#and if you are not used to doing so without having basic kneejerk reactions to things and are someone who just doesnt allow themselves to

[bloodanddiscoballs]

Kim is a,fascist

are you stupid

[pluckyredhead]

Do you have any thoughts on Batman having “agents” (sometimes subtle, sometimes not) on various teams? This comes purely from my notion of Cassandra Cain being the straight man in a Justice League International book

To be honest, I have a kneejerk negative reaction to it, because it feels like there are two immediate potential pitfalls:

The agent character is written as just an extension of Bruce, without their own personality and ethical framework. Like, you used Cass as an example, and she's arguably the closest in alignment with Bruce's mission and goals, but she's still her own person and, when written well, is not going to blindly obey him or make only the exact same decisions he would. Someone like Jason or Steph? Forget about it.

The book becomes all about Bruce when he's not even on the team. I could see this happening whether the agent character is doing everything he says, or pushing back aggressively. Bruce is in enough books, I don't need him worming his way into any more.

I wracked my brain to think of positive examples and funnily enough, the two examples I came up with were times that the character in question isn't working with Bruce/using Bruce's methods, but it is believed that they are:

The Young Justice arc right after everyone finds out that Bruce has contingency plans against the Justice League, when the kids want to know if Tim has contingency plans against them (he doesn't). Bruce doesn't even show up, because it's not actually about him - it's about Tim's relationship with his team and whether or not they can trust him when he hasn't even told them his secret identity after literal years. It's GREAT.

The Outsiders 2003 bit where Roy confesses that he's been getting intel on all their missions from Batman, and Dick throws a huge tantrum because he and Bruce aren't really getting along and he doesn't appreciate essentially being tricked into working for Bruce. Eventually he calms down and goes to the Batcave and is like "Hey sorry I freaked out about you working with Arsenal" and Bruce is like "...I'm not working with Arsenal" and Dick calls Roy who is meeting with Batman on a roof and is like "Um...what are you doing right now?" and Roy's like "Talking to Batman" and Dick's like "NO YOU'RE NOT" and it turns out the person Roy thought was Batman this whole time is Slade in disguise. Which is especially funny because the man has a beard. Like, has Roy spent so long looking at Ollie's goatee that he doesn't process facial hair anymore? Anyway then Slade kicks Roy's ass and scampers off into the night, but that story also isn't about Bruce. It's a little bit about Dick and Roy's relationship, but it's mostly about Slade beating Roy up while telling him "I wanted to take you for a test drive to see how you handle on the open road" (I SHIT YOU NOT HE SAYS THIS IN THE COMIC) and then cutting his shirt open with a sword (Roy also did not notice that Beard Batman HAS A SWORD) and ogling his bare chest and bullet scars. It's literature.

Ahem. I've gotten a little bit away from my point here, but basically...there's no need to make a Bat be Bruce's agent on a team when they can just...be on a team as themselves. They do it all the time. Cass is on Birds of Prey right now and she's an absolute delight.

[tobiasdrake]

Man, Halara's great. Anyways, back to it. We were....

RIGHT. We're in danger. I wish Halara was here. I always feel safer with them around.

That's okay. If they aren't here, then they might be at the secret lab being tortured to death by homunculus experiments choking the shit out of Makoto for thinking he could contain that much raw awesomeness. Even Yomi ran shrieking for his life once Halara hit the field. They are, without exception, the baddest ass in Kanai Ward. Top-tier unpleasant glutes.

Corroborating what Kurumi was telling us. This place was a village once, but then a toxic gas leak from a nearby mine prompted an evacuation from the village. At least, that's the official story.

I know better than to trust the official explanation for "Everyone needs to get the fuck out because rich people have decided that they own the land now." Maybe it's an eco-disaster or maybe it's gentrification. Or both! Capitalists are opportunists, after all.

Yep. Nobody can enter here, not even Peacekeepers, on account of how deadly the gas is supposed to be. The obvious place to hide a secret lab.

The presence of the nearby "zombies" means something's obviously going on here, but that's not what toxic gas typically does to people. My kneejerk reaction is that the homunculus project is responsible for... Whatever's happening in their eyes, and subsequently the rest of them.

What you would consider to be a corpse, a homunculus researcher may look at as viable resources.

That's what I was thinking. Occam's Razor says the toxic gas did that to those people, but my money's on the lab. I don't think those are actually zombies, so much as they are failed homunculi.

But we should still keep in mind the possibility that it's as simple as "gas victims".

SHIT, I guess they are aggressive. These three broke down the door and--

Wait, are those three wearing Aetheria Academy uniforms under their raincoats? Oh. Oh. Oh god no. I know who they are.

Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck

It is NOT toxic gas. I repeat, it is NOT toxic gas. These three are our victims. We murdered them and sent them here.

These three have been haunting me since the day we killed them but I didn't expect them to do so literally. We are in Silent Hill! This is the ghost of my past trauma manifesting corporeally! I DIDN'T WANT TO DO IT, I SWEAR. T_T

Okay. Less hysterical. I take this as confirmation that these are failed homunculi. After they died, the Theater Girls' bodies were shipped to the secret lab, where they were used for homunculus experiments. Now they want to eat our brains. And they're entitled to it because we murdered them.

No, not going to think like that. We have to run.

AND NOW SOMEONE'S SHOOTING ARROWS. Have we killed any archers? I don't think we've killed any archers. Wait, there's a note. This was probably fired by a human. Do we know any archers?

Good on you, Kurumi, for grabbing that note.

Didn't expect that to be confirmed so quickly. We're moving along at a rapid pace.

Y'know, I tinkered with both "KANAI WARD SIGNATURE MEAT BUNS are cannibalism" and "Everyone in Kanai Ward is homunculus" as spitballs at various points while I was here. Maybe it's both.

Wild-ass speculation theory: The meat buns are made with human meat, which helps keep the homunculi sane and reasonable. This meat comes from the kidnapped people Number One was talking about; They're trafficked into the city and butchered to make meat buns.

When someone dies publicly, their body is brought here and basically dumped to keep up the appearance of an immortal being's "death". Separated from the sanity-granting meat buns, they degrade into the zombies we're encountering now.

That's the reason why Amaterasu always moves extremely quickly to remove a dead body from a crime scene - something that's come up a few times. The official explanation is that the Forever Rain causes the body to rot too quickly, but they do this when bodies are indoors too. In reality, they need to traffic the "dead" homunculus out of the city before everyone sees them wake up.

Maybe we weren't brought here to, like... be killed by homunculi or experimented on or whatever. Maybe we're here for the same reason all the other homunculi are. We're here because we're "dead". We know Kurumi's a native; If this theory is right, she's likely a homunculus too. We know nothing about Yuma. And none of the confirmed-outsider Master Detectives have been found to be here yet.

Everyone who's died in Kanai Ward is probably here somewhere.

...including Yakou.

Okay, so I wasn't wrong before when I said those others seemed to be lulling around dormant. Homunculi become steadily more feral, the longer they're deprived of human flesh. The Theater Girls are starving, while those others were simply hungry.

I wonder if we can "unkill" the homunculi by getting them something to eat? This would be a good reason to invest in human cloning. See how they do with lab-grown human arms and stuff.

...y'know, if my theory is true, then Icardi was screwed from the start. If his plan had worked, he would have escaped Kanai Ward and fled to the outside, then gone slowly insane from a lack of understanding for how to feed himself.

Makoto, what did you do to this city? What even makes people turn homunculus? Is it something in the rain? Is it... Is the rain altering our genetic code or something?

Is that why you wear the mask? To shield your face from whatever is happening in people's eyes that makes them change?

Is that how we survived the sinking of the sub? We were inside it when it went down. Did we die, but Makoto fished our corpse out of the river and then waited for us to wake up again?

Is that why Yomi was going to execute Martina by having her mashed in an industrial-strength presser? I thought he was just being barbarically cruel, but if the Peacekeepers are extricating corpses before they can wake back up then he'd have to know what's up, right? Crushing someone into paste might be one of the only ways to kill a homunculus.

Hey, man. Sorry about that whole surprise-murder thing. On a scale of 1 to Brains, how hungry are you right now? Do you have the emotional capacity for a chat?

I mean, you died before the Theater Girls so probably not but you had the emotional capacity to make your way to what is clearly a religious shrine, so you must have had some reasoning and comprehension skills when you first woke up.

BRAINS IT IS. THE ANSWER IS BRAINS.

There's Shachi and Icardi. Also Worshipper. If we're going to find allyship, we need a fresher-dead homunculus than Chapter 3. So. Yakou and Huesca are the only potential candidates, then.

Come on, Yakou, you gotta be around here somewhere.

How did you think "Restricted Area" was enforced? Honestly, I was expecting a huge concrete wall. We could climb that shit.

...those black and yellow warning panels look suspect. Maybe throw a stick at it or something. Might be electrified. Not that it matters if we're both unkillable immortals but being electrocuted to "death" would still hurt like hell.

After all, it would need to be strong enough to deter homunculi from doing exactly what I said: Trying to climb it.

Yep. Even better than a stick, we had a random homunculus to walk his dumb ass into it and demonstrate. Thanks, rando.

Oh, more randos. We should see if they walk into the fence too. If we pile up enough homunculi, maybe we could - No, human bodies are electricity conductors. That wouldn't work.

It's okay, it's just the Theater Girls again. I know exactly how to repel theater kids. Ahem. "Good luck on your performance of Macbeth tonight."

Can't run any further, Yuma! Do something! Anything!

ANYTHING ELSE BUT THAT, OH MY GOD.

Be fair, Shinigami. There's a reasonable chance that Yuma died again, not passed out.

Oh, that is much more of a "Secret Lab" than what Makoto showed us. I think we hit jackpot.

Can you? Hmm. Just picked up a Solution Key that says homunculi are attracted to sound. So that's interesting.

[awellboiledicicle]

First person to try drilling down on what Fido's deal is would be Gale, between adventuring and actually sleeping. He's limited to whatever books they can scrounge initially [as Fido is hoarding them to learn about the world they're now stuck in], but by the time they get to Baldur's Gate he's going to have some very specific queries outside of the whole Crown research thing.

First person to go "Maybe this is a warlock thing" is, naturally, Wyll. Because Fido is going to eldritch blast something in a panic and he's going to go "now hold on". Also because I imagine Mizora would think it was hilarious another warlock is making noise about his deal. They make some barbed comment to her, the magic flaring a bit, and she tuts at Wyll for consorting with 'that mean old octopus' behind her back like this. Leaves before explaining anything.

Astarion 100% believes they're lying about not knowing they're bound up with some apparently tentacled monster when it comes out. like. just thematically it feels like a thing one should know about. He's just saying that if HE had made a deal to get MAGIC INVULNERABILITY POWERS, then HE would have remembered that. They throw a handful of grass at him and he rolls his eyes.

Lae'zel still occasionally thwacks them with a random sword to see if their protection is still working. This is, she insists, a function of their friendship that she would bother doing a check at all. Deep down she just really appreciates their willingness to listen and learn from her, as well as their absolute unwillingness to take any shit from her. Thus the checking.

Shadowheart still thinks they're a little crazy, for different reasons. Initially it was because they insisted they had no idea elves were real, followed by being from 'earth', followed by their panic response being to yell insults at the enemy to make their brain explode. The warlock thing feels like they might have been lying about it--a skill they seem unnervingly good at in spite of their general honest streak--but honestly? Given how they keep tripping into being good to others, she wouldn't doubt them having been just given the ring by some sorcerer or something.

Halsin feels conflicted about Fido expressly because they have a very... dim view of nature being allowed to take its course. With people. They get along largely after Fido gets fed up and goes "you're ungodly old so you can handle sitting down and leveling with me here. I need you to understand that, where i come from, if someone looks at someone like me and says 'nature should take its course' that means 'i want you to not exist'. It means 'you are unnatural'. We're not having the same conversation when we talk about nature, here. I like the birds doing bird things and fish swimming and whatever. But sometimes nature is cruel and I am living proof that sometimes nature would destroy people and things that should exist." Basically they get along on principal but have initial complications bc Fido spent a lot of time as a chronically in pain child being told survival of the fittest wouldn't allow for them. As a queer kid being told they were unnatural. So on. So they don't actually have beef with him so much as a kneejerk reaction for a little plus the initial GODDAMNIT response when he can't help. His take on the warlock thing is largely being curious as to how that happens without ones knowledge.

Karlach meanwhile is just pissed that she can't hi-five them without it still hurting. Like their skin doesn't melt but they can still feel the sensation of heat and pressure, so it isn't pleasant. She also wants to know how one ends up in a warlock pact without knowing it because that feels like a pitfall to avoid.

Not pictured is the GOO checking in occasionally like it's reading the sunday paper like "oh they had a conversation about the nature of gods with Gale. Cute. Aww they're having cognitive dissonance about the nature of sentience after using speak with animals. Popped a man's head like a cherry. Shame, they could have interrogated that one."

[artinclined-jointheartside]

How did Terra and Faust react to learning they're gonna be/are grandparents in the Gramma AU?

I actually got a question like this earlier and hadn't answered it yet, so I hope this is a repeat of the same question from the same person. If not, I hope that anon sees this answer. >.> (sorry about that TvT)

Gonna be honest, they didn't react well at first.

Their kneejerk reaction was actually angry. Because Maehnall (Manny) was a bit too young to be a father.

See he'd stumbled up on a way into the Human Realm when he was a wee lad and despite Terra and Faust's precautions, he was pretty good at just sneaking off and doing his own thing. As he hit his teen years, they were a bit more lax but basically said as long as he was careful and didn't do anything stupid they wouldn't consider more drastic measures like house arrest or something. (basically grounding, but for a fire demon/witch half-blood you have to be a little more strict and creative with your methods, lol)

Well, he met this girl he really liked. She really liked him too. Aaaaand things happened! She thought he was older than he was, he thought she was younger than she was, and well now they were in a bit of a pickle.

So Maehnall goes to his parents, because despite being reckless he wasn't totally irresponsible. And of course, they were angry because he shouldn't have been participating in that kind of activity, first of all with a human and secondly without protection. But, too late now.

So they insist on meeting this human he's become so attached to and while she's stunned at first to learn his age, his realm of origin, and that he didn't even look the way she thought he did, she gradually gets used to this weird set of circumstances she's fallen into because he's trying to take responsibility and his parents are actually quite nice and supportive! Despite his father being literal nightmare fuel and his mother a terrifying figure all her own.

In other words, after everything is hashed out and settled, Terra and Faust are actually quite happy to know they're going to be grandparents and are rather pleased with this human and how well she's handling the situation, impressed even, because she's actually very interested to learn about the Isles and the witches and demons that inhabit them.

And so, what ended up an unfortunate accident turned into a happy accident that turned into an adorable little family that Terra and Faust are fiercely protective of.

[accursedthing]

Don't like when people treat "radicalism" as a matter of common sense on here cause like. Idk a lot of my family members have the same basic sense of morality as I do, like when speaking on specific and often smaller scale cases and without ideological language, and are not simply stupid people, but still hold onto very status quo beliefs and have kneejerk reactions against just considering actually radical concepts like communism or even as much as questioning the United States as a global force for good, despite being aware of a lot of the ugly elements of its history, because their internal "common sense" was shaped by Cold War propaganda from their earliest years and they generally managed to get through their lives without personally sustaining too many direct challenges to those ideas. I took a lot of the same and similar ideas as given when I was younger, too, because it was taught as given, because there was little challenge to it. My basic moral compass that tells me harm should be minimized and people should have reasonable autonomy hasn't changed much in that time, but my understanding of what was actually happening in the would to cause harm and who was responsible and what could be done about it is what's changed, and it didn't change because I common sensed my way there, it changed because I got access to the right information to do it (and at the right time that I was willing to listen). If you grew up in the US, outside of maybe some more radical community within it (MAYBE), you absorbed a lot of lies and reactionary ideas into your "common sense," too, and you have to actually do the work to figure out what those things were and learn something new or else it's going to keep cropping up and holding you back, or at worst, hurting the people around you, whether or not you notice. So no you were not born radical because you have a moral compass

[sb-love333xo]

("I" is used loosely in this post, a lot of what i say here is shared opinions and feelings throught our whole system)

I definitely get on the defense when it comes to stuff like pro-ship and radqueer and stuff just because I’m so used to them being shit on and considered harmful that I’m like scared to even acknowledge their existence

But I also know that my core values and morals ARE aligned with those things, at least in the basic concept, and I KNOW many of the people who shit on those things are misinformed about what they actually are (like the fact the term “proship” has been turned into a verb despite just being a stance on an aspect of fandom/liking things that are absolutely comships but they don’t consider it to be that for some reason/etc.) so I dunno I’m slowly getting more open to it. I’m just trying to understand, especially RQs, cause I mean proship is pretty straight forward and like yeah it’s fiction do whatever you want idc

RQs it’s like…..it feels like there’s such a thin line between what they do/believe in and crossing into actually harming others, which is usually where I try to draw the line at stuff, but even then I think more and it’s like well i guess whats considered harmful is kinda subjective anyways

like idk ive always thought that humans (and non-humans if you are one) are such complex and fascinating creatures and as ive gotten older and older and have interacted with more people, ive continued to learn JUST how INCREDIBLY different people can be, and trying to dictate whats "wrong" or "right" for people to experience or feel is hard and kinda fucked up, because people just…are what they are

their experiences shape them, their genetics shape them, their beliefs and whatever that includes (like souls or reincarnation or karma etc.) shape them, and you cant really say anything is OBJECTIVELY wrong because….well, it exists in the first place. This thought process is how we became pro endo. its just ridiculous to think i could ever know whats going on in someones head/life better than them

if RQs really are about respect and acceptance and support for EVERYTHING and just wanting people to be their TRUE selves without judgement, then yeah i can probably hop on that train. but a lot of what i see from RQs i still find confusing or uncomfortable. im trying to figure out if i agree with those feelings or if ive just been conditioned by other people into a kneejerk reaction. cause tbh once it gets down to it, a lot of the arguments against RQs and otherwise problematic or confusing groups, do sound VERY similar to the arguments against queer and disabled people. so how can it be right of me to just blindly listen to that?

[honourablejester]

Also, while I’m talking about Episode 2 of Spy x Family and Loid/Yor, can I just babble about Loid’s response to Camilla immediately throwing Yor under the bus in the worst way? Like, Yor comes in with a lovely (if, uh, somewhat bloodstained) man she’s apparently secretly married to, and Camilla jealously flips her shit, and in the middle of a fairly prestigious work party full of paranoid and probably conservative civil servants publically implies that Yor used to be a prostitute specifically so her apparent husband will be horrified and drop her like a hot rock there and then. (Seriously lady, what the absolute fuck? Yor’s entire department is in that room, let alone her husband. You’ve already been talking about single women getting arrested as spies. Like that was … extreme. Wtf?)

And Loid … keep in mind, Loid’s entire purpose in this fake relationship with Yor is to get his fake child into an incredibly prestigious school specifically so he can spy on a government official. The entire point of his fake wife is to be classy enough to help get him into a position to spy on a high-ranked official. Yor suddenly and publically being outed as an ex-call girl should immediately tank her as a potential option for him, on purely mission-based grounds. If the school, the incredibly fussy school that interviews not only the children but their parents for fitness to attend, ever gets wind of this extremely public conversation, that’s his mission potentially tanked. (There was literally a parent from the school right there, though he hadn’t arrived yet, so he wouldn’t know it)

And that completely fails to occur to him. At all. (Sidenote: how good is Loid supposed to be at his job? Because he’s amazing in a fight, and has apparently successfully managed a sequence of jobs in a foreign country without being suspected, but he also … completely fails to register that as a potential mission failure. At all).

But I completely and immediately forgive him for it, because his response instead is so amazing. His apparently kneejerk and entirely sincere response.

Which is to immediately compliment her on the amazing sacrifice she made to do such a harsh and merciless job for the sake of her family. While thinking about his own job as a spy, about having to do a hard job where you let your body and identity be degraded for the sake of other people who will probably never know what you sacrificed for them. Some vicious cow at a party randomly and immediately told him his potential girlfriend/wife was a whore, and not only did he not freak out, not only did he not deny it or say it couldn’t be true, he just instantly went, if it is true, it only makes her more impressive as a person and as a partner.

His instant first response to an accusation that would shock or horrify many other husbands is empathy. Immediate, sincere empathy and admiration, where he connects it to his own life and sacrifices and sees no difference between getting shot at for your country and having to sleep with people for your family. He tells her she can be proud.

(Sidenote sidenote, I feel like there’s a thing there, too. That it’s not … There’s a thing about patriotism, and the idea of dirty things being right only if they’re in service of a bigger cause, and he doesn’t have that either. Her being a prostitute for her brother’s sake is enough of a reason for him, and he doesn’t see it as different from his service to his country. Which matches up with his reactions to Anya, how saving her when she was threatened or even just scared was immediately of equal if not more importance to him as his mission, because he only became a spy to protect people and he has the emotional intelligence of a spoon but that is still the basic motivation for all his actions. There doesn’t need to be a big, patriotic cause to justify it for him. Protecting and helping one person is a good enough reason. Yor-the-prostitute was trying to support her brother, and that’s no different to Loid-the-spy trying to protect other children, and he casually and immediately says that. Just outright says it. Because it’s true to him).

Some random stranger walks up to him at a public party and maliciously goes ‘did you know your new wife used to be a whore?’, and he goes ‘that’s an incredible sacrifice to have to make and I really respect her for it’.

And Yor is just standing there stunned going ‘maybe … maybe I should marry this man?’ to herself, and honestly? Entirely fair and reasonable reaction.

(And of course Yor wasn’t sleeping with people in sleazy hotels, she was killing people in sleazy hotels, but like. Same difference. This little moment makes her think Loid might … Like, maybe he’d get it? Probably not, because murder, but maybe a little? And honey, you’d be surprised)

Loid has known this woman for 10 minutes and he’s already casually tossed his mission on its ear to publically and emotionally support her, without once realising it. Like. He doesn’t know this about himself. This doesn’t register to him as a mission-unwise thing to do. This was a casual, instinctive moment of empathy for him, like this is just what you do for someone, especially if you married them (or adopted them), and he’s … such an idiot. Such an idiot. But such a casually good one.

But seriously. How has he survived as a spy? They tell him to get a fake wife and kid for a mission, and he’s immediately a mess about it and instantly trying to send Anya away so she won’t be in danger and absent-mindedly ignoring mission goals to stand up for his fake wife that he met for 10 minutes 6 hours ago against her bitch of a coworker.

I can already tell this mission is going to go so well for him. It’s going to be amazing.

[just-sg]

It is so important for everyone at all times to understand that no one has ever been 100% a "monster" to a point of becoming inhuman. In the most extreme cases, maybe it's close, but the people you know in your daily life are probably not such extremes. "Monsters" don't hurt and use people; people do.

This is important for so many reasons. For victims who can't recognize how bad the situations they're in really are because the people hurting them also show kindness and love at other times. For people hurting others out of genuine concern and good intentions either without realizing or via deciding they know better what the person needs and willfully disregarding their intentions. For the occasional case that might actually need someone to do that sometimes because they will make harmful decisions for themselves frequently if left to their own devices.

It's important to understand that abuse can directly be fueled by love just as much as it can a desire for control or personal gain or a combination of factors. Just because someone cares doesn't invalidate your pain. And at the same time it's important to understand that someone hurting you doesn't mean they're being a malicious villain going out of their way to make you suffer for their twisted amusement.

Sometimes it's possible to reason with people if you approach things the right way (which way is "right" for each case varies wildly, unfortunately) and to work on improving communication and the situation; but also sometimes you still want to get away from people as much or as fast as you can, they're still not good for you to be around, but just knowing that they weren't being cruel on purpose can be a comfort.

It can be helpful to your healing to understand your abusive parent is a product of their environment and the mental illness they refuse to treat because they were raised with such a stigma about it and the shitty things their parents did to them that they convinced themselves is Just How Parenting Works because if it's not then they'd have to accept that what they dealt with was also fucked up actually, and now would also have to bear the weight of how shitty they've been for so long to you, and like most people they want to think of themself as a good person so denial allows them to do that. It can be helpful to your healing to understand your former best friend didn't just wake up one day and decide to be an asshole to you because they decided you suck, but they had shitty influences and a lot of stress and you became an easy target and it became a bad habit that spiraled.

Everyone has reasons they do things! They might be fueled by fear, by indoctrination, by casual disregard for things that don't affect them, by thinking too highly of themself to realize their good intentions don't always have good results, or anything else. And that doesn't mean the ways they hurt you are any less real or in any way okay! It just makes the world a little easier to deal with, a tiny bit less hostile, to know most people aren't just deciding you specifically deserve to suffer. And it does mean your own good intentions or things you do as a kneejerk fear reaction or whatever else can also still hurt someone.

It's important to be at least a little forgiving with people, and at least a little willing to listen when others "accuse" you of things you didn't intend to do. It's important to have conversations instead of labeling other people bad and yourself a victim and always jumping to defend any misstep you might have made. It's also important to have a spine and not assume you're always in the wrong and blame yourself for everything when it's not your fault. Basically it's important to critically examine any and every situation rather than slapping black and white labels and blame on one side or another and calling it a day.

Anyone can be one of the worst sources of misery in one person's life and the greatest beacon of light and support in another's. That's just how being human works. So we just have to do our best to aim for the latter more often than the prior.

Definitely seems like "abusers are ontologically evil and irredeemable; also the only way to be 100% sure you aren't abusing anybody is to make yourself massively vulnerable to abuse yourself [e.g. by deferring to whatever someone with the right identity categories says, without questioning it]" is the ambient cultural message right now. Bad!

[bigskydreaming]

Hi, I was reading your post about Jason punching Dick in the face when Dick revealed he fake his death was bullshit ( which it was) and it reminded me of an issue/question that has bothered me for sometime.

Why did people believe Dick was actually dead?

I’m not the most avid comic reader so maybe I missed something but it was always weird to me that everyone just accepted this especially given how Bruce was acting or should I say wasn’t acting.

This is a man when his child died another child had to come along and told him sir you are being too violent and emotional you need supervision. When his other child died he went all over the universe to bring him back to life because he knew it was possible ( which was happening at the same time), so why didn’t anyone think it was weird he wasn’t doing that for Dick. Can you imagine Dick really dying that soon after Damian it would be injustice Batman Version. You are telling me that Tim, Jason or Barbara didn’t think it was weird that Bruce didn’t also bring Dick’s corpse to the bring Damian back to life mission or mention it to themselves. Like what more likely Dick dead and Bruce is handling it well or that he fake his death to do something stupid and Dangerous after his partner/brother/ little bit my son the feelings are complicated died after he was knocked out and woke up to his corpse.

Oh man, this is like, the entire nature of my beef?

(Slight derail just to emphasize the fact real quick that Dick DID actually die, he was just revived quickly, but like, the trauma of his death was very real and its not like anyone was clued into Luthor having a resurrection backdoor built into his literal murder of Dick in the actual moment of it happening. So Dick’s death wasn’t fake, and additionally, he didn’t have anything to do with like, telling people about it, because he was literally comatose in the cave and recovering while Bruce was telling people....by the time Dick woke up in the cave, we already know that Alfred at least had already been convinced by Bruce that Dick was dead, so I have a kneejerk need to pushback against the Dick faked his death narrative by reminding people wherever possible that Dick had no agency in the spreading of that narrative. 

It happened without him being involved, and the only actual contribution he ever made to it was just not revealing he was alive before Grayson #12, after Bruce like.....emotionally, mentally and physically badgered him into accepting that doing so would be directly harmful to his family and he didn’t want to be the reason more people died when like, people had just died because he ‘let’ himself be captured and interrogated by Power Woman’s Lasso of Submission, did he?

SORRY TO BE PEDANTIC, just wanted to start this off on a clarification, even though I know the aim of your ask was very much in tune with the rest of my response. A lot of people don’t read the actual comics, so like, I’m never gonna skip over an opportunity to emphasize that the shorthand people use to refer to Dick’s death and the year he was with Spyral, is like, literally just shorthand for describing it. Its not actually an accurate description of how all that went down and who had the most hand in it).

BUT ANYWAY. BACK TO THE MEAT OF THE BEEF.

Okay so like, not only was the entire family and Bruce himself giving Dick shit for his death and Spyral, like, PAINFULLY egregious because it was literal victim blaming in every possible sense of the word....

None of it made a LICK of sense with ANY of their characterizations, and they ONLY all accepted it on face value because the Plot Demanded It, and when you're like, no, as a reader I say The Plot Demanded It is not a good enough reason for me to be like well sure, that makes sense......looking at the characters ACTUAL actions at face value pretty much just makes them all look like assholes?

Like, Tim has never gracefully accepted anyone's death. Ever. This is core characterization for him. He will go to the ends of the earth for his loved ones and to bring them back, prove they're not dead, refuse to let death be the final verdict for them. He was tempted to use the Lazarus Pit to bring his parents back to life. He refused to accept Bruce was dead long before he had any proof whatsoever of that theory. He tried to clone his BFF/future-husband Kon in his fucking basement like, dude was two whole inches away from going Full Dark Side in his quest to bring back a lost loved one no matter WHAT the cost.....and then you've got Dick unmasked onscreen, killed offscreen, and Bruce then reporting to the rest of them with zero inflection 'oh Dick's dead now. Its very sad' and Tim's just like, sure. Sounds legit.

I mean?!?!

And you're SO RIGHT ABOUT THE DAMIAN THING! Bruce LITERALLY LITERALLY LITERALLY went BEYOND the ends of the Earth, like, he full on chartered a fucking space ship to fly his whole family out to APOKOLIPS to bring Damian back from the dead by going to EXTREME lengths.....WHILE everyone else thought Dick was dead....

And not a single person looked at Bruce and was like, okay, not that we're not down to do this for Damian because we miss Stabby Smurf something fierce ourselves, but.....what the fuck is UP with you dude? Why aren't you displaying ANY hint of this same kind of energy in regards to your eldest son that you said you watched die right in front of you?

Like....I don't know that we were actually ever told that Dick's coffin was empty or had a fake in it, but like....this family of detectives who refuse to accept death, defy death, COME BACK FROM THE DEAD....not a single one of them said like, okay, if I'm gonna like, ACCEPT accept that Dick is dead and gone for good, I need to at least just see him one last time? That's literally all it would have taken for someone to realize hey something's a little wonky here. Where's the dead body, Pops?

Since when has Jason ever missed an opportunity to prove Bruce is a) full of shit, b) acting like an emotionless robot and all his kids deserve better especially when they've just like....died, c) just factually incorrect and wrong and jumped to a conclusion before it was conclusively proved, d) lying like a liar or e) all of the above?

Nobody even ASKED if Dick's body could be put in a Lazarus Pit? Yeah, Jason wouldn't necessarily recommend it himself, given what it put him through, but actually fuck that, I take that back, because I'm NOT actually of the opinion that Jason full on hates his life and actively spends every second of every day wishing he hadn't been resurrected, even if it had come with a huge buffet of additional trauma and pain.

And that's kinda what's implied when people just take it for granted that he would never be on board with any scenario involving using a Lazarus Pit to bring Dick back, because it suggests that based even just on his own experiences and feelings, he honestly believes Dick would prefer being dead and not have ANY further opportunities to be with his loved ones, his friends, help save the damn world again at some future point.....that Jason, projecting based just off himself, legit feels Dick would rather be dead than have another shot at life even WITH the downsides of Lazarus Pit usage? Nope. Sorry, I don't buy it.

Speaking of not buying it.....you know what was missing from all those soliloquies the others monologued at Dick about how they felt and were hurt and just devastated by his death, to such a point they can't seem to muster a single shred of happiness that he's NOT dead still -

(seriously, Damian was the ONLY person in ALL THE LANDS OF EMOTION-HAVING who expressed ANY kind of positive reaction to having Dick back. We were so fucking cheated of like.....ANY opportunity to have the characters show just how much they valued him by just being fucking HAPPY he was alive, no matter what else was involved....and then most of fandom compounded that by for years being like mmmm, no, Dick didn't get yelled at enough by his family for what HE put THEM through. Needs more yelling. More punching too. Bad Dick. Bad. This is the only way you'll learn not to die and get shipped off on a mission that you don't want but at least is to protect your family after being beaten into it by your dad whilst victim blaming you for dying in the first place. WHEN WILL YOU LEARN TO THINK ABOUT OTHER PEOPLE AND THEIR FEELINGS FOR A CHANGE, DICK?!?)

- But like, BUT I DIGRESS aside....you know what was missing from all those monologues about how hard DICK'S death and ensuing year of basically exile from his loved ones was for EVERYONE BUT HIM?

We never got a single line of explanation as to what everyone else officially thinks even happened to him in the first place?

Like, did Bruce straight up just say oh bad news kids, your brother umm. Expired. Spontaneously. There's no one to blame, he just keeled over, its all very sad.

Is that how that went down?

You're telling me that the explanation of Dick's death didn't come with a single pointed finger at someone for this family of blame-happy vigilantes to like, BLAME for the loss of this brother they all mourned oh so much, they just couldn't help but blame him for all the hurt it caused them?

The family that in every other fic is like OBSESSED with avenging and being avenged and all things vengeful and even tangentially vengeance-y....like didn't ask for a single detail on whomst the fuck deprived us of our brother-having?

Where were the attempts on Luthor's life by Jason (who I mean, yeah I know it was in a previous continuity, but erasing that timeline doesn't erase my awareness of the time Dick killed Jason's murderer so like.....mmm, just saying, woulda been nice)....where was the rage directed at the Crime Syndicate and references to how seriously and personally the Batfam took making sure that they were PUNISHED for all this and would never be free to wreak havoc on their world or their family again? What did they tell Damian when he came back to life, and how are you going to tell me that this fraternal little ball of fury didn't aim himself like a cannonball at whomever the fuck had DARED take HIS Batman from him when Damian wasn't around to have his back?

Not only does everyone else's desire to be avenged start falling really flat the second you factor in hey maybe Dick feels "mmm what about MY avenging" sometimes, and why doesn't anyone ever care about doing that for him.....but also, y'know what REALLY sucks about the ONLY person we actually SEE being blamed for Dick's death and ensuing absence being like....Dick himself?

Not only were his family all super keen on making all of this HIS fault and HIM the bad guy because of how it made them all feeeeeeel (and meanwhile fuck his feelings, am I right Batfam hfaklshfklahfkla).....

They somehow found a way to justify prioritizing this OVER ever even getting around to blaming some villain for his death in the FIRST place, in the entire year or so they thought he was still dead!

Like, you couldn't come up with a single target in all that time, but Dick's back two seconds, and you don't even give him a chance to EXPLAIN before you're punching him, shutting him down with 'I expected better from you' and turning away with 'I don't want to hear it, why am I surprised Dick Grayson disappointed me again'?

afshklfhalfhalfhla

Make it make sense!

And like, it won't, cuz it doesn't, and it never will, and like I said at the top, the ONLY reason it all played out this way is because DC doesn't give a fuck about character development and deemed it necessary to go down this way for the sake of the plot (which was totes worth it, I mean, glad we sacrificed characters for this A+ plot which was clearly the greatest plot of all time and definitely justified every story choice made or not made around it loooool).

BUT.

BUT BUT BUT.

The problem isn't JUST that DC is stupid, even though that is an eternal mood and quite the problem.

Its that the SECOND large parts of fandom decided to play along with DC and just accept the story at face value, only add to it and play into it exactly as it happened in canon with no significant deviations, and like, heaping on the LITERAL abuse from Dick's siblings while ignoring the LITERAL abuse from his father....

THAT....is when all of this becomes relevant.

Because the second people decided TO engage with the reasoning DC gave for what Bruce did and how and what Dick did and how and just not mess with any of that and have it all play out exactly like that...

The second people are like, okay we're FINE with not just dismissing this story as OOC writing that doesn't make any sense, and actually VALIDATING it to various degrees by engaging with it as is....

That's when 'OOC writing' stops being an excuse or explanation for alllll of the above gaps in character logic and actions.

Because its like, when you had abundant chance to REJECT this story and say nope, this was bullshit from start to finish and I'm not here for it, when you were just as capable of transforming literally ANY aspect of this story you didn't like into something that made more sense to you....

And you chose not to.

That's.....accepting it as valid writing. You were like, okay, I'm game to just treat this as a thing that happened, just like they said that happened.

For the chance to give Dick shit for it, see. For the angst, see.

And that's when I'm like okay cool, so when engaging with this story as is and accepting it on face value and just delving into the characters as they were SHOWN interacting with and around these events......for the angst or whatever....

You guys just all decided en masse to just hop, skip and jump over allllllllll the opportunities for angst inherent in examining even ANY SINGLE ONE of the above lapses in judgment or hypocrisy on the parts of the characters (who don't get to be excused by OOC writing if you're not going to call the story an example of OOC writing, whoops).

And its just like, uh, what's up with that?

[legendary-assassin-stance]

gimme a bryok and/or mori boss fight!! either solo or as dual bosses, up to you :>

OH BOY. my kneejerk reaction is to write out either of their Bad End AU fights but honestly, imagining them as a dual boss fight (possibly a training fight that you can request via a pact NPC?) is interesting, because i don't get to talk about them both as twins often at all.... ( let me go fetch you some fitting boss music for this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDVd1F3ZI4w )

(I am going to preface this by: If any of this sounds unbeatable... well. I can't say I'd be surprised (honestly, it is best to think of this as a training fight for that very reason lmao) this is basically a DPS check of sorts, splitting the group into half to focus each one would be the optimal way to do this encounter.)

Throughout the entire fight, Mori will be putting boons on herself and Bryok, and both of them cast raid-wide conditions that need to be cleansed.

Phase 1

Mori will attack at random, targeting people with her menagerie of mirage skills -- she'll be the most annoying to get the health down of, thanks to her ability to teleport, use her Signet of Midnight to stealth/blind, as well as the clones she makes as diversions. She uses these clones specifically to cast Mind Wrack, Cry of Frustration, and Distortion to damage and cleanse herself of any conditions she takes on. Her Mirage Cloak + clones will do a lot of damage that either needs to be evaded or healed quickly.

Bryok, being a Reaper, is a very big threat to begin with. He does a good amount of damage, as well as doing increased damage to low-health foes, or those that are downed (both of which, he will prioritize in killing). Most, if not all, of his hits will slowly refill his health so he does need constant dps to counter this. His "Your Soul Is Mine!" heal shout needs to be evaded, or else it heals him for a good chunk with every melee-range person it hits.

Both of them have defiance bars during this that can be used to stun them and keep them in place long enough (especially Mori) to do more damage. Once either of them reach 60% health, they'll roughly stay there (with consistent dps), and you'll need to focus the other down to that amount to start the last phase.

Phase 2 when both of them reach ~60% health

This is where things probably get unfair, and far more hectic.

Mori will now start using Signet of Humility/Domination and Diversion to stun anyone close to her + anyone near her clones; she will also now cause portal traps to appear in the area that, if stepped on, will teleport you around randomly and damage/stun you for ~5 seconds.

Bryok will shift into his Reaper Shroud for this phase of the fight, doing significantly more damage than before, as well as stacking chilling on those caught in his Executioner's Scythe hit, or the Soul Spiral he follows up with. He gains back noticeable health from his Life Reap, which needs to be consistently dpsed to keep down. His Infusing Terror gives you a 6 second window to scatter away before he casts Terrify, which will do DoT damage for its flee duration. This phase + his shroud is when he utilizes his offensive shout abilities far more as well ("Rise!" and "Your Soul Is Mine!" will be particularly annoying at this point).

Their defiance bars will appear more frequently during this phase, but getting near them enough to break it without getting stunned is the challenge. The other big, obnoxious part of this fight is the fact that they need to be downed at the same time -- you get a 15 second window to down the other, or they'll recover from with 55% health (much like the legendaries in the Kralk meta).

[arvnsis]

ON PERCY’S YEAR OF MARITAL STRAIN.           meta analysis

           i think about this a lot my dudes. this is going to be really long because it includes QUOTES.

“Armand knew that: her impulses and imprudence, knew it still better; but Blakeney was slow-witted, he would not listen to “circumstances,” he only clung to facts, and these had shown him Lady Blakeney denouncing a fellow man to a tribunal that knew no pardon: and the contempt he would feel for the deed she had done, however unwittingly, would kill that same love in him, in which sympathy and intellectuality could never had a part.”

so ok there are a few things here. one is that armand is very wrong in the fact that percy is an idiot. percy is far from slow-witted, but on the other hand, armand is right that in this scenario, percy only listened to facts.  percy DID just take the information on marguerite’s supposed part in the eventual execution of the marquis de st cyr … at face value. which ok yeah is he hypervigilant because he’s the scarlet pimpernel, yes. but also, he decided not to trust his wife. the woman he adores more than life itself ( and no, his love for her never died ) and because of this disaster yes of course there was strain on their marriage, even when — no, especially when percy found out that marguerite was tricked and in the matter she was innocent. 

percy is prepared for basically every situation, he KNEW marguerite had once been friends (?) with chauvelin. even if he didn’t let on how much he knew about her, he’s the scarlet pimpernel, he keeps himself informed on people because there’s also an inherent fear of betrayal. and nothing could’ve prepared him for hearing about this — and so he was suspicious of her for the entire fucking year because he had this kneejerk reaction. for percy, knowing he was WRONG was absolute hell. he hates that more than if he’d been right in thinking he married someone who could betray him. because he hurt her. he was distant and honestly really fake in basically every aspect for the whole year and she was miserable. and she comes to warn the scarlet pimpernel about chauvelin, not knowing it’s percy, and he’s literally punched in the gut because what does he do now, knowing the truth and knowing he’s been an absolute ass, a real idiot, for NO REASON — 

and STILL, his pride stands in his way, he can’t even tell her when they’re in the garden of THEIR OWN HOME? instead, percy is still a goddamn headass, 

“Twenty-four hours after our marriage, Madame, the Marquis de St. Cyr and all his family perished on the guillotine, and the popular rumour reached me that it was the wife of Sir Percy Blakeney who helped to send them there.”

“Nay! I myself told you the truth of that odious tale.”

“Not till after it had been recounted to me by strangers, with all its horrible details.”

“And you believed them then and there,” she said with great vehemence, “without a proof or question–you believed that I, whom you vowed you loved more than life, whom you professed you worshipped, that I could do a thing so base as these STRANGERS chose to recount. […] had you listened, I would have told you that up to the very morning on which St. Cyr went to the guillotine, I was straining every nerve, using every influence I possessed, to save him and his family. But my pride sealed my lips, when your love seemed to perish, as if under the knife of that same guillotine. Yet I would have told you how I was duped! […] I was tricked into doing this thing, by men who knew how to play upon my love for an only brother, and my desire for revenge. Was it unnatural?”

percy gets to know that wow he really fucked up. literally right before this exchange, he accuses her of basically just kicking his affections aside ( as evidently , the marquis was executed a year before they married ), and then. THEN, this dumbass fucks up AGAIN. marguerite tells percy armand is in danger, and he basically tells her ‘ask chauvelin for help’ because good god he’s really just doing HORRIBLY, so we get to this,

“Faith, Madame, since it distresses you, we will not speak of it… . As for Armand, I pray you have no fear. I pledge you my word that he shall be safe. Now, have I your permission to go? The hour is getting late, and …”

“You will at least accept my gratitude?” she said, as she drew quite close to him, and speaking with real tenderness.

With a quick, almost involuntary effort he would have taken her then in his arms, for her eyes were swimming in tears, which he longed to kiss away; but she had lured him once, just like this, then cast him aside like an ill-fitting glove. He thought this was but a mood, a caprice, and he was too proud to lend himself to it once again.

at this point, you’re probably wondering if i’ll ever be done talking about this or if percy’s headassery gets any better and in order yes and … not during this particular interaction. because percy’s a FUCKWIT, he actually CAN’T function if he doesn’t have a plan for a situation. without that absolute control of things from his perspective, he’s truly as stupid as he pretends to be, and it shows. the worst part is uhh as soon as he just tells marguerite ‘it’s late go to bed’, mind you, she’s in tears, HE KNOWS THE TRUTH NOW. HE FLAT OUT WITNESSED IT and HE’S STILL ACTING LIKE THIS. yet, he’s too fucking prideful to show his emotions until marguerite goes into the house and percy … 

Before entering, she paused once again to look at him, hoping against hope to see his arms stretched out to her, and to hear his voice calling her back. But he had not moved; his massive figure looked the very personification of unbending pride, of fierce obstinacy.

Hot tears again surged to her eyes, and as she would not let him see them, she turned quickly within, and ran as fast as she could up to her own rooms.

Had she but turned back then […] she would have seen […] a strong man, overwhelmed with his own passion and his own despair. Pride had given way at last, obstinacy was gone: the will was powerless. He was but a man madly, blindly, passionately in love, and as soon as her light footsteps had died away within the house, he knelt down upon the terrace steps, and in the very madness of his love he kissed one by one the places where her small foot had trodden, and the stone balustrade there, where her tiny hand had rested last.

percy worships the ground marguerite walks on, LITERALLY. and he always has, and the issue is that he let his pride win in those moments and if she hadn’t figured out he was the scarlet pimpernel, who knows if this shit would ever have been resolved? that very thought haunts him. all of this haunts him, and honestly, it’s what he’d consider his greatest failure in life. he hurt the woman he loves more than his own life and even if she forgives him, even when she does, he never forgives himself for this.

[ramblings-of-a-mad-cat]

What do you think of Camila? Do you think she’s a good mom to Luz? I’ve seen her getting a lot of hate recently especially after Yesterday’s lie’

Ah, an Owl House ask! Thank you so much for this, anon!

Camila is an absolute sweetheart. Anyone who works in Veterinary medicine earns my respect for the intelligence and hard work that takes, as well as the kindness in their heart. Speaking as the kind of person who would also set animals free from traps, I relate to Camila and respect her considerably. However, being a good person and being a good parent are two different conversations. I can understand why people may have been critical of her during Season 1, what with her seemingly trying to make Luz change herself and forcing her to attend that camp. Still, even in S1, I thought to myself that she was an imperfect parent but that she was truly trying her best, just that she was going about things the wrong way. I never got the sense that she felt anything but love for her daughter. Still, my theory after the finale was that Luz was never going to return to the human realm, simply because the Boiling Isles understood her better and accepted her so quickly. But the inclusion of those letters and of "Creepy Luz" made it clear that we weren't finished with Camila, that she would appear in the future. Hey, come to think of it...the letters never got explained, did they? Based on the flashbacks we saw, Vee's impersonation began as an accident, but the letters from "Luz" would suggest that this was more premeditated. So either Vee is lying about what happened, which she would have no reason to do anymore...or there's something else going on here, another player in this game. This could be unrelated and unimportant, but did anyone notice how the second parent in that family photo had their face obscured? I wonder...

Never mind that for now. As of the most recent episode? I don't see how anyone can hate Camila People are entitled to feel however they do about the characters, but I've seen how swift the turnaround was about Vee, and I was the same way. She is baby and must be protected. But you know who's agreed to protect her and take her in, and been generally wonderful about having her entire life and worldview upended? Camila. She's such a human character and she's not perfect, but she's kind. Even in the beginning of this episode, it was shown that the stark shift in "Luz's" personality was troubling her, and when she thought everything was a trick, she was relieved to see that Luz was "being creative again." So she never wanted to squash her daughter's imagination, just make sure she would be able to function in society. Whether she went about it the right way is open for debate, but it is clearer than ever that she was just trying to look out for her. I have to commend Camila for how she handled everything that she learned. Saw a literal monster and her response was perfect. She recognized, as a mother and as a veterinarian, that this was a vulnerable child who needed rescuing, who needed acceptance. And that's exactly what she gave. She didn't recoil in fear or disgust. She didn't act betrayed or hold Vee accountable for the deception. All of which, Vee was probably expecting. But no, Camila was a damn hero, saving and then adopting her.

Through all this, she's grappling with the understanding that demons and other worlds are real. But that's not even the biggest bomb that's been dropped on her. The child that she thought was Luz for these past few months was actually an impostor, a different child. And Luz herself has for all intents and purposes, been missing. Trapped in another world full of magic and demons. I'd imagine that Camila's feeling a fair bit of guilt right now. Any parent in her position would be wondering why they failed to recognize the disguise, how their own daughter could have gone missing for months without her noticing. She's probably going to beat herself up for all this, for a while yet to come. And that's not even getting into the reveal that the end. That Luz came to the Boiling Isles deliberately. I wonder if there are fans who took issue with the line "Was living with me so terrible?" Because it guilts Luz, a kid who's known for her imagination, for simply wanting to see a fantasy land. I'm sure Luz feels even worse about all this now. And I agree, Camila shouldn't have said that. But it was her kneejerk reaction, her immediate question. She shouldn't have said it, but I don't blame her for feeling that way, for wondering that very question. For feeling a little abandoned. She probably feels like she drove Luz away by limiting her creative impulses. But it's far from being that simple. Luz didn't feel accepted in the human realm, and Camila was basically the one thing she even had that tied her there. Camila was the reason that Luz was even bothering to try and go home.

This is a tragic situation that's unfolding and it breaks my heart, but I don't think anyone is at fault here. Luz and Camila are both so very human. They're good people with weaknesses and flaws, suffering from an impossible situation. I am glad, more than anything, that Camila knows the truth now. And that she's supportive of Luz, even if she was hurt by the knowledge that Luz left on purpose. (Seriously, I think the way she handled the Vee situation tells us everything we need to know about her.) I suppose something else that people might take issue with is her extracting that promise from Luz that when she makes it home, that she'll stay. That's one hell of a position to put Luz in, considering the life that she's build in the Boiling Isles. But here's the thing. Camila doesn't really know about all that. We don't see most of the exposition relay that Luz gives her. So there's no reason to assume that Camila knows about Luz attending school and training to become a witch. That she has best friends, that she has a girlfriend now. And honestly, even if she does know about this...it's still her daughter, who's only led this life for a few months. Wouldn't you have done the same? Wouldn't any parent in that situation just want their child back? Camila is responding to emotion in this scene and I don't blame her for asking what she asked of Luz, though again, it's still a problem. In fact, I once again worry what this will mean for the future, because I'm willing to bet that this promise will come up again. And play a role in how the series ends. Luz might have to say a permanent farewell to her friends in the Boiling Isles because she feels obligated to keep this promise. Or, she might elect not to return to the human realm or to stop trying...because she knows that if she succeeds, she'll have to stay there. Technically, she only promised to stay if she made it back, after all. Either way, I foresee heartbreak.

[firstagent]

Since it popped up on the Podcast, how would you rank the sibling dynamics from healthy to trainwreck?

This is an innocent-sounding question until you go over the franchise and realize just how many sibling relationships there are in Digimon and that all but like three of them have elements that might raise eyebrows. In the interest of being comprehensive, this includes all named characters in any anime, manga, and game I’m familiar with, treating the reboot separately and including Survive because... (looks at Kaito and Miu’s bios) ...holy crap.

Sibling Relationship Rankings! (Healthy is Higher)

Joe & Shin Kido (Adventure): Shin understands Joe’s hang-ups and offers support to make his own choices without steering him in any specific direction, for or against the family. And Shuu exists too (depending on the language you’re watching in)

Juri & Masahiko Kato (Tamers): For all of the awkwardness and potential points of fracture in the family, Juri and Masahiko are very close. Fun Fact: She started carrying around her iconic hand puppet to amuse and entertain him!

Keito & Nozomi Tamada (Re:Arise): Even with very different personalities, Keito and Nozomi have a lot of respect for each other. Unlike some big brothers, he comes to a mature conclusion when he realizes she’ll be just fine with Pumpmon at her side.

Yamato Ishida & Takeru Takaishi (Adventure 2020): Yamato’s worry over Takeru only affects his reluctance to take on time-consuming side quests when he might be in danger. Far more chill about trusting Takeru with the rest of the team, he’s a motivation rather than a mental handicap.

Masaru & Chika Daimon (Savers): Perhaps a more controversial pick for the healthier side, but Masaru and Chika have a playful relationship that proves that Chika dishes out as much as anyone in the family. Given how much harm DATS and Digimon have done to the family, Masaru risks her love to keep them away from her.

Joe & Shin Kido (Adventure 2020): Shin’s still supportive and still encourages Joe to make choices for himself, but having that bugout bag ready to go raises some serious questions about that family and which side Shin’s really on.

Ai & Makoto (Tamers): Toddlers fight. It’s okay. They come together for Impmon’s sake and the fact that they’re the only duo in the franchise with mutual custody over a digivice has to say something about the strength of their relationship.

Nene & Kotone Amano (Xros Wars Manga): Nene’s tactics are still desperate but not quite as extreme as the anime, and it counts for so much that Kotone fights so hard for Nene once the tables are turned. And good lord that backstory...

Takuya & Shinya Kanbara (Frontier): There’s definitely a sense of Takuya lapsing into thinking Shinya encapsulates everything frustrating about having an older brother, but he gets over it.

Miyako Inoue + Three (Zero Two): Perfectly normal large household. And while wondering what it would be like to be an only child is something every youngest does... top of mind fantasy, Miyako? Really?

Jianliang & Shaochung Lee (Tamers): Speaking of four-packs... there’s no doubting how much they care about each other, but Jian’s occasional short fuse with Shaochung betrays his usual calm demeanor, and we never get a picture of the full family dynamic once Rinchei and Jaarin are included.

Daisuke & Jun Motomiya (Zero Two): Everyone likes to paint Jun and Daisuke as something uglier than it really is. As much as they annoy each other, it’s still a pretty conventional sibling dynamic and they’d still fight hard for the other... even if the feeling’s closer to obligation.

Koji Minamoto & Koichi Kimura (Frontier): There’s no questioning the bond they develop, but there’s no way Koji and Koichi go from “don’t know the other exists” to “ZOMG Twinzies!” without a ton of awkwardness and feeling each other out. They’ll get better, but from our standpoint this is where we start to drift into trainwreck territory.

Tomoki & Yutaka Himi (Frontier): Tomoki can spin it all he wants but Yutaka comes off as a real jerk. Not that some resentment isn’t a little justified given how much Tomoki is coddled, but taking it upon himself to be the bearer of tough love is still not cool.

Taichi & Hikari Yagami (Adventure 2020): Hikari has a blind faith that Taichi can save the day in any circumstance, up to and including international shipping crisis. Meanwhile Taichi sees Hikari lapsing between typical friendly eight year old to brainwashed robot and doesn’t find any problem with it.

Yamato Ishida & Takeru Takaishi (Adventure): Lessons in how not to be an overprotective big brother. Yamato freaks out at the slightest notion that Takeru might be exposed to danger, including his very presence in the Digital World. When you have a complete nervous breakdown realizing that little bro’s actually pretty capable on his own, it’s not about your relationship with him anymore.

Touma & Relena Norstein (Savers): There’s caring about a little sister, making her plight a central cause in your life, and then involving her in a chess match with a madman. There’s a lot to forgive here (they are raised in a family where your kneejerk reaction to Grandma is “I bet she supported the Nazis in World War II”), but everything about their relationship just makes you uncomfortable.

Kaito & Miu Shinonome (Survive): Maybe it’s not fair since their game is the franchise’s unicorn, but their bios have warning flags all over it. He’s overprotective, ready to fight at the slightest hardship, and she repays this attitude by being rebellious and weird and eager to pursue trouble. May end up being worse once the game actually comes out.

Rei & Hajime Katsura (Appmon): Another one where their backstory makes you sympathize with the lengths they go to in order to stay together, but risking the security of actual guardians to go it alone? Jesus. Even with their ride or die attitude, you still sense a bit of friction in their relationship, and so many of their hardships are their own doing. 

Nene & Yuu Amano (Xros Wars): There’s nothing seemingly wrong on the surface between Nene and Yuu, but that’s why their actions are so extreme. Yuu’s more than happy to treat her as an enemy general in his game, while Nene’s aligning herself with dark forces and causing real trouble to get him back. It’s all very loud and intense for a relationship that, without external influences, is just nice and cordial.

Yuuko & Yuugo Kamishiro (Cyber Sleuth): You can be anything you want on the internet! So why not take the identify of your big brother who was stricken with a mystery illness at a young age and lead a legion of hackers? And if you’re Yuugo, use your digital body to take control of that avatar! Nothing weird about any of this!

Ken & Osamu Ichijouji (Zero Two): Like Tomoki, Ken can come up with whatever rationale for Osamu’s abuse he wants, and Osamu at least had some kind moments, but there’s no denying that this family was a mess. And of course Ken’s reaction to Osamu’s death... could have been better.

Taichi & Hikari Yagami (Adventure): Hikari’s introduction to the series was intended to be a little creepy, and that just sets the tone. Her blind loyalty to Taichi is a primary point of emphasis through three series, and Taichi sometimes goes ballistic worrying about her... when not accidentally endangering her life. And that’s before she unleashes a world-destroying abomination at the mere suggestion that Taichi’s dead, and why telling him “what you’re doing is wrong and I kind of hate you for it” is a big moment for her, even though she’s wrong.

Neo & Rei Saiba (V-Tamer): There’s going a little overboard to keep your family together or save a sibling’s life, and then there’s aligning yourself with evil forces to avoid having to deal with your sister’s manageable disability. Call it being jaded or delusional, but when it drives your sister to attempt suicide there are definitely issues you two need to work through.

Erika & Ryuji Mishima (Cyber Sleuth Hackers Memory): Because aligning oneself with Arkadimon is always a fantastic idea. He’s overprotective, she manipulates him because of it, there’s resentment, there’s anger, and basically the entire game is spent watching these two outdo each other in terms of causing wanton destruction throughout the city and cyberspace.

Honorable Mention: Bagramon & DarkKnightmon (Xros Wars): The battle of who can stab the other in the back last.

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[uncloseted]

How do I deal with being unattractive? Not like "I'm ugly (but I'm actually pretty)" but knowing you just don't catch people's eyes and your looks don't stand out. I know I'm like this because both of my friends are conventionally attractive and wherever we go they get looks, hit on, and on dating apps they constantly get matches and significant numbers of people wanting to sleep with them, whereas I get ignored or ghosted by people online and offline. I don't even really want to sleep with anyone, I just feel bad because I know I'm not beautiful and I'll never be the beautiful person but I want to move past it and forget my looks even exist tbh. Do you have any advice?

There's a lot to unpack when talking about beauty. I think typically the response to someone feeling unattractive is either denial of the person's feelings ("but you are pretty!"), a fallback on useless platitudes ("Everyone is beautiful!"), or a dismissal of beauty as something that holds value ("why do you care if you're pretty? That's so vain, there are more important things in life" or "beauty standards are just social constructs").

To a degree, I understand why people would say things like that. Many people who don't feel beautiful are still attractive to others. The beauty standards we hold are frequently xenophobic, racist, colorist, homophobic, transphobic, ageist, and ableist. There are all sorts of things that are more important than being beautiful, like the quality of a person's character or the contributions they've made to the world around them.

But I don't think those responses make the experience of being unattractive or unremarkable but wanting to be beautiful any easier. We can cognitively understand that the standards of beauty we're held to are problematic while still wanting to be beautiful. So what's the solution? I think there are probably a few different options that need to work together.

First, there are external ways to become attractive. There's the obvious, like finding makeup looks that make you feel pretty (or attract other people to you), or finding clothing styles that really suit your body, or, at the more extreme end, getting cosmetic procedures done to change how you look. I recognize that this is a bit of a problematic suggestion given that we're all supposed to learn to love ourselves the way we are and never put any effort into "improving" our appearance, and I feel a kind of kneejerk reaction of guilt for moving away from that. But fashion and cosmetics are such giant industries for a reason; they make people feel more beautiful. And in a world that insists on beauty, I don't think there's anything wrong with using the tools available to us to feel more beautiful.

As an extension of the physical, or perhaps, as an alternative, you could focus on style instead of beauty. This idea of style as an alternative to beauty is one that I was introduced to through a Contrapoints video where Natalie discusses her own relationship to beauty. In it, she talks about how a person can be stylish at any age, regardless of if your physical appearance is conventionally attractive. It's a way to cultivate a personal visual aesthetic for yourself, one that lets people know who you are without having to conform to beauty standards. Style is a way to stand out and to be seen, beauty or not.

Which, in a roundabout kind of way, brings me to my second point- the internal. Oftentimes, I think we approach physical attractiveness as if it's a purely physical trait, but that's not really the case. Think about the women who are consistently voted as "the most attractive woman alive". They're not usually the blonde, baby faced lingerie models that we (culturally) think of as the pinnacles of beauty. They're typically actresses. And sure, they're physically beautiful, at least, after the cosmetic surgeons, makeup artists, stylists, hairdressers, and photo editors have done their jobs (you would be surprised how many celebrities aren't naturally beautiful).

But more than being physically attractive, they're charismatic. It may sound cliched or a bit mumsy, but I really do think that we're attracted to confidence and charisma more than we are to how a person physically looks. And that's why style works; it's a physical expression of confidence in yourself, a visual expression of charisma.

So, okay, then, how do we build charisma? MacArthur “genius” psychologist Angela Duckworth says that charisma basically boils down to communicating, “I like you and I like me/the world likes me”. If you want to communicate that you like someone else, eye contact, saying their name in conversation, and being interested in them and what they’re saying are all easy ways to do it. Communicating, “I like me” or “the world likes me” is more complicated, and it’s really where confidence comes into play.  Smiling, not being self-deprecating, and holding yourself in a way that communicates confidence (open and with good posture) are all part of that. But to truly like yourself, you need to start building your self-confidence.

Building self-confidence is a process, but I would start with a simple exercise. Every morning, look at yourself in the mirror and say some things you like about yourself.  Focus on those things that you like and try to only focus on those things.  Each day, try to add a new thing to the list.  When you’re out and about, remember those things that you like about yourself, focus on them, and try to draw attention to them.  When other people compliment you, add those to your list as well.  I think eventually by recognizing all of the things that you like about yourself, you’ll be able to feel like there are things about you that you can be confident in, and you won’t focus so much on the things that you feel are negative. These don't have to be just physical attributes; include things about your personality and your relationship to world as well.

Another thing you can try is looking for celebrities who you find beautiful who have similar traits to the ones you dislike in yourself. It can be hard to appreciate our own traits or see them as beautiful, but sometimes seeing them on someone else can help us to realize that actually, they can be really pretty.

Finally (and sorry this has been so long, there really was a lot to talk about here), it's okay to totally move past how you look and to adopt a policy of body neutrality. You don't owe anyone physical beauty. You can live a fulfilled life without being attractive. Your body is capable of doing all sorts of things that allow you to engage with the world, and that is more than enough. Practicing body neutrality may include things like being grateful that your legs allow you to walk from point A to B, or that your arms allow you to hug your loved ones, or that your lungs allow you to breathe. It may look like wearing clothes that are comfortable for you instead of focusing on how they look. It may look like caring for your body because regardless of how you feel about it, it's the only one you have. It may be focusing on your passions and goals and appreciating how your body allows you to achieve them. It's okay to not want to engage with beauty as a concept.

[thedreadvampy]

look not to vague here particularly bc my comment about You Know did straddle the line between criticising art and being mean about a person, fair play there, it was not a simple critique of art

but my biggest beef with Fine Art as an educational establishment is that I've yet to meet a Fine Artist who's been taught to separate artistic criticism (which can be very harsh and very negative) from a personal attack.

and as I say I'm not talking about You Know here, I understand how that felt personal bc it was about his public persons not just his work. but the idea that negative comments are inherently unkind or are a suppression of the Artistic Vision are pretty endemic to my experience of Fine Artists (whether at college/university or pros in their fifties setting up shows in spaces I've helped run).

like I tend to say the thing I got from my undergrad that I couldn't have got without studying art wasn't technique or theory (you can learn those from books) but the ability to give and take productive criticism.

and that includes criticism that isn't meant as concrit tbh, like, my tutor used to say 'clients don't know shit about art but if they say something looks like a dick you need to be able to either take the dick out or make sure there's a good reason for the dick to be there.' like art is made to be seen so anybody who sees it and tells you what they're seeing in it is giving you useful information even if they're also being a cunt. this is especially true for commercial work/work to brief but like. all art you put out the world rather than keeping as a personal/practise work is a communicative medium so what is communicating Matters.

you won't always have to change it but you do have to accept that some people won't like it and some people won't like it for reasons that didn't occur to you. so taking critique effectively is about listening to what the other person is saying and deciding whether or not you think their point is valid, significant and useful. and sometimes it isn't! like I've suggested some changes to people's works in progress and been really glad they ignored me when I saw how they finished it! and sometimes we are just gonna disagree! if you put a political message in your work and I say 'i think that message sucks' that doesn't mean you're WRONG or your art needs changing it may just mean. we disagree. but art is a conversation and for a conversation to work people are gonna have opinions about it.

and btw there's a skill to giving good critique too and it means getting beyond 'i like' or 'i don't like' and trying to work out what specifically you're reacting to and why. like 'the anatomy is dodgy' is less helpful than 'the hand looks weird' is less helpful than 'the hand looks stiff and awkwardly posed' is less helpful than 'what if you moved this finger to here?'. Saying 'i hate this' is less useful than 'this colour scheme makes me nauseous' is less useful than 'i think the juxtaposition of these two colours is gross, is that intentional? if not it might be nicer with a warmer yellow'. and always giving space for the artist to consider and explain why they made intentional choices.

critique is not about instruction but about questioning. but like. also if you have to give a ten minute explanation of why you made a choice then the art probably isn't effectively communicating for itself and that's useful information in itself. like 'I'm not sure what you're trying to say' or 'this seems kind of on the nose is there something more you're trying to get across' are Very Useful Criticisms to develop your work

but a lot of people get very defensive and like not to be a dick but while there's a few in every group, every single time I've had a joint crit with fine artists they have just been dreadful at taking crits. like it's always the fine artists who get upset at you questioning their vision and burst into tears or storm out or say "why are you all picking on me" when like. the crit they're getting is way lighter than in illustration or graphic design groups.

and like. this makes me sad. because I think when it comes to art teaching, group and individual crits are like 90% of the most valuable learning. like I didn't get a lot out of my art education because I had The World's Most Amazing Artists as teachers! (some of them have been really good though) I got a lot out of my art education because group crits helped shape my work, make specific changes, and learn from 30 other minds who saw my work from different angles. and if that basic skill, to criticise and be criticised, isn't being developed in five art courses then those students are missing a vital skill to keep improving and developing their work and communicating their ideas clearly and strongly.

also uhhhhhh if they haven't learnt to take criticism from other artists in a safe managed environment like a studio or classroom then they are really gonna Struggle if they get any notoriety because the majority of people who look at art aren't thinking about how to improve it, they're criticising from the perspective of a finished work, and that's still useful critique but it's much less likely to be couched in compliments or to come with specific suggestions for improvement. and with commercial art clients they often know nothing about process or theory they just know if they Like It or Don't Like It. so it helps to have practise in interpolating vague or general criticism into actionable changes and subjective opinions, and to have had space to develop some resilience. you know. it DOES hurt when people criticise your work, particularly if it's very personal, and it takes work and practise to get past that kneejerk defensive reaction and to step back from it a bit. but somebody saying "I don't like this art" or "this art is shallow/obvious/meaningless/ugly/unpleasant" isn't a personal attack. it feels like one bc you know how much thought and effort and work and how much of yourself goes into every piece. but art is a conversation and a negative response is part of that conversation. and if your work reaches a wide enough audience someone ain't gonna like it and uhhhh. a lot of fine artists don't seem to be able to cope with that concept.

(mind you if somebody says "this art is ugly and meaningless because it was made by an ugly meaningless stupid person" then yeah that's about you and they're being a dick (but also. it is about you and it isn't about you, it's about the single facet of you that they see from your art, and they do not know you and aren't speaking to your actual worth even if they think they are). but even there like. block it out and move on bc throwing a tantrum at them, however justified, only makes things worse. their opinion is not of you the entire human person but of you the reflection they're seeing in their interpretation of the art. it's not your problem.)

like it's not that you don't get to be upset when people talk shit about your art or recieve it in a way you don't like. of course you do. but it's also uhhhhh an inevitable consequence of putting art out into the world. by putting it out publicly you are inviting 'what do you think about this' and you can't be surprised when people tell you. it's not bullying to Not Like Your Artwork. it's kind of aggro to seek somebody out to tell them you don't like their art and all the things they should change about it (and that's got pretty endemic with the internet and accessibility of artists) but it's on you if you go looking for reviews or critiques or responses to your work and then can't cope with the fact that they're not unilaterally positive and not everyone is picking up what you're putting down.