#LOVE EACH OTHER SO BAD. KNOW THEIR LEGACIES ARE CONNECTED IN THIS WAY AND TAKE IT SO SERIOUSLY.

[3416]

everyone on twitter making me so emotional this morning.....

and they're absolutely correct 😭

[just-a-ghost00]

You through their eyes

This reading is written in first person / from the POV of the person you’re enquiring about. I tried to keep the text as neutral as possible so that anyone could relate to it. This can apply to any type of romantic connection, whether you are in contact with this person or not. It can be a past person or a future person.

Group 1 - Deer

Cards : 4 of wands, King of pentacles, 9 of pentacles, ace of wands, 2 of swords, 6 of swords

Right from the moment our eyes met, I knew. I knew that you had my heart wrapped around your finger. I knew that you were the one. As soon as I saw you, I felt the urge to ask for your hand. To claim you as my forever person. My ride or die. I knew that I wanted to have a home with you. That I wanted to build a legacy with you. I knew that you were the one. That you had it all. The good looks, the brains, the strength to keep up with me through thick and thin. I knew that I couldn’t get rid of you even if I wanted to. That no matter how hard I’d try I could never forget you nor get you out of my system. You were just engraved in me like a tattoo on my skin meant to remind me of my truth : that I was meant to be yours just as much as you were meant to be mine. That true love is real and is in the shape of you. I knew that I had to have you right away. And by God did I want you. I craved you more than I could ever fathom and it scared me. I never wanted anyone so bad. The reactions you birthed in me my love, were so sweet and addictive I feared I couldn’t hold myself back if I were to cross the line. I didn’t want you to hate me. It’s just visceral. The way you get me. The way you come under my skin and tease me. The way you look at me with those innocent eyes of yours. Those beautiful orbs that I drowned myself in. How your lips tremble at the vulnerability of your unexpressed emotions. How your tongue slips through your lips when you get nervous. How soft your tone is whenever you are around me. God, you make me crazy. Right from the start I was stuck in a dilemma. Fighting with my head and my heart, trying to figure out which way to go, what the hell to do to get to you without hurting nor scaring you. How to live on knowing that I couldn’t have you. Knowing that I would have to stay away from you. The moment our gazes embraced each other, you had my fate in your hands and my heart held hostage. And I wouldn’t have had it any other way. I tried to move on and shield both of us from the hurt this could provoke. But being away from you is nearly impossible. You’re as essential to me as the air I breathe. Every minute I am reminded of you. When I met you, I knew I had to do right by you or you wouldn’t let me in. It was obvious that you were well educated and mature enough to cut me off if I ever tried anything you deemed as wrong. It was obvious that you didn’t need me and were doing very well on your own. That you could have anything and anyone you wanted at the snap of your fingers. But I just couldn’t ignore you. Something about you called to me and made me want to pursue you like no other, no matter how you could have perceived me, no matter if people thought I was a fool. I wanted to take the risk and chase you because a part of me was convinced I would never get the chance to see you again if I didn’t.

Confirmation signs : Taurus, Aries, Gemini, rainbows, important bodies of water such as rivers and seas, long distance connections, feeling like you’re the yin to the other’s yang, number 14, Sagittarius, Jupiter, travels, sunsets and sunrises ✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨

Group 2 Tree

Cards : ace of pentacles, tower, 10 of cups, 6 of cups, knight of cups, king of swords

You came into my life at the perfect timing. Like a breath of fresh air in the middle of a storm I didn’t realise I was stuck in until you arrived. And boy did you make some noise. You were like thunder. I was immediately electrified. You uprooted everything and anything I thought I knew. You completely changed the course of my life and to this days I still believe that is for the better. Ever since I met you I have never felt so happy and fulfilled. My life feels like a dream. You were so beautiful and pure it was impossible not to love you. You took my hand ever so gently, offered your help and guidance without expecting anything in return. You kept giving and giving, surrounding me with your warm and loving embrace I just felt so good. You are an angel, a miracle that I still can’t believe I met. I feel so lucky to have you by my side love. So happy. My love for you was already strong and kept growing as I got to know you. I was in awe with your soft demeanour, your tender touch, your caring approach and empathy for others. You were like royalty. So radiant and calm that for a mere second I thought I was in Heaven. Such a wonderful being like you surely cannot be real, I thought. But you are as real as the coin in my pocket and I was the one lucky enough to have you in my life. Can you believe that? To me you were like a life line. I didn’t know I was drowning until you took my hand and pulled me out of the mess I was in. I don’t know how you did it nor how you saw so clearly what I couldn’t but I am so grateful you did. Never once did you judge me nor hurt me. Never once did you question me nor doubt my essence. You kept supporting me and loving me even at my worst. When I couldn’t give you what you wanted you looked for it out on your own and patiently waited for me to catch up. When my heart was guarded and in pain, you cautiously weaved your way through the cracks of my armour and helped me heal. You soothed my fears and mended my wounds with such grace and humbleness that I fell in love harder than before. Your tender heart got the best of my reserved nature. The more time goes by and the more I think God sent you to lift me up. You are Heavensent. You are my other half the one I’ve been missing for so long. With you by my side I feel at peace, finally. I fell in love with your romantic side and your pure good willed heart. With your little dances whenever you’re happy and how you hum to our favorite songs to make yourself comfortable. How you bake in the kitchen with that little smile on your face, thinking I don’t see you. How you so effortlessly get me every time, even though I try my best to shut you out. You never give up on me though I am hard on you sometimes.

Confirmation signs : water signs especially Scorpio, letter K, meeting by the river, love at first sight, believing in soulmates, late night conversations, spiritual ramblings, water lilies and butterflies

✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨

Group 3 - Daisies

Cards : The World, 7 of swords, 7 of cups, page of wands, 4 of wands, Death

You were so different than me that at first I felt like we were miles away from each other and had nothing in common. You seemed like the world was laying at your feet yet you wanted none of it. You seemed dangerous and so bad for my health and peace of mind. Yet, I couldn’t help but feel drawn to you. You were so mysterious, so intense that I had to dig further, dive deeper. You were so intriguing and in your presence it felt like the world was opening before me and my options were suddenly much better. I felt braver, more optimistic, successful. It felt like with you by my side I could conquer the world. You were so smooth, so supportive. So sensual and strong I felt so little next to you. There was a depth to you I couldn’t explain. An air of someone that was wiser than what they let on. Someone that had been through hell and rose out of it without a scratch. You were so precious and powerful. I had to have you. I thought my minds were playing tricks on me when you told me “I love you”. I didn’t think someone like you would want someone like me. I felt like a scam. However you didn’t seem to care. You kept moving on expecting for me to follow you and I did. You never once looked back because you knew. You knew I wouldn’t let you down. It’s like you could predict my every move and saw right through me. I was mesmerised by you. Bewitched. I felt like a clown but I couldn’t help but to love the feeling. You made me want to be more and expand in ways I never thought possible. You triggered a passion I didn’t know I possessed. Suddenly I was getting jealous imagining that someone else could have you and that made me furious. I would have done anything for you. I still would. God you make me crazy with how much I want you. I desired you so strongly I thought I was possessed. At some point I even thought you were manipulating me. I felt trapped and like I had no other option but to be yours. And then I gave in and realised there was no point in fighting this feeling. The more I fought and tried to repress my desire the harder I fell. You were so beau and I felt like a frog trying to hang out with a Queen. I felt so ridiculous. But in my heart I knew that I would spend the rest of my life with you, until my last breath. Because at the end of the day, that’s what I wanted and I wouldn’t have it any other way. I would chase you around the Earth if I had to if that meant being by your side. You are my muse.

Confirmation signs : fixed signs especially Scorpio, number 7, letter S, song All of me, cultural differences, beauty and the beast trope, red roses, ennemies to lovers trope

[macabrecabra]

Did art fight and saw so many pokemon OCs...and realized for how much I LOVE pokemon, never had any of my own really...so I made some. Then I wrote a story. Then I built a whole worldsetting.

So enjoy the "End of the Line" pokemon setting that is now born... starting with my favorite trio of ghost pokemon! The Silph bros are known more publicly in connection to the powerful Silph Corporation, but also operate a powerful black market mafia under the table.

More under the tab if you are interested in my character ramblings!

GEN SILPH (Gengar) He is all about image. In the public eye, he is a well liked, always smiling, corporate prodigy and the face of Silph Co. Well respected and always known for handling PR and all the social trappings of an elite status well. Behind closed doors though, he is also running an extensive mafia operation with his fingers on the pulse of Saffron-Lavender City. He may seem nice and upbeat, but when he is ticked, he can show a very cold, very calculative, and very sadistic side as he is not above getting his hands dirty if people are messing up on the perfect persona he controls. Not a pokemon to cross as he will smile and shake your hand while having a gun behind his back. There are very few whom he trusts, as he is known to let his paranoia sometimes get the best of him when it feels like the control he's carefully built into an empire seems threatened even a little bit. Every move is calculated. Every chaos a delicate pull of the strings. Just remember to always trust in Silph Co for your every need!

Design Note: All the Silph bros wear suits because they are classy, but each has a design. For Gen, I was all corporate. Sleek cut, formfitting, Dark colors, and of course, classy tie. The kind of guy without a hair out of place. Also glasses felt fitting for someone that probably has to squint at computers...also makes him look more smart. GHAST SILPH (Ghastly)

The youngest brother of the Silph brothers, Ghast is a bit goofy and doesn't really tend to take things too seriously, but also never one to disappoint his older brothers whom he adores. He really wants to live up to expectations and has since stepped up to being the main leader of the mafia, second only to Gen, but really he just does what Gen says and doesn't ask questions. He really just wants to make his brothers proud, and feels the pressure to live up to Hauts' legacy.

Ghast can come off as dismissive towards others at times, but it comes from his desire to appear just as strong as his brothers when it comes to the dealings of the world. They are super besties with their personal gang of "bad brats" as he calls them, sometimes to the point of trying to step in and keep them out of trouble.

Should be note that Ghast is transgender. What their deadname is, no one knows. They don't much care for being misgendered as there has, and always has been, three Silph brothers, and don't you forget it!

Design Note: I felt that Ghast was the flashy type with bright eyesore suits and sort of a lounge lizard, impractical sort of suit, hence no pockets to be found. The single button suit felt more like going to a party than corporate, which fit Ghast more in my head. Also had to give Ghast unruly hair to mimic the gas around Ghastly.... Ghast's wears a hat to try and control it.

HAUTS SILPH (Haunter) (Alsos one of the main characters of the story!)

There was no doubt that Hauts was how made the Nightshade Mafia a force to be reckoned with. He was smart like his older brother, but also wasn't afraid to be reckless and unrelenting when it came to his goals. He was the muscle that could get any job done, one way or another. Known as a wildcard, laid-back, unpredictable, yet suave, Hauts was a criminal prince and was an important part of keeping the Nightshade Mafia running well....most of the time. His recklessness and disregard for Gen's orders often put him at odds with his brothers.

Hauts felt it more a difference of opinion, but nothing too crazy as at the end of the day, he cared very deeply about his brothers and everything he did would never put everything in danger. Gen didn't see it that way and shot his brother with intent to murder and remove something that was starting to make him paranoid about his control of things.

By all accounts, Hauts should be dead, face blasted open and body dumped in the woods, but he was found by a local pikachu from a nearby village and managed to find his health again. He's hung up his old life though, not interested in revenge, not interested in going back into that world. His guns are hung up to live a peaceful life as a bartender in Veridian Village, at least, until life comes knocking and he might have to pick up his old life again... Design notes: He is very much looking to copy the style of a 1920's ganster, hence the older style to his suit and wears an open jacket to match his more laid-back attitude. Also was one to always make sure you knew he was armed when in company. His hat was fun as it is clear it is blown off and there history and sentiment to it. He's had that torn up hat a long time and is intent on keeping it that way.

[phoenixkaptain]

I just want to say that the repeated mentions of Tim being like Bruce - Dick telling Tim that “you’re more like Bruce than I ever was” and even things as small as the other members of Young Justice assuming that Batman is literally Robin’s dad - mean so much to me because like-

Tim is so similar to Bruce. They are both rich kids, only childs, people like them but they never let anyone truly know them. Tim’s deductive ability is so often likened to Bruce’s, and even his combat prowess or leadership skills are more often compared to Bruce’s than Jason’s or Dick’s. Despite being Robin, and the third one at that, Tim really takes being the Batman of the group to an entirely new level with just how much he really is like Batman.

And that’s why they work so well together! Tim and Bruce are so similar, but they’re fundamentally different! Bruce is afraid to get hurt again, afraid to feel connections to other people, afraid of revealing his emotional vulnerability. Tim is afraid of disappointing people, afraid to fail to rise to the standards other people set for him, afraid of revealing that he isn’t as calm as he appears on the outside. Bruce and Tim both begin fighting crime out of love, a love so strong that it would lead either of them to give up their lives for that love, but Bruce does so out of a love for Gotham City and his parents and the legacy they represent to him while Tim does so out of a love for Gotham City and Robin and Batman.

Their partnership is built on their similarities, but it’s improved by their differences. Tim is softer than Bruce. He wants to trust people, he doesn’t enjoy making lists of ways to kill all of his friends. He tries to talk, to draw things out, to banter, while Bruce is more straightforward. Which, honestly, being more subtle than Bruce is a talent in its own right, ngl

Tim is described a lot as the perfect Robin. And, I can’t help but feel like yeah, he is. The writers really made this character perfect for Bruce specifically. Tim is a person who understands what Bruce wants him to do, even if he doesn’t always understand why. Tim cares about Bruce, both Bruce Wayne and Batman, and that care knocks down a lot of Bruce’s walls. Tim wants to fight crime with his friends and enjoy himself, but he also has his main goal which is to protect Bruce, especially from Bruce himself.

And it’s a two-way street. Bruce knows Tim so well. Like, I can’t even begin to describe how well Bruce can read Tim. He can tell that Tim’s care is sincere, and he wants to reciprocate that care. He trusts Tim, on such a deep, foundational level, and he trusts that if Tim lies to him, then Tim has a balid reason for doing so. He’s protective of Tim, even more than Tim is protective of him (for obvious reasons), but he’s also proud of Tim. He’s proud of how Tim can work with people and how Tim can handle his own and how Tim can solve cases.

Bruce and Tim are such a dynamic duo, literally. The understanding they have of each other is amazing. The trust they have in each other. The care. Bruce treats Tim like his son, and Tim honestly treats Bruce like his dad, even while Tim’s birth dad is still alive. These two are great together, they work so well together, they fit each other almost perfectly because Tim was literally made to be perfectly suited for Batman.

And, of course, there is an obsession there. Tim’s obsession with Batman runs deep. He would almost certainly make a great Batman, no matter how you look at it, because he has moments where he reaches that ability to be threatening. Of the times I know that he played Batman, he didn’t do a bad job. He’s intimidating and frightening and he manages to have his cape pulled around himself so he’s just a shape, just like Bruce does, and that’s mostly because he also literally does that same thing as Robin. Tim prefers to be Robin, because he prefers to be partnered with someone else.

(To be completely honest, I think Tim’s first choice of who he would want to be paired with at any given moment is almost certainly Dick. Dude loves that guy. I haven’t seen if Batman Dick and Robin Tim interact in those respective roles, but Tim is almost equally made to be Nightwing’s Robin. Bruce is his second choice though, definitely.)

I have to assume the obsession goes both ways, because the story is a lot more interesting if it does. Bruce is protective of Tim, even as he trusts Tim with the fate of the entire planet. His protectiveness of Tim is funny, actually, because he doesn’t mind Tim fighting gods but he does mind Tim showing the other members of Young Justice his face. (I mean, I get that one of the members is named Impulse, but Bart himself said that Batman gave him that name, so I feel like Bruce bringing it up as a detractor is just a bit hypocritical)

All the times we see Batman with Tim in the Young Justice run, Batman is pretty chill. Like, during the Sins of Youth storyline, when Bruce is Robin and Tim is Batman, Bruce seems totally cool with it. He doesn’t seem worried about Tim messing up. His comments on Tim talking to much read more to me as banter than actual criticisms. Bruce trusts Tim to be Batman, and I find that both sweet and a bit funny for a variety of reasons.

We see Batman get mad when Arrowette says the Justice League doesn’t understand any of the Young Justice members, although even then he just glares at her, he doesn’t say anything. Bruce is like “Yes, I know I don’t understand the majority of human interaction, what of it?” Batman doesn’t say much during that whole comic, actually? Like, he shows up with the rest of the Justice League and he taunts Tim (literally like someone taunting a child pfft) but he doesn’t actually seem to think they won’t pull through? He makes a quip about them being late getting back, but it doesn’t go anywhere, it was him teasing Robin, why was he even here?

(I like to think he kind of hoped Young Justice would disban so he could take Tim back. He obviously wants Tim around, he implies as much in the World Without Grownups arc, and he obviously enjoys Tim’s company, he seems to genuinely enjoy fighting crime with Tim, even when their roles are switched, and he lets Tim talk to Oracle all the time (he definitely could have cut that connection off if he really wanted to make it difficult for Tim during that whole bet thing) Like, Bruce believes that Tim is capable, I think he’s like Wonder Woman and thinks that the others (coughImpulseandSuperboycough) are bad influences. He is taking his boy wonder and leaving to get him good influences, like Nightwi- oh, wait, no, yeah, let’s let him hang out with Impulse and Superboy-)

This turned into a ramble about Young Justice, but I can’t help it!!! I really, REALLY wish that Batman had gone to the parent-teacher conference. Like, Nightwing showing up was wonderful on so many levels, but can you imagine?? Batman?? Dealing with Bonnie King-Jones??? Like, I think if he ever met her he would break the no-killing rule, full-stop, no hesitation. I want to know how the parent-teacher conference would have gone if Batman was there. I think it would have been mostly awkward silence while Batman lurked in the shadows and Red Tornado didn’t understand why everyone was so nervous, like, it’s just talking about what time he should feed their kids, why are you guys sweating-?

I love Tim and Bruce’s relationship. They’re so codependent. I don’t know if Bruce could ever not hold the next Robins up to Tim’s standard. Like, Damian trying to kill Tim makes a lot of sense if you look at it as Damian viewing the situation as “there only needs to be one Robin, and if there is a Tim to be compared to, I will lose.” Dick and Jason were great as Robin, but neither of them were Robin during the period of time in the nineties and early 2000s where Batman got a lot edgier and needed an edgier boy to be Robin. Dick was perfect for the 50s through to at least the 70s, and Jason was probably just fine too (still haven’t read Jason comics hrnng) but Tim fits Bruce perfectly because he was made for the more modern vision of Batman as a character.

Tim is a dweeb and a nerd, just like Dick before him, do not think that he isn’t, but he really works as a balance for Bruce. He was introduced to be that equilibrium, and he fulfills that role.

Tim and Bruce work so well together because they’re just on slightly different sides of a spectrum. They’re so close to being too similar, but they’re dissimilar enough that reading their dynamic is engaging and interesting. Tim really just is the Robin I understand people mistaking for Bruce’s blood kid, y’know? Before Damian, I mean. I feel like the Justice League members met Tim and went “whoa, shit, Batman knocked someone up, holy-“ The Young Justice members continuously genuinelybelieve that Batman is Robin’s dad (which makes it a lot funnier, because if he was Tim’s dad, Tim would essentially be saying: “my dad made me do this and won’t let me do this and to make things worse, my DAD moved us out!” Like, why would he just randomly mention who the subject of the conversation was again at such a pointed time? I understand that Superboy and Bart were not paying attention to him, but it’s just really funny to think that Tim would talk in such a strange way?) I like to think that Dick does not help matters, and instead goes out of his way to worsen them, because Dick is always the one telling Tim that he’s doing great and that he’s so similar to Bruce (he means it as a compliment, like Tim isn’t making the mistakes he thinks he’s making because he, just like Batman, just is unlikely to make mistakes) so I think Dick definitely tells his friends that Robin is Batman’s kid because it’s funny-

And this has gone from rambling about Young Justice to writing fanfiction mid-post, I should really stop while I’m ahead.

All in all, to sum it up, TLDR: Tim was made to be the best Robin specifically for Bruce as Batman. That’s why they work in harmony, but are ultimately entirely different instruments.

[briarmoon1015]

I think I’ve already confessed that I’m not a big birdflash fan, but there is something I really gotta point out because it’s bothering me.

I see a lot of people use specific comic panels to try and show how close these two characters are, but completely miss the whole point of the comic itself.

For example, I’ve seen a lot of people use panels from The Flash 1987 210, in which Wally reflects on his relationship with dick.

The problem with this is they are literally cutting out the next part of the page that explains that they have drifted apart

Wally is extremely different from dick, and once he takes up the flash mantle, it becomes clear that these two characters are on different paths. Wally wants to uphold the legacy of the flash, dick desperately wants to escape the legacy of Batman. Wally has a wife, three children, and a stable job. Dicks life changes at a moments notice, one minute he’s broke, one minute he’s rich, sometimes he has a job as a police officer, sometimes he’s dating one of his many red headed girlfriends, he’s the opposite of stable.

And that’s not to say the different characters can’t be friends or be together, but as this same comic shows, these two often struggle to understand one another once adults

Wally, after zoom caused his wife Linda to have a miscarriage, went to Hal as the spectre for help, which no one liked, including Dick. He is somewhat miffed Wally didn’t come to him, be he also sides with Bruce about how reckless and stupid the action was

He definitely empathizes with Wally’s situation, but he’s not really there to give support. Later on, dick does start to get the point, and the two take down gorilla grod. Dick apologies for his actions and both agree to stay in touch more. Obviously every good friendship is going to have some moments of tension and disagreement, but I think this really shows why Wally and Dick fell apart as adults.

And this really is the crux of why I’m personally not a big fan or birdflash. These two characters are inherently different and it’s so rare for me to see any birdflash content that acknowledges this. They can be together in a way that acknowledges and builds off of this, but it really hasn’t been done.

More importantly, I’ve noticed that to make burdflash work, a lot of fans completely erase Wally’s character to ignore these differences. His own goals, his own backstory, his own relationships, are just gone so he can be with dick. There is never any acknowledgment of the canon of Wally’s own motivations, such as living up to the flash mantle, or any mention of his connections to characters outside of Dick.

Even more so, I think erasing the presence of his wife and kids from his life so he can be with dick is really hard on the character. Linda is so essential in Wally’s life. She is the character in which speedsters learn the importance of having a lightning rod. She is the one to often push Wally to keep going. His kids redefined his life. He literally broke the source wall in order to keep them in his life. These are essential relationships that are just erased from Wally’s life.

As someone who truly prefers Wally over Dick, it hurts to see a potentially good pairing erase the good aspects of Wally like this. There is plenty of erasure done to other dc characters because of how popular the Bats are, and this ship, at least to me, is one of the worst examples. These characters are different, and often times it makes it hard for them to understand each other. Ignoring that issue doesn’t make the ship good in my eyes.

Anyways, I really don’t want to poop on birdflash as a whole. It is by no means a bad ship, I personally just don’t really like it. It has a lot of qualities that bother me. Despite all of this though, I do love seeing people’s art of it and I actually do think it can work a bit better when they are young and apart of the teen titans. I also know as a halbarry shipper I’m throwing rocks in a glass house lmao. But please ship what you like, I really don’t care, I just needed to shout into the void about my feelings around it :)

[sepublic]

I wonder what made Terra not suspect Darius as a double agent; Did Raine just stand out as a bad actor, and Eberwolf could’ve gone either way? Or was there something to Darius in particular that made him seem loyal?

Darius has no qualms expressing his opinion, even if or esp if it’s displeasure, and he doesn’t seem to care much for what others think about him for it. For Terra, this could easily be misconstrued as Darius wearing his heart on his sleeve, and thus being obvious; If he has second thoughts, he’ll say them aloud. But she doesn’t consider that this type of independent thinking is exactly the kind that would question the regime, and underestimates that Darius IS aware of how others perceive him; Him dismissing their opinions doesn’t mean he’s oblivious to them.

I also wonder if it has anything to do with the prior Golden Guard being his mentor; If Darius’ fierce loyalty towards his mentor’s memory, something he measures Hunter up against openly, made him seem like a loyalist to Terra. She might’ve worked with him, but she didn’t know the real Golden Guard like Darius did, and thus didn’t realize how he would actually want his memory honored, unlike his apprentice. There’s some potential nuance to that relationship; Perhaps the Golden Guard had his own second thoughts he passed onto Darius, or taught him to think independently.

Given Belos’ claim about how some, if not all of the Grimwalkers ‘betray’ him, it makes me wonder if Darius was the previous one’s Evelyn; Not in a romantic way, but in the sense that he was a witch he befriended, someone outside of an oppressive environment. And because of that care, he made the decision to defy Belos to some degree; Could’ve been open rebellion or something as little as recognizing there’s a better life and wanting that. Or just wanting better for Darius.

And that’s the parallel continued between Darius and Hunter, because they’re both successors to the previous Golden Guard in some way… And they defy the coven for someone else. Likewise, Darius and Hunter both had someone who took care of them, who they lost; And then comes someone similar that they choose to cultivate in return, to repay the favor and give tribute. Grimwalkers are endangered, as were Palismen, by the same threat, and the remainders are guarded by whoever followed the Golden Guard.

GG’s tutelage of Darius also reminds me of how Amity and others were tutored by Lilith. If that’s what the head of the Emperor’s Coven does, the Golden Guard must’ve preceded her and might’ve done the same; Or not, because isolation might’ve been emphasized after so many Grimwalkers’ rebellions (whereas with Lilith, it’s a way to keep her distracted and busy while others do field work). Darius might’ve also been a star student like Amity, so there’s a connection to another Blight.

Did he notice that? See Alador and Odalia’s kid, following the same path of falling for the coven? Did he suspect abuse just from how Alador and Odalia fell out with him, or did Darius presume they wouldn’t go that far; Did he feel sympathy for Amity? She’s being encouraged by another friend of his own to aid the regime, who felt the same.

Darius and Amity are both prized Abomination students mentored by the head of the Emperor’s Coven; With how Darius takes his mentor’s role and legacy seriously, did it offend him on an additional level to see Lilith fail Amity? Or would he have not even noticed the Covention incident? How did Darius think about Lilith leaving behind her sister? How did he think of Eda staying out of the coven, if we consider the timeline of when he had his doubts?

Did Darius find comfort in seeing Lilith and Raine with him, only for the former to rebuke an attempt at reconnecting because of her own issue and insecurity? The coven heads love backstabbing each other, it’d be hard to prove he’s an exception. Likewise, Darius might’ve entertained rebellious thoughts for a while and seen Lilith as a liability.

So until Eda’s Requiem, until Raine became a coven head and thus got to interact with Darius at the castle, his only friend would’ve been Eberwolf… And if we look at the ~30 year timeline, Darius could’ve known them longer than any of his childhood friends and even the Golden Guard; Perhaps his longest-standing, most consistent friend!

When the rebellion got together, did it heal the wounds of his heart to see his friends slowly come back together; And by the epilogue, they all have! Except Odalia, who Darius was closer to alongside Alador… She may have burned that bridge anyway, but it might’ve hurt Darius to see her still remain that way.

The old Hexside friend group all lost each other; For Darius, he was particularly close to Alador and Odalia, only to be split off. He had the Golden Guard, and lost him as well; Is it any wonder he holds who he has left so dearly? He’s a pragmatist compared to Raine’s comparatively hotheaded idealism, but Darius’ emotions tend to leak through. His heart always betrays himself, thinking about helping Hunter, or surrendering when Eberwolf was on the line. And that makes sense, Darius feels strongly; He lets his opinion known but that especially includes his love.

[thoughtfulchaos773]

Syd and Carmy- Communication 3

Part one Part two

First off. This scene was written by Chris Storer and directed by Joana Calo, our favorite duo (the creators of the table scene). Calo and Storer: do me a favor if the ship isn't real, don't even add shit like that in a scene...you know what I'm talking about. Don't have it where Carmy is taking her in and appreciating what the fuck he's seeing. And Carmy, the loser- notices Sydney as soon as she tries to sneak in. He doesn't even finish saying the word 'exactly' to Marcus before his eyes take her in.

But wait, this conversation is about legacy and how something starts somewhere, and they take these parts and take them somewhere- over and over again. I love that he points out these people would find each other.

Like a family tree.

Carmy and Sydney combine families to create a wholeness- something that's good.

Sydney starting a new legacy! My Shipper Heart: In some meta, Sydney often connected symbolism of life, fertility, rebirth, and nurturing. Chris Storer, these two are made for fanfiction, not a dish- a heart-shaped dish that Carmy just happens to give her- and this beautiful tree above her head- a symbolism for the tree he wants to build starts with the girl who ate his signature dish where he took the rebellion against abuse, rejection and sent a string of fate to start a legacy. What are you doing to me? Carmy literally presents his heart to Sydney.

Okay back to the scene:

He takes in Sydney and tells her "good morning," as if inviting her in. She comes from a meeting with Shapiro that should feel like good news, but she seems burdened. Since she first met with Shapiro, she enters, seeming distant but polite.

He says "no, no" as if to say, "Don't be ridiculous. You never interrupt." He's the one who invited her into the office.

He takes a moment to pause after saying "no," whispers "no," and looks at her...

Also, to note, he's coming from Al-Anon this morning. He has a clearer perspective than the last 7 episodes of that season. 'You look nice'—so simple but as the season's theme. Paying attention, Carmy sees her every day or close to it, and it's Carmy noticing something is different. Could it also be Carmy prompting her to say where she's been? There's room for that conversation.

But Sydney passes it quickly with a quick "Oh, thanks." A little surprised and also not having time for it right now. She focuses on their conversation- which could be a foreshadowing of what Carmy will do in the end.

I pointed this out before- Wednesday reference- 3x04- another episode Storer wrote.

Flashback

Carmy and Sydney are having the same day of the week they are trying to get through? The same day used to track time?

Excuse me-Writer/Director Chris--

But I'll move on...

You know what else I noticed about this scene- Carmy was staring at her the whole time as she took off her bow and said I'm just trying to get through Wednesday. He takes a second when she asks him his answer for legacy.

This is probably the most self-aware Carmy has been- does he realize he's passing panic and anxiety on to Sydney? Probably not yet at this point.

But also how Sydney is always the one to stop his anxiety and panic-driven ways, but for her to set a boundary where she's not his babysitter, eventually, he has to do the work to stop himself from panicking. But it's another sign of a legacy starting with them.

He looks at her a bit more than Marcus. He says with everything and everybody- he has to be square with Claire and Chef David. He needs to let go of the bad things from his past and the abuse he has held on to for so long.

The camera remains on Sydney as she considers his answer to legacy. She nods with understanding, unspoken communication we talked about- Carmy knows what he has to do. He wants to rid himself of the bad but needs help (therapy), so he's not taking it out on Sydney or any of his staff. How will he care for himself, love, and be there for Sydney? One of their relationship's central conflicts is Carmy showing up, the right way for Sydney to start their legacy and filter out the bad things he's carried onto The Bear.

I think that part of the conversation was considering Sydney, filtering out the bad to make it good.

It's still possible for Sydney to start and keep her legacy at The Bear. At the end of season 3, the panic attack is her realizing she doesn't want to leave.

Sidebar: Marcus. Marcus. His legacy-because being an awesome emergency contact is a bittersweet answer- shows some guilt about not picking up the call about his mom...

Grief. Grief is always the theme that sticks with the show. Despite its lingering presence, let's hope for more good days to outweigh the bad. Let's hope the Bear ends with a good legacy.

[completeoveranalysis]

[2]

NEW FAVOURITE COVER?

NEW FAVOURITE COVER!

Chapitre 201 - The Truth from within the Ruins

Oh this is just beyond gorgeous. Who can stand against the pure concentrated adorable that is Tsubasa Babies Family Photo? Now with all four of them!

I’m in love with all the tiny details that they clearly spent so long on - all the lovely folds of Sakura’s dress, the intricate detailing on Fai’s robe and staff. Lava Lamp is in his ceremonial garb, and tiny Kurogane IN HIS FANCY LITTLE OUTFIT. (AND HIS POSTURE? GET OUT. Incredible)

 Kurogane doesn’t have Ginryuu yet (since this is Happy Childhood AU, so his father will still have it. Still has the moon though!) but Lava Lamp has the Syaoran Family Sword all ready to go. His outfit would be incomplete without it - they’re all wearing clothing from their home worlds, or maybe their families? I’m technically not sure which world Lava Lamp comes from, but his outfit is Family Legacy all the way down. I’m dying to know if Fai’s outfit is in the style of Seresu or Valeria - I don’t think they’re all that different, but I think I would put my money on Valeria based on the position of the fur and the curl motif. In which case it’s fun for me that his Happy Family AU is in Valeria instead of with Ashura. (sorry not sorry Ashura get fucked)

I suppose in this version he never had reason to leave Valeria in the first place, so it’s a very nice touch that the outfit doesn’t immediately resemble the clothing he wore in his backstory, since that’s all so closely linked to the death of his twin, who would be alive here. Very nice visual choices all around, especially with each of them in their own unique colour pallette. Oh, and even with the colour differences they all have bits of yellow somewhere on them, showing their connection.

The left/right split between them is really fun too - sword wielders on one side, phenomenally powerful magic users on the other, cats vs dogs, unique child/parent pairings, etc. It’s very funny to me that they found a super fancy chair for Sakura and a cushion for Kurogane, but nothing for the other two. But Fai draping himself over the chair is such an incredible piece of character flair, which I am in love with, but also, the TOUCH? The little touch of tiny hands? Sakura reaching back to put her hand on the back of Fai’s? Tiny Lava Lamp’s little grip on Kurogane’s arm? OH it’s so touching. 

And behind them all? THAT WINDOW. Such a clear symbol positioned directly in the centre frame. At first I thought it might be an eye, but this is Happy Family AU so there should be no Evil Wolverine to spy on them. What I’m voting on instead is CLAMP playing with Tarot symbols again and this being the Wheel of Fortune, or a similar idea of a wheel of destiny. They use the latter idea a lot in their earlier works (RG Veda and X/1999 say hi), but I think the tarot symbol in particular really shines through with the ideas they’re playing with in Tsubasa/xxxHolic, and has a very strong parallel to the idea of hitsuzen. 

After some much safer googling it looks like the “Wheel of Fortune” in Tarot can mean change or cycles or inevitable fate, but on the flipside could also be lacking control. I think the reversed meaning of the card really speaks to me the most about their situation in general, as it describes bad luck and misfortunes thrust upon you from external forces, that you are fighting to take control back from an unwinnable situation. That fighting it is impossible, that continuing to fight it can only bring more suffering, and that the only option is to let it go. To stop blaming yourself for the thing you did wrong, or the thing that you think was your fault. To forgive yourself, to accept it all, to let yourself move on, to accept that change is inevitable, and to finally be able to move forward and just let everything happen. 

Because if that’s not exactly the whole situation we are in I don’t know what is. It’s a mirror for the things that Fai and Kurogane have already been through, and for what Lava Lamp Guy is still currently fighting, and CLAMP love to do drop these symbols all the time. 

And this is a bit of a tangent but who’s gonna stop me? Clamp LOVE their tragic destiny pairs, especially in their early works - the couples deeply love but also cursed by fate, like Kendappa and Souma, Ashura and Yasha (flavoured differently in RG Veda, but still fitting this cycle again in Tsubasa), Subaru and Seishirou, Sorata and Arashi (unfinished), Kamui and Fuuma, etc. The characters who are so different from each other, so diametrically opposed, but in love still, and it burns so strong that they either have to kill each other or let the world burn around them - or both! They’re always fighting destiny, just like the reversed wheel of fortune, and they fight it to the point of obliteration. 

AND THEN we have Tsubasa, and I think it’s so endlessly interesting that they took the same pattern and turned it around. Syaoran and Sakura definitely fit the theme (and wild that they took the Cardcaptor Sakura happy couple deliberately to make the most universe shattering tragedy out of it, but I still haven’t seen how their story ends, whether one will have to tragically die to save everything or whether they’ll get out somehow). But what I mostly want to talk about (surprise surprise) Kurogane and Fai, who fit the pattern exactly. Complete opposites, diametrically opposed, set up as antagonists and destined to kill each other but fall in love instead. That they both fight against the tragic pasts that defined them and eventually change their mind. Eventually, slowly, they accept love again and realise that they can actually live with themselves and each other if they let it all go. 

And I think what really gets me is that if this was an earlier Clamp work they absolutely would have tragically died - they would have killed each other in the climax of Seresu and it would have been beautiful and terrible and no-one ever would have ever emotionally recovered from the complete and utter devastation. 

BUT THEY DIDN’T. 

CLAMP spend all of Tsubasa revisiting all their old works, taking us through a parade of the various tragedies they’ve sung across the years, all leading up to them ultimately breaking their own pattern and letting Fai and Kurogane save each other from the same Clamp fate that claimed every tragic pair before them. They choose each other and get out alive. They stop blaming themselves for the unchangeable parts of destiny and finally forgive themselves. And it’s just very emotional to me that it’s these two that make it, these two that get to recover and choose each other and live their lives inseparable from this point on. The two that had arguably the most tragic backstories also get to face their trauma, survive, and live. 

And it’s just so beautiful to see how the CLAMP storytelling method has changed over the years, and to find out that after all these years, the big destiny story they really wanted to tell in their longest and most detailed work was about the two men who fell in love, against all odds and saved each other. Despite absolutely everything saying that it should be impossible, it’s Kurogane and Fai that finally flip the tarot card back around and live. 

And I’m extremely interested in what this means for Lava Lamp and Not!Sakura.

[whywoulditho]

I'm glad, that DC writers are changing constantly and therefore the characters are protected from the Bat-family. The Bats are the cancer of DC comics. There wouln't be any independant characters anymore if they could gez their grubby hands on the other DC families

That's another way to look at it.. I agree that they're trying a bit too hard to connect every character to the bats' storyline. so you might have a point there. maybe it would create more bad than good if they let batfam authors interfere with the other storylines... but i still wouldn't call the bats the cancer of DC. I think if you took the bats out of DC, it would lose like half of its charm and quality.

with all that being said though, i still think the biggest problem of DC romances (or comic book romance in general) lies in each run having separate authors. think about why harley x ivy worked. it's because both of those characters already existed before they got together. both of them were loved villains and later anti-heroes, they both have their own story, their own past and their own redemption arcs. they're both INTERESTING. and when DC made the risky choice of making them a couple, it worked.

i'm not saying it would work with any other characters, or that they should make all their major characters date each other. but if you want to explore romance in your comics you have to give the readers an actual relationship, involving two realistically written and interesting people. not a major character and their accessory love interest. that's my issue with tim x bernard, or jon x jay. no one will get attached to, or even invested in, these relationships because we don't know anything about the love interests. they're just some random people. even if you try to give them personalities they will still not have a story outside of their relationship with the major character. bernard and jay were only created so tim and jon would have someone to kiss. it's hard to care about them, and therefore their relationship. they're just boring romance side plots.

you can introduce a character with the sole purpose of making them a couple with one of your major characters and still make it work, like batman and catwoman. you can create chemistry with a new character just as well as you can with already existing ones. but i think we need more of the first option. less last minute love interests and more people falling in love. i think what makes DC special is that they show us so many different versions of their major characters, we get to see them grow and change (take notes, marvel) so it wouldn't be off-brand to see already existing major characters, like superboy and robin, ending up together. not when it's DC. to be honest i think it would be like super iconic of them to do that. and i also think that DC fans would much rather have their favorite characters end up with the kind of person they went through hell and back with instead of like, a random citizen. tim and kon have so many parallels. they're both people who didn't have to be heroes at all, but still chose to do it. they both struggle with carrying a mantle too big and the fact that they were not chosen for it makes them even more insecure. they also have a past together, they're close friends, they would take a bullet for each other. so much potential. dont even get me started on damian and jon. those two are like, literal mirrors of their fathers. they have huge legacies on their shoulders and they're like quite literally the only people that could understand one another. again, so. much. potential. i'm not saying they have to be together, but if DC was gonna write romance for these characters I wish it could have been with each other.

[astroprompts]

✧ —𝐁𝐎𝐉𝐀𝐂𝐊 𝐇𝐎𝐑𝐒𝐄𝐌𝐀𝐍 𝐃𝐈𝐀𝐋𝐎𝐆𝐔𝐄 𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐌𝐏𝐓𝐒 [𝐒𝐄𝐀𝐒𝐎𝐍 𝟑]

“Darling, you're doing marvelously, I am so proud of you.”

“Just write a script for me, so I don't have to think for myself.”

“You better not have gotten your failure stink all over my important movie star clothes.”

“That is going to lead to some wackiness. You mark my words.”

“Hey, champ, I have a very important job for you.”

“Why does everything I love fall apart as soon as I touch it?”

“What legacy of ruin am I left with? What rewards have I reaped for the damage done?”

“You look different. Older. A lot older.”

“I'm not interested in being rebirthed. I'm still recovering from being birthed the first time.”

“I want to do things that connect with people, things that last.”

“If I'm going to sacrifice my journalistic integrity, it's because I'm having sex with a movie star.”

“How do you make something right when you've made it so wrong you can never go back?”

“Thanks a lot. Once again, you've been no help whatsoever.”

“What, you're just gonna stay at home and get drunk all day?”

“Let's get wrecked and get Shreked.”

“You're bright and you're funny and you're handsome and you're talented. But if you can't see that, then you're the biggest, dumbest piece of shit in the world.”

“If you get scared, look for me in the audience. I'll be there the whole time, laughing and cheering louder than anyone.”

“Thirty years I threw into this job, and it destroyed me from the inside out.”

“A lot of guys in your position wouldn't take gigs like this. They'd be afraid people would make fun of them.”

“If you care about what other people think, you're never gonna do anything.”

“Put the corpse on ice, I'm on my way.”

“I'm not avoiding you. I'm just making an effort to not be in a room alone with you because I am... Avoiding you.”

“You know, I think we're alike in a lot of ways. Sometimes that's great, but it also means we can bring out the worst in each other.”

“I just think maybe it's better, for both of us, if we keep things a little more professional.”

“It smells like a skunk skunked another skunk in here, then they smoked a joint. What happened?”

“Sometimes you need to take responsibility for your own happiness.”

“It takes a long time to realize how truly miserable you are, even longer to see it doesn't have to be that way.”

“I haven't seen you since high school. You look great!”

“My dumb best friend's getting married, so I'm here for the rehearsal dinner.”

“Boring regular people love it when movie stars show up and drink their alcohol.”

“This is not the time for one of your weird stories that go nowhere.”

“If you're lucky enough to find someone you can halfway tolerate, sink your nails in and don't let go, no matter what.”

“One day, you're gonna look around and you're going to realize that everybody loves you, but nobody likes you. And that is the loneliest feeling in the world.”

“I would seriously like to know what crawled up your butt, made a home for itself in your butt, started a family, lived a fruitful life, and then died up your butt.”

“When you do bad things, you have something you can point to when people eventually leave you. It's not you, you tell yourself, it's that bad thing you did.”

“Listen, I've been with guys like you before, and I know this thing works better if we keep a little distance.”

“It's so sad that when you see someone as they really are, it ruins them.”

“You're sweet. You shouldn't waste that on people who don't deserve it.”

“Are you sure this whole thing isn't just a semi-lucid fever dream from mixing the wrong pills?”

“It's so cruel to let people love you. All you're doing is promising you'll one day break their hearts.”

“We don't really have the kind of relationship where we talk about things.”

“Just because you have a shitty relationship with your family doesn't mean every other family has to have drama too.”

“Ugh! Why did I get my hopes up? Why do I keep letting you get my hopes up?”

“Do a girl a favor, don't break her heart by inches. Do it all at once. It'll save everyone some time.”

“Should we get dinner, or are you just thinking drinks?”

“Good luck finding another charming first-generation Italian immigrant with this kind of darling accent, who makes equally delightful malapropisms!”

“Is there a single woman you've worked with who you haven't tried to groggily thrust yourself into?”

“You're such a self-pitying masochist, I could say ten nice things and one mean thing, you would only hear the one mean thing.”

“Did you ever love me? At all?”

“You know that I don't do the whole love thing. Either you end up hurting someone or they hurt you. So, what's the point?”

“I do love you, by the way. I mean, as much as I'm capable of loving anyone.”

“I assure you the animated GIFs with which I describe this encounter shall be scathing!”

“You can't keep doing shitty things, and then feel bad about yourself like that makes it okay!”

“You are all the things that are wrong with you. It's not the alcohol, or the drugs, or any of the shitty things that happened to you in your career, or when you were a kid. It's you.”

“Your skin is so soft, it's like you murdered a baby and stole its skin. Your skin is murdered-baby soft.”

“Let's get higher than a stilt walker's dick!”

“If you have to listen to losers talk about their shitty sober lives, it's a lot more fun to be buzzed.”

“You're going to want to rush in there and do whatever you can to save them, but you have to stop yourself, because there are some people you can't save. 'Cause those people will thrash and struggle and try to take you down with them.”

“I always forget that there are more than just the six stars you can see in the Los Angeles sky.”

“In the great grand scheme of things, we're just tiny specks that will one day be forgotten.”

“The only thing that matters is right now, this moment. This one spectacular moment we are sharing together.”

“I'm poison. I come from poison. I have poison inside me, and I destroy everything I touch.”

“I have nothing to show for the life that I've lived, and I have nobody in my life who's better off for having known me.”

“What's your deal? I feel like you like me, but you don't like me, but you like me, and I don't know what that is.”

“Are you gay? You can tell me if you're gay, it's fine. This isn't the 1600s, or some places in the present.”

“I'm not gay. I mean, I don't think I am, but... I don't think I'm straight, either.”

[thunder-jolt]

These are the two and only digital artworks I have for my Legacy of Kain OC, Alycian. Though I might make more art of her in the future, we'll have to see how I might go.

To those in the Legacy of Kain fandom and in general, I'm sure I mentioned her to someone when "The Dead Shall Rise" was revealed, but basically, let me just dump her lore real quick.

ALYCIAN'S LORE:

Daughter of the vampire lord, Kain, and a human woman named Elizan, Alycian is a young wanderer of the now barren Nosgoth, she carries many secrets on her shoulders like how she carries many things on her back.

How she came to be is something saved for some other time, but to put it in a nutshell:

"Elizan unknowingly enters the palace, where Kain is, in hopes of shelter, while warming her hands by a fireplace (strange, I know, but it's for the aesthetics), she encounters Kain, who initially hostile at her, drawing his blade at her. Elizan begged Kain for her to stay, stating that all she just wanted was a place to live after wandering for so long. Kain, taking slight pity for the woman, lets her live and lets her stay at the palace, living together but not having any attraction yet. Then, the two became close, before falling in love (well, if we were to put it that way), and soon had Alycian! Kain's first daughter and blood-related child!"

Her relationships with other characters, overall, are either her having a relatively healthy relationship, or someone just having a one-sided beef with her, either because of her connection with Kain, or because. Such as her relationships with her relatives; her relationship with Kain is like any other father-daughter relationship, a daughter who thrives in knowledge and adventure, and her proud father.

In her relationship with Raziel, at the start, Raziel just finds her annoying, with her following him around Nosgoth and telling him things he already knows about, but didn't bother doing anything as there's no other way to get rid of her, at least, anything that doesn't involve killing or eating her soul.

But as time goes on, the two would sympathize with each other, about how Nosgoth wasn't as great as it was before, or how it was never great in the first place, which evolved from Raziel thinking Alycian as an annoyance to being like a protective brother to her. Funnily enough, when it's revealed that she and Kain are related, not only does it shock Raziel that he was friends with Kain's daughter for all this time, but also shocked that she is, technically, his sister, the only sister he could've had.

= = = =

At first glance, she seems like an ordinary human girl, a simple, thin, boring human girl, and might also be considered annoying to some, especially when she talks to someone about a fairytale or about Nosgoth's secrets, but deep down, she's a sweet girl who wants to learn and connect with other people. She's not as bloodthirsty as her father (she doesn't even drink blood due to her human DNA, evident when she tried drinking a goblet of blood, only to spit it out after the attempt because of how bad the taste of blood is), nor as "justice-driven" (or so to say) as Raziel, she's herself, half-human half-vampire, yes, but still herself.

And, spoilers, she sacrificed herself not only for Nosgoth's sake but also for her family's sake, to protect her father, Kain, and her adopted brother, Raziel. (She isn't as selfish as her father, she's selfless.) But she did come back to play a big role in my Tomb Raider x Legacy of Kain crossover, but that's a whole other can of worms.

Anyways! I hope you like her! She might be Mary Sue-ish to some, but unlike most Mary Sues, she has flaws, such as being annoying without intending to, not having any battle prowess in a world that is "Fight or Be Forgotten", etc.

But that's on me, this is purely self-indulgent, so yeah.

[missmaywemeetagain]

you mentioned you love june and i'm curious how you feel about the other women in elvis' life? do you like priscilla and the relationship she had with him? and anita? linda? sheila? ginger?

Hello, dearest Nonnie! What a question! I think it's safe to give a huge disclaimer here that I am jealous of any woman who was loved by Elvis (lol), but for some reason, inexplicable or not, I find some of them delightful while others just rub me the wrong way. I will also say I can only imagine how insanely complicated, wonderful, and frustrating a relationship with that man could be and that all these women probably just did their best in the moment. My personal opinion is just that and is mainly based on my own ✨vibes.✨

And yes, it's no secret June is my favorite! I love her tenacity and spunk, how she didn't take a lot of shit, and while it breaks my heart, I respect the hell outta her for sticking to her values and letting him go when Elvis was being a dick and ignored her for months. Her book is beautifully written and such a great glimpse into a pivotal time in his life.

I also really like Kathy Westmoreland. I think spiritually and musically they connected on a wonderful level, and even though their affair didn't last super long, she was in his life longer than most women as a friend/colleague, and there is something telling and lovely about that. She was loyal to him until the very end and long after.

Shelia seems lovely and gave us some of the juiciest tidbits about him, and I'll always love her for that! 🤭 Their relationship was interesting, especially concerning how he seemed to play her against Linda and she didn't really give a care. I get the impression she just went with the flow, they enjoyed each other's company, and she knew it wasn't going to be long term. I like her.

Now the others...now keep in mind this is just my personal opinion, and I know others feel differently and that is totally fine! I'm not looking to war with anyone LOL.

Linda drives me bonkers as a person. Maybe it's the whole "beauty queen" mentality or her attitude on social media, but the woman is just not for me. Reading her book did give me more insight, and I really do think she and Elvis loved each other and that she was there for him during some really difficult times. But I just don't like her and hate how she seems to capitalize on her relationship with him to this day in a very "me me me!" manner. She's my least fave of them all.

In a similar matter, I find his relationship with Priscilla very complicated and her relationship to his legacy even more so. I don't fall staunchly into either the "hate" or "love" camps for her, but do take everything she says or does related to him with a grain of salt because she seems to drift back and forth in her stories in a way that suits her in the moment. I don't love how she constantly seems to ride the coattails of his legacy. I hate that she was so young when they met and how he seemed to be okay with that (but that's another discussion entirely), and I think her youth plays a huge role in why the relationship played out the way it did. While I think they had love for each other, I feel like that love was based on idealized images of the other and what they wanted them to be vs. who they really were. I'm sure I could wax on and on about them but I'm not going to do that here. I don't love her, and I don't hate her totally, either. But I one hundred percent don't buy the weird Camelot-esque picture Graceland, EPE, and she tries to sell about their relationship a lot of the time.

Now Ginger...poor Ginger gets a bad rap and don't think she deserves it in the least. There is no scenario in my mind where I think she could've "saved" him and I don't feel she was negligent or conspiratorial in any way. However, I do think she was young and in way over her head. She wanted to maintain some semblance of her normal life and Elvis was just not having that, and it caused some major dissonance. He was very much not in a good space and she got swept up in the madness. The stuff with her parents and the money is a bit suspicious, but I don't necessarily think that was on Ginger. I think she loved him (though maybe not quite the way he loved her?) and I absolutely feel devastated for her that she was the one who found him. Talk about traumatic. I also respect the hell out of her for waiting until her children were grown to write her book and that she is a defender of him and Lisa to this day.

I don't know a ton about Anita (I haven't read her book yet), but the vibe of them together just feels weird to me. I feel like he really led her on and get the impression he had a sort of idealized version of this "pretty little Southern Belle wife" that his mama approved of and then mama died and he went into the army and he clung to that image like crazy. Not to say they didn't love each other! But the chemistry doesn't quite hit for me and I think it got pretty toxic. (And I've listened to that recorded call between them too many times and her voice annoys me LOL.) But she put up with a LOT of shit (I mean they all did, tbh...). I'm a bit amazed she stuck it out as long as she did.

Of course, there are so many other women who were in his life and it would be a novel to talk about them all! One thing I always try to remind myself is all of them seemed to really love him and he cared about them, too, and no one can take that away from them. So even if I don't personally like some of them, they were still a fixture in his life and it matters. My opinion, in the scheme of things, means nothing! I also don't love ragging on women, especially when at the end of the day, I know nothing about what truly went on between those two people in their relationship. And god knows that man could be difficult, so I try not to fault any of them for his sometimes very shitty behavior.

Anyway, thank you for the question, Non, and I hope my answer wasn't too rambly! 💋 I do miss doing these asks!

[euryleli]

I love reading fanfics that don't rely solely on byler interactions.

There's nothing wrong with focusing on mike and will and their dynamic, but I wish we got more byler fics that HEAVYLY feature the party.

Mike and will have lives outside of their relationship. Their bond with dustin, lucas, max and el is not less important just because it's platonic. So let me see them interacting with their best friends, the ones who would do the impossible to keep their party safe and sound, who would be so supportive and so so happy for mike and will.

They're. Best. Friends.

So let me see it. Show will and lucas confide in each other, lessening their burdens and talking through their problems. Show me how much lucas, the boy who risked venturing alone in the woods, in a lab full of the "bad guys", cares about will byers. Show me will being there for lucas, taking care of him when he can't bring himself to get up from max's bedside and rest. And show me mike and lucas actually talking and solving their issues from s4, let mike apologize for missing lucas game, the one that mattered. And let mike have his breakdown for lucas to pick him up.

Show me mike and dustin navigating through their grief, let them cry for eddie and carry his legacy onwards. And for god's sake show me will and dustin, standing side by side ready to carry on to another fight. Show me how much will loves dustin and how much they missed being around each other, because the party needed will in Hawkins and will really needed a trademark dustin hug!

Show me mike and max and their silly little bickering! They love each other and everyone knows that insults and half hearted jabs are just their love language!! Show me how much seeing max in that hospital bed fucked mike wheeler over, let him read to her when lucas can't bring himself to do it, when his voice fails him, let mike help her when she wakes up and has to do copious amounts of physiotherapy, when she wakes up and hates the way everyone treats her like shes made of glass and mike is always there to be a bitch to her - which is their normal. They understand each other, being so similar and all so they call each other out on their bullshit. And please I BEG YOU show me madwise bonding over their shared ud trauma, their complicated family dynamics and let them see how similar (despite their obvious differences) they are. Show me will, max and el being a menace of a trio, let them have sleepovers. Show me will drawing max just like he remembers her - so full of life and movement and color with her fiery red hair and attitude. And show me him finding her again and being a key to get her back from wtv hellscape dimension she went. Let them make jokes at their own expense, use dark humor to cope with the horrors while simultaneously terrorizing everyone with their awful no good actually horrifying jokes - they still think they're hilarious, even though mike and lucas say otherwise.

And finally, show me willel - the wonder twins! - being family, because they're bonded by something much more powerful than blood. Show me the silly little things they did to pass time during their 6 months in California and how will and el went from being strangers with a connection to the ud to no one even questioning their sibling status because after the initial strain, it comes naturally to them. Show me will being the older brother that jonathan was to him, show me willel dancing and singing to 80s pop music, show me one of them having trouble sleeping and the other being there to keep them company - because there's no one else in the world that can understand them better then the other, even with the different circumstances. Let me see el and will help each other through their lonely days in California, let them be each other's anchor.

And let mike and el be friends!!!!! Mike was el's first real friend and that's fucking important too! It's everything! They care so much and it pains me to see fics where after the breakup, mike and el basically don't interact as if mike wheeler didn't love her - just because it's not romantic doesn't mean it's less real.

The kids and their friendship are such an integral part of the show and even then - for plot reasons - the party spends most of it's on screen time fragmented. In s1 we're missing will, s2 it's eleven alone, byler as a duo and henclair + max, s3 is missing dustin and s4 is the same as s2. Still, they're best friends, all of them.

I'm just sad we don't really see them all, I guess. I just want a +100k fic that delves deeply into byler but also everyone in the party because I love them so much and they deserve the world!!

[wordsandrobots]

Had a pretty bad day so I'm going to boast about something.

I didn't mention it at the time but posting Chapter 14 of Ragnarök in G Minor on Friday took it past the previous high bar for individual Wishing on Space Hardware fic-length set by The Ares Affair (72,872 words vs 69,850). And this latest story isn't even halfway done. That'll come next week, and take the total word count for the series over 550,000 words.

(I'm hoping to land at about 555,000 because who wouldn't?)

Which is nice, and a good reminder of why, exactly, it took me half a year longer than expected to get Ragnarök finished. Because that did kind of disappoint me, but looking at it like this, it makes sense. There was a *lot* to get through to tie the overarching story together and give everybody some sort of key moment. My problem with writing fic for Iron-Blooded Orphans is that I want to write about ALL of it, and every single character, so it was probably inevitable that it wouldn't conclude with anything less then a doorstop of a fic.

Chapter 14 also marked the end of the character arc I started with the first IBO fic I wrote and I want to write a brief commentary on that. I'm planning a proper 'author's note' essay when the whole series is done, but this . . . this is something more specific.

(Behind a cut because it is talking about endgame stuff for Wishing on Space Hardware, which is already a post-canon fic for Iron-Blooded Orphans, so, yeah. Take heed and beware ye spoilers.)

I can't remember when exactly I decided one of the climaxes was going to be a three-way fight between fun-house mirror versions of the Devil of Tekkadan. Like much of WoSH, it fell out of the ever-expanding churn of ideas IBO left me with. But it's an obvious thing to do: take the legacy of the anime's protagonists and fracture it against itself for the sake of drama. Because whatever else, we are talking about a group of deeply traumatised child soldiers and there remains the potential for a lot of bad things to follow the hopeful ending of the show.

Embi is all the worst parts of Tekkadan. Violent, arrogant, selfish, reckless -- he's the vessel into whom I poured all that and more, to the point of having him actively reject the better parts. Heart-sickened by the death of his brother, the bonds of comradeship fray until he can't stand the sight of his former squad-mates, much less the miraculous returnee from the dead who catalyses the events of WoSH. At the same time, he can't stay at his worst. He struggles with new connections because they threaten to pull him from his grief. He doesn't want to move on. Embi roots himself in an old dream of being like Mikazuki, in the life of a mercenary soldier. Fighting is all he knows and beyond it lies the terrifying prospect of hope and trying. He'd have much preferred to burn up over Mars. At least that would have been a safely familiar ending.

Ordsley suffers the myth of Tekkadan, transformed by people who saw what a group of Martian children 'achieved' and wanted to surpass them. Yet the curse inflicted on him -- for he is of course a werewolf, turning with the influence of the crescent moon -- is to become unwilling legatee of Mikazuki's reality: the beast and the boy, the contradictory dreams of someone trapped by a system that sees people as raw material. For the smart young man at home on the proper side of history, it's a hell of a shock to reckon with the humanity of those condemned for their rebellion. Here, finally joining the survivors on the battlefield they once called home, the pieces click, for at least a moment. There are no easy answers in a world that offers children a choice between killing and starvation, but perhaps in the middle of the fray, it is easier to understand why they call each other friend.

Then there's Shino. The lovely, blood-thirsty himbo I thought it would be interesting to pluck from his canonical fate.

I know when I decided to shatter his prosthetic. The middle of last year, after reading writing by amputees, talking about how they are depicted, how that feeds and feeds off narratives fundamentally disconnected from their lived experiences. Still, I don't want you to get the wrong idea. I'm not trying to speak to those experiences. The canon has sci-fi prosthetics. It's detached from the real world. It's just, the ways it also problematises them . . . the way, particularly with the addition of 598 and his cybernetic eye, that dovetails with the propaganda drive from militaries to gift high-tech limb replacements to those mangled in the course of fighting . . . I don't regret pushing myself to dip my toe in those waters.

You see, I wanted to tie together the strands of Shino's trauma. His instinctive reach for quid pro quo in his relationship with Yamagi, finally answered with the truth of everything positive he left behind on his first 'death'. His great bête noire, that failure of his last-ditch effort to save Tekkadan, coming full-circle as he's given another chance, another challenge, met this time with greater experience and maturity, and the knowledge of when not to fight. Third-best no longer, bolstered by all those who taught him what it takes to fly.

And as he gets to prove his mastery -- in ways beyond Embi's suicidal commitment and Ordsley's engineered supremacy -- he also reckons once more with that pernicious belief he is only fit to fight.

There isn't an answer, you know. Those doubts about ourselves, those demons, don't go away even when we let them go. We just learn to carry on regardless. To accept the possibility that we can live anyway, and to stop throwing the best parts of ourselves under the bus in our rush to distance ourselves from the worst.

So the arm is smashed to bits, the fate of the mobile suit pilot, the soldier, the body spent in violence. But Shino finally sees his younger self in a positive light and does what nobody else was able to for Embi: tell him it's OK to leave. Whatever it takes to be happy, even if that's a million miles away. He treats Ordsley as Ordsley, not Mika 2.0, reinforcing Ordsley's newfound balance. Above all, throughout everything, he is not alone. This final fight is spent with Eugene right at Shino's side, backing him up, trusting him. The Ryusei-Go is Tekkadan as a community, the part that truly never wilted. Because the reason Shino can have this moment of catharsis is that he is loved. So many people, building him up, giving him a future.

Everything he would do for them, unhesitatingly, and has, more times than he will ever realise.

I don't know if it's character development, exactly. Honestly, I don't know if the chapter actually encapsulates these things the way I wanted it to. I've read it too many times to see it straight any more and, even with a lovely band of readers I am privileged to have commenting, I'm doubting myself a lot these days. I don't sit well on my laurels, with the things I've completed, the word counts and the tick-marks. I worry it's still not enough. Put a fair of myself in Shino, there.

But I think it's good. I think it came out the way I wanted it to. I think it's the right thing for the story, to take a giant mecha battle, the tragic, inevitable conflict, and flip it around into an act of firefighting. I think I should be proud I got here, even if I never expected to when I first sat down at my keyboard to explain why the hot bisexual anime boy was still alive, actually.

So I'm make a note, to myself, that I did. That I should be proud. That I am, of me, for doing that.

And if you're reading this and you're going to be reading the rest of the story -- I'll just say, Shino himself is going to tell you why his vivid pink robot arm needed to be demolished by a giant sword. There'll be another, eventually (they do have a cyberneticist on speed-dial), but for now, well. You'll see.

[nyantodamax145]

I JUST FINISHED THE STULTIFERA NAVIS STORY AND I HAVE THOUGHTS.

Let me preface this by saying that I am also part of the demographic of “EN Sucks at Reading”. Well, I can *read*, but I kind of suck at interpreting characters sometimes so bear with me and share your thoughts because I’m very bad at literary analysis and can only understand surface level themes without anyone to guide me but I’m trying my best

I

LOVED IT

And not JUST because my husband played a pivotal role in the event okay

Spoilers under the cut!

I haven’t played through Under Tides yet so I’m missing a teeny bit of context, but oh my god

Laurentina “waking up” and recovering her memories? Alphonso and Garcia doomed to sixty years alone aboard the Stultifera Navis and sailing her towards her slow decay? High Inquisitor Dario’s sacrifice and the light of his lantern refusing the burn out, JORDI being WAY MORE TALENTED THAN HE GIVES HIMSELF CREDIT FOR, STRAIGHT UP REPAIRING A LIGHTHOUSE AND A BOAT BASED ON OLD BLUEPRINTS AND FINDING THE STULTIFERA NAVIS AND SAVING ALL THREE HUNTERS AND IRENE AAAAA

Wait ok let me try to gather my thoughts cause there’s specific things I want to talk about.

Thiago being unwilling to let the Inquisition into his town because he still held a grudge against them ultimately led to his death. He wanted to puppet the Church of the Deep who had infiltrated Gran Faro into pushing the Inquisition out of the town, but was selfish; he wanted to have his cake and eat it too; he wanted to preserve Gran Faro and its legacy, but in the process he let the Seaborn fester and take over the whole place silently, while the Inquisition couldn’t do anything to help because he was simply a stubborn old man. It’s doubly ironic because as Carmen reveals, his Aegir wife was also a part of the Church of the Deep. I would like the theorize that his wife was the one who perpetrated the spread of the Nethersea Brand in Gran Faro, but that’s just headcanon.

Laurentina and Amaia. They’re connected to each other through the Seaborn Cells in their body, and the experiments Specter was put through, and in many ways you could consider Amaia “Specter’s” creator in a sense. Laurentina and Specter really are two different people, and we can see the moment Specter disappears and Laurentina wakes up. But even after Amaia “becomes one” with the Seaborn, Laurentina still calls the abomination by the name of “Amaia”, and I wonder if it’s due to a lingering sense of connection, if only in the sense that they are mortal enemies. It’s kind of like Laurentina knows that Amaia is still in there. Which, well she is, she became part of We Many.

I seem to have missed a critical piece of information regarding Skadi that was covered in Under Tides, so I’ll be skipping over that. Once the Under Tides record restoration comes around I know what I’ll be up to.

JORDI! MY GOD YOU DID SO WELL! Can you imagine piecing together incredibly complex technology only through luck, instinct, and some tattered, centuries old blueprints?! He says he’s an ordinary person but what kind of ordinary person can do all that?! He’s at the very least got incredible skill to interpret old blueprints, and make something as old as that lighthouse to work! Like AAAAAAA I’M PROUD OF YOU ALSO YOU NEED MANY BLANKETS AND SNUGGLES YOU HAVE SO MUCH TRAUMA.

Irene reporting to Dario’s lantern at the very end made me cry ok. She wanted her Maestro to know that she gave it her all, and although the conclusion wasn’t satisfactory she still accomplished a lot. It hurts to know that she had to find out through the very things she was fighting, the things she saw as abominations of sin. It’s like the refused to believe it until she saw Saint Carmen’s face and accepted it.

And the fact that the Stultifera was circling above an Aegir City the whole time… so close, yet so far. The Abyssal Hunters both succeeded and failed, and while they found “home”, they couldn’t return.

There’s… a lot. And I’m no good at literary analysis. I just point out things that I like…

It’s 11 pm, I’m tired, and I’m trying to process everything I just read.

[emeraldspiral]

Thinking about Nightwing/Batgirl vs Nightwing/Starfire and my hot take is that Dick and Kory should be endgame because Dick and Babarba is kind of incestuous.

Not in the sense of it being “icky”, but in the sense of it not allowing the Bat-family to grow and branch out and limiting it’s genetic diversity, in a manner of speaking.

Like, there’s already so many Batman proteges all trading around the same three or four code names. Poor Tim even had Stephanie and Damian calling themselves “Robin” when he wasn’t even dead or retired from the role. Stephanie had to go back to being “Spoiler” so Barbara could be Batgirl again. Jason tried to be Nightwing when the writers were just considering killing Dick off and then a bunch of randos tried to make it a collective moniker for a team. Dick left Gotham and became Nightwing to get out of Batman’s shadow but then he ends up having to take on the role of Batman while he’s Comic Book Dead. He’s supposed to live in Bludhaven but he’s constantly getting dragged back to Gotham to help Batman with one thing or another. The Batman writers even made Dick break-up with Starfire because him being preoccupied with the Teen Titans meant he wasn’t available for them to use in Batman stories, which kinda misses the entire point of having him outgrow the sidekick role and leave Batman in the first place.

So I feel like if you have Dick and Barbara get together, it’s just continuing to tie Dick down to the Bat-family and preventing him from spreading his wings. You know if they have kids together someday the boy(s) are gonna be another Robin/Nightwing/Batman and the girl(s) are gonna be another Batgirl/Batwoman/Oracle and they’re always going to be defined as Batman’s grandkids, Batman’s proteges, his successors, his legacy.

With Dick and Kory you don’t have to keep up the perpetual cycle of Batman getting a new protege who looks up to him at first and then eventually figures out how miserable he is and how poorly he’s coping with his trauma and realizes that they don’t want to be like him. You can tell new stories that go beyond the scope of Gotham. You can have stories that deal with the ramifications of Dick marrying an alien princess and technically being the prince consort of Tamaran and their kids being heir to the throne. You could do something really interesting with the idea of them having a biracial child and wanting them to be connected to the cultures of both parents’ home planets. Even if the kid does end up becoming another Batman protege, at least they’d be bringing something new to the table by being the first Bat-kid with actual superpowers.

I also think it’d be more interesting for Barbara to get a love-interest outside the Bat-family as well. Maybe even follow Dick’s lead and retire from the Batgirl role, pass it back to Stephanie or Cass or some new girl and either go back to being Oracle or get a brand new identity and venture off to a new city. Go solo and do her own thing her own way, not as a Batman sidekick.

Actually, you know if she did go solo and got her very own rogues gallery that would open up opportunities for her to have some sexual tension with a hot villain. Bruce has Talia and Selina. Terry had Ace. Nightwing has basically every woman good or evil. Let Barbara have something special with a hot bad boy.

I don’t dislike Dick/Barbara as ship, but I think there’s something kind of sweet and wholesome about them just being two people who used to date and are now best friends who love each other like siblings and I think it’s better for both characters if it stays that way.