#i don't mean to leave it for so long
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When you've got 2 writing asks but you've had writers block for days now: 😀
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What can I say? They're my favorite.
#twdg#twdg clouis#clouis#twdg clementine#twdg louis#sometimes they creep back into my mind and i'm like 'ah yes' like a crow admiring a pretty stone they found years ago and kept#also thank you pi for the screenshots. i used to have a whole folder full of them but that was when i was doing themed nights#the source for these is me i just have a random document full of dynamics and ship things i enjoy because.....i dunno i like keeping track#and so many of them apply to clouis but there's also an overlap of with clouis and rose/alistair [my warden from origins and alistair] like#alistair's romance route is like an evolved matured and extended version of clouis sksksks gee i wonder if i have a type#look you present me with a character who deflects with humor and isn't taken seriously by the rest of the group and the longer you know the#the more you realize how high they've built a wall around themselves and how *unwell* they really are and how they're not as sunshine#as they present themselves and also they avoid leadership and responsibility until they grow closer with someone who pushes them#and they end stronger and more balanced as a person while finding the affection they've craved#and also there's the daddy issues#present me with that character as a romantic option and i'm in no questions asked okay i don't want the mean broody one that's meh to me#i want the one that has every reason to be broody but chooses not to be because they have a completely different defense mechanism#and a warped sense of themselves and self-esteem issues they leave unaddressed until forced to face them#i'm just saying i'm aware that i have a type i'm always going to gravitate toward clouis nearly checks all the boxes#also the lack of clouis these days? my crops are thirsty and i have too many ongoing projects to do anything about it other than this sksks#so until i make time to finish my long ass louis/clouis analysis this is the best i can provide for now
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@sasheneskywalker i love when you enable me to ramble about things because oh my god do i have thoughts.
so recently, i made a post discussing the phenomena of DC x DP and DC x MLB crossovers and why they exist and part of that post was discussing how largely speaking, at least half, if not more of the Batfamily fandom doesn't read the comics. if they interact with canon DC material, it's adaptations that are their own sequestered universes and oftentimes not remotely comic accurate or seeking to be. the most obvious example is the Young Justice cartoon. i'm adding a cut to this post because it just got so long i'm so sorry.
a lot of times, when people are discussing the "why" of this oversaturation of fanon-only fandom, they blame Wayne Family Adventures. and i think, to a point, i agree WFA is responsible for a boom in this fandom. but as someone who's been in the fandom long before we had WFA, to me it's the other way around. WFA was DC's way of meeting the demand for this easy-to-get-into, easy-to-consume content about the Batfamily that predicates itself on the comics just enough to be vaguely the same characters, but has a more sitcom, slice-of-life sort of vibe so DC could profit off of this section of the fanbase that otherwise wasn't consuming its primary material. and well, it's definitely worked. not only that, but i have a weird theory that the decline in the MCU also led to the rise in the Batfamily fandom. when you consider the fan content that made the MCU popular within fandom, it's that 2012 "they all live in Avengers Tower and Thor is eating poptarts and Clint is in the vents and there are movie nights every Friday" sort of vibe. those were the fics that were a hallmark of the fandom. and as the MCU has strayed from well... quality content in general, but specifically well-thought-out crossover content where characters can have their own arcs but also exist in a wider story where they clearly care about each other, that fandom was sort of homeless. so where do you go, if you like a superhero found family where you can have villains for angst but also stick them all in one big family-like home for silly crack and have a plethora of options for gay ships? well. you go to the Batfamily. if you write a crack/fluff Batfamily genfic with silly vibes and low stakes instead of say, a fic about a very specific comic issue even if it's a popular comic, you're *going* to get more traction for the former. because the fanbase largely just isn't reading the comics.
and i feel... complicated about this. because on one hand, Don't Like Don't Read has been a tenet of my fandom experience. i'm very pro-fandom and that includes fandom content i don't like. and to an extent, i do think this sort of should apply to Batfamily fanon. i enjoy having my moments with other comic purists, giggling over exceptionally painful OOC headcanons or even facepalming in pain over some content but it is on me to not interact with that content. you don't make fandom a better place by being hostile to fans who engage with canon in ways you don't approve of. and frankly? we as comic readers are not going to get non-comic fans to read the comics by being asshats to them. no one is going to want to pick up any comic if we get a superiority complex about it. and also, i feel like we're all lying to ourselves a little bit insisting comics are so, so easy to get into. they're not. we can just all agree, they're really not. i've been single-handedly helping my sister get into comics, specifically Wonder Woman and no matter how simple i make it, i watch her get frustrated trying to understand what pre-Crisis and post-Crisis and New-52 and Flashpoint and all these things mean and what a retcon vs a reboot is and what a Crisis Event is and what the hell Diana's current backstory even *is*. sure, you can give someone a beginner list of comics to start with and slowly dip their toes in the water but sooner or later, *something* is going to confuse them. comics as a medium straight up aren't going to be everyone's cup of tea. and if someone *just* wants to read silly fluffy fanfiction about the Batfamily, i can't entirely begrudge them for not wanting to take the hours and hours out of their day to understand this medium. it's not an accessible medium to get into. "read this and this, but this run is out of print and this run wasn't collected in trades at all but also make sure you read that event in order and this is a good comic but the backstory in it is retconned and you *have* to read this it's so important but it's also really bad because the author kind of sucks" sounds. ridiculous for someone who like. just wants to read some stuff about Nightwing. sometimes, we all make reading comics sort of sound like a chore, not a hobby.
so my point is, i do extend some grace to Batfamily fanon for existing. i think my biggest gripe is, as i said in my other post, misuse of tags (if you're not creating content about comics, maybe you don't need the comics fandom tag on Ao3, just the all media types umbrella tag) and my far bigger gripe: when panels are taken out of context to support fanon only headcanons. if i could impart *anything* onto the Batfamily fandom as a comic fan it'd be this: if you haven't *read* the comic, don't spread the panel. if you don't even know what comic it's *from*, don't spread the panel. it's fine to use comic panels to discuss your headcanons, but so often i see someone spreading a comic panel from a comic they haven't read, and when asked where it's from, they can't source it. a silly example that comes to mind is a post going around, taking a panel where Dick, in his internal monologue goes "here comes the sun. do do do do." and the post is claiming it's from him getting buried alive. when that panel comes from Nightwing (1996) #140, and he gets buried alive in Nightwing (1996) #127, two completely different moments frankensteined together. if you're going to not read the comics, that's completely fine, but unless you're sure of the source and the context, panels shouldn't be spread around. i'm sick of this specifically happening to Red Robin (2009), with ppl claiming Tim has totally killed people because he blew up some of Ra's' bases, when those panels within context, make it clear he gave everyone time to escape. and in a later arc in that very comic, Tim grapples with the idea of murdering Captain Boomerang, and *specifically chooses not to*, because he doesn't agree with murder, even against the person who has hurt him the most. if you'd like to write fanfiction where Tim is pro-murder and has done some sketch things, i'm totally on board and would probably like to read it. but there's no need to pretend it's canon from a few panels you saw out of context.
beyond that, i think it's not *entirely* correct to say that fanon is harmless. whenever i see very WFA-positive posts, they often default to the argument that WFA is fun and silly, and comic fans are killjoys for not liking it. which. i think is complicated because the issue is, WFA and fanon don't exist in a vacuum. if you like WFA power to you, i don't think it's the worst thing ever, but i do think it's degrading to these characters because honestly? they feel incompetent in the webtoon. it's one thing if WFA was solely a slice-of-life sort of deal, just having silly episodes where Bruce is taking on a PTA mom or they're all fighting for the last cookie. but when WFA attempts to take on more serious plots with these characters, it *fundamentally* falls flat in understanding them. i get it, Bruce comforting Jason having a panic attack because a noise reminded him of the crowbar felt cute in a microcosm, but i'm so serious when i say that storyline destroyed how like. half of this fandom understands Jason Todd's relationship to his trauma. it doesn't understand how he reacts when he's triggered, what coping mechanisms he seeks out, and how he would handle Bruce comforting him. even if i can believe for a brief moment Jason *would* be triggered by something like that, him running and trying to hide and then getting a hug from Bruce to make it okay is just. painful. WFA needs everything to be wrapped up in a nice, neat little bow. so even when it starts to tackle interesting concepts, it makes them fall flat with its need to be soft, low stakes, hurt/comfort. there was a two-parter episode that dealt with the complicated mutual hatred/jealousy between Tim and Damian that *almost* really interested me because for once, it felt like the webtoon wanted to explore canon messy dynamics. but of course, it had to be fixed with one conversation and a hug. you don't mend the *years* of issues these characters have like that. WFA isn't in character because these characters are hyperbole cartoonified versions of themselves to fit within the medium and be a cute happy family.
because that right there, is the crux of it. the Batfamily fanon seeks to simplify the Batfamily and force them into a nuclear family. there are so many fantastic posts on here discussing how the nuclear family-ification of the Batfam is eroding decades worth of complex histories so i won't go too far into that. but what i will say is that there's this need, in the Batfamily fandom, for the Batfamily to exist as a unit. they are a *family*. (honestly i think calling it the Batfamily is a misnomer and has been for years but we're in too deep now.) they exist to each other first, and any teams or friends they have come secondary to this family unit. you can *specifically* see this demonstrated in what headcanons are becoming popular these days. i have an entire lengthy meta in my drafts about how i *loathe* the "the Batfamily meets the Justice League" genre of fanfic because it makes no *sense*. in order to have this genre of fic exist, you must operate under the assumption that no one in the League, or adjacent to the League, knows the Batfamily exists and are thus utterly shocked to discover Batman has kids. and to make *that* work, you have to strip *every single Batfamily member* of such important dynamics and friendships so you can lock them all in Gotham for their whole lives. Dick can't have the Titans, Tim can't have Young Justice, Duke & Cass can't have the Outsiders, Jason can't have the Outlaws, Damian can't have the Supersons, Babs can't have the Birds of Prey, and so on. because if they had these relationships, they would be known to the League. the Batfamily fandom doesn't care about this, it's just "silly fanfiction", it's not trying to be serious. but how can you say you like Dick Grayson as a character if you don't understand the Titans *are* his family? at some points of his life, moreso than the Batfamily even is. it is constantly repeated to us in most comics with Dick how much the Titans mean to him. he *needs* them to be who he is. the same extends to every other Batfamily member, most of which have been full League members at this point. but in fanon, that doesn't matter. the Batfamily are a sequestered unit first, and all of those side relationships are secondary and easy to toss away, if it makes your fanfic work better.
and because they have to be a unit first, you have these forced relationships that dump years of actual canon material for the sake of making them get along. the Batfamily fandom has its favorites and well. it's no secret it's usually the boys. Jason and Tim by *far* stand out as fandom faves so, their dynamic is a heavily explored one. it does matter that in canon they don't tend to get along and especially don't see each other as family. what matters is that you can push dynamics onto them. and so fanon gets all twisted up about which Robin Tim actually idolized as a kid (Dick) and what member of the Batfamily is pro-murder but still an older sibling figure to him and looks out for him (Helena, or if you want the dynamic of once tried to harm Tim but they've reconciled, Jean-Paul) in favor of who's the most popular. Dick, Jason, Tim, and Damian are always going to be the standouts for popularity, but it's specifically Jason and Tim who are getting fanonized the most. and that's because really, we don't have much canon content of Tim that *isn't* the comics. for Dick you've got Young Justice (tv), for Damian you've got the DCAMU, for Jason you've sort of got the Under The Red Hood movie, but Tim sort of lingers in this limbo. (yes, he's in Young Justce (tv) and Titans (live action) but in neither is he the main character nor given much depth) so, he gets a *lot* projected onto him and has become fanonized. and even with Jason's animated movies, you don't see him interact with Tim, so people build it from the ground up how they want to see it, disregarding of canon comics. i think it's what makes him so popular in the first place- he's malleable into whatever you want or need him to be.
and of course, the fanon ignores other characters in the Batfamily it doesn't know about. i feel like you could create a tier list of Batfamily characters by their popularity, going from the fandom main characters: Tim, Jason, Bruce, Alfred, Dick, Damian. to the underrated: Steph, Duke, Babs, Cass. to the forgotten about unless they're convenient for a story: Kate, the Foxes, Helena Wayne, Carrie, Selina, Harper Row, Maps, Minhkhoa Khan. to the absolutely unknown: Helena Bertinelli, Jean-Paul Valley, Onyx Adams, the Clovers, Julia Pennyworth. it's not lost on me that the ignored characters tend to be women and people of color. which is both a canon and fanon problem, DC will continue adding interesting characters to the Batfamily, play with them for a few years, then drop them to default to the "Batboys" again. and it's a vicious cycle of the fandom only caring about the "Batboys", and thus people entering the fandom via fanon osmosis won't have content about the other characters, therefore, they won't be interested in those characters enough to create it, and it's just this ouroboros consuming itself, no matter how much canon content we have of these other characters. and it's ridiculous just how large the Batfamily is becoming because of this, which is why i'm a pre-Flashpoint fan, because then the Batfamily was contained enough to actually feel like a family with every character having nuances relationships with each other, but i digress because those thoughts could be their own post.
and the thing about fanon is it doesn't exist in a vacuum. DC has started turning the comics to accommodate for what fans are asking for, because fans will beg and beg for content they're not going to consume. Tim Drake: Robin had Tim as a coffee drinker because that's the fanon accepted headcanon. and the resolution of the recent Gotham War arc was for Bruce to buy this new manor for everyone to move in and call him. nevermind that most of these characters have their own homes and have zero reason to be moving in with Bruce. Tim had his marina in Tim Drake: Robin, Dick has Bludhaven, Cass and Steph have their little side of town in Batgirls (2022), and so on. these characters are being forced together as a unit, as one big happy family living together, to appease what non-comic fans want and it's damaging comic relationships. Robin: Knight Terrors saw Jason and Tim team up and working together, which i've seen varying opinions on but i personally despised. their interactions made zero sense for any of their canon history, but it appeases them being this close sibling relationship that fanon acts like they are. also the fears they faced in their respective knight terrors didn't make sense for either character and *only* worked as a moment of bringing them together so they could reassure each other and have this weird dreamscape bonding moment. the canon is bending itself to the will of fanon rather than building on the pre-existing complex relationships. Tim barely even gets along with his most important team in Dark Crisis: Young Justice because it seems the only important relationships the Batfamily can have is with each other. and when we do see them outside of the Batfamily, it only seems to be to relive the glory days like with World's Finest: Teen Titans, instead of developing them as they currently exist. this isn't recent in the comics, it feels like you can trace it back to the New-52, but it does feel a *lot* worse over the recent years. WFA is fine when it exists in its own bubble, but the simple truth is, DC content never exists on its own. the adaptations will reflect back onto the comics. (the damage the Young Justice cartoon has done to some characters should honestly be studied) and so it does frustrate me a bit when fanon-only or adaptation-only fans act like we're being nothing but killjoys for being frustrated with this. since they don't read the comics, they don't see how the comics are suffering as a result of this.
people argue about what's out of character for the comics they don't even read. i'm sorry, but "bad dad Bruce" is consistently canon. that man is just kind of shitty. when you take someone who has the drive he has, who has this need for the Mission first, who needs a teenager in spandex next to him to keep him off the ledge, that guy is sort of going to be a shitty father figure. he just is. not on purpose or with malice, but when you compare him to any other dad in a big DC family, he sure takes the cake. it's why characters like Oliver Queen tend to *really* fucking hate Bruce for how he treats his kids. Bruce loves fiercely, but he doesn't do well with putting that love first. and his love is a controlling one, he is very particular about controlling how others in the Batfamily are "allowed" to operate. it's what drives the wedge between him and Dick, it's why Steph is never a true daughter to him. (besides the reason of her needing to be a love interest to Tim first, anyway-) i've never understood the massive outcry of people reacting to Bruce kinda being shitty in comics they're not reading. there are some moments that get ridiculously OOC with how cartoonishly evil he is (the whole Gotham War arc and that... complicated mess with Jason) but largely if you want sitcom loving nuclear father Bruce, you have to accept that is a fanon thing, not a canon one. the Batfamily being a nuclear family in *general* is fanon. most of the "Batkids" don't actually see Bruce in a particularly fatherly light and begging for moments where he calls them his kids or they call him dad outside of incredibly specific circumstances is just OOC.
it's getting harder and harder to exist peacefully in this fandom it feels like, if you don't comply to the standard fanon has set. i'm happy people are having fun with their blorbos, even if in ways i dislike, but that "harmless fandom fun" does ripple it's way back to canon, eventually. so i end up pretty tangled with my feelings because are fans at fault for DC making these poor decisions? probably not, but it certainly feels like an unfortunate cause-and-effect situation whether at the end of the day, nobody is happy. and of course, i know some fanon-only fans are striving to be more canon accurate and care about canon dynamics more than others, but for them it's always going to be an uphill battle with the above-mentioned out-of-context panels thrown around and ever-pervasive fanon overtaking anything that's truly seeking to be canon compliant. so really, it sometimes feels like we're all losing.
#necrotic festerings#batfamily#batfamily meta#dc comics#fandom meta#fan studies#fanon vs canon#i deleted paragraphs of this to try to make it shorter. it failed btw.#anyway i got into comics when i was like 12 with the dark knight returns#and if i hadn't been into this medium for a decade i don't think i would be able to get into it as an adult so i get it#bc i'm trying to get into marvel comics and fuck ME am i confused as fuck.#do marvel comics have like. an equivalent to crisis events?#is the ultimates like their version of the new-52? i do NOT know#it's so hard and daunting so trust me i get it#if you never wanna pick up a comic god i respect you you're so right this is fucking miserable#i want to live and let live in fandom but *god* i'm struggling here#i used to bend to the will of fanon fun fact#i wrote my share of tim and jason fics playing into fanon tropes. god i hate them *now* but they did fucking numbers.#and i used to care more about getting attention in fandom than being accurate#i've matured now. it's why i write on anonymous so much to remind myself this should be for me.#anyway i could do a character study on every batfam member as fanon vs canon#ESPECIALLY tim and jason. i know so much about them trust me.#jason todd fans annoyed me so much i once sat and read almost every fucking jason comic. i didn't even like him.#but i tell you what i know that man and he will never leave my top five characters on league of comics.#this is so long. is anyone going to read all of this.#if you do you're a fucking trooper i'm saluting you.#this isn't even all of my thoughts i had to condense myself.#bc i also have thoughts about how this means some characters no longer get to exist outside of the batfam#because they only exist as a member of the unit#ergo we have very little current content of helena bertinelli or onyx adams or duke thomas
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god i know i said i was tired of making eveerything sad but just imagine timber those first few months of reconnecting and they're both drunk on tim's boat, laying on the deck staring up at the stars and bear turns over to look at tim, his eyes are sad and wet, and he reaches out to touch tim's face as if to make sure tim is really there and not an illusion and tim whispers, "bear?" and bernard smiles a little brokenly and goes, "so how long do i have you for this time?"
#tim fully sober now: what do you mean? i'm right here bear#bear still drunk: i got you for almost a whole year last time. how long before you leave this time?#bear: 2 years? 6 months?#tim sadly: you can have me forever bear#bear laughing: i don't even get you that long in my dreams#bear smiles reaching out to poke tim's face: don't worry tim! anytime you want to come back‚ i'll be right here.#god tim who's constantly leaving and bear who knows but cant help letting him comeback into his life again and again#you cannot tell me that bear went to that first date in urban legends expecting tim to stay#he went to that date expecting to get his heart broken again but he loves this boy so he goes anyway#tim who always leaves and bear who waits patiently everytime#sorry im like sobbing in the library#bear is so 'right where you left me' coded#bear who loves tim so much he'll let tim break his heart again and again#head in hands head in hands#dc#tim drake#bernard dowd#timbern#timber
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man can I just say how adorable Wolf's interaction with Delia in the wedding scene is? When she's explaining her situation he gives her the most understanding looks and it's because they both effectively had the same cause of death. Delia turned her mourning of Charles into part of her performance art, and died from being scammed with asps who were NOT defanged. Wolf wanted to deliver the most authentic performance possible and died from presumably a negligent armorer who didn't bother to check if the grenade was live or not before shooting. both of them were quite literally killed by their art (not by their own faults to be fair but from someone else's irresponsibility). and it's kind of lovely Delia got such a sympathetic escort back to the netherworld who knows her situation firsthand probably better than anyone else
it's weirdly wholesome and empathetic even as their situations were both played for morbid laughs, and if Delia didn't have eyes only for Charles (what's left of him) and Wolf wasn't in a committed relationship with Janet I'd even say I could have seen things going somewhere between them
#beetlejuice beetlejuice#beetlejuice beetlejuice spoilers#delia deetz#wolf jackson#i do think though that she might have wound up getting a job in his office after the movie#i don't buy the theory entirely that she and charles went straight to the great beyond#because until lydia and astrid sorted the asp situation out and profited appropriately from her art i don't think she'd want to move on#plus she promised to haunt them as long as she could#and you know charles wouldn't leave without her#but I absolutely could see her getting a job with the afterlife crimes unit investigating fraud or something#(beej is probably her first case lmao)#not going to lie these thoughts are a big reason i fell in love with wolf he is fundamentally a good dude#just kind of full of himself but he means well#meta#related to the essay I teased on an earlier reblog today#all this is part of those thoughts but I needed to scream into the void NOW#late addition to these tags I do actually ship Delia/Wolf to a degree it's just not a ship I could see happening in movie canon#because she loves her husband so much#but hey Delia's chill maybe she and Charles are open to a polycule setup
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HOW TO PIN YOUR INSECTS:
Position limbs into desired arrangement and pin in place
Maintain eye contact
Pin should pass through the center of the thorax
Move slowly; lest the divine light leak out along with the ichor
Wait for the embers to die.
Wait for the embers to reignite.
#Ultrakill#V1#V1 Ultrakill#Gabriel Ultrakill#Gabv1el#Insects#Disclaimer. Not actual insect pinning advice. If that wasn't obvious from the start.#Cw:#Blood#Should I tag this animal death. Maybe? Hell if I know#Hm. I think I'll leave it at#Ask to tag#Just in general.#Don't ask me to put this in the ship tag though I'm not doing it (if I tag it ship know it was a moment of weakness... Joking.)#Anyway I don't want to talk about how long this took. Fuck's sake. This is like the third attempt at this concept#The first one I just didn't vibe with and the second you couldn't see the pins well enough (I would say it was also too horny-looking but.)#(but so is this one. As told to my by my peer reviewer. And by that I mean my friend I sent the sketch to and they said-#''I don't see how your other sketch could possibly be worse than this''. Thank you for the encouragement. I'll add more bloodlust next time#EDIT: FIXED A MISTAKE THAT WAS BOTHERING ME#EDIT 2: I caved. It's in the ship tag now.
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well, since the zine for this won't be finished anytime soon, here's part 2/2 of my pieces in which the boys go apple picking ehehe-
can you guess why lloyd has a bandage on his nose? 10 points to you if you get it right! :P
(part 1/2 found here!)
#ying's art#fanart#the greatest estate developer#tged#javier asrahan#lloyd frontera#digital#the points don't mean anything btw lolol#fun fact the leaves on the tree were drawn with cloud brushes lmao#it's been so long since i drew this (july 8) jesus christ-
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Even stardust shimmers, darling 🌟 (Patreon)
#Doodles#ISaT#Loop#ISaT spoilers#Mostly inspired by The Star of Your Dreams tbh <3 There'll be more after this as well haha#Will I ever give any Sif two eyebrows?#Not as long as they've got the one eye!#I also don't know why it just feels more correct to leave the expression ''blank'' I guess#Anyway Sif!Loop is a massive cutie and I'm fully drawn in by them looking Just Similar Just Different from him hehe#Sparkle-shaped scar! Yes absolutely#The robe is 100% Star of Your Dreams lol - I know they're obscured by their pose and it's dark but also sheer?? Their modesty??? Lol#Comfy PJs underneath - personally I saw the robe in my mind's eye as getting more sheer the closer to the extremities it got#So fully opaque over the body and very organza and see-through around the wrists and ankles and so on#Either's cute tho ♪#Differentiating Loop with a sleeveless is also excellent ah <3 Show off the arms! The sparkles!#Which can be taken as Fine and Not painful if you wanted :') I don't but it's fine it's fine lol#They're just sparkly! It doesn't mean anything else! ;;#They really are quite cute <3#Tired or smarmy there's no in-between lol#Their eyes really are fun to draw mismatched in more than just pupil :D
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jared padelecki and jensen ackles jaxcon 2023 gold panel (x) / gen v s1e6 jumanji
diddling and musk flavored skittles
#j2#jensen ackles#jared padalecki#skittles#if i had to see this so do you#jaxcon23#jaxcon#soldier boy#gen v#the boys#mygifs#i took some liberties with what jared said because i'm not sure exactly what he was goin for with his eau de something musc#and there was more to the hp sentence i couldn't understand but i gather it was a reference to the every flavor beans? i don't know her#anyway i was gonna leave it out but i mean. sweaty flavored skittles.#jared trying to dodge the anticipated crotch smack on the way out made me laugh#tried to make the gifs small enough they wouldn't choke on phones but may not have succeeded#long post#j2gifs
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No small part of Legends seems determined to make the Jedi look bad and the Sith look good. Considering the Sith are inspired by nazis and fascists, it's both funny and deeply concerning.
But I digress.
One of these attempts is the character Darth Vectivus, a human male Dark Lord of the Sith during the time of the Galactic Republic, when the Sith are in hiding. Apparently, he's a man with friends, with a family he loves and who love him back, a regular job… He's a perfectly normal guy, a perfectly mundane dude among thousands of megalomaniacs.
His first appeareance is as a ghost (some funky Dark Side thingy he created, btw), when he's trying to convince a Jedi (don't remember this one, I think it was a girl?) to strike him down. This is because these ghosts are connected to a living being, if the ghost is striken down, the being they're connected to dies. Vectivus is connected to Jacen Solo, who's on the edge of falling to the Dark Side. Apparently, Vectivus does not want a galaxy ruled by the kind of Sith Jacen Solo (or rather Darth Caedus) would become.
But, unlike other attempts at making the Sith look good in the EU, I actually like this guy. Why? Mostly for the funnies, not gonna lie. This Dark Lord of the Sith, the ultimate villain of the SW universe… is a perfectly normal guy with the same problems in his life as the rest of us.
Vectivus didn't know he was Force sensitive until his adulthood when, while doing Business™️, he and his employees came across a Dark Force nexus inside one of the mines they were working in. Fascinated by the power he could feel, he disolved his business, gave compensation to his employees, and went to search for the surviving Sith who could teach him. However, despite his Sith training, he remains a perfectly normal guy who lives a perfectly mundane life until his death, when he dies surrounded by friends and family. It's hilarious, can you imagine his Master's face? The sheer dissapointment?
He has restrain and moral standards. For example, he seems to be a decent boss and doesn't exploit his employees, cares for his friends and family and, just by guessing, isn't a complete asshole to his Apprentice since, whoever they are, they opt not to kill him despite the existance of the Rule of Two.
And yet… we find out he's still economically predatory, he still abuses his powers to harm and profit over rivals, and generally win at business. He isn't causing harm to those close to him, but he's still harnessing the Dark Side to hurt others.
That's the whole point, the Dark Side is always corruptive. Darth Vectivus is just less corrupted than most Sith.
That's it, that's what I like the most about the guy. He seems normal, is normal in a way… and yet he's still an evil bastard, only the regular evil bastard we find in our daily lives instead of the murderous crazy no-sense-of-restrain kind of Evil Bastard™️ we're used to see in a Sith.
It's… a bit of a grim reminder that evil is everywhere, in everyone, including you, and it can take many forms. That even the most kind-seeming people can be evil.
On the other side, the people he's murdered are… zero. Nonexistant, zero, nada. He's killed absolutely nobody. It's actually pretty funny. He's the only non-murderous Sith in existance, literally the only sane man in an Order of fascist megalomaniacs and it's hilarious.
I'm rather glad for his existance, actually, thanks Legends. Mostly because now I can say that I've killed as many people as a Dark Lord of the Sith.
#darth vectivus#sith critical#star wars legends#star wars#this is a pro jedi blog#anti sith#fantasy evil vs plain old evil. doesn't matter. still evil#if I read even a whisper of sith apologia I'm gonna block faster than you can say 'force'#anti sith apologists#the sith are space nazis. this is canon.#so please don't use fascist rethoric to excuse their actions#Legends is guilty of this btw#it's no small part of why I don't consider it canon. the sith and the empire are evil and fucked up#you can add nuances LONG AS THEY ARE STILL EVIL AND FUCKED UP#The Darth Bane trilogy and the Darth Plagueis novel do this pretty well. The sith are people... just evil and fucked up people#my only problem with the Bane trilogy is its portrayal of the Jedi. Wtf do you mean THE HEROES USE CHILD SOLDIERS?!?!#anyways. let's leave it here. I don't want to get into a rant about Sith and Jedi in Legends
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Feel free to ignore you've probably got a lot going on right now, but considering you know a lot about DOTC and Clear sky, I had a question...
We know that he's a terrible, misogynistic, woman beating and war mongering lunatic who was excused of all his actions because his equally misogynistic brother said " But-But he's nice! Deep down! This isn't the real him! "
But! In a world where the Hunters could write such a character, what do you think Clear Sky would look like as an actual sympathetic villain?
Idk if that makes sense, but what I've thought of doing is taking purely cannon Clear Sky and attempting to change him enough that he's still an antagonist, but not too far where only Reddit defends him.
I don't think he works as a sympathetic villain, on any level, ever. I think you're making a huge mistake to even try, and I have never seen an AU where it was done well nor am I interested in entertaining the thought.
Characters. Are. Tools. They exist to tell a story. The story that people tell me, by obsessing over some alternate universe where he was "ACTUALLY sympathetic and had a REAL redemption arc," is that they're not fucking interested in his dozens of victims. Nor do they actually care about the abusive impact he had on the minds and feelings of his family. They're JUST interested in Clear Sky himself.
Just like the Erins. Everything that happens in DOTC revolves around him. Everything. All his wives die so he can be sad about it. His brother defends all of his actions and BEGS you to sympathize with his pain so he can be 'redeemable.' One Eye comes out of nowhere so that there can be an example of "real" evil to contrast Clear Sky so he's less bad in hindsight.
The first three books of DOTC are bad, but the last three are fucking insufferable because SUDDENLY all that Gray Wing apologia pays off, and they take their main villain and throw him out a window. You CAN'T have "redeemable" Clear Sky and the plot of DOTC without dragging in someone else to drive the conflict, to BE the bigger threat to "unite" against. Slash and One Eye have to be conjured up out of thin air so Clear Sky can WHINE about how people only suck his toes instead of deepthroat them after he killed all their friends.
And yet, in spite of this absolute failure of an attempt, we continue to see this bullshit "redemption" be a mistake because Clear Sky is a fantastic villain, with major antagonist roles in nearly EVERY bit of follow-up material for DOTC that came after.
He's the most consistent monster in all of Warriors.
He's a fragile, egotistical, self-absorbed megalomaniac who ALWAYS sees himself as the victim, REFUSING to self-reflect and blaming everything else for all of his terrible choices. He will USE your love of him against you like it's a chain through your nose, step out of line and he will yank you into place with guilt trips, manipulation, public shaming, and violence.
He's a child abuser. He's a tyrant. He abandons the sick and disabled as soon as they're of no use to him, with grand speeches about "illness" and "weakness." He's a murderer who stands above the shredded corpse of his victim and bellows, "I'M NOT GREEDY! I'M JUST STRONG!"
And you'd write a "good" redemption arc for this, why?
Why are people so chronically unable to accept that there are LOTS of people like him, and you can't save your abuser? Why don't you ask yourselves why you're not interested in exploring Thunder, or Petal, or Gray Wing, and how his toxic influence impacts them? Why does the sympathy fall on Clear Sky? What about the DOZENS of victims who are dead by Book 3, and how THEY could have been saved?
Why ruin a perfectly good villain?
What's behind this trend where a billion people say to me, "Yes Clear Sky is a walking cavalcade of fucked up abuse apologia, and an incredibly realistic depiction of an abuser, but how would you change this while keeping it all the same?"
I wouldn't. You can't. It wouldn't be the same story, or it wouldn't be the same character. Never seen it done well, and I have seen it a lot. So I don't entertain this deeply frustrating "Well What If Clear Sky But Nice" impulse.
#The closest I'll ever get to that is Fallenleaf. And she lost it all#And spent years in the time-out tunnel#BAD KITTIES GO IN THE PEAR WIGGLER TO BE SUFFICIENTLY WIGGLED.#I don't think people in power typically change. If they do it's so rare it's not worth entertaining. Camel through the eye of a needle shit#and I mean ALL powers. this goes for abusive relationships too. I think they need to lose that power before they change.#When you have power. REAL power. You can fill those holes with it. You can force people to not leave.#so im actively hostile to stories that winge and cry about giving powerful people endless sympathy and chances#You've already shown me what you want to do with your power and as long as you keep it you haven't seen your consequences.#Power reveals.#It doesn't corrupt. It reveals.#DOTC hate#clear sky's redemption arc#If you're in an abusive relationship or under a terrible boss or in some other bad environment. You won't fix it.#You are not responsible for fixing it.#You can't fix it.#And they will not change. so GET OUTTA THERE#And that's who he functions best as. To me.#He's the bastard you need to escape.#And that's infinitely more compelling to me than Nice Clear Sky Attempt 32324#I don't write stories that beg you to sympathize with tyrants and keep your heart open to some maybe-change on the horizon#I write stories where they ruin everything they touch and have to be forcefully yanked out of power before they hurt more people.#And also screw every related take that's like 'ohhh after 5000 years of having his toes sucked he regrets it a bit :('#no he fucking wouldn't. he had his toes sucked for 5000 years. He's vindicated by how fondly he's remembered.#You can't fucking tell me that he doesnt REVEL in how violent the culture became. That him being offended about the clan's exile-#--was anything but him being offended his namesake was going away. That he wouldn't parade around like every choice he ever made was right.#''I made some vague mistakes which I will never name. BUT Im never wrong and always did it my way even if it was hard''#If you haven't met a person like that I envy you.#bone babble#Nothing makes me mad quite like this character#Again I yell about his brother a lot because he's widely loved by the fandom
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I think we should just bring back Wungo Wednesday and start a fandom collective anime rewatch
#Because otherwise I can feel I won't last much longer#Because like. The last two hyperfixations of mine ended the moment I started feeling like there wasn't any new content#And two days ago in one day I started a new manga a new book and rewatching a favourite show#Whereas I hadn't started anything new in the two years ever since I got into bsd. Which makes it NOT a good sign#But the bsd anime has now ended for one month and 25 days and that's the last time the plot actually moved forward.#And if I counted right. The manga took 4 chapters (that is chapters 110-111) to adapt 6 minutes#That means it's going to take another 12 months (18 minutes left to adapt. that's 12 more chapters) to catch up with the anime#Yeah I'm not. sticking around this long with nothing new to see I'm sorry#Best case scenario I take a one year hiatus but that doesn't make it sound likely that I'll be back#And I know it's fresh news as early as this morning that author said they were introducing a new character but like.#They also said they finished writing this arc like. One year and half ago if I remember correctly?#And we still have yet to see the end of i t so...#That is to say. I'll probably be starting an anime rewatch starting next Wednesday. I've been meaning to do it for a while anyway#I don't want to leave the fandom I like the one chapter a month format#On the positive news I still have a queue of original posts that spans over ten months#And I was meaning to start the reblogs queue too in these days. So there's that#random rambles
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i stand with you in the face of a defensive misunderstanding of what critique is.
i think understanding what a critique actually is is a skill that increasingly is not taught. i remember going through freshman art courses feeling the frustration that all negative, nasty, unhelpful, and missed-the-point-entirely feedback is so commonly conflated with critique, and then critique gets a bad name because everyone remembers the time someone said their painting looked like an asshole (true story, altho now i think i would take it as a compliment) instead of the time a teacher or friend or classmate helped them uncover a hurtful bias or think of new ways to explore the same idea or how to connect it to related ideas or how to look up and understand other people's ideas on the same topic.
anyway i think you're great.
ahhh you're so kind to me!! i appreciate your support, and i think you are great also.
i have experience with giving and receiving critique as a student myself, and i think it was the best part of my degree! i majored in creative writing in college, and critique was just a generally accepted part of learning to become a writer. i don't even remember people being especially worried about receiving critique on their work. we had guidance on what kind of feedback was useful, but we were still at liberty to give it as we saw fit as like messy 19 year olds. the standard was that we gave it both written on printed copies of the work AND aloud in front of the whole class, and the writer receiving it was not permitted to speak during the critique. understanding how people are perceiving your work is important!
i don't have any particularly negative recollections of the critique process, although once in a high school writing class, the boys in the class told me that my male characters touched each other too gently and real boys are more rough with each other. in particular, they took issue with me writing that one boy nudged another. nudging is too soft. nudging is for girls. that was more than 20 years ago, and i still think about it sometimes because it was such an interesting perspective! i did not take their advice, though.
i should dig up that piece and see if it reads queer in any other ways. i think that's what they were getting at. (actually i once had a non-fiction class tell me i was in love with my roommate after reading an essay i wrote about her)(i did not listen to that advice either, but having 12 acquaintances tell you that you're gay in 2006 before you realize it yourself is Truly Something!)
i think people have conflated criticism and critique and think that being more openly analytical is the same thing as being negative. but analysis is so fun to me! analysis is why i joined fandom in the first place, and it's why i write fic! can we trust each other to be respectful and to speak in good faith even when we're not singing each other's praises? for me fandom would be better if we could.
oh i also want to clarify that i don't think it's impossible to demonstrate that you've thought deeply about a piece of fanwork while remaining completely positive. people do it all the time and do it very well!
i know i sometimes have tunnel vision wrt my own perspective. in a lot of situations, i wish it were more acceptable to be more direct, and i know people sometimes find the way i express myself to be kind of shocking. i know a lot of people like to be spoken to more indirectly than comes natural to me, and i don't mean to imply that my perspective is the only correct one or that there's no good reason to err on the side of gentleness/politeness in our responses to amateur art and writing. i just think that at a certain level of circumspection, it feels like we're all holding each other at arm's length.
i think for people who can't bear to feel exposed, making and sharing art is always going to be painful and difficult, and maybe too painful and difficult to enjoy the process unless they're sure of a soft landing. but like. the rewards of being loved only come after the mortifying ordeal of being known, right?
#ten years ago i had a comment section diagnose me with autism and they were RIGHT. and they loved me!!!!#my portfolio advisor told me that my main character was having a mental breakdown and it made all the people around her seem Villainous#for how selfishly they treated her#and i didn't realize that things seemed so dire for her but i needed to know that in order to make the story make sense!#it wasn't a mean thing to say it was just pointing out something i couldn't see! ik it was different because it was a draft tho#'looks like an asshole' makes me desperately want to see that painting#i didn't know that you're also a visual artist and i'm longing to see your work#there's this movie called igby goes down#where someone tells the main character that they're an artist and he says so do you paint?#and the character responds an artist creates art regardless of what form it takes#and i think the audience is meant to consider that character unbearably pretentious but i totally agree#it has also just occurred to me that some people are nervous about commenting on other people's work#to the extent that they're afraid they'll commit some kind of unintentional faux pas or just leave a disappointing comment#and i get that because you're also kind of sharing yourself by leaving feedback#and you don't want to offend or hurt someone who's created something that resonated with you#idk i guess stepping on people's toes is just a normal part of interacting with them#and almost never fatal
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I wish I were normal :[
#idk I just wish I was normal kid who lived a normal life#and no it isn't epic different like I'm not secretly a magical girl who fights evil (that'd be so cool though I'd be down)#I mean like.isolated and not allowed to interact with people different#just sucks hearing everyone around my age going out with their friends or having sleepovers or just like.going out and enjoying life#meanwhile I'm stuck in my house with a strict mom who doesn't want me to make any irl friends#“you won't keep the friends you make anyway” SO??????#AT LEAST LET ME EXPERIENCE HAVING THEM#AND LET ME LEAVE THE HOUSE!!!!!#I don't like talking abt this bcz I don't want ppl to feel bad for having what I wish I had#I mean.it's not their fault my mom is super strict and controlling#so I try to refrain from bringing it up or posting abt it but it is REALLY affecting me right now for whatever reason :'D#so I just had to get something out abt it. I feel like I've kept that in for too long#vent
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Honestly I really love the "can go south at any given time" aspect of Gale's character, like he's always one bad decision away from losing control and just doing something irremediably fucked. I love how it ties with the unstable nature of both the Orb and then the Crown. And how part of his actions are "for the greater good", because he is a good man! But they are still also deeply rooted in his selfishness and wanting to prove himself (and to the world?) he's just that good and that better than even the gods. Oh, and the pettiness of it as well.
He'll disapprove morally bad actions... But he's absolutely down if they happen to match his ambitions and what he wants.
I know people are mad he can just ignore you even when romanced and do whatever he wants at the end of the game but that's an aspect I really love. That even when he knows he's loved and cherished for what he is and he could have a good life being just Some Wizard, there's still a chance his darker nature can take over. Because it's forever part of himself, and because it's been his life for so long...
#bg3#baldur's gate 3#gale of waterdeep#gale dekarios#idk it's the duality. i truly think he means good with the crown but that it's still motivated by his selfishness#i also don't think grownass people change that much. especially not when it's such a core aspect of their personality.#he can learn to control those impulses though... i feel that's what mystra rewards when she heals him even if he doesn't give her the crown#she's afraid he'll grab power but it's not personal for her#so as long as he learns that she holds no grudge and just leave him do whatever#bg3 spoilers#baldur's gate 3 spoilers
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okay so Ford Prefect is an oingo boingo listener right.
#I MEAN Elfman formed the band the same year the first h2g2 book came out; 1979#assuming that the first book takes place in 79 as well there's still a canonical chance that ford has listened to early oingo boingo right?#before earth exploded for the first time of course: but also oingo boingo is American and I don't know how british records and radio...#would've got their hands on it so quickly#idk maybe he heard it in so long and thanks when he briefly visited earth before leaving with fenchurch and Arthur#and this is just according to the book at least#okay even if it isn't canon he WOULD listen to oingo boingo; I mean “On the Outside” is SO him coded#Oh yes I finished reading the whole series and I am shook....rest in peace earth......again....and again...ect ect.#I am going to make art eventually hehehhe...#h2g2 spoilers#the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy#h2g2#ford prefect#oingo boingo#lucifers inferno
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