#and so now it’s a character trait for him

[glitter-stained]

Some notes:

> Yes, Jason was projecting on the children, but the point of the csa/organ harvesting parallel is also meant because Jason is making a parallel between rape and murder in terms of being depossessed from your own body and turned into an object.

> Jason is suicidal for three reasons here:

-he's been suicidal since the 80s I wanted a comic specifically about that that didn't end in his death/apparent death only for later for him to come out unscathed with no explanation.

-he's viewing suicide as a way to reclaim ownership of his own body, as a "choice" he is finally making for himself. (that's just the way he views it.)

-he wants the suffering to stop and doesn't feel like he has anybody left to turn to for help.

> I am less interested in debating Bruce's action or lack of action towards the alley currently, and more interested in Jason's point of view growing up in the part of town that had been "abandoned" by Batman and he himself feeling abandoned right now. He's projecting on the entire neighborhood is what I'm saying. And the importance of Leslie, at the end, being the one there for him, just as she is introduced as this figure of hope for Crime Alley, and is the one at the end unyielding in refusing to let Jason kill himself.

> I feel like if we wanna go forth with interesting stories the focus needs to be allowed to be on something else than the ethics of killing, but I also couldn't include nothing when having Jason working on a case so triggering for him while in Gotham with Batman also there (and the events of Gotham War still looming in the back of my head) so I'm hoping to go around the issue by exploring it under the angle of lack of agentivity/powerlessness due to trauma instead (inspired by the second Crimson Avenger's character arc, truly a beauty). It comes back again to Jason not feeling like the choice belongs to him and feeling that desperation to take that control back for himself.

> While we only see the scenes with Dick and Steph, considering this is rebirth we get the info at some point that some of Jason's stuff has also been passed onto the other members of the Batfam, Roy, Rose and whoever else Jason is close to who is alive in this realm in the current canon.

> Rena! Rena, Rena, Rena. As you may have noticed, I'm not introducing any romance between her and Jason in this story. Rena to me works so well as a Jason love interest because we don't have the danger we see with female superheroes/love interests due to sheer popularity of having her identity be erased on behalf of her being a love interest for such a popular character (getting dickbabbed if you will). Rena gets to start out as Jason's childhood girlfriend and develop herself as her own character rather than the opposite! So when we meet her again in that first issue we get to know her as herself, this crash out detective who is very intelligent doesn't trust the system and drinks whiskey by noon, and classic readers will delight in recognising her, and then next time we'll see her we can get into more details about how she feels about her Jason (hint: completely abnormal) and also generally how she got to this point in life and then eventually having them get into the romantic gothic codependent relationship of all time. We do get an entry door for that past jayrena with the trait established in this one that she "despises cases swept under the rug", heh. Wonder why.

> If I had any reservations, I'd say that I'm reticent to include explicitly stating the csa and focusing on suicidality in the same comic, because I feel like these are two themes that both deserve to be addressed and be center points, but OP said just one ten issues comic so it's about dealing maximal effect to his character with minimal resources here. To me including the csa in this one isn't bad per se, especially since it's not exactly my fault it hasn't been focused on ever since these guys don't even say it out loud, but I do feel like this fits much better if it's eventually followed by a well-written Jason comic focusing on the theme of healing that deals with the theme of taboo and healing from sexual assault specifically. In general I'd say the "weak point" of this comic as a stand-alone piece is that it needs later arcs focused on healing that I cannot guarantee, but also that's kinda the point, try to force dc into writing stories about Jason later on.

Serious question: DC has asked you (yes you 🫵) to write a 10 issue Jason Todd comic run. No conditions or stipulations, any era, any supporting cast, any villain. What do you do?

[bmissyb]

El was made to look like Will 

Let’s build a case!!!

1. The Duffer Brothers confirmed it themselves

In Stranger Things: World Turned Upside Down (the official BTS companion book), Ross Duffer says:

“We wanted Eleven to feel out of place in the world, so we dressed her in clothes from Will’s closet, gave her his haircut, and made her look as much like him as possible.”

That is a direct quote. She was styled, intentionally, to evoke Will. Not just for narrative coincidence, not by accident but on purpose.

Why? Because…

2. It’s part of the show's emotional setup.

El appears in Chapter One; the day after Will goes missing.

Mike is devastated, disoriented, desperate to find his best friend.

And who shows up? A quiet, trembling kid in an oversized t-shirt, with short hair like Will’s haircut (it was planned to be a the same bowlcut but that was changed last minute), wearing his old clothes, who can’t speak, but clings to Mike like he’s her safety net.

This isn’t subtle. El’s entire visual and emotional presence was crafted to echo Will. The Duffers wanted Mike (and the audience) to feel that connection instantly. To blur the line between grief and attachment.

3. Her S1 Costuming Literally Uses Will’s Clothes.

I think everyone knows that the costuming team intentionally dresses El in Will’s style of clothing. The only time in S1 where this isn’t the case is when Mike makes her wear Nancy’s dress, trying to make her conform to the norm in order to keep her safe… weird. Also, in S1, Will and El’s colour palette are the same.

Even her body language mirrors Will’s: hands close to her chest, soft-spoken, wide-eyed.

These are not generic kid traits. They are Will’s traits.

4. Narratively, it mirrors Mike’s repression.

Mike falls for El not after she speaks or becomes "El," but when she comforts him. When she lets him feel safe. When she replaces Will’s absence.

He literally sleeps next to her in the blanket fort Will built. He names her “El” the same way he used to name Will’s characters. It’s a continuation of the emotional bond he had with Will—but repackaged in a way he can express and others will accept.

5. And what happens when El stops looking like Will?

As El grows into her own identity (new haircut, her own clothes, her own voice) Mike’s confusion increases.

By Season 3 and especially 4, he’s struggling to express his feelings for her. He lies to her face. He says he loves her only when she’s begging for it. In a moment of desperation whilst surrounded by people who have a predisposition about his priorities and his role within the party as ‘Mike the brave.’

You can think about it as a PR stunt.

Compare that to how he talks to Will: unguarded. Emotional. Honest, even when he’s flailing.

6. Visual language backs this up.

- El’s intro is coded as a stand-in: standing in the rain, alone, scared—just like Will’s disappearance scene.  

- The lighting, framing, and even score in scenes with Mike and El early on are eerily similar to shots of Mike and Will in flashbacks.  

- Season 4 leans even harder: Mike stares at Will, not El, in emotionally intense scenes. El and Mike feel visually distanced—while Will and Mike are often framed together in softness, light, and eye contact.

WHAT DOES THIS ALL MEAN???:

The Duffers explicitly designed El to look like Will.  

Mike formed his bond with El because she reminded him of Will.  

That visual and emotional substitution becomes unstable when El starts being her own person. 

Thus, Mike is left to confront the false perception he’s had of her (and Will by proxy)

The disguise is gone. Now he has to figure out who he was really seeing.

[story-box]

ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN ON THE INTERNET | Matthew Gray Gubler | Spencer Reid

Part 1 | Part 2

Pairings: Matthew Gray Gubler x Reader | Matthew Gray Gubler x You | Spencer Reid x Reader | Spencer Reid x You

Summary: Matthew Gray Gubler discovers a fanfiction about Spencer Reid that hits too close to home, igniting an anonymous, irresistible connection with its talented author.

-

It started innocently enough.

He was on Reddit. Just scrolling.

...which he shouldn’t have been doing, frankly, because the comments there either told him he looked like a Victorian wet cat or a “fine wine, if the wine also solved murders.”

The latter, oddly, felt a bit too specific.

Was he wearing a cape in that particular edit? Because that one definitely could have been a thirst trap — if thirst traps came with footnotes about obscure 17th-century literature.

Matthew shook his head. One fan edit titled “Matthew Gray Gubler as a vampire, but make it cute” was more confusing than anything else.

How does one even make a cute vampire? Was he going to be sipping a smoothie in a Victorian parlor while discussing existentialism? It was just a lot to process.

But then a username caught his eye. A link.

Curiosity, his lifelong and possibly most problematic trait, pushed him forward, so...he clicked.

And then he read.

And then he kept reading.

For three hours.

Without blinking.

He wasn’t even sure how he got there. One second, he was Googling whether giraffes sleep standing up (they do sometimes, it turns out), and the next he was elbows-deep in a 20k-word Criminal Minds fic titled “Late Night at Quantico (And Other Terrible Ideas)” by someone named softestsidearm.

It was an x Reader.

About Spencer Reid.

And somehow, impossibly, it felt like it got him. Not just “him” the character — but him. Like whoever wrote this had cracked open his ribcage, peeked at the neurotic little sparrow-heart inside, and whispered, “Yeah. That tracks.”

He set down his phone.

Picked it up.

Set it down again.

Laid down on the floor for a while, like a Victorian woman recovering from scandal.

Then, at 2:41 a.m., Matthew Gray Gubler created a burner account.

Username: drfactsandfeelings

Bio: “probably overthinking it”

Profile pic: A blurry owl in glasses.

He didn’t comment right away. He couldn’t. He spent a full hour typing and deleting:

“This was really great. Your Reid is so in character.”

“Hi, I’m... a fan. Of this. Not in a weird way. Unless you think it’s weird. In which case I’m not.”

“Are you a time traveler?? How do you know what he’d say in literally every situation?? I—” (he deleted that one fast.)

Finally, he settled on something safe. Casual. Normal.

“This was lovely. Beautifully written. You really captured the heart of him. Thank you for sharing.”

He hit post.

Threw his phone across the room.

Regretted everything.

-

Within twenty minutes, he saw a reply:

“OMG thank you 🥺 comments like this keep me going. I’m literally pacing my room like a regency wife who just got a letter from war rn. Thank you thank you thank you.

He reread it four times. His ears turned red.

But then… curiosity gnawed at him again.

He clicked on her profile.

And that's when he saw it.

Age: 25

25.

Matthew blinked, feeling like a deer caught in headlights. Not because she was 25, of course — that was perfectly fine — but because he was 44.

He scrolled down, slightly distracted now. So she was close(ish)…well, not really…. to his age... but still, he shouldn’t be on Reddit at 2:41 a.m., really shouldn't.

Yet here he was, spiraling down a rabbit hole of fanfic, somehow emotionally invested. He tried not to overthink it, but his brain immediately started overanalyzing everything.

What was it like being 25 in this wild world of fanfiction and anonymous fandoms? Was she a professional writer?

Or just someone with an extraordinary ability to read between the lines of a fictional character?

Was this weird?

It didn’t help that the more he read your replies, the more he realized just how you understood Spencer. It was almost eerie. He couldn’t help but feel a little… flustered?

Like he was being admired in a way that was a little too... honest.

so, naturally, instead of sleeping like a person with functioning social instincts, he went back and read all your other fics. All of them.

By sunrise, he had developed:

A deeply parasocial crush on your brain.

An aggressive respect for your metaphor usage.

And a secret favorite line that he screenshotted and saved in Notes. (It was from the fic where Spencer couldn’t sleep, and Reader said, “Then I’ll keep watch. Someone should guard the genius.”)

He paced.

He spiraled.

He made tea and forgot to drink it.

And then he did something wild.

He DM’d you.

drfactsandfeelings: Hi. This is random, but I’ve been reading your work and I think it’s… really, really special. You understand Spencer better than most writers I’ve read — like you’re not just writing him, you’re listening to him. Sorry, that’s weird. I just wanted to say thank you. For putting something like that out there. (Also, you made me cry a little with the “guard the genius” line. Rude.)

He turned his phone screen-down on his nightstand. Turned it off. Put a hoodie over it. Just in case it glowed at him in the morning light like some digital Eye of Sauron.

(Which, in Gubler Language, translated directly to: "I'm catch up on sleep and pretend it never happened.")

...

He did not sleep.

But he tried.

And somewhere around 8:02 a.m., brain still fizzing and heart still chewing on the words “i literally based it on how i think you would play it??, Matthew Gray Gubler — actor, artist, author, former Vegas magician’s assistant — fell asleep mid-spiral, dreaming of owls in glasses and fictional FBI agents who knew how to say the right thing.

[renaerys]

How are you so good at creating the chemistry between Sakura and Shisui... first A Quiet Thunder, now Lightning in a Bottle. You're so talented. I've also read your Sasosaku, you got me hooked up even when I'm not really into Sasosaku

How exactly did you create the chemistry between Shisui and Sakura though? They are two characters that never even met so it amazes me how you write their interaction. Also if you don't mind me asking, what makes you ship her with him?

My favorite crack/rare pair is Shisaku because while I'm also a Sasusaku shipper, somehow I just know Shisui would most definitely treat her better����

ShiSaku is entirely @komorebi-rabbit 's fault. I'm really picky about Sakura ships in that I mostly dislike them with very narrow exceptions. I had never really cared about Shisui in my Tumblr/Naruto fandom heyday back in 2011-2016 because there was less than nothing about him in canon at the time and I've never been what you'd call an Uchiha fangirl. But then I started writing Naruto fics again in 2020, reread the whole manga, and eventually found my way to the filler anime episodes that featured Shisui leading up to the Uchiha Clan Massacre, and suddenly we had some cool and interesting backstory coloring within the lines the manga drew about him.

Bunny basically dared me to try writing ShiSaku after sharing her awesome headcanons regarding Shisui and Obito having crossed paths before Obito defected. It kind of spiraled from there. I got the idea for A Quiet Thunder like a shock to the system and it wrote itself. Lightning in a Bottle has been a natural and easy second installment that I feel even more confident about (I just wish I had a little more regular and reliable free time to work to it, but it's going).

This became a really long answer because I got super in to fleshing out how these two are complementary, and how they each have something that the other lacks but desperately craves in a lover. See under the cut for my Why ShiSaku psychosis analysis.

Sakura is hard for a lot of people to pin down and often gets OC SI-washed, which I find trite and boring and makes me intensely despise most multi-Sakura content, which I've written about here. But canon Sakura, while not the most fleshed out character ever, does have good bones. On the positive side, I love how she is portrayed as someone who is uncompromisingly loyal, she strives for excellence in all that she does, she doesn't compromise her convictions, and she has a burning desire to win when she sets her mind and fists to something. She's not as charismatic or confident as Ino, or as caustic and sharp-witted as Karin, but she has enough self-assurance in part 2 and strength of character to feel like she's got a backbone and isn't afraid to put her money where her mouth is. But I also appreciate that she is a deeply insecure and selfish person especially when it comes to decisions she makes that directly impact her teammates, her brand of love is obsessive and smothering, her civilian background gives her both privilege and excruciating naïveté vis-a-vis her teammates, and in part 1 she was shown to be a very lazy and unserious ninja. She grows and improves upon many of these negative traits in part 2, which is fantastic. That journey is fun to watch and explore more in depth in fic.

Shisui is trickier to nail down since we get most of his "personality" traits in the filler, non-canon episodes of the anime. But I'm fine with that, and I'm not per se opposed to how fandoms will sort of establish a non-canonical but widely accepted characterization. Sometimes that isn't good, but sometimes it is. Personally, I like to infer his personality by juxtaposing it with Itachi's personality, which is well-established in canon. He is the extrovert/people person compared to Itachi's weird, old man reticence (I say this with a lot of love for Itachi). It makes sense to make him the comedian to Itachi's straight man, which is a tried and true dynamic duo archetype. I don't necessarily mean he has to be hilarious or comic relief, just that compared to Itachi I think he'd lean a little more in that direction. Shisui is a scheming schemer who schemes, which we see from his deep political involvement in the events leading up to the Uchiha Massacre. From this, I'd infer that he knows how to manipulate people, is charismatic and magnetic, and also very shrewd and intelligent, possibly even ruthlessly so.

I like Shisui and Sakura together because (i) I think they would be attracted to each other's core positive traits, and (ii) the way they love would be complementary.

I'll start with being attracted to each other's traits. Sakura is fun to pair with a person who is more of a schemer than she is (which is not at all), someone who is more willing to see rules as guidelines than as written law. That keeps her on her toes because it's not a skill she has, and it leads to tension between them since she is pretty straight-laced and even kind of a boot-licker (complacency about the status quo). But she is intelligent enough and, crucially, compassionate enough see things from another person's starkly different worldview. If someone presents her with evidence that she is wrong about something, I think she is the type of person who will internalize that and make different decisions/be open to changing her mind. The Sasori fight is an excellent example of this. In this sense, I think she could empathize with Shisui, respect him even if she may not agree with all his decisions, and present herself as someone who he can reliably see as an ally both in the martial sense and in a more personal, human sense. There's a moment in part 1 of canon where Naruto transforms into Sasuke but still acts like Naruto, showering Sakura with love and affection, and she is super into it. I have always believed that scenes like that show that Sakura is someone who wants a partner who is not shy about their love for her, who is enthusiastic and happy to be around her and publicly expresses that enthusiasm, and who treats her with sincere appreciation. She needs that kind of validation and reassurance from a lover. I think she'd see all that in Shisui and be very drawn to that aspect of his personality. It would be easy for her to like him.

For Shisui's part, I think that being so closely associated with Itachi puts him in the position of being the river that has to bend and flow around the immovable rock that is Itachi's personality and standing. And he's good at that, and it makes him kind of a chameleon of a person, but it makes him hard for others to really relate to and get to know. He feels like the type who is flighty, hard to pin down, difficult to get truly close to. Sakura is very straightforward and a what you see is what you get type of person. She doesn't play the games he plays, and that's to her credit. She has a grounding effect that I think would anchor him, and he'd appreciate having another person who isn't Itachi, who isn't embroiled in all the politics of being Itachi, to act as a second and separate wayfinder in a storm. He doesn't have to scheme with her, doesn't have to be in battle mode around her because she is guileless and straight-laced in a way Itachi definitely is not. I think Shisui would find that appealing as something steady and sure in the midst of a life that has always been high speed, violent, chaotic, and full of people he can't fully trust and who don't really care about him beyond what he can do for them. Also, Sakura doesn't have the kind of trauma a lot of other characters do, the kind of trauma Shisui has, and I don't think she needs that. Her not having that, but also being the type of person who is willing and able to empathize with him once she gets a peek behind the curtain, is part of the appeal for him. I think they would genuinely get along in an opposites attract way.

They way they love is also complementary in my opinion. I think he is someone who, like Sakura, would love obsessively, ruinously, and selectively (which is similar to how Sasori loves, which probably tells you that there is a pattern here). I think this is how he loves Itachi (and also Obito in the aforementioned headcanon backstory). Sakura needs to smother the person she loves because that is how she understands love. Look in canon how she behaved with Sasuke. I know these words I'm using may seem like negative words, but I'm using them in a neutral sense. I don't think there is anything bad about her way of loving, but it's very polarizing and not something that resonates with everyone. It works with someone who, like her, sees love as the center of their universe, basks in the attention their lover gives them, and in turn gives their lover a lot of attention. Their love is not content to be casual, discreet, or polite. Rather, theirs is a love that is characterized by intensity, passion, shamelessness, look-at-me-and-let-me-see-you-looking-at-me levels of fixation. As much as Sakura wants someone to choose her above and before all others (she's been burned so hard by SNS whether you interpret them as platonic or romantic), Shisui I think would want someone to choose him first for a change when everyone else chooses Itachi. Itachi is the stronger of the two, the more politically important of the two, better breeding, more respected, etc. And on top of all that, even Itachi wouldn't choose Shisui first because he'll always choose Sasuke. But someone who chooses Shisui first when Itachi is right there? I think that would be so intoxicating to him.

I haven't spent nearly as much time obsessing over ShiSaku as I have SasoSaku, but the time I have spent has been as a mature, confident writer with better tools in my arsenal for this type of analysis. I really like this pairing, and I am really confident in how I've puzzled them together (with help from people like Bunny and others, of course!). I think to answer your original question, I can capture their chemistry because I'm really comfortable with what their chemistry even is (at least, my own version of it). Like knowing a recipe from memory and executing on it perfectly because you've done it a hundred times before, I know my version of ShiSaku up and down, forwards and backwards, head over heels. I think that's the most important part of the puzzle for how to make a pairing work. Passion speaks loudest, and you can really see when someone has studied their passion with the gunning hyper fixation of an uncaught serial killer.

(Thanks for your Ask and for reading my ShiSaku fics!)

[sincapjelly]

Honestly, seeing how different this family's fate could go is so sad to think about. I talk about this fairly often, so I may be repeating myself right now. But Cole's childhood could work out way more differently if only some small things worked out. Lilly's unhealthy aproach to being a hero and continuing to take missions without her powers, overtiring herself, not having enough time for Cole, and in the end passing away from all of this is the most tragic part of all of it.

I feel like Cole got his anxiety issues from there too. It's a thing Lilly also posessed, her anxiety causing her to feel responsible to an extend that sounds absurd to someone else. But the way she was taught feeds her unhealthy mindset about always needing to be the hero for people who ironically never apreciated her. I see her exact behavior in Cole, it concerns me but it's also fascinating to see how well this family is built in the story. You can always track back Cole's traits from his parents and that's beautiful.

What also makes this family insteresting and heartwarming is the love they have for each other. How far they are willing to go to keep the family safe. How the roots of their family is built on love and always protecting each other at all costs.

Reading Quest for the Lost Powers, the way Lou talks about leaving his job, his band, something that is a part of his identity behind to be with Cole all the time, like it was no big deal for him. The way he is never mad at Lilly for her struggles, and clearly had done everything in his power to help her too.

This is also why I can never be angry at Lou, because he does everything he can for both of them. Lilly's passing is tragic for him too, because he did everything in his power to keep her safe and happy. Him and Cole were the best things in Lilly's life, which is why Lou will never think healthily about her passing. It is not something he can handle, and it caused him to make mistakes. Which, when you know the full extend of their relationship, makes all the sense. He is not sad for himself, not sad just because he misses her, he is sad because he will never shake the thought that Lilly didn't deserve any of this. While some not very justifyable, I think all his actions are explainable and even logical. All of this, over the time made him a lovable and interesting character for me.

I also can't stop thinking that part of the reason why Lou sent Cole to that school, is because it was Cole's plan before all of this. Losing his mother meant losing his good memories about music, and he pretty much lost his purpose in life. Before all of this, Cole's desire was to be a performer (as said in Way of the Departed), it's not too far fetched that he'd want to study there. I think Lou pushed it because he didn't want Cole to lose an opportunity he chased for so long. Wanted Cole to get his purpose back. But... yeah. It was beyond saving for Cole, and music will always be bittersweet for him.

"I found something new that I'm really good at. I'm a ninja"

So Cole was saying this after Lou caught him going over the plan to steal the Blade Cup with the other ninja.

And here is Lou's face right after Cole said that he was a ninja:

And later, Lou says to Cole in reference to how stealing is wrong, "I'm not going to wait around to watch you make a mockery of our of our family's legacy."

And I know that at the time the episode was written, Lilly most definitely wasn't conceptualized, meaning that her being the previous Earth ninja couldn't as well.

But watching this after Season 13, you can interpret Lou's reaction to Cole being a ninja and stealing, as not only a mockery to his legacy being a dancer, but also Lilly's legacy as being a ninja.

[steddieunderdogfics]

This week’s writer spotlight feature is:  @artaxlivs! ArtaxLivs has 21 fics posted to AO3 in the Stranger Things fandom and all of them are in the Steddie tag!

Our anonymous nominator recommends the following works by ArtaxLivs:

Nobody's Baby

Off the Shelf

Even Flowers Have Their Dangers

An Accidental Flogging

There's Something Wrong With Steve

"I really love the ideas and character voices ArtaxLivs has for Steve and Eddie in her fics. She writes canon and AU's that all feel distinct and true to the characters, ranging from angst to fluff and everything in between. There's a little something for everyone in her works, and she's still actively writing new things in the Steddie tag!" -- anonymous

Below the cut, ArtaxLivs answered some questions about their writing process and some of their recommended work!

Why do you write Steddie?

I really love a “golden boy” who questions his own existence. Steve’s worldview got rocked in S1 and instead of reacting by running away or digging in his heels and continuing to be a jerk, he reevaluated, allowing himself to relearn how to approach the world. And Eddie is just a gremlin, a force of anarchy who bucks the societal norms but, really, that’s a cover for how vulnerable he feels because he’s gay in a world and time that sneers at the gentle parts of him. He’s terrified but if he’s loud and obnoxious, maybe no one will get close enough to find out. Together, they just make sense. Because Steve is seeing who people are instead of looking at what they present now, he sees what Eddie’s hiding. And instead of hurting him, he wants to support him. And Eddie, despite his brash words about “King Steve,” he just really wants to believe in a hero. No matter what AU they’re in, I try to maintain those core traits for each of them because that’s what I love about them.

What’s your favorite trope to READ?

To read? Oh man, all of them? I’m a slut for variety so I’ll read any trope really. I do love a good soulmate trope though. Especially with unlikely soulmates who just go all in when they find each other - regardless of how they’d felt before the match.

What’s your favorite trope to WRITE?

Found family. Found Family has carried me through the toughest of times. That trope finds it’s way into all of my fics, so much that I forget to tag it most of the time because I don’t really exist without it. I was a young bisexual in a time when we were told “bisexual aren’t real” so even the gay spaces were not always safe. Drag Queens and older gay men saved me from pretending to either be straight or be a lesbian when I was 21 and felt so unaccepted by both sides. We all lived in an apartment building together and they accepted me as is. They loved me and let me be myself. They would hit on the dudes I brought home and gush over the girls. Throughout my adult life, I’ve done my best to be that for all the queer kids who’ve come through my wardrobe room at the theater. Be the family I so desperately needed and was lucky enough to eventually find.

What’s your favorite Steddie fic?

I don’t think I could pick a favorite favorite but I have read and listened to Roll for Initiative by Alchemystique (the podfic by Silverkat1620) an embarrassing amount of times.

Is there a trope you’re excited to explore in a future work but haven’t yet?

I actually haven’t written a Steddie soulmate fic yet. I had an idea sitting in my google docs for like two years and I’ve currently got just the opening scene. I’m writing it for an event so it’ll get finished and see the light of day in the fall. I’m excited to see where it takes me.

What is your writing process like?

I have an idea and I throw it into a google doc. If it’s a fully formed idea, I’ll just get it all out right away. It’s like a giant wall of “then this, then this, then this” that I then write a semi-cohesive outline for but if it’s just an errant idea, I’ll leave it in the docs untitled and when I stumble upon it again, it will often spark that wall of text and I’ll plan it out. After the wall of “idea,” I give it a title because I like for the fic to gravitate around the title, I like for the reader to get to a point in the fic and have an ah-ha moment where they look at the title and realize that’s where the meaning is. I usually put a few keywords at the top of my google doc that will carry out through the fic, reminders like mood settings I guess? And then I start writing. Usually I’ll pick a song to play before I start working on it each time. To get my brain in the mindspace for that fic. 

Do you have any writing quirks?

I only listen to piano instrumental covers of time period correct music while I’m actively writing. So piano covers of 80s music for Steddie. 

Do you prefer posting when you’ve finished writing or on a schedule?

I prefer to write a fic completely, editing and everything, before I post. The only time I didn’t, it took me a year and a half to finish it and it wasn’t even that long. Apologies to the people who waited for me to finish “There’s Something Wrong With Steve.”

Which fic are you most proud of?

Probably “Even Flowers Have Their Dangers.” I don’t see images in my head, just ideas or knowledge of an object/place etc. so writing out a battle scene with so many moving parts and people was complicated. And sometimes when we have that many people in a scene, we lose the less important characters in the shuffle. In real life, no one stands around in a group without saying anything for hours. That would be weird. In that fic, I had multiple scenes where there were more than five people, one that had eleven people and a ton of action and I feel like I did them all justice. I used DnD minis on a map I’d drawn out of the scene and when I edited the scene days later, I tally marked the minis to make sure I’d referenced everyone enough to keep the flow moving and had them speaking enough that we didn’t forget they were there. I’m really proud of that.

How did you get the idea for There's Something Wrong With Steve?

Actually, my husband was re-watching Lost and the guy who plays John Locke played the stepfather in the 80s movie The Stepfather and for a big chunk of that movie, you’re not sure if he’s actually a bad guy. He is, he’s terrifying. And I just thought about how most of the Steddie monster fics go with DnD lore and it’s Eddie as Kas but what if it was Steve and even Steve didn’t know…And I tried to maintain that balance of is he?/isn’t he? for as long as I could. I also wrote Eddie’s thoughts in a choppy cadence that sort of built and became clearer toward the end so the reader would feel unsure and anxious right up until I went in for the kill. And then when they thought they were safe, I pulled the rug out from under them again.

When writing An Accidental Flogging, what was something you didn’t expect?

The towel. Originally, it was just Eddie slapping Steve’s ass and it was called “An Accidental Spanking.” But it built itself around so much locker room type teasing in the kitchen that it just worked so well to have him use a towel. The whole fic is them kind of falling into kink because they can’t figure out how to admit their feelings and towel snapping always looks like naked jock flirting to me so…

What inspired Even Flowers Have Their Dangers?

The white outfit that El wears through most of S4. It’s such a male director trope and I’m so over it. I’m a costume designer so I spend a lot of time looking at costumes and color choices. It’s such a virginity trope to put the young teenage girl in all white to show her innocence. She’s wearing color at school, and again at the rink but after she hits that girl with the skate and the agents come for her, she’s in white pants, a white thermal and a blue plaid. Because she did hit that girl, so not completely innocent. But unlike earlier seasons where her scuba suit is gray, it’s WHITE this time. Because we, the viewers, are hunting for the REAL monster. The white pants and shirt into the white scuba outfit and back into her white pants and shirt for the trip home - so if we are paying attention, we know that El is innocent. That she didn’t kill everyone in the lab, no matter how they’re setting it up. And that made me think of the song “I know things now” from Into the Woods and how El thinks Henry is nice, but we know he isn’t good because we already know that nice adult men don’t build relationships with little girls. And we know that “nice is different than good” but El, innocent and sequestered in a lab, has never strayed from the path, so she doesn’t know the difference. And then I made the party all wolves and put Henry in “human clothing” to kind of flip our imagine of what constitutes a monster.

What was your favorite part to write from Even Flowers Have Their Dangers?

The scene with Henry wearing “Max.” It was horrifying and I cried through it. I cry everytime I read it. Having the opportunity to write a scene that hurts my own soul is such a rush. I got done with it and I had to go outside and take some deep breaths. Children in mortal danger is kind of triggering for me and everything with Max in this is both traumatic and cathartic. I also love the moments when Joyce accepts and hugs Eddie. Because at the end of s3, after Hop dies, Joyce hugs Will but El is standing there alone. She and Joyce look at each other and Joyce just hugs Will tighter and turns away leaving El to cry alone and that’s bullshit. I would never. No parent would ever do that, leave her to cry alone? No. So anytime I can have Joyce rewrite that moment by hugging one of the kids, I do it. And so many people have commented on it so it makes me really proud to have made them feel that hug too, you know?

How do/did you feel writing Off the Shelf?

Ha, this fic is so…unapologetically raunchy? I guess that’s a good word. I wrote it thinking about all the gay men I’m friends with and what they think is hot, the body parts they focus on, the times they say “that’s hot” when I’m like “oh jesus, my eyes!” And I think I achieved it? Hopefully? That’s the fic that I’ve had the most gay men, trans men, non binary peeps reach out and be like “this one - mmhmm yup.” And damn, that’s so nice to hear.

What was the most difficult part of writing Nobody's Baby?

Staying within the outline of Dirty Dancing and keeping the time period just as nebulous. That movie is costumed like it’s the 60s, the historic events referenced put them in like the 50s and the soundtrack is 80s music. Makes no sense. I tried to let it stretch between the 80s and a modern setting without really setting it in one specific time. But still somehow making a queer relationship something that wasn’t a plot point. Because I didn’t want it to be about that at all. 

Do you have a favorite scene and/or line from any of your fics?

I really love the bonding that happens between Steve & Mike in “Let Me Be Your Man (I Want to Hold Your Hand)” as Steve is teaching Mike how to make a mixed tape for his secret crush. Who Steve has already figured out is Will. It’s a Steddie fic but it centers around Steve letting Mike know that he’s not alone. And Mike letting his guard down just a little. It has a podfic recorded by Rattlandhum (thirdeye1234) and their voice is gorgeous. It’s the icing on the cake for that fic for me. And I love when Steve tells Robin in “Right From the Start, I Gave You My Heart” that they’re “just two chocolate chip cookies in a world full of oatmeal raisin.” because platonic love is pretty damn beautiful. (That one also has a podfic by the amazing Flowerparrish)

Do you have any upcoming projects or fics you’d like to share/promote?

I’m currently writing a fic for the Steddie BigBang 2025. And Flowerparrish and I have been brainstorming a Steddie & the Party fic that zer will podfic that’s got some cool dream elements happening. I’ve also decided to finish my “18 Candles” Steddie fic that I’ve been sitting on for far too long that has a really fun Eddie & Robin friendship that I love so much. They get to be weird and awkward together. And Flowerparrish is currently recording a podfic of my “Even Flowers Have Their Dangers” and I’m GIDDY about it.

Outside of these questions, Is there anything YOU would like to add?

Just a very heartfelt thank you. This fandom has been incredibly supportive and fun. I’ve made so many friends - some fellow writers but some people who are just really amazingly supportive readers and cheerleaders. And the entire fandom’s fics are so varied. It’s been a blast not just writing them but also reading other writers fics right alongside everyone else.

Thank you to our author, @artaxlivs, and our nominator! See more of ArtaxLivs's works featured on our page throughout the day!

Writer’s Spotlight is every Wednesday! Want to nominate an author? You can nominate them here!

[deelightful54]

Lucy Chen - Detective vs Sergeant

The Rookie made a really interesting shift for Lucy this season. I think it was the right one, but it skipped over a lot of what should have happened to get her there in a way that feels satisfying and honors everything she's been though to this point.

Lucy's career path has been a fascinating one the show has been tracking for long time. Nolan solidified his choice to pursue TO back in season 3. Lucy has been dabbling with undercover since the same time. Lucy then serves as a Sergeant's Aide to Tim, which was largely a way to keep Tim and Lucy in the shop together (thank you, writers!), but on different terms. Tim was still the boss, but Lucy was now a fully fledged officer who needed to be more capable than the average patrol cop to fill this role. She also got experience on the best cases, and a front row seat to patrol leadership from the best in the game (Tim Bradford).

It's at this point I'd like to address something I see confusion about among the fans. This is my best interpretation of roles and rank based on the reality established within The Rookie, which is not necessarily the same as real life. Patrol Officers and Detectives are different ranks within the LAPD. The are Sergeants who supervise patrol officers and sergeants who supervise detectives. Sergeant's Aide is a role Lucy filled, but not a rank. I'm not sure if the role of a "Sergeant's Aide" even exists in real life. Detectives are not necessarily in a patrol officers chain-of-command, but they have some authority to give tasks to patrol officers if those officers are working a scene that the detective is in charge of or are helping on a detective's case. We also meet people like Sergeant Mark Murray and Sergeant June Zhang, who I imagine are Sergeant Detectives who do undercover work. Anyone could potentially be tapped for undercover work, but detectives have more power and control when they do so. Undercover not a special rank. If Lucy had been promoted to detective, she wouldn't have been obligated to do undercover work. She could have filled a more traditional investigatory role.

We are all aware of the recurring character trait that Lucy is not a quitter. The show did telegraph both in season 5 and season 6 that Lucy might not do well in the detective promotion process. This was a bold choice. It was devastatingly realistic that a hard working, smart, capable person would not be promoted. I was actually kind of impressed that the show made that choice. Obviously, her not ranking high enough on the detective's exam is neither quitting or a failure, but the type of obstacle we are used to seeing Lucy overcome. So it seems in character for her to continue pursuing that.

We know the main reason Lucy wants to become a detective is so that she can more readily work undercover, something she loves and is good at. We also know that Tim was never a fan of the idea, even when he was still her TO. Even when she proves herself in his eyes and he tries to be supportive, it's difficult for him. Especially when their relationship becomes romantic. Tim Bradford is not a man who would feel less than due to his partner's success. He has real experience and has suffered the consequences of being with a full time UC. It's understandable that, for both their sakes, Tim wouldn't really want Lucy to do UC.

Tim and Lucy have also at least casually discussed future plans that involved kids. We've had enough examples of both men and women UCs to show that UC can wreck your private life (Isabel, Harper, Tim's friend Mack). Noah Foster suggests that UCs can't really have deep personal relationships. I don't think Lucy Chen would want to leave her children for months at a time to go pretend to be someone else and live among criminals. That's not the same as being a parent who occasionally works late nights and weekends. Lucy never seems to really reconcile her career plans with her personal life plans.

(Also, I know parents in the military deploy and sometimes leave their families. I'm not suggesting they want to leave their families or that they're bad parents/partners. Even if both of these situations were real, they'd be different. But also, they're not both real. I'm talking about fictional characters on a TV show).

Back to Lucy not being a quitter. It would be in character for Lucy to pursue this until she achieves it, and continue doing it long past when she wants to. There's a difference between quitting - giving up in the face of hardship - and quitting - you've tried it, perhaps even mastered it, and decided the path isn't for you. I think Lucy would have a hard time distinguishing between these two. Additionally, Tim loves the fact that Lucy has no quit in her. I'd argue it's the first thing about her he respected. If she "quits,' UC to be with Tim, she may fear she's losing the thing that made him love her in the first place.

Even with all of this, Lucy would still struggle with the idea of "giving it all up for a man," even if it's the right man. Even if it has nothing to do with his ego. It may feel anti-feminist (it's not). It may also impact how other Primm-like superiors view her. Even though that would be wrong, Lucy values her career, and that would be a hard sacrifice.

On top of it all, Tim is the number one person Lucy goes to, in all aspects of her life. He is her confidant, and in some ways, still her mentor (I understand if you feel a little icky about that, but it doesn't bother me). While Lucy and Tim do need to discuss all of this, Lucy needs another, more objective, sounding board. There are people who would have some wisdom here, but none could fully understand. Nolan and Grey are men who could never understand the consequences of making a career sacrifice as a woman in a male-dominated field. Lopez is Tim's bestie. Nyla is the obvious choice. Lucy has learned a lot from Harper. While Harper was right in a lot of ways, I always felt she was a tad harsher than necessary. I know that's part of her style, and Lucy can thrive off of people being hard on her, but I just want someone to show her a little compassion. Lopez and Harper also never had to try to establish themselves in their careers while dating a superior officer. This is one of the many ways in which I miss the mentorship that Anderson gave Lucy. I think she could have the firm, but gentle touch that could help Lucy realize she can walk away from UC, and that wouldn't make her a quitter or anti-feminist in anyway. She'd also encourage her to push past the sexists who would think less of her for the choice. Even without Anderson, I think Lucy would get there eventually.

This is what truly brings us to the sergeants path. There have been crumbs for this, too. Lucy clearly wanted to be Tim's Sergeant's Aide not just because of Tim, but because of the experience and exposure she would get. She also did well as watch command and can take control of a situation when she is feeling confident. It also pushes back on the idea that the best cops become detectives. Smart, capable, compassionate cops are needed on patrol, too.

I know that I haven't addressed the breakup in all of this. Given that we all knew they would get back together before he even left the parking lot, I don't know that it's all that relevant. And they are clearly still considering each other in their decisions, even if their not officially together. They basically promised to wait for each other. And all of the issues I've laid out are still ones that exist. The show may choose to skip over them and make them irrelevant due to the choice to make her a Sergeant, but to me, this is the process that needed to happen to get Lucy to that place.

I love this path for her (though I would have liked more hints that she was considering it before she shared it with Tim). Leaving behind something she worked so hard for (UC) would be challenging, but it embraces the idea that you can change direction in life without it being a failure. It also solidifies something else I think the show has been demonstrating for awhile - Lucy Chen is the most talented and well-rounded cop on The Rookie!

[ustalav]

okay one trait I gave my WoL is that he’s a himbo and this means that when I fuck up a mechanic in a duty, I just tell my sister that I was playing him in character

[mediumgayitalian]

We first hear Will Solace by name in The Last Olympian: 

"I grabbed Will Solace from the Apollo cabin and told the rest of his siblings to keep searching for Michael Yew. We borrowed a Yamaha FZI from a sleeping biker and drove to the Plaza Hotel at speeds that would’ve given my mom a heart attack."

In this sentence we learn a few things: 1) a character named Will Solace exists; 2) he is a child of Apollo; 3) he is a deep enough part of camp to have been both already claimed and to consider the other Apollo children his 'siblings', even from Percy's outsider perspective; 4) Percy, frazzled and worried about Annabeth, protective as he is, has chosen Will, out of several kids -- 'rest of his siblings', not 'sibling' or 'both of his siblings', indicating at least three and by number of archers in camp likely many more -- to heal Annabeth, meaning he is talented enough to be singled out; and 5) both Lee and Michael, at this point, have been killed, and Will is now suffering the ache of their loss. 

This is the first sentence with Will in it.

He has not at this point spoken. And yet we know:

Will is a child of Apollo.

Will is an established part of camp.

Will cares for and has recently lost his siblings (this point is currently a little weak but gets strengthened as the series goes on).

Will is a talented healer.

That's a lot from one sentence, I would say.

On the rest of that page, the word choice when considering Will, even before he speaks, gives us further insight to his character. Percy speaks to others several times in between getting on the motorcycle, getting off it, and working through headquarters -- Will does not. That is a deliberate choice, he may be awestruck, or grieving, or focused. There is not quite enough information right yet to infer what exactly he is feeling, but there is enough to easily ascertain that he is doing and feeling SOMETHING.

Far from a fandom-invented character so far, I think, and again, WILL HAS NOT YET EVEN SPOKEN.

We get a couple deliberate actions for Will before he speaks as well. "Will and I ran", "Will and I pushed through a crowd", and "Will unwrapped Annabeth’s bandages to examine the wound and I wanted to faint". Will here is matching Percy's urgency, and he is STILL NOT SPEAKING. At this point, with his silence and urgency matched with his immediately prioritization of Annabeth's injury, and Percy's squeamishness juxtaposed with Will's steadiness, we can safely infer why Will has not yet spoken -- he is focused. He, healer, is working single-mindedly to solve the problem, as Percy has selected him to do. We now have another character trait we can add to our list:

Will is a child of Apollo.

Will is an established part of camp.

Will cares for and has recently lost his siblings.

Will is a talented healer.

Will puts his duty first.

Next, we get Will's first line of dialogue. And BOY is it ever telling:

"‘It’s not so bad, Annabeth."

The first thing we ever hear from Will Solace's mouth is COMFORT.

This tells us another great many things about his character. Above all is an impression, to us: this character has been introduced to us as a helper. In the context of a healer, and now in the context of a comforter: by two of the most powerful individuals at camp Will is trusted to help. Not only to help, generally, but to help them at their most VULNERABLE -- Annabeth, physical vulnerability, and Percy, emotional vulnerability. It is also important to add that Will is still quite young (12/13) and watched, last year, his older brother's head get bashed in at this time in the summer; it is not a reach to surmise that he may have been the one to clean up his body, to prepare his pyre. Will has also just been informed that his last remaining oldest sibling (*the 'last remaining' part here is not disclosed at this point in the novel but is disclosed later) has gone missing and is likely dead. He has also been informed that he cannot go look for him and must instead put his duty first. And he DOES; not only does he but he does so with care and gentleness towards his patient. 

That is, on an objective level, a difficult thing to do, and an impossible thing to do when feeling your own emotions. Will has, at this point, repressed his own pain and fear to put his duty first. 

Now we have even more things to add to our list. 

Will is a child of Apollo.

Will is an established part of camp.

Will cares for and has recently lost his siblings.

Will is a talented healer.

Will puts his duty first.

Will represses his own emotions and feelings to put his duty first.

Will is trusted by Percy.

Will is trusted by Annabeth. 

Will is a comforter.

So -- by the time Will has spoken only one time, and on top of that by just the first sentence of his first line of dialogue, we have established nine characteristics for Will Solace. These characteristics hold through during the rest of this multi-series Olympian story. In fact we EXPAND upon them. By the time he is finished healing Annabeth, he has gone gray himself -- he is now putting his duty above his physical needs as well as his emotional needs. He expresses explicitly his distaste for theft and dishonesty, glaring at Travis for his flippancy towards it, but acknowledges that it may be unavoidable in effort to save as many lives as possible. That not only establishes some of his tastes and distastes but also gives us insight to how he handles disagreements and testing from others -- with nuance, yes, but with frustrated stubbornness as well (beating any allegations that Will has no personality; he has personality in his very first scene). The next time we hear from him he is 'scrabbling' around with his siblings to care for the wounded.

So, just by the tail-end of the first series, the text gives us insight to the following 13 character traits:

Will is a child of Apollo.

Will is an established part of camp.

Will cares for and has recently lost his siblings.

Will is a talented healer.

Will puts his duty first.

Will represses his own emotions and feelings to put his duty first.

Will is trusted by Percy.

Will is trusted by Annabeth.

Will is a comforter.

Will puts his duty above his physical needs. 

Will hates theft & dishonesty.

Will has nuanced perspective.

Will is stubborn.

We get more as the story goes on. We hear from Will again in the Lost Hero, and then a few times in Blood of Olympus when he is either mentioned by Nico or directly interacting with him. We also hear from him heavily, of course, in the Hidden Oracle and throughout the Trials of Apollo Series. In each we get new character traits as well as sundry interactions that confirm the traits we already discerned. To name a few:

1. Will is openly frustrated when Annabeth brings back the ruined chariot, however he is quick to forgive and acknowledges her struggle and pain given the circumstances of her borrowing the chariot in the first place. This reinforces our analysis of Will's stubbornness, as he has held onto the chariot despite the rivalry it brings with the Ares cabin. It adds to our analysis in that we see him get frustrated and can clearly see exactly HOW he gets frustrated -- with his words, more than anything. It adds to our analysis in that he is quick to forgive. It reinforces our analysis that he has a nuanced perspective. 

2. He is Leo's tour guide. He is distracted throughout the tour, understandably so, but he answers Leo's questions and Leo has a positive impression of him, enough to find him trustworthy and charming. He is also physically described as resembling Apollo.

3. In Blood of Olympus, Nico dreams/overhears a counsellor meeting. In it, he compares Will to a lanky cat, describes his appearance as surfer-like, mentions his nervous tic -- the bandage rolling -- and his use of it in the tense meeting, his otherwise laid-back demeanor in this tense meeting, and his calming of Clarisse with a touch. That is a LOT of noticing, which tells us quite a bit about Nico, but aside from the identified physical characteristics, we learn many genuinely deep details about how Will handles conflict and tension. He, for one, is aware of tension. He has a small nervous tic, but is otherwise capable of keeping his body language neutral and nonchalant. He can even calm others -- with a touch, which either tells us that he is close enough and trusted enough within camp that his touch is comforting and calming, or that he, as an extension of his medical-based powers, can calm escalating emotions with a touch (which would make sense, when there is someone behaving erratically or irrationally as a result of stress and may endanger other patients or workers in a hospital/infirmary environment). It also tells us that he is specifically close and trusted by CLARISSE, despite the rivalry between their cabins, as she not only allows him close enough to touch her but is not angry with him for calming her (as she might be with Percy, or Annabeth). She also IS calmed, whether that is a power of his or otherwise. Will also holds his own in the meeting, expressing his opinion and ensuring he is heard by the other, arguing counsellors.

4. Of course the most famous Will-centered interaction is his argument with Nico on Half-Blood Hill, at the end of Blood of Olympus. Will is with Cecil and Lou Ellen, children of Hermes and Hecate respectively -- troublemakers. It is an easy inference that Will is a troublemaker himself, especially since the three of them are dressed identically and are planning a kind of heist. We also learn, by the interactions between Will and Nico, that Will has a bit of an attitude (he spends a good amount of his dialogue time huffy and scolding, worried for Nico's health -- he's also quite bossy). We learn that he CARES for Nico, even though this is a shock to Nico himself, because Will exclaims with no insignificant amount of frustration that he (and he, wrongly, presumes others, which speaks more to his vehement care for Nico than not) has been trying to befriend Nico for some time. We can also see that in his frustration, at least when Nico is involved, he is not great with boundaries, as he touches famously touch-averse Nico, but that is a bit of a double-edged sword: either Will struggles with boundaries, which is possible, or Will is pretending to be bad at boundaries to try and ascertain just how injured Nico is, which is equally possible. It is also possible that Will, who has just delivered a baby for the first and hopefully only time, is sleep-deprived, in shock, and convinced he is about to die, and his usual ability to respect boundaries is compromised. I'll leave that one up to you. (Although I like to think a little bit of both are true -- Will is maybe a little loose with physical boundaries, and he is also trying to make sure he is not going to lose someone he considers a friend (which he calls Nico by name -- a friend). 

We also learn, in this section of the novel, that Will has something of a temper ("No, I am the son of Apollo, you anaemic loser!") and expresses his insulting frustration with medical-based insults, which is an objectively nerdy thing to do. We learn Will is unwilling to let even villains die, although when Nico told him some deaths were unpreventable, he listened and -- presumably -- agreed. Just before confronting Octavian, we learned Will is impulsive, as he ran off to have the Romans chase him, despite Nico's protests; we also learn he is athletic as he didn't die. We learn he has nice legs as Nico continues to comment on them. We learn he is hung up on Nico himself, as not only has he said so, he also continues to distract and run up to Nico, updating him on battle needs and keeping him within sight. When the battle has ended, we learn that he is busy, as he spends a significant amount of time rushing around camp, from cabin to cabin with a packed medical bag, as Nico notes, and we learn that he is serious about a few things: 1) Nico's -- and by extension his patients' -- health; and 2) oaths and promises, as he holds Nico accountable for his promise to receive medical attention and to stay in camp. Most important, perhaps, Will is happy that Nico is staying. He is the first person to tell Nico to his face that he wants him around. 

Let's, at the end of series two, count those facts up:

Will is a child of Apollo.

Will is an established part of camp.

Will cares for and has recently lost his siblings.

Will is a talented healer.

Will puts his duty first.

Will represses his own emotions and feelings to put his duty first.

Will is trusted by Percy.

Will is trusted by Annabeth.

Will is a comforter.

Will puts his duty above his physical needs.

Will hates theft & dishonesty.

Will has nuanced perspective.

Will is stubborn.

Will gets frustrated (and expresses that frustration largely with his words).

Will is forgiving.

Will is trusted by Leo.

Will physically resembles Apollo.

Will is catlike.

Will is lanky/languid.

Will has a 'surfer-boy' aesthetic.

Will has a bandage-wrapping nervous tic.

Will is otherwise capable of appearing calm when he is not feeling calm.

Will is very self-controlled.

Will is perceptive of emotions and feelings in a room (i.e. tension).

Will can calm with a touch.

Will is trusted by Clarisse.

Will is outspoken.

Will is friends with Cecil.

Will is friends with Lou Ellen. 

Will is (probably) a troublemaker.

Will has an attitude.

Will is bossy.

Will is (potentially) loose with boundaries.

Will cares about Nico.

Will considers Nico a friend. 

Will is worried about Nico's safety. 

Will is advanced enough in his healing/medical arts at this point to successfully deliver a baby.

Will has a temper. 

Will is a nerd who uses medical-based insults.

Will is unwilling to let people die.

Will can eventually acknowledge that some deaths are not preventable.

Will is impossible.

Will is athletic.

Will is fast.

Will has nice legs.

Will is hung up on Nico (and maybe has been for a while).

Will is busy. 

Will cares about Nico's health and safety.

Will is serious about oaths and promises.

Will is happy Nico is staying at camp. 

That's an even FIFTY THINGS we know about Will Solace, with, as OP joked, around 12 lines of dialogue. He is absolutely an established character in his own right, and the the expansion of his character -- and his added roles as Apollo's son and Nico's boyfriend -- give us even more insight and confirm a lot of our inferences.

Next time someone says Will is flat, Will is boring, or Will is made up by fandom -- I'm gonna make them count. 

People who say Will Solace's characterization is mostly fan-made do not have the reading comprehension skills that I can accept in my life. This boy had like, twelve lines of dialogue each in the first two series and I STILL understood him. And I love him so much!!! Nico's great, but I have always loved Will Solace so much more, he's funny and he's kind of mean and he's interesting. Do not undervalue the four chapters in which he appears prior to ToA. My boy has a presence!

[masochismustango]

I am genuinely glad that more and more people get to express their opinions on that interesting topic and bring more details up! That’s a lovely discussion, thank you c:

Nothing to apologize for, because your points are valid and it’s a possible reason for Arktos to behave that way we get to observe him in the cartoon. In case of his mother’s, let’s say, not that ideal parenting it’s obvious that, yeah, Arktos might have taken these traits from her and interpret them as an acting of the true leader, ruthless and, yeah, distant one. And due to getting orphaned at early age it’s, yeah, obvious that Arktos never thought the life could be different. Like in one of the Mitski’s song - please, forgive me for making the lyrics as an example, I know, I am pretty cringe 🤪 - “and I was so young when I behaved 25, yet now, I find I've grown into a tall child”…

I caught myself thinking about the given information pointed out by @bilumi , that, yeah, we get to see both Arktos and James’ character improvement, but still, I do think that they both need help and they’re both aren’t meant to “fix” each other, especially when it comes to James. And if it even was possible for them to recover, it would be a long way to overcome and it wouldn’t be easy for both of them either to simultaneously get cured and restart their relationship. If not as a couple, then as close friends too.

I’ve been thinking about some sorta stuff lately and now I think I shall share these thoughts of mine with you

Before you start reading, please, don’t take this post to heart, that’s just my opinion and I’m sorry in advance if this sounds harsh - I have nothing against the ship in general, I’m genuinely happy if it gives you a lot of joy making content about and just have fun with it.

So, I’d like to talk about one – if not only – of the main ships in ”Tabaluga“ fandom, jarktos (James x Arktos). Before deciding to dive in the cartoon again as a tribute to one of my favorite childhood cartoons one day, I, if my memory serves me well, happened to stumble upon the fanarts where these two were portrayed as a love couple and I liked them drawings, because the concept looked catchy to me - and it still does, actually! But as I decided to rewatch the first season, I changed my mind about it and found the idea of the ship… let’s say, much deeper and tragic.

I would like to start with the stuff happening to James - it was shown plenty of times in the series how faithful he was to Arktos. I would say, James’ as faithful as a dog in general regardless of how much he gets literally abused by Arktos in the show, both physically and mentally. James’ a scapegoat besides Vultur, but unlike him the penguin dares not to prove his point of view and defend himself. James’ terrified of Arktos, but he can’t escape him - though he had a chance when his fellow penguins decided to leave their home for a better life in one of the episodes, but he stayed still instead and proved his faith to the snowman once again - and the reason is that James can’t even imagine his life being different. Lemme explain:

Once James gets rescued by Tabaluga and stays in Greenland for a while after he failed his mission again. First of all, it was a surprise to him that the dragon boy saved the penguin who was supposed to be an enemy of his, and secondly, James admitted that he found it strange, because he had never had a friend before - and such a confession echoed deep inside me. It was clear to me that James would probably had spent his childhood and youth within the ice palace serving Arktos. Some typical for children activities such as playing toys James tried to do being a grownup penguin, but I suggest you to keep this moment in mind, because I’ll touch it upon a bit later. It seemed to me that James kept “forgiving” Arktos and tolerating his aggression because he had some kind of Stockholm syndrome due to being raised as a servant and knowing no different life besides being by Arktos’ side and making his wills come true any time he commands to. That’s why I wouldn’t call James’ rather positive attitude towards Arktos as love for him, and if he did love him, then his feelings would probably used against him.

I need to clear up that I’m not here to blame Arktos for his acts and just call him a moron, because it’s not that simple in case of his too and now I’ll try to explain why do I think so. I think we all can agree that Arktos’ quite complicated himself as a “person” and it gets difficult to analyse him too, because as it was pointed out by @mariatrojan “thanks” to plot holes of the series we can’t come up with the snowman’s past. According to the lyrics of the song “Schlüssel zur Macht“ written by Peter Maffay, one of the creators of original stories about Tabaluga, Arktos’ originally supposed to be “as so old as the world”, but then the producers decided to change such an information about him starting with the first season. And it’s no less difficult to analyse the given stuff as well, because the information about possible past of Arktos changes in the second season again and it’s implied that he’s kind of the same ages as Tyrion, Tabaluga’s father. Odd, isn’t it? 🤡

Still, regardless of the given variety of Arktos’ origins, his story is quite tragic too, because if Arktos lost his parents at early age, he probably wouldn’t have happy childhood either, but he had to face all the consequences of being a leader of Eiswelt. And his hatred for everything green can be explained by his trauma of loss - let’s say that if his mother didn’t die in Greenland, he wouldn’t be orphaned this early. This would explain why Arktos invited James to play with him when he spotted the penguin having fun with his toy and then told him about his childhood dream of becoming an architect. It was also shown lots of times that Arktos had a drive for art in general. To me it’s implied that he had no interest in politics and similar stuff, but he had no choice and the intention of invading Greenland became his credo. Same’s about the version of Arktos being a supreme being - according to “Schlüssel zur Macht“ again, it was stated that Arktos has “black like the night” nature, which indicates that his duty is to kill everything living by his powers. Therefore let’s ask ourselves how such an iced creature like Arktos is even capable of loving someone? Judging by the given scenarios I would assume that both trauma and immortality would affect his mental state and even drive him insane at some point, if we try to overthink his rather childish behavioural traits we may observe in the series.

That’s why I think that the only possible love relationship between James and Arktos are likely one-sided, I can also see that James would probably privately hope that one day he succeeds in “fixing” the snowman, forgetting that he needs help too. And case of Arktos is probably one of the hardest things to deal with.

[ratblazer]

I like to think I greatly contributed to people in the fandom calling Constantine a rat, and that makes me very happy

[bagels-and-cream-cheese333]

Fanon Leo gives off a certain Vibe and I don’t like it.

[astriiformes]

When I was applying for undergrad, I was fully in my "All my favorite characters are weird smart academic types" phase, because I Iike many undiagnosed twice-exceptional teens had carefully constructed a personal identity around a certain (incredibly harmful) societal idea of intelligence. It totally showed in the institutions I was applying to, too, and in particular, my motivation for choosing them.

This also lead to me making bad choices in the long run and was completely unsustainable, but I will admit that it was helpful when it came to motivating myself to complete my college applications. (Especially considering one of my top schools -- and the one with the most involved application -- happened to be a university that a beloved favorite character had attended but also, it is really, really good in retrospect that I did not get in there.)

I am happier and healthier now and have a much more sustainable image of success in my head, if an imperfect relationship with it, but this also means I have a complicated relationship with the fictional academic archetype and the type of characters I used to love, and that used to be motiviating to me. A lot of my favorite characters these days are ones who possess other traits I admire -- tenacity, kindness, a strong sense of justice, and a desire to change the world for the better. But I don't associate most of them with school or academic success at all; sometimes even the opposite.

All this to say, seeing as I have grad school apps due in exactly a month now. Save me Palamedes Sextus. Save me.

[moeblob]

Threes Company

[sallymew4]

woah cringe alert

i was feeling nostalgic and crazy so i doodled :) i dont know if i'll ever draw them again but it was fun figuring out some designs

close ups

[cluescorner]

I cannot imagine being a Damian stan right now. You've got both Zdarsky's bullshit (where he clearly doesn't give a shit about your boy) and The Boy Wonder (where Juni Ba clearly gives so many shits about your boy) coming out on the same day. The whiplash must be insane. I hope y'all get some nice warm soup for your efforts jfc