#we’ve found the secret third gender

[ace-in-a-very-distressing-hole]

had to explain in the most basic terms what nonbinary was to a six year old earlier. i asked him what he thought i was and he said “well you look like a boy but sound like a girl” so i said “well actually i don’t quite feel like a boy OR a girl. and this little bitch looks at me and just goes “so you’re a monster??”

well i’ll take that

hell yeah im a fucking monster

*monster mash starts playing*

#nonbinary #lgbtq #we’ve found the secret third gender #this is for all of us who have been equated by children to aliens and robots and Creatures and angels #it feels quite poetic #kids are so real for their perspectives on life #also i love how he was only confused about my gender because i have a more feminine voice #genuinely #his voice is probably higher and softer than mine

[baixueagain]

Couldn’t help but notice this reblog in a certain recent “queer is a slur” discourse post.

Beyond being ahistorical, it is significant in its third paragraph, which is almost entirely made up with TERF and alt right dog whistles. For anyone who has even a basic idea of what to look for, this blogger has just outright shown their hand.

Let’s start from the beginning of the text I’ve marked in blue:

“a pedophilia and incest apologist”

This is a very handy tactic especially prevalent in alt-right rhetoric these days. It stigmatises anything it is attached to, in this case the person who coined the term “queer theory.” Topics like pedophilia and incest are extremely taboo and emotionally laden, and attaching them to a subject will cause many people to automatically distance themselves from that term out of a semi-instinctive desire to not associate themselves with such things. Spread this attachment widely enough, and you can push entire groups into abandoning terminology, praxis, and people.

For the record, I’m not sure of the source for this claim. The woman who coined the term “queer theory” was Teresa de Laurentis, and I’ve never seen anything by her which tries to excuse pedophilia or incest. She certainly wrote about the gendered nature of incest, but this was in no way laudatory. This may also be a reference to the work of Gloria Anzaldua, who helped further popularize the term. She spoke frankly and openly about her sexual fantasies, many of them of a taboo nature, because of her firm belief in de-stigmatizing discussions about human sexual behaviour. Not only are such fantasies extremely common, they are in no way apologetics for real life abuse, nor do they predict real life behaviour.

“a straight woman with a fetish for gay men”

We’ve gotten to the transphobic dogwhistle now. This is an accusation frequently used against trans men and nonbinary AFAB people, especially those who pursue relationships with men. With the current surge in transphobic public rhetoric, it has received a new breath of life, and trans mlm are currently facing a slew of accusations of being straight women/girls who have just fetishized gay men to the point that they’re trying to “become” gay men/boys themselves (CW: link leads to transphobic hate site genderhq.org). These accusations are even being used in queer circles--including by trans people--to gatekeep who “gets” to write fiction about mlm. Just a week ago, for example, queer writer Alex Marraccini accused indie trans mlm author Ana Mardoll of fetishizing mlm, claiming that Ana’s “fetishistic” writing isn’t nearly as groundbreaking or liberating as the work of real cis gay men.

I’m not sure who the blogger is referring to here as there’s no real consensus on who first used the term “queer studies.” However, I think they may be referring to Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, who was most certainly not a straight woman. She was queer and came out as a trans man, though as far as I know continued to publicly prefer she/her pronouns (hence my own pronoun use here).

“use intentionally over academic language”

Ah, good old anti-intellectualism. If I can’t understand you, you must be using over-academic language just to confuse me on purpose. This dogwhistle not only gives people an excuse to dismiss anything they don’t understand straight away, it pushes the conspiracy theory that we academics are part of an ivory tower conspiracy to Queer Everything for...reasons (see below).

“to obfuscate that their founding texts and members are Marxists”

Aaaand here we are, the full show of the hand. This blogger is either alt-right or well down the pipeline to becoming one. The old chestnut that These Academics We Disagree With are all secret Marxists is one that is, you guessed it, strongly tied into antisemitism and Nazi conspiracies that push the belief that Karl Marx, Marxism, and Marxists are part of a global Jewish conspiracy that seeks to destroy the West.

And of course we have one more “incest and pedophilia” whistle to round things off, just to doubly ensure that people understandably disgusted by those things attach them to queer theorists.

Anyway, once again I beg the good people of Tumblr to please pay close attention to TERF rhetoric, where it comes from, how it’s used, and the other movements that it is tied to. I am not being a paranoid conspiracist when I say that “queer is a slur” discoursers and “pedophilia and incest” scaremongers and their ilk (including anti-kink discoursers) are tied to TERF rhetoric, which is itself allied increasingly with the alt right. They are telling you this for themselves. Listen to them when they tell you who they are.

#queer #queer discourse #discourse #lgbtq #transphobia #terfism #dogwhistles #terf rhetoric

[gacmediadaily]

Actress and filmmaker Ansley Gordon has a major announcement to make in her personal life. She and her husband, Brian Balzerini, are expecting their first child. #Powerjournalist Markos Papadatos has the exclusive interview.

The secret is out!

“We’ve been keeping this a secret for months but… My husband, Brian, and I are pregnant with our first child,” she exclaimed. “This journey has had its twists and turns but we couldn’t be more excited to meet our baby this coming July.”

An emotional journey but well worth it

When asked if it was an emotional process when she found out she was pregnant, she responded, “Oh my gosh, there were so many emotions when we first found out. We’ve been trying to start a family for a few years now and, like many couples, it wasn’t as easy for us as we thought it was originally going to be. We actually got pregnant late last summer, right after ‘The Abigail Mysteries’ premiered on Great American Family, but miscarried before the end of the first trimester. It was a really traumatic experience and during a big upheaval in our lives. I had to have a procedure and the whole thing. But, unexpectedly, we got pregnant again shortly after and now we’re due this July!”

“I actually found out the day A Christmas Frequency premiered on Hulu. It was a big day,” she exclaimed.

Will the couple have a gender reveal party?

The couple revealed that they will not have a gender reveal party. “We aren’t, but we know the gender. We got the results back on Christmas morning and it was such a sweet surprise. It’s a girl!” she exclaimed.

“We waited so long to tell people that I’m pregnant that by the time most people would have done the gender reveal party, we were just starting to share the news. I’m almost in my third trimester which feels wild!”

Three movies with Jon Stoddard out

Most recently, she had three new movies with Jon Stoddard out… “Love on Retreat” on UPtv, “A Christmas Frequency” on Hulu, and “Baked with a Kiss” also on UPtv. “Jon and I had three movies premier in less than 6 months! Crazy, right?” she said.

“Jon knew I was pregnant when we were doing press for ‘Baked with a Kiss’ and he joked after our interview with the network that I had ‘that glow’ which made me laugh but I told him I was so glad he didn’t say that while we were on air because I wasn’t ready to share the news yet,” she said.

“My husband and I were just starting to try for a baby back when Jon and I filmed ‘Love on Retreat’ so he’s known this is something we’ve wanted for a long time,” she added.

Great American Family

Gordon shared that she loves working with Bill [Abbott] and the whole Great American Family team. “I’ve met so many great people through working with the network like Danica McKellar who took me to lunch after ‘The Abigail Mysteries’ premiered and has checked on me throughout my pregnancy,” she said.

“Danica is such a doll and has the best heart and I am so thankful to know her! I’ve also loved getting to connect with Merritt Patterson who starred in ‘One Perfect Match,’ my favorite of my scripts to be produced to date,” she added.

Future plans

Regarding her future plans, she shared, “I have a couple of fun things in the works that I can’t wait to share with everyone! One is a massive project (the biggest of my career) that will be out later this year, after our daughter is born, which is so cool to say. I can’t wait to watch it with her!”

“I also might be dusting off the magnifying glass to solve another mystery soon,” she foreshadowed.

Fans and supporters

For her fans and supporters, she expressed, ” I can’t thank everyone enough for their support. The Great American Family community especially has been really amazing over the past year, welcoming me into the family with open arms. This can be a tough business and I am so thankful to get to make work that resonates with people and that I get to connect with so many passionate fans! I feel really lucky to be living my dream in a way that little Ansley would be so proud of.”

#great american family #ansley gordon

[deer-in-headlights-stare]

the zombie wip intro is finally done!

Transcript under the cut (also in alt text).

First slide: 

zombie wip, a comic sans intro made by me, flower

that isn’t actually the title don’t worry

dystopian sci-fi! post-apocalyptic nonsense!

betrayal! revenge! zombies! also queer, disabled and nd rep!

Second slide:

what is this plot you speak of?

corrupt governments 

past secrets threatening to reveal everything

a revenge plot

four kids travel outside their utopian society for the first time

each with different reasons for leaving

after stumbling upon decade-old secrets about the outside world (and promptly running away)

they decide to travel together (its for safety okay?) 

zombies! Frightening and terrifying yet oddly beautiful!

more secret agendas ;) 

Third slide:

these guys (gender neutral)

[Image ID: A picrew of a pale person with long pink hair. She is wearing a black shirt that reads DON’T PANIC in rainbow gradient letters over a white turtleneck. She looks anxious. The aromantic and lesbian flags are behind her. A watermark reading “PotatoLord” is the top left corner. /End Image ID]

Liz, she/her, 19

arospec lesbian

plus size 

was just trying to grieve her mother and now has 4 children

[Image ID: A picrew of a person with light brown skin and short, choppy brown hair. She is wearing a black shirt with a skull on it that is mostly hidden by a black jacket. She has a choker with spikes on it, with paperclip earrings (?). Her eyes are wide and she is smiling. The omnisexual flag is behind her. A watermark reading “PotatoLord” is in the top left corner. /End Image ID.]

Cricket, she/her, 17

autistic 

father is bad but she doesn’t realize it yet

mixed!! (half white/half latine)

luce calls her “bug” bc of her name

Fourth slide:

these guys (gender neutral) 2#

[Image ID: A picrew of a pale person with short blond hair. They are wearing a gray striped shirt. They have bags under their eyes and look tired and annoyed. The nonbinary flag is behind them. A watermark reading “PotatoLord” is in the top left corner. /End Image ID.]

Luce, they/she, 17

very tired of everyones bullshit

fueled by coffee, revenge and carefully concealed rage

probably dating cricket 

spd haver 

[Image ID: A picrew of a dark-skinned person with black hair in a ponytail. He is wearing a bright blue button-up shirt with oranges on it. A red wheelchair can be seen behind him. He is winking and smiling. The pansexual flag is behind him. A watermark reading “PotatoLord” is in the top left corner. /End Image ID.]

Ari, he/him, 15 

he protec, he attac, he just wants his sister to come back

parents also suck but he doesn’t realize that (yet)

also has fibromyalgia 

Fifth slide:

these guys (gender neutral) 3#

this is last one i promise

[Image ID: A picrew of a pale person with shoulder-length black hair, bangs framing their face. They are wearing a black vest (?) over a white turtleneck, with small, silver hoop earrings. They are grinning. The genderfluid flag is behind them. Has the same watermark as the others. /End Image ID.]

Raz, fluid pronouns, 19

Liz’s queerplatonic partner

mad scientist*

just along for the ride

*does not follow lab safety rules

[Image ID: A picrew of a person with brown skin, very short curly black hair. He is wearing a yellow sweater with blue sleeves and red collar. He has a slightly annoyed expression on his face and is sucking on a pink lollipop. The trans flag is behind him. Same watermark as the other picrews. /End Image ID.]

Ace, he/him, 16

transhet

tried to kidnap the team (very badly) now he won’t leave

resident zombie expert 

between the two picrews is the words, “both are mixed bc i’m mixed and i said so.”

Sixth slide:

we’ve also got…

plant based body horror

a cat, because i have no self control

no romance anywhere

zombies and flowers (this makes sense, i promise)

found family

a vehicle with personality 

be gay, do crime

bonding moments <3

anyway, thanks for reading!!

#comic sans wip intro #writblr #writeblr #wip introduction #wip intro #its very short but it took me a while and im proud of it! #queued

[fallasleepscenarios]

𝓬𝓱𝓮𝓻𝓻𝔂 𝓫𝓵𝓸𝓼𝓼𝓸𝓶 𝓼𝓽𝓻𝓮𝓮𝓽 [bakugo x reader]

type: one shot, angst, fluff pairing: bakugo katsuki x reader (gender not specified) summary: (Y/N) and Bakugo have not established their relationship, leaving (Y/N) to question their whole "friends with benefits" thing. And it all goes down to what happens when they attend Kirishima's party. rating: R for implication of sexual act word count: 2.4k disclaimer: I do not own any of the mha characters and all of them are written as if they are of age also posted on my wattpad one shots book

꒱࿐♡ ˚.*ೃ

"You're so silly. Get your butt here."

Bakugo shrugs and pouts angrily but eventually lets his body fall on me and weighing me down on the couch as I try to lift him off me. I laugh at his silliness, knowing that this is the best way someone like him can show affection. He lets his guard down so rarely after all, doesn't even want to show softness, ever. Only with me he does. He can be mellow, can't express it in words easily though.

"Tsk, I don't want to go to the stupid party with all the stupid bastards", he growls while finally making himself comfortable without hurting me.

"You promised! Besides, everyone's waiting for you", I run my fingers through his hair, "You know how much Kirishima has been waiting to see you!" I could tell by his look at this was somehow enough for him to accept attending the party with me. All his UA classmates would be there.

"Whatever! I have to train." In a swift move he gets up and leaves the room, like he always does.

"Bakugo--! Wait!" he stops without turning to look at me. "D-Do you wanna spend the night?" I gulped.

"I have to train", he says and leaves.

And at times like these, I ask myself, what the hell am I really doing. Having a crush on Bakugo Katsuki? That's far enough. Establishing a relationship with him? That's so far beyond the line of sanity. More times than not, I question myself for any signs of emotional masochism, because this really doesn't feel like a mutual feeling. Yes, he can be soft and sweet, would never admit it, though. Yes, somehow, he does like me in a sexual way, at least, or maybe considers me as a way to relieve stress? The past three months and a half have been so exciting, and I've been.. happy. But..

This really isn't enough for me. If only I could do anything to make him say what's in his mind, 'cause his actions really really don't match with his words. And then again, well, whatever, never mind, it could all be way worse for me..

꒱࿐♡ ˚.*ೃ

On the day of the party, Bakugo was supposed to pick me up at 8 and head over to Kirishima's together, since I've never been to his place before. I put extra effort on picking an outfit I like and felt pretty cute and confident in it. At 7:45 I was already by the door, tying my shoes and receiving a text message by Uraraka-chan.

[19:45] From: Uraraka-chan<3 I can't wait for tonight! Deku-kun will also be there, haven't seen him in two weeks! Don't be late Y/N :D

I smiled at myself and happiness overflew in me. Don't want to jinx it but tonight sounds ideal; Bakugo agreed to come, I'm going to see everyone, even Midoriya found time off his strict training schedule, and Uraraka-chan is very happy, as well, I am glad.

But as I waited for Bakugo, the clock turned 8. And then 5 minutes after 8. And then a quarter past 8.

Normally, that's acceptable, since when one is late, they probably have informed you beforehand. Or at least, an apology is waiting for you at their arrival. Oh, but when Bakugo arrived..

"What took you so long?!!" My mood, the outfit I wore that I liked, the excitement, all had disappeared.

"SO WHAT, I had training to do! Deku has been training all week!", he snapped back at me and frowned. "Let's go damn it!"

"You're unbelievable-! That's how you treat me?!" This time, I was not going to take it.

"Tsk, you don't understand"

"At least you could have told me you were at practice..! Not arrive, what, a quarter to 9 and not even apologizing for keeping me waiting?!"

"YOU attacked me right when I arrived, when I would I apologize?!"

I refrained from saying anything else. I didn't want to completely ruin my mood for the party.

"Okay, stop." I let out a sigh. "Let's go. I really want to enjoy the party. I even wore that outfit that it took me so long to come up with, I really wanna enjoy it.." I closed and locked the door behind us and Bakugo just stared at me.

The road to Kirishima's was quiet. I caught a few glimpses of Bakugo walking by me and leading the way. Surprisingly, he didn't say anything at all. We passed by the river, it was beautiful and I so wanted to comment on the cherry blossoms showing as the path alongside it.

I tried not to overthink about this but it was bothering me, that Bakugo didn't even consider my feelings. He stood me up. This definitely isn't what you expect of your partner to do. Details like this, how he never calls me just to talk to me, he never texts me "good morning" or "good night" like my friends' significant others do, how we've never really agreed to have a proper date but always meet up at home, eat inside and are secretive, I don't like that. I think I am the only one in this relationship.

Heck, there is no real relationship. Friends with benefits, after all.

"(Y/N)! Bakugo-kun! You've arrived at last!" Uraraka-chan was the first one to greet us by the door.

"I'm sorry we're late, I asked Bakugo to pick me up since he lives so close-by, but he was training and couldn't leave early", I felt my cheeks flush up. Everyone's attention was on us and I didn't like it. "Besides, Kirishima-kun! Thanks for having us!"

Thankfully, I quickly felt comfortable and no one talked about how they've been waiting for us. We had a fun time, joking around, eating cakes that Sato baked and listening to what everyone's been up to on their vacation. I was able to forget about Bakugo's attitude, but every time I looked at him, it all came back to me, so I tried to avoid him as much. But still, I was able to catch glimpses of him, noticing that he never looked at me too. I am better than this.

I got up to pout myself some water and when I came back I noticed that Deku had joined Uraraka and they were cheerfully engaging in conversation by themselves, so I decided I wouldn't go back to Uraraka and third wheel them. Instead I decided to get some fresh air and went outside. The cold wind felt so nice on my face but I could tell I'd soon be cold enough to return inside.

"Y/N!", I didn't even hear Kirishima opening the balcony's door.

"Kirishima-kun, are you having fun?"

"For sure! I'm glad you could bring Bakugo with you. Wasn't really sure he'd come, since he's been eager to train as much as he can during the vacation time, but maybe having to accompany you made him responsible to come" Kirishima smiled and he'd never looked so innocent to me before.

"Ah, I just guess he came for you Kirishima-kun. You're his best friend after all."

We laughed and I suddenly felt really soft and comfortable talking about Bakugo with him.

"Kirishima-kun, you're great.. I wish I had a relationship with someone like you!"

And then I realized what I just said. Kirishima turned red and I no longer felt cold outside.

"Y/N, I-I don't think I like you like t-that.."

"Ah! No, it's okay, I don't think I do either.."

What am I saying, I know I like Bakugo.

I know he said he didn't like me but the vibe sure felt weird and tense and somehow comfortable. I could so simply say things like these with Kirishima and it did feel awkward but it was okay, we could sit in silence. And it was easier to stay outside now.

But then he called out my name, and I couldn't read his face. He surely thought that I might like him now. I noticed Bakugo was arguing with Iida-kun by the door, when Kirishima raised his hand to cup my cheek and-

"Can I kiss you?" he whispered.

Why am I not pulling back? Maybe he wants to find out if he'd feel something.. maybe I do as well. Bakugo wouldn't even care anyways. He wouldn't be the least jealous if he saw us.

"Yes", I whispered back and closed my eyes only to feel his soft lips on mine.

It lasted a few seconds but I knew for sure that this wasn't what I felt when I kissed Bakugo. Kirishima was now smiling softly as me and I knew we were on the same page. And this will be between us and nothing will be affected. Except that something caught his attention and he gasped ; I turned to see who else other than Bakugo staring at us.

He looked mad, but doesn't he almost always?

Suddenly I felt overwhelmed with regret towards him.

He wasn't supposed to get jealous, he has no right to!

"Ah, Bakugo saw us maybe", Kirishima shrugged, "He probably thinks we're stupid hahah"

I chuckled, not to make my uncomfortableness look so obvious and we headed back inside, since Bakugo had also disappeared from the entrance.

The rest of the night I felt so out of place and it was hard not to show, but I had to. Spent it mostly chatting with the girls and playing cards and board games.

But soon enough, it was time to go.

Midoriya had already left and so had some of the others that aren't late nighters, and I felt tired from all the tension of the day. I was glad that I had some fun though.

"I'm off, everyone!" I greeted them and put on my shoes and coat.

"I'm going to. Have to train early tomorrow"

I froze. Bakugo was also leaving and this could only mean he wanted to confront me.

I waited for him to be greeted by everyone as well. It was inevitable, we'd go the same way anyways.

But Bakugo didn't say anything. He started pacing fast and it was kind of hard to keep up.

When we reached the cherry blossoms, Bakugo stopped.

"Are you stupid? Why did you do that?!"

He was indeed jealous!

"What does it matter to you even!". Tears were forming in my eyes, I felt so guilty! But it wasn't entirely my fault!

"TO ME? That you're stupid?"

"What does it matter to you??! It didn't even matter to me!"

"Then WHY DID YOU DO THAT"

Bakugo turned around but he wasn't looking at me.

"..I.. don't know... I was curious.. "

"Tsk, 'curious', what even..!"

"I was, okay?! Kirishima was being so nice to me..."

"And you had to be stupid?!"

"STOP it! Okay? This, this is why I did that. Because I can no longer pretend that you care about me! You made that clear today!"

"I don't go around doing things a scumbag would do!"

Bakugo was starting to redden up, he had become really angry..

"BUT YOU DO!" I shouted, glad that we were the only ones on the street. "You do, when you're late and don't inform me, you do when you're embarrassed and secretive of me, you do when you never really tell me what's on your mind"

"You.." he frowned. "And YOU GO AND DO THAT"

"YES because MAYBE, MAYBE HE would actually LIKE me!"

He seemed to be taken aback. And I was properly crying. And I felt the cold wind against my face and hands. It was too bad we're ruining the effect of the beautiful cherry blossoms.

"Stupid.. STUPID STUPID STUPID", he was now pulling his hair in anger.

"Bakugo, stop! What are you doing!" I rushed out and grabbed him by his shoulders forcing him to look at me. And I felt guilty and sad to see him this angry but this had to mean something.

He looked away, avoiding my gaze at all costs.

"I should be asking you why are you being like this now..", I said softly. "It.. hurts to think about this, but did it feel like you were losing towards Kirishima?"

No answer.

"I'm sorry anyways, I am too tired to argue anymore and I'm sorry I kissed him. I.. didn't think it'd make you angry"

"Tsk, what are you apologizing for, loser.."

Bakugo's voice was soft and quiet..!

"I should be the one saying sorry. I FAILED don't you understand? I didn't make my feelings clear to you"

What?

"All this time, I've been failing to this, I don't no a thing about romance"

What?

"And you never even said anything, either! You just went along when I first kissed you!"

I had nothing to say. Suddenly, everything seemed so meaningless, because he was opening up to me.

"Bakugo.."

"No, shut up, you listen to me now. It drives me crazy cause I can't concentrate and think about you all the time! I LIKE YOUR STUPID ASS"

This can't be for real. I've always wanted him to open up but I never..

"SAY SOMETHING"

"Can you.. say that again?", I was too startled.

"Weren't you listening?!"

"No, I was, it's just that I liked hearing you say that.."

I'd forgotten I'd been holding him weirdly and suddenly felt conscious about being so close to him, when I've been closer to him so many times before, but not like this.

"Tsk, I like you stupid ass, stupid", he frowned jokingly and it was his turn to wrap his arms around me. "I like your stupid stupid ass."

My cheeks have probably never flushed as this much before.

"I like you"

He kept repeating and I felt like I could faint.

"And I promise, I won't ignore my feelings anymore and I won't be USELESS!"

I backed away to look at him.

"Bakugo,.. does this mean, we're really together?"

And Bakugo blushed!

"Yeh" he simply said.

I couldn't help but smile and the cherry blossoms were beautiful around us.

Then, Bakugo tightened his grip on my waist and brought me closer. He kissed my cheek and looked at me again. And I couldn't decide over staring at his eyes or kissing him that moment.

But I couldn't bring myself to stop, I leaned forwards and felt his soft pouty lips against mine, his warmth transmitting to my skin. And we didn't pull back for a few moments.

"Do you want to stay over, Bakugo?"

And he nodded excitedly as we walked home together.

꒱࿐♡ ˚.*ೃ

#katsuki bakugo #bakugo katsuki #bakugo x reader #bakugo one shot #one shot bakugo #bakugo fluff #bakugou fluff #bakugo angst #bnha one shot #fallasleepscenarios #bakugo imagine #bakugo scenarios #scenarios bakugo #bakugo x y/n #mha x reader #mha bakugo #my hero academia one shots

[redhoodssweetheart]

Sucker

Pairing: Tim Drake x Gender Neutral!Reader

Requested: Yes (REQUESTS ARE CLOSED, this was for my 1.5K follower celebration) 

Word Count: 1K

Warnings:  Fluff

Description:  Tim Drake can’t help but be a sucker for you.

We go together

Better than birds of a feather, you and me

We change the weather, yeah

I'm feeling heat in December when you're 'round me

I've been dancing on top of cars

And stumbling out of bars

I follow you through the dark

Can't get enough

You're the medicine and the pain

The tattoo inside my brain

And baby, you know it's obvious

Tim had fallen head over heels for you, there was no denying it.  Found himself thinking of you when he was at work or on patrol.  Wondering what you were up to and if you were okay.  It was the honeymoon phase of the relationship where the two of you couldn’t get enough of one another.  Where everything was exciting and new.

He found himself taking off of work early and picking you up to take spontaneous trips out of Gotham and to the beach house that Bruce had.  He would take you dancing and the two of you would stay up until all hours of the morning just talking with one another.

The fire was warm, and the sliding doors were open to let in the sea breeze.  It was cool, but with the fire going it wasn’t too bad.  Tim and you were laying on a pile of pillows you had tossed onto the floor.  You were mere inches from one another, your hands resting under your head, Tim’s arm slung over your waist.

“I don’t ever want to leave this little cocoon we’ve built for ourselves,” Tim confessed to you as studied every inch of your face.  “I don’t want to go back to boardroom meetings and nosy family.”

You smiled at him, “Reality has to come crashing back down on us sometime, Tim.  As much as I love our little secret getaway here life is gonna catch up to us one way or another.”

He knew that was right, he still had his whole other life as Red Robin that he had to get back to.  “Two more days, and then we can return to our normal, boring lives.”

You kissed the tip of his nose, “We can always come back later.”

His heart sang at the thought that you wanted to come back with him.  That you were planning ahead for future vacations.  Maybe he wasn’t crazy for thinking you were the one after all.

I'm a sucker for you

Say the word and I'll go anywhere blindly

I'm a sucker for you, yeah

Any road you take you know that you'll find me

I'm a sucker for all the subliminal things

No one knows about you (About you)

About you (About you)

And you're making the typical me

Break my typical rules

It's true, I'm a sucker for you

Damian, Dick, and Jason watched you and Tim from across the room at the charity event that they were currently at.  Damian’s arms were crossed over his chest, his eyes narrowed as he scrutinized the two of you.  “Have either of you ever seen Drake so happy before?”

Jason shook his head, “Nope.  He’s definitely smiling more now that they’re in his life.”

Dick had to agree with Jason, “Bruce just remarked on how Tim was taking more time for himself now as well.  He doesn’t bury himself under work or patrols.  Y/N has been really good for him.”

You tugged Tim toward his brothers, “What are you three talking about over here?”

“You,” Damian said before Jason elbowed the youngest Wayne in the ribs.

You only laughed while Tim glared at his brothers.  “I thought my ears were burning.  I hope it was all good.”  You weren’t entirely sure what  Tim’s family thought of you.  The Waynes were notoriously secretive, there was always an air of secrecy around them.  This was only your third time meeting them in person, though you had had some conversations with them over the phone when Tim had been at your apartment.

Dick gave you a reassuring smile, “All good, I promise.”

Tim took your hand, “Come on, let’s go dancing some more.”

“May I cut in, Drake?”  Damian asked, surprising everyone in your little group.

Tim hesitated, but you gave his hand a reassuring squeeze, “I’d love to dance with Damian.”  You took Damian’s hand and let him lead you away.

He pulled you into his arms and said, “Drake really does care for you.  He’s honestly a sucker for you.”

You glanced over Damian’s shoulder where Tim was watching the two of you intently.  You turned back to Damian and grinned, “I know.”

Yeah

Don't complicate it, yeah

'Cause I know you and you know everything about me

I can't remember

All of the nights I don't remember when you're 'round me

I've been dancing on top of cars

And stumbling out of bars

I follow you through the dark

Can't get enough

You're the medicine and the pain

The tattoo inside my brain

And baby, you know it's obvious

A year and a half into your relationship with Tim you have found out that he and his family are the famous BatFam. The two of you are still going strong and have moved in together. The honeymoon phase hasn’t seemed to slow down for either of you. He’s still as crazy about you as he was the moment he first laid eyes on you.

The two of you would constantly take weekend trips to the beach house and sometimes even invite the others and their significant others as well. It was nice to go on double dates and have days where you and the other could commiserate over the things the boys got into on their nightly patrols.

Tim brought you up onto the rooftops of Gotham and showed you what he saw on his patrol nights. It was a breathtaking view that you never would have gotten to see from this particular vantage point if Tim hadn’t been a vigilante.

You kissed him there on the roof as the rest of the city passed you by, unaware that Red Robin was above them with the person he loved the most in this world. Tim wouldn’t have traded this existence moment for anything and he hoped he and you would have many more nights like this together.

I'm a sucker for all the subliminal things

No one knows about you (About you)

About you (About you)

And you're making the typical me

Break my typical rules

It's true, I'm a sucker for you

I'm a sucker for you

#Tim Drake x Reader #Tim Drake x Reader fluff #Tim Drake #Tim Drake fanfic #Tim Drake fanfiction #Tim Drake fluff #Requested

[arcticdementor]

Imagine that the US was competing in a space race with some third world country, say Zambia, for whatever reason. Americans of course would have orders of magnitude more money to throw at the problem, and the most respected aerospace engineers in the world, with degrees from the best universities and publications in the top journals. Zambia would have none of this. What should our reaction be if, after a decade, Zambia had made more progress?

Obviously, it would call into question the entire field of aerospace engineering. What good were all those Google Scholar pages filled with thousands of citations, all the knowledge gained from our labs and universities, if Western science gets outcompeted by the third world?

For all that has been said about Afghanistan, no one has noticed that this is precisely what just happened to political science. The American-led coalition had countless experts with backgrounds pertaining to every part of the mission on their side: people who had done their dissertations on topics like state building, terrorism, military-civilian relations, and gender in the military. General David Petraeus, who helped sell Obama on the troop surge that made everything in Afghanistan worse, earned a PhD from Princeton and was supposedly an expert in “counterinsurgency theory.” Ashraf Ghani, the just deposed president of the country, has a PhD in anthropology from Columbia and is the co-author of a book literally called Fixing Failed States. This was his territory. It’s as if Wernher von Braun had been given all the resources in the world to run a space program and had been beaten to the moon by an African witch doctor.

…

Phil Tetlock’s work on experts is one of those things that gets a lot of attention, but still manages to be underrated. In his 2005 Expert Political Judgment: How Good Is It? How Can We Know?, he found that the forecasting abilities of subject-matter experts were no better than educated laymen when it came to predicting geopolitical events and economic outcomes. As Bryan Caplan points out, we shouldn’t exaggerate the results here and provide too much fodder for populists; the questions asked were chosen for their difficulty, and the experts were being compared to laymen who nonetheless had met some threshold of education and competence.

At the same time, we shouldn’t put too little emphasis on the results either. They show that “expertise” as we understand it is largely fake. Should you listen to epidemiologists or economists when it comes to COVID-19? Conventional wisdom says “trust the experts.” The lesson of Tetlock (and the Afghanistan War), is that while you certainly shouldn’t be getting all your information from your uncle’s Facebook Wall, there is no reason to start with a strong prior that people with medical degrees know more than any intelligent person who honestly looks at the available data.

…

I think one of the most interesting articles of the COVID era was a piece called “Beware of Facts Man” by Annie Lowrey, published in The Atlantic.

…

The reaction to this piece was something along the lines of “ha ha, look at this liberal who hates facts.” But there’s a serious argument under the snark, and it’s that you should trust credentials over Facts Man and his amateurish takes. In recent days, a 2019 paper on “Epistemic Trespassing” has been making the rounds on Twitter. The theory that specialization is important is not on its face absurd, and probably strikes most people as natural. In the hard sciences and other places where social desirability bias and partisanship have less of a role to play, it’s probably a safe assumption. In fact, academia is in many ways premised on the idea, as we have experts in “labor economics,” “state capacity,” “epidemiology,” etc. instead of just having a world where we select the smartest people and tell them to work on the most important questions.

But what Tetlock did was test this hypothesis directly in the social sciences, and he found that subject-matter experts and Facts Man basically tied.

…

Interestingly, one of the best defenses of “Facts Man” during the COVID era was written by Annie Lowrey’s husband, Ezra Klein. His April 2021 piece in The New York Times showed how economist Alex Tabarrok had consistently disagreed with the medical establishment throughout the pandemic, and was always right. You have the “Credentials vs. Facts Man” debate within one elite media couple. If this was a movie they would’ve switched the genders, but since this is real life, stereotypes are confirmed and the husband and wife take the positions you would expect.

…

In the end, I don’t think my dissertation contributed much to human knowledge, making it no different than the vast majority of dissertations that have been written throughout history. The main reason is that most of the time public opinion doesn’t really matter in foreign policy. People generally aren’t paying attention, and the vast majority of decisions are made out of public sight. How many Americans know or care that North Macedonia and Montenegro joined NATO in the last few years? Most of the time, elites do what they want, influenced by their own ideological commitments and powerful lobby groups. In times of crisis, when people do pay attention, they can be manipulated pretty easily by the media or other partisan sources.

If public opinion doesn’t matter in foreign policy, why is there so much study of public opinion and foreign policy? There’s a saying in academia that “instead of measuring what we value, we value what we can measure.” It’s easy to do public opinion polls and survey experiments, as you can derive a hypothesis, get an answer, and make it look sciency in charts and graphs. To show that your results have relevance to the real world, you cite some papers that supposedly find that public opinion matters, maybe including one based on a regression showing that under very specific conditions foreign policy determined the results of an election, and maybe it’s well done and maybe not, but again, as long as you put the words together and the citations in the right format nobody has time to check any of this. The people conducting peer review on your work will be those who have already decided to study the topic, so you couldn’t find a more biased referee if you tried.

Thus, to be an IR scholar, the two main options are you can either use statistical methods that don’t work, or actually find answers to questions, but those questions are so narrow that they have no real world impact or relevance. A smaller portion of academics in the field just produce postmodern-generator style garbage, hence “feminist theories of IR.” You can also build game theoretic models that, like the statistical work in the field, are based on a thousand assumptions that are probably false and no one will ever check. The older tradition of Kennan and Mearsheimer is better and more accessible than what has come lately, but the field is moving away from that and, like a lot of things, towards scientism and identity politics.

…

At some point, I decided that if I wanted to study and understand important questions, and do so in a way that was accessible to others, I’d have a better chance outside of the academy. Sometimes people thinking about an academic career reach out to me, and ask for advice. For people who want to go into the social sciences, I always tell them not to do it. If you have something to say, take it to Substack, or CSPI, or whatever. If it’s actually important and interesting enough to get anyone’s attention, you’ll be able to find funding.

If you think your topic of interest is too esoteric to find an audience, know that my friend Razib Khan, who writes about the Mongol empire, Y-chromosomes and haplotypes and such, makes a living doing this. If you want to be an experimental physicist, this advice probably doesn’t apply, and you need lab mates, major funding sources, etc. If you just want to collect and analyze data in a way that can be done without institutional support, run away from the university system.

The main problem with academia is not just the political bias, although that’s another reason to do something else with your life. It’s the entire concept of specialization, which holds that you need some secret tools or methods to understand what we call “political science” or “sociology,” and that these fields have boundaries between them that should be respected in the first place. Quantitative methods are helpful and can be applied widely, but in learning stats there are steep diminishing returns.

…

Outside of political science, are there other fields that have their own equivalents of “African witch doctor beats von Braun to the moon” or “the Taliban beats the State Department and the Pentagon” facts to explain? Yes, and here are just a few examples.

Consider criminology. More people are studying how to keep us safe from other humans than at any other point in history. But here’s the US murder rate between 1960 and 2018, not including the large uptick since then.

So basically, after a rough couple of decades, we’re back to where we were in 1960. But we’re actually much worse, because improvements in medical technology are keeping a lot of people that would’ve died 60 years ago alive. One paper from 2002 says that the murder rate would be 5 times higher if not for medical developments since 1960. I don’t know how much to trust this, but it’s surely true that we’ve made some medical progress since that time, and doctors have been getting a lot of experience from all the shooting victims they have treated over the decades. Moreover, we’re much richer than we were in 1960, and I’m sure spending on public safety has increased. With all that, we are now about tied with where we were almost three-quarters of a century ago, a massive failure.

What about psychology? As of 2016, there were 106,000 licensed psychologists in the US. I wish I could find data to compare to previous eras, but I don’t think anyone will argue against the idea that we have more mental health professionals and research psychologists than ever before. Are we getting mentally healthier? Here’s suicides in the US from 1981 to 2016

…

What about education? I’ll just defer to Freddie deBoer’s recent post on the topic, and Scott Alexander on how absurd the whole thing is.

Maybe there have been larger cultural and economic forces that it would be unfair to blame criminology, psychology, and education for. Despite no evidence we’re getting better at fighting crime, curing mental problems, or educating children, maybe other things have happened that have outweighed our gains in knowledge. Perhaps the experts are holding up the world on their shoulders, and if we hadn’t produced so many specialists over the years, thrown so much money at them, and gotten them to produce so many peer reviews papers, we’d see Middle Ages-levels of violence all across the country and no longer even be able to teach children to read. Like an Ayn Rand novel, if you just replaced the business tycoons with those whose work has withstood peer review.

Or you can just assume that expertise in these fields is fake. Even if there are some people doing good work, either they are outnumbered by those adding nothing or even subtracting from what we know, or our newly gained understanding is not being translated into better policies. Considering the extent to which government relies on experts, if the experts with power are doing things that are not defensible given the consensus in their fields, the larger community should make this known and shun those who are getting the policy questions so wrong. As in the case of the Afghanistan War, this has not happened, and those who fail in the policy world are still well regarded in their larger intellectual community.

…

Those opposed to cancel culture have taken up the mantle of “intellectual diversity” as a heuristic, but there’s nothing valuable about the concept itself. When I look at the people I’ve come to trust, they are diverse on some measures, but extremely homogenous on others. IQ and sensitivity to cost-benefit considerations seem to me to be unambiguous goods in figuring out what is true or what should be done in a policy area. You don’t add much to your understanding of the world by finding those with low IQs who can’t do cost-benefit analysis and adding them to the conversation.

One of the clearest examples of bias in academia and how intellectual diversity can make the conversation better is the work of Lee Jussim on stereotypes. Basically, a bunch of liberal academics went around saying “Conservatives believe in differences between groups, isn’t that terrible!” Lee Jussim, as someone who is relatively moderate, came along and said “Hey, let’s check to see whether they’re true!” This story is now used to make the case for intellectual diversity in the social sciences.

Yet it seems to me that isn’t the real lesson here. Imagine if, instead of Jussim coming forward and asking whether stereotypes are accurate, Osama bin Laden had decided to become a psychologist. He’d say “The problem with your research on stereotypes is that you do not praise Allah the all merciful at the beginning of all your papers.” If you added more feminist voices, they’d say something like “This research is problematic because it’s all done by men.” Neither of these perspectives contributes all that much. You’ve made the conversation more diverse, but dumber. The problem with psychology was a very specific one, in that liberals are particularly bad at recognizing obvious facts about race and sex. So yes, in that case the field could use more conservatives, not “more intellectual diversity,” which could just as easily make the field worse as make it better. And just because political psychology could use more conservative representation when discussing stereotypes doesn’t mean those on the right always add to the discussion rather than subtract from it. As many religious Republicans oppose the idea of evolution, we don’t need the “conservative” position to come and help add a new perspective to biology.

The upshot is intellectual diversity is a red herring, usually a thinly-veiled plea for more conservatives. Nobody is arguing for more Islamists, Nazis, or flat earthers in academia, and for good reason. People should just be honest about the ways in which liberals are wrong and leave it at that.

…

The failure in Afghanistan was mind-boggling. Perhaps never in the history of warfare had there been such a resource disparity between two sides, and the US-backed government couldn’t even last through the end of the American withdrawal. One can choose to understand this failure through a broad or narrow lens. Does it only tell us something about one particular war or is it a larger indictment of American foreign policy?

The main argument of this essay is we’re not thinking big enough. The American loss should be seen as a complete discrediting of the academic understanding of “expertise,” with its reliance on narrowly focused peer reviewed publications and subject matter knowledge as the way to understand the world. Although I don’t develop the argument here, I think I could make the case that expertise isn’t just fake, it actually makes you worse off because it gives you a higher level of certainty in your own wishful thinking. The Taliban probably did better by focusing their intellectual energies on interpreting the Holy Quran and taking a pragmatic approach to how they fought the war rather than proceeding with a prepackaged theory of how to engage in nation building, which for the West conveniently involved importing its own institutions.

A discussion of the practical implications of all this, or how we move from a world of specialization to one with better elites, is also for another day. For now, I’ll just emphasize that for those thinking of choosing an academic career to make universities or the peer review system function better, my advice is don’t. The conversation is much more interesting, meaningful, and oriented towards finding truth here on the outside.

#richard hanania #substack #afghanistan #read the whole thing

[sunsetcarnation264]

So, uh, that DT17 finale huh?

I would've made this right after I watched the finale, but I wanted to give it a bit of time to sink in fully and made sure I thought everything through before giving my thoughts on it. Not the worst finale there is, but it definitely could've been way better in my opinion. I've heard about the finale from my friends who've seen it, which from the sounds of it I already wasn't liking it, but since I've seen the finale now, how I feel about it is now concrete and set in stone and I feel the same as before. Maybe how I feel about it is in the minority side, or maybe a majority side, I dunno but I don't care. It's not the best it could've been and I'll explain why below. If you like it, good for you I guess because everyone's tastes are different, but I personally don't and I feel like the show deserves a much better finale than this. HEAVY DUTY DISCLAIMER: Just because I'm criticizing the finale doesn't mean I don't love the series, in fact it's because I love the show that I'm giving criticism and give what I would’ve done instead, and if you're anything like me and you're hella late to the party then there'll be spoilers for the finale. If you haven't caught up on the last episode, then you're not missing much honestly, but if you don't like spoilers regardless then watch that first then come back

The first part of the finale starts off like any other DuckTales 2017 episode. It's Webby's birthday, everyone's keeping their eyes out for F.O.W.L. shit, and Webby's enjoying herself. After a bit everyone goes below Funso's and they end up in F.O.W.L.'s territory. F.O.W.L. sets everything up to be on self-destruct, so they gotta find them and stop the self-destruction. They did happen to do the latter, but the F.O.W.L. members already escaped with almost everything. Just almost. The gang end up finding May and June, who're clones and they presume they're clones of Webby. Now this is where I'm starting to not like the finale. Yeah, you can do clones as like a plot twist, but at the same time it feels a bit outta nowhere. Had they foreshadowed it in another episode or have it lead up to the whole "oh shit there's clones of a character we know and love" thing then I wouldn't have a problem, but this came outta nowhere and I kept an eye on possible foreshadowing during season 3 and the rest of season 2 post The Duck Knight Returns too so I would've picked something up. The only thing that could count as foreshadowing was when Beakley promised Webby that she won't keep anymore secrets from her and the harp was saying "fibbing fibbing fibbing", but that's just it. Part two of the finale, Gyro does tests on them to see who they might've been clones of. He tries to tell everyone what the results are but when Scrooge asks him, he said it didn't come up with anything for him to answer the question. Beakley thinks they're both dangerous and locks them up in a closet. Webby, being a naive little girl, wants to talk to them because they're essentially her 'sisters' and she wants to know them more even though Beakley straight up tells her not to interact with them. Webby disregards what Beakley says anyways and she frees them, talks to them, and tries to show them her family tree so they can figure out where May and June came from. May and June are basically like "ehhhh this is your family tree? Who tf are you related to besides Beakley?" yeah, as if extended family or found family still ain't family you jerks. In the meantime, Louie just wants to watch his Ottoman Empire finale which ends up being shitty foreshadowing for the last part of this finale. You'll see why I mentioned this later. They even see Lena and Violet on there and are like "okay but who're those" which Webby responds with how they're her best friends and guess what one of the two clones goes to do? One of them grabs scissors and tries to cut it. When she does cut it, Lena's like "aw hell no bitch" and uses magic on her. Webby being Webby, is completely upset about this because "that was my sister how could you do that" and runs off like how one of the clones ran off. Bitch you only knew her for like five seconds, just because y'all be related don't mean you automatically THIS close to each other like how you are with Lena, Violet, Huey, Dewey, Louie, and anybody else in the McDuck family. I personally believe that love, trust, and respect is what makes people family, not blood/DNA, adoption, or they were married into the family or a step sib/kid/etc. If they're a harmful dick (i.e. a bigot who's queerphobic and/or racist or if they're an abuser, murderer, etc.) then you don't gotta treat them like family or say that they're your family. But anyways we're probs getting off topic, point is that she should trust those who she's known forever instead of clones she knew for a few minutes. Everybody tries to find Webby and one of the clones that ran off. Webby bumped into Beakley as she was tryna find May or June (I think May tho, don't recall) and she tries to lie her way outta it but Beakley knows what's up lol. She says that Webby wants to see the clones, Webby goes with it, and the younger duck wants to know who her parents were. Beakley tells her who her parents were (which might've either been a lie or she was describing herself and a late significant other that we've seen in Webby's picture of her parents) and Webby accepts it. Cut to later when she catches May and June trying to steal the ancient artifacts that Scrooge and co. retrieved during the entirety of season 3. She's shocked that they're even doing this, they all fight each other, and May escaped while June got knocked out. Webby disguises herself as June while she takes her outside where F.O.W.L. awaited them with an aircraft, most importantly Bradford. We only find out Webby was disguising herself as June when everyone got on. Huey notices what's going on and he goes after them, somewhat hiding in the aircraft before everyone leaves for the F.O.W.L. hideout. Not gonna lie, that was a pretty smart plan by Webby. Considering they all look identical and Webby's good at imitation, she can actually get away with this pretty well. This I actually really like and I wouldn't change too much about this. When Huey reveals himself to the three, Webby reveals herself to him but tells him to play along so they ain't fucked over. Somewhat worked. Webby keeps making little slips here and there which makes May hella suspicious of her. They land at the hideout, Webby tries to get what info she can while Huey's taken away. Thanks to the help of Pepper (who I love btw and I think deserves the best ;____;), Webby ends up finding the document room where there's documents on May, June, and a third person with the codename of April. She watches it and oh, shit, it turns out Bentina Beakley actually snatched her ass from F.O.W.L. when she was a baby! What a shocker! She couldn't believe what she was seeing! This is actually fine to me, her possibly being a clone actually makes sense because she could've been a clone of Beakley. Plus it's also a huge reference to how Webby was created to be a combination of Daisy's nieces April, May, and June back in the original series, though I dunno how many people would catch that, especially younger fans who might not have done the research to getting all of the references and easter eggs here. When Beakley was brought in (essentially she knocked Scrooge out without hurting him, went to here alone to take care of F.O.W.L. once and for all just for Webby, but got defeated along with some of the McDucks), everyone leaves Beakley, Webby, and the Harp alone and Webby somewhat confronts Beakley about her past. Needless to say, Webby ain't excited about this and she gets captured and tied up. She's actually pretty depressed, which I mean in a way I don't blame her since she wanted to know if that shit was real or if F.O.W.L. was fabricating it. Cut to Huey being brought to Bradford. Apparently he was a fellow Woodchuck too, though he wasn't the best despite being the very first Woodchuck by his grandmother Isabella Finch, in fact he was the worst which hahaha yeah I can actually believe that. It does explain why he hates adventures and all of that shit, one of the only things I'm willing to accept from the finale. He talks about how he wants to complete the collection "for the better" because Scrooge and everyone else in the family were the only ones to have Isabella's lost journal. Huey believes this at first. He stops believing it once he ends up finding Gyro and everyone else who're locked up. In the meantime, Bradford drags Webby out to a sort of box along with May and June. She doesn't know why she's brought up here. When she gets close to the box, the papyrus appears because... She's the descendant of... Of Scrooge McDuck. Okay no, JUST NAH MAN. This is where my biggest issue in the finale lies, the fact that she's a clone/made from Scrooge's DNA and is technically his "daughter". Not everybody has to be related to Scrooge McDuck to be great, in fact doing this to her actually ruins Webby's character. Her trope is "found family," not "I'm secretly part of the family this whole time and not even I knew it" and this fucks with it so badly. This show is about family, and all different kinds of it. Being taken care of by your uncles/aunts instead of your parents but still having a good relationship, some kids don't have parents and they're gone for whatever reason, being loved and accepted by other family members, some families are awful and abusive, hell some families have two same sex/gendered parents with a kid who's def adopted and one might've been adopted or been from a previous relationship, and it's also how sometimes we find people to call family because we found them and they found us. Webby was the one to fill in the finding those to find family alongside her grandma, but I feel like they're disregarding that just to have a huge plot twist. Again aside from Beakley keeping secrets from Webby, there was no foreshadowing and it makes a previous episode from season two (Nightmare on Killmotor Hill) seem kinda creepy in hindsight since she's over here wanting to be Scrooge himself, and creepy overall due to how obsessive she was over the whole McDuck family in general. You could say it's foreshadowing this whole time, since some people might actually be like this before realizing that "oh hey I'm actually related to this person" due to someone being adopted, given to someone else to take care of, divorce and each parent keeps one of the kids and they don't meet again until way later in life, which in a way is a fair point but at the same time not everyone's gonna notice this even when they look back at the previous episodes. If you're gonna do foreshadowing and a plot twist, you have to do it where looking back everyone can notice little details, not just a certain group of people, and you gotta make sure it's good. Every plot twist has it's foreshadowings, and every good one has a good amount for people to take a guess. Every bad plot twist, however, is either forced in just to shock the viewers or has shitty foreshadowing that's either extremely little or none. I will make a comparison between this and Steven Universe (which if you're still watching or haven't touched yet but haven't gotten up to season five, please skip this part to avoid spoilers for the show) because in Steven Universe, there were PLENTY of hints and foreshadowing that Rose Quartz was actually Pink Diamond and it was even a theory too that Rose was actually Pink, alongside a theory that Pearl was actually the one to shatter Pink Diamond and not Rose which ended up being true in a way that both fits. This was a good plot twist that everyone can watch the show from start to end once again and notice every little bits of details that led up to that plot twist reveal. (End of SU spoilers) This, however, isn't a good plot twist. It's a terrible one and, again, forced in, messy, and there's not enough foreshadowing that can be used to be like "oh I kinda saw that coming" or "oh shit!" and think it's a genuinely good twist. Also the fact that Webby called Scrooge "Dad" T W I C E in the finale, it doesn't sound right, I even voiced out loud that OH EW THAT DOESN'T FEEL RIGHT WHY ARE YOU CALLING HIM DAD THIS IS GROSS STOP IT LIKE JUST CALL HIM UNCLE SCROOGE LIKE YOU'VE ALWAYS DONE- Oh and this is meant to be a throwback to that Ottoman Empire finale foreshadowing thing from earlier btw lol The last few things I can note about this is the fight between Scrooge and Bradford, where the latter reveals that he was the one to tell Della about the Spear of Selene (which pisses Scrooge off so damn BADLY and it's the other thing I can accept from the finale, it seems like Bradford to do that shit), and the fact that Donald almost died for fucking good due to Bradford pushing his ass into a machine that can erase anything and everything from existence when put in there. He did so with his minions, so he has no qualms about doing so to Scrooge's family unless he signed the papyrus as a contract. Not that it worked anyways, since "family is the greatest adventure of all" which Bradford didn't understand one bit lol But the finale? Not good, the show deserved so much better and Huey deserved way better because this was his season. What I would've done differently is mainly how Webby is a "clone" or whatever you want to call her. It makes no sense for all of her DNA to be from Scrooge McDuck, which raises way too many questions. Why not Beakley? Why not a warrior from F.O.W.L. with a mix of McDuck DNA? Why is Webby a girl while Scrooge isn't? You could argue that oh he might be a trans guy, which while I absolutely LOVE trans and nonbinary headcanons (due to the fact I'm a nonbinary woman myself), it just feels like a cheap escape goat of an excuse to explain that and Scrooge being trans because of that? Ehhhhhhhhhhhhh it doesn't feel right to me. If it was a combination of him and Beakley, then okay I'd get why she's like that, but it still has the problem of her being related to the family DNA-wise. Same with the clones honestly. Now what I would do differently is make it where she's a clone of someone (def not Scrooge) and make it where she has an identity-existential crisis. Who is she really? Is she this "April" character, or if she Webby like she's always known herself as her whole life? In the end, she accepts that she's herself, Webby Vanderquack, granddaughter of Bentina Beakley and an ally of Scrooge McDuck. May and June, on the other hand, are possibly failed attempts to recreate Webby, the perfect clone, in order to get the papyrus to appear which in of itself never stated it had to be a DIRECT heir to Scrooge McDuck (it just states that it requires an heir of Scrooge McDuck) like a daughter/son or whatever. You can go back to the episode "The First Adventure" to look at the papyrus if you want, but he wrote that it was to an HEIR not a descendant. It heavily supports how they changed a shit ton of things before the last season being this year instead of idk, try to make it better because they finished voicing the lines in January this year when they started doing season three around the time we got season two. Bradford gets frustrated, wondering how it couldn't have worked because HE HAS WEBBY RIGHT HERE. What he didn't realize was that it could've been someone within the family itself, one who's considered the smart one out of the bunch that wasn't Scrooge McDuck himself, someone who's also a fellow Junior Woodchuck. And that would be Hubert Duck, in which season three is meant to be his season. When he gets close, the papyrus appears but Bradford snatches it and runs off with it so he can finish up that contract he's spent FOREVER to make and force Scrooge to write his name there. As with May and June, I dunno what I would do with them, but if I rewrite the finale at some point (which I would be doing now with my mom, who watched the finale with me because we tend to watch stuff a lot, but I can't at the moment because I have a list of stuff to make and I can't afford to make it longer than it already is along with my WIP list) I'll figure out what to do with them. Overall, the finale is a 4 out of 10 for me. Not horrible enough for it to be the worst finale ever in the history of shows/series, but it's definitely got a lot of things that bothered me too much to genuinely enjoy it without getting stuck on something for too long. Again if you like it, good for you, but personally? It should've been much better and the series deserves a proper finale. If there's no surprise movie to make it better, then I'ma just pretend this finale doesn't exist like nah bye bitch dunno you lmao Besides with how messy this finale is, I hope you guys enjoyed reading my thoughts on it and I hope you guys have a great day

#DuckTales 2017 #DuckTales Reboot #Spoilers on the finale/The Last Adventure #Lil's Talks #Idk I just thought about it again and I'm just not that happy with it lol #Just put a lot of love and care into everything you work on guys #I'm up for discussion to see why you guys like it #just don't be a dick in the comments and reblogs please #That's all I ask for

[neo-nomatrix]

Hello! Can I get a mcyt ship :D. My pronouns are she/her I’m also a libra! whichever gender! I don’t mind :] I have neck length dark brown/black hair, I’m 5’4, I also have my nails painted black cuz I’m swag. I’m super loud around my friends- I always seem to be laughing and happy but when I’m not I have a sorta mean tone. I’m a personal hype man! I get super play flirty and clingy sometimes. I look for someone who’s funny, cuddly, someone who would listen to music with me.

I ship you with...

Platonically with Nihachu! And romantically with Karl Jacobs!

For Karl :)

You had met him through the Dream smp, you were good friends with Sapnap who introduced you two

You guys hit it off instantly I know cuz you won’t stop telling me I’ve thought about what he looks like nude- k sorry, as in the moment you introduced yourself you loved each other

Quackity probably put y’all into the kissing booth and you guys rolled with it

You guys really became close during a jackbox stream, I cannot stress how loud you guys were hyping each other’s answers up

You two really started to fall for each other during a stream where you two painted your nails together and clowned on a bad movie

You guys met up during the time Quackity and Austin met up with Karl, along with you ofc

Your first date was at a cute cafe with Lofi playing and it was all empty and just so damn cute 🥺

Your dates are definitely sitting in his car listening to music or podcasts eating burgers, and drive ins with 80s movies are a weekly thing

Quackity and Chandler also third wheel all the time

Do you know that one audio that says “the kinda guy that gets along with your friends without being attracted to any of them” he’s the living definition of that when it comes to you

As I said I also ship you platonically with Niki and they get along so so well

Before you guys started dating you went on love or host and he got all pouty and jealous when Minx kept flirting with you

You guys probably keep your relationship a secret but always went on “dates” on the smp

People found out really quickly most likely because either him or bad accidentally let it slip

You know that one photo of Wilbur kissing Nikis hand? That but make it you two in a park, all the fuckin time

When you don’t go to drive ins your constantly falling sleep in each other’s arms while watching Disney movies

For Niki :)

Y’all are so chaotic it’s hilarious

We’ve all seen drunk niki, in short that’s how niki acts whenever you’re together

You guys share a love like no other

And when she was wearing a strawberry dress, you spent so long shouting “THATS MY BESTIE THATS HER”

You’re each others hype men, constantly telling each other I love you and such

Before you met Karl on the SMP you met Niki first and were freaked out by how cool the other one is

I cannot stress how long you two spend on call listening to music and just talking

Probably went to Brighton when everyone met up and you two where inseparable

I have a feeling you two went out to the ocean and had flowy dresses on and just danced to Cigarette daydreams by cage the elephant

She was the one to help both you and Karl start to really talk

She was the mastermind behind your relationship and won’t let you forget it

When you won’t do her a favor or smth she’ll bring up “hey you remember that time I got you and the love of your life together??? Because I do”

*not edited*

A/n: I couldn’t decide who to ship you with so I decided to do one platonically and one romantically! I hope you liked it and have a lovely day anon

#✨.neo ships #nihachu fluff #karl jacobs fluff

[psychiccupid]

“Two Teru’s”

@danganrarepairweek2021 Day One: Flowers, Festival, Fireworks!

Ship: Ultimate Impostor x Teruteru Hanamura (TwoTeru)

Fic Tags: HPA AU, Fluff, Pure Fluff, It’s been years so Teru’s NOT LIKE THAT™, Probably OOC but this is how I see them in the future, Semi-Original Character (for Impostor), Festival, Fireworks, Teru’s mom, brother, and sister are here!!

While they were both prepared, the sheer volume of people at the Hanamura’s festival stand was… overwhelming to say the least. Especially considering that both of Teruteru’s younger siblings wanted to go off and get some time to actually enjoy the evening - which was understandable. It’s certainly not every day such a huge party was happening.

However, this left only two people running the booth. The Ultimate Chef could easily handle this all on his own, no sweat, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t grateful for his partner impostoring him. Looking in the other’s direction, he was currently handing a young, excited girl a bowl of what most assuredly would be the best curry she’d ever taste. The thought made Teruteru smile widely - truly, what would he do without him? 

The moment the first guest had tried a bite of the Double Teru Cooking Combo™, they spread their outstanding review around the entire festival, and people had not stopped coming for seconds, thirds, fourths since! The stand had been set up four hours ago, but now, it was getting late into the night, with his family yet to return. He knew they wanted to have fun! And he was happy that he had the skills to let that happen but…

He had a very special moment prepared. Missing it was out of the question.

Ever since they met at Hope’s Peak, Teru had found comfort in serving food to -at the time- Byakuya Togami. It was unexpected, for the heir to be so… compliment-y… but with every praise, the cook found himself falling more and more. His raunchy jokes slowed down until they were gone completely and his demeanor shaped up and became more serious; all because he’d found ‘the one’ - the person he wanted to keep making food for. 

As he handed an older gentleman a rice bowl, he couldn’t help thinking about their history together. The sweet romantic dinner where Teruteru had finally asked him out, the first time he ever taught the other how to cook something exquisite for himself… and especially the late night where, out in a park underneath the stars, he learned they weren’t really Byakuya Togami. Though, at that point - he already knew and very much accepted them. The trust that it took to admit that wouldn’t go unappreciated, and so the chef had opened up about his siblings talents, his jealousy, and how he worried about his mom constantly. 

“Well, you’re already teaching me how to cook. Perhaps we can make an arrangement?” The impostor had told them that night, and now, looking at his own face like a reflection, he found nothing but love in his heart that he’d accepted. 

Still - he was absolutely ecstatic when his mom returned, tuckered out, and said that she’d be happy to take over so they could escape. His sister rounded the corner and practically shoved him out cooing, “Yeah, tell your doppelganger to go change and go kiss already! We’ve been back for five seconds and the tension is unreal. Shoo! Go!” His brother teasing the Impostor to the same degree. Heck, even some of the people around the booth hollered at them, embarrassingly, to get out for a little bit - but it was all in good fun!

So, giddily, they rounded the corner and the taller Teruteru chuckled, “Anyone in particular you’d like to spend your evening with?” It was mostly in appearance - despite the lack of a name, gender, or identity, Teru would know his partner anywhere, through any disguise at this point. They may change faces, but underneath it was always just…

“Tonight is special. So… can I ask you to be Imp for a little while?” A secret nickname, a character the two of them created together. Imp was The Ultimate Impostor, or, what they wanted to be. A masculine face with slicked back black hair and brown eyes, hosting a deeper voice but all of it being… them. And that was Teruteru’s absolute favorite: Them.

After a few moments, Imp had changed into, well, Imp. But also into more-appropriate festival attire. The shorter man had done the same - and now they both sported some stylish jinbei, happily walking hand-in-hand to inspect all of the booths excitedly.

The first hour was spent inspecting every single food stand they could find, buying one thing to split between them, and would gush happily about all the parts of it they liked! Then, they stopped at knickknack stalls, watched performances, and simply enjoyed the other’s company. 

But the big event was in the second hour, as the sun was finally set, and eleven o’clock rolled around. Teruteru had been planning this for weeks alongside their festival station, and now stood with his true love at the top of a hill, overlooking a large water canal. Pointedly, he looked to the sky, and, being as breathtakingly intelligent as he was, Imp knew to do the same - already guessing what the surprise would be. 

In no time at all, a wide array of colors and blasts lit up the dark background as firework after firework shot off - exploding into sparkles and smoke. They were stunning, radiant, and both onlookers found themselves happily gawking at the display, wonderfully basking in the other’s presence for the evening. 

As the finale started, with what seemed to be a never ending supply of ammo, Imp leaned over and gave Teruteru the lightest kiss on the cheek - never being the overly physically affectionate type. But, through the years, it was a silent message that the other was allowed to be affectionate, and so, underneath the ever changing lights, he turned towards his darling and stood on his tiptoes to give them a passionate kiss - just one - that conveyed all the love he could possibly have for the other.

Ending the night in a soft, “Thank you for trusting me.” Leaving his lips.

And a warm, “Thank you for seeing me.” To follow.

#Rarepair #Rarepair Week #Twoteru #Danganronpa #Ultimate Impostor x Teruteru Hanamura #Ultimate Impostor #Twogami #Teruteru Hanamura #DR #Drabble #Rarepair Week 2021 #Fanfiction #DR Fanfiction #My Writing #Festival #Fireworks #HPA AU

[sleepybutwriting]

Do you think you can do some gay Male!Yph? I project a lot on them and kinda wanted to see that, maybe him talking about having a crush on someone? Maybe the students/kids of the dads and big bro?

Of course, I always do my best to keep things gender-neutral unless specified in the request (but of course that doesn’t always happen). But here is a gender-neutral request that is a bit similar but the students/kids have a crush on you as well.

Crush on Young Pro Hero

~

I don’t see any members of the dad squad having a problem with you being gay. As long as your happy. 

“Heading out again?” Aizawa's voice rang out from the couch. You let out a sigh retreating your hand from the doorknob and turning around. You were almost in the clear. Aizawa had his eyebrow raised. Thoughts clear on his face. He was onto you.

“Ooo that’s the third time this week? What’s her name?” Hawks teased from beside him. And it appeared he wasn’t the only one.

“You don’t need to explain yourself to us, Young Y/N. Go see your friend!” Toshinori interrupted, giving Hawks a quick jab.

Endeavor only laughed, deep voice echoing through the room. “I’m sure Y/N, isn’t wasting their time and is instead going to train. Right y/n?”

“Yeah right! Going to train? Almost every night this week? He’s definitely seeing someone. I just don’t get why you don’t bring her by?” Hawks mused, “What are you afraid I might steal her away?”

They were right. You had been seeing someone for about a month now, but decided to keep it to yourself until you were sure it was serious. Not to mention that you were afraid of their reactions when they found out that the secret ‘girlfriend’ that they think you have, is actually your secret boyfriend.

It’s not that you worried that they wouldn’t approve, even though that was always a thought in the back of your head. You were more worried about it just being awkward. You didn’t want things to change. But you loved your boyfriend and he had been begging you to meet everyone so you thought it was better now than never.

“Actually, I am seeing someone.” You confirmed

“You should bring her by,” Aizawa yawned, “We’d love to meet her.”

“Him,” You corrected, causing all the dads to exchange a few glances. “He’s my...um boyfriend, and we’ve been dating for a bit now.”

“You should have told us sooner Y/N. You must really care about him.”

“I do.”

“What a simp.” Hawks laughed, receiving a harsh smack on the back of the head by Aizawa.

“Anyway. We’d still love to meet him. You should invite him over for dinner.”

#sbw ask #sbw concept #sbw yph

[dandelionflower]

Felinette where after 10 years the school reunion happens but Mari and Felix are at the hospital since Mari is giving birth. At the reunion Lila tries her lies about Mari but the birth of Mari and Felix's kid is going live since Mari is a famous designer and Felix is her model.

[send me Felinette prompts/requests]

“Hey, girl!” Alya hugged Lila, grinning bright. “Guess who got herself an interview with Jagged Stone’s son last week?”

“You mean Shatter?” Lila smiled at her, voice softening like when a mother consoles a child. “He’s such a sweetie, isn’t he?”

“It’s Shawn, but yeah.” Alya grinned at the memory.

The wedding between Penny Rolling and Jagged Stone has happened when they were all just fourteen, and Shawn was born that next year.

The year Lila told them about her lies.

She admitted that she had lied about her trips, her connections, and being Ladybug’s friend. The only truth was knowing Jagged Stone, but that was because he was her godfather, not because she saved his kitten.

She was bawling on the floor, begging for forgiveness that the class surely gave.

Alya was twenty-nine now, and her journalistic pursuits were thriving, just like everyone else.

Rose had become a highly esteemed business woman, and Juleka was modeling so much, you couldn’t look at a magazine kiosk without seeing her face.

Ivan was a well-paid bodyguard for Mylene, who had gained fame by protesting all sorts of environmental atrocities. They had broken up after they had turned seventeen, but rumor had it that those old bonds were slowly repairing themselves.

Alix had become a famous rollerblader, breaking a record for fastest cross country time and took up ice skating; she was going to the next Olympic Games.

Kim was now the most wanted stuntmen in the world, for his lack of fear and uncanny ability to not die from heights.

Nathaniel and Marc parted ways as they went to different colleges, but were still in contact. Nathaniel often called Marc when the storyline for his comic book seemed a bit off and Marc would gladly tell him that the author was just being an idiot.

Max and Sabrina, amazingly enough, got married; they completed their medical doctorates together and, once they made enough money, went back to college to get degrees in technology and math for Max and philosophy and psychology for Sabrina.

Together, they found the cure for cancer and Sabrina ended up writing a bestselling self-help novel, Henchman: just one good friend isn’t always enough. Max had patented his AI technology and Markov got his own talk show.

Adrien was working with Child Protective Services and other organizations to help children in bad situations. His father’s company took a massive tank after Hawkmoth’s reveal and Adrien did nothing to keep it afloat.

Chloe took up acting. She was well known for her amazing performances of evil queens, heinous witches, terrifying stepmothers. She, of course, took it all in stride.

No one really knew what Lila or Marinette were up to, finding out was probably the reason most of them were here.

And Nino...

Nino was living life happily as a popular song composer with his daughter Harley, the daughter Alya missed with every passing day.

She shook her head. Now wasn’t time to dwell on recent events, now was a time to look back at the past and reminisce.

“Have you seen Marinette? I’ve been wondering what she’s been up to these past ten years.” Alya commented, barely noticing Lila stiffen up. “You too. I gave you my number for a reason, you know.”

“Yeah, but I lost my phone in the trenches and you know how bad my memory is.” She laughed, batting her hand in the air.

“Yeah, I do. So tell me now; what about trenches?”

“I’ve been doing some peace talks, you know, nothing big.”

“Like Mylene was?”

“...yeah, like that. Just on a slightly larger scale.”

“Larger than stopping the Third World War? Dang girl.”

“I’ve also been doing some acting in foreign films and donating my extra time to children in need.”

“Like Chloe, Kim, and Adrien!”

Her eye twitched. “So, is Marinette coming, or is she...”

“She’s definitely coming. She wouldn’t miss a class reunion for the world.”

“Are you sure, because I saw her not too long ago today and she didn’t seem to prepared.”

“She’s coming.” Alya spoke firmly.

“Hi Alya! Hi Lila!” Rose jumped in and hugged them both tightly. “Have either of you seen Mari? I need to give her congratulations.”

“Congratulations? For what?”

“She got married a while back! I was really busy though, so I wasn’t able to go to the wedding. Her number changed too so I couldn’t call her either.”

Alya frowned. She hadn’t gotten any invitation.

“She got married?” Lila gasped. “But who was that man she was kissing in the coffee shop?”

“That was probably him; I don’t know him well, but I remember him being blond.” Rose grinned.

“Are you sure? He seemed pretty red headed when I saw them.” She pressed her hands to her face. “You don’t think...”

“Lila, come on. Mari wouldn’t cheat on her husband.”

“Yeah... we’ll just talk to her when she gets here.” Lila agreed. “If she gets here in time.”

“She will.” Alya nodded, reassuring Lila with a smile.

For some reason, she didn’t seem too certain.

—

Hours passed and everyone had given a speech on the stage, all but one.

“Where could she be?” Alya hissed to herself, texting Marinette again and again only to get a message declaring her number inactive.

“Maybe she’s just not-“ Lila was cut off when Alya held up her hand.

“Don’t. Just don’t.”

The sound of feedback filled the room and every head turned towards the stage, where Miss Bustier was standing.

She looked almost the same, with her red hair in a bun and her crisp pale blue pantsuit. The signs of time were still there, though, in the wrinkles around her eyes and the sparkling grey at her roots.

“Hello class!” She paused and listened to them cheer. “We’ve heard all of your accounts of your school years, and now it’s time for your class president to have a word.”

Chatter filled the air, each person turning to look for the blurnette.

“Oh, I can’t wait to see her!” Rose squealed to Juleka. “I need to get her new number.”

Juleka glanced sideways at her. “She’s been texting me for months.”

“What?” Rose scrolled through her phone and stopped. “Oh! Here it is! My phone is set to block unknown numbers.” She clicked a button and grinned as she made a new contact for her, with lots of emojis.

“Where’s Marinette?” Someone yelled. “Shouldn’t she be here?”

“I’m afraid Marinette had some prior engagements.” Miss Bustier clicked a pointer to a projector. “But, luckily, we are able to see exactly what it is.”

Light funneled out of the projector and the class was treated to what looked like a home movie.

It was in a hospital, but one boys face overtook the screen. He had on a blue striped shirt and a cheeky smile.

“Hey ma peeps! For those of you just joining us, I’m Claude...”

Another boy popped up in a green beret. “And I’m Mercury.”

“...and this is the livestream of the birth of a demigod!”

Sabrina and Max rose their fists and started chanting, “Elise! Elise! Elise!”

Ivan and Mylene glared at them playfully and started their own chant. “Dean! Dean! Dean!”

“What are they talking about?” Alya whispered to Rose.

“Didn’t you know? I just found out, it’s-“ she was cut off by a familiar voice coming from the speakers.

“Claude, I swear, if you don’t turn off that camera right now...”

The camera panned to a blue haired woman lying in a bed, a platinum blond man by her side.

“Sorry, Madame Culpa-Dupain-Cheng,” he laughed as Alya gasped inside the gymnasium, “you’re bedridden, so I’m not afraid of you.”

“Felix is still here.” She pointed out, leveling a finger at the camera. “Felix, get ‘im.”

The blond looked somewhere behind the camera’s field of view and made to move, but stopped as Marinette shouted out in pain.

“Felix,” she panted, after the screaming ceased, “I just want you to know that I love you, but I am never doing this again.” She looked up at him and received an amused grin.

“Fine by me.” He kissed her temple and Claude spoke again.

“You heard it here first folks! The legendary child, the only of its kind!”

She glared at him again. “Felix, if you don’t mind.”

“It would be my pleasure.” He began rolling up his sleeves and began walking towards Claude with a brisk pace.

“Uh, Claude?” Mercury, spoke with a nervous lilt to his voice.

“Well, that’s our live secret look into the birth of the legendary child of famous designer Marinette Culpa-Dupain-Chang and her photographer Felix Culpa-Dupain-Cheng!” Claude opened the door and hurried out. “Comment below on what you think the gender of the legend child will be and what the parents should name them; Claude Junior...”

“Or Mercury Junior!”

“Or the great Allegra the second?”

“Guys?” Adrien stood up from where he was sitting next to a blonde woman in a braid and a darker haired woman. “Is everything okay in there?”

“In there, fine, but out here?”

“There is a man on a mission behind us and that mission includes the removal of our tongues.”

“Better keep running, then.” The dark haired girl shouted, not even glancing up from her phone.

“Indeed.” Felix’s voice came from close behind the camera.

Both Claude and Mercury shrieked and began running down the hall once more, the other girl beside Adrien laughing while shouting, “Get ‘em good Felix!”

Alya stood stock-still, staring at the black screen.

Marinette is having a baby.

Adrien and four strangers are there for it.

She got married.

I didn’t know about it.

Lila said she saw Marinette today when she’s clearly been in the hospital all day, and is obviously in love with that Felix guy.

Suddenly, the fact that no one else but Rose, the sweetest person in class, had been talking to Lila was making a whole lot more sense.

@virgil-is-a-cutie

#request #felinette #ml felix #mlb #felix culpa #marinette dupain cheng #ml marinette #miraculous ladybug #adrien agreste #ml alya #alya cesaire #ml lila #lila rossi #future au

[megashadowdragon]

coldhands identity is brave danny flint

Could Coldhands be Brave Danny Flint? It sounds crackpot, and very likely is, but the more I thought about it the more it appealed to me. I've done a quick search, one or two people seem to have floated this before but it's never had much in-depth analysis. This is my first meta, so please be gentle and C&C welcome.

The Gender Agenda To start with, I'll start with the elephant in the room - Danny Flint was a girl, Coldhands is male. Or is he? Gilly, Meera, and Bran all refer to him as male, but they have no idea who he is, so would see Night's Watch clothes and assume. He wears a scarf over his face, and while they can see his eyes and that his face is pale, it took Bran's gang a decent amount of time to work out he was a walking corpse, so I'm not sure I trust them to figure out niceties like gender. Leaf's "They killed him long ago" is more of a problem - she's a colleague, she would probably know. My best defence is that maybe Children of the Forest don't do gender in the same way as humans? This feels like a reach, but we have had another magical species with sexual fluidity leading to trouble with pronouns in the series. Otherwise, Leaf tends to hang out in the cave, Coldhands can't get in, maybe they're just not that close. Finally, the main person to ask - Coldhands his or her self. The only other post I could see on reddit about this theory had someone respond with the quote "Once the heart has ceased to beat, a man's blood runs down into his extremities, where it thickens and congeals. His hands and feet swell up and turn as black as pudding. The rest of him becomes as white as milk", but I'd point out this is in third person and a generalization - "a man", not "me, Coldhands, the man".

Okay, now I've convinced everyone my theory is terrible, let's get into the meat of it.

Hands cold as stone This was what got me into this rabbit hole in the first place - House Flint's sigil is "A grey stone hand upon a white inverted pall on paly black and grey". A stone hand would be pretty cold, right? In point of fact, when we first met Coldhands, the final line of the chapter describes "fingers hard as stone." On top of that, the white and black background seems to fit the Night's Watch blacks, pale face, black hands, white snow, etc.

Who the hell else could it be? This has always been the weird thing about Coldhands for me. Honestly, there's a very good chance this is a non mystery mystery, he's a zombie Night's watch ranger riding an elk, do we really need a secret identity? However, "who is Coldhands?" is one of the most commonly asked questions in the fandom, so let's assume it's getting an answer. We know: a) night's watch member b) killed a long time ago, as reckoned by a 200 year old, c) not Benjen. There are essentially 3 historical periods where we know any specifics about the Night's Watch: 1) the long night/age of heroes, 2) Targaryen era, 3) recent history. If we work through these backwards, we can pretty much rule out the recent era for not meeting the criteria of "killed a long time ago". The Targaryen era didn't have much Night's Watch drama, a few kings sent to the wall at Aegon's conquest, Raymun Redbeard's invasion is wall related but the whole point of that story is that the Night's Watch failed to really get involved... the only strong contender from this period is a mysterious magical Targaryen bastard who went to the wall and went missing... but he's the other mysterious good zombie wandering around up north. The long night has a lot of Night's Watch focus, but it was 10,000 years ago. Allowing for this being in-universe exaggeration, it's still ~2,000 years ago, and if Coldhands were that old, I'm not sure he'd be in elk-riding mutineer-killing form, or at least not look passably human to Bran and co. This rules out specific timeline characters, which leaves more folkloric characters like Danny Flint, who isn't associated to any one point in time. There's a song, and she's treated as a well-known tale, which implies a fairly long time, but overall could be whenever. This works for any of the folkloric Night's Watch characters, but the Rat King is already otherwise occupied with a different cannibalistic pseudo immortality, leaving Mad Axe, who does have the massacring fellow brothers down pat, but doesn't feel thematically right to me. This section really grew in the writing, but TL;DR - assuming Coldhands is someone we've heard of before, no specific historical figures seem to match up chronologically, leaving figures from folk tales and songs, which there are only so many of.

Mutineer Massacre For a character we've all obsessed over so much, it's easy to forget how little we've seen of Coldhands. His role in the story has effectively been "transport Sam and Gilly to the wall, transport Bran and co to Bloodraven, massacre the Night's Watch mutineers". Hold up, one of those things is not like the others. During his quest to get Bran to Bloodraven, to awake the messiah and save the world, Coldhands takes a break and makes a detour to kill the Night's Watch Mutineers from Crasters. This is explicitly noted to be something they slow down for, when time is critical. Admittedly, it secures the party some delicious Long Pork when supplies are low, but even in aDwD it seems like there are other ways to get meat than to hunt humans, besides which he kills not one but five mutineers. He claims it is because the mutineers are following them, but Meera points out they've been circling for days - it seems Coldhands deliberately sought the mutineers out. The brutality of the kills also suggests more than utilitarian pragmatism - there are entrails slung through branches and severed heads! All of this to say, Coldhands is deliberately shown as both a member of the Night's Watch, and willing/going out of his way to punish Night's Watch brothers who break their vows and harm their fellow brothers, something Danny Flint might take personally. Basically, it's a classic exploitation movie with an elk-riding zombie as the wronged woman hunting down wrongdoers. Someone call Tarantino to direct this.

A True Night's Watch One of the big themes GRRM loves is the idea that outsiders to an institution can be the truest embodiment of that institution - Dunk and Brienne are the truest Knights, Davos is the truest lord, the Manderlys are the most loyal northerners. Coldhands already seems to tie into this - the Night's Watch are tireless defenders from the Others and their Wights, so ironically the staunchest ranger is undead as well. It would only emphasise this theme if this ultimate Night's Watch ranger was someone who was barred from entry, had to sneak in, and was murdered by their brothers for not belonging. There also seems to be a thematic tie in that Danny Flint had to essentially infiltrate the Night's Watch and keep her cover in hostile terrain, much like Coldhands in the Others controlled north.

Bonding over being murdered by your brothers Coldhands has so far been very much one of Bran's cast, but it's worth noting characters can switch storylines, and we have someone else in the North who can soon relate to being a back-from-the-dead Night's Watchman fighting the Others - I'm hardly the first to note the Coldhands/Jon parallels, but Coldhands being another character who was murdered by the Night's Watch due to their conservatism and hatred of outsiders would add another layer.

Miscellany A couple of quotes I found while researching for this: “Did Mance ever sing of Brave Danny Flint?” “Not as I recall. Who was he?” (ADWD Jon XII) - Tormund and Jon talking, Tormund mistaking Danny Flint for a man, this feels like one of those throw-away lines GRRM likes to include to make a little double meaning once the truth is out, or just seeding the idea of mistaking Danny Flint for a man. “The ranger wore the black of the Night’s Watch, but what if he was not a man at all?" (ADWD Bran I) - again, I could see GRRM giggling as he typed that if this theory were true.

Conclusion Honestly, there is every chance this is absolute nonsense, and I've just lost it waiting for TWoW. I tend to lean towards Coldhands not having a big identity reveal, he's an undead ranger co-opted by Bloodraven and that's enough. However, if Coldhands is to have an identity reveal, I think Danny Flint deserves consideration: there aren't that many viable candidates, her story is emotionally intense enough and has been referred to often enough that a casual fan could be expected to go "oh!" instead of "...let me google that", and it would fit with existing themes of the story. The angle of Jon parallels even gives an opening for the reveal to be natural and facilitate character and thematic arcs, which is what I look for in a theory.

comment on reddit

Yeah, the Flint (of Flint's Finger) sigil literally being a Cold Hand is what sold me on this when I started looking into it. There's also some other intriguing textual stuff about it...

The weird thing about Danny Flint is that she is only mentioned three times in all of ASOIAF. Three! Bran recounts her tale in Bran IV, ASOS; Theon hears Wyman Manderly demand her song in The Prince of Winterfell, ADWD; and Jon discusses her tale with Tormund in Jon XII, ADWD.

This was kind of shocking to me. Danny Flint is a pretty recognizable name to, I’d figure, the majority of attentive readers. I thought she must have been mentioned before the third book, at least, but… nope. Her tale is first introduced to us in Bran IV, ASOS, the Nightfort chapter… Oh, what’s that? Wait, isn’t that… the very same Nightfort chapter where we first hear about Coldhands? (Well, no, actually, he appears at the end of Samwell III before that, but this is the first chapter where he is identified as Coldhands.) Chronologically, Sam meets Coldhands, Bran thinks about Danny Flint, and then Sam introduces Bran to Coldhands, in fairly quick succession.

So it seems GRRM came up with Danny Flint and Coldhands around the exact same time. Interesting. Danny Flint is then not mentioned again until ADWD, when the Coldhands mystery is developed further. Double interesting.

Also, the Bran chapter directly preceding the Nightfort chapter– our first introduction to Danny Flint– is the one where Meera tells him the story of the Knight of the Laughing Tree, another tale of a northern warrior woman dressing as a man and hiding her face in service of some greater goal. Stretch? Maybe.

And why would Coldhands' face be covered at all if there WASN'T some big reveal upcoming? What utility would that have? That scarf clearly seems like a setup for SOMETHING. He doesn't need it for warmth. He's likely hiding a face that would make him recognizable to Bran/Meera/Jojen (and the readers), but died long ago... the only way that reveal could work without a ton of laborious exposition is if he took off the scarf and it was obviously a 'female' face, making it obviously Danny. It also seems likely Coldhands will interact with at least Bran and Meera again, both of whom are somewhat connected to Danny Flint’s story– Bran via his love of stories and legends, and Meera via the breaking of gender roles. So there's thematic levels to it as well.

source www . reddit . com/r/asoiaf/comments/llwm8m/coldhands_identity_spoilers_extended/

#asoiaf #A Song of Ice and Fire #asoiaf theories #asoiaf theory #asoiaf coldhands #danny flint

[korgbelmont]

Newsletter 22/01/21

In the midst of the difficulties and uncertainties happening around the world, we're pressing onward to produce books we hope you'll fall in love with. As we continue to support one another within our studio, we can truly say that your thoughtful feedback has encouraged us during these challenging times. While we can't predict what'll happen next, we hope our 2021 books will provide you an outlet to smile, laugh, and relax during these times...

Book Updates

Without further ado, we wanted to take the time to update you on the various books to expect in the coming year. Hopefully, these will answer your most pressing questions!

With Every Heartbeat

Aching for another heartfelt Choices story? We're releasing this VIP book to all players at the end of the month. (Eagle-eyed fans might notice we've even updated some of the main character hairstyles!) Be sure to follow our official social accounts for more previews...

So It looks like WEH MC will have some new hairstyles, I know for a fact that this book SOOOO good, can’t wait to see peoples reactions to it.

Open Heart, Book 3

This February, make the most of your third year at Edenbrook and reunite with your favorite medical crew in Open Heart, Book 3! Will the heart of Edenbrook remain the same in Leland Bloom's hands?

So it looks like they are setting up the plot to have Bloom as the villain and the gang finding a way to get rid of him whilst keeping Edenbrook open. I am still wary of this book, but will see it through as I do believe it is the final book of the series.

#ChoicesCookbook

Calling all food lovers! Our team is whipping up a new dish of choices in the kitchen. Get your pots and pans ready for this exclusive Choices VIP book! We'd love to see you all participate with recipes of your own... What delectable dish can you make with these ingredients? Let us know using #playchoices and #ChoicesCookbook.

So this is a part of their branching out into new genres, I have no clue what to expect, I will keep an eye on it. and see what it’s like

Laws of Attraction

Bring your A-game to beat out the competition in this brand new title set in one of New York’s premier law firms. With high-profile cases and a hard-driving, mysterious boss, you’ll be in for dramatic days… and steamy nights!

So it looks like we are getting another book that’s potentially gonna be on the more... mature side. I am curious to see how this will play out and what the premise is going to be.

Crimes of Passion

We’re hyped for this book, and although it won’t be out until later this year, we couldn’t resist sharing a little peek at what you can expect from this thrilling, unpredictable, and jaw dropping mystery book.

So I haven’t exactly been quiet about my excitement for this book, and this image gives off some SERIOUS culty vibes. Crimes of Passion is definitely my top book for this year to keep an eye on.

The Nanny Affair, Book 2

Book 2 of The Nanny Affair is in the works and will be releasing later this year. Can't wait to find out what's going to happen next? Here's the latest hint:

"We have a lot of exciting plans in the works for The Nanny Affair, Book 2 (and trust me, the art team is outdoing themselves). We don't want to give away too much, but let's just say, you may not be the only nanny in town this time around..." - Megan

As I said before, I enjoyed book 1 and am looking forward to book 2. I am curious as to how it will all play out, by the sounds of this, maybe Sam gets another Nanny in whilst they and MC work to sort out the fallout from the wedding??

Zombies

We know plenty of you have been dying for a zombie book. (Yes, we see those tweets and messages!) Until now, we were only able to share a zombie emoji… But we can make this official: zombies will be taking over Choices later this year, so stay tuned!

So I’ve been playing a lot of Resident Evil recently, and the creatures on the right give me serious RE vibes. I am now curious as to what the premise of this book will be and how it will all play out. 

The Royal Finale

As mentioned in our last Choices Insiders email, the final book of The Royal Romance series will air later this year. Here's a quote from the Book Lead to tide you over until then:

"In The Royal Finale, you'll uncover new secrets, unravel old mysteries, and experience new heights of royalty with your family!" - Olivia

I hope the “unravel old mysteries” is in part, reference to what part Jackson played in Liam’s mother’s second child. And with the whole secret society thing, who knows what’s gonna happen. 

Queen B, Book 2

You just can’t get enough of us, can you, newbie? Enjoy that high of being Queen B… Because what goes up, must always come down. - Kisses, the T.

Oooh, we're excited! Writers Chelsa and Maya have sent us this cryptic message:

🤫🙈✉️👑🐝🔥❌🎧🐍💋

What do you think it means?

Emojis and I have a terrible history so I ain’t gonna try and decrypt that (leave a reply if you do). As for the book itself, I am looking forward to it, aside from the forced Kingsley romance, I enjoyed book 1. I looking forward to the mystery element and hopefully seeing Zoey get her proper LI treatment, and hopefully see Veronica & Carter become LIs.

More New Books in the works!

We are continuing to work on more multi-gender books, including Blades of Light & Shadow 2 launching 2022.

More books. Yay (in theory (depends what they are))

News about Other Sequels

Many of you have asked when or if your favorite books would continue. We want to make sure we inform the community with confirmed and finalized details regarding sequels. To explain a little more in depth about how Choices sequels are decided, our Head of Content Max took some time to give us that insight:

After a great deal of consideration and discussion, we have decided that officially these series will not be getting additional books: Most Wanted, Hero, Nightbound, the It Lives series, The Elementalists, Distant Shores, and Ride-or-Die.I know this may be disappointing to hear, and the truth is, we’re always disappointed when we have to make this decision. I’d like to share a little bit of our process to help you understand why this happens.

Whilst it is a shame, it is nice to have clarification, especially with Most Wanted & Hero. I was surprised to see that Ride or Die won’t be getting a sequel, but sometimes these things happen. As for It Lives, Distant Shores, Elementalists, and Nightbound, I knew they wouldn’t get sequels, but it is a bit of a heart punch to see some personal faves get an official status of concluded.

About once a month, I, along with a small group of Pixelberry's senior staff, make the hard decisions about which books will be written next. Deciding whether or not we make a sequel is an evolving process that we've refined over the years. But even today, it remains ever-changing, and it's never simple.

So I don’t really know what to say here, it’s rather self explanatory. So, yeah.

Sometimes, we want to do a sequel but the Lead Writer is no longer available because they’ve moved onto another project or even left the company. We've tried changing Lead Writers in the past, only to watch sequels struggle, losing sight of what made the original great. This is what happened in the case of Ride or Die; we simply don’t have the team now with the passion and vision to give fans the sequel they crave.

I saw a post by @thefirstcourtesan​ that OH and ROD share a book lead and after what happened to OH2, it is understandable what happens, and sometimes these things will happen. As for ROD, it works as a standalone, and I am okay with there not being a sequel.

Sometimes a book is a critical darling, beloved by both fans and Pixelberry staff... yet the player numbers aren't there to justify doing another one. This is what happened, for example, with Nightbound, Most Wanted and Distant Shores; while these books were beloved by their players, simply not enough players were starting them to begin with. And these are the ones that hurt the most. We genuinely love these books, but if they haven’t found enough of an audience with our players, then it’s very hard to argue for making a sequel. Believe me, I can't think of a single writer on my team who isn't passionate about their book, but ultimately we are one company in an extremely competitive space, and we have to do whatever it takes to keep running well. If a Book costs significantly more to make than it brought in, it’s very difficult to justify a sequel.

Again, I don’t really know what to say here, again it’s rather self explanatory. Given how long it’s been since Most Wanted, it was safe to say BK2 weren’t happening. 

Other times, everyone online seems to hate a book, but the numbers disagree. It's hard to believe, but your most loathed book -- the one that you feel no way deserved a sequel -- might actually be the one that's keeping the lights on for us. And without those books (and those players!), half a dozen other beloved titles may never have existed. We're thankful for sequels. They help us fund future books and projects to try new things. If it weren’t for the success of sequels to books like The Royal Romance and America’s Most Eligible, we would never have been able to try a risky experiment like Blades of Light and Shadow.

This comes across a tiny bit boasty, but it is kinda true, their more generally released romance books are why we get the big ones such as Blades, and I know people diamond mine the quicker released books for the big ones. So, yeah, I don’t really know how to say it, sorry.

We love our online fandom, and your passion, creativity, and art. At the same time, the most visible parts of the fandom sometimes represent a smaller percentage of our players, many of whom might have completely different taste. We have a vast varied player base, and our job is to try as hard as we can to create interesting stories for all of them.

Finally, saying no to one book almost always means saying yes to something new. And without new there is no Pixelberry. When we said no to Most Wanted, much of that team went on to write Endless Summer. When we decided to stop making sequels to Rules of Engagement, that team went on to create The Royal Romance.

With every new book we create, I hope against hope that it'll be our next hit, the start of a ten-volume series that fans will love and support! Some of them are. Some of them aren't. Either way, I hope you stick with us. Sequels are great. So are new things, and I hope most of all that your true favorite Choices book is still out there, waiting to be written.

The fandom is going to make up a small section of it and at the end of the day, they are a company, so the numbers are gonna be what counts. And in saying no to a sequel, it means they can go on to experiment with new story ideas. 

Looking Forward

Internally we've been working on the representation promises that we made in June 2020. We've implemented some new Black hairstyles into With Every Heartbeat, and will continue to add more new hairstyles in our upcoming books. We plan on posting a representation blog in the coming months to share a full update of our progress.

So I am curious to see how VIP players would react to updates to With Every Heartbeat, but I am glad to see representation being shown and that they are working on it.

Last but not least... We appreciate you <3

We’ve seen a rise in constructive criticism in our social channels and want to personally thank you for all of your honest feedback. We read all of your concerns and continue to evolve our thinking and processes based on your feedback. At the same time we take our responsibility of crafting stories very seriously. Sometimes we disagree with suggestions or due to constraints can’t enable changes we agree with, but we do try to improve over time and learn from your feedback.

We also continue to ask that you communicate with each other respectfully. And keep in mind that just like with other parts of the internet, just because someone posts something doesn’t mean it’s always true. To everyone who helps keep our community a safe place to freely share your thoughts, opinions and love - thank you. Your respect and kindness goes a long way, and we are looking forward to spending more time with all of you in the coming year.

We’re looking forward to a great 2021 with you!

Finally, I’m glad that they’re reading what people are saying, it is understandable that there will be disagreements with suggestions, that’s just life, it’s human nature. I am curious to see what will be released in the coming year and how they will play out.

In summary

I had a feeling that books they said won’t get sequels weren’t, especially Hero and Most Wanted. It is sad to see that It Lives won’t be concluded, and I knew Nightbound & Distant Shores weren’t going to get sequels (unfortunately).

Glad to see them making more multi gender books, hopefully we will get more like Foreign Affairs with the different pro-noun options.

I am curious about Laws of Attraction and very much looking forward to seeing how Crimes of Passion will play out. I will post my thoughts and theories as we get new information

Stay safe everyone :)

#playchoices #thoughts and theories #very long post

[kicksaddictny]

How Nike’s Turning Play Into a Lifestyle for Kids

According to NIKE

Jumping rope with a garden hose. Holding a squat while you create a secret handshake with your bestie. Hanging from monkey bars as you see LeBron James get quizzed on his second best sport.

You must be watching Playlist.

The episodic Nike YouTube series, now entering its ninth season, launched two years ago with one clear goal: “We wanted to show kids that sport, at its core, is all about play,” says Jessa Moon, Global Brand Director for Nike Kids. “It doesn't have to be soccer or football or traditional sports — it can be a mash-up or something totally wild and different. We wanted to inspire kids to think about moving their bodies in all kinds of ways and having it be about joy as opposed to winning or competition.”

Hosted by kid athletes like 13-year-old skateboarder Sky Brown and her 9-year-old brother, Ocean, a typical Playlist episode takes kids through fun and funny movement challenges, ratchets up the silliness with sound effects and slapstick gags, and includes appearances from star athletes like Russell Wilson, Mo Farah, Bebe Vio and the aforementioned King James — all of whom are game to be goofy and show off their inner kid on-screen.

Season after season, the series has grown its presence and audience, fine-tuning on its primary channel, YouTube, and streaming across Instagram, TikTok and Snapchat. Playlist has also found its place in the Nike digital ecosystem, alongside its adult counterparts like the Nike Run Club and Nike Training Club apps, proving that Nike offers not just product, but also day-to-day service and benefits to all its consumers.

The constant throughout, says Moon, is that all Playlist episodes are rooted in fun, because when kids are having fun, they’ll be naturally motivated to move.

For parents, inspiring kids to want to move is more important — and harder — than ever. Today, only one in five kids get the physical activity they need to be healthy and successful. Parents also have even more on their plates, often acting as a child’s cook, chauffeur, stylist, teacher and coach within the course of day. Playlist is one way Nike sought to help solve this universal problem by providing resources that get kids and their families to enjoy movement together, improving the relationship and bond between grown-up and kid, and setting kids up for a lifetime of healthy habits and movement that they could one day pass on to the next generation.

Doing that meant understanding that the words “play sport” have tension built into them, says Rami Jabaji, VP of Kids Global Brand Management. To today’s kids, explains Jabaji, sport can feel too structured, too competitive — high stakes, yelling coaches, parents pushing them into it. “They feel disconnected from its benefits, from its joy,” says Jabaji. There’s another kind of tension too: Gen Alpha is the most dedicated to activism, yet the least physically active. That’s partly because they don’t fully resonate with today's definition of traditional sport, says Jabaji. “While young kids naturally enjoy movement and play, it’s the moment when sport takes a turn — when it becomes too structured and rule-bound, not based in freedom and discovery — that kids start to opt out, and they trade physical activity for sedentary screen time,” he says. “The screen provides them with a tool that fulfills their needs in a deeper way than sport does.”

How do you solve for that?

“Our answer was, ‘We have to make sport fun again,’” says Jabaji. “We have to anchor it in play and get back to why kids fell in love with sport in the first place.”

More Ways Nike Serves Kids

Cool Gear, Just for Them Listening to what kids need to move and play and solving kid-specific challenges are hallmarks of Nike Kids product design. That’s reflected in extended sizing, gender-inclusive apparel lines, and gender-inclusive shoes like the new Nike Air Zoom Crossover. The kid-informed basketball shoe features a last with room in the toe box for growing feet, a snug fit and support around the ankle, and a playful “Game Mode” written on the tongue.

Coaches Who Make a Difference Sport is uniquely positioned to help kids handle stress and thrive when the environment is fun, inclusive, and served up by caring and trained coaches. That’s why Nike partnered with ICOACHKIDS to create an accessible, approachable series of coaching essentials that preps anyone to be a volunteer youth coach. The ICOACHKIDS coaching essentials are free and available on the Nike Training Club App and Nike Run Club App in Europe, the Middle East and Africa; if you already have one of the apps on your phone, click here to check out the essentials now.

Nike is also the founding partner of The Center for Healing and Justice in Sport (CHJS), a nonprofit organization fueling a movement to bring research-backed, healing-centered sport training to youth coaches across North America. “A lot of young people who show up to sport experiences may be treading water in other parts of their lives,” says CHJS founder Megan Bartlett. “We prepare a coach to create an environment in which kids can feel like they belong, feel seen and feel safe.” Nike is training its store employees who serve as Nike Community Ambassadors to coach kids in their communities and offering the training to its North America Made to Play partners, Nike employees and consumers. Learn how to get involved here.

That began with putting the kid at the center of every decision, a foundational part of Nike’s new approach to its kids business. Jabaji’s team dubs it “kidvision,” or the idea that kids see the world not as it is, but as it could be. “It’s an innovative lens, a creative lens, a more inclusive and accessible lens,” he says.

Take a screen, for example. Look at it through the eyes of a kid, and they don’t see a negative device. They see a portal into a world where they can be anything they want to be. And that’s where Nike saw opportunity, says Jabaji. “We can meet kids where they are and convert that time into healthy and purposeful movement and activity, and ultimately create a deeper connection with sport.”

 Evolving with the World

Playlist was an instant hit on YouTube, notching millions of views. When the pandemic hit, the team knew their series had to step up. “We were in the middle of our third season, and we thought, ‘We know this content is critical for kids, now more than ever, but how do we bring it to them in a way that resonates with what they’re going through?’” says Moon. They found the unlock in shifting the entire show to an at-home model, with kid athletes like Brown leading a new content pillar called “Shake-Ups,” creative home-based challenges that throw a zany twist into traditional exercises like planks or squats.

Since then, the team’s moved to an entirely remote-capture model, asking kid hosts and pro athletes to film themselves in their homes, where you inevitably see their kitchens, pets and real-life snafus and interruptions. “It feels more raw and personal, and it’s allowed us to expand globally; recently we’ve included kids in Barcelona, Chengdu and Guadalajara.”

The most rewarding part for Moon has been seeing the social element of Playlist unfold. “We’ve found that most kids are watching it with their siblings or their families. They tell us, ‘Hey, I watched Playlist with my sister, and then we went on and made our own secret handshake,’ or ‘I watched it with my mom and we went out to the backyard and tried to jump rope.’” That aim to strengthen the familial bond and inspire everyone to move? As a Playlist host would say, “Knocked it outta the paaark!”

 Doubling Down on the Future

Kids will continue to fuel creativity within the brand when, later this year, Nike introduces the Nike Play Council, a group of young athletes and creators who all share a passion for making sport more fun, accessible and inclusive, and who will help bring Gen Alpha’s vision of sport to life. “It's our opportunity to literally give kids a seat at the table and co-create the future of sport with them,” says Jabaji. The confirmed council members: Sky and Ocean Brown, Brazilian kid skateboarder Rayssa Leal, kid football player Lorenzo Greer (aka Tekkerz Kid), and kid drummer Nandi Bushell (aka “the Most Badass Drummer in the World,” according to drummer Dave Grohl). Each member of the Play Council will consult and collaborate directly with Nike and also help inform and expand the future of the group. While Nike has always been committed to listening to the voice of the athlete*, the Play Council ensures that young athletes’ voices are heard loud and clear.

According to Jabaji, channeling that voice has been Nike’s greatest win in its new approach to its kids business. “If you look at the world through the eyes of a kid and put them at the center of your work, he says, “the potential of what it can unlock is limitless.”

*If you have a body, you are an athlete.

#nike #kids #kicksaddict

[phoebehalliwell]

If Prue had lived, what do you think her kids would have been like, and how do you think they would have affected the various power level structures of the next gen?

okay so i think there are a couple options based on who’s the father of the child that would yield different results so in a very me fashion imma make this a very long post and break down all of them. this is 2.5k. it’s going under a cut.

andy so i think had andy not died he and prue would have definitely gotten married first i would say somewhere around the season 2 finale maybe the penultimate episode to end on a sweet high note while still setting up season 3 or something i think he and prue would have their first child ehh probably announced in the s3 finale. i think she’d be a girl i think she’d be a telekinetic like her mama and i think her name would definitely be patricia (and i wanna say in her teenage years she’d go by trix) i think her powers would definitely grow to advanced telekinesis by the time she’s of a fighting age. if i were writing her i would give her a gradual power development of like telekinetically lifting herself up in fights (like what we sometimes saw prue do) to levitation to flight if i wanna get really jiggy w it). i would think prue would definitely want multiple kids (ideally three daughters) and i think andy would definitely Also want sorta that white picket fence family. i think that piper and leo would still be pregnant at the end of season four, with prue’s second pregnancy occuring around beginning to mid season five. i also think about halfway through prue’s second pregnancy she and andy would choose to move out into their own home bc well let’s face it the manor’s a lil crowded (paige is also here in the au don’t ask me how). so wyatt matthews halliwell would be born in february prue and andy would probably move out in april their second child would be born hmm let’s say september. a girl named hmm it has to be a p name i’m firm on that but i don’t really wanna go penelope bc then i feel like it’s too locked in to a naming after ancestors thing but like also it would still be a very prue name & prue is already named after her ancestors so what the hell i’ll name her penelope. let’s talk powers. baby wyatt will keep his whitelighter based powers such as an orb shield, orbing, and healing, but he won’t be a telekinetic. he still has the power of projection. the twice blessed isn’t a thing. penelope i think would be the molecular witch, with powers of molecular deceleration & acceleration (but not freezing or combustion) as well as the ability to adjust her own molecular structure and “phase” (a la kitty pryde from xmen). next in the halliwell line would be chris who would still be born in october of 03 with powers of orbing, telekinesis, and telekinetic orbing, followed then by andy and prue’s third daughter born in utopia in s7 lemme go check the family tree for names there aren’t actually that many p names on there so now i guess lemme make one up one that sounds appropriately vintage like okay so i personally hc p bowen (prue’s past life) to be named pearl, p baxter as pauline, and p russel as phyllis out of all of those i think i’d chose pearl okay so i googled 19th century baby names p names i found were parthena permilia philippa pamela patience and priscilla. okay so i’m actually deciding now that the name philippa comes from andy’s side of the family and that’s the name of the third daughter who will follow suit with the charmed one’s schtick and have premonitions, which includes both precognition and retrocognition, as well as clairvoyance and limited telepathy (she’s basically a human lie detector, but if she actually wants to hear someone’s thoughts, she was to have physical contact and be in a quasi-meditative state). piper be pregnant with melinda at the end of s8, melinda’s powers would be empathy along with the whitelighter powers of healing orbing and photokinesis. next would be the twins tam and kat who would still split molecular combustion and immobilization as well as the whitelighter powers basically i wouldn’t change their powers from what they already have henry jr is also here, still a mortal. pj would not be named pj as Prue Isn’t Dead but i think phoebe would still really wanna stick with the p names. since prue’s already burned through the family tree i think she’d pick a more modern name (and i’m sticking with the gender neutral theme all of phoebe’s kids have) so like percy pax pemberley i’m also really tempted by pisces. hmm. pemberly. who i’d give astral projection and then also um well possession. like yeah y’know projecting her astral form into somebody else and being able to like read them while in their bodies all that. parker stays with premonition and uhh i just recently came up with a power progression for parker that i would love to employ but like i think i really wanna keep it a secret for now but i might end up talking about it later peyton would still be a telekinetic and all three cupitches can still beam and sense love. okay!

jack jack gets an obligatory section bc he was one of the few love interests to last more than one episode but uhh that baby would definitely be a whoopsie! or should i say,,, babies that’s right it’s twins. and i don’t think prue and jack would together romantically but i think they’d still be like y’know friends i think jack would be there to support prue & his kids but i do think prue would be the primary caregiver i think jack would maybe get them like on weekends or like every third week of the month. and i’m Really tempted to give them last name first names and have the kids be names warren and sheridan and Yes they’d be both boys. i sorta wanna melinda warren both of em and just like. give em all three powers what the hell. given that it’s so many powers stacked in one witch i don’t think their powers would ever greatly develop i don’t think there’d be any advanced telekinesis or molecular combustion or like astral premonitions but i do think they have all three powers. and they are identical. so they’re both born in 2000, flash foward to 2002 wyatt is born wyatt matthew halliwell with orbing, orb sheild, healing, telekinetic orbing, and telekinesis. cut forward to 2004 piper has her second child who is in this reality a girl, with orbing, molecular combustion/immobilization, & invisibility. her name would be melinda christina halliwell. i think we can fast forward the timeline a bit i think the piper and leo would have their third child at the end of s8 another boy named john after grams’s maiden name, orbing, premonition, levitation. i feel like cosmically we’ve already filled our twin quotient so no tam & kat in this universe so paige and henry only have one kid a daughter i always pick from shakespeare baby names for not!tam&kat bc like. they’ve got shakespeare names. in the past i’ve used isabel and beatrice this time i’m gonna go for jourdain who has the power of projection, as well as the whitelighter power of omnilingualism. henry & paige still end up accidentally adopting a mortal in this au, but here she’s a girl, so instead of making the henry jr joke henry calls her paige jr the name sticks she goes by pj. cupitches once again we’re going pemberley parker and peyton and once again i’m sticking with the same power set from the andy timeline.

bane okay so give me a sign they have sex prue is pregnanté bane is in jail. charges of racketeering, tax evasion, money laundering and embezzlement, but like okay he’s a career criminal, meaning their notoriously hard to catch. and i think he’s have a good lawyer. max sentence for racketeering is 20 years, tax evasion 5, money laundering 20, embezzlement 3. i’m not a law student i don’t know shit about like,, douple jeopardy all that but like. imma say sentenced to ten years in jail let out in 7 on good behavior + they’re all nonviolent crimes so. is that how it works? okay but basically baby #1 prolly a sagittarius born in 2000. i’m saying girl. i think again like with the jack situation this really isn’t prue’s white picket fence family this is strange and rebellious and unprecedented meaning it’s not guaranteed to be a “p” name but nothing’s like. immediately coming to mind. i feel like it has to be a name that captures prue’s rebellious spirit and the sorta intense passion she keeps below the surface so i wanna go for something outta left field. i also feel like prue cares a lot about the meaning / origin of her baby name so i’m gonna pick from a list of witches of myth. hecate’s obvi out as she’s a demon in charmed verse so i’m thinking circe or freyja. i feel like circe’s more associate with turning men into pigs than anything else so i’m gonna settle with freyja who’s technically a goddess and not a witch but like. minutia. i’m giving her the same power set as patricia / trix which is advance telekinesis + eventual flight. yada yada yada baby wyatt chris & melinda are born, powers as in canon (including empathy for melinda which is in fact Not Canon but like canon in my heart). tamora and kat are born, powers as in canon, bane is out of jail, pemberley is born, astral projection + possession, henry jr is there, prue and bane have another kid in ‘08, a girl (i’m sticking with the badass women of myth theme) named atalanta, nicknamed tal rhymes with the cal in calorie. yes i know i’m very white. powers of molecular immobilization & cryokinesis. next born in 09 cupitch parker still with cupid powers and premonition, then prue and bane’s third daughter born in 2010 (i’m telling you bane def has that like white picket fence adoring family dream. he frickin loves kids & like dutifully drives them to ballet practice every day after school type thing. loves the idea of being able to yell “honey! i’m home!” total sap) her name’s probs gonna be like. morrigan. her powers are a riff on the premonition aspect of thee power of three, she can pick up on “psychic reverb” and sense if a great act of magic has happened somewhere as well as sense great good, great evil, and immense power. also with the her psychic power she can mark crossroads and tell if a decision is about to be altering, though she can’t sense which outcome is the “best”. finally baby peyton still a telekinetic cupitch born in 2011.

justin congrats, bud. the only other prue love interest to make it past a single episode. too bad we really don’t know shit about this guy. simp? we can assume? yeah so in this timeline they come together basically when piper & leo are getting married so in this timeline we are still getting wyatt first with all his canonically op self. then we’re getting chris, same as in canon i guess i feel like he should have more powers give him combustive orbing what the fuck why not. okay so like maybe ‘03-’04 prue and justin move out / move in together, married by late ’04 (just before utopia in s7). they have their first daughter in 2005 still s7 once again named patricia and she’s a telekinetic like prue. we’ll push melinda up to ’06 still an empath + other whitelighter powers & tlk orb. 2007 will have both tam & kat with their canon powers, followed by penelope with cryokinesis, closed out with pemberley with astral projection. jump to 09 parker born with premonition in spring and i said philippa was an andy’s family name so patience in the fall. and she can uhh same thing as morrigan she’s psychic. 2011 the final baby is born it’s peyton telekinetic + cupitch powers as always. henry jr is also here placed where he normally is (slightly younger than pj/pemberley)

bonus round!dency addition okay so idk if i’ve said this before but i’ve actually sorted out dency’s relatives in her world one sec i gotta pull up the google doc okay dency born first only child the source’s heir next up is melinda penelope “penn” halliwell the only child of leo & piper aka the twice blessed followed by paige’s sons taran & kai, twins, the ultimate power. but now prue’s in the mix! i’m pairing her with andy bc that was her most significant relationship. as previously stated i think prue and andy’s first child would be born in early season four as patricia, same powers as stated earlier with advanced telekinesis & flight. dency technically would no longer be named dency in this au as once again, prue is not dead. she would be named victoria after her grandfather. same powers that she already holds (pyrokinesis, cryokinesis, flaming, limited telepathy (only the lie detector part) & super strength). her power rivals that of patricia’s despite not being the first born in the generation bc she was infused with the source. she would be born early s5. then keeping with the timeline piper & leo’s firstborn comes mid s5, another girl named melinda. melinda’s powers are orbing, molecular immobilization, and advanced healing. at this point prue is Pregnant Again and calls dibs on the name penelope so that does not become melinda’s middle name. in the dency au coop shows up earlier, which in turn accelerates paige and henry ending up together because i said so. piper is pregnant at the beginning of s6. prue and andy have their second daughter penelope, paige and henry get together, piper and leo have their second daughter christina. s6 ends. penelope gets molecular deceleration & acceleration. christina has orbing, telekinesis, & an orb shield. s7. whoops paige is pregnant. hey it’s twins! tamora & kat. tamora is the physical while kat is the spiritual. tamora can orb, telekinetically orb, and has normal telekinesis. kat has premonitions, clairvoyance, and omnilingualism. s8. prue gets pregnant again at some point. season finale. philippa is born. she can astral project, and will later develop suggestion. piper is pregnant again. it’s still 2006.  now it’s 2007. piper’s baby is born. it’s a boy??? meet baby john. an empath. omnilingual. can orb. henry jr also shows up. at this point it’s been like 5 years since phoebe’s traumatic incident with cole / the source and she decides she wants to have kids again. she and coop have their first daughter in 2008, a girl they name leona. cupid powers of beaming & sensing love, and levitation that will eventually develop into flight. limited precognition. 2010. they have another child, this time a boy, warren. beaming, sensing love, telekinesis, telekinetic beaming. 2011 they final baby of the generation is born, phoebe and coop’s daughter let’s call her charlotte. she doesn’t have molecular immobilization, that magic mix with a cupid’s control over time. she has temporal stasis (& beaming & sensing love) 

#zoo wee mama #charmed #prue halliwell #i didn't get too much into the familiar dynamics and relationships bc like #holy shit there are so many of them #wow #anyway this was fun! #next gen #charmed next generation #💌 #i don't think this counts as a mini essay this is more like #hmm #a catalogue