#i assume more than i do. i assume more than just asking abt technical issues

[diagonal-queen]

HI I LOVE YOUR WRITING SM HAKSHWKDHKSH 😭😭

SINCE YOURE DOING REQUESTS CAN YOU PLS PLS WRITE SMTH ABT FIRST KISS WITH CHUUYA AAA IT CAN BE A DRABBLE OR HEADCANONS OR ANYTHING, ID ACCEPT ANYTHING PLS IM ON MY KNEES I WILL GIVE YOU COOKIES

THANK YOU SO MUCH ANON!! ALSO YOU DO NOT HAVE TO GIVE ME ANYTHING FOR ME TO WRITE FOR YOU. YOU COULD SAY 'DIA WRITE ME THIS OR I WILL LITERALLY KILL YOU' AND I'D BE LIKE 'YES MASTER :D'. THAT BEING SAID I'M SURE YOUR COOKIES ARE DELICIOUS <3

Mutually Beneficial Transaction

♡ pairing: Chuuya Nakahara x gn!Reader

♡ synopsis: After not seeing each other for a while, you and Chuuya spend the day together. It gets a little more romantic than you expected.

♡ wc: 1.4k

♡ cw: Swearing, mentions of death.

note: I'm so, SO sorry that this took so long to complete anon. This was one of the first reqs I got and I feel like I've let you down T-T I had a bunch of different ideas for this but not a clue which one to use- hopefully you like the end result though <3 Apologies for errors, hope you enjoy x

Most people would see you and Chuuya as you were out and about and make the assumption that you were on a date. After all, you were dragging him from place to place, a couple clothes bags dangling from your free arm while he followed you with a fond smile on his face. You didn't have any issues with this, but it certainly wasn't the case. However, if it were, you're sure you would have been all over Chuuya and vice versa.

Yokohama was well known to be a city teeming with crime, specifically at the hands of the notorious Port Mafia of which Chuuya was an executive. You weren't a member yourself but you didn't feel as if you had anything to fear being close with Chuuya. You assumed that since you'd known each other for so long that you had some form of immunity. That being said, it had been a while since you were able to spend any personal time with him.

That's the reason that, on a rare day off, Chuuya called you to meet him at a nearby cafe for breakfast to spend the day with you. Feeling a little lonely without him, you were more than happy to participate. Thus, you spent the day running around Yokohama with Chuuya doing a multitude of things- shopping, trying different foods, and the like. Doing couple-y things, you thought. The question of whether or not Chuuya was at all like-minded lingered in the back of your head most of the day.

Around mid-evening before dinner, you and Chuuya found yourselves a bench near the port and took your seats, letting your arms rest from the bags they'd been carrying, and your feet rest from taking you so many places. The sunset setting on the horizon was a bright orange, the sky a calming ombre of shades of pink and blue.

"Today was brilliant, Chuuya," you breathed, a serene smile gracing your face as you absorbed the view. "Thank you for all this."

"It's nothin', really," he sighed, brushing a stray ginger lock from his face. "I'm just glad you were happy."

"You're way too nice to me. You know I won't be able to repay you- at least not like this?" You cocked an eyebrow at him, with a chuckle.

"I don't care about that. You spending time with me is payment enough." Chuuya glanced over at you with a smile. "I'm glad I got to hang out with you today."

"It really has been a while, huh?" You mused. "Things are busy in the mafia right now, I guess?"

"Things are technically always busy there, but because I'm an executive I have a lot more shit to do than most other members." He explained.

"That's also why you're so fuckin' loaded, I guess." You joked. The man beside you let out a snicker. "Seriously, though, just because you make a lot doesn't mean you always need to spend it on me."

"It's honestly fine, hon. I mean it. Besides, I kinda like buying you stuff." When you tilted your head at him as if to ask for further explanation, he elaborated. "You always get so excited whenever I get you a gift. It's nice knowing that I'm able to make you happy."

"You make me happy whenever I see you, regardless of whether you buy me things!" You insisted, shifting towards him and earnestly taking his gloved hand in your own. "I like spending time with you! I wouldn't be your friend if I didn't, you know."

"...yeah." He squeezed your hand. "...hey, can I ask you something?"

"Of course, Chuuya."

"Have you been feeling lonely recently?" The question surprised you, because it seemed rather random and uncharacteristic coming from Chuuya. You turned to face him.

"I mean...I guess, a little. It's been kinda lonely not having you around. Sometimes I got worried that you'd died or something," you admitted, your voice quiet.

"Died? Me?" Chuuya asked, making you giggle.

"I know, I know. Even God wouldn't be able to kill you. But I really couldn't help but worry. I'm glad to have been able to spend today with you. I like knowing that you're alright," you cast him a genuine smile, "and I had a great time. Did you?"

"'Course I did. I was with you." Chuuya responded returning your beam. You tapped your lips and weakly swatted at him.

"Shush, you."

"Now that I think of it, I did kinda miss messing with you." Chuuya leaned forward as his eyes narrowed.

"You're so damn sadistic, Chuuya. No wonder you're a mafia exec- that title suits you to a tee," you scoffed, pushing your finger into his forehead. "I can't even catch a break when I'm on your good side."

"Don't complain, you have it pretty easy with me."

"Whatever helps you sleep at night." You rolled your eyes. "Cheeky..."

"Who's cheeky?" Chuuya raised an eyebrow. You leaned forward to reach his eye level, both of you staring one another down. You smirked at him.

"The one spending all his money on me so that he can mess with me, maybe?" You suggested, with a small head tilt. The pair of you shared a quick chuckle, before it suddenly dawned on you how close you were to Chuuya.

You took note of how soft his glove felt on your hand, and how his breath danced across your face. The air around you suddenly seemed hot and sticky. You could hear your heartbeat in your temples.

"...you know what?" Chuuya spoke softly. "If you wanna repay me, maybe there's one thing you can do..."

Your eyes flickered towards his lips. "Yeah?"

"Mhm. You don't have to do it if you don't want to...but I'd appreciate it a lot."

"Anything for you, Chuuya," you breathed.

"Is that right?"

"Of course..." You had mentally prepared for this moment for years, and you felt a surprising amount of confidence. Though, that was mostly because Chuuya seemed to be returning your...very fervid attitude. You were both quiet, the only sounds being your slightly wavering breaths. Your faces were barely centimetres apart now.

"In that case..." you inhaled and closed your eyes in anticipation, quickly melting into his touch when your lips connected.

Chuuya did feel warm, and you felt a tingle in your chest. Your first kiss with Chuuya was better than you'd expected; not only did Chuuya meet all of your expectations but he also seemed equally interested in kissing you. You could only assume, anyway, when Chuuya's fingers found their way beneath your chin and gently lifted your face up so he could better access your lips.

The moment felt fleeting. When Chuuya pulled away you wanted to take his face and keep kissing him, but you didn't. That would probably shock him. You opened your eyes to see Chuuya's blue ones boring into yours. His face was relaxed, if a little flushed.

"Oh...oh, you're good at kissing..." You practically mouthed, you were so quiet. Chuuya couldn't hold back his laugh at your expression.

"How kind of you."

"No, like-!" You huffed, pushing him away from you. "You are a sadist."

"Nah, not to you," he shook his head. You didn't know what to say to him. Chuuya let out a relenting exhale. "I can be if you want me to be."

"...yeah. To be honest, you'd kinda lose half your charisma if you weren't." After saying that, he gave you a frown. You stifled a giggle.

"I'm the cheeky one?"

"Yes, you are. But I think I prefer it that way," you smiled. Chuuya truly couldn't get enough of it.

"I think...and you be quiet," he began, pointing a stern finger towards you. "...I think you and I are a good match. Dating-wise."

"You don't say?" You teased.

"Y/N, I'm being serious here," he insisted, taking your hand once more. "Can I be your boyfriend?"

"...yes?!" You raised an eyebrow. "I wouldn't have kissed you if the answer was no? You dense idiot, Chuuya."

"My apologies for making sure I wasn't dragging you into something you didn't want," he rolled his eyes. You laced your fingers together, before lifting your joined hands and pressing a kiss to the back of his hand. His gaze softened. "...thanks, hon."

"Seriously, though, I actually won't be able to spoil you or anything like that, so are you really sure you wanna date me?" You asked.

Chuuya sighed in exasperation. "I'm cuttin' you off if you keep this shit up, Y/N."

"Okay, okay!"

i'm kinda tempted to write something now based on my first kiss because imo it was CRAZY romantic, but i don't wanna disrespect the person with whom i shared said kiss. if you're reading this; hey man do i have permission to write a loose recount of what we did except instead of us it's like some fictional people? i will give you a creative credit for worldbuilding

[oneirataxia-girl]

Hello! You're on my OC Creator Bingo! Unfortunately I'm not familiar with any of your OCs yet and I can't seem to find your Masterlist (I am primarily a mobile user so I apologize if it's available on browser). So I'll just send this in the meantime:

Who is your favorite or one of your favorite OCs? What are they like? What fandom are they from? And who is their faceclaim? I'll hopefully try to make something for you with that OC! Have a lovely day ❤️

- @thechaoticfanartist

hii!! hru hru?? it's very nice to meet you nova!! and yeah i'm really sorry abt my messy navigation, it's not you it's me, i'm the problem bc i still can't decide on a format to use aksdasd

that being said, here are some of my brainchildren that are being rotated around my brain!!

(under a cut so people uninterested can skip)

Jin "Eyre" Raon -- Stranger Things

played by Go Minsi

her first name is Raon, but to most people in Hawkins, her name is actually Eyre

has issues with authority (case in point: gets sent to the police within the hour she arrives in Hawkins

isn't born in Hawkins, isn't raised in Hawkins, doesn't even have any known family or friends in Hawkins

well then, why is Raon in Hawkins, you might ask?

technically speaking, Raon isn't supposed to be in the eighties, if you get what i mean...

you can find her pinterest here!

Slate Kempton -- Original Apply Fic

played by Jonathan Daviss

carved from stone -- metaphorically, not literally

a budding star on the internet, mainly doing povs via short videos

does NOT want to talk about his past, like at all

that might be a bit suspicious, but hey, maybe he's just secretive

we'll just have to see whether there are skeletons in his closets or none...

you can find his (rather unfinished) pinterest here!

Aphrodite -- The Sandman

played by Gemma Chan

gorgeous gorgeous GORGEOUS goddess of love and beauty right there

more cunning than people would assume a goddess of love should be

not an alluring blushing rose waiting to be picked, but rather a quiet pure myrtle, sitting in the warm sun and sipping on wine

pure, but not innocent or naive

because the wheels in her pretty head are well-oiled and ready, and so are the times in which her main story starts -- a time where the Olympians are more story than deity and the last flickers of the Old Beliefs begin to waver...

her pinterest is here!

[northern-passage]

honestly you are so right abt the descriptions of ROs in IF. some of them will LITERALLY go like "omg they look like a supermodel". i cannot express how boring that is. it doesn't tell me anything about the character and their idiosyncrasies. and it's hard to wrap my head around the mental image of a cast who is supposed be so much hotter than everyone else in the world. like, my suspension of disbelief is being spread thin rn.

i agree abt comments on the MC being conventionally attractive as well. some of my MCs are decidedly NOT, and then the game tries to dispute me on it. lol

i also think all of this is harmful on a wider level bc it reinforces that 1) beauty is a scale and 2) everyone has to fit into beauty standards to be worthy. but most ppl arent ready for THAT conversation.

thank you :-) hope you dont mind me using this ask to share some more of my thoughts; i complained a lot about what i dislike without really giving any alternatives or examples of what i do like. obviously this is personal opinion and i am Not a professional, i’m just a hobby writer and i don’t intend for any of this to be word of god or anything like that, and my writing is far from "perfect," but this is kind of the baseline i use for myself and what i strive for, and maybe someone will find it useful.

first, to explain the big issue i really have, it is exactly what you said in your last point, about beauty standards. if i wanted to be generous when reading the "supermodel hot" description, i would say that "supermodel" could mean anything - particularly now, the modeling industry is far more diverse than it was in the 90s/early 00s. i could read "supermodel" and just infer that clearly this person is just meant to be very attractive, and that's all it's telling me. but really what is usually and truly meant by "supermodel hot" is skinny and conventionally attractive (adhering to eurocentric beauty standards and gender roles). "supermodel hot" is just a way of implying that without really saying it, because if you said that out loud it's a bit…. 😬

and it's just really boring. when i hear "supermodel hot" i envision a line of identical barbie/ken dolls, indistinguishable and grossly perfect. where is the pizzazz? where is the personality?

to be fair, this is not me saying you cannot describe someone as "supermodel hot" - like i said, supermodel can technically mean anything. but if you're going to do that, you need to give me something else, too, that tells me exactly what you mean by "supermodel hot."

so how do you do that?

my first bit of advice is both my favorite and most controversial…. show, don't tell. obviously my writing style leans heavily into elaborate descriptions and building atmosphere, but not everyone writes the same. however, when it comes to character descriptions, i still think this advice is solid, even if you have a less flowery style, because it’s not really just about detailed descriptions, it's about character design. the original post already talks about it, but essentially: Show me why this person is attractive, as opposed to just Telling me.

specifically for IF, (though context matters so this varies) but i would actually completely avoid describing someone outright as attractive, handsome, beautiful, etc. especially upon first introductions. the player is going to be the one to decide if this person is attractive - you don't need to tell them that. it's also going to be assumed that the player is aware what kind of game they're playing - they know this is an RO, you don't need to shove it down their throats by emphasizing how hot and amazing they are.

when i write a straightforward physical description, there are only two things i absolutely need to get across in their introduction: hair and skin tone. i actually prefer less detailed introductions, and find it more natural when the player discovers things organically through the text. you're not going to notice every little thing about a person when you first meet them!

what you do notice: hair, skin tone, any distinguishing features.

Lea has the beauty marks beneath their eye, and long, dark hair. Merry has her bandana, red hair, and she also has a tooth gap, and since she's smiling when you meet her, the hunter notices. Clementine has obnoxious clothes and curly hair. Noel has the gold hunter eyes, xir eye makeup, and xir locs.

in tnp, i do actually have a bit more of detailed introduction for everyone, because i can get away with it - their intros are pretty spread out, with Clem's in the prologue, and Merry's and Noel's in ch1. you already know Lea, so their features are peppered in throughout the prologue and ch1 - i try to avoid direct descriptions for any characters that have a pre-established relationship with the mc, because the mc already knows what that character looks like. i like to work it in for the player as they read. i would not do my intros this way if you met everyone at the same time - you want to avoid overwhelming the reader or confusing them with too many people at once.

just give them the distinct features.

Merry is a tall woman, though not as tall as Lea, with long auburn hair and tanned, freckled skin. She has a bandana covering her right eye, and when she smiles, you notice a charming little gap between her two front teeth. Noel, standing at her side, is shorter and larger than her, with dark brown skin and short, locked hair swept back out of his face, the gold in his eyes flashing against his white eyeliner as he glances between you and Lea. Clementine, the little bard, stands behind the both of them, wringing their hands and hiding behind their short brown curls. The ruffles of their dress are a stark white against their olive skin, and you can't help but be assaulted by their loud jacket, both in color and volume, bells sewn haphazardly into the fabric that sound softly with each little movement, giving away their nerves as they shrink back even more behind Noel.

this is a short snappy introduction. it gives a straightforward physical description of everyone, a quick mention of unique features, and with Clementine we also get a bit of their mannerisms right away. as the story progresses, and you get to know them more, you'll also notice more. personally, in real life, i do not notice eye color right away, unless someone has a very distinct eye color - this is something that you could include in first introductions, or mention later, in a one-on-one scene with the character where the mc notices it for the first time. Clementine's freckles, Merry's tattoos and scars, Noel's jewelry - that kind of thing can be slowly fed to the player over time. i also like to save the "curve of their lips" kind of stuff for more flirty/intimate scenes. there's no reason to comment on that when you're first meeting, especially in a tense situation where that would be the last thing on the hunter's mind - like i said, the player knows these are potential ROs, you don't need to force it. i also like having certain distinct, consistent features i bring up in those one-on-one/intimate scenes - i said before i tend to focus on Lea's and Noel's eyes, while i typically mention Clementine's curls or Merry's red hair and freckles. the more you get to know them, the more attractive those distinct features will become.

and the other important thing to remember is that it doesn't all have to be a clinical physical description. there are plenty of games i've played that actually have very little physical description, but each character has a very distinct Vibe. are they broody? are they bubbly? are they excitable? are they mischievous? how do they carry themselves? i describe Merry as commanding when you first meet her. Noel is graceful when xe comes in to heal you.

what are their little quirks? Lea always has a furrowed brow, or they're fidgeting with their thumb ring. Merry likes to smirk and tease and cross her arms. Clementine wrings their hands and pulls on their curls. Noel smiles softly, messes with xir locs, and will duck inside xir hood just like the hunter. you give them mannerisms, you give them charm, and people will find them attractive without you having to call them supermodels and imply some impossible standard. it will also make your characters more genuine and likable, as well as unique - these are not cardboard cutout supermodels, and by giving them unique features and emphasizing/romanticizing those features it will make them attractive in a more memorable way. and if you're lucky, it will force players to challenge beauty standards elsewhere. i want to wax poetic about how sexy i think Noel's stomach looks in tight leather armor, and the player is going to read it - a romantic description like that may challenge preconceived ideas that person may have about fat stomachs. this is also why i like to emphasize Lea's black eyes so much as well.

when it comes to the mc, i try to avoid having any of the ROs directly comment about anything physical, unless it's something that is fully established in game - like their scars, or the fact that they're a bit muscular from combat training/their lifestyle. i already explained that i don't think a character calling someone hot actually implies "conventional attractiveness," since beauty/attraction is subjective, so i think it would be silly to completely avoid those kinds of compliments. i think what's important is how you execute them.

Merry is always trying to look into the hunter's hood, and if you go and see her in the evening, she'll say she "likes seeing your face." it doesn't imply anything about how that face looks, if that makes sense. Noel does call the hunter attractive, but it's about their scars, something that is typically "unconventional" and again doesn't really imply anything about how the hunter looks - just that Noel thinks their scars make them attractive.

we already talked about the "you're so hot when you're mad" type of comment, but an example of that kind of compliment done Well that always comes to mind for me is Alistair in dragon age: origins, when he suddenly calls the warden beautiful in a quiet moment with just the two of them - he really means it, and it clearly doesn't really have anything to do with how the warden actually looks, but how he's feeling in that moment. it's always felt really authentic to me, like he just couldn't contain himself and has to blurt it out - as opposed to a forced, quippy one liner, or a sudden, obscenely sexual remark that just makes me cringe. (not that some of those scenes in origins don't also make me cringe. but we can't all be perfect all of the time….)

and i'm not trying to say all flirty/suggestive compliments are off the table - Merry and Clementine are the two characters that make more overtly sexual comments, and if that's fitting for the character, then go for it - there are plenty of moments where a playful, spicy comment does hit right, but don't overdo it. Merry is clearly the "no strings attached" love interest, but she isn't constantly talking about how she wants to fuck the hunter in all of their interactions. honestly.... it's weird, and can verge on sexual harassment if you do it too often and at inappropriate moments. but there's nothing wrong with showing sexual interest, and again, attraction is subjective - people do not have to be "conventionally attractive" to be desirable, no matter what society tries to tell you. it's not that people are "ugly", it's that society's beauty standards for what is "beautiful" are too narrow, limiting and unrealistic. (read this article from the original post)

so just in general, with the mc, my advice is to be mindful. you don't want to "default" them (typically as thin and white) when the mc can be anyone - you want to avoid implying anything that could alienate potential players (blushing, hair, etc). though there are games with more pre-set mcs, including personality as well as potentially physical appearance, like with tnp the hunter is always going to have scars and have at least a little visible muscle, so that's something to also keep in mind while making your character as a reader.

all of that to say, character design is important, the little things are important. don't just settle for "supermodel hot." give them something to work with! you want to actually make a character, not a boring, pretty doll.

sorry for the long post, i hope this is helpful to somebody, or at least interesting to read about, if you can decipher the rambling. i tend to jump on the chance to talk about this kind of thing, so thanks for the ask, even though you didn't ask for this at all. lol ❤

and of course, context matters, so this may not all be applicable to every game/story ever, and i don't intend to imply that any of this is the only Correct way. if you're writing a fast pace, spicey romance, it will be different! different styles, different settings, different tones, different vibes, it will all be different, and that's fine. variety is the spice of life :-) this is just how i approach character design, and it's what i like to see as a reader, and what i try to achieve as a writer.

[whomst-art-thou-whomst-whomst]

Texts from the Lost Tomb part 6.1

🎶 Back on the bullshit I never got off🎶

Is this another unnecessary story arc?? With three sections??

Yes.

Wushanju Crew Chat

Wang Meng: You know, I’m someone who appreciates consistency in my day. My life is pleasant, very few issues indeed if you ignore the big ones. And yet. Yet here we are. With unresolved messes at the end of a day.

Wang Pangzi: SOMETHIN YOU NEED TO SAY MARY POPPINS

Wang Meng: We need to talk about Huo Daofu and the glittery bead curtain.

Wang Pangzi: MY FAVE TEEN WIZARD SERIES

Wu Xie: did you turn on that suggested word thingy lol

What glittery bead curtain

Wang Meng: I closed the shop at 6:00pm this evening on the dot. I locked all of the doors in and out of the shop very carefully, especially in light of recent events. The hall leading to the back office was empty. I filed the day’s paperwork, updated and sent emails, and then spent an extra hour organizing receipts and dusting. When I came back out, there were glittery iridescent bead curtains over the front entrance to the shop.

What could this mean?

Wu Xie: uh that you need to spend less time at work?

Wang Pangzi: LOOKS LIKE WE GOT ONE FOR THE DETECTIVES. THE MYSTERY OF THE BEDAZZLED THRESHOLD COMMENCES

Wu Xie: I think we can be relatively secure in thinking a glittery bead curtain isn’t a hostile threat

Wang Pangzi: SAYS YOU

I REMEMBER YE OLDE EXPLORATION TIMES HOW FAST THINGS GOT FURIOUS

BEANBAG CHAIRS SET AFLAME AND LEFT ON DOORSTEPS AS A WARNING

GLITTERBOMBS FOR DAYS

PANIC AT THE DISCO

Wang Meng: Ugh, forget it. I should have just taken them down, regardless of who they belong to.

Zhang Qiling: They are not mine.

Wang Pangzi: A BOLD STATEMENT COMING FROM OUR PRIME SUSPECT

SOMEONE QUICK GO DRAW CHALK AROUND THE DOORWAY TO MARK THE SCENE OF THE CRIME

Wang Meng: Do we know anyone who *would* sneak in and put those up? For whatever reason, legal or not? Even as a joke?

Wang Pangzi: ARE YOU SERIOUSLY ASKING WHETHER WE KNOW ANYONE WHO IS CHAOTIC, AN OUTLAW, A PRANKSTER AND/OR SNEAKS INTO PLACES

BECAUSE THAT WOULD MEAN OUR SUSPECT LIST IS LITERALLY EVERYONE WE KNOW EXCEPT FOR YOU.

Wu Xie: okay let’s think about this; for starters, I didn’t break into my own shop

Wang Meng: You would be in danger of doing some work in the process, that’s true.

Wang Pangzi: LOL

Wu Xie: ANYWAY let’s keep going. For example, Xiao Ge would only break in somewhere for a good reason. Xiao Ge, did you do this?

Zhang Qiling: No.

Wu Xie: okay who’s next

Wang Pangzi: YOU REALLY MISSED YOUR CALLING IN INTERROGATION TIANZHEN

REALLY PUT THE SCREWS TO HIM

IN MORE WAYS THAN ONE;)

Zhang Qiling: How can we be certain *you* didn’t do it?

Wang Meng: Admittedly that was my guess, too.

Wang Pangzi: WOW I SEE HOW IT IS

BLAME PANGZI AS USUAL

ANYWAY HOW DOES HUO DAOFU FIT INTO THIS

Wu Xie: Oh yeah him! Oops I got distracted

Wang Pangzi: UR ENTIRE HISTORY IN A NUTSHELL

Wu Xie: Ugh fuck off

Wang Meng what abt Huo Daofu??

Zhang Qiling: ?

Wu Xie: oh sorry xiaoge I didn’t realize you wouldn’t have spent much time around him last year

He and I go way back

Zhang Qiling: Way back where?

Babysitters Club Chat

Wang Pangzi: I CANNOT BELIEVE HE IS BUYING YOUR INNOCENT ACT

IF YOU EVER TURN TO EVIL WE ARE FUCKED

Zhang Qiling: ?

Wang Pangzi: YOU KNOW EXACTLY WHO HUO DAOFU IS

YOU WERE EXTREMELY POLITE AND BORDERLINE FRIENDLY TOWARDS HIM

Zhang Qiling: I wanted him to feel welcome. I wanted to be sure he understands he has a place here. A specific place.

Wang Pangzi: FOR A SILENT GUY YOU ARE A MASTER AT SUBTLE POWER PLAYS IM ALL TINGLY

LMAO THE IDEA OF WU XIE LEAVING YOU FOR HUO DAOFU IS HILARIOUS AND ALSO NOPE

Zhang Qiling: Rationally, I understand that.

Main Chat

Wang Meng: Huo Daofu is coming for the weekend—didn’t Wu Xie tell you? Wu Xie asked me to check in a week ahead so we could start getting ready for his arrival

Wu Xie: oh yeah I did do that

Wang Meng: Fortunately I know you and so I already went ahead and took care of everything.

Re: the trip

He made a deal with Wu Xie’s doctor that he would do periodic checkups on him here at Wushanju

Bc Wu Xie hates being in the hospital

And frankly the hospital hates him too

Wang Pangzi: FAMILIARITY BREEDS CONTEMPT LOL

I FORGOT HUO DAOFU WAS DOING THAT

A VERY CHIVALROUS GESTURE

WOULDNT YOU SAY

XIOAGE

Zhang Qiling: Is it safe for him to be here with a criminal loose on the premises?

Wu Xie: Right, back to the curtain! Let’s focus on the curtain, hmm?

Wang Pangzi: I AM SO LOOKING FORWARD TO THIS WEEKEND.

ALSO WE CAN RULE OUT XIAO BAI FOR THE CURTAIN SHE JUST SENT A SELFIE FROM NORWAY COVERED IN GREEN SLIME WITH ZERO CONTEXT, UR PROTEGE INDEED

Wu Xie: okay but who else would do something so oddly charming yet illegal and—wait.

Snake Eyes Chat

Wu Xie: hey, Glasses hasn’t been in touch lately right?

Li Cu: uh nope

Unless u count the outdated memes

Why, is money or Xie Yuchen missing

Or is this curtain related, I saw Wang Meng’s tweet

Wu Xie: haha no nothing to worry about really

(I mean maybe? but who knows)

Wang Meng is probably just getting a little paranoid in his old age

Li Cu: better than getting reckless and stupid as hell in ur old age

Wu Xie: …hey:(

Unknown Number: Li Cu, we discussed this.

Wu Xie: ????????

Li Cu: *sigh* fine, reckless and stupid as heck

Unknown Number: …close enough.

Wu Xie: EXCUSE who is that

Madame, Sir, Non-Binary Tree Spirit, etc—whomst the fuck

Are you

Li Cu is underage FYI

So Im staying on this chat

Li Cu: okay first of all, it’s not like that

Second of all I’m literally not underage I s2g

u threw the embarrassing surprise bday party, okay so u should remember

And C, that’s my counselor and I invited her. She wanted to meet u and I knew u wouldn’t agree to a visit so I added her to our chat

we have been discussing u

Wu Xie: Oh wow!!!!!!!

What a surprise:)

hi so nice to meet you:)

Main Chat:

Wu Xie: RED FUCKING ALERT

FUCK THE CURTAIN FUCK THE VISIT

IVE BEEN TRICKED INTO FAMILY THERAPY BY A SMUG TEENAGER WHO TEXTS UNKNOWN NUMBERS

Wang Meng: I assume that means something to someone here?

Not my problem? Good.

Wang Pangzi: AHAHAHA GOD I LOVE LI CU

HES LIKE ADORABLE KARMA FOR ALL THE SHIT YOUVE PUT ME THROUGH

IM RAISING HIS ALLOWANCE

Wu Xie: wait i give him an allowance

has he been collecting on two allowances??

Zhang Qiling: Three. I knew about both of yours.

Snake Eyes Chat

Wu Xie: so uh may I ask your name?

Unknown Number: you can call me Ms. Lee.

Now, if you’re comfortable talking in this format, why don’t you tell me how things have been going?

Wu Xie: oh everything is normal and fine and safe as usual, why do you ask:)

Li Cu: I heard about ur necklace thing. nice of you to NOT mention it.

another dangerous adventure. again. prick.

Ur lucky your cool boyfriend cares about you so much or you’d have already died like ten years ago

Wu Xie: lol try twenty years ago

Li Cu: That isn’t funny.

Unknown Number: …What?

Wu Xie: shit ur right, okay that was a bit glib, my apologies.

…I use humor as a coping mechanism?

Unknown Number: and Li Cu, how do you feel about that?

Li Cu: he doesn’t even know what that phrase means

He doesn’t cope, like ever

In fact

It’s kind of why we met

Which is a funny story in retrospect tbh

Wu Xie: haha what are you talking about sweetie hahaha need I remind you of certain anecdotes that could idk send me to jail maybe lmao

Unknown Number: …You know, perhaps an in-person meeting might be more effective?

Wu Xie: haha such a nice idea but why

Main Chat

Wu Xie: If I go to jail, I’ll have to create alliances for protection, right, that’s how it works on tv

Who do we know who spends time in jail

Other than Hei Yangjing, he’s only ever there for like 12 hours and i suspect he just gets himself arrested bc he enjoys the breaking out process

Also how’s the curtain case coming along

Zhang Qiling: Has someone threatened you?

Wu Xie: well not yet but soon I’m sure

Wang Pangzi: WHERE WAS THIS PARANOIA WHEN WE GOT TAKEN TO THE TEA HOUSE HUH

Snake Eyes Minus Your Fucking Therapist Chat

Li Cu: okay how tf did u pull off spy and undercover shit

u are sus as hell

Wu Xie: damn son is it pick on Wu Xie night

I missed the flyers or I would’ve invited my uncles

Also re: the curtain it’s been mostly solved

Li Cu: I’m not your son, idiot.

Wu Xie: …oh. Sorry, sorry, you’re right, bad choice of words, haha

Forget i said anything

Delete this chat even

Li Cu: shit I meant

Legally, biologically, I meant—

shit

…I turn into an asshole as a coping mechanism?

Wu Xie: oh that’s all okay! I have to go do something else now let me know if you need anything okay kid thanks!

Li Cu: goddamn it calm down who’s the kid here

lemme organize my thoughts so I can articulate my emotions fuckin healthily or w/e

Ugh maybe for like one afternoon we could go to Ms. Lee together? She knows how to word stuff

Wu Xie: uh…okay.

Li Cu: Anyway you don’t need to worry abt jail

As if you would survive prison for one day you’d piss off half the place in like an hour or less

I gave Ms. Lee the heavily edited version of the desert highway to hell roadtrip and i discussed it more in terms of like “nightmarish but still wouldn’t take any of it back”

Well maybe the sand

that shit was everywhere

Wu Xie: oh kiddo. It’s fine, really…You don’t have to explain yourself to me.

Li Cu: no, no it’s just

I do technically have a dad

who is an asshole. Being a son doesn’t really mean shit to me bc it sucked.

So you need to stop backing down just cuz ur guilty abt stuff. I’m really really glad ur not my dad in a good way. Do u get what I mean there

Where’s the mafia widower I followed into hell, huh

Wu Xie: Ur a good kid, despite my influence. I’m really glad you have someone to talk to after everything I…after everything. Wow this talking through feelings thing is kind of weird but nice ur right

Jfc no wonder it took me and xiaoge so long to—you know what, we won’t get into that

Li Cu: ew tmi

Also re: this week’s recent necklace fuckery

I moved my stuff here, I live here now

So you can’t die anymore

Or else…Idk I don’t have a threat planned

anyways abt the curtain

Wu Xie: oh my god, kid…kid you have no idea

I am in tears.

Li Cu: see this is why I can’t be nice to you I can sense the hallmark channel from here

Ugh don’t be sad in ur room that’s dumb

Go hug Pangzi or something

Maybe delete this chat

Or the curtain thing

Focus on the curtain thing

Just stfu and go away

Wu Xie: <3 screenshotting this <3

Li Cu: I take back everything I said. This is why Xiao Ge sleeps on the roof. I hope the ghosts of the Wangs put up that curtain to strangle you somehow. Go die in a stupid way, it’ll suit you.

Wu Xie: lol don’t worry I’m not gonna embarrass you with it or anything

Main Chat

Wu Xie: omg guys look how cute my kid is *sending screenshot*

Wang Pangzi: I MEAN

HE IS WISHING YOU DEATH

BUT SURE

CUTE I GUESS

Wu Xie: no but read the whole thing:):):)

Zhang Qiling: It is indeed very hard to remain angry with you. And you are welcome to join me on the roof.

Wang Pangzi: UH NOPE

NOT WHENI HAD TO BLEACH THE COUNTER IN THE KITCHEN

DONT TRAUMATIZE THE EARLY BIRDS THEYRE ALREADY FREAKED OUT BY U YA HOODIE CRYPTID

Wu Xie: ok true but babe ur like a sexy cryptid

Wang Meng: so, are we just accepting that there is a glittery curtain of unknown origin, and Huo Daofu is going to have to see it while he’s waiting for you at Wushanju bc you’re going to family therapy?

Wu Xie: right

Wang Pangzi: SHOULDA TAKEN EARLY RETIREMENT HUH

Wang Meng: I’m going to go dust something.

Unnamed Chat:

Unknown number: so the curtain…

Unknown number 2: yep, not my best work but I kinda panicked last minute u know

Unknown number: what is in the water at Wushanju that makes everyone dumb and attractive

Unknown number 2: relax they’ll figure it out

[galacticnova3]

idk if the last ask sent but if it didn't HIIIIIIII it is the visjex i didn't get to send you a sleepy anon last night so im doing it now owo i realized i actually don't know all that mushc abt loa roa lon iru n mush would you be willing to summarize them and/or link me to information abt tgem hello i think you're very cool

Hi hello I didn’t get the other anon but will be happy to answer this one! I’ve already summarized Iru in the past, so to keep this as short as possible(which is still probably not short) I’ll skip him and stick to the others. They will be under a cut because just one character alone usually constitutes a long post, let alone four.

Roa

Roa is sorta Lor’s mirror counterpart. In that she’s technically not due to not being a reflection, but because of the counterparts around her she essentially experienced a lot of the same stuff as Lor but to the left. She’s an Umbramaker rather than a Starcutter, but they are all but the same thing on different sides of the mirror, the main difference being that Umbramakers are slightly newer as a result of Mirror Halcandra(MH) basically just copying Overworld Halcandra’s(OH)homework. Bootleg spaceships. While they’re both combination research and combat ships, unlike the friendly, sociable, somewhat mischievous Lor, Roa is a reserved and anxious rule follower; unlike Lor she prefers not to see how far she could push boundaries and authority. This is mainly because, in their times back in their respective Halcandras, both faced pretty different kinds of authority; OH’s government couldn’t afford to do the same things as MH’s government due to financial constraints, which reflected in their treatment of their ships.

As neither Halcandra really considers their ships people(despite being sentient they don’t meet most of the criteria for what counts as a living being, and have no soul to offset that); OH expected them to work and act like any other machine except when they didn’t want them to(which was hard to keep track of) and couldn’t really do much but get mad and yell and make empty threats when that didn’t happen. However, MH was the same way, with the added issue of the fact that if they deemed a particular ship problematic enough they had the means to just deactivate and recycle them. Since most of them were designed with specific functions and maintained by the government, they couldn’t just fire them and be done with it. Of course, that practice was generally kept secret so as to avoid the problems that come with some of your most valuable workers being aware that you’re not above killing and repurposing them as you please.

Roa had once been the sort to poke around and seek out information that she wasn’t supposed to know, especially if it was being hidden intentionally, and as a result she ended up finding out about that unfortunately early on, and it terrified her. She ended up becoming more or less obsessed with trying to justify her continued existence even when it wasn’t in question, doing exactly what she was told, constantly working on whatever projects she was assigned to regardless of her own motivation or interest, and in general became very formal and polite and just however she needed to be to never upset any of her superiors ever. While she didn’t appreciate getting the reputation of being a spineless bootlicker among the other ships, she also knew something they didn’t, and was too afraid of the potential consequences that would come with spreading the word. And that was assuming anyone even listened to her. And thus was the start of the deterioration of her social skills in favor of being a loner and not having to worry about being disliked.

Things went on like that for ages, until a major accident occurred that led to loss of life. A lot of people found out about it despite an attempted cover-up, and that left the government with a surplus of Umbramakers and a deficit of people willing to pilot them. As by this point the ships were a major cornerstone of the Mirror Halcandran Empire’s expansion, given that they could range from mobile laboratories to hazardous material transport systems, battleships, exploration vessels, passenger ships, etc, that was a really big problem. Since they couldn’t just put everything on hold until they could convince the people “hey we promise that was just a freak accident and flying into the depths of uncharted space is actually totally safe and also we will give you money for it”, they decided to experiment with allowing some of the ships with the best track records operate as their own pilots. Roa was an obvious first choice, because who would be a better candidate than the ship who acts like she would be allergic to mistakes and would apologize to you if you threw a rock at her?

And then as soon as she got admin rights she tried to escape because the whole time she was only so perfect and obedient out of fear. In her panicked frenzy she unintentionally caused some, uh, injury while leaving port, which she still feels terrible about despite everything leading up to that. She was ultimately corralled into and subsequently trapped in a cavern under a volcano by a piloted fleet, because there was no way she would let anyone get near her to shut her off. She was left there, initially with the hopes that she would give up and could eventually be dealt with, but she didn’t do so for a very long time. Plans were made to deal with her later, then more plans to deal with her even later, until eventually she was kinda forgotten there. Them some guy named Magoroa found some old government records, thought “hey maybe I can pull a horse girl movie and convince this boat I’m not a threat and then use her to obtain infinite power like a boss” and excavated her, only to find her inactive. That was until he took a few minutes to look around on board and her systems picked up on his activity, after which she immediately woke up, warped him outside, and fled because being stuck under a rock so long(approx 28,000 years) that you put yourself in the computer equivalent of a coma set to end every 6 years or when the environment changes/there is on-board activity tends to make you want to not be in that rock.

After a long while she ended up encountering Lor through Events, the two established “oh hey, neither of us are loyal to the government this is fine actually, we should vibe”, and now she lives in White Wafers like a hermit with wifi. She’s still getting used to not having to be on edge 24/7, but is still nervous and suspicious and if you scare her she will talk like a business email and just generally do whatever she can to Make The Upset Stop even if it means shoving aside her own feelings and just saying what is wanted to be heard. But she’s getting better at standing her ground. Partly because she met Iru and got some practice with not putting up with bullshit. She still has no pilot and has no interest in accepting anyone as a pilot, but friendship isn’t quite as off the table, assuming she’s given enough patience.

Loa

Due to the same sort of deal as the above, Loa is like Lor’s parallel counterpart but not really. She’s not a Starcutter or an Umbramaker, instead being an AICHS(Artificial Intelligence Controlled Halcandran Starship); in her opinion that is a shit name for a kind of boat so she just calls herself a Makercutter because it sound like she could kill gods. She completes the triangle by being outgoing, somewhat rude(not always on purpose), and a rule breaker when she feels like it. Parallel Halcandra(PH) was different from the other two in that their ships were treated as people-adjacent, which just means more or less on the same level with some slightly different expectations. This meant she was actually pretty cool with the government because she was actually valued for more than just being able to science and kick ass(she shares the same function as the other two!) and was generally pretty free, especially in terms of being her own admin from the start and having a co-pilot instead of a pilot. But then everything changed when Overworld Halcandra attacked. In short, the two found out each other exist, PH went for a handshake and OH responded with gunfire and subsequently invaded because it’s free real estate, resources, and information on Another Dimension that we could benefit from.

When OH tried to implement a lot of the same practices they already used, Loa basically went “fuck that” and embarked on a mission to be as much of a nuisance as possible without committing war crimes or whatever would get her shot at. This went about as well as one could expect and she was eventually admitted into the “put in a time out cave” club because OH didn’t have the information necessary to be able to shut her off. That only lasted for around 20,000 years before Parallel Magolor found out about her through old records and was like “oh boy maybe I can ally myself with this boat who also hates Overworld Halcanfuck and then use her to get infinite power!” And then he did. This led to an almost RtD type situation, except instead of Loa being unconscious the whole time, she was awake and actually knew better than to let this random teenager fly her, and also knew that Strong Allies Helpful When Taking On Government. They recruit the Parallels of the RtD four, who all nearly help him accomplish his goal until ParaKirby realizes hey wait maybe giving sole ownership of a powerful artifact to a morally ambiguous teenager with a grudge isn’t a great idea. ParaMagolor convinces Loa to stick with him in the ensuing battle, only to abandon her when he thinks she’s been shot down.

In reality a hit had just stunned her temporarily, but his response of fleeing without her was enough to make her realize she’d been used. She doesn’t know what happened to him but doesn’t care beyond hoping he got his metaphorical ass kicked until it was fucking concave. For a long while she just spent her time wandering Another Dimension and occasionally popping into dimensions to see what’s there, and this led to her one day showing up in Gamble Galaxy… specifically Popstar. While I haven’t come up with an in-universe explanation of how she eventually met the other two, in an rp she essentially showed up near Just Some Guy(Reloh) who was in a groupchat with the other two ships and he was just like “wanna join this groupchat theres like at least two other boats in it”, Loa was like sure why not.

She still just kinda goes wherever instead of staying in one place but now she does so while texting people threats or sending Roa coconut mall 50 times or asking people if they want to be her nemesis. Also she found and adopted a baby dragon(s) of Landia’s species that was alone on a crumbling island in the void of Another Dimension; when fused they’re called Dolonís(which translates to murder weapons in old Halcandran), while separate they’re Gat, Baz, Miss, and Mort(short for Gatling Gun, Bazooka, Missile Launcher, and Mortar). She refuses to admit she is basically their mom despite the fact that she is basically their mom. She’s unexpectedly good at parenting, all things considered, but would probably encourage it if they said a swear word because that’s hilarious. At least if they learn the word fuck she’s gonna make sure they use it correctly because what kind of self respecting parent person of culture who happens to be in a caretaking position wouldn’t?

Lon

Lon’s story is a bit more difficult to summarize but in essence they only exist because someone broke basic lab safety rules. Aka someone living on Cavius who worked in the potion industry, and who had paranoia, was fed up with being made fun of or looked down on for it, conveniently learned about a not very suspicious company called Nightmare Enterprises and a cool product it was selling that would be great for revenge. So they bought the fucked up monster making serum that’ll turn inanimate objects into creatures, made some changes so that those creatures would obey them instead of possibly making the plan backfire, and went ham giving their enemies reason to be paranoid as well by making them question the safety of their own home and belongings. That got old after a while, so they decided to get rid of the remaining serum by dumping it on a dead tree. When that tree inexplicably wasn’t there anymore later on they decided it wasn’t their problem.

Lon was the tree turned mimic, and initially stayed on Cavius because lots of caves to hide in and nooks to mimic hidden treasure in meant sticking around was easy because food would just walk up to them, and there was rarely anyone else nearby to hear them scream, and the echoing meant following the sound would be near impossible anyways. That was all fine and good until people stopped going to the caverns where disappearances kept happening, and resorting to cannibalism would only sage them for so long. Eventually they hitched a ride to Somewhere Else by mimicking cargo, and ended up on Popstar. Initially they just mimicked regular boats, picking up passengers confusing them for the vessel they were supposed to go to, or just picking off isolated swimmers who’d drifted away from shore and out of sight. Being limited to the coastline wasn’t ideal, though, especially when folks wisened up to boarding unfamiliar vessels being a bad idea at best.

I haven’t really figured out much about what they did when initially going inland, other than that they stuck to their niche of mimicking vehicles. Probably a car or truck. At some point in their aimless wanderings they ended up catching sight of Lor, witnessed her explanation of “>I’m a boat and a person”, and got the idea of graduating from just stealing appearances to committing identity theft. Lor was eye-catching and offered basically unlimited movement options, so they could go where they want and in sticking out they would only attract more prey. Figuring out the floating aspect was difficult and took the noble and very unwilling deaths of more than a few floating beings, but that was a sacrifice they were willing to make. While they’ve essentially been in that situation since, going around and tricking folks who think blue spaceship nice, they also had Iru thrown into their life relatively recently. They tolerate him more than expected but don’t know enough about relationships to know how to describe their feelings about him.

They like eating people because the challenge is more fun than just hunting animals, and they hate fish because the one time they encountered Lor directly she rightfully beat the shit out of them and they had to lay low and recover in the ocean for several months and they are just really sick of eating aquatic life. In terms of their disguise, their main struggle is not knowing much about Lor herself as well as not knowing a lot of things in general. They collect shiny things of value as a hobby, but aren’t great at determining what is and isn’t valuable. Like, they know a fork is worth less than a sword, but not the real difference between a quartz crystal and a diamond because both are shiny rock. They keep their collection in a cave and if someone were to pull a Great Cave Offend A Mimic they would hunt them down and violently tear them limb from limb. Do not take their rock collection or they will take your life.

Mush

They are just a little creacher. Also technically Lon’s offspring during their post-identity theft wanderings but before they met Iru, but the two don’t know each other beyond Lon having scared them half to death as a warning(which was preferable given that their other alternative was Eat Baby Reclaim Nutrients). That subsequently gave them an immense fear of Lor and Lor posers. Despite being basically clones, the two are nothing alike, and Mush is going to grow up to Not eat people. They were pretty much feral at first and would bite people if they touched them or tried to hold them, but are much less so nowadays because people have fed them, and food is nice so people must be nice. They’ve also learned some words by copying others, but they’re not great at sentence structure yet and mostly stick to babbling or perhaps blurting out single words or syllables at random. This has led to some interesting situations. Because they’re still just baby, Mush doesn’t really have much going on with them. They are cute and like food and sleeping and sometimes they will unknowingly do things that give people whiplash.

[duketectivecomics]

You might've answered this already and I just didn't find it, but one thing that always perplexed me about Duke was how old he was in comparison to the other Batkids. It's obvious he's younger than Dick and Babs, and I pretty sure he's younger than Jason and Cass, and older than Damian, but I cannot tell if he's meant to be Tim and Steph's ages, younger, or older. Could you help me?

You’re all kinds of good here, anon!!! I answered a similar ask abt the Order of Adoption but didn’t dive into specific ages on that post BECAUSE well they didn’t ask lmaooo but ALSO:

Comic ages are very fluid usually! While Years™️ might pass in the canon proper, or while time seems to slow to a crawl, having a character’s age outright stated is something that occurs very rarely for most characters, if at all!

Because it’s always much easier to have a floating age range to work and play around in! It’s easier to keep a character Perpetually 12 or 16 or 25 or mid-40s or- you get the idea. SO, with that in mind. Let’s do our Best to Break Down What Age Duke Might Be Currently A N D how it might interact with the Other Batkids!

(Warning for a Very Long Post, lots of issue citations, and a LOT of comics terminology regarding specific runs/events/continunity. I’m gonna try to keep it as clear/concise as possible ofc but plz keep these things in mind! If you’re not at least marginally familiar with Bat-Comics, you might find yourself feeling a little lost here!)

So from the Zero Year arc we see a common Trend that plays out pretty consistently with Batfam comics: a Life-Changing Event Occuring while the protag is Young™️.

(Batman (2011) #30)

With how Duke is drawn in these particular issues, and given the trends of the past, I’d place him in the 8-12 range. The historic precedent being ofc that that is the same range that canon usually places both Bruce and Dick at for their Tragedies™; the more benign reason being that he... just very much Looks to be drawn in that Range. He’s very clearly an Older/Prepubescent child here.

Fast Forward to his Next Appearance in the Endgame arc and-

(Batman (2011) #37)

He’s definitely older! He’s wiser! And he’s giving Batman a fistbump lmao. Again, no strict age given here BUT, since they condensed each Robin to a Year or Two tops with Bruce (its n52 and its fucked up is what it is), we can assume it’s been at least 4-5 since Zero Year (which would mean if we go off the age range I proposed for that year, then theoretically he could be anywhere from 12-16 here, and I think that tracks pretty well. Not Perfectly and Certainly Not so well with Pre52 continuity ofc, but I’ll talk about that later!)

In We Are Robin, while its not stated Directly In The Text, it IS given as an Informational Tidbit that Duke is 16 (specifically this can be found at the end of issue #4)! (Sweet sweet canon confirmation FINALLY)

We know that WAR takes place Fairly Soon after Endgame (almost immediately, give or take a month or two given that Duke’s been placed in a few foster homes at this point and has racked up Quite A File) now, again id like to remind y’all that while this is a NICE starting point to have, keep in mind that comics are fluid and this may be retconned slightly/ignored in later stories bc Keeping Duke 16-ish is in DC’s Best Interest at the moment. (Having Relatable Teen Characters afterall is a Good Marketing strategy™️. And the longer they can Keep them Young, the Better)

With that in mind let’s take a moment to Highlight the fact that Duke and Damian have crossed paths at this point AND the storylines that have occurred during this year that were meant to be in conjunction with one another!

Because Prior to Endgame, Damian had Died! And just a year (in real, meat-space time) before We Are Robin, he was resurrected and had begun his “Year of Atonement” in the Robin: Son of Batman maxiseries. Midway through both this series and WAR (and, we can assume, midway thru this “Year” for Damian) the Robin War begins/ends and we see at least one major Moment between these two boys who will soon call one another brothers:

(Robin War #2)

Given that R:SoB is followed up VERY quickly by Teen Titans Rebirth (in which Damian celebrates his 13th birthday), we can conclude that Damian would be 12 during this time (well, 12 and 1/2 to play it safe lmao). That being said, this Confirms about a 4yr gap between Duke and Damian! (One Batkid down at least! but he’s the key to the others so put a pin in him!)

As We Are Robin draws to its conclusion, DC was releasing another arc that would eventually flow into the Rebirth Era, by the end of which, Bruce would approach Duke with an Idea (which involves Bruce becoming Dukes temporary guardian & as he states Many Times “Trying Something New” with Duke).

And thus the Rebirth Era begins, and Duke began his Year of training (most directly encapsulated by the Cursed Wheel arc in the All-Star Batman run:

(All-Star Batman #1 (back-up story))

Bruce introduces Duke to a training regimen that Alfred has named “the Cursed Wheel”. It encompasses all the training Bruce and the other bats have undergone and condenses it down into color-coordinated segments that will take Duke a Year to Complete.

It can be assumed that by the End of this Year Duke will somehow miraculously still be 16, despite, again, an entire ass year passing.

There’s one story that takes place mid-year in All-Star Batman, and the Cursed Wheel is meant to be capped off by Duke’s first Official Day as the Signal (in the titular Batman & the Signal ofc) BUT, near as I can tell after this story, Dukes age is not brought up again. So until they DO bring it up either in Batman & the Outsiders or whatever future run Duke becomes involved in, we can assume DC will be working with the idea that he’s meant to be in that 16-18 range from here on out (ie still a minor).

But, dear anon, you might be saying “okay, that’s cool, but how does that relate to my question abt how he falls in with the other Bats?” You’ll have to be a little patient with me here, but I think I may have cracked the code!

Keep in mind I’m gonna be addressing both the Post-Crisis to Flashpoint Continuity (ie mid-80s to 2010 in comics history) and the N52-slash-Rebirth Era (2010-Today). Its generally agreed by fandom and DC alike that these points of rebooting &/or Major Events constitute the era of “Modern” comics, and that everything from the 80s-on might more or less be canon on some level, even if not All of it is.

(Plus, most of fandom usually likes to borrow elements from both eras and much more rarely from stories before it, SO-)

Lets do a quick rundown of how everyone who’s Closer to Duke’s Age, Relates to each other first, age-wise:

Given that Jason was 15 when he died, in A Lonely Place of Dying its established that Bruce had become increasingly reckless since his death, and by the end of the story, Tim has stepped in to fill Robin’s shoes (he states that he’s 13 during this story btw). Pretty soon after, Stephanie Brown is introduced & established to be about a year older than Tim (wish I could pin-point a specific issue BUT, i unfortunately haven’t read any Tim OR Steph-involved comics that predate No Man’s Land... Besides the aforementioned Lonely Place and Young Justice technically, but im working on remedying that soon!)

NOW, during the No Man’s Land event, Cassandra is introduced, and pretty soon into her Batgirl run, its revealed that she’s around the same age as Jason (or at least how old he Would Have Been, had he not died.) Now, given that Jay has an August bday and Cass has a January one, fandom sometimes likes to play around with the idea of one being older than the other (OR even speculating/placing them in an AU as twins/siblings, given that Lady Shiva (Cass’ mom) was a Possible Candidate to be Jason’s biological mother but that’s a Whole Other Thing i wont get into here.)

The point being, Cass, in this era of comics, IS slightly older than Tim and Steph. At Tim’s start as Robin, their ages could either line up like: Tim-13, Steph-14, Cass-15 (being a few months ‘behind’ Jay), then Jason at 15/16 (depending on how soon Tim filled the role after Jay died in April) OR Jason-15/16, Cass-16/17 (in this case she’d be a few months ‘ahead’ now instead)

So brief detour to talk New 52, however! Because Tim, Steph & Cass all got switched around from where DC originally left them prior to the reboot! Now I haven’t read much of them in this era, other than Batman & Robin: Eternal, so my Understanding of their current ages is Spotty at Best. The general consensus seems to be that while before N52, Stephanie had been attending her first year of College (& doing VERY WELL i might add), with the reboot she was set back a few years alongside Tim to a vague Late-Teen state (so 16-18-ish, instead of a Very Clearly Established 18/19). Cass is probably the worst off for this reboot, given that B&R:E basically constitutes her new origin for the new continuity, and does nothing to confirm her age (all I really know is that she’s a Vague Late-Teen too... Probably? Maybe?), given how much they infantilize her, and subsequently how fandom in turn has taken to infantilizing her too, theres a semi-popular fanon that places her Younger that Tim and Steph. And I, for one, propose that we ignore that bc its Weak Sauce my dudes.

Some fans chose to ignore N52 continuity due to this vagueness, and will stick to the ages established before the N52/Rebirth reboots. But its something to keep in mind regardless bc we’re all obviously going to pull from what’s most familiar to us!

But WHERE could we place Duke with regards to them, then? Because them being “Late Teens” is certainly much too vague to work with!

This is Where Damian is the key!

Because Damian is one of those rare exceptions to the Reboot Rule. His story flowed almost seamlessly over from before to after. While he was made a Robin at the age of 10, he continued to grow and learn even after the universe was being rewritten to suit the whims of DC editorial. 

If we choose to ignore how everyone else’s ages and origins were swapped around, and stick with the growth that was presented before the reboot, then we can draw some interesting conclusions!

Firstly, though Stephanie also had Died and subsequently Returned, she hadn’t lost much, if any time, from the Ordeal. At the start of her Batgirl run, she is enrolled at a Gotham university and making headway with a more firm foot in the Batfamily (even to the point that she and Damian spend a few issues bonding. At this point in time, Damian is definitely 11, and again, Steph can be assumed to be 18/19 during the course of her run. We’ll assume 18 for clarity’s sake.)

So, then when Damian is 11, now our line up is as Follows:

Dami - 11, Steph - 18, Tim - 17, Cass 19-21 (the range depending again, if you subscribe to Cass being either older/younger than Jason).

WHICH MEANS, If during Robin War Damian is 12 (and a half) THEN We’ve got an age line-up that Potentially looks Like This:

Dami -12(and 1/2), Duke - 16, Tim - 18, Steph - 19, Cass - 20-22 (And Obvsly Jason, Babs & Dick at their varying Older Ages than everyone here)

and im just now realizing i Didnt include Harper in this line-up, but thats bc she’d also throw a big wrench in all this.  I’d personally throw her in with being Steph’s age, but I’m pretty sure she was supposed to be either that, or between Steph and Cass (again, since its N52, i believe Cass was/is assumed to be Younger than Steph, but that contradicts the assumed following of pre52 canon that we have for the above line-up, obvsly, and so we ignore that lmao) 

All this to say, however, that canon and fandom is what you make of it, and if you want to wiggle these ages around a little, you’re more than allowed! God Knows i usually like to skew the Tim-Steph-Cass age group to be a tad older than this in my own fic writing, and I like to have Duke start as a Robin at 14/15 instead of 16, but that’s just bc I like the dynamic potential it could bring with them being Definitively Older that him, and thus in a more secure place to be Mentoring him right alongside Bruce & the others.

But you might see these age ranges and want to do something Different (say, making Tim, Steph, Cass, & Duke all the Same Age at 17 instead! And that very well tracks with how current comics kinda looks right now!) and you’re absolutely valid to do so! Because again, comic character’s ages are meant to be fluid, not fixed!

And at the end of the day, its all about wanting to see these teen heroes kick serious ass haha

[in-tua-deep]

I sent an ask like this before but I think tumblr ate it so I guess I’m sending it again. I love your tog/tua crossover! It was the post that made me watch the old guard and I’m v happy abt that. I was thinking about Booker ‘I have trauma about my kids growing old and dying’ Le Livre and I can’t help but think he’d go full dad mode on Five at all times. Five gets the father he deserves and Booker gets an undying child. Everyone wins.

oof yeah it would be... complicated to say the LEAST

I’m not sure Booker would be ready in any sense of the word to be a father again, and having an immortal child would be,, really painful honestly, especially when he had to watch his children grow old and die and now there’s this child who gets to live and it’s not fair

and Booker is... a normal father, for lack of a better word. He loved his children. He told them stories and swung them into his arms and pressed kisses against their rosy little cheeks, he held them when they cried and joined in with the laughter, and he loved them

and so he looks at this - this child, because Five is thirteen and he doesn’t deserve this

but Five is not familiar with the idea of a normal father. His father was cruel, was very forthright in the fact that he did not care about the children as human beings. It’s laughable to think that Reginald Hargreeves would ever tell them stories, would ever hold them or kiss their cheeks or laugh with them. Reginald Hargreeves avoided even touching them. A father to Five is monumentally different than what a father is to Booker

they bright side is that if Booker ever acts fatherly, Five doesn’t clock it as fatherly. He might accuse Booker of mothering him? But honestly Booker probably is like “we can’t let Five do X dangerous thing, he’s baby” which,, Grace helped the kids get ready for their missions, she never tried to protect them from their ‘work’

and some of the things are so far outside of Five’s frame of reference that he just assumes they’re an Old Guard thing or something, like when Five gets a smear of dirt on his cheek and Booker automatically grabs a handkerchief to scrub it off

(I can claim this because Five has such non reactions to the same thing in the s2 gifs I have seen that I can only say he’s just like ??? the whole time and just chooses not to address it, especially bc it happens both with a family member AND an enemy and he doesn’t react either time)

To be fair, they all baby Five to an extent, but it looks different for each of them

Andy doesn’t know what to do with a child? She hasn’t really,, been around children for extended periods of time honestly, she’s used to saving kids and is honestly pretty good at awkwardly talking Five through panic attacks. But she’s kind of tough love, and would probably cheer Five up by giving him weapons and letting him blow stuff up tbh

Nicky and Joe are kind of like fun uncles? they tease Five a lot, and he can’t even argue with them because they’re both like 900 years older than him but also they are very emotional and touchy and they like to ruffle his hair and lean on him and give him hugs that pick him up and swing him around. It’s weird and he isn’t sure if he likes it, but it’s kind of nice to be included?? They never had kids so they’re kind of indulgent with him tbh, kids like taking down horrific time based organizations as a pass time right?

Booker is awkward because he is a father and so he does things like ruffle Five’s hair on autopilot or pile more food on Five’s plate or anything, and he freezes because - it’s something he did with his own kids, and,,,,, he might get more than a little emotional about it. which weirds Five out. Booker is definitely one of the more protective of them though and dislikes putting Five in the line of fire

Nile has Big Sister energy, despite being younger than literally anyone else in this au technically considering that the umbrella academy are 3 years older than her. She has what is vastly lacking: emotional maturity. She sort of adopts Five as a kid brother, which makes her nostalgic for her own brother but also Five is so different it’s not a big issue, but Nile used to babysit for money as well and knows how to handle difficult kids and just applies that to Five

(and it actually works more often than not, five is not immune to Nile’s impeccable logic - mainly because Nile doesn’t order Five she lays out her reasoning in a way that he can’t even argue with)

booker has issues, he has a LOT of issues especially regarding kids and stepping into a fatherly role that I’m not sure he would comfortable with for a long time... but he has a lot of time to wrestle with those issues and eventually step into a more parental role since they have... literally hundreds of years together in the future lmao

five has to learn to actually be a child and not just a child soldier, which isn’t exactly easy considering he’s now going to part of the immortal ‘army’ 

honestly i think a good healing part of this au is just... the og squad learning that surviving isn’t the same as living, and even though they still have to be careful about their footprints even with Copley erasing them... I think they have a lot to learn about living

and having normal human ‘sponsors’ to help out... well I mean - the Hargreeves are super wealthy now that their dad kicked the bucket and are probably very willing to go on camping trips or go to Disney World or drag the squad paintballing. When was the last time the og squad just had fun? no worrying about missions and saving people or saving each other, just pure silly nonsense fun

and the Hargreeves are learning to have fun for the first time as well, even if it means Klaus aggressively putting Mickey Mouse ears on everyone and Diego cheating at paintball and Nile teaming up with Allison to get everyone to go to various plays and musicals

the Hargreeves aren’t immortal but they also aren’t helpless either, and I could see them tagging along on any cool missions for a while. Especially Diego, tbh, with his discount batman schtick he has going on

(honestly if anyone would remind Booker of his kids, it would... probably be Klaus? His children were adults when they died, and he saw them dying, and Klaus is skinny as a rail and sickly looking and probably has health issues thanks to the extended drug use and withdrawal going on

so consider: Booker telling Klaus to sit down and let him cook, get some soup in that boy he’s way too skinny, booker is FRENCH he WILL cook for this beanpole. His mama’s stew could knock the plague right out of a person, probably. 

Booker: that is far too heavy for you let me take it

Klaus: oh! no dude it’s fine - 

Booker: sit down !! you look like a strong breeze could knock you over. I will bring you some soup.

Klaus: I’m fine !! Don’t worry about me - 

Diego: don’t listen to him!! he absolutely needs minding 24/7 or he WILL find a way to get hurt

Booker: !! are you hurting right now? Sit down! Honestly -devolves into muttered french curses as he bustles off to the kitchen-)

but yes there you go the og squad and umbella academy combine into the ULTIMATE FAMILY due to shared custody of Five for the duration of the academy’s lives

[alonelysimp]

dango!!! i don’t even remembering seeing anything about your oc until your reblog a few hours ago 🥺 could i ask; a, h and l for this mysterious character?

I.. I never talk abt them !! I think at best I mentioned them in passing !! there's two of them, both unnamed because that shit hard ;; so they have placeholders for now !! I should make a formal post introducing them eventually...

Ask game

For context, Ash is a traveller from Mondstadt. He's... for lack of a better term, a foxboy. He's (somewhat) modelled after a fennec fox, but with the colour scheme of a fox from Dragonspine, which he should really change bc that's not gonna camouflage him anywhere else :/ Oh, also he's a cryo allogene and knows a bit abt alchemy.

Tortilla is a god that lives in Watatsumi, most commonly found around the Sangonomiya shrine. They were a joke, but alas, here we are. Technically their name is Seiran, but they haven't used that since they started living as a human Zhongli-style. Oh also they're Orobashi's very much alive lover (in comparison to Orobashi, the very much dead snake god), so they're the snakekisser here not me !! (the name Tortilla is in reference to the hurricane tortilla vine btw, I have no idea what their name is nor their pronouns <3)

A. Affection: How does your OC express affection to the people they love?

I'd like to think Ash leaves small trinkets on your doorstep. Ranging from like actual usable things in a neat little box, to bones. Just bones, no box or anything. Perhaps he's really a crow and not a fox. Other than that, his love language is quality time. Which is. Ironic. With him being a traveller and all and is barely home. He loves doing literally anything as long as you're there with him.

Tortilla will run around and do errands for you. Definitely an acts of service person. Their area of expertise is more in commissions, but shopping, cooking (it's usually edible), it's already done <3 They don't have the *best* relationship with cleaning. In their mind, as long as they know where everything is, there's no need to clean? Just don't let it get too bad, they still pick up after themself. Oh speaking of that, they're also really good at finding lost items. Their record for the longest time was about 76 hours, the item was overseas and in Liyue already. The average is around 2 hours though :)

H. Help: When someone your OC loves has a problem, how does your OC try to help them? Do they prefer to comfort, offer advice, or fix the problem? Would your OC go out of their way to help a stranger?

After hearing about it, Ash's first instinct is to work out ways to resolve the issue. He's really... really awkward with comfort. Maybe a hug if you ask for one? But it won't be the first thing coming to his mind. I mean, most of his lore in Dragonspine is him saving people from hypothermia. He has a soft spot for children tho... a good portion of his paycheck from the guild goes to them. He helps Anthony with the medical bills bc Mond's healthcare is like, just as bad as America :)

It depends on how close you are to Tortilla, but if they're your first choice, then I'd assume you to be fairly close. Lowkey outcast of Sangonomiya shrine even though they watched it get built things yk :/ Anyways expect a hug first thing (unless you're really mad abt it then they won't get in the way of that or if you don't want one), and maybe a few comforting words. Overall far better than Ash, but they're still a bit rusty at it ;; They would go out of their way to help someone, as long as it doesn't cause them too much trouble. Now, this *has* gotten them into a bit of a tough spot a few times, but they are a god after all. It may be old and rusty, but power still remains in their form.

L. Loyalty: Is your OC more loyal to their family, their friends, or a mix of both? Why?

...Well I mean.... oh dear this is awkward.. to put it bluntly, Ash was orphaned at 8. He grew up with Bennett and the Adventurer's Guild until he was able to join the Guild himself. Found family... !! He has a few friends outside of whatever family he has currently, namely Lyney, Lynette, Zhongli, kinda Tartaglia, Xingqiu, kinda Chongyun (by association), somewhat Bito (Curse's OC), I mean Albedo too I suppose.... yeah thats about it. His family currently consists of Bennett, the Guild, and Sucrose. I mean I wouldn't say he's besties with anyone but Lyney, Lynette, and Xingqiu? A pretty even split, but would choose his family probably? I mean he also had a pretty good relationship with his biological family if that counts.

Again, Tortilla doesn't have a family !! They're dead !! No found family here this time so friends ig? Mostly the Sangonomiya clan, the resistance. They're vaguely acquainted with people from Narukami. They left Inazuma once, just to see what Teyvat had become since the Archon War. A nervewracking experience, to say the least. Especially because one of the gods might recognize them. They did meet one person they got along with quite well, but it's been hundreds of years since.

[birb-tangleblog]

Compiled anon’s asks to make them easier to read!

The key diffs you're talking about here- like Cass only switching sides after losing- are the same ones I pointed out in my first response re. the shortcomings in her redemption arc, and how I think it could be improved. So I don't think we're on entirely different pages.

"Wanting consequences" is imo a symptom of feeling unsatisfied and actually wanting more out of the writing.

Like both Cassandra’s and Varian’s redemptions took place in a similar short timeframe, but Varian's was overall better received- b/c like you're saying and like I suggested (and have complained about before), Cass had less agency and her switching sides felt more reactionary.

Var is in a position of power when he sides with Raps, b/c he realizes he doesn't truly want his goal... while Cass is powerless, so her realization and despair makes sense, but it hits different- the emotions are there, but the circumstances make it feel less genuine. No disagreement there, and the big thing I was trying to say in my last post is that if this was executed better- Cass realizing sooner, and being allowed to make a self-sacrifice as shorthand for being willing to do anything to right her mistakes- I think fans would have less issue with her handling in the finale. 

When I say double standards... it's more of an attitude; in this case, being willing to make excuses for Var, but not for Cass. Like being quick to point out how violent Cass was in the midseason, but glossing over Var very similarly trying to crush the mains in S1.

Or ignoring everything he did after breaking out of jail- even though he and the Saporians had forced Corona's citizens into working in the mines at that point. I don’t think anyone advocated for a specific sentence or consequences for him post-RR- and he does work to help Corona when the opportunity arises, but it’s all pretty voluntary. We more easily/readily recognize that he has remorse and that more punitive action would set him back.

It’s a bit of a tangent, but I also distinctly remember- prior to S2/S3 airing, a lot of fans actually really liked the idea of Var embracing his villainy and going down an even darker path- lots of AUs w/ him threatening the mains and getting revenge on them for feeling wronged/betrayed. I wouldn't say that interest translates to approval- but being receptive and enthusiastic abt the idea vs. very different attitudes towards Cass and her villainy.

(Or another tangent- Hector. He's another character who tries to kill the mains, acts like a ding dong, and never apologizes on-screen. But he still gets to ride off into the sunset with the good guys at the end. And he's a minor character, true, but I’ve never seen someone raise an issue w/ his inclusion in the happy ending on principle that he’s technically guilty of assault, battery, multiple counts of attempted murder, and whatever crime unsealing demonic trees falls under.)

Var does get some slack due to his age, but I think it balances out- also consider that Cass was being manipulated by a literal demon for half of S2, and all of S3, and several times had an "out" that was presented to her sabotaged by that demon. Imo, a fair approach requires acknowledging that this is as an extenuating factor too, just as Varian's age is.

I know my thoughts are a bit scattered here- Cassandra’s motivations and the Gothel twist being so sloppy makes it kind of impossible to compare, but I’m mostly focusing on... fandom attitudes and dynamics. I hope that makes sense.

Anyway- I think community service would fit the show- and I can see Corona instituting something like that in the future, under Rapunzel's rule. I tend to assume that Raps just recognized leaving Corona would be healthier for Cass’ mental health than staying (esp in a servile position), so there’s some compassion there- and I think it's the ending most representative of freedom/new starts. Remember we are still dealing with Didney here. 

A lil montage of Cass helping out/apologizing (framed very positively) and then setting out might've been a good compromise and wouldn't have been out of place but.

You know we had to use that screentime for the monkey scene instead, obviously.

[fursasaida]

this is totes random sorry pls feel free to ignore but is there a 'STATE' that's completely independent from like elected government, heads of state, partisan politics etc.. like what's this state that some ppl talk abt that doesn't include the elected president? e.g."korea and france have greater deference to state." is there polisci literature/concept on this? what is this STATE that doesn't include the president or CDC head nominated by said president? im sorry im just so ignorant of polisci

This is not at all an ignorant question! This is a huge issue people argue about--maybe less in poli sci than in other social sciences, because poli sci has gone so completely up its own quantitative ass that it has abandoned what should be its obvious theoretical domain and so other disciplines have kind of taken over this kind of question. There are full professors who cannot answer this question (I know because some of them are on my listservs).

So: what is the state. Seriously, really, there is no one widely accepted answer to this. So I’ll go through a few of them under the cut for you. This ended up being really long because it’s something I’ve been thinking about lately, so the simplest, shortest answer to your question is the first one.

1. Institutions

In this view, “the state” means the institutions and bureaucracy that stay on when political leadership changes. The political leadership is called either “the regime” when we want to imply it’s evil or “the administration” or “the government” when we don’t. (I think this terminology is silly and “the regime” should mean the whole arrangement plus some other things--as in a regime of power--without negative or positive implications, but I don’t make the rules.)

Obviously these two things are not firewalled apart. Elected officials can alter the state through policy and/or direct reforms (creating, merging, or eliminating existing state organizations), and the existing state can constrain what elected officials can do through anything from ethics laws to bureaucratic foot-dragging. (In the US context, when we talk about “political appointees,” we mean high-level officials in “the state” that get appointed by elected leaders, but they take over organizations generally staffed by people who have come up through the bureaucracy and are supposed to be “apolitical,” i.e. just there to do a technical/bureaucratic job. So that’s another way that the two blur.) A great example of this would be what happened with the US’s Syria policy under Trump. Trump (”the administration”) wanted to pull out of Syria. The Pentagon, The State Department, various diplomatic branches, etc. (”the state”) did not. The state succeeded in putting him off executing his desired policy for years, even though as the Commander In Chief Trump in theory had really extensive authority to do whatever he wanted. Eventually he exercised that authority and state officials found themselves scrambling madly to try and salvage something of their preferred policy, which is how the US military ended up with this ridiculous non-presence in NE Syria. Another example would be the attempt to take down the USPS.

That’s why partisan politics and elected leaders are excluded from “the state” in this view; “the state” forms the organizational containers that those movements and individuals fill, and the structures they seek to act on or act from. You can think of it like the ground they stand on. This doesn’t have to mean it is itself “apolitical,” since the terrain has implications for everyone standing on it, but it is the object or delivery channel of politics, not politics itself. (Again I don’t agree with this, but it’s what you’re seeing reflected in the discourse you’re talking about.)

When people go on about “the deep state” they’re espousing a conspiratorial version of this view, where they think the ~real behind-the-scenes power lies in these institutions and the long-term bureaucrats who (sometimes) staff and run them. Definitely some power does lie there, but the conspiracists overweigh this into an Elders of Zion type thing.

2. A sovereign entity.

This is more about distinguishing states from other kinds of political entities, and as a result it’s less concerned with fine distinctions about what is and isn’t “political.” The idea is that there are lots of political structures and systems in the world (anything from tribal law to international associations like NATO) but not all of them are states. States are distinguished from other things by virtue of sovereignty. The classic definition (from Max Weber) of sovereignty is “a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence within a clearly bounded territory.” In other words, a state’s police, military, national guard, security forces, etc. have a license to use violence within its borders that no one else has--anyone else engaging in violence is a criminal. It is these groups’ status as “agents of the state” that grants them this license. The bordered, yes/no territorial nature of this status--Turkish security forces have no mandate to act in Greece and vice versa--is also distinctive; fixed, defined, cartographic borders are not necessarily a given. In this view, all power and indeed all law is ultimately founded in violence (enforcement), so what matters is who/what can use force with impunity. (When the state’s monopoly on force is challenged in its territory--e.g., Hizballah making war on Israel without the Lebanese army, the original Zapatistas forming a breakaway region during the Mexican Civil War, or any occupation by a foreign force--then the state’s sovereignty is “weakened” or “under attack,” etc.)

Lots of people have criticized and elaborated on this definition. I don’t want to go on forever about all the critiques that exist, but basically in reality, sovereignty is not a yes/no binary where either you have it completely or you don’t have it at all. Things tend to be more mixed and blurry. It also has more dimensions: two important examples are 1) controlling and disposing of the territory itself (exploiting natural resources, moving people around, etc.), and 2) recognition. In many cases, the difference between a state and a non-state is whether other states recognize it as such, i.e. act like it is one. So for example, the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus exercises sovereignty and has a state bureaucracy, elections, etc., but because it is not recognized by ~the international community~ it isn’t “a state.” (This isn’t just semantics; it may seem arbitrary when you just think about what goes on inside the TRNC, but when its citizens try to emigrate, for example, they encounter very specific, concrete problems on this basis--e.g., their passports will not be recognized as valid.)

I find this more useful personally, especially because it doesn’t assume a liberal democratic state--it can apply to a dictatorship or a monarchy or whatever you like. But in practice, i.e. how people use it, I still think this approach is frequently too worried about pinning down differences that aren’t always useful. On the one hand, I wrote my BA thesis about how Hamas and Hizballah aren’t states (it was common for a while to refer to them as “states within states”) while also not just being political parties, terrorist organizations, service providers, or any of the other things they get tagged with, precisely because of the way they relate to the Palestinian and Lebanese states. This is worth understanding because it helps explain their political projects and their successes. On the other hand, I don’t think it’s very helpful to go around arguing that, say, ISIS was a state (or state-like) and the Houthis are not because of some detail of how they think/thought about territory, or courts, or bureaucracy. Like what do you get out of making that distinction. If you want to argue that a tribal council somewhere is “the state” for its context I think that’s fine depending on what you’re trying to get at. It all depends on what kind of question you want to answer, and on what scale.

3. There’s no such thing.

This view recognizes that the state is a salad bowl full of different organizations, individuals, ideologies, etc. that do not actually all work in lockstep together or have the same goals. To talk about “the state” is to reinforce the fallacy of unified power and cooperation. Instead, we should recognize that actors within states have their own agendas, institutional cultures, power struggles, etc., and that whatever the state does is the outcome of 1) these internal dynamics, 2) the ability of different external actors (from citizens to foreign governments) to play on/appeal to/push back against different pieces of the state, and 3) the interactions of 1 and 2.

This to me is common sense. You just have to be careful not to take it too far. We can acknowledge that the state is internally differentiated/not any one single thing without going so far away from what most people understand about their worlds. There’s no point saying “there’s no such thing as a state” when people still have to pay taxes.

4. "The state effect,” or: there both is and is not any such thing

This idea, put forward by Tim Mitchell, is my favorite. It is also the subtlest, and a little tricky to explain, but I think it’s the most useful.

This view steps back and looks at all the endless, elaborate debates about every possible nicety of “stateness” and says: perhaps we are asking the wrong question here. Maybe it doesn’t matter what the state is. Maybe it matters what the state seems to be; how it seems to be that; and what “resources of power” are generated by these impressions.

This is the tricky explanation part, so bear with me for a few paragraphs.

Where exactly do we draw the line between “the state” and “civil society”? Are NGOs and nonprofits part of the state? What if they get government funding? Especially in a neoliberal context, when so much policymaking is done through contractors, consultants, tax breaks, etc., are these kinds of organizations not carrying out the state’s agenda, consciously or otherwise? Okay, that’s tough, let’s try something easier: individual people and families aren’t the state. But if a household depends on an income from state employment, does that not affect their politics and their actions in society? Is a person “part of the state” in one building and not in another? How do we account for the way off-duty cops behave, for example, then? You can do this same exercise for “the economy” or any of the other things that are supposedly separate things/domains that the state manages. How can, e.g., the American economy be separate from the state when the state prints and guarantees the currency, sets interest rates, enforces contracts, and generally sets the terms on which the economy can exist? (Going back to your original question, you could probably also do this same exercise re: political parties, or partisanship.)

The point here is not that absolutely everything is actually the state. The point is also not that there is no state. It’s that there are not firm lines. Amazon may be the state when it builds systems for the Pentagon even though it is also, clearly, a private company and not part of the state’s institutions or subject to the same kinds of political controls that state institutions are. Similarly, the state itself is not one smooth solid object (as in #3). But it seems obvious, common sense, that “the economy” is a thing, just as “public health” is a thing, etc., and both of these things are objects of state management/governance/power.

This makes it easy for political leadership to make claims on the basis of these other things as separate “objects.” I.e., “we need to take drastic action to save the economy.” So the impression of these divisions can be used to justify or legitimate state action. You can see this super clearly in the current coronavirus situation. How many times have we been told the US has to “reopen” for “the economy,” and how many times has it been pointed out that the government could just take its own economic measures to allow people to stay home--because “the economy” is not some separate object that works by itself. (I myself had to explain to a friend that the government couldn’t just switch the economy back on by “reopening.” I think we underestimate how powerful these conceptual divisions really are in people’s understanding of how the world works.)

So, therefore, “the state” is the effect of ideas and practices that make things that political leaders and institutions do seem like they form a freestanding, separate structure, a thing, that we call “the state.” It is the ensemble of all these pieces (as noted in #3), and said pieces often include things that are generally thought of as not the state; these lines between state/nonstate shift all the time. What matters is not where the line is at any given moment but what the particular configuration allows state power (including the consideration of force from #2 and the structural concerns from #1) to do.

The problem I have with this is that it doesn’t really account for state capacity very well, but that’s for another day because I haven’t figured it out via paper-writing yet.

[telltalebatman]

oc facts: frankie

once again no one tagged me, i just need a warm-up after not writing anything sorcione-related for nearly a year. might as well talk abt frankie.

(frankie when she first met mac gargan / frankie currently telling the story to spider-man)

PLACE IN SOCIETY

✖ FINANCIAL – wealthy / moderate / poor / in poverty

this one is actually a tiny bit complicated. frankie used to be filthy rich - but that changed after she cut her wealthy family off. she doesn’t actually have any actual financial issues, and is still able to afford living in a comfortable new york apartment - but she most definitely couldn’t afford a ferrari, for example.

✖ MEDICAL – fit / moderate / sickly / disabled / disadvantaged

frankie is definitely fit and agile, having practiced martial arts, gymnastics, yoga and running from early childhood. she also used to spar with mac... but those sessions usually just ended in bed. assuming he even agreed to them, as he wasn’t a big fan of physically fighting his Tiny Wife.

✖ CLASS OR CASTE – upper / lower / middle / working / unsure

whether she likes it or not, she is a member of new york social elite. her family’s name - moretti - carries a lot of weight; her father - bartolomeo - used to be a consigliere and confidant of cicero, one of the maggia dons. and frankie herself almost became a part of don fortunato’s family, having nearly married his son; they are still on good terms, and don fortunato still calls her by her first name.

✖ EDUCATION – qualified / unqualified / studying

frankie never went to college, as her mother emotionally manipulated her into working at her bakery instead. agreeing to it is one of her biggest regrets, as she feels she had missed out on a lot.

(she still reads a lot though, and has a genuine interest in psychology and sociology.)

FAMILY

✖ MARITAL STATUS – married, happily / married, unhappily / engaged  / partnered / divorced / widow or widower / separated / single / it’s complicated

frankie is - happily and lovingly - married to mac gargan, one of spider-man’s biggest enemies. their marriage isn’t perfect though, as she hadn’t seen her husband in months.

✖ CHILDREN – has children / no children / wants children / adopted children

she has no children and she very much wants it to stay that way, as she has negative interest in motherhood.

✖ FAMILY – close with sibling / not close with siblings / has no siblings / siblings are deceased / it’s complicated

she has an older brother - takeshi - and she hates him. she hates him and their parents to the point of turning to maggia for help in getting away from them.

her brother had always had a weird obsession with her, obsession that eventually unfortunately turned sexual. their parents knew about it - and pretended like everything is fine.

she’s not on speaking terms with her family anymore.

✖ AFFILIATION – orphaned / adopted / disowned / raised by both parents / it’s complicated

she was raised by both parents, and it sucked. her father was mostly absent, and her mother was emotionally abusive; eventually frankie cut them off - and in response they promptly disowned her.

TRAITS & TENDENCIES

✖ disorganized / organised / in between

to put things simply: frankie has her shit together. she always knows what time it is, where her keys are and how much money she has in her bank account. she likes to get up late, yes; but most the time she gets up when her alarm starts to go off.

✖ close-minded / open-minded / in between

she has to be open minded - she lives in new york. the avengers are there, spider-man is there, rhino is there, the maggia is there... she simply has to be open to new experiences and discoveries, because otherwise - she’d go crazy.

✖ cautious / reckless / in between

most of the time, frankie strategically plans her every move; but then again - there also are times where she decides fuck it and goes with the flow.

✖ patient / impatient / in between

oh she IS patient. doesn’t mean she doesn’t get annoyed at people who are late though.

✖ outspoken / reserved / in between

it all depends on her relationship with people around her, really. around angelo - her best friend - she’s outspoken and chatty; but around his father - don fortunato, the don - she’s reserved and cautious, meticulously cherry picking her every word.

✖ leader / follower / in between

frankie was forced to be obedient her entire life; now she just craves giving orders. her end goal is to become maggia’s first ever donna.

✖ sympathetic / unsympathetic / in between

frankie actually has a lot of sympathy for others, mostly due to what she went through. the thing is - she absolutely can’t express it without coming off as awkward at best or patronizing at worst.

✖ optimistic / pessimistic / in between

that entirely depends on the scenario - but most the time she can’t even be bothered to think about actual outcomes. she’d rather stick to planning instead.

✖ hardworking / lazy / in between

frankie is, without a shadow of the doubt, the most hardworking person amongst her social circle of maggia kids. but the thing is - she truly, madly, deeply hates it. given a chance, she’ll sit around and do

nothing

all day - but there’s no rest for the wicked. first she worked on her grades, then she nearly worked herself to death in her mother’s bakery, then she had to try to make ends meet after moving in with mac, and then - she had to work on getting him back.

she simply has no chance to ever not be hardworking.

✖ cultured / uncultured / in between

partially thanks to her father, partially thanks to the necessity of getting along with don fortunaty, and partially thanks to her own gothic interests frankie is actually very well-versed in literature, history, theater, opera, art, and food.

✖ loyal / disloyal / in between

despite what “she cut her family off as soon as she got the chance” might sound like - frankie is actually very loyal. but the thing is - her loyalty does not come easily. you have to work for it.

✖ faithful / unfaithful / in between

frankie is as faithful as it gets. once she’s in a relationship - she’s not gonna cheat on her partner, literally no matter what.

SEXUALITY & ROMANTIC INCLINATION

✖ SEXUALITY – heterosexual / homosexual / bisexual / asexual / pansexual / omnisexual / demisexual

even though she doesn’t have tons of experience - she is bi, with a slight preference for guys. her best friend’s tall, muscular bodyguard was her first crush, when she was around 12.

✖ SEX – sex repulsed / sex neutral /sex favorable

all in all, she’s generally sex positive - even if she finds talking about sex a little bit awkward, especially with people who are not her current partner. she also gets very flustered very fast when her partner begins to talk dirty - there is something about merely hearing about all the things the other person wants to do with her that gets her all worked up.

but yeah. she likes sex. it makes her feel good, plain and simple - and she likes the sense of connection between her and her partner, as well as feeling comfortably vulnerable.

also she simply likes it when other people make her feel good.

✖ ROMANCE – romance repulsed / romance neutral / romance favorable

romantic love is something she enjoys - but at the same time she did spend many years without it, and it didn’t really do her any harm. but, if there is someone who has feelings for her, and she finds herself returning them - she’s not gonna be scared.

✖ SEXUALLY – sexually adventurous / sex experienced / naive / inexperienced / curious / uninterested

she enjoys having sex, and trying out new things, and she does have her fair share of fantasies. they are not particularly wild or kinky - but they are there.naturally there’s also a fair share of things she’d never try with anyone.

ABILITIES

✖ COMBAT SKILLS – excellent / good / moderate / poor / none

while she’s no superhero - she’s actually rather good at hand-to-hand combat, thanks to having spent years training. she often sparred with mac, and he taught her quite a few things - but she could never best him in actual combat. but, assuming she fought a regular security guy, or even a cop - she could stand her ground.

✖ LITERACY SKILLS – excellent / good / moderate / poor / none

she reads a lot and is actually very good at critical analysis and interpretation.

✖ ARTISTIC SKILLS – excellent / good / moderate / poor / none

frankie is actually a great poet and a self-taught painter. her poetry is evocative and raw and her paintings are realistic, yet hauntingly unreal; if she had a chance - she could be america’s next top artist.

except - she was never given said chance, and never approached any of her talents as anything more than a casual pasttime.

✖ TECHNICAL SKILLS – excellent / good / moderate / poor / none

this one is interesting. years of working at her mother’s bakery made her excellent at handling various kinds of dough, shaping intricate designs and working quickly with her fingers - but that does not, at all, translate into being good with electronics.

she is, and i cannot stress this enough, a femme fatale of the engineering sphere. she is absolutely awful when it comes to screwdrivers and wrenches and bolts and all that stuff. she’s kinda decent with computers and smartphones - but only on the software level. if you asked her to install more RAM in your desktop pc - chances are you wouldn’t have a pc anymore.

and it’s not like she’s an expert hacker anyway - her proficiency is around as high as mine. she can pirate software, and use vpns, and knows the difference between ipv4 and ipv6...... but writing her own pieces of code? absolutely the fuck not.

[f-nodragonart]

sbelieve it or not this is the same character as from post/187514116686 ! HOPEFULLY I got the dang wings right this time. i think i mayyy have placed the butt a bit high, but overall I think I more or less got everything decently alright! I’d like to note that is definitely NOT the default resting position of his tail, and rather that i ran out of canvas space and couldn’t make the canvas any bigger than it was lol

His horns are based slightly behind his ears, a bit closer to the back of his skull, and i’ve changed the overall shape to make them easier to consistently draw for myself lol,,,

I wanted to keep the borzoi-esque look to him, so I kept the deep dip of his chest. his fur gets shorter toward his tail, until it’s short enough that it’s more like dense fuzz covering the tail

oooo rly diggin the palette shift! I’m a big fan of dark blue/green colors. the wings are indeed looking VERY nice, so we don’t need to talk abt them at all here

the lengths of the different sections of the legs look a bit off, so just remember that for a creature w/ a ‘strong’ dog-like stance like this, the elbow should line up with the bottom of the ribcage (which I estimated here, underneath all the fur), and the elbow and knee should about line up, when in a relaxed stance like this. thus, I pulled the elbow and point of the shoulder up higher, and pulled the knee down lower. the feet looked a bit long too, so I made the lower leg longer and the foot shorter

the head looked a bit small relative to body size, so I made it larger by about~ 45%

the big thing I wanna talk abt is the tail, which I haven’t redlined at all b/c its potential issues are more in conception rather than execution. my problem w/ it is that it’s basically a shark’s entire body– sans the head– attached to the butt of a whole other animal. there are body parts on that tail that aren’t necessary or even evolutionary feasible unless it literally IS the case that a shark was sewn onto this dragon (which could make for an interesting magic/science-gone-wrong story, actually)

for one, you’ve got the pectoral + pelvic fins, which are a whole 2 other sets of ‘limbs’. yes, technically cartilage fish like sharks split off from the evolutionary tree before a different set of fish set the tetrapod standard, but those fins are utilizing the same genetic code that tetrapod limbs do– they’re genetically the “same” sets of limbs, just set on different evolutionary paths. not that it’s impossible to imagine more limbs evolving– we’ve obviously talked a LOT abt hexapodal evolution before. but this dragon is suggesting the evolution of a walking vertebrate from an ancestral fish with upwards of 5 distinct sets of paired fins, 3 sets of which evolved into the legs and wings. that’s rly asking a lot of me, in terms of suspension of disbelief

then you’ve got the gills, which don’t exactly work on a tail. see, gills function when air is pulled into a fish’s mouth, over the gills (which are in fact within the body) so that the delicate filaments can collect the oxygen, then out of the gill slits that we see on the outside of the body

I can buy the gills resting on the throat, or even the torso (depending on how the ribcage is set up so it doesn’t block water flow), but allll the way down on the tail? that’s a p far way to travel from the mouth, it just doesn’t seem all that practical. esp for shark gills specifically, b/c they don’t have an operculum like ray-finned fish do. the operculum is a plate covering the gills in the above diagrams, which flaps open/closed to pull water through the mouth, much like how our diaphragm uses suction to pull air into our lungs (you’ll notice that ray-finned fish have just the one gill opening due to the operculum covering all the gill arches at once, while sharks have multiple openings for each individual gill arch). since sharks don’t have the operculum to pull water into their mouths, they have to work extra hard and use the motion of their entire body to do so– that’s why sharks die if they don’t keep moving, they’ll suffocate otherwise

of course, the opening for water to enter onto the gills doesn’t *have* to be the mouth, but you’d need to do a lot of evolutionary finagling to chart out a new opening to the body. and even in that case, it still just doesn’t seem super practical to have the delicate, vitally-important oxygen-exchange system be on the back-end of the body (at least in this particular body structure)

now I don’t know enough abt this dragon to say what kind of tail they might need, I can only assume they’re at least semi-aquatic due to the design of their tail. perhaps stabilizing fins of some sort (even if not paired) would end up being useful, or any other number of potential design choices. but the big thing to keep in mind here is that u can’t just slap an aquatic tail on a creature and expect them to swim, in the same way u can’t just slap wings on a creature an expect them to fly. the entire body is affected by the forces of locomotion– moreso than any extra fins, you’ve gotta think about the shape/strength/size of the torso, limbs (which may themselves be fins), and head/neck. a tail may not even be necessary, depending on exactly what kinda body plan u come up with. the point is, there’s a lot more to think abt than just a fishy tail (esp when that tail is, in fact, a whole other torso), so I’d suggest scrolling thru our water dragons tag to get some ideas abt design

-Mod Spiral

[herotheshiro]

whew ok i like stayed up until like 5am last night re-reading and then catching up on behind the desks ... a pretty cute story w the typical BL amt of smut (aka a lot more than what the situation(s) calls for lmao) although there are 3 things i didn’t quite agree with

taesung’s best friend actually having unrequited feelings for him. literally i did not  like that at all even though technically in the context of the scene it made sense bc it drove the scene. i honestly always only saw them as friends and i was like nice this is refreshing to just have two queer guys (ppl of the same gender) just be friends and nothing more but no they had to go that route. i mean it could’ve been worse as they could’ve gone the route of the best friend actually actively going for taesung and so we have a 2nd love triangle but thankfully they didn’t push it that hard and just had the best friend be a good friend who just wants the best for his bro. which is literally all it could’ve been !! sometimes platonic friends just want the best for each other, they don’t need to have ulterior romantic motives !! although i mean technically the best friend didn’t have an ulterior motive bc he was like “taesung would never look at me like that but thanks a lot for bringing up old shit i wanted to forget ASSHOLE”. then this kind of leads up to the next point

them potentially pairing up the best friend w asshole sunny’s ex ?? i mean this one is prob an incorrect assumption bc i was reading the korean raws for this scene so idk what they were saying but i swear to motherfucking god ... ik they’re the 2 leftovers but if you GOTTA pair up the asshole ex which you don’t have to just pair him up w that dude who was interested in him fr !! like i mean that’s bad bc the ex is toxic and also doesn’t like the dude supposedly so that’d be mean for the dude but at least throw the dude a bone i guess, the dude is also kind of a jerk. let taesung’s best friend have a healthy relationship

this one is more of a smaller issue but the ex just letting sunny go that easy? i mean i’m not saying i WANT more angst and pain for sunny but like for a dude who we know is very obsessed and possessive of sunny to just let sunny leave without any further complaint after sunny finally stands up to him ... maybe it was the shock of him seeing his “property” finally up and out after having enough of him but i was surprised nothing really happened and the ex seemed pretty chill w sunny leaving. i’m not asking for violence obvi but like idk, i just thought there would be more to it even though yeah at that point in time sunny had been going through a FUCKTON and he deserved this easy conclusion. i mean all the korean raws haven’t been posted yet and i know the ex shows up again so maybe he’s just like ‘well i’ll let him wander around but ik he’ll come back one day’ in delusion idk

OH WAIT NO I DON’T THINK THE LAST POINT WAS MY REAL THIRD POINT as i just remembered the shit w jooyeon and sunny !! aka the  bomb sunny dropped during his final breakup w his ex that jooyeon actually physically looked like taesung ??? which like how the fuck would we have known that bc the entire time jooyeon’s face is never revealed ?? i feel like it would’ve had more impact if we the readers were able to make that connection ourselves (revelation of jooyeon’s face at least ONCE, we realize it looks extremely familiar ...) and then the later overt statement from sunny.

anyway other than that it’s a nice read ! it’s a pretty typical BL story i feel of two guys who fall for each other but a shitty ex and miscommunication gets in the way of their easy happiness. and also i like stories of ppl falling in love w each other again (sort of in this story i guess? you know what i mean). smut is p typical i feel, the scenes aren’t too drawn out but also sometimes longer than it needs to be prob (idk why i’m adding this statement on the smut when i usually don’t, just for kicks and future me i guess. making this review as complete as possible lol. but also that one panel of them in the supply closet was hot ngl ROFL IN EMBARRASSMENT AT HAVING WRITTEN THAT). i had read a large chunk of the eng translation before but for whatever reason i decided to catch up on it again last night. it made me kind of sad at points bc sometimes taesung would say stuff that was (or could be) very similar to what the ex would tell sunny and i’m like yeah the sentiment behind the statement is different but like for sunny who prob can’t tell the difference ... now that i think abt it i think they def glossed over a lot re: sunny and the ex’s history like their childhood and early relationship and stuff but i guess it’s not really important other than the ex weirdly is obsessed w sunny and was trying to do whatever to make sunny his. usually these kind of stories really dive into the ex-relationship through flashbacks and stuff but this one didn’t which made me feel like something was lacking even though they already told you everything you really needed to know. i’m the kind of person who always feels like every behavior needs a reason but sometimes i just have to accept that ppl are jerks just because. anyway sunny’s self-deprecation reminded me a lot of recent stuff i’ve read from tsumugi from a3 w his low self-confidence and i’m always like *clutches chest* at ppl who shit on themselves like that.

i also finally found the game it’s based off of this time around and i think it’s hilarious ... since i knew abt it originally being a game before i thought the game’s protag was taesung or sunny and they had the option to romance either the other teacher or any of the student council students (bc you know those BL games and their student-teacher relationship options) but nah i think the game is just student-student romance options w a side story of the teachers. i’m still not sure if the student protag has the option to romance sunny but i didn’t see any videos on it on the channel of the one youtuber i could find who posted a playthrough of it so i’ll assume you can kind like sort of flirt w him but you can’t get together. anyway i love how they kind of shove the students in there to reference the original game but the students are like not relevant at all to the entire manhwa story as a whole

anyway supposedly the entire story is finished w some side stories which is like good bc what else is there to talk abt now that the shit w the ex is finished (there are def manhwas out there i feel that just keep adding drama just to keep the story going). toonkor still doesn’t have all the raws up yet and idt they’ve updated it recently either so i’ll have to keep checking back from time to time or wait until the eng translations forge ahead and finish the story. anyway looking forward to the ending !

[whiteanti]

this is honestly such a big issue within our communities, the "reclamation" of slurs. and i hate it so much esp when white passing ppl do it like hello? i dont like it when they call themselves people of color either bc they dont fucking know the struggle of being racialized, they only know how to whine abt not being white enough for the whites n poc for the poc. i wish we had another term to call ourselves bc white passing weirdos and spicy whites took the term poc and fucking ran with it

(1) lmao theres this person whos url is [redacted] whos south n se asian but is like ¼ chinese and and made ch*nk jokes then ppl confronted them on anon n they said its just whites trying to police their “pocness”… and what bugs me about ppl like this is how they dont reclaim slurs they just use them to be edgy online. it doesnt matter how much % dna u have of an ethnicity if ur not racialized as it dont fucking use slurs u know u’ll never be called they have literal worms for brains

ok sorry for reformatting like this I’m just already anxious as hell bc of exams rn so I rlly can’t deal w getting into fights w ppl like that but anyways ik who ur talking abt and its the same person as I was but I don’t have any receipts and I haven’t interacted for the past couple of years so I’m not gonna assume u know. also idk if these r the same anon but these r kinda similar so I’m gonna out them together. my reply got rlly fucking long so its under the cut 😛

anyways I feel like a lot of ppl esp on tumblr ‘reclaim’ slurs for the edginess of it bc they’re teenagers in a white society trying to figure out how to b a poc in a way that isn’t acceptable to white ppl and/or they think its CoolTM bc all their mutuals r doing it. like to a certain extent I get it bc when I was 13/14 I was like that as well. I called myself a chink bitch and all that shit but also I was a fucking dumbass kid who was doing both of the above. but ppl who r 17/18/19/20+ who carry on doing these crazy fucking jokes and tell kids who r impressionable and young that this is a good and healthy way to reclaim their identity? wack. the way ppl treat each other and the way ppl have normalised treating themselves w absolutely no respect in the name of activism or whatever is….. just crazy. calling urself slurs to degrade urself isn’t funny reclaiming shit ur just making urself feel worse. theres literally nothing positive abt it ur making no impact, ur doing positive for ‘the cause’ or urself either. so thats my thoughts on most of the ‘slur reclamation’ that happens on tumblr. 

onto what ur actually saying sdkjfhs I basically agree 100%. ppl who r white passing shouldn’t b able to reclaim slurs bc they’re never gonna have the slurs used against them if they’re white passing? bc like being able to reclaim a slur basically has 2 parts a) was the slur targeted at u (e.g. a butch lesbian can’t reclaim f*g even if its used against them bc it’s meant for gay men and they’re just being mistaken to b a gay man) and b) are u ever actually gonna get targeted by the slur (e.g. a white passing person is never gonna get called a racial slur in the street bc they look white). if u fit both them congrats u can reclaim the slur! but generally I find it rlly iffy if ppl just start throwing around slurs or calling other ppl that slur esp if its not widely reclaimed in the community (big example: YELLOW) 

but also if ur white passing and u decide that ur gonna reclaim a slur ok thats fine bc technically ur a poc but u literally can’t get angry at poc who freak out when u say it bc??? u look white??? what do u want us to do look up ur fucking family tree before u start throwing slurs around??? like anyways I’ve always had a whole mess of issues w white passing ppl and tbh mixed white poc to a certain extent esp when y'all act like the shit u get from poc is just as bad as racism…. like getting ‘rejected’ by a poc culture aint as bad as literal racism but anyways. white passing poc r like….. what u want me to do……. feel sorry for u?? apologise??

like white passing ppl have a unique place in society to b able to stand up against racism in white spaces bc y'all do know what its like to b a poc to a certain extent and obviously have access to white spaces as well. white ppl trust u as an ‘ambassador’ for poc bc u look white but every time I interact w u guys either irl or online u side w white ppl/racism bc its so nice to benefit from appearing white but not so nice to have to stand up for poc. like this is so many ppl ESPECIALLY white passing e asians u guys r transparent as hell. obviously not every white passing person is like this but from all the white passing ppl I’ve interacted w like shits the same bruh. 

ok like 50th anyways but ANYWAYS like I identify myself a lot as a poc online bc theres a lot more solidarity politics(? idk if thats the right term but lmao) on here than irl. the internet is a good way to connect w different ppl that u wouldn’t otherwise meet irl so thats why. its a hard issue bc a lot of the time ‘poc’ merges ALL of our experiences together whether ur rich, poor, white passing, an immigrant, black, asian, etc, etc, etc and we all obviously have different experiences of racism and how we interact w our race/ethnicity and as I’ve said before whilst ‘poc’ is a kinda useful term sometimes for solidarity and talking abt racism generally but its overused a lot. theres no harm in being specific abt the kind of racism u face if its specific to a certain race or ethnicity or group or whatever. 

also tbh a term for non-white passing poc would b useful that doesn’t surround the idea of white passing ppl being the norm. (something like visible poc? idk) but anyways this has gotten so long I’m just ranting/rambling at this point so I’m sorry for answering ur asks so weirdly?

[hyvnmi-blog]

so my dumb ass decides to spend quality sleeping time creating a blog and doing an intro.. tomorrow’s early rise will surely be an Experience, dear fucking godsdgkljldf. hey guys, i’m jules !! i’m a uni student from canada, thankfully off for the summer, and am.. so obsessed with that hui x somin duet that i went against my desire to play a different fc ( bc im so far up this girl’s ass already ) but.. her abs.. klsgdjl. also excuse the clashing icons in the theme, just added a couple i last had saved until i could make it Perfect tomorrow evening. i’d say more abt myself, but i honestly don’t have the patience dgsjk so below you can read up on seoul’s resident skating brat halle, a bitch who overworks and doesn’t know how to chill long-term !! stats page is HERE for your reading pleasure, plots and what not will be up later on !

└ jeon somin, twenty-three, she/her ┐ this town wouldn’t be complete without chae “halle” hyunmi wondering around. they’re known as the prodigy and have been living here for four years. i hear they really like cranberry salsa, classical music and rain, but can’t stand distractions, laziness and cherries. their sole purpose? i hear it’s to finally become an olympic medalist, but we’ll see how that goes. ( jules, 18+, gmt-3:30, she/her )

honestly she is.. fucked sgjfsgdkl

i’ve had inspo for her after the olympics and rly wanted to use her somewhere, so if some things here seem a little.. idk, farfetched for your taste, we’ll pin it on that sfdgkdfj

this is her as popular vines

so chae hyunmi aka halle, ulsan born, raised in seoul and relocated to toronto, canada with her parents, little sis and partner to train bc..

she’s a figure skater, good enough to win ( .. junior ig ) titles when she was in her early teens, so it was only inevitable for her to leave for toronto to train with the Best eventually

she’s competed in international competitions, as part of a pair, and made her olympic debut in sochi by the skin of her teeth; her highest placement was third place ( not at sochi pls sgjkld she prob ranked in the top ten at best ), so she’s got a medal or two to her name

ultimately it was after sochi that she saw her coach and ( ex ) partner intervene with her.. unhealthy practicing habits

she’s a perfectionist through and through, so of course she’d spend hours on the ice at just seventeen/eighteen years old, even younger tbh, to get a routine right. but she pushed herself harder and harder, where small missteps would lead her to fall hard and recover for days on end, even spraining her ankle just before competition season was to begin

so when her coach insisted she take a break, her parents following suit, it was with good reason — one that she didn’t fucking see fsdkgkl

even so, them pushing her to prioritize education for a bit, to get ahead of the skaters who would prob only be able to do so upon retirement in a good few years’ time, and hanging up her skates until she saw it as.. less than something she needed to abuse herself to feel comfortable with, for as long as they would do so led to her resolve shattering and her applying for universities both in canada and sk ( the sly brat reasoned that it’d be nice to be reconnect with her roots.. for the sake of having something going for her beyond just competing in pyeongchang ! )

which is how, miraculously, she got accepted into uni in seoul ( still figuring out which, rip ). her grades were good, she had a super brief volunteering stint and she’s a rising star ( well, was.. the bitch wouldn’t be competing again anytime soon to keep herself where she was within the skating circuit ) in her favoured sport, she deemed it inevitable sfkljfdgk

the transition wasn’t too hard ofc; she got comfortable with the campus and seoul and was back on the ice in no time, joining the uni’s skating team under her parents’ noses and making the most of it as comeback/olympics prep

she saw herself as poised to be added to the roster once again, now a singles prospect after a major falling out with her longtime partner for one too many dumb bitch moves, and was desperate for it since it’s in pyeongchang, however the stars didn’t align when she just missed obtaining qualification on sk’s roster on a technicality, and nothing could’ve compared to the agony that was missing her chance in something she invested sm practice, time and compliance with the people around her to pull through and get to pyeongchang

she’s still distraught over it, it’s been a few months since that happened and she gets emo real quick, misty-eyed if you bring it up ( she uh, has issues with moving on from things if you can’t tell )

suffice to say she resents her coach for his minor contribution in fucking her and himself over, dropped him out of anger ( a move she.. does feels bad abt on a personal level but professionally ?? pft ) and linked up with one back in toronto who she’ll begin seeing when she’s “ prepared ” to give it a shot again

studied history despite wanting to be a skating coach when she retires as a competitor, bc she rly loves history ok ??

lives on her own bc she can’t deal with even minimally questionable people as roommates jdfgkls

personality and other shit

she is.. a mess rly

inflexible, independent, charismatic, etc

most of her actual personality is further down oops dsfgjklfg

kinda detached ?? like she doesn’t want too many distractions and she deems relationships as the fucking Worst for it.. she’s had some pals from skating with potential go downhill when they got too deep with certain partners or just with too many side hobbies, social obligations, so she’s trying to be level-headed while not destroying her social life ?

idk it’s hard to explain, she’s an enigma even to me in that area

only dated once. when she was like nine. with her first pairs partner she quickly ditched.

not.. super sexually active either ( rip ?? )

but she’s been Involved with people so fdskng

on the ice, or just in whatever she’s applying herself to, she’s domineering and blunt, v strict on herself though she’s slacked off a bit over the years.. so imagine how self-disciplined — in the worst of ways — she was when she was younger

with a rigorous work ethic like hers, her being a leader among those at the local skating club implies that she’d be strict too with what little power she has.. but she’s kinda chill overall ?? tho you still have to get your twizzles right before the end of the day, don’t care that the hockey players will be out in two ! let’s go !

uh.. her attitude carries over with a Lot of things. she especially has no time for people who are Committed to their sport but show poor performances bc of laziness, distractions, etc. so brace your kids for hurricane hyunmi ??

call her ice queen. try it. try it. GKFDJKGDSF she hates that nickname 95% of the time, usually bc she assumes people are basing it off of her initial/professional demeanour first and her passion second

she rly just has a hard shell where it matters, aka her career and stuff, but is a semi-precious gem overall

kind of dramatic and a meme ngl, curses quite a bit, whips out english far too often — especially if she’s shit-talking bc you made an ugly choice but is trying to be a Supportive Friend

english name came from halle berry bc hyunmi thought she was rly pretty on all the red carpets her mom would have on growing up sfgdkjflk

also likes cranberry salsa?? an odd fave but it’s one of mine and i wanted to include it just bc jgsflddgks

unwinds with the usual netflix and wine, but also dance — helps with her choreo for routines too so

oH also prob still hurts herself by overworking, especially after That Lost Opportunity, i hate

ok idk what else to say rn, accept this pls

KDFJGSKFL uh, let’s end it there. if anyone wants to plot, im me !! ( ps, if you prefer d*scord like yours truly, just ask for it or send me yours ! )