#there's no wrong or right answer

[ween-kitchens]

im annoyed and a little pedantic so can i just say as a blanket statement

queerbaiting is when the promotion for a FICTIONAL STORY intentionally hints towards two characters having a romantic relationship, without any intention to follow through in the show, in order to get queer people watching without discouraging the homophobic enjoyers of the show

queerbaiting is NOT:

a celebrity who you think is queer because theyre gnc or they have a 'vibe'. that is a real person and they cannot queerbait

two friends of the same gender pretending to flirt with each other for fun. those are real people and they cannot queerbait

a show with two characters of the same gender who are canonically friends that YOU PERSONALLY think would be better in a relationship. that's not bating, that's shipping, and subject to opinion

there are more but those are the main examples of people misunderstanding what queerbaiting is and being mad at something that isn't actually a problem

[jedi-starbird]

APLAP (Assigned Pathetic Lifeform at Padawanship)

New padawan Obi-Wan trying to figure out how the FUCK to make his master listen and not abandon him to go running off following "the will of the force" when it hits him. Qui-Gon is perfectly happy stopping and taking care of pathetic life forms, but not Obi-Wan. That's it. He's always been prepared, always been dutiful, strong, self-sufficient.

He's cracked the code. He needs to be more pathetic.

The next time he senses Qui-Gon's about to run off he coordinates a scene of utmost pathetic-ness, that is, he throws himself into the nearest fountain. He trudges up to his master sopping wet, water-logged robes swallowing him, with hair sticking to his face and containing bits of algae from the fountain. He mumbles out an apology for being clumsy before looking up at Qui-Gon with the biggest, most woeful eyes possible to ask if he happened to bring any spare robes (he didn't, Obi-Wan knows this because he is usually the one to pack spare robes for them both). His wet hair is dripping water into his eyes that's beginning to turn them an irritated red, and there's algae sliding down the side of his face, it really is masterful work.

"Oh...I'm sure I'll be able to find something by myself, it's okay Master, I know you had important work to do."

Qui-Gon visibly hesitates. Obi-Wan starts shivering. He turns to walk away. He's stopped by his Master's hand on his shoulder. His Master, who walks back with him, who gets clean clothes from their hosts, who has folded like wet flimsi and even explains his stupid, stupid plan before choosing to hotwire a hoverbike with a passenger seat! Oh, Obi-Wan really has cracked the code!

Afterwards, Obi-Wan stages an increasingly pitiful accident for himself every time his patented 'Qui-Gon Jinn Bullshit' detector goes off. Eventually, his Master stops leaving him behind at all, even giving him funny looks when he turns around and Obi-Wan isn’t next to him. It never fails to make Obi-Wan grin and run to catch up. Sure, his reputation as a perfect padawan is in tatters, alongside his dignity, but it’s a small price to pay for a place at his Master’s side, for him to remember there’s a place for Obi-Wan there.

When the ray shields come up on Naboo, Qui-Gon doesn't charge ahead and leave his padawan behind, he hasn't for years. He waits for Obi-Wan because it feels wrong to do otherwise, his padawan belongs at his side.

Much, much later, when Obi-Wan is drinking to the end of the war with friends, Commander Cress will ask him how he kept General Jinn from running off for entire decade. Obi-Wan laughs, informs him, and resolutely ignores the scene Quinlan is making as the man cackles and pulls up a book to shove at them both, titled Classical Conditioning 101: A guide to subtle psychological manipulation.

[bunnyjesters]

could you maybe draw jax in the swimsuit goose confirmed he would wear //(and maybe throw pomni on his shoulders🥺)//

i had fun with this lol

[queeringclassiclit]

Which adaptation of Sherlock Holmes is the most queer?

*not including House M.D. because it's not really an adaptation, or any overtly queer pastiches like My Dearest Holmes or The Adventure of the Furtive Festivity because that's not really a fair contest

[shalom-iamcominghome]

Basically, most all my posts on this topic can be summed up as:

List of people responsible for antisemitism:

Antisemites

List of people NOT responsible for antisemitism:

Jews

[mumblesplash]

preview of my piece for @hotguycomiczine!

[bet-on-me-13]

Demon Twins AU but Damian meets Ellie first

So! We have the classic Demon Twins AU, where Danny is the Twin brother of Damian. He was left for dead after a mission gone wrong in a snowy wasteland, with lethal wounds that would kill him within an hour. Damian rightfully assumed that he was dead.

Then one day, at a Gala his father was hosting, he seems somebody who looks exactly like Danyal. They have the same eyes, bone structure, many of the same Mannerisms, and all signs point to this being Danyal. He even takes some DNA and runs a test on it after the Gala. It comes up as a 50% Match to his own, the perfect percentage for a Fraternal Twin (which Danny was, they weren't identical)

He realizes that Danyal must have somehow survived his injuries and found his way to a new family, as improbableas it sounds. But there is one small deviation from the Danyal he knew.

The person at the Gala was a Girl.

In Public Record, she is listed as Danielle "Ellie" Masters, the daughter of reclusive Millionare Vladimir Masters. Which was confusing since Vlad claimed to have had a Son before her first Public appearance.

So he comes to the conclusion that Danyal must be Trans, and went through a Transition. He fully supports his new sister, but he does kind of need to contact her to see if she is safe from the League.

Unbeknownst to him, Ellie is a Clone of Danny made by Vlad back during his whole "Supervillain Phase". After he chilled out and became a good guy, she finally accepted him as a parent and let him claim her as a daughter. (They went to a frankly absurd amount of family therapy to reconcile)

Danny is just living his best life back in Amity Park, when Vlad tells him that some Heroes have been sniffing around his Estate and looking into Ellie's past. He just hopes the Fake Identity he made for her will hold up to scrutiny, it's been years since he made one.

[peach-pot]

ok my turn

[say-hi-intrepid-heroes]

tag yourself im the orange top hat fairy

[puppyeared]

Nick and Pearls

[lgbtlunaverse]

It seems the dash has been talking about the Lan Xichen - Nie Huaisang post-canon dynamics and it's gotten me thinking about how discussion around post-canon Lan Xichen's absolutely horrendous mental state often center around the question of "who is Lan Xichen angry at and who does he feel guilty about" which, at its worst, seperates into 2 camps where according to one side he feels guilty about not protecting jgy and hates the Nies and, on the other side he has completely flipped on jgy and despises him now while being filled with regret towards both nmj and nhs.

And I dislike both of these takes not just because it often feels like people projecting their own Blorbo opinions onto Lan Xichen which is never a fun time but also because that central question is flawed to begin with. It treats anger and guilt like opposing emotions that can't coexist or, if they do, have to compete until one wins and cancels the other out.

And that's not how that... works.

To be clear, the reason why Lan Xichen is so supremely fucked up at the end of the story is that he believes on some level he fucked over everyone in this situation. And, even more importantly, that even with hindsight he can't actually think of what he should have done instead. Every attempt to do better by one seems to involve fucking over the others even more because these people were in conflict with each other and choosing one would mean standing against another

And none of this would actually stop him from feeling angry at any of them. It's not "who is he angry at and who does he feel guilty about" it's: "he is angry at everyone and feels an immediate and bone deep guilt for daring to think badly of them."

Speaking from personal experience here, but feeling like you're not allowed to be angry at someone because you wronged them really doesn't stop the feeling, it just maks you feel like shit for feeling it. And this is all worsened by the fact that what he's in seclusion for is, at the end of the day, a moral question of what he, Lan Xichen, did wrong and every single emotion serves as further proof of the ways he's failed them.

Is he angry at Jin Guangyao, for killing his oldest friend, using Lan xichen's trust in him to do it, and then lying to him about it and countless other things for a decade when Lan Xichen thought of him as the person he trusted the most in the entire world? Yeah. That's a thing people get angry about! Except Jin Guangyao also saved his life and protected and helped him more times than he can count and never ever hurt him and can Lan Xichen say the same? No. He had to clean A-Yao's blood off Shouyue, he has to be haunted by the fact that if he just hadn't listened to Huaisang- hadn't been just like everyone else, in the end, and believed a lie about Jin Guangyao just to think the worst of him- then Jin Guangyao might still be alive.

Is he angry at Huaisang? For orchestrating the death of his best friend? For making him do it? For knowing what the real cause behind Nie Mingjue's death was and never telling him until he found out in the absolute worst way? Absolutely. But didn't Huaisang hide it from him for a reason? Wasn't it his clan's techniques and his personal faith in Jin Guangyao that cost Huaisang his brother? How dare he demand that Huaisang let him in on the secret of his brother's murderer when Lan Xichen is here wondering about how he should have protected that murderer better!

And I do even think he's angry at Nie Mingjue, sometimes I think it's pretty normal to be angry at your friend for kicking your other friend down the stairs and threatening to kill him, even when you know his mind is being poisoned. And years later the last thing he ever saw of Nie Mingjue was Nie Mingjue's thoughtless corpse coming to kill him before Jin Guangyao pushed him away and then proceeded to graphocally snap Jin Guangyao's neck in front of him. And if what he wants to do is protect Jin Guangyao, shouldn't he be mad at Mingjue? Didn't this whole mess start because Jin Guangyao was afraid Nie Mingjue was going to kill him?

Except holy shit, can you imagine? Lan Xichen feels like he personally has Nie Mingjue's blood on his hands. Your oldest friend is killed in front of you and you happily believe it's an accident for 11 years and now you think you have the right to be mad at him? You watched him get worse as he was being poisoned and attributed it to his illness and not to the techniques stolen from your library with the token you give his murderer. Does he think Nie Mingjue knew who he was in that moment and wanted to kill him? That he blamed Lan Xichen for his death? (For the record, I don't. I don't agree with most of what Lan Xichen thinks about himself, but I've been in a self-blame spiral and I know how it feels)

But what was he supposed to do then? Choose Mingjue's side and let A-Yao die? That's also unacceptable. But so is letting Jin Guangyao get away with it. Every single outcome is unacceptable. And really, if Jin Guangyao felt like he had to kill Nie Mingjue to save himself, when it was Lan Xichen who was supposed to keep the peace between them, isn't that another mark of his failure? That he couldn't protect Jin Guangyao well enough that he felt he had to do something so horrible?

But that's not an answer! He's supposed to know what he should have done different, and all he can come up with is "what you were already doing, but without failing this time" He can't pick a side because that means betrayal, but he's already tried not picking a side and it ended like this! There is no right answer, which can only leave him with the idea that he was simply doomed to hurt the people he loved from the start. No wonder the guy looks like shit when we see him post-canon. They put him in a real life trolley problem and gave him the lever as a souvenir.

[hellenhighwater]

huge shoutout to rejection sensitive dysphoria and the attorney who mentioned that I'd misspelled "forfeiture" in my notes, ensuring that I will literally never misspell that word ever again. Thanks, it's just what I needed. I would have rather been shot, but this works also.

[canisalbus]

To me, Machete kind of has the energy of a secondary villain/coldhearted side character in someone else's story that a lot of fans latch onto, moreso than the protagonist. Question is, would he be the villain in anyone's story?

Why, thank you! I'm actually glad to hear he gives off that vibe. I don't think he set out to become a villain but a lot of people certainly view him as one.

[realwizardshit]

i love the tumbr.com polls that go like this:

OP: What is it called when you put meat and cheese and vegetables between two slices of bread?

Option A: A scrimbly pimbsler (5 votes)

Option B: A Bready Friendy (8 votes)

Option C: A delicious football (12 votes)

Option D: Some other weird made up word (answer in tags!) (48,000 votes)

Option E: I don't know/I'm bald/some other infinitely nuanced answer (1 vote)