#the dynamic has CHANGED SO MUCH

[stealingpotatoes]

heres a crappy venn (??) diagram explaining the dynamics in the tl4j time travel au bc it's easier than trying to write a full plot

[turtleblogatlast]

Personally what I like best in terms of who’s older between Donnie and Leo is just them never knowing for sure BUT imagine Leo going up to Draxum and saying he’ll never bring up the roof incident again if Draxum tells Donnie that Leo’s the older twin.

[solardriftx]

(click for better quality ><) uuh something something reptiles as a symbol for change. a molting snake prone to striking and a chameleon reflecting the light of its environment

[lorillee]

additionally i think its really funny to imagine the beginning of the 3jima dynamic because well obviously saejima's reputation proceeds him. like daigo is certainly aware of who he is and additionally that he also happens to be majimas sworn brother. and of course daigos been working with majima for the past several years and is well beyond aware that the man is a complete lunatic So you can only really imagine how terrified he is of seeing saejima in action particularly around majima because youve gotta be a real sicko to actually sign up for whatever all his problems are. But then he actually meets him and is so taken aback because hes so normal. hes quite possibly the most normal and well adjusted man daigos ever met in his whole stupid career. and so for a brief and fleeting moment he thinks hes found an oasis a sea of hope in this miserable valley of tears And then saejima and majima start talking and daigo goes "Oh wow ok nevermind you two are the most annoying people on planet earth."

[baalzebufo]

oh yeah... redrew my older pines designs + also gideon is here because I like him and will inflict him on everyone. probably in their early 20s here, I didnt think too hard about the specifics. also some headcanons

dipper started testosterone finally so he's got the classic 'shitty little puberty stache' and also hes breaking out w acne bit. wears a lot of denim on denim. him and wendy swap hats every summer its their tradition. he has a bomber jacket with lots of alien and cryptid patches. sometimes he has kind of a mullet going on

mabel regularly chops all her hair off in the mirror with some scissors whenever the impulse hits so at any given point of her life it can be either waist-length or a buzzcut. she got into making kandi and has a bunch of themed cuffs. rhinestones. sparkles. thats a tamagotchi necklace

gideon has embraced his inner cowboy and got some riding chaps ostensibly because he has a motorcycle now but also because he thinks he looks cool. his bolo tie is a replica of his old cursed variant because fiddling with it is a comfort to him. hes got a custom leather jacket with his star embroidered on the back

hes also so tall because. well honestly my headcanon is he has an insane growth spurt in his teens. have you SEEN bud gleeful? he's huge. hes got Big Dude Genes. also honestly i just think its funny if he goes from being knee-high to 6 feet tall in the space of like, 6 months.

(i was gonna add other characters to this but i got distracted so thats for another time)

[arminthada]

Liar! Why would P'Joe help you? At first, he wasn't going to help me. But he wanted to help my baby

MY STAND-IN (2024) | 1.11

[bumblingbabooshka]

Tuvok Voice: You are her official right hand while I have been making detailed psychological observations about her for the past four years - we are not the same.

[Patreon | Ko-fi]

[sieglinde-freud]

let it be known that i love prince inigo with my whole soul. however sometimes it is SO much fun to think about owain and his two most loyal-est knights you ever seen: worst guy in the world #1 and worst guy in the world #2. i love retainer inigo and severa so much. retainers who bully you and make fun of you and trash on you but they’d leave behind everyone and everything they ever knew to follow you and protect you in a whole new universe. they love you so much that they’d swear allegiance to total strangers but that loyalty pales in comparison to what they’d do for you. and they were all lovers!!!!!!!

[unfortunatelyilikebnha]

Thinking about the KaeyaJeanDiluc friendship where they grew up together and they were CLOSE & sure maybe Jean felt like Diluc & Kaeya were closer since they were brothers & sure maybe Kaeya felt like he had to keep secrets from the two of them bc they would never understand but they were like. A trio! A team!

& then Diluc’s 18th birthday comes around and everything goes to shit and Diluc LEAVES so they’re no longer KaeyaJeanDiluc but just Kaeya & Jean & in some ways Kaeya and Jean get closer because of it but there’s also a pronounced DISTANCE where Jean doesn’t know how to reach Kaeya anymore & Kaeya is even more determined not to tell Jean anything & they both lose themselves in their duties to Mondstadt while also missing Diluc and ALSO, despite everything, offering each other unconditional support

& then Diluc comes BACK & in addition to Kaeya & Jean there’s the shaky reestablishment of Jean & Diluc and Diluc & Kaeya but it’s not THE SAME. they’re no longer KaeyaJeanDiluc; Jean & Kaeya are knights and Diluc will never be a knight again & they all changed while Diluc was away & none of them know how to talk to each other anymore AND YET there’s still an undercurrent of trust!! Not fully, especially between Kaeya & Diluc, but Diluc still calls on Jean during the archon quest, trusting that she will keep their secrets even though as the acting grandmaster she should probably not. Jean says in her about Diluc voiceline that she understands why Diluc hates the knights & is working hard to make them an organization he can trust again. Kaeya covers for Diluc’s darknight hero escapades & fondly reminisces about their childhood in front of him. Diluc invited Kaeya to dinner at the winery & (afaik) never told anyone about Kaeya’s origins. Kaeya tells the traveler that they need to give Jean their full support and planned a birthday party for her. Jean left Kaeya in charge of Mondstadt when she went to the golden apple archipelago! On some level they recognize that their goals still align!! There’s still trust and love there but there’s also this gap between them that none of them know how to cross and I just!!!

[seagreenstardust]

Anyone still calling late game Katsuki an abuser in 2024 is just not paying attention. Full stop.

[robinson-graves]

[sits up suddenly from my coffin] anybody fuck with my super danganronpa 2 x guy who didnt like musicals au

[game-on-comics]

Hi Sakura! I know this is kinda random. I was wondering, who is one of your baseball teammates that you enjoy hangout with?

Art: Kaho ; Speech bubbles: Caro

[thedeadthree]

𝐃𝐑𝐀𝐆𝐎𝐍 𝐀𝐆𝐄: 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐕𝐄𝐈𝐋𝐆𝐔𝐀𝐑𝐃 ➸ irulanne . the rook .

𝐌𝐎𝐔𝐑𝐍 𝐖𝐀𝐓𝐂𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐒 . 𝐄𝐋𝐅 . 𝐃𝐄𝐀𝐓𝐇 𝐂𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐄𝐑 𝐌𝐀𝐆𝐄 .

-`. template by @kanos . coloring . icons .

✧ ― 𝐓𝐀𝐆𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓 (ask to be added or removed or interact 𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞!!):

@pavus, @wlwaerith, @shadowsofrose, @grapecaseschoices, @nokstella

@queennymeria, @risingsh0t, @carrionsflower, @leviiackrman, @griffin-wood

@confidentandgood, @aceghosts, @tommyarashikage, @shadowglens, @yharnams

@anoras, @theelderhazelnut, @florbelles, @celticwoman, @pinkfey

@kyberinfinitygems, @cloudofbutterflies92, @carlosoliveiraa, @shellibisshe, @adelaidedrubman

@lavampira, @capelizabeth, @socially-awkward-skeleton, @statichvm, @unholymilf

@aezyrraeshh, @imogenkol, @aceghosts, @full---ofstarlight, @ellierenae

[spacedace]

another bit from the "Constantine adopts Elle au" idea I posted a snippet of yesterday:

The days immediately after the…loss of Elle’s brothers weren’t the hardest. It would, they’d all learn soon enough, only get worse as their friend’s mental state continued to deteroriate. At the time though, it had certainly felt like it couldn’t have gotten any worse.

Elle had always been, for as long as Lian had known the other girl, been a bright, energetic person. Even when being drug from bed in those ungodly hours that so easily could be labeled as late night and early morning equally to go fight some asshole who couldn’t wait for decent crime-spree hours. Elle had never been so cruel to the rest of them as to be chipper during those awful exhausted - and exhausting - incidents, but she’d always been upbeat. Rousing them into feeling more alive with a carefully currated playlist blasting over the comms and promises of delicious, greasy breakfasts at their favorite twenty-four hour diner that she always delivered on.

She was always vibrant, always excited for whatever came at her next, always dancing ahead of them all in search of a new hobby, a new special interest, a new once-in-a-lifetime experience. Her eternally burning hope that the horizon would have something better, something brighter not a foolish security blanket to hide behind but a weapon she weilded against the world. A spine of steal, a heart of a stellar nursery, a hand equally capable of being stretched out in friendship or clenched into a fist ready to deliver the nastiest left hook that side of Metropolis.

Elle Constantine was a lot of things - a good number of them questionable - but in every single one of them, she was full of life.

So seeing her so completely empty…

The Justice League had gotten roped in on their mission before they even realized the scope of it all. Grand-Bat looming and scowling and digging his grubby fingers into things, the rest of the League not much better as they wormed their way in on the case. For all the good it had done, when they’d been too late actually on the scene to be of any actual use. Only able to show up hours after their initial call for backup when the shit show was finally over and the world saved.

She and the team were all still reeling by the time the got there. Elle still crumpled on the ground, coverd in soot and blood in a writhing heap of pain no one else could even begin to understand. The still air rent by her ragged, broken voice wailing and keening like a banshee from the stories of old.

Screaming until she coughed up blood. Hands dripping red and green ripping at the dirt, at her clothes, at her hair, her skin. Shreiking in mindless, all consuming greif as they tried to calm her down, the only words anyone could make out the broken shapes of her brothers’ name.

Jon had to pin her arms to her side in the end, face pained as he tried hard not to hurt her while keeping her thrashing frame in place. Connor crouched before her cradling her tattered hands in his as he tried desperately to get her to follow his breathing, his own voice thick with barely contained tears. Damian, soft hearted beneath all his bluster and bristling, dropped to his knees beside her in the blood soaked ground and simply wrapped his arms around her in a hug.

There had been nothing Lian wanted more than to be with them in that moment. To join her team in trying to help their friend through the initial horror and agony of having a part of herself so cruelly ripped out and crushed before her very eyes. She wanted to wipe at the endless tears falling down Elle’s face and hold her hands and wrap her in a hug and weep with her over what had happend.

Wanted to get them all out of there, get them back to the Tower, get them all washed up and bundled in a protected, quiet corner where they could all cling to each other in the dark in a mess of blankets and pillows like the children they were. Wanted to shield Elle from the watching eyes of the Justice League members, the clean up crew, the gawking civilians and hungry press. To protect her while she was so horribly vulnerable, her friend ripped open and bleeding out in front of the world like a sideshow and not a girl who had just lost the only people in the world that had known and loved her since the very beggining of her fucked up life.

But Lian was the leader of the Titans. She was the one they trusted to make the hard calls. To look after them. To be their champion against not just their enemies but their allies too when it was called for.

So that’s what she did.

She stood with her feet planted firm on the slick, broken ground. Spine straight, shoulders back, head high and gaze full of hellfire. A sentry between her confused, greiving friends and the good intentioned but ultimately distructive attempts of the Justice League members before her to help.

Lian’s arm was broken in at least two places, hanging limply at her side from a dislocated shoulder. Her weapons buried in the flesh of one monster or other that they had faced that night. Her poison tipped nails split and torn, fingernails missing entirely on three fingers of her left hand. Her mask was cracked and broken somewhere in the debris, leaving her only with a domino that had nearly been clawed off with the rest of her face. Blood going cool and tacky where it had poured down her ragged cheeks, settling in the hollows and lines around her mouth. Pinking her teeth whenever she spoke and the gruesome evidence of the brutal fight found its way to curl insideious in her mouth, down her throat, into the cold pit in her chest.

When she met her grandfather’s grim, obscured face it was with her mother’s strength and her father’s stubbornness and her Pops’ willingness to shoot any motherfucker who dared to try.

Clark’s gaze was on the hunched crowd behind her, tight lines on his face as he stared at his son making it all to clear that he wanted to move past her and insert himself into the situation. To use his everything will be okay voice to command them like confused civilians or lost ducklings in need of a minder. He wanted to play the part he always played in times of disaster: shining beacon, untarnished champion. The last thing her team wanted, the last thing that Elle needed on top of everything else.

Lian’s good hand flexed by the pistol strapped to her thigh in a small warning. The Man of Steel knew well enough that there was glowing green waiting for him in the clip. Her gramps’ obsessive paranoia, her Pops’ good advice about big blue boyscouts who couldn’t keep their noses out of of other people’s business.

They stood in tense silence for long moments, the stillness only broken by Elle’s broken voice rising up in a keening wail for those she lost.

A stand-off that Lian knew that she’d win, one way or another.

Her gramps’ shoulders lowered, so minutely as to be inperceptible to anyone not in their family.

“Wonder Woman will be here shortly.” He said in his low rumbling voice. Beside him Clark finally drifted to the ground, a concession from both of them. “Justice League Dark went radio silent seven hours ago. Last transmission from Zantanna indicated they were dealing with an interdimensional issue and would be unreachable for at least three days.”

Elle’s dad - her family - were unreachable. John Constantine didn’t know that he’d lost his three sons in the span of a handful of minutes, that his daughter was being crushed beneath the weight of greif and trauma to the point of madness. Wouldn’t know for days what tragedy had struck his family, had destroyed the strange but happy life he and his adopted children had carved out for themselves.

John Constantine. Zantanna Zatara. Detective Bobo. Boston Brand. Asa the Nightmare Nurse. Elle’s family, out of reach while she writhed and wailed in agony. The only people who might come close to understand just how deep, how awful, the pain of her brothers’ loss truly was.

Diana was something, was someone, but the Amazon’s time being split between JL Light and Dark meant that she wasn’t a touchstone to Elle in the way the rest of the core members of the magical team were. Elle commented once that Diana was more like a fun aunt she barely saw growing up. Someone she was always excited to see and hang out with, someone she wanted to make proud, but not someone she felt especially close to in comparison to the rest of her family.

Lian did not give in to the pained urge to close her eyes and swear.

She was keenly aware that all it would take was a single crack, as narrow and insignificant as a strand of hair. The smallest hint that the crushing weight of everything that had happened - that was still happening - was effecting her and they’d be back at the attempts to push past her and take over. A desire to help, the restless urge to jump in and save the day, to ease the pain of those so clearly suffering, blinding them to how much worse they would make things in the process.

The intentions were good, but the ultimate results blistering and painful and too often overlooked as the next disaster pulled thier attentions away. Stubborn insistence that their experience overruled her and her team’s instincts. The hands of the older heroes always reaching, unaware that they were too sharp as they dug into the soft flesh of the Titans’ fresh wounds. Picking apart their flaws and failures in the name of bettering them, never stopping to consider the wounds they pressed hard against as part of their lecturing might still be open and raw. That while the men before her had hands in raising most of them, that did not mean they had perfect comprehension to who the Titans were or always knew what the members of her team really needed.

“Have Wonder Woman go to the Tower.” Lian said, knowing that her grandfather heard Selina’s cadence in her voice. A habit, a gamble. Catwoman had been her mentor for a time, had helped her sharpen her claws and her instincts and that budding part of her that would make her a leader one day. Sometimes it pushed Bruce into listening to her, sometimes it just led to him pushing back.

He’d find that latter option unwise at the moment, though.

Her beloved Grand-Bat or no, she knew where his armor was weakest. Knew how to make the single shot she’d manage to get off on him count. Knew just how far she’d go to make sure that Elle and the rest of her friends were sheilded from any and all harm when they were so vulnerable.

She was their champion, their sentry, their knight.

Batman, of all people, knew the lengths a knight was willing to go in the name of the oaths they took.

She watched him shift back. A silent, unseen signal between him and Clark having Superman step back too. Lian wasn’t sure if her grandfather had found the wall she presented him too strong to conted with, or if Elle’s heart wrenching screams of greif and agony made him decide against testing the wall at all. Whatever it was, Lian would take the small victory where she could. It was the only real one she might be able to claim that day.

[a-couple-of-notes]

went back to see wicked again and i feel almost as insane about it as the first time.

so, the movie centers (as it should) on elphaba's arc--she's discovering her true power, shedding her need for validation, defying gravity. but this go-around, i kept thinking, what's glinda's arc? like, yes, obviously, her arc across the whole story is a fall and a redemption; she gets everything she wants, hates the fuck out of it, loses what's important, and finally finds the courage to rebuild something truly good. but i'm talking specifically this movie, this part. i mean hey, jon chu, you said you were making part one its own satisfying narrative! (he did, we'll get to it)

and yes, okay, you can say glinda starts part one as a selfish, privileged antagonist to elphaba and over the course of the movie becomes her friend. but i don't buy it. that friendship is solidified by the ozdust ballroom, so there has to be something else.

and i realized: glinda's arc in part one is about realizing she's not as powerful as she thinks she is.

glinda starts the movie thinking she can always get her way through making everybody like her. she thinks she can become a great sorceress if she studies under madam morrible. she thinks she can get the perfect boy if she just tosses her hair.

but then elphaba shows up. and over the course of part one, glinda gets humbled again and again. glinda can't do magic, while it comes naturally for elphaba (notice how glinda is always the one pointing out elphaba's magic/power in this tremendously sad combination of awe, adoration, and jealousy). elphaba earns madam morrible's faith, while madam morrible constantly makes digs toward glinda. elphaba proves herself the better person when she asks for glinda to join the sorcerer seminar, while glinda's offering was initially completely insincere. and elphaba turns fiyero's head (absolutely no one can convince me glinda doesn't clock what's going on, she's far too smart and obsessed with elphaba not to). and over the course of part one, we see glinda move from outrage and disdain at being outclassed to accepting and supporting and loving these things about her best friend, even as they make her jealous.

and like, yeah, glinda needs to be humbled a little. she's selfish! she's a bit of a brat! she says really insensitive things and no one has called her out on it until elphaba! but i think this arc for glinda adds an extra tragic layer on top of the tragedy cake. just as elphaba's mounting belief in herself was always leading to her leaving, glinda's growing humility was always leading to her staying. by the time defying gravity hits, glinda knows in her heart elphaba is more powerful than she is, in every meaning of the word. she knows the seriousness of the animals' plight (look how she shakes her head at elphaba when nikidik says the Lion cub is happy to be in the cage!) and she knows that, unlike elphaba the great sorcerer, she can't do anything. she can only survive.

i'm not saying that the glinda at the beginning of the movie would have gotten on elphaba's broom, but she would have certainly believed she could fly. this glinda doesn't. elphaba, quite fittingly, brought glinda down to earth, for better or for worse.

[jessicas-pi]

The Time Heals ‘Verse meta ramble, part 2: In Which I Scream Some More About Sabine And Ezra

Whoo! So! What was SUPPOSED to be a little backstory about The Line from Time Heals All Wounds turned into a massive rant. But that’s over, and you’re all as depressed as I am, and now we get to move onto other stuff!!

(spoiler warning continues!)

So now I’m going to ramble a little bit about the specific relationship dynamic between Sabine and Ezra currently in this because AGH. I just. I gotta talk about it. fair warning, the following rant has no discernible thesis statement and wanders around aimlessly. but hey, that's just how I roll.

Okay so Time Heals primarily follows Sabine. So that’s the lens we’re looking through. And it’s easy to forget that Ezra’s timeline is entirely different from hers. But it is. A story that has taken a year-and-a-half, more or less, for her, has been mere months for him.

Because Ezra died only weeks after the Battle of Lothal, remember?

It’s six months after that, when Sabine gets pulled into the past. It’s months after that when she rescues him. By the time they’re reunited on the Coronet, Sabine has lived an entire year in a galaxy without Ezra in it, and a few months more in a galaxy not knowing he’s there.

She has seen him die thirty-three times. She’s mourned him. She still mourns him. She dreams about his dead body in her arms. He haunts her. To an embarrassing degree, her life is centered around him.

Meanwhile, Ezra’s timeline looks like this:

—he purgills Thrawn into the unknown and Thrawn imprisons him —some weeks later, Sabine kicks open the door to his cell, slaps him, hugs him, proclaims she’s watched him die 32 times, provides no further explanation, and then someone tosses a thermal detonator into the cell and it all goes black —he wakes up somewhere on Mandalore during the Clone War and promptly gets adopted by four tipsy art majors —a few months later, the Force tells him to get a move on —he reunites with Sabine that afternoon and everything's great!

So as of chapter 15 of book 2, which is where we're at now, Ezra’s spent three, four months in the past—missing everyone, yeah, but missing Sabine least, because she’s the one who saved him, and that’s given him a gut feeling that she’s still around. To him, Sabine has been a wistful thought that comes and goes. He tells his friends stories about her and misses her. But he doesn’t mourn her.

Meanwhile, Sabine’s spent over a year believing that he is lost to her forever because she couldn’t save him. (She doesn’t know she saved him, remember? She’s forgotten. It’s all a blank, and she’s afraid to hope.) She is still in the vise-like grip of grief, even if she’s functioning around it. There has never been a moment when she has not been thinking about him. (And in a way, it’s his fault, because he loved her, and he told her so. And she cannot forget it, no matter how hard she tries.)

His feelings towards her are soft and silent. He's content to wait until he sees her again, without aching too badly at her current missing presence in his life. He is at peace.

Her feelings towards him are tumultuous and fervent. She's desperate to see him again and terrified that she'll lose him. it’s like nothing she’s ever felt before. She is the farthest thing from peaceful.

So, while Ezra's feelings may seem to run deeper than hers—he is kinda in love with her, after all—he's also completely normal about her.

Sabine, on the other hand, has been torturing herself with the memory of him for over a year. He's a bundle of guilt and grief and mourning in her brain. Her feelings for him are clear-cut, platonic, and so all-consuming that they verge on an obsession.

So really, he doesn't care about her more. He cares about her differently. But not more.

But—and this is important, not so much for the story, but it's important to me that you know this—Ezra doesn’t know she's changed. He knows the old Sabine, who was his best friend, even if sometimes she was distant. He doesn’t believe she cares about him as much as he cares about her. And he's resigned to that! It’s ok! He’s ok! He’s used to it, he’s used to hiding how much he cares, and nobody else knows. So he’ll go on hiding it and she’ll go on ignoring it and it won’t matter.

But the Sabine that Ezra entrusted his blade and his homeworld to with one last, long look is a different woman than the Sabine that kicks down the door of his cell on the Chimaera a few weeks (a year) later.

And where does the difference lie?

It lies in the fact that she lost him. It lies in the fact that he died in her arms. It lies in the fact that he has consumed every waking thought of hers for months. 

It lies in the fact that she will. not. let. him. go.

She didn’t let him go when he was dead. And now that he’s alive? Now that he’s with her again?

Well.

There is no holding at arms-length. She would clutch his living form as tightly as she held his lifeless body, if she dared. She doesn’t, but she still reaches out to him—bumping shoulders, brushing hands, touching him just to know that he’s there. He is everything to her now. It’s not a love like his. It’s wider than that. It’s relief and joy and comfort in his presence and an impossible dream come true.

If Sabine had been the same Sabine he knew before, maybe things wouldn’t have changed course. If she had gone on ignoring it and he had gone on hiding it, maybe time would have faded his feelings, and maybe she never would have grown any for him.

But in a world where she holds him desperately near, near enough to feel his heartbeat and know he’s alive—in a world where their fledgling bond doesn’t lie dormant and unknown, but is woven strong and glows warmly, tethering their very souls together—in a world where he is everything to her, and she shows it—now that’s a different story. As he slowly finds out just how much he means to her—and he's grown to mean far more to her now than he did before—it throws him off-balance.

And as for her?

Well, this is where my Ramble Part 1 becomes relevant! Because he told her. And she knows. And now that she knows, she can’t look past it like it was never there, because it is there, and glaringly obvious when she looks for it. (She can't stop seeing it.)

The path they've always hoped to take—the one where it goes away and they are fast friends with nothing more between them—is no longer an option. By admitting his love, the other version of himself made it impossible for her to ignore it. By holding him so close, she makes it impossible for him to hide it. (In a way, they've doomed each other.) And she knows he can’t hide it, and he knows she can’t ignore it, so the only choice they have left—besides honest, which is a thing neither of them is ready to face—is to do their mutual best to pretend it doesn’t matter, and not talk about it.

But it does matter, and sooner or later, they'll have to talk about it.

And deep deep down, they both know that, too.

~~~

tune in next time for what I expect to be a ramble about a couple specific scenes! unless I write a different ramble first! We'll see!