#stream of consciousness go

[phantombatsblogs]

Danny (a version where he is older and more well-established as both King and Hero) calls Ra's Al Ghul-

wait

This was gonna be about Algol, the demon star also translated from Arabic to "the Demon's Head" but is that literally where DC got it from? I mean, other than literally translating it??

I.. huh

Algol, Al Ghul

yeah

[morninkim]

What's your favorite example of an underdeveloped relationship/dynamic from the show that you put a lot of thought into for Rise? c:

Ooooooohhhhh good question good question

I think the relationships between the Rangers specifically were pretty well explored in the show, and I'll have to do a proper rewatch at some point to really get a feel for what could be missing from some interactions BUT I have a couple

Rise Tommy and Zack are so important to me. Like. They both love their mothers, Zack's a lot more open about it than Tommy since he's known his WAY longer. They encourage each other with their respective girlfriends - the S1 ep where they team up and Zack gets the dragon shield is so so good, that influenced a lot of my thoughts about them - and, especially when it comes to trans stuff, they feel like the other just gets it. They're T4T friendship goals fr

Kim and Trini, while I think is very cute and fun in the show, is another relationship I LOVE in Rise. I mentioned in the series outline post that Trini's there to let Kim cut loose when her parents get divorced, since hers did the same thing years ago, plus similar with Zack/Tommy, they both love their dads so much (idk if I'll design parents but I imagine that Trini's dad has obvious smile lines and Kim's dad's forehead is permanently wrinkled from Business Man Things) - Trini's also there to help Kim with queer stuff when she realises she likes Tommy, since she's never liked a girl before!! But she's excited about it!! But nervous!! And through Kim's excitement for discovering herself, Trini's able to get more and more comfortable with coming out to everyone

Skull and Billy's childhood friend thing from GGPR was something I wanted to carry over to Rise, difference being that they were friends in kindergarten until Billy's parents took him out of public school to teach him at home. Now in High School Billy sometimes lends Skull a hand with schoolwork (Autistic to ADHD Communication) and while Skull does get frustrated and they clash sometimes, they're good friends at the end of the day.

Similarly, Jason and Kim were friends in early Elementary School but went to different Middle Schools, so they're just kinda friendily floating around each other at first. But by the finale, Jason's like the older brother Kim never had but always wanted and acts like the biggest goober in the world around her to keep her smiling, while she's. Very Loud at football games to support him and Zack, and eventually Tommy as well she joins the team.

OH OH OH OKAY ACTUALLY REAL ANSWER Richie, Tommy and Curtis as a friend group are SO IMPORTANT. RISE SEASON 1 NEW KID TRIO. Richie and Curtis are lot more extroverted than Tommy and help her get a lil more comfortable around school, Curtis introduces her to Zack, which obvs leads to her meeting the rest of the Rangers and becoming friends with them. One of my fave things has been taking these two characters who really were just introduced to be White Ranger red herrings and making them MATTER. Richie sees Tommy getting close with Kim and is like "oh like, y'know, Kim's friends with Trini right? And you're also friends with her? Think you could,,, hook a butch up?" and Tommy just. Is terrible at being a wingwoman and is like "woahhh y'know Richie's preeeetty cool, she once saved a cat from a tree without using a ladder. Just fully flew up there. Ain't that neat, Trini? Don't you think that's sick?" and Trini's like. Ah. I know what's going on here. Curtis is sweet, but he does get insecure about being stuck as the "funny haha friend" no one really takes seriously but Richie and Tommy are like No dude. We love you. Let's go see a movie. Plus he's just so helpful and will drop anything to lend a hand, so Richie genuinely appreciates his un-asked-for-but-desperately-needed help at the Juice Bar

[aroseforyounme]

Cw: child abuse-verbal/emotional slightly physical, depression, disassociation, self-esteem issues

notes: caleb x non mc!reader; unrequited love

Part 1 Part 2

'Why,' you wondered, watching the two of them up ahead in a world of their own, 'was I even invited?'

You weren't planning on going out, the half eaten dinner on your dining table and the cued up movie on your phone could attest to this. You were planning on losing yourself to horrors of the fictional kind and try your absolute best to not wallow on your terrible luck in love.

And yet he had called. And like a fool you had answered.

"A fair," he'd told you, and you swore you could hear affection in the chuckle he'd thrown your way, "want to come with?"

And you. Foolish and hopelessly in love you. You had to say yes.

You should have realized that he didn't meant just the two of you-should have remembered that where there was a Caleb, there would always be a MC. The two of them were attached at the hip, orbiting around one another as if just being one step away from each other was too much. Most would think it was just Caleb, but it was MC too. The two of them hovered, touched, stayed glued to each other.

It was sweet, sickeningly so. The sort of sweet that gave cavities and famous poets would write heartsick poems about. It was something closed, intimate, a sort of story with a beginning, middle, and end. A story with two main characters and a love that blossomed and grew steady across different seasons.

And you, background character Y, were meant to stand idly by and let their story unfold in small chunks and then all at once.

So again, you wondered, kicking a loose rock and watching it skip across the street, why the hell did they invite you?

Your first meeting wasn't necessarily ideal. You had been home alone, staring out the window when a baseball crashed through and hit you square in the face. You remembered the crunch of bone, the way you flew back slightly. You remembered the way someone had yelled and the hands that had cradled your head and then nothing else.

You had come to in a hospital, staring up at the ceiling as your irritated mother told you all about how she had to come home early from the gala and deal with the mess you had caused. You remembered the way her hand tightened on your wrist, deep blue nails digging in. You knew she wouldn't do anything more than bruise and so you didn't try to snatch your hand away. Instead you let her tighten her grip, staring at that ceiling and wondering at the fact that you honestly couldn't feel your nose.

The doctor had come in at some point, but you processed their arrival through a heavy fog. A concussion. A broken nose. Something about a care plan, something about rest.

Your mother had nodded agreeably to the instructions, throwing in jokes to make the doctor laugh-feel more at ease. She had shed the crabby countenance she always seemed to have in your presence and slipped into her role as loving mother. It dropped the moment the two of you got into the car. She had snapped at you three times to get into the car-had huffed in irritation and snatched the seat belt from your shaky hands in order to clasp it. You hadn't said a word, still floating.

When you got home, they were standing there. There were two of them-a young boy and girl around your age. You had seen them around, but you hadn't actually ever talked to them. They seemed overly insular, only really talking to themselves and one other boy before he'd moved away. You remembered the way the boy stood slightly in front of her, his posture straightening the closer the car got. His smile was so apologetic you almost felt like you were watching one of your mother's performances. It was a little too practiced, a little too perfect. Your mother blew right past them, muttering about the broken glass and her ruined plans, but you stopped in front of them, curiosity making you wait-assess.

The girl had turned to follow your mom's path, her eyes furrowed. She made an abortive move, as though to follow her, before she stopped, biting her lip with anxious energy. The boy, however, had looked at you. You realized, with a jolt, that his gaze had not moved from you from the moment you had entered your driveway. His eyes seemed to burn with a sort of knowing that made you want to simultaneously shrink away and bask in the attention.

"Hi," he had said, his smile still quirked in practiced apology, "I am so sorry about the ball. Are you okay?" The words were rehearsed, so plastic you could feel the insincerity coating every syllable. He wanted this to be quick, to end this interaction and get back to what he knew. You could hear the role you were meant to play in his question. You were meant to say something simple. Easy.

A concussion. Your broken nose a blot on your face. The bruises you could feel blooming under your eyes.

You said nothing, squinting at the boy. His smile stayed in place although you could see it twitching just slightly. You forced your answering smirk away.

"Yeah! Sorry about your face and also the window! Caleb literally jumped through the window after we saw you fall (and that maybe made the window break even more)! We didn't meant to, I swear! Caleb tried to grab your head before it hit the floor but it was too late! And the vase! We-"

A sudden shriek filled cut through the rambling of the girl in front of you.

"-we may have also possibly broken a vase." She finished, her voice sheepish.

Your mother yelled your name. A sharp sound that had you turning your head toward the sound and away from the two kids in front of you. You sighed, your headache worsening the longer you stood there.

"It's fine," you had said, your voice flat. You didn't look at them as you made your way towards the door.

"We can pay for the damages!" She had yelled out suddenly and before you could take another step, she was in front of you. She pulled out her hand and in her palm you saw it.

A crumpled up bill. A singular dollar.

You remembered the silence. The way she looked up at you beseechingly, wiggling the dollar as though it would make it more enticing. You remembered the boy-Caleb-sighing and walking over to her and closing her fists around the dollar, arguing with her. They had kept going back and forth but you hadn't cared about a single thing they'd said.

It was ridiculous. What was a dollar supposed to do to fix a window and your mother's most priceless vase? (Her words, you knew for a fact she had 4 others that looked exactly like it gathering dust in storage).

And yet, despite your mother's screeching growing louder, despite the fact that your headache spiked the longer you stood there, despite the way your entire face ached.

You laughed.

It had hurt, but it was a pain made dull by Caleb's confusion and the girl's (who's name you now definitely needed to know) answering grin.

"Don't worry about it," you told her, "it'll be fixed in a second." As soon as you stepped into the house really. Your mother wouldn't let you rest otherwise. You smiled at them, really and truly, ignoring the way your nose started to bleed.

Your mother screamed again. It was time to go.

"Are you sure you're going to be okay?" Caleb had asked, genuinely sincere this time.

"Yeah," You remembered telling them, lips stained red by the blood trickling from your nose, "I'm always okay."

You thought that would be the end-that they would go back to their world of 2 (and occasionally 3) and you would go back to staring listlessly out windows or sleeping the day away, trying to get rid of the perpetual fog that surrounded you. Silence would once again envelope you, only to be broken up by your mother's infrequent and not at all welcome, visits back home.

You were wrong.

At first it was just MC. She would come often, sometimes dragging that other boy-Caleb-with her, sometimes alone. Her chatter would would fill the space around the two of you. She didn't seem to care that you didn't speak too much-unused to having someone there who wanted to actually listen. She spoke enough for the both of you, anyhow and you were content to listen, to let the chatter breathe life into your sometimes too quiet house.

Caleb came in bits and pieces-the real him that is. Oh, he was a constant physical presence, hovering right behind MC and staring at you with too sharp eyes. But the initial versions of him was shallowly polite. He'd laugh when prompted, make a joke to fill the space that MC would sometimes leave for him. But he was never truly talking to you-never really present with you. His body was present in the space between the three of you, but his attention, his focus was on MC.

And that was fine. You had found his attention to be too intense, his perception too much. Whenever MC made an offhand remark about your mother being gone, his eyes would flash with something close to understanding and you found yourself tripping to make a quick excuse, not yet ready to have the truth of the matter pulled out in the open.

It was in those moments that his focus would shift, his deep purple eyes would flicker to you and you knew that he knew.

The fact that he was just waiting for you to acknowledge it made it worse.

You remembered the first time you made him laugh-actually truly laugh. It had just been the two of you-a first since MC and Caleb were generally attached at the hip. But she got held up at home and had apparently pushed Caleb out the door and told him that he absolutely needed to come over and tell you that she couldn't make it today.

You had stared at the phone on the counter in confusion before turning to him. The only thing he could offer was a shrug. The two of you stared at one another in awkward silence before you sighed, shrugging yourself and asking if he wanted to play video games. His eyes lit up for the first time you'd met him and he agreed.

He beat you. He beat you so bad it was so embarrassing. By the 5th win, you could feel the smug energy radiating off him and in a fit of embarrassed rage you tried to push his controller out of his hands. But you missed. You don't even know how you missed, but you missed him entirely and ended up falling face first onto your floor.

He looked down at you.

You turned your head and looked up at him in astonished silence.

The game loudly chimed that you were last place and Caleb was, irritatingly, first.

"Listen," you started, hands flying up to stop what you knew was going to start, "don't even-"

He laughed. No, he cackled. Loud guffaws escaped his mouth as he pointed down at you and you could feel embarrassment warming your cheeks. But beneath that, way way down inside to a point that you refused to acknowledge, you felt something else.

Pleased.

"Stop laughing!" You yelled, but all it did was make him laugh harder, tears gathering in his eyes. With a huff and a smile you tried to hide, you rose to your feet, sitting on the couch and watched him try to pull himself together. You didn't notice the smile you'd tried to hide blossoming across your face, small and warm. You didn't notice that your voice had gotten soft, fond almost.

"It wasn't that funny."

And when he stopped laughing, when he wiped the tears from his eyes and looked over at you, he smiled back. Wide and showing just a bit too much teeth. Something that was wholly and completely his.

It was real.

"Are you okay?" He had asked, chuckles spilling in between the words.

"Yeah," you had said, and something unfortunate had clicked into place for you, although you didn't know it yet, "I'm always okay."

He had opened up more then, started coming over on his own sometimes with an excuse to beat your ass in games again. And you'd let him in each time, bickering over the controls and the game itself until one or both of you were laughing. Inevitably he would wander towards the kitchen, humming neutrally as he picked apart your meager offerings.

(Your mother never truly went grocery shopping and you didn't know how to cook so you were surviving off instant meals and snacks).

He never made a comment but you felt bad all the same.

And he noticed, because of course he did.

That was when the random food drops off started. He would come over with containers in his hands, saying something about how he and his grandmother made too much and they could not keep eating left overs, MC would kill him.

The first time he brought a container over, filled with food that you remembered offhandedly saying you wanted to try, you almost cried. Your hands were trembling when you took the container, your eyes stung and you couldn't speak past the lump in your throat.

But he didn't need words. He didn't need anything. He had placed a hand on your head, not ruffling it like you'd seen him do with MC. No, he just placed it softly on the top of your head, a grounding presence.

(That must've been the moment you had fallen in love. It had to have been).

Their duo didn't become a trio. Not really. They were still Caleb and MC-still a planet and it's moon orbiting one another over and over again until the end of time. It was just that sometimes-once in a while-they would open up and let you hover uncertainly in their gravitational pull.

You didn't think of it this way at first. You were honestly just happy to be included-to feel something beyond the steady chill of being a ghost in your own life. You had been drifting for what seemed like forever and they pulled you down, dragged you into the present.

You hadn't minded that you were always the one walking a step behind them if the sidewalk only allowed enough room for two. You hadn't minded staring at their backs, an audience member to their two man show. You hadn't minded being their spectator. Not if it meant that you get to bask in their warmth-in their glow.

In his glow.

It was vibrant and you found yourself addicted to it. You didn't think you could go back to the quiet-the stillness-you once found comfort in. The silence had become too loud, unwelcoming. You were no longer accustomed to the way it would press against you-once soothing, now stifling. You didn't want go back to the shade you once were, so you clung, stubbornly refusing to see what was right in front of you.

A leech, that was what your mother had called you. And maybe you were. You hadn't cared though, hadn't cared so long as they continued to share some of their heat with you.

But it shifted as you grew older-came into quiet focus and something in you, something small and rebellious, took notice.

The first number on your new phone had been his. He'd plucked the phone out of your hands the moment you finished setting it up and input his number, smiling over at you when you squawked in (pretend) indignation.

"In case you need me," is what he had said, tossing the phone back and raising a singular eyebrow at you. You'd scoffed at him at the time, refusing to acknowledge the soft flutter in your chest at his words.

"And if I never call?" You remembered the way his smile had shifted, his teeth flashing as he let out a slight chuckle.

"Well then, I guess I'll just have to call you, huh?"

"Careful," you murmured, your voice tinged with something you refused to name, "say stuff like that and people will get clingy."

You remembered the way his eyes had flashed with something, how his voice became an octave lower. He'd said it so quietly as thought it were meant to be a secret shared between the two of you. And wasn't that thrilling? Wasn't that hopeful?

"Well," he whispered, his voice a faint caress against your cheek, "wouldn't want that, now would we?"

He called you every other night at 12:45am on the dot. You weren't sure exactly why that time, but you found yourself putting an alert on your phone to make sure you were in the right headspace to receive his call. You would wrap yourself in your blankets, and settle yourself right beside the window sill. You liked to lean on it while staring out the night sky, his voice a steady rhythm in your ear.

You talked about everything and nothing. It would jump from the weather to your plans for the future to random hypotheticals the two of you would throw at one another. You found yourself opening up-truly opening up-in those quieter moments. In the cover of night, you'd open your mouth and spill secrets that only the dreary walls of your house had witnessed.

You spoke of a father that left before you could even walk. You spoke of a mother that blamed you-that wanted you to repent for the crime of being born. You spoke of fears that couldn't be given a proper name-of feeling as though you were one step away from disappearing completely.

You spoke and he listened.

And then he spoke.

Of death. Of a catastrophe that changed his life and the fallout being an orphan. Of feeling like he's simultaneously too much and not enough. He spoke and while you knew there was a lot he wasn't saying, you took what he gave and cherished it all the same.

The day may have been reserved for her. His expression so loving, it caused you to turn away. But the nights, the nights were reserved for you; this was something you could point to for anyone that dared to undermine your presence in his life.

Until you were reminded of where you truly stood.

It was a stormy night. The sky opened up and you watched on your spot in front of your window as rain pelted the ground. Lightning flashed across the sky and you quietly counted to 5 as thunder boomed. You smiled a little to yourself, staring up at the night sky.

Your alarm chimed, telling you that it was 3 minutes to 12:45. Caleb would be calling any minute. You continued to watch the lightning streak across the sky, almost losing yourself in the moment.

He didn't call.

Not that night, nor the next, or the next. Through it all the storm raged on.

You had asked him, fiddling with your jacket and head turned to where MC was saying goodbye to her other friends. You had asked him what happened-if he was just falling asleep early.

"MC doesn't like thunderstorms," he had said, face angled to watch her, "I was with her. Didn't think to give you a call." You blinked turning to look at him, finding him already looking at you.

A leech, your mother had called you. You hadn't wanted to listen to her but staring at Caleb in that moment, that was all you could hear reverberating in your skull.

"Ah, okay," You managed to say through a throat coated in molasses, "that makes sense."

There was no storm that night. He called you at 12:45. You lasted 2 rings before answering.

[heartorbit]

revstar emu save me

[vaguely-concerned]

just had the thought 'in the end the most important thing varric taught rook was how to make a home for, with, and in other people' and then I had to go lie down on the floor and clutch at my head in unceasing agony for a few hours, as you may well imagine. hawke and the kirkwall crew........ in the end you kind of saved the world a bit in the most characteristically indirect and chaotic of ways. not by anything in particular that you did or achieved or accomplished (lmao imagine!), but just by -- having existed, and by the love that was always there, despite it all, in all its imperfections, even when no one was saved by it in the end. you're not here right now and you're not quite haunting the narrative but I hear your voices bickering and arguing and laughing from the other room. (and so, I think, does varric. all the time.)

'did you think you mattered, hawke? did you think anything you ever did mattered?' yeah actually, varric says with da2 and keeps saying through the series. you were here. and I loved you. and as it turns out that mattered more than almost anything in the world, no matter how long it lasted or how fucked up it was at the time or what else happens, because varric manages to pass that feeling, that intangible... home, that echo of you all as you were together, that love, hopefully the best parts of it, on to someone else for them to bring with them on their journey, with their family. and maybe the world will be kinder this time. you never know. merrill's line of 'Everything affects everything. We were born, a bunch of things happened, and now we're in a mess with our friends.' varric's greatest fear of becoming his parents. even through the wreck and the ruin of the world, ghosts upon ghosts upon ghosts of love -- malcolm hawke, who we never even see, but his life touched hawke's and hawke's touched varric's and varric's touched rook's and rook is passing it on to the family they're creating. the unbroken legacy of love shines through in ways that are stronger and stranger than any magic. help

[knightforflowers]

You are spontaneous, both in character and in origin. You set out on a mission to discover the world and discover yourself, and you have completed that mission with aplomb. So. Now I ask you...what do you want now?

I— want to help my friends.

[myokk]

I…may or may not have started a sebinis oneshot on the train that will (hopefully) be devastating🥹🥹🥹

trying out Ominis pov again bc the way I write him with all of that delicious punctuation is actually how I think irl🫡

It had all started out quite unremarkably.

A passing comment: something said without thinking: an unintended promise of what was to come.

My aunt used to tell me about a library hidden deep under the castle…

(It had been spoken carelessly - he ignores the fact that he had spent hours agonizing over how to finally open up, share a part of himself.)

Had Ominis known what those fated words would lead to, he would have kept it all shut inside, as he was wont to do. Why had he opened up to Sebastian? And besides, he knew what Sebastian was like. Recklessly obstinate, purposely obtuse when he didn’t want to listen, searching for a blasted cure like a dog worrying a bone. It was all Sebastian could think about. And Ominis, in his selfish desire to have Sebastian see him, maybe see a small sliver of the person he hadn’t seen all year - not since her curse - hadn’t considered how his words would be taken.

[psychopomp-namine]

yingdu episode 5 spoilers

ohhh my god this is everything I want from cheng xiaoshi. yes. perfect. sorry, but I'm a cheng xiaoshi whump liker and link click always brings out the best of them in episode 5 of each season.

there's just something cathartic about how when cheng xiaoshi becomes an emotional mess, it's also when he's most disconnected with the people he knows (physically, as he's diving in a photo and his only link to his home timeframe is a disembodied lu guang in his head) but it's also when he's most connected with strangers (when their own personal trauma lines up with his). to me, it's a showcase of empathy and a strange manifestation of his own agency. something about how the disconnect gives him the space to blow up, and the connection heightens it and grants him permission, almost, to express his anger more freely for his own sake and for another person's behalf.

like. listen, okay, I'm gonna ramble now because cheng xiaoshi is my favorite character in this entire show, but listen. sometimes some fans will conflate adjectives to his character that are usually associated with his character archetype, but they aren't necessarily true about him as a character. and I don't mean it in a, "he's not like that because he grows out of those traits" kind of way. I mean it in a, "he was never like that" kind of way.

one of those adjectives, for me, is when people call him immature. he isn't! to me! imo! he's got big emotions, yes, but I personally don't think the presence of big emotions indicates anything about maturity. because you know what? as long as his primary trauma (feelings of abandonment) isn't touched, he is very good at handling interpersonal conflicts, and that's what's interesting to me.

qiao ling hides relevant information from him? he removes himself from the situation to give himself space and sort out his feelings. he tells her he's fine and that he'll be back.

post-earthquake arc? I'll just copy paste what I already said in a previous ask:

what initially got me was when I was first watching S1, I thought the earthquake arc would have devastating effects on [shiguang's] relationship. listen, I didn’t know what I was getting into with link click, but I thought that was expected. it’s ripe for drama! but how do they handle the fight? they put their side business on hold but they still keep being roommates. they still do their day job. they still talk. they’re still upset but they give each other space but not to the point where they can’t stand existing in each other’s spaces. that’s when I realized that oh, they really trust each other. they have a very solid foundation for their relationship that not even the earthquake arc can break. they’re pretty level-headed about this, actually, all things considered? all the doomed yaoi stuff came later, but that’s just the cherry on top. it’s the way they handled conflict and disappointment in S1 that got me.

okay, protect-namine, why go through that whole tangent? BECAUSE! circling back to yingdu episode 5, we finally, finally get to see cheng xiaoshi let out some of his anger. and it's precisely because his primary trauma point was on the table. he can forgive a friend lying, and he can forgive being told not to change the past. because at the end of the day, qiao ling and lu guang stayed. they never left him.

but he cannot handle abandonment. he cannot understand why people leave. he cannot understand why he's been clinging on to false hope this entire time. and more importantly, he cannot understand how someone can be such a hypocrite about it. "a man who'd rather be kind to strangers than face his own son" like fuck man. cheng weimin you fucked up so bad.

it's the disconnect/connect thing again too. thematically, it makes sense. when does cheng xiaoshi blow up? when he's alone, far away from the people that ground him. alone, the feeling he hates the most. he's not even in his own body. he blows up when he's inhabiting a stranger's. he doesn't even get to be angry as cheng xiaoshi.

how fucked up is that. man. I love him so much.

also I'm going crazyyyy over the family themes going on in link click. much to say about the show itself across all seasons (the twins, qiao ling and cheng xiaoshi, even the liu siblings), but for this episode... god. okay this is slight speculation territory now and I'll try to keep this very short, because this is only tangential to the post. but. imagine xia fei getting the good parent figure in cheng weimin that cheng xiaoshi never had. and he doesn't know!! he's bitter inside about his dad and he's having hotpot with xia fei and he doesn't know he was in that school!! fuck that's so good. that's so juicy.

okay, sorry, I have a lot of feelings about cheng xiaoshi. he's my link click blorbo of all time, and I love when he experiences The Horrors™ because it's also when other sides of him gets to shine.

on a brighter note:

VEIN AND CHENG XIAOSHI MEETING AGAIN!!! their greeting was so cute. also omg does xia fei know? that his boss is maybe possibly a cannibal? actually, wait, I don't think I'd be surprised if he does know.

ah and finally. finally:

I've been having many thoughts on how yingdu approaches "friendships" and their transactional nature (mostly with regards to liu xiao) but I mostly thought they're headcanon stuff. but now. I'm so so happy that episode 5 is bringing out more of the quid pro quo theme. liu xiao with the gift giving. wang qing's "friends" (bullies) demanding her to cheat on the exam for them. and now, vein and cheng xiaoshi having a friendly greeting but also exchanging favors. so good. so good. it goes along with how there's so much handshakes and handholding this season (not just with lu guang and cheng xiaoshi, but with cheng xiaoshi and the the antagonist trio too, who have all met him by "helping" him in some way). something something trust and favors. probably something that deserves its own post though, but I wanted to point this out because I am soooo here for that. it's goes hand in hand (ha!) with the whole fraud/lies vs innocence/honesty theme this season, and deals/contracts being an equalizer to the two. very good. very tasty.

edit: ooh they also point to this in the YE6 trailer too. nice, nice. if you knew someone's true colors, would you still be their friend?

man, I love episode 5. it just hits all the stuff I personally wanted to see. the only flaw is that we still haven't seen the older version of wang qing, but yeah I kinda expected that they'll hide her until episode 6. they're giving her the liu xiao treatment from season 2. sigh. really wish she'd keep showing up in S3, we need more female characters in this show 🙏

[raett97]

just re-watched the accountant bc i'm going to see the accountant 2 this afternoon and ugh. it's such a good movie.

like. okay so i get that the dad was not the best from the perspective of any ND person ever. but i really really do like his character? he was a dad just trying to do what he thought was best for his kids. and like. when the mum left and Chris was having a meltdown the dad calmed him with the Solomon Grundy rhyme. which really just indicates to me that no the dad was not ignoring in any way shape or form the difficulties his son had or his differences. didn't yell at him or tell him to calm the fuck down or w/e. didn't try and force him to be normal or mask. he knew the coping mechanism his kid used and employed it.

like yeah he was a hard ass and 'raised his kids tough' or whatever. forced him to acclimatise rather than support and cater to his needs in ways which may very well be classified as abuse. but he was doing his best with the tools and environment he had in the way he thought best, even if we might think that way is wrong.

and he died protecting his son. taking a bullet for him. and it's obvious that both Chris and Brax did love him for all of his faults, what with Brax beating the shit out of Chris and Chris letting him.

so like. yeah. I love the character, flawed as he is.

[thirdeyeblue]

“Nine would have treated Martha better than Ten did”

I need to talk about this argument that never seems to stop circulating.

Note: Not a venomous/anti post. There’s more than enough of that across fandom spaces as is, and this is supposed to be a place for ✨sweet, blissful escapism✨

When making this argument, people seem to envision a scenario in which Nine never met Rose.

While I can appreciate a good hypothetical, recognizing Rose's significance to the Doctor (Nine and Ten) is essential to understanding why things with Martha played out the way they did in the first place.

In the third series, the Doctor is grieving. This grief is deliberately threaded into nearly every script, whether spoken aloud or not (and these are just a few examples):

He's burning in Rose’s wake the entire time Martha travels with him, which is why it’s so frequently called upon: It’s 100% deliberate in framing his grief. He grieved as Nine too, of course— having been fresh on the heels of the Time War — but then he met Rose, which changed everything.

Back then, he was still a rude, traumatized pain in the ass, but we watch Rose soften more of those jagged edges with every episode as they grow closer; as he lets his guard down and forms a deep connection with her.

He falls in love (against his better judgment) and it's game over.

And yes: provided S1E1 had been titled 'Martha', one can realistically assume things might have unfolded similarly to how they did with Rose. However, it wouldn’t have been that way just because the Doctor was Nine and “Nine was different” — it would be because he wasn’t already in love with someone else. The same can't be said for the start of S3.

Think of it like this: if Rose AND Martha had been in that cellar — if Nine had taken both of them along with him in S1 — we’d eventually be looking at the most melodramatic love triangle ever, what with him living in close quarters with two brilliant, gorgeous, compassionate young women... But Doctor Who is plenty “soap opera” as is with just one woman in the TARDIS.

(I certainly wouldn’t object to reading that fic, though)

Now, regarding the unrequited elephant in the room…

His inability to be romantic with Martha isn’t because he thinks her lesser, nor is it for lack of compatibility. It isn't because Rose is any better than her. It certainly isn’t just because he’s Ten.

It’s really only for one reason, which can't be denied — and now I’m a broken record:

He is still in love with Rose.

(cut from a tenrosedaily gif)

Nine is Ten, and Ten is only such a mess in S3 because he’s just lost the love of his life. Martha merely got caught in the crosshairs of a volatile Time Lord in mourning, and yes — it sucks. Absolutely.

But it also feels dismissive to chalk Ten and Martha’s relationship up to little more than some sort of mindless dance of pining, jealousy, and toxicity.

Ten trusted Martha with his life over and over again — and hers, with him. He constantly praised her brilliance, happily carting her around time and space with no intention of letting her go. In the BBC’s extended universe of novels/comics/cartoons/etc, there’s so much depth to their relationship: love and trust and trauma and sacrifice. They had their own special bond as mates, their own complexities — so it’s a bummer that it's forever overshadowed by the other things.

I’m not denying that there was a lot of stuff that sucked/was for sure toxic about Ten's S3 behavior, but so many of the things I've seen him catching flak for can be directly attributed to being A Clueless Fucking Alien Idiot (not a trait that’s unique to Ten) — as well as his flat-out obliviousness to Martha’s feelings.

So yes, I agree: if Rose never existed, he would have treated Martha differently as Nine. He also would have treated her differently as Ten. Certainly.

But Rose did exist, and when discussing canon, it matters.

“He tells me that he absolutely, 100% loves Rose... He tells me how my daughter; my wonderful, beautiful, clever little girl saved him from himself before… And he says that’s all because of me! I made her into the Rose Tyler that saved him.”

-Jackie Tyler, Flight Into Hull!

Martha got the short end of the stick in S3. She came round at the wrong place and time, but that doesn't mean it was all bad. It doesn't mean the Doctor didn’t adore her. It certainly doesn't mean the time they spent together was wasted or worthless. They were brilliant!

Sure, he could be a twat, but let it be known that he was a twat with Rose as well, both as Nine and Ten. I’m sure Tentoo can be plenty infuriating, too. So while I'll defend Ten (and Tentoo) into the ground forever and ever and ever, I'll concede that he's fucked up.

The Doctor is a certified Pain In The Ass. It’s one of the things I love so much about this character — dynamics.

But never forget that Martha was goddamn tough as nails and overcame every bit of it. She moved on with her life, and the Doctor moved on with his. One can only pray that, when they inevitably drag her back onto the show (which feels inevitable if I'm honest), we see at once that she's been living her best life for all these years.

[thetrinitytest]

tosh is definitely the kind of person to say the most insane shit out of nowhere and then continue on as if she was talking about the weather forecast for the next seven days

[asexualjedi]

Still so iconic of Matt fraction to start his run like anyways off screen Clint and Kate who have met a few times before this run have become besties and are fundamentally now intertwined characters. Like and that’s just canon now. I think more comic writers should be willing to kinda just decide a new status quo like that especially with characters that have been under utilized

[ninjacat-uchihaparrish]

Adams monologue/spiel to ronan in Greywaren where he pours his heart and soul out to him and confesses his loss of identity and direction is just sooo beautifully written/spoken. I’ve noticed that when he wants to be, Adam can communicate and articulate himself quite well actually (you just kind of have to push him to the edge / catch him in a train of thought)

Another one I can think of is when Adam finally confronts blue about hiding her romance with Gansey, Adam doesn’t just straight up ask her no. Instead he starts with a little lead up story about ronan was annoying when they first met, and he was a heart attack but like hey al least Gansey liked him cause he was honest! (But he said it in a way better way than I did)

Or that one deleted monologue about being god and the bugs fucking, that’s always surprising when I reread it but like yeah king talk your shit (even tho Gansey has a record for being a shit talker, when he’s being really ernest like his ‘love is a privilege’ bit with blue, he can talk good too!)

So anyways all of this is kinda a precursor to an idea I had stemming from the fact that Adam might initially feel a little inferior in his relationship just cause ronans been into him longer. And maybe ronans been a little unconvinced that he really means anything at all to Adam. So Adam goes on some sort of similar tirade about like no you idiot just cause you had a head start doesn’t mean I haven’t caught up. In fact it’s MORE impressive on my part that I’ve already caught up and fallen in love with you isn’t it?? Cause it means I fell headfirst! Get that through your thick head dumbass (he’d say it in a much better was but you get the point!)

[moriphyte]

as much as i have stuck to drawing child tommy, as thats the version all of us are most familiar w and the version we know well, its also really inspiring to imagine him grown up. to imagine what he would look like and which features he would grow into and who he would resemble be it by genetics or choice or both. this character that was never allowed to live, never allowed to die on his own terms, being able to finally grow up like normal. what would he look like? of course when i imagine an older ctommy, i simply can’t divorce him from the image of cwil no matter how much i may want to. they’re brothers, by blood or not depends on your hc but to me it doesn’t matter. they look alike, sometimes almost eeerily so. not that they would ever be indistinguishable, there are a few very visible differences, but it’s the little things. all the little things that make them so painfully like despite the obvious differences. the way ctommy tugs on his curls when he’s upset, the way he paces the room frantically muttering and cursing when he’s stressed. the way he sings while making potions, the way he sometimes lets the dramatics take him and allows his gangly limbs to swing like misweighted pendulums as he waxes not so poetic about something or another. the way he hunches up to make himself look smaller without even thinking and ctubbo always has to remind him not to slouch. and the way he stands up tall and holds himself like their former commander in chief when he’s trying to be a BIG MAN. i started this post thinking of the specific facial features and details ctommy would have as an adult, and how they would relate and differ to his brothers, but now i am lost int he sauce of imagining eve r little mannerism ctommy picked up being raised by cwil and no matter how far away from each other they are these connections will always remind them of each other (because god knows wil has picked up just as many of tommy’s mannerisms over their many codependent years together) and it quickly gets too painful to think about. anyway im normal .

[fumifooms]

[massyworld]

there's something poetic in hirano, alarmed by the widespread normalcy surrounding the desire to kiss one's beloved, also being adorned with the black 'normal' hair colour in japan. cosplaying normalcy while still struggling with its concepts. cosplaying normalcy while slightly embarrassed being seen by your kagi-kun in this form, (for whom normal is the personification of the sun). cosplaying normalcy and desperate for your kagi-kun to treat you (touch you) like normal. but then...what even is normal?