#readmore doesn't seem to be working

[riddlerosehearts]

list of acd canon sherlock holmes things i absolutely love

(and am going to mostly put under a readmore because i made most of this list while rereading the entire canon so it is very long! listen i just think sherlock holmes is the best character ever and i need to share my love for him--)

immediately upon being introduced to watson he grabs him by the sleeve, starts excitedly showing off his bloodstain testing experiment, and claps his hands “looking as delighted as a child with a new toy”. once he finishes, his eyes glitter and he puts his hand on his heart and bows “as if to some applauding crowd conjured up by his imagination”.

watson: “i object to rows because my nerves are shaken”

holmes: “do you include violin playing in your category of rows?” he asked, anxiously

he’s noted to be extraordinarily knowledgeable and zealous in his studies, and yet on the same page it’s stated that he doesn’t know the earth travels around the sun and once watson tells him about it he immediately decides to forget about it because it’s not relevant to his work. this is where the famous “brain attic” monologue comes in.

watson writes this list about him and then throws it into the fire in despair:

has a habit of laughing in a way that’s described as bursting into an “explosion” or “roar” of laughter

frequently does this at crime scenes:

enlists a gang of street orphans to help him on his cases, pays them for their work, and generally treats them as equals but also playfully talks to them like a general to his soldiers

plays the violin for watson to help him get to sleep

is incredibly knowledgable on anything from different types of tobacco, to the ways one's trade can influence the form of their hands, to medieval pottery and stradivarus violins. and yet, i reiterate, does not know the earth revolves around the sun.

has a tendency of waxing poetic about the meaningless of existence, particularly when he’s bored from not having any cases to work on

once said about a dog “i would rather have toby’s help than that of the whole detective force of london”

used the word “doggy” when speaking to toby

once told watson “i don’t wish to be theatrical” despite all evidence to the contrary

disguises himself as an old man just to play a prank on watson

watson: “i think i had better go”

holmes: “not at all, doctor. stay where you are. i am lost without my boswell.”

is known to wiggle in his chair when he gets excited about a case

discovers that a man has tricked his own stepdaughter into a fake marriage so he can keep her at home and control her life and inheritance. acknowledges that said man hasn’t done anything illegal but still tells him “there never was a man who deserved punishment more” and that he ought to get whipped for what he did, and then goes to actually get his hunting crop, causing the man to run out the door at top speed

let a criminal go free because it turned out the man he murdered was trying to force said criminal’s daughter into an unwanted marriage

was suddenly made to participate in the wedding of someone he was tracking for a case, came home and laughed about it for several minutes, exclaimed “well, really!”, laughed for several more minutes, and only then did he actually tell watson what happened

responds to the king of bohemia insulting irene adler and saying she’s not on his level by saying coldly: “from what i have seen of the lady, she seems indeed to be on a very different level to your majesty”, which is basically him saying “actually she’s way better than you, so fuck off”

refused to shake said king’s hand

built a pillow fort in a client’s house so he could think better

let a poor jewel thief go because he cried, because it was christmas and therefore it was the season of forgiveness, and because the case was really easy anyway so it’s not his fault if the police are too stupid to solve it themselves

always reassures clients that they can trust him and watson and speak freely around them

is willing to waive his fee for clients who can’t afford to pay him, because according to him his profession is its own reward

this entire scene from speckled band when he gets confronted by his client’s abusive stepfather:

this nice little example of the gentleness he often displays with his clients:

the adventure of the copper beeches. just, all of it. a woman he doesn’t know comes to holmes for advice about a potential job she’s interviewed for and they both agree it sounds incredibly sketchy, she says she’s gonna take it anyway because she needs the money, and he’s like “well i wouldn’t want any sister of mine doing something like this but FINE i guess, just please write to us and let us know if you’re okay and if anything bad happens we’ll drop everything and come help you immediately”, and then the job does in fact turn out to be super sketchy and they drop everything and get on a train as soon as she writes to them

sometimes spends several hours out on walks through the park or the town with watson just relaxing and talking with him for the sake of it, despite watson frequently noting that holmes doesn’t have much appreciation for nature

“we have had the good fortune to bring peace to many troubled souls. i trust that we may do the same for you,” he says “in his easy, genial way” to a potential client who’s clearly very upset and sleep-deprived

is completely wrong about a particular case and asks watson to remind him of that case next time he gets overconfident

is noted by watson to be very neat and methodical in his methods and way of dress, while simultaneously being one of the messiest people ever who keeps his tobacco inside a persian slipper and his unopened letters held up by a knife in the center of his mantelpiece, keeps tons of criminal relics which apparently somehow end up in the butter dish sometimes, and keeps countless stacks of papers and documents all over the place

tells watson anecdotes about his past just to avoid cleaning up said documents

deliberately knocks over a table, shattering a glass fruit bowl which then sends oranges rolling all over the room, and then blames it on watson and runs away

says snarky things like “when gregson or lestrade are out of their depth–which, by the way, is their normal state” and “you’ve done very well, watson! it’s too bad you’ve missed everything of importance”

laughs when watson suggests he’s being modest about his abilities

picked up a rose and got all sappy and poetic about it

more specifically, picked up a rose and said that religion can be a science which involves a lot of careful deduction, and that flowers are a source of hope and proof of the goodness of god due to the fact that they aren’t a necessary part of life but are still so beautiful anyway

recovered an incredibly valuable government treaty for a client and had it served to him on a platter at breakfast because, in his own words, he “never can resist a touch of the dramatic”

faked his death and then revealed to watson that he was still alive in a manner that even he admitted was unnecessarily dramatic

had a full-scale wax model of himself created and used it to fool his enemies

made a diagram out of breadcrumbs to explain something to watson

broke into a blackmailer’s house for a case because he believed it to be morally justifiable, and admitted that he always thought he might make a good criminal

held watson’s hand while they were burgling said house together

twice

allowed said blackmailer to be murdered in front of him by one of his victims and then refused to take the case when asked because he just hated the guy that much

“flushed up with pleasure” when watson complimented him

asked watson to sell his medical practice and move back into 221b with him after the death of his wife. and then secretly gave a relative of his a ton of money to buy watson’s medical practice at the highest price watson would ask for, just so they could live together again

was nearly brought to tears by lestrade saying he was proud of him

let a dog lead him around on a case, multiple times in different stories

was very gentle with a client who he knew to be the victim of an abusive marriage and allowed the man who killed her husband to go free out of sympathy for their situation

noticed watson looking sad and touching his war wound and tried to cheer him up by echoing his thoughts and providing a deduction of how he knew what he was thinking

mentioned watson’s sparkling eyes in said deduction

talked about nothing but violins and his favorite violinist for an hour while he and watson had lunch together

likes going to classical music concerts and getting lost in the music

does scrapbooking

chuckles and rubs his hands together when he’s happy

this:

takes getting called "the devil himself" as a compliment

let a killer go because he had only killed in retaliation for the unjust murder of his lover, and holmes felt that he might’ve done the same if someone were to kill the woman he loved

on a completely unrelated note tells a guy who shoots watson “if you had killed watson you would not have got out of this room alive”

also reacted like this when watson got shot:

went undercover to supposedly give a guy secret government intelligence documents, and then gave him a book about bees instead

frequently disguised himself either for cases or just to fool watson and was noted to be a great actor

once disguised himself as an old woman with a parasol

tried the best he could to talk a young woman out of marrying a man who had a history of “collecting” women for sport and destroying their lives, and admitted to watson that he thought of her as he would think of his own daughter

was prone to “imp-like moods”

sent watson a message to come over at once ("if convenient--if inconvenient come all the same") just so he could infodump to him about dogs

wasn’t surprised that a dog died of grief shortly after its owner’s death, because of “the beautiful, faithful nature of dogs”

listened with great sympathy to a depressed woman who wanted to tell him her tragic story, picked up on hints that she was planning to commit suicide, talked her out of it by convincing her that her life does have value and then called her brave for choosing to live

got lost in thought looking out the window at the publicly funded elementary schools and randomly went on about how he believes they and the children who attend them are beacons of a brighter future

made hot cocoa for watson

shook hands with a baby

retired to the countryside to live on a farm and become a beekeeper.

[providencehq]

Powehouse AU: aka Danny Fenton tries to be a normal college student in the midwest yet is forced to continue to be a hero in secret as ghosts won't leave him alone and soon, neither will the Justice League when he pops up as a new hero.

Additional info and art under readmore:

ANYWAYS, here is some powerhouse au information.

Danny as he grows up manages to keep the ghost situation under control to a point he isn't overly active as Phantom. He finishes highschool no problem and goes to uni over in Central City for Maths and Engineering (not an overtly big fan of the space motif and instead, I'm shoving my boy into something cooler: PLANES! He's studying specifically mechanical engineering and has plans to go to a trade school after his B.S. for A&P mechanics.)

Sam goes to Gotham State University for Ethnobotany and works in one of the unis library part time. Tucker is going to Star City College for Computer Science and a minor in archeology, he tutors part time.

Danny's main design is inspired by a combo of military and blue collar uniforms (you can also see exactly what I reference). I also couldn't decide a face mask so you get all three options.

So as Danny moves to Central City and attends uni, his rouges do sadly follow him and wreck havoc. Danny is stressed from school so he doesn't do quips as much, in fact, he's trying to get this under control as fast as possible so he can go back and study. Here's the thing, no one outside of Amityville has seen Phantom so all of the sudden what seems to be a meta? an alien? something not human? coming out and taking down rouges that, due to being ghosts, other heros struggle to contain and handle.

Speculation rises about Phantom and who he is. Danny is smart and thought this through, kinda. His costume is a modified look what he wore as a kid but he pulls in more military/uniform aspects to make it seem like he belongs to someone or some organization. That maybe somewhere in the US, an organization managed to make a hero of sorts that mimics Green Lanterns. It's just a big red herring, Danny wants them to look for someone older, probably more experienced, and a different background. Not some tired college student struggling with his studies.

Things do start to get dicey when heroes actively try to interact with him, mostly the Flash (because Central City), Superman, and the Green Lantern. Most interactions end up with Phantom not wanting to fight and fleeing or when cornered to fight, he's messy and inexperienced compared to the other heroes. He doesn't stay around and rarely even talks. It's concerning more so because the heroes aren't sure with who they're dealing with and after a few interactions, they aren't sure Phantom is on their side. Just too many questions around him.

This leads to heroes actively trying to capture and bring in Phantom. The more failed attempts that happen, the more flightly Phantom acts when they end up interrupting him capturing his rouges. They do eventually capture Phantom (thank you Superman) and that's kinda where I end on information on this AU. It's just me having fun with interactions and also designing costumes :)

ALSO DANNY IS ROMA/DIDICOY I NEED TO MENTION THAT!!! (Dick Grayson 🤝 Danny Fenton being didicoy)

[matchingbatbites]

Wiggly 🧠🪱 Wednesday Thursday!

I was tagged by the ever so kind @runninriot, thank you!! I haven't been tagged in one of these yet

This is something that's been spinning in my brain for a lil bit, and I had to throw it under a readmore because at some point it shifted from thought to ficlet, so.

TW: Stalking, romanticization of stalking

Steve has always been unlucky in love. He's dated around a good bit but hasn't found anyone willing to settle down and start a life with. It's disappointing and disheartening, and he's ready to give up on dating for a while when he meets Eddie.

The guy is a new member at Steve's gym; he asks for some help on his first day there and tells Steve that he's trying to bulk up a little. Steve helps him out, because he's nice like that, and he and Eddie get to talking.

Eddie is super nice, and a huge nerd, but he's always willing to explain the stuff he talks about because Steve is so patient with Eddie during their workouts - because that becomes a thing, having a regular workout buddy.

After a few weeks Eddie asks him out, and though it catches Steve off guard, he agrees. He's pleasantly surprised when it's great, actually, and when Eddie asks him to be his boyfriend after a couple of weeks, he happily accepts.

Eddie is the perfect boyfriend, and he may be the best partner Steve has ever had. He's attentive, he's always bringing lunch and treats to Steve at work, and he never seems to hold back his affection for any reason. It's refreshing, and Steve finds himself falling fast for the man.

So it's surprising when, a few months into their relationship, a woman approaches him at work, claiming to be one of Eddie's friends. He does recognize her name, but when she tells him what she found, he isn't sure what to think.

Chrissy explains that Eddie's been stalking him for months, long before they actually met; tells him about the folders of photos and screenshots and videos she found hidden away on Eddie's phone and computer. Says that Eddie is like a brother to her, but she's worried about his behavior and concerned for Steve's safety.

Steve listens, of course, to everything Chrissy says. He thanks her once she's done, and spends the next day thinking about it all, how he feels about the fact that the man he's been dating is an absolute creep.

Even so, Eddie's only ever been kind to Steve, hasn't given him any reason to not trust him. Fuck, he's been the best partner Steve's ever had, and the thought of losing him is more upsetting than what Chrissy told him.

It should be worrying that the whole situation doesn't scare him the way it probably should.

When he goes over to Eddie's place the next night, he brings it up. Eddie goes pale when Steve tells him about Chrissy's visit, about what she relayed to him. He's trembling by the time Steve recounts it all.

"I'm sorry. It's- You're so beautiful, and I wasn't planning on ever talking to you, I didn't think you'd ever go for someone like me. I was gonna keep my distance, I swear, but even when you were dating someone, you seemed so lonely. I couldn't just stand by, not when I could maybe do something about it. I just wanted to give you a friend- another friend, someone other than Robin you could rely on. I should have known I wouldn't be able to keep my feelings in check."

That falls in line with the man Steve has come to know, Eddie's heart on his sleeve and his care for others at the forefront of his mind. The fact that he was stalking Steve for months seems like an afterthought in the face of knowing that he was more worried about Steve being lonely than he was about staying in the shadows.

"Do you love me?"

"What?"

"Do you love me?" Steve asks again, insistent as he leans in, shrinking the space between them. "Or is this just a temporary obsession? Now that you have me, are you going to lose interest and leave?"

"No!" Eddie's hands snap out like he wants to grab hold of Steve, but stops himself at the last second. "No, I don't- I'm so obsessed with you, sweetheart. I've never felt like this before, and if you want me to fuck off out of your life then I will, but- if you let me, I'll spend the rest of my life being devoted to you."

There's a pause of silence before Steve gives a sharp nod.

"Okay."

"Okay?"

"Eddie, all I've wanted in life is a partner who loves me. I know I should probably be running for the hills, fuck, I should probably be calling the police."

The color that had returned to Eddie's face drains again, and Steve reaches out to take his hand. "I want you to be obsessed with me, Eds. The whole stalking thing doesn't bother me because it's me. I want someone who's crazy about me enough to stay."

"I don't think you were banking on literally crazy, though."

"Mm, not really. But I think it works for us. Now come on," he says and stands, tugging Eddie up with a grin. "I want you to show me just how obsessed you are with me."

[muirmarie]

spock with memory loss but not emotional memory loss. he can't remember anything since he left vulcan, but he looks at jim's and leonard's faces and he's like. hmm. i appear to be in love with both of these men. fascinating.

except. y'know. they are absolutely NOT together.

[hi hey have some absolute crack underneath the readmore]

mccoy being a ridiculous mother hen in sickbay and kirk running down from the bridge every hour on the hour all "UPDATE, BONES????" is not. is not helping spock's assumptions.

mccoy GRUDGINGLY allowing spock out of sickbay because lord knows there's some big thing happening and they need the beds, and spock doesn't need immediate medical attention, he just needs, y'know, a cure for the weird memory loss disease he's picked up. you heard me, this isn't amnesia, this is a weird space memory loss disease that mccoy is going to CURE, thank you very much.

he only allows spock out of sickbay if kirk keeps an eye on him. spock's like =/ when will you be joining us, doctor? and mccoy, not nearly as suspicious as he should be because he's so delighted that there's for ONCE a version of spock who actually appears to not be running away from medical, is like !!!!! once i'm sure everyone in sickbay is stable i'll come down to check on you!!!! i'll check on jim too!!! i'll run my scanner over everyone who will allow me to make sure they're okay!!!!! (jim: >=| i did not consent to this. bones: shut up idc i'm already scanning you.)

kirk takes spock back to kirk's quarters figuring they'll bunk together so he can keep an eye on him/make sure the space forgetfulness disease doesn't make him forget anything else.

spock's like. hmm. is this where we live? why don't we keep it warmer for me =/

kirk, oblivious doll that he is, is like yeah, all the quarters are like this, this is indeed where we live! isn't the enterprise the most beautiful ship there is!! also i am so sorry let's crank this place up to a sauna asap

meanwhile spock is sleepy what with the space forgetty sickness but he's like. determined to wait until their bf joins them so they can sleep in a cuddle pile. it seems polite. he's pretty sure he'd be a polite bf. amanda would definitely want him to be a polite bf. plus he feels certain that he needs to make sure the doctor gets some sleep after working non-stop in sickbay. like. that feels like that should somehow be his and jim's responsibility. that feels right.

bones shows up two hours later with his tricorder and even darker circles under his eyes than normal, and is like all right, time to check on my favorite patient <3 (he's still not used to spock not snarking back at him, and is more than a little =/ when spock just sparkles a bit instead of slamming him with an insult, tbh)

spock and jim get a clean bill of health (beyond, y'know, the space-nesia), and mccoy's like, all rightie, i'll be back in the morning to check on you!!! tell me immediately if anything changes!! i should go back to sickbay and check on things

spock: =( what.

mccoy: i need to keep an eye on everything in sickbay

kirk: no he's right you need to get some rest, bones. the on-duty staff will keep an eye on everything, but you've been going non-stop between spock and this new thing

mccoy: i'll grab a nap in my office don't worry

spock: =(((((((

mccoy: ...spock why are you holding onto my wrist. spock why are you - spock why are you dragging me over to the bed. spock - jim why are you laughing

kirk: i mean it is an effective solution

spock: i have the space forgetties and i can't even sleep with my boyfriends????? illogical.

mccoy: ......

kirk: hmm.

mccoy: ????? hmm???? HMMM???? IS THAT ALL YOU GOT????

kirk: i mean, it does sound illogical when he puts it like that

mccoy: ????? i don't know what the two of you have going on on the downlow, but i'm not dating spock. spock, i'm not dating you.

spock: no, no i definitely love you both, so it would be extremely illogical for us not to be dating, and i am, above all else, logical, so ipso facto we must be dating. it's far more likely you just don't want to say we're dating because you'd feel like it would be a shock to my blank slate brain. occam's razor.

mccoy: we're - we're definitely not dating

spock: hmmm jim i am worried that leonard may also have the space forgetty disease.

kirk: bones, just sleep here tonight, it's not a big deal

mccoy, slightly strangled, because he is extremely in love with these two men and this is a bizarre situation even for them: JIM, I -

spock, aggressively laying in the center of the bed and then trapping mccoy next to him by sheer strength and mccoy's surprise, and unfortunately, having pegged mccoy within 5 minutes of meeting him again, saying: what if the space forgetty disease makes me worse during the night and my doctor bf isn't even here to help me =/

kirk: [unhelpfully giggling]

mccoy: gdi why would you say that now you know i can't leave - this isn't you winning this is me GRACEFULLY changing my mind and we are NOT dating and if you use this forced snuggling against me when i ONCE MORE SAVE THE DAY and figure out a CURE to FIX your STUPID VULCAN MIND then i will -

kirk: [leaning over and kissing bones' forehead to shut him up and then walking around the other side of the bed and getting in next to spock] you forgot the key word, there, bones

mccoy, visibly restraining himself from frothing with rage: what.

kirk: yet, bones. we're not dating yet.

[touchlikethesun]

okay okay okay, but we need to talk about the name etymologies of the four central characters of haikyuu!! because it is literally impossible to talk about it too much. first let's break down all the kanji in their family names!

(sidenote: all of the translations were pulled from wikitionary, so if any of the meanings are actually egregiously incorrect, pls lmk!!)

影　kage - shadow 山　yama - mountain 口　guchi - mouth 月　tsuki - moon 島 shima - island 日　hi - sun 向　nata - direction

adding a readmore because this got so much longer than i intended it to be

so some of these are talked more about in the fandom than others. i think it's practically common knowledge (if it isn't, well now you know) that the first kanji of hinata's name (日) means "sun" and the first kanji of tsukki's name (月) means "moon," and that this was done on purpose to highlight their roles in the story as foils and as a sun and moon analogy. tsukki and hinata are quite literally polar opposites in their approach to volleyball (they are, one might say, like night and day). tsukishima with his physical advantage yet reluctance to try too hard compared with hinata's overwhelming physical disadvantage and his willingness to go above and beyond, to the point that he can't even fathom how not to give 110% at all times. (there's so much more to say about this symbolism but i'll leave it there, gotta stay focused rip).

the first kanji in kageyama's name (影) meaning "shadow" i feel like most people are aware of as well, this symbolises his general mood (sorta a comparison with tsukishima too imo, darkness and the moon etc., but that's quite subtle), and again this furthers his parallel with hinata, juxtaposing light and darkness, but the kanji for yama (山) which we find in both kageyama and yamaguchi's name, means mountain, which represents both reliability and strength. this works for both kageyama and yamaguchi in different ways. from day one at karasuno, all of the team members can count on kageyama to perform, be it setting, serving, receiving, he is all around the uncontested best player on the team, and serves as the base for nearly all of their strategies. yamaguchi doesn't have the same dependability in terms of athletic performance (at the start of the series), but in a lot of ways he is a grounding force in among the first years, and in his relationship with tsukki he is very much a needed support, tsukishima depends on yamaguchi for... god for so much actually.

and then there's the second kanji in tsukishima's name (島)... meaning "island," it is very clearly meant to represent the isolation tsukki both feels and imposes on himself at the start of the series. i also think it's of note that an island is opposed to a mountain - both are large(-ish) landmasses but the mountain is connected to the rest of the land while an island is all alone...

the individual kanji all have a lot of symbolism going on but when you put some of them together, i think you get a new significance...

日向　hinata - the direction sun in shining 影山　kageyama - the dark side of the mountain 山口　yamaguchi - the mountain’s opening (or mouth maybe cave?) 月島　tsukishima - moon island

to get them out of the way, the compound meanings of tsukishima and yamaguchi don't seem very narratively significant, but i am more than open to analyses you might have that i didn't think of! :)

however hinata and kageyama seem poetic to me in a way that i don't think is accidental. i did take some liberties with the phrasing (kageyama could also be written as "the mountain's shadow"), but it doesn't change the overwhelming symbolism. the dark side of the mountain is obviously juxtaposed with the light side, but how do you create a shadow? well the sun has to shine on something... the direction of hinata's sun shining on the kageyama's mountain making the shadow... i admit i might be reaching with this one. but i like it.

initially, i had only planned to look into their family names, but after finding so much symbolism, i though why not look into their given names and boy oh boy am i glad that i did~

飛　tobi - flight, fast, high 雄　o - something large powerful and masculine (yang) 翔　sho - soar 陽　yo - alt. the sun, positive, (yang!!!!) 蛍　kei - derived from firefly 忠　tadashi - loyal, devoted, faithful

where do i even begin i legit have tears in my eyes okay, first things first, kei has always been my favourite name in all of haikyuu, i just like how it sounds, i think it's so pretty, and in looking up the meaning of the kanji i've grown to love it even more. as a masculine name, 蛍 is pretty rare, it's more commonly used for female names and the most common reading isn't kei it's hotaru. i like that tsukishima has a relatively unique first name, but what really gets me is the etymology. the kanji 蛍 is the same kanji for firefly, and when the kei pronunciation is used, it means fluorescent. i absolutely love this for tsukishima, because we are being given two different messages with his family name and his given name. on the one hand, his family name would have us believe that tsukki is like the moon, only able to be seen at night and only capable of reflecting the lights of others, but his given name tells us that, while it might be a soft glow, tsukki does have a light of his own, he is in fact able to shine by himself.

compared to 蛍, 忠 is a much more common given name, meaning loyal or devoted. i think sometimes people misunderstand the dynamics between tsukishima and yamaguchi, so please don't take this as me saying something i'm not, but tadashi really is loyal to kei in a very special way, and this is clearly something that furudate wanted to highlight, as this is not the only time he's made reference or used symbolism for tadashi's loyalty to kei. i do think that this devotion extends past tsukki too, and tadashi's loyalty is another part of what makes him such an important part of karasuno (and eventual team captain).

now. for the big ones. i really hope people are still reading because i saved the best for last just because i know i'll collapse into a puddle of tears once i finish typing this section out

if you look at tobio and shouyou's names individually, they do fit them very well; 飛 (tobi) being the kanji for flight ties kags to the sport of volleyball, and the alt meaning of height i think references how high he is going to aim for and eventually reach, and 雄 (o) symbolising something powerful and masculine i think does fit kags' vibe. likewise, 翔 (sho) forshadows hinata's jumping abilities and his bird-like nature, and 陽 (yo), a kanji that has sooo many potential meanings, among which are sun and positivity, further underscores hinata's sun symbolism and his optimistic outlook. astute readers might have already noticed, the first kanji of tobio's name (飛) and the first kanji of shouyou's name (翔) have very similar meanings, one might even go as far to say that they are synonyms. both kags and hinata learn to fly at karasuno together, and they both aspire to the same upwards trajectory, literally in the game for hinata, and figuratively in their careers as pro volleyball players, and this similarity is underscored by the similarity in the meanings of the first kanji of their given name. but the kicker, the last kanji of their given names, 雄 (o) and 陽 (yo) not only sound similar, but they both are kanji that can be used to write yang as is yang, the opposite of yin! shouyou and tobio's names are literally synonyms of one another!! for all the differences apparent in their family names, their given names are literally the same name just a different font and i absolutely love it so much, because we spend so much time talking about how different hinata and kageyama are but part of the reason that they click and clash the way that they do is that they are so similar to one another in ways that they aren't like anyone else, it's what makes their rivalry and their partnership as strong as they are and it's so so so important to remember that these boys are always on the same wavelength!! clearly we're meant to think like this, since furudate chose these as their names...

one last little note, it might be hard to tell if (like me) you aren't used to reading caligraphy, but the same kanji in tobio's name is the kanji on karasuno's banner: 飛

so just in case there was any doubt as to where tobio belongs. his name is literally on karasuno's banner i can't i can't i can't

[pepperf]

Genuinely can't decide if the writers intended the Five and Lila relationship to be toxic, or if that's just their idea of romance - just like Rochester, Heathcliff, Darcy, and that dude from Twilight, right???

Okay, let's have a readmore. Note tags, ppl, and curate your experience.

Lila has a relatively sensible approach to relationships, which is consistent, despite her somewhat Machiavellian approach to getting what she wants out of them - she put Diego in his place about having realistic expectations back in s3. She's pretty clear about who she is and where her lines are drawn, and is "weirdly self-actualised", according to Klaus. And Five - romantically inexperienced, thinks everyone should do what he says at all times - tries to impose his notion of How This Should Go onto her, from nearly the start of their brief romance, but leaning hard into it once it starts going sour - which also checks out: he was alone for 45 years and his previous relationship was all in his head, giving him full control, so that's what he's used to. But I couldn't tell if they genuinely intended to show it as him being incredibly selfish in prioritising his feelings over her wishes, or if they honestly thought it was romantic. I mean, the barbed wire-style bracelet is a little on the nose, and there's some symbolism that I'll get into in a sec. Truthfully, I'm not inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt - I think SB at least thought it was hot, judging by what he's said about identifying with Five, and about how he finally gets to have a romance. This seems to have been his pet project for the season, blergh.

It's that tedious old misogynist chestnut, that all women secretly want A Man to take control. It's frustrating, because they already established that Lila likes to be in charge, she wants to be free to make her own choices, she'd already had twenty-plus years of being told what to think and do. And yet she has to remind Five, who really ought to know her better by now, "You do not get to decide what I do with my life!" It's also very disconnected from reality. It's not actually fun or sexy to be gaslighted, to be lied to by some insecure asshole who thinks they know better about what's good for you, that they have a right to stick their nose into your personal relationships or keep you away from your kids. Not cool, Five, not cool. He's lucky she didn't kick him in the nuts on the way out. But another reason I think they didn't do this consciously is that Five doesn't seem to realise his assholery - there's no hint that he's regretting anything other than being dumped.

Lila was trapped for seven years in an intense, claustrophobic situation with Five - and if they'd continued to exist, she could have worked through the feelings that come out of that. Like Ritu said, of course there's going to be love there: they've spent seven years together, on the run. If nothing else, it would be a matter of survival - either you find a way to get along, or you kill each other. And they went in with a fair amount in common already (although being adopted by the Handler at age four is not at all the same as being recruited by her at age fifty-something). So I'm annoyed that Lila's whole arc this season is one of frustration about having to be the grown up in her relationship, taking a break to reassess, going off to do something a bit crazy and fun - and promptly getting stranded with someone considerably less emotionally competent.

Okay, I'm being somewhat harsh - Lila unexpectedly getting the timeout she wanted could've been a decent storyline, she could have some time to reflect, live the child-free life without consequences, and have some adventures (she actively enjoys danger!). And she and Five got to bond, that had lots of interesting potential, especially with their complicated history. But it tipped over from being a potential opportunity into an immensely over the top punishment for her impulsivity, and took them so far from where they'd started that there's a total emotional disconnect with the main story. Which is a fucking weird choice for one episode in such a short season, ngl.

And then, ugh, she's right back to dealing with the apocalypse, visibly thrown by a Diego who has unexpectedly thought about what she said and is trying to be a better husband, and dealing with a Five who has decided to get territorial. It's deeply uncomfortable, Five is gearing up to start trouble, so wrapped up in his own hurt feelings that he's functionally useless for the actual problem in front of them - leaving Lila to deal with the mess he creates, and then leverage said feelings to get him to put on his big boy pants and help. She still reaches out to him in the end, I think she knows him well enough by this point to understand what makes him tick...and she's having to be the sensible one up to the end of her existence. Can't she have someone who's willing to meet her halfway? The reflecting that Diego did, him making a start on making amends (given that it was only a few hours for him, that's about as much as they could squeeze in) was basically just wasted. They start to reconnect at the end, and mutually apologise for the damage they've done - but that's all they get, and it's a travesty.

Personally I think the whole storyline should have been cut, but if - if - they really felt it added something, they could have given it some time in the real world, see how this shaky new romance holds up against a serious relationship that's been massively fractured. In a different show, that might have been a fine story. But they don't do that. Whatever she might have wanted, Lila doesn't get time to even think about her choices. She gets to stop existing. (Or they could just have not gone there in the first place, god I hate love triangle plotlines, they do no favours for anyone involved!)

Given a continued existence in which to do so, I'm sure Five would have moved on pretty quickly. It's his first romance with a real person, he feels it intensely - but once the dust settled, he'd see that they were in very different emotional places (she wanted to get back to her family, the break from reality is way overdue to end - and he wanted to stay in their little bubble and leave all that behind). The actual romance part was actually pretty brief, and lacking in any deep communication - as Lila says, it wasn't real. They're playing house in an attempt to feel normal - in a greenhouse (a fragile structure, not a real home), eating strawberries (a treat more than real sustenance), like children...hey, maybe I'm wrong and the writers DID intend to do that, bc that's some choice visual metaphors. And they're playing roles: all their normal antagonism - what made them so fun and sparky in previous seasons, and even during the earlier part of their adventure! - disappears. Lila is a chameleon, taking on a character is her happy place - and this was how Five kept himself going, last time he was in this situation, so he's slipping back into that method of survival (although he's not as good as she is at separating reality from fiction). So while all that is totally understandable, it's insubstantial. If Five had the space to do some self-reflection, or if one of his more rational siblings (Luther maybe, or...um...or a friend, if he can make one...or maybe that dude in the Losers Department at the CIA...) sat down with him and explained that you need to treat a partner as an equal, maybe he could do better next time - or double down and keep being an asshole, that's also a strong possibility.

idk - I still don't honestly think the show intended it that way, unfortunately. I think they shoehorned the characters into the scenes they wanted, regardless of sense or even plot requirement. There are a LOT of badly-explained or badly-thought out moments in this season, and this whole mess just adds to the incoherency. Or maybe it's just a consequence of TV - you get multiple creative people involved, and the reasoning gets muddied, especially over time. Maybe it was SB's intention from the start, but he didn't inform the actors until the final season, so they've been playing it straight.

This show has an...interesting tendency to do something that you think is totally unacceptable and just gloss over it at the time, and then address it next season (like Luther apologising to Viktor), as if the writers all brought it up in their respective therapy sessions during the break, and worked through the issues - so maybe if they'd had another season, they would have gone into all that. Maybe. But we're clearly not going to get that, and they're all gone from existence so I can't headcanon that in this universe, they eventually sort it out. So I'm putting it down to one thing:

Break out the dodgy facial hair (I see you're ahead of me, Five) and let's get kicking babies!

[corpupine]

I've been doing a lot of thinking...and I feel like I need to scream this out somehow even though I'm sure it's been talked about before (and I'm putting it under a readmore because it gets long).

No matter what, in any playthrough you do and any timeline you create.

UNDERTALE is a game about guilt.

You have Toriel, so guiltridden she couldn't protect her own children that she devotes herself to never letting another child leave again. And then they do!! over and over again, that guilt compounds until it's the center of her life and every choice she makes!!

And obviously Asgore, so guiltridden that he couldn't protect his own children from humans that he spends the rest of his days trying to get out and get revenge on them--as if that will stop the voices in his head saying, if you had been out there with them you could have stopped it, you could have stopped those humans from killing your children, and maybe he could have!! Or maybe not!! He'll never know and it eats him from the inside out!

Alphys, oh my sweet summer child this fandom does not deserve you!! Alphys, so guiltridden from her own perceived failures as a scientist that she began to try anything, anything to make the King happy, and it seemed to be working at first, and then it was so everlastingly worse, how can you cause something worse than death?? without even trying??

And it shows up in little ways, silly ways, too! Ways you wouldn't even think about as guilt! Undyne! She feels guilty that she won't let Papyrus join the Royal Guard so she gives him cooking lessons instead! Papyrus feels guilty that he's not in love with you after one date so he'll "keep being your cool friend and act like this never happened!"

SANS MY BOI don't even get me started. His guilt isn't as physically obvious but he made a promise to toriel, he promised her he would keep the human safe, and in timelines where you save everyone he follows you pretty much all throughout the Underground (even if he doesn't do anything to help smh) because he'd feel guilty not doing it, and in timelines where you kill everyone he feels guilty for not stopping you, AND in those SAME timelines he feels guilty for stopping you because it means he's breaking his promise to Toriel to keep you safe I!!! This boy can fit so much cosmic guilt in him!!!!

Asriel! FLOWEY!! Do you ever wonder if he feels guilty about being the one to wake up again? The one to survive, when Chara had to die twice?? He sits at their grave and he will do anything, anything to drown out those thoughts so he befriends and kills and torments and it's all the same and it's all useless!!

And their guilt compounds each others'! Toriel makes Sans make that promise because of her own guilt, which increases his! Asgore's guilt is what pushes Alphys so far past the limits of ethical science, because he increases hers!

And all of this, all of this, ALL OF THIS pales in comparison to you!!!

You!! The player! You return to the Underground after maybe accidentally killing Toriel or a few others because you didn't know, you never wanted to hurt them!! You listen to Flowey and you come back and you save them all!

You! The player!!! You cry at the ending and you'd feel guilty, so guilty about letting them all go, wouldn't you? So you ignore Flowey's pleas to let it alone, and you come back again, you say hello to your dear friends but this time it isn't the same, this time you kill them all because you want to see everything this game has to offer, might as well get your money's worth, the fights are cool, right?? And then you get hit with the most unsatisfying atomic bomb of an ending and the only thing left is your own reflection staring back at you from the black screen of your computer as the horror dawns, what have you done???

YOU!!! The player! You go back again even though there is no Flowey left to tell you to, and you save them all again because I'm sorry, I'm so so sorry, nobody deserves what I did to all of you, and it's all good, nobody remembers, and then you get to the end. The game knows what you did!!! It never forgot, and it'll make certain you never forget either!! Guilt!! Guilt, guilt!!! It's baked into the code of this game!!

Anyways tl;dr, maybe it actually did make sense to give this game to the pope

[kehideni]

The time has come... the aroacest person ever will rant about how in LMK Wukong's feelings regarding Macaque were hinted at.

And by hinted at i mean that ultimatelly it can still be platonic but yeah i get why people ship it. I'm grumbling over here like

so you can think of me as a reluctant shipper. (ugh)

Jesus Christ... how do i even start...

I guess with readmore because i'm going to talk about the whole entire show so far. Which means Spoilers for Season 5 (and 4... but like that's been out for a year now)

Also before i start, i'm not gonna talk about Macaque's pov in this because he is even more obvious than Wukong and people talk about him all the time. I should know i'm one of them.

S1E9 "Macaque"

First and foremost it's not much, but SWK's reaction to seeing Macaque for the first time in who knows how long is legit suspicious, not because it's anything special but specifically because it's such a toned down reaction. Even if SWK doesn't know that Macaque is supposed to be dead, Mac has been suggested to be at least MIA since their mysterious fight. He wasn't goofing around, he wasn't taking it lightly, but also he didn't take Macaque's appearance with the weight you'd think he should.

Let's just do a little mental gymnastics: In your mind replace SWK with MK and Macaque with Mei. Imagine that Mei has Macaque's backstory and MK has SWK's. Two long time best friends, with a serious fallout, Mei goes MIA and then comes back. Do you think MK would react the same way SWK did in the episode? Obviously not.

Now i know Wukong is rather secretive, exspecially in S1-3(for plot reasons) but the thing is, that DBK was also SWK's friend, a very dear one at that. His reaction to DBK is goofy, light spirited, hardly interferes with the MK vs DBK fight. He wasn't really shush-shush about missing DBK's company. (S2E2 Revenge of the Spider Queen)

In contrast to that, when he finds out Macaque is back he doesn't take it lightly, no goofing off, but also doesn't seem to want to fight Macaque? In this episode all he does is make Mac back off from MK. I guess he wouldn't want to, of course, but yeah had Mac been anyone else, Wukong would be actively working on how to get rid of him. Ie.: Lady Bone Demon or even the Major("how about him? Is he part of your destiny?" bit)

And we do know SWK was holding back, as he wooped Macaque's behind when he was possessed by LBD no problem.

S2E1 "Happy New Year"

SWK: "It's called misdirection."

MK: "Seems like a shady lesson."

SWK: "Too soon, buddy."

It's not really saying much- again-, after all it's just a one liner joke. It's just that no comparable joke was made in any other character's expense. Also the annotation in SWK's voice wasn't really silly. A "can't decide if i'm supposed to smile at the pun or feel sorry for SWK" thing.

(Now while we are ignoring Mac's side of things, rewatching Shadowplay while having S5 knowledge, it's kind of haunting what kind of parallels the show is drawing between MK and Macaque of all things but moving ooooooon~)

In most of Season 3, Wukong is back to his monkey-ing around personality. S3E1 "On the run" he behaves the same way he'd with DBK.

The next of note episode is pretty far off in S3E9 "The king, the prince, and the shadow"

The importance of this scene

specifically Wukong's expression, is that funnily enough, he believed completely that Macaque was working for LBD, when in truth he was going behind her back the whole time, working towards his own agenda (ie.: freeing himself from her) and also thought he could fool Macaque.

Macaque on the other hand easily read Wukong's intention, something that Nezha fell for completely, that the rings were fake. (Macaque knows Wukong better than Wukong knows Macaque.)

That means, at this point Wukong was convinced that Macaque is a bad guy (something he will mention right at the beginning of Season 5) and still he did not hurt him. He later on almost did, yes, but did not need much convincing from Tang to leave him be.

"If you hurt that kid, i'll..."

"What? Make things worse for MK?"

*cuts to that scene

Obviously intentional poetic positioning, reflecting Macaque in a position that is suggested to be the "made things worse for him" thing that Mac is referring to. Yadda yadda, had Wukong not killed him the LBD would not have her claws in Macaque right now as she wouldn't have resurrected him. *is still a hella sketchy story with holes and i don't intend to make Wukong out to be the bad guy, i'm working with what the show is er... showing us/telling us* !Which is fine!!! The story is on going!!! They choose to tell it as teeth-pullingly slow as possible for plot convenience! Sit down, we all know the truth will be far more nuanced than it was presented in S3

But to get back to Wukong's pov, if you notice, after he hears that Macaque is not loyal to the LBD he tries to tell him that he has a plan, one- presumably (if Mac would have listened) -Wukong would have involved him in. Possibly even help him get free from LBD.

Next in line would be the parallel drawn between Mei and Macaque

Wukong was impulsive way back then and now, hurting "those that care about you the most" But yeah... Macaque's line is also incriminating "She's completely out of control, if there's a time to go it is now."

MK countering it that- paraphrasing now but -"bruh that's not really a punk rock thing to do." Possible reason for ^ that cut to Wukong's reaction is that Macaque's line opened up some scars. Hearing that he'd abandon you when things go wrong is very much the first wound that SWK and Macaque suffered in their friendship (from Wukong's side, again imma just ignore Macaque's side in this post but so help me if anyone goes on a comment rampage about how Macaque is truely a piece of shit i will just tell you to go watch the whole series again because whole ass plotlines and characterDEVELOPMENTS fly right by you)

Nezha: "She controlled the fire? This is impossible."

^ Wukong getting a front row seat view of what could have been had they not given up on each other with Macaque.

"Mei was right, i need to stop dragging you into my fights."

ehm... you guys hear it too i'm sure, but we will get to that later

(On a slight tangent... actually i do recommend a rewatch of the show because LBD's lines get so much more meaning. Macaque specifically gets added to the destiny speech all the time, which is funny considering he should know all about destiny and he is the most againts the idea of a destiny existing, Macaque refuses his own powers???And i do believe Macaque has his future-knowing powers because he has reaction time to things that didn't even start happening yet such as LBD throwing the girl away, hiding from Azure and co. when he shouldn't have known they are free, etc.)

On another cute little side note, Nezha said Wukong is not a loner, no matter how much he seems to be.

Lookit that happy smile, fighting along side all his fwiends awww, go you funky little monkey man

This ending scene for it's few seconds is packed with things to point out. "I hate that guy so much, always acting like he's so cool." Literally no one ever said that or thought that Wukong. That was your take on Macaque's behavior. When i first saw that scene my thought was that "Yeah if i were Macaque i'd have left too."

Or even this gag bit can suggest Wukong being out of balance once Macaque leaves.

Stress eating...

Season 4 goes a bit more into detail concerning Wukong's issues

"Forever is a long time bud, trust me." Shows two monkeys hanging around, eating fruit, doing whatever they want.

So the scroll gets opened, and in no practicular order characters are shown that Wukong feels guilty about, looks properly sad when they show. The stress lines around his eyes start showing after Macaque is shown

Flashback scene, kinda is a thing in season 4 that Wukong is much more physically affectionate than Macaque

not gonna do more screenshots because i could literally just post the clip but the thing that we can take away from these is that Wukong insisted on including Macaque

"You're really going through with this?"

"Correction, WE are going through with this." i'm choosing to take it as a tie back to Nezha's line of Wukong not liking being alone.

Much of the brotherhood doesn't seem to actually care for Macaque and Macaque seems to not care for the brotherhood either. And Peng isn't even our first clue for this, since DBK and Macaque have been around since Season 1 and they have yet to interact with each other, eventhough they are sworn brothers too. Azure Lion and Yellow Tusk if name drop Macaque once the whole season, and Peng is the most vocal about their dislike/hatered of Macaque. (Also when the scroll wants to traumatise Azure it only uses Peng and Yellow Tusk)

You can headcanon that Macaque joined the brotherhood only because Wukong is there, but also it's not really a stretch to think that it was actually Wukong that wanted Macaque in the brotherhood and Macaque just agreed to join because Wukong insisted. Either and both can be true.

I just posted this screenshot because Wukong's face made me laugh.

Wukong being the only one paying attention to Macaque's thoughts and feelings, even if ultimately he brushes them under the rug. (Which says more about the brotherhood than Wukong actually...because the brotherhood just about ignored Macaque completely. Wukong paid attention but ya know... big plans and big dreams require big actions)

His speech is a nice promise, but the annotation is on "like we always wanted". The whole quote going: "Relax bud, when this is over we'll be back here basking in the Sun, getting fat on fruit for the rest of ... well forever!! Like we always wanted."

Since it's a conversation with only Wukong and Macaque in the shot, we as the audience are clued in that it was specifically the dream of those two, not the whole brotherhood.

Btw rewatching the episode, Azure says Wukong had the habit of keeping people at arm's lenght, like bruh that's a straight on lie.

(lmao that Tang joke with the water :'D not thirsty, Tang?)

Now Azure when talking with MK, showing him select few scenes to make himself look the victim says one thing. That Wukong imprisoned them. Did not kill, imprison.

I said this before, i will say it here too. Why would Wukong, who is closest to Macaque from the brotherhood, imprison everyone else, but specifically kill Macaque? Nah ah, i'm pretty sure that was not how it went down. But that's a to be cleared thing for season 6 hopefully.

As.... hilarious as this picture is, it's kinda proof of Wukong's sentimentality.

Finally i arrive at S4E11 A lifetime of mistakes

Nothing much to say about this scene, it speaks for itself.

"Everything i did was for us!" This sentence alone means Wukong's fear of death extended to Macaque. Macaque said that Wukong feared death more than anything which is true, but whenever Wukong talked about his goals the emphasis was on them together spending forever with whatever they wanted.

Third time reminding you of Nezha's statement, that Wukong is not a loner. Something that Azure flat out lied about, telling MK that Wukong kept them at arm's lenght.

It's 2+2 guys... spending eternity alone is boring as fk, of course you need a buddy. And a buddy just as immortal as you, since we know the heartbreak that comes with an immortal - mortal friendship. To the mortal that friendship is for lifetime, to that immortal it's just a small chapter of their lives. Wukong really DID do everything for Macaque, but well... he went overboard, like MK said. He could have stopped right here, he already had his wish:

They already were sitting in the sun, eating fruit and doing whatever they wanted.

But now look at thoooose stress lines

While the show doesn't even suggest what Wukong's full punishment was -because let's keep it PG it is still a kids show- Wukong also just lost his best friend.

In Season 4 peaches were the symbol of their friendship, something that Wukong -probably just out of sheer anger- rejected from Macaque in this scene, only for Macaque to crush said peach in answer and throw it away. My guys, this was an ugly UGLY divorce. Thing is that had cooler heads prevailed, they probably wouldn't have had this fight here. It's dressed up as a gag line, but Wukong says he really wanted that peach.

In the scroll MK and Macaque follow the memories that Wukong punched himself through, trying to find some good ones AKA memories with MK. Wukong saw this memory too, which was the last memory before MK and Mac found Wukong.

After seeing this memory and deciding to escape it he stopped in the next one. Meaning this memory is the freshest Wukong is thinking about.

"I just wanted to protect the people i care about." *camera angles to Macaque.

MK then quotes Wukong saying that maybe they can't fix everything, but they just have to leave it better than they found it. That's just another way to say "fix" btw... and he looks to Macaque, because that's what he wants to fix most.

Well he has an eternity to do it.

He was legit asking permission from Macaque here, idk what for if you are the Monkey King you don't need permission, right?

Next episode "The Plan man" starts with something i already said:

Wukong is looking for Macaque when he notices he is not in the heroic pose with the rest of them. Showing once again, where Wukong's priority laid. He needs to make sure he still has his buddy by him. Kinda going into Sun Mumkong mode, embarassing Macaque:

Do note, Wukong verbally said he wanted all of them to have the "happily ever after" but before that talk with Azure, Macaque was emphasized.

And the thing is, at first i thought, surely i'm reading far too much into this, but this weird Macaque-prioritising will appear in Season 5 too. We will get to that.

This was Wukong's wish, to not be alone.

Anyways, show uppy "tsundere" way of expressing, that he is happy Mac is there.

Like i said, peaches in season 4 were a metaphor for their friendship. Handing Mac a peach ice cream is kinda his way of saying "friends?" but maybe in a different way. The "try again" button in the game if you will.

Season 5 however hooo boi...

I ran out of pictures/post so i'll have to make a part 2, which will be season 5.

[foone]

So here's the thing about AI art, and why it seems to be connected to a bunch of unethical scumbags despite being an ethically neutral technology on its own. After the readmore, cause long. Tl;dr: capitalism

The problem is competition. More generally, the problem is capitalism.

So the kind of AI art we're seeing these days is based on something called "deep learning", a type of machine learning based on neural networks. How they work exactly isn't important, but one aspect in general is: they have to be trained.

The way it works is that if you want your AI to be able to generate X, you have to be able to train it on a lot of X. The more, the better. It gets better and better at generating something the more it has seen it. Too small a training dataset and it will do a bad job of generating it.

So you need to feed your hungry AI as much as you can. Now, say you've got two AI projects starting up:

Project A wants to do this ethically. They generate their own content to train the AI on, and they seek out datasets that allow them to be used in AI training systems. They avoid misusing any public data that doesn't explicitly give consent for the data to be used for AI training.

Meanwhile, Project B has no interest in the ethics of what they're doing, so long as it makes them money. So they don't shy away from scraping entire websites of user-submitted content and stuffing it into their AI. DeviantArt, Flickr, Tumblr? It's all the same to them. Shove it in!

Now let's fast forward a couple months of these two projects doing this. They both go to demo their project to potential investors and the public art large.

Which one do you think has a better-trained AI? the one with the smaller, ethically-obtained dataset? Or the one with the much larger dataset that they "found" somewhere after it fell off a truck?

It's gonna be the second one, every time. So they get the money, they get the attention, they get to keep growing as more and more data gets stuffed into it.

And this has a follow-on effect: we've just pre-selected AI projects for being run by amoral bastards, remember. So when someone is like "hey can we use this AI to make NFTs?" or "Hey can your AI help us detect illegal immigrants by scanning Facebook selfies?", of course they're gonna say "yeah, if you pay us enough".

So while the technology is not, in itself, immoral or unethical, the situations around how it gets used in capitalism definitely are. That external influence heavily affects how it gets used, and who "wins" in this field. And it won't be the good guys.

An important follow-up: this is focusing on the production side of AI, but obviously even if you had an AI art generator trained on entirely ethically sourced data, it could still be used unethically: it could put artists out of work, by replacing their labor with cheaper machine labor. Again, this is not a problem of the technology itself: it's a problem of capitalism. If artists weren't competing to survive, the existence of cheap AI art would not be a threat.

I just feel it's important to point this out, because I sometimes see people defending the existence of AI Art from a sort of abstract perspective. Yes, if you separate it completely from the society we live in, it's a neutral or even good technology. Unfortunately, we still live in a world ruled by capitalism, and it only makes sense to analyze AI Art from a perspective of having to continue to live in capitalism alongside it.

If you want ideologically pure AI Art, feel free to rise up, lose your chains, overthrow the bourgeoisie, and all that. But it's naive to defend it as just a neutral technology like any other when it's being wielded in capitalism; ie overwhelmingly negatively in impact.

[griefabyss69]

Inside The Fall

Written for @steddiemicrofic!

[ AO3 ]

'FOOL' wc: 1987 | rated: T | cw: Mention of weed

(This is the April Fool's version of the prompt, it includes all of the words needed)

Steve's used to stepping up in life or death situations, but otherwise he's directionless. He isn't expecting Eddie to be so good at helping him figure out the other parts of his future.

(Continues after the readmore)

"Step into my office," Eddie says with a guiding sweep of his arm.

"You mean your bedroom?" Steve asks just to be annoying.

Eddie's smile doesn't dim but his eyes narrow, all sharp and shit.

"Yes, well, sometimes you have to mix business and pleasure when you're waiting around on the sweet cash that's supposed to be coming in any day now," he says, shutting the door behind them.

Eddie's bedroom isn't really like the last one, though Steve had only seen that in the height of insanity, when it'd been newly deserted and then torn through in search of anti-Vecna music.

This one is neater, though still pretty chaotic. Steve can't help but like it, even though he has to wait for Eddie to clear off his desk before he can conduct his business.

"Come, make yourself comfortable," he says, gesturing at his unmade bed.

Steve ignores the thrill in his gut as he carefully sits down at the edge of it. He doesn't make a joke about cum, or about making himself more comfortable, or about Eddie offering up his bed. He's on his best behavior because otherwise he's going to go too far and Eddie's going to think he's still just a stupid jock who has bad jokes, despite all of the shit they went through together; old habits and all of that.

Once Eddie's cleared his desk, he moves to the other end of it, leaning against the wall but resting his ass against the stack of milk crates he uses for shelving. He nods at the chair, his smile all menacing as if Steve was one of his players and he was going to give him a hard battle.

"I'm not gonna hurt you," he says when Steve hesitates, pulling a box out of his pocket.

Steve has to laugh a little bit, and moves over to the chair, settling in with his elbows on the desk. He has to look up to meet Eddie's eyes, and that puts another thrill in him, this one is harder to ignore.

"Don't let me win," Steve says, smirking. He knows that's not how tarot cards work, but Eddie's laugh is worth it, like he gets the joke and doesn't think he’s actually stupid.

"I'd never do that," Eddie gasps, bending to spread the cards out on the desk. They're all face down, so Steve can only admire the cool design on the back, but maybe after Eddie's finished reading into his future or whatever he'll let him look through all of them.

He explains some of what he's doing, and it seems simple enough. He asks Eddie a question, Eddie gets him to shuffle the cards, then there’s some kind of sorting thing, then he pulls a few of them.

"What would you like to ask?"

He's tempted to ask something… easy. Something that doesn't matter, and doesn't show Eddie the inside of his head. But Eddie had offered this in the first place because Steve had admitted that his thoughts have been all fucked up, he's been pretty lost these days.

"What should I do with myself this summer?"

Eddie nods, considering that as he gestures to the cards.

Steve carefully shuffles them around in a big mess, as instructed. It's kind of fun, and he takes his time before sitting back, relaxing.

"Okay, that should be all mixed up," he says, stretching his legs out and crossing them at the ankles. He's determined to try to be comfortable, even with Eddie looming over him, his arms crossed over his chest.

He looks really good from here.

"Good," Eddie says, bends to corral the cards back into order, tapping it into neatness before he sets it down. "Split the deck in half for me."

Steve leans forward, meaning to find the exact center, but he ends up going with his gut and splits it closer to the bottom. For whatever reason, he's more curious about what's buried deeper.

"Thank you."

Eddie chews on his lip as he thinks, eyes going from Steve to the cards and back against a few times before he smiles.

"Draw three cards from here," he says, tapping the shorter stack. "Place them face down in a row."

Steve follows his instructions.

While he doesn't really believe that the cards are magic or whatever, he does believe in Eddie's ability to create an atmosphere. He's not even being dramatic or loud or anything, but he's bringing such an earnest seriousness to it that makes Steve decide to take it seriously too.

"Okay. If this doesn't answer your question at all, we can do another run of it, with more cards," he says, leaning his palms on the table. "Though usually unless a question involves a lot of people or a lot of moving parts, three is perfectly fine to answer it."

Steve starts to feel nervous, so he just nods and watches Eddie’s hands, thinks about how clean Eddie's new rings look, wondering when they'll start to get worn in by life like the last ones.

Eddie turns over the first card.

"The Knight of Swords," he says, his dimples coming out even as he tries to suppress a smile. "Other cards in this suit can be a warning, but this one is generally good."

Steve swallows. He knows he doesn't want bad news, but Eddie told him this all wasn't like, his destiny anyway. It's more of a guidance thing, like he can choose to take it's message or not.

Eddie flips the next one.

"The Seven of Wands."

He doesn't say anything else about it yet, just thinks for a moment before moving on, flipping the last one.

"The Fool."

Steve's eyebrows raise, because that doesn't sound good.

"Okay," Eddie says, leaning back against the wall, playing with one of his shiny rings. "What I'm getting for this is that you're restless, and that instead of all of the freaky monster adventures you've had, you really need a good adventure. Something new, maybe something a little different than you're used to, but ultimately you need to relax and just do what you want."

Steve looks at The Fool, about to walk off a cliff, and feels skeptical.

"Won't I end up like that?" he asks, pointing at it.

"Don't take the pictures so literally," Eddie says, and Steve has to sigh at him. "Your energy is high, like a magnet for good things," he elaborates, pointing at the Knight of Swords.

Next he points at the Seven of Wands.

"You're probably doubting yourself, dealing with a lot of fear and uncertainty, but good things are in store if you just do what you're scared of anyway. You need to remember that you're in charge of your life now."

Steve gets a lump in his throat. He hasn't ever felt in charge of his life.

"And our Fool here, what he says is that you need to pick something and try it out, whether it works or not. Do it thoughtfully, but you don't have to think that hard about it."

"Oh," Steve says. He hadn't expected to feel so… encouraged. Taken care of. "That's nice of him."

Eddie laughs, his voice quieter when he leans back down against the desk.

"It sounds like it'll be a good summer for you," he says.

After Eddie had cleaned up the cards and Steve had successfully kept himself from crying, they went off on the first nice adventure of Steve's summer.

Eddie had put a couple joints in with his smokes, and then they wandered off on a late afternoon walk, right into the shady forest, where it's not too dark yet.

"You know," Eddie begins as they walk side by side even though the path is kinda narrow. "I think you'd make a good Knight."

Steve thinks it's so not fair how much that makes him blush. He has to duck his head and grin at the ground just so he doesn't like, tackle Eddie and kiss him on the mouth and plummet off of the cliff of his own foolish behavior.

"Yeah? Do you think there'd a Knight for a baseball bat with nails in it?" he asks, looking back up to keep up his eyes on the area. Mostly it’s tree branches and nothing tougher than a squirrel.

Eddie laughs, nudges up against him as he moves, and because it's like, June, it's warm enough that he's just in his new Hellfire t-shirt, the sleeves rolled up. That means the skin of their arms brush together and Steve's brain lights right up.

"A nailbat is kind of like a sword," Eddie muses, the warm look in his eye doing irreparable damage to Steve's self control. "I might be more interested in what kind of Fool you are, though."

Steve blushes harder, mourning how it'd started to go back down just a moment ago. There's no way Eddie could've known what he'd been thinking of doing, but he knows and so do the blood vessels in his face.

"Uh, I'm not sure," he lies, shrugging. "I guess we'll find out."

Eddie beams, slides an arm around his shoulders as he says something that gets totally lost – Steve's brain has honed in on Eddie's body and only that, his feet starting to trip over themselves as he takes in the solid way they fit together.

"Easy," Eddie murmurs as he makes sure he doesn't face plant. "Is it too hard to walk this way?"

It's a little awkward, but there's no way Steve's letting him go.

"Nah, just had two left feet for a second," he says, turning his face to smile at Eddie and – Christ – he's right there. He has to go cross eyed to get a good look at him.

His gut pulls hard but he breathes through it. If anything, he knows how to be a gentleman and not just do whatever the hell he wants. Maybe his instinct for self protection is pretty busted by now, but at least he's not about to go around kissing random men just because he wants to.

Eddie laughs, and his eyes must be going cross eyed too, because they dip down to stare at his mouth instead, his long eyelashes showing off their thick, sweet curve.

"Girls would kill to have your eyelashes," he says, pleased when Eddie opens his eyes wide, shocked.

"What?" he laughs, glancing at the path before looking back at Steve. He's glad that one of them is looking out for tree roots, because Steve can't bring himself to care about anything but the feeling of Eddie's breath on his face.

"Your eyelashes, they're really long and nice," he says, less afraid to compliment him than he'd thought. "Most girls wear mascara to get theirs to look like yours."

"Oh." Eddie grins, turning his head to duck it all bashfully, and Jesus, Steve recognizes himself in that. "Thank you."

Steve can see the stones crumble from the cliff under his foot, knocking their way down the side until they disappear. He's about to do something really stupid – foolish – but his composure falls away under the force of every side of Eddie he sees.

"Eddie?" he asks, waiting until their eyes meet. "Will you kiss me?"

Eddie stumbles, barely catches himself from landing flat on his face, pulling Steve half down with him.

"Uh," he says, a nervous laugh chilling the air. "Why?"

Steve swallows hard, planting his ass on the ground so he's not halfway between straddling him or getting up.

"Because even though I'm scared, I should ask about what I want, right?"

"Oh, okay," Eddie’s voice is thin and strangled. "Sure."

It's a yes despite how Eddie looks scared now, so Steve leans in and crushes their mouths together, falling freely among the stones of his trepidation. Eddie kisses him back like they’re standing on solid ground.

[kibbits]

[ID: 35 seconds long looping video of Bamsara's Eclise watching TV on a couch, hugging a sleeping tumblr user unfinishedtexture to themself /End ID.]

(longer description, as well as a bonus version, under readmore)

Hi @unfinishedtexture !! Happy Holidays from your secret santa!!! It looks like you fell asleep watching a late night movie on TV with @bamsara 's Eclipse, but don't worry, he sure doesn't seem to mind!

There's a second version in the works where he gives you a kiss on the head, and most of the animation for it is done but I couldn't quite finish the hand within the deadline --You're still definitely getting that one too though!

[Video description: A looping video of two people on a couch, watching an off-screen TV in a darkened room. One of them is tumblr user Bamsara's design for Eclipse, a fusion of Sun and Moon from Five Nights at Freddy's: Security Breach. The other person is tumblr user unfinishedtexture's sona.

Texture is asleep, sitting on Eclipse's lap and facing away from the TV. They are a dark purple imp wearing a loose lighter purple cloak and dark purple pants. Their devil tail is loosely wrapped around one of Eclipse's feet, they are resting their cheek on Eclipse's chest, their left leg is folded up to their chest, and their right leg and arm are hanging loosely off to the side.

Eclipse is wearing pants that are striped red on yellow on the right side, and is a pale purple blue on the other side with a pale yellow star pattern. He is wearing a loose shirt the same color as the stars, and a nightcap matching the starry pants comes out of the back of his head.

Eclipse has 4 arms. 2 arms have the fingers linked together behind Texture's back, holding them in place. That pair of hands' left thumb occasionally swipes across Texture's side. The second left hand is loosely holding Texture's right hand, with the thumb rubbing circles onto the back of their wrist. The remaining right hand rests on top of Texture's head, between the horns, and is occasionally gently petting their head.

Around the halfway point, Eclipse looks down at Texture with a softer expression, stopping all movements. After a few moments, he looks back up and resumes his animations.

On the left is handwritten "Happy Holidays!" surrounded by sparkles. On the right is "From Kibbits to ufinishedtexture". End description]

[Video description: The same video, but without the text. End description]

[foundfamilyhq]

Welcome + Rules

Welcome to the Tumblr Found Family HQ! Here, we present your blorbos to the masses to have them vote upon whether they should be added to the collective tumblr found family or not. Submit your blorbos here:

See which blorbos have already joined the found family HERE! To avoid seeing the results posts, mute "ff results" The rules are: 1. Play nice; be respectful to others 2. Blorbos can be of any age, since a found family can be just that. So feel free to submit a one-day old infant or a ten thousand year old tree, if those are your blorbos 3. No Harry Potter (or other titles associated to this series or the author) 4. No real people (might make an exception if it's funny) 5. "No real people" includes no individual tumblr users, youtubers or streamers (this might seem obvious, but there were still a lot of them submitted) 6. No OCs. All your OCs are great and I'd feel sad if they got rejected from the found family F.A.Q. under readmore:

Q. When are submissions opening? (Pinning this one to the top, because it's by far the question we get the most) Short answer... I don't know, sorry! Long answer... Because of the way the blog is set up, it's very hard for me to figure that out. Basically, each fandom gets one poll a week, but as there are often multiple characters from some fandoms in the submissions form, it's a pain to figure out exactly how many characters are left to add new polls for when you factor out the repeat fandoms (and also, if a repeat fandom's poll would end before submissions are opened, then a new character from that fandom will be polled before submissions are opened, meaning I'd need to work that out as well). There are often about 200 characters in the submissions form, so you can understand this is too much for me to figure out manually, especially since I'm a full-time shift worker, so my schedule doesn't give me a lot of free time. I don't even like to give a ball park estimate to this question, because with being a shift worker, if I have to do a lot of extra work at short notice and can't meet when I said I'd open submissions, I feel like I'e let you all down and that feeling sucks However, when I do open submissions I try to vary it so that one round will be open at roughly 7-10am GMT and the next round will be open at roughly 7-10pm GMT, to try to catch as many people possible. I know that's not ideal for everyone and people have expressed disapointment about this in the past, but those are all the hours I'm able to give :(

Q. How does this work? A. A post featuring a blorbo shall be made, stating who they are and their source material. A poll will be attached set to one week, asking if the blorbo should join the tumblr found family. At the end of the week, based on the result, I will announce if the blorbo has joined or not Q. What is a found family? A. A found family is a family you find for yourself. It is a term often used in fandom to describe a group of characters who aren't related by blood (although a few members might be) but have come to think of each other as a family through circumstance. Alternatively, they might not be officially recognised as a found family in canon, but wider fanon regards them as such Q. Is this a tournament bracket? A. Nope, blorbos aren't competing against each other, they're only here to be judged by you. We are here enternally submitting blorbos (at least until I run out of steam or pass away lol) Q. I'm not sure if my blorbo counts because of ___ reason? A. If it's not any of the reasons mentioned in the rules, then feel free to send an ask. Or just submit them anyway and I'll decide Q. I submitted a blorbo and they haven't been posted. Did you get them? A. Again, feel free to send an ask. I don't have a regular schedule for posting these. Somedays there'll be batches of polls, others there'll be one or none Q. My blorbos are a duo/trio/etc., who cannot be separated. Can I submit them as a group? A. While I would prefer to stick to individual characters, if you have some who absolutely cannot be separated, I might make exceptions. Most likely, I'll make a poll asking if they should be judged as a group or individually, since there's a lot of media I won't be familiar with Q. My blorbo didn't get voted into the found family! Fuck you! A. Friend, as a fan of Theseus from Hades Game, I understand what it's like to have your fave hated by fandom. Anything decided on this blog can never affect your personal headcanons, so go in peace with your middle finger held high Q. What are your icon and header? A. The icon is of the Pokemon Bouffalant and Natu, based on a series of trading card art where Bouffalant finds two Natu and rescues them - the true spirit of found family. The header is a group of characters called the Black Ravens from the Professor Layton series - a group of ragtag working-class kids who make a black market together Q. I wrote some propaganda on the submission form, can you post it or send it back to me? A. Submissions are deleted as the polls are posted, so I can keep track of how many I have left to post, which means I can't do this. Please save your propaganda for the post and not the submissions form Q. Did you know you used fan art on ___ poll? A. Unless I'd mentioned getting permission from the artist, then please assume that I did not know and let me know. I hate art theft and wouldn't want to partake in that, but I'm just not familiar with a good 80% of the series submitted, so sometimes it might slip through the cracks Q. Can I submit a character who isn't my blorbo? A. Also fine! I enjoy it when people submit controversial characters to see how they'll do Q. What happens if there's a tie? A. The blorbo in question becomes an occassional family member who appears with our found family for some important cutscenes, but isn't officially considered part of the found family

Q. No, but seriously, my blorbo got ditched. Do they get another chance? A. At the beginning of each year we host a Redemption Event, where any past blorbos who were submitted get another chance. Because of the high volume of ditched characters, to be included in the event, your character will need to be submitted with propaganda via a form that will be released about a month before the event Q. I think the image used is a big reason why my blorbo got ditched. Why did you use that image? A. If an image hasn't been submitted, I will just grab one from an image search result in most cases. You know your blorbos best, so if you have a specific (non-fan art) image that you think shows them in their best light, please do submit it when you submit them Q. Did you mean the book version or movie version of that character? A. Whichever version of the blorbo that gets submitted, that'll be the one I use. If no specific version is mentioned, I'll just post that blorbo in general and use whatever image is most common when I look them up, unless an image has been submitted or a book cover has been requested to be used Q. My blorbo is a character played by a youtuber and/or streamer, not the youtuber or streamer themselves, is that okay? A. If it's a character, then it's fine. But please mention this on the submission. Because if I look them up and the result looks to be just some real person, that won't be included. I am largely unfamiliar with these kind of fandoms and will always err on the side of caution about their inclusion Q. What counts as a "sweep"? A. Any character who gets 90% or higher in either joining or not joining is counted as a sweep. This doesn't give them anything extra, it's just for bragging rights Q. What counts as a "close call"? A. Any character who's poll results are within the 49%-51% range for join/don't join is counted as a close call Q. How many characters can I submit at a time? A. There's no hard rule, since the form doesn't track emails, but please be considerate to others and try not to submit more than 10 characters per submission period. See next question for more details Q. How many characters from the same series can I submit at a time? A. Four (4) characters per series per submission period. I'll be lenient for if they've been submitted by multiple people, but from my experience running this blog, it's only the current Hot New Thing that'll be submitted by multiple people and anything else is usually one person submitting one character after another. I used to allow more, but people took this for granted and submitted 50+ from the same series, so now 4 is the cap Q. You missed a tag from that poll! Can it be added? A. Sure! Tags are either provided by the submitter or where left blank, I'll use my best guess. At minimum, you'll get the name of the character and series as they've been submitted. If you know more, let me know and I'll add them to the post during the voting period. Please note: The polls themselves cannot be edited after being posted, only the tags Q. Can fictional characters based on real people be submitted? A. Fictional characters that are inspired by real people (e.g. Steven Universe being inspired by Rebecca Sugar's brother) are generally fine. But characters that are basically just some real celebrity making a cameo somewhere (e.g. Simon Cowell appearing on the Simpsons), are a no. Q. I don't understand what this blog is A. Don't worry about it, friend. Just keep driving and whatever you do, don't wind down the window. We'll be safe soon :) Q. Didn't this blog used to be called the Found Family Adoption Agency? A. It did, but I were made aware that the language used on the blog could be seen as potentially harmful to real life adoptees, so I changed the name of the blog and made some edits to try to avoid using such language. Posts made prior to 5th May 2024 will still contain references to adopt/ditching, so tread with caution on older posts

[t00thpasteface]

I never considered hawkahey before but I love it! Father is so calm and sweet except when worked up, whereas Hawkeye is always so acerbic and snarky except with the ones that he loves. The very definition of dog and cat boyfriends. :3 Thank you for opening my eyes!!

YAY!!!! welcome to the club!!!

the big thing i like about hawkahy, besides the ten metric tons of narrative symbolism they can carry together, is the way i think they resist a lot of your typical shippy/romcom templates. i've spent a LOT of time in fandom spaces over the years and i've gotten mostly pretty tired of the same formulas, especially when half the time it requires chopping off canon aspects of either/both characters just to make them fit. at least, i try to be conscious of a few different red/blue, this/that dichotomies when i write/draw them, and play around with the sorts of expectations one might have for them both as individuals and as a pair.

i actually have A Lot Of Thoughts about this so i'm gonna put my yapping under a readmore:

i think the show itself does a lot to twist expectations, by virtue of having begun as a satirical comedy (which is still what i think it does best), a genre which relies very heavily on ironic inversions of common character/social archetypes that the audience would be coming in with preestablished tastes/expectations for. hawkeye seems like a self-centered hedonist, but he's also highly introspective and articulate, so he's often quite capable of waxing poetic about why and how he does what he does, instead of just acting on raw instinct with no higher thought. meanwhile, mulcahy's entire thesis as a character is just lampshading or inverting every expected feature of a priest character; if he's the "father", then the other personnel are latchkey kids. the last thing i want to do is flatten any of that!

here's some specific tropes i try to keep in mind and intentionally upset, whether explicitly or implicitly, in my hawkahy art/fic:

hawkeye as the aggressive boundary-violator, mulcahy as the helpless victim having his lines crossed— hawkeye can be pretty pushy and insistent, but he's not one to commit actual assault, especially not to someone who wouldn't hurt a fly. even in an early-seasons scenario, i don't think he would move much faster than what mulcahy's comfortable with, at least not with anything more serious than jokes and come-ons; i think he prefers to awaken things in people and encourage them to loosen up, rather than pull them along by himself.

also, mulcahy is not a pushover; he just knows when to pick his battles and prefers to bite his tongue. he's certainly blown up on hawkeye before. it would also be fairly easy for mulcahy to throw hawkeye over his shoulder or snap the guy in half like a twig if he wanted to. when mulcahy does get pressured into doing something he doesn't want to do, it's the focus of an entire episode, i.e. the exception that proves the rule. if hawkeye's going to tempt him into something, it'll be because he really wanted to deep down and thus made that conscious choice, not because he got drunk at a party and hawkeye decided to try and cop a feel.

hawkeye as someone who needs a tumultous relationship and thus won't be satisfied by stability— i talked more about this in a previous post, but i think hawkeye does want to settle down eventually. like i said, he comes off as a hopeless romantic. we know he watched a lot of movies; he almost certainly grew up on those "screwball comedies" that were so big in the 30s and featured neurotic nutjobs pratfalling their way into a genuine happily-ever-after. i don't think he'd want to settle down with just anybody, nor do i think he really places a lot of value in fulfilling those milestones of "get married by X age, buy a house with Y rooms, and pump out Z kids" just for the sake of fulfilling them and keeping up with the joneses, but i think he'd love to marry for love. again, he was certainly planning on it before the war, and he admitted that he's still carrying a lot of hurt from having that domestic future taken away from him so abruptly.

mulcahy as the innocent ingenue— this one is complex, and of course i'll preface this by saying i'm predisposed to not being all that intrigued or entertained by genuinely innocent characters. i find them to be something of a nonstarter, narratively speaking. beyond that, they tend to be unrealistic in certain settings and demographics. yes, there will always be people living in a bubble for every possible background and age group, but i find it implausible that a man could be 30 or 40 years old and enlisted in the military and still somehow be as naive as a sea sponge in a pineapple.

mulcahy is definitely not all that worldly, and starts off with a somewhat myopic view of his role in the grand scheme of things, particularly as it pertains to the motivations and effects of missionary work. he did join the military of his own volition, but i also think the mulcahy we see at the end of the war (and even at several points in the middle of it) is not the same mulcahy that volunteered to be here in the first place. what's more, we see from lines like "i know all about motels" or his hesitance to say hello to his family on camera that he probably picked up a lot of the hard lessons and ugly experiences that are typical growing up working-class in a big city. i think it's a disservice, both to the character and to the broader themes of the show, to assume that mulcahy's optimism and cheeriness must come from a place of inexperience. yes, he has plenty of room to grow, but he wasn't born yesterday, and i think his optimism is far more the result of a conscious choice to do good than an innocence to the evil in the world.

as for sexual stuff in particular, he mostly reacts to hawkeye's promiscuity with knowing winks and smiles, and even jokes with him about it, which i think is pretty clearly enabling him. sure, he bolts out of those VD talks, but with henry's public speaking skills, can you really blame him for eagerly excusing himself? plus, he has a strong incentive to act more innocent than he really is, because if he plays dumb, it means he won't be preemptively excluded from the conversation by people who think he's easily offended by bawdier talk. he may not be up to date on all the slang, nor is he always observant of certain subtle cues, but he's not a pearl-clutcher; that role is fulfilled by frank, margaret, and charles, so it would be redundant to make mulcahy also gasp and scold people like hawkeye for having premarital sex. mulcahy largely serves to validate hawkeye as being in the right in these disputes. which brings me to:

hawkeye as the amoral maniac, mulcahy as the moral compass— this one especially flies in the face of the spirit of the show, i think. hawkeye is doing his absolute fucking best! he would do anything to save a life, and it doesn't matter whose. he's willing to run into active artillery fire to rescue enemy soldiers, to stay behind and monitor a patient while the camp moves out, and to potentially get himself killed just to stand by his principle of never carrying a gun. he sleeps around as a coping mechanism, but more than that, i think he also does it out of a genuine desire to share some happiness with others in an otherwise miserable and dehumanizing place.

even mulcahy doesn't care that hawkeye does all that other stuff on the side. he wouldn't do a lot of it himself, but that's not an issue to him. again, his entire schtick as a character is being "unpriestly" to comedic/dramatic effect, like winning at poker, getting drunk before a sermon, etc.; he's far more accommodating than he is preachy. he has a profound respect for hawkeye that can be seen even in season one, because hawkeye always looks out for the frightened and vulnerable, and that's what matters to him above all else. mulcahy loathes lip service and values action over feel-good talk, which means he cares more about hawkeye doing the right thing than the superficially squeaky-clean thing.

pairing hawkeye with mulcahy invites some incredibly rich commentary on what "morality" even means, but i think getting hung up on the fact that hawkeye drinks, gambles, and has a LOT of premarital sex is completely missing the point and only reinforcing the puritan ideals that mash itself is trying so hard to upset and dissect.

the cute, sweet, blushy, short one is the sub and/or bottom— nah son. hawkeye is always talking about getting pregnant. mulcahy works out and likes to roughhouse. you do the math here.

ALL THIS TO SAY... i really encourage people to look beyond the stereotypes of horndog and cinnamon roll, or frat boy and nerd, or whatever other thought-terminating cliche one may be tempted to apply to these guys. hawkeye is a sleaze, but he's also sensitive and articulate. mulcahy is a sweetheart, but he's stubborn and resilient. they both go so much deeper than the superficial tropes, and what makes them work so well as a couple IS their ability to bring out those interesting, lesser-known facets in each other, both as characters interacting with each other and as symbols placed in juxtaposition to serve the themes of the show.

[echobx]

Yeah we don't know these people at all or anything real about who they are or their lives but I do agree that some of their behavior seems incredibly unprofessional and all the signs point to something bad but we should never send hate to someone. I for one would like to hear your theories where you connected the dots because I would like to be prepared.

I'm just gonna say it, I don't know exactly what goes on, I can only take rumors and the few confirmed moments we had in the past and connect the dots over that.

(post writing note: this got too long so I'm putting a readmore)

1. (and if you call me a hater for this, idgaf, bc it's true) Elaine being a racist and homophobic and also hard to work with

2. Rudy being with Elaine, staying by her side and defending her (which wouldn't be an issue, if she wasn't fucking racist and homophobic!!!)

3. Elaine having issues with not only Madison and her gf, but also with multiple others on set, including JD and Lilah Pate

4. Rudy voicing his desire to leave the show after his contract ends (which would be s4) UNLESS they fix his character arc. now this one is especially sweet bc he said this before s3 started filming and he and others, were not happy with the s3 script bc a lot of things (including Jiara) were not well thought through and it was rushed and super ooc. and then he allegedly asked for it again with the start of filming for s4.

5. bts shots of Rudy where he's always looking rather annoyed, or bored, or just generally completely down. he literally looks nothing like he did when the show started, or even for s2 or s3, and he was already less who he used to be for s3 (which might be connected to no.4)

6. Blind items saying Madison wants to leave and pursue music. The interview Madelyn gave was also super ambiguous to what will happen to the show. (tied to no.4 too)

7. very high possibility that Elaine was fired from obx, my reasoning behind this is that she wasn't in any of the bts promo videos they released and in the last three seasons she was always somewhere or had posted some promo pics already.

sooo let's look at these points again.

bc it's on my mind I'm gonna start with the Elaine drama. I'm not known for liking her, but I'm also not gonna send her hate or tell you how to feel about her bc tbh idgaf what you believe to be true or not when it comes to this, so take all I say with a grain of salt still and don't come into my comments saying "you just hate her bc she's with Rudy" no, no I don't. I can't stand her bc she has weird vibes, is literally homophobic and racist, and on top of that for all we know not the best gf too (he's not a good bf when he's woth her either, but that's another topic)

so, Elaine was at the show as a pa and to take care of the promo pics for the show. she was there from s1 on, was friends with Lilah and generally was not really that in everyone's business at the time for all we know. HOWEVER during s1 Rudy had a girlfriend Teo Marcella, she's in a few pictures with Rudy from back then. Teo was also super good friends with Madison, and I believe they still are friends today but just not as close. Rudy was also super thick with Madison at the time. Teo never seemed to have any issues with that. But as time progressed, Elaine kept getting closer to Rudy, and he's not as loyal as you might think. I don't believe there was an overlap, they broke up and a month later he was with Elaine. that is way too little time if you ask me unless, which is what happened, Elaine literally came on to him while he was in a relationship, which you don't fucking do. you just don't do that. point proven that Elaine isn't a girls girl.

between s1 and s2 Chase and Madelyn go on a ski trip with Rudy and Elaine, it's ally happy and cute and- gotta stop here cause I don't wanna throw up. anyway, s2 starts filming, everyone is still happy and things are good. well.... are they tho? bc Rudy is still bffs with Madison, but Elaine doesn't really like that, so Rudy stops hanging out with Madison as much, bc he wants to make his gf happy like you do, yk? the rest of the cast doesn't seem to annoyed by it all, it's literally mostly Madison who's affected by this. now, after s2 and before s3, I believe that was the time when the boys went to that basketball game? @redhead1180 told me about something happening there where Elaine shoved JD or something (we are still trying to retrieve the video that was posted to twitter at the time) and Rudy wasn't happy with her whole behavior that day (allegedly).

now, we get s3, or more so they get the script for it and I wholeheartedly believe that Rudy and Madison begged them to change it bc neither of them wanted jiara to happen. from day 1 on Madison asked for a queer plotline for Kiara and Rudy always went hard on the jjpope ship. but that didn't do anything, Jiara went canon and no one in the cast liked it (fight me on this. they all shipped jjpope before s3 promo tour started, no one fucking talked about jiara EVER and then on s3 promo tour they rather talked about rafebarry than mention jiara possibility and it felt as they had been briefed to not talk about jjpope at all) so, you can believe it or not, but imo Elaine got mad af when jiara went canon bc that meant Rudy would have to kiss his former bff who Elaine had already deemed a threat to herself. so things started cooking. Rudy and Madison barely talked on set or interacted much unless necessary. then Rudy booked two movies that year to avoid doing as much promotions as possible.

the s4 drama is a lot. some shit happened before the strike, like The Dinner™ followed by the Great Unfollowing of 2023. I wish to be a fly on the wall at that dinner, but one thing is clear, that night was the start of the end and the reason why Madelyn said there's "multiple cliques" on set. whatever was said, we know that Rudy sided with Elaine, bc if he hadn't he prolly wouldn't still be with her. so, Madison unfollowed Elaine and Elaine did the same for her. now, that's already messy af, especially with what Madi posted in her stories and reposted on tiktok. like, some serious shit went down there and I need her to spill the tea.

after the strike we get Morocco. where we have some videos of Elaine being rude to fans again (reoccurring issue), I know that some of them had been following Rudy around and I'm not saying that's appropriate either. but she has a repeating behavior of dragging him away and pulling on him when he's with fans. and ppl will say "it's scheduling issues, they don't always know exactly when they have to leave" which fine ig, but how can you be sure that's the case all the time?? bc I don't think it was the case for a lot of these. now I wanna say something that I have seen being repeated on here and on twitter, no Mariah isn't just as bad as Elaine and just as clingy. Mariah is supportive of Madison just as much as Madison is supportive of Mariah. Mariah still does her job, mostly in LA, while Madison is off filming somewhere. that's completely different from Elaine who literally follows Rudy around like a lapdog. those two things are not the same. pls tell me you've ever seen Elaine in a place where Rudy wasn't also at? hasn't really happened, has it? and I think that might be part of the overall issue and reasoning why I think they also fired her. bc the Pates are trying to keep their show alive through all this drama. like, she has reported beef with Madison and JD and Lilah. if two of my main cast, if not more, and my family tell me to get rid of her and hire someone else in the hopes for things to get peaceful again, hell yeah I'll fire her. and that would also explain a little why Rudy doesn't hang with the cast as much as he used to on set and why he's always looking miserable, bc they rightfully got his gf fired.

also, she's not a good gf, she's clingy and apparently insecure about her relationship with Rudy, which is visible in her feeling threatened by Madi although Madi has never shown any interest in that way in Rudy. but ig that's just what happens when you come onto a guy who's in e relationship and he goes for it, you'll just always wonder if he will do the same to you. (I'm not even gonna touch Rudy's cheating rumors and the recent break-up rumors although they make a lot of sense and it would be so much healthier if they actually broke up instead of staying toxic for each other with the false pretense of love)

on Rudy leaving. I don't think he would want to leave if they fix JJs character arc and work with him, bc he made that character who he is, before that JJ was just a hollow character on paper, with not much to go off at the start. But I do think he will if they didn't do that. He has other projects to look forward to, he's talented enough to keep his career afloat without Netflix. and I also think that if Elaine is actually fired, he's not happy with that and how it happened and he probably doesn't want to work with those ppl as much anymore, but who knows. All I know is that the happiness and lightheartedness he had in the first season and even in the second season, is completely gone. but when you look at him doing other projects, like the bts of Crusades or 5lbs of Pressure, he looks genuinely happy and not like he does on obx. so something has to be going on there, even if all I said above turns out to be bs, there's something going on that makes this job feel like 9- to 5 to him from the looks of it. and tbh if that's the case, I don't even know if I want him to continue OBX bc the show is about fun and friendship and summer, not about being miserable and feeling like shit just being there. so the Pates might take the L and kill off JJ and hope that the show continues, but tbh, Netflix isn't known to make shows that are longer than 4 seasons. so if s4 happens and JJ dies and they greenlight a fifth season, I'm gonna predict s5 will be the end of the show, simply bc watch numbers will go down when Rudy isn't there anymore.

I think this was already way more than you thought I'd say even though it was pretty compact and only really two theories ig lol. but yeah, that's what I think.

also, Rudy doing the play, which is great he always wanted to do theater, but again having it during the s4 promotional period is just so clear to me that he doesn't want to hang with the cast anymore. he's not posting anything anymore like he used to, he's not commenting on their posts or even liking them like he used to, he's not hanging out with them like he used to. and it's not a coincidence to me that this happened and keeps happening and that it gets worse. but a lot of ppl don't want to see it bc it will destroy their perfect bubble they have built around him.

[jounosparticles]

this feels really odd to ask but but what do you think the hunting dogs' thoughts are about death? specifically if they die and how? cause I feel like all of them share a variation of "I will go down guns blazing and with glory"

fukuchi definitely feels it and I feel like jouno as well. they've both had rough and violent lives so I feel like they've always thought death was just right around the corner.

I don't know about the rest of them though. teruko I feel shares the thought but not as intense as the other two, and I dont know about tecchou and tachihara.

anyway. it's a neat thought to me :3

ohhh i’ve been thinking of the best way to answer this for DAYS. this analysis will be long so ill put it under a readmore.

the hunting dogs and death - analysis

overall, it is shown that they can die. i assume due to their abilities and bodily enhancements that they do not die of injuries very easily. it makes me wonder how disease hits them? partially mechanical bodies may not respond to illness as well as natural bodies would? or maybe the opposite and they can heal more so internally? anyways here's my thoughts on how each hunting dog perceives dying!!

fukuchi

i see fukuchi as fairly self-preserving up until the end. he can't die in battle because he needs to make sure the decay of angels plot carries out.

remember that he was warned of this at nine years old. he had to spend his life preparing for this. he likely grew very wary of living recklessly and became great at fighting very fast and young; i assume that's why he went through dojos to fight as a child.

under no circumstances could he die until the world was safe.

i imagine he put on a selfless face and was willing to take serious harm in order to protect the peace, but i highly doubt he was ever willing to sacrifice his life until his plan worked out.

here we see his thought process and how things need to fall into place. his participation was essential because in no other situation would fukuzawa be the one able to get access to the one order. if fukuchi had died beforehand, the war would play out as the amenogozen warning claimed.

he had to leave the world to fukuzawa, the man he could trust most before facing his own demise.

of course, at this point in the series he has been killed since that was the final goal of his plan. a noble death for a fantastic hero.

jouno

im actually a little conflicted on his perception of death. i believe jouno is willing to sacrifice his life if absolutely necessary but is probably more self-preserving than the others. i believe he likely uses his confident and slightly arrogant attitude to hide this self-preserving mindset. someone who comes off as intimidating or nonchalant during battle is more likely to throw off the enemy whereas appearing nervous or angry will make them seem vulnerable. i believe jouno also sees himself as very strategic and able to get out of situations easily if needed. he's a quick thinker from what we've seen thus far.

lets look at when he confronted fukuchi.

he starts off very confidently accepting the offer. we know this is a facade but him immediately trying to throw fukuchi off guard seems so show he's pretty confident in his next move.

but when this doesn't work, he immediately tries to flee. this is fairly unique for a fight in bsd, many characters will often fight until they either get what they wish or they're too injured to move. despite jouno having an ability that could dodge fukuchi's, he still chose to try and escape instead of continuing to fight. this is a very normal human reaction to have but not one you see as often.

and at a disturbance, he begins to panic and needs to ground himself by reassuring himself instead of fighting back. he's not willing to put his life on the line to stop a global terrorism and his own escape is seen as a victory, which i see as him being more self-preserving. this all took place before the sword was set on fire, so it wasn't as if he had that threat to escape yet.

however, there's a chance he just didn't know how to fight the amenogozen; but his ability was definitely one of the best to fight against fukuchi with.

still, he's smart and made sure to plan adequately in case he was injured in the battle against fukuchi. he wants to keep himself safe, but he's still smart enough to take precaution.

i think jouno has probably been through a lot in his life and wants to spend a while living happily, making him more afraid to die than the others. this is even shown when he took teruko being angry as a threat while fukuchi laughed over it.

(as a small note, fukuchi's line in the anime was "haha. it seems our gremlin is angry today" which makes more sense in this context).

so tldr i think jouno would only go down if absolutely necessary and otherwise is fairly self-prioritizing.

tecchou

i believe tecchou would sacrifice himself if it brings justice.

however, he seems to see himself as one responsible for judgement, so i imagine he gives every single fight his all.

regardless of him acting as judgement, it's been shown that tecchou is willing to die if he fails at his work.

here he promises that if he were to fail he would commit seppuku (killing oneself via slicing through your stomach--an honourable death for a samurai fighter (which lines up with irl tetchou coming from samurai lineage)), which is an incredibly agonizing way to die. regardless, he is fully willing to do it if it is for peace. this shows a confidence in death and commitment to his sense of justice to an extreme manner.

and when he found himself in a situation where he was in the wrong, he immediately admitted defeat and asked his opponent to kill him.

he admits defeat, says his wrongs and is willing to accept the consequences.

he even jumps to the harsh conclusion that he isn't worthy of his title as a hunting dog. the stark white in his eyes show that his mind isn't corrupted and that he is doing what he believes is proper justice. incredibly noble.

luckily he was spared-and likely learned a lot about justice not always being as black and white as things appear.

overall, tecchou is a very noble fighter and is willing to put his life on the line for justice. he doesn't seem to fear death and will embrace it if he feels it is earned or deserved.

tachihara

i have less to say about tachihara than the others. i see him as the type that will go down over what's right and that's shown during his fight with fukuchi.

he isn't willing to fear death or beg for forgiveness. he will go down if it is worthy.

we also see that he keeps a argumentative spirit towards the enemy despite the circumstances. he will put down his opponent even in the moment of death, he just has the confidence to.

this panel also shows that he's more willing to die than to be defeated. he doesn't want to harm anyone and be controlled so he tries to kill himself first.

overall, he's a strong fighter who isn't afraid to sacrifice his life for what he believes in. his orders make him who he is, and if the orders are to win he either will or he will die trying.

(of course that last part doesn't really count when he was posing as a mafioso because he couldn't blow his cover by easily surviving everything).

teruko

much like tachihara, teruko seems to be very willing to put herself on the line to keep people safe. this is shown almost immediately in her introduction.

if ordered, she is willing to die. she's incredibly dedicated to her job and would go down if it saves people.

she's willing to go to drastic measures to keep herself alive as well, destroying her eardrum and continuing to try and fight sigma despite being under the directed resonance guns (which were made to destroy people like her). she didn't run, and she did absolutely everything she could have done in order to win.

she seems to also pride herself in fighting and being hurt in battle, likely to show her resilience and ability to do whatever it takes if it saves people.

she even goes on to call the hunting dogs "society's servants" and refers to the enhancement surgeries as "searing order into their own bodies."

this immense dedication makes me strongly believe that she would have no problem sacrificing herself if it is for the best. she killed fukuchi despite really caring for him, so i can see her being willing to put herself into that situation as well.

tysm for the question!!!!! this was super fun to read through the scenes again and try to piece together a logical guess on them all.

[prttykittes]

KINKTOBER 2023;

๑ Multiple characters & reader !

ꁞ⁠ info — smut, afab/amab reader(or no genitals mentioned!), written all by an minor so DNI or block me if uncomfortable!

⁠๑ there's only a little bit because I joined later ! (⁠人⁠*⁠´⁠∀⁠｀⁠)⁠｡⁠*ﾟ⁠+, writing might suck and characters will probably not be written well but I will try !

Works down here ! (⁠◍⁠•⁠ᴗ⁠•⁠◍) — press (readmore) !

| day one(October 23) my sweet rabbit!

— Predator/Prey •

— unspecified character/oc x GN!Reader •

— Synopsis:: walking down a path, walking alone with just a basket in hand. You can't shake off the feeling, someone is watching you.

| day two(October 25) True fun reveal!

— blood play/kink •

— Childe x Afab GN!Reader •

— Synopsis:: while having fun with your husband, takes start to get more intense as your husband's dark kink is coming out.

| day three(October 26) Impregnation time !

— breeding kink •

— dazai x GN!reader

— synopsis:: your partner has a sudden feeling for breeding and getting you impregnated, it doesn't matter if you can't get pregnant !

| day four(October 27) An fearing night stroll!

— wound fucking •

— Nikolai x GN!Reader •

— synopsis:: walking in the dark, the night was calming while you couldn't sleep. You went out for a jog but it seems like things are getting intense and heart pumping.

— Noncon & somno •

| day six(October 30) The cursed sleep

— Malleus x GN!Reader

— synopsis:: you were put under a spell, you were cursed to sleep forever. You could feel yourself moving but your eyes were closed. Next thing you know, you were impregnated but how!

[things might get changed!]