#a normal and respectful way

[mashmouths]

What's the ***** tag?

***** is a special little guy whom i will one day successfully entrap in either a cursed amulet or an eternal labyrinth and then study him like a bug in a glass jar, hope this helps <3

[overlymetaromantic]

Dungeon Meshi, or as I like to call it, Marcille's-increasingly-difficult-to-ignore-revelations-that-her-endless-devotion-to-Falin-may-in-fact-be-more-rooted-in-lesbianism-than-she-originally-thought

[cloud-based-and-rainpilled]

Love that the new Good Omens Kiss Revelation ™️ basically boils down to “Yeah we had a whole scene choreographed but David and Michael just immediately started making out and wouldn’t stop so we deleted two takes out of embarrassment”

[ink-the-artist]

i am not an animator but the few animations i have made it really does feel like magic when it comes together. i used to think the way disney (especially older disney) talked about their animation as magical that they were being cheesy and sentimental but after actually trying it myself i totally get it. seeing all the pictures you drew come to life at the end it feels like it has its own soul or something

[sleepysundial]

"Aw, quit your belly-aching. Hands grow back!"

something about mad scientists and their big strong boyfriends idk.

[tothepointofinsanity]

1. Hell - the tail of envy.

2. Grasping salvation.

[arundolyn]

"Oh, this? Don't be ridiculous! It's not a marriage certificate! Look closely, okay? Throw away all your hangups, and simply do what you feel. Aren't you just dying to sign it? Won't it feel good? 3... 2... 1... sign!"

[captainkirkk]

it is truly criminal that more spider-man actors and voice actors don't put on the heaviest new york accent of all time

Okay but I do really appreciate when actors/ VAs purposefully thicken the accent when Peter is wearing the mask

Peter Parker, Regular Human Boy, is careful to be more soft-spoken and normal-sounding. But Spider-Man? He leans so heavily into the New York accent that Reddit has started to speculate that he's actually foreign and trying to disguise that

[waitineedaname]

MXTX protagonists ranked by how bad their mommy/daddy issues are

Luo Binghe: absolutely nuclear level of mommy/daddy issues. this is the consequence of giving your protagonist two deadbeat dads and two dead moms, and then letting him project all those issues onto his overly indulgent teacher

Wei Wuxian: he could've had perfectly normal orphan levels of parent trauma, but what's that?? IT'S THE JIANG PARENTS WITH A STEEL CHAIR!!! the combo of fear and respect he had for Yu Ziyuan is already bad enough, but then there's also the feeling of responsibility for the Jiang siblings that they put on him, which then leads to, you know, all the Yunmeng sibling problems

Lan Wangji: this dude is so haunted by his father potentially kidnapping his mother and then locking her up and putting himself in seclusion, and this significantly shapes his relationship with Wei Wuxian. plus he took his mother's death really, really badly :(

Shen Qingqiu: he like never mentions his parents?? which is weird, but at least he's not haunted by it. however, he gets the special privilege of being the person exacerbating someone else's mommy/daddy issues. he brought this on himself. he doesn't get to walk out of a confession involving a metaphor where he'd be pregnant with his partner and act like that's normal

Xie Lian: he definitely has trauma surrounding his parents for sure, but they don't seem to have manifested as specifically mommy/daddy issues? it's just, you know. normal grief. honestly, there's so much shit going on with his trauma and baggage that he can't be defined by this one thing

Hua Cheng: does not seem to care about his parents?? at all???? he's presumably an orphan and they're probably the origin of his self worth issues, but like. in the grand scheme of things, they do not seem to be that big of a concern for him. who needs mommy issues when you have devotion to dianxia i guess

[johnnyspells]

RIVER CARTWRIGHT ● Slow Horses - Boardroom Politics - S02E05

[leupagus]

I've read the top 20 fic by bookmarks of The Pitt on AO3

and they range from "not my bag" to "delightful" (though I've noticed some worrying trends I'll discuss elsewhere), even though I still don't have any horse in any particular race wrt ships. However, the King/Langdon fic I desperately want (and, so far as I know, no one has yet written) is asexual!Langdon/townbicycle!King.

Hear my vision:

Langdon gets through in-patient rehab; his most frequent visitor is his wife (who eventually becomes his ex-wife, but they still care about each other and he's—not relieved, but not so worried, since he feels like he's been letting her down ever since they got married), his second most frequent visitor is Robby (who just stares at him from across the table with his arms crossed, mirror image to Frank), and his third most frequent visitor is Santos (who always arrives with a stack of medical journals and shit and they always erupt in a screaming argument within five minutes of her arrival until she storms out, which is sometimes five hours later and sometimes five minutes later). Mel does not visit him at all and honestly he's glad, he hopes he didn't fuck her up somehow from their one day together.

So he comes back after some time off, and it's hugely awkward and embarrassing and he and Robby are still not really speaking to each other, per se, and everyone else is a little jumpy around him too. Mel is the only one who seems genuinely delighted to see him and strangely, they still get along really well — as if he's been here this whole time, getting to know her and work alongside her. They become a duo in much the same way Santos and Ellis are a duo, or Robby and Collins, or Abbott and Mohan. Langdon doesn't really think anything of it. Some doctors work best as a team. Maybe he'd just been waiting to find his teammate.

Only then he starts hearing these weird — not even rumors, it's not gossipy, it's more matter-of-fact than that. A new nurse arrives, working the swing shift midnight to noon. She's got bright blonde hair and a southern drawl and Shen starts sighing wistfully whenever he thinks nobody notices. Frank thinks she's pretty good at her job: a little stingy on restocking gauze but otherwise solid, and she has some incredibly good stories about being a bartender at an honest-to-god roadhouse when she was younger. Frank likes her just fine until one day he passes the nurse's station to find Perlah and Princess and Santos talking in — one of the languages they speak and he doesn't. Portuguese? All he catches are the new nurse's name, and Mel's.

"What's this about Ashliegh and Mel?" he asks, although judging by their eyebrows he sounds more demanding. But suddenly Santos grins this very evil grin that reminds him why he doesn't actually like her, at all, not even the slightest bit of begrudging affection whatsoever.

"They uh... you know," she says, waggling her eyebrows a couple times. From over her shoulder, Frank can see Mel darting into an alcove to talk to their ingrown toenail guy again. "Last night Ashliegh got the King-sized, if you know what I mean?"

"What," Frank says, squinting at her.

"You know," Princess says significantly, at the exact same time that Perlah says, "Oh my god, you don't know. Have you not gotten the King-sized yet?"

"What," Frank repeats.

"Oh," Santos says, equal parts gleeful and conspiratory, "bro, you are gonna love it. You know, if she ever picks you. Why hasn't she picked you yet?" she adds, cocking her head thoughtfully. "I'd've figured you'd be like, right up there."

"Hey, it took her a while to get around to Dr. Mentah, remember? And she thinks he's great," Perlah says. "Maybe she's saving him for a special occasion."

"What."

Which is how Frank finds out that Mel has slept with pretty much every available member of the day shift and swing shifts, three-quarters of the night shift, and a third of the rest of the hospital (though weirdly only a quarter of Neuro. Nobody's figured out why). Which accounts for why Abbott's always got that weird little twinkle in his eye when he works with her, or why Dana slapped her on the ass that one time with a patient's file, or why — apparently — Walsh had that limp a few weeks ago.

It takes him a literal week to figure out how to ask about it, in the most indirect possible way he can think of, which of course leads to Mel turning to him with a puzzled frown and say, "Oh! Did you — I didn't think you'd be interested, but I'm free tonight, if you'd like."

[as-if-and-only-if]

Consider now the Cainian functor C : Grp → Grp given by G ↦ [G, G], which annihilates all abelian groups,

[breesperez139]

Dc x Dp Prompt #3

Immortal Ghost King Au:

Daniel Fenton was crowned as High King Phantom of the Infinite Realms on his 16th birthday. He knew many were opposed to him being crowned at such a young age (he was too), but the Realms had gone too long without a ruler and it was getting restless.

The Realms were sentient to some extent. It can not run itself as it has no form but it chooses a host, a King if you will, to fulfill its wishes. It may have lived on an entire millennia without a ruler, but it was only out of sheer luck and the contributions of countless gods that it had survived. The Infinite Realms needed a King and Danny Phantom was the only contender.

So the people were ignored and their boy king was crowned. However Phantom was young and naive, a child as both a human and a ghost. Even worse, he knew nothing about being a king. But the little godling would learn and learn he did.

Most kings were taught before they were coronated, but Danny had no such privilege. His coronation came and left with the wind. His private lessons overshadowed any thoughts he had left of mortal schooling. And Danny gave up on living a normal human life.

That last part was perhaps the easiest for Danny. Amity Park was already considered too liminal for them to have any “sentience”. The GIW had all but declared war on the Realms with their continuous violent actions upon his people and the land itself.

It wasn’t difficult for Amity to give up their “rights” and “humanity” either. They said good riddance to the world that never helped them, to the heroes that ignored their cries for help. And they bowed to Phantom, declaring him their King, just as he declared them citizens of the Infinite Realms.

He welcomed his liminals with open arms, vowing to protect them from any harm that would come their way, just as he would with any of his other citizens. He gave them a home in the Realms, an island- no a haunt of their own should they wish to truly reject the land of the living, and they accepted. Not many wanted to try their luck against the human government.

But with a God, no, their King on their side, they knew their safety and happiness was all but assured. After all, it was Phantom who protected them even as they turned their own backs at him. It was Phantom who fought against foes that could have erased him from existence.

And of course it was Phantom who would now receive any and all support he could ever want and need should he declare war against the humans of Earth. No, there was no need for people of the Infinite Realms to worry. High King Phantom was a God after all. It was only ever his right to exact divine punishment onto those who opposed and threatened his will. It was not their fault if the humans actively went against his will. No, the humans had no one but themselves to blame for whatever came for them.

[poppyseed-cookie]

Call me crazy but I just feel like if you’re hating on a ship where one character represents Deceit and the other represents Truth, and you’re trying to prove to the shippers that they’re wrong, and you do so by taking everything the Deceitful one says at face value and just completely dismissing everything the Truthful one says, then perhaps you need to reflect and realize that the one twisting canon to fit their vision IS YOU? Just a thought 😭

[basket-of-radiants]

Why were you so disappointed by Rhythm of War?

This has been sitting in my askbox for years. I've taken several cracks at answering, only to get frustrated with the subject matter and burn myself out every time. I didn't like Rhythm of War. More than that, I didn't like it in a way that tainted my enjoyment of the entire series. And despite what it may seem, I don't actually enjoy discussing things which I don't like. I always want to talk from a place of good faith. Which is why now that my feelings towards the series are a little more positive, I think I can finally answer this.

I'm going to try to stay away from specific plotpoints and story beats for this post, because my goal isn't to nitpick (if for no other reason than it would take a week to write this post), I'm just looking to talk about my overall impressions. I think that might mean the only spoilers here will be structural? idk, if you haven't read Rhythm of War yourself then you should probably do that before looking for other people's opinions anyway. 

I liked Way of Kings when I first read it. I didn't love it at the time, but I liked it. Certainly enough to keep reading once I'd finished. One thing that made me a bit uncomfy, however, was the war against the Parshendi. They were this unknowable enemy which the book was not interested in knowing. An inhuman army. Their main purpose was to kill Kaladin's friends, or else be killed by Dalinar's armies. And yet the Parshendi, and the parshmen in the form of Shen, did show hints of personhood. And so it bothered me how Dalinar spoke so casually about how the Alethi had decimated their numbers, how the others used the war as a means to amass wealth and power. (It didn't bother me in a "this is a bad book" way but in a "these characters are bad people" way.)

One of my foibles as a reader is that when a book is very clearly treating one side of a conflict with more humanity, I tend to be a bit predisposed towards the other to account for that. And with the Alethi clearly being the invading party and superior military force, there was also some underdog favoritism. I didn't really like how the book treated the Parshendi. This is to say that going forward, the singers would be more important to me than any other through line.

So imagine my delight at reading Words of Radiance and meeting Eshonai, one of the Parshendi, who even gets her own point of view sections! They were no longer being treated as a faceless mass, we were getting to see things from their perspective as well. And it became plain to see the damage the Alethi had done to them. I couldn't really bring myself to root for Dalinar or really any of the humans against the listeners. I couldn't even bring myself to like most of these characters. I still enjoyed the book but once it became clear there wouldn't be a peaceful conclusion, let's just say that I wouldn't have wept for Dalinar and Adolin if Szeth had managed to off them. Like everyone in the book, I assumed that going forward all the parshmen would be turned into evil voidbringers in the everstorm and that the listeners were mostly dead. Except for Rlain, and Eshonai because I'd read or been told that book 4 would be Eshonai's book and thus had assumed she was fine. (Oathbringer spoilers, she was not fine.) So ultimately it was still a bit of a downer way to end the book. 

So imagine my delight at reading Oathbringer, where for the first time singers were being treated as people, full and real people, and where the human characters could no longer ignore or dismiss them. We met Khen and the others, common singers who were sympathetic and just wanted freedom from bondage. We see Venli grapple with the loss of her home. We see Leshwi and Moash connecting with and understanding one another. We learn of a history where singers were the original inhabitants of the planet. Parallel to this, Dalinar is having a truly excellent character arc about confronting one's past actions and acknowledging them to move forward and do better. I loved Oathbringer, for some years it was my favorite book, and I was excited as hell to see what came next. At the time, it seemed to me that there is a clear direction the story is going. Two books about needless war, and then a third where the main cast is forced to acknowledge the personhood of their enemies. This was so cool, all of my feelings from the previous installments were being validated, the characters were going to have to face what they've done in the past and outgrow their militaristic mindsets, I was so sure of that.

Imagine my disappointment when that does not even remotely resemble the direction the story went in Rhythm of War. RoW presented a clear, straightforward “us vs. them" narrative, where every character was totally fine with killing singers. Characters aligned with the singers were either flattened into wholly evil versions of themselves (Moash) or were expected to turn on their side in favor of the humans (Venli.) Because clearly there was no reason good people would be on the side that's all former slaves trying to stay free. Maybe there's some sort of accord or understanding between Navani and Raboniel that I might have found meaningful if the seeds of mutual understanding weren't already there in Oathbringer and then apparently ignored for a year by all the characters.

I have a lot of issues with how the listeners are handled in these books. (Here's some elaboration.) Following OB, I had thought that all my concerns were going to be addressed. Following RoW, I knew they never would be. 

Which is my main complaint, because that's the thread that matters most to me in this series.

I have a lot of other Things as well. Gonna just talk about a few big ones. 

One outsized source of disappointment that may seem a little petty, and which probably is, is that I felt mislead by the premise of the book. It had been announced that this book would center Venli and Eshonai, and I was unbelievably hyped for that. That did not really turn out to be the case. The purpose for their backstory chapters felt less about exploring them as people and contextualizing their arcs, and more about filling in gaps of world history. In the main plot, Venli was a POV character and she certainly played a role, but honestly not a very important one overall. To me she felt like a side character in her own book. I don't think it's controversial to say that the main character of RoW was Navani. A lot of people really like Navani and are happy about that. Unfortunately I'm not one of those people, and I found it all the more difficult to enjoy her when it felt like it was coming at the expense of some of my favorite characters. 

This particular gripe somewhat comes down to preference, obviously everyone prefers to read about characters they like more than those they don't, and it can go both ways. (For instance, on a craft/technical level RoW is probably the superior book to W&T, but I liked the latter a lot more because of my stupidly outsized attachment to Szeth and Nale.) But I do think there's something of a real criticism in how the book would rather focus on the feelings of a queen rather than those of a genocide survivor, and how the former's are given significantly more weight and import. It ties in with my main criticism, I think. 

And then there's how human/human racism had also been wholly cast aside as a plot point. Jasnah fixed slavery so that's resolved, and the only person who still cares about structural racism is the evil bad bad evil villain Moash/Vyre, who is now wholly irredeemable and who you're allowed to totally write off because he's sold his soul to Odium. I've already talked a lot about this. Other people have already talked about this, probably better than me. The writing was actually on the wall for me in OB, but again, RoW was when I fully accepted that this was never going to be addressed. 

There's something else that probably deserves its own discussion rather than being quickly tacked on at the end here, but here we are. This book changed how the series approaches war. 

In WoK, war was very clearly portrayed as a bad and inglorious thing. It was brutal, it was painful, those at the bottom died cruelly and unceremoniously and pointlessly while those at the top turned a profit. Every day was a new horror. The enemy were never evil, they were always just more people forced to go through the same thing. Through the next couple books, it felt to me that even if the characters had accepted war as necessary, there was still a tragedy to it. Conversely, in RoW (and W&T) war is basically a series of boss battles, in between which our protagonists can kill dozens of footsoldiers with barely a thought in the same way WoK had criticized.

Final note on all this, it sucks how we have no perspectives from the former-slaves-singers demographic. Those guys are really thrown under the bus, and seemingly get no self-determination now or ever. It was a glaring problem to me in RoW. Conscripted and enslaved humans and singers probably have just as much ground to form mutual understanding as a fused and a queen. (In fact they already had. In Oathbringer.)

In essence, RoW disappointed me because it left me with the distinct impression that none of the series's most important through lines (well, most important to me) were going to be resolved well. I liked W&T, but I haven't revised my opinion very much about the overall handling of these topics across the series. Maybe one of the reasons I was able to enjoy W&T so much more was because I no longer had such high expectations.

[wolves-in-the-world]

the thing about eliot spencer as a character, right. the thing about him.

(and as always your mileage may vary on my analyses so if we disagree that's cool actually)

is that he is in fact a somewhat emotionally constipated idiot who is occasionally sensitive about his perceived masculinity and gets defensive about emotional intimacy around other men (largely hardison, who's much more comfortable expressing affection and embracing a softer kind of masculinity), but eliot displays enough emotional awareness and sensitivity and respect for women etc etc that anyone who's been subjected to that era of television will put on rose-tinted glasses without even looking twice.

(and he is, don't get me wrong, incredibly emotionally aware for a professionally punchy guy with enough trauma to sink the titanic. it still startles me to see.)

on top of which we have the layers and the accessories and the excellent hair with the secret braids and the way he barely has an ego and he's good with kids and protective of his team without taking it too far, and some of us never stood a fucking chance.