#I figured they were similar enough

[silverwhittlingknife]

So you're a go to source for all things Dick&Tim bros and you tend to write primarily from Dick's POV. So, odd question, but if you were to summarize their relationship from his POV in FIVE panels which panels would you pick? Keeping in mind that one specific aspect of their relationship that you love needs to be clearly represented by each panel (loyalty, trust etc). I hope this is a fun challenge and not an annoying question so if you don't want to answer that's cool! Have a wonderful day!

No more talk. The same thoughts run through two minds... (SotB 29) / You're my equal. My closest ally. (RR 1) / I can't stop thinking how much I rely on him. (GoG 3)

25 Feelings Dick Has About Tim

This was such a kind ask & a cool challenge which I totally failed; here are TWENTY-five panels of Dick's POV on Tim sdfdsfds Look, I got carried away! Marcia and Cindy! The boys!!

OKAY SO BEFORE I GET TO THE PANELS A FEW NOTES:

WARNING THAT THERE ARE SOME NEGATIVE EMOTIONS IN HERE because I love conflict but but but you gotta remember those are not the final word!! They are complicated people and sometimes they get mad at each other BUT ultimately their relationship is so hugely important in both their lives & they love each other and rely on each other so much -!!! <3

Also I have CONCLUDING THOUGHTS at the end about what Dick's POV leaves out (mostly: a lot of Dick defending & protecting & supporting Tim, which Dick does instinctively but isn't very self-aware about most of the time)

I have loosely organized my list into 5^5 format (5 categories with 5 examples each!), so if you want to skip to a relevant one, here are the categories!!

Below the cut:

I hate him and find him infuriating (#1-5)

On second thought, he's endearing & fun (#6-10)

Grief is complicated & he's all tangled up in mine (#11-15)

I love him & think highly of him (#16-20)

I rely on him & though it's hard for me, I trust him (#21-25)

I hate him and find him infuriating (#1 - 5)

1) He thinks he’s so smart and can psychoanalyze me and Bruce, but he doesn’t know me at all, he should get lost (New Titans 61)

2) He thinks he’s so smart and can psychoanalyze Bruce but he doesn’t know Bruce at all, he should get lost (Gotham Knights 26)

3) He is so nosy about stuff that is MY business (Robin 0)

4) He sounds like an insincere suck-up half the time... but okay, fine, if you push him he's got a sense of humor about it (New Titans 65)

5) I'm sure he's a better vigilante than me. It's my fault for being a failure, but I resent him anyway. (Nightwing 9 - Dick's having a nightmare)

On second thought, he's kinda endearing (#6-10)

6) He worries too much and gets anxious so easily, but it makes him fun to tease (Robin 67)

7) I'm not that competitive - okay, so maybe I'm a little competitive, I gotta make sure he doesn't get a swelled head (Prodigal)

8) I'm supposed to be his favorite! It is not cool for him to be fanboying over my not-girlfriend's not-boyfriend!! (Birds of Prey 19)

9) We have fun together. I can kick back and relax when it's just the two of us. Plus I get to boss him around a bit. (Prodigal)

10) He’s always trying to reassure me, and I guess it's a little comforting, but also he doesn’t really get it. Or me. He makes excuses that he shouldn't, because he doesn't understand that I suck. (Nightwing 64)

Grief is complicated and he's all tangled up in mine (#11 - 15)

11) He reminds me of everything I try not to think about. Sometimes the memories are so strong it hurts to look at him. (Batman 441)

12) WHY IS HE BEING IMPOSSIBLE ALL OF A SUDDEN??? THIS IS SO FRUSTRATING (Nightwing 139)

13) We're the same. He says all the things I don't let myself think about. It's like arguing with myself. (Nightwing 139)

14) He thinks he gets to tell me what to do but he doesn’t, fuck him (Battle for the Cowl)

15) Life sucks, so what. I sucked it up so he should too (RR 1)

I love him and think highly of him (#16 - 20)

16) He’s the closest thing to a brother I’ll ever have.  If someone hurts him I will hurt them harder. (Nightwing 6)

17) I can't handle the idea of losing him. (Nightwing 97)

17) He’s so good and I’m not. I'm afraid I’m bad for him. (Nightwing 110)

18) He’s better than me, and it’s kind of a relief because I know no matter what he’ll be okay. (Gates of Gotham 3)

19) In my head he’s the responsible one.  (Gotham Knights 10)

I rely on him, and though it's hard for me, I trust him (#20-25)

20) I know I have to trust him but I'm afraid he'll make the wrong choices and get hurt (Nightwing 139)

21) I'm sure I know what he should do because I see myself in him - not that I can take my own advice, but he should (Blackest Night 3)

22) I trust him.  When I’m losing my grip on things, he pulls me back. (Gotham Knights 10)

23) I want him to trust me (Red Robin 12)

24) He can tell when I'm lying. Sometimes he sees my weaknesses better than I wish he did. (Detective Comics 874)

25) He’s always there when I need him. (Teen Titans / Outsiders Secret Files)

Final rambling thoughts:

TIM: Uhh, okay, so I'm just skimming this list - do you really trust me? you're not just saying that? - but anyway, I'm confused because you left some stuff out? Like some stuff that's kinda important? DICK: No? I think I got everything? TIM (starts counting on his fingers): The time I was having a bad day but then I called you. The time I got captured by Two-Face but then you saved me. The time I fell off a train but then you saved me. The time I fell off a building but then you saved me. The time I fell off a different building - DICK: I feel like you're trying to make some kind of point but I'm not sure what it could be.

SO THE THING IS, I put 25 panels in here and not a single one has Dick catching Tim when he’s falling!!! But I think that's a central motif of their relationship from Tim’s POV, not Dick’s. I love Dick, but in some ways I think he is spectacularly un-self-aware.

And I think he especially has a lot of blind spots about Tim. He kinda intermittently gets that Tim admires him, and he enjoys it in a playful I-get-to-boss-you-around way. But Dick tends to consistently underestimate all of his own good qualities & skills, and he meets Tim at a point in his life when he's especially down on himself & his abilities. And so he's unable to see his own influence on Tim, & therefore unable to fully understand a lot of Tim's priorities and loyalties and motivations, because you can't actually understand Tim without understanding Dick's impact on him. There's a fascinating moment in Bruce Wayne: Murderer when Dick's completely blindsided & upset to discover that Tim doesn't entirely trust Bruce, even though this has been a definitive fact of Tim's whole thing ever since he showed up with his Batman needs Robin theory, and Barbara has to actively remind Dick of the obvious-to-everyone-except-Dick fact that a lot of Tim's loyalty is to Dick, and Tim loves Bruce but feels free to be more wary of him. (And to give Bruce credit: this is not something he ever begrudges.) But anyway Babs points this out, and Dick manages to sorta process it for about five seconds, but he cannot actually accept it into his worldview so instead he discards it at the speed of light and goes off and has an argument with Tim instead sdfsfdsf

All of Dick's virtues - Dick's kindness at the circus and Dick's determination to fight through grief and Dick's rigid sense of morals and Dick's vigilante skills and every time Dick has ever backed Tim up or listened to him or protected him or saved him from something or just been casually kind to a stranger in Tim's presence etc etc etc - all these things loom really large in Tim's mental story of Who Dick Is, and What Dick And Tim's Relationship Is. Tim meets Dick before he meets Bruce, trusts Dick more than Bruce, aspires to be Robin instead of Batman. And so in Tim's default version of the story, Dick is the super-special and admirable hero and Tim is... nobody in particular, a tagalong outsider who's barely managing to be a hero, not part of Dick and Bruce's family and not part of their story, who, if he's VERY LUCKY and tries REALLY HARD, might be able to fight his way to proving himself and offering something to Dick that Dick will value, if Dick doesn't get fed up with him first.

But that's not Dick's version of the story!!!

Dick's version of the story is almost the exact opposite, a story where Dick's an outcast failure black sheep who's screwing up everything he tries, and meanwhile Tim is The Sudden New Perfect Robin Who's Better Than Me And Probably Bruce Loves Him More And Probably They Gossip About What A Loser I Am, mixed with a complicated edge of Tim Thinks He's So Smart But He Doesn't Know Me/Us At All. Dick gets much more attached to Tim over time, and Tim gets unnervingly better at the know-it-all psychoanalysis so then Dick gets to have complicated feelings about him being right instead of just annoyance at him for being wrong, plus Dick's relationship with Bruce improves a lot, so Tim stops feeling so threatening. But Dick never fundamentally changes his basic theory of their relationship in which Tim is highly impressive and capable, and Dick is not so much.

And so asking Dick about Tim is kinda like if you asked George Bailey to tell you about Harry Bailey in It's A Wonderful Life; like, you'll be there for five hours while he tells you how great Harry is, and how accomplished Harry is, and how he doesn't really get how or why Harry does the things he does, and maybe George does feel a little resentful or jealous sometimes, but that pales in comparison to all his admiration and trust for Harry who he loves so much, who's better than him in so many ways, and he's not gonna openly gripe but secretly he can't help but feel sometimes like he's such a failure in comparison to Harry, a perfect person who emerged fully formed from Zeus's head with all the virtues and also all the accomplishments, etc. etc. etc. --

-- and he will not actually remember the part where he changed and saved Harry's whole entire life unless you literally send him to an alternate timeline in order to force him to remember it. <3

[thebad-lydrawn-sanses]

Cross's assumption is correct, that's exactly what I'm implying. So be a good boy and lay down pls :3

Cross: you-

Killer: implying what?

Cross: that they're gonna break my leg

Killer: .

↓ Damage Count ↓

999999999

999999999

999999999

999999999

[bilbao-song]

okay at last……..jeffrey photos from the other night :-) (september 7th in indianapolis)

WELL what can i say. it still feels a little surreal that this has happened bc i waited soOoOoOoOo long. so long!! like not only since getting tickets but also since 2019 <3 i know i'm the most biased person ever in this regard but if u have the opportunity to go and any degree of interest whatsoever You Just Have To. it was so good (and definitely some fun changes from the previous tour)!! the stage is soooooooooo cool looking and most importantly vocals in particular were REALLY exquisite this time :-)

anyway when i got these seats for some reason they looked way less good and i thought being able to see would be a problem?? like they seemed far back (by floor standards) and were not even freakishly expensive. when we were led to our seats i started freaking out immediately bc i just had no idea.......so THAT was exciting as well. i feel like the pictures make it look further away than it was but omg......it was amazing. anyway 10/10 event overall

[psymachine]

which two members of the gang are running this scam selling this product next season?

[waywardsalt]

everything about bellumbeck makes me go insane. i don’t even know how to express half of it. the way everyone is in mortal danger during that fight. linebeck is forced to try and kill link right after saving his life. the one time he’s actually taking part in a boss battle with link he’s the boss he’s fighting. the way bellum seems to take his time grabbing him. the fact that bellumbeck never really pays any attention to ciela and bellum just grabs and restrains her instead of putting her out of commission or straight up killing her. one of his attacks is a spin attack much like link’s and we can assume that linebeck has probably seen link do a spin attack at some point. the way bellumbeck’s helmet is designed to look vaguely similar to linebeck. if bellumbeck kills you when you have a purple potion it plays the same sting as when a phantom catches and attacks you. this is the second time this link has had a sword fight with another human as his final battle but this time he is effectively fighting alone. of the main cast linebeck is the most detached from the rest of the group and is the only one to be an enemy. bellumbeck’s helmet opens after some attacks and right before he’s defeated. linebeck’s character theme utilizes harpsichord and excludes piano and bellum’s boss theme utilizes piano and excludes harpsichord. bellumbeck’s theme includes both and for the first half and near the end of the song they play the exact same melody at the same time. linebeck is suggested to be unable to fight or properly protect himself in battle for the entire game and then in the final boss in a twisted, awful way he finally gets a chance to be a competent fighter capable of defending himself.     does any of this make sense

[the-busy-ghost]

Alright uninformed rant time. It kind of bugs me that, when studying the Middle Ages, specifically in western Europe, it doesn’t seem to be a pre-requisite that you have to take some kind of “Basics of Mediaeval Catholic Doctrine in Everyday Practise” class. 

Obviously you can’t cover everything- we don’t necessarily need to understand the ins and outs of obscure theological arguments (just as your average mediaeval churchgoer probably didn’t need to), or the inner workings of the Great Schism(s), nor how apparently simple theological disputes could be influenced by political and social factors, and of course the Official Line From The Vatican has changed over the centuries (which is why I’ve seen even modern Catholics getting mixed up about something that happened eight centuries ago). And naturally there are going to be misconceptions no matter how much you try to clarify things for people, and regional/class/temporal variations on how people’s actual everyday beliefs were influenced by the church’s rules. 

But it would help if historians studying the Middle Ages, especially western Christendom, were all given a broadly similar training in a) what the official doctrine was at various points on certain important issues and b) how this might translate to what the average layman believed. Because it feels like you’re supposed to pick that up as you go along and even where there are books on the subject they’re not always entirely reliable either (for example, people citing books about how things worked specifically in England to apply to the whole of Europe) and you can’t ask a book a question if you’re confused about any particular point. 

I mean I don’t expect to be spoonfed but somehow I don’t think that I’m supposed to accumulate a half-assed religious education from, say, a 15th century nobleman who was probably more interested in translating chivalric romances and rebelling against the Crown than religion; an angry 16th century Protestant; a 12th century nun from some forgotten valley in the Alps; some footnotes spread out over half a dozen modern political histories of Scotland; and an episode of ‘In Our Time’ from 2009. 

But equally if you’re not a specialist in church history or theology, I’m not sure that it’s necessary to probe the murky depths of every minor theological point ever, and once you’ve started where does it end? 

Anyway this entirely uninformed rant brought to you by my encounter with a sixteenth century bishop who was supposedly writing a completely orthodox book to re-evangelise his flock and tempt them away from Protestantism, but who described the baptismal rite in a way that sounds decidedly sketchy, if not heretical. And rather than being able to engage with the text properly and get what I needed from it, I was instead left sitting there like:

And frankly I didn’t have the time to go down the rabbit hole that would inevitably open up if I tried to find out

[termagax]

i dont knowwwwwwwwwww i just. my thing is that i think the changelings could have an interesting place in the narrative given jims whole conflict is about trying to navigate his place in two worlds neither of which he completely fits in but both of which he needs to be his complete and authentic self. but they shoot themselves in the foot by making strickler the main one and they get sooooo close to doing this with nomura before getting bored and doing it again but worse with strickler. so in my mind i think this is why i was so set on addy being a changeling because i want her to fill that narrative role of someone who's ACTUALLY chill about this dichotomy and who really loves this part of herself without the baggage inherent to nomnoms situation (not acknowledging strickler he did most of that to himself). i just think he needs someone who can show him that its actually genuinely very possible to have both halves of his heart especially post-potion. but man. you cant really get there without dancing around the janus order stuff. and i know if she was real it would just be a cheap lampshade like "welllll shes a polymorph so. no familiar no problem" but that opens up a can of worms that i feel responsible for. and just in general the entire thing has so much baggage. i wish this show was GOOD.

[red-hemlock]

[ AWKWARD ]: after a particularly rough first encounter, the sender meets the receiver again, and awkwardly greets them with more than a touch of embarrassment. (perhaps no shared grudges over work related positions of opposition...)

The Many Meanings of 'Hey' @thegear

"...You." The pen falls from River's mouth at the utterance, clattering to the filthy floor, and rolling-off to some great unknown between the feet of other heedless patrons. Interesting choice of word, not many would have likely remembered him at all given the mask, but he had been the tallest of the bunch.

Question is, what was he doing here now? Saying 'hello', apparently, but... Why, after what had happened? Surely he was still licking some of those wounds, same as she. This silence was growing thick as fresh molasses, though; and since she was most in the 'wrong', River felt the need to break it first with a cough.

"Listen, dear, about before? I'm awfully sorry about your other friends, it's just that your get-ups were so similar to my targets' and-..."

She sighs, heavily. Is 'you just got caught in the cross-fire' even a suitable excuse? No, not all really, but those were the breaks when it came to the lifestyle, too. Still doesn't mean she didn't feel a touch awful about it, all the same.

"Look, can I maybe buy you a drink-"

Movement out the corner of her eye and a sudden rain of expletives from the bartender bring pause to her words, an open notebook pressing to her chest as she jerks back. Just in time apparently too as two forms crash over the bar-top, scattering glasses and greasy snacks to the ground. Eyebrows raised high, River's gaze strains to peek over the mountain of flesh and muscle now struggling to strangle one another.

"...Maybe?"

[mister13eyond]

still relationship ranting forgive me (it's all positive, more or less?)

it's also why it is really funny to me that people constantly talk about like 'i want to be in a relationship but i don't want [one specific part]' and it's like

you can just... you can just NOT do that part, then.

you can NOT cohabitate, if you think living with someone would take away your comfort with your living situation. you can not have sex if you don't want to have sex. you can use or not use any label, you can use or not use any terms of affection, you can choose your level of consistent contact you can choose your level of physical affection you can choose whether you want to make any long-term decisions like pets or marriage or children. you can choose whether you want to be exclusive or monogamous, you can choose whether you have multiple people involved, you can choose whether you make plans now or talk it out later, you can have an ongoing, long-term conversation where you check in periodically to see if anything has changed or if you want to change something.

like! i know the cishets tell us 'you fall in love with ONE person and you will KNOW when you are in love and you will ONLY ever love them FOREVER unless you FALL OUT OF LOVE and then you will be DOOMED TO A TRAGIC BREAKUP OR CHEATING'

but like in my personal experience... it's more like.... 'you will meet someone and you will feel like you are really connected to them and you get along well and you are attracted to them. you can then either nurture that feeling by spending more time together and testing out whether your initial connection is sustainable or you can let it pass through you and simply let things go wherever they go. then you can tell them how you feel, talk about what you think you'd like or not like, decide whether you want to prioritize your relationship and your time together over other, more casual connections in your life, and try it out. and you can talk about this any time something feels off. and you're not going to fall out of love spontaneously and for no reason when you were happy before; most of the time you'll notice that there's more distance between you and you're not as close or communicative as you were previously pretty early along that path. and you can THEN decide whether you want to say 'hey let's do more things together to help us bond and feel close and open up to each other' or you can say 'i think we've probably changed in a way where we're no longer on the same page with our relationship, do you want to figure out what we both need and adjust accordingly?'

which is like. it sounds so sterile and clinical but it's actually GREAT? feelings aren't this great big overpowering beast that you cannot wrangle; love is not a thing that will just spontaneously stop one day despite your desperate desire to still feel it. the more time you spend with someone and the more you support each other, the closer you will feel. the less time you spend and the less you support each other's needs, the further you will drift. you can 100% grow that garden to your own specifications and you can simply choose not to include sex or cohabitation or monogamy or labels or WHATEVER else and it's great because it's YOUR garden.

there is no one hard definition for any relationship and there is no one specific way to have a relationship. it's literally just seeing what feels right and then describing it in whatever terms feel right.

[tachyon-omlette]

finally designed bayverse Eda

full ref is under the cut (scopophobia tw, he has plenty of eyes)

THEE Mx. Man in the Moon. nothing happens on Earth that he doesn't know about; post-Fallen fall-out she takes extra care to prevent mass Cybertronian activity (which might cause Unicron to stir, which is what I think caused the Fallen to turn on the Primes) by themselves manipulating government officials & even some Cybertronians into keeping things deathly quiet. xey also go by Mordred when using eir human holoform

[firelord-frowny]

<3 <3 obviously one of the highlights of my visit to the national aquarium the other day was the reptiles <3 <3 specifically the snakes, SPECIFICALLY the death adder omgggg.

there is something so??????????? magical???????????? about being able to put your face just inches away from something that, if it were to bite you, would definitely kill you.

like, to have a thin lil pane of glass be all that keeps a small but very deadly beast from being able to end my life????????????

amazing.

[gohard-or-gohomo]

Why has my planning for a fun lesbian detective story turned into researching brehon law. WHAT IS HAPPENING!!!!

[boomerang109]

if anyone was wondering how im coping with s2e03, i somehow just thought my yogurt in the fridge said “do not go far from me”

[unproduciblesmackdown]

skinamarble hornets, i was like i hope my favorite skinamascene has been uplomarinked on youtube....reminds me of that season one marble hornets entry that's the First House Visit and how i saw it described somewhere as like "absolutely nothing happens, & it's terrifying" & it reminds me of the torment of watching as the series was released & Every Time something came out, no matter what happened in like setting, atmosphere, plot, scares, there'd be someone going "ugh another Nothing entry" over the most crucial &/or enjoyable shit so long as it didn't feature [& he's cookin hot dogs on the stove???] & didn't feature it like every other minute for good measure. as though a format that is predictable, like the promise of the same kind of scene in the same intervals of timing, would actually be scary or at all interesting. shoutout to these the entries, or even intervals of time within entries, where "absolutely nothing happens" and it's called suspense in knowing it Could, tension in an unsafe, uneasy, unsettling situation in the meantime, & then also potential followup recontextualization that only creates more tension for later similar material. ("absolutely nothing" happens (of course, actually, things happen, but) in the skinamarink scene save for the literal last few seconds when the "jumpscare" is a very brief change in audio & visuals which is neither actually that loud nor like showing anything scary(tm) (technically a la marble hornets i think people say you can like see an arm extend for a nanosecond but i never catch it if so lol) but rather hits at all because of 8 minutes of suspense & tension & Nothing Happening But It Could) (also bravely standing up like "it's fine that skinamarink has some jumpscares, including the obvious few even jumpier than this" like who cares if it's "easy" necessarily & also that Knowing such startlement can happen ramps up the tension even when it didn't, but it could've. like so)

[arolesbianism]

Thinking abt the random card au again. Why must it go so crazy hard I miss it sm

[48787]

I really like the song Do I Make Myself Clear by Zalinki because it... sounds nice. No other reason, just a funky little song that fills me with... joy! It has nothing to do with anything else, no don't look at the fact that I've been playing Disco Elysium, that game just also has good music, no other connection.