#it's going to be transformers related

[equusmaniac]

Okay, y'all, I have something exciting to share!

I want to make a manga/comic! :D And I'd greatly appreciate any advice about how to draw them! Any time savers, tips, panel compositions, common mistakes, etc. especially for Procreate! Since it’s what I’ll be using. I'm game to hear it all!

I just want ta make sure I'm prepared for what's to come since it'll be a commitment!

[starry-bi-sky]

(Part of this post with older brother danyal al ghul)

...Okay, look. Sam knows she's staring. She knows very well that she is staring. And that if she doesn't stop staring it's gonna draw her unwanted attention, and that will only have to make her explain why she's staring. Which she doesn't want to do.

She's trying not to stare, which she thinks she should get brownie points for. She tries to look away, to find a spot on the wall to stare lifelessly at, maybe she can burn holes into some of these annoying socialites' heads. But eventually her eyes drift, and suddenly she's back to staring again.

Can you blame her though? Damian Wayne looks like a very close mini-me of her fucking best friend. Seriously, it's like looking into a mirror to the past. If that mirror to the past had green eyes rather than blue and a distinctive lack of a facial scar.

The first time she sees him when her parents drag her over to Bruce Wayne to butter up to him she has to do a doubletake. Then a triple take. Then a quadruple take, just for good measure that she was seeing what she was actually seeing. She was sure she looked like one of those stress toys that when squeezed had their eyes pop out comically like a Saturday morning cartoon, that's what she certainly felt like anyways.

Look, Danny's come a decent way from being that scowl-y, jerkish little ten year old she first met when he arrived like the wind to Amity Park five years ago (even if he was still occasionally scowl-y and jerkish), but one thing that's stayed the same is how reserved he is about his home life prior to being taken in by the Fentons.

He doesn't talk about it much, and Sam's come to know that he's very good at changing the subject when it gets brought up. Even after being friends for nearly four years, the only thing she and Tuck know for certain is that he has a little brother that he refers to as 'starlight', whom he cares a lot about but left on really bad terms with. And that he's never met his father, but wants to and knows who he is.

He's never told her or Tucker who he was though, and glancing at Bruce Wayne, Sam is realizing why. She can begrudgingly acknowledge all the good he's done for Gotham, but... well, if Danny told her that Bruce Wayne was his dad, she wouldn't have believed him at all.

But she's starting to see the resemblance, as subtle as it is.

And she sees the resemblance to Damian Wayne, her eyes dropping back down to him as he wears a very Danny-like scowl on his face, arms crossed behind his back as his eyes swept around the ballroom. He was five years younger than Danny, and god it was so, so weird.

His eyes turned on to her, and they locked gazes for a moment.

Involuntarily, Sam makes a startled noise and looks away. Fingers tap against her purse, black and purple and unfortunately a clutch that only held her phone and her wallet in it. She would have kept a knife on her, but her parents put their foot down and there was a security detail at the door. Only in Gotham.

Silently, she was hoping that the little Danny-me didn't say anything. Or at least, he hadn't noticed her staring. Which was a tall order if she ever heard one -- and unfortunately, her silent prayers went unanswered as her mother's eyes dropped down onto her.

"Did you say something, Samantha?" She asks in a sickeningly sweet voice, a sound that makes Sam's skin crawl. Her dad and Bruce Wayne's attention also turns onto her, and she glowers at her mom from the corner of her eye.

"I didn't say anything." Sam says, barely keeping her tone polite as she turned her head away. Her mother clucks her tongue, disapproving, but from her peripherals doesn't pester her more

Bruce Wayne, the bastard, takes that time to turn to Sam and grace her with his dime-a-dozen billboard smiles. "I've been talking with your parents this whole time, Miss Manson, you must be terribly bored. How is your schooling going?"

Sam eyes him up and down. On one hand, she immediately wants to be snarky. It's none of his business what her school life is like, she doesn't care for his fucking small talk.

On the other hand, this was Danny's whole father. Someone who she knows that Danny has wanted to meet for, what she's assuming, his whole life. He's never brought it up much, but she remembers that very quiet, solemn conversation she and Tucker had with him where he admits to having never met his dad. But god does he want to.

And... wait. Sam's eyes narrow, and she meets Bruce Wayne's eyes. Does this man even know Danny exists? She drops her gaze down to Damian, who was staring at her suspiciously, and then back up to Bruce, and she alternates between them.

Why was Damian living with Bruce, but not Danny? Why hasn't Bruce done anything to reach out to him - what was going on with Danny's biological family that Danny had to be separated from them, but not Damian? Danny's always been kinda mysterious, but now things weren't adding up.

Was Danny given up? Does Bruce just not want Danny, but wanted Damian? Why the fuck does Bruce Wayne know about Damian but not her best friend -- or does he know and just not care? He's fought for custody for his adoptive kids before, does he just not want to fight for his other biological son? Does he think Danny's not worth it?

She's never cared much about the Wayne family before, other than to hear about the advancements on WE's eco-friendly tech, but Sam thinks she's gonna have to look into why Damian Wayne was living with the Waynes.

Slowly, with a protective anger beginning to burn in her gut and crawl up her throat, a scowl slowly curls at the corner of her lip as she redirects her glare from her mother onto Bruce. "It's going fine," She says curtly, jutting her chin out defiantly. "Me and my friend Danny started a petition to fix the leaky faucets in the girls and boys' bathrooms in order to conserve more water for the rest of the city."

She eyes his face, waiting to see if anything like recognition flashes through it. And- and nothing. Sam breathes in slowly through her nose, trying to quell the red that's blurring the edge of her vision -- does he just, not know where Danny is?

Her parents however, make vaguely displeased expressions. "Our Samantha is... quite passionate about her pet projects." Her dad says, laughing low and nervously, "she's very vocal about silly things like that."

"Her friend Daniel is perhaps even worse than she is sometimes." Her mother adds on, fanning her face with her perfectly manicured hands with a sigh. "I swear, he's the one that keeps dragging her into these things."

Sam's anger turns on its head, and she whirls on her heel like a fire-breathing dragon. "It's Danyal." It rolls out like instinct. Danny's told them both that he hates the Americanized pronunciation of his name, but in a rare moment of restraint, puts up with it for reasons unknown to her. "And Danny doesn't make me do anything, it was my idea."

The name, Danyal, seems to ring some kind of bell in Brucie Wayne's head, because she sees him and Damian quietly perk up like two cats pricking up their ears. Her eyes flick onto him immediately, something dangerous rearing its head. So Bruce Wayne knows about Danny. And he's not reaching out to him. Is he? She's not sure.

She does know that she's gonna rip his throat out if she finds out that he's known about Danny this entire time and has been ignoring him while favoring his little brother. She'll hunt down Aragon herself and steal his dragon-shifting amulet and wreck house on Bruce Wayne if that's the case. Batman and his league of vigilantes be damned. Her parents don't notice her slowly turning head towards Bruce.

But Bruce does, and she makes direct eye contact with him. His smile doesn't falter, he just tilts his head like a curious puppy and looks at Sam's parents. She hopes Bruce can read minds, she hopes he can hear her threatening him.

"Danyal?" He asks, and Sam doesn't know if she hates the fact that he said it correctly or not. She just continues burning holes into him and hoping he might spontaneously combust.

Her mother waves her hand dismissively, tilting her nose up poshly into the air. "Our dear Samantha's little... foster friend from school," she says, not even bothering to hide her disdain, "a creepy little boy with the most garish scar on his face. He's a rude little thing, not good for polite company."

Scratch that, Sam mentally alternates between ripping into her parents and Bruce. She whirls on them. "Do not talk about Danny that way." She all but snarls, and they all but ignore her.

(She's tearing up the upholstery when she gets home. She's going to paint over the fine china. She's going to do something to make them pay for this.)

"Oh yes, he was taken in by that freaky Fenton family a few years ago." Her dad continues in lieu of her mom, and they both shake their heads disapprovingly. "It's just what our city needs, another menace."

"Danny is not a menace." Sam continues, raising her voice while her hands shake with rage. Her parents finally look at her, but she can already tell that they're going to scold her for raising her voice. She bulldozes over them and jabs her black-painted finger at them. "He's got a bigger heart than the both of you combined."

"Samantha, please." her mom says, exasperated. They both give her disapproving looks, Sam thinks about grabbing champagne off the tray of a nearby waiter and throwing it in their faces. "You defend that boy far too much. What do you actually know about him and his family?"

Sam sets her jaw, puffing herself up like a dragon protecting its hoard. She steps into her mom's space. "I know that he loves the stars; you can ask him anything about astronomy and he could give you an entire lecture on the formation, class types, and various gasses that stars are made up of. He can tell you how the Earth was formed, he can tell you about the visible light spectrum and about light curves, and a whole ton of other stuff that I don't really understand. But Danny loves talking about it."

Her face twists and scowls, "I know he cares a ton about the environment and about fixing light pollution, and preserving the forests and natural habitats of animals." She nearly jabs her finger into her mom's chest, "I know he loves dogs, and that there's one he feeds every day on the way to school that he calls Cujo, its a St. Bernard puppy and Danny carries him around whenever he sees him after school, and is in the middle of training him."

It's not a total lie, but it's not the whole truth either. Cujo doesn't need food, but Danny gives him it anyways. "I know he likes spicy food and loves movies but specifically only sci-fi and horror, and he hates most martial arts movies. His favorite superhero is the Martian Manhunter, but Batman comes in at a close second." For reasons to her that were pretty unknown, but it didn't matter.

"I know he loves wordplay and making puns, which I would have never expected from him when we first met, but it's so unbelievably Danny-like that I can't imagine him not making puns." And she smiles a little to herself, she remembers the first time Danny intentionally made a pun once and it got startled laughs out of both her and Tucker.

Her smile suddenly falters, and she swallows. Her lips purse up, wobbling, and she very quickly glances over to Damian Wayne, of whom is watching her with a vaguely bewildered expression alongside Bruce.

She turns her eyes back onto her parents. "And I know that he worries a lot, even if he has a shit way of showing it. I know he had a little brother that he hasn't seen since he was adopted by the Fentons, and he doesn't talk about him often but when he does he he calls him 'starlight'." From the corner of her eye, she sees Damian jerk.

"So- so, so what if he's not 'good for polite company'." Sam's voice, embarrassingly, cracks down the middle. But she's so angry over Danny's behalf that she doesn't really care. "Or that he can be mean, and critical, and stubborn. He's learning, and he's becoming kinder by the day. That's more than I can say about you."

(She remembers when Danny finally admitted to her and Tucker being his 'closest friends'. It was sometime before the portal incident, and it felt like a milestone because beforehand he only really referred to them as his companions or allies.)

(At the time, he'd looked unsure of himself. Skittish like a stray in the back of an alleyway, almost shy in his own way. It had come out stilted, slow, like an infant taking its first steps, and it would have been endearing if it hadn't been heartbreaking.)

Her parents rear back like she'd struck them, and her mother holds a hand against her chest in aghast. Sam doesn't care, she blinks the sting out of her eyes. "Samantha." Her mother starts.

Sam cuts her off, "I don't care what you have to say, you-- you pricks." she snaps, around her, there are gasps. Belatedly, she realizes she's grown an audience, but again she doesn't care. "Danny might be an asshole, but he cares. And I'd rather be around someone whose mean but cares, than someone whose nice but doesn't."

With that, she whirls on her foot and turns on Bruce Wayne, who has been silent the entire time with a surprised expression on his face. He starts to shake out of it when Sam turns to him, but she doesn't give him the chance to speak. "Enjoy your party." She snarls, and then stalks away.

[jinxitx]

For anybody struggling over recent events <3

[arthurmorganstinkydick]

some earthspark bee <3

[lacedshoes]

SAVE ME BW JAZZPROWL!! SAVE ME!!

me and the bad bitch i pulled by being hungry

based on @mechanoize 's bw jazzprowl au/idea thingie (YOU SHOULD TOTALLY CHECK IT OUT) ((when he finally finalizes the designs and posts about the story line 🥺🥺))

theyre actually in this pose because jazz is actually booty times shorter than prowl in this

[transingthoseformers]

The decepticons after seeing humans cook up and eat a Quintesson:

[blueskyscribe]

Speaking of Earthspark Starscream being an antagonist, I also hope we see more conflict between the Malto siblings. I used to babysit as a teen and I've never seen a family with lots of kids that didn't have serious sibling rivalry, kids acting out in a bid to get attention, etc. Individually I like each Malto kid, but as a collective they have less personality clashes than, like, G1 My Little Ponies (who bullied ponies for "having no feelings" and accused each other of ruining tape decks before Learning Not To), and that's a shame. Because interpersonal conflicts are interesting.

I hope Thrash gets a chance to achieve Cheetor-levels of rebellion, b/c I was rewatching Beast Wars recently and boy Cheetor really got into trouble on the regular.

[aerkame]

WIP oc that started off as something based on the Godzilla police car in Japan that turned into more of a artistic police sea captain oc?

I wanted to put in everything that I love into this oc so I changed the "hat" to look more like a captain's hat and gave them graffiti and artwork done on them by some human friends.

I love coastal and nautical themes in case you could not tell :)

[adjit]

So what really happened in Red Robin between Dick and Tim?

Because I am constantly seeing misrepresentations of it, I want to talk about the actual events of Red Robin, and Dick and Tim's relationship during it. It's a favorite storyline for fandom to use and riff on, and so for people who haven't read the source, it's hard to know what is canon and what is fanon.

Honestly? It might be easier to just go read the issues. The majority of what I'm going to discuss here all happens in the first 4 issues of Red Robin (though I cover some stuff through the first 12), and I enjoyed that entire run, but if you'd rather hear a random internet user tell ya their take on it, read on.

This is going under a cut because it's long. But TLDR? Dick is not the bad guy in this situation. No one is the bad guy in this situation. If we had to name one... poor coping skills? And though they do fight, they ultimately reconcile because Tim and Dick are brothers who love each other.

Damian

First things first, let's talk about Damian. Did Dick give Robin to Damian without even informing Tim, so Tim had to find out by Damian showing up in the Robin costume? Not exactly.

So, some technicalities. Damian had worn the costume before the infamous Batcave scene. In Batman: Battle for the Cowl #3, he's given it by Alfred and goes with Squire to save Tim. So, not only has Damian worn the costume before, Tim has seen it.

However, arguably this is also before Dick has accepted the mantle, so the scene in the cave is still notable as it is Dick specifically informing Tim that Damian will be his Robin. And Tim had also worn the costume out for a one-time rescue months before he officially became Robin (also enabled by Alfred), so I'm still of the idea that the cave scene is The Scene about the Robin mantle being passed down.

That being the case, I'm still going to defend Dick anyway.

Firstly, he told Tim before Damian showed up. But it's true that he didn't give Tim a choice, and that Tim was NOT okay with it.

Damian shows up and talks some shit, Tim punches him in the face, and then storms out.

Overall, it went pretty terribly! But I'm of the opinion that there was no good ending here. Damian needs the family connection that the mantle of Robin would give him in order to feel accepted, not to mention the close supervision that the duo of Batman and Robin would provide. But Tim is extremely attached to Robin 14 years after this comic and he still hasn't given it up and would never be happy being asked to give it up, especially when he's already lost so many things. One of them was going to end up unhappy. (Fwiw, I'm of the opinion that Dick is right, and Damian needs Robin a lot more than Tim does. But that doesn't mean that that decision wouldn't hurt Tim, too.)

Arguably, Dick could have been a bit nicer when doing this, but let's be fair to Dick: his father figure has just died, and suddenly he has to be Batman, and he now has a young child he is partly in charge of. That's a lot to be dumped on his lap, not to mention that he didn't want to be Batman (he initially refused despite Bruce's wishes, and only took it on after basically being forced to after Jason tried to take on the mantle, killed a bunch of people, and injured both Damian and Tim), and said child is a highly traumatized child who is still in the process of basically cult de-conditioning! So Tim could also be asked to be a lot more understanding than he's being. But Tim's too wrapped up in his own grief to see that. Just like Dick's too wrapped up in his own issues to properly deal with Tim.

He has a lot of shit going on and he can't juggle it all. Tim is coping incredibly poorly with his own circumstances. They clash and neither comes out happy. It sucked. But to say that Dick is the bad guy here... He made the best decision he could when given no right options. I do think that he made a mistake here in his approach, but to call his entire relationship with Tim into question due to it... doesn't make as much sense to me (especially because of the events which follow!)

Self-isolation

So, did everyone abandon Tim? Did his family forget him and leave him out to dry?

Absolutely not. The opposite, really. Tim pushed everyone away, despite them repeatedly reaching out to him.

One thing to note about Tim here is that he is self-isolating extremely hard. Even after their argument about Robin, Dick keeps trying to reach out to Tim. Tim pushes him away. Tim pushes everyone away. And this is not even subtle- it's shown in the text very clearly.

Multiple people try to talk to Tim, and Tim absolutely refuses them.

Tim is pissed even at the idea that Dick might be checking up on him. And Tim and Steph's relationship is super rocky right now, and he takes her concern for him poorly. Part of that can be attributed to an ongoing fight between them, a lack of trust implicit there, but combined with everything else it's also clearly Tim pushing away all of his lifelines.

Cassie also comes to try to check on him- after he dodges her attempts to contact him, she flies all the way to Gotham. But when told that a man who everyone knows as dead, and whose body was recovered and buried, is still alive, she doesn't believe him. (And considering Cassie has already dealt with Tim's grief regarding Conner and his suuuuuper rational reaction there, one might understand even more why she doesn't believe him right away.) And Tim immediately pushes her away for it. He doesn't try to give her any explanation, doesn't respond to her concern, he just immediately cuts the cord.

(And just a note that when Cassie doesn't know who else to turn to about Tim? She turns to Dick! Because she knows how important Dick is to Tim. And yes, right now Tim is mad at Dick and resents that Steph and Cassie go to him, but that doesn't change the fact that when people think about caring for Tim, Dick is the first person they go to.)

Dick and Tim's argument

Did Dick refuse to believe Tim, despite Tim having evidence, call him crazy and threaten to throw him in Arkham? NOPE.

That is entirely fanon. And one of the more pervasive, and annoying, misrepresentations of Dick's character, as it causes people to talk shit about him.

So. What actually happened? (We're getting into full pages here because I am not letting anyone get this conversation twisted.)

Dick shows up and speaks to Tim compassionately, though decisively, about the fact that Bruce is dead and they need to learn to move on and deal with that grief in a healthy manner. He then offers help to Tim once more, and is rejected, Tim instead opting to start a fight in classic emotionally-repressed Bat tradition. (Which, sidenote, do you think they do this just so that panels during a long conversation are more dynamic instead of two people standing there talking to each other?)

Tim pleads his case to Dick....to an extent. Notice, however, that he never mentions that he has any reason to believe what he does. Doesn't even try to convince Dick to believe him, really. Just insists that he's right after he makes a good case on why he does in fact sound crazy.

And then, Dick offers help. He suggests that Tim talk to a therapist. This person is, notably, NOT ARKHAM ASYLUM. Isn't even secretly Arkham, because they're in Metropolis!

And, frankly, the idea that someone suggesting therapy to his brother who is dealing poorly with grief has been equated to "calling him crazy and trying to get him thrown in jail/committed" is absolutely bonkers to me. I know that it's more likely that someone escalated the stakes for drama in their fanfic or something, and for some reason that's the version that circulated, but from here to there is a LEAP. And for people to claim it's canon is frustrating to say the least.

And finally. Tim tells Dick to let him leave. And Dick does. Dick stops trying to stop Tim, and lets him go. He trusts in Tim enough to let him do what he thinks is right, even if Dick himself disagrees. He does it because Tim asks him to.

Is it a mistake? Maybe. Does it make Tim forgive Dick for choosing Damian as his Robin? Definitely not. But it's very clearly not because he doesn't care, not because he's too busy to pay attention to Tim. It's an act of respect, of treating Tim as an equal who is capable of making his own decisions. In that way, it's showing his trust to Tim.

I have an entirely separate post on the subject of why Dick not believing Tim is narratively supported to make later (EDIT: posted here!), so I'm gonna go on a little Tim rant here instead. Because this post isn't long enough.

During this time, Tim is consistently begging for people to believe in him, while also refusing to play all his cards. The picture that started his hunch is never brought up. Frankly, I'm not sure that even if he did show it to everyone that people would believe him, but I think it's telling that he doesn't.

First, I kind of see it as Tim engaging in a "relationship test". They're the kind of thing that only people who are deeply insecure or in a bad place think to do- if I stop talking to all my friends, how long will it take people to notice? Who's going to notice that I'm upset without me saying anything, who really cares about me? If I share an insane theory, who is going to believe me point blank?

They're the kind of thing that is....not healthy in any way, shape, or form, and really aren't fair to the people you're testing. Sure, someone "passing" the test may show that they care for you (and, ultimately, the only person who believes Tim without reservation is Kon, once he comes back- and that unquestioning belief and loyalty is meaningful), but "failing" the test doesn't mean that they don't care. And they're ultimately a sort of self-sabotage, because you know that most people are going to fail because you know the test is unfair.

And that's exactly what it is: self-sabotage. As previously mentioned, Tim is massively self-isolating during this part of the arc, and pushing people away because they "don't believe him" is just one facet of that self-isolation. But he also doesn't try to get them to believe him, doesn't even give them that chance, because his ultimate goal is not to actually get anyone on his side, but to push everyone away. That's not to say that he secretly doesn't want people to believe him, but... he's acting mostly irrationally. He wants people to believe him but won't let them close enough to meaningfully give them the chance to do so.

Second, as much as Tim says that he's positive he's right and he's going to prove it, he's straight up lying, and he's actually not that sure at this point. And he's probably terrified that if he does show his proof, that someone will see it and still not believe him, and he'll have to face the fact that his only piece of evidence is extremely flimsy and that his conviction is based much more on grief than it actually is on logic.

So. Yeah, no one believes him. And that does suck, and it's a hit to him. But he didn't exactly give them a chance. He's preemptively cutting people out before they have a chance to hurt him or point out where he's wrong.

Tim is still a pitiable character here. He's a disaster and a wet puddle of a man who is living through the worst time in his entire life. But he's not a poor victim, scorned by his family and the world at large, thought to be crazy for no reason at all! Instead, he's (much more interestingly, imo) a kid dealing with his grief incredibly poorly, self-isolating and refusing every outstretched hand, clinging desperately on to his last hope that maybe his world hasn't changed as much as it seems like it has.

Blackest Night

Blackest Night is a huge crossover event that happened during the Red Robin run; technically speaking, you can skip it without missing anything in the plot of Red Robin, but it does have some good moments that highlight Tim's mental state and his relationship with Dick.

So, Tim leaves Gotham, but when Black Lantern Rings start bringing a bunch of people back from the dead in the form of zombies, including Dick and Tim's parents, Dick calls him back to Gotham. And Tim, looking at the decaying zombie corpse of his parents, is also arguing that he can save them.

When faced with an evil zombie that is trying to kill him, Tim still says "I can still fix this, I can save him". And Dick, as compassionately as ever, tries to talk sense into him. It's the exact same situation as with Bruce, but this time Tim is absolutely wrong.

And with this situation as a parallel, I think it's a lot clearer how unreasonable Tim's mental state is. He might seem like he's just a misunderstood genius in Bruce's case because he happened to be right, but the fact of the matter is, he's not thinking clearly. And he'd cling onto the same hopes even when he's wrong. With Bruce's case, he got lucky.

Also! This panel.

Even with all of this between them, Tim still answers Dick that he trusts him, with no hesitation. Of course.

Reconciliation

So, does Tim come back to Gotham, replaced and forgotten, and become isolated from the rest of the Bats?

Nope! There is, actually, a reconciliation of sorts between Dick and Tim. Admittedly, there is no scene where Dick outright says he's sorry, and Tim says he forgives him. But in my reading, there are interactions that serve a similar purpose, if you read between the lines.

After Tim finds proof of what's been going on with Batman, had a whole thing with the League and the Council of Spiders, and blown up a bunch of League bases, he returns to Gotham where Ra's is enacting a plan to get revenge for Tim acting against him: destroying Batman's legacy. Everything he loved and everything he built is in the crosshairs.

And when he's trying to figure out what Ra's is planning, he meets back up with Dick.

Tim is spewing crazy theories, and with absolutely no proof or explanation, he turns to Dick and asks him to trust him. And this time, Dick tells him, Of course. The fraction between them that preceded Tim's departure from Gotham is repeated, and this time Dick tells Tim he trusts him, and asks what he can do to help.

(This time, Dick does call Tim crazy, while he's muttering to himself. And then he chooses to trust him anyway.)

Granted, this is not an actual apology. But it feels like a second chance. One more bid for connection, and this time Dick meets him in the middle and reciprocates.

Anyway, since when do siblings actually verbally say "I'm sorry"?

And then... quick summary, in case you want the real details for the following events:

Ra's sends assassins after all the people Batman cares about to distract Tim from the fact that he's getting Hush (who is impersonating Bruce Wayne) to sign over Wayne Enterprises. But Tim wins because he finally stops self-isolating and gets his many friends to protect everyone who needs protecting while Tim faces off against Ra's. (Which is, ultimately, a climax of his character arc for this story- reaching out and trusting people again. Team up guy back in action!)

Tim's able to keep Ra's busy long enough that Lucius can file the paperwork to make him the majority shareholder of Wayne Enterprises, thwarting Ra's' attempt at a takeover. However, Ra's wins the fight, and Tim ends up plummeting to his death out of the window.

And then Dick catches him.

Later, Dick asks Tim how he could have planned for Dick to be there to save him.

And Tim says "You're my brother, Dick. You'll always be there for me."

This scene has been talked to death, because most people are at a consensus: this is a fucking lie. Tim didn't know that Dick would be there, and was fully prepared to die.

However! I'm not here to rehash this. I just want to add my take. It's a lie, but. Tim is a good liar. And every good liar knows that the best lies have a grain of truth in them.

I do believe that Tim didn't know that anyone would be there to save him. But I also believe that he fully means what he says here, that it's not just to placate Dick. Tim is telling Dick that he trusts him, that he believes in him, that they're brothers. It's forgiveness.

I could keep citing all the places where Tim shows an unconditional belief in Dick that happen after this arc, to prove that their relationship is truly mended after this and that they don't continue fighting, but that happens often enough that you could just read any comic including Tim and Dick and I'm sure Tim will say some fanboy shit eventually.

So, that's it! If you take nothing else from this post, take this at least: Tim and Dick LOVE each other, and they might fight, but they forgive each other, and if you try to talk shit about Dick Grayson, Tim will be one of the first to fight you, guaranteed. Suffice to say:

[transformers-synergize]

project update

The lore post is being delayed. I have been doing some major rewrites and streamlining certain lore and plot points. Things I had planned have been removed or changed. I'm trying to tighten things up and remove extra fluff that does not add anything but extra confusion with the only payoff of kinda cool and re-focus that effort into things that affect the plot more or feel more connected to the wider world.

If you're wondering what was removed, originally, I was planning on adding Powerlinx like the Energon trilogy, but instead of just minicons, other bots could also combine in a similar way. This was a really fun concept I really liked to explore. But at the end of the day, it often went underutilized in the plots I made, and as the AU developed, the lore and story I told became more and more complex and pulled itself away from normal tf lore, and the powerlinx concept got pushed to the side becoming an unnecessary underused blob of complexity instead of naturally fitting into plots often it felt stapled on, I do love this concept I really do, but it's become obsolete in my current draft.

If you're wondering about what the lore post was about, it was Powerlinx. I had some of the art done for it and all the text, but while making this, I started to realize how it dragged my work down instead of pushing it forward.

The plan now is to focus on the things I think my story does well plot-wise and lore-wise. The Powerlinx concept was added when things were much more bare-bones, but I have a lot of fun concepts now that fit together much better with each other and the overall plot; I am excited to share. I will be doing another lore post based on another thing from my AU that I am confident about, along with working on that mini-test comic. I'm kinda burnt out from working on that lore post I never finished, so I will be doing some random au art for a bit, taking a break from bigger projects.

If you would like to see some of the cut Powerlinx art and concepts, I have a link to some of it; not all of it can be shared due to spoiler reasons, but you can have a peak into what was to be but never was.

[im-getting-help]

I FOUND IT!!

"Nobody notices if it’s only Oliver who skips out, but lately it seems like whenever he doesn't want to, neither does Felix. And then it’s an ordeal, because the sun in their solar system is gone, and just happened to take Pluto along with it."

- You're gonna be the one that saves me

by pvtalify

This quoteeee, it is stuck in my brain for eternity. Pvtalify, if you ever see this, you ruined me with this, I hope you finish this fic someday cause I love it.

[silkling]

Real question folks.

We all know Optimus’s motto right? Right?

“Freedom is the right of all sentient beings.”

Yeah, that one. You know the one.

But. Like. Issue.

Animals are sentient. Animals like dogs, cats, wild animals, they all have sentience. So like, what do we think the Autobots think about that? How do they feel about the fact that humans (and probably every other species in the galaxy) regularly domesticate, tame, and use other sentient creatures for their own gain? For things like. Entertainment, agriculture, pet-keeping. All that stuff.

Do you think they’re bothered by it? Do yo7 think they look at humans, with our pet dogs, and think

“Wow, this situation is kinda fucked up.”

I mean. Personally , I don’t think they take much issue with it. (Especially cause like there’s instances of them in canon not giving a shit. Buster in IDW. Fluffy Ears in Earthspark. Etc.) I think they understand the difference between sentient and sapient. Like. Humans are sapient. Cybertronians are sapient. Animals are….not? At at least not really. If you want to classify animals as sapient I think you can make that argument but even then you have to agree that their sapience is severely limited compared to like. Human sapience.

So. I don’t know. Do you think the bots get wigged out but human pet ownership, I guess. Because I know what Optimus’s motto is. I know what he says. But like. Do you think maybe he means sapient where he says sentient? Cause I think that makes more sense.

Cause like. He’s advocating for total freedom, right? Equality under law, ability to self determine your own life and destiny. But. Uh. That wouldn’t really work for animals? They’re sentient, yah, but they operate on an instinct level. Not an intellect level. Not that they don’t deserve protections and shit. That’s not the point. The point is like. Do you think Optimus (and the other Bots I guess) differentiate between sentience and sapience when they apply their beliefs. Because if not then they’d have to also be advocating for total animal freedom.

I do not know where I am going with this. But. Do you all see my point???? Please tell me you do. This has been niggling at my brain for years and I just. I cannot stop thinking about it. I don’t know why.

Sentience is not sapience. But the Autobots fight for the freedom of “sentient beings”. This is driving me insane. Do you think they care about a difference? Or do they see humans as monsters for our dominion over animals? Someone help I’m thinking too much about something that doesn’t even matter.

[delusinaldreamer19]

I just dyed my hair black

An angle has regained its wings

[carlyraejepsans]

I’ve started watching Utena because of you. What. Is going on

HI. WELCOME TO THE CLUB, watch the trigger warnings. but yeah, revolutionary girl utena veers more and more towards surrealism the further you get into the series. it often and voluntarily forfeits narrative/logical consistency in favor of visual storytelling, metaphors and symbolism. i was just talking about it with nic the other day, and if the story weren't so harrowing, i would recommend it to everyone who wants to get into literary analysis, because it is SO packed with symbolism EVERYWHERE that it actually encourages you to try to decode it.

whatever you think utena is about, it is NOT. you can't go in and treat it like your 49293th classical shoujo. utena is a firework show of visual symbolism and it very rarely, if ever, explains itself to the viewer. it refuses to handhold you, but it never berates you for trying and getting it wrong either. there is SO much handholding in modern day media, but utena trusts its viewer to take away something meaningful from itself and to piece its message together on their own. it's one of my favourite pieces of media of all time just for that

[mantischrysalis]

cynthia!!

[primussavethesemechs]

…you guys think any of the transformers have a genuine phobia of humans (or other small organics) like not a hate or even a simple disgust but an actual honest to god irrational FEAR. We see enough cybertronians either explicitly like, hate, or be disgusted by humans but never really fear, especially to the point of a phobia, in practice I’d assume it’d be similar to insect or spider phobias, basically just a fear of little creepy crawlies scuttling around on you but it would be so funny- in some ways we’re like jumping spiders, smart and curious and perhaps a bit mischievous, and also very quick for our size.

Speaking as someone who is generally freaked out by spiders and has recently had 2 jumping spiders use me as a flotation device in a pool, I can confirm it is extremely unsettling to see them look you in the eye and then take off towards your neck area 💀 I didn’t squish them as they’re actually very friendly to humans but that doesn’t mean I wasn’t actively full body shivering and making awful noises as I felt them scuttle around where I couldn’t see them.

The long and short of it is that I would like to see a human use their robot buddy as a rock climbing wall and have said robot buddy be silently crying in horror the entire time at the feeling of a little squishy thing scrambling up their body at a surprising pace.