#literally the only teen show I’d be interested in

[wittyno]

Is X-Men: Dark Phoenix a good movie? No. Do I love it? Yes. Would I love a sequel? Yes. Am I going to get a sequel? Probably not.

[victory-cookies]

the only irl friend I have that I feel comfortable actually talking about the things I enjoy with just insulted me for gushing about smth to her over snap last night and now I want to cry

[evilwickedme]

hey it’s me from the Batman posts! (the one that left the tags abt wanting to get into Batman but having no clue where to start)

If its not too much trouble, I’d love any advice on where to start with Batman or Batfam(?) stuff, I saw someone suggest reading the Batman: Wayne Family Adventures thing on webtoon as an intro to the characters so I’ve been doing that, but I’ve got no clue about any of the official comics or shows/movies/etc. I’ve never read a comic series before so everything is super new to me.

I know different series(?)/versions(?) can be wildly different bc of different writers and stuff, I definitely trust your taste on what would be good / enjoyable bc the posts you’ve been reblogging are like 90% of whats gotten me interested in the first place

Thank you, and absolutely no rush!!

Hey I am legit SO happy that you sent me this ask this is literally my favorite thing to do!!!!

So to start with I do actually agree that wfa is a good starting point but for a different reason than I feel most people would recommend it. The thing about wfa is that it has a consistent design for every character, is humorous, touches not only on the main batfamily members but also many extended members, other noteworthy people in Gotham, and the batfamily's cast of friends and teammates as well. This means that while its approach to characterization is incredibly fanon-y, it's a good basis for how to continue. You read wfa, and you know that Dick is the first robin, wears ridiculous costumes, was batman for a bit, is nightwing, part of the teen titans... this isn't a lot, but it's just enough to orient yourself before jumping into some of the most convoluted art ever created, aka the comic world.

Another tip I'm gonna give you is to let yourself be confused. I think the people who end up sticking with comics are people who are aware that if they pick up a comic it's very likely the writers and artists have read and worked on comics that you haven't read yet or even heard of, so you're always going to be missing something. That's fine. If something is really important to the plot, it gets explained; if it's not, it's windowdressing. Often there'll be little boxes saying what comic and issue they're referencing, so if you find it interesting you can just go read it - otherwise, if it's not there, you can google it, or go to any comic fan and ask "hey do you know what this is about?" and if they know, they will answer. There is nothing a comic fan wants more than to explain how to get into their favorite character/s, trust me.

Anyway this has been a very wordy intro but here are some potential starting points for the batfamily!

Bruce Wayne

You know who he is. Pick up an issue of Batman or Detective Comics and he's there. Pick up an issue of any other DC comic and there's like a 30% chance he's there too.

Batman: The Long Halloween

Noir style, investigative, early in batman's career, two face's origin story

It has a sequel-ish story called Batman: Dark Victory that's almost as good

Batman: Hush

Batman: Year One

Frankly there's not going to be much information in this comic you don't already know, but also, it's a classic, so might as well

Batman: A Death in the Family & Batman: A Lonely Place of Dying (crossover with the new teen titans)

First story is Jason's death, second is Tim's introduction and arguably the start of the batfamily being a family

Tim drags Dick back into the fray in ALPOD. It's just sort of the kind of thing he does

Do NOT confuse A Death in the Family with Death OF the Family, which is a much newer story, and Not Good

Batman: Under the Red Hood

Jason's villain arc! More details below

Batman himself isn't actually my favorite but you know he's got some decent stuff since he's, uh, the main character. DC doesn't have a multiverse the way Marvel does - and getting into that would be a whole separate ask - but their elseworlds are stories about the characters in different situations. Some ones I've heard good things about include Gotham by Gaslight, Dark Knights of Steel, Batman: Last Knight on Earth, and I keep meaning to get into Batman: White Knight, which is a whole other universe on its own. I've been trying to get into more modern batman stuff and unfortunately I just haven't clicked with anything.

Dick Grayson

Guy has been in a lot of things. If you read a random Batman comics from before 1980, there's a good chance he'll be there.

Teen Titans and The New Teen Titans and Titans (1980s-2000s)

I haven't read enough of these to say much of anything, but he's a founding member of the TT

Nightwing

His post-Robin superhero identity. At first only present in NTT and occasional Batman comics, but eventually he gets his own miniseries in the early 90s, followed by an ongoing. Recently-ish started reading them and they're angsty and very 90s in a lot of ways but I'm enjoying it

Modern Nightwing titles also exist. For sure.

Batman & Robin by Morrison

In one of DC's ten million crises, Bruce "dies", and after a short story called Battle for the Cowl, Dick ends up becoming Batman. Damian is his Robin. It's an interesting time for batman comics, although not necessarily the best writing that Dick has ever gotten.

Batman: The Dark Mirror

Also a great story for the Gordons. Bruce is back from the dead, but Dick is still Batman in Gotham. This was my first even Batman comic and it's really good.

Obviously there's other stories, such as Grayson, where he becomes a super spy for a bit. There's a million and a half reading lists for Dick out there as he's a massively popular character and he's one of the characters DC is pushing the most right now. As with all the rest of these, these are good entry points; from there I trust you to find your way

Barbara Gordon

The original Batgirl, sort of (nobody really brings up bette kane unless they're pointing out that babs wasn't the original Batgirl, she's just not important). She appears sporadically in silver and bronze age batman comics and detective comics, but she quits being Batgirl shortly before being raped and shot in the spine by the joker in Batman: the Killing Joke, which I purposefully did not put on my rec list.

Birds of Prey

Babs-as-Oracle at her best.

Batman: The Dark Mirror

Babs' long lost brother comes back to town. It's fucked up.

I've been reliably told to stay away from her Batgirl runs - most people who are a fan of the character don't like that they retconned Oracle away and it's mostly not very well written. There's a comic called batgirls that lasted about a year that included her, and it's okay.

Jason Todd (my beloved)

MY MAN

Batman: Second Chances

Collected edition of Jason as Robin, so much fun. Extremely silly at times since it's the 80s.

Batman: A Death in the Family

For obvious reasons.

Then he's just sort of dead for 17 years. He shows up in heaven in a Green Arrow issue and is occasionally brought up or shown as a hallucination, but that's about it.

Batman: Under the Red Hood

There's a new crime lord in town and he's so smart and talented and hot omg I wonder who he is!!!!

The collected edition also comes with the annual that reveals how he came back to life

Task Force Z

This shouldn't be as good as it is.

Jason gets recruited to work with a team of undead villains

Jason gets called a hot a bunch of times, and is shirtless a lot. This doesn't matter but you know, like, yeah it does.

For Robin!Jason there's also Batman: The Cult - which I finally got my hands on recently but haven't read yet. For Red Hood!Jason there's lots of stuff, but most of it isn't very good or is actively bad. Most people will tell you to stay away from Red Hood and the Outlaws, and they're right, although the 2016 run is better. Most people will tell you to read Batman & Red Hood: Cheer, and they're wrong, it's ass.

Tim Drake

Frankly this boy has no flops. Or very close to it.

Batman: A Lonely Place of Dying

Tim figured out who Batman and Robin are at AGE NINE. Respect.

After this he appears in various Batman and detective comics issues, I haven't read any of these.

Robin

The first Robin to get his own ongoing! Like with Nightwing, it started with a miniseries (a few of them, actually) and got turned into a long running series from there. Lasted like 200 issues, too.

Tim FUCKS.

Not Steph's first appearance, but most of her appearances pre-2009 are in this series.

Young Justice 1998

It's insane in all the best ways. Cars have sex on panel. They play baseball to save the world on an alien planet. A power of friendship speech prevents the end of the world. In the first issue, a woman develops breasts so big she falls on her face.

This team eventually breaks apart and Tim along with 3 other teen heroes nicknamed the core four (Superboy, Impulse, & Wonder Girl II) become part of Teen Titans 2003, which I haven't read and is also a bit of a flop era fashion wise for everyone anyway. I do have the volume of TT03 where they meet the versions of themselves from the future and I plan on reading that soon-ish.

In the mid 2000s basically everyone Tim loves dies. Steph died in 2004 ish after a very short stint as Robin. Tim's mom dies, then his dad is murdered, and it's unclear what happened to his step mom, but she was in Bludhaven, which had an atomic bomb dropped on it. Impulse becomes kid flash becomes the flash becomes murdered, and superboy gets killed while saving the world. Steph does turn out to not be dead after all and Impulse and Superboy come back from the dead eventually but by God he's having a tough year BEFORE Bruce "dies".

Red Robin 2009

After Bruce "dies" and Dick becomes Batman, Dick makes Damian his Robin and nobody believes Tim that Bruce is still alive, so he steals the Red Robin costume and goes on a mission to save his dad!

Not a comic to read first because it's so uncharacteristic of Tim as a person, but definitely something to read as soon as possible, because it's ridiculously good.

After flashpoint/n52 Tim doesn't have his own ongoing for a while, but he does come out as bisexual in an early issue of Batman Urban Legends (2021) and he got his own ongoing called Tim Drake: Robin in 2022 which was ugly AF and yet cancelled far too soon. There's a Young Justice run from 2019 I haven't read yet.

Stephanie Brown

For her I would go to Google, bc I haven't gone down the rabbithole enough for her yet. I know her first appearance was in a batman comic where she became spoiler to spoil her dad's plans - her dad being a third rate villain called the cluemaster - and she almost kills him, so good for her. Afterwards she appears every once in a while in various comics, most notably in Robin, where she and Tim as Robin start dating despite him knowing her identity but not the other way around.

Robin 60s (I don't remember the exact issues)

Steph gives birth and gives her baby up for adoption

Robin 126-128

Steph becomes Robin when Tim quits for his still-alive-but-not-for-long dad.

War Games

Steph does a fucky wucky and accidentally starts a gang war which gets her killed

There's another Robin arc where she comes back and it turns out she was never dead, Leslie (the family doctor) simply faked her death and sent her to Africa to recover

Batgirl 2009

Her first and only solo ongoing, but it's really good

She also appears a lot in Cass's Batgirl ongoings, and occasionally shows up in yj98. Her most recent series in Batgirls, which isn't very good but her interactions with Cass are very gay, and we've all been shipping it for 20 years at this point, so frankly it's long overdue. Unlikely to become canon tho, unfortunately.

Cassandra Cain

She doesn't use a lot of words, so neither will I. Probably.

No Man's Land

Frankly I am terrified to read this, it's so many goddamn issues, but this is her first appearance. I have one "volume" and it's as big as the fucking Bible.

Batgirl 2000

She's the first Batgirl to get an ongoing. The one from 2008 I've been reliably told isn't very good. She's absolutely terrifying in the 2000 one, I approve.

Outsiders 2016

Supposed to also be good for Duke content. I think at this point she's going by Orphan? Idk she's had a lot of names.

Idk I prefer Black Bat

Spirit World

Mini series that recently ended. Soooooo good. Alyssa Wong is a top contender for favorite modern writer.

She's mostly a background character. Bc DC is both sexist AND racist. She was also in batgirls.

Damian Wayne

Frankly he's my least favorite of the batkids, but that's not his fault, he's been a victim of a lot of really racist writing.

Batman: Son of the Demon

Somehow both his origin AND an elseworlds that doesn't count. Not required reading, but Bruce and Talia are madly in love in this.

Batman by Grant Morrison

After UTRH and before Dick was forced to become Batman Morrison reintroduced Talia's son, who in this version was a rape baby bc apparently brutalia weren't in love and Talia drugged Bruce. Fucking fine, I guess.

His character growth during his time as robin is sweet tho.

Robin 2021

His only solo ongoing, pretty good

Super Sons

He had two team up comics with then fellow child Jon Kent, son of superman, and it was fucking adorable. Then they aged up Jon to 17, so they're still friends, but Jon has his own shit going on.

Duke Thomas

He's REALLY new, and I haven't read any of it, I'm sorry.

Robin War

Batman and the Signal - I finally got my hands on the first issue of this last week!

The Outsiders 2016

Frankly they should capitalize on the Duke & Cass friendship/siblingship more often.

Alfred Pennyworth

I haven't read it, but there's a series called Pennyworth about his days as a spy for the crown. Supposed to be pretty good.

Kate Kane

The Jewish lesbian batwoman of our dreams

Batwoman: Elegy

Her introduction

Also, it's written by Greg Rucka, and if he can do one thing, it's write sapphic women. I'm not even joking.

Get the newer edition that has both of her original Rucka stories

Batwoman ongoings

She's had a couple, they're both supposed to be pretty solid, I've only read a few issues here and there

Batman in other media

Animated: I'm currently watching Batman the Animated Series for the first time and it seems to really get Bruce as a character, even if Robin will be there one episode and his existence will be a plot hole in the next. The Justice League animated series has also been fun so far. Teen Titans have gotten a number of animated adaptations all of which have pretty strong followings. There's an animated show called "Young Justice" which is a Teen Titans show and I refuse to watch it (it has a very devout following, but all that means is that the Young Justice - All Media Types tag on ao3 is just the same as Young Justice Cartoon and I have to filter heavily when looking for yj98 fics). Lego Batman is a REALLY fun film, and I think it turned into a whole franchise.

Live action TV: I have watched the first season of both Titans and Gotham, but both of those were before I was into the batfamily as a concept. My impression of Titans is overall negative and my impression of Gotham is overall positive.

Live action movies: There are so many Goddamn Batman movies. I like the Dark Knight Trilogy, but even calling it "based on" the Dark Knight comic trilogy is giving it a lil more credit than it deserves. The Batman 2022 is massively popular with the comic fandom for a reason - I'm not a big fan of it, but I did enjoy laughing at the movie so at least there's that. Batfleck sucks. I haven't seen anything else, up to and including the Joker movie. Oh, and Birds of Prey was really good, but that's not Cass.

Video games: The Arkham trilogy is well loved and I have indeed just bought it, but I haven't gotten to it because I'm currently working on Gotham Knights and uh. Okay so listen. This game is a lot of fun and I will be finishing it. But it's like. Got a massively antisemitic plot point. I can't even say I don't recommend it, I'm genuinely enjoying the game a lot. But I've never seen anybody bring this up, and it's bugging me.

ANYWAY I'm sure I've missed a LOT but this is introductory so you know I'm giving myself grace. There's characters I completely skipped and I'm sure mega fans of characters I haven't read much of will be offended that I said such and such about them but you know it's only been about a year and a half since I started reading dc comics and I'm still figuring it all out. And I probably will still be figuring it out for the next decade. To me that's actually part of the fun of it.

[troperrific]

/ekuoto spoilers chapter 71/

I figured we would be going through the circus tent first. The fact that it’s made of Mr. Priest’s memories is interesting enough, but I like that we’re seeing only happy memories.

For example, at the beginning, when they go enter the location where the orca’s show should be, they immediately get transported to the beach.

Because although his first aquarium date with Imuri was fun, the orca show was likely a bad memory: Mammon possessed an orca, almost killed the kids and Priest had to work again. So it has no place in his “perfect dream world”.

Which makes me curious about this:

Is this foreshadowing that Mammon could break into the dream world? Could Imuri reach Priest with her art (literally)? Will Priest’s bad memories eventually leak into this “perfect world” and threaten the people inside the tent? Who knows…

Also, I guess we can add “photographic memory” to Daniel’s increasing list of abilities.

Makes sense that Becú would fall down considering that she’s both a novice at being a witch and has been shown to be a clumsy and nervous person.

But seriously, why insist on the brooms?! That’s just asking someone to fall down and hurt themselves. And then there are nudists like Charlotte, whose ass would surely suffer horrible blisters were it not for magic, I suppose. Still!! Some consideration would be nice?? Find some means of travel that’s safer and more comfortable?? Minus points for your leadership, Vir!!

Okay, silliness aside, Vir’s comment about his powers flourishing because they might be closer to hell paralleling with Dante’s own comment about being stronger because they were likely closer to Heaven towards the end of Part 3 got me good.

I’ll wait a bit more, but the parallels between the Sloth and Gluttony arcs are super fascinating to me.

Also, this particular conflict is nothing new:

Most of the characters pushing their values onto Mr. Priest is nothing new. The Church, the witches, the Demon Lords, all of them do it. If anything, this is hilariously like… those standard sitcom tropes where the parents keep arguing about their child’s future.

I’d like to note that… to me, this matter will always be a bit more complicated than “everyone sees Priest as a tool”.

I think most characters do feel sympathy towards him to different degrees. Otherwise we wouldn’t have moments like Vir telling him to live freely because he’s sure the boy’s suffered under the Church, Dante regretting how he couldn’t help him enough, Mikhail musing that he was glad Priest could show his suffering to others at the end of Part 4, Daniel acknowledging his fault in Priest’s declining mental health, etc.

It’s just that almost everyone thinks they know what’s righteous or how the world works or even what’s the key to happiness, and they push and project those values and their own issues on Priest due to his role as The Chosen One.

But regardless of how they feel about Priest, it’s a fact that here, the factions of the Witches and the Church are prioritizing the fate of the world and Priest as a “symbol” and “soldier” rather than as a person.

I talked about it a bit here, a few days before this chapter dropped but… I see both Vir and Daniel as the most selfless motivation-wise… they both want to save the world! They devote themselves full heartedly to their cause, regardless of what or who they lose along the way, nothing is more important than the greater good to them, I think not even themselves! Deeply heroic spirits… but the way they go about it… goodness, it can be so, so vile. And because they essentially intend to use someone who never wanted to be the world’s savior, it becomes rather selfish in a way.

Daniel wants to protect the world, but what kind of world is he protecting if he’s still going to rely on a mentally-ill teen?

Vir wants to change the world, but what kind of change is he proposing when he’s doing exactly what he condemns the Church for, indirectly trampling on the weak to gain power and intending to use a child to fight for him?

And of course, there’s Imuri:

Imuri is simultaneously the only person who’s definitely prioritizing Priest over the world’s fate, but she also has the most selfish motive of all characters this chapter.

She, unlike the others, doesn’t care about whether he can save or protect or change the world, nor does she care to expect that from him.

However, she, like the others, is not thinking about what Priest might want. The (imagined?) danger of him becoming someone else’s is her biggest priority right now.

The manga goes on and on about themes like instincts vs rationality, selfishness vs selflessness (and how the two are not as black and white or well defined as they might appear at first), etc.

So this whole discussion and series of disagreements between the characters is not just about Priest. It’s about the on-going conflict the author wants us to think about.

Is it right to sacrifice the happiness and freedom of one person for the happiness and freedom of the many, like Vir and Daniel propose here? Utilitarians would say yes, and that’s why Daniel, Dante, Heisenberg and even Vir act like they do. But the manga has already shown us through Mr. Priest how awful and cruel that truly is.

Is it right to ignore the suffering of the world just for your own desires or for the sake of one person (be it yourself or someone else)? The demons work along these lines of thought, and that’s how they think it should be, but still remain lonely and feel unloved and unfulfilled. In Part 4, we’re shown that, this line of thinking also hurts Priest, whether it be because of Imuri playing along Asmodeus’ game, or because of his own disappointment in himself during chapters 54 and 55, where he laments giving into his own desires due to the betrayal of his own morals.

Where is the middle ground then? How can it be achieved?

The answer to that is yet to come, if there’s any concrete solution, but I do think the author has already told us where the characters can start:

Behold, the one character who is constantly stuck between the two “philosophies” above: Leah!

If Priest’s depression is everyone’s responsibility, then it is up to them to fix things and make amends.

If the world is everyone’s responsibility, then surely, talking and apologizing and making amends and moving forward together…

Hm. Who knows.

To finish these thoughts, I just have one question:

(The one on the right is from Priest’s memories in chapter 42)

WHO THE HELL IS THIS?

Who is this spooky creepy demon?? I don’t know him??

Imuri’s fujo vision goes into two extreme ways it seems?

(Or maybe, just maybe Bel will have a creepier form? A scarier side? Please?)

On a side note… I wonder what are Mr. Priest’s thoughts on homosexuality…

[thesharktanksdriver]

Any thoughts or ideas of DC Comics!magical girl reader in the Teen Titans (2003 version)?

Bro I love 2003 teen titans sooo muchhhhhh. It was so good.

In dc magical girls timeline Dick is already grown up but meeting 2003 Dick would definitely interesting! I imagine in this some dimensional shenanigans happened leading to the 2003 cast ending up in their universe.

She’d get along with them like a house on fire, it’s honestly kinda funny how the moment the crew of teens spit her she somehow integrates with them seamlessly.

I imagine magical girl y/n as kinda deadpan most times and somewhat stoic. It’s kinda a product of her childhood (or lack thereof one) and being slightly jaded with the world due to her duties to protect it. So having kids her age who are shackled with something similar yet are more optimistic (hell even Raven seems more happy than her sometimes) kinda lifts her mood.

I’d say within the group she’d find them all to be uplifting but would especially like how they try their best to make her feel like her age again.

Starfire takes to try and engage with “girly” stuff the Tamaranian girl had seen in tv shows and magazines. Having “girls nights” where Starfire, along with Raven and the batgirls force y/n to enjoy things they once never had the time nor privilege to experience. Things like painting her nails or even just the simplicity of having another girl to talk to about things like dealing with societal pressures and the influx of weird creepy guys despite being literal children. Along with this Starfire would absolutely be obsessed with y/n’s ability to change their magical girl outfits and Rigel. Y/n would most definitely at one point twin with Starfire and the two would be a dynamic duo.

With Raven there would be a kinda camaraderie in both being magic users that have to deal with larger and more complicated threats. Raven didn’t exactly have the best childhood and neither did y/n, the both of them having to grow up faster than everyone to protect not only themselves but others as well. Along with this the two of them are more of a quiet force, though for different reasons. While no one sees the two of them openly talking much they’d definitely have a deep and quiet kinda friendship. One where in the middle of the night they sit atop Wayne manor and just kinda enjoy the silence or speak their minds.

For Cyborg he kinda just took one look at them and being the extrovert that he is adopted them. Not in the literal way but in the way an extrovert spots an introvert and someone absorbs them into their friend group kinda way. Either or he acts as y/n’s voice in some situations and makes sure they’re included. He’s a bright and inspirational pillar to y/n, someone who’s not only strong and intelligent but also is able to balance being a kind and loving person. Though he can be serious when he needs to he’s can also struck a balance between that and cracking jokes. I’d like to think that when seeing y/n’s more stoic composure he makes a challenge with the others in who can make her smile more. Like he’s tallying everything down, small barely visible smiles are 1 point, a somewhat clear one is 2, ones where it’s a full on one is 3 points and a laugh/giggle is 4 points.

You’d best bet beast boy is acting like a hyperactive ball of sunshine who doing as many cheesy puns as possible. It’s kinda like how he is with Raven but with less threat of being sent to the shadow realm and more just blank face stoicism with a small shimmer of amusement he can see in their very tired eyes. Though he can loud and a bit childish y/n would really enjoy his presence even if they don’t outwardly say it. If he’s smiles and sunshine then their the calm peaceful presence looming beside him as he drags them away to go and play video games. He’d definitely at some point shapeshift into a ferret to look like Rigel, the “real” ferret giving a small sound that seemed like a chuckle as it curled around your neck. At some point Damien is probably dragged into a weird friendship with him, cyborg and y/n. Two extroverts and two introverts on all ends of the scale.

Robin/Dick would definitely be the most interesting of the bunch especially considering how there’s an older version of himself and the Robin currently is Bruce’s biological kid who’s wielding a sword at everyone. Either way Robin being ever resourceful adapts with his team and strikes a friendship with the relative oddball in the Wayne manor. Both 2003 Robin and y/n in a lot of ways are similar due to the responsibility on their shoulders and having to be at the forefront of it. But unlike y/n Dick is able to better cope and handle it which he sees y/n still somewhat struggle with. Both he and the alternate older version of himself kinda team up together in dragging y/n away from tirelessly working or going on patrols alone. Along with that he’s kinda able to see when he himself is pushing himself too far and how that hurts not only himself but others through y/n.

Sorry this took so long to answer and how lengthy it is lol

[1960z]

in the middle of watching the new quinton reviews sam & cat video and it always frustrates me when his stuff gets put into that category of “just recap not analysis” by people. I understand why those nickelodeon vids aren’t for everyone I really do but I’d still argue what quinton does is analysis - not necessarily of the show itself but rather everything around it. it’s analysis of the cultural moment that was icarly or victorious or sam & cat because that’s the most interesting parts of these shows, not necessarily their actual content (they’re literally children’s sitcoms)

like I was pretty strictly a cartoon network kid growing up, I never watched any of these shows when I would’ve been in the target demographic and honestly to this day I haven’t actually watched a single episode of any of them nor do I have much desire to, however, watching quinton’s videos on them I feel like I have a genuine understanding of them as phenomenons. I understand their appeal, why some of them took off more than others, why they’re remembered fondly by people, the relationship audiences have had with them at the time etc. and I think diving into those aspects should be considered analysis just as much as an actual narrative deep dive. it’s simply a different type of analysis. and I can’t think of any other video series I’ve seen on youtube do that. it feels like a really unique experience.

I know that “long recaps of media you watched in your childhood and/or teen years” has become a genre and arguably took off when quinton’s videos started doing really well but I can’t stress enough that his videos are not that: the recaps are only a relatively small part all things considered. hell the video before this one barely contained any recaps at all. where I’m at in this video currently the recaps have completely finished and I still have four hours to go. and I think that’s also the reason why I really love his videos but otherwise can’t get into that whole genre.

[gffa]

Hi there! I’m someone who’s been following you for Star Wars for a while but I’ve become really interested in your DC comics posting recently, and I was wondering - since the franchise has been going for so long and has so many instalments - what you would say to someone who wants to start reading these comics/watching the shows/movies but doesn’t know where to start? Have a lot of the comics been retconned? Is there a particular order one has to read in? Where does one even find these comics…?

My interest in this franchise was literally sparked by the Jason Todd telephone poll so I’m definitely interested in reading more about him - he seems like a character I’d like - and the rest of like, the… Batfamily, I think they’re called? I just have no idea where to start lol - my knowledge of DC is limited to seeing bits of Teen Titans GO when I walked past my little brother watching TV, and watching the Lego Batman movie with him xD

Also! If I’m correct, after observing the fandom, Talia seems like an interesting, complex female character (with some bad writing), like Padmé or Bo-Katan? I always love those kinds of characters, just wondering if I’d got the right impression of her.

Hi! You've got a solid idea of things so far, so hopefully, this shouldn't be too hard of a climb to get used to the structure! And I'll do my best to explain the structure of comics without getting too lost in the weeds about it. 😂

INTRODUCTION AND OVERVIEW: In my view, comics aren't meant to be a single coherent whole and it's helpful to drop that idea before you get started because otherwise you'll drive yourself around the bend in a fruitless attempt to make everything line up neatly, when it just never will. There is no one single "true" version of the characters, there is no one single creator who is the highest authority on a character, no matter who created the character or even who is most famous for writing them, these are shared characters being written and drawn by a multitude of authors and artists who all have varying takes on them. The characters should stay true to a core personality and traits, but the flexibility of an author to write a character differently from the last person who wrote them is a feature not a bug imo. I like to think of comics as stories being told by different authors playing with action figures and we're in the audience enjoying these stories, regardless of how some authors fit really well together and others completely clash with each other. You can try to make them mesh (sometimes that's fun!) or you can just shrug your shoulders and pick what you like out of the pile of comics that have been handed to you (you'll probably drive yourself less over the edge this way!). Jason is particularly difficult on this aspect, because he often doesn't have a regular book to be written in and his overall place/point in the Batman comics is murky at best somedays and so he is wildly different from author to author. I personally enjoy this, because I think it works for Jason as a character who has some core beliefs, but also is kind of a mess who doesn't really know what he wants, so he veers wildly from one reaction to another. You can read comics in a variety of ways, but I genuinely do not recommend trying to read "in order" because it's a nightmare to try to keep track of everything once it's been a few years and the numbering of these series is the most confusing thing you'll ever meet. Instead, I think it's better to focus on picking up trades (collections of comics that originally came out in single issues, but are put together in a single volume that tells the whole story of that particular run) that sound interesting or come recommended. (And, honestly, it's not even satisfying even if you did do all the work to read them in order. Throw out the idea that comics have a coherent timeline, because they do NOT.)

CONTINUITIES AND DIFFERENT ERAS: The ONLY context I think you need (other than a general sense of the Batfam, we'll get there in a minute) is to understand that there are sort of four "continuities" that you're likely to run into, and this is EXTREMELY simplified/streamlined, so nerds don't come for me on this unless you have a better streamlined and simple version. 😂 - Anything published before 1985-1986 is all "Pre-Crisis" and while reading a lot of the older comics can be super fun, they're generally not super relevant to current comics - In 1985-1986, there was a comics event (an event is where multiple different comic books are all written to be part of a bigger storyline, whereas normally, they don't cross over that much, each book usually has its own self-contained storylines) called "Crisis on Infinite Earths" (which is different from "Infinite Crisis") that was basically a way for DC to streamline all the different versions of the characters running around into one manageable universe. This ran up until about 2011 and I'll often refer to it as the "preboot" or "post-Crisis" continuity. (This is where Jason's death happened, in the storyline "A Death in the Family".) - In 2011, DC wanted to reboot their entire universe with an event called "Flashpoint", with the purpose of creating an all new lineup of 52 comics that new readers could jump right into, which isn't a bad idea in theory. The problem was that people were really attached to the preboot versions of the characters, a lot of the Nu52 comics were really badly written, and there was almost no collaboration. You expect a certain amount of contradiction just by the nature of comics, but there were major issues with "nobody is talking to each other, so everything is a giant mess".

- In 2016, for a variety of reasons (probably including that sales for Nu52 had dipped back down pretty far again), DC rebooted their universe again, with "Rebirth", which is the continuity we're in now. I'm still catching up (I left when Nu52 happened) but I think a lot of preboot events are leaking back into the continuity, but that's not the same as saying it's equal to the preboot continuity in total. This is also the era that I generally talk about the most because I've found it genuinely the most engaging to get back into! Generally, as long as you understand those four eras of continuity, I think you'll be fine in understanding how things are put together. If you want to know where something falls, just check the date and that'll tell you! But, honestly, yeah, background details change all the time, so even within a single continuity there will be retcons--just that there are MASSIVE differences in the Nu52 era that might confuse you if you're unaware of the reboot shenanigans. (Or if you want to understand how Jason returned--like, preboot continuity has the explanation that Superboy Prime (don't ask) punched reality so hard that it shook Jason back to life, even if they never found out about it, that's what happened. I think Nu52 said Talia dug him up and put him in the Lazarus Pit? Don't quote me on that. I flamed out hard on Nu52. Rebirth continuity, they have no idea what the hell happened and I'm not sure there's an explanation. I just assume the Reality Punch leaked back in or something.)

SO, LIKE, WHAT'S THE DEAL WITH THESE CHARACTERS? AS SHORT AS I CAN MAKE IT: - Bruce Wayne witnesses his parents being murdered in front of him and this traumatizes him so badly that he withdraws from life to obsess over it, eventually travelling the world for several years to learn every kind of skill he can, until he comes back to Gotham at, like 22 years old or whatever and becomes Batman to fight crime. The only rails on this ride is his butler Alfred who basically raises him from the time he's eight and Alfred is working MIRACLES here, but there's only so much even he can do. He is absolutely Bruce's father figure, even if they rarely frame it in those terms, because Thomas Wayne (Bruce's father) is such an important figure in their lives and because Alfred is extremely British. - Bruce is Batman for a few years, usually depicted as being super grimdark because he's shut his heart against loving anyone ever again because the pain is too much. But then one night he's at a circus performance and there's a terrible "accident" where a little 9 year old boy (shhhh we ignore any other versions than that he was nine, dammit, it's important for the thematic parallels!) witnesses his world-class aerialists parents falling to their deaths. Dick Grayson's grief and loss spark something in Bruce and he takes on this grieving, angry, brilliant little boy as his ward. Now, not even God can stop Dick Grayson, who is going to get justice for his parents' murder, so eventually Bruce reveals that he's Batman and Dick basically barges his way into creating his sidekick persona, Robin. Bruce is not a fan of this, but seriously. He couldn't have stopped that kid, he tried. He could only put a leash on him. Dick brings light and joy back to Wayne Manor and they have the most fascinating relationship--they're father & son, they're brothers, they're best friends, they understand each other like no one else does, they fight like no one else in that family does, they love each other, they're so angry at each other, they're co-dependent and absolutely batshit about each other, they basically raise each other from the time Dick came to Wayne Manor. - Dick eventually grows up and starts clashing with Bruce more, especially as he gains his independence. Different versions happen differently in different continuities, but eventually it hits a boiling point and either Bruce fires him as Robin or Dick quits because he can't deal with this. He goes off to become Nightwing, while Bruce eventually meets another kid who (in the most common version) tries to steal the Batmobile's tires because he needs the money. Circumstances happen, Bruce eventually ends up adopting Jason Todd, who becomes the next Robin. Things are relatively stable for awhile, until Jason learns about his birth mother and runs off to try to reconnect with her, except the Joker's got his sticky fingers all up in this situation, and it results in Jason dying in the exploding building.

- Bruce is Not Doing Well after this, so in comes our favorite horrible little stalker gremlin Tim Drake, who hunts down Dick Grayson and says, hey, you gotta become Robin again because Batman's going to get himself killed if you don't. Dick is like, no, I fucking do not. Tim responds with, well, guess I gotta do it myself then and basically barges his way into being the next Robin. He bonds with Dick as a brother (who is far and way Tim's favorite, imo), he does his best to be as good of a Robin as he can be. - Things are better after that, they're fairly well into Batfamily territory by this point. Jason comes back and, originally, it was supposed to be a trick, it was a villain pretending to be him, but was later retconned to actually be Jason who came back and... it's complicated. I don't think they really knew what to do with him once he came back, so he kind of ping-pongs around with varying levels of villainy for awhile. - Then we get to the time around Batman R.I.P. where a lot of shit happens all at once, especially for Tim. Bruce dies fighting a Justice League villain, Tim also has his bio-dad die around this time, his relationship with his ex-girlfriend/good friend is kind of going to shit, the boy he's in love with (not canon at the time, but current day storylines basically confirm it was true) also died and it wrecked Tim, like he lost his MIND over Conner Kent's death, there's this annoying little shit Damian Wayne who has showed up as the bio-son of Bruce, and then suddenly Bruce also dies. And Dick has to become Batman because Gotham needs Batman and he's in mourning and dealing with Jason being back and everything OFF THE RAILS as various people are like, "No, I'M going to be Batman now!" and Dick has to shut all that shit down and take up the mantle himself despite that he doesn't want it AND deal with Damian being an emotionally traumatized 11 year old baby assassin who has been abused into being a killer his entire life (I mean, it's comics, don't take it too seriously) and he needs something to hold onto or he's going to leave and go back to killing, so Dick and Alfred give the Robin mantle to Damian, which pisses Tim off because he's not doing well and sees it as a betrayal (while Dick was asking for his help as an ally, that he was ready to graduate to being more than just Batman's sidekick) because he's lost so much. - So we have Dick & Damian as Batman & Robin (THIS ERA WAS SO GOOD), Tim as Red Robin (fandom way overplays Tim and Dick's tension, they come back together after their dramatic few months), and eventually they find Bruce who was lost in the time stream (don't ask) and then, WHAM, Nu52 happens. But basically, that's the Robins timeline. I'm skipping over Steph's turn as Robin because it was so short and it was clearly set up just to knock her down, as well as not touching on Cass much because this is long enough as it is and I'm trying to circle back to focusing on Jason-friendly stuff.

WHERE TO START: Ask a dozen different people where to start and you'll get a dozen different answers! I think starting anywhere is fine and it's going to depend on what you like--for example, I'm personally not that into the animated DC movies (not enough of my Blorbo) but "Batman: Under the Red Hood" is generally very well-regarded as an updated version of Jason's return and is nicely self-contained if you want to watch it without much other context. I also think watching the Justice League animated series from 2001 is fantastic if you want a funny, charismatic, streamlined adaptation of what the Justice League is like. (Batman: The Animated Series was groundbreaking at the time and a really good adaptation, but very dated by this point in time, so I hesitate to recommend it too much, even though it's beloved to me.) The Wayne Family Adventures is an absolutely adorable, delightful webtoon adaptation that is very light-hearted compared to the mainline comics! I like recommending it to new fans because I think it's super easy to start reading without too much extraneous context and gives you an idea of the characters' relationships to each other, so long as you understand that it is EXTREMELY soft and is much in the vein of LEGO Batman content--you're not supposed to take it super seriously, there are times it's deliberately crossing into something like parody territory, but that doesn't mean it's not genuinely funny, charming, and a great read. @fantastic-nonsense has an incredibly thorough list of recommendations for comics by character here, and you can scroll down to the Jason Todd section and start reading there! Or you can check out the "A STARTING POINT: BATMAN IN OTHER MEDIA" section because I pretty much 100% agree with everything she says about the various adaptations. I like recommending "Young Justice" as an introduction to DC, so long as you understand that it's a loose adaptation and that the team compositions and various relationships are not always going to be accurate to comics dynamics. I have my own comics recs tag, but I'm more Dick-focused, so your mileage is going to vary on how useful you might find my recs! But basically, you can't go wrong with starting with "A Death in the Family", then "Under the Red Hood" (movie then comics) and "Red Hood: The Lost Days". Basically, anything by Judd Winick has a good chance of being a solid read for him. It's hard to recommend Jason comics, because so many of them are either not great or require knowledge of the events that are going on around the same time--but, honestly, once you're familiar with the set-up, I do think you can pick up almost any trade and pick up context along the way. I personally also loved "Robins: Being Robin" series, because all five of the Robins working to solve a case together and being unhinged weirdos at each other is my jam. (But I like pretty much anything Tim Seely writes!) I also always recommend the 2016 Nightwing series because Dick is my Blorbo, but I also think "Robin & Batman" by Jeff Lemire is a fantastic story to understand who baby Dick Grayson is and his relationship with Bruce, and both "The Long Halloween" and "Dark Victory" are some of the best Batman comics I've ever read, but they can be tough to get through if you don't like Tim Sale's very stylized art.

WHERE TO FIND THESE THINGS TO READ? The movies and animated series should be on HBOMax and/or Netflix, and comics I always recommend hitting up your library to see what they have--so many libraries have a ton of comics available, especially digitally! And, if you have a library card, it's very possible that your library partners with Hoopla, where they have a ton of Batman comics! You can also check out DC Universe, which has almost all DC comics if you get a subscription.

TL;DR: If you want bigger context on how all this stuff works, start with either "Justice League" or "Young Justice", they're really cute, fun adaptations. If you want to get straight to the Jason stuff, start with "A Death in the Family" --> "Under the Red Hood" --> "Red Hood: The Lost Days" --> "Batman: Urban Legends vol. 1". (And, yeah, you have the right impression of Talia! She often gets written as a villain, but she's also often a lot more complex than that, it really depends on who you get to write her. The corner of fandom I hang out in is generally more generous to her, but some of the actual comics can be kind of rough. But she's complex and has a lot of sharp edges, so, you know, I love her, too. 😂)

[intimidating-fettuccine]

here's a question that has probably been asked before: how did you come up with you rewrites for the characters? all of the backstories you gave them are really interesting and, while I haven't read the originals in a long time, I think I like what you did more. I found your work only in the past couple days, but I like it a lot; your versions of the creeps feel the most like real people that I've found since my interest in them reignited. but yeah, love your work.

(also, I may show back up in your ask box, so may I be "embroidery anon"?)

Firstly, thank you very much!! I tried really hard to make them much more realistic/three dimensional instead of just “oohhh I like to kill people!!” Ya know? I’m glad that people like you over time have liked that aspect of them :)) Prepare for some rambling though-

As for coming up for their specific backstories, that’s a little hard to answer I think just because of how long it’s been since I started doing that. I’ve been into the creeps since I was 11 and I’m turning 23 in a couple weeks so, it’s been a long ride. The creeps grew up alongside me and I think for some of them their stories just sort of evolved in my mind over the years. I mean I’ve literally been in the fandom for longer than several creeps like Toby, Pup, Helen, etc.

The basics are just I’d look at the original story for most of them, decide what I think I could keep, and what I’d like to change. For a creep like Toby, I wanted him to still have a good relationship with his mom and sister, and I still wanted his sister to die, but for Natalie I made her brother an ally to her and someone she loves and trusts instead of one of the bad guys. But I mostly wanted to make the writing darker and more in depth, I wanted them to be darker and more realistic as people.

I also wanted different backgrounds for them, like Toby/Helen/Natalie coming from very rich and influential families, EJ in my canon growing up in a cult, Jason and LJ both being toys instead of just LJ, things like that.

The thing about rewriting them I think is that most of the OG stories are not… The best written stories ever? Most of them were written by preteens/teens and not the most realistic pieces of media. Like in Jeff’s, being burned by fire made his hair turn black and his skin turn white, which is not really how fire and burns work?? And then he went on to burn off his eyelids which also not a great idea? I’ve actually had people get upset that my Jeff has eyelids but like if he didn’t he would be completely blind and in literal agony because his eyes would be completely dried out. That’s not a great design imo, but it was also written by a child so like, that’s why.

Most of my designs just sort of pop into my head randomly though. I get an idea like for BEN I wanted him to be close to his mom, but I didn’t want her to still be living so I went okay, how do I expand on that? And that’s how I came up with my version of his story, with his mom dying young from illness and his father being abusive and resentful.

I wish I had a better way of explaining it but that’s just sort of my general thought process. I started to look at them more as individual characters/OCs instead of just the original lore, which I mean most blogs for the creeps these days have their own lore too. I don’t think my creeps are the best ones ever (except in my heart), but I also had a lot of fun writing them and coming up with their backgrounds. I got influenced a lot by songs and media and they just gradually came into fruition :) I’m glad they were good enough to reignite your interest.

(And also yes, you may take that anon name ^^)

[spopsalt]

Found these on Pinterest. Thought I’d drop em by you and share my thoughts.

Idk what they’re trying to say. But I don’t like looking at it, so moving on.

Idk much about Bubbline since I’m not that far I to the show. But something tells me it’s not remotely the same. All I know is that PB was super racist and called Marcy ‘monster trash’ the second before Marcy broke up. Might’ve actually been the reason why Marcy dumped her. Idk.

Hey now. Don’t do that.😃 Also, Romeo and Juliet is a CAUTIONARY tale, so… Unless this person is acknowledging C//A would be some mutually self destructive shit, this person is implying quite a few things, all objectively wrong. But I don’t have time to unpack all that now. Also I say mutually, not that Adora is abusive, but that Catra’s weird complex would assure her very proximity to Adora would make her feel inferior, meaning she’d be hurt in some way too. Not Adora’s fault, but still.

Kids. Literal kids. Like look, I’m fine with media explaining that teens can sexual, since it reflects reality and a lot of teens irl ARE sexually active or at least exploring their sexuality. I mean, I wasn’t an active teen, but again, I explored my own sexuality. So that’s fine I guess. But there’s a difference between reflecting the reality of teen sexuality and actively sexualizing underage characters. It’s about framing. And THIS is being framed in a creepy way. Not in a ‘let’s face it, it happens, it’s puberty, it’s normal’ sort of way, but they do it as a ‘look how hot this is! Lol’ way. And I don’t like that. It’s creepy, and low key a bit belittling.

Okay… Entrapta is like 10-15 years older than Adora. So maybe don’t draw her like this since that’d make her a pedophile/ephebophile which I hate for a number of reasons. Also, Adora is a lesbian in this version, so idk why Bow and Sea Hawk are there. So… yeah. Literally half of them shouldn’t be here.

Hi! First off, please censor the names of the posters of the tweets. Just want to make sure nobody harasses them, ok! Time to dissect them!

Ew, thanks for showing me Adora's scars that she got from her future girlfriend!

Bubbline is so much healthier than c//a!? It's sad how people will compare any wlw ship to c//a. Also, STOP ROMANTICIZING THE PRINCESS PROM DANCE!

Ew, reminder Romeo was much older than Juliet, and Juliet was still a minor, honestly the way it's a toxic ship that was romanticized reminds me of c//a.

Again, CHILDREN. LITERAL CHILDREN! And Adora didn't even want to have this dance in the first place?? Catra literally forced her into it, then dipped her SO LOW that she couldn't support herself, so she had to put her leg there, STOP SEXUALIZING TEENS!

EWWWW! Again, Adora is a lesbian, so Bow shouldn't be there, Sea Hawk looks like a literal adult even though he said to be a teen, Glimmer and Mermista are the only ones who have shown interest in Adora out of these, Glimmer has good chemistry with her, Mermista has blushed at her a handful of times and ENTRAPTA IS LITERAL 30!

[thebwarch]

Everybody’s talked about Velma to death and had all their takes but I wanted to get one thought out that’s eating me alive before it completely passes from pop conscience.

This show creates so much contrast within itself so as to create a non-audience that it’s kind of incredible.

And it goes way deeper than people really think if you’ve only watched the takes from afar and seen a couple clips. Anything that this show or ANY show could possibly excel at it spoils for itself on a completely rapid pace and there is almost ZERO way to approach the show from any direction and enjoy it.

Layer 1 is it’s a Scooby spinoff, family friendly franchise, funny moments and charming characters, now it’s an adult show with cursing and gore and completely unlikable characters.

BUT THEN, say you’re here for the adult moments and gore and cursing. You are not going to be down for how juvenile and silly this show gets at the same time.

So then you have this weird mix of rightism and leftism where the show has race-swapped characters who say politically incorrect things, idiots against race swapping characters will hate it and lefties will hate the actual ideology and “jokes” on tap.

So say you don’t care about Scooby Doo and you’re approaching the show as an adult mystery show, the actual mystery and plot progression is painful, especially in the first week the show came out where there were only two episodes *and the plot had literally not progressed in the slightest and zero actual worthy clues have been found, only a red herring*

Say that you’re a fan of well-done animation, this isn’t that, the show does the bare minimum a majority of the time with maybe five seconds of sakuga if that per episode. But it’s also not atrociously bad to just show up to laugh at it, it’s boring in its terrible presentation.

The show ruins its serious moments with its “funny” moments, and ruins its “funny” moments with serious moments. If you’re here for a down-to-earth mystery, Velma assaults Daph with zero repercussion in the first 5 minutes of the show and main characters slice off background character limbs with zero repercussion. So you’re completely uninvested in taking the mystery or story seriously, and the comedy in and of itself does not work. I laughed a FEW times in the first two episodes. I actually enjoyed hearing about Velma’s mom going missing and her search for her, before the show ruined a touching scene seconds later.

I don’t even know if the show was made this way accidentally or on purpose for rage bait and I barely care about that aspect at this point, a behind the scenes feature completely going over production would be interesting but we are so not getting that in the detail I’d like. People have a pet theory the show was an original show before being slapped with Scooby Doo paint and like, no, if this show didn’t have the Scooby property it would not be better and it would not save it. It doesn’t HELP it to have the Scooby paint, but even REMOVING that element I would not like this show in a vacuum.

This show has TALENT behind it, the people behind it worked on Bojack Horseman and The Office, I’ve watched neither but people like those things in *droves*. It’s *bizarre* to put something together with such contrasting goals and non-audience with the pedigree of the people involved. It feels so accidental because in the leadup to this it REALLY FELT like the people making this show *cared* about it.

Some people say this show is bad because it doesn’t have Scooby and it’s a spin-off without the titular character. *Motherfucker what*. It’s not bad because it’s a spin-off it’s bad because it’s bad. It flies in the face of tons of other spinoffs that I’M SURE THESE SAME PEOPLE ADORE. Teen Titans, every piece of Robin media in general, Better Call Saul, Legend of Korra, Luigi’s Mansion, the list can go on and on. A Velma spinoff focusing on her character and doing a mature mystery twist on the formula sounds amazing on paper, it’s just the execution that fumbles.

There’s this bit at the beginning of episode 1 that’s really emblematic of everything. They have some BG charas taking a group shower at high school and talking about how much they hate sexualized TV, and then one pipes up to say that they like it and sex absolutely sells and everyone else is secretly a pervert. In this censored privates shower scene. It MIGHT work as meta commentary, if these weren’t minors in highschool. Like no, this is not the sex that sells, your designs and art are god awful, I am not going to get turned on at these actual fucking teenagers. It’s really bizarre and awful that you made an adult show with adult concepts surrounding these actual teenagers in actual highschool.

Fred’s becoming one of the most beloved characters in animation history, his last few outtings have made him an adorkable himbo that people adore. And then in this he’s a spoiled rich pathetic white boy, which mind you, I would LOVE to bash on that archetype if it wasn’t goddamn Fred. I LIVE to hate on the rich and pampered with my absolute abysmal bank account. But when you make it THIS character with THIS history, people are OF COURSE going to be sore and going to miss old characterization.

MAYBE IT IS PURPOSEFULLY DONE RAGE BAIT AFTER ALL...

The best thing anyone can do is not talk about it (I have failed) and let it pass, but it’s not as if not talking about it will stop it because it’s already been renewed for a second season. Make it a meme that HBO Max holds terrible shows and renews terrible shows, “HBO Max, home of Velma, the worst show on streaming”

Anyway go watch Puss in Boots Last Wish!

[ladamedusoif]

Books (Professor!Ben x OFC Lydia)

A Merry Fic-Mas - December 14

Part of A Merry Fic-Mas: A Holiday Fic Calendar - click for masterlist.

Follow @ladameecrit for my writing updates!

Pairing: Professor!Ben x OFC!Lydia (part of the Visiting universe)

Word count: 848

Warnings: Language, angst, pining

Rating: Teen

Summary: What’s the harm of imagining an alternative future, when you’re lonely this Christmas?

This Fic-Mas story can be read as an add-on/deleted scene to Chapter 8 of Visiting, 'Sister Winter'.

Iceland has this thing called Jolabokaflod - literally, “book flood”. It can mean the rush of new books published for Christmas gifts, or it can mean the tradition associated with them. 

Put simply, the idea is that on Christmas Eve, you exchange books with your nearest and dearest. And then everyone snuggles up in bed, armed with hot chocolate and candy, and reads their new book. 

It sounds like heaven. 

The book flood tradition pops into your mind as you place a neatly-wrapped selection of books under the tree at your parents’ house on Christmas Eve. And with it, a pang, and another thought. 

Ben would love that. 

“Fuck,” you mutter to yourself, trying to fend off the thoughts of him. “I think it’s time for bed.”

You creep up the stairs, last one to turn in for the night, and nestle in with your hot water bottle. 

You wish he was keeping you warm, girl. 

“Fuck.”

Sleep doesn’t come easy. And you begin to imagine, to let yourself daydream (if one can call it that) about an alternative reality, an alternative future, if only for the night. 

It is Christmas, after all. It’s canonically a time for what might have beens, for counter-factuals. What was A Christmas Carol, if not that? And - even more obviously - what of It’s A Wonderful Life?

Alright, you think, maybe it’s not quite the same. Clarence the Angel had to show George Bailey how much better he made the world, and how wonderful his life actually was. And Dickens showed Scrooge terrible things, to help him change - a far cry from the cosy scene you were about to conjure up. 

Still, the point stands. What if things were different? What if things could be different? 

You close your eyes and let your mind wander, telling yourself it’s just idle fantasy. It’s not hurting anyone. Right?

So indulge. Find comfort in thinking about how it might be, could have been. Imagine the comfort of books, of warmth, of him.

You had thought for a long time about the book for Ben. Eventually, you settled on a personal favourite, one that reflected your personality, your interests, yourself: The Belly of Paris, by Émile Zola. You knew he hadn’t read it - “just Thérèse Raquin and Germinal”, he’d told you as you raved about Zola’s books - and you wanted to see what he thought. 

The edition is a recent translation, a handsome paperback, and you wrap it up in brown paper and add a length of dark red ribbon, placing it under the tree to await Christmas Eve. 

The next day, it’s joined by a matching book-shaped gift: this time wrapped in dark green paper, your name written in his distinctive handwriting on an old-fashioned gift tag. 

Christmas Eve is idyllic: mulled wine, old movies, talking and preparing food for the next day’s meal as the snow falls softly outside. By about 8 that evening, you’re settled cosily on the couch and your eyes land on the little packages. 

“Time for book flood, I think.”

Ben smiles as you reach under the tree and retrieve the gifts. “You want to open them here?”

“I’d rather do it in bed, baby. C’mon, grab some hot chocolate.” 

He follows you upstairs to bed, making you giggle as he purrs in your ear: “Gonna make you read soooooo much, Lyd. We’re gonna read so hard.”

You wiggle your eyebrows at him as you join in the suggestive jokes, pulling him close to you. “Well, you know I can keep reading for hours, Benjamin.”

You can. And you do. 

Ben’s book gift to you is a gorgeous vintage copy of Love in the Time of Cholera, which you clutch to your chest in delight. He opens his parcel carefully, a wide smile spreading across his face as he recognises the title. 

“Émile. Of course.”

And now it’s just the two of you, side by side in bed, the only sounds the occasional crackle from the tall candles you’d lit in the bedroom, one or both of you sipping your hot cocoa, and the turning of the pages. 

Without lifting his eyes from Zola, Ben’s left hand finds your right, and holds it: safe, secure. Your thumb traces over his tattoo, making him hum quietly with pleasure. 

“Imagine if we hadn’t figured things out”, you muse, eyes still fixed on Garcia Marquez. 

Ben turns and looks at you, eyes warm and expression most serious. “Not figuring things out was never an option.”

When you wake in the grey light of Christmas morning, it takes a moment for you to remember.

The pain hits you all over again. The fantasy - simplistic and all as it might have been - had been too convincing, and facing reality feels even harder. 

You can hear your family already waking and pottering about the house, little nieces stampeding out of the spare room they’re sharing with your sister and brother-in-law for the holidays. 

Craving the warmth of a familiar hand on yours, you turn over and cry into the pillow. 

[ofxendless]

*literally screams from the rooftops* PLEASE RP WITH ME XOXOX

Tags: FC's • Opposites • Plots

Hi! You can call me C, I go by she/her, and below is some info about me!

*warning: it’s long.

fair to ask yourself: is she really worth it?

To that, I say: nah probably not*

• I’m 25 and I will only interact with those over 21.

• My tumblr will seemingly always and forever screw me over and not show me messages properly, so please feel free to head straight to my discord at cee98x

• I’ve been roleplaying since what feels like forever. I started super young one summer before school started up, and I’ve been on-and-off ever since. I began in roleplay groups roleplaying Harry Potter, then got really into The Vampire Diaries-verse, and have also enjoyed Percy Jackson, supernatural town, royal rpgs, and a bunch I’ve popped into over the years.

• I do come from a land down under *cue the flute*. So AEST timezone, but my schedule is alll over a lot of the time.

• I’m looking to rp over discord. Fair warning, I am still getting the hang of rping on there and I have no idea how to do real fancy stuff but I’m a quick learner so we’ll be fine. I still feel like it was yesterday when I dragged my feet big time transferring from roleplaying on facebook to tumblr. Ah, time flies.

• I’m a very easy going person! Your length, I’ll match. Your ideas? I’ll pretty much lap up everything. Hate fandom rp? Cool not an issue at all! Hate oc rps and prefer fandom? Wicked! If I don’t know the lore well, I’ll wing it! Struggling to get a reply out? No stress! I’m well passed putting so much pressure onto things that they feel like a chore. I’d love to chat about our ships and discuss fc’s and get excited and really have some fun!

• I play mostly female muses! I know, I’m so terribly cliche, but I am pretty meh with male muses. Although, it’s been a long time since I’ve given it a go and I’m always happy to compromise! Very much wanting sapphic plots too!!

• I’m open to smut and most ideas! Don’t like super dark kinks or anything too out there but, again, always willing to try new things within reason! Plot and smut should be balanced. I also have no triggers.

• Some fandoms I’d be interested to rp if that was your jam would include The Vampire Diaries, Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, True Blood, Teen Wolf, The Umbrella Academy, Bridgerton, The Sandman, Doctor Who, and I’m sureee there’s more I am forgetting. This also includes creating OC’s set in any of these universes.

• Some themes I’d loveee to explore include supernatural/fantasy/paranormal, enemies to lovers, best friends to lovers, boss/employee or professor/student, soul mate/ride or die/meant to be, fwb, ewb, age gap (legal!), horror, crime, mystery, and soo much more honestly

• Face claims I’d die to use include Renee Rapp, Emily Bader, Maia Reficco, Madison Iseman, Anya Taylor Joy, Camila Mendes, Elisha Applebaum, Hannah Dodd, Sadie Soverall, Adelaide Kane, Anya Chalotra, Simone Ashley, Josephine Langford, Danielle Rose Russell, Abigail Cowen, Conor Leslie and Zaria Simone

• Fave opposites include all of the above and more, Matthew Daddario, Noah Centineo, Robbie Amell, Henry Cavill, Rege-Jean Page, Aria Shaghasemi, Ross Butler, Jacob Elordi, Glen Powell

I WOULD RISK IT ALL FOR THESE PLOTS:

1) Based on a fave book series of mine, but honestly does not need to have any relation to it and can be adapted to any ideas. Basically, girl runs away from home in her mid teens, meets guy around her age who takes her in with him and his guardian who have some secrets, turns out they’re *some type of supernatural creature idk can be whatever we like*. Turns out she has some illness that he can’t cure alone and he has to agree to hand her over to his enemies so that they can cure her, but it also will wipe her memories and she will forget her life before. Fast forward a few years, he’s never stopped protecting her but he’s never gotten close because he can’t bear it. She just happens to go with her friends to the club he now owns. Drama ensues.

2) ““oh, can we take it nice && slow?” two strangers who meet every weekend at a club. nothing but first names are shared. they use each other to relieve the stress of their weeks. hot && heavy dancing. making out on the dance floor. on occasion hookups in the corner of the club. but the moment they leave the club, it’s as if they don’t exist. their chemistry is electric, but there unspoken complications in their lives that they just understand. it isn’t until a new monday comes around && she walks into the office to meet her new boss. oh, shit. her weekend hook up is her new boss. she assumes he’s married with the ring on his finger, she has no idea he’s widowed && he has no idea that she has a child at home”

3) “OR hey what about a historical plot where Muse A and Muse B are both next in line to the throne of their neighbouring countries that once used to be one nation. There’s been a push for many years to unite the kingdoms once more, and many want Muse A and Muse B to marry in order for it to happen. But, Muse A and Muse B absolutely hate each other, and can’t stand the idea of being around one another. Until, they’re forced into the engagement by their parents, and are made to spend countless hours with one another. Lots of bickering, and tension ensue, as they get closer asdfjkl”

4) “plot where ‘i had a bad break up with my ex of 4 years who cheated on me, and treated me like dirt and wow i just found out i’m pregnant and he’s the father so here comes the emotional breakdown and late night pounding on his front door. But oops you’re not him, you’re his brother and you’re being really kind to me and calming me down, and those kisses on the top of my head are so new to me.’ also referred to as the plot where Muse A is pregnant, her manipulative ex boyfriend is the father, however Muse B aka his brother had always had a thing for Muse A. The night Muse A comes banging on his brothers door while Muse B is staying there for a while, he consoles her and decides to help her through the break up and pregnancy. However feelings get involved, drama, fights, and his older/younger brother isn’t so happy about it. Yes pls”

5) “maybe a plot where muse a and muse b broke up like five years ago and then muse a got a call from muse b’s parents telling him that she got into an accident and had temporary amnesia and only remember the time when they were together so they’re asking him for a favor to go back home?”

6) two muses who hate each other and are constantly competing at everything and everyone thinks they can’t stand each other but oh wait you’re really hot let’s have angry sex oh no wait now i have feelings

7) This, this, this, this, this, and these!

If you made it this far, I salute you friend! If it sounds like we might get on, give this a good ol’ like and I’ll annoy you! Cheers!

[rubywingsracing]

About: RubyWingsRacing

Thought I’d make a little intro page for this blog now that it’s getting more traffic!

Hi! I’m Ruby, I’m 19 and I use she/her pronouns and I’m a second year art student studying painting, I love my friends my pets, my family going to the gym, as well as reading, crocheting and all other forms of craft lol

🧡 This is mainly an F1 blog I’m a loyal McLaren girlie and I love my boys Oscar and Lando, but I’d defend Logan Sargeant with my life, Charles Leclerc is lowkey my twin, and Max Verstappen is babygirl to me and I will take no criticism about him! 🧡

• Not a huge Danny Ric fan, or alpine/alpine drivers fan so do not come at me if I talk a lil shit abt them, I will roast you to the sky if you do, you’ve been warned don’t like it don’t follow me

• Currently trying to get back into fanart both digital and traditional, haven’t really seriously made much since middle school so any support is highly appreciated

Other fandoms:

- OMG Check Please! Nursey/Dex truther till the day I die, pls come scream at me abt them or anything else omgcp related

- ABC 9-1-1, I think abt Bi Buck on a daily basis now

- Supernatural, the only show I can guarantee I will end up with tattoos abt, come cry in my dms with me abt Destiel

- CrossFit!!! I honestly don’t know if there’s any sort of fandom surrounding it here on tumblr but it changed my life and I’d love to talk to anyone who’s interested in it or loves it like I do!

- Teen Wolf/Dylan O’Brien my love for that man runs deep

- Josh Hartnett, if anyone wants to ramble abt him with me I’ll actually lose my shit, I’ve seen almost evey single one of his movies and firmly believe he’s one of the most talented actors of the early 2000s

- probably more but can’t think of any off the top of my head, ig Wings of Fire since I’ll love those books till the day I die

Asks:

- ask me abt my more niche fandoms id love to chat!

- have an F1 fic that you might want fanart for?

- literally anything I’ll yap at you till the day I die

- ideas for f1 aus or any kind of F1 fanart you’d like to see, I’m pretty busy with school rn but I like to doodle a little when I can

Shoutout: @formulanni my irl tumblr bestie and the cool ass bitch who introduced me to the wonderful world of F1!!!

[atmilliways]

Wrong On The Money (52)

part 52 of 55 | 1894 words | Teen+

Blackmail fic on Ao3 | on tumblr

Summary:

It’s been three days since Steve told Robin about the blackmail, and Eddie is a goddamn wreck. 

This is a mean place to leave off, but the next chapter goes up on Monday. In the meantime, enjoy your Friday the 13th. ❤️

52.

It’s been three days since Steve told Robin about the blackmail, and Eddie is a goddamn wreck. 

Spring Break had left him with plenty of physical damage—scars that start on his left cheek and continue down to his thighs, deepest near his middle where he’d almost been eviscerated, and on bad days he still has a trace of a limp. 

There’s non-physical stuff too. Nightmares. He now has first hand experience with going to war against and being eaten alive by literal monsters, after all. And there’s Chrissy. . . . Always Chrissy. Those few but terrifying days had shattered his long-held beliefs in the difference between real life and fiction without any pause to let him pick up the pieces. What a mindfuck.

He still has nightmares, even with Steve in bed beside him; they both do. The comedown is easier together than alone, but it still happens. What surprises Eddie, though, is that his are about familiar things made horrifyingly unfamiliar. Running from the cops or angry jocks, for example, now supercharged with the cops pumping him full of lead and the jocks pummeling him to death, or coming at him with knives and stabbing out his entrails. Yeah, the bats and the blood and the fucking vines everywhere are in the mix too, but they’re horror movie props. They’re the spectators, the window dressing, even though every bullet or blow or knife feels like it has teeth.

Everything from Spring Break happened so fast, is the thing—even though the essence of it all is seared into his brain, his dreams never get the details quite right. All that Upside Down shit feels less real in the light of day, and like maybe he went crazy and imagined all of it. Sometimes the only way to make sure is to ask Steve, or Dustin, or any of his new monster hunting friends.

Worst by far, somehow, are the nightmares where those friends, the only people in this shitty town who had been right there in the trenches with him when public opinion screamed for his head on a pike, just . . . lose interest in him. Where they lose touch, slip through his fingers, and all he’s got to show from knowing them is a mangled torso and a tendency to jump at shadows. 

Lately, he’s been dreaming that Robin, the first fellow queer friend he’d knowingly made in this hellhole town, is the first to turn away from him, and he can’t even blame her.

“She’s making me sweat it out on purpose,” he groans, face-down on the floor in Jeff’s temporary room at his aunt’s house. It smells like dust and old cigarettes down there, but he figures it’s what he deserves. 

“Dude, you blackmailed her best friend,” Jeff points out. Unhelpfully, in Eddie’s opinion. “Not very well, but still. If someone pulled that shit on you I’d be out there slashing tires and egging their house.”

“You’re such a comfort,” Eddie mutters into the carpet. “I’m so glad I come to you with my problems.”

He can practically hear Jeff rolling his eyes. “Yeah, I am. She might be messing with you, but at least she’s not fucking with any of your shit. I know you consider the silent treatment to be the most hideous form of torture—”

Face still hidden, Eddie winces. Because Jeff’s not wrong, but Steve and Robin have been actually tortured for information by evil Russians and he’s a total wimp in comparison. 

“—But it could be a lot worse.”

It could be. He knows that. And Steve keeps assuring him that everything’s fine, that he talked it out with Robin and she’s calmed down by now. Eddie nods along but keeps gnawing his nails down to the quick anyway, because that’s with Steve. She’s fine with Steve, calm with Steve, and still her schedule has casually omitted running into Eddie in any way. As far as he’s concerned speaks for itself.

And it doesn’t help when he tells Jeff about telling Steve about telling Jeff—which, okay, fine, it sounds stupid when put like that—his best friend had rolled his eyes and said, “Really Ed? You only just now thought to mention it?”

One more thing for Robin to rip his head off over. And Steve probably won’t pick him over her, which makes Eddie want to crumble to dust. 

Well. He doesn’t think Steve should pick him over Robin. The actual ‘he picks me, he picks me not’ shit is something his guesses seesaw back and forth on all the time. 

The world hadn't stopped for the apocalypse, let alone Eddie nearly dying or Eddie freaking out. Thatcher Tire doesn’t want him back after the murder charges and the government payout won’t last forever, so he’s spent the entire day going from storefront to storefront in what passes for downtown Hawkins.

He knows that Steve is working at Family Video today, because he’d pried himself out of bed and Eddie’s starfish grip that morning for that very reason. He also knows that Robin isn’t on the schedule today, because he’s thought to ask before dozing back off for a few hours. So he feels no hesitation before sailing into the video rental store from the deserted parking lot and announcing with a flourish, “You are looking at Melvald’s newest stock boy, courtesy of one benevolent Joyce Byers!”

It comes out as a weird mix of triumphant and resigned, falling flat in the still air of Family Video. Because yeah, he has a job, but it came at the heels of a series of rejections and feels like a pity offer. Does it count as nepotism if it comes from the matriarch of their weird little unofficial monster-hunting family?

When his declaration goes unanswered, Eddie takes a moment to really take in his surroundings. He’d expected no one else to be in the store, and there isn’t; but it isn’t Steve behind the counter.

It’s Robin. 

The door has already closed behind him, cutting off the easiest escape route. He could open it again, but that would be going out of his way to run from danger, something he’s promised himself he won’t do anymore. And . . . Steve had sworn up and down to him that everything’s fine. 

The deliberately blank look on Robin’s face suggests that Steve was incorrect.

Eddie moves forward by sheer force of momentum, jamming his hands in his jeans pockets and clearing his throat. “Uh, hi.”

“Hello,” Robin replies, in a tone that implies that the rest of that sentence is ‘and welcome to Family Video, where the theater comes to your living room,’** or whatever corporate bullshit she and Steve might technically be required to say but never actually do. Eddie’s heard her customer service voice before, but never directed at him. He almost trips over his own feet hearing it now. 

“So. . . .” Eddie usually prides himself on knowing what to say, or at least being able to vamp for time and posture a lot until he figures it out. To have it happen with someone he knows well is absolutely excruciating. 

A tiny part of him worries that Steve had set him up for this, faked having work today or something to force this meeting and get it over with. But Steve wouldn’t do that.

Right?

“Is Steve around?” he asks finally, aware that the silence has been dragging and Robin, unusually, is making no attempt to put it out of its misery.

She narrows her eyes and jerks a thumb over one shoulder towards the door marked Employees Only. 

So, okay, Steve is probably on break and Eddie had just misremembered Robin’s schedule. That’s fine. That’s something, anyway. He can work with something. 

With a vague salute that he hopes to god comes across as inoffensive and casual, Eddie beelines for the break room. He’ll feel a little better with Steve at his back, or at least after he gets a chance to hiss “I told you so” and work some of the panicking out of his system.

The break room, however, is empty save for a flimsy card table, some shitty folding chairs, and a couch that's definitely seen better days. Eddie looks around, dumbfounded, and even ducks into the adjoining manager’s office to double check that Steve isn’t holed up in there for some reason. He hears the break room door swing open and shut again and darts out hopefully, but—

It’s Robin again. “Steve felt a migraine coming on a couple hours into his shift and called me to fill in for him,” she announces. “I just flipped the sign to closed. We, Eddie Munson, are going to have a talk.”

-

** I read the "Welcome to Family Video, where the theater comes tyo your living room" line in Cut and Changed and Rearranged by AidaRonan and could not get it out of my head, so it crept in here. And then I had to dig around until I found the fic it was from, because my memory for titles is like Swiss cheese. Anyway, great fic, highly recommend!

[booksandpaperss]

elli booksandpaperss hello fellow sex education enjoyer. do you have any favorite character or characters in that show. i am very interested to hear your thoughts

I would like to start this out by saying this ask out of context would be hilarious to someone who didn’t know you were referring to a TV show while reading the first sentence kdjjsbs

but hiiiii omg thank u for this ask I literally love that show so much omfg it is rlly does cover a lot of different sexual experiences for teenagers (both queer and otherwise) and it is so genuine with its characters (and btw quite honestly its what a lot of people think heartstopper is in terms of queer rep and more soooooo)

its hard to say I have a favorite character because all of the major teen characters have found a place in my heart in their own way because every single one of them is so well written but! if I had to be forced to pick one favorite character I think it would be Eric. I adore his storyline in every season but I think the reason I would say he’s my favorite is because of season 3, I love the way he gets to explore his queerness in the context of his culture and I liked seeing how it impacted his relationship with Adam bc it showed that those two were having two very different queer experiences and how that was okay, and it was beautiful how going to Nigeria helped Eric figure out how he wanted to be his most authentic self. I also really loved how it put Eric’s black queerness specifically front and center for the season because rarely do you ever have shows that actually acknowledge that the POC queer experience can be different from the white queer experience, much less show it so beautifully and honestly. whiteness as a political concept and queerness aren’t compatible so it’s extremely ironic that most queer shows never really bother to show that. I also just really adore Eric as a character, the way he interacts with the other characters and with himself makes the general storyline so much richer, and I love his friendship with Otis almost as much as I love Maeve and Aimee’s friendship <3

other than Eric I can’t exactly say I have any other one fave but my other top characters if I had to pick would probably to Ola, Lily, and Maeve. I’m literally in love with Maeve, and Ola and Lily individually are great characters, plus I love their relationship (also they’re a great example of how to have a wlw couple that while isnt really the primary romance of the show still gets a storyline that actually gets attention outside of when it’s only convenient for the mlm and het couples yes heartstopper I’m looking at you I’m still pissed abt how Tara and Darcy literally felt like props to taoelle and nick and Charlie, ola and Lily have their own dynamic as well as their own development and issues and they never felt like props to Eric and Adam or Otis and Maeve)

and ofc an honorable mention goes to my girl Ruby, to me she was part of why season 3 was so good (can u tell season 3 is my favorite season lol). but SEE WHAT I MEAN I can’t rlly pick one character cuz I love them all since they’re all just so well written like in terms of character writing I’d say it’s easily one of the best Netflix shows

anyways feel free to ask me abt sex education anytime I love that show SO much and bee I hope u don’t mind that I used ur ask as an excuse to write an mini essay lol

[picnokinesis]

Hello! I decided to choose one song from each playlist that I’d like to know more about if it’s not too spoilery :) It took me a while to narrow down which ones I want info on the most haha, these three are ones I have less specific speculation about.

July Bones from the main playlist

Delilah from the teen playlist

The Funeral from the anterograde playlist

Thanks!!!! :D

HELLO!! This is lowkey so funny, because of all the songs on the teenage Koschei playlist, Delilah was precisely the one I was hoping someone would ask me about - but on the other hand, I had to stand and stare at The Funeral and July Bones for a long moment because for a while I just COMPLETELY FORGOT that I'd even put them on there, let alone why. However, you'll be pleased to know that I've now figured it out hahha

I know this is gonna get long, so under the cut she goes, but if anyone wants links to the playlists in this ask, they're right here!

The Campervan AU playlist

The Teenage Campervan Koschei playlist

The Anterograde AU playlist

July Bones by Richard Walters is a song that I actually found whilst building a playlist for one of my original script projects, and so I primarily associate it with my oc, Jules. However, I actually realised that it was only the vibes that worked for Jules, and that the lyrics weren't relevant to her at all. But campervan au...now that's interesting. As with many of the songs on every playlist I make, but especially campervan au playlists, not every line is necessarily relevant or taken literally. The same is true for some of this one. That said, the opening line hits the nail on the head:

In July, in July, in July I burned all your things And they glow, and they glow, and they glow and the fire still sings

For me, this song is really about the Doctor and Koschei's childhood, and the immediate aftermath of The Thing That Happened on 13/06/1999. Pre-amnesia, the Doctor had a habit of burning her things when she wants to cut ties and make a new start on life. This is my poor man's version of regeneration in a human au. Of course, we also know that the Doctor burnt the curtains at Gallifrey Road, which is what led to her being put into temporary respite care and ending up being fostered by Brax's family. I think in this case, the 'burning' was a lot to do with the fact that, after what happened, Koschei was in prison and the Doctor was basically left alone. And, due to her life in foster care, being passed from one family or group home to another, the only way she's ever learnt to deal with things going awfully wrong is to cut ties, burn bridges, and start completely afresh. With Koschei rubbing off on her, that 'burning bridges' part starts to come rather literal. But no matter what she tries to do, however she tries to remake herself, she still stays the same and makes the same mistakes - and Koschei does too, in his own way. Which works perfectly with this later line of lyrics:

Is it right, is it right, is it right that we can't change? Do we make, do we make, do we make the same mistakes?

The Doctor can't change - she's still defined by everything that happened to her, she's still defined by the things she doesn't remember, the things she tries to forget. She's still defined by Koschei. She tries to burn it all, and it glows and it glows but the fire still sings.

Also, the line 'if only your bones would lie with mine' makes my heart hurt in a very thoschei way, since with regards to the show, I very strongly believe that the Master is mainly motivated by wanting the Doctor to die with him. So, whilst that's not exactly what Koschei wants in campervan au, the vibes are there.

Delilah by The Dresden Dolls is the entire reason I even made a teenage Koschei playlist, and it's so funny to me that you picked it out, because I can just imagine you listening to it, reading the lyrics and going 'what' HAHAH - because, for anyone who doesn't know, this song is pretty specific. The precise scenario described in the lyrics is not accurate to what happens in campervan au at all, but emotionally the song is so perfect for young Koschei. Delilah is sung from the point of view of a young woman, Amanda, who is watching her close friend Delilah (or, as the song writer as confirmed, her own younger self) who keeps getting sucked into abusive relationships. It's quite an angry song of the frustration of watching someone you love dearly being self-destructive and not wanting to be saved, being angry at them and berating them (or yourself) for this, and how much you want to just drag them into a car, get the hell out of the situation and drive into the sunset. It's probably a difficult song for some folks because it's got a lot of victim blaming in it, but it's actually really interesting when you consider that the singer is actually berating her younger self. When I first listened to it, before I knew that, I actually imagined that the singing pov character was in love with her best friend, which added a whole other layer to the thing. You ever been so angry with someone that you love more than anything because they won't let you save them from intentionally walking into things that hurt them?

Koschei has.

I'll have to be careful not to go too much into spoiler territory here. But. In the backstory in campervan au, there is definitely an element of abuse involved with regards to what is going on with John. There is also an element of Koschei trying to save him from that situation, and John refusing to leave. Obviously, it's not so easy to just get up and go, but Koschei is an angry and desperate teenager who is horrifically in love with his best friend, and not necessarily thinking in a way that's nice or kind or understanding or 'right'. He's exactly like Amanda. He's so angry at the situation, but he's also angry at JOHN for not letting him save him. Also, if you remember in the last chapter of part 6, we saw the childhood promise that these two made to each other: that they'd age out together at 18 and would get a van and just drive off so no one could bother them again. So then you've got to imagine Koschei having this fantasy of rescuing John, of John letting him, and the two of them racing off in this van together. That's what the last minute and a half of the song is. This glorious, rising crescendo of this dream of the both of them getting out, the both of them being alive, being okay, being happy - you need a ride, delilah? let's see how fast this thing can go

It's like, SO painfully perfect for Koschei in that emotional moment, and it lowkey makes me want to tear up, just thinking about him envisaging getting John away from it all. The tragedy, of course, is that he never manages it. EXCEPT IN AU5!! Which is the verse were John actually escapes with him and they run away together (they just don't get the van until they're eighteen lol). There's also a line in Delilah that works perfectly for au5, but because of the pronouns, it's actually got a completely different meaning out of context for au5 compared to what it means in the Actual Song, because it becomes about Kosch's violent protectiveness rather than victim-blaming Delilah haha. And it's this line:

And if you take him home You get what you deserve

There's also this line too which works perfectly for Koschei having genderfluid transfemme dysphoria moments:

You might be flat, but you're breathing

The Funeral by Band of Horses is such a classic, and it's funny because I genuinely had to wrack my brains for SO long on this one and why the hell it's on the anterograde playlist, because I made that one such a long time ago now. But then suddenly it hit me, and it's like a kick to the shins.

Really too late to call, so we wait for Morning to wake you, is all we got And to know me as hardly golden Is to know me all wrong, they warn At every occasion, I'll be ready for the funeral At every occasion, once more, it's called the funeral At every occasion, oh, I'm ready for the funeral At every occasion, oh, one billion day funeral

I think the common interpretation of this song is that it's about something that is inevitably going to die - whether that's another person, or a relationship, or whatever - and being constantly braced for that ending to come. This is very reminiscent of how Koschei (and the Doc, to some extent) feels in anterograde. He is constantly waiting for the Doctor's memory to reset - for that small 'death' to occur, and for him to start over again. Every occasion, he knows that the Doctor will not remember anything that she's experiencing by the next day. Every moment will die as a memory she's failed to retain. Every occasion, he's bracing himself for that death. His entire life, from that point on, is a one billion day funeral. And he doesn't know exactly when it'll happen, he just has to wait for morning to wake her and they start all over again. That's all he has.

Also, because it wouldn't be thoschei without a little bit of toxicity:

I'm coming up only to hold you under I'm coming up only to show you wrong

This isn't just them being a bit mutually awful, though. These two both believe things about the other that are incorrect. Koschei, for example, firmly believes that the Doctor would have vanished from him by now if her memory wasn't resetting every day. He also believes that the Doctor will never trust him fully. And, I mean, fundamentally he's not wrong about both of those things - but over time, as they become the only solid rock in each other's lives, the Doctor does change. She doesn't really realise it, but the brain can learn in ways outside of episodic memory, and she learns to feel that he's meant to be there, that she's safe with him (this was a complicated one, but the root of it has always been there) and that she doesn't want to run away any more. It takes a while for both of them to REALISE THIS though, and so they kind of end up just proving each other wrong by existing in each's others space.

Hope this all made sense!! :D