#you did everything right

[inkling0121]

Oh so you think turning into a god is the greatest sacrifice a character could make? So hows that gifted kid burn out working for you? Are your parents proud yet?

[hinamie]

"I'll show you every day that choosing to live was worth it"

some of my favourite scenes from @hijinks-n-lowjinks' fic things i would miss from the other side . this fic tore my heart out fr but like in a good way and i wanted to pay it homage the only way i know how <3

[bilaudad]

wing stuff!

experimenting with a more cartoon style, idk what i'm doing loll

tagging: @goodomensafterdark <3

[egophiliac]

I have SO many thoughts about everything and they are in no kind of order yet, so here's just some quick little bits in the meantime!

I am not normal about any of these characters!

[gongyussy]

you think YOU had a bad day at work?

bonus: sid shrieking "no!!!! NO!!!!!" loud enough to be heard in the stands and on camera

[bumblingbabooshka]

People honestly portray Tuvok as far too "rolling his eyes, reluctantly going along with Janeway's silly little shenanigans" - he's literally so serious about being right there with her on every decision she makes. Janeway's like "I'm going to stay behind if the ship blows up" and Tuvok's like "I'm staying with you." Janeway's like "I'm going to deliver every member of the Equinox crew into the jaws of death via an alien revenge massacre" and Tuvok protests a grand total of one time before being fully on the bridge assisting her. He was the only one with her when she made the decision to honor the caretaker's wishes and save the Ocampa, dooming them all. He was willing to get court marshalled in order to fulfill a wish she couldn't grant by her own hand: Get them home [no matter what happens to me] <- wherein 'me' is Tuvok. This was the same wish that spurred him forward when he had to leave her on that planet and everyone left thought him cold for trying to fulfill it without her when in his mind it was akin to a dying wish, the last thing she'd ever express to him: Get them home [no matter what happens to me.] <- wherein 'me' is Janeway. He told Seven that the golden rule to follow is that the captain is "ALWAYS RIGHT" <- (His ACTUAL words) and when Seven asks if the captain should be followed even if someone KNOWS she's wrong he says "Perhaps." This man is perhaps the most ride or die dude in the universe about Janeway. Despite her labeling him her 'moral compass' he is by NO means impartial or unbiased. He'd defend her to his last breath. He canonically makes detailed psychological observations about her and has for years. He accounts for her luck when calculating the success of certain plans. It's implied in 'Twisted' that Janeway typically listens to Tuvok's suggestions and follows them nearly without fail - to the point that he's surprised and obviously irritated when Chakotay doesn't. Despite this they've been inside one another's quarters so infrequently that Tuvok can remember each instance. They call each other "Captain" and "Mr. Tuvok" even though they've known each other for twenty years. There's something wrong with them.

[stil-lindigo]

your favourite arach-narchists 🕷️

prints

[benevolenterrancy]

("Always. Continuously. With increasing apprehension, and decreasing hope. I will love you if I never see you again, and I will love you if I see you every Tuesday. I will love you as a corpse loves the beak of the vulture. I will love you no matter what happens to you, and no matter how I discover what happens to you, and no matter what happens to me as I discover this." -- paraphrased from The Beatrice Letters, Lemony Snicket)

[lygma-nygma]

Being a batfam fan is funny because people will make a post like “here’s my headcanon-“ and it’s just something that’s directly canon to the story then post about major canon events and get everything wrong.

[soarrenbluejay]

Supervillains for a community. (Well, except those jerks over in Gotham, insular lot, but they’re they’re one problem) Of course they do- supervillains are a group defined by strong opinions and a willingness to see them through, often with a healthy dash of societal failures and trauma as a catalyst.

The fentons, while not active even on the online message boards, are well known and explosive when they do show up, full of fascinating insights and hours long rants on mad science on hair pin turns courtesy of that ADHD attention span. Bit of the cryptids you feel honored to bump into kind of deal. Besides, like a good quarter of the community as it aged, they’d settled down and had kids (not necessarily in that order) and taken it very seriously! Out in the middle of nowhere, where even the most fearsome government outpost members, the local branch of the IRS, quake before them in fear. Out of the way.

Reveal gone okay-ish, Danny moves to Gotham still to get some air bc now things are Akward and he landed that engineering scholarship which is loads better than any other college would give him with his track record. So- the mysterious Fenton children are finally crawling out of hiding! Everyone is psyched! And roll in to Gotham en masse to witness the fireworks!

Except Danny is Determined To Be Normal. He’s had enough of the throwing himself into harms way shit for a lifetime- he wants to be free to peacefully built Rube Goldberg machines and unintentional increasingly complex bombs to his hearts content. JAZZ, on the other hand- the coveted token Normal One, has finally snapped! She’s watched her baby brother she practically raised throw himself into danger over and over and could do nothing, and now that she’s exposed to this whole network of superheroes outside of small town Amnity, some of those uglier emotions are coming out. And boy is she pissed! And can’t afford to show it much while filing the paperwork to have Arkham legally razed to the ground!

See I love this idea of like, niches in superhero society. A villain the heroes know they can plop their kiddo down with for an exciting afternoon brawl while they take care of a particularly grisly case and come back to a few hours later ranting about some new life lesson and a new move they really want to try. A villain who has a functioning moral compass despite their somewhat batshit long term goal and you can contact to fuck with another villains’s plan so they can laugh at them and you can have an easy afternoon. One who pries up hostile architecture and fills in pot holes, idk man. Get creative here, there’s such potential!

So Jazz becomes a Training villain- someone the heroes know their sidekicks will walk away from in a fight 100% of the time, usually with some new lesson to ponder and only a couple of bruises. Sometimes even snacks!

She also absolutely ambushes mentors to check that they’re worth the kiddo, which they appreciate once they get over being jumped in a dark alley by a 7 foot Amazon trained force of nature. They are not used to being on that side of the jumping, it’s a little unnerving.

(Yes, she low key adopts Shazam upon checking in with him on cursory ‘is the main hero of this city and asshole’ checkin. Yes, the super clones get yoinked out from under Superman’s negligent thumb to go have a blast with Ellie. What about it?)

This however only encourages more assorted weirdos to crawl out of the woodwork. It’s not often one of their own forfeits their potential spot for the running of the coveted Most Normal I Swear prize, but when they do it’s bound to be good! But jazz is off hounding various heroes and punching the faces in of pedophiles and shit whenever there’s no cape within easy reach, and so is a mite bit harder to contact than Danny, who has innocently gotten an apprenticeship under a clockworker for access to their workshop and is gleefully going about doing nerdy shit with great abandon.

Plus this is Gotham. No one gives a shit if someone in the Mad Alchemist uniform and still smoking from their latest experiment pokes their head in a window to bother the local shrimp teen- none of the usual social rules apply, everyone’s crazy here! So everyone drops any and all attempts at masking and just acts their genuine unhinged selves, much to the alarm of the Bats and frustration of Danny.

Bc he cannot get these mfers to go. Away. Even liberal use of the creep stick has little effect when the interloper is calibrated for an opponent with super speed or laser vision or whatever, and he’s trying to maintain his guise as a Normal College Student Do No Investigate.

So he calls in the big guns. He’s not super active in the supervillain kids group chat ever since things in amnity calmed the fuck down post becoming King and then immediately using a loophole that says he will not take the throne until he is grown, as defined by finishing learning his trade a la the medieval standards Pariah set up. So he can just take his sweet ass time with his graduate degree and out of inter dimensional bull shit that much longer! Point is, he hasn’t taken the chance to rant over there in a while, so his Crazy friends are getting a lil worried.

The change to come over and shout at their batshit crazy but (mostly) well meaning parent AND see Danny? Score!

The bats, however, are getting awfully suspicious about this one kid that villains from all over the country are flocking to, especially young and upcoming ones as of recently! And he’s acting his engineering course- all the worst rogues are known to have flown through their PhD studies prior to Cracking. They seem to have a real problem on their hands with this Fenton guy.

[cultofcipher]

Bill Cipher thoughts (BoB Spoilers Ahead)

I'm really sitting on how Bill's displayed so much of himself indirectly in the BoB. How during the Love section he denies having exes, marking them out. How said exes show up SEVERAL times scratched out or are regarded with this bitterness of someone who did NOT do the breaking up part. Bill got dumped. Every time. And is desperately trying to bury his feelings.

And that's something I think the Book of Bill really highlights in a way. The fact that Bill has feelings. That deep down he's a broken triangle. It's all over the book's writing. Him pointing out how to use denial and rationalization and other bad coping mechanisms to basically ignore and lie to himself (and show us how to do it) and basically convince himself that he is as heartless as he tries to be. Him avoiding his exes. The tone he uses and the avoidance really giving the "I don't handle breakups well and I'm still petty about it". Him constantly telling himself that he's fine. He's not fine. Him crying over Ford leaving and getting wasted. Him being bitter about the henchmaniacs not calling. His regret over what happened to his world. His loneliness. GOD his loneliness. His self-hatred. His scathing remark about definitely NOT having some tragic backstory that humanizes him and how he's not an "I can fix him case". Calling himself a monster. His longing for home. The "Last one breathing". The "I tried to change the past". The "my hands shaking, as I realized I could never undo the". The "until there was no one left but me, covered in blood, alone in the universe". The goddamn "I don't want to die alone" Valentine's card. The last few pages. Just, the last few pages. That isolation, his pained "I'M FINE". The almost sad plea for someone to let him out.

Bill cares. He's fucked up, unstable, violent. But he does care about people he gets along with and he feels understand him. For every "I'm just playing the bit" and using people with nice gestures, I think a fraction of that is somewhat genuine. And he hates it. He hates his own vulnerability. He hates his lack of apathy. He's denying himself his own emotions constantly under so many layers of distractions, eldritch horrors, and repression. He can't think about home, about failure, about how every relationship he's ever had, platonically or otherwise, ended. And it wasn't on his terms.

Him talking about/to his mom when he's drunk. How his mom called him Billy as a kid. How his home life sounded simple. How Bill as an individual is anything BUT simple. And how his drunken state holds such fondness for that simplicity, yet it was suffocating. How he would've broken free eventually, inevitably, because he knew that's who he was. It's his nature. He was destined for more.

How it cost him everything.

How he's constantly chasing insanity like it's a drug. Like he needs the power trip to stay high. To not think too hard. To drown out his emotions and his self-reflections and everything he hates about himself.

How in Gravity Falls he still tried to get Ford to side with him after everything, cause that was his vulnerability showing, for the slightest glimpse of a moment. Cause he doesn't want to do it alone. Him reaching out to the reader in his book, because he doesn't want to do it alone. Can't do it alone. Even when he eventually betrays that person, I think him offering Ford that cushy spot alongside his henchmaniacs makes me think that yeah, Bill actually would've upheld his end of the deal.

He thinks he wants multiversal domination. He thinks Weirdmageddon is his Magnum Oppus. His purpose. But he's so lost. If he ever does get what he wants, he won't know what to do with himself. He'll be faced with the "Now what?". He'll hit the end of the road and realize how unsatisfying it is. How this isn't what he wanted.

How lonely it is to be God.

I think the Axolotl sees that in Bill. It's why he doesn't try to destroy him or attack him or anything. He sees that inner self of Bill. Sees him for what he really is. Someone who needs a LOT of therapy, a true, honest to goodness friend or partner in his life, and maybe a more sustainable life purpose or hobby. He has so much potential and in a way his pursuit of power, rather than being an actualization of his abilities, is a waste of them, because it gets him nowhere.

And he needs help, even if he doesn't think he does. He's a depressed alcoholic frat boy trying to drown his misery in a way that hurts and kills worlds. He's a girlfailure, a bisexual/pansexual disaster (he's at LEAST canonically bisexual or at MOST canonically pan cause this guy has dated both ways).

Bill's book is so incredibly amazing for what it is. All the lies, all the unrealiable narrator parts of Bill's facades and flaws and him being himself and all of his genuine thoughts and feelings bleeding through the lines and showing themselves but only in a way that you can really understand if you understand him and can tell when he's lying and when he's not. To see the real parts of him, and everything else. This book was perfect, and it was perfectly imperfectly him. This truly is Bill's book. It's so him in such a raw and genuine yet dishonest way. I'm gonna cherish this damn book forever.

[shima-draws]

Just got back from seeing Sonic 3 and HOOOOOOLY SHIT y’all. Oh my fucking god. OH my god. Ohhhh my g o d

[lazylittledragon]

ok so i'm like. overwhelmed

i'm having one of the shittiest weeks of my life and i was really worried my store was going to be a complete flop (honestly i expected my friends to order some stuff and maybe a few other people and that was it)

and then half the things sold out in 2 hours so i'm!!!!! in shock

also the best part: the fundraiser stickers sold out completely!!

[rattoenailclippings]

It’s you!

Despite everything, it's still you.

[stars-n-kites]

really an inexplicable train of thought but i feel like taako is the kind of person who in a modren era au would just decide to go to a shooting range and learn how to shoot a pistol for funsies, but would consider learning to spin the pistol all cool like they do in cowboy movies to be his first and foremost priority. like hes already bought a holster and the moment he is given a gun he immediately starts trying to twirl it. the instructor has to tell him to stop or theyll take the gun away from him. he keeps trying to lead the conversation back to it anyway because he really feels like theyre putting the cart before the horse here if hes learning how to shoot the gun before even knowing how to dramatically reholster it if he were to get in some sort of cowboy duel. hes actually really good at the shooting part but he gets kicked out of the class after his eighth guntwirling attempt in which he accidentally flicks the safety off mid twirl and shoots one of their light fixtures

[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