#like what’s wrong with his shoe

[ohno-the-sun]

Sol

[mcdannowave]

There's too many things to look at in just one gif...

Giant biceps?Tattoos?Chest hair?

Low hanging trunks? The volume of the front of those wet low hanging trunks? The volume of the behind of those wet low hanging trunks?

The V-line and Abs?The Happy trail?(Even the armpits, if it floats your boat)

[svtskneecaps]

in hindsight, when i first saw bad explaining lore to forever during that legendary 16 hour stream and bad had already, in the early days of brazil, previously established a routine of saying like "ok!" or whatever to the daily server restart message (a message that was early enough in his time zone that he definitely would not have slept and woken up to greet it) SHOULD have clued me in to the fact that this guy never fucking sleeps but holy shit can cucurucho non-canonically scare the fear of god back into him so his head touches the pillow for more than like thirty minutes like WHAT. i mean at this point i'd even suggest sending someone in the code monster skin to float there menacingly and then say in fuckin hatsune miku voice or like chipmunked audio just. "YOU'RE HALLUCINATING, BADBOYHALO. DRINKING WATER IS NOT ENOUGH. GO TO SLEEP."

[s1ld3n4f1l]

i dont understand people who completely deny any possibility of harry and kim having a romantic relationship. one of the first things you know about kim is that he would, in a heartbeat, trade his life for yours. this is before you know his name. this is before he knows your name.

[ticklinglady]

Hi everyone! :D After rereading the BSD novels I noticed a rather interesting pattern and came up with a fun idea!

How about a new impossible drinking game? Take a shot every time you notice Asagiri describing Dazai in the edgiest way possible when you're reading the light novels.

Sounds not so bad at first, however... Well, take a look yourself and have fun:

"I look at the young man. He is just staring at the ceiling. No emotions, no intents. Just a flat expression, like one who is just telling his age. I cannot believe my own eyes. I don’t even feel like there is a human there. If it was late night instead of a refreshing early morning, I would think that he was a ghost or a hallucination".

"His eyes remind me of a burnt black cat, his build reminds me of a burnt black cat, his presence reminds me of a burnt black cat. He has a tone that sinks into the abyss of the spirit, and deep, dark eyes that seem to hold the conviction that the sun will never rise again. He is a man of few words. And his voice has the sound of severance that rejects mutual understanding from the very beginning. No one could understand him. No one ever will. And he himself knows that very well. That kind of voice".

"When Dazai finally says so, his eyes look different from those of any human being. And those of any living things. Those are wounds. A pair of open wounds on his face, from which darkness is peeping out".

"Dazai’s face when he says that reminds me of the end of a culvert, or a black wall at the end of the road that leaves you no way to go".

"Dazai looks at me. Those eyes are like the bottomless see at night. Dark, cruel, quiet, endlessly sucking people in and never letting go".

"Dazai looks down at the opponent. Even people who look at the pebbles on the riverbank would show more interest than that".

"Dazai’s gaze towards Hirotsu turns dark instantly, as though representative of the gravity of his next words. If it were any ordinary person being stared at, they would be seized by nightmares for the next few days. Dazai’s eyes foretell the impending blood and violence about to come".

"I look at Dazai. There is something invisible within that can’t be seen with the naked eye, like a breeding ground for spirits that will raze everything to the ground".

"I look at Dazai intently. Although we have known each other for very long, this is the first time Dazai has spoken about himself. One can see something as sharp as a giant fishhook piercing and gnawing into Dazai’s life".

"“No.” I say. “I don’t think so. At the beginning, I thought you and Dazai were very similar, unable to see the value of your life, hoping for death, hence jumping into a world of violence and fighting. But that’s not the case. That guy is just a child who’s too smart. Just a crying child who’s been left alone in the darkness, a world of nothingness far emptier than the world we can see”".

""I know. There's a certain anxiety, anxiety about whether the previous boss's assassination was leaked". Dazai's expression was still unreadable. It was quiet as a freezing lake".

"The boy's gaze quietly penetrated Mori. Like a medical device that looked through the human body".

"The doctor and boy exchanged a silent gaze for a while. The Shinigami and the Devil seemed to glare at each other as the room filled with their spirit. In Mori's head, a word that he didn't know flickered many times and echoed like an alarm".

"The nightmarish thoughts Dazai sometimes showed through his observing eye was like an unprecedented, frozen eagle in the mafia's demonic nest".

"His expression returned to his usual Dazai thing. It was a gray expression that wasn't interested in any concept".

"I’m not a person with an excellent observation skill. But even so, just by looking at those eyes, I understand a few things right away. He probably has killed before. Not one or two digits. Hundreds of people. When you have killed that many people, you will reach the other side of the mentality that ordinary humans can possess, beyond the other shore where neither light nor gravity can reach. The spirit of those who have reached that state will be seen first in their eyes, then in their mouth. Their eyeballs become black holes, and the muscles around their mouth become organs to show the depth of their sin, not their facial expressions".

"I ask again. There is no answer. I don’t even know if he is listening. Because the light in his eyes show no reactions to my question. No matter how cold-hearted a person is, if you look at him in the eyes and throw words at him, you can still see some kind of responses. But this young man does not have any of that. Just black eyes looking at where my figure is".

"There is no heart here. Just a heart-shaped emptiness".

"He doesn’t reply. Those eyes are filled with a quiet emptiness. From that, I assume that he is listening. Because if he is deaf, there should be a reasonable amount of confusion and signs of claiming that he cannot hear".

"I say, my words echoing in the emptiness and dropping into the corner of the room, in the middle of nowhere".

"Dazai is standing in the corridor of the bunker, where it is completely dark. The distance between him and Odasaku is more than ten meters. Because of the darkness and the distance, Odasaku and the other guy cannot see Dazai. In fact, they wouldn’t even notice Dazai if he came within an arm’s reach. That is how much Dazai has melt into a dense shadow and become one with the darkness himself".

"Seeing that violence doesn’t even make his eyes move. His eyes are as still as those of a dead man, not showing the slightest flicker of emotion".

"Dazai has become one with the darkness. That is why no one is able to find Dazai".

"There is only darkness. As if no one was there from the beginning. It’s as if darkness has taken the form of Dazai, and has finally turned back to the original darkness and disappeared".

"The voice is intimidating, assertive, and filled with raw danger like a bleeding wound. It is high-pitched as that of a young boy, but it lacks the human-like characteristics a young boy should have".

"The cop can feel cold sweat squirting from his whole body. This young man is not lying. It shows in his eyes. That this young man is only seeing him as a fly in his kitchen".

"The cop’s body trembles in fear. This is the fear of pain, the fear of his imagination. But the most frightening of all is the young man in front of him, the king of the Pain land, the one who creates pains and controls pains".

"When Dazai finally opens his mouth after a long pause, that voice completely lacks emotions. No mockery, no cruelty, not even a carnivorous smile, nothing. A complete hollow".

"“You really don’t listen to others.” There is nothing left in Dazai’s voice, not even the ruthlessness. There is nothing in there. Not even a sign of someone holding a gun, nor talking to a human being".

"Suddenly, I feel like someone who got lost in the freezing cold weather at the top of a mountain, with only his underwear on. Having nothing to cover for myself, nor a way to escape. Far beyond the pale darkness, a mysterious monster is waiting to tear me into pieces".

"That voice had the dignity of a king and the mercy of the devil at the same time".

"When he saw that cold look heavier than a hundred eloquent words, Atsushi tensed his back".

"From the main office you could see the sunset of the city. In the middle of the room, Dazai was sitting alone at the desk with his arms crossed. He had a thin smile on his lips, and in his only visible eye the light darkness of the world".

"Because in the depths of his eyes lay a jet-black darkness deeper than any of the nights found at the disposal site".

"Dazai’s expression didn’t change whatsoever, and he spoke in a gritty voice devoid of any emotions".

"“It’s simple.” Dazai smiled faintly. His voice was low, as if it were the sound of a growl in a nightmare".

"Dazai smiled after he said that. It was like you could hear the sound of his broken soul with that smile".

"Dazai smiled and held out his hand to help me stand up. He saw through everything with the eyes of a sage, seeming to stare at a place that wasn’t anywhere on Earth". 

And etc.

*reads all this through*

*tries to proceed the information properly*

*inhales*

GODDAMIT, ASAGIRI. WE GOT IT.

[compacflt]

I just wanted to say as someone who has stumbled across your blog and has read your Wednesday wips and posts about anything topgun related that your thought process and consideration of mav and ice, specifically their political beliefs and relationships with their own identities, is honestly so impressive and cool. You have brought such realism and life to these characters which is just so refreshing to see. idk i just wanted to express how cool and awesome i think that is

Because of the thought into these characters does it make it difficult to like them or understand them if you have differing opinions from them? for me personally i feel like if i were to ever actually have a convo with ice or mav regarding identity politics i would actually start to lose my mind (like how one feels when your dad or fun uncle talks for too long at thanksgiving dinner). If it does make them difficult to like, does that make it difficult for you to write them sometimes?

oh yeah! i think, my ice i really empathize with & really love & really could get along with, once he grows out of the sexism of his teens & twenties, but my maverick drives me crazy. someone sent in an ask a while ago that was like “WHY is cyclone simpson your one true love??” And it’s because i too would absolutely hate maverick & hate working with him lol. people who are overly cocky & un-self-aware & a bit self-centered make me CRAZY. (narrator voice: compacflt is a hypocrite as all these things also apply to compacflt.)

Politically… It’s difficult to say. no one really wants to hear the intricacies of one person’s political journey, which is why i won’t give you mine, but suffice to say—since the start of the russian invasion of Ukraine, and my semi-concerted effort to learn more about the political landscape of modern warfare, my own personal beliefs have shifted a whole bunch. definitely aided in that shift by my top gun fic project that specifically aims to understand the conservative straight-passing male mindset as it relates to military matters… there are many end goals to a project like mine, but one end product is a filter you can take away and hold up in front of your eyes and see the world through it. When writing from the eyes of a conservative straight (passing) white man, your priorities totally shift. I had to write from the perspective of someone who doesn’t care about identity politics. Because they don’t! A core tenet of conservatism is very proudly not caring about that stuff, and being very annoyed when people (usually left-of-centers) make that stuff very visible and want you to care about it! “Don’t shove it in my face,” etc., etc. Don’t force me to care about this taboo, private thing I really don’t care about. It violates my freedoms, or whatever, to be forced to care—or even bear witness to—stuff that i don’t care about. Etc. And then, to be nominally a part of that community that you really, really don’t care about, and then to be told that you have to care about it because of your publicity… people asking you to be proud of something that has had a negative connotation for much of your entire life… that’s not a transformation that happens easily.

Jesus, I could write an essay about this. I have, several times by now in responses to asks over my blog. But there is so much that I could talk about. I think… I really worry that some of my writing falls into the first of the below categories:

I really try not to romanticize conservatism in my writing—I tried to show that ice and mav’s happiness is the price they pay for their conservatism. They’re actively choosing to be unhappy—but because they prioritize their honor over everything, due to EXTERNAL PRESSURES they cannot control, and which I think are often ignored in the fandom space for one reason or another. The fact of the matter is, in 99% of IPs, characters prioritize something other than their sexualities. It’s never Maverick’s personal identity that is at stake in either Top Gun or Top Gun: Maverick, because he has built himself so impermeably masculine that there are no grounds upon which to question his personal identity. He just isn’t thinking about it. He’s thinking about how to get into Charlie’s pants, how to win the Top Gun trophy, how to uphold his promise to Goose, et cetera. If he’s fucking guys on the side, it’s because he wants to and because hes maverick and he does what he wants without thinking about it—that’s the whole point of his character, from a story-construction standpoint. That’s his archetype. He’s a renegade maverick superstar who is both thoughtlessly brilliant and thoughtlessly dangerous. He’s thoughtless. His priorities are to survive and to look cool doing it, and that’s it. He is a savant in the Naval Air Force, where honor is your lifeblood, who feels he has been dishonored by his own family name, and who willingly joined the conservative post-Vietnam Navy right when/after Ronald Reagan was elected President, and who wears cowboy boots and who disrespects women to their faces, and who is eager to get into altercations with Soviet-Chinese-DPRK-X-second-world-country-coded-but-EXPLICITLY-Soviet-manufactured-Mikoyan-Gurevich-MiG-28s(-F-5s-painted-black)… I’m sorry. In my opinion, the conservatism is baked into him as a character. I find it extremely difficult to separate him from his conservatism, because in some ways his patriotic conservatism is his raison d’etre. IMO if you take that away from him, he ceases to exist.

Same thing with Ice and his unwillingness to openly rebel or go against the grain. That is his whole reason to exist in the story at all. I know that I’m saying this in a fandom space where the whole point is to change characters & put them in different situations (fanfic) but… in kind of a perverse self aware way, as in I know I sound ridiculous and pretentious, i guess i don’t really understand an impulse to change the core tenets of a character irreparably in fanworks. We are shown that ice always goes by the books in TG. Then we are shown that he achieves the fruits of that labor (four stars) in TGM. So he is rewarded for never rebelling, whereas Maverick, who always rebels (but NEVER in a way that challenges his personal identity), has stagnated in the ranks at full-bird O-6. And that’s Ice’s character. That’s what he’s there for in the story—he’s a tool to show us the value system of rank and prestige you earn by following the rules of the Navy. Why take that away from him? That’s his priority! Canonically, that’s his priority and reason for existence! And historically the way to achieve that priority is through conservatism.

And you ask me if it’s hard to like my ice and mav. Yes, but that’s not my choice. The movie already did that for me. They are not, I’m sorry, likable people. I am not a straight white conservative male writing about straight white conservative men to validate my own beliefs—I’m a queer AFAB person of color writing about straight white conservative men because I want to understand the limits of their conservatism. What they do and do not care about, and what it takes to make them care. And from what we are shown in TG… ice and mav would not care about ME. At all. And they would not want to be forced to care about me. Ice’s casual careless dismissiveness… “the plaque for the alternates is down in the ladies’ room…” mav following Charlie into the bathroom… turning the key in the ignition and driving away while pretending not to hear her… “what?? i can’t hear you! 🙉” … they do not care. They have no desire to care.

Again. Maybe I subscribe to a very very old-school and labored and pretentious ideology when it comes to writing… I know a lot of people write just to have fun. I do not. I wish i could, but I don’t. And when you’re not writing to have fun, you don’t have to like the characters you’re writing about. They’re nothing more than tools at your disposal to get your point across more effectively. No, I don’t like them! Of course not! My ice is cruel and cowardly and careless and hypocritical and subservient and weak, and my mav is demanding and dangerous and dismissive and oblivious and so, so, so unbelievably bitter.

And that’s what my story needed, to get my point across. So, shrug. My point was my priority. I don’t care too much about the characters themselves.

Re: icemav & identity politics. Part of hopefully selling this story is the attempt at empathy for the conservative male, to bring this discussion back to the top. Why write fiction at all if you’re not going to write about people different from you, and why write about people different from you if you don’t want to understand them? So… part of trying to understand them was to understand and have empathy for this shift in priorities. Conservative guys do not want to care about labels, or sexual orientations, or, God forbid, discussion of their gender identities. I can kind of see Ice tolerating it by the end… but, there are limits. Again, it’s supposed to be private. I think he’d chafe against getting labeled gay—he wouldn’t want to be called the first gay compacflt, or SECNAV, etc. He can’t say, “i slept with like a hundred fifty women before I even MET the ONLY man ive ever slept with,” because that’s like intensely private personal information!! No one deserves that information, but people still want to call him gay, even though in his head he really is not!!!! Again—from the conservative perspective, it’s a public imposition of left-wing, overly sexualized, too-neat labels and politics onto an area of life that has typically been kept private and respectable—I don’t agree with the conservatism, but I can at least empathize with it. Pre-Maverick’s death (pre-coming to terms with it), it would’ve been shameful & embarrassing to him; but even after coming to terms with it, it’s still not something he “takes pride” in. I think he thinks of it like this—most people aren’t proud of being straight. Like, it’s weird if you are. Same thing with being proud of being white, etc. Why be excessively proud of things you have no control over? Why not take pride in your ACTIONS—for instance, his career that he has actively sacrificed so much of his pride for? I can really empathize with that thought. I don’t necessarily agree, but I get it, especially in his professional circumstances, where he has so much to be professionally proud of, and yet people keep wanting him to publicly care about this private part of him he has no control over and can’t change.

Maverick though. I think he’d be actively hostile about talking about it in public. He Does Not Care. he does not want to care. It’s all an insult. They call him the first openly gay Ace cause he’s married to another man— “okay, but, like, I’m not. Stop calling me that. Neither of us are. Oh my god we have slept with so many women. Stop calling us that.” Ok then what do you want us, the press corps, to call you? First openly bisexual Ace? “No that’s worse!! That’s a word some teenager made up and doesn’t mean anything!! I’m sixty years old stop asking me to talk about this stuff im too old.” What do you have to say to LGBT kids who want to go into the navy? “😎👍 there’s a place for you etc etc. Let’s go back to talking about all the planes I shot down.” Maverick does what he wants without thinking about it. That’s the core tenet of his character. Very conservative. Don’t ask him to care too much.

Idk. No I don’t like them. But I understand them, if that makes sense. Like their conservative anti-label logic does make emotional sense to me. So that’s part of what I took away from this project, for better or worse… probably worse: I understand why conservatives don’t like the modern over-publicity of sexuality. They don’t care and they don’t want to care. And because they are small-C conservative, my ice and mav still don’t care lol. So, yeah. It doesn’t make them hard to write, because thats why I wanted to write them in the first place.

[coquelicoq]

me: how about...natori contracting some kind of youkai illness & matoba finding out about it & showing up to his set & natori dragging him off to his trailer bc it would be bad for his sparkly reputation to make the angry faces he feels coming on in front of his coworkers & matoba offering to help but in that smarmy condescending way that raises natori's hackles so he refuses but unfortunately he doesn't know how to cure it so matoba just keeps showing up every day & natori keeps carting him off to the trailer every time & being suuuuper cagey when people ask him who his visitor is & what if his coworkers get the wrong idea & matoba is fully aware of this & what if one day in the trailer natori reluctantly agrees to let matoba help him & matoba's like okay fine off with your shirt i gotta paint this spell circle on your bare chest & what if he's in the middle of doing that when they hear somebody opening the door to the trailer & obviously they don't want anyone to know what they're actually doing in there bc youkai-exorcist confidentiality so matoba's like no worries i got this & he KISSES NATORI omg classic kiss-as-misdirection trope & the person at the door is like whoops my b carry on gentlemen & after they've left natori is like wtf matoba????? & matoba's like well it's what they all thought we were doing anyway & your mouth was right there & it allowed me to cover the writing on your chest with my body & also you kiss people for a living so i figured it wouldn't be too complex for you & your part-time exorcist training to handle & natori recovers admirably quickly & is like WELL for your information that was a TERRIBLE kiss & no one is gonna buy that i professional makeout artist natori shuuichi would be swapping saliva with somebody on the reg without any of my considerable skill rubbing off on them & matoba's like so what do you propose we do about it & natori's like obviously i have to teach you how to kiss in case they come back -

the bedtime story fairy who thought this was gonna be an easy assignment: please just go to sleep im begging u have mercy ur brain cells are dying

[practicalsolutions]

Worst sleeping habits ever.

[roobylavender]

considering what you have spoken about regarding selina do you also get frustrated with like…i cant quite explain it but sometimes especially in more recent years shes been posed or positioned like some sort of damsel that needs a big strong man to save her and like im not saying she should be portrayed with the “hollywood level feminism” for lack of a better term im just think about how old versions of selina would have hated that. like im just thinking of anytime in the reeves movie where bruce grabs her or forces her mouth shut or even when he didnt allow her to kill falcone and im just thinking she should claw the fuck out of him for that. i just miss a version of selina who wouldnt allow anyone to walk all over her personal autonomy like that

oh absolutely! in fact this is specifically why i can't stand loeb's take on her character lol (and as we both know that was a significant point of reference for the reeves film). it's really jarring to transition from her volume one and two canon to the long halloween / dark victory / when in rome. i think a lot of people tend to latch onto these books because tim sale's art is to die for and it's obv hard not to enjoy a good murder mystery. in that aspect they're still books i can enjoy in isolation. but i find it very difficult to enjoy them as a selina fan specifically because in every single one it's like she's looking for solace and security in a man and i'm not sure why. like what was so bad about her original backstory of having a deadbeat dad (whether you ascribe to the volume one or volume two version of him) and why did she need to go looking for her "real" father in carmine falcone. why did she need to seek out temporary boytoy relief in italy. why did she dream about being saved by bruce. none of it really has a reason other than to create a "lack" in her for the sake of it being there, because she'd never needed a man like that before in her post-crisis narrative. as you mentioned it was quite to the contrary and she was fiercely independent and protective of her own peace, esp from men. when she felt empty or without a connection or lifeline to someone real, it was mostly about people like maggie or holly or arizona. her people

what i think it ultimately comes down to are two things: the first thing is the diminishment of her post-crisis origins. after all, it's convenient to ignore how distrustful selina is of people, and of men with power at their leisure to abuse specifically, when her post-crisis origins are no longer relevant to her personal characterization. although selina's status as a sex worker is more prominent now, it was more or less completely swept under the rug for the bulk of volume two. loeb also refused to engage with it in any capacity. it only really resurfaced with the conclusion to volume two because it drew direct parallels to how we initially found her in volume one, and then brubaker expanded on it once again in his take on the character, which was notably juxtaposed against a pre-existing romance with bruce and brings me to the second thing. i've already waxed about this at length so this may very well be recap but i really don't think selina's lack of control over her personal autonomy can be divorced of the modern portrayal of the romance. when selina looking for security and understanding and comfort in bruce is what drives the romance forward there's not much room to maintain her original values and guarded demeanor, if not her outright defensiveness and hostility. a lot of people look at the extensive trauma selina has experienced and argue that she deserves to be in a relationship with someone who allows her to let those walls down. this isn't incorrect in theory. but it does repeatedly ignore who she is. it's kind of like the point i was making about bruce yesterday. exploring the inherently abusive nature of robin or of bruce's right to his children in light of that fact is interesting to do, but the actual execution has rarely managed to take into account who bruce actually is

for however nice it might be for selina to let her walls down romantically and look for solace in bruce—and i say this mostly for the sake of argument, personally i would argue against its necessity—it's realistically not something she's actually going to do. at least not as willfully as she's been portrayed to. realistically she's going to make it extremely hard, which if anything is precisely the appeal. i love it when selina gives bruce a hard time. i love that it's not supposed to be easy or maybe even a possibility for him to win her over bc there's so much about his own ideological stances that's flawed and in opposition to her own. she doesn't have to be any less unrelenting in her principles and worldview for that romance between them to be compelling bc at the end of the day the entire crux of it is that against all odds bruce cares. for however wrong he thinks she might be in a given moment or in her stance against the government, he knows who she is and how hard she's fought and what she's survived and it makes him sympathetic to her because she's real. she's a wonderful character through which to explore the logical limits of bruce's self-righteousness and categorization of crime, as well as a wonderful mirror to hold up to his face as he starts to ask himself whether what he's doing is really the only means of keeping the city safe. and the novelty of it all is that you don't have to sacrifice her character for any of that to be true. writers have simply deluded themselves into believing that they have to and that's why we are where we are today

[earl-grey-love]

I could feel myself going down a negative spiral so I put on my headphones, listened to some rock and drew ship art with Mephi. 💕

[thecomet-and-themeteor]

I don't know how much sense this makes but I need a Langelique Cinderella AU, I think it'd work pretty well

[kimtranssexler]

//tw for blood and needles and shit// guys I’m sorry but can you watch this clip from no country like. I wasnt kidding this is what it’s like being on my period I’m bleeding I have to strip off my pants I get into the bath and rinse off the blood that’s running down my leg everything hurts so bad I have to put a tampon in and take an ibuprofen I have to hobble over to my bed and lay down in pain. Like no scene has come this close to capturing what it’s like. Good god this is what its like.

[pegging-satan]

Made the mistake of imagining Kunikida with sleeve garters now I am extremely turned on someone draw this please and thanks

[keeps-ache]

angry? peeved? frustrated? kind of annoyed? bursting at the seams with malice? want to commit a federal crime but it's (sadly) against the law? have i got the solution for you!!: put cat food in their shoes

[k1rishiki]

ok fr last one but there's actually a bootleg of my school's anastasia and i'm linking it bc you all NEED to understand that my infatuation with this one girl's voice which started when i was in the 6th grade and still hasn't really worn off isn't based on nothing

[iirulancorrino]

Mr. Vance’s first ad to air on television after he won the Republican primary last spring featured Ms. Vance, sitting at a table in a blue dress with polka dots, making her husband’s pitch. “​​Our family’s story is an Ohio story,” she said.

After that, Ms. Vance faded back into the background of the campaign’s narrative for months.

“She has not been appearing alongside J.D. the way Fran DeWine appears alongside Mike DeWine,” said Mark R. Weaver, a veteran Republican strategist in Ohio, referring to the state’s governor and his wife. “That is the ultimate 100 percent deployment of a political spouse. It’s just very difficult to deploy your wife in your campaign aggressively when you have three young children and she has a platinum level legal career.”

Mr. Weaver noted that Ms. Vance’s coastal credentials may have been more of an issue for Republican primary voters last spring than they are in the general contest this fall.

And as the race has moved into its final stages, Ms. Vance has become more publicly involved. On Oct. 20, she joined Ms. DeWine, at an event in support of an agricultural interest group called “Our Ohio,” held at Phillips Tube Group, a woman-led steel tube manufacturer. (Mr. DeWine is running for re-election, and, like Mr. Vance, he has been endorsed by Mr. Trump.)

Hm. Well, I could think of another reason besides the fact that she’s a busy working mom that J.D. Vance’s Indian American wife has not featured prominently in his campaign.