#i really like the vibes i've got going on here

[hhhhunty]

Redwall Piece supernovas lineup! I am going to yap about them under the cut, but if you want to enjoy just these drawings that's fine! 😊

Okay okay! So, some of these we've seen before but honestly I didn't talk a lot about my assignments and I want to and you know what it's my blog and I should indulge myself! I'll go in order :)

Alright there's fox hawkins, who I've posted before! My reasoning for this one is pretty simple - foxes in redwall are tricky, yes, but they also tend to be seers and fortune tellers! I felt that suited Hawkins' vibe very well. Honestly his is a pretty simple assignment.

Next is Zoro and Luffy and I'm partial to them so here's a picture of just them. Zoro is a badger, and Luffy's a weasel.

Zoro's was the biggest no-brainer of all time. Even if you don't know Redwall I think badger suits him as an animal. In redwall they're generally immensely powerful, somewhat solitary, and most importantly some of 'em have got a very fun affliction called bloodwrath, where when they get very angry in the heat of battle their eyes turn blood red and their vision is overtaken by a red haze and they go totally berserk! Yay! I really like that for Zoro. There's the fun stress revolving around loss of control along with his intense need to protect his friends. Also, his stripe is green. Why? Maybe he rolled in grass. Maybe it's mold. Maybe he was born that way. Yes, Sanji makes fun of it.

Now, Luffy. Luffy's a weasel, and in Redwall the creatures have... archetypes, sort of. There are "Vermin" and there are "Woodlanders" and for the most part these roles are bad and good respectively, with very few grey characters, or characters who break this mold. Weasels are always, always, evil. Now I'm not an elementary schooler so I'm rejecting that, to an extent. Luffy's more textbook selfish, here, and probably a bit more of an asshole, too, but he hoards his friends just as obsessively as in canon! He's less sympathetic towards people he doesn't know, too. Also, I can just imagine him flopping down and twisting and running circles around all his friends and I think that's very cute.

Killer and Kid!!!

So, originally, I had intended to make them both rats. However it was brought to my attention Killer is based off a yokai called kamaitachi, which is a weasel with sickle claws. I liked that a lot, so I sort of channeled it here. His punishers don't spin, but still they're fun. I made him look much more like a stereotypical cartoon weasel than I have for any other mustelid I've drawn, because I really liked the vibe for him.

As for Kid, he just makes a fantastic Massive Rat. Rats, of course, are pretty much fully evil in Redwall, unless they're too stupid to be evil, which happened one time across 22 books. That's fine because Kid is pretty evil. Pirates in redwall are all vermin, so I felt making these pirates vermin wouldn't be so bad.

Drake and Law!

Honestly Drake was mostly just my gut instinct. He's a redhead. Squirrels are red. Squirrels also make pretty brave warriors it seems. They're also "good" creatures, which I think works well with Drake's whole SWORD deal. That blue looks very nice with his orange fur in my opinion. I adore how he turned out.

Law I've drawn before. He's just such a great ferret. Yes, ferrets are evil. But Law's a little evil too so that's fine. I actually gave him his hat this time, good for him!

Bonney and Bege!

Bonney is a hedgehog. Why? I liked it. I think Bonney being able to roll into a spiky ball is fantastic. Hedgehogs are "good" creatures, of course. Also I love her i love her so much. Her spikes are pinkish because well I wanted them to be. Whoever guessed Bonney and Kuma were the badger father and adoptive hedgehog daughter yeah you were right. I'm normal.

Bege's a shrew! Most shrews are "good," with a handful of exceptions. They usually run in groups of a bunch of shrews, generally on rivers. I also took some inspiration from that one shrew from zootopia because that felt somewhat similar.

Lastly, Apoo and Urouge!

Apoo I've drawn before, he's a goose! Some geese have funny poofy feathers on their head. He has that. The brown is not feathers, but rather something kind of like hair extensions, made from... I dunno. Something brown, obviously. Apoo honks at people and chases them and he's really annoying.

Urouge was.... hard. He's the only supernova without much screentime. I wanted him to be a bird but my options were limited... so I settled on a sparrow. Why? I dunno. They're pretty good warriors so he has that going for him. I think visually he turned out cute even if his species choice feels the weakest.

That's about all I have to say thank you. Any questions or comments or suggestions? Send me asks!!! I never shut up!!!!

[marsmalade-toast]

it's been a whole year since how to build an ocean: instructions by the one and only dirtbag boyband @bearsintreesofficial was released!!! how and what!!!!

as we approach the Next Era i wanted to do a drawing to commemorate everything that's happened in this one. this is maybe my biggest drawing ever and i've put a lot of thought into it and it has soooo many references to the past era in it!! so i'll explain all those under the cut :))

i love this album so so so much and i hope this drawing conveys even a little bit of that!!!

i took everything i knew about the themes of the album and tried to distill it into one piece. the band's mentioned that the album is themed around coming home, reconnecting with your hometown, feeling lost and not really knowing your place in the world. so they're stranded in the middle of the ocean on a boat and trying to navigate their way back home!! haha. it's based more directly on a line from idwba - "when i step onto that ferry, and the man demands his pay". initially i had the boatman charon in the drawing too, but i ended up taking him out as it was kind of confusing!

i wanted it to have a kind of whimsical, fantastical vibe so there's a tree growing out of the boat. why? just for funsies!! on a qna i asked what the band thought the biggest visual symbols from this era were, and they answered maps, the ocean and scrapbooky vibes, so i've given the ocean is a big feature in the drawing. that's what the album's named after!! . callum and george are reading through some maps (callum's are screenshots of croydon on google maps or OS maps of the croydon area, and george is holding the map from the album cover). for the scrapbook vibes i've made a version that looks a bit like a scrapbook page, and a regular version as well.

over on iain and nick's side there's the cake callum baked for the baby shower announcement stream. there's a vase full of daffodils like from that one photoshoot. there's the banner they used to announce ttllm on tiktok, dj l8 nite kitten's head from the iwfc mv, and iain's infamous jleeves. there's two books in front of nick: flights by olga tokarczuk, which the album is named after, and the myth of Sisyphus by albert camus, which is referenced in injured crow. iain is drinking coffee with a raven flying above them whilst nick drinks hot chocolate, and there's also a crow with a bandaged wing - an injured crow, if you will :)

beside callum and george there's the giant mechanical skull callum gave to george on stage, the wizard hat nick had on tour and the bubble gun from the seaside tour. there's also George Jr, the raccoon hand from the spill the beans challenges on the subathon, and the chillies which were also from the subathon. there's also a can of chickpeas. this one's a funny one because iain actually told me to put it there themself! not even a joke!! i asked for an object to put in the drawing and they said a vase (which holds the daffodils) and a chickpea. i drew a can of chickpeas instead because a singular chickpea kind of just got lost in the drawing.

on the back wall of the boat there's a number of engravings. behind nick there's a bike for cycling, jaded - a song that was meant to go onto htbaoi but never made it - and a line from your favourite coat which was used as a clue for the arg leading up to the album announcement (thanks to @asherapparently for sending me that!!). the engravings on the far right side are the lil ghost from the ttllm music video, and the boatman taken directly from the album cover. i mentioned before that i had to omit him from the drawing so i thought i'd pay homage to him here.

finally, there're paper aeroplanes from your favourite coat, confetti for all you get is confetti, and the sign says '463 miles', like the bus route mentioned in henry says. on the side of the boat are a number of photos taken from instagram & twitter posts from this era, and the symbols from the album cover and the back of the vinyl are engraved onto the side of the boat - each one representing a different song. the streamers tied to the tree are in all the colours of the album.

bears in trees if you see this - your album is beautiful and wonderful and i love it dearly!!!

[crystalshard]

A shadow slid into the booth seat opposite.

Blinking, Danny lifted his eyes from the screen of his brand new WayneTech laptop - a gift from Sam when he'd received his acceptance into Gotham U - as he fumbled blearily for his coffee cup. The man seated across from him was lithe and dark-haired. Concern emanated from every part of his face, and the searchlight intensity made Danny blink again.

Danny worked his jaw, loosening the built-up tension. "Uh. Hi?" Lifting his cup to mask his confusion, Danny refocused into the white ceramic cavern when no delicious dark liquid met his tongue. Empty? Betrayal.

The man pursed his mouth, reaching out to rest a hand over Danny's wrist. "Tim," he began.

Danny pulled away instinctively, his eyes narrowing. Why was this stranger acting so familiar? And who was this Tim guy?

Thankfully, the man pulled back. "Tim," he repeated, "you need to go home. Hiding from Tam in here so you can work overtime without her noticing isn't a good thing, despite what guys like Lex Luthor say about being productive.”

Danny wrinkled his nose at the mention of the bald asshole. The guy had worked with Vlad once, so he was definitely on Danny's no-go list.

Stranger Danger nodded as if Danny had said that out loud. "Exactly. Look, Tim, this isn't like you. I used to catch you napping everywhere instead of avoiding sleep, and you always preferred soda to coffee. Is the job stressing you out that much? C'mon, buddy, you can tell me."

Huh. Whoever this Tim guy was, he must be having a rough time. At least he had his brother looking out for him. (Had to be a brother. If it wasn't for the voice and the appearance, he'd have sworn it was Jazz in front of him. The Older Sibling vibes were unmistakable.) "Uh," Danny said, a noise meant more for buying time while he thought than an actual answer. He really should tell this guy that he wasn't Tim.

Older Brother sighed. "Look, I'm sorry I've failed you as an older brother. I should have believed you about B, and I didn't. I can understand why you don't want to tell me. But would you please just let me take you home so that you can sleep in your own bed for a while?"

He really should admit he wasn't Tim.

But . . .

A good night's sleep sounded really good. And it was nice having someone there who cared about him, even if Older Brother thought he was someone else. He could get the bus or an Uber or something back to the dorms in the morning.

With his brain drenched in cortisol and adenosine, his thoughts slow and hard to reach, Danny nodded and began to pack up his things.

Older Brother brightened and led him out to a waiting car. Danny considered briefly that he might be being kidnapped, but the car was a Porsche. He was fairly sure that most kidnappers didn't use Porsches.

(That ought to have been the first warning sign.)

The passenger seat was comfortable, and Older Brother didn't seem inclined to talk. Danny leaned his head back and let himself doze off.

"Tim! Tim, wake up, we're here!"

Danny blinked awake and stared at the garage in front of him. The enormous garage that held at least five cars and had space for more. Even Vlad didn't have a garage that big. When you could fly, why drive unless you had to?

(Warning Sign 2.)

"C'mon, buddy, you look like you need a good ten hours."

Danny unclipped his seatbelt after two tries, staggering out of the low-slung car and nearly falling when the ground was closer than he expected. "Bag," he muttered.

"I've got your bag. We'd better go in through the side door, you don't want Alfred catching sight of you like this."

Warm, supportive hands guided Danny into the house and down a corridor. And down another corridor. And up a set of stairs, and this house was bigger than Sam's and maybe bigger than Vlad's cheese castle, and who the hell were Tim and Older Brother to be living somewhere like this? "Huh?" Danny asked.

(Warning Sign 3.)

Older Brother winced slightly. "Okay, so it's the Manor and not your apartment or the Nest, but I wanted you somewhere I can keep an eye on you. Don't worry, I'll let B know you're taking tonight off."

Danny frowned, something about that phrasing sounding a little odd, but he couldn't quite latch on to the exact issue with it.

"Aaaaand here we are! Alfred's washed the sheets since the last time you were here, they're all clean. Sleep well!"

The door shut behind Older Brother, leaving Danny to stare at the bedroom. Whoever Tim was, he was probably around Danny's age and as much of a technophile as Tucker. And, given the quality of the furnishings and the sheets, richer than Sam.

Sheets. Bed. Soft, warm, bed.

Too tired to shower, and unwilling to use someone else's toothbrush, Danny stripped to his boxers and curled up under the covers.

The next thing he knew, the door slammed open. Light streamed through the window, and Danny squinted against the too-bright sun as a dark-haired figure who bore a remarkable resemblance to him stomped over to the bedside.

"You," said a voice both icy and full of rage. "Who are you, and what are you doing in my bed?"

A batfam member lecturing tim on how he needs to go back to the manor and rest because they know hes been overworking himself and hasn’t slept

Danny who is definitely not this tim person, however he has been overworking himself and hasnt slept either and a nap sounds really good right about now, agreeing and just going with them

[wavesoutbeingtossed]

When you’re ready for more mashup madness please do the tortured poets department x now that we don’t talk

I totally forgot this happened but it speaks to my interests because it’s very much about how it retrospect she’s #blessed to be out of these relationships so she doesn’t have to deal with these insufferable self important men anymore 😂

My wonderful friend, I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart, because this may be the first mashup I actually laughed out loud watching 😂

When I read your ask, I thought this was the one where she made the "what the fuck was I even thinking 🤪" face at the "cause we're crazy" line, and though it wasn't, I think this might have been even more peak comedy hours 😂 This may be her most precise and most explicit mashup that I've seen yet, and you know what? Good for her.gif

First of all: you all know how much I love Girl and Her Guitar Doing a Bit at a Coffee House and this is very very very much that. And it's so funny, because TTPD and Now That We Don't Talk are both veeeeeeeeeeery quintessential Jack 80s Synth songs, but they sound sooooooooooooooo good with her little strummy guitar. Like just warmie slightly yeehaw campfire singalong vibes, I love it so much. Plus both songs showcase both her lower register AND her falsetto so beautifully, so they’re a great match not only thematically (which we will get to) but sonically as well! I just had to get that out of the way, because we're already off to a great start.

Also: a twangy “no-fuckin-body” on the strummy guitar? As much as I’m obsessed with my 80s synth baby TTPD on the album, I actually think this is the way it was meant to be sung! The range is exquisite 🤌

The theme is: Who’s gonna love you like me, now that we don’t talk?

This is such a sleeper attack, because she sings almost all of TTPD right through the bridge, and you think she’s just going for the whole thing, and then she cuts in with the TRUE ending of the story told in that song with Now That We Don’t Talk in blisteringly scathing fashion AND WE ARE HERE FOR IT!

(putting under a cut because this got long oops SORRY IT WAS TOO GOOD)

At dinner you take my ring off my middle finger and put it on the one people put wedding rings on, and that’s the closest I’ve come to my heart exploding… what do you tell your friends we had dinners, long weekends with? Truth is I can’t pretend it’s platonic, it’s. Just. Ended. SO. I called my mom she said to get it off my chest. Remind myself the more I gave, you’d want me less. I cannot be your friend, so I pay the price of what I lost, and what it cost, now that we don’t talk.

(She flubs and actually accidentally sings “at dinner you put my ring on my middle finger” lol)

THAT transition is in fact what made me cackle out loud and scream SHE’S A COMEDIAN in my head 😂 Because that sums up the whole microwave situation depicted in TTPD the album through TTPD the song, isn’t it? One minute he was there bullshitting her with promises, and the next he was gone without a trace.

NTWDT is such a fun song because as it is it's dripping with sarcasm and complete clocking of the muse's insecurities and how they let it get in the way of genuine connection. She kicks it up about ten notches here, because she uses the transition between the two songs to denote the transition between fantasy and reality, both narratively and musically. TTPD is full of the dreamy, airy high notes, and then NTDWT is Angry Girl Hours. Now, it's also super fun because she can't actually keep a straight face and is having a blast while doing it, but she gets louder and beltier on all the NTWDT parts, especially in comparison to the TTPD notes when she blends the two songs together during the "who's gonna ... now that we don't talk" bits. She's really like: 🥰😡🤣 throughout it all lol. You can even see how much louder she gets in the waveform at the transition:

The way she moves from the wedding ring line and "that's the closest I've come to my heart exploding..." to "what do you tell your friends..." is just such a boss move, because it turns this kind of open-ended story from the original song, wondering who else is going to know her, into her reading him for filth: so, what do you tell people about what happened, huh? Because it did just end, abruptly just like that, so what the fuck was that all about? It takes all the hopes and dreams out of the wedding ring line and fizzles them out completely, revealing the absolutely mundane and predictable and infuriating disappointment of the reality of it all. So she's listening to her mama and IS GETTING IT OFF HER CHEST ALRIGHT!!! Perhaps in the form of an entire album about what a piece of shit this person is, but I digress.

She also gives peak theatre kid energy in the performance too when she sings "I cannot be your friend, so I pay the price of what I lost, and what it cost" with another 😡 angry belt, because: ain't that what the whole arc comes down to on the album? She did in fact pay the price of what she lost in the entire oven-to-microwave meltdown, and what she was left with was Female Rage: The Musical. (Because the woman always pays the price. And the cost is always highest and most devastating for the woman. But again! I digress!) Luckily she's also having a ball on stage, so we all win, lol.

I love when she starts blending the two songs together heading into the last bridge:

Now that we don't talk, who's gonna hold you like me? Now that we don't talk, who's gonna know you like me? Now that we don't talk, you're not Dylan Thomas, I'm not Patti Smith, this ain't the Chelsea Hotel, we're two idiots. Who's gonna hold you like me, now that we don't talk?

Because I think one way of reading this is that instead of the original meaning of TTPD of her almost anxious musing about what happens if this doesn't work out, and flips the script to her excoriating him. She is the one in control now. Now that you've lost me, who's going to care for you as much as I thought I did? Now that you've lost me, who's going to understand you like I would have? Now that you've lost me, you're not the special tortured artist you think you are, because I'm the one who made you special. To me it sounds very: You'll never get away from the sound of the woman that loves you (derogatory). It turns the whole thing from a story of yearning and (questionable) hope to a scathing rebuke full of sarcasm and disdain.

I love that she included the outro of NTWDT, both because I love it and it's the most fun to sing, but also because it's such a pointed way to end the mashup! She doesn't have to lie to herself or to him that she likes all his pretentious shit! The "I don't have to pretend..." section very much ties into the "I think some things I never say, like 'who uses typewriters anyway?'" of the first part of the mashup-- because it turns out no matter who the muse is, they all fall victim to the same insecurities and insufferable proclivities.

Also knowing what we know now about the whole album, I think "And the only way back to my dignity was to turn into a shrouded mystery, just like I had been when you were chasing me," is unintentionally fitting. Because in the context of what the album ends up telling us throughout the story, the thrill of the chase (and conquering her) IS why this person went after her. The sad vulnerable girl dealing with her trauma behind closed doors WAS exactly what this person was attracted to, and the second he'd landed her, the thrill was gone for him. I generally try to look at the mashups more as their own stories, even if they've ended up reflecting the real stories told in her music, but in this case, it's too on the nose for me not to parallel with the album.

I understand why she did it musically, but I’m also totally gagged by what she chose to omit from NTWDT, and how what she included changes meaning. Gone is the slight reverence of “You part the crowd like the Red Sea,” or the incisive strike to the heart of, “Did you get anxious though on the way home?” There’s no “I miss the old ways, you didn’t have to change," because unlike past loves, there's no residual tenderness left in this particular story now that they don't talk. (There are no "old ways" to miss, because it was all built on a house of cards that never existed in the first place. IT WAS NOT A LOVE AFFAIR, as the bard herself tells us.) Instead it’s all the roasting of his bullshit that stays… both because the earlier part with little TTPD details the beginning of the relationship (that would have covered the beginning of NTWDT), thus assigning a different experience to the latter song, and because this is a very different conclusion to the title track. Or, I should say, is the actual conclusion, since the title track is an introduction to the affair, but ends before we know what happens. Well, here she tells us her own version of that.

She also doesn’t sing the “you faded till I left” chorus, keeping only the “get it off my chest” one, because again: SHE IS GETTING IT OFF HER CHEST. She’s letting the audience know exactly what happened in this version of events in this particular story. Because: HE is the one who left. This was not a slow disintegration of a situationship, this was a field hospital amputation. He didn't fade, he vanished into thin air.

Last little observation: I don’t know if it’s deliberate or just a flub, but she said “what do you tell your friends we HAD dinners, long weekends with,” not “SHARED dinners.” Could be nothing, but to me it also sounds like, much more temporary and superficial. “Shared” sounds like recurring events, intimate and tender, while “had” sounds like something that maybe only happened briefly. I'm inclined to believe it's just a flub (given the earlier one with the "put my ring on my middle finger"), but I think I like the idea that it's purposefully changed to show just how shallow it all ended up being so I'm going with it lol.

Thaaaaaaaaaaaaaaank you for bringing this one to my attention because it was even better than I thought it'd be!

[phoenixcatch7]

It's always funny to me when in an lu fic the chain is offered bananas and don't accept them. Like, you're offering these high energy adventures free food?? Fruit they'll have never even heard of before??? A ridiculously expensive imported good at best?? AND it boosts your attack?

Not ONE of these idiots would ever turn down something new and interesting to eat at least once. They'd be all over those bananas and immediately get dubbed yiga and I'm honestly surprised no one has used it in a fic yet 🤭

[ryanclaremont]

Shiv shrugs a shoulder, "We can make fun and say shit all the time, but at the end of the say I care about you're wellbeing, August. If you find someone who can tolerate you, that's huge. If not I'm sure gram's got a list of names she'll set up for you. You're choice." Siobhan laughs softly as she drinks and looks over, her brows raising.

"Oh, last thing, Bridget's found your friend." She motions with her chin. "Sorry 'bout that."

In the opposite corner, Ryan exits the bathrooms and comes out a little bit refreshed. Touched up lipstick and a new plan not to ask such ridiculous and inappropriate questions. She doesn't want to ruin the vibe going on tonight, Ryan thinks they've made some good ground and are comfortable. She just... she doesn't want some kind of wall between them. It boils down to a few facts and thoughts that there is a clear pull she has towards August, it's been brewing for sometimes now.

Ryan holds onto the handle of her purse with both hands as she steps forward, halting when two girls come into her path. "Hey girl," the brunette one says as the copper haired one eyes her up. "I'm Bridget, just wanted to introduce myself, I'm a good friend of Siobhan's."

Oh.

"Hi," Ryan greets semi-polite as she nods to them. "Nice to meet you."

"So, like," Bridget starts and she sounds like a valley girl in Manhattan. "Are you friends with August? Or did he pay you to be his date?"

Ryan blinks wildly, looking at this girl, "Did he pay me?"

"Well," she laughs like something is funny. "We just don't really see him with dates, and you know, girls will do anything to be at these parties and be around him."

Ryan looks between the both of them, dumbfounded and a bit pissed off. "He didn't pay me to be here and that's rather ballsy of you to be presumptuous about a stranger."

Bridget's thin brows raise, a light smirk on her face, "Oh girl, trust me I've seen the women he goes home with and it's not you."

August can literally think of a ton of things that could harm her. Shiv doesn't understand. She never has. She's not one step in his world. He appreciates what she says, and it almost pushes him to wanting something with Ryan, despite how selfish that is but...

he's just not sure.

There is, once again, a big difference between him and Aiden. Isn't there?

"Thanks mom." He teases, giving her a smile, having a sip from his whiskey sour, "You're getting sentimental in your old age."

[flaming-toads]

So what if I go back to s1e10 of 911 and I enjoy Bobby's little dating profile and think about silly cute ideas about it hmm?! HMMM?!

[chirpsythismorning]

Nick himself said that his knowledge is confined to the leaks prior to s4, the s4 scripts from his verified source (likely within a source) and basic knowledge most fans paying attention have been able to formulate about s5 based on what has been released officially/unofficially, trends from Netflix and common sense.

He is saying based on all that, he doesn’t think byler is happening. 

And if we think back to what the Duffers themselves shared in the 4x09 script, it literally implies Mike’s monologue worked, and that it was entirely genuine. This tells me that the script the Duffers released for Emmy consideration, is not that far off from what Nick saw for himself. 

I think it’s likely Nick got something that the average below the line worker might manage to get their hands on if they tried hard enough. A copy they know they have to water-down to prevent these very situations from happening.

Unfortunately for the Duffers, it just so happens that they didn’t scrub their watered down copy hard enough.

Unfortunately for Nick, he admitted that it’s possible and even likely that the production will release things that aren’t exactly accurate with the sole purpose to lead fans sleuthing astray, without realizing it may have ironically already happened to him. 

[necrotic-nephilim]

i recently remembered DickTim Week 2024 is happening very soon and i looked at the prompts again to see if i could get anything out for it and. the Hades & Persephone AU prompt for day 1 has got me really thinking so here's a vague concept i plan to write.

i've been pretty burnt out on modern Hades & Persephone retellings because of how they always seem to fall into the same generic "innocent wide-eyed girl runs from her evil mean mother into the arms of a dark mysterious man because actually she went willingly and chose to marry him" which has gotten repetitive for my tastes. (for clarity i don't care if this retelling is your cup of tea personally, so long as you're not actively trying to rewrite the original myth and claim untrue things about it, if this is your favorite flavor i sincerely hope you enjoy the buffet i just have little interest in it since it feels overdone for me and exhausted of it's supposed commentary atp)

but? but. biblically accurate Hades & Persephone AU has me all kinds of interested. because wait listen so hear me out right. Hades!Dick and Persephone!Tim, obviously. i feel it'd be more loosely inspired by with themes and imagery (though playing with death and nature powers could be interesting, i haven't decided) rather than explicitly making them gods and all. but. something dark and fucked up where Dick and Bruce are especially estranged. maybe to do with Jason's return, maybe to do with them just clashing and having their usual explosive arguments. and Bruce knows the peace needs to be kept, if he and Dick are at odds then everyone starts to pick sides and things just fracture so he needs a peace offering.

and the peace offering is Tim.

Bruce (the stand-in for Zeus) offers up Tim. agrees to have Tim move to Bludhaven and be Dick's... whatever Dick wants him to be. knowing that with the implication comes the likelihood of Dick grooming Tim. and Tim has no real say and is hesitant to put up a real fight. he doesn't want this, he knows what this is going to imply Dick will do to him, but he also knows if he says no things have the possibility to just... fall apart. so he's the unwilling bride, dragged off to the metaphorical underworld (Bludhaven) with Dick, away from his family, his friends, the life he built.

and on the flip side, i think weirdly enough, your best pick for the Demeter stand-in is *Jason*. just, hear me out on that. not necessarily on the side of it being motherly, but on Jason being just estranged enough from the Batfamily to be the one willing to call it out for being bad and wrong and raising bloody hell to get Tim back. maybe it's because Jason wants Tim for himself, maybe it's truly out of a concern for Tim to have autonomy, i'm toying with the idea of it primarily being Tim's POV and him genuinely not knowing which of these is true. (and the truth possibly ends up being a complicated middle ground) and because i like Helena, i think you can use her as the Hekate stand in, the one who strikes a tentative alliance with Jason and tries to go find Tim and bring him back. Tim stuck with Dick, getting groomed and hyperaware of it, possibly even getting fucked the whole time as well, knowing he can't go back without causing massive issues for Dick and Bruce because well, Bruce did promise him to Dick. so he has to adjust his whole life, try to figure out being a vigilante in this new city with Dick breathing down his neck the whole time.

and then much like the ending of the myth, a sort of compromise is struck that's a shaky deal for everyone involved. Tim is put on an essential timeshare, going back and forth between Gotham, where he has friends and family and a support system, then getting dragged right back to Bludhaven with Dick in this brutal cycle that he slowly gets used to and stockholm'd into even liking it. Dick isn't so bad, once he gets used to the quirks of their unbalanced 'relationship'. the sex is even something he can adjust to as well. not quite a happy ending but one that sits in this realistic grey area that becomes Tim's life.

i will write this, eventually, but i don't know if i'll get to it before DickTim Week ends so by posting the idea i'm essentially putting it out into the world so the peer pressure holds me accountable. i just. really like the potential of making Hades/Persephone AUs as fucked up as they can be simply by adhering to the source material and making it a raw story of being stolen away and forced to like this new home you didn't ask for.

also a less fleshed-out aspect of this idea i have ties into Persephone becoming the Queen of the Underworld when she's taken and how the transition from Kore to Persephone could be reflected in Tim. how he makes the best of the worst situation and becomes something far more dangerous and dark when he's in Bludhaven, possibly takes on a new vigilante name/identity and leans into the worst quirks of his personality he tries to tamper because there's no point in not going full tilt Obsessively Weird if he has no choice anyway and it being one small way he takes back his autonomy, and that inevitably making Dick *more* into him, because he gets to see Tim finally just. let loose.

[timothyslucy]

oh, i started episode 7x09 btw, and also... i love my firefam, just look how wholesome. 🥰🥰

[gexavery]

UGH

[trans-yllz]

midnight ruminating on all of the deeply deeply traumatizing experiences I had being homeless as a child. okay goodnight

[cosmogyros]

.

[hirazuki]

Okay, see, the thing about your story ending on a negative/dystopian/'despite everything that's happened nothing has changed in society' note and doing so successfully? It needs to have been set up for that in the first place, and it needs to be done in an intentional manner.

I have nothing against works that reinforce how cruel/meaningless/pointless/etc. the world is -- I enjoy a fair few! -- but the works themselves need to be some sort of commentary about it; the plot might be demonstrative of the futility of everything, but the story never should. It should take that and build on it and use it to make a statement, underscore a point, etc. to its readers. Having everything carry on business-as-usual without acknowledging it, especially in a genre that's generally meant to conclude on optimistic, uplifting, and hopeful notes, comes off as callous and in direct opposition with the values it extols.

Plus, the story itself should never be futile because, then, well, it never mattered as a work and it makes no difference if you've read it or not. Which... that's just a badly written story lmao.

[keeps-ache]

linelesssss oohoohoo !!

[stop-breaking-my-heart-telltale]

Hey CJ 👋 I hope you’re doing well in life.

I’m on the same page as you, when it comes to taking a step back from TWDG & the fandom. And, coming back to the games after sometime & seeing it in a different light. Some things that didn’t click with you back then, makes a bit more sense now.

Also, I’m curious.. what are thoughts on true colors? Steph & Ryan? 👀

Hello, my friend! 👋 Been a while! But yeah, I'm doing fine; a lot of the usual work with writing fic and blog posts in between.

Yeah it's funny to step away from a fandom you're so engrossed in for so long, like twdg was such a huge part of my life back in 2018-2020 with me running this blog, writing fic, and streaming. Now I'm just in a completely different headspace in general, and looking at the games now, they're still amazing but my reasonings are different. Also I talk about the comics a lot, which isn't something I would've guessed I'd be doing. If you go back to when they were announced, I made posts being like "yeeeeeah I dunno if I'm gonna read them :/" jokes on me. I read them multiple times, I need to make that useful haha.

As for LiS True Colors, I actually super loved it?? way more than I ever did the first LiS game?? though I think I might've loved it for the wrong reasons. I don't know, I haven't actually looked into what LiS fans thought of it compared to the other games, but for me it was a "perfect time, perfect place" game in the moment. To me the whole thing was nearly a perfect escapism game; the music is an A+, the entire town is gorgeous and covered in flowers and woods, Alex gets to live in a nice apartment for free [the true fantasy], there's a whole LARP campaign to play through, a flower festival where I've never been so conflicted on who to give a rose to, and overall just the coziest vibes. I swear, I spent most of the game just wandering around the town looking at all the flowers, it was great.

Like if Gabe didn't die and True Colors was just about Alex moving to this fantasy-like small town and working through her issues with the help of her powers, I would've been 100% on board. I didn't mind the mystery, though I totally guessed Jed would be the twist villain given the first episode immediately presents him as a hero who saved a bunch of people in the mines, I was like "Oh did he now... mmhmmm mmhmmm and he's Ryan's dad, oohhh he's gonna be this game's Jefferson-" except he was done better than Jefferson imo. He didn't turn into a cartoon character and his motivations behind the cover up were interesting. He didn't do it for the aesthetic like Jefferson did. And in the end I got everyone to side with me, except Charlotte because I told her to take the money so she wanted to speak out but couldn't, which was honestly fine with me like take their money, send Ethan to college, we'll stab Typhon just fine without your vocal support.

I liked most of the characters, except for Diane and Mac, though I reluctantly disliked Mac less by the end... Diane can suck an egg, though. I don't think I've ever wanted to throw a character out a window more than when Alex came back all bloodied with a bullet wound on her head as she exposed the truth and when she asks why no one's saying anything, Diane just goes, "We don't want to embarrass you" kjlkajdslkjalkjdl LADY DON'T PISS ME OFF

As for Ryan and Steph, I liked them both, trying to choose between them was absurdly difficult. It was like True Colors saw how easily I picked between Louis and Violet and took it as a challenge to create Ryan and Steph specifically to stump me. I mean, soft boy who loves nature, goes out of his way to be kind and helpful to those around him, has a slow build up to being emotionally available with someone he trusts, and has some daddy issues? A girl with pretty brown eyes who loves DnD and LARP, has a passion for music and will deflect with humor, who knows who she is and is eager to help those around her, and who isn't just another rehash of Chloe? They knew what they were doing; they dressed Steph up in as a witch after having Ryan act like a goof acting like enemy creatures, they were made for me.

Having done both routes, I do prefer Steph. I adore her and Alex together, but Alex and Ryan are super cute, too.

It's not a perfect game and there are issues in the writing but honestly, I don't care. I had a good time. I was engaged. I looked at every single flower and kissed a pretty girl so good that the world exploded. What a great game.