welcometothepartypal12

[welcometothepartypal12]

"You got this, kid"

link for the uninitiated

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While the subject of Craig Alanson’s “Expeditionary Force” series isn’t explicitly about Humans being “Space Orcs/Australians”, there are plenty of antics to go around; a multinational group of horribly unprepared humans secretly go galavanting across the known Galaxy aboard a stolen alien starship –aided and abetted by an ancient, scatterbrained alien AI (think Halo’s Precursor or Forerunner tech level and you won’t be too far off…)– as they try to keep several far more advanced alien races from realizing their “lowly” race has become a contender in their eons-old war.

[welcometothepartypal12]

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

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"Are the Robins child soldiers" It depends. If the story is super serious and into exploring complex morality and grounded from reality's standards, then yes. If the story is lighthearted, made for children, fluff, etc., then no. If it's somewhere in the middle, it might depend.

If an author wants to write a story seriously delving into the fucked up-ness of children fighting criminals, they can, and if you don't like it, you can read something else.

If an author wants to write a fun story about villains and heroes featuring Robin in a world where that's not an issue, they can, and if you don't like it, you can read something else.

If an author wants to write a serious story but not apply IRL-logic to Robin, they can, and if you don't like it, you can read something else.

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Danny, after going on a walk through the Ghost Zone, comes across a very friendly couple who quasi-adopt him.

They're super cool, too!

They used to be a part of a traveling circus, and they know how to do all sorts of neat tricks and flips and they teach him how to do them too!

Honestly, with their help his flying becomes next level; they forced him to obey gravity long enough to learn how to ignore it without using his abilities, and as such he gets a greater understanding of how to maneuver through it.

So when his Freshman class goes to Gotham on a field trip (scare tactic to prevent them from becoming drop outs because "oh if you drop out you'll resort to being a thug and you'll be trapped in this cursed city foreverrrrrr ooooooooo~") Danny decides to show off to Sam and Tucker in a small park.

He does a quadruple flip off of a wall he ran up.

Barbara stares in disbelief through her cameras.

That.

That shouldn't be possible?

She calls Dick to ask if he had any siblings or cousins he wasn't aware of.

[welcometothepartypal12]

Hero forced to go on a date with a villain to convince them to help? Hero is terrified and villain is flirty. (Love your writing so much ❤️)

"Oh, good," the villain purred. "You received the clothes I sent you."

The hero's skin prickled under the villain's admiring gaze, heat rushing to their face.

The villain smirked, even though the blush was hardly flustered pleasure, so much as some flushed combination of helpless, frightened fury and humiliation. The villain made a twirling gesture with their finger.

The hero turned in a slow circle, however much they hated putting their back to the villain for even a second. Not that it mattered. The villain was just as dangerous standing in front of them as behind them. The hero still jumped when they turned to find the villain right in front of them, movements perfectly silent. Or maybe the hero's heart was simply pounding too loud to hear.

"You are even more stunning than usual," the villain said. "Now say hello." They tapped their cheek.

The hero leaned in, dizzy, and pressed a quick chaste kiss where the villain indicated.

The villain curled an arm around them, pulling them flush in one easy movement.

The hero squeaked.

Any thought that this could even vaguely be like a normal date, with the same expected courtesies, social niceties and distance, vanished. They really hoped they weren't expected to put out on the first date too. They weren't sure what they do would do if that was the price that the villain demanded in return to their aid.

The hero tried to focus on the main goal, but their every instinct twitched to have the villain so close. It made it difficult to think straight.

The villain inhaled, lips brushing the hero's cheek in turn. "Fear," they said. "Is such an exquisite perfume on you, my dear."

Then the two of them teleported.

The villain's ability was such that they could transport themselves across both great distances, and also great time periods. The only thing they needed to do it was some small thread, an item or even a memory, to connect them to where they wanted to go.

It made them almost virtually impossible to imprison or out-trick.

It also made them the only person the hero knew who could rescue the trapped civilians before it was too late.

Unfortunately for the hero, 'too late' for the villain, given their abilities, was rather less of a ticking time bomb than it was for the hero's stress levels. How long would they draw it out? There were still limits, there had to be. Bringing back the dead on one's own timeline was a rather different skill, after all.

The two of them appeared upon an empty beach, the sky lit the same fading gold as the sand. The air was warm and sweet. There was a picnic blanket awaiting beneath a small marquee like-covering, its hangings entwined with glimmering lights. There was a picnic basket, too.

"I'm told," the villain said, "that you enjoy picnics."

The hero was never going to enjoy a picnic ever again.

Their stomach squeezed, unsure how they were even going to manage to eat anything without hurling. Except, well, they could imagine how well throwing up in the middle of the date would go. They resisted the urge to start running, or at least recoil. They let the villain lead them to sit down instead.

The villain retrieved delicate glasses, too fine for any normal picnic, and poured them - it was the hero's favourite wine, too. Their favourite food. How could the villain know? How intently did they watch?

The hero shoved away another wave of dizziness.

"So," they said. "You said you'd consider helping, if I came to this date with you. I'm here, so-"

The villain clicked their tongue and held up their glass in toast. "Don't be so eager to skip the foreplay, love. You'll need it."

The hero nearly dropped the glass in panic.

The villain smiled, head tilted in that admiring way once more.

"I said I'd go on a date." The hero tried to keep their voice light, careless, suitably at an advantage. "That was it. I said nothing about how long that date would be, or how good it would be. I've shown you what it can be like if I behave, but-"

"But if I don't help you, you'll be a naughty little hero?" The villain bit down on their lip, as if delighting in the idea.

The hero stopped short, feeling like they'd put their foot in a minefield. An active one.

The villain laughed, softly. "Whatever would I do with you, if you did that?"

"You could save them now," the hero tried again, mouth dry. "Come back, after - I'm not going anywhere." There was nothing light or careless in their voice now. "Where would I go? I have no idea where we even are."

And thinking about that, about being somewhere completely alone with the villain...

"And miss that adorable desperation on your face? Sweetheart."

The villain sounded chiding, and the hero shivered.

They gulped down a mouthful of wine but couldn't taste it over the acrid panic burning in their throat.

The villain settled back, perfectly at ease, and set their glass their down. They arranged food on...there was only one plate. One plate, two forks. The villain loaded up a bite, holding the morsel out the hero's mouth, eyes agleam with dark amusement, with a hunger that had nothing to do with the horrifyingly delicious scents surrounding them.

"I'm curious," the villain said, "how far you'd go save them. And the night is still so young! Shall we find out?"

In the end, everyone was saved from the caves and the oncoming tide. In the end, the hero lay upon a picnic basket, cool evening air stroking bare skin and...

And the villain stopped. Arms braced on either side of the hero's head, studying them.

"I said I wanted to see how far you'd go to save them," the villain said. "I didn't say I'd make you do it. When you pick me you'll do it of your own volition."

The hero stared at them, brain un-computing.

The villain smiled, and pressed their fingers to the hero's lips instead, parting them a fraction.

"They're saved, my dear. Have been for a while. Now." They sat up, and pulled back. "Shall we do this again and see what you do next time? I still can't quite predict you...you're incredible."

And time looped back to the beginning of the evening again.

[welcometothepartypal12]

You are a monster who really doesn't care about hurting humans. In fact, you like blend in, so you often go to costume parties to socialize! However, this time, you soon realize there's another monster in the party, who is planning on attacking the unaware humans…

[welcometothepartypal12]

How are you feeling about how Dexter Soy draws Dick as a civilian? Inquiring minds beg to know. 😆

I like how he drew Dick's physique. Bigger arms with the slimmer waist.

Nightwing (Vol. 4) #119

Honestly, I'm happy to see something that's separated from Redondo's art style. Soy's art feels a little more "gritty" if that makes sense. Rougher edges and such. I'm also thrilled by Dick's lack of stringy hair. Thank you Soy for ridding us of that.

But yeah, I like the shoes Soy gave Dick. Redondo had Dick in Converse, and I'm just digging the running shoes more. It's cute that they're Nightwing "branded."

Nightwing (Vol. 4) #119

[welcometothepartypal12]

cute_miuu on Instagram

[welcometothepartypal12]

me during wandavision: wow they really just tease us with having agnes flirt with wanda and for what reason??

me during agatha all along: oh she’s just gay, that’s the reason

[welcometothepartypal12]

You and your friends, age ten, meet your adult selves from fifteen years in the future. Some are surprised, others are delighted, but you… you’re afraid of this person. “What… happened to us?”

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fun fact, i can be killed but it won’t last

[welcometothepartypal12]

I just reada really good fic but halfway through I realized "oh shit this is really familiar.... didn't I write something like this once?" And as I kept reading I kept predicting what happened next and the further I went the more convinced I was that they'd ripped off my story-

like, copied the ENTIRE plot and re-written it, just better than I had? The characters were more fleshed-out than mine were, and the POV was more interesting, and the pace made more sense- but it was MY STORY?

So close to the end I was like "holy shit.. do I message them? Ask if my story inspired theirs? Should I be angry? Flattered?" Cause their tags and description didn't mention me AT ALL, which, sure, it's fanfiction to begin with, but if you're using my work than at least credit me as inspo, right? Just to be courteous?

But I get to the end of the final chapter, and it's not finished, and I'm kind of disappointed cause I never finished my story and I was really immersed in their version now and had been looking forwards to seeing how they tied up my loose ends- so I scroll to the bottom to leave a comment, and.

It's MY URL.

IT WAS MY STORY THE WHOLE TIME.

THE ONE *I WROTE*.

In *2013*.

And FORGOT ABOUT

BECAUSE I WAS SO INSECURE ABOUT MY SLOPPY, SHALLOW, AMETEUR WRITING

And I'm just sitting here now staring into space thinking about every shitty story I've ever written now like

IT WAS ALL GOOD?

IT WAS GOOD THIS WHOLE DAMN TIME??

I'M A GOOD WRITER?????

[welcometothepartypal12]

damn straight

[welcometothepartypal12]

i really want people to stop writing scientists as awkward, stilted conversationalists who don't understand idioms or emotions and start writing them as depressed alcoholics who swear like sailors unless they're in a specifically academic situation

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"You have been kind to this child of ours, though she is nothing more than a monster to you. For that, you have our endless gratitude. Kindness is often missed by our kind. For you to give her such a priceless gift… we won't forget it, Friend Of The Abyss. This, we promise."

[welcometothepartypal12]

enough toxic masculinity I'm ready for salubrious mexicanity. I'm ready for a social movement that encourages (esp straight, cis) men to indulge in things that make them more joyful, emotionally healthy, and help them strengthen not core muscles but core compassionate communication skills.