#I like Morrison more personally

[roobylavender]

there’s one of those who is bruce’s best love interest posts going around again which is always fun and migraine inducing bc of the regular talia is an abuser spiels yadda yadda but i think it is so funny how her perception has become so warped that people think she’s not right for bruce bc she doesn’t know who he is as a person and is only obsessed with batman or whatever like my dudes.. my idiotic faux savants.. there’s probably no one who knows and understands bruce both in and beyond the mask better than talia does 😭

[totalshockwaves]

Gerard's totally wearing a costume tonight guys; he's dressed in my current uniform, a long-sleeved band tee and dad hat. They're cosplaying as me :)

[bootleg-nessie]

Rating band names based on their accuracy:

(I keep updating this list so check back later)

The Beatles: 3/10. None of these people are beetles, they’re just a bunch of fruity guys from Liverpool with matching haircuts

(Edit: changed from 0/10 to 3/10 because John Lennon beat his wife)

Pink Floyd: 4/10. There is not a single person named Floyd in the band, but some of the members do arguably look kinda pink

Nirvana: 10/10. Getting high and listening to Nirvana is roughly what I imagine actual nirvana to be like

Foo Fighters: either 0/10 or 10/10. I have never seen foo in real life so either they’re pretending to fight a problem that doesn’t exist or they’re doing an absolutely fantastic job of fighting it

The Eagles: 0/10. Same as the Beatles, there is not a single eagle in this band. The name is misleading and we have all been lied to

Queen: 6/10. Partial points for Freddie Mercury

Led Zeppelin: 0/10. I don’t think any of these guys have ever even seen a zeppelin, let alone one made of lead. A lead balloon would crash faster than my hopes and dreams

The Rolling Stones: 3/10. There is not a single stone in this band. Some points added because I’m pretty sure they rolled quite a few

U2: 0/10. Despite what the name says, I am not a member of this band

Metallica: 9/10. Naming a metal band “Metallica” is like naming your dog “doggy”

Red Hot Chili Peppers: 2/10. These guys are not chili peppers. They’re not even that hot, let alone red hot

Guns N’ Roses: 0/10. How the fuck could a gun or a flower play music

Backstreet Boys: ?/10. Depends entirely on their current given location

Simon and Garfunkel: 10/10. No notes

The Doors: 1/10. Jim Morrison is kinda shaped like a door tho

Chicago: 4/10. The number of people in this band does not come even remotely close to the population of Chicago. Points added because it originated in Chicago

Earth, wind, and fire: 2/10. This is even more innacurate than Chicago. Points added because wind instruments were often used

Def Leppard: 3/10. There is not a single leopard in this band. Some of the members are probably kinda deaf by now tho

The Beach Boys: ?/10. Accuracy depends entirely on location

The Black Eyed Peas: 6/10. Not sure what the hell an ‘eyed pea’ is but the black part is pretty accurate

Imagine Dragons: ?/10. Depends entirely on whether or not they’re thinking about dragons.

Cage the Elephant: 1/10. Why would you do that. Let the elephant go

Green Day: 0/10. They’re not even green

The Police: 0/10. There is not a single cop in this band

KISS: 5/10. I’m sure they probably kissed sometimes

The Monkees: 0/10. Are you fucking kidding me

We Butter the Bread with Butter: 8/10. I can’t verify this but I have no reason to suspect that they’d lie. Butter seems like the most logical thing to butter bread with

King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard: 0/10. I got really excited about the concept of a lizard wizard only to be let down. My disappointment is immeasurable

They Might Be Giants: 5/10. I googled everyone in this band’s height, the tallest guy’s only 6’1 so I wouldn’t exactly consider him a giant. Then again, I can’t really argue because the claim was only that they MIGHT be giants

The Presidents of the United States of America: 2/10. None of these people are Joe Biden nor are any of them former presidents. This is incredibly misleading. I’m pretty sure “Lump” was written about my first girlfriend tho so I’ll give them a point or two

Gorillaz: 2/10 Not quite but we’re kinda close genetically so I’ll give them partial credit

The Killers: ?/10. I have no way of verifying if they’ve actually killed before but the fact that they’re not in prison tells me probably not

The Offspring: 10/10. These guys are definitely somebody’s offspring

Arctic Monkeys: 1/10. They are neither monkeys nor are they from the arctic

Thirty Seconds to Mars: 1/10. It takes WAY longer to get to mars than that

Beastie Boys: 8/10. They’re pretty beast on the guitar

Jimmy Eat World: 1/10. Slow the fuck down Jimmy, you’re biting off way more than you can chew

Hole: 9/10. One point deducted because I’m pretty sure they had more than one hole

Rage Against the Machine: 10/10. They did exactly that

Alice In Chains: 0/10. This is illegal. Let Alice go

The Band: 10/10. This could not possibly be more accurate

Nine Inch Nails: 1/10. I can’t find any good pictures of their feet but from what I can tell their fingernails definitely aren’t nine inches long

Bush: ?/10. Not quite sure about this one, felt uncomfortable asking

The Who: 2/10. I’m not dealing with this “Who’s On First” bullshit

Radiohead: 0/10. Not a single person in this band has a radio for a head

Queens of the Stone Age: 0/10. This band should be called “five random dudes from the modern era” but FRDFTMA is a bit of a mouthful

Soundgarden: 2/10. Sound does not grow in the garden

Sonic Youth: 5/10. They’re not exactly youth anymore but the sonic part checks out

Talking heads: 8/10. There’s more to the band than just a bunch of disembodied heads but the heads do tend to talk

The Cranberries: 0/10. Decent music but I only added them so that the Beatles and Freddie Mercury weren’t the only fruits on this list

The Wiggles: 8/10. They do tend to wiggle a lot

Blue Man Group: 10/10. Yep!

Weezer: 5/10. They all look like they definitely have asthma

Limp Bizkit: 3/10. While the visual image of baked goods playing the guitar is hilarious, Fred durst is not a biscuit. Points added because he probably has erectile dysfunction

Stone Temple Pilots: 0/10. None of these people are accredited as being licensed to pilot anything, much less an entire stone temple. Stone temples don’t need pilots anyways

Wasted Youth: 8/10. I guess it really kinda depends on how you frame it but yeah, they probably wasted a lot of it

Them Crooked Vultures: 3/10. These are people and not birds but Dave Grohl’s posture is kinda bad and John Paul Jones is so old that his neck kinda looks like a vulture’s so I added some points

Audioslave: 0/10. Slavery is illegal

Traveling Wilburys: 4/10. Sure, they traveled a lot but not a single one of those lying bastards was named Wilbury

D12: 6/12. There were only 6 people in this band

NWA: 10/10. I’m a little too white to safely comment on this one but I’d say they nailed it

Jet: 1/10. A real jet would be way too loud

Goldfinger: 0/10. Not a single person in this band has a finger made out of gold

No Doubt: ?/10. I can’t really be too sure how Gwen Stefani felt but I think it’s probably a safe assumption that she had some doubts

The White Stripes: 3/10. I bet if you stripped them down naked and made them stand shoulder to shoulder and squinted really hard they’d probably look more like white stripes

Screaming trees: 3/10. They scream occasionally

Garbage: 2/10. I think they’re being a little harsh on themselves, their music isn’t THAT bad

Butthole Surfers: 5/10. Not even gonna touch this one

Megadeth: 3/10. To be fair, some of the former members are dead but only a little amount of death, not mega death

Dead Kennedys: 2/10. Last I checked Kennedy was still dead but neither he nor his clones are members of this band

Cake: 0/10. The cake is a lie

Cracker: 8/10. Most of them are

Tool: 7/10. I don’t know much about their music but they sure look like tools

Counting Crows: ?/10. Is this what emo kids do instead of counting sheep? Accuracy depends on whatever bird they happen to be counting at the moment

Dave Matthews Band: 10/10. It certainly is

Oasis: 1/10. Their music is the opposite of an oasis

Blur: 2/10. They are not that fast

Barenaked Ladies: 0/10. If I wanted to be this disappointed I’d reestablish a connection with my biological father instead

Meat Puppets: 10/10. Technically, aren’t we all?

Live: 8/10. Apparently they still do live shows but I deducted some points because I’ve only ever heard their music on Spotify

ABBA: 9/10. I’m still not giving any points to Guns N’ Roses but that’s mostly out of spite

5 Finger Death Punch: 8/10 I guess it probably depends on how hard you hit them but this seems to be the usual amount of fingers to punch somebody with

All American Rejects: 9/10. They’re all rejects from America so I don’t really see any issue with this

T. Rex: 0/10. Even if any of these people WAS a T. Rex I don’t think their arms would be long enough to play their instruments

Free: 0/10. Unless you steal their music, in which case it becomes a 10/10

The Strokes: 3/10. To my knowledge, none of them have had a stroke but I still added a few points because the name was probably accurate for other reasons

The Smashing Pumpkins ?/10. Another thing I have no way of verifying but this seems like a waste of perfectly good pumpkins

Therapy?: ?/10. The hell are they asking me for? I don’t know their medical history

Twenty One Pilots. 0/10. There’s only two of them and neither is a licensed pilot

Finger Eleven: 0/10. Leave the poor Stranger Things girl out of this

Fall Out Boy: 9/10. I conferred with an expert on this one who confirmed that they are in fact boys who had a falling out

Cream: 8/10. Considering this was the OG supergroup I’m sure a lot of people did in fact cream when their music came out

Edit: humans aren’t fucking monkeys. Stop saying we are

[starlooove]

Fanon when they realize that making cass the silent asian whos a bit snarky sometimes is still racist even tho they hate Morrison 😨😨😰😰😰🫣🫣🫣🫣

[soularsss]

Drawing Likeness: with Tem!

okaay since a few people actually showed interest in me sharing a bit of what I've been doing to figure out how to really capture likeness, specifically Temuera Morrison, I figured id do my best to write it out

I am also going to entice you with some of my recent clone art! (oooh some of it is unreleaaasedd)

I am putting the whole thing under the cut because I have a feeling its going to be long:

Read more!!!

a couple disclaimers before we start

-This is not some definite post about how everyone should be drawing clones, nor is it in any way claiming that this is the right way. This is just my musings as I stare at a mans face for way too long and try to replicate it

-I am inexperienced. As kind as you all are to me, drawing real people is relatively new to me, capturing a persons identity through their features is difficult for anybody, and I am no different. I have watched many a video on likeness and had my share of classes, but If im being honest, i rarely put it into practice successfully. So there'll probably be errors in this post or things i will come back to in a few months and wish I had said/done differently

ANYWAYs you guys get my vibe im just here to ramble and today we are rambling about mr copy paste. I am doing this for Law, my clone boy, because I plan on delving further into oc fanart and I want to put effort into representing him correctly!

SO LETS BEGIN

Before even deciding what specific pose of a person I want to draw, I tend to grab a bunch of references and compile them like so

(all of these can be found on my pinterest)

Why so many? Well, we are about to delve into facial features, so when we are dealing with photos we have to take into account that there are an abundance of circumstances that will influence how a persons face will appear, some of these include:

focal length: All of these are taken on different devices, and focal length can play a big part in distorting faces

age will play a part, your face changes a bunch throughout your life!

lighting, while not as major, can muddy the waters and make it difficult to interpret facial planes and features

SO, to make sure we get a proper grasp of what's really going on, I like to make sure we have lots of options to compare and contrast with.

Next up! What I like to do is block out the main facial features with colour on different layers, the features I block out usually are the general face shape, eyebrows, eyes, nose and lips. But what you are looking for is the defining features of a person, so that could include other things! Maybe a scar, or some particularly prominent cheekbones.

I dont have any rhyme or reason when it comes to picking my colours, all that matters is you can see all the shapes clearly.

Now I may be biased, because Ive been staring at these for 4 hours, but notice how it still looks like Tem? :D

Anyways, now we can break these parts down, and you'll see what I mean about compare and contrast:

We'll start with isolating the facial shape, putting all these next to eachother you'll notice they arent exactly the same (partly because of my shoddy work) But the distinguishing features run through each shape! Namely the very soft rectangular shape I sketched out in the bottom right there. Along with his soft, wide jaw structure.

I did the same for the rest of his features!

You'll notice I highlight the prominent shapes and ratios,

When drawing anything, it is important to start from the very base shapes and build up.

When drawing something you want to look like someone, those shapes relative to other shapes is what makes it look like them.

I didnt use the same technique with his eyes and lips, but I wrote out some helpful info for them! More importantly for his eyes.

When drawing eyes, I find the most important part is where exactly I draw the creases, (along with the overall shape of the eye itself) it is important to understand where those will present themselves with hooded eyes.

NOW, with an understanding of his facial features in place, lets take a detour to colours:

before I start, a couple things to note:

-Temuera morrison versus the clone troopers in the animated shows:

While I love the animated shows they don't exactly stay close to their source material. Im going to link here to an excellent post discussing whitewashing specifically in relation to the clones.

Temuera is Māori, of Te Arawa (Ngāti Whakaue) and Tainui (Ngāti Maniapoto, Ngāti Rarua) whakapapa, and also has Scottish and Irish ancestry.

The Māori people are the indigenous Polynesian people of mainland New Zealand (Aotearoa). Māori originated with settlers from East Polynesia. Māori people often vary in skin tone, Skin colour doesn't determine ethnicity. There's often a correlation but it's not a requirement.

But that is a tangent! What we are aiming for is to stay true to Temuera.

Bringing back my reference photos from before, Ive colour picked a buncha values and theyre all over the place. Why doesnt this work?

Similarly to earlier, you have to take into account the photos themselves. Many things like lighting, colour grading (when it comes to filmography) and makeup, can alter how a skin colour presents in photo.

You can attempt to get true to life by swatching from certain places on the face. Here I've tried to pick some photos with good lighting, and I've also tried to avoid overly lit/shaded areas.

Tem has a very warm, tan skin tone, Instead of colour picking I tend to try and replicate it myself, but I do often bring in references to make sure Im staying true to the source!

a brief intermission to talk about colour theory, something I myself struggle with alot. Often, when putting in flat colours without a background, I will forget to make sure the colours i intend to use will work with the skin tone i have picked! (something that is apparent in older works of mine, not just in relation to clones, but in general, the colours I end up with stray largely from their original sources and it is something I am doing my best to keep in mind and improve in! Although I don't think i am nearly experienced enough in the topic to say I have succeeded yet lol.)

anyways back to Tem :))

Now we can put all of that into practice! Things to keep in mind when drawing out a piece next to a reference like this:

the distance between the eyebrows? how far down his face does his nose go? Basically just, in relation to eachother, where do all those shapes we found earlier, sit?

The screenshot above is from before I did it myself, but instead of directly tracing from the reference, a handy trick I use it to complete your sketch first, and then overlay a traced version to see where your inconsistencies are! Alternatively, you could move your sketch over the image, but I didnt do it that way so!! uh!! im sure it works exactly the same!!!!

When it comes to a final illustration, or any sketch that isnt a direct study, of course you can push and pull and stylise! You'll see below that I'm not exactly 1:1 to my reference photo either.

The important thing with stylisation, or at least my own personal understanding of stylisation is that you need to thoroughly understand the thing you are stylizing! "You need to know the rules to break them" and all that. While shapes, lines and rendering can change, when it comes to drawing someone, and making it look like them, you have to make sure to keep their core features true to source. Caricature can capture a persons vibe whilst drastically exaggerating features, but it will only look like them if you KEEP THOSE FEATURES!!!! SHAPES!!! AHHH!!

But that is just my perspective on the discussion of style versus realism, please dont take is as Law, I dont know what Im on about half the time!!

anyways, after fixing your sketch, add local colours!

I rexified him because why tf not! But this is where you can go crazy with that clone personalization!

And then here is a very very barely rendered version (if you guys want me to explain how i RENDER that would need to be a completely different post, and I havent had anyone ask about it yet so who knows! maybe one day) But I digress, hopefully you learnt something new through my ramblings! It has certainly helped me organize my thoughts and I have also found some areas I would like to focus more on in the future to improve my own art!

TLDR: In order to understand an object, be it a face or a building or literally anything, you have to break it down to its simplest forms, understanding LARGER shapes will help you immensely in the long run

If you guys like this sorta content do let me know! I'd be down to do similar things for armor/anything really, I am very anti gatekeep so really anything at all you want to know! Send me an ask :))

also if you see a spelling mistake.. i don’t know how that got there

[dalishious]

A BioWare Guide on How to Murder a Fanbase

I have been a Dragon Age super-fan for almost fourteen years, now. I have played every game, with every DLC. I have read every novel, lore book, and every comic — yes, even the terrible ones that are better off forgotten. I have seen the anime film, the animated series, and the web mini-series. I have enjoyed all of these pieces of the franchise over and over, more times than I can count. So, make no mistake: the negativity you’re about to hear comes from a place of love for this fantasy world, developed by many creative people over the years. I would love nothing more than to see the resurrection of passion in the Dragon Age fandom again. But the unfortunate truth is, that resurrection is only needed because BioWare took the fandom out back and shot it in the first place.

In December 2018, three years after the release of Dragon Age: Inquisition’s Trespasser epilogue DLC, BioWare first announced the then-untitled next Dragon Age game with a teaser trailer. At this point, most fans were anticipating this would mean within the next couple years, we would see the game. This assumption was based on the fact that Dragon Age: Inquisition was first announced in 2012, and released in 2014, with an extra year of development added last minute.

There have been dribbles of extra content since then, adding to the franchise. This was enough to keep some fans still breathing and interested. 2020’s Dragon Age: Tevinter Nights was a lovely anthology. 2020’s Dragon Age: Blue Wraith and 2021’s Dark Fortress were wonderful comics tying up the story started in Knight Errant. And 2022’s Dragon Age: Absolution was a well-animated series with an interesting cast of characters and story. But all these still left the fandom with a major question: What was going on with the next game? It was untypical of BioWare to be so secretive, in comparison to how they handled sharing information of the past games in the franchise. The only form of updates fans still have to go on is mostly just concept art and short stories, hinting that something must be in production. But why was the wait so long?

In 2015, the first version of the next Dragon Age began with a clear vision, clear scope of practice, and a reportedly happy developer team. Most gloriously in my book, there was no multi-player… but this did not align with the Electronic Arts typical money-mad schemes. EA’s push for “games as a service” meant they wanted to monetize all their games as much as possible, and therefore, they wanted them to be a live service — as Anthem demonstrated, that meant sacrificing things that are staples of good RPGs, like narrative and character choice. So in 2017, version one of the next Dragon Age was scrapped and replaced. This new version would have, in total or to at least some degree, an online portion of play.

There is one part of Schreier’s article, “The Past and Present of Dragon Age 4,” that really sticks out to me, regarding this:

“One person close to the game told me this week that Morrison’s critical path, or main story, would be designed for single-player and that goal of the multiplayer elements would be to keep people engaged so that they would actually stick with post-launch content.”

The idea of splitting up components of a game into single-player and multi-player is a terrible idea, because it means that there would be a large bulk of content only accessible through online gaming; something many fans, like myself, are repulsed by. Even if I did enjoy it, I spent most of my life growing up with either no internet or shoddy internet incapable of playing online games. I know many rural people who are still in that position, losing more and more of their favourite gaming pastimes because they are locked out of the ability to play them. It is a disservice to hide content behind a wall like this, especially in a world that is so lore-heavy like Dragon Age. The news of multi-player in Dragon Age understandably upset many, and this is when I first noticed a large drop off in excitement over the next game.

However, in 2021, the failure of Anthem (multi-player) and success of Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order (single-player) led the executives at EA to bend to the wishes of BioWare leadership and allow them to go back to the drawing board yet again on the next Dragon Age. This meant removing all multi-player content!

While I am very happy that there will reportedly be no multi-player in Dragon Age: Dreadwolf, I can’t help but feel bitter and a little disgusted over the ridiculous development time spent on something no one but EA wanted in the first place. If it weren’t for this foolishness, Dragon Age: Dreadwolf would be in our hands right now. Instead, it’s been in development hell for nearly nine years and counting. Nine years is a long time to expect fans to carry a torch for you through radio silence, but it’s no wonder BioWare has shared barely anything about the next game; it’s been in flux for so long, they likely haven’t had anything concrete to show.

BioWare hurt its reputation even more when the news broke that the studio very suddenly laid off 50 people who were working on Dragon Age: Dreadwolf. This is pretty damning on its own, but BioWare took it a step further. Former developer Jon Renish shared a statement revealing that the studio was only willing to offer laid-off employees two weeks of severance per year of service, and denied health benefits. The denial of health benefits in particular is a pretty wild move for a studio with a reputation for “stress casualties”. The latest news on this is that BioWare has still so far refused to negotiate better severance packages, leading to a lawsuit. The lawsuit originally had 15 former employees, but this dropped due to the fear of not being able to afford to pay their bills. So now, while EA sits on $400 million net income, the laid-off employees are struggling to buy holiday presents for their children. These horrid business practices are not to be ignored when accounting for a lack of faith in a studio. What kind of monsters reward workers who make your games special with vaguely reasoned lay-offs?

The latest news on the Dragon Age: Dreadwolf front from BioWare came early this month, December 2023, with a trailer… announcing a trailer that will come next summer… that will announce the release of the game. Supposedly. Maybe. We’ll see. But by this time, BioWare is something of a laughing stock of their own fandom. Reactions to the video released with a pretty map graphic and a few rendered locations were, from what I personally observed, mostly sardonic in nature. People have commented on the vapourware nature of the game, and like all vapourware, that leads to disintegrating trust.

Despite all this, people like Mary Kirby, (one of the veteran Dragon Age writers who was a victim of the layoffs,) said, “it’s bittersweet that Dreadwolf is my last DA game, but I still hope you all love it as much as I do,” encouraging fans to still support the game when it eventually is released. But after every misstep BioWare has taken, that’s a tough sell now. Fans are finicky, RPG fans more so than others, one could argue. We have our favourites, and many of us stick to those favourites for life over our appreciation for the artistry — but that relationship between studio and fan should go both ways. EA and BioWare has betrayed that relationship, and it will take a hell of a lot to build it back up again, now.

[This piece is also available on Medium!]

[artbyblastweave]

I think about Star Wars a lot more than I post about Star Wars, and I've had some free time recently to type up some thoughts on Episode 7 that've been swirling around in my head for a couple of years. There were a few ideas and plot beats, and moments of apparent self-examination in Episode 7 which I thought were fairly compelling, even though they ultimately paid no dividends:

First was Finn’s character concept. “Star Wars as experienced from the perspective of a Stormtrooper undergoing a crisis of faith” is a rich hook; humanizing and giving a face to what's basically the platonic implementation of the faceless mook. Unfortunately, the potency of the arc was undercut by the pre-existing textual ambiguity as to what stormtroopers actually are. Star Wars extended canon has settled on the idea that each trilogy features an entirely novel cohort of white-clad mooks, each with a fundamentally different underlying dynamic. The clones and the First-Order forces are different flavors of slave army; in contrast, the stormtroopers are more frequently portrayed in the expanded universe as military careerists, stormtrooper being a thing you work up to rather than a gig for a fresh conscript. A slave-soldier who defects is a very different character from a military careerist who defects, and they invite different analysis. There's a bait-and-switch going on here, in that Finn gestures in the direction of the familiar OT stormtroopers but can't comment on or examine them because he's actually part of a novel dynamic invented for the new movies. And there's one final nail in the coffin here, signaled by the number of times I've had to invoke the expanded universe so far. When Finn debuted, the racists were of course, legion, but I also ran into a number of people who were sincerely confused as to why they'd recast Temuera Morrison. Going off the seven films that existed at the time, it wasn't unreasonable to read the prequel trilogy as an origin story for where the OT stormtroopers came from. Going only off the nine films that exist now, it still isn't unreasonable! It's muddied from so many different directions by their failure to establish the ground rules in the mainline films before they tried to put on subversive airs about it. I am still irritated by this.

Next up is how Han Solo was written. I actually liked the tack they took with him quite a bit. Because initially, right, his role in the movie is just to be Han Solo. He's back, and he hasn't changed! He's still kicking ass and taking names, he's still the lovable scoundrel you knew and loved from your childhood- and the principle cast members react to his presence with the same reverence the film's trying to invoke in the audience, they've grown up hearing the same stories about him. Except that episode 7, at least, is also very aware of the fact that if Han Solo is still recognizably the same guy thirty years on, it indicates that things have gone totally off the rails for him. We find out that the lovable rogue routine is the result of him backsliding, his happy ending blown up by massive personal tragedy rooted in communicative failures and (implicitly) his parental shortcomings. It feels deliberately in conversation with the nostalgic impulse driving the entire film- here's your childhood hero back just as you remember, here's what that stagnation costs. And it also feels like it's in conversation with what was a fairly common strain of Han Solo Take- the idea that Ep. 6 cuts off at a very convenient point, and that Han and Leia's fly-by-night wartime relationship wouldn't survive the rigors of domesticity. Obviously, that's not the only direction you can take with the character; the old EU basically threaded the needle of keeping Han recognizable without rolling back his character development gains. But it felt like they were actually committing to a direction, a direction that was aware of the space, and not a reflexively deferential and flattering one, which at the time I appreciated! The problem, of course, is that for it to really land, you need to have a really, really strong idea of what actually went down-of what Han's specific shortcomings and failures were. And given the game of ping-pong they proceeded to play with Kylo Ren's characterization, this turned out to be. Less than doable.

Kylo Ren is the third thing about Episode 7 that I liked. His character concept is basically an extended admission by the filmmakers that there's no way to top Vader as an antagonist. Instead, they lean into the opposite direction- they make him underwhelming on purpose. Someone who's chasing Vader's legacy in the same way any post-OT Star Wars villain is going to, pursuing Vader's aesthetic and the associated power without really understanding or undergoing the convoluted web of suffering and dysfunction that produced Vader. It's framed as a genuine twist that there's nothing particularly wrong with his face under that helmet. Whatever it takes to be Vader, he doesn't have it, and he knows that he doesn't have it, and the pursuit of it drives him to greater and greater acts of cartoonish villainy. The failure to one-up Vader is offloaded to the character instead of the writers, and it was genuinely interesting to watch. For one movie. The problem, of course, is that if the entire character archetype is "Vader, but less compelling," you can't try to give the bastard Vader's exact character arc. You can't retroactively bolt on a Vader-tier tragic backstory when you spent a whole movie signaling that whatever happened to him wasn't as compelling as what happened to Vader. You can't milk his angst for two more movies when it's the kind of angst on display in "Rocking the Suburbs" by Ben Folds!

There's a level on which I feel like Moff Gideon was a semi-successful implementation of Vader-Wannabe concept; he's the same kind of middling operator courting the Vader Aesthetic for clout, but he's doing it in the context of the imperial warlord era, where there's a lot of practical power available to anyone who can paint themselves to the Imperial Remnants as a plausible successor to Vader. Hand in Hand with this obvious politicking, Gideon is loathsome, which relieves the writers of the burden of having to plausibly redeem the guy; he's doing exactly what he needs to do and there'll never be a mandate to expand him beyond what his characterization can support. Unfortunately, the calculated and cynical nature of how he's emulating Vader precludes the immaturity and hero-worship elements on display with Kylo, which is unfortunate; the sincerity on display in Kylo's pursuit of authenticity is an important part of why he worked, to the extent that he worked at all, and it'd be worth unpacking in a better trilogy. As he stands Kylo is a clever idea, and that's all he is- he lacks the scaffolding to go from merely clever to actively good.

[punkeropercyjackson]

Resources for non-malicious Batfanon blogs that're genuinely confused on what to watch/read/play

Bruce:The Batman 2022

Dick:Teen Titans 1966,New Teen Titans,The Titans and Outsiders 2003

Tim:Lonely Place of Dying,Robin 1993,Young Justice 1998 and Red Robin

Cass:No Man's Land,Batgirl 2000 and Shadow of The Batgirl

Damian:Son of Batman 2015,Streets of Gotham,Supersons,Gotham Academy(only gueststars but features his 1st civillian friend),Robin 2021 and Batman and Robin 2023

And i made my own complete manual for Jason which includes reading lists for Duke and Stephanie by other users

Here is pre-Morrison Talia,aka the only Talia as Morrison is a raging islamophobe

And Selina by @pyrocortex who's as dedicated to her as i am Jason(platonically that is)

When i say 'non-malicious',i mean Batfam fans who've been lied to about canon to rope them into perpetuating the mass and inherent bigotry in Batfanon and placated into fence sitters by old whites that don't understand Batman lore any better than your average fake geek guy.Bruce has 6 canon kids and isn't a serial adopter but an adopter of abused or orphaned kids only,Dick has Eldest Daughter Syndrome but actually(as stated by me and a friend)and includes tgirl swag,Tim isn't a white male power fantasy and that includes not one for white racist gays either,Cass was invented specifically to DEFY easian woman stereotypes,Damian is only a monster if you hate brown people,Jason is quite literally the other way around of everything Batfanon says of him,Stephanie is audhd bpd-coded and should be black based on personality alone,Duke is a 2000s cartoon protagonist that only gets ignored because he's black and Talia and Selina are way more than your 'haha Bruce is gay' joke,trust

Oh also,'Batman and Robin are slang for gay' isn't a thing actual comics writers did.It was purely spectulation specifically on ADULT Batman fans' part and Devin Grayson who is frequently cited on why Batcest is canon and therefore good has apologized for her Nightwing runs and said it was a bad coping mechanism on her part.Worth noting the Batrobin rumors were created at a time when they had to take out Batcat from the Adam West Batman show due to recasting Selina as Eartha Kitt and the segregation laws that were a thing back then.So take that as you will in how it reflects the mentality at the time,including regarding children's rights as child abuse was even more extreme due to it being 'normal' and 'justifiable' due to 'history'.Holy decontextualization,Batfans!!!

[writerthreads]

Ten must-read books for writers (or anyone, really.)

By Writerthreads on Instagram

Obviously this list is highly subjective and based on my research and personal experience. Please share your favourite books as well!!

1. To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf

Woolf is the queen of the stream of consciousness and a master at diving into characters' inner thoughts, conveying complex emotions, themes and perspective. Her prose is breathtaking, her character memorable.

2. Beloved by Toni Morrison

Morrison tackles difficult themes with poise like no other, diving into topics like grief, trauma, and identity. Read this book to learn how to develop multi-layered narratives whilst maintaining perfect pacing and a intricate narrative structure.

3. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

A masterpiece. Sharp social commentary, eloquent prose and vivid imagery... what more can you want from a book? Every word was chosen for a purpose, and it shows the importance of restraint in writing.

4. The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien

Tolkien's legendary fantasy world-building makes his series a staple in fantasy literature. The geography, cultures and histories in his works are well-crafted. Anyone trying to build a complex world can learn from from this series.

5. Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

Our second Woolf classic in this list! Mrs. Dalloway is a masterclass of a perfect character study. Woolf weaves different viewpoints intricately, capturing the essence of human experience.

6. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Austen character development is legendary, showcasing complex, evolving characters like Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy. The novel’s witty dialogue show insight into personality and societal norms, and her narrative voice and well-structured plot keeps readers hooked to the very end.

7. Never Let Me Go by Kazoo Ishiguro

Ishiguro’s novel presents a quietly devastating exploration of memory, identity, and humanity through a dystopian lens. The subtle, restrained prose and profound emotional impact illustrate how to weave complex themes into a seemingly simple narrative.

8. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid

This book made me cry so very hard. The author explored themes like identity and fame, while creating an engaging and multi-layered plot that had me hooked. Reid’s vivid prose showcases techniques for creating emotionally resonant and storytelling that allows readers to feel for the characters.

9. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Márquez’s masterpiece provides a gorgeous, profound exploration of magical realism. Its intricate narrative and richly imagined world blends fantastical elements with real-world themes into something unique and breathtaking.

10. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

Brontes exploration of dark themes, framed within a dark and brooding narrative, makes it the quintessential gothic read. It's emotionally intense, complex in structure, and definitely memorable, perfect for any budding writer dabbling in dark academia, modern gothic literature, horror, etc.

And here's my rather shoddy list from a non-English major who reads too much! And Sorry for the lack of accents on the required letters, I haven't figured out how to add them on my laptop. Please give me a general opinion on my book recs and whether they're good, or if you have more suggestions! Lots of love.

[almondpants]

ive talked about this on twt but imma talk about it again here bc i want ANGST and a reminder of how sweet dante is :((

so do yall remember the letter that morrison gives nero at the start of the game where he recounts dante's backstory? well, I like to think that the reason why morrison did that is because dante feels like the whole qliphot incident is his last and wants nero to know more about his life before he dies.

like dante is a very private person, and morrison isn't the type to air out someone's whole backstory unless dante told him to...also the idea of dante leaving a will to nero is probably another thing dante has set up for nero and it just makes me so sad that dante think this is last fight and hes leaving nero everything he has kept for decades i just...the amount of trust he has for nero is so sweet...

[missmonsters2]

—AGNOSTHESIA | FIVE

Pairing: Wednesday Addams x OFC/Fem!Reader

Summary: After the talk, things were going well, or so Wednesday assumed. You've been distancing yourself and Wednesday is forced to sift through her past behaviors to see why and comes to a realization that makes her violently ill.

Warnings: Angst. Jealous!Wednesday. Enid, has to spell it out. Thing, wants more dew drops. Xavier, rip.

Series Masterlist | Library Blog | AO3

Reminder there’s no taglist but you can follow my library blog for notifications 💘

Note: we're making waveEees (slow burn mode) 🥺💘

Part Four

⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷†⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷

Agnosthesia: Noun. The state of not knowing how you really feel about something, which forces you to sift through clues hidden in your behavior, as if you were some other person—noticing a twist of acid in your voice, an obscene amount of effort put into something trifling, or an inexplicable weight on your shoulders that makes it difficult to get out of bed.

⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷†⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷

You've been distancing yourself from Wednesday.

"Not quite, Henry. Try crushing the seed instead of chopping it; you'll get more juice out of it that way."

You've been distancing yourself from Wednesday.

"Yes, use the flat side of your knife, just like that—careful."

You've been distancing yourself from Wednesday.

"Well done, Henry!"

Wednesday slams her textbook down on the desk.

"Ow!" Xavier yelps, the tips of his fingers caught under the textbook. He yanks them out. "Jesus fucking Christ, Wednesday, my fingers!"

"Quit blubbering," Wednesday unapologetically tells him. "They are still attached to your body, are they not?"

"For now," Xavier grumbles, rubbing his bruised fingers. "What the hell is your problem, anyway?"

"I don't have a problem," Wednesday's eyes briefly look at him before looking back at her own flask. "Why would you think that?"

This was her third time re-making the elixir. 

The textbook had said to cut the seed to extract the juice inside, but after Xavier nearly lopped off his finger the first time, Wednesday took over the second time. The only issue was that despite her flawless knife work, they could hardly squeeze any of the juice out from the seed's hard shell. 

Xavier was plucking at her last nerves with his suggestion to try again—as if the seed would suddenly get softer. 

Wednesday clenches her jaw. She should've declined to be Xavier's partner. Even Bianca would suffice better because at least she would feel no inclination about holding back on murdering Bianca when they finally got fed up with each other. 

But this was only an issue because—

"Because tooth fairy has refused to be your lab partner, like, what, 3 times now?" Xavier whispers.

Wednesday doesn't say anything, but her expression gets more contemptuous, her mouth pinched, and Xavier doesn't say anything more. She doesn't even comment on Xavier's horrible epithet that he's been sticking to despite your immediate veto. His only reasoning was that you had a nice smile, which Wednesday was inclined to agree with reluctantly. 

But it was true. It was a rather new development when you began growing closer to Wednesday, especially after they resolved the tension regarding Wednesday not asking questions. It was going well, or so Wednesday had thought. 

Now, you jumped at making sure someone else was your partner before the teacher would even finish telling everyone to partner up.

Looking up, Wednesday stares at the back of your head, willing to burn a hole through it so you'd look at her. 

You don't.

"That guy has been hanging around her often," Xavier comments, his eyes narrowing a little. "Pretty sure he's a legacy. His dad went here—Henry Morrison? Can’t believe he named his son the same name."

"Why are you telling me this irrelevant information?" Wednesday cuts in before he can say anything else. 

"Is it irrelevant?" Xavier smiles, though the corners of his mouth don't make it too far up. "Thought you, of all people, should know this: know any potential rival—lest you want someone else to swoop in."

'Rival?' Wednesday thought with confusion. She looks at the boy next to you. 

There was no way this lanky, pitiful, stuttering boy could be her rival. If she were to look at anyone as a rival, it'd be Bianca. 

The siren looked way too smug and haughty every time you spent time with her. Every time Wednesday caught a glimpse of you two, Bianca would have this aggravating smirk that would send Wednesday into a burst of rage that Thing would have to suffer through while she ranted. 

"How's psychitect going? Getting better?" You ask.

Henry nods eagerly. "I-I can almost make a fully functional mindscape. You should come to see it," Henry says with a shy smile. "Y-You have a free period during that time, right?" 

You nod with an easy-going smile. "Sure, I don't have much else to do, and it sounds pretty cool."

Wednesday purses her lips unhappily, stabbing the seed with the tip of her knife precisely, and Xavier moves his hands away just in case. 

⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷†⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷

"Wednesday—"

"No."

"You haven't even heard what I'm about to ask—"

"No."

Enid exaggeratedly pouts, clasping her hands together in front of her. "Wednesday..." she pitifully drags.

"Enid," Wednesday grits her teeth, holding firm. "No."

"C'mon!" Enid continues to plead. "One of the girls broke her arm! We're short a girl again this year."

"How tragic," Wednesday says without care. "But that, unfortunately, wasn't my fault. I applaud your efforts to torture me but I have no inclination to join the boat race this year."

"But don't you remember that satisfying feeling of beating Bianca?" Enid tries to entice Wednesday instead. "What was it that you said last year? A dark, vengeful spirit."

Wednesday raises her brow. "I have no additional quarrels with Bianca this year. I get my satisfaction from beating her in fencing."

Enid lets out a groan. She knows she's running out of options, and she's about to give up when something pops into her mind, and a mischievous smile that Wednesday doesn't like appears.

"Oh, well," Enid says with a dramatic sigh. "I guess we'll just have to ask someone else and risk losing to Bianca."

Wednesday narrows her eyes. "It appears so."

"And with Fae watching in the crowd, I bet she'll be so impressed with Bianca taking that trophy," Enid continues, astutely turning away as she says it, a smirk on her face. "Man, how embarrassing. I can't believe I'll have to explain to Fae that we lost because my roomie didn't want to get into the whole school spirit thing."

Enid sighs one last time as she sits on her bed, looking at Thing, who sits beside her. "Oh, well. I'm sure Fae will be thrilled to celebrate Bianca's victory."

Wednesday clenches her fist. She's not unaware of Enid's horrible attempt at manipulating her. It was tragically embarrassing on Enid's end but what was more embarrassing was that it was working.

The idea of you celebrating Bianca's victory was making Wednesday more sullen than she already was. 

So, for the second time this year, despite Wednesday's reluctance to win the Poe Cup again as it made her more similar to her mother, she was going to make Bianca burn with the taste of utter defeat. 

"Enid," Wednesday scowls. "It would be wise to sleep with both eyes open after the competition is over."

"I love you, too, Wednesday."

⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷†⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷

Wednesday is at a loss. 

Despite her attempts to ask more questions and discover what could possibly be the reason why you've been distant, you've stonewalled her. 

It is a very sickening feeling. 

"How could she do this to me, Thing?" Wednesday seethed at the disembodied hand as it was just the two in her room. "This is the second week she's cut our time short. That's 14 days, Thing. Our usual 38 hours a week have been cut down to a mere 15 hours."

Thing taps and signs.

"Why are you asking if I did something?" Wednesday glares.

Some more tapping.

"It's a fair assumption," Wednesday concedes. "But I haven't done anything out of the ordinary as of late. You must know how painful it is for me right now to admit I am at a loss."

Thing taps.

"And she has said nothing to you?" Wednesday glares suspiciously.

Thing taps more firmly, and Wednesday lets out a sigh through her nose and lets it go. Checking the time, she finds you'll be here any minute now.

As of late, you've been insisting on meeting Wednesday in her room at night instead of your fae studio realm. Enid seemed to catch on and was happy to hang out with Ajax or Yoko for an hour or two until you left.

It only served to remind Wednesday that it used to be four hours at your studio. Wednesday bitterly thinks you've done it on purpose because it was easier for you to leave her space than to make her leave your space. 

There's a knock on her door. 

Right on time.

Wednesday looks at Thing before glaring at the door.

"I will not accept defeat tonight," she ominously declares as she walks towards the door. 

When she opens it, Wednesday finds you smiling at her but there’s something about it that makes her feel disgruntled. 

“Hi, Wednesday,” you say in the exact same way you’ve said hundreds before. “Enid out again?”

“Of course,” Wednesday deadpans since not even Enid knows about your wings.

“Cool,” you reply before looking out the window. “Can we open the window? It feels a little stuffy in here.”

Wednesday looks at Thing, who scuddles to the window and cracks it open. There’s a slight breeze that makes you sigh with ease as you take off your sweater and sit down on the floor at Wednesday’s bed. 

There’s a momentary pause as Wednesday stares at the familiar sight of your back before your opulent obsidian wings slowly grow out, stretching as much as they could with a ruffle. 

They were healing quite well, Wednesday notes. Soon, you won’t need to meet with her every night for treatment. 

You still need to meet her now but you’re already distancing yourself. 

Wednesday feels self-pity, rage, and dour. She won’t admit it, though, as she pulls out the tub of salve and sits behind you. 

Your wings trill as Wednesday moves her fingers through the feathers.

The way you won’t even tell her it tickles anymore. 

“Did you enjoy your day today?” You ask conversationally and Wednesday clenches her jaw.

“No,” she grits out.

“Oh,” you seem surprised at the admittance. There’s a delay and Wednesday knows you’re debating on inquiring further, but you make up your mind. “Why?”

“Why do you think so?” Wednesday asks instead, her voice flat and unimpressed that you’d sink to playing stupid. It was beneath you.

You remain silent.

“I don’t know,” you eventually say, your tone even and unassuming. “Has Xavier finally tried to hug you?”

You’re lightly jesting to avoid the confrontation but Wednesday won’t have it. She applies the salve slowly, knowing full well it was making you antsy. Wednesday was going to drag out tonight so painfully slow, you were going to regret having ever been the reason for Wednesday’s dreadful days. 

“No,” Wednesday answers, “And I doubt he ever will if he wants to live.”

You laugh but it’s not very sincere. “I guess he could always ask Enid to pass along a hug for him.” You’re jesting again but there’s something in your tone that sounds bitter.

Wednesday doesn’t know what to make of the comment, so she ignores it since it’s not like you can see her glare right now.

“You’ve been partnering up with the lanky boy lately,” Wednesday shifts the subject, sounding flat as if it were just a mere observation.

“Henry?” You say confusedly but Wednesday doesn’t confirm or deny. “I mean, I guess,” you shrug.

“Why?” Wednesday demands, asking what she really wants to know.

“I mean,” you say slowly. “Why not? You and I are some of the people with the top grades. It’s obvious we’re adept and Henry needs help.”

“So, why must you be the one to help him?” Wednesday clenches her jaw.

It’s a miracle how gentle she’s still applying the salve despite how uncomfortably irritated she feels. 

“Why? Are you offering to help him instead?” You ask wryly.

“I think if he’s destined to fail, then we should not interfere,” Wednesday bluntly and callously reasons. “Is he not the same boy who first saw you and could barely get a word out, leaving you with such a dull sobriquet?”

“It’s just a class, Wednesday,” you dryly say, awkwardly shifting. 

Wednesday’s jaw is set tightly in place, and she feels utterly humiliated right now.

“I heard you’re joining The Poe Cup race again this year?” You say, changing the subject as the atmosphere was tense. 

Wednesday feels her body relax ever so slightly at the new subject.

“Yes, at Enid’s relentless and piteous begging.”

“Oh,” you say softly.

Wednesday feels uncomfortable and she’s unsure why. 

“Have you considered joining the race?” Wednesday spits out to keep the conversation moving. 

“No,” you answer softly again. “Even though there are no rules preventing sabotage against other teams, Principal Weems and I agreed that my powers would be a very unfair advantage to fight against.”

Wednesday’s curiosity rules over all other emotions. She wants to ask exactly what powers you’re talking about when you suddenly stand up and Wednesday realizes that you could feel when she’s finished applying the salve to the end of your scars. 

“Thanks again for helping me,” you tell her softly as you turn around, making your wings disappear with an uncomfortable grimace. You put your sweater back on and zipped it up. “I have some assignments with my other project partners I have to meet up with. Catch you later?”

Wednesday is left sitting on the floor, seething with rage and defeat as you walk out the room, shutting the door with a resounding, sickening click. 

⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷†⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷

Enid returns home from her date with Ajax, feeling joyous and charmed. She immediately spots Wednesday at her desk on her typewriter.

“Hey, Wednesday,” Enid sing-songs. “Did you have a good night?”

“It was fine,” Wednesday says sharply, which has Enid looking over to Thing, who signs to not ask. 

“O-kay,” Enid replies, taking off her jacket before sitting on her bed. 

Wednesday is typing aggressively on her typewriter, each push so hard it sounds punishing. 

“So—”

“Not now, Enid,” Wednesday icily cuts in, continuing to type as if she wanted to break her typewriter. “I need silence.”

Enid doesn’t reply, only letting out a soft sigh as she puts her headphones on and rests in her bed. She opens a magazine and Thing shuffles over to her to look along with her. The sad thing is that Enid can still hear Wednesday aggressively typing, but she ignores it knowing her best friend and roommate needs the time to cool down before attempting to talk.

The only problem is an hour and half passes and Wednesday is still typing as if the typewriter has personally wronged her.

Enid yanks off her headphones, closing her magazine before she slams both down on her bed. She frostily looks at Wednesday.

"Wednesday, this was cute and funny to watch the first two weeks, but now it's getting sad," Enid purses her lips at her roommate. "Stop moping and go fix it. And don’t play stupid, I know you know what I mean."

"Enid," Wednesday says with thinly veiled anger, her typing coming to a stop. "Whatever it was between us has clearly taken a nose-dive and hit solid concrete and died. It was nothing and I'm not affected by—"

"Wednesday!" Enid snaps, and it makes Wednesday close her mouth. Her bright roommate rarely snapped. "Stop dismissing your own feelings."

"I'm not sure what you're—"

"Oh, yes you do," Enid cuts in, and Wednesday wants to remind her that it is a rude habit. "Maybe your big brain hasn't caught on yet, but if you spent time looking at your behaviors and actions of late, you'd be able to get on the same page as the rest of us."

Wednesday frowns, glaring at her roommate, who glares back.

"I implore detective Wednesday to make an appearance and annoyingly obsess over the clues she's given to herself," Enid scrunches her nose. "I'll be at Yoko's and when I'm back, I expect you'll have come to the correct conclusion. I'm taking Thing as well."

Enid doesn't wait for Wednesday's reply as she turns and leaves the room with a resounding click of the door shutting. With her alone in her room, Wednesday initially ignores Enid's words, going back to sit at her desk and placing her fingers on her typewriter, but nothing comes to mind. 

After sitting in frustration for 10 minutes, Wednesday curses her blonde roommate as she contemptuously gets up and goes to lie down on her bed, staring at the ceiling. 

It's almost embarrassingly easy to think back to the beginning. Wednesday remembers seeing you for the first time and thinking nothing of it. It was only two weeks of your friendly smile and greetings, despite having yet to be formally introduced, that she noticed you more. And then she couldn't stop noticing you because you never endeavored to say anything more to her than hello, even though you were diligent in getting to know everyone else. 

Then, it was the slow desire to know every single thing there was about you. Wednesday was still mostly ambivalent about her phone, but she had wanted your number. It was the gruesome butterflies, the discovery of your secret place, and your wings that began to make this year thrilling.

Wednesday had never suffered through so many hypothetical conversations in her head—she had considered admitting herself as a patient to a mental ward rather than being the usual enthused visitor. 

It was easy to admit that, on some level, she thought of you as hers to protect and would carry out any revenge needed. 

But this was normal, wasn't it? Wednesday bargains. This could all be construed as friendship, the same as whatever she had with Enid—just with more curiosity. 

The foundation of that reasoning was pathetically shaky, she knew.

It was the smaller things that Wednesday analyzed. 

Wednesday thought back and reluctantly admitted there were too many times she's felt jealous and sullen because of you. She thinks about how she would take the long way to her class just to bump into you down the halls. 

The way she would ensure her nightly plans were left completely free to spend with you. Quite frankly, Wednesday planned her days around you, and if there was something she could not put off, then she was sure to include you. 

It was coming horrifyingly clear. Wednesday has always told herself she wasn't sure how she felt about you to give herself plausible deniability. But her own actions and behaviors have ratted her out. 

And it was such an outrageous revelation. 

Damn it all. Wednesday Addams was romantically interested in someone. 

How unfortunate. 

The door jiggles before opening, revealing her blonde roommate returning with Thing on her shoulders. Wednesday looks at the time and finds she's been lying in bed for an hour.

"So?" Enid drawls. "Did you figure it out yet?"

"Yes," Wednesday tightly replies, looking at Enid briefly before glaring back at the ceiling.

"And how do you feel?"

"Enraged." 

"Enraged?!" Enid's in disbelief but then sighs. "But of course you'd be."

Wednesday suddenly sits up. It's well past midnight, but she doesn't care.

"Thing," Wednesday writes a quick note, folding it before giving it to Thing. "Go deliver this."

Thing grabs it and scuddles off while Enid stares at her roommate with curiosity. "Are you going to go meet up with her?" Then, excitedly. "Are you going to confess?"

"The only thing I will ever confess to is a murder," Wednesday flatly says. "But yes, I will be meeting up with her and I will make her suffer as I have."

Enid winces, looking doubtful. "Really?"

Wednesday is silent for a moment before she says, "No. But I will be getting to the bottom of this, and I will come out victorious."

Wednesday puts on her boots and sweater.

"Are you sure she'll even meet up with you? What did you say in your note?"

Wednesday grinned wickedly. "I told her to meet me, or I would set fire to her forest until it was nothing but ash."

Enid sighs, turning to get ready for bed. "Good luck."

Wednesday doesn't reply, walking to the door. It is pathetic she's romantically engrossed in someone, but as it happened, she couldn't undo it. 

Therefore, as the object of her affections, she could not allow you to distance yourself without a sound, robust reason. 

⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷†⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷

Wednesday makes it to your studio before you do, but she can hear your footsteps heavy with annoyance. 

"What the hell is wrong with you, Wednesday?" She hears you huff. "Why the hell would you send me a note that you're going to burn down—"

"You've been avoiding me," Wednesday turns around and hisses, anger written all over her face. "Why?"

You’re stunned silent, shocked at the sudden confrontation and venomous tone from Wednesday. For a second, Wednesday thinks you won’t answer and turn around to leave, risking your little haven burnt to a crisp.

"I have not," you say slowly, rising to the challenge as you raise your brow at her. "We still see each other every night, don't we?"

"But we don't..." Wednesday pauses. "You don't..."

"What?" You tilt your head. "Spend all my time with you?"

Wednesday remains silent, her blood silently burning inside her. She's so filled with disgruntlement. It's always better to suffer the truth than to be blissfully unaware, but Wednesday wishes this entire realization wasn't her truth. 

"Should I start prioritizing you?" You say with no inflection, but it feels almost malicious. "I'd have never thought Wednesday Addams would demand so much of my time."

Wednesday would never, ever admit that something as silly as words could hurt her. They were just words, and she'd have to care enough to let them affect her. Even Enid's rare spiteful words were more of something she used to reflect on rather than let them dig at her. 

Yet, here she was, clenching her jaw and feeling her throat constrict. 

Wednesday clenches her fist. "This was a mistake." She turns around and starts walking away, feeling violently ill. She only gets a few steps away before you're chasing after her.

"No, Wednesday—wait," you grab her hand, and Wednesday absolutely detests the way it soothes her. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean it." Your tone is full of regret and sincerity.

Wednesday stands still in her spot a moment longer before she slowly turns back to you. You don't let go of her hand, and she doesn't pull away.

"Then, why?" Wednesday asks, even though she isn't in a position to accuse you, as she's the exact same when lashing out.

"Because..." you let out a deep sigh, holding Wednesday's hand more tightly. "Because I'm jealous."

Wednesday's eyebrows furrow. She is thoroughly at a loss. "Jealous?"

You shrug and then nod. "Jealous, upset, lamenting—whatever you want to call it."

"Of what, exactly?" Wednesday frowns. 

"Enid."

"Enid?" Wednesday is even more confused. "Why would you be envious of Enid?"

"It's not necessarily Enid as a person. I know she's your best friend," you sigh. "It's more of Enid as a concept."

"As a concept?" Wednesday raises her brow, prompting you to continue on.

You stare at Wednesday, studying her entirety with a focus that begins to make Wednesday uncomfortable even if she doesn't show it. 

"Everybody talks about last year," you reveal slowly. "Since I wasn't here, everyone is excited to share last year in detail."

Wednesday nods. Even her group talked about last year's events when you hung out with them from time to time. 

"The only thing I can think about when people talk of it is how different you've become," you say quietly. "Which isn't a bad thing, but I'm very aware of the fact that Enid was a big factor in your change."

Wednesday lets the words soak in, analyzing them before she nods in agreement. "Enid has left an enduring mark on me, and she continues to—do not repeat that to her."

You give Wednesday a wry grin. "Yes, Enid is..." you sigh. "She's warm like the sun—like basking under the rays. I can't blame you because I feel it in her presence too. She's genuine and bold. What you see is what you get, and you can't help but be charmed."

"I would say Enid is more like a fungus that grows on you and you have no choice but to be fond of, but continue on."

Shaking your head with a chuckle, you look at Wednesday, mirroring her impassive eyes. "I'm not like that."

Wednesday raises her brow. "And?"

You swallow, and Wednesday sees something dim behind your eyes. "I will never be warm like the sun, and what I show others will always be different—always a mask. Wednesday, despite you being grim, solemn, and interested in all morbidities, you're enticed by the sun and moved by its warmth." It was such a miserable smile. "And that will never be me."

You drop Wednesday's hand, and there's something so hollowing about it that Wednesday wants to tell you that you're such a fucking moron because the lack of your warmth is upsetting her. 

"Did you fall on your head when I wasn't watching?" Wednesday snaps at you, and you merely stare back at her. She grabs your hand back, almost crushing it to punish you. 

"Basking in the sun is only tolerable when you're sitting under the shade," Wednesday follows your ridiculous metaphors. "I will admit that Enid's warmth has taught me that while I enjoy solitude, it is a choice—not a condemnation."

"I will also admit that Enid has her whims indulged by me more," Wednesday rolls her eyes but looks at you sternly. "But so do you. I could argue I let you get away with more."

"Do I?" You ask with a tilt of your head.

"If anyone consumed my thoughts and put me through such self-pity and suffering as much as you do, I would have already turned them into the next true crime documentary."

You can't help but crack a smile.

Wednesday looks at you, her eyes softening, and she evenly says, "It is easy to adulate the light." Her thumb brushes over the back of your hand. "Show me your darkness."

You squeeze Wednesday's hand gently, and the tension in your fades, your shoulder becoming relaxed.

The anger subsides within Wednesday, quelling as she knows this stupidity is coming to its end and you will no longer be avoiding her. 

It comes to Wednesday suddenly how much emotional labor you put her through, and she's in disbelief that you think you aren't capable of changing her.

"You are..." Wednesday huffs with frustration. "Unpleasant."

You can't help but laugh. "You are, too."

"You already knew that," Wednesday plainly says. "I told you I would devastate you at some point."

"I wouldn't say I'm devastated," you smile amusedly at Wednesday's dramatics. 

"Nevertheless, this is still a mistake."

"And what a grand mistake it would be," you muse. 

"We clearly don't know what we're doing."

"I guess we just have to keep going until we do."

"Quite frankly, even if we do, we will still both needlessly suffer," Wednesday warns.

You hum, drawing Wednesday closer. Wednesday looks a little wary, but she allows your proximity. Her eyebrows are slightly tense as she gazes at you. 

"I heard your mother named you after her favorite poem," you say softly, your hand grazing Wednesday's fingers before you entangle them together. For someone who enjoyed the cold so much, her hands were warm. "Wednesday's child is full of woe."

Wednesday only nods slightly because moving too much would make her lips graze yours. 

The tension is so thick, Wednesday could suffocate in it. How lovely. 

Your lips graze against Wednesday, and she tightens her hands against yours when you pull away. You look at Wednesday's eyes so vehemently, and she experiences opia all over again. 

"But did you know?" 

Wednesday can feel your breath on her face.

"Love is suffering—and we get the honor of enduring its torment."

Your lips press warmly against the corner of Wednesday's mouth, and she finds you're veracious. What torture it is—and Wednesday takes delight in it.

PART 6

[roobylavender]

i feel like people complain way too much about bruce being used to character assassinate bc of his prep time and plot armor or whatever like at least that’s not something that will resoundingly impact and regress the characters on the other end to the point that entire comic runs have to be dedicated to repairing the damage. imagine being dick and not only are your peers written as shitty and incompetent in comparison but your plot armor is effective to the extent that editorial can narratively beat down on random women just to fuel your feud with your dad and cement your alleged moral superiority

[kriskukko]

Hi! *waves*

You have a lot of artwork set during the 1800s; I was wondering if you could recommend any "bibles" of the 1800s or the Georgian era, please? I have a project that I'm thinking of setting during the period but I'm not sure how to begin my research.

My story will be set in England initially, then go onto India and all over the world

Alright, so— Right off the bat I will admit my research has mainly focused on Finland in any given era, so I haven't read extensively or bookmarked resources as for England (let alone the rest of the world). BUT, I do have some for the purpose of filling in the blanks in the settings, since my country is small and material isn’t in abundance (not like when it comes to the big empires, anyway) sadly this list will be very brief, as I generally deal with my lack of knowledge on any given issue by browsing the web/library and piecing together stuff from multiple sources some of which are very granular (or worse, in FINNISH). I also deal in pictures and dialogue for the most part, which is why majority of this is imagebased.

A BOOK:

The Time Traveller’s Guide to Regency Britain by Ian Mortimer

probably goes into category of a ‘bible’ u mentioned, covers multiple bases as far as setting goes in an easily digestible manner (that list of contents looking pretty good yeah?). Ive the audiobook version and it was a pleasant listen too.

I also appear to have a book by the name The Regency Years by Robert Morrison in my audiobook library, but I have no recollection of actually listening to it. The reviews were good tho.

THAT ONE RANDOM LINK IN MY BOOKMARKS:

Prices and Wages by Decade (University of Missouri Libraries) what it says on the tin, spanning from 1700s-2000s, while us-centric, it does have subsections for different countries with dedicated resources to varying degrees

ART & FASHION:

Fashion History Timeline

goes over western fashion history from ancient to now, pleasantly detailed and starting from 15th century it goes decade by decade

The Met Collection

as the landing page says. I have looked in the costume institute section a bunch to understand garments or fill in what I cant find in fashion plates, like underwear

The Met Museum Costume Institute Fashion Plates

a digital collection of fashion plate illustrations that has pretty well spanned the 1800s and early 1900s wherein I mingle. Requires a bit of browsing, as the subcollection list is long and sometimes they span a bunch of decades at once, but at least the pictures are big and often have dates imposed in the corners of the illustrations

AND HEY, IF ANYONE READS IN FINNISH, ABOUT FINLAND:

Kristiina Kalleinen Valtioaamun aika : Suomen Suuriruhtinaskunta 1809-1863

Topi Artukka: Tanssiva Kaupunki : Turun seurapiiri sosiaalisena näyttämönä 1810-luvulla

Piia Einonen & Miikka Voutilainen (toim.): Suomen sodan jälkeen : 1800-luvun alun yhteiskuntahistoria

Hannu Rinne: Perinnemestarin tyylikirja : Talon osat aikakausittain 1700-1970

and whew HERE WE ARE AT THE END. i hope u will find at least some of this helpful and best of luck with ur project! <3 (and if anyone knows of more resources, drop em in responses or reblogs i would personally love to reference/bookmark more stuff in the future)

[mundoperla]

Could I get hcs for a gn survivor that’s horrendously touch-starved, whenever they’re being carried to a hook, they completely relax in the killer’s grip and lean into them, because they’re brain just goes w a r m human contact fuck yeah- and they can’t help it sdvh

If you could include Frank from The Legion because..he’s my favourite, I find him hot- but aside from that, any killers you want to write hcs for! :D

EEEEE KICKING MY FEET IN THE AIR BC FRANK <3333

•

𝙆𝙞𝙡𝙡𝙚𝙧𝙨 𝙬𝙞𝙩𝙝 𝙖 𝙩𝙤𝙪𝙘𝙝 𝙨𝙩𝙖𝙧𝙫𝙚𝙙 𝙎𝙪𝙧𝙫𝙞𝙫𝙤𝙧 .

⤹⋆｡˚ ｡˚۰ ۰˚☽˚⁀➷｡˚⋆ ｡˚۰༄

killers x gender neutral reader

—killer(s) included;; frank morrison, ji-woon hak, kazan yamaoka, & caleb quinn WOOOOOO DEATHSLINGER PROPAGANDA

‼️tws;; none i could catch but if there is anything lmk!!!‼️

⤹⋆｡˚ ｡˚۰ ۰˚☽˚⁀➷｡˚⋆ ｡˚۰༄

𝕱𝖗𝖆𝖓𝖐 𝕸𝖔𝖗𝖗𝖎𝖘𝖔𝖓—𝕿𝖍𝖊 𝕷𝖊𝖌𝖎𝖔𝖓

.｡❅* you were being tossed up onto his shoulder to be brought to the nearest rusty hook like the last, you had yet to even be put on one so of course some kind of struggle or fight was expected.

.｡❅* but you weren’t moving, barley even a scream or kick from you. he couldn’t feel any kind of struggle, but he can feel you practically melting into him.

.｡❅* he did not.. understand.. you’ve gotta be broken or something.

.｡❅* he’d stopped in his tracks completely, wiggling you a bit with the arm that held you up to see if you’d respond with maybe an elbow to the side of his head, but you just sat there. completely still. you were just enveloped in his touch. sitting still and very peacefully.

.｡❅* Frank didn’t exactly know how to react or how to feel.. it’s wonderful having someone feel so comfortable being this close to him, but he was also expecting the usual response he got from others.

.｡❅* he’ll just stand there for a minute, letting you hang out for a while longer. he’ll feel guilty if he just tossed you onto a hook afterwards so he gently places you on the ground and leaves you there for one of your teammates to pick you up.

.｡❅* if you do it again in more trials with him he’s slowly going to start ignoring his initial objectives and just carry you around the map with him.

.｡❅* again he won’t admit he likes feeling this kind of contact with you, he’ll swear up and down that it’s just because he feels powerful when someone’s on his shoulder for long periods of time like some kind of prize catch.

.｡❅* regardless of whatever lame excuses he pulls to justify holding you so you, he makes it a mandatory task whenever he spots you in a trial, aswell as the occasional jingle of your body when you’re hoisted up just to see if you’ll ever retaliate.

.｡❅* you never do. he digs that.

•

𝕵𝖎-𝖂𝖔𝖔𝖓 𝕳𝖆𝖐—𝕿𝖍𝖊 𝕿𝖗𝖎𝖈𝖐𝖘𝖙𝖊𝖗

.｡❅* like Frank, he’s expecting you to fight him to get out of his grasp like your life depended on it— which it does.

.｡❅* maybe if he hits someone on your team with you on him you’ll do something? maybe even beg for him to spare everyone else & to just kill you?

.｡❅* wrong. you’re still just sitting there.

.｡❅* Ji-Woon doesn’t mind to say the least, attention is attention & you’re practically melted into his shoulder just pleased to have this much contact with another person. it’s a win-win for the two of you.

.｡❅* The Trickster is very.. tricky to say the least, he loves having you pressed up on him when he’s picked you up after a chase, but at the same time he still internally wants you to fight back. bite him at least.

.｡❅* he will still throw you onto a hook after a minute or two of you being up with him. he’s still got others to get rid of.

.｡❅* then again he doesn’t want to do too much to make you avoid him, he still wants to feel you lean into his hands when he hold your face up or when he’s holding you sturdy on his shoulder. it’s actually very nice when he’s making some kind of physical contact with you.

.｡❅* he’ll be annoying you whenever he’s caught you though, he’s aware that you’re not gonna do anything to get away but instead revel in this brief moment of physical contact with him of all people.

.｡❅* ❝ Should I hold you in a more comfortable position this time 여보 ? just for now until i unfortunately have to put you away. ❞

.｡❅* like i said — he’s annoying.

•

𝕶𝖆𝖟𝖆𝖓 𝖄𝖆𝖒𝖆𝖔𝖐𝖆—𝕿𝖍𝖊 𝕺𝖓𝖎

.｡❅* he will not notice this at all until after maybe the 7th trial with you. he’s a ruthless and feared killer, but you never seemed to care when he would carry you to your inevitable fate.

.｡❅* you had decompressed entirely on him multiple times, and Kazan was pissed to say the least.

.｡❅* the ‘Oni Yamaoka’ was known far and wide for his brutality across the country, even tearing apart the very lord that spat the foul nickname at him and his family’s name. he was less than eligible for you to feel comfortable enough to mould around.

.｡❅* he had full intentions to harm you to get a point across, but Jake was quick to get you away from The Oni with his flashlight.

.｡❅* Kazan was even more angry, because now he had to get you back so he could jam it into your head that he is not to be taken so lightly. he looked for every opportunity to get you slung over his shoulders again but fumbled every time he got you where you were wanted.

.｡❅* but every time you wound up in his grasp, you’d lay there enveloped in his touch. the idea of being brought to a hook or even the basement was irrelevant in the moment. it felt amazing basically sitting in the palm of his hand.

.｡❅* it makes him angrier whenever you do this, he’s so comfortable being feared by every living being that surrounded him & he was not adjusting well to the idea of you not groveling in that same fear like the other survivors.

.｡❅* you occasionally entertained him by pretending to be scared when he had caught up with you, which also made him angry. he didn’t ACTUALLY want you to feel that way, he just wanted you to know how the other survivors perceived him. he’s contradicting himself trying to ignore the fact he really does enjoy you being close to him.

.｡❅* he’ll actively start refraining from picking you up unless he needs to, which despite this he will still constantly pick you up. you get the impression he actually enjoys the skin to skin contact much more than what he wants you to believe.

•

𝕮𝖆𝖑𝖊𝖇 𝕼𝖚𝖎𝖓𝖓—𝕿𝖍𝖊 𝕯𝖊𝖆𝖙𝖍𝖘𝖑𝖎𝖓𝖌𝖊𝖗

.｡❅* he’s oblivious to it all at first, he doesn’t get why you always seemingly chose to turn into mush when he makes contact with you.

.｡❅* but he’s very pleased by this to say the least, even taking the courtesy to find a secluded space to sit down with you peacefully. he’ll carry you over to an exit when they open up.

.｡❅* you’re aware of the damage he can cause, not just to others but to you specifically. he was dangerous just like the next killer you’d have to go up against.

.｡❅* but that felt so irrelevant when your abdomen made contact with the harsh material of his coat for the first time. your worries and fears faded in an instant. even with all his jagged edges, his touch managed felt like pure velvet.

.｡❅* Caleb could sit down in one of the secret rooms of the saloon with you forever if The Entity allowed him to, you’re obviously enjoying the time spent on him; he doesn’t want to yank that peace away from you so suddenly.

.｡❅* he ups it a notch, placing a hand on the nape of your neck — being met with another deep exhale from you. he didn’t think it was possible to witness a person genuinely melt until now.

.｡❅* he’s also melting against your touch, you buried your head into his chest and he wanted to keep you on that spot. he hasn’t felt this close to another person in a long time.

.｡❅* The Deathslinger could be gentle if he wanted to, always doing his best to limit as much movement when you’re up high on his shoulders as to not disturb you, even though you didn’t particularly mind him moving around.

.｡❅* if he see’s another open opportunity outside of a trial, he will offer to let you sit on his shoulders again. you seemed very peaceful the last time, so why not experience it again without the time limit?

•

⋆┈｡ﾟ❃ུ۪ ❀ུ۪ ❁ུ۪ ❃ུ۪ ❀ུ۪ ﾟ｡┈⋆

please i beg of you give me more frank reqs he’s so fun to write for

[kerakeriza]

Damian Wayne: The Romantic

ever since damian's inception, he's always had a soft spot for romance, true love, and happy families. in particular, he always wanted his mother and father to make amends and come together to form a happy home, a cohesive unit.

let's talk about it!

(batman v1 #658, written by grant morrison, damian's creator)

as you can see, we get the first inkling of his inclination towards romance with this moment. yes, i know... talia's character was ruined the very moment morrison touched her. it's not as if she wasn't a romantic herself, though.

(batman v1 #240, written by dennis o'neil, talia's creator)

in fact, even bruce was a romantic back then.

(batman v1 #257, written by dennis o'neil)

seriously, how romantic is that? absolute poetry.

it only makes sense, then, that damian ended up the way he did. let's explore that a bit more, shall we?

(batman annual v1 #26, written by peter milligan)

you'll notice that in his earliest appearances, damian's speech patterns were much more... casual. they weren't yet elevated to the levels of a spoiled prince. his message remains, though. if his grandfather loved this woman, why didn't he simply give her a happily ever after? spoken like a true romantic, damian...

(robin v4 #169, written by peter milligan)

in this case, of course, damian is referring to familial love - but it still speaks to his heart. it's a sort of... "love will conquer all" mentality, and it drives him. it's embedded into his character already, and this is only the resurrection of ra's al ghul arc.

...there is more evidence of damian being a sucker for romance in battle for the cowl, but we can all agree to just skip over that, yeah? let's move on to his run as robin.

(batman: streets of gotham v1 #3, written by paul dini)

damian isn't very subtle, but he also isn't very open about wanting romance for *himself.* he obviously does want it for himself - but he's not going to just up and admit it. hence the "what's it to you?"

(batman and robin v1, #4, written by grant morrison)

damian oh-so enjoys the affectionate attention of women. again, he puts up an attitude about it, but it's all to disguise his inner enjoyment of it all.

(detective comics annual v1 #11, written by fabian nicieza)

when faced with an enemy attempting to seduce him, damian is very much *against* being taken advantage of. unlike the woman playfully calling him adorable, this is an actual threat. not only that, but note his exact words - "won't -- feel that way -- yet --"

this is not how he wants it to go. he doesn't want to feel unsafe, in the arms of a dangerous predator. when it does happen - which he expects it to, someday - it won't be anything like this. the only other way for it to be, though... is soft. warm. romantic. most of all, he wants to pursue it when he's *ready* for it. he'll express himself in the little ways, such as asking if katana is single, but he won't make any big moves. he's just a kid, but he's also just not that kind of person.

he's wise enough about romance to understand that he's just not ready for this *yet.*

(you'll notice a distinct departure in how he handles the issue of his own romantic life from here on out...)

(batman and robin v1 #12, written by grant morrison)

this is another instance of familial love rather than romantic love, however... it is also another instance of damian wearing his heart on his sleeve. he just wants to be loved for who he is, it's another piece of his very, very loving mentality. he is a sensitive soul, deep down.

(batgirl v3 #5, written by bryan q miller)

stephanie calls damian out for looking at her chest - of course, he denies it. (he can't have stephanie thinking he's some lecher.) naturally, he denies it by insulting her. that's just about how it usually goes for these two.

(batgirl v3 #6, written by bryan q miller)

at this point, damian has gotten good at using a good bit of teasing to repress his crushes. there's a real air of jealousy in how much he *emphasized* the word "boyfriend."

(batgirl v3 #6, written by bryan q miller)

even dick and barbara seem to agree that robin and batgirl of today mirror the robin and batgirl of yesterday. (if you'll recall, dick absolutely had a huge crush on barbara. it's kind of the whole reason they became a thing after a while.) dick already knows about damian's interest in older women... and given his own interest in older women, i doubt he cares that much - as long as it's just an unrequited crush from damian. (i'm sure dick wouldn't be okay with it if stephanie accepted the affections of an underage boy, even if that boy is damian.)

(world's finest, v4 #4, written by sterling gates)

as you can see, the teasing continues for a while.

(red robin v1 #12, written by chris yost)

damian once again can't behave himself around stephanie, but this time, he's even more forwardly mocking her appearance. well, mostly just her chest, but still. i fear that he knows older women are out of the question, so the best he can do is tease them. it's not as if that sort of flirting isn't being modeled for him on the daily by every vigilante in gotham. he was so much more pure of heart before he met the bats...

(red robin v1 #12, written by chris yost)

at this time, this might've been the *first* time that damian has ever actually given a... compliment? to tim. it's definitely the first time he's congratulated him. what can he say? he loves a little romance, even when it comes to the person he hates most. it probably helps that the engagement isn't to a woman he has a crush on himself.

(superman/batman v1 #77, written by joshua williamson)

as was the case with stephanie, with kara, damian also resorts to teasing - it's a bit less obvious if he truly has a crush on her, but if dick is on his case about it... he's usually right, that's all.

(batman and robin v1 #18, written by paul cornell)

this gives a bit more insight into why damian now chooses to repress his romantic side (and instead resorts to teasing those he has a crush on). of course, he knew his own parents' relationship was complicated... but nothing quite like this. he's had to bare witness to just how fake his father's affections can be towards other women, and he aches at the mere thought of becoming anything like that. he'd rather not date at all then *pretend* to like someone.

he'd much rather pretend *not* to like someone to protect everyone involved from the chaos that their own feelings may bring. he knows it all too well now, what indulging in your emotions can do to people. but his loving heart never left him. he tried hardening it, that's all... but if he truly didn't care about romance anymore, he wouldn't see such an issue with bruce's playboy ways. he's an advocate of true love - not whatever the hell that is.

...i hope that helped to illuminate the ways in which damian explores romance and affection (in many forms)! after ingratiating himself to gotham city, damian found himself repressing his crushes more and more, likely due to the environment surrounding him. the other vigilantes all tangle themselves into knots, and it seems that damian would personally rather avoid coming to terms with his own affections, especially when he knows they'll lead absolutely nowhere. as much as he likes to pretend that he's older than he really is, he's not an idiot. he knows what he isn't ready for, even if he really wants it someday. even if the concept of true love pervades his very mindset. it's something he really, really wants... for his parents, and for himself... someday. when he feels ready for it - ready to accept that it may cause trouble, just as it did for his parents, and for the countless villains he faces on a day-to-day basis. he'll overcome it all when he's ready.

[writingquestionsanswered]

How do you stop being insecure about writing and how do you become less sensitive to criticism?

Confidence in Writing, Less Sensitivity to Criticism

While few writers are ever completely secure in their writing ability (confidence can increase or decrease with mood, project difficulty, and other factors), your confidence in your writing will grow naturally as you write more and more. In other words, it's not something that just happens. You have to spend a lot of time writing a lot of things, and your confidence will build as you go.

You can help the process along by:

-- reading a lot -- writing a lot -- honing your craft via learning about writing -- seeking feedback from writing partners/beta readers/editors, etc. -- learning your weaknesses and improving them -- learning your strengths and embracing them

Becoming less sensitive to criticism is a little bit trickier, especially because there can be complicated things that play into it, like past experiences, present mood and mindset, Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria, etc.

However, if you're someone who is sensitive to criticism, I cannot stress enough how important it is to simply avoid reading reviews and comments left by readers. If you want feedback you can learn from, seek that out through a qualified writing friend, critique partner, beta reader, editor, etc. and let them know in advance that you're sensitive to criticism so they work with you to give you the feedback you need in the least upsetting way possible. And even with feedback from a qualified person, remember that writing feedback is rarely truly objective. People always bring their personal preferences and own ideas into the feedback they give, so just because a qualified person criticizes something you wrote doesn't mean they're absolutely right or that you're a bad writer. Feedback is there for you to weigh and use only if you agree it will benefit your story.

Something else that helps to remember is that even the best, most critically acclaimed writers in the world have people who hate their writing. Tolstoy, Dickens, Poe, Hemingway, Steinbeck, Austen, Woolf, Christie, Angelou, Atwood, Gaimen, King, Morrison, Allende... every single one of them has thousands of 1-star reviews, critical reviews, and people who just can't stand their writing. Yet, they're all popular writers known the world over, with millions of books sold, and universally loved. All of these names appear on lists of the greatest writers of all time.

And, something else... the degree to which criticism bothers you will decrease as your confidence increases. Not just because confidence naturally thickens your skin, but also because you learn to tell the difference between haters and people with genuinely good points.

I hope that helps!

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

I’ve been writing seriously for over 30 years and love to share what I’ve learned. Have a writing question? My inbox is always open!

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