#to think that is a good enough excuse

[soosoosoup]

Funk branch au

Au and branch design by @bbc-trolls

[silverwhittlingknife]

So you're a go to source for all things Dick&Tim bros and you tend to write primarily from Dick's POV. So, odd question, but if you were to summarize their relationship from his POV in FIVE panels which panels would you pick? Keeping in mind that one specific aspect of their relationship that you love needs to be clearly represented by each panel (loyalty, trust etc). I hope this is a fun challenge and not an annoying question so if you don't want to answer that's cool! Have a wonderful day!

No more talk. The same thoughts run through two minds... (SotB 29) / You're my equal. My closest ally. (RR 1) / I can't stop thinking how much I rely on him. (GoG 3)

25 Feelings Dick Has About Tim

This was such a kind ask & a cool challenge which I totally failed; here are TWENTY-five panels of Dick's POV on Tim sdfdsfds Look, I got carried away! Marcia and Cindy! The boys!!

OKAY SO BEFORE I GET TO THE PANELS A FEW NOTES:

WARNING THAT THERE ARE SOME NEGATIVE EMOTIONS IN HERE because I love conflict but but but you gotta remember those are not the final word!! They are complicated people and sometimes they get mad at each other BUT ultimately their relationship is so hugely important in both their lives & they love each other and rely on each other so much -!!! <3

Also I have CONCLUDING THOUGHTS at the end about what Dick's POV leaves out (mostly: a lot of Dick defending & protecting & supporting Tim, which Dick does instinctively but isn't very self-aware about most of the time)

I have loosely organized my list into 5^5 format (5 categories with 5 examples each!), so if you want to skip to a relevant one, here are the categories!!

Below the cut:

I hate him and find him infuriating (#1-5)

On second thought, he's endearing & fun (#6-10)

Grief is complicated & he's all tangled up in mine (#11-15)

I love him & think highly of him (#16-20)

I rely on him & though it's hard for me, I trust him (#21-25)

I hate him and find him infuriating (#1 - 5)

1) He thinks he’s so smart and can psychoanalyze me and Bruce, but he doesn’t know me at all, he should get lost (New Titans 61)

2) He thinks he’s so smart and can psychoanalyze Bruce but he doesn’t know Bruce at all, he should get lost (Gotham Knights 26)

3) He is so nosy about stuff that is MY business (Robin 0)

4) He sounds like an insincere suck-up half the time... but okay, fine, if you push him he's got a sense of humor about it (New Titans 65)

5) I'm sure he's a better vigilante than me. It's my fault for being a failure, but I resent him anyway. (Nightwing 9 - Dick's having a nightmare)

On second thought, he's kinda endearing (#6-10)

6) He worries too much and gets anxious so easily, but it makes him fun to tease (Robin 67)

7) I'm not that competitive - okay, so maybe I'm a little competitive, I gotta make sure he doesn't get a swelled head (Prodigal)

8) I'm supposed to be his favorite! It is not cool for him to be fanboying over my not-girlfriend's not-boyfriend!! (Birds of Prey 19)

9) We have fun together. I can kick back and relax when it's just the two of us. Plus I get to boss him around a bit. (Prodigal)

10) He’s always trying to reassure me, and I guess it's a little comforting, but also he doesn’t really get it. Or me. He makes excuses that he shouldn't, because he doesn't understand that I suck. (Nightwing 64)

Grief is complicated and he's all tangled up in mine (#11 - 15)

11) He reminds me of everything I try not to think about. Sometimes the memories are so strong it hurts to look at him. (Batman 441)

12) WHY IS HE BEING IMPOSSIBLE ALL OF A SUDDEN??? THIS IS SO FRUSTRATING (Nightwing 139)

13) We're the same. He says all the things I don't let myself think about. It's like arguing with myself. (Nightwing 139)

14) He thinks he gets to tell me what to do but he doesn’t, fuck him (Battle for the Cowl)

15) Life sucks, so what. I sucked it up so he should too (RR 1)

I love him and think highly of him (#16 - 20)

16) He’s the closest thing to a brother I’ll ever have.  If someone hurts him I will hurt them harder. (Nightwing 6)

17) I can't handle the idea of losing him. (Nightwing 97)

17) He’s so good and I’m not. I'm afraid I’m bad for him. (Nightwing 110)

18) He’s better than me, and it’s kind of a relief because I know no matter what he’ll be okay. (Gates of Gotham 3)

19) In my head he’s the responsible one.  (Gotham Knights 10)

I rely on him, and though it's hard for me, I trust him (#20-25)

20) I know I have to trust him but I'm afraid he'll make the wrong choices and get hurt (Nightwing 139)

21) I'm sure I know what he should do because I see myself in him - not that I can take my own advice, but he should (Blackest Night 3)

22) I trust him.  When I’m losing my grip on things, he pulls me back. (Gotham Knights 10)

23) I want him to trust me (Red Robin 12)

24) He can tell when I'm lying. Sometimes he sees my weaknesses better than I wish he did. (Detective Comics 874)

25) He’s always there when I need him. (Teen Titans / Outsiders Secret Files)

Final rambling thoughts:

TIM: Uhh, okay, so I'm just skimming this list - do you really trust me? you're not just saying that? - but anyway, I'm confused because you left some stuff out? Like some stuff that's kinda important? DICK: No? I think I got everything? TIM (starts counting on his fingers): The time I was having a bad day but then I called you. The time I got captured by Two-Face but then you saved me. The time I fell off a train but then you saved me. The time I fell off a building but then you saved me. The time I fell off a different building - DICK: I feel like you're trying to make some kind of point but I'm not sure what it could be.

SO THE THING IS, I put 25 panels in here and not a single one has Dick catching Tim when he’s falling!!! But I think that's a central motif of their relationship from Tim’s POV, not Dick’s. I love Dick, but in some ways I think he is spectacularly un-self-aware.

And I think he especially has a lot of blind spots about Tim. He kinda intermittently gets that Tim admires him, and he enjoys it in a playful I-get-to-boss-you-around way. But Dick tends to consistently underestimate all of his own good qualities & skills, and he meets Tim at a point in his life when he's especially down on himself & his abilities. And so he's unable to see his own influence on Tim, & therefore unable to fully understand a lot of Tim's priorities and loyalties and motivations, because you can't actually understand Tim without understanding Dick's impact on him. There's a fascinating moment in Bruce Wayne: Murderer when Dick's completely blindsided & upset to discover that Tim doesn't entirely trust Bruce, even though this has been a definitive fact of Tim's whole thing ever since he showed up with his Batman needs Robin theory, and Barbara has to actively remind Dick of the obvious-to-everyone-except-Dick fact that a lot of Tim's loyalty is to Dick, and Tim loves Bruce but feels free to be more wary of him. (And to give Bruce credit: this is not something he ever begrudges.) But anyway Babs points this out, and Dick manages to sorta process it for about five seconds, but he cannot actually accept it into his worldview so instead he discards it at the speed of light and goes off and has an argument with Tim instead sdfsfdsf

All of Dick's virtues - Dick's kindness at the circus and Dick's determination to fight through grief and Dick's rigid sense of morals and Dick's vigilante skills and every time Dick has ever backed Tim up or listened to him or protected him or saved him from something or just been casually kind to a stranger in Tim's presence etc etc etc - all these things loom really large in Tim's mental story of Who Dick Is, and What Dick And Tim's Relationship Is. Tim meets Dick before he meets Bruce, trusts Dick more than Bruce, aspires to be Robin instead of Batman. And so in Tim's default version of the story, Dick is the super-special and admirable hero and Tim is... nobody in particular, a tagalong outsider who's barely managing to be a hero, not part of Dick and Bruce's family and not part of their story, who, if he's VERY LUCKY and tries REALLY HARD, might be able to fight his way to proving himself and offering something to Dick that Dick will value, if Dick doesn't get fed up with him first.

But that's not Dick's version of the story!!!

Dick's version of the story is almost the exact opposite, a story where Dick's an outcast failure black sheep who's screwing up everything he tries, and meanwhile Tim is The Sudden New Perfect Robin Who's Better Than Me And Probably Bruce Loves Him More And Probably They Gossip About What A Loser I Am, mixed with a complicated edge of Tim Thinks He's So Smart But He Doesn't Know Me/Us At All. Dick gets much more attached to Tim over time, and Tim gets unnervingly better at the know-it-all psychoanalysis so then Dick gets to have complicated feelings about him being right instead of just annoyance at him for being wrong, plus Dick's relationship with Bruce improves a lot, so Tim stops feeling so threatening. But Dick never fundamentally changes his basic theory of their relationship in which Tim is highly impressive and capable, and Dick is not so much.

And so asking Dick about Tim is kinda like if you asked George Bailey to tell you about Harry Bailey in It's A Wonderful Life; like, you'll be there for five hours while he tells you how great Harry is, and how accomplished Harry is, and how he doesn't really get how or why Harry does the things he does, and maybe George does feel a little resentful or jealous sometimes, but that pales in comparison to all his admiration and trust for Harry who he loves so much, who's better than him in so many ways, and he's not gonna openly gripe but secretly he can't help but feel sometimes like he's such a failure in comparison to Harry, a perfect person who emerged fully formed from Zeus's head with all the virtues and also all the accomplishments, etc. etc. etc. --

-- and he will not actually remember the part where he changed and saved Harry's whole entire life unless you literally send him to an alternate timeline in order to force him to remember it. <3

[dykedvonte]

Curly not immediately punishing Jimmy for assaulting Anya is something I don’t think a lot of people are viewing in the complex context for Curly as the superior to both of them and closest confidante they had.

Like I am in no way saying he didn’t under react or fail Anya by not being harsh or direct with Jimmy but it really is the case that he really couldn’t. Imagine being stuck in such a confined space with very little areas to genuinely hold someone if they commit a crime. It’s not like this was an event that occurred before they departed or that they have easy communication with The Pony Express to ask for how to proceed when something like this arises. Not to mention, Jimmy’s relative power in relation to Anya as the co-pilot and second in command, he has the knowledge and access to do something to her had Curly directly punished him in this setting.

They were also Curly’s friends. It’s not just the case of him mediating something between his subordinates but people he is personally invested in don’t want to see spiral further in Anya’s case while also not wanting believe his friend go that bad in Jimmy’s actions. They were both suicidal and Curly putting Jimmy’s stability first is both out of bias but also the fact he’s aware at some level Jimmy is a danger to himself and others if not constantly placated. Combined with the fact he was in denial or just not piecing together what Anya said it’s hard to say what he buying time for and what he had treat as urgent. This isn’t even saying he doesn’t care about Anya but he’s not going jump to the worst conclusions about his friends even if part of him acknowledges the evidence saying so. It’s a complicated thing but he’s still human and needed to process it on top of trying to keep a ship that already took on a lot of water from further sinking, metaphorically.

I just personally think that while Curly failed Anya, it was a scenario where there wasn’t much he could do to the best thing by her safely and like Jimmy, we are underestimating what a good leader would do in a very fragile and tense situation like he was in. By the time he may have been ready and had a plan, things were much too late.

[makiswirl]

can i just say. and this is probably a niche hill to die on. that i am so gobsmacked every time someone vaguely hints at the idea that jotaro doesn't care meaningfully for the other crusaders, usually particularly kakyoin and joseph, when those two actually tend to be the ones he reacts to being hurt the hardest

like he cares for his loved ones!!!! that literally plays into his character motives in every single part he shows up in!!! stop lying to me!!!!!!!

[vaguely-concerned]

there are a lot of daddy issues to go around on DS9 in general, but odo, bashir and garak are really in their own special little fucked up 'what am I but wrought in my father's image' club

[dekusleftsock]

I think that there’s a fundamental misunderstanding of what exactly is…happening with Izuku’s character. Specifically in regards to chapter 425.

I’m glad that a lot more people generally recognize that Izuku is not a character that can be read at a surface level, given that he’s both a repressed person with built up emotion of basically everything and also a very glaringly HUGELY unreliable narrator, but that doesn’t necessarily mean I agree with the ways I’ve seen this most recent chapter spoken about.

I see posts, comments, etc with ideas like “Izuku don’t suppress your emotions! Open up with people! It’ll be okay I promise!” When that’s fundamentally not what is happening here.

There’s always always ALWAYS been a distinct difference in character throughout horikoshi’s writing when he is showing that a character is:

A—Avoiding emotions, thoughts, ideas less than ideal for them. Not opening up when they probably should about their problems given that they’ve been handed the space to do so. Just genuinely not acknowledging, feeling, or expressing emotions that they don’t want.

B—Reflecting on the ways they feel about the world, themselves, or other people given their new perspective on a situation. Not outright reaching out to others to talk about these problems/feelings, but instead waiting until the moment they feel they have the most confidence to do so with their new outlook on their own life.

And genuinely, guys, to grab your BkDk attention rn, this is the exact reason why Ochako’s reflection on her feelings for Izuku and thereafter decision to pull away from them WAS NEVER GOING TO END IN OCHAKO EXPLODING WITH HER LOVE FOR HIM.

This was another common interpretation I saw of Ochako and Izuocha for a long time. That because she pushed these feelings away, they were somehow going to explode in this unbelievable way and she would “get the boy” because of it. That her arc would surround accepting her romantic feelings and that she can’t just push away how she feels for a career.

But yk. That didn’t happen. At all. Nowhere close even.

The same kind of goes for Katsuki, allmight, etc. They all had moments in their arc where it was spent genuinely reflecting, and the only reason we as the audience never connected it in the same ways we do ochako or Izuku was ALWAYS BECAUSE the narrative showed their inner thoughts while doing so (mostly because Allmight’s arc after losing OFA and Katsuki’s arc on what it means to be a hero were so intrinsically tied, both starting at the same time and ending at the same time during the final war. And because they were so tied this caused their own reflections, development, and thought process to be broadcasted to us frequently throughout their arcs… to each other. They also somewhat shared aspects with Izuku, but these were cherry picked more often than not, like dvk2 for example).

To us Katsuki never seemed to be.. idk, suppressing his anger in any way because we were always told what he was doing and why (side note: this is why I’ve always thought arguments against Katsuki were so weird, bc unlike characters like endeavor or Ochako he wasn’t like… hiding who he was and how he was changing. Ever. Like the audience knows at all times past basically season 3 what Katsuki is thinking and doing. Like how do you watch this happen, stare me dead in the eye, and tell me how much of a terrible and awful teenage boy he is. Like damn I didn’t think we were this dumb. This is also my theory as to why he’s most popular, his arc is very… in your face if that makes sense). Katsuki’s entire mini arc on reflecting his mistakes and his childhood and his future is spent TELLING YOU that it’s what he’s doing. (I’m referring mostly to the endeavor internship arc, the provisional license exam makeup, and basically everything in the war arc related to him leading up to bakugou Katsuki rising here)

And see, Horikoshi will stare you dead in the eye, tell you “this girl has taken into consideration that she doesn’t want to waste her time training her career focusing on a boy because he kinda caught her fancy”, and y’all will still say that this will explode in her face.

Y’all this is a series about learning how to manage emotions, maturity in relationship to one’s emotions, how to feel an emotion, but in a way that is helpful. Horikoshi isn’t telling you “go buck wild, feel everything all the time and always express it”, in fact he explores why you DONT do that! Through Toga or Shigaraki, they show how grief and anger can genuinely consume you. But he also shows why you shouldn’t just put everything in a box to never look at or acknowledge, or why you shouldn’t just let your grief destroy the world around you, or pretending that some emotions simply don’t exist.

I can’t say this enough, so let me say it now, mha is about the extremes of your psyche. That you should control something, but not too much. Everything can be harmful. Everything can be good.

Izuku is not controlling too much, he’s expressing just enough.

I LOVE shaming this dickhead at all times in all my posts. I love saying he’s an ignorant dipshit with a weird amount of distaste for a girl who just confessed to him. I’ve joked that chapter 348 is basically an entire chapter spent on Izuku calling Himiko a mean dyke. And yet I also believe he’s doing nothing WRONG here.

In fact, I’ll even say that this moment right here?

ISNT EVEN IZUKU DOING THE SOCIALLY APPROPRIATE THING ABOUT IT! But he’s still TRYING to reach out to someone he thinks MIGHT be able to understand. (And frankly, this moment is far deeper than what it’s being made out to be, to me it reads more like an unrequited friendship that Izuku both desires and has thought of them to have, while simultaneously showing the distance Ochako has successfully wedged between them for her own sake. Maybe it was always there though, maybe in weird, miscommunicated Horikoshi fashion, this is a representation of how Ochako always read all those “fun friend hangouts” as a little more than that, and without those feelings the friendship never really held any substance to her in the first place. Where Izuku saw his first real friend at UA, she saw little more than acquaintance)

Simultaneously, Izuku is genuinely reflecting on what it means for the world to change, to be a hero, to live after loss—and trying and failing to gain the connection he desires from individuals who can not and will not afford him that.

Izuku is ready for the world to change, a few select characters are also ready for the world to change (mirio, for example), but not nearly enough are. So maybe I’ll have to take this back if I’m proven wrong and I accidentally looked into this far past what everyone else did for no reason, but I genuinely believe with moments like this

And this

Aand this

That Izuku has come forward with that aspect of his character development. He’s reflecting on his new beliefs, not repressing his emotions for them.

[cockroachesunite]

Priorities

[cicada-candy]

assorted archivist!gpt doodles from today i am. Unwell About This Whoops

TS, alt under the cut

clockwise:

"Make Your Statement" "Face Your Fear."

">:/ profiles my beloathed."

"head in hands now i have to think of fears for the others."

Johnny: "20 says i start the apocalypse."

Tim, surrounded by labels of different fears hes marked by, clockwise: Desolation, Buried, End, Flesh, Dark, Hunt, Slaughter, Extinction.

Bottom Row, left -> right:

Oliver Banks, The Eye/Institute, Elias Bouchard: "The Tormented"

Tim: "the (oblivious) Tormentor"

[looking-for-wisdom]

the “ex-something” character in disco elysium is so interesting to me because what we finally learn about the true Dora from harry’s dream sequence & conversations with the 41st precinct initially undercuts the first impression you get as a player. We learn things that makes it seem like Harry should be over her leaving. Specifically, the fact that she and Harry were never actually married and that it has been six years since she left.

Everything we’re told about Dora needs to be taken with a grain of salt, since it primarily comes from Harry. He’s an unreliable narrator and, if we had her perspective on things, there would surely be more to the story. But even with that said, I feel reasonably confident that the player’s first impression — that whoever this ex is did some damage even beyond typical breakup heartbreak — isn’t completely wrong.

We know a few things for certain. Harry was a gym teacher before they met, and Dora was the reason he joined the RCM. We can also do the math to figure out that they were together for around 12 years. Married or not, that’s a serious relationship. There are implications that Dora might have been pregnant at some point.

Dora’s family was wealthier than Harry’s, but they struggled financially when they were together. They had to rely on her parents for support.

Harry is a grown ass man who is responsible for his own choices. None of this changes that. But the way he is starts to make more sense when you consider that it wasn’t just their breakup that was traumatic. Their relationship itself seems unhealthy.

Harry clearly likes working with kids. Kim actually points out how he is easily able to connect with Cuno and the other teens in Martinase. With that in mind, I imagine he probably liked being a gym teacher. But we learn that Dora encourages him to join the RCM to do more for the greater good. Again, Harry had to agree to this — she didn’t force him to quit at gunpoint. But it rubs me the wrong way that, shortly after they start dating, she implies that his work isn’t fulfilling or important (probably patently untrue in an area where kids won’t necessarily have stable home lives). And, more than that, she suggests that joining the police is the solution.

Granted, we’re told there’s a lot of crime in Jamrock. Maybe it is as simple as her thinking law enforcement helps prevent that. But given the political tones of the game, which intentionally critique cops and the moralist forces they represent? I think it’s notable.

Speaking of which. The class difference between Dora and Harry has to be thematic. So much of the game discusses the struggle between the working class and the bourgeoisie. There’s an inherent power dynamic there. It’s her parents who are consistently paying their bills and keeping them afloat. She has an out that Harry doesn’t. Money won’t be an issue for her when they split, but Harry will be left without any support. Regardless of whether she intentionally held this over his head, this game shows that even without meaning to, the capitalist system harms the poor. That strain must be felt in their relationship, and could cause a lot of damage over 12 years.

All this to say: their relationship clearly wasn’t some fling. And, if Harry is to be believed, the blame for things falling apart was largely placed on him: working to much, not bringing home enough money, not being enough. But even if Dora wasn’t actively manipulating him and he came up with all of this on his own, I think the facts still point to a dynamic where he was made to be small in the face of a woman who came from more. Their backgrounds create an imbalance where Harry was always going to feel the flaws in their relationship more acutely. He starts with little, and gives up much of what he does have to pursue something better for the both of them. But when that isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, he’s the only one left with nothing. She can leave the country and start over.

It makes sense, to me, that he might not have recovered from that in six years. Especially when that rock bottom feeling seems so permanent that he isn’t trying to get better so much as numb himself enough to exist another day.

That doesn’t mean he isn’t responsible or that he’s exempt from having to get his shit together. The game very clearly illustrates that everyone will turn away from him if he doesn’t. But it does complicate his character a bit more than “got left by extremely bangable woman, proceeds to make the lives of everyone around him worse.”

[thelien-art]

Nerdanel, the wise

[dykedvonte]

Why do you think did Curly let Jimmy go before the crash? I've seen the theory Curly briefly thought about crashing too but didn't expect Jimmy to go through with it

I generally believe it was shock and a bit of denial.

It’s the sort of thing where Curly knew Jimmy enough to know he blows up at things but he never would’ve expected him to go through with something so crazy. He gives Jimmy way too much benefit. It’s just his nature and the dynamics he has with Jimmy. They have a stable relationship as friends but it’s stabilized by the unhealthy toxic aspects that keep him in it. He’s like this with Anya, taking the gun is something he really shouldn’t have kept off the record, so is Swansea’s feigned hostility toward Daisuke. He doesn’t want to get people in trouble and doesn’t want to believe anyone would cause trouble other than to themselves. He’s a very lenient man.

I think the words were hollow in his head. Said but not really meant like all the times Jimmy lashes out and says something cruel to him or others. He never means it, if he did why would he still be Curly’s friend? Curly’s head wasn’t in the right space in that moment, he just got through panicking with Anya and if the sound design is anything to go by, was panicked and preoccupied going to confront Jimmy. I mean, the flash of the warning signs before he runs back are identical to the dissociative episode of sort he has when going to talk to Jimmy to do his Psyc eval.

There is this sort of assumption in fanon that Curly was the idealic person for the job and simply failed. None of them were the idealic people to be there, it’s Curly’s entire concern with the ladder he chose. I see more interpretations of him being purposefully ignorant where I see him as just always looking the wrong way or not in a place where he can see it. There’s something different about seeing something than being told about it in the human mind. It may just be the psych student in me but Curly def has some sort of cognitive dissonance just like Jimmy but when it comes to his role as a Captain vs who he is.

They blur in his head to where if you ask him if he was acting as a Captain or a friend or himself to his crew he couldn’t answer. Not with confidence even if he did. There are many times we see that Curly himself is not in the right headspace to lead the Tulpar and that’s outside of anything with Jimmy. He’s spacey, he’s not sleeping, he’s deeply unhappy with himself and life. It’s why there’s believability he crashed the ship. Maybe the others saw it, or maybe Jimmy heard enough of it to spin it in a way that made Curly seem suicidally depressed.

So the tdlr is I think it wasn’t so much letting Jimmy go, more so not seeing the severity of what he was allowing to transpire. In his mind it’s just another one of Jimmy’s bluffs, cruel words, off words but just words. Jimmy rarely ever acts, why would he now? Maybe he’s never seen it because Jimmy hides those actions? Either way, he just never thought he’d really do it.

[raticalshoez]

i'm having hyperfixation drought so i did what i did best and created a crossover episode

[catboypines]

hey guys if i see another billdip vs billford poll i might ram my fist through my head <3 in fact can we stop with the comparison altogether lol. CLEARLY theyre the same but also completely different we’ve all elaborated enough on that. idc which one u like they both equally suck because bill is the worst. now lets go back to making whichever one we like better (for some weird unknowable reasons) kiss in our heads and go about our day. PLEASE

[14dayswithyou]

That is all thank you

ANSWERED: Art credit for da first Ren meme goes to @meo-eiru!!

BUT HELPPPPP THESE ARE SO FUNNY JDSGJH T_T The Moth meme + Uno meme had me CACKLING lmaoooooooo

[vse-kar-vem]

💌🍷💄💋

idea completely inspired by @sparkles-oflight who said something in the jokeroutblr discord server about something like this being kris's next photoshoot!!! so all credit goes to them and the original model whose photograph i completely referenced

i could never do it justice!!!

[anistarrose]

This isn't something I would describe as a prominent or even intentional theme, but there's something fascinating to me about how TAZ Balance characters associated with composing and performing music are almost entirely correlated with either being forgotten, or having an incredibly warranted fear of being forgotten.

Johann is obviously the latter. I have an ongoing fic about his parallels with Barry — who plays piano, and who is the character we see spend the most time knowing he has been forgotten by people dear to him, and grappling with it. And I've seen the Johann and Lup dynamic get well-deserved attention in AUs where she lives, and they get to relate to each other as violinists — yet the parallels are at their strongest in canon, where Lup is the "most" dead of all the undead characters, the "most" forgotten, the most reduced to a near-invisible specter haunting the narrative, and the most like Johann's worst nightmare.

There's even a parallel with Davenport, who is a beautiful singer, and whose life story and dreams and achievements are all completely erased. So that's three different characters whose forgotten stories — which Johann obviously does not know — still serve to silently justify Johann's fear of the same fate, emphasizing just how likely it is that it could come to pass. How yes, it would be that horrifying.

And as a non-musician, but an artist of a kind myself... it all resonates. The fear of one's legacy being forgotten is a common fear in general, but it has a particular type of teeth to it for us creatives, who shudder in terror at the thought of a masterwork — that feels like a piece of one's soul — being forgotten, let alone cut short by untimely tragedy.

But that's why I treasure, so dearly, that all of these musically inclined characters — Barry, Lup, Davenport, Johann — are not forgotten permanently, but instead immortalized by the Story and Song, no matter the varying degrees of alive and dead that they wind up in the end. I treasure the parallels between these characters that say being forgotten is a grounded, reasonable thing to fear; that it is scary — but that no matter what, memory will still find a way.