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#wait anon how did you know
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How do you feel about Jack Drake?? What are your thoughts on him and Tim’s relationship?
Anon, I hope you were interested in a novel, because look, I am fascinated by Jack Drake.  He’s key to a whole lot of what I find compelling about Tim as a character, and if I were in charge of DC, I’d bring him back to life.  This would make Tim unhappy but would IMO make for good plotlines.
Jack and Tim’s relationship is Complicated (TM)...
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Jack and Tim hug in Nightwing 20 / Jack impulsively yanks a TV out of the wall in Robin 45 / Tim grieves in Identity Crisis
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“I could tell the truth.  But I don’t.” - Robin 66
...and it involves a whole lot of Tim lying, and feeling guilty about lying, and thinking about telling the truth, and choosing again and again to keep lying.
And I think that’s great.
Below the cut:
Shorter version - key points about Jack
Really long version - my gentler take (vigilantism is choir and Jack loves sports) vs. my harsher take (Jack has some major flaws)
Final thoughts
Shorter version - key points about Jack:
He’s a bad parent.  He’s self-centered, he consistently prioritizes his own comfort and interests over his son’s, and when upset, he does things like order Tim off to boarding school.
But he’s never a bad parent in an actionable way.  He’s not like David Cain or Arthur Brown, who are abusive monsters.  Jack’s not a monster!  He just...kinda sucks.
He genuinely loves Tim. If Jack’s aware that Tim’s disappeared or is in trouble, he’s always worried and upset.  He periodically resolves to be a better dad, and IMO he’s always sincere.
And Tim loves him, a lot.  Tim’s protective of him and worries about him when he’s kidnapped or in danger, and when they’re reunited, Tim’s really relieved and usually hugs him (and Jack hugs back!). 
...But they have very little in common, and that’s a problem. Jack doesn’t value the things that Tim values, or respect the people that Tim admires, or care about the things that Tim’s interested in.  Tim lies to him a lot, but that’s partly because he correctly guesses Jack wouldn’t respond well if he knew the truth of what Tim’s up to.
The Batfamily is a surrogate family that Tim’s drawn to because of the ways his real family doesn’t meet his emotional needs…but also he feels guilty about that and disloyal. (And to the extent that his dad recognizes what’s going on, he's jealous and resentful!)
Very long version:
(LISTEN I HAVE SO MANY THOUGHTS ABOUT THIS)
Okay!  So first: Jack’s a character who IMO is pretty up for interpretation.  You can interpret him very charitably, and make excuses for the bad behavior, and fill in the blanks sympathetically when situations are ambiguous; or you can interpret him uncharitably, and emphasize the bad behavior. I don’t think either approach is invalid - it depends on what kind of story you’re interested in!  I have enjoyed Bad Dad stories and also stories that redeem Jack.
My personal take on canon is that Jack and Tim’s relationship is in a gray area.  Jack's definitely neglectful, and he does prioritize other things over Tim, but he’s never so bad that Tim can easily reject him, and he's never so bad that Bruce could justify taking Tim away.  He's just...not great.  Tim loves him, and feels loyal to him, but it’s a very mixed-up complicated love.
I have a gentler take and a harsher one which I switch between as the spirit moves me. xD
My Gentler Take (tl;dr: vigilantism is choir and Jack loves sports)
Here’s the core conflict: Jack and Tim are very different people with different values.  Tim idolizes Bruce and Dick and vigilantism, and secretly gets involved, knowing his dad will hate it. He gets increasingly wrapped up in his secret world and lies to his dad...because if his dad finds out, he’ll make Tim quit.
This is a great setup for an ongoing comic.  It’s practical, because it provides endless potential for plotlines, and it’s nicely thematic, because it maps closely onto relatable real-life situations with extracurricular activities:
Tim the drama nerd whose dad thinks he’s playing football and not in the school play; 
Tim the closeted-queer kid secretly getting involved in his school’s politically-active Gay-Straight Alliance; 
Tim the choir kid whose dad only values making money and wants him to go into the family business (and Tim keeps promising himself he'll give up choir soon, definitely soon, but maybe he'll stay in just a liiiittle longer, because they need him, you see, the last tenor left town, so...); 
Tim the computer geek with the sports-obsessed dad (this one’s just canon);
etc. etc.  
The extracurricular metaphor works pretty well for Tim’s relationship to vigilantism.  Tim's involved in his "extracurricular" because he genuinely thinks it's important and fulfilling, and he values it and wants to be good at it. He idolizes Bruce and Dick because they're good at it. He's been collecting information about it since he was a little kid, and hiding it from his parents because he knows they wouldn't approve. And mayyyybe there's also an element of low-key rebellion against his dad, and maybe that's secretly part of the appeal. And yet also as Tim gets more and more invested, he starts to daydream: maybe I could tell my dad and he'd be proud of me and supportive. But he doesn't, because actually he knows his dad would be upset and angry and make him quit.
And - again, just like with lonely kids and extracurricular hobbies - one of the things that happens is that Tim starts getting his unfilled emotional needs met ... by people he knows through this secret hobby. And people like Bruce and Dick start turning into a surrogate family. Which Tim feels guilty about. And also as Tim gets more and more wrapped up in their world, he has to lie to his dad even more, which means the distance between Tim and his dad gets bigger and bigger and more and more unfixable.
I love this dilemma. It's simple, it's recognizable, it provides endless sources for conflict, and there's no obvious solution! Tim can't tell Jack: he'll make Tim quit! And Tim doesn't want to quit, because he loves choir / art / theater / whatever.  Yeah, it’s difficult, and there are challenges, and sometimes he has doubts...but at the end of the day, he cares about it a lot.  And everything he values is there, and all the people he admires and cares about are there, and all he wants in the world is to feel like he's one of them and belongs there. So he has to lie, even though he doesn't want to lie, and he feels guilty about it...
...but also he ends up lying more and more.
(Sidenote: I think it's important that Tim chooses to keep lying - Tim's narration often glosses this as "I have to lie to my dad," and that's certainly how it feels to Tim, but this... isn't quite true. He has to lie to his dad, because if he doesn't, his dad will get mad at him and try to stop him, not because he literally has no choice about it.)
Other Reasons Why I Like The "Secret Extracurricular" Interpretation
(tl;dr it complicates not just Tim's relationship with his dad, but also all his other relationships)
Tim's problems have some obvious parallels to Steph and Cass, who both become vigilantes while rejecting their evil supervillain dads. But Jack isn't evil. And that means the Tim-and-Jack relationship is ambiguous and complicated in ways that I like. Steph and Cass can just leave their Bad Dads in prison, and say good riddance, and feel very righteous and triumphant about it! Tim’s more complicated. Tim gets into vigilantism ostensibly out of duty and altruism, but secretly, he's also involved for straight-up selfish self-fulfillment reasons. He's lonely, and bored, and his life feels pointless, but he thinks that Bruce and Dick are cool and amazing and he wants to be a part of the things that they do.  When his dad gets jealous of Tim’s relationship to Bruce, and feels like Tim’s looking for a surrogate family, he’s... not wrong.
And the ways in which Jack is not Actionably Bad complicate things from Bruce's POV.  If Jack was a straight-up villain, it’d be an easy call to keep in touch when Jack finds out and makes Tim quit...but he’s not a villain, not really.  So what do you do?  Do you try to surreptitiously stay in touch with Tim even though you’re ignoring his dad’s express wishes and thus forcing Tim to sneak around?  Do you respect his dad’s wishes and stay away from Tim even though you have a years-long relationship at this point?  
Again: a bit similar to the extracurricular analogy.  Say you’re the choir director and you’ve built this whole relationship with a kid in the choir, and you’re an important mentor to him and you care about him etc. etc. etc.... and then right before a big performance, his dad finds out he’s been secretly involved, and yanks him out.  How would you react?  Well, maybe kind of in some of the ways Bruce reacts.  You replace him. You’re annoyed with him. You miss him. You want him to come back. You’re also worried about him.  You’re upset with his dad.  But also... what should you do, exactly?
Bruce and Alfred and Dick care about Tim as if he were part of their family, but he’s not part of their family, and there’s a lot of interesting tension there.
My Harsher Take
Jack never hits his son.  But his temper is a big deal.
In his worst moments, he takes out his anger on Tim’s stuff - wrecking his room, or ripping his TV out of the wall and confiscating it.  When he’s worried about Tim, he usually expresses that fear by yelling at him / punishing him / sending him away - threatening to send him to boarding school in Metropolis in Robin III, or threatening to send him to military school abroad in Robin 92, or actually forcing him to go to an all-boys' boarding school post-NML.  
This is bad behavior!  It is Not Good!  
And you can easily connect the dots to a bunch of Tim’s terrible coping mechanisms, like the constant lying and or the fact that Tim’s go-to methods for dealing with interpersonal conflict are 1) repress it and pretend it never happened (most of his fights with Bruce), 2) withdraw from the relationship until he can pretend the conflict doesn’t exist (when his friends get mad at him in YJ, he quits the team for a while), or 3) literally run away from home.
Also, Jack is a Manly Man with firm opinions about how men behave vs. how women behave, and he thinks boys shouldn’t be scared and thinks Tim should date hot girls and pushes Tim to work out and wants him to play football and expresses period-typical sexism, etc. etc. etc. ... and��though obviously this wasn’t what the writers had in mind at the time, all of that is certainly interesting to read backwards in the light of Tim as a queer character.
More Disorganized Thoughts on Jack Drake
Tim’s our hero, so we’re naturally more sympathetic to him, but it’s also true that relationships are a two-way street, and Tim doesn’t value any of the things his dad values, either.  Jack at various points is shown to care about grades, business, money, boarding schools, archeology, football, a kind of macho bragging-about-dating-hot-women ethos, and a very public and performative kind of caring. Tim tends to respond with discomfort or disinterest or even disgust.  When Jack gets on TV to try to rally the government to save his son from No Man’s Land, Tim isn’t touched—he’s mortified.  When Jack makes some bad investments and loses money, Jack’s deeply upset and his self-image is majorly impacted, and far from being sympathetic, Tim’s annoyed and kind of contemptuous of the idea that this is a problem.  Jack thinks fishing in the early morning and going to tennis matches is a fun father-son activity; Tim finds it exhausting and tedious.  And so on.
This means that Tim often longs to be closer to his dad in theory, but this longing is more tied to fantasy than to reality. He rarely seems to enjoy spending time with His-Dad-The-Actual-Person.  So for example, when Tim’s deadly ill with the Clench, he has an extremely poignant fever dream about telling his dad the truth and getting hugged…even as he insists in real-life to Alfred and Dick that he does not want them to tell his dad what’s going on.
The same is true of Jack, who IMO genuinely wants to be closer to his son and is continually declaring that he’s going to turn over a new leaf and get closer to his son…and just as continually backs out of activities or loses his temper when faced with spending time with his actual son.
Tim and his dad sadly get along best—by far—in Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder situations.  When Jack gets kidnapped or is in danger, Tim worries for him (and Tim grieves him deeply when he dies).  When Tim disappears or runs away, Jack’s genuinely worried about him.  So e.g. they have a really moving emotional reunion and hug when the earthquake hits Gotham, and Tim panics about his dad’s safety and comes running home (and meanwhile Jack’s been panicked about Tim’s safety!).  It’s the day-to-day, regular life stuff where they don’t connect.
Jack's written quite differently by different writers. Mostly, Tim's parents are at their least likable in his early appearances and early miniseries (this is where you get, for example, Jack and Janet being nasty at each other while a pained employee looks on, and Tim disappointed to once again get news of where his parents are via postcard - "I guess that sums them up! Never know where they’re going to be–or when–or even how long!” - and Tim alone on school break, and Bruce and Alfred thinking there's something weird going on with Tim's parents, etc. etc.). Jack's more sympathetic but still often unlikable in most of Tim's Robin solo, and he's almost invisible (but positively treated if he does show up) in Tim's team books.
For obvious reasons, Jack's remembered way more sympathetically after his death. Tim's completely devastated by Jack's murder, which he arrives moments too late to prevent, and he basically never gets over it. We see him grieving Jack again and again in Robin, and also in Teen Titans, and also in Resurrection, and again in the Halloween Special, and again in Batman: Blackest Night, and all the way up to the end of Red Robin. Tim also grieves for an extended time over Janet - he hallucinates a happy reunion with her when he's feverish in Contagion, and hallucinates her in the final issue of Robin, and the reveal-your-buried-emotions song in Robin 102 brings up his grief for her too (meanwhile, other characters dance or laugh or otherwise get giddy).  Tim’s grief over his parents’ deaths is intense and long-lasting.
I'm not going to clip comic panels because this is long enough, but if you're curious, here's a nice and fairly lengthy compilation of comic panels with Tim and Jack.
If you're interested in a Jack-centric story with a softer-but-still-recognizably-canon take on Jack, I really like the way Jack’s narration is written in the one-shots Heart Humble (set shortly before Jack dies) and Never a Hero (Ra's resurrects him during Brucequest, and Jack's archeology skills turn out to be unexpectedly useful).
#tim drake#jack drake#ask tag#i wrote this ages ago and now i can't remember what i was going to add to it so oh well draft amnesty? sorry for the long wait anon!! <333#anyway i kept this carefully on topic and virtuously did not derail into talking about the other blorbo but tags are for disorganization SO#for me this kinda half-in half-out place where tim is with the batfamily is SUCH an interesting part of his relationship with dick#and i never stop turning it over in my head#he's kiiiinda replaced dick in that he's robin - but in a very real way he *hasn't* - he's NOT bruce's new son the way jason was#and early!tim makes a BIG POINT of how bruce is not his dad#and i think this relative distance from bruce is a huge factor in why dick is able to build a close relationship with tim at all#(because dick's still pretty estranged from bruce!)#and there's such interesting tension there when dick starts jokingly calling tim ''little brother'' or when villains call them brothers#because they're NOT. increasingly they would both LIKE to be brothers! but dick has zero official standing in tim's life#if tim got hit by a car in his civilian identity bruce and dick wouldn't even be able to visit him without his dad's permission#which jack would be pretty unlikely to give! jack doesn't like or trust bruce!#or like. this is morbid. but if tim died. dick wouldn't even be invited to the funeral you know?#and there's such interesting tension there for me in the contrast between this vigilante relationship that's very very close#but in their civilian lives no one would assume they're anything in particular to each other#anyway the 1st half of tim's robin solo has this thread of tension between tim's family life vs. his vigilante life (plus his mom's death)#and then the second half + red robin has the thread of struggling with grief in a world that's not fair + feeling lost/alone#and these two threads are a big part of my interest in tim as a character! jack's the backdrop that makes a lot of stories possible
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one one time my friend had a dream about the bomb gianni plush playing a trombone better then them. he was really upset about it in the morning
Thank you for being the only normal anon of the night <3
How did your friend lose to a plush with no arms though. Skill issue tbh
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lightwise · 4 months
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*kicks your door down* Hello! It's @clone-anon
Crosshair hated appointments, especially doctor's appointments, but when it came to you, he was incredibly protective. He may not have said many words, but his face always sneered at any doctor or nurse in a don't-you-dare-hurt-her kind of way. Even if you felt you didn't need it, he held your hand and would always kiss your temple on the way out of the office when it was all over.
Today when he brought you home, you immediately laid down. Things had felt like too much lately. So much going on and so stressful. He put some things away and then joined you. He sat next to you and rubbed your back. He was silent, but filled with thought. He wanted to make you better, but knew it was beyond his power. Still, he could rub your back. His large, warm hand moved in slow circles in time with your breathing. He bent over every so often and kissed you. Your head, your cheek, your shoulder, and then your neck (with a devilish grin on his face). You reached up and gently pulled him toward you, wanting to cuddle. He laid down next to you and held you in his arms.
"Do you need anything," he asked quietly.
"Just you."
He couldn't help but let a smile tug at his cheeks as he responded, "Then you have me."
A deep breath made your chest swell and you hummed happily as you let it out. Crosshair turned his head toward yours, kissing your forehead and nuzzling against your skin. He felt warm with you. His brothers always made fun of his cold extremities, but with you, he felt warm. You kept each other warm and happy. He let one of his hands trace your side under your shirt, resting on the small of your back. You knew he wasn't asking for anything more intimate than to feel your skin. Not in this moment anyway. You had become his favorite texture and he treasured the softness as he held you.
🥹🥹🥹
“Don’t you dare hurt her” and “you had become his favorite texture” 🫠🫠🫠 I can’t this is too sweet ahhhhh
The doctors appointments and wrangling health insurance and still not having answers on some things has been alotttt lately. Having Crosshair at my appointments to back me up and to happily complain about the ridiculousness of some things together would be wonderful. And cuddles after! Everything I need 🤗🤗. Thank you so so much!
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pr · 3 months
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waiting for the shawn mendes response tweet like
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n7punk · 9 months
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At first reading City of Angels I was excited to see the trans Catra tag bc I'm trans and these stories mean a lot to me. As I got further in I was worried it'd only come up for the purposes of smut since the fic was rated E. In the end that wasn't case and I feel like you did a great job of having Catra be trans, having that not be the focal point of the story, and not having it come off as fetishistic. So thanks <3
ty! yeah, the point was that catra just is who she is and that's only a part of her life experience (and she gets to choose who she wants to share it with when the public so often tries to take things like that), so it's a facet of a larger catradora story focused on their relationship repairing like all my others. i got an ask when i started the fic that i never got around to answering (sorry, been low on spoons lately) because i've previously mentioned that same thing so the anon was asking how you "tell" when that's the reason, but it's really hard to verbalize. that is i think why it's important to have stories where smut is just a small part of it or not at all, though. like this fic is rated E because it gets so far Towards smut, but that was important to me because i wanted to include the discussion of what words she uses (and im glad i did since some people hadn't heard of that). i was honestly worried about rating it that high, but it was an aspect of dysphoria (for some people, i'll reiterate it's not a universal thing for all trans people!) that i wanted to cover and hadn't before.
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ssreeder · 10 months
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I literally just started reading the last chapter of ria but thta has been interrupted by how fucking funny it is that it only took sokka and zuko to be int hw same fucking room for jee to clock them. HELLO??? Not even a grain of "maybe the water tribe is touchy" NOTHING. He took ONE single looks and went — huh
Sokka: oh I'll avoid outing our relationship until zuko is fine, but i still need to see him for a bit. I'll make aure i keep my touch friendly :)
Jee: oh so zuko is gay
-Fragile heart
Hahaha he talks himself out of it in the next chapter because… well…. denial.
(I wonder if iroh suspects anything hahaha…..)
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sotogalmo · 6 days
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I do have to wonder what 7-year-old Sammy Emily would think of Aunt Jane, if the two happen to meet in the sequel (because if you think about it, those who would know the Emily family wouldn't even know that Sammy Emily existed and Aunt Jane is Henry Schmidt-Emily's sister).
Ooo.
Yeah that would be interesting,,, meeting a long distance sibling, and learning about his different(? maybe?) name
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almost-a-class-act · 4 months
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that was a crazy read. sorry about ur spleen and happy kidneydivorce but you know crazy? i have an extra spleen just chilling above the normal one. this is some cosmic shit. its like fate or something - hilldane anon
Get the fuck out. Lmao. I think something's wrong with me because my first thought was: wow, if they dumped all of our organs on the ground and counted them there would be the correct number of spleens!
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krynutsreal · 1 year
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Can't believe Mondo out gay-ed Taka
congrats to Mondo Owada for out-gaying taka for abouuuut [looks at the video length] 6 seconds
👍
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You didn't exactly answer that last anon's question on how much progress has actually been made with the revival. I get that this is a big project, but I quite frankly find it baffling and absurd that you're doing this by yourself when all of your time is being taken up by wiki moderation. I don't really get why you WANT to be in charge of the project if it's that low on your priority list, and it makes even less sense that you're choosing to do it by yourself instead of accepting help.
I didn't... choose to do this "by myself"...? Aside from that, overall I think this is one of the most bizarrely presumptuous messages I've ever gotten.
This is a collaborative fan project for a game that came out ten years ago. If you're that concerned with the speed at which a continuation for a (previously abandoned) hack is being released, I just don't know what to say. I love Awakening, and I, like everyone else who submits their writing, want to contribute and ensure that the end result is something that we can all be proud of. This project has been passed through many hands over the years and I am honoured to be a part of it, I would hope that some patience can be afforded so that things can continue to be done right.
If this project was crowdfunded, for-profit, or had some kind of deadline, I could see questions like these being warranted, but like, what do you want me to do, hire more people to help?? Everyone who contributes support convos is already helping. That's plenty, unless there's some big rush, which I don't feel is necessary.
I wouldn't normally answer these kinds of messages, and I won't be answering any more like these in the future; I've got nothing more to say about the topic anyway. If you would like to help, whether it's support ideas, full convos, or coding help, that's great, as always, I'm glad there's still interest in the project at all, let alone people willing to contribute. My Discord DMs are open if you'd like to discuss further.
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not-so-lovely-anya · 1 year
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Girl, that person obviously meant deny or confirm...it's obvious from how you refuse to give a straight answer that you are, in fact, a Putin supporter. Disappointing...
have you read the original post? because I did say that I do support him. sometimes i disagree with him, but i do support him. it's not something I've been hiding, I've always been open about it. your political views isn't something you need to hide in my country, we have freedom here.
so why is it bad to support Putin? why do you think Putin is a bad president? i really wanna hear your point of view.
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rosicheeks · 1 year
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Oops. Didn’t mean to stir up old drama. Hopefully you find somebody else you are comfortable with that can give you the sex you deserve instead of him.
No no no you didn’t 😂
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mechahero · 1 year
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anonymous asked- Any word on that world domination? Made much progress?
come in my inbox pretending to be a reporter! (accepting)
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“It’s, uh, it’s goin’.” He doesn’t elaborate much further than that. After all, how did they know that even if he hasn’t told anyone in or out of Motor City?
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stormyoceans · 1 year
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I'm sure you get told this a lot but your tags are a thing of beauty. The ones under the photos of bible and build 😂😂😂😂😂 truly amazing
AAAAAAAAA THANK YOU SO MUCH ANON!!!!!! sometimes i still can't believe people actually read my messy tags and find them enjoyable, but it always makes me so happy to know that i can make you guys laugh even a little!!!! 💜
also those bible and build pics are still very much haunting me like okay i can give bible the benefit of the doubt because that's a pretty normal fit even if it still gives me major 'vegas on his motorcycle no longer wearing fancy clothes because he hasn't regained his status yet but still serving and slaying on the daily' vibes but BUILD??????? him holding the gun aside (which is already very sus), his entire outfit screams "vegas' bodyguard or me, who do you think would do a better job? i think it'd be me definitely" energies except they are very much equals now and the jewelry is there to remind the world of it
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phrynewrites · 2 years
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past life au bosco is also whipped. i love it 😌
Truly whippedsco is the North Star of all my aus like they see Jasmine and think yep that’s perfection right there and I need everyone to be aware of it at all times
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n7punk · 9 months
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update on my inbox: there was one anon on the page and that was it (you'll see below), but there was a "next" arrow, so i hit that and it took me to THIS page with a back arrow, but when i hit the back arrow the button disappeared and this is just what it looks like now. if i hit the envelope button to open my messages "fresh," it continues to show me this page (notice the 11 next to "unhinged era," indicating i have 11 messages waiting in my inbox)
if i open a totally new tab and try to open my inbox i get this again:
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but at this point we know that next button is a lie and there's ten ghost messages.
anyway i dont do fighting or PvP games in general and usually only hear about them when 1) Blizzard has a human rights atrocity or 2) LoL gets another banger added to its soundtrack, so no i don't know anything about them XD seriously League has no right getting so many amazing songs. I'm not just saying that because they have multiple PVRIS tracks (it doesn't hurt, though)
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