#but that's for another post

[theerurishipper]

I feel like people really underestimate the importance of Dick being the first Robin. Like, reverse Robin AUs are interesting and such, but I just hope people realize that in the context of canon, they would never work. The reason Batman and Robin ever works is because the first Robin was Dick Grayson specifically. Because Bruce would never have taken in any child if Dick's tragedy hadn't specifically happened to mirror his own experience. Dick Grayson was the only one Bruce truly saw himself in first, because the fundamental event that defines them is the same. And he sees the opportunity to help someone the way he was never helped, to make sure that Dick didn't go down the dark path he did. So, my point here is that the only one Bruce actually made the choice to take in, the only one who could kickstart it all, is Dick Grayson, because he is the only one with whom Bruce could immediately empathize and connect with.

This never happened with any other Robin. He took in Jason because he missed Dick, he took in Tim because Tim forced himself into the role, he took in Steph because he was trying to make Tim come back to being Robin, and Dick made Damian Robin. Of course, he loved all of them, and they all have their unique relationships with Bruce that are very important and inform their characters, and he does need them too. But he specifically formed this connection with Dick that made Dick the only person he ever considered taking in. It took a very specific set of circumstances in Dick's backstory that made Bruce commit an impulse adoption that just isn't really present in any other Robin's story. And the reason Jason or Tim or Steph or Damian or anyone else whom Bruce has taken under his wing even got that chance is because of the work Dick Grayson put into Bruce Wayne.

Before Dick, Bruce was reckless and didn't care at all about himself, to the point of almost being borderline suicidal. He was more brutal, more violent, etc. The reason all this changed, is because of Dick Grayson specifically. He was the one with whom Bruce opened up, with whom Bruce was forced to grow up, to take responsibility and learn to take care of both Dick and himself. Dick, to Bruce was the one who brought "color to their [his and Alfred's] monochrome lives." Dick Grayson's specific brand of happiness and joy changed Bruce for the better. Dick gave Bruce hope. This is true for other Robins too, but only because they followed the precedent that Dick Grayson set, only because they slid into his role (they have their own interesting relationships with Bruce, but this specifically is from Dick that other Robins carried on. A legacy, if you will). Dick Grayson turned Bruce into the kind of man who would become a serial adopter.

Without his influence, without his precedent, there would be no Batfamily, because Bruce would never have gotten to the point where he would be able or willing to take in someone else and care for them properly (It took living through his trauma again to get him to take Dick in lmao). Hell, there would be no Batman because Bruce would have gotten himself killed a long time ago if Dick hadn't helped him learn self-care. Dick knows Bruce best, because he understands him on a fundamentally deeper level than anyone else in the world. And he's the only one who can make Bruce open up at his rawest, most downtrodden state. He is the only one who can give Bruce at his lowest that kind of hope. There is no Robin without Dick Grayson. It's literally a tribute to his parents, using their colors and the name his mother called him. He created that identity as a symbol of hope. He helped Bruce become the kind of man who could and would let other people that he had to care for into his life. Without Dick Grayson, you can simply forget about any other Robin or the Batfamily as a concept even existing.

[saryasy]

this post got me thinking about their power dynamic as a whole, and I think the reason why people perceive Aziraphale as having more power over Crowley is because - inadvertently or not - Crowley has managed to make his whole life revolve around Aziraphale

where Aziraphale has the bookshop, other shopkeepers (they die and others replace them but they're there) Crowley basically has nothing. and not because he can't, we saw him with Ms Sandwich, he's perfectly capable of forming relationships with humans. he's just. not as interested

and he doesn't really have roots, apart from his apartment that was taken away from him, an apartment that offers nothing but solitude

so when faced with a question such as the ending of s2 posed, Crowley's answer is easy, Aziraphale. Aziraphale's however? he has a job, a duty in his eyes. and while that duty does not trump Crowley, he can't say no to it and just stay. so he leaves

[wanderersofeorzea]

LF More FFXIV RP Blogs Hey there, it's one of those posts again asking to like, reblog, comment, or whatever it is peeps ask for(I seriously don't remember) to find more rp blogs to follow, because as much as I love seeing the same four people on my dash, they need a hand!

Looking to follow... - Peeps talking about their character(s). - Sharing solo character(s) writings. - Sharing roleplays. - Prompts & asks. - Screenshots & art.

[sampegger]

i don't know if anyone else ever has any thoughts about sam and kelly but i do think it's interesting how late seasons spn gave us two characters who'd both had their lives ruined by lucifer and gave them next to no interactions besides a few stilted conversations where they never talked about anything of sustenance, but a point was still made of sam being the one to close her eyes after she died.

[elbiotipo]

There's this tendency in some science fiction to go all retro or put stops in some technology, ironic for such a genre. Even myself am guilty of it with Campoestela (different for the Biopunks). It's because the future is coming too fast and it's tiring to keep up. It really is.

Science Fiction, at its core is about "stories where science and technology change human life", at least, that's the definition I treat it with. The thing is, there's so many technologies changing us, so fast, that it's just impossible to keep up. In the 50s, you could keep up, for example, with space rockets and atomics. You could imagine a future where things were mostly the same, except with rockets and nuclear stuff. In 2023, you have to imagine rockets, AIs, climate change, biotechnology, nanotechnology, demographic and social crisis... I mean, you had to consider that in the 50s, too. But the pace of technologic advancement is so fast right now, that you just can't keep up. To create a world that it's just "like today, but with X", doesn't make sense anymore.

And then you just want adventure. You just want the space adventure thing, and fucking Mars and Venus suck, so you have to go to other stars to get your fix, and you don't care how. You want A Guy to go to strange new worlds and meet aliens and have moral dilemmas about it, without caring too much, if at all, about the technology to do so, and how it changes society. And that's not longer, in a way science fiction. You might as well give him magical sailboats that go through the aether (I have, in a couple projects, done just that). You might as well explain it with magic.

But that's not who I am. I despise the "it's magic lmao" shortcut.

I am here, calculating the delta-V and the space infrastructure necesary so that A Guy can be a space trucker. It's fun to me. To build a world, fantastic, but wholly coherent.

[powerup-the-revolution]

smug bastard muzan is my new favorite thing of all time

[lolaused2run]

Kripke must think it's funny to put Jensen in these roles where he gets brutally tortured for 40 years because it's weird that it's happened twice

[sherlokiness]

Jonsa can never happen! They saw each other as brother/sister. But I just know these same people are the ones who gloat about Jon's brotherly feelings being flimsy when it comes to Sansa.

1. They say that Jon would kill or burn Sansa for Arya or other acts of violence in favor of other people. How does that make him a proper brother?

2. Antis would use the "gotcha" of the willowy princess not being Jon's type. What they actually mean is that he would be into incest if it's like the other sister. Again, how does that make him a proper brother?😒😒

3. Antis would say he will never do what he did for Arya! He died for her! Yes. Jon will do worse for Sansa. He will kill for her.🤡

Jon's brotherly feelings can be easily discarded when it comes to hurting Sansa, however if it's for love...

[dermy-der-demp]

Saik would feel that something hit deeply harder inside him if he ever listen "here comes a thought",because no one in his whole life tell him something like that,nobody tell or teach him how to deal with his own thoughts and he clearly doesn't know how to treat with the consequences of his actions in a healthy emotional way

(I wanted to explain more in some points like the accident with touma and other things but i don't have time now)

[sunny-days-and-warm-mournings]

Sun Liu'er, the Eldest Son of the Sun

And Sun Gēn Téng (Tóubiāo), the Second Eldest Son of the Sun

For my A Den Of Suns AU <3

It's an AU where the Monkey King somehow procures kids to love and stress about! He has a lot of grandchildren (basically tens of thousands of them) but not children of his own!!

So, feeling cheeky and a lil soft, I drew him some :)) Liu'er is still a very curious character to me though, but I'll give his some comfort instead of murder and angst.

[essektheylyss]

It is very tiring trying to be like "shadowgast cute and soft, make brain go brrr" while simultaneously feeling still that, even a year and a half later, to a loud portion of the fandom, their relationship through the last ten-ish episodes of the campaign didn't "count" because there was not a (mouth-to-mouth) kiss involved, even though their interactions throughout that last arc were absolutely crucial to Caleb's storyline, and gave the impression of prioritizing each other even while focused on averting an apocalypse.

And in particular, the moments they had at the Blooming Grove were very sweet and spoke of the importance they placed on each other and the grace they were willing to extend to themselves in settling what they both still needed to settle before another step could be taken. But evidently that doesn't actually matter because it didn't result in a traditional domestic relationship (ignoring that, clearly, that isn't even really a possibility regardless of their interest, per the two-shot).

If the feeling had not persisted so insidiously among the fandom, I really would not be so persnickety about it, but it has never felt like that subsided and it is simply rearing its head in a far more noticeable way now that those folks can claim there's actually something to "celebrate" to their standards, as though a relationship cannot possibly be real unless you've watched two people stick their tongues down each other's throats.

Like, do people not realize how exclusionary (and, frankly, pretty invasive) that sounds, or do they simply not give a fuck?

[beastweaver]

Niran looked so unhappy, even as a child. I bet he would have dropped out of the Academy and left Vishkar even if he hadn't gone on that backpacking trip

[south-sea]

Ooh, how about "X" for your black arms crew?

i'm including Neutral End in this too yahooo (from this!)

X. What's their biggest fear?

aruna he's been through so much these past 13+ years that he's swung pretty hard into "desensitized" territory. to most, he would seem eerily unfazed and always collected. the exception might be disorientation in relation to waking from particularly nasty nightmares, but those rarely happen, and tend to happen only under specific circumstances, so i'm not counting it.

it's less that he's afraid of traditional tangible things at this point, and more about concepts. the thought of forgetting fills him with so much dread it's hard for him to process. when he starts to get into it, there comes a point where he has to force himself to stop thinking about it or he'll drive himself mad trying to recall what's no longer there, or the sinking feeling that there's something he's already missing.

nearly his entire self-proclaimed purpose in life now, other than to live for himself, is to remember. memories are all he has left to keep his people alive. so for him to forget even the smallest detail is to essentially be a failure who's lost his purpose for living in place of... literally everyone else. the survivor's guilt is real, and it is heavy. it doesn't manifest with sadness. it's simply this.

he likes to think he remembers everything perfectly. time and trauma have seen to it that he does not. he claims his people didn't have songs. he's forgotten black moth knew and sang the last of their kind.

black moth it's a little odd for a "moth", maybe, but bright lights instill an almost primal sense of dread in him. he can't pinpoint any rhyme or reason for it. in most other situations, he'd have the "fight" reaction when adrenaline kicks in, but when it comes to this, he just freezes.

and by bright lights i don't mean just any. it's not as if he's going to freak out if you turn on overhead fluorescent lights or something, even if he's not a fan of those in general. it's if he's already in a dark room and you shine a single beam on him from overhead, or things like extremely bright, large spotlights in the distance.

he assumes it's fear, anyway. maybe it would be more accurate to say it's awe. the last traces of some long-buried memory.

black moth remembers the songs. black doom remembers the illuminated rings their planet had. they've both forgotten pieces of their history they once held dear, and all that's left in those empty places is dread. but maybe it's better to fear this empty unknown than to mourn it.

alt doom defeat or mistakes he can't come back from. he has been beaten and pushed into a corner countless times, but he always comes out on top in some way, or knows when to employ a strategic retreat. this guy is ruthless and thorough in a much more strategic way, or at least the little mishap with gerald taught him to be.

if he knew what aruna had been through to end up with his entire species eradicated, he'd be a) dumbfounded by aruna's "stupidity", and b) horrified by the outcome. alt doom cannot fathom a reason or a route where he himself would get desperate enough for it to end like that. the possibility of losing that badly, and that much, is almost beyond his ability to comprehend.

he's lucky that arrogance hasn't been his undoing. if he were still in existential peril these days, maybe it would be.

neutral end doom he's kind of just aruna give or take some steps, and that's intentional, but by the end he's different enough to have a place on this list. especially since his fear is different: time. he's genuinely just afraid of running out of time, despite staring that fact in the face constantly. past a certain point in his hive, his kind dying and fizzling out is just a known inevitability.

he knows that, and yet he refuses to let it consume him. so he claims. that broken hourglass hangs heavy from his chains.

neutral end shadow honorary black arms. the running trend here is loss. he is keenly aware now-his-kind are going to die. he's seen countless black arms be cut down or wither away. he doesn't want to lose anyone else, least of all black doom or black moth.

it's inevitable, he knows. he's seen the hourglass too. but he'll be thankful for the time they have left until there's no one left to be thankful for.

[fuyumatsu6]

i did another thing in the late hours of the night

'tis the him :3

[random-french-girl]

I wasn’t super into Shelby and Toni in s2 (at the risk of losing my Lesbian Membership Card, I have to confess that I fast-fowarded through some of their scenes when I first watched the season) HOWEVER one thing that interests me, especially with more distance, is to think of their s2 storyline as an escapist fantasy that ultimately proves itself unsustainable.

There is such a weird discrepancy between their scenes and the rest of the girls, at first. We get all these lovely, romantic, intimate moments of them making out in the woods with beautiful lighting, of them being happy and in love and cutesy - as if they’re just on an island vacation, as if Nora didn’t disappear, as if Rachel wasn’t drowning in grief and dealing with the loss of a hand, as if Leah wasn’t going nuts and overdosing on pills... On a first watch, I found it jarring. And I think I was supposed to - they make a point to have the characters comment on it in their very first scene. "It doesn’t feel right,” Shelby says. Her actual first words on the island timeline.

So they start the season kind of lost in each other, hiding from the world in their love bubble, and then slowly but surely they are forced to confront the reality of their situation. Three things happen that crack this bubble little by little: the branch falling, the boat, Martha. 

Shelby reacts so strongly to the branch incident that could have killed Toni - it’s like a wake-up call, a stark reminder that this place is dangerous. That they could die. But she gets over it, and when she sees the boat, Shelby is so attached to her home on the island, to this fantasy she’s trying so hard to preserve, that she freezes. The exterior world makes an appearance, and Shelby refuses to let it in. And Toni reacts well to her confession, but part of me can’t help thinking that she’s a little shaken by the revelation (Toni’s face, as she hugs Shelby, is... troubled). Still, she doesn’t let herself really face the scope of what’s happening, the severity of their circumstances, what this boat could have meant - until, of course, Martha gets hurt, and everything comes crashing down for Toni. The bubble explodes. This perfect, magical, naively wishful relationship suddenly becomes impossible - it cannot continue as it has, reality has caught up with them both.

It’s about growing up, right. The island as the coming of age metaphor means they can’t stay forever. Time for the Lost Boys to leave Neverland. So it ends in a breakup - which, hot take, is the best thing that could have happened to them. Now they can focus on building a relationship that is actually grounded in reality, and stronger because of that - something that can last even after they return to the world, because it won’t have been forged in denial of it.

[scientologisabethmoss]

anya weight talk diary entry 2

(trigger warning)

over the last year and a half, i've seen a number of tweets and articles critical of the use of GLP-1 drugs for weight loss that essentially boil down to the overly sentimental idea of "ozempic is an appetite suppressant, it reduces the very human desire for food (and alcohol, and nicotine, and other substances or activities that could be addictive), and doesn't that desire, that want, make us oh so human? isn't that what ~humanity~ is about????"

and i just can't stand it. i really can't. it's so disingenuous and precious to me.

in a few minutes, i'll go to my kitchen and inject myself with zepbound for the third time. i'm entering my third week with it, i'm on 2.5mg at this point, and it's been great! what a fucking RELIEF to not be thinking about food constantly! for me, at this dosage, the effect is subtle, but still noticeable and meaningful. i still ate a whole bacon cheeseburger, with fries and a chocolate milkshake, this afternoon, and i LOVED it. but the thing is that even though i ate that burger 5 hours ago, i'm not hungry for another meal yet! and i cannot overstate how much of a relief that is. there are whole swaths of my day where i simply do not think about food because i am not hungry, and it's as simple as that. but when i do get hungry, and i tuck into a delicious meal, i really and truly enjoy it, just like i always have.

at this low dose, i'd say that i'm only eating between 10-20% less per meal than what i was typically eating in a meal prior to going on this medicine. the real difference i've noticed is that i can go from lunch midday to dinner at 7pm with only an apple as a snack in between.

i just can't stand the idea that constantly battling with a hyperfixation that has become destructive to you in some capacity is the correct, human thing to do. not everything has to be such a fucking slog. sometimes it's okay to make things easier on yourself.

(my mom has been on a GLP-1 drug for at least the last 7 years for her type 2 diabetes, and she's not some ascetic freak of nature. jesus. she's lost about 70 pounds, very gradually over the years, and it's been great for her. and she still can chow down when she wants!)

(also i'm the same level of horny as i've always been, thank you very much. i'm jacking off just fine, and multiple times a week, just in case you were *concerned*.)