they're about to go on a roadtrip

(Adding multiple covers this time because the first one is cool but I think people are more likely to recognize the second)

a commission for @kennabeth 💫

I commissioned @littlestpersimmon to draw my favorite character ever, dustfinger from inkheart, and I have not stopped staring in actual awe since he finished it. my coworkers can vouch that I cried in public over seeing it for the first time lol.

the Inkheart books ask the important questions: what if you could talk to your favorite blorbo? What if your blorbo thought you suck? What if your blorbo would like to see you dead?

The difference between Inkheart and Inkdeath are literally insane.

The bad guy in Inkheart is like… a local mafia boss and his handful of cronies. Oh no, he put us in the animal stables and people talk about that he enjoys killing but we don’t ever see it and the worst thing he does is giving Mo a cut on the face and putting people in cages I guess.

The bad guys in Inkdeath, however, are the ruler of the land but also Death herself and we desperately fight against destiny. Every other chapter there’s a fight and people get brutally killed. We are about to scatter Mos fucking kneecaps. Mind torture while experiencing actual torture in the underwater dungeon. Everything is out to kill you but with everything going on death is kinda the least of our worries??

Like boi… that’s full a 180,,,,

Reading and rainy autumn walks 🍂

Hey, um… with the whole “Bluejay!Jason” concept… has anybody ever considered it as an Inkheart reference instead of just a play off his name?

Follow me here, and sorry in advance, this turned into a ramble.

In the second book of the Inkheart trilogy, Inkspell, one of the main protagonists adopts a Robin Hood-esque approach to defeating the tyrant king, and adopts the name of ‘The Bluejay’ from famous folk legends and songs written by a beloved poet and often sung by travelling minstrels. He’s -Inkspell spoilers ahead, though this book is unironically older than I am- known for toppling said tyrant’s throne through the binding of a magic book (a recurring theme throughout the series, if you’ve never read it, which you should). He’s a champion among the Motley Folk, who were that world’s equivalent to a travelling circus and also regularly aid him in his quest to topple the Adderhead (the tyrant king mentioned above), and sought to help the poor and downtrodden. The Bluejay is aided and abetted by his family and friends, which include a shapeshifting wife, a daughter with the ability to make anything she reads come true, a fire-dancer who can speak to the flames, and a knife-throwing 'circus' prince with a black bear companion. (They're not called the Motley Folk for no reason, people!)

Now, consider for a moment: Little Jason Todd, in the local library, absolutely devouring the Inkheart series. It's everything a little kid could dream of in a fantasy book! And there's three of these fat books, what more could you possibly want? And he has an excuse to sit in a warm, safe building for a few hours.

Now imagine, Inkspell becomes his comfort book. Of course it does- every kid had one, and I can't imagine an orphan who grew up alone on the streets of Gotham picking anything other than a story about a strange man helping the opressed and downtrodden in a land he grows to call his own with the help of his family- and The Bluejay is an excellent father to his daughter, too, of course Jason pictured himself as part of that family, as whisked away into that world.

And of course, the rest of the series is wonderful too -Inkheart is where it all began, after all, and Inkdeath is the final triumph over evil!-, but Inkspell is a story about becoming. About learning to be more than you were born as- after all, if Mo the simple bookbinder could become the hero The Bluejay, what could Jason the street orphan become?

Maybe, instead of discovering this book in a library, he found it in the trash. And maybe he wondered, as he read it, why anyone would ever want to throw away the tale of Mo the Blujay, of Meggie the Silvertongue, of Resa the brave swift, of Dustfinger the loyal Fire-Dancer? (And maybe the last one took a while to get there, but he did get there! Eventually! And maybe Jason can understand why it took Dustfinger so long to truly come to trust someone again, because trust is a terribly dangerous thing to give to someone, because you can never really know what they'll do with it.) Maybe he read it through without knowing anything about Capricorn or The Shadow or why they feared the man named Basta, because they hadn't thrown away the first book, only the second. Maybe he wept for the death of Dustfinger, at the very end, because he didn't know that Death wouldn't keep him, because they hadn't thrown away the third book.

Maybe Inkspell found its place among his most treasured possessions. Maybe, when he met Batman and Bruce Wayne in one night and his life changed forever, Inkspell came with him, with its familiar story and characters and world and sorrows.

Maybe one of the first things Bruce did, upon seeing Jason reading that same battered old paperback, was to order Inkheart and Inkdeath and leave them in his room. Maybe that was when Jason started to realize that he wasn't going to leave forever.

(Maybe Jason and Dick would play Motley Folk together, because Dick was in the circus and could most certainly throw knives, even if it gave Bruce a heart attack every time he saw it.)

And maybe, after he could no longer have Robin, he remembered that old paperback book, that old story and that old world, and he thought of a new name for himself.

Bluejay, he thought, as he picked up the book that had been his constant companion for so many years. I'll be The Bluejay.

(I don't really know what this is. I saw some Bluejay!Jason art the other day and just started thinking of the Inkheart trilogy and the fact that Jason would absolutely have read it and probably loved it. And then it spiralled.)

(sorry I'm still thinking about 20 y/o children's fantasy book Tintenherz & sequels by Cornelia Funke, please move along)

the mo/staubfinger dynamic is so insane like

you have this guy who is dropped into a wholly unfamiliar environment, literally transported into another dimension and there's only 3 people who even know this happened to him, only 3 in the entire world; and out of these 3, 2 came from the same place as him, sure, but those 2 are also his worst enemies who he has a very violent history with

and then there's mo. the whole situation kinda is his fault, true (at least in staubfinger's mind it is and who could blame him) but he's also the only person on earth who at least sort of knows what happened to him and who probably won't brutalize him

plus they both lost the loves of their respective lives to another world at the same time but that's cool that's just the cherry on top at this point

like are you telling me they didn't form an extremely intense emotional bond forged of lots of conflicting things, of grief and anger and hate and longing. with the only other person in the world who knows what happened, who they do not have to lie to, who they can maybe find the facsimile of comfort with, even though it's painful and weird and probably kinda unhealthy (but then again, the whole situation is fucked)

and! mo clearly also knows that proximity to staubfinger is dangerous, tries to get him out of his life, leaves the city with his young daughter in the middle of the night just to get away from him

(as it will turn out, justifiably, because staubfinger is so homesick and heartbroken, he will sell mo out to the aforementioned enemy eventually)

and that's all before the story even starts!

and then

AND THEN

(yes it gets more intense than that)

staubfinger does eventually make it back home and mo follows soon after because their lives are linked now, the narrative will not let them be apart for too long and it almost kills him but he lives, is reborn as a part of this new world

but you know who does die?

staubfinger.

and mo literally calls him back from the dead, goes into the underworld to rescue him, makes a deal for his life (both their lives) with Death herself, calls him by his name and drags him back into the light

which forges a literal soul bond between them that makes them know each others thoughts, feel each others feelings

and we're supposed to be normal about that

Inkheart inspired SVSSS au where Shang Qinghua can influence the events of Proud Immortal Demon Way by writing new sections of the book, making it canon.

love me a book with some good characters

Sketched fellas cause I’m rereading the trilogy AGAIN

Captioned who’s who in this

Inkheart is genuinely so good?? Cornelia Funke put her whole heart into each character. They're all nuanced and get subtle, revealing moments. And the writing is quietly beautiful and sticks with you. I keep thinking of the moon-colored bird. Will it like our world? 🥹