#it's almost 12 here and here i am

[bloody-trio]

Typewriter

An Allan Crowell short story.

The soft clicks of the type writer were loud, a tad too loud for the redhead's liking.

There sat Allan Crowell, the Poet, eyes focused on the brand new typewriter his friend Nicolas had gifted him for his birthday and, even tough it had been a few days since he was gifted such an expensive and useful machine, he just couldn't bring himself to liking it.

Something about it was a little too mechanical, too souless for him, a man who would nothing less but his whole sould into his medium of art so he stayed still, looking at it's perfect letters and how it would -ding!- when finishing a sentence, analyzing every detail of the typewriter. It's not like he'd never seen one, his father kept one in his study, altough he was never allowed to touch it, let alone write so he mantained his distance so now having one himself just made him feel like his father, distant and cold and that was the least he wanted for his poems, to feel machine generated, too generic for what he was conveying, it just made him think of hid poems like writing something commercial, to sign and use as a contract with art and not bond with it.

Yet he couldn't help but keep it, surely he could just give it back but he would feel terrible, specially knowing that getting tjings like this was a massive luxury in the manor, he tought of gifting it but Gabriel finding out would break the blonde man's heart so he discarded the idea almost inmediately, with a sigh, Allan stood up from the hard wood chair provided for him by the manor and fell into his bed, running his usually gloved hands through his hair, messing up any attempt he did earlier to look more presentable throughout the day. He just layed there staring up at his ceiling as he slowly sat up on his bed, looking at the selfish machine, oh so eager go taje his job and he gave in. Walking over to the typewriter and beggining to press it's soft key caps.

After a couple hours of scrapped ideas, feelings and words, he finally left the table, a single piece of paper now infront of him as he read for noone but himself.

Cuántas veces, amor, te amé sin conocerte y tal vez sin quererte,

sin reconocer tu mirada, sin mirarte, centaura, en regiones contrarias, en un mediodía quemante:

eras sólo el aroma de los amores que amo, el mensaje aberrante de aquella paloma fue en vano

De ti estoy enamorado"

[shiraoyagi]

hot take ??

the only reason people say that "mafuyu and tsukasa have nothing in common" when presented with mafukasa parallels is because they equate mafuyu and tsukasa being similar to "tsukasa has depression" because the fandom equates mafuyu's personality to being depressed and nothing else.

it doesn't help that people (primarily younger people in the fandom) who DO believe in mafukasa parallels end up making the mistake of portraying tsukasa as depressed because as of right now he is not (although it's possible he was in past because of his Very Unclear Middle School Backstory but that's irrelevant)

anyways, mafuyu and tsukasa are narrative foils because their core personalities are built off of the concept of wanting to make the people around them— especially their families— happy.

they both developed personalities at a young age based on someone they looked up to. for tsukasa, it was seiichi amami's performance that inspired him to be a star— a hero that could cheer anyone up. for mafuyu, it was her mother taking care of her that inspired her to be a nurse— and you can see the similarities from there.

for mafuyu, her identity would first come into conflict when her mother expressed her want for mafuyu to be a doctor— suddenly, "everyone's" happiness didn't match what she wanted to do, leaving her in a state of disorder and eventual depression.

for tsukasa, his identity was something he nearly forgot in its entirety at the start of the main story— becoming arrogant and fully absorbed in a hero persona, forgetting the kind person he truly is. furthermore, his current character arc seems to be foreshadowing that what "being a star" to him is going to be called into question— maybe it is something more than just being the main character that saves everyone.

their insecurities are incredibly similar.

in mafuyu's first mixed, mafuyu feels insecure towards ichika because unlike ichika, she feels as if her lyrics have no genuine meaning to be expressed to other people— despite them being her very real feelings. this is brought up again in her second mixed as well.

in tsukasa's third focus event, something similar happens. when watching seiichi's performance, he thinks that his acting is "real" and feels inferior towards him, which is ironic because tsukasa has been method acting this whole time. when tsukasa is acting out rio or bartlett or really anyone at this point in the story, it's not just those characters— it's a reflection of his traumas.

just like mafuyu, tsukasa undermines his passions he's poured his feelings into because someone else's work is more genuine in his eyes.

now, then, foils have many similarities and parallels (and i could honestly list a lot more), but how i define them is that they usually have some kind of major branching difference that MAKES them foils.

for mafuyu and tsukasa it's pretty straightforward.

mafuyu's people pleasing behavior comes from external expectations and pressures— her mother's demands.

tsukasa's people pleasing behavior comes internally, from himself— if he can't meet his own standards, if he can't be the perfect big brother or the perfect star, then he is nothing.

and even then, there's some overlap.

tsukasa's behavior was indirectly encouraged by his mother praising him for being a "good big brother" over the phone instead of asking him if he was okay while home alone.

mafuyu's terrified to be herself around other people because she doesn't want to worry or bother them— she doesn't want to be a burden— and projects her mother's expectations onto them, not realizing that they would prefer the real mafuyu if they knew the truth.

and the concept of mafukasa being foils is most perfectly and blatantly portrayed in these two cards.

mafuyu, the marionette, sitting limp on the floor— puppeteered by her mother's demands and donning a mask to hide her true self.

tsukasa, the jester, standing above everything else— puppeteering silenced plushies— his feelings. he's not being completely honest with himself, and he doesn't even realize it.

mafuyu has cut her strings and ripped her mask in half. she has acknowledged her true feelings and expressed them to her mother, even if she had to run away in the end.

tsukasa has not yet cut his.

[necrotic-nephilim]

@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.

[captainhearteyepierce]

Everyone’s Favourite Army Doctor, Hawkeye Pierce - by me, 2024, pencil on paper

reference photo under the cut

p.s - mouths are so difficult for me to draw for whatever reason so i cannot tell if it’s even any good i’ve been looking at it for so long.

[lloydfrontera]

male authors, writing m/m friendships: their bond will develop through hundreds of chapters, we will get to see each stage of their budding relationship, they'll constantly be in each other thoughts, their first instinct will always be to reach for the other, their first worry will always be the other's safety, they'll spend every minute of the day together, they'll be complete opposites and yet perfectly compliment each other, they will put everything they ever loved in risk just to keep the other safe, they will give their life without hesitation to save the other's, they will fight and argue and tease and joke around but they will always be at each other's side at the end of the day, they will plan to spend the rest of their lives together, sharing the happy moments and the hard times, the idea of being without the other being unthinkable, the thought of being always together coming naturally, as easy as breathing.

the same male authors, writing m/f romance: she'll like,, smile once at him and he'll start thinking of marrying her and having children with her idk

[blizzardfluffykpop]

Christmassy [12 days of Winter Year #8]

(Tagged as: Wintertime 3)

The group you can request for is THE BOYZ 

To request; pick a prompt and a member of TBZ, and the specific reader you want it for (if not specified, I’ll make it gender neutral). And if the genre is not specified, it will be fluff.

Completed stories will be posted every odd numbered day of December!

Prompts that are strikethrough have been requested.

Please request!!!

------

A festive storyteller

“You’re just what I always wanted, a Christmas delight.” 

Making snowmen and failing miserably.

“Did anyone ever tell you that you look beautiful underneath Christmas lights?”

Christmas On and On! (Choose a member’s proposal from the Christmassy mv & send it in~) 

“What do you say to matching pajamas, watching Christmas movies, and hot cocoa?”

First snowfall on the *car* track

“I wish you could come home for Christmas.” “Open your door.”

A Creepmas [supernatural and/or horror themed] party

“Let’s make Christmas cookies together.”

“I don’t want to get ice cream, it's freezing out! We’re going to get frostbite!” “I think it’d be fun.” “Yes, I agree, let’s do it.” (Loosely based off of the Monster House line “...I don’t wanna go inside a monster and I don’t wanna die.” “I say it’s worth a shot.” “Yes, I agree, let’s do it.”).

Make your own prompt!

[hotasfahrenheit]

No matter how many hundreds, thousands, or million days...

No matter how long it will be...

May our love last forever.

[1000 Years Old, 1.01, 1.02, 1.12]

[shingetsu-online]

Should I kill god or make another cup of tea very urgent question

[kill god]

[mk-daily]

Day 31

oh no. ded

[orcelito]

Hey I'm graduating college in may and I just kinda realized that I'll be Done Done with school after that. Not fake-done like I was graduating high school, where I'd have to go to college at the start of the fall. And not fake-done like I was in any of my semesters I took off.

Done Done. As in I accomplished my degree, and I won't ever have to go back to school if I don't want to. What a beautiful, beautiful thought.

[volno-pesh]

Guys.................................................... Do you see what I see?

[jigensass]

HE HAS A JAZZ BAND?

A JAZZ BAND?!

[keeps-ache]

think this is funny. anyway. the Thoughts are back at it again

[aurosoul]

I was going through my deviantart (looking for a photo I did not find) and I'm so glad I never deleted anything ;_;

[vse-kar-vem]

how to write vent post title that does not come off as self-pitying and or accusatory (because it's NOT !)