#and some of its just. culture shock. but also a lot of it is

[secretlythatsme]

i really love dc x dp tbh but i hate how so many fics end up making the batfam dumb as shit. and i don't mean in a "loveable goof" kind of way but in a genuine "these people don't have the skills or intelligence to be heroes" kind of way. which is just antithetical to their entire thing

sometimes it's because the writer just genuinely doesn't know anything about the batfam or what they've been through so they come across as idiots. and other times it's because the writer is writing op ghost king danny or just generally op danny and they genuinely think he could outsmart or beat them. more often than not, it's a combination of the two.

it's just so sad. like not only is it disrespectul to the batfam, essentially getting rid of all the skills and experience they have just to prop up danny, but it also makes things a lot more boring imo. don't get me wrong, i don't mind the occasional "main character is super op" kind of story, but it's boring when like 70% of fics are like that and there's no real challenge or obstacle for him. part of why the show danny phantom was so fun was that it was exciting and chair gripping to see danny have to deal with his new ghost powers, figuring out how to deal with ghost attacks or vlad, and dealing with school and his parents on top of that.

but often, dc x dp fics just,, get rid of any challenge for him. sure batman is a skilled detective but danny will always be able to trick him! sure cass has been trained since birth to read people's body language but this random ghost teen knows how to conceal and control everything!! yeah damian has also been trained since birth to fight and kill but this random guy from the midwest who just started fighting in his teens is so much better!!! like, alright. it's fun every now and then but it sucks when so much of the dc x dp content is just people acting like the batfam are the worst vigilantes/detectives in the world.

and honestly i still feel this way even with the ghost king danny fics because how? he's never had to deal with people obsessively reading his body language or reading between the lines. he's had to deal with hiding stuff sure but his parents aren't the most observant people - their whole deal was being neglectful. even as a ghost king, why would he know how to outsmart, take advantage of, or beat the batfam in any capacity when he would still mostly deal with ghosts. it's a completely different skill set here - one that he likely wouldn't be prepared for. it'd be fine if they at least attempted to explain why danny would have those skills (like league danny aus) but most of them don't.

and i'm not saying danny couldn't do it at all, especially if it's a ghost king au, but i'm just tired of seeing the batfam constantly downplayed in these fics Just to make danny look better, smarter, stronger, etc. ik most people in the fandom are just danny fans but it really shows with how they treat, characterize, and shit on the dc characters just to prop danny up. it also serves to occasionally make danny look like an asshole when he intentionally messes with them and basically commits psychological torture for a goof.

#man... #i Do like this crossover but i completely understand why so many dc fans hate it #the oocness the fanon the constantly making these skilled trained characters fumble around and get outsmarted by Some Guy #ghost king danny isn't even canon to dp! which isnt a bad thing by any means ik the dp fandom goes crazy for fanon #and generally speaking the fanon Is a lot more fun and engaging than dp's canon #but as a dc fan its insane to watch #i want to engage more with dc x dp content so badly like this crossover is really interesting to me #but so much of it is just 'the bat.fam are actually fucking useless and my blorbo is so much better :)))' #it's almost like they dont even like the bat.fam!!! they keep saying they just dont know/understand them #but it fully feels like they straight up dont like the dc characters #it definitely comes across as 'hey this is a fun world to put danny in lets do that while also shitting on it and all of the characters' #'lol bruce is so stupid this random teen can outsmart him and he can lie to cass and he can beat dick in a physical fight lol' #there's a point where it stops feeling like indulgent op blorbo and more like insulting anyone who isn't danny #<thats actually exactly what it is and its insane to me like why even like crossovers if you dont want to engage with anyone but danny #how can you say you like them when you outright refuse to know them or respect them? #and obviously im using 'you' in a vague way im not specifically calling anyone out #ik there are people in the fandom who are genuinely fans of both and Do know and respect the dc characters #but so far its very few and far between which is just such a fandom culture shock for me #like in most fandoms im able to read a lot of fics and only occasionally think 'thats not right' #but with this one its the other way around - im constantly going 'they wouldnt say/do that at all why does the op think that?' #like 9 out of 10 fics im like 'oh yeah this person has never read a comic in their life' #i can immediately tell when someone has only read the webtoon its extremely obvious unfortunately #maybe i should make a dc masterlist for dp fans... like here you can write about them again After you do your homework ajdhgl

[oscill4te]

sending good vibes to mixed race folk who have a very complicated relationship w their heritage or view of themselves, ily

#mentally i call myself a racially ambiguous american #i don't really connect with the word latino idk why.. like i was raised by an immigrant parent but #oddly feel no connection with the culture at all. not out of self prejudice even. i just wasnt close w my mom idk #like sure i know some spanish and have eaten the food but i just feel no connection anymore. i used too. its weird #again i just prefer to call myself slightly brown/ambiguous American or something lol it just feels more accurate #its not self hate i just legit dont connect... i feel like an outsider and thats okay. i think it was due to how i was raised really. #my white side was shitty too but they were more involved in my life so i guess thats why despite being brown-ish #i saw myself as white for 17 yrs of my life til i had a therapist (of color) say something like #“i bet you relate since you are also of color” and i was in shock and confusion like #i told her “uh no im white i dont know what you mean” and it caused some cognitive dissonancee #so i asked a few ppl what they saw me as and it shattered my view that i looked 100% white passing #its like how ducks imprint on who raised them. my white grandma and aunt raised me so i just saw myself as white?? idk #its still a weird feeling and nowadays i dont really like identifying my race or ethnicity to ppl idk #maybe this all sounds weird i dont know #but its how i genuinely feel; unfiltered and all #again i like mexican culture a lot i just often don't feel like its “my roots” it feels more like #im appreciating someone elses culture which makes sense bc i was raised as a gringo!! yk? #its not really “my roots” it's my moms roots but not mine #altho ngl i feel kinship with first/2nd gen latinos... #i think a lot of them have similar feelings like me minus the mix race stuff #well actually many of them r probably mix race too idk i mostly meet 1st gen ppl who have 2 immigrant parents tho #and yesss i know latinos can be any race. i know i. #im just rambling incoherently

[opens-up-4-nobody]

...

#this just in: local algae enthusiast shocked to find that u feel bad when u dont take care of yourself >:-[ #this is bullshit. i am rattling the bars of my cage and also i am standing outside the door with the key #what do u mean i cant not sleep enough. intensely focus for 6.5hrs nonstop and have to take care of additional stuff floating around. #and then spend all my time agonizing over not being productive enough? #ugh. its exhausting. and its one thing to live like this and love what ur doing. its another when u dont fucking care so all ur time feels #empty and pointless bc all u do is work. bleh i just wanna draw all the time but coloring takes so much time when u wanna make complicated #things :-( so its like draw something new or spend 3hrs coloring and i hate coloring :-P #its also frustrating bc when i read papers associated with the work ill be doing in the fall i actually enjoy it #and thats what i wanna do in my free time but that space is so limited bc working takes up all the space #and drawing takes a lot of time. but hey i can cut out more space by not taking care of myself 😎 #ugh. dont b like me. draw a healthy line between academia and life #otherwise its like yay reviewers have approved ur 1st authored paper and im like i could not even begin to care #light all my data on fire for all i care. i would feel nothing #and im not gonna rake od measurements today. fuck u. im tired and if i accidentally killed a culture ill be sad #ugh. but i should. but i have to do some coding before the end of the day and i cant if i have to spend another hr here 😫 #ugh. just a few more months #unrelated

[stuckyeatscake]

i need songs recs in spanish or portugues plsssss

the more i interact w western culture the more homesick and lowkey alienated i feel plsss in any genre at all

#like its not negative experiences but i think im jsut feeling a lot of culture shock atm #like i was prepared for some but idk seeing it up close is v weird and they also think how i act is weird #like i get it i truly do its just simple culture shock from both sides #but like i cannot imagine living like them EVER!!!!! #i could never fathom the idea of making an appt w any family member to hang out. like if we want to hang out just drop in dude no call no #warning needed this counts both for family and friends. like i get thts how they live but ur family why dont you just hangout whenever and #also often?? like hanging out w family and friedns is soo crucial to the way i was raised??? #likeone of the first things i did when i finshed settling in was telling my family that if they were traveling nearby my room was at their #disposal and that i would meet them whereever

[ei-mugi]

i enjoyed getting heated over something silly for fun but im just now seeing some past distress ppl had over the poll on the blog & i feel a little bad haha i dont actually have any problem with ii or its fans like ive said i was one myself in the past

#being familiar with both ships though i still do prefer wataei #my 'complaints' were in the context of knowing about both of them and the shock of these 2 interests ever intersecting #i dooooooooo have a lot of opinions on ii as a show but none of them are like. 'you shouldnt like object shows cuz theyre dumb' #i got enough of that said 2 me by other people at the time #fan still sucks tho. worst character. microphone best character she deserved the win #when they go back to finishing season 2 in a decade's time they BETTER make the pickle/taco reunion happen in the next episode #the poll prompted me to watch like an episode of season 3 just to see what was up w it #and it was like fine. i watched episode 9. but i cant say it still holds my interest like it used to #especially not since s3 is an au and none of the plotlines are continued there #lol i remember when s2e12 p2 came out there was so much controversy #cuz paintbrush was eliminated that episode but it was also when they came out as nonbinary #i hope they make transgirl lightbulb canon still. that would be cool #paintbulb may not be my otp but they are t4t #all in all the thing about the osc (object show community) is that honestly its just a really sweet place over all #like its really lovely for so many kids to have a community where theyre encouraged to be creative and stuff #duh a lot of the shows arent gonna be good theyre being made by kids. but thats whats great about it #i like laughing over some stuff but i always feel the need to like say stuff like this cuz i think it sucks that people make fun of #stuff kids like to do so much esp as an autistic kid who was always made fun of for everything i liked #cringe culture definitely seeped into my bones a bit but i try to combat it

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Why they're smearing Lina Khan

My god, they sure hate Lina Khan. This once-in-a-generation, groundbreaking, brilliant legal scholar and fighter for the public interest, the slayer of Reaganomics, has attracted more vitriol, mockery, and dismissal than any of her predecessors in living memory.

She sure must be doing something right, huh?

A quick refresher. In 2017, Khan — then a law student — published Amazon’s Antitrust Paradox in the Yale Law Journal. It was a brilliant, blistering analysis showing how the Reagan-era theory of antitrust (which celebrates monopolies as “efficient”) had failed on its own terms, using Amazon as Exhibit A of the ways in which post-Reagan antitrust had left Americans vulnerable to corporate abuse:

https://www.yalelawjournal.org/note/amazons-antitrust-paradox

The paper sent seismic shocks through both legal and economic circles, and goosed the neo-Brandeisian movement (sneeringly dismissed as “hipster antitrust”). This movement is a rebuke to Reaganomics, with its celebration of monopolies, trickle-down, offshoring, corporate dark money, revolving-door regulatory capture, and companies that are simultaneously too big to fail and too big to jail.

This movement has many proponents, of course — not just Khan — but Khan’s careful scholarship, combined with her encyclopedic knowledge of the long-dormant statutory powers that federal agencies had to make change, and a strategy for reviving those powers to protect Americans from corporate predators made her a powerful, inspirational figure.

When Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election, he surprised everyone by appointing Khan to the FTC. It wasn’t just that she had such a radical vision — it was also that she lacked the usual corporate law experience that such an appointee would normally require (experience that would ensure that the FTC was helmed by people whose default view of the world is that it should be structured and regulated by powerful, wealthy people in corporate boardrooms).

Even more surprising was that Khan was made chair of the FTC, something that was only possible because a few Republican Senators broke with their party to support her candidacy:

https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_votes/vote1171/vote_117_1_00233.htm

These Republicans saw in Khan an ally in their fight against “woke” Big Tech. For these senators, the problem wasn’t that tech had got too big and powerful — it was that there were a few limited instances in which tech leaders failed to wield that power in the ways they preferred.

The Republican project is a matter of getting turkeys to vote for Christmas by doing a lot of culture war bullshit, cruelly abusing disfavored sexual and racial minorities. This wins support from low-information voters who’ll vote against their class interests and support more monopolies, more tax cuts for the rich, and more cuts to the services they rely on.

But while tech leaders are 100% committed to the project of permanent oligarchic takeover of every sphere of American life, they are less full-throated in their support for hateful, cruel discrimination against disfavored minorities (in this regard, tech leaders resemble the corporate wing of the Democrats, which is where we get the “Silicon Valley is a Democratic Party stronghold” narrative).

This failure to unquestioningly and unstintingly back culture war bullshit put tech leaders in the GOP’s crosshairs. Some GOP politicians actually believe in the culture war bullshit, and are grossly offended that tech is “woke.” Others are smart enough not to get high on their own supply, but worry that any tech obstruction in the bullshit culture wars will make it harder to get sufficient turkey votes for a big fat Christmas surprise.

Biden’s ceding of antitrust policy to the left wing of the party, combined with disaffected GOP senators viewing Khan as their enemy’s enemy, led to Khan’s historic appointment as FTC Chair. In that position, she was joined by a slate of Biden trustbusters, including Jonathan Kanter at the DoJ Antitrust Division, Tim Wu at the White House, and other important, skilled and principled fighters like Alvaro Bedoya (FTC), Rebecca Slaughter (FTC), Rohit Chopra (CFPB), and many others.

Crucially, these new appointees weren’t just principled, they were good at their jobs. In 2021, Tim Wu wrote an executive order for Biden that laid out 72 concrete ways in which the administration could act — with no further Congressional authorization — to blunt corporate power and insulate the American people from oligarchs’ abusive and extractive practices:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/08/13/post-bork-era/#manne-down

Since then, the antitrust arm of the Biden administration have been fuckin’ ninjas, Getting Shit Done in ways large and small, working — for the first time since Reagan — to protect Americans from predatory businesses:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/18/administrative-competence/#i-know-stuff

This is in marked contrast to the corporate Dems’ champions in the administration. People like Pete Buttigieg are heralded as competent technocrats, “realists” who are too principled to peddle hopium to the base, writing checks they can’t cash. All this is cover for a King Log performance, in which Buttigieg’s far-reaching regulatory authority sits unused on a shelf while a million Americans are stranded over Christmas and whole towns are endangered by greedy, reckless rail barons straight out of the Gilded Age:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/10/the-courage-to-govern/#whos-in-charge

The contrast between the Biden trustbusters and their counterparts from the corporate wing is stark. While the corporate wing insists that every pitch is outside of the zone, Khan and her allies are swinging for the stands. They’re trying to make life better for you and me, by declaring commercial surveillance to be an unfair business practice and thus illegal:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/08/12/regulatory-uncapture/#conscious-uncoupling

And by declaring noncompete “agreements” that shackle good workers to shitty jobs to be illegal:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/02/its-the-economy-stupid/#neofeudal

And naturally, this has really pissed off all the right people: America’s billionaires and their cheerleaders in the press, government, and the hive of scum and villainy that is the Big Law/thinktank industrial-complex.

Take the WSJ: since Khan took office, they have published 67 vicious editorials attacking her and her policies. Khan is living rent-free in Rupert Murdoch’s head. Not only that, he’s given her the presidential suite! You love to see it.

These attacks are worth reading, if only to see how flimsy and frivolous they are. One major subgenre is that Khan shouldn’t be bringing any action against Amazon, because her groundbreaking scholarship about the company means she has a conflict of interest. Holy moly is this a stupid thing to say. The idea that the chair of an expert agency should recuse herself because she is an expert is what the physicists call not even wrong.

But these attacks are even more laughable due to who they’re coming from: people who have the most outrageous conflicts of interest imaginable, and who were conspicuously silent for years as the FTC’s revolving door admitted the a bestiary of swamp-creatures so conflicted it’s a wonder they managed to dress themselves in the morning.

Writing in The American Prospect, David Dayen runs the numbers:

Since the late 1990s, 31 out of 41 top FTC officials worked directly for a company that has business before the agency, with 26 of them related to the technology industry.

https://prospect.org/economy/2023-06-23-attacks-lina-khans-ethics-reveal-projection/

Take Christine Wilson, a GOP-appointed FTC Commissioner who quit the agency in a huff because Khan wanted to do things for the American people, and not their self-appointed oligarchic princelings. Wilson wrote an angry break-up letter to Khan that the WSJ published, presaging their concierge service for Samuel Alito:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-im-resigning-from-the-ftc-commissioner-ftc-lina-khan-regulation-rule-violation-antitrust-339f115d

For Wilson to question Khan’s ethics took galactic-scale chutzpah. Wilson, after all, is a commissioner who took cash money from Bristol-Myers Squibb, then voted to approve their merger with Celgene:

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4365601-Wilson-Christine-Smith-final278.html

Or take Wilson’s GOP FTC predecessor Josh Wright, whose incestuous relationship with the companies he oversaw at the Commission are so intimate he’s practically got a Habsburg jaw. Wright went from Google to the US government and back again four times. He also lobbied the FTC on behalf of Qualcomm (a major donor to Wright’s employer, George Mason’s Antonin Scalia Law School) after working “personally and substantially” while serving at the FTC.

George Mason’s Scalia center practically owns the revolving door, counting fourteen FTC officials among its affliates:

https://campaignforaccountability.org/ttp-investigation-big-techs-backdoor-to-the-ftc/

Since the 1990s, 31 out of 41 top FTC officials — both GOP appointed and appointees backed by corporate Dems — “worked directly for a company that has business before the agency”:

https://www.citizen.org/article/ftc-big-tech-revolving-door-problem-report/

The majority of FTC and DoJ antitrust lawyers who served between 2014–21 left government service and went straight to work for a Big Law firm, serving the companies they’d regulated just a few months before:

https://therevolvingdoorproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/The-Revolving-Door-In-Federal-Antitrust-Enforcement.pdf

Take Deborah Feinstein, formerly the head of the FTC’s Bureau of Competition, now a partner at Arnold & Porter, where she’s represented General Electric, NBCUniversal, Unilever, and Pepsi and a whole medicine chest’s worth of pharma giants before her former subordinates at the FTC. Michael Moiseyev who was assistant manager of FTC Competition is now in charge of mergers at Weil Gotshal & Manges, working for Microsoft, Meta, and Eli Lilly.

There’s a whole bunch more, but Dayen reserves special notice for Andrew Smith, Trump’s FTC Consumer Protection boss. Before he was put on the public payroll, Smith represented 120 clients that had business before the Commission, including “nearly every major bank in America, drug industry lobbyist PhRMA, Uber, Equifax, Amazon, Facebook, Verizon, and a variety of payday lenders”:

https://www.citizen.org/sites/default/files/andrew_smith_foia_appeal_response_11_30.pdf

Before Khan, in other words, the FTC was a “conflict-of-interest assembly line, moving through corporate lawyers and industry hangers-on without resistance for decades.”

Khan is the first FTC head with no conflicts. This leaves her opponents in the sweaty, desperate position of inventing conflicts out of thin air.

For these corporate lickspittles, Khan’s “conflict” is that she has a point of view. Specifically, she thinks that the FTC should do its job.

This makes grifters like Jim Jordan furious. Yesterday, Jordan grilled Khan in a hearing where he accused her of violating an ethics official’s advice that she should recuse herself from Big Tech cases. This is a talking point that was created and promoted by Bloomberg:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-06-16/ftc-rejected-ethics-advice-for-khan-recusal-on-meta-case

That ethics official, Lorielle Pankey, did not, in fact, make this recommendation. It’s simply untrue (she did say that Khan presiding over cases that she has made public statements about could be used as ammo against her, but did not say that it violated any ethical standard).

But there’s more to this story. Pankey herself has a gigantic conflict of interest in this case, including a stock portfolio with $15,001 and $50,000 in Meta stock (Meta is another company that has whined in print and in its briefs that it is a poor defenseless lamb being picked on by big, mean ole Lina Khan):

https://www.wsj.com/articles/ethics-official-owned-meta-stock-while-recommending-ftc-chair-recuse-herself-from-meta-case-8582a83b

Jordan called his hearing on the back of this fake scandal, and then proceeded to show his whole damned ass, even as his GOP colleagues got into a substantive and even informative dialog with Khan:

https://prospect.org/power/2023-07-14-jim-jordan-misfires-attacks-lina-khan/

Mostly what came out of that hearing was news about how Khan is doing her job, working on behalf of the American people. For example, she confirmed that she’s investigating OpenAI for nonconsensually harvesting a mountain of Americans’ personal information:

https://www.ft.com/content/8ce04d67-069b-4c9d-91bf-11649f5adc74

Other Republicans, including confirmed swamp creatures like Matt Gaetz, ended up agreeing with Khan that Amazon Ring is a privacy dumpster-fire. Nobodies like Rep TomM assie gave Khan an opening to discuss how her agency is protecting mom-and-pop grocers from giant, price-gouging, greedflation-drunk national chains. Jeff Van Drew gave her a chance to talk about the FTC’s war on robocalls. Lance Gooden let her talk about her fight against horse doping.

But Khan’s opponents did manage to repeat a lot of the smears against her, and not just the bogus conflict-of-interest story. They also accused her of being 0–4 in her actions to block mergers, ignoring the huge number of mergers that have been called off or not initiated because M&A professionals now understand they can no longer expect these mergers to be waved through. Indeed, just last night I spoke with a friend who owns a medium-sized tech company that Meta tried to buy out, only to withdraw from the deal because their lawyers told them it would get challenged at the FTC, with an uncertain outcome.

These talking points got picked up by people commenting on Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley’s ruling against the FTC in the Microsoft-Activision merger. The FTC was seeking an injunction against the merger, and Corley turned them down flat. The ruling was objectively very bad. Start with the fact that Corley’s son is a Microsoft employee who stands reap massive gains in his stock options if the merger goes through.

But beyond this (real, non-imaginary, not manufactured conflict of interest), Corley’s judgment and her remarks in court were inexcusably bad, as Matt Stoller writes:

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/judge-rules-for-microsoft-mergers

In her ruling, Corley explained that she didn’t think Microsoft would abuse the market dominance they’d gain by merging their giant videogame platform and studio with one of its largest competitors. Why not? Because Microsoft’s execs pinky-swore that they wouldn’t abuse that power.

Corely’s deference to Microsoft’s corporate priorities goes deeper than trusting its execs, though. In denying the FTC’s motion, she stated that it would be unfair to put the merger on hold in order to have a full investigation into its competition implications because Microsoft and Activision had set a deadline of July 18 to conclude things, and Microsoft would have to pay a penalty if that deadline passed.

This is surreal: a judge ruled that a corporation’s radical, massive merger shouldn’t be subject to full investigation because that corporation itself set an arbitrary deadline to conclude the deal before such an investigation could be concluded. That’s pretty convenient for future mega-mergers — just set a short deadline and Judge Corely will tell regulators that the merger can’t be investigated because the deadline is looming.

And this is all about the future. As Stoller writes, Microsoft isn’t exactly subtle about why it wants this merger. Its own execs said that the reason they were spending “dump trucks” of money buying games studios was to “spend Sony out of business.”

Now, maybe you hate Sony. Maybe you hate Activision. There’s plenty of good reason to hate both — they’re run by creeps who do shitty things to gamers and to their employees. But if you think that Microsoft will be better once it eliminates its competition, then you have the attention span of a goldfish on Adderall.

Microsoft made exactly the same promises it made on Activision when it bought out another games studio, Zenimax — and it broke every one of those promises.

Microsoft has a long, long, long history of being a brutal, abusive monopolist. It is a convicted monopolist. And its bad conduct didn’t end with the browser wars. You remember how the lockdown turned all our homes into rent-free branch offices for our employers? Microsoft seized on that moment to offer our bosses keystroke-and-click level surveillance of our use of our own computers in our own homes, via its Office365 bossware product:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/11/25/the-peoples-amazon/#clippys-revenge

If you think a company that gave your boss a tool to spy on their employees and rank them by “productivity” as a prelude to firing them or cutting their pay is going to treat gamers or game makers well once they have “spent the competition out of business,” you’re a credulous sucker and you are gonna be so disappointed.

The enshittification play is obvious: use investor cash to make things temporarily nice for customers and suppliers, lock both of them in — in this case, it’s with a subscription-based service similar to Netflix’s — and then claw all that value back until all that’s left is a big pile of shit.

The Microsoft case is about the future. Judge Corely doesn’t take the future seriously: as she said during the trial, “All of this is for a shooter videogame.” The reason Corely greenlit this merger isn’t because it won’t be harmful — it’s because she doesn’t think those harms matter.

But it does, and not just because games are an art form that generate billions of dollars, employ a vast workforce, and bring pleasure to millions. It also matters because this is yet another one of the Reaganomic precedents that tacitly endorses monopolies as efficient forces for good. As Stoller writes, Corley’s ruling means that “deal bankers are sharpening pencils and saying ‘Great, the government lost! We can get mergers through everywhere else.’ Basically, if you like your high medical prices, you should be cheering on Microsoft’s win today.”

Ronald Reagan’s antitrust has colonized our brains so thoroughly that commentators were surprised when, immediately after the ruling, the FTC filed an appeal. Don’t they know they’ve lost? the commentators said:

https://gizmodo.com/ftc-files-appeal-of-microsoft-activision-deal-ruling-1850640159

They echoed the smug words of insufferable Activision boss Mike Ybarra: “Your tax dollars at work.”

https://twitter.com/Qwik/status/1679277251337277440

But of course Khan is appealing. The only reason that’s surprising is that Khan is working for us, the American people, not the giant corporations the FTC is supposed to be defending us from. Sure, I get that this is a major change! But she needs our backing, not our cheap cynicism.

The business lobby and their pathetic Renfields have hoarded all the nice things and they don’t want us to have any. Khan and her trustbuster colleagues want the opposite. There is no measure so small that the corporate world won’t have a conniption over it. Take click to cancel, the FTC’s perfectly reasonable proposal that if you sign up for a recurring payment subscription with a single click, you should be able to cancel it with a single click.

The tooth-gnashing and garment-rending and scenery-chewing over this is wild. America’s biggest companies have wheeled out their biggest guns, claiming that if they make it too easy to unsubscribe, they will lose money. In other words, they are currently making money not because people want their products, but because it’s too hard to stop paying for them!

https://www.theregister.com/2023/07/12/ftc_cancel_subscriptions/

We shouldn’t have to tolerate this sleaze. And if we back Khan and her team, they’ll protect us from these scams. Don’t let them convince you to give up hope. This is the start of the fight, not the end. We’re trying to reverse 40 years’ worth of Reagonmics here. It won’t happen overnight. There will be setbacks. But keep your eyes on the prize — this is the most exciting moment for countering corporate power and giving it back to the people in my lifetime. We owe it to ourselves, our kids and our planet to fight one.

If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/14/making-good-trouble/#the-peoples-champion

[Image ID: A line drawing of pilgrims ducking a witch tied to a ducking stool. The pilgrims' clothes have been emblazoned with the logos for the WSJ, Microsoft, Activision and Blizzard. The witch's face has been replaced with that of FTC chair Lina M Khan.]

#pluralistic #amazon's antitrust paradox #lina khan #business lobby #lina m khan #ftc #federal trade commission #david dayen #microsoft #activision #blizzard #wsj #wall street journal #reaganomics #trustbusting #antitrust #mergers #merger to monopoly #gaming #xbox #matt stoller #the american prospect #jim jordan #click to cancel #robert bork #Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley #microsoft activision #fuckin' ninjas

[beaversatemygrandma]

An unintended advantage of this rail strike going on. I haven’t been blocked into my neighborhood by a train all week.

It’s actually a huge problem in this area. It’s mostly train and truck depots and warehouses and whatnot. And there’s this huge maze of railroad tracks around this urban residential area. So, there’s like weekly complaints to the city because there will be a train stopped on the tracks crossing the roads in a few different places doing their needed drop-offs, pick-ups, car changes, etc. But they Block the Road for hours at a time. Which is understandable, they need to do that. It’s just the absolute nightmare of the build of the area which isn’t their fault at all, just the city planning. It got so bad that they built a bridge across the residential area to cross those tracks. But, this is another fifteen minutes out of the way if you really want to escape the area behind those trains. And that’s only if you’re not heading towards the downtown area, if you’re going that way, then good luck, I think there’s another detour a half hour out if you don’t hit massive traffic.

Idk, but I’m sure there’s been a lot less people from around here being late for work and I bet that’s been nice.

#taks speaks #it's also so bad that the roads are built to avoid tracks in some spots and those are a maze too #also leading to virutally the same exact spot with one extra turn #like. if this city is zoning so many things for 'business only' and kicking people out of homes where its livable #and totally ignoring this area then what the hell #fun fact: my bank is in a house. a literal HOUSE. #just some two story house from the 60s #but that street was business only so nobody is allowed to live there #but the garage was repurposed into the drive thru atm #zoning ordinances make little sense to me ngl #tbf this city is still generally segregated and this is a 'black' area #not fair at all. but. that's what it is which is likely why they find it okay to just Do This #And THEN just up the street it's been gentrified something fierce and i bet once those rich people start complaining #from their overtly modern and large and eye sore homes. then maybe something will change #then again. why would they want to breech that railroad tracks to get to the oldest dollar general and food lion ive ever seen #those are blocked in entirely except by this one intersection with 5 points that circumvents the tracks bc of ANOTHER BRIDGE #these bridges were made within the last thirty years btw #also 5 points. wtf. i watched somebody miss the road entirely and drive into the dirt lot last night #this might be my whole small town to large city culture shock but what the actual fuck is this area #tbf im used to a town with two main 'highways' and like 14k people. not 3mil and a massive web of shit #my hometown is a massive circle. this is too. only with the interstate that was put in about 20yrs ago. #and then outside that interstate are roads built like two hundred yrs ago #so. yeah. it's a mess. but trains haven't been a problem lately so that's great. #(sidenote: they moved the passenger train station a while ago and boarded it up and i WISH it was still in service #bc these trains would WORK for public transport SO WELL with how much they're scattered around out here)

[zeldasnotes]

ASTRO OBSERVATIONS 34 👽

Im obsessed with Fama(408) Persona Charts they will tell you sooo much! For example the microbiologist Alexander Fleming whos known for his discovery of penicillin, which started the antibiotic revolution. He got asteroid Aesculapia(1027) (Aesculapius was the god of medicine) conjunct Ascendant in his Fama Persona Chart.

There is nothing like the eyecontact between you and the person you have Pluto conjunct Ascendant in the composite chart with. 🥵

Dejanira(157) is a very sad asteroid but when its conjunct a planet like Mars it can make a person refuse to be a victim. It can make someone fight back hard even at the slightest sign of being victimized.

People with Venus Conjunct Chiron usually blow up and become extremely famous because people have a sensitive (Chiron) reaction to their beauty(Venus). For example: Sydney Sweeney, Ice Spice, Ana De Armas, Marilyn Monroe.

Check asteroid Spirit(37452) & Psyche(16) for a deeper understanding of yourself. 🔮

One thing Ive noticed with my Lilith 3rd house friend is that shes good with coming up with something to say FAST. If she sees that someone have a hard time answering something or that someone is embarressing someone she will quickly jump in and fix the situation to help that person.

Venus sextile Ascendant is an underrated aspect. These people seem to be able to turn their charm on and off. Ive also noticed it to be a natural beauty indicator. They have the Venus qualities without the vanity.

As someone with Moon in the 11th house I dont get how people can exist without social media. And Ive noticed this with other 11th house Moons too.

Sun conjunct Lilith & Leo Lilith can indicate a weird relationship with attention. They NEED it but for the wrong reasons. Might do weird or shocking things for shockfactor. Might be jealous of people who get too much attention. But some people with this placement (especially if they have 10th house placements) can get wayyyy too much attention to the point its scary, for example Kim Kardashian & Britney Spears.

Batsheba(592) conjunct Sun/Ascendant might experience being pursued a lot and aggressively.

I dont think Ive ever gotten so much attention from men as the year I had Venus in the 10th house in the solar return chart and transit Lilith conjunct my natal Ascendant. It was crazy.

Im not shocked by P Diddy having Karma(3811) conjunct Mars in his chart. If you have this aspect Karma might take her time but WHEN she comes, she means business.

Nadherna(5089) = beautiful, gorgeous, splendid, magnificent in czech.💋✨

Lilith in the 8th house might see powerstruggles in everything bc of a subconscious fear or being powerless. Might have been put in a scary situation in their childhood where they had no control.

Venus 6th house makes me think of ”everything showers” and those accounts who post their matching showerscrubs and body lotions.🧼

I also love how people with 6th house placements especially Venus 6th house can make something fun and exciting of a mundane task. Makes life so much more enjoyable.

Tiktoker and model Kenz Lawren have Lilith in the 10th house which is probably why she challenges the model industry so much (which I love). Shes also a Scorpio Rising with Venus in the 8th house so she loves to show the raw truth instead of hiding all flaws. 👑

Neptune/Moon 1st housers yall need to learn to protect your energy. Dont go to certain places if you feel uncomfortable there. Dont let people tell you ”just go there” because your energy is so much more sensitive. Its not being ”weak” its protecting your peace. Im not saying yall should lay in bed all day but if nightclubs makes you uncomfortable bc of all the noise and strangers then dont let people call you boring for not going there.

If you have Chiron in the 9th house people might constantly be on your back about your cultural background. For example Jessica Alba who have this placement and she said shes been told shes too latina for certain roles and too white for the latina roles etc. Hollywood was constantly nitpicking everything she did during her prime to make it look like she disliked other mexicans no matter what she did. She also have Mars in the 9th house which I think makes it worse.

©️ 2024 Zeldas Notes All Rights Reserved

#astro notes #astrology #astro observations #astronotes #lilith #birth chart readings #asteroids

[iceandpeaches]

tongue twister; luke castellan

pairing: luke castellan x fem! reader

warning: the mention of the nickname “mami”… i wrote this a while back

a/n: WOOOOO finals r finally over!!! also no specified language because i am not about to use google translate and butcher any language

you were always proud of your heritage, your mother had brought you up well before you had to come to camp. you learned lots about your culture and its language, since your mother would strictly speak to you in her native language. you were convinced she did this only because she wasn’t the most proficient with her english. you ate cultural foods everyday, which was a huge culture shock when you started going to camp full time. everything was different, and you missed home.

until luke came along. luke did his best to make you feel at home, learning phrases from your native tongue so he could talk to you. which leads you to months later, teaching him whatever you could for when he would meet your mother. your brows were creased, you could’ve sworn you were having a headache just from hearing him pronounce a phrase in a broken accent. luke had read any book he found in your native language to try and get better at it, but really you almost died laughing just from hearing him read to you.

“luke.. i don’t know how you haven’t given up yet.”

“i need to impress her, mami. if not, she’s not gonna let me continue to date you.”

you refrain yourself from bursting out into laughter with luke scribbling in his notebook, making sure he had every syllable down to the bone. you gently rubbed his arm, watching the untidy scribbles that filled the page. you were glad luke would take time to learn the language of your childhood, you deeply appreciated it.

“alright.. pronounce it again for me?”

luke spoke, you doing exactly as he said. he grins and kisses your cheek, which never failed to leave you blushing crimson.

“how do you make it sound so easy, mami.”

“it’s like how you make spanish sound easy.”

“i’m born latino, amore.”

you giggle, your lips meeting his. you adored luke’s desire to even try learning the unordinary language, especially when you had such a thick accent when you spoke your native dialect. luke found it fascinating, how someone could sound so beautiful just by their voice.

it took luke months to get at least adequately fluent. but the hard work paid off when you met your mother. though luke couldn’t exactly understand the alternative dialect you and your mother conversed in, he somehow picked up some words from it.

luke sat down by your mother, speaking to her in your native tongue. your mother glanced at you, surprised that your boyfriend was speaking to her in the language you were brought up in. or at least, the one your maternal family spoke. you giggled, sipping on your tea your mother made for you both.

it was rather refreshing to see your mother laughing at luke’s attempts to understand her, despite you having prepared him it was still funny to watch. you loved his attempts to try to remember what you had taught him, denying your help everytime you prompted to. luke was stunned to say the least. you hadn’t warned him that your mother spoke faster and had a thicker accent than you did, which made things a little harder to understand. but he did his best.

after you both left, luke was relieved he didn’t have to act like he understood what your mother was saying. you giggled, arm linked with his.

“your mother spoke like what tongue twisters sound like.”

you grin, peppering his cheeks with gentle kisses. his remark about your mother made you giggle. you knew what she was like, and that was just to test luke’s language ability.

“you did well, dear. i’m proud of you.”

#luke castellan #luke castellan x reader #luke castellan x you #percy jackson #luke castellan pjo #luke castellan imagine #luke castellan x fem!reader #luke castellan oneshot #charlie bushnell #peach's fics

[toskarin]

As someone knowledgeable about MMOs, and given the topic of SAO just came up. If you were to write a .Hack/SAO/Log Horizon style story, what kind of things would you focus on? I personally feel like there are a lot of different elements of MMO culture anyone writing about them could really delve into. So I'm curious what Tumblr user Toskarin would choose.

condensed

back when I played Perfect World, it had some empty spaces. this wasn't uncommon for mmos, and if you can name one older than 15 or so years, you can bet there were vast empty spaces on the world map that existed to pad it

but they were important! sure, they added nothing of obvious value and could cynically be read as existing just to pad travel time, but they also made the worlds feel bigger than you what you were doing in them. and more mysterious.

some friends in my guild and I got a message one day that one member was going to roll a new character and wanted help levelling. a complication: their starting zone was across the sea.

a few friends and I volunteered to swim across the sea to their zone. there were definitely easier ways to go about it, but setting out to do something just to see if it was possible seemed fun

now, they may have changed this since then, but the sea in Perfect World felt strange in a way I haven't seen any game really emulate since. the sky was a dull, and as was the fashion, everything was a bit muted. the sea itself was opaque, and when you swam under it, there was a significant amount of grey-blue terrain that seemed to stretch on forever into the fog

and of course, there was fuck all in it. nothing alive. no monsters until you got close to a shore. just vast empty sea that you swam through, only your friends' characters to break up the odd stillness of it. you probably turned the music off at this point, too, so there was only ambient sound and splashing

this is because you were supposed to fly over it, if you crossed it at all. and because there wasn't really a good centralised source of knowledge on these things, it wasn't really clear if it was entirely empty

the trip there was fine, if a bit boring and lonely. during the trip back, I accidentally clicked on something in the middle of the ocean

now, there weren't supposed to be things there. I had my friends, but I clicked on a monster, and when I swam down to look at it, I saw that it was actually an enormous sea monster

so I pinged one of the guildmates swimming with me and they thought I was lying, so I showed them, and then we repeated this several times until everyone in the group had seen this weird thing that felt like it came from a schoolyard rumour

Ancient Sea Dragon. 99,999,999 health points and none of us could find anything on it posted online. it was pretty common for players to run into it and be shocked, but we didn't know that

so we naturally let the rest of the guild know, got a hunting party together, and spent the better part of a day just whittling its health down

with the benefit of hindsight and documentation of this thing existing now, I can spoil this and tell you it didn't drop anything, but this long down the line, I still think about how deeply surreal it felt to stumble on an enormous sea monster in the middle of what my brain had come to understand as a liminal space. the sea was supposed to be mostly empty, and here was this thing

which is a very long way to introduce what I think is lacking here: we need more of those enormous empty spaces that leave characters with nothing to do but talk and feel completely isolated. sometimes you get to a sprawling castle city and it's completely empty because the players moved on. sometimes the devs threw an enormous monster in the middle of nowhere just to fuck with you, and that was kind of cool even if it sucked

[yuurei20]

Hi! I've seen some posts going around about Epel's accent and Vil correcting him. From what I gathered Epel has a pretty farmland accent that can be basically indecipherable so Vil being hard on him for it is both 'this is kind of casual' and 'i have no idea what you're saying' but could still be kind of elitist/classist. But I see some people saying Vil is just correcting Epel because he's swearing a lot?

Thank you so much for this question! Reading through just the EN adaptation of Book 5, I think I can understand why people might be annoyed by Vil’s wording: in English, he says outright that Epel should “speak properly,” as if his natural dialect is somehow improper and objectively “wrong.”

But his original line is closer to, “Speak more politely”! (The translations in these images are just more literal rewordings of the original dialogue, not meant to be corrections or improvements over EN’s localization)

I think the game was aware of the risk it was taking by having Vil give such an order, which is why it has Epel immediately jump to that assumption himself, so that Vil can explain it is not Epel’s hometown pride he has an issue with, but rather the outdated mindset that comes with it.

While softened on EN, Epel is quite misogynistic in the original game. He also repeats the same insult three times, possibly as an example of his limited vocabulary, which is another of Vil’s projects.

While Epel does say that Vil has told him not to use the accent specifically, Vil explains that he just wants him to consider the time, place and occasion for it.

Question: But then why does Vil order him to drop the accent entirely if the only problem is that he’s speaking rudely? Surely he can just speak politely while keeping his accent?

Answer: There is another layer to this that is more difficult to explain in English, but I shall try!

The Japanese language has multiple verb forms that change depending upon who you’re talking to at the time. “Meshiagaru,” “taberu” and “kuu” are three different ways to say “eat,” for example, depending on how polite you want to be.

In the beach scene (and anywhere we get his Harveston dialect), Epel immediately shifts into casual/impolite verb forms.

I searched for the most formal interaction involving characters speaking in the Harveston dialect that I could find (where the mayor is apologizing to Marja), and even there, the character was using casual/informal verb forms.

So that is what Vil is actually getting at: he wants Epel to use polite speech around his senpai and teachers, but Epel’s original dialect might just not adhere to that system.

The Harveston dialect clearly has its own ways to denote politeness, which must make sense when you’re there, but outside of Harveston what is a harmless and natural way of speaking becomes offensive from the perspective of everyone else (when Marja adapts her speaking patterns so that the visiting NRC students can understand her, she uses polite forms).

Not able to have a student from his dorm obliviously insulting everyone around him through his verb forms, Vil bans Epel’s accent entirely, presumably so that Epel can grow more accustomed to interacting with people from other countries and then learn to judge for himself the times, places and occasions outside of Harveston where that degree of informality is appropriate :>

(Omake: I conferred with an American friend who told me it sounds like this is the opposite of how things are in the US, where sometimes it is assumed that people from more rural communities use more polite speech (using "sir" and ma'am") than people in cities, so they visit cities and are surprised by forms are expression that are considered rude where they come from. This is the same, but backwards! Epel is going from a laidback rural village to a more populated location where polite speech is expected of everyone, and is experiencing culture shock as a result.)

#anon #twisted wonderland #Epel Felmier #Vil Schoenheit

[skyclan-funny-name-squad]

Okay wow I was not expecting my kittypet fae post to take off overnight like this, but I'm glad you all like it! I've been thinking about kittypet culture so this is what I think is the reasoning behind the beliefs.

Kittypets are often well groomed and well fed no matter the season, while wild cats are often groomed there's a softness to kittypet pelts that you don't find in wild pelts. Along with pretty accessories that a wild cat would have no clue what they are like bows. As such they start to seem a bit uncanny valley because they look like you but not Quite. Especially because of more purebred cats who have brighter pelts or unusual colors or strange muzzles or weird ears. Which helps spread the thought that kittypets aren't fully cats, but something similar, something different but the same. Firestar as a purebred orange cat is just a lot naturally brighter or vivid then the more muted oranges that appear in the wild, and that scares cats.

Kittypets also like to share with their wild friends, they see their friend skinny and cold and want to bring them inside where they can get food and get warm. So they tend to offer it pretty often, however cats that do this start to get used to the ease of food and warmth of the den and find it harder to stay wild or to stay away from twolegs. Some kittypets may even aid twolegs in trapping their friends for the sake of protecting their friends from the harsh outdoors. Which everyone knows once you've bonded with a twoleg whether you want to or not your transformation into one of them is nearly complete.

Kittypet food is also meant to fill a cat as its been fine-tuned to fit the needs of a cat so even if a cat doesn't think it tastes as good as mouse, it still fills them in ways they may struggle to get with hunting. So cats that risk taking a bit start to go back for more, especially in harder hunting series. Sure sparrow may be a bit tastier but if its a sparrow once a week during leafbare or kittypet food every day, cats are going to be tempted.

With kittypets not being in a war culture and often just chilling beyond mild spats means there's more room for other activities like a lot more gossip and stories, news travels fast between cats because kittypets are horrendous gossips which means if you fuck over a kittypet, every other kittypet is going to hear about it and shame you for it. To clan cats it's shocking because kittypet news travels throughout an entire twolegplace and even beyond it thanks to some kittypets that travel in like trucks and stuff, so it can seem like despite being nowhere near the original kittypet, everyone still magically knows how you messed up. This extends to their friends as well, if you beat up a cat that the kittypets consider a friend over a border dispute all the kittypets are going to be like "hey why'd you do that that was mean" and potentially chase you away.

Now for names is something I think is interesting because kittypets are never really like "my names Mouse but the twolegs call me Mittens" so clearly twoleg names have some priority here for kittypets, while the significance of this can very between whatever you want really, its clearly important. So if you get taken in by a twoleg to heal a wound and the twoleg starts calling you Pants, then suddenly all the kittypets call you by that name. No matter how much you insist your name is Twigpounce, you're Pants now. Plus if you're actively stuck with kittypets, you'll start going by Pants as well. Thus the kittypet's steal your name.

Cats that come back from twolegs always come back changed, from how they talk, to how they walk, to what food they eat, to the things they say. They can still shake off the influence and return to the wild, but they'll always be a bit off, a bit different. Everyone knows Tallstar was pet-touched a long time ago from how he acts, but everyone politely doesn't bring it up.

Avoid kittypets! They're tricksters that look like us but they're liars with their fake mice and fake warmth! Do not trust! They aren't true cats! They're something different! Something more dangerous! Do not be tricked!

Also Longtail still throws down with Rusty because he's an idiot and also probably hoping that this will make the scary fae child leave his clan alone.

#warrior cats #warriors #warrior cat #warrior #tallstar #firestar #kittypet #fae kittypet au #longtail

[billskeis]

Hiii, firstly i LOVE your work its amazing <3

Seccodnly could you please make a story where Tom is a vampire n he like hadn't fed for quite a while due to a lot of touring n concerts. Also 'y/n' and him are dating and she knows about him being a vampire n stuff?

ᡣ𐭩 vampire bf tom p2

“thank you so much everyone for coming tonight!” bill screams as loud shrills and cheers fill the stadium. tonight marks one of the last nights of tokio hotel’s world tours and they just about had it. the teens are tired, and need rest, and most importantly, food.

especially tom, who’s hungry.

as the four boys unwind in the backroom, their manager enters the room, “great job everyone! you now have only three more concerts left to perform and then we’re finally done.” they’ve already had like 6 concerts back to back, constantly sleeping on the tour bus.

the beds are extremely uncomfortable, and obviously being nomadic, could not have been provided a proper food source.

tokio hotel is what you call, vampires.

blood feeders.

murderers.

and of course, the staff knew and found out. to an avail, they kept them. why? eternity. immortality granted them a lifetime of fame, which in end means a lifetime source of money. humans we’re greedy humans, one can think.

now when you met tom. you had no idea, but you knew something was off about him.

upon first meeting, you have thought of him as some sort of playboy. he was funny, and definitely kind, but distant. too distant, it was something that left you wanting to know more.

and to his surprise, you asked him out on a date. he doesn’t even know why he was surprised, maybe it was over the fact that you wanted to take him out to eat instead of hooking up straight away. those were never your intentions.

all went well, after the first date was a hit, you guys went on more dates. next thing you knew, tom asked you to be his girlfriend! and obviously, you said yes. while on the dates you didn’t like him as much as you initially thought, but decided to give it a try. to be something official.

he was the same. never one to settle down, but the band encouraged him to at least give it a shot. you seemed like the right person to do so. kind, patient, beautiful, smart. man, you’re everything in the book!

finding out tom was a vampire was like culture shock. you walked into his bedroom to find him with a blood-pack in his hands. like those that come from the hospital.

he panicked, felt his already cold blood run colder. did he fuck up already?

you locked yourself in his bathroom, not knowing what to do. your boyfriend was a vampire? what the fuck? how did he hide it so well from you? maybe that’s why he always felt so, mysterious, so cold and so distant.

needless to say, you were definitely afraid, but you couldn’t find yourself pulling away from him. he was your boyfriend after all.

exiting the bathroom you witness tom sitting on his bed, his body was curled up at the headboard with his head resting in his arms, knees up to his chest. you look to see that the blood pack on his bedside table was empty, clear, finished.

you sat yourself on the bed, tom feels it dip and immediately looks up, “y/n… i—i’m sorry for keeping this a secret. i didn’t know how you react and if you’d want to leave me, i just really liked you and didn’t want to risk the chance of los—” you place a hand on his arm, breathing in sharply.

“tom, you don’t need to explain yourself. obviously being born a vampire isn’t something you could help. and if anything, i think it makes you hotter..” “so you don’t want to leave me?” “no! see it as me getting to know you better, your true self, yea?” “mm!” he nods, smiling brightly, he lunges at you to hug your body.

plopping down on the soft mattress, his body on top of yours, you felt a glimpse of warmth.

not sure if it was him or yours, but your heard definitely did skip a beat.

11:38pm

hi tom! come to your hotel room quick, i left a surprise there and i wouldn’t want it getting ‘cold’ ;)

11:42pm

schatzi?? what’re u talking about??

11:43pm

getting colderrr :D

11:47pm

omw u little maus >:(

you hid behind the closet door, waiting for your boyfriend to finally arrive back at his hotel. luckily for the band, for the rest of the concerts they’re staying in a hotel. finally, comfy beds!

the door clicked with the assuming scan of the keycard. as the door opened and closed, you popped out from the closet and hugged your vampy boyfriend.

“tomi!!” “mein liebling!? what’re you doing here??” he held your body within his arms, slightly swept off your feet he swings you side to side as the two of you share an embrace.

“i wanted to surprise you! bill gave me an extra keycard to your room,” you pepper multiple kisses on his face as he hugs you, “missed you so much.. didn’t you miss me, happy to see me?” “more than anything baby, but fuck—your scent is making me crazy..”

since the two of you established a relationship, it’s natural for tom to feed on you. it’s a mutual thing, just as long as he didn’t take too much blood, you would be fine.

you were definitely more delicious than anything and anyone else he fed off of. which is why the amount you agreed on would suffice for him.

you were different, and he loved that.

“that’s why i’m here..” you tilted your head to the side, sliding away the hair that covered the surface of your neck. tom licked a long stripe before breathing in hard, “mein Gott.. thank you y/n.”

sinking his fangs in, tom begun feeding. the pain was bearable, and you were pretty much used to it by now. your body heated up, and you felt your face flushing.

despite the frequency of the feedings, you still felt yourself embarrassed whenever tom fed. maybe it was the way he held onto your waist, or maybe it was how he would suckle on your neck before and after drinking your blood.

knees giving in, you felt yourself becoming weaker. this is when tomorrow knows to stop and immediately unlatches himself from your neck. a final lick left on your skin to stop the blood from running down your neck.

“you okay schatzi?” “y-yea.. still gets me every time though,” he kisses you, a coppery taste lingering in your mouth, “‘m sorry,” “nono, it’s okay.. i’m not dead am i?”

he giggles at you and brings you to lay on the bed with him, “no, no you’re not baby. not as long as you’re with me.”

#tokio hotel #tokio hotel x y/n #tokio hotel x you #tokio hotel x reader #tokio hotel fluff #tom kaulitz #tom kaulitz x y/n #tom kaulitz x you #tom kaulitz x reader #tom kaulitz fluff #2000s #fyp

[genericpuff]

saw this pop up on /r/UnpopularLoreOlympus and I-

Full analysis post that inspired this post can be read here, it's a good read, go check it out!

Now my natural reaction to not assume the worst (shocking, I know) is that what Rachel's actual intention behind making Leto a sun god was due to her being Apollo's mother and her clearly having a stronger relationship with him rather than Artemis. I'm abiding by Occam's Razor here, it's the simplest answer and it keeps my brain from getting too riled up right off the bat LMAO

There's a lot of emphasis put on Apollo being the god of the sun in LO, despite the fact that Apollo is one of the MOST prolific gods in the Greek pantheon, Rachel only ever really focuses on him being god of the sun with some loose references to him also being the god of music (as we see with him playing his lyre). There's really no real referencing to him being the god of medicine though (aside from that scene of him condom-bandaging Persephone's hand in Episode 22 ?? which is silly now in hindsight because she's a fertility goddess who can heal herself but ok lmao and the fact that Rachel established him as a LITERAL DAD with his doctor son Asclepius which ... just feels weird to have in LO tbh) and there's absolutely no referencing (from what I can find or recall) of him being a protector of the young, god of prophecy (for some reason he just magically gives Kassandra the ability to read prophecies... just so she can read his prophecy ??) or archery. Like, he's shown doing a lot of these things but they come across more as just side hobbies or extensions of him being Artemis' brother (like his archery) rather than aspects of his godliness or domains that he presides over. It's just like yeah, Apollo can shoot arrows and bandage people's hands I guess LMAO

All that said, I can see Rachel deciding to make him primarily the god of the sun and then going "oh! let's make his mom a sun god! then she could be a common enemy for both Persephone and Hades!" because Hades doesn't like sun gods yadda yadda.

But... we know Rachel has used front page Google sourcing in her comic before.

(literally the 'source' was copy pasted from a 2004 study guide for Princeton.edu. And we KNOW this was taken right from the first result because it just says 'www.princeton.edu' with no slug attached, which is what showed up back when we first looked into this, the princeton version was deadass the first result with this definition word for word. She didn't even remove the typo where there's no space between Xenios:"Zeus !!!).

And while a bit more into sus territory rather than outright confirmed like the xenia thing above, there's the whole Metis / Métis theory, that has us wondering if Rachel seriously googled "Metis" on its own and accidentally used Indigenous Métis cultural depictions in her version of Metis, the Greek God.

The fringe in her outfit, finger wings, and dark orange/red color really got my attention the first time I saw her design years ago, because she set off so many, "Wait a minute, is that an Indigenous woman???" bells in my Mi'kmaq/Cree brain LMAO And not even in a bad way, but now it feels a little :/ because of how much her character has been assassinated and how clearly accidental it was for her to look like that.

Of course, there's still a more likely explanation that her design was based on this vase:

But IDK y'all. That vase is very distinctly orange while the character itself is depicted in dark garbs and with light skin, so Metis being distinctly red-toned with finger wings and fringe?

While the Xenia thing is definitively copy pasted from the first search result on Google (literally there's no denying that at this point, Rachel's REALLY bad at doing research and then pretending like she was being smart by sourcing it from a university website... completely ignoring the fact that that website literally hasn't been updated since Rachel was working on The Doctor Pepper Show) the Metis and Leto depictions are definitely a lot more up for debate as to what 'research' Rachel did and whether or not they got confused with something else during her searching.

And really, the whole thing with Leto being a "sun god" doesn't make sense really when you think about it. Why is Leto a sun god? It's not even like you could argue there are "some versions" of the myths where she's a god of the sun, or other translations out there, or whatever vague source that could be used like what has been used for other gods like Hades and Persephone. Leto is not affiliated with the sun in any shape or form. Remove Apollo, her eventual son, who didn't exist when she was born and given the title of 'sun god', and it quickly falls apart as to why she would be a sun god in the first place.

She is a goddess of motherhood though, and that's NEVER mentioned in LO. If anything, Rachel makes her a terrible mom on purpose. Because god knows we can't have anyone in this comic be a good mom except for Persephone and Rhea (who are literally just carbon copies of one another). Basically the only thing Rachel gets right with Leto is the fact that she's a Titan and that she had Apollo and Artemis after sleeping with Zeus. That's it.

Unfortunately, unlike the xenia thing, there's no outright proof of what Rachel's reasoning was behind these designs or sources. So I'm not gonna accuse or outright state it as fact that Rachel confused Metis for Métis or ripped the idea for Leto being a sun god from an anime, because the odds of that being true in any way are fairly low.

But they're never zero.

#lore olympus critical #lo critical #anti lore olympus #antiloreolympus

[gffa]

I adore your batman stuff very much. I recently read the Wayne Family Adventures, and now I really want to read some more. Do you have recommendations on comic lines to follow?

Hi! I'm glad you're having fun with getting into comics and enjoying the posts around here, it's always nice to have new blood (or returning blood, in my case)! <3 I would give a gentle caution in that Wayne Family Adventures is sort of in a class of its own in a lot of ways, the characterization is much softer and fluffier, while the mainline comics are darker and messier, the characters are definitely not always as nice as they are as in WFA. That's no shade on either of them, just that I want to give a quick warning that if you're stepping from one to the other, the culture shock can sometimes be more than you're expecting. (And also keep in mind that comics are a shifting landscape, there's no one "true" version of many of the landmark moments of characters' lives, you'll see events often retold, you'll see comics that later get retconned, you'll see comics that are in different continuities/set before or after a universe-wide reboot, etc. Don't worry about it, just recognize that you're reading a story to enjoy that story, not as Hard Continuity!) That said, some of the lighter comics that I think would be fun if you're looking to come over from WFA are:

Li'l Gotham is a cute parody series that's super adorable, has some lovely art, and is nice little self-contained stories that are humorous. It's not in mainline continuity and it's even softer than WFA, but it's deeply charming and it's a fun, quick read.

Super Sons (2017) by Peter Tomasi is in mainline continuity and it's focused on Damian Wayne and Jonathan Kent becoming friends, bickering all the while, and getting into hijinks. It tends to lean more humorous and cute, so it's a nice stepping stone up to regular comics.

Robin and Batman (2022) by Jeff Lemire and Dustin Nguyen is a good litmus test for whether you might like regular comics--it's a short 3-issue mini-series focused on Dick's early days as Robin and the complicated, thorny relationship he has with Bruce about it. It's one of my favorite, it balances what a terrible gremlin he was with what a little angel he was and the emotional beats are painful in the best way.

Robin: Year One (2000) and Batgirl: Year One (2003) by Scott Beatty/Chuck Dixon and Marcos Martín/Javier Pulido are good places to start for both characters, and hold up okay considering their age. The art is a bit stylized in a way I really like, it lends it a charming old-fashioned vibe while still being pretty to look at, and there's some solid character moments in both.

Nightwing (2016) by various (starts with Tim Seeley, but it's been several authors by now) is one of my go-to recs, I think it's a great jumping on point, has a lot of really nice art, and often tells fun stories, as Dick has some of the best connections to various other characters in the universe.

Nightwing (2016) by Tom Taylor starts with issue #78 and is a great jumping-on point and Taylor's writing is just very light-hearted, action-packed, quippy, and fun. Starting here saves you from having to slog through some of the worse arcs of Dick's series, you get Bruno Redondo's fantastic art, and you can feel the affection for the character, the author and artist love this character and want to make him very cool, as well as they love his relationships with other characters, so you get good Bruce guest appearances, Babs appearances, Damian appearances, Wally appearances, Jon appearances, etc.

Robins: Being Robin by Tim Seeley and Baldemar Rivas was a fun self-contained mini-series that had all the Robins working together and I don't think it should be taken super seriously as a case story, but it had some quality banter, some hilarious moments, and a great look at these chaotic gremlins all shoved into a mini-van together to go solve a case.

Batgirls (2022) by Conrad Michael W./Becky Cloonan and Jorge Corona is focused on Babs, Cass, and Steph as a trio and being adorable together, with some humorous moments, cool art, and fun Batfam moments. It's nice that they get the spotlight and the chance to shine (it's their book, so they get the majority of the cool moments) and it's not super-long and you can jump right in.

Batman: The Knight by Chip Zdarsky and Carmine Di Giandomenico is a "Bruce travels the world to learn the skills he needs to become Batman" and I'm really in love with the way Zdarsky writes a Bruce who is deeply complicated, messy, coming from a place of loving deeply, but also this man has twenty seven different flavors of fucked up trauma going on in that hell brain of his. Zdarsky's current run on the main Batman title has been my jam, but that's a bit of a darker leap than this one, and I think this one is a great way to get to know Bruce Wayne as a character.

Batman: Urban Legends volume 5 has a story called "The Murder Club" that is basically "Thomas and Martha Wayne are time traveled into the future and see what's become of their son, they're not thrilled about it, but come around when they see the people that love him so deeply--primarily Dick, Damian, and Alfred." and was an absolute BANGER for me for feelings, gorgeous art, and some great character moments.

Batman/Superman: World's Finest (2022) by Mark Waid and Dan Mora is an absolute knock-out, it's Bruce and Clark in their early days of their friendship, where Waid is one of the best writers in the industry for how fun his stories are but also how well he knows the characters, Mora's art is often THE portrayal I think of when I think of the characters, and there's a ton of bonus guest appearances from various characters across DC's universe. Also, I am biased, Dick tags along a lot, as he's still Robin at this point in time, and it's a great dynamic between the three of them.

Batman: One Bad Day: Mr. Freeze by Gerry Duggan and Matteo Scalera was easily the standout of the "One Bad Day" stories for me, it's set in the early days of Bruce & Dick as Batman & Robin and it has ADORABLE sunshine gremlin baby Dick Grayson, a genuinely touching story about Mr. Freeze and his wife, and some beautiful art.

Year One: Batman/Scarecrow (2005) by Bruce Jones and Sean Murphy is a fun look at the early days of Scarecrow, but also has absolutely banger baby Dick Grayson content, there's a scene where Bruce literally just grabs him by the scruff of the neck to haul him out of the way of a crowd about to stampede and it's the funniest thing because that 12 year old could destroy your face with his fists but also Bruce can literally pick him up one-handed. There's some great banter in there and it's just a super fun dynamic.

As you make your way through this list, keep the author/artist and year listings in mind, as often times there are multiple series under the same title and some are more relevant to what you're looking for right now than others. Like, there have been three different volumes of "World's Finest", but I want to direct you specifically to the 2022 version because I think that'll work better for you. Similarly, Nightwing 1996 is one of my faves, but I think the 2016 version will work better at drawing you in right now. This is definitely biased in favor of my faves, but I honestly think they work for good jumping on points for someone new to comics and who's coming from WFA and might not want to get into the messier stuff of the mainline comics right away. Hopefully, you'll enjoy these and anyone else who wants to transition from WFA to reading mainline continuity comics, feel free to join us! Yeah, comics fandom can be a bit of a pill sometimes, but genuinely there's a lot of really fun moments to love and the characters are so much more fun when you're reading their stories with all the history and depth behind them!

#lumi.txt #dc #batfam #comics recs