#ALL OF THESE THINGS HAPPENED. IN THE CANON TEXT

[piratecaptainscaptainpirates]

Unfortunately I think the root of so much OFMD discourse is that OFMD is a show that is not subtle but also does not talk down to viewers like they're stupid. The show has clear and cohesive themes (what we're taught about being a man is wrong, building queer community, the journey of learning to live authentically, etc.) but it expects you to keep up. This is great and I wish more shows did it. Even though OFMD is about as subtle as a brick through your window, and if it's trying to tell you something you will know, it always feels as if it is engaging in discussion with the viewer and introducing us to its themes, allowing us to put together the pieces as we go rather than holding our hands.

And yeah honestly it feels a lot of the time that people just didn't do that and have been making up their own show instead of engaging with this one lmao. And that's how we still get discourse that, like, gets mad at us for saying Izzy is a side character who had an atagonistic role like that's somehow controversial instead of just. what happened in the show. and people who enjoy the show as written might not want to treat fanon as canon. There is such a thing as actively reading against the text and the problem with all the discourse that remains most persistent in this fandom is that it's always something like "Ed and/or Stede actually suck and are awful" and it doesn't understand it's actively reading against the text with that take. Like yeah every good story has many different interpretations but there is a difference between "interpretation that is actually rooted in what the show is trying to do and say" and "shit you are making up to justify disliking the main characters"

[rockinmusicquarterly]

my voices :> (alt text labels who's who)

long ass design notes under the cut:

smitten

went with a sort of roman poet vibe for him with the sash and wreath, plus a nice cape for the dashing hero look, all pinned with a (unspecified) flower right over his heart

hero

his feather coating is short and rounded, meant to give off the look of puffy sleeves like a medieval prince or bard. his little head tufts are heart-shaped also

his wings are shaped rather elegantly, in an almost stereotypically "angelic" way

my mindset for him was as middle-road as possible: in height, feather length, wing size, color values, etc. truly just The Guy

neck bandana for the adventurer look, and some shoulder pads that, while offering some protection, are overall pretty unqualified for the kinds of horrors to be wrought in the construct; he's prepared, but not that prepared

while the other voices have 2 front-toes, hero is one of three voices who has 3. this is done to show he has more of a... i guess closer connection to TLQ (who also has 3), since he's there from the start and feels the most fleshed out overall

contrarian

the shortest king of them all

definitely aiming for the jester aesthetic, but in what i hoped was a more subtle manner? his head tufts are the general shape of a classic jester's hat, along with all the bells he's adorned with - you can hear him coming from a mile away. wears half of a comedy mask bc (gestures) he's Like That

his wings are tiny and cartoonishly shaped, only able to lift him off the ground out of pure looney tunes physics. his whole thing is just rounded, playful edges

3 front-toes like hero, showing how he grows somewhat out of his titular role in the strange beginnings ending, becoming more of his own person than just a singularly-defined Voice

cold

the tallest king of the bunch

his feather coating is a disaster, this man does not care about preening himself & it shows. lots of loose feathers sticking out and ruffled in every possible spot

the last of the voices with 3 front-toes: the cold seems to have an (albeit implicit) understanding of the TLQ's (and to an extent his own) role as a deity, finding familiarity in the textured nothingness - though, he isn't as "special" as he'd hope

the giant wings give him a more imposing presence despite his twig frame, i imagine him sometimes wrapping himself in them like a big cloak

his scarf is positioned just so to make the scar over his heart (matching the spectre's of course) an open target - as if giving one the invitation to make him feel Something

opportunist

this one was where i wanted to start adding design parallels between the canonical voice "pairings" in the game (consumption & betrayal, pain & unfamiliarity, etc.) so he and the hunted share some design elements

they both have little utility belts, but the opportunist carries on him nothing but a poorly concealed blade - looking out ultimately for himself in the long run

lil braid cause it's cute, and to me has the sort of sleek, tidied-up vibe of someone who wants to come off like he knows exactly what he's doing

i think his wings are on the larger side, but he generally keeps them pinned under his clothes to make himself appear non-threatening

hunted

verrry dirty with lots of loose leaves and branches stuck in his feathers. he can try to wash them out, but they're always back before long. dirt boy (affectionate)

has a utility belt like the opportunist, but he uses it to carry a pouch full of various goodies & medical materials - always trying to look out for everyone else, concerned most with group survival

unlike the opportunist who can pull them out whenever he wants, the hunted's wings are fully pinned beneath his cloak & rendered unusable. something something about how his instinctive fears keep him from reaching his full potential?

(though given what can happen in the den maybe it's best he keep that potential unfulfilled lmao)

digitigrade legs are cool :>

cheated

like the razor, he's all sharp edges and angles. he's covered in jagged scars outlining the general spots where the razor chops TLQ up, along with some other missing chunks around his tufts & limbs

(at first i wanted to have some of them look like autopsy scars, but i couldn't quite get the shape right & it was just too much visual clutter 😔)

covered in bandages similar-looking to the contrarian's wrapping things, though they don't do him much good in the long run

not as short but still short king. free my man he did nothing wrong

stubborn

while the cold is slightly taller than him, he's overall the biggest of the bunch

the only one with pants (skirt) privileges because i know in my heart he's the guy who has to be convinced into wearing a shirt. his is adorned with a few of his own feathers

scarred all over, including his wings which are pretty much broken beyond use from all his fighting. he doesn't care - it seems fairer overall to stay on level ground alongside his opponent(s). unlike the broken's wings, stubborn's are flared out despite their damage - essentially saying, "come at me"

lil ponytail cause it's cute

skeptic

both to match the smitten's general look and to try something a bit different from the classic detective vibes, i went with a sort of vampire hunter look for him? not sure how much sense it makes but i think it looks neat

while the smitten's sash is large and goes right over his heart, the skeptic's utility belt avoids it altogether - skepticism vs blind devotion yadda yadda

always carries the pristine blade in a little holster, since he refuses to let TLQ go on without it in all his main routes

on the taller side compared to the smitten

paranoid

in contrast to the cold's unpreened disheveledness, the paranoid is ridiculously overpreened, giving his feathers a messier, plucked shape

(i wasn't brave enough to draw them but i know in my heart he's got some bald patches)

has a big, splotchy scar over his heart with little blood vessel/nerve lines diverging off of it - his route has TLQ dying of "fright" (something usually associated with a heart attack), compared to the cold just skewering himself

his little cloak-thing is torn to shreds, trying and failing to hide his heart - while the cold leaves his purposefully vulnerable

short(ish) king

broken

my beloved <3

very disheveled, though not as bad as the cold or paranoid. he's generally too miserable to worry about caring for his appearance, but is more open to the effort than the cold (and less neurotic about it than the paranoid)

clipped talons and nails

has a shackle around his neck for the obvious pet/prisoner imagery from his route, and one around his ankle on the opposite side & limb from where the princess is usually chained up

he's scarred up, but in more i guess "deliberate" places than the stubborn. one near his neck reaching to his heart, one winding around his midsection, and one on the back of his knee

his wings are broken & unusable like the stubborn's, also open though in a more subdued manner, showing the openness of his pain & vulnerability

[jackoshadows]

I think you slightly overstate Sansa's looking down on Jon- it's pretty clear in the text they care about one another. (And let's not forget she is 12 when we see them interact)

I mean, prejudice is prejudice. There is no overstating or understating it.

For Jon, as he mentions missing all his siblings the only thing he can highlight for Sansa is that she treated him differently after finding out that he was a bastard. Does that make her evil or imply that Jon hates her? No. He certainly considers her part of his family - as he says he 'even missed Sansa' - but for the most part Jon seems indifferent to her troubles and vice versa and they don't have much of a relationship.

As for Sansa being 11 when the books starts, her younger siblings Arya and Bran are able to look beyond classist prejudice and their mother's dislike of Jon to build a relationship with him. Arya gained the devoted love and loyalty of a brother who ended up dying to save her.

And the fact remains, that Sansa is now 13 and she still holds onto those Westerosi classist ideals. Which was my point in the OP. That even now, she would be horrified if anyone told her that she had to marry a bastard.

Jon mentions her like 5 times in his 42 POV chapters - where she is included along with Arya - and Sansa mentions him like 3 times in AGoT and once in the most recent book. That's about it. Jon never shows up in Sansa's nostalgic memories of home and family and she admits to forgetting about him in AFfC until Myranda Royce brings up his name. And Jon's concern is mostly for Arya, Robb and Bran.

Jon Snow straightened himself and took a long deep breath. Forgive me, Father. Robb, Arya, Bran … forgive me, I cannot help you. He has the truth of it. This is my place. - AGoT

We can see this in the contrast of the heavy emotions that Jon experiences upon hearing about Arya's marriage and his total indifference towards Sansa being forcefully married off to the enemy.

I suppose what I COULD see in canon would be them sticking together because they're too traumatized to live with anyone who isn't a Stark.

This makes no sense. House Stark is nothing special for someone like Jon Snow who experienced isolation and being treated differently so much so that he wanted to leave and join the Night's Watch at 14. Why would Jon - who is traumatized by his bastardy and his childhood of stigma and ostracization want to be with someone who did treat him differently and is a reminder of the person who emotionally abused him?

Jon Snow has loved and lost Ygritte and envisioned a life with Val who is no Stark either. His friends like Sam, Satin, Grenn, Pyp, Toad, Mully, Halder etc are outliers of Westerosi society - again nothing to do with House Stark. Sansa would have nothing in common with Jon's friends (except for maybe Sam) and wouldn't even like them the same way she didn't like Arya's friends.

Again, the only special Stark relationship is Jon and Arya. These two are the only ones I can see as wanting to stick together at the end. Jon literally calls Arya his heart and thinks Arya's home is wherever he is.

But they do love one another, and I hope they get to reunite. And in a world where George's first draft had Ayra falling in love with Jon….. we can't discount any possibilities lol.

In a world where George's first draft had Arya falling in love with Jon, there is the possibility that Arya and Jon ARE STILL falling in love with each other considering that 90% of the story beats from the original outline is still around.

ALL of GRRM's incestual romance in the series happens between very close siblings and if GRRM was to go there then it would be with Jon and Arya - there is certainly the build up for it over 5 books with these two mentioning and missing each other and Jon ending up dead at the end of ADwD to go save her.

GRRM in fact changed the original AFfC/ADwD draft to include more Jon/Arya moments. And where Jon originally was supposed to die in Hardhome while ranging, GRRM changed that to have him break his NW oaths for Arya and then get assassinated by his men for oathbreaking.

The Stark sisters are not interchangeable. Arya and Sansa are totally different characters with different relationships with their siblings. Jon and Arya bonded over being different and kept secrets from Sansa. Arya went to Jon for consolation after getting bullied over her appearance by Jeyne and Sansa. One can't just randomly replace Arya with Sansa in the original outline because one wants Jon and Sansa to get together.

If GRRM was at all interested in Jon and Sansa then HE WOULD WRITE FOR IT. Like he has done for Jon/Arya and Jon/Dany.

If he was going to change Jon/Arya from the original outline for whatever reason - like the loss of the 5 year gap which means Arya, Bran and Sansa are still children - then he would go for Jon/Dany: the more age appropriate romance with parallel arcs and actual foreshadowing and logical plot building and which would make narrative sense.

They are two of my favorite character in the series and all signs point to them walking very different (Separate) paths. But they do love one another, and I hope they get to reunite

They maybe your favorite characters independently but in the series they don't have much to do with each other. Jon doesn't much like the traditional ladies who uphold Westerosi patriarchal ideals and is always looking for an Arya in the women/girls he loves and admires - Ygritte, Alys, random freefolk girls. Sansa in the meantime seems to be imagining kisses with someone like Sandor Clegane. Jon and Sandor couldn't be more different.

If anything it's very possible we will see a Stark civil war type situation in TWoW. GRRM loves to write about dysfunctional families and House Stark is no exception. With a darker, more wolfish resurrected Jon Snow being named KITN by Robb's will - which possibly disinherits Sansa - and Sansa being backed by LF and the Vale we may see some Stark in fighting over Winterfell.

Also this is not an attack on you or anything, but I am baffled that you like Jon Snow and he is your favorite character and you are then sleeping on the Jon/Arya relationship. That's literally Jon Snow's BEST canonical relationship in the books. One of the best platonic relationships in the whole series IMO. Just unconditional love for each other and they would go to the ends of the world for each other.

And then there's Jon/Robb - such a sweet, tragic relationship with Jon nearly abandoning the NW for Robb and Robb defying his mother to name Jon KITN.

And Jon/Bran - Jon's happiness over Bran being alive and twirling Tyrion around the table is such a sweet moment. Jon wanting Tyrion to help Bran in whatever way he can. Bran wanting to name Halys' bastard son Larence Snow the heir to his father because he was reminded of his bastard brother Jon Snow. Bran saving Jon at the Queenscrown.

As a Jon Snow fan, Sansa is way, way down my list of fun, emotionally heavy, important, canonical Jon Snow relationships in the series. GRRM has not written anything for them so they are not really a priority for him either. Fans liking them together and wanting them together does not make it a thing in the books.

Similarly Sansa's best sibling relationships are Bran Stark - who actually shows concern for his sister being a hostage and Sansa shows concern for Bran. And Robb who is so angry at Sansa's forced marriage that he wants to cut off Tyrion's head as compared to Jon's complete indifference and nonchalance about the same marriage.

Sansa has far better canonical relationships in the series than Jon Snow and I will be forever baffled by this need in fandom to see these two get together or unite in favor of their more emotionally heavy relationships in the books.

Like Jon is my favorite character and I have been waiting for him to reunite with Arya since they first parted ways - 'Different roads sometimes lead to the same castle'.

One reason for why I find shipping Jonsa as a canon ship hilarious is that book Sansa would be so horrified if anyone suggested she marry Jon Snow!

And I think it's because Jonsa shippers themselves think differently to book Sansa. They know that Jon is a central character in the series, that he is a decent guy, has some secret parentage issues going on with the possibility of legitimacy, is loyal and forward thinking etc.

However, these matters don't concern book Sansa. She is a Stark - one of the last remaining Starks in Westeros. She is the eldest daughter of house Stark. The eldest daughter of the former Warden of the North and one of the formerly strongest houses of Westeros which still has a lot of loyalty from other Northern houses. She grew up with high expectations for her marriage.

She was formerly destined to be Queen of Westeros by marriage to Joffrey. She was considered for marriage to the Tyrell heir and would have been Lady of Highgarden. She married Tyrion Lannister who is heir to Casterly Rock. She is currently plotting to marry Harry the Heir - future heir to the Vale upon SweetRobin's death.

So as is seen by her as her right, Sansa expects a marriage to a very high born noble. So far all her prospects have been heirs to big houses and kingdoms.

In AGoT she thinks that the Stark Steward's daughter Jeyne Poole - The Pooles possibly being minor lords with a holdfast near Winterfell - was far beneath Lord Beric Dondarrion.

"Lord Beric is as much a hero as Ser Loras. He's ever so brave and gallant." "I suppose," Sansa said doubtfully. Beric Dondarrion was handsome enough, but he was awfully old, almost twenty-two; the Knight of Flowers would have been much better. Of course, Jeyne had been in love with Lord Beric ever since she had first glimpsed him in the lists. Sansa thought she was being silly; Jeyne was only a steward's daughter, after all, and no matter how much she mooned after him, Lord Beric would never look at someone so far beneath him, even if she hadn't been half his age.

For the same reason, Sansa would think that the bastard Jon Snow was beneath someone like Jeyne Poole.

In fact in her most recent sample TWoW chapter we see she doesn't think much of bastards. Five books in, with the very last published chapter, we see her matchmaking for the 19 year old Mya Stone with the much older, very low born, not good looking Lothor Brune because according to her that would be a good match for a bastard...

Alayne wondered what Mya made of Ser Lothor. With his squashed nose, square jaw, and nap of woolly grey hair, Brune could not be called comely, but he was not ugly either. Though he had risen to knighthood, Ser Lothor's birth had been very low. Brune would be a good match for a bastard girl like Mya Stone, she thought. It might be different if her father had acknowledged her, but he never did. And Maddy says that she's no maid either.

Sansa would be utterly shocked if someone suggested she marry loyal, honest, good Lothor Brune. He would be very low born for her. And if Lothor Brune is not good enough for Sansa how would she feel about marrying a baseborn bastard?

As much as Sansa would be joyful to reunite with her last living relative Jon Snow, she would rather match-make Jon Snow with some low born girl, some hedge knight's or freerider's daughter than marry him. And she would still think that a baseborn like Jon Snow would be lucky to marry someone higher up the chain like lowborn girls - the same way she thinks of Mya Stone and Lothor Brune.

Remember, bastards don't have any lands and are stigmatized as less than, being treacherous and lustful by nature of birth. Ned Stark gave Jon Snow no lands, instead packed him off to the Night's Watch.

Remember Alys Karstark dancing with Robb Stark and not Jon Snow because her father took her there to meet with the heir and not the bastard?

Look at Jaime's thoughts about Sybell Spicer:

"Your lord father promised me worthy marriages for Jeyne and her younger sister. Lords or heirs, he swore to me, not younger sons nor household knights." Lords or heirs. To be sure. The Westerlings were an old House, and proud, but Lady Sybell herself had been born a Spicer, from a line of upjumped merchants.

Or Lady Sybell's reaction to betrothing her son to Joy Hill. And this is only house Westerling.

"I have two sons as well," Lady Westerling reminded him. "Rollam is with me, but Raynald was a knight and went with the rebels to the Twins. If I had known what was to happen there, I would never have allowed that." Even from the grave, Lord Tywin's dead hand moves us all. "Joy is my late uncle Gerion's natural daughter. A betrothal can be arranged, if that is your wish, but any marriage will need to wait. Joy was nine or ten when last I saw her." "His natural daughter?" Lady Sybell looked as if she had swallowed a lemon. "You want a Westerling to wed a bastard?"

Also recall that the original arrangement was for two bastards to marry - Joy Hill, Gerion Lannister's bastard, to marry a Frey bastard.

So imagine Sansa's reaction to a suggestion that she marry the bastard Jon Snow... She would think it's a joke and laugh. She would be aghast and horrified. She would be repulsed and see it as punishment.

That's just how the high born Westerosi society thinks. Bastards are seen as the lowest strata. This is how feudal classism works in Westeros.

So unless Sansa gets suddenly and magically enlightened on classist prejudice, then Jonsa is something that is never, ever, ever going to happen. This is not even getting into what Jon Snow thinks and feels about the high born traditional ladies upholding Westerosi patriarchal ideals of femininity.

[vaxxman]

"Do you miss the time when you used to do no harm?"

Old habits.

Merc behaviour is based on a nice little comment @up-in-flames-writing left on one of my comics :)

Rambling and more silly drawings below.

Loosely based on the Solemn Vow's public blurb:

Art lovers will cherish the bust of Hippocrates, commemorating a time when the Medic still thought doing no harm was a good idea.

I am absolutely convinced that Medic carries dextrose drops with him. German pharmacies throw these after you when you buy anything at all. I went to check if this one specific brand I know of had been around since the 60s and 70s and yes, it was.

Small acts of kindness I can see Medic doing is giving everyone one of these if they are tired. I'm talking about Engineer mostly.

Or they snack on them when solving practical problems together, like during the teleporter bread tumor incident.

[apotelesmaa]

> looking for a tenma siblings relationship study

> ask the op if the study is actually about the tenmas or just treating saki like an accessory to tsukasa

> they don’t understand

> pull out an illustrated diagram explaining the difference

> they laugh and say “it’s a good relationship study sir”

> click the post

> it’s treating saki like an accessory to tsukasa

[blue-mood-blue]

What if Hua Cheng had memorialized the temple?

I don’t think he did, canonically. I imagine that was a memory he wasn’t keen to linger on, especially not to such an extent as to record it, to hover over the details in his mind and commit it to physical imagery. But I could see where he might - maybe catharsis, so that night can exist somewhere outside of his head. Maybe twisting, spiteful justice, so the world won’t be allowed to forget what it did to his god. Maybe just desperation, to record every shard of Xie Lian that he has in an effort not to lose a single piece while he searches.

It wouldn’t be graphic; I think it would be something more stylized, more symbolic. Xie Lian is tied to his own altar. He has replaced the divine statue that should be there instead, the god made present the way he was for Hua Cheng once, the way he was for all of his people once. He is surrounded by blades, but they aren’t piercing him yet. Hua Cheng can’t do that to him even in paint. Bai Wuxiang is not featured, because Hua Cheng would not force any version of Xie Lian into that monster’s presence, but there is a ghost fire hovering near. There is a small, crushed flower on the ground at the foot of the altar, like it was dropped from the Flower Crowned Prince’s hand moments before. The entire tableau holds its breath in the anticipation of something horrific.

It’s painted in a shadowed corner, with a cloth hung in front of it. Not out of shame, or even because of Hua Cheng’s own trauma - out of respect for the prince’s privacy, unwillingness to make a moment of such incredible, painful vulnerability a spectacle to anyone else without the prince’s say-so.

That doesn’t stop Mu Qing from finding it.

Mu Qing, who was already horrified, Mu Qing, who was looking for Xie Lian to drag him out of the caves immediately because he’d seen a statue that suggested things he would rather not think about in regards to his former prince… Mu Qing brushes the curtain aside in that tucked-away corner and stops.

A hundred blades are pointed at His Highness. A hundred faces leer and sob and stare. And Xie Lian sits at the center of it all, head lowered, waiting for the slaughter.

Is it so unreasonable that Mu Qing takes it for a threat? Is it so unreasonable of Mu Qing to drag Feng Xin to what he’s found, for the both of them to slip an arm around each of the prince’s own and pull him away from wherever that altar is somewhere in the complicated network of twisted, obscene worship? That thing painted on the wall - it can’t have ever happened. They would know. Mu Qing and Feng Xin, who spent every day of their early lives with the prince, beside the prince, trailing along behind the prince… they would know. They would have been there; they would have prevented it. This is the fantasy of a ghost king who laid ruin to thirty-three heavenly officials and found his thirst still unslaked.

(Mu Qing does not consider the eight hundred years of Xie Lian’s life he knows nothing about. Feng Xin does not consider the eight hundred years of Xie Lian’s life he knows nothing about. It’s a habit they’ve grown skilled at, over eight hundred years.)

They don’t explain to Xie Lian, so Xie Lian has no opportunity to explain to them what they saw. And Mu Qing isn’t wrong, when he concludes that Xie Lian has been stalked and watched and hunted since he was seventeen. He isn’t wrong. He just doesn’t know, yet, what direction the threat is coming from. There’s no time for anyone to tell him, or Feng Xin, who tied the restraints and provided the sword.

They’ll find out. Masks are made to be removed.

[silusvesuius]

my nelvas and moraak thought crumblets

[florida3exclamationpoints]

UH OH 🫣

[roobylavender]

im really sorry if this question ends up being repetitive: but, if not for bruce’s over reliance on dick to regulate his thoughts and emotions, why would dick grow up into feeling like he needs to repress his emotions so much and his eagerness to act as people’s support? i know youve spoken about wolfman and his altering of their relationship but if ntt is generally an accurate portrayal of an adult dick, to me this nevertheless sounds like the consequences a parent-child relationship where the responsibilities are titled too much towards the child

i suppose this could also segue into asking for recs that would help me better understand your interpretation of their relationship 👀

not repetitive at all! to me the irony of wolfman's depiction of dick lies in that it is simultaneously something you can logically ascertain from prior canon but not for the reasons actually presented by wolfman. if that makes sense. he does extra work that isn't actually necessary to help explain why dick would act the way that he does because there's plenty of reasons for it without rewriting his history with bruce to have always been suppressed and edgy and dark. to me it makes far more sense to capitalize on the inevitable disconnect between bruce and dick as an adult and a child. batman: full circle is a good example of that dichotomy (and although it was published in the early 90s it built on mike w. barr's prior understanding of the relationship between dick and bruce that he wrote into the early 80s). bruce's primary concern for the people he works with is never standards or finesse but safety. he worries constantly about others coming to harm under his watch and with a child in particular those worries were exacerbated. he ran a tight ship not because he believed dick had anything to prove but because the only way dick could keep being robin was if he went about it safely. that was obv easy for an adult to understand. but not so much for a child

to bruce these worries were practical and par for the course (as well as an expression of his love and protectiveness) but for dick their consequences formed the crux of his entire world. as a child he idolized everything about bruce. his heroism. his work ethic. his skill. his resolve. his preparedness. if dick couldn't live up to the standard he set for himself in idolizing bruce then what could he ever hope to amount to? that was the thought constantly going through his head. and it's why the bulk of his childhood and primary tenure as bruce's partner was so precariously protected by the fact that nothing bad ever really happened during it (and admittedly this framing is convenient because even chronologically speaking nothing very significant happened in their history with each other until dick left for university in 1969) (i know dixon opted to write that whole shtick with dent in his version of events but personally i never found it necessary to do so). there is enough there in the idea of dick working hard for the course of a decade to embody who he believed bruce to be that lends itself to it eventually being difficult for him to healthily express himself once the rift between them actually began to emerge

because what about bruce was there to actually see that was broken and dark before dick became an adult? i know a lot of dick fans hate batman #408 because they don't like that it enforced "retirement" upon dick (which i personally believe is a conclusion they come to because of the way batman #416 re-framed the same scene) but to me that's an inaccurate reading of the text. batman #408 was about bruce (admittedly far too belatedly) recognizing that he could not in good conscience continue to ask dick to go out and be a vigilante on what he considered to be his own "orders". he viewed dick's close call with death at the hands of the joker as something directly of his own making. although their tenure with each other had been wonderful if dick wanted to continue to be a vigilante it had to be on his own terms and of his own volition. obv that was logical to bruce and it was something dick managed to accept in the moment. but it's still hard to go from always having a purpose alongside someone you idolized to finally being entrusted entirely to forge your own

in general i like the idea of dick the adult becoming privy to all of the personal problems and conflicts that come with being a vigilante. he was conveniently shielded from a lot of those problems as a child because all he had to do was be bruce's partner and hope to live up to the title. bruce had no reason to trauma dump on him or talk about his worries and concerns at length with him because it was never supposed to be dick's job to field those worries and concerns in the first place. he was a child. the only thing bruce wanted to do was to help channel his emotions through an outlet and provide him with a home to grow up in. but when you become an adult often that dynamic shifts. you're still not responsible for fielding those worries and concerns but you can perhaps be trusted with them. that's why i like the framing in batman #408 of dick now being a man. it's a subtle way to frame the double-edged sword of adulthood. the world is in your hands now but so will be the horrors that come with it. coming to terms with the real world that bruce lives in should be hard for dick. coming to terms with who bruce is when he's not perfect should be hard. coming to terms with how quietly bruce kept his grief because he did not see fit to overwhelm a child with it should be hard. that dichotomy of dick both wanting to be bruce's brother and his son should form the crux of their conflict with each other because you can't hope to be someone's equal and someone's protected at the same time in that kind of relationship. for dick to transition into the position of equal he has to expose himself to the fact that bruce is not in fact an idol but someone irrevocably human. and that should interfere significantly with his head and his own standards for himself

[thatbuddie]

there is so so so so so much i want to say but so many people would get pissed off about it and i don’t have the energy to get into the discourse.

[pyr0peyt]

Lil' smoochie :]

[oc-cinematic-universe]

that's right bitches it's time for the daily joe post, i love how much joe is not supposed to be part of this. he's not supposed to have an influence on the plot. the gods themselves don't even consider him to be a factor based on the knowledge they have. and yet !!! he ends up vitally important to the best possible path they all can take. he is not supposed to be this major of an influence, he's literally just some cunt that works here, and then. and then we get to chapter 12 and we get to see another version of him that really proves just how much him being an unknown variable can fuck with things. this other version of him had so much influence over where the story could go, he destroyed the chance at the prophecy ever becoming true and had to be sent to Another Universe just to keep that world safe. THIS GUY. SHOULD NOT HAVE THIS MUCH POWER HERE. but he does, because he was not accounted for. he does because nobody thought he was part of this in a way that mattered. HE didn't even think he was part of this in a way that mattered. he just works here

[scionshtola]

i think i need to write less conversations and more things like cori being in so much pain healing themself that they mess it up. i need to make things happen to them again

[aroaceleovaldez]

okay that is all i can muster for tonight. my insanity will have to wait.

[telvayns]

what’s ur ao3?

you can find me here!

for anyone who didn't know, in a couple days' time i will be posting the first chapter or so from my fitzier pale rider (1985) au, revelation 6:8, for cowboyshowfest!! i'm very happy w/ how it's turned out so i'm really excited to see what people think of it.

you can get a taster for it from the first art i did w/ this au right here!