#honestly this may just be my personal opinion. maybe she is goth and I’m just very picky

[hasarjunadoneanythingwrong]

you don't have to answer this ask

but your comment about merlin being prettier than jalter

you're right and you should say it louder, I'M letting you cook

jalter is one of those designs where I can like…understand the basic reasons why people think she’s hot (big titty tsundere in black) but I don’t get why she’s regarded as being one of the objectively hottest fgo characters (disregarding the writing side, speaking just in terms of designing)

Like. Even when her outfit is good she has a mullet? And the long haired bit is just very weirdly shaped?

Or like, her weird ass dresses that make no sense-I’m all for sexy cut outs, but why is there just one small flap on one side? What’s even with the side support?? This this is held on with hopes and dreams and it doesn’t even add to it bc her back is the exact same color as her hair so it all blends together

LIKE WHAT IS THIS??? WHAT IS THIS STUPID FLAP??? It’s not goth and it’s not tasteful asymmetry like her swimsuit it’s just THERE

Also her sword looks like it was wrapped in a spiky pipe cleaner and i hate that, sorry

Honestly, even her bob kind of annoys me despite it being actually accurate for her. Why is it so misshapen and clunky (yes ik irl jeanne just chopped hers off, but jalter was made firstly to look attractive and this is not it)

she isn’t really even that goth in terms of what she wears despite the memes, she really just wears a lot of black (and her first two outfits are tattered at the bottom) other than the Brillo pad handle and the eye shaped pink details there’s nothing that really makes her goth other than her color scheme and I’m a pedantic little hussy so that annoys me

Like idk. I don’t think she’s ugly or partially offensively designed or anything despite my earlier ranting but I don’t understand the absolute death grip she has on so many people even independent of her character arc. Even for a black knight-type design she’s very mildly done

[justsomeoneintoomanyfandoms]

hi! may i request a romantic matchup for star rail, tears of themis, and bungou stray dogs please?

my name is twyla, i go by she/any pronouns, i’m acespec but im ok being matched with any gender. my mbti is intp or istp

appearance: i dye my hair pretty often throughout the year but right now it’s black with magenta pink highlights, exactly like draculaura but with a wolf/butterfly haircut and short/baby bangs. i have brown eyes and i’m quite curvy. i usually dress in a bold alternative style and occasionally academia, my style is really all over the place and depends on how im feeling but i’d say im pretty fashionable and often go out looking like a mall goth HAHA.

personality: im super chill and laid back, nothing really bothers me nor do i show it. im very patient with other people even when im annoyed by them. i come off as very monotone and stoic and i have really dry and sometimes offensive humor that would honestly get me cancelled by twitter in a matter of seconds. i joke around a lot and i usually have trouble taking things seriously. im kind of scatterbrained and get bored easily, and am always seeking some form of entertainment or mental stimulation. i’m definitely a realist too and i don’t expect much out of anything nor do i hold strong opinions or beliefs. im autistic+suspected adhd and that sometimes affects how i interact with others.

likes and dislikes: im honestly super nerdy and really interested in science and math like astrophysics, i love learning how things and the world works. im an astronomy nerd (not astrology/zodiacs im so sorry i kinda hate it with a burning passion) and i love astrophotography and stargazing. i read a lot of encyclopedias and watch documentaries about things i find interesting. im not really sure about the rest of my dislikes honestly, maybe just crowded spaces and rollercoasters

hobbies: a lot of things but i like to read and draw, research stuff, and sometimes cosplay. ive mentioned i liked stargazing and astrophotography too, and photo and video editing. i also play a lot of VN or rhythm games.

thank you!!

Hi Twyla! Your current hair sound awesome! I was a big Monster High kid so it's good to hear there are still fans out there. Thank you for your request! I hope you like your matchups!

In Honkai Star Rail, I match you with...

I'm not super familiar with Arlan's personality yet so hopefully this isn't too out of character!

Arlan's not super into science stuff but he does pick up on a few things working on the Herta Space Station. He'll also try his best to keep up with whatever you're telling him about whatever scientific field has caught you interest.

Would enjoy stargazing with you. The space station is the perfect place to do that anyway and Arlan knows all of the best spots to stargaze from.

His favourite part of stargazing with you though is watching you while you explain everything you know about each constellation. He can't help it. He just thinks your pretty while talking about things you're passionate in. Don't mention the soft smile or the blush on his face...

Your sense of humour balances out Arlan's more serious nature. He likes your jokes but often won't visibly react to them. Later, when he's alone in his room, he'll think back on what you've said thought the day and have a bit of a chuckle to himself.

In Tears of Themis, I match you with...

Marius pays close attention to your interests so he can make you artwork based on them. From paintings of your favourite constellations to sculptures of your favourite cosplays, there's a new art piece being gifted to you every couple of months.

Loves your sense of humour. He can't really make those sort of jokes due to his position (no need to make more scandal than there already is) but he loves it when you make them.

Marius absolutely plays rhythm games with you. He's fairly good at them so he might give you a run for your money. He will let you win on purpose sometimes...

Already has a fairly large collection of books so he's sure there are some on astronomy in there but he'll also buy you astronomy books and encyclopedias whenever he sees on you don't have when he's out.

Marius is definitely the type of person who has hired a observatory for the evening. With just the two of you there, it's nice and quiet and you have access to all of the telescopes.

You can look at the stars and he can watch you. He's happy when you're happy so seeing you enjoy yourself as a result of something he's done means a lot to him.

In Bungo Stray Dogs, I match you with...

Junichiro is another one who will listen to everything you have to say about your interests! He's hanging on every word.

He often feels like one of the less interesting members of the Armed Detective Agency so he's always on the look out for new hobbies and interests to pick up.

Stargazing dates! He'll pack a picnic with your favourite food and drinks and will take some blankets and pillows so you stay warm and comfortable for as long as you want to stay there.

I also see Junichiro as someone who would take you on carnival or arcade dates (avoiding the rollercoasters and the majority of the crowds of course). He'd try to win you some prizes but he'd also love to play the rhythm games with you.

Time spent with Junichiro is always guaranteed to be fun and mentally stimulating.

[freedfromthegalactichivemind]

Anon ask privileges on this blog have hearby been revoked.  I may re-instate them at a future time.  For now, I’m pissed off and safeguarding.  As for the Disk Horse: 

I do not follow anti-spop.  They are a blog I do not wish to follow and, normally, am disinclined to reblog from because...it’s right in the name, “anti.”  As a general rule, I do not follow or very much like critical blogs / salt blogs.  I participate in fandom to have fun.  (And, at this point, a bit out of personal spite since Spop is, by far, THE most toxic fandom I have ever been in.  I could be spending my time frolicking in the peaceful fields of Hyrule, but noooo, my brain’s gotta chew on moody magical teenagers and spacebats).  I also had some people try to kick me out of fandom at one point, so I feel like it’s my duty to hold on like grim death.  I am still here.  I happened to be checking up on a blog I saw come up in my suggestion-feed, remembering a person as a fanfic author I liked, decided to see how they were doing, and, boom, I saw an interesting discussion where they’d reblogged anti-spop’s opinion of the series’ treatment of Kyle.  The series’ treatment of Kyle is one of my pet peeves in the canon (along with Angella’s being trapped in between dimensions forever and not getting to meet a foreshadowed minotuar-princess), so I reblogged and added my two cents. 

After getting home from work (covered in grease and blood and very tired) I moseyed over to check out anti-spop becaue of the anon-rumor.  I scrolled through some of front-page content and didn’t see anything that stood out to me as “racist.”  In fact, I saw their intro-post citing that they are Brazillian / non-white.  So, I suspect they get the accusation of being “racist” a lot by people who disagree with them about Catradora, probably.  A few posts down and I saw them being... very, very anti-catradora.  Having once followed entrapdak-shippers, some of whom really dislike catradora who got into conflicts with catradora-shippers and seeing a lot of rawr back and forth, I did see a lot of heavy catradora-shippers flat out accuse people who did not like the ship of “racism” (because Catra is supposed to be Brazillian / hispanic or something?  I don’t know).  So, given the history of shipper-politics, I really do think someone was rumor-milling me because “oh, no, they follow me / look in on me and see me reblogging something from someone who hates their ship.” 

Look, I’m just tired of the mess.  I am not anti-anything.  Maybe if someone were to start shipping Frosta with Horde Prime or something, but, in general, the shipwars in this fandom tire me and the anti-character rhetoric tires me.  I honestly like all of the characters in spop.  Yes, I’m a primary entrapdak-shipper and Entrapta and Hordak-fan, but.... here’s my little secret...(or not so secret if you’ve followed this blog for a while and seen the kinds of fanart I reblog)... I *don’t* hate Catra.  There was one time when I borderlined on doing so when I was deep into the entrapdak-fan-hole hanging out with a lot of negative fans, but I kind of kicked myself out of it by actually re-watching the series.  I like Catra, a lot.  She’s a great character, very interesting and dynamic.  I might keep Hordak as my evil pookie-bear, but Catra gives me a lot of feels, too.  And I like Catradora.  After chilling out a little and actually observing again Catra’s genuine trying-to-make-good actions in Season 5, I’m really not of the school of “Oh noes, she’s been toxic, therefore she’s toxic forever.”   As someone whose gone through a butt-ton of therapy over the last year because of my own issues... I don’t believe in “toxic forever” in someone who is shown to be trying to make good.  I can’t.  In other words, running it back into fandom... I don’t believe that redemption applies only to tall goth warlords who were raised in cults.   I’m willing to extend redemption in this fandom to everyone but Prime.  (Hell, even Shadow Weaver can get redeemed with a skilled enough fanfic author)!  I don’t even care how the Catra-stans have treated the Hordak-stans anymore or vice versa.  Drop it.  Let it go.   The same for the Glimmadora-shippers or whatever.   And you know what?  Someone may detest your favorite ship for whatever reason.  Doesn’t give them vibes they like.  Maybe they interpret the characters together as toxic or whatever.  It doesn’t mean that you should be making assumptions about them and spreading anon rumors about them that you can’t back up. 

If the blog I reblogged from is, in fact, racist (and isn’t just “they don’t like your ship”) give me examples!  Cite them!  Show me posts where they’re being awful!   Until then, rumors and fandom politics can eat a sack of donkey-dongs. 

[batarangsoundsdumb]

hae interrogationes multae respondeant quia demens .

if you read this entire ask post you deserve a gold star and financial recompensation

Um, Obviously because when you’re adopted by a white guy you automatically become white duhhh

this is about this post lmao and yeah youre absolutely right, you have to hand your poc card in when you get adopted by a white guy.

Do you think Cass would listen to Yanni, the YouTube channel epic symphonic rock, or some other stuff? There's some cool mashups but idk if that's up your alley, I kinda feel like I'm pushing it with my weird taste of music by recommending an orchestra cover of metal, but i just love that sort of thing and mashups :P @harvestyourcherries 

i haven’t heard of that? but in my personal (correct) opinion steph listens to classical music, and then both modern and older, and then also stuff like black sabbath, iron maiden, but also hardrock and hardcore. i like the idea of cass just liking the most extreme screaming songs full of noise and then also listen to pachelbel’s 370th sonata yanno? THANK YOU for the rec tho

speaking of ur cass playlist hc...reminds of the time (yesterday) i found 2 playlists randomly on spotify from the same user. one was abt 3 hours of instrumental/classical "dark" & "nostalgic" music. the other almost 11 hours of nothing but hardcore bass/synth/electronic music. just an incredible tightrope act to put on in public. the synth one was also called like "psalms for synth sluts" which is Also incredible

tbh i LOVE synth SO MUCH like for no reason at all but then also cannot handle a poppy electronic beat lmao. but this seems like the kinda thing i’d do but just in one (1) playlist bc i just sort songs by vibe instead of genre? that’s how i end up with britney spears and billy ray cyrus in the same playlist. 

Oh, I want Kate Kane playlist next! It would be amazing if you could do one when you have time and will 🙏

how rude would it be of me to just say no? like sorry kate but idk you and also you seem way too keen on the us military for an institution that homophobically targeted you? (and also commits war crimes) but let’s unpack the fact that the institution that caused the death of your mom and sister and also got you blacklisted for being gay is still one you align with???

'yes i am' 'no you're not' 'yes i am' 'no you're not' 'yes i am' 'no you're not' 'yes i am' 'no you're not' 'yes i am' 'no you're not' 'yes i am' 'no you're not' --- when i tell you i fucking screamed LOL!!!!!!! i can imagine the cameraman not knowing if he should cut to commercial or keep it on these two weirdos fighting on stage (bruce definitely ruffled dick's hair/noogied him right?? 

about this post but yeah lmao. this cameraman just turns to like the audience to get a reaction and it’s just multiple moments of CLEAR shock.

you are the only funny person on this hellsite

how egotistical is it for me to say that i get this ask multiple times a month? bc it literally happens so often it’s hilarious to me.

Wish there was more john/Bruce content 😔😔😔 was so hungry I actually looked at canon media 😔😔😔 (Justice League Dark babeeeyyyyyy)

check out batman: damned for some mediocre content but at least it’s john/bruce (also very interesting story and stuff, just got very >:( over this weird part where harley quinn tried to r*pe bruce or something? it’s not for everyone)

dick grayson but he's nicki minaj

his anaconda don’t want none,,, unless...... 

Dick Grayson was never a cop, he played Marshall on Paw Patrol

you are SO right. also paw patrol is a fucking good show idc. that shit could’ve been the new steven universe on this hellsite.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CS1lI0bLI7-/?utm_medium=copy_link

...

why do people keep reposting my CONTENT. if you are not funny yourself don’t just grab shit off of tumblr and post it on insta,,, get a life. sidenote: should i start an insta and get all these ppl to take my content down that would be funny as hell.

Might I suggest for a Gotham City Meme: something about the true crime fandom thirsting for the rogues gallery

ok can i just say something slightly controversial?? no? i don’t find true crime ppl who are into criminals funny, that shits disturbing irl im not gonna bring that into my very chill universe.

i may have never seen a 'jason cleaning guns in sink' fic but i do know he WOULD

THANK YOU

bestie im sorry to say this to you but while you can, and people do wash their guns in the sink, that is a lot of lead in a very vital part of the kitchen.

people tend to do it in the bathtub.

WHY???? like damn why do you even have guns

i dont think i read many gun sink fics exactly but i have read lots of fics where jason cleanes his guns in the living room. usualy dissembles them and cleans them with a rag i think

lmao fair enough, like i think that’s a large part of what i remember as well.

if you say you've seen/read gun sink fics I believe you. I think those of us who didn't see them are lucky or maybe didn't search for fics by tags or something idk

i mean ive never sought them out but i HAVE seen them,, like definitely i know almost for certain.

saw your tags and I'm interested in Steph/Kara now. They would be the most chaotic couple <3

literally thoooo, i have a wip where they get together in a zombie apocalypse and like UGGGHhhh i am so in love with them.

I am the Breece anon. Thanks for the recommendation; am reading now. I’ve always been a hardcore Superman fan because I love my pure himbo farm boy. My logic is, if one Bruce is a Broose, then multiple Broose are a herd of Breece. And this is a hill upon which I will perish.

fair enough,,,, like moose, meese, goose, geese, bruce, breece. i get your logic and i stand by it as well. (glad you enjoyed the comic recs!!!!)

It's a beautiful day in Gotham, and you are a group of horrible Breece

OH my god dude lmao

there only being 42 fics on ao3 for tim and bernard is honestly so sad i need more

it’s like twice that now!!! we did it lads. (tho very sad that my fic isnt number one but like number 4 :((((  )

i'm too late you already did the poll lol but may i suggest bethy (bernard + timothy)

shit dude that wouldve been so fucking funnyyyyy. think ppl have just stuck to timber tho, tim/bernard kinda died down recently and i think it’s too bad, they’re a great couple and i love them.

Wait, hear me out

Bernothy @redlightofdawn

great recommendation (lmao this ask is from like a month ago) but very sorry to announce that NARDTH is the superior shipname

Wait, we know that bernard likes milfs (Tim's step-mom) but what about dilfs? gilfs?

Wait no, I regret sending that ask

these were two seperate asks and they’re HILARIOUS. in my personal opinion tho,,, milfs, gilfs, dilfs are just about vibes and bernard is just attracted to sexy ppl who may sometimes be milfs, dilfs, or EVEN gilfs.

crime in bludhaven would drop to half if nightwing had a boob window. in this essay i will-

WHERE’S THE ESSAY ANON, WHERE’S THE FUCKING ESSAY

Wait if Barbra and Tim r at opposite ends at all times what happened to Barbra once everyone’s Tim’s ever love before started dying lol

she won a lottery ticket and spent 2 weeks on a resort in the bahamas before returning home and finding out that the joker was arrested for tax evasion and then spent a month staying at her big tiddie goth girlfriend’s house before conner came back to life and she broke her pinkie playing table hockey.

Why is the opposite end thing so funny and compelling to me. Tim comes back from his depression quest for Bruce and Babs is now a literal god

lmao when tim loses his spleen barbara reaches nirvana.

Are you still taking music recs because I have three songs that remind me of Jason that I think you'd like

send to me or lose a toe

🌸 ⭐ put this star into the inbox of your favorite blogs. it’s time to spread positivity! ⭐🌸😋

thanks, i wont tho on account of i wont.

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMduBy3Sr/

⬆️

This is the whole of Blüdhaven and everyone anywhere.

Nightwings ass alone saves more people in a calendar year and does more for so society than most heroes do their whole career.Also u are one of the funniest tumblr pages out there. The vibes are unmatched and the memes and tags ✨send me✨.Thank u and goodnight @julia-flow 

fanksss also lmao.

That's going to be a little bit difficult to explain, but

There's some music that you listen to and you think, "oh my gosh, I can perfectly imagine Dick Grayson singing this song, with the same voice as the singer because that voice matches with Dick Grayson"?

oh yeah totally lmao. i have a lot of songs that i think are just entirely dick grayson yanno? kind of all of my playlists have that vibe, but i really find bleachers to fit with dick? idk.

"Lois lane/Superman" fics this, "Lois lane/Clark Kent" fics that, (/lh) let's get into the real good stuff. Some people ship Lois, Clark, and Superman as a throuple. Most popular fic tag for sure

yes totally, i think they’d be absolutely killer on ao3 and clark gets so fucking embarassed about it.

I miss your post, hope you’re doing okay!!

haha this was like 2 months ago, but i was doing fine then too! just didn’t have a lot of inspiration in terms of content.

Doot doot!

noot noot

I’m confused. What did DC do now? Like with nightwing? And another sibling? Please spoil everything for me

lmao they gave him a secret sister plotline where they had his dad cheat on his mom with tony zucco’s wife, bc dick’s life wasn’t traumatic enough yet.

sorry but it's so funny that batman is called "the dark knight" when the gotham city baseball team is called the gotham knights. it'd be like if a vigilante was running around new york called like "the scary yankee"

lmaooo no. but like yankee comes from dutch names or something so wouldnt it be HILARIOUS if gotham knights came from like german names and bruce would be running around called the dark KLAUS UND NIEK @graysonnightwing 

(not a batcest shipper) it’s so funny to me that the responses are “i’m a batcest shipper because i can differentiate fiction from reality and and it doesn’t bother me personally, but i understand why you oils think it’s weird” to “i wish all batcest shippers a very fucking die”

yeah lmaoo. i personally basically flipped my entire stance around to ‘i dont care please leave me and everybody else alone’ bc i think there’s really no point in starting a moral dillema over some fucking fandom bullshit. Please just,,, go home,,, log off, find a nice forest to have a little walk in and remember that somewhere in history, somebody probably died in the place you’re standing. and you will also die someday, and somebody will have to look at your internet usage and see you fighting multiple people anonymously while being named ‘nightwingsbuttchin200186′ like... calm down, we’re all gonna die this is not the thing to worry about.

so since like "wards" don't really exist in modern society almost all the batkids are foster kids, right? i used to work in the system and imagine: monthly visits from social workers and guardian ad litems, bruce having to get permission to take the boys anywhere out of state, calling their social worker at like 8 a.m. like "yeah dick broke his arm again... a gymnastics accident this time...." their poor social worker. bruce send her a huge bouquet and box of chocolates every month to stay on her good side

i imagine the social worker just getting into the case like ‘yeah let’s get this kid a good guardian’ and then ending up having to work with 22 y/o bruce wayne and his 50 y/o dad. and so this social worker is like ‘okay we can work with this, this is the best home i can find’ and then like it ends up landing on its feet and then the kid gets adopted and then they get a call a year later like ‘uhm so hi, this kid tried to steal my tyres can i adopt him?’ and like 3 years later. ‘okay so basically, my neighbours’ kid imprinted on me and now they’re dead, can i keep him?’ two years later it’s like ‘okay so this assassin child-’

ever since I saw that one post of yours, the meme that's something like "I know that abba's backup dancer got me" with a picture of discowing, I've been haunted. Every once in a while I'll be minding my own business then the image of abba's backup dancer dick grayson aka nightwing aka discowing will flash in my mind and I'll be frozen in place. Today at work I was in the middle of folding clothes and suddenly once again discowing entered my mind and I suddenly lost the ability to see anything except He. Thank you.

wow. the IMPACT.

Braver than any US marine man props to you🤝

this shit is about the time i wrote an article on batcest, like man,,, the fact that i didn’t get cancelled is MIRACULOUS. also like,,, uh if anybody on here did gossip on me,, send screenshots i’d love to see it.

Hello, just wanted to say your article was great. Thank you for taking the time to provide an unbaised answer. It should provide people with nuances they couldn't possibly conjure on their own.

May I ask where your username originates from?

yes you may (also thanks!!!) i thought it up when i was trying to find an original username bc i didnt want to be called like ‘timdrakes something something’ or ‘jason todd something smoething’ or ‘dick grayson something something’ yanno? so i thought batarangs, they sound so dumb and that’s my username story... now it’s my whole entire brand lmao.

yno that bit in kick ass where red mist asks kick ass if he wants a hit of his blunt, was that the inspo for stoner tim

no? it’s bc i think stoners are hilarious and drugs are great. (dont do drugs tho) 

How would u feel if someone actually wore one of those bruce or ollie pride shirts u edited

fenomenal next question.

Dick as lil huddy and Jason as James gave me radiation poisoning and now I’m screaming crying throwing up so thx for that

(Rico suave as Tim is perfect tho literally no changes needed)

i was so funny for that shit wasn’t i??? lmao i loved those weird ass fancasts

You're doing the Lord's work by providing us with all these Gotham/Metropolis citizens memes, thank you for being so relentlessly funny @nellethiel-aranel

you’re welcome!! i really enjoy making memes, but getting validation for my content and my memes is REALLY nice.

Bruce is such a slut in your memes and honestly i love that for him @rhodey-rhudert-rhodes-main 

he’s that much of a slut irl too dw.

Bruce and Alfred have an emergency pride flag for the batkids. Oliver Queen printed an emergency "I love my gay son" t-shirt and as soon as Roy told him he was dating Jason, Oliver started wearing that shirt everyday and Roy always cringes when he sees it. Oliver also has an emergency "I love my lesbian daughter" shirt just in case for Cissie.

lmao YES i had a post like this bc like all of their kids/family members are so gayy

stop bringing back batfam fancasts it is not real it is not real it is not- 😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀

oh yes it is my darling.

did discowing burn down the notredam because he hates the bees? @allulily

no he did it bc fuck the french.

im gonna beg for 1 thing and 1 thing only. please please please put physical by olivia newton john on dick's playlist

okay then beg. bc i wont. physical reminds me too much of glee and that hurts me mentally.

your playlist is sorely missing some Madonna. Specifically Into the Groove, Like a Prayer, and Vogue

i’m scared of madonna that’s why she’s not on there. she haunts me in my dreams.

suggestion: son of batman by aaron dews for dick’s playlist🤩

sorry, i listened to it and the vibe didn’t agree with me.

Hear me out, metropolis citizens sending rare pair fics of Clark Kent x Superman fics to Lois to edit

yes, absolutely hilarious. even more funny if they send like physical copies, no address attached and lois sends it back marked with red ink, SOMEHOW

Imagine all the smut Clark must of read editing the fics

clark reads smut confirmeeed

NOT LOIS READING SUPERBAT PORN AND EDITING IT A 2AM 

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

hc that alfred is a meta that boosts healing factor of the people around him. if the bats are injured as much as they seem to be they would be doing bat stuff MAYBE half the year. no one including alfred knows about this. whenever the kids move out they inexplicably dont recover from injuries as fast and feel better whenever they visit the manor they just chalk it up to homesickness. bruce just thinks he heals really fast. alfred thinks everyone doesnt take care of themselves properly @finchcollector

that’s actually such a great idea, but i think that alfred would find out and learn how to concentrate it better so he can help more people, bc he’s great and i love him.

One of your dickfast posts reminded me of that tweet that goes: 'so you've had sex how many times? Yeah technically that's not a bromance' lol that's dickwally or dickroy

literally tho. like that’s all of dick’s friendships. once it gets past a certain time dick is like ‘wow i wonder what it would be like to make out with wally, wally come make out with me’ and wally’s like ‘we’ve done this like 40 times, dick, you know what it’s like’ and dick is like ‘sorry are you complaining?’ and they just make out.

superfam and batfam associations??

-batman and superman

-dick/barabara and supergirl?

-conner and tim

-jon and damian

pls enlighten me I am confused

nope,,, uhm batman and superman, but dick and superman as well, and then conner and tim, jon and damian and steph + babs with supergirl

I came across a fic in which Wonder Woman calls Batman "Stella" (like Stellaluna, the children's book) and I can imagine the batkids hop on the trend and maybe copies of the book appear at random places (aka, everywhere Bruce frequents)

sorry can’t reciprocate that was the name of my high school chemistry teacher and it gives me nightmares to think about.

good human what are your pronouns?

wouldn’t you like to know?

I need me some gothamites preferring harley over joker memes

everyone prefers harley over joker youre just very fucked up if you dont

don't understand why people try to add like veteran policy to the batfamily

dick pulling out his veteran batfam member card so he can eat first: step aside, peasants

Do you know the song Simmer by Haley Williams? It (the first verse anyways) reminds me of Jason? It's about rage.

damn yeah i LOVE HAYLEY!!!! youre right thoo

Okay so I like listen to your stoner Tim Drake playlist 24/7 but would he listen to skegss? Also I keep adding songs mentally it’s killing me 😩✋🏼 Anyways,, I literally love and worship your playlist 😃🤞🏼 And uh yeah have a good day ✨

stoner tim drake playlist is lyfeeee. also dont know who skeggs is? i’m stupid? have a good day!!

All the Robins (and Batgirl) decide to trade costumes for one night just to fuck with Batman and all the villains in Gotham. @subspacecadet 

batman knows it’s them youknow but like,,, what does he call them? he’s like ‘red hood?’ and 3 people answer and he’s not about to compromise some identities so he’s just Pissed.

I aspire to treat cops the way my dad treats them. This man is a 45 year old Asian immigrant to the US and the treats them like his pets. He talks about them like unruly children. Sometimes he pays off local cops to shut up and stop acting racist. And usually it works. I don’t know why but I can see Oliver Queen doing this

vibes... and also yes? oliver queen handing a local cop a donut to shut the fuck up lmao. but yanno i commit enough crimes to not really want to ever see a cop ever, so they kinda scare the everloving fuck out of me.

seeing as tim hasn't aged in years, that means he was 17 at peak emo tumblr era. im back on my emo tim bullshit and im not letting it go

emo tim had a wattpad account send tweet

People seem to think that batman is so dark and serious when the rainbow batsuit is right there. He wore it with no shame.

dude the 60s were a DIFFERENT TIME

dick grew up in a circus, jason grew up on the streets, and tim was probably raised by the internet

all of them cuss every other word and you cannot tell me otherwise

bitch i KNOW but dc has to change to an 18+ rating if they want to sell comix with swear words in them so we gotta deal with imagining the swear words in ourselves

thoughts on teen titans and young justice

haven’t seen teen titans on account of havent seen it and young justice was LITERALLY my favourite thing ever, tho i do gotta admit it’s not at all similar to the young justice comics unfortunately. i really wouldve liked to see timmy bart kon cassie and cissie animated on tv!!

ew ew ew how to delete batcest shippers I genuinely digust them

log off tumblr?

Okay as poc who was called racist for calling an Italian pastabrain: in the batfam are Italians bit Damian just yells various insults about the others being Italian. Just him yelling “What are you doing you moronic spaghettihead!” At steph etc

huh? i meant real italians. homeboy is telling steph he hopes she chokes on her fucking garlic.

I think it's dumb as hell to pull the batman is the best fighter in the batfam argument because like it's just irresponsible of Bruce to let his kids fight when they couldn't possibly be on his league or something

fair enough, but also like who cares they could all kill you just sit down and take a beating.

lady shiva, thalia al ghul and Selina Kyle are all milfs @notanothertimburtonenthusiastugh 

unfortunately, i have to admit,,, you’re right

why tf didn't someone give joker a death sentence already? like he's a mass murderer...give him the electric chair treatment wtf

idk i think plenty of people would have tried to murder him already (boring answer is: he is a popular character so they can’t kill him off bc he brings in lots of money)

There’s no such thing as “ copaganda”.

all american media is propaganda. happy to clear this up for you

is it bad that I find lady shiva owa owa

no. find her as owa owa as you want.

aight I'm guessing the order of your favs in batfam:

1. tim

2. Steph

3. dick

4. Duke

5. the rest

you’re wrong but it’s cute that you tried, i generally don’t have favourites, but i have a special place in my heart for steph, tim, dick and cass. bc they were like my introduction to batfam. but damian, jason, duke, bruce, babs and alfred are NOT FORGOTTEN OR UNLOVED

oh my god i was literally just readily willing to believe that italians werent white ty for clarifying it was a joke im so dumb sdkvjskdfs

i mean some italians aren’t white? italian is a nationality as well as an ethnicity, so like ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

since I saw so many people doing headcanons about the nationalities of batboys, I see Dick as an Italian.

dont know if youre serious or not, but sure.

super random but

jason 🤝 damian

old english

lmao fair enough.

tim absolutely has 1 gay uncle and his parents shit talk said uncle all the time so after bruce adopts him he specifically reaches out to this uncle to be like "heyyyy just so you know you majorly influenced my life yes i know i havent seen you since i was 5 and at the family reunion yes i know you dont remember my name idc thank you im gay too" and then they never talk again.

yuppp lmao that’s definitely something that could happen. i can also consider tim having no family members, like none. until he does like a dna test and he realises he has like an aunt living barely 2 miles away from him who’s like some illegitimate child of his grandpa.

I dare you one of them sends clark superman/clark fic and clark corrects the shit out of it and then goes like ps his dick is not that big, just telling as someone who has seen it. internet either explodes or goes who tf did he not fuck at this point.

i think everybody would call clark a buzzkill and try to cancel him over that.

so you're telling me Tim Drake wouldn't buy Starbucks?

no. dunkin donuts all the way

One of my favorite things is imagining people finding out jason came back from the dead and being like "oh no does he have magic powers now?!?!?" and he just pulls out a gun and tries to shoot joker

now he doesn’t even have the gun :) lmao

my favorite batfamily fanfictions are the ones where they use their shitty codenames, unironically, in any context

bruce gets codename ‘ugh’ everytime. he hates it.

crazy that tim being a 17 y/o ceo and a stoner who does brand deals are all actual canon things written in detective comics comics and not made up for shits and giggles by you, tumblr user batarangsoundsdumb @rowdeyclown

SO CRAZY HUH?

batman au where everything is the same but his utility belt is bright pink

absolutely, but i raise you, his boots light up like sketchers when he kicks people.

unbeknownst to the superhero fandom writers in the dcuniverse, clark and BRUCE are one of the most prolific fanfic writers in the superhero rpf tag on ao3. clark writes the best lois x superman angst, full of unhappy endings and scenes that are a so detailed you'd think you were in the middle of a superhero beatdown. bruce made an ao3 account to fuel "the do the butts match" thing, and makes batman/bruce fics from time to time. he wrote a superbat fic as a joke but ended up making it REAL porny. @concrastinator

dude they’re WAY too busy for that. Oliver Queen and Hal Jordan on the other hand are the most prolific fanfic writers in the superhero rpf tag writing what is Mostly porn.

When the dining table topic gets to politics, Steph says "eat the rich" as the solution

bruce just silently takes away her fork and knife while she’s talking.

[bullshittierlists]

Spoilers for DR1, obviously. I decided to remake this list because my opinions on all of the characters have changed significantly since the last time. I’m honestly not even super happy about this one.

I see no god up here other than me:

Kiyotaka Ishimaru - Oh my lord, he’s perfect in every way (except for the thing, which I’ll get to). He’s funny, he doesn’t feel entirely insignificant, and he’s got a cool, sad backstory to dive into if you like him enough, but it isn’t required to do so throughout the main game. Everything about his genius/hard-working motif is brilliant. I think it’s incredible how he’s actually the opposing force to Komaeda rather than Junko, even though no one talks about it and the game doesn’t really use it that much. His whole backstory with his grandfather and father is so sad and I’m so proud of him for getting to be where he is today, even if it didn’t quite happen how he wanted it to. The one exception to this practically perfect prefect is, of course, the elephant in the room, Kiyondo Ishida. Here’s the thing: I think Kiyondo could’ve worked really well. However, as far as I know, Taka was swapped out last minute with Hiro and had to die in chapter 3. I honestly think this was the worst decision the franchise made after making Mikan... the way that she was. The only reason people hate Hiro is that he survived the first game. I’ll get to this more later, but I honestly really enjoyed his character for the first three chapters. After that, though, he got a little stale and even a bit annoying, especially the Kyoko being a ghost bit. I feel like Hiro really overstayed his welcome and his presence could’ve been more than made up for by the comedic duo of Hina and Taka. I understand that choosing the survivors of each game is difficult and a very meticulous process, but let’s just consider the interactions with other characters for now. To start with, Hiro hardly had any positive interactions with any of the other characters in the back half of the game outside of Hina calling him out for being an idiot. If we put Taka in his place, he could’ve had serious moments with Kyoko and Makoto, helping them to solve some of the mysteries. He also could’ve played off of Byakuya and Toko’s relationship in telling them that PDA is “not welcome in a school environment.” And the crowning jewel of missed opportunities, his interactions with Hina. They’ve both lost their best friends in the whole world and have no one to rely on. In canon, Hina had to do a character 180 just to keep up with Hiro’s idiocy and not break down about losing Sakura. However, if we had Taka, he could’ve helped her to get through it because he would’ve already gotten over Mondo with the help of Ishida. See? I brought it back around. If Taka had been able to resolve his issues with Ishida in chapter 3, he would’ve been able to help Hina to develop her character through the loss of Sakura in chapter 4. I think this would’ve been so much better for both of their characters and I weep for what could’ve been. But for some reason, Hiro just had to stick around.

Mondo Owada - I’m honestly surprised I talked about Taka for that long without mentioning Mondo. I don’t actually have a lot to say about Mondo that I won’t get to with Chihiro, but this is basically your warning to be ready for another rant and it also serves as a break from the last one. Mondo and Taka are perfect for each other, Mondo is the most sympathetic killer, bar none, and even though I’m not a huge fan of dogs, Chuck is so precious.

You’re the best:

Celestia Ludenberg - Pretty goth lady. That’s about it. She could’ve been better in chapter 3, but I honestly still really liked her plan and her breakdown was phenomenal. My favorite thing about her though is her execution. Her execution fits into the thin category of executions that include the element of specific despair, basically meaning that Monokuma made it specifically to make her sad apart from the fact that she was dying. She was ready and honestly excited to be burned at the stake because it would guarantee her an interesting death and therefore an interesting life. But then, she ends up just dying in another boring old car accident, many of which happen every day. It’s fun to watch her expression and demeanor change throughout her execution, it’s one of my favorites.

Chihiro Fujisaki - Oh boy, it’s the one I expect to get hate for. Buckle up, lovely people, it’s time to get personal. I personally headcanon Chihiro to be a cisgender male; however, I also believe that you can headcanon anyone to be anything you want. There is an exception and it’s when that headcanon specifically derails something the character was trying to present. In this case, it’s toxic masculinity and the importance of appearances in society. I’ll preface this whole section with a statement: I’m not trying to be transphobic. I could see Chihiro being a trans male, but cis or trans female just feels counterproductive to me. Let me explain. Chihiro’s entire existence is used to parallel Mondo’s. Chihiro has a strong will with a weak body, while Mondo has a strong body with a weak will. Mondo is seen, in canon, as a super manly character who is strong in both heart and body, but he doesn’t believe himself to be this way. The only strength he’s ever seen is through aggressive violence, and that’s how he shows his strength. This is proven in the fact that when he felt weak against Chihiro’s strong will, he killed him out of fear, which he had grown to believe was strength. However, since Chihiro had a weak body, people treated him as unmanly, even though he was strong-willed, so he believed that everything about him was weak and learned to be submissive to everyone else’s desires. This is proven in the fact that he dressed and acted the way he did specifically to please others, not himself. It’s shown in multiple free time events that he hates the way that he looks and that he hates dressing to appease other people. It’s not even necessary to turn to the FTEs to gain this information, it’s obvious from the fact that he goes to Mondo specifically to get stronger in what he thinks is both mind and body, as he’s been known to think that the two are connected. It can also be understood from his dialogue that he wasn’t trying to get physically stronger for himself, he was perfectly comfortable with his body, he wanted to get physically stronger so that other people would leave him alone. These are the effects that bullying had on him. Maybe I’m misunderstanding, but whenever I see Chihiro as female, trans or otherwise, it feels as though those people want Chihiro to subject to the bullying because it more closely fits their ideal. It just feels like evidence of toxic masculinity because since Chihiro is feminine, he must be female, even if he says otherwise. The difference to me between this and say, trans Gundham headcanons is that with Gundham, there’s nothing in his character that goes either way, so it’s fine to headcanon him however you want. But when Chihiro explicitly states that he wants to be seen as male, he’s ignored and pushed aside as “another missed opportunity for trans representation.” But he’s not a missed opportunity for representation, he’s just representing something else, toxic masculinity. It’s obvious that it goes over people’s heads because they don’t seem to understand this at all. I’m not trying to be rude, I just want people to understand that just because the representation isn’t specifically for the group you want, doesn’t mean that it isn’t good representation. I can talk about this more if anyone wants me to, but it’s almost 1 AM and I’m not sure how much longer and I can form cohesive sentences and I’m not sure this is the best argument to test that on.

Genocide Jack - Idk, she’s funny. I’ve already gotten past most of the characters I have strong opinions on. Whereas in the second game, I have strong feelings about my favorites *and* my least favorites, I really only have favorites in this game and everyone else is pretty neutral.

Byakuya Togami - He was actually originally my second favorite character, but I realized a good way into the series that I didn’t actually like him that much. He’s not as smart as he claims to be and he isn’t as well written as Komaeda or Kokichi. However, he does have one truly fantastic moment in the first game and that is during chapter 4. When it’s revealed that Sakura killed herself, he shuts down. It’s impossible for something to have happened that he didn’t predict and he truly believes that. It’s incredible to see his complete shift in character (at least for this trial) and I absolutely adore that moment. Everything else with him is still kinda meh.

Hey, I think you’re really cool, I like you a lot:

Sakura Ogami - There’s literally nothing about her that I can say that hasn’t been said already. She’s perfect and I love her for it.

Aoi Asahina - Like I said during my Taka rant, I think she would’ve been much better if she didn’t have to accommodate Hiro. The first game had a much darker tone than the second and Toko/Genocide Jack already had the comedic relief role covered. She and Taka could’ve still had their fair share of funny moments together, but I feel like she could’ve gone through Akane’s arc during the second game, but better because she would’ve been able to build off of Taka, who already went through the same thing. Either way, she’s cute and I adore her and Sakura’s friendship.

Sayaka Maizono - So I actually made this list back in January (it’s currently the middle of April) and just never got around to making it and since then, I’ve fallen in love with Sayaka. It may or may not have to do with me being cast as her in a secret project that I’ll announce later, but she has my heart regardless. Now, I’d probably put her behind Chihiro and ahead of Genocide Jack. She’s just such an interesting character and while it’s a shame that she died so early, I still think she wouldn’t have been as good if she didn’t die so soon. For the record, I think both Sayaka and Leon were morally in the wrong. However, Sayaka was doing it for her friends, while Leon could’ve stopped at any time and really only went back for himself. Sayaka is not a snake. Thank you, goodnight.

Mukuro Ikusaba - She’s definitely my neutral point. I have one of these in every DR game, even if I don’t realize it. I just don’t really have any opinions on her and it’s not even because she wasn’t in the game for very long. I just don’t know how to feel about her. I just finished Danganronpa: Zero and that boosted Junko way up in my book, but it didn’t really change my opinion on Mukuro at all.

Kyoko Kirigiri - I get the hype, I really do, but I just can’t get into her. For starters, I don’t like Naegi all that much, so of course I’m not going to like the people that hang around him all the time. The most I’ve ever liked her is while watching videos of her along with “Not So Bad A Dad” from Phineas and Ferb. Other than that, she’s extremely neutral for me.

Toko Fukawa - I’m including her appearance in Ultra Despair Girls, but it didn’t really help her much. I liked her in the first game, but it was only because I was going through a weird phase of obsessing over people and now I just think it’s weird because it is. I went into Ultra Despair Girls knowing that she got character development and then completely forgot to pay attention to it because I was so enraptured by the Warriors of Hope. So, I don’t know, she’s just kinda creepy and I didn’t really notice her (or Komaru, for that matter) in UDG.

I remember you:

Junko Enoshima - Like I mentioned during Mukuro’s segment, I just finished Danganronpa: Zero and it was a wild ride. I made this list before I had even started the book and I was mostly just confused by Junko. I didn’t understand her motivations or any of her plans, much less how she was able to achieve anything she was. But once I finished DR0, it all made sense. I won’t spoil it here, but she was incredible in that book and I wish I had caught on to everything earlier.

Makoto Naegi - I feel bad, but I have to compare him to the other protagonists. He’s just so boring, and I know that that’s the point of a protagonist, but Hajime proves that it doesn’t have to be that way. Makoto’s just kinda there all of the time. For example, in DR0, he shows up for one scene, but he literally doesn’t even do anything. He stands there, talks to Ryoko, is scared during a fight scene, and is never seen again. It’s really frustrating to know that he’s only there because he was the protagonist of the first game and it’s like “Wow, you know this character!”

Yasuhiro Hagakure - My only opinion on him is that he should’ve died in chapter 3. My only explanation for why he was so high on the original list is because I watched this one hysterical panel for DR1 and Hiro was by far the best character there. In the game itself, I liked him until he overstayed his welcome and cost Taka his shot to be memorable.

Leon Kuwata - I honestly can’t explain why I dislike him so much, I just really, genuinely do. He’s just kind of annoying, but that’s about it. Like I said before, I don’t really hate many of the characters from this game, they’re mostly all loved or neutral and he’s just the most negative neutral.

You are literally the worst. Actual scum. Leave this planet and never return:

Monokuma - You know the drill by now if you’ve seen my other DR tier lists, it’s kind of an obligation at this point.

Hifumi Yamada - Why. Why is he like this? Why is he this way? Honestly, he’s not nearly as bad as Teruteru or Kazuichi in the perv department, but I just hate him so much. I don’t understand why he is the way that he is, but I do understand that I’m happy he died in chapter 3. Honestly, I could’ve done with him dying earlier, but it is what it is.

It’s 1:15 AM and I am done writing. I’ve been putting this off for months and I figured it was finally time to get it over with and it definitely didn’t have anything to do with the fact that I can’t sleep. I hope you enjoy all of this and if you would like me to elaborate on anything, just drop me an ask and let me know. I’m always happy to explain any of my opinions and want to make sure I’m as clear as possible. Please do not spread hate about me until you’ve made sure you understand my point. Then go to town.

[casualdadnomad]

modern hc for every possible atla ship

Alright, I said I’d do it and now I’m doing it. We will not be arguing over ships because it’s impossible to argue if I include..... all of them. I’ll include some nice ship things and then rate the likeliness of the ship happening in my au.

Kataang: my babies. soulmates. they would be that adorable couple that has been together since the eighth grade. they work well together because they’re both kind hearted and care about each other deeply. they hold hands in hallways, call each other pet names (the infamous “sweetie” that makes sokka want to die), and always try to give each other little surprises to brighten each other’s day. they’re very into valentines day. would it happen? yes. 100/10. 

Sukka: my babies part 2. sokka comes to every football game to cheer her on during halftime. he also goes to every winter guard competition. Suki goes with him when he does his graffiti. she insists it’s to be a lookout in case the cops find them, but she just loves watching him make his art. they don’t go out much, and are just as happy watching anime in suki’s room as they would be on a date. would it happen? YES. 10/10.

Zukka: the hottest ship of the ATLA renaissance. probably the best ship of all time. they just have this perfect dynamic. sokka is a genius with terrible ideas and no impulse control. zuko is just a guy with anxiety. sokka would definitely help zuko come out of his shell a little bit. and iroh loves his nephew’s boyfriend. sokka helps out for free in the jasmine dragon if zuko is working. would it happen? maybe. i do love them a lot. 8/10.

Zutara: okay. everyone has an opinion on zutara. my opinion is that i don’t like it unimportant. they stay up late on facetimes and talk until like 3 am. they play a lot of games and katara is super competitive, so zuko lets her win a lot. she’s cute when she’s convinced she’s the king of gamepigeon 8 ball. would it happen? unlikely. 4/10.

Taang: i don’t hear about this ship a ton. it’s not one i ever thought about. they’re both super protective, even though neither of them really need to be protected. aang is definitely more affectionate than toph, but toph can and will beat the shit out of anyone that hurts aang. would it happen? they’re the only two freshmen, so maybe, but still unlikely. 5/10.

Tokka: i’ve always thought toph’s little crush on sokka was adorable. they would skip school, go break the law for fun, that kind of nonsense. this is one of those rare instances where sokka has the most common sense. they would be more of a “what’s up you ugly idiot” kind of couple than a “hey baby! :)” kind of couple. would it happen? I could see them getting along. it would be pretty chaotic. 6.5/10.

Mai Lee: MY GIRLS. they’re perfect for each other. Mai is peak alt girl. She’s a goth queen, eyeliner sharp enough to kill a man, chains, little shirt big pants, and a nose piercing. ty lee is the exact definition of cottagecore. strawberry dresses, lots of blush, makes her own earrings. ty lee even gave mai a pair of earrings she made to look like knives. they walk down the street holding hands. if anyone throws them a weird look, mai throws a knife right back. would it happen? HELL YES. 1,000/10.

Tyzula: here’s the thing. azula never did get that sweet sweet redemption arc, so in my au she’s still a bit of an asshole. if they got together, i can see azula really trying to improve herself as a person for ty lee. i see ty lee really trying to sell the idea of including azula to the rest of the friend group. i’m really into the idea of instead of ty lee “fixing” her, having azula work on herself with ty lee as some extra motivation. would it happen? if azula put in effort to be a better person, sure. 7/10.

Maitara: what, did you think i was going to forget maitara? i did say every ship. katara vibes with the softgirl aesthetic while mai is on the egirl side, and honestly i am living for it. would it happen? this one is definitely a rare ship. but i think it could work. 5/10.

Maiko: ah yes, the canon one. zuko’s not quite as edgy as mai is. he’s like, if you diluted the eboy aesthetic a little. but i think it would maybe work between my two emo babies. they’re a couple that you never really see engaging in any pda so you just assume they’re friends until someone tells you otherwise. they’re very cute together, but dare i say kind of boring...? would it happen? goth x goth solidarity is cool, so maybe. 6/10.

Azutara: dude, there’s not a lot to say for this one. it’s been a little while since i’ve even seen an azutara shipper. are they extinct? (azutara babes pls tell me if ur not extinct). yeah so if this happened i think it would be because azula put in the work to be a good person and was welcomed back into the group. once she was in the group, katara would have gotten to know her real personality and liked her. but katara also holds her accountable for her actions. she puts up with no bullshit because she knows her worth. would it happen? i don’t think so. 2/10.

Sutara: this seems like chaos. these ladies would be the power couple of the century. i think with two women so strong and powerful, they’d butt heads a lot. they would be out in the world and actively changing it. would it happen? they’re both badass awesome women, but i’m not sure. 3/10.

Zukaang: uhh... i can’t say i ever thought about zukaang before now. but i guess you would have this bright ball of energy and a dark brooding type, so i can see how it could be cute. would it happen? um... no. i’m not sure if opposites attract that much. 0/10.

Tophko: another one that has literally never crossed my mind! i’m not sure how i feel about angry + angry as a dynamic. i think they would make great friends. okay, i think they would be a couple you mostly wouldn’t want to mess with. they can mess with each other, but no one else is allowed to mess with them. would it happen? no. i’m a slut for height differences, but not at the expense of a good personality match. 0/10.

Jetko: ah, the infamous jetko. the thing about jet in my au is that he’s kind of a sports boy. jock vibes. i guess i haven’t thought about his personality much except that he’s, well, a cocky sports guy. even if mans was bi or gay, i think he would have too much internalized homophobia to openly be in an gay relationship. would it happen? here’s the thing. i could maybe see them having kissed once or something, but not together currently. 4/10.

Jetka: okay i see a handful of people saying jetka rights so i thought i’s include it. i think the most likely scenario would be, maybe, they kissed once or twice and then sokka got ghosted because jet was closeted and scared. since jet obviously didn’t try to burn down a village, maybe that could be the reason sokka doesn’t like him. would it happen? maybe they never got together but jet could have been sokka’s first dude crush or something. 2/10.

Jetara: my immediate thought was that jet asked her out and they went out for like a week but katara quickly realized hey, he’s an asshole. ALTERNATIVELY, katara recognized him as the guy who hurt her brother or zuko and never went out with him at all, because hey, i don’t need all that drama. would it happen? maybe awkward exes. 3/10.

okay these took soooo long! if you have another ship, questions, or headcanon ideas, my ask box is always open!

[longsightmyth]

I think a lot of it can be put down to SMeyer's immaturity. I know she's a grown woman, but she always struck me as someone who never grew out of that early to mid teens mentality. What she thinks is romantic, the music she listens to, even the way she would dress at premieres all felt very much like someone still stuck in that teenage phase when you're getting into "edgy," darker things and trying to be goth. She's just kind of an immature person, in my opinion.

I had to have a discussion with My Sources (My sources in this case is A Source and their name is @folatefangirl) about this, anon, because calling an adult woman as a whole immature is not something I’m comfortable with nor am I comfortable simply saying ‘well the author is immature and that’s that’. There’s a whole lot of baggage that goes into Cultural Phenomenons and while I loathe Twilight with every fiber of my being (seriously y’all think I hate ToG? Not a patch on my feelings about Twilight) and would love to write it off as ‘oh that wacky Stephenie Meyer’ I don’t think we can divorce it from our culture or Stephenie Meyer’s cultural upbringing. A (long) quote:

maybe say (and you're welcome to quote me or whatever) that SMeyer isn't immature per se imo, as much as existing in a codependent structure for her entire life that makes her very dependent on the culture she's in

it's a patriarchal structure that systematically takes away one's sense of independence and autonomy, including bodily autonomy

it makes you idealize the idea of a handsome, powerful, wealthy man swooping into your life and taking care of you for eternity

And look. This isn’t restricted to Mormonism. It may be Amped Up To Eleven in Mormonism, but it is very much evident in our day-to-day lives. Twilight would not have this much success if it did not make everyone reading it feel comfortable.

Yes, I said comfortable. Twilight reaffirms and shores up the social norms of the day that many people (in the states at least) believe should continue to be the social norms. Twilight is comfortable for people to read because it doesn’t challenge the world as we know it.

So is Stephenie Meyer immature? Honestly could not tell you. I don’t know the woman. Is it immaturity to want what society tells you you should? Probably not. I want a house and a well-playing job and yes, a long-term relationship and maybe kids. Society tells me those things are what I should want too.

What I know about Stephenie Meyer is this: either she or someone on her team is incredibly savvy about business. What I know about Twilight is this: it was and continues to be sold aggressively to teenage girls as an example of what they should look for in their lives.

Long story short: brushing this off as ‘Stephenie Meyer is immature’ is not addressing the problem that allowed Twilight to be popular. That can only be done by examining our own internalized isms and discussing them with others so that we can all learn and grow as a society, and so that we don’t keep telling girls to look for Edward Cullens.

[mythopoeticreality]

well, I... John Uskglass?!!??!?

Well, if you insist….xD

How I feel about this character

I mean….*sweeping gesture towards blog* I suppose you could say have something of an appreciation for him?

xD Nah, But seriously, from the very moment he appeared on that snowy Yorkshire moor in front of Childermass, I’ve loved this guy. Forget the scene, he stole the whole book! I love the mystery that surrounds him, how much of an enigma he is; I love that he is this incredible force of nature, this legend, this being that seems so Fae at times and so inscrutable. I love how absolutely extra he is? This inclination for melodrama developed over years of growing up in Faerie: Why just walk into a room when you can materialize out of a chaos of ravens? Why simply refuse to learn to read when you can create your own writing system, one that more easily aligns to your own way of thinking?  Why take your vengeance for your parents deaths out on the one guy who did it, when you can conquer half an island? The man has two modes: “Cool Arrogance” and “Sinking Coastal Yorkshire Villages Into The Sea” and I kinda love it? (though, just to make things clear, I don’t actually approve of the drowning of Coastal Yorkshire Villages, no matter what allies they’ve made in their quest not to pay their taxes. In case it needs to be said)

Most of all, I love how incredibly human The Raven King can be as well. There’s compassion – offhanded, a second thought, of course, yet still there–  in the way he heals Childermass before he vanishes again. There’s humor in his parting words to Childermass, “You are wrong, he is not dead” – a dry, ironical sort of understatement, that the man can’t even hear, you can nearly picture the smirk curling at his lips as he says it! And there’s care in all that he does. He set in motion a plan three centuries in the making, manipulating who knows how many events, all for the sake of England, for his Kingdom, to bring magic back. John Uskglass is a teacher, he gave magic to England and it spread through his own students. John Uskglass is an explorer, building the King’s roads and traveling to countless realms in search of more Knowledge, more Magic.  Yes, of course all of these traits are twisted and filtered through a more Fairy lens, why wouldn’t they be? He was raised by these beings! He’s not fully human – but he’s not entirely Fae either. He’s this strange mixture of both that neither can really understand. It’s isolating, it’s lonely, and it’s fascinating. I just…love the Raven King when he’s shown as a person?

And I just…love how he’s presented in the book? We don’t see him until that scene at the end, but by that point in the book, you’ve heard so many legends and stories and Historical anecdotes about him that you just…feel his presence over the whole story? By that point, you know about his conquest of Northern England, and of his youthful Arrogance, refusing even to learn how to read, because what could he possibly gain from doing so? You’ve heard about how he gradually became less arrogant, less like a Fairy and More like a Man after ruling his Kingdom for so long and how he did eventually learn to read – how he decided that engaging with the thoughts of others was worthwhile after all! You hear about his Strange Fae nature in the Raven King Ballad, how he’ll spirit away unsuspecting people to his realm in Fairy. You’ve read about his cruelty: the incident with Henry Barbatus, the Yorkshire Village he sank into the sea. You’ve heard rumor of his multiple returns to England: Riding off of a Fairy Road and blessing the family of the Farmer at the end of it who gave him food and a horse; Guiding back home the daughter of a Newcastle Glovemaker who had wandered her way into Faerie; As an omen of ill fortune for a group of shipwrecked basque sailors. You even know the names of those close to him: Thomas of Dundale, William of Lanchester, Catherine of Winchester.

But in the end, how much do you really know at all? Do you know if any of these tales are true? If they are then they only open more questions. What are the other sides of these tales? Who were those others with the King when he departed from the Fairy Road, the one who vanished along with it with the morning mist, who the Raven King so blithly told the Farmer not to worry about? How did the Glovemaker’s daughter find her way inside the Raven King’s house? Did she just stumble upon it or did he bring her there? And why?

It’s fantastic.  You get all of these glimpses of the character, and you can’t help but build an image from them in your mind. But it’s never a complete image.  Never full, you can never really understand the Raven King any more than any of the characters in the book can.

(So um yeah…apparently I have *alot* of feelings about the Raven King. xD) 

All the people I ship romantically with this character

 Alright so my main ship for this guy is actually John Uskglass/England, take that in whichever way your imagination is inclined, because yes I probably mean it that way. Honestly, when you see how Happy all of Nature is when it thinks Stephen is the Raven King and that John Uskglass is returned? It’s just really cute?! How can you not?!

On a more Human level, as I’ve said before, I do actually picture John Uskglass as being pansexual, and as per his fairy upbringing, rather more casual about his sexual relationships. That said….I actually have very few ships…with like…named characters, for Uskers? Maybe it’s because I do see his affairs as so casual most of the time, or maybe it’s just because he’s so isolated a character. I dunno. Black Joan is the one character  that’s a definate yes. If she’s anything like her son, she’d be shrewd and cynical and the sort of person who can hold her own against the Raven King. I have to admit I definitely love that sort of fairy-tale like trope of this Great and Powerful King, and this relatively ordinary thief falling for one another as well. So yeah, definately here for Black Joan/John Uskglass. Otherwise? Hrmm… I need more Raven King Ships. Any one got any suggestions?

I will say that when John does fall in love, he falls hard. He doesn’t like it. It’s such a soft, vulnerable feeling, and placing your heart into someone else’s hands, to be broken at any moment? It’s foolish, so far as he’s concerned. He is a King in Faerie, after all, he cannot afford to be vulnerable. So he tries to deny any feelings he may develop for a person, even to himself. If you do get him to the point of  admitting it though, I will say he can be absolutely doting. 

My non-romantic OTP for this character

Okay, so I’ve talked about this before, but I do headcanon Thomas of Dundale and John Uskglass as having grown up in the brugh together, pretty much. Thomas –like the naturally born extrovert that he is ;) –  kind of attached himself to John and over the years became something like an older brother to him? I can’t help but picture him as being very protective of the young Raven King, and, having been taken at an age where he could remember things, where he had developed a more human sense of right and wrong, Thomas helped provide something of a balancing point against the Fairies as John was growing up. Thomas encouraged those more human aspects of John’s character, and he was there to talk to about these aspects of himself, these more human instincts, that John might not have understood so well growing up surrounded by Fairies – empathy, compassion, caring. And that bridge that Thomas provided was so important later in John’s life, after he returned to England. It wasn’t merely language that Thomas was translating, but culture, an entire way of thinking that John didn’t fully understand yet. I mean?! Their relationship is just so important to me and how can I not love them?!

And yet, on the other hand…There’s also William of Lanchester? I mean, he’s specifically marked out as The Raven King’s Favorite and Most Trusted servant, and I can’t help but picture this guy as the most Eternally Tired man in all of Northern England. xD  William is the sensible,trustworthy, reliable one and that’s such a beautiful contrast to John Uskglass? Part of me loves the idea that a big part of why John trusts William so much is because William will say ‘No’ to him. He won’t flatter or stay quiet if he feels he needs to speak against John (see: Henry Barbatus). Does that mean John will always listen? That he’ll always appreciate William’s input? No, of course not (also see: Henry Barbatus) But he will get the truth, and that is important too.

And again, on the third hand, I really do love the whole relationship between Catherine of Winchester and John Uskglass as well. I love the idea of the Raven King as a teacher, and Catherine herself is just really awesome? And the idea of even John Uskglass being impressed at her dedication to magic, of how much he finds himself valuing her as a pupil, and growing to care about her over the coarse of their relationship, just…as a person? I feel like John Uskglass does most easily connect to other people through magic and through teaching, and I like to think that Catherine was one of his favorites…

Ughh. I can’t choose. Let’s go with all four of them hanging out in 13th century Newcastle. Yes? Yes. Good! 8D 

My unpopular opinion about this character

I’m not sure. I don’t…think I have any unpopular opinions? What are the popular ones? Are we all in agreement that the Raven King is a Melodramatic Goth Nerd and That is Why We Love him?

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon.

I want just…more in general? I mean, like more, like a whole series of historical novels focusing on the intrigues and plots surrounding the Raven King’s court. I want to see him interacting with all of these historical personages, reacting to like historical events happening, how magic and his presence changes that past? It would be *amazing* and I want it so badly!

…so  I’m prolly gonna have to write it myself xD

[gothsic]

THE POSITIVE & NEGATIVE; Mun & Muse - Meme.

fill out & repost ♥ This meme definitely favors canons more, but I hope OC’s still can make it somehow work with their own lore, and lil’ fandom of friends & mutuals. Multi-Muses pick the muse you are the most invested in atm.

My muse is:   canon / oc / au / canon-divergent / fandomless /

Is your character popular in the fandom?  YES / NO. in his own head maybe

Is your character considered hot™ in the fandom?  YES / NO / IDK. lol what fandom does jo have a fandom here???

Is your character considered strong in the fandom?  YES / NO / IDK. ???

Are they underrated?  YES / NO. / IDK. jo thinks he’s underrated does that count??

Were they relevant for the main story?  YES / NO.

Were they relevant for the main character?  YES / NO / THEY’RE THE PROTAG.

Are they widely known in their world?  YES / NO.

How’s their reputation?  GOOD / BAD / NEUTRAL.

How strictly do you follow canon?  — Jo is the master of his own story so yeah. I’m following my own canon and whatever I come up with to a T ( unless some good suggestions in writer’s workshops or even here come up! ). He is the main character of my limited series pilot that I hope to write soon called The Insomnia Trap.

SELL YOUR MUSE! Aka try to list everything, which makes your muse interesting in your opinion to make them spicy for your mutuals.  —  Jonathan has many sides to him. The child of mixed Latinx parents and the youngest of three kids, he has had a relatively normal life ( save for early childhood, when he killed his mother by “accident” - should’ve mentioned that! ) and his very long goth phase in middle/high school, but always deemed himself to be on the outskirts of society. Because he was aware from a young age that he was simultaneously unwanted and unplanned, Jonathan came out of his upbringing with the idea that he never should have existed. This planted in him a very nihilistic, misandrist, and generally flippant view of the world despite pursuing his dream to work in comics and cartoons. Though he was hungry for recognition and dreamed of a world not on Earth, he often found himself to be a ghost wandering the streets of town, looking in on the people having fun in their homes without understanding why they were happy. His insomnia developed when he in his teens, though he still had trouble sleeping as a child after seeing his mother’s mangled corpse at the bottom of the stairs - his doing, of course. Whether he lives with the guilt or not is up to you to decide; it’s my personal feeling that there is a part of him, the human part of him, that feels horrible about what he did. He feels monstrous for it, in fact. This is part of the reason why, if he gets extremely close to someone, he warns them that he’s not a good person; the shred of good left in him. But he also feels his “metamorphosis” into the nihilist that he is today was inevitable, given that he was never supposed to exist in the first place. It should be mentioned, of course, that this nasty cocktail of things has not only stressed his insomnia, but he eventually was pushed into going to a sleep clinic to get to the bottom of his problems once and for all. He only encountered an extremely traumatic lucid dream that forced him to confront his past head-on. He was unable to save his rotting humanity ( D., a small girl that looked like his character Deirdre ), and was eaten alive by The Other, a creature that looked like a younger version of himself and eventually absorbed him into itself. He awoke, now in what can only be described as a constant lucid dream in waking life. He encounters monsters and hallucinations from his dreamspace frequently, and will sometimes see D.’s forest crop up in his backyard. To this day, he still believes D. is alive and well - and, of course, that the object of his obsession, the one person who ever understood him in his point of view, Annie Kaye, is going to one day return to him as he’s always dreamed. Sadly, she could want nothing less to do with his sorry ass.

Now the OPPOSITE, list everything why your muse could not be so interesting (even if you may not agree, what does the fandom perhaps think?).  —   Around the time that The Insomnia Trap was simply going to be a screenplay, I workshopped it every few weeks in my senior Screenwriting class in undergraduate school. The overwhelming response I got was that Jonathan was abhorrent, creepy, and the question a lot of people had was why we were following him versus Adri, his ex girlfriend who was documenting his struggles with insomnia. My only answer to this is that is the point - you aren’t supposed to necessarily like him, I instead invite you to understand why he does the things he does. I’m asking you to do something you don’t like, something that makes you uncomfortable, maybe. I don’t believe entertainment in any capacity should be forced to be all about how “great” a person someone is. He’s a horrible person you can observe at a safe distance, and pick apart - a real puzzle who has his nasty qualities and his strangely good qualities mixed into one. I’m not asking you to forgive him, either. I’m asking you to see him for what he is and judge him for yourself. Jonathan is a gigantic mess of things - he’s deeply traumatized, but has chosen to live a life where he’s given in to his narcissism and self-importance, and he’s deeply hurt many people in his life - the most obvious being Annie, whom he feels he “deserves” after suffering so much in his life ( sure... ). He is in many ways a deeply unlikable character, and I wrote him keeping this in mind. That said, he has his better qualities, though they’re few and far between, that I think can keep him human in the eyes of the audience ( his love of animals, guilt towards his mother’s death, his intense self hatred, his genuine love for his nieces and nephews and for children in general, etc. ). Since he’s the protagonist of The Insomnia Trap, I can only hope that he is a complex and interesting enough character to follow for audiences if/when the limited series gets picked up!

What inspired you to rp your muse?  — Jonathan is based off of a very long personal experience I had, and I’ve always been fascinated by intense psychological horror. The two things came together, at first, when I was 12 and simply evolved from there. Originally, the project was going to be an animated flash movie that was divided into parts - but that of course never happened, I was too young and too impatient to ever do that. Over time, I ended up focusing Jonathan’s character, and he first appeared in high school - sophomore year, actually, in a different context. He’s been in development for a very long time, in other words, and I grew fascinated with a variety of different concepts over the years that got incorporated into his story ( doppelgangers, lucid dreaming, revenge, obsession, tragic protagonists, etc. )! He is one of the most intimate characters I’ve ever created, and I love him to death.

What keeps your inspiration going?  —  Music is a big one, there are specific songs I want to get the rights to use in the project if it ever gets made, and that really helps keep me focused on this blog and develop Jonathan further. Also, threading with my fellow muns and seeing how Jo evolves over time. What’s he capable of? Can he change? Is he capable of change, or is he afraid of it? These are questions that are asked with each character he interacts with, and I sincerely live for it. Also, drawing helps me out a lot too - maybe you’ll see The Insomnia Trap in webcomic form soon... just a thought!

Some more personal questions for the mun.

Give your mutuals some insight about the way you are in some matters, which could lead them to get more comfortable with you or perhaps not.

Do you think you give your character justice?  YES / NO / no idea honestly lmao

Do you frequently write headcanons?  YES / NO / depends!

Do you sometimes write drabbles?  YES - I also draw them! / NO, I HATE DRABBLES.

Do you think a lot about your Muse during the day? YES! / NO.

Are you confident in your portrayal?   YES / NO / sorta

Are you confident in your writing?  YES / HAHA NO.

Are you a sensitive person?  YES / NO. / though i can handle critique, film school definitely hardens you to that!

Do you accept criticism well about your portrayal?  —  I do. I’ve been explicitly told Jonathan is disgusting and totally unlikable by people to my face, and I have made leaps and strides to prevent my portrayal from going completely in the “this person is deplorable” category that was tempting to head towards. It’s easy to explore someone’s bad side rather than explore their good side, which I can forget about with him. That said, critique really does help me develop my writing further, and I desperately need it even if it can be hard to hear sometimes!

Do you like questions, which help you explore your character?  —  I love questions. If people ask me questions, I do my best to answer no matter what they may be. They can be challenging sometimes, but that’s what makes it so fun!

If someone disagrees to a headcanon of yours, do you want to know why?  —  Sure, I’m happy to hear what people have to say. I may not agree with it, but hearing different perspectives is so important in my point of view.

If someone disagrees with your portrayal, how would you take it?  —  As well as I could. It can be frustrating, but everyone’s tastes are different, so I don’t really take it personally and move on. I’m really here to do what I want to do in the end, as the rest of us are, so I try to prioritize that over any negative feelings I might have.

If someone really hates your character, how do you take it?  —  Again, I just let it be. I’m used to people not really understanding Jonathan or not caring for him while understanding him, and that’s fine! Everyone has their preferences for what they like in leading characters or just characters in general. He is a triggering character with very triggering themes, and I’m writing him from a very prolonged experience I had ( and it’s very cathartic ) so I can understand why people may not want to engage with him or with me. I’m perfectly fine with it and invite people to put themselves first, and I move on like I mentioned in the above question.

Are you okay with people pointing out your grammatical errors?  —  Yes! Please go for it. I literally do not proof my replies before I post them half the time so feel free to let me know if I misuse words or put commas/colons/semicolons or whatever out of place.

Do you think you are easy going as a mun?   — I think so! I try to be open and inviting to everyone I speak to here, and always encourage people to come talk to me if they’d like to. No pressure though! Roleplay is for fun, and it shouldn’t be anxiety inducing or any kind of work - do things at your own pace here, that’s what I say ( though I’m trying to follow my own advice! ).

That’s about it, congrats for filling out!

Tagged by:  @forseenclade !!. thank you flower... luv Tagging: whomstever wants to !! feel free to tag me so i can see !!

[allhallowsreid]

just lots and lots of very long-winded, random thoughts about last night’s finale and the show itself...

so obvs no one has to agree with me on any of this, i just feel like there likely ARE ppl who feel like this and it’s easy to get shut down on tumblr for having different opinions, and i mostly just need to gather my feelings and thoughts in one place.

-ive seen a handful of ppl upset that the last ep centered around reid, but if you were to take 10 fans of this show, it’s a pretty good chance that 8 or 9 of them would say reid is their fave character. that isn’t me trying to insult any of the other characters, that’s just the way it is. whether it’s bc of his looks (and my lord was he gorgeous in this finale ep), or that he’s your typical cute white boi, or more organic reasons like he’s been there since day 1 and we were able to watch him change and grow, and he’s the opposite of the typical male characters we often see, especially on cop shows.. whatever the reason, he is a VERY popular tv character. and if it weren’t for that character, for better or worse, this show would have ended a long time ago.

-the ending itself.. i just feel like i don’t know what ppl were expecting?? this is not a show like supernatural or dexter or a show that has had a fluent overarching story to tell from start to finish. the story continues without us watching it. it’s another day at the office for them. was it a great ending? no, but it was fine. we see where all of them are headed. endings are so difficult, i’m just glad they didn’t kill anyone off or some garbage like that.

-so damn happy they hooked up luke and garcia. i have had such issues with garcia’s character since morgan left, i feel like she became a caricature, where she just overacts and i recently read an article with kirsten where she actually admitted that when shemar left she really didn’t know what to do with her character anymore. honestly? it showed. the obnoxiousness to luke was cute at first bc she obviously had a crush on him, but then it just became mean and out of character. this season i was happy to see her get a little bit more back to herself. all this being said, they were very clearly headed towards getting luke and garcia together this season with the overt flirting and one on one convo’s, i’m so glad they went through with it instead of leaving it open ended. and i will admit that of all the characters, i didn’t think garcia would be the one to leave, but it made sense. garcia is tough as hell, much tougher than she gives herself credit for, but like luke said, she can do this other job without the gore that she cringes over in literally every single episode of the show. also loved jj saying garcia was the glue of the team. so true, so well said. and side note, kirsten does a hell of a job writing these characters that she knows all too well, the other writers should’ve just let her take over in later seasons.

-prentiss... i love my emily so dang much, but man they give her the absolute worst dialogue. she gets stuck with all these long sentences that just.. they just don’t flow?? and it takes me out of the show so often. this has been since s12 when she became unit chief. there has been a handful of times since she became the boss that we have had flashes of old school smartass goth girl emily, and i cherished each moment, but it wasn’t enough. somewhere along the way they forgot how to write into the show that their characters had PERSONALITY. just as an example of the stupid dialogue she gets.. the end of the ep where it’s intended to look like rossi’s retirement party. then, idk who it was, emilys boyfriend maybe(?) says some dumb comment about oh gee i thought this was dave’s retirement! and then emily starts some awkwardly long line that could’ve been summed up in “dave decided not to retire afterall” and it was just soooo... weird?!!? if we are agreeing that A MONTH has gone by.. you are to tell me that it never once came up that dave said he was gonna retire and then changed his mind!??! that night, one month later, is the first that this discussion occurred!!?!?! and all of these dumb lines come out sounding so robotic, and i can’t blame paget, bc the lines are boring as hell. also unless i missed something i can’t rule emily out of being the next director, especially since their profile ended up being correct, lynch and the mom didn’t kill themselves, so i’m sure when that all came out, the next hurdle emily would have to clear is how they just blew up their very expensive jet right after having a budget meeting 2 episodes ago!!

- i’m gonna lump the newer characters together.. and just say that it was all too little, too late. they tried to give matt and luke more this season, and the ep’s centered on them were great, but it all felt forced to me. all this character development should’ve started as soon as they came onto the show. the relationships between the new and original characters also feels forced a lot of times, barring relationships like rossi and his boys, luke and garcia, tara and emily.. i mean that’s kind of all, right? we never saw much off-the-job, personal interactions between them and the rest of the characters, did we? and the way tara was treated on this show is inexcusable. aisha’s talents were so underused on this show it was criminal (pun intended). and actually, the above stuff i said about emily getting nonsense dialogue, you can throw matt in there too. his dialogue was friggin god awful at times on this show. in the words of early seasons reid, maybe try to be more conversational, writers!!

-man oh man was jj a badass and a half in this finale. tbh i always enjoyed liaison jj more than ssa jj, but when badass jj comes out i get all excited. i do feel like she would be the best fit to take over if emily left, she’d stepped into that role before and excelled. but she is another character that at times i think the writers just forgot how to write her personality somewhere along the way. i understand that the reality is that people change over time, but there were times that she was written like a typical high school mean girl, and that was just an insult to the character they created. the whole jeid thing was severely overblown and unnecessary. i don’t hate the idea of them being together, but why wait til s14-15 to deal with this? in the end i thought it was handled okay, i personally didn’t feel like it ruined their friendship or stayed awkward, which i appreciated, it was just a storyline that wasn’t needed and wasted time. also, ppl griping about “oh but she clearly loves will, if she loves spencer then she can’t love will!” i mean, actually, ppl are capable of loving more than one person at a time, hate to burst that bubble for ya.

-this seems like a good moment though to pause and just get this out about will lamon-fuckin-tagne jr... this guy is too good for jj lol, i am sorry but he is such a great guy. and can we review some things about will and his wife’s bestest friend, godfather to his children, spencer reid?? when will and spencer first met, it was during an unbelievably personal case to will, i mean his father died sending him a message about this case that the fbi was called in on. and his first intro with reid?? let’s see, reid spent that ep strung out on drugs, and full on abandoning the case to go hang out with his friend at a club/bar/lounge/whatever. ok, so that’s will’s first impression of jj’s bestie, and will STILL okay’d him being the godfather of his kids. not to mention, can you imagine your wife has been gone in the damn middle east for who even knows how long, then when she finally gets back and you think you’re gonna have her to yourself, but oh no, here comes jj’s friggin bestie again to come cry on the couch every night for several weeks!!!! and he gives zero indication of not liking spencer, in fact he seems rather fond of him. will is the most patient man ever, i swear.

-ok that was an unexpected side track. moving onto rossi. not sure why they were all like oh pfft this guy will never retire. the dude literally retired before the show started lol. if he retired once, when he was fairly young, why is the idea of it happening again so impossible? again, dumb dialogue. i loved the stuff with him and young gideon (i may be biased tho bc i’m just so damn proud of ben savage), i loved that rossi knew more about the jet than the others, however that was an inconsistency bc when rossi came back from retirement, he couldn’t believe the bau had its own jet. unless i just misunderstood what emily meant when she said it all started with rossi and gideon. i felt like lynch was a very underwhelming villain. super forgettable. there was no charisma like foyet or cat adams, there was no creep factor like mr scratch, there was no mystery like the replicator or the fisher king. his whole story just fell flat, and if there were anything interesting about him whatsoever, it’s bc of what rossi brought to the table, not the “chameleon”.

-my boy reid. he has several lifetimes of baggage to unpack, and i think of all the characters on this show, no one hates unpacking their trauma more than reid. i feel like it was so relatable that he could barely speak in this ep without sounding on the verge of tears, like every sentence was painful to even get out bc of how much hurt is stored up inside him. his trauma has defined him for years now, and if they had ended the show without addressing even some of it, the show would’ve been incomplete. i understand that actors schedules just don’t work out sometimes, but idk what the point was of having strauss and foyet be his devil and angel. and foyet’s long explanation of how bc he changed hotch, he changed the team was so convoluted that he may as well have just said “they couldn’t get james van der beek or the dude who played mr scratch, so im here instead”. i liked what they did with reid and maeve, and i actually don’t mind that there was no mention of max. they’re still very early in their relationship, and i feel like him coming out with some “wait i think i love max!” revelation would just be too fast and ooc. we already know that the relationship between them is growing, it doesn’t need to be said. and can i get an amen that maeve and reid didn’t kiss bc god that would’ve been weird as hell.

- i hate that we couldn’t have hotch or morgan or blake or elle or any of the main characters that helped make this show what it was, but i’m still grateful for the crumbs they gave us if the actors just couldn’t be booked for whatever reason. i’ve seen many shows at their end just try to pretend their previous characters never existed, so that we got some flashbacks with them was appreciated.

- RIP bau jet. i wiiiill reMEMber youuuuuuu.

-the song choice of david bowie’s Heroes was perfection. strangely, when i was driving home from work yesterday that song came on my playlist and i blasted it on repeat and performed a car concert for my fellow drivers on the road, and thought to myself that this song would be great for cm to end on. never thought they would actually do it since they had previously used the song in penelope’s ep. but what a great scene of all them dancing and singing and laughing like the bunch of nerdy idiots they are.

-i came late into the game with this show. ppl have been telling me for years to watch it and i only picked up watching in s13, after i read a spn/cm crossover fic and became super curious about who all these awesome characters were. with that said, i’m aware that since i haven’t invested years of my life in this show, that my feelings and thoughts about the ending will be different than those who have been hooked on this show for over a decade. i’m still just so thankful for the family portrayed by this show, and these characters i fell in love with, and episodes i’ll never forget.

[codenamesazanka]

What are your top ten Shigaraki ships (and if you've got time for it: why)?

Oh man! idk if I have enough - if there even is enough - Shigaraki ships (in the traditional romantic sense) to fill ten. Plus I hadn’t ship Shigaraki much with anyone because it wasn’t until recently that he got all this screentime and developing relationships with other characters. 

But going with interesting dynamics and relationships of all types, platonic or romantic or enemy or cautionary or imaginary/fanon (because I’m a sucker for my own imagined potential of a relationship) or canon(ish), and which ones intrigues/affects/impacts me the most? and then ranking them??? impossible hmm

(using the names and honorifics the characters call Shigaraki for some variation and also because I’m a weeb) (also ranking is suspect because I’m bad at making decisions)

10. Shigaraki and Bakugou

I didn’t actually like Bakugou until his Remedial Course mini-arc, and so didn’t pay attention to him much. So I was surprised when Shigaraki wanted Bakugou for his League. It wasn’t until I understood Shigaraki much better and finally took the effort to consider Bakugou’s side of things that I found myself wishing they had more interaction during his kidnapping. Because here was Shigaraki going 110% to woo Bakugou into joining him, he had honestly thought the boy would make a good Villain. And there was Bakugou who was adamant about being a Hero despite not being very Heroic. We could’ve had a great look (if Bakugou ever talked) into Heroes and Villains and motivations and more stuff about how they’re two sides of the same coin… or so I wish, making this a purely speculation about a battle of ideas and these two enemies coming to a grudging respect. But that’s all over now. 

9. Shigaraki and Twice

Shigaraki took off Twice’s mask to shut him up (sorta), then put it back on for him! If that isn’t the most warmhearted mean thing to do. Twice is very much invested in the League and I wanna see Shigaraki appreciating that. Is Twice the first member to get to touch Shigaraki’s hands? To measure them for a clone? Very big deal. Not a very intense dynamic, but good fun downtime Villain Out Shopping fluff. 

8. Shigaraki and Mr. Compress

Gotta say it’s @happojin’s ficlet about these two scheming over personal revenge on Overhaul that got me intrigued in this no-ideology partnership-in-pure-villainy. Mr. Compress is the exact type of chaos-loving dramatic criminal that’s right up his boss’ alley, though I can see too much of it getting onto Shigaraki’s nerves - which makes for good, mischievous conflict. These two would blow up buildings purely for fun and I wanna see that joy on their faces. But also! Not yet knowing the reason for Mr. Compress join the League makes for great speculation - like maybe he’s just enamored with Shigaraki’s spirit and youth (that makes him feel young himself???) that he’ll be okay with losing an arm and poverty and getting kicked around by a giant naked mountain man for a month. We see Mr. Compress with Shigaraki in chapter 114, calling Toga (for Shigaraki?) and I want to think it’s Mr. Compress fancying himself as Shigaraki’s (all) right hand man. 

7. Doctor and Shigaraki

The Doctor is creepy and I’m iffy about him cuz, well, he’s creepy but he sure is making the plot move forward and now he’s the guy who will be giving the League zany inventions like some episodic comedic cartoon. If it wasn’t so horrifying that they’re Noumus. But mostly, this is a guy who knew Shigaraki from childhood, who preserved (and maintained???) the hands, who Shigaraki is familiar with but also knows nothing about. What stories can you tell us about Shigaraki, Doc? I wanna know. I’m scared, but I wanna know.

6. Giran and Shigaraki-san

How long have they known each other??? (Consider - middle-aged seen-his-shit-in-the-underworld-and-now-respected-broker Giran having to be polite to a sulky teenaged Shigaraki and needing to address him as ‘san’ - idk, maybe I’m getting the nuance there wrong but… hilarity) What other dealings have they done? Giran sure is a champ to lose five fingers for Shigaraki and the League - is the League his best customer? Did Shigaraki ‘inherit’ the use of the broker from AFO? Has Giran met AFO? I guess this is just me wanting to know more about Giran, and Shigaraki is the proxy for that. But I wanna know! I wanna see them interact when Shigaraki rescues Giran. 

5. All Might and Shigaraki(Shimura Tenko)

I love my Shimura Tenko gets a father figure in All Might AUs! I’m writing one lol. But I acknowledge this is less about the characters themselves and more about the exploration of a legacy that ties them together. Cuz I love that shit. I love the idea of All Might being such a loyal disciple that he would do anything for the grandson of Nana - except it’s just that, he’s only chasing after a reminder of Nana. What would he do with Shigaraki/Tenko himself? And I love the idea of Shigaraki/Tenko deciding how to incorporate the tale of the sordid Shimura family into his life - if he chooses to do so at all. Lots of family/identity drama. Also completely in headcanon territory. Ah well.

4. Toga and Tomura-kun

The recent chapters have really up my interest in the friendship/siblinghood/whatever admiration Toga has for Shigaraki. She calls him Tomura-kun, which yes it’s expected of her as a cute high schooler; but no one else has ever called Shigaraki just his first name besides AFO. And Shigaraki seems to have a soft spot for her? He’s been very nice to all of the League, but for someone who immediately hated her at first sight cuz she was a ‘brat’ who didn’t make any sense, that’s the biggest attitude change. Right now, they’re confirmed to be the youngest and closest in age of the League, and I like the idea of them being able to be ‘young people these days’ together and relate to one another. Toga is very loyal to Shigaraki, but not above stabbing him should he be a jerk. Like with Twice, I wanna see Shigaraki be appreciative, or rather, I wanna see another scene where he’s really nice to her (the first one being, of course, that Overhaul arc flashback). 

Also they were in an omake drama CD being silly and if that isn’t the best thing.

3. Kurogiri and Shigaraki Tomura

Hmmm I’m lazy and I already planned a whole post dedicated to analyzing their relationship, so I’m gonna skip this. I’ll edit with the link to that post later!

2. Shigaraki and Spinner! In danger of being an OTP for me, which isn’t hard cuz I don’t have any other

The only romantic relationship on this list. Spinaraki. Like I said before, though Shigaraki was really the only option after Stain, Spinner was so clearly ready to believe in Shigaraki, to follow him, because he wanted the League to change the world. That’s a lot of faith put onto someone who is Shigaraki (I mean, look at him, he’s a skinny NEET goth), so much so Spinner, implied to have not been a criminal before joining the League, is ready to kill (and does). That’s intriguing enough, and then comes his month long observation diary about his leader. Who he still stays with after knowing Shigaraki’s very-not-Stain-like-nor-revolutionary plans. And now we wait for the climax of his journey of wavering loyalty. True, a lot of it is my own hyped-up imagination but I’m enjoying it. If Spinner stays and become Shigaraki’s most loyal follower, that is so my shit I’m going to die. I’m gonna die anyways whenever they interact in the near future chapters. 

1. All For One and Tomura

What is there to say about…. this? It haunts me. It’s number one on this list cuz it’s the dynamic that I think about most, has impacted me most (Chapter 222 was a lot to handle), and it’s like trying to untangle thorny vines. Gotta say, in my intepretation, it’s a very accurate portrayal - from Shigaraki’s side - of caring about someone who has hurt you a lot, and you know it. But it’s the person you knew best and depended on when there was no one else, and you’re always going to have their influence - of which includes positive things. It’s one of the very few portrayal that gets all the paradoxical messy details while being explicitly clear to the reader it’s wrong, Shigaraki doesn’t deserve this. It’s also clear that while AFO may have affection for people, that doesn’t matter. He’s a monster. Still wrong, and cruel. And I think that’s important to show, important to depict and an important message told well. Now all that’s left is to wait to see what Shigaraki will do now and how this bond will break. 

This to be absolutely clear, this isn’t a ‘ship’, it’s a portrayal of an abused child solider that is now flourishing away from his guardian and I’m hopeful for the future. And it’s so poignant to me, that a story is tackling this. Gets it. Its a dynamic I’m invested in because it’s a story of survival and I will see it through.

-

Honorable mentions? I wanna see Shigaraki and Hawks. That should be interesting. 

I used to like ShigaDabi, but mostly because it was available. I’ve got no opinions about it now. :/

-

Thanks for reading!

[unfortunate-stranger-losers]

Six Baudelaires AU, Part Two {AO3} {Masterlist} {Part One}

Chapter Four → in which Duncan and Isadora break into a Library

“Why would our parents have a spyglass?”

Violet and Lilac were standing on hay bales, tying several pieces of metal they’d managed to swipe from the cafeteria to a makeshift mobile. Solitude and Sunny sat at their feet, playing with hay, as across from them, the Quagmire triplets sat with the twins, and Klaus fiddled with the spyglass.

“And why would our parents have the same one?” Nick asked, meeting Isadora’s eyes.

“I don’t think it’s just a spyglass.” Klaus said. “Look at these dials on the side. They look like they match up, like some kind of code-breaking device.”

“Why would our parents have a device for cracking codes?” Duncan asked, leaning over Klaus’s shoulder to get a better look.

“Aunt Josephine said our parents developed secret codes with her.” Lilac said, pushing back the ribbon that held back her hair. “Violet, hand me that fork. Sunny, are you-”

Sunny grabbed onto a sheet of foil and bit into it a couple of times, poking some holes. She handed it to Violet, who said, “Thanks, Sunny!”

“I mean, Father taught us some codes and stuff.” Isadora said. “But that was for fun.”

“What codes you know?” Nick asked.

“Morse, A1Z26, Atbash,” Duncan started counting on his fingers, “Sebald, some simple replacement ones-”

“Klaus and I know a bunch of codes from our books.” Nick said.

“You two are big readers, huh?” Duncan asked.

“Well, a bit.” Nick shrugged. “I’m more into finding out about stuff I can go see. Klaus’s the big reader.”

“I mean-” Klaus began.

“He’s the family researcher.” Nick said. “We can’t get him to put books down.”

“I’m a bit of a reader, too.” Duncan said. “My sister and I- well, Isadora reads poetry, but I want to be a journalist, so I take notes on everything I read-”

“See? Researcher. Like Klaus.” Nick said.

Klaus narrowed his eyes at his twin, trying to figure out what Nick was on about. “Is that… really important?”

“Yes.” Nick said, and failed to elaborate.

“Hold on.” LIlac said, wrapping the foil around a circle they’d managed to make. “I think we’ve got it. Vi, hit the lever.”

Vi switched a lever they’d installed on the side of the shack, and as they watched, the makeshift mobile started to turn, a small light flicking on from the lightbulb Nick had dug out of the garbage and shining through the holes Sunny had bit for them. The pieces of metal they’d swiped clanged together, and although it wasn’t a very unpleasant sound, the crabs scuttling around the shack floor instantly retreated under the hay bales.

“There. Now they’re gone and we can move.” Lilac sighed.

“And,” Violet said, pulling her ribbon out of her hair and tossing her hair over her shoulder, “It gives the place some personality.” Isadora stared at Violet a moment, watching her hair fall over her shoulders, before biting her lip and glancing away.

“It looks great!” Klaus said, grinning.

“Yay!” Solitude cheered, and she held up Babbitt so they could see better.

As she did, Duncan and Isadora jumped with shock, leaping back. “The hell is that?” Isadora asked.

“It’s a frog.” Nick shrugged, as Sunny started to laugh.

“It’s a Babbitt!” Soli cheered.

“That’s Solitude’s pet frog.” Violet explained, sitting on the hay bale above her sisters, while Lilac sat beside her and picked up Sunny. “She’s been hiding them for a while.”

“Secret pet!” Solitude nodded, excitedly.

“Their name is Babbitt.” Klaus said. “They’re a… what species of frog are they again, Soli?”

Solitude opened her mouth to answer, but Babbitt let out an excited chirp and hopped from her hands to the floor, and Soli giggled and got to her feet to start chasing them.

“God. Wish we had a secret pet.” Isadora said. “That sounds like fun.”

“Like a little cat.” Duncan said. “One of those feral ones that are super tiny.”

“Or a dragon.” Isadora said.

“Where would we get a dragon?”

“I’d love a dragon.” Nick said.

“Hell yeah!” Isadora’s eyes brightened.

“We’re getting very off-topic.” Klaus said. “Spyglass? Parents’ secrets?”

Nick rolled his eyes. “Don’t be a stick-in-the-mud, Klaus. We’re talking about dragons now.”

“Aunt Josephine had a book that might’ve been useful.” Violet said.

“Either of you hear of An Incomplete History of Secret Organizations?” Lilac asked.

Duncan and Isadora shook their heads.

“You have any previous guardians with the book?” Nick asked.

“The executor of our parents’ estate just dropped us here as soon as she could,” Isadora said, “So all we’ve had since our house is this school, and if that book’s in the Library, we haven’t seen it.”

“Well, then, let’s bust into the library.” Violet said. “We’ll search through it.”

“Is the Librarian out yet?” Lilac asked.

“Should be. She wanders around a lot.” Duncan said.

“You don’t think anyone will notice?” Klaus asked worriedly.

“Listen, Klaus,” Duncan said, “Nobody goes into the library. We’re fine. We could go now, if you like.”

“Sounds good.” Lilac said. “We can talk more there. Solitude, get Babbitt out from under that hay bale or leave them here.”

“Froggy! Come here!” Solitude called, holding out her hands.

After Babbitt hesitantly hopped back into her pocket, Violet said, “We’ll turn off the mobile before we go. Give the crabs use of this stupid shack til we need it again.”

“Maybe we should move them somewhere else.” Isadora suggested.

“I think there’s a river out back. Maybe they’d like that.” Nick said.

“That depends on if they’re freshwater crabs or not.” Klaus said. “Maybe we can look that up, too. Figure out the type.”

“We could split up.” Isadora suggested.

Nick stiffened and grabbed Klaus’s arm as they all started to head out. “Are you sure?”

“It’s not a big library!” Duncan said quickly, picking up on his nervousness. “We won’t ever be out of each others’ sight.”

“We can have someone looking for that book,” Lilac said, pulling out her ribbon again, “And someone looking for information on the crabs. We should probably also have someone looking up the fungus.”

“I’ll take the crabs.” Nick said. “Should be similar to tide pools. I’ll take Soli with me, she might find it a little interesting.”

“Snake?”

“No, crabs aren’t reptiles. They’re arthropods.”

“Ugh.”

“I think Klaus and Duncan should take the fungus.” Violet said, sharing a look with Nick. “The rest of us can keep an eye out for that book.”

“Why should we take the fungus?”

Violet held back a smile and shrugged, but Klaus quickly figured out what was going on. His face went red, and he glared at her, but Duncan said, “I’m fine with that,” so all he could do was shrug and keep shooting his siblings dark looks.

“What does it look like?” Isadora asked, squinting in dim light from the darkening sky.

“Really big.” Nick held out his arms to demonstrate. “Title’s emblazoned on the cover. Can’t miss it.”

“We can check the library records.” Lilac said quietly. “Or a directory.”

“I think the fungus would be 579.53 in the Dewey Decimal system.” Klaus said, adjusting his glasses slightly as they walked. “So we can check there. Crabs should be… marine animals, 591.77, I think.”

“That doesn’t sound right, but I really don’t give a shit.” Nick shrugged. “We’ll find it, won’t we, Soli?”

Solitude nodded, stroking Babbitt in her pocket.

“It’s this way.” Isadora said, gesturing. “Come on, then. Let’s break and enter!”

Violet’s eyes lit up. “Oh, hell yeah!”

The Library was fairly small, but the lamps shaped like fish were still lit, and there were plenty of old, worn books, which, in Klaus’s opinion, were the best kinds of books. He and Duncan quickly managed to dig up the fungus section, and they sat in the corner, where they quickly found that the easiest way of doing research was for Klaus to read the chapters aloud as Duncan took notes in his green commonplace book.

Nick and Solitude sat in another corner, while Nick quietly read to her about crabs. She wasn’t incredibly interested, but she did listen politely while she watched Babbitt hop around the new environment. Meanwhile, Lilac, Violet, Isadora and Sunny looked through all the shelves for the mysterious book.

“The Incomplete History of Treachery?” Isadora asked, flipping a large book in her hands.

“That’s not it.” Violet said. “But I did find the Incomplete History of Pretentiousness. We could throw this at someone if we ever needed a weapon.”

“Livy!” called Sunny, which meant, “I found the Incomplete History of History!”

“Still not what we’re looking for.” Lilac sighed. “This library may not have it, they don’t seem to have mu- holy shit, they’ve got Frankenstein!”

“Lilac, stop looking at your goth shit!” Violet called. “Do something useful!”

“Be quiet, we’re reading.” Klaus said sharply, before going back to his fungus books.

“I can take a fungus book, if you like.” Lilac suggested. “If Violet’s gonna be a bitch.”

“Oh, so I’m the bitch now?”

“You’ve always been the bitch.”

“Stop fighting and dig up that book!” Nick called.

“Why don’t you do that?” Violet called.

“We’re making sure we don’t kill our crabs!”

“They’re not our crabs!”

“They are now!”

“You guys are fun.” Isadora beamed, pulling a poetry book from the shelf. “Also, Li, you can read all the goth books you want. Those are the best.”

Lilac brightened, running her fingers through her hair. “They are, aren’t they? You ever read Carmilla? I wrote an essay on that.”

“I prefer Dracula, honestly. Though Carmilla is-”

“Alright, Sunny,” Violet sighed, picking up her infant sister, “Looks like it’s just us staying on topic.”

“Surprise.” Sunny giggled.

“Yeah, it is.” Violet sighed. “You remember what the book looks like?”

“Ye!”

“Alright then. We’ll leave the goths to be goth.”

Sunny giggled and started playing a bit with Violet’s hair as she moved among the shelves. She glanced back at Klaus and Duncan, who were hard at work, and Nick and Soli, who honestly weren’t, and Lilac and Isadora, who were now discussing The Turn of the Screw at great length.

“Maybe this school doesn’t have to suck.” she said hopefully. Sunny shrugged and kept playing with her sister’s hair.

They didn’t find the book, but they got plenty of information on the fungus in the shack- it looked like they could just steal some salt to stunt the growth- and on the crabs- they were freshwater, so if they could find a way to collect them, they could release them into a river.

“We can cause a diversion so you can break into the kitchens tomorrow.”  Duncan promised as they snuck out of the library, heading back for the shack. “Steal the salt, maybe some extra food.”

“You could look for a cage for the crabs.” Isadora said.

“Eracs.” Solitude suggested, which meant something like, “Perhaps Babbitt could chase them into a bag.”

“I dunno if they’d be scared of such a small frog.” Duncan said, smiling at the toddler, “But maybe they could make themself look scarier.”

Solitude looked excited as she said, “Gerson!” which meant, “We could give them fake fangs or something!”

“That might be interesting.” Lilac nodded.

“Vampire frog!” Nick cheered.

“Vampire froggy!” Soli echoed.

“Actually, Soli,” Klaus asked, “Are there fanged frogs?”

Solitude went into a garbled rant about different types of frogs, then, that continued all the way back to the Orphans Shack.

When they arrived, Violet said, “Thank you guys for helping us out. You didn’t have to do any of that.”

“What are friends for?” Duncan shrugged, and Klaus grinned.  

“Any excuse to piss off Carmelita.” Isadora shrugged.

“Yeah, she seems like a little bitch.” Nick said. “What’s the best way to annoy her?”

“Well,” Isadora said, “She really doesn’t like being contradicted. You can’t do much to her directly, because she’ll tell on you and get in trouble, but if you’re passive-aggressive-”

“Please stop telling Nick how to annoy someone.” Lilac said.

Isadora gave her a look. “But that’s the best way to bond.”

“I like you!” Nick cheered. “If you’re gonna take one of us like Lilac suggested, can you take me? We can be siblings!”

Lilac’s face went red again, and Isadora said, “We’ll get back to you in seven to ten business days. Which are normal days, since we don’t have weekends here.”

“Son of a bitch.” Violet said.

“Well,” Nick said, “If I don’t get adopted, I can still be your brother. We just have to get Klaus and Duncan married.”

Klaus went as red as Lilac and immediately started shouting curse words, while Duncan just started blubbering.

“Deal.” Isadora said. “Arranged marriages are fun.”

“Oh my God, no!” Lilac shouted. “No! Nick, no! No, you’re all babies, no!”

“Nick!” Klaus finally managed to say.

“Isa, why?” Duncan said.

Violet, meanwhile, burst into laughter, followed quickly by Sunny and Soli.

It was nice to have something to actually laugh about. For a moment, they could forget all the secrets and fears, and laugh about embarrassing their siblings.

They said goodnight to the Quagmires, and went into the shack, finally managing to find a way to all squeeze in now that they didn’t have to worry about the crabs.

“So.” Lilac said, as soon as they were all settled in. “You do know that none of you are allowed to date, right?”

[softshelltaakos]

what’s up everybody! it’s time for part 2 of my taz graphic novel review.

part one covered (most of) my beef with the writing and storytelling choices. this part is gonna cover character designs!!! you should know going into this that my opinions are not positive. this post is also a lot less analytical in tone than part 1, because art is not my forte.

disclaimer: i love the mcelroys. i truly do. taz has gotten me through some very difficult stuff and i have a tattoo. all this to say i’m not doing this because i hate them or because i like hating things. if you feel the need to message me about how i am overreacting, specifically to green taako, or about how i should just calm down and ignore it, or about how it’s sad that i’m getting so worked up instead of just enjoying the show, i’ve heard it and i don’t care. you will not be taken seriously. save yourself the energy.

there are spoilers for the graphic novel under the cut.

alright. i’m getting the elephant in the room out of the way first because it’s the most important thing to address, and once it’s out of my system i’ll feel better goofing on the rest of the designs. as i mentioned in the disclaimer: Green Taako Is Bad.

[ID: a panel focusing on taako. he’s skinny and minty green with chin-length light blonde hair and a big, pointy nose.]

now, a lot of people have made posts about this before, and i’m not saying anything new about it by any means. i’m also not the most equipped person to talk about why green taako is bad, because i’m a white gentile (i’ve heard conflicting opinions on whether or not green taako is antisemitic, but it feels remiss not to mention that there’s been discussion) and therefore not part of any groups affected by this whole debacle, but in short: when pressed for more diversity, specifically in taako’s case as a pretty large chunk of his arc involves literally inventing a mexican cultural food (fun note: that’s never mentioned in this book,) carey pietsch decided he should be green and the mcelroys were down with it. this is not an issue that cropped up when this design was released; it was something that there was already a ton of discourse surrounding, and it should never have gotten concepts drawn, let alone made it to publish.

this article by natt cuesta has been linked before on the subject, and i think it’s a good, concise explanation of why green taako is bad as well as why aracial characters in general are bad. this is a racist design.

now that we’ve gotten those ethical ramifications out of the way... i’m sorry, but it’s an ugly design, lmao. he looks like a palette-swapped version of pearl from steven universe with less character. the ONLY thing about this design that i like is the prominent lower lashes, if only because they’re the only thing that keeps him from looking entirely generic. because, like, y’all, when has anything about taako been generic?

[ID: a panel focusing on magnus. he’s a muscular fair-skinned man with auburn hair, a bushy beard, and a scar over his left eye.]

generic is a word that’s going to come up a lot over the course of this review, because i genuinely can’t think of a more apt descriptor for pietsch’s designs. it feels like she went with the lowest common denominator of every character’s design, a synthesis of all of the most popular (and most boring) ones, except in instances where that would lend any personality to a character’s design. magnus fits what brief description we’re given in the podcast: auburn hair. beard. big. and i guess that’s all you need?

i understand that by appealing to the most common and basic designs for these characters you’re inviting a lot less ire than you might by going with something more individual, so i get the motivation behind it -- or i would, if her designs hadn’t always been about this dull. but it’s bizarre to me that in a story as unique as the balance campaign, we ended up with the most basic ass Fantasy Hero lookin’ dude in the world as one of our protagonists.

i just really don’t have a lot to say about this. i’m just bored by it.

[ID: a panel of merle. he has medium-dark skin with a smooth white bun and beard.]

merle is simultaneously the design i like most out of the boys and the one that throws me the most, because i feel like he’s the most out on a limb one. which... oof. most merle designs i see give him a floral motif (i guess he has a few petals in his hair, maybe?) and big coke-bottle glasses, and i miss those things with this design, but at least it doesn’t totally feel like pietsch threw every merle she could get her hands on into a blender and poured it out on a page, although honestly, that might have been more satisfying. people do some really fun shit with their merle designs, but again, he’s. generic.

as the cuesta article mentions, with how much of an issue it was to get any of the boys to be poc in the first place and in conjunction with minty up there, this design also feels like tokenism -- an appeasement rather than an honest attempt at diversity or god forbid because the artist actually headcanons merle as a person of color. personally, i wish that she’d gone a step beyond re-coloring his skin and idk given him a natural hairstyle or something. he still feels very much like a recolor to me rather than a character who was designed as a person of color from the beginning.

i feel like he looks more like a cleric than he looks like a merle, which i feel like is pretty contradictory to who merle is.

[ID: a cutaway showing griffin, a white man with brown hair and glasses wearing a collared shirt.]

i’ve said before that it feels a little odd to talk about her design of a real person, so i’ll keep this brief, but... you know how every drawing of a basic white dude looks a little bit like griffin mcelroy? you know how that one arthur character looks a little bit like griffin mcelroy? you know how everyone is constantly messaging mysillycomics about how her avatar looks like griffin mcelroy?

how did carey pietsch manage to actively attempt to draw griffin mcelroy and miss the mark? it boggles the mind. he doesn’t not look like griffin, i guess, but he doesn’t look like griffin, either. i don’t know, man

[ID: a generic gerblin. he has yellowy-green skin, slight tusks or fangs, and weird, nubby little horn-type things.]

i hate these gerblins. they are ugly. next

[ID: two images of klaarg/g’nash. he’s a bugbear with brown fur and yellow eyes as well as a mouth full of pointy teeth. in the first image he looks pissed off; in the second he’s starry-eyed and delighted.]

klaarg is probably my favorite design in the book, and that’s just because he looks like a cute dog for most of the time he’s on the page. he’s fluffy and i love klaarg anyway, so like. did not take a lot to reach this mark. especially considering how i feel about most of the other designs lmfao

i do definitely think he keeps up the trend of looking generic, though.

[ID: an image of barry bluejeans. he looks like tom arnold, kind of; he’s square-jawed and white with thick-rimmed glasses. he also has a light brown mullet.]

i hate this. i hate the mullet. i’m sorry, y’all, i really, truly, cannot stand the mullet. i don’t feel like barry has mullet energy. i feel like it’s too powerful a move for him. it wouldn’t be a good move, mind you, but it would be a big one. i don’t know y’all it’s just bad

[ID: an image of killian. she’s a green-skinned orc woman with prominent eyelashes, eyebrows, and tusks, and straight brown hair.]

i can’t have been the only one who was hoping for a badass, visibly muscular, maybe even butch killian design, right? that wasn’t just me being a big old lesbian, that’s a pretty common theme of killian designs? i guess kudos for going out on a limb again, but then, like, take the kudos back for going out on the most boring limb possible again. i could hang with the face if her hair wasn’t so boring, but it’s... it’s so boring

[ID: an image of magic brian. he’s a drow with long white hair and an oblong face and oddly shaped nose.]

for how many of her designs are syntheses of popular ones, i..... don’t understand how this happened. i don’t understand how whimiscal and flamboyant magic brian who’s often drawn as taako-but-a-goth-dark-elf ended up looking like this. he looks like he used to play football and got his nose busted up and peaked in fantasy high school. he looks like the first quarter of a monster factory video where the thing’s just ugly but doesn’t have a personality or any endearing traits yet. he didn’t have to be the goth twink we all know he is but what.......... is this

[ID: an image of gundren rockseeker/bogard. he’s a light-skinned dwarf with dark long hair and a matching beard.]

..........listen i know they’re cousins and distant cousins at that but all of merle’s cousins are light-skinned and, like, not to say that that can’t happen but having them be anywhere near merle’s skin tone would’ve been such an easy way to help bolster the obviously inaccurate idea that this is a work concerned with diverse character designs, or rather to help ppl claim it was being bolstered, and yet

[ID: avi, a fair-skinned man with long dark hair kept up in a ponytail and slight scruff on his face.]

i feel like maybe avi is intended to be east asian so i think at this point that brings the count up to a whole two characters of color. we’re almost done with the book. cool. he’s cute, i guess, but guess what word i’m about to say again (it’s generic)

[ID: a panel of several unnamed cameo characters. from right to left: carey fangbattle, a light blue dragonborn; brad bradson, a green orc man with a long brown ponytail; and presumably lucas miller, a tan human with glasses and dark hair.]

ok. deep breaths.

first off, there’s another panel w these three as well as boyland, who looks fine, but i didn’t grab that one bc it’s harder to make out detail. carey is cute. brad is fine.

i assume the third guy is lucas miller because i’m not entirely sure who else he would be, and... oof! as you may know i can’t stand lucas miller, which has nothing to do with his necromancy or nerdiness and everything to do with the various human rights violations he commits in the small time he’s got focus as well as the fact that he’s got a theoretical redemption arc that’s not actually an arc so much as us being told he’s better now. lucas is an entitled jackass who repeatedly uses other people’s bodies and minds without their consent, from the obvious offense of using the bugbears as brainwashed chore-doers (read: slaves) to the less-oft discussed dragging of noelle and others out of the astral plane into robot bodies, again to do his chores for him. because of this, it has always sat very uncomfortably with me when people make lucas a poc, because everything about him screams Shitty White Nerd Boy to me. it sits extra uncomfortably coming from carey pietsch, given how white all of her other designs are.

it’s a little hard to tell because i took all these pics with my phone camera in my room’s lighting so they’re not super high fidelity or anything, but pietsch’s lucas is noticeably darker than any other character we’ve seen so far save merle. maybe he’s just a white guy with a tan, but all the same, it strikes me as incredibly skeevy to have one of so few characters of color be this fucking guy.

[ID: johann, a black man with an oblong face and textured dark hair.]

johann’s design is fine, although this is a similar face shape to that brian from earlier and i just. i don’t. understand it. it’s not especially interesting, but hey, at least he’s not another generic white guy.

that being said, as i mentioned in part 1 of this review, johann’s role is severely cut in this -- he’s reduced to three panels, when in the show itself he’s the one who escorts the boys to the voidfish’s chamber and inoculates them. as i mentioned in that post i understand that they shifted it some to give lucretia a more prominent entrance, but as i also mentioned in that post, they should have compensated for that. three panels.

johann is not a character with a great deal of screentime as it is, but he’s a character with a major impact. he is the reason story and song happens. his song serves as a direct foil to john’s nihilistic conversion of his own home plane into the hunger. the fact that he’s been reduced to three panels with little to no characterization at this point, especially in conjunction with the fact that he’s one of very few poc, makes me really, really uncomfortable. avi is in more panels in this book than johann is, and while i love avi and as i said i am parsing him as an asian dude, he’s also still light-skinned enough and the style is nondescript enough that there are definitely people who will parse him as white, and also, avi’s role in the story is not as big as johann’s.

it doesn’t sit right with me.

[ID: an image of davenport, a fair-skinned man with a big red mustache and slicked back red hair.]

ginger davenport with a big mustache. groundbreaking.

[ID: an image of lucretia, a slender black woman with short white hair dressed in blue layers.]

and finally, lucretia. now, i’m biased, and it’s hard for me to see a lucretia design i don’t like. i also think that this is, compared to a lot of the others at least, one of the more interesting designs in the book, at least as far as her clothes go. it’s not a long robe that would be hard to move in, and i appreciate that -- it strikes me as a pretty practical outfit while also being ornamental and wizard-y. and she’s pretty, and she’s not whitewashed, and that’s all great. i like her earrings.

all that being said, i feel like it’s not enough. luc’s hair continues a theme with merle’s and johann’s (as well as the preview we’ve seen of angus,) which is that it strikes me as very low-effort on pietsch’s part. it’s short and it’s definitely not straight, but it doesn’t feel to me like it had as much thought put into it as, say, minty green taako’s hair. we could’ve had a lucretia with a big beautiful afro, or long box braids, or so many other natural hairstyles; we got this. it’s not bad, but i do think it’s disappointing. without going looking for it and without being a person who reads a great deal about character design, i’ve seen a fair amount of discussion from black women (artists, writers, and none of the above) about the portrayal of black women as it pertains to their hair. they’re never designed to be as feminine as their white counterparts. their hair is never treated with the same amount of detail or respect as their white counterparts. it’s short, maybe curly if you’re lucky.

i’m gonna circle back quickly to killian’s hair. it’s long and smooth and kept down, despite the fact that killian is an action-oriented women and might not want it to be in her face all the time -- it could have at least been braided or in a bun. it could’ve been short! and that would’ve made sense. and i don’t mean to say that lucretia couldn’t have short hair, but she’s a very elegant woman whose dress is described as intricate. she wears business regalia. she could have any number of hairstyles, from something elaborate to something simple but more out-of-the-box than this, but she doesn’t. i found this on a quick hunt through my ref tag -- it’s a tutorial for drawing black folks with just a small selection of interesting things you can do with afrotextured hair. these resources aren’t hard to find! and i’m doing this for fun -- carey pietsch is a professional artist who was paid for these designs. if she’d put in more than the bare minimum effort, we could’ve had some really interesting shit going on, but she didn’t.

and that’s the core of the issue here. i truly do not feel like pietsch put the same amount of care into the designs for the few characters of color we see as she did into the white ones, and that’s upsetting and emblematic of a larger problem in the work: neither pietsch nor the mcelroys put in very much care at all for the fans of color who spoke up and asked for representation.i know i said i was getting taako out of the way first so the majority of the post could be goof-heavy, but goddamn, y’all, it’s hard to goof about when it’s so blatantly shitty. pietsch’s designs are boring at best and racist at worst, not to mention conspicuously lacking in anyone who is not skinny, muscular, or a dwarf. people have praised this thing so uncritically, including people whose opinions i generally really respect, as if the fact that the mcelroys signing off on green taako made it above reproach.

it didn’t, by the way. there’s no such thing as an unproblematic fav, because everybody fucks something up now and then, but even then, this is a pretty egregious fuck-up! and it was willful!

i’m not saying y’all need to burn your copies of the gn or stop listening to the mcelroys entirely or anything of the sort -- you may remember the disclaimer at the top of the post where i say i really, really love them, and more specifically, i really love taz: balance. but i am BEGGING YOU to think critically about their work. good, good boys can do bad, bad things. white people can produce work that’s racist even if they’re gay women. it’s not mean to critique the boys and it’s not homophobic (or god forbid reverse racist, which is still not a real thing) to critique carey.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ the real kicker of this whole thing for me is that there’s a small fanart gallery in the back of the book. most of them aren’t labeled with the artist’s handles, just their names, but there are some truly beautiful pieces featuring diverse designs -- galacticjonah and milkychai both have beautiful latino taakos featured! galacticjonah’s is fat, too! but even after the backlash against green taako, even aside from that being the design that people are going to accept as canonical, there are pieces in the gallery of green taako, as if doubling down on it was the right move.

and by the way, yeah, i’ve read griffin’s apology. but i thought we all learned in kindergarten that an apology doesn’t count if you don’t act on it.

[alexiethymia]

Kagami, Luka, and the Love Square

(spoilers obviously)

Also, just had to get it out there.

Kagami

Thoughts: 

She is bae honestly. Adrien proving he has a type; bad-ass, spunky Asian girls who can intimidate and/or kick his ass.

I think this is where angst comes in since unlike Marinette’s other rivals (Chloe, Lila), I can see her genuinely liking Kagami, and them getting along well together. And if she sees how Adrien and her might be drawn together because of their similar backgrounds, I can see her backing off as a sign of character development in wanting to be Adrien’s friend first and foremost. But at the same time, her heartbreak may also potentially cause her to be akumatized. 

Kagami means ‘Mirror’. From what we’ve seen of her she seems to be a foil to Marinette, really similar in appearance, but opposing in temperament. Where Marinette is clumsy (whenever she’s not LB), Kagami is lithe. Where she is expressive, Kagami is reserved. 

HCs: 

I can see her being bi, getting a mild crush on Marinette and also Adrien?  mean who wouldn’t have crushes on them? At the same time, I can see her being a wingwoman to both Adrien and Marinette. Go on and join the club! Alya’s president. 

She probably got the last spot at the fencing school and this is where she and Adrien probably become close.

I BELIEVE WHOLEHEARTEDLY IN THE HEADCANON THAT ADRIEN IS A WEABOO. KAGAMI IS HIS NEW ANIME BUDDY. BUT HE KEEPS ON WANTING TO TALK ABOUT SHOUJO AND MAGICAL GIRL ANIMES (Ouran High School Host Club, Sailor Moon), while Kagami just wants to talk about Shonen. THE CONFLICT. 

Speculations: 

I hope she gets the Peacock Miraculous, but that would mean working with HawkMoth, so it would be interesting to see how that would play out. Maybe she has a family secret relating to the Miraculous? Kwami (Quantic Kami) and Akuma are Japanese words. Maybe the whole lore and the first LB and CN started in Japan?

Luka

Thoughts:

 PLEASE LET HIM BE PUNK GOTH, PLEASE LET HIM BE PUNK GOTH. Please let him be the ‘bad boy’ to counter Adrien’s golden prince.

And to be fair, maybe Marinette mistakes him initially for Chat Noir just like how Adrien initially thought Kagami could be LB.

Probably outwardly flirty, but just overall a good-natured guy. I read somewhere that Luka means ‘bright one’ in Russian while Adrien could mean ‘dark one’, so I could see the two being foils like Kagami and Marinette. Adrien’s the golden boy on the outside while hiding a lot of deep sadness inside. Despite him smiling a lot, he holds himself back. Meanwhile, Luka could have a dark color scheme but act with much more freedom in his emotions, and is a really funny guy, creating a sort of image gap.

HCs:

I headcanon that Luka does parkour, has dark hair like Juleka, and has a sweet tooth. I’m pretty sure he’ll also have a good heart, since that part is what will likely attract Marinette (besides his possible resemblance to Chat Noir *cough cough*)

Maybe he and Marinette will have a meetcute, where he saves her or she saves him, and from then on gets a sort of admiration for her. He sort of flirts with her, but Marinette knows how to deflect it when it’s not Adrien, so they have this sort of easy going relationship. 

ADRIEN GETS SO JEALOUS. But he doesn’t really realize it at first. At first he’s maybe envious of Luka’s carefree personality, and also about the openness Marinette displays with Luka when he’s just a relatively newcomer, meanwhile it took a bit more time for Marinette to open up to him (from his perspective). Then he gets a bit uneasy because what if Marinette thinks Luka’s Chat Noir? But that shouldn’t be a problem for him right, since it’ll help protect his secret identity, but still WHAT IS THIS PAINFUL FEELING IN HIS CHEST? 

LIKE I AM SO READY FOR JEALOUS ADRIEN LIKE YOU WOULDN’T BELIEVE. We’ve already seen jealousy on him as Chat Noir, but I think it won’t be as outwardly apparent as when he’s Adrien, so from Marinette’s perspective, Adrien really just thinks of her as a friend, and then ANGST, because what if this development is what pushes her to try to give up on Adrien?

Speculation:

I kinda think this is how we get the Marichat balcony scene. They’ll grow closer and Marinette drops the bomb that she likes someone, and our poor oblivious boy automatically assumes it must be Luka. There’s that weird hurting feeling in his chest again, but whatever, Marinette’s his good friend, someone he treasures, of course he’ll help her get with the guy of her dreams. Matchmaker Adrien appears again, but this will inevitably hurt Marinette more, I mean can you imagine your crush blatantly pushing you towards another guy? (It hurts Adrien too, but he still can’t tell why.)

Since Luka’s going to be part of S3, I have this theory that he’ll be the one to succeed HawkMoth’s miraculous. I mean if Master Fu can pass his on to Nino, so can Gabe to another younger wielder, once he’s redeemed. That would be my dream team to be honest, Marinette, Adrien, Alya, Nino, Chloe, Kagami, and Luka to defeat a greater threat than HawkMoth (because I’m sure something more sinister will be coming for them). Tbh this theory is mostly me wanting Kagami and Luka to have their own miraculouses. 

Marinette & Adrien

No wonder they both can’t tell the other is their partner, despite all of the obvious proof literally right in front of them. From Riposte alone, Adrien thinks and knows about Marinette’s clumsiness. He can’t reconcile that with LB’s gracefulness. There’s no possible way LB could be clumsy. Meanwhile, we know also from the same episode that Marinette thinks Chat Noir is a natural-born flirt. Even until now, she probably still hasn’t realized (or is in full-denial mode) that she is his only one. She can’t reconcile that at all with her image of Adrien as a perfect prince. This season will probably focus more on the two of them seeing the flaws of their idealized loves, in order for them to see the truth that was there all along. 

This is a headcanon of mine that has no basis, but I think Adrien unconsciously tries to act like a perfect prince in front of Marinette. He rarely lets his Chat Noir out around her as compared to others like Nino, and even Chloe. Maybe it has something to do with how they got off on the wrong start, so he doesn’t want her to ever have a bad opinion of him ever again, so despite wanting to act more casual and friendly around her, he still reserves a bit of himself because her opinion really matters to him. So this is maybe where Marichat interaction can help, and one which I’m really excited for this season, since the both of them can act like they want to around each other as friends without the unexpected burden of expectations. 

[ibelieveinahappilyeverafter]

Putting the Cat in Catastrophe Chapter 1 (edited)

Bonjour, mes chers! I’m about to upload chapter two in half an hour or so here, but this is the edited chapter of TCC where I had to edit a few things to make it work better once I finished plotting it all out. Enjoy! Also, a new thing, I’ll be uploading the chapter fully onto tumblr. Neat, huh? 

If you’re a Patron of mine then you can find a link the the old version of the story - and even notes of what I wanted to do! - on my patreon at mjanderson! You can pledge as little as a dollar a month and get access to a bunch of cool things. Go check it out!

Click here to read on FFN Click here to read on AO3

Summary:   Danny Fenton has just escaped from a secret government testing facility and runs straight into Andrew Riter - a busybody librarian who seems to be obsessed with helping a stray black cat - said stray black cat happening to be Danny himself. The Government gets interested when they find out a seemingly ordinary human can shapeshift into different animals. Danny just wants to return to his family and try to find his lost memories, but he's having a hard time doing so when he's finding less and less reasons for leaving Andrew's side. He couldn't tell anyone his secret - not again - but... But why did he want to trust this man so badly? (Iambic Prose) (Shapeshifter Danny AU)

Warning: This story will have references to laboratory testing, mentions of vivisections, blood, wounds, character trauma, and things of a similar sort. Most mentions of such things will be vague, but there will be heavy mentions of it and warnings at the beginning of chapters when it gets explicit.

<<Next Chapter>>

Chapter One

:: 

It could be said that how a person’s day went was largely determined by their mood and their personal worldview. With such an outlook, it would be correct in saying that if you looked upon the day with a cheery smile and attitude, then you would have a happy day no matter what bad things befell you.

Andrew Riter would like nothing more than to punch the face of whoever had said that. Preferably with a knife, but a regular punch and kick to the balls would work just as well, he was certain.

See, Andrew would readily admit that he wasn’t that optimistic of a person - in fact, he was usually downright sour to people and for good reason. He dealt with enough stupidity at work and school, he didn’t need it in his daily life. There was a reason he avoided social contact as best he could. He still did his best to enjoy his days and take them one at a time, of course, but that was very difficult when his day had become a giant shitshow.

It started, as always, when he woke up to nothing but wonderful peace and quiet. That was very bad since it meant his alarm hadn’t gone off. A look to his piece of shit alarm clock had showed he only had an hour to get ready for work. It wasn’t the best, but at least he hadn’t slept through the start of his shift. Which, that was fine. It could have been a still okay day since it meant he got more sleep, but, no.

He quickly found out his depression and anxiety medication were completely empty. Completely as in there was a post-it note reminding him to refill the damn things, but he hadn’t, so screw his past self. The day could have been saved by a good cup of morning coffee and a muffin or two, but his cabinets were dismally empty and the only thing in his refrigerator that wasn’t expired were some eggs and milk. He hated dairy. As for the new bag of coffee he got… He grabbed the wrong one last time he was at the store.

So with a horribly cold shower because the water in his apartment sucked, Andrew had gone out the door and had been five seconds away from a full blown panic attack because of the fucking espresso coffee he bought that existed for the sole reason of people hating themselves. It may not have been as bad if he hadn’t been stopped on the stairwell three times by his neighbors.

Vidya, his sadistic landlord who he was absolutely certain was a witch of some sort due to the fact she always smelled of plants and wore a lot of black and green and had grey hair when she was thirty, had wanted to discuss that month’s rent and was not assured by Andrew telling her - quite often - that his paycheck would be coming in just a few days and could she please stop threatening eviction when she never went through with it? Either commit or don’t, but stop acting like his life wasn’t in her hands, honestly.

He had then been stopped on the second floor by Sam who had spent almost half an hour screaming at him over the ethics of animal testing. Sam was a childhood friend who had ‘coincidentally’ wound up in the same apartment as him and tended to dress on the more vampire side of goth. The black hair fooled no one when the roots were so quick to fade back to blonde. Ugh. She also had this thing about animal testing. Andrew was of the opinion that he didn’t care at all and Sam seemed to think him a monster for not caring about - what even had she been upset about this time? Eyeliner on bunnies? Andrew couldn't care less. Actually, he probably could care less! This was him! Not caring!

Oh and then Tucker. Tucker, another ‘coincidental’ childhood friend and certifiable genius when it came to mechanics and computers and looked like a nerd straight from the 80s or early 90s, had stopped him five feet from the door and spent thirty minutes trying to talk to him about theoretical physics. Andrew was just trying to get his Associate in Arts and then transfer to a nice four-year to study Creative Writing - maybe Journalism if he got curious and or desperate enough. He was not killing himself with a double major in Engineering and Physics or whatever the hell it was Tucker did. Of course, that did nothing to stop the ‘genius’ from talking his ear off. By the time he got outside to his bus stop the bus had been gone for twenty minutes and his shift started in ten. His job was fifteen minutes away by car.

Needless to say, that left Andrew very cranky and running through alleyways and down not so safe streets as he tried to take shortcuts in whatever way he could in order to get to the library he worked at on time. Three minutes of trying to find the right street and proving he had just circled a block and wasted time almost sent him to tears before he heard his phone buzzing with a familiar ringtone.

Taking a breath, and trying not to hysterically laugh at the ‘Werewolves of London’ song he now had playing and couldn’t figure out how to change, Andrew clicked accept call and tried to stay calm. Focused. Peaceful. “Bonjour, grand frère.”

“What did you do and what do I need to fix?” Rude. Randy had called him, thank you very much. “Andy, you only call me that when you want something or you’re about to have a nervous breakdown. Are you about to have a nervous breakdown- Shit, you took your meds this morning, didn’t you?” Dammit.

“I’m not screwed up enough to forget my meds, thanks.” How did his brother always manage to call right when he was feeling at his worst or when he ran out of his pills? He was pretty sure the man had him bugged. It wouldn’t surprise him. He took overprotective to whole new levels. “Why did you call me?”

“Lunch!” Oh. It was one of their lunch days, wasn’t it? “Our lunch breaks should align today, so I figured we could meet up at our usual place around then?” It was ridiculous that Andrew could hear the ‘are you okay’ hidden in those words.

“Lunch sounds fine.” Randy was annoying, but he had this ridiculous way of making Andrew find a reason to not just curl into a ball and never wake up. He also made Andrew feel better about his own wreck of a life considering the messes he got himself into. “You’re paying, Mr. $82,000 a year.”

“Hey, I’m not that good of a vet yet and I’m still paying off student loan debts!” Feeling a small smile on his face, Andrew sighed softly. Randy somehow always made it okay again. He would die before telling that to his face, of course, but still. “I’ll meet you in a few hours. Try not to get lost in your books, Andy.”

“Try not to flirt with the owners of your patients, Randy.” Honestly, his decision to become a veterinarian had come out of left field, but Andrew couldn’t deny he did a good job. “Especially that one you’re so fond of. Now, what was his name… It started with an N?”

“Bye, love you, gotta go!” The call disconnected and Andrew gave in to the urge to laugh. Seeing the time, his laugh quickly fell and, right, he should at least call in to let the library know he was going to be a little bit late. Of course - of course - he got four rings in before his phone died. Because apparently his phone hadn’t charged from the night before even though Andrew had unplugged it this morning.

And as if the gods had somehow heard of his day and decided he needed to suffer even more, the clouds above him rumbled with the menacing beats of thunder and lightning cracked against the sky like a jagged edge of a wound. It took only a second for Andrew to realize he was fucked and two for the rain to begin falling.

Within fifteen minutes he was late, soaked, and felt as if he had offended some minor deity over something or other - or maybe it was Vidya making him suffer for being behind on his rent. Mm. Maybe he had broken a mirror or spilled some salt, actually. That sounded like his kind of luck. Heh. Maybe it was divine punishment. He obviously hadn’t suffered enough for what he had done, right?

By the time he got to the library he was pretty sure his clothes were ruined and he would never be dry again. At least he could get inside and clean up in the bathroom before sitting himself right over a heating vent and sorting books. It was a nice, quiet library and it was raining like it wouldn’t stop for forty days. He was sure the owner wouldn’t mind. In fact, he could even… He… He could stare at the locked doors and dark windows.

Gaze caught on the white notice posted to the main door, Andrew could only stare, utterly speechless. It was Memorial Day. They were closed on Memorial Day. Andrew had just walked for what was probably close to thirty minutes in the rain and… And… At least he wasn’t late. That was great. That was fucking fantastic.

Shoving a hand in his bag to see if he had some magical solution that would fix all of his problems, Andrew stared at the purple umbrella that came out and began mocking him at once. He stared for what felt like an eternity before he clicked the button and ducked into the alleyway. Sitting down on a set of side steps that led to an unstable backdoor, Andrew propped the umbrella up over him and stared at the red brick wall across from him.

It wasn’t even noon, yet, and his day was completely ruined and shot all to hell. The worst part was that this wasn’t even the first time this had happened - maybe the exact circumstances were, but getting screwed over by life? No, no, Andrew was very familiar with getting screwed over.

Glasses fogged up, breath still short from his running, and soaked through to the bone, Andrew could only bury his face into his hands and make a noise that he hoped was closer to a groan than a sob. It was always like this. Life built up to where he couldn’t handle the strain, everything came crashing down around him, and he shattered. Eventually he would put himself back together, but it kept feeling like it was harder and harder to be able to do that.

A clash of thunder and lightning and gust of wind had him trying to bite down another sob/groan. Of all the things he expected to happen next in his life, it wasn’t to hear an answering hiss to his own pathetic noise.

Head jerking up, Andrew stared down at the pathetic scrap of fur that sat in front of him, just as soaked and just as pissed as he felt himself - although the scrap of fur looked to be as broken as Andrew probably looked. Staring for a moment, Andrew huffed and looked at the black cat with a wry smile, “Bonjour, chat noir. Are you the cause of my bad luck today, then?”

At least animals didn’t judge you for speaking French first instead of English, he mused. Sighing, Andrew fixed his glasses, trying to see. He had given up wiping them off after the first few minutes of the rain storm. “Would you like to add to today’s woes, then? I’m sure there’s nothing else you can do to me, at this point, but you’re welcome to try.”

There was a rumbling little growl that sounded utterly pathetic, Andrew huffing out a laugh as he stared at the mangy thing. No doubt the cat was covered with fleas, ticks, and other unsavory bugs. The ribs poking out showed he hadn’t had a decent meal in weeks - maybe months. Poor thing probably wouldn’t make it through the night.

Tilting his umbrella forward, Andrew propped his cheek up on his hand - elbow balanced on his knee - as the fabric kept anymore rainwater from getting on the cat. “There you go. Might as well. Not like I can get much more wet myself.” The rain was freezing as hell, of course, so Andrew was being a complete idiot by doing this for a cat that looked ready to claw his eyes out. Ugh. Why did he have to pity small, tiny things?

The cat grumbled and stared at Andrew hard before leaning forward and giving as quick a headbutt to Andrew’s leg as he could, Andrew amused to see that the cat looked disgruntled at even that much. “You’ve had a very hard life, haven’t you?” The meow sounded like utter, sarcastic agreement. Maybe Andrew was projecting. “I know what that’s like, petit chaton. Would you like to hear about my cursed day?”

So, of course, Andrew spent the next however long telling a cat about how terrible his day had been. The cat seemed to be an attentive audience, at least, nodding along and making little rumbling noises close to a purr as he said something particularly witty. Andrew wasn’t sure if that was meant to be amusement or a reprimand- A cat. He was projecting emotions onto a cat. He had fallen far, hadn’t he?

“I imagine your story is much more interesting, though.” Andrew stared down at the mangy little stray, the cat staring back up at him before jumping up into his lap. Andrew scrambled to keep the thing from falling and not dropping the umbrella, calming his racing pulse down. “A warning would have been nice, you know.”

The cat meowed with what sounded like derision, Andrew huffing and ready to argue before going utterly still and silent as bright blue eyes caught onto him own. “I didn’t know black cats had such bright eyes.” The cat only settled down tiredly, looking utterly exhausted, but those eyes… No. No, it had been years and it was time to get over it. Happy endings like those in his books didn’t exist in this world. The sooner he realized that days like this one were the norm, the better off he would be. After all, you couldn’t get disappointed when you expected the worst, right?

But, still. Andrew couldn’t stop himself from threading his fingers through the small creature’s fur, the threat of tears starting to fade. The fur was rather soft even with the rainwater that drenched them. Actually the storm was starting to lessen into a drizzle.

Leaning back against the unstable backdoor, Andrew sighed and closed his eyes, biting his lip as his fingers tightened on the fur. Black fur with blue eyes. That… “You know, I like to think that black cats are actually lucky.” It wasn’t possible - it wasn’t - but… It wouldn’t hurt him anymore to keep hoping, right?

Just one last time.

[reactingtosomething]

Reacting to X-Men: Evolution

An Entry Into the "Popular Girl Who Isn't a Bitch" Genre

The Setup: Find Miri and guest reactor Caroline’s reaction to the 90s X-Men cartoon, specifically the Dark Phoenix Saga, here. This installment directly continues that conversation and covers both X-Men: Evolution and comparisons between the two series.

Among other things, Evolution has the distinction of introducing Laura Kinney, a.k.a. X-23, who soon migrated to the comics, and whom most people now know from Logan. But as previously established, Miri is especially fond of Evolution’s Rogue, so for comparison to the 90s animated series, she and Caroline watched some Rogue-centric episodes and some Jean-centric ones: the pilot, “Power Surge,” “Walk on the Wild Side,” and “Self Possessed.”

 MIRI: Ok, X-Men Evolution!

This show was one of the first pieces of culture that I can remember loving

CAROLINE: So as a youth I was SUPER against it on principle

Because I loved TAS so much

MIRI: Because it was SO different from what you knew and loved?

CAROLINE: So I never even gave it a chance

MIRI: Makes total sense to me

I appreciate you doing so now

What did you think?

CAROLINE: BUT I watched some maybe two years ago with a friend and was surprised by how much I enjoyed them!

MIRI: Yay!

CAROLINE: And I felt that way again watching these

MIRI: It’s just so charming, right?

CAROLINE: It's a very different take but one I can definitely enjoy

Oh for sure. Super charming

And I love anything that centers on a Jean/Scott love story

MIRI: I will say they are all shockingly bad at being subtle about their mutant powers. Like, the secret would be out in no time

Yes, they do the love triangle very interestingly, because it’s doubled with the whole football boyfriend thing

(Duncan?)

Yes, Duncan. AKA Jean’s terrible football boyfriend

CAROLINE: So this my main problem with the show I think: I either want ALL the X-Men to be mutant teens secretly figuring out their lives at a normal high school. Or I want the show to be set entirely at Xavier's school where everyone is a mutant

Doing both locations is just confusing to me and feels illogical within the world

MIRI: Huh. I feel like it works the way Buffy works. But I’m very biased, obviously

CAROLINE: It feels like having Xavier in their lives is too much of a safety net

Or the high school stuff is at odds with the training stuff somehow

MIRI: I see it more along the lines of Kim Possible having her life and her missions, and the tension of both against each other make each side more complex

But I will admit that the stakes are fairly uneven

CAROLINE: I guess I'm just used to the idea of the X-Mansion being a school

MIRI: And it’s unclear the extent to which they are being trained and for what purpose.

CAROLINE: So it's weird to me that they have two schools

MIRI: That makes sense

CAROLINE: And they live at one of those schools but learn at the other

MIRI: I think they may have tried to straddle the line between training these kids to be superheroes and training them to control their abilities for their own good/the safety of others

And kind of gone back and forth as the plot demanded, which isn’t great

CAROLINE: I was super into the high school stuff though

Which is why I wanted more of it

MIRI: Yeah, I think that is what works better

CAROLINE: Also Storm 100% should've been a teen too

I was a little mad about that

MIRI: Huh, so just Xavier, Wolverine, and Beast as the adults? That would have been entertaining

CAROLINE: Or... no adults

JUST TEENS

MIRI: Ooh, just all of them in high school?

I’m into that

CAROLINE: And no Wolverine, that voice actor was terrible

MIRI: What are you talking about, bub?

CAROLINE: Ha!

K: I do prefer this costume to his classic one, though

Even Wolverine as a teen would've been fine

I mean I realize that is entirely against the canon as he's ageless

But they could've made it work

Angsty teen Wolverine

MIRI: Eh, there’s plenty that’s against canon or just outside of it

Ok, I need to take a moment to just gush about how much I love angsty goth teen Rogue

Because it is A LOT

CAROLINE: Go for it!

MIRI: She has so many feelings and she wants to be loved so badly! And she makes the ridiculous outfits work shockingly well!

Basically, she was one of my first crushes and I had NO idea that was true until like 4 years ago

M: Bisexuality in a heteronormative world is an adventure, kids.

CAROLINE: I feel like the movies and these two series give us three VERY different takes on Rogue

Yet they all work really well on their own ways

MIRI: And the voice actress is amazing.

Yes! I’d say this one is a little closer to the film one, but still pretty different

CAROLINE: Yeah she's great! I great cartoon crush all around

MIRI: Hahahah thanks

Honestly, I thought the Scott/Jean/Rogue love triangle moments at the end of the “Power Surge” episode were the most compelling storytelling EVER as a kid. Especially when Jean talks through Rogue at the end

CAROLINE: Oh yeah that was heartbreaking

MIRI: I think the way people changed from x-men to Brotherhood in this show is really interesting

CAROLINE: And Rogue's powers being a metaphor for unrequited high school love is perfect

Oh yeah that one dude was super hot

Speaking of cartoon crushes

MIRI: Which one?

CAROLINE: Quake maybe?

In my head he was Gambit, which he definitely wasn't

MIRI: Ohhhhh Lance? The one Kitty seems to be dating in the second episode?

CAROLINE: Yes! I was super into him

MIRI: Not my type of unwashed 90s boy, but I respect your opinion

I like that they can be dating or friends or whatever, which on “Enemy” teams

CAROLINE: It's a fun idea

MIRI: And Tabitha can change sides, but then also be a in a girl gang with Jean, Kitty, Rogue, and Amara

CAROLINE: And another reason I feel like the show would've been better if it were an all high school series

MIRI: You may be converting me here

CAROLINE: Aahaha

I did really enjoy Kitty as well!

She wasn't a big part of TAS or really the movies either

K: In the comics, she’s actually introduced in the Dark Phoenix arc

MIRI: The fake Valley Girl thing bothered me at first, but you get used to it super fast and I like the character a lot

CAROLINE: And this series encapsulates her nicely

MIRI: No, she was super secondary in the movies

Which is a shame because Ellen Page

CAROLINE: I love how diverse the X-Men are in terms of personality types

That's a fun conceit of the show

These people probably wouldn't have been high school friends if they weren't linked by their powers

MIRI: And on that score, the conceit of them all living in the Institute is nice

CAROLINE: And now they all have to figure out how to get along

That's true

MIRI: Because they’re pseudo siblings in a way they wouldn’t be without living together

CAROLINE: But also they're all dating each other?

MIRI: ….yes

CAROLINE: This is where things get weird

MIRI: Also yes

CAROLINE: And the amount of supervision they have is confusing to me

It's either a ton or none

MIRI: Mostly none

CAROLINE: The show probably just didn't want to deal with parents, which I get

But I don't think this Xavier is a great caretaker of teens

MIRI: I like the terrible attempts at lamp-shading like when the kids say “I can’t believe Duncan’s parents let him have parties”

Yeah, this Xavier is more of a Fun Uncle than a parent

CAROLINE: A recipe for disaster

Anyway the interpersonal dynamics between the teens were all great

Especially Scott and Jean, as I mentioned before

This Scott voice actor is SO much better than TAS guy

MIRI: Yeah, they really are fun. I totally forgot that it takes them so long to get together

In part because they’re clearly endgame from the beginning

CAROLINE: "Boring couples who take a long time to get together" is my favorite thing in the world

MIRI: And in part because my heart always lay with Rogue and I had a lot of sympathy for her doomed crush, since Scott clearly loved Jean

Hahahahaha

Also, they both have amazing hair

CAROLINE: SO amazing

Although I feel like this version of Jean is a little off somehow?

MIRI: Scott’s little floppy front bits are the most of the era thing

How so?

CAROLINE: From her comic book characterization I mean

I'm not sure I would immediately see her as a popular star athlete

Her empathy is spot on

MIRI: Yeah, I think they felt like that was a high school archetype they had to use or something

CAROLINE: But in my mind she would be a student council leader or something

Well-liked but maybe not "popular" in the conventional sense

MIRI: The perfect student who is perfect at everything and feels so much pressure from it feels like a story that was on every other show at the time

CAROLINE: True

MIRI: It is interesting to see an x-men (x-man?) who is popular

CAROLINE: But that is basically what I imagine for her

True!

MIRI: since they are fundamentally outsiders in so many ways

I wonder if a non-mutant friend/frenemy who inhabited that spot would have worked better

CAROLINE: There’s an interesting subtext in X-Men about mutants that can "pass" as human.

Especially with Kurt as a kind of POV character in the premiere

MIRI: VERY!

CAROLINE: Who obviously has such a bigger hurdle than Jean when it comes to joining normal society

MIRI: They did interesting (and unfortunately on the nose) things with that concept re: Beast and Mystique in First Class

And here it’s less explicitly addressed but I feel like I’m ok with that

CAROLINE: Agreed. And TAS doesn't necessarily delve into much at all

TAS kind of focuses on the big social metaphors

Whereas Evolution is about the personal side of being a mutant

MIRI: The opening Toad stuff delves into this a bit too--those guys made a lot of toad puns/insults for people who didn’t know he was a mutant

CAROLINE: And both are super compelling parts of the X-Men franchise!

MIRI: And I think the contrast of that kind of thing versus the loving “fuzzy elf” comments to Kurt from the other Xmen is interesting

Yeah, there’s a lot of different ways to use the “mutants as other” thing well

CAROLINE: I will say, while Evolutions is incredibly watchable, the episodes we watched could also feel a little shallow?

TAS crams WAY more story into 20 minutes than Evolutions seem to

MIRI: Yeah, I will not argue with that

CAROLINE: Even if it does so in a pretty stilted way

MIRI: I think this is a very clear shift to the idea that kids shows should be about kids and Kid Things

CAROLINE: Agreed

Kind of talking down to the audience at times.

MIRI: They do more than that sometimes, and there are episodes that deal with more serialized plot elements that we didn’t watch

But for the most part they are simple stories with not a whole ton going on

CAROLINE: But with solid nuance in the subtext!

MIRI: true!

CAROLINE: Just not maybe in the actual storytelling

MIRI: exactly

I think it was very much designed to be watched as a Saturday morning cartoon, in a block with like 5 other shows

CAROLINE: But I could still totally see myself watching more when I'm bored someday

They are fun and sweet and require very little from you

MIRI: I might be wrong about that, but that’s how I remember it

CAROLINE: Whereas TAS tends to feel drawn out

In a way that's both good and bad

MIRI: Yeah, it’s very easy to just let Evolutions play on autoplay

I did really love the concept of one of these episodes though, and it will probably surprise no one which it was

CAROLINE: Ha! The Rogue one?

MIRI: Actually not! I like the character moments in that a lot, but as a discrete episode concept “Walk on the Wild Side” may be one of my favorite things that has ever happened

CAROLINE: Oh yeah that one was abused and delightful

MIRI: I mean it’s kind of terrible and every genre show ever has done version of it

CAROLINE: *absurd

MIRI: but is adored it

*I

CAROLINE: It's very fun!

MIRI: A musical roller blading superhero girl gang getting dressed and bonding sequence is basically what’s lacking from all current superhero media.

(That and enough female characters of consequence to actually have a girl gang. SHADE INTENDED)

CAROLINE: And a random music video sequence!

Please see the amazing music video sequence at the end of this post!

Who doesn't want one of those?

MIRI: No one I want to know

CAROLINE: I also really loved the Rogue/Jean dynamic that seems to exist throughout the series

Kind of like the Cyclops/Wolverine one in TAS

MIRI: Yes! There’s always a tension, but also a love and kind of understanding

Like, we’re both in versions of the same situation and we can hate each other or understand each other

CAROLINE: They maybe don't always get along and are sometimes rivals but there's mutual respect and admiration there

MIRI: I really like that

CAROLINE: Not making the two "rival" female characters hate each other feels pretty progressive for the early 2000s

Or for now

MIRI: Sadly true

The gender stuff is handled super clumsily and I’m pretty sure Tabitha is a full 7 years older than Amara, but I just love the girl gang dynamic they get to SO MUCH

CAROLINE: Ha! I was really not into Tabitha

But I did love Amara

MIRI: She’s annoying, but I love that she can be well intentioned and also bad at it

I mean, she’s an asshole. Honestly, stop blowing people up in the shower and shaving people’s heads

CAROLINE: Yeah she was way too much for me

MIRI: But her destroying the car and thinking that was helpful seems very true to form to me

CAROLINE: Jean's feminist rage was amazing

MIRI: Defintiely

(I cannot type that word correctly today!)

I also really loved Scott falling out of his chair

CAROLINE: And as much as I don't fully buy into Jean's characterization I do like her as an entry into the "popular girl who isn't a bitch" genre

MIRI: A rare and compelling genre!

CAROLINE: See also: Liz in Spider-Man Homecoming

MIRI: LOVED her

CAROLINE: That blonde girl in Princess and the Frog

MIRI: Also a fave

CAROLINE: It's an underserved genre

And, again, an asset of having a big ensemble cast

Lots of POVs to sympathize with

MIRI: They did a good job of letting the focus shift in different episodes

CAROLINE: And some really solid high school metaphors! The idea of being along onstage and being able to read everyone's critiques of you is legit terrifying

MIRI: There’s a pretty reliable core of Jean/Scott/Rogue, but there are definitely episodes that focus on Kitty and Kurt, or Spyke or whoever

CAROLINE: *mentally read

MIRI: This episode and the Buffy telepathy episode combined to convince me that telepathy would be a horrifying super power

CAROLINE: I remember liking Spyke a lot, although he wasn't in any of the episodes we watched for this

MIRI: I know! I’m sorry about that

CAROLINE: Although I still maintain they just should've made Storm a teen rather than giving her a nephew

MIRI: I did get to be reminded of the fact that he SKATEBOARDS INTO BATTLE though

hahahahaha noted

CAROLINE: Keep Spyke, just make her Storm's cousin or something

*him

MIRI: I like how adamant you are on this point

CAROLINE: I feel VERY strongly about it

MIRI: Does Storm being one of the adults in the (earlier) movies bother you?

CAROLINE: No because it felt like we were supposed to be equally invested in the adults and the kids there

Although Storm was definitely underutilized, which sucks

But this is CLEARLY a teen show first and foremost

MIRI: Ahhh, it’s the sidelining that bugs you. That’s a good point

Yeah, I’m with you there

CAROLINE: Although going back to costumes, Storm's costume here is pretty cool!

MIRI: The adults don’t have plots, with the sort of exception of Mystique

CAROLINE: Not as iconic as in TAS but a sleek update

MIRI: Yes! Basically Storm is always amazing looking

CAROLINE: I was pretty happy with all the designs

Kitty's collar was adorable

Jean's costume is MUCH more flattering than in TAS

MIRI: I have serious questions about Mystique’s little skull details around her waist

Yeah, Jean upgraded

Rogue’s goth outfits are obviously amazing

CAROLINE: I have serious questions about Mystique in this series

MIRI: YES, please ask them

I do too

How long did Mystique raise Rogue? Like, did she take 5-10 years off of being Magneto’s henchwoman? Was she a stay at home mom? did she have a day job?

CAROLINE: I guess mainly just: Does she need to be here?

Ahahah

Different lines of questioning

But those too!

MIRI: Let’s do yours first, because there’s no way to answer mine

CAROLINE: She just felt out of place to me

Not sure if it's a performance thing or what

MIRI: I like her as a betrayer for Rogue, and the danger being right there in the school in a way they couldn’t fight

I feel like it may have worked better if we’d watched the whole arc, but I may just be being generous in my recollections

CAROLINE: No that's super fair

I think she was just WAY too much of a cackling villain in the premiere

And I kind of tuned out

MIRI: The moments where she talked to shadow monster Magneto (which, what even??) did feel really out of place to me

CAROLINE: Again, I kind of just want it to be a low stakes (but high for the characters) high school show

MIRI: I wonder if it was a case of the writers wanting to do the big plotty arcs like Apocalypse but not knowing how to marry them with the high school problem of the week thing

CAROLINE: Without the mythology stuff

Yeah there's clashing creative impulses there for sure

MIRI: Yeah, I think you’re right

Honestly, I didn’t remember anything about magneto or Apocalypse in this series

Not a bit

But I could have described the scene where Jean is floating in the air surrounded by stuff and they all try to help her in perfect detail

CAROLINE: Totally

MIRI: They definitely did a much better job with the teen stuff, you’re right

CAROLINE: Secretly I don't care about plot at all

I just want character moments

That's how I feel about TAS too

I don't remember storylines but I remember Storm's claustrophobia.

MIRI: I didn’t know she was claustrophobic

That’s so relatable

I love it

CAROLINE: Yes! It's SUCH a great character detail

She's an all-powerful goddess

But also has a completely relatable fear

I think there's an episode where a building collapses and she's trapped in rubble

MIRI: Also it makes total sense because her powers would not help at all

CAROLINE: I remember finding that SO compelling as a kid

MIRI: Ahhhhh that is a nightmare to me

(I actually am claustrophobic)

CAROLINE: I always relate to characters way more through their weaknesses than their strengths

YOU ARE STORM

MIRI: I HAVE NEVER BEEN SO FLATTERED

M: Look at Storm, living her best life, raising some plants, being an inspiration

K: One of the great sorrows of the movie rights separation of the X-Men from the MCU is that we may never see Storm as the Black Panther’s One Who Got Away (or, well, The One His Marriage to Whom He Annulled Because an X-Man Flooded the Capital of Wakanda While Possessed by a Fragment of the Phoenix Force)

M: I have a lot of questions

Actually that’s a lie: I was once told that I looked like the female leader of an otherwise male motor cycle gang

CAROLINE: Ha!

MIRI: And while it’s utterly untrue and ridiculous, I hold that compliment close to my heart to this day

CAROLINE: As you should!

MIRI: I look like a preschool teacher more than anything else, but I want to look like a motor cycle gang leader

At least the tv version of one

CAROLINE: You can be both

MIRI: Thank you ❤️

CAROLINE: Preschoolers are just a mini motorcycle gang

MIRI: that is SO true

Ok, one more episode that I do want to talk about specifically--the Rogue one, aka “Self Possessed”

I like that this storyline totally follows the same early beats as “Power Surge” and they have zero shame about it. They even show flashes of scenes from “Power Surge” in the cold open

CAROLINE: And I enjoyed both episodes!

MIRI: Same!

I’m also really impressed on an animation front--all of these transformations must have been a job and a half

CAROLINE: The Evolutions animation style is just so much more pleasing to watch

MIRI: Yeah, I’m way more into this one visual

CAROLINE: Even as I can appreciate the detail of TAA

MIRI: *visually

CAROLINE: *TAS

I do think "Self Possessed" gets a little style over substance at the end though

As I think Evolutions often does

MIRI: Yeah, it’s that light on story, heavy on Coolness thing again

CAROLINE: Yeah they could've crammed a lot more story in there I think

As TAS makes clear, even separate from the multi-episode structure

MIRI: The amount of story they did have definitely could have happened in 12 minutes or so

Made super clear by the way they reused clips--we only watched 3 other episodes, and we’d already seen several chunks of this episode

Also, I really can’t tell if Sabertooth has plot lines or if he just shows up to cause some indiscriminate violence whenever they need it

CAROLINE: I feel like that's what Sabertooth is best at

MIRI: I know that’s not super relevant in this episode, but it reminded me of it

That’s fair

Also, he seems to be Wolverine’s dad in this iteration??

CAROLINE: I love how drastically storylines can change between iterations

MIRI: Or maybe it was brother, which is what I think they are in other versions. I don’t know.

K: Just in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, which was so bad that the Days of Future Past movie retconned most of it out of existence.

M: I may have read the graphic novelization prequel to the Wolverine origins movie.

Yeah, same toys in drastically different sandboxes

Oh, on that score--Can Mystique transform into animals in other iterations?

CAROLINE: Ooh good question!

I'm not sure

K: Not originally, but I haven’t gone through all the alternate reality versions

MIRI: It was very cool but also kind of felt like cheating to me

CAROLINE: She changes into a statue in the first live action movie

So there's that

MIRI: Ohhh, the mini state of liberty? Am I remembering that right?

CAROLINE: Yes!

MIRI: Hmmmmmm, but did she actually change to statue, or just to be a woman who looks like a statue?

Either way it’s very cool

CAROLINE: Very

Okay so I think my thesis here is that TAS and Evolutions are different in intention and flawed in different ways, but they're both GREAT with characters in their own ways.

MIRI: Agreed!

For all “Self Possessed” is story light, I do like the question of identity Rogue is always wrestling with in the face of multiple people in her head

That’s very high school/human

CAROLINE: For sure! And they do cool stuff with that in the movies as well

Kind of

MIRI: Yeah, especially the first one. Then they move more into how do I be myself when I’m so limited in how I can touch people and express myself to the world

Which is also cool and important

CAROLINE: God, X-Men are just the best

I love sci-fi as metaphor

Or superheroes as metaphor

MIRI: Me too

Honestly, one of my least favorite things about the MCU and now the DCEU is that superheroes are so Adult now

Because the exploration of it all as metaphor for teenage things is so right to me

But obviously that’s not all they can/should be used for!

Look at the government business in the beginning of the first Xmen movie

CAROLINE: X-Men as a franchise is truly always relevant

In so many ways

MIRI: That’s such solid use of sci fi as 1:1 metaphor for real life. And it’s done SO well

I really just love the Xmen franchise a lot

CAROLINE: I must say, there's one area in which TAS is CLEARLY superior to every other X-Men iteration

And that's the THEME SONG

MIRI: hahahahahahhaha

CAROLINE: Maybe the best superhero theme song ever

K: So good that this fan-made alternate title sequence for X-Men: First Class riffs on it in a cool-yet-unsettling way. (But my favorite superhero theme is probably Shirley Walker’s Danny Elfman-based Batman theme for the 90s-early 2000s DC cartoons.)

MIRI: BUT you must admit that the individual stylings of the names in the Evolution credits are delightful

CAROLINE: Sure sure. But it has nothing on that music

MIRI: Also the fact that the “credits” have their mutant names, not character names or actors’

CAROLINE: Which I was truly jamming out to while watching these eps

MIRI: Yes, the TAS music is better

CAROLINE: I had the same thought!

About the names

It's adorable

MIRI: Yes!

CAROLINE: And genuinely helpful for new viewers

MIRI: I am utterly mindblown that the two shows were so close together chronologically, because they’re so stylistically different

On every front

CAROLINE: The 90s to early 2000s was a surprisingly big shift

MIRI: TAS ran from 92-97, and Exolution was 2000-2003

(I saw that typo and left it in because I love it)

CAROLINE: And I think both series are REALLY tethered to the eras in which they were released

MIRI: Yeah, they 97 to 2000 jump sounds short, but it looks like TAS stayed very true to itself, so it’s really a difference  between a show started in 92 and one started in 2000, which is much more different

CAROLINE: Agreed

MIRI: Honestly I thought TAS was 80s at first

CAROLINE: It very much feels like that

Again because I think it was so influenced by the comics

MIRI: Whereas Evolution is so self consciously “current”

CAROLINE: And pulls almost entirely from that aesthetic

MIRI: Like, Scott has his stupid sunglasses

Which are so early 2000s and so clearly too flimsy for their intended purpose

CAROLINE: Ha! Totally

Okay: Have we reach any grand X-conclusions here?

MIRI: We seem to mostly think that all X-iterations are good X-iterations

Which may not be earth shattering, but I think is a good thing to explore

They’re trying to do very different things and mostly succeeding

CAROLINE: And that X-Men are a flexible enough idea to handle many different concepts

MIRI: Also, media creators should trust their audiences more than they usually do

CAROLINE: Which I suppose is why they were invented in the first place!

MIRI: Which is true both in TAS and Evolutions, but in different ways!

True!

Basically, it’s a great franchise and should be in everyone’s top 3 at the very least

CAROLINE: There's something for everyone in X-Men!

K: I have a special fondness for Colossus, whom I always played in the old arcade game, and who is the best part of Deadpool. Something something afraid of vulnerability something...

MIRI: What surprised you the most upon rewatch of each?

CAROLINE: Probably the depth of the character drama in both actually

MIRI: Yeah, I would have to agree there. That and how much I loved TAS Rogue. All Rogues are good Rogues, apparently

CAROLINE: #RogueForever

#BlastedSalami

MIRI: Oh, I meant to ask you--why is Jean Grey your favorite character?

CAROLINE: I really love female characters who are super powerful but also afraid and uncertain about their powers

Going back to the "flaws are relatable" thing

And I love that she's fundamentally good

Which I think some people dismiss as "boring"

But which I really love in superheroes

MIRI: That makes total sense and I think I have not given Jean Grey her due in the past

CAROLINE: She's a very easy character to overlook I think

MIRI: I’ve never been anti Jean, just never thought about her that much

Exactly

Well then I’m glad we got some good Jean focus in here!

CAROLINE: Also I feel like the male X-Men always get the most focus

MIRI: Ughhhhhhh so true

CAROLINE: So I'm glad we took a different approach

Rogue and Jean forever!

MIRI: Rogue and Jean forever!!!

CAROLINE: Separately or together

Thanks so much to Caroline for joining us! Remember to follow her on Twitter, and if you feel like it, us too.

X-Men: Evolution is streaming on Hulu.

Of course, we couldn’t leave you without the very early-aughts opening titles:

Plus, the entirety of Bayville Sirens musical superhero suit-up sequence. Please watch it, because life is hard and you deserve good things: