#but at the same time most of my anger was justified... but as a kid i was told and taught

[rainbowfractals]

This post is about antisemitism. I'm going to put my cards on the table here. I am not Jewish, I am a Muslim. I have been spending a lot of time in predominantly left and leftist spaces for some years. I've been paying attention to what's being going on on this site too. I think the left, the right no matter what your politics are has a big problem with antisemitism. I've seen people constantly dismiss it, claim it isn't a priority, claim the effects aren't that bad.

Within the last 4 months, I have seen many Jewish people on the Internet , on this site and others leave or take down anything relating to being Jewish because of constant harrasment. This harrasment has had an upsurge but it is not new, I remember hearing the same canards and same false claims years and years ago. I keep seeing people betray a callousness to effects this political enviroment and hostility has on Jewish people.

They refuse to even push back against statements like 'they care more about the jews' or 'being a member of the chosen people means your better than everyone else and they're your slaves', 'there are too many jews in the government', 'there are no palestinians who are of jewish descent, have jewish family members or are jewish and this is propaganda''. I've seen people unable to speak about grief about those they trusted and respected turning out to be antisemites without being harrased over the ethnic cleansing in Palestine.

I've seen a lot of antisemitism in Muslim spaces too, ranging from 'we're tolerant and this is how they repay us', to condenscension to 'some aren't bad but others are bloodthirsty and vengeful', and denial of any antisemitic attacks or crimes done by Muslims. I have also seen attempts to put a stop to this and defend against this and correct misinformation.

But the biggest problem I've seen is that their are a lot of people, who see this is wrong but don't do much about it, or think that it will somehow take away from calling for Palestinian liberation some who have saying this line for years others who have only just started saying it recently. In my experience it is generally not Palestinians saying this who are far more likely to push back against dehumanzing rhetoric than those who say , 'Oh we can't focus it now, Palestinians are dying.' In fact I seen anger against using phrases like 'free palestine' to hurt Jewish people as using the oppression of a people to be antisemities.'

People [in general] keep adding all kinds of caveats 'oh some are good', 'oh some are kids', like acknowledging the humanity of the Jewish people takes the lifeblood away from a Palestinian. In my experience openly saying one should listen to and defend Jewish people and Jewish communities from antisemitism without question is getting increasingly a volatile response. Simply saying that 'Oh what if they're a Zionist?' to just horrific biogtry is antisemitic and you should never deny what's happened to them is bad on that basis. Its used a dogwhistle to justify anything.

And here's the thing, I've spent the last 5 or so years trying to learn all I can about Judaism and Jewish culture, and the dissonance between what I now know and what I see around me has grown very wide. I don't know that much, but I keep seeing the same misinformation and lack of care as to how destructive it is. I keep seeing people assuming that antisemitism is someone else's problem to deal with. I keep seeing all kinds of monolithic, flattening and caricatures that bear no resemblance to the reality.

The most jarring thing was that there are people on this very site that if you had one should support and stand with Jewish people against antisemitism to make a fairer world that had learned a lot about why it is so rampant are now shying away from these statements. Jewish people are spoken about as if one event has obliterated any past or present of discrimination. As if their lives they have led have ceased to exist. The things that caused that atrocity and the current horrors were still around 5, 10 years ago. It wasn't out of nowhere.

I have seen those who have no issue with agreeing with neo-nazis and just violent hate and doxxing and shootings and so on and simply unpersoning Jews in their mind. This has happened many times before and unless there is a big change will happen many times again.

More and more Jewish people are ailenated and leaving places there otherwise went, changing how they live their lives and so on. To all those who are suffering from this. I'm sorry that this happening you shouldn't be treated in such a cruel way.

And to those of us who seen or noticed this withdrawal, we should try to prevent it. Its not enough to say that's wrong to some hateful statements we have work against a hostile and suspicious enviroment this hate flourishes in and give it no air to breathe and to water to drink from.

Antisemitism is not someone else's problem, its all of our problem. We should be vigilant in spotting it and then doing something about it. Many say this but there is a great need for action. Everywhere, on the social media, on the schools and workplaces in the place sof worship in the businesses, in the politics, in the media and so on.

I'm going to say this again, as because I am not Jewish I cannot be claimed to be priveleged and looking for attention by those denying the case. When I say volatile reaction, I mean there are people who viewed me talking about differences in theology between Judaism and Islam and the work of David Bar-Tzur in sign lanaguage interepretation Jewish settings and writings and community work with the Jewish Deaf community and how Judeo-Christian does not exist and is antisemitic and so on.

As first distaste 1 as I spoke to them about it over multiple conversations and was met with increasing hostility and eventually claims that I was following 'degenerates' and that I was too 'kindhearted' and had become 'brainwashed' by 'Zionist media'. Which quickly changed from condescending pity to cold anger when I protested against this. When said I wasn't going to get disclaimers that some 'Jews are bad' all the time whenever I said anything about them and deemed what they were saying to be antisemitic, the conversation devolved from there.

In their eyes I'm object of suspicon for essentially sympathising too much with Jewish people and knowing 'too much'. Yes they considered the amount I knew to be a sign I was brainwashed. It was even insinuated that I lack faith in my own religion and so on. If I didn't like this, I could just walk away and ditch everything I have said and done then keep my head down. But those suffering from antisemitism can't do this as they are being targeted.

That's all I have to say. Please respond if you have anything you'd want to say to me.

This was someone I've known for years who had over time more and more negative reaction, by distaste I mean there was a distinct sense of when I brought the topic up. Perhaps naively I keep trying to talk with them knowing what I know now I would have disengaged sooner and stopping trying act like this was a two-sided good faith discussion earlier, but the past is the past.

I also did not expect this post to get so much traction, I assumed some of my mutuals would read it and it would get some likes and a few reblogs and replies then the attention would leave my blog. I've been reading the responses, thank you for what you've had to say.

Also there are many people doing good work fighting against this in Muslim communities all over, I fear perhaps my original version this post didn't focus on that much, I was talking more about people causing and keeping up this issue.

#antisemitism #leftist antisemitism #muslim #antisemitism in muslim communities #fractal posts

[tzilatza]

NATLA Review - spoilers

Woke up today still feeling annoyed after finished the Netflix ATLA remake last night, and I think I've figured out the core reason.

It's the fact that: If they had held truer to the original source material, we could have had a truly great show. I disagree with those calling it a complete disaster. The acting was good, great in some cases. The effects were very well done, the bending looked about as good as it can in a live action media. The scenery was lovely.

But what happened in the writer's room?! The way they just reveal all the back stories up front EVERY TIME is honestly insulting to the audience. It's like they're so terrified that smartphone culture has made the public so accustomed to instant gratification that they have no faith we will stick around and keep watching if they make us wait for anything.

They're also clearly terrified of complexity. One of my biggest gripes with this remake is Jet's story. They completely took out his plans to murder a whole town of innocents in order to get a few enemy soldiers. Now, Jet isn't my favorite character, but his story is so important. Because it is real. The world is full of people who have been so brought down by injustice that they lose their sense of right and wrong, and we need to see that on screen. If Jet is too complex for them, how will they handle Ba Sing Se in the second season.

This goes along the same lines as removing Sokka's sexist moments. They felt they had to do it to make him more 'likable.' Yet the writers themselves went full sexist on Katara's character. They've taken out so much of her spark, her righteous and justified anger, and they've done it because even in 2024, people expect women to be more passive to be palatable. Enough people have already commented on them removing Aang's choice to run away. Heaven forbid the main character not be an absolute paragon. Did y'all notice that they even made Hahn likable? Hahn?! What reason do you have for making Hahn likable Netflix?! His role in the narrative is to be an example of toxic masculinity that is clearly the bad choice compared to Sokka who has learned and grown out of his own.

Don't even get me started with what they're doing with the fire nation family, I'm not ready to tackle that. In general, I have no problem with Azula getting a little more backstory and humanizing, but why season 1? Throwing in all these extra scenes just sacrifices screen-time where they could've actually fleshed out the real season one plots instead of rushing through things at breakneck pace. (ex: Aang escaping Zuko's ship in about 2 minutes flat)

At the end of the day, the scenes I most enjoyed were those that held true to the original like the Blue Spirit sequences. They could've easily done more of this, held onto the important plot points and even more important character complexity, while maturing it for an adult audience. I'm not disagreeing with every change they made. Go ahead and take out the silly Nickelodeon gags, add cussing and more realistic violence to get your mainstream viewers. Go ahead. They could've easily made a darker more mature version of the show and still held onto all the old fans in my opinion. But claiming that you're making a 'more mature' version and then removing the complexity and subtlety because they didn't think viewers could handle it...

What makes me most sad is that there are a lot of people who will experience ATLA for the first time through this show. There are a lot of adults who are not willing to watch original ATLA because they refuse to acknowledge an animated series can be anything other than a kid's show. Those people will watch this and think it's the real deal, and that just makes me sad.

If you've read this far, a very sincere thank you for listening to my rant. If you're an OG fan who enjoyed it, I have no problem with you. It was a fun watch, I was just hoping for more. If you are a new viewer who has never seen ATLA before, I sincerely want to hear your opinions. Is it a great show to someone who isn't holding it against the context of the original? And do you plan to watch the original now?

#natla #natla spoilers #live action atla #live action avatar #netflix avatar #netflix avatar review #avatar the last airbender #atla

[inbarfink]

The interpersonal conflicts between the two Membrane siblings is an incredibly important part of Invader Zim’s comedy, and also its emotional core and the characterization of these two kids. With Gaz, this tends to be, like, the primary way she interacts with episode plots. For Dib, his interactions with Gaz tend to bring out his more Zim-like traits and are the main refutation for his Terminal Case of Main Character Syndrome. 

But, also, I see a lot of assertions about their dynamic in the show that are often… kinda not very accurate? Anything from ‘Gaz beats up Dib on a regular basis’, to ‘all of Gaz’s actions are Perfectly Reasonable' to 'Gaz used to be Perfectly Reasonable and then Season 2 Flanderized her'. So, I think I want to do something a bit more… comprehensive for them.

So here is...

My Big Overview of Dib and Gaz!!

I’m going to try and go over each and every one of their conflicts in the show, go over who was most likely (the most) in the wrong, how the other reacted to it, if there’s an escalation, if it feels consistent with other episodes, how I personally see their motivations… obviously like every analysis of a piece of media it’s going to be at least kinda subjective, so I would love to hear how your view of The Siblings differ from my own - but I’m going to try and be as comprehensive and well-reasoned and balanced as I can be. 

"The Nightmare Begins"

Gaz doesn’t get a lot in the first IZ episode, but she does get this!

Gaz: Dib drank the last soda. He will pay!

So, okay, it’s not entirely clear if Gaz has a good reason to be mad at Dib or not. Like, yeah, as we’re going to get to with other episodes - Dib might have a Problem of eating things that belong to Gaz. But the implication here is that this was everyone’s Soda, and she’s just mad that Dib finished it. But like, someone had to drink that last soda at some point, right? 

Gaz’s anger could be justified, if, for example, she explicitly asked Dib to leave one last soda for her or if Dib already drank the majority of it… but that's all speculation. From what actually exists in canon (which is just this one line), it seems rather unfair.

But also it doesn’t matter that much, because while Gaz expresses frustration and, like, a desire for horrible vengeance - she (as far as we know, at least) doesn’t really do anything about it. She just gets herself a juice and once Dib comes home she’s just talking to him like normal (that is to say, somewhat derisively, but not openly hostile).

So really, regardless of whether drinking the last soda is a legitimate grievance or not - all Gaz did was express a minor and petty frustration in a kinda melodramatic way without doing anything about it. She didn't even do it to Dib's face!

"Nanozim"

The first proper Gaz episode! And with it, a lot more Dib-Gaz interactions! And the introduction of one of Gaz’s major grievances with her brother… that she finds him annoying. 

Dib: Maybe they'll let me host the show. My own episode! Gaz: I'm only 13 levels away from finishing this game so I either finish the game or make you wish I was never born.

Now, Dib should have the right to be as Weird as he damn pleases. Buuut… Gaz also should have the right to be left alone and Not be Bothered by people she finds grating. So while getting mad at Dib for just existing and doing his thing near her would be unfair, Dib is explicitly trying to talk to her - and she’s got the right to not want to participate in the conversation. Especially if she’s also trying to do her own Thing at the same time. 

Note that she only really speaks out when the conversation really turns into stroking Dib’s own ego, that’s when she decides that talking to him is not worth risking her Gamer Time. And, much like with ‘the Nightmare Begins’, despite the harshness of her words - she doesn’t really do anything and Dib doesn’t really react. Making it seem like Gaz is prone to over-dramatic proclamations of vengeance but she doesn’t have much bite.

Hell, when Dib starts shoving his hands in her face while she plays. She’s not aware, or at least she doesn't acknowledge, that his behavior is legitimately out of his control. But all that leads too is… another empty threat and her leaving the living room to get away from him. 

Gaz: I'm letting you live this time, Dib, but only because I'm still getting through this last level.

And when she shows up again, we have a bit of a Turnabout! This time, Gaz is the one trying to initiate a conversation and Dib is the one brushing her off so he can focus. 

Gaz: Is that Zim? Is this an online game? Dib: Gaz, please. I need to concentrate.

And actually, in that case, both of them were more ‘justified’. In the sense that at least Gaz was trying to talk to Dib on what she thought was a shared interest - a game he likes and she thinks looks interesting. In contrast to Dib only wanting to talk about something only he is interested in and how great he is and all the praise he’s going to get. And Dib obviously had very good reasons to take the ‘game’ very seriously and choosing to focus over small-talk with his sister.

The problem being that Dib's pride blinds him to the obvious solution of letting his über-gamer sister who can’t be hurt from the inside by Zim take the wheel. From Gaz’s perspective he is actually more reasonable than reality, because she thinks he’s not sharing a cool game he found with her because he want to play it, rather than risking his own life because he feels the need to be the one who best Zim.

And she’s being a bit of a pushy backseat gamer herself, but not really, like, more than standards for lil gaming kids. And she doesn’t actually do anything but ask to play up until Dib is literally unable too. Although she does push him aside.

Then she unknowingly saved his life, and knowingly helped him humiliate Zim. And… should we count Gaz calling the game ‘stupid’ when she thought it was actually very important to Dib as another example of her insulting him? I dunno, all-in-all both Membrane Siblings acted relatively grounded and reasonable in IZ Character Standards. Like, this is pretty standard Mildly Jerkish Sibling Behavior from both of them.

"Parent Teacher Night"

Gaz laughed at Dib when Zim splashed him with punch

Although she also laughed at Dib splashing Zim with punch. 

So really, this isn’t really specific antagonism against Dib - she just really finds petty minor acts of assholery funny regardless of who's doing them. Although I guess you can argue that she should 'side' with her brother.

"Dark Harvest"

Yet another classic example of ‘Dib bothers Gaz by ranting about something she doesn’t care about, and Gaz retaliate by being uninterested’

Dib: Incredible! You see Gaz, to defeat my enemy I must study my enemy, then become my enemy, then move in with my enemy, then wear my enemy's clothes then- Gaz: You're in my light.

There’s not even, like a toothless violent threat here this time, she’s just making it clear that she’s not interested in a way that's kinda rude.

"The Wettening"

Since I am here to discuss the antagonism between Gaz and Dib, I won’t go into much detail into this iconic scene

Outside of it being yet another demonstration of how often Gaz’s threats of physical violence usually seem more like toothless edgelordism than anything you should take seriously.

Gaz: If you wanna keep all your limbs, Zim, you will put me down, you will put me down NOW!

Our actual main focus here (outside of some mild snark from Gaz that Dib didn’t even pay much mind to)

Gaz: I'm leaving with or without you, Dib. Preferably without you.

Is what happens right after that Zim Umbrella Situation - Gaz is all set to actually make her threat a bit more than just talk

And then Dib splashes Zim and Gaz is caught in the ‘crossfire’.

And, y’know, Gaz doesn’t give a shit about Zim and Dib’s rivalry - she doesn’t see Zim as a threat and just sees Dib’s ‘fate of the world’ work as a selfish way to stroke his own ego. So while being splashed by a puddle is a relatively small slight (at least if you’re not Zim), it’s the reasoning and the fact that Dib shows no remorse or even really acknowledges what he did to Gaz that, I think, is what really sets her off.

Gaz: THAT was your fate of the world work!?! Jumping in a puddle!?! You do realize I'm gonna have to destroy you now. Dib: It was worth it. Score one for the human race! Score nothing for the Zim... thingy race. Gaz: I will destroy you.

So after this little threat, we don't really see much more antagonism from her outside of the usual snarky comments and general hostility to Dib trying to share his interests with her.

Until after Zim has delivered his ultimate defeat. That is when Gaz also unleashes her revenge.

Throwing a single water balloon at Dib.

This is really one of my favorite Gaz Revenge Moments of the entire show, because on one hand her anger is understandable and her way of getting back at Dib is technically perfectly proportional. He splashed her, she splashed him back. But the timing of when she does it just adds this angle of rubbing salt on Dib’s wounds that just makes it hurts so much more without her actually having to do anything extra.

"Battle-Dib"

Now, this is actually where you can say that there was a shift in Gaz’s character. Because while Dib eating her pizza right out of her hands was undeniably a Dick Move. I think that he clearly knew what he was doing since he did guess at that was what Gaz was upset about (he just couldn’t remember the food right)

Dib: Gaz! Help me! I'm sorry about your tacos or whatever, just help me...

It just feels like Dib thinks that being a ‘hero saving the world from the alien menace’ entitles him to his sister’s pizza, and Gaz - who refuses to see Zim as a legitimate threat to Earth’s existence and/or humanity's freedom - would obviously be enraged by this mindset.

And like, if you frame it as “Dib stole Gaz’s pizza, so she ruined his chances to get a permission slip from their dad”, it wouldn’t actually be all that bad. Again, Gaz doesn’t see Zim as a meaningful threat, and thus she sees Dib’s battles against him not as a heroic duty but a self-indulgent hobby. So she’s just screwing with the stupid thing he does for fun (and his own ego), not anything actually important.

But… the problem is that ‘ruining Dib’s permission slip’ wasn’t a one-and-done thing. In the process of ruining Dib’s attempt to get his permission slip signed, Gaz also got him tasered

And beat up in a variety of interesting ways

And dragged off forcibly by security.

So, like, even from Gaz’s perspective where Dib’s conflicts with Zim just Do Not Matter, this is way past the point that Pizza Vengeance can justify any of this. This is the first time we’ve got not just angry and snarky Gaz who makes a lot of threats but generally acts mean but proportionally so - but legit a ‘will destroy you over the slightest provocation’ Gaz.

Since this is still pretty early in the show's run, I wonder if this shift is just, like, what was always intended for Gaz’s characterization. Like, that from the get-go they wanted her to be this disproportionally vengeful and they just couldn't incorporate her actually fulfilling any of her threats into an episode's plot until then. OR if was an attempt to just make her more involved in episode plots and ‘wackier’ and more flawed (especially since this is a very rare occasion where Gaz doesn’t just deliver a Karmic Punishment, but also suffers one).

Especially, since this ‘change’ doesn’t necessarily stick to all, or even most, or her subsequent appearances. 

"Planet Jackers"

Dib: Gaz, there's an alien in the house! Gaz: You mean besides you?

Really just a tiny and pretty standard interaction, between these two. A snarky and mean-spirited comment against Dib when he bothers her about something she doesn’t see as important and doesn’t want to get involved in. Pretty much the baseline for these two.

"Rise of the Zitboy"

With this one it’s really clear that we’re back to the ‘classic’ Dib-Gaz dynamic despite the 'shift' in 'Battle-Dib'. Like, Gaz is trying to do her own thing, Dib is trying to initiate a conversation about the Thing She Doesn’t Care About (Zim) and she’s just trying her best to Not Engage. Only now, instead of her usual Game Slave, it’s a book!

If anything this is toned-down from her baseline, since she doesn’t even say anything mean or threatening, she just tries as hard as possible to ignore him and hopes he gets the hint (he does not).

"Bad, Bad Rubber Piggy"

Gaz is shown exacerbated by her brother’s actions during the first flashback, but outside of a light snarky comment to herself she doesn’t really do anything.

Gaz: Not again.

Now back in the present, we see a sort of inversion of the Dib-Gaz conflicts of “the Nightmare Begins” and “Battle-Dib” by having Dib complain to Gaz about her eating something he wanted to eat!

Dib: Hey Gaz, did you eat all the cereal? I was gonna have this for breakfast tomorrow, you know! Gaz: You think you own all the cereal. Well, you know what Dib? You don't. You just don't. Dib: Look, all I'm saying is if you're going to--

If the implication in these two previous episodes is that Dib eating Gaz’s food is a regular occurrence - then she is pretty justified by acting so appalled by his comment. It’s just plain selfish hypocrisy! Or… maybe this scene implies that the Membrane Siblings ‘stealing’ food from each other and getting angry at the other for doing this is something that they both do regularly. Which, like…okay, finishing a shared box of cereal before the second person could is still not anywhere near snatching a pizza a person was planning to eat right out of their fucking hand. But at the very least it makes both her reaction to Dib finishing the soda and her defensiveness here feel a lot less justified. 

And then when the time-shift happened…Well, I’ve seen some people suggest that Gaz’s non-hostile and even, like, kinda-audibly-concerned reaction to Dib’s questions about his past accidents suggest that in this timeline Gaz is a lot kinder to her poor injured brother.

Gaz: Tricycle accident when you were 3, don't you remember?

And while this is a plausible explanation. (It’s especially consistent with her ‘Enter the Florpus’ characterization. She says she’s Mean to her brother because she knows he’s strong enough to take it, but obviously Piggy Timeline Dib is not strong enough to take it). 

But I don’t actually think it’s a needed explanation. Like, even at her most extreme and petty - Gaz has always been mean in reaction to Dib. Whatever it’s just being Annoying at her or stealing her food right off her hands, and whatever this reaction is proportional to the slight or totally vengeful and unreasonable - Gaz’s meanness is almost always directed at Dib as a reaction to something. So I don’t think it’s that unthinkable for Prime Timeline Gaz to also react so amiably to Dib asking her a question that she doesn’t find horribly obnoxious.

Especially since even in the Piggy timeline, Gaz is still not beyond wanting to ignore Dib

Gaz: Dib, shhh. They're gonna show the bats eating a cow!

Or go for a snarky comment when he offers her an obvious opening.

Dib: And have my plans always been this lame? Gaz: Ooooh yeah.

Although it is maybe notable that the second Past Sequence where she is present

Is actually the closest we see of Gaz express, like, genuine concern when her brother is bodily harmed. Which is notable compared to other episodes, including…

"Bloaty's Pizza Hog"

Now, here’s a Real Proper Gaz Focus Episode, and as such, it’s naturally very important to her characterization. 

First things first, it’s the one to explicitly establish the fact that Gaz does not see Zim as a threat and therefore she sees Dib’s obsession with defeating him not as a serious world-saving undertaking, but as a frivolous hobby on kinda the same level as Dib sees her video-game obsession.

Dib: Don't you care that Zim's trying to destroy all mankind? Huh? Gaz: But he's so bad at it.

And that perspective, of course, informs a lot of my analysis of Gaz’s behavior through the post even before we got to this episode. I think it’s actually pretty interesting because you can totally see the internal logic that justifies that perspective - Zim is often the main person throwing a wrench into his own plans, and Dib’s motivations for positioning himself as a hero standing against his evil are partially self-serving (something that’s very easy for Gaz to see since she’s lived with him trying to play out self-aggrandizing fantasies all of her life). 

But from our wider perspective as the audience, we know that sometimes Zim can be a genuine threat to the people of Earth (if not legitimately dangerously close to destroying/conquering it, at least causing a lot of localized havoc and mayhem with his schemes) and that Dib’s efforts of stopping him are not entirely in-vain, and that his reasons are… not entirely just fueled by his own ego. And from Dib’s own biased perspective Zim is always a threat just one step from destroying all mankind if not for Dib's intervention which is obviously Altruistic and Heroic. So it’s very much a matter of their different perspectives and views of the Zim-Dib rivalry causing further conflicts between the two siblings. 

I mean, on a smaller scale that is why Gaz is so upset whenever Dib is bothering her when she’s trying to do something for fun. You know, kinda like here-

Both of these activities, fighting aliens and drawing little piggies, are equally frivolous in her eyes. But by constantly distracting her with talks about the Stupid Shit He Does for Fun Dib is kinda putting his silly hobbies as more important than her silly hobbies and thus his own needs above her own - which is what always gets her so upset. (But again, upset, but not doing anything but be a Bit Creepy About It).

But of course, the interesting thing about this episode is that this time, Dib’s Frivolous Hobby isn’t just interrupting Gaz’s Frivolous Hobby - it’s actually interrupting something a lot more important and with much more urgent stakes. Family Dinner Night.

Gaz: You know Dad's taking us out tonight. I picked Bloaty's. Dib: This is bigger than pizza, Gaz! This is the fate of all mankind! Gaz: You and your mankind... Dib: Uh-huh. Whatever. Look, if I'm not home in time, call this number and tell them the Mothman is caught in the spider's web. Dib: They'll know what you mean. But, like I said, I'll probably be back before the Mysteries theme song starts.

Even after being told that dad is taking them to dinner… I think Gaz is very much trying to imply “this is important to me, don’t mess it up” without being directly, emotionally honest about it. And Dib’s just totally not even considering it. Like yeah, from his perspective he is going on an Important Heroic Mission that must be worth anything else he could be doing with his time, but... he is also primarily worried about not missing his favorite TV Show and reduces the idea of Family Dinner Night to just 'pizza'.

And like, this is a very complicated family situation, isn’t it? It is understandable if Dib isn’t gang-ho about having dinner with his dad, considering what their relationship is like. And maybe the fact that he couldn’t take Gaz’s hint about this being Very Important to Her isn’t, like, entirely up to his sense of self-absorption but also to his general social inaptitude (and his Autistic Swag). But I can also understand why this is so important to Gaz and why she would still read Dib’s behavior as just pure selfishness and part of a pattern of disregarding her feelings.

(There's certainly some sort of Funky Neverending Loop of, like, Dib disregards Gaz's feelings, Gaz expresses her feelings about it in the most repressed, abrasive and/or mean way possible, Dib continues to Not Get It and disregard Gaz's feelings. Like, how much is Dib Not Getting It the fault of Gaz always letting out her feelings in exclusively in the form of snarky comments and edgy threats and how much has Gaz learned to express herself in this way as a coping mechanism due to Dib always walking over her wants and needs? It's hard to say)

So when Dib ignores (from her POV of the situation. Again, maybe Dib just legit missed the subtext) her honest desire to spend time with their dad for a change, she first reacts by… trying to abandon Dib. Instead of calling the Swollen Eyeballs as backup for him, she just destroys the number and tries to go to dinner without him.

Which… okay, this can be a dick move which is kinda way out of proportions of what Dib actually did. But remember that Gaz’s perspective refuses to see Zim as a threat. So she doesn’t see it necessarily as abandoning Dib to death, but just as an inconvenience. He’ll get out eventually on his own, he’s ‘strong enough to take it’, and that means she doesn’t need to bother with lending him a hand. “Well, if he doesn’t care about Family Night Out then he doesn’t get to go. And also he doesn’t get to watch his stupid ass show!”. Like she was thinking about it as wasting his time and not necessarily leaving him to die.

But also, like, this episode goes to great lengths to establish that Gaz is only saving Dib for the sake of her getting to eat dinner with her dad for once, and not out of concern for him. And while she might not believe Zim is actually capable of killing him, she is also pretty blasé about the idea that he’ll be harmed or tortured… unless it interferes with Bloaty’s with dad, of course.

Look at her big ol’ eyes, it’s not just an ‘eh, he can get himself out on his own’ mindset - she was looking forward to seeing him suffer horribly!

Dib himself is still being kind of a Jerk throughout the episode, even in an emergency he’s still thinking about how his little sneak-in plan will affect him in the most superficial ways.

Dib: There you are, Gaz! Looks like you'll have to tape the show for me, I made it in! 

Dib: Gaz, make sure you don't record over any old episodes.

Like, this isn't even a 'Dib thinks saving the world is more important than Family Dinner Night. But Gaz doesn't think the world is actually in danger so think this is just frivolous ego stroking even though we know Zim can be a genuine danger and Dib's goals are at least kinda genuinely heroic' thing when you consider these lines. Even in a dangerous situation where the world is at stake, Dib can still find the brainspace to worry about his silly TV show but not about the possibility he'd deny his sister the precious little time they have to spend with their dad.

You can argue that trying to stop Zim is actually more important than Family Dinner Night and Dib is in the right. But Dib's dialogue also puts Mysterious Mysteries as being more important than Family Dinner Night. Because that at least gets some sort of acknowledgement from him. Gaz's only chance to go to her favorite restaurant with her favorite person in the world doesn't even get a "sorry, Gaz, but I have an Important Duty to do!", he just totally ignores it.

And generally through the episode he's ignoring and understating Gaz’s desires - even after she did actually told him right to his face what she wants.

Gaz: Come home now, Dib! Your weird obsessions are not gonna mess today up for me. I just want to go out and eat with Dad, that's all! Stop playing with Zim and get back here.

Gaz: All I want is to have some pizza...hang out with Dad, and not have your weirdness mess up my day.

So at this point this stops being some sort of misunderstanding and really starts seeming more like Dib not even trying to understand his sister’s motivations.

Dib: Come on, Gaz! You'd sacrifice the entire planet just for some pizza!?!

Which… makes sense as something that will aggravate her, especially in regards to something as emotionally important as getting to hang out with her father for once. But still, letting him get tortured is, like, maybe a tad disproportionate as an outlet for these frustrations? 

But I think it's still notable that while the angle of disproportionate response to technically-legitimate-grievances is similar, in contrast to her very active acts of sabotage back in “Battle-Dib”, she only really ‘gets back’ at Dib here through inaction when Zim is hurting him (and maybe being a bit abrasive to Dib during her rescue, but Dib was also a very annoying rescuee so that one I think does kinda balances out.)

"Bolognius Maximus"

Okay, back to the simpler and shorter interactions now. We once again see Dib initiate ‘conversations’ with Gaz about subjects she finds annoying and uninteresting. 

Dib: They try and say it's just a regular mountain range on the Martian surface, and it's just a trick of the light, but come on! It is so a monkey face.

And this time all Gaz does is casually ignore him.

When things start getting odd with the dogs and all, she only reacts with a snarky comment. But at this point it’s not even entirely clear to Dib that something very very wrong is happening. So I dunno who would expect Gaz to be worried about this?

Now, later in the episode, when Dib is very obviously turning into a bologna, Gaz still doesn’t give a shit.

Which I think actually matches up very well with her ‘Zim is not a threat, none of the things he’s doing/planning to do will actually pan out’ outlook. Like, lowkey she is pretty sure that this new Wacky Zim Scheme is gonna go up in flames and return everything to normal so there’s no need for her concern or interest and she can just casually enjoy the free bologna. Which is actually a fun character beat because usually the show leans toward Gaz’s attitude being kinda right - but this time she was very much in the wrong.

And like, if 'Bloaty's Pizza Hog' gave me a chance to talk about how Dib's tendency to see the Inherent Importance of everything he is interested in over any of Gaz's needs and desires might not just be a difference in perspective or miscommunication but also has an element of trying to rationalize his own selfishness - I think it's only fair for me to note this can also go the other way around.

It's easy to see Gaz's total dismissal of Zim's threat potential as just her being... you know, grounded and rational enough to see things as they are. But there might be her own emotional bias in play in here motivated by her own resentment with her brother and her own selfish desire to totally ignore and disregard him. Maybe on some level, she just can't allow anything that Dib cares about to be actually worth paying attention to, even when it seems to be literally life-threatening?

"Game Slave 2"

Obviously this episode has a lot of Gaz content, some that can invite a lot of discussion about how proportionate or disproportionate her reactions are - but we are going to focus specifically on her interactions with Dib, of course. Starting with…

Dib: Come on! Bigfoot would never say that! Gaz: Why do you have to read that in here? I'm trying to play a game! Dib: Mysterious Mysteries is on in five minutes!

This is actually really the first time where Gaz is directly, explicitly annoyed by Dib just sort of being around here. Usually her exasperation is fueled by him trying to talk to her about all kinds of Alien Stuff she just doesn’t care about, or trying to drag her into his world-saving adventures against her will, or stealing her food - but here is just doing His Own Thing in her vicinity. Like, the living room is a Shared Space, he has just as much of a right to hang out there as Gaz does. 

If anything, he has more of a right to be there since he’s waiting for his show to come on while Gaz is playing her handheld video game. So if Dib reading his magazine and complaining that Bigfoot Would Not Fucking Say That is bothering her so much - then she should probably just go to her room. Then again, she doesn’t do much other than verbally complain once and it was probably more about venting out her frustrations about the game than Dib himself.

But then…

Dib: I've been waiting all night to see this! She can wait to get her stupid game! Prof. Membrane: Son, video games develop hand eye coordination, and make kids into better human beings! Dib: Okay... But only after the show is over. Gaz: You stink!

So on some level this is just the same sort cycle of conflict that is always going around these two. Both of them prioritize their own hobbies (and this time it IS Dib’s hobby, there’s not much subjectivity around this. This isn’t about saving the human race from anyone’s point of view, just about a show he wants to watch) and thinks the other one is frivolous and selfish for caring about their hobbies more. But also… in this specific context Dib is the One Being a Dick.

Just like before I sided with Dib because Gaz can play the game in her room…. We know the Membranes have a way to record shows on their TV. That came up in literally the previous episode! Dib could’ve just set his VCR to record and ���Mysterious Mysteries’ will be waiting for him when he gets back from the mall - but Gaz’s console launch is an actual time sensitive matter. (Plus ‘Mysterious Mysteries’ is aired on, like, a weekly basis. Consoles do not release in this frequency). 

So Gaz had every reason to be upset with Dib when they did get to the mall and see, like Gaz and any Gamer watching could’ve predicted, that a-half-an-hour delay in getting to the big launch event can screw up a lot.

Dib: It was a… really good episode…

And maybe I’m reading too much into it, but Dib’s reaction also feels pretty telling. You know, instead of giving Gaz any sort of apology, he’s being defensive by saying that hey, at least the MM episode was worth it? Like it is still kinda centering his interests and desires over Gaz’s.

And Gaz’s retaliation for it is…honestly relatively mild? 

Gaz: Hey, Dib. I think I saw a Chupacabra or something going into that parking garage. Dib: A Chupacabra? But there isn't a goat to feed on for miles!

She just gets him out of her way so she can be left alone in line in peace, and probably hoping to waste his time on the fake Chupacabra - a tit-for-tat revenge for getting her time wasted. Which… okay, it’s unclear if she knew about how large and labyrinthine the mall’s parking lot actually was and about, you know, the colony of horrible rat people. But still, Dib was already out of the building by the time Gaz finished Murdering a Fellow Child.

At worst, he wasted like a couple of hours that he didn’t have any specific plans for anyways. 

Really, since this episode gives us a glimpse into how Gaz deals with People She Finds Annoying Who Are Not Dib... it actually kinda gives the impression that Gaz... like, not just that she doesn't hate Dib specifically and will aim a similar amount of ire at any random person who annoys her in a similar way. But also maybe that she goes easy on Dib, compared to how she delt with Iggins. Which is... probably the closest we'll get in this entire journey to an indication that Gaz has any level of care towards Dib.

"Battle of the Planets"

Dib: DAD! Gaz! Come see this! Professor Membrane: Please! No more foolishness, son! Gaz: Your voice is stupid!

Dib tries to get Gaz involved in something she doesn’t care about, she insults him. Pretty standard.

"Mysterious Mysteries"

Okay, so, the first thing I want to note is the lil’ babies scene.

It seems like a really inconsequential gag but this is actually, like, an extremely rare occurrence of Gaz being mean to Dib without anything even resembling a provocation. Like, at least in that little scene at the start of ‘Game Slave 2’ she was venting because of her frustrations with the game and it was just a light grumble. This is really like the most classic inarguable example of Gaz bullying Dib.

Especially when compared to both her version of the Story and her general behavior in the ‘present day’ of the episode. Like, is portraying Dib in her version of the story as a barely coherent moron kind of Mean? Yeah, sure it was. But is it any more insulting to the actual person that it’s depicting than Dib depicting Gaz as his helpless adoring sidekick? Especially as her interview implies that she did find Dib’s version of events legitimately insulting in it's inaccuracy?

Gaz: My stupid brother did drag me out to look for stupid Zim. He didn't make that part up.

Maybe Gaz deliberately exaggerated Dib’s (and Zim’s) stupidity in her version of the story out of spite of how Dib framed her on national TV. Maybe just like Dib seemed to be genuinely under the belief that his version of Gaz is a decent reflection of reality, Gaz literally just thinks of Dib as this stupid and annoying. Either way, it’s a really an equally-matched kind of sibling assholery. 

Also, speaking of Gaz’s version of events... obviously it’s not entirely clear what really happened - but I do think, when it comes to like characterization and the general tone of Invader Zim, Gaz's retelling is at least pretty reliable on two fronts; why she was there-

And why did the video cut out when it did.

So while Dib’s interactions with Gaz had that undercurrent of, like, him always putting his own interests above her own for a long time - this really is the most obvious example. Literally forcibly dragging her out of whatever she was doing for the sake of getting an extra ‘eyewitness’ to his video. And so she responded with a little force of her own.

Again, this is all from Gaz’s story, and she does tend to give out exaggerated threats of violence that she doesn’t always carry out - so I don’t think it’s out of the question for her to also retroactively make up/exaggerate the acts of violence she commits. But since this kick in the shins is by far the most probable cause for the video cutting out that we have, I am going to assume that it did happen in reality on some level. And it is a very notable example of Gaz actually inflicting direct physical violence on Dib - until now, her preferred methods of inflicting pain on him were a lot less direct. 

And while kicking people in the shins is wrong, it was still in reaction to Dib forcibly dragging her along - which was probably a lot less painful, but also took a lot more time. You can argue this still follows a sort of tit-for-tat logic that a lot of Gaz's retaliations do... but also, with Gaz's second scene in this episode literally being the most Unambiguous Case of her being Mean to Dib for Now Reason

In this episode more than anything, it might be fair to assume Gaz just wanted to hurt Dib and humiliate him on National TV and there's nothing more to it.

(Also, of course, Gaz refusing to corroborate Dib’s story is one of the main reasons why he failed in that episode. But as I mentioned many times before, Gaz refuses to see that rivalry as anything serious or with more stakes than her video games. In her mind, this is about as bad, or maybe even less bad, then dragging her out to waste time by participating in this stupid show in the first place.)

"Future Dib"

Okay, so most of the other Gaz and “Dib” interactions in this episode kinda follow a unified-if-winding thread of thought so I want to start with the one that I have kind of a separate Point about:

While Gaz’s reaction was very disproportionate and unnecessarily violent, I think it’s also interesting to note that the thing that set her off was “Dib” putting his hand around her. It’s actually part of a recurring implied piece of characterization that Gaz hates being touched. 

Dib: Everyone, hold hands again. Gaz: Yeah! Your lives depend on it! Poonchy: Okay! Hold my hand. Gaz: No way! Be serious!

Since Dib very very rarely ever touches Gaz, and, y’know, has known her all of her life - avoiding physical touch is probably an established boundary between them. So while that doesn’t fully justify the intensity of Gaz’s reaction, that does explain both why that set her off so much and why that’s really the moment where she starts to notice “Dib” is really acting strangely. He was really violating a boundary that he should’ve known by now.

(Going back for a sec, actually, her ‘dramatic re-enactment’ in Mysterious Mysteries also has the Dib Actor dragging the Gaz Actor by the arm. So that’s probably another reason why Gaz reacted kinda violently then as well)

So Gaz giving out more edgelordy threats to (who she thinks is) Dib is pretty standard at this point, but there is something very unique about it in this episode. This is the first time since ‘Battle-Dib’ where she actively acts on these threats to such a literal degree. And this is also combined with the ‘Mysterious Mysteries’ trend of being much more directly violent.

Like, Gaz explicitly only realized she was dealing with a Dib Robot Replica after choking it out so hard it’s eye popped out. All of this violence and pain, she was intending to inflict it on the real Dib. This is about as bad or maybe worse than everything she put Dib through back in ‘Battle-Dib’. And she's doing it with her own two hands this time.

Plus, the reason that she’s reacting like this isn’t because Dib was stealing her Pizza or being generally inconsiderate to her - it’s really just for being weird and annoying (which, in this context, means ‘start to scream randomly and freak out’). So that feels a lot less justified. 

Then, of course, her reaction to finding out that she has been beating up a robot half-to-death is to use it as a replacement for her brother. Which has several different implications going on here about Gaz’s relationship to Dib:

First things first, I want to note that this episode ends with the implication that Gaz left Dib to be stuck in that cell for, like, the rest of his life until he died of old age or something?

I mean, yeah, obviously it is a ‘non canon’ jokey ending that gets totally ignored by the next episode. But the way I always took these snapback ending is as, like, obviously they probably didn’t actually happen in whatever passes for ‘canon’ in Invader Zim - but the events are still indicative of what would’ve happened in terms of worldbuilding and character actions. So while this episode isn’t telling us that Dib has literally died of old age after spending his entire life being beat up by a monkey for Zim’s amusement. This episode is telling us that if that did happen, Gaz would make no effort to save him, ever.

This is notable because of how it contrasts with the previous episodes, or at least my interpretation of them. Like I said, my assumption has always been that Gaz doesn’t care about the Zim-Dib rivalry and sees it as frivolous nonsense because she doesn’t see Zim as a threat. And thus, her general refusal to help her brother was less about outright hatred of him and waiting to see him gone/hurt, and more about just thinking he can handle that walking joke on his own and there’s no need for her to waste her Precious Gaming Time on this. 

This is very much supported by ‘Enter the Florpus’, both in what Gaz literally tells Dib right to his face and in the sense that when Zim does prove to be a credible threat to her world and to her family - she joins forces with her brother with minimal complaints. But of course, ETF Characterization don’t always apply to 2001 Series Characterization so while I prefer this reading partially because it allows ETF Gaz to feel more consistent with Main Show Gaz - I also I feel that Main Show has enough implications to point to this characterization and motivations on it’s own and I want to draw attention to it. 

But here… this is Gaz theoretically ignoring Dib’s plight for literal decades. At this point this isn’t something that can be explained as ‘she doesn’t think she needs to bother with it’. Like, at some point it should’ve been clear to her that even if Zim isn’t a threat to Earth, he is certainly torturing Dib somewhere. This really seems to be direct evidence toward the idea that Gaz just doesn’t not like her brother at all and wishes that he was gone. 

And also I want to discuss what exactly Gaz turned the Robot Dib into - an abusable servant. Something that fulfills her needs while passively enduring her random acts of cruelty.

So… is this what she would like Dib to be? Like, maybe I’m just looking at it from the totally wrong angle. Maybe it’s just a matter of ‘well, if you have a Robot Servant, you’d obviously want it to serve you. And if you’re an angsty preteen with anger issues, you’d like to have something vaguely human-shaped but non-sapient to take your frustrations on’. Maybe it’s got nothing to do with Dib. But… like, this Robot is still Dib-Shaped. So I feel like the implication is that she’s using Robot Dib as a proxy of what she would also do with Dib if he was, like, mind-controlled or something?

And that’s… not really the vibe I’ve gotten from Gaz’s interactions with Dib so far? I mean, maybe I won’t go as far as to say that she actually likes him - but I thought about it more in the sense that she just wanted Dib to leave her alone most of the time. That for her an ideal situation would be more if he did his own thing and she did her own thing without his ‘weirdness’ barging in and bothering her all the time. 

This is just really… I think that might be the ‘Meanest’ Gaz has ever been in my book. Like I know that there’s Another Certain Episode that people often put up as “The One Where Gaz is Really Mean to Dib” but I think that it's more Complicated than some people give it credit for. So, like, I’ll get there when I get there. But here we actually have the Gaz who physically attacks Dib over the slightest provocation and, like, actively hates him. 

It’s really one of those things that make me, like, kinda question my analysis so far. I mean, is this meant to be another attempt to shift Gaz’s character because meaner and more violent characters are more fun and wacky to write? Is it just a matter of the IZ writers prioritizing wacky escalation and cartoon violence and Dib suffering over giving Gaz consistent motivations? Or have I been just totally overly generous in my analysis so far? Like, maybe I was totally off the mark trying to look at which of Dib's actions seem to set Gaz off?Maybe we were supposed to understand that Gaz was always beating Dib to a pulp off-screen since the start?

But... I dwelled on these thoughts for a while and I think that my usual read of Gaz’s character is maybe not consistent with this episode, but it is consistent with a majority of the episodes she was featured in. Which is not something I can necessarily say for a reading that just centers ‘Future-Dib’ above all else. This level of physical violence here is still very unusual for her, even in episodes where she is more cruel to Dib.

(And the idea that she just legit hates her brother and wishes he was gone… honestly, yeah, that can go either way...)

"Abducted"

Especially considering this is the very next episode with any sort of Dib-Gaz interaction! 

Gaz just walking off while Dib is being, well, abducted can work pretty well if you assume that Gazthinks that obviously whatever is flying this thing

Is some sort of incompetent idiot and she doesn’t need to bother with the annoyance of saving Dib because he can handle it on his own (and she would probably be right).

But… it can also work just as well if you assume she doesn’t give a shit about Dib and would be happy if he’s gone forever.

"Dib's Wonderful Life of Doom"

Dib: How I am I still the only one who sees Zim's an alien? I mean, come on! Come on! COME ON! Gaz: Why do you have to have a head? Dib: Gaz! I want you to see this. Today, things are gonna change. I'm gonna do… something! I'm not just gonna sit back and watch Zim get away with his… his… things he do! Dib: I mean— Gaz: "Things he "DO"? What's your problem?

And we’re back to Gaz not being directly violent or even threatening violence, but just being snarky in a kinda mean way. Still, there’s maybe less of the justification for her exacerbation with Dib this time. Because this time he wasn't technically bothering her at all! Dib was lecturing another kid before she started insulting him. I think the implication was that she felt he was embarrassing her, but I still feel like that's a lot less justified.

Still, it’s not like her words seem to significantly hurt Dib, and she is at least able to share a laugh about Zim’s ridiculous behavior with him. (although with ‘Parent-Teacher Night’, there is also the implication that she would’ve also laughed at Dib in any sort of inverted scenario).

"Tak: The Hideous New Girl"

So for Dib and Gaz’s first interaction in this episode, we have this:

And well, kinda like the ‘Wonderful Life of Doom’ interaction, what Gaz does here is pretty mild in the grand scheme of things- but her reasoning also feels not very justified.

I mean, yeah, she was annoyed by the sound of them yelling, that sucks. But Dib has a right to yell in the shared living space of his own house. But… also, I suspect that she sprayed him with the soda less as a punishment for being annoying and more as a direct result of what he said just before. 

Dib: Thanks, Gaz. He was really…

She wanted to make it clear that she was not shooing Zim out to help him. She did it for her own sake. Because Dib keeps making this mistake of thinking of Gaz as his sidekick and that her goals and wants align with his and obviously that causes her a lot of exasperation and wasted time. So I think she was more lashing out at this hypothetical future scenario than just Dib annoying her in the present.

Next up, we have the scene by the Evil Weenie Stand.

Gaz: Be quiet. I wanted to let you know that my brother is trying to break into this building through some secret entrance. Weenie Clerk: We... we have chili beans. Gaz: I just though it'd be funny to see him get beaten up by security.

So, Gaz actively trying to get Dib grievously injured just because it’s funny is actually... kind of an unusual thing for her. Like, as I’ve said previously, she’s usually a very reactive character. Even when her actions are at their most disproportionate and least justifiable, they are usually at least somewhat motivated by Dib’s actions… unless the implication is that the reason why she’s here in the first place is because Dib dragged her out here to be his lookout and she's looking at a way to get back at him for that.

That scenario feels most likely to me, and obviously that wouldn't justify ratting out Dib and enjoying his pain - to me it's kinda on the same level as getting Dib tasered and dragged off by security for stealing her Pizza... But also it's notable that this time, she actually gives up on the idea pretty quickly. If you wanna be charitable to Gaz, you can say she wasn't really serious about the security thing and was just making an edgelordy joke and honestly... with her characterization, I think it could go either way...

Interestingly, once she gets a decent look at Tak and her plans, Gaz becomes a lot more cooperative. I mean, she still grumbles about the idea of saving the Earth. But, like, she doesn’t argue when Dib says the disk is ‘theirs’ when she was the one who found it and she doesn't put up any resistance about joining Dib in seeing Zim’s base. Compared to how previously she’d at best be really abrasive about it and at worst would have tried to actively sabotage Dib and/or cause him physical pain as revenge for prioritizing himself and wasting her time. 

That works very well with the idea that Gaz’s whole problem with Dib’s obsession is that she just doesn’t see Zim as a threat. Obviously after coming face-to-face with Tak, she can see she is much more of a Legitimate Threat to Earth than Zim is. So even if she’s not necessarily emotionally invested in saving the world, she can tolerate it a lot better if she can see that it is indeed something more than Dib’s extremely self-indulgent ego-stroking hobby. 

"Backseat Drivers From Beyond the Stars"

Gaz finds Dib annoying, Gaz goes to vent to her dad about it, Gaz is told to give her brother another chance, Gaz finds Dib annoying again and just leaves. This is a very Mild Gaz compared to what we had in the previous few episodes, closer to my initial read of her. Like, she doesn’t even insult Dib to his face this time. She finds him annoying, so she leaves!

"Dibship Rising"

Well, I… have made the decision to not discuss Gaz’s attempt to destroy all mankind in length, even though Dib is, in fact, technically part of ‘all mankind’. I just think this scene is more about her relationship with her dad then it is about Dib.

Gaz: That didn't wipe out all life as we know it! YOU LIED TO ME, DAD!!

The actual crux of Dib and Gaz’s interactions in this episode are once again - Dib’s obsession with halting the Irken Invasion of Earth has led him to also inconvenience Gaz (this time, by causing a lot of noise and being late to dinner), and Gaz is, like, mildly abrasive as a result and ignores him a lot.

"The Voting of the Doomed"

Dib: Willy's a drooling moron! As sole defender of Earth, I've got to do something! Gaz: I wish Willy was my brother.

Yet another case of Gaz insulting Dib unprompted (since he was talking to himself rather than to her. She just happened to be within listening range.) And also another implication that her problem with her brother is that he’s embarrassing? I think that’s how we’re supposed to read that line? "Willy would be a better brother than you cause he's less embarrassing!"

"Gaz, Taster of Pork"

Okay, now this is the big one. This is the episode that I’ve seen a lot of people in the fandom cite as being, like, the One Where Gaz is Really Cruel to Dib. And, like, I’m not gonna pretend like Dib doesn’t suffer a Lot in this episode (maybe even past the point that I find it particularly funny to rewatch) - but also the dynamic going on is a bit more complicated than just ‘cruelty’? 

Because this is also probably also the episode where Dib is at his most asshole to Gaz as well. I mean, he literally used her as a guinea pig (... pun not intended) to experiment with a spell he thought might be beneficial but was worried about the consequences for himself if it wasn’t… but apparently did not extend that worry to his sister - and thus, the entire conflict of this episode. Like Gaz is entirely in the right to be mad about being ‘blessed’ with Pig-Sense without her consent. Both with Dib’s false narrative about wanting to give her superpowers for her own sake

Dib: No! I only did it to give you super powers because you're the greatest sister ever!

And when she does actually learn the truth.

Dib: cast the spell on her because I wanted to see what it would do before trying it on myself!

Like, maybe that doesn’t perfectly justify taking and destroying Dib’s personal property, or potentially shoving mashed potatoes into his eyes, or repeatedly threatening him with her man-eating plushies, or encouraging a Pig Demon to punish him in some terrible supernatural Pig Demon way...

(While it would certainly be too much to ask Gaz to forgive Dib on the spot and advocate for him when she just found out he’s been lying about his motivations all along and used her as a guinea pig. The dialogue implications of this scene is that the Shadow Hog wouldn’t have done anything to Dib without Gaz’s encouragement.)

It's still important to remember that what Dib did to her was pretty terrible on it's own and was entirely unprovoked!

Then there are a few other factors to consider here, like Gaz’s constant violent threats towards Dib. Which I usually just chalk up to being edgelordy venting unless there is a clear indication of Gaz acting or considering acting on them (like with the mashed potatoes example above) because in most episodes Gaz is mostly all-talk and Dib usually does not take them seriously. But here… although we don’t see Gaz do even like a quarter of what she threatened to do to Dib - we do see Dib acting as if the threats are 100% real and serious. 

Zim: I'm going to destroy you all, Dib! Today! I've got it all set up. Dib: Uh huh, that's nice, Zim. It can't be worse than what my sister's gonna do.

Which does make them feel a lot more 'concrete’ than in most episodes. Like maybe she would’ve beaten him up if they did fail to cure her or if the Shadow Hog wasn’t there to offer an Alternative Punishment Method for him?

But like… I think it’s closer to a proportional response than getting him tasered for stealing pizza or literally beating (a robot she thought was) him with her own two hands because he yelled in an annoying way? Like, what Dib did was really shitty and Gaz has a right to be upset about that on some level!

Then there is the other complicating factor - Membrane. Like, while Dib was Not Having a Good Time in that episode - up until that last sequence with the Shadow Hog, Gaz was suffering a lot more for a much longer period of time. The ‘Pig Mouth’ curse has cost her not just her ability to eat most foods but also most of her hobbies, her freedom, her privacy, her dignity. And it’s clear that she blames Dib - the catalyst of this whole event - for everything that has stemmed from it.

Gaz: You will pay, Dib! You will pay!

But even though what Dib did was certainly a Dick Move… like, it is Membrane and his scientist team that really did the worst by Gaz. Dib only turned to his dad out of a sincere belief he could help, Membrane was the one who decided to announce Gaz’s condition to the world and quarantined her for life and sold the rights to make a goddam movie out of her.

So if Gaz is lashing out at the mistreatment she suffered throughout this episode, she should be at least just as mad at her father as she is with her brother, right? But instead she seems to be totally chill with him, just eating pizza together. Even though his apology for her is honestly as shitty and self-justifying as anything Dib would’ve come up with.

Professor Membrane: Sorry about imprisoning you and turning you into a media freak, honey! It was in the name of science and... hey, where's your brother?

So I think that might imply that Gaz has a massive bias against her brother, causing her to channel a lot of unrelated frustrations just at him.

…Or maybe more likely a massive bias in favor of her dad. You know, she does love him a lot - to the point that ‘getting to actually spend time with him’ is like one of the few things that can get her motivated to get Involved in an episode’s plot. And she also has some serious reasons to be frustrated with him (in this episode especially, but also outside of it). And instead of trying to, like, untangle the complicated contrasting emotions she feels about her dad (a process which would be complicated and hard for anyone, but especially for an extremely emotionally repressed 11 years old), she just channels all of the negative ones unto Dib whenever possible.

Which, like, doesn’t make blaming Dib for things he didn’t actually do more justifiable, but it does make her motivations for doing so more complex than just “idk she hates Dib like everyone else does”

"The Most Horrible X-mas Ever"

And our very last Dib-Gaz conflict for the post! (I didn’t expect it to run this long I swear) Starring Bitey the Vampire!

Dib: You stare at that dog every Christmas, Gaz! Come on, already! It's creepy. Gaz: Three Christmases ago, that dog ate the head off Bitey the Vampire! You said so yourself! I haven't forgotten. Dib: Well, fixing an alien spaceship is hard enough without you distracting me.

The interesting thing about this conflict is how similar it is to ‘Gaz, Taster of Pork’. We once again have Dib being an inconsiderate dick to Gaz for the sake of an experiment and then lying about it to try and avoid her ire, knowing that her reaction would be both violent and extreme. Just this time instead of Gaz herself, it’s her treasured sentimental possession.

Dib: Okay, Gaz. I think it's time I told you. The dog's innocent! I used Bitey the Vampire for a teleporter experiment and switched his head onto a fly's body!

Which, you know, at least he isn't overriding Gaz's bodily anatomy this time but... like... Dib must've had so many other options for his 'Teleporter Experiment'! I guess that without specific details we can't know for sure, but I really can't think of any real justification why he would have to use his sister's doll for this experiment and not one of his own toys or even, like, buy something cheapo from the dollar store or something? Maybe you can come up with some explanation of why it had to be Bitey, but it really feels like another demonstration of Dib's thoughtlessness and inconsideration.

I almost wonder, if, y’know, the show wasn’t cut so short - if this was a deliberate attempt to emphasize this aspect of the Dib-Gaz dynamic for the episodes going forwards. You know, give some more justification and context to Gaz’s anger at Dib - even as her responses to it continue to escalate. 

Although I guess beating Dib up like that in retaliation to ruining one of her beloved childhood toys and then lying about it for years isn’t like… the most disproportionate thing Gaz has done? I mean it is kinda bad, but also she has certainly done worse during the course of this list!

Also a quick shout-out to Dib complaining about Gaz distracting him by just like… standing in his vicinity quietly - when Gaz’s most common problem with Dib is him distracting her by talking at her constantly and generally being actually disruptive to her concentration.

(Some more general points in this episode are Gaz once again trying to abandon Dib at what he feels is mortal danger. Which, like most of these interactions could be read as her just underestimating Zim and thus not thinking he is in actual danger... or just legitimately not caring if her brother lives or dies. And Dib trying to take credit for Gaz repairing the ship, and threatening him with More Violence over it. First one is a pretty common sight at this point and the letter is a pretty quick interaction when they're both pretty jerky to each other.)

So… what is the main thing that I feel like I’ve learned from making such an extensive analysis? Well, I think in a way, all of those General Fandom Conceptions of Gaz that I talked about at the start… none of them were fully accurate, but also none of them are, like, entirely inaccurate either. 

You know, sometimes Gaz’s reactions come off as mostly harmless edgelordisms, and sometimes they’re totally disproportionate and/or violent, sometimes her behavior comes off as reasonable or at least understandable, and sometimes she’s just another person in Dib’s life who wants to punish him for being weird. And there was an escalation in her actions over time, but it wasn’t really just in Season 2 - and it coincides with a whole lot of factors that make it more complicated than just ‘Flanderization’; the increased focus on both Dib’s negative traits and the comedy of his suffering, a general need for escalation with newer plots, and a need for her to be more involved in narratives - especially as her initial role as Someone Dib Can Talk To has become kind redundant as the writers have become more comfortable with the idea that Dib can just talk to himself like a weirdo. 

The most… uncharitable reading is that Gaz’s characterization is just plain inconsistent. The writers didn’t have as clear of a vision of who she is compared to Zim or Dib, or maybe they just didn’t care enough to keep her in-line with the vision of what she was supposed to be - so her level of meanness, violence and hatred towards her brother just kinda fluctuate depending on the needs of the narrative or the joke, or what aspect of Dib's character they wanted to highlight. 

Y’know, even though this was always meant to be an analysis of both Dib and Gaz’s relationship with each other - it also became a bit of a Gaz Character Analysis along the way. Because Dib’s slights against Gaz can fluctuate on levels of intensity, but they are very consistent in terms of reasoning and motivation. It is pretty much always a result of Dib’s Terminal Case of Main Character Syndrome … but also about his social isolation and general inability to communicate with others and the fact that Gaz, even at her meanest, is still more likely to tolerate him talking about his interests than basically anyone else in the world

You know, I do want to emphasize that Dib’s inconsiderate attitude can also be understandable and relatable in his own way, just like Gaz’s reactions to him. I ended up focusing on Gaz more and more as I was writing this post because I kinda assumed Dib’s motivations were more self-evident in the fandom both because he’s more of a main character and because he’s more open about his emotions compared to Gaz. And also… because it would’ve been too repetitive to go over “Yeah, Dib has a problem remembering other people have needs and interiority but he is also deeply lonely and desperate for positive attention” for basically every episode. Meanwhile, Gaz’s reasonings seem to… fluctuate a lot more. 

I think my reading of the situation is a bit more positive than just ‘Gaz was written in a careless and inconsistent way’, because inconsistency… can also be a deliberate character trait. You know, a lot of people are kinda inconsistent in their reactions to things. There’s no reason why Gaz can’t just be characterized by her capriciousness. Especially when you consider the angle that she’s misdirecting some of her anger at her father or the world in general at Dib - so you’ve got maybe like a baseline of mild annoyance which is what she actually feels towards her brother in a vacuum. But every so often she is so much crueler because she is using him as a vector for a bunch of other frustrations and stress, some vaguely related to him, some not at all.

I think even the kinder Gaz we see in ‘Enter the Florpus’ can fit into that, if you take her words here not as just a statement of how she’s been all this time…

Gaz: Oh, uh, normally, you crying on the floor is hilarious, but come on. Dib: It's all my fault, Gaz. Why aren't you saying I told you so? Gaz: 'Cause making fun of you is no fun when you're this sad. You're my brother, man. I only torment you because I know you can handle it. I've done way worse than throwing you in a space prison. This is nothing. Get up!

And more of her, now seeing her obnoxious brother at his lowest point, suddenly coming to a realization that she doesn’t hate him as much as she thought she did.

And… okay, another challenge in analyzing all of these interactions is… I’ve been trying to look at all of the Membrane Sibling’s faults and flaws from as balanced a perspective as I can muster - but it’s also important to remember the context in which they exist. When I call out Dib or Gaz for being assholes, this is not necessarily a condemnation of their character. ‘Invader Zim’ is a show all about Flawed Messed-Up Assholes. And it’s also fundamentally a comedy show about the entertainment value in cruelty. If Dib wasn’t sometimes a selfish little egomaniac and Gaz wasn’t an asshole prone to violent acts of ‘revenge’... they just wouldn’t be good ‘Invader Zim’ characters, you know?

Really, between all the different episodes and all the times Gaz was more or less justified, more or less cruel… I think the overall picture that is painted of two very imperfect kids having understandable-but-also-shitty-reactions to the bad hand they were dealt by the world. Dib’s sometimes selfish disregard for Gaz’s interests and wants is maybe understandable considering how basically no one cares about him so… he might as well care about himself, right? And Gaz’s frustration with this disregard and constant egoism is also understandable… but also at some point it becomes kinda disproportionate. And sometimes it becomes really disproportionate.

And that’s just like… that’s just what the Membrane siblings are.  

#invader zim #iz #iz analysis #dib membrane #iz dib #dib iz #dib invader zim #iz dib membrane #invader zim dib #gaz membrane #gaz iz #gaz invader zim #iz gaz #iz gaz membrane #invader zim gaz

[seireitonin]

Any headcanons you have about LJ? I feel like I never see enough about him. 🖤

YES IM IN LOVE WITH HIM!!! He’s so underrated and I could talk about him for hours.

🍭LJ Headcannons!!🍭

(They’re gonna be a bit angsty)

Ever since he was abandoned he has a twisted form of love

Wants to understand love and how humans love each other

It makes no sense to him humans hurt each other all the time in relationships and friendships

Has the darkest sense of humor

LJ, Toby and Jeff will make the most evil vile disgusting jokes you’ve ever heard together

Desperately wishes he could be colorful and happy again

When he was in the box he scratched tally marks into the walls of it

He cried every day too

Hasn’t felt true happiness since he became black and white

Killing was the only time he felt a bit happy or anything at all

He wanted to stop and not be like Issac, the one who made him the way he is

But killing for him was like an addiction

He was constantly chasing the high of his next kill

Ironically it was Toby who helped him stop killing children

Toby had killed children before because of the slendermans influence and knew how horrible it made him feel after

Toby trying his best not to be like his dad who was his abuser and the reason Toby became the way he is now inspired Jack to try harder

Or at least focus his anger and bloodlust in a different direction

Jack wanted to stop being like the man who traumatized him too

So he thought about the bigger picture of everything that happened to him

It wasn’t the child Issac who hurt him it was the adults around Issac that failed him

It was adult Issac that failed Jack

So LJ started killing neglectful/ abusive parents

He doesn’t help the kids after though

Still not a fan of them

Sally helped him change too, even if she doesn’t know it

He would never say it to her

But she did

She hated LJ when they first met and she found out he killed children

“You’re just like my uncle”

“No! I’m nothing like him!”

“How? You kill children just like he killed me”

“I…do it for different reasons! It’s not like that!” He justified it to himself

“What makes you any different than him?!”

“I’m not THAT way!”

“A child killer is a child killer! It’s all the same! You’re a monster just like him!”

This was the first time LJ had felt genuine disgust with himself

To be compared to a man like that…

Made him sick. Like isolated himself and breaking stuff in anger sick

He wasn’t like that. He wasn’t.

He would never do that

LJ knew he was awful. But never in that way

That’s what really made him stop killing children

Couldn’t bare being thought of in that way

He tries to be nicer to Sally

She tried to tolerate him more since he’s changed

If the adults around her protected her like they should have, like they should’ve protected Issac, she’d be happy and normal

So would Jack

He sees Sally as his second chance and redemption

So he’ll protect her like she should’ve been protected while she was alive

LJ helps Sally be more trusting of adults at least of him anyway

They help each other heal from their trauma in a way

When he did kill children he would lock them in dark spaces

He was just giving them a taste of how he felt and what he went through

The betrayal in their eyes as he did it fueled him

He projected his anger and sadness into every kill

It’s why they were so brutal and gory

Now that he kills bad adults they’re even more brutal and gory

He smells like a carnival at night time

Sickeningly sweet foods with the perfect temperature summer air that’s how he smells

Use’s British slang from 1800 still

Had to get used to modern language and talking

Not just for this era but for every era he’s lived through

He’s been alive for 200 years after all

LJ is a Victorian goth!!

Not emo (he gets mad when people call him emo)

Because he believes goth fashion is superior

Dresses fancy and camp af

I mean his daily outfit is literally a feathered Shaw and a crop top

Doesn’t care about human things like gender

So he’ll wear what he wants

You can wear whatever you want when no one can kick your ass

Can pull literally anything out of his pockets

I mean ANYTHING

Has so many magical powers it’s crazy

One of the many benefits of being imaginary ig

He’s very loud

Loves attention on him at all times

Probably because he doesn’t want anyone to forget about him

He’s 7 feet tall

Honestly once you get to know him he’s super fun to be around

Unless you hate loud black and white clowns that tell jokes constantly and love pulling pranks

He actually has a 50/50 of masculine and feminine facial features

To appeal to everyone

Him and Jeff get in fights a lot

Mainly because LJ likes to get under his skin

And it pisses Jeff off that it’s super hard, damn near impossible to hurt LJ

Yay being imaginary!

Being around everyone is the closest he’ll ever be to colorful again

When he’s around everyone his eyes turn from silver to deep blue like when he was colorful

In fact his eyes will go that deep blue whenever he’s feeling deep emotions

I guess one of his old functions of friendship meaning everything to him still exists

Still obnoxious and annoying though

But that’s just LJ

An unpredictable, dangerous, murderous, bloodthirsty clown demon

You gotta love him (I know I do)

#creepypasta #creepypasta hcs #creepypasta headcanon #creepypasta fandom #crp #laughing jack #laughing jack headcanons #laughing jack hcs #creepypasta characters #creepypastafluff #creepypasta angst

[leoleolovesdc]

I really don't get what's so appealing to writers and fans who make Bruce an abusive father. Why is it so fun? Why do people enjoy doing one of the biggest superhero of all times that dirty? How does that make any sense?

People always complain about how Batman is a power fantasy, but the fact that his actions aren't justifiable if applied real life doesn't mean that you have to fuck the character's fictional morals.

Every hero is a power fantasy, but they are enjoyable because they are good people (or people who try to be good). Bruce Wayne is a human being and he is capable of bad parenting and committing mistakes, but making him willingly hit his kids is just stupid.

Batman is and has always been about hope, about rising above your trauma, protecting who you love, using your pain to make the world a little better. Bruce doesn't go around "beating the mentally ill' just because, he does because they are dangerous people, criminals, terrorists who are constantly harming citizens with their actions.

With all that said; Bruce hitting his children/sidekicks/allies (or just purposefully harming them in any way shape or form) is incoherent with his character and all that he represents.

Batman brought Robin, especially Dick Grayson, in to help him. He didn't want a child soldier, he was comforting this kid and taking him to the police station when he asked to be trained so he could get the guy who killed his parents. He asked to become like Batman and Bruce, realizing that they were very similar, saw that he was also filled with anger and needed to be guided. That's why Dick became a better person than Bruce ever was, not because he was inherently good or something, but because even if their relationship was not perfect and troublesome at times they understood each other's pain like no one else would.

With all of Bruce and Dick's history saying that this father-son bond was filled with physical abuse just sounds wild to me. Same thing goes for Cass, Jason, Steph, Tim, Duke, Damian and any other child that Bruce parented or taken care of.

Jason and Dick are usually the victims of writers and fans who are full one Abusive-Bruce-Shit™️, and honestly, I don't think that's because they have remarkably difficult relationships, but because this fandom loves to make their favorite pretty "white" boys suffer.

No one cares if it makes sense for Bruce to be abusive towards his first sons, they just care that Dick and Jason are angsty. My prove of that? When do you ever see content of Bruce being abusive towards Cass? Damian? Steph? Duke? Never. Because those characters are either women or people of color largely ignored by both canon and fanon.

I'll admit that Damian and Tim do get angsty abusive dad content at times, because regardless of their actual relationship with Bruce Tim is a sad white boy and Damian is the largely white washed blood son, but they are still not the most common alternatives whenever family angst is the focus (despite the large fanon torture porn industry that Tim Drake goes through it is usually focused on other aspects of his life).

I don't really know how to end this, at this point I'm just ranting about annoying batfam fans, but, yeah, don't fuck over legacy characters by making them abusive dads bcuz u like saying ur fav has it worst👍

Little edit: In this post I talked abt Dick as a white guy, would like to apologize for that, I do know that he is romani but ended up forgetting to add that. Either way my point still stands as, just like Damian, his race is pretty much ignored by writers and parts of the fandom

#dc #dc comics #batman #batfam #batfamily #robin #bruce wayne #stephanie brown #tim drake #dick grayson #jason todd #damian wayne #damian wayne al ghul #gotham war #gotham city #batman and robin #robin i #robin ii #robins #the robins #batdad #anti abusive bruce

[hermit-searching]

TMNTposting Raphael edition (Part 1):

I have a confession to make. I've been lying to you all...my fave......is actually Raphael 😂

When I was growing up watching TMNT Donatello was always my favorite turtle, mostly because I was kin assigned the smart, purple turtle when we did those playground roleplay things elementary school kids did in the early 2000s. But during my journey rewatching TMNT 87, and 03 I've grown so SO attached to Raphael it's silly.

This guy. This dude. He's probably one of the most misunderstood characters in universe (and kind of in fanon as well) besides Leonardo. Raphael, no matter which animated iteration, gets himself into trouble because of his terrible impulse control (Woah me fr), which is linked to his "anger issues" which admittedly he does kind of have, but there's so much more to unpack there than just "oh he angy".

Well, except 87 Raphael but he's special and I'll get to him later.

03 Raph definitely has the most obvious actual blind rage. Fourth episode into the entire series he goes into a blind rage and tries attacking Mikey with a metal table leg when he loses a sparring match against his orange younger brother. Except...he kinda actually doesn't. Yeah he gets mad, for sure he got really mad, but something to note about it is he actually goes into a dissociative state before he attacks Mikey, he immediately apologizes when he's lucid again, and he runs off to cool his head which leads to him meeting Casey and teaching the same lessons Splinter has told him to Casey Jones. (Honestly the besties ever. good for them). And the reason Raph gets so angry? It's not just that Mikey beats him, Mikey eggs him on the entire time. Like I mentioned in my Mikey post, 03 Mikey is an instigator, he's constantly pushing all of his brothers buttons because he thinks it's funny. He does it on purpose so he knows what's coming for him, when his brothers (usually Raph) finally snap. That's not to say that Raph should have beaten his brother with a table leg at all, because he still spends his time learning his lesson through trying to reign in Casey, but his anger was a little more, in lack of better terms, justified than some of the other Raph-Mikey blowouts we've seen (cough12cough).

03 Raph is actually just such a polite, sweet little guy. He has a heart of gold, and tries so hard to protect him family, even until his last breath. He'll help blind old ladies, he gives old clothes and blankets to the homeless, heck his instinct when he's in his last moments in Same as It Never Was was to crawl over to Leo in an attempt to protect his big brother.

This guy's biggest fear is being the one behind the Shredder mask, and hurting his family. Literally, he fears himself, and his anger. He's so, so much more than the family hot-head.

I love this guy so much. It's great watching him develop as a character and cope with his anger without having to dig into the same lesson all the time of "oooh Raph you're angry. Anger is bad Raphael. That's a no no Raphael."

Which is what bothers me so much about 2012 Raph. They spend so much time making a joke about his anger issues it's baffling it was a choice the writers made. Oh to be a fly on the wall when they made all the questionable writing choices in 2012. Like, you'll have moments where Splinter will straight up tell his son "you remind me of my evil not-brother who was the reason my wife died lolololol", and you'll have other moments where they're like "oh aha he ran away and quit the team for the 27th time. Silly Raphael." and I genuinely do not understand why they treat him like this? 2012 Raph, fundamentally, is still the same as other Raphael's. He's got the anger issues, he uses sais, he wears red, but the way they present his anger is just. Weird. They'll have him punch or swat at his brothers just for existing, and not acknowledge it at all, visual gags or whatever. And then they'll also go "ooga booga he's so bad and his anger is bad", and then force him to learn the "anger bad" lesson for the nth time....only to wipe it from his character development again.

Once again, this kid has a heart of gold. He's the turtle equivalent of a Disney Princess. He took care of a pet turtle for, presumably years. He cared for Spike a lot! And...then they just rip that away from him to create a new villain who tries to eliminate his brothers because he used to vent to his pet (being the one way Splinter told him was "healthy" with dealing with his anger). Which? Okay way to punish him for trying to deal with his anger in a way that wasn't beating the snot out of something. (also what the actual fuck was that 180 they did having Slash go "I've always admired you Leonardo"???? HUH???)

But...then you have Chompy. Arguably the only thing they have ever given 2012 Raph without violently ripping it away for laughs, or to teach him some kind of lesson. He does give Chompy back to Tokka for a moment but she gives him back realizing they're both super attached to each other and stuff. Having the moment of Raph admitting he cares about Chompy was so perfect because it finally had a moment where he felt like Raphael.

other beautiful moments from 2012 Raph:

-literally just barn arc.

-"angry Donnie you're so silly and funny and- oh wait Donnie stop-"

-when he gets smacked with a brick by 87 Raphael (sorry I still play favs)

Ok back to more lighthearted Raphposting.

Rise Raph is actually such a fun take on the character. It's so interesting to see him being put into the role usually reserved for Leonardo, being the oldest and being the leader. At first he seems pretty well put together, and different than the other Raphael but. Nope! He still rushes into danger like a kid at a busy intersection during rush hour. The difference being, he learns to reign in his impulse control ever so slightly because he's brothers are all arguably more unhinged than he is. Especially Donnie and Mikey.

His temper in Rise seems to take somewhat of an inspiration from 03, having him dissociate into a rage, though the tone of it is vastly different than 03. Which, I think is fine because Rise always had a lighter tone than 03, and 12. The intention of it is a lot different than turning 12 Ralph's issues into a silly haha, and throughout the series we see how the pressure of being the oldest weighs upon the guy, changing the tone of his issues as the series progressed.

The season finale four parter was genuinely good for Raph's character arc all things considered. Him finally cracking under the pressure only to learn his family will be there for him the way he's always been there for him is beautiful. Him being the one who sees Splinter's memories with his mom? Amazing. And the messed up thing? He sees protecting his family as his duty and purpose despite being a kid himself. Kinda like 03 Raph.

The movie also finally gave us that Leo-Raph dynamic older TMNT fans have craved from the series, but the roles are still reversed. With Raph still being responsible and wanting Leo to take things seriously while Leo does whatever he wants and has ✨impulsive sparkle✨. Getting to see Raph finally let loose and be a normal teenager again, joining in on the silly fun by the end of the movie..Mwah. thank you.

This post is getting long so I'll go into 87 Raphael in his own post. I have way too much to say about him I'm sorry..

#theotxt #rottmnt #rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles #tmnt 2012 #tmnt 03 #tmntposting #tmnt raphael #rottmnt raph #2012 raph #03 raph

[imagine-silk]

Cld i req a continuation of the preitsv platonic yandere peter drabble you posted? Maybe his darling tries to escape or perhaps just some of peters' thought process about it all? No pressure ofc!

》 I didn't get to brush up on all of the things I wanted to in the last one so I will now. Also this was much easier to write because I just took care of my sister's kids.

》 Also my friend is making fun of me saying I'm too soft on my characters so again, Cassandra this is your fault.

Most Spiders are bitten at a young age and his bite was when he was sixteen in the canon I believe but correct me if I'm wrong. He got bit a week before you were born. It could be argued you saved him then too. The presence of a baby does a lot to a person and to him it was profound, especially because he was so young and scared. You grounded him in a way nothing else could in a time of complete and utter chaos.

The reason he didn't want to have a baby with MJ was that he was scared he'd fail. He helped raise you, and even though you came out good and are healthy and happy he does have regrets and sees what he could have done in hindsight. He wasn't there as much as he wanted to be because he was off on Spiderman work and he didn't know what would come up if he had a baby himself. He wasn't sure he could do what took a village.

To him you will always be a child and that will never change. He's handled you screaming in his face for entire nights when you were swaddled, took showers with you because it is impossible to bathe a toddler without getting wet, he's seen you cry after you embarrassed yourself, taught you how to shave when you couldn't ask your parents. You. Are. A. Baby. That's why it was hell to see you get him back on track, he failed you.

Again, this version of him is not the same as he is in AtSV therefore there are different rules. He doesn't have that development and now never will. He can not and will not go back to MJ because not only has he committed a crime he sees this as more important. By that same coin he has not softened so he is harsher than AtSV would be.

He's not going to hit you but he will manhandle you and chastise you for doing bad things. You will never have the option to leave because the whole point was to keep you, and he's not stupid, chances are the second you're out the door you're running. It's clear you want to leave and that's the point of contention between you two. And this isn't going to change because he sees all of this as justified.

It's hard to think he's even a yandere. He doesn't look crazy at all, even and especially when he's being insane. His eyes don't go dark to show intent and he doesn't have excessive emotional responses, not outwardly. There are tells he has when he's getting mad or when he's going to allow something but sometimes it just seems like he turns on a dime. You don't know you're walking on eggshells until you step on a landmine.

He is not manipulative, he is blatantly upfront about everything. You can't leave because you can be gone in a fraction of a second. Will fully say that to your face, that you'll die or get lost, maybe even move to a place he can't follow. There are so many different ways you can leave him. He doesn't sugar coat it. All of his love is real, all of his fear, his anger, the frustration and helplessness, all of it.

All of this is based on and overwhelming fear he didn't know he had. He's always wanted to keep people safe but he never thought he could do anything like this. That being said, he has absolutely no issue with the situation. It's so easy to justify that it's not up for debate. You should have just listened to him.

Now for the other things

When you first got there you tried to leave. You tried to bargain and beg, then you were screaming. After a minute he sighed and said you weren't listening before he threw you on the bed and left the room. It took you a second to realize he wasn't coming back to punish you or whatever, he put you on time out.

There is no guest bedroom. Before all of this he would just give you his room and sleep on the couch but it was getting increasingly difficult to sleep on the couch every night. So he tells you boo-hoo and makes you share. He slept on the couch because around ten you said you were too grown to sleep next to someone but now he doesn't really care, his back was threatening him. One night you wake up and he's holding you close with one hand around your wrist. He was reassuring himself you were still alive, that you had a pulse, that you weren't bleeding, that you were just asleep.

The first escape attempt was pretty flimsy. Peter lived in an apartment so there were people all around you. The first time you were allowed to walk around in the common area and you saw the door had a weird lock. Knowing Peter it was something complicated and very nerdy so there was no opening it from your side. One day he left and said he'd be back in a bit. That phrase always meant ten minutes or two hours, nothing in between. So after twenty minutes you started banging on the door and yelling. He came back four minutes in, right when the lady next door came out check what was happening. He told her his brother's kid was staying over and wasn't too happy about being grounded. The door beeped and you only had a second to move back but weren't fast enough, he grabbed your face before you could ran off. "Do I need to muzzle you?"

One of the next attempts you found out he was Spiderman. You were able to get out of the room and you broke the window that led out to the fire-escape. You cut yourself up pretty bad trying to get out as fast as possible. When you fell out you looked up to see a very surprised Spiderman who then scrambled to get you back inside. Freaking out, he sat you down on top of the table and got a med-kit immediately, so fast you hadn't been able to process what was happening other than the stings of the disinfectant. It only dawned on you that this is Peter when he started talking. He's going through the emotions of panicking concern and baffled anger. You go through the emotions of defeated grief and uncertain surprise that toes the line of fear but not quite, he was keeping you there but he wasn't going to hurt you. After yelling at you he couldn't keep up his anger and started crying. When you go to bed he doesn't follow and you have a better understanding of why he kept saying he couldn't take the chances of you leaving.

There are good times, especially down the line it becomes domestic. It's still contention, cabin fever kills the strongest people but it's not 100%. Again, the whole point of this was keeping you because he loves you and he knows you love him, even now. He'll make weird things for dinner with you and sometimes it tastes awful so you'll fight over the sink to wash your mouth. Morning comes around and you'll pad over to the bathroom tired and brush you're teeth, rock-paper-scissors for the first shower. Maybe he has a bad day and lays on the couch with you only for the both of you to fall asleep. Or you'll play video games while eating the snacks you got him into. All of this can happen because your mind slips into thinking nothing is wrong for a moment.

All of it is so... insane.

#atsv #peter b. parker #yandere #platonic yandere #yandere x reader #gender neutral reader #ask and you shall receive #marvel

[lucassinclaer]

jancy + 18 ❤️

okay so first off this was so goddamn fun!! tysm for sending this! second, this isn't proof read and i hope it actually fits, adkfjhadf

send me a things you said prompt

18. things you said when you were scared

There’s this thing Jonathan does when he looks at Nancy. She likes to think of it as the photographer's eye. Sometimes people don’t say what they’re really thinking. But you capture the right moment, it says more. Ever since they'd entered each other's orbit he hadn’t needed a camera to make her feel that seen. It's just him and that uncanny observance he has, laying her bare with a look. 

When things are fine it’s a triumph, a string he plucks that makes something in her chest sing. But it's the thing that undoes her when it gets worse.  

It’s what gives him the ability to leave her speechless in the woods. It’s what coils around her heart like barbed wire when she’s scared. It’s what makes her cry into his chest. Or it’s what makes her lash out when she isn’t ready for it. 

The quick burning anger in her resents it with an acidic meanness. “I never would have thought you were a coward,” she tells him as her thoughts clamor to justify the words as they tumble out of her mouth. Because she can’t stand that gaze, needs to disarm him like he disarms her. She just wants him to feel this same helplessness. Loving Jonathan has always meant this excruciating vulnerability. Cost and reward in one. 

It works. The repentance of him turns in a complicated twist of his features. “My mom, my siblings—they need me, Nancy! And I couldn’t risk you giving up your dreams for me, but I can’t just leave them.” 

She scoffs. The answer of a martyr. A better person than her who's never let leaving Mike or Holly behind stop her from pursuing her ambitions. 

But there’s a different kind of fury in her, too. Less sudden, less prone to pass in a few minutes when she'll regret what she's saying. Something different. 

“What about your dreams?” she asks. 

He looks like she slapped him. Actually taken aback. Like this time she's the one who might have exposed him. It’s hard not to find a kind of sickening satisfaction in that. 

“What?” 

“What about,” she repeats slowly, feeling control come back to her, “your dreams? You used to talk about NYU. All the time.” He says nothing. Somehow, it unfurls more of that simmering rage. “You think I don’t know you, Jonathan? You think that I don’t know that no matter what, Emerson or California, you were already giving up?”  

He stares at her, then looks away and she wants to scream for him to face her but the wave of fury she'd felt had broken over her head and everything else was dragging behind in its wake.  

“It was a stupid kid's dream,” he says and Nancy’s heart breaks. He’s never looked young to her before. Most times he reflected her own age, sometimes he'd look older than he should be. Never like this.  

Like a boy who's afraid. Scared out of his mind. Of leaving behind his family for something to befall them. Of not succeeding. Of being left behind. Of falling into a pattern he can’t escape, dragging everybody with him. 

Silence stretches between them and he shrinks in on himself more and more. 

“Jonathan.” She longs to reach out and twist her hands into his shirt to pull him close, but it's not the time. They can do that later and she can wrap her arms around him and card a hand through his hair and mourn for the little boy who felt he needed to leave his hopes behind for other people. “I don’t want you to sacrifice everything for me either. And neither does your mom. Or Will. Or El.” 

The anger has passed over her and left the wreckage of fear that must inevitably be faced. “Can we just start there?” 

#stranger things #jancy #jonathan byers #nancy wheeler #i hope i actually transferred what i wanted to express onto the page #also gOD jancy and vulnerability i will be taking a twenty hour walk #again tysm this was so good to write for me #*mine #*fics #*ficlets

[purpleandstarlight]

I feel like chapter two of the Kuroshitsuji manga does a horrible job of introducing Lizzy and her relationship with o!Ciel?

I love them both to death and (although I don't ship them bc they're literally cousins) I am very fond of their interactions most of the time.

But that one chapter really wasn't it. Maybe it was Yana's intention, like a fake out, or maybe it was just that she didn't have all of the details about them straight yet, but compared to any other interaction they have, it's off character for both of them.

In that chapter, o!Ciel acts like Lizzie's presence is a bother he's just putting up with, almost slaps her (in a justified fit of anger, but it's not the best move nonetheless) and at the end, while he does end up making her happy, it doesn't give me the good vibes it usually gives me, since this one time he had a right with being upset and he was just putting on a mask for her sake.

Lizzie appears much more selfish than she usually is. Lizzy's whole deal is that she wants to protect "Ciel" and be there for him to support him and make him happy. Even if he's different from when they were kids because of his trauma she knows nothing about (and the fact that he isn't the same person in the first place, but she didn't know that yet), she never makes it a fault of him and she still loves him. This is very mature, and something shes been doing since she was literally eleven. She can go a bit overboard sometimes when trying to cheer him up, as she herself states in the birthday chapter, and ending up making things worse (Because she's literally a kid, no one can fault her for that) but she's doesn't get into his business too much. She never brings up his past in front of him. She's also observant enough to notice that he wears high heels to feel taller and genuinely goes out of her way to make him less self conscious about his height, so I find it hard to believe that she would be so insistent on taking off his Family Ring and even going as far as breaking in because "she didn't know it was important.".

Sure, she can notice something as minimal and unspoken as him wearing heels to look less like a tiny child when working in an adult world, but not think that 'Hey, maybe the family ring (you know, the family who died in very traumatic circumstances only a few years ago) could be kind of important to him"? I find that hard to believe.

Also the thing that Mei-Rin, Finny and Bard didn't know who she was, even though they've been working there for AT LEAST a year. I know Yana probably just wanted a way to introduce her as his fiance and cousin to the readers, but she could have done it in a way that doesnt make it seem like Lizzie's never around when, actually, she's frequently shown coming into the Manor from that point onward during the entirety of the manga. The Phantomhive Manor is home as much as her own house is. She spent a lot of time there with R!Ciel, Angelina and Rachel. It is also the house of his fiance, and she's canonically shown to not give a shit and show up completely by surprise there often (Her first introduction. The Circus arc when o!Ciel wasn't even home. That time where she came into the Manor to tell him about her trip on the Campania at the beginning of the arc). So forgive me for finding it hard to believe that they wouldn't know her.

Anyway yeah these are just my thoughts. Live love laugh Ciel and Lizzie

#kuroshitsuji #black butler #ciel phantomhive #o!ciel #elizabeth midford #lizzie midford #lizzy midford #character analysis #-ish? #i guess

[thesungod]

their theme is so inconsistent like at the beginning it feels clear, being who you are and accepting each other’s darkness, but the way its done is 😬 and then it switches up to being literally budget toa saying “well everything can change yk??? don’t stay in the darkness” but in a horrible fashion and they’re acting like this is what they’ve been trying to tell me in the past 400 pages when it ISNT dont LIE to ME

i don’t think EITHER of them was reading the book as they write they were just mashing words together bc im watching a book promo for it rn and rick’s saying that will likes nico bc he likes nicos ““darkness”” and how intrigues him and mark’s saying neither of nico or will wants to change that core part of the other. which explains away him in BOO trying to tell nico that nobody disliked him—being that will was projecting his own feelings about nico onto others—and also relates will to apollo even more with their need to reach out to outcasts and love them. but then they didn’t write that they literally wrote that will doesn’t like it and he wants to fix it. thats my STEP SON and they did that to him.

rick did not want to write this book at all, and mark probably projected their nico stanisms onto the other characters without justifying the stanisms. you can really tell when rick has a passion for writing something and when he could not care less. the subtle toa promo in one of the gorgyra scenes and apollo’s updated glossary—he wants you to read toa so bad he could not gaf about this book. and yet apollo is never mentioned positively like give him back to me.

speaking of mark i think this is just a consistent issue they have when writing. i read reviews of one of their books (anger is a gift) and some were very negative about the way the narrative made the protagonist the most righteous person ever and completely revolved around them. ifl that issue bleeds into this book as well.

i saw people (including the writers) say this book is darker than a lot of rick’s other books and i really need them to shut the fuck up; THO literally had kids tied up in crucifixes to be burned at the stake 😭

ok sorry for the ramble i see the letters tsats together and i go on a rampage

you absolutely ate this up!!

also laughing at you calling it “budget toa” because that’s exactly what i said to a friend about this book once. i felt almost offended over the authors trying to fit the “everyone can change!!” narrative last minute and make Nico the symbol of re-invention after five whole books of ToA. i was very “how dare you stand where he stood” about it which is childish but alas.

i’ve also mentioned several times how will and nico’s conflict in the book was not intriguing to read about because it was inconsistent. not to mention that according to the timeline they’ve been together for a year!!! an entire year!!! and the book still has Will acting #shocked that Nico, idk, likes darkness.

the Mary-Suing of Nico literally the worst thing to ever happen to me. i’m usually all for my faves winning, but that’s after they’ve been through the mortifying ordeal of losing, yk. and i get that Nico has been through a lot but the book was basically a 400-pages-long ass kissing and i couldn’t do it.

i couldn’t even feel particularly moved or vindicated by Bob pledging loyalty to him in the end because it wasn’t cathartic at all. i was like we get it dude lol

same with his “friendship” with Piper tbh. not everyone needs to like Nico😭 i would have totally loved it if the book had shown a friendship progress organically through their grief for Jason or common interests (even if just briefly narrated through a recollection!! i’m not saying we needed chapters of flashbacks or Piper as a third main), but Nico does not mention her once ever. they didn’t even like each other in HoO!! then at the end of the book he calls her and he is all like “of course she wouldn’t be angry at me for not calling after Jason died <3 she understands that grief is complicated <3”

my king Piper isn’t angry at you for not calling because she dgaf about you. why would she. who are you to her

another thing I’ll never get over re: Nico and Will’s relationship is how, per the book, Nico encouraged Will to come out and was the first one of the two to do so, when every. single. thing written about them in the Hidden Oracle suggests the opposite.

why the fuck is Nico so reticent and embarrassed about admitting to be Will’s boyfriend in the first book of ToA if it’s Nico who came out first? IN FRONT OF THE WHOLE CAMP might I add?

because i get that coming out to someone doesn’t necessarily mean being comfortable coming out to everyone, but Nico announced his crush IN FRONT OF THE WHOLE CAMP. and asked Will out. and Will wasn’t out at the time. so whyyyy is their dynamic on THO literally the opposite of this? with Will pushing Nico to be more open about their relationship while Nico plays coy? because Apollo is Will’s father? idk, maybe i guess😭

but it’s pretty obvious the change in the dynamic was established later on and that the impression we were supposed to have while reading THO is that Will was the one more comfortable and in tune with his sexuality. like, come on.

#ask #solangelo book

[i-need-some-advice-on]

Relationship advice?

CW mentions of abuse, SA, eating disorders, illness, disasters

My partner (26m) and I (23nb) have been living together for nearly 3 years. We both have rough pasts, he grew up with abuse, survived a disaster in childhood, moved to this country as a refugee, and struggles with PTSD. He's also struggled with chronic illness since not long after we moved in together. I grew up with abuse, including CSA and animal hoarding, and experienced several instances of SA as a teenager. I also struggle with PTSD, in addition to autism (dx'd in childhood) and chronic illnesses that started when I was a teenager. I use a mobility aid when I'm outside. We are both estranged from our parents, and both moved here as kids so our extended families are overseas. Because it might be relevant, he's Black, I'm white-passing mixed (non-Black).

Since he got sick and hasn't been able to work, I've been financially supporting him on my Disability payment. It's been over 2 years. He has applied for benefits, but he's been denied, and I guess there's not much he can do about that. This isn't really a problem, but it makes the problems more frustrating since I'm making a lot of sacrifices for him. He has had issues with pretty toxic behaviour, like yelling at me, calling me names like "retard", "pathetic", being hypercritical but getting mad at criticism, bringing up my trauma in arguments and downplaying it, downplaying my dx'd health issues, etc.

He has acknowledged that his behaviour in the past was toxic, but he doesn't really take constructive criticism and it feels like he doesn't really think there's anything wrong with his behaviour. I woke up to him the other week yelling things like "go starve yourself and die you fat whore, get bulimia cunt, etc." at the neighbours working in the office upstairs through the ceiling, because he believes they are stomping deliberately because they are racist and ableist and trying to provoke him (possibly true! still a weird reaction), and when I told him that I didn't like waking up to misogynistic shouting, he got mad at me, said he has PTSD and I don't know what it's like, called me thin-skinned, and generally dismissed my concerns. He's aware of my history of eating disorders.

He did say sorry during the day, but in the evening I still wanted to address it. I started by talking about how he's got some big emotions and they seem hard to manage, and he got upset, saying he doesn't have anger issues, he's justified in his anger, etc. I got upset and called him a narcissist, and later a dickhead. I also brought up his past behaviour. He said I have a victim complex, he's the one being victimised, I have "twitter brain" (I deleted twitter over a year ago at his request), that I always bring up the past to make him look bad, I have the same attitude as people who people who complain about protests being disruptive and ask "but do you condemn hamas?", he's objectively more traumatised than me, and I'm only upset by his anger because of my implicit biases. It didn't happen this time, but in the past he's knocked a chunk of plaster out of the ceiling and made his knuckles bleed from banging on the ceiling in response to the noise from upstairs.

Since then he's mostly stuck to playing music at full blast on multiple devices and deliberately setting off the fire alarm to annoy them in "protest", while I wear earplugs, and I guess that's a compromise. He has sort of acknowledged that he was wrong but still feels justified overall. I don't really know what to think. Maybe I'm blowing things out of proportion, maybe I should be more concerned, maybe it's all because of his health and trauma and I should let it slide, maybe there's something I can do to help him, maybe there's nothing I can do. He is sweet most of the time, I love him, but living with him can be so stressful and I don't know how to get him to understand that.

I'm planning on moving home to be closer to family, and he's planning to move after he sorts out his visa. It's also a better country to live in geopolitically and in terms of quality of life than where we live now. I've been hoping to help him get there before addressing all this, since we'll be in a more stable position overall and have more resources, but there's still months before I'll be able to move. What should I do?

.

#relationship advice #csa mention #abuse mention

[alexiethymia]

The poetic cinema that it was Mr. Ji’s inkblot he made in anger which caused Chi yeol to discover that he was the one who kidnapped Haeyi and the fact that the first episode dealt with a mostly harmless stalker while the dangerous stalker was by his side all along.

Love or hate the murder plot, I do love the twists, not necessarily with regard to the suspect or motivation, but how it’s a scathing social commentary. Because wow, it really is the adults who are the most reprehensible, huh? Because kids absorb everything around them like a sponge, but adults should know better.

And Mr. Ji, as much as I would love to hate him, I really can’t because he is far too tragic. He’s no mastermind. All of his crimes have been sloppy. Even his choice of weapon - a slingshot and not a gun - show that a part of him is still that abused kid, like his anger and his impulses and the way he can change his devotion to hatred at the betrayal he feels toward Chiyeol. The adults around him really screwed him and his sister over. Even when his sister wanted to do the right thing, all she got from it was abuse. And it’s really dangerous that this kind of abuse is being normalized when justified that it’s for grades or the future of the kid. The adults screwed him up so badly that he could only trust a single adult, and fixated on him in a way to have a connection with his sister. I’m sure he became obsessively protective because of the residual guilt he felt at not being able to save his sister on time. If he had gotten therapy or the support he needed back then, even after he had killed his parent, would he have had a chance to heal alongside Chiyeol now?

The parallels are heavy with Mr. Ji, Seung-jae, and Su-a, and again it is a tragedy that the adults around them pushed them to the brink. Although there was still an element of choice because Mr. Ji still chose to kill his mother and others, I guess Seung-jae had what Mr. Ji and even his sister didn’t have at the time. Seung-jae would have gone the same route if he wasn’t pulled back.

And it’s really refreshing to me this emphasis on found family. It’s not necessarily that blood family is automatically bad, but you shouldn’t let preconceived notions and moral superiority cloud your judgment to the point that you’re already seriously damaging your child because you think you’re doing what’s ‘best’ for them. It’s refreshing to me that Haeng-seon wasn’t submissive towards her sister and was rightly mad because Haeyi is her daughter not anyone else’s. Same with Jaewoo. I’m glad they’re not going to push the redemption arc for their eldest sister just because she’s ‘blood’.

Another refreshing thing about this episode which I didn’t expect but really loved is the communication between Haeng-seon and Chiyeol. Chiyeol takes her concerns seriously because of course she would know Haeyi best. And I really didn’t expect it because most kdramas would have the lead keep it as a secret (another source of danger and misunderstanding), but I love, love, that Chiyeol was genuinely honest about the proof he found about Mr. Ji. I’m sure that even if Haeng-seon thought that Mr. Ji hated her, she didn’t expect him to go that far.

Another reason why I like the murder plot is because I prefer this as a source of tension rather than the usual break-up, miscommunication, long-distance, timeskip plots that usually happen during these final episodes. I would prefer my ship to be communicating as they hurdle outside obstacles together.

#crash course in romance #found family #family feels #ramblings about kdramas #tbf I do love the tropes #suspicious partners is an absolute fave #and it had both the murder AND breakup plot #kdramas

[sttm99]

my frd n I had a two hour discussion about sukuna's dick(s).. :D

it's generally accepted that he has two dicks but considering how he's a curse that should be evolutionarily advanced (we justify this because 1) when sukuna first appears, he asks 'where are the humans and the women', so he probably gets pleasure from women, assuming he's not only getting blowjobs and 2) having two dicks will mean he can maximise the possibility of passing his offspring, assuming SUCH an advanced curse like him and have kids),a set of balls should exist with a dick because the purpose of a dick will not be achieved without his own balls, hence being rendered useless and only for decorative purposes, and a second dick that share one a set of balls will not make any difference in volume of semen and thus, considering evolution reasons, he should have two sets of balls with two dicks, because having only two dicks and one set of balls mean it's only good for reaching deeper and that can just be solved with having longer dicks and not one more dick. right.

we studied the female anatomy and found that when vaginas rip during childbirth, the most common case is at the area between the vulva and the anus vertically, called the perineum, so we concluded double-decker dicks are the most reasonable rather than horizontal or diagonally-double decker like his shoulders, cuz as we can see in the gender changing fish male anatomy evolution still consider the female anatomy

ok now where would the balls go? would the dick : ball (A : B) ratio be, vertically, ABAB? vertically, BAAB? horizontally, BAAB? my frd doesn't think it'll be horizontally BAAB because the scrotum is wayyyy too loose for the balls to stay where it should be, and when they sag they'll waste a lot of space, which is counterproductive and cancels the reason for having two dicks, BUT ofc sukuna as an advanced curse technically should be able to slowly evolve to having tighter scrotums..?

but for the vertical BAAB, 1) once again the scrotum need to be tight enough that the balls don't fall to the side / onto the dick, which maybe he can overcome through evolution BUT 2) the balls would've left the space in between the legs, which is the place for optimal temperature for sperm production, but curses, as negative emotions like anger, sadness and stress make you run hotter and hence, should also run hotter, technically curses should be able to overcome this with just their non-human physique, but the average tokyo air in 2017 was MUCH below the optimal 34ºC, at a very chilly 16ºC (i'm from hong kong this alr a winter for me) but at the same time we really need to consider the specific heat capacity of blood as different blood types, and hence have a mass difference in red blood cells, would affect this, the average specific heat capacity for blood is 3617, if he were type AB, which is the type of blood with the heaviest blood cells, and because of mcΔt = E, larger the mass larger the specific heat capacity, hence his blood is less likely to change temperatures with the environment; but if he were blood type O, which has the smallest mass red blood cells, it'd be the opposite, the difference in the mass of red blood cells between type A and type B is even tinier than AB and O and hence negligible but i'll keep this in mind

however we also have to consider + or -, because the presence or absence of the Rh protein would also affect the mass and thus also the specific heat capacity, but the most common blood type in Japan is type A, follow by O, then B, and finally AB, so this works against this dick location possibility

BAAB vertical also saves a lot of space and thus, once again evolutionarily makes the most sense cuz the dicks can reach deeper in the vaginal canal and thus maximise the chances of getting the female counterpart pregnant, and also vertical BAAB means that two women can be on him at once and ONCE AGAIN, meaning he can maximise possibility of 1) passing his offspring and 2) finding a better gene sequence to make his children DNA-wise more advanced

but for vertical ABAB, there are two possibilities, 1) the space in between the dicks are large enough for a full set of balls to be in between or 2) he evolves so that the balls eventually get their own sack and sag separately on the left and right of the lower dick

for case 1, it would mean the level of stretching the female counterpart has to suffer during sex is larger, it would probably be as big as the dilation of the cervix during childbirth (10cm), which is almost a guarantee that she WILL rip, but how much does natural evolution care about the individual animal and the species? we can see that Mother Nature rlly dgaf, like look at salmon, they die immediately. and also if the balls are completely in between the dicks, the distance parallel to the female's vagina reached compensates for the distance stretched perpendicular to the body so it's kinda counterproductive.

case 2 was what we concluded with, what do you think?

i'm like so sorry for dumping this on you but i saw your recent feed and found that you are also a fellow sukuna-obsesser and i really needed to tell this to someone, don't feel guilty if u didn't read the entire thing LMAO well if u did anyway I love you wanna be mutuals? :D

mind you, this convo took place at 4 in the morning so if u find a lot of loopholes, I'm so sorry, and to credit my friend who also came up with a lot of counterarguments, @swaggypoop127 thanks for putting up with my bullshit if u ever decide to reply to this publicly

1) yes I read the whole entire thing

2)yes I want to be mutuals

3) most of my thoughts about Sukuna are nowhere near as intellectual as that😭

But basically, my idea of Sukuna's two dick(s) is really just based on @xxnghtclls 's art about him. Basically, I've always assumed it's two dicks and one set of balls, and the dicks, when soft, basically lay on top of eachother. Like, the upper one rests over the lower one (vertical set). And a single pair of balls underneath it.

And I've never really thought there was much need or consideration for Sukuna's reproduction. Because really, if he was intended for that, he would have by now. Because he was originally a sorcerer that evolved into a curse spirit, and curse spirits don't reproduce, so why should his new anatomy take that into consideration? You get me?

The extra limbs I assumed were for strengths; arms for strength and ease of fighting, holding weapons and doing his handsigns, eyes for better sight, and tummy mouth for speaking his domain expansion. Those are things necessary for curse; like violence and techniques and stuff. The extra dick probably is just for pleasure, most likely. As said before, I've never really thought that he had any need for or interest in reproduction.

But yeah, that's basically my take on it, yeah🙂

[honey-minded-hivemind]

Rgrgh Ok, the last one! This was super fun to do with you! I can't wait to see how the platonic yans seeing all their kids again is gonna play out.

So knowing how Raven is, I imagine she'd be similar to Hank in the sense of her change, she becomes grim, hollow in a sense. She doesn't act the same around the other kids, and she's quieter. Her guilt guides her to a dark part of herself, she might be be good at hiding it sometimes, but it can't be helped, two of her kids are gone, and she made sure that those parasites died in terror, knowing that what they'd done to them, their actions decided the next course of events.

I feel she might be the one to have the most doubts about whether this was what their kids would've wanted, divided on if they'd approve or not, if they were here, they might've liked the peace and calm, but what they had done to achieve it... but they aren't here, thats the point isn't it? All of this, they'd done for them, and her other children aren't fairing very well either, they have a hard time grasping with the fact that they'd not only lost their friends, but their siblings too, nothing could be done or said to fix it.

Lamb Anon

I'm enjoying this too, 🐑 Anon!!!😊 Of course, once you've read this, I want to know... Who are your top three, out of the seven platonic yan adults, you would like the most as Reader's parent? (I said three because I figure it would be hard to choose just one person, and I myself have my favorites, but I want to hear your thoughts as well😊)

Raven had seen better days.

The feelings inside her... they hurt. They feel poisonous, venomous, dangerous.

The ones who caused them find out how it feels in full.

They'd taken them.

It wasn't fair.

Punishment was given, sharp and stinging and drowning in red. It was only fair. They'd- she- had lost someone. Multiple someones. And there was a price to pay. The problem was... who was paying that price, ultimately? The writhing, bleeding parasites, who caused this whole disaster? Their masters, their bosses, who were soon brought to heel and forced to resign, then joined them in death? The people, fearful and anxious, soon made to accept this new peace? The mutants, who now had the peace, but at a price? Or... perhaps it was them, who lost their children... Or still...

Their children who paid that price... Each and every bleeding drop of it. They would never know the peace they'd made because of them, the peace they made for them, and others like them... They wouldn't be with them, to joke or fight or laugh or cry.... They were simply...

Gone.

And it is a hollow feeling, with a hollow reward.

She'd lost a child that day, only to find out it wasn't one. It was two.

Her two flesh and blood children, both gone, one bleeding profusely and faded before anything could be done, the other quick to follow and crying, for all of them...

Reader had been her's. And she never knew. They never knew. And that would never be known outside of their group, because the only others they'd share it with were gone, cold and buried and resting. She does her best, to be there for her remaining child. For the other children. But most days all she feels is a bitter, burning bile inside her. A venom to be used against their enemies. A weapon that keeps others in line. She accepts what comfort is given... but it doesn't do much besides justify their actions.

They'd lost their own. And that was unforgivable.

Her daughter, Rogue, doesn't fare much better. She can sense the bitterness, the guilt, inside her. She's her mother; she knows this the same way she senses it in all the others.

Self-hatred. Loathing. Guilt. Anger. And always that burning, righteous rage, that helped bring about the world they now know.

What they've done... she doubts they would understand. But it doesn't matter if they would understand it or not. The way things were before allowed their fates to be sealed, to be carried out. Now, it would never happen again.

So, no. Maybe it isn't right. Maybe it's wrong. But it is a necessary evil, one that has only kept safe those who've suffered, those who would have met their fate eventually. So even if it's wrong, it is better this way...

(She'll miss them: she always will. But for now, she has to uphold the new world, the new order, they've made. And even if it's hard, even if it makes them wrong... Then that is a price they'll pay, if only to stop the past from happening all over again...)

#honeycomb thoughts #platonic yandere marvel #yandere platonic marvel #platonic yandere marvel x reader #platonic yandere xmen #yandere x-men #platonic yandere xmen evolution #yandere platonic xmen evolution #platonic yandere xmen evolution au #platonic yandere #platonic yandere x reader #🖤dark au #platonic yandere raven darkholme #platonic yandere mystique

[lunar-years]

I love your insight into Roy and Nate and think there could've been some great stuff there, but I disagree about Roy thinking Nate has to be protected or at least caring about protecting him. Roy only sticks up for him because of Ted and the book from Ted. Roy was ignoring the bullying of Nate for 6+ months. They barely interact in season two other than when Nate kisses Keeley and Roy doesn't care.

ooh i think this is partially a case of me thought dumping in my post and not exactly being the most clear or concise, lol, because I mostly agree with you about all of this!

I don't think Roy cares about protecting Nate until the time it becomes convenient to him/his journey (hence my line about Roy swooping in when it fits his agenda, and not a second before, lol. Nor does he make any attempt to actually connect to Nate or help him find new footing with the team afterwards. It's very much 'well they've stopped putting their hands on him everyday in the locker room so that's my job well done. back to paying no attention to him!').

I think maybe we're meant to believe that Roy was just sooo checked out as Captain that he wasn't being the leader he *normally* was/had once been, and the book/Ted are what prompts him to reconnect with that part of himself and start caring enough to finally do what he's long known needs to be done.

But I think it's only partially that, and partially that Roy IS a hotshot who generally doesn't pay attention or give a shit about the kitman, and also that there's a very real part of him that thinks Nate is sort of pathetic for not standing up for himself. So when I say "Roy thinks Nate needs protecting" I mean that in a "Roy is being very patronizing" kind of way. I think it is very connected, honestly, to Roy's experience as a young boy at the Academy. I can't remember if there's actually a line about this in canon, so this may be verging into headcanon territory lol, but it feels at least strongly hinted at (imo, given how strongly he hates phoebe's and henry's bullies) that Roy was bullied as a kid by virtue of being the youngest kid there, which contributed to both his early anger and his learning to fight back. He had to harden himself to survive, and he did so by quickly becoming competent at making himself intimidating and unafraid to give as good as he got, making himself the bigger threat by overt macho bravado. I think with Nate in season 1, there's definitely an aspect for Roy of like, "I could stand up for myself when I was 9, and here's this grown man who can't stand up to other adults. how sad."

Him barely interacting with Nate in season 2 despite them literally having the same job and that job being one of collaboration at that is all a part of it! Nate thinks Roy brushes him off and doesn't pay him the time of day because Roy's an arrogant famous asshole who had the job handed to him by virtue of being rich and famous and ted liking him, rather than real merit. Which is sort of true (until the last part!) But Roy's problems are also much deeper than that and are rooted more in insecurity and self-hatred than his ego (he hates his anger, for one, and the ego is largely a mask for the self-hatred). And he tells Keeley openly in s3 (in the scene where they tell Phoebe they broke up) that he doesn't feel competent with the strategy side of things as a coach now that Nate's gone, which is surely something he's also had brewing in season 2.

It's like, Roy doesn't respect Nate because he thinks Nate is spineless and sort of pathetic (an unkind and unfair judgement, because it's not coming from a place of trying to actually understand Nate, but rather projecting his own insecurities), and he justifies that unfair judgement with Nate's very real actions, such as Nate ratting on Ted, running out on the team and going to Rupert, etc, (fully valid reasons not to respect Nate). On the other hand, Nate doesn't respect Roy because he thinks Roy's got this amazing life handed to him, whether it be by luck and innate talent or whatever (looks, money, a great career, a gorgeous girlfriend) and Roy is too stupid to even appreciate that he has any of it (again, an unfair and unkind judgement not coming from a place of trying to understand Roy or where he's coming from, but rather projecting his own insecurities into the situation). And he justifies the unfair judgement in fair criticisms of Roy's actions, like Roy not treating him with equal footing at work and Roy's micro-aggressions in the scene about the Keeley kiss.

I don’t any of these judgements results in overt hatred for one another, either. Obviously that’s not what we see on the screen. It’s more like, indifference/distaste on Roy’s part and stewing bitterness he can’t quite name on Nate’s part. Idk.

So I do think there was enough set-up there for them to do something interesting with them in season 3, even though yes they absolutely don't interact much onscreen.

#roy kent #nate shelley #ted lasso #ted lasso meta #asks #on nate's part there's also A LOT of jealousy based on him assuming ted likes roy better than him #anyway #like they are both so crippling insecure (in completely different ways) that it brings out the worst sides to them #okay im rambling again and may have made it more confusing again lmao. but basically: I think youre right.

[barefootbaltimore]

People wanna hit kids so bad.

They talk about "gentle parenting" being lazy and undisciplined but every parent I know that DOESNT hit their kids spends so much time having to teach them what behaviors are unacceptable. It takes time and effort and a lot of self control and self reflection .

When I have to explain to a child why I want them to not do a thing then I have to confront my reasons for why I feel that way and why I think they should listen to me. And no "I'm the adult" doesn't cut it. I am the adult so there should be a good reason why I'm telling someone to do something.

Meanwhile people who hit their kids don't need to do any of that. It's behavior -> punishment. Some will claim that afterwards they talk about what the kid did wrong but I know from experience that after someone fucking hits me I don't care what they have to say.

I was a kid that got hit and the vast majority of the time I think people would claim it was justified and appropriate discipline. But lemme tell you a secret: I still do all the shit I used to get hit over.

I still don't keep my room clean.

I still forget to do my chores

I still have an "attitude"

I still cuss

I still steal

I still cry when someone is mad at me

I still tell lies

I am still the same person I always was because hitting a person cannot "fix" their undesirable qualities. I'm sure if the adults in my life had "gentle parented" there's a fair bit on that list that I might have actually changed bc if nothing else hitting me just made me wanna spite them.

The science says hitting doesn't work. History says hitting doesn't work. Most anecdotal evidence also says hitting doesn't work (Oh you turned out just fine? What behaviors did the hitting actually fix long term? Way less than people want to admit). The ONLY reason to hit kids is because you want to. Period. People hit kids because they want to. It makes THEM feel better. It regulates THEIR anger. It makes the thing they don't like stop immediately and they get their frustrations out. That's it. That's literally it.

#children #i just #especially Black folk please we gotta stop hitting our kids #child abuse