#idk i think on some level it just shows like.. a lack of judgement on his part

[stellardeer]

I feel really bad cause my spouse got me an iPad for my birthday a few years ago and I never use it...

He got it for me because I had been lamenting that I wished I had a drawing tablet with a screen instead of the second hand wacom that I use.

But when I unwrapped it I was shocked and surprised and worried immediately. I thought "why did you get me such an expensive gift..." and he said his dad helped pay for it. And then he told me why he got it and I was like oh okay that's nice I guess... but I never wanted an iPad. I wanted a drawing tablet. I was immediately concerned that I wouldn't like it. And I didn't want to sound ungrateful but I expressed that concern cause I was worried it was a mistake to get me such a gift and maybe he could return it... but I ended up keeping it and he got me an apple pencil to go with it and I bought and downloaded procreate to give it a chance.

I hate using procreate. It's a good program but I liked the program I was already using. I like drawing on my computer. Also the process of getting images out of procreate and onto my PC is stupid and cumbersome, and I dont like interfacing with websites from the iPad, I like using my PC. I just wanted a tablet that I could use with my computer that also had a screen. I don't even like Apple products, I never wanted to own one.

If I go on a trip and I want to draw I usually just end up bringing a sketchbook because I like that better than drawing on the iPad.

I gave it a shot for a while but I haven't touched the thing in like 6 months, and I feel bad that he spent so much money on it and I never use it :/

But I also can't complain about it cause it will make him feel bad but like idk, I wish he had just asked me what kind of tablet I wanted or something I mean I didn't even know what I wanted I had no serious plans to upgrade my tablet anytime soon, I still don't even know what I would want if I did. I have a $1000+ piece of fucking technology that I hate and I would rather use the thing that I paid $35 for.

[cookinguptales]

As someone who grew up in a bilingual household where we spoke English but also signed, the part of Mabel and Theo's relationship that fascinates me the most is the communication, or lack thereof.

I'm mostly hearing (...sort of...) but grew up around a lot of d/Deaf people, CODAs, interpreters, etc. so while I can't give any input on the experience of profound deafness, I can at least tell apart different styles of signing. It's a little hard to tell sometimes how much of this is characterization vs. the skill level of the actors, but it is interesting.

Teddy Dimas does not sign fluidly. It's immediately obvious. It's not that he's terrible or that he can't be understood... it's just that there are a lot of tells that he does not sign as a primary language. The terseness of the signs, the deliberateness. You can tell that there's a second of thought before each sign, a jerky sort of compactness to them, that's common with people who learn to sign later in life. (Or who don't get a ton of practice with it.)

Signing, when you do it right, requires the use of your whole body. That can be hard for hearing people, who are generally used to more restrained movements. Teddy Dimas has never quite lost that restraint. He still can't go all in, not with his signing or his parenting.

I always thought this was really interesting, because it means that Teddy most likely learned to sign for his son (tragically uncommon with hearing parents of Deaf children) but that he still can't quite translate his thoughts properly into sign language. He can't quite get his emotions through to his son. There's a barrier there between them, and it seems to be largely one that Teddy's erected -- until Theo starts snapping back.

What I'm getting at is that Teddy has always forcibly drawn his son into his world instead of immersing himself in Theo's, and it shows. And it has really harmed their relationship, in more ways than one.

Zoe... we don't see a ton of her signing, but there does seem to be something somewhat performative about it. It's more fluid, like perhaps she's done it her whole life, but there's also something sort of... idk, false about it? And I wonder if that's just Zoe. It felt like she was always covering up her true feelings of loneliness and emptiness with a flamboyant personality, and the little flourishes to her signing seem to convey that as well. Her signing feels almost theatrical to me.

Theo and Mabel, though... I've always loved that episode where they go to Coney Island together. I get the criticism that Theo said at the beginning that he couldn't understand much of what she said when he was reading lips -- and then she proceeded to just talk at him for the rest of the episode anyway. But to me, at least, that always seemed like it was kind of the point. They couldn't understand each other, not fully, and that was something soothing to them.

There's something healing, I think, about shouting into the void. Letting out all of your most personal, complicated feelings without fear of repercussion or judgement. Talking into the wind because you know it won't talk back. You need to feel that echo but also know that it won't be heard.

I think there was some of that there in their initial relationship. Both of them desperately needed to talk, to get everything off their chests, but both of them also have trouble opening up to others due to trauma. So I think speaking to someone who couldn't understand them was, in some ways, ideal. They could make a human connection while keeping it fairly impersonal. They could unload without fear of judgement -- or worse, understanding.

Oddly, I think their mutual need to communicate without being understood was the one thing they understood best about each other. They could sense each other's loneliness and wariness and inability to trust that they could tell someone something important without it being used against them -- because their love and their trust have always been used against them.

So maybe in a way, their inability to talk to each other was actually what helped them communicate on a deeper level...?

Still, though. Still. I was so pleased to see that Mabel is learning more sign language so she can talk to Theo. She's got a long way to go, but no one learns to sign overnight. She's making progress, and you can tell that Theo appreciates it. There are still times where he gets too excited and signs too fast and she doesn't catch all of it, and there are times when she gets so wrapped up in her own soliloquies that she forgets that you have to face Deaf people while talking to them, but there's a familiarity to it now. When he signs too fast, she smiles and teases him. When she talks too quickly or forgets to sign or turns away from him, he just smiles and sighs and shakes his head. Then waits for her to come back.

Theo finds it irritating, obviously, but also understands that it's just... Mabel. She spends so much time in her own head that she has trouble communicating even with people who speak her language, as evidenced with Tobert. And maybe Theo does understand her in ways that others can't. Maybe it's the very fact that he accepts that he can't always understand her that makes her feel comfortable with him.

I also have to wonder, y'know... Has anyone ever learned to sign for him before, other than his father, who clearly saw it as a burden? Has anyone ever seen him as worth the effort of learning, not out of an obligation to speak to him but a desire to? No wonder he's being patient with her. I wonder if anyone has ever put in as much effort for him as she already has. It makes me so sad to think about, because what she's doing now is so... bare minimum. Theo has been so desperately alone, and so much of that is because his father isolated him. It's because no one else ever reached out. :(

idk, it just makes me happy that these two people who originally bonded over their inability to communicate are now comfortable enough with each other to try actually talking. There's something so shy and so joyful about it. I love that for them, especially Theo.

I don't want him to be alone anymore!! I want him to have someone he can talk to, whom he trusts enough to talk to, who thinks he's worth learning to talk to back!

Their odd brand of bilingual communication (or lack thereof) is just fascinating to me. ;;

[shopcat]

also like s3 robin & steves relationship started with her not really caring to be liked by him, like yeah maybe she wants to be liked, but not in a way that makes her put in an effort, and tbh like she's a lesbian & to her in the beginning he's like a popular guy that's really into girls, she REALLY DOESN'T want him to think she cares if he likes her! and like thats how their friendship began and it shows up in the dynamic, even when they're more friendly, and then it all gets crazy & intense and their dynamic shifts a little bit. but like the fact that Steve reacts well to her coming out means that she doesn't have to keep him at an arms length anymore to avoid getting herself hurt Or accidentally send "signals" she doesn't want to send.

with nancy in s4 on the other hand, she does care, she doesn't really know her, they obviously don't have any type of real relationship at the start of s4, like idk maybe they say hi in the hallways, but they haven't Talked or hung out. but Nancy is the only girl her age involved in the ud shit, she's also someone who is important to steve, and then just generally as a person Nancy is p cool, but she can also come across as imitating or judgemental, so like, i think Robin just cares more about being liked and about befriending her, and that inturn makes her second guess herself more.

and additionally, Robin in s4 is secure in her friendship with steve, and i just think that makes her more comfortable, at least when they're together, with being herself and not holding back. she knows she can lean on him <3

idk idk hope this is understandable, i feel like it's a lil messy lol

(also this reading includes her being autistic, obviously <3)

this is all very true <3 i think perhaps both robin and steve are the type of people to be quietly subconsciously desperate for other people to like them in order to be Worth something in their OWN eyes and it manifests in different ways and there is a lot of like implied self esteem... issues here all tied into like. insecurity of their own sense of self + the transient nature of their lives at this point of robin being a senior assumably looking into college and steve being in that in between state + blanket neurodivergencr/post traumatic event slash being the only ones who Know about all this horrible world ending stuff and being responsible for it affecting their internal lives in different ways like leading to a more UNSTABLE sense of self and lack of groundedness in that. and i also think that's one of the reasons they get along they are actually FAR more alike than people Assume imo. to look someone in the eye and beg them to like you and find you helpful and worthwhile to be around... augh...

but also on the flip side i do think robin is actually settled in herself in a lot of ways off especially after finding a close friend and being able to be on some level Herself like as a person as a lesbian as everything and doesn't necessarily feel the explicit NEED to do this sort of desperate need for connection but her initial interactions with nancy to me other than being autistic girl vs autistic girl opposing magnetism pinpoint this in a certain way that makes me feel like. ah. she genuinely just needed nancy to like her. i love the way her like quote unquote alternative um inclinations peeks in here and there i love that she WAS the girl with the spiked bracelets and the eyeliner and now she wears huge suit jackets and ties and cool jackets with patches and all the rings like her presentation is very deliberate and indicative of being in some level counterculture tied into her own expression in season 4 in particular in a way that i really like. idk. :) i love her.

[septembersghost]

Taylor joking tonight about how she never reads any news or articles about herself so didn't know about being honorary mayor like. it makes sense for her mental health, I get it, but girl we know you don't pay attention that was the problem two months ago 😭😭😭 Sometimes maybe you should LISTEN idk!

what frustrates me about this is she does obviously know about certain fan engagement because she makes jokes about that too, but what i imagine is that her team goes through and shows her acceptable/funny posts and tiktoks and filters out anything else. which is fine and understandable given the sheer level of media trauma and detrimental, unwarranted hate she's been through, i'd never want to see anything printed about myself ever again! she doesn't need to be informed of pointless negativity. the problem two months ago was the fact that it wasn't pointless, and the optics were so terrible - like the way everything went down with ice spice? i believe that was not intended to look like she was using a woc as a shield, but it threw gasoline on a four alarm fire. i still think that was all handled atrociously at the time, i still think she was spinning out in an egregious and worrying way. i don't feel comfortable criticizing the karma remix in the same tone now that ice spice has spoken so positively about it and about working with taylor and reaching out to her first and taylor's reciprocal support and kindness, because that feels like talking over her experience, and i'm glad it was such a positive one, but the timing was a mess, the PR was a mess, and certain corners of the internet will unfortunately continue to hold it against her (unfairly calling her racist, slut shaming, etc). it was one time when she did need to step out of her bubble and reassess, and maybe she wasn't in a good mental or emotional place to do that. tbh the karma remix and the extra song will always be nonexistent to me because they're unavoidably tainted by everything (i have not been able to bring myself to listen to either or watch that mv because it'll just stress me out lmao). given recent events and "they're not even in contact anymore," it seems like she did realize it and has distanced herself, and it probably feels like an embarrassing lack of judgment, and it's okay and even healthier that we've all moved on, but some awareness could've avoided so much angst and pain for everyone. it doesn't change my connection to her or her music, but we can still acknowledge that it was not a good time, and we can hope for more informed judgement in the future, and that she's doing well and healing.

[alyjojo]

Family Ties 🤍 - July 2023 - Aquarius

Overall energy: 6 Swords

You’ve moved away from your family for the most part, either putting literal distance in between you or emotional distance for sure with Queen of Swords, which is your air energy. I do get that you try to be impartial, and fair, and this may have been a long time coming after much thought and deliberation, with The Hermit. You’re better off alone. I don’t get fully alone, this Queen communicates, it’s just…few and far between. And these relationships lack love, substance, a deeper connection that one should feel with family. Not to say that you don’t, more that I don’t see it in the others either. You may have been on your own for a long time. Or you tried long enough, and gave up.

Mother: Strength & Judgement

Mom may have been sick or has passed on already. It’s possible she passed when you were very young, and you may not even remember her. It’s also possible she split from your father, who may have left and later returned, and she would not forgive him. Or that’s switched. Where you are concerned, I don’t get much energy from you regarding her. It’s like you don’t know her well. You don’t judge her, and you don’t have a relationship with her, staying very impartial. Fair. Balanced. You may have been raised predominantly by your father. She has heavy Scorpio energy.

Father: Page of Pentacles, 5 Pentacles, 2 Swords

Dad was/is a bit of a rolling stone, moving from place to place, you’ve probably lived in several places. Due to money, various jobs, it was necessary for him. The problem with that is the inability to form close bonds that last a long time, in childhood, which is probably why you’re so used to Hermit energy. You could be similar to him in many ways. You’ve never left him entirely, but there are long periods when you’re away from each other, it goes from feeling abandoned to a brand new start, feeling connected, and back to feeling abandoned. It’s a cycle between you. They can never seem to get it together, you may not either, in a financial or responsibility sense, and because of this, you don’t judge him either. Your Queen of Swords shows you being balanced & fair, above all else, though cautious. Naturally guarded & emotionally detached from any outcomes, you protect your heart. You’re always indecisive when it comes to Dad, but he’s that way too. You’re a lot alike.

Siblings: Queen of Wands & Ace of Pentacles

You have a sibling that married into money most likely, they’re courageous, headstrong, and have never let anything keep them down. When they have a goal, they go after it, no matter what it takes, and they probably have a good support system to help them get there. You probably talk to them the most, this shows you as being good friends and helping each other out often.

Grandparents: 9 Wands & 4 Cups

If you’re pissed at anyone, it’s a grandparent. I don’t know which one, Sag energy is here. When times were the hardest, these person/people could care less, and you have a lot of pent up anger, stress, hurt, and sadness regarding these people and their complete disregard of you, your parents, siblings, etc. There’s definitely no relationship with them.

Spiritual Ancestors: Page of Swords & Page of Cups

This seems to be referring to your sibling, and the need to use this Hermit mode you’re already in to sort through your feelings for this person. At one time, you were on the same level. But at some point, this person took a chance and it worked out for them. There are feelings of bitterness, jealousy, looking down on them, inside of you, only because they got a chance you felt you didn’t have the option to take. Idk if they flex on you and try to provoke a reaction, competitive nonsense and rubbing your face in things. It’s possible. Spirit wants you to be genuinely happy for them, yes for them but more so for you. You’re not to wish ill on anyone, and I don’t think you actually do, you try to be fair and they are that one person that knows how to trigger all of your buttons. You two could be opposites in every way. 6 Swords being your energy is the best energy for you to be in, it’s Aquarian energy, continue releasing things from the past and focusing on yourself. Be happy for your family’s successes while keeping your distance, like you do. I get that you’re in the thick of a spiritual awakening of sorts. Sibling got the money & love. You get the wisdom, spiritual gifts & generational baggage. For now. They’re going to be settling down as you’re waking up, you’re truly opposites…and nothing is set in stone, you’re still moving ❤️ You’ve faced these challenges together, they deserve happiness. So do you. And there’s some subtext in the clarifications that someday they’re going to need you, so celebrate their ups while they’re up, you’ll always be someone they can count on & vice versa, when things come down. But you don’t actually want that for them 🙏

Oracle:

Recycle

Learn from the past and apply it to creating your vision of the future.

Insight

See beyond appearances, masks, cliches, and cultural stereotypes to gain insight.

[scandalsavagefanfic]

Hello! I am a huge fan of ur writing. I've loved everything I've read of yours. I've read alot of what you've posted, except for a couple of the tags that are squicky for me (so I'm very thankful you tag very thoroughly). No judgement for the squick, it's just not for me. & when I'm having a bad day, I usually just go thru ur ao3 and find something to reread. I think about Therapy's Bruce & Jason every damn day. While I obvs appreciate ur darker more "problematic" content (I really vibe with some of the themes you write about bc of my own trauma, & so it's very cathartic to read about in a fictional setting), I am truly a sucker for ur more happy content. The Happily Ever After verse also lives in my head rent free. Idk more wholesome stuff just seems more special when you write it. Anyways. I would die for you. But the point of this ask is cause I'm curious as to why you don't like Urban Legends? I'm sorry if you already talked about it here or on twitter and I missed it. I was just wondering because I really enjoy your take on things and would love to hear why you dislike it. I've been enjoying it so far personally, but I am always open to DC comics criticism.

Aw thank you so much! I'm so flattered by everything you just said. You're so sweet ❤❤❤❤❤

I haven't talked about Urban Legends here or twitter (I haven't been very active in either place lately. Just a lot going on and no energy 😔) but I'm happy to do it here.

Before I start though, I just want to add a standard disclaimer and make it clear that if you like it, there's nothing wrong with that and you don't have to let me ruin it for you lol. Like what you like.

That said, since you asked...

I said this when I was talking about it on discord, that there is a difference between hope and expectation. I always hope that a new story centered on Jason (or anyone really, but things have been especially egregious for Jay for 15 years) will be good or at least treat the character with a minimal level of respect (to be honest, the bar is super fucking low). But my expectations always temper my hope, to keep it from getting unrealistic. Because my expectations are based on experience.

The long history of Jason Todd, since even before his resurrection, has been one of retroactively trying to make him "a bad seed" in order to absolve Bruce of any responsibility in his death.

I don't even expect DC or their writers to start honoring the fact that Jason was not an angry, reckless Robin (and less of the later than Dick or Tim and definitely Damian). There plenty of ways that retcon can be folded into his history and be compelling and sympathetic. And if they're going to stick with that retcon, I'm only asking that they do it in one of those compelling and sympathetic ways because Jason was 15 when he died, heroically, in one of the most selfless acts in comics, to save a woman who literally handed him over to be brutally murdered. He was 12 when Bruce plucked him off the streets, he'd been homeless and fending for himself for at least two years. I personally think that Jason's story hits harder for him and Bruce if their original, canon relationship, of Jason as starry-eyed and eager to learn and absolutely devoted to Bruce and Bruce to Jason, is preserved. But Jason's origins does leave room for a meaningful interpretation of him as angry and frustrated at the lack of meaningful results of Bruce's methods.

And that's really where my irritation at stories like Batman: Urban Legends, Cheer and Batman The Adventure Continues has it's roots.

Every time one of these stories comes out, I think (or hope, rather) that this will be the one that remembers and respects the origins of the Jason and the Red Hood, that takes into account the changed sensibilities of comics readers in the 30 years since Jason's death and the subtle, 20 year, retroactive campaign to make him the "bad Robin". The "born bad" trope is played out and literally no one likes the message it implies. That some kids are just bad eggs and there's nothing parents or the adults around them can do. Especially when it's played as the kid's fault. If Jason's time as Robin is going to be characterized by anger, then it should be rooted in anger at the social injustices he witnessed as he grew up in an impoverished, crime-ridden, area and the horrors he faced raising himself when every day was a battle for survival. There are topical, meaningful, stories to tell with that backdrop.

But those are never the stories we get.

⚠⚠ Spoilers for Batman: Urban Legends, Cheer ⚠⚠

I'm particularly disappointed in Urban Legends because for the first issue, it looked like that was the kind of story we were going to get. I was put off by the first flashback of Jason being mesmerized by Bruce's guns, and I got that feeling in my gut that it was a bad sign. Jason depicted as impatient and overconfident and the scene with the guns is heavy-handed foreshadowing that got my spidey-sense tingling. I had a inkling then (in the first three pages) of how this story was going to play out, but it was early and I could still see many narrative paths that could lead to a satisfying story. My concerns were soothed somewhat and the little flame of my hope fanned, with the flashback of Alfred scolding Bruce, with Barbara's concern for Jason. A bit of worry returned with the way Jason ruthlessly pursued an addict who didn't appear to be a dealer and with the ending of the issue. The stuff with the addict sat wrong with me but the ending was tempered some by how despicable Tyler's dad was written. The scene was clearly set so that the reader could sympathize with Jason's decision and the scene with the addict could be brushed aside as a side-effect of comics over-the-top need for constant action, so I still held hope.

Issue 2 made me uncomfortable and it's where my hope starts to take a backseat to my expectations. I can dismiss Jason's self-deprecating internal monologue as unreliable narration, except that the flashback reinforces his thought process to explicitly show that it's not unreliable narration, and should be taken at face value. Jason faces physical abuse at the hands of his mother's drug dealer and when the flashback continues later, Jason kills the drug dealer. To be clear, this is a pre-Bruce Jason. His mom is still alive. He's like... 10. He kills this guy for shoving his head into a wall and implying Jason's mother paid for her drugs with sex. This is a scene that serves a single purpose. To show that Jason has always been prone to violence.

In the spirit of full disclosure, there is the small chance the drug dealer might not be dead. But the story obviously wants the reader to think he is, and it hasn't done anything to change that yet.

Starlin already did this story with The Diplomat’s Son in 1988 and he did it infinitely better. AND that’s still technically canon. So now I’m supposed to believe that Jason lost his cool bad enough to kill two douche bags before his sweet 16? Like it’s totally normal for abused kids raised in poverty, who’ve led hard and heartbreaking lives to just... haul off and kill people? That’s bullshit, and when taken with the Jason in the third issue, who is little more than an idiot thug, this story is really doubling down on some fucked up stereotypes.

Which brings us to the most recent issue. I went into this installment with very low expectations. I thought this story was going to be about Jason, through this experience with Tyler, a young boy with a similar background to Jason's, coming to the realization that Bruce's way is the best way and that Bruce did his best by Jason.

That would be annoying (in no small part because it takes increasingly absurd levels of plot armor to keep Bruce's no kill rule relevant, let alone irrefutably right). But I can probably live with that, if only because maybe if Jason officially falls back into line with the Bats crusade, maybe I'll get stories that treat him with respect, stories that don't relegate him to comic relief, dumb brute, or a background body with no lines in a story about the Joker burning Gotham (like Jason would just fucking stand there quietly for that).

And that may still be where the story is going, Jason realizing Bruce is right.

But holy shit do I not have the right words to describe how fucking insulting and gross issue three is.

From start to finish--including the flashback--Jason is written as cruel and fucking stupid. Like straight up dumb.

The entire issue is Bruce explaining the fucking basics to Jason like it's his first day. And Jason flies off the fucking handle and terrorizes a doctor he knows isn't a part of making the Cheerdrops, beats the shit out of some random addicts, and finally, when he can't accomplish anything on his own because he's a dumb brute he calls Barbara for help and rushes in with no information where he's promptly incapacitated and must now wait to be rescued by Batman.

This panel is the least of the issues sins but I can’t screenshot the entire story but it’s representative of the tone for the whole issue (and retroactively tainted the prior two issues).

This is beyond insulting. The only conclusions Jason comes to in this issue are the ones Bruce leads him to by talking to him like he can’t make the simplest connections. And like... in this story Jason can’t make the simplest connections.

This (and the Jason throughout the entirety of this issue) is a far cry from the Jason we fell in love with in Under the Red Hood, who was competent and strategic and intelligent enough to seize control of Gotham’s underworld from Black Mask (who’s no fucking slouch, he’s the first and only person to unify organized crime in Gotham) AND elude and manipulate Bruce until the time and place of his choosing.

This is a far cry from even the Red Hood and the Outlaws Jason who is competent enough to fight the League of Shadows and Ra’s al Ghul (among very dangerous and skilled others) and smart enough to create antidotes for mind control nanotech viruses.

As he should be, by the way. Jason Todd is one of the best, most comprehensively trained fighters in DC’s stable of non powered vigilantes. He’s not irrational or hot headed. He’s pragmatic, tactically minded, and patient. He’s a detective. Right now. Has been since he was 12. Bruce doesn’t have to make him one because he already is. 

Jason is not a stupid thug who uses his fists because his brain doesn’t work. And I can’t tell you how so very exhausted I am by this narrative. 

This is actually the most egregious example of Jason’s skills and intelligence being not just undermined but dismissed entirely. Even Morrison’s Jason had some degree of competency. 

The one, single redeeming factor of this story is the art. It’s beautiful. And Marcus To is a godsend he seems to be one of only a couple of artists who remember that Jason was a child when he was Robin and I’m literally only buying this book because of him. 

Anyway, I’m sorry. I didn’t want that to come out so... um... passionately lol. I’m just very very tired. My intention with this isn’t to ruin it for you, if you like it, that’s fine. 

But this issue shot this story to the top of my "Vehemently Despise” list. 1) Batman: Urban Legends (Cheer), 2) Battle for the Cowl/Morrison’s Batman and Robin, 3) Batman The Adventure Continues.

I hope the next issues somehow salvage this dumpster fire. But I’m not expecting it.

(Damnit. That sounded harsh again. To reiterate, I’m not trying to judge anyone who enjoys it, I just personally hate it and you asked me why lol 😅)

[chemicalpink]

JK's Birth time analysis

First and foremost, I’m just doing this to occupy my mind in something else while I go through some stuff, I will continue to use the general consensus of the community for my astrology readings, I’m just doing this for fun, remember that we as fans are in no way entitled to know JK’s exact birth time, these are just fun educated guesses on some alternative that has arisen.

Now, I must say, when I first started the astro part of my bts blog I immediately thought 1 pm for JK’s birth time, I don’t have any factual backup on this one, I’ve talked about it before, I am kind of a human tarot deck lmao things sometimes just come to me. So I started roaming around and I found that JK’s libra rising made sense to me, and it was a general consensus for his readings so I said sure let's go. You know that I endorse and adore having conversations with you guys, my craft isn’t perfect and no one else's is so it is great to hear every opinion to forge our own judgement. I do only present to you information that I can back up, which is why as much as I’d love to I won’t be taking into consideration my own personal hunch on the info I’m about to present you, although you can read it as subtext when it is in italics like this hello this is an inner thought of marinette’s.

SO the big deal: Is JK a libra rising or is JK a sagittarius rising? General consensus says 8:04 am as speculated time of birth, some others say 1-2 pm.

Either way, JK’s sect remains nocturnal so there’s not much to go from there.

When it comes to appearances, I’ll update what I said before.

Libra rising appearance:

Very youthful look that it seems like you don’t even age

Gentle smile

Charming demeanour that makes people obsessed with you

Very symmetrical features

Fit body

Contagious smile

Put together look/ clean look

Dimples

Dark hair and dark eyes

Tall

Oval/Round face

Think Harry Styles, Beyoncé, Niall, Britney Spears

Sagittarius rising appearance:

Bulky thighs

Horse like face

Big forehead

Incredibly tall or more than average tall

Gain weight easily

Not really athletic

Pretty full lips

Think Kim Kardashian, Elvis, Jennifer Lawrence, Paris Hilton

Evidently, other aspects in astrology and genetics can alter these, but it is mostly true.

Now, I am not that well versed in vedic astrology since I stopped studying it due to lack of time BUT the infamous thread that looks into the possibility of JK being a sag rising is pretty elaborate, although it does run more on intuitive processes and symbolism, which are of course, valid, and it really is up to both the analyst and the ones reading the analysis to determine the weight of it. My craft is more oriented towards intersectionality so I don’t like to go by what we are able to see about him as an axis, more like confirmation about it. Idk if it makes sense. I just don't trust seemingly scripted content that much to run my analysis based on it. Everything mentioned about JK Jyestha makes sense when looking at the content presented, and it will make even more sense once we take a look at some other non western astrology systems. Again, I am not well versed in vedic astrology so right off the bat I would fight the conversion system rather than the information presented.

Regarding that thread, some of the keywords used to conclude JK’s Jyestha are as follows:

King, Winning, Ambitious, Passionate, Skillful, Eldest, 1st, Seniority, Expertise, Sensory indulgence, Celebration, Bravery, Heroic, Dragon Slayer, Warrior, Rain, Thunder, Umbrella, Protector, Provider, Scandalous, Impulsive, Bunny, Deer, Earring, Eye.

In western astrology, a general comparison on placements would look something like this.

Sun in 8° 33' Virgo

Moon in 27° 20' Leo

Mercury in 7° 49' Virgo (r)

Venus in 16° 58' Libra

Mars in 11° 7' Scorpio

Jupiter in 14° 15' Aquarius (r)

Saturn in 19° 35' Aries (r)

Uranus in 5° 28' Aquarius (r)

Neptune in 27° 33' Capricorn (r)

Pluto in 2° 55' Sagittarius

North Node in 20° 11' Virgo (r)

Chiron in 29° 45' Libra

Ascendant in 4° 20' Libra

MC in 4° 46' Cancer

1st House starts at 4° Libra

2nd House starts at 1° Scorpio

3rd House starts at 2° Sagittarius

4th House starts at 4° Capricorn

5th House starts at 7° Aquarius

6th House starts at 7° Pisces

7th House starts at 4° Aries

8th House starts at 1° Taurus

9th House starts at 2° Gemini

10th House starts at 4° Cancer

11th House starts at 7° Leo

12th House starts at 7° Virgo

In here, the main aspect I can relate JK to is Cancer MC, MC represents your public self, as well as the success level you might experience. Cancer MC is all about taking care of others, yet it can also point towards a career in arts, especifically singing and writing, it also indicates a strong possibility of psychic abilities which have been widely discussed in JK with his readings and such all while having the main troubles of being an impatient person and sometimes getting self conscious which we have heard him say before when he refers to himself knowing how to do stuff yet he doesn’t think he’s good at any of them, or his letters to himself about having to love himself more.

Another pretty JK thing I’ve noticed is his Virgo Stellium in the 12th House, which shows struggles with identity JK has, once again, being vocal about him growing up within BTS and how that has shaped him and how he has constantly been looking for himself. They often absorb the struggles of people around them. Does anyone else remember him saying he’s okay as long as his hyungs are okay? Also, singing and dancing are very powerful manifestation tools for these people huh maybe that’s why he writes and sings love songs. This aspect also indicates him having the potential to amass a large amount of wealth, some astrologers think about this stellium as an extremely karmic one, which can be translated into the whole JK’s soulmate narrative.

When it comes to his 5th house, it indicates him being a hell of a creative person, especially in a somewhat rebellious sense which I interpret as him getting a sleeve tattoo It also talks about not being traditional in relationships which I believe has come out a few times in his tarot readings.

With Sag rising, his chart would look something like this:

Sun in 8° 45' Virgo

Moon in 29° 46' Leo

Mercury in 7° 37' Virgo (r)

Venus in 17° 12' Libra

Mars in 11° 15' Scorpio

Jupiter in 14° 13' Aquarius (r)

Saturn in 19° 35' Aries (r)

Uranus in 5° 27' Aquarius (r)

Neptune in 27° 33' Capricorn (r)

Pluto in 2° 55' Sagittarius

North Node in 20° 10' Virgo (r)

Chiron in 29° 46' Libra

Ascendant in 5° 28' Sagittarius

MC in 18° 28' Virgo

1st House starts at 5° Sagittarius

2nd House starts at 7° Capricorn

3rd House starts at 12° Aquarius

4th House starts at 18° Pisces

5th House starts at 19° Aries

6th House starts at 14° Taurus

7th House starts at 5° Gemini

8th House starts at 7° Cancer

9th House starts at 12° Leo

10th House starts at 18° Virgo

11th House starts at 19° Libra

12th House starts at 14° Scorpio

In this case, his MC is in Virgo, it mainly indicates a tactful and slow success in someone’s career, these MC Virgo people are often regarded as overly responsible and as people that like to get recognised as people to whom nothing is hard enough for them to call it quits. While they openly seek perfection which ofc JK has always talked about improving himself they often love to do the stuff that others despise to do like countinc, calculating and organising.

Evidently there's no 12th House stellium, he would have a 9th House Leo stellium, which is most of the times noticeable at first glance, the moment these people open their mouths, everything is just extraordinaire, there’s a longing to be loved and to be admired in this aspect. They’re inspirational people to be around which JK is, if I remember the members saying that they get inspired when watching him make efforts. They’re also overly curious about stuff around them big doe eyes anyone?

In this case he would have a 5th House aries, meaning that there’s a need to be physically active and being creative on top of that which I mean does check out. They do tend to be openly superficial people and big-headed when they are in a successful position tho.

So okay, let’s talk native astrology, JK’s Tzolkin is Tz’i-Oc, noted by their need of freedom and less traditional relationships, they work tirelessly and have an innate ability to be successful and accumulate a lot of wealth once again, JK’s position in BTS shows up HE’s in a basic need of having a strong foundation, which he will not like to lead but more take the role of a caregiver that can easily turn into the one receiving care. Here’s the thing, there are a lot of Libra themes in his Day Sign and his Trecana Sign, both of them talking about justice, fairness, helpfulness, as well as him being a nomad which I interpret as having a libra/virgo mix that is really hard to miss Now, this is where it gets funny, His galactic tone is 4, which while it talks about balance and calmness and tranquility libra like it also is represented by a warrior, which is part of the twitter thread as one of the symbolisms to think about sag rising

Last but not least, JK’s bazi, since his contextual situation is leaning more towards it. I did a comparion and it caught my eye the next part:

One of the widely talked about symbols in the sag rising thread is the element of water being consistent with JK, and in his bazi, ¾ Na Yin, the element of water came out, however, they came out when his birth time is 08:04 am.

In his 08:04 bazi, some keywords are:

virtue

star

travel

In his 13:00 bazi, some keywords are:

monetary loss

star of arts

heavenly doctor

So really it all boils down to: we do readings for fun, craft is personal and completely valid in any form as long as we aren’t hurting anyone. We do not know his actual birth time and we actually might never know it, each astrologer is free to work with the birth time they consider the best fitting unless a specific time is given. I myself, see a libra rising fitting, perhaps if we were to trial and error it, some other might come out but honestly, these readings are a hobby and while I dedicate myself to my craft, I certainly don’t have the time that it would require to analyze each placement so I can see for myself which I find the best fitting out of 12 signs. But hey, this was a fun educational opportunity to dive into other practices.

[rosemary-is-in-pesterquest]

HS2's themes are fuckin wack crap cuz like... idk it all starts with the epilogues, right? the thing that the epilogues are trying to say is that all conflict that the characters face within the narrative is there because the audience cast their gaze upon this story and demanded entertainment. something has to happen on the stage to keep us watching, thus, it is the audience's fault that the characters suffer. but that's bullshit for so many reasons. for one thing, it ignores the role of the author. audience demand doesn't force an author's hands to write... that's a decision that the author made. we could've lived with nothing at all.

and conflict comes in many flavors. some stories hardly have any conflict at all. the whole iyashikei genre exists, like, I think we're well past understanding that cynicism, tragedy, and destruction are not the only forces that can drive a narrative. "conflict" is not the only reason for a story to be told. once again, stories tell us as much about the author as their audience. the kind of story an author deems worthy of telling is just as relevant to consider as the kind of story an audience deems worthy of attention.

and even in conflict driven stories... it matters what the conflict is, who wins, how, and why. as a simple example, when the conflict is a battle between good and evil, good wins, it does so by way of the power of friendship, and the reason it is presented this way is to promote the idea that you should be kind and help others... that's a story with a purpose. obviously this is like, children's cartoon level simple, and a story can be written to say different or more complex things, but I should always be able to ask those questions and come up with an answer.

if, as an author, Hussie wanted to accuse his audience of being culpable in the suffering of his characters, he would at least have to present the reader with a meaningful choice. and at first glance, it would almost seem like he did. meat and candy, even by their naming convention, seem as though they are giving you the option to consume a light or dark tale. but even in the names, there is a seed of judgement. Hussie has described the concept of a narrative containing both "meat" and "candy" in terms of story content, wherein meat is anything heavy in terms of plot or drama, and candy is anything that provides levity as a counterbalance, such as jokes or feel good fluff. these categories are already identified as "substance" vs. "a lack of substance" which places value on the cynical, dark route as being more truthful... conflating cynicism with realism.

and already I can see making a case for the idea that neither route is legitimate, because no story should subsist on just one or the other... both need to be at play for the story to be balanced. and you could even argue that the lampooning of the epilogues' legitimacy was the point... that they were supposed to be outside of canon and regarded as illegitimate all along. but then not only does that negate the author's ability to let the audience choose the kind of story they're participating in, but the story itself doesn't play by its own rules.

does candy truly read like some fluffy pandering fanservice filler, the way one might expect it to? and is meat totally devoid of any levity, while focusing only on plot machinations and/or the characters' dramatic downward spiral? I would argue that, even though the consensus seems to be that both routes are equally dismal, neither even gets dark enough to live up to that end of the bargain either. the execution is messy... the concept doesn't hold up.

and what of the initial concept? that the audience's observation of a story forces the characters to enact a conflict for the sake of our entertainment? is that really what's going on here? from the initial pitch, you could already tell that the answer was no. nobody asked for this. and so we cast our apparently destructive audience gaze onto Homestuck 2.

but there, we find another curveball. the story is... almost becoming self aware? in that it casts a character in the role of the author, and also identifies him firmly as the villain. but see, this is still a blame shift. and maybe that would've been less obvious if Andrew Hussie had not introduced himself as a character inside of his own web comic throughout the original narrative. the true author is already here.

the villain of homestuck was never the audience, and it was never a fictional character. if we're really shattering the 4th wall... if we're really ceasing our suspension of disbelief, pulling back the curtain, and acknowledging that these characters are fabricated, manipulated entities with real people behind the wheel, then there is only one conclusion we can possibly come to. the author has control over the narrative... no one else. and the things the author chooses to say with the platform they've made for themselves? those things are on them. what are we to understand about the author, as his audience?

this is why people are looking past the story entirely and engaging with the creative team, for better or for worse. if you break your story enough, it won't work anymore. and when the audience finds it in shambles, completely unusable as a story... you know, the thing it was intended to be? they might actually look to the people who broke it and ask them why they did that. it was a nice story. it performed several functions that people actually enjoyed. was dismantling it like this really the most fulfilling thing they could've done with it?

and I'll tell you another thing. part of why people take it so personally is because, just like how Andrew Hussie, the homestuck character, was a stand-in for Andrew Hussie, the human being... many of the characters in homestuck were stand-ins for us. John Egbert was for people who had an obsessive nerdy interest in movies, Rose was for people who wrote fanfiction, Nepeta was for people who ship characters a lot, she and Terezi were for people who RP, and also... Dave was for people who were trying to act cooler than they felt, Jade was for people who were lonely, Kanaya was for people who wanted to help people and be accepted, Vriska was for people who were hard to love and felt judged for that.

who do these writers think they're messing with?

and I just want to make it clear that I'm not condoning any kind of harassment of them, or anything like that. ultimately, my point here is that we are not our effigies. and in the same way that an author can't blame shift onto a fictional character, a person cannot claim the direction of a fictional story as a reason to do real harm.

but homestuck was always unique in that it spoke very directly to its audience. when Hussie added real pieces of us to his fake people, he had a powerful vehicle for the messages that he wanted us to hear. lots of stories have characters that are written to be relatable, but you'd be hard pressed to find ones that feel quite so specific as the cast of homestuck. to our era. to our humor. to the values of people growing up in our online cultural circumstances.

if this specific author is going to choose to act like a villain, at least in the small-scale context of this comic, then what is that setting us up to be? maybe nothing so presumptuous as a hero... maybe just like, Dave of Guy, y'know? but Dave made normal a pretty heroic thing to be... I think it's up to us to just be normal and have normal fun, in spite of the shit show. regular old homestuck already said all the valuable stuff it was gonna. for my part, I'm just gonna take that and run off with it. ignoring HS2 doesn't make it go away, but paying attention to it doesn't make it good either... so I guess whatever.

that's the themes. the themes are just a big "so what" shrug. most complicated way to say "who cares" I've ever seen.

This is a really good analysis

[lovelyelbowleech]

ms. leech!!! it’s hair anon!!! AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!

oh boy going into depth’s gonna be hard because i’m feeling a Lot but. the short of it is is this chapter gave me pretty much EVERYTHING i wanted. hakoda finding out zuko’s name, that he’s a firebender, and slowly coming to accept the fact that he’s just fire nation? check check and CHECK. and bato and panuk both wanting to protect him too :’) zuko and sokka’s conversation by the river was incredible btw. zuko confessing to sokka genuinely upset me, and when they hugged it made me tear up. (also, idk if you’ve read the comics [no judgement here if you haven’t, i haven’t read most of them and don’t accept most of them as canon for the sake of my own sanity lmao] but there’s a short one set between the second and third season i believe that like. very much matches the dynamic you’re trying to show with him trying to accept how much sokka has bonded with zuko, except the comic is much less serious because it’s about sokka’s growing fondness for fire nation food. the thing i’m referencing isn’t that deep but i just thought it was neat that there was official lore backing up the way you’re portraying hakoda and his thoughts, even if the lore itself is a little silly. if you don’t know what i’m talking about, i can try to submit it to you! <3)

also, on a technical level, having hakoda function essentially as an omnipotent narrator during the river scene while still being a single viewpoint is INSANE, full compliments, and i’m literally so impressed and am definitely going to steal that for my own works in the future. but seriously, like. just the plot device of having hakoda be injured and trapped, so that way there is a 1) biased narrator for max emotional points (hakoda thinking that he’s going to watch sokka die literally made me gasp, and that isn’t something we’d get with a standard third-person omnipotent narrator) and 2) still a mostly-functional omnipotent narrator whose only lack in omnipotence is being unable to read sokka and zuko’s mindsets, although he’s good enough at it/unbiased enough that the readers trust his judgment, which then 3) resolves in a way that both is relevant to the plot in general and keeps zuko and sokka’s (although primarily zuko’s at the end of the chapter lmao) actions relevant to hakoda’s narration? literally genius shit. like god-tier writing. i got my undergraduate degree in creative writing and that makes me want to write an essay about it. holy SHIT. this is all to say thank you SO much for sharing your wiring with us, as always, and i will be waiting patiently and SO EAGERLY for the next chapter :’) i hope you’re having a good night/day!!

Hi Hair!Anon! I always look forward to your comments 😁

I am glad you enjoyed the POV - it was bloody hard to write - this whole chapter was like pulling teeth! 😂 On several occasions I did wonder what the hell I was trying to do! (Ii am hoping the next one will be easier!)

I have not read the comic you mentioned (I have read bits of the comics, but not all of them, and not in any sort of coherent order- although I know vaguely what happened in them) but I like the idea there is some official lore backing up my nonsense!

I am glad you are still enjoying the fic! ❤️

[gallavictorious]

bottom!mickey nonnie here, i had some more thoughts in response to your reply, if you don't mind? :) i can see where the trust aspect might come into play for mickey re: bottoming and i understand your thought process. the only thing that makes me doubt that is how quickly that trust must have been established between him and ian if that is the case. they haven't been fucking for that long when kash walks in on them (which is the first instance we actually know mickey bottoms). i suppose that there could have been a lot of off-screen developments and interactions, but it's too quick imo. their relationship in season one seems more puppy-love to me rather than a deep bond (which i see as starting to form in season two). the way i see it, the only level of trust that needs to be established is "i know you won't tell anyone because you're also closeted and you won't treat me like a bitch because if you do, i'll beat you tf up and just never fuck you again" which is pretty shallow and something mickey could probably have reached with other guys, too. idk, i just don't see their relationship in season one as deep enough for mickey to start trusting ian with things he's worried or insecure about. it makes more sense to me that he lets ian fuck him because it's not that big a deal, rather than because he's already let ian past his walls. we know that ian is all in by that point, but i just don't think mickey is. he likes ian, is drawn to him (probably against his better judgement), but that's as far as it goes, as i see him. since there are such few scenes between them in season one we have no choice but to make our own interpretations, and those are bound to differ. i've just never seen mickey indicate that he thinks bottoming = being a bitch, or even that it's something he worries about. the only thing to support that would be his attitude to prison, but like i said before, i don't think mickey views sex in prison the same as he views sex on the outside. he probably views everything in prison differently. on the outside, with guys who share his secret? i don't think it's too much of a stretch that he would just do what he wants. the danger is the same either way. just my interpretation of him, of course :)

Hiya, Bottom!Mickey Nonnie No. 1!

I don't mind one little bit; in fact, I'm delighted! Apart from enjoying the fun discussion, it's always gratifying to hear back from anons: you usually never actually know if your answer has reached them.

First off, you're damned right it's quick! I personally don't subscribe to the idea that Mickey knew that Ian was gay or had a crush on him preceding their 1x07 tryst (nothing wrong with that notion, btw, it just doesn't appeal to me), so when they suddenly start tearing off each other's clothes that's very sudden. I tend to assume there might have a tiny bit of vague interest prior to this, the proximity and tussling triggers mutual attraction, they both spring boners, and yeah, off they go? You're also quite right in (implicitly) pointing out that we don't know that they had penetrative sex at that time – maybe they moved up from mutual handjobs or just plain grinding to something more a few trysts later. Either way, you make a good point about the danger of sex outside of lock-up would be the same regardless of whether Mickey bottoms or not. I'd never really thought about that before, so thank you for pointing that out!

However, it's probable that the reason I haven't thought very much about it is because when I speak of Mickey's easy trust for Ian I don't primarily mean him trusting Ian not to reveal his secrets to anyone else, but trust him to know Mickey in a way others are not allowed – and here we disagree and that is fine. :) If you see Mickey as unbothered by being into bottoming, you can certainly find support for that in the narrative. We do have the famous ”liking what I like”-line, which absolutely can be taken at face value! The fact that I tend to interpret it as (partly) Mickey being deliberately unapologetic because he feels a bit uneasy about his preferences and is somewhat defensive about Ian's brief allusions to common prejudices around bottoming, has more to do with my assumption that – given Mickey's circumstances – this is something that Mickey's likely to feel insecure about. He's internalized his father's homophobia to some degree; it just seems reasonable to me that he'd have internalized Terry's strong conviction that Milkoviches don't bottom too. (He certainly seems ready to embody that when he attacks Ian's army fuck buddy in season 3, citing the need to kick him straight because he's the one taking it up the ass. However, that could also totally performative or seen as him making a twisted kind of in-joke, so it's hardly conclusive.) Furthermore, I feel that it's not unreasonable to question Mickey's sincerity in regards to the line mentioned above, since we do have instances of him acting seemingly geuninely dismissive even when we know he probably cares quite a bit. I'm thinking primarily about his reaction to Ian's sex strike in season 11; I just don't buy he was unbothered by that, but there's nothing in the way he expresses his lack of concern that suggests it's insincere. This doesn't mean that I think my reading of the line is the correct one, though, just that it's a possible reading given what else we know of Mickey.

But of course, this really is just my assumptions and interpretations. It's very possible to infer from his actions onscreen that Mickey is totally unconcerned about bottoming, and always has been. After all, Mickey is in many ways a genuinely confident person, and I think this extends to his sex life. (I just think there's insecurity and concern, too... Basically, I think Mickey's relationship with his own sexuality and preferences is complicated, a paradoxical tangle of confidence and shame. I find this complexity is fascinating, and if we're being honest that's probably one of the reasons why I'm not so eager to let go of the notion of it.)

That said, though, and regardless of whether or not bottomingrequires any particular trust on Mickey's part, I think we dohave some concrete evidence of Mickey letting Ian past his walls already in 1x07. Not the sex – because we don't know anything about that – but the return of the gun after. That look on Mickey's face just then? That's vulnerability. He knows that by giving the weapon back when he doesn't have to, he shows hint of a softness he can ill afford people to know he possesses at this point. It's walls dropped, if only for a moment, and I just don't see him allowing that with many – if any – other people. While it isvery quick and while there's no telling whyor how, I firmly believe that there is an immediate trust between them that goes beyond just sex. It might not be logical, but I think it's there, and that this easy, natural understanding is a huge part of what has them coming back to each other again and again in spite of the odds being stacked overwhelmingly against them. Like you, though, I don't see this as a deep bond or anything, not this early. Ian falls in love quickly and easily; for Mickey is a much slower process, because he fights even the possibility of it tooth and claw.

And ah, I'm aware that in my first response to you I promised to elaborate on my thoughts on Mickey's stint in Mexico in my reply to Bottom!Mickey Nonnie No. 2, but I ended up cutting that because it got absurdly long in comparision to my notes on what they were actuallyasking about, and that didn't seem fair or relevant to them. However, I now have a third (and a fourth... apparently this is a subject dear to your hearts, sweet followers) Bottom!Mickey Nonnie in my inbox, so if this is something you're interested in, despair not! We'll get there!

Thank you so much for getting in touch, both with your first ask and with this follow-up. I've enjoyed reading your thoughts, and developing my own in response to them, immensely! I highly value being able to civilly disagree and argue viewpoints without either side feeling the need to convince the other, so this has been a real treat. <3

[kitkatopinions]

(Rabbithole Anon) Y'know, I was going to send in an ask about just they could have made a compelling way to show how some people may have become hunters through pressure rather than an age excuse if they wanted to say some people weren't ready (joining to protect a friend who wanted to be one, wanting to travel for a variety of reasons, it being a general expectation but the person being hesitant) but it led to me wondering wait, would certain careers require a hunting lisence?

Okay, I love this rabbit hole. XD It illustrates a couple of RWBY problems here and it's the fact that they often are lacking in the character development/character journey department, and that they're often lacking in the world building department.

We actually have plenty of characters that can serve as examples for people who maybe should've thought twice about entering the Academy (when they did.) There are people who entered the Academy for the wrong reasons/not noble reasons, people who entered the Academy during a time they might not have been ready, and people who would be full on dangerous with a Hunter badge, and most of our mains fall under one of these categories (though mostly the first two.)

Ruby - Two years below the standard age of her class. Whether or not she was at the skill level of a first year (she was,) and whether or not she'd received special training from Qrow (she had,) Ruby was still essentially a kid, and her mind and body both hadn't developed completely. Ruby should have been traumatized after the Fall of Beacon and been allowed to show that more as a character, she should've had straight up PTSD, she should've been allowed to have emotion in Volume 4 than Jaune's sidekick who makes sad eyes when she sees him grieving. Weiss - Her main motivation for joining Beacon was to reclaim her family legacy. Yes, her desire was to reclaim it and use it for good, but it was still arguably more about personal and familial glory. On top of that, Weiss has been blatantly anti Faunus and has never so much as addressed that. Weiss's character journey should have reflected more personal growth, and either her unlearning much of her Faunus racism and clearly changing priorities from her name and family legacy and onto the actual people in need, or her flaws should've led her into being more of a morally gray character who displays her selfishness and pride (in a way that's actually addressed and treated like a flaw.) Yang - She expresses admiration for people like Ruby who want to help people and be kind, but her main point in becoming a Huntress was getting thrills and going where the wind takes her. She didn't join Beacon for any sort of serious purpose, and even when she rejoined Team RWBY in volume five, it was to be with her sister and not because of her own morals (not that I think she's lacking in morals, just that her main motive was different.) This could lead to her having to figure out a lot of what she actually wants, being unsatisfied with being a Huntress in Atlas, being in over her head when things get serious, being more mentally exhausted than the others after long days, etc. Jaune - Wasn't ready to enter Beacon. Idk if he just wasn't allowed to go to a lesser combat school like Signal or if he flunked out, but he wasn't up to scratch to get into Beacon and cheated his way in. On top of that, he lacked in the emotional maturity department as well when he entered. Jaune was a little more invested in his own appearance than Ruby was, but still seemed to have similar good reasons for wanting to be a Hunter. And he did grow a lot. But he was much less prepared, skilled, or equipped to deal with the training or the career and it's a miracle he didn't die in the initiation. Granted, Jaune was handled arguably better than anyone else, since a lot of this was addressed, but these days it feels like it isn't actually playing a part in his character anymore that he's way below the people around him, and I feel like it should still be impacting him. Penny: Honestly, Penny seemed very newly born during the Beacon Arc. She might have been combat ready, but she also started spilling secrets to the first person who was a little bit nice to her, and was clearly naïve and childlike. Imagine if it had been Emerald that had befriended Penny instead of Ruby. Penny dying and then getting resurrected should've been deeply traumatizing for her and it should've made her undergo some major changes and been treated with importance in the show. Qrow: Literally wanted to be a Hunter in the first place to try and learn how to murder Huntsmen. He might have changed later and it’s not exactly relevant, but he arguably shouldn't have joined when he did either. Meanwhile, Nora's just one big mystery, because we don't know why she joined, and Ren likely joined for good reasons, but neither of them have ever actually talked about their motivations. The only character we can safely say joined for noble reasons and who was up to scratch and ready when she entered is Blake, who also had good reason to not fully trust the system she was working with, so there could've been complications and character interest there as well.

Please don't get me wrong, that doesn't mean I don't think the others should've been in school, I love that they were! I just think the writers should've explored the various ways they might've been not fully ready, not completely well suited to the job they took. The characters are allowed to be flawed and to flounder and it'd make them more full, nuanced characters imo.

On top of that, we have other Hunters to look to as well, outside of our main cast. Cardin, for example, was a terrible person, still in school and already abusing what little power he had to target a member of an oppressed minority group and blackmail other kids into doing his bidding, while plotting revenge on someone for correcting him on his anti-Faunus answer to a question. People like him should not be Hunters, and he was arguably our first sign (of many signs) that the position of Hunter can and will be taken advantage of and misused by bad people. And although the After the Fall/Before the Dawn books aren't canon, while reading BTD (I haven't finished it yet,) Coco and all her team members but Velvet also struck me as people I wouldn't want to be Hunters and wouldn't want to wield any sort of power. Coco is proudly described by one of her friends as sadistic, lets her unfounded opinions of people cloud her judgement, shows respect and admiration towards criminals, and enjoys her classmates being afraid of her. Fox is self-described as sadistic as well and is a bully who tried to use a classmate's phobia against them in a brute-like interrogation. And Yatsuhashi is leagues above the two of them, but also bullied Neptune despite saying the words 'I don't want to be a bully' and threatened him.

There are so many ways the writers could've explored people who went to Beacon too soon, weren't ready, or entered for the wrong reasons. Instead, outside of one conversation in season two about the girls’ motivations and Ren exploding that Jaune cheated his way into Beacon all the way in season eight, it seems like the only take away we're supposed to get is 'all these kids are officially the thing they wanted to be in the beginning and they're all amazing at it, woo!' No acknowledgement of the fact that they could use higher education still, that some of them are still immature or naïve, that some of them are still below the combat level they should be in, that some of them kinda haven't done super well since they left Beacon (cough Ruby cough.) It's all just... Flat, lackluster. And meanwhile, characters like Cardin were written out of the show easily. We've had plenty of examples of corruption in the Hunter business, but the show hasn't paid any attention to that and still is treating being a Hunter like the only true noble goal and the only good and non-corruptible way to defend people, despite the fact that it clearly isn’t. Being a Huntress is not better or safer or more noble in-universe than being an Atlas soldier/Ace Op/Atlas hunter. I’m not saying that all of this needed to be featured, but exploring the differences in motivation and how the Hunter lifestyle affected the various mains could really flesh out their characters. Instead, by the time everyone is heading to Atlas in volume six, they all pretty much have the same reactions to everything and the same motivations and the same beliefs. The rare deviation - like Ren in volume seven and eight - is treated as bad and a mistake that must be rectified, rather than... A natural consequence of the group being full of different people with different upbringings and different motivations that result in different opinions. That sort of thing is only ever explored as a problem that makes someone lacking, and it’s really weird and it makes the show feel... Juvenile, and lacking in nuance or depth when it comes to the characters, which is a really big shame, since the characters have a huge amount of potential and exploring the differences between them and their reactions to being in way over their heads would be - I think - the natural place to take their characters? Especially because so far their storyline has been... Not the highlight of the show.

But, as for how semblances and Hunters should impact the world building, there’s a lot to say about that! They don’t explore a lot in RWBY outside of what’s relevant to the mains, leaving the world building feeling flat and like the world itself doesn’t matter much. RWBY often feels more like a video game world than anything else, which I believe @why-i-hate-rwby-now has pointed out, so credit to them for helping me realize it. There’s one large location per continent and a couple small villages where they only really talk to a town leader and village blacksmith, or encounter a fight, relevant NPCs and characters only going to certain locations that can further the plot, characters only mattering through the ways they interact with the protagonists and seemingly getting benched with nothing to do if they aren’t currently plot relevant, health bars that can be monitored over scrolls, every weapon and semblance has a name even if that name isn’t ever mentioned in show or might not really make a lot of sense, frequently encountered enemies of various threat levels who the characters can plow down without remorse because they’re not sentient or don’t have souls... The list goes on. But one of the ways that it feels very video gamey is that the magical powers actually don’t seem to impact the world.

We know people can have auras even if they don’t have semblances (Mercury, Torchwick, Watts,) and we know lots of even grown people don’t have auras (the citizens of Mantle in danger of dying of cold while our aura having mains aren’t,) but also that auras can be unlocked, by well trained seventeen year olds (Pyrrha,) and we also know that semblances can be unlocked from a very young age due to trauma (Ren, Neptune in EU) but some people are born with their semblances (Qrow and notably Blake use language suggesting they were born with their semblances,) and some semblances are passed down or hereditary (the Schnees.) Semblances can be passive (Qrow, Clover, Ironwood in word of author,) and uncontrollable, or active (almost everyone else,) and some semblances have carried personal negative effects like in the case of Qrow who was even named for being bad luck and Robyn who said people were on edge with her because she can sus out the truth via skin contact when she wants to. Also Mercury’s father was able to somehow take away his semblance.

That’s... Pretty much the extent of our knowledge and it doesn’t tell us much. What RWBY does is give each character abilities that make them iconic and different from each other as fighters, with a shield function that wears down slowly to explain how they can take certain hits and keep going while also allowing them to eventually suffer higher damage when that shield wears down. They had a character get this shield ability unlocked to explain the existence and function of it, and featured some characters who didn’t have the super powered abilities like Roman, an early enemy meant to herald in new, harder enemies who are more plot relevant, and Mercury, who makes up for it by having higher speed and functions exclusive to him through his prosthetics. And then they seemingly built a regular world unaffected by these powers. It sounds like a video game. Civilians just don’t have this power or the shield because they act as non-playable characters. In a way, it almost makes sense to me in conception, because when RWBY was originally created, it was high on visual appeal, fight choreography, and character design. The plot elements were small and the character stories seemed to be pretty simple, the only real complication to this being the White Fang plot, which has always been a major blight in RWBY. But one of the reasons why this video-game feel kinda worked at the start of RWBY was because the story and characters weren’t meant to be the focus of the story, so although the world building at the start was definitely lacking, the audience knew that things like auras and semblances were meant to hype up and add interest to the main highlights of the show: Design and fight choreography. At least that’s what I assume. But in volume three, they started to lay the groundwork for more, bigger plots, more focus on the story, the characters journeying to the outside world, undergoing personal arcs, and that’s what V4 and onward started focusing on.

To be clear, I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing. I started really liking RWBY for its potential and concepts after getting through the first couple episodes of V1, but I actually really enjoyed quite a bit of V4 and V5 even though the design drastically changed and the fighting had gone way down in quality because I found some of the new focus on characters and the plot to be compelling, interesting, or to also have a lot of potential (though I was let down over and over in regards to pay off later.) However, with the new focus on the characters and storyline rather than design and fight choreography, they really needed to do some legwork on fixing the aura and semblance systems and paying attention to world building and making sure the world felt well put together, nuanced, and real. And I don’t feel like they ever did that.

Why is Pyrrha able to unlock auras? Well, because the writers wanted to explain the concept of auras and used Jaune - the unprepared - to do it. But now, auras are actually an important part of the story - for example, the people of Mantle don’t have unlocked auras, so will die of cold, but it doesn’t affect our heroes because they do have unlocked auras. So who can unlock auras? Is it a learned skill or is it hereditary? If it’s a learned skill, why isn’t everyone eager to learn it especially in places where it’s life or death if they don’t like in Atlas? If it’s a hereditary skill, why aren’t the people who have that skill put on a pedestal and being pressured into using that skill to save civilians in places where having an aura is the difference between life and death? In either case, why aren’t there people who professionally unlock auras? Why aren’t they on the pay roll in Atlas and Mantle? If it’s a skill that all powerful hunters have, why aren’t our heroes (who we’re supposed to think are now more powerful than Atlas’s best) unlocking auras for dying children in Mantle? Why don’t specialists and longtime fighters with Qrow, Winter, Robyn, Maria, or James have this ability if it comes with skill, time, or talent?

Why are semblances unlocking or morphing in times of trauma so rare? Why didn’t the Fall of Beacon unlock loads of new semblances and new semblance abilities? Why didn’t Ruby get a new semblance upgrade when she saw Weiss getting stabbed? Why didn’t Weiss unlock a new semblance ability when her plane was crashing? Why didn’t Pilot Boi unlock his semblance during the same occasion? Why is it that Jaune didn’t get a semblance upgrade when the light bridges were disappearing? Why didn’t Blake get a semblance upgrade when Yang fell into the void? Why did Ren get a semblance upgrade because he was upset while with the Ace Ops after Oscar got captured, but Nora doesn’t get an upgrade while she’s electrocuting herself? If semblances sometimes unlock in times of truama, why is it that some characters like Oscar and Torchwick and Jaune pre-V5 who we know have encountered lots of trauma just still don’t get semblances? If you can train your semblance into upgrading, why is it that we don’t see long time hunters and fighters unlock more semblance abilities, like Qrow, Winter, Robyn, Maria, or James? It just doesn’t make any sense! And I get that stories always have things happening just because the writers want it, but in RWBY, the hand of the creator is so obvious that it’s ridiculous.

And then there are other questions. Do people avoid bad labor practices out of fear of causing a semblance awakening? Well, from what we see of the SDC, the answer is no. So why not? Why weren’t they worried about an uprising? Work rights becomes a lot trickier when you have to add in tons of qualifiers. Maybe it’s illegal to use a semblance at work, but the SDC also has a history of child workers like Adam who can’t always control it (like Neptune couldn’t control his,) so are there laws protecting child laborers? Perhaps not, since you know, they were already child laborers, so were already suffering unchecked. Are there laws forbidding the use of semblances in government buildings, non-combat driven schools, or parks and libraries? And meanwhile, how would any of this apply to people with a passive semblance? How do you figure out that someone has a passive semblance? How do people know if they’re born with a semblance? Are there people that spend their whole lives having semblances that never get discovered? Do people have semblance detection... Semblances, that they get paid to use or do so out of charity? Did the Schnees rise to power due to their powerful and hereditary semblance, perhaps? Are people discriminated against if they don’t have semblances or pressured to become Hunters if they discover they do have semblances? Shouldn’t civilians in Mantle and Atlas be joining combat schools in droves in the hopes of unlocking an aura so they can better survive? And shouldn’t there be discrimination against people with certain semblances? Outside of Robyn saying she’s personally experienced mistrust, and Qrow’s self-hatred, we don’t see any real prejudice against certain semblance types, or for that matter, any praise or extra significance pointed to certain other semblance types. It would go a long ways towards world building if there were things like people having to divulge their semblance or lack thereof before entering Beacon, or for people to have to register a semblance evolution, or for Emerald to have lied about her semblance because “everyone knows illusion semblances automatically draw suspicion,” or for Qrow to comment that he’d never seen Clover in a Vytal Tournament, only for Clover to say his semblance was deemed ‘cheating’ back when he was in school so he hadn’t qualified. And on the flip side, you could have things like semblances being judged as better and more powerful based on how useful it might be, Pyrrha keeping her semblance on the DL because it’ll just bring more unwanted admiration on her, Sun keeping his own semblance on the DL too because it always make people put a lot of expectations on him, while Neptune’s semblance leaks and he deals with people treating him like he’s selfish and cruel for not wanting to use his own “gift of a semblance.” And people like Jaune could be bullied extra because he doesn’t have his semblance yet, and people in the stands at the Vytal Tournament could be chatting about “when are they gonna pull out their semblances?” and get annoyed and pouty when people don’t. To be fair, we do get things like Mercury’s father having declared his semblance a crutch, but... Still. why isn’t there more of this?

And we see the need for Hunter protection in villages like Kuroyuri and the village that Team RNJR stops to help on the way to Mistral. Small villages outside of the four kingdoms fall to Grimm, or are in danger of falling to Grimm. Ships get attacked by large and dangerous Grimm, we see (corrupt) Hunters on the train to Argus, accompanying for safety, and we see that with a rise of Grimm activity in Mantle, Hunters are dispatched to help kids travel to school. In a world like RWBY, fighting is essential for survival outside of the Kingdoms, and became very essential in the kingdoms as well once schools started going down. You’d assume there should be Hunters accompanying everyone traveling outside of the Kingdoms, resident Hunters living in villages outside the Kingdoms as their on-hand protectors (and more than one Hunters seems to be needed.) Hunters also could be extra protection for anything that’s definitely going to increase negativity, like hiring Hunters to bodyguard funerals seems like something that could be normal in the world of Remnant, and for visiting graveyards (we see Ruby get attacked by tons of Grimm when she visited Summer’s grave in the red trailer.) On top of that, celebrities and rich people hiring Hunters seems like it’d become pretty common. But all that we see outside of Dee and Dudley are traveling Hunters stopping to help people out of the goodness of their heart while they go place to place, and Kingdom Hunters who are assigned to things like border control, clearing out Grimm near or in the Kingdoms, and things like that. What we see is a Kingdom-centered morality complex our protagonists are one hundred percent invested in, Hunters are Kingdom driven and anything outside of that is a kindness, a job they can take or leave in passing. And on top of that, it seems like there aren’t a lot of people in the Hunter profession, and I feel like there should definitely be more. There are people like Jaune who didn’t make the cut but accepted that, we can only assume that there are drop outs too, so like... How many kids are there actually in a year at Beacon? I mean, look at where the Relics were found in the forest during initiation at Beacon.

This gives us a rough idea of how many people are in each year at Beacon. Assuming everyone graduates school and there’s no drop outs and no deaths, that’s a graduating class of twenty. That’s a very small number, comparatively. The job of a Hunter is dangerous. We know of Hunters that died (Summer, Pyrrha, Amber.) We know a lot of Hunters that have other jobs that take a lot of their time (Glynda, Ozpin, Robyn,) and lots of people who quit being Hunters too (Maria, Tai, Raven,) and Hunters who aren’t always on the field like Qrow who was a teacher for a stretch and acted as Ozpin’s spy, the Ace Ops who became part of Ironwood’s inner circle and therefore had a bigger picture, and even all of Team RWBYJNR, who got their Hunter licenses but are also more concerned with bigger picture stuff (if you don’t believe me just look at volume eight where JRY stopped defending Mantle to go rescue Oscar, and Team RWBN + Penny, who were involved in big picture stuff like launching Amity and then saving Penny the Maiden/their friend.) So out of a class of twenty, how many of them are even staying on the field? For a show pushing the narrative that Hunters are the ultimate saviors who are the only true good defense for the world, that condemns even the notion of an army... Like they villainized sending Team FNKI onto the battlefield while also treating it like proof of Ironwood’s evil when he didn’t want to stay and fight when Team RWBY said to, and also made Ironwood’s desire to move into having a robotic army to get soldiers off of the battlefield part of his... Over reliance on machinery, which is full on suspicious considering their ableism towards Ironwood and the fact that he literally has to rely on machinery, but that’s a topic for a different post and this one is already so long. But yeah, my point is that we’re meant to see the army as bad. So if we’re meant to see Hunters as the only true and pure form of defense (which is already off because we know it’s corrupted,) there ought to be way more people in the Hunter field.

As for the schools, we only know of a couple of schools that exist outside of RWBY as combat schools that seem to act as basic training before people go to Beacon. We know of Signal, the school Ruby and Yang went to that Qrow was a teacher at for awhile (I have lots of teacher Qrow headcanons, but sadly Qrow being a teacher wasn’t very well explored,) and we also know of Sanctum in Mistral and (in the EU) Oscuro in Vacuo, presumably one of these existing in Atlas as well. I personally headcanon that there are a lot of these smaller combat schools littering the whole of Remnant (but then again, I also headcanon that the Kingdoms of Remnant are bigger than just one very large city, lol) and that a lot of people attend these schools even if they don’t go on to join one of the Hunter Academies, but this isn’t necessarily supported by canon, I think. But as for other schools...I think it’s fair to assume that there are at least elementary schools, since everyone can read, write, and presumably do basic math, and what we do know is that Ilia went to a prep school in Atlas (which was info dropped in Blake’s pre-V5 trailer, not even stated in the show proper,) so we can probably safely say that people who don’t go to the Huntsman academies go to some form of high school, but you’re right that we don’t see this actually in action. I personally always headcanon that Whitley had a tutor, since Jacques wanted to avoid too much outside influence.

I am so sorry that this response got so away from me and I myself got into so many rabbit holes as well. XD I just have a lot to say about the world building in RWBY (or sometimes lack thereof.) Although I admit that I’m not as into or as good at analyzing as blogs like why-i-hate-rwby-now, but yeah, this is... A very long post. Sorry!

[cloveroctobers]

Opinions on Lottie/Kassam?

LOTTIE/KASSAM

If you asked me about them the first time I played season 2 I (MC) might have said something a little bit shady/bitter because I wanted Kassam to give MC a real chance but like?? Kassam wasn’t having it? Or impressed at all. At least not completely. He was set on Lottie and barely looked at MC or anyone else. The biggest thing we might have gotten was a small smile or glance of acknowledgment from him... Did we get a chance to pick him on our way back to the villa or is it always Arjun or Carl? (That was my gameplay) but that’s not the question!!!

I probably have to go back and download the game again + PLAY a third round? since you guys are being active and want to hear from me 🥺 (and I haven’t played in months/since the last time I did hcs/FACECLAIMs so there’s that!) ANYWAYS back to the point I do think aesthetically?? they’re cute as hell to look at. She’s got the whole goth? Punk? Witch? What are we defining her look as? Lol! Look going for her and then there’s Kassam who’s introverted, the moody or broody DJ guy? It just works on paper. Plus I think he has or either is slightly a emo boy.

Relationship wise? Idk. Lottie’s got a lot of growing to do and she’s shown that she’s capable of doing so towards the mid-end of the show. And I want to believe that it sticks outside of the show. That she wants to be better. I did HCs that eventually it doesn’t work out with Gary and they go their separate ways so I do think she could give it a go with Kassam if it is what he wanted. I think she had a complaint about him before she coupled up with Gary? I can’t remember what it was but it made it seem like it was a factor or possible issue in their relationship. OR it was just an excuse for her to further go forth with her feelings for Gary? Maybe so.

Besides liking the aesthetic of each other, we don’t know much of Kassam. Only by pure assumption and not all introverts are just surface level, we have layers okay?! So I do think Kassam has more to him than what meets the eye and he was drawn to Lottie because she’s always vocal (unless it was Gary, because girl code ya know? She’s a girls girl) and it would seem that she would say what was on her mind, keeping it honest. That’s what Kassam wants, someone to tell him like it is. Yet there is a thing as too vocal. And as introverts it gets exhausting always picking when or when not to retort or say something back. Meaning some people might find that as lacking conversation or back bone but that’s not really it? Lottie is probably one of those people. She can’t stand complete silence all the time.

I feel like Kassam seems unbothered but it’s really a social anxiety thing or having a million things circulating around in his mind but when he does have something to say, he means it and you’re gonna listen to him. Or want to listen, at least.

They have a balance and it works only if they want it to. Only if they find a understanding of each other. What makes them them. Lottie let’s her emotions get the best of her, clouding her judgement a lot of the time and it comes off as bitchy if you’re not following what she wants. She likes being in control and it’s a issue if you don’t let her have it. That’s something she needs to work on and not always be in attack mode. Like I brainstorm, I think she levels out but she’s not going to completely erase her character. She’s got fire elements in her and Kassam is chill. You have to do a lot to make him mad, he’ll be annoyed but mad Kassam is sinister. And he never wants to get to that point. He agreed not to. Ever again.

Lottie likes to push and all Kassam has to do is look at her. Really look at her, as if he’s seeing through her (flaws) to let her know exactly what he’s thinking. It’s weird and it’s got her reading her tea leaves because wtf is that? She never backs down from anyone. And sometimes she’ll push even further to get more than just a deep stare of a reaction and when Kassam actually says something with his words? She still doesn’t like it. It’s common knowledge, Lottie likes to be the dominant one...but is she really? Has she found the one to make her a bit submissive? To soothe her down? The calm to her storm?

There are some hcs that Lottie ultimately ends up with Hannah and anything is possible? I feel like Lottie fits into the Q of the LBGTQIA+ and I would like to see what could happen with her and Kassam. As of right now? I do think it’s a maybe. We didn’t get to see much. I’m not sure if they’ll make it long term but they could??

[mexcraziness-art]

Naruto OC: Saisari Haruno

Me: I'm just going to quickly throw up a ref of my MoriSaku kid for fun Also me: *Spends the entire week on it*

Name: Saisari Haruno

Birthdate: September 25th (Libra)

Gender: Male

Age: 13

Height: 150 cm

Weight: 42 kg

Blood Type: A

Affiliation: Konohagakure

Rank: Genin

Nature Type:

   -          Earth Release

Parents:

   -          Sakura Haruno

   -          Morio Haruno

I don’t actually have a really worked out background or personality for him yet, so the next sections are just pretty much gonna be me spewing fun facts and headcanons about Morisaku and Saisari.

Also bear with me, I haven’t actually re-watched every episode of Shippuden yet, and my memories are foggy.

 Background:

In an alternate universe where everyone gets the good things they deserve, after Sakura initially rejected Morio they still met up in the medical tents occasionally, Morio offering to help out with whatever he could while he was still out of commission. From that they started to meet and chat on their breaks, and Sakura actually grew rather fond of him. She ended up finding his letter that he gave her before and this time she actually read it. (I have never seen a love letter in my life, one day I’ll think of something of what it could have said IDK) Anyways long story short, she was so touched by it she actually agreed to go on a date with him once the war was over.

After the war they haven’t seen eachother for a while but they stayed in contact through letters and eventually Morio came to Konoha and they started dating.

They married and Sakura got pregnant with Saisari soon after the events of The Last movie, Saisari was born on September 25th.

Growing up he learnt Earth Release from Morio, who in the meanwhile retired from the shinobi life and became a house husband, and chakra control and taijutsu from Sakura, even though he could never reach the refined levels she had at his age.

During the events of Boruto, he’ll probably take Sarada’s place on the New Team 7, also because in this world Sarada would probably be Karin and Sasuke’s daughter, but that’s a different topic.

Personality:

As far as his personality goes he took mostly after his father, Morio, he’s generally soft, sweet and kind, he’s also easily embarassed, some might even say he’s timid or shy at times. He’s also very helpful towards everyone. He can also be a smartass at times, he’s pretty book-smart and he likes showing-off with his knowledge and fun-facts. On the flip-side sometimes he’s judgemental when someone doesn’t know something he considers basic knowledge, or behaves in a way that’s strange to him. Having inherited both the Will of Fire and the Will of Stone, he’s also incredibly stubborn once he sets his mind on something, and he deeply cherishes his friends, these two things combined make him a real challenge on the battlefield, and also make him a protective and loyal friend.

Relationships:

Sakura:

Saisari greatly admires his Mother and looks up to her in essentially every aspect. The work she does at the Hospital, her medical ninja abilities, her strength, her accomplishments during the war, he wishes to one day grow up to be a shinobi of her caliber. He only wishes she’d have little less of a short temper during their training sessions, she’s not as ruthless as Tsunade used to be with her, but Saisari is much softer than she was and it’s stressing him out a lot.

 Morio:

He’s generally on the same wavelength with his Father about nearly everything. He tends to emotionally confide in him and talk about his problems more, because he feels less of an urge to impress him than he does with Sakura. He also loves to listen to his Father talk about Iwagakure and learn more about his home and costumes. One of his favourite pastimes is practing Earth Release with him.

 (As for the others… not gonna lie, I’ve seen the first few episodes of Boruto and the Movie a while back, but I have no idea what most of the charachters are like, so I’m going to only list the most notable ones I have some slight ideas for.)

Boruto:

So far I think Saisari would be pretty good friends with Boruto, since they were little they used to hang out a lot due to their parents. After Naruto became Hokage and Boruto started misbehaving he’d occasionally get dragged along but he’d try to avoid trouble as much as he can, in fear of Sakura having his head.

Mitsuki: 

I have no idea honestly, I think he’d initially find him wierd, but he’d grow rather fond of him as he gets to know him. They’d probably even get along great eventually.

Sumire: Saisari really looks up to her for how she turned her life around after everything she’d been through. He also greatly admires her for her skills and intelligence. He also has the biggest crush imaginable on her.

Abilities:

His skill levels are generally on an average level. He’s not particularly good at Genjutsu, he has absolutely no skills for medical ninjutsu, his strategy skills aren’t outstanding and he isn’t really skilled for leadership. His only outstanding abilities are his Chakra Enchanced Taijutsu and Earth Release that his parents personally train him in.

Taijutsu:

He’s very skilled in close and hand-to-hand combat. Sakura tried to teach him medical ninjutsu, but he totally failed at that, his chakra control not being refined enough. However it was good enough that she taught him how to use Chakra Enhanced Strentgh by concentrating chakra in various parts of his body. However due to his only-slighty-above-average chakra control, this is very taxing on him, and exhausts him quickly.

Ninjutsu:

He can perform all the basic jutsu Genin are capable of, like the Clone Jutsu and Substitution Jutsu.

Earth Release:

Morio’s been teaching Saisari various Earth Release tecniques since he was about 10 years old. By the time he’s 13 he has an outstanding array of Earth Release Jutsus at his disposal. He’s very proud of his Earth Release abilities, as he feels it’s part of his heritage, always working hard to improve and learn new techniques. Where his general skill sets are lacking, he makes up for it with his Earth Release techniques. Some say he’s well on his way to becomming an Earth Release specialist.

 By the age of 13 he’s able to use the following Earth Release jutsus:

 -          Earth Release: Earth Spear: The latest Earth Release jutsu Saisari has learnt, and so far the only one that wasn’t taught to him by Morio. He came across it himself when he was studying about Earth Release jutsus for the Chunnin Exams, and together with Sakura’s chakra training he learnt it all by himself. As of right now it leaves a lot to be desired and it leaves him greatly exhausted but it has the potential to be his strongest jutsu one day.

 -          Earth Release: Underground Split

-          Earth Release: Tunnelling Technique

-          Earth Release: Tearing Earth Turning Palm

-          Earth Release: Shadow Clone

-          Earth Release: Rock Trail

-          Earth Release: Earth-Style Wall

-          Earth Release: Rock Shelter

-          Earth Release: Rock Gun Technique

-          Earth Release: Reverse Antlion

-          Earth Release: Hiding in Rock Technique

-          Earth Release: Earth Wave Technique

-          Earth Release: Double Suicide Decapitation Technique

 Other skills:

He’s very creative with paper bombs and other explosives. His favourite type of offense is combining his Earth Spear jutsu with a bunch of paper bombs. He jumps amongst the enemy, hardens his skin to withstand the explosion and sets of the bombs right there.

Weaknesses:

His greatest weaknesses are his average chakra levels and imperfect chakra control. He may be slightly-above-average, but his techniques are very chakra taxing, and they leave him very exhausted very fast. His strategy skills are also lacking, when left to his own devices he tends to become much more rash and get ahead of himself, which usually ends up with him chakra exhausted and vulnerable.

I wanted to finish this in 2 days, I have so many other things to draw, I hate how I just can't get faster, BUT I'm pretty happy with how he turned out, so there's that.

Art b @mexcraziness-art

Naruto belongs to  Masashi Kishimoto

[calliecat93]

: Final episodes of Star Trek Season One!

The Devil in the Dark: Underground mine, mysterious murderous monster, and a bunch of horror material. Yep, nothing new here. The episode was fine, it gets it’s message about fearing the unknown across. The humans fear the monster, the monster fears the humans, and with no proper communication it all goes to Hell. There’s also the point of potentially killing what may be the last of it’s species... though Spock didn’t seem to mind when McCoy killed the salt monster via his urging in The Man Trap... then again it was killing Kirk and he pretty much changed his mind here when he thought that Kirk was in danger (yep, 100% seeing how Kirk/Spock revolutionized the slash genre), so... Anyways, It’s very much still a relevant message, though nothing that stands out to me imo. The Horta was cool looking though, I liked it! And we got a hopeful ending, which is also nice. 3/5

Errand of Mercy: Okay we’ve FINALLY made it to the Klingons! That makes it important for the franchise as a whole. It wasan interesitng one dealing with war, fighting, and peace. The Klingons want war, Kirk wants to fight thwe Klingons as a result, and the Origanians want peace and are unwilling to tolerate either sides violence. The Klingons come off as kinda one-dimensional war monuls, tough clearly intelligent as well and the leader worked well enough for this particular plot. The twist with the Organians was one that took me back and explained my complaints up to that point of their spinelessness. Kirk and Spock’s disguises were also nice XD if I had to pinpoint a theme, it seems to be extreme pacifism sgainst violence, with the Organians being against any violence, which causes problems especially for Kirk and Spock. Though at the same time that demand of pacifism stopped what would have been an otherwise brutal war that even Kirk was willing to wage, rejecting the possibility of ever pursuing peace. It really makes you think. Another still relevsnt message I say. Probably my only complaint is lack of McCoy, but that’s a me thing that won’t affect the rating... well this time. 4/5

The Alternative Factor: So... the crew finds a guy essentially bejng posessed by a being from an alternate reality and chaos ensues. How does this not even make me blink anymore? It’s an interesting concept, though IDK how I feel about the concept. Like Kirk more or less letting a mentally unstable individual walk around free up until he attacks two crew members. McCoy leaving him in sick bay unguarded after that and when the alternate self stole one of the lithium crystals was also a pretty bad lapse of judgement. Yeah, these kind of logical lapses when ai know that these characters are normally much smarter than that really has me tilting my head. Anyways, it was fine and had some intriguing elements, but nothing to write home about overall. 2/5

The City on the Edge of Forever: I’d heard a lot of hype about this one... and for good reason. This episode was excellent. Edith was a lovely character and while rushed, her and Kirk’s romance was really sweet. I can absoluteley see why Kirk, a man form the hopeful future that Edith strives for, would fall for her and yeah, anyone who calls him a womanizing asshole din’t know what they’re talking about. The Guardian of Forever is a very interesting and while they already did time travel in the season, seeing Kirk and Spock having to try and adapt was nice to see. Poor Kirk trying to explain Spock’s ears to the cop and Spock clealry holding in wanting to sigh as it went on had me dying XD The acting was also amazing with William Shatner’s legit heartbreaking reaction to Edith having to die and the moment that the time comes, and DeForest Kelley as deranged McCoy legit scared me, especially when he arrives in the 30’s. I can see why the guy was a villain in a lot of Westerns now. Edith having to die is so cruel and unfair since she was a genuinely loving, peaceful woman and had to die because those ambitions would have caused greater devestation. It’s so tragic and cruel... and it was executed flawlessly. By far my favorite episode thus far. 5/5.

Operation: Annihilate!: Finally at the end, and they gave us another goodie. Admittedly some stuff was kind of weird, like Kirk’s brother clealry just being Shatner with a mustache and Kirk at the end in a light-hearted mood was weird consideirng that he lost his brother and sister-in-law like he did. However the episode legit felt tense with the parasites, especislly when it infected Spock. When he is expressing legit pain, you KNOW that something has gone horribly wrong. The tension was very apparent with everyone trying to figure out what to do before everyone on the planet suffers the same fate, and Kirk’s nephew and number one being on the line adds a layer of desperation for both the cast and the viewers. It especially hurt when McCoy was pretty much forced to blind Spock to save his life... only to find out that he didn’t need to use that level of intensity in the first place because of how desperate he himself had gotten. His guilt and Kirk’s anger at him for that lapse of judgement was very strong, especially since aside form like one time he had NEVER gotten angry at Bones before. Mind you they decided to put this in the final four minutes so no time toxplore these things in depth, but thankfullyShatner, Nimoy, and Kelley’s acting conveys their characters thoughts and feelings (well... as much as Nimoy can convey with Spock outwardly) VERY well. At the very least Kirk did calm down enough to tell Bones that it wasn’t his fault, even if it doesn’t really register to McCoy, and even Spock said that it was his own choice. McCoy saying that Spock was the best first officer in the fleet also really shows that despite anything he says, he does care or and respect Spock, and Spock hearing it at the end made me giggle XD I half kinda wish that Spock had been blind for longer than five minutes cause that would be an interesitng avenue to explore and thus it feels like a huge waste. And again, Kirk’s mood in the ending really didn’t make sense esoecially since we don’t at all get a conformation on his nephew’s well-being. It feels out of place so that and the character development/exploration waste stops this form achieving a perfect score. It was a really good episode overall however with Kirk, Spock, and McCoy very much the highlight, and since that’s the factor that’s kept me going up to this point, appreciate it. 4.5/5

I made it! Yay! Still got two seasons amd five films to go, and then all the other Star Trek shows/films, but we’re making progress! Who~! Season 2, here I come!

[vancilocs]

In thirds, cain and mercer, max and roo, and krea and trias?

yeet

1. What is their relationship to each other?

Together, married, soulmates, whatnot

2. How did they first encounter each other? What did they first think about each other? 

Mercer was trying to kill Cain and almost got killed himself, Cain went to check what the fuck happened and found a guy with no arm bleeding out and dragged him to a safe place + healed him against his better judgement. Mercer basically thought Cain was a dangerous bloodthirsty mage and Cain was both scared and annoyed at a hunter finding him, not to mention the hunter looking quite a bit like the one who shot his ear off when he was 14

3. What is their relationship like now? 

Living together in the forest, learning magic, appreciating nature, appreciating each other, very much in love

4. What will their relationship be like in the future? 

Together until the end of the line, no breaking the bond they have built

5. What traits does each person find endearing in the other? 

Cain is calm and level-headed and has a much subtler way of showing affection, so he’s a very grounding influence on Mercer which he can appreciate. Cain realized through Mercer how nice it is to be openly and unashamedly loved and how good it is to share everything nice in your life. Both are also very passionate about their interests and good listeners, eager to learn and support

6. Which traits does each person find annoying in the other? 

Mercer can be loud, brash, lose focus (makes things like meditating hard), he’s needier than Cain attention-wise so sometimes Cain just gotta ask to be left alone for a moment (Mercer doesn’t mind that at all, he gets it). For Mercer, Cain is a slower teacher who takes his time introducing Mercer to magic and its aspects, so Mercer can get frustrated bc he wants to learn how to make lightning already

7. How often do they see each other? How often do they talk to each other?

They see each other pretty much every day, if not the whole day then at the very least they spend the night together most of the time. Rarely the other goes on a longer trip and might be away overnight or a couple of nights, but still sends birds to the lover to reassure everything’s okay

8. Could they live together easily? Why/why not? 

Not in a city but both really enjoy their nomadic lifestyle and each other’s company so the way they have is good for them

9. How much physical contact would these characters have with each other? 

Oh a lot. And with Mercer’s wooden arm he gets to finally give Cain some good hugs, hold his hand more and even do his hair if he allows. Mercer is more touchy-feely and Cain doesn’t mind it most of the time. Also cuddled up is the best way to sleep

10. What would they get for each other as birthday gifts? 

They don’t really give gifts, especially when living together. Earlier Mercer would always bring sweets from the city when he went to the forest to see Cain but now they probably don’t even celebrate birthdays.

-

11. What hobbies do they share, if any?

Music (Cameron plays, Max appreciates), maybe makeup? Max will contour Cameron and give him a bit of a 5′o’clock shade before he goes on HRT. Also videogames probably though Max is less of a gamer

12. Do either of them have any hobbies or interests which annoy the other?

No, Max is a huge supporter of the band and Cameron her first makeup channel subscriber

13. Do any of their beliefs (religious, moral, or otherwise) differ? Do they conflict strongly? 

Nah? I doubt either is super religious or anything. They agree on things and don’t do things that piss the other one off

14. Who is the better cook? Who is better at general household tasks? 

Max is a great cook and is happy to make dinner for Cameron too, also probably somewhat neater than Gamer Bro McChickenNugget over here

15. Which of them is more adventurous? Is the other adventurous enough to go along with them? 

Cameron is rowdier and took Max along during high school days, nowadays she doesn’t have much time but supports him wholeheartedly

16. Would they go on holiday together, and where would they go? 

Probably have gone before, city holidays and/or beaches especially after top surgery are great

17. When one is feeling down, how does the other respond?

Ask about it, offer to bring snacks, offer a shoulder to lean on, offer advice if they have some or solutions, just be there and present and ready to help if asked

18. If one was in a difficult life situation, what would the other do for them? 

Anything really, they’d let the other live with them, borrow money if needed, borrow clothes or makeup or whatever, mi casa es su casa

19. Has one ever had to stop the other from making a very foolish decision? And did the other listen to them? 

When Nevan came crawling back Max told her no of her own volition but Cameron would also have told her to tell Nev to fuck right off. But Max didn’t listen to him before when it came to that woman

20. Has one ever strongly encouraged the other to make a big decision? Did they go through with it? 

Cameron always told Max to dump Nevan (and she did a couple of times but in the end it was Nev who ended that farce). Max told Cameron to be straightforward with his feelings towards Jules bc she could see how much it was dragging him down after years of pining

-

21. How would one feel about the other being in love (with them or with someone else)?

Krea is aromantic and doesn’t date, but he does love Shae with all he has in his own way, so idk how Trias feels about that. Krea doesn’t really care about Trias’s love life, but wishes she finds happiness and stability in her own life. Just please not with Shyn she’s so annoying. He wouldn’t want Trias to be in love with himself either.

22. Are there any other people who are a part of both their lives, e.g. friends or family members they share? 

Both associate with Remy, Krea is definitely not his friend though. He tangentially associates with Shyn too by letting her kill evildoers. Qizare is a friend of them both, Vastravia loves Krea and... Trias not so much. Tolerates her if anything. Vosgi doesn’t like her, Jun is neutralish, a bit negative. Shae likes Trias more than you’d think but is also careful about getting too close.

23. How does each person feel about the other person’s family members and close friends? Do they get along with them? 

Krea doesn’t like any of Trias’s friends except for Kiki.

24. Do either of them get jealous over relationships the other one has with friends/family/romantic partners/other people? 

Krea doesn’t, Trias might. Krea has his handful (three) of lovers past and present and does show PDA with them so if Trias is annoyed by that then tough shit lmao (also he has loving familial relationships with Kiki and Vastravia and speaks highly of his parents which Trias lacks so that might make her jealous)

25. Is either person jealous of the other’s wealth or possessions? 

Nah. Neither flaunts it. Krea’s most precious possession is his rifle, he’ll give Trias his old cloak himself

26. If the pair of them had to look after a young child or pet, what would happen? 

Krea is suspiciously good at looking after children and being a dad, wouldn’t let Trias touch it though

27. How far would each go to protect the other? 

Very far, neither is shy about going to the extreme if the other is in serious danger. Trias went mano a mano with Athena of all people to keep her off Krea and later skulked around his hospital room and caught Lyla red-handed so

28. Is there anyone else that each person would protect over the other, if they had to make a choice? 

If anything then Krea deciding to protect someone he deems weaker, because he knows Trias is more than capable of looking after herself. Would trust her to understand this

29. If one died, how would the other respond? What would happen to them afterwards? 

Krea would have lost a friend and he’d be sad, angry, seek justice as he would for anyone else. He did die for a moment, and Trias would have lost a big inhibitor if he had stayed dead

30. How far would each person follow the other? Would they trust them enough to commit crime because the other asked them to?

Krea won’t commit crimes on her behalf, in fact he kinda tries to keep people from doing crimes. There is not much he would do for her without wanting to know every single detail of the plan.

31. If one wronged the other badly, would the other forgive them easily? 

I don’t think either would forgive easily if it was something that genuinely hurt the other and broke the trust. They’re close, but some things they want to keep secret and make it clear they want to keep secret so digging into those would be bad. It’d take a while to get the trust back.

[alyjojo]

Past Life ☯️ Karmic Spread February 2023 - Gemini

Gender I’m Picking Up On (in the past life): Male

Who You Were: 5 Pentacles, 3 Cups, The High Priestess, 9 Wands

What You Did: King of Swords, 9 Swords, 9 Cups, The Magician, Ace of Cups rev

How It Ended: 3 Wands, Death, The Devil, Judgement

What Karma Was Brought With You: Queen of Cups, 4 Cups, The Lovers rev

Who You Brought With You: King of Cups, 4 Wands, 6 Swords, 4 Pentacles rev

Additional energy: 3 Pentacles, Page of Pentacles rev, 10 Pentacles, Strength

Past Life Oracle: Galactic & Greco/Roman

Dreaming Way: Stork, Ring, Sun

Charm:

Fractal Moon 🌙 on The Devil

Crab 🦀 on Queen of Cups

Youth Butterfly 🦋 on 3 Pentacles

Grapes 🍇 on Stork

Broken Heart 💔 on Ring

I am having a slight internal giggle fit over this one, not at you, or the difficulties and sadness you endured. I can just see myself clearly in this reading, as can the rest of us astrology, philosophy & religious fanatics. It’s a very fine line between philosophical and radical, genius and madness, and much of that is often determined by public opinion, at least when you’re trying to gain public approval, or spread the word, which seems like what you tried to do. You were an ancient astrologer, I get Greek specifically, which is amazing btw 🫡 I don’t get “astronomer” by trade, more along the lines of mathematician, facts and figures were your trade initially. Astronomy was involved in some way, and with research…all three titles were combined when describing an astrologer at the time, it was “the” thing then, but your method of working was numbers, and the stars were just the part of that you worked on. A very logical & facts driven person, in a philosophical way.

I don’t get you being very popular or well known, I tried to research a bit, because this was the most popular thing back then, fairly common, but details of these people, their lives and actual characters or personalities are lacking from what little I could find. More like…this person wrote a book, or a pamphlet, and there’s no more than that, just the facts. There’s a rabbit hole for you if you get more curious, maybe one will call out to you 🐇 You were an extremely intelligent man that ended up becoming so fanatically involved in negative astrology, beliefs, and doomsday type of predictions, that you kind of lost yourself. You lost friends & supporters too. The public did not favor your “secrets of the universe”, and you may have even faced some level of public shame, based on something I guess was either too far fetched for even them or a doomsday type of thing that didn’t come true. When you died, you were still waiting for literal stars to align into some exact ultimate & universal Judgement. Probably had some religious implications as well, though I’m not sure of what who how when exactly, etc. Fractal Moon shows the many different layers to your astrology/practicality/beliefs, and The Devil is showing you were so obsessed and caught up on things like mathematical details & calculations, alignments, doomsday, that the whole of the picture was lost to you. Your exacting and precise method of calculating xyz kept you stuck. It’s like you were too smart. Hand a genius philosophy and they’ll lose their mind trying to fact and figure what can’t be fact or figured. You believed it could 💯

You lived in a frame of mind where negative destinies or exactly timed events signaled doom. You eventually avoided doing everything, anything, ever, except obsessing over topics like death, the second coming of Christ (if that even applies here idk, but same vibe), a great plague, a flood, etc. It kept you from things you could and should have done, dreams of yours even, and finding love. You were a recluse and spent most of your time thinking during the night, obsessively trying to understand the world and exactly pinpoint its’ destruction. These events terrified and excited you, you probably had some heavy Sco/8th House energy, because the questions that plagued you were not “When will I find love?”, more like “When will the Earth be sucked into The Sun?” Which I also find fascinating, so lemme just subscribe to this guy’s fan club 😆

In the past, friends and the public and general turned away from you, you didn’t have many supporters. They saw you as the half naked guy screaming about the end of the world, which…yeah, but a brilliant one, possibly with some level of mathematical or scientific achievements too, and probably pants, you were not at all “dumb”. Fanatical…to everyone else, yes, not initially but eventually. In this life, it’s your family that’s not very supportive of you, you don’t have many deep connections in that sphere and you can’t really relate to each other more than superficially or politely. You’re the black sheep. You’ve brought someone with you, probably a Cancer being Queen of Cups with The Crab 🦀 even. Either they leave you or you leave them, there’s no genuine “choosing” each other, it’s just blah, apathy, you’re together and then you’re not. It could be a case of unrequited love, or one person loving the other one more. This is most likely a spouse or lover with Broken Heart on Ring. They may have broken your heart. You may have children with them or they have them, children are involved. This was all karmic and meant to happen.

You’ve also brought a King of Cups, could be a Scorpio or water sign, likely a family member with 4 Wands, could be someone you’ve lived with. They had to leave, move away, travel in some way, and you had no choice but to release them. That connection was deeper than the average person, possibly one of the few family members you did deeply bond with, and it feels more like you followed them here than them following you, someone older. This may also be the person your ex married, or their soulmate, maybe who they hurt you with, and there’s a karmic tie between you all. After separating from the Queen, you may not have been or be much involved with your child/ren, if they’re yours. I don’t get how many, definitely one and if there are more apply them too, it’s children that are specified.

Perhaps it’s when they grow up, with this particular Butterfly 🦋 showing more of a “growing up” and youthful sort of transformation, but they’ll be very successful, maybe not initially but eventually, and they’ll want to be around you. I don’t get ties are completely severed, maybe just difficult to maintain because of the ex, I don’t know. When they’re grown, they’ll make you very happy, and you’ll bond with them more than anyone you’ve ever known whether family, friend, or lover, it’s a kind of love that transcends everything else. Like the family you never really had or bonded with, it’s them. They are the ones that will change your life, and every way is for the better, it just takes some time to get there.