, anyway! It's fun to speculate as the series airs, because my thoughts on them will definitely evolve over time. But for right now, I think this episode was just dropping a lot of hints all over the place that Win's desperately lonely and Team is the first person who's ever paid attention to him in a way that makes him hope for more. Not something permanent, I don't think he's anywhere near there yet, but just more than what he's had.

Anyway Win is my baby boy and he's never done anything wrong in his entire life and I'm going to cry every single episode over him. <3

#between us the series #between us #winteam #boun noppanut #prem warut #kiranokira answers

[kiwiana-writes]

9 books

Thanks @cricketnationrise and @clottedcreamfudge for the incredibly rude, actually, tags, because I have never chosen a favourite anything in my life. (Also, CCF literally tagged me WHILE I WAS IN THE MIDDLE OF DOING THIS after cricket's tag from like two days ago, so I'm digging the wavelength synchronicity.)

Because I'm incapable of favourites, what you're getting is 9 more obscure books, not in a 'I'm cooler than you' way but in a 'please y'all go love these books as much as I do and give me more people to flail with about them' way.

Sevenwaters Saga by Juliet Marillier -- yes I'm listing a whole series as one book, fucking fight me. *Stefon voice* This series has everything! Historical high fantasy! Intergenerational stories! Romance romance romance! A canon side queer couple in fucking fifth century-ish Ireland! Slide into my DMs if you want trigger/content warnings or a more detailed synopsis, I am incapable of being normal about this series. Also if you read my swans fic you'll find parts of the first book in the series very familiar. (Also also, I once did a podfic for this series which has the dubious honour of being the only thing I’ve ever put on AO3 with zero comments, there's your random fact for the day!)

Rōmeo rāua ko Hurieta translated by Te Haumihiata Mason -- yes, this one's niche as it's in te reo Māori, but I'd be deeply remiss if I didn't have Shakespeare somewhere on this list despite me claiming I was going obscure. It translates the essence of the story rather than word for word and has a side-by-side with te reo Pākehā (English) which results in some absolutely delightful idiom usage.

Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach -- always a good reread if I want to feel like I'm a part of a wider universe. Also the reason for my seagull tattoo!

How to Loiter in a Turf War by Coco Solid -- I don't even know how to describe this one other than a must-read, which seems trite as fuck but here we are.

Meet Me Under The Ombu Tree by Santa Montefiore -- I first found this in my high school library which is fucking wild considering the plot. Another one to slide into my DMs for trigger/content warnings if needed but an incredibly well-written story with some of the most fleshed-out side characters I've read in this genre.

Mouthful of Forevers by Clementine von Radics -- absolutely incredible poetry, like, every damn one.

Nights in the Gardens of Spain by Witi Ihimaera -- another one I found way too early in the school library and the earliest overtly queer book I remember reading!

The C.H.E.R.U.B. series by Robert Muchamore -- idk how popular this one was actually? So this might be one everyone knows, but if not and you wanna read some wild YA about child spies, this will keep you fed.

I Am Not Esther by Fleur Beale and its sequels -- definitely not obscure to my fellow Kiwi but I'm not sure how much play it got outside of Aotearoa. Please read these books. Based on a very real religious cult (the author also wrote a nonfiction book about Gloriavale and how it got started) the shifts in perspectives between the different books in the series really do paint a vivid picture of the realities and nuances of it.

A lot of the usual suspects have already been tagged but I'm a nosy motherfucker so tagging @myheartalivewrites @maxbegone @ships-to-sail @celeritas2997 @rmd-writes @lilythesilly @nontoxic-writes @sherryvalli @orchidscript @inexplicablymine @stereopticons @cha-melodius @daisymae-12 @jettestar @swearphil @laurie-on-a-lark @suseagull04 and literally anyone who wants to share some of their faves with me!

#9 books #tag game

[saintsenara]

For the ask game: I’ll go for 1, 19, and 29 for Tom/Harry. And, if you’d like, 30 for a ship of your choice! 😊

(P.S. I just saw your post about the Myrtle rom-com! I am HYPED).

thank you so much for the ask, @spacecadette - and for reminding me to tentatively go back to ao3 and launch myrtle's hot girl era to the world.

the answer [unhinged and deranged] to question 30 is here and the questions for the ask game are here

1. what are their love languages?

answered here, and i stand by it. there's no interest from these two in words of affirmation or spending quality time together, and their interest in physical touch - the succour of a generation of smut writers - is mostly because who wouldn't want to be constantly running their hands over someone who has/had a bit of your soul living in them.

lord voldemort's love language is gift-giving, harry's is acts of service. they make it work.

19. how do they silently/subtly express their love for each other?

answered from voldemort's perspective, although of course he denies it indicates any affection for harry, here.

and as for harry? well, as ron says in canon [tomarry shipper, we all knew it]: you really understand him.

harry is probably the only person in the entire story who can completely appreciate just how grim voldemort's childhood was, and who can understand how that might have influenced the choices he made throughout his life. it's this that drives him, even in the middle of war, to beg voldemort to try to feel remorse; it's this which makes him want to help the soul-piece at king's cross; it's this which causes his obvious - and, to other characters, very confusing - empathy for the teenage tom riddle, who is disappointed to find his uncle living in a shack and furious when hepzibah smith insults his mother.

and that understanding - especially for someone who is, underneath the mask of cold brutality, just a feral boy who wishes to be seen and known - is like the tides against a cliff.

harry offers up a little space for voldemort to meditate on the fact that being an orphan is like being a palimpsest, constantly searching for traces of your ancestors within yourself; gets into days-long arguments about whether mrs cole or petunia was worse; "accidentally" leaves bob ogden's memory out, allowing voldemort to see his mother for the first time; recognises that hating your mother for dying and your father for abandoning you is a pretty natural reaction for a child to have, and dumbledore needed to tighten up; tells voldemort he'd have been a terrible teacher, because you can't let basilisks loose in schools and expect that not to affect a hiring committee; deals with a week of screaming when he tells voldemort about regulus; points out that gringotts is a bank and you can just ask for an account there; is game for starting new traditions for high-days and holidays, since neither of them ever had any as children [harry pretends the fireworks on nye are for voldemort, voldemort genuinely believes it]; and - and this is the one voldemort simply can't deal with and pretends never happens - forgives him.

because he's harry potter, damn it, and he gets to decide if that prophecy actually means anything.

he also allows voldemort to do all their interior design, even if that means living in a house with so much gold in it it's basically the interior of a byzantine cathedral. whatever keeps him out of trouble.

29. what is something they can never agree on? how do they meet in the middle?

ethics. obviously.

criminal justice. politics. the economy. whether hell is real. wandlore. dumbledore. if harry killing voldemort balances out voldemort killing harry's parents. werewolf rights. muggle technology. house elves. whether hermione is annoying. spoiler ettiquette. dinner. where to go on holiday. if harry looks good in his weasley jumper. if albus severus is a worse name for a child than delphini. whether hagrid should have been expelled. whether dogs are better than cats. what they're doing that weekend.

the list truly is endless...

they meet in the middle quite literally when they start hexing each other, activate the old wand connection, and are knocked out by the force of the magic when the golden bead reaches the middle of the spell. they wake up and decide to agree to disagree. they make it, at most, a day before it happens again.

ron and hermione are losing their minds.

#asks answered #ship ask game #asenora's opinions on ships #tomarry #harrymort #harry potter #tom riddle #lord voldemort #miscellaneous tomarrymort headcanons

[maja0678]

I feel like Galadriel and Maedhros would get along so well:

-both surrounded by idiots

-trying to be calm but siblings

-stupid blonde siblings

-and more but I can't think of more

WHICH IS WHY I AM WRITING DIS: (galadriel's perspective, like 50 years after the last ship came to Valinor. She is visiting the halls of Mandos cuz WHY NOT??)

Yes this is a fanfic but it's short

Fëanor's sons are idiots. But sometimes, Maedhros is nice. Celegorm is a dick, but he's always been a dick. So is Curufin. Caranthir insulted my brother, even though he deserved it. So I don't like Caranthir either. And the twins... Well, I'm neutral about them. And Maglor is lost. I don't know if there is something like a TV in Mandos, that livestreams all business in Middle-Earth.

I sigh as i take more steps. I couldn't take a horse; there aren't many in Aman. Walking is fine, I tell myself. I'm going to tell Fëanor and his sons that Maglor is officially lost. I couldn't find him. I searched for him- in secret- and I failed. Eru, I hate it when I fail to do something.

The door to their cell is sealed. Good thing I'm friends with Olórin, who is close with Nienna, Namo's sister. So I got a key. My fingers slightly wrap around the silver key. It's beautiful. But I shouldn't stand and admire the key, and open the door in stead. The huge door opens as I push it. Maedhros sits there. He looks a little transparant. But I've seen ghosts before, so I'm not scared. He doesn't look surprised to see me.

"I think I can guess why you're here, cousin." A shiver runs up to my ears as he spoke, which is kind of a weird feeling. The voices of ghost's are like wind. It's.. hard to explain. However, I have to say something. "Yes. I couldn't find Maglor. I'm sorry." My words sound cold and unfeeling. That's not how I wanted it to sound.

"I know. We have something like a TV here, but even that thing can't find Maglor," Maedhros speaks.

"Ah." My voice shakes. Only a little, but it still shakes. "I'm sorry. How's the waiting going?" And now, I sound like I'm making fun of him.

"Boring. My father tries to pick a fight with lord Namo.. And I guess we just have to sit here and wait. Accept our defeat." His words repeat in my head. Accept defeat..

"I get it. I.. I should go. I've said what I wanted to say. Good luck on waiting, and escaping." My eyes widen as i realize what I've just said.

"I mean, don't escape. Escaping prison is bad, don't do it." I try to explain, but he smiles. And waves me away. He's dismissing me, as if he called for me to come? I give him my most I'm-alive-and-you're-not-look, and turn around. I smash the door, as if I'm a child.

I'm not a child. I'm older then the moon and the sun. The most powerful elf alive. Alive..

When I'm walking back to my husband, and daughter, his words still echo in my head. A soft breeze toys with my now quite messy hair. Accept our defeat, he said. I turn around, walk in the direction of a now huge tree. I used to play in it as a child, but that was a long time ago. I used to sit there, and read. I find myself going into the exact position the younger me used to love

"Maybe it's time to accept defeat," I whisper.

THE END😍

#silmarillion #tolkien #galadriel #maedhros #namo mandos #short fanfic

[fishedeyelenz]

Pssst hey, tell me about your take on the old man 👀 ya know who I mean

Also!! I would really like to know about Camille and how she came to meet Billy/how she realized she had feelings for him and vice versa😄

Omg... hello. First of all, love the work that you did for the old man community yk yk but you were truly The First. Thank you so much for inspiring me ough <3333 fair warning this is gonna be LOOOOOONG

About my old crusty man.... Well the lore is a bit complicated now cause I kinda developed two stories for him with the same characters more or less, but with different circumstances. Both of these stories are being written and made into fanfiction that you can read on ao3!!

So give me coffee and tv- the og plotline, first written as a yn x DILF!Billy fic, however after I had written the third chapter I realized I was basically writing for an OC at that point, so I developed Camille as a character and slightly revamped the fic, as well finished the fourth chapter with her as the protagonist. (the og second person perspective version of the fic can also be read here ).

In summary, Camille Morrison is a recently divorced middle aged artist who moves to the outskirts of a new town next to a forest, with her only neighbor being the Moaner himself. He has been more or less rehabilitated, but that doesn't mean he stopped with the phone calls. He uses them to "cope". And of course he just had to call Camille to try and drive her away, cause he still can't stand having people too close to him (they live 15 minutes away from each other </3). But Camille confronts him, and a sort of mutual respect begins to form, then a quiet friendship, but because of their combined loneliness it quickly develops into something more for the both of them. In the hiatus I had while revamping and writting the fourth chapter of So give me coffee and tv I also was talking to my mutuals a lot and questions about how DILF! Billy would act if he were an Actual DILF came up a lot. What I mean by that is, what would have happened if he had a child of his own. And so I started exploring the logical conclusions of the premise, and started thinking about what would have happened if Camille and Billy met when they were younger and somehow by chance had a child. And that child became Bean!!! I love her so much she's a little silly <333 (huge thanks for the development of this this story goes out to @lycanthropiclykoi, beloved mutual)

Rats in the shadows - The baby au of So give me coffee and tv basically. au of an au </3. Story told non-chronologically, it follows the life of and relationship of Billy and Camille and their daughter Bean. A more experimental work, in it Billy and Camille met while Camille was living in the sorority (in sgmcatv she didn't live even close to the same town during college, though in both timelines she is a painting major), After some growing pains (he wanted to kill her when they first met </3) the two of them come to terms with each other and eventually fall in love and move in together. However at one point Camille becomes pregnant, and Billy leaves her, as he fears that he will either hurt her or the baby. Pretty angsty but occasionally fluffy, especially when Bean starts to grow up into something more than a baby. Agnes is there. Brahms Heelshire is there. I am currently focusing on this fic, while sgmcatv is on hiatus atm.

As for the characterization of my old man, it is slightly different between timelines, though rits hasn't touched on him as a middle aged man just yet. So I'll focus on the sgmcatv version. Set twenty years after the movie, Billy spent a good few years after the murders in a psych ward, getting slowly rehabilitated until he made his way into a halfway house, then was deemed fit to live on his own. He is still obligated to attend therapy though, and is kept on a nice cocktail of mood stabilizers, anti psychotics and back pain medication. Works as a projectionist at a local cinema in the town he lives in. Spend a lot of time traveling with by bus or waiting for the bus, given that he lives in a very small cabin in the woods and can't drive a car. Blind as a bat, and dresses like a nerd most of the time. Has adopted six cats, which you can learn more about here. Loves them all to bits and definitely doesn't play favorites, no way! Thrift stores are his favorite place on earth, though going there doesn't help his slight hoarder tendencies. Doesn't like people that much still, but puts up with them most of the time. Very lonely, and likes to call people still partially to get let his built frustrations out onto them, partially to hear the voice of another person. Hes just a creepy middle aged man.

His and Camille's relationship definitely changes depending on the timeline. In short, in sgmcatv their relationship definitely began with a rocky start given that he started harassing her quickly after he saw her walking close to his house, however when she told him to quit it and fuck off to his face he started developing a respect for her. It also helped that after that encounter Camille treated him with respect and kindness. Kindness in general, as well as empathy are some of the defining characteristics of Camille's personality, and without that, they wouldn't be able to get along no matter the timeline. And they started hanging out, being neighborly, finding similar interests. Both of them are very lonely at this point of their lives of course, and it isn't hard for them to start developing feelings and getting horny for each other. Camille has realized by this point of the story I think that she has feelings for him, but she is waiting for the friendship to develop more and is trying to see if Lenz would be a good fit for her, especially since the scars of her divorce haven't cooled off yet. She has enough experience now that she knows rushing into things isn't good usually, though a part of her is pretty confident in knowing what she wants, and Billy does fit her type in a way. Only time will tell how the relationship will develop further ( I haven't written anything else yet </3) In rits it is so balls to the walls chaotic. Sgmcatv has a more stable and healthy ground for the relationship to develop from given that Billy has already seeked help and is honestly doing better than ever, while in rits Camille meets him in the middle of the worst period of his life and also unfortunately, he has a crush on her </3 She needs to beat him up and knock him out with a broom when they first meet. At least he doesn't kill any of the girls in the sorority... The early stages of their relationship aren't expanded up on that much just yet, though I can assure you it involves lots of weed to sedate him </3/j but it all gets sorted out relatively okay for the both of them. By spring I think they will be friends, and Billy starts respecting her more. How she develops and realizes these feelings is still a bit spoilery as I haven't touched on it yet in the fic, but they really do fall in love hard. And when he left it hurt the both of them. He just... didn't trust himself enough to be a father. He starts more seriously going to therapy during this time period, and Camille knows he never truly left. He still visit her at night when she sleeps, and after Bean is born he visits her as well. That's where we are basically for now...

As for Bean she is well... a little bean. Just a little guy. Likes tardigrades and microscopic animals. Loves her mama and that strange shadowy figure that watches over her during the night. Sometimes she is so much like her father it makes her mothers heart hurt. She's just vibing... for now at least... That's it in summary, of course theres more information in the fanfics, and a lot of things will be expanded upon in both aus. Hehehe thank you so much for asking about Billy, and Camille and everything else though. I really love talking about these two stories I have, at any chance I get really!!! I hope you have a good day!!!

#asks #dilf billy lenz #billy lenz #oc: camille #oc: bean #oc x canon #black christmas oc #my writting #this is nice I finally managed to summarize all this jhfvhvvbjvbd

[spindrifters]

Okay, so, continuing our discussion from ao3 comments re: Domestic Dystopia as a genre-

Mel and I compiled an incomplete list of examples from books that we had read (literally I just stared at my library for like 10 minutes this morning waiting for it to revel the secrets of the universe) and this is what we have so far:

Never Let Me Go

Nona The Ninth

House of the Scorpion- have not read this since I was 12, but I remember this being the vibe

Number the Stars- this is a holocaust book, so like, real world dystopia, and I have not read it since middle school as well, but I remember major DD vibes and liking it for this reason

The Book Thief- another WW2 book, this one is also different because of all the POVs and an omniscient narrator, but still very much counts to me. Once again I am faced with the fact that genre eludes strict definition and comes down to mostly vibes!

Avatar the Last Airbender

Maybes:

The Giver?- I think it’s been too long since I’ve read it to make a fair assessment, technically it should fit into this category but I just don’t think it does?

Enders Game?- borderline to me because all the kids in this are little prodigy geniuses and while they are still kids idk if it messes up the DD schtick. But I do feel like parts of this book give me a similar feeling to others on the list.

That’s what I’ve got so far, I’m obsessed with this concept and still feel like I’m missing an obvious example, idk, maybe it will come to me later!

Anyway, dying to know your thoughts.

Ohhhh, this is so, so good. Literally bless you and Mel.

For context to everyone else: wrt the Tedromeda prequel, we were theorizing a potential subgenre with the working title Domestic Dystopia. Pulling some choice quotes from the commentary, though the time has probably come to synthesize this into something more cohesive:

A child’s perspective is so effective as a means of exploring dystopia in a way that doesn’t feel contrived.

[...C]hildren growing up in what they consider to just be normal circumstances.... Because kids just tell it like it is. Or at least, they tell the facts as they understand them and an older reader can generally parse the subtext.

[...S]tories that introduce us to really dark world building and very adult topics like War and Death through the eyes of children... the twisty feeling when the dystopia starts to feel almost cozy and lived-in.

Given the above, I want to suggest that a central tenet of this subgenre is that through a child's perspective, the reader is actively learning the rules of the dystopia and how it's built.

I've read/seen/am at least familiar with most of the titles you've mentioned, and I think you're both bang on the money. (Unfamiliar with Enders Game and House of the Scorpion, but input from followers?) In addition, I'd like to suggest:

Noughts & Crosses - Malorie Blackman

Parable of the Sower - Octavia Butler

The Broken Earth Trilogy - NK Jemisin

His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman (ymmv on how much this actually qualifies as dystopia but given the Magisterium's reach I think there's an argument here)

Outlawed - Anna North

Everyone, please feel free to add.

#thoughts? surprises? commentary? #literary critique #ask box #on writing #marginalia blogging #kinda

[emblazons]

hi!

i read the tags you wrote about millie in a post yesterday (i think you deleted the post because i cant find it now) and i just wanted to say im glad theres someone who shares similar thoughts as me. i love millie but i cant even say anything on twitter without her toxic stans accusing me of misogyny and insulting her intelligence, even though thats not my intention.

if byler is canon, how do you think she’ll feel about it? im asking because your perspective is interesting! i think shes going to take it a bit personally because she strongly relates to her character and wants el to be on the same path as her (like getting married young). its understandable though, considering her upbringing.

!! I actually took it off my blog because the other day I resolved the issue of my tags not archiving—but when it got resolved, my blog ended up square in the middle as “top blogs” with the full mlvn name tag because I hadn’t been abbreviating their ship in the tag I used before ☠️ that said, I changed the tag to “anti mlvn” so I could keep myself out of mlvn corners, but a lot of the recent posts that I kept under the old tag are gone or private until tumblr tracks the change—hence the missing post!

Still...me and that tag rant was giving “why would you say something so controversial, yet so brave” for sure (lmao), though I certainly meant it less as a comment on her life decisions themselves and more a "I can tell by the decisions you make as a creator, producer of other films, and in general that you are not The Duffer Brother's target audience, but a lot of your fans can't" kind of way...which is still controversial in several corners of this fandom for sure. 😭

the rest of this answer under the cut because it got long lol

Like, yes, she does play a principal character in the show, but playing a character does not mean the character is modeled to you as a person—just look at Emilia Clarke playing Daenerys Targaryen, Anthony Hopkins playing Hannibal Lecter, or even Rachel McAdams playing Regina George lmao.

Despite playing El since she was a child, as Millie has come into adulthood it's become clearer that she is very different from El—and that The Duffers aren't creating Eleven's arc with Millie's own "coming of age" in mind. Her choices to create things like Enola Holmes, Damsel, and even Nineteen Steps (her new book) showing up as sharp contrasts to not only the women in Stranger Things, but in all of The Duffer's upcoming work on Death Note, The Talisman and The Boroughs prove that well enough, which would be zero problem at all...if a lot of her fans didn't conflate Millie with El is as a character.

To your point though...I honestly don't think Millie is going to be all that personally upset if El ends up single and Byler happens—she's already made clear that she loves El, but is ready to move on and tell other stories and that she would have written the story as a high school drama if she was in control of the direction of the plot (while pointing out that she's not the one in control of it) lol.

Even what she said recently in an widely published and official Seventeen interview shows that she's really just here to finish the story and move on with her career—that she's ready for her role as El (and the drama I'm 10000% sure comes with that) to be done:

At least to me, all of that makes it seem like she is a level-headed young woman who can handle her character not being aligned with how she would live her own life—and will, when the time comes.

That said: imo the real problem is that fans of MBB are confusing Millie's own "I can be young, strong and still have a man" creative and life choices with El's "I am overcoming the bounds men have put on me to become strong by myself" storyline, which only becomes an issue when Millie jokes about things like mlvn getting married—

—and (by nature of being an influential celebrity) ends up with fans who mistake Millie's headcanons (because...honestly that's what they are) based on what she enjoys in fiction as what The Duffers are writing & planning for the ending of Stranger Things.

Basically: as an actress, it's literally MBB's job to bring life to stories that don't necessarily reflect her own values or desires, and she knows it—but because she's been playing the character on people's screens so long (and from a young age) a lot of fans have issues separating the woman from the fiction and recognizing that (as Adam Driver once said) it's not Millie's job to have a feeling about or even agree with who El is as a person—it's her job to bring El & The Duffer's vision to life, even if her life informs how she plays the role.

None of that is particularly Millie's fault (though she, like Noah sometimes, adds fuel to fandom fire with the jokes she makes lmao), though it does get irritating to navigate when you're constantly subjected to arguments rooted in nothing but headcanons when trying to make sense of The Duffer's work itself lmao.

TL;DR - Mills joking about El and Mike getting married feels the same as someone here putting their headcanon out into the world about married & domestic Byler—only, because she's the face of Eleven + has now gotten engaged young herself, people misinterpret her own "cute headcanons" as canonical fact, leaving people who love the actual canon + who enjoy the 'style of womanhood' the Duffers write to arguing with people who misunderstand the actual characters.

Millie is a woman whose had a complicated relationship with celebrity and fame since she was a very young girl, and she has certainly made different decisions than I have (and likes different fiction than I do)—but that has nothing to do with her intelligence or ability to respond gracefully to the character she's played since 12 turning out differently than she would have imagined it if she had written El herself. If and when Byler happens, I'm sure she will meet the reality of it with respect and consideration, even if her fans (and hardcore fans of mlvn) don't lmao.

Hopefully that explains it (and doesn't get me shot for saying lmao). But thanks for the ask!

#the short answer to your question? #I genuinely think she's gonna be just fine with it when it happens even if she wouldn't have written it like that herself #her personal history is immaterial given she's not a 'method actress' and doesn't conflate herself with her characters #when she says things like 'they'll get married' its basically her making joke-y headcanons same as people do here #but...a lot of superfans don't see it like that—they take it as law over anything the duffers ACTUALLY do in the show lmao #tbh its the same for every one of the actors but. her fans seem to take her jokes more seriously than anyone else takes Noah or Finns #also...I could have been nicer in those old tags but I was super annoyed when I wrote them so. apologies for the snark LMAO #asks

[littleeyesofpallas]

I always really liked, in Death Note, that when they introduces M and N as L's two competing protégée, they just took a list of L's traits and quirks and split them down the middle: L was both logical and intuitive, passionate about justice and personally enraptured by solving puzzles, sat like a child, played with his food, and had an insatiable sweet tooth? Mellow gets the passion, the justice bordering on vengeance, the intuition, and the sweet tooth. Near gets the childlike demeanor, the play habits, the cold logic, and personal investment in puzzles for puzzles sake. And together they make one functional L.

I want that for the Batfam. Bruce has his giant obnoxious hyper competent repertoire, but instead of every Batkid being just a mini version of Bruce, give them each a SUPER distinct specialty. Something actually discernably different from their peers, rather than just slapping the same onesize fit all batbrand competency on all of them. The martial arts expert, the ace parkour/acrobat, the detective, the gadgeteer, the batcomputer data analyst, the criminal profiler, the vigilante, the master of disguise, the urban legend, the avenger, the ninja/assassin, etc... Obviously theyre each well rounded and versed in all these archetypes, but each one ought to have a specialized category where if it ever really came down to its, they could beat Bruce in a contest of that one set of skills. (Except Damian. Damian should just be a tiny Bruce with maybe a bit of an ethics problem, and the promise of being better than Bruce at EVERYTHING, just given a bit of time to grow into it while Bruce loses a bit of edge to old age)

(and frankly i really just want this for a bunch of hero families -the WWfam could have different fields of specialty from diplomacy to archeology and magic artifacts, to mythological beast tamer, to proper soldier and commander, etc...; the Flashfam could have radically different approaches to what elements of how they approach processing at superhuman speed and their atomic level of finite control; the Arrowfam could have a whole spread of survivalist vs hunter/tracker vs sport archer vs esoteric historical martial arts, etc skills to set one another apart.- but that's several whole other cans of worms...)

Dick is far and apart the best in the air, fastest maneuvering both around obstacles and on the run, in and out of the fray, sheer 0 to 60 from ground to air on a grappling line, fastest all around reaction time, and contender for most well honed raw athleticism right next to Cass.

Babs has the information network, the batcomputer sciences, and organizational and tactical perspective that comes uniquely from not just being a bat kid but from being so closely acquainted with GCPD's structures and systems. When it comes to cross referencing and pinpointing precise information, Babs is unmatched by a substantial margin.

Jason has the I Am Vengeance, I Am The Night down. The raw passion for crime fighting, and indeed the fixation on crime specifically. He and Steph are the most personally acquainted and invested in Gotham's underworld and the actual humans working, living, struggling and thriving in it.

Ill be honest I m actually never quite sure where the hell either Helena fits into this structure... Bertinelli feels like she should fit a niche almost too similar to Jason's, but lacking in the fanfavorite melodrama of being a dead robin. And Wayne ought rightly to fit a role not dissimilar to Damian or just Bruce himself... Consider this one unresolved...

Tim is of course is everyones favorite ace boy detective. I feel like theres always a temptation to make him Babs' equal in the tech department but outside of the laughable 90s hackerkid aesthetic I just dont see it. He's great at trivia and detective's intuition, and of course his near shamanic level of insight into Gotham itself.... He does strike me as one of the family's top gadgeteers; not a full blown engineer like Luke, but quick to pick up and make unconventional use of existing tech and hardware, matched and even surpassed in that respect only by...

Steph, who as Cluemaster's kid and one time potential protégée has had a thorough talent for tinkering and sabotage from and early age. Maybe she cant tap into the same depth of trivia or strictest logical deductions that some of the more thorough bred bats can, but no one can pinpoint the most vital areas, or dismantle a deathtrap more quickly than Steph, both by way of knowing the mechanics, but also by way of intimating a super villain's psychology and behavior. Where someone like Tim or even Bruce might fixate on knowing the exact layout or schematics or logistics of a hideout, a machine, or a plan before taking action to dismantle it, Steph knows at a glance where the most volatile parts of a machine or a plan are so that even if she doesn't have the time or the specific knowledge to work out every detail of what it does and how, she can figure out how to break a mechanism or topple a plan at its most central pillar(s) of support. I've always wanted her to be essentially the family's espionage expert, right next to Catwoman's breaking and entering expertise.(Ric Grayson eat your dman heartout)

Then there's Cass, and obviously, at her peak she's the family's (and frankly the world's) top martial artist. But even with her first language of combat fluency stripped down/away she's more than a match for anyone else in the family.

Luke kind of predictably taking his dads role as engineer, utilizing the full extent of the high end bat arsenal unlike really anyone else. People joke about comparing batman and Ironman but really if anyone should have a shtick comparable to Ironman it's Batwing. The rest of the bat fam can operate and maybe maintain the vehicles and hardware fine, but no one can design, upgrade, and see through the actual fabrication process of the tech better than Luke...

...Runner up in this same category is Harper, who is lacking in the straight up manufacturing department but built her whole vigilante arsenal by juryrigging salvaged battech.

Ill be honest, a bit like Huntress, I dont fully known what to make of Kate. Her background is unique among the batfamily as having been strictly military. She has a penchant for the noirsy side of the detective shtick, but thats more of a genre thing than a skill set; what does it really mean for her shtick inworld? I dont really have an answer...

Duke is a bit of a weird case in that the obvious answers are all baked right into his existing profile: he's the meta, he works in the light, he's supposedly more above board and less broody. And that all feels fine, but it also feels like he doesn't actually fit into the whole schema of batskills at all as a result. I would like to see him use his experience with We Are Robin to create a kind of PR or outreach branch of the bat fam. Like, a bat that Gotham can actually sort of get to know and learn to trust, beyond believing in a boogeyman or not. Like, i dunno, give him some airtime with Vicky Vale or Jack Ryder...

And I already mention Damian is just small Bruce waiting to grow into his dad's shoes. The whole benefit of being ras' heir is that he's the one kid who doesnt need Batman to train him. He can fight and think and ostensibly even gadget without Bruce, what Bruce gives him is what Ras and Talia cant: A moral compass. Plus it's a fun change of pace for Bruce to have a protégé where he isn't filling the time with teaching combat and shit to, so that he really has no choice but to learn to connect with Damian emotionally, for both Damian's sake and his own.

I'm not touching Gotham Girl with a 20ft pole...

Did I forget anyone??

People like Owlman, and Ghostmaker are all just the same shtick... Bruce's same character build stats but without the ethics. The Talons are cool but skillswise still just sort of amount to Nightwing knockoffs, ala the whole Owlman origins of the Court of Owls plot in the first place. Similarly the Batman Inc crew are just discount batmen; same basic skill tree but lower point values, so to speak. Not really worth investigating. (unrelated but has Catman fought Green Arrow before? I feel like they could have a really cool survivalist rivalry thing going on)

Not counting people like Clown hunter, or Harley, or Scarlet, or Raptor as parts of the family...

OH! Jace! Boy what a weird case. I wish we got more of an actual motive from him. It honestly doesn't feel like he has a particularly good reason to even be a vigilante, least of all a direct successor to Batman of all things. And I wish they hadn't just shipped him off to NYC... Other than that his shtick feels super weird in the scope of the general bat repertoire. Like Kate, it's weird that his background is really just (para)military rather than the more eclectic spread that Bruce has made the standard bat regimen.

#i forgot this draft was here #i know ive hammered out like half a rant about this sort of thing #maybe a dozen times before #but i always delete them once they stop making sense #or lose direction #i dunno what i thought i was gonna do with this one... #maybe go back for more images? #dunno why it got banished to the draft pile for over a year

[thistle-and-thorn]

okay so I’m attempting to watch and just like that s2 because I clearly am a masochist and like.

I just hate hate hate what they’ve done with MY BABY GIRL Miranda so much. WHERE IS HER HUMOR? WHERE ARE HER SPIKES? HER JUDGINESS? HER CYNICISM? HER INDEPENDENCE? She and Samantha were the two with the most casual and open and confident relationships to sex!!! So I just hate it with a burning passion. Not only does her storyline completely shunt my angel child Steve who was the ONLY blue collar person presented as sexually desirable on the original show and the only one given any sort of arc (like, I love her but, ultimately, Magda was a prop), but it does so in a way that reeks of biphobia for me.

Like, I’m glad that there is a bisexual character, I love that there’s a non-binary character, I love that there’s poly representation, etc but the whole storyline of Miranda cheating on Steve, abandoning her family, Che pressuring Miranda into a threesome, Che not disclosing that they were still married?!?! Ummmm I just. It just screams every biphobic thing I’ve heard about us being hypersexual sluts, homewreckers, the myth that every sexual awakening means the breaking apart of a relationship, that bi people are selfish and will hurt their partners, that polyamory means constant breaking of trust and lack of communication, etc. Sex and the City has always had a conservative core to it…ultimately heterosexual and monogamous sex is the goal and like…fine whatever. But for them to tout that SATC is Queer Now feels like a lie, and more insidious than the actively and obviously biphobic storyline about Carrie’s bisexual boyfriend.

AND it makes Miranda’s alcoholism completely irrelevant. Like, it would have so much more interesting to see the show actually mine that storyline and give it the space and respect it deserves. To see how Steve and Miranda and Brady handle that!!! It would have been so much more interesting to see the queer awakening in the two more conservative characters of the original four: Carrie or Charlotte “Comp Het” York. Like Carrie, in a post-Big era, liberated from her own narrow views of sex and romance? Renewing her quest to become a sex anthropologist in middle age? It just goes along with the loss of POV in general. Like, the original’s framing device gave it a perspective and a question to answer about how sex and relationships intersect with all these other areas and experiences in life. All the Issues™️ they are trying to unpack now feel scattershot and fake and like a checklist because they have nothing interesting to say that feels unique to the main thrust of the show. MPK SEE MY VISION

Also, Miranda, you IDIOT when you’re trying to have sex next to someone without waking them up maybe try not to immediately moan so loudly that the neighbors could hear you. The sex scenes have been so bad with them 😭😭😭

#yes I’m at work #but I can’t stop thinking about it #thistle simulations #anti Che Diaz #is that a tag? #and just like that #sex and the city #cw biphobia #cw mentions of alcoholism