#this is so long anon i am very sorry

[pynkhues]

Hey, really love your succession meta, I hope this is welcome in your ask box. Idk if this is something you talked about already, but there is this persuasive assumption in the general fandom space that roman was the only kid who suffered physical abuse ever that in my opinion isnt really supported in the text/subtext. The way the past abuse of all the roys is talked about, to me, always implied a wealth of countless, other traumatic experiences that are simply not talked about and may very well be physical abuse. To me it feels like it was set up this way to fire up the viewers imagination and illustrate the sheer, unspeakable magnitude of the abuse. I just cant see Logan never losing his temper and getting physical with the other sibs but I struggle to put into words why. What are your thoughts on this? Do you think Rome was the only kid facing physical abuse? Youre always so eloquent in your analysis and demonstrate a complex understanding of dv dynamics. I appreciate your work :)

Hey! Thank you for your kind words, anon, and it’s definitely welcome in my inbox!

Yeah, I’ve noticed that assumption about Roman a lot too, and it’s not one I personally agree with, although I do understand why people make it. Roman is, after all, the only one of the four children that the show explicitly depicts receiving physical abuse, and he’s the only one who really has his abuse talked about by the other children (interestingly, on both occasions Roman’s abuse is actually weaponised against other characters, not against Roman. Kendall uses it as a way to try and hurt their father in 4.02, and Shiv uses it as a way to say that Kendall deserves greater punishment from their father than he’s receiving in 2.01).

I actually would say that we’ve had pretty explicit evidence that Kendall received physical abuse too, namely in the way that Logan came at him at Connor’s ranch after Kendall’s relapse in 1.07 (especially because I’d argue Kendall was doing in that scene what Roman has done a few times now by seeking out the hit, and the reason Logan held off was less about not wanting to, and more that he punishes his children by not giving them what they want), and in Logan hitting Iverson with the tin of cranberries in 1.05. I talked about the latter in this post, but I’ve always read the blocking of Kendall behind Iverson as a way of having a flashback without having a flashback, and the way that the episode ties Kendall and Iverson’s experiences as the same I think underscores that.

(It’s hard to comment on this particular point without seeing the scripts, but Arian Moayed has said in an interview too that the script for 4.04 had Stewy say that he’d seen Logan through a shoe at Kendall which I do think is likely meant to echo what Shiv says about Logan beating Roman with a shoe in 2.01 too, but given the scene was condensed, I’ll leave it out as canonical evidence at this point).

As for Shiv and Connor, yeah, I do think there was physical abuse for both of them as well, and I think it was probably fairly common for Connor when he was very young, and probably infrequent enough for Shiv for her to push it down (honestly though, given her character, I wouldn’t even be surprised if a part of her re-wrote it in her head as a positive after the fact. Getting hit means, after all, that she’s one of the boys).

So it does beg the question of why Roman’s abuse is easier for them all to acknowledge. I have a few theories about that, but ultimately, I think it comes down to an adolescent othering of Roman by Shiv and Kendall, and all four of their relative proximity to each other in their formative years.

Alan Ruck has said that Connor’s about fifteen years older than Kendall which puts him in a unique situation growing up where I imagine there’s a lot about his childhood through to his young adulthood that the Golden Trio simply don’t know due to the age gap. They obviously know bits and pieces – what happened to Connor’s mother for instance, Logan’s temporary abandonment, and the situation with the cake – but I’d generally say that those are life events that scaffold a childhood, they don’t provide the detail of it.

The child desertion that came with Logan’s temporary abandonment too would also have been extremely formative to Connor as a character. We don’t know when this was (although I do have my own theories on that too), but it would’ve fundamentally changed any existing dynamic between Connor and Logan, and I think we see that quite clearly in the man Connor is. His people pleasing, his co-dependency, his need to control the terms of his relationships (notable in the entire context of his relationship with Willa), his fear of rejection, and his fawn response to certain situations are all symptomatic of childhood abandonment. I imagine a lot of that started after Logan’s desertion, but then likely were compounded with Logan’s re-entry into his life, and I think that grew into his sort of subservience and performed affability which was likely inherently tied to the fear of being abandoned again.

In that sense, I think there was probably less physical abuse with Connor as he got older because he learnt how to navigate their father’s temper and stopped testing it / always acquiesced out of a fear of being deserted again. If most of his physical abuse was when he was a child or a teenager, well, Kendall, Roman and Shiv hadn’t even been born, there’s already a remove for them in terms of their relation to it.

With Kendall, Roman and Shiv, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about Roman being sent away to school in Delaware while Kendall and Shiv were both living with their father still and going to school in Manhattan. There’s a childhood separation there when it comes to Roman, yes, which breeds its own sort of ‘othering’, which I’ll come back to, but I do think there’s a lot of evidence in the show that depicts Kendall and Shiv as forming something between a ‘half and half’ and a ‘trauma-shield’ sibling relationship.

I’m getting a bit scientific here, so I hope you don’t mind, but a half and half sibling relationship is described as consisting of ‘the reenactment of traumatic events with their sibling due to the flawed attachments the sibling has to their caregiver. This sibling relationship is often the most violent, and is seen as a love-hate relationship with each other. This often plays out as the siblings’ relationship becomes too important as a substitute source of nurturing and threatening as a potential cause for abandonment. The siblings are confused about their psychological connection to a caregiver, and act out a push/pull relationship with each other to achieve maximum comfort from that caregiver.’

On the other hand, the trauma shield sibling relationship is when siblings ‘use each other as a shield from the abuse and interrupt the development process. They become fixated at the same developmental level and exhibit similar interpretations of their struggles despite the chronological age difference.’

The show regularly depicts Kendall and Shiv as being mirrors to one another – they are the winning dog, the rightful heir, the only real competition to one another, and now the only two to be parents and continue the lines of succession – and I think we’ve seen the effect that’s had on both their lives. They have moments of genuine intimacy and trust, they defend each other, they reach for each other when things are blowing up and become active participants in each other’s attacks on others, just as they also are the most ruthless with one another, the most violent, they weaponise each other’s weaknesses (both real and perceived) and have tried to ‘kill’ each other more than any other iteration of the siblings.

I also think that they both are in extreme denial about the abuse they received, and I think that they enable that in each other and shield each other from the realities of it which is easier to do when Connor and Roman weren’t there for it, and easier to do when they have each other to reiterate the artifice of their lives. God, one of the things that’s so great about the karaoke confrontation in 4.02 is that it kind of lays that out. Kendall and Shiv work together in that scene in a way that shuts Roman and Connor out at best and at worst uses their abuse and neglect to make a point while never saying anything about what Logan’s done to them. Shiv might bring up Logan advising Tom on the lawyers, but even that is a way around the things we’ve seen Logan do to her, and Kendall’s literally behind her the whole time. They’re in-step in their refusal to acknowledge what their father’s done to them, just as they’re in-step in forcing their brothers’ abuse out into the open to make a point.

I think this dynamic likely established itself around the time Roman was sent away to school, because I think Roman being sent away fed into Kendall and Shiv’s shared narrative that they were the prized children. It likely did have this degree of othering for Roman which emphasised his perceived weakness in the eyes of all three of the Golden Trio, and I think he likely had readjustment periods when coming home for the holidays that did see him hit more. I think those periods likely let Kendall and Shiv off the proverbial hook until he inevitably went back to school, where they could control their own abuse narratives again through their shared understanding of what the ‘story’ was.

This has gotten very long, haha, so look! This is a roundabout way of saying that I think Logan’s parenting style has been divide and conquer for as long as he’s been a parent, and that that has coloured all four of their understandings of their own abuse. The difference is that Connor and Roman were cast out, and the fact of being cast out at all means that abuse and neglect has a light shone upon it. It gets some oxygen, it gets to breathe, which makes it real. Kendall and Shiv weren’t cast out, they were kept together in their father’s house in Manhattan, and I think getting to stay behind closed doors in the dark let them hide even from Connor and Roman. It didn’t see the light, it didn’t get any air, so it was never real. I think it allowed them the ability to hide, deny or re-write their abuse, and I think they used (and still use) each other to do it.

[endusviolence]

Rowling isn't denying holocaust. She just pointed out that burning of transgender health books is a lie as that form of cosmetic surgery didn't exist. But of course you knew that already, didn't you?

I was thinking I'd probably see one of you! You're wrong :) Let's review the history a bit, shall we?

In this case, what we're talking about is the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft, or in English, The Institute of Sexology. This Institute was founded and headed by a gay Jewish sexologist named Magnus Hirschfeld. It was founded in July of 1919 as the first sexology research clinic in the world, and was run as a private, non-profit clinic. Hirschfeld and the researchers who worked there would give out consultations, medical advice, and even treatments for free to their poorer clientele, as well as give thousands of lectures and build a unique library full of books on gender, sexuality, and eroticism. Of course, being a gay man, Hirschfeld focused a lot on the gay community and proving that homosexuality was natural and could not be "cured".

Hirschfeld was unique in his time because he believed that nobody's gender was either one or the other. Rather, he contended that everyone is a mixture of both male and female, with every individual having their own unique mix of traits.

This leads into the Institute's work with transgender patients. Hirschfeld was actually the one to coin the term "transsexual" in 1923, though this word didn't become popular phrasing until 30 years later when Harry Benjamin began expanding his research (I'll just be shortening it to trans for this brief overview.) For the Institute, their revolutionary work with gay men eventually began to attract other members of the LGBTA+, including of course trans people.

Contrary to what Anon says, sex reassignment surgery was first tested in 1912. It'd already being used on humans throughout Europe during the 1920's by the time a doctor at the Institute named Ludwig Levy-Lenz began performing it on patients in 1931. Hirschfeld was at first opposed, but he came around quickly because it lowered the rate of suicide among their trans patients. Not only was reassignment performed at the Institute, but both facial feminization and facial masculization surgery were also done.

The Institute employed some of these patients, gave them therapy to help with other issues, even gave some of the mentioned surgeries for free to this who could not afford it! They spoke out on their behalf to the public, even getting Berlin police to help them create "transvestite passes" to allow people to dress however they wanted without the threat of being arrested. They worked together to fight the law, including trying to strike down Paragraph 175, which made it illegal to be homosexual. The picture below is from their holiday party, Magnus Hirschfeld being the gentleman on the right with the fabulous mustache. Many of the other people in this photo are transgender.

[Image ID: A black and white photo of a group of people. Some are smiling at the camera, others have serious expressions. Either way, they all seem to be happy. On the right side, an older gentleman in glasses- Magnus Hirschfeld- is sitting. He has short hair and a bushy mustache. He is resting one hand on the shoulder of the person in front of him. His other hand is being held by a person to his left. Another person to his right is holding his shoulder.]

There was always push back against the Institute, especially from conservatives who saw all of this as a bad thing. But conservatism can't stop progress without destroying it. They weren't willing to go that far for a good while. It all ended in March of 1933, when a new Chancellor was elected. The Nazis did not like homosexuals for several reasons. Chief among them, we break the boundaries of "normal" society. Shortly after the election, on May 6th, the book burnings began. The Jewish, gay, and obviously liberal Magnus Hirschfeld and his library of boundary-breaking literature was one of the very first targets. Thankfully, Hirschfeld was spared by virtue of being in Paris at the time (he would die in 1935, before the Nazis were able to invade France). His library wasn't so lucky.

This famous picture of the book burnings was taken after the Institute of Sexology had been raided. That's their books. Literature on so much about sexuality, eroticism, and gender, yes including their new work on trans people. This is the trans community's Alexandria. We're incredibly lucky that enough of it survived for Harry Benjamin and everyone who came after him was able to build on the Institute's work.

[Image ID: A black and white photo of the May Nazi book burning of the Institute of Sexology's library. A soldier, back facing the camera, is throwing a stack of books into the fire. In the background of the right side, a crowd is watching.]

As the Holocaust went on, the homosexuals of Germany became a targeted group. This did include transgender people, no matter what you say. To deny this reality is Holocaust denial. JK Rowling and everyone else who tries to pretend like this isn't reality is participating in that evil. You're agreeing with the Nazis.

But of course, you knew that already, didn't you?

Edit: Added image IDs. I apologize to those using screen readers for forgetting them. Please reblog this version instead.

[silverwhittlingknife]

How would you describe Tim's people skills? Especially when you compare them to Dick's?

Hi anon, this was a fun ask!! I picked out a few panels for each of them (comforting friends, a bit out of sync with friends, fighting with friends, and offering practical support to friends) just to get a quick look at their people skills in action, and then I rambled on about my thoughts on their strengths and their weaknesses.

(Caveat: I'm going to try to focus on my ideas about differences between the two of them, since we're comparing, but I do think they're socially more similar than not, so you might also want to check out @bitimdrake's post on Dick and Tim's similarities for the big picture!)

Short version: I think they've both got good people skills. Dick's are a bit better and more natural, whereas Tim's are more practiced and learned (in ways that sometimes show).

Let's start with Dick first, and then I'll get back to Tim.

Dick

Comforting friends in Titans Secret Files:

Dick: Will you go back in there and sit down? This is my house. You don't need to clean up after me! Donna: I know, I just... I just ... Dick: Hey, hey... what's the matter? Donna: Nothing. It's nothing. Dick (reaching out to supportively grip her shoulders): Donna, this is me here, remember?

A bit out of sync with friends (but still getting along well) in Titans 3:

Dick: The movie runs 98 minutes. So if we fast-forward past the coming attractions and watch only half the credits, I can still make it back to Blüdhaven in time to - Roy: Nightwing, chill. Team morale demands that you relax and enjoy yourself.

Fighting with friends in Titans 13:

Dick: We haven't used it much, Changeling. But that's gonna be different. Starting right now. Our performance against Tartarus and the HIVE was unacceptable. Each and every one of you should thank God you weren't killed. Kory: How dare you? How can you just stand there talking to us like we're a military detachment -

Giving support to relative strangers in Nightwing 87:

Neighbor 1: Oh, he - he's a true gentleman, you know? Always holds the door, or helps me up the stairs with my groceries if we both come in at the same time... Neighbor 2: ...used his motorcycle to jumpstart my car one morning and even got my brother-in-law a job with Wayne Enterprises when he got laid off... Neighbor 3: ...and he's very, very, very nice and doesn't talk down to me. Plus he lets me use his basketball.

Offering practical support (making dinner) in Prodigal:

Tim: I can't believe you can actually cook... Dick: I like to eat. Tim: So does Bruce - but he had to order Chinese last night. Dick: That's where I'm one up on him - I've lived on my own without an Alfred. Still miss him, though... He was good for a lot more than cooking and cleaning. Tim: Yeah. But at least we don't have to miss him on empty stomachs.

Strengths:

I think Dick's people skills are pretty simple: he has them! He's good at people! And I tend to think of Dick's people skills as so automatic they're mostly instinctive. It's not something he really has to think about because it's so ingrained in him. A combination of natural talent plus a childhood spent around sociable performers means Dick's just really highly attuned to the people around him.

And I don't think he's particularly obvious about it. So e.g. you could be having a conversation with Dick where he didn't seem like he was paying close attention, but if there was An Important Moment where you got anxious for a moment or let something important slip or let a bit of anger show through etc. - Dick will have picked up on it, even if it's unconsciously, and it'll stick with him and come back to him later.

And just generally - I think Dick has good instincts for who he can trust and who he shouldn't trust; when he's treading on conversational landmines he'll often pick up the unease even if he doesn't have the context to know why there's a problem; if he's trying to comfort and trusts his instincts he'll often do the right thing even if he can't justify in words why he felt like that was the right thing to do.

So I think for Dick, there's always the level of conscious awareness - the things he's aware he knows, if you will - and the level of unconscious awareness - things he senses, but maybe can't explain, or maybe doesn't want to know so he's suppressing the thoughts.

So he's good at leading, and he's good at comforting, and he's good at listening, and he's good at figuring out the right thing to say...

Like, he's good at all of it, so it's actually sort of difficult to elaborate because there's just not that much nuance? Given any particular interpersonal situation, Dick has an excellent chance of getting a quick read on some random guy he's just met and then getting the reaction he wants pretty fast, whether it's intimidating the guy or comforting him or getting him to cooperate or taunting him until he loses his temper, etc etc etc.

Obviously Dick's not a mind reader, and he can get things wrong, especially when he's in the throes of one of his own personal crises, but generally I think Dick's very very sure-footed with people, even with strangers.

Weaknesses:

This isn't a weakness precisely because Dick's usually doing it on purpose, but he'll sometimes have fights with his friends because they think he's acting overly professional/detached and he thinks they're not being professional enough. So e.g. in Titans 13, you can see Dick's set up the room almost like he's leading a business meeting, and he's the boss lecturing them, and they're reacting by getting mad at him. Part of this is basically a Traditional Bat Problem - Tim's friends also balk because they feel like Tim's keeping them at a distance - but Dick tends to lean especially hard on "I'm The Leader Here So Shut Up And Do What I Say" professionalism / distancing.

When things are going well, Dick's friends may grumble at his intense professionalism but basically appreciate it (this is basically how things go in their reunion in TT vol 2); when things are not going well, though, it becomes a point of tension. Generally, Dick gets extra-professional as a coping mechanism when under stress, as here in TT vol 2 12:

To the extent that Dick falters with social skills, it tends to be almost exclusively with people he knows well, not with strangers. Dick sometimes struggles with maintaining relationships, largely because he's often juggling multiple responsibilities; he'll sometimes get hyperfixated on something and deprioritize his more stable relationships (so e.g. when he gets fixated on trying to fix Blüdhaven and gets distracted from his relationship with Babs).

Somewhat relatedly, if things start going wrong in his own life, he tends to self-isolate out of shame and avoid everyone he thinks of as more put-together. So, for example, in the aftermath of Blockbuster, he's a self-destructive mess who's trying to dodge and/or drive away Clark and Roy and Tim (all people who care about him and would want to help), but Sophia Tevis and Rose are two messed-up young strangers in trouble and their obvious neediness trips his "urgency" meter, plus he may be a mess but they have no context to realize that so he doesn't feel so self-conscious, and he's able to be drive-by super-helpful to them and then dive right back into privately self-destructing.

Also not a weakness per se, but he tends to be a bit of an introvert in general - he and Wally are close, but they go long stretches of time without catching up; when he's spending time with friends, usually it's Donna / Wally / the Titans / Tim visiting Dick rather than the other way around; he's more likely to get cajoled into joining a team than the other way round - Wally talks him into rejoining the Titans and Roy talks him into joining the Outsiders. He likes people and likes spending time with friends, but he's usually not the one initiating a social gathering. He's self-aware about this; in Titans 9, he muses, "It's not the newness that's the problem. The problem is the old stuff. The ruts. You know someone long enough - well enough - and you fall into a rut with them... you completely take the relationship for granted..."

Relatedly, because Dick's pretty self-contained, he has a recurring problem where loved ones interpret him as distant or detached or indifferent even when he's still passionately attached - both Kory and Babs break up with Dick in part because they feel like he's not really that committed to them (also there are mmm Problematic Plotlines involved but I'm ignoring those for the purposes of this post), and in both cases IMO they're misreading him. He's deeply upset by both breakups and responds with big declarations of feeling and, uh, proposing marriage shortly afterward. (Okay, so he's not ALWAYS sure-footed sdfdsfs)

When Dick's getting something wrong, it's usually because he's upset and overcompensating - when things with Kory and Babs are tense, he tries to fix it with Big Gestures; when Vic's mad at him about spying, he missteps with an elaborate secret plan culminating in a big dramatic offering of a new body which Vic does want... but he's still understandably miffed at Dick for making a bunch of decisions behind his back instead of talking to him. Dick guesses right about something Vic will want, but because Dick when he's feeling guilty tends to slide into I-Am-The-Leader, I-Must-Fix-Everything-By-Myself, I-Am-Responsible-For-Everything mode, he forgets that the whole original problem is connected to not respecting Vic's autonomy / right to make decisions for himself, and that a better gesture would be asking Vic what he wants instead of once again making decisions on his behalf without consulting him. (I'm sympathetic to Dick's spying-on-Vic plan on account of how Vic did turn into an evil moon for a bit - comics are bonkers, you guys sdfdsfs - but I'm also very sympathetic to Vic feeling that he deserved fuller disclosure here.)

And you can see similar patterns in lower-key conflicts too: every time Dick gets accused of being just like Batman, it's usually because he's coming off as harsh or detached or uncaring (sometimes on purpose because he's pushing people away; sometimes just because Dick handles grief and fear by shutting down; sometimes because his the-buck-stops-here leadership style can come off as overly-detached), even though Dick actually cares SO SO MUCH, all the time, about everyone he knows.

But honestly... these weaknesses exist, but they're minor in comparison to his strengths?? Dick's a guy with a lot of very strong friendships for a reason. He's true as steel and once he cares about you, he cares about you forever. <3

OKAY! So that's Dick. Let's finally move on to...

Tim

Comforting friends in Joker's Last Laugh 3:

Tim: Babs? Is everything okay? (hugs her)

A bit out-of-sync with friends (but still getting along well) in Young Justice 7:

Cassie: A campout isn't a campout without a real fire. It's no fun at all. Tim: But the generator is far more efficient, Cassie. It's non-polluting, it poses no threat of forest fire, and it's... it's ... (taking in everybody else's expressions, sighing, reversing course) It's no fun at all. Impulse, can you...?

Fighting with friends in Adventure Comics 3 (stonewalling, avoidance, and lying!)

Conner: You weren't picking up. Tim: I didn't know it was you. Conner: I turned off my caller ID blocking. Tim: I was busy. I am busy. Conner: Too busy to talk to your best friend? Tim: Yes. No.

Giving emotional support to relative strangers in Robin 98 / 100 / 156:

Wesley: I just wanted to thank you. They tell us at the meetings that it's important to let people know how you feel. You did a lot for me - making me sober up. If you hadn't taken the time to notice - (Later) Tim: You're gonna stay strong, right? (Wesley: Right.) Tim: You're gonna stay sober, okay? (Wesley: Okay.) Tim: You're gonna do it 'cause - Wesley: 'Cause if I don't you'll come back and kick my butt all over campus. Tim: Uh huh.

(The redhaired guy was about to jump. Tim convinces him to sit down and talk first.) Tim: So, you're in college? Guy: Yeah, I'm a freshman. How'd you know? Tim: Just a hunch. I'm guessing you don't like it much. Guy: I always hated high school. Always felt like I was outside looking in, never part of any group or anything. I was on the diving team but even then I didn't feel like part of it. The only good thing was that was where I met Lori, my girlfriend.

Offering practical support (medical care and tea) in Batgirl 59:

Tim (treating her injury as she shares her traumatic past): Whoa. That's ... horrible. Cass: That's nothing. Stephanie and I used to laugh about - oh... uh... never mind. Wait, Tim. I... I'm so ... stupid, I don't - Tim: You're not stupid. Want some tea? Cass: I ... uh... yeah. Thank you.

Strengths:

Tim! I think Tim's also pretty decent at people - not as good as Dick, but hardly anyone is?

I tend to think of Dick as instinctively good at people, and Tim as more consciously good at people.

Tim spends a lot of time being intentionally watchful: observing, spying, psychoanalyzing people, paying careful attention to what they say, thinking about what makes them tick. (And Tim psychoanalyzes himself, too. Tim is studiously engaged in the study of Tim, and of Tim's friends, and of Tim's family. He's often playing a role, even when that role is "Tim Drake.")

So e.g. in Red Robin, at one point Tim has an elaborate domino-falling database where he's compiled a list of villains he wants to fight and how he wants to fight them, all leading up to a very careful takedown plan for Boomerang where he's thought through and anticipated Boomerang's every move ahead of time... and he's basically right! He gets it all right!

And this kind of intensely-studied logical chess-game of "he will do this for this reason, and then this for that reason, and the other people will respond in this way, like a series of dominos, and I've thought through all the possibilities" is Very Tim to me, and I feel like... this is just the sort of thing that Dick would never ever do?

And mostly Dick wouldn't do it because he wouldn't have to. When Dick's skeptical of James Gordon Jr., he goes to talk to the guy and feel him out, and he ethically feels obliged to give him the benefit of the doubt because there's no evidence against him, but he's got a bad feeling and doesn't trust him and secretly slaps a tracer on him because he's got an instinct he'll want it, and he's right: James Jr. is up to something, and that tracer is exactly the thing that Dick needs.

And similarly if Dick wanted to goad James Jr. into doing something, I think he'd go off and meet him and goad him into doing it, and he'd have an instinct for what to say to make that happen - I think the whole elaborate domino plan that Tim comes up with for Boomerang would feel unnecessarily complex to Dick. Not that Dick doesn't make complicated plans, because he absolutely does, but Dick doesn't usually overthink people.

Similarly, if Dick had been the little kid in Lonely Place of Dying, he'd have gotten worried and gone straight to Bruce and talked to him, not gotten worried and taken photos of Bruce from a distance and then come up with an elaborately overthought plan to go to New York and track down his estranged son and fix him that way. And, like. Kid!Tim's not entirely wrong! He's correctly picked up on a very real and very strong connection between Bruce and Dick even though he doesn't know either of them! And given how little actual information Tim has, this is actually an impressive plan (it's a bad plan, because Tim doesn't know about their fights, but it's an impressively solid plan given that his entire information basis is "watched them from a distance and collected news reports"). But this isn't how Dick thinks about people.

Backing up to a more general point: Tim values people skills really really really highly. I think "uses interpersonal skills to help and comfort other people" is one of Tim's highest values and arguably the highest value - he imprinted on Dick because he was kind, and then imprinted on Batman because he was comforting Dick. And he has six million After-School-Special-style plotlines where he tries to comfort / advise / rescue / etc. people in various stages of emotional distress and who are using bad coping mechanisms. His very first outing as Robin involves talking down a semi-suicidal shooter; the big finale of YJ has Tim talking Secret down from her rampage; he's very gentle when he's comforting his girlfriend after she confides in him about a maybe-attempted-rape; he talks down a suicidal college student in Robin; plus there's the entire concept of "Batman needs Robin" in the first place; not to mention his obsession with the importance of friends; and so forth.

So it's something that he's good at because it's something he values and works at. His people skills are conscious and learned. He does a fair bit of amateur psychoanalysis of other people's problems, and he's generally good at identifying the problems, even if he's not always great at fixing them. And he's often playing a role, or imitating other people, rather than being himself; he invests a lot of time constructing alternate identities; he's often more comfortable wearing a mask. (It is just so typical of Tim that his civilian friendship group is the DCU version of D&D players.)

So his practiced-people-skills work decently well, because he's diligent and he cares a lot, and he's better at people when he's older than when he's younger. And he's extremely good at things he's had a lot of practice with, like meeting new schoolmates, or making small talk, and he's friendly and he likes people, and he's good at learning scripts and following them, and he only tends to misstep when he's distracted or unusually anxious or when he's in a situation where normal social norms don't help. (Of course, since he's a vigilante and not an ordinary person, distracted / unusually anxious / weird situation are all things that happen more often than you might think!)

I also think Tim has a few caretaker instincts that have become automatic - generally he's hyperaware of when people are upset and usually tries to reach out or fix it, and even when he's trying to keep himself at a distance he'll slide into caretaking sometimes - so e.g. there's that moment in Batgirl with Cass when Tim's kinda upset with her for siding with Batman (and distancing himself from other people in general), so he's not intending to get close to her, but also what we see him doing is treating her wounds and then getting her tea. And meanwhile Cass actually wants to reach out, and she's intensely observing him and worrying and wanting to help, but what she actually does is... drink the tea. That Tim got her. While she stays firmly on her side of the couch.

(I tend to think of Cass as slightly similar to Tim but at the very very very beginning of her learn-to-people journey here? Like Tim, she cares!! A lot!! And she's successfully understood that Tim's upset, and she knows when she's put her foot in her mouth. But she's not sure what to do yet.)

Weaknesses:

Tactless! This is a tricky word because I think people sometimes hear 'tactless' and misunderstand it as 'generically rude,' but that's not quite the issue - Tim's quite polite most of the time; his problem is that his default mental monologue is very detached / psychoanalyzing / analytical, including about himself and things he's emotional about. He'll often be analyzing his own emotions even in the process of having them (I also talk about this a little here, though it's mostly a post about Dick and anger), and Tim's also constantly analyzing other people.

This means that if he doesn't edit his brain-to-mouth filter, he can come off as too detached or professional or calculating.

This is obviously similar to Dick's problem of coming off as too detached / professional - again, they're both Bats - but it's not quite the same thing, and I think this distinction is most obvious if you look at the places where they're doing it on purpose and picking fights:

Dick's most likely to pick fights by pulling rank: "I'm the boss, you all fucked up this mission and you better not do it again, shape up or shut up." This is a kind of distancing that's about Dick-the-impassive-boss and you-the-subordinate.

By contrast, Tim's more likely to pick fights via hostile psychoanalysis: "I notice you're being snide about Cass again, but we both know you're actually just mad that Bruce cares about her more than he cares about you." When he's miffed, both his inner monologue and the things he says tend toward 'uncharitable analysis of your emotional weaknesses,' and this is something he periodically directs at Bruce / Jason / Damian. This is a kind of distancing that's about Tim-the-hostile-analyst and you-the-unfortunate-target-of-analysis.

(Caveats: I don't think Tim's above trying to pull rank if he can, but he rarely has the opportunity; Dick's not above jabs at other people's weaknesses when he's very defensive and feeling attacked - junkie, elevator - but IMO he's more likely to pull rank, whereas Tim's jabs are more likely to be wrapped up in insulting psychoanalysis, so e.g. Jason's insecurity is his problem. The Jan Brady of the Batfamily.)

You can see related similar-sounding-but-different issues if you look at some of their respective breakups. So e.g. Dick has a breakup with Babs in which she thinks he doesn't care about her, and Tim has a breakup with Cassie in which she thinks he doesn't care about her. And these breakups are different for six million reasons (among other things, Dick and Babs have a pretty intense romance, whereas, uh, Tim and Cassie have had one date and IMO she's very right that they're better off as friends).

But you also get some useful character notes:

Babs is wrongly anxious that Dick's mostly in love with nostalgia for their past rather than the person she is now (he 100% does love the person she is now!) and she's being unfairly bitchy about Catalina, but she's also correctly noted that he's gotten into the habit of deprioritizing their relationship in favor of vigilante busywork & that he's been a bit pushy in swooping in protectively rather than letting her fight her own battles, so when she's accusing him of being a control freak it's not completely coming from thin air; Dick responds by getting hurt, upset, and direct (he gets furious and punches something, but then makes a big sweet sincere emotional speech to her about how much he cares and values her, albeit one that's so caught up in his own emotions like wanting to "protect" her that he's not slowing down enough to take in her insecurities).

Cassie has correctly realized that dating Tim is a bad coping mechanism and she really needs to just deal with her grief over Conner; when she starts crying, at first Tim moves to comfort her, but when she actually clarifies the breakup, an upset Tim responds by aggressively de-emotionalizing the conversation and pretending he's being totally logical and not emotional about it - he first wonders aloud if he's a bad detective for not seeing it coming and then attempts a bonkers guilt-trip suggestion that it's their duty to date in order to uhhh avoid turning evil in the bad future (sdfsfdsfdsfds sure tim nice try)

This isn't because Tim literally doesn't have feelings, because of course he does! But often, the more upset he is, the worse he gets at clearly expressing those feelings, and the more he intellectualizes them or avoids discussing them.

(Caveat: The trouble with any distinction is that it's easy to exaggerate it in ways that are oversimplified, and I want to emphasize that this doesn't reduce to "Dick always expresses emotions, Tim is never emotional," or anything like that. Dick has a bunch of complicated feelings about the intensity of his emotions because he values control and detachment and often is trying to be more detached (I talk more about this in the context of anger here and here); Tim often retreats to faux-analytical detachment when he's actually very emotional; and these are tendencies rather than one-note 24/7 truths - Dick is completely capable of intellectualizing away his emotions; Tim is completely capable of just getting straightforwardly and directly upset. But if you're looking for broad distinctions, I think it's fair to say that Dick's usually better at directly using his words and expressing his emotions, even if he sometimes feels self-conscious shame about it later, whereas Tim tends to self-sabotage and deflect and hide by producing intellectualized faux-logic instead of just being direct about what he wants or what he's feeling.)

An unrelated issue is that Tim also tends to get intrusive when he's anxious, and it gets worse the more he cares about you. Tim really really really wants to know what's going on and has an intense Need To Help, which generally works out for him - this is the entire reason he pushes his way into the Batfamily! - but it's easy to imagine Tim running into people who might not appreciate his busybody sneakiness; so e.g. secretly stalking your friend because he has a bruise, or running your friend's DNA, etc., is... stuff that all comes from how much Tim cares, but also it involves a very fuzzy relationship with other people's privacy, so Tim's friendships that stick around tend to be with people who find this kind of intense observation to be caring rather than pushy. Relatedly, Tim's version of "be protective" can overlap with "be condescending," which means he tends to get along best with confident people like Bruce, who could punt him into a wall and who thus finds Tim's 'disapproving medic' shtick endearing instead of insulting.

Tim also struggles to connect to people for whom he doesn't have an obvious "script" or who don't respond to his usual scripts. So e.g. offering Gar a "you don't like me but let's be friends" handshake worked; offering Cass a "let's be friends" handshake worked; offering the same thing to Damian did not go over so well; and I think this kind of "it usually works so this is my habit now?" thing is very Tim, and I don't think it's the sort of mistake that Dick would make.

More broadly, because Tim's people skills are conscious and learned - the effort sometimes shows! He stares at people. He secretly spies on them. He pokes around in their secrets. Dick can be paying close attention to you and seem like he's not, so that his awareness seems effortless and less intrusive. I think Tim's awareness tends to be a bit more effortful.

That said, though, I don't think that Tim's intensely-observing-you shtick is necessarily obvious except to people who are fairly socially-skilled themselves. When I write fanfic, I generally write from Dick's POV, and I tend to write Dick being hyperaware of when, say, Tim's observing him, or trying to figure out what's going on with him. But I think of that as more "Dick's good at reading Tim and really aware of being watched, so every attempt at subtlety stands out in neon lighting," and I think to someone who's less good at reading people than Dick is, Tim is a lot subtler.

And I think for e.g. someone like Cass, who really struggles with people skills, Tim seems impossibly and naturally good at interactions in the same way that to Tim, Dick seems incredibly good at it.

[ghost-proofbaby]

hey y’all!

so i’ve been considering this a lot in the past few weeks, and figured i’d make an official post so you all know i’m alive and what not since i have been very much inactive as of recently.

i’m taking a break.

not forever! not because of anything in the fandom! this break is solely due to personal life reasons and the fact i just can’t be as active on here right now between my jobs and personal affairs. and it also won’t be long — i’m going to be off here probably through the end of november. if i have the time/mental capacity to come back before then, i absolutely will 🖤 but right now, tumblr isn’t something that fits easily within my days and also, writing for my fics hasn’t been something i can easily do not due to lack of inspiration but lack of time.

again, this is just due to my own personal life currently. nothing happened in the fandom that motivated this decision (i honestly don’t even know what’s happening on here currently solely because i haven’t had the time to scroll lol) and it’s very much not permanent, and will HOPEFULLY be very short. like i said, until the end of november. i’ll still be writing in my free time, and my hope is to be able to update fics once i’m back and worse better than ever! 🖤

see y’all in december <3

[jamiesfootball]

What are your thoughts on Ted? Is it good he went home?

These are two separate answers but I'm gonna try to combine them into one thought bubble (bear with me).

My short answer regarding Ted's ending is that you can't create a fully fleshed out character for 2-3 seasons and then in the final hour decide he was Mary Poppins all along. The Mary Poppins is meant to be strange, not-quite of normal ilk. She's the static character who leads the change in others, the one who inspires. You don't usually see the inner thoughts and workings of a static character.

From the very first time the audience meets Ted, we understand that this is not a static character because he is literally one of our starting POVs. We see his uncertainty about flying across the globe to go teach a sport he doesn't understand. We see him turning to Beard for reassurance. We see him stick his hand out where it isn't wanted while he tries to find common ground with people in a new country. We see the beginnings of a panic attack at the press conference.

That is is episode one. He is not a static character. He is not a strange and unusual person impossible to understand. He is inspiring, yes, but that is because of his humanity- his kindness.

He is not a Mary Poppins.

Ted is at his most interesting when he is a complicated, struggling, but ultimately kind man who tries his best to show genuine empathy and compassion towards others. The fact that this same trait doubles as a flaw is equally intriguing.

Ted can reassure Sam that Jamie won't be coming back, or Ted can reach out to Jamie when he's struggling and ask him to come back. Both are acts of kindness. He can not do both.

Ted can show Rebecca empathy and understanding for her trying to sabotage Richmond, but it ties his hands on being honest to Jamie about why he was sent away in the first place.

In trying to balance kindness, Ted struggles to be direct. He struggles to come right out and tell people how he's feeling about situations. Despite encouraging other people to talk about their feelings, he dances around his own and avoids awkward confrontations. I think that is the flaw that Ted most needed to explore. At the same time, I hesitate to say he could have learned too much given how he was struggling to process his own trauma with his dad and how it effected his relationships with those around him. (Put a pin here, I'll be back for it in a later.)

Pivoting back to Ted's purpose in the narrative, unfortunately as the show ran through season three, it became too near-sighted on The Message and in turn lost sight of making sure the characters had fulfilling interactions with each other. This especially becomes apparent when it comes to Ted, whose motto in season one is 'be curious not judgemental.' I maintain that season three was a low point for Ted emotionally, and if I were to assign a reason in-universe as to why Ted seemed so off from his usual self, it would be that in his depression, he no longer had the energy to realize he wasn't being curious. One indication of this would be how many times Ted casts assumptions on people in season three, compared to his hey-do-you-think conversational openers from earlier seasons. Some examples would include:

-never trying to figure out what makes Zava tick (this is a big one to me. I think season one Ted would have been all over trying to crack Zava like a nut)

-assuming he already knows why Jamie is upset about Zava joining the team and brushing it off

-assuming that Dr Jacob would propose + assuming that Michelle would say yes instead of trying to ferret out whether

-his assumptions about Henry being bullied (the knee-jerk reaction as a parent to protect your kid is understandable, the lack of delving into the situation and why it happened are more what I mean here)

-his whole conversation with Jamie about his dad. Other people in more succinct words have pointed out how it feels like he fully projected what he needed to hear onto Jamie's situation, and I think that's fairly accurate. This was not a 'talk to me and tell me what's going on so I can better understand how i need to help you' conversation. This was a 'oh that's whats going on? how about you do this? that work? alright then' talk.

So the finale struts back around and Ted has made a decision. He's going home. And it's meant to feel like closure. They play the Cat Stevens song and it's supposed to feel like Ted has finally made a step in the right direction (which is certainly one take on those lyrics but I digress). He's going back home. He's going to be with his son. He's letting go of the damage his father leaving did to him. He's giving up on something and he's finally okay with that. He left Richmond better than he found it and that's what matters.

Everyone else can cry but he's not crying. He's finally with Henry again.

So here's my two cents. And this is definitely just my opinion but-

THAT'S FUCKING STUPID.

Because the only way that Henry OR Richmond exists is in a false dichotomy wherein the two cannot possibly coincide, despite the fact that there are MANY KIDS' SHOWS ABOUT CHILDREN MOVING TO NEW LOCATIONS EVEN NEW COUNTRIES because that is a NORMAL THING THAT HAPPENS IN THE NORMAL WORLD ALL THE TIME.

Like holy shit that is. That is just the plot of a Disney channel show. 'My dad the football coach moved to england to coach the other football.' That is just the plot of a Disney channel original movie with a $300 budget that magically gets a sequel. Is that what I'm supposed to say 'oh no, that could never happen' over? Because I"m already watching a TV show. You can put a show in another show- I'm fine with that.

Remember that pin above? Time to pull it out. Because you know what would have been a more narratively satisfying conclusion?

If Ted had actually asked Henry and Michelle if they'd liked to move to London to be closer to him. If he had actually expressed his fucking need to have both his Kansas family and his Richmond family close to him. Maybe they would have said no, maybe they would have said yes, but you know what? It would have at least opened the door to the discussion about what Ted might need as a person moving forward, whichever way the chips fell. At least he would have done the one thing we didn't see him do all show:

Ask for something for himself. Because he wants it. Not for the good of his family, or the team, or anyone else. Just for Ted.

I am not saying his son isn't the most important thing in his life. I am saying as a goddamn adult person, you can NOT mold your life around your kids. You can't. Full stop. It is not healthy. You put your kid's needs above your own, but as a parent your needs have to come second. You have to take care of your own emotional health so that you have the bandwidth to give them support. You have to set the example of what healthy boundaries and taking care of yourself looks like.

Could Ted make new social connections back in Kansas? Well that's the thing isn't it- season one Ted could have. Easily. Season three Ted? The one who's checked out and looks tired all the time and isn't even following his own motto anymore and didn't even cry like he'd miss his friends when he was leaving? I'm not sure about that Ted. I'm worried about that Ted. I'm worried he's going to put himself in a situation where for the next 9 years of his life his only priority is going to be keeping Henry happy by giving Henry the attention he never got from his own father. And after that? Henry's an adult. Henry has to go live his own life.

And Henry's going to be able to tell, by the way, if his dad is struggling. Whatever Ted's emotional health is like, Henry is going to pick up on it. This isn't a one way road. Kids notice.

Ted untangled himself enough to admit that what he wants is to be close to Henry. I commend that. But then he decided that there was only one way to do that, and he didn't look any further than that. The narrative didn't look any further than that. For a show that itself raises the topic of mental health, it feels tone-deaf to pretend that Ted moving away from his entire support group is a happy ending. He doesn't even have Beard!

So to summarize: what do I think about Ted? I think he's a fascinating character. I think he has a genuine kindness to him that is rare. I think he is flawed, and a little bent up on the inside, and he's got a lot of issues to work through. And I think the show did him a disservice by painting him going back to Kansas as a sign that everything was going to be okay.

[bookishjules]

love cc’s books but the most unrealistic part is her having not a single character hate being a shadowhunter like?? imagine you live in a whole ass society and you can’t partake in certain roles because you never received proper education and the option to leave this life of demon killing… give me a character that wants to build rockets! give me a character than wants to open a restaurant! give me a character that wants to be a singer! i want a character that despises their parents and the government for being forced in this life (and then maybe learns to love it? because then us, as an audience, would really see why it’s worth it)

i have a theory that twp might end with the shadowhunter word being more integrated into the normal mundane world. kids attending public school and receiving training after school and during summers, etc etc

while i totally see where you're coming from, i do have a counter point: jessamine.

girl hated the life and the world she was born into so much that she married the first mundane man who promised her a way out. and a big reason for her strong aversion to shadowhunting too is because it was a life her parents didn't want for her, didn't want for themselves. the only reason she was as involved as she was is because of the established procedure for orphans in shadowhunter society.

additionally, we have jem, who upon returning to mortality decides that he cannot live as a shadowhunter without will.

i've thought about this a decent amount before actually. i think the distinction between nephilim and shadowhunter is that one is a race and one is a profession. being a shadowhunter is expected and is overwhelmingly the norm, which is why it tends to be used interchangeably with the term nephilim, but i don't think it is necessarily the end all be all (even if it is their heavenly mandate as a race)

that said tho!! you are very very right about the extent to which the shadowhunter upbringing prepares little nephilim for the mundane world, which is to say, uh.. barely. and this makes it incredibly difficult to breach that barrier, explore other aspects of life, and actually make it on your own out there, especially if you are connected to an institute. which is one of the reasons we see jessie struggling so much in tid.

i think something that's special about tlh is that (maybe because demon activity in london is pretty chill leading up to the series), the characters seemed much more inclined toward certain mundane pursuits. christopher may not have built rockets, but he did know how to blow things up. lucie has the time to write novels. matthew is very up to date on mundane culture, and folds into it easily. shadowhunting responsibilities didn't take any opportunities away from them and their individual explorations of the world.

however, if we put jessie, who had no real aspirations but hated shadowhunting, and matthew, who has plenty of aspirations but still holds onto his shadowhunter identity, on a scale.. we see that there is a middle piece missing, which is the one you described--someone who hates shadowhunting and has outside aspirations. and boy oh boy do i think that would be such an interesting character. especially the way you described it!!

i think in the same vein of children of shadowhunters who left to marry a mundane finding themselves pulled back into the world, it would be really interesting to see children of ascended shadowhunters kinda being enticed by the mundane. ofc shadowhunter blood rings true and all that but i can see there being a sort of romanticization of this world they live in but not of, that their parent(s) got to experience fully and yet all they know of it is how to protect it..

which rounds itself back to your last point so well! because really they should know more about the people and the world they are called to protect. and i think if shadowhunter society kinda becomes dismantled and decentralized (bc lbr something seriously drastic has to change politically).. it really only makes sense. also it's much nicer of an ending than um.. all shadowhunters losing their role completely. not to make a pjo reference, but i feel like it would almost be like switching from everyone being year-rounders at camp half-blood to those who just come for the summer. it would be interesting to see what causes that sort of change, if the threat of demons becomes neutralized enough for them to function in that way. it would also be interesting to see just how much more can be accomplished in terms of art and science when the nephilim aren't so restricted to training and battle and death.

[the-broken-pen]

A sapphic detective who gets too close to the truth of a case and gets confronted by her girlfriend for being too obsessed?

“You need to stop.”

The detective didn’t jerk up at the sound of her voice—just quietly stirred, rustling papers as she shifted upright to meet her eyes.

“I didn’t hear you come in,” the detective said slowly, eyes scanning over her. She watched her gaze catch on the water dripping from the ends of her hair, the mascara smudging itself down her cheeks.

“It’s date night,” she said, and even to her own ears her voice sounded tired. Dead. Rotting roses and dirty dishes in the sink.

The detective blinked once, then shifted through her papers until she found a scribbled in calendar. It was stuck on the wrong month.

“I forgot,” the detective murmured. It wasn’t an apology, and neither of them were pretending that it was. She could tell, even now, with her girlfriend pathetic and dripping water onto the hardwood floor in front of her, that the detective wanted nothing more than to go back to her evidence.

“Yeah,” she croaked. “Funny how it’s never the case you forget.”

The detective jerked, slightly, like she hadn’t expected the barbs in her girlfriend’s voice.

In the hallway, there was a drooping bouquet of flowers she hadn’t been able to bear bringing into the apartment.

“You know how important this is,” the detective implored, and it made her want to break things. Burn the papers, shatter the fancy glasses in the cabinet, spill wine across the carpets.

What about me, she wanted to scream. Am I not important to you anymore?

Instead, she said again, “You need to stop.”

“Stop?”

“The case. You need to stop.”

“I can’t just stop,” the detective laughed slightly, as if she thought it would convey how inconceivable the idea of stopping was.

“Yes, you can. Give it to someone else. There’s a whole precinct just waiting for you to put this file into their hands.”

At the thought of it, the thought of giving up this case, the hunt, the chase, pain flashed across the detective’s face.

“You don’t understand.”

“I do,” she replied. She had to shift her gaze to the dead plant on the corner of her partner’s desk, dirt dry and leaves brittle. “How could I not?”

“So then how could you ask me to do that? To give it all up? Why now?”

She had so many answers to that. So many moments that cut into her hands like a mosaic of memories. The bed empty beside her through the entire night. Cancelled reservations, one seat alone at the dinner table, laughs that died in her ribs. Friends, well meaning, who asked where the detective was, and the painful smiles she forced through the explanations. Work, and work, and work. Crime scene photos on the coffee table. The loneliness that seemed to care about her more than her girlfriend did.

There were so many times when she almost said something. Almost said enough. But she hadn’t, and now they were here, as she dripped a puddle onto the floor, and the detective looked at her like she had never seen her before.

When she tried to say that, any of that, it caught in her throat.

The detective took her silence for an inability to answer. A lack of evidence. Like she was throwing this tantrum for no reason, a little kid in the toy aisle of the store.

The detective sighed, rubbing a hand over her forehead. The other was already fanning through the papers once more. Her voice turned into something that begged to be understood.

“I’m so close—“

“To losing me.” She swallowed, painfully. “You’re losing me.”

“That’s not fair.”

“This isn’t fair,” her voice broke as she gestured between the two of them. “What you’re doing to me isn’t fair.”

“I’m not doing anything—“

“Exactly.” It was louder than she meant it to be. They both flinched.

“I’ll have it solved in a week, I promise.” She wasn’t sure who the detective was promising to.

“No.”

The detective blinked.

“No?”

“You heard me the first time.”

“I heard you, but I’m not sure what you’re saying ‘no’ to.”

If she had the energy to be slightly meaner, she would have told her to figure it out. Told her that she was a detective, this should be easy for her.

“I’m not giving you a week.” She took a deep breath. “And you’re not going to solve it.”

The detective’s looked at her like she didn’t recognize the person on the other side of the desk.

Finally, she understood what it felt like to face her girlfriend from the other side of an interrogation table.

Her girlfriend’s face was cold, and closed off. Her jaw was grinding into itself. She was staring at her like she couldn’t decide whether or not to consider her a suspect. As if the only reason she could fathom her girlfriend saying something like that was if she was actively sabotaging her.

She was cold, and her coat was wet, and this place no longer felt like home.

“You won’t solve this case.”

She was pretty sure there wasn’t anything crueler she could have said.

“You don’t know anything.” It was dripping with venom, and fear, and frustration. The fear the detective really wouldn’t solve it. The frustration that it still wasn’t solved.

“Do you really think you’re that special?” By now, it was too far gone for her to stop. There was no pretty way out of this. “You aren’t. This isn’t a TV show. You aren’t the main character who swoops in where no one else has before. It’s been decades of the same bullshit—taunting and evidence trails, and nobody has solved it. Don’t you think if it was solvable, it would have been by now?”

“There’s new evidence, and I’m not them—“

“What part of ‘you aren’t special’ don’t you understand,” she hissed, and the detective shifted away from her. “You aren’t the miracle detective who solves this. They’re going to keep on killing, and driving the people who try and find them crazy, and you’re letting them do it to you.”

“I’m not letting them do anything.”

“But you are,” she countered. “You have been for months. They’re messing with you. They’re everything to you, and you’re a game to them, and I’m nothing on the sidelines.”

“Babe, that’s not true,” The detective tried, voice softening. As if she had just realized something between them was wrong. That her girlfriend was hurting—had been, for a while.

She swallowed the tears rising in her throat.

“Do I need to become a crime scene for you to finally care about me again?” She slammed her hand down on the papers. Pretended the wince on the detectives face was concern for her, and not the papers she crumpled. “Will you look at me, love me again, if I’m a bloody photograph in this folder?”

“I do love you.”

“When someone loves someone else, they don’t leave them alone in the rain, waiting to be picked up. They don’t cancel to go dig through old archives on their loved one’s birthday. They don’t leave them in the middle of the night and let the blankets beside them get cold. People who love someone don’t live their life without a concern for the person they’re putting below everything else.”

“You’re making this really hard.”

“Good,” she snapped. “Because you’ve been making it hard to love you for months, and I’m glad you finally know how it feels.”

The detective paused, at that. Swallowed, eyes flitting around the room as if she would find the perfect thing to say in the remnants of the life they had built together.

“I love you,” The detective managed. Somehow, it was the worst thing she could have said.

“Good. Prove it.” She thought maybe dying would have hurt less than this.

“Prove it?”

“Prove it. Me, or the case.”

The detective froze.

“You don’t mean that,” she said, and it sounded like a plea. Don’t make me choose.

“Look at me and try and tell me I’m joking.” When the detective said nothing, she pushed further. “Go on. Do it. Choose.”

“I can’t do that—“ the detective choked. “This isn’t fair, you know that. I’m so close.”

Somehow, she had expected it to hurt less.

“Don’t make me choose,” the detective, her girlfriend, the love of her life finally said, voice breaking.

She had thought it would feel like dying.

It felt like nothing.

“You just did,” she said. The tears refused to be held, this time. The pain ran rampant through every word.

She knew her girlfriend could hear it.

“I love you,” the detective whispered. A final, desperate prayer for her to stay. But she was no god, and her girlfriend was no believer. And it would never be enough.

She let the door slam on the way out.

The detective never did solve that case.

[ya-killin-me-smalls]

tumblr ate this ask when I saved it as a draft but I screenshat it so we're good. anyway

spicy 2BHankmos headcanons under the cut

- it goes unspoken that anytime all three of them are on base at the same time, they spend the night together

- Doc almost always takes the lead, in part because he gets flustered way too easily otherwise, and in part because he likes watching his partners get each other off

- between Hank and Deimos it's always a battle of wills via heated makeout, a battle that Deimos usually loses but it's not uncommon for Hank's impatience to get the best of him

- Deimos gets passed back and forth like a blunt at a party, Hank determined to make him cum as hard and as fast as possible, and Doc content to edge him for an entire hour at times before turning him back over to Hank. poor guy can't catch a break

- as rough as he is, Hank is actually very affectionate during the act. he likes to hold his partners as close as possible, nuzzle his face into them, gentle lovebites

- Deimos has the praise kink of the century and Doc exclusively cashes in on this when Hank already has him mid-orgasm. is it mean? maybe. unfair? for sure. worth it every time? absolutely

- when Hank does end up on the bottom he tries his damnedest to keep quiet and not make it too much fun, but Doc knows all his tells and Deimos has an ever-growing score to settle, so his resolve only really lasts so long

- Doc tends to be a little more hands off, enjoying the show far too much sometimes. he's a kinky fucker though and knife play happens to be a favorite. it's rare but there's nothing he likes more than having Hank and Deimos bound and on their knees, letting him trace every scar, every ridge of muscle, every soft area with a blade, only ever breaking the skin when someone squirms too much. it leaves Deimos a sweaty, shaky mess and Hank more often than not doesn't need any other stimulation to cum, the knife enough to bring him over the edge

- there has been exactly one time where Deimos begged, and pleaded, and bargained, and made the most extravagant promises in order for Doc to bottom. exactly once. he ended up taking both of them at the same time, an absolute mess between them, louder than Deimos ever was. Deimos tapped out first surprisingly but still put his mouth to work, determined to get everything out of Doc that they could. if one of them brings it up Doc will insist it never happened, no clue what they're talking about, going as far as checking Hank for head trauma just to prove a point after he mentioned it near other SQ members

- of course, they aren't always together all at once

- Hank and Deimos, adrenaline junkies at their cores, spend more time doing it in places they absolutely shouldn't than the actual bedroom. missions, stakeouts, and anywhere on base that's secluded enough to get away with it. it's fast, hard, and always ends with either Hank's hand over Deimos's mouth to keep him quiet or an arm around his neck in a chokehold, whatever is easier in the moment

- when it's just Doc and Deimos, the praise kink comes out in full swing and Doc would swear Deimos is insubordinate the other 98% of the time just so he can all the more be told how good he is. and he is, willing to let Doc do anything he pleases as long as he gets what he wants. Doc made him cum seven times in a night once, and even though his legs were jello and he couldn't walk properly the next day, every gentle kiss and "good boy" whispered in his ear that night just made him want more

- Hank and Doc tend to take things slower with each other, enjoy each moment for what it is. this is in part because Hank is usually on recovery, grievous injury seemingly the only thing that can bring them together for any substantial amount of time. as soon as he's able to walk without ripping any stitches though he pulls Doc away from whatever silly computer thing he's doing and kisses every inch of his body

- Deimos has debated nipple piercings on and off. Hank is 100% on board but Doc likes to remind him that those can and will snag and can definitely be ripped out if he isn't careful. and he isn't. someday

- Hank has bit both of his partners hard enough to leave a scar. he hasn't said it out loud but it's his own little way of marking them as his

- there is not a surface in Doc's office that hasn't been defiled by one of them

[majouartings]

PLAYABLE ZELDA PLAYABLE ZELDA PLAYABLE ZELDA PLAYABLE ZELDA PLAYABLE ZELDA PLAYABLE ZELDA PLAYABLE ZELDA *inhale* PLAYABLE ZELDA PLAYABLE Z

[thenwethrowitonthefire]

hello. hope you doing well (and if by any chance you don't take a ball🟡 :)

what is been in my mind recently was "the girl crying in her latte" but not the song, the title. does crying in latte have underneath meaning in english? (I couldn't find anything so I'm guessing not) so what could it mean? the best I came with was the sense of sadness that could be felt on daily life. or perhaps overwhelming days that can't be soothe by a simple act even. what do you think? I would like to know

Hey! I am doing well but can I have a ball anyway? 🌞 Yellow is my favourite colour for the album as well! How did you know! (It was initially released in different colours which is hella cool and collectible.) I will be using that phrase, "take a ball". I like it a lot :)

"Crying in your latte" to my knowledge isn't a phrasing that already existed (@ native English speakers: please correct me if something similar did already exist). It's such a strong phrase though, I really like it. I really needed time to try and word the concept of it properly though because it contains so much in one phrase. It's simple, but it says A LOT. So bear with me, this will get long.

"Crying in your latte" is a metaphor for a couple of things but what it speaks to the most, to me anyway, is what life is like under late stage capitalism. (They may or may not agree with that exact wording, so please note those are my words.) To be crying in one's latte you'd need 1) things to be crying about, 2) to be living in a place where you can order a latte, 3) have the means to afford the latte. So to me, that means the girl crying in her latte is a girl with the privileges of the Western world, but who is at the same time thoroughly depressed about the state of things. This is a girl who should have it good, right? She clearly has certain privileges and has the means to buy a latte after all. So why the tears? It could be a whole range of things, from shallow "meaningless" things like social media drama about celebrities to a breakup to hating her job that she is trapped in to climate change to the excessively poor state of the world.

I do have to bring the song into this though, because who knows what came first: it being the album title or a song. The song has seemingly simple lyrics, which to me speaks of the shallowness of social media, how people are pretending to one another online, and there being a lack of real connection with each other. (Something something loneliness "epidemic".) The observer in the song to me doesn't seem very judgemental about why the girl might be crying but simply observes that every time one girl crying in her latte leaves her spot, another one will take her place. Acknowledging what's clearly a widespread feeling of depression, grief and sadness permeating life at the moment; there are too many things to be crying about. ("So many people are crying in their latte".) The girl is crying in her latte might initially read as a boomer-like judgement on this girl, phrased in a way that might make someone laugh, but most of all it seems to be an acknowledgement of there being something deeply wrong with the way the world is right now.

The songs on the album really drive this home (I won't mention all of them but I will mention *almost* all of them): we've got a song about a Hollywood star giving up her career to win a war and to keep other women safe who were escaping reality through fantasy, a song about a baby who wishes they hadn't been born, a song about people kept apart by their opposing work schedules, a song about someone who no one knew had been deeply unhappy because she kept up appearances and now can't take it any longer, a song about external pressure on who one should be, a song about dictatorship, a song about escaping the blandness of daily life, and a song literally called "It Doesn't Have To Be That Way" near the close of the album. Plus a Japanese bonus track called "This Is Not The World I Signed Up For". (All of these messages wrapped up in songs that are often energetic, beautiful and humorous. They know how to acknowledge hard truths in ways that leave you grinning and hopeful. To me this album is a wish for a better world.) I know, you simply asked about the phrase and not the song/album, but the phrase does contain all of that.

One more thing that I also feel in the meaning of the phrase is also made visible on the album cover, where we can see them reading a newspaper. There's this distance and disconnect between the person crying in their latte and some of the things they might be crying over. There's a constant stream of news coming from the world. But she's sitting in a cafe, with her latte. Not all of it is happening to her directly, she's seemingly safe - but she's also affected by it. (Maybe she bought that latte in an attempt to make it all a bit more bearable.) The Girl Is Crying In Her Latte contains these contradictions of privilege and powerlessness, connectedness and disconnect. It's someone who seemingly should not have something to cry about. And yet...

[kinnbig]

oh my god, tell us more (about the arm tankhun fake dating fic in your head), please! :D

OKAY so the concept is. about 6 months post-canon, the main and minor families are invited to the destination wedding of one of their allies from a hugely powerful mafia family - it's a few nights staying on a private tropical island, and as a respect/trust/hospitality thing, it would be considered really inappropriate for guests to bring more than one or two bodyguards per group.

so Tankhun is like “well then obviously I can’t go?” because while he is now much better at leaving the house, he’s not quite ‘get on a plane and fly to a random island for several days of intense socialisation with incredibly dangerous near-strangers without a single Trusted Bodyguard’ levels of better.

he’s talking to Chay about it and Chay's like “yeah, it's kind of fucked up that everyone gets a +1 but not a bodyguard. how would anyone even know if your +1 was your bodyguard?!” and Tankhun's like “.....Chay you're a genius. Arm, I need you to be my wedding date.”

commence the fake dating shenanigans! they ‘reveal’ their secret, long-term relationship to the entire family, and then they’ve got to pretend to be a couple in front of everyone while Arm actually works as Tankhun’s bodyguard. as the only other person who knows their relationship isn’t real, Chay is helping to mastermind the entire operation. what Chay also knows is that Khun does actually have very real and Not Fake feelings for Arm - and you can be sure he’s going to be a menace about it.

luckily, Khun is being just as much of a menace in return - the wedding is the first time Kim and Chay have been in the same room since… well, everything, and Tankhun has watched them both silently pine for each other for long enough. background KimChay reconciliation era my beloved!

and so the usual fake dating antics ensue! lots of pining… plenty of acting out intimacy while wishing it was genuine… Chay putting them in so many Situations… lines slowly blurring between what is part of the act and what is real… and. obviously. there was only one bed.

🥰 thank u so much for indulging me, i love talking about blorbos from my shows and my silly story ideas for them! i came up with this with @aikinn and @thewholedamnboulangerie during some kind of group astral plane projection, which makes it especially delicious as they always have the best and most objectively correct Tankhun takes 💪

my brain is currently on 24/7 armtankhun lockdown soooo if u have thoughts about Them… pls… i would like to eat them…

[anonomi]

sv_cheats 1

buddha

noclip

*goes into enemy spawn*

It is another beautiful round of pl_badwater and you are one unforunate Sniper.

You are standing among the shoulders of your teammates who bounce on their heels and chatter on and on about things you don't really care about. What's the point in asking about the weather? It never changes.

But you are bound by your duty, or by some otherworldly force that despises you as much as you despise it, to stand here in this spot right next to your Medic, who just won't stop jumping. Before you can turn and tell him that the squeaking of his boots and subsequent rattling of his backpack is more irritating than getting blown up, you see a dash of red in the corner of your eye. Something worth noting, considering you are firmly on BLU.

When you look, you almost wish you hadn't: sliding out of the walls like a mosquito materializing in your sight is, evidently, the RED Spy. He breaks space-time continum, crawling past the physical walls of spawn without so much as a grunt of exterion, all to plop himself down in the middle of your spawn. Only he doesn't drop.

He only hovers. Standing in the air. You eye him as does the rest of your team. You think he might be eyeing you back, but who knows what the hell goes on behind those vacant eyes of his. Not you, that's for sure.

The Voice in the ceiling sounds off and the gates open. You brace yourself.

Instantaneously the room erupts with a mixture of gunfire, explosions, and a lot of angry shouts. The RED Spy is nothing more than a cloud of hot ash and dark smoke. That is, until he surges to life.

You do the sensible thing and get the hell out of the way as he starts stabbing everybody. You run to the wall, as he is very occupied with shredding Heavy and Medic apart. This far, you can comfortably watch as your team dies over and over again at the hands of this, whatever this is.

"He always does this," Spy, who's drifted to your side, mutters. He looks at the proceedings with detached disdain. "But not without reason. What did you do?"

You roll your eyes at Spy, leaning over to dodge a stray arm from hitting you. Looks like Engineer's if the glove is anything to go by.

"What do you mean, what did I do? I was just standing here," you defend yourself. He thinks that just because you can instantly kill the RED Spy it's always your fault whenever he decides to mess with your team. As if he can't do the same. Damn spies.

"Really? Because I can remember three, no, five distinct times last round where I watched him get his head blown off. In a row."

You wince. Okay maybe he has a point there, but "It's my job."

Spy kicks at Engineer's arm. "We're supposed to be on Normal mode, not Expert. Hold yourself back or he's going to turn all of us into medics again or worse."

Spy shudders as he relives the day that the team has agreed to pretend never happened. "Take us to that blasted Smissmas map."

You don't think that map is so bad, lots of good sightlines, but the RED Spy's presence steals your attention before you can retort. You turn and there he is in all his blood-soaked, shambling glory. You can barely tell where the red of his suit ends and where the blood begins. Not that it matters to distinguish, since he's stalking towards you, vacant eyes watching you with predatory focus.

Spy swears. "See you around." And there he goes, running away under his cloak. The bastard. You are barely given enough time to curse him out before the RED Spy is on you.

After a few minutes or an hour, the time is lost in-between dying over and over, you finally wake up and stay alive longer than a few seconds. You blink and look around the spawn room. There is a lot of blood, but no spy.

"Is it over?" you ask. You falter. To your horror, instead of your rough and gravelly voice to greet your ears, it's a hideous velvety tone with an accent you can't shake. You look down and the floor is too close, but more importantly, you are wearing gloves. Calfskin gloves.

You are a spy. You look around to see the rest of your team has similarly metamorphized into spies. You can barely tell them apart, a horrid mix of fancy clothes and masks.

You fall to your elegant knees, holding your head in your hands. Of all the nine classes why, why? You look up at the ceiling but it isn't the Voice who answers you: before your eyes He descends from the ceiling once again, but this time he isn't a spy.

You look into the RED Pyro's vacant eyes as he readies his flamethrower. Not for the first time you wonder what you did to deserve this. Like always, there is no answer, only sizzling fire and white hot pain.

(later, when you are firmly back in your body and the seemingly endless cycle of the war rotates once more, you ignore Spy's advice and target his counterpart over and over. it's only fair.)

[concreteburialplot]

Hey! hope you're having a good day:) was just wondering if you have any song recommendations from chase atlantic for someone who's never listened to them before?

oh i love this 😭 i love giving music recommendations especially about a band i love so much💕

i do have to warn you that chase is not rock or metalcore in any capacity so if you’re expecting that, it’s definitely not that lol

but these are some of my recs!

Vibes is one off my favorite songs of all time & has been since 2015💘 it’s exactly what the title suggests, a vibe

honorable mentions;

cassie, swim, call me back, idontlikedarkness, triggered & ozone💞

thank you for the ask anon 🥰 i hope you like them!

enjoy some lovely gifs of my boy Kras💕 (+mitchel lol)

[heymacy]

thank you so much for your answer! i actually didn’t expect such a in depth response— it actually made me kind of excited to rewatch the show so that i can give those seasons a try! i watched shameless as it was airing around s3 so it was really hard for me to cope with the idea of watching ian ‘moving on’ and bashing mickey without knowing he would be back etc. but i guess it should be time to face that considering who he gets married to! tho, if it’s okay, i wanted to ask more cause i love to see your take on it! for what ive gathered caleb cheated on ian with a girl saying it ‘didn’t count’, but was he also the one who told ian to try to be with a girl? cause i remember seeing something about it and it really pissed me off that ian even went and ‘tried’, considering s1 was him being very vocal about non being into girls! as for trevor, i did know about the monica ‘get over it’ clip because i always see people comparing it to how mickey has always been supportive no matter what (of course!!!) and also how trevor kind of forced himself on ian. i wanted to know what’s your opinion on those relationships of his, especially trevor cause it seems like it’s been the most controversial one as he spent two seasons around him. it’s funny in a way because the writers didn’t want mickey back but they still made every love interests ian had to be ‘wrong’ and showing everything that mickey would never do! also, this is out of pettiness mostly but considering all those seasons are about his bipolar disorder, does ian ever say that to his partners as a way to break up? or can i have a little of happiness thinking he just really wanted to protect who matters the most *cough* mickey *cough*. again, thank you for taking your time answering my question, i loved reading it!

hello again! more under the cut bc i'm quite chatty :)

first of all, yes, the "it doesn't count" + trying to have sex with a girl thing is true, and it honestly never felt very in-character for me. it was definitely A Choice on behalf of the writers. in fact, he gargles with mouthwash afterwards (or maybe it's vodka, i can't remember) and says "i think i have PTSD", which (of course) is meant to be humorous, but i do think it was a very jarring and confusing experience for him.

ohhhhhhh boy. the trevor of it all. well, let's begin by saying that there's a lot of controversy surrounding trevor. there are some really rancid anti-trevor takes that i don't agree with, primarily the ones rooted in transphobia, which i think is disgusting and abhorrent. i think people are generally either very anti-trevor or pretty neutral on him. i don't think anyone out there is singing his praises, or at least i've never heard a take like that in the time i've been in the fandom. as for me & my opinion, i think he is an incredibly frustrating, pretentious, self-serving character and he irritates me deeply. i think that while he could have been a good friend to ian, he fucked things up by trying to be his boyfriend. they were incompatible from the start and i honestly don't know why they started anything in the first place. like i know why, i just don't understand it. they had no spark. they had no connection. their only commonalities were that they were 1) both gay and 2) into advocating for homeless + at-risk youth. and that's like, it. they had friendly coworker energy, not electric, bone-shattering chemistry. my rating? 0/10 stars. i was very happy when he was written off and ian was left to sort his shit out on his own, unencumbered by a dissatisfying, toxic relationship.

and caleb.......ugh. fucking caleb! i'm surprised he doesn't get vertigo from riding such a high horse. he treated ian like an accessory and consistently put him in uncomfortable situations for no reason other than his own pleasure and/or to manipulate other people. the ONLY good thing he did was lead ian down the EMT path, and that is it. otherwise he was quite literally the worst. imagine cheating on someone and then being like "actually, this is a you issue." alexa, define "cold-blooded" 🙄

to answer your question, ian never credits his bipolar disorder when ending things with any other partner, no. trevor ended because ian ran off with mickey and lied to him about it/cheated on him (though they did spend another season in each other's lives in a really strange capacity, which was an interesting choice by the writers) and caleb ended because he cheated on ian. caleb was a clean break whereas trevor was super messy and drawn-out. but no, he doesn't talk about wanting to protect them from his disorder during their breakups. he tells them both about it early on, is transparent about it, and expresses his concerns about it being a lot to handle, but it isn't credited as the reason for the breakups, no.

i think when it comes to ian protecting mickey from his disorder, it's important for us to view things through an ian-centric lens. why did he do what he did? was it solely to protect mickey, or was it coming from a place of insecurity? a place where he felt like a burden? a place where he felt hopeless and aimless and scared? post-episode and post-diagnosis, it's very common to fall into what i like to call The Pit, which is essentially a shallow bed of self-loathing and the desire to self-isolate away from everyone and everything. we see a lot of that in the end of s5 and the beginning of s6. he's made himself very small, is afraid to do nearly anything for fear of further destruction, and feels incredibly trapped and frightened by his circumstances. all of these factors contribute to his behaviors and choices, including (but not limited to) breaking up with mickey. did he end things because he didn't want mickey to spend his life coping with the realities of loving someone with this disorder? yes. but he did what he did because he was scared. and i think it's really important we make that distinction when talking about and analyzing that storyline.

as always, if there's anything you want to talk about or if you have any other questions you are always welcome in my inbox! i hope you're having a lovely day 💛

[the-power-of-stuff]

Almighty Empress of Sukka! I have a spicy Sukka question for you:

What are some things that Sokka and/or Suki do (unknowingly or otherwise) that get each other in the mood? Like little quirks or habits or clothes they wear or just random everyday stuff that makes the other go 😯🥵🤤? (For example, maybe Suki drinking a milkshake or slurpee with her lips wrapped around the straw is just a bit too much for Sokka to handle. And maybe when Sokka takes his shirt off after a hot, sweaty workout, not matter how awkwardly he does it, Suki gets a little hot and flustered herself.)

Sorry, that was a lot. 😅 But Sukka’s irrepressibly spontaneous love for each other always makes me want to gush! 🥰

And I know you’re busy with Sukka Week right now, so no rush to answer this at all! I’m very patient.

Lord, have I really been sitting on this ask for nearly two years??

I need you to know, Dearest Anon, that it doesn't feel like I've let this ask go for so long because I have actually had it on my mind that entire time, wanting to answer it and waiting until a good enough answer surfaced.

But I think I was going about it the wrong way. I don't really have a lot of headcanons that exist independently of putting a guy in situations. And if I put a guy in enough situations, I might end up repeating similar ideas until they become headcanons (like my headcanon that Suki has a particular fondness for lotus seed buns).

So! It occurred to me that maybe the best way for me to answer this question would be to put these guys in a situation. And now, at long last, we have...Suki getting really turned on by Sokka cooking... 😏

Suki stepped off the back porch of the house, perched the steamer basket full of rice on her cocked hip, and bit her lip. Framed beautifully in her field of view, amidst a glorious backdrop of lush green foliage and the island’s tumbling, sparkling brook, was Sokka, standing over the makeshift grill he’d thrown together from a large cast iron pot and some wire mesh he’d gotten off one of the fishing boats. The air was fragrant with the savory sweet aroma of seared meat, Sokka expertly working the grill in a calculated dance between flame, timing, and seasoning. And Suki’s mouth was watering. 

“Hey there, grill master,” she crooned as she approached, abandoning the rice on the table that housed Sokka’s setup. She ran one hand over his shoulder, down his back, then lower still so she could squeeze a generous handful of ass cheek. 

He yelped before glancing at her out of the corner of his eye, one brow quirked in amusement. “Hungry?”

“Starved,” she said, sidling closer and pressing up against him from behind. Her hands quickly found his hip bones and traced the muscle there before teasing lower by just a few millimeters, and Sokka nearly dropped his tongs. 

“You know Mrs. Kotoji can see us from here…”

Suki turned her head towards her next door neighbor’s house just in time to see the shutters slam shut on one of the windows. “Nothing scandalous for her to see here,” she countered breezily. Then she found the slit in the side of Sokka’s tunic and traced her fingers down his thigh.

“Keep doin’ that and there might be,” he grunted, and Suki chuckled, dropping her forehead between Sokka’s shoulder blades as she laughed. 

“Listen…” she said coyly. With her head still resting against Sokka’s spine, she drew her hands slowly around his hips and up his flanks. “I know you’re still cooking, but once you’re done, you think you could…scandalize me a bit before we eat?”

Something clattered loudly while Sokka fumbled around with the grill, and then suddenly he was whirling around, gripping Suki’s waist and tugging her close. “Tui and La, woman… I will scandalize you so much, you’ll be reading about it in Ba Sing Se next year. In those scandal sheet things. That they circulate in the Upper Ring. Whatever, it made sense in my—” And he cut himself off by closing the distance between his mouth and hers. 

Suki threw her arms around his shoulders, laughing into him as he penguin-stepped them back towards the house. When they collided with one of the porch posts, Sokka used the opportunity to deepen the kiss, slotting one thigh between hers, creating delicious friction for them both. Suki moaned.

“So, you like the way I handle my meat, huh?” Sokka teased, breathy against her lips.

“Oh yeah,” Suki rasped, delighted, sneaking her eager hands back around to Sokka’s backside. “And now it’s my turn.”

[disruptivevoib]

as someone new to the cccc fandom i keep seeing all of these AUs of HMS with different names and I want to look into them more but it seems like theres a lot. got any sort of starting guide or direction if ur willing to share it?

OH god. no I do not unfortunately. I can't say there is any big directory. I know CJFS has AU threads, CJFS being the fan discord server.

As for my aus, I do try to use tags of names of each of my aus! Like sun down or eleutheromania or lacuna or swap! But for others. I can't say whether or not its the case?

If I had a bit more time tonight I'd go through and find all the big long rambly posts I've made but there are quite a few!

I know ones under the cjverse or cjverse chatroom tag are also from an rp I'm in which may have stuff from other people too.

Sorry to not be of much help here anon