#NUANCE IS SO FUN GUYS...

[itz-pandora]

I am an advocate that you shouldn't trash on other people's ships and shouldn't trash on ships for being popular, BUT ALSO. Shippers, please also look at your characters without their partner interfering with them and they can talk about something other than their partner and have an identity outside of them (UNLESS you want to emphasize the character is dependent on their partner, but in that case you should emphasize it's probably unhealthy.)

Look at the characters and how they interact with anyone except for their partner PLEASE. Study them under a microscope

And please don't trash other characters for "getting in the way of the ship". QUIET!!! be NICE to them

And please don't flanderize the characters. It's so much more fun with nuance, trust me

[ricciardo133]

July 2018

maxiel, Daniel genderswap, pining, drunken hook-up alluded to

-

Max wakes up slowly, feeling a girl cling to his side in the hotel bed. He can't remember Daniel and him inviting girls over to their shared room to unwind after Silverstone, but they did drink an inadvisable amount. Daniel had drank some noxiously sweet wine that some fan had gifted him. Idiotic, Max had thought. Max stuck to gin, a drink that normally doesn't leave him feeling this discombobulated. He feels wrecked, sore, and achy. He doesn't even feel ready to open his eyes.

The woman beside him stretches and sighs. "Rough night, eh, Maxy?" she says in a familiar Australian lit.

They both freeze.

Max sits up, slapping around the hotel lamp until he finds the switch. He stares wide-eyed at the woman lying beside him, her mass of dark curls against tan skin. Her wide, familiar eyes with that distinctive nose set between. Her hands are flung over her mouth, but Max can still see the right tattoos in the right places, only against different curves.

He glances down at perky, bare tits and soft, wide hips, and then back up in embarrassed shock.

"Daniel?"

"Yeah."

"You're a girl."

"So I've noticed."

Max gets up, starkly aware of his own nudity. He fumbles in the morning light for clothes, glancing at his reflection in the mirror as he pulls on a pair of sweatpants.

He's still quite himself, but the hickeys are new. He didn't know his face could feel this hot. He mentally feels memories from last night brush against his psyche in frustratingly fleeting snippets. Biting down on soft thighs. Warmth and tightness. Hard nipples in his mouth. God, he thinks, we finally did it and I can't fucking remember shit.

He looks back, seeing Daniel is gone. He panics and hustles to the bathroom where not-Daniel-but-still-Daniel stands and assess his body.

"Wow, kinda thought girl-me would have a bigger rack."

"You're taking this well."

"Well, obviously, we're dreaming."

"Hm."

Daniel twists in his spot, watching his reflection as he gives his ass a smack. Max is immediately hard.

"Daniel."

"Max," he echoes with faux shock. "Relax, this is, like, a seriously vivid dream. A horny one at that. I think we boned last night."

Max can't utter a word. He just watches as Daniel feels up his own body, smaller hands drifting over smooth skin. His nails skate along his thigh's tattoos, upwards to drift along fine hair between his legs. Max squirms and feels anything but asleep.

"So real," Daniel whispers.

"Can you maybe put something on?" Max begs. Daniel cocks an eyebrow and smirks. Max feels unnerved seeing his expressions in a feminine font. Daniel's refreshing confidence always made Max feel... too much. Like if he wasn't careful, he could spill over with it all. Watching Daniel now fondle his chest, pressing the small mounds together as he assessed himself in the mirror, Max felt ready to burst.

And they fucked. He turns and heads out to the hotel room.

Life is cruel and this dream sucks and he wishes he could remember.

"Hey, Max, hey," Daniel soothes, coming up behind him and blessedly covered in a hotel towel. "I seriously think this can't be real. Just like...what's that DiCaprio film?"

"Huh? Inception?"

"Yeah, that one. Just a really, really good...weird dream."

"Okay, then hit me." Max walks up to Daniel. He's not used to being this much taller. He feels dizzy again with need, wanting nothing more than to pin the older Aussie down on the bed. To hike his soft yet strong legs over his shoulders. Maybe it'd be fine if they did it again, since it maybe is an impossible dream and Daniel's not a boy right now. Not that it mattered normally. Max didn't care, he just wanted to feel him all over again.

"What?" Daniel smiles, eyebrows knit in confusion.

"In dreams, that's how you wake up. Like, a kick to jolt you awake, right?"

"Oh, right. Yeah, we should wake up."

Max leans closer and turns his cheek.

"I'm not smacking you, Max. Here," Daniel takes Max's hand in his. All Max wants was to knit their fingers together, to feel the way his palm is finally bigger than Daniel's. "We'll do it to ourselves, okay?"

Daniel places Max's hand against his own cheek. He watches the gorgeous woman in front of him mirrors him, hand raised gently, fingertips against the curls that fall so, so long down to the middle of Daniel's back. He'd look so good with hair like that even as a boy. Max thinks to tell him this and stops himself.

"On three, yeah?"

"Okay."

Daniel counts down, in that singsong voice that's his but not his pitch. Max tries to commit it to memory as he gives himself a just-too-painful slap.

And nothing changes. The only thing that changes is now Daniel panics.

"Holy fucking shit, Max."

"Daniel-"

"This is real."

"We'll fix this," Max tries as Daniel starts tearing apart the hotel room. Max glances at the clock on the nightstand while Daniel goes on a heated search for something. "We don't have to leave for the flight for two hours."

Christ. He pictures telling their team anything. Daniel can still race, of course, Max thinks. He'll just need a new suit that fits better. And some adjustments to the car's seat fit. And a good PR statement that, yes, something impossible happened overnight but no worries we'll be set for Hockenheim so don't worry about how this happened.

"This!" Daniel says, leaping up to Max and putting a small card in his hand. "This is why! Read it. It came with the wine that hot girl gave me."

Max rolls his eyes and reads it. He narrows his gaze. "A change, temporary, good for two? What's that mean?"

"Beats me, but read it again. Temporary." He sighs, letting his head knock back. Max stares at the line of hickeys down Daniel's thinner neck, too faint. "I do kinda miss my dick."

"How does it feel?" Max asks despite himself. "To be a girl?"

"Good, I guess." Does Daniel press his thighs together reflexively, Max wonders. He feels pent up and horny again. "Like, I don't mind it, but it'll be hell to buy a whole new wardrobe," he attempts to joke through shaky laughs.

"Maybe that note meant 'two' like in two times," Max says, voice quiet.

All he can hear for a moment is the whirl of the hotel aircon. He watches Daniel's feminine frame, his big eyes and wet lips.

"Can you remember any of it?" Daniel asks, voice barely registering above the whirl.

"Not much."

"And it kinda doesn't count, right? Because I'm not really me right now, so its okay? And you don't mind?"

It can count, Max wants to beg. It can. It can be okay after, too. It can be okay all the time.

"I don't mind. You're hot as a girl." The last three words feel too final. Daniel's shoulders fall as he nods.

"Yeah, a stunner, huh? So, well, we'll take her for one last ride."

Finally, Daniel walks up and pushes Max onto the hotel bed. Max's mind reels as Daniel lets the towel drop. Two breasts in Max's face as he feels thighs straddle his waist. His hands fly up to trace eager lines up Daniel's spine and rake gentle tracks back down with his nails. They both shudder.

"Last time, right?" Daniel says between kisses down Max's neck. Max feels his eyes water. It doesn't have to be. But he doesn't say anything. He flips Daniel over on the bed, body tenting over the smaller frame. And this time, he focuses. He wants to make Daniel feel good. He wants to come inside. He wants to etch every moment deep in his mind, so he'll remember every gasp, every touch, every sigh.

[vaguely-concerned]

we need a poll. what do we call dorian. a mortaboo/mooaboo (mortalitasi weeabo). a wooaboo/watchaboo (watcher weeaboo). a neeaboo/necroboo (you may start to see my design here). he knows what he is and he's not ashamed of it. he went 'while you were busy being lame I studied the skull. and got laid a bunch ¯_(ツ)_/¯. we are not the same'. after one family vacation to nevarra at like seventeen or whatever he made it his whole personality and himself insufferable enough around the house that his dad finally caved and sent him to the watchers for them to deal with for a term. where he then went on to make himself insufferable around the necropolis in general and to emmrich in particular. I love him beyond words.

[solanj]

sometimes in the fandom you see some art that is SO beautifully made but goes SO against the grain of how you perceive the drawn character(s) like I want to reblog it so much because it's so visually gorgeous and the artist is amazing and deserves to know this but I'll fucking die before letting that particular interpretation of the character(s) anywhere near my blog

[officialzevran]

jacobus: i'm following/inspired by YOU, rook, and that's why i'm gonna be a full fledged assassin and start my own crow house we already have two other orphan boys to undergo the abuse i mean training :)

^ zevran is gonna find and kill my rook for having a hand in that, and he's right to do so

[marimbles]

i miss carpisuns sometimes </3

[glitchfang]

on the topic of ian flynn references, i agree that he needs to reel it in (the “open your heart” reference when eggman and sonic are having a serious argument is a good example because it kinda takes you out of the scene, it doesnt really fit the flow of the confrontation) but i dont get why this panel with metal is used as an example of how awful these are. this one goes hard

[necrotic-nephilim]

For the ask game

au where brudick happens but they keep it VERY hidden to the point only cass knows but she thinks everyone does cause to her it's so obvious, so one day on their monthly family dinner that no one misses she ask's them why they have different rooms when they always go to eachother during the night. What do you think would happen? Would they deny deny deny? would they ask her what she's talking about? how does everyone else react to this revelation? do the other heroes find out? do they have opinions about it?

for the ask game!

I LOVE THIS SHIT. truly love Cass noticing things she shouldn't and assuming they're common knowledge, it's my fave flavor. this is such a fun idea-

so Cass knows from like, day one. and obviously she never says anything bc she assumes this is normal. in a way, the weird vibes between Bruce and Dick *are* normalized to the Batfam, everyone sort of. tiptoes around their weirdness (even if they don't know it's romantic) so Cass learns to do the same. she doesn't mention it bc no one mentions Bruce and Dick's bond, it's only ever acknowledged with shared looks. it takes years before she has the courage to ask and i think it's fun if she asks for an utterly mundane reason. like, Alfred makes a teasing remark about washing everyone's bedsheets and what a task that is, and Cass just drops it into conversation that Dick's bed is rarely used because he's always in Bruce's, so that must make it easier to handle.

Dick was try to play it off as a joke. just the mention would make Bruce go silent, for once finally not having a contingency plan on how to handle something. he and Dick were never supposed to happen in the first place, it was so accidental he's never considered the possibility of someone finding out bc they're so careful, though in hindsight, of course he should've known Cass would've figured it out. Dick would awkwardly laugh, try to say something to the effect of "very funny, but we're not *that* close haha" just to break the tension. Cass doesn't give in, though. she's not the best at social cues and doesn't understand the desperate look Dick is giving her, trying to get her to drop it. she pushes on and corrects Dick, insisting she doesn't judge them for it. Bruce would finally snap back into reality and give a more serious denial, quickly changing the conversation before anyone else can press.

the issue is, the minute Cass says it out loud, it becomes *so* obvious. especially to Tim, who has the biggest "oh my GOD" lightbulb moment of his life. there is no unseeing it. it takes him a while to process how he feels about it, the same with everyone else. for a week, there's an obvious tension. no one will say anything, but everyone knows and is trying to sit with it to decide how they feel. it's not a simple situation to feel one way or another about. that's when the questions start. Tim asks Dick questions, Alfred asks Bruce questions. how old was Dick, how did it happen, all the things Dick and Bruce have never wanted to have to answer. bc none of the questions have clean answers. it was a slow and gradual relationship. sure, they can say the first time they slept together, but that doesn't *really* count as the start of things. the start goes back to when Dick was still a teenager, probably underage. even if nothing happened, they both knew. and the way they dance around the questions makes that obvious.

most of the Batfamily i think, would begrudgingly accept it. it's too late to convince Bruce and Dick out of it now, and at the end of the day, Bruce and Dick will always choose each other over anyone else. fighting it just increases the chances of getting ostracized and pushed away by the two of them. feelings vary. i think Alfred would be the least happy about it because he was there when Dick was just a 10 yr old. everyone else only has memory of Dick as an adult, but Alfred watched Dick grow up, raised by Bruce, so he just can't shake that image. Tim sees it as one of those things you just have to accept about Batman, and carefully considers his role as Robin and makes sure he focuses on making sure Dick is happy/safe as well as Bruce. if nothing else, Tim will put his feelings aside to be the Emotional Support Child. Barbara would distance herself from the Batfam for a while just to sit on it, because she also saw Dick as a kid and it sits wrong with her. long talks with Dick convince her to let it go, but she does keep a *much* closer eye on Bruce to be sure this doesn't become a pattern. i think she'd enlist Cass to make sure Bruce never shows romantic/sexual attraction toward other Robins. Steph and Jason are equally apathetic toward it, being the ones who are most negative toward Bruce. they just shrug and go "yeah sounds like some shit Bruce would do". Damian's a bit of a toss-up. i think it'd really throw him for a loop and he'd be far more critical of Dick in the beginning, but once he approves of Dick, he'd *really* latch onto him.

i do think the rest of the hero community would find out. not on purpose, but the leak happens. Babs vents her feelings about it to Dinah, Helena, and Zinda. Tim mutters about it to the Titans. and Jason will tell anyone who asks because he doesn't have a rat's ass to give about Bruce's precious reputation. (if anything, he'd purposefully try to ruin Bruce with that info) the hero community... varies. i think Oliver would be the *most* pissed. Oliver is very similar to Bruce, in that he's taken in his share of strays, but he was objectively a lot better at it than Bruce. it causes a minor public scandal when Oliver drinks too much at some gala and just. publically beats the shit out of Bruce Wayne, incoherently talking about something to do with him being a creep. i could see Oliver rallying support from people like Barry and Arthur who also have young sidekicks and would agree it being fucked up. i don't think Bruce would be entirely ejected from the hero community, but he would be quietly removed as a chair member of the Justice League and have most of his power as a team leader stripped. no matter how much damage control Dick does, insisting he was an adult when anything real happened and he consented, no one can look at Bruce the same. sort of a bittersweet ending, Bruce and Dick are together and no one can take that from them, but there's still realistic reaction and blowback to it, which i personally think is a lot of fun.

[joelletwo]

two posts abt puriteens in a row -> finally successfully hunting down the [comment] i read at work and have been trying to find bc i think its one of the first times ive seen someone actually taking up my hobby horse of "what if teens are being outsizedly self righteous for actual followable reasons and not just bc theyre evil fash? 🤔" and i find it really valuable for putting my Pretty Rowdy Anti Early 20s Something experiences and lately retrospective thoughts into words

[censored 4 search]

I also think for proshippers specifically that these young people are (to steal a quote from [youtuber]) “shadowboxing” a world that sexualizes them… and losing. What I mean by this is that they’re making up easy bad guys to fight because they feel powerless to fight a world where teenage girls get countdown clocks for their 18th birthday and teenagers are debuting as sexualized kpop idols. A world where, if they criticize these issues in public spaces, they get shouted down by the adults around them for being wet blankets or people who say “well, it’s technically legal!!” They feel disenfranchised, but the one place they do have a voice is the welcoming sphere of fandom. For me, I (as a teen) remember feeling particularly radicalized by the [horse cartoon] fandom’s reaction to the time he nearly committed statutory rape (they blamed the victim and said she was nearly 18 anyway, despite the fact that he was already middle aged and groomed her). I never became an anti, but I DID have huge long arguments in comment sections with people over this. This is the kind of energy antis are bringing to the table. Except, because they’re teens, they have much more black and white thinking and much less media literacy. Rather than defend a victim of almost statutory rape, they’re applying this black and white logic to situations that don’t really need it, probably because they’re using “I got discomfort from this, so that means it must be just as bad as people defending statutory rape!” They likely don’t have the experience to articulate/think nuanced positions like “The way artists emphasize the height difference of this ship reminds me of how society likes traits that infantilize women in romances, so I prefer ships where the woman is not much shorter than the man.” But I’m betting you that it bothers them still, even if they can’t put into words, which makes them feel crazy. So they try their best to put it into words, and it comes out as “Short women are child-coded, so romances with them are basically pedobait!” They need someone to take their frustrations with sexism seriously, but they suck at words and “I don’t like short women romances” doesn’t really sound like a sexism problem, so they escalate it into “it’s basically statutory rape” just to find others who feel as frustrated as they do. I personally feel this on a deep level, as I remember feeling like the entire romance genre was geared to fetishize the oppression of women, and I felt alone in my anger at this because nobody else in my life felt the same way. It’s only as an adult (when I developed a better capacity for nuance), that I realized that some women respond to the oppression in “problematic” ways by fetishizing it in a safe environment, and that’s okay. I think another cause of this is that a lot of the antis I see today are extremely young and grew up in cartoon fandoms where predators ran amuck in the lawless Wild West of [gems cartoon]/[pony cartoon] fandoms. They likely saw the effects of fandoms with poor adult/child boundaries (specifically ones where predators might’ve wrote stereotypically dark fanfic with “It’s just fiction” as a justification, only to be later revealed as a predator), and they are now vigilant about potential predators as a trauma response. They NEED to be able to “spot” predators using the Anti logic they’ve made up, because the alternative is realizing the predators have no standard look and can be anybody you know. The reality is, sadly, that no amount of Anti Logic will save you. Sure, some predators write dark fanfic, but a lot dark fic writers are perfectly good people. And people with “wholesome” interests can just as easily be a predator. [some person i dont know], a famous anti, is for instance a well-known predator. I have no doubt that she uses her anti status as a signal that she’s “safe,” when she’s very much NOT a safe person. This is compounded by the fact that the internet actually has a poor understanding of what grooming even is.

[jetlaggingbehind]

man u guys are such nitpickers

[draculagetspegged]

kind of embarrassing for erzsebet that every single one of her underlings/allies is more interesting and compelling than she is

[basilibino]

Season 8 was like 6 years ago(I feel old) and I know ppl have differing opinions on the Mr Echo thing (but it was intended, made it to storyboard and blocked animation and then dropped, soooo) but. I can see his recruitment p easily tbh. Bc the whole reason Dr J was in that lighthouse was because he was resurrected, forced there, and ordered to build Skulkin vehicles by Samukai. But Samukai in the flashback we see has already been deposed as leader of the Skulkin/Underworld. Which means the orders to do so most likely came from Garmadon.

And since Mr. E is one of the head honchos, he's likely an early arrival to the team, so I don't think Harumi has a whole lot figured out at this point, she's just got her Trauma and some Bad Influence Friends and an obsession with Lord Garmadon. So. Like. Plausible deniability road trip that she's just visiting important markers of Ninjago's recent past, all of which involve Lord Garmadon in some meaningful way; its sightseeing, its cathartic, and it gives her time to develop her dream Motorcycle Gang/Resurrection Cult. She's not looking for anyone at the Lighthouse, but she is looking for vehicle blueprints so she can be the Koolest leader on the block. But oops she looks in the basement and there's an Echo.

And she's flipping out bc??? A Ninja???? In the Lighthouse basement??? I mean it makes sense that it would be this one but???

Except this rusty old robot has no idea what she's talking about with this Ninja stuff, he's just waiting for his dad to come back.

And Harumi pauses.

Because how long has he been waiting? He's not sure, he had no proper way to measure time in the basement, and he doesn't have the best view of his clockwork heartpiece. But it was after his father saw a strange ship docking; Echo was worried it was the People who had locked up his father in the first place, but instead his dad sounded happy when he saw whoever was out there. It could have been a front, though, as clearly it was never safe to let Echo back out. Then Dr J popped down briefly, while everyone above was resting, to tell Echo he was desperately needed elsewhere, that it wasn't safe to bring Echo, but that he'd be back in no time.

And the pieces are fitting together for Harumi. And she's like. Your dad's dead, bro.

And he's like. What? Did he die doing what was needed of him?

And she's like. Oh, no. He died a few years later.

And he's like. Why didn't he come back for me????

And she's like. Probably because they kept him away.

And he's like. Who's they?

And she's like. The Ninja I was talking about earlier.

And it surely can't be hard in universe to find pictures of Zane and Dr J post s2-pre s3, so she pulls one up and shows Echo who is freaking out bc why is that one kind of like him and Harumi explains that that was the droid his father created first, that he became a Ninja, and that hes probably the one who took their father away and kept echo waiting for years.

But Echo has doubts, shocked as he is abt a new older brother, he wants to believe the good in the situation so he's unsure. But Harumi mentions that the Ninja's failures to uphold more than their self preservation/interests has led to uncountable losses and devastation in Ninjago time and time again, before delving into her own story. And she seems so kind, and so hurt, and I do think there's a genuine connection btwn these two that forms from this shared emotional torment that they decide came from the Ninja, and now Echo is more receptive.

And then Harumi gets to start her Garmadon pitch because wait! If Echo was made here, then that could only have happened because of Lord Garmadon. And she reiterates that he's the reason she and her city could have even survived The Great Devourer. And maybe Echo's family-by-creation left, maybe they were untrustworthy and lacking, but that's OK bc if you look at it all a certain way, Garmadon is more of a father to Echo than Dr J was. And Echo is a vulnerable, overwhelmed mess who just found out his dad fucked off for years without him and also died, and also he has a brother??? Who their dad clearly seems to have favored??? Did they even know about Echo??? Did they delight in their life free of him???

Basically. Kinda Spinel-core but getting abandoned and left completely alone does that to you. Especially when the first person to find you after being abandoned is a deeply hurt and misguided teen who is probably kinda desperate for someone, anyone else to see the Ninja the way she sees them.

[fumifooms]

You’re the resident chilchuck expert, so I was wondering about it there’s any canon evidence that he did smoke or drink alcohol when the kids were younger. I always thought it was something he picked up due to the strain of long jobs, when the kids were already older, but you seem to think differently and I was wondering if there was anything in canon that made you think that way!

Now that you mention it I guess it’s true there’s no evidence he did. Smoking we literally only know he does at all because of one post-canon panel where he has a pipe, so no, maybe this stick-looking thing in the panel below too though, I’m not familiar with medieval blunts eh. We’ve only gotten one panel of him and his daughters interacting when he was younger so that’s not too insightful on that end, and every time we see him young and freckled it’s in a job context so again not really where we’d expect him to be drinking. The earliest proof (/heavy implication since we don’t see inside his cup I guess) is 3 years before canon when Laios hired him, where he’s at a bar, classily placed in front of all the bottles ✨

Yes alcohol is almost certainly a way through which he copes especially with stress, so if we go with the theory he started around when work got stressful, well… Chilchuck started working as a dungeon diver ~10 years ago so when he was ~19, making Mei, Fler and Puck ~6 and ~4 respectively, so from that draw the ‘stressful enough to start drinking’ line wherever. We don’t know what he did before that with any certainty, and it could be he did odd jobs, lived off mostly mutual aid and community work, or just focused on only raising the girls. Half-foots tend to be poor and I see a lot of that in Chilchuck specifically so I don’t think he could have afforded to not have some paying work though.

Alright, so then why do I think he did drink when the girls were younger?

I give a more complete rundown of the info we do have on his alcoholism & his family with panels and references + all the speculation I make from it here. But the most targeted and objective answer I can give is:

Of course there’s just very very little we know of Chilchuck’s life with his family, and I think that’s by design too. I think the details being up in the air is to allow more nuance of the topic, like, will trying to reconcile go well, is their relationship salvageable? We don’t know, because we don’t know. So the message of giving hope a chance even if it’s a long shot, that things could truly go either way, is more relevant, impactful and meta in that way. How long was he usually away for work travels into dungeons here and there? How did he act with them? All we can really do is "it’s likely that", it’s a game of which way we think it’s more implied. There’s no right and wrong answer, it’s all Marcille-like larping the events out.

My main reason for thinking he did is that his father died from overdrinking and Chilchuck is very aware of that. He mentions his death casually in the extra about their stance in alcohol and in his Adventurer’s Bible profile, etc. He acts towards the alcohol presumably the same way his father did: with abandon, uncaring for the health effects, probably happily too considering Chil says "dying doing something you love is a good way to go". Very nonchalant. So you see what I’m saying here right, wether he started early or late, his view of alcoholism is very influenced by what he saw of his father growing up, it’s something he’s always been aware of and saw in a mostly positive light, something that was inherited you could say. It’s something that was normalized to him from a young age. Regardless or where it goes from there I do think this part is pretty inarguable. If he views it positively and we know that in the present alcohol is his favorite food that he loveees, why would he have held out on it? Personally that all makes me think he started drinking very young, especially since I don’t think they limited alcohol to age as much as modern standards (and I mean, teen drinking is obviously still a thing). And here you could argue, maybe his father only started being more alcoholic later when Chilchuck moved out, or something! And to that there’s nothing I can say except I think that’s a strained theory, and that Chil might even have largely cut contact with his family after moving out (since he and siblings are listed as almost strangers and he doesn’t seem to have much emotional attachment to his parents, but also we know he rents out his place to "a relative"), but it’s true we have no evidence. "I’ve picked up the same unhealthy substance abuse as my father haha! No big deal right haha" repeated several times to me just reeks of intergenerational trauma, & the alcoholism gene as they call it. Like effortless sliding into drinking as if it’s second nature, it’s natural after all, it’s normal after all, it just makes sense, it makes you feel good and that’s what matters.

BUT from my interpretation then we have a whole other layer: Alcohol is of course not all bad always. I think he’s always liked alcohol and drank it on occasion and it brought him joy etc etc, but I think here the implication in the question is, how much effect did his drinking have on the family relations and how early? And that isn’t so much about when him drinking started but when the alcoholism started. Addiction is defined by a habitual need, that has negative effects from filling that need (physical, psychological, social, etc) and negative effects from withdrawal. If Chilchuck drinks to cope and he can’t not cope without it, that’s addiction, if it affects his relationships, if it’s a need he has, it’s addiction. Addiction can be very insidious or look very casual, and how much people around the person are affected by it is case by case. Cheerful drunks can be sooo annoying and uncomfortable though let me tell you. Drunks are drunks. And this sounds harsh, but even if people around them don’t mind drunks it’ll still have some effects here and there, living with one can be such a challenge, ily drunks good luck with everything much like Chilchuck you deserve good things 🫡　

Ok so with the dad thing and the "ok well maybe he’s always drunk casually but it grew worse with time around when he started working as a dungeon diver" precision made, the other bit of info we have that can inform this is that Chilchuck is on a harsh diet and that alcohol is a hunger suppressant. We know Chilchuck "used to be fine not eating for two days", that literally on screen to quench his hunger so it doesn’t keep him awake he goes to drink water, drinking is his instinct to hunger. Again alcohol is a hunger suppressant and if you want info on that the internet has a lot of research and anecdotes about it. He diets to be light enough to not trigger traps, so it’s something he’d have started after dungeon diving most likely. Between the stress and the diet, yes it’s extremely likely he started going harder on alcohol after he started working in dungeons. There’s arguments on wether two days without eating is less bad for half-foots than humans, but apart from smaller portions there’s nothing that indicates half-foots should get less than 3 meals a day. They need less food but that’s because their bodies are smaller: the need is proportional to the body, not smaller than others’ races, the % of need is similar even if the kg amount of food isn’t. There’s also a popular headcanon with support basis that half-foots run hot and have a faster heartrate and whatnot, and that points towards a faster metabolism rather than a slower one: a bigger need for eating rather than a smaller one. He has the same bmi, 18, as Mickbell, but perhaps because Chil is much taller he’s less intensely visibly underweight with ribs showing than Mick during the bath extra, it’s most apparent when he becomes tallman.

Alcohol is something so important and omnipresent in his character that I have trouble believing it’s something that was part of only a small fraction of his life. It’s his immediate go-to, his no-brainer solution to a good time, I’ve sort of always assumed especially after looking at his family that it’s something he discovered decently young. Like he just acts like someone who’s always had alcohol to fall back on and started young idk. Alcohol is one of his 5 keywords. Alcoholism is very ingrained into his world view and life, his "it doesn’t matter" stance his ‘work hard play hard’ mentality his idea that the world is harsh so you get relief where you can, so it just makes sense to me that it’s always been in his life, if not actively then at least looming.

So yes, in summary, my take: Alcohol was always something he wholly enjoyed to an unwise level, but it could have been considered casual until he started working into dungeons and his need for it on a regular basis intensified. Alcohol has always had positive association to him as far as we see, so when it started being a problem he didn’t see it as such. To quote him, "I drink anytime I get the opportunity to". Why always? Approval of father’s alcoholism. Why alcoholism at all? Diet + stress & coping mechanism & emotional stunting + relationship issues, and she decided she had enough after they went out for drinks.

Conclusion

Chilchuck having drunk from a young age makes sense to me and it’s the strongest narrative angle I see on the table, but that’s objectively a me opinion, yes! There’s no evidence, moreso there’s canon basis and supporting info, but it’s all very left up to interpretation. I’ve made my own interpretations of things from the scraps we see, like everyone else making Chilwife and daughters content. Wether you have a stance on the topic or prefer to leave it vague in your takes, it’ll be a matter of what you think makes most sense, or what you’d rather believe I suppose (which is literally fine)

There’s a lot of subjectivity in even just setting up causal links like you probably noticed during this and I was careful with my word choices, because we’re just extrapolating from what we see and unless Kui states it explicitly from a reliable mouth all we can do is have informed opinions on most things. This particular interpretation is influenced by other details I’ve come to form about my interpretation of Chilchuck too, the more psychological and emotional sides of him and the timeline and how his marriage even happened, unplanned pregnancy imo. Like I hope you see what I mean, this wasn’t supposed to be a speculation post just a quick simple answer but there’s sort of just no other and concise but complete way with the subjectivity nuance to put "maybe it could be yes because of this but maybe it could be no because of this" haha

Edit: Wait the phrasing on this… Interesting. "In recent years"— This does imply that if not just his alcohol consumption increasing then the diversity and quality of it did, so either he indeed did start drinking more (not necessarily meaning he didn’t drink before) assumedly because of his wife leaving, or he started drinking other/more different kinds of alcohol maybe due to the union he formed + his experience gave him greater salary than he had previously (and no wife and family to provide money for), a mix of both perhaps.

[kasper7489]

I kinda hopped into the dc fandom by reading fics (I know I know lmao)

But as I've read more comics and looked into different characterization and analysis I now have a more developed idea as to how I view a lot of the characters and have preferences to how their written. I'm def the type to click out a fic if I find myself thinking 'he would not fucking say that'

Anyway this is just to say it's very funny to me when I go thru some of the fics I bookmarked at the begining of my interest and find myself going Uh Oh! I don't think I can read this anymore!

[good-beans]

I know most of our focus goes (rightfully) to the trial songs, but I genuinely believe Baptism of Fire is equally a masterpiece of meaningful writing and intense vocal acting

Incoming tag rant because I need to yell about this, feel free to yell back