#I haven’t read any of the comics so tell me if I’m wrong

[mysterycitrus]

You’ve talked about how fandom treats jtodd & dick, so what are your thoughts on how fandom treats dick & tim?

There’s this post that’s asking about people’s batfamily hot takes, and I was scrolling through the reblogs bc I love drama. One of the “hot takes” was calling dick a bad brother bc of the bruce lost in time comic era. Specifically saying that fandom excuses dick’s shitty behavior towards Tim bc his dad (Bruce) died and because of the stress of taking care of the city by himself. While Tim was hurting because of the deaths of Kon, Bart, Jack, Steph, and Donna (idk why they included Donna as Tim’s grief and not Dick’s??) and therefore Tim’s & Dick’s hurt and stress aren’t the same. According to this person, Tim was going through it and Dick was making it worse.

Now, I’m not going to claim I know how everything went down since I haven’t read those comics yet, but this feels like a gross misunderstanding of the arc.

From what I’ve seen, fandom tends to invalidate and villainize Dick during this time in favor of Tim. Dick is not being excused, in fact he’s being blamed for things that are either not his fault or just made up in order to whump Tim. Idk that “hot take” just rubbed me the wrong way because of how one-sided it was, and I guess it made me wonder about your thoughts about Dick & Tim since I tend to agree with your opinions lmao

fundamentally the issue is this — dick grayson existing and being a good person is an obstacle for fanon angst. dick grayson being a good brother means that jtodd can’t just slot into his pre-existing relationships with tim and cass and damian. dick grayson being a good friends means that he’s close with the titans and the league because he’s competent and trusted. dick grayson being kind means that he didn’t abandon tim, he was literally trying to keep everything together after bruce’s death.

not to try and make it a grief olympics but as much as people talk about everyone tim has lost (and i think they must have been talking about dana winters in that post?) people seem to forget that dick’s city just got nuked + the fallout of nightwing 93 + donna dying + jade dying + the titans falling apart + he was just locked in arkham himself. like… his dad has just died, he’s had to fight off his brother who’d just tried to kill both tim and damian and been given custody over a kid who doesn’t trust him

red robin 2009 has done irreversible harm to tim drakes character. people using that as the starting point for reading about him is bad. it’s a comic about a grief spiral, and it isn’t an amazing depiction of him either. but even then, people just seem to love straight up fabricating what’s in it.

dick tells tim that therapy might be a good idea. tim tells dick that he’s leaving because he trusts dick to let him do what he needs to do. even at his lowest point, dick is who he trusts most. those takes that’re like “tim drake was at his lowest point and then jtodd sees him and realises that he’s cool actually and they bond #jasontoddisagoodbrother #dickgraysonisabadbrother etc” because they like to posit that dick threatened to throw tim in arkham are so silly

that’s even ignoring how people just straight up lie about damian’s actions and how weird everyone is about ra’s al ghul. no, tim isn’t the only one he refers to as detective aside from bruce. no, tim isn’t one step away from being a mass murderer. no, damian didn’t try to kill tim— he was reacting to tim being suspicious of him. tim was beefing with a ten year old. why are u being so mean to the ten year old? (We Know Why)

ur right — it is extremely one-sided. im not one to pretend that canon is flawless by any means, but acting as though fanon is better just because someone online came up with it is also stupid. there are many many racist undertones with how jtodd and tim are interpreted, both separately and with each other. a lot of it is yaoi baiting dynamics, that a lot of fans don’t seem to want to admit. i won’t comment on how white people writing jtodd as latino and tim as asian can be Bad but like…. it’s all tied up together. people want these two characters to have suffered the most, because that justifies everything fans want them to do. they want them to be wronged. they want their idea of justice in their name

#does that make sense? Idk #dick grayson #dc comics #anti batfanon #the ask and the answer

[alienguts]

Picking Up the Pieces (Bruce Wayne x f!Reader)

Summary: Bruce and Selina have broken up again, leaving Y/N to comfort him.

Warnings: angst, breakups, unrequited feelings

Request?: No

A/N: technically, this is a comics!Bruce fic, but I used a Batfleck gif simply because he's pretty.

1 - Picking Up the Pieces | 2 - Kintsugi | 3 - Stay with Me

Are you home? I could use someone to talk to.

As soon as Y/N read the text from Bruce, her heart sank. She’d already received messages from Alfred and the boys about what had happened, but once the message from Bruce came through, her gut feeling was confirmed.

Bruce and Selina had broken up. Again.

Every break up was exactly the same. Y/N would sit and watch Bruce be happy with Selina and then their dual lives would ruin everything and he would end up moping on Y/N’s couch for two hours until he got over her for a year and then they would be together again like clockwork.

Y/N sighed deeply and tapped out her response.

Yeah I’m home, come over when you’re ready.

“I just don’t know what happened this time, Y/N,” Bruce sighed as he ran his hands over his head, his gelled hair sticking up from being ruffled so much.

“I don’t think I’ve got an answer for you this time,” Y/N said. She sat next to him on her tiny sofa, their knees almost touching. “That Selina’s a tough one to figure out sometimes.”

“Everything was going so well; she said she would marry me, moved in, the wedding was planned and people were invited and then…” He trailed off before taking a sip of the water Y/N had given him.

“Listen, none of this is your fault, Bruce,” Y/N said and rested a reassuring hand on his shoulder. She wanted him to know that she cared, but didn’t want to give him the wrong message. The guy had just gotten left at the altar, he didn’t need another woman feeling him up so soon.

“I know, but I can’t help but feel like it is,” he said.

Y/N’s heart twisted in her chest. She could hear how watery his voice was, just how emotionally run down he was, as if he was just seconds away from breaking into tears. And the worst part was that no matter how many times they landed in this exact same situation, it never got any easier.

She wanted Bruce to know that she had feelings for him, but it always seemed like someone else was getting his heart instead of her. She’d been there for all of them: Julie, Silver, Talia, Vicki, and of course, Selina. So many girlfriends, so many broken hearts. So many times she’d comforted Bruce on her couch. So many times he’d called her a ‘good friend’.

But she didn’t want to be a ‘good friend’, she wanted there to be more between them. She knew he could feel that spark between them, even if it was just a tiny jolt of static. They’d shared so many lingering glances, let their fingers touch for just a beat too long, had almost kissed at one point, but there was always someone else on Bruce’s mind.

Just once, she thought. Just once I wish it was my turn.

If thoughts of being held by Bruce didn’t keep her up at night, they would be the only thing she would dream about. His arms around her, his mouth on hers, telling her such nice things, but they were just dreams. Every time she would wake up and swear that she could still feel him, only to find that she was still alone.

“I should go,” Bruce said after a while, snapping Y/N out of her thoughts. “I’ve bothered you enough with this.”

“You haven’t bothered me, Bruce,” Y/N said, flustered. “I’m here for you to vent about your problems.”

Vent about your problems? Bad choice of words, Y/N she told herself.

“No, wait, I mean-” she stuttered, trying to force better words out of her mouth.

“It’s okay,” Bruce said and shot her a warm smile. Her stomach flipped when he looked at her, her heart fluttering as she lost her train of thought. “I know what you mean.”

“Oh, right.” She shuffled awkwardly in her seat as Bruce stood up to grab his jacket from the back of the sofa. “Could I give you a hug before you go?”

Bruce stopped, as if he was surprised by her question.

Why would his best friend ask for permission to hug him?

He turned to face her and smiled again before holding his arms out to her. 

“Of course, you don’t need to ask.”

Y/N gingerly hopped off the couch and made her way to Bruce, circling his waist with her arms and hovering her face just over his heart. She hoped he didn’t notice how her breath hitched when he pulled her closer into his chest and held her tightly, his cheek resting on the top of her head. She let her head fall onto him and listened to his steady heartbeat as her senses were completely taken over by him. 

Y/N had known Bruce to always be clean and well kept, but in that moment it was as if he’d arrived sparkling new. She breathed the scent of his cologne in deeply and savoured it, her eyes fluttering closed as she lost herself in him. It was just a hug between friends but to her, it was something she’d been waiting for for a long time.

When he pulled away, it felt like it was over too soon. She felt cold without him, even though his hands were still on her shoulders. Y/N watched his face as his eyes turned hazy and drifted down to her lips and his tongue briefly darted out to wet his own. Her heart jumped into her throat as they both looked at each other, daring themselves to look away.

“I’ve got to go,” Bruce said finally as his hands slowly dropped from Y/N’s shoulders. “Thanks for this.”

“Yeah, no problem,” Y/N said and led him to the front door of her apartment. “You know I’m here for you any time.”

“Yeah, you’re a good friend, Y/N,” he said and pulled his jacket on as he lingered in the doorway. “I’ll see you soon.”

“See you soon,” Y/N echoed as she watched him go down the hall and out of sight.

When she reentered the apartment, she closed and locked the door before resting her back against it and letting out a deep watery sigh. A single tear finally rolled down her face as his words echoed in her mind.

You’re a good friend.

She kept telling herself that it was the wrong time to be crying over being called that, but it was all she could do. All she wanted was to tell him that she loved him and to hear him say he loved her too. But he was grieving a relationship that was doomed from the beginning.

What would make her any different?

She wasn’t Selina, or Talia, or Vicki, or Silver, or Julie. She was just Y/N, his childhood friend who was always going to be there for him whenever he either broke off another relationship or got dumped. And it never got easier. Trying to tell him how she felt never stopped feeling like an impossible mountain to climb.

Once she had run out of tears, Y/N picked herself up from the doorway and was about to go into the bedroom when she heard her phone chime. She’d considered ignoring it when she heard it again. Assuming it was important, she picked it up from the coffee table in the living room and was surprised to find two messages from Bruce.

Want to go for coffee tomorrow?

To make up for me moping around tonight

#bruce wayne x reader #bruce wayne x you #bruce wayne imagine #bruce wayne angst #batman x reader #batman x you #batman imagine #batman angst #batfleck x reader #batfleck x you #batfleck imagine #batfleck angst #dc x reader #dc x you #dc imagine #dc angst #dceu x reader #dceu x you #dceu imagine #dceu angst #x reader #x you #female reader #*my writing

[2deadkat]

Ever seen “Black Sad”? What’re your thoughts on them if so

Okay lemme stop you right there before I start fanboying out…I LOVE Blacksad, it’s one of my favorite comics of all time…the art is so immersive and the writing is so smooth it’s one of my biggest inspirations actually. I make a lot of my mini comics with that in mind fun fact. I’ve read all the comics during December of 2022 and it has burnt into my mind ever since (tho the recent one has ended on a cliffhanger and I haven’t heard any new updates which is making me salty)

Honestly I love the fact that it’s a novel detective story with animal people and something about Blacksad screams peak design…

though the implications of fur color racism in this universe has got me thinking a lot but somehow it makes sense (I’m not sure if you know one of the comics is about a white supremacy group filled with pure white animals). Overall they have really good mysteries, I like the one in New Orleans and the other in Route 66. The way they delve into the culture also…there’s a huge show don’t tell aspect into the comics I really like. What I mean by that it’s very visual, there’s a lot of emphasis on action and expression which pairs really well with the thoughts of the characters, and you know Blacksad’s a detective so he monologues a lot, it works.

Idk how to describe it and maybe I’m wrong but it makes scenes where they’re just talking so endearing to look at and it makes me engage with the story really well…

Btw the spreads are insane…so much background detail, I’d recommend you see the full things for yourself

And now it’s time for my major complaint…why the fuck do all (or at least a majority I know Blacksad himself has more humanistic features) the male characters have beastly features compared to the female characters that is just a basic human body and with cat ears and a nose???

Hell even if there are more animalistic designs of women the problem is they’re either on the side or just a joke/gimmicky character compared to the ones that are a major part of the storyline it seems unfair with the male cast. Like you know you can an attractive furry woman without relying too much on humanistic features right???

So far the only redemption I see is with the alpaca lady with the “they all fall down” comic so I’ll give it that.

But yeah that’s the only thing that’s taking me out of reading these comics…and also the fact they play with women’s suffering for shock value for the sake of the story which seems to be a staple in noir/pulp type fiction. Which is…nothing I can do about but it’s more of a pet peeve really :/

But yeah despite all that it is still my favorite comic ever and a huge art influence minus the female furry design…

#keith answers #thank you anon for making me create a fanboy masterpost/lh #blacksad #oh my goodness I rambled so hard #Welp…here’s your ‘thoughts’

[nateconnolly]

I made a Patreon lol.

Here's the free sample post:

THE CREATION MYTH OF KILL 6 BILLION DEMONS

INTRODUCTION

I love fantasy religions. I love it when fictional humans try to understand worlds like Brandon Sanderson’s Cosmere and Tolkein’s Middle Earth through a religious lens—especially because in those books and in many others, the fantasy religions are somewhat true, and somewhat false. It’s really fun to look at a fictional universe through the eyes of a character who might not see things objectively. Religion usually plays a role in that. But, if I’m being honest, a lot of fantasy religions are just Christianity wearing a fun hat. Don’t get me wrong, I am fascinated by Chrisitianity, and I really enjoy a lot of fantasy versions of Christianity. But it’s a great special treat when a fantasy story goes the extra mile and portrays another concept of the divine. That’s one of many reasons that I love the webcomic Kill 6 Billion Demons. The webcomic’s fictional religion Atru has parallels to Taoism, Gnosticism, Advaita Vedanta, theothanatology, Biblical divine nomenclature, the list goes on. I just threw a lot of big scary words at you, but I promise, this is a beginner level essay. I’ll break everything down into bite-sized pieces. I just wanted to list out some of K6BD’s religious influences to show that they are complicated, and diverse.

This is specifically a essay about the creation narratives. K6BD is an amazing comic—later on, it tackles questions about time, free will, and optimistic nihilism, but I won’t dig into that stuff here. Those things would require their own essays. Here, I’m going to try to explain how the seven-part world came to be. More specifically, I’ll examine the stories that White Chain, Cio, Michael, and the old devil’s tale tell us; then I’ll look at fictional holy texts found in the Concordance.

I’ll also compare and contrast with a lot of real world religion and philosophy. I want to be clear that the creator Abaddon and I have never spoken. I don’t know where he got most of his inspiration. I’m not revealing any information that wasn’t already available, I’m just compiling it and offering my own thoughts. Unless I specifically quote Abaddon, assume that I’m not even talking about his inspirations. I’m drawing parallels because it’s fun, even though it probably won’t give us new insight into how the text was created.

I promise I’m not trying to convert you! I genuinely don’t want to make other people believe the religion that I believe—or any religion at all. I’m just trying to show you how understanding some real world religious and philosophical concepts can deepen your appreciation of K6BD. Obviously, there will be tons of spoilers, so go read the webcomic if you haven’t already. It’s absolutely genius.

Lastly, I want to say I will discuss suicide and murder.

Ok, let’s get started.

PART ONE: THE FIRST AND GREATEST DIVISION

Let There Be No Genesis

White Chain begins the history of the universe with the words, “Let there be no Genesis,” closely echoing the in-universe fictional Psalm I. “For indeed, there was [no Genesis]. God has always existed and has never existed.” As White Chain tells her story, we are shown the god YISUN. This figure is sometimes described with it/its or she/her pronouns, but for the sake of simplicity, I’m going to follow the example of the fictional Psalm I, and use he/him. I might call him “YISUN” or “God” with a capital G depending on the context.

YISUN was eternal, and the “undisputed master of the entire omniverse.” He predates everything else, and without him, nothing would exist.

YISUN has at least twelve bodies, probably more. Some are smiling, some look mad; some resemble insects or animals; most hold weapons; and all are different colors. The central white body has four arms. Abaddon has said that YISUN’s appearance is directly inspired by the Hindu god Vishvarupa.  Hindu gods are frequently depicted with multiple body parts, an artistic tradition that Doris Srinivasan calls “the multiplicity convention.” She explains some of the religious and artistic reasons that many Indian gods have multiple body parts in her book “Many Heads, Arms, and Eyes: Origin, Meaning, and Form of Multiplicity in Indian Art.” The tradition of Hinduism is long, and diverse, so the multiple limbs in one text can mean something very different from the multiple limbs elsewhere. Srinivasan closely examines a vast expanse of Indian history, and I don’t have time to present all her ideas. I would like to specifically focus on the interpretation that multiple limbs represent the manifestations of a singular godhead.

Srinivasan writes that “Multiple versions of a myth are facilitated by the idea that there exists multiple aspects or manifestations of a godhead.” Think of the difference between Greek and Hindu goddesses. Bruno Snell suggests “that these four women signalize the four aspects of all womanhood,” but Srinivasan qualifies his interpretation. The Olympian women “are not multiple forms of [one] Divine Woman, as is the case in Hinduism.” Artemis and Athena are different people who are both women, plural. Parvati, Sati, and Uma together are Woman, singular. Zeus, Demeter, and Poseidon are gods, plural. Shiva, Vishnu, and Krishna are God, singular. That’s not how all Hindus see things, but it is one Hindu perspective that I find especially comparable to K6BD.

Similarly, the multiple bodies are only manifestations of a single God: YISUN. All of his bodies are a single person. In Hinduism, the plurality of the divine can be seen as empowering and liberating. Multiple body parts signify that the god is a well-rounded entity. But Abaddon makes it look like a curse. He turns the artistic convention around. Using the same symbolism and metaphysics, he tells a radically different story. As White Chain says, “Being was only circular.” “YISUN had no equal… It was a wretched life, without meaning or perception. Imagine infinite stories to tell… and nobody to tell them to.” Perfection is lonely. At this point, YISUN is the only thing that exists, and that can’t be fun. All those arms and heads cannot satisfy YISUN’s need for companionship. It’s fascinating to me that when White Chain says YISUN had no one to whom it could tell its stories, Abaddon chose to illustrate multiple heads right next to each other. Even if those heads told each other stories, the speaker and the listener would still be the same person. Dissatisfaction with isolation is why YISUN created the world.

Although not all Hindus follow the school of Advaita Vedanta, in this case, I think it will be helpful to compare and contrast with Advaita. As Ram Shanker Misra writes in “The Integral Advaitism of Sri Aurobindo,” “Brahman [ is] perfect, absolute, infinite, need[s] nothing, [and] desir[es] nothing…” Brahman is full of all perfections. And to say that Brahman has some purpose in creating the world will mean that [Brahman] wants to attain through the process of creation something which it has not. And that is impossible.”

But that’s exactly why YISUN created this world. He wants to gain something that he does not have: companionship.The universe is God’s escape from himself. There was no Genesis, but there was “the first and greatest division: division of self”: “God committed holy suicide.”

2. The Divine Suicide

White Chain’s story is similar to Friedrich Nietzsche’s famous claim that “God is dead,” but Nietzsche did not mean God was a real entity that had literally died. He meant that intellectually, it was impossible to continue believing in God, and that all intellectual achievements founded on belief in Him had to be abandoned. Nietzsche’s claim is a famous example of a philosophical school of thought called death of God theology, also called “theothanatology,” which means “the study of God’s death” in Greek.

“Death” can mean a lot of different things in this context. Sometimes it’s metaphorical, sometimes it’s literal, and usually, it’s a very confusing mixture of both.

Nietzsche proposed the death of God as a social claim about humans. He’s talking about what we can believe, what we should do, and what we need to accept. God never really existed, but as religion loses followers and influence, even the idea of God has begun to “die” because it no longer has power over the real world.

“Death” can also mean God exists, but in a way radically different from what people usually mean when they say “God.” The Rabbi and philosopher Richard L. Rubenstein thought God exists as a “ground of being,” but not as a supernatural entity that made a covenant with Abraham. Rubenstein proposed the death of God as an intellectual change in what humans think the word “God” means.

And, finally, “death” can just literally mean “death.” The Protestant theologian Thomas J.J. Altizer wrote “we shall understand the death of God as an historical event: God has died in our time, in

our history, in our existence.” This isn’t a social claim about humans—it’s a metaphysical claim about God.

Death of God theologians usually mean more than one thing when they say God is dead. Nietzsche wasn’t just trying to convince Christians to become atheists; he was also trying to convince many atheists that they disbelieved in God in the wrong way. Altizer had radical thoughts about what human beings are able to believe.

White Chain means that God is dead in the literal sense. She is proposing a metaphysical belief that God, as a historical figure, chose to actually kill himself. White Chain is not rejecting or critiquing religion—she’s asserting that her religion, in which God has died, is fact.

You can see slight parallels to Nietzsche, Rubenstein, Altizer, Hegel, Zizek, and Blake in White Chain’s version of the fictional religion Atru. But there is no better comparison than the king of sad philosophers Philipp Mainlander.

Mainlander was an atheist—but not in the sense that people usually mean when they say “atheist.” Mainlander believed that there was a God at some time, but that time is now over. There isn’t a God anymore. Mainlander is pretty unique among death of God theologians because he explicitly describes God’s death as a suicide. Whittaker explains that Mainlander thought “[a]ll things have their origin in what may be called… the ‘will’ of the absolute being… to annihilate itself.” Essentially, the cause of the universe is God’s suicidal desires.

God was a “real unity,” but his death caused a “collective unity”—that’s the universe where we live now. God had been a total and undivided One, but now the universe is made of distinct parts. God cut himself apart into the pieces of the universe. God created the world by becoming it, and he became the world by dying.

Mainlander said “the knowledge that life is worthless is the flower of all human knowledge.” He thought suicide was desirable, and ultimately, he put his money where his mouth was. The biggest difference between Mainlander and White Chain is that she doesn’t seem to think ordinary people such as herself should follow God’s suicidal example. Even beyond the views of a specific character, the story of Kill 6 Billion Demons reads as an affirmation of life’s beauty and value.

But the webcomic clearly argues that making a better world is a bloody project. So it should come as no surprise that making the world itself involved bloodshed. First and foremost, the blood of God. What’s so interesting to me is that both White Chain and Mainlander equate God’s suicide to the creation of the world. Our life comes from God’s death. Creation and destruction aren’t opposites—they’re different ways of looking at the same process. At the end of Book 2, Allison destroys Mottom’s evil tree and a lot of her palace—but this destruction is also part of the creation of a more just and free world.

So, what did God’s destruction create? What came after YISUN?

3. The Duality of Un and Yis

The destruction of the total unity creates duality. I know that’s a little confusing because YISUN had many faces, but remember that behind all of those faces was one God, and only one. Not anymore. “From division was birthed duality. White Un, Lord of empty and still places, master of all that is not. Black Yis, infinite mother of the rampant flame. Master of all that is''

I cannot avoid comparing the White and Black gods to the Yin and Yang—a spinning black and white symbol usually associated with the religion Taoism. Yin and Yang represent a cosmic duality. Yin is associated with femininity, darkness, passivity, and even numbers, among other things. Yang is associated with masculinity, light, activity, and odd numbers, among other things. Mainstream Taoist philosophy asserts that the universe can be understood through duality. So, why are these pairs important? And why do things get paired together in the first place?

As is written in the foundational Taoist text the Tao Te Ching, “Being and non-being create each other. Difficult and easy support each other. Long and short define each other. High and low depend on each other. Before and after follow each other.” What’s so interesting about the pairs is they “create,” “support,” “define,” and “depend on” each other. Black can’t exist without white, and white cannot exist without black.

As the Encyclopedia of Philosophy puts it, “...yinyang is emblematic of valuational equality rooted in the unified, dynamic, and harmonized structure of the cosmos. As such, it has served as a heuristic mechanism for formulating a coherent view of the world…” Essentially, neither of these opposites are “dominant” or “truer.” Choosing one side won’t help you understand the universe because the universe is their partnership. Their equality gives “structure to the cosmos.” That structure is order, not chaos, but it is differentiated. There are two different things: Yin and Yang. They contradict each other, but at the same time, they make the universe. Yin and Yang are a productive paradox.

I’d like to return to the notion that “being and non-being create each other.” At this stage of creation in K6BD, UN and YIS could not exist without each other. Their very existence is the fact that they are not a unity. If there was only one of them, then there wouldn’t have been a division—and they are nothing more than the product of division. Just like how being and non-being create each other, the Master of All That Is and the Master of All That Is Not create each other. YISUN was characterized by his totality—he was the total sum of the omniverse, there was nothing else. After the division, Un and Yis experience otherness. The first otherness in the omniverse. It’s difficult for them to find balance—in fact, they immediately went to war for seven years. At the end of their seven-year war, Un and Yis made love for seven days.

I want to be very clear that this is not a depiction of actual Taoism. Yin and Yang are not gods with faces and minds. Notably, the Tao Te Ching asserts that yin and yang are “older than God.” so make of that what you will. But I think Taoism is thematically relevant to this era. Two opposites have to come into balance with each other. The whole universe is a duality of interconnected forces.

K6BD repeatedly emphasizes the need for community. As Allison says at the end of King of Swords, “I couldn’t have done this without any of you… We make mistakes. We learn from each other. We all still have so much to learn. Once I saw that as a weakness, now I’m certain it’s not. Someone who lives still thinking like that… struggling to do everything themselves… I can’t help but think how alone they must be.”

YISUN had to do everything all by himself, and we saw that Allison was right—isolation was a struggle, even for God. But the struggle is over, and in its place is duality. Partnership. The first community.

These are the first four parts of a fourteen-part critical essay. You can read the rest here.

Bibliography is on the free Patreon post.

#patreon #nate's writing #original post

[simplydannie]

Velvet and Veneer One-Shot

“I Couldn’t Save You” Prelude: Day 1

Day 1: Rageous Detention Center for Troubled Youth

Velvet sat filing her nails. Laying next to her, Veneer was reading a few comic books they had allowed him for good behavior.

They were in the mess hall when they had called for a mandatory cell isolation…. Velvet and Veneer so happened to share a cell. It had been five hours and no one has come to say anything.

“How long do we have to be in here?” Velvet moaned.

“Just hang in there Vels. Sheesh. You don’t always have to be a drama queen y’know.” Veneer exclaimed. She slapped the comic books away from his hands and into to the floor.

“Hey!” He exclaimed.

“Oops.” She smirked. At that moment two guards showed up at their cell door.

“Screening time.” They said. The twins looked at each other confused. Screening? They did their screening before they even entered this hell hole. But they didn’t refuse. One guard took Velvet by the arm while the other took her brother.

“Wait?” She questioned. They stayed together… they ALWAYS stayed together.

“Sorry. This screening needs to be done separately. The guards led them away in opposite directions. Veneer turned back and gave her a reassuring smile….. what the heck is going on?

The screening only required them to take a sample of her blood. Upon quick testing the word “CLEAN” appeared on the screen. Velvet asked questions… but there was no response. Within the hour, she was led back to her cell. She could smell that it had been disinfected and cleaned while she was out…She looked around…Where was Veneer?

A whole other hour passed. During that time Velvet notices the teens in cells being switched out and moved….doctors and workers walking by with medical masks….What the heck is going on? Velvet thought to herself. She kept asking any worker that passed where was her brother, but all ignored her..

She was sitting on her bed, head leaning against the wall when she heard footsteps approaching. That’s when she turned and saw Veneer being escorted….escorted to the cell opposite her.

“Hey what gives!” She ran up to the tempered glass. They gave Veneer a gentle shove into the cell; he looked at Velvet, confused and lost.

“Vels? What’s going on?” He asked her, placing his hands against the tempered glass. The doctors ignored his question only to continue to murmur amongst themselves. Velvet was able to catch a few words…quarantine, symptoms, monitor, how long.

“It’s spreading quick…” She could hear someone say. “Quarantine the infected….We don’t know what to look for in our species as the virus progresses…”

Virus?

“Hello! Can someone explain to us what you’re doing! Why is my brother in the opposite cell? We haven’t even done anything wrong? And I can handle a common cold!” Velvet yelled. The doctors hovered by Veneers cell for a moment longer, talking and writing something down.

“Hey, jerk face! I’m talking to you…what’s going -“ Velvet stopped short….when the doctors moved away she saw what they had been doing…what they had been writing….Next to Veneer’s cell was posted paperwork, and in big red writing: INFECTED. She looked at her brother with worried eyes. He looked at her quizzically.

“Vels, are you okay? Really, like, what’s happening here?….I’m slowly starting to freak out.” He asked….he had no clue? They didn’t tell him? Was it serious enough that they had to isolate him from her? At that moment one female doctor turned to look at her. Walking up to her cell, she placed her hand against the tempered glass….

“I’m so sorry sweetheart.” The doctor said softly. With that she was gone, leaving the twins to themselves.

“Wait! Wait come back! Please tell me what’s going on! Please tell me my brother is going to be okay!” She screamed after them. Veneer looked at her with a worried expression, he couldn’t see what the doctors had written and placed by his cell.

“Vels?” He said. Velvet leaned her head against the tempered glass. She looked up at him…he looked fine…he still looked like his normal self…so that means…he was going to be okay….Yes, yes, he was going to be fine…she had to believe it.

“Whatever this is…we’ll get through this okay.” She tried smiling….little did she know though…from that point on…was just a ticking time bomb…

#velvet and veneer #velvet #veneer #trolls veneer #velvet trolls #velvet and veneer trolls #dreamworks trolls #trolls band together #trolls 3 #fandom #fanfiction #fanfic #oneshot #au #infectious diseases

[oifaaa]

Please tell me how Roy’s characterisation was massacred for N52.

I understand how Jason and Roy’s relationship can be annoying where Roy never questions Jason and just follows him around blindly, never second guessing him. Roy is hard on himself and lacks self esteem and so thinks highly of Jason when really he should be angry, maybe even jealous of the power (all caste magic) Jason has. Then i get confused because I’d think someone going through a bout of depression and self hate and self medicating would have low self esteem and would think everyone is better than them and that they are a fuck up so isn’t that accurate portrayal of how awful Roy’s situation is?? Doesn’t that show the way Roy struggles just as he has pre N52?

Additionally Jason always compliments Roy on his greatness and abilities (Not in person which is annoying because grr he has to be manly and can’t compliment a friend) but in his little thought bubbles he’s always talking about how great Roy is and how grateful he is to have him.

Now this is where I get more confused because surely Roy respects Jason and through Jason’s monologues he clearly respects Roy though he may not say it out loud. The point is, people exaggerate so much how Roy is used as a crutch for Jason to look cool but Jason is constantly mentioning Roy and how important he is for the team. (Though I won’t deny there are times he may call him a goofball or undermine him but I mean cmon it’s literally ‘Red Hood’ and the outlaws, not ‘Titans’ where they’re equals, so it’s understandable that Jason would have swords and magic and stuff and save the day whilst Roy is not the main character). Idk I just haven’t noticed Roys character being MASSACRED when he’s with Jason.

People say Roy’s biggest trauma is having to be with Jason but I don’t know why that’s so bad like don’t just say it’s shit writing, fucking give me the evidence. (Sorry for the rant no offense to you what so ever). If the writing is so bad then blame the writer idk why Jason gets so much hate.

Anyway, please tell me how and why Rhato is the worst comics because I don’t think it’s that bad personally and I’d get shit for saying that.

Ps. This isn’t even about JayRoy or Lobdells disgusting history it’s literally just about why Rhato gets so much hate. I’m so confused so please explain /gen.

Thank you, have a nice day :)

Okay im gonna start this off by saying I think your looking at this the wrong way, your treating RHATO as just a stand alone story and if you want to know why people hate it you have to look at it in the broader context of it being a continuation of three different characters stories bc that is what it is - kory Roy and Jason are all pre established characters with rich backgrounds and personalities that have been building up for decades if you ignore these histories your gonna get push back from fans and Lobdell actually took it one step further

I'm gonna be short and sweet with this bc people more knowledgeable about roys character can put it way better then me but lets get straight to the point - the reason why people say Roy harper was massacred in RHATO is bc his whole character was changed- his back story, his relationships, his addiction, a lot of his personality and hell even his tattoos were changed and changed for the worse as a lot of it seemed to get done just to better suit Jason who was also changed a lot by lobdell but not to the extent that Roy was - a lot of it comes off like lobdell didn't even bother to read any comics with Roy in them before he decided to try and shove him into a role that wasn't suited for him which if your a long time Roy fan watching a character you adore get a complete overhaul just so he fits with the character the author uses as a self insert your gonna be a wee bit agitated

When your writing stories in the dc universe you have to be careful as a lot of these characters are main characters in their own right when they team up together sure you can focus on one more then the others but you have to be at least abit aware of each of the characters your including back stories motivations and personalities and what lobdell did was use the fact that the new 52 just happened as an excuse to create whole new characters with the same names as these much loved pre established characters and this rightfully pissed off a lot of people who loved these characters especially bc the things that happened in the n52 have had a lasting effect as these are the comics newer fans are reading and if your favourite character has been given a complete overhaul into a character you no longer recognise too bad a lot of people are gonna go forward only seeing Roy as Jason Todd's side character the guy in the baseball cap

#ask #anon #im one of those people that hate RHATO with a passion #i dont acknowledge it even exists half the time #but yeah if you like RHATO thats fine #nothings stopping you from liking it #just be aware that theres a reason why people dont like these comics #like i didnt even get into kory who imo had it the worst #like all these characters have been damaged by RHATO #but theres definitely a tear system #with jason at the bottom #then roy and at the top kori #and yeah i didnt get into the other stuff that makes RHATO the worst #but this post is already so long #and im not particularly fond of long posts so ill end it here

[universeinthebox]

Hey again

Shout-out to all the people who liked and commented on my last post. Glad to know that Squeak hasn’t been forgotten. =)

Comments:

winterstraystar said: For Sonic: Thank you for still looking out for his blog, it means a lot. For Squeak: Hope you are going better wherever life has taken you. I hope you live with no regrets 

You’re welcome. I should mention that I’ve done a little writing, and one of my stories is about Squeak. Here it is: https://www.fimfiction.net/story/528407/thanks-for-the-memories

I can’t believe how long it took me to get a fimfiction account. It says something about all the trauma I’ve been through.

There were a lot of us in the Box with mental health struggles of one sort or another. It was really valuable to have that space to talk, and also create! It reminds me of that one Subnormality comic...

pinkusponkus said: Squeak did so much for so many people. I miss him! 

Thank you! We miss him too!

kasamari said: I miss the care and love of the whole team you guys put together. I will keep following this and Squeak’s other spaces in the hopes that I get the chance to tell Squeak that the soldier who left his pregnant wife for training all those years ago is now a proud father of 4, still married to the same amazing woman. I will always be so grateful for the story of Good Night and for the wonderful Ponies in a Box that worked to share so many stories.

CONGRATULATIONS! Hip Hip Hurray! I hope we can all be so fortunate. =)

You didn’t ask for advice, but I’m gonna provide some anyway. My favorite parenting book is Unconditional Parenting by Alfie Kohn. Also, conventional school sucks and kids would be much better off at Sudbury Schools: https://www.facebook.com/HudsonValleySudburySchool/videos/10155951019968804/ (The teachers are better off too!) Anyway, give your kids a hug from us. And maybe show them an old PIAB video or two =)

And hopefully, hopefully someday you’ll be able to tell Squeak the news directly. I’m sure he’d be happy for you. =)

warbalist said: I miss writing music for his stuff. 😭

Oh wow, you wrote music for him? (Sorry, I don’t recognize the username!) What did you write?

I miss working with him too. I miss the sheer sense of possibility we had in 2012, in the brony fandom generally and especially with Pony in a Box. I still remember how I was on vacation and Squeak came up with the idea for The Best and within 12 hours it was fully written, recorded and posted on Youtube. Or how about that time the other boxers and me secretly made a short for Squeak’s birthday?

I miss hearing our stuff premiere on Celestia Radio. I miss reading the comments as they came in. I miss the little ARG we did for Wrong Way Backwards. I miss the feeling that anything was possible.

I’m really sad that I didn’t go to BronyCon 2013. A lot of PIAB people were there, and in retrospect that was the best opportunity I ever had to see the boxers in person. But my mom had cancer and I had anxiety mixed with self-hatred and the flight seemed too much of a risk and it didn’t seem fair to mom so in the end I didn’t go. =(

I miss my box friends. Too many of us had IRL problems at the same time, and we gradually scattered to the winds. We’ve still got a discord server but it rarely gets any activity. It’s so sad. =(

Special shout-out to Togpie, who was a vital support to me during some extremely difficult times in my life. I think maybe she burnt out, caring for me all the time. If so, I don’t blame her. She worked really hard to help me when she was already busy with her own problems. I haven’t heard from her in over a year now. I hope she’s ok...

It’s strange how Life is so much grander and deeper than it seems. Do you know what I mean? There is so much meaning and passion and joy and opportunities taken and opportunities missed just in this one little group of people. There are so many things that shaped us, so many traumas that the Box helped us face, and then the Box itself drifted away because we still hadn’t found perfect solutions to Life’s problems.

And here I am, posting this little thing that a handful of people will see. How will it impact you? What’s your story?

A good life is possible, I’m sure. The solutions involve things like Children’s Rights and Sudbury Schools and Democracy and Universal Basic Income. The solutions involve things like ponies and fandoms and community for its own sake. The solutions involve knowing that you matter and your feelings matter, and it’s ok to cry when you’re hurt and it’s ok to get mad at abusive people and systems.

I think of the billionaires of the world and I wonder why they don’t just feed the poor. I’ve had a lot of friends who deserve money, good people tied down by bad circumstances. I’ve given a few thousand myself, trying to figure out how much I can afford considering I still can’t manage a full-time job (on account of my mental health). And I wonder why anyone thinks Elon Musk is a good person, seeing that he has so much money but he refuses to help people.

I think back to a time when guys openly liking ponies would have been impossible, when this fandom would have been impossible, where the formation of Pony in a Box would have been impossible. I wonder how many wonderful memories past generations never got to experience because of their stupid rules, and I’m glad for the progress we’ve made and the hope of more progress to come, and I’m also very sad that more progress hasn’t happened already.

Every so often I google anti-aging medicine (which is a legit field now) because I want to make up for all the time I’ve lost to trauma and abuse.

In the meantime, though, I’m glad we had Pony in a Box. And I’m glad that the fandom still exists. And I hope that the choices I make today will help future generations. Maybe new opportunities will come our way, like the TARDIS fading in from the Vortex.

Thank you, my friends.

Onwards and Upwards --Sonicsuns

#brony #SqueakAnon #pony in a box #sudbury schools #children's rights #universal basic income #progress #fandom #trauma #hope

[primaviva]

so any news on carmilla since you returning to the gwen girlies? *does fuck boy hand rub to rizz you into confession*

*does that one pinterest emoji smirk back* ??? LMAOOAOA BUT YES LEMME GIVE YOU GUYS AN UPDATE

for starts yes i AM working on it, i actually started recently and it’s so much easier writing for girls since i have more fun so i feel it maaayyyyyyy get done quicker. but i also want to come on and say that yes, while i will be posting it to tumblr, i think i might make it on wattpad too. its only because i feel like it might be easier for people to read if they read it on wattpad to just scroll and also people usually read series on wattpad and come to tumblr if they wanna read oneshots (beside like oneshot books). and also i like how i can just brainstorm it all together on wattpad and make it look all pretty so… anyways with my AMAZING graphic design skills lemme start showing sneak peaks 😒😒

you can see a little peak of the cover 🤭 BAHAHAHAH but yeah this is what i have going on so far. im also an extreme perfectionist and because i made the wattpad cover start with the capitalization i refuse to not make the titles or writing be lowercase.

ANYWAYS! to start, i usually write gwen with spider gwen in mind so her age is usually between 16-18 in my stuff with the acception of the fics i do that specifically link to spiderverse but she usually is her comic 17-18 version. but for the plot i am gonna take HEAVY inspiration from one of the gwenom comics but its also gonna be based on the comic where she is starting college but when the plot starts she’s already been like a student maybe like a year in.

and secondly….this will NOT be the gwen we know and love or should i say the gwen YALL know and love. i kinda want to mess with her characterization to make it interesting like yes gwen is gonna be the awkward but nice girl but also like because i want this au version of earth 65 to be a little melancholy or dark vibes to it she WILL be a bit of an asshole at times, real cocky, and so on- like it’s gonna be so fun UGH!!

thirdly, im not sure if there is gonna be downright smut in this. like again, ik i have written “suggestive” content like my makeouts because i don’t necessarily write for strictly spiderverse gwen but just a whole amalgamation of it and its always based on comics so she’s like 17-18. i’m bringing this up because if you read carmilla- CMON NOW😭😭😭 there will be the suggestive scenes but idk if imma do it because while this will be the college version of gwen from the comics around 18-19 like i never wrote stuff like that and also don’t wanna perpetuate or feed content to the predator gwen fans on ANY platform. not like carmilla is heavy in sex i just wanna preface that because it’s always weird when people utilize au from something heavily sexual so it implies that the content WILL be sexual and not that that’s wrong in this case i just wanna let yall know you can expect content but not THAT content.

LASTLY the plot is lowkey short like i haven’t fleshed it out yet because i haven’t been having fun on tumblr when i write for guys so i wanna have fun with this and take my time writing the chapters before even releasing them so i don’t worry about dates for theme. but it won’t be like an intense lead rn it’s looking like MAYBE 15 chapters? possibly 20. i want a good balance of plot heavy and also gwen content in it that is sub plots to intensify the main plot (someone break me out of ap lang im gnawing at the enclosure) but i’m still working on it.

so yeah this is just little teasers for now and y’all can tell me what you think. im making little notes and stuff and im gonna woke on the plot and then just get straight to writing so i can just post a chapter weekly until we at the end so it gives me time to sprinkle other stuff in as well. i been over astv and just wanna write for my favorite women so this is me taking my stand on business 😒

#👑 — dalia’s speaks! #gwen stacy x reader

[rachelcommitscrimes]

im gonna rant abt how much i hate the ghost eyes fandom (as a former fan) bc im just kinda mad rn

so uhh yeah major TW for s3lf h4rm, romanticizing mental illness, su1c1de, sadomasochism, infantilization, and rlly just anything related to that

(also sorry if this looks weird idk how to separate stuff on tumblr)

also DO NOT harass the creator or anyone mentioned here, you’re no better than them if you do that

——————————————————————————

ok so i read ghost eyes like 2 years ago but i stopped reading about the point where they were on that field trip. i still think it’s a nice comic and i’m sure the author is a cool person, also the art style is awesome. but the fandom is so fucking gross that i’m surprised more people haven’t talked about it. 

for some backstory on this, i used have REALLY bad depression and was cutting myself regularly (i’m much better now, i have medication, therapy, and i’m almost a year clean) i also stopped reading due to the comic severely damaging my mental health and i’m very glad i did. i was younger and immature and thought i could handle such content. this led to me becoming extremely obsessed with the comic to an unhealthy level, and getting severely attached to one of the characters (rudy) because i could relate to him at that time. i seriously thought that i WAS him sometimes.

i understand now that i should NOT have ignored the label and what i did was definitely wrong and if the creator is reading this i deeply apologize. i’m in a much better place now and i’m just glad that i was able to get the help i needed.

ok now to the angry part

if you don’t know what ghost eyes is, it’s a webcomic about a severely traumatized boy attending school for the first time and meeting a bunch of other severely traumatized kids. this comic has a crap ton of triggering/sensitive/disturbing topics (which is not a bad thing as long as you do it right) and like i said before, the creator has kindly put a warning before the comic starts stating that you SHOULD NOT romanticize/idolize/sexualize/kin any of the characters, do not read unless you can handle such topics, and so forth. now i know i should have definitely put the comic down before and not gotten obsessed over it, but i knew damn well enough that it was messed up to romanticize/sexualize any of the characters/things that happened in the book.

there are several scenes in which a character is self harming or harming someone else, and the comments will say shit like “nooo my poor bean” “awww baby don’t do that” or my personal favorite “protect the smol bean.” first of all, the characters are like 16-17, second of all, i cannot even tell you how fucked up it is that people see someone ruining their lives and putting themselves in danger and think it’s “cute” or “anxiety smol bean uwu” THERES LITERALLY A SCENE WHERE SOMEONE IS GETTING STABBED AND PPL ARE DRAWING THIS MF IN A MAID DRESS.

another reason i despise these fans is that they see an abusive relationship and start making ships/kinning them. as someone who has gone through pretty much everything rudy has gone through, i cant tell you how irritating it is to see people shipping him with his abuser or calling him a “cutie patootie masochist boi uwu” cause lemme tell you what-it doesnt feel good to have to put your health in danger and ruin your relationships with others just so you can get off somehow. ITS NOT FUN. the whole point of rudy’s character is to not romanticize someones fucked up mental health.

i could spend hours talking about this group of immature brats, but i’m tired and it’s a school night and i have a test tomorrow. i might add on if i feel like i need to but overall i really hope those immature fans grow up and realize their mistakes like i did, or get the help they need.

#ghost eyes #webcomic #rant #angry ramblings #angry rant #i hate this fandom #tw su1c1d3 #tw sh implied #go get some help please

[iveneverplayedmegaman]

I think this is my favorite Mega Man comic. If you don’t mind my asking, how did you get into the Mega Man franchise, since you’ve never played the games?

Thank you! That means a lot to me ❤️

To answer your question, I got into Megaman a few years ago when I saw this video randomly in my recommendations:

I thought it was really funny at the time, but for whatever reason I kept coming back to it and thinking about it. Cutman is just such a goofy guy in this! So I just kept daydreaming about different scenarios he’d get himself into, and that eventually morphed into CMDHB! I could go on and on over how I’ve interpreted this video and Cutman just from this starting point but at that point we get into spoilers. Maybe down the line I’ll write more of a thesis statement on that topic once I write more of my own story lol. Just even the CONCEPT of Cutman has such a stranglehold on my psyche that I just HAD to write about him, even though I STILL haven’t sat down to play the games, read the comics, watch the shows, or any other thing like that. My knowledge of this series is entirely based on fanart, the occasional out of context comic page, wikis and a couple of out of context Ruby spears clips. I’m not even joking.

Most of the time I just take what I see out of context and try to spin it into a funny joke or something that I consider interesting. Even if I get something “wrong” I still have a lot of fun with it. I guess the main thing I like about the series is looking at these funky little robots with their silly little characters designs and two sentence personality blurbs and writing and drawing stories based on that. It’s why I’m always looking into what the fan base is doing too, cuz there really is a running theme here of making a lot out of a little. You end up with a lot of cool interpretations based off of characters that initially look pretty simple. One of these days I’ll probably engage with an official work though lol. This is actually why my username is what it is. Cuz I always try my best to write these characters in a way that’s interesting and makes sense when compared to canon (as far as I know) but if I get it wrong, hey I warned you “I’ve never played megaman”.

Kind of an unusual answer I know, but I just plain like Cutman’s vibes! And I still have a LOT of jokes and stories to tell with these guys!

TLDR: I saw one (1) meme about Cutman and I got obsessed with him

#asks #a very good question! #I don’t fully know why Cutman from the hit video game series Megaman became so ingrained in my mind as my muse #But hey inspiration is inspiration #But for real he is such an interesting character to me and if I don’t write about him I’d probably explode

[danothan]

(Heads up, the post discusses the abusive nature of Martin and Hal’s relationship pre-2005, as you may be able to tell from the link, so here’s your content warning)

https://www.tumblr.com/ufonaut/725487371146133504/space-case-the-pre-2005-martin-jordan

Hi hello! I know you already hate Geoff but I was wondering if you knew about this aspect of Stuff He Did/Changed/Ruined. As a comic newbie I thought it was interesting and perhaps you have a take of your own :)

The differing continuities means it’s probably unintentional, but it does create an interesting implication for at least the first GL Knight Terrors,,, I haven’t read the second one yet so they might not follow up on it lol

thanks sm for sharing this with me! i appreciate being informed + considered in the conversation :D while i vaguely knew that hal’s dad was Not Great pre-geoff johns, i didn’t know how or to what extent, nor did i know that the changes in his family dynamic were kicked off earlier than johns’s run either!

gd no matter which version you go with, the common denominator is that hal was the black sheep of his family for being neurodivergent. kid can’t catch a break 🤕

from the explanation of the link alone, i think both versions explain his fear rly well with traumas that realistically play into every aspect of his life. there’s an influence that runs deep: his fear of having power and not knowing what to do with it bc he saw his father abuse that authority, his inability to grieve or acknowledge his trauma bc he was punished every time he tried—these are very different but very important traits in hal’s overall character. i was surprised to see how well aware pre-2005 hal was of the abuse he dealt at the hands of his father. post-2005 doesn’t even know that he was a victim of his family dysfunction, let alone recognize any of it as abuse

i like that in both versions, he has suicidal tendencies to paradoxically prove that he’s not suicidal (i think. i can only confidently speak on modern hal, but hal being reckless with his life is kinda just a persistent theme). the way the current narrative portrays it, hal idolizes his dad sm that when he died, he couldn’t bear to think that his last moments were in fear. it would force him to confront the fact that his dad wasn’t the great hero he worshipped, forcing himself to realize he’s just as vulnerable and that the rose-tinted nostalgia for his youth might be wrong. so he puts himself on the line with bravado bc if he dies, at least he could tell himself that he wasn’t scared. and from what i can tell of the older comics, hal was forced to be brave bc it was a survival tactic; if he could just go along with what his dad wanted, then maybe he could finally get his approval. and all that taught him was that the only thing worse than death is failure, so he’d put himself on the line to prove it. he can tell himself that he’s accomplished more than anyone’s ever believed in him, but his dad’s words still haunt him

the change in his backstory is a change in his character as well, and as someone that enjoys comics as a puzzle to figure out, i’d like to factor in all of these moving parts as much as i can make them fit. before, i thought martin’s death martyred him; now i think that interpretation could include both of these versions moving forward. if current hal is already putting his dad on a pedestal, then the follow up question would be “what does that hide abt him?”

interesting implications indeed…

but this is where i get to share my personal thoughts/ biases! bc i’m very preferential + love complicating things, simply stating that martin’s death put him on a pedestal doesn’t satisfy me. now between you and me, i personally prefer the current narrative (i mean obviously, that’s my only firsthand experience, so i’m taking my own thoughts with a grain of salt here)

a huge part of hal’s interest in planes comes from the fact that he and his dad bonded over them together, but it also bordered on obsession

i mentioned before that hal was treated unfairly by his family for being neurodivergent, and scenes like this one definitely have nd subtext to me. the older comics had his father berate him for “having his head in the clouds” (*cough* adhd), the newer comics have his mother keep his interests away from him bc “he’s consumed by it” (*cough* autism). but what’s difficult abt meshing these two is that martin being a source of ableist abuse becomes confusing if he’s nd too, specifically encouraging hal to indulge in his special interest (btw hal has audhd either way peace and love ✌️)

so i think i would take this the same way as jessica: did irreparable damage as a parent but there were enough good moments that hal wants to remember instead. his dad verbally abused him for having “weak” emotions, but hey, at least he let him skip school! and sure, he might’ve hit him, but would a bad dad introduce him to his special interest? (and so there’s no misunderstanding, i’m speaking facetiously here)

i think hal has had genuinely fond memories with both of his parents, most ppl wouldn’t be able to gauge that there was smth going on with the way he talks abt them, which is not uncommon for abusive relationships in general. it just doesn’t erase the trauma it left him with. jessica cherished and tried to protect hal but ultimately suffocated him, and martin nurtured hal’s passion and gave him “freedom” but harmed his well-being

i’m too under-read and biased to give both versions equal share in my interpretation, but i will say that i rly appreciate the older comics for their explicit portrayal of toxic masculinity in hal. like that shit is literally killing him but i don’t often see his dad playing a role in it when he obviously got it from him, nor is it shown as the root of those problems. if there’s one thing that makes modern comics hard to read, it’s the unironic machismo. again, LITERALLY killing him.

as for the differences in hal’s suicidality that i mentioned earlier, there’s actually a lot of similarities with the ways he treats his own life. in either case, hal tries to be brave to prove smth (to his dad in the old, to himself in the new). the main difference is fear vs worship, and honestly those are just two sides of the same coin. it goes back to that toxic masculinity his dad taught him abt failure, and it ties in with wanting to feel connected to his dad thru their shared interest. at the core of it is denial

i would have to get into more older comics to rly flesh this interpretation out, but i think this is laying out some interesting groundwork. thank you again for this ask, rly gave my brain a treat today!

#hal jordan #martin jordan #green lantern #dc #danswers #danbles #panels #meta #cw child abuse #suicide mention #it’s so interesting to me that in both versions hal is the one that gets singled out for being nd #but pre-2005 hal knew his brothers got better treatment #obviously with the current nd-coding that bias would look different #so what do they think now? did they know?? were they affected by it too??? #god this introduces so many new ideas into the picture #hal is that one bob’s burger audio that goes ‘i just realized i had a bad childhood’ / ‘yeah ik’ / ‘wdym yk?’ / ‘look at you’

[lacrimosathedark]

I have made some DC posts that people actually show interest in (and most of them seem to like with...one exception) but I know a not insubstantial portion of DC fandom watches the Young Justice cartoon, and I don’t. I have no intention to change that in the near future. But because I Have A Problem and constantly feel the need to explain myself for things, I’m going to do that.

Before that, DISCLAIMER: I am NOT saying the show is inherently bad, nor do I think anyone is dumb or wrong for liking it or even preferring it to the comics. It’s just not MY thing.

If you are sensitive to people not liking things you enjoy, seriously, don’t read this. I’m not attacking anyone, this is all my personal opinion and preferences.

So!

Reasons I Don’t Watch Young Justice

1. I suck at watching things.

Honestly my biggest reason. I was that kid in school that everyone was like “you haven’t seen [supposedly culturally iconic or currently popular movie]?! Seriously!?! That’s insane! You HAVE to!”

AND THEN I DIDN’T

A big part of that is my brain is Dumb. I have Inattentive-Type ADHD. This means my brain is very bad at focusing, especially on things I’m not like, super fixated on (and even then, I often overwhelm myself). So I’m not good at sitting down and watching things, even when I AM interest.

People have been telling me to watch and/or read Lord of the Rings for pretty much ever. GUESS WHAT I’VE NEVER SEEN

I loved Supernatural, as shitty as it could be. I haven’t watched every episode in any season past season 6.

I have had lists of anime and video games I want to watch. Still haven’t.

I’ve been recommended books (and I’m generally better at reading than watching) that sound awesome that I STILL have not picked up.

I have been intending to watch Moon Knight, which I actually really want to watch. Guess what I haven’t done.

2. My brain seems to like comic books more.

I didn’t get to have comic books as a kid just because it wasn’t a big thing where I lived so my exposure was limited. However, there’s a crossover exposure that my brain liked.

I grew up loving anime, and read a lot of manga. I also grew up playing Spider-Man video games. And then, I also grew up watching the old Teen Titans cartoon.

All these kind of combine into a certain predisposition towards consuming media in a certain way.

3. It doesn’t mesh with my comic experience.

I, like I presume a good chunk of other tumblr users, got into comics because of ThePandaRedd from TikTok. He is just so fucking funny and it drew me in. And if you don’t know, a lot of his content is Bat family related. So, that’s what I was drawn to. Growing up with the Teen Titans show, I was also lowkey predisposed to an interest in Robin anyway.

I quickly learned all I could about all of Batman’s many kids (because wtf my guy). To do that, I started watching comic videos on youtube, reading wikis, finding comic book pages on tumblr. I eventually grew to love all of them.

But I learned about and almost immediately fell in love with Jason Todd, Tim Drake, and Cassandra Cain.

Why does this matter to my point? Well...

4. That’s not Young Justice.

The show is called Young Justice, but like...that’s not Young Justice. That’s basically the Teen Titans.

I have seen clips of the first episode. I don’t remember all of it, but three characters I distinctly remember being present for the formation of that Young Justice was Dick Grayson, Wally West, and Roy Harper. In comics, they were never Young Justice. Those three specifically founded the Teen Titans with Garth and Donna Troy. Like???

Young Justice in the comics is formed by Tim Drake, Superboy (later named Kon-El and Conner Kent), and Bart Allen. Not long after they add Greta Hayes and Cassie Sandsmark and on and on but like, those three boys are at the center. So much so that them, along with Cassie Sandsmark, are known as the Core Four among the fandom. And they are all intimately close friends and those relationships actually mean a lot to me.

Just a glance at the wiki makes me just...my skin is crawling. Kon joins the team with Dick, long before Tim is on the team. Ugh.

Kon dates Miss Martian, which...I don’t know much about the Martians and Kon is a flirt but like...the other characters he’s usually closer with--ugh.

Tim dates Cassie??? Without the influence of losing Conner??? And also idk does he date Stephanie? Because Tim and Steph are like, a big thing and tbh the only more intimate relationship Tim has is with Conner effin Kent, and I know Steph is in the show. (Also for a show that has a bunch of queer stuff, why does my duck boy not have a boyfriend of any kind? I know Bernard is super recent but he’s been like queercoded forever so like where is it?)

Speaking of that relationship, where is it? Even in a platonic sense, because Kon is consistently borderline obsessed with being Tim’s friend. Tim is probably the most important person to him; throughout especially the Teen Titans run Kon relied on Tim for emotional support and put a lot of faith in him. Tim literally lost his goddamn mind when Conner died. Like, he tried to bring Steph back with a Lazarus Pit. Okay, kinda fucked, but it’s happened. But when Kon died, Tim changed his costume to match Kon’s colors, tried to clone him, and “dated” his ex-girlfriend (who had, at the time, literally joined a cult who had hoped to bring Conner back). Um??? And then when Kon came back, Kon’s support made a huge difference in Tim’s shitty mental health. And the second time they met after Kon came back, Tim threw himself at Kon to hug him. And Conner refused to accept anyone but Tim (Damian specifically, but also Steph) as Robin. To him, Tim will always be Robin (and he will always be Tim’s clone boy <3). These two are a pair, platonic or otherwise, and that they aren’t so close in this show is upsetting to me.

Bart at least doesn’t appear before Tim does but he’s still seemingly not close to the rest of the “Core Four” and that just makes me so incredibly sad. I mean, points for making him not straight I guess but like...those friendships are really important to him. Like, Kon has historically been almost like his mom-friend, making sure he’s taken care of even when Bart is doing everything to avoid his issues (not that Conner’s much better at that, but yknow). The newer Young Justice comics, Conner totally mom’s Bart. He full names him (”Bartholomew Allen the Second! Don’t run away from me!” literally all that’s missing is his middle name and a scolding “young man”), and grabs some of his favorite snacks for when he wakes up after he passes out. And he also immediately called Tim because from the beginning there’s been the joke of the co-parenting Bart. And another point to Conner relying on Tim and just UGH.

And y’know, if they’re just gonna do Teen Titans, where are Vic and Raven and Kory? Like, I’m glad they had lesser known Titans like Karen Beecher and Mal Duncan but like...idk. I personally grew up with them, and if you’re gonna have Beast Boy, I feel like Cyborg and Raven kinda come with that package. And Starfire comes with the Raven package. Just my personal feelings there.

Small note since I mentioned my other beloved Bats: I know very little about what’s happening with them, but Cass is Cassandra Wu-San and Jason seems to still be brain-dead. Like, pre-Lazarus Pit brain-dead. Like I just...don’t know.

5. Artemis unreasonably pisses me off.

Prefacing this with, she’s not necessarily a bad character (I honestly can’t judge that with what little I know). This is honestly mostly because my brain is dumb.

First of all, it takes my brain several jumps to figure out who someone’s talking about when they talk about her.

“Y’know, Artemis.”

“You mean Artemis Grace of Bana-Mighdall, badass redhead Amazon, archer and ax-wielder,  and Jason Todd’s bestie/former girlfriend?”

“No, the blonde archer, in Young Justice.”

“...You mean Cissie King-Jones, Arrowette?”

“No, from the show.”

“...Oh.”

And then she’s paired up with Wally West apparently. Which unnecessarily gets under my skin.

Look, the only person I can see Wally with other than his wife Linda is Dick Grayson, and that is really because he seems just as obsessively protective about both of them. I cannot imagine Wally without either of them, and tbh the idea of him not have Jai and Irey makes me so fucking sad. Man would do literally anything for his children. I know he’s dated other girls before Linda, but it still rubs me the wrong way.

In that same vein...

6. Zatanna

I know she’s implied to have...been with Dick Grayson in the show. In general, who can blame her, it’s Dick Grayson.

However, in the show, she’s around Dick’s age.

In the comics, she was childhood friends with Bruce Wayne. Those two are best friends. They sort of almost dated for a while. I may be wrong, but I think Z may even be a little older than Bruce.

And that just really freaks me out, okay? It puts me off. My brain doesn’t want to compute that her age is different than it is in the comics.

(Also I’m a fan off her on-off relationship with the lovable chaotic fuckboy that is John Constantine.)

7. What the FUCK is going on with Roy Harper? Also Cheshire and Lian.

Like, there’s like, three different versions of him or something? And the “real” Roy isn’t even Lian’s father? Like, this is things I’ve just learned from vague clips and they make me irrationally frustrated.

As for Cheshire, I know she’s played to be sympathetic in the show, to at least some extent. Which isn’t a problem.

But I don’t like her.

She did, at one point, truly love Roy. She genuinely loves her daughter probably more than anything in the world. She is, arguably, the best mother she could be given the circumstances.

That being said, this is a woman who loves what she does. She revels in her job as an assassin. She enjoys the taunting, the fighting, the killing. She finds amusement in seeing people fall to her poisons. And as much as she loves her daughter, she would not give up being an assassin to raise her.

Jade Nguyen is an awful person in my eyes and that cartoon won’t change that.

I’m also not invested in that Lian.

Every clip I’ve seen of cartoon Lian looks nothing like any version of Lian I know and love. Like, the closest is Kingdom Come Red Hood with her long red hair, but her hair was distinctly curly and she looked like Jade, according to little Lian. Then there’s little Lian, black haired, clearly Asian girl, being raised with numerous superheroes and knowing Navajo traditions, sweet and clever and brilliant and whose favorite color is red. And then there’s Shoes, who while many don’t like her mostly due to her amnesia, I do. Blue hair and usually blue lipstick, seemingly temporary (or at least inconsistent) tattoos on her neck and arms, one of Catwoman’s Alleytown Strays and upcoming vigilante Cheshire Cat. Clearly clever, already a hacker, wears a red baseball hat (like Roy!) and fishnets (like Dinah!) and all around a ‘fuck you’ attitude while still being a sweetheart, very much like Selina.

The overall white-looking brown-haired girl in pink I keep seeing doesn’t click as Lian to me. That’s not the girl I adore. And as of late, Lian has been really important to me.

I don’t know if that’s even everything, but I felt I had to get it out of my system. Particularly about Artemis. I really don’t know why that makes me so upset but I don’t like it. At All.

Sorry, my content, aside from maybe a jokey reblog, will never be about the Young Justice cartoon. I don’t intend to bash it, but I’m not gonna watch it, and comment much on it either. If that’s content you want, you won’t find it here.

#Young Justice #Young Justice cartoon #Young Justice comics #Teen Titans #my rambles #Artemis #Lian Harper #Tim Drake #Conner Kent #Kon-El #Bart Allen #Cassie Sandsmark #Dick Grayson #Stephanie Brown #Zatanna Zatara #Roy Harper #Jade Nguyen #my brain is dumb #Jason Todd #Cassandra Cain #Cassandra Wu-San

[ragnarokhound]

your tags on that post you just rb’d (about dc being inconsistent and thus more open to fan interpretation) are so real that’s exactly how i feel about it

haven’t been reading the comics/watching the various animations + films for long but i have noted how differently characters and dynamics are portrayed per source

some of the writers (comics not fanfiction) can be a bit annoying when it’s clear that they don’t like the character they’re writing and it’s directly affecting how they write the character but for the most part it’s honestly kinda refreshing imo that dc has this yesterday does not reflect today sorta vibe when it comes to characterization and how the characters interact

like yeah let them be insane in different but complementary ways throughout the various forms of media <3 it’s a treat

they seem to do this especially with jason todd and like i’m all for it bc it opens up so many different ways fans can interpret his character in fanwork

there’s not really a right or wrong way to go about interpreting dc characters bc chances are, the source material has already portrayed them in that manner years back before scrapping it for a slightly different characterization (that still maintains a few core personality traits that act as the character’s signature)

kinda pick your own adventure in the sense that you can choose which canon version of the character/plot you like the most

(I got excited, wall of text incoming lmao)

Yes!! Exactly, yes - the funniest thing to me about writing fic for comics is that I'm p sure the Official comic artists and writers basically get a set of golden rules on the characters they're going to be writing for (batman must be x, dick grayson cannot do y, gotham must be grungy) but a lot of things are up to them.

While their stuff goes through edits and vets to make sure it will fit the canon...the canon is already one big, ongoing game of telephone. It's why we can sort comics ala the "golden age" vs the "silver age" and why these tonal shifts happen. So when you write fic, you're basically hitching a ride on this grand tradition lol you just don't have any industry standards you have to follow or edits that you have to make

And oh god, yeah, it can be very annoying when you figure out that a writer simply...does not like a character lol. Like, excuse me, DC, could you tag this for character bashing please

But I 100% agree, and i love that way you put it, that 'yesterday does not reflect today' - absolutely the vibe. The desire to be evergreen in comics means that they Will scrap things at a certain point to reintroduce a character so that they can tell a different story with them - which is fun! And very, very close to the nature of reading fanworks!

Every time I open a new fic, I have to reset the characters in my brain because a different author is writing them and will cherrypick the things they like about canon and about the characters. It's like a faster, rawer, and generally hornier version of picking up new source material lol (with many caveats about accuracy, something something industry standards something something "i know them best" but i digress)

"like yeah let them be insane in different but complementary ways throughout the various forms of media <3 it’s a treat" - points at this. yes. YES. YEESSSSS

And Jason. Ough. Jason is such a fascinating character to me, not just because of the whole black sheep of the batfam thing he has going, but because of the absolutely divisive nature of him. (I still reel over the whole 'do you HATE this child? Would you like us to KILL HIM FOR YOU? Vote now and we'll brutally murder a teenager!' thing. Like what!! That happened!!)

You can't get away from how brutal he is (cool backstory, still murder) but there is a wiiiiide range of sympathy to play from. You can figure out a lot about how a person feels about the death penalty based on how they treat Jason Todd lol

But yeah, I kind of love the modular nature of comics - from a writer's standpoint it makes it so much easier to relax about getting it "right" because like. There is no right way and also a hundred right ways, and you're doing fine sweetie <3

#hardlycats #dc #i could talk for hours about this #me: i'm a casual comics enjoyer #also me: *gestures at this post #jason todd #he is my little babygirl meow meow and he does so many wrongs #and I love that for him <3

[incorrectmlpquotes]

Insert Holiday Pun Here

Well folks, the holidays are upon us, and I’ve been too busy to attempt to be funny. SO, I thought I’s treat you all to something a little different. 

[This joke would be funnier if my name was actually Gina]

I’m going to go through the holiday (read: Christmas, because let’s be honest: Hearth’s Warming is a Christmas expy) episodes and give my thoughts on each. This will not include the Equestria specials because I haven’t seen them (but I have read the IDW 2014 holiday comic and oh boy, that’s a post of its own). I’m not going to recap them (much) because it would take less than two hours to watch them all. Take a break from Charlie Brown and Rankin Bass to appreciate some true holiday classics.

Hearth's Warming Eve, Season 2 Episode 11

I don’t like it.

It’s hard to be the first of anything. You’ve got a lot to set up and only twenty-two minutes to establish lore and tell a complete story. I didn’t care for the Nightmare Night episode the first time I saw it, but upon rewatch it held up better than I remembered. Plus, it had the benefit of being really funny.  This only has a few moments that gave me a sensible chuckle.

What a shocker! An earth pony with no ideas.

Ostensibly, this is a very important episode because it introduces the holiday and gives us some Equestria history, but I never expected this show to have such a mean-spirited holiday episode. And I don’t just mean the pony summit that is supposed to show animosity. The beloved Mane Six begin the episode by grousing with each other.

The holidays stress me out too, and I wouldn’t have a problem if they resolved this by the end of the story, but they don’t. The name of the show is “Friendship is Magic.” This grinch’s heart should be growing three sizes, not reminded of family gatherings that turned into verbal brawls.

And then there’s the play. Obviously, the personalities of Pinkie, Rainbow Dash, and Rarity get turned up to an eleven in their respective roles, but it just rubs me the wrong way. Especially since the other three are depicted normally. The three heroes bond over how much they hate their bosses. This is a relatable notion, but a weird choice for a children’s program. In the beginning, the three races of ponies were divided by hate, and now they’re being brought together…by hate. Talk about your mixed messages. 

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: I don’t like it when they fight unnecessarily.

2/5

Hearthbreakers, Season 5 Episode 20

It was a long wait for another holiday episode, and it was worth it.  This one delves into a topic that I don’t see too many shows acknowledge: that different families have different traditions. And more importantly, that someone else’s traditions aren’t bad or wrong just because you might not enjoy them. It should be an obvious lesson to respect other’s differences, but the amount of people who lose their minds when told to have a happy holiday is any indication, it bears repeating. This time of year can be difficult for blended families or people coming together for the first time, and it’s especially relevant for this changing world. It stands to reason that the very stubborn Applejack would be a stickler for tradition and have difficulties being flexible.

How rare it is to see Pinkie Pie be the peace keeper?

4.5/5

A Hearth's Warming Tail, Season 6 Episode 

This one is a mixed bag for me. I am a big fan of A Christmas Carol and I do enjoy when shows do their own version. The story itself is fun, with the added twist of higher stakes than the original, but the framing devices gives me pause. Twilight freaking out because Starlight doesn’t want to celebrate a holiday is a little over the top. No one should be pressured to celebrate a certain way or celebrate at all if they don’t want to. Maybe someone has bad memories with the holiday and doesn’t want to be reminded of past events. Maybe they can’t stand the over consumption and commercialism of this time of year. Maybe they belong to a religion that doesn’t celebrate Christmas and are very tired of being constantly ignored. Maybe they work in retail. The reason doesn’t matter. 

It’s such an easy fix. Maybe instead of being indifferent towards the holiday, Starlight’s nervous that she’s going to be in such a big group and worried that she’ll mess things up. Twilight gives her the book to show that you can’t really ruin Christmas Hearthswarming because blah blah blah togetherness. I don’t know.

Maybe I’m reading too much into it, but this episode aired a year after people lost their minds over a red paper coffee cup, so my concerns aren’t unfounded.

3.5/5

The Hearth's Warming Club, Season 8 Episode 15

It was like the writers saw inside my brain and realized the issue with only recognizing one holiday that gets celebrated in the pony equivalent of December. 

The set up for the Breakfast Club-esque story has some issues, but I'm willing to look past them because I enjoy the episode. The best things that come from the magic school storylines are the exploration of the non-pony lore.

We had to wait eight years, but there was finally an acknowledgement that other holidays exist. 

4.5/5

Best Gift Ever (aired between seasons 8 and 9)

The gold standard by which I’ve held all the other episodes. Everyone is perfectly in character. No one had to resort to stupid “Gift of the Magi” BS that they could have easily done.

I’ve never seen a kids show display so succinctly how stressful the holidays are, while simultaneously expecting you to have a good time. It’s the most wonderful time of the year, right? Why aren’t you having fun? What do you mean you don’t have time to clean, decorate, bake, wrap presents, send out cards, do crafts, mail gifts, and spend time with loved ones while also working/going to school/ continuing to be a human being? 

I have been in this exact position, spending an hour inputting packages, and explaining that the delivery times were not guaranteed. 

But this friend group really needs to discover the magic of waiting until after Christmas to have your get-together.  It lessens the stress and gives you something to look forward to. Plus, you can snag those post-holiday deals.

I have pulled a Pinkie Pie and ignored the rules of a White Elephant exchange because I had already gotten everyone a gift. No one seemed to mind.

Forget the magic anthropomorphic horses, the most unrealistic thing about this show is how easy it is to make friends as an adult. It's trite to say that friendship is the greatest gift of all, but I am going to see my friends after New Years, and after not being together for over three years, I really couldn't ask anything better.

A totally heterosexual explanation for this image exists.

The chef’s kiss of holiday episodes. I will even forgive them for airing it in October. I will be watching it again this year while the rest of the family watches Die Hard.

5/5

Shoutout once again to whoever posts the images on the wiki gallery. You remain the funniest person on the internet.

#incorrect mlp quotes #incorrect quotes #incorrect my little pony #incorrectmlpquotes #mlp #mlp fim #holiday edition #best gift ever #mlp best gift ever #hearths warming

[thompsborn]

!! the return of harley “daddy issues” keener (or is it mostly new angst? or mostly, like, physical?)

okay i love all these anons but also i am trying So Hard to not spoil things omg. please send more but also if i lowkey spoil something eventuallly it’s not my fault !! it actually definitely is entirely my fault but shhh

but anyways, kind of and also kind of not?

so like, in to build a family harley and peter are teenagers, but not like homeward bound. they’re high schoolers still, yk? they’re younger and haven’t gone through all the things that homeward bound harley and peter have gone through. i only bring up tbaf because obviously harley has Daddy Issues™ in tbaf. even before the second fic when his dad dies and he has to deal with that—in the first fic there’s a part where harley reminds his sister of their dad bc of how he left to go to new york and it’s this whole moment, yk? but he’s younger in tbaf and since tbaf is like not at all canon compliant to the mcu, they’ve gone through a lot less in comparison to hb, yk?

i say all that because while daddy issues are an ongoing lifelong thing for homeward bound harley, they aren’t as detrimental or as Big as they are in tbaf or other fics i’ve written where that comes up. hb harley is still effected by his daddy issues but he’s 18, he’s in college, he died for 5 years and came back to find out tony died, he has some family stuff that will be further explored and explained in the sequel with his mom and sister, and now also he has peter and the knowledge that peter is spider-man and the heaviness that comes with peter’s tragedies and past as well.

it’s a heaviness he’s okay with, don’t get me wrong, he’s more than happy to be there for peter and to learn these things and has been curious about peter since the first time peter walked into late night (again, will be explained more in the sequel!) but it’s heavy nonetheless, you know?

essentially, in the grand scheme of things, while he’s still impacted by his daddy issues, he also just… doesnt care anymore? like not caring doesn’t erase the impact but also he barely thinks of his dad and when he does he doesnt feel angry or upset or any of the things he felt in the past about his dad leaving, he just… doesnt care. he’s been through so much at this point that it’s just Another Thing. he’s desensitized to it to the point that like, why does it matter? it doesn’t.

there’s a part in hb, i can’t remember which chapter but it’s a small texting segment in one of the chapters where harry talks about him harley and peter making a no dad’s club for funsies and in that text convo harley mentions that he has a dad he just doesnt know where he is and doesn’t care enough to find out.

also, to answer that last part—it’s new angst that includes physical stuff! there’s gonna be… a lot lmao. i have a lot of things planned for this series, a lot of ideas taken from various comics, from the movies, from the games, etc. i’m even planning to read through plotlines for some of the animated series to see if there’s any additional ideas to draw from there.

but like, think of it this way, i guess: harley cares. a LOT. like some of his remaining daddy issues have developed in the form of being a bit slow to trust new people, but like he’s mentioned in the fic, once he chooses to care about someone, he is ALL IN. he is COMMITTED. and now that he knows about peter being spidey and is actively choosing to be involved in that, his instincts and his heart are going to want to do anything and everything he can to help.

okay actually sorry this answer is SO long BUT i remembered something i had harley say and i went back and looked and in chapter three he tells peter “my Mama says I have the heart of a protector” and THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT IM TRYING TO CONVEY HERE LMAO so THAT is who he is at heart yk?

and peter is gonna be in a lot of dangerous situations as spidey, and as the series goes on people connected to him are going to be in danger because of spidey, and essentially like…. a lot of emotions and a lot of angst and a lot of potential for getting hurt, yk?

i need to stop here because i keep almost saying fuck it and giving an example that is definitely a spoiler but yeah. take that as you will (:

#parkner #homeward bound fic #also like……. ok this definitely leans more into heavy spoiler territory but like #the newest spidey game right? very good very fun to play i plan to play it multiple more times #but some aspects of it have helped to inspire ideas i already had but werent sure how to implement #such as. potentially. a symbiote related plot line. #i haven’t decided for sure tbh because if that kind of plot were to happen it wouldnt be until the 3rd or 4th fic #but just….. ideas. i have them. and they include harley obvious as he is one of the main characters. #but if that storyline happens harley angst would definitely be a big thing there lmao

[mickskicks-art]

I Want To Be Dirk Strider

With A Ridiculous Amount of Words Saying this Exact Sentiment

⇒ Begin.

I want to be Dirk Strider. 

⇒ …

No, that’s not a joke. This is not some ludicrous, preposterous comic that’ll be played for laughs and redefine art, which in turn, will earn me half a million dollars by becoming the New York Times best seller. 

⇒…

By the way, why is every book a best seller for the New York Times? Either the popularity contest ensures you don’t see any other book, or there’s something fishy going on behind the scenes. I honestly suspect a salmon cannon is involved with this sort of debauchery due to the smell. 

And, not only that–

⇒ …

Nevermind. It was dumb anyway. Ridiculous to say anything more. 

⇒ …

Sigh.

See, even now…

Even now, I’m trying to emulate a speech, a thought pattern, a word choice that isn’t mine. The rambles aren’t cute, they’re thought out. They’re calculated noise.

⇒ …

I’m just…

I’m nothing.

⇒ …

I can feel my mind try to grasp anything possible, something that’ll give me a solid sense of identity. 

Any sense of purpose, of self-love. 

I’m trying so desperately to love myself, but I can only do that when I am not me.

⇒ …

I want to be Dirk Strider.

I do not want to be me.

⇒ …

See, Dirk is a fascinating character. 

I love him with all my heart, from how he plays a role in the narrative to his innermost struggles. He has affected me in so many ways that my day is made whenever I see art or mention of him anywhere.

For he is… like me. I got to see some of my (admittedly self-diagnosed) “negative” traits reflected. And while I didn’t hate other depictions of my (again, self-diagnosed) scorned habits and thought patterns, the portrayal of them with Dirk was different.

⇒ …

He is full of existential dread, doubts, and trauma. 

He is the poster child for identity issues. 

He is made of self-hatred, for either himself or his roles.

He is a martyr… one mostly self-inflicted.

He is, he is, he is. 

⇒ …

Dirk’s character is a tragedy. 

His need for control infects every relationship and situation, but instead of being narcissistic with a god-complex, he views this control as a burden. 

He’s doing these painful things in his friend’s best interests, see? He’s… trying to be a good person.

I’m…

I’m trying to be a good person.

⇒ …

I remember the moment I fell in love with the idea of him. 

For the life of me, I couldn’t tell you the exact details… But I was reading a Tumblr post on the tragedy that is Dirk Strider a year or two ago.

How doomed he was, how tragic.

How his personality was self-sabotaging to how he put his (only) friends on such a high pedestal. 

His personality was beautiful in the way that flames burned in a crematorium. 

⇒ …

This, in turn, made me fascinated with him. I wanted to figure out his motivations. I needed to know what made him survive all of this. What made him get up in the morning? He still has friends right? How? 

Do I have a chance then? 

Do I have a semblance of a good person in me? Just like Dirk?

I have to know that I’ll be okay. 

Please, tell me if I’ll be okay.

⇒ …

…Would it surprise you that I haven’t interacted with Dirk in the webcomic yet?

I haven’t read Act 6, so I wouldn’t know much in terms of the story.

But Dirk…

Dirk makes me feel good about myself.

⇒ …

But I can never escape the fact that I hate myself.

I always seem like the exception when judged on morality. I feel like I’m judged on a different scale because it’s me who made the decision. The one who’s in control. 

I’m in control, so all fault lies with me.

…And I hate that, but it’s all I know.

I must be a bad person because it’s me.

⇒ …

So, I stand in front of a mirror, disappointed.

Upset.

Depressed.

Grossed out.

Uncomfortable.

All because I’m not this blond guy in a mirror. 

I’m in a body too small, too feminine, too young.

My “scars” aren’t there, my voice isn’t right, and my eyes are wrong.

My breasts are heavy, my junk is missing, and everything is just…

… My hands aren’t my own anymore.

I am not seeing my “correct” face.

⇒ …

This happened to me at the beginning of college in 2023. It was the fall, and the friend I had at that time somehow triggered this response in me.

And I panicked. 

I wasn’t… right.

⇒ …

This lasted for around a week.

I displayed OSDD symptoms where I would suddenly be a different fictional character.

Now, when I was Dirk… I was old. Compared to the body, at least.

Twenty-eight years old at the minimum. 

I had scruff, calloused hands, and a multitude of raised, white scars on my tan skin. 

I was also… different. My personality had changed to that of a caring dad-like figure. Dirk told the body to take care of itself by eating and drinking while the rest of these assumed alters were unhelpful at best. 

⇒ …

This lasted for days, and it was horrible to experience. I wasn’t… me. I was just an amalgamation of characters without a solid identity. I wasn’t seeing out of my eyes.

And if I did have OSDD without noticing… that would mean I was never me.

I was never someone, and my quest to be happy with myself would be useless as I wasn’t singular in the first place.

Of course, that is assuming that this was a dissociative disorder, which I still don’t believe I have. Because if I did have this disorder, then everything I knew about myself was wrong. And I know I’m clinging to this old identity that I crafted with tears and shaky hands like a madman, crazed on keeping one sense of something stable in his life but…

I just–

⇒ …

My mom always says “You are just you. You don’t need a label to tell you who you are.”

…

And what do I say to that? It’s sound advice, I’ll give her that, but… 

How am I just supposed to accept myself, when all I feel is uncomfortable with who I am?

Because if I’m Dirk Strider, that gives me something.

But if I’m me, then I’m nothing.

There’s no definition for me. I have nothing to build off of. 

⇒ …

God, I so desperately want to be Dirk Strider. 

Why… Why can’t I be him…?

⇒ …

Just let me be a guy.

Let me “cosplay” him until I die as an old man.

Let me be him, please.

⇒ …

I have to make up for the fact that I’m me.

⇒ …

But, maybe this absence of self is more the potential of what I could be. That this nothingness could easily turn into being everything. 

Is that better or worse? Should I stick in a comfortable pain while my body struggles to make something meaningful of myself? 

Or should I venture into an unknown that could kill me in the end if it goes sour?

I don’t know the answer to that. 

⇒ …

Who am I?

… I guess that was the entire point of this.

⇒ …

I just wish I was happy. But that’ll never last.

I’ve been depressed for 18 years now. Started off inheriting it from my mother, then earned it with my father. 

But I know that the moment I am happy, I will find a way to rip it away. Like prying open a dog’s mouth to get at what they’re chewing.

So, even if I am Dirk… I won’t be happy.

Even if I transition and slowly merge our two identities, I have to live with the aftermath, i.e. the reaction.

⇒ …

But would I be happier? 

Would I be happier as masculine-presenting and taking on the name Dirk Strider? Instead of buying something monetary to give me momentary bouts of joy, I can work on myself.

On being someone else.

⇒ …

And I know this “obsession” with Dirk won’t last, I think. So, how dare I make such a permanent decision based on a temporary fad?

⇒ … 

The problem is… that this isn’t temporary. I’ve had struggles with identity and gender for years now. It’s lasted for a very long time. It’s just been a big ol’ clusterfuck of a mess, I guess. 

⇒ … 

God, I’m just begging for someone to tell me what to do.

How do I fix… me? 

⇒ …

I just…

⇒ End.

I want to be Dirk Strider.

[Thank you so much for reading! I wrote this in an hour or two and barely touched it after that, but I was hoping other people would relate. I don't see this situation or feeling touched upon often in social media or with others I've encountered, so it felt important for me to share! And I know this is an illustration blog, but... I feel like it would be nice to share this here.]

#Dirk Strider #Homestuck #Kinnie #Kin #OSDD #Identity #vent #essay #prose #writing #Dirk #Strider