#comparison operator

[thegreatyin]

this is such a fascinating list. congratulations to toxic wolfgirl yuri for absolutely sweeping, apparently

[quibbs126]

I feel like I need more content of TF One Megatron being unequivocally the youngest member of the Decepticons

Sure yes, in the angst/serious department because I eat that stuff up, but in this instance I mean more like in the funny department. Like, he’s casually making everyone else feel old and barely trying

Like talking about how a holofilm they remember going out to see was made before he was born, or he thinks they’re talking about a remake they didn’t even know existed. Or talking about video games and the High Guard not realizing how far the technology advanced, and so what they considered cutting edge mechanics is archaic to him. Or how their lingo or whatever you call it is painfully outdated and they have no clue what he’s even saying when he uses his. He’s defeating everyone here with the power of being from the youngest generation

I just think it’s really funny and I want to see more of it

Though also not just him making everyone else feel old, but also him just doing young person things in general. He’s <50 years old, he should be allowed to act like it

[idlenight]

yknow. its kind of interesting to me Drifter tends to refer to the Operator as "(the) Kid".

Its the kid version of you, and your father called you something close (kiddo), and so does the malevolent entity you made a deal with. But also how else are you going to refer to the you that is stuck being a kid?

So it sits between cute callback to something your father did and the creepy thing the Man in the Wall does.

[toxifoxx]

the nature of being a william afton fan is every so often a new character comes out that people can somehow connect to william in the most annoying way possible

[i-will-physically-fight-you]

6. “Not to be dramatic, but I’m back from the dead. Hope y’all missed me.” With Virgil and Remus?

Title: On a Stormy Sea of Emotion

Word-Count: 1.7k

Summary:

"Not to be dramatic, but I'm back from the dead. Surprise!" Remus shoots a pair of finger guns, droplets of blood spraying out from his finger tips, "Hope y'all missed me."

The cloaked figure, the target of his finger guns, does not move. Their facemask, elegantly carved to mimic a raven, stares Remus down apathetically.

Remus laughs, clasping his hands behind his neck as he leans against a building that makes up the alleyway of their standoff, "C'mon, old man. I clawed myself out of the grave and this is how you treat your 'beloved son, departed from the earth too soon?'"

OR: a Superhero AU featuring Jason Todd coded-Remus.

Pairing: parental dukexity

Warnings: Superhero AU, Death mentions, blood mention, vomit mention, implied self harm, pstd flashback, morally grey characters, angst with ambiguous ending

Thank you for the prompt! This infected my brain all last night and today, hope you enjoy <3

-

Killing isn't that hard of an action, really. There is a million ways to kill someone. Guns, knives, poison or the way Remus liked it--using your bare hands. It wasn't always the most effective, but when your target knocks your knife out of your hands--well, then you gotta go for the jugular.

Remus hums as he picks up his knife, examining it. The blood dripping from its blade landed on his gloves, coating it with a metallic stench. One time as a kid, he received a paper cut and out of curiosity, he stuck his finger inside his mouth to taste his own blood.

It just had a copper tangy taste, not very appetizing. But well, he's never tried someone else's blood, what if it had a different taste? Would a greedy drug lord's blood taste too greasy? Tainted by their lack of remorse and regard for the suffering and lives destroyed in their avaricious pursuit of wealth?

He is almost halfway to enacting on such an impulse, when something shifts behind him. He turns around swiftly, his knife meeting nothing but air. But there is something there, or rather someone.

Remus cackles, his eyes darting around his surroundings. There, in the shadows of the nearby dumpster. He lowers his knife, putting it away for now.

His heart clangs loudly against his ribcage as his ears began to clamor with a loud ringing noise. This moment has always been inevitable since the second he decided to remain in this hellish city.

Remus is many things, but he is not a fool nor is he a coward. He is exhilarated this moment has come at last. Not terrified.

"Hello daddy dearest," He calls out, "it's been a while."

His words are enough to draw out the cloaked figure from out of the shadows.

"Not to be dramatic, but I'm back from the dead. Surprise!" Remus shoots a pair of finger guns, droplets of blood spraying out from his finger tips, "Hope y'all missed me."

The cloaked figure, the target of his finger guns, does not move. Their facemask, elegantly carved to mimic a raven, stares Remus down apathetically.

Remus laughs, clasping his hands behind his neck as he leans against a building that makes up the alleyway of their standoff, "C'mon, old man. I clawed myself out of the grave and this is how you treat your 'beloved son, departed from the earth too soon?'"

He already knows the truth; maybe there was a time this man had regarded him as a beloved son. Back when Remus had been a quiet, subdued child, perfectly manageable and obedient. But that time had long passed.

"I know I probably should've stayed dead but you know me! I'm not great at following rules."

Virgil Storm, or in this case, "The Raven" still doesn't do anything. It is a little unnerving, actually. Remus had expected there to be harsh words thrown his way, or perhaps even be pinned into a chokehold by this point in the interaction.

The Raven doesn't kill. During his first bout at the whole being alive thing, that been a contentious point between the two. Yet, would an abomination like Remus count as a living being?

"And," Remus says abruptly, shifting his weight against the wall, "you can't kill me. You can try, but like. It won't work. I jumped off like a twenty story building--went splat! Like a bug, it was really messy, but I didn't die. Um, you can take a DNA sample to prove it's me--"

"Remus?" The Raven speaks at last, his voice garbled and gravelly from the voice modifier of the mask.

"Yeah, it's me. I mean, we both know Prince Boring doesn't have the guts to pull off a prank like this," Remus smirks, "I'm sure he's happy that I haven't been around to play screamo when I have the aux or fill his backpack with severed Barbie doll heads."

The Raven's cloaked figure starts staggering towards him. Remus moves to stand upright once more, his body tensing. He can take the punch, it'll hurt but it won't leave any bruises. Remus has done enough experimenting to know he can't be physically harmed anymore. At least not permanently in any way that matters.

But rather a punch thrown his way, the Raven's arms seize hold of him. Not around his neck, but around his body, as the Raven leans around him, his cloak wrapping around Remus like a blanket. He is...hugging Remus? What the fuck?

A cold pricking sensation hits Remus, spreading out through every inch of his body. But he does not move to resist the Raven's embrace.

"I'm sorry," His adoptive father murmurs, "I made so many mistakes, I was afraid but I shouldn't have allowed my fear to control me in the way that I did--"

"Aren't you paranoid?" Remus whispers, "What if I'm not actually Remus? What if I'm just a shapeshifter pretending to be him? Or--or something else?"

"But I know you're you. Do you really think I wouldn't have investigated the assumed grave robbery of my son's corpse?" The Raven counters, "I already have a DNA sample I collected from your confrontation with the Dragon Witch analyzed."

Of course, of course Virgil already had a DNA sample. To any sane person, this might've been a horrifying realization. But for Remus, who spent ten years under the man's roof, this was perfectly normal behavior of a man obsessive enough to run around as a nonpowered cloaked vigilante.

"Remus, you have every reason to hate me or even Roman," The voice modifier pitched upwards in an odd high tone, "but would you'd be willing to come home for at least Janus's sake?"

Remus forgets how to breathe for a moment. There are many reasons why he hasn't sought out his family. He isn't sure if he is willing to accept Virgil's apology, much less risk seeing Roman's face again. But Janus is different. He has always understood Remus in the ways the others never did.

Despite Janus being Virgil's "man in the chair" as it were, he has never operated with the same morals. Remus will never forget the time some henchmen broke into their secret hideout while Virgil and Roman had been away on a mission. Janus had not hesitated to put lead directly into their foreheads.

"I'm afraid I don't indulge in the same mercy as your father," Janus had said, tidying up the mess they'd left behind, "It is my duty to preserve the safety of those I've been sworn to protect, even if comes at the lives of others."

The Raven is a vigilante that is shrouded in mystery. There are rumors that circulate the streets that the Raven is inhuman, a being that moves swiftly and strikes without warning. Some even dare to whisper about the unfortunate ends that some of the Raven's victims have met. What they don't know is that last bit is all of Janus's doing.

It's why Remus has never understood Virgil's hypocrisy. He'll turn a blind eye to Janus's actions but Remus, roughing up a thug a little too harshly? Oh no, no, no, that was the most heinous thing Remus could ever do.

(He wonders what his adoptive father thinks of his actions not only tonight, but the past few months. Isn't this everything his father feared and more? Putting aside the whole "not being dead" thing, isn't this enough to make him irredeemable in the Raven's eyes?)

"Janus?" Remus hesitates, "would he be willing to make his tea?"

"For you, I am sure he is willing to prepare a full spread of pastries along with a pot of tea. He has...missed you a lot, Remus."

Remus's stomach rumbles. He hasn't eaten in weeks--not since he realized his body technically doesn't need food to survive. But he does need Janus's pastries. Those pastries are never a want, but a necessity.

"Okay, I'll go." Remus says, craning his neck to meet the Raven's gaze, "but only because I'm hungry."

Somehow, this causes a snort from his adoptive father. The closest thing resembling a laugh that the Raven will ever do. When he is not the Raven, and is simply Virgil--sometimes the man will actually laugh. Even so, that snort is the closest thing to a laugh that Remus has heard from the man in close to a year before his death.

Remus's legs buckle beneath him, almost bringing the Raven down with him. But it's not from the shock of the old man laughing. No, it's more likely his body protesting his week long streak of not sleeping.

It seems even though he doesn't require as much sleep as before, he still requires a certain amount of it. Or at least, that is what makes the most sense in his hazy racing thoughts.

"I've got you," Virgil whispers, his words unfettered by the voice modifier, "you're safe now."

Arms gather underneath him, as a long Kevlar cloak is draped around his wiry figure. An unwanted memory drifts to the surface; a time where his kid self demanded to be carried home and the Raven obliged without complaint. Roman had trailed after them, begging to be carried as well.

Janus had taken one look at their return (Roman clinging to Virgil's back like a baby koala while Remus was cradled in his arms) and simply raised an eyebrow. But it was clear through his stifled breathing that he found the entire thing comical.

Remus doesn't want to fall unconscious. He'll deny it, protest it with a wide grin and a cackle, that death doesn't scare him. But he is terrified of pitch black darkness.

He fears a confined undetermined space that is meant to seal him away deep in the ground. He fears wood splinters underneath his fingernails as he chokes on dirt as he continues to dig upwards, driven by an urge to survive--to break out of the ground to blessed, fresh air. He fears staring at a gravestone and just laughing until he started vomiting clods of dirt.

What if Virgil is lying about Janus? What if he decides to bury Remus again, this time in a coffin made out of titanium or reinforced concrete--dooming him to a living death?

"No," He mumbles, attempting to grasp tightly to Virgil's cloak, "I don't--"

But his eyes flutter shut against his volition, and he can only hope that they truly did miss him enough; that the words carved on his gravestone were genuine and sincere.

Remus Seagrove

20XX-20XXX

Beloved Son, Brother, Friend

Dearly Missed and Departed from the Earth too Soon

[alteredsilicone]

I like the idea of the Operators being "mature" but in the sense that, due to being molded into child soldiers, they were forced to grow up way too fast and the obvious trauma and mental dysfunction that comes from such circumstances shines through. Like, even the Tenno that embody the "look inside a broken thing and take away its pain" are unsettling in the way that a young child should not be taking on such burdens... Worst of all - they're essentially godlike creatures, so there really is nobody else that understands their struggle or can truly comfort them. Margulis tried, the Lotus tries but the Tenno are still alone in their predicament.

[thirdtimed]

scar is usually weirdly intimidating in other ppls povs but he seems exactly like a jolly old(if a bit conniving) little guy in bdubs' last life. but also maybe that is just because it is bdubs

[simonespeaks]

unpopular opinion: ra-im is by far the most interesting character in operation true love. the writers did a great job making her complex. she’s an absolute mess of maladaptive coping practices because of her unprocessed grief and the inability to fill the void her mother left. she’s knows she’s wrong, but doesn’t know how to get help so she can stop and that results in her sinking deeper into wrong doing. she is hurting and therefore pushing su-ae away despite the fact that she does care for her. with ra-im you get to see how grief and isolation turns her into the worst version of herself and that is why i am the exact opposite of the most of webtoon comments; when ra-im appears i tune the fuck in because i know the writers are gonna do something.

[catenary-chad]

I think the funniest instance of “you have to know almost nothing about actual trains or deliberately ignore everything post 60s to get behind Rusty” is MJ thinking steam engines just had push button start and being disappointed to learn otherwise when he got one for Neverland Ranch in 90s (AFTER he saw the show and said he’d want to be Rusty)

edit: source appears to just be “rumor” which on one hand is VERY unreliable with MJ. On the other hand it’s pretty believable because I’ve never heard much about him being mechanically inclined and a lot of people know very little about trains.

“He's apparently got quite a few of his own people staffing the place. One rumor suggested a paid engineer to keep the fire up all night so he could take a 'night ride' (as neighbors will supposedly say is true). I was told the client had some issue realizing a steam locomotive was the farthest thing from a "turnkey" machine, which he apparently expected.”

(there’s an interview with actual staff I’m listening to for details though)

[sealer-of-wenkamui]

The final 3 episodes are all really good ones imo… today was 22, Bilbul (bind), which the Japanese part of the name is 桎梏 read “shikkoku” which interestingly enough, is also how 執国 is read (which they translated as Regent, looking around, it seems to be a title made up for ergo proxy) so that has to be intentional, with him having just been killed, and the relationship between him and Ergo/One finally coming to light.

One ripped off his own arm to prevent the FP rays from killing him, and the rest of Raul’s now panicked shots miss, and he runs off in fear (and they then show Pino’s crayon breaking at this moment…)

The two Reals meet… though Re-l says no that’s me, not you, likely further going against all she’s been raised to know. And this line here… it seems her encounter earlier has awakened her as “Monad”. (And by getting Vince to remember, does she mean because Re-l herself is an incomplete Monad clone..?) With how much control Daedalus seems to want over her, I wonder how she learned of Vincent, was it her own poking around, or even Proxy One’s manipulation? I could see him luring her to Monad’s room when Vince is there to push Daedalus into destroying Romdo. It is implied he had some hand in that… Or simply her being drawn to Monad’s room by who she is and knowing Ergo naturally came to her? She’s not carrying her thread in the scene with Monad and Ergo either so maybe that’s implying it’s out of Daedalus’ knowledge…?

And she knows he’s the creator and now shares the same goal the original Monad seemed to have, to save Vince by letting him forget his burdens. Daedalus seems happy she awakens as a full god in the final episode but I don’t think he wanted her to have Monad’s feelings because that would mean love for someone other than him. But it’s too late that meeting has changed her…

Idk why the subs used “Regent” here, Daedalus used the term 代表 (representative) like he usually does. They got that right in Cytotropism too so idk why not here??

He straight up ignores Re-l asking about Real, and simply talks to her instead… but now she wants to see Vince… the soft “eh?” When she first says it…. She’s the one thing he’s clinging to, to keep his raison d’être and now she’s starting to slip away too… (He’s figured out Ergo is the creator of Romdo, and I wonder how much he knows of the Ergo-Monad connection…? He has to suspect something with how he was in charge of the care of both Monad and Re-l, and thought to make a clone of Re-l from Monad..so I suspect he’d not be too eager to tell his Real about Vincent, but it’s too late, just from that one meeting she felt that connection)

And then Re-l starts going on about Vincent too and he looks so fed up with it, both of them lost to Vincent!

He’s always so calm, so it’s pretty shocking to see him snap like this and yell at her to kill Vincent then if he’s the one that killed the Regent! Before simply leaving calmly stating he has to find his Real… he can’t let her slip through his grasp….

He’s not hiding it anymore, he’s desperate to be loved by her, and has already gone to disturbing lengths for that.

As far as I gather it’s technically One that created Romdo, but here they say Ergo left Donov in charge.. but he may have split off by then since he’s One’s despair. The attack on Mosk is said to be of vengeance as well and the collective speaks of how she “stole their light”, now I think this refers to how Monad wanted to save Ergo but the way she wanted to do that was by having him forsake his role as creator. Well intentioned on her part but it screws over his creations… and the next scene is even Real(/monad) saying he doesn’t have to suffer anymore.

The final confrontation between Raul and Daedalus in the lab is one of my all time favorite scenes. I wonder if he suspected Real being a proxy once he recognized her as the girl he met earlier, is there any other being that could grow up that fast? And he personally gave Monad back to Daedalus too… and Real herself seems to be still trying to be good for Daedalus for now, cause she’s like hey I did what you asked. But she seems unsure about things in this scene.

Raul is positively desperate now, killing Vince is the only thing on his mind so he needs those FP shells now, but to Daedalus? He doesn’t matter anymore, hell he’s surprised he’s still alive and uses his desperation to openly mock him. Pretending he forgot where he put them then saying oh yeah I got rid of them and laughing at his shocked face. Raul must have gotten them from him since Daedalus was technically working under him, but Daedalus doesn’t need him anymore!

(I like how Raul knocks the thread out of her hand in anger)

Daedalus being so confident and openly stating he got what he wanted. (I love even the way he’s sitting on the couch, he’s in control here and looking down at Raul) He has Real so nothing else matters. Also I love how Real seems… rather unsure of things here, she looks away from Daedalus when he’s stroking her hair (once again, I cannot imagine him being this physically affectionate with Re-l, but this is HIS Real who he’s raised to love only him)

Raul isn’t exactly wrong in what he’s saying though, Daedalus IS in denial and essentially waiting for the end with a fake Re-l, he’s just good at convincing himself that she’s the real thing (and well. Desperate.)

Daedalus quoting the whole “fellow citizens, throw things away” message in reference to Raul is so damn good, also him mocking the way he always goes “beautiful” by saying hey this isn’t beautiful Chief Raul.

And Raul saying he won’t give into depravity (kinda insinuating Daedalus has) and will fight to the end… I do strongly believe the two of them were written to be foils to each other, and this scene exemplifies that difference between them. Daedalus, who recognizes they are failures and so simply waits for the end with his Real, and Raul, who knows they’re failures too, but refuses to give up. And also Raul’s flaring emotions vs Daedalus’ calmness. Clinging to a god (Real/Monad) vs remove the need for gods.

This is still one of my favorite shots and lines. Daedalus smug with a gun to his head, calmly stating 「お好きに。」　(Kobayashi nailing the delivery as always, idk why but this one line really stuck with me). He is awaiting death, sure, but I get the impression he was confident she would defend him. And maybe it was also to solidify that belief after she was starting to talk about Vince.

I love how they make you think Daedalus got shot here, they even have a scene later on that avoids showing Raul from below the chest. Looks like two bloodstains here the one on the right looks like it was splattered at high speeds so from the gunshot hitting Real? (But he was out of FP rounds so she would be fine I mean we saw One regenerate an entire arm) and the second pool from Raul being mortally wounded by her…? <-thinking too much on a minor point

Man, Re-l talking about how everyone who supported her leaving… yeah they sure are… she already lost Iggy, Daedalus has gone mad and rejects her, her grandfather has been killed, and now Vince may or may not be himself anymore…

Raul’s little smile when he sees Pino’s adorable drawing of the two of them kills me 😭 the way he’s been so set on killing Vince, but after being mortally wounded, his mind goes to what’s most important to him, Pino…. And wanting to see her once more… (and it’s not sometime out of nowhere, they keep emphasizing throughout the series how close the two of them were)

And they don’t even let you know he’s the one dying until Kristeva sees the blood on the floor of his house, and Real is shown with bloody hands

Daedalus is still so confident here, she protected him! Until she says it was because Raul threatened Vince, and his hands immediately freeze. Is this the last straw that pushed him towards the destruction of Romdo itself? (Though he keeps trying to call to her to the very end…)

Raul’s whole death scene remains the saddest part of the show to me, this is my third time through and it’s always the part I cry at… the way they have Pino talking to him (though she hasn’t been able to find him…) overlayed with him staggering around trying to find her… clinging to her drawing… only to be knocked onto a shard of glass and impaled…

It’s one of the scenes I remember most vividly even from 10 years back… (I’ll talk about it more when I get there but the added scene in the disc release makes Daedalus’ death parallel Raul’s- that moment of clarity in their dying moments where their obsessions cool and they realize what is most important)

And finally, Re-l realizes the existence of Proxy One, because she feels different with him than she does Vince, and the curtains are quite literally pulled back to reveal him… it’s very interesting how the show introduces him as a character you technically see a handful of times, and learn of in the game show, but he’s behind the scenes until the end. Also they translated 迷宮 as maze again here but I would have gone with labyrinth, I mean Romdo kinda seems to be compared to the labyrinth and when you have a character called Daedalus, the stricter definition feels more appropriate.

[paper-bag-arts]

feminism is not a competition but if it was jean leslie is winning

[houseofbrat]

“Interesting how the standard always changes according to The Will & Kate Cult.”

Their treatment of Queen Camilla is testament to this. Back when she took a break after the Coronation, they loved nothing more than speculating on her health and insulting her for “not working”, insisting she renounce her position. Now suddenly everyone is entitled to medical privacy, you’re not allowed to speculate about someone’s health and people are entitled to as much as time off as they want.

Or how last year when The King did the keys ceremony in Scotland, they had a field day calling her lazy and questioning why she wasn’t there, when she was never even announced to attend it. Now suddenly, you can just pull out of scheduled engagements 45 minutes before for no reason and you don’t owe anyone an explanation ever.

And instead of holding their favorite to account, they spent their time giving the middle finger to Queen Anne-Marie, desperately wanting to believe she’s Camilla’s sister so they could criticize her. This is the Cambridge Cult in a nutshell, a nasty group of hypocrites:

[rubensmuse]

i'm perfectly comfortable with ignoring everything my Rook says about her backstory in-game in favor of doing what i want. unfortunately i've run into the wall of If she likes the Qun so much what the Fuck is she doing being a video game protagonist, much less a lord of fortune

[topnotchquark]

Behind F1's Velvet Curtain

This article by Kate Wagner on her INEOS sponsored trip to the Austin GP at COTA last year was commissioned by Road and Track magazine and then taken down. Presumably because Kate has was pretty staunch in her opinions about what was essentially a paid trip.

It is exactly the kind of thing I have wanted to read about the felt experience of the money business of F1. It doesn't get into technicalities and does not produce any spreadsheets for reference. It's just, her experience of the presence of wealth in the sport.

She starts off by talking about how she has been covering cycling and NASCAR for a while now and both of those, in comparison, are scrappier sports with smaller sponsors and cheaper tickets.

What I also especially loved was how fascinated she was with the cars themselves, and how they seem like a true marvel of human engineering. She almost described the cars like these alien beasts that came into this dimension out of nowhere and were being constantly monitored and dueled with to furnish wins and glory (and shareholder value for sponsors).

I think I always had an understanding of the weird myth making surrounding F1 and the kind of media attention it attracts, but someone like Kate (who I have loved reading for a while now) putting it into perspective really made it click for me. This sport thrives off of the kind of cocoon it has built around it and understands exactly the certain exclusiveness it needs to maintain to keep the story alive.

Anyway, give it a read, especially because Road and Track is trying to bury it to not piss off sponsors.

[malusrecord]

((I need to outline this properly on my main page but please note that private and request only muses are completely different beasts in regards to this blog.

Private muses, while also request only, are generally very extreme, very triggering characters and I won't write them with someone who doesn't understand that, how I write them and handle the topics surrounding them, etc. Extensive ooc communication is necessary before interacting can happen.

Request only muses are more like the general muses on offer but my muse for them is finicky/particular, I might have a hard line or two concerning the source material, etc. Ultimately it's much easier to interact with the request only muses compared to the private ones.))

[pochapal]

natsuhi growing more desensitised to the occult stuff in tandem with us the reader being more desensitised to the shock and horror of the murders...multiple layers of Detectivefication going on here