#lizarr7

[strqyr]

If I may; where does your "cinder is a branwen" theory come from? What lead you to that potential conclusion?

okay, so, some context: this is during the hiatus between V5 and V6. it's middle of the night, and i'm neck deep thinking about raven's "family. only coming around when they need something." because while that fits yang, it hardly fits qrow; that was raven seeking him out, not the other way around.

the sensible part of me was having a wonderful time connecting this to summer—i.e. summer found raven because she needed help with her mission—however, the gremlin in me that revels in chaos went welllll... cinder & co showed up days later, needing something from raven.

now. this is also during the time when i'm already thinking it's a bit suspicious that words such as "dead" and "killed" were avoided when talking about summer (directly or in-directly), so to nib this chaotic thought before it had a chance to bloom, i had to check if the word "need" comes up at any point during raven's talks with qrow, yang, and cinder & co.

unfortunately for me, it does. qrow says it: "i don't know where the spring maiden is, either, but if you do, i need you to tell me." yang says it, too: "i just need you to take me to her." and finally, cinder says it not just once, but twice: "and now, all we need is the key to the vault." // "we just... need... the relic.", while watts doesn't.

so with that little thing established, the gremlin was free to roam as it pleased, creating a perspective that made certain other things look a little bit different, such as:

the parallels between cinder and yang that were at their peak during V4 and V5, including their interactions with raven

raven knowing 'fall' isn't cinder's original last name but one she chose (something something last name denotes family connection and cinder chose hers, essentially hiding hers), as well as describing emerald and mercury as "two children you've tricked into following you", implying that she has been keeping an eye on cinder even before beacon.

the feathers in cinder's brooch are described as "iridescent feathers (dark green & black)" in her concept art, pretty much what you'd expect from feathers of corvids (especially ravens and crows)

this brooch also sticks around for all of cinder's main outfits, perhaps implying it's important in some way (e.g. ruby's brooch was more than just an emblem, it belonged to summer)

raven's portals and cinder's explosions (that she creates with her semblance) look extremely similar—if not exactly same—outside the change of color; and being real here if summer's semblance also emits rose petals like ruby's does but white, i might just lose it here lmao

this is more funny to me but like. you can't go "you sound just like your mother" and then have both raven and cinder say similar things, e.g. some variation of "it's nothing personal", or even just raven being smug and referring to qrow as "little brother" only for cinder to come in moments later, smugly referring to qrow as "little bird". what is a poor soul supposed to think at that moment when i'm already preoccupied with "they never said summer is dead -> summer is alive" 😭

cinder's backstory revealing that she started from an orphanage obviously didn't help this matter, either

anyway, having said all that, i honestly don't expect this to lead into... well. anything. like if it did i would be surprised myself and i would never theorize about anything ever again, it would just be downhill from there lmao

ngl tho, it's great fuel for AUs.

[doe-prince]

Hey, are you on bluesky? Looking for ppl to follow over there!

I actually just put myself on waitlist yesterday, so eventually I'll be there!

[emkini]

I saw this on twitter and I just thought u might get a kick out of it. I personally laughed my ass off. Kommander Karl on X: "“Traffic laws weren’t invented until 1901” Driving in the 1890s: https://t.co/3E2qBBmZYn" / X (twitter.com) (it's horse related)

ASgkjsdghk thank you I love that

[amelia-mariee]

rules: shuffle your “on repeat” playlist and post the first 10 tracks, then tag 10 people

thank you for the tag @backgroundagent3 :)))

1. San Francisco - The Mowgli’s

2. Wake Me Up When September Ends - Green Day

3. Stick Season - Noah Kahan

4. Catch Your Dream - Mouse Rat feat. Duke Silver)

5. All-American Bitch - Olivia Rodrigo

6. Ocean Man - Ween

7. Bubbly - Colbie Caillat

8. Accidentally In Love - Counting Crows

9. You’re So Damn Hot - OK Go

10. Enchanted Suite - Alan Menken

just found this in my drafts. did i seriously never post this? sorry

NO PRESSURE TAGGING

@wandas-apologist

@secondvarian

@lizarr7

@alyssmainwarning

@cosmicqvake

@daryfromthefuture

@gamora-borealis

@tremorsmackenzie

@sunshinebeetle24

@jennaortegaslegalwife

[bestworstcase]

Loved your recent Light & Dark meta, but I am curious, how would you rationalize Dark's decision to fuck up the moon when he left, seemingly just to be a dick?

well it’s less about rationalizing (<- in the common sense of constructing a moral justification) than it is trying to tease out whether and to what degree dark may have intended for humankind to be reborn from the ashes—or in other words if he was primarily motivated by emotional reaction to salem/light/the rebellion or else playing the long game to get his brother to leave with him.

the… for lack of a better phrase, ‘lightest grey’ reading here is that dark let his brother curse salem, vaporized millions of people, and left the whole planet in flames behind him as a gambit to liberate humanity from himself and his brother, because he no longer believed that compromise was possible. that’s interesting from a character perspective but by no means does it make him ‘good’ or ‘right’—and in the broader sense of rationalization as simply explaining why he does things, it probably bears repeating again that dark is an emotional being who is clearly very, very fed up with the situation and it’s not contradictory for him to both have an agenda and act with petty cruelty while pursuing it.

with that being said, hinges OFF!

i’m gonna also tag in @lizarr7’s reply on the op because it’s salient to the topic and probably the best place to begin:

Light is afraid of change. I think that's the simplest and most distilled way of putting it.

Also I'm not convinced we've seen the last of Dark. After all, if the tree kicked them out on the terms that they couldn't return until they found unity or whatever, why would it let one brother in without the other, especially when the very reason he is returning is because they haven't? I don't think dark could ascend if he wanted to. I don't think the tree would let him.

as a point of clarification, while the tree makes the door for the brothers explicitly because their fight is harming the ever after, they are not exiled in the punitive sense and it is actually somewhat unclear whether they were made to leave as opposed to just being given the means to; more broadly it’s unclear to what extent the tree is an active force at all.

i don’t think the tree is entirely passive—the blacksmith is an aspect of the tree and obviously she is a thinking, feeling being with philosophical opinions!—but a core tenet of the blacksmith’s ideology is non-intervention. the joy of creating is “the not knowing [what the creations will become]” and balance is “an ecosystem, an organism, a living breathing thing” which “cannot be restored with force or calculation” because “true balance finds its own equilibrium.” that’s a pretty hard line against direct interference or management, and when ruby finds her in the tree, the blacksmith tells her “the only thing that can happen to you here is what you want to happen; the choice of what you become and where you end up is yours to make.” she offers ruby guidance because ruby isn’t able to articulate what she wants, but she can’t (or at least, won’t) make ruby’s choices for her. the red prince is an important data point here in that it’s demonstrably possible to ascend toward the worst version of yourself instead of the best, if you do choose. so i don’t think the tree would ever prohibit an ascension, for better or worse.

in any case, this is how the blacksmith recounts the brothers’ departure:

The Ever After could no longer bear the Brothers’ experiments. And so, the Tree built them a special doorway to a greater beyond where the Brothers could try creating worlds of their own. A doorway that would remain open for the Brothers’ return, and any of their creations. And what truly remarkable things they accomplished, whenever the Brothers’ creations have come to the Ever After.

i do not get the sense that the tree intended their exile as a punishment or imposed any restrictions on when or how they could return, beyond “if you’re going to fight, take it outside.” rather i think the brothers took this “greater beyond” as a place where they could resolve a vicious fight neither of them wanted to be having and reconcile with each other. before all of this happened they were constant companions who did everything together! they were always very different, but for a long time they found harmony in their differences, not conflict.

before they leave, dark glances at light and inclines his head as if to ask “ready?” and then waits for light to nod before he steps through. there’s some tension under the surface—dark is standing rather stiffly with his hands clenched into fists behind his back, he’s not super happy to be leaving—but a sense of camaraderie also. and of course the whole thing ultimately kicked off because the brothers wanted to try new things and see what else they could do. the tree kicked them out in the way that you’d tell roughhousing kids to go play outside. it’s a consequence of bad behavior but not a punishment.

hence my thinking is that the brothers themselves were deeply invested in negotiating a compromise and tried their absolute best to do so, but were stymied by their incompatible ideas about, fundamentally, the value of destruction and the place it should have in their world.

the narrative of ‘the two brothers’ is, i think, probably accurate in the essentials of what the conflict developed into:

Though they had distinct personalities and competing desires, they were still connected and did not feel whole unless they were together. Since they could not agree on where to go, they decided to create a world for themselves.

[…]

One day the God of Light approached his brother. “I have been trying to create a beautiful world for us, but your creations spoil it.”

“Your creations are almost as dull as the unending void was,” said the God of Darkness. “If this place is going to entertain us, we need to make things lively.” With that, the God of Darkness brought forth earthquakes and volcanoes that tore his brother’s continent apart into smaller lands, boiled the oceans, rained fire and ash, and wiped out all the living things.

(NB: the creations light refers to are the moon, deserts, mountains, canyons, and grimm. humans do not exist for the grimm to prey on yet so this is wholly a quarrel over aesthetics; light wants everything to be lush and tranquil, dark wants a world in endless motion. note how the main point of contention here is just “plate tectonics, yes or no?”)

[…]

“Brother,” said the God of Light one day. “Why do you take pleasure in torturing and destroying my creations?”

The God of Darkness smiled. “You take so much joy in their creation, I merely want you to be able to do more of it.”

[…]

The God of Light wanted his brother to see the world as he did, to comprehend the responsibility that came with their immense power. And so, he made a bold proposal:

“What if we create a new form of life together, one more capable and fascinating than the animals and insects? We can make them aware of what they are, and empower them to control and shape their world.”

The God of Darkness was intrigued. “If they can think and communicate as we do, they won’t be as predictable as the things you’ve made before.”

“There is one condition, Brother,” said the God of Light. “If we create these beings together, then we must share in any decisions about their fate. You must promise not to wipe them out on a whim; they must have the chance to find their own destiny and rule or ruin this world we have made for them.”

[…]

For a time, the brothers were satisfied with what they had made together and they watched Humanity adapt and flourish. People spread across the planet, and if the God of Darkness occasionally tossed adversity their way in the form of natural disasters like a flood or tornado, the God of Light then blessed them with bountiful harvests and fair weather.

The God of Darkness was interested in testing the Humans’ limits and admired their resourcefulness. Following a devastating earthquake, rather than give in to despair and accept failure, Humans rebuilt their homes—stronger than before, so they would survive the next quake. And though they grieved their lost loved ones, they picked up and pressed on. The God of Light underestimated the Humans, overprotective of their creations, but the God of Darkness saw how they thrived in facing challenges and grew in overcoming them.

[…]

“Your abominations [grimm] are killing the Humans,” the God of Light told his brother. “Get rid of them.”

“You protested whenever I wiped out your creations, but now you want to do the same to mine?” the God of Darkness snapped.

“Your creatures are not alive. They are crafted from malice and hate, with the sole purpose of destroying all that is good in the world.”

The God of Darkness scowled. “Is that what you think of me, Brother? Never forget: You and I are the same.”

with the context provided by 9.10 it is very easy to trace the lines of this conflict all the way back to its source: dark ate and light did not. dark understands destruction as a natural and essential part of life that brings healing, nourishment, and revival; light misunderstands it as something his brother did to get rid of bad things and he cannot wrap his head around why dark refused to get rid of jabber (a bad thing) OR why dark keeps adding destructive things into their new world (which, having been created ex nihilo, does not have a primordial wilderness for dark to clear).

to him this seems arbitrary, pointless, and cruel; meanwhile dark looks at light’s creative efforts and sees an egg that could hatch into something wonderful if only the shell would crack. and then once he’s added a beak here and some talons there and has the newly-hatched chick cradled in his hands, light accuses him of ruining the egg and he can no more understand why his brother is so upset about that than light can understand why dark keeps doing this.

the cherry on top of the irreconcilable differences sundae is that light thinks erasing jabber or the grimm from existence is exactly the same as, say, breaking up the planetary crust before spinning the world like a top. but to dark these are profoundly different—one is death, the other a renewal. a forest burnt to the ground by wildfire erupts with new life again; a town flattened by a terrible earthquake is rebuilt stronger and with more care, to survive the next quake unscathed. this is ascension! this is the pattern they have known and cherished all their lives, adapted for a different environment; an old song in a new key!

and the longer this fundamental difference in perspective goes unresolved the more impossible it becomes to find any common ground at all in the conflict arising from it. when we meet them in 6.3 they have been in the trenches of this ideological stalemate for so long that it’s devolved to dark spitting that creation is his nature just as it is light’s and light responding flatly that no it isn’t. it’s gotten to the point of “you don’t own creation, you don’t own humans, and you don’t own me” and the answer being, basically, “well i’m right, you’re wrong, and that human tricked you into breaking the rules because she’s bad and needs to be punished.”

it’s gone on for so long and grown so large that in a very real way it’s mutated into a fight about whether or not dark is an evil monster who needs to be restrained lest his malice bring the world to ruin, and while i don’t think light would describe it that way it seems very clear to me that dark has grasped this. as i said in the original post, resurrecting a virtuous hero who died in the prime of his life, at the request of his devastated, grieving lover, without any conditions at all, for no other reason than because it pleased him to be kind, is as clear and unambiguous a proof of the value dark sees in life, in love, and in creation itself as dark could ever make—and it changes nothing. it completes the circle and the original fight begins again, exactly as before. dark recognizes this as it happens and immediately capitulates, immediately takes full responsibility, apologizes, and corrects his ‘mistake’—and it changes nothing. light still lunges at salem, to punish her for what dark did.

so, either dark lashed out at salem in a petty rage because he believed light’s insinuation that she sought to manipulate him (which does not, in retrospect, make sense, because it’s preceded by dark folding into himself, getting very quiet, and apologizing to his brother, at whom he was screaming furiously not a minute before; he doesn’t seem outraged or indignant, and he really has no reason to take light at his word)—or, he saw what was happening and backed down so as to prevent light from trying to solve the problem by killing salem, a la jabber.

only that didn’t work, because nothing dark does actually matters anymore. dark can bring a legendary hero back to life as an act of kindness toward his bereaved lover and his brother will see only an abomination in need of stern correction; he can bow his head, humbly apologize, assume full responsibility, and undo the act that provoked his brother, and light will still condemn the innocent mortal caught in the middle.

there’s nothing dark can do, at this point. he can bash his head against an unsolvable conflict for the rest of forever while his brother flatly refuses to move a single nanometer away from his original position that destruction is acceptable only within a very narrow, strictly-defined set of parameters (clearing away the primordial wilderness of the ever after to set the stage for light’s design) but aberrant and unworthy to exist in any other context because it incites change and change is anathema; or he can walk away and be free.

except he can’t walk away, because this world and humans in particular are very dear to him. light is cold and unyielding and punitive enough as it is; how much worse would he become without dark around to keep the world changing and growing? look at what light did to salem in retaliation for dark merely granting her request and then walking it back to appease his brother!—how dire might the consequences be for humankind if dark chose to upend the balance by leaving?

these are rhetorical questions; the answer is that light resorts to demanding absolute obedience or else he’ll vaporize the planet. because that’s the ultimatum he gives ozma, without dark.

so dark, if his goal is to leave remnant, has to make sure that light leaves too. how?

(tin hats on!)

here’s something sticky i’ve been chewing on: light bites jabber and shatters him and then the blacksmith skips ahead to their departure, right. we don’t see dark putting jabber back together again, but we do know he ultimately was left alive, and we can infer that dark fixed him up one last time before they left.

light bites salem, too. the sound cuts out and the screen cuts to black for a couple seconds. then she jolts awake, unharmed, falling from the sky above light’s domain. absent the jabber parallel, it made intuitive sense to conclude that light snapped her up without actually harming her, flashed back to his domain, and then dropped her.

but the jabber parallel underscores the physicality of light’s violence: he rends jabber to pieces with his claws, he shatters jabber with a snap of his jaws. (beware the jabberwock, my son!/the jaws that bite, the claws that catch!) lunging down to bite is one of the ways light executed jabber—so when he lunges down to bite salem…?

dark is cut completely out of frame throughout the whole sequence of salem’s reaction to losing ozma for the third time. he breathes a blast of fire to engulf them and then we do not see him again until after salem is made immortal. this is a very overt implication that light made his choice to retaliate unilaterally; and given that only a minute prior, dark makes a deliberate point of leaving salem unharmed, it seems self-evident that dark did not want to kill her.

and of course this occurs mere minutes after it’s established that dark can bring people back even when light is the one who killed them.

and,

“If we create these beings together, then we must share in any decisions about their fate. You must promise not to wipe them out on a whim; they must have the chance to find their own destiny and rule or ruin this world we have made for them.”

if ‘the two brothers’ is accurate in the essentials of what “the rules we agreed upon” entailed, and light killed salem without consulting dark, and dark did not retroactively approve that decision, then light violated the rules and dark has every right to demand that salem be revived and allowed to decide her fate. if light insists upon punishment, it must be a punishment dark will agree to.

and light’s rigid absolutism demands that he obey the rules, too. he might stretch his interpretation of them to rationalize doing things that are not in the spirit of the rules, but he won’t break them.

so, who dropped salem into the fountain life and creation? here’s some pernicious little oddities that have been taunting me for a year that now seem… suggestive:

number one: after salem finishes coughing up water and realizes where she is, she sits up and, while light chides her for being selfish and arrogant, turns her head away from him to stare at dark. she is looking at dark, not light, when she asks “what did you do to me?”

number two: this fucking split screen. light is above his brother at the top of the shot but dark is ascendant, and once their relative positions have reversed dark’s half rapidly fades out to reveal salem (and both of them are shown whole, so their heads overlap light as well). the symbolism here couldn’t be louder if you gave it a bullhorn; salem’s immortality is the ending of light’s divine rule but a victory for dark, who rises (ascends!) from his inferior position beneath light and promptly vanishes, leaving salem to take his place.

number three: before the split screen, when salem is on the ground, the tree is center frame. after the split screen, she stands up, which—because she was sprawled perpendicular to the camera, so to be clear this is not an animation error—moves her a little to the left, which in turn has the effect of moving the tree off-center as the camera moves with her. look. LOOK at how this changes the composition of the shot!

centered. symmetrical. salem lies at the roots of the tree and the brothers are both sheltered by its crown but apart from it. (you can also see how her head is turned toward dark here)

off-center. lopsided. salem is still under the roots but her prominence in the shot is much greater; she completely fills the space between the brothers and they now seem small by comparison. the tree has moved away from light, who is now fully alienated from it—no part of him touches it—and dark has moved toward it and into it. his apparent ‘movement’ from the previous shot to this one is a descent from the high branches, following the trunk down, toward the bottom. (afterans ascend by diving to the roots of the tree and then rising up to blossom from its crown.)

these two shots bracket the split screen and directly reiterate that symbolism: light is removed from the seat of his power (and symbolically alienated from the cosmic tree) and dark gains the advantage, but salem has become a formidable barrier between them which, with the context v9 supplies, gives dark what he needs to be able to return to the tree.

and as a final point of interest, light tells salem that she must learn the importance of life and death before she can rest, and, well, that’s an eyebrow-raising turn of phrase, isn’t it:

“I will give them knowledge of themselves and their world,” said the God of Darkness. “So they can comprehend life and death, and thus they will also know fear.”

The God of Light said, “And I will give them free will, the power to decide what to do with that knowledge and choose their own place in the world.”

do you see? do you SEE? dark used light’s desire for retribution to guide him to this outcome, and he made salem immortal to make salem his heir.

more opaque is the question of to what degree dark anticipated salem going as far as she did, but i do think his characterization in ‘the two brothers’ is elucidating here:

The God of Darkness was interested in testing the Humans’ limits and admired their resourcefulness. Following a devastating earthquake, rather than give in to despair and accept failure, Humans rebuilt their homes—stronger than before, so they would survive the next quake. And though they grieved their lost loved ones, they picked up and pressed on. […] the God of Darkness saw how they thrived in facing challenges and grew in overcoming them.

dark sees in humans a cycle of growth and continual refinement through adversity. he delights in this and is “endlessly fascinated” by the human will to adapt and survive. he doesn’t allow hardships to befall humans to be cruel, but rather to galvanize them to achieve their full potential—and so where light curses salem with eternal pain as retribution for her “arrogance,” dark likely intended immortality as the furnace that would forge her into what he hoped she could become.

“the gods hoped that salem would learn from her eternal curse, and she did. she learned that the hearts of men are easily swayed.” she learned that the gods are fallible. she learned that light is cruel. she learned that humans do not need the brothers and that the brothers do not own them. she learned that humans, too, have a claim on the powers of creation and a choice in their own fate.

dark gave humans knowledge.

one of the brothers wanted salem to learn her lesson and return humbled and contrite; the other wanted to disabuse her of her faith in them and provoke defiance, and he got what he wanted in spades.

“my own gift to them, used against me.” / “you thought there was no greater punishment we could bestow upon you?” / “still demanding things of your creators.” these are the last things dark says to salem—his parting words—and it’s you cannot overcome us with the weapon i lent to you. you cannot overestimate our cruelty. you failed because you expected us to solve your problems for you. is he mocking her inferiority or is he telling her DO IT YOURSELF FOR THE WORLD IS YOURS

and then he shatters the moon and fire rains down, and he freezes the debris forever so that the violence of his departure will never, ever be forgotten. salem curses the gods and the universe and everything but herself as she wanders the planet waiting for a death that would never come—passively suffering in the last helpless vestiges of her faith—until fate leads her back to the land of darkness and she takes fate into her own hands.

look at this. LOOK at what dark did to the moon,

and look what it became after salem hurled herself through its reflection into the pool of grimm!

it isn’t mended but it’s been made whole. by salem when she rejected the fate inflicted upon her and recreated herself.

“it created a being of infinite life with a desire for pure destruction, and in time, she would find her adversary.” and it’s not ozma, and it’s not ruby standing behind ozma, and it’s not weiss or yang or blake revealed by ozma’s aimless wander through the white void. it’s light, who breaks the silence by saying ozma’s name and reveals himself like this:

i can’t add a screenshot because i’ve hit the image limit but the way light is positioned here directly repeats and exaggerates the serpentine motion of his lunge at salem and these are the only two shots in the lost fable where his draconic head is shown from the front rather than in profile.

and note the repetition here of this composition.

light delivers his ultimatum alone, standing in the place of the tree, against a backdrop of the white emptiness beneath the ever after. in the absence of his brother he maintains the circle alone, re-enacting their conflict and creation of the world by himself, unchanging, forever. remember how i said that nothing dark did actually mattered anymore? this is the proof.

dark is GONE, and light carries on trying to win their fight millions of years after his brother washed his hands of it and walked away.

“in our absence, i would like to offer you a chance to return” / “creation, destruction, choice and knowledge were the ideals upon which humanity was made. now, i leave them behind with the hope that you can learn to remake yourselves.” he tells ozma that if brought together, “these relics will summon my brother and me back to your world, and mankind will be judged.”—but he makes it explicitly clear that he is acting alone. he says i, not we, leave these relics behind. i, not we, have chosen you. dark has no part in this.

if dark still exists as before, then light is violating his own rules by acting unilaterally—and he has no reason to believe that dark will answer the relics’ summons or participate in a day of judgment he did not agree to and may not even know about.

if, on the other hand, dark left remnant and ascended…

well. um.

Finally, overcome with loneliness, the dragon decided to create a companion with whom he could share the cosmos and eternity—an equal, fashioned in his own image. Because even an all-powerful god cannot make something from nothing, the dragon divided himself and all his magic into two halves.

However, he destroyed himself in the act of creation. The old god was no more; in his place were two brothers, a dragon of pure light, and his shadow, a dragon of unfathomable darkness. They were new gods with shared memories and complementary abilities.

we have hard confirmation now that this part of ‘the two brothers’ is not literal truth, so where did it come from and why is it here?

the dragon divides himself and his power into new gods with shared memories of complementary abilities. something cannot come from nothing, and so in order to create himself in this new form, equals fashioned in his own image, he must destroy himself. this is a description of ascension which introduces the possibility of a god destroying himself in order to be reborn as multiple new beings.

dark is gone. he left remnant behind and we have not seen him since; light delivers his ultimatum alone.

there are four relics now, each inhabited by one of the spirits of destruction, creation, knowledge, and choice—the four qualities that defined the brothers and defined humanity in turn.

these spirits are shackled and wrapped in chains. the two we’ve met so far palpably dislike ozma.

and light, who has never ascended, who does not understand the role destruction plays in creation, who abhors change, believes that when these relics are united, his brother will return.

they’re the dragon divided. into four, not two, because dark understood that balance is not two forces locked in eternal conflict and understood his own nature to be more than a false dichotomy.

[erazonpo3]

Chapter 8 of Lucid Paradoxy is up!

A battle is had, and a secret plot is uncovered... sort of.

The 2nd piece is by @lizarr7 , who did such an awesome job and totally killed those pokemon designs! Thank you so much again :D

[frozenwolftemplar]

I posted a cross stitch puppy of mine the other week and said it wasn’t my usual variety of project. ^This^ is. You can’t see because of the horrible picture quality (apologies for that, by the way), but it’s covered in beads that catch the light beautifully. It’s hands-down one of my favorite pieces I’ve done and, for the cherry on the sundae, it just won second place at a local show (along with that puppy)! Pretty pleased about that! 😁

@lelitachay  and @lizarr7 , thought you’d both enjoy seeing this! (not the Elsa I have planned, but still a Snow Queen).

For the curious, pattern is Mirabilia’s Snow Queen.

[rontra]

@lizarr7 replied to your post “since ive been thinking about CTDE zee's timeline...”:

So she doesn't go missing anymore?

​nop...! the Original idea for her INCIDENT* was "its an overnight change" so the "Going Missing For A Few Years" idea was the potential patch update actually... i toyed with them both for a bit because they lean into different flavors. but ultimately the Going Missing one is weaker in spots that should be prioritized

(ironing out those spots is what helped me make the final call but i don't want to explain them just yet. sorry to be coy here it's just backstory drama i'll draw something about it later hehe)

so we're discarding it in favor of strengthening those spots. however ctde zee does "disappear" for a bit in the sense that she drops everything and fucks off to go sort herself out after the incident LOL

but thats different from Going Missing since she fucks off by her own will. she can still do a comeback tour though

*"The Incident" referring to when i put ctde zee in a magic realm where in her POV thousands of years go by but to characters experiencing "real-life time" it's uh. nowhere near that long

[lizarr7]

Horse practice! Something I desperately need. Truly have not drawn a single horse since my centaur Cass drawings. That being said, that was really the best horse practice I had ever done, and obviously with those, above the shoulder was human . . . so this is my first serious venture into horse heads. It was very challenging for me and I'm not entirely satisfied with that 3/4ths view . . . I realize that all the heads may look a little odd, but please understand ; v ;

If anyone remembers my 'wolf salem' post, this design may look familiar. If you don't: https://www.tumblr.com/lizarr7/697256039449526272/here-we-have-salem-as-a-wolf-why-because-i-felt?source=share

Salem gets a horse form now too. Good for her.

[crispyfishsticks]

grumpyoldsnake

The sphinx locks are honestly one of my favorites of your designs! I love the slightly unsettling proportions it’s so interesting to look at

lizarr7

What the heck no, I LOVE sphynx locks. Idk if there's just something wrong with me, and I'm sorry that they don't make me uncomfortable, but I find them incredibly anatomically pleasing for some reason. Your body horror locks are the ones that make me uncomfortable lol. I think sphynx locks and GIANT thicc worm locks with huge toothy mouths and tiny eyes too close to their noses are my two favorite forms.

puppypunk1993

also did not realize they could be considered Uncomfortable in any way, they're like if bodies could be more beautiful

Thanks y’all! Nothing wrong if you like them haha. They don’t have to be unsettling in a horror-y way. Just different. The reactions from human characters in my stories range from ‘well that’s different, can’t help but eyeball in fascination’ to legitimately weirded out by all the uncanny valley shapeshifting, so the fact that I’m getting that range out of actual people is most excellent.  

A sassy Jeih!sphinx, for your time. 

[rontra]

@lizarr7 replied to your post “yknow it’s occurring to me that I just sorta...”:

the helenas confuse me far more than the karas

NOOO the helenas are so straightforward bc i made Sleepwalker up so she's not real and doesn't count. thats just OC Helena

CTDE Helenas is really easy bc it's just Helena Wayne and then her Evil Sicko Counterpart i made up, whom she would shoot with a gun on sight if we let her. and we should probably let her

the canon helenas are easy to juggle IMO bc they're pretty distinct. but oh if you don't actually care about the intricacies of dc comics: dont open this post. dead inside

like ok yes dc comics might have 3 helenas waynes and at least one or two other helenas (wink) but they're like on a linear timeline so it's pretty easy i think.

helena wayne 1 - the daughter of batman and catwoman - was introduced in 1977. she uses the Huntress name until 1986, when a building collapses on her and she dies, and then the multiverse collapses on everyone else. this is dc resetting their continuity and starting over from scratch, so it all stops existing

helena wayne does NOT come back post-scratch, but is instead reimagined into a new character with a different backstory, called helena bertinelli. helena B sits on the Huntress Throne un-contested for over 20 years. on this blog we mostly ignore her because she's not helena wayne (sorry)

(you ask helena wayne to explain the 25 year gap on her resume and she's like "i was straight up a different guy")

(the comedy of my comics blorbo dying in 1986 is not lost on me)

in ~2011 dc scraps everything and starts over Again, with the new 52 publishing initiative. in this new continuity a lot of characters are given completely new backstories (which are noooot created equal). but on the upside, Helena Wayne 2 somehow crawled onto the Huntress Throne

(now, helena B had been the huntress for over 20 years, so she very much had her own fanbase at this point, who i can't imagine were uh Stoked about helena wayne walking back in and going "oh helena bertinelli can't come to the new 52. why? because she Died Off-Screen". the vibe probably was not friendly there) (but i think it turns out that helena B faked her death or something anyway??? idk that might be completely wrong i'm not really sure i dont really pay attention to her it just FEELS likely to me)

although she's still BatCat's daughter, Helena Wayne 2 is characterized differently from 1, and (per the n52 convention) has a totally new backstory and setup. so she's overall definitely a different guy from helena wayne 1. she smells different. the vibe here makes me think she's doing some conceptual spit-swapping with helena B (thinks about two helenas making out) oh my

anyway, the new 52 publishing initiative ended and everyone generally breathed a sigh of relief. the last time we saw Helena Wayne 2 was in ~2016 or so i think and i doubt we'll see her again. another helena wayne locked up in the vault. helenas waynes just get put ON ICE which i think helps keep things from getting tangled in my mind? they get tidied away 😔

helena B gets to keep the Huntress Throne to herself (and a swaggy new design if i might say so myself) for another ~5ish years or so, before the appearance of Helena Wayne 3 (Current Helena Wayne) who is AGAIN written differently with a different character setup, making her--in my opinion--a Third Distinct Helena Wayne

this one's BatCat's daughter from the future. but because she time traveled back and changed things, her future has ceased to exist and she's stuck here with the rest of us losers. this means YES currently helena B and W are coexisting in harmony, PEACE AND LOVE ON HUNTRESS EARTH!!!

and that's where we're at right now.

for me it's easy to keep the helena Ws straight because they're all different guys and occupy different time periods and never overlap each other. they also have different designs from each other. maybe it's more confusing if you get distracted by helena B in the middle, since she does occasionally overlap with them, but she's a separate guy and i'm very good at going "oh thats helena B so i don't rly care" (SORRY!!!! IM SURE SHES LOVELY!!! I REALLY DO LIKE HER WHEN I READ SOMETHING SHE'S IN I JUST DONT SEEK HER OUT)

most of the time, if you see helena in the wild, it's probably helena bertinelli. that's another thing that makes it kinda easy. when in doubt: probably bertinelli to be honest MDSHBFJSD

the lack of overlap and the very linear out-of-universe timeline make the Ws pretty easy to tell apart for me. i like all 3 of them, but i like them quite separately--they register as different guys to me. generally speaking CTDE characters are rarely 1:1 with a specific comic but as an exception, ctde helena is very easy to identify as being based on specifically Helena Wayne 2 because the main comic shes in is like my comfort comic <3 <3

and sleepwalker is 100% made up but helena would shoot her with a gun as mentioned.

the only thing i know about helena B is i think she might be catholic.

[rontra]

return of MANHUNTER in her NATURAL HABITAT (bothered, completely out of her lane, degrading, her crops burnt, her skin bruised over the many broken bones she received getting thrown across the room and into a fucking wall, slumped down in her own blood)

YES!!!!! WHERE SHE'S MEANT TO BE!!!!!!! EXACTLY... i love the manhunter cringefail coalition on my blog. the "put that wretched beast in a situation" enthusiasts

even dc was like "haha okay seriously though we need to come up with an excuse for her to keep Surviving this shit" and sent her to wonder woman boot camp. she doesnt get that from us. batwoman stomping her with her big boots

@lizarr7 replied to your post “(batwoman voice) whatever lane is paying you, it's...”:

the faceless person. Face privileges revoked, fuck them in particular

that's just what her mask loOKS LIKE!!!!! 😭😭😭

[amelia-mariee]

9 people you would like to get to know better

thanks for the tag @backgroundagent3 :))

1. 3 ships: Starmora (GoTG), Fitzsimmons (AoS), Ben x Leslie (Parks and Rec)

2. First ever ship: Gerica (Geoff & Erica from The Goldbergs. I didn’t even know what shipping was yet, I just thought about them constantly and i knew that they had to be together or I’d die. i was a bit dramatic.)

3. Last song: Somewhere Only We Know by Keane

4. Last movie: Monsters Inc (and i cried)

5. Currently reading: i am so sorry i do not read❤️

6. Currently watching: (rewatching) Parks and rec

7. Currently consuming: Kirkland Signature Green Tea with Citrus Flavor lol

8. Currently craving: soup :)

No pressure tagging: @lizarr7 @wandas-apologist @alyssmainwarning @daryfromthefuture @cherrylimeade @tremorsmackenzie @sunshinebeetle24 @allyheyeh @secondvarian

[rontra]

@lizarr7 replied to your post “@lizarr7 replied to your post “yknow it’s...”:

The reason I think that I could not wrap my head around her is that my only exposure to Helena was in the show arrow in which she is HB aka huntress. Not related to the batfam at all. So when it appeared there were multiple versions of BOTH helenas and they didn't even have separate aliases, I just started to lose my mind.

NO BUT SERIOUSLY THOUGH.... like once i started Looking i was like "oh OK i got this, easy" BUT ITS SUPER FUNNY FROM AFAR?? theyre like "yeah so these characters look really similar and use the same alias and have the same first name but Don't get confused. they're completely different people." CAN I...PLEASE...????

@lizarr7 replied to your post “@lizarr7 replied to your post “yknow it’s...”:

Oh and um. Who the FUCK are Batgirl and Batwoman then????

(GRIPPING MY HEAD) AHH UHHHHH OH GOD WELL THEY'RE NOT HELENA WAYNE DOES THAT HELP AT ALL,

i know there's been a few different Batgirls. its a name with some Legacy Clout. but i don't actually know anything about it. if i ever get really into Batgirl comics i'll get back to you. MSDFHJBDS

im looking at this like oh i cannot explain batgirl to Myself let alone somebody else 😭 I THINK RIGHT NOW THERE'S TWO OF THEM? I THINK THERE'S BATGIRLS? THEY'RE LIKE SHARING? <- clueless

for some reason tumblr REALLY thinks i'm interested in batgirl posts specifically (maybe it's extrapolating my helena wayne posting into "you like bats and girls in general"?) so my For You is like FULL of batgirl content but i don't know or understand any of it so i just scroll past. but based on that i think there might be 2 of them.

i know barbara gordon was like famously shot by The Fucking Joker (i witnessed this when wondermagic were kissing) and switched her alias to Oracle (i think?????) so maybe she passed Batgirl to??? those two???? 🥺 (<- face of the hopelessly lost diesel) I ALSO DONT KNOW IF ANY OF THEM ARE RELATED TO BATMAN OR IF THEY JUST LIKE. KNOW HIM

i dont know my batwoman history either so she probably has a predecessor but as far as I'M concerned the only Batwoman is iconic lesbian kate kane whom i DO know by name and sight. she's cool. she's like peak "character i haven't actually read but i feel Strong Fondness towards whenever i see" because shes so fucking cool. batwoman is the one with the really strong black+red theme. you know she's the canon lesbian because her visuals radiate swag. anyway i'm willing to get into batwoman comics for the vibe alone. perhaps someday

but none of them are helena wayne. i know that much. everyone please believe in my ability to identify helena wayne, even if you believe nothing else. (dc wiki immediately reveals to me a "possible future" type au where a helena wayne uses the batwoman name) OH FUCK!!!! MY ABILITY!!!!

[rontra]

@lizarr7 replied to your post “I had never even heard of this magician woman...”:

Bruh? I'm having a moment?? Cause I'm reading this and sitting here nodding like, it is true, everyone knows who she is like vaguely out of the corner of their minds. I too knew of her long before you started posting about her. But . . . I can't remember how?? Like, your obsession with her is SO much more exposure to her than I've ever had, so it has apperently replaced whatever impressions or knowledge I had of her previously.

zatanna background radiation

[rontra]

@lizarr7 replied to your post “holding your hand looking into your eyes is the...”:

at long last: The Explanation. The Kara's being very not nice to each other are my favorite pictures of yours. There is however, a piece I still seem to be missing . . . something about a Kara as a lantern or something??

​thank you!!

god the lantern thing. thats my arc 2. maybe we'll get into it in detail someday idk MDHJBNGFFG

the red ring is drawn to and powered by Rage does that help 😭 she's under its influence. that's berserker sicko mode supergirl. she's tired of being nice she's going ape shitt

it's about all the frustration and anger ctde supergirl has been repressing for Years. the red ring latches on to that stuff and escalates it until it's all she's got. it erodes her actual principles and beliefs and says "no you SHOULD go sicko mode they DESERVE it" and burns up everything else inside her. eats her up whole

to mirror arc 1 its now power girl who shows up to shake her out of it before she explodes the world. girls supporting girls ❤