#shitty reference making

[wolfwarrior142]

Callum just really wanted some of his hair to match Rayla's, okay?

[razzafrazzle]

a very frustrating brand of comment that I keep receiving on my "body hair has no gender" art is transmascs insisting that body hair should be gendered if it gives transmasc people gender euphoria. and like. good for you I guess but have you considered that going onto a post that explicitly says "I think it's stupid that body hair is associated with masculinity" and saying "well when I do it it's cool" is arguably more annoying than the people who are just openly shitty about it

bottom line is Read The Room

[yarrowleef]

I think at a certain point we all gotta stop referring to the wc incest issue as "accidents." Like, it can only happen so many times before it's obvious someone made an executive choice to ignore it. it feels like...removing/lessening blame to keep calling it a clueless accident

with the way these books are written, I suspect the wc team mindset is "anything the middle-grade target audience wouldn't remember/question doesn't need to be considered." Like, if Nightheart didn't acknowledge last arc that Bayshine was related to him, then he effectively isn't related to him in the eyes of whatever new reader picked up this arc for the first time. Therefore, might as well not exist. Nothing in this world matters except whatever will get them through the current plotline.

the fact they are writing about animals and consistently refuse to use relatable familial terms like cousin/aunt/uncle/grandparent etc probably makes them comfortable shrugging it off.

the new team especially writes as if they are soft rebooting every other arc. it's the ultimate have your cake and eat it too: they don't want to do the work required to change the world/status quo to prevent this problem (doing so might slightly impede the ease of their break-neck writing speed), but they still want to do standard cliche romantic drama with their new next-gen-protag kits, so…they deal with that road block by ignoring it. There hasn't been a financial incentive not to.

this lack of care is all deeply annoying to me. but we gotta stop calling it an 'accident' b/c that implies they would be motivated to avoid it if it were pointed out to them. dog they know 😭 and they clearly decided it doesn't count if they don't acknowledge it

[spaciebabie]

[yardsards]

i needed to express a sentiment in the creative stylings of @dunmeshiminimumwage

[littlebearnation]

yall: we need more rivalries in f1! we need them fighting more! everyone is too buddy buddy!!

also yall: omg george was so disrespectful! he shouldn't be making these jokes and comments about max's penalty points! its disgusting! that jos comment wasnt okay!

[unreal-sundogs]

Pyronica 🩷

[incorrect-jojolands-quotes]

so, trying to explain the whole thing that happened in chapter 24

From what Japanese readers have mentioned, there's some nuances regarding the use of Japanese when talking about men and women that is very difficult to translate and localize in English. Because of this, the scene can be misinterpreted as two characters intentionally being transphobic and/or one character having their gender incorrectly confirmed. Let me try by best to explain:

The term Howler used on Dragona is 女, which Jodio then mentions 女性. Both 女 and 女性 translate to "woman" but 女 is particularly used in what's I can describe as "informal" settings. From the start, the gang are in a business setting with Howler, in which "proper and formal" language is needed to match the situation. Acca proceeded to call Dragona 女, which is considered rude to use given the meeting started out as a business exchange. In fact, the term 女 can sometimes be used to belittle or speak harshly towards a female individual; remember that Acca was yelling at Dragona the whole time, demanding they follow his orders while manhandling them. An English equivalent to calling someone 女 would be calling the person "girl"/"chick"/"bitch" (the last one is probably too harsh for the context at hand but you catch the drift) in addition to just saying "woman". Notice how in English, the term "woman" doesn't always have that connotation that 女 in this context would have in comparison. But, with no exact translation and using the other words listed doesn't really fit as well, the closest thing to do is to translate Acca's use of 女 into "woman" and simply have us readers read it with a demeaning tone.

Seeing how insistent Howler is at calling Dragona in such a way, Jodio advised Charming Man to confuse Acca enough that it deescalates or at least halts the situation. This is where 女性 and 男性 comes in.

Similar to 女, a similar equivalent to 女性 would be "lady"/"female" as well as "woman". And the equivalent of 男性 would be "gentleman"/"male" in addition to "man". Like 女, saying woman and man respectively is the closest thing to translate the situation at hand. Jodio most likely is pointing out that Acca continues to refer to Dragona as a more insulting version of a female but decides to throw him off by having Charming mention Dragona is actually AMAB. In other words, the scene could also be translated as "Tell Acca that Pink-Chan isn't female- there's nothing wrong with that" if we want to localize it further than the current fan translation. Charming then reiterates this as Yokohama, and his line can be translated as "Pink-chan is male but there's nothing wrong with it" as an alternative too.

Both cases don't indicate that Dragona identifies as male but rather they are biologically male and nothing more; there's no indication of what Dragona themselves actually identify themselves as just male or whether their identity matches their biological sex. But, given that "woman" is still the closest term and more accurate thing to use with all this context and the scene at hand, that ends up being the words the translators use for the scene. However, that last part about "Pink-chan"'s biological sex being an unimportant issue is reiterated by both Jodio and Charming after their stafements and I think it's telling that two separate characters say that. Neither needed to mention their opinion on Dragona's identity but do so; to us readers, this is confirmation that both Jodio and Charming don't necessarily care how Dragona presents themselves. Irregardless of what they identifies as, neither brother or acquaintance consider it a factor to how they view Dragona.

It's not just the nuance of the language. Remember that Charming is pretending to be Yokohama, a man we don't know much about besides being called a piece of shit by Acca. He gets giddy seeing Acca's incoming downfall and, although a bedroom matter, calls his wife 雌ネコ (which is somewhat derogatory), so we can assume the original Yokohama isn't such a good person in general. Charming proved himself to be a good actor (even going as far as fool Jodio in Chapter 8-9) and he's most likely is playing into Yokohama's true behavior with his random comment about Dragona's appearance. Charming is also just doing as Jodio asked him, seeing that Jodio was trying something out as a diversion and gave him the suggestion. Charming's simply playing a character, and there's no proof yet that Charming himself does share similar sentiments.

Another thing with Jodio is that we still don't know completely what Jodio knows about Dragona's identity nor what Dragona is really comfortable with. Context clues do indicate that Jodio DOES know what Dragona is comfortable with and wouldn't intentionally misgender or use Dragona's identity as AMAB out of malice. Dragona is fine being called "big bro" (there is no equivalent to "older sibling" in Japanese though and there are cases where women could be called some variation of "big bro" as term of endearment i.e. Ermes Costello being called 兄貴 and Araki approving it) by both Jodio and Barbara Ann. Jodio, as we see, only inflict "unnecessary" pain towards people who hurt his family or out of self defense. For example, he doesn't hesitate to kill Bobby Jean at Pearl General Hosplital but he only does one drop to do the job and doesn't kill Lulu or hurt her further despite the opportunity when she cries over Bobby's body. Jodio was willing to burn down a bus full of people but ceased killing them all because he considered the trapped bird inside an innocent victim. He attacked the cops and went as far as still kicking them even after beating them in response to Dragona being harassed by them beforehand, only to back off after Dragona tells him to stop and pull him away. He had the opportunity to burn the police or even hurt the DEA agent during the drug sting but only destroyed their car and the drugs she was holding respectively. With that in mind, Jodio only went with the approach not so much to hurt Dragona but sees it as an opportunity to distract Acca, and Dragona most likely picked it up and played along with it without thinking that it was done to hurt them. Based on Dragona's face that we see after Charming's statement, they may not have been 100% on board but we may have a folllow-up scene where Dragona might provide some thoughts on the approach. We can still tell that what Jodio did wasn't just him being intentionally transphobic.

Something to also note: The current English translators particularly localize as little as possible for their translations (compared to the previous translators of the series). While some localization is done here and there (the MRI joke for example), it's why you notice suffixes like -chan/-kun and terms like senpai and kōhai retained in the text despite the story being set in Hawaii where American culture is more practiced. What you see in Chapter 24 is the closest thing you can get to what the original text was, so what is translated is almost exactly Araki's writing. Even if you plug the text into something like Google translate (you can see that even what Google says seem to match up), you'll see what was written is very close to what was translated into English. As weird as Charming's statement towards Dragona after Jodio's suggestion were, it's Araki's idea and not just something the translators intentionally added.

Note how awkward the translations are yet still keep concepts like Dragona's skin color. The reason why Google translate is awkward is the way the Japanese language uses pronouns. In modern times, it is rare to use third person pronouns when speaking, so it's why you notice Google is saying "you" when given no context of what the scene is given. In fact, how one speaks and refers to oneself really relies more on context and situation rather than who they are individually. In fact, the fan translators actually have to guess what pronouns are used ever since the series came out and it's a big part of why Dragona is often referred to as they/them (and initially he/him). This is also why translations done by purely online translating apps and AI are looked down upon and shouldn't be trusted, since they lack the ability to understand context and both translate and localize. But even so, you can tell this is what Araki had in mind with this particular scene and not something the translators simply inserted.

Therefore, this chapter has no concrete proof that Dragona identifies completely as male nor that Jodio and Charming are intentionally transphobic. It does imply how neutral they are about it but that's about it.

Chapter 24 is one of many examples so far in this part where this scene is rather difficult to understand and can be misinterpreted unless you're familiar with Japanese and how it's structured. Hopefully, what I provided gives some sort of context that explains the scene a bit better. Does this condone what Araki's approach is? Not really. I still agree with many that it is rather awkward and unnecessary when the fireboats later on created the distraction needed soon after, as well as the dialogue used even caused me to misunderstand the scene at first too. Not only that, the attempt ultimately failed as Acca escalated further, and it doesn't seem to really add anything else. It did buy them a bit of time to turn the money into counterfeit and change hands though, but I'm not sure if it's worth it.

With all this in mind, how do you interpret this scene?

[eyeballsoup7310]

So do we think Cesare somehow has a bobble head of himself or a bobble head of Cesare from cabinet of doctor Caligari

[xxplastic-cubexx]

ik comic! charles did bad things but people (not everyone btw) being ableists towards him pmo

criticizing charles is fine and 1000% acceptable and it can be done without making stairs jokes like...... what are we doing here.....

[nosakamihos]

Day 4: Capsule Master

I do not remember the win conditions of capsule chess

[savoureuxx]

strangers on a train (1951) dir. alfred hitchcock / twin peaks s01e01 (1990) dir. david lynch

[shitty-malevolent-aus]

"The Strange Case of Dr Doe and Mr Yellow"

Jekyll and Hyde was my first classic horror and also its one of my favorite musicals so this isn't shitty

[kirisclangen]

Onepaw

She/her, 9 moons, cis molly

[reyolfx]

destiel fic excerpt - claire kinda tricks dean into going to pride with her

okay i've been in a massive block lately for any writing whatsoever but i'm TRYING to get back into it. mentally i'm just not really anywhere but i would like to be anchored back down into writing mode.

so here's a little bit of the destiel fic i have in progress. it's a dean focused post-15x19 (lol what finale) fix-it that deals a lot with dean's grief. this particular excerpt is quiiiiite a ways in, cas has been dead for almost a year at this point (happy destiel ending guaranteed fam). dean is still absolutely grieving but he's been doing a lot of work.

(warning dean does use the word queer here in a way that's like, halfway between accepting and internalised homophobia - it's not made out to be a big deal in this but i thought it would mention anyways)

***

"I'm not a parade guy, Claire, and I sure as hell ain't a flag waving queer. I'm not - I'm not this." Dean gestures vaguely to the revelry and upbeat atmosphere around him. He feels like a fish on a bike.

Claire shrugs with her whole body. "I don't give two shits what you think you are or aren't, grandpa. Every baby gay needs to attend their first Pride, it's like a right of passage or whatever."

Dean gawks at her. "What the fuck," he sputters. "Baby- did you just call me grandpa and a baby gay in the same sentence? What the fuck is that?"

Claire rolls her eyes like Dean's a fucking idiot. He feels like one right now, in his jeans and flannel with a knife tucked into his waistband, surrounded by rainbow everything and kids making out in those weird napkin tops that don't pass their navels.

She says, "exactly what it sounds like, loser. You're old, but you finally had your big gay realization, it's fresh and shit, erego, baby gay. Reborn a queer, hallelujah."

Dean stares at her like she's speaking another language, but he latches on to one bit that's plain. "Ain't that fresh," he mutters.

Because. Because it's not like Dean never had an inkling he was into dudes as well as chicks before. Not like he never had any tiny lightbulb moments while drooling over Doctor Sexy or being 16 and watching a hunter in his 20s clean a gun in front of him. It's just that every time that lightbulb flicked on, Dean had been very quick and very thorough in burying it 6 feet under like it was a body in a grave after a salt'n burn. Expert, even. Like he was was with real graves. He could go years without that lightbulb resurfacing, and he could forget. He could flirt with women and forget, kiss women and forget, take women back to his motel room when he was 24, haunting small towns all alone, and forget. It was easy. Because women's waists and women's hair and women's voices made it easy. When they pitched their words low and came on to him with confidence and a shadow, a daintier echo of violence than what he was used to, it was easy. What would have been the point in—in anything else?

Nothing. No point.

Until his best friend told him he loved him and his graveyard of buried lightbulbs was flooded, upturned, exposed. Electrified. He sees the bones of every man he ever desired like they're cartoons sticking their fingers into sockets.

Bzzzt. That hunter with his rolled up sleeves, exposed forearms, cleaning his gun while chatting easily to John. Dean sitting there, trying his best to be a part of the conversation, puff himself up like he belonged at the table, 16 in a too-big jacket, a real hunter, a real man, dragging his eyes away from the hunter's hands again and again until he could unfocus them entirely with the beers his dad let him sip.

Bzzzt. A shop teacher of his, once, during a 9th grade stint somewhere in Nebraska. Mr. Callaghan. Showing the class how to use a circular saw, sparks flying, Dean's eyes wide, mouth a little dry.

Bzzzt. Benny in purgatory. Slicing and hacking his way through monsters to get Dean to Cas before they could escape. Dean's weird, twisted up, sickening feelings of - I love you because you know my secret. Because you know I love someone else even though I won't let my own self know. I love you because you have big hands and a big heart and an appetite for blood and because I can bully you into staying, searching, endlessly, for the one. The one I love the most. I love you until I find him and then I still love you a little because you helped make that possible and because you did it for me.

Bzzzt. Cas. Castiel who walked into a barn, sparks again (maybe men are electric and women are grounding, or - fuck, who knows, maybe sparks are just hot) a few days after Dean rose from the dead. Castiel who walked towards him with steady eyes of blue fire and withstood every act of violence Dean could commit against him (or so he thought). Castiel who saw into his soul, maybe not even into it, just the whole scope of it, macro and micro. Cas who shoved him into walls, laid hands over his mouth and a knee between his thighs (accidental?), Cas who spoke to him vulnerably one moment and then disappeared the next, Cas who stared into his eyes and made Dean's chest feel molten, his tongue feel heavy. Cas who wore a stupid trench coat, even when given a fresh start, an opportunity for reinvention. A trench coat Dean grew to hate because of the sheer amount of times he imagined pulling it gently off the angel's shoulders. It always stayed. Dean could burn that fucking coat.

He kept that coat. He carried it. He misses it.

Dean comes to in the middle of a fucking pride parade with the desperate, overwhelming urge to press a coat that he no longer has into his nose. He needs—

"Earth to fuckin' Dean Winchester," Claire is saying, eyebrow cocked kinda like Cas, which is weird because he doesn't remember Jimmy ever doing that. He guesses he didn't know Jimmy very long though. Maybe he's just seeing Cas wherever he can manage it.

"Sorry, kid," he says lamely. No follow up. He feels the hole and it aches and aches and he needs to get a hold on it before it engulfs him.

"Dean," Claire says gently, and she sounds like she knows where he is. Like she can find him back here among his grief that is so far removed from, and unrelated to the situation.

He looks at her and forces a grin that cracks his face. Painfully. Half rolls his eyes.

"C'mon kid, show me the ropes then," he says. He's here now. Probably wont ever be again, but he's with Claire.

And he loves Claire. Because she reminds him of his not so long ago self—young and angsty and passionate and angry and full of mistakes past, present and future—and because she reminds him of Cas. Her face, her independence, her stubbornness, her smile. Because Cas loves (loved, Christ) her, even if her feelings towards him might be more convoluted.

She doesn't let him off easy, a trait she kind of shares with both of them.

"Dean... I miss him too".

Years ago, maybe even just months ago, Dean would have rolled his eyes and changed the subject. He would have deflected: "so how do you get on one of those floats" or "why is there so much mesh here" or maybe mouthed the words to You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real) right along with the drag queens in the parade without even realising it.

But now—

"Claire—I can't. Not if we wanna— not if today's gonna be any good."

His voice sounds far away and raw and he feels tears in his eyes even still. Even still after all these months. He wants. Wants Cas back so hard it scalds his insides.

Claire's mouth sets hard and she nods once. There's a grim-feeling cloud around the two of them, a black hole in the middle of this rainbow candy-land ass street block on a sunny day.

And then Claire scares it away. Physically waves it off like she can see it and then plasters a grin on her face that's almost conspiring. She can rally, Dean'll give her that. It's not as if Claire completely fits here either—she looks more like him than she does most of the other revelers. Black tank top, red flannel tied around her waist, black shit kickers. Hunter get-up. But she grabs some stickers from a drag queen that's handing them out and slaps one on her chest - it says "I support gay rights and gay wrongs" on it and the circle behind it is striped orange and white and pink. Dean snorts. He doesn't know for sure what that means but he guesses it's probably for lesbians cause he knows everybody gets their own flag in this world. He's learned that through osmosis at group*.

She grabs his hand and slaps another sticker on the back of it. The circle is blue, purple, and pink, and he does know the bi flag, has figured that one out at least. The words in the centre say "oh no, everyone is so hot".

Dean rolls his eyes so hard he almost throws his neck out. "There's no way in hell you think I'm keeping this on," he says.

"You are keeping it on, old man, and if i see you've taken it off I'll take you to the face painting tent and make them give you full bisexual glam." The threatening tone of her voice contrasts too deeply with the contents of that sentence and Dean huffs out a surprised laugh.

"Oh yeah? How do you think you're gonna make that happen?"

"You're not the only one packing here, Winchester."

Dean keeps the sticker on his hand. Stares at it for a minute, then looks all around him, taking in the colour and the joy like a thing that's not used to the sun would. A rodent or a worm. Maybe a monster.

"Don't get me wrong but this doesn't really seem like your scene," he says.

Claire shrugs. "I dunno. Maybe a couple years ago I woulda felt the same. Used to think it was all real frivolous and silly y'know?"

She pauses for long enough that Dean's pretty sure the conversation's over. Finally, she speaks again, just a bit quieter: "But, I kinda figure, I can be more than just one thing, right? I can be a hunter and still enjoy some of the nice shit in life. Frivolous and silly is kinda fun."

She's not wrong. Dean doesn't get a lot of moments to be frivolous and silly, but he takes them when he can. Feels like maybe if he'd been born in an different universe he could've known those feelings full time like they were an engrained part of him rather than just fleeting visitors.

Then Claire says, "you're more than one thing, y'know. You're lots of things"

Dean huffs a little laugh and shakes his head, not really sure what he's denying.

"Don't make me give you a whole rundown on your own personality dude. You're not just some workhorse hunter, you got other stuff. Like, gay shit like this doesn't have to be one of your things. But everything's worth a shot once, right?"

He wants to agree. Thinks maybe he'd like to be a lot of things, but everything is kind of blur right now, has been for a while. What are the things he'd like to be? Like to enjoy?

He shakes his head again, not so much denying as delaying.

"Okay Oprah, what got you so wise?"

Claire smirks. She nudges him forward to follow the parade and says, "the internet mostly."

[leafdragon16]

DPL DOODLE PAGE!!

It appears I have been sucked back into Legoland which means binging my favorite AUs

Awesome AU and character designs belong to @ask-the-departed-lords / @prime-pulse !

Closeups under the cut