#thanks for being polite

[cin3maa]

Hey! Can You draw me and Donnie? , is okey if You don't want to by The way

oh mai gah are u guys for seriously right neow

pwease pwease pwease read my boundaries before sending reqs🥺🥺🥺pwetty pwease🙏🙏🙏🩷🩷

[weregreatatcrime]

Hiii! Omg I am so happy to see you doing Trollhunters again! And I am enjoying the crossover tidbits.

Though, as an older fan, I am curious to ask, hope it doesn't feel too pushy. Have you thought about your Kanjibarbara fic ever since coming back to ToA?

Okay so I'm gonna say it again and probably not one more time. Not because this ask was pushy, you're fine, but because I've gotten Several asks about it over the last two years since stopping Kanjibara au and all my other projects. It's frustrating because it's a deeply personal and painful topic for me and many people from multiple Fandoms keep asking the same questions. Like a lot of people. Like, a LOT of fucking people on ao3

The last two years have been medical hell. I've had a fuckton of medical, neurological, and mental issues that changed my entire life- part of those issues are cognitive decline and memory loss. The first year is a blur tbh, and a lot of my memories are fuzzy as a result. My ability to recall things is scattered- some shit is fine, some stuff may as well have happened to a stranger.

Part of that is my creative work. I don't think I'll ever continue the things I was working on beforehand, simply because I don't remember what I was planning or what I was doing with them. I remember I had an absolute joy with them! I remember the Trollhunters Fandom being a delight and a very warm and welcoming environment.

But a lot of details are muddy and I'm sure you understand, trying to piece together my own memories of stuff I'm struggling with is frustrating and painful and more stressful than it's worth. I'm already recovering incredibly well right now, I don't feel like digging myself back into that hole for Fandom stuff

New stuff is all on the table though! After two years, I finally was able to get my hand strength back up enough to draw recently and have been working on maintaining it. (Tremors and spasms made it impossible before) I'm also back into writing- though I still struggle with cognitive issues with writing, working on writing things that bring me joy has helped a lot

But all my projects from before are likely not going to be touched on again. It sucks. But they're a sensitive topic for me rn and probably will be touchy for a long while. Chances are I'll delete any asks or comments I get about them from here on out just for my own sake

[avesseloflanguage]

i know this is old news but like. it is so fucking insane to me that convicted felons — who can qualify in every other way, citizens who are absolutely affected by elections and politics — are not allowed to vote in the united states. like that alone is fucking crazy. and fucked up and VERY intentional and on track for the usa. but still genuinely crazy to actually think about.

but worse is that donald mother god damn fucking trump can still run for president and could be elected while being a convicted felon. like. bro can't vote for himself i guess. but this guy could still legally become the fucking president. HE CANT LEGALLY VOTE IN ELECTIONS ANYMORE. BECAUSE HE IS A CONVICTED FELON.

BUT HE COULD LEGALLY BECOME THE HEAD OF STATE.

[waitineedaname]

I was thinking about this post comparing sqh and jgy, and then this chart happened. this is less about what they're Actually like, and more about a combination of intentional persona + public perception of them

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

obviously hanguang-jun would wear sports bras…. right?

Wei Wuxian failed his perception and insight check rolls.

[aprillikesthings]

Ngl, one of my absolute fave bits of popular post-spop-canon headcanons/fanon, is Catra becoming Glimmer's advisor and close friend.

It's one of those "oh, of course" kinds of things. Catra is extremely knowledgeable about the land that was under the Horde's control, far more than Hordak ever was. (He shoved that work off onto Shadow Weaver and then Catra.)

And...admittedly this includes land that became Horde-controlled under Catra's leadership. She still knows a lot about it. Geography, trade routes, that kind of thing.

But also, we know Etheria is, in general, not big on retribution or punishment--that was something only the Horde did. Instead people might be wary of you for a bit but if you prove yourself to have changed for the better, it's all good.

(This is so obviously not limited to Catra--Adora, Scorpia, Shadow Weaver!, Entrapta--they all worked for the Horde at some point, and/or did shitty things, and were all given a chance to be better. Whether SW was actually better is its own essay lol, but the rest of them. Yeah.)

So Glimmer making a public point of having Catra as her advisor would also be a very public way of saying "The past is in the past and we can all work towards a better future together."

[jhonny]

"stop talking like that boy you're ruining my tboy swag" - yami bakura, probably

or, when both bakuras are trans but only one of them has perfected the trans voice.

+ bonus thief king (as a treat)

[heycrymeariver]

five and many more: a timeline summary

(For legal reasons, all of this is alleged.)

Ref. links: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

1984, is the first time Neil Gaiman released a book. 

In 1985, he got married and started his career as a comic book writer and in 1986, he assaulted Julia Hobsbawm.

This took place in Chalk Farm, London, where he forcibly kissed her and shoved her down on the sofa at her own studio flat before she escaped. According to The Crown Prosecution Service, “sexual assault is where one person intentionally touches another person sexually without their consent. The touching can be done with any part of the body or with an object.” In her own words, she described it as “an aggressive, unwanted pass” and that she still remembers it even now. 

Through 1987 and 2002 he progressed his career and published the famous book Coraline. A new year happens and he is in his early-forties and is thriving off of the success of his several money-making works, at a book signing event in Sarasota, Florida. There he hits it off with a young 18 year old (K) and they start dating. Two years later, in 2005, with two more awards under his belt, he forcibly penetrated that young twenty year old who told him not to because of a painful infection.

After another two years, he and his first wife divorced.

It's 2012, five years later and one year into a new marriage and at another book signing, Neil, age 52, immediately assaulted Claire (pseudonym) with a non-consensual kiss. Throughout keeping contact Neil had escalated this with video and phone calls that had a heavy sexual connotation where he appeared to either be naked or tried to instigate something. All of this accumulated into sexually assaulting her on a tour bus. Neil’s contact with her lasted until 2014 where he had promptly accused her in a text message that she had used him for sex.

Within the same year, Neil had enough money to buy a property, and met Caroline Wallner, 55, and her at-the time current husband. With a deal to do odd jobs for Neil and his wife to live there until she could own a five-acre plot, it wasn’t long before things turned sour. A divorce in 2017 sent everything spiraling, with her former husband fired, she in a once financially stable position, was now completely dependent on Neil Gaiman who used that to his advantage. Using her lack of financial stability to get himself sexual favors, he coerced her into a sexual-only, notably uninformed BDSM-entering territory while she was emotionally vulnerable, not accepting denials. This lasted until the summer of 2021, and in December of that year she and him went to court, what awaited her was $275k of compensation and a non-disclosure agreement (nda).

It wouldn’t take long for another woman to experience Neil Gaiman’s repeated offenses as well because in February of 2022, Scarlett (a pseudonym), age 23, a newly hired nanny, was sexually assaulted in the bathtub at his house. Neil, age 61, climbed into the bathtub with her and coerced her into having sexual relations. He too, in his coercion of her, made her financially dependent on him and brought BDSM elements to an inexperienced young woman who could not say no.

Since July 3rd of this year, 2024, five women have come out with sexual assault allegations aimed at Neil Gaiman. They all have several things in common with each other: either being young and naive, a fan of his, or put in a vulnerable spot financially or emotionally. Throughout the years and according to the stories, Neil progressively gets more bold and aggressive in his attempts for sexual gain. There are many more stories out there and whispers on the internet of how predatory Neil Gaiman has been in the industry. However, focusing on the five women who came out to speak and pushing their voice is an important part of the discussion.

Staying silent will only protect his peace.

(If you want to help keep this topic alive, please check out this post by @taraljc to see what steps you can take.)

[tangledinink]

For the beautiful twins, a gift of hope

@tmntaucompetition

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

so I watched the most recent episode of succession (oops) and the thought vaguely occured to me "oh dear how are they going to recover from this one?"

and the answer is, of course, that they won't. this is the beginning of the end. this is how they destroy each other.

anyways that's my prediction for the fandom ciao kisses hope u all have a very chill season 4 💋

[stealingpotatoes]

have you watched barbie the movie? interested in your thoughts about it :)

not to sound like a terrible feminist but it's so funny that ryan gosling is getting all the awards for the women are amazing movie

[cuddlytogas]

there was some Twitter madness recently where someone left a comment on someone's art to the effect of, "Ed shouldn't wear a dress, he's a man!" which I do disagree with on principle, but unfortunately, it brought out one of my least favourite trends in the fandom

so, naturally, I had to write a twitter essay about it. and I already largely argued this in a post here, but the thread is clearer and better structured, so I thought I'd cross-post for those not on the Hellsite (derogatory). edited for formatting/structure's sake, since I no longer have to keep to tweet lengths, and incorporating a couple of points other people brought up in the replies

so

I want to point out that the wedding cake toppers in OFMD s2 aren't evidence that Ed wants to wear dresses. Gender is fake, men can wear skirts, play with these dolls how you like, but it's not canon, and that scene especially Doesn't Mean That.

People cite it often: 'He put himself in a dress by painting the bride as himself! It's what he wants!' But that fundamentally misunderstands the scene, and the series' framing of weddings as a whole. I'd argue that Ed paints the figure not from desire, but from self-hatred; it's not what he wants, but what he thinks he should, and has failed to, be.

(Yes, I am slightly biased by my rampant anti-marriage opinions, but bear with me here, because it is relevant to the interpretation of the scene, and season two as a whole.)

The show is not subtle. It keeps telling us that the institution of marriage is a prison that suffocates everyone involved. Ed's parents' cycle of abuse is passed to their son in both the violence he witnesses then enacts on his father, and the self-repression his mother teaches, despite her good intentions ("It's not up to us, is it? It's up to God. ... We're just not those kind of people. We never will be."). Stede and Mary are both oppressed by their arranged marriage, with 1x04 blunty titled Discomfort in a Married State. The Barbados widows revel in their freedom ("We're alive. They're dead. Now is your time").

But even without this context, the particular wedding crashed in 2x01 is COMICALLY evil. The scene is introduced with this speech from the priest:

"The natural condition of humanity is base and vile. It is the obligation of people of standing ... to elevate the common human rabble through the sacred transaction of matrimony."

It's upper class, all-white, and religiously sanctioned. "Vile natural conditions" include queerness, sexual freedom, and family structures outside the cisheteropatriarchal capitalist unit. "The obligation of people of standing" invokes ideas like the white man's burden, innate class hierarchy, religious missions, and conversion therapy. Matrimony is presented as both "sacred" (endorsed by the ruling religious body), and a "transaction" (business performed to transfer property and people-as-property, regardless of their desires), a tool of the oppressive society that pirates escape and destroy. That is where the figurines come from.

When Ed, in a drunk, depressive spiral, paints himself onto the bride, he's not yearning for a pretty dress. He's sort of yearning for a wedding, but that's not framed as positive. What he's doing is projecting himself into an 'ideal' image of marriage because he believes that: a) that's what Stede (and everyone) wants; b) he can never live up to that ideal because he's unlovable and broken (brown, queer, lower-class, violent, abused, etc); c) that's why Stede left. He tries to make himself fit into the social ideal by painting himself onto the closest match - long-haired, partner to Stede/groom, but a demure, white woman, a frozen, porcelain miniature - because, if he could just shrink himself down and squeeze into that box, maybe Stede would love him and he'd live happily ever after. But he can't. So he won't.

The fantasy fails: Ed is morose, turns away from the figurines, then tips them into the sea, a lost cause. He knows he won't ever fulfil that bride's role, but he sees that as a failure in himself, not the role. It's not just that "Stede left, so Ed will never have a dream wedding and might as well die." Stede left when Ed was honest and vulnerable, "proving" what his trauma and depression tell him: there's one image of love (of personhood), and he'll never live up to it because he's fundamentally deficient. So he might as well die.

This hit me from my very first viewing. The scene is devastating, because Ed is wrong, and we know it! He doesn't need to change or reduce himself to fit an image and be accepted (as, eg, Izzy demanded). Stede knows and loves him exactly as he is; it's the main thread and theme of season two!

(@/everyonegetcake suggested that Ed's yearning in these scenes includes his broader desire for the vulnerability and safety Stede offered, literalised through unattainable "fine" things like the status of gentleman in s1, or the figurine's blue dress. I'd argue, though, that these scenes don't incorporate this beyond a general knowledge of Ed's character. Ed is always pining for both literal and emotional softness, but the significance of the figurines specifically, to both Ed and the audience, is poisoned by their origin and context: there is no positive fantasy in the bride figure, only Ed's perceived deficiency.

Further, assuming that a desire for vulnerability necessarily corresponds with an explicit desire for femininity, dresses, etc, kind of contradicts the major themes of the show. OFMD asserts that there is nothing wrong with men assuming femininity (through drag, self-care, nurturing, emotional vulnerability, etc), but also that many of these traits are, in fact, genderless, and should be available to men without affecting their perceived or actual masculinity. It thematically invokes the potential for cross-gender expression in Ed's desires, especially through the transgender echoes in his relieved disposal, then comfortable reincorporation, of the Blackbeard leathers/identity. It's a rich, valuable area of analysis and exploration. But it remains a suggestion, not a canon or on-screen trait.)

Importantly, the groom figure doesn't fit Stede, either. Not just in dress: it's stiff and formal, and marriage nearly killed him. He's shabbier now, yes, but also shedding his privilege and property, embracing his queerness, and trying to take responsibility for his community. In a s1 flashback, Stede hesitantly says, "I thought that, when I did marry, it could be for love," but he would never find love in marriage. Not just because he's gay, but because marriage in OFMD is an oppressive, transactional institution that precludes love altogether. All formal marriages in OFMD are loveless.

So, he becomes a pirate, where they reject society altogether and have matelotages instead. Lucius and Pete's "mateys" ceremony is shot and framed not like a wedding, but as an honest, personal bond, willingly conducted in community (in a circle; no presiding authority, procession, or transaction).

That is how Stede and Ed can find love, companionship, and happiness: by rejecting those figurines and their oppressive exchange of property, overseen by a church that enables colonialism and abuse. Ed is loved, and deserves happiness, as he is, no paint or projection required.

ALL OF THIS IS TO SAY: draw Ed in dresses! Write him getting gender euphoria in skirts! Write trans/nb Ed, draw men being feminine! Gender is fake, the show invites exploration, that's what 'transformative works' means! But please, stop citing the cake toppers as evidence it's canon. Stop citing a scene where a depressed Māori man gets drunk and projects himself onto a rich, white, silent bride because he thinks he's innately unlovable and only people like her can find happiness, shortly before deciding to kill himself, as canon evidence it's what he wants.

(Also, please don't come in here with "lmao we're just having fun," I know, I get it. Unfortunately, I'm an academiapilled researchmaxxer, and some of youse need to remember that the word "canon" has meaning. NOW GO HAVE FUN PUTTING THAT MAN IN A PRETTY DRESS!! 💖💖)

[scumvillainess]

honestly i never really agreed with the popular shen qingqiu had a good shizun headcanon because if shen qingqiu actually had someone who he knew cared about him, he definitely wouldn’t have turned out the way he did in canon.

[khattikeri]

maybe a controversial opinion but while i really love jiang cheng as a character he is deeply self-centered as a person. and seeing people fight tooth and nail claiming he isn't, or is just misunderstood, or that he has genuine valid reasons to be selfish when plenty of other characters make the difficult choice to forego status and opportunities for what they believe is genuinely right to do (read: wei wuxian, wen ning, wen qing, lan wangji, jiang yanli, mianmian, etc.)

it's just odd to me. especially if they're talking about the novels.

mxtx didn't give jiang cheng the name "sandu shengshou" as a quirky coincidence. there's a REASON she named him & his sword after the 3 poisons of Buddhism (specifically ignorance, greed, and hatred). it's crucial to the story that jiang cheng is NOT selfless and that wei wuxian IS.

it's important to accept that wei wuxian is, by their society's standards, not morally gray; he represents several Buddhist ideals in direct contrast of jiang cheng and multiple people attest to wei wuxian's strong moral character, which is a lot of why jiang cheng even feels bitter about him to begin with.

it's crucial, because by the end of the novel jiang cheng realizes the extent of this and begins to let go!

the twin prides thing wasn't jiang cheng wanting them to 100% mirror the twin jades. he does care about wei wuxian, but he wanted wei wuxian to stay his right hand man, in part the way wei changze was for jiang fengmian.

and if there's one thing you can notice about wei changze in the novels, it's that literally nobody talks about him. he is only ever mentioned when his cool mysterious mountain sect wife cangse-sanren is mentioned, or (even more rarely) when they discuss him as a servant to jiang fengmian. regardless of jiang fengmian's own feelings, wei changze was considered lesser to him and didn't seem to outdo him, since nobody's out there years later still waxing poetry about wei changze's skills.

it may not be the only thing jiang cheng wants out of a twin pride dynamic, but it is a big part of it. regardless of his parents' intentions in taking wei wuxian in and treating him certain ways, this twin pride right-hand man thing is what jiang cheng has felt owed since childhood. he gave up his dogs for wei wuxian, people gossip about his sect heir position with wei wuxian there... jiang cheng wants the reciprocation of what he views as personal sacrifices.

he is ignorant to the depth of what wei wuxian must've suffered for over 6 years as a malnourished orphan child on the streets. he hates how wei wuxian's intelligence, witty charm, and cultivation abilities are naturally stronger than his own. he does care about wei wuxian a lot and want them to be together as sort of-brothers, sort of-friends, sort of-young master and sect servant...

...but if it's between that unclear (yet still caring) relationship and being able to save himself just a little bit more, jiang cheng nearly always manages to clam up in the face of danger and choose the latter, which ultimately benefits himself most. maybe it's a stretch to call that sort of thing greed, but it certainly isn't selfless.

there are of course plenty of justifications for this. it's his duty as sect heir. his home and sect was severely damaged by the wen attack and subsequent war; he had to protect himself, etc.

but doesn't that prove the point?

wei wuxian may be charming, but in terms of pure social standing, he is lower and far more susceptible to being punished or placed in harm's way by people who have more power and money. to protect wei wuxian, yunmeng jiang's long-term head disciple and semi-family member, even in the face of backlash and public scrutiny would've been the selfless thing to do. this is what wei wuxian does for the wen remnants in the burial mounds.

jiang cheng does not choose this. it's not even an unreasonable choice for him to make! nobody else in the great clans is doing such a thing, stepping out of line to take on a burden that could weaken them in the long-run. wei wuxian himself doesn't hate jiang cheng for it; he lets go of these things and focuses on what good he can do in the present.

jiang cheng thinks further into the future - what would happen to him if he continued vouching for wei wuxian and taking his side? what about jiang cheng's face, his sect's face? would wei wuxian even care to reciprocate somehow? everyone expects him to cut off wei wuxian for being dangerous, for threatening his position, for...

do you see what i mean? to call jiang cheng selfless for falling in line with exactly what people expected him to do after the war is not only wrong, it's foolish.

"but they faked their falling-out!" okay. why fake it to begin with, except to protect jiang cheng and the jiang sect's own face? is that selfless? who does it ultimately serve to protect? wei wuxian canonically internalizes the idea that he stains all that he touches, including lan wangji, and agrees to the fake fight because he doesn't want to cause the jiang sect harm. regardless, it eventually slides into a true falling-out, and in the end jiang cheng is more or less unscathed reputation-wise while wei wuxian falls.

that isn't selfless. it's many things! it's respecting his clan and his ancestors, it's making a good plan for the future of his sect and cultivation... but it isn't a truly selfless in the interest of what's right rather than in the interest of duty and what's good for him and his family lineage.

that brings me to my next point: even though wei wuxian hid the truth of the golden core transfer, jiang cheng spent nearly 20 years believing that the golden core "renewal" he was given was a birthright gift of wei wuxian's from baoshan-sanren, an immortal sect teacher of wei wuxian's mother's and a martial elder to wei wuxian.

of course we all know that's a big fat lie, but jiang cheng believed that wei wuxian gave up a critical emergency use gift to him for decades! he was lied to, yes, but jiang cheng immediately agreed without even needing to be convinced. the light in his dead eyes came back with hope the moment wei wuxian even said baoshan-sanren's name. he accepted wei wuxian's offer to give that up to him and take it via identity theft without missing a beat.

with how mysterious and revered baoshan-sanren is, that's obviously not a light sacrifice to just give up to anyone, no matter how close they might be to you. pretending to be wei wuxian to take the gift could even be considered dangerous. what if she found out and got offended? could wei wuxian be hurt by that?

jiang cheng doesn't even hesitate. wei wuxian is the one who mentions that if jiang cheng doesn't pretend to be him, the immortal master could get angry and they'd both be goners. and funnily enough, the day they do go to "the mountain", jiang cheng is the one worried and suspiciously wondering if wei wuxian was lying to him or had misremembered.

of course they've both been traumatized like hell prior to this point. but still: it speaks to how broken he was at the moment as well as to his character overall.

i digress: jiang cheng "gets his golden core back" via what he believed was a gift that should've been wei wuxian's to use in serious emergencies. rather than use it for himself, wei wuxian risked his own safety and gave it to jiang cheng... and jiang cheng still ends up embittered and angry, believing that wei wuxian is arrogant and selfish.

if he truly views them as 100% brothers and equals with no caveats, why would he think that way? it's not like he needs to grovel before wei wuxian for doing that, or to reciprocate... but this is what i mean when i say jiang cheng feels he is owed things by wei wuxian. wei wuxian's actions hold a very different weight in jiang cheng's mind, and jiang cheng himself doesn't ever act the same way, except once.

is it wrong for him to feel like he is owed something? it depends. many asian cultures, including my own, feel that a person owes their family in ways that may not make sense to westerners. for example, it's considered normal for a child to owe their parents for giving birth to them, or to other caretakers for feeding, clothing, sheltering, educating them, etc.

however, something like verbally saying "thank you" or "i'm sorry" to family is considered crazy- why would you owe that? you're supposed to inconvenience your family; saying thank you or sorry is the sort of thing you say to a stranger or acquaintance. i get half-seriously lectured by my elders on this a lot even now, even though they know such phrases are just considered good manners in the US.

this muddies up the idea of wei wuxian being jiang cheng's family vs his family's charge or servant even more. jiang cheng wants wei wuxian to be close... but ultimately doesn't really choose to use what power he DOES have to protect wei wuxian. he considers himself still owed something that in his mind wei wuxian flagrantly never repays.

this isn't even getting into how despite spending a majority of his time with the yiling patriarch he never once noticed that wei wuxian stopped using any spiritual power-based cultivation. even lan wangji, who met them far more rarely, realized that something was wrong and that wei wuxian had taken some sort of spiritual damage, hence the "come with me to gusu".

of course manpain is fun and i'm not immune to the juicy idea of them reconciling and talking things out... but jiang cheng is deeply mired in his own desire to be "above" wei wuxian in multiple ways, and doesn't realize the extent of wei wuxian's actions, the intentions behind them, and the consequences wei wuxian knowingly faced for them.

to not recognize this about jiang cheng, especially in the novels, is really revisionist if you ask me. i reiterate that i really do like him a lot. he's flawed, angry, traumatized and has poor coping mechanisms, an overall fascinating character... but he is not selfless nor ideal, and i seriously draw the line at people saying he is.

wen ning shoves this all into his face at lotus pier to disastrous results. it is the reason why jiang cheng's a total mess at guanyin temple, and the reason jiang cheng ultimately doesn't tell wei wuxian about the fact that he ran towards the wens on purpose.

for that one last act of his to have really been selfless, he needs to not seek anything in return. he did it purely because it was right to do to protect someone else. if that means wei wuxian never finds out about it, so be it.

that moment that ended up causing jiang cheng irreversible harm is not a debt that wei wuxian owes him. it hurts, but no matter how bitter it is, that realization is so important to him changing in the future.

[forgotten-daydreamer]

"I hate how they're writing Damian in Batman #146, he can't be that dumb, he's so ooc."

I mean, they're writing him almost as if he were a literal child who wants, no, needs to believe that his father's ideals aren't as fucked up as his mother's, who blindly believes in the man whom he learnt to trust despite being raised with widely different beliefs and ideals for the majority of his so-far short life.

Almost as if Damian were a pre-teen, or young teen at most (because how old can he be here, 13? 14?) who desperately clings onto the belief, onto the hope that his father hasn't really abandoned him, because his father is Batman, and Batman always has a plan, doesn't he? Obscure, complex, but a plan nonetheless, and it (almost) always turns out fine, so Damian needs to trust him, he knows he can, he knows that Batman is safe.

Logically, everyone else is older; I think the one whose age he's closest to might be Tim here, who's about 18 as usual, I guess. But Damian is a child, he's a child who's overall relatively new to Batman's antics, and he's a child who (unfortunately) rarely saw the difference between Batman and Bruce Wayne, a child who rarely got to meet Bruce Wayne at all, if you think of it.

You (you readers, not the characters in the story - because it makes sense for them to be so lost in the plot of their world that they lose sight of things) cannot blame a child for being delusional for believing with his whole heart that his father is not an evil bastard who's attacking everyone, allies included, family included. Because again, Damian doesn't really have a clear idea of how Batman and Bruce Wayne differ, he rarely got the priviledge to be with his father, Bruce Wayne, and not with his work partner, Batman.

You (readers) cannot really tell me that you're putting the blame on a child for 'snapping out of it' so late.

Of course, everyone is free to have their opinions, and if you think that this version of Damian is ooc or whatever, it's a valid, let's agree to disagree. But from a narrative pov, you can't possibly deny that it makes sense for Damian to be acting like this. He's a child, a literal child.

Expecting him to regulate his emotions as well as his sibs do is messed up. Which, by the way, they don't. Dick is a mess but keeping it together - except for the whole "punching your father senseless" thing, but good for him, I'd have done the same there. Jason is a mess and doesn't try to hide it, Steph is baffled and Babs is exhausted. The others are nowhere to be seen (and I'd have done the same pt2). Tim's the only one with a plan that's actually somewhat good - hope he makes Bruce snap out of his fear-induced little gateaway once and for all.

I know not many are fans of this run, but honestly? I'm digging it, it's possibly one of my faves. I love the drama, love the angst, love the plot-twists, like Damian snapping out of it just for Zur to silence him? Backup Robin who grins suspiciously like Jason? Tim ditching his phone - which is ossibly the most shocking thing? I'm hyped as hell.

All of this endless yapping to say that, okay, feel free to hate this or whatever, but please be humble enough to admit that Damian is being written exactly like he should be. I get it, DCAU gave us "Damian who talks like an old man, who never smiles and doesn't understand his peers" and it's cool. He's a bit like that in the comics too. But newer comics have a (very welcome, imho) tendency to write him as 'awkward' while simultaneously keeping in mind that he's a teen. And it's the best thing ever.

I, for one, needed reassurance at Damian's age. I needed an anchor and that anchor were my parents - growing up, the dynamics shifted but it's not the point. At 13, 14, or whatever Damian's age is, you're just a child who needs reassurance, because you're changing, the world around you is changing, and you're disoriented as if lost at sea. Writing Damian like that makes sense, it's not even up for debate.

He's not ooc, and he's not dumb either.

He's just a child.

Feel free to dislike how they're writing him, feel free to dislike literally every single detail about everything, this is a free world. But please don't tell me that needing a parental figure to be there for you, and that siding with said parental figure no matter what because they're essentially all you got left (rip batfam I guess?) - is ooc for a child. Damian is a child, don't forget that.

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

saw some speculation on FranklyDear in relation to the audios and i want to toss my two cents in

so all the thing's i've been seeing have been people talking about how they're a couple, but they're not acting like it, so that must be Playfellow's influence making them put distance between each other

but i immediately interpreted it as - they're not there yet. there might be feelings, but they aren't Together. cause in the 14 bug audios, i feel like it's pretty clear that these are snapshots of the neighborhood outside of the show. cameras aren't rolling, there are no influences, it's the neighbors just Existing on their own dime

'cause the conversations are more natural! the characters seem more nuanced! there aren't any sound effects! so if FranklyDear is already established, wouldn't we have "seen" that in their shared audio 8-14? wouldn't Eddie have just called Frank Frank, without the immediate (and somewhat flustered) correction to Mr. Frankly? and wouldn't Frank call him Eddie instead of Mr. Dear? plus, idk about y'all, but that scene was a lil romantically charged. a little flirty - especially from Frank's side. the kind of tension you get from budding emotions, not fully-realized ones

they just seem to be in a before state. the beginning stages. and anyway, i remember Clown saying that revealing FranklyDear as an endgame couple was sort of an Accident? i think we were meant to watch it evolve and figure it out along with the characters, the way we will with any other relationships (that we Definitely are not aware of / confident about yet).

we're still only in the prologue of the story, so it'd make so much sense if Frank and Eddie are not yet Involved. we're on this journey With them