#via negative

[starry-bi-sky]

i need to get this out of my head before i continue clone^2 but danny being the first batkid. Like, standard procedure stuff: his parents and sister die, danny ends up with Vlad Masters. He drags him along to stereotypical galas and stuff; Danny is not having a good time.

He ends up going to one of the Wayne Galas being hosted ever since elusive Bruce Wayne has returned to Gotham. Vlad is crowing about having this opportunity as he's been wanting to sink his claws into the company for a long while now. Danny is too busy grieving to care what he wants.

And like most Galas, once Vlad is done showing him off to the other socialites and the like, he disappears. Off to a dark corner, or to one of the many balconies; doesn't matter. There he runs into said star of the show, Bruce who is still young, has been Batman for at least a year at this point, but still getting used to all these damn people and socializing. He's stepped off to hide for a few minutes before stepping back into the shark tank.

And he runs into a kid with circles under his eyes and a dull gleam in them. Familiar, like looking into a mirror.

Danny tries to excuse himself, he hasn't stopped crying since his parents died and it's been months. He rubs his eyes and stands up, and stumbles over a half-hearted apology to Mister Wayne. Some of Vlad's etiquette lessons kicking in.

Bruce is awkward, but he softens. "That's alright, lad," he says, pulling up some of that Brucie Wayne confidence, "I was just coming out here to get some fresh air."

There's a little pressing; Bruce asks who he's here with, Danny says, voice quiet and grief-stricken, that he's with his godfather Vlad Masters. Bruce asks him if he knows where he is, and Danny tells him he does. Bruce offers to leave, Danny tells him to do whatever he wants.

It ends with Bruce staying, standing off to the side with Danny in silence. Neither of them say a word, and Danny eventually leaves first in that same silence.

Bruce looks into Vlad Masters after everything is over, his interest piqued. He finds news about him taking in Danny Fenton: he looks into Danny Fenton. He finds news articles about his parents' deaths, their occupations, everything he can get his hands on.

At the next gala, he sees Danny again. And he looks the same as ever: quiet like a ghost, just as pale, and full of grief. Bruce sits in silence with him again for nearly ten minutes before he strikes a conversation.

"Do you like to do anything?"

Nothing. Just silence.

Bruce isn't quite sure what to do: comfort is not his forte, and Danny doesn't know him. He's smart enough to know that. So he starts talking about other things; anything he can think of that Brucie Wayne might say, that also wasn't inappropriate for a kid to hear.

Danny says nothing the entire time, and is again the first to leave.

Bruce watches from a distance as he intercts with Vlad Masters; how Vlad Masters interacts with him. He doesn't like what he sees: Vlad Masters keeps a hand on Danny's shoulder like one would hold onto the collar of a dog. He parades him around like a trophy he won.

And there are moments, when someone gets too close or when someone tries to shake Danny's hand, of deep possessiveness that flints over Vlad Masters' eyes. Like a dragon guarding a horde.

He plays the act of doting godfather well: but Bruce knows a liar when he sees one. Like recognizes like.

Danny is dull-eyed and blank faced the entire time; he looks miserable.

So Bruce tries to host more parties; if only so that he can talk to Danny alone. Vlad seems all too happy to attend, toting Danny along like a ribbon, and on the dot every hour, Danny slips away to somewhere to hide. Bruce appears twenty minutes later.

"I was looking into your godfather's company," he says one night, trying to think of more things to say. Some nights all they do is sit in silence. "Some of my shareholders were thinking of partnering up--"

"Don't."

He stops. Danny hardly says a word to him, he doesn't even look at him -- he's sitting on the ground, his head in his knees. Like he's trying to hide from the world. But he's looking, blue eyes piercing up at Bruce.

Bruce tilts his head, practiced puppy-like. "Pardon?"

"Don't." Danny says, strongly. "Don't make any deals with Vlad."

It's the most words Danny's spoken to him, and there's a look in his eyes like a candle finding its spark. Something hard. Bruce presses further, "And why is that?"

The spark flutters, and flushes out. Danny blinks like he's coming out of a trance, and slumps back into himself. "Just don't."

Bruce stares at him, thoughtful, before looking away. "Alright. I won't."

And they fall back into silence.

Danny, when he leaves, turns to look at Bruce, "I mean it." He says; soft like he's telling a secret, "Don't make any deals with him. Don't be alone with him. Don't work with him."

He's scampered away before Bruce can question him further.

(He never planned on working with Vlad Masters and his company; he's done his research. He's seen the misfortune. But nothing ever leads back to him. There's no evidence of anything. But Danny knows something.)

At their next meeting, Danny starts the conversation. It's new, and it's welcomed. He says, cutting through their five minute quiet, that he likes stars. And he doesn't like that he can't see them in Gotham.

Bruce hums in interest, and Danny continues talking. It's as if floodgates had been opened, and as Bruce takes a sip of his wine, it tastes like victory.

("Tucker told me once--") ("Tucker?") ("Oh-- uh, one of my best friends. He's a tech geek. We haven't talked in a while.")

(Danny shut down in his grief -- his friends are worried, but can't reach him. When he goes back to the manor with Vlad, he fishes out his phone and sends them a message.)

(They are ecstatic to hear from him.)

It all culminates until one day, when Danny is leaving to go back inside, that Bruce speaks up. "You know," He says, leaning against the railing. "The manor has many rooms; plenty of space for a guest."

The implication there, hidden between the lines. And Danny is smart, he looks at Bruce with a sharp glean in his eyes, and he nods. "Good to know."

The next time they see each other, Danny has something in his hands. "Can you hold onto something for me?" He asks.

When Bruce agrees, Danny places a pearl into his palm. or, at least, it's something that looks like a pearl. Because it's cold to the touch; sinking into Bruce's white silk gloves with ease and shimmering like an opal. It moves a little as it settles into his hand, and the moves like its full of liquid.

Bruce has never seen anything like it before, but he does know this; it's not human. "What is it?" He asks, and Danny looks uncomfortable.

"I can't tell you that." He says, shifting on his foot like he's scared of someone seeing it. "But please be careful with it. Treat it like it's extremely fragile."

When Bruce gets home, he puts it in an empty ring box and hides the box in the cave. He tries researching into what it is. he can't find anything concrete.

Everything comes to a head one day when Danny appears at the manor's doorstep one evening, soaking wet in the rain, and bleeding from the side.

[wishesofeternity]

The thing about HotD is that it while it absolutely minimizes the agency and ambition of both Rhaenyra and Alicent, this is specifically used to glorify Rhaenyra and frame her as righteous while condemning Alicent and framing her lacking. That's the key difference in both their textual portrayals that has directly led to 90% of the fandom hailing Rhaenyra as the second coming of Christ while spewing the most hateful vitriol at Alicent just for existing. But y'all are not prepared for that conversation.

[the-void-via]

★*☆♪When Boothill's insecurities start to get to him, Argenti is the first to notice★*☆♪

Part 1

——————————————————————–

Argenti's eyes slowly cracked open in his dark room, only taking a second for him to realize that something felt...off.

He slowly sat up and stretched a little, turning to the other side of the bed. Instead of being met with the appearance of his darling silver cowboy, he only saw the empty spot on the bed where he should be.

The covered looked like they'd been thrown off with little grace, but Argenti's side of the bed remained untouched.

Looking around again, he found the door to their shared bathroom open a crack, a small sliver of light shining from the inside.

He rubbed his eyes and slowly peeled the covers away, swinging his legs over the side of the bed and slipping on his slippers.

He stood up and stumbled to the bathroom, slowly opening the door to find his beloved cowboy inside, standing in front of the mirror.

He sighed softly and walked up behind him, gently wrapping his arms around his waist. He was shocked when his arms met the soft feeling of cloth around Boothill's waist, a stark contrast to the cold metal he was used to feeling.

Taking a second to examine him, Argenti realized he was wearing far more clothes than he normally would, including a pair of red pajama pants and a black, long sleeve shirt.

'Doesn't he only wear his boxers to bed...?'

He thought, blinking slowly as he was still sleepy.

Boothill flinched as soon as Argenti wrapped his arms around his waist, caught off guard by his entrance to the bathroom. He was too busy scrutinizing himself in the mirror to notice.

"Darling..." Argenti mumbled, resting his head against Boothill's shoulder. "What time is it..?"

Boothill stiffened for a moment, checking his internal clock. It was 7:44 in the morning.

'Already...?' He wondered how long he'd been in here.

"Almost 8. Darlin'," He turned his head to look at Argenti, his eyes closed as he rested on his shoulder. He smiled softly. "Why don't 'cha go back to bed? It's real early for a Saturday."

Argenti gently tightened his arms around his waist, "Come back to bed with me, darling...why are you awake, anyhow...?"

"I just..." Boothill looked back at himself in the mirror, and furrowed his eyebrows. "I've...got somethin' to do today, Rosie..."

He carefully turned around, and immediately felt Argenti's head slump down onto his chest, his arms still tightly wrapped around his waist.

"Please...?" He begged. "It's so early...please come back to bed with me, darling..."

Boothill chuckled softly, moving to carefully pick him up. He felt his legs wrap around his waist as his arms moved to drape around his neck on instinct, and he smiled softly, holding a hand on his back.

"Yer just tired, darl...c'mon, now."

He carried him back to their bed, setting him back down into bed and covering him up with a gentleness that only he would ever allow Argenti to see.

Argenti laid down on his side, gently grabbing Boothill's hand, staring up at him.

"Mm...just be careful, darling...if it's so important to you...come back safe..."

Boothill smiled again and crouched down to his level, gently caressing Argenti's cheek.

"I'll come back, no need to worry yer pretty 'lil head about that, alright?"

Argenti smiled and nodded, leaning in to give him a small kiss on the cheek. He leaned back just in time to see Boothill's flushed face, before slowly closing his eyes and drifting back to sleep.

As soon as he sees his eyes close, Boothill's smile drops to a frown, slowly standing up and walking back into the bathroom.

He fucking hated the way he looked. The metal that replaced his skin softly clanged every time he moved, constantly reminding him of the grim reality that surrounded his life.

The only "human" thing about him was his head, and even then, it had been permanently changed. His eyes now gray, with a crosshair as his pupils. And hell, he could eat bullets like they were fucking gummy snacks!

He hated it.

He couldn't stand to look at himself, so he covered up. Put on a real shirt under his jacket. Put on some random pajama pants from Argenti's drawer. He'd find a random pair of gloves from him to wear soon enough.

He hated every single part of him that wasn't human. That wasn't him.

He hated himself.

He shook his head and walked out of the bathroom, shutting the lights off as he went. He looked around the room again, his eyes falling on Argenti in bed, peacefully asleep.

Unaware as to the turmoil going on in Boothill's head.

He shook his head, he needed to go air out his thoughts. He needed a walk.

He quickly got dressed, in a much less revealing outfit than normal, and grabbed his gun.

He walked up to the door, looking back once more to Argenti peacefully asleep. He frowned.

"I'm sorry, darlin'. Real sorry..." He whispered.

And with that, he left.

——————————————————————–

[comfort-character-central]

Selfshippers after a long day: Well, it's that time again!

*watches/creates edits, creates or looks at fanart and fanfic, consumes media of their f/os, adds photos to their gallery, and unwinds by bonding with their f/os*

[spectrumgarden]

Every time I see someone say "& that's why I'm not getting diagnosed" in regards to some sort of discrimination against an autistic person by police / government / the judicial system / health care system / school system ... it's like. It just hurts. I get so jealous. I needed a diagnosis so I could continue to attend school with a 1-1 support worker. I needed a diagnosis so I could get my disability ID, which is the only way I can take public transport on 2 routes by myself, & the only way its possible for someone else to accompany me everywhere else without it costing a fortune. I needed a diagnosis so my AAC device would be covered. I needed a diagnosis so specific autism therapy would be covered. I need(ed) a diagnosis so my at home care would be covered.

I wish it could've been my choice whether I'm at risk of legal discrimination...

[accursedvoid]

[cloudysarts]

imagine if the federation tried to make a phoenix with birdperson's daughter wouldn't that be fucked up hahaha < insane

like father like daughter.

(pr0/c0mship dni)

[penaltyboxboxbox]

LMFAOOOOO im done im done but defending yourself from getting called a miserable asshole for posting anon hate about other tumblr users just trying to enjoy their hobby online via what boils down to an edgy 15 year olds take of "welcome to the real world bitch people arent nice all the time" is so 😭😭😭 grow UP grow up and be fucking serious ok im done

[ghirahimbo]

i started replaying totk recently, i say replaying bc i did buy and play it when it was first released but dropped it after a couple days bc i was busy w stuff. and so i'm doing a lot of things now for the first time and obv i can't help comparing it to botw and it's genuinely got me so upset how link has been forgotten by so many people, all the people he helped in botw all the quests he did are just meaningless, all my registered horses were carried over but they couldn't keep the character interactions? all the champions are mentioned once with the exception of mipha there's no memories or divine beasts. the zora who had remembered link for 100 years had forgotten him since botw how is that possible. i had to make an ugly house near tarrey town to hang my weapons bc the hateno house was no longer mine 😭😭😭 somehow it made the game feel lonelier, even though botw was more empty there was much emotion in it.

it's not that i hated totk i liked exploring and finding new outfits, the dragons, rediscovering my favourite places etc but idk i was genuinely tearing up thinking about the champions being forgotten and all of link's previous sacrifices meaning nothing. sorry to send these random messages i don't follow anyone else who still blogs about zelda 😭😭

No, I know exactly what you mean! 😢 Honestly (lol can't remember if I've already said this before or not, so maybe I'm re-ranting here, but) my personal take is that totk shouldn't have been a sequel game, especially because Nintendo doesn't like to concern themselves with the continuity between games that a direct sequel like this just needs. With some tweaking/set up/rewriting, totk could have worked as a stand-alone story, and then they wouldn't have had to take away from what botw achieved in the name of making it more approachable to new players.

And yeah, I didn't hate it either! I liked the gameplay and the weapons system and the feeling of stakes whenever you entered a new town and saw how things had all gone to shit. Loved the wells. I just think it was too eager to pretend botw didn't exist while at the same time leaning on it so heavily that it would fall to pieces if you tried to extract the botw out of it :P

[neon-moon-beam]

Not Again: Ableism Post-Teal Mask Edition

Hey, how about NOT being ableist towards Carmine and Kieran?

We've already dealt with N and Submas experiencing this since Gen 5's initial run, we've dealt with Volo and then Nemona, and definitely more but those are the big ones.

Lately there seems to be this tendency of people to want to diagnose every character and you don't actually need to give every single character an armchair diagnosis right out the gate. While representation is important and some characters have enough in their characterization to suggest an illness or disability, or even seem outright coded, not every character is, or needs to be. If a character strongly resonates with your experience with an illness or disability, that's one thing; many autistic people feel seen and validated by Submas, for example. But if you're grasping at straws or stretching a character's actions or situations to make them "fit" a diagnosis, it often comes across more as pathologizing characters rather than humanizing them. It's important to not only think about why you want to portray a character this way, but whether or not it fits with their characterization and if you're using it to show an accurate portrayal, or if you're just using it to excuse/dismiss their hurtful actions, or even demonize the character.

Spoilers for the Teal Mask DLC ahead. CW for ableism.

There's a huge difference between say, Submas who are so heavily autistic-coded you'd have a harder time arguing they aren't, and someone like Kieran who shows rejection sensitivity that may or may not be a symptom of something else, or Carmine, who appears explosive and a cruel bully, but it turns out her anger comes from places of worry as well as being angry about innocent people and Pokemon being wronged. Her decision to not tell Kieran they met Ogerpon was because she knew how much Ogerpon meant to him and how bad he would feel knowing he missed her. People have been quick to decide she has low or no empathy, when the game literally shows her having a lot of it! We also don't know Carmine and Kieran's whole stories yet. We're going to see them at Blueberry Academy next (and Kieran does tell the player that Carmine does everything for him there, which is a reason he wants to get stronger). We don't know why they're going to school there, if they have friends there or a community or if they’re outcast and bullied, or where their parents are. Their attitudes, actions, or even potential symptoms may be situational. Carmine certainly appears to be acting out to the threat of her hometown being overrun by tourists (and considering how tourism tends to impact places and its locals IRL, can you blame her?) Kieran has the conflicting situation of his sister looking out for him at school for reasons we haven’t seen yet, while also verbally cutting him down. He also identified with Ogerpon even before the player arrived at Kitakami, and maybe even projected onto her for a reason. There’s a potential for a lot to be going on here without either of them needing an instant armchair diagnosis before their story arcs are complete.

A character desperate for friends doesn't necessary indicate a personality disorder, especially when their backstory is that they were left out, bullied, or even considered an outsider to a degree in the town they grew up in. Someone like Nemona or Kieran wanting to have friends after experiencing a lot of rejection and isolation doesn't instantly mean they have a personality disorder, and even if the story ended up indicating that they did, that does not give anyone the excuse to write them as "scary" or "yandere". Personality disorders are complex in potential causes and how they manifest, and using them as shorthand to write a character being a "yandere" or abusive is ableist.

And once again, it is time to bring up the subject of “feral” or “unhinged”. Whether or not Carmine has anger issues that can be given a diagnosis or Kieran has a personality disorder or anything else that can be diagnosed doesn’t matter here. Making characters “scary and unhinged” for experiencing basic human emotions is…dehumanizing. When you decide Carmine should snap and go around hurting people, you actually sound just like the people in Kitakami who are ostracizing her and whispering behind her back, making her feel like she has no place in her own community. And the same with Kieran. The last scene of the storyline in Kitakami has him vowing to defeat the player. It comes off as a bit creepy, but it doesn’t mean he’s supposed to have been a creep all along or is turning into one; from a developer/storytelling perspective, it’s literally just creating suspense for the Indigo Disk story. While Kieran is shown to be rejection sensitive, jealous, self-isolating, and at times inconsiderate (Carmine had to remind him that Ogerpon’s feelings on who she should travel with mattered too), he’s also a kid. We don’t have an exact age, but my impression was he might be a bit younger than the player. Carmine does mention him having “teen angst” but it could be a joke as she herself is a teen claiming to be over it, and it could be one of those “older kid jokes about younger kid as though older kid is an elderly person” type of jokes. But if he is a teen, he’s a younger one, and he still has a lot to learn about managing his emotions and expressing himself constructively. Nobody is always mature about that at 13 (heck, there are adults who lack emotional maturity altogether). He shouldn’t be expected to react maturely every time to things that upset him, and he shouldn’t be pathologized or considered “unhinged” every time he doesn’t. Depicting him as “unhinged” also detracts from his positive traits that we see in conjunction with, or even in spite of his negative ones. He’s jealous of the player character’s strength and skill, but he doesn’t actually resent them, despite becoming obsessed with the idea of defeating them. Ogerpon was bonding more with the player, but he still decided to help with the situation with the masks and the Lousy Three. He’s jealous that Ogerpon wanted to go with the player, but he’s still happy for both of them. It’s much more likely that we’ll see him mature as a person and recognize his own strengths independent of Carmine and the player at the end of the Indigo Disk then see him become a “madman consumed by jealousy and pursuit of power”, because Pokemon doesn’t really tell stories like that, and certainly not with non-villain characters! And if Carmine and Kieran end up fitting a diagnosis for an illness or disability, continuing to depict them as “unhinged” based on those traits is very ableist. I and others have said it in regards to Submas so many times, but it’s true for other characters too.

And this is by no means an exhaustive list of examples of the ways people are being ableist after the Teal Mask DLC has released.

With all that said, a headcanon diagnosis doesn’t excuse a character’s actions that have hurt others, and neither does a character who’s acting out is situational. Carmine still lashes out at Kieran and hurts him, even when her intentions are to protect him. Kieran still ended up causing the revival of the Lousy Three and put the player and Ogrepon in an uncomfortable situation, and will likely put the player in an uncomfortable situation at Blueberry Academy. In the end, they’re characters being portrayed with virtues and flaws, and that humanizes them much more than slapping on a diagnosis and absolving them of every hurtful action, and certainly much more than slapping a diagnosis on them and in turn using it to demonize them. And if you’re really interested in writing characters with mental illnesses and/or disabilities, and especially if it’s not based on your own experiences, you need to do some actual research, not just watch a few short videos listing symptoms by a non-professional on the video app du jour. If you’re not sure where to look, Wikipedia articles cite their sources at the bottom of the article; you can read the page you’re interested in, but please check out the cited sources too!

Sadly, this is at least the third time in just under three years that people have immediately started depicting characters introduced, or reintroduced in Pokemon, in ways that have ended up becoming ableist. It’s disappointing and disheartening to see, and to be honest, it gets tiring for those of us talking about the issue to keep talking about it. Many of the people making the ableist depictions aren’t personally affected by the issues they misrepresent, and they can just post their art or fic, and continue on their way. But for those of us who have the illnesses and/or disabilities being misrepresented, even misrepresented as entertainment, we can’t just log off and go on our way. The reality is a series, characters, or even fandom that could be our break from everyday life, and should be our refuge, instead has a fandom that  just plays out our everyday difficulties for laughs, brings up our trauma as an excuse to write a character as “haha unhinged! ooh feral!”, treats characters the way so many of us were treated by bullies, by parents and teachers who didn’t understand, and ends up alienating us from a space that should be ours, a space some of us helped build, only to have to leave as others made it unfriendly to us. It gets so tiring to have to avoid content that should be enjoyable but isn’t, to have friends ask, “Is this really how others see me?” when yet another autistic-coded character is portrayed as unhinged and creepy, or to have them tell you how yet another fic or art dehumanized them via their favorite characters, to watch people describe a character the way your peers once described you as they made fun of or ostracized you for your neurodivergence. It’s tiring to have other fans of the same series make a space alienating, inaccessible, or even antagonistic towards you, instead of fostering community.

Come on people, please do better.

Thank you for reading my post and your consideration. And if you think other people would benefit from reading this, please give it a reblog. Likes don't do anything as tumblr has no real algorithm.

[highpriestessofchildsacrifice]

No offense to op or anything but u guys sound like my mom trying to convince me that arranged marriage isn't so bad when I was in middle school lol

Actually it's even worse bc my parents were actually sympathetic to the girlboss argument. By which I mean the "I want autonomy over my life" argument

[smile-files]

some great bluish bakeoff stuff!

nickel later apologizes this episode; it's prompted by balloon's confrontation, but clearly nickel was in the mindset to apologize. the fact that he didn't raise the issue himself shows how he's still really afraid of how balloon would react. at the same time, though, he's acknowledging that "standing up for what [is] right" is important and good, even if it doesn't necessarily have the most beneficial outcome; notice how this not only shows how he accepts and understands balloon's anger towards him over the past few episodes (which had the consequence of losing them the challenge and getting bot eliminated), but also suitcase's anger towards him in the latter half of ii2 (which had the consequence of destroying their alliance).

in this episode, blueberry is assuming a role that has previously been taken by nickel and, more recently, silver spoon: he has placed himself at the top of the pecking order, calling all the shots, forcing everyone to roll with his punches. now everyone's in the same position balloon has been for a lot of his time in ii. silver, in throwing the chariot (:nerd emoji: actually a litter, they use the wrong word) at blueberry, is taking a stand against him -- announcing his frustration from being treated poorly.

for the longest time, balloon had "stay[ed] away from the thorns": beating around the bush, not bringing up the hard stuff, so he could maintain his positive relationship with nickel (and by extension his sense of having actually changed, which is linked with that that relationship represents) and not face his inevitable aggressive snap-back. but, though these proverbial thorns are painful, touching them helps him actually move ahead of all of that discomfort. balloon took a stand against nickel recently, which he was justified in doing, expressing his anger at nickel for both what he did and his denial of doing it -- and nickel harshly bit back about what balloon had done a while ago. balloon touched the thorn, and got the pain.

now, when nickel is yet again dancing around the problem, balloon's frustration returns. and, as silver took a stand against blueberry (which nickel supported), balloon channels his frustration and takes his own stand: technically also against blueberry, in trying to get himself and the others to the challenge before blueberry (thereby denying the domination he has imposed), but the drive itself came from nickel. he knows touching the thorns is painful, but that it's important and good. he should stand up for himself, and he does. he literally pokes himself with a thorn, and that literally sends him and the others ahead.

for the sake of this analogy/symbolic framework, it's worth noting how they are pushed forward because of the thorn, but there's still baggage: they fly through the desert only to crash, losing all of their ingredients. at this point, though, balloon's not going to let the pain of the thorn prevent him from touching it. balloon will keep standing up for himself, even if he keeps facing setbacks and pushbacks, because he knows what he deserves.

you can imagine that when balloon confronted nickel in this episode, he was expecting the same old same old: he'd say what he's mad about, and nickel would shut him down. but he doesn't. nickel listens to him. nickel lets balloon be angry at him, lets himself face the guilt he needs to feel. balloon is able to be mad at nickel without their relationship automatically going up in flames like before. and balloon is shocked! but will he forgive nickel? what'll he say? ...well, they're taken by tyler bombard before balloon could say anything...

for all this talk of the thorn, where's the blossom? well, here it is. thematic parallels indeed! recall how balloon misunderstanding "flour" as "flower" contributed to the grand slams losing the cooking challenge in ii2, which likely added fuel to the fire of nickel's hatred towards him -- now that same flower and that same misunderstanding is a representation of their friendship: it is what remains after the pain of the thorn. balloon finding value in this meager flower and presenting it to mephone at all (thereby insisting that it has value) is what wins them all the challenge. the flower and its beauty are not just a reward for the pain of the thorn, but a product of that pain.

balloon still hasn't responded to nickel's apology, because he hasn't had the chance to... but in disputing tyler's happiness about blueberry's death, balloon both recognizes his own attempt to change as well as nickel's: attempting that change is also a thorn, a very painful one (it literally killed blueberry), and both nickel and balloon have recognized the changes the other has tried to make and has succeeded in making. nickel is very reassured by this.

and as a final flower, a final reward for balloon's persistence in standing up for himself and what he believes in, balloon is chosen as the sole recipient of the immunity cookie -- silver spoon, someone with both a history of selfishness and a history of putting others below him, is the one to make this decision. balloon is finally being recognized, genuinely, for the changes he's made.

notably, balloon never accepts nickel's apology: no, he accepts that nickel is trying to make up for what he did. and, knowing from personal experience how hard it is to make that change and be acknowledged for making it, balloon is there to support him through it, and help him realize that he can be better -- and balloon is still on that "trek" himself, as we know balloon still has a lot of flaws to work through. they both know they have to touch the thorn, but they're all the more motivated to do so because they have a beautiful flower as well:

their genuine friendship.

...

balloon continues to be very charitable with blueberry, even as blueberry is critical of himself. nickel is also charitable -- telling blueberry to "just be nicer to people" implies that he believes that such a change is possible -- though of course he expresses this in his typical snarky way.

blueberry, though, doesn't believe that he can change, just like nickel used to. no matter how much balloon and nickel believe in him, he himself has to realize he has the capacity to improve before he can actually do it.

[bitchfitch]

I may have just convinced my shrink to start using Tumblr.

[lord-squiggletits]

Saw a tweet online that was like "they've done good guy Megatron what if they tried writing bad guy Optimus (not SG)" and it made me think

My brother in christ IDW1 is the closest we got to bad guy Optimus (there's literally a chapter called "All Hail Optimus" for fuck's sake) and people lost their fucking minds over it and to this day the fandom barely acknowledges that IDW Optimus exists even though he was just morally gray and not even evil.

People SAY they want morally gray/evil Optimus but they actually don't and it's never going to happen lol. Not only is Hasbro never going to let their precious marketing icon turn evil but the fanbase would fucking hate an evil Optimus and call him OOC and not a real Optimus and replace him with some other version

[bambiraptorx]

I am curious, why is Draxum so protective and secretive over his mask and anyone seeing his face in your MI AU? is his mask like a safe object since he is written to be neurodivergent?

There's a couple of different reasons, and one of them definitely is that is a safety/comfort object for him. Backstory-wise, he's had it for centuries, making it one of the possessions he's held onto the longest. Given how much he used to travel, it might be the only one he's managed to hang onto. It was also probably a gift from someone he cared about, and likely the only thing he has to remind him of them.

Also, the sensory blocking spell he cast for Mikey in ch 17? Draxum uses that kind of spell himself, usually casting more than one and using his mask as a sort of focal point. (Also he can toggle the spells on and off, so it's kinda like constantly carrying noise-canceling headphones around for him? But for other senses too? I'm still fleshing out the mechanics lol)

But another reason for the mask? Well, he's masking, literally as well as figuratively. He's hiding his 'true' self (one that, as shown in season 2, is more expressive and outright emotional). He doesn't feel comfortable revealing his actual face or even having it acknowledged that he's hiding a pretty important part of himself, but also? He wears the mask so much that he thinks of it as his actual face. His self-perception is so rooted in hiding a part of himself that he no longer thinks of it as hidden--he doesn't think about it at all.

This is more or less why Leo hasn't seen Draxum's actual face yet, even though he's been waking Draxum up at ridiculous hours of the night for a while now. Draxum wakes up and puts the mask on like a pair of glasses, and once he has it on he essentially forgets he's wearing it. Yes, part of it is that on some level Draxum doesn't like or want the vulnerability of showing Leo his face, but he's so used to wearing it that it feels more like him than his real face does.

TLDR: it's a symbol of Draxum's neurodivergence, but also kind of a metaphor for him masking and maybe sort of about his internalized ableism? Which is complicated, but hey, that's how being ND is sometimes.

[nikoco11]

i haven’t posted it anywhere much but in the back of my head there r two ocs and one is a asian auntie that’s an angel who realizes 40 years late that she was in love w her friend from afterlife high school and now that friend is a grim reaper and there’s this whole thing where reapers cut the string between souls n bodies when ppl die and angels take them to heaven or hell like a business transaction. anyways this like 55 yr old woman who’s incredibly uptight n the only “sucessful focused angel” in her family is like ‘ohhhh fuck i’m gay and need to see this woman now. what’s a smart way to deal with this. i know, i’m gonna start just murdering people’ so her old friend can cut the souls of the people she kills and then she gets to see her like. for 5 minutes every now and again.anyways. i like them a lot. stupid fucked up women