Not the ask game but I’m curious about your thoughts! In the canceled Bible, Drake’s “ego” would’ve stemmed from his origins as an actor trying to find his big break, as being a bit egotistical is a big part of the OG!Darkwing’s personality/one of his greatest flaws, but I never thought of DT17!Drake as having a big ego at all—he always seemed pretty down to earth, if not a little goofy here and there. In your comics and headcanons, how do you balance those aspects of the character or figure it’d work?
the thing about characters with big egos is that a story has to be about them for you to really feel it. drake was the center of the majority of darkwing duck episodes, but he shared the lead with LP and jim in TDKR, and with LP and gos (and like dewey and huey) in LGD. and was a supporting character in moonvasion and the finale.
it's still there though. he's written as a nicer person for a more emotionally grounded(?) show, but the throughline is more intact than some people give him credit for.
i am the epitome of "he's out of character to YOU. i know him, though." for drake mallard 2017. LONG POST, GO!
i do admit he was kind of taking his normal pills in his debut episode but i almost feel like that was to bury the lede about him being drake. and also to shine more light on the idea of darkwing duck's ability to endure becoming less of a cartoon gag and more of an inspirational ability.
but like "a cut of the toy sales would be nice," "i'm very strong and resilient," "i AM better than gizmoduck," ("the man stepping into your cape" somewhat) etc. TDKR was also half about negaduck's origin story and RIP negaduck never seen again died in the sewers.
in moonvasion, you see more of that ego though. he's been at it for i dunno call it a month and he is already buying his own hype as the terror that flaps in the night. declaring that the invaders will surrender immediately, assuming his image will strike fear into their hearts, reacting genuinely annoyed/sadly when he's ignored or told nobody is scared of him. much like 91 he's engaging in the fantasy of being Not Drake Mallard and the power/lack thereof that comes with that.
similar to darkly dawns, let's get dangerous has him immediately falling for bulba's flattery because it's probably the first time anybody but launchpad or like dewey treated him like a hero. "bulba believes in me! the city needs me!" no tf it does not need you. you didn't do anything. the reason drake would rather not believe gosalyn's story is because bulba was nice to him. it takes launchpad reminding him that he wanted to do all this to make a difference for someone for him to take action.
and later, "another dastardly deviant deposed and defeated etc" buddy you didn't do anything you let him get away. he's more braggadocious in general in LGD. he still takes jabs at gizmoduck (and as usual his hatred for gizmoduck stems from his insecurity as a hero. probably even moreso than in 91 because gizmoduck is a genuinely agreeable guy who's just trying to help out.) and acts very self-important about his work even though it kind of amounted to a cookbook when he was on dewey dew-night.
his ego does cause conflict but again, he's sharing the spotlight with gos and worrying about gos for most of the second half of that episode. (i don't think leaving gos and LP behind to deal with the ramrod alone comes from ego, but from his concern for gosalyn's safety. he probably did expect to be able to take on the fearsome four alone though.)
in escape from the impossibin, he looks at his fucked up face in a little compact mirror and frowns. his vanity <3
in the finale, which i admit i've watched fewer times than TDKR and LGD, darkwing and gizmoduck are playing support to launchpad's story. they are representations of heroes and literally leave him behind several times. he feels like he's holding them back. he feels like he holds everyone back. darkwing and gizmoduck and gosalyn fight steelbeak to protect him. but it's drake saying "i don't need dead weight holding me back." that breaks launchpad's heart. he automatically assumes it's about him, and i know that's more about launchpad than drake.
but drake doesn't immediately jump to reassure LP before being crushed by a giant box because he's spent this entire episode being too absorbed in a one-sided pissing match with gizmoduck to notice that his best friend is going through something.
drake is self-centered. he thinks about others' safety because he can physically act to preserve it but he has trouble conceptualizing their emotions because he is so entrenched in his own. it's only seeing LP physically on the ground saying "i can't do it, i'm not a hero." that tells him launchpad needs support and he's way too late on picking up on that.
got a little carried away at the end there but yeah, i wouldn't necessarily call that part ego but also one of drake's lasting flaws from 91, being that he doesn't notice how others are feeling emotionally until there are physical consequences.
ANYWAY
to answer your question, yeah it's all there. but DWD18 would give drake way more opportunity to be the center of plots so that those things could feature prominently, since it would be about him and two other people for the most part. the way that his ego and self-centeredness affect the people he cares about most.
sorry anon you didn't cause this long post. this is something i think about a lot and i was given the opportunity. i think some people think there's a wide gulf between him and 91 drake, but compared to other reboot characters it's not THAT huge a difference. he just doesn't have many opportunities for the plot to center around his flaws, which exacerbates them.
i'm excited to exacerbate them while writing DWD18. i love making drake mallard make bad decisions.
they DO make him easier to get along with/more sociable, though, which makes sense with his background as an actor. and having only been at the gig for like a year rather than 20 or so before gosalyn and launchpad got to him, it makes sense that he'd act less like a man who lived in an abandoned tower and only came out to fight people for years on end.
I agree. I think the fact that he's so new at this is the big difference. When we first meet him, he's still basically a nobody actor, and I think the ego hasn't really had a chance to come out yet. I see him as someone desperately craving attention and validation, and once he gets it, he can easily get lost in it.
He chose a career as an actor in an attempt to process his own childhood trauma by literally becoming the thing he needed, and projecting that onto what he thinks other kids would need. And yet he's over 30 and still struggling to get into that career and make the impact he wants to make. That's going to cause some insecurities on its own, never mind when you put that much weight on the value of what you're trying to do. It's entirely realistic to me that he would deal with that by developing a bit of ego to counteract that insecurity, and then seeing that ego take off and become maladaptive once he feels he's succeeding as an *actual* superhero. Recognition and success would probably feel so satisfying and cathartic after that long.
I said this a long time ago, but I think Jim/Negaduck represents how the character of Darkwing risks consuming Drake too, if he isn't careful. Unlike 91 Drake though, this time he's an older Millennial, who I like to think has maybe encountered more normalized conversations about self awareness and mental health to keep him a little more grounded.
you'll spend so long in deep discussions of gender online and then go talk to someone in your real life family and find out they still havent gotten past "women can be good at things" and its like oh okay jesus christ i forgot some people are still on the baby steps huh
Ha ha, the authentic "I'LL KILL YOU!!!" energy in Sonic's face is absolutely fantastic, likewise I LOVE the expression of Effort from Sal too; the clutching look of Sonic's arms and the tight grip of Sally's hold also come through in the best way!
I saw this when running newpipe. But wait, it gets deeper. I clicked on the details buttons and it said as of today,we have 83 days left until Google rolld out this new requirement for apps inside and outside of the google play store. If any developer disagrees with their new terms and fees, they will be blocked!
I'll share some of the info below:
Looks like they're trying to nuke the remaining privacy and freedoms we have left on the internet.
What to do?
-Get your developer friends to not comply to their new guides
- Sign the open letter on the site and take action by checking out thwir full resources list on their website as well!
To summarize, this is all daunting especially when you feel all alone with unfair and inhumane regulations comming out faster than improvements ut we got this working together!
Share the link with your friends,family and anyone who will listen!
Your phone is about to stop being yours. In September 2026, Google will block every Android app whose developer hasn't registered with them.
Also, I wanted to add the wikipage and EFF statements about Keep Android Open Org so people can have a better understanding and more resources because I didn't give enough earlier and I will take that critique.
EFF and F-Droid have led 37 organizations in demanding Google rescind its mandatory Android developer registration policy set to take effect
quarterly reminder that if i reblog something ai-generated it is 110% and always an accident and for the love of god please tell me so i can delete it from my blog
Antony Crowley had a bizarre dream; a medley of images that no longer made sense after he woke up. The daily routine quickly pulled him away from the memory of it, but as he was walking home back from the university later that day, he thought of it again. He rarely had such vivid dreams, let alone so fantastical...
Lost in thought, he turned right one street further than his usual route. That's how he spotted the bookshop, really. He stepped in, not thinking much of it, and was greeted by a kind and handsome face.
Funny, that it should happen that way.
It was a nice day.
A piece on destiny, chance and love that transcends universes. If you want more on my process drawing this, pop under the readmore 💗
I'm an absolute sucker for soulmates so good they find each other in every universe.
I really wanted to play with the idea of Aziraphale and Crowley's love being so powerful it imprinted on the new world, the seeds of it lying dormant for millennia until it blooms again.
I also love thinking about how a single choice can change one's life. Had he not taken the next turn right, Crowley would've never met Asa. Now, if one believes in the supernatural, perhaps someone gave him a nudge ;)
Details:
The piece transitions from purples and pinks to earthy tones. I tend to draw the celestials with sort of a soap-bubble/oil slick palette that gives it this ethereal feeling; For Tony and Asa I wanted to move towards earthy tones.
My goal for the dream panel was to make it feel almost like you are in a primordial space: twisting dark scales, suggestions of things, fragments. The essence of an angel and a demon like rich soil for things to grow from.
Had lots of fun drawing this, it was almost meditative.
For anyone looking an explanation of the historical and contemporary tensions between the Black and Asian American community, and how that, too, is structural and fueled to benefit white supremacy. Proximity to Whiteness will never be Whiteness!
Younger people, one thing I want you to understand about Millenials is that, overall, our parents taught their daughters to aim for careers and employment, but they didn't teach their sons to keep house. This causes a whole lot of Situations.
My brothers are my half-brothers; they spent summers and some holidays with us. I love my brothers.
Their mother picked up after them. They were not required to take plates the kitchen or do the dishes or anything like that.
My mother, who would tell you she is for equality, came home one day, sighed at the mess of dirty dishes scattered about, and said, "Gayle, help me pick up."
"Those aren't my dishes," I said. "I picked up my dishes."
My mother sighed again. "Just help me pick up."
"No," I said again. "I didn't make that fucking mess."
She never approached my brothers and said, "Boys, in this house, you take your dishes to the kitchen." She did not tell our dad, "Hey, tell the boys they need to pick up after themselves."
It was, "Gayle, pick up the dishes."
And when I refused because it was not my fucking mess, I got lectured about being difficult.
See also: My brothers--in a classic dick-move of all siblings--figured out they could pop the lock on the bathroom door and throw it open, and I would freak out because I was in the shower and trying to get five fucking minutes of peace.
Guess who got yelled at for being "unreasonable"? Not the boys. Because a lot of moms of millennial boys still said shit like "boys will be boys" when they should have said "Boys, if you got body-slammed on the concrete, I'm not taking you to the hospital."
It was similar for Xers. I spent a lot of time in my 20's teaching romantic partners and friends basic household skills and having to be really hard ass about them carrying their weight.
It is stupid and infuriating and I hate that the "Boy Mom" trend is setting yet another generation up for unfairness and domestic strife.
One time when I was in high school, my mum came home w/ groceries. She needed help bringing all of them in. Did she ask my brother who was already outside playing basketball? No. Did she ask her husband who was sitting on his ass watching TV in the living room? Nope. She walked past both of them, through the house, and into my room where I was doing homework and yelled at me for not immediately coming out to help her.
I have been told that I am "the last of the millennials" or that I'm a "gen zer" or that I'm "on the cusp" by so many different people that I am 100% convinced this is not a generational problem. It is a societal problem. And millennial parents are not immune to raising their kids this way just bc they're younger than x'ers and boomers. Same goes for gen z'ers and every generation after us so long as misogyny remains the bedrock of society that it is.
My parents did a lot to teach my brothers to keep house but the one that sticks with me and drives me a little crazy when it runs up against social expectations is that when we were 13+, everyone was on the dinner rotation. We didn’t have to make anything fancy and we didn’t have to do it alone, but once a week, dinner was our responsibility.
When I tell people this, they always, ALWAYS, assume I have sisters. They say shit like “oh I’d love to do that, but I have boys” and when I tell them I only have brothers, “oh you must have eaten a lot of burned dinners then!”
Like, no. To both of those statements. Sure we burned stuff when we were younger but we all learned to cook before 13, that was just the age where it became a scheduled chore. You know who did burn everything? My MOM. My Boomer dad did all the cooking because my mum didn’t want to and he was the one to help when we needed it, though my mum did help with prep/chopping things.
Fast forward to now, middle brother can make the best risotto I’ve ever had and my youngest brother is vegan and makes almost all his own meals because his partner isn’t and he doesn’t expect her to make two meals so he can eat.
The worst part of this social conditioning is how bullshit it is. I know this is not ingrained, I know people are teaching their sons to be assholes, and I look at my middle brother in his immaculate apartment with tasteful decor that he picked out himself and I look at my youngest brother who does all the clothes shopping for him and his partner because she struggles with it and it makes me want to just start biting people.
Men can be better than this, I GREW UP WITH THEM. I SAW IT. The parenting described above is fucking bullshit and it can be unlearned. My mum’s Russian and my dad’s a Boomer and they unlearned it, which means anybody can.
Folks, if you don't know who Emi Koyama was, you should. Her website (eminism.org, which is a delightful pun) has a ton of her work entirely for free.
You can read the Transfeminist Manifesto in particular here. Emi considered it a historical document and she wrote a very good self-critique in 2008 (included in the document) on the subject of the Manifesto, white feminism, and the lack of inclusion of trans and genderqueer people who aren't trans women. I highly encourage everyone who wants to involve themselves in transfeminism to read her work, not because it is perfect, but because I do think Emi Koyama's Manifesto represents the best intentions for transfeminism: the desire to challenge cissexism, to take activism seriously and compassionately, and a commitment to being open and honest about where we fall short and how we can do better.
I really appreciate this quote from her, which I hadn't seen before, on the subject of feminism needing to "fit in" trans people:
Cis feminists do not own feminism. We don't need to "fit trans people into feminist theory"; we simply need to challenge cissexism in feminist movements and theories. Trans people do not need to be explained by feminist theory; we need to start from the fact that trans people exist and matter.
And it would be a crime to not mention how hard she fought specifically for women of color, to challenge racism and imperialism (white/western and non-white/non-western) in feminist spaces and in general, as well as her intersex activism, and far more. She had such a drive to contribute to, engage with, and push for more and better feminist discourse.
You will be remembered fondly, Emi Koyama. Thank you for all your work and for all your life.
1. The court holds Google responsible for statements made by its AI, considering them Google's statements (search engines have limited liability for results in their engine as they're the words of other sites/companies/people), meaning when their AI lies/hallucinates they're liable for the defamation/harm resulting from those statements.
2. Google's defense that customers are generally aware of the lack of reliability and are responsible for fact checking was dismissed. As the court pointed out, that would "significantly diminish" AI Search's stated purpose and it can't be distinguished from Google's business practices/statements as a search tool.
3. Studies have found about 91% of Google's everyday AI responses are accurate, leaving millions of searches per HOUR with potential liability for falsehoods. 56% of correct responses weren't supported by the sources the AI listed. Both of which mean Google is now liable for a LOT more AI "errors."
4. Google was held liable for 80% of court costs in this case and this precedent is expected to reverberate around the world. This is a massive shift from the 3rd-party search provider role Google has previously played and it comes right as they've tied ALL searches to their AI search.
I'm sorry number two has me cackling. "Customers are generally aware of the lack of reliability" do you know HOW MANY PEOPLE come into my place of work asking if we have a notary and then getting mad when we tell them no. Because we don't, we haven't for over 15 years, and we have no plans to add one to the staff (for lots of reasons not worth getting into here).
But There's another Library with a really similar name to ours, in another state, that does offer a notary.
Once upon a time when pointing that out to patrons they'd still get mad, because you're insinuating that they looked up the wrong website information when obviously they would never make a mistake like that (they would, one time we had to talk a man down who was furious because he'd talked to us on the phone and we told him we had a notary. this did not happen. because we do not have a notary. he called the wrong library).
Now though? Now the google AI has started hallucinating and will tell people that Our Library has a notary, and when people come in asking for things and we tell them no, and they say "oh, well the internet said-" we get to say "the Google AI overview is hallucinating, ma'am." Hilariously, this has actually eased the anger, because now we're not telling them that they looked up the wrong information (which people still do, for the record), it's Google Itself that is misleading them.
TL;DR? No, ask anyone who works with the public and they'll tell you the same. Customers can't tell that the overviews are flawed/incomplete, and it's causing real problems all the time.
The rule could have heavy impacts towards trans people across society.
Last week, the Trump administration quietly released a sweeping new federal rule that would use funding threats to force institutions across the country to reject transgender people. The 400-page proposed regulation would codify the administration's anti-trans executive orders into binding federal policy, imposing a blanket prohibition on federal funds going toward "gender ideology"
The proposed rule, formally titled "Regulation for Federal Financial Assistance," rewrites the government-wide framework governing all federal grants across every agency. Among its most consequential provisions, it requires that before a federal grant recipient can receive money, the award must pass a "pre-issuance review" conducted by a political appointee—not a career expert or peer reviewer—to ensure it is "consistent with applicable law, Federal agency priorities, and the national interest." The regulation explicitly instructs these appointees to screen for "denial by the recipient of the sex binary in humans or the notion that sex is a chosen or mutable characteristic." [...] An institution that acknowledges transgender people exist—through its policies, its training, its healthcare, its bathroom access, its HR procedures, its name-change processes—could be deemed to "deny the sex binary" or to “support the notion that sex is mutable” and have its federal funding blocked.
Importantly, the gender ideology prohibition has no age limitation—hospitals could be targeted not just for providing care to minors but for providing gender-affirming care to adults, because prescribing hormone therapy to a transgender patient of any age could be deemed promoting the belief that "sex is a chosen or mutable characteristic."
This is all very bad and horrible, but I want to be clear that it’s worse and more sweeping than just eliminating trans research.
This torches everything. And I do mean everything.
A very abbreviated list of its ramifications include (but are not limited to):
ending funding for ALL DEI related initiatives
allowing the government to terminate grants at any point for any reason
preventing researchers from publishing, going to conferences, and being part of academic societies
requiring that topics must support the president’s agenda.
What this means, and if anything I’m under selling it, is the death of science and research in America. It allows the government to restrict any topic they please at a whims notice, putting officials who have no background in the topic in charge of deciding funding continuity. It controls what gets researched and if/how researchers are allowed to share their discoveries. There are no books to burn if the government never allows them to be written. This is fascism plain and simple.
Please, if you only ever write one public comment, this is the one to do.
Bringing back this guide to writing an effective public comment. This gives you the basics you need to know, what you need to include, a basic outline you can follow, etc.
Public comments are not a vote, it is a chance for you to say "here is an issue with this law I think you need to address" and provide justification for legal challenges if it goes forward:
"Comments raise the bar that agencies have to meet when making a rule; “if an agency fails to adequately respond to significant, relevant comments in a final rule, members of the public may seek to challenge the rule in court on that basis and claim it could be struck down.ˮ"
But also, if possible, don't stop at writing a comment. Don't stop at calling your representatives. You should ideally be talking to people in your community about this and organizing resistance on-the-ground; there is a good chance people are already doing that even if you aren't hearing about it.
