#they're so parallel in so many ways

[eeepgrove]

There's something very beautiful about Caroline's fear of time becoming her gift, her promise, and fulfillment of her innermost yearning, Love.

Both can be said for KC.

Klaus dreaded being abandoned, forgotten, and wiped from time and the hearts of his loved ones, while Caroline became an unwilling player in a tortuous game. It was horrible and it would only end with her death at the hands of her tormentor.

Time may be a punishing force, but in this case, it is a symbol of survival and success. They both survived their abusers and evolved to be better persons as a result. That, I believe, is what makes this ship so poignant to me.

[leafsfromthevine]

something something, "i'm only me when i'm with you," etc. etc.

[dykehayleywilliams]

black hole opened in the kitchen / the future is a benevolent black hole / it would only take the energy to fix it / there's a hole in the drywall still not fixed i just haven't gotten around to it besides i'm starting to get used to the gaps / i can't stop staring at the ceiling fan / quarantined in a bad dream / drag racing through the canyon / it's an all night drive from your house to reno / do you see us getting scraped up off the pavement? / i went out and wrapped my car around the streetlamp / i lied i am just lowering your expectations / guess i lied, i'm a liar who lies / half a mind that keeps the other second guessing / do i get callous or do i stay tender? which of these is worse and which is better? / always an angel, never a god / lord, be near me my final hour i once had sight but now i'm blind / there's something in the static i think i've been having revelations / no i'm not afraid to disappear, the billboard said the end is near / coming to in the front seat, nearly empty / last night i blacked out in my car and i woke up in my childhood bed wishing i was someone else / skip the exit to our old street and go home / we've got a long way to go before we get home 'cause this ain't my home anymore

[bri-notthecheese]

something, something “we deserve a soft epilogue, my love”

[autumnoficarus]

i can't stop listening to the 'purpose is glorious' track from this season's ost and thinking about how lovely the title and its meaning are. it's just such an amazing underlying theme in this show, and - while i do have criticisms about some of the choices made for the series finale - i really do feel the writers wholeheartedly delivered in sending that message home. for me personally, loki's ending is so gratifying and a large part of that is solely from viewing their arc's conclusion with the perspective of this theme in mind. to have spent years watching this character i hold very dear to my heart struggle to find belonging, to feel as though they matter and there is reason in their existence, finally get a chance to show - and recognize - their worth was so, so rewarding. and honestly, i think the message behind the phrasing of 'purpose is glorious' is all the more meaningful because of how loki's arc finished. yes, the outcome was bittersweet; yes, we're left knowing loki didn't get the happiness they undeniably earned after everything they'd gone through. it smarts something fierce to know their journey up until they deviated from their timeline and became a variant, as well as seen their eventual intended fate. the ache is only worsened after witnessing everything that happens within the TVA and the entirety of loki's character growth leading up to a redefining moment where they willingly choose to undergo a nightmarish amount of time in the endeavor to do the right thing. of course we want them to emerge victorious when they've struggled for so long, but that's not the point. loki's final moments are them forfeiting their right to a happy ending to preserve the stories of others because all stories matter and should inherently reserve the free will to be written; as sylvie says, loki makes their choice so their loved ones and life across the multiverse still have a chance to belong somewhere and embrace their place in the world. the take away is that even burden can be glorious. even with all the hardships of life - all the inevitable heartache, disappointment, and grief we encounter just by being alive - we have meaning in our existence. there is meaning in the trials we face, and the suffering we endure in order to overcome them. our pain gives us purpose; it gives us the ability to love, to grow from and for each other, and choose to sacrifice our happiness for the benefit of another. loki's purpose was forged in the bonds of those they met in their time at the TVA and the sense of value they gained from their companionship. their sacrifice perfectly conveys how the human capacity to love is one of cosmic greatness, which can ultimately surpass our instinctual desire to preserve one's self. we can move immovable mountains and challenge insurmountable adversity in behalf of the ones we love and their welfare. if that isn't an act deserving of glory, I don't know what is.

tldr; loki's purpose is the friends they made along the way = as the saying goes, 'tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all'. or: our own lives have purpose because of the connections we share with others, even when we are met with great loss.

[mid-nightowl]

steph as nightwing??? 👀

Yes, a hundred times yes. 

For me, the idea came out of this meta that @benbamboozled did ages ago (that I for the life of me cannot find now :( ) about how Barbara should have been the one to mentor Tim, but she wasn’t because dc (and superhero comics generally) are too cowardly to let a female superhero mentor a male hero. And it got me thinking--there were three “older” vigilantes and three younger vigilantes in the Batfam at this time, which then led to the whole Barbara mentoring Tim, Bruce babysitting Cass, and Dick mentoring Steph. Which would then eventually lead to Steph taking on the Nightwing mantle.

Nightwing!Steph was also an idea I had regarding the Batman!Dick era and the Tom King pitch of Tim becoming Nightwing during the Ric Grayson arc. In my delusional AU idea, after the “death” of Bruce, Dick would be Batman, Damian would be Robin, Barbara as Oracle, Cass would return as Batgirl after a short hiatus or be Black Bat, Tim would be Red Robin, Jason as Red Hood, and Steph would take over the Nightwing mantle while also attending college (a similar start to Dick’s own trajectory).   

I don’t have like a full meta on this (and I haven’t read everything regarding Steph so please correct me if I get something wrong or the vibes are off!), but I think Steph could be a worthy successor to the Nightwing mantle if there were a point in time where Dick moved on or couldn’t be Nightwing anymore. 

I think Steph embodies a lot of the same ideals and values that Dick/Nightwing resembles: hope, determination, and guts. There’s also the immediate similarity of the two of them being more light-hearted and quippy compared to the other Bats, which (almost) hides how capable and competent they are, but also how this happy-go-lucky mask hides anger and trauma.

Both of them had the guts to go out on their own, to create their own mantle and mask despite being told “no.” They both have the drive and determination in their actions to help others and stop criminals, and an innate need to be a hero/vigilante and that they can’t stop being a vigilante. And out of all the Bats, Stephanie has the most potential to represent hope, just as Dick does. 

To me, Steph has all the criteria to be one of the best vigilantes in the Batfam, but just doesn’t get the opportunities to do so. She’s got the foundations and the materials, she just needs help getting there. Being Nightwing (or being mentored by Dick) would give her the chance to showcase that. 

Being a vigilante that has ties to the Batfam but isn’t necessarily considered a sidekick character or in need of a mentor (like Batgirl or Robin), Steph could grow as a person and a vigilante with the Nightwing mantle. Nightwing is also a key component to the Batfam and is often the middle ground between the smaller groups within the family and I think Steph can easily step into that role, especially given her past relationships with Tim, Cass, and Barbara, her similarities and the trauma-bonding she does with Jason, and the older sister-younger brother relationship with Damian. Not to mention, Nightwing’s role as a leader in the Titans, which would give Steph a chance to show her capabilities to be a leader. But, Nightwing is also a stubbornly independent loner, a solo-act vigilante. So, not only can Steph be an important team player (in the Batfam and the Titans/equivalent team) but she'll also have the freedom to do her own thing. 

Nightwing (imo) was all about moving on, growing up and maturing on your own, and while Dick might not have realized what it would become later on, it’s grown to represent hope, the “universal constant,” and creating your own legacy. The transition from Robin to Nightwing is all about this, and I think this transition would have made a lot of sense for Stephanie (Spoiler to Nightwing = growing out of her anger towards her father but also growing out from underneath Batman/Batgirl’s shadows). I think there would still be issues and insecurities of Steph living up to a predecessor, similar to when she took on the roles of Robin and Batgirl, but I want to believe that Dick would train her well enough and his own belief in Steph taking on his mantle would alleviate these problems. 

There’s a lot of AU potential with Stephanie being Nightwing (I’ve got a few myself 👀), but canon wise, I don’t think we’ll see Dick move away from the Nightwing mantle ever. I think you could probably make a good argument for Steph to be Flamebird in canon and really introduce that mantle back into the Batfam (and her and Bette can bond over terrible mentors/families, being Batgirl, and being rejected).

I've got some more thoughts circling in my head about Dick mentoring a Spoiler!Steph, but I've kind of touched base about that here so I'll leave that for another time lol

thanks for letting me ramble about this idea<3 <3

[mikesbasementbeets]

god i wish i were more articulate so i could actually explain my thoughts on all the milven/byler visual parallels...... people using the situational and framing similarities to "prove" that mike feels the same way about both el and will when truly the further you get into both relationships the clearer the discrepancies become between the emotional weights and contexts of each scene.... and the way they're both framed the same way to make those discrepancies stand out even more

[leqclerc]

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Sebastian & Charles | Running Up That Hill [x] And if I only could, I’d make a deal with God, and I’d get him to swap our places; I’d be running up that road, be running up that hill with no problems

[worthlessandembarrasing]

[raayllum]

Ghosts and darkness

[love-has-a-way-ofgrowingbackward]

thinking about hamilton and burr together but not in a kissing way but in a you are so different on surface but are made of the same core way. they have the same sort of wants and hurt but they project it in such different ways.

[angelsdean]

my tags on my prev reblog re: dean's misinterpreted attitude toward monsters just got me thinking abt sam and the bloodfreak stuff in general and like, as we know a lot of the early seasons were framed in sam's pov so a lot of the time it' him who's feeling like a monster and projecting that onto others to confirm his own beliefs abt himself. like when he finds out abt john telling dean to kill him if he goes darkside sam suddenly is in agreement w/ john saying john's right and dean has to do it because dad said so !!! anyways that's just preface to what i want to say which is, sam isn't really a monster. what i mean is, he's not a monster in the inherent sense that he seems to think he is, and that's part of the reason why dean pushes back against the demon blood stuff because he knows sam can be saved and for dean his number one job is to save sam because the alternative is following john's order and that's something he just cannot do. so it makes sense that dean would do whatever it takes even if that's being a little mean or forceful (calling him a monster, echoing john by telling him not to walk out that door to give sam pause, forcing him to detox) because he does not want to kill his brother.

but anyways, sam is not a monster in the way he (and a lot of fans) thinks he's a monster. he was Not born a monster, it's not something that is intrinsically and inherently part of him. and i'd argue there's really nothing special or "chosen one"-esque about him (aside from the lucifer bloodline making him a better candidate for vessel purposes), he was just a regular baby who was dosed with demon blood, which in the text is treated as a drug / addiction. there was nothing special about any of the babies azazel dosed, they were just the children of people he'd made deals with. i think pretty much any baby (possibly even adult) who's fed demon blood from a powerful enough demon (like a Prince of Hell) would develop psychic powers. so it's not something completely out of his control that's turning him into a monster like a virus or a vampire / werewolf bite where he can't stop the progression. it's not happening to him he's making active choices to strengthen those powers and the more he feeds the more he wants it. everything w/ ruby is framed as him knowing he's doing something "wrong", the sneaking around, the lying. and i think dean's response is along the lines of "we need to get you help. we need to stop this because it's something that can be stopped. and if we stop it then i won't have to see you lose yourself or go too far. because if you go too far and start hurting people then i might have to kill you and i can't do that so please just let us save you." and i think that's fair. yes he and bobby maybe go about things the wrong way but i think it's born out of desperation. and also it's not a rejection of "this is who you are and we hate you for being a monster" it's "you're making choices that are leading you down a dangerous path and we're scared we may lose you so we're trying to stop you from going too far down that road."

like the end goal of all the bloodfreak stuff (ruby's end goal) was to free lucifer and freeing lucifer would mean sam becoming his vessel. they obviously don't know all that at the time, but in hindsight it's like, yea we should've curbed that bloodfreak stuff sooner. also heaven was telling dean to stop sam too and that he was going down a dangerous path and that if dean doesn't stop him they will (likely meaning death) so again, of course dean's gonna try to do whatever he can to stop sam even if it's by not great methods. (also heaven was playing him too bc they also wanted lucifer to be freed so that Destiny could come to pass)

[timeandspacelord]

patron saint of Kazolai (Bastards in Crime my beloved 🖤)

All Kazolai shippers and non-shippers alike, come to me for unintelligible noises about how perfect the Kaz Nikolai parallels are

[sparky-is-spiders]

Hi! I’m here suffering from lack of good Archivist!Sasha content as well 😭 On that note, do you have any fic on that topic you would recommend? Or just good Sasha fics in general, (or Jonsasha, if that’s your cup of tea)? Thank you in advance 😊

Tragically, I think there is a general dearth of good Archivist!Sasha content (and just about none of it Jonsasha content, as far as I can tell (and not only is Jonsasha my cup of tea, but the ONLY thing standing between it and the #1 OTP spot (currently occupied by JE) is the fact that the Jonsasha that I desperately crave exists in my brain and nowhere else)). Admittedly, I haven't looked very far into her tag yet (I should rectify that at some point tbh) but I've dug around the Jonsasha tag when I first got into it, and I know at least one fic where Sasha drifts towards Beholding through an interest in office gossip.

In terms of Jonsasha Ao3 has:

This very good Sasha lives fic where Jon shows up to Georgie's with an unconscious Sasha and everyone involved is very confused.

These two fics are cute also. The former is by @/suttttton and is them getting together, the latter is established Jonsasha from @/dickwheelie.

Eyevatar Sasha might actually be thinner on the ground (outside of fix-its where she solves everything and her canon reckless curiosity is completely ignored). Ao3 has:

This fic, which is Jongerry with outsider PoV Sasha. Just barely has the implication that she might be shifting towards the Eye (via prying into the lives of her coworkers) but gets a mention through sheer force of Excellent Sasha Characterization. I read this and I feel like I'm reading a fic from a Sasha Understander.

There's also this fic, which looks very promising but which I haven't actually gotten the chance to read yet, so I can't speak to its quality.

Unfortunately I've only gotten into Sasha fairly recently (especially as compared to Jon, who my brain latched onto in a deathgrip from the start), so I haven't gone through her tag yet. A scroll through the Archivist!Sasha or Beholding Avatar!Sasha tags pulls up a lot of fix-it and J//mart, which isn't really what I'm looking for from the concept. I'm sure there's more out there, and if/when I find them I'll come back to this ask probably, but I lucked into Reverse Nighthawks (I was on a Jongerry kick).

But god every day I wish that I could write romance and/or longfic, because about a year ago I read a Jonmichael fic that, when discussing alternate universes (where Jon ended the world) it's revealed that he once did an apocalypse out of love for his Archivist, Sasha James. And it was one (1) single line, but it struck me so hard because god. A perfect concept I think. The potential dynamics of Archivist!Sasha/Assistant!Jon are enthralling to me. Jon destroying the world (or helping her destroy the world? Cute date night I think: bringing about armageddon with your eldritch monster partner) for Sasha... anyway mostly I mentioned that one because My God if I have to live with that tantalizing AU rotating in the background of my mind 24/7 so do the rest of you.

[laura-de-milf]

I know we don't (yet?) have the full story for the Niles-vs-Laura situation, but so far I feel like there's a suspicious discrepancy between what we've been told vs what we've been shown about their early Bureau days and how that contributed to however their relationship left off. And I am dying for more insight into this.

We're told from the outset that Laura's the villain and the betrayer, and that Niles considers her a danger to the Doom Patrol. We're told that she's a "self-serving cancer to be excised". (And...we're meant to trust him? Because Niles is...good?)

What we're shown is two seasons of drip-fed backstory where Niles elects to stay on at the Bureau in what seems to be a very high-ranking position, despite his awareness of its dubious doings. I think, given his personal connection to the tundra expedition, we're meant to think that he's doing it for subversive reasons, but we're later shown that he initiated and conducted ongoing experiments on Metahumans using Bureau resources for his own personal gain. Sure, he eventually brought four of them to safety--but only after directly and intentionally causing them irreparable physical, psychological and emotional damage thus rendering them dysfunctional as people. We learn from Laura in 4x06 that most of Niles's projects ended up "unceremoniously nipped in the bud" for being "dangerous or foolhardy" (by an institution which considers breeding potentially-apocalyptic carnivorous butts a reasonable pursuit), so we can probably safely assume that Niles has been responsible for even more dangerous and/or harmful efforts which are conveniently not spoken about.

We're shown some moments of guilt from Niles--but given that his experiments eventually produced the desired outcome, and that this outcome directly relates to the safety of his daughter--he's exhibited no active remorse in having conducted them. Certainly nothing like the relentless self-loathing and personal destruction that Laura carries in the form of her own guilt, along with her multiple active attempts to go back (whether physically in time or by operating in the present) to fix her past actions.

Laura was an employee under oath to the bureau to fulfil a very specific--albeit also morally questionable--duty, yet still regularly broke that oath in order to rescue people whenever she could. Being a meta herself, she was putting her own safety and job at risk by doing so in an act of selflessness antithetical to Niles's selfish drive to preserve his own life. Laura was able to relate to those who would become the Sisterhood and did everything in her power to give them as much freedom as she could, given the circumstances, even if it meant distancing herself from these people who she'd come to love when tensions were mounting after WWII. Until, of course, it all went horribly wrong. (I'm still of the belief that the raid was done under coercion or began as a well-intentioned plan that went sideways for reasons beyond her control but that's an essay for a different time.) She absorbed the guilt and blame for this herself, both externally--allowing others the emotional satisfaction of directing their pain towards her in the form of anger--and internally--truly believing herself beyond forgiveness for her moral transgressions. Niles, on the other hand, lied to the Doom Patrol about his true actions and intentions in order to preserve their trust in him.

Further suspiciously, Niles's letter condemning Laura concludes, "For the good of our work [...] it is my strong recommendation that she be terminated immediately." We know objectively that the work the Bureau was doing was inhumane and that Laura has previously (secretly) opposed it. So what evidence could he possibly have had against her which would get her fired from the "good" work of an institution that actively exploits and kills people? Hm? Niles??

What we have so far is essentially a he-said-she-said between Laura and Niles about what really happened at the Bureau. It's Niles's memorandum and "evidence" which eventually got her fired, and for some reason it's Niles's narrative which prevailed--probably for the very simple reason that he was the longer-standing member, grandfathered in from the Bureau of Oddities*, and seemed to be in a more senior position. He gets to be the well-meaning-but-sadly-mistaken fatherly figure while Laura is painted as the villain, dangerous, and expressly instructed to "stay away from [Niles's] people".

But why? What really happened at the Bureau between these two? Because what we've been told from Niles isn't matching up to what we've seen of Niles and what we've been seeing so far from Laura's POV.

I so hope we're going to learn more about this in Part 2 because my brain is running in circles about this.

*Laura mentions in 1949 that she's been working for 35 years, which would have her joining the Bureau around 1914/the start of the war. Niles seems to have established himself during the pre-war Oddities era.

[dummerjan]

This Hannibal quote characterizes Pete and Vegas' relationship so well. Seeing everything, being their true selves when they are together, no matter how ugly, cruel and monstruous. Seeing, and accepting, even loving and embracing all of it.