#kinda out of character but this was important

[thechekhov]

Do you like Lars as a character? Or nope

As a character? Yeah! I think Lars is a great character.

As a person? No.

I hate the type of person Lars represents. If I met a Lars in real life, I would probably go out of my way to interact with them as little as possible.

I know many people relate to Lars, because we were all awkward teens who desperately wanted to be seen as cool, and messed it up badly. And yeah, his attitude is a great representation of that!

But to me, Lars represents not only the awkward attempts at growing up, nor the anxiety surrounding being the person you WANT to be vs. the one you are now.... but also the malice that can come from being spoiled, and being surrounded by people who enable you to be your worst self. Sadie, his parents, even canon Steven!

And yeah, sorry to say, I think Lars is spoiled. He's cruel to Steven, he's mean to Sadie, and manipulative of her feelings towards him. He purposefully hurts people, not because he's fumbling his words, but because that's the Easiest Way to get his way. He doesn't actually care about the Cool Kids, he just wants their status.

To be clear - he does change! In the show, his character growth is well written, and fun. He grows awkwardly into a more humble, adult version of himself.

But although his progression from fear to courage is clearly shown via Lars of the Stars, his spoiled selfish attitude just kinda fades away over time as he gains confidence.

That's fine with me - it wasn't important to his character arc, and it's written off as teenage angst. That's understandable. But personally for me, if that were a real live person I had to interact with, I'd never wanna hang out with him. 😂

He's a great character though!

Disclaimer: I completely understand if people like his character. I don't need to personally like him to like his progress in the show. I do not need to be convinced that my personal preferences are wrong. This ain't personal.

#chekhov answers #lars #lars barriga #su lars #gif #moving gif

[chriss-slut]

Puddin'

~ Dom!Chris X sub!fem!reader ~

Synopsis: Your friends slip up who's your favorite character, but also your fantasy kink.

warning: SMUT!! rough unprotected sex, petnames, degradation kink, daddy kink, cursing, and a lot of stuff that i can't even remeber anymore lol

A/N: this is kinda MY fantasy kink so.. 😀 btw if there's any spelling mistakes, im sorry, i didnt have time to check it :)

I have always been, in some way, a big fan of Harley Quinn (if not obsessed). I discovered her when i was around 12 years old, when Suicide Squad came out. Everything about her inspired me. Whether it was her behavior, intelligence, madness, or eccentricity, deep down, I dreamed of being like her, of being as sexy and alluring.

As I grew older, my passion for her became something I no longer showcased, simply out of fear of being judged by others. I was now 20 years old, and it seemed weird, even boring, to others to see me in the same costume at every dress-up party.

When I met Chris, I never really talked to him about this little obsession I had, mainly out of fear that he would find it strange.

Up until now, everything had been going well between us, and I didn't find it important. He didn't need to know more about this subject.

I was at home with Chris and my two best friends. We had planned to spend the afternoon together so they could meet, especially since our relationship had just become official.

Everything was going well until Julia started talking about what I was trying to keep secret:

"Oh, by the way, are you still coming tomorrow night?" Julia asked me, completely changing the subject while munching on her chips.

"Tomorrow night?" I asked, confused.

"Yeah, to Noah's costume party, like every year, Y/N!" she said in a "duh" tone, rolling her eyes.

"Um... I forgot. Honestly, I don't think so. Chris and I had planned to spend the evening together, so it's going to be difficult for me," I said, trying to find a plausible excuse to avoid further questions.

"What??!" she exclaimed, looking disappointed.

"You can come with him, and that way, you can get to know us a bit more, Chris!" added my other friend Stella, turning to my boyfriend with a big smile, and the others nodded in agreement.

"That would be nice," Chris replied with a shrug.

"See? Come on, you're coming. I don't really plan to give you a choice. We go every year, there's no way you're skipping it this time!" Julia added.

"I don't have a costume anyway, and I'm exhausted right now. It's going to be a no from me, guys, sorry," I said, trying to sound genuinely disappointed.

"You're such a liar. Are you going to make me believe you don't have a costume when you spend all your time dressing up as Harley Quinn at every opportunity?" she said, laughing.

My eye widen and i start blushing a bit. Chris turned to me, and i look at Julia with a face that says "Please, just shut your mouth."

"Oh, because, yes, I suppose you already know, but your girlfriend is completely obsessed with Harley Quinn. It's like she's totally in love with her!" Julia said to Chris, giggling.

"Julia! oh my god!" I said, embarrassed, now trying to hide my face in my hands.

"She's not wrong," Stella added. What a bunch of traitors.

"You never told me about this?" Chris said, confused, while I stood there, dying of embarrassment at the thought that the girls might make things worse.

"What, you mean she never bored you with her Harley Quinn obsession? I'm sure her biggest kink would be sleeping with you dressed as her!" Julia said without any restraint, and this time it was too much for me.

"Julia!! What the fuck is wrong with you!" I said, getting angry.

"Wow, calm down, I was just joking," she said, frowning.

Stella's mouth was wide open, and Chris looked like he didn't know where to put himself.

"You guys should go home. 'm tired, I need to rest," I said to escape the situation.

"What, seriously? You're going to be mad at me for this? Y/N!" I heard Julia shout as I left the room.

I went up to my room and shut the door behind me. My reaction was probably over the top, but I didn't want Chris to know about this. She had no right to humiliate me like that in front of him. I bury my face in my pillow and try to think about something else.

After a few minutes, I heard some knocks on my door.

"Julia, go away! I don't want to talk to you!" I shouted from my bed.

I heard the door open anyway, so I turned around to tell her to leave, but to my surprise, it was Chris.

"I'm not Julia, sorry to break it to you," he said, trying to make me laugh.

"It's not funny," I said, rolling my eyes before sitting up on my bed.

"Can I come in?" he asked.

"You're already inside anyway..." I speak, shrugging

"Are you mad at me or Julia? I don't understand anymore," he said, raising an eyebrow and crossing his arms.

"Sorry," I replied, biting my lip, and he came to sit next to me.

"The girls left and asked me to tell you they really want you to be there tomorrow night," he said, placing his hand on the small of my back, and I sighed.

"Listen, I'd be very happy to go with you. I don't mind. We can always come back together and spend time alone after the party, but I don't want you to fight with your friends because of me," he said, and I turned my head towards him.

"That's not why I fought with them, Chris," I said, looking back at the floor.

"Then what was it about?" he asked.

"It's something stupid. I don't really want to talk about it!" I said, feeling the embarrassment return.

"Come on, tell me. I'm not going to judge you," he said, shaking his head.

"No!" I said, avoiding his gaze.

"Is it because of what she said about your obsession with Harley Quinn?" he asked.

"I'm not obsessed with her!" I said, getting angry.

“And that’s not what I implied. I was just repeating her words!” he responded immediately.

I sighed, realizing it was becoming ridiculous to keep this hidden from him any longer.

“Yes…” I said softly.

“Why did it upset you so much?” he asked.

“Because I was afraid she’d say more, and you’d find it weird!” I sighed.

“Why would I find it weird?” he said, gently rubbing my back.

“I don’t know…” I said, shrugging.

“I don’t find you weird, Y/N. You have every right to be a fan of any fictional character if it makes you happy. I really like Harley Quinn, too. You could have told me; I would have been happy to talk about it with you, baby,” he said, smiling.

My eyes sparkle as i hear him say that and i immediately look at him again. “Really?” I said, looking at him with admiration. I truly have a wonderful boyfriend.

“You know what, why don’t you dress up as Harley Quinn, and I’ll be your Joker? That way, you won’t miss the party, and I get to spend time with you and your friends,” he suggested, standing up.

I smiled at him, leaned to hug him tightly, and nodded.

“And when we get back from the party, I’d be happy to fuck you in your costume to fulfill your kink,” he whispered in my ear, playfully smacking my ass.

“Chris, she made that part up!!” I said, blushing deeply.

“Too bad, I was really down for that part,” he said, laughing.

i laugh too, still embarrassed, and i stand up, going to the bathroom.

_______

it's now the next day, almost 8pm, and I'm with my boyfriend arriving at my place. We just left the mall, where we went to buy a Joker costume to him.

i open my front door and we both run towards my room, since we're kinda late.

"dress up in there while i do it in the bathroom, okay?? i want it to be a surprise for you!" i say sweetly, quickly pecking Chris' lips before heading to the bathroom.

after an hour or so, i knock on the bathroom door so i can have Chris' attention and i shout from inside "Are you done??"

"Uh... I've been done for 20 minutes, Y/N." he says from my bedroom.

I burst out laughing for a bit and then i open the door, making a little pose for Chris, showing my costume.

Chris' jaw drops as soon as i open the door. He stands up and stay froze, staring at me.

i giggle softly and go over him, resting my hands in his chest "What'chu think?" i speak, in a slightly higher-pinched voice, trying to recreate Harley's voice.

Chris' jaw just drops more after hear me, he stays froze for a few more moments until he finally speaks. "wow... you look... wow!"

I giggle "you liked it?"

"Liked it? I just fell in love with you all over again!" he says, now hugging me tightly and lifting me from the ground.

I laugh cute and hug him back, tightly. "I'm so happy you liked it!"

Chris buries is face on the crook of my neck, sucking it softly. "There was no way for me to not like it. you look so hot." he whisper before kissing my neck.

I moan softly and move my hand to caress his hair. "thank you, baby..." i speak before pulling away and look at him. "You talking about me when you look like THAT is crazy!"

He grins at me "thank you, sweetheart! Lets go to that party, then?"

"Yeaaah!!" i yell happily, jumping.

He chuckles at my jump and grabs his stuff. We walk out of my house, going to the party.

After a while, we arrive at Noah's house. A lot of people outside of it, all dress up as various characters and monsters. I lead Chris into the party and after a few seconds, Julia and Stella run up to us.

"HEY, GIIIRL!!" Stella yells, happy to see me, as she hugs me from the side.

"Hey, guys!!" Julia shouts at us both, still a bit scared of me being mad at her.

"Hii!" Chris says at them, waving with a smile.

"Hi, girls! Love your costume!" I speak at Stella. She nods with a smile "Thank you! You look amazing yourself, but I'm used to see it already,"

I laugh softly, not really happy about her comment but i brush it off. "You look good too, Ju!" I speak at Julia.

She smiles at me "Thank you! You too, as always... Can i ask you something?" Julia says, with a soft expression. "Yeah, sure!" i say back.

"Uh... i just wanted to know if you're still mad at me for yesterday... I've been thinking about it all night and, I'm sorry..." She speaks softly.

I smile reassuringly "It's okay... I'm sorry too! I shouldn't have become so mad at you..."

She smiles softy and nods "It's okay, i guess we both screwed up!"

"Yeah, but its alright!" i lean to hug her as she does the same.

Suddenly, Stella speaks, loudly. "So, let's party?!?" We all yell "yess!" and that way, the party begins!

______

After hours, me and Chris are going back to my place, tired from dancing and jumping all night.

I open my front door and Chris holds the door for me to enter, smacking my ass playfully as i pass through him.

"Let's to the room. Now." He speaks in a soft but demanding way, which makes me a bit confused but i obey.

Once we get into my room, Chris closes the door behind him and quickly presses me in it, causing me to gasp softly.

"Remember what i told you yesterday??" Chris speaks, his hands caressing my sides.

"U-uh... y-yeah..?" i speak, slightly nervous, since Chris looks so hot and in a rough mood right now.

He smirks and attacks my lips in a hungry kiss. We both make out for a while. As we're still kissing, he puts his hands under my ass and picks me up from the floor, taking me to bed, where he throws me on.

He crawls on top of me and says, looking down at me "You look so damn hot right now. You have no idea how much i had to control myself to not drag you to a bathroom and fuck you right there." He leans and starts kissing my neck, intensively.

I moan in response and i wrap my arms and legs around him, pulling his body closer to mine.

"Tell me, what do you want me to do with you, Puddin'" Chris whispers, making me freeze for a second. Him calling Joker's nickname to Harley made me see stars... and made me wet.

"i-i want you to fuck me..." i say softly.

"huh? i didn't hear you, baby." he says, now lifting his head to look at me.

"i-i want you to fuck me, Chris. Please!" i whine, already desperate.

Chris smirks at me "Good girl" he says before leaning to kiss me again.

While we kiss, he takes off my Harley Quinn Jacket and toss it to the side. He gives wet kisses down my face to my collarbone, where he stays as he takes off my boots.

"mmh, you're so hot, babygirl~" he mumbles as he kisses me.

i moan softly in response, my hands now trying to take his jacket off, which he helps me with.

After a while kissing, he's now in just his jeans as i still have almost the full costume on.

He grabs my jaw tightly and speaks, firmly "you gonna do justice to your costume and act like a little slut f'me?"

I look up at him with puppy eyes and nod. He smirks and whispers "Good girl~" He moves two of his fingers that was on my jaw and slide it into my mouth, pressing it on my tongue.

"Fuck, you look so good like this... oh, imma fuck you so so good today~" He speaks, in a sensual tone.

I moan against his fingers, swirling my tongue around it.

He then takes his fingers off my mouth with a bop and attacks my lips again, then going down to my neck as his hands go under my shirt, caressing my chest over my bra. He lifts my shirt and move his hands to my back, unbuckling my bra and taking it off, without taking off my Harley Quinn shirt.

He then leans and suck my nipples, which makes me moan "mmh Chris...please, i need you..."

Chris lets out a soft chuckle and grabs my jaw again, harshly, making me look at him "I'm the one in control, got it?" he says in a demanding tone. i just nod, looking up at him.

He nods back and start kissing and sucking my breasts again, now going down my stomach, until he reaches my red and blue tight shorts.

"i gotta take this off, it drove me crazy all night." he speaks, now pulling it down, letting me in my fishnet tights, my thongs and my Harley shirt. He looks down at me and bite his lip. Chris caress my thighs and spreads them, softly passing his hand in my clothed pussy, making me whimper. "Chris, Please..."

"Did you not hear me when i said i was in control??" he speaks in a serious tone "I'll do whatever i want with you, understand?"

I sigh softly and nod. "Good." he speaks before slapping my inner thigh hardly, earning a loud moan from me.

"God, you're so good to spank!" he says, slapping my other inner thigh hardly, i moan loud again.

"Turn around f'me, ma" he speaks to me and i immediately do it. He smirk down, looking at my ass, half covered with my square tights and he spanks my ass, strongly. i cry loud, burying my face in my pillow.

He grabs a fist of my hair and pull my head back, for me to look at him. "Don't wanna mess that make up yet, do ya?" i shake my head, whining from the pain in my scalp. He throws my head on the pillow again, now with my head to the side. He slaps my ass again, and again, and again, making me whine in pain, but also in pleasure.

The last time he slaps my ass, he spanks between my ass cheeks, making me moan loud. He lets out a soft chuckle from my reaction and says "Looks like someone likes to be spanked, isn't that truth?" i whine in response and he slaps the same place again, now gripping my hair again. "answer me. with words." he speaks firmly and demanding. "y-yeah, i do... i-... i l-like it..." i speak, whiny. He lets go of my hair and whispers in my ear "you're so pathetic, aren't you? Look at you, looking like a real whore f'me"

He slaps my ass again and turns me around one more time. He digs his fingers in my square tights, right between my legs, and he stretch it out, ripping it over my pussy. He looks at my sexy thong and he looks at me with a smirk. "is this for me?" I nod softly. He slaps my clothed pussy, making me whine loud, with a smirk. "Be ready, i think you'll need to~" he says to me, before ripping my thong and tossing it to the side.

Seeing him ripping my clothes always make me more turned on, seeing his arms muscles flex gives me butterflies.

He slides his finger through my wet slit and he says "so wet for me. such a little slut for liking me treating you like this." He pushes one finger in my hole, making me moan a bit. He keeps with it in, not moving, and he looks at me. "Look at you... I'd take a photo of you just to show everyone how much of a slut you are... looking so good just for me."

Suddenly, Chris pulls his finger out and slam three fingers into me, making me moan. He starts fingering me roughly, hardly and fast.

"O-oh Chris! fuck!" i moan, leaning my head back from the intense pleasure.

He, then, stops again, making me moan frustrated. "All fours. Now." he speaks demanding and i do it, my ass now almost at his face.

Chris slaps my ass and caress my wet cunt. "so beautiful like this, puddin'... so perfect~"

I whine softly in response and he stands up, unbelting his pants. He grabs his belt and hit the bed hardly with it. "If you do something i didn't tell you to, you'll pay for it. Got it?" i nod frantically.

He pulls down his pants and take them off, tossing it to the pile of clothes on the floor. He grips my hips and pull me to the edge of the bed, so he can fuck me while standing up. He grabs both my ponytails and pull my head back. "You gonne be a good girl and not cum for me until i say it, alright? Don't leave this position and don't scream too loud until i let you, alright?" He speaks in a firm and demanding tone.

"Yeah..." i speak softly. "Yeah, what?" Chris says, pulling even more my hair. "Y-yes, daddy..." i whine. Chris slaps my ass and throw my head forward "Good girl~".

Chris rubs his clother hard dick against my wet pussy, making me moan softly. "You're so wet you're making my boxers soaked. slut!" He pulls his boxers down and slams into me, making me scream loud. He lean over my back and slaps his hand on my mouth, pulling it back harshly. "What didn't you understand about not. screaming.?" I whimper, squeezing my eyes shut, and speak against his mouth "i'm sorry..."

Chris lets out a breathy mockingly laugh and takes his hand off my mouth, my head falling down harshly. "fucking pathetic." Chris mutters, now pulling slowly out of me. i whine at the sensation and then moan loud, trying hard not to scream, when he slams into me again.

Chris moves one hand to under my shirt, squeezing my breast, and the other to my hip, now starting to thrust in and out of my cunt.

I moan as he fucks me, slowly. "Chris, please..."

Chris stops middle-way and says demanding "First off, I'm not giving you want you want. second, you're not calling me that."

I whine softly "S-sorry, daddy..." Chris slaps my ass again and start thrusting into me again, still slowly.

After a while, i give up on moaning and i stay quiet. My head down with my eyes squeezed shut. Chris notices that and start going faster, hitting my g-point every time he pushes into me. i moan and i lean down to rest on my elbows, my back arched and my ass higher.

Chris slaps my ass again and groans lowly. "mmh, baby~ why are you so hot and perfect? looking like a real slut like this, while your pussy clenches around me. fuck!" He starts punding harder, slapping my ass a few more times.

I moan deep, trying to not be loud though. Chris keeps pounding into me until my cunt starts clenching too much around his cock. He stops and speaks "You ain't cummin' now, bitch. You know what happens if you do." and starts fucking me hard again. i start moaning louder, trying my hardest to not cum. I whine "p-puddin'... p-please... i-i can't..."

Chris slaps my ass the hardest he can and says, roughly "No. You're not cummin, Y/N. Or should i call you..." he leans over me, putting his mouth right behing my ear "Harley?".

I can feel the knot in my stomach almost exploding ad he whispers that to me. I can't believe I'm finally realizing this fantasy.

He feels my pussy clenching more around him as he says that and he laughs, smacking my ass again. "oh, you liked it, dont you? you want me to call you Harley? Is that it?"

i nod frantically, barely able to speak at this point. "Words." Chris says roughly, pouding into me roughly.

"o-oh.. y-yeah, d-daddy! p-please, c-call me t-that! o-oh, fuck, its so g-good! p-please!" i whine slightly loud, tears forming in my eyes already.

Chris smirks and start fucking me harder and faster. "fuck, ma! s-such a fucking slut! such a whore f'me!" he says, groaning. I'm so glad i told Chris i liked being degrated! I'm wetter than i was supposed to.

i keep moaning loudly "d-daddy, please! i-i need to cum! p-please lemme cum!" i whine.

Suddenly, Chris pulls out and turn me around, so we're now in missionary.

Chris slams into me again and puts his hand around my neck, hard enough to hurt but not for me to be breathless. "If you gonna cum, I'll see you cum. Gotta see that pretty face with that pretty make up all messed up." He puts his hand on my face and slides it down, messing even more my Harley Quinn makeup.

He, then, slides two fingers into my mouth the deepest he can, fucking my mouth as he fucks my cunt. He starts pounding roughly again, making me scream against him fingers, also gagging a bit.

My eyes starts rolling back with tears, just as my back arching and hips jerking up, feeling myself really close to the edge.

"Look at you. All fucked up like a whore. You really became Harley Quinn, didn't you? That hot bitch. I bet you wanna fuck every guy of the city, don'chu? fuck, puddin'. you're so fucking beautiful." Chris speaks between groans as he pounds into me. i start moaning even louder as i feel myself not being able to hold my orgasm anymore. My cunt clenching around Chris' cock just makes him groan and moan more.

"Cum. Cum f'me, Harley. C'mon, babygirl, cum for daddy~" Chris whispers in my ear. That gives me the final push and i finally cum in his cock. Not a simple orgasm, though. All of this roleplay and dirty talk made me cum hard and squirt all over Chris, which makes him cum inside of me and collapse on top of me.

We both panting hard and shaking. We stay there for a while and then Chris pulls out, laying next to me.

"You did so good f'me, Harl..." He speaks softly, caressing my cheek

"y-you too, puddin'..." i say softly, still panting.

Chris leans and kissed my lips, a long peck. When he pulls away, he looks down at me, admiring me. "Why didn't you tell me this before? This was the best sex I've done in my life..."

i smile softly at him and speak softly, now turning to face him, "I'm sorry for that... if i get another kink, I'll promise to tell ya!"

i hope you liked it! pls comment what you think, I'd appreciate it! :) xoxo

#chris sturniolo #nick sturniolo #sturniolo triplets #matt sturniolo #christopher sturniolo #sturniolo smut #chris sturniolo smut #chris sturniolo x reader #chris x reader #chris sturniolo fluff #chris sturniolo x you #matt sturniolo smut #matt x y/n #matt x reader #matthew sturniolo #nick sturniolo fanfic #nick x reader #nicolas sturniolo #sturniolo

[velvet-games]

he’s so normal :)

I actually drew this before a lot of the recent stuff I've been posting; it was just me trying to figure out a good redesign for vox. I might make a proper redesign explanation later, but here are some quick notes while I'm still playing with it:

vox trapzod and alastor trongle :)

^^ ok but unironically this was kind of a hard decision since I have mixed feelings about vox's body type

stuff I was considering:

1) vox is alastor's foil and has a similar body type to alastor at least in part because you're supposed to be comparing them (It's actually so cool cause I was watching TB Skyen's reaction to ep 2 and he immediately predicted that they would have beef lol)

2) tumblr sexyman bod <3

3) I LOVE @/bestosunglass' way of drawing him, and it made me realize that I kind of love the idea of vox being a little bigger than alastor? it's very big himbo puppy + lithe cat energy

4) not sure what my headcanons about vox's body are in terms of biological vs tech yet, but I think I want to lean toward tech (which is customizable)

I love the angst concept of vox having the freedom to change his body with relative ease, which makes him feel like he has to constantly update and update and update and update and update and it's never good enough because he could always change something and he'll never quite be good enough--

basically being a victim to his own progress-oriented mindset

and also treating himself like a product; if it's not working, if it's not the best, newest model, then it's broken and useless and disposable

tbh alastor's ability to find beauty and art in the old (not necessarily based on function, but on character and care) would be good for him

ooc or not, as someone with dysmorphia issues myself, I really want an "I like your body because it's yours" moment from alastor

I think all of that + toxic masculinity would probably mean vox would make himself comically buff (at least at first) lol

5) but I like drawing him kinda scrawny ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ it's just weird because I kind of want to audience to pick up on the fact that he's not actually hypermasc but vox would totally (mostly successfully) broadcast that to the characters in the show

6) I think a trapezoid is a good shape for him! it contrasts well with alastor being a kind of sly and striking triangle shape. trapezoids are more interesting and dynamic than rectangles, but are still more stiff and business-like than triangles (p sure I am completely misunderstanding shape theory here but it makes sense to me lmao)

vox is such a mess of vibes? like he's a cult leader he's a televangelist he's a hypnotist he's a business shark he's a tech CEO he's a newscaster he's a TV he's a computer he's a literal shark he's a mastermind he's a pathetic fanboy

still not sure which of those is the most important/what should be obvious in his design

obsessed with the concept of TV knobs as buttons but it's kind of old fashioned

I headcanon him as having been a nerdy kid that got kicked in the shins for being obsessed with TV/tech lol

also hc him as being vaguely and very obliviously transfemme; the buffness can also be overcompensating for a lack of masculinity both physically and mentally

#queerplatonic radiostatic #aroace alastor #trans vox #body dysmorphia #radiostatic #hazbin hotel #hazbin hotel redesign #hazbin hotel vox #hazbin hotel alastor #art #my art

[silverwhittlingknife]

hi Silver! o/ because that fanart made me wonder - would you happen to know when/where Dick's stuffed elephant plush Zitka turns up in the comics?

GREETINGS CAM <3333 THAT ART WAS SO CUTE

Yeah, I think your instincts are right - it's a truly adorable bit of transformative fandom, but I'm 95% percent sure it's not comics canon. Barbara has canon plushies, but I don't think anyone else does.

I got kinda invested in the investigation (it's hard to prove a negative!) and I ended up typing out an entire History of Elinore/Zitka, so, uh, if you're curious, meet me below the cut for:

Where does Elinore / Zitka - the animal - appear in comics?

Did Dick ever have a stuffed elephant toy in comics?

Where does Elinore / Zitka appear in comics?

We're gonna go in chronological order!

Dick's circus elephant friend was first created for practical reasons: in Batman 436, Marv Wolfman does a big expanded flashback to Dick's circus backstory as a way to subtly show us Tim before officially introducing him (so that we can have a technically-solvable mystery-of-Tim's-identity in LPoD). In this comic, there's an elephant named Elinore who loves Dick:

Aww. Such a cute elephant!

Batman 436 comes out in August 1989. New Titans 60 comes out a few months later, in November, and guess what? When Dick visits the circus, he is suddenly surprised by an unexpected blast from the past! It turns out that even though it's been years, Elinore still remembers him!

Here's the part where Elinore remembers Dick:

SUCH a cute elephant. I love her.

(Guess who else still remembers Dick even though it was so long ago. Guess which other character is about to be an unexpected blast from the past. Guess which character Elinore is directly paralleling guess guess guess sorry everything is about Dick and Tim in my mind but I can focus I swear)

Four years later, in 1993, Batman: The Animated Series retells Dick's origin story. They like and keep Wolfman's elephant, but they change her name to Zitka:

Wolfman doesn't return to the elephant beyond those two appearances, and a few years down the line, New Titans gets cancelled and Wolfman's not writing Dick anymore anyway. So the animal gets abandoned for a while, until Devin Grayson, a fan of both Wolfman and B:tAS, revives the Wolfman-era Titans team in JLA/Titans and then the ongoing series Titans 1999.

Grayson then brings back the elephant in a flashback to Dick's past in Titans 16 (Jun 2000), where she imports the B:tAS name. Sometimes I'm skeptical of TV-to-comics imports, but honestly, I endorse this one. You lose the alliteration, which is a shame, but IMO Zitka is a better elephant name than Elinore.

Here's Dick with the newly-christened Zitka in Titans 16:

Grayson also briefly references the elephant in Gotham Knights 20 and - in a final angsty callback - in Nightwing 88 (Feb 2004), where Zitka tries futilely to comfort Dick in the midst of his trauma conga line:

... And... honestly, I think that's it for comic appearances? The two Wolfman comics plus the three Grayson comics.

Both Wolfman and Grayson are writing multiple titles - Batman, New Titans, Titans, Gotham Knights, and Nightwing between the two of them, spanning a big chunk of Dick's post-Crisis canon - and both writers use the elephant for heartwarming moments of nostalgia, which means if you're doing a post-Crisis readthrough for Dick, Elinore/Zitka feels memorable. But I don't think she actually shows up that much.

For post-2011, I am not as well-informed - throwing this out to the dash? anyone know? - but I feel like Zitka the heartwarming symbol of Dick's heartwarming circus past is, uh, thematically very at odds with the Court of Owls evil!circus vibes, so my instinct is that this story element was almost certainly dropped in the reboot.

Did Dick ever have a stuffed elephant toy in comics?

In WFA, yes; in main comics continuity, no. Technically, I have not read every comic ever published, so I could be wrong!! But I don't think so.

Below, find my rambling reasoning on the tonal vibes of pre-Crisis, post-Crisis, and post-2011, and why this particular story element doesn't seem right to me for the first two.

Pre-Crisis (...okay, mostly the Silver Age): stuffed animal, yes or no?

tl;dr no, requires too much background knowledge on the part of the reader, plus the elephant wasn't a thing until later

Elinore doesn't get created until post-Crisis, but also just generally, pre-Crisis callbacks are more along the lines of this reference in Batman 129 (published in 1960), where, wow, Batman and Robin are hunting jewel thieves - and it turns out Robin recognized this strongman! BUT HOW?!

The comic goes on to recap Dick's entire origin story in flashback, on the assumption that you may not know it.

(BTW, if you'd like to know more about Haly's Circus throughout the years, nightwingology has a great post here summarizing a lot of fun plotlines and characters!)

Basically: Silver Age comics are very self-consciously episodic and kid-friendly; they're not generally gonna do overly-elaborate callbacks because they don't know what comics their kid readers may have randomly picked up or remember.

By the time of post-Crisis, comic books were being written for an adult audience buying from the direct market, i.e. readers who are collecting whole runs & don't need or want Dick's origin story to be recapped to us in full every time it's referenced. That's why in post-Crisis, we get stuff like "hey, neat, this particular soda brand is getting mentioned in several different books!!" or "in order to understand this story arc, buy SIXTEEN DIFFERENT COMICS in FIVE DIFFERENT RUNS and read them ALL ACCORDING TO A NUMBERED ORDER and also you better be following the individual plotlines and recognize these five minor characters who we don't bother to introduce!! Good luck!!" But the elaborate post-Crisis plotlines - and subtler worldbuilding like a stuffed animal callback to Dick's backstory - don't make a lot of story sense UNLESS you're imagining your readers as completionist adult fans.

So IMO a stuffed animal wouldn't be a pre-Crisis thing unless it was The Episodic Story Of the Week, and I don't think a stuffed animal is action-adventure-y enough for the fast-paced storytelling of the Silver Age. (Unless it, like, came to life and tried to eat you or something.)

Post-Crisis: stuffed animals, yes or no?

tl;dr: no, Dick's a manly tough guy, he's not gonna have a stuffed animal, that'd be lame, like something Tim might do

Part of the edgy grimdark adult vibes in 80s/90s comics is that some characters who used to be kinda silly & goofy & lighthearted - like Batman and Robin - get reimagined as Serious and Angsty and Edgy in a Tough Cool Manly Brooding Way. This massively affects characterization for Bruce, Dick, and Bruce and Dick's relationship.

(I obviously love this change & love the tense Bruce-and-Dick interactions, but plenty of fans of the earlier fluffy comics really disliked the edgy retcons of Miller / Wolfman / Starlin / et al.)

The upshot is that post-Crisis is a period when you could have a recurring reference like a stuffed elephant, but you wouldn't have a stuffed elephant, not for Dick. I think a toy like that would be too cutesy / childish / effeminate to give a male character in post-Crisis, unless you were poking fun at him.

Now, you could probably let Tim have a stuffed animal, because Tim is sometimes cool but also sometimes a tryhard loser who is faking being cool and not entirely pulling it off (see e.g. the Robin comic where he practices tough-guy faces in the mirror, or the Teen Titans comic where Conner discovers his cringy Enya CD, or when he's fanboying over Connor and it's awkward, etc etc.). A stuffed animal would be deeply embarrassing, and you'd have to be careful to compensate by having Tim do something cool afterward - but Tim's character concept allows for "he's kind of a loser sometimes."

But Dick isn't!! In post-Crisis, Dick's a tough / impressive / "cool guy" character, the kind of guy anyone would want to be, even in the flashbacks where he's Robin, and even in the stories where he's more lighthearted than angsty. It'd be kinda lame for Dick to have a stuffed elephant, so he wouldn't. I feel like Dick would be more likely to poke fun at it if someone had one, like when he's making fun of Wally for liking the Hardy Boys. Dick could have a Batman action figure, at most, and if he had one he would have it ironically.

Basically: in post-Crisis, a male character hugging a stuffed elephant feels more likely to be a punchline to me, not something poignant. (Even with Tim, Tim could have an embarrassing stuffed animal, but he couldn't hug it when sad - that's too far. Maybe Booster Gold might do this. Probably he wouldn't, but spiritually, he would. Sorry Booster ilu! <3)

Instead, Dick instinctively deals with his inner turmoil like the TORTURED ACTION HERO he is: by punching things and brooding and yelling and joining the mob and sleeping on rooftops and going on obsessive secret missions and acquiring Angsty Stubble!! Just like Batman!

(Technically I don't know if Bruce ever joined the mob but you know he would.)

Anyway as you know this is my favorite continuity and I am poking fun affectionately, but uh, yeah sdfsfdsfs. No stuffed animals.

Post-2011 / Infinite Frontier / Wayne Family Adventures: stuffed animals, yes or no?

tl;dr it's in WFA! Probably not anywhere else, but it could be.

Post-2011 stuff tends to be cutesier overall, most of all in the current Infinite Frontier era. So I don't feel like this would be tonally out-of-line with IF comics. Taylor tends to go for more meme-y references rather than fanfic references, though.

So the obvious best fit is WFA, which is aiming for a rough approximation of Silver Age family-friendly vibes - wholesome, episodic plots, Teaching Good Moral Lessons For The Youth, etc. - plus lots of Easter eggs for fanfic readers and some comic references.

And look, here we are:

Aww.

Whew - that's everything I could find!

Anyway as you can probably tell, I LOVE the elephant, so this was a very entertaining rabbit hole to go down, thank you <3

#dick grayson #anyone with more info feel free to chime in & we can crowdsource <3 #i do think the toy elephant is awfully cute though <3 #total digression but i was thinking about it as i was writing: #i'm fascinated by the ways that the post-crisis batboys & their stories can intersect with 90s masculinity and all its issues with stoicism #and i'm pro-queering and gender-bending - 90s comics were a total boys' club so i think it's neat that transformative fandom isn't #but i do love 90s masculinity and All Its Issues too & one of the things i find compelling about the dick-tim-bruce trio #& especially dick's place in it - is the unspoken hierarchy whereby bruce is manlier than dick & dick is manlier than tim #and so dick's in the middle as this somewhat softer-character who aspires to be a harsher & more stoic & ultimate manly-man character #caught in the middle between robin & batman & what each role represents #and like. batman is both manhood & the only desirable thing to be AND ALSO it represents this immense narrowing of possibility #because so much of stereotypical masculinity is about reducing the range of emotions you're allowed to have or express #and dick is both incredibly conflicted about bruce AND wants to be just like him & by extension is conflicted about masculinity writ large #so a lot of dick's interactions with tim veer between trying on a frat-boy-ish 'I'm The Manly Guy' persona vs. giving up on it #or trying on imitations of Bruce's Batman persona but also trying to backtrack out of it bc he doesn't like how it feels etc etc #ANYWAY i think what i am trying to say is that if tim had a stuffed animal dick would be entertained & poke mild fun at him #and call him 'teddy' for the next hour or something while tim got increasingly defensive about how the teddy bear was steph's #and/or about how the teddy bear was OLD and tim doesn't even care about it and also WHATEVEr i'm above this #and to an uninformed observer this might look like bullying BUT ACTUALLY #this ritual would IN FACT be very reassuring to both of them + tim would feel WAY better afterward than if dick had ignored it #because by poking fun at him dick shows he still respects tim enough to tease him thus subtextually exorcising the threat of wimpiness #plus allowing tim to defend himself & demonstrate that he can take a joke so they've both reaffirmed their masculinity to each other #& they don't have to be scared of the teddy bear and all it represents anymore #however also afterward dick would have a brief nostalgic flashback to when he was a kid & had a teddy bear & feel weird about the memory #because he would be unable to articulate to himself that what he misses is a past when he allowed himself to be vulnerable #anyway this wouldn't actually happen in comics but it's what would happen in my soul. you know. #ask tag #zitka

[bingeeaterblog]

// small warning big re touken hate it's a post on why I hate it and how I think it could've been done better BUT I encourage you to keep reading if you do like them and to give me your thoughts whether to tell me why you like them or why you think im wrong in some regards i love a good debate its why i joined Tumblr

I'm gonna start this off by talking about why I loved the original mangas touken.

They start off as strangers, them only having a REAL meeting when she saves his ass from nishio. Initially she was cold and rude, for every reason he was very disrespectful(also for good reason he was scared and all he knew about ghouls is that they are monsters who hurt people, one literally just had him in a choke hold) but I digress. Kaneki starts working at anteiku and he's shadowing touka much to her dismay she feels he can't do anything right and is just a know it all human.

Right off the bat they have a very interesting dynamic, touka learning to care for kaneki him starting to see her(and ghouls as a whole) as a person and not something he should be afraid of.

As time goes on, touka falls for him, it's what makes everything so hard when he abandons her. She feels betrayed he left just like ayato and her dad did no one ever stays for her? How could they? She makes herself so hard to love shutting everyone out. She blames herself partly, not being able to protect him from whatever happened at the aoigiri base.

When she does see him again she's angry! How dare he come back after all this! Why can't he just make up his mind! So she lashes out, she misses him so dearly but she can't tell him that? Let him know she cares? She hits him and tells him to never come back to anteiku (to her).

You can see why it's so appealing!! The angst!! The drama!!! They have it all! Toukas longing and kanekis isolation are what makes them so GOOD.

To explain why I don't like re touken we have to talk about why I don't like re touka.

Touka before was a very well rounded character, she was brash and a little impulsive, she loves the people around her even if its hard for her to show it in a healthy way. She'll do whatever it takes even if it means risking her own life.

Re touka, doesn't really have that. She's very... Water downed. I like to call it house house wife-ification. She's lost any semblance of her old personality. While I do like the idea of touka calming down and becoming more docile it's not done right, we meet her again and she's just... Like that? There's no character development of her changing it just happens! She's shaved down so she can be the perfect love interest for kaneki, it's even shown in her design! Her eyes are softer and she doesn't hold any of the same energy as old touka(this happens with a lot of female characters ishida just ended up giving them all the same face besides eto).

Kaneki is? Fine? I loved haise as a character and him and touka were sorta cute if u kinda ignore that fact touka isn't touka. Kaneki was fine and re and that's it, he's just okay. His Savior complex is removed and it's just "I wanna save people!!" The whole reason his savior complex is important is BECAUSE it ends up hurting more people he should've been developed to learn how to manage that and be the hero he could be.

Now for their actual relationship.

It's very.... Rushed? There's no tension no build up just "are you a virgin?" Which in my opinion is something touka would never say she'd stumble around it. they made her bold at the wrong times she's an awkward lil freak. And then boom! Sex yeah! And it's? Okay? It's not my favorite I felt like a sex scene between them should've been more desperate!! That's when the marriage bite should've happened! It should've bites and messy kisses and promises to never leave again! There was no passion! There was the "why are you crying" but that didn't really do anything for me!!

I do like the end scene where she was petting his hair that was very soft which is what he needs.

Then toukas pregnant!(Which is something I'll get into good another time) And it kinda feels like they only rush into the marriage because she is... Like I feel like they should've atleast had a dating stage y'know!! Everything just felt so fast with them and nothing like the original:(

The end credits scene feels nothing like touka, she looks dead that's not the character I used to know :( kaneki too only the scene with hide felt real

And yeah! I like ichika! But how cool would it have been if touka got pregnant AFTER re and in the end credit thing she was revealed! Another natural born one eyed ghoul!! Idk...

This is very messy sorry I had to get this out. if you like them? That's fine!! That's super duper cool its just not my favorite. Tell me why you think I'm wrong! Id love to hear your opinions

#ken kaneki #tokyo ghoul #text post #kaneki ken #ship analysis #character analysis #touken

[blakbonnet]

ARTIST OF THE WEEK: @mistysblueboxstuff

this week's aotw features the lovely Andrea who has been gracing us with beautiful ofmd art since the show began, and some of you might also recognise her art in other fandoms like Good Omens. She agreed to answer some questions for me:

Which do you use to draw (app/digital or traditional)?

I mainly paint digitally and in Photoshop CS6

Fave brushes/pencils/mediums (links/screenshot?)

My favourite brushes are Greg Rutkowski's oil brushes for Photoshop (best $6 I've ever spent xD)

Your favourite piece you've drawn?

I have lots of favourite pieces so it's hard to choose, but this would be one of my favourites

Who's harder to draw: Ed or Stede?

I think Stede is harder to draw because faces with softer features tend to be more difficult to paint (especially if there's no facial hair involved xD) :')

One essential tip for beginner artists?

I think the most important thing when starting out as an artist is to just keep painting and never give up. It's easy to get discouraged when your art isn't turning out how you envision it, but I promise if you just keep at it, you'll get there! Paint what you love, paint from the heart, and the progress will kinda just sneak up on you. Don't be scared to experiment either, make silly art, bad art, whatever you feel like making. Also, this one is hard (and still is for me), but don't compare your art to other people's art. As someone much wiser than me once said: "Comparison is the thief of joy". So just focus on yourself and have fun ❤️

Why OFMD? 🥹

OFMD just sort of felt like something that'd be right up my alley, and i fell in love with it immediately. The characters, the settings, the humour, Ed and Stede's beautiful, yet oftentimes heartbreaking, relationship (who doesn't love some angst, though? xD) - it's hard not to adore this show!

#artist of the week #aotw #mistysblueboxstuff #ofmd

[prettyboysdontlookatexplosions]

medialog april 2k24

ok. sick day catch up part two

watched

monkey man - this was gnarly and fun and dev patel, quite simply the hottest man ever to live, is upsettingly hot in this film, like SO hot oh my fucking god

white room - this was a VERY weird movie that (as per the filmmaker q & a) totally flopped at a film festival and never received distribution... you can kinda see why but i more or less liked it. it's about a weird sheltered repressed dude who accidentally sees the murder of a mysterious pop star and then accidentally befriends and falls in love with the woman who was actually the reclusive songwriter and voice of the act... the filmmaker described it as a "journey through genres" and it was very artistically ambitious in a way that maybe didn't totally work but it had some really good stuff about art/consumption/fame/women (my jam) and it frequently looked gorgeous and also all of the mysterious/reclusive pop singer's songs were big late 80s/early 90s style upbeat synth-bombast numbers with lyrics taken from emily dickinson poems which is soooooo funny and a great idea

alien - this is like die hard in that if i'd seen it ten years ago i would not really have understood the hype but seeing after i had a backwards education in film by watching all of the mcu movies and developing curiosity about the question of why they were bad and ugly in such distinct ways and from there developing a nascent and unsophisticated appreciation of the filmic qualities of film i'm like, wow what an incredibly fucking well made movie!!!!!! some things in particular i liked were (1) no substantive backstory for anyone, no dark secrets except the one that really counted, no traumatic pasts, no explanation for how this world works or why anyone was here except needing a job, just giving us the bare minimum to understand the situation the characters find themselves in and trusting the story to do the rest (2) very good spaceshippy spaceship (another way it's like die hard is lots of great Texture, another thing that the MCU lacks which like many other MCU traits was actually a totally fitting design choice for tech bro billionaire tony stark in iron man but simply did not need to expand to Everything...) (3) sigourney weaver so good! ian holmes also very good (4) lots of suspense through silence which is one of the most lost of lost arts in the realm of big expensive Cool Shit Happens cinema!

roy cohn/jack smith - this was a filmed recording of two monologues performed by ron vawter, a gay actor who died of AIDS, each in the character of another gay man who had AIDS - the notorious roy cohn & the experimental cinema icon jack smith. i don't really have much to say about it but i feel very lucky to have seen it and vawter was incredible - i'm glad also that he happened to come to our attention a few months ago because he played the therapist in sex lies & videotape.

mad max: fury road - ok i kept putting this off because the way people talked about it on the internet frankly emphasized to an off-putting degree the ideas in this movie and did not adequately convey to me personally the most important thing about it which is that it Fucking Owns Lmao Wow. we happened to pause it for some reason like 50 minutes in and i swear to you i would have guessed 15, maybe 20 minutes had passed, that's how much it flies by... the coolest shit ever, i wanted to live there forever! also lottie yellowjackets is one of the wives????

mission: impossible 3 - the worst movie in the entire world. we only revisited this one as part of our ongoing marathon with some friends and we spent the whole time complaining about jj abrams' totally inept camera work... seriously watch this movie and look out for (1) every time an already fast sequence is torn up with a zillion stupid little cuts some of which actively prevent us from seeing something that could have been cool (2) every time we get to a new location and the camera starts aimlessly drifting to the side literally immediately because he's afraid we'll get bored if we sit in a location for one whole second (3) every time 3 people are having a conversation and the camera spends the whole time just purposelessly wafting back and forth side to side for, i cannot emphasize this enough, no reason at all. literally nothing in this, an installment of the Stuff Looking Cool franchise, looks even a little bit cool even one time. people hate on 2 for the male gaze of it all re: thandie newton but her character has more personality and agency than ethan's sexy lamp wife in this. the closest to a redeeming value this movie has is that it really feels like part of the goal was to remind everyone of how even though tom cruise jumped on that couch one time he's actually a very normal american heterosexual man (he passes out at one point and flashes back to his wife in her underwear sdksoeroser it's SO dumb) but because he's tom cruise (a total insane freak) he can't convincingly portray that at all and just comes across as insane and maybe a sociopath. "what about philip seymour hoffman" i'm not going to give abrams credit for knowing PSH was a good actor, that's like saying defending a doctor accused of malpractice by saying he knows that feet generally have toes. be serious. i will give a shout out to simon pegg, who is in this less than i remembered but who comes across as the MVP (across what should be a deep bench of a cast!) of making abrams' horrible comic-book-bro-patter come across as something a human might say, mostly so i can also share my friend's insight when i said that which is that it makes sense pegg is suited to the task given that he cut his teeth largely on movies that are parodies of shitty action movies.

mission: impossible - ghost protocol - a wonderful and perfect treat :) i've gone on at length about this one before and really have nothing left to say but it's so good and so specifically good at all the things 3 sucks ass at... my friend was physically squirming next to me on the couch during the burj khalifa sequence, as is right and proper :)

read

beautiful losers - this is a novel leonard cohen wrote in the 60s that is very weird and experimental and i'll be real with you and say i did not get it. it's about a guy whose wife and best friend he had a weird sexual relationship with are both dead and now he's kind of obsessed with an iroquois saint... i am not sure how to describe it but i guess i would say if you think the music of leonard cohen is too optimistic and insufficiently horny for you maybe you would like this. it is probably the most aggressively sexual book i've ever read but not in an erotic way... it's very like about the nastiness of sex and bodies... which i admire ideologically on a certain level but it's really quite unrelenting with it... occasionally there are snatches of deeply beautiful writing though.

listened

sourpatch, stagger & fade - nick put on the vinyl of this and i was like oh that sounds nice and i wound up listening to it a bit... fuzzy indie rock (i'm not educated enough to parse genres more finely than that) that makes for very pleasant background listening

ariana grande, eternal sunshine - i've never kept up with ariana because i just find her voice kind of annoying and i had never heard a song to challenge that UNTIL we reviewed "we can't be friends" at singles jukebox and ariana teaming up with max martin to do kidz bop body talk era robyn turned out to be everything i wanted from her... unfortunately the rest of the album was incredibly boring lol. love that song tho!

maggie rogers, don't forget me - i don't know that i find this one as interesting as her last album or quite as likable as her first (although that might be me somewhat overrating her first because i love "light on" sooooo much) but she's such a capital-M Musician she's always a pleasure to listen to. "drunk" was an early fave but recently i found myself returning a lot to "the kill"

girl in red, i'm doing it again baby! - girl in red comes a lot when other people are talking about the g*yl*rs as one of the actual queer artists they should support but first of all they actually love her and second of all i listened to this album twice straight through and have let some of the songs play on shuffle since and i could not hum you one single line :/

taylor swift, the tortured poets department - speak of the devil! i mean i've talked about this. i like this album a lot - at this point i'm ready to call it easily her best work except for maybe folklore, and honestly i find it hard to assess folklore out of what a special lockdown treat it felt like at the time. i don't expect a world insistent on calling 1989 pop perfection to eventually agree with me but i think people will mellow out about it in time and forget that it was so divisive on release much as has happened with reputation (an album far worthier of scorn if not without its occasional merits) and at the VERY least i think in like 5 years it will be more or less consensus that it's better than midnights.

the starting line, say it like you mean it - i listened to this album mostly to fact-check claims i was making about emo in the taylor swift piece but then i kept listening to it cuz it was kinda full of bops!

fall out boy, take this to your grave - @voidofcourse recommended this as a stepping stone from the starting line for loud guys offering bops and indeed it too was full of bops!

other

an enemy of the people - i saw this on broadway, yes, 1000% literally just because my boy my king my number one guy jeremy strong was in it. the production was interesting and good if not flawless, and although i think some of the younger cast members got a little lost in the old-fashioned theatrical language (even in a new translation) and could have used some direction towards really pulling out the meaning of individual sentences they were saying, the more seasoned actors all did a great job, including, of course, jeremy strong, who got to be shoved into a pit and have pretend ice thrown at him, i'm so happy for him. also the play was incredible? like as a play? i said as much here after seeing it but basically it's about this doctor who discovers that the town baths that are about to open have a contaminated water supply that is definitely going to result in people getting sick and some of them dying, especially since they are being advertised partly for their health-restoring properties for people who are already not doing well, and he's like, wow, good thing i caught this thanks to the help of science so we can change plans, and then everyone else in town is like, but have you considered that would be expensive? why do you hate poor people? (there's a thread specifically about the editor of the radical leftist newspaper going from being the doctor's number one champion to being totally coopted out of both politics and self-interest that was particularly brutal to watch...) like it was truly SO incredibly specifically relevant to some Extremely Contemporary Issues that i was just agog and also it was incredibly fucking upsetting to watch! really really great playwriting, such a clean example of how a work can best encompass & comment on ideas by developing them through character and dramatic action rooted in wants, needs, choices, conflict, etc., a lesson many people could stand to learn. i kept thinking it had burrowed as deeply into the core issues as it could and then it found another layer. this ibsen guy... he really knew some stuff about stuff....

#media 2k24 #isabel 2k24

[missinconsistent]

The Haikyuu movie is *the* Kenma movie, and I'm living for it. I won't get too into spoilers pertaining to the match, but I will talk about some things in the movie, so if you want to go in blind then stop reading here and go watch the movie!!

I did not expect the movie to explore Kenma and Kuroo's friendship as much as it did, and I love it so much (I didn't read the manga, btw so this was such a surprise). The series already shared quite a lot of flashbacks to their childhood and them playing volleyball together. But, it was always framed in a way that Kuroo kinda dragged Kenma along into playing volleyball with him. I never really expected these childhood flashbacks to mean any more than that. The movie really explored *why* Kenma played volleyball thanks to Kuroo. It really emphasized how important playing volleyball *with* Kuroo meant to him.

Like the scene back to the summer camp when Kenma is thinking he'd rather not play volleyball over playing a video game or watching volleyball, but then Kuroo calls his name and reaches his hand out is just so sweet. Especially considering that Kenma is most likely thinking how this is Kuroo's final year.

I am obsessed with how Kenma's friendly rivalry with Hinata actually parallels his friendship with Kuroo through flashbacks. With Kuroo being the friend that got him to play volleyball, and Hinata being the friend and rival that really pushed Kenma to take a match seriously, and see how fun it can be.

And idk if my take is different, but I really like how Kenma doesn't have a Tsukishima arc. The match doesn't make him fall in love with volleyball, but it just makes him realize that even if he doesn't love the sport, he loves a good and interesting match with his friends. He doesn't care about nationals. He just likes playing against Hinata, in particular (imo). But I think that's what makes the match between them so damn investing.

It's so refreshing to see the movie mostly revolve around Kenma's pov and see this character break out of his shell and push himself. To decode Hinata in an attempt to beat him and have his expectations blown away. Seeing this competitive, smug, and serious side of him is such fan service and I love it lol.

The scene when the match plays out from Kenma's eyes is so (chef's kiss). It's a bit nauseating, but it genuinely is my favourite moment in the movie. The way Kenma's eyes are on the ball before darting across the court, glancing over at his teammates and opponents, and back to the ball again. When it even shows Kenma taking a fall, Lev checking up on him, and Kenma just shouts to focus on the ball, I was just floored with how well it immerses you in the match. It just really has you on the edge of your seat, and quite literally puts you in Kenma's head to know this guy who is seemingly indifferent to volleyball, in that moment, is having the time of his life.

It's such a good climactic moment that's so different from other concluding matches from the series prior. It's not about big final builds up to the final strike, or block, or whatever move the characters are doing. It's just about being in the moment. About Kenma being in the moment. And it's such a brilliant and unique way to end the match.

#haikyuu!! #haikyuu movie #battle of the garbage dump #kozume kenma #kenma #kuroo tetsurou #hinata shouyou #kuroken #kenhina

[bigbad-tardis]

Okay so bear with me because while I’m going to bring in something outside to discuss the latest Doctor Who episode, I still think it’s kinda interesting.

Overall, the plot of Dot and Bubble is about how racism, white supremacy, and echo chambers basically rot the brain, and this is really a drop in the bucket when it comes to discussing that but the name Lindy really stuck out to me from the beginning.

So I’ve been reading the Flash comic books since like March and the specific version of the Flash I’m reading is Wally West. The reason that this is important that Wally has an Asian girlfriend (later wife), a reporter named Linda Park. Now Linda is an all around badass and I love her but that’s not really all that relevant, what is relevant here is her name. Linda and Lindy are very similar, but while Lindy is used as typically as a nickname for Linda it’s not what Linda Park uses.

Linda’s friend calls her “Linny” in The Flash (1987) #123 which is very obviously not Lindy. Something about Linda’s background that is important is that Linda has suffered workplace discrimination because she’s Korean. She was told to make herself look more appealing to a white audience because she was previously accused of being sympathetic to Koreans and not being objective in her work. So Linda being an Asian woman is very important to her story and her character. This seems rambly but we will get there.

In the comics there is an arc where Wally ends up moving to California because he has been kicked out of his home of Keystone City because he’s being accused of causing too much damage to the city and ruining it. He moves to a stereotypical California beach town and is offered a movie to be made about him.

And in the script for the hypothetical movie they try to rename Linda to yep, you got it, Lindy.

To which the woman in the panel working for Wally is like “it sounded blonder” which is just barely disguised code for whiter. And of course it’s not even a nickname Linda uses. She has found a nickname of her own that isn’t stereotypically associated with blondes. But In order to make Wally more palatable they had to do their best to erase his interracial relationship. They co-opted Wally and Linda’s story, coincidentally or not to how Lindy Pepper-Bean stole the story of Ricky September.

So when I saw the main character of the episode was named Lindy and she was blonde at first I thought “oh wow this is like in that issue of the Flash!” And now, well Lindy is a blonde lady.

When the episode was airing I had that bit of racial discrimination I had already read in my mind so when the episode was revealed to be about racism it clicked into place with me.

It’s interesting how the names in Dot and Bubble actually do build into the world building. While I’m sure nobody else made this connection lol I thought it was interesting.

TLDR: I have wallylinda brainrot so bad that when I saw Lindy I couldn’t stop thinking about that time someone tried to turn Linda Park white by renaming her to Lindy.

#doctor who #dot and bubble #doctor who spoilers #i wasn’t going to tag everyone I mentioned in the post originally but #why not most of the post talks about the flash anyway #the flash #wally west #linda park

[mrblazeflappybird]

I have noone to talk to about this new Helluva Boss episode so you're getting subjected to my ranting

(I'm going to be talking about the end scene with Blitz and Stolas - loved the whole episode though, not my fave but definitely not my least favourite by any means)

STOLAS. MY GOD. YOU SHOULD NOT BE RELATABLE AND BECAUSE OF YOU I SHALL BE GETTING PROFESSIONAL HELP ASAP.

I completely and utterly believe that both Stolas and Blitz need to get a reality check. But whilst I am certain Blitz will in the series (probably multiple times over) I'm worried Stolas won't. The most he might probably get is him getting told by Octavia that "You don't love me, you love him".

Stolas. Needs. A. Reality. Check.

I get that (as a character) his response to everything is trauma based just like Blitz. But the way he's acting is kinda like... you aren't perfect. You are messing this up just as much as Blitz is, possibly more so.

The way he and I are similar is the fact that we both do things so heavily based through our immediate feelings that we just don't take time to think about stuff, especially not in the moment. To the point that we are blind to the damage it causes.

The relationship started as a purely "no feelings" deal. Regardless of them both catching them, that was THE RULE that they both followed most the time. Obviously until they didn't. And whilst its painful and the reasons Blitz didn't do anything is because of self hatred and therapy-needing reasons most likely, he still kept to that rule.

Stolas immediately was like "Nah, I'm changing everything right now."

Yes, yes, please, if you aren't happy and know ultimately this relationship is hurting more than bringing happiness, end it. But he can't just expect Blitz to immediately understand what's going on and what to say. Its such a huge backhand that's so unexpected by Blitz that ofc he's gonna be confused and think its something its not.

But like.... Stolas just didn't listen to Blitz, didn't really let him make sense of everything, and when Blitz jumped to the (unfortunately) logical conclusion in his brain - which is both trauma AND because of this relationship's nature - Stolas was just done.

And like... I get it?? Because that's me. Bruh. Will be and have been changing my behaviour in the future. I'm aware of my flaws and thank you to my wonderful girlfriend for giving me my reality check. Very glad that I managed to listen to her... UNLIKE A SPECIFIC DEMON.

I understand that the yelling and the slamming doors down the corridor complaining about how shitty you are reminds you of your abusive ex wife, and honestly whilst you should have listened to him in an ideal world, getting yourself out of a situation you can't handle is understandable and valid. BUT - and this is important - YOU NEED TO LET HIM HAVE SOME TIME TO PROCESS. AND LET HIM TALK.

Blitz was justified in yelling in my opinion. Stolas was also justified in teleporting him away because he yelled in my opinion too. But they both need serious reality checks.

I just don't think Stolas is ever thought to be in the wrong with any of this. He should have listened and not be so impulsive with his actions. He never really thought of the reality behind it (seemingly) and was so certain that because *his* emotions and feelings change and adapt quickly along with his, like, reality and wants and needs(???), it doesn't mean Blitz's will too.

Anyway sorry for the rant lmaooooo. Was not expecting Fizz in that episode I love that little robot imp man favourite character yayyy

#helluva boss episode 8 #helluva boss season 2 #helluva boss #helluva boss blitz #helluva boss stolas #helluva boss stolitz #helluva boss spoilers #stolas #blitz #helluva boss criticism

[aguzluv]

came here to rant about helluva boss because some of the ppl I had read is just DUMB

cw//helluva boss spoilers

tw//discussion about power dinamics and prostitution

Stop reading Blitzø and Stolas as individuals only!!!

It's easy to forget because it's not a big part of the show (it is tho) but there's a social context surrounding their relationship and they're not just two dummies unable to communicate they're a prince of hell and an imp (the lowest demon class)

Some people really just plain out forget Blitzø just saw their relationship as something transactional, he was maintaining his sexual encounters with Stolas because it was needed for his business to work, god you saw how scared he got when he thought it would lose his tool, he has people depending on him to live!

I know it's easy to read their relationship as a simple miscommunication thing, I know it's easy to put Stolas into the victim play, because the series kinda does it, but I beg you all to understand that there's no real victim in this situation, and if there's one it's not Stolas.

The social class in demon society exists and it's proven to be important, royal demons can easily eliminate lower classes demons, blitz it's under a power dinámica where he got zero power at a material level.

Yes he was a dick, I'm not saying he's the best demon out there, I don't even like him most of the time.

But to read all of those post showing him as if he was the worst just because he saw his prostitution as a transaction (IT WAS) and not a call to a serious relationship, you can't be for real, I just don't believe it.

Blitz never, never! saw their relationship as something more but a pay to play, Stolas catch feelings and entered a one way relationship without even explaining it to him.

I want to point out that all of this started with the circus episode, before that there was no shown of their relationship as something else but a sexual deal to kept the I.M.P working.

I'm just saying this because it pains me to see so many people just entirely ignoring the context behind their deal, I hate to see so many people painting blitz like the obvious bad guy just because Stolas had one good action towards him born from his own selfish wishes (that aren't bad, he's sweet, kinda).

And I'm not even going to talk about the trauma part of their characters, that's another rabbit hole I'll probably enter other day.

Anyway, rant over, if you got here, hello I'm aguz :3 I'm twenty two and I kind draw, sometimes...

#helluva boss #stolas #blitzø #blitz #blitzo #rant post

[lovelycureaestetic]

Don't call me Trans

A more or less short and coherent post about personal journeys, fandoms and gender.

I don't really know how to start this post, I'm writing it down on my notes app for the first time now but I've rehearsed this for over a decade I think and yet I have to "roll with the punches".

Kinda like my journey as a queer person I guess so in the end I think it's only fitting for me.

You see, I'm a lucky individual, I grew up in a very accepting and somewhat progressive family. I've always thought that my parents, despite their age (both in their 60s rn), were pretty open-minded for their generation. Sure some things are just too much for them, but they don't hate and are very much cool with the things they do understand. Which is honestly a very good attitude and even if they're not "perfect" they made it so that I wouldn't have much issues coming out as a lesbian back when I was 18. But why am I telling you this? Well, this is a little preface to let you know that my environment was a nice one and that queerness was never an issue in my real life. So where were the issues, Nene?

Online. The issues were online and more specifically, inside the fandom spaces.

But Nene, aren't fandoms largely made up by accepting queer people? No. Fandoms are huge piles of toxic waste where you can find some rare shining gems and a safe bunker or two and the call about harassment is definitely coming from inside the house when it comes to queer on queer crimes.

But Nene, how does this relate in any way to your journey of self discovery? I will tell you right now, dear friend, fear not.

When I first started joining internet fandoms I was, maybe 14? It was the 2010s and online was the only space I could get any sort of exposure to the LGBT community (fewer letters back then, that's important to keep in mind). I was just a teen, I didn't watch the news, I didn't read newspapers; I watched anime, read manga and went on forums and Tumblr (and Facebook) to pass the time. I was too young and didn't know much because certain things like queerness were still very on the low, they just began to crawl up the surface and my only access to them was: fandoms. Of course I knew about gay people, my mom's hairdresser had a boyfriend and I knew about the ancient Greeks from school, but the first time I've read a love story between two men was in a manga for Christ' sake, it was a very different time, but I don't want to digress much. The important thing is that all my knowledge mostly came via Facebook pages about anime characters kissing. And then 2015 rolled in and I was basically almost only on Tumblr. I was 18 and just figured out my sexuality. Lesbian, score one. People were starting to talk about Asexuality and I believe a few years later I figured out I was Demisexual and kinda cried. Score two. And honestly I thought I was done. I thought there was nothing else for me to discover about myself and that that was that.

Mh.

Except...

Except that wasn't actually "that". As I grew older there was something bugging me more and more with each passing day. Something in the darkest and furthest corner of my mind, locked behind a vault. Something I just deemed impossible so I decided to cast it away in hopes of forgetting. But your mind never really does that, am I right? It never truly lets you forget. Oh no. And that something scratching and scratching away against the metal doors was my Gender Identity. Now then, why would I cast that aside? I had a pretty accepting environment in real life, all the things about sexuality I learnt from articles online and Wikipedia, so why was that an issue I had to lock away?

Because it wasn't what I saw around me.

I had read yuri mangas, I had read articles about asexuality, there were people online talking about them. There were headcanons about characters and "character X sexuality study essays". But what was there around me when it came to gender? Cis and Trans (Non-binary came later on so I didn't grow up with it). That was it. You were either cis or trans. And when you're a teen on Tumblr there is really only two ways to be trans: buff masc trans woman with a loud personality or scrawny shaky trans boy wearing oversized clothes. I'm afab so the second example was possibly my tumblr assigned gender and I was...

Not that.

I didn't wear baggy clothes, I didn't hate my body (not for those reasons at least), I did not feel like I was born wrong, I did not feel like a "uwu cute adorable transboy so sweet so pure". And to tell you the truth, the more I saw transness in fandom, the more I hated it. I did not hate trans people, absolutely not, and I knew that everyone had a right to interpret characters as they wanted. But every time I saw a cute and feminine character being called a transboy as in afab, something inside of me cried in agony and I felt, oh so bad about it because when I grew up in fandoms, not liking and sharing a trans headcanon meant you were transphobic. Yeah. You read that correctly. If you dared to say that you personally did not think Kurapika was trans you'd get sent hate mails because how COULD YOU DENY TRANS PEOPLE, YOU MUST'VE HATED THEM, YOU TRANSPHOBE! It didn't matter if you said it in the most chill way because someone asked what you thought, it didn't matter if you respected and just did not share those headcanons, because to them they were canon and if you hated canon then you must've had a problem with trans people. I know things have chilled a bit nowadays but hey, now I'm 28, the damage has already been done so what can you do. Anyway, I had these conflicted feelings for years and at times, when I dared to stop myself and just... Think for a while, I asked myself: why do I care so much, what is it to me if someone sees a feminine boy and calls it trans? Yeah it can be obnoxious, and femininity has nothing to do with gender, but why do I ACHE instead of just rolling my eyes and moving on?

Why

Why

Why

Why am I thinking so much about what my sexuality would be if I were a boy?

Why have I always picked the male protagonist in videogames?

Why would I be fine if people wrongfully used he/him pronouns with me?

Why am I sososo attached to femboy characters?

I don't hate my body, I don't hate my boobs, I don't hate my curves, I don't hide them, I like my curves, I don't feel like I'm in the wrong body, I'm not uncomfortable being called a girl.

So why, why, why

I can't be trans, I don't want to be a boy, I don't feel like how a trans person should feel, when someone called me an "egg" when they saw I liked femboys, I'm at the point where I recoil at the idea of being called trans. So I cannot be.

I have to be cis, then, right?

...

Realisation sounds like the buzzing of static left in your ears after listening to the ocean raging below.

Bigender.

It all made sense, I could see my whole life unfolding right in front of me and the long breadcrumbs trail I left for myself through the passage of time.

Bigender.

It had such a nice ring to it.

Bigender.

It was like a hug between male and female. It felt like I was born from the embrace of both ends of the spectrum.

I was happy, the vault was finally open and I was finally, consciously complete.

Yet there was still something bugging me.

People would still call me trans.

And I know, objectively speaking, that the word trans is a big umbrella term, that technically bigenderness falls under that umbrella.

But the wound is too deep, the gap too wide, I've spent too many years in the toxic waste that is fandom's perception of gender.

And this is NOT to say you shouldn't thrive with your trans headcanons. No. Go live your best life, but please, maybe from time to time, stop and ponder why fandoms that allegedly care so much about representation do nothing to actually represent different identities. Maybe sit down one afternoon and wonder why some people sound so bitter towards umbrella terms. Trans people aren't the issue here, of course, but the way they're portrayed at large in fandoms and the fact that the only non-cis terms being used are either trans or non-binary, are. And I'm so hung up on the way fandoms act because that's where MOST of young people have their first contact with the queer world. Of course everyone should be free to do whatever but if you truly care about kids and teens and adults feeling safe, accepted and SEEN, then you HAVE TO actually start and be inclusive of all identities.

I will help you carry that umbrella because we're all in this together, but once we reach your destination you could at least have the decency to use my name instead of yours.

Don't call me Trans, I'm Bigender.

#personal #pride month #bigender #gender identity #oh wow I'm actually posting this huh #sorry if it's badly worded #but it's been sitting on my chest for years so... yeah

[viveela]

It must be weird to live so long that an integral part of himself is now accepted, he'll need more time to get there too

#veearts #hazbin hotel #hazbin hotel redesign #alastor redesign #alastor #radio demon #redesign #charlie morningstar #charlie redesign #hazbin hotel fanart #hazbin hotel comic #aromantic #aroace #asexual #see peep the way the book he's got has ace colors... #his mouth ourple too...his clothes kinda green...my design for him is a lil coded lol #this is for aro week btw yeah. this is semi projecty too but not reeeally #anyway this was self indulgent I just needed to get this out my system #aroace character rep so important to me raaah

[sampilled]

whenever sam brings up his childhood, its always like "awww so cute <3333" followed by "JESUS FUCKING CHRIST" approximately 2 seconds later

like "awww he had an imaginary friend, thats so sweet! i love sully!" and then "oh jesus, his imaginary friend is real and was there to fill in the gaps so that sam didn't fall through them :((("

or "aww sam had a dog friend" followed by "sam lived with his dog friend in an abandoned house cause he ran away for TWO WEEKS, apparently one of his happiest childhood memories wtf"

or "awww dean read to him" and then "oh the whole time he was thinking about how he was dirty and wrong haha 0_0"

#it definitely works for his character since he is so sweet on the surface especially in the early seasons but jeeze #watching flashback episodes like i couldve raised him :( i couldve made sure he was ok :( #i also think its important to his character that he does kinda look for positive moments in his life and holds onto them and really #does appreciate them like remembering one teacher out of hundreds who said something impactful to him and wanting to thank him #and remembering being in theatre and how it gave him a chance to play and have fun #and all these little moments (and keeping very important things in a memry box:(. ) in his life which has been so tragic #and always having hope because of them #like sam being the “heart” and the hopeful one is so important to me <33333 #thats my fucking baby

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

things from The Halloween Update that are concerning me more than i already am about Eddie:

his Frankenstein's Monster costume turning his face (and hands. ha, hands, like the hands on a-) half yellow half blue/purple like the clocks & Sally's door. that's fucking me up a little ngl

Eddie tacks "A bit of a moral conundrum-" onto his description of Frankenstein's Monster, who he's costumed as. which seems out of place with the rest of his description. he could've said "bolts" or "white streak in his hair" or another physical trait. nope. Moral Conundrum (one could also describe his costume as "two-faced"...). and the fact that he's dressed specifically as someone who was "brought back from the dead" makes me 👁️👁️. kinda reminds me of a certain set of artworks from Clown's tumblr a while back...

Eddie, despite his whole schtick being "bad memory", was the only one to accurately recognize Sally's costume as pedrolino from the Commedia dell'arte. could be a little 'inside joke', might be something else. i suspect it's something else due to his... ah... Everything.

#yk im starting to wonder if eddie's meant to have a naturally bad memory #or if something is purposefully fucking with em more than with anyone else #bc he seems to have these little moments where hes On Top Of It #kinda like moments of lucidity almost? hm.... #eddie dear what have you seen? why are you Singled Out? #the wrist watch / his eyelashes matching home's (whatever the rounded things under the sills are) #his halloween costume / his memory problems / the fucking tiny secrets sprinkled all over his post office / his color being purple #hi eddie how does it feel to have main character syndrome #jesting! kinda #eddison edward eduardo edmund edgar edwin edmundo. what the hell is your deal im dying to know #wh speculation #welcome home speculation #homebogging #i wonder. i. wonder... #if eddie got Caught by whatever is out there at night #maybe he didnt know to stay in doors. maybe he realized he forgot to deliver something and thought 'better late than never' #maybe the town mailman is too important to simply Remove so he had to be dealt with a different way #or wait maybe someone saved him? wally perhaps? home? id(k?) #a worse memory so that he doesnt remember what happened? #a personal clock on him at all times so that he never loses track of the time of day? #an overactive fear-response to make sure he stays in his lane Despite him apparently enjoying scary things? #kinda sticks with the 'frankensteins monster' thing dontcha think? brought back from the dead? Stitched back together? #and the monster was an emotional sensitive character. like eddie. IDK idk im just rambling now

[soupdreamer]

rashawn and ross the duo you are

#i need to see more of them together they're lovely and hilarious #some of the things that they said in character went kinda hard ngl #dropout #very important people #vip #game changer #vic michaelis #ross bryant #rashawn nadine scott #looooved this episode #also why is ross kinda... in this one... HEAR ME OUT #also im kinda sad he didn't sing as much. bro was rocking that drum machine though