#also have never written the titans before sooooo yeah

[wrencatte]

oh hey, that snippet where Bruce tells Dick about Jason's death got a rewrite and a title! looks like it'll be a whumptober/BTHB fill - Blood Covered Hands/I don't want to do this anymore for day 24 and "Please don't leave me." title is: grief doesn't know its own shape

His feet touch Earth’s ground for the first time in three months. He feels the weight of their home’s gravity settle in his bones like he never left. Dick breathes in cool, crisp air, and grins when Wally whoops loudly and speeds off. He ambles behind the rest of his team, digging for his phone he swears he shoved into the bottom of his duffle. Gods, if he left it back in space he’s never going to live it down.

Score! He finds it with a satisfied grin. The battery is still loaded when he turns it on – he’d turned it off once they left, he’s not entirely sure why he brought it to begin with. The lock screen is of him and Jason at Alejandro’s just before he left planet-side. There’s whipped cream on the kid’s nose and he’s staring up at Dick with a light in his eyes that Dick feels like he’s never going to get used to seeing.

Dick’s smile faces when he finds an onslaught of voicemails and text messages.

The oldest messages are from Jason. His stomach sinks while his heart lodges in his throat.

Hey, can I call you? he asks in one. I don’t, is in another like it’d sent by accident.

Hey, Big Bird, his voice shaky, thick with tears. He sniffles. The sound of clothes rustling. I kinda forgot you were in space. Ha. What a stupid thing to forget. Sorry. I just – I don’t think I can do this anymore. I don’t want to do this anymore. Bruce he – I don’t know. I’m, I’m sorry. I – and he pauses long enough the voicemail force ends the call.

Another, a couple days later. I didn’t do it. Bruce doesn’t – I wouldn’t do that. I swear I wouldn’t. And…And I wouldn’t do that to you. Not to you. Not to Robin. I’m sorry. I’m – I’m going to find my, my mom. My real one. I need….I don’t know. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry for everything. I just wanted…

Dick stares at the screen with wide, stinging eyes. That sounded like goodbye, he thinks and covers his mouth. Bruce’s most recent message just says call me when you get this. He does, shakily bringing the speaker to his ear. He doesn’t realize he’s stopped dead in the middle of the main room. Donna frowns, asks him if he’s alright, and it sounds like she’s coming from underwater. He ignores her as the line rings out without Bruce ever answering.

He calls again. Then again. Hands shaking, eyes burning, a mantra of no no please no in his head.

The third call almost rings out when there’s a click and then a long sigh. “Dick,” he says heavily, his voice hoarse.

Dick remembers the last time he heard Bruce sound like that, and he closes his eyes. Remember waking up to scratchy, stiff blankets and monitors in the distance and cotton in his mouth. Bruce hovering over him, clasping his hand, carding his fingers through Dick’s hair.

Bullet wounds hurt.

He’s pretty sure this is going to hurt worse.

“What happened?” he demands. It grabs the team’s attention fully instead of them just side-eyeing him, and he can’t find it in himself to care that they’re zeroed in on him. “Bruce, what happened?”

A long silence. Batman doesn’t hesitate. Bruce does.

“Jason’s dead,” he says quietly.

Dick doesn’t realize his knees buckled until Roy’s grabbing him by the arm, swearing. Garth takes his elbow and they both lead him to the couch where he collapses in a heap. They’re asking rapid-fire questions, but while Donna sounded like she was underwater, they’re all starting to sound like they’re at the end of a long tunnel. Underwater. Just background noise to the awful, terrible sentence echoing in his head.

Jason’s dead. Jason’s dead. Jason’s dead.

“How?” he croaks out, leaning forward – and leaning and leaning until Donna’s there, bracing him by the shoulders. He ducks his face, pressing the crown of his head to her stomach, shoulders shuddering. She digs her fingers in rhythmically, but that just makes him want to cry even more.

“The Joker.”

Dick laughs brokenly. Because of course. Why not.

“How?” he asks again. Getting answers is like pulling teeth. The anger that would normally appear the longer Bruce gives non-answers doesn’t show up. Instead, he feels – he feels hollow. Like, like an ice cream scoop came in and carved him out. “It doesn’t matter,” he says. His voice is dead. He feels dead. Jason’s actually dead. “I’m coming to the Manor.”

“We had the funeral,” Bruce says softly and there it is, a hint of emotion. Regret. Remorse. Grief. Dick tugs on his hair once, twice, then Garth is taking his hand, tangling their fingers together. “I’m sorry, Dick. I tried to put it off for as long as possible.”

“Liar,” Dicks says uncharitably just to hear Bruce’s carefully controlled exterior hitch. He said sorry. When was the last time he heard Bruce say sorry? He slumps. “Sorry, B,” he murmurs. “I’m sorry. That wasn’t fair.”

There’s tears in his voice and Dick feels like a heel, when Bruce says, “It’s okay, chum. It’s a lot to take in. I…I would really love it if you came to manor.”

Dick thinks of bodies cooling in a cold, lonely alleyway, pearls shimmering in the lights, a little boy wailing for his parents. He thinks of free-falling then not, standing on his toes and looking downdowndown and seeing red and white and pink and people screaming and crying, and a figure curling around him, whispering reassurances in his ear, hiding his parents from sight.

“Okay,” he whispers. “I’ll – I’ll be there soon.”

He thinks there’s word for children who lost their parents.

“Love you, chum.”

 – but what about a word for parents who lost their children?

“Love you, too.”

 –  word for siblings who lost their little brother?

#my writing #im like adding little bits to almost all my wips rn for some reason #who knows why! #no character tags bc i always feel weird about tagging these when they're jason centric but jason's not in it #it'll flash forward to present day dick and jay with jason of course hurt #a la yeah lets go home and the wip temp titled sacrifice play #also have never written the titans before sooooo yeah #did i get the line up right?

[bigskydreaming]

I'm so used to Dick getting hit because his family or friend was annoyed and decided he was the closest wall to punch that I never expect anything different anywhere, and then Young Justice s3 and Titans s2 caught me by the neck and threw me into a pool of unexpected catharsis. I never expected Dick to defend himself, I never expected the catharsis, I never expected how much it'd affect me. Although now that Titans s3 is upon us with a Dick vs Jason fight I'm back to the default.

I really, really, REALLY wish more people had even the slightest idea of the catharsis that can come from one character just fucking INTERVENING in a situation like we see happen so often in fics and the comics and just be like....no. That is not fucking okay. And like, without that, it literally is just...permissive? Like when Jason punches Dick in Grayson #12 after the Spyral thing, and Tim just stands there.....Tim's essentially saying its okay, he sees nothing wrong with what just happened. Which....dun dun dun....not all that surprisingly then turned into Tim punching Dick in Batman and Robin Eternal.....again with nobody upset.

Its why I've never even been able to like, go with the idea that Alfred or any of the Titans knew about what happened between Bruce and Dick in NTT #55, specifically, because like....I can't make peace with nobody saying anything about that ever. Bruce is a Big Time Superhero. Who frequently rubs people the wrong way. I don't buy that nobody's ever gonna throw that back in his face to make a point about how he's got no business being holier than thou about various topics. *Shrugs*

But yeah, unfortunately its not just canon. Like, I've read a fic where the prompt was literally like....people being glad to see Dick back from Spyral and getting actual catharsis for everything he went through instead of what we got in canon....so I went into the fic like okay, cool, this is exactly what I'm looking for. LOL nah, we got Jason STILL punching Dick anyway, even AFTER finding out about the events of NW #30 and Dick actually having died, and like, Jason was still so pissed at Dick for not TELLING them this that NOW, THAT'S why he just has to punch Dick before THEN hugging him and saying okay I just had to get that out, but now I'm over it and glad you're back.

And I was just like.....ummm. The author and people in the comments are treating this like an lol moment where all's well that end's well, and I'm like ARE YOU KIDDING ME, THAT'S THE EXACT SAME ISSUE CANON PRESENTED. Only now its WORSE, because people act like that addressed and resolved it, but with it STILL including Jason punching Dick cuz he was mad, and now with this even MORE formally being treated as like....something fine and necessary to repair their relationship. And all of this is packaged as like...the specific catharsis that people who were UPSET with how that all played out in canon like, came into this specific fic looking for....and this is what we got instead, with zero warning.

That's not even getting started on like, the super long super serious fic set during the Ric Grayson era that was supposedly about addressing Bruce's abusive actions towards ALL his kids, which FEATURED Ric as a regular character, but only ever actually DELVED into the times he'd hit Jason and then Tim. With Tim as an unreliable narrator making some reference to Bruce having hit Dick a couple times but that was different because Dick was an adult....and the author and narration at NO POINT pushing back against this to be like well actually Timmy, that's not fucking different at all, Dick is still his kid, Bruce was still taking out his anger on him, that was still abuse, and saying or even just implicitly framing it as NOT abuse the way it played out in Tim's head, when you're presenting this entire fic as a whole as like, an ode to actually acknowledging the abusive aspects of how Bruce has been written with his kids....

Again, SUPER upsetting to read and witness, because people are absolutely going to read that and internalize that as reinforcing their belief that the situations with Bruce and Dick WERE substantially different and thus not qualifying as abuse and belonging in a separate category the way Tim slotted it in his brain.....because why wouldn't they?

The author only wrote it that way because they perceived it that way, clearly, otherwise by their own stated admission of trying to tackle this subject honestly and completely, like....they would have actually made some kind of point or acknowledgment of it not being different at all and still very much abuse....and the fact that they didn't suggests they very much did see it as somehow different.....so why would readers perceive it any differently and why wouldn't its inclusion in a fic that delved into abuse so extensively NOT at least on SOME level potentially reinforce whatever leanings or perceptions they had in the same direction already? And meanwhile, this story like sooooo many others that wants to talk about abuse SERIOUSLY, all the while calls this their hobby that they do for enjoyment, so please don't criticize anything because that would ruin the HOBBY of it all for them, and its like....

And then there's the fic where its Dick hitting Jason while in the midst of a narrative that's bringing all of Jason's abuse issues and related triggers front and center, and this one is highly recommended as like, a great Dick Grayson characterization by an author who hates any and all canon renditions of Bruce being abusive and so doesn't include anything like that, and so you're going into it like okay, I'm not expecting any catharsis or anything along the lines of acknowledging Bruce's worse moments with Dick or Jason because clearly that's not what this fic is about and that's fine...but by the exact same token, I ALSO was not expecting that an author who is so vehement about how abusive Bruce is wildly OOC writing because the real Bruce would never do that and that's not how they perceive the characters, like....what I'm NOT expecting is for Dick, in a fic PRAISED for a good and complex depiction of him, to like....just fucking pop Jason one in the face and bring to mind how this makes him no different from Jason's abuser and then he runs and seeks comfort in Bruce who whether people like it or not, is canonically someone who has made Dick an abuse survivor himself....

And I'm just sitting there fucking BLIND-SIDED thinking wow, not only did I NOT want this recommended to me by the whole freaking fandom as a wonderfully nuanced portrayal of Dick Grayson, I would have kept a ten mile radius from it if it had say, a tag warning of sibling abuse, which is what they wrote between Dick and Jason, just the other way around. And its like.....I completely understand the author's dislike of abusive Bruce in canon and their desire not to engage with that content on any level, and would have been totally fine with that.....except, I naively figured there was no reason that same logic wouldn't extend to Dick, especially in so lauded a fic, because like, what? Bruce would never ever hit his family and its wildly OOC and simply not believable, even though its happened like five different times with Dick alone, but Dick hitting HIS family is a wonderfully nuanced and complicated portrayal of him? In what universe is that not gonna be a problem for some people??

But because we live in a fandom that's like, umm, this is just peoples' HOBBY, they're doing it for FUN, we're expected to be silent about stuff like this which are very real fucking problems to watch go unacknowledged in fics that claim to be TRYING to treat these topics seriously, but in reality only want to be entertainment just deep enough to move people but NOT deep enough to warrant criticism for having an undue influence on peoples' emotions or perceptions of various dynamics.....and we're supposed to be polite and just smile and say this isn't for us and let it all go, even though like, we would have KNOWN it wasn't for us and not gone anywhere near it in the first place if like, it had been tagged as sibling abuse or something like that. That would have been a clear advertisement to me that like, this is not something you want any part of.

Like, I go to fics that do acknowledge or reference Bruce's abuse to his kids because I'm LOOKING for the catharsis of having abuse actually called out as abuse....and what about that makes anyone think I or someone like me is in doing so LOOKING for characters who AREN'T already abusive to each other in canon NOW being abusive in ways that only the individual fic writer chose to depict them as? And by the same token, its not like I want to go into any fic and see more of the same thing as we get in canon, which is.....more instances of actual abuse being framed and treated as something that's just fine, actually, and nothing to worry about or take too seriously....

But meanwhile, back at the fandom farm, everyone's still totally convinced that they're so superior to canon and doing things so much better than them and fixing all their mistakes....and its like....well then why are you MAKING the EXACT same mistakes, and what the hell are we supposed to do about it with YOU guys if unlike with canon (where we can criticize but it doesn't do much good because there's no guarantee of the people who need to see it actually seeing it), we're not supposed to bring it to your attention as 'criticism-worthy' (thus making the opposite problem of where we CAN bring it to the attention of people who can see it, but we're not 'supposed to' because fandom etiquette)?

And back to the whole thing about using a sibling abuse tag as a warning for people to steer clear if this isn't something they want in their dynamics between the Batbrothers, not just Bruce and his kids....

The thing that fucking gets me every time here, is like......THIS WOULD BE SUCH AN EASY PROBLEM TO FIX, IF PEOPLE WEREN'T JUST SO FREAKING EMBARRASSED TO ADMIT THEY ACCIDENTALLY WROTE IT WITHOUT NOTICING WHAT IT WAS IN THE FIRST PLACE.

Like that first example I used....I very naively DID try to bring it to the author's attention when I was new to dipping my toes back into this fandom, and boy oh boy did that just exemplify how counter-productive that is as long as people can hide behind the DONT CRITICIZE MY WORK shield. I sent a private message on Ao3 so it wouldn't even show up in their comments, and just said very simply:

"hey, I really enjoy your stuff but I was wondering if you would mind putting a warning tag of 'sibling abuse' on your latest fic? I'm not trying to tell you how to write the characters and I figure you probably didn't intend it to come across that way anyway, but as an abuse survivor, I can't help but see that dynamic pop out as such for me in a way that I would at least have liked a heads up about, if that makes sense? Its just I do see how you paralleled how the canon presented this scenario and thus get what you were trying to do there I think, but I kinda only came into this fic for the specific lure of the catharsis we DIDN'T get when things played out somewhat similar in canon, with a lot of it having to do with that dynamic between Dick and Jason, and so...yeah. This part of the comics is obviously emotionally charged for a lot of us and I just know personally, this wasn't quite the catharsis I was after for that scenario and just a quick tag like that would have helped warn me of that. Anyway, sorry for this and hope you can understand my position, I'm not trying to be heavy-handed here or anything, but this was a problem for me and just in case it might be a problem for anyone else in the future, I thought I'd try and send a quick message about that for you to do whatever you want with."

I mean, I thought I was pretty reasonable there, personally?

Yeah.

The author did not.

She went off on me for constructive criticism which she did not ask for, and did not appreciate my insinuations into her character about her being an abuse apologist, because that's clearly what I was saying there. But I mean, that's what happens here. I'd bet anything that she was just embarrassed to have written the dynamic in such a way and then been called out about something she was previously oblivious to and then felt self-conscious about having overlooked or perpetrated herself.

But like....as understandable as that is, like....that's not my problem? And that's not a reason to shut down ANY avenue for people to raise the issue when writers unknowingly perpetrate stuff like this, in ANY way, no matter HOW delicately.

I get being defensive about someone thinking you INTENDED to write a pair of brothers as abusive and saying that was fine, and I even get how, being in a defensive mindset, she could have jumped to that interpretation of what I was saying rather than what I was ACTUALLY saying which was just....look, I don't know you, I don't know your own story, but for whatever reason you didn't pick up on this potentially troubling element of what you wrote in ways that I did because of my own experiences, and I'm just trying to point the issue out as delicately as possible because I KNOW that chances are, you WOULDN'T have written things that way if you had at all perceived the dynamic as I did. And I also KNOW that for people who don't have necessarily the same experiences or perspective I do, that they're not going to be as naturally inclined to perceive trouble spots the way I'm kinda....primed to notice them, and its NATURAL for some of this to pass by peoples' notice for a variety of reasons and like....I'm not freaking mad about that?? That's FINE. That's NORMAL. You're not a bad person for writing something a 'problematic' way purely because you LITERALLY DIDN'T SEE THE PROBLEM WHEN YOU WROTE IT.

Nobody has universal experiences. Nobody has all experiences. The problem is almost NEVER somebody just WRITING something in a way that they 'should have' known better than to, especially when it comes to topics like abuse or whatever.

No, the problem is ONLY when they get all up in their butthurt feelings about being embarrassed that they DIDN'T omnisciently know that and they feel self conscious now about how they think it makes them look now that the issue HAS been raised in a way they can recognize, and so they just fucking double down on pretending there's no issue whatsoever and whomever brings it to their attention is just overstepping and who even asked, anyway.

And thus a problem that can easily be solved in TWO ways....1) by adding a simple tag acknowledging the problem area for what it is, or 2) by editing the problem area to erase or write around the issue it raises that the author didn't perceive initially and likely would have avoided from the start if they HAD, because they AREN'T someone who wants to stand KNOWINGLY by that implication and what it says or suggests.....

Instead, this problem just gets turned into a generic fandom discourse issue about critique etiquette that addresses absolutely nothing, changes nothing, makes nothing about any of this better for ANYONE, just extends the problem to one likely to be repeated over and over again because it WILL never change so long as it remains something that isn't SUPPOSED to have attention brought to it, and all of this.

All of this.

Is just self-conscious defensiveness because people didn't want to be perceived as someone who either actually thought the things they'd unknowingly implied for WHATEVER reason, or didn't care/pay enough attention to notice as a problem in the first place....

Or else they just literally DON'T care enough about the content of what they're writing enough that they actually GIVE a shit about becoming better informed on it and thus better able to steer away from troubling implications or points of view in the future. Even if pointed out by survivors or people with personal experience as such that they recognize a problem even where the author didn't themselvse, no matter WHAT their own personal relationship with the subject matter is -

(because yeah, survivors of rape and abuse can absolutely perpetuate harmful viewpoints ourselves as well, because experiencing these things doesn't take away from our being exposed to just as much of the abuse/rape culture and apologia society and media churns out regularly enough that it can cloud ANYONE'S mind on this subject, without the addition or input of other points of view).

And either way, no matter what the reason is, when people aren't willing to even ENTERTAIN input, feedback, or potentially negative or even just AWARENESS-RAISING viewpoints in response to culturally influencing fictional content they put out via a variety of fairly wide-reaching platforms that can thus reach and influence any number of mindsets, from those of survivors to potential survivors to friends or families of survivors to people with no connection to abuse or rape whatsoever currently but for whom that could change at any time because we all meet new people every day and survivors could come into your life and be affected by your views and knowledge of abuse and rape culture and apologism at any point, even if you never become a survivor yourself -

(as is my ardent wish for anyone no matter HOW much I dislike or disagree with them personally. I don't expect or WANT people to be as fully informed on a lot of this stuff as I am personally, just like I'm not like, sad about not being MORE informed on the aspects or experiences stemming from it all that aren't personally relevant to my own life, because I'm additionally very aware that my own viewpoint is not definitive and not the monolithic voice for all survivors everywhere, I've literally only ever advocated for my own perspective on these matters and anyone of a like-mind which is an entirely opt-in POV that people have to decide for THEMSELVES if they feel that applies to them versus something that I'm CLAIMING on behalf of anyone but myself) -

Anyway. Bottom line is whatever the reason for WHY people are so avoidant on this topic, the end result is we've created a culture that says people are allowed to craft fictional viewpoints on any topic in any way to any degree...but the only impact that can ever be acknowledged is positive. Nobody can point out where things can be better. Nobody can point out where things are just fucking WRONG. The entertainment of whomever wrote the thing and whomever reads it and ISN'T bothered by it in any way, is eminently more important and worth protecting than the comfort of anyone who reads the thing and is not only troubled by the viewpoint made or claims presented on a matter they're intimately acquainted with in some form or to some degree themselves.....but then merely wants their viewpoint and concerns acknowledged and made part of the conversation so that both writer and readers can potentially apply that viewpoint and ANY additional perspective or information it contains to future works.

In essence, for all the free speech and censorship talk that gets thrown around fandom spaces....THIS kinda thing RIGHT HERE?

Is the most self-evident example I can come up with of ACTUALLY shutting down conversation and the spread and dissemination of information relevant to the topics being raised as points of interest every. single. day. in this fandom and most every other one I can think of.

So if peoples' ACTUAL goal was creating spaces where the people for whom fictional content is actually MOST relevant to are encouraged and outright TOLD to try and separate their feelings from that relevancy and treat it all as an abstract.....

Just so that people for whom this content already IS an abstract and nothing more, can refrain from having it made real and thus reality-impacting, and in doing so take away some of the escapism and FUN of it all, and make it a little more 'heavy' than they wanted when they turned to it for a bit of self-indulgent angst they never intended or expected to treat (or see treated) as anything more than that?

Then its like, congrats. You did it guys. That's what you've got here. That's what you've made.

Yay.

Go team.

[neoyi]

Can you tell us about your HLD headcanons please?

Sure. I should also add a small disclaimer that a lot of the headcanons are just story ideas based on an AU where Drifter and Guardian doesn’t die, instead living out their lives in a post-apocalyptic world and their growing romance and eventual family life they create for themselves whilst uncovering Drifter’s amnesic past. I want to also add that much of these ideas are contradictory to canon since I’m just messing around the world for funsies. …It would have been a romantic comedy. Sooooo on that note…*Drifter can be incredibly hyperfixated with their interests. This largely extends to ancient ruins and past history left behind by civilizations of yesteryear, especially from blue-skinned folks like they are. It’s not just a fascination of What People Did back in the days, but an honest attempt to find any clues of their memories. *Drifter likes games, strategic games specifically. They like solving puzzles and unraveling complex mathematics. They play alien tabletop RPGs; they dig epic, long novels and can memorize obscure facts and useless trivia. They’re the kind that’d have a blog and write long-winded essays on Why This Character Had Amazing Character Development. *Drifter has something of a reputation. Having traveled around the world for years has caused the dude to get into their fair share of scuffles. Drifter’s stance is largely Neutral and the most they do is stay in a place, then move on to find more ruins and historic sights. But every so often, there might be That One Criminal who damns an entire town or some Megalomaniac who uses ancient tech to try and blow up the world and Drifter just happens to be there. With their sword and gun. Wasting the shit out of That One Criminal or that Megalomaniac. And perhaps in time, Drifter became a bit of a legend, the “Red-Cloaked Hero”, the “Savior”, “The Crimson Drifter” or whatever inane nicknames the people named ‘em. Drifter has become a symbol of hope and in these struggling times, some people gravitate towards that. For all Drifter claims neutrality, they don’t sit back when people need help, but it comes with baggage and people tend to recognize them - both the decent folks and the jack-offs who seek to kill ‘em for their own means. All Drifter wants is to be left alone, man. *One of the things I’ll never find the time to do is create small, one-off comics of Drifter getting into all sorts of adventure. Most of these would be wordless and the situations could range from anything to Drifter helping archeologists unlock lost history and fighting a giant robot inside or something like saving a princess in a far-off kingdom from a monster or stuck pulling a heist with some well-meaning thieves. Whatever comes to mind.

*Drifter has helped other drifters and archeologists with their research because for some very odd reason, they can unlock specific tech and locales that even other blue-skinned folks can’t…*Guardian is the son of a farmer and a drifter. His mother settled down from drifting life to tend to the farm with her husband (who is far from a warrior as you can get.) He has an older brother who currently travels the world, getting by through trade stories and inventing weird things. Guardian left the farm shortly after his father died (a stack of alcoholic beverages landed on top of him one day) to travel the world to pursue his dreams of studying history of ancient civilization. He settled in Central at some point and has stayed there since. He keeps in touch with his family.

*Guardian’s real name is “Tim.” I got that name from a joke from an HLD thread I read a while ago. He also has a last name, but it cannot be written here for it is very, very, very long, and contains letters that aren’t even in the current alphabet. *Guardian is into kitschy decor. He unironically loves curtains with corn cob patterns or their world equ. of garden gnomes in his garden. I have a jokethat Guardian must be written to be the most blandest guy you could ever meet. He talks endlessly about the potatoes he’s grown in his backyard, goes to bed at a reasonable hour, and can listen to his neighbor talk about the structure and kind of bricks he used to build his house. Guardian is unassuming, but kind.

*Incidentally, this is why Drifter eventually fell for Guardian and chose to stay in Central: he gives Drifter a solitary, quiet life that they want. Drifter’s gotten into enough shenanigans - whether they wanted it or not - and damn it, they’re just tired. Adventure will always come to them because their need to explore old ruins and tech and those tend to invite trouble, but at least they can do it together! Once they’re finished, Drifter also has a home to go back to that gives them the respite they need.

*Drifter totally had a one-night stand with the Dashmaster. This is not scandalous news in Central because a frighteningly number of people have had one-night stands with Dashmaster. Because he’s Dashmaster.

*Guardian has two jobs in Central: he, along with other volunteers, guards and patrols outside of Central for monsters or any signs of danger. He’s also a teacher at the town’s only school. Subjects vary, but it’s mostly history on his end.

*The Swordmaster is Guardian’s best friend. The two (and a couple of other buddies) hang out at the local bar every week.

*Drifter was the one to propose to Guardian. That was the unexpected part because at that point, they’ve already been discussing marriage. They both just assumed Guardian would propose. *Drifter only ever won once against Soccer Kid. Once.

*Drifter only wakes up early whenever they’re not in town because it’s practical (gotta cover as much ground as possible when you’re on the move.) Whenever they’re in inns and other shelters though, they sleep in. (Guardian always wakes up at the crack of dawn. He is often subjected to pillows being thrown by Drifter whenever he gets too happy in the morning.)

*I haven’t decided where Drifter got their current clothing. I think Drifter got their helmet off of a dead soldier, the cape probably off of another drifter’s corpse, and maybe Drifter - in one of their rare moments - splurged a little on their boots. They’re good quality boots and you need ones that last!*Drifter used to own an old motorcycle they used to travel around for a bit. It got too damaged and had to be abandoned eventually.

*Drifter’s favorite food is red meat. Guardian likes potatoes. *Restless and/or impatient Drifter involves them chewing on things, tapping their fingers, or shaking their legs.

*Guardian’s method of organizing is mostly pushing books and materials off to the side as much as possible. Once Drifter gets the hang of daily chores, they tend to go far enough that things must be alphabetized, we are not animals Guardian. *Drifter is practical enough to be able to fix their clothes whenever it’s damaged, but Guardian is the superior seamstress. He’s also better in the kitchen. Course, a lot of this stems from the latter having lived in civilization most of his life while Drifter mostly learned what they needed to survive. The latter tends to take advantage of what towns offer (ex: they eat conservatively when out in the middle of nature, but stuff their face in taverns because they have the opportunity to do so.)

*The stray dog that wanders near the eastern sector of Central ended up following Drifter when the latter, feeling a tinge of pity, gave the pup some food. The dog has never left Drifter since. This bothered Drifter at first since they had no use for a pet, even going as far as naming the dog “Babo” (”stupid” in Korean), but damn if the dog did not grow on ‘em. (Incidentally I actually drew out most of the pages of this comic, but I never inked or posted them up online.)

*Life before Drifter was well, a drifter, was spent during the last remnants of the blue-skinned (yeah, I never thought of an actual name for these guys) civilization: in the midst of the great war that screwed them over. They were the [NAME REDACTED], child of the Librarian (herself a big contributor to the giant Titans) and a cut character from the game: Rivan. The latter was the last King of their civilization and, well, he was nicknamed Mad King Rivan for a reason. Knowing he was off his gourd in his mad pursuit for power, the Librarian stepped off the Titan project and got the hell out with intent on living a peaceful life alone with her than unborn child. Drifter spent most of their childhood with their mother with no acknowledgement on who their father was. The Librarian spent her time creating the pendant (and Drifter’s companion bot), containing memories of their time, and as much information on their culture as possible, slowly realizing over time that the end was nigh. The Librarian sent Drifter to safety during the last days of their civilization. Drifter was placed in a pod, frozen in time until they eventually woke up with no recollection of who they are. Drifter has no idea the pendant and their companion bot has pretty much all the info they could need (it also requires solving a complex algorithm to unlock the info, too.)

*That said, Rivan is still alive and he not only intends to bring his kingdom back (a big reach in and of itself at this point), he knows he has a child…

I think that’s all I can think or muster. Hope this is good enough.

#hyper light drifter #anonymous #neoyi talks

[featherfreezombie]

iw SPOILERS

alrighty folks, i need to do a ramble. i saw infinity war, rest is under the cut of course. so SPOILERS!!!!!!

i HATED IT SO FUCKING MUCH SO FUCKING FUCIKING MUCH

alright. let’s get the big thoughts out of the way first. i am not mad people died, i also am not lying on the floor crying like so many have written they do. i feel nothing and it’s infuriating.

you know that effect when the scale goes up and up and up and it becomes less relatable in its one-upmanshit of itself? that was a typo and im not going to fix it. oneupmanshit. there you go.

thanos is a huge problem, i didn’t give a damn in the trailers, thought they might do stuff.. but.. omnipotence is just sooooo fuuuuucking boooooring and his motivations are “i do evil things because of a messed up conviction” but on the largest scale where it just seems so ridiculous and i can’t take him seriously even as he plows through the heros. his little lovey-dovey gamora moments don’t do shit considering how he raised her, set against her sister and all that. your love isn’t redeeming if it’s BIG-TIME abusive you fucking grapesicle.

okay so that’s thanos.

i think the plot and writing was exceptionally bad. everything that happens seemed to VERY obviously set up something they wanted to happen, which is how plots work but you’re not supposed to notice. and if the things that happen don’t make sense, it becomes even worse. just one example was stark’s line of we need to find vis, who might be able to find him “steve rogers might” why would he though?

steve isn’t this huge wealth of intelligence (as in knowledge and information, not smarts), if he had said natasha, that would’ve made sense. if he said wanda, that would have made sense. but no, we needed to set up the civil war talk and steve’s name had a bigger impact. bullshit.

OHOHOH, i should really talk about loki though. i got the feeling the russos just had no idea what to do with him and didn’t care. the only way his final actions make sense is if you view it as “suicide by thanos”. like. standing in front of thanos, giving him some weak drivel about pledging loyalty and then summoning a butter knife in the back of his hand, while thanos’ buddies stand behind HIM, and straight on attack? bull-fucking-shit. i could see how his final words might have been to thor, to say “hey, we’re family, goodbye” and shit.. but in his current state of mind and in that moment, it’s so out of character to do what he did.

loki would have slunk into the shadows, maybe fake being killed so that thanos might feel he had his fun and leave thor. which is what i hope happened, but somehow i don’t believe it anymore, since he would have been blown into space too, i guess. i had hopes he’d snuck onto the donut maybe, but.. nah.. probably not. though i WILL fantasize about loki being on titan too, with a very messed up tony. oh wait, quill’s alive too... right...

great scene by the way, on titan, kill all the aliens and let three human white dudes sitting there. eh, two. strange died too.

-breeeeeathe-

alrighty.

so, treatment of loki put me in a very bad headspace. they didn’t even bother showing the setup of that scene. bruce knows loki was sent by thanos. we will never know what loki actually said to them before they were borded, it’s just cast aside.

so, i am willing to attribute a lot of my grievances with this piece of shit movie to an opening scene that pissed me off ROYALLY. i wouldn’t have minded him dying per se, i was expecting it kind of, but the way they did crushed my suspension of disbelief. the bad writing continued to do that, so i was beside the movie, watching from the outside for the entire time and completely emotionally detached.

i wanted to go home to watch inane let’s plays and play idle games, i did not give a single fuck. i tried, i wanted to like the movie. i even came up with all sorts of plottwists, that might have made things interesting. one of which would be a heel-turn of thor where he kills thanos and takes the gauntlet, now THAT would have been cool and actually sort of in character. i liked his heart-to-heart with rocket about not having anything left, so... i could see it.

my mind supplied all these alternate developments to try and redeem what i was seeing, but no.. aaaaaand the disintegrating. now. infinity gauntlet complete, thanos nopes out of wakanda and half the universe dies. no send-off, no context. it felt like MARVEL culling the herd, that’s gotten to big, it felt fake and random. i mean it was supposed to be random in canon, but it really jsut felt to me like feige standing there with a clipboard going “okay black panther is gonna bomb, don’t need t’challa anymore i guess.... let’s see... bucky, eeh.. let’s kill all this stucky talk. who else. vis, out. (i was gald about that one actually)”

[and would they have killed of t’challa if they had known how well bp was received? maybe they thought it would just add some one-time “flavor” and be like this “see, we can have an african lead too” that didn’t need to be made any deeper. ugh.]

like the only death that had an impact was peter, he’s the only one that got sort of a send-off. i guess bucky, because he was the first, felt special too. it was sooo lazyyyy....

it’s like, we need to kill many people, but it’s also a disney movie so it cannot feel too much like a massacre. it just fucking sucked.

romance! eh. yeah. watching a 20-year old woman with a 2-year old man who looks about 60 is just so many shades of wrong and uncomfortable, god am i glad vision is gone.

there was the obligatory bruce-nat glances, but nothing more. there was a bit of tony-pepper stuff, and i hate that ship. squicks me the f out for some reason. one of them being that they reconciled off-screen in homecoming and i have never seen how there’s anything more than friendship between them, i see the two as a brother/sister like relationship, so the forced romance and marriage and all that, ugh.

quill and gamora is actgually pretty sweet, their moments also provide character development, i like.

ooookay that was a long one and i got a lot off my chest. i just felt hollow and like i wouldn’t be excited about anything in life anymore, i still feel like it tbh. even though i tried to not get hyped about it, because i had tons of doubt, i wanted to enjoy the movie and i so thoroughly didnt, that i do not feel like seeing another marvel movie ever again, and that is some strong shit.

i have measured my life in “how long until thor2″ and “just half a year to civil war” and stuff like that, so... it feels like a huge loss. hope ill get some excitement back somehow, just now i feel nothing but cynical and jaded and i hate it. i like to like things, i like being positive about things and i tried, i really tried.

fuck you marvel

#avengers infinity war #infinity war spoilers #avengers infinity war spoilers #avengers:iw spoilers #very anti infinity war btw #so if you enjoyed it probably ignore this #i dont wanna pull anyone down