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hannibals-favourite-meal · 2 years

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Okay so I Have a Bruce Wayne/Batman request! It’s okay if you can’t do it, but Bruce Wayne X Reader (Mr and Mrs Wayne) and She’s a doctor at a hospital in Gotham, and she sees him come with something wrong after an incident and she helps him? You can take the story however you want but I thought it would be a cute story haha

Taking a Tumble

Bruce Wayne x wife!reader

Bruce has an accident at home and now has to face his wife at work.

Warnings: broken bones, humiliation, Alfred needed a good laugh, fluff

WC: 1k

A/N: The aftermath of this comic

Minors DNI

“What did you do this time?” Her voice was even stern, just laced with a tired disappointment. Bruce’s entire face was red with embarrassment as his blue eyes dropped to the floor. He felt like one of their many children being scolded for doing something stupid, which of course is why he was in this situation, but still, it wasn’t a good feeling.

“I didn’t do anything.” But the lack of eye contact told her otherwise. Alfred stood beside the white hospital bed, tears running down his face from laughter, his body still trembling with silent chuckles that were barely contained by the fist in his mouth. Y/N’s gaze flitted to the older man and raised an eyebrow.

“M-master Bruce had a tumble.” He choked out before dissolving into a fresh round of laughter. Bruce’s face flushed an even deeper red.

Marrying Bruce came with a boat load of risks, including him getting mortally wounded during his nightly escapades. So what luck was it that his childhood friend, and now wife, had gone to medical school and was now one of the leading doctors in Gotham General Hospital. He always wore his injuries with a certain pride, knowing he was sacrificing his body for a greater good.

But this time, he refused to look down at his bandaged left leg and instead was glaring at his father-figure. Y/N knew that look, he was trying to communicate with the butler not to tell her what had happened, it was the same look he used on their kids when they were about to reveal a surprise or a shameful secret. “Bruce doesn’t just ‘tumble’.” She said with air quotes, tucking her tablet under her soft arm so she could fold them over her heavy chest.

“But I did.” He whined. Alfred spluttered and coughed. He bent over, wheezing as he attempted to catch his breath as he shoved his phone into her hands. He was still giggling to himself as he stumbled from the room. They watched him go, Bruce’s expression one of disdain while his wife’s was one of curiosity.

A paused video took up the phone’s screen. Based on the still image, it was the home security camera by the main stairs in their home. “Do you have anything to say before I play this video?” She asked. “I won’t be mad.” Bruce hated that she was using the same tone with him that she used with the kids, but he also found it strangely comforting.

“I was proving a point to myself.” He huffed and sat back against the pitiful hospital pillows. Y/N smiled softly at the man, thinking to herself. ‘God I love his, dumbass.’ Then she played the video.

She watched as the man she had chosen to spend her life with, the father of her children, the love of her life, rode down the length of the grand hallway on his old skateboard from when they were teenagers and did a perfect kickflip and dismount the board. Then, the great Batman, tripped over his own feet and rolled down the staircase. That’s when the video ended.

The room was silent for a moment before Y/N howled with laughter, her head thrown back and clutching her plump stomach. Bruce’s lips turned up in a grin at his wife’s happiness before they fell into a petulant frown. “It’s not that funny.” That made her laugh even harder and she had to put her hand down on his bed to steady herself.

“What were you thinking, my love?” She said between gasps.

He threw his arms in the air. “I told you! To prove a point!”

“And what point was that?” Her laughs were tampering off into the occasional giggle, her eyes, that Bruce loved so much, still sparkled with mirth. She reached to take his large hand in her own but he pulled it away before she could, pouting.

“That I’ve still got it.”

“Oh my Brucie.” She cooed, cupping his square jaw and delicately rubbing his high cheekbones with her thumbs. “You never lost it my love. In fact.” She leaned closer to him so her lips rested against his ear. “I’d say you’ve only gotten better with age~”

Taking his ear lobe between her teeth, she pulled on it just enough to send a shiver down the billionaire’s spine. As she pulled away, she caught his eye, they were dark with lust and love. His hands slid up her scrubs to come to rest on her wide hips, giving them a tight squeeze. Evidently, he seemed to like that answer.

Their lips met in a kiss that was all too brief for his taste before she pulled away, wiping a smear of her lip gloss from his mouth. “Now my love, I need you to stay off that foot for a while and rest up. That means no patrol.” She stated firmly, ignoring his truly adorable puppy dog eyes. “I’m not putting you on complete bed rest because we all know how that went last time.”

He had attempted several escape attempts from bedrest before and had only succeeded in giving his wife the most atrocious tension headaches of her life. “I’ll need some incentive.” His voice dropped an octave, becoming gravely and rough, almost a growl. His warm palms traveled lower down her body to the junction of her pelvis and plump thighs, the tips of his long fingers digging into the soft flesh of her ass.

Y/N purred and leaned into his touch, still mindful that she was at work. “I’m sure I can provide you with that.” The kiss was longer this time, their lips locked together with an ease that only came from years of knowing the other’s body and soul. She stepped back with one last peck to the tip of his sharp nose. “I’ll go grab your discharge papers so you can go home. I’ll see you after my shift.”

He sighed sadly but nodded anyway. “Ok, I guess I’ll just be home, alone in our big bed, all by myself.”

“You aren’t guilting me into leaving work early. At least one of us has to have a real job.” Y/N pried his fingers from her body and picked up her tablet again, leaving Alfred’s phone on the side table. “Oh and don’t forget to delete that footage, you know what the kids could do with that kind of blackmail material.”

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thekillingvote · 1 year

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No Birds Allowed: Batman without Robin

The usual claim is that Jason Todd was singularly hated by audiences. Dick Grayson, Carrie Kelley, and Tim Drake are proper, beloved Robins—and Jason Todd is the one and only outlier so unlikable that audiences killed him off by popular vote.

But this claim ignores a massive piece of the puzzle—the Robin role has long been treated as an outdated remnant of a childish era, not only by a significant share of Batman fans, but also by Batman creative teams. While there were definitely fans who hated Jason Todd, he was at least partly chosen to be killed as a scapegoat for some long-standing complaints about the Robin role in Batman stories.

The 1988 poll to kill Jason Todd wasn't just a poll to kill Jason Todd—the poll to kill Robin was a poll to kill Robin.

Fan letters columns from Batman #221 and Detective Comics #398, reacting to Dick leaving for Hudson University in Batman #217 (1969):

Denny O'Neil Batman/Detective Comics writer (1970-1980) Batman group editor (1986-2000) on sending Robin away to Hudson University:

Dan Greenfield: Actually, last night I went back through my comics and the one thing that always strikes me is that before you came onto the character, they’d already made the decision to have Robin leave. Robin was up at Hudson University and was used sparingly from that point forward. Denny O’Neil: Well, that was a conscious decision of mine. Greenfield: Oh! O’Neil: Yeah, I mean … I had been offered Batman a year before I did it. Greenfield: No kidding? I wanna hear this. O’Neil: Because that was in the (Batman TV show) camp thing. The comics were very half-heartedly following in the footsteps of the camp because it was having a palpable effect on circulation. That’s not always true but it was in that case. Camp as in the sense — as opposed to the more erudite sense — this one-line joke about: “I loved this stuff when I was 6 and now that I’m 28 and I have a bi-weekly appointment with a therapist and a little, mild drug habit and two divorces, ‘Look how silly it is.'” I would go into the most literary bar in Greenwich Village on (Wednesday) or Thursday evenings and there would be writers and poets and college professors, all looking at Batman! But when that was over, it was over. It was like somebody turned a switch. And that’s when (editor) Julie (Schwartz) said, in his avuncular way, did I have any ideas for Batman? And at that point, I wasn’t going to be asked to do camp. I was going to be asked to do anything within the bounds of good taste, etc., that I wanted to.

O'Neil, quoted from “Notes from the Batcave: An Interview with Dennis O’Neil” in The Many Lives of The Batman: Critical Approaches to a Superhero and His Media:

There was a time right before I took over as Batman editor when he seemed to be much closer to a family man, much closer to a nice guy. He seemed to have a love life and he seemed to be very paternal towards Robin. My version is a lot nastier than that. He has a lot more edge to him.

O'Neil in 2015:

Modern Batman does not do camp. He has to evolve but to stay true to the concept he has to stay lonely. The kids, there shouldn't be many. Keep him the lone, obsessed crusader and the stories will be better. We did a story called Son of the Demon. It told a story where he had a kid, a baby. It wasn't in continuity. These days, the kid came back and became the new Robin, and I hear that Batman's got a few more running around.

Jim Starlin, Batman writer (1987-1988), writer of A Death in the Family:

I tried to avoid using [Robin] as much as I could. In most of my early Batman stories, he doesn’t appear. Eventually Denny asked me to do a specific Robin story, which I did, and I guess it went over fairly well from what I understand. But I wasn’t crazy about Robin.

I thought that going out and fighting crime in a grey and black outfit while you send out a kid in primary colors was kind of like child abuse. So when I started working on Batman, I was always leaving Robin out of the stories, and Denny O’Neil who is the editor finally said, "You gotta put [Robin] in."

youtube

In the one Batman issue I wrote with Robin featured, I had him do something underhanded, as I recall. Denny had told me that the character was very unpopular with fans, so I decided to play on that dislike. [...] At that time, DC had this idea that they were gonna do an AIDS education book, and so they put a box out and wanted everybody to put in suggestions of who should contract AIDS and perish in the comics. I stuffed it with Robin. They realized it was all my handwriting so they ended up throwing all my things out. About six months later, Denny came up with this idea of the call-in thing. [...] I didn’t find out about it until I came back [from Mexico] and found out that, just as I expected, my ghoulish little fans voted him dead. But by a much smaller margin than I’d imagined. It was only like 72 votes out of 10,000, so statistically it was next to nothing.

Dan Raspler, assistant editor/associate editor to Denny O’Neil (1988-1990):

Denny wasn’t really interested in comics continuity, and he didn’t like superheroes. And if you read his work, you see his influence was really a pushing away from the conventions at the time—it was growing old, that sort of Golden Age-y, Silver Age-y stuff, and Denny sort of modernized it, and he never stopped feeling that way. Jim Starlin’s Batman appealed to Denny. It was a little more ‘down to Earth. Nobody liked Robin at the time. For a while Robin was not—it didn’t make sense in comics. Comics were darkening, and so having the kid was just, it was silly, and even at the time I kind of didn’t. Now Robin is my favorite all-time character, but at the time when I was twenty-whatever, I accepted kicking Robin out, the short pants and all the rest of it.

Comic shop owner Phil Beracha on A Death in the Family, quoted in The Sun Sentinel (October 22, 1988):

"I got 100 copies, and I don't expect them to last past the weekend," said Phil Beracha, owner of Phil's Comic Shoppe in Margate. "I usually get 50 copies of Batman. I doubled my order, and I still expect to sell out." The readers voted right, Beracha said. "Robin is an outdated concept. He was created in the `40s, and back then in a comic book you could have a kid beating up grown men. I don't think that works today."

Writer Steve Englehart, quoted in "Batman, the Gamble; Warner Bros. is betting big money that a 50-year-old comic book vigilante will be a `hero for our times'" in the Los Angeles Times (June 18, 1989):

Writer Steven Englehart, who did a series of Batman stories in Detective Comics, also worked up some movie treatments. In a letter to Comics Buyer's Guide, he revealed the approach he had in mind, which would have pleased Batfanatics: "My first treatment had Robin getting blown away in the first 90 seconds, so that every reviewer in the country would begin his review with, `This sure isn't the TV show.' "

Michael Uslan, producer and film rights holder for the 1989 Batman film:

I only let Tim [Burton] see the original year of the Bob Kane/Bill Finger run, up until the time that Robin was introduced. I showed him the Steve Englehart/Marshall Rogers and the Neal Adams/Denny O'Neil stories. My biggest fear was that somehow Tim would get hold of the campiest Batman comics and then where would we be?

"Death Knell for the Campy Crusader" in the Orlando Sentinel (23 June 1989):

For most people, the name Batman summons up a picture of a clown in long johns, a Campy Crusader who - with the young punster Robin - ZAPed and POWed his way into our lives. That's the Batman that appeared on TV in the mid-'60s, and that's the Batman that the world at large knows. Such is the power of television. But this ludicrous image may become obsolete now that the new, $40 million Batman movie has opened. Robin is absent from the film, as are the perky Batgirl and the utterly superfluous Aunt Harriet of the TV series. And though the movie has plenty of sound effects, they don't appear on the screen as words, spelled out in neo-Brechtian absurdity.

Sam Hamm, writer for Batman (1989 live-action film):

The Case of the Disappearing Robin is high comedy. Tim (Burton) and I had worked out a plotline that did not include the Boy Wonder, whom we both regarded as an unnecessary intrusion. Really: Our hero was crazy to begin with. Did he have to prove it by enlisting a pimply adolescent to help him fight crime? Was Bat-Baby unavailable? But the studio was insistent: There was no such thing as solo Batman, there was only Batman and Robin. So, after holding off the executives for as long as we could, Tim and I realized we had better try to accommodate them. He flew up to my house in San Francisco and we walked around in circles for two days, finally deciding that there was no way to shoehorn Robin into our story. [...] We figured that if we managed to squeeze him in, the lame hacks who were making the sequel could worry about what to do with him next. When the film went into production in London, and ran seriously over budget, WB started looking for a sequence that could be cut to save money. And there was one obvious candidate: Intro Robin! So Robin was cut from the movie and shoved back to Batman Returns— from which he was cut yet again and shoved back to Batman Forever.

Grant Morrison on creating Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth (written 1987-1988, published 1989) with Dave McKean (see the annotated script's fourth page):

The original first draft of the script included Robin. Robin appeared in a few scenes at the beginning then remained at Police Headquarters for the bulk of the book, where he spent his time studying plans and histories of the house, in order to find a way in to help his mentor. Dave McKean, however, felt that he had already compromised his artistic integrity sufficiently by drawing Batman and refused point blank over for the Boy Wonder — so after one brave but ridiculous attempt to put him in a trench coat, I wisely removed him from the script.

Paul Dini on Batman: The Animated Series (1992), as told in the 1998 book Batman Animated:

The Fox Network, on the assumption that kids won't watch a kid’s show unless kids are in it, soon began insisting that Robin be prominently featured in every episode. When Fox changed the title from Batman: The Animated Series to The Adventures of Batman & Robin, they laid down the law-no story premise was to be considered unless it was either a Robin story or one in which the Boy Wonder played a key role. Out were underworld character studies like “It's Never Too Late"; in were traditional Batman and Robin escapades like “The Lion and the Unicorn.” A potentially intriguing Catwoman/Black Canary team-up was interrupted in midpitch to the network by their demand, “Where's Robin?” When the writers asked if they could omit Robin from just this one episode, Fox obliged by omitting the entire story. Looking back, there was nothing drastically wrong with Robin's full-time insertion into the series—after all, kids do love him. Our major gripe at the time was that it started turning the series into the predictable Batman and Robin show people had initially expected it would be. For the first season, Batman had been an experiment we weren't sure would work. We were trying out different ways of telling all kinds of stories with Batman as our only constant. For better or worse, having a kid forced him, and the series, to settle down.

Christian Bale, star of Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight trilogy (2008):

If Robin crops up in one of the new Batman films, I'll be chaining myself up somewhere and refusing to go to work.

Summed up

Among the keepers of Batman, there has been a vocal contingent arguing against the inclusion of Robin. They argue that Robin damages Batman's brooding, solitary persona. They argue that the concept of Robin is too ridiculous and fantastic for the grounded, gritty ideal of Batman. They argue that a respectable version of Batman shouldn't allow, encourage, or train "child soldiers" to endanger their lives fighting against violent evil-doers.

The original and most iconic Robin, Dick Grayson, has definitely benefited from his deep roots in DC lore and his consistent popularity among fans—and yet even he has been shunned from various Batman projects over the decades. When even he struggles to get his foot in the door, his successors face stiffer opposition.

So it's not quite correct to say that Jim Starlin hated Jason Todd. In his own words, Starlin wasn't fond of Robin, and his storytelling (most obviously A Death in the Family) set out to argue against Batman having any kind of "partner" at all. This, following the wildly successful comic that treated Barbara Gordon as a disposable prop. A growing audience welcomed the Dark Age, and the gruesome spectacles made of kid-friendly elements like Batgirl and Robin.

This trend could be broken by the upcoming sequel to The Batman and by the planned slate of upcoming DCU films. But most Robin fans will tell you that many movie-going Batman fans still have their doubts about Robin sharing Batman's spotlight.

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breannasfluff · 6 months

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A sword wields no strength unless the hand that holds it has courage. You may be destined to become the hero of legend…but your current power would disgrace the proud green of the hero's tunic you wear. You must use your courage to seek power…and find it you must. Only then will you become the hero for whom this world despairs. - Hero's Shade

So Twilight is quoting back the Hero's Shade here. Ironically, the Hero's shade could then quote a future Twi to a past Twi, making a loop.

But then we have the letter from the ranch. Did Time get a letter that Malon is pregnant?

"You have at last mastered all of the hidden skills. Although I accepted life as the hero, I could not convey the lessons of that life to those who came after. At last, I have eased those regrets. You who have marched through countless foes, each mightier then the last… You who now gaze to the future with vision unclouded… Surely you can restore Hyrule to its stature of yore as the chosen land of the gods. …Farwell! - Hero's Shade

Given the Shade's line about those who came after...Time may have never gotten to pass on his skills to his son, leaving him with regrets. Will this story end with Dink's defeat at the cost of Time's life?

Or will it come after the story is over; ala Tony Stark style where he gets a few years with his kid, then dies?

Any way you look at it, it's pretty grim.

image of comic belongs to Jojo @linkeduniverse

#linked universe #linkeduniverse #lu update #lu time #lu twilight #discussion #it could be that there's monsters in that era #but Time's demise is still an issue at some point

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writing-for-life · 11 days

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”But He Loved, He Should Have Been Forgiven”

About Free Will, Responsibility and Agency: Lucifer and Dream as Foils

Did I finally jump on the Lucidream bandwagon? No, don’t panic (or be eternally disappointed 🤣), because that quote is actually from “Murder Mysteries”, a short story that also exists in comic form (drawn by P. Craig Russell). And while it isn’t officially part of the Sandman Universe (or even DC), I always saw it as somewhat of a blueprint of how NG (re)imagined Lucifer’s Fall. There is enough in Lucifer’s characterisation in the Sandman that makes it quite plausible as a sort of backstory, especially since it was written when the Sandman was still in full swing. But more about that later…

I’ve long wanted to write a meta about Lucifer and Dream as narrative foils, and since I’ve finally started clearing out my drafts, this was a good one to do right now because we are currently discussing “A Hope in Hell” in our community (join us!). Although I have to admit that this one is rather about what transpires when Lucifer decides to abandon their realm in Season of Mists...

When Lucifer learns of Dream's impending return to Hell to finally release Nada, it solidifies their own resolve to leave (I use they/them pronouns because of the show although comics!Lucifer is male presenting apart from the plumbing and also referred to as he/him). By the time Dream arrives, Hell is nearly deserted, with Lucifer basically expelling its last inhabitants. Lucifer tells Dream they rebelled long ago, and that they are not willing to “pay for that one action” anymore. And the most profound truth they share with Dream is the nature of ultimate freedom—the freedom to leave. This is also brought up many issues later, when Lucifer says to Delirium, "I told him, you know. I told him years ago… I told him that I owed him much for having given me the impetus to go. I told him there was always freedom, even the ultimate freedom. The freedom to leave. You don't have to stay anywhere forever.”

And that’s just… ouch. Not just because it so clearly shows that Morpheus also could have left had he just chosen to (then again, he wouldn’t be Morpheus if he had, and even more “then again”: he did in certain ways), but also because we generally see Lucifer as an antagonistic force. But here, they express something akin to gratefulness. And maybe even a hint of regret that Morpheus didn’t also choose the same way. They feel almost sorry for him (my guess is they actually do, and I can never forget their face at The Wake). But what do you do if even freedom feels like a cage?

All of this ties in neatly with the crucial truth about Hell Lucifer reveals: People are there because they choose to be (and that Hell doesn’t need to be a physical place: We can make our own—any place, even in our own minds).

...this is where you wanted to be.

Lucifer explains to Dream:

"Why do they blame me for all their little failings? They use my name as if I spend my entire day sitting on their shoulders, forcing them to commit acts they would otherwise find repulsive. 'The Devil made me do it.' I have never made one of them do anything. Never. They live their own tiny lives. I do not live their lives for them.”

He continues, “and then they die, and they come here (having transgressed against what they believed to be right), and expect us to fulfil their desire for pain and retribution. I don't make them come here. They talk of me going around and buying souls, like a fishwife come market day, never stopping to ask themselves why. I need no souls. And how can anyone own a soul? No.

They belong to themselves… they just hate to face up to it.”

Which brings me to one of the most important messages (one of many) of the Sandman: People must take responsibility (and in this particular case not only for their lives but also for their afterlives, which is also a recurring theme). Each person's soul is their own, and no one can take that away. Paradoxically (or maybe not), as Lucifer abandons their own responsibilities, they urge people to take responsibility for themselves: You can drop said responsibilities, with all that entails, as long as you also take responsibility for the fallout.

So what about the wider question of free will then?

Let’s look at Lucifer's rebellion and fall for that, because both raise a lot of questions. Dream tells Lucifer that he remembers them as passionate, and Lucifer responds, “I cared about so many things. I suppose that was why everything began to go wrong. You know… I still wonder how much of it He planned. How much of it He knew in advance. I thought I was rebelling. I thought I was defying His rule. No… I was merely fulfilling another tiny segment of His great and powerful plan.”

And this brings me right to NG’s short story “Murder Mysteries”, which isn’t really officially part of the Sandman Universe, but also… it totally is 🤣. In it, pre-fall Lucifer witnesses the destruction of an angel who killed another angel they loved. Raguel (the angel formerly tasked with said destruction who now walks on earth, coincidentally mentioned in the panel above as one who might also have rebelled) narrates, “‘That was not right. That was not just.’ Perhaps Saraquael was the first to love, but Lucifer was the first to shed tears."

Later, it is revealed that God orchestrated this situation to push Lucifer towards rebellion. God needed an adversary to run Hell and says, “Lucifer must brood on the unfairness of Saraquael's destruction. And that—amongst other things—will precipitate him into certain actions. Poor sweet Lucifer. His way will be the hardest of all my children; for there is a part he must play in the drama that is to come, and it is a grand role.”

Lucifer was basically set up by God, and this somewhat revisionist interpretation of their rebellion and fall opens up larger questions about free will, agency and destiny.

Because although Lucifer's actions were influenced by God, they still carried them out and are therefore fully responsible for them. And by choosing to abandon Hell, Lucifer was taking responsibility for their own life. They faced a choice: remain in Hell as a shadow of their former self, or move on and make peace.

This fragile peace is illustrated at the end of "A Season of Mists," when Lucifer and an old man are conversing on a beach. The old man, despite having lost everyone he loved, remarks that any God who can create such beautiful sunsets couldn't be all bad. After the man leaves, Lucifer admits (basically to God), “He's got a point. The sunsets are bloody marvelous, you old bastard. Satisfied?”

And in a way, even Lucifer comes to terms with their past once they take responsibility for it.

In a way, this mirrors Dream’s arc to a tee. One could certainly argue that he was set on his path by forces outwith his control: Whatever had to happen in cosmic terms was always bigger than Dream. The Fates also held a grudge against him and Orpheus, for more than one reason. Orpheus did make the Furies cry, and they never forgave him for that. Crucially though, he was also responsible for his own actions and carried them out. Only that Dream’s choice was ultimately a different one—or was it truly? Because what is the exact definition of “walking away”? He certainly did not abandon his realm like Lucifer because he ensured it was taken care of. There is no devil-may-care (no pun intended) attitude, because even when choosing death, Morpheus does care about his realm and the dreamers. Deeply.

It is the sole reason why the ending we get is the ending we get, and why we have Daniel as Dream in the end. And while Lucifer takes responsibility for their own life, Morpheus takes responsibility for his own death. But both Lucifer and Morpheus faced a choice: remain on their paths as shadows of their former selves, or move on and make peace. And both chose the latter.

And one takeaway for us, as the readers, might be that if we find ourselves in an intolerable situation, we can always walk away, even if the price may be high. This brings us back to the theme of freedom:

The price of freedom is taking responsibility for our lives, even if we haven't been fully in control of them. The freedom to walk away might not be the ultimate freedom, as Lucifer suggests, but it is significant.

Free will in the Sandman is a topic of debate, and I tangentially wrote about it before:

Destiny carries a book that contains everything that will happen to us, all there was, is and will be. Most of all though, it contains what must happen. One could say that in this universe, there is a strong element of predestination involved. However, complaining about a lack of free will and just pointing towards Destiny’s book also misses the point:

In the end, our lives are always our own (which is mentioned several times, directly or in a roundabout way: in Façade, in Song of Orpheus, in Brief Lives, in The Kindly Ones, in The Wake).

Your life and your death are your own

Some of us might have more to overcome than others, but the sooner we accept our unique challenges (which is not the same as being passive), the more we will focus on what we can change—or what we can meet with forgiveness and (self-)compassion.

Destiny and freedom as opposite sides of the coin matter far less than what we do with them…

#the sandman #sandman #dream of the endless #morpheus #lucifer morningstar #the sandman comics #sandman meta #lucifer #sandman analysis #Orpheus sandman #sandman spoilers #queue

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wordsinhaled · 2 years

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god, i'm just yelling, this is SO QUEER, this fucking story

the way you see dream, imprisoned, reflected in hob's glass in 1989

the METAPHOR of that. hob in '89 pushing the envelope of social perception to talk openly about his relationship with dream to the bartender at this pub??? while dream is imprisoned in a physical prison, and kept imprisoned there by his own pridefulness and inability to ask for support??? fuck

paired with the quote from the comics of dream having revelations about his imprisonment -- "The problem, he realized, was that those who had power enough to help him, he had not furnished with motive. While those who might aid him willingly, he had not provided with means. It came to him that if he had merely trusted more freely, his captivity might have been short indeed. But then... whom to trust?"

something something metaphor for self-isolation and lack of community and internalized homophobia

AND just... the visual transitions in these scenes -

dream's prison taking the shape of hob's glass—this last glass of liquor hob thinks he might get to drink in this memory-steeped space that has been their meeting place for six centuries. this glass of liquor that the bartender offers him as a silent sign of solidarity—the glass, symbolic of freedom and connection, the two things that dream in that precise moment utterly lacks, cut off from the dreaming as he is, but both things he could find in hob when he is ready, because hob is determined to wait for him

the subtext with the bartender—hob in conversation with queer elders, the glen grant, "old enough to be [hob's] father," "i'm older than i look," "in a hundred years"—speaking to longevity, to living beyond adversity, to surviving in the AIDS crisis

the visual transition from dream in his prison to dream's face reflected in the barrier as he stands in front of the barricade and hob's spray painted sign. he's free, he's ready to accept the love hob is offering him. and the momentary heartbreak in his face when he thinks he might be too late, before he sees the spray-painted sign - god, just the absolute revolutionary queer energy and malicious compliance of hob using his queer buying power to secure the new inn and breaking the law by doing graffiti so that dream will find him

the fucking hopeful, heartfelt, tender music that plays as dream follows the sign to the new inn??? the way he walks so slowly, so deliberately as though he's bracing himself for hob not having waited. the way he moves through the grass almost wistfully, like he's walking toward a dream he's had for more than a century. the way he looks around the bar and zeroes in on hob.

history professor hob!!! radical queer elder hob gadling, who looks mid-30s but has seen and felt his community's pain and loss and can bridge the gap between queer past and queer present. hob unlearning his biases and learning and growing to understand and fight against the structural inequalities and systems of oppression he perpetrated in his own past! fostering future generations of loving, caring, compassionate humans. giving people a safe space

the new inn as a Queer Safe Space, the MEANINGFULNESS of that, when queer-specific spaces are dwindling in UK, US, and other worldwide cities—this article from july 2022 states, "Take London, for example. In 2017, a pivotal audit by the Urban Laboratory at University College London revealed that since 2006, the number of venues for LGBTQ Londoners had fallen from 124 to 47, a loss of nearly 60 per cent." as of january 2021, only 15 nightlife spaces for queer/gay women were left in the US and there are literal community projects in place to try to preserve queer safe spaces

the idea of this carving out of space, calling to mind the queer chosen family, the importance of community

the way dream and hob smile at each other at the end. open, so open, so full of genuine warmth. together again and not to be parted. in the place that was meant for them, this place that is a reinvention of an even older place they had made their own - in the new inn that exists simply because of their love for each other

DREAMLING IS A QUEER GIFT, THEIR STORY IS SO IMPORTANT

#the sandman #dreamling #OH I FORGOT THE PART WHERE THEY FUCKING PAN TO THE THRESHOLD OF DESIRE AFTER HOB AND DREAM MEET #and play a fucking EDM song about 'i don't want your desire / i just want to be free'#'i'm looking for release'#'and if you feel like letting go / you're not alone'#like okay???? get a ROOM #are they going to a club later or???

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alwek · 2 months

Text

I have 100 9/11 memes in my collection, and so here is my

Top 10 9/11 Memes From My Folder

From Worst Of The Best To Best Of The Best

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10) Conkeldurr

I like this edit a lot. It's decently cut, it's a funny idea executed cleanly, it envokes the image of a kaiju causing 9/11 and I think that's interesting. It's almost like he's crushing the twin towers with his fists, or he's about to use them as weapons in a fight.

~~~~~~~~~~

9) The Coup

Album covers/images that go hard. This was originally going to be the cover of the album, and it was chosen PRIOR to 9/11. The cover was greenlit in June 2001, and only some retail copies with the cover were printed on September 11th, which is a funny coincidence. I want one of the Exploding Towers prints so bad.

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8) The Two Towers

The joke that wrote itself. It just makes so much sense! And this edit is so clean, too. Just and absolutely fantastic Two Towers meme. THIS is how they could have beat Sauron.

~~~~~~~~~~

7) Mama Mia

This is the meme that started it all for me. I quote this all the time, and laugh whenever I think about it. The thumbs down reactions, the dryness of the responce "thousands of people died" the killer comback that is "Mama Mia." It just hits me in all the right spots. It's got subtlety, it's got a good edit, it's got an original joke, I love it.

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6) USA vs UK

I like this one for its subtlety. You look at this and think, "It's just a chess board." But look and look a little closer you see some pieces are missing. A little closer, you notice that the players are the USA and the UK. And what pieces are missing? On the UK side, the queen. On the US side? The towers. It's trusts itself, and it trusts you to understand it.

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5) Garfield Did It

This COULD be a completely innocuous Garfield comic of him getting in trouble. But introce the context of "but what if 9/11?" It immediately makes this a top tier 9/11 meme. Who else but Garfield to orchestrate such a thing? What a classic Garfield antic.

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4) Subway Ad

I love this one a lot. This is one of the cleanest edits I've ever seen, and the fact that it looks like real ad is really boosting the capabilities of this meme. You could potentially trick someone into thinking this is a real ad, and I think that's beautiful.

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3) Jenga Sales

Another really good subtle one. Environmental story telling at its absolute finest. Jenga sales dropped drastically after 9/11, and the graph of that on its own is just so fucking funny.

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2) Data Is Right, Do it

This one is perfect. Data would absolutely say this, and there's very real potential for star fleet to end up in this situation. Captain Kirk would do it, too. He'd spend the whole time trying not to, but because of those antics, he would lock himself into having to use The Enterprise to do 9/11. This meme could be cannon, and that's awesome.

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1) When Life Depends On It, You Use Asbestos

I can't imagine something aging worse than this ad. The Twin Towers were PACKED with asbestos. Yeah this may not be a meme but how fucking funny is this? The towers going down was probably an extremely good thing considering this. You could spin it that Isis or whoever was trying to save america by stopping the asbestos. "Use asbestos, save lives" that's such a tag line to have for something that causes cancer, I love this image so much.

~~~~~~~~~~

Send me 9/11 memes

#ramblings #9/11 memes

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that-gay-guy-from-hell · 1 month

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So on the TLT Discord, after posting the sketches of Zero and Rust, Nethie and Cage both mentioned swimsuits (context: I censored Rust in his boxers because i didnt know if it was too risqué)-- Nethie saying specifically the official tour posters. To be honest, i forgot about those outfits and wanted to do something with them so here's a WIP (I put a divider cause this is long-ish):

For this post I'm going to use he/him//his pronouns for the Tombsonas btw!

Contexr: While taking a break from surfing, Zero found out the hard way why Tesla avoids going into water that has living creatures in it. So, Zero being Zero, decides to poke the sleeping bear (quite literally) even more and enjoys being shocked by Tesla.... Who is debating if he wants to see if he can kill Zero using a ballpoint pen.

Rust helped Armstrong out of the water and found out that Army had made a few new friends; much to Army's excitement and dismay (he can't get them off of his diver's suit)

Also debating what tats. to add to Rust, so im open to ideas! Nothing on his arms or neck-- otherwise all my old art would bother me lmfao [This also reminded me that I've gotta make a ref for his piercings and scars--and where he has grey body hair (because it's where there was old scaring!)]

Spoilers for Doc's section of the "Chosen" comic, by the way, so skip this section if you don't want spoilers lol.

After seeing Doc just staring out at the water; not in a gazing in awe or fun way either, just staring. Zelimir decided to ask if Doc wanted to, quote, "-join him". Not being specific enough with his words, Zel finds out that Doc can manipulate water*. After a few moments, Zelimir explains that he meant to join him swimming not... whatever Doc was doing. Of course, Doc knew that Zel wanted that but figured it would be fun to mess around with him (plus, Marshall may be a tad bit afraid of swimming).

Drawing Doc as the canon model is so strange-- or well mostly canon (I'll never draw him without hair unless it is for a shitpost). Like having his normal outfit is so weird to me lmao

*During the Chosen comic "Survive" , when Marshall ends up joining with Doc, the mob who'd been attempting to murder Marshall (... let's be honest here, less normal just murder and probably more like linch Marshall) was drowned to death by Doc. Meaning Doc has to have some sort of water/muck manipulation abilities--even if it just cause Doc was living there. (Here's that panel btw- this is why I love Marshall and Doc)

So yeah that's about it! I plan to add more to the drawing (hence the weird cropping) and will *probably* resketch all of these but I figured it was worth sharing lmao

I also found out that i struggle less to draw feet if i draw animal paws eith the raised heel (like where they are on their front toes ina fursuit type thing) and then add a heel 💀 lmfao

Thanks for reading and looking at my work! Much love yall! /pos

(Also here's the poster with the swimwear in question-)

Also one more thing- It is absolutely HILARIOUS to me that Doc is in his 100% normal gear/outfit when going to the beach. No swimsuit- sunglasses- or even just like a flower lei; no, he's in his black (p)leather jacket, black jeans, an arm wrap, black boots, a black hat, and (the only extra thing) a black umbrella. Hopefully Tombsonas can't have a heatstroke lmfaooo

Okay I'm done yapping I swear lmfao

TLT MASTERLIST

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leobashi · 4 months

Note

sooooo any altrverse 1 thoughts? c;

Altrverse #1 spoilers

Hehe 2 out of 2 issues so far Jackie is stinky boy I hope it becomes a running joke 5 stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The dichotomy? LOVE it! Marv the chosen one and Jackie a coincidence. Marv’s got a funny teacher and Jackie’s probably on his own. Marv’s a mama’s boy and Jackie is fatherless hdjdjd

(Also Marv’s mom’s name is Moira and my sister is in love with Overwatch Moira so I thought it was funny hdjd)

Also, I compared Ramses’s face mask thing to issue #0 in the future and it switches sides?? And it looks like it progressed too. Was it a mistake or change in character design or did something happen to make it move? Love the closer look at the magic system in his world too! I got plenty of questions about how the hell the magic circle works like how do they choose who gets to learn magic if 8 is already really late? You choose specific children or something? Based on what? Who they know? Do people have different potentials for magic and also based on what? Natural skill? Ramses can’t do magic, why? Because he doesn’t have the natural skill? Or because he never bothered to learn? How does he know magic anyway if he can’t do it? Who thought to teach him if he can’t? Unless he lost his ability somehow? What’s his connection to the magic circle? How do the twins know him? Is he a prophet of some sort? How reputable is he that the twins stopped whatever they were doing to hear about him? Why is he homeless? Is Marv’s mom okay in the future? We didn’t see her in #0, she better not die a horrible death in between. Hopes she calls him about tea or something ever week. What the hell were they doing in the entrance exam that it took so heckin long? And I’m sure there will be more questions if I reread it and thought about it more. Lots of world building, not many questions really answered yet, but makes sense, it’s only issue #1

That thing is Anti right?? For some reason I have it in my head that the Anti we know is not the Anti but some sort of human made into a vessel or host or something completely corrupted by Anti-energy idk. Either way, it’s seen Jackie and it seems a fraction of its power has entered him. Now Anti will be after him. Also, what happened to those other scientist guys who got shocked? Are they possessed now? Or in a similar situation as Jackie as in they got cool powers now? And that guy got laser eyes or something? And who are the other people around Jackie in that premonition that Anti saw? When will we meet them? What universe do they come from? Are they the other egos? Or will they be replaced by the other egos?

There’s also the two quotes I got from Jackie’s comic that I don’t think the fandom can treat normally anymore. One from that panel about that face and the other is ON THE FUCKING BACK OF THE COMIC TOO HNNNNNNN NEED TO PROTECC THE BOY

#ask #anon #altrverse #altrverse spoilers

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criminalmindsxdc · 1 year

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The FAQ for 2024~ Check the dates!

Full text below the cut!

What is Criminal Minds x DC Week?

CMxDC Week is a week-long fandom event combining the two properties of Criminal Minds and DC Comics - from the Justice League to the BatFam and everything in between!

How do I participate?

A list of prompts will be provided, as chosen by a small group of writers and artists in the Birdwatchers Discord server! There are a total of four prompts (three traditional and one quote) for each of the seven days to mix and match as you please. You may post them whenever you like during the duration of the event. If you post on Archive of our Own (AO3), please add your work to the collection, CMxDC 2024. If you crosspost on Tumblr, make sure to tag #cmxdc2024 and @ this blog so we can be notified and reblog you!

Does it have to be fanfic?

Nope! Art, moodboards, podfics - if you create it, we want to see it!

When does the event run?

The event will begin Monday January 29, 2024 and end Sunday February 4, 2024.

Can I combine prompts?

Please do! In fact, if you think you won’t be able to do all the days, feel free to combine them too.

Can I combine these prompts with other events?

Sure! I’m sure there are other events out there, so go wild.

Can I include NSFW/Dark content?

Sure can! Given the source material, NSFW and dark content are to be expected at times. However, for safety and courtesy reasons, we do ask that you refrain from submitting sexual content involving minors. With everything else, please be considerate and appropriately rate and tag your works. If you attempt to submit something that falls under this subject or is not properly tagged, we will remove it from the collection and will not reblog.

Do you have any special tags associated with this event?

Yes:

#cmxdc2024 - anything regarding the event

#cmxdc faq - answering questions about the event (including asks)

#cmxdc submission - submissions posted for the event

What if I have more questions?

Please send us an ask on Tumblr and we'll get back to you when we can!

#cmxdc2024 #cmxdc faq #criminal minds #dc #criminal minds x dc #cmxdc

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random-introverted-blog · 10 months

Text

Guys, our blog is growing, I'm so proud of us.

We must spread the gospel of Dark Justiciar/Sharran Shadowheart. I mean, yes, we all adore the fluffy and sweet nature of Selunite Shadowheart, my heart melts and eats that shit up but there's a wealth of untapped potential for Sharran Shadowheart and the fanfiction/Shadowheart fandom are cowards and scared of her power. To that end, I am providing the following information that you may have seen in that meme I posted a little bit ago. There will be spoilers. I'll mark these red as best I can.

First off, she has access to memory magic.

Modify Memory is the first spell that comes to mind though it's limited to 10 minutes of memory. Also, the range of time is decided by the level you cast the spell. You need to cast it as a LEVEL 9 SPELL to be able to have full access to their memory, with level 8 being within the last year. I have no doubt Shar has better usage and can grant more flexibility to her followers if you go by what Viconia did to Shadowheart. Repeatedly.

On that note, she can manipulate/edit memories as well. Modify Memory doesn't mean total erasure after all, but that is something its capable of.

Memory suppression is potentially different, and Shadowheart says suppressed specifically. She also says that her memories will be restored to her after she completes her mission, but I'm not sure if she ever does, actually. If someone has dialogue or a clip of her saying she does after a full Sharran Shadowheart playthrough [including her parents] then I'm interested in being proven wrong.

She is Shar's Chosen [CANONICALLY THE FAVORITE PRINCESS OF A GOD GUYS]

That's not a title/position to scoff at.

When you take Dark Justiciar Shadowheart to the cloister for her coup attempt, she informs the entire place that Shar now uses the wound on her hand to funnel her power into her.

She doubles down on this after she kills her parents. When she rises from the floor and is all agog (thanks Astarion) she says Shar's power is at her fingertips. She could very well be speaking metaphorically, but Shar backs this up, saying prior, and I quote, "It is done. And done well. They are with me now, in my endless dark. And from them, you can draw endless power." I haven't had the time nor the full courage to get far enough in a DJ playthrough to confirm if she gets any cool powers like Ascended Astarion does. Far as I can tell from googling around, she doesn't.

It's not mentioned in the epilogue, you don't see this power the same way you see Ascended become Batstarion. But the point remains. She stands at the helm of Shar's church.

Deception, secrecy and infiltration, oh my

Shadowheart comically has a -1 to her charisma rolls, but canonically she is an expert at lying and hiding secrets. If you try to pry her before she's ready to tell you about Shar, she will pretty expertly thwart you before you can get too far along. While that's moreso her being a prickly asshole to shrug you off her and less cunning, it's still a testament to her ability to bunker down on things she can't/won't talk about.

So imagine my surprise when I realized people were sitting on the fact that Sharran/Dark Justiciar/Mother Superior Shadowheart has a cult of people obsessively devoted to secrets and deception and manipulation at her disposal, under her command... And not a single soul is considering the yandere/obssessive implications. The limits to this are almost endless. Shar is a narcisstic goddess but we're talking fanficition/fanart guys, we create our headcannons under creative license. If we wanted canon, we'd just play the game again.

The Church of Shar is big on indoctrination and has no shame and virtually no limits on how far it will go to achieve this

This, roped in with memory magic, can be a DEVASTATING combination. I've touched on the memory part already in Flickers of Loss where the reader had some of her memories suppressed and the gaps were padded with Sharran brainwashing.

Do even a fraction of reading on the Forgotten Realms wiki for Shar's church and you find out pretty quick that some of her followers probably didn't (initially) choose her.

Due to the perception of Shar's church among most folk of the Realm, open recruiting for new members was not an option. Novitiates of the faith—whether they served as spies, agents, or clergy within the temples—were brought aboard individually, a process that sometimes took an inordinate amount of time. Sharran clergy often sought out secrets held by prospective members, and manipulated them to secure desired converts.

If we're saying Tav completed a full Sharran playthrough and Shadowheart is Shar's Chosen, that Tav saved Baldur's Gate, then converting them would make a lot of sense to Shar. And Shadowheart has said herself, "rules aren't meant to be broken, but they are intended to be bent." She can justify many acts as service to Shar, to manipulate a conversion from Tav. Few finer torments, after all...

In I Want To Live, by Chapter 8, Shadowheart has successfully abducted Emily, and obviously has a twisted obsession with her. Why isn't Shar striking Shadowheart across the face for turning her attention, even slightly, away from her? Because Shar wants a conversion from Emily, and is allowing Shadowheart to use any means necessary to get it. Shar wants what she wants, and so long as she gets it, she doesn't really care how (she'll make a show about it, sure, but in the end its narcistic theatrics)

Shadowheart is still a terrible Sharran [This whole segment is epilogue spoilers]

She's knowledgeable, absolutely, but she fails to apply that knowledge. Often. It's part of why Viconia had such an issue with her. Not only was she grooming her own replacement, but her replacement was, in her eyes, an incompetent fool.

In the epilogue, we see this trend continue. Romanced, she's like "yeah we can't officially be together but I'm totally down bad to show you my PRIVATE WINE CELLAR" guys please I'm begging yo—

If you try to lowkey brush her off by saying "you're not the same woman I fell for" she will come at you with "yeah, but there's still something of me you want to pursue, right? Right?"

Non-romanced, she basically implies that Nocturne has become this. "Yeah, I'm playing favorites and I dare them to call me out on it, they won't because I'm built different and they're scared of me and they should be because I'm playing favorites and they're not my favorite and—"

If you ask her to take leave from her duties, she doesn't rebuke you for suggesting it HOW DARE YOU SPEAK SUCH HERESY MY LIFE IS FOR THE DARK LADY TO DECIDE. Nothing like that. She just says "would that I could, but this is my life now, sooo..."

If you ask her how running the cloister is going, she will go off on a rant. "All-consuming. Endless decisions to make, underlings jockeying for your attention, threats from the outside, threats from the inside... there's times I miss when it was just our little group against the odds. Simplicity is a luxury that has drifted out of my reach, I'm afraid. But at least for tonight, I can have a taste of how it used to be."

And if you tell her you're living a quiet, peaceful life, she says, "I won't pretend I'm not a little jealous. Lady Shar is a demanding mistress - as is her right to be - but a little calm and solitude would be a tonic."

She's unhappy, and she does a poor job concealing it. She wishes she had more freedom to pursue her heart's desires. Calm, peace, friendship, intimacy.

So all she needs is an excuse/exemption from Shar to pursue Tav. All she needs is Shar to let her off the leash. And even if Shar doesn't, I'm pretty confident that this woman will comb and rake through scripture to find the vaguest of loopholes to have Tav.

Conclusion

You guys are cowards and are too intimidated to write Dark Justiciar Shadowheart. She's definitely more complicated to write because of her religious beliefs and the restrictions therein. She's not as simple to write as Ascended Astarion, a man who is beholden only to his own ego. But there is plenty to scrounge up to justify and headcanon a fanfiction or fanart of Dark Justiciar Shadowheart being yandere and obsessed as well, and a pretty believable one at that. You just have to be willing to put in the work.

If I think of more to add, I'll probably add it as an edit.

Now go forth, my fellow Dark Justiciar Shadowheart simps! Take this sermon and manipulate convince the nonbelievers of our truths!

#baldur's gate 3 #baldur's gate #bg3 #shadowheart #baldurs gate 3 #baldurs gate shadowheart #baldurs gate #bg3 shadowheart #dark justiciar shadow heart #dark justiciar #sharran shadowheart #shadowheart is queen #shadow daddy #drink my blood and spit it in my face #you guys are really sleeping on this shit I swear #spread the gospel of obsessive/possessive Shadowheart #a sermon for the church of Sharran/Dark Justiciar Shadowheart simps

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northoftheroad · 7 months

Note

2 and 16 for the fandom asks!✨❤️

Ooh, an ask! 😍

2. A headcanon you weren't sure about at first but have come to like.

Gosh, that was a tough one… I honestly try to avoid having them, because every time I see people list their personal hc, it invariably contains fanon/misconceptions that I hate.

<long pause> I guess I can't help but liking the idea that Alfred always have freshly baked cookies ready, even if I don’t understand when he’s supposed to have time to bake. And it has to be a headcanon that has spread enough to become fanon (if I understand the difference between the two correctly), because I can't remember it happening anywhere in the comics but I feel I see it in a lot of fic.

16. A tiny detail in canon that you want more people to appreciate.

Dick as a Shakespeare nerd! Here’s when he was chosen to play Romeo in Star-Spangled Comics # 103. And here are several other examples of Dick quoting or appreciating the bard, so it wasn't just a case of being told to do it by his teacher!

Thanks for asking!

#dick grayson #robin #nightwing #alfred pennyworth

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doshmanziari · 10 months

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This is a question I originally posed on Instagram recently, and I thought I would extend the question here, since I am sure it will find some resonance among this account's audience (and others').

To quote (and elaborate on) my IG post:

Despite all of the ostensible advances made in recent years regarding the amplifying of marginalized creative voices, I find that one of the greatest persistent prejudices of the art world continues to be the positioning of painting as fundamentally more important than drawing. Pay attention and you will see that the art world -- galleries, museums, and art-makers, too -- still largely gravitates around the idea that it is only in exceptional cases that drawing can be painting’s equal. It is highly uncommon, in my experience, to find galleries which prioritize two-dimensional artwork to showcase as much drawing as they do painting. In fact, drawing seems to be a rarity in the upper echelons of the gallery world. Painting, sculpture, "installation" work, and -- to an extent -- photography occupy spaces of priority. This obviously has great ramifications for both what is highlighted and, as a consequence, what sort of work sells. The reasons for this bias, I believe, are complex and various; but I do think a lot of it stems from cultural conditioning, who we decide to canonize, and which work of theirs is chosen for highlighting. Michelangelo, for instance, was a masterful drawer (actually, I find that his drawings much more powerfully exhibit his abilities to render and selectively distort bodies than his paintings do), yet we still largely think of him in terms of his sculptures and frescoes, and treat his drawings as pretty much intermediate work.

Consider an instance of how this prejudice works within language. While we have the term “painterly”, which seems to refer to some activation of paint’s inherent sensuousness (often, it is applied in tandem with work where paint is applied generously and the brushstrokes are visible), we lack an equivalent term for drawing. People searching for a word might say something about “draftsmanship." To me, this word connote precision -- but also some sort of mechanical aspect, denying drawing its inherent sensuality too; and, with the inclusion of the word "draft", implying that drawing is merely that which precedes the "finished" work. One of the most prevalent witty critiques in my graduate program -- probably originally perpetuated by faculty, and then adopted by students, eager to utilize the slickest slams -- was to describe a work as “illustrative." I see this pejorative as in some way connecting to drawing, since we are most familiar with illustrations through the format of drawings, or a mixture of drawing and painting. I wonder, too, if this description was not reinforcing a notion that illustration has some inherent adjacency to literalism or crass commercialism -- that it would somehow be beneath the "professional" or "fine" artist were they to ever illustrate a book or make a comic book, or that such work strictly and forever stands outside of a worthy context.

Of course, I think this is total bullshit. Many of my most precious experiences of art as a child and teenager came by way of illustrations, and I still have great respect and admiration for those artists, even if I may not draw like them. While growing up, only rarely did I have the opportunity of going to galleries or museums and taking in artwork that way -- which isn't to say that I would not have responded with equal excitement to any of the art which may have been on display at such institutions. But it is to say that illustration -- representational drawing -- served as one of the greatest motivators and standards to which I held myself in my growth as an artist (a growth, mind you, which has never ended, and never will), and that it would be pointless and self-demeaning to treat these points of inspiration with an arrogant contempt. For me, drawing holds a great and unique appeal of accessibility -- in its making, the visibility of how it was made, and how it may encourage others to take up art themselves. Compare, for example, what you need in order to execute an oil painting against what you need in order to execute a colored pencil drawing. I would encourage anyone who may hold biases otherwise to reconsider why they are perpetuating this privileging of material. I would additionally ask people to consider why "importance" is ostensibly the greatest indicator of art that's worth paying attention to (while noting that a general agreement, as indicated by majority culture, is not always an indicator of pernicious hegemony). For myself, I have found that a lot of the most "important" artwork -- at least by contemporary, or still-living, artists -- tends to be fairly one-note and anti-visual. The largest crowds, most laudatory curatorial statements, and biggest installations can never make me care about such stuff.

#art #art world #drawing #painting #media discourse

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venticuliao · 2 years

Text

Mondstadt's freedom of choice

I've always been curious about the quotes in the Teyvat Chapter Trailer and whether there is any purpose in the featured characters of each nation.

There are a lot of aspects about freedom present in Mondstadt's lore and chapter, but this specific quote always sounded to me like it alluded to choice.

Is something that has been imposed on you still your choice? How do you know it's your choice when you don't have a say in the matter?

Venti's relationship with ruling

Decabarian, the ruling god of old mondsdadt, never meant to oppress his people when he imposed confinement from the outside world. He thought he was doing right by them because he believed he was protecting them from the cold, and interpreted their submission as a satisfied response. The rebellion caught him by surprise.

From Venti's character story 4:

"The ruler had believed that he had given his subjects a city free from the bitter cold, and to the end, he believed that they had loved him as he loved them."

With this thought in mind, Venti chose not to act as a ruling god in Mondstadt so that he (or anybody else) would never deceive himself into tyranny.

This was, of course, for the sake of his people's future, but wasn't the seat of archon also imposed on Barbatos?

Venti didn't mean to become a god, let alone an archon, he supported the people of Mondstadt because he believed in the dreams of his bard friend, who wanted to see the outside world. When Decabarian was defeated, Boreas also removed himself as a candidate, and they were the only ones fighting for the seat in this side of teyvat (aside from their already existing territorial dispute), so Barbatos became the victor by default.

Thus, shouldn't deciding when and how he helps Mondstadt be his choice, too? And not just because he owes it to his title?

Out of the archons we've met so far, Venti is the only one who exists to his people solely in his actions rather than in presence. They know their god through the way he transformed the land and through the ballads and poems about him, they do not know him in person, but they pray for his blessing and comically attribute every good thing that

happens to his doing. And yet, they act self sufficiently (and almost in a workaholic way) due to the gratitude and admiration they hold for him.

Venti isn't the god of Mondstadt just because he holds a tilte, he is their god because he willingly chooses to be; and his people recognise him as their god not because they're told he is, but because they genuinely see him as such. That is to say, this relationship between them would exist whether Venti was been given a gnosis or not.

The concept of chosen family

Rather than subjects or believers, the people of Mondstadt are the children of the anemo archon. And as it turns out, this concept of family (blood or otherwise) seems like a very big aspect of their identity as a nation, especially considering the last event in 3.1, titled "Of Ballads And Brews".

Mondstadt welcomes outsiders as children of Barbatos, such as Amber's grandfather and Rosaria, and so its people too can also define their own concept of family.

Like Rosaria chooses to see Varka as her new paternal figure (and Razor as a brother, by extension); or the old adventurers who chose to raise Bennett as their son; or Alice allowing Klee to grow close to the knights as her older siblings, especially Albedo, who had no ties to anyone but his teacher prior to arriving in Mondstadt.

The land of freedom is full of artificial relationships that make a point of being no less important than blood relations, but that also means blood relations are just as important, and they can be chosen too, even if they are imposed by nature. There's Razor who found family among the wolves, and at the same time still longs to meet his biological parents; there's Jean still wanting to have a relationship with her younger sister Barbara, even though they have grown apart after their parents' divorce. Furthermore, these imposed ties can also be broken, like Eula leaving her clan and their legacy behind in order to honor her own principles.

It's not that found family has the same value as blood bonds, but that the definition of "family" is independent from such ties.

Beyond family relations, there is a sense of belonging that redefines these characters' identity. Foreigners like Amber's grandfather who chose to become a part of the nation's knights and started a family with a local; and Kaeya, whose loyalty is split between Khaenri'ah, his country of origin that abandoned him, and Mondstadt, the nation that raised him.

That which is imposed and that which is chosen

I find Diluc to be a fitting character to represent this conflict.

His father imposed his own ambitions on him since he was a child, and Diluc never questioned them. Being a knight, and thus upholding what being a Knight of Favonius stands for, is his conviction because it is his father’s wish. When he gets his vision at early age, he takes it as "a sign of recognition of both his and his father shared ambition”, thinking that finally "he could make his father proud”.

After the fatal accident, he’s faced with the reality that, first, his father was not who he thought he was and, second, the knights themselves cannot guarantee their own principles to be enforced. Both were so embedded into Diluc’s identity at that point, that it is inconceivable for him to remain the same, so he leaves the knights to investigate the origins of his father’s delusion.

It is worth noting that when he leaves the knights, he leaves his vision behind too, believing it to be nothing but a burden. He parts ways with this imposed ambition and distances himself from Mondstadt (and his home). But then, years later, holding the same grudge, he still comes back to protect Mondstadt, this time from the shadows, to still follow the teachings his father instilled in him (regardless of if Crepus believed them or not) and the principles of the Knights of Favonius that the institution once betrayed. He’s matured at this point, and only sees his vision as an extension of his own conviction and strength.

We could say then, that Diluc’s journey is one of autonomy, of proving that his original conviction is real and it rightfully belongs to him, and always did. He's still doing what his father imposed on him, still protecting the land of freedom as a child of Barbatos, but in a way that's legitimate for himself, because it is his genuine choice after all.

The same way barbatos chooses to be the god of Mondstadt, and the people of Mondstadt choose him as their god without relying on his title of archon.

And so, true freedom means genuine choice.

#genshin lore #mondstadt lore #genshin thoughts

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