I really enjoy your flirting headcanons. I can just say, thats exactly how i would see them as well. (Wales 😂) But now a question came to my naughty little mind: Which one of the brothers would more likely have "the Talk" with Norn and how would they do? Let's say puberty hits him hard, he is completely confused and in a technical (nerdy) way he knows how to do "the do".But now he is completely overwhelmed by his now constantly kinda sabotaging body. (Imagine that over decades ... dear lord...)

The brothers actually talked about it when North looked around early teens and argued on who was going to give the Talk. Mostly because they wanted to avoid that conversation with a 10 foot pole but also because it has been centuries since they went through that phase themselves. So like mature adults, they did rock-paper-scissor and wished good luck to the 'winner'.

I can't decide which one gave North the Talk because each scenarios sound hilarious so I'll let you decide which is the best:

Ireland: Have you ever watched that Irish sex education video from the 80s??? That's it, that's basically how it went but add a lot more of awkward pauses because Ireland kept stumbling over his words and even had to grab a drink in the middle if it to calm his nerves. Both parties almost died from mortification on that day and North couldn't look him in the eyes for over a month (neither could Ireland lol).

Scotland: That man has no shame at all. Despite being a part-time paramedic and knowing all the medical terms, he uses a lot of slangs and crass words. With a deadpan delivery, he would explain the gist of it like a grocery list before slapping a box of condoms on the table, say: good luck! and leave the room. To say North was more confused and grossed out than before was an understatement. 

Wales: Basically prepares a whole seminar with diagrams and pictures. He would show great sympathy for North and reassures him that there’s no shame in it. North would have appreciated the more friendly approach if it wasn't for Wales going off topic by oversharing his own experiences in excruciating details. North may now understand the whole thing, but at the price of knowing his brother's sex life? Not worth it.

England: One would think that having lots of colonies for a time made you great at giving the Talk, but that's a complete lie. He would be flustered the whole time, but would eventually push through it. Similar to Wales, he would talk a bit of his own experiences that can only be sums up as ‘don’t do anything I would do and definitely don’t do anything I wouldn’t do’. Then, with a pat on North’s shoulder, he would make himself a cuppa (with a dash of whisky).

As painfully awkward as it was, North would, after recovering from such a mortifying ordeal, appreciate the efforts his brothers put in. If he has questions, he would first do his own research but if it comes empty then he would probably ask Wales. But not before making Wales promise to not tell him any more stories of his love life.

A character looks straight into the camera and says "I'm not interested in romance" and people will still say "No, it's not confirmed they're aromantic!!!" "They could change their mind!!!" "it's a challenge for them to overcome!!!" "They'll have character development that makes them fall in love"

It's like they are given the most blatant answer to a character romantic orientation and they actively ignore it. all the while all it takes is subtext for people to speak as if it is fact for a character to be any other sexuality.

birds of the same feather?

[Defanged Philip AU]

omg imagine getting thrown inside the Emperor's mind and discovering he's actually kinda like you wouldn't that be funny haha (Heavily inspired by this scene from Turning red ggghhg)

hotel manager

Submas AU October - Day 11: Apocalyptic

(bringing in my dystopian AU for this one, since its basis is technically apocalyptic) Meet the Resistance - a group of people living in the oppressed city of Lower Unova. In an alternate world where Volo was able to win the battle at the Temple of Sinnoh and subjugate Arceus, he's successfully rebuilt a new world in his vision. As the self-proclaimed emperor, he rules over Lower Unova (a city that is scarce on resources) with an iron fist, especially to those who actively oppose him; meanwhile, Upper Unova prospers and flourishes with those who follow his lead. Despite all odds being stacked against them, especially facing Emperor Volo's army in constant battles and skirmishes, the members of the Resistance still fight - for they one day hope to overthrow the emperor and bring peace to both cities. To unite them. And to keep their fighting spirit strong, they wear an emblem on their clothes to serve as a constant reminder of what they're fighting for... Though this emblem resembles a Pokemon they're only familiar with in either spoken legend or limited written lore, it's still one they choose to believe will help bring them peace someday. Here we have (pictured from left to right, for the most part): Alder - Leader of the Resistance (and also essentially a father figure to Emmet) Nate & Rosa - orphaned children who aren't members of the Resistance, but rather who are close to many of its members Mallow - a chef and medic Elesa - a fighter, childhood friend of Emmet Blacephalon - Emmet's main battle partner; with Emmet's command of a simple snapping of the fingers, it will use its Mind Blown attack Emmet - one of the Resistance's strongest fighters; ah, I think I'll save more on him for later ;) (just for context his mask is supposed to be based on Blacephalon, more on that later too - he wears it into battle, though, helps obscure identity and such) (FINALLY I RELEASE SOMETHING ABOUT THIS AU!! tbh I had intentions of getting this done during Emmet month buuuut it got away from me - but here it is now! better late than never, right? this is probably my favorite au of mine that i've made so far and i hope to show more of it ;w;) ((btw not... all resistance members pictured here, but... well, you'll see what i mean soon enough :D))

I think the key component to my personal reading of post-Delphi Pharma is that he's trying to be a horrible person on purpose. Not "on purpose" in the way that people have free will to exercise their own choices, but in that Pharma's "mad doctor" persona is a performance he puts on to deliberately embrace how much everyone else hates him. Basically, if people already think you're a "bad Autobot" and a horrible doctor who just kills his patients for fun, why try to prove otherwise to people who have already made up their minds about you? Just fully embrace the fact that people see you as an asshole. Don't try to change their minds. Don't plead for their forgiveness or understanding. Just stop caring. If you're going to be remembered as a monster, you might as well be a memorable monster, and eke as much pleasure and hedonism as you can out of it before karma catches up to you and you inevitably crash and burn.

I mean, I guess you could just go the route of "Oh, Pharma was always a fucked up creepy guy and Delphi was just him taking the mask off," but I really don't like that interpretation because, for one, it feels really wrong to take a character like Pharma becoming evil under duress and going, "Oh well clearly he did the things he did because he was evil all along," as if somehow Pharma breaking under blackmail/torture/threat of horrible death was a sign of him having poor moral character. As opposed to, you know, suffering under the very real threat of horrible death for himself and everyone he cares about while being manipulated by a guy who specializes in psychological torture.

The second reason is that it just doesn't make sense to write Pharma as having been evil all along. I mean...

Occam's Razor says that the best argument is the one with the simplest explanation. Doesn't it make way more sense to take Pharma's appearances in flashbacks, his friendship with Ratchet, his stunning medical accomplishments, and the few we see of him speaking kindly/sympathetically (or in the least charitable interpretation, at least professionally) towards his patients and conclude "This guy was just a normal person, if exceptionally talented." Taking all of these flashback appearances at face value and assuming Pharma was being genuine/honest is a way simpler and more logical explanation than trying to argue that Pharma for the past 4 million years was just faking being a good doctor/person. I mean, it's possible within the realm of headcanon, but the fact is Pharma's appearances in the story are so brief that there simply wasn't room in the story for there to be some sort of secret conspiracy/hidden manipulation behind why Pharma acted the way he did in the past.

I just can't help but look at things like Pharma's friendship with Ratchet (himself a good person and usually a fine judge of character) and the fact that even post-Delphi, pretty much every single mention of Pharma comes with some mention of "He was a good doctor for most of his life" or "He was making major headways in research [before he started killing patients]" which implies that even the Autobots themselves see Pharma's villainy as a recent turn in his life compared to how for "most of his life" he "used to be" a good doctor.

And although Pharma doesn't know this, we as the readers (and even other characters like Rung) know about Aequitas technology and the fact that it actually works, so... if Pharma really was an unrepentant murderer, why couldn't he get through the forcefield too? The Aequitas forcefield doesn't require that a person be completely morally pure and free of wrongdoing or else how could Tyrest get through, just that they feel a sense of inner peace and lack feelings of guilt. Pharma has murdered and tortured people by this point, and put on quite a campy and theatrical show of how much he sees it as a fun game, so why then can he not get through?

It circles back to my headcanon at the start of this post that the "mad doctor" persona is just that-- a persona. Delphi/post-Delphi Pharma's laughing madman personality is just so far removed from every flashback we saw of him and everything we can infer based on how other people see/saw him before that, to me, the mad doctor act is (at least in large part, if not fully) a persona that Pharma puts on to put his villainy in the forefront.

To avoid an overly simplistic/ableist take, I don't think Tarn tortured Pharma into turning crazy. To me, it's more like the constant pressure of death by horrific torture, the feeling of martyrdom as Pharma kept secret that he was the only one standing between Delphi and annihilation, the physical isolation of Messatine as well as the emotional separation from Ratchet, being forced to violate his medical oaths (pretty much the only thing Pharma's entire life has been about), etc. All of that combined traumatized Pharma to the point that the only way he could avoid cracking was to just stop caring about all of it. Because at least then, even if he's still murdering patients to save Delphi from a group of sadistic freaks, Pharma doesn't have to feel guilty and sick about doing it. As opposed to the alternatives, which were probably either going off the deep end and killing himself to escape, or confessing to what he did and getting jailed for it.

In that light, Pharma becoming a mad doctor makes sense. It avoids the bad writing tropes of "oh this character who was good his entire life was actually just evil and really good at hiding it" as well as "oh he got tortured and went crazy that's why he's so random and silly and killing people, he's crazy" and instead frames Pharma's evil as something he was forced into, to the point where in order to avoid a full psychological breakdown and keep defending Delphi, he just had to stop caring about the sanctity of life or about what other people might think of him.

Then, of course, the actual Delphi episode happens, and Pharma's own lifelong best friend Ratchet basically spits in his face and sees him as nothing more than a crazy murderer who went rogue from being a good Autobot. Then Pharma gets his hands cut off and left to die on Messatine. At that point, Pharma has not only been mentally/emotionally broken into losing his feelings of compassion, he's received the message loud and clear: He is alone. Everyone hates him. Not even his own best friend likes him any more. No one even cared enough about him to check if he actually died or not. He will only ever be remembered as a doctor who went insane and killed his patients.

So in the light of 1. Having all of your redeeming qualities be squeezed out of you one by one for the sake of survival and 2. Having your reputation and all of your positive relationships be destroyed and 3. People only know/care about you as "that doctor who became evil and killed his patients" rather than the millions of years of good service that came before.

What else is there to do but internalize the fact that you'll forever be seen as a monster and a freak, and embrace it? People already see you as a murderer for that blackmail deal you did, so why not become an actual murderer and just start killing people on a whim? People already see you as an irredeemable monster who puts a stain on the Autobot name, so why beg for their forgiveness when you could just shun them back? You've already become a murderer, a traitor, and a horrible doctor, so what's a few more evil acts added to the pile? It's not like anyone will ever forgive you or love you ever again.

Why care? Why try to hold on to your principles of compassion, kindness, medical ethics, when an entire lifetime of being a good person did nothing to save you from blackmail and then abandonment? Why put yourself through the emotional agony of feeling lonely, guilty, miserable, when you could just... stop caring, and not hurt any more?

He was about to kill you, Lex. Or divulge something you didn't want me to know.

— SMALLVILLE, "Forever" (4.21)

+ bonus from "Arctic" (7.20):

Culture Shock

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hi i think about this way too often for a so-called “functional member of society”

[ID: Screenshot of a chat that says "just leave my queen alone, she's already suffered enough. She wanted a life with her malewife murder monk pilot mechanic racer and you should respect her for that!]

It's Padmé defending's hours for me

I have been seeing more negative (with very weird connotations, tbh) posts about Padmé on my dash lately, and while I'm a firm believer of the "scroll past it" rule, it really irks me a lot because MOST of these takes sound a bit mysoginistic to me and also (to me) shows a lack of trying to understand her as a character, not in a "you don't get her" way, but in a "you don't even try to understand the character and her context in the damn story just because you wanna sound holy than thou" way.

I'm all for accepting takes about Padmé's flaws or having a slightly more privileged/closed view (and that makes sense, she's aristocracy) but these people are SO WEIRD whenever they wanna talk about her 🤨

I'll forever mad that George eliminated SO MANY scenes with Padmé in the movies, but I feel like even if we had those scenes, people's complaints would be exactly the same.

But also i think half of the time people fail at understanding Padmé is because they're also failing to understand Anakin's as a character, idk

The interesting thing about Jiang Cheng is that he refuses to be his mother's golden child to Wei Wuxian's scapegoat; he actively chooses Wei Wuxian again and again. He defends Wei Wuxian from her until she dies. It's unusual.

This doesn't mean that Wei Wuxian's experience was any less fraught--being hated by a caretaker is awful even if everyone else loves you. But it was an interesting choice by MXTX.

I have a few things to say about Fallout (2024).

I know Caesar's Legion gets all the credit on the sickos (complimentary) side of fandom for having insanely homoerotic rituals but oh my god what's this, it's the Brotherhood of Steel with a steel fucking chair

Lucy MacLean has a face that's made for kissing women. why is she not kissing any women, what's going on

the ghoul lore is truly all over the goddamn place. like ok fine I don't hate it. but it's thin at best and if I think about it for longer than 3 seconds I am gonna poke holes in it whether I want to or not

brain on a fucking roomba

again, can we talk about Maximus and that whole "use my cock" business like please explain to me in detail what the actual factual fuck is going on in the BoS. I'm a visual learner btw

Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance Dual Style - Rising Wing

I'm curious.

asking seriously: what is greg’s function in this season? take him out and nothing changes.