#everything is always so wrong

[catastrophicalcat]

Lex and the City

It was fine as an anthology of short stories! I rather liked it. Specific thoughts:

The titular Lex story was a tiny bit hard to follow, but I got the sentiment--I wish that it would have gone a bit harder, if that makes sense.

The Harlivy story was cute. I get the critique that it's another example of Harley being recognized over Ivy, but I also get that she's an easier character to write.

The Freeze story was really well constructed! Props to the writer for packing so much in such a short space. In response to the discourse, I appreciate that the henchwoman who complains about her landlord being scarier than Batman is the probably the one who hurts the protagonists boyfriend unjustifiably. I also like that Batman gives the tools to the struggling couple to get financial support instead of becoming villain goons

I loved the Titans story and particularly that it celebrates the most unrecognized group of people for Valentine's day - guys spending time together.

The Robin story. It was great! It was funny! People had unexpected cameos! Yes Tim's backstory no longer makes any sense in continuity but so what just roll with it! I like that it celebrates Gotham!

Speaking of celebrating Gotham and cameos, I adored the Riddler story! So funny. Such good cameos! And great representation that sometimes, just because you're alone on Valentine's day, doesn't mean you have to be lonely, and you can always do what you love (which, in this case, happens to be trapping Batman in riddles in Gotham, but you get the point).

I could not power through the other two lol.

[starkspi]

From "Managerial Liberties" on AO3 by @miribalis (where they collect fallen angels like shiny Pokémon at the hotel), it makes me really happy (and has my heart).

[licorishh]

no way she's alive ?? yea those mental health breaks because social media makes people suck are wild huh

[hellamorte]

just thinking about logan who hasn't been touched for decades and doesn't know how to do it non-violently anymore... he's basically a hissing kitty mess, and wade ends up being the only one who can deal with it thanks to his healing factor and his inability to keep his hands off handsome old men, so eventually logan just... rolls with it? and turns out he's not only surprisingly okay with that, but also into it So Much, just imagine him completely obliterated at the fact that he enjoys touching wade. holding his hand. GODDAMN CARESSING HIM.

[suckishima]

lmaoooo the kuroken is strong with the crunchyroll subs

[silverwhittlingknife]

So you're a go to source for all things Dick&Tim bros and you tend to write primarily from Dick's POV. So, odd question, but if you were to summarize their relationship from his POV in FIVE panels which panels would you pick? Keeping in mind that one specific aspect of their relationship that you love needs to be clearly represented by each panel (loyalty, trust etc). I hope this is a fun challenge and not an annoying question so if you don't want to answer that's cool! Have a wonderful day!

No more talk. The same thoughts run through two minds... (SotB 29) / You're my equal. My closest ally. (RR 1) / I can't stop thinking how much I rely on him. (GoG 3)

25 Feelings Dick Has About Tim

This was such a kind ask & a cool challenge which I totally failed; here are TWENTY-five panels of Dick's POV on Tim sdfdsfds Look, I got carried away! Marcia and Cindy! The boys!!

OKAY SO BEFORE I GET TO THE PANELS A FEW NOTES:

WARNING THAT THERE ARE SOME NEGATIVE EMOTIONS IN HERE because I love conflict but but but you gotta remember those are not the final word!! They are complicated people and sometimes they get mad at each other BUT ultimately their relationship is so hugely important in both their lives & they love each other and rely on each other so much -!!! <3

Also I have CONCLUDING THOUGHTS at the end about what Dick's POV leaves out (mostly: a lot of Dick defending & protecting & supporting Tim, which Dick does instinctively but isn't very self-aware about most of the time)

I have loosely organized my list into 5^5 format (5 categories with 5 examples each!), so if you want to skip to a relevant one, here are the categories!!

Below the cut:

I hate him and find him infuriating (#1-5)

On second thought, he's endearing & fun (#6-10)

Grief is complicated & he's all tangled up in mine (#11-15)

I love him & think highly of him (#16-20)

I rely on him & though it's hard for me, I trust him (#21-25)

I hate him and find him infuriating (#1 - 5)

1) He thinks he’s so smart and can psychoanalyze me and Bruce, but he doesn’t know me at all, he should get lost (New Titans 61)

2) He thinks he’s so smart and can psychoanalyze Bruce but he doesn’t know Bruce at all, he should get lost (Gotham Knights 26)

3) He is so nosy about stuff that is MY business (Robin 0)

4) He sounds like an insincere suck-up half the time... but okay, fine, if you push him he's got a sense of humor about it (New Titans 65)

5) I'm sure he's a better vigilante than me. It's my fault for being a failure, but I resent him anyway. (Nightwing 9 - Dick's having a nightmare)

On second thought, he's kinda endearing (#6-10)

6) He worries too much and gets anxious so easily, but it makes him fun to tease (Robin 67)

7) I'm not that competitive - okay, so maybe I'm a little competitive, I gotta make sure he doesn't get a swelled head (Prodigal)

8) I'm supposed to be his favorite! It is not cool for him to be fanboying over my not-girlfriend's not-boyfriend!! (Birds of Prey 19)

9) We have fun together. I can kick back and relax when it's just the two of us. Plus I get to boss him around a bit. (Prodigal)

10) He’s always trying to reassure me, and I guess it's a little comforting, but also he doesn’t really get it. Or me. He makes excuses that he shouldn't, because he doesn't understand that I suck. (Nightwing 64)

Grief is complicated and he's all tangled up in mine (#11 - 15)

11) He reminds me of everything I try not to think about. Sometimes the memories are so strong it hurts to look at him. (Batman 441)

12) WHY IS HE BEING IMPOSSIBLE ALL OF A SUDDEN??? THIS IS SO FRUSTRATING (Nightwing 139)

13) We're the same. He says all the things I don't let myself think about. It's like arguing with myself. (Nightwing 139)

14) He thinks he gets to tell me what to do but he doesn’t, fuck him (Battle for the Cowl)

15) Life sucks, so what. I sucked it up so he should too (RR 1)

I love him and think highly of him (#16 - 20)

16) He’s the closest thing to a brother I’ll ever have.  If someone hurts him I will hurt them harder. (Nightwing 6)

17) I can't handle the idea of losing him. (Nightwing 97)

17) He’s so good and I’m not. I'm afraid I’m bad for him. (Nightwing 110)

18) He’s better than me, and it’s kind of a relief because I know no matter what he’ll be okay. (Gates of Gotham 3)

19) In my head he’s the responsible one.  (Gotham Knights 10)

I rely on him, and though it's hard for me, I trust him (#20-25)

20) I know I have to trust him but I'm afraid he'll make the wrong choices and get hurt (Nightwing 139)

21) I'm sure I know what he should do because I see myself in him - not that I can take my own advice, but he should (Blackest Night 3)

22) I trust him.  When I’m losing my grip on things, he pulls me back. (Gotham Knights 10)

23) I want him to trust me (Red Robin 12)

24) He can tell when I'm lying. Sometimes he sees my weaknesses better than I wish he did. (Detective Comics 874)

25) He’s always there when I need him. (Teen Titans / Outsiders Secret Files)

Final rambling thoughts:

TIM: Uhh, okay, so I'm just skimming this list - do you really trust me? you're not just saying that? - but anyway, I'm confused because you left some stuff out? Like some stuff that's kinda important? DICK: No? I think I got everything? TIM (starts counting on his fingers): The time I was having a bad day but then I called you. The time I got captured by Two-Face but then you saved me. The time I fell off a train but then you saved me. The time I fell off a building but then you saved me. The time I fell off a different building - DICK: I feel like you're trying to make some kind of point but I'm not sure what it could be.

SO THE THING IS, I put 25 panels in here and not a single one has Dick catching Tim when he’s falling!!! But I think that's a central motif of their relationship from Tim’s POV, not Dick’s. I love Dick, but in some ways I think he is spectacularly un-self-aware.

And I think he especially has a lot of blind spots about Tim. He kinda intermittently gets that Tim admires him, and he enjoys it in a playful I-get-to-boss-you-around way. But Dick tends to consistently underestimate all of his own good qualities & skills, and he meets Tim at a point in his life when he's especially down on himself & his abilities. And so he's unable to see his own influence on Tim, & therefore unable to fully understand a lot of Tim's priorities and loyalties and motivations, because you can't actually understand Tim without understanding Dick's impact on him. There's a fascinating moment in Bruce Wayne: Murderer when Dick's completely blindsided & upset to discover that Tim doesn't entirely trust Bruce, even though this has been a definitive fact of Tim's whole thing ever since he showed up with his Batman needs Robin theory, and Barbara has to actively remind Dick of the obvious-to-everyone-except-Dick fact that a lot of Tim's loyalty is to Dick, and Tim loves Bruce but feels free to be more wary of him. (And to give Bruce credit: this is not something he ever begrudges.) But anyway Babs points this out, and Dick manages to sorta process it for about five seconds, but he cannot actually accept it into his worldview so instead he discards it at the speed of light and goes off and has an argument with Tim instead sdfsfdsf

All of Dick's virtues - Dick's kindness at the circus and Dick's determination to fight through grief and Dick's rigid sense of morals and Dick's vigilante skills and every time Dick has ever backed Tim up or listened to him or protected him or saved him from something or just been casually kind to a stranger in Tim's presence etc etc etc - all these things loom really large in Tim's mental story of Who Dick Is, and What Dick And Tim's Relationship Is. Tim meets Dick before he meets Bruce, trusts Dick more than Bruce, aspires to be Robin instead of Batman. And so in Tim's default version of the story, Dick is the super-special and admirable hero and Tim is... nobody in particular, a tagalong outsider who's barely managing to be a hero, not part of Dick and Bruce's family and not part of their story, who, if he's VERY LUCKY and tries REALLY HARD, might be able to fight his way to proving himself and offering something to Dick that Dick will value, if Dick doesn't get fed up with him first.

But that's not Dick's version of the story!!!

Dick's version of the story is almost the exact opposite, a story where Dick's an outcast failure black sheep who's screwing up everything he tries, and meanwhile Tim is The Sudden New Perfect Robin Who's Better Than Me And Probably Bruce Loves Him More And Probably They Gossip About What A Loser I Am, mixed with a complicated edge of Tim Thinks He's So Smart But He Doesn't Know Me/Us At All. Dick gets much more attached to Tim over time, and Tim gets unnervingly better at the know-it-all psychoanalysis so then Dick gets to have complicated feelings about him being right instead of just annoyance at him for being wrong, plus Dick's relationship with Bruce improves a lot, so Tim stops feeling so threatening. But Dick never fundamentally changes his basic theory of their relationship in which Tim is highly impressive and capable, and Dick is not so much.

And so asking Dick about Tim is kinda like if you asked George Bailey to tell you about Harry Bailey in It's A Wonderful Life; like, you'll be there for five hours while he tells you how great Harry is, and how accomplished Harry is, and how he doesn't really get how or why Harry does the things he does, and maybe George does feel a little resentful or jealous sometimes, but that pales in comparison to all his admiration and trust for Harry who he loves so much, who's better than him in so many ways, and he's not gonna openly gripe but secretly he can't help but feel sometimes like he's such a failure in comparison to Harry, a perfect person who emerged fully formed from Zeus's head with all the virtues and also all the accomplishments, etc. etc. etc. --

-- and he will not actually remember the part where he changed and saved Harry's whole entire life unless you literally send him to an alternate timeline in order to force him to remember it. <3

[inkskinned]

it mattered because when my brother asked me what if this is the happiest you'll ever be? the best you'll ever get? the thing i felt was fear, not peace. everybody thought you were so perfect for me. even i thought you were "helping me grow". i had to challenge every internal clock. make myself more thoughtful, more kind, more beautiful.

i told my therapist it was good because i like the changes i made and there's something so strong about saying i did that. the problem is that i can like the difference all i want, but i changed for you. something akin to getting your name tattooed, all my progress is stamped with fuck you.

it was the happiest i'd ever been and also the best i'd ever gotten. i would still get in the car and think what the fuck just happened.

[wardensantoineandevka]

it's kind of funny that we're back at the start, as it was known from the very beginning, as the story always was, the old lore: "the Divine Gate was built in response to the destruction and suffering of the Calamity as the Prime Deities realized was far too much and, as such, they needed to also remove themselves from Exandria to protect it from the ruin that the gods dwelling here brings"

[luna-loveboop]

I want. Four to get appreciation. Because

Four gave a ton of unnoticed help when Twilight was injured

The fight with Wild was difficult, and I know we're all concerned about his negative view of the shadow crystal

But Four did something that no one else really thought of to help- He took care of Twi's stuff

From the beginning he told Twilight to not worry about them

So Four took care of pretty much everything but the others (that Sky and Wars handled)

He took care of Epona

Which is so very important- he took care of Twilight's horse. After her arrival at the stable Four followed up on her

And for Epona, a horse so attached to her human, having some company can help so much for reassurance

He took care of Twilight's stuff

He got Twi's shield- his bags and equipment, and organized it into one place

And he was worried. He obviously found the shadow crystal while handling Twi's stuff, but his negative reactions to it were out of concern.

Also- because of his placement in this scene

I'm fairly convinced Four was ready to start cooking before Wild showed up (since he's beside the counter with food supplies). At the very least he had the basket of fruit out for everyone -but he was literally standing with food behind him- he thought of everything

And he did housekeeping!

Wars payed for the inn, so Four took care of the inn

Realistically these boys were probably not too concerned with tidyness. Four got all of Twi's things on one table, and took care of the room they stayed in

Organizing tables and Twi's things, having food supplies ready, and opening the curtains- overall he was the one tidying up the inn

Four helped in a huge way! He took care of Twi's horse (Epona is so important), his equipment and shield and bag, as well as the other rooms in the inn

Four filled in all the little tasks that others didn't think of. He helped in ways that were needed, but not obvious

There's a lot of problems with the shadow crystal and with Wild, and I don't know what's gonna happen in the future

But don't forget this- don't forget that Four was one who stepped up in an almost unnoticeable way

Don't forget that when everyone was barely holding it together, Four visited Twilight's horse and took care of his things

No matter what develops in the future- this amount of care shown is important ya know?

.

Art and comic from Jojo @linkeduniverse au :)))

[lexosaurus]

PSA to those interested in DPxDC Crossover Content

Reminder that, as per the Danny Phantom x DC discord stated rules, the official tag that the crossover fandom operates under is DPxDC with NO spaces. This is because Tumblr filters do a bad job when it comes to spaces and often get confused.

If you wish to participate in the dpxdc fandom, please tag all your content accordingly, and DPxDC server mods have advised people to avoid using the DC tag and the Danny Phantom tag. This is because the dpxdc fandom entirely overpowers the danny phantom fandom in sheer numbers alone, and it is in fact so big with so much lore that it's really a separate entity from both DP and DC. And tagging properly reduces unwanted flooding to the separate fandoms.

If you have any questions, please refer to this awesome tagging guide made by @ectoentity about the dpxdc fandom and tags. And as mentioned previously, there is a huge DPxDC discord server you can join if you're interested. You can DM the mod-operated blog for an invite: @batpham-discord-highlights (all the mods for this server are awesome, real tea)

have fun!

[acetheta]

please protect asexual / aromantic kids for the love of god

[termagax]

[abrahamvanhelsings]

listen i don't think edward little was actually a bad first lieutenant. when we see him in the first episode he's calm and confident. he does not say much but he's amiable enough. crozier likes him, and i don't think crozier would like anyone he doesn't think capable in some way. generally he's dependable and knows what he's doing. however unfortunately for edward he has these qualities because he has a major case of eldest daughter syndrome, which means he both wants to please his mum (crozier) and has an overdeveloped sense of responsibility for his younger siblings (crew), so when they get stuck in the ice and crozier starts going (more) alcoholic, he enables his mum bc he doesn't want to disappoint her even if he doesn't agree with her, and he has to pick up the tasks and care for his siblings she's not doing, but he can't let his siblings know about their mum's situation because they'll get worried and restless. and like a true eldest daughter he has to bear the brunt of mummy's anger for being a disappointment but he also doesn't want to seek refuge with the man she divorced (fitzjames) because that feels like a betrayal. also while this is going on there is a giant bear who hunts his siblings for sport so they're dying left and right and also a changeling master manipulator who's making his siblings mad at their mum and who wants to fuck said mum before eating her like some sort of praying mantis. anyway i think i would start being miserable and anxious too.

[lilithofpenandbook]

Do you think that Snape, after being yelled at by McGonagall for showing her attitude and somehow the fight escalating to their past when Snape was a child, and told that if he was actually traumatised by her actions, he'd be afraid of her, not rude to her, would lock himself in his room and cry, cry, cry, because despite the fact that he fought back and screamed that he IS traumatised, that she DID hurt him by not being there, that she IS responsible for him being this way, he isn't sure? Because every single person around him tells him that he's the problem. That he's rude. That it's his fault the other party was offended. Even though he didn't mean to be rude, he was just being him, but surely he's the problem if everyone's saying it? Or maybe he's surrounded by the wrong people? Or maybe he is wrong, and he is a horrible person, he is a piece of trash, he's wrong and just stubborn?

Do you think that sometimes he doesn't even know if he's right or wrong? That he doesn't even care, all he knows is that he's so, so angry, he's in so, SO much pain, he wants to scream, he wants to cry, it all hurts and no one's coming to make it better and he can never get it out, he can never truly vocalise it because the words won't come, and he looks hysterical, insane, and selfish.

He's just tired.

[1296-very-good-year]

S2 actually doesn't commit to saying Hextech was inherently bad. It's just Jayce + Viktor who were bad.

Heimerdinger, Ekko, and Jayce muse about the possibility that the Arcane itself is an evil corrupting influence. Then they find the anomaly, and Jayce is whisked away to the torment nexus to stew on this possibility. What does he learn there? Let's ask his flashbacks to find out!

He comes to regret kicking Heimerdinger off the council, and his dream of inventing Hextech altogether. It is only after he dismantles his Hextech hammer - and leaves it behind - that he's able to escape the pit.

I have SO MANY problems with this, but I'm going to stick with one here: the omnipotent, all-powerful, timeline-hopping futureViktor is the one leaving Jayce to suffer and learn this lesson.

When a writer (who is all-knowing) creates an all-knowing character, they give themselves the ability to interact directly with their own story and characters. Jayce supposedly needed to learn that Hextech was bad and was always going to go bad. He is forcibly, tortuously taught by the writers that his dream was wrong from the start.

Sounds pretty cut and dry, right? Hextech is bad. HOWEVER:

At the same time, in the same episode that Jayce is learning this, Heimerdinger enjoys 3 years of peace in a Good AU where he learns that actually magic is okay sometimes, and helps Ekko invent a Hextech device that saves the day. Maybe he should have been a more supportive teacher to Jayce after all!

And yet... Jayce is NEVER corrected on his assumption that s1 Heimerdinger was right. He goes off on his suicidal mission fully believing it, and he dies believing it.

There exists no timeline in which Jayce and Viktor are able to get their shit together without ending the world. It wasn't Hextech = bad. It was Jayce + Viktor = bad.

Maybe Hextech is just fine. As long as someone else invents it.

[hopeswriting]

daily life arc miura haru. does anyone know who i'm talking about. do you guys remember her. i still can't believe what happened to her 😔