#honestly this is mostly about

[seasonallydefective]

Something I cannot recommend enough: picking up a random skill/knowledge just because

Learn to use chopsticks.

Get your weird retro friend to teach you to drive stick.

Take a class in crystallography.

Download Duolingo just to learn Klingon.

Figure out how to contact juggle with fruit.

Maybe it comes in useful. Maybe it’s a fun party trick. Maybe it keeps the depression at bay just a little longer because it’s something to do.

Get out there and go learn something!

[verflares]

(click for higher quality!) draconified link concept ive been chipping away at this past week ..... here's my funny little compendium concept for him:

"A heroic spirit has taken the form of this bestial dragon. Unlike it's kin, this creature exhibits an extremely aggressive disposition. It appears highly territorial, and will relentlessly chase down those who disturb its skywide patrols - of which it seems to be endlessly searching for either a long-time vassal or foe. Unfortunately, it seems the spirit within has long since forgotten exactly who it was looking for…"

[lilacsandlillies]

I was going through the anti Jason Todd tag because I hate myself and want to understand where people who dislike him are coming from and one thing I kept seeing was annoyance at Jason fans who claim that Jason is female coded and realized that the term “female coded” might not be the best term to describe what we mean.

A female coded character in literature and media typically means a character that has no specified gender or otherwise does not have a gender but is obviously meant to be a stand in for a woman or female. Kind of like how Starfire has no specified race (due to being an alien) but is still obviously black coded based on the way she’s drawn and treated by the narrative.

This is slightly different than what we mean when saying that Jason is female coded. It’s not that Jason is literally supposed to be a stand in for a female character, it’s that the way a lot of characters treat him and a lot of the tropes used on him are things that usually saved for female characters, not big buff men like Jason.

To start with, being Robin is narratively (or at least was) very similar to being a woman in a story. Robin is a role made to complement Batman (who we all know is basically the ultimate male power fantasy). Robin’s role is to be an accessory to Batman. Robin can be smart, but not smarter than Batman. Robin can be strong, but not stronger than Batman. Hell, Robin is often kidnapped and used as a literal damsel in distress, a role often regulated for women as a whole.

What sets Jason apart from the other robins (except for Steph) in this regard is that they were allowed to be characters outside of Batman. Dick might not have been the “man” of the story when he’s with Bruce, but when he’s with the teen titans suddenly he’s the smart one who has all the answers. Jason’s Robin was never really allowed this.

Then we get to the most, controversial, part of Jason’s female coding. The fact the he was effectively fridged. Fridging is usually only referred to as frigding if it’s a female character, but Jason’s death checks pretty much all the other boxes needed. An incredibly brutal death that was more about Bruce’s feelings on it than Jason himself.

This is especially apparent when compared to the other Bat characters. For all the female coding, the only other Robin to actually be fridged was Steph (and we all know about the misogyny surrounding her death). Barbara was also kind of fridged during the killing Joke. The only female character to escape this is Cass (to my knowledge). When you look at it through this lens, the fact that the only other characters to be permanently damaged like this for Bruce’s story are female, it’s not hard to see where the idea that Jason is female coded comes from.

You can even find this in Jason’s origin story. Poor little orphan is saved by benevolent billionaire is a role usually saved for little girls, like in Annie.

Despite what you might think, this even continues after Jason’s revival. Jason is still used less as a character and more as a motivation for Bruce. He’s regularly called emotional and hysterical (terms usually used to refer to women).

Jason is first and foremost a victim. A role performed by women in most media. Men are expected to be stoic and “rise above” the things done to them as to not be victims, as continuously shown by the way characters like Nightwing are not allowed to be effected by the horrific things they go through. The fact that Jason is shown the be angry, and sad, and emotional, constantly, and the fact that he’s punished and vilified for it puts him in a place much more similar to a female character.

There’s a reason that so many Jason fans (that like him for a reason past “antihero with guns”) are female. For most characters, when you swap their genders there would be a pretty clear and big difference in the way their story takes place. If you swap Jason’s gender, the story takes place identically.

A lot of this is best shown in men’s reactions to Arkham Knight’s version of Jason. In that game, Jason is similarly angry and emotional, albeit for slightly different reasons. He is also still unmistakably a victim. You’d think the men playing would like him. After all he’s a big cool angsty guy with a lot of guns and muscles. Instead, a lot of men’s thought that he was whiny. That his feelings were annoying.

There’s also something to be said about how his autonomy is regularly undermined by Bruce (specifically in Gotham war) and how his decisions and feeling are constantly treated as if they’re worth less than Bruce’s, but that’s a discussion for another day.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Started a new book series, and has been a journey...an Odyssey, if you will.

[sunkillerlovechild]

batman, superman and robin are literally my favourite trio, they are so special to me

like any time i see someone being like "dick doest have a super" WRONG

he has his uncle clark that would fly him around when he was a kid just because he thought it was so cool and probably helped him with his homework and made sure bruce wasnt being too hard on him and ahhhh

honestly dick and clark and their dynamic just mean so much to me

but also all three of them together, they are like the original crime fighting trio

[starcurtain]

Hear me out. I know it's unlikely that Ratio would ever have been foolish enough to directly get taken in by a scam, but considering that we know:

One of the groups specifically tricked by Kakavasha before he joined the IPC was the Intelligentsia Guild

What he tricked them about was Tayzzyronth's Swarm remnants, the exact same thing we see Ratio investigating in his very first appearance in the game, and

The researchers were described as "extremely cautious"

I am surprised that "Ratio was at least somehow connected to the Intelligentsia Guild team fooled by Kakavasha before he was ever even a Stoneheart" isn't more popular with the Ratio and Aventurine fandom.

Like imagine being Dr. Ratio. You tell your colleagues, "This seems like a scam. Are you sure you should trust this 'local guide' you've made contact with? Tell me about him. A picture? Does this even look like an Egyhazan native to you? I won't save you fools from making idiotic decisions." (You end up having to clean up the aftermath of their idiotic decisions anyway. There is sand in places on your body you didn't even know existed before this. How mortifying for the Guild. For you, by association.)

Then, next thing you know, you get a mission briefing slid across your desk from your IPC connections. They want you to work with their new Stoneheart. You open the packet to see... that little bastard with the enthralling eyes who had your moronic colleagues scrambling in the dirt on a backwater planet for months. Apparently he's made a career out of fooling you your supposedly competent guildmates.

You run off to confront him. You never met him personally back then, but you deserve compensation for the idiocy you were subjected to nonetheless. He deserves to know how much of a pain in the ass he's been in your life already without ever having met your eyes--

He proceeds to shove a gun into your hands and tries to make you an accomplice to a suicide. Apparently, this is normal behavior for the man now called Aventurine. Somehow, it's supposed to prove to you that he is a sane and reliable individual.

Absolutely nothing in your life has been normal since Egyhazo.

You would like to have mundane problems, sometimes.

How do you keep ending up in this beautiful manic clever conman's orbit, and why, like binary stars, can you not escape the gravitational pull?

[theramblingvoid]

Low level/continuous pain tips for writing

Want to avoid the action movie effect and make your character's injuries have realistic lasting impacts? Have a sick character you're using as hurt/comfort fodder? Everyone has tips for how to write Dramatic Intense Agony, but the smaller human details of lasting or low-level discomfort are rarely written in. Here are a few pain mannerisms I like to use as reference:

General

Continuously gritted teeth (may cause headaches or additional jaw pain over time)

Irritability, increased sensitivity to lights, sounds, etc

Repetitive movements (fidgeting, unable to sit still, slight rocking or other habitual movement to self-soothe)

Soft groaning or whimpering, when pain increases or when others aren't around

Heavier breathing, panting, may be deeper or shallower than normal

Moving less quickly, resistant to unnecessary movement

Itching in the case of healing wounds

Subconsciously hunching around the pain (eg. slumped shoulders or bad posture for gut pain)

Using a hand to steady themself when walking past walls, counters, etc (also applies to illness)

Narration-wise: may not notice the pain was there until it's gone because they got so used to it, or may not realize how bad it was until it gets better

May stop mentioning it outright to other people unless they specifically ask or the pain increases

Limb pain

Subtly leaning on surfaces whenever possible to take weight off foot/leg pain

Rubbing sore spots while thinking or resting

Wincing and switching to using other limb frequently (new/forgettable pain) or developed habit of using non dominant limb for tasks (constant/long term pain)

Propping leg up when sitting to reduce inflammation

Holding arm closer to body/moving it less

Moving differently to avoid bending joints (eg. bending at the waist instead of the knees to pick something up)

Nausea/fever/non-pain discomfort

Many of the same things as above (groaning, leaning, differences in movement)

May avoid sudden movements or turning head for nausea

Urge to press up against cold surfaces for fever

Glazed eyes, fixed stare, may take longer to process words or get their attention

Shivering, shaking, loss of fine motor control

If you have any more details that you personally use to bring characters to life in these situations, I'd love to hear them! I'm always looking for ways to make my guys suffer more write people with more realism :)

[likesdoodling]

Doodles :D

[snarkspawn]

some KoD/Spirealm sketches

[turtleblogatlast]

Love the thought of Leo just casually being well traveled to absurd degrees. Like one day they’re facing their new Big Bad of the year and like, Draxum or whoever says that the key to their fight is located somewhere in, like, Latvia or some place, but no one knows where to start.

Then Leo’s like “oh I know a place” and when asked how the heck he could know of one it smash cuts to Leo falling through the ceiling of said place due to a portal mishap.

Also love the idea of Leo, being as accidentally (and then later, purposefully) well traveled as he is, sometimes taking his family on outings to different places all over, maybe to some new Yokai spots he found along the way.

In these places, Leo 100% lets his bros get scammed by tourist traps.

[ghosty-ghouls]

“Oh you just haven’t met the right person yet”

Fuckin I don’t know. Maybe. But like shove off actually cause even if you’re right I still CURRENTLY feel the way I do, and living in the present is important or some shit. Like there’s always a chance you could realize your title for yourself or your identity isn’t exactly accurate, but you’re still living that way until then? Like idk

[epickiya722]

Megumi... Megumi, why are you sitting like that? 😭

[potofsoup]

Happy 10th year of me doing this dorky comic! Hope people don't mind the fact that I haven't really dabbled in Cap stuff for a few years, except for my weird yearly July 4th ritual. On AO3 here, and tumblr tag here. (2022 was about Dobbs, 2020 was about seeing the stars, 2019 was about building new systems, 2018 was about voting, 2017 was about immigration.)

@histrionic-dragon tagged me yesterday and posted a bunch of cool links of ways to help: https://histrionic-dragon.tumblr.com/post/721837010124488704/almost-captain-americas-birthday

Rail workers paid sick leave: https://www.ibew.org/media-center/Articles/23Daily/2306/230620_IBEWandPaid

Lots of posts out there on the 2023 Minnesota legislative session, but here's the OG tumblr roundup post.

California is trying to divest its two largest pension funds from fossil fuels, but apparently today they decided to table it until next year. :/ I guess more meetings are needed! (productive ones, not ones that could have been an email.)

[fox-guardian]

[ID: A digital sketchpage of Colin Becher from The Magnus Protocol on a gray background. He is a thin white man with a receding hairline and a blonde mullet that is very long in the back, tied into a low ponytail. He also has a mustache, patchy facial hair, body hair, and blue eyes. In four out of five sketches, Colin is wearing silver stud earrings, rectangular glasses with yellow lenses, a yellow t-shirt under a light blue button down, a light brown zip-up hoodie, blue jeans with brown knee patches, blue and white striped socks, brown sneakers, and bracelets including a braided one with pink and burgundy threads. On the right, there's a shoulder-up sketch of Colin with his body facing to the side while he turns his head to the viewer, looking angry. Below that is a far less detailed doodle of him on all fours like some kind of creature. On the far left is a shoulders-up sketch of him leaning against his hand looking tired with one eyebrow raised. Below that is a drawing of him facing away from the viewer on all fours looking under something with a little dark smudge above him denoting annoyance. In the middle is a full-body drawing of him posed as though sitting with one leg bent as he holds a game controller. He is wearing his glasses and earrings, as well as a white crop top that says "slut.exe" in blue text, yellow underwear, and blue and white thigh-high socks. He looks focused but also relatively relaxed. end ID]

~~~~

normal about that IT manager

and yes whenever i draw him with striped socks i need you all to know that they're the programmer socks. alice gave them to him mostly as a joke but he actually loves them and that's one reason they're buds in my mind

[thresholdbb]

I have a gripe about the Star Trek mugs...

Picard's teacup is a delicate, fragile little thing held by a strip of plastic and a dream. That thin glass will break if you look at it sideways. And where do they put that ridiculous tiny cup? On the Enterprise, which is always being dragged into conflict

The DS9 raktajino mugs are hefty, wide-based things that are meant to not tip over. They're called no-spill mugs. They have a foam piece on the bottom so they don't slip. They're incredibly sturdy – meant for ships and traveling! Where do they put them? At the station, which is arguably the most stable place they could be cause DS9 rarely gets knocked about.

Far as I'm concerned, Janeway's the only one doing practical space mugs correctly. Come on, a metal travel mug that's as strong as her coffee is black? Takes a beating through 70,000 light years of bridge shakes fighting off the Borg and the Hirogen and still holds a hot drink? Now that's a space mug

[magicpiano]

I have seen a few DCxMarvel dimension travel fics, and quite a few of them are of them are Peter Parker post-blip. Which gives me a crack fic idea: everyone who got snapped ended up in the DC universe. Yes, all of them.

The current world population is around eight billion, so half of that would be 4 billion... Yeah that would cause so so so many problems. But the DC universe is used to crazy shit.

Obviously there would be a sudden influx of "new" heroes and villains but with absolutely no context it is hard to figure out who is who.

Batman immediately trying to make contingency plans for all these new heroes and villains as well as figure out their civilian identities but this is very difficult because literally no records exist yet.

Magic users from both worlds team up, but I think they were still unable to fix it, the infinity stones were just too powerful. Also I think Dr. Strange and Constantine can't stand each other.

While I am at it, Wonder Woman and Loki would probably hate each other too. DC is more Greek but it has had their own version of Norse mythology, so maybe they are the same and have beef?

They would struggle to feed and house that many new people, but getting them jobs and integrating them into society would be hard too. And good luck proving anything anyone says. "You swear you have a law degree from Harvard? Okay I guess."

Do doubles exist? Yeah a lot of people probably don't have an alternate universe double, but it stands to reason some do. How do you deal with having a new kind-of twin? Or a dead friend or relative coming back, but different? Or even someone you never knew/doesn't exist in this world insisting they are family.

Some au double ideas I have seen people toss around are: Dick Grayson as Richard Parker, Kara Danvers as Carol Danvers, Steve Trevor as Steve Rogers, and Slade Wilson as/being somehow related to Wade Wilson, but I am sure there are other fun ideas out there too.

The snap didn't just affect humans/earth! So other planets are having the same problems.

Then randomly, five years later, just when people were getting used to the change, they all disappear again without warning. This causes as many problems as the original appearance did.