#this is like... 2008?

[overdevelopedglasses]

Sunday Six???

hi gang i've been actually swamped. Who knew being a narrative lead would be so stressful? But I found the time while things were trying to boot on my computer to dig through the WIPs and find the one thing that was poking my brain. Yes, Shinumi is back. Hope you're not sick of him bc he is my son.

So, tagging @four-white-trees @jichanxo @passthroughtime @mike----wazowski @phantasy14 @skysquid22 @ikainkspills

and probably should also tag @bordemsgardem bc... hey guess what! Someone you'd wanna see is here.

---

“So where are you from?” Shinumi says, the last word making his voice crack. He winces, but the bartender seems unfazed.

“Yokohama. What about you?” She picks up another glass to dry as she turns to face him.

Shinumi wrestles with the question for a second. “Nagoya. You know, I think I went on a trip to Yokohama at some point.”

“Really? Where did you go?”

“My school did a field trip to… Seriyo High, I think? Either way, it was some highschool there for some sort of dance thing.” Shinumi didn’t realize what he had said until he saw the bartender’s widened eyes.

“Dance? Like, as a competition?” She cocked her head with curiosity. Shinumi blushed with embarrassment. “...It was a long time ago.”

“You definitely have the body for it, but you didn’t answer my question.” she throws a wink at him.

Shinumi takes a deep breath, attempting to ignore the past welling up within him, “Sometimes it was for competition, sometimes it was more like… a performance. I was a fan of the latter.”

[toxtricityamped]

starting watching merlin like. 16 years too late

[lochlot]

morgwen study

[papayafox]

3/24: mclaren x suzuka x lofi 🧡💜💚 | grand prix poster series

[argentinagp]

[styxxsyringe]

TRIXIETRAXX 200X 🎧☠️💙

[sauftpink]

we've lost the plot ..

[paracosmicka]

Okay but how did Shadow get pregnant?

One time I was trying to show Sonic and Shadow this cool flower I found except they both suddenly took a bite out of it and then hearts started floating over their heads while they just stared at each other for a couple seconds and then boom. A fucking baby. I had no idea hedgehogs could do that.

[cherryblossomfaewilds]

"i don't believe in god otacon so you're the only one to whom i can pray" hideo kojima set this in front of everyone's eyes in the year of our lord 2008 i can barely believe mgs4 is real

[hellspawnsparks]

got your nose, mister snowman!

[soupforsoup]

Brb killing myself over the fact that this is what Eliot looked like when he worked for Moreau :)))

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

Now I have to ask- WHY do you hate Pacific Rim?

Okay, fair warning, this is about as bitter and salty and small-minded as day-old caviar. But. My bitter, salty (probably fishy) opinion:

Pacific Rim is only a good movie because it's a well-written story about robots punching monsters.

That's it. That's all there is to the movie.

I started out merely disappointed by Pacific Rim. We went gaga for the preview materials that promised these unique well-rounded character pairs and trios with these idiosyncratic robots from all these different Pacific nations... And then the movie itself is about some bland white American guy who pilots a robot named a racial slur, the second most fleshed-out team is bland white Australian guys, and the Chinese team is there, kind of, in the background, but don't worry they're going to die first. The "character-driven story" turned out to be "various characters take turns punching aliens" but, sure, whatever, I love the MCU so why not.

The day I went from "Pacific Rim is overrated" to "Pacific Rim is the worst thing that has ever happened to human civilization, I'm extremely normal about this" was the day I saw a Tumblr post suggesting we replace the Bechdel test with the Mako Mori test. Because Mako Mori has her own plot and doesn't kiss North Carolina at the end, making her a whole new type of feminist icon.

To which I was like:

We are talking about the same movie here, right? The Pacific Rim that can't even pass the Bechdel test? The Pacific Rim that's all about might-makes-right, the Pacific Rim that has ONE speaking role for ONE female character in its (from IMDB) 50-person cast? The Pacific Rim that repeatedly puts its only female character in danger and has her rescued by first Idris Elba then North Carolina? THAT Pacific Rim?

Is there a different Mako Mori I haven't met? Because the one I've seen a) has a character arc driven by deciding whether to obey her father or follow her heart, which is as inoffensive and stale as an unblessed communion wafer, b) does nothing that Ellen Ripley didn't do 30 years earlier, but with about 5% of the character depth Ripley got, and c) stands there in silence looking sad as two men punch each other over the question of her virtue.

Any post assuming this movie invented the idea of "small Asian woman kicks monster ass" needs to learn its damn history. Especially the ones acting like her being physically small is somehow a feminist bonus. There's something embarrassingly ahistorical about the whole thing.

And look. I get how we got here. I know how easily Tumblr backs you into a rhetorical corner of "calling a story Good can never mean merely 'enjoyable'; calling a story Good must mean 'virtuous'". Until next thing you know you're arguing that actually, shipping Obi-Wan/Darth Vader is a net good for all of society, because gay divorced middle-aged tyrants who use supplemental oxygen and murdered their exes in a custody dispute over the one kid (out of two) they actually care about deserve to see themselves in sci fi too! You only end up in that corner because half the time you're arguing against someone who says that shipping Obi-Wan/Darth Vader is literally the same thing as supporting father-son incest, so your real reasons for shipping them (1. foe yay, 2. old man yaoi) seem wildly insufficient.

Much of what I see about Pacific Rim seems neck-deep in the "it's not allowed to be a Good Movie unless it single-handedly dismantles the patriarchy" fallacy. There's nothing progressive about shipping two dudes best known for chopping off each other's body parts with laser swords. And there's nothing progressive about a movie having its only female character hug the male protagonist at the end instead of kissing him. You're allowed to like a thing just because it's well-made, without acting like a bog-standard normatively-broey action flick somehow invented a new form of feminism. Anyway, "Pacific Rim is a perfectly fine movie" is the hill I will die upon, heretical though it may be.

[casscainmainly]

This is not really anything coherent but I was thinking about Cass and Shiva's trip in the water in Batgirl (2024) #6:

And how water, particularly drowning, is associated with parenthood and relationships for Cass. Here, her drowning, and her choice to take Shiva's hand, symbolises their distant relationship (Shiva on land while Cass is in the water) and how she has to decide whether to trust Shiva's actions or not. She does - she takes Shiva's hand, which foreshadows the ending of this issue where Cass accepts their mother-daughter relationship and the "ties that bind" them.

This calls back to Batgirl (2000) #50, where Cass and Bruce plunge into the water after their fight:

Bruce and Cass enter the water together - even when they're fighting (like they were in this issue), they're in sync. And they choose to bend towards each other, achieving the contact that Cass longed for from David Cain (Horrocks-era David at least). They then both rise out of the water together, signifying they've both learned/accepted something about each other: Bruce is seeing her for who she is, not who he wants her to be, and Cass is learning how to love and be loved by Bruce without subsuming herself in him. After this Bruce and Cass never have a serious fight again, and it's a nice development after Bruce's earlier behaviour and misunderstandings.

With Babs, the water moment is a bit less focal but still poignant:

Batgirl (2000) #52

Babs, under the spell of Poison Ivy's garden, attacks Cass and pushes her into the water. Cass manages to rescue her, and after Babs comes to her senses she apologises to Cass and they hug. It's a snapshot of what's to come in their relationship, where Babs hurts Cass by calling her stupid. This moment is full of the pain Babs has caused Cass, but also their closeness; this panel of them looking at each other is just so good, and they're so intimate throughout this. And it ends with a loving hug. They've been separated a lot, but at the end of the day they always find a way back to each other.

David Cain is the only one who doesn't have a moment like this. If anything, he's associated with the air - from Cass jumping out a window with him in her first appearance to stargazing, it's more about the sky for him and Cass. So it's no surprise his big moment happens in the rain:

It's just so interesting to see the differences. Shiva saves Cass, Bruce and Cass both swim up together, Cass saves Babs, and Cass fails to save David. Cass' failure to save David symbolises that their relationship isn't one that can be salvaged, no matter how much either of them still love or care about each other. What David did to Cass is unforgivable; they will never have a moment like the rest.

The water motif of course also ties into Cass' relationship with Stephanie, with 2/3 death hallucinations occurring in the water (and the first one is particularly important, since Cass' decision to live is directly tied to her swimming out of the ocean). But that could be a post for another day, I just think it's cool to see how water figures as a prominent symbol in a lot of Cass' relationships!

[naturecalls111]

[thessstrangeskeleton]

Posting this to tumblr first because I’m sure if it cheeses my audience as much as it does me