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silverwhittlingknife · 1 year

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How do you feel about Jack Drake?? What are your thoughts on him and Tim’s relationship?

Anon, I hope you were interested in a novel, because look, I am fascinated by Jack Drake. He’s key to a whole lot of what I find compelling about Tim as a character, and if I were in charge of DC, I’d bring him back to life. This would make Tim unhappy but would IMO make for good plotlines.

Jack and Tim’s relationship is Complicated (TM)...

Jack and Tim hug in Nightwing 20 / Jack impulsively yanks a TV out of the wall in Robin 45 / Tim grieves in Identity Crisis

“I could tell the truth. But I don’t.” - Robin 66

...and it involves a whole lot of Tim lying, and feeling guilty about lying, and thinking about telling the truth, and choosing again and again to keep lying.

And I think that’s great.

Below the cut:

Shorter version - key points about Jack

Really long version - my gentler take (vigilantism is choir and Jack loves sports) vs. my harsher take (Jack has some major flaws)

Final thoughts

Shorter version - key points about Jack:

He’s a bad parent. He’s self-centered, he consistently prioritizes his own comfort and interests over his son’s, and when upset, he does things like order Tim off to boarding school.

But he’s never a bad parent in an actionable way. He’s not like David Cain or Arthur Brown, who are abusive monsters. Jack’s not a monster! He just...kinda sucks.

He genuinely loves Tim. If Jack’s aware that Tim’s disappeared or is in trouble, he’s always worried and upset. He periodically resolves to be a better dad, and IMO he’s always sincere.

And Tim loves him, a lot. Tim’s protective of him and worries about him when he’s kidnapped or in danger, and when they’re reunited, Tim’s really relieved and usually hugs him (and Jack hugs back!).

...But they have very little in common, and that’s a problem. Jack doesn’t value the things that Tim values, or respect the people that Tim admires, or care about the things that Tim’s interested in. Tim lies to him a lot, but that’s partly because he correctly guesses Jack wouldn’t respond well if he knew the truth of what Tim’s up to.

The Batfamily is a surrogate family that Tim’s drawn to because of the ways his real family doesn’t meet his emotional needs…but also he feels guilty about that and disloyal. (And to the extent that his dad recognizes what’s going on, he's jealous and resentful!)

Very long version:

(LISTEN I HAVE SO MANY THOUGHTS ABOUT THIS)

Okay! So first: Jack’s a character who IMO is pretty up for interpretation. You can interpret him very charitably, and make excuses for the bad behavior, and fill in the blanks sympathetically when situations are ambiguous; or you can interpret him uncharitably, and emphasize the bad behavior. I don’t think either approach is invalid - it depends on what kind of story you’re interested in! I have enjoyed Bad Dad stories and also stories that redeem Jack.

My personal take on canon is that Jack and Tim’s relationship is in a gray area. Jack's definitely neglectful, and he does prioritize other things over Tim, but he’s never so bad that Tim can easily reject him, and he's never so bad that Bruce could justify taking Tim away. He's just...not great. Tim loves him, and feels loyal to him, but it’s a very mixed-up complicated love.

I have a gentler take and a harsher one which I switch between as the spirit moves me. xD

My Gentler Take (tl;dr: vigilantism is choir and Jack loves sports)

Here’s the core conflict: Jack and Tim are very different people with different values. Tim idolizes Bruce and Dick and vigilantism, and secretly gets involved, knowing his dad will hate it. He gets increasingly wrapped up in his secret world and lies to his dad...because if his dad finds out, he’ll make Tim quit.

This is a great setup for an ongoing comic. It’s practical, because it provides endless potential for plotlines, and it’s nicely thematic, because it maps closely onto relatable real-life situations with extracurricular activities:

Tim the drama nerd whose dad thinks he’s playing football and not in the school play;

Tim the closeted-queer kid secretly getting involved in his school’s politically-active Gay-Straight Alliance;

Tim the choir kid whose dad only values making money and wants him to go into the family business (and Tim keeps promising himself he'll give up choir soon, definitely soon, but maybe he'll stay in just a liiiittle longer, because they need him, you see, the last tenor left town, so...);

Tim the computer geek with the sports-obsessed dad (this one’s just canon);

etc. etc.

The extracurricular metaphor works pretty well for Tim’s relationship to vigilantism. Tim's involved in his "extracurricular" because he genuinely thinks it's important and fulfilling, and he values it and wants to be good at it. He idolizes Bruce and Dick because they're good at it. He's been collecting information about it since he was a little kid, and hiding it from his parents because he knows they wouldn't approve. And mayyyybe there's also an element of low-key rebellion against his dad, and maybe that's secretly part of the appeal. And yet also as Tim gets more and more invested, he starts to daydream: maybe I could tell my dad and he'd be proud of me and supportive. But he doesn't, because actually he knows his dad would be upset and angry and make him quit.

And - again, just like with lonely kids and extracurricular hobbies - one of the things that happens is that Tim starts getting his unfilled emotional needs met ... by people he knows through this secret hobby. And people like Bruce and Dick start turning into a surrogate family. Which Tim feels guilty about. And also as Tim gets more and more wrapped up in their world, he has to lie to his dad even more, which means the distance between Tim and his dad gets bigger and bigger and more and more unfixable.

I love this dilemma. It's simple, it's recognizable, it provides endless sources for conflict, and there's no obvious solution! Tim can't tell Jack: he'll make Tim quit! And Tim doesn't want to quit, because he loves choir / art / theater / whatever. Yeah, it’s difficult, and there are challenges, and sometimes he has doubts...but at the end of the day, he cares about it a lot. And everything he values is there, and all the people he admires and cares about are there, and all he wants in the world is to feel like he's one of them and belongs there. So he has to lie, even though he doesn't want to lie, and he feels guilty about it...

...but also he ends up lying more and more.

(Sidenote: I think it's important that Tim chooses to keep lying - Tim's narration often glosses this as "I have to lie to my dad," and that's certainly how it feels to Tim, but this... isn't quite true. He has to lie to his dad, because if he doesn't, his dad will get mad at him and try to stop him, not because he literally has no choice about it.)

Other Reasons Why I Like The "Secret Extracurricular" Interpretation

(tl;dr it complicates not just Tim's relationship with his dad, but also all his other relationships)

Tim's problems have some obvious parallels to Steph and Cass, who both become vigilantes while rejecting their evil supervillain dads. But Jack isn't evil. And that means the Tim-and-Jack relationship is ambiguous and complicated in ways that I like. Steph and Cass can just leave their Bad Dads in prison, and say good riddance, and feel very righteous and triumphant about it! Tim’s more complicated. Tim gets into vigilantism ostensibly out of duty and altruism, but secretly, he's also involved for straight-up selfish self-fulfillment reasons. He's lonely, and bored, and his life feels pointless, but he thinks that Bruce and Dick are cool and amazing and he wants to be a part of the things that they do. When his dad gets jealous of Tim’s relationship to Bruce, and feels like Tim’s looking for a surrogate family, he’s... not wrong.

And the ways in which Jack is not Actionably Bad complicate things from Bruce's POV. If Jack was a straight-up villain, it’d be an easy call to keep in touch when Jack finds out and makes Tim quit...but he’s not a villain, not really. So what do you do? Do you try to surreptitiously stay in touch with Tim even though you’re ignoring his dad’s express wishes and thus forcing Tim to sneak around? Do you respect his dad’s wishes and stay away from Tim even though you have a years-long relationship at this point?

Again: a bit similar to the extracurricular analogy. Say you’re the choir director and you’ve built this whole relationship with a kid in the choir, and you’re an important mentor to him and you care about him etc. etc. etc.... and then right before a big performance, his dad finds out he’s been secretly involved, and yanks him out. How would you react? Well, maybe kind of in some of the ways Bruce reacts. You replace him. You’re annoyed with him. You miss him. You want him to come back. You’re also worried about him. You’re upset with his dad. But also... what should you do, exactly?

Bruce and Alfred and Dick care about Tim as if he were part of their family, but he’s not part of their family, and there’s a lot of interesting tension there.

My Harsher Take

Jack never hits his son. But his temper is a big deal.

In his worst moments, he takes out his anger on Tim’s stuff - wrecking his room, or ripping his TV out of the wall and confiscating it. When he’s worried about Tim, he usually expresses that fear by yelling at him / punishing him / sending him away - threatening to send him to boarding school in Metropolis in Robin III, or threatening to send him to military school abroad in Robin 92, or actually forcing him to go to an all-boys' boarding school post-NML.

This is bad behavior! It is Not Good!

And you can easily connect the dots to a bunch of Tim’s terrible coping mechanisms, like the constant lying and or the fact that Tim’s go-to methods for dealing with interpersonal conflict are 1) repress it and pretend it never happened (most of his fights with Bruce), 2) withdraw from the relationship until he can pretend the conflict doesn’t exist (when his friends get mad at him in YJ, he quits the team for a while), or 3) literally run away from home.

Also, Jack is a Manly Man with firm opinions about how men behave vs. how women behave, and he thinks boys shouldn’t be scared and thinks Tim should date hot girls and pushes Tim to work out and wants him to play football and expresses period-typical sexism, etc. etc. etc. ... and though obviously this wasn’t what the writers had in mind at the time, all of that is certainly interesting to read backwards in the light of Tim as a queer character.

More Disorganized Thoughts on Jack Drake

Tim’s our hero, so we’re naturally more sympathetic to him, but it’s also true that relationships are a two-way street, and Tim doesn’t value any of the things his dad values, either. Jack at various points is shown to care about grades, business, money, boarding schools, archeology, football, a kind of macho bragging-about-dating-hot-women ethos, and a very public and performative kind of caring. Tim tends to respond with discomfort or disinterest or even disgust. When Jack gets on TV to try to rally the government to save his son from No Man’s Land, Tim isn’t touched—he’s mortified. When Jack makes some bad investments and loses money, Jack’s deeply upset and his self-image is majorly impacted, and far from being sympathetic, Tim’s annoyed and kind of contemptuous of the idea that this is a problem. Jack thinks fishing in the early morning and going to tennis matches is a fun father-son activity; Tim finds it exhausting and tedious. And so on.

This means that Tim often longs to be closer to his dad in theory, but this longing is more tied to fantasy than to reality. He rarely seems to enjoy spending time with His-Dad-The-Actual-Person. So for example, when Tim’s deadly ill with the Clench, he has an extremely poignant fever dream about telling his dad the truth and getting hugged…even as he insists in real-life to Alfred and Dick that he does not want them to tell his dad what’s going on.

The same is true of Jack, who IMO genuinely wants to be closer to his son and is continually declaring that he’s going to turn over a new leaf and get closer to his son…and just as continually backs out of activities or loses his temper when faced with spending time with his actual son.

Tim and his dad sadly get along best—by far—in Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder situations. When Jack gets kidnapped or is in danger, Tim worries for him (and Tim grieves him deeply when he dies). When Tim disappears or runs away, Jack’s genuinely worried about him. So e.g. they have a really moving emotional reunion and hug when the earthquake hits Gotham, and Tim panics about his dad’s safety and comes running home (and meanwhile Jack’s been panicked about Tim’s safety!). It’s the day-to-day, regular life stuff where they don’t connect.

Jack's written quite differently by different writers. Mostly, Tim's parents are at their least likable in his early appearances and early miniseries (this is where you get, for example, Jack and Janet being nasty at each other while a pained employee looks on, and Tim disappointed to once again get news of where his parents are via postcard - "I guess that sums them up! Never know where they’re going to be–or when–or even how long!” - and Tim alone on school break, and Bruce and Alfred thinking there's something weird going on with Tim's parents, etc. etc.). Jack's more sympathetic but still often unlikable in most of Tim's Robin solo, and he's almost invisible (but positively treated if he does show up) in Tim's team books.

For obvious reasons, Jack's remembered way more sympathetically after his death. Tim's completely devastated by Jack's murder, which he arrives moments too late to prevent, and he basically never gets over it. We see him grieving Jack again and again in Robin, and also in Teen Titans, and also in Resurrection, and again in the Halloween Special, and again in Batman: Blackest Night, and all the way up to the end of Red Robin. Tim also grieves for an extended time over Janet - he hallucinates a happy reunion with her when he's feverish in Contagion, and hallucinates her in the final issue of Robin, and the reveal-your-buried-emotions song in Robin 102 brings up his grief for her too (meanwhile, other characters dance or laugh or otherwise get giddy). Tim’s grief over his parents’ deaths is intense and long-lasting.

I'm not going to clip comic panels because this is long enough, but if you're curious, here's a nice and fairly lengthy compilation of comic panels with Tim and Jack.

If you're interested in a Jack-centric story with a softer-but-still-recognizably-canon take on Jack, I really like the way Jack’s narration is written in the one-shots Heart Humble (set shortly before Jack dies) and Never a Hero (Ra's resurrects him during Brucequest, and Jack's archeology skills turn out to be unexpectedly useful).

#tim drake #jack drake #ask tag #i wrote this ages ago and now i can't remember what i was going to add to it so oh well draft amnesty? sorry for the long wait anon!! <333 #anyway i kept this carefully on topic and virtuously did not derail into talking about the other blorbo but tags are for disorganization SO #for me this kinda half-in half-out place where tim is with the batfamily is SUCH an interesting part of his relationship with dick #and i never stop turning it over in my head #he's kiiiinda replaced dick in that he's robin - but in a very real way he *hasn't* - he's NOT bruce's new son the way jason was #and early!tim makes a BIG POINT of how bruce is not his dad #and i think this relative distance from bruce is a huge factor in why dick is able to build a close relationship with tim at all #(because dick's still pretty estranged from bruce!)#and there's such interesting tension there when dick starts jokingly calling tim ''little brother'' or when villains call them brothers #because they're NOT. increasingly they would both LIKE to be brothers! but dick has zero official standing in tim's life #if tim got hit by a car in his civilian identity bruce and dick wouldn't even be able to visit him without his dad's permission #which jack would be pretty unlikely to give! jack doesn't like or trust bruce!#or like. this is morbid. but if tim died. dick wouldn't even be invited to the funeral you know?#and there's such interesting tension there for me in the contrast between this vigilante relationship that's very very close #but in their civilian lives no one would assume they're anything in particular to each other #anyway the 1st half of tim's robin solo has this thread of tension between tim's family life vs. his vigilante life (plus his mom's death)#and then the second half + red robin has the thread of struggling with grief in a world that's not fair + feeling lost/alone #and these two threads are a big part of my interest in tim as a character! jack's the backdrop that makes a lot of stories possible

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notbecauseofvictories · 1 month

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I finally listened to the latest episode of the silt verses ("latest" meaning "it came out in january, I've just been really busy") and I don't want to be negative but I liked faulkner better when he was unhinged. No more pseudo-therapy or painfully honest conversations for these characters, they need to march to their doom being lonely, unfulfilled, and tragic.

#I am half joking but I do think that ''I went back to my childhood home where my father is losing his mind''#''and I got absolutely no clarity. I was denied apologies or even confrontation; he was just a frightened frail old man''#''and now I am alone trying to shout at someone who can't remember who I am''#is a much better story.#paige already got to have a confrontation with her father who made it up to her late and sideways and bloody.#faulkner should be denied that catharsis.#especially after he listens to the radio transmission from greve about how he's false and a liar and alone #it would be so satisfying. for me even if no one else.#the silt verses

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griseldabanks · 2 months

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Let Me Count the Ways 48 for John and Sherlock? But make it kidLock!

--Rain on Main

Let Me Count the Ways ask game

Prompt: "We should eat something."

“We should eat something,” John said.

Sherlock merely grunted, adjusting the lens on his microscope.

John's stomach growled again. It was a Saturday, so he'd come over to Sherlock's house as soon as he'd finished breakfast. When he checked the clock on Sherlock's bedside table, it said 15:23. That meant he hadn't eaten in...well, he couldn't remember exactly when he'd finished breakfast, but it had been a long time.

“Aren't you hungry?” John prodded.

“Digestion takes blood flow away from the brain,” Sherlock said distractedly, jotting something down in his notebook. “Eating just slows down thinking.”

“Yeah, but your brain also needs energy from food to keep thinking.”

“I'm fine,” Sherlock said, picking up another slide and sticking it carefully under the microscope.

John held his breath and counted to ten in his head, like his mother always told him and Harry to do when they started arguing. Once he thought he could keep from raising his voice, John snapped, “Well, I'm hungry.”

Sherlock didn't even look up, just waved his hand absently over his shoulder. “You know where the kitchen is.”

With a huff of irritation, John dropped his own notebook onto the table next to Sherlock's and stomped out of the room. He didn't exactly slam the door, but he shut it with a satisfying snap.

Sherlock's single-mindedness was great and all; it was probably one of the main reasons he was so far ahead in school. John knew he would never be as smart as his friend, but one thing he did have Sherlock beat at was hospitality. If they'd gone to John's house today, not only would they have gotten a full lunch, but the second Sherlock mentioned feeling a bit peckish, John knew his mother would whip out a healthy snack for them. And Sherlock would eat it, whether it took the blood flow away from his stupid brain or not.

John strode over to the banister at the top of the stairs and hesitated, peering over them into the empty front hall. True, he did know where the kitchen was, after Sherlock had taken him there a few times, but John still felt a bit awkward in this huge, fancy house. He tiptoed down the stairs, then quietly walked down the hall, feeling as though at any moment, a maid or butler would suddenly appear and warn him that he was trespassing where he didn't belong.

But in the end, he made it to the large kitchen without incident. There didn't seem to be anybody about. Maybe he and Sherlock were the only ones at home.

John stood in the huge, immaculate kitchen for a minute, just looking around and trying to convince himself to make something for them to eat. Was he allowed to take anything? He opened the fridge and the pantry and just stared at all of the food waiting to be used—expensive brands he'd never even heard of, the kind of things his mother would never even consider buying.

After dithering about for far too long, John's growling stomach finally convinced him to make a choice. He decided to make cucumber sandwiches, and he found a package of biscuits that he sampled and decided would make a good addition. With the biscuits under his arm and the sandwiches piled up on a plate, it occurred to him that they needed something to drink as well. Hydration was important, after all.

After digging around some more, he eventually found some bottles of water, which he tucked under his other arm. Then, walking carefully with his precious load, he made his way back upstairs to Sherlock's room. At every step, the terrified thought plagued him of what would happen if he tripped and dropped the food. Crumbs and bits of cucumber would go everywhere, and he wouldn't know how to clean it all up in time, and then someone would come along and tell him to get lost, he was just a dirty little boy who had no right to come here and bother them....

But he made it all the way back to Sherlock's room without dropping a thing. He had to set the plate down on the floor to open the door, then pick it back up again to bring it inside, but then he was safe. Letting out a relieved sigh, John set the plate on the edge of Sherlock's desk, then unloaded the rest of his wares beside it.

Through it all, Sherlock didn't look up from whatever he was scribbling in his notebook. John was used to being ignored when Sherlock was focused on something, so he didn't mind. He just pulled his chair closer and started on the sandwiches, looking over Sherlock's shoulder and trying to decipher his complicated equations.

John had just finished his second sandwich and was opening a water bottle when Sherlock reached over without looking and grabbed a sandwich for himself. John watched in surprise as Sherlock stuffed the sandwich into his mouth in three impatient bites, still writing with his other hand.

“I've got it, John!” he cried through a mouthful of bread and cucumbers. “It was so absurdly simple, why didn't I see it immediately?” Springing to his feet, he began pacing back and forth across his room, and when he passed by his desk, he grabbed another sandwich from the plate. He didn't even seem to realize he'd done it.

As Sherlock excitedly explained why what was on the bottom of that shoe they'd found was crucially important, using words John could barely follow, John opened the package of biscuits. While nibbling on one himself, John pulled one biscuit after another and handed them off to Sherlock as he passed. Sherlock grabbed each one he was offered and shoved it into his mouth, with manners that would have appalled John's mother and earned him a scolding for sure.

John didn't care. He just listened to his friend talking a mile a minute, barely able to keep up. If anything, Sherlock seemed to talk faster and pace with a little more spring in his step with each biscuit he ate. So much for digestion slowing down his thinking.

John smiled behind the cover of taking another drink. Who knew it would be this easy to con Sherlock Holmes into taking care of himself?

#ask and you shall receive #a2on1break #ask games #let me count the ways #sherlock #bbc sherlock #kidlock #sherlock holmes #john watson #i know i got the idea for this from some fic i read i just can't for the life of me remember which one ^^'#something that included john strategically placing food in places where sherlock would absent-mindedly grab it and start eating it #the little things a friend does to make sure his best friend doesn't turn into a skeleton XD

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figofswords · 21 days

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the post grad why did i get an art degree what am i even doing what do i want in life where am i going crisis has finally hit i want to. lie down in the dirt. or something

#WHAT AM I DOING!!!!#i get up i go to my stupid retail job i stick labels on bags they pay me fucking thirteen bucks an hour i come home i lie on the couch #too tired to draw in too much pain to go anywhere no energy to reach out to college friends to do anything fun #no idea where the even start with getting an industry job no clue what i even WANT at this point #trying to remember what i loved so much about comics i want it BACK i HATE this #WHAT IS THE POINT!!!! WHAT DO I WANT WHERE AM I GOING!!! WHAT COMES NEXT!!!!!!#there's no clear career trajectory i can't do freelance i need structure i can't work too much i need free time #my brain doesn't work every job requires me to move across the country the irs just took fucking three hundred stupid dollars from me #my friends live in different states i can't get a job without experience i can't get experience without a job #i can't work on my portfolio with no energy and no time and i dont have any money and everything is so expensive all the time #i can't get anywhere bc i dont drive and im too stressed to think about taking driving lessons again #and WHAT DO I WANT!#THE MOST INTERESTING THING I DO EVERY WEEK IS GO TO PHYSICAL THERAPY!#I AM EXCITED EVERY WEEK FOR PHYSICAL THERAPY!!!! WHY!!!!!!!!#anyway WHATEVER i need to go to bed #delete later #i got into spx. today. so. had to have a crisis about how i felt when i attended spx (energized. excited. a part of something. ambitious)#versus how i feel now (tired. unmotivated. kind of apathetic about art. disconnected)#i dont miss the stress of school but i miss being around other artists. ppl who speak your language and who want the same things you want #ppl who are excited abut art and that makes YOU excited about art. ppl who get you #i miss that i want that back #whatever. its 1am i gotta go shower i have an 8.5 hour shift tomorrow. wahoo. $13.50/hr lets go

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enbysiriusblack · 2 months

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grabbed my copy of julius caesar to to read on the train to uni today and i only just realised it's got this slip inside of it with a list of people's names. because it's from an old boy's grammer school library from the 60s (next to the names is when they checked the book out and it goes from 1960-1964). so happy ides of march to them ig

#i can't remember where i got it from #it was either a charity shop or one of the books i got from that old dead man #I'd like to romantise life more and believe it was from the old dead man and he stole it from his library during grammer school #because he was a huge fan of brutus and had a best friend in his life who he thought of as a caesar and sorta read it imagining that #... did i just make the old man gretchen from mean girls???#or peter pettigrew tbh???#ides of march

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moregraceful · 2 months

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Why is it always "that hockey player would not drink boba" or "that hockey player would not eat sushi". What a boring interpretation of the world in the "this hockey player knows how to cook" and "this hockey player has a regular coffee order" and "this hockey player can communicate his feelings" au fandom

#dumbest anti-asian take in this fandom i swear #like oh yeah i can believe this man raised in The Culture can name his emotions in a healthy way but i draw the line at BOBA #or like. the stars fic i'm still working on where team chucklefuck goes to food trucks #let them breath in the culture they're in!!!#if they can express their emotions they can eat elotes!! cmon!!#fresno oilers.txt #sorry to be a hater. but i remembered that one post and got mad again #my white friends have sushi opinions that no one on planet earth could ever conceive of!! why can't blorbo from my nhl eat a spider roll >:(

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sysig · 8 months

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Hazing (Patreon)

#Doodles #SCII #The Captain #DAX #Who's hazing who? Yes :)#I'd like to say this is early on in their relationship but let's be honest they'd take the opportunity to rib each other at any point lol #Hehe I had fun with DAX's eye and tendril expressions in this one ♪#I mean I have a lot lately with the curls and swirls and thick lines and shapes and fully-up and angry hehehe ♪ It's all fun!#But these were especially fun hehe #Still yet inspired by WOY lol - believe me I was least of all expecting to be hit this hard but I'm not about to complain lol #I still can't get over the fact that DAX and Peepers are both Commanders who are in love with their superior and have beef with a Captain #Hilarious ♥ Love that for them ♪♫#But yes! Captain Tim was what inspired these! Lol ♪ The fact that Peepers is 3rd in command to a pet is very funny haha #And obviously it doesn't quite transfer over since the Captain is y'know - a human and DAX is ranked under ZEX specifically #I guess if you really wanted to get into it the Captain could be bragging about sleeping with ZEX but that seems even a little too mean #And also would he be so brazen about that to DAX - would he even know? I guess it Really depends on when this is lol #I do love DAX's subtle rudeness hehe ♪ He puts up with you Captain and that's about it #I had a lot of fun with his pained/freaked out expression as well haha #I also forget if I've talked about my headcanon about VUX strength? :0 I feel like I have but I have no idea where lol #I also don't remember where I got the inclination from but at some point my mind settled on the thought that VUX arms are weaker than human #At least pound-for-pound - but their strength comes from their specificity :D That their grip strength is much more evenly spread!#I mean humans have what our hands so fingers - and our arms - we can grab and hold but they can /coil/#So holding a human in an arm lock like that would be hard to break especially if he held onto the Captain's shoulder or lifted :3c #Why are you picking fights person-to-person Captain don't you have a ship and crew to pilot right about now lol #Goes and tattles to ZEX maybe hehe ♪ Fair's fair!

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localravenclaw · 1 year

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Sebastian: We both look very handsome tonight.

Ominis: You know, if you'd just said that I looked handsome, I would have said, "So do you".

Sebastian: I couldn't take that chance.

#this has been sitting in my drafts forever #sebastian sallow #hogwarts legacy #ominis gaunt #i can't remember where i got this from

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jade-of-mourning · 5 months

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been writing again. i miss writing for fun aha. pain why is this guy so repressed and fucked up.

this one's about lightning n plants n blah blah symbolism stuff and i stopped writing it over two years ago but now i'm back ig. mako is having a terrible time post-canon and it's great! (for me) i dumped out some stuff that i find unusable and am hoping the rest holds up to a reasonable extent

#lychee's word trash #rose beds and gasoline veins #it's genuinely been SUCH a long minute lolololol #yes i've got myself a crippling attachment to mako from lok idk what to tell you #i just threw out 1k from 6k but i'm writing rn and avoiding studying so it kinda skyrocketed to 7.3k!#if i think about him too hard my heart hurts for this fictional guy so like #y'know you gotta cope by watching that “just too hot” video on crack #i don't really know exactly Where this is going bc i forgot my initial plans #i should really start outlining otherwise i forget all my ideas instantaneously lol #guys i really wish that i wrote an outline for the time travel au bc i knew i had good ideas #i just can't remember what those good ideas were </3

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kittehbiscuits · 2 months

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I have a theory guys

The woman that he died over is the wife in the sequel, and also the owner of the finger with a wedding ring he pulled out of his pocket, so I guess that makes her his ex wife so I could be wrong but maybe they just didn't add ex when they revealed casting for whatever reason.

#I CAN'T BELEIVE THERE'S NO CITATION FOR IT #I can't find a source for this information no matter how hard I look #Everything cites the wiki as its source but the wiki doesn't cite anything else #I read the whole early draft movie script and I don't remember seeing it mentioned #Maybe it was said during an interview or something I don't know #If anyone does know where the wiki got that information from pls tell me #:3 #beetlejuice #beetlejuice 1988 #beetlejuice 2 #I haven't actually looked into the plot of the movie so I may be completely wrong Idk #I've been ignoring its existence for months now #Hoping that by doing so it'll stop existing but that hasn't worked #And now I'm in peak moviejuice brainrot and I'm... EXCITED FOR IT..... ewwwww I can't believe this

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lord-squiggletits · 8 months

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I need to reread the comics again to have specific arguments/evidence for this, but like

I feel a bit like I could've been sympathetic to the way other Cybertronian colonies view Cybertron, if it weren't for the fact that at least several of them (as in, ones that get notable dialogue/screen time) are so low-key self-righteous?

Like, idk... there's a lot of criticism of Cybertronians because they're so "warlike" and how their obsession with violence and vengeance is just dragging the whole galaxy down with them, but uh. The Autobot-Decepticon war was basically a product of societal ills bubbling over for like 6 million years beforehand and then finally boiling over into a 4 million year war that lasted as long as it did because the people involved had immense social/psychological trauma from being "raised" in an oppressive society.

So when the colonists come in being all 'omg you people are so violent and uncivilized why don't you just like, stop fighting' it kind of pissed me off a little bit as a reader/person like. Idk the colonists really came into this society of people full of massive amounts of trauma where even before the war society was super oppressive and no one has any experience of living "normal" lives unaffected by violence and bigotry. And the colonists were like "ummm wow why don't you guys just??? stop fighting???." Like idk it wasn't EVERY SINGLE MOMENT, in fact I think that when it was played for laughs it's quite a funny "fridge horror" type element. It was just annoying because like.... IDK???? It's just really annoying to watch a bunch of people who lived relatively sheltered lives on their own planets come to a different planet full of traumatized people and be like "omg why are you people so fucked up" IDK BRO MAYBE BECAUSE THEIR SOCIETY WAS OPPRESSIVE AND THEY LIVED THROUGH A LIFELONG WAR???

It also doesn't help that the colonies were literally founded based on imperialism and conquest so like, it's fucking rich to hear colonists scolding Cybertronians for their violence ruining the whole galaxy while literally sitting on planets that their Primes colonized from others. The hypocrisy of this is briefly mentioned in Unicron (literally the FINAL STORY OF THE SERIES) but like, that's basically the only time Cybertronian characters are given a reprieve of sympathy from other characters in universe and it's so tiresome.

I've talked to other people who didn't like the colonists and thought they basically (narratively speaking) existed just to shit on the existing characters, and it's actually really easy for me to sympathize with/outright agree with that assessment of the story considering how much of exRID/OP seems to be preoccupied with "Cybertron/the Primes/Optimus sucks" with very few reprieves for anything positive happening and even fewer chances for characters to get to explain themselves and experience a little bit of justice? Like, as the audience, it's just very frustrating to see the characters you spent hundreds of issues keeping up with get shit on by a bunch of "literally-who"s and then not really get a chance to ever defend themselves, either by literally defending themselves in conversation or having some sort of narrative thing happening that vindicates them at least symbolically

#squiggposting #paused work to muse about this which i prolly shouldn't have lol #oh well i'll still get stuff done #like idk an example of this is how pyra criticized OP for using religion to manipulate people #(lets just ignore how she said she would teach OP but never actually did)#but in the story there's never any sort of confrontation where pyra learns about history or talks with OP #and OP gets to be like. yeah on my planet primes fucking sucked and i'm the only one trying to redeem their image #also ive been fighting an endless war that lasted 4 mil years in which me being a shining figurehead was basically #the sole motivating force keeping my army from just collectively succumbing to endless despair #and i also had to use this shining figurehead image i had to keep the opposing army from genociding a bunch of organics #like not once does OP get to express his side of things he's basically just shit upon endlessly by other characters as he keeps doing plot #i feel like i had another example but i can't recall who/what was involved lmao #like idk it's not just that barber's writing is depressing and dark and edgy. i LIKE stories that do that kind of thing #it's just that it feels a bit as if the story is ENDLESSLY depressing and dark and edgy with almost no reprieve #as if it's mostly presenting the flaws of the characters with no chance for them to justify or redeem themselves #idk i feel like there was another better point/example i was gonna make but i can't remember it #like idk i guess a dark depressing story would've been better if the characters at least got to defend themselves #bc as is it basically feels like they (esp OP) get shit on endlessly and never once get to express anything about it #so like. they get shit on in universe. but also as the reader since there's never a contradicting viewpoint or the character defending them #it's as if you're supposed to take this one-sided criticism of them at face value and it just doesn't seem fair AS THE READER #if i read about OP getting shit on by some people and defended by others and also him expressing his opinion on himself #then that just feels like a normal fair narrative where i get to take sides #but if it's just OP being shit on and he hardly expresses much about it #then it feels like i as the reader am expected to agree with the portrayal being shown?#but in reality the portrayal just feels negative and unfair and one sided to me #and why the fuck do i want to read a story that's just the characters i know and like on an endless shame parade #also shout out to 'literally who' aka slide calling OP 'literally fascist' lmao #one of the most cringe moments of the entire comic. wait no. i can think of a more cringe Slide Moment #when unicron is about to destroy the planet and trypticon is getting shot and dying(?) in the background #and the story decides to pause and focus on Slide so she can monologue about how evil and tyrannical OP is

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