#you are your own hero

[princessoftheroad]

The people in my life didn't destroy me. I destroyed myself with intense feelings of inadequacy.

[fanaticalthings]

Bruce coming home one day to find Robin Jason clinging onto a chandelier with Dick below him cheering him on.

Bruce: Jason what are you doing?

Jason: Dick said that you missed his antics after he moved out and so he’s teaching me how to be a better son

Dick: After this we’re going to drive the Batmobile into the bay :D

Jason: We’re going to what? I mean yeah! Right into the water.

Jason trying to whisper to Dick: Dick I can’t swim though

This just further fuels the chaotic dynamic of Dick and Jason during a time where Dick was still going through his teenage angst and was absolutely not a benevolent role model LMAO

I mentioned it in this post, but it's just so funny to me to imagine a Jason who grew up with an absolutely WILD Dick Grayson as an older brother, while the younger batkids grew up with a more mellowed out and mature (arguable but when measured against the other kids, he wins by a landslide) Dick Grayson.

Robin!Jason era:

Dick: You wanna go out and get high?

Jason: I can't, I have homework.

Dick, sputtering: HOMEWORK?

----

Dick, about to do an elaborate (and totally not dangerous) acrobatic move in the manor: Watch this, littlewing

Jason: You shouldn't do that, it'll make Bruce upset.

Dick, on the brink of angry tears: Why are you like this.

----

Jason, dejected: Listen, I know you don't approve of me because you think I'm not good enough as Robin, but-

Dick: Not good enough as Robin? I don't care about that, I just think you're a little bitch

----

Dick taking Jason out on a hangout for the first time: OK, looks like I got my work cut out for me. Take out a notepad and write everything down. I will NOT have my successor embarrass me like this. So what you wanna do to piss off Bruce-

---

[Years later, Jason returning to Gotham with the fury of a thousand suns and the chaos to match it]: I'm gonna make your life a living HELL, Bruce

Dick, older and relatively more chilled out: Okayyyyy, maybe let's just– calm down a lil, haha, no need for the theatrics

Jason, betrayed, observing a Dick Grayson who is teaching his new younger siblings to behave and be mature: Dick, what the FUCK

-----

Present!Dick, mentoring Tim: Make sure not to be too impulsive, don't wanna raise Bruce's blood pressure

Red Hood!Jason spying on them from afar: Who even ARE you??

-----

Jason: So you teach me ALL of that, only to turn into the ONE thing you despised so greatly all those years ago

Dick, sweating: Well-

Jason: I'm ASHAMED. How can you be worthy of being called my PREDECESSOR?

[1800-lemon-boy]

I’ve seen a few headcanons (especially in fics) that Will solace actually is naturally brunette but when he was claimed by Apollo his hair turned blonde (weither it’s over time due to sun bleaching or straight away).

And I just wanted to say I love this so much purely because of how heartbreaking some of the implications can be. 🤗

It’s never happened to any Apollo campers before, Will doesn’t know why it had to happen to him, his one sense of normalcy taken away so quickly, his one connection to his previous life- gone.

Will starts to pick up quite quickly he’s not like his other siblings, he’s can’t write and is average at archery. But he can heal, better than anyone else can.

He was different from the start, he was claimed differently, and his gift was different too.

And while still struggling with what to do, at the ripe age of 12 he’s now in charge of a cabin full of kids younger than him, because he was the oldest to survive.

Just imagine how the plague powers would also affect him. Apollo himself said that it seemed Will had gained all of his good qualities and none of his bad.

How would this 15 year old feel that the same hands that can heal can cause harm?

<33

[lyculuscaelus]

So lately I’ve been seeing a lot of posts asking people to stop trying to make Odysseus look nice in their works cuz he’s a “messed-up person in the mythology”. Your opinion is valid however I have but one thing to point out:

You want to know who started all this? Who started to “make Odysseus look nice” in the first place?

It’s Homer. It’s nobody else but Homer himself.

A non-Homeric Odysseus would try to murder people out of his own interests. He’d murder Palamedes without remorse (and we’d be cheering over this but it’s a murder after all), he’d attempt to murder Diomedes just to get the Palladium himself, he’d volunteer to kill Astyanax…meanwhile you wouldn’t find any mention of either Palamedes or Nauplius in Homer’s poems, neither did he mention anything abt the Palladium heist (and Diomedes necessity did not happen until Conon’s version), the death of Astyanax, the distribution of war prizes, etc. And all the details in the Odyssey seemed to deny the existence of Nauplius’s vengeance at all, so Odysseus would not take any of the blame.

A non-Homeric Odysseus would be depicted as “cruel, treacherous”, meanwhile in book 10 of the Iliad Odysseus was not mentioned to have killed anyone during the marauding, neither did he promise Dolan anything at all. The negative interpretations are denied by these details subtly put by Homer.

A non-Homeric Odysseus would be widely known as a “coward” for only shooting arrows from afar. But Homer gave him a spear and had him absolutely slaying in both the Iliad and the Odyssey. That part of Ajax’s speech was invalid already.

Most importantly—a non-Homeric Odysseus would be having kids everywhere else, and the loyalty to his own wife as seen in the Odyssey is no where to be found. Meanwhile his lineage was a single-son line made by Zeus in the Odyssey, and his love for Penelope was one of his main drives, especially seen in book 5 of the Odyssey. He loved his family as a loving parent—something you don’t get to see in most of the non-Homeric writings—for most of the time they followed a different tradition indeed, in which Odysseus wasn’t half as nice as in the Odyssey.

TL;DR: in case you haven’t noticed, the characterization of the Homeric Odysseus was quite different from a non-Homeric version of Odysseus. It’s not that Homer didn’t know of the existence of other versions—he knew them too well, which is why in his version of the story, you don’t get to see any mention of them.

[embrose]

Istg I'm such a sucker for the "Introvert who gets tired from being with people recharges by being close to their SO" trope. Or, like, recharging in general after not meeting their SO for a while. I'm an introvert and I've never experienced that but it's a really nice thought.

[evostrashbin]

Some very serious warmup doodles from this month with more or less varying quality

[firesmokeandashes]

Not me just now realizing Katsuki is sitting on Izuku's right-side symbolizing how he's Izuku's right-hand man!

[linkedin-offficial]

to forgive or forget

more lore for what ive got going on with carnival hero, for those who wanted to know why he doesnt particularly like kinger.

i like to think kinger was working on the code to remove the collars for a hefty amount of time. poor kinger tried so hard to perfect the code to release his people, but it was particularly hard for obvious reasons. he tried it so many times ; and when it finally worked, it was like a miracle. queenie, along with everyone else was overjoyed!

of course, it wasnt entirely perfect. sometimes, things go wrong when you take your excitement for granted. sacrifices get made, sometimes accidentally. the lovely king ends up forgetting about this sacrifice that was made, like he always does. the reason why shes gone fades in his mind like a bruise.

but others dont forget, nor forgive. hero never forgot this unnecessary sacrifice. he understood everything clearly after that. the collars are there for a reason. sometimes its better to be safe, to stay in ones own lane. to stay confined where you belong, where to remain unchanged is promised. for the greater good.

[pjs-everyday]

yep, lol who doesn't have a soft spot for ochako?? haha 💕

cheeky thief comic: part 1 // closeups // bakugo's shirt // part 2

[littlefankingdom]

It's ironic how Batman is painted as irresponsible for having children fighting as his side (ignoring how said children would still fight without him), but never other heroes, HOWEVER the moment the Teen Titans/Young Justice wants to do something dangerous or comes back from doing something dangerous, he is literally the only responsible adult out of the Justice League. Like, the others are simply like "I'm so proud of you!" but Batman is lecturing his kids about how dangerous it was, how they didn't even told him where they were going, how they didn't contact him about their well-being enough, about how difficult it would have been for him to come help if they needed it... He's straight-up acting like a parent that found out his kid sneaked out, but they didn't came back until later the next day, and never called to tell them they were alive.

Bruce is portrayed as the "unfunny" one when one of his teenage kids is like "the team and I wants to do this dangerous thing unsupervised", because every other adult is fine with their own doing it, but like, he is being the responsible one. Yeah, a responsible parent would not be like "sure sweetie, go fight this dangerous thing with your teenage friends", they would be like "No, you could get hurt. Yes, I trust you, but this is not safe".

Sometimes, he isn't overprotective, he is normal-level-protective for when your kid is a "vigilante that fights people who will kill them without regret" as a hobby, and the others are being careless (no hate to them tho)

[reality-detective]

I Love Candace Owens, she's 100% spot on with everything she says here... "What's it going to take for you to wake up?" 🤔

[ryssbelle]

doing the missing Linktober Inktober prompts the crazy bonkers way with a SKY LINE UP

I picked and chose a few prompts not really caring to make it the right prompts for the days, and for the rest of the month I'm just gonna mix and match them (more like taking the day 29 prompts and using them tomorrow kind of mix and match)

But YEAH this was a lot of fun!! the aus i used going from left to right-top to bottom are: @bonus-links @linked-maze @linkeduniverse @limited-hero @heroesspirit and finally my own (which remains unpublished atm)

I'll leave close ups to all the guys under the cut!

Skyward Sword stained glass

Loft Bonus Links

Sky Linked Maze

Sky Linked Universe

Sky Limited Hero

Sky Heroes Spirit

Sky Fractured Timelines

[bisclavret]

like many who have suffered at the hands of bbc merlin before me, i recently indulged in a thought experiment in which i outlined my own version of seasons 3-5 that stay thematically and tonally in line with the show (except they're less fucking stupid). but then i quickly realized that focusing on details is pointless: all you need is to solve the one Big Problem the show has, and the rest will follow. the problem in question? ✨morgana✨

i like the first two seasons. s1 achieves what it sets out to do and has fun while doing it, and s2, while flawed, sets up a ton of potential that the following seasons unfortunately squander, beginning with the insidious season 3. you can only distract me with cute knights and goblins and fart jokes for so long before i start seeing through you, evil, evil season of television.

my hypothesis is that if the writers had crafted s3 morgana into anything more sympathetic than a violent half-alive poltergeist that can never be reasoned with because she's suddenly terminally off her rocker, everything would've fallen into place. a sympathetic morgana would've made real, valid arguments against uther (and arthur) that wouldn't just be the ramblings of a woman possessed. her betrayal of arthur would have stemmed from her feeling increasingly morally superior to him because of his complacency in the face of their father's tyranny. under morgause's guidance she would stop believing that arthur is capable of change, and the whole point would be that she might actually be right. arthur would have to actively try and prove her wrong, instead of getting praised for doing the bare minimum because the bar is on the floor.

furthermore, morgana's prophetic dream about arthur and gwen becoming king and queen and her decision to prevent this however she can is a direct parallel to merlin learning about that same prophecy and making it happen by any means necessary. merlin's desires about his and arthur's futures are subtextually fueled by gay love and devotion, so why couldn't morgana's be? why couldn't she properly express her bitterness that arthur gets to be with gwen in a way she can't "took gwen away" from her, instead of suddenly declaring that gwen is nothing more than a servant, after two seasons of demonstrating again and again that she loves, values, and respects gwen more than anyone else in that godforsaken castle?

following this, an angry and emotionally volatile but still sensible morgana asking gwen to stay by her side during the coup of the castle in the s3 finale and gwen going behind her back to help arthur and the knights would've hurt like a bitch. double-sided betrayal! gwen having a real plot! the proper beginnings of a toxic yuri that would shape a generation!

then there's the utter hubris of having morgana shoot arrows at the same civilians she worried herself sick over for 2 seasons — even morgan, her medieval counterpart that was rooted in every sexist trope in existence, doesn't just go around killing senselessly but instead has (often petty!) personal vendettas against gwen, arthur, and the knights. morgana had every right to be sick of the pretensions around chivalry in camelot (she was always quick to mock it, even in s1), and to lash out at the knights and soldiers after years of feeling powerless in a castle full of armed men that blindly followed her oppressor. the show conveniently forgets that morgana was victimized as a woman as well as a sorcerer those first 2 seasons.

but like i said, this is not just about morgana. allowing her to remain a real and multifaceted character even as she betrays everyone in pursuit of her ambitions would've given the rest of the core four more interesting conflict to work with: merlin because he would have to experience real consequences to his actions, arthur because he would watch his sister go against his father (and his knights, and his birthright) and experience some actual internal dilemmas about it, and gwen because she would be forced to choose between morgana and arthur without the pretense that it's an obvious or easy choice for her to make.

even morgause and gaius would come off more interesting as mentors: neither one inherently evil or inherently good, both jaded by events that happened before our protagonists were even born, both heavily influencing morgana and merlin into fulfilling roles that they think are appropriate, but that morgana and merlin may not have chosen for themselves had they not been under their care.

you get the gist. if the show followed its own setup, morgana's mistakes wouldn't lie in cheap and senseless acts of violence but in alienating the people she loves because she is too hurt and jaded to trust them. meanwhile, everybody else would feel guilt over "failing" her and yet they would be too caught up in their own (sometimes flawed!) beliefs of right and wrong to truly see her point of view.

arthur would convince himself it was sorcery that corrupted her. merlin would know that isn't true but he wouldn't be able to argue without confessing everything, which is the defining conflict between him and morgana and it's cheapened when she's just an evil witch caricature and merlin is framed as inherently virtuous in contrast. gwen, too, would become a more active participant in her own life by choosing arthur over morgana and choosing to rule camelot with him instead of just waiting politely to see where things go.

and, of course, uther's downfall and death would be quick, final, and completely earned — when and why did the show even decide he of all people was the sympathetic villain, anyway?

lastly, and perhaps controversially, i think morgana should've learned merlin's true identity by season 4. her being the first of the main characters to find out makes perfect sense considering their shared history and their interconnected and mirrored arcs. even the show seems to agree, considering she does find out a little before arthur. but the narrative itself tried pointing flashing neon arrows towards this way earlier — there is a whole entire episode in s4 where merlin being emrys is repeatedly spelled out for morgana and she still isn't allowed to see it. that episode makes her look like the stupidest person to ever live, which is pretty funny im not gonna lie, but also another frustrating thing in the endless string of frustrating things that make up this show.

morgana learning that merlin has magic would've transformed the source of merlin's anxiety from a crippling fear of being outed someday to the crippling fear of knowing she could out him at any moment. this would make him want to beat her to the punch (perhaps he'd consider killing her for a minute and decide against it because she isn't a cartoonishly insane evil person in my version of events) and maybe he would even feel some tentative excitement at the idea of coming clean, now that it seems inevitable. after all, he always intended to tell arthur eventually! and i think gaius would have to admit outright that he does not want merlin to tell arthur he has magic because he, gaius, simply cannot risk such a gamble. it would be so interesting to see gaius and merlin clash and disagree once it becomes obvious that it's not merlin that isn't ready for the reveal, it's gaius. delicious!

with morgana's knowledge looming, things would inevitably spiral into a magic reveal by the end of season 4. i picture this season as an absolute mess of miscommunication between everyone at camelot, which is, y'know, canon. growing increasingly cunning and vengeful, morgana would use this tension to her advantage, destabilizing the court from the outside while she creates alliances with other sorcerers outside of camelot (instead of living alone in a hovel for no reason — morgana le fay i'm sorry i'm so sorry they gave you agravaine instead of your all-female entourage oh my god).

and here's where the events would change beyond recognition (aka here's where the meta becomes the fanfic i refuse to write). picture it with me: a militia of sorcerers infiltrates camelot and arthur and gwen have to set aside their differences (assuming gwen kissing lancelot and arthur overreacting happens, which it should) for the good of the kingdom as well as for love. picture high priestess morgana in her element, side by side with a bunch of misfit sorcerers that aren't so easily vilified, chopping down camelot's soldiers and knights and assuredly making their way to the newly-minted king.

then, just as it starts to seem that all hope is lost, in swoops merlin (the actual merlin, not his old fart disguise) on dragonback (kilgharrah hates morgana so much i know his sexist ass would stoop to anything to stop her)!!! imagine merlin showing off the extent of his powers in front of everyone and preventing the sorcerers from getting any further, declaring loud and clear that camelot is protected by him, by emrys. imagine that display of power alone being enough to send everyone home.

imagine the loyalties clearly drawn: merlin on arthur's side, morgana on the sorcerers'. imagine arthur, feeling confused and betrayed by everyone at this point, banishing merlin despite everything he's done for him in the angstiest, most emotionally dysregulated scene the show had ever put to screen. imagine merlin starting season 5 free at last but very lonesome, an embittered dragonlord like his father. imagine the absolute mess camelot would become without him, even with gwen — now queen guinevere — there to pick up the slack. imagine arthur actually earning merlin back, finally growing into his role as king as he does so. imagine the reunion.

all this and more could've been not just possible but inevitable if morgana was allowed to remain a complex character that is neither inherently good nor inherently evil: it was undeniably the biased and one-note treatment of morgana's downfall by the writers that set the precedent for literally everything else that happened after merlin chose to poison her. the show wouldn't have even had to jeopardize its tone or the monster-of-the-week vibe, all it would've had to do is admit that even the "good guys" are capable of mistakes and what makes them good is the ability to feel remorse and change for the better. (as opposed to uther, who was miles beyond redemption since way before the pilot and deserved to lose everything and die alone. OBVIOUSLY???)

in a world where morgana remains multifaceted and sympathetic, mordred would get a better arc as well, so if we really wanted to, we could still end on the same tragic note that the show ended on. with so much harm inflicted onto so many innocent people by the pendragons for so long (including mordred and the many druids and sorcerers that raised him), it could realistically end up being a little too late for anything more than one shining glimpse of king arthur and the sorcerer merlin's short-lived golden age before fate catches up to them. glimpsing that reality just to immediately lose it would've been far more satisfying and far more tragic than whatever the writers thought they were doing with all that pointless carrot-dangling.

and finally, an ending in line with morgana's new and improved arc. in this version, rather than bleeding out on the forest floor alone, she would channel the morgan le fay we know from the legends: sobered up by the reality of her brother dying, she would use her high priestess status (and perhaps also her pendragon status) to be granted passage over to avalon alongside arthur on the boat — a one-way ride — just to make sure he gets there safely. this is her penance for the harm she has caused, the same way arthur's penance is to die and leave the true ruler of camelot (gwen) behind to achieve everything he was too slow and indecisive to build while he still had time.

merlin's penance, then, would be to stay behind and watch them cross over without him, waiting and waiting and waiting until they come back or until he can finally join them. which is a bit fucking harsh if i'm honest, so i'd at least make it slightly more faithful to the legends by having him return as an old man and letting him take a long nap under a tree by the shore, his body slowly enveloped by vines like the cobwebbed fisher king in 3x08, never fully sure if he's dreaming or if there really are strange shapes fading in and out of the fog over the lake. still tragic, but nevertheless a little more open-ended and whimsical than [TRUCK NOISES] THE END!

[dirchristophernolan]

Charles Leclerc for Corerriere della Sera | 2022

[qiu-yan]

Serious Bitch Opinion: lan wangji...would be a terrible chief cultivator. yes, he is righteous and honorable and has a stalwart moral backbone. however, when you are given the responsibility of leading others, the impeccability of your own moral character must come second to what tangible results you can actually achieve for your people. and if you want to actually achieve any tangible results, instead of getting deadlocked forever or getting done in by your political enemies, you have to learn to compromise on some of your ideals. instead of freezing out the people you find morally despicable, you must learn to cooperate with them; otherwise, you will not achieve anything. and in order to achieve your goals, you must learn that not all of your goals are achievable--that, in order to get the more important of your desired measures passed, you must give up on some others.

now, this is almost the polar opposite of what MDZS as a text champions. arguably one of the central thematic thrusts of MDZS is the importance of not compromising on your ideals, even when it would be far more pragmatic to do so. thus, if lan wangji wanted to become a leader who could actually achieve things, he would have to directly contradict one of the most important messages of the very text that valorizes him.

the moral framework employed by MDZS to evaluate its characters and convey its themes is much more focused on ideals than on results. what matters to MDZS as a narrative is ultimately not the results of one's actions, whether one's righteousness led to joy or to ruin, but rather that one attempted to be righteous even in the face of almost inevitable failure. attempt the impossible, after all. the text of MDZS does not follow utilitarian ideas; it does not condemn wei wuxian for ultimately failing to save almost anyone. rather, wei wuxian's stalwart moral character is celebrated in spite of his failures because he, unlike everyone else, tried.

unfortunately--while someone who is only responsible for their own life can attempt the impossible, someone who is responsible for the lives of millions must instead achieve the achievable.

[idlenight-art]

Sure, Sylas 'the Dark Urge' Morte is officially the party leader. But every choice will be passed by his boyfriend first, just to be sure.