#it's a good time to be had tho so whatever

[deadchannelradio]

i just think bruce isn't very good at grief. not that it's something anybody can be "good" at it's an emotion and loss is just loss there's no moral good or evil attached to loss but he has built his entire life as a monument to the dead in a way that makes it so he can never really interact with the living. bruce himself is pushing through the veil of the dead to interact with his (living) (sometimes undead) children in essence he does haunt them and because he is incapable of seeing them as anything other than pre-dead individuals they haunt him right back.

in a way this is something of the issue he has with dick when dick is a child- Bruce loves Dick terribly, fiercely, and with his entire heart, which is why he is so brutally controlling and awful to dick. he is terrified of losing him- to other pursuits, to growing up, to death- and so he ends up sabotaging himself over and over by becoming violent in the face of those threats. when you spend all of your time pre-mourning it almost is a relief to actually mourn- kicking Dick out of the manor is easier than experiencing Dick leaving, so he kicks Dick out before Dick can grow out of him.

the issue there- both in the metanarrative and in bruce's life itself, is that batman needs a robin. Robin is in essence Batman's rubber ducky to allow him to verbalize things to the reader, so he's more opaque, and without robin he's just less fun, and Nightwing is making big waves that are almost drowning batman stories out. and in the narrative Bruce is unmoored from his grounding point (robin) and adrift and unsure and misses him terribly, so he finds another little boy and puts him in robin's clothes!

Jason and Bruce have such an. ugh. it's kind of so insane it's so fast paced and so close so rapidly in a way that you only really get from people going through stressful situations together. Bruce does everything in his power to not make the same mistakes he made with dick- he adopts jason immediately he made sure their relationship had no ambiguity he is trying to hold on to jason in the ways he could not hold on to dick and like Yes they loved each other Yes jason was good for bruce and bruce was good for jason Yes it was some of Bruce's best (arguably only) parenting (the first child to call bruce his father!) yes they loved each other fiercely. but it was so mind bogglingly codependent. ive said this before sorry friends but i have to say it again Jason is the only robin who like. did not have friends. did not have a team. did not have A Life Outside Of The Batman. he didn't have peers, who might make him want to change or grow in ways bruce isnt ready for. he just had batman!

and so in this completely insular world when Jason fucks up (you can read how that situation broke down in whatever way you want to- i personally think felipe garzonas jumped tho [shrug]) and Bruce sees a way Jason might change and leave him and freaks and immediately falls back on How He Acted With Dick. but jason and bruce don't have dick and bruce's relationship and jason has nobody else and so it is just like an all out rejection to jason, who immediately starts looking for a new parent.

this is all because of Dick and Bruce's previous relationship with a sidekick! he's haunted by dick. he says over and over he wishes he could go back to those days of batman and robin. those days were Bruces high point as a person if not as a parent and he wants them back so badly he is willing to try and recreate it with someone else- everything Jason is as robin only exists because Dick grayson carved that path in the hillside for him- he's wearing dick's colors and his fucking name, for christssakes. And not only does this attempted redemption/recreation not work (because people are people and cannot be replaced) but it does work in the worst way possible, because now Jason Todd is never going to be able to grow up, just like bruce wanted. worst monkeys paw curl in the world.

Bruce is an extremely reactionary person. All of this ^ is a reaction to loss. everything that comes after is reaction to loss. Bruce has been mourning for so long that he doesn't actually know how to function outside of it- who he is outside of grief does not actually exist. it could! arguably it even does! but bruce does not believe he exists without the dead and his grief, and so he keeps writing his own joy out of existence in his internal narrative, thusly denying himself from actually experiencing it. And he is insistent on dragging everyone else down with him! and in some ways they are dragging themselves down, but Bruce is the only one literally sitting in a dark hole in the ground with some poor baby's clothes on a mannequin with biohazard brain juices all over it. He doesn't want to lose anybody but he knows he will because he believes everything to already be over, and so he reacts to things as though it's already done, and in his mourning of things yet to happen he does not live in the now, and so he loses people. over and over and over again, and without having spent the time with them that he wanted to spend.

its kind of a classic tale. Bruce is just the only man unlucky enough to have to do it over and over again.

so yeah. long rant about basically what you just said. bruce would rather lose exactly 0 children but he has already lost them all in his mind (and in some cases has actually put them in the ground) and all of his relationships with his kids are highly valuable to him, and acting like only one exists or is more important than the others actually shoots your own narrative in its foot because they all dont actually exist without each other. except for dick grayson. who kind of did just Do That. he set the precedent for all this & Bruce is reacting to Dick's ghost in many of his decisions. it's like how when you were a kid and you would do the food web demonstrations in science class and with every string you cut more of the web falls apart way beyond that one string. except dickie g is a keystone species like mosquitos or something and when you get rid of him 80% of the ecosystem dies off because the thing that ate the thing before them that ate the thing before them that ate the thing before them that ate mostly dickie g died due to dickie g being gone

tldr relationships are incredibly complicated and build off of each other and so cutting one out or trying to cheapen it actually ruins the whole thing but you know what you do you booboo [skull] [crylaugh]

i love when people try to make bruce and jason's relationship cuter by making it sound like dick does NOT exist AT ALL like "batman's first son and he loved him" and "he would rather lose everybody than lose jason" like im pretty sure that bruce would prefer to lose neither dick nor jason but you know what you do you 💀😂

[nixon-stars]

ooooooh you wanna yap about Clara so badddddd (please yap about her please please please please please)

HI YES I REALLY DO

I dunno how much I'll talk but I'm putting in the lil read more antway

HIIIIIII SO

For those not in the know, Clara is my sweet evil baby girl also the main antagonist for my oc world and story, rn going under the name 'Pakshapuram' (definitely going to change it tho, also 'paksha' coming from Sanskrit for wing and puram being a common suffix for towns in south india, like Kanchipuram)

She was born and raised in Pakshapuram, a city town thing that is one of a few cities around the area (this area is pretty isolated the only people that come through were born and raised or shifty guys working through black market sort of trades).

She was born the only child to Amara, who with no partner and no other kids and a big expectations on her, put everything into raising Clara. She's a pretty typical Indian mum though, rarely giving affection or praise, but it works, and Clara knows she's well loved.

She is also a bharatanatyam dancer!! Which doesn't help with the pressure but whatever, Clara's life is good, she has her mum, lots of friends, people all around her that want to help, and most importantly she has Xavier.

Xavier, I could talk about him forever, but what you need to know is that he and Clara are CLOSE. Always together, never separated, all the aunties look on and call them "heart and soul" (ഹൃദയവും ആത്മാവും) they don't leave each other's side right

But there's no good character without a touch 🤏 of trauma so, yayyyy

While dancers learn bharatanatyam, after they learn everything and stuff they get this big ceremony debut into their official career, it's called an Arangetram, and it's a bigggg deal okay?

Also like a year before this, Amara find out she's expecting!!!! Gives birth to a baby boy!!!! Very healthy!!!! Nothing will happen to him promise!!!!!!

Anyway on the day of Clara's Arangetram, she goes to her aunty's house to get dressed quickly in her saree (if you've ever tried to put on a saree you KNOW this isn't quick in the slightest)

She comes back and 😱😱😱 her mum is a statue wthhh?????

And her baby brother is gone?????? (It has nothing to do with amara's old wlw situationship that ended terribly and sourly and left a lot of unanswered questions and lingering feelings whattt)

She's confused af obviously and angry and WHO TF TURNED MY MUM INTO A STATUE y'know very justified, and she overhears some people talking about how Dragons???? might be responsible????

You need to know that dragons are heavily venerated in Pakshapuram, the religion of the city revolves around how important dragons are too the world right and how they shouldn't be touched or anything yeah

An old guy came up and said that he had known about a prophecy that something like this could happen and blah blah blah Clara's in charge now

But like she's sixteen so that's alottttt of pressure to put on a literal child you would think? NOPE they said make her queen now

So now Clara's in charge and also A GRIEVING TEENAGER and she is stressed

And woahhhjj perfect timing famine through the land!!!!!!!

Every one is really hungry and Xavier, who is now general, asked her what she wanted to do about it and maybe just maybe let's use the food we had stored just in case something like this happened????

Clara goes "no girl im using that"

And Xavier's like "what why we don't need to use those???"

And Clara like "yeah we do thats what I'm referring the troops I sent to go find a dragon for me to kill to get revenge for killing my mum"

And Xavier's like "you crazy bitch people are starving can you be insane later"

Clara throws a temper tantrum and exiles him woooooop #girlboss

Years pass and Xavier's making a under ground resistance against Clara because she has moved on from killing people with her ignorance to just killing them if they disagree with her which isn't cool

Clara goes very insane with the grief and stress and everything she's soooo unhappy and very evil about it she's talking to the statue of her mum and she's not doing well

And here's about where the main story starts, and I haven't even talked about the protagonists

Anyway I wonder what happened to that baby brother????? 🤔🤔🤔 I guess we'll never knowwwwww

[hinamie]

the new jjk cafe fits have been living in my head . no thoughts except yuuji in a letterman

[xxplastic-cubexx]

pov: you are charles xavier and you have been invited onto asteroid m

bonus:

[senselessalchemist]

The Beheaded makes a pitch

[im-smart-i-swear]

ok google voltron legendary defender season 6 episode 5 the black paladins free online watch where

[crow-caller]

Gumroad suddenly deleted my account (where I sold digital copies of Good Angel/Bad End), which. Okay, I was never crazy about them as a host, but annoying. You best believe I have like 20 "this is the REAL final draft" versions of the books floating around

But once I get them up for sale elsewhere (anyone know a good site for such a thing?), I'm making them free bc fuck it.

[azaracyy]

a lesson on good karma digimon survive week 2024 day 4: supporting characters

[claitea]

i know i shouldnt dwell on stupid opinions like this but a while ago i saw someone complain that Applin was a boring concept bc its just a worm in an apple and i was FLOORED. this iirc was in response to smth about gen 1 designs being boring as well

its not just a worm its a Wyrm its a pun. that is a concept. maybe you don't like it personally but to say its objectively bad is certainly Something. not every pokemon has to be based on a myth or something else fantastical to be a good concept. you Need "boring" pokemon for the dex to feel complete, if Everything is Cool then nothing is actually cool

"gamefreak is running out of ideas" yeah there's a billion fish pokemon but they're all actually very different to each other, lanturn is an anglerfish and lumineon is a butterfly fish. say what you will abt gamefreak rn its probably warranted but imo the one thing they still do right 100% of the time is unique concepts for each pokemon. the execution can be debated but the fundamentals are always there

[b4kuch1n]

about ready

[theunconcernedembalmer]

A quick something I did for an rp

[spookythesillyfella]

"This crying voice of mine is so annoying // I suppress the emotion // Break the egg, make it a mess // Fry it, roll it // Look, I've stopped crying"

★ alt verzionz under cut :

★ song : "For you An Empty Shell" – Dobu no Awa

[seaofreverie]

Sparkstember Day 18: Balls (Bullet Train)

Sometimes (oftentimes) it's true that all you need are Balls. I personally absolutely love Balls. I'm a big fan! Ekhem. Today I'm using the help of (I mean, copying most of the passages from it) my earlier Balls rant that I have written down after my first listen of it back in January. I really love this album and I don't want to completely skip over saying a couple words on it at least but I really don't think I have the headspace to write anything very good for it today. I'll still try though!

So yeah, Balls. It's a great album, fun and chill (in my sense of what I call and consider chill anyway), consistent, as Sparks albums tend to be, and as I suspected / hoped it does fit this specific vibe of driving around at night somewhere city-like and illuminated. Or being on a train deep at night and looking at the world zooming by (if you'd even see much of it on a train at night anyway.....). And I do think that it's not so dissimilar to Gratsax (I'd say now that it's definitely darker and moodier than its predecessor...). So it's interesting to think about how it's considered to be one of the "weak" ones (by music reviewers at least) while Gratsax is so beloved in comparision.

I will admit, I don't really know what the big problem with this album could be. As I said, it's fun, it has the melodies, it has the energy, it has the theatricality (I like seeing how more and more orchestral instruments such as strings are being incorporated into the music, in a way the jump into Lil' Beethoven two years later doesn't come of as THAT much of a shock because of this. The evolution of sound here is fascinating!) I really like the intense beats, just as much as the more laid-back and moodier pieces. And there's lots of gold to be found in the lyrics department as always.

One more thing I wanna say is that at some point I wondered if this music sounds older than it is. Maybe it does? But then I remembered that this was 2000 and honestly when I think about it, there just IS something about this album that fits so well with the Y2K image and vibe and all. Sparks 2000 and all that.

Favourite songs (and other highlights):

Balls: I mean. It's Balls.

Scheherazade: absolutely LOVE this one and I had the strangest impression of it sounding very familiar when I first heard it. Months later I found out that it was just briefly featured in TSB so I think that explains it (I will talk more about my TSB viewings on TSB day. EVERYTHING has to be explained in excruciating detail, lmao)

The Calm Before The Storm: bugsonas 4ever. Song itself is amazing too

How To Get Your Ass Kicked: how can a song about getting your ass kicked be so pleasant and relaxing, it always keeps cracking me up, how perfect that is actually

Bullet Train: I love it how introducing the topic of the song with a "It's the [topic of the song]" is a reoccurring theme on this album. Thank you Sparks for this ode to technology and art (these lyrics always have me giggling). And also it just goes hard as heck

It's Educational: a perfect fusion of / sequel to I Thought I Told You To Wait In The Car and Progress (it's mostly the vocal delivery that reminds me of the latter)

The Angels: such an odd one here but I still like it a lot, I apparently said that it sounds "surprisingly mainstream for Sparks but somehow in a positive way". It's very sweet and I absolutely love how Russell sings here, it's so different from what we're used to but that only makes it hit you even more in the feels, lol. And I actually prefer the alternative version of this song that's featured as a bonus track, and I do think that's in big part because you can hear Russell better on it (or that was my first impression of it at least and it kind of stuck)

[lambentumbra]

height chart for my main ocs ‒ i still need to draw their actual clothes, but i think this is worth sharing at this point

left to right: olivandre (oli) (they/them) cameron (they/any) jules (he/him)

[sucktacular]

He sees all, especially the comfort in that box.

[uusira]

Anyway ✌🏻