#the person also had a problem with the 'i love YOU' panel bc they thought it was disregarding their identities

[lazylittledragon]

fuck it i'm riled up please enjoy t4t steddie

#steddie #stranger things #eddie munson #stevie harrington #t4t #there is SO MUCH gorgeous stevie content you need to look at all of it #we all looked at her and said 'OUR girlfriend' #also crying a lil bit about how much she looks like bobby #the person also had a problem with the 'i love YOU' panel bc they thought it was disregarding their identities #as if being told by your partner that they love you unconditionally as a person wouldn't be INCREDIBLY VALIDATING

[roseworth]

hey <3 heres what i think of every scene that rosenberg has written with rose

disclaimer: most of this is me being very nitpicky. rose was a side character for all of these appearances so obv i understand that its not gonna be perfect characterization. but i rly like talking about rose characterization so this is just me pulling apart her appearances for fun <3

ok lets go

overall

i LOVE the jason & rose dynamic. im not much of a jayrose fan but since its happening im glad that its like this. i love that its so much "rose is excessively horny and jason is giving her nothing" bc its so in character for both of them. shes fucking with him and he does not know how to reciprocate. they r so sillies

HOWEVER. rose would not just hang around him like shes doing. as much as i like that dynamic i feel like he also has to at least sometimes show that hes. you know. interested in having her around. shes just kinda tagging along and i wish there was a reason why she would put up with him never giving her anything, especially since she has a tendency to leave at the first sign of not being wanted

on a completely different note, im a little disappointed that shes wearing her old costume instead of the new one she has in btbatb/kt ravager. i appreciate that shes still drawn like an adult but i rly like her new costume so im sad that she doesnt have it

man who stopped laughing #9

STRONG start. beats up a bunch of cops, then right after she appears she does her stupid flirting thing then immediately says that she doesnt want to associate with the batfamily. queen.

not to mention right before this is my fav failgirl moment where she goes through her whole plan to crash the car and break jason out of prison. then just goes up and knocks on the door

flips the car over then walks up and says "hey its the fire department. open up" and not a single person believes her. i love her

lesbian rose crumbs <3 i still choose to believe shes talking about cass here idc. shes so silly and this was a cute lil panel

so yeah. she was on one page of this issue but that one page was great and i love her

mwsl #10

shes so lame <3 i talked about this moment a lot when this issue first released but i love it. "somebody had all the fun without us" upon finding a body, then realizing someone else was there and just. starts shooting. she doesnt hit anything. she doesnt even know where the other person is.

my big problem here is that she does not carry a gun and pretty much never uses guns. honestly now that im thinking about it this is one of the only times shes ever used a gun on panel (the other times i can think of being: shooting wade off a cliff after her mom died, shooting starfire in n52 outlaws (but new 52 rose barely even counts as rose), and using deathstroke's gun when she was pretending to be him in deathstroke 2016)

shes not anti-gun or anything but it still bothers me just a little that suddenly she has a gun (hence why i fully believe she stole jasons gun <3)

if i want to nitpick, kate should not have been able to hit her. rose should've seen she was coming wayyy before (bc precog) and she wouldnt be knocked down from one hit. i fear we are headed down a path of her becoming jasons incompetent girlfriend but i wont be too dramatic about her getting hit one (1) time

but other than that i thought this was a fun moment of rose getting hit then jason immediately fighting the person that hit her. toxic girlbesties fr

then also her needing to be held back after she gets up so she doesnt start attacking the person thats helping them <3 i love her

mwsl #11

this is a nice issue for her just because in true rose tradition she LOVES to have homoerotic fights with every other female character she interacts with. the kate & rose dynamic was soooo fun i love it when shes mean to people for no reason <3

i did not like this part though. i feel like there are a lot of implications about rose here that are unfair to her character & her place in the dcu. i'll meet the book on its own terms and say that we're only talking about post-52 rose (blah blah everything's canon rn but this book is very clearly not using pre-52 rose lore) but even then? theres no real reason for her to be ducking superheroes or for superheroes to keep an eye on her. shes not a villain or even much of a killer, the fact that shes "staying off the radars" of good guys doesnt make much sense. and the fact that kate knows her and "studies" her (fellas is it gay to study another woman despite never meeting her) implies that rose is like. a threat. shes just kind of around there is no reason kate should know her like that

cute moment! but also it bothers me. i think its fun that she refused to go since its not her fight and she doesnt want to get into a joker mess. HOWEVER. when has she ever in her life passed up an opportunity to get involved in someone elses problem. to me she wouldnt have even delivered the list of addresses without a fight if she wasnt gonna go along

other than her using a gun again (where the hell did she even get that) i like this <3 her showing up and saving manhunter after she said she didnt care what happened is so her. also i just like the fact that she shot joker

gay gay homosexual gay

the rest of this issue is fun <3 just kate & rose fighting together then getting blown up together <3 this was a nice issue for her despite the problems i had with it

gotham war red hood #2

gotham war break!!!

okay first of all i LOVE that he took her along. there was no reason for rose to be here but jason was told to meet someone and said "ok ill go but my weird friend comes with me" its so funny

ive seen a lot of people complain about the "you're my only friend" line but i LOVE it. not necessarily because she doesnt have any friends but because she would not in a million years ADMIT that she has friends. she would rather be shot in the head than say that she actually likes the people that she hangs out with.

but to be fair.... she also doesnt have friends. "what about the lazarus island gang?" the only person she actually liked there and showed any friendship toward was damian, and they ARE friends but she considers him more of a little brother than a friend. "what about the teen titans??" a) she would NEVER admit that she is friends with any of them b) its technically.... not really canon that she was ever on the same team as them. like i said before, im meeting this book on its terms, and rose being a teen titan hasnt been mentioned since flashpoint :( i wont go on a whole tangent about her friends but given that she hasnt really made a friend in years and never talks to anyone else, i think its fair for her to say that she has no friends

so yeah all this to say: she has friends, but it is 100% in character for her to say that she has no friends. i stand by this line

i dont have much to say here i just think shes so cute <3 i also love the fact that jason jumped straight to "rose is robbing a dead person" instead of "rose is inspecting the body"

but im OBSESSED with the fact that she DOES rob him. i feel like we're not talking about this enough. she saw a dead body and took his money. im not even mad about it because its so fucking funny to me

im sorry jay/rose fans this makes me want to vomit. this feels too "earnest emotions" for both of them. the rest of this scene was fine but this panel specifically feels so :/

"i just need help" "always" and "please take care of yourself" and "meet at our spot" "promise?" "i promise" does not feel like them at all. its a very sweet and genuine moment but they would NOT have sweet and genuine moments! neither of them would ever express their feelings and they would not have this conversation

this does not feel like rose at all idk who this is. where is the rage!!!!!! where is the anger!!!!!!! why did she stand there for hours just. worried about him. why isnt she lashing out

comparing this to the scene in tt03 where she's worried about eddie:

she gets angry! shes worried about him and starts yelling at everyone around her because hes hurt and she doesnt know whats happening. i would have LOVED this energy in this book and its sooooo disappointing that she just. stands there like 🥺 when she doesnt know what happened to jason

mwsl #12

i rly liked this part fhdkjfhakjdfd i thought her pretending to be him just to get batman out of the way was so good and so real. shes helping out AND fucking with batman

very minor complaint here but this isnt even true . she DOES try to run into him in ds16 when slade kidnaps damian and rose gives bruce the ransom terms. also i feel like this line is vaguely implying that she HAS found him (/he found her) on accident before which is also not true given that their only interactions are in ds16 and being in the same general area in shadow war. and also reiterating that shes not a villain so batman has no reason to track her down or cause problems for her but. whatever. this is entirely just me jumping to conclusions about what this one throwaway line means and then getting mad about it

LOVE this. she inserted herself into the situation then complains about it. this isnt her business and shes making sure that jason knows it. but also she completely volunteered for most of this

BOOOOOOOO she would not fucking say that. "sorry about that whole chase" no she would not apologize. "please dont kick my ass" she would NOT say that!!!!! first of all given that this is after gotham war she would probably kick his ass just for what he did to jason. even besides that she would not be afraid of him even a little. comparing their convo in ds16 #5 to this is so sad bc </3 why is she afraid of him instead of being a huge bitch and yelling at him

this ending is really good for her though. she absolutely would dive into the water with joker gas, trash, and dead bodies just to save her friend <3

this is more like it!!!!!!!! shes worried for him and takes initiative to save him by jumping in the water despite it being a very dangerous decision and then insults him while she saves his life <3333 its a tiny bit more of her being mean to express worry which is nice <3 its not perfect but its closer

in conclusion: there are many good moments. there are many parts i like about it. but there are just so many things that dont feel like rose </3 most of the broad strokes are there but it just doesnt feel like her when shes not full of rage and going out of her way to piss people off

#yk i actually had some stuff i wanted to get done today. but instead i spent 2 hours putting this together #no regrets i have so much to say all the time #rose wilson #dc

[winderlylandchime]

Hi! I hope you’re doing well and that your trip is good and fun. But holy shit, i hope you and your partner manage to stay covid free! I’m sending some healing thoughts to your SIL since covid absolutely sucks!

Also a few things i do have to say because you need to know (most of them i was told to tell you guys): we went to the doctor yesterday and he was proudly wearing his new shirt. Everyone found it hilarious and accurate portrayal of him/his year. And then he told the whole office (2 doctors and 3 nurses) that he is now famous on the internet because i told bunch of people about him watching the show. And the doctor who is in charge of his case (the guy who did the surgery lol), looked at me, pointed at him and slowly went ‘you made him other people’s problem?’ And my brother proudly said ‘Yes, she did! *realized what was said* heeeeey, i can be quite a delight, just ask the people on the no porn site’ (yes, that is how he told them about tumblr). And my brother wanted me to let you all know that his cast has to stay on for another week, so he is very sad about that BUT the big news that he immediately looked at me (in the office in front of them btw) and went ‘you gotta tell my new homies about this’ was that in two weeks he has his final check up with his surgeon bc he wants to do all tests one last time and then if all is good which they believe will be, he can officially go home and back to his whatever tf normal life is for him. So looks like I’m losing my two roommates soon. Shit will be boring ngl.

Then the other more important thing! My brother had your blog opened on his tag, but i guess he went to check out the rest of the blog because he walked in this morning and went ‘did you fucking know that they write stories?! About Brian and Blondie? WHAT IS THIS? AND THERES SO MANY FUCKING COOL GIFS TOO. LIKE SHIT TON OF THEM! I saw one where Gale was talking in that interview about Prom and Blondie from that panel and then there were gifs from the episode and behind the scenes with it! That had to take for fucking ever! Do people just make them all the time? See? when *puts out one hand* Fandom and *puts out the other hand* love, come together *puts his hands together* beautiful things come to life.’

So he is currently going through your ao3/bookmarks but i did tell him to read your other fics before the new one.. Btw he didn’t move from the couch for a few hours after he discovered it. His favorites so far are: we didn’t know we could reach the stars (he thought that one was a very accurate portrayal of what Brian and Justin would be like if the writers didnt ruin it), clothes mean nothing until someone lives in them (he really enjoyed that one btw. He especially thought the ‘not the first boy to jerk off to thoughts of Brian in this bed’ was clever as fuck and literally went ‘ooohhh shit’ when he read it)

and Youre like a tattoo (he gasped when he realized the plot and went ‘ITS REVERSED!’). And when he finally made it to your new fic he fucking lost it (he had a tiny report on it)

I did show him your replies from previous messages and here’s the message from the guy himself (read this as if youre listening to a very caffeinated person pacing up and down, for accurate pov): I was a breath of fresh air for them? Fucking hell, so this fandom is in like a hibernation, huh? I’m fucked, aren’t I? Well anyway, thank you stranger for very sweet words. I fuck with this person! I think we’d be friends. I FUCKING LOVE LITTLE EDIE! Me and (his best friends name) always quote the ‘It was quite the scandal actually. It was in all the magazines at the time’ in Jinx’s voice whenever some random shit is asked. Them and their spouse sound like they’re fucking fun to be around. Wait you gotta tell them I read the stories they wrote, i’m still reading other people’s shit, i have a lot to catch up to. But that one that isn’t done yet is fucking brilliant. I mean they all are but I read that one twice! I had to watch the reunion episode from season 3 because it made me all nostalgic when they got back together. It’s exactly how I’d like the show to be. Its nice to read and go mhm thats my bri bri, unlike in the show where it was not my bri but an imposter. I also very much fuck with older Brian who has a beard and glasses. Because he looked pretty as fuck in that little comic con video. I’m excited to see how they end it and i really really hope that they had fun writing these stories because i had a lot of fun reading them. Anyway, tell them, they’re fucking cool, their stories are fucking dope, i also really liked that one about them sharing their clothes AND THE ONE WHERE BLONDIE WAS THE SUGAR DADDY! I fucking told you that will happen..i was just wrong as to where. And im glad to see that the *lifts his cast* ally, is catching on.

PS, we both got all ‘awwww’ and a little emotional ngl, when we read your response how you’ve been thinking of us while writing. And just so you know we spent all day today discussing your fics (when he got to the cliffhanger, he went ‘i am once again being teased just like with the love confession’) and some other fics from other creators that he read and enjoyed. The man is in awe. Every time he’d read a new chapter/fic he goes ‘this is the best thing ive read’ over and over.

Hello hello hello dear sweet anon and brother anon!

Thank you for your well wishes. My SIL tested negative this morning so we are officially in the clear (and can abandon our masks). I think we did a good job being responsible within the circumstances. Luckily, my SIL’s symptoms never got bad and the cold I arrived with (was it a cold or an intense allergic reaction to cleaning my apartment and kicking up all that dust?) never evolved into anything more unpleasant.

I love that we’re not the people on the “no porn site.” And we do all think he’s delightful. I’m glad he’s recovering well and can soon live independently from you but I imagine life will be a lot quieter and less chaotic without him and feline BriBri.

Yes! Gifs allow us to relive every moment of the series, draw parallels etc. Let’s give a hand to @sophsun1 who is basically carrying the fandom on her back with her beautiful gifs.

I am absolutely floored by his reaction to my fics. Thank you so much for passing along the kind words he had. I’m glad he like the 5+1 clothes sharing fic (I have such a soft spot for it), and We Didn’t Know We Could Reach the Stars is such an overlooked fic (I forget I wrote it!). AND of course Tattoo was my beloved fic this year.

The fandom isn’t in hibernation so much as it is small and basically zero new content has been released in eons and so it is a small fandom with nowhere near the works produced that large currently or recently active fandoms have (tbh those fandoms intimidate me - I will read GO fic but joining a discord or writing fic in there? so scary!).

“It was quite the scandal really…” is the other quote I say to my spouse on hair wash / hair turban days! I like to think we *are* fun to be around. Especially if quote RPDR S5 is your idea of fun. Then we’re a blast!

I do have fun writing fics. I bitch and moan and complain, but I love writing them and getting to put them out into the world. I’m even more excited to write and post the last chapter of Fireflies now that I know your brother has read it. And I’m delighted to hear that he thinks I kept his beloved BriBri in character (if we ignore WTF happened to his character in S5).

I’m honestly a little bit emotional from your PS. I write fics because I love to write them but hearing that you’re sitting around discussing them? I love writing them but I do want an audience (otherwise I wouldn’t publish them) and there are fics out there that I feel that way about (written by other people) so for my fics to be that to someone… just, I need a moment and a tissue.

*makes fist* ally

#ask winderlylandchime #dear sweet anon #queer as folk #a straight man watches qaf us 2000 in the year of our lord 2023

[spacedhead]

homestuck reread #11: act 6 p2

aranea first appearance!!! shes so beautifullll hi girl

okay so i think i misremembered this specific comversation. in a previous conversation with roxy, roxy accidentally IMPLIED that jane might have feelings for him. but then jake was like yeah i already know that she has a thing for me but then since he knows roxy isnt supposed to talk about it he agrees to drop it. then here he is like hey jane do you like me? be honest. just come out and say it. do you? and she is like clearly not ready to be honest yet so shes like uh no i dont

so then hes like oh you dont well thats crazy i thought you did. but then hes like . are you sure? and she is like... haha i guess not... GAHHH THIS IS SO PAINFUL TO READ. but the problem im finding is that i feel like jake is in the wrong here but like i dont know i might do the same thing. if i suspected someone liked me and then got soft confirmation from their best friend i might also approach the situation by asking for confirmation rather than being like I KNOW YOU LIKE ME. but maybe the real thing i would do is wait for them to tell me... i honestly dont know what the right answer is... like what was his best option here because what he did felt so wrong. and jane. poor jane. she is suffering with the weight of liking this FREAK . its just hard cause i wanted her to be honest but i also get why she wasnt

i dont even want to show this next part but jake after this is telling jane about how he thinks dirk wants to date him (which he does) and jane is just. suffering . but she keeps telling him to like go for it? like why are you sabotaging yourself like this?? i get shes trying to be a good friend but like at what cost girl your sanity?? and how is he this socially unaware when he has proven that he can pick up on the hints that jane liked him even BEFORE roxy accidentally implied it?? but now he cant tell that jane is OBVIOUSLY not happy with the situation. i actually cant tell if hes being a cruel person and deliberately ignoring her feelings or if hes just suddenly unable to pick up on her feelings. i GUESS in his defense there has been this ongoing theme of his friends saying that he has a tendency to believe people at face value and believe IN people. get it. because hope. but that is dumb and in my opinion a weak defense

to be fair. he is glasses

what heaven looks like (without the dead cat)

AHHHHH JUMPSCARE

god damn you. tumut

this is really cool

me every time i get mad and my friends call me delusional

this section of dirk giving jake the Lore is cool. look at alpha dave he is so awesome

holy balls look at rose too

HELL YEAH

Sadge

DO YOU OR DO YOU NOT KNOW THAT JANE HAS A THING FOR YOU....... WHAT IS HAPPENING

hee hee look at lil seb

this baller ass panel. hes so cool he has a fucking SWORD

look at him go!!!!

AHHH I LOVE THIS PANEL EVERYONE IS SO SILLY!!!!!!

me when im the dumbest boy in paradox space

wait this makes sense to me. the seer of mind can see brain ghost dirk. that is so cool

I AM CRESTFALLEN. (also jane and roxy just died so that is very sad too. but they have dreamselves.) shit is kind of hitting the fan when all the alpha kids are trying to enter. also calliope just got name and appearance revealed so... hey

this is funny

HUHHHHH

ok so i watched s dirk synhcronize. really good flash! some things i noticed. 1. there is that tumblr post that is like dirk just high fives meenah without even knowing who she is or what a troll is. that is wrong he DOES know what a troll is and had already briefly met her like right before the high five happened . 2 its crazy that he has no fear or hesitation when he puts his own head in the transportalizer. like bro really just was willing to kill himself for his friends. i know that he lives bc of his dreamself but still to have ZERO hesitation shows how much he loves them all. 3 in the beginning of homestuck john needed a sledge hammer to open his cruxtruder and throughout the comic most of the characters have needed to drop something heavy on the lid to pop it open but dirk just fucking kicks it open with little effort . actual baller

based hal

this goofy ass scene look at roxys face its so me

fuuuuuck i just watched caliborn enter... lord english destroyed the dream bubble with the john who died and a couple dead daves... (and a bunch of alternate trolls) man i fucking HATE that guy....

shes real or somefin

dude. not cool

i fuckin love his hashtags

LOOK AT THEM

gender envy

im out of image space but ........ to be continued. this is definitely... like... i feel like after cascade the comic came to an abrupt stop. and it is taking a while for things to get going again. maybe once they arrive at the new session

#joff hs reread #sadge #the girls and the gays #hs

[mangoisms]

Im just soso obsessed with figuring out tim as a character rn i cant stop thinking abt it (ive always been a jason todd girlie but i read ur fic and that angsty twink latched onto me and refuses to let go)

I think u have a pretty good hold of him, especially bc in present comics writers are so intent on elevating tim in spite of other characters (barbara and her hacking skills for example, or any comparison made btw him and any robin, really) that most portrayals of him are so boring it makes me cry, while you on the other hand took the approach to write about his flaws (which are MANY) while still making him charming and handsome (he is so... !!!!)

To me flaws are also tied to not only the good traits of characters but also their core beliefs and ideals so what can you say abt tim?

I know he can be stupidly arrogant and patronizing at times, that he's always idolized the position and legacy of robin and constantly fights his insecurities with this role and his abilities for the job, that he can also be incredibly selfish or outright mean when it comes to being mindful of other people's feelings for the sake of logic (re when he didnt tell tam abt his dad not being actually dead), but at the same time i cant figure out exactly what he wants to do with his role as robin (or red robin) or why he would want to keep going when his main goals first were just making sure bruce wouldnt go down a dark path, im pretty sure he mentioned not being a vigilante forever but his actual goals remain unclear to me

(Im in the midst of reading his solo robin run but ive read red robin so give me a little room for this, you are definitely free to talk abt more of his comics bc i havent read everything yet and everything im saying should be taken with a grain of salt, video essays and the issues ive read can only get me so far)

He could have gained an inherent desire to help people after all his time as robin and the so fucked up shit that happened to him, maybe as a ways to channel his grief (much like dick and jason and bruce, im thinking abt identity crisis here) after he isnt "needed" as robin anymore, but at the same time that would be so tragic because he was supposed to be different to them, he was supposed to remark the importance of robin's role in helping be "batman's light" and not becoming like batman himself, its just so interesting and im still trying to really understand the extent of his character so id just. Love to get ur thoughts and musings on what fuels tim as a character and how you see him

(I dont have this problem with jason bc his moral conflict is very crystal clear to me and also so freaking juicy, his actions are logical and so understable, granted he also hasnt had as much screentime as tim and i can see when writers just Dont Get Him, misunderstanding the original intent of his character coming back etc etc etc, tim has grown and evolved throughout his tim as robin so this might factor in too)

Anyways sorry for the long post i hope this is alright !!! Loved ur fic to bits and ur writing is a blessing mwah

okay HI i am not exaggerating when i say that i have been thinking about this ask since you sent it HAHA tim is just a parasite in my brain he won't let go...

that's the funny thing about portrayals of him today... i feel like people want to elevate him as a potential batman or a character closest to bruce in terms of intelligence and detective skills, which isn't true at all, i think (because, exactly, you have babs Right There), and of course, narratively, this is all a good thing (this post covers it well, i think). it's in the same vein of people making tim out as the most dangerous person in the batfam, should he ever chose to go down the path, which i can partially blame red robin (2009) for with this panel....

(and i don't think that's true either. he has the potential to be dangerous just like any of the others but i think the ones to really be scared of are babs, dick, and cass but ANYWAY)

in general, red robin 2009 was a bumpy time for tim with bruce's death and his spiraling, but it seemed to really inform what they were going to do with his character. no more time for the civilian life, committing himself much more thoroughly to The Mission like bruce. which is, if you ask me, a negative progression of his character, which isn't bad, exactly, in terms of storytelling, but it feels like all we get are the 'good parts' now -- the intelligence, the status, the resources, and then we don't get to grapple with the consequences.

there were some in red robin 2009 but it was more tim accepting them and making no move to change his actions, which is fine, but now... idk. but i also don't touch modern comics with a ten foot pole so this could just be. Wrong. but that seems like what's going on. so i feel like that's where people get the idea of him being... idk not the Perfect Robin exactly but. you know?

no no yeah i totally agree!

re (because i want to break this down i'm telling you i have Been Thinking About This): at the same time i cant figure out exactly what he wants to do with his role as robin (or red robin) or why he would want to keep going when his main goals first were just making sure bruce wouldnt go down a dark path, im pretty sure he mentioned not being a vigilante forever but his actual goals remain unclear to me

exactly this. he did say that and i've reblogged this at some point i think, showing a panel from robin 1993 where he mentioned he wouldn't be a vigilante forever, then paralleled with that panel i put in earlier from red robin 2009. (there's this post, which touches on another thing about tim trying to set himself apart as having friends and thus not being bruce LOL which is another topic entirely)

i think that was what red robin 2009 was - a negative progression of his character, one that, again, we never really grapple with, especially as dc shoves robin back onto him now.

his motivations are an interesting thing to me, because he did start out coincidentally, saying batman needed a robin but he didn't assume he'd be that robin, it just kind of happened because he was there (well much more went into it but you know?).

but aside from that, i've never gotten the impression tim really does it for people. i mean batman in general has been about the detective work but i think towards the 80s/90s/00s there was a shift to focusing on the people but tim has never really struck me as a hero of the people. he's more about fighting crime than he is about helping people. i think it is partially informed by the genre - re detective comics, etc - but still. he's not like, say, peter parker/spider-man, who is a hero of the people, of the working class. the people are inherent to him as spider-man. tim does it out of duty and responsibility i think, being the light to batman's dark, of course, but he's also very much a teenage boy about being robin - the cool factor, pointedly mentioning he wants to let off steam by knocking around 'criminals' that kind of thing

which doesn't mean he's unfit for it but he operates in an odd grey area as far as his motivation goes, which i think is where we get red robin? he was defined by being robin and he did his job, then he got the boot. so it is very much an identity crisis but we're seeing that negative change as he changes for the worse, for something darker. i mean, yes, red robin 2009 was again bumpy because he was at a very low point in his life but in general, that run was dark for him.

editorial wise, we'd never get to see what they made of it because they did the reboot and started new-52 a few years after. but whether he'd continue being red robin/going down this path, or if he'd shed the identity and go for something lighter... it's hard to say.

i kind of like the thought that he'd change his identity and try to take a lighter approach, try to pull himself from bruce's influence, though with how it's all set it up, it seems fated that he'd end up there. there was red robin 2009, but then there was his sixteenth birthday incident (which sounds bad here and i'd read this before reading it myself but god when i read it it pissed me off so bad... really what turned me off bruce as a 'good' father figure, i can't lie). he ultimately ends up going back and becoming robin and this is the turning point for him where he agrees to enter this mindset that bruce wants him to be in. (this post talks mainly about timsteph but it is also a point to the end about the shift in his character and how that affected his relationships as well)

i mean i know red robin 2009 is marked by the grief of bruce's 'death' and a bunch of other Very Bad Shit but even when we got past that and he had his little 'Let me let in the people who love me because i am Not batman' he then proceeded to go a little surveillance crazy and make a hit list (something like that, it's been a while..) but. yeah.

ultimately, at the core of his character, i think he is good and compassionate and kind, so, even aside from all that (like the birthday incident), i think he would've made his way there eventually. it could maybe be why we see him returning to robin, if we wanted to try and pretend dc making him be robin is a completely normal and logical decision that they actually thought through. like a way to return to the bases and feel it out from there. though i still think they could've just. idk. given him a BREAK from vigilantism to figure it out. i'm a big proponent of civilians and their place amongst vigilantes and superheroes and i feel like tim's due a break, which is why i put that stuff in my fics. i do want to see him step back and try to figure out his life, because at one point, though robin 1993 was arguably defined by the balance between robin and tim drake and had plenty of civilian friends to keep things interesting, we don't see much as far as what he wants to do. which i suppose could be part of his relatability factor that tim drake, the character, was conceived with

but idk at this point they have to give us something 😭 anyway. this got VERY long i am very sorry.. i don't mind long asks either but i might've overshot my response... alas. i also hope i more or less answered your question??? if not feel free to slide back in here and talk to me! i rambled a bit here and it's like. 3am rn i'm scheduling this to post because i wanted to get it all written Now and. yeah.

thank you SO much very happy to hear you're enjoying everything <333 hope you continue to enjoy :**

#also thank YOU for all your thoughts?? like i said i was Thinkign About This #and i had posts in mind for it and yeah. yeah. i was thinking about it all week HAHA #but also like twin brain moment because you get him <3 he is charming and handsome but he also has SOOOO many flaws and is actually rlly #annoying and puts his foot in his mouth TOO MUCH #so. YEAH. sorry this is long don't feel obligated to respond to All Of This <3 but if you have any q's feel free to ask <3 #inbox #long post

[blueboltkatana]

thoughts on wano arc now that it's over?

hi anon i haven't been active on Tumblr at all for the past... what?! month now? So i have to apologise for not answering this when you sent it to me I hope it hasn't been that long. Regardless let's get into it. Warning: spoilers duh

So Wano was definitely an important arc, and it was a good arc I would say, maybe i would give it an 7.5/10 because it had its very good moments especially Gear 5 which I feel like it kind of carries the whole arc by itself and without it, it would be maybe a 6 out of 10 arc.

Unfortunately though, the Arc had some things that I personally, didn't like that much:

My biggest problem is mostly with the way Zoro's character was handled as well as some missed opportunities here and there; I would have preferred that Kinemon had died on the rooftop when the scabbards fought Kaido because it would have made the moment very emotional and made the stakes higher. Also i believe Izo should have survived the battle because his death was kind of unnecessary to me from a narrative standpoint, plot wise I understand but i feel like it could have been avoided.

Going back to Zoro, it's no secret he's my favorite but i like to think that i judge him fairly and so far he's had minimal character development that was His and only His. Wano was hyped to be "zoros arc" bc it comes right after wci which was sanji's arc and it's about fucking time we get some info about the mossmans past. During the whole arc he's constantly compared to Ushimaru and Ryuma only at the end to be confirmed that he is completely unrelated to them and he fights the second in command of the main villains crew as always, very cliché and a let down after all the hype that the possibility of him fighting kaido along luffy got. At the end Luffy is the one who's compared to Ryuma which was so weird?!?

Anyway, bottom line is, i got mossbaited.

Another disappointing conclusion was that of Yamato and not for the reason you think. Honestly i knew he wasn't gonna join very early on, ask me how i knew but you'll laugh, but the REASON oda gave was so lame!?! Wym explore wano?!? Boy get ur ass on that ship istg😭😭😭. Explore Wano my ass. Come on Oda be fucking fr. I got newnakamabaited.

i don't like that momo was turned into an adult but his mind is still 8 years old... like that don't sit right with me it just doesn't. His design looks good and everything but he's literally a child in an adults body it's weird i don't like it.

Hyori ending that shitface orochi was great but i wish Zoro played more of a role or at least was PRESENT when it happened bc he literally SWORE he would avenge Yasue!!! ODA OPEN THE FUCKING DOOR I JUST WANNA TALK!!

ok now that i got the criticism out of my system here is the good impressions:

Gear fucking FIVE BABY! that shit was crazy and so well thought out absolutely marvelous.

Zoro unlocking his kingly ambition was sick as fuck and he did have some incredible moments this arc that i really appreciate.

Robins first serious fight since pre ts 😭😭💓💓💓💕😌😌i loved it, as well as sanji's character development and the progress he's made <3

Kid and Law teaming up and all the moments they get to interact woth each other and the strawhats are sperb. I love it. the final separation was disappointing though, needed more tears and sad music from both law and luffy. (I'm joking that wouldn't be in character but.it would have been hilarious)

The bounties I'm pretty ok with. Jimbe getting such a high bounty was surprising, it might mean smth more than we know.

Also Shank's appearance 🤩🤩🤩

And the crossguild... the panel of croc and mihawk... Dilf nation REJOICE! THEY'RE BACK! God i fucking missed mihawk and now he's gonna be more active in the story i can't fucking waitttt

Overall good arc, great moments and essential to the story. the shipping game was strong especially for rarepairs and ships that haven't been very talked about in a long time were revived bc the characters interacted again after years lmfao so that's a win.

thank you for the ask, if there's any specific thing you wanna talk about go ahead bc I'm sure i forgot some stuff. <333

#jackie talks #blue answers #Ask #anon ask #one piece spoilers #one piece wano arc #Wano spoilers #op 1057 #op spoilers #jackie rants

[wickedpact]

A ranking of all the TTT stories in order of how much I liked them.

(Oh god this is so long)

1 My Mother's Axe

BABY ANDYYYYYYYYYYYY. Honestly this one had the trifecta of developing a character's motivations, developing a character's backstory, & developing their personality. The story starting out with Andy teaching Nile to use the axe was so charming and fun, and you could feel that chemistry they had in Opening Fire, the way they teased and bickered with each other so naturally. I loved the wedge between them on the subject of the axe, how Nile was perhaps a little too young to understand Andy's feelings about whether or not its the 'same' axe. I also love how the axe is obviously the symbol of the franchise and hugely important, but you never get a sense of exactly how important it is to Andy until you read the story.

I love the entire Ship of Theseus theme, and how it feels so natural that for Andy she has to get attached to the idea of things rather than the things themselves because she'll always outlive the things themselves-- the axe is symbolically her mom's axe, even if physically it isn't. And I love how she clearly clings to that concept so tightly. "This is the labrys she held in her hands...." IT GETS ME.

And the fact that this sense of BELONGING, of FAMILY, of CULTURE is so important to Andy that she clings to it (figuratively and literally) with both hands. And of course it's important to her, she spent so long alone that the woman doesn't even remember her birth name. That axe (or the idea of that axe) is all she has left of her mother and that family/culture she was born into.

PLUS on that note I love how Andy doesn't remember if her mom was her actual biological mother, but it doesn't matter to her. This woman was her mother in all the ways that counted. And how her mom BETRAYED AND KILLED Andy but Andy loved her so much that she avenged her and carried her axe for thousands of years. THOUSANDS OF YEARS!!!!!!

I also loved how the story transcends the timeline of the whole franchise and seeing Andy through the years. Loved seeing her with the varying squads and with varying axes. Also baby Andy was so cute. It was cool seeing her so young. like holy fuck. Andromache The Scythian, Immortal Warrior (but smol). Love that.

Also I think this one is one of the few ttt stories that doesn't suffer from length problems.

tldr: goddammit greg you've done it again.

2 Zanzibar and Other Harbors

Zanzibar my beloved. I've said before, but it's downright comedic how little regard there was for Joe and Nicky's character designs in this story. The same person who does the colors for the regular comic did the colors for this one too, and you can tell, every panel of this story was Beautiful.

Ik there was A Lot of criticism of this one (lmao @ how the fandom had no idea what was to come) but I thought a lot of The Discourse was a bit dramatic. I did think Nicky came off as a little oblivious to Joe's feelings in this story, but I've said before, I honestly think that was a 'tone not translating' thing. It felt like Nicky was nagging Joe for [checks notes] saving innocent people, but Joe was so amused by Nicky's complaints I really do think it was supposed to come off as teasing.

Plus I know the 'Joe running off into danger and Nicky reluctantly following' dynamic wasn't popular (I'm a pretty meh on it meself) but I did love how Joe's impulsiveness (if you want to call it that) was interpreted as heroism and not hot-hotheadedness. All of the examples Nicky and Joe talked about included Joe explicitly saving people. (and it also took A Lot for the nazi to actually provoke Joe).

I also feel like their characterization here was closest to the movie canon-- the bit where they hear the woman scream and Joe goes running in to save her while Nicky swoops in on Joe's heels to comfort her while Joe and the nazi were fighting reminds me of the train car scene. Joe had suggested First that they go find Nile because she needed to be protected, and Nicky later added that Nile probably also needed emotional support. Similar reactions.

But it was So Good, the themes of queer community and the enduring nature of queer culture are Not themes you see in media that often and it was such a delight how it was done. Also it's one of the few more modern TTT stories that has a completely valid excuse for taking place when it did. Chef's kiss.

3 Passchendaele

I love the Duality between seeing baby Andy and then seeing Mama Andy in the very next issue. This story doesn't have a ton of meat to it, but the entire concept of Andy adopting a war orphan straight off the battlefield PLUCKS MY TENDER LITTLE HEARTSTRINGS, and I think it's especially poignant for comic!Andy. I think most people wouldn't think twice about movie!Andy doing something like that but comic Andy is so hardened and almost cruel sometimes, and seeing that even for her the world hasn't beaten all of the compassion from her yet is SO!!!!!!! this woman contains MULTITUDES okay, she's violent and angry and tired and Done but she's also so kind and compassionate and THE STRENGTH OF HER!!!!! Also the idea of her and Yitzhak co-raising a kid together is so damn cute. It was #mysterious pre-Yitzhak-story but now it's cute. holy fuck. It's cute.

& the headbonk panel of her and Zeus lives in my heart. anyways.

4 Many Happy Returns

I Know people weren't thrilled about Booker being in this one, but I've developed a pet-peeve about that: this story was *not* booker-centric. Booker only exists in this story to the extent required to explain the importance of the gesture Nile makes towards him. If there was a story about Booker making some grand gesture of kindness to Nile no one would be saying it was Nile-centric. bc it wouldn't be! Booker exists in this story to explore Nile's kindness, its not about him. I saw that a couple times and it bothered me. anyways.

AAAAAAAAAA I loved this one, the art was beautiful, I loved how Andy Nile and Booker were drawn (like their comic selves but.. more looking like actual people). I loved Andy and Nile's Bants, how Andy wanted to jump right in and Do Violence but Nile was basically telling her to hold her horses.

I feel like I'm just repeating the post I made on this story a few days ago, but I LOVED how Nile's plan revolves not around violence or Cool Mercenary Skills but on Nile's own life skills (as she canonly did a lot of minimum wage job-hopping before the marines in comics canon). Her plan used her skills, not the skills of an immortal warrior, and HER SKILLS were in fact more useful for the situation! lov to see Nile's resourcefulness and planning skills.

AND HOW NILE WAS PROBABLY WATCHING BOOKER??? it's so Much bc 1.) nile knew booker A SINGLE DAY and yet he made such an impression on her emotionally that she had to keep an eye on him and 2.) she said in the movie she wanted Booker to get off free with an apology. Yes she's a member of the team but that doesn't mean she's necessarily going to follow orders like a good little soldier. I also love how she convinced Andy to go along with it. her HEART, her KINDNESS, her THOUGHTFULNESS, UGH.

5 The Bear

Honestly I have like no negative things to say about this one other than a.) character design issues which is less about the story itself and is more of a 'tog comic in general' criticism and b.) too short, but it was supposed to be a tease, so.

But I loved Yitzhak, I wasn't expecting to really like him at all but like I said in my other post, he tickled me. I love characters who are Kind™, especially if they have little reason to be so given their backgrounds. Chef's kiss. Lov him.

6 Bonsai Shokunin

I know this one was a little controversial bc of the outsider POV but whenever I see people upset about that they never point out that the Outsider Guy (the samurai) existed as a reflection on Noriko. His ideas are explained in the text to develop hers. The whole story follows how she gave mercy to a scared young man and in response he murdered Noriko, repeatedly! Who gave him the right to inflict such pain and suffering on the world? In his opinion, the lack of response from the gods was his permission. And for Noriko-- over and over again she dies and suffers because she gave mercy, which lines up with her ideas in FM about how it's their fate to rule mortals and if they don't align with that plan/fate/whatever then they suffer. It shows some background to those ideas and how they developed in her mind outside of Ocean Madness™. Additionally, his idea of 'the Gods have done nothing to strike me down so it's fine if I do these things' kind of explains how Noriko may justify her own morally corrupt actions-- she's died so many times and it's never stuck. Maybe if she did die any of those times, or while she was in the water, maybe that would've been a sign she was doing something right, or at least doing something normal. But she hasn't died. Fate isn't done with Noriko yet. And maybe there's a reason for that. In her mind, it's just not a very pleasant reason, is all.

There were things I was kind of meh about tho. I did kind of wish we saw something of Noriko and the team, or smth explaining the way she was before her dip in the pool-- personality, likes dislikes, etc. but it wasn't bad or anything. It was super vague tho, I had to read it a few times before I got what it was going for. Liked the art. Liked the bonsai metaphor. And of course I Respect the decision to use the 1300s (1200s? I don't remember off the top of my head) rather than using the last 200 years.

7 Strong Medicine

Honestly looking back, this one made me kind of sad because both this one and Bonsai Shokunin explored character's ideas on Fate and The Divine and how that intersects with immortality and I totally thought that theme would be continued, especially with Love Letters. But Then It Wasn't™.

Admittedly.... I had to re-read this one to remember most of it. I liked Booker's ideas on God, 'The conductor of the symphony just may not be very good at his trade' but the plot itself was kind of forgettable. Some fuckin cowboys try to kill a doctor (their second) because he couldn't save their sickly brother. Book tries to stop them, gets killed, and then comes back and kills them all before they get the doctor. Alright. I liked the artstyle because the characters were ugly in a similar way that leandro's are, but way more bearable.

I love the Irony of Booker concluding that there is no such thing as fate or destiny and nothing has meaning, AS HE UNKNOWINGLY SAVES MERRICK'S GRANDFATHER FROM BEING KILLED. Booker getting fucked over by life/god/destiny yet again. It also kind of explains about where the fuck hell Merrick's interest in immortal mercenaries even came from.

I originally had this one a lot higher and then I thought about it and moved it down like two spots.

8 Never Gets Old

I liked seeing Booker interact with his kid. And we got a name for the kid! Philippe was a little bitch though, he was a little obnoxious. I liked how Booker was so thrilled to experience a restaurant with his kid (and since we know he was there before, it can be assumed he went with all of his kids and yet he was so charmed each time). It fits with his line to Nicky in the moon landing story about how you don't appreciate beautiful things 'unless you have someone to share them with'. It was charming to see Booker interact with his kid, and to see him so happy. Also lmao @ Booker's big fat Ye Olde Crush on Andy.

However at the same time it was like.. of all the things to write about,,, I guess? Booker's Night Out...... alright. Especially since Book had so many stories.

I don't know, it was alright. The old man killing him really came out of nowhere, (but the 'Salut, asshole!' panel was funny tho).

9 How To Make a Ghost Town

I've hit a point where talking about these stories has gotten less fun. I liked this one but I felt like Achilles getting lynched was not really necessary for a story that was already tragic (a story that already involved Achilles doing a lot of suffering at the hand of bigots). When we first got the blurb for this story I thought it would be about Andy returning to the squad and making friends with Booker after losing Achilles and them butting heads on the idea of family and when to cut off ties. So a little bit of my underwhelmedness about this one might be just my expectations being different.

Honestly I was pretty interested in Andy and Achilles' relationship and I would've liked to see more of them-- like, what was their dynamic like? What did they love about each other?

But anyways Andy leaving and Achilles getting killed anyways feels so pointlessly tragic (which I suppose is the point..... I don't like tragedies) she left to save him and yet people killed him anyway. Meh.

I did love the bits about Andy wanting to have a domestic life (Andy and her multitudes again) and the little detail about how she buried her axe near the road but he buried his guns under his bed-- he was an escaped slave, he never had the luxury of assuredness like Andy did. It was a sad story.

10 Lacus Solitudinis

'You put this one above love letters crim??? how could you???' easy, lmao.

There was stuff in this one I liked. But to talk about stuff I didn't like: (I'll keep it brief, I know ragging on this story has been done time and time again)

UH, setting aside the 6 year cold shoulder between Joe and Nicky, I thought their chosen method of conflict resolution was... bad at best. Nicky's inability to talk about his feelings was also annoying, especially since the entire point of this story is a fight Joe and Nicky had, and yet we don't get both sides to the story, which is...... important? That fact is especially annoying bc in the absence of Nicky explaining his side of the story, it's absolutely a possible (and admittedly probably unintentional) interpretation of the text that we do get that Joe routinely resolves conflict between him and Nicky by simply cutting Nicky out of his life entirely until Nicky just. caves? Even if it takes years?

WHICH i could get into that interpretation and how fucked up i find it. but im not going to. out of restraint.

I don't know, I think there are a lot of interesting ways to go about this conflict but 'Nicky wants to kill a guy and Joe refuses to acknowledge his existence until he stops because he thinks Nicky is too much of a Good Boy to get his hands dirty like that' ('I wont watch as the world turns his (...) compassion into something ugly'. ) wasn't.. how I would've done it. (I mean you know Joe doesn't give a shit about what Nicky is doing in a moral way, because Joe doesn't even care or mention that Booker is killing those cops too. Joe only cares because he doesn't like the idea of Nicky changing in a way he finds undesirable.)

admittedly I've said before, I do like the emphasis Joe's reaction puts on Nicky's kindness. Joe has a complete inability to cope with Nicky simply Not Being Kind. It speaks to the steadiness of Nicky's compassion all those years. but still that fact doesn't make it the conflict feel worth it

hm. I said I would be brief and I wasn't.

oh well. basically I thought there was interesting conflict potential there but it wasn't done the way I would've liked, and the way it was done leaves a lot of disturbing (and again probably unintended) interpretations to lie.

What I did like? Andy and Joe having that pessimist/optimist dynamic. Joe nerding out about science. Andy not being impressed by The Achievements Of Man. I loved Booker needling at Nicky about his outdated slang and also trying to give him Older Brother advice practically in the same breath. I loved Booker giving The Worst relationship advice ever and Nicky being like 'I Will Not Do That, Ever, Thanks.' the family vibes were so good. The Joenicky vibes left a lot to be desired tho.

11 Love Letters

I talked about my problems with Nicky in this story (and Lacus Solitudinis). I don't know, the story isn't bad but I do hold a little bit of a grudge towards it because its very existence begs the existence of a solo Joe story and we didn't get one. If we never got this story, then we could happily count Lacus Solitudinis and Zanzibar as The Joenicky Stories™ and move on with our lives. sigh.

I remember when we first got the blurb for this story I was really curious about why Nicky specifically + the setting, and the answer kind of feels like 'the author had an idea for a story like this and saw ttt as a good enough place to utilize that idea'. Plus I was really underwhelmed by the Romantic Sentiment in the letter. If you look at it line-by-line, the majority of the letter is actually Nicky talking about how lonely and disturbed he is, rather than actual,, yknow,,, Romantic Sentiment. I mean, compare the van speech and this letter and this letter is just kind of meh in comparison. I liked nicky calling joe wise! and I liked the brief sun/moon metaphor! and otherwise it was eh. It didn't even have cute squad banter, which is why Lacus Solitudinis is above this one.

12 An Old Soul

Nun orgy. Nun orgy?????? Nun orgy.......

The whole story felt like a setup to have a nun orgy. Why did Booker have abs? Why did they do that to Andy's nose? ?????? the art was good at least.

nun orgy.

#tales through time spoilers #obviously #long post #seriously dont open that read more unless youre committed to scrolling past all these Words

[13eyond13]

Do you think Ohba was a coward for not making Light a truly likeable character? I mean, he could show us more scenes where Light saves someone. For example, she saves a girl from Sibumaru Taku and his gang, and that's a good thing? However, we only see him save someone only once (yes, he says he's saving society, but particular people's stories always help to humanize or dramatize sth, to make us feel more involved in character's deeds). So, his killings of innocents really outweigh his count of saved people simply bc we are shown how he kills the innocent. More to that, these are innocent we even get to know which only makes us sympathize them even more (Naomi Misora, f.e.).

It's as if Ohba doesn't want viewers to question morality of the story. He gives us two views on the problem (whether one can bring good by doing bad things) and tells us that we can pique a side, but he himself makes everything so we don't like Light. He makes him homophobic, sexist, rude to people of service sector (if i remember correctly, there was a panel where he tells a guy who works in a service sector that they all look alike?), and there's nothing to counter-balance to it.

Hi!

Hmm, I don't know if I think Ohba was trying to make Light particularly likable or unlikable, and maybe that's part of why he's such a strong character overall. Light feels very much like an individual personality with a fully fleshed-out life and in-depth worldview and psychology, all of which makes total sense when you consider everything you know about his home life and social status and about how he started using the Death Note and the specific age he was when he first picked it up. If Ohba had been consciously setting out to either make Light more or less sympathetic then I think it probably would've weakened his character somehow; in the behind the scenes book it sounds like Ohba was always letting Light's personality and ideals and good/unlazy writing dictate his actions and behaviour, rather than how appealing or unappealing he thought Light would be to the audience for what he does. I don't recall Light ever being outright homophobic in canon, but you're right in that he is pretty easy to dislike for how disdainfully he views and treats other people a lot of the time. In my opinion he's by far the most complex and hard to pin down character in the manga series though, because there are many layers to his motivations and actions and psychology and behaviour in comparison to most of the characters orbiting around him in the plot. I think there's also a bit more of a gradual transformation of Light's character and the inhumane actions he is willing to stoop to in order to achieve his goals and avoid capture than some people claim. It's subtle stuff at times, but he is depicted struggling with things inwardly and trying to justify stuff and seeing a lot of the nuance in the hard choices he's making beyond just coldly murdering people to achieve his goals and save his own skin. Other examples I can think of in the manga are saving Sayu when she gets kidnapped, and how differently he behaves when he loses his Kira memories and seemingly reverts back to the principled type of person he'd believed himself to be prior to becoming a murderer with a magical killing notebook. It's a shame the other adaptations and spinoffs of DN haven't ever really been able to completely do justice to this aspect of his character, because that's a huge part of what makes the manga story such an interesting and enduring classic to me.

So whether or not Ohba set out to make Light likable, I'd say just as many people love Light as a character as despise him. And I think that's because he does have more depth to him and his writing than simply being a generic edgy asshole with zero redeeming qualities, or zero vulnerabilities, or no moral code by which he abides.

#light yagami #ask #anon #meta #p

[nightwings-bussy]

guess who's still on their bullshit? it's me. it's always me. i'm going to talk about why dickkorybabs is a fantastic ship and you should ship it, let's just go character by character

dick. dickie boy. sweet richard john grayson. you're so queer and they just don't know what to do with you, do they. you're so queer that your serial monogamy in every comic since the 90's literally comes off not as "playboy" behavior but as honest to god suspicious, like the writers understand that if they leave you single for so much as a panel or two, it'll become way too obvious how gay you are. but no matter who they shack you up with, who your gf of the week is (and im sure they're lovely but let's be real... they're a placeholder) none of them compare to your Two Great Character Defining Loves. but also no one can fuckin agree on which of those Loves is supposed to be your one and only and as such neither can you - not because you don't love them both profoundly, but because you DO, often at the same time. that's poly as fuck baby. that's just fine.

because barbara and kori are both spectacular, but they each speak to something very different in dick: babs speaks to dick's foundation, to long held, precious bonds, to his loyalty to the family, to his place as the Prodigal Son, detective, prom king, goofball. babs is designed as dick's perfect counterbalance, the first girl he ever crushed on, the one who's known him almost a little too well for a little too long.

kory, on the other hand, speaks to dick's growth, his ascension as a leader, his independence, the formation of a new, strong identity that's all his own. kory has been a part of so many conversations for dick about who he's trying to become. babs and dick carry a lot of the same baggage - they've endured many of the same unkindnesses, survived under the same man's immense expectations and pressure, and that gives them a lot of common ground. in contrast, kory's never lived under batman's thumb, and dick has to fight off a lot of his more bruce-like impulses around her; kory helps dick embrace the emotional core of himself that bruce never could. she celebrates his openness, his softness, his emotional and physical neediness in a way he always thought he had to keep hidden. kory and babs have different access points to dick's heart, his vulnerability. and at his best, dick is an amazing partner to them both: dedicated and charming, deeply affectionate, funny and excited about them, trusting, respectful, in awe of them, confident in them, protective but not overbearing, a strong advocate and partner who's deeply and tirelessly interested in them.

but dick has a dark side that all his friends and lovers eventually see, and it manifests strongly with both of them. with babs, dick's biggest struggle seems to be his ability to trust her with his whole self, to be kind and fair to her in his darker moments, and (debatably) to be loyal when the chips are down. with kory, it's a constant struggle with his baggage; his difficulty expressing himself or be emotionally vulnerable after a childhood spent with a guy who rarely does either, his difficulty trusting anyone as much as he trusts his family, his conflicting cultural values around relationships and violence. without growth on his part, all of these issues represent a big hurdle to any real attempt at long-term relationships with either of them.

but triangles are the most stable shape for a reason.

let's cover this quickly, because i truly feel this is the easiest part to wrap your head around: there is absolutely no way, in the hands of a writer who knows anything, that kory and babs are not attracted to each other. it's simply impossible. babs is 100% kory's type (proud, stubborn, brilliant, competent, red head, warrior), and meanwhile babs is a lesbian with a singular exception. name me one lesbian who wouldn't be all over starfire given the opportunity. you can't. we don't exist.

also, on a personality level, kory and babs are just SO complimentary - kory's smart and strong and resourceful, and so is babs. babs is snarky and brave and domineering, and so is kory. babs has known the bitter pain of loneliness and isolation from ones family by a situation largely beyond your control. so has kory. kory has known the struggle of creating a new family and trying over and over to explain yourself to people who may not understand or accept you. so has babs. you could circle again and again why they're so good for each other, but you could also sum it up with the fact that they both deeply love the same man, and they could easily love one another just as deeply.

and then you start to realize how many problems it solves. queer dick? he's here baby. kory opens him right up - issues with being vulnerable? dealt with. issues trusting babs with his true self? kory says honesty only in this household. issues with loyalty? welcome to normalized polyamory, says our tamaranean princess. is he being a cunt to babs when he gets grumpy? now she has an advocate, bc kory never lets dick get away with that shit.

and with kory it's the exact same. dick struggles to be emotionally available bc of his weirdo dad? yeah, that's okay - babs speaks dick-ese. dick can't trust anyone the way he trusts family? babs is here to back kory up and make sure dick understands she IS family. dick has issues working through his conflicting cultural values with kory? well babs is a damn professional at overseeing Dialogues(TM), let her at him.

and on top of all that it's FUCKING CUTE. lose the jealousy subplots and the cheating subplots and just let kory and babs fall in love already - give dick the femdom supremacy lifestyle he so desperately craves. like it's just amazing how rarely i see this pairing when it's this gd good like WHERE are my dickkorybabs fic recs. where are they

#dickkory #dickbabs #dickkorybabs #meta

[chiwhorei]

Hey I would like to propose something rather dirty with Sakusa (sakusa and dirty in the same sentence: O) that he's having sex while his girlfriend is on her period! Thanks, good luck!

Paring: K. Sakusa x period-having!reader (i’m going to use gender neutral pronouns bc not just girls have menstrual cycles)

Warnings: 18+, all characters are aged up, smut, period sex, fingering, shower sex, mentions of menstrual blood, brief mention of alcohol

A/n: this ask has been sitting in my drafts for weeks and i’m so sorry, i literally wrote is all out and then it just sat there (?) Sakusa has a very special place in my heart as i deal with ocd and anxiety disorders, so i think it’s important to remember that people are dynamic and ever-changing, and just because they have a certain anxiety doesn’t mean they aren’t able to function in a romantic relationship.

also, @joyousandverywarlike just wrote an *insane* Sakusa fic. it’s not about period sex but zo literally said “I bet you never thought I would be dirtier than you” and i about fell down the fucking stairs, so if you want some amazing Sakusa smut go read Filthy.😩

Okay enough with the proselytizing, let’s get nasty.

period sex is amazing, and honestly i think everyone should be doing it, even Sakusa.

he’s a very clean person, but i don’t think he would actually have a problem with this. he’s around bodily fluids all the time and gets all sweaty and gross while he’s playing.

(also i’m p sure there’s a panel where he literally stretches his hands on the fucking dirty floor so my dude will be fine)

he is an anxious person so feeling comfortable with your body takes time, and you have always been patient with him, which he appreciates more than he actually expresses.

he loves you so much, it kills him that sometimes his anxieties keep him from being super affectionate with you, but he tries to show you he cares in the best ways he knows how

i headcannon him as having an “acts of service” love language so on cold mornings he goes out and starts your car for you before leaving for practice, or he throws your towel in the dryer as your showering and brings it to you all nice and warm (i am so soft for him okay he’s my comfort character the nasty is coming)

sex was slow-starting in your relationship, taking months to have him feel confident enough to let go completely with you, so the idea of him actually wanting to have sex with you on your period never seemed plausible

but tonight, your cramps are intense. like twisting-knife-in-your-ovaries bad, and your ever observant boyfriend can tell how much pain you’re in

he’s not great with bedside manner, but he’s trying okay. without a word he puts his shoes and mask on and fucking leaves the apartment 💀

but he’s just going to the store to buy you chocolate and some red wine because he read that it could help, and at least the wine will make you feel better in some way

in the most unromantic way he literally just waltzes back into the apartment and shoves a chocolate bar into your hands, and goes to the kitchen to pour you a glass of wine

he’s so soft in his own way 😭

you happily accept both offerings and he pulls you into his side on the couch, physical touch was panic-inducing to him at first but over the years he’s realized he yearns for skinship with you

he puts his big hand (😩) on your abdomen and rubs circles into your skin, trying to ease your pain in anyway.

as he’s rubbing though, you’re cheeks are burning hot because your body is so sensitive and reactive on your period, a moan accidentally slips out and your whole body tenses

you immediately start to worry that Kiyoomi is going to grimace and be disgusted by you, his head snaps towards you but there’s no disgust written on his face.

his eyes read surprised, yes, but his pupils are blown and he pulls his bottom lip between his teeth... he’s turned on and you are more than a bit shocked

“I read online that orgasms can help with period cramps.” Your boyfriend blurts out, as blunt as ever, and your mouth hangs. Is he serious?

you’re obviously treading lightly based on his hang ups when it comes this kind of stuff, and the knowledge that he has a way to possibly make you feel better but you not wanting to ask makes his heart ache a little

he puts his forehead against yours for a moment, taking in the smell of your shampoo before pulling you gently to straddle his lap

even the minimal friction makes you groan, causing blood to rush straight to Kiyoomi’s cock

“do you want to go take a shower with me, angel? the hot water might help you relax.” he says, pressing a sweet kiss to your lips

you agree and let your boyfriend lead you to the bathroom, he starts the shower and makes sure it’s nice and scalding hot (there’s no way Sakusa doesn’t shower in a lake of hellfire)

he pulls you into the stream and trails his soapy hands all over your body, pressing into your shoulders to relieve the tension built up

kiyoomi presses your back to his hard, muscular front, hands wandering down to your chest, you arch into him as he squeezes your acutely sensitive nipples

his ministrations are relaxing your body but every touch is becoming less and less innocent, so by the time his fingers wander down to your clit you’re already whimpering

“i want to help you feel better angel,” he says, trailing his lips over your neck, his dark ringlets tickling your shoulder, “you know i don’t mind getting a little dirty if it’s for you.”

just as the words leave his mouth, two long fingers dip into your pussy, ripping a groan from your throat.

Sakusa feels your tight warmth in a new way, you’re clenching around his digits immediately and there’s a soft, syrupy quality to your pussy that’s different than usual. the feeling of you wrapped around his fingers alone is driving him insane

he positions his thumb against your clit to rub tight circles, kissing and biting down on your neck when your head rolls to the side

all of the pleasure Koyoomi is giving you is magnified, feeing each movement of his hands electricly through your veins

“do you want to cum on my fingers y/n?”he’s spurring you on, making you clench desperately around him. your hand finds purchase in the hair at the back of his head tugging as the tension in your stomach snaps

your only upright because of your boyfriends strong arms wrapped around you, fingers still inside and marveling at the way you pulse around him.

he’s obviously doing this to ease your cramps and help you relax, but his cock is aching at the feeling of your pussy and needs to get inside of you desperately

Sakusa grabs your hips and turns you around, pinning you against the wall with ferocious resolve

he’s more wild animal at this point than man, hungry for something now that’s he’s gotten a little taste

he hoists you up slightly so that he can line himself up with your cunt, he pushes in slowly, not wanting to cause you any pain

as he delves in inch by inch, the feeling of your slick, relaxed walls welcoming him in and the breathy calls for his name are intoxicating

he rocks into you, noticing how each thrust has you twitching, begging him not to stop

“feels so good oomi. fuck” you run your nails across his slick back, the hot, rushing water combined with your sex is fogging every surface of the bathroom

“cum for me one more time, angel. let me see how good i make you feel.” he snaps back into you, angling your ass to make sure he’s pumping right against your sweet spot. he wants to feel you come around his dick like this, but he also wants you to know he can push past his anxieties and take care of you

especially if taking care of you feels this fucking good

when he feels your warm, drooling cunt pulse around him he can’t hold back anymore, spilling inside you with a round of breathy grunts and moans of your name

you stay like that for a moment, presses against the shower wall tightly wrapped i. each other.

he helps you clean off, taking his time to rub every inch of your body, your cramps melt off in the hot water and circle down the drain

after you two are nice and clean, Kiyoomi wraps you in the towel he had thrown into the dryer before your shower. 🥴

i’ll pray for all of you’re nasty Sakusa thoughts,

amen🙏🏽😇

Sinners Anonymous

#sinners anonymous #saint dymphna speaks #sakusa kiyoomi x reader #sakusa x reader #sakusa kiyoomi

[nuoc7mia]

hi so I actually made this post months ago when I was fist reading Tokyo revengers (thank you Mandy), but I just finished this post today :3 most of this post isn’t rlly insightful--I'm either just screaming or rehashing takes that most people here have already made

warnings ofc for major manga spoilers although I also haven’t caught up on the last five-ten chapters:

look ik current!mikey could easily kill me, but he’s so cute:

rlly makes you wonder what happened when you look back after reading more recent chapters ahaha :’D but anyways, give him his flag!!! 

(again I wrote this in June--I contradict myself later in this word dump LOL)

this moment was just so funny to me I'm sorry LMAO (’love & peace’)

hngjksnfgs I love this panel so much :((( sometimes with all of the action going on and how they act or are drawn, I forget that they’re just middle schoolers trying to navigate through life. and here’s mikey who has the weight of the entire gang--literal lives--on his shoulders, and is constantly depended on by the members as this ray of shining light. people literally are filled with relief when they see him during fights bc THE mikey is here to take over and he HAS to win the match, right? which is kind of interesting now that I think about it, because there’s also takemichi, who’s mentally 27 and still struggling to carry the weight of his loved ones’ lives on his shoulders. if a 27-year-old can’t be responsible for the lives of others--if I, a 19-year-old, can’t cope with the weight of my own--then how could we expect mikey to be strong with everything that happened around him added onto the weight of the gang? looking back now, I think what happened to mikey in the future makes sense, as odd/cheesy/out-of-the-blue as it originally seemed in my head.

nothing new but I fucking hate kisaki overall and I'm so glad he never got a redemption arc because there was nothing about him that could be saved

(this was an extremely harsh take but again I'm never forgetting what he did to everyone just bc he was pining over a girl from elementary school)

this panel ALSO messed me up, esp after reading some more recent chapters :( I think takemichi said once that he liked talking to mikey the most because he always feels at peace with him and described his eyes to be this calm sea (which almost reminds me of giyuu and his 11th form: dead calm) (I also might be remembering wrong bc I can’t find the chapter I saw it on). but it feels so double-sided if that makes sense? like with that peace comes a never-ending emptiness because he’s constantly consumed by whatever darkness he has in him (sorry for another kny comparison but it feels similar to muichirou before his whole arc), and so he looks so detached and empty. it’s actually kind of jarring at times when the panel zooms into his eyes because you really feel like you’re going to drown in them, but the way it’s cross-hatched is unsettling--like it’s more chaotic and fuzzy inside his mind. + if you compare the dullness in his eyes with the clarity of the other characters, especially takemichi, it’s as if he knows that there’s no future for him, or at least no future with the others. I ended up crying when he was grabbing onto takemichi and asking to be saved, because that’s the first time that we see any sort of light/reflection in his eyes (of hope, honestly), as well as the first time that he reaches out to have someone shoulder his own burdens + truly be vulnerable + depend on someone else rather than letting others depend on him. 

(this rant is the result of me hate-reading the comments after every chapter on *******):

sometimes idk what some ppl want from takemichi LOL. actually, no, I do know exactly what they want: a strong mc who they can experience the story through and who solves the problem with the physical manifestation of their strength (the typical shounen protag). but that’s not the point of tokyo revengers imo, and if you’re expecting that, I think you’re missing the whole story ????? like the power comes from the fact that he’s an average person who continues to fight despite the knowledge that he has, the weaknesses that he’s constantly forced to reckon with, and the general helplessness + hopelessness that he feels. he just wants to protect the ppl who he cares for, and that desire trumps physical power or charisma. THAT’S what makes him strong and that’s ultimately what changes the course of things in the story (because we already have powers like mikey who still fall into darkness despite his physical strength). obviously it wouldn’t hurt to make takemichi more assertive in different ways and not see him get absolutely pummeled LOL, but that’s also how wakui chose to enforce his themes

also I'd like to make some more literal points: 

1. the manga itself is really long, but when you think about the time frame, there’s not actually much time for takemichi to achieve everything he wants and grow stronger, esp with all of the plot twists that are thrown at him. 

2. his main goal was never to physically grow stronger, but just to prevent hina’s death (and later Mikey’s). it was always to talk someone out of doing something or preventing a major event from occurring, which doesn’t ACTUALLY need power to be achieved

(ofc he rarely, if ever, achieves to make it happen, but the effort counts n is there)

3. the dude is constantly carrying the weight of his friends’ deaths on his shoulders SDHFSLD LEAVE HIM ALONE ;; i’d just shut down if I were in his shoes and try to forget that toman was ever a thing

4. mentally speaking, the guy’s 27 LMAO the last time he really fought was back in middle school, which means he has absolutely little to none of those skills left

once again, I have nothing insightful to offer; I simply like the way this panel was drawn

spouting nonsense out of my butt with this one: ngl it took me a while to get used to this art style? like I thought it was UGLY LMAOOO. but when I did, I really came to appreciate how the mangaka colors things in and uses lines to create movement on each page. for instance, here, you can FEEL the energy of toman not just from the speech and the action, but with the lines that wakui chooses to leave uncolored on the members’ uniforms and hair + how the trees are shaded (which is vertical and for me personally it adds a lot more pressure/force, like they’re bursting with energy). everyone and everything feels so alive !!! but at the same time, their art is so clean... SO FREAKING CLEAN. I just love it o<--<

stop it....... STOP IT......... if I don’t get my 100% happy ending I will bawl. (yes I'm aware that this will probably/definitely not happy and yes I have tissues ready for the final arc)

also timeskip!kazutora, inupi, and chifuyu all in one place........ goodbye!

on a side note: I think I'm just gonna be a manga only at this rate bc I tried watching the first episode and got impatient waiting for all of the big action skjdfskjdh but maybe it was bc I wasn’t in the best mood / head-space at the time LOL 

(I've let this sit in my head a bit longer and yeah, manga only <3)

I needed to end this photo dump with this exact panel because I had to put my phone down and mentally take a walk after seeing inupi in heels. 

honorable mention goes to ponytail!baji and toman founder!baji bc they’re both engrained in my mind forever. likewise with high school!chifuyu ;; he looks like he jumped out of a shoujo manga or some kind of slice-of-life

#moon babbles #moon reads tokyo revengers #tokyo revengers spoilers #if you actually managed to read that all then I'll love you till the end of time (to kingdom come as red velvet beautifully sings) #I swear I'll catch up soon ;; I'm just burnt out after cramming ti all in and distracted with the other series that I wanna start/catch up o #rlly freaking pysched tho esp after seeing the reactions in the Tokyo rev discord LOL #I probably should let this sit for a bit longer before posting #but I don't want this sitting in my drafts for any longer and my head is swimming from this messy format

[cherrymagik]

on the commission

I was going to talk about it in an older post but then i realized there was just too much I wanted to talk about so here’s my thoughts

Again, SPOILERS + DISCLAIMER, CW for blood/gore and death mentions

I know the tv show is an adaptation of the comics and it should not be a word for word copy of the original comics, but basically changing the WHOLE world is something that is kinda hard to overlook. And one of the main things that was changed in the show was the commission (which is actually called the TEMPS AETRRNALIS in the comic but I am just nitpicking here idrc). As I talked about in another post, the umbrella academy show has a tendency to remove all fantastical or otherworldly aspects from the comics and replaces them with more average stuff. They decided to keep the commission tho (since it would have definitely been too hard to replace) but in doing so they transformed it into something completely different

The Handler: she is a tv show exclusive character. Never appears in the comics and no, she did not recruit Five (he was captured while he was time traveling and also for the record Five had some good times in the apocalypse) I also want to take time to point out the antisemitic traits in her character and how harmful this is (especially since she had ZERO business existing in the first place but whatever 🙄) and i am going to be VERY petty here but UGH EVERYTIME I HEARD HER SPEAK SPANISH I WAS LIKE 🤬🤬🤬 THATS NOT EVEN A REAL SAYING YOU FUKCING IDIOT JUST STOP IT!!! I SWEAR IF I HAVE TO HEAR YOUR TERRIBLE SPANISH AGAIN I WILL [REDACTED]

Carmichael/AJ: Yeah he’s the goldfish guy... im gonna be honest I did NOT like him in the show he felt too out of place and his including was too forced. In the comics you don’t really question it (there are weirder stuff than a talking goldfishh) but tuatv world is so blerg seeing Carmichael there is off putting. He doesn’t belong there and frankly his cameos was more of a "pleasing the comic fans" strategy imo (same way with the Hargreeves being an alien revelation it was more a "look!!! We read the comics too!!! We know he was an alien!!!" but at this point it felt too out of place and forced and made no sense in the plot). Also also:

See one of the main themes in tua is personal identity/humanity and it’s somethings all of the siblings struggle with throughout all three volumes, but Five's specifically is lineked directly with the commission -> they performed a surgery where they inserted the dna of the most notorious killers into him. This page in particular illustrates my point perfectly "you cut out my humanitywith a scalpel" is such a raw line and by reducing the commission to just "the bad guys" in the show takes away so much depth from Five's character. *i would like to point out the commission had nothing to do with apocalypse suite they only wanted to retrieve a rouge agent and save the world (even tho they had to kill JFK to do so). Five is an assassin, the line between human and animal is blurry (*insert parallels o Diego and Luther here*) and he’s been living for some 50+ years COMPLETELY ALONE... like that would make anyone go at least a little bit crazy. (and the whole "im sorry i gave you such a hard time as a kid" speech is BULLSHIT AND COMPLETELY OOC Five has been a little bitch his whole life

*click images to view*

DON'T try to tell me THIS MAN would ever apologize to Hargreeves, especially because he had no reason to apologize)

Hazel and Cha Cha: ok this ones are a little bit sensite and more complicated because I get why they would tone down their characters; they can be disturbing and that wouldn’t sit well with most viewers, BUT at the same time why change them completely? I loved them in the comics, they were, in their own crazy way, funny (read Hazel and Cha Cha dave Christmas and you’ll get what I mean)

Exhibit a we see Cha Cha absolutely down with becoming a scout girl just so he can get cookies:

Exhibit b: they were just these crazy assassins, absolute chaos, probably shared a single brain cell. They seriously thought the best way to kill Five was to end the world? Come on they are absolutely nuts

But the show didn’t even make them at least a little bit crazy... they didn’t even have them wear the masks :( why? And Hazel’s plot w/ agnes? Idk seemed a bit weird to me bc they try to show you he’s "good"? but at the same time he has no real problem killing/torturing other people??? To me including them in s1 was just bad writing, the writers tried to cram too much of the comics into s1 and then were left with very little to work with in s2

I like the fact that we do get to see more of the commission in the tv show compared to the comics, but just like with most aspects of the world it’s watered down, it’s too normal ig

Look at these panels from the Hazel and Cha Cha spin-off:

Look at the agents in panel 2! I mean, there’s a skull! Is that a robot?! What’s tat thing in the mask in the background?

Now look at this panel from Dallas:

They’re fighting robots! Look at how much more interesting the design for the agents are!!! There’s no uniforms, they’re (most likely) not all humanIt’s so much more interesting and weird! And in such a normal world they have in the comics the commission doesn’t sit well, and it feels so boring after reading the comics. In Number Five's own words:

this is what the commission is supposed to be, but in the tv show they’re just this bland agency that’s only there to create conflict and keep the plot going

#ua comics #dallas #the umbrella academy #number five #the commission

[fizzypunks]

its a date but its not a date

fandom: My Hero Academia/ Boku No Hero Academia word count: 3.8k/oneshot rating: t summary: hizashi takes shouta to a little festival and insists its not a date... just pure fluff bc <3

ship: Aizawa Shouta/ Hizashi Yamada | Erasermic

note: this reads better in AO3 because it keeps formatting for italics, which tumblr does not!

AO3

___

Yamada Hizashi wasn’t a timid person – it wasn’t even a quirk thing, it was just his nature, and it was something he was proud of. Sure, he’d been called loud and obnoxious, and some have been less than kind about his quirk when it’s gotten out of control. His quirk control wasn’t great for a very long time, but none of what he’d been called or heard had really changed the way he carries himself, and that  includes  his extroverted nature.

 He was, however, a panicked person, when it came to matters of  interest .

 Love. 

  Whatever .

 And, because love was the one thing that made him think twice about what he says, what he does or doesn’t do, that has landed him in the exact predicament that he’s facing right now.

 Hizashi tapped his pen against his essay, the half filled pages of his stationary blurring together into a mass of lines and half-assed penmanship. He’d been staring at it for the past five minutes, when he’d given up on trying to ignore his annoying problem.

  Shouta .

 It’s been getting harder to ignore the stupid pull of something he’s recently identified as  yearning  that comes every time he thinks of his best friend. Stronger than any hurricane gale, it pulls in every thought he has until there are no more to be had. Just Shouta, and his messy hair, and the eyes he thinks are pretty despite always being so blood-shot.

 Hizashi groans, faintly feeling heat spill across his cheeks. “God, why must I be so fucked?”

It’s not like he’s even asking him out on a  date  – no, he’s not bold enough to do that in their last year  and semester of school– there’s no need for distractions like that right now, whatever outcome may or may not come from it…. no, he’s just asking to take Shouta to the Autumn festival at the park, because Shouta should do something fun and get out of his room and not explode from stress.

 The poor guy has been spending all his time studying and stressing and sleeping even  less , so of course Hizashi would want to help his friend out and get him to relax.

 Yeah, that’s what it was – one friend asking another friend out because stress is bad.

 That doesn’t change the nervous skip in his heart right now, as he sits at his desk and thinks about…

 Hizashi groans again, tipping back in his chair and hooking his foot against the back of his desk so that he’s less likely to tumble. Theoretically, at least.

 Why does it feel so  significant  right now? He’d asked Shouta to do countless things with him! He’d gotten him to agree to go to the movies a bunch of times, and to a party or two, and, most recently, he’d even been able to rope him into going to a karaoke club! He didn’t sing, they left earlier than he’d planned, but Shouta had fun!

 Hizashi narrowed his eyes at the white ceiling and the ceiling fan that whirled past his vision, playing with the very edge of the wooden panel that kept him from tumbling onto his carpet.

 This wasn’t supposed to mean anything, but somehow it did.

 It felt like a declaration, no matter how he phrased it in his head, and he doesn’t understand the logic behind it.

  Fine. Whatever! I’ll just ask, and be blunt, and do it right before I leave so there’s no room for thinking, and it’ll be okay! 

 Something like,  “Hey, Shouta, let’s go to this festival! It’ll be so much fun! PLUS, I think you’ll look cute sharing cocoa with me!”

 Hizashi’s eyes widened, his foot slipped in that one moment of lost focus, and he fell –

 “ Fuck!”

 It was a little too loud, bordering on quirk use, but he had other problems to think about beside  that .

 He rubbed the back of his head.

 “Man…”

 If he can’t even imagine it the right way… how was he supposed to  actually  ask? It would be pretty stupid to try when he knew he could act a little too carelessly and, potentially, damage the good friendship they had going on.It was probably better left un-asked.

 Unsaid, un-asked, and out of mind.

 ~

 It was most certainly not out of mind, that is clear.

 Shouta is sitting across from him, half-mast eyes scanning the copy of his English text book in a way that looked a lot more performative than informative. Their booth was tucked more toward the back of the cafe, and it would normally be a bit more secluded and quiet, but midterms brought students from the woodwork and into any coffee-scented establishment, which their happened to be.

  What great luck.

 All around them was the sound of machines grinding coffee, books being shifted around, and light conversation in between bouts of half-silences – and a heavy vale of constant movement that proved to be less than ideal for studying, despite all the students trying to do  just that .

 It was to be expected this time of year, but it was still enough to bother Shouta. He concentrated better with silence, and he happened to be struggling a lot more on English than he does on his other subjects.

 Hizashi, thankfully, understood the material enough for the both of them and then some, and already finished his homework – the papers in front of him were notes, ready to be explained the moment Shouta needed it, with hand-writing that was still pretty bad but…

 For Shouta, he’d made an effort. The result was somewhat-legible scribbles lining the papers, and when he referenced it, Shouta didn’t have to ask too many questions about,  “what is this right here?”

 “I’m not going to pass.”

 Hizashi turned his eyes to Shouta, like he hadn’t been trying to find a reason to look at him longer. He was wearing a big, thick red scarf, which his hair was somewhat tucked into. He didn’t look up, he just kept his eyes on his text book. His irises weren’t moving on the page.

 “Oh man, don’t say that! How’d you think you’re gonna pass if you don’t believe in yourself?”

 “It’s because I don’t believe in myself.”

 Hizashi grabbed his warm cocoa and took a sip, if only to busy his hands with  something . “Shouta! I don’t like this type of negativity!”

 “Well, you’ve chosen the wrong friendship then.”

 “Or, maybe, the  right one!”

 Shouta looked up, and Hizashi held his gaze. His eyes had been given a break over the past few days of written work, so the redness that often lined them was almost completely gone.

 His skin looked soft too…

 His hair, it was fluffy and cute, also..

 “Hizashi?”

 He’d been staring and not talking and he leaned back into his seat like a magnet to metal. He started laughing, holding his drink up to his face. “Well, maybe I can cheer you up! What are friends for, right? And maybe it will turn that attitude around, ya think?”

 “You’re not making any sense?”

 Hizashi hated that it was true but there’s no going back now – his mouth was ten steps ahead of him anyway, and not even  he  could stop it.

 He smiled widely at Shouta. “I mean, maybe I’m here to make sure you don’t stress yourself out so much! You always do so much but never  check  yourself, and I’m here to fix that!”

 Shouta huffed, head bobbing just a bit. Then he smirked and Hizashi had to concentrate on his breathing. “And how do you propose you’d do that?”

 Oh, it was so easy – this was the opportunity the  gods  gave him after seeing him fall on his ass just a few days before.

 Hizashi leaned forward, and set his elbows down on his notes, a hot cocoa between them. “One word.  Festival .”

 Shouta’s eyebrows quirked down just a bit, and he tilted his head to the side, his hair tilting with him. “Festival?”

 “What do ya say? The park next to my neighborhood has one this weekend, and it’s free, and there’s food, and I really wanna go!”

 Hizashi grew pink at the admission, fought against the urge to cover his mouth, but Shouta didn’t comment. 

 Then, a little surprisingly, instead of arguing or finding reasons why it wasn’t logical to take time away from studies so close to exams, he gave him a smile.

 A small, intentional,  Shouta  smile. “Sure.”

 Hizashi tried to not sound over-enthused – just nodded his head and almost squeezed his cup too hard. “Yes! I finally got you to agree to do something!”

 “You always get me to do things.”

 “Yes, and I did it again!”

 Shouta rolled his eyes, and turned his attention back down to the English he’d never really understand.

 ~

 Hizashi was certain he looked fine. He wasn’t sure if it was  great  , but it was probably fine, and  whatever.

 Beside, had many other things to worry about, that were a lot more important than whether or not his shirt matched his shoes. Like, for one, how he still couldn’t quite shake the feeling of  significance .

 It was back, that nagging intrusion into his thoughts that insisted that something was supposed to be different this time. As he looked over his outfit in his body mirror, pulling over his heavy, long jacket, he had to remind himself that there was nothing different about today. Even if he really, in his heart,  wanted  there to be something different. 

 Huh.

 So maybe the difference was the  amount of yearning – Hizashi sighed, thinking about his feelings last year and comparing them to now. 

 He huffed, a huge sigh finally making itself known.

 Yeah, the feelings he had now were bigger and grander than they’d been last year and they threatened to take over his life if he let them…

 Hizashi sighed, rubbed his hands over his face, and pushed his hair back only to reveal his pink, flustered expression to its fullest.

 “Sweet lord, have mercy on me! I am an idiot with a crush!”

 He collapsed onto his bed and waited out the last of the thirty minutes before Shouta was going to arrive at his door.

 ~

 Shouta knocked, and Hizashi was already ready – his heart doing flips like he’d never experienced, but oddly enough, it didn’t feel bad. It felt exciting, and loving, and when he opened the door to the crisp autumn air, it felt like  home .

  Stop that!

 Shouta, for all his questionable outfits, looked  nice . And he always looked nice, but now he was wearing black boots, and brown khakis that somehow sort of matched Hizashi’s own, and a black tee underneath a black jacket.

 He never went anywhere in the cold without a scarf, either, and today was no exception. A red variety  was ceremoniously draped around his neck, loose enough to not be covering his face.

 Hizashi tried not to beam, but felt the shape his eyes took at the other and knew it wasn’t working. “Ready?!” He asked, a little too loud.

 “Yes… you said it was close, right? At the park?”

 Hizashi nodded, stepping out and slipping his hand into a pocket to make sure he had his keys and wallet. Confirming quickly, he shut the door behind him, again, with a little too much enthusiasm.

 He was  buzzing . Some type of energy that he normally had built up in him, that he normally kept pretty good reins on, was taking over –

 He was so excited, but, even more – he was just  happy .

 He looked to Shouta, and smiled, and then led the way down his steps and onto the quiet street. The sky was clear, save for some cloud further down on the horizon. The trees were starting to make themselves barren, and the smell of wood burning fires started to break out as soon as the sun hit its peak.

 The neighborhood, secluded and at peace, was quiet, and Shouta walked beside him in comfort.

 Hizashi never struggled to say anything, and now is no different – except it is, when he thinks he’ll say something dumb like  “hey i like you so much, you make my world right, also I love you. ”

 He can’t say that. 

 But he really,  really wants to.

 He’s wanted to for years, and he’s almost said it more than once, and now he’s let the silence build around them…

 Shouta often takes mercy on him, and so he did it again this time. Their pace was slow and there was a little bit of space between them, and he sighs. “This is really nice.”

 Hizashi smiles, keeps his eyes on the road as it winds forward. “I’m glad you think so! We’ve stressed so much, it’s a good weekend getaway, don’t you think?”

 Shouta laughs – it’s more of a chuckle, but it’s a laugh where Shouta is concerned. “Yeah, you’re right. I needed this, a lot, I think…”

 They reach the corner, looking for cars that weren’t coming. The crest of trees a few blocks ahead could be seen above rooftops, and that’s where Hizashi fixes his gaze. “Me too,” he says softly, and leaves it at that because he’s always on the verge of  too  many words.

 “You seem really… energized.”

 Hizashi fumbles with his hands, pretending to warm them up and not like he’s nervous. “When am I not!”

 Shouta hums, and it’s so deep and close that it makes Hizashi wish he could just…

 But then Shouta reaches out, and grabs at the hands Hizashi is cradling in front of him, blunt and to the point. He takes Hizashi’s left hand and slots their fingers together in his right, and Hizashi knows he can feel the clamminess…

 He looks back, sputtering, his heart erratic, “Shou – wha– I’m –”

  Does he know this is messing with me?

 And Shouta, in that calm, stupid way he always carries himself, smiles. “Maybe that’s what I’m here for.”

 He squeezes their hands, and Hizashi must look confused because Shouta laughs.

 “You always try to bring me up, so I think I can help bring you calm… You seem nervous, so,” he looked at their hands, swung them just a bit for emphasis. “Calm.”

 Hizashi feels every bit of himself crumble, falls away like a cliff against a storm, and smiles because it’s all he can do. He blushes and he can feel how it spreads, and he doesn’t say anything because every sentence ends in  I love you .

 ~

 The festival was a pleasant and home-y affair, and after they’d gotten there, they’d learned that it was quite bigger than either of them anticipated. Though it was still a neighborhood one, hosted by the local families and park itself, it was still filled to every corner.

 They’d gotten there during the peak of the sun, but it quickly descended as they wove in and out of the scattered foot traffic. The air was crisper where the lake sat in the center of the park, and the trees casted half shadows around the food and merchant vendors.

 They were walking around for less than an hour before the lanterns and torches were starting to light around them.

 Shouta still held Hizashi’s hand, and once he’d accepted the lovely fact, he’d loosened up enough to feel like his mouth wasn’t going to get him into trouble.

 “Wow! Shou! Look!” He pointed out, across the deep blue lake, to the hovering lights that surrounded it. 

 Shouta hummed warmly. “It looks very nice.”

 Hizashi was still smiling, still enamored by the lights as they floated out across his vision – the way the cool air from the dipping sun brushed against his skin and somehow made all the warmth in him  that  much warmer.

 He quickly cast his eyes down to Shouta, and found him looking at him.

 Hizashi’s ears burned and he looked away really fast, heart thumping deep in the cage of his chest.

  Oh don’t you dare say it. Don’t you DARE.

 “Um…” He said softly, intentionally because otherwise his quirk might get the best of him – he didn’t know if he was embarrassed by his enthusiasm, or by the way Shouta was watching him, but it all went away when Shouta tugged them along the side of the lake.

 It’s a few more moments before Hizashi gathers up the right words to say – the ones that aren’t gushy and filled with emotions he’s certain Shouta wouldn’t reflect. 

 “So!” He starts, looking around now that they were near the cluster of food stands. The air was filled with burning wood, meat, sauce, alive with the sound of simmering and laughter. “Want food? My treat! We can’t walk away without trying everything at  least once!”

 “I didn’t know you were rich enough to do that.”

 Hizashi chuckled. “I’m serious, though. Whatever you want!”

 Hizashi ignored the eyes tilted his way, right before leading off to Hizashi’s right. Hizashi turns around enough to look at the little stand and it’s cloth menu.

 It was a takoyaki shop, with different bao, and there was no line. 

 Hizashi smiled, and it was his turn to tug Shouta forward. He couldn’t really  look  at him, not just yet any way, but he could hear the light lilt in his voice when he ordered from the kind eyed older man at the register. Hizashi made his order quickly, and paid, and they walked away with various stacks of food.

 It wasn’t even a question where they’d go, and they found a spot under a tree to sit with their food. 

 The grass was cut, and the little hill they sat on overlooked a great deal of the sprawling festival that surrounded them. Up here, the voices that surrounded them, the chatter, the laughter that Hizashi was not interested in, was duller – muted, and when Shouta hummed in hungry appreciation at his bao, it made his heart ache all the more.

 He snuck a look to his right, graced by the mercy of Shouta closing his eyes. He’d just taken a bite, had unravelled most of his scarf to do so, and was now enjoying it for all it’s worth.

 Hizashi’s eyes softened at the sight.

  God.

 And Shouta opened his eyes, in his direction like he just knew.

 Hizashi looked down and took his bao. “This looks good! I should eat like this more.”

 “You should take me to more festivals, too.”

 Hizashi choked a bit – he recovered fast, and cast a glance toward Shouta. “Sure thing!”

  This feeling... 

 Maybe this is what he had been feeling – the lead up to whatever moment this was. The way Shouta really took the time to look at him, not through him. Like he was paying attention.

 Maybe…

 Hizashi held his oversized bao in both hands and looked forward. It suddenly didn’t feel like such a bad idea to speak. To say whatever it was that he was going to say, because for Shouta, it would always be okay…

 Didn’t make him feel any more at ease, not with the stupid thought in his head that maybe he was misreading whatever today was. Who knows, maybe Shouta always paid attention to him like this? And sure, the hands thing… that was new, but maybe Shouta just really likes holding hands but he needs to be comfortable with the person, and now after three years he’s  finally comfortable with Hizashi?

  If you’re gonna say something…

 “Hey,” he started. 

  Say it now.

 “I’m having a really good time.”

 He doesn’t take his wide, blown-out eyes from the festival. It was dark enough that every lantern stood out like little stars, and the breeze was so nice…

 “If you want… we can, um, do this again. I’ll find another festival, but I can’t guarantee it’ll be free this time, but I’ll try! And I’ll see if I can sneak in some home made food too so we can spend more money on like, cute stuff from the merchants. I saw this plush down there, actually, and it was a  cat , so maybe –”

 No, Hizashi wasn’t a timid person – but,  still , it was probably for the best that Shouta was the first one to move. He grabbed Hizashi’s hand, urging it away from the bao so that he could hold it again. 

 He’d pulled his attention to the forefront, and his eyes to finally meet his, and he realized that Shouta had moved so much closer…

 The dark of his eyes was so close, and he was  smiling …

 “You talk a lot when you’re nervous.”

 There wasn’t a way to hide the flush, so Hizashi looked down, feeling too open. “I’m sorry…”

 He couldn’t see his eyes, but he could see his smile. “I like it, though.”

 “What about if I say I like you...  Will you still like it?”

  Please…!

 Shouta didn’t leave him any time to doubt.

 “It makes it a lot easier… for me to say I like you, too… yeah, I’d like it…”

 Hizashi’s entire body was fireworks – explosions and exclamations and that same buzzing energy that gripped him every time he thought of Shouta. He grinned, and looked up to see Shouta was just as embarrassed and flustered as he was.

 He’d normally have to look away, but he assumed he had permission now, and…

  God you’re so pretty…

 His eyes, his eyelashes, the way his eyes bend against his smile and how he’d never seen him smile like this before… 

 Hizashi abandoned the bao in his lap and pushed away the hair that framed his face, slowly, not sure if it was too much to hold his face – 

 “I’m – I’m sorry, can I?”

 Shouta nodded. “And you can kiss me too, in case you weren’t sure…”

 That was all the reason he needed.

 He’d had so many reasons, so many countless reasons he  loved him...

 He cupped his jaw, still acutely aware of the way Shouta was still holding on to his hand in the grass – 

 It was cold, that was true, but right now he was warm with nerves and excitement and  love , and he leaned in –

 His breath, so warm –

 His lips, so soft –

 And neither of them were particularly experienced or daring, so after a few seconds when he finally parted their lips just a bit, they pulled away, just enough to speak.

 “Mmm, you taste like bao,” he said, and then wished someone was there in his brain to stop whatever dumb shit was trying to get out.

 Shouta just laughed. “So do you.”

 The rest of their night was spent on that hill, kissing and talking and, eventually, finishing their food. When they finally left, Hizashi found that plush cat at the vendor near the entrance of the park and gave it to Shouta. Shouta blushed, and Hizashi glowed with comfortable warmth, glad that he can now get cute things for his boyfriend.

#erasermic #yamada hizashi #aizawa shouta #aizawa #writing #oneshot #mha #bnha #my hero academia #boku no hero academia #long post #xpost #prompted for fluff and autumn... #my discord server is so nice ahhh #fluff

[asotin]

the whole "left hinata hanging after her pein confession" was the absolute worst!! honestly i think it was so out of character for naruto. i mean for a kid who values the concept of "precious people" so much you'd think he'd give her some kind of closure but he doesnt!! it never gets brought up again!!! which is the so fucking dumb cause it's repeatedly stated that he unleashed more tails when hinata got stabbed by pain than he ever did in the show!!! (1/2)

(2/2) clearly that's a big thing!!! it never made sense that naruto would just dismiss her like that!! also! wasn't it stated that she was the first person to tell him "i love you" in a romantic way??? that whole scene should've been a bigger deal than it was in the show. ffs, it seemed like all of konoha 9 was rooting on thus fucking couple and no fucking development. also! the bikochu beetle mission?? where he sees her dancing in the waterfall???

(3/2) where he sees her dancing in the waterfall??? could've been a good romance scene but we get nothing!!! nothing!!! im fuckin tired

Putting this under a read more bc I have some thoughts (tm)

Where were the editors Kishimoto supposedly had? The problem isn't even the girls and women being written poorly or the romance being flawed. It's incompetent writing on a fundamental, technical level. Another couple chapters- and pages and even just panels within the existing ones- would have made the romance... idk... exist?

Naruto shrugs her off soooo fast. Just straight up doesn't acknowledge what she said. Doesn't reflect on it. Doesn't feel awkward. Neither of them brings it up. It's so painful to watch. If I'd told someone I was in love with them at 17 and they ghosted me like that, I would've been crushed. It doesn't matter how into them I was, I wouldn't turn around and marry them like that didn't happen

I know I keep saying this, but imo it's worth repeating. It's fucked up that Naruto lies to his dad about dating Sakura, especially when he hasn't said jack shit to Hinata

The waterfall is awkward for me because he's effectively peeping on her, if without malice. And, as in Shippuden, she's a child, so her being naked is just... could they not... buuuut if they they had drawn her wearing clothes, it would have been a good opportunity for him to show appreciation for her working hard, rather than being drawn to her or getting upset when she gets hurt

I had to look up which episode the waterfall was, and it's a filler... even less work on Kishimoto's part, I see

#asks #anonymous #naruto #nbrw #anti naruhina #i'm not trying to dunk on the ship so the tag is for people who like it #long post

[bscully]

I see a lot of people praise caska for being an amazing female character but I kinda feel like she’s written like a bad joke about women (looses battle because period, too emotional, told her role is to comfort guts, etc...) she doesn’t get much time to really shine as a fighter either bc she’s constantly being saved of course I love her and will always defend her but do u think she’s actually written well as a girl? I feel like I’d be lying if I praised her for it

Hello and thanks for the ask!

No offense but I mean…

Let’s put it into perspective. There is a reason why Casca during the Golden Age was written the way she was, and I don’t think it’s necessarily bad writing. Some (questionable) views about women were expressed that way, but I’d like to think that’s more because of the time the Golden Age was written in, rather than because of malicious intent.

During the Black Swordsman Arc we were shown how Guts handled those who were weak: He absolutely detested them.

During the Golden Age we were shown how he dealt with other’s weakness (Casca’s) and also *why* he hated the weak during his Black Swordsman Arc days: During the Eclipse, the Hawks all died because they were weak, and Casca was violated and lost her mind because she could not defend herself either. (The irony of this is that both of these things all happened because of his best efforts to save Griffith, boyo was too distracted)

Black Swordsman Arc

Guts generally was very contempt towards those he considered weak, and also especially towards other men, e.g. Vargas whom he just let die. Another time someone weaker than him died, it was the priests’ daughter, who was slaughtered by evil spirits. He also felt remorse killing her possessed body, even then and also vomits later on (he always vomits when he hurts a child or girl, see Adonis, see killing the fire children in the lost children chapters). In the page below, bottom panel, you can see white sprinkles which I believe are tears.

He then goes on to say how he cannot bother to crush ants below his feet when he walks. That was his way of dealing with the sadness, getting someone who is weaker than him killed because of him. His love-hate relationship to weaker people was also shown to us by his interactions with Theresia: in some way, he did save her here from falling off the ruins. But she had to hold onto a sharp blade so she wouldn’t fall.

Guts was hurting someone who he would love to protect, and he also hated himself for it. He made Theresia go down the very same path like he did because revenge is the only way to give her something to hold onto after losing everything.

It reminded of his own suffering, losing the Hawks and Casca. At least, this is the conclusion I made when I read the Golden Age and then look back to the Black Swordsman arc.

Golden Age

When Casca was later introduced during the Golden age, IMO Kentaro Miura wanted to show us how Guts usually treated people. As it turns out, Guts does want to protect and make sure people are safe. He also listens to them trying his best to meet their expectations. In other words, he was not always an asshole. In regards to other people’s weaknesses, his treatment of Casca was still rough in the beginning, but at the very least imo, well-intentioned.

Now you can critique Miura for his display of Casca’s womanhood. I am personally not particularly bothered by it, especially if this situation is a set up for romance in the first place. Of course the protagonist is going to take note of another character’s feminity if the author plans to hook them up. Guts was confronted with Casca’s female problems (periods) and what we were shown is that Guts, while he may have had his preconceptions about women too, still is understanding of their struggles AND their weakness.

Like… he first gets upset at Casca, but then acknowledges that she doesn’t have it easy, dealing with her own problems and emotions at times (Casca is a VERY emotional personality, too, but usually she has more self-control than this).

If anything, this bit right here displays Guts’ willingness to change his mind, his capacity to understand others and also help them in the process. Empathy, compassion, y’know? Something he lacked during the Black Swordsman Arc (this here happens right before Vargas is being beheaded):

That being said, I don’t think Miura actually thought that women being emotional is a negative thing when he wrote this, but he may have been affected by negative (cultural?) bias.

In the face of that weakness, Guts tries to help Casca out where he can and be supportive of her, e.g. by protecting her from Adon and his men - the 100 Man slayer scene was basically Guts protecting Casca’s womanhood from thirsty mercenaries, while she COULD NOT defend herself as effective because of her state (and he does that DESPITE of Casca throwing a knife at him earlier). This theme also repeats during the Eclipse, however, here he could do nothing but watch in his own helplessness.

Also let it be said that Miura’s potrayal of Casca’s period isn’t too far off, because periods CAN knock you the fuck out like that. My last one was absolutely devastating and I wouldn’t have survived without taking pain meds. So can periods affect your capacity to fight? Yes, they definitely can. You also gotta consider that Miura is male, and males *usually* do not know the effects of periods in detail unless they confronted themselves with it; also consider the Golden Age was written in the 90s, so that topic wasn’t prevalent for men at all.

Contrast & Comparison as writing tool

Miura also set up a nice contrast by adding in a particularly sexist character: of course I’m talking about Adon.

Adon calls Guts a fool for protecting someone at the cost of his own well-being, and the way he talks it’s like saving multiple women and exploit them is normal and acceptable.

But: Guts is literally taking multiple arrow shots for Casca and does not ask for anything in return. (It’s also interesting to note that through Adon’s mockery Casca realizes what Guts is doing for her) Now, you could argue that Guts is still a sexist asshole, however, at least in comparison to Adon, Guts still appears like the good guy  You can critique the ideas about women, how their prejudices and problems they struggle with are depicted, yes, and imo it is valid critique, too. But creating comparisons by showing how differently the characters act or think in the same scene is still an effective way of story-telling.

What Miura later did with other female characters, like Farnese or Schierke, was to “mature up” his writing. His tools however, stayed the same.

More examples comes to mind:

Guts leaving the Hawks

When Guts leaves the hawks, Griffith, Guts, Casca and Judeau all hold monologues, depicting how differently they think. While Casca and Rickert view  the Hawks as family, Judeau still considers them a mercenary band, and Griffith treats his subordinate Guts like a possession and has no inhibition to kill him if it meant he would either not leave or not join another faction and potentially become his enemy. I wrote about this in more detail here on my website

Conviction Arc Farnese

The contrasting happens again when Miura makes Guts meet Farnese for the first time. He was captured by the Holy Iron Chain Knights.

Farnese treated Guts pretty badly: she whipped him out in a desperate attempt to assure dominance, then threw him outside into the cold so he would eventually freeze to death.

When Guts takes HER hostage, they switch roles. Surely, he is being rough to her, but at the same time, is saving her multiple times, e.g. from falling to death or evil spirits.

This is the same writing tool used, just filled with different ideas. Miura’s writing itself hasn’t changed.

Casca is not powerless

Also Casca indeed is capable of defending herself. She is NOT always being saved. Even when being pursued after escaping from the 100 Man Slayer Scene, she gave the pursuing mercenaries a hard time, e.g. ramming a branch into one of the merc’s eyes. In that scene, it didn’t look like Casca was losing, she just got herself out of a dangerous situation and leaps to grab her sword! Only THEN we see how a volley of arrows interrupts the fight.  Does this look like a Casca to you that is about to lose? It doesn’t to me. She could have easily defeated the other two pursuers all by herself.

Casca, NOT GUTS, later defeated Adon all by herself and she was at a disadvantage too (think the poison dart).

Even during the Eclipse she dealt the final blow to take down the apostle that killed Judeau. She is not being depicted as powerless at all. She always seems at a disadvantage, struggling against all odds, and *still* is victorious. Guts acknowledges the strength it takes for her to do what she does, and that’s why Guts is helping her as much as he can.

Now you could STILL say “omg but that’s still sexist”, but eh. There is nothing wrong with acknowledging someone else’s struggle, celebrating them for pulling through despite of all the obstacles, and also willing to help out, but I’ll keep that politics stuff for another post. Stuff like this can go wrong yes, but in either case and as far as I am concerned, Guts is not trying to be patronizing or strip her off her independence in any way.

However, Casca’s strength does have limits and her full strength was not shown to us either, but I’d like to think that’s mostly because she is more a side-character and didn’t have much chance to shine during the Golden Age. I really really hope that will change with future chapters.

TL;DR Just because an author expresses outdated ideas or ideas you disagree with, does not mean it’s bad writing.

#berserk #casca #guts #golden age #ask #analysis #Anonymous

[girlfriendsofthegalaxy]

tuesday again

really didn’t think one of the problems on this here fine tuesday would be identifying and avoiding a multi level marketing scheme but here we are in this brave new world. anyway if you know someone hiring remotely for scicomm or makerspace shit whatever the FUCK that looks like these days, you already know i’m competent and make cool shit.

anyway this is a long one bc i read a real published book over the past two days and i have Thoughts and Opinions

listening hey did you know Billie Holiday was bisexual??? i’ve had an assortment of her albums on loop as i apply to jobs bc jazz takes up enough of my brain without being really distracting, and I Wished On The Moon is my current favorite

reading Delilah S. Dawson’s Phasma. very one thousand and one nights, which is a cool framing technique, but the Scheherazade equivalent is being interrogated by the First Order which would have been cool to know going in? the Bad Part of the interrogation is a little more graphic than i thought would be in a YA book. it’s also a little too long and the scene transitions within the story the spy is telling are jarring imo. however, the difference in voice and tone between the spy telling the story and the spy interrupting herself to ask for food/water is really good.

two things i have never seen a star war book do and i have read. too many of them. it opens with her knitting a sweater in the cockpit of her little spacecraft, bc space is cold and boring, and this charmed me immensely. usually people are playing sabacc or holochess or whatever and yelling, not quietly amusing themselves. this mono-biome Hell Planet has an interesting backstory for why it’s Like That, which ties into the spy’s observations about the First Order in a more subtle manner than i expected for a star war YA book. the thing with star wars is it’s not well executed 95% of the time so when you find something that partially succeeds it’s a really pleasant surprise!

watching futureworld (1976, dir. Heffron). let me briefly spoil one of the central scenes of the forty four year old film so u see my issues with it. maybe the most obvious modern successor of this film is the Institute faction in Fallout 4, who kidnap people to replace them with exact biological robot replicas. there are some fairly graphic medical experimentation scenes on unconscious people. also, love to see misogyny in the workplace and the sidelining of an ambitious female character. i watched this film for the giant panels of buttons and switches and lights. the protags spend a lot of this film climbing around pipes and machinery in access tunnels and it’s pretty great set work honestly. look at this giant fuckoff IBM

playing signs of the sojourner by echodog games, which i acquired in the big itch.io sale. it is a charming little deckbuilding game with good music, where the cards are mechanized as points in a conversation- if you match cards you come to an agreement with the person, if you don’t you come to a disagreement. it stresses me out when i don’t “win” the conversation with the person liking me and we’re in agreement, which says a lot about what i consider a win condition. usually not big into deckbuilding games but now i’ve got a better handle on the mechanics i think i’m going to abandon this sort of fucked up first run

making thread i need is finally back in stock, should be here in ??? days. new cross stitch frame is still slowly making its way to me. we’ve gotten to the square in the glitch sampler that is a billion different unconnected colors, what we in the biz call “confetti”. i’ve already decided i’m getting this pair of space samplers professionally framed bc i’ve spent too much time on them already to botch them with an amateur framing attempt. even though the horrible horrible job i’ve done properly finishing all the billion ends will be embarrassing, i don’t have to actually interact with anyone and see their disapproval, i just gotta roll it up and ship it off when i’m done.

#tuesday again #tuesday again no problem