#Some neating up and there we go

[welcometogrouchland]

[ID in ALT] I've made posts before about Talia/Dick co-parenting Damian moments (will never happen but let me dream) and this came to me in a vision. Took me ages to finish for some reason 😭 and then even longer to post

[t-u-i-t-c]

"That's the kinda thing... That I hate."

[necrotic-nephilim]

I’m gonna be honest I didn’t realize the new 52 messed with Kon that much till I read your post and now I can’t get over the potential. I’m a Tim/Kon girly at heart so I would devour anything you write exploring the 52 vs typical Kon. Also Time being in a clone sandwich is 👌.

the new-52 messed Kon up SO bad it's ridiculous. like, to the point i would personally argue he's a completely unrelated character to pre-Flashpoint/Rebirth Kon. his personality, his suit, his origin, all different. the only real similarities are the name and powerset. and even New-52!Kon's powers are slightly different from pre-Flashpoint!Kon. New-52!Kon is a clone of a future version of Jon Lane Kent, cloned by N.O.W.H.E.R.E. to provide genetic material to Jon Lane Kent, whose body was not handling being half human/half Kryptonian well, it was a whole thing. New-52!Kon is also where we get the infamous "Kon-El means 'abomination of the house of El' and Kara basically named him a slur in Kryptonian culture" tidbit, because that is the only time that's canon. (originally Kon-El was a name gifted by Clark to accept Kon as his family way back in the 90s) he also never went by Conner Kent. New-52!Kon just straight up didn't have any real human identity or connections, outside of being very close to Tim and some Titans.

the very TLDR of Kon's history is: during post-Crisis/pre-Flashpoint, a clone called Superboy is created by CADMUS. at first, he's considered to be a clone of a dude named Paul Westfield and is not Kryptonian whatsoever, he was simply made to look like Superman and only has Tactile Telekinesis as a power. then, it was made canon that actually he was a clone of Lex Luthor and Clark Kent, but Lex hid this fact and slowly, Kon developed more Kryptonian powers. he's given the name Kon-El by Clark, and is taken in by the Kents, getting the name Conner Kent. then Flashpoint happens, we get the New-52, and we're given the above version of Kon-El, who is a clone of Jon Lane Kent, created by N.O.W.H.E.R.E. who has mostly very strong telekinesis powers and some Kryptonian powers. he's with the Titans for a bit, then at the end of the New-52, he kills some aliens and feels bad about it so he decides to fuck off and is never seen again, it's presumed he's dead but never confirmed. then Rebirth happens and DC makes Jon Kent the current Superboy, we get Supersons and all that, and it's assumed that no version of Kon-El exists. just at all. he's not around whatsoever, Jon is our only Superboy. *but* in 2019, we get a new Young Justice run and the pre-Flashpoint Kon-El is back, and we're given the explanation of: Kon got accidentally teleported to this alternate realm called Gemworld and then Flashpoint happened, and since that was a Crisis Event that changed the timeline, the poor lad got *erased* from the timeline, causing most people to *not fucking remember him* and for him to remember a timeline that no longer exists. some of the Young Justice team vaguely remember him, Ma and Pa Kent remember him, but notably, Clark *does not remember him*. it's not an issue of "Clark ignored Kon in favor of Jon" it's an issue of "Kon was erased from the timeline and didn't exist for years bc he was stuck in Gemworld and Clark just doesn't remember Kon or Kon's timeline" which to me, is far more tragic but i digress. since then, Kon has been back and is present in most significant Superfamily runs, with his own recent mini-series, Superboy: Man of Tomorrow. (which was very good btw)

so basically: the New-52 fucked Kon up so bad they wrote him out of comics for years and then brought back the pre-Flashpoint version, but never *explicitly* killed the New-52 version off. so hypothetically, it's possible that there are currently two characters existing in the DC universe named Kon-El who have been Superboy. and like i said above, one of New-52!Kon's only real significant relationships was with Tim, it was the only thing the New-52 managed to get right about Superboy, his closeness to Tim. they have a *lot* of moments that read incredibly queer. and ofc, it's just outright confirmed in Dark Crisis: Young Justice that Tim had a crush on pre-Flashpoint!Kon at some point. so while comics are intent on pretending New-52!Kon doesn't exist, i am intent on putting Tim in a clone sandwich.

because i do think it's fun to play with Tim having genuine feelings and potentially a relationship with both of them. and the fucked up nature of him not fully *remembering* his relationship with pre-Flashpoint!Kon (which is a canon thing, in YJ(2019) Tim has vague memories of Kon he's struggling to piece together and understand why he cares about this guy he doesn't recognize so much) and how frustrating that is for Tim. he knows he loves Kon, but it's all foggy besides that. and so it's even *more* fucked up if Tim dated New-52!Kon before he got emo and ran off into the unknown. obviously in canon no one has told current Kon about New-52!Kon bc comics are doing the good ol' tried and true of "sweep that shit under the rug" but for fanfic, i think it's fun to ask the question of: would anyone *tell* Kon? especially Tim? who now remembers dating both versions of them? would he admit to Kon that briefly, he had another Kon? how would Tim cope with that and move on? personality wise, they could not be more different. they dress and act and look different. they're not the same person, but there's certainly a questionable factor of Tim's dating history including two Kon-Els.

the idea i've had for a while is Tim slowly starting to date pre-Flashpoint!Kon again. it feels familiar and like home. and Tim has grieved and accepted that wherever New-52!Kon is, he doesn't want to come home, he didn't love TIm enough to stay and try. so Tim takes the Kon he has, and genuinely has a happy relationship. like for once, life is good and things almost make sense for Tim. but then, of course, New-52!Kon comes back. he decides he wants to try again and he finds Tim. only to find well. he's been replaced. and technically, he's been replaced with the *original* that he didn't even know *existed*. and if being a clone is bad enough, that just makes it a hundred times worse. because imagine knowing you're actually the second Kon-El your boyfriend who you never *technically* broke up with fell in love with. that's gotta give you some kind of complex.

so i think it's fun if both Kons try to step back and let the other Kon date Tim. both of them have reasons to feel like the "replacement" or "fake" Kon, and it makes them incredibly awkward with each other. do they count as the same person? bc they definitely don't *feel* like the same person to each other, but with weird timeline stuff, who can really say. them settling on an awkward throuple that's really meant to be Tim just dating them both but somehow they end up dating each other too is so fun for me. they both feel like imposters to the Superboy name but are so deeply in love with Tim Drake, it's the one thing truly connecting them. and then of course, Tim feels bad in that somehow, he's betraying both of them for having feelings for the other. but they make it work, with a lot of awkward angst and miscommunication. i just think it'd be fun. very difficult to write to get all the weird timeline nuances down in a way that's understandable in a fanfic (bc you can't just. infodump like i did on this post) but doable. also difficult to tag, because even though i argue these are two different characters, i'm pretty sure Ao3 groups them under the same character tag. so it'd be difficult to convey it's not *really* as selfcest-y as it would imply. comics, man. DC will never acknowledge New-52!Kon again, and he's admittedly a terrible adaptation of Kon-El, but. i think he was sort of neat in his own right and i'd *love* for DC to just inexplicably bring him back and make the current Kon deal with the consequences of all that. and them make Tim kiss them both. obviously.

[seaglassdinosaur]

I know we collectively agree that Hiccup isn’t romantically inclined, and his getting married and having kids didn’t make sense in the epilogue, but consider: Hiccup getting married for political reasons.

It’s a marriage of alliance, which is recognized both by him and his partner, and they enter it without expectations of romantic involvement. Since they’re now married, they live in the same castle, spend time together, and Hiccup finds he really likes his spouse. They’re funny, get along with his friends, and has the same interests and values. They both probably speak multiple languages. She understands why Hiccup is so dedicated to making the Wilderwest better, and holds similar views. She’s a good politician (her job after all, was to be an ambassador). Hiccup likes spending time with them, and the feeling is mutual. They’re not in love, they have their own lives, but they’re dedicated to each other and eventually decide to raise children. They teach their kids how to train hawks and hunt with dragons, riding, history, the Languages, and all the necessary skills of their world. They’re not in love and they’re happy together.

[pastafossa]

Thanks to EVERYONE'S recommendations on my post about How Do I Get A Knitting Circle To Adopt Me - A Woodcarver - Into Their Group, I have discovered:

My local library has a knitting/crochet club that welcomes other crafts, too! I will be attending that tomorrow, so maybe they'll adopt me!

There's a local woodcarving group that has monthly meetups! Granted it meets at a senior center and membership is encouraged which I can't do obviously but I'm going to see if that's like, a hard line or not

There are a couple small, independent craft stores that might have leads on more groups, I'll be trying to hit those up in the next few weeks and see if they have any leads!

My witchy shop used to have crafting meetups, I saw it on old FB events! That will be starting back up again soon, so I can hit that up too!

And here's a tentative one - there were so many others like me who expressed the same sadness of not being able to find a little crafting group where we could all work on our respective crafts and just have fun with crafty friends and learn neat things. So I'm talking to a friend about how complicated it would be to set up a discord server for us, because gd it, I know we all live far apart but if there's a way for all of us to do a craft night together once a month or whatever and become crafty friends, we should be able to do it, along with showing off our interesting things we make in between! So put a pin in this one, since I've only ever used discord, not really run one, but if I can make it work, I'm going to try when I have some time.

[loud-whistling-yes]

nobody touch me i just read kj encore and SO NO ONE'S GONNA FUCKING TALK ABOUT HACHI COMPETING WITH JOKER TO BECOME A THIEF???????

[chiropteracupola]

yes that's right it's a

TINY KEITH AND EWEN ACTUAL REAL SCOTLAND ADVENTURE!

Keith at what remains of Fort William

2. Keith in Fort Augustus (with a thematically appropriate rose branch)

3. Ewen in the woods somewhere outside Fort Augustus

4. Ewen at Holyrood Palace

5. Keith in the woods somewhere outside Fort Augustus

6. Ewen in the woods somewhere outside Fort Augustus

7-9. Keith at Edinburgh Castle

10. Ewen at Edinburgh Castle

[hadesknockedupintheunderworld]

You know, I'm glad that some of us take the step to embrace things that we like even if they're "cringe" or "objectively bad"

But perhaps we could take the next step forward and embrace the idea of reading into books/shows/movies/etc even if they don't seem deep. Perhaps we could understand that the two kinds of media aren't either "shallow and meaningless so you're weird and brainrotted to read into it" or "incredibly and profoundly deep in every way so if you don't analyze every single angle of the thing then you're brainrotted". Some media is deeper than others, but all I propose is that no matter how deep it seems it's acceptable to dig into the thing and take the media seriously instead of just assuming that because of ____ thing (such as target audience or how cringe it is) the media not deep and will never be deep and everything good about it happened on accident.

[mabaris]

alright so now that we’ve gotten some actual crumbs, it feels like it’s a good time to lay out my prediction for what da4 is going to look like. writing this in a letter and mailing it to myself

we are part of an underground organization formed from the ruins of the inquisition to stop solas from ending the world

meanwhile the wardens have been researching the blight/the location of the archdemons and discover some secret about the location of the black city/what is actually contained in it

we’re supposed to be shocked at the reveal that the evanuris are trapped in the black city and the maker doesn’t exist

the ancient elves were in control of some crazy mutating technology (like in hormak) and that was the original source of the darkspawn. the whole thing about them being from the deep roads and a dwarf concern was actually just a red herring, they’re just underground because they’re powered by lyrium and this has ALSO been an elf thing the whole time :)

anyway, now we need to Double Make Sure the veil stays up because the evanuris have something even worse cooking up in the black city and we need to prevent them from unleashing a super blight and destroying all life, and our job is to convince solas to give up, not because we disagree with his plan but because his actions will have unintended consequences. even if he doesn’t care about everyone else and wants to rebuild the world, he won’t even be able to do THAT because the super blight will kill elves too. so although we WERE enemies we will have to band together to defeat the greater threat etc. it will be optional to recruit him as an ally/advisor, or you can just fight him directly and take control of his forces

we will have to cross into the fade AGAIN and storm the black city directly to put a stop to whatever’s going on in there

[supersecretnerd]

Ok so these designs are cute as hell, the Internet is just mean

I have too many thoughts about a game I still need to watch

[teaandinanity]

It continues to give me the warm fuzzies that basically every person at work has said they'll miss me. And it's not really utility, even if I'm useful; I am not in a critical position. There are many people who can do the things I do, even if the majority are less experienced. I'm not management, or a lynchpin, just a long-time worker bee.

But people like me, and I just handled a Crisis Situation well enough that the AD took the time to personally thank me, and my manager was like 'not only am I willing to be a reference you can use my personal phone number if that's easier' and even some of the newest additions said they're going to miss me on desk, and I just.

I love my job and my coworkers and it's really nice that the people there know it and love me back.

[emdotcom]

*remembers what they did to Vanny* 500 FUCKING PIPEBOMB ATTACK.

[ereborne]

Song of the Day: February 23

“Inkpot Gods” by The Amazing Devil

[tennessoui]

I adore the TA AU, but I feel like it needs a few more snippets before it could go on Ao3 and feel like a proper fic (not b/c of word count, but because it feels like there are a few key emotional moments missing). (What there is is so good!)

i guess that's the question though, like. a lot of my ficlets i have are just that--ficlets, meant to either lead into another ficlet eventually or lead into answering asks about the ficlet where i then talk more about the au and it gets all fleshed out.

is posting just a ficlet enough on ao3 or is it dishonest to what the au is on tumblr?

i think the ta au is a good example of that, where there are multiple ficlets but it may not feel complete in ficlet form because part of the au is the short ask answers and tags and head canon reblogs that can't be translated over easily to ao3 because it was born on tumblr and it's by it's nature a tumblr au

another example i think would be the princess diaries au where there are 2-3 really good ficlets i like a lot that i think people would like to read but they are by no means close-ended and they're written to leave the concept open to embellishment later on

so when it comes to aus like those, do i wait, do i try to write more, do i keep them solely on tumblr....and when it comes to aus that are JUST one ficlet but left-open ended, does that get to go on ao3?? do i wait?? do i try to write more?? at that point, is that no longer a copy-paste over project and an active effort to translate from tumblr norms to ao3 ones?

[hexados-on-a-string]

the only reason hydron didnt live is bc if he was part of the brawler's interdimensional found family, that'd involve him getting a character arc on account of actually having a support system and also the fact that zenoheld is dead and they didn't wanna write that so they just killed off hydron. this lives in my brain though.

[joyfulsoda]

Interview With Geoff Packard

Hi! It’s been about a week or so since I’ve posted about the fact that I had an interview I had with Mr. Packard, and I figured I would write up a transcript of the whole thing just because! I would post the audio, but the quality is not the best and also I do not like the sound of my voice on recordings. The entire interview was about 16 minutes long and both he and I speak pretty fast (there are a lot of words), so there will be a td;lr at the bottom.

For context, this interview was for a music class I’m currently in, where we had to present on a song that we like - specifically on how the music was written to make us feel, and how it actually made us feel. We could only play two minutes’ worth of whatever piece we chose, so I chose Proud Riff because it’s under two minutes and I figured I could put the clip from the show into my presentation. The idea to ask about an interview came later!

Before I begin, he was an incredibly nice man to talk to and I was super, super nervous but that went away a few minutes in! He asked if I planned on recording it and that he would be okay with it, I said I was, and then we got right into it!

-------------

Me: “So, to begin, obviously because you portrayed Wayne on Broadway, I thought it would be interesting to ask how the music influenced your performance. So, as an actor, how did the music of Proud Riff make you feel?

Him: “How did it make me feel..? Um, well, I think the music is sort of optimistic, I feel like it sort of bops and it’s sort of a swing tune and it’s sort of lighter than what is going on in Wayne Wright’s world. Although, the sort of genesis of that song was a conversation Andy Blankenbuehler and I had - Andy Blankenbuehler, the director, choreographer- (laughs) Tony Award-winning choreographer... We had a conversation about what their day-to-day lives may have looked like, and how we don’t really represent a lot of that for the rest of the guys, we see sort of what Donny goes through, but the rest of the guys that came back from the war, we didn’t get to see what their day-to-day was.

“And so, there was a couple iterations of what that Proud Riff would be, and we decided it was how Wayne would be spending his time at home, getting his kids ready for pre-school or school or something, and how he... sort of locks into a habit, or locked into a habit, y’know, he was obsessive-compulsive and he... really used his habits to sort of survive during war time. And we talked about how he probably gained that sort of germaphobia that he has in the play in his trench warfare, because of the necessity to keep everything clean and to have a clean, firing weapon, and all that stuff. So... We talked about that. On an otherwise normal, sunny day, what he might be doing during the day, and that’s where that came from. And so I think the music is sort of sunny, cheerful, and he’s... slowly, y’know, through the habit of cleaning his gun, is trying to stay sunny, and just simply can’t. And I think that’s where the minor changes come towards the end of the song, if I remember correctly. And all the rhythmic hits at the end that are physicalized through tap, and the sort of twitches that Wayne would have- that’s sort of a manifestation of his memory coming back, or him not being able to control those memories.”

Me: “That, actually, was really insightful. And y’know, like... you can kind of see that on stage, but to hear that directly coming from you, it’s like “oh, so that wasn’t just up to interpretation, that was actually what was happening.”

Him: “Yeah! You know, I think- so, for anybody that might be listening to this, I teach at the University of Michigan now, and so, the next generation of theater artists are what I care deeply about, and certainly when I was training, or when I was a young person sort of experiencing shows or reading a play for the first time, I often thought: “Wow! How do they come up with this? This is, y’know, Arthur Miller just writes a play and just, hands it in, and this is the thing?” And what I’ve learned over time is that it’s much more of a collaboration from all parties involved, so, it’s not that Richard Oberacker and Rob Taylor wrote everything you saw on stage in one sitting and then shared it with us- they wrote a lot of it and had a first draft, then we all collaborated and had different ideas that helped them have other ideas. It did not occur until previews, I think, of the Broadway production. We had done a production at the Paper Mill Playhouse that did not have that piece in the show at all, but through conversation and through an idea of how to give a little more insight in their lives, they created that.

“And I should mention, a large part of that creation came from Greg Anthony Rassen and Bill Elliott, who were the orchestrators of the piece. They wrote all the dance pieces and orchestrations, too, so they were very involved in that sort of collaborative process, and y’know, that’s what you got to see on stage.”

Me: “That’s really cool! Well, um... With that last question, you kind of answered the other questions I was going to ask, um...”

Him: “Sorry.” (imagine someone saying sorry in all lowercase).

Me: “No, no, that’s totally fine! I was just going to ask like, how the music influenced what Wayne was doing on the stage, and you answered that with him twitching and, y’know, him having his physical manifestations of trying to stay sunny, and how some of the stuff he did towards the end of the piece coincides with the minor tones and all the hits and stuff, so thank you so much for that.”

Him: “Mhm.”

Me: “So, because I wanted to keep this short, I didn’t have many questions to ask you- relating to Proud Riff; can I ask just, like, one personal question that doesn’t relate to it at all?”

Him: “Sure!”

Me: “Just because I was curious, uh, because Wayne is a Lieutenant in the show, I was doing some research and I found out that most Officers have college degrees, and I just wanted to ask what you think he might’ve gotten his degree in, because- well, I don’t know, it was just something I kind of wanted to know.”

Him: “Yeah! Oh my god, I’d have to go back to my original, sort of, research journal... Um... For that. I feel like at one point in time, I knew where he went to college, and I knew what he studied, but I don’t- I mean, y’know, in my mind what he studied, and it’s not in the script, and I don’t remember really talking about that- I know we talked about him being a Lieutenant a lot, and how that would have led to him being a leader, and not being very content under Donny as the leader of the band (laughs). But what would he study..? The thing that comes to my mind is something mathematical, so I wanna say an engineer of some kind.”

Me: “Oh, that’s interesting!”

Him: “Well, I feel like he, of all of the musicians in the band, he was obviously the most strict and maybe square of everybody? Y’know, I wouldn’t call him an improvisor, y’know, he has that famous line “If it ain’t on the page, it ain’t on the stage.”

Me: “I was actually gonna mention that when you said what you did about him and Donny not gelling well at first.”

Him: “Yeah! Well, you know, he is the only officer in the group, and what that would mean for these gentlemen, y’know, they know that more than- oh, what would they be called, I wanna say muggles and it’s not- civilians! They would know that more than civilians, so we talked about the relationships in that way, but yeah, I think he would be- I forget what it was, but I think it’s sort of engineering, or something that involves something that can be accomplished through math, and that has a specific answer and an end to it.”

Me: “That makes a lot of sense for him. Well, that all I really wanted to ask.”

Him: “Do you still have some time? Do you have any more questions? I mean, we’ve got three more minutes.”

Me: “Well, let me see if I can think of something, uhhhhh..!”

Him: “Oh, remind me, did you see the show- did you see it live, or did you see the Fathom Events recording?”

Me: “I really wish I could have seen it live; however, in 2017 I was only 14, and going from [REDACTED LOCATION] to New York was... Well, that wouldn’t have been possible, unfortunately, so I’ve only been able to see the professional recording, and- and I love it, I need to rewatch it again. But yeah, y’know, I do really love the show, I like going back and looking at all the little details that happen, like not necessarily what the focus is on the stage, but also looking at all the side interactions- like, there was one time I went back and watched, and I noticed that in Breathe, right after Davy makes his comment about Nick, the “choreography” bit, you walked over to Mr. Ellis, and y’know, Davy just gave Wayne a salute, and it was the funniest thing to me for forever. And these aren’t things that you notice on the first watch-through, but going back and looking at all of it is just- it’s just fun.”

Him: “And the interesting thing about the filmed version of it is that, since film and TV is such a visual medium, the editors, which I think Andy (Blankenbuehler) was a part of, they sort of tell you where to look. If you think about all the things that you’re like “Oh, I missed this from the filmed version,” there’s infinitely more moments like that when you have a whole stage that you can look at. So unless it was in a wide shot on the Fathom Events version of it, you only got to see what the editor wanted you to see in those moments, so... Y’know, that’s why I was asking you if you saw the live version. I really loved the Fathom version, and I’m so grateful that it exists; there’s really no substitute for being in the room. Although you can’t, y’know, you can’t rewind, it, so... (laughs) You just get what you get, you know?”

(After this point, we have a short conversation about me! There are a few identifying details in this section that I don’t feel comfortable sharing, though, so I would rather not type them out.)

Ta-da!

Td;lr:

Proud Riff was meant to give an insight into Wayne’s everyday life.

It shows how on an average day, the sun might be shining, but Wayne is still struggling.

Wayne most likely developed his germaphobia due to being involved in trench warfare, out of the necessity to keep everything clean and working.

(Including this just because some people might not have seen interviews where it is confirmed) Wayne has OCD, cleaning his gun is a ritual.

The taps are meant to be a physical manifestation of the memories that haunt Wayne- the ones he cannot control.

Proud Riff was not in the Paper Mill Playhouse production of the show.

Wayne obtained a degree in engineering or something relating to math. He likes how they have specific answers and ends.

Wayne is the only Officer in the Donny Nova Band. He usually takes on leadership positions and does not enjoy Donny being the band leader at first.

Wayne is, in Geoff Packard’s mind, the most strict and square out of everyone in the band. 

Wayne is not an improvisor.

There were a lot of side interactions onstage that we did not get to see in the Fathom Events recording. Sad day. :(