#manageable complaints

[the-nothing-maker]

Orange blossom (citrus sinensis) - luck, good fortune (a piece I did last year for @daflowerzine's Ardent Blossom: a Dragon Age floral zine ! Leftovers are still open, so check out their store to grab your copy : https://daflowerzine.bigcartel.com/)

[novemberthee5th]

― Pablo Neruda, 100 Love Sonnets

[befuddled-calico-whump]

anyone who calls service industry jobs unskilled labor has never watched a teenager wrangle a burrito the size of an infant into one square foot of aluminum foil

[capinejghafa]

Steve Blackman on being pressed for being abusive, then goes: I didn't see things that way... sir, obviously you're in a position of power why would you???

[welcome-to-green-hills]

i was reading some of your spoilery asks since i just watched the movie, and about sonic calling tom "dad", he actually calls him dad in the latam dub! in the scene after shadow injures him (i really dont know if he also called him that in the cave scene since i arrived late to the movie :'()

😡 WE WERE ROBBED IN THE ENGLISH VERSION 😡

[about-faces]

Last night, I was once again struggling to actually write smut for a Harvey/Bruce/Gilda fic, when I noticed a very timely new guest comment on my Gilda fic, Bust. It was the first truly critical response I’ve gotten so far, and while that sort of thing would normally send me into a depressive tizzy, I actually found it really interesting!

So instead of actually writing the ship, as I should have been, I wanted to take this opportunity to think about just why the heck I shipped them in the first place.

Here’s how I responded, with added scans to hopefully better illustrate my point, plus some additions that occurred to me upon drafting this post:

I’m actually glad you raised this point, because I would have felt the exact same as you just a few years ago!

I’m gray-asexual, and I used to be a bit bothered by the rise of Bruce/Harvey shippers, because it was their canonical platonic FRIENDSHIP that mattered so much to me. I gradually warmed up to the shippers, because 1.) I realized I was ace and they probably weren’t, and 2.) they at least understood the importance of Bruce and Harvey’s bond, which is more than I can say for LOTS of official DC media.

Still, something bugged me about the ship, and I realized what it was: the lack of Gilda from the equation. She’s always been deeply important to me, especially her scant older appearances, and erasing her for a Bruce/Harvey ship (even one I’d come to appreciate) didn’t sit right with me.

But like you said, it’s not canon, and I’ve always been deeply invested in canon, even the stuff that’s frustrating and contradictory. So yeah, the throuple would have bugged me too.

Except! It all depends on WHICH canon you’re talking about!

So over the past 15 years, I’ve been obsessed with tracking down the entirety of the obscure, forgotten Batman newspaper comic strip from 1989-1991. I’ve posted the entire thing at @batman-daily, and I strongly encourage you to check it out. A couple years ago, I reread it and noticed something really interesting: the remarkable relationship between Bruce, Harvey, and the latter’s wife, Alice, who is Gilda in every way but name. They are all mutual friends, with Alice even going to visit Bruce alone to help/bully him to take care of himself.

It all reads like a perfect long-game setup for a love triangle, or for Harvey—having become Two-Face—to go after his loved ones in a jealous rage, like he did in Paul Dini’s “Two-Timer,” a story which notably showed that Grace had feelings for Bruce.

With that in mind, consider the final story arc of the newspaper strip, wherein Bruce acknowledges his OWN feelings for Alice and PASSIONATELY KISSES HER, all in a hilariously roundabout way to save her marriage to Harvey! It makes sense in context and is frankly hilarious.

And it works! Because Harvey isn’t jealous! The love triangle conflict you expect NEVER HAPPENS! Because they all love one another! And that love saves Harvey in the very end!

Was it explicitly a throuple? No, but nor have Bruce and Harvey ever canonically touched dicks. And yet the love between Bruce and Harvey in canon is true and real enough that shippers who want to make it sexual are perfectly allowed to do so, because it’s the love that matters. At least, for those of us who aren’t afraid to acknowledge the love between men, platonic or otherwise. And that love is rooted in canon.

So consider this: the mutual three-way-love between Bruce, Harvey, and Alice/Gilda is ALSO canon. That comic strip has been officially accepted as DC multiverse canon in the “Crisis on Infinite Earths: Absolute Edition,” which designated it as Earth-1289.

Furthermore, there’s something else you need to consider: the fact that Harvey HAS been used in love triangles against Bruce in several stories in recent decades. I already mentioned “Two-Timer,” but there’s also Nolan’s “The Dark Knight,” the animated “Gotham By Gaslight” film, and the Telltale game. In various ways, these stories serve to throw a wedge in the friendship between Bruce (the protagonist, whose story serves him) and Harvey (the guy who is going to lose it all, the woman included). I hate that shit. I hate the contrived drama that’s meant to stir up needless added conflict between two men who love each other.

And then, on the other hand, you have Mariko Tamaki’s Gilda story from “Batman: Black and White.” Tamaki depicted Harvey and Gilda being in a distant, loveless marriage, where even on their wedding day, he was constantly ignoring her in favor of work. The only person who could actually get his attention was Bruce.

At the time, this felt an awful lot like that problem I was talking about with the Bruce/Harvey shippers: raising up the gay ship while throwing the woman under the bus. In this case, for the purpose of doing an avenging girlboss take on Gilda. I hated that too, especially when Tamaki didn’t even follow through with the gay subtext in her next, miserable Two-Face comic.

You know that meme of a bride, groom, and best man all kissing one another, while the bride flips off the cameraman in the end? @whipbogard redrew the Tamaki wedding scene as that meme, right around the time I reread the comic strip. And suddenly, everything clicked into place for me.

After a lifetime of never, ever having any serious fandom ships, I fell in love with the idea of Bruce/Harvey/Gilda. Take what the comic strip did and bring it into the mainstream canon I love to spite the canon I hate.

In those great old Gilda stories, she saw through Harvey’s bullshit and knew how to reach him, however temporarily. She could do the same with Bruce. She’d be a valuable third voice for the ongoing toxic relationship between Bruce and Harvey, the one who could love them both while also getting to be frustrated with how fucking stupid and fucked-up both these men are.

Before she was reduced to a ride-or-die killer housewife in "The Long Halloween" (which, I'll grant you, has its own appeal), classic Gilda would actually stand up to Harvey and tell him to cut out his shit or else. I love the idea that she can also see right through Bruce, understanding how very alike he and Harvey are, even if they don't want to admit it.

Writing Gilda this way speaks to me as a longtime fan of both men, while also wanting to try to develop her place, as a woman stuck in the middle of their decades' worth of conflict and angst. She sees these men at their best, worst, and most pathetic/ridiculous, and while she's got the nerve to stand up for herself and call them out as needed, she still loves them nonetheless. For me, Gilda has become the voice for fans just like me, who are helpless to stop Batman and Two-Face from continuing the cycle of violent, toxic friendship, but still loving them nonetheless, and always hoping for the best.

So, at this point, let’s say I’ve at least managed to make you grudgingly accept my reasoning for the relationship. Even if that’s true, I’m gonna guess that the mention of a threesome felt like it came out of left field. I can’t argue with that. I wanted to actually write that as its own smutfic but, being ace, I struggle with that. But I really liked the idea, and as I was writing this, it just really wanted to be mentioned, so I included it.

The response has been positive (until now), which indicated to me that I had been successful in introducing Gilda as a viable third into a slice of fandom which had only shipped Bruce and Harvey. This is fanfic, after all, such things are expected, even encouraged, so I leaned into it.

Now, if I were ever (un?)fortunate enough to write for DC, officially? I doubt I’d have the nerve to go that far. But I’d still want to at least embrace the polycule-coded relationship between those three that we saw in the newspaper comic strip. I think it adds a whole new, refreshing spin on their ongoing dynamics, while being rooted in relationships that were established all the way back in 1942 by Bill Finger.

Finger’s story, at its heart, was all about how love can save a life. How love is the only way to defeat the villain. For Harvey Kent’s part, Gilda’s love was every bit as important as Batman’s unwillingness to give up on his friend. So I’m just taking it one step further within the freedom allowed me by fanfic.

Sorry for the length of the reply, but as you can see, I only came to this shit after several decades of thinking about 80+ years of official material. I hope I have at least been able to lessen your feelings of being jarred out of a story you otherwise seemed to appreciate. For my part, I hope to further develop the potential of this fucked-up polycule in future stories, and maybe—just maybe—I’ll be able to get you on board too. Hope to see you then!

(art by ofossart)

[silkiecorn]

A comic featuring the sweet child

(I have more comic ideas in store and will post them)

[project-sekai-facts]

Kanade's another cut for the Twilight Light 3DMV is a direct reference to her untrained The Dream I Saw Will One Day 4* card.

Screencap source

[call-me-copycat]

No hate to any creators at all but. I honestly can't escape her :⁠-⁠(

I just want to see Aizawa content without her in it >⁠.⁠< Worse still, if you say you don't like seeing a "pure innocent and sweet" character then people will get upset with you (as I've found). So her name is redacted even though I'm sure I've made it clear in the past

Mild complaint post, please don't take it seriously. I can and will live (⁠^⁠～⁠^⁠;⁠)⁠ゞ but I'm bound to get shaken up after seeing her on my dash every single day and in almost every Aizawa artwork after that last chapter (⁠;⁠ŏ⁠﹏⁠ŏ⁠) You can't be an Aizawa fan without seeing her

...

Feel free to use this image or edit it for whatever you want, it's a quick doodle of mine so I don't really mind ┐⁠(⁠‘⁠～⁠`⁠;⁠)⁠┌

[meirimerens]

How's college going. Is it difficult intellectually. Do you sleep.

college is going fantastic I go to class and smile and do little silent claps of excitement and nod and am gleeful. most of the classes themselves are real easy because I have some #knowledge already it's some digging-deeper of stuff I already know in various degrees of depths but the tests are sometimes challenging and it's NICE and it's FUN and it makes me feel ALIVE. I failed an ancient greek language test and I ain't even mad. I might change my tone when the week of 2hrs exams hits in january but so far I go with joy and glee and happy to be here and every day I go to class and tell myself "why the fuck did I wait so long" but I know why I waited so long (because I couldn't.) so I'm just happy to be here. I sleep enough (so far. ☝️) that I don't feel dead inside. classes bring me back to life and to glee. I love you free french uni.

[dead-potato-monster]

like my life is going a-okay (not really) and yet i am experiencing the fantasy high junior year kristen applebees crashout. being chaotic is not cute anymore sweetheart, you need to lock in, you're literally going to be done with college in 9 months you cannot afford to fuck around and be like... oh...there's too much going on and i can't even start on things so i'm just gonna do a bunch of other things that give me a little kick of dopamine for now and put off the laborious stuff for later because i perceive it as hard and maybe a bit of an annoyance.

[wuthering-tempest]

I'm not actually sure i'm a big fan of the decline/nixing of 00 IDs tbh, i think thats gonna have the opposite result of getting kjh that sweet sweet Anime Money unless he intends to implement a 0000 rarity or something, because otherwise people are probs gonna only shard for the sinners theyre attached to/ids that are GOOD rather than pull on banners. A 000 ID that performs like a 00 ID isn't gonna fly well if it starts happeninng more and more. but what do i know. i love my 00s so maybe i just want to have low rarity silly fellas

i also don't like the idea of older IDs falling into obscurity but its mostly bc im very very attached to my first IDs and dont wanna have to stop using them just bc rheir number output isnt crazy like modern IDs are. I feel like this could be fixed by rolling out an uptie V but on a per-season basis (for example, during hong lu's canto we get the ability to uptie V IDs and egos but only from season 1, so on so forth etc etc). I know the power creep IS a lore thing, but. surely this would be an easier option than implementing skins? Not that I dont like the idea of skins though, they're DEFINITELY a really fun idea 🤔

[quatregats]

Little thing but POB's descriptions just constantly make me want to chew on things:

THE LAND IN question was Cape Nao, the southern limit of their cruising ground: it stood up there against the western horizon, a dark certainty, hard in the vagueness along the rim of the sky.

(Master and Commander, Chapter 7)

[tierras]

Oh dear, why are you quitting ?

mostly because my manager is severely unstable and toxic :(

[clockwayswrites]

...I played myself I see.

Catching Cold... the start or something

“Danny, dude, where have you been? You haven’t been answering your phone or anything?” Tucker asked, sliding into the desk next to Danny.

Danny frowned a little, head tilted. “Oh, my phone…? I don’t know where it is. Sorry.”

“Are you sure you should be back at school? I know you’ve been trying harder and it’s senior year and all, but you look sick. I’m sure you can miss some more days,” Tucker reached out to press his hand against Danny’s forehead.

The warmth felt good against the clammy skin and Danny felt his eyes closing. He wished he could go back to bed. He felt like he hadn’t slept for weeks even though Mom had said he’d been sick in bed for a few days. Something about that…

“But can Phantom?” Sam asked. She dropped town into the seat in front of them, arms crossed over the back of the seat.

“Sam!”

“Look, I get it,” she said with a roll of her eyes, “But Boxy wrecked the post office last night and that’s just Boxy. What if a real ghost had attacked? Where was Phantom?”

Why did she ask that so pointedly? Danny blinked, trying to scrap together his scattered thoughts.

He yawned widely.

“I don’t know… Mom…” Half a memory played at the edges of Danny’s mind. “I think Mom said he was gone or something? No, um, wouldn’t be a problem anymore? So people should be safe from him.”

His friends didn’t look comforted like he thought they would at the news.

----

AN/: Filled a prompt (Dead on Main + adj.). Made it worse. Took joy in the suffering that I caused.

Now I'm here.

Welp.

(Yes, it is okay to still fill the base prompt with your ideas too! But this and future catching cold parts are not part of the prompt!)

Edit: subscription post

[little-smartass]

given that the story of Robin Hood is like... very very famously set in Nottingham(shire) it would be cool to see one single solitary adaptation that gives literally any of the characters in the story a Notts or at least midlands-sounding accent. I know there's a longstanding gag about Robin Hoods with american accents so this is like, very much nitpicking, but Prince of Thieves appears to have a Little John with a fucking COCKNEY accent for gods sake. wtf is going on.