#because that automatically changed

[niieve]

i fucking hate beta editor jfc

[starry-bi-sky]

Who is the more well-adjusted twin; Damian, or Danyal? Why, it's Damian, of course!

And I have an explanation for this! But first I wanna preface this that this is just me like, rambling about this thought I have and it's not an attack on the trope as a whole. I love the Danyal Al Ghul au which is why i'm so deeply passionate about it, because I think it has a lot of potential to be explored. It's no secret that I've mentioned before that I think Danny's psychological development tends to get overlooked and underutilized in DAG aus, and the impact that growing up in an assassin league often goes ignored. This is just me further expanding on that.

Now lets set the stage! This is specifically for Danny who is adopted by the Fentons later down in life. Lets go twin au. At 10 years old, Damian goes to the Wayne Family, Danny is adopted by the Fentons (regardless of their affiliation with the League). By 14 years old, who ends up the better adjusted, more socially aware, spiritually in-tune with themselves, sibling? Why, Damian is! Why is that?

Because he has the actual support he needs compared to Danny. And I'm not talking about good or bad parents Fentons, because either way my opinion doesn't change. Damian would end up the better off twin, because, frankly, his family knows his background. They know he grew up in the League, they know what the League's teachings are, and they know he's a born and raised assassin. Knowing this, they can then help tackle and dismantle the teachings and lessons he has been given and ingrained into by the League. They may be a dysfunctional family, but they're functional enough to at least actively help deprogram all of the League's teachings that have been ingrained in Damian throughout his childhood.

Can't say the same for Danny.

Lets say Fentons here don't know his background -- and even if they do, the results may just stay the same if they play their cards wrong, -- Danny's now just been thrown into the deep end of a pool and is essentially being told sink or swim. Regardless of how he got there -- undercover, faked death, etc -- he has no proper support. He knows the League is meant to be secret, he's not gonna speak on it for various reasons. Whether it be some still lingering loyalty, fear of harm, or whatever. Whatever the reason is, he does not have a proper support system in the Fentons, no matter how nice they are. They can only tackle the surface level stuff and whatever Danny allows them to see -- if Danny ever lets them see it at all. For what do assassins do when they don't want to be caught? They hide. Sometimes in plain sight.

"But Jazz--" Jazz is a child. She is 2 years older than Danyal and no better at giving him a proper support system than the two adult Fenton parents, even with parentification. We don't know when she got into psychology or how long she'd been studying it by the time Danny's 14. We just know she's really into it. Even then, Jazz is not a licensed or reliable therapist, or even an experienced or implied good therapist, and should not be used as one either. It's a disservice to her character to reduce her down to 'supporting female emotional crutch'. Besides, therapy only works on people who want to get better. Danny, who'd be hiding who he really is, has very little incentive to want to, or to even think something is wrong with his way of thinking, even with exposure to the outside world.

When people's beliefs are outright challenged, they tend to double down on them, and Jazz canonically has a habit of psychoanalyzing her family and declaring what she thinks is the problem -- regardless of whether or not she's right about it. Jazz would get into psychology, try and psychoanalyze Danny, and all it would do is cause him to clam up, shut into himself further, and throw up even more walls so that she can't figure out that he has been lying this whole time. It would do more harm than good, and would actively hinder any progress he'd make in trying to open up to them. Roads and good intentions and all that.

That being said, I think Danny's development and dismantling of the League's teachings would be slower than Damian's. Much slower. Because he would be the one having to pick apart everything and figure out what is right, what is wrong, what he wants to keep, and what he wants to toss. Everything he unlearns would be stuff he has to unlearn himself. If he even gets to that point at all -- depending on his experiences, he very well could not change at all, or change very little. The League acts as a purge for humanity, meant to reign in their hubris and retain balance, they just also happen to be assassins for hire. Danny's time spent in Amity Park could as well strengthen his belief in their teachings just as much as it could weaken it, especially if it goes as canon and he gets bullied.

Regardless, being tossed to a civilian family as someone who is very much not a civilian, without any support, would be actively detrimental to Danny's overall mental health and development. Especially to strangers like the Fentons. Damian was closed off and standoffish even with blood family, and it took him time to open up to them -- Danny, with the Fentons, would be even more so. He doesn't know them, he doesn't trust them, he has no rhyme or reason to open up to them, and since the Fentons don't actually know him, they can't help him the way he needs. Once "Danny Fenton" is made, he has even less reason to open up. So long as Danyal allows it, they will only ever know Danny, and they'll never know Danyal.

TL:DR the Fentons aren't the better family option just because they're civilians, and actually that makes them the worser option between the two because they can't give Danny the proper support he needs. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink.

[crispyjenkins]

i don't know who needs to hear this today but the jedi would not be body-shy

especially during the war. some would be uncomfortable, sure, or even heavily dislike being nude and/or bathing around others, but the point of that is that would be respected as a choice. there is a very large difference between preferring not to be nude around others, for cultural religious or personal reasons, versus being ashamed. nothing you can do can convince me jedi would be ashamed or embarrassed of their or others' bodies.

why. why would the jedi think nudity undignified. why would they turn their noses up at it as unseemly, rather than a choice and preference

[bloomfish]

It's so weird that in angel s5e2 they do a little flashback to Spike's blaze of glory moment in the last episode of Buffy... but they leave out Buffy saying "I love you". It's such a blatant omission, the ONLY omission from that scene, that it feels totally deliberate and kind of dishonest. Considering a lot of the Spike and Angel moments in S5 revolve around their jealousy and rivalry towards each other, and a LOT of that is to do with Buffy like... Why would you leave it out? It's a pretty big moment for Spike's character in general.

As far as I recall they don't even mention it, they just mention the fact that Spike and Buffy have had a lot of sex compared to bangel's ONE disastrous time (that they remember) but it does kind of cheapen it for Spike. A big motivation for him not leaving LA could have been him not wanting to hold Buffy to her words, since he clearly doesn't believe that she loves him (even though she does, as per Whedon). He presumably thinks she only said that to make him feel better in his final moments, because she wouldn't have to actually follow through on her words. Which is sad. But it makes much more sense as a motivation than the weird 'it cheapens my moment of glory' excuse like since when does spike give a shit about that

[curleyclown]

Hi, fellow Lupin fan here! I love your art and tribute posts but I want to ask you something. Are the versions of the characters you draw an AU? I'm just curious as I think it's perfectly fine to create alternate versions of characters with different races, that's just fandom culture. But I personally disagree with abandoning a character's race in favour of another as I feel it demeans the work of the original designers. I mean no ill will by asking this, simply just curious.

Please do not be upset by this question, I'm not trying to cause any disturbance. I love your work and I simply want to ask about it.

I understand if you don't respond to this, have a nice day and keep making amazing art!❤️

Heya fellow Lupin fan thatonestereotype ! Very interesting take here that I'm "abandoning a character's race" by giving them darker skin tones. Funny thing actually, not only do darkskinned Japanese people actually exist, but I'm also using actual, official adaptations and sources as references for how I color skin tones of the Lupgang, especially Goemon and Zenigata!

Hope this helps!

[idiashrouded]

devastating news the twst fandom can’t separate the two orthos from each other (ORTHO having og orthos memories does not automatically make him 16 please pleas egod he is his own entirely different person that’s the whole point) (i rant in the tags sorry i’m going insane) (autistic ramblings of a madman)

[amphibianaday]

day 1235

[mourningmaybells]

i don't get why people are getting mad that toshiro is in love with falin. when he explains it, he seems genuine. where is this fratboy persona you guys are projecting. i'm a yuri warrior but he's not being a dick. unrelated but have you guys watched Clueless

[sisterdivinium]

Genetic engineering, DNA modification, tested it on herself... Why would Jillian go through all this trouble? Adoption would be easier, surrogacy wouldn't be an issue for a woman with so much money, so why this devotion to medical science, to gene manipulation?

This doesn't seem very logical unless we take one step further in examining her characterisation as a sort of Virgin Mary character implied by her clothing and framing during season one: a man is never mentioned in connection to Michael's conception, either as donor or father... Possibly because Michael has no father. Jillian has made him up from scratch or, at least, using only her own genetic material.

This would surely equate to an awesome "medical marvel" and it would accomplish two additional things: first, it would account for just how sick Michael needs to be so that an extremely rare substance that doesn't even belong to this world can be his sole hope in surviving (the result of a miscalculation, an unforeseen mutated gene, some error in Jillian's design, the absence of something); and second, reproduction without the aid of man ("sinless", sexless) not only ties Jillian's character more closely to the theme of the holy mother, it also more strongly makes a Jesus figure out of Michael.

This is significant because it makes him into a designated saviour: Michael, too, "dies", crossing to "the other side" and later returning with the mission of saving humanity, which is the role he is sure he will play during all of season two. This story has been told before, the structure is the same and we all know it. He mirrors Christ in his being born of a woman untouched by man, in going beyond life and back, in being tasked by a higher power to act for others in his sacrifice. It is a destiny clearly written out for him, a classic narrative, a hero's journey neatly set up for Michael to accomplish and all he has to do is follow the script.

And yet, doing everything right, by the book, Michael ultimately fails.

If, according to all of the doubts awakened by the developments in Warrior Nun (is Adriel's realm not Heaven? Is he not an angel? Is Reya God? Is Jesus just as alien as Adriel? Etcetera), the Catholic church's teachings are all twisted, incomplete, when not simply ignorant of all that is true in spiritual, metaphysical matters, then this saviour narrative that constitutes the foundation of the institution itself is doomed — as well as whatever guidance it could supply.

I was discussing with @halobearerhavoc earlier about (among many other intriguing things) how myth informs the show and how it might predict Reya's fall, but also how that event would necessarily depart from how it plays out in the original myth. That is due to the fact that our protagonist here is Ava, a woman, and that this tiny little fact of sex alone forces a shift in how things are presented, in which values are prioritised, in how conflict is treated, escalated or resolved — this applies here as well.

Michael was the textbook redeemer, he was made for this, brought up by Reya with this explicit purpose and with the acquired conviction that he was the key to it all.

Ava, on the other hand, is a product of coincidence, of accident, of the unfathomable. She is already a rupture in tradition — dead and brought back, unknowingly, unwillingly the "usurper" of the halo, inserting herself in the line of bearers at random when she doesn't even seem to have any belief... Ava exists outside of tradition. To Michael's determined "Destiny", she is the one imbued with free will (it isn't out of guilt or duty that she returns to the Cat's Cradle, but through Mary's sympathy, through her own understanding and action). Ava is the unplanned factor, contrasted with Michael who was so planned that his life might have begun inside a Petri dish.

It isn't determinism that will save us, a mantle of glory woven by someone else wanting to place it upon our shoulders regardless of our own wishes; it isn't a decrepit institution or some despotic deity that will define us or what we do; it isn't the heavy, malodorous layers of ancient mould gathered over the endless tomes of Established Tradition or the carefully made calculations of arrogant scientists who think they can predict and explain and control everything.

Salvation cannot be through what Michael represents: an imposed duty, a stagnant, hackneyed story.

A story, we would do well to remember, which was already used to subjugate others, whatever its initial intentions might have been; Jillian certainly didn't predict what would be of her son and surely the primitive Christians didn't see into the future to understand what their devotion and their modes of its transmission would cause, yet it came to happen. The extermination of the Cathars, the persecution of pagans, the burning of "witches", the suppression of indigenous beliefs, activities and lives, to name but a few of the atrocities committed in the name of this one story...

So it cannot be Michael, embodying this narrative so well, that will bring about a fortunate ending to humanity's troubles.

Instead, salvation comes through Ava. She herself might be inhabited by a number of parallels with Christ, but she also carries freedom, an outsider's view which makes the inside so see-through, love, an ability to move outside of what had been previously set for her by someone else (one might even argue that these are the traits that made Christ before the story surrounding him came about)...

The walls built around her needn't contain her — and, phasing as she does, they do not.

Moreover, what would have been the real ending to Reya's plan, had it been followed exactly as it should have? The divinium bomb did hit Ava in the end, but wouldn't it have been worse had she not been interrupted in running up to Michael while he immobilised Adriel during the televised freak circus?

Ava's unpredictability, her impulse, her innate need to act with free will rather than constricted by what others dictate — Ava is the foil to fate itself, the foil to a structure, to a hierarchy that has been festering and rotting from the beginning of time, it should seem.

The hero of this story could only ever be her.

[utterdrip]

astarion’s sigh/laugh of utter relief when he realizes durge just wants him safe

[mechanical-sunchild]

I really wish that Tumblr would stop showing me posts where folks are being negative towards the term alterhuman.

It's literally the only label I fully vibe with 100% of the time whilst others are purely functional. It's disparaging. I feel like I'm in the wrong somehow. Or less legitimate somehow.

I'm tired of being told "I don't use it because I'm not an alternative human I'm not a human at all :)" ok great but that's not what it means? The coining post literally states it means 'alternative to being human' and you can happily put a just in there if you feel like you're still a bit human too.

Nonhuman isn't a community label to me. It's a classification. A functional word and a scientific one but not a community term. A term specific to us with no ambiguity is needed, not one which humans use to place all other animals below them.

I'd rather call myself something suggesting that human is one species choice with many alternatives(you know like how when someone on TV says a brand of something they have to put a disclaimer that said brand is not the default for that thing there's many alternatives?). A word that looks, sounds and functions as a community identity term that the fully human do not use except to talk about us.

But that's just my opinion. I'm mad more about what I'm seeing as a general than anyone in particular, nobody's wrong for not liking every label they technically fit under.

Honestly I don't care who likes what because all labels are opt in but why do folks feel the need to make posts specifically to say they hate being called alterhuman then cite reasons that make them sound either ignorant to it's actual meaning or simply exclusionary. You could just...not.

[martyrbat]

detective comics #509

[ID: Bruce Wayne sleeping in his penthouse, his eyes squeezed shut as the narration reads, ‘Gordon's strained laugh sounds hollow, but it echos in the Batman's mind... and haunts his dreams...” Bruce awakens to a hand on his shoulder and before he can think, he's twisting it and holding it down. The panel expands, revealing the hand belongs to Alfred as he's almost toppling over! He cries out, “M-master Bruce—my arm!” as Bruce groggily realizes who it is. He lets go at once as Alfred moves to the end of the bed and holds his arm while stammering an apology, “S-sorry, s-sir... Sorry if I startled you.” Bruce looks at him with aghast as he cries out, “My god, Alfred—I almost broke your arm!” Alfred reasons, “You must have been having a nightmare, sir.” as Bruce sits up and puts his face in his hands. He weepily dismisses, “A nightmare—what kind of an excuse is that? Old friend... forgive me...” Alfred reassures, “Nothing to forgive, sir. Just bad nerves, sir.” END ID]

[tunas-spriting]

uncrusted rosemary kiss for my fellow ms paint heads out there to use

[folerdetdufoler]

Hi, I wrote my first evak fic in early 2023, before that I had been an avid reader for years. I know the fandom is a little quiet but there's this hardcore group of writers and readers that seem to have been around since the start and all know (of) each other. I don't know how to word this without sounding envious but it seems to me that group doesn't really read, comment on, give kudos or support new fics outside of their little circle. I want to believe it's a time issue but I have to say it comes across cliquey and a little hurtful. I really hope I am just being an insecure baby but I would be so happy if the established and popular writers would give me feedback and leave comments.

hiya! congratulations on writing and posting! i know it can be a big, scary jump from reading to writing and sharing, so applause for that in the first place.

i'm sorry your contributions to the fandom haven't been received the way you'd like them to be. if i'm included in this group of writers and readers, then, well my reasons for not reading/commenting/supporting are possibly going to be more hurtful than what you're already experiencing! i've whined about it years ago (first here, then here), and unfortunately it all still stands, because i have done absolutely zero work on bettering myself as a human being. i think i've read a handful of fics, mostly because they've been sent to me directly, with someone asking for my thoughts, and i managed to put in the effort to read it and offer a polite response. but there are also a bunch of fics that have been shared with me that i haven't read, even when i've said i would. i'm sorry if you have specifically done this with me in the past, because i have not treated your work, your creativity, with the respect it deserves.

i can't speak for anyone else, on how they choose to spend their time reading or writing, or the relationships they have with other fans. on the one active skam discord i'm in, i think a lot of them know each other from other fandoms, or have different relationships beyond writing/reading skam fic. also, as skam fades, people might only have the bandwidth for enjoying and supporting fanworks from established relationships, the same way you still want to support a favorite author even when you or they have changed genres or whatever.

but in reality i don't know the group where this is happening or why. i agree, it would be nice to receive more readers and commenters in general, and being jealous of the attention other people receive is natural. but i don't know how to change your relationship with that group, or my relationship with reading & supporting.

[aeolianblues]

I'm trying not to block people. But there's only so many times I can go 'give people the benefit of the doubt' and then click their blog and what's literally the third or fourth post on their blogs? They talk about middle eastern people like savages who can't control their violent urges. And of course, more than half of them are Americans. After posing for 20 years, the masks that temporarily went up when anti-war activists criticised the American war in the Middle East are slipping, some of you never really believed brown people to be your equals did you? Get the fuck off my blog.

[mad-hunts]

okay, just to have a reference for what i mean whenever i say barton sharpens his nails, this is usually the length that he keeps them at so they're not too long but they could easily scratch someone / harm them when he presses them to someone's skin hard enough:

and also, trust me when i say you do NOT want these nails near your eyes. because... well, things would just go downhill from there for you, if i'm being honest 💀 but like i said in an earlier post on here; he usually only uses them to defend himself in drastic situations, so if you're fighting barton and haven't managed to put him in a corner or anything like that, then you're probably safe from them. but yeahhh — this man is NOT below using ' dirty moves ' when engaged in combat even beyond his nails, just to let you all know, and i shall leave you all with that thought.