#saying that I'm something else inside

[maraeffect]

any time i'm on tumblr past midnight, i end up posting about how i have a half god complex and feel like i'm an ancient otherworldly soul with untold wisdom

[bacchuschucklefuck]

pygmalion and galatea for aroace people

you should tell your friends what I look like, riz gukgak.

[sillylittlestoryteller]

A (younger) friend just asked me how I figured out I'm aromantic and asked me for some resources

I've never been a queer elder/queer resource before, I feel so honored 🥹🥹🥹

[answrs]

okay I know the immediate thought (for me, at least) was Lewis/Vivi/Arthur. which is fantastic too... but please consider my counterargument: Arthur/Lewis/Vivi

[soleminisanction]

Have I ranted before about how the Devil's Square makes no fucking sense?

So I'm trying to write the next part of Batgirl, Repentant, and more fool me, that means I need to go back and re-read parts of Batgirl (2009) for research. And like what always happens when I do that, I noticed yet another detail that stops working when you stop to think about it for even a moment.

Because see, on the second page of the third issue, we get these two moments in rapid succession.

Scarecrow's hideout is in "Gotham's Western Quadrant, the Devil's Square," established in the previous issue as a bad neighborhood, quote, "Otherwise known as 'Thunderdome.'" This place is treated like it's a Big Stinkin' Deal for the first two arcs (maybe the first year? I don't remember clearly and I don't want to go any further down this rabbit hole than I have) of this series, but nothing about it makes sense.

We are never ever given a clear reason why this neighborhood is supposedly such a uniquely terrible place, but it's supposedly so bad that it's worth making a whole terrible philosophy lecture out of why criminals would choose to stay there.

But the closest thing we get is that, at one point, Professor Exposition describes it as "a demilitarized zone."

Which does not make any goddamn sense because that would require Gotham City as a whole to be the location of an ongoing military conflict. Y'know, like the one between the Koreas.

I can only assume, given Brian Miller et al's tendency to do zero research on even the most basic of plot elements (see also: labeling all of Stephanie's obviously freshman-level college classes with 400-level designations intended for seniors or grad students) that what he actually meant here was autonomous zone. Like the CHAZ, as imagined by your Republican uncle. The implication being that this is an area of town that's been completely abandoned by police and emergency services, reducing it to a lawless wasteland where criminals roam free. (A no man's land, you might say. 🙄)

EXCEPT. APPARENTLY. LITERALLY ONE ISSUE LATER. We get the panels I started this post off with, where Steph arrives at Scarecrow's hide-out in the Devil's Square and we get EXPLICIT confirmation that the police will be there in five minutes.

That's all to say nothing of the fact that it being "Gotham's Western Quadrant" that's been cut off makes zero sense on its face. Besides implying that's an entire QUARTER of the city that's just been completely abandoned, Steph at one point describes it as being "on the west bank of the Gotham River."

There is no west bank of the Gotham River. Gotham is on a series of islands off the coast of New Jersey. The west bank of the Gotham River is the MAINLAND where Bristol and the suburbs are.

Gotham's geography is super fluid and can change from book to book, but it being on an island connected only by a series of bridges was a big deal in this era and the only reason the No Man's Land concept even worked. If you're gonna rip that plot off, Miller, you gotta use an eastern neighborhood. Or a northern one. Or even a southern tip. Anything but west. That's like saying there's an east side of Chicago.

[linseymiller]

niche minor character headcanon no one asked for

ok but wait because i had been avoiding the mtg cards and datamined stuff but the zevlor info...(spoilers under cut) (and in the tags honestly)

Putting aside how unfinished a lot of the quests feel when they are completed in Act 3, Zevlor's feels complete but changed. There's no dialogue about him having been enthralled or his thoughts on it. It's always been odd to me that his enthrallment and subsequent breaking away from the Absolute is never mentioned because sure, we have tadpoles in our heads, so it makes sense that we require the Emperor/Orpheus to not succumb, but the Absolute is still an elder brain. And he just throws the enthrallment off? His status as a Hellrider and paladin sort of makes that make sense, but the concept of him actually betraying everyone. That would have been delicious storytelling. Also, his MTG card creates more questions than answers.

He was removed from what should have been an until-death position of esteem for something not his fault after living through literal hell, and now he's responsible for a bunch of civilians of varying skills and moods who are equally as traumatized as he is. He lost his faith in the gods when Elturel fell and became an oathbreaker not for breaking his oaths but for simply not believing anymore. He wants to retire once they all reach Baldur's Gate safely.

But at some point after leaving the grove and before being attacked in the Shadow Lands, he's abducted. He lets his guard down for one moment, and the Absolute slips into his mind as easily as he used to slip into his Hellrider armor. Except something else is already in there.

Zevlor made a deal in the Hells with something older and (hopefully) far more powerful than devils and demons, and it saves him in that moment. It's too late, though. The tieflings are dead or running, and he's captured.

And to me, there's only one deal a character who once was in the service of a guardian god who is specifically fond of children and who is very worried about the child survivors he's leading would take - the lives of the adult survivors for the children's lives.

Which would hit even harder if he had been a teacher and not a Hellrider (I would assume that was changed far earlier than anything else, though).

[cacw]

adding onto that one I feel like they put too much emphasis on how bad bucky feels about killing while he was the winter soldier as if he hadn't killed what must have been countless people beforehand

[multicolour-ink]

Definitely recommend Inside Out 2

This movie related to me so much more than the first. I'm so glad I saw it at just the right time in my life right now.

Context in tags 👇🏻

[wheucto]

ii au where (nearly) everyone on the show is just some kind of abnormal being

[queerestqueertoeverqueer]

do you ever just. realise something your parents do is Not Normal and have to sit and process it for a minute because What The Fuck

[hua-fei-hua]

we have moved on to persuasive speeches in comm class n bc we have so little time left in the semester they're gonna be partner debates, so i have grouped up with the guy in there with whom i started talking abt genshin a while back, n we're just like. "fuck it. let's just do the ethics of gacha games and whether they should be regulated like gambling in casinos"

[audoodle]

honestly if i think about idol culture for too long i am filled with an existential dread about romance bans. For real people it is obviously fucked and insane that these people have to give up their autonomy in romance for their career or if they have a relationship it being public can end them. All because they need guys to be able to have fantasies of dating them. That feels so dystopian and like a thing that nobody should have to choose between but the version of celebrity culture that idols go through is so suffocating to romance. with fictional idol characters it's a bit of a different vibe. My perspective is limited but idol anime seem to for the most part steer away from fully canon pairings because they want the girls to seem "available". The odd part is that they definitely do not avoid implying pairings. Discussion of idol shows at least in the west are full of people saying these characters are implied to have feelings for other ones and making ship content about that. That is not inherently bad I mean even me personally will go to bat that the ships in a show like revue starlight are intended to be there and were clearly purposeful in their implementation.

The weird part about this is that the characters are kind of trapped by their narrative? They are forbidden to love but they don't know that. Because obviously if these shows bring that up directly then they are highlighting a ghoulish process of their own making. So like. The characters can love but they can't express it explicitly? Which leads to a very weird feeling seeing two characters who seem to harbor feelings for one another but aren't allowed to fully think or say them in canon. It feels really depressing in a way? I know show writers are just doing their best under weird corporate restrictions but also like I said up top it fills me with an existential dread. (please feel free to tell me about idol shows that fall into this or maybe idol shows with canon romance in them i'm interested in both sides of this)

[svtskneecaps]

i always know i’m getting stressed when my comfort fic becomes “time travel fix-it” adjacent. like honestly when i put that tag back in the ao3 include filters that should have been a red flag.

[mxgyver]

.

[beachboysnatural]

.

[keeps-ache]

everywhere i've ever lived there's been a train nearby