#were the failure

[oveliagirlhaditright]

I'm just... I'm so angry at Square Enix right now, for them blaming Final Fantasy XVI for their loss of shares.

I could get into it, but I'm trying not to: I'm trying to breathe and calm down.

But I worry that this might not bode well for Square Enix's future, perhaps, or at least the future of the Final Fantasy series. *bites nails*

[chloesimaginationthings]

Michael is very subtle about his daddy issues in FNAF..

[saint-hymn]

You're not coming back from shit! Thrashing around in that high-conductivity state of yours, bumping into things and acting like a clown. Who are you kidding?

[blizardstar]

Me when Ashton Greymoore is denied honorable and meaningful self-sacrifice, and now must face the reality that they MUST keep living after it’s All Over

[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

[havenandart]

wips....

[blissfulrain12]

When talking about what curly should’ve done about Jimmy, it kinda seems like a lot of fans are more focused on what would be satisfying for the themselves (the audience) to see, and not on what would actually help Anya herself in that scenario.

They seem like that cause they are like that. It's not about the actual story or Anya it's about what would make them happy. It's also important to note that what they want not only obscures Anya, it's misogynistic and simplifies the story. They want the story to be how bad men failed to protect the poor female victim. Where everything would've been solved if bad man #2 had just grown a spine and committed murder or assault to protect the damsel.

Every what if about what Curly should've done focuses on Jimmy and violence. Anya is a second thought. It's always he should've done something. Just a vague and useless Something. Actually engaging with the scenario and coming up with viable reasonable solutions is too much. Doing that would mean coming to terms with the fact the horror game put it's characters in a no win situation to highlight how capitalism causes circumstances like this all the time. Doing that would require deviating from the theme of rape culture where we're only concerned with the actions of individuals even if it doesn't fit the entire narrative. And they can't do that.

Though I will give them one thing Anya didn't want him there anymore. Though then we'd have to deal with the fact that that's not possible and not everything a victim wants is viable unfortunately.

No what Curly should've done is coordinate with Anya better from the moment he figured out what happened so she didn't feel like she was unsupported and had to do things on her own. Maybe they could have come up with a plan together about how best to keep her safe. But that's easy to say from the outside looking in with hindsight benefit.

[ains-art]

Recent one where i had fun with the colors

[karliahs]

I tried to give myself a little break from writing because I thought that's what I needed, but turns out the writing is load-bearing at this point. what I really needed was a break from writing stuff that I ever intend to polish up and show anyone. tapping out random comfort daydreams full of square brackets and 0 context is vitally necessary in fact

[three-dee-ess]

going up to bat against the wii u lovers on my 3DS blog was a mistake i did not realize it had that many defenders to this day

[rawliverandgoronspice]

In spite of the whole bonkers thing of TP Ganon wielding his own execution sword, I find it fascinating that he is using a weapon of Light to fight you --a weapon originally conceived for purposes of justice, and that light still steeps through him through the wound.

And, to top it all off, Link uses tools more aligned with darkness to fight him back (turning into a wolf, Midna becoming a eldritch horror...)

Symbolically this combo of reverse mirroring AND literal mirroring is very interesting I think

[uniiiquehecrt]

Voice actors are NOT the same as actors.

It takes a specific kind of skill-set and training to be able to warp and meld the voice. It takes a certain kind of talent and dedication to hone that talent into the ability to meld the voice and invoke emotion with one's voice alone. Actors are used to using their voice secondarily to their body language and their facial expressions. It's all mirrored back on camera. They do have nuance. But it's a different kind of nuance and a different kind of training to produce that nuance.

Voice actors might get their likeness transposed on their character's design, and maybe their mannerisms might seep into the character's animation. But when it's all said and done: their presence is in their voice. They are bringing a character to life, showing that emotion in their voice, trying to keep a specific accent, drawl, pitch, tone in that voice and keep it consistent for their recording sessions.

The voice actor is like a classically trained musician who can play first chair in a competitive, world-renown orchestra. The actor (who fills the voice actor's role) is like a moot who played violin in beginner and intermediate high school orchestra and thinks they can get into Juilliard with that 2-4 years of experience.

This doesn't mean that the HS orchestra moot can't play. They can even be really good at it. Maybe they won competitions and sat first chair. But they are not in the same league as the person who's been training their whole lives and lives and breathes to hone their craft using the instrument and all of the training they've ever acquired to perfect it. They are not meant for the same roles. They are not in the same caliber. You do not hire the HS equivalent when you want to play complex music in a competitive orchestra.

Actors are not the same as voice actors.

And furthermore, actors - especially big name actors - taking the roles of animated characters for big budget films or TV pilots makes no sense anyways when - at least in the case of TV pilots - there's not a point to hiring a big budget actors anyways. That money could be used elsewhere (like paying your animators), and the talent that is brought onto the screen for X character could then be hired on to voice said character no recasting required.

I wouldn't say voice acting as a profession is in danger exactly, but it's certainly being disrespected and overlooked for celebrity clout, and this has ALWAYS been an issue. Shoot, even Robin Williams knew that much - which is why he tried so hard not to be used as a marketing chess piece for Aladdin and got royally pissed off when it happened anyways. People shouldn't go to any movie (but especially not animated films) because "oh famous actor is in it". People should go because it's a good movie and the voice acting is good.

People who honest to god think that voice actors are replaceable because "oh well anyone can voice act" or "I like xyz celebrity so naturally it'll be good" ... Honestly I just wish you'd reassess your priorities because you're missing the point and are part of the problem.

Voice Actors ≠ Actors.

[shoyowo]

to know bone deep that you have a partner & a rival who will accept a bad toss in the name of improvement but will not accept a toss that regresses in technique... it must have wiped clean any fears he had that they wouldn't have been able to make this work.

[thenotoriousscuttlecliff]

Female X-Men Characters who all got solo comics.

[goddessofroyalty]

i like angst, sorry ┐(´∀｀)┌ but continuing the whole 'how does viktor's side of the family cope with his impending(sp?) death' i cant help but think how they react to the news that hes having a baby cause like. theyre genuinely happy for him! hell it probably doesnt even register to the kids that a pregnancy could be bad for his body. but silco damn well knows that his own pregnancies almost killed him and before the whole Eye/Face Thing he had mostly decent health. its probably why he was always so insistent that viktor only have kids when hes actually ready for it. silco does kind of want to murder jayce a little more than usual, and its not just cause hes a piltite (he should KNOW if he loves viktor as much as he says he does that this all could potentially kill him!)

also, i forgot to add this in the previous ask, but silco (and lowkey vander lbr) ends up feeling awful for thinking all of that cause he fucking adores naph. like he still thinks viktor and jayce couldve been smarter about it but he genuinely loves that little brat so Where Does He Go From There, yknow?

Never apologize for liking angst (and don't worry I can just add the addition on while responding).

There's a reason I tend to go with Jayce and Viktor having their baby more early in their partnership than later (and reason why I generally go with them having only one) - as Viktor's illness progresses the chance of him surviving a pregnancy decreases.

Not only did Silco emphasis that his kids shouldn't have kids until they are themselves actually ready he also emphasised (to them all, but especially Viktor) that they don't need to even have kids at all. He's not the kind of parent to actively wish for having grandchildren (and he's pretty sure he's going to get some with the amount of kids he has) and he's also very pro adoption as a child acquisition method (going so far as to joke at times that if he had of known Vander would be as happy with adopting as he was he wouldn't have bothered going through pregnancy as many times as he did).

Funnily enough because all the kids grew up with Silco's horror pregnancy stories (there are just part of his regular monologues to them) their first reaction to finding out Viktor is pregnant is all some variation of "but why would you do that?" As the pregnancy progresses though they get more excited. They do know pregnancy can be dangerous (again Silco monologues) but I don't think they fully appreciate the risk - it's more kind of something to joke about to them.

There's no point in time or change to the situation that would make Silco not at least a little mad at Jayce getting Viktor pregnant. And honestly Viktor's getting a bit annoyed about it because they are in their mid-20s, independently wealthy, and have grand-parent support from both sides. They are in a far better position than Silco debatably was for any of his (and far better than he was when he had Viktor). Yes, Viktor's health is a concern, but that's why they're going to have doctors involved for the whole pregnancy. Viktor has calculated the risk and come to the side that it's worth it. Unless Silco wants to offer something helpful to the situation he can fuck right off with his opinion.

In Jayce's defense I don't think he was really aware of how bad pregnancy can go until Viktor gets pregnant and he starts reading up about pregnancy (because he's the kind of person who would read up about it if his partner's pregnant) and starts finding out about all the potential complications. And now he is aware he is very worried because he knows Viktor isn't as healthy as the average person and he cannot lose him.

I don't think Silco realised how much he would love his grandchildren until Naph is born. He's not a warm and fuzzy person and he knows it. He's protective of his children because it sucked for him to obtain them but he shouldn't have that with his grandchildren. He's very neutral on children that are not his own. So while he always planned on helping his children out however he could with his grandchildren I really don't think he expected how much he adores Naph from as soon as the boy's born. I don't think he feels that guilty about his thoughts before Naph was born - the pregnancy could have still ended badly he wasn't wrong. The fact that it turned out alright is lucky and, well, Naph's here now the risky part's over (now no trying to have another one you two).

Vander always knew he'd love his grandkid. His concern during the pregnancy was purely Viktor's health and prioritizing that over the baby. Once Naph is born and Viktor is fine that worry doesn't matter anymore and he can just dote on his grandchild.

[ryuubff]

it's probably obvious that. sebastian is my favorite. sorry. i also like sam though hes cute

also in my first spring i kept fishign up flounders (because . BECAUSE I LOVE FISHING) and i found out only sebastian somewhat likes them and just kept giving it to him.