#that's literally not like him at all

[cat-downthestreet]

People always say Shadow's backstory is sad, but I don't think I've ever heard anyone talk about it in depth.

Maria wasn't just Shadow's only friend. She had a fatal illness that couldn't be cured by any natural means, so her grandfather resorted to experimentation to find a cure. Eventually, Shadow was created, whose immortality was meant to be the key to Maria's recovery.

He was created to save her.

But she was killed because she tried to save Shadow from G.U.N. after he was deemed "too dangerous" by the organization to live. Think about that from Shadow's perspective. His only friend, killed because he was created to be a living weapon. Because he was friends with her, and she wanted to save him from G.U.N.

In his mind, Shadow is the reason why his only friend, his purpose, is gone.

After that, all he had left was the second reason for his creation. His status as a living weapon.

What do you think it's like to have only two purposes, one of which is Maria, and the other is why she's gone?

What's left for you at that point but to destroy everything, just like your creator intended?

Shadow blames humanity for Maria's death- it's another part of why he tried to destroy the world- but above all else, he blames himself.

In the end, Shadow is a broken man.

He believes himself to be unable to form connections with anyone; the last time he did, she was killed. He doesn't want to lose another friend, but he's also afraid he'll be the cause if it happens again. He knows he is built to destroy, and he's resigned himself to that purpose. It's all he has left after Maria died.

The reality of it is, Shadow hates himself.

And he has yet to let anyone close enough to help him. He runs away from friendship and teamwork both to protect himself and others from losing another person. He can't let anyone else die because he can't handle the guilt he already feels from the last time it happened.

That... has to be the worst feeling imaginable.

[bastardlybonkers]

i feel like not enough ppl are factoring in the cultural clash between laios and shuro and the many micro agressions shuro faced while being in their group. literally the name 'shuro' in itself is one

his name is toshiro 😭 lets also not forget that he has his own communication issues, in the opposite way that laios does- thats literally a factor in their argument, that his envy for laios's ability to express himself sincerely manifested as part of his distaste for him.

ig all this to say like, was their fight heart wrenching, especially when reading laios as autistic? absolutely. anybody whos ever been in laios's position knows how much it hurts to realize someone you thought was your friend doesnt actually like having you around, especially when they didnt tell you and you had no way of knowing due to not understanding their cues. but im begging yall to step back and see the nuance of this situation cause im gonna be real a lot of you are kinda just brushing over it acting like everything is toshiros fault and that hes a terrible person when in reality hes an average guy who really, really clashed with laios and it led to a very long misunderstanding due to their supremely opposite methods of communication. even laios and toshiro, after letting everything out in their fight, were able to come to an understanding and start a foundation for an actual friendship built on better communication

ok yknow what Edit: i shouldve made it even more explicit at the end of this post, i hadnt thought i would need to since i started the post with this, but i think a few too many people are missing my point so i just wanna clarify. i shouldnt have said 'really clashed' and left it at that because yeah they did, but it wasnt just their opposite methods of communication, it is also very much that toshiro was experiencing microaggressions via laios. it may have been unintentional on laios's part, but it still happened and wore him down, made it harder for him to communicate on top of both the more subtle social cues that he was raised with and his own communication difficulties. i also want to say that the fandom reaction to toshiro and the complete ignorance of this point is also racist tbh or at the very least ignorant. i understand that the anime did not cover this panel, and neither did the manga, as this was an omake, but im gonna be real with you guys. there are enough context clues within the story to clue you into this. if you didnt pick up on it thats ok, but i think this is a good lesson in picking up subtext in the stories that youre watching and/or reading. kui shouldnt have to explicitly say 'by the way laios was racist to toshiro' for this point to be understood, and at the very least, when the author portrays a character in a sympathetic light (as kui clearly does) it should make you question Why they are doing so and what makes them sympathetic, rather than youre immediate and only reaction to be 'well i hated what this guy did/said so i hate them and they suck'. idk exactly how to finish this, just. idk. question your biases and gut reactions to things you see in media and stories, and think about whether or not theres subtext that youre missing.

[keets-writing-corner]

Thinking a LOT about Lucifer in the latest Hazbin episode. Idk what I was expecting but not this??

As I was watching my immediate thought was just "huh... Lucifer is kinda of weird..." but as the episode went on I realized the issue

the dude is off the chain depressed, like he says it as a joke but holy cow it is SO BAD

He's manically just creating rubber ducks cuz his daughter really like it that one time but it's empty, it's never good enough but he keeps doing it, maybe cuz he doesn't know how to pass the time otherwise.

like I get the feeling he HAS better things he SHOULD be doing than making rubber duck after rubber duck. At first I was like, "Bruh why isn't the king of hell doing anything?" aaaaand then it became clear...

The dude is disassociating so bad he can barely hold a conversation let alone remember information. He clearly WANTS to, he wants to be involved with his daughter so bad, he wants to care about the things she's doing so bad, but his depression keeps interfering. It's like he can only hear every other word and he grasps onto the ones he does hear semi-out of context. Like you can see every time he catches something that he hadn't before and he just "well shit I didn't catch that part"

and that's why he reacts so weird when people talk to him. He is struggling so bad to engage with the conversation he's only getting 50% of it

does that look like the face of a man who knows what the hell the conversation is even about??? he is STRUGGLING

like Charlie spent so long telling him about the hotel, and he STILL didn't understand what she wanted. Yeah it comes off as ditzy but literally I've been in that position where your brain just "nope, not doing this right now" and nerfs your conversation comprehension. So as someone who's BEEN in that position, to me it feels exactly like what he's dealing with. He's sorta engaged with the conversation, but only as much as his brain will allow

For example, when I'm dealing with this, this is what someone talking to me feels like this where the crossed out parts are what I missed and bold is what I catch, "Hey! You know I was thinking for dinner we could either make some chicken with rice? But if you don't feel like cooking, pasta is super easy and you love that right? What do you want to do?" you can kinda get that someone is trying to talk to you about dinner, and towards the end you get the impression that they asked something that needs your input so you can decently put 2 and 2 together and try and pass off, but crucial bits were left out, I would have no idea that either chicken or pasta is in the conversation only having heard "rice". When someone is just talking at me, I can decently pass off as being engaged but the second I'm required to participate in the conversation I'm screwed. Seem familiar? At which point I have 2 options, try to give a bullshit answer, or admit that I missed what they were saying and ask them to repeat

Lucifer, unfortunately, is trying so damn hard to hide that he's dealing with like 24/7 dissociation, so he can't admit that he's missing entire chunks of the conversation, hence his really weird replies. He does eventually get the full picture and then he and Charlie start having the real conversation

Also, the Alastor/Lucifer rivalry was hilarious but also really indicative of more of what Lucifer is dealing with

Alastor is, unfortunately, really good at picking up people's insecurities, and thanks to Charlie's description earlier and watching Lucifer clearly trying to overcompensate, he immediately picks up on the fact that Lucifer KNOWS he struggles to be a good dad (we know cuz it's cuz of the depression, hard to be engaged when your brain keeps turning off) and decides to rub salt in the wound by pretending he's been acting as a surrogate father to Charlie. Now why Alastor decided to pick a fight with the king of hell is beyond me, I do not understand Alastor (and I LIKE IT) (maybe it's cuz Alastor thinks he's hot shit and was expecting Lucifer to at least have heard of him but Lucifer just treats him like a nobody? who knows)(why would Lucifer listen to radio anyways when he can't even pay attention to a conversation it'd just be white noise)

But yeah I just was expecting someone who oozed either charisma or presence and instead I got a depressed dad who's dissociating so bad he can barely function and be present in his life. The only thing it seems he CAN do is make rubber ducks cuz his daughter really liked it that one time

Idk Lucifer is tragic to me. Whatever the full details of what heavan did to him absolutely broke him and he can't deal with it. He's aware of it, and he doesn't know how to fix it, so he tries to over compensate and sorta makes an ass out of himself but no one says or does anything cuz this guy is supposed to be THE king of hell

Suddenly it's making a lot more sense why he just rolls over and lets heaven do what it wants and even told Charlie to go in his place the start of the show. He's not in any headspace to hold a basic conversation let alone negotiate! He didn't even know who Alastor was, he's been so out of touch

idk I like him, he seems sweet, I hope Charlie brings some light back into his life. He really needs to get out of that rubber duck room

[alternativeulster]

dont let anyone ever tell you the doctor who tv movie (1996) sucks. this is literally the best scene in all 60 years of doctor who

[egophiliac]

we were fucking ROBBED

[myrkulitescourge]

the way that one line from the new epilogue in an astarion romance is going to HAUNT me

just. what a profoundly intense thing to confess to someone.

like, just these six months of newfound happiness with you exerts a force on his heart equal and in direct opposition to two centuries of endless torment, the gnawing hunger and exploitation. this flashbulb-bright fraction of his long life holds the same gravity to him as years upon years of darkness and suffering.

in all likelihood, he hasn’t even known his lover for as long as his worst memory lasted, that year sealed away to go mad from starvation and sensory deprivation, yet he still tells them this brief time has been so fundamentally and powerfully important that the weight of even that unimaginable hell is vanishingly small compared to this present he has now and the future ahead of them both.

how am i supposed to act normal about this.

[beybuniki]

best friend with social anxiety

[ruubesz-draws]

Godzillas need trimming too, I believe. Too bad Minus One hates it...

From this:

[greenglowinspooks]

To be honest. DCxDP where the reason Danny meets the bats is Ace the Bat-hound

Like, just think about it for a second. Danny is in Gotham for college, or maybe he just moved out to find a city where having mad scientist parents isn’t actually that unusual.

He can see ghosts.

The ghosts know this.

Now he’s getting harassed left and right by spirits trying to get closure. Fine, whatever, most of them are a one-and-done type deal, and the amount of ghosts trying to get his help steadily decreases.

Except for this one very stubborn dog.

It just keeps showing up and leading him to crime scenes! He doesn’t know how many “anonymous tips” he can call in to the cops before they trace his phone! And this dog, this incredibly good boy, will not stop trying to help the city. He’s never met anyone with such a strong sense of justice, let alone a dog. Can dogs even have a moral compass?

And so Danny just accepts the fact that Ace isn’t going anywhere and becomes his reluctant sidekick/dedicated medium. He leans into the whole thing, dressing up in a mix of traditional magic-user attire and accessories that pay homage to the ghost dog.

He becomes somewhat well known. The psychopomp detective following around the shadowy figure of a German Shepard? That’s unusual! That’s weird! I mean, it’s not the weirdest thing in Gotham, sure, but he’s a new vigilante and he’s got a ghost dog that people can only see when it’s around him. Someone’s gonna notice.

Damian, as Robin, is the first to reach out to him.

Ace doesn’t know Damian but he does know a Robin, and while this isn’t his Robin, he’s still friendlier than usual. Danny’s panicking because oh god the bats are here and also is this kid gonna steal my ghost dog, Damian is absolutely delighted by Ace, and Ace is just happy to see a Robin again.

Damian decides that the psychopomp isn’t a danger to anyone, and there’s no reason to put this encounter into his reports, really, and perhaps Danny can help with some of his cases in the future.

Danny is sweating bullets because Damian basically tells him that he’ll keep him secret as long as he gets to play with Ace. Ace is happy that he’s finally getting some bat affiliated crime-fighting assistance.

And so, Danny is now both Ace AND Damian’s reluctant assistant. At least whenever he’s in trouble, he can always call a middle schooler to help him.

(Is Robin even in school? He’s out patrolling damn near every night, and he stays out late as hell. Does he have a bedtime? He should.)

Eventually it gets to the point where Damian is going over to Danny’s house. When he first sees it, he has a damn bitch you live like this moment, to which Danny responds that not everyone has the money to afford a nice place. Damian counters that he could at least take the time to clean up, and Danny replies that he’s working, going to school, and being a vigilante assistant to a ghost dog, something’s got to give.

Danny nearly has a heart attack when he checks his bank account the next day and sees that someone transferred him 10,000 dollars.

And so they get into a routine. Danny and Damian fight crime with Ace at night, and occasionally Damian stops by during the day to play with Ace and have Danny help with his homework.

(Damian is smart enough to do it on his own, but some of the instructions are written incredibly confusingly, and he would never admit to needing help to his family. Danny is just glad that the kid is in school and cares about his education, blissfully unaware that he’s basically emotionally adopted him.)

Damian is used to being in Danny’s company.

Eventually, when going over a case with the family, Damian absentmindedly remarks that he’ll have to ask Danny about some of the clues that they might be missing. Nightwing asks who he means and Damian makes a face like he just swallowed a lemon.

Cue shitstorm.

Who is “Danny?” Why is Damian willing to ask for help from anyone, much less someone outside of the family? Does he know who Damian is? Has Damian been compromised? What the hell is going on?

Damian now has to explain that Danny is the psychopomp with the ghost dog who he might have met hunted down while on patrol and conveniently not mentioned, but he’s not a bad person, really, and he lets him play with Ace, and he’s been quite helpful on certain cases due to his ability to talk to ghosts.

Bruce insists that the family meet Danny. Damian, hoping that he won’t just skip town the second he hears the news, relents.

Danny is surprisingly eager to meet the bats, considering his earlier fears.

Damian, blissfully unaware of what’s coming, sets a time and place to meet.

Once everyone is there, he gives Bruce the earful of a lifetime.

Robin is in middle school! Danny knows that there’s no way to stop the boy from going on patrol, but you could at least shift his schedule so he gets enough sleep on school nights! Does the Bat even know where he is half the time?! (No) And why isn’t he comfortable asking his family for help with both cases and homework? Did they ever even notice how much time he was spending at Danny’s house? If Danny was a bad person, he could have seriously hurt the poor boy! Shame on you!

Nightwing is mortified that Damian didn’t trust him enough to tell him about any of this. Red Hood is laughing his ass off, because yeah Danny is making good points but he’s also chewing out the literal Batman. Tim is recording the whole thing. Steph is delighted by the absolute gall of this Danger Twink™️, and already planning to add him to several groupchats. Damian is more embarrassed than he’s ever been in his entire life.

You, he points to Nightwing, did your academic life feel supported when you were a Robin? Nightwing is too stunned to speak. Red Hood, eternal shit-stirrer, says that oh, we all prioritized patrol over our education, that’s just how it is. Red Robin actually dropped out of high school to avoid distractions, did you know that?

Danny honest-to-god shrieks at this.

He finishes his angry rant and leaves, everyone too stunned to stop him.

And as it turns out, Tim wasn’t the only person recording the whole thing.

The entire internet is blowing up with Psychopomp The Danger Twink™️’s rant. People are taking sides. Things are getting messy. Red Hood literally admitting on-camera to previously being a Robin is somehow not the main focus here.

Eventually someone connects some dots from the video, as well as stories circling the internet about the psychopomp. A ghost dog named Ace, who is the literal only reason that the psychopomp is fighting crime at all, which seems incredibly fond of Nightwing and Robin.

A crime-fighting dog who wants constant attention from both the current and original Robin.

Oh my god, Ace the Bat-hound died and became a crime-fighting ghost.

And, somehow, that’s still not the strangest thing going on in Gotham.

[inkskinned]

there are a lot of posts out there that are positive and healthy coping mechanisms for handling the holidays. this is not one of them :)

i think there's like. going to be times in your life you will be stuck in a social situation that you cannot escape from gracefully. i do not know why the internet doesn't believe these times exist. it's not always just that your physical safety is at risk - sometimes it's legit like "i just don't currently have the energy or time to put in the effort of responding to this." sometimes it's a coworker you hate so much. sometimes it's just like, fine, you know? like you know you can handle your aunt when she's cheerily horrible, but if you actually set a boundary around her, it's going to be weeks of fallout with your father.

i don't know why people think the answer is always just "cut them out!" or "don't let them get away with that!" because ... the real world is tricky and complicated. i think kind of a lot of us have an internal "radiation poisoning" meter for certain people. like - i'm talking about the ones who are absolutely giving you gradual ick damage. like, you can handle them, but you'll be exhausted.

and yes. you absolutely should listen to your therapist and the good posts about handling others and set good boundaries and take care of yourself. prioritize peace.

HOWEVER :) ...... since im often in a situation with a Gradual Sense of Ick person i cannot just "cut out" of my life (without losing someone else precious to me) - i have sort of developed the most. maladaptive form of mischief possible. because like, if i'm going to have to listen to this shit again, i like to have a little bit of private fun with it.

now! again, i am physically safe, just mentally drained by this man. you should only do this with people you are not in danger with. which leads me to my suggestions for when your Unfortunate Acquaintance shows up and says oh everyone pay attention to me.

my favorite word is "maybe!" said as brightly and happily as possible. whenever the Horrible Person starts in on a topic you do not want to go further with, particularly if they make a claim that you know to be inaccurate, do not respond to it. you and i have both tried to actually argue with this person, and it hasn't gone well, because this person just wants the drama of an argument. however, "maybe!" gives them literally nothing to go on. it is incredibly disarming. they are used to people having some response. they know they can't prove what they're saying, and maybe! treats them like the child they are. it dismisses them in the politest way possible.

i like to say maybe! and then, in their stunned silence, immediately change the subject. this is because i have adhd and i will have something unrelated to talk about, but if you can't think of topics fast enough, i recommend just pointing to something and saying, "isn't that lovely?" because fuck you let's bring in some positivity.

by the way. that second trick - of pointing to something and stating an opinion about it? - that just works on its own, like, 70% of the time. i picked it up from teaching preschoolers. it's an intentional "redirect". it stops children crying and it also stops grown adults from finishing their explanation on why women belong in kitchens. dual wielding!

keep it silly for yourself. i absolutely do not care if people think i'm fucking stupid (it's more fun if they do) and as a result i will purposefully misunderstand things just to see how long it takes them to realize i've completely removed them from the subject at hand. when they say "women aren't funny" i get to be like. "which women." "all women." "all women in america?" "no in the world." "like the mole people? the people in the world?" "what? no. like, alive." "oh are we not counting the mole people?" "what the fuck are you talking about." "you don't believe in the mole people?"

similarly, i play a personal game called "one up me." my Evil Acquaintance literally knows this game exists (my family & friends caught onto it and now also play it) and it always fucking gets him. i don't know why. you have to be willing to be a little free-spirited on this one, though. the trick is that when they make one of those horrible little bigoted or annoying comments they are always making, you need to go one unit weirder. not more intense, mind you - just more weird. "you don't look good in that dress." "yeah, actually, my other dress was covered in squid ink due to a mishap at the soup store." "you shouldn't wear such revealing clothes." "wait, what? oh shit. sorry, your son tears off strips when no one is looking and eats them. i swear it was longer before we left the building."

the point of "one up me" is to completely upend this person's narrative. we both know this person likes setting up situations where you cannot "win" and then they really like telling other people how badly you handled it. in a usual situation, if you respond "please don't say something that rude", you're a bitch. but if you let it happen, you're letting yourself be debased. they are not usually expecting door number three: unflappably odd. because what are they going to say when they're telling everyone how badly you behaved? "she said my son eats her dresses" ".... okay?"

if you can, form an allyship with someone whomst you can tagteam with. where they can pick up on your weird "soup store" story and run with it.

the following phrase is amazing and can be deployed for any situation: "oh, be nice :) it's the holidays!" i do not know why this works as often as it does. i'll say it for the most random shit. i think this is bc most of the time these people know they're being impolite, they just like to fight.

godbless. when in doubt, remember that you could always start stealing their pens.

the whole point of this is - if you can't escape. maybe see how long you can just be. like. a horrible little menace.

[lolliepops-rox]

This is my petition for people who create pins/stickers/other things with "she/they" & "he/they" to also include "she/he". I'm kind of sick of being excluded, and I'm sure there are plenty of others who feel the same.

[mikakuna]

i see this jason todd who actually looks his very young age (instead of the 30yr old man that comics like to portray)

and feel my heart breaking just imagining bruce beating him up, almost killing him, mind-breaking him, and just overall being a total piece of shit father towards him.

a huge chunk of the reason why people don't view bruce's actions towards jason as abusive or wrong is because jason doesn't look his age. he's drawn to be this 35yr old father of three who looks even older than dick (and way too on par with bruce) that people see their fights as one between batman and any of his regular rogues. when they fight, it just looks like batman is fighting a man his age and not an actual young person. it doesn't look like batman is fighting his son who's barely even drinking age (and who def wasn't drinking age in utrh). their fights are portrayed in a way that eliminates the very real power struggle between them.

this applies to jason's entire character as well. a lot of people don't sympathize with how he died or his actions as robin or his fights with the other bats because he doesn't look his age. he always looks older and scarier than everyone else. tim has many sympathizers from the titans tower incident because jason just looked like a grown man fighting a 12yr old (even tho i disagree, tim was built and like 17 lmfao).

anyways, i just wish comics would actually draw jason to look his age, which literally ranges from 19 to early twenties. he's young- so young, and it's so annoying to see him drawn and written as someone older than even bruce.

[decaffeinatedpartymuggoop]

Instead of the “Jason vs Percy” rivalry we should have gotten Annabeth vs. Jason but instead of a fight for power it’s them having a battle of autism cause their special interests were Greek myths vs Roman myths.

Jason calls a Greek god by their Roman name and Annabeth pops up out of nowhere and goes “erm, actually”

The 7 is talking about some landmark and Annabeth and Jason start arguing about which pantheon it was dedicated to.

“It’s amazing right? It was dedicated to Athena.” “Erm, it was actually built for Mars…”

[lschmidtartblog]

I've been rereading the YuGiOh! manga and I love this freak. I wish they had kept him at this level of creepy for the entire series

[skullism]

rereading aftg and realising just how oblivious neil was is truly hilarious

just a few pages ago renee told neil andrew is gay and neil literally had to lie down to process it, now he's admitting he watches andrew at the gym and is impressed by how much he lifts??? dude. you are down SO bad

[egophiliac]

(almost) four years in, and I finally had time to draw something for the anniversary! woo! 🎉🎉🎉