#he didn't go back on his character development but was optimistic about it. i am looking too deep for a children's movie lmao

[flamestar126]

him.

(click for better quality)

Minor spoilers below for those who haven't watched it yet

Tell me this isn't how it went rn/j

Dying in the theaters when Floyd's attempt for sympathy/persuasion immediately backfired on him. I wanted his reaction to it so bad

[crushedsweets]

I am so curious as to what you'd think about Nina and Hoodie as a duo. They've been two of my absolute favorites (even if Brian technically isn't even a creepypasta) since I was younger and I've always loved them as a sort of big brother/little sister pairing. They are so siblings to me I adore them. What are your thoughts on the sillies..

OHHH this is actually super interesting... but also im worried i do not have a lot to say because they won't mesh very well/very much. but i will try. not super realistic headcanons i think but what do i know... <3

brian isnt very present in my story, partially bc ik some mh fans dont like the crossover very much. and by time ninas in the story, i want him+tim to kinda separate from slenderman as toby and kate take over. he's still involved and coming around since he gets horrible slender sickness(but its from the operator) if he's away too long, but he doesn't live near or befriend most of the main cast..

nina is very present in my story because i love her and she is such a good and fun representation of the fandom yk. but brian is much more realistic and late 30s man, while nina is a very cartoonish early 20s girl. theyre on very different fields character and life wise...

BUUUUUUUUUT they would still meet of course.

she'd be bubbling around the entire cast, meeting people through jeff. people initially think she's in the same vein as jeff, natalie, and toby, with a LONG list of blood on their hands influenced by the operator, so they just don't think much about it. theyre mostly surprised by how cheery she is, but the proxies are the first to find out she's just... obsessed with jeff..... so thats very off putting. brian isn't fond of it.

nina would develop some light slender sickness(again, from the operator) just by being around jeff all the time, but the operator never infected her because he didn't see her as a worthy vessel. so, she would have to come to the proxies about it. if toby isnt in the mood or busy, she'd just have to hope brian/tim are around with some pills that'll soothe the pain

brian is more likely to help. with nina, he'd be quick to take on a more protective role, trying to console her as she cries on the couch holding her head whining about static.

initial convos would go smth along the lines of "do you want some coffee ? or uh kids like hot chocolate huh... maybe tea" "i'm literally in my 20s please tell me toby has weed somewhere" "that does not help with this pain i promise" "how would you know" "haha. water it is."

brian was a major stoner back in his early 20s and nina thinks its fucking hilarious. . . she'll try to get him to smoke with her but he's rlly not interested LOLLLL.... hes like 15 yrs older than her he thinks its weird .

again, he's not around a lot, but she's always happy to bump into him. she'd be squealing n shit 'HIII BRIANNNN how r u :3' and he'd just be like :) hey nina. and then never answer the 'how r u' bc he doesnt actually wanna sit and talk .

its a good change of pace. he's been through hell and back for well over a decade by this point, everyone around him is a sad sack of shit, and he spent a long time just. fighting to be an optimistic, cool guy to hang around . . but .... like.... um..... its hard to be that kind of person after all he's been thru. something about nina just forces that sort of like..... glee out of him . its not a huge difference where he's suddenly bouncing and giggling and whatever, he's still just Some Guy. but he'll be like :) lol .

mayhaps he'd catch her trying on toby's goggles and he'd offer to let her try on his mask. but nina would fake gag and be like 'no i dont want that dirty musty nasty sack on my head' and he'd be like ?????. then he'd say she can wash it and then try it on. which.. as an older sibling.... is the type of shit i'd do just to get my sister to do smth for me that i dont wanna do LMFAOOO. she might fall for it just cuz my dear nina is the ultimate fangirl

i dunno i kinda struggled with this one just cuz in my au, they wouldnt be all that close and the Type of characters they are don't mesh very well, but i am super fond of the concept and would love to try expanding on it more

[masterqwertster]

Ok don’t publish it if you don’t have to but man this weekend is bumming me right out with this “

Yeah, there is certainly some aggression going on against people wishing for resurrection because others find it a poignant narrative that a sacrifice can't be undone, that it lasts and has consequences, that it puts weight to the stakes. And they think that coming back to life after specifically doing something you know will 100% kill you cheapens sacrifice.

Personally, I think that being brought back after you willingly and knowingly and successfully gave your life for others tells a story of how much you're loved. It's your friends saying "Fuck that. You're going to live. We're all going to live. We'll keep dragging each other back until we can't anymore, so fucking be here and fight."

It also adds another level of desperation to be stronger, smarter, to not be caught like that ever again because who knows if you can get them back next time (and however many times you fail after that). Resurrections get harder ever time a person is brought back. This is part of what bit Scanlan's ass right before Bard's Lament: the Revivify didn't take, so the rest of Vox Machina brought in his daughter to call him back during the Resurrection (which he hated) and got the chance to be dicks about bringing him back with the dumb pranks, all of which led to setting Scanlan off. And sure, Bells Hells had that desperation to keep each other alive from the Bassuras fight, but that doesn't mean that the sentiment can't be further sharpened even when you've managed to steal back all the lives of your party members that she took.

Honestly, I think that just having Chet and FCG die against the Murder Machine of Otohan after Bells Hells specifically and successfully went to efforts to get stronger still ups the stakes even if both end up revived. "All our might and we still faced that loss. It would have been all of us if FCG didn't make that play. We still cannot face the enemy leadership head-on as we are. We must get stronger still."

And I really think there's some fun character development to be had in giving FCG a flesh body. Will he actually like what they've envied about the others? How does one handle a completely new body that they're grateful for (that they should be grateful for, otherwise they'd be dead) but is just so different from what they know? Yes, FCG had that last moment clarity that he was in fact already fully alive, but there's definitely some "alive in the flesh" things to explore.

And more faith to explore too. Like, did he get to meet the Changebringer and talk with her in the afterlife? The Raven Queen? Speaking of just being in the afterlife, what about meeting Eshteross again? The other members of the Division of Public Benefit that he killed?

Also, I'm not sure how big a fan I am of the heavy breakdowns that will happen if FCG isn't resurrected. Bells Hells is suffering pretty good as is and I'd like them to have some happiness inbetween all the Moon Bullshit. Conflict drives a story, but you need soft moments to wind it down between heavy moments.

Because truthfully, most of what you get from keeping FCG dead is a bunch of breakdowns in the party without it's most optimistic member who actually advocates for communication, which they all suck at for various personal reasons. And a push towards the Villain Arc path that, honestly, a few are walking just fine without FCG staying dead and/or can still be pushed further down it just by the fact that he decided to kill himself to save their asses when no one wants to let any of the others go.

I do think that as far as martyrdom goes, what FCG did took a nice step away from "giving my life because it's worth less than any one of theirs and I think dying for a cause will give me absolution for the people I rage killed" and into "giving my life because it will save them and I don't know what else to do that will save them." There are certainly posts that get into the distinction between those choices better than I have. Which is where I think the "best ending for FCG" idea comes from, as it happened under the "best" reasoning for FCG to martyr himself. And to a certain degree, people have decided that martyrdom was unavoidable for FCG or that he was just highly prone to it and this was a good time/way to do it.

Still doesn't change that a self-sacrificing character did in fact sacrifice themself, though. Or that it didn't have to be the end that FCG met.

And I understand to some degree how Everyone Comes Back to Life if You Try can feel like it undermines the stakes. Because if no one stays dead, what do you have to fear from walking into mortal danger? Everyone will be fine right? Which is wrong. There is still trauma in dying, even when you're brought back. The realization of mortality, the struggle to steal back a life when it's not just a quick prayer in the heat of battle. And the ever looming possibility that you do it right and it's still not enough to steal them back.

Also, from the wider in-the-game-world's perspective: Resurrection is rare as shit and only people with immense wealth, connections, and/or power even have a shot at it.

Even mechanically it's not easy. You have to mind time limits, expensive costs, body conditions, spell levels and slots, not to mention that the dice can always say no.

So yes, Bells Hells probably needs to go to less effort to Reincarnate FCG than they did to resurrect Laudna because all they're missing is components while they have the likes of Keyleth who kind of owe them for Moon Scouting and killing Otohan and should be able to provide.

[theelectronicstranger]

About the New Ultimate Spider-Man

So yesterday it was confirmed that the new Ultimate Spider-Man book that was going to be written by Jonathan Hickman would be about an older Peter Parker, who in this new Ultimate Universe is married to Mary Jane Watson and has two kids. Here are the covers and pictures with that confirmations:

I am so fucking excited for this book after this confirmation because before yesterday, we didn't really know if Jonathan Hickman was going to be writing about Peter Parker. The only thing we knew was that he was writing about an older Spider-Man, so to see these covers as confirmation and to see Peter and MJ have kids is so fucking refreshing.

I kind of fell off Amazing Spider-Man after Nick Spencer's run because throughout his whole run he was teasing that Peter and MJ were going to be back together again, maybe even married, but it never happened. My best guess as to why is because Marvel Editorial intervened and that's why Nick Spencer's last arc in the series and the reveal of who kindred was became weak. That's just my speculation though. I feel like Marvel does not want this character to ever grow up, so he's kind of stuck in this arrested development where he can grow for just a tiny bit only to be knocked back down to status quo.

I'm really excited for this series. I have not finished Ultimate Invasion yet, so when i do I'll talk about that on here. I just hope Jonathan Hickman does this character justice. I know a married Peter Parker isn't new. Dan Slott wrote Renew Your Vows which I loved. However, that title is gone and it really is nice to have a married Peter and MJ after not liking what they've been offering in the current Amazing Spider-Man title.

Also, I really hope Hickman stays on this title for a long time and that Marvel let's him do what he wants without too much interference. This isn't the main universe Peter Parker, so I don't think it'll be a problem.

By the way, I don't know if this is because Marvel has teased me so much and for so long, but as much as I'm optimistic about this title, there's also a small part of my brain that think that this is all a ruse or a lie of some kind. Like Peter and MJ are not actually together and in this title, they're divorced who hates each other's guts. That is just the paranoid person in me talking. However, you can't really blame me for thinking that way because Marvel has teased this pairing so much only to go back on their word. I guess I'll just have to wait and read the book to see if my optimistic side is right or the paranoid side of me is right.

Thanks for reading this. I'm going to go read some comics and maybe I'll talk to you guys again.

[danganronpasurvivoraskblog]

Rpg Anon: For the Bingo: Hinazumi, Soudaionji, Togahina, Naegiri, Fuyupeko, Tokomaru, Soruko, Saimatsu, Tsumioda, and everything. Yeah that's right. I'm throwing all the ships at ya.

//Aight, that's fair. Might as well get it out of the way.

//I really do wish that Mahiru was a more integral character to DR2's plot, because her interactions with Hajime in the Free Time Events are probably the cutest the game has to offer. Originally I was more of a Hinanami fan, and honestly I still am, but I've been corrupted by these two.

//Mahiru and Hajime are perfect catalysts for each other's character development, since one counters the others past trauma. Being someone who's just a meer photographer, Mahiru also has the potential to relate to Hajime more as a talentless individual.

//Ship is hella underrated, it needs more love.

//Outside of Survivor, I'm not CRAZY about this pair, and honestly, the only place I can think of it starting from is that one manga where Usami creates a Japanese festival and they have a bonding moment.

//It's kind of like a Nagatoro/Senpai relationship where the girl mercilessly bullies the boy because she likes him, and with these two, I can get behind that.

//Especially because of how much opposites attract. Hiyoko has a graceful design but a less than graceful personality, wheras Kazuichi is an honestly nice guy but looks and acts pathetic. There is potential there, but due to it being such a meager and not-well established ship, it lacks the fanbase movement to make it worth it.

//I didn't write down romantically or platonically on this one because the basic pair can go either way. This pairing is basically the definition of that high-school movie couple that's the pompous rich girl and the jock, except the gender roles are reversed, and honestly, I think that's pretty funny.

//Hina and Byakuya's progressions from adversaries to friends in DR1 and DR3 is actually pretty fun and natural, and the idea of Byakuya softening up around his classmates is one that I can more than get behind. Hina being the catalyst for it is also perfect.

//I kind of wish more people talked about this one.

//Don't think anyone's gonna argue with me for holding Naegiri in high regard. Makoto is the character who I have the MOST ships with, because I also think Sayaka and Mukuro make for amazing partners, but because Kyoko has spent the most time bonding with

//They have this theme where they can bring out themselves in each other to help balance out where their characters lean. Makoto is usually optimistic and wistful, but Kyoko can help bring him back down to earth and make him face reality if he ends up in a tizz. Alternatively, Makoto's optimism breaks Kyoko's ordinarily stone-cold expression, and it's shown in DR3 that she's gotten to the point that she is unashamed to speak highly of Makoto, because she's come to respect him and value him as a friend, something she would not have done in early DR1.

//They make each other the best versions of themselves and that's all a good relationship needs. Plus, the cool girl and lame boy dynamic is rarely ever not fun.

//These two got married after DR2 happened and nobody can tell me otherwise.

//Honestly though, as cute as I think Kuzupeko is, their actual canon relationship is kind of toxic. I know that's the point, but I like to think that Peko works herself out of that horrid mindset of being Fuyuhiko's servant and nothing else once she realizes how much he really loves her, not just romantically, but as a friend.

//Peko's also pretty good for Fuyuhiko's health. Even before any relationship upgrades I imagine he always vents to her about stupid shit because he can't trust anyone else with it, and thinking about that makes me realize how much they trust each other. They deserve one another, and no one else should have them.

//What I find most hilarious about Tokomaru is that it's basically just Naegiri with baggage. Rather, MORE baggage. Also, lots more screen time and room for development, since UDG is basically ABOUT these two and outside of every horrible thing that game brought, this relationship was not one of them.

//Like her brother, Komaru can be easily overwhelmed, emotional and sometimes too optimistic for her own good, and Toko helps mediate this with her more cynical and realistic personality. In turn, Komaru's more ordinary high school girl nature and her own quirks as a character suit Toko well, normalizing HER fucked up writing and bringing out the human side that she SERIOUSLY lacked in DR1.

//Speaking from the heart, I actually think these two are my current favourite couple in DR Survivor. I already talked in a previous post how writing Toko is one of the most fun and engaging things I've ever done, and I'm proud to see the natural progression of this pair and how far they've come together. If only DR weren't cowards and made them canonical lesbian lovers.

//WHERE IS UDG2 GOD DAMMIT!?

//Soruko is a pair that I love, but I have a hard time writing because Sora can sometimes be a MASSIVE DICK to her wife. Not that she means it, but sometimes I feel like I inadvertently make Sora this big dick energy monster who wants dominance over Yoru, and that's NOT what these two are.

//I get why they don't want to just write proper ships in even the fangames, but these two had such an intense amount of sexual tension between them for most of Another 2, and the way their stories end is frankly tragic and bittersweet.

//I have LOTS of problems with Another 2, really, I do. But these two were one of the things that actually drew me into the game. I think they should have kissed at least

//This is my favourite ship in canon and has been so since the dawn of time. It takes aspects from all the other relationships in Danganronpa I love and meshes them together in a sweet romantic lasagna.

//My biggest GRIPE is how little we got to actually SEE of these two, and the fact that whatever romantic scenes we get of them are called forced by a majority of the fandom. And I will admit, stories like Three-Point Shot and others like it portray Saimatsu in a much better way than the main series does. But the potential is unmatched.

//Like Tokomaru and Naegiri, one is an optimistic girl who is given reality checks by the more serious boy, who also has clear past trauma and depression that is quelled by the optimistic girl. It's the PERFECT healthy dynamic, and the good thing about it is that neither Kaede nor Shuichi are ever portrayed as perfect protagonists. In fact, they perfectly cover for the other's flaws to help sustain that balance. Their designs reflect this as well with Kaede's faded but colors being the basic reverse pallete of Shuichi's darker ones. Even as one of Shuichi's more well established ships, these two deserve more attention.

//Ooooooh fuuuuuck...I have a LOT to say about this one...

//This is probably my favorite ship in the series, possibly only beaten by Saimatsu. More people need to talk about this pair, it's frankly the best that the both of them can find among whatever pairings they might have.

//They have basically no interactions in the games and I think that's REALLY sad actually, because their dynamic of the emotionally strong girl and the emotionally frail girl has potential that just isn't explored, when it SHOULD be. Especially considering that Ibuki is probably the only character who can definitively FIX what's wrong with Mikan.

//Ibuki's entire Free Time Event storyline is all about her being herself, but also subtly helping Hajime overcome his fears and insecurities as a person by naturally taking his mind off them to have fun, and this really does help Hajime. If ANYONE needs therapy like that, it's Mikan. And Ibuki is just so naturally optimistic and charismatic, even Mikan should be able to see that nothing Ibuki does is foreplay or taking advantage of her.

//LET THESE TWO BE A THING!

-Mod

[sjofn-lofnsdottr]

God, I just realized something.

Some of the stuff that annoys me about Wuk Lamat, also annoys me when G'raha Tia does it.

Both characters are characters I would like better if they didn't make me feel like the game is making me hang out with them because I am their bestest, closest friend even though it doesn't feel remotely earned to me yet. And I hate that shit!

Like by the end of the CT storyline, G'raha is ... fine, I think my WoLs were on perfectly nice terms with him, but he wasn't a bestie by any stretch, and it certainly came as a surprise to them the lengths G'raha was willing to go to make sure they lived. He keeps himself hidden and distant for the mostpart during ShB so my characters don't feel like they know him any better by the end of 5.0, except for maybe how batshit his plans can get when he's desperate. But the game insists the WoL and G'raha are super best friends (and that G'raha just might be Pining for you), way too early. I'm more comfortable with it now that Endwalker spent time showing G'raha is more than the WoL's Number One Fanboy, and I think his use in Dawntrail was really effective. But I spent a lot of time thinking 'I like you okay, G'raha, but you're at an eleven when I need you at a six" during the ShB patches.

And I feel kinda similar with Wuk Lamat. I like her, I really do, but the game insists on a closeness between her and the WoL way, way too early in a way that does not feel earned to me, like it's rushing that development because she's probably not going to be around a ton going forward and they really wanted to wedge that in there. And it makes me pull back, because like with G'raha, it has the strong vibe of being that friend who is a little too clingy about your friendship. And it feels forced. I hate when that stuff feels forced.

And I can't help but contrast it with the WoL's friendships with some of the other characters. Not just characters like the twins, who have been hanging around forever and therefore have plenty of time to show how they get closer and closer to the Warrior of Light, or Estinien who has good reason to be ride or die for the WoL and Alphie but still takes some expansions off to get his own shit together, but characters we don't see a ton of like Cid. It's pretty clear to me that Cid and the Warrior of Light are good friends, because they have Been Through Shit Together, without it feeling shoehorned in artificially.

On the upside, this makes me feel optimistic about her in the long run. I'll get some distance from her, she'll probably not be So Much when she does show up going forward, and eventually I WILL agree they're good friends!

[crossdressingdeath]

Volo: Perhaps you would hazard a guess as to why the mob turned on me? Kyvir: Did you speak out against the cult of the Absolute? They have eyes everywhere. Volo: It is not the eyes that I fear, it is the intelligence behind them. The Absolute is merely the outward form of something far more insidious. Volo: The Lord of Murder has returned. Volo: As he did a hundred years ago, Bhaal has set his accursed sights on Baldur's Gate, and his temple runs red with the blood of the innocent. Volo: And just as then, he has more than one Chosen to manifest his gruesome plot. He has Orin. Volo: And he has you. Kyvir: Bhaal does not have me - I reject his influence. Volo: I see that. You have at least a measure of self-control, but Bhaal's inheritance is not shrugged off so easily. Volo: The heart of a Bhaalspawn is a flipped coin that lands on its edge. Volo: Yours is a family set upon self-slaughter. Volo: When there are two or more, they will destroy one another until a single heir to the throne of blood remains. Volo: In times gone by, there was an errant-hearted Bhaalspawn who stood against his foul father, and brother Sarevok. Volo: Optimist that I am, I hope you are of similar heroic vintage. Kyvir: I hope so too - I think I can be the hero the city needs. Volo: I believe you will be.

"Bhaal doesn't have me," Kyvir says, lying, like a liar. He's going to make the right choice in the end but oh boy is it up in the air for him right now.

At first I thought that Volo thought that Bhaal being involved would be a huge shock to the party, but then he knows about Durge being Bhaalspawn so I guess he was just being dramatic about it. He is in general not sharing any new information here, maybe he's more helpful in a non-Durge run where you don't have (mostly forgotten) firsthand knowledge of all this. I especially like the bit where Bhaalspawn destroying each other until one remains is treated like a Big Thing when a) Jaheira discussed the importance of killing Orin to consolidate all of Bhaal's power in someone who is hopefully reasonably non-evil with you the same night you remembered being Bhaalspawn and b) Orin's already extended an invitation to fight to the death for daddy dearest's favour. Thank you Volo, we knew about this already. Evil is one big happy family that repeatedly stabs each other in the back for personal gain! In general while Volo is aware that Durge is Bhaalspawn (side note, how does he know that) I don't think he's aware of the whole "former Chosen of Bhaal and head of his temple, crafted from his divine essence in the name of bringing the world to a bloody end" thing. ...Actually I don't think anyone's aware of that at this point other than Durge themselves, it hasn't come up with the party.

Assuming Volo's talking about Gorion's Ward here (which I assume he is, whenever people mention heroic Bhaalspawn it's usually them) I think this is the only time they're referred to with gendered pronouns, although given how consistently they're referred to with they/them elsewhere I assume it's a mistake. But once again people are pointing Durge at Gorion's Ward and telling them "Be like them. Don't be Bhaal's obedient Chosen, be like them." Which is kind of interesting since based on the official canon on the wiki they were both active in the city at the same time (canonically Gorion's Ward was a guy named Abdel Adrian who died in 1482 DR, ten years prior to the events of BG3, and to make the timeline fit even if you don't make Gorion's Ward that particular guy they'd probably follow the same timeline) so it's entirely possible that the two of them knew each other and even if they didn't Durge was probably aware of their older sibling's presence. They probably spent most of their life pre-tadpole being told not to be like them! ...Also I suspect I'm gonna start getting plot ideas when I eventually do play the first two games and start developing a character for them because the idea of the heroic Bhaalspawn who saved the city meeting their much younger half-sibling who's now become the deadly favourite of the father they (Gorion's Ward) fought against and choosing not to tell anyone about them is very good.

Also, I love how while Volo does have concerns about Durge he's still confident that they can be a hero who saves the city. At least part of that is because just like Jaheira and Minsc he was around when Gorion's Ward was doing their thing and so he knows Bhaalspawn can do a lot of good, but I think he also does have at least some genuine confidence in the person he spent a good amount of time travelling with. I love it when characters have faith in Durge to be good despite their parentage!

[saezurufeels]

I am very interested in seeing how their dynamic will change after this kiss and if they have sex next chapter. It is so interesting to read it from the beginning since both Y and D have changed. I know some people get frustrated with how slow things can go but I like the angst and emotional conflict lol. I am a bit worried about D being cold after this point since I think that would hurt Y a bit but he also initiated the kiss so maybe he is also ready to open up emotionally again. Idk, there are so many paths that can be taken.

I agree with you, I think the angst and emotional conflict are central to the story! The emotional conflict is The Point. Critiquing the story's pacing (aka, "Yashiro isn't doing enough, he should just confess") and coming up with unlikely hypotheticals (aka, "what if Yashiro 'goes back' to being dishonest") doesn't help anyone understand the themes or the characters any better, it only serves to diminish everything that has actually happened. Like you said, Yashiro and Doumeki have changed, so I wonder why Yashiro is still on trial for his past behaviour, superimposed on present day events? If we take everything into consideration, Yashiro's past behaviour makes complete sense, cause we know exactly what demons he was battling. And if we take everything into consideration, Yashiro's present day behaviour still makes complete sense: Doumeki is acting cold, and Y has a fear of rejection.

The only way I can explain this whole line of reasoning ("Yashiro Bad") is that when a character is perplexing they seem more intimidating, and when a character is intimidating and confusing, we tend to villainize them more. In the same vein, infantilizing Doumeki and framing him as Yashiro's helpless test subject, who lacks any and all autonomy, helps vilify Yashiro even more. Doumeki is not at Yashiro's mercy. Doumeki is an adult with the freedom of choice. In fact, not all of D's choices post-timeskip have even helped bring about a neat, fairytale conclusion. Conveniently, that's often left out of the discussion about the plot. Doumeki's actions, as well as Yashiro's actions have been messy and complicated, making this emotional conflict come to a peak in chapter 51. That's how the author intended it. Again, if we focus on what Yashiro has done "wrong" 4 years ago, then we miss the whole Point of the story.

The point is to understand how rejection (and abuse) impact people. Yashiro's rejection (childhood neglect) made him develop negative coping mechanisms and low self-worth, which made it impossible for him to accept Doumeki's love. Doumeki's rejection has resulted in him putting up walls and concealing his emotions (similar, if not exactly like Yashiro btw). Knowing that, we're suppose to empathize with Doumeki AND Yashiro. We're suppose to understand why they act how they act. And although trauma doesn't justify abuse, I would hardly consider Yashiro rejecting a potential romantic partner to be abuse. Abuse is the opposite of letting someone go.

Going back to your ask, I totally agree, I would love to see Doumeki open up and be vulnerable with Yashiro. You're right, the story could go in many directions. I'm pretty optimistic now, given that they've both shown some very revealing emotions, even before the kiss. Yashiro didn't beat up Doumeki just for the sake of beating him up. Doumeki didn't forcefully drag Yashiro away from Kido for nothing. They did those things because they care about each other. I think it's going to be hard for them to go back to pretending nothing happened. It seems that Saezuru is attempting to show how two people can find their way back to each other despite their individual struggles. Thanks so much for the ask!

[aquadestinyswriting]

How Far We've Come

Summary: A quick look back at how all the main adventurers started their journeys in Destiny's New Servants to how they ended it.

Words: 936

Tags: @druidx @homesteadchronicles @flashfictionfridayofficial @asher-orion-writes,@warriorbookworm, @odysseywritings, @blind-the-winds, @thesorcerersapprentice,@writeblrcafe, @ashiru, @writeblrcafe

Warnings: None

Notes: These vignettes are quite short and I didn't include Aurianna or 'Arry as they're technically side characters. Thannan was also left out because he joined the group so late, he never got a chance to get much development (also... word count)

Celestia still resounded with the sounds of battle as the last of the demons and assorted gods of domains antithetical to the plane were pushed back to their homes. 

Standing on the edge of a small crater near the shore of the celestial sea were the heroes who had made such a victory possible. Each looked to the others, marvelling at what they had all managed to accomplish in the relatively short time they'd been working with one another. Each of them thought back over the journey they had been on, reflecting on the people they used to be and the heroes that they had become since.

Elowyn

Elowyn cast around frantically for a way to get above the crowd for a better view of what was going on. There were times that being a woodling was a detriment, and this was one of those times. She taps Alphonse’s leg,

“Let me get up there. I need to see what’s going on and try to get these people to calm down.” she tells him. Alphonse shrugs and allows the shorter woman to clamber onto her shoulders. As she starts to order people to evacuate in a more orderly manner, she spots, out of the corner of her eye, two hulking figures storming up the canal, throwing boats and barges to either side as they go.

~*~

Elowyn shook her head at Ionah’s words to her,

“Not naiive, just ever optimistic in some twisted sense. I can’t help but remember how things might have gone. I don’t know you well - I didn’t get a chance - but I know that, at some point, there was Goodness in you. Nobody is so far gone that they can’t come back, not even you.” Ionah laughed at her,

“I was damned a lang time ago. I just simply chose to embrace it.”

Elowyn could barely believe what she was hearing. She truly believed that no one was beyond saving at this point, but how could she get through to someone so broken?

Meredith

Meredith glowered at the ash that was the ghoul who had interrupted her quiet drink. She glances over to the watch officers who had caught the creature, who were having a heated discussion about the woodling going into the sewers alone. She motions to the pile of ash,

"Seein' as that one was headin' doon there, I might as well come with." She said, "There's never just the one, and ye'll want a cleric to help deal with them." She offered. 

~*~

Meredith breathed a sigh of relief as Elowyn coughed raspily and held out her hand,

“I’m so glad that’s so much nicer than the last time I died.” the currently polymorphed woodling wheezes. Meredith chuckles as she pulls her friend to her feet,

“Ye didn’t get any time, hen.” she quips, rounding on the the remaining demons with an angry snarl.

Felix

Felix wrapped his arms around his knees and hugged them tightly. If only he had been strong enough to actually cast anything useful, then maybe Elowyn wouldn't be…. The gnomish man choked back his sobs. Self pity wasn't going to get them anywhere, but what could he possibly do that would be helpful?

~*~

Felix stared at the ginormous pyroclastic dragon and the drakes flying in front of it. The gnomish sorcerer smiled slowly as he cast his spell and began to speak,

“No! You’re the one who should tremble, because I am YOUR DOOM!”

Harbinger reeled back, his scales cracking under the unexpected force projected from so small a creature. Felix's grin widened further as all three draconic creatures fell out of the sky.

Quentin

Quentin yelps in alarm as a sword point is almost driven through his midsection by the woodling woman he had been quietly trying to make his way past,

“Hey, hold on, I’m a friend!” he exclaims, only to receive an annoyed glare from the woman and several of her companions. He bows his head, keeping his arms raised,

“Apologies, an introduction is in order. Quentin Goldenrose, tracker and scout at your service.”

~*~

Quentin groans as his friends are regaled about stories of his youth by his sister,

“Seriously, why do you insist on doing this?” he asks plaintively. Elowyn shrugs as she takes another bite of food,

“It’s an older sibling thing.” she replies, “Just relax and enjoy this. We probably won’t get another chance to do it again for quite a while.” she points out. Quentin quirks an eyebrow at the woodling woman, but can’t find any fault with her assessment.

Snotgrut

Snotgrut frowns in confusion as Elowyn speaks to the goblins the group had captured the previous night. Second chances? What on earth would these idiots do with a second chance? He stays quiet, observing the situation. He doesn't quite understand what the woodling wants to happen, but it seems to be working… kind of. Maybe there's something to this 'mercy' thing.

~*~

Snotgrut hefted out the sword he'd acquired when he'd last visited Arborea. Now that the plainly evil half of him had been destroyed, it didn't seem right to hold onto it any more. The goblin glanced up at the blade and froze. It was glowing.

"Was it doing that before?" Felix asked innocently. Snotgrut whimpered,

"No." He replied, voice small, "It's never done that before." His ears drooped as he continued staring at the blade, the slow realisation of what the Emerald Dragon had 'gifted' him with finally sinking in.

The adventurers smiled at one another, they’d all come a long way. Now it was time to hang up their weapons and get some well deserved rest.

[thevindicativevordan]

According to Henry Cavill's Instagram, he's officially done playing Superman since Gunn and Safran didn't want him to return. Now, I won't say that Cavill would necessarily make a perfect or even good Superman film, but it is kinda sad to see him not get his second chance, especially after he stepped away from the Witcher. Here's to hoping the rest of his career goes smoothly.

Folks after five years of back and forth regarding Cavill we at last have a definitive answer: he's done.

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Gunn is writing a Superman reboot that will return to the character's early days while not being an origin story. It will be set in Metropolis with Superman as a reporter for the Daily Planet where he will be meeting new versions of Lois, Jimmy, and all the rest. Gunn may even direct the project although he has said no director has been chosen just yet. Looks like Superman will be the first movie in Gunn's new slate coming 2024 or 2025. Gunn has said he's been working on the script for this for a while, and that makes me think the Lobo teases may be for this project, we might end up seeing something similar to what the animated Man of Tomorrow movie did.

For Cavill yes this sucks. Five years of waiting and he thinks he finally is getting the opportunity he's been longing for, only to have it snatched away from him again. Losing Geralt (to bad writing) and Superman (to hierarchy shake ups) so close to each other has got to sting. I was initially open to his return, thinking that maybe they could salvage his take with recasting the people around him. After seeing people get up in arms at the idea of recasting the roles of Adams or Eisenberg, I switched back to wanting a full reboot. Maybe Cavill will get another chance like Routh or Garfield did to play the character again in a way that shows us what he could have been. Perhaps he might even show up in the DCU, albeit as a different character. Momoa is supposedly going to play DCU Lobo, I would love to see Cavill play DCU Metallo.

Reaction wise I am ecstatic to say the least, apologies to you Cavill fans. We're finally free of Snyder's influence and closing the chapter on his era for good. No more Knightmare, or Eisenberg Lex, or Cuck Kent hanging over us anymore, Superman is getting what Batman got: a clean break with the past that offers a fresh start. First time in ages I've read some Superman news and just walked away feeling entirely satisfied, this is exactly what I wanted. No Cavill, no Coates/Abrams (which is seemingly still in development but we'll see if that actually gets made), this is the third option I always hoped they would take but didn't think they would. Of course there's lingering questions to address, like will Calle carry over as Supergirl? Will Gunn be smart enough to give Lex and Zod a rest, reach out to Morrison for advice when he has questions about the character, cast the right actor, and get a director who can do Superman justice? All questions we will have to wait for answers on, at least until next year. Ringing in his 85th anniversary next year with details about his upcoming movie is definitely a way to get off on the right foot with me at least.

And hey, the other good takeaway is that Gunn is going to be very invested in Superman's corner of the DCU. That means there's a very good chance that the extended Super Mythos is going to get treated well under Gunn, maybe we'll get Krypto and the Legion of Superheroes shows/cartoons, and all the awesome parts of Superman's lore that never would have showed up in the DCEU. A proper Fortress of Solitude even! I'm feeling optimistic about our chances to say the least.

[caatws]

I'm late to the gotg 3 convo. I didn't catch the movie while it was in theaters. I was pretty spoiled before recently watching it but still wanted to see for myself. With only the one watch thru there may be scenes I need to see again but for now I would say vol 3 has a few problems with consistency, arcs and explanations that are easy to want to overlook due to the movie ending in a decently optimistic way. That doesn't change that the problems are there. The one that stands out most is Rocket becoming Captain. I don't mind that he becomes the new leader but I do think the idea he would be better than Peter doesn't hold up. We've seen Peter be kind, selfless, grow and make hard choices. He's not perfect but no person is. I think the movie was trying to say his distraction over Gamora was a flaw that made him less worthy but that's not really fair. The way he lost Gamora would devastate anyone. You have to consider he had no idea where 2014 Gamora was and if she was safe or doing well. Any person would struggle under those conditions. We know from past movies that Rocket had anger and hurt he needed to work through for many years over what he experienced and losing his friends. He's so bitter he stole batteries just to cause trouble and that's what lead to some of what we see in vol 3. He's not perfect either. I think Peter could make him Captain without the implications he wasn't good enough at the job.

Mantis needing to move on also stood out. There was nothing in vol 2 or the holiday special hinting at her being unsatisfied doing work as a guardian and wanting to be on her own. I think this goes for everyone. There was nothing that pointed to them being held back by the family and team life they were living. When you think over how most of them weren't around for 5 years it makes it even more difficult to believe they were all over it when it comes to being a team. It's interesting Rocket and Groot got to remain together on the team when the others didn't and I think this was a little forced. Rocket was the only one who had been part of some team for years and years because he had his time with the guardians and then survived the snap to spend time with the Avengers.

The whole snap situation is another flaw in the movie for me. Rocket and Nebula spent all that time with other people and the movie acts like they have no relationships with anyone but the guardians. I saw your post about Gunn saying Rocket doesn't talk to Thor and that's ridiculous in my opinion. Why would Gamora spending 2 plus years with the ravagers make them her real family over being with her sister but those 5 years of relationships with the Avengers mean nothing for Rocket or Nebula. I noticed that Gunn only used that time as a basis for Nebula and Rocket to be close but didn't explore that logically there would be some big changes for both of them that have nothing to do with the guardians.

I am probably in the minority with this last thought but I think if you remove the events of IW and EG vol 3 would still have problems because vol 2 and 3 don't fit together either. Vol 2 has the characters realizing for the first time that they are a family and they are still figuring out what it means to be a team. Going from that to what we get in vol 3 would need more development. Some steps taken work but there are plots and parts of characters arcs that needed to have much earlier discussion and hints so that it felt more natural and not like last minute changes of heart or moments that were put in the movie just to get a particular ending without doing the work. That said IW and EG were major events that did take place and altered the course of the guardians team taking away a member of the family. That needed to be it's own well developed plot for all the characters.

i don't think you're in the minority with that opinion at all! literally one of my first thoughts after watching vol 3 the first time—which was via the imax marathon of all 3 gotg films back to back—is how disjointed it is from vol 1 and 2, in that you honestly can't rly watch all 3 together. but the problem is with how little vol 3 seems to pick up where iw/eg left off for the gotg emotionally, aside from peter grieving gamora (tho there are still major holes in that—like are we just going to ignore peter failing to keep his promise to kill gamora in iw and how that probably affected him?), vol 3 doesn't even feel like it properly follows those films either. it's like vol 3 exists in its own separate void and we're missing something to connect it to eg (neither tlat nor the holiday special rly did this either)

i agree with everything else you said here anon...vol 3 rly pulled an "i pretend i do not see" with a shit ton of stuff that happened to the characters in the years before it takes place, and it just made the viewing experience honestly rly confusing. and even some of vol 3's attempted self-contained stories/arcs still had major holes in terms of a lack of clarity for how the characters got from point a to point b, such as mantis wanting to leave (like you mentioned) and rocket becoming captain

[austenpoppy]

Personally I DO think the way he acted in the Outsiders was completely, 100% OOC, didn't make sense if you look at the way he acted in the Nightwing run and other books from the Batfamily in which he appeared at the same time (the exclusions being a few mentions of Dick being in the Outsiders, and one or two team-ups with the Titans), and has a timeframe that, literally, is impossible to combine with the rest of what was going on. Plus it deconstructs everything Dick's tried so hard not to do and chose not to do over and over again, it takes years of character development and shoves them in the bin.

I don't understand how anyone could read Nightwing (1996), Robin, Gotham Knights or Detective Comics and Outsiders, think they happen in the same continuity and not get wild whiplash, or not think Dick's got some serious personality disorder.

When are we supposed to think that Dick started mourning Donna, exactly ? Considering Helena's presence and the way they implied Dick and her had history, I assume this is supposed to be set after "No Man's land". The problem is, we never see Dick being seriously depressed in the Nightwing run, apart from that time he beat the Joker so hard his heart stopped. And even then, Dick never mentioned Donna at the time, it really was all about how his actions didn't match with his perception of himself and how that made him feel like the worst person on Earth.

The rest of the time, Dick is shown to be pretty happy, or at least rather optimistic and open - pretty much the whole point of Chuck Dixon's run is that Dick builds his own thing in Blüdhaven and starts to find his footing. It culminates in Dick declaring in the beginning of Devin Grayson's run that he's "happy" and that he feels "good about what he's been doing for a while now". And considering how quickly Dick's life unravels in that run, Dick is "supposed" to be with the Outsiders at this point.

And even then, let's say he wasn't at the time he said that - why would he still act generally happy up until he gets fired from the B.P.D. ?

How do we reconcile the idea of a Dick who's optimistic and builds emotional connections with his neighbours and with his coworkers at the B.P.D. (Amy then Gannon Malloy) and brings people into his life (Dave and Kesia Toussaint being the most obvious example of this), while making effort after effort to be there for his friends and family, and has no problem teaming-up with others (Babs, Tim, etc., and that's without the consideration that one of one of Dick's first thoughts after meeting Tarantula is that she might become one of his allies), with a Dick who's so deeply mourning Donna he decides to become distant with everybody (yeah, if you read Outsiders: Secret Files and Origins, Dick is said to hold Raven and Vic at a distance and barely care about them (!!!!!!) and tells Tim they should be working on their own) and to be closed off and apathetic ?

Am I supposed to believe Dick's happy to have his little family in Gotham and his circle of neighbours, friends and coworkers in Blüdhaven, but somehow whenever he goes to New York he suddenly becomes an ice prince who closes himself in his tower ?

Here's a glaring example of how drastic the changes are : Dick is sympathetic toward Helena when they first meet, and he still has affection toward her in "No Man's Land". At the very end of Gotham Knights, Bane has a revelation (he thinks he's Bruce's brother) and the family works with him cautiously. Helena sees that and is understandably furious at the hypocrisy. And yet Dick runs after her to try to justify what's going on. And then we have Dick in the Outsiders, who is very hostile to Helena and hates her guts, while Helena says he secretely wants to sleep with her. And yet when Dick's Renegade in Nightwing (at this point he's already "left" the Outsiders, but I'll come back to that later), the first person he turns to when he doesn't know what to do with Sophia Travis and Rose is Helena, and there is no mention of any hostility between the two.

No matter if you place Dick's interaction with Helena in the Outsiders before or after their discussion in Gotham Knights, you'd have to wonder if Dick's taking crazy pills if you truly believe he'd go from being sympathetic to someone to hating their guts openly without reason, then go back to trusting them without apparent reason either.

The truth ?

Dick was never written as mourning Donna in his own run or any of the Bat-related comics, and it shows. Thus Dick was never mourning Donna in those issues.

Then there's his "departure" from the Outsiders, that should give everyone a headache. If we were to believe "Identity Crisis", Dick was still with the Outsiders during the Crisis. Also he was back on his feet and running everywhere without crutches...while in his solo run Dick will be using crutches for weeks at least.

And that means that everything that went on with Blockbuster and Tarantula happened before he left the Outsiders. Yet in his solo run, after the events of "War Games", Dick decides to "make things right" and turn himself in with Tarantula. So...am I supposed to believe Dick got raped by Tarantula, got shot in the leg, was back on his feet for the battle that led to Indigo's death, decided to leave the Outsiders saying it'd gotten "personal" though in reality he just wanted to turn himself in for murder, then slept with Starfire before confronting Tarantula and spending the next weeks with crutches ?

Reeeeaaally ?

And then you know why Dick's behaviour is OOC ?

Dick spends the first half of New Teen Titans deciding he wants to be different from Batman in the way he acts, leads, deciding he wants to be comfortable with strong emotions after he embraces Starfire's way of seeing things, and being clear on the fact he never wants to be this emotionally closed off person who holds people at a distance not to get hurt, tries to get away from all emotion, and doesn't trust anyone. And he works hard not to do that, all the time.

Are there moments he gets depressed ? Sure. But even when he isolated himself and lashed out at Babs after the Joker's near death, he still cared very much about people (his looking for Kesia after reading her letter happened around that time). And after Blockbuster and Tarantula, in War Games and after he was shown to care so much about Tim, and Steph's death. And like, don't you think it's weird that if Dick was depressed since he started being with the Outsiders, Alfred only saw it after Blockbuster and Tarantula ?

The entire point of Dick's character is that he cares, he works on being a better person and strives to have a life on his own, can have setbacks but they don't define him, he wants emotional connections, and his goal is to uphold his idealistic ideal of being a hero and he puts a lot of burden on himself to achieve it - if he doesn't he thinks he's failed and goes right to self-loathing for a while before pushing to get up, and he's a leader who takes his teammates into account.

Precisely zero elements of that are present in Outsiders. Zero. Dick is portrayed as unemotional and uncaring (except in regards to Roy), who's given up on working on himself, who is very much defined by his grief (oh, does it start to ring a bell ?), who pushes everyone away, who treats his teammates like soldiers, who becomes utterly pragmatic and is ready to use any means he deems necessary to achieve his goals. The same guy who was ready to sacrifice the planet to save Vic and who spends his time lecturing people on unecessary violence was written by Winick as someone ready to sacrifice dozens of lives and who justified the use of torture to a teammate, telling her that if she hadn't tried to save the other lives there wouldn't be any need to do this.

?????????

At what point does a character start being OOC ? You can't make a character lose most of his personality, keep his skills, and call it a day.

Thing is, Winick just wanted to write Batman Jr. Dick is not Batman Jr. The entire point of Dick's character is that he's not Batman Jr.

And Winick does not know how to write Dick Grayson. It turns out most panels or issues I hate regarding the man he calls Dick have been written by this guy.

Also don't get me started on how Jade replaces Dick as the leader of the Outsiders supposedly because he doesn't care enough/is too detached, yet the only remarkable action Jade undertakes after that is bringing Kory, one of her teammates's ex - which will have zero impact on the narrative, by the way, except for Kory and "Dick" sleeping together after "War Games" (still wtf). After that she immediately tells Grace they don't have time to care about the sex trafficking ring Grace was used by as a child because there are more important things they could be doing (!!), they understand there's a mole, Indigo dies and after the destruction of their headquarters Jade decides there should be no headquarters anymore and that they should have their meetings in parks like fifteen-year old squatters, and reminds everyone they're only colleagues.

Attempt at being a better leader : failed spectacularly.

So why does Dick being leader of the Titans 1999 work ? Well, simply because his life in Blüdhaven and Gotham was acknowledged. We see Dick running not to be late to the preccinct, or coming back for an emergency in his police uniform, or being taken up in Gotham and unable to help with the search for baby Lian. Simply put, it's not incompatible, thematically or logistically, with what was shown in his own run.

But I don't like the idea that Dick was an asshole in Titans 1999 ? Like, that's very unfair as far as I'm concerned (though to be fair I'm not faliliar with "Graduation Day", because I know who wrote it and after Outsiders I decided I had enough). First, I agree with OP that Dick was guilt-tripped (in a way that would've made me angry, really; why would you say that Dick's dependent on friends not to become an asshole ? Sure, like everyone else, Dick needs to have supportive people in his life, but that's not the same thing) into joining the Titans, when he'd said he had too much on his plate already. And putting more burden and responsabilities on Dick when they could've just hanged out together wasn't a great idea, either.

It's even more tragic that other teammates/friends (Gar and Kory, who to be fair weren't at the initial reunion) lashed out at Dick that he wasn't present enough. Worse for Kory to say it, though; Kory knows how much guilt Dick can feel all the time, plus she started lashing out at Dick when Dick wasn't the one who started a fight - like, sure, he wasn't happy she killed Adeline (complicated stuff), but he wasn't being mean either. At least in Gar's case, Dick was the one who started the fight.

There are also at least three instances of Dick being considered in the wrong that I thought were very unfair.

1) Dick and Vic's falling-out

The first has to do with Vic, when Dick explained to Vic he couldn't leave Titans Tower after what had happened when Vic'd turned into a toughtless killer machine, because he'd convinced the JLA not to bring Vic into custody and to leave him with the Titans instead.

Like, has everyone forgotten what happened ? Vic was creating earthquakes and floods, the JLA wanted to eliminate Vic, and Dick was the one who kept arguing with Bruce that Vic was a great man and that no sacrifice was ever acceptable (take that, Outsiders). Then he had a plan to bring back Vic and had the original Titans talk to him, and it was found that only the ship could be used to host Vic but that if the team chose to have Lilith do that they would probably not survive, since Lilith had come to get them in the first place. And without any hesitation Dick told Lilith to do it, because if she didn't all they'd done would be in vain.

And then Dick manages to make sure Vic isn't treated like a prisoner by the JLA, but can have time with his friends instead. How was Dick a bad friend at any point ?? He's not even the one who first mentioned Vic's name when they reformed the Titans, or the one who convinced Vic to rejoin.

Now I see people saying he should've talked to Vic about it. But frankly, was there any way Vic would've taken it well ? No, and we know it. He would've felt like a prisoner from day one. I'm not saying not talking about it was necessarily the best choice, but I'm saying it wasn't as easy and clear-cut a choice as some people make it out to be, and that considering everything Dick had done he deserved a lot more grace than he got. Truly throwing in Dick's face that the team he's responsible for was built for Dick so that he "wouldn't become like Batman" but implying he did anyway is one of the lowest blows you could throw at Dick.

And it certainly was not manipulative (the word's too strong). Dick didn't want Vic to react or behave a certain way. He wanted to protect Vic, wanted him to rebuild his life in a loving environment, while making sure everyone would be there if things went south (which...like...again Vic had created earthquakes and natural disasters ??).

It grinds my gears even more that Gar and people said that when you remember that in NTT, at Donna's wedding Gar had asked someone to create a special device to show "the true Victor Stone" without the cyborg part, without telling Vic, after Vic expressed he was afraid people would recognize him as one of the Titans and Gar said he'd found a solution, that it wouldn't be a problem. Personally I would've found that a lot more hurtful than what Dick did, but somehow Vic apologized to Gar ten minutes after lashing out at him, and told him he understood Gar only wanted the best for him and wanted Donna's wedding to run smoothly.

Well Vic was angry/moody at Dick for months. And all this time Dick worked tirelessly instead to provide Vic with a more human body, which is like...everything Vic ever wanted, after expressing multiple times he was very uncomfortable with his new body.

And yeah, okay, after Dick found out it could be done he could've explained the situation beforehand (yeah because mentioning it before he was sure would've been like getting Vic's hopes up and perhaps crushing them after). But it's such a minor detail compared to the effort and care Dick put into helping Vic all this time ??

But Vic lashed out again. And instead of being defensive Dick let it slide to let Vic vent and listen to him and reassure him that it was going to be okay.

I would seriously give half of my liver to get a friend like Dick. And saying Dick's manipulative is so freaking unfair. Dick can dupe criminals alright, but manipulating friends isn't something he's prone to do - the closest thing I can remember in NTT is Dick telling Gar not to go to Russia to help Vic the walking robot (they already had a team going) and telling him he needed him in the US instead, because he thought Gar was too unstable in regard to the situation (see the difference with Vic's situation ? There Dick said something to Gar to make him behave a certain way).

2) Dick not telling Jesse Quick his secret identity

For reasons unknown, this was framed as Dick not being trusting enough. And sure, there's a panel in a team-up between the Titans and the Outsiders in which Dick criticized Batman for not telling his team his secret identity. But the point was that no one in the Outsiders knew who Batman was. In Dick's case, most members of the Titans knew who he was.

When Terra came on the team in NTT, several members of the team including Wally didn't tell her their secret identities. The entire plot revolved around that; and Terra, much like Jesse later on, complained that she wasn't being trusted. It took months for the team/the members of the team who had secret identities to tell her their names. And like, okay, Terra had a bit of a strange story from the start; but she too was known by another hero (Geo-force).

The difference was that back in NTT, this was framed as a team issue; it was about Terra earning the team's trust and the others being comfortable enough to reveal their secrets to her. In titans 1999, it became solely Dick's problem, as if Dick was too secretive. Why was it acceptable for Dick to protect his identity in NTT but not in Titans ?

The point has always been that Dick's more secretive about his identity than others because it's not just his secret he'd be revealing. Back in NTT, he was worried about people knowing Bruce was Batman. In Titans, he was worried about that, and he was also worried about Tim.

3) Dick hiding an investigation he was doing

This was again presented as Dick hiding secrets and the others not liking it. And in some ways, I can get hiw Dick not telling the team about several things might make them feel that way. But you do have to consider the individual circumstances in which Dick did what he did.

In this case, he had suspicions a team member/guest wasn't saying the truth, which proved true later on (he was actually a kid possessing a body, and unfortunately the body belonged to a psychopath), and led an investigation.

But there was no good choice there. Either he raised his suspicions to the team and if he was wrong he'd be considered an asshole, either he waited until he had concrete evidence he was right and told them after (which is what he chose) - problem was he didn't have the opportunity to tell them until the occasion forced his hand

Generally people prefer the second option, but somehow it's only a problem when it's Dick doing it. In the same story arc, Argent had actually noticed "Epsilon" acting weirdly and conducted her own investigation without telling anyone anything (except Lilith because she wanted Lilith to probe "Epsilon"'s mind), yet you had Donna go on Dick's case about keeping secrets, while Dick reassured Argent (Toni) that her head had still been in the game when she blamed herself, and talked about Donna saying he should've said something when Toni said she should've warned him.

And Titans Tower got destroyed. And, right, okay, Dick was the one who started to lash out at Gar when Gar dismissed it as being funny (his joke was, anyway), telling Gar he never took anything seriously, bringing up a past decision he'd made in regard to the kids, and Dick doing that wasn't okay (and as usual, he hated himself afterward for doing that). But did Gar have to say Dick had let a maniac live with the Titans, implying it was his fault the tower was destroyed and he endangered everybody ? Of course, Dick got defensive too, and told him it was easy to judge when Gar was so far away. And then Gar told Dick people talked and he knew Dick wasn't present enough.

People say Dick's prone to self-blame and it's partly Bruce's fault, and they'd be right. But though his friends are great for him, they sometimes put waaaaayyyy too many expectations on Dick, too.

But I truly don't get it. You can't tell me Dick wasn't a great leader after what happened on the planet where everybody was addicted and basically mind controlled. Dick was dealing with Jess hating him, Argent thinking he didn't trust her because she'd taken drugs to enhance her powers (the same drugs fed off to human beings who were taken on the planet) and he'd asked her to do a drug test, Donna hanging up on him because Garth was hurting himself holding open a portal, Wally calling because he was worried, his own guilt in regard to the mission... And yet this man didn't lose his mind (I would've) analyzed Argent's drug test to see what it was about to protect her, managed to feed himself an antidote quickly, and saved everybody from killing Toni. And then he still had time to talk to Roy and check up on him twice while in the middle of a civil war, telling Roy he was still in control, still clean, and when Roy asked him angrily why Dick didn't give Roy the antidote to him (there was only one dose), Dick told him Roy would've killed him (he would've).

Half my liver, I'm telling you.

Hey, do you think everything about Outsiders vol 3 (Dick’s run as the leader) was completely in character? I personally see his asshole behaviour as extremely in character and wouldn’t expect anything else, but...not his leadership.

I think he would not take on any team, regardless of them being strangers, and that if he did he would be MORE careful and not less. (Mostly because he’s been a leader for a long time, great at compartmentalising and has always been stressed about being responsible for others lives and I don’t think those things would just disappear when people he cares for die). Like, he would still be a jerk and isolate himself but also plan ahead more and take the least risks possible (which would make him a worse leader than usual but not a downright bad one).

Idk just wondered how you see it.

Yeah, I actually view BOTH his time with the Outsiders and his time with the 1999 Titans lineup as being a case of like....characters configured into situations the editors and writers want them in, regardless of whether that makes sense for them at that particular point in time.

Tbh, I hate Dick being leader of both those lineups, and don't think he should have been on either team at those times, period. And I agree that his behavior in those periods made sense for all the shit he'd been through and was currently going on in his life, and like most importantly....

HE DIDN'T WANT TO BE THERE.

He repeatedly kept TELLING people he didn't want to be there, and that it wasn't a good time for him at EITHER point, and people who claim to know him best kept GUILTING and flat out manipulating him into being there, insisting they were doing so because it was for his own good, and they knew what he needed to snap him out of his funks, etc, etc....

EXCEPT THEN THEY KEPT GETTING MAD AT HIM FOR BEING MOODY AND AN ASSHOLE AND Y'KNOW.....NOT WANTING TO BE THERE.

Its like....hey guys, HE TOLD YOU. What did you expect? Its the same issue I have with the classic fight with Donna in NTT #19, where even if you leave aside the fact that he was brainwashed at the time, something that's always grinded my gears is how their fight takes place at Dick's apartment and before it escalates, Dick REPEATEDLY asks Donna to leave, and even tries to leave HIMSELF - from his OWN apartment - because he KNEW he wasn't in the right frame of mind to have the conversation or argument she wanted to have at that particular time.

And people NEVER listen to him! They never let him like have the definitive word on what HE needs, WHEN he needs it and what his needs look like.

And that bugs sooooo much, especially when coupled with how much flack he gets for being manipulative like Bruce or doing what he thinks is best without regard for what others are feeling or want.

Its like....if you're going to hold that against him, it needs to be acknowledged that people do this to him too, like ALL THE TIME. Including his closest friends like Donna, Wally and Roy.....with Wally being the one who pressured Dick to join back up with the Titans, after he'd literally been FORCED OUT of the group before the disbanding of the previous version, and like, still very much was not over all the deaths and injuries that had occurred during Titans Hunt, so reminiscent of previous disastrous events like Judas Contract and the Church of Blood......but Wally was CONVINCED that what Dick needed was to be back with the team again, back where he belonged, and he refused to listen when Dick repeatedly said he was under too much stress and pressure as is.

And like, Wally's intentions were good, but they have very different views of their times with the Titans because Wally has NEVER been in a position of leadership there! There's always been someone else to pass the buck off to when things go wrong, but there isn't that possibility with Dick! It stops with him, and he's always owned that.....which means like....joining back up with the Titans isn't a fun stress relief adventure time with old friends like Wally was picturing it as.....its stressful! Its life or death! Its the lives of his friends in DICK'S hands with nobody else to blame when shit goes south, as it always does.

And Dick KNOWS that, AND he knows his limitations, and so he tried to bow out gracefully from all that, but Wally kept pressuring him, made a big deal about only joining the team himself if Dick joined back up and acted like HE needed it for himself, and even though Dick CALLED him on this being bullshit and a blatant manipulation tactic, Dick still eventually joined up.....and just as he knew, Wally quit to focus on his family and the JLA within like ten issues, the second he was confident that Dick was at this point too INVESTED in the team to bail on it once Wally was gone.

And that's really shitty, tbh. And its not on Wally the character in the sense that they played it that way - the writers - because they wanted Dick back in the driver's seat of the Titans, but like.....the end result is still the end result, y'know? The takeaway is still that Dick was basically manipulated into taking up a job he no longer wanted, BECAUSE of how shit had blown up in his face with it before, and BECAUSE of how much else he had going on, and he KNEW it wasn't what he actually needed....but everyone else made it about what THEY decided he needed instead of listening to what he actually was saying and like....working with that instead.

Like, god bless the collective reasoning skills of Dick's friends and family who keep looking at everything the dude habitually keeps on his plate at his LOWEST settings, and thinks okay, what this guy really needs, I feel, is MORE responsibility.

Instead of like, trying to figure out how to help him take on LESS.

And then it all blew up in Dick's face exactly as he knew it would, and when more Titans died - Donna and Lilith this time - of fucking course Dick blamed himself for it, like literally anyone who knew him should have seen coming. But what were his friends and loved ones' reaction this time? What did they decide he needed?

The same thing they always do! More responsibility!

And again Dick tried to tell people this wasn't going to end the way they wanted it to - mostly Roy this time, as now it was Roy trying to get him to join up with the Outsiders using the specific pitch of them NOT being a family, like ENCOURAGING Dick to not get himself emotionally attached to the team so it didn't hurt as much if things went south with them -

Except again, this was blatant manipulation of the very same variety everyone gives Dick shit for, because in Roy's own words, the entire reason he did things this way was because he was convinced based on how well he knows Dick Grayson, that Dick wouldn't be CAPABLE of staying so unattached, and that he'd eventually invest in his new teammates despite his best efforts not to, and thus 'snap out of' his self-imposed isolation and like....form new connections via them.

But like....shockingly, it didn't play out that way? Dick deliberately tried to do exactly what he'd said he was going to do, KEEP himself from getting attached emotionally, with this being a very bad idea and absolutely something that led to teammates getting hurt, and yes that is on him and decisions he made out of an effort to focus on what HE needed rather than what was best for them - but like.....the problem I have here is like....this is precisely WHY Dick should NOT have been in a leadership position at this time, like you said!

And Dick was like the literal first person to make that argument?!??!

fahsklfhalfhalkfha

Roy was the one who pushed past it and said no I get it, and its okay, which HE shouldn't have done EITHER, not because Dick's choices were on Roy - they weren't, to be clear - but because Roy wasn't being straight forward about what his own intentions were. He wasn't ACTUALLY okay with Dick's approach to leadership of the Outsiders, he just didn't think it would ever actually get as far south as it went, because he was convinced it wasn't going to matter, because Dick was going to 'snap out of it' long before it became an actual problem. And THAT'S the part that's on Roy, because like....Dick TOLD him this wasn't a good idea, and WHY. And like, Dick literally just did exactly what he said he was gonna do, and that doesn't make it right, especially as a leader, but like......if people had actually listened to what he was SAYING rather than what they believed they KNEW about him and 'what he needed' then like.....they would have backed off and validated his concerns that he wasn't a good fit for a team right now and found some OTHER way to help him, rather than like...try and force it on their terms.

And so that's the part that bugs. Like, I don't think Dick's behavior during a lot of the team stuff of that period - even if it wasn't pretty - was like, out of character or even unreasonable - he was fucked up! He KNEW he was fucked up! He kept TELLING people, like hey guys, just FYI, I'm kinda fucked up at the moment.

But nobody would just....accept that. He's never allowed to just be HUMAN. Its the same thing with Dick as Batman and everything during Red Robin, like....other characters are so ready to jump on him for not being perfect the second he starts fucking shit up because he's reeling from stuff that hits EVERYONE hard, and him even more than most specifically BECAUSE of how much responsibility he normally shoulders (as well as how much blame others usually heap on him).....we barely ever see other characters being like okay, what do YOU need, how can we HELP.....

Instead of just....impatiently waiting for you to 'get back to normal' and be the Golden Boy we all both resent you for being while simultaneously EXPECTING you to be at all times, no matter what.

So no, I don't view his behavior with the Outsiders as OOC unfortunately, but I just think like....it would have been so different if he'd just been allowed to grieve in his own way at that time instead of being pushed and guilted and manipulated into getting back in the saddle right away or what the fuck ever, lol. Even his leadership fuck-ups at the time weren't out of character so much as they were proof that he SHOULDN'T HAVE BEEN LEADING ANYONE at that time....

The trick of it is just like....he was 100% of that same opinion himself! Its just the writers wanted him as a leader anyway, and the characters were shoved into positions more about getting him to lead than getting him support.

[hahahax30]

Why Alastair's Dagger Was Buried

A theory?

Okay, so I think the latest sobh entry has people worried that Alastair may be the ghost, which means he died unhappily, etc. Especially considering this photo:

However, I actually think this is pretty damn good? And this entry has made me very optimistic about Alastair's future.

But first, let me say something: Alastair can not be the ghost. He isn't the ghost, really.

That much is shown in the entry itself through this quote:

“NOT”

“MINE

“YOURS”

This tells us a couple things:

The dagger does not belong to the ghost, and since we know the dagger belongs/used to belong (I'll explain the past tense later) to Alastair, the ghost not declaring ownership of the dagger means he is not Alastair.

The dagger, pretty much like a lost heirloom, apparently now belongs to Emma, which means the ghost isn't even a Carstairs. Again, not Alastair.

To that, you need to add the fact that CC refuses to kill off queer characters and has thus far not broken her promise (aside from Rafael, who if I remember correctly was killed before she made that decision a pseudo-rule). And, CC has tweeted this:

This all means that literally everything says that Alastair isn't the ghost.

Anyways, I digress.

Why am I pretty damn happy after the entry?

Because, as beautiful as it is, the dagger's (khanjar, I think) message is really sad. Guys, look at this:

I wanted so much to have a gleaming dagger, that each of my ribs became a dagger.

I'm no poet, but in CK-language this translates to 'I wanted protection so much that I forced myself into being a fucking weapon so that people wouldn't harm me'. At least, considering who Alastair is.

Think about it. Alastair was thoroughly bullied his first year at the Academy, he must have wanted protection (AKA a dagger) from people he could consider good people (AKA gleaming?). Because he didn't have that dagger, he became 12/24 'daggers'.

He turned himself into a weapon; not a gleaming one, but one that would protect him. His heart, as that is what ribs protects. And hearts are pretty damn important.

As my inner symbolist (which is tiny, I have no sense of symbolism) can see this whole thing, what that dagger represents stalls Alastair's ability to be happy, since the 'dagger' is a means of survival, not a means of living, if that makes sense.

[Mira, en español tiene mucho más sentido: la daga permite a Alastair sobrevivir, pero le impide vivir]

So the fact that the dagger ended up buried is fucking amazing news

Anyone ever heard the 'burying the hatchet' phrase? Yeah, how about 'burying the angsty once-necessary-but-perhaps-now-that-I-have-a-chance-at-happiness-not-anymore dagger?'

That dagger --as I theorise-- is a symbol of Alastair's unhappiness just like his blond hair is a symbol of his unhealthy desire to fit in with white shadowhunters. Him burying it is as good as him dying his hair back to black. It's huge, positive character development.

If anything, the photo we've received along with the entry further proves my theory.

As @khaleesiofalicante (idk if you want to be tagged in this I'm sorry if you don't) has noted here, Alastair's """ghost""" has blond hair.

Now, I doubt Alastair's going to do a U-turn in CHOT and dye his hair back to blond. Therefore blond-haired Alastair = old Alastair who was pretty toxic to himself. And that Alastair is with the dagger, therefore dagger = bad times (sobrevivía, no vivía / he survived, he didn't actually live)

With all this I'm just trying to say that CHOT will end amazingly for Alastair. He's going to shrug off the last of his inner daggers, because he won't need them anymore. In CHOT there will be a scene where he buried this dagger, hopefully from his POV but I can't vouch for that, and it will be fucking beautiful.

I don't know if anyone was expecting a theory about who the Ghost™ is, this post feels kinda redundant, but I have no idea of who the ghost could be. Just that it's not Alastair --or queer for the matter-- and Alastair is going to have a Happy Ending.

Now, if I'm right, this does raise the question as to why the ghost would want Emma to have the dagger if Alastair renounced of it. Perhaps for the same reason he wanted them to have Matthew's flask, which I have no clue as to what it is?

[reccyls]

assorted ieyasu sequel ramblings

I finished all 3 ends and I need to ramble and this got long, sorry (spoilers)

I love seeing Ieyasu's character development. While he still gets prickly when being teased by other people (like when literally everyone except Mitsunari and Nobunaga tease him for sneaking out of a war council to make out with the MC), he's actually incredibly straightforward and honest about his feelings for her. He constantly tells her how much he loves her, how cute she is, how she makes him feel. It's really sweet! 🥰

Kicho as the unrequited love interest is super interesting! I'm always down for more Kicho content and while this route didn't really reveal much we didn't already know, I still liked seeing Kicho.

Speaking of Kicho: HE'S MITSUHIDE'S COUSIN, WHAT (also another reason I am chomping at the bit for Mitsuhide's eternal to drop, give me the Kicho lore pls)

Something I like that's consistent across all the endings (tragic, blissful, and passionate) is that Nobunaga always leaves Japan in order to travel to other countries. He isn't gone forever, but that's a neat bit of continuity

Speaking of the tragic end: it's actually I think the least tragic of all the tragic ends thus far. It ends on a similar note to Nobunaga's tragic end, where the MC is in a coma and hasn't woken up for a long time, but the surrounding situation itself is actually much more hopeful than Nobunaga's tragic end. In Nobunaga's tragic end, the alliance has fallen apart, Kicho is still at large, history is still being changed. But here in Ieyasu's tragic end, Kicho surrendered, Nobunaga succeeded in uniting the country, and Ieyasu is even in charge of developing Edo. The situation is actually really optimistic, so it isn't as though things are going horribly wrong.

BUT BUT BUT. THE CALLBACK with the Wasabi plush 😭 Ieyasu sits beside the comatose MC and holds the Wasabi doll in front of him and mimes like Wasabi is talking (like MC did in a flashback once), asking for MC to wake up soon, because he can't bring himself to say it plainly. HE FALLS ASLEEP BY HER SIDE AND THEY MEET IN A DREAM AND THEY HUG AND THEN IEYASU WAKES UP ALONE, MC STILL UNCONSCIOUS 😭😭😭

Also, the Tragic End was like 4 people's worst nightmares all happening at once. MC had just convinced Kicho to stand down while she, Ieyasu, and Kicho are all on the battlefield. But then the Imagawa vassals that had allied with Kicho see the opportunity to shoot Ieyasu, and MC is the only one who reacts in time and pushes Ieyasu out of the way and gets shot herself. And this is the EXACT time that Kenshin and Yoshimoto show up as reinforcements to support Ieyasu, and the very first thing they see is the MC bleeding out in Ieyasu's arms. So: Ieyasu, Kenshin, and Kicho all see the woman that they are in love with dying. Yoshimoto sees that his vassals, who went behind his back to ally with Kicho because of his inaction, have once again caused Ieyasu incredible pain and suffering, along with the MC. Everyone is having a no good, very bad, horrible day and it's great.

I also appreciate Mitsunari and Kenshin being the ones to give Ieyasu the motivational speech he needs to recover his will again in the Tragic End. It's a nice group of characters interacting.

Okay, tragic end flailing done. Between the Blissful and Passionate ends, I think I like the Blissful more. BUT the Passionate End has the very delightful fact of Kicho actually being captured and taken into custody by the Oda, instead of him being at large like in the other sequel ends.

Even more delightful, however, is the reveal that he's not even locked up or anything. He agreed to live a quiet life in the outskirts of Osaka (or was it Azuchi? I don't remember exactly) and is just living his days out, minding his own business.

But the Blissful End I think is really nice. Ieyasu takes the MC to a field full of the yellow flowers that started their entire relationship as he tells her how much she means to him, how much he's changed his life, how he wants to do better and be better because of her!! How happy he makes her, and how happy he's going to make her in return!! The ending CG is titled "True Strength" !! I love them your honor

ALSO THE EPILOGUE IS SO GOOD.

The very very first thing Nobunaga does when he returns from his overseas trip is to visit Ieyasu!! Before he goes back to check on how things are running in Osaka/Azuchi. Before he checks in with Hideyoshi. He visits Ieyasu first!!!

They're so brothers, they care about each other so much!! Nobunaga was the one who taught Ieyasu archery and falconry 🥺 They squabble over breakfast and Nobunaga declares he's going to steal food off of Ieyasu's plate, and Ieyasu basically goes "I dare you, do it if you can handle the spice"!! Nobunaga asks to speak privately to MC and tells her that she's going to entrust Ieyasu to her!!! Then he tells stories about Ieyasu when he was a kid and first came to the Oda!!! I love their relationship so much. I adore this ending.

In conclusion: Ieyasu sequel very good, A++ 10/10

[talesfrommedinastation]

I'm actually nonplussed over there being dedicated haters to an OC. Like, what in God's green internet is this nonsense about. Can't they hate on a canon character or someone in politics like a functioning adult, omg.*

What are they saying?

Anywho, y'all know my two sisters, Drs. Tanke and Sjael Drummer. They're from The Expanse, a show that I am desperately trying to convert Star Wars fans to. Six-foot-something badass Belters with degrees and families because God waits for no man. Designed in 2023 after binging the Expanse twice and starting TBB.

I'm not so much a fan of them, so much as I am a fan of their stories and the ability to use them as effective narrative tools and to better comprehend a cautiously optimistic future in space for humanity.

My OCs offered a different aspect to world building that was previously not on the table in both franchises. As someone who writes professionally, I thought this was an interesting take to explore.

Initially, I was nervous about this. I got back into fanfiction and writing thanks to both my daughters, my hillbilly nerd neighbors, and my medication (I have MDD and started Wellbutrin in January 2023, right when we started watching TCW/TBB together as a family).

Right around the time I was writing the longfic, was when Tech got a canon love interest. And I've seen fandoms go mean and nuts on each other for shipping - especially big ones, like Harry Potter and Star Wars. Did I need that in my free time?

I deal with people throwing tantrums all day at work, after all.

But guess what? As I mentioned before, my side gig is as a writer with a focus on science and learning. I've been threatened by Neo-Nazis on an article regarding the history of eugenics. I've had nasty emails sent because of a piece on 23andme.

Ergo, someone screeching about why I need to believe in cartoon characters falling in love on a show that I drunkenly make fun of with Redneck Doug is like, nothing.

I figured, I'll write something tasteful and good, and if people like it, they'll like it. If they don't like it, that's on them.

(In case you didn't know, Juno meets Sjael in another fic! Into the Techiverse)

And people have really liked the story of the Drummer sisters - at least according to the hits counters on AO3 and Wattpad. Statistics is the language that speaks truth.

So, I may or may not be turning the Drummer sisters' story it into its own, stand-alone novel. Might as well lean into neoliberalism and make some cash or something.

---------------------------------

*=I say this, and I was reminded that I had some gross lunatics up my butt about various and sundry from time to time. Every single one was a die-hard shipper that viewed alternative stories as an insult to their existence. Delightful.

A couple have also been Hunter girlies who did NOT like the fact that I made the ol' boy GAY in my sequel. Praise the lord and pass the lube, I guess.

My favorite asshole I've dealt with is still the incel who was convinced that his ship was 'proof' that 'men like me have earned love'!

Christ, what are the odds that he listened to Andrew Tate, too?

He was also racist and had issues with strong female characters that didn't melt at the foot of a male character.

Barf.

No wonder a novel-length story about growth and character development and no mommy's basement to run to hurt his soul.

OC creation musings + Juno retrospective

I was rewatching this video by Rea, and it struck me that this exact phenomenon happened to me in 2022, with the first inklings of Juno's design - back when I couldn't decide on whether or not her name would be "Juno" or "Kite", and desperately trying not to make her a scientist. She's obviously come such a long way since then, having now become a very well-known character in the fandom, but I often think of the fact that had she not become on of my artistic passions, I probably wouldn't be anywhere near where I am today.

Juno is absolutely everything to me. She is a representative of my passion for storytelling, and she connected me with so many of my now closest friends - one of which is currently living in my house! How crazy is that, man! All of which I can attribute to simply becoming so fixated on my own OC that I couldn't stop thinking about her, or drawing her.

Of course, that's come with some highs and lows. She's getting a professionally done cosplay, a 3D model and potentially a Battlefront mod - but she also has her own dedicated group of haters who think she represents the 'wrongs' of fandom, lol. I certainly have recieved my fair share of 'Juno hate' in my 3-4 years here, but the positivity and support make it well worth dealing with a few rotten apples. It's radiant and outpouring, like a warm ray of sun, and it keeps me going deep into the night.

Anyways. Total tangent. Want to see all her design iterations? Yea you do ;) Here's the first ever Juno ref!

I made this on my phone in 2022, at the tale end of watching TCW and back when TBB was just one season. You can definitely see that the idea was always there, just a bit disjointed in its application. That gas mask on her helmet ended up causing a lot of confusion, so I removed it in later iterations - but to this day, I think this one picture is what really captivated me. Something about the aura, man,, she scary lookin

Then, of course, I had to draw what her face would look like - if it hadn't been for a RP, I don't think I would have.

Woah - she's like a whole different person! And you can see the beginnings of her white hair streak, though back then, I wanted i to be really subtle. And I was soooo adamant about this lol. She also was almost beat for beat Ellen Ripley, and you can see me paint over a picture of Sigourney below with her OG faceclaim haha.

Then we have the Juno-ing... part two. Where I went darker!! Both in themes, and in her color scheme. This one still has so much personality, and I remember being obsessed with how I drew her eyes and face back then. Nowadays, I think it's hideous. xD This was also around the time I was phasing out her gauntlets and oxygen mask, but both still remained for practicality purposes, even if they didn't serve anything to the design. Oh, and the hair streak. Now it's a Thing :tm: but it isn't really flowing well with the design - not yet, anyways!

We finally get to a point where I, begrudingly, accept the fact that her white streak is going to be her facial focal point - and at this point I'm laughing about how much I tried to avoid it LOL. But here, we also see her get more and more refined. Her face is still a bit wonky, but the stern vibe and posture are starting to come together and tell more of a concrete story, even if the reference doesn't have as much color or personality as the last one. I also did this one for my senior year of college!

I even designed her some totally BS civvies - and I gave her a s2 paint job, which admittedly looks hideous LMAOOO but we ball regardless. The second design was scrapped anyways almost immediately. The civvies stayed!

And then, of course, THE FINALE! Her face went through so many iterations with her current ref, but thus far, it's been the longest standing and most accurate one. It atually started out just as me goofing off with a marker pen in CSP, that quickly changed to "hey... this could be something good." And I was right! This is the Juno that's currently circulating today, and I've been polishing and refining her as I go, since I still feel as though I could perfect things.

And then, of course, her various outfits, which I posted about a while back. Oh - and have you seen Baby Juno?

Well now you have. :)

I think it's so cool to see how someone can fixate on a character and pour so much love and thought into them, that this character becomes their entire brand. Juno inhabits every part of my brain space and is what I think about 24/7. I'm so proud of how far she comes, and she reminds me about how incredible fandom can be and continues to be! Something about her is just so intoxicating to me. I can't get enough of her, and I can't wait to keep developing her over the years to come.

Which then begs the question - what is your equivalent to this entire thread? Do you have an OC like Juno, who you're fixated on and who dominates your creative pursuits? Do they have multiple artistic iterations? Because if you do, share them!! I WANNA SEEEEEE.

Anyways, that's Wren's Ramblings for today ~ I got bored haha

SHARE YOUR OCS!!!! >:0

[larrythefloridaman]

Y'all like your deities with or without the shell?

Under the readmore is aaaaaaaaall color god observations and musings based on them, because I am studying to become the world's Premiere Chromatheologian and RGB Understander so under the cut is pretty much Oops! All Spoilers! up to the most recent episode of season 3.

Apparently Universal Color God Attributes:

Damage to their domain hurts them, but fixing the issue, or lashing out by using their powers destructively, can help them to repair the damage.

If they sustain enough damage, it can temporarily paralyze them and send them into a strengthened but 'exposed' state (chartreuse's spirit activation in the last fight of 19) and further damage after that will activate a failsafe, which is unique by domain but seemingly designed to give them the chance to balance things, but can get… very out of hand or backfire depending on circumstances. (see: cobalt’s failsafe sending mark's universe into a never-ending apocalyptic war because word of the cure for death became too widespread for the killing urge failsafe to affectively balance anything because every side could simply revive their fallen.)

Chartreuse's failsafe is something of a stopped time bubble quarantine where processes that require the passing of time cannot complete, allowing her the time to wear down the offending party to beat them to death or plan around finishing them.

Cobalt's is inciting war, the casualties serving to balance the scale. I'm not sure we know Crimson's yet- he's never taken enough direct damage without doing damage to compensate in order to trigger it, although i dont remember season one well enough to recall if any of the universe stuff in it tracks with the pattern bc season one is a bit fucky

Connected in a fashion that allows them to simply Sense the overall status of the others to some extent, although they don't know Why theyre in the state theyre in without asking (chartreuse [and by extension, folk, presumably on her information] confronting crimson via crimsonaut for pretending to be dead, Cobalt confronting both his siblings about how they are handling their duties improperly but not knowing about Folk. He knew about the constants deaths because hes a death god, duh, but he didnt use their names like crimson did, possibly implying they're erased upon death so thoroughly that only crimson and the constants can really recall a shattered constants' existence, not even the other guardians.)

Abilities of the guardians can be replicated by mortals through three apparent methods- through machines (dimensional bus, the time machine, presumably J0hn's part in Sephiroth's resurrection,) simply through advanced enough individual skill (Home MD curing death, potentially Dantoinette's universe portal travel, maybe Genwun's sped up time bubble that evolved them into Genfour? although that could very well have just been an illusion and theyre just like, a fuckin theater kid that was doing pretend character development for the Bit or something given GenFive turned out to be a zoroark) or through stealing some of the power of the relevant god (Dr. Order stealing Chartreuse's power, Dani maybe having stolen some of Crimson's when she beat his ass. Dani's one woman universal travel is like, wicked ambiguous)

Cobalt:

Can seemingly perceive or act through any living material. (The Tree. Cobalt instructed Larry to slap his hand on that tree, that shit glowed and he had a new deal tattoo without Cobalt ever having been physically present)

Can influence the resurrected by giving them a killing urge. Represented by an aberrant brainwave and a ringing in the undead's heads. This doesnt appear to be direct control- as the Grunk could clearly restrain himself from killing people that genuinely didn't deserve it (like nightly and cha cha, who WERE grunk event targets but not fatally so. Nagito was a crimson thing so it really doesn't count here. God poor grunk his life really is just a constant plaything in the hands of the gods huh) and Sephiroth very much had personal motivation to want to kill Folk. failsafe activates this ability on the scale of war.

Deals. The extent of what Cobalt can do with these is unclear but Iggy's god powers were taken from him as his part in the deal so what he can take isn't limited to physical things or things obviously related to his domain.

Weaknesses:

Deals. While this ability is impressive his preference for making deals for those that offend against his domain is potentially very exploitable- Larry's knowledge of the cure for death is, if word of it were to ever get out beyond Larry, wildly dangerous for this dimension, so technically the safest thing for the iron-fisted cobalt to do would be to nip the problem in the bud and get rid of him. But, fascinatingly, that wasn't even put on the table, the first thing Cobalt does is threaten J0hn, prompting Larry to make a deal. While Cobalt enforces death, he also doesn't like unnecessary death, and Larry demonstrably knows how to keep a secret for the good of the world even at great cost to himself and Cobalt is aware of this- easily clarifying to Larry the aberrant thing endangering the universe wasn't his timeloop business. So while he's clearly not letting his resurrection fuckery go unpunished, he's being pretty merciful when he doesn't have to be and from a strictly, brutally pragmatic perspective probably shouldn't be.

His control over the undead manifests as a ringing and an aberrant brainwave trackable by J0hn's equipment, and could probably therefore be accounted for and circumvented? J0hn has, wisely, largely sworn off fucking with people's brains after the sephiroth fiasco went So Wrong, So Very Wrong, Oh God Oh Fuck Someone Cool Almost Died, but if he hadn't, and if J0hn let his dislike for authority and keeping Larry safe outweigh reason like he let safety, spite and comedic value outweigh good ethical sense when reprogramming sephiroth, in theory Mr. 'hacked a time machine for breakfast?' could. y'know. probably do it. what is a god's authority to an anarchist, what better to challenge life and death than the cold and eternal machine, you get the point its a fun scenario

Olive Garden Breadsticks and Small Cute Dogs, apparently

Chartreuse's:

Time Clones: taps into parallel timelines to retrieve alternate versions of herself to utilize.

Time Travel: what it says on the tin. Travel to the past creates painful splits in the prime timeline, but through careful action and traveling back into the past, these can be weaved into a time loop. A split from the timeline is a wound, and a successful timeloop is the surgical scar it can become with attentive care, to use a medical metaphor. Carefully closed and healing. Keeping Folk here is essentially akin to chartreuse pulling out her stitches on the initial incision.

Time Stopping: creates a space wherein things that take time to complete cannot complete, where things can move, but everything within is in a perfect unchanging stasis until the bubble drops. This is the form her failsafe takes.

Timeline Creation: can create timelines from scratch.

Can fuse alternate timeline versions of the same individual to allow them to coexist. (Ryan's confirmed in the discord that Dantoinette experienced both failures in 20, because Chartreuse fused the two instances of her to save the post-raid instance from fading. Could... theoretically do this to Folk and save herself the pain, but while Folk and Therapuppy are the same person, there's seven years and untold amounts of difference deriving from the time and circumstance between them and the inherent cognitive dissonances that would result from attempting that would be wicked fucked up to inflict, and that's assuming there isn't some reason that it wouldn't be possible anyway. while the two Danis had like. A day or so's difference between them, so she could be safely fused with the only dissonant thing being that she remembers both being too slow to prevent order's time escape and beginning to dissipate post-raid, AND losing that fight to her pre-raid. RIP Dani, that perfectionism must be kicking her ass)

Weaknesses:

Unwilling to use her powers destructively in her pursuit of domain repair and thereby much easier to damage to the point of paralyzing her, making her particularly vulnerable to Power Theft

Morally Optimistic. At one point in 19, she briefly justifies Crimson's shitty evil actions to herself after experiencing for herself how Wack the kerfuffleverse is firsthand, ("and all he did was kill a couple people!" Chartreuse. Honey.) and when she fights Crimsonaut she seems to actually believe for a second that he's actually worried about her when Crimson asks if she's okay after he beats her. Additionally, as D+, she concerns herself with trying to understand doctor order's motive, and after Larry defeats Order, he makes a point of confirming she feels no remorse before making his request for what Chartreuse does with her, and appeals to the idea of letting Order fulfill her desire to be a god in a way which isn't a problem for anyone and Chartreuse is more than happy to oblige under these conditions after what Larry's done for everybody. Then immediately threatens to evaporate him for playfully teasing her about having a crush on folk. Fucked up a little bit

Crimson's:

Universe Shifting: Travel between universes.

Universe Correction: appears to replace an aberrant individual with the 'correct' version of themselves for that universe, presumably sending them back to their own. (Mario from super mario was universe corrected, but still seemingly exists in wario form as evidenced by smashup kerfuffle, and was simply temporarily replaced with his corrected universe counterpart. But like. The dimensional bus system is still active crimbo doing the Put That Thing Back Where It Came From Or So Help Me routine aint gonna work if they can come back with a shrug and bus fare. you're fighting the symptoms without treating the problem)

Universal Constants:

Three individuals per universe that serve as the pillars which stabilize said universe, created by absorbing red orbs Crimson creates. Becoming a constant grants power, but also makes the constant fragile, and death wipes them from the face of the multiverse, only crimson, those he's possessed and the other constants seemingly able to recall they ever existed, although some physical evidence is still left behind (Larry's record of Nagito's death, which is just as redacted as everything else relating to him but still is very much something Larry has. Kind of a Voidfish adventurezone type beat ironically enough? Taako really has seen all this shit before no wonder he peaced tf out)

To counterbalance the weaknesses the constants have, they have a sort of spidey-sense to alert them to danger, and an intrinsic bonded connection to their fellow constants, and additionally, Crimson apparently doesn't suffer any pain from the death of constants or the structural instability of a universe.

Possession: what it says on the tin! Seemingly can only be done with permission to living things- none of crimson's direct hosts seem to have entered that agreement unwillingly, Valentine lost a bet, Hamburger and Crimsonaut have been by all evidence intentional allies to Crimson- but electronics are fair game, as seen with The Guy's suit. Kinda curious how that rule applies to bitches that are half and half, like J0hn or the clonebot gang, as its unclear whether The Guy's suit was yoinkable without permission because it was mechanical or because its not sentient. could go either way but if it's the former that's potentially very frightening

Fusion: Two individuals from alternate universes can be fused into one shared body which can take on aspects of either depending on which is currently in control. (possibly allows someone who traveled into a given universe to become a fixed resident there without it being an issue for Crimson, whose job is to prevent interdimensional travel?) Monday Mark and possibly T.O.M. are our main examples.

Corruption:

Unpleasant As Hell and can even kill you instead of changing you if you cant handle it.

turns the corrupted individual into a twisted exaggeration of themself, allows them supernatural control over their shape, and makes them very difficult- if not impossible by traditional means- to kill, based on Garfield.

Subjects them to control by Crimson, but can be exorcised of this influence just like crimson's direct hosts can, although the supernatural changes to their physiology are seemingly permanent, judging from Shantae.

Notable Weaknesses:

Exorcism can be performed to free a possessed or corrupted individual of Crimson's influence. Its unclear how exorcism works/is learned in CPUK, but confirmed exorcists: dantoinette and yung papaya's snake dad, confirmed non-exorcists: folk

The universal constant orbs are physical objects so they are Very Stealable and they grant a power boost so theres literally an Incentive to beat his ass for anybody who wants to be strong and either doesnt know or doesn't care about the whole 'getting erased when you die' part

Crimson has lots of tools to create pawns, but all of them have drawbacks. Corruption could kill a potential pawn, possession generally seems to require permission, and he has no control over the constants' choices and actions

Manipulative bitch's highest stat is charisma and it shows. This motherfucker is selling snake oil. If he was mortal rather than a Whole Entire God he'd make an excellent ineffectual saturday morning cartoon supervillain and i think everyone, including him, would be happier for it, ngl

Something interesting ive realized that likely wasnt fully intentional, is that a lot of Dr. Order's creations, considering her motive, can kind of be sorted by a color god it appears to be a crude attempt at mimicking the abilities of. My Grunk is a poorly executed resurrection, the clonebot gang vs chartreuse's timeclones (this one deserves special mention because Chartreuse used this shitty attempted mimicry to her advantage with D+, very smart and ironic play, excellent job Treusy,) spirits are somewhat similar to universal constant orbs (orbs which can be absorbed to grant power, but which have physical repercussions- key differences being that spirits require activation and grow stronger while attuning to a user without being used, and having far less severe drawbacks, taking a heavy toll on the body, but only once they've worn off and without the risk of wiping yourself from the face of existence,) and she also augmented Perfect Spriteman and Larry, which kind of track as crude imitations of Crimson's corruption!

Garfield was an acerbic cat who loved food and hated mondays, now its an actively malicious ever-hungry amorphous entity whose only weakness is monday and whose only consistency in form is 'cat-like.'

Shantae was (to my extremely limited understanding of shantae,) a friendly heroic type who had to introduce herself often, and she became something akin to a biblically accurate angel that can *only* introduce herself.

The Grunks a tough but sweet and supportive single dad with stage presence and a tendency to fly off the handle when he or his family are slighted, and now he gets so hype in the audience when his son does well that he bursts into flames and ascends and we get random grunk events along with the associated murder charges when he gets mad and the target sucks enough that he doesn't hold himself back from killing them.

Perfect Spriteman and Larry fit the trend of exaggeration of already present traits- Spriteman fucking loves sprite and became something that only thinks about sprite, and Larry the Florida Man, characterized from minute one by unpredictability and who spent his first matches in the series pre-shapeshifter transformation staying alive keeping stocks for Shockingly Long even despite getting seventh, became literally physically random as well as developing the ability to regenerate, albeit with the ability to feel pain normally very much intact, unlike Garfield just... Soaking up damage like its nothing in his pursuit of Jon. The fact that Arbuckle legit defeated Garfield, even temporarily, is terrifyingly impressive honestly that dude is fucking built different for being so chronically bland

i dont think they're actually corrupted in any meaningful way we have to worry about, to be fully clear, Spriteman was cured with fucking antacids, i simply think they could be a fucked up attempt at making something that kind of seems like it from a functional standpoint, from the wannabe god doctor that brought us green clones whose only fundamental association with time was accelerated aging and who thought an actively rotting corpse thats just reanimated enough that it can throw hands was as good as curing death