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stxleslyds · 3 years

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Who do you think should be a love interest for Red Hood/Jason Todd?

Oh, Anon, you sent me a very difficult question. I have been wanting to talk about my thoughts on love interests or ships when it comes to Jason but I always end up getting scared and don’t do it. But because you sent me this ask and I want to give you an answer, I will actually speak (write) my mind.

I like ships, I enjoy romances within stories, the name of my blog is based on one of my favourite ships from a tv show that I liked. I have also reblogged content that is about another ship that I like from an animated show but when it comes to the DC comics characters that I like (Dick Grayson and Jason Todd) I actually dislike romances and the idea of love interests, a lot. In Jason’s case, I actually hate the idea of him having love interests.

And that’s because of several reasons, but I believe they can all be enclosed into one thing, Jason doesn’t seem to be into romantic relationships or established romantic relationships. Every time they put him in one of those things start to make less sense, I will explain it more in detail because I will be going through every single relationship that was, hinted at, teased or official for Jason in the last eleven years. (Yup, I have found every single relationship that Jason has had forced and/or out of place).

This is, of course, what I think, you are allowed to think otherwise.

JASON TODD AND LOVE INTERESTS.

New 52.

Essence, Jason’s first kiss and some other things.

Essence was, as per New 52 onwards, the first person that Jason had a relationship with. (RHatO vol.1 #7). They met back in the All-Castle and with her, he said that he felt, for the first time after being resurrected “alive”. Yeah, it is a little bit weird, let’s suppose that Jason was 17 when he first met her, and when I say “other things” I do mean it, the panels are never explicit but there is enough information given and shown that tells us that Jason shared a lot of firsts with her.

But here is my first complaint, Lobdell didn’t need to tell us all that, in fact, he could just have told us that they were friends back in the All-Castle because when Essence is introduced in the story, Jason already thinks that she betrayed him and the All-Castle and he repeats several times that he either: wants to kill her or should have killed her in the past already. (RHatO vol.1 #7)

So, the first person that Jason had a love and/or sexual relationship with is now an enemy through betrayal, or so he thinks. After some back and forth and some other truths getting revealed, everything gets solved, Jason and Essence suddenly don’t interact much with each other.

We get another peek at their current relationship when she shows up in Roy’s hospital bed to help him recover from his injuries. There Jason says that she was his first kiss and that even though they have chosen different paths and they have tried to kill each other a few times they are still there for each other.

Wow, what a lovely message Lobdell, two people who have tried to kill each other and have an overall nasty/manipulative relationship, are still there for each other, which is what truly matters. Give me a break Lobdell, what is this? I understand this book is old by now but this narrative is not cute or special. They barely trust each other and they have been more than willing to kill each other but they are still on good terms, yay! Shut up.

Isabel, the flight attendant that may be a little too pushy at times.

Us and Jason met Isabel, the flight attendant when Jason is travelling along with Roy (RHatO vol.1 #2). Her introduction is very sexualised and Jason and her flirt a lot, he “checks her out” but he is also thinking that Isabel is better off not crossing paths with him anymore, but apparently that isn’t what she thinks because she leaves her number along with Jason’s drink. He is very surprised about that fact.

Jason had been struggling with the idea of calling Isabel because he didn’t want to mix his vigilante life with his normal life, that’s why when he calls her, he hangs up as soon as she answers the call. (RHatO vol.1 #7).

But that insecurity is thrown out of the window (apparently) because he does go on a date with Isabel even though he is doing everything possible to hide his double life (RHatO vol.1 #10). Isabel seems to be having an amazing time and as they reach Jason’s hotel, he offers to call her a cab, which means “date is over I want to go home”, but Isabel has other ideas she starts pushing him and saying maybe I don’t want to leave just yet and Jason is a little uncomfortable but Isabel just kisses him. Yeah, non-consensual kissing happens and this is the first (but not last) time it happens. The kiss is interrupted by someone else and the whole thing ends up with that someone (Orc), Kory, Roy and Jason talking.

Jason was so ready to make Isabel go at the end of their date earlier that he barely notices her when Kory and the others show up. She is literally on the floor asking what is going on and Jason doesn’t notice her until after they are teleported to a spaceship. Jason was so out of it that he didn’t notice her up until Roy pointed her out. How insane is that? What are you trying to say, Lobdell, Jason is an asshole? Or was Jason so uncomfortable on that date that he forgot that the date was still going on?

After they all realise that they are all stuck in space in the middle of an intergalactic war Isabel and Jason talk. Isabel lets Jason know that she thought that their date was boring and bad because Jason was trying to hide his real life, she also asks Jason why a vigilante asked a flight attendant on a date and he deflects that question like a pro. (RHatO vol.1 #11-12). You see, I think that Jason decided to go on a date with her because he thought that’s what he wanted or to prove himself that he could have something “normal”.

When they finally go back to earth Jason kinda acts like a jerk towards Isabel at the beginning but at the end of the issue, we see that Isabel invited Jason to stay the night at her apartment in Gotham, happy times happen and while Jason is in the shower Isabel gets attacked by Joker. The Joker made it seem like Isabel overdosed while Jason was in the other room which destabilised Jason a lot. He calls the cops and she is taken to the hospital after Jason leaves the apartment. (RHatO vol.1 #14-15) The last time we see her she is in the hospital recovering.

A long time passes by and we only see Isabel again when RHatO changes writers for a few issues, the author of Isabel’s comeback is Tynion. We see Isabel entering her home after a date, when she goes inside, she notices some weird robots and those things were put there by Jason who wanted to invite her to a private resort as a date. (RHatO vol.1 #28). Isabel decides to go and when Jason gets too wound up and is ready to kiss her, she tells him that he needs to slow down because a long time has passed since they last saw each other and she is quite mad that because they went on one date and she ended up on space for days and then got attacked in her own home. Jason is a bit taken aback by what she says but he doesn’t get to say much because a fight breaks out. Talk about signs… maybe they shouldn’t get together at all, you know what I mean?

After the fight was over, Isabel told Jason that she can’t do this (their “relationship”) any more, but that if the fight ever ended that he could go back looking for her. So, she “breaks up” with him but still kisses him before leaving. If you are leaving someone because you don’t feel like things are going right why on earth will you kiss them goodbye? It’s not like they were on a five-year-long relationship, they only went on two dates! Maybe this is not that big of a deal but come on…

Kory, this one wasn’t a “real” relationship but the idea of it was forced.

Although Kory appears in the first issue of RHatO we didn’t know then how Jason and Kory had met. That story is told later on and it begins with Jason appearing on the shores of an island where Kory’s ship was stuck. He is in and out of consciousness but we do see Kory taking care of him as he recovers, we also see that Kory has a little bit of heart eyes for the mysterious man, but that was because Jason looks like Dick Grayson (someone who she had dated and actually remembered even though she said she didn’t).

After Jason finally wakes up, he goes to her and she gives him clothing that used to belong to Dick, Jason knows those clothes are Dick’s but when he asks Kory who they are from she says that she doesn’t know (she was lying). After Jason gets dressed, he decides to tell Kory who he is and his story, so he tells Kory “Hey, there is something you need to know about me” and Kory kisses him. Ah yes, more non-consensual kissing, how wonderful! Jason is taken aback and Kory tells him that her people assimilate the knowledge that way, Jason doesn’t make a big deal out of it but I will. Lobdell, you knew that Kory didn’t have amnesia, and you know that Kory has been on earth for quite a long time, there was no need for that kiss. As the reader, I know that that’s how Tamareans learn stuff but I also think that Kory shouldn’t kiss people just to know new stuff! It baffles me that they are still doing this, it was silly then and it's silly now, stop the non-consensual kissing and then excusing it because of fictional alien traditions or whatever, just stop.

But I didn’t put Kory on this list for the kissing, I put her here because even though it was never explicitly shown that Jason and Kory had any type of interaction, there were some hints about it, like that time that Roy asked Jason if he was mad because he had slept with “his girl” to chich Jason answered something along the lines of “she is not my girl and she can sleep with whoever she wants”. (RHatO vol.1 #2)

But that’s not all because Lobdell gave us yet another moment in which Kory kisses Jason without his consent and Jason is written once again alarmed, this time even Roy is present and he is a little bit mad because his girlfriend is kissing someone else in front of him. At that point, Jason and Roy both knew that Kory wasn’t new to this planet and that she had been in a relationship with Dick Grayson previously. Because of all that, Lobdell passing yet another non-consensual kiss as Kory trying to tell Jason that he wasn’t alone in his fight doesn’t sit right with me, it’s even worse when you reach the end of the issue and Kory leaves both Jason and Roy on their own. (RHatO vol.1 #32) Yikes, Lobdell, yikes. (This is no hate to Kory or the other women on this run, this is pure hate towards Lobdell, please don’t get me wrong, he is the one being nasty).

Rose just appeared so Lobdell could tell us that she and Jason slept together.

Poor Rose, so many female characters being dragged into this mess by Lobdell, she really didn’t deserve this. She appeared in the last two issues of this run, two! Only for Lobdell to set up the idea that she and Jason had some fun nights in the past, honestly, who let this man write women?

Their interaction went like this: “Hey Rose, love that mask” “Yeah, I’d considered a heart tattoo that said ‘Jason’ with an axe hacking it in two” “I’m flattered, but I think you made the right choice” after Jason said that last part, he continued with this, “You want to explain what you’re doing here trying to kill us? I remember the last time I saw you; you had a big, satisfied smile on your face”. (RHatO vol.1 #39)

Really, Lobdell? She appears in the last two issues; you have them have that conversation and then in the last issue they are the only ones left (after the outlaws disband, RHatO vol.1 #40) but we never see her again, Rose isn’t mentioned in Red Hood/Arsenal or RHatO Rebirth, she isn’t mentioned any other time. Lobdell just thought that Jason didn’t look like he had fucked enough in the past so he decided to let the reader know that he had had some action. I hate him.

Barbara, this pains me, poor Babs, she didn’t deserve that.

No, Lobdell wasn’t the one who wrote this mess, it was everyone who wrote Batman Eternal. I mean, what was this group of men thinking? Where they playing darts and they had all the batboys’ pictures up on the wall and in whichever the dart got stuck, Barbara will get stuck too? Is that what happened? How often do they play this game, can they stop?

I don’t remember having read Batman Eternal and quite honestly, I didn’t want to put myself through that after I made myself read New 52 RHatO twice because I had forgotten to take notes of what had happened in each issue (I hate myself). So, I will only talk about the absurdity that was Batman Eternal #19 and #28.

All of the “relationships” that Lobdell came up with, were forced or out of place or both but this one takes the cake. It’s so simple and short, but oh, so annoying!

The phrase “You will never be Dick Grayson” coming out from Barbara’s mouth and it being directed at Jason should tell you just how many levels of wrong we are working herewith. Their whole interaction in this book seems to come from that phrase, how on earth do you build up a romance from that? Am I going crazy? Am I missing something? Come on, be honest with me.

Jason being the one who makes Barbara shake off mind control because he told her that he “only remembers what’s important, like the day he met Batgirl”, I am sorry but what? I really don’t have the words, he had even said before that he thought Babs liked him because she looked nervous, what is this writing? Since when does Jason care about Barbara? They met once when Jason was Robin and she was significantly older, what are these writers on, crack? (Batman Eternal #19)

But that’s not the worst thing, later in the book, they switch roles and Jason is apparently no longer interested in Barbara but she is all like “maybe you should stay this time, Jason. Help the family. Save Gotham” and Jason says “Gotham’s never been enough for me Barb” and I am not kidding, she tells him “What if there was more…?” That was hilarious, my gods, they must have been high when they wrote that because that is just too wild for me.

And Jason, the absolute beast that he is, says, “No. Because Barb, it’s like you said… I’ll never be Dick Grayson” (Batman Eternal #28). Jason, you dramatic little shit, what is going on? Why did the writers put us through all that just to end up being like “Babs is thirsty for Jason but he has already moved on”, what was the point of these interactions?

Yeah, that’s all I can say about that, let’s just move on to the mess that was Rebirth.

Rebirth.

Artemis, a new player enters the game.

While we did meet her in the first issue Jason isn’t seen being flirty with her up until they are in a bar and Jason is really drunk, he tells her that she has beautiful green eyes and Artemis is like, “if you are hitting on me, I will punch you in the head” (RHatO vol.2 #8), Lobdell back at it again with that mix between flirting and violence that I hate so much, lovely. But I guess this meant that Artemis was setting boundaries.

Boundaries and kinda thrown out of the window when later in the book we have something like looked like the start of a kiss that didn’t really happen because they were interrupted (RHatO vol.2 #11). Jason also acts a little too cheeky in two instances in another issue, one of them was a bit funny the other one no so much because Artemis was talking about how she had let only three people into her heart and one of them was now dead and she might have been losing another one, at that moment all Jason has to offer is “about that third person… does his name rhyme with Rason Rodd?”, which was a bit out of tune of him. (RHatO vol.2 #13).

The big surprise though is that out of the blue we have an issue called ‘Date Night’ where Jason and Artemis seem to go out on a date! What? We are moving on so fast! (Spoiler Alert: Jason thought it was a date, Artemis only wanted to talk about how weird Bizarro was acting at the time). One of the things that really caught my attention was how differently she was characterized in the issue and that within the story Jason hadn’t realised that Artemis wasn’t really acting like herself either. It could have been a cute date if not for the fact that Artemis wasn’t acting like herself because she wasn’t “really” on a date with Jason. Also, Lobdell does love to hint at Jason’s sex life, before they went on the date Bizarro said “use it (the teleporting door) all night if you need” and Jason responded, “I don’t think we will be needing it all night. I mean, if we do that’s okay, but I’m not, like, expecting anything”, it was kinda funny but yeah, come on! (RHatO vol.2 #19).

From that issue, we jump to the great finale (or not) of this “epic” “love” “story”, the so awaited kiss between Jason and Artemis, oh yeah baby! A couple of issues with flirting, a date that wasn’t a date but maybe if Bizarro wasn’t going insane at the time (who knows?). This kiss obviously comes with the separation of this team of outlaws, Jason is left alone on earth while Artemis and Bizarro are swallowed by a portal of sorts. Jason finally gets the kiss that he so desired, but at what cost? (RHatO vol.2 #25). Brutal issue for Jason, it was also like a special edition because it was bigger and that makes me laugh because all Jason did in that issue was suffer, how unlucky can this guy get?

We don’t see Artemis for a while but when she does come back, she is being controlled by something and it’s making her want to kill Jason, so to shake whatever was controlling her, Jason kissed her and hoped for the best (it worked). See, Lobdell can change! Before it was women forcing Jason into a kiss, now it’s the other way around! Yay! (RHatO vol.2 #41).

After all that we see Jason and Artemis spending some time together, it looks very friendly, they even have a very nice moment when Artemis hugs Jason as he lets himself grieve the loss of Roy. Jason also seems aware (this time) that Artemis is acting a little off and he gets her to talk about how much she missed her axe. It feels like they are taking it slow, they are figuring themselves out after so long, they probably won't kiss and make things complicated, right? Yeah, no, they do kiss, but they each pretend that it was like kissing a sibling. In the end, Jason does say that he lied and that he knows that she lied to him and that was okay with him, my only critique with this is: Why did they have to kiss? They could have waited instead of kissing and then lying about their feelings, what is this, Wattpad? (RHatO vol.2 #42)

Their relationship comes to a halt and we end up seeing them together (in a messy bed, twice) at the end of Lobdell’s run. But even though those two had their fun and Jason almost told Artemis that he loved her, things weren’t really meant to end with them as a couple because at the very end of the issue Artemis says her final goodbye to Jason. She says, “This is it. The end of us. I’m not being mean. I’m genuinely happy for you Jason. You have grown so much since you started the outlaws. But you don’t need us anymore. You don’t need me. Tell me I’m wrong” to which Jason responds, “I can’t. But if I ever needed anyone, it would have been you, Princess”. (RHatO vol.2 #50).

All in all, this was the best-developed relationship that Jason had, but so much about this, one could have easily been transformed into a friendship between the two. You will see better what I mean after I talk about Isabel’s presence in this run. Maybe it is just me, but a solid friendship between these two could have been spectacular, mostly because of what had happened in that one annual that had Dick as a guest.

In that issue Jason was very jealous of Artemis having the most obvious heart eyes for Dick, she was very flirty with him and he was a real gentleman with her. When she offered to take him back to his trailer at the circus he said yes and there, as they were walking towards his trailer, Lobdell wrote the best piece of dialogue in his ten years writing Jason. Dick asked, “So, are you and Jason… together?” to which Artemis responded, “Me? And Jason? Anyone and Jason?”. How is Lobdell so blind to his actual interesting takes on Jason Todd. Aromantic Jason was right there Lobdell, but you had to push your shitty version of “romance” every step of the way! (I am fine with Jason having a fantastic sexual life but listen, Jason being aromantic was still possible).

Essence, first Jason accused her of betraying him but now *Uno reverse card*

Do you guys remember that Essence and Jason’s last interaction in New 52? Jason said that even though they were always fighting or willing to kill each other they also will always be there for one another? Well, when Essence comes back in Rebirth she plans on killing Jason because apparently this time around he was going to betray her. Their very first interaction in this run (RHatO vol.2 #35), consists of Essence saying, “I don’t know if I should kiss you or kill you” to which Jason responds, “why do you have to choose?”. Lovely, Lobdell is back at it again with his shitty version of quirky “romance”, if he is trying to write them as sarcastic, he needs to do a better job at it because it’s not a good look, and not everyone has read his New 52 run so introducing these two in this book this way is kinda not good. But then again, maybe that’s just me.

As a fight ensues after they said those things, we are shown panels of Jason and Essence when they were together in the All-Castle, they would be cute panels if not for the fact that they are currently fighting to the death. It is an insane contrast, and Lobdell also has Jason think “I was the first human trained by the All-Castle. She was the only heir to a throne she never wanted. It was never going to work out between us.” But the thing is that it did work out between each other until Jason left the All-Castle, when they met each other again they had both been fed lies about the other and neither of them seems to want to look for clues to make sure that those rumours of betrayal were true. One will think that now, one of you might not feel so confident when they think the other will betray them again, you went through this already losers! But I don’t blame Jason or Essence for their stupidity, I blame Lobdell.

The fight lasts a few pages but it will end with Essence stabbing Jason with her ‘Blood Blade’ (not to be confused with the All-Blades, those are Jason’s), but here is the thing the Blood Blade comes with a curse if you draw blood from someone innocent your soul will be trapped inside the blade. This is what happened to Essence because Jason was innocent of what she was accusing him, just like she was innocent in New 52 when Jason accused her of betraying him and the All-Castle. Boring.

Now here is the thing, Essence might be dumb or she didn’t know how the Blood Blade worked because later on in the book, the blood blade is teleported by Essence (she was still inside of the blade) to the front door of Isabel’s home. The very next time that we see Isabel she is unconsciously sharing a body with Essence after touching the blade. She possessed her because at that time she still believed that Jason wanted to “destroy the world” (RHatO vol.2 #45). It wasn’t long until she realised that she was wrong and then teamed up with Jason once again. (RHatO vol.2 #46).

Lobdell, why must you recycle stories all the time and make women look stupid? Why would she still believe that Jason was up to no good after she got trapped in the blade? But my point here is that this is supposed to be Jason’s first love and their relationship consists of, flirting, remembering the good times, and almost killing each other every time they see each other because *betrayal*, it’s so tiring and annoying. Do better.

Isabel, aw, shit, here we go again!

Lobdell really had ladies ready to appear in Jason’s life when another had just left. This is one of my major problems with the way Lobdell writes all of Jason’s relationships. It would be lovely if DC and Lobdell just outright said that Jason is only interested in having sexual relationships that aren’t meant to last a long time. Because the way they had him involving himself with women seemed a little sketchy, in #25 Artemis finally kissed him and he seemed pretty happy about it, but then she was gone and now that Isabel appears in Jason’s life again, he acts as if Artemis didn’t exist.

Isabel shows up at the Iceberg Lounge after Jason made public his comeback and his management of the place. One would think that given how things ended up in New 52, Isabel would like to take things slow, after all, she had told him that he could go back to her if he stopped living his double life, but no, she talked to him for a few seconds and then proceeded to kiss him out of the blue. Lobdell’s favourite type of kissing makes a comeback, how nice, I didn’t miss it at all!

I want to be honest with you, maybe I am being too harsh, maybe these are all “surprise” kisses but in a way, it still doesn’t feel right, this is not the first time that someone kisses Jason when he doesn’t expect it (Isabel has done it multiple times already), but he is written as if he didn’t care, and that is not good. Men can feel pressured into kissing someone or can feel like they are being harassed. Lobdell and everyone on this creative team seem to think that being kissed by someone you haven’t seen in very long out of the blue is romantic or cute or sexy or whatever but it has repeated itself so much that I only find it uncomfortable and annoying to read and see. (RHatO vol.2 #33). Maybe it was just me because in that issue where Isabel goes to the Lounge they get attacked and she is not at all bothered by it, this time around, Jason even tells her that her safety is his first priority which is quite funny because the first time they were in a date Jason forgot she was present and only realised that she had been teleported alongside the outlaws to a space ship when Roy pointed it out, but I guess Jason is a different man now. I guess he wants to cultivate a relationship with her now.

And he might because your boy asked Isabel on a date in Paris. They just happened to both be around Paris at that time but here is where Jason says something that makes me speculate as to why he is actually dating, he thinks this, “Isabel Ardila. A flight attendant. Maybe the only normal person I’ve ever allowed in my life. Don’t ask me why.”

Well, Chonky, I won’t be asking you anything, I will actually give you the answers as to why you are letting Isabel into your life. You do it because you equate dating to normalcy, but I am here to tell you that it's fine if you don’t want to date and form romantic bonds, it's not something normal, it's just something some people do. If you like going out with her because of the sex or whatever then that’s fine too, but if you have to question why you are doing something, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it at all.

Jason looks a bit uncomfortable, and we also see that he is feeling sad and lonely because he misses Roy. He even thinks, “sometimes, she even makes me feel normal”. All of this normal talk really speaks to me about Jason trying to have friends outside the job but he doesn’t know how to approach that so he dates women because it makes him feel normal. I can relate to that feeling in a way, and I just think that Jason is confusing friendly love with romantic love, I don’t even know if he knows of the existence of platonic love. A reader that understands those feelings can see that maybe Jason is struggling to feel normal when he realises that he doesn’t love the same way as others. The thing is, I don’t really think that is what Lobdell intended to do, he just wanted to push two of his agendas, Jason has an active sexual/love life and Roy Harper was Jason Todd’s best friend and the only one who is allowed to suffer his death is Jason. In fact, back at the time, Jason was actually one of the few people (or maybe the only person) allowed to mourn Roy.

When the date is over and Jason’s walking Isabel to her hotel, they have a chat where it’s revealed that Isabel thinks that Jason isn’t still living that double life, she actually thinks that Jason is only working as the owner of the Casino, Jason doesn’t correct her. And then there is this very weird line that Isabel says, “The airline picks up my tab. This way you know I don’t love you for your money”, Jason is very taken aback when he heats Isabel say that she loves him so he manages to say “did you just…?” but Isabel stops him with a kiss and a simple “nope”. Jason moves on and goes to work because he is still doing the vigilante gig, the double life, that Isabel thinks doesn’t exist anymore. (RHatO vol.2 #34).

Isabel and Jason’s relationship has always looked forced to me, in rebirth, it was even weirder because Jason had just kissed Artemis and when she was gone, Jason kind of acted as if it didn’t matter that much to him and moved on easily with Isabel, but now Jason is acting kind of sketchy too because he is hiding his double life and the last time he did that Isabel ended up in a lot of trouble. I really don’t know if Lobdell remembers his own shitty writing but he should remember this stuff.

We move on too, and now Isabel has come to visit Jason at one of the events that the Iceberg Lounge has got going on, once again Jason is acting a bit strange because he was having trouble at the time with the idea of his biological father actually trying to contact him before he was killed and he was also having trouble because he was in Gotham after his adoptive father beat the living shit out of him and “banned” him from stepping foot in Gotham again. Jason seems to open up a little to Isabel but just as he starts doing so, she tells him she has to leave. Jason looks hurt for just one panel and then he moves on with his (double) life. (RHatO vol.2 #35). This is the issue where Jason also comes across Essence and traps her in her own blade.

Because everything falls apart in what was one of the best arcs written by Lobdell, Jason sends Dog (Jason’s dog) to Isabel, so Dog can be safe. (RHatO vol.2 #36).

We see Isabel after some very long time, and she is described as “The on-again/off-again girlfriend of Jason Todd. Currently off-again”, at this point in time Artemis was back to being herself and Jason had kissed her and all that. I am just saying, Jason obviously isn’t comfortable in a established romantic relationship. Lobdell dances around that idea a lot, every time with all these women.

This is the issue where Isabel finds the Blood Blade outside her home. (RHatO vol.2 #43).

As you can see, I have problems with Lobdell not handling the relationships very well, there is no concrete information being told to the reader or the characters within the story about how Jason wants to date, we never know if the women in the story know that Jason has been dating/flirting with other women. I am not saying that is bad but it would have been nice if Lobdell just used his words to tell us what he is doing.

I feel like saying that Jason is the kind of man that looks for sexual relationships without commitment isn’t something that will break the world in two. All the “romance” is incredibly forced, just say that he isn’t into romantic relationships my dude… unless Lobdell really thinks that the “romances” that he came up with are actually well written.

Anyway, Jason didn’t know that Essence who he has been fighting against and then alongside was actually Isabel, so, when Isabel and Essence get separated for a moment Jason is surprised. After Isabel tells him that they are in the middle of a battle so she is going to let Essence control her body again, Jason tells her that he “loves her”. (RHatO vol.2 #49). Does he love her for doing that or does he love her because he likes her? Hmm, that’s a good question, it is never actually answered in comics because we don’t really get to see Isabel or Essence after that happens and in the following issue (Lobdell’s last) Jason and Artemis seem to have been having a very fun night and they also kiss, Jason had even kissed with Artemis before he told Isabel that he loved her.

As you can see, its all very messy, Lobdell really said “Jason can’t be directly or indirectly single but I won’t really explain what is going on to the readers or to the characters within the story”, and that speaks volumes about how bad Lobdell’s writing is. This man simply cannot remember the things that he writes, he literally had Artemis say that she didn’t think she could see Jason dating anyone and then she wants to date him and Jason had already been dating people before that statement was made! It was all so messy! It makes all these side-romantic plots pointless; Jason was lonely because he constantly lost his friends, then give him friends! Friends are nice DC, stop making it about romances when you can just give your characters solid friendships.

Barbara, this time the pain is brought to us by Geoff Johns

I put Three Jokers as part of rebirth because I still don’t know if that garbage of a book is supposed to function within actual canon or not but it came out while Rebirth was going on so that’s why it’s here.

Now, the whole book was bad, we can all agree on that but Johns’ handling of Jason and Barbra’s “relationship” made me sick. This is another thing that writers love to do to Jason, write him as the kind of man that cannot take rejection and continues to be pushy about his feelings. Please, DC, don’t ever let Johns write another comic for you, it’s embarrassing at this point.

But in this book Jason wasn’t the only one acting weird, Barbara also did some weird stuff. In this run, Barbara thought of Jason as an unhinged criminal that needs to be locked up but Jason had heart eyes for Barbara every time they saw each other, their whole dynamic was wonky and weird. They even fought before and after Jason killed one of the Jokers.

But that’s not the real problem, the problem was that Johns decided to make Jason get tortured by the remaining Jokers while naked, this man was found naked, injured and mentally unwell by Batman and Batgirl after Jason and Batman had a fight, Barbara decided to take Jason to her home so he could recover.

Jason has just come out of the shower, he was clearly mentally and physically exhausted, and also very vulnerable. When Barbara came into the room Johns had them have a conversation while Barbara was fully clothed and Jason was just in a towel, and he was talking about how lonely and not cared for he felt, he was opening himself up to Barbara and apparently, Barbara (Johns) thought that the best she could do was kiss him, you know, to offer support.

Honestly, what the hell do male comic writers smoke when they write? You don’t show support to someone that has clear feelings for you with a kiss, to then pull away and say that “we committed a mistake”, we? Girl, come on, you made a mistake and a huge one! But one will think that Jason realised that Barbara did make a mistake when she kissed him and he also accepted the fact that she didn’t feel the same way as he did… well, not really, Jason is actually written as the kinda guy that doesn’t take well rejection and the kind of guy that keeps pushing for something between him and the other person to happen.

This man asked Barbara three times if she could give him an opportunity after the first rejection and he kept getting rejected! But that is not all because we all know that at the end of the book Jason left a letter (that thankfully Barbara will never see) in Barbara’s door when he asked again to give him a chance and that he would change who he was for her, he would actually stop being the Red Hood for her! Was Johns on crack? He had to be! The levels of wrong that are being messed around with here are out of the charts! Jason Todd, who has different values and morals than Barbara Gordon would stop being Red Hood just to get a date? Boy, don’t be dumb! Do male writers think that we are going to swoon over this kind of writing, do they expect me to applaud? I won’t!

This “relationship” was forced and incredibly out of place and out of character for everyone and it pissed me off even if it doesn’t affect canon because the writing is bad and the narrative is worse! If you love someone you shouldn’t change everything about yourself to be with them AND if someone says no or rejects your advances then the only thing you should do is back down!

This shouldn’t have to be said!

Future State

Rose, if you know me then you know that this is just a big no for me.

In the Future State: Red Hood story we are shown in the first panel of the first page that Jason is sharing a bed with someone else. We get to know pretty early that someone is Rose. The setting for their relationship is awful, both of them are working for the magistrate, they hunt “masks” otherwise known as heroes or vigilantes.

Jason hates his job and is known for bringing his “masks” alive, Rose on the other hand seems to have adapted easily while working with the magistrate and she is known for bringing the “masks” dead.

First red flag, why are two people who have such different ideals in a relationship together? Let me remind you that the Magistrate is not a good corporation or idea for Gotham, they are basically domestic terrorists and Jason is bringing them people that are like him (he is there undercover). Jason is going against everything that he is in order to infiltrate the Magistrate, Rose seems to be having fun. She brings the subject between them without care and seems to not really understand that Jason doesn’t like the work that they are both doing and that he doesn’t want to talk about it as if it were a normal thing that every couple does.

The second red flag in just a couple of pages is Williamson having Rose say “This is why we make sense. Daddy issues”, wow, are we really doing that, Williamson sat there and said Rose and Jason can make a good couple because both of them have unresolved problems with their parental figures, how wonderful. To me shared trauma isn’t a deal-breaker but sure, if you want to make one of your characters revolve her relationship with her partner around trauma, then that’s on you.

Jason also had a big problem with Rose attacking people who are hiding from the Magistrate because they are actually giving food to the “masks” and to people who don’t have to eat. Rose doesn’t seem to care and that makes the relationship a bit tense. So far, there are not many positives for this couple.

Things only get tenser, people are going around wearing those red pill looking helmets that Jason used to wear in Batman and Robin (2009), the funny looking ones, and those people are just normal people that are stealing food so they can eat or take them somewhere else. Jason is following one of those people and telling them that he doesn’t want to hurt them, just talk but Rose shows up and kills them. Jason is angry and Rose goes on a rant about how being a “mask” is against the law so she had a right to kill him.

Together they figure out that those people were being controlled so they go looking for whoever was behind those helmets.

They are tense and Jason is very cold with her even when she tries to lighten up the mood, but shit gets worse when they both receive an alert to go hunt another mask: Jason Todd.

Rose wants the money. Aw, nothing says healthy relationship more than murder.

The apparent reason why the Magistrate put a target on Jason was that he had the helmet that he took from that boy, when he realises this he puts it on and hopes that Rose finds him through that, so she can help him if he gets in trouble.

Jason gets mind-controlled through the helmet and is forced to fight rose, they fight for a while and then Rose breaks the helmet. Jason says “knew you would find me” and Rose responds “you are lucky I have a crush on you”, ok, is Jason okay with Rose wanting to kill him a few minutes ago when the alert on him came out? That’s not a big deal for them? Ok.

Jason seems to be in love with Rose even though they think differently and they are written with as much chemistry as a history book, he cares for her and does everything to save her when they get attacked by the Magistrate.

When they escape the initial attack, Rose grabs Jason and tells the Magistrate’s drones that he will take the bounty for Jason but that she will deliver him alive. Jason is surprised and angry but then the drones just leave. And we are left with Jason and Rose on a rooftop alone after Rose seemingly tried to betray Jason.

Do you know what Jason does next? He tells Rose that they should go on a holiday. He cares and keeps wanting to protect her from the Magistrate. Are you kidding me? This is so messed up; I want to remind you that these were the only two issues for this story. This is all the information we had for a long while and it is disgusting. DC really let this thing be published!

Rose betrays him twice; he is willing to harm him on some level and he still wants to be with her? Am I understanding that correctly? Later on, he keeps wanting to protect her from the Magistrate after he has evidence that they are hyper corrupt.

The point I want to make is that Jason and Rose shouldn’t have been introduced to us in this book as a couple or as people who have been sleeping with each other for a long time. I don’t know why this needs to be said but having a couple where one of them can think of killing their partner is absolutely awful. And then they make it worse by having the “victim” act like it doesn’t matter and that they should work on protecting the person that wanted to betray them.

I understand that there is a Future State: Gotham run going on with a Jason story in it written by Williamson but I don’t want to go near it. Future State: Red Hood made me uncomfortable and it made me cry out of frustration. How did this story get a pass by the editor? It’s disgusting, and it’s that because of this absolutely forced “relationship” that Williamson wanted to put in.

My point with all of these “couples/love interests reviews” is that writers need to be more conscious about what they write and about how some readers might perceive some messages.

Non-consensual kissing, harassment and all those things shouldn’t be part of the dynamic of two people that you are trying to put together. If there is some non-consensual kissing you can simply put a panel where the person apologises for their actions, but not even that is shown in these cases.

Comic writers need to be more aware of the way they write relationships. Yes, these are fictional worlds, people and situations but you are still playing with real-life interactions. Making some things appear in comics as normal things that you do to your crush/partner or whatever has an impact on people and writers need to become aware of this.

Lobdell was dying to let us know that Jason had a very active love/sexual life, great, but you need to show healthy relationships or make things clear about the relationships that Jason had. So many interactions that Jason had with women were overlapped with each other and the reader doesn’t know how to take it, is Jason a player or is he into open relationships, to me, it didn’t look like that but hey, maybe the writer would let us know? No, he won’t, because all he wanted to do was make Jason “date” more women.

Here is the thing, I have always felt like Jason was Aromantic, he likes having sex and having fun, but established romantic relationships aren’t his thing. It is what feels right (to me) with this character. And that’s (in part) because of all these messed up relationships that he was forced into. The two times that Jason seems to “be in love” are in Three Jokers and Future State: Red Hood, those two books are horrendous when it comes to Jason and love interests, in one of them Jason acts like the kind of man that cannot and will not take well a rejection and in in the other Jason acts as if he were blind to the abusive actions his partner does to him.

None of those two concepts are healthy or nice. Writers need to do better about that, they just have to.

So, to answer your question, I don’t think Jason Todd needs a love interest. Not as the main plot or subplot, maybe as a vague mention but nothing else, because comic writers suck at writing healthy and well-developed relationships. And because I really see Jason as the kind of person that wouldn’t involve himself in a romantic relationship with anyone.

I know this answer is more a rant than an answer but this subject is one that I have thought about a lot and it really made me nervous to bring it up. To everyone who thinks differently about these relationships, I understand and keep doing you, these are all just my thoughts and they are not worth more than yours.

Anon, thank you for the ask, sorry for making you wait so long and I hope that you have a wonderful rest of the week!

#jason todd #red hood #rhato #red hood and the outlaws #three jokers #batman eternal #dc comics #love interests #asksss

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mcrmadness · 3 years

Text

Heyyyyy I’ve got a new comic for you all!

This one was inspired by an anonymous ask I got to my dä blog, it was about one of my earlier Bela/Farin comics called “Empty” (click here to see that comic) and how it reminded the Anon about cats and suitcases. And that ask there sparked a new idea and this is the result!

And no, I don’t know what has gone into them. They have started to live on their own now. Bela seems to be slightly touch-starved but Farin is just a tease :D Or maybe it’s just his way of showing affection, I don’t really know what they are up to nowadays, can’t really control them anymore.

And yeah I know Bela looks freaking creepy in the second last panel. I have never drawn huge pupils like those to them before and I have two pages full of huge eyes in my sketchbook now as I was trying to figure out how to put the white dots, I even had to google such eyes because I couldn’t remember how they usually are done in comics lmao. This is also the first time ever I have drawn a tilted head, it was a bit tricky at first but I think it turned out quite nice. Does it look like Farin’s in the middle of tilting his head?

What comes to the artistic side, I really like it how this came together. It’s relatively simple but I think it‘s nicely balanced? There’s not too much nor too little of anything, and I like how “soft” the whole thing looks like. I don’t know what I did differently but somehow it looks even more cartoony than before. I also realized that I really, really like drawing this style from the side now and now I’m slightly annoyed by how the faces look from the front but I also don’t have any other ways to draw so I guess that will have to do :D

Anyhow, I guess I’m done talking, for once. Let me know what you think, reblogging is allowed and recommended, feedback even more appreciated.

Huge thanks for the Anon for sending me the ask as without it this comic would have never happened! (And btw if any of you ever get any ideas you would like to see me draw, either as a comic book style sketch or even a comic, just message me or send me an ask as I’m currently out of ideas!)

#mcrmadness draws #my fub comics #my dä comics #dä fanart #die ärzte #belafarin #fub #Also they really live on their own even - or especially - in my fanfics.#Farin's always running away from his emotions and then accidentally ruins things for Bela by making everything into a joke lol.#But they have already talked about it in one of the drabbles I have written so they're doing okay.#I mean the drabbles are like... scenarios from different eras all meant to be one 'big' fanfic.#Which I'm never gonna post anywhere but whatever - I'm writing for myself anyway :D It's a form of self-therapy for me.

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supermanshield · 3 years

Text

These steps you take

~~~

Bruce makes Clark pancakes. They share experiences on an early morning.

~~~

Words: 1,661

Relationship: Clark/Bruce

A/N: Another morning after at Clark’s apartment, because I love those.

This one is a culmination of me making pancakes for breakfast, and remembering some specific comic panels about Bruce's cooking skills (just reblogged).

Read on AO3

______________________________________________

It was an unusually early morning for Bruce, and Clark was still asleep next to him, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep anymore. Clark’s apartment, a forced night off, and a mind restless with unsolved cases all played a part in this, and so much so, that it was one of those rare mornings that he got out of bed before Clark, quietly and careful not to wake him.

In the living room, he scrolled through some work emails on his phone and Oracle’s backlog of cases from last night, until he knew exactly what everyone had been up to. The light outside was still faint and grey and not quite dark-blue, and some of the windows in the city had coloured yellow with light. A pair of feet shuffled around in the apartment above Clark's. A child started crying in an apartment on the other side of the hallway. Breakfast seemed like a good idea.

Clark’s kitchen was small, and messy, but the counter was clean. Bruce located a bowl, flour, milk, eggs, butter, and a scale that he wasn’t sure Clark ever used. He used a whisk to mix ingredients, as to not wake Clark up, although to be fair, he should be able to wake up from a sound that small if necessary. Shortly after, he was flipping the first pancakes with a practiced flick of his wrist, and looked satisfied at the golden-brown colour of the three somewhat-round cakes. It had been a while.

He made sure not to burn any, but also not to undercook them, patiently waiting for them to solidify, start bubbling, change colour. He stacked them onto a plate before pouring more batter in the pan. Lost in concentration, he didn't hear Clark enter, but there he was, with a stretch and a yawn. In his flannel checkered pyjama pants, hanging low on his hips, and his black hair, sticking up in a wonderfully soft mess, more so than Bruce’s own. After a quick glance, Bruce returned his attention to the pancakes, and felt Clark’s bare chest touching his bicep. He hugged Bruce, kissed his ear, and Bruce allowed him to turn his face to kiss his mouth, even though they had just spent the whole night next to each other.

“Hey, good morning,” Clark smiled.

“Morning.”

“Did you sleep well?”

“You know I always sleep better after sex with you.” It was their game of catch and return, this. Replies to put them two steps ahead of each other, a set-up for the next quip. Most people would call it flirting, and whatever it was, it kept Bruce on his toes, and Clark never missed a beat.

“Hmm, my true superpower,” he smiled, and then, finally, looked down at the stovetop. “Pancakes? Smells delicious.” Clark’s warmth at his side was unsurprising, yet overwhelming on a cold morning, and Bruce hadn’t realized the cold of the floor under his bare feet had seeped into his body. He let himself relax a little against Clark.

“You’re warm.”

“The bed was warm. I mean, metaphorically it was cold because you weren’t there anymore… Do you think I should change the covers already?”

“Hmm. Do you have blueberries? I couldn’t find them.”

“Freezer.”

“That’s where I looked.”

Clark looked over at the freezer at the bottom of the fridge, his eyes going glassy for just a second. “They’re there. Kind of at the back.” He squatted down to open it and dug out pizzas, frozen veggies, and casserole dishes that surely came from Kansas, until he got to the blueberries. “Here you go.”

“Put them in the batter, we can still have one half with blueberries. You change your blanket? Why?”

“Um, force of habit, I guess? Ma always put thick covers and a wool blanket on my bed back home in the winter, even though I never actually needed it.” Keeping up appearances, a form of pretend-normalcy, then. Little habits that made Clark more human than his powers could ever make him alien. “I told her, but she insisted… every little detail had to be right. Hiding who I was even at home, in my own room… I mean, you never knew…”

“If anyone would ever see something out of the ordinary?”

“Yes,” Clark sighed. He leaned back against the counter and crossed his arms. The pan sizzled, batter slowly solidifying again.

“She’s smart, your mother,” Bruce said.

“Scared. They were always so scared someone would come take me away.”

“They were right to be… protecting you.”

“I know that.” He smiled apologetically. “Sorry. I had a good childhood, Bruce. I shouldn’t...”

“Doesn’t mean you can’t complain about it.” Another flip, and sizzle. “You don’t have to hide now, not here.”

Clark uncrossed his arms. “Thank you, B.” He hugged Bruce again, chin on his shoulder, and looked down at the stack of pancakes that were already finished and resting on a plate. “Hey, these actually look good… I haven’t smelled any burning… And here I thought you didn’t cook.”

“I don’t.”

“Bruce. You’re making pancakes. Don’t play tricks on me.”

“I don’t cook. I know how to make pancakes.” Clark looked at him, questioningly. Go on, he motioned with the smallest jerk of his head and motion in his eyebrows. A personal story. Clark had just shared something personal. That’s what you do in a relationship, right? He poured another ladle of batter in the pan and cleared his throat.

“When Dick had just moved in with us… he woke up very early every day, earlier than Alfred, even. Maybe a circus thing, I think. I would hear him just… pacing outside of my room, not knowing what to do, too scared to wake me up, maybe.”

“But you heard him anyway?”

“Needless to say, I wasn’t sleeping much, back then.”

“You don’t sleep much now.”

“Fine. I was barely sleeping at all.” Some days, he had been able to catch a couple hours of rest after Alfred took Dick to school. Most days, he ended up falling asleep in board meetings. He continued: “Whenever I heard him, I would get up, and take him down to the kitchen, where I would try to make pancakes, because Dick liked them. I… tried to make it like home, for him. Or, at least, to resemble the mornings he’d had with his parents.”

“You learned how to make pancakes for Dick.” Clark stated.

“It took me a while to get it right.” Bruce remembered Dick patiently waiting at the kitchen island only to stare at his plate of burned, or undercooked, or completely messed up and mis-shapen pancakes with a blank expression when Bruce finally served them. Thanks, he’d mumble, and would start eating them slowly anyway, before Bruce decided it was enough and dumped the rest in the trash, putting down a bowl of cereal for him instead. Until finally one morning, Dick’s blank expression had turned into a smile, humming along while eating his pancakes and then Bruce’s too. He had hugged Bruce after, exclaiming that he shouldn’t change a single thing!

It had felt like solving a case, one that he could easily crack all over again now that he knew the steps. He smiled at the memory and looked at Clark again. “At least a dozen mornings like that. But yes, I did. It helped.”

“It did,” Clark said, with one of those sheepy grins on his face. “You’re an amazing dad, Bruce.”

“I doubt the children would agree with you.”

Clark angled his head and pursed his lips. “You could definitely vocalize a little bit more how you feel towards them, but they know.” Bruce huffed. He was not a good caretaker, not really. Alfred had said as much, in his Alfred-way, and Barbara, curt and to the point, and Dick, clear and unmistakable. “You’re dedicated,” Clark explained.

Some would call it obsession. Not Clark. Bruce tried a smile.

“So, just pancakes?”

“Just pancakes. When Dick started feeling more at home he started sleeping in more, and so did I. Alfred took over on breakfast again.” He flipped the last pancake out of the pan and onto the stack. “Done. Let’s eat.”

Clark zipped out of the room to get a shirt, got them each a glass of orange juice, and cleared the table before Bruce had reached it with their breakfast.

Taking a bite of his first pancake with butter and maple syrup, Clark hummed. “I would almost say," and his voice dropped down to a whisper, "these are better than my mom’s."

“Don’t tell her that,” Bruce said, washing down his smile with a gulp of juice. Outside past the window, Metropolis lay quiet, shining under a blue sky and a rising sun. Clark looked out too, catching that light on his chin and closing his eyes. Clark, who rose with the sun but waited for dark to meet in the middle with Bruce, however long it took. Clark, who literally came to find him in the deepest darkest parts of his mind, who would gladly let Bruce pull him up to his feet after a hit even though he was the one with super strength, who was forced to live his life a 1000 miles a minute and still found the time to appreciate the world's beauty. If he weren’t here, Clark would have opened the window to really feel the sun, Bruce was sure.

“Hm,” Clark swallowed another bite. “Any chance you’ll figure out how to make waffles for me? Or croissants?” Clark’s narrowed, smiling eyes didn’t disguise much. Another set-up, for more.

The reply, easy. Bruce only finished his bite properly to feign nonchalance, to tease. He put down his knife and fork, knowing he couldn’t fool Clark, not with the skip that his heart made. “Give me a couple more months of mornings like this one.”

Clark’s retort, honest and uncalculated, was much faster. “Yes.”

Yes. He could do that for Clark.

end note:

So yeah, I’ve just reblogged them and maybe you have seen those panels of Bruce making pancakes for Alfred, Dick, and Tim (Batman: Gotham Adventures #60, he says it’s his first time making them, but they come out perfect. Bruce you’re a liar, you’ve done this before). And at the same time, this man cannot make a tuna sandwich for the life of him (“How can you screw up a tuna sandwich? ...Oh. that’s how” :/ - Tim in Detective Comics #698). Anyway, this is why my Bruce can make pancakes and literally nothing else.

(yes I'm aware that's two different canons, come at me)

#superbat #fluff #write write

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ckret2 · 4 years

Note

So I've been deeply pulled into the Radiosnake pairing bc of your fantastic writing! Problem is, now I have fic ideas but no knowledge of the Hazbin background. Can you tellI me where I can get more Hazbin info? I've only watched the pilot and read your stuff. I heard there were comics??

That is an excellent question anon, because right now it is really hard to get Hazbin background easily.

Okay, so, the canon info on Hazbin Hotel can be sort of sorted into four tiers, from most to least canon.

Tier 1: The Definitely Canon

There is, of course, the pilot. And then there is an Angel Dust prequel comic, only seven pages of which have been released so far. We’ve been told it’s gonna be finished and we’ve had glimpses of in-progress prequel comics for a couple other characters—most prominently Alastor’s and Charlie’s—but so far that unfinished Angel Dust comic is the only one that’s been officially released.

Finding the in-progress comic pages is... a challenge. Nobody, as far as I can tell, has been specifically collecting all of the pages we’ve seen so far. I was able to scrounge up:

Couple more Angel pages

some Alastor pages

another Alastor page

a random Alastor panel

another random Alastor panel—I’ve seen the full page of this before, Alastor goes “Hello ladies!” and they go “HELLO ALASTOR~<3″ but I can’t find the full page now

There’s a smattering more canon panels on the artist faustisse’s twitter, but I haven’t dug them all out, and some of the posts I’m gonna link in a lil bit have a glimpse of another panel.

If you haven’t already heard of Helluva Boss, I recommend looking into it as well. It’s a second series being created by the same folks, different cast of characters but set in the same version of Hell, so any canon details we learn in Helluva also apply to Hazbin.

Helluva’s pilot is here. Plus a cute music video here.

Earlier this month, during a BLM charity stream hosted by show artist Ashley Nichols—she runs regular streams under the title “HuniCast”—they released a few sneak peaks of future Helluva scenes, all compiled here.

And that’s it for canon. Two pilots, a music video, a smattering of future scenes, part of one comic, a few WIP pages/panels from other comics.

Tier 2: Pseudo-Canon

Everything else we currently know about Hazbin (and Helluva) are things that the creators have told us. Consequently, they’re all pseudo-canon—and likely subject to change in the future as the shows and comics are further developed and released. Some details that were released/described in the past have been contradicted at other times, or else radically changed by the time the pilot came out.

(For example, when Alastor was first created years and years ago as an OC with no plans for Hazbin, he was a demon deer who could shapeshift into a human shape—now he’s a demonized human with a few deer traits. And Charlie and Cherri Bomb used to look very different.)

So until and unless they make it into canon, all these pseudo-canon details are subject to change and should be taken with a grain of salt—but, they also comprise most of what we know about the characters’ backstory and the as-yet-unaired characters.

Pseudo-canon info on Hazbin is scattered mainly between two sources: the creators’ twitter accounts, and livestreams where they take questions and talk about the making of the show. If you and livestreams do not get along (my ADHD and livestreams do not get along), or if you don’t want to wade years and years back into twitter accounts to dig up every scrap of info on the characters the creators have ever mentioned, collating all the pseudo-canon info is gonna be hard. (It’s gonna be hard even if you do want to sit through the streams and dig through all their tweets.) Lots of fans, me included, depend on the absolutely heroic work of various fans who are willing and able to watch hours-long streams and collate a list of canon factoids released during the streams. I’ve reblogged as many of these posts as I’ve been able to find:

Alastor’s sound design (on twitter)

Alastor's Sound Design (post I made with screenshots of weird—but very interesting—subtitles slipped into the aforementioned video)

Sir Pentious and Cherri Bomb’s sound design

Niffty and Husk’s sound design

Charlie, Katie, and Tom’s sound design

Intro song’s sound design

Happy Hotel’s sound design

details from Faustisse (including a pic of a couple costume designs. Most of these posts come from zatyrlucy, who’s been doing a fantastic job of going stream-by-stream to get lists of details from the regular streams by Ashley Nichols and by comic artist Faustisse.)

more details from Faustisse (including a pic of the Von Eldritch family dining room)

Faustisse 3 (better look at that table)

Dollymoon’s Hazbin Hotel Facts - PART ONE (Shoutout again to dollymoon for compiling these, we’ve never spoken but I am eternally grateful for this service. Dollymoon’s posts are THE single most reliable compilation of Hazbin Hotel’s nebulous pseudo-canon facts that I have found to date, including both links to the sources and timestamps where applicable. Dollymoon’s URL has changed since making this post so the “read more” link doesn’t work but the “source” or “reblogged from” links direct correctly to the new blog. Incidentally, the risk of other blog creators deleting their blogs/posts or changing their URLs is why in info posts like these, I always link to my own reblogs rather than their original posts—their original posts might vanish without warning, but I know I ain’t gonna delete my posts, so these links will still work in the future.)

Hazbin Hotel Facts - PART TWO

Hazbin Hotel Facts - PART THREE

Faustisse 4

HuniCast - Australian Wildlife Relief charity stream

I think this was a faustisse stream (the original source deleted these posts, so the comic pages that were originally behind that read more cut are now gone.)

Faustisse stream 6?

And those are all the masterposts of factoids I’ve managed to collect. If anyone has more masterposts, chuck ‘em at me.

Even this isn’t all the knowledge that’s been released about the show. The posts that dig the farthest back are Dollymoon’s, and even they don’t comprehensively cover all of Hazbin’s production. A couple of these characters, Vivziepop created as a teenager, so there’s some truly ancient concept art floating around out there that will have details that probably aren’t canon anymore... but might still be until something happens to actively contradict them.

Tier 3: The Wiki

The wiki is kind of an absolute mess. It’s a chaotic blend of things actually seen in the pilots/comic, things mentioned at some point in some stream somewhere, and wild fan speculation based on what they headcanon as plausible based on the above, all mixed together with very little indication for which is canon, pseudo-canon, fanon, or speculation. Most of the statements on the wiki don’t have citations.

(And, on top of that, half the main characters’ info gets split up into separate tabs instead of just having a normal-ass wiki page, AND their image galleries are on COMPLETELY SEPARATE pages that are linked to in one of the tabs, and the most important characters all have TWO SEPARATE GALLERIES. Which doesn’t have anything to do with the quality of the facts hidden underneath those tabs, but nevertheless drives me up the wall.)

Some things on the wiki were added according to info released so long ago it’s probably changed by now. Some are possibilities that got reported as facts. Other things on the wiki have unambiguously changed, or else are just flat-out incorrect. (For instance, at this moment Alastor’s page still lists him as an overlord, even though it's been confirmed that Alastor is not an overlord despite his power level because he isn’t interested in and didn’t pursue that position, per this stream. For a little bit, somebody’s fanart of their headcanon human Alastor got added to the wiki as concept art.)

tl;dr: the wiki should never be trusted as a primary source. The wiki’s better than it used to be. Even so, at this time, it’s only trustworthy to fill in the gaps of what you already know is true from other, better sources.

The thing it’s good at is it more or less compiles all the known info all in one place. Trying to figure out who the hell this Vox guy is is really hard if you’re reading for mentions of him in compilations of a dozen different streams, much less if you’re trying to comb through those dozen streams yourself, plus a dozen more, plus three different artists’ twitters. In comparison, it’s really easy to, say, just go look at Vox’s wiki page, where all the trivia is compiled. (And Vox’s page is actually one of the better cited on the wiki. Look at all those numbers!)

So, if you need to find out who this character is you’ve never heard of before, if you want to see a full list of the thus far named characters, if you don’t remember whether Alastor likes coffee or tea, if you want to know what Angel’s twin sister looks like, if you need a reminder of Sir Pentious’s death year... check the wiki. It’s an okay starting point.

But, if you see a “fact” on the wiki that you yourself don’t remember from straight out of the pilot, and it doesn’t have a citation that links to a tweet or a stream... regard it suspiciously. And do not trust it unquestioningly as fact until and unless you have seen the source.

Tier 4: Noncanon Creator Shitposting

I’ve mentioned Ashley’s HuniCast streams a couple times. The biggest draw of them is that she usually gets several of the voice actors in the streams, where they’ll happily say nonsense in their character voices. For the most part, they’re not sharing any actual canon info they’ve been given on their characters, just goofing around pretending to be their characters. Nevertheless, a lot of the things that happen in streams get accepted as broad fandom headcanons, like Alastor being into dad jokes. (My favorite, for obvious reasons, is this one.)

It’s easy to find the source audio for all this wonderful nonsense by searching youtube for “HuniCast highlights,” and then rummaging around for animatics people make out of the audio. The only one noncanon video of this sort I can think of that didn’t originally come from HuniCast is a lone one from Alastor’s singing voice (who’s a different voice actor than his speaking voice).

So, obviously, none of these are canon. But they do come from some of the people actually involved in the creation of the show, and they are in the characters’ canon voices, so a whole lot of people treat them as semi-canon anyway. (Even the wiki lists “dad jokes” among Alastor’s likes, which to my knowledge hasn’t come up anywhere except for HuniCast streams.) Since they’re so broadly-known, they’re worth knowing about as important sources of fanon, even if you don’t want to adopt them into your own headcanons. They’re basically the same level of canon as blooper reels.

#anonymous #ask #hazbin hotel #reference #helluva boss

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readinglokicomicsfromthestart · 4 years

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Thoughts on the Loki in Thor (2020) #1

I’ve been thinking about the Loki sequence in Thor (2020) #1, and want to go through some of panels. One page, which circulated widely on tumblr a while ago as a preview, was somewhat confounding in its apparent portrayal of Thor and Loki’s relationship - at least, it looked as though things were worse between them than they ought to have been (compared with how they last were in Loki (2019), a few months ago). Upon reflection, though, I think in context it is not so bad, given some of what else is going on in the issue, and the role Loki is actually playing in the story at the moment. (Disclaimer: I only bought Thor #1, and have not read #2, though it is presumably out now, so perhaps this is all already jossed, I do not know. But ignoring that...)(Disclaimer 2: I actively try to be optimistic about the future prospects of of the comics, it is just more pleasant to hope for the best than to worry about the worst and I find if I am going to be disappointed I may as well wait until I have all the actual reason to be - which is just to say, there are no doubt equally valid readings that are far more damning in their conclusions. So anyway, YMMV.)

(I’m sorry this is such a long post, I realize people tend to prefer shorter ones (at least, those tend to get reblogged more), but part of why I’m doing this extended treatment is because I think the amount of time the comic spends making these points, and then reiterating them, is significant to the key argument here, which concerns Thor’s mindset at present.)

The TL;DR: Thor is having a bit of an existential/identity crisis and it has put him in a shitty mood, Loki happens to hit a nerve and Thor reacts with hostility, but not in a way that is really permanent or, I think, an indication that the book intends to permanently fix Loki as an antagonist/ take a shitty view of their relationship.

So, to start out with, the issue takes place a considerable while after the War of the Realms has been over, and yet, Thor is proving to be a reluctant ruler, and would much rather be a Thor than an Allfather. This is not helped by fellow Avengers’ teasing:

It’s taken a while longer, but it looks like Thor has finally come to the same realization Loki had early in his book, that far from the fulfillment of lifelong dreams, the prospect of actually ruling as king has lost its appeal. Sif, who has become the Gatekeeper of Asgard (now that Heimdall is dead and off...somewhere that is not Valhalla, thanks to Valkyrie), takes him to task:

And more (as well as, incidentally, a rather gorgeous Bifrost panel):

Thor, not being thrilled (incidentally, the rebuilt Asgard and throne is quite interesting and...foresty?- actually built into Yggdrasil):

It is at this point that Loki enters:

These panels do reveal more hostility than, say, when Loki and Thor were interacting back in Loki #3, where we have this exchange, for example:

But, in the latter, Thor is where he wants to be (with the Avengers), while in the former, he is definitely grumpy and facing a future he is having doubts about. I think, for Loki’s side of things, Loki can be seen as attempting sympathy - he does ask how Thor is feeling - but at the same time, doing so is poking at a subject Thor is feeling vulnerable about, and it is perhaps not entirely surprising that Thor responds hostilely.

Back to Thor #1, these two pages were the ones that were particularly troubling in their portrayal of Thor and his treatment of Loki (particularly the second, which, iirc, circulated as a preview to the issue/book):

The threat Thor makes on the first of these pages certainly feels a bit odd in its distancing effect. But then again, it is in response to Loki essentially prodding Thor’s fear of being unworthy, which this (ie 616 comics) Thor has had personal experience with in the past, and is no doubt just as big a part of Thor’s problem, here, namely - that he’s having a bit of an existential / identity crisis.

The second page, I still have questions about - what exactly is Thor doing that surprises Loki and is an indication of his powers as Allfather - he has always been able to throw and recall Mjolnir (well as long as he has had the hammer), so why this surprise? (If anyone has any ideas, I would love to hear.)

The key point here, though, is that he actually does recall it. In other words, there are sharp words exchanged, but no actual violence. And keeping in mind that exchanges of some degree of violence between the two, no matter their version, are not that big a deal, I do not even think it would necessarily have been a sign of implacable enmity if it had been worse/actual violence. (This is probably a ymmv point, I realize.)

...So yes, it is less pleasant than the times we find them really working together, or Thor being proud of Loki’s progress, but I do not think it necessarily means that the writers intend to use Loki exclusively as an antagonist in this series, if this is any indication.

Rather, what he’s being used for here is a mirror to force Thor to reflect on his situation, and a means of exposing Thor’s internal state to the reader. It is worth noting here, also, that the larger plot of the comic not indicated in these panels, seems to be something involving Thor becoming a Herald of Galactus to fight some new cosmic menace with all the others who have been heralds - that is to say, in this particular plot, Loki is not a central player in the plot at all. While disappointing if one is reading particularly for Loki content, I think it makes the depiction of the relationship less troubling - Loki is present in this issue particularly to set the stage explaining Thor’s mindset and forcing him to reflect on the situation. This, in fact, is very much in character with qualities we can find in myth Loki and trickster figures in general - he forces reflection upon the status quo and challenges complacency.

That this issue is largely about Thor’s state of mind is emphasized in a page a bit later where Thor reflects on these several incidents that have occurred:

Finally, and perhaps most importantly to the positive reading that I’m attempting here, we end with a window onto Thor’s subsequent reflection:

The narrative is from Thor at some unknown point in the future, but more importantly, it is definitely much more reasonable where Loki is concerned, and it reinforces the fact that this has very much been a sibling exchange - moderate but nonetheless insightful ribbing that happens to hit a nerve on Loki’s part, and then defensiveness and a refusal to admit to vulnerability on Thor’s. (Note, above on the earlier page, that Thor also does call him “little brother” even alongside the hostility.) Now I would certainly prefer something more like the lovely heart to heart and collaboration we see, for example, back in the Hel war against Sindr and Muspelheim in Thor (2018) #1-4, but wishes, horses, etc. - Anyway, overall I do not think this is necessarily an indication that this book is going to do Loki dirty--notice, for one thing, that the questionable characterization is all on Thor’s part - the authors of the book have not particularly written Loki in a way that counts as character assassination.

Okay, that is what I wanted to say. Now....do I post it or delete 90% of it and try to paraphrase it all in 1-2 pages, hmm...

#loki #thor #thor (2020)#meta #loki meta #sorry sorry sorry this is so long #also my behind-the-cut feature is not working for some reason #tumblr why you broken #comics spoilers #wednesday comics spoilers

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afanoftheglassscientists · 5 years

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The Glass Scientists Art-Style Changes

Hey yeah sorry but I saw someone complain about how the webcomic’s art style is jarring in the later chapters and that the noses are bad because they’re big and I’m back in full salt mode WHO WANTS SOME TEA!?

@glass-scientists your art-style has only gotten more beautiful as the webcomic continues and you work extremely hard on the comic by yourself and I am amazed you kept working on this for more than four years now while in a career and I hope you’ll be able to do so for the foreseeable future. When I comment on how your art changed please know that I’m not doing it to critique you. Okay you don’t have to read more of this I just wanted to be the 156th person to let you know you’re doing great.

ONE - The noses have always been prominent on the characters’ art design and having a big noses does not automatically make it look ugly. Admittedly there are artists out there who draw very ugly noses for very ugly reasons, but Sabrina Cotugno is not and never has been one of those types of artists. Yes, Jekyll’s nose is bigger, but is not the end-all, be-all take from his design changes.

Here’s him from Ch.1 Pg. 15.

And here’s him from Ch.7 Pg. 22

(And no, I do not know why the latter two picture are bigger.)

As you can see, the nose in the earlier chapters looks smaller, but Jekyll’s face is also a lot more...soft? Like think of ceramic pieces. You start out with soft clay and you mold it into the shape you want (but don’t forget to wedge don’t want it to explode in the oven) but then after the clay firms up a little you’re ready to carve it and give it a more pronounced form. That’s what happened in the later chapters: Jekyll’s nose, the shape of his jawline, his sideburns, hair and even his eyebrows has become sharper and more distinct. His nose isn’t just an attachment like a Mister Potato Head, its a part of him. To give him a smaller nose would mean changing his whole character profile.

TWO - Like Clay, Art Changes. Admittedly I was taken aback by the change in the comic’s art-style as well, but that will happen to literally any long-form manga or comic. Unless you’ve been doing comics for literal decades your art is going to change, because you’re going to change, and what you want from your art and the characters you create are going to change. Look at Bluechair by Shen on WEBTOON: while his artstyle has solidified these past few years his earlier comics are unrecognizable, because he’s been working on his Bluechairs comic for five years, often updating two or three times a week, and is currently on Episode 536 of Bluechairs, but technically he currently has 706 of them under the Bluechairs page. His comics are like the Sunday Newspaper kind of comics, so I’m not asking you to read his stuff starting from the beginning (in fact please don’t try to read it all at once: his early stuff is pretty good but let me remind you he has SEVEN HUNDRED AND SIX COMICS OF STUFF) but maybe read a couple of them from the beginning and then read some of his latest ones.

So yeah, its not unexpected from comics to change in style, either slowly due to how the artists gains a more experienced hand or by an intentional shift in art direction. Sabrina was in the latter camp, due to the fact that she felt the earlier character designs was too much like a Disney Princess Line-Up, which she mentioned in a page description that I cannot find but I know was real.

Honestly I really do like the more recent pages. I disagree that they’re less vibrant, because I think removing the high glossy sheen made the characters even more distinct from each other. Before the shift in artstyle I felt like everyone was getting the same brand of hair gel. Hot take coming, but the character who most benefits from this shift is Rachel, who’s been looking gorgeous these last few chapters.

THREE - Sabrina Cotugno has been working this story, these characters and the art of this webcomic mainly by herself, while still working a job as a cartoon director for multiple shows and is currently working on a project for Disney. She does not have a lot of time on her hands to fix mistakes and asking her to change things or give her “Advice” on her art is...I won’t say unwanted because that’s up to her as to whether or not she’d use that language, but I will say she probably doesn’t need your advice on how to draw art when she has already worked in professional spaces as a storyboard artist AND as a director.

Plus I’m going to be upfront here, and this is going to sound harsh: Do not fucking nitpick and tear apart content made independently unless warranted by offensive language or imagery, because not only is it unhelpful it is just plain mean. Yes, Sabrina has worked on shows before, but The Glass Scientists is not made by a group of people working together, with producers and press and editors to back them up. This is entirely her work. She is spending her own free time making this. This webcomic is hours, days, weeks, years in the making, in the wake of hot days, sickness, travelling, other deadlines and dying plants.

And to turn around and say “Oh the way you do the art now isn’t as good?” Fuck off with that. I’m not Sabrina, so I get to be mean here - You are allowed to admit you dislike these changes, but sending the artist messages directly telling them of your dislikes is an absolute garbage thing to do. Especially when you yourself are not an artist.

Like Sergeant Brokenshire has a beard in one panel but loses it in the next few pages. Cue the Cinema Sins ding noise I guess. Okay, that happens sometimes, she doesn’t have an editor to correct. Am I going to directly send her messages letting her know she did her webcomic wrong? Fuck no. She probably has been sent hundreds of “helpful” messages about it already, and guess what? She doesn’t have the time to correct every mistake because she has a job.

Of course if Sabrina or any independent artist does something horrifically offensive or even just something that makes you uncomfortable you are absolutely allowed to air your grievances. But so far Sabrina has been good so I’ve got nothing to complain about, and the asks she gets that do have issues with the webcomic she answers with grace.

So basically this wandered completely off from the nose discussion and into the ethics of fandoms for independently made webcomics, but anyway long story short.

The Glass Scientists is not yours and its not mine. It belongs to Sabrina Cotugno, and its hers to change how she sees fit. Get over that and enjoy the webcomic as it is and you’ll have a much better experience.

Sorry to sound preachy there. I’m not trying to act like the Fandom Police and I’m not trying to fight Sabrina’s battles for her. I just see a lot of bad fucking behavior toward other independent artists and I don’t want to see it here. I have been that anon who “critiques” or gives “helpful” advice to artists who had far more experience than me, so its not like I’m pretending to be above it all here. I’ve buried many a blogs because of my shameful past.

Most of this Fandom has been wonderful. Let’s keep it that way while it lasts.

Anyway that espresso really did a number on me. I’m about to crash and I’m getting the awful sense of deja-vu here. Sorry for being so salty on Fandom lately, I won’t do it again unless I see some real trouble. This has accidentally become a Midnight Post, so go to bed!

...Oh wait one more thing: PLEASE DON’T REPOST FULL PAGES OF THE WEBCOMIC!!! Access to the official page is not hard and despite a few hiccups (which is not Sabrina’s fault but the webpage itself) we have been able to see all of the webcomic. There is no need to repost the whole page and on Sabrina’s FAQ she specifically asked people not do this. If you want to read each new page and don’t want to refresh the website twenty time on Monday morning you can always follow her twitter or her blog “arythusa” where she posts a link to each new page after it uploads. In fact starting tomorrow I’ll be sure to reblog these posts to make sure you have a link available to click.

Okay now good night.

#tgs #the glass scientists

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nacrepearl · 6 years

Photo

This anniversary, I wanted to pay tribute to the show by redrawing my favorite SDCC poster. With a few changes. It’s been 3 years since this poster came out on the internet, but it’s the poster for the first SDCC I experienced in this fandom. Below the cut is me being sentimental because I really love this show and its impact on my life is greater than one would think.

March 26th, 2015. I decide to watch Steven Universe after seeing gifsets of the first Stevenbomb on my dash from lingering members of the people who worked on my previous hyperfixation Attack on Space (A spinoff AU from the parent series Attack on Titan, which my interest in was fading quickly). I opt to watch the episodes that are on demand because they’re easier to access. I watch Alone Together first, Full Disclosure second (actual quote from me, who hadn’t known about SU’s musical nature: “Since when is SU a musical?!”). I then spend the next week or two watching the episodes on demand, then going onto KissCartoon to watch the series in order, in its entirety. (Quote when watching S1E05 Frybo: “I’m glad I’m watching these now before this inevitably becomes my new hyperfixation.” I have second hand embarrassment moments from this episode to this day). My brother decides to watch with me occasionally.

Fast forward to the end of March. I’m caught up with the series (back then only up to Joy Ride, which aired the day I began this journey). My friend Zac and I are now both into the show, and the following week Attack the Light comes out the same day that Say Uncle airs. Say Uncle is the first episode I watch live. I download ATL and finish it within a week. The rest of the weekly episodes (you heard me: weekly) were to follow and I was excited to officially be involved in the fandom. The beginning of April, I found the comics and I got to issue #5, the one where Pearl sucks in a gem-embedded book into her own gem and becomes ill from it. that was the day that I realized Pearl was my favorite character. Hurt/comfort is my way to tell.

I carry on watching the episodes throughout the month, and then after Reformed airs, we are faced with a hiatus. back then, a month and a half was a long time. Then, I got into the Pearl theories. I was all over the so called “nacre theory” right up until the theory had been confirmed in Back to the Barn (I still am, though the term “nacre theory” takes on a whole new meaning that I’m not sure will see the light of day now that we know more about Homeworld). You should have seen me go ham reblogging things about Pearl being lower-class, a lowly technician (ha), a maintenance drone. And all Pearls looked exactly the same back then in the fanart.

May 26th they announced the second Stevenbomb, half the fandom combusted. So did I. Sworn to the Sword happened and I had more fuel for the NT. I woke up that Thursday morning to a gifset of Pearl and Rose’s fusion dance because We Need to Talk leaked and spontaneously combusted right there. Then they announced Week of Sardonyx and our naive selves said “another one?” I went camping that weekend, which was also the weekend of SDCC. I nearly had a heart attack from my over-excitement when I got home that Sunday.

Week of Sardonyx came and went, with even more fuel to the fire for the NT. Cartoon Network does their greatest fuckup of the year by accidentally putting all of the Summer of Steven episode titles a whole year before they air. They changed the release date for the weekly episodes from August 6th to September 10th, and then we were graced by small Peridot on September 24th.

Back to the Barn airs. I die.

Then we go into a very long hiatus until Stevenbomb 4, airing in January 2016. This marks the first epsiodes to be leaked with the traditional screenshots + 2 minute clip. This was our first look at both diamonds + their pearls, and people were reasonably excited. Then we entered what we thought was the longest hiatus in fandom history–and we got the In Too Deep special earlier than expected.

Following the special, they announced the Steven Nuke/Summer of Steven. 4 weeks of episodes every night from mid-July to mid-August. Mr. Greg was the first musical episode and the crew hyped it up so much and yet it still had a huge impact on those watching that night. It was nominated for an Emmy one year later in 2017. We got some of the most intense episodes of the show in that bomb, with Amethyst’s arc, Bismuth holding the first half-hour special, the revelation that Rose supposedly shattered Pink Diamond, and Centipeetle’s corruption being explained further. Following SOS, there were weekly episodes and then another short hiatus, until Gem Harvest’s release in November. A short hiatus and then Three Gems and a Baby aired in early December.

During 2016, I meet two of my best friends through the fandom - @always-make-it-gayer and @hackerperidot. Gale and J have been my friends since that summer and because of this fandom, I’ve been less lonely and have had a blast in the ever growing group chat we have (Reverse Garden of Eden). I love you guys, and of course everyone else in the chat.

Following 3GAAB, in early January 2017, the entirety of Stevenbomb 5 drops on the app. Pictures with the diamonds and the zoo and the famethyst were on the internet in seconds. I had been on holiday break from school, and the night this all dropped was the first school night when the break was over. I stayed up very late, watched the episodes when I woke up for school in the morning, and listened to What’s the Use of Feeling Blue on repeat in the cold, snowy weeks to come. This was also right around the time my mom bought a house and we were ready to move in.

I got another birthday episode–Rocknaldo, airing on February 24th. Could’ve been better. I’m not complaining though. SU was crucial during this time because I was feeling very depressed and closed off due to the move and missing the apartment. The New Crystal Gems was the last episode the apartment got to see, and I promised to show Pearl’s backstory when it eventually aired, but we moved too early for that to happen. I like to imagine it can see my journal entries (you can ask if you want, in short it’s a coping mechanism I developed). Thereafter, we had another hiatus leading up to the sixth Stevenbomb with Aquamarine and Topaz. That bomb ended with the saddest episode in the series, finalizing season 4. Then the Wanted event aired, and we got so much lore content and more hints to the Pink Diamond mystery.

There came the biggest hiatus in the fandom’s history to this day. We were so thirsty for content. It was dry as fuck and the only light in the dark was SDCC with the Lars of the Stars clip (which would then air months later) and the trailer for the first half of season 5′s kickoff bomb.

Gemcation airs, and everyone finally understands Pearl’s quirk with covering her mouth in discussions about the diamonds. We all were getting so antsy at this point to find out what was happening with Pink Diamond and the lore behind the show and by god where is White Diamond?

We get Stranded in January 2018, allowing us to spark the “diamonds get revealed in January” meme with the Pink Diamond face reveal. Of course, this is debunked by Legs From Here To Homeworld in July 2018.

We get more episodes in March, and then are plunged into the final reveal in May with the half hour event, Can’t Go Back and A Single Pale Rose. The fandom collectively freaked out with the revelation that Pearl and Rose were diamond and pearl and faked the shattering in an effort to end the war. The people who survived this saw the Heart of the Crystal Gems arc in July. This was the week that held the Rupphire wedding.

Reunited airs, and I am surrounded by 3 of my best friends ( @asassynerdnamedgabbs, @neroblackcat, and @hackerperidot who had been visiting New York from Australia that week ) so I hold myself back from reacting too much. I cried that night out of sheer joy that my favorite show was the first cartoon to show a lesbian wedding on national TV. Of course, we get the diamonds and then SDCC the following weeks, with Legs From Here to Homeworld. I am at my cousin’s graduation party the day of the panel and my phone is slowly losing battery percentage as I try to keep up with the tweets and posts about what was going on. It was a huge deal.

Now we arrive here. Nothing had been shown at last month’s NYCC which is unusual, but that’s okay. We are still on hiatus, and it is SU’s 5th anniversary of being on the air. I am patiently waiting for the show to come back, and I’ll have more memories to make with this fandom in the months to come.

Happy Anniversary, SU!

#lovelikeyou2018 #steven universe #reverse garden of eden #rae.png #raescribbles

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lookatthisdork · 6 years

Text

Setting the stage, filling the supporting roles

Happy New Year! I’m starting off 2018 with yet another attempt at writing because while I thoroughly enjoy me a good reblog and comic panel shitpost, I do dabble in fanfic. Once again, this is intended for the Bruce and Clark are brothers AU.

Martha had originally toyed with the idea of forging the documents necessary for a convincing second pregnancy (prenatal checkups, sonograms, birth certificate, etc), but she'd known from the get-go that that wasn't a practical avenue to explore. While Dr. Wayne spent the bulk of his days toiling away in the OR of Gotham General, far from the view of even the most driven of paparazzi, Dr. Kane split her time between Wayne Industries' R&D labs and its board room; she had meetings with staff, meetings with shareholders, meetings with city contractors, and of course, meetings with the press. Then there the socialite events, the charity dinners, the planned photo-ops. Unless she specifically arranged for privacy, there were always at least three camera lenses and a microphone pointed her way.

Granted, she usually didn't mind being in the public eye - not nearly as much as Thomas minded, the poor man. But all the attention did make pretending to have hidden a second pregnancy for a full nine months...challenging at best.

There had also been the option of faking a surrogacy - she certainly had the money, means, and potential motivation to hire and provide for a surrogate - but Thomas had put his foot down. He was willing to indulge in the subterfuge necessary to safeguard a very-young child from less scrupulous authorities, but her husband was a law-abiding citizen at heart. Making up a fictional woman's entire life history - social security number, work history, medical records, proof of residency, credit reports and all - was well and truly out of his comfort zone.

Martha could respect that. She definitely could have made it work, but she had backed down all the same.

In the end, they'd decided to "find" Clark. It hadn't been terribly hard to stage - Thomas had signed himself up for a conference on emerging stem cell research in Philadelphia, and Martha used the opportunity to make a proper "vacation" out of it, renting a cottage at the Delaware Water Gap for herself and Bruce to stay at while Thomas was away.

Once there, Martha had muddied up a cheap baby-carrier, dressed Clark in a chain-store onesie and diaper, and "stumbled" upon him on a walk through the woods. One 911 call later, the cottage was hosting multiple local police, FBI, and social workers with no one being any the wiser.

Finding an abandoned infant within the confines of a national park had turned into a media circus, of course. They'd had to hire extra security for both the manor and Wayne Industries in the short-term, lest they be completely overrun. Still, it was the easily-controllable media circus of an innocent mother-of-one and her toddler finding a child in need. Eventually everything died down when no leads were found. Predictably, no one came forward to claim Clark, and no one batted an eye when the Waynes applied for emergency custody.

Now, it was simply a matter of time until the "emergency" part of the deal passed and they could draw up more permanent custody papers. Martha figured three, maybe four months would have to pass until she could start vigorously pursuing that. Until then, there were plenty of other things to attend to. Setting up a second nursery, buying (yet more) baby clothes, sorting through Bruce's hand-me-downs, setting up trust funds, updating hers and Thomas's wills.

And the press. No one expected much news out of a four-month old (or the alien equivalent). Still, sculpting public opinion early was was just common sense. Thomas's family may enjoy Gotham's good will to a greater extent than her family did, but people could always be counted on to be fickle. Power - the ability to change things, for better or worse - fell to those with money and those with influence.

Between the two of them, Martha and Thomas had plenty of money and plenty of influence. And if Martha had anything to say about it, Bruce and Clark would be better off than the two of them.

(Especially Clark. She didn't like to dwell on the consequences of someone who couldn't be bribed or blackmailed discovering Clark's history. Better to make that potential pool of people as small as possible.)

Given that a three-year old and a newly-acquired baby would have to be involved in her PR event, Martha had gone with a family photoshoot. Firstly, it would demonstrate to anyone watching - authorities included - that she was wholly committed to involving Clark in Wayne events, same as Bruce. Secondly, it would give celebrity gossip rags something (ultimately insubstantial) to chew on, hopefully dissuading people form trying to sneak photos of the kids without permission. Thirdly, and most importantly, Martha wanted baby pictures and a photoshoot gave her an excuse to dress Thomas and the babies in matching outfits.

(Just because the photos would serve a practical purpose, didn't mean she couldn't enjoy the end result.)

"Marty, exactly how many costume changes are we planning?" Thomas asks, looking at the portable clothes racks next to the shoot as if they were about to bite him.

"Oh, about five or so," she says as she plucks the last of Bruce's next outfit from one of the racks. "Less, if Clark kicks up a fuss." From another rack, she grabs Clark's suit and lays it over her husband's arm.

Thomas, demonstrating just how much he loves dressing up, openly grimaces. Still, he heads over to the side-room where Alfred is giving Clark his bottle without comment.

Martha shakes her head a bit before turning to Bruce. The next series of photos is set to look like they're on a yacht; Bruce and Clark get matching blue-and-yellow sailor suits, Thomas gets the classic navy blue blazer with white pants, and Martha is already dressed in a white sundress with yellow embroidery at the hem.

It's easy enough to hold Bruce still long enough to finish tying his ascot; even when he's bored, her little boy is a fairly low-energy toddler. Prone to wandering away if left alone for any length of time, sure - he'd given a one-time babysitter a near-heart attack after he'd walked away and fallen asleep in an infrequently-used linen closet. But generally speaking, as long as you were paying attention, Bruce was perfectly content to stay put.

"Mommy," Bruce says, bouncing ever so slightly in his patent leather shoes. "I wanna hold Clark this time."

"He's a bit big for you, sweetheart," she says back. She straightens his shirt one last time, then leads him over to the seating set up in front of a drop of Gotham harbor.

The photographer, Jeanine (a consummate professional and regular hire for Wayne functions), takes the opportunity to discreetly adjust the lighting. Bruce spares her a glance before looking back. "I can hold him," he says. "Daddy said I could."

Martha hums a bit, tucking some errant hair behind his ear. "When did Daddy say this?"

"At dinner."

"That was yesterday, Bruce. Not today."

The expression on Bruce's face is a small copy of his father's scowl; it's hard not to find it cute. "But I wanna hold him today!" he exclaims.

"Indoor voice, Bruce." She's careful to keep her voice even, patient, but firm. It's the same tone she used on her brothers when she has to talk them down from an ill-fated decision. "You can hold him when the photographer leaves - if you behave - but not before."

She has to swallow a sigh at the way Bruce's pout deepens. Its easier to talk down her now-grown brothers than it is her small son, unsurprisingly, and Bruce has been more prone to tantrums ever since they'd brought Clark home. Alfred and Leslie assure her that it's all part of the acclimatization process - that Bruce will mellow out as the novelty of having a new baby in the house wears off. Martha certainly hopes they're right.

The two of them have a bit of a stare-off while Bruce decides whether or not he's going to start shouting. Fortunately, Thomas takes that moment to walk back in, Clark held up and away from his chest. "He spit up on his vest," he says by way of explanation. And yes, Clark has, in fact, dribbled drool and old milk all down his front - though he doesn't look any worse for wear, gurgling contentedly in his father's arms.

Bruce next to her lets out a loud "Ewwwww!", twisting so that her arm and some of her bulk is between him and the baby - clearly, his previous ire has been forgotten in lieu of avoiding getting any puke on him. Thomas, meanwhile, isn't quite smiling, but he does sound a touch too gleeful about this discovery. After all, they can't take pictures of Clark in a ruined vest, and one of the key points of this venture was to get pictures of the four of them. Ergo, baby puke means less time that Thomas has to spend in front of the camera.

"That's okay, Mr. Wayne," Jeanine pipes up from where's she's finished checking the last of the extra floodlights. "I brought two sets of everything for the boys, just in case."

"Oh...good. Thank you." Martha has to bite back giggles at her husband's expression as he goes to get Vest #2. Poor man, he thought he'd dodged a bullet there.

Turning back to her still-hiding son, Martha grins. "So Bruce, do you still want to hold your brother?"

"No!" he shrieks, curling further behind her. Ah, the fickleness of youth - and here he'd been not even a minute earlier, getting ready to throw a fit over Clark.

"It's only a little spit-up," Martha teases.

"Nooooo! Gross! Don't wanna!"

"Well then, I guess we'll just have to let Daddy hold Clark." She pulls Bruce into her lap, resting her chin on the top of his head. He struggles a moment to stay behind her before surrendering to her hold with a quiet huff. "Thomas," she calls across the room. "Quit stalling. You're not going to get out of this any faster."

"I wasn't stalling," he says as he comes back over and sits to her right. Clark, once in range, makes a grab for Bruce's sleeve, which Bruce dodges. ("Eww, Clark, no!") "I was just straightening out his vest. His new vest. Because Jeanine has two of everything."

"Of course, dear." She just smiles at the adult version of Bruce's pout. "Remember, smile for the camera. We still have four more shoots to go."

You should all be aware of the fact that in an earlier draft of this, Martha did fake the hired-a-surrogate-for-Clark thing. Ultimately, I decided that was unnecessarily convoluted, but Martha definitely could have pulled it off. Bruce has to get his sense of Drama from somewhere.

#fanfic #my stuff #superbatbros au #martha wayne #thomas wayne #bruce wayne #clark kent #au #batman au #gosh I am a slow writer #as in slow at writing and slow to get to the action #but damnit Martha and Thomas should be more than their just their deaths

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septicquest · 7 years

Text

CALLING ALL ARTISTS!

Attention: This is not a Septic Quest page. Rather this is just an announcement that relates to why I have not been posting here for such a long time. idk what will happen to SQ after this and idk how far this thing is going to go. I won’t blame you if you hate me for being hesitant on the matter or if you unfollow me for such an action. But if you do want to participate in this new project of mine, I will love and appreciate the shit out of you even after I die, I swear. Please don’t hate me. Thanks.

So I’m sure ya’ll are aware of this web series thing I’m doing called “Allister & Melody” right? With all the voice acting and the original story and music and stuff? Well if you didn’t know and you’ve been wondering why I haven’t gotten to doing things like Septic Quest and Jacksepticeye, there’s your answer. It’s cuz I’ve been working on an original story with...pretty much everything I just mentioned.

If ya’ll need a little hint about what it’s gonna look like, - here’s a link to the promo. -

However, I have hit a slight dent in the road. Here’s the story.

So who here was here from the very beginning of Septic Quest? You know, like BEFORE Jack started reblogging some pages?...I see a few hands out there. Well anyway, I made a HUGE mistake when I started making this comic. What was it you ask?

I was working on it ALONE!

Which is probably the biggest mistake I’ve ever made in my life.....okay, maybe not the biggest, but it was a kick in the ass nonetheless. You see, this comic was supposed to be a really really REALLY long story. Like, it had three volumes worth of story. Don’t get me wrong, I love every moment of this story and I wish I could get it out to the world somehow someday, but right now just isn’t the time. However, it is still kinda cannon to the story I’m currently writing. (and don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying you can’t accomplish anything big on your own, it’s just really really hard on your physical and mental health if you bite off more than you can chew. Especially if you’re someone like me.)

Why am I telling ya’ll all of this? Well....honestly I’m not really sure myself. idk if I’ll continue the story as a comic or if I’m going to hand if off to someone else anytime soon. My mind is actually focused on Allister & Melody at the moment. So if ya’ll really followed Septic Quest specifically for the Jacksepticeye story, this is pretty much goodbye for another long while. And ya’ll can stop reading at this point and go off on your day. Thanks for listening. ^^

...Still here? Oh cool, hopefully that means you care. Thanks! Although I’ll warn you a second time, from this point on it’s all an announcement about Al & Mel and how I need help on it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

STILL HERE!? Man, you’re persistent...I like that in you. ^^

Alright fine, no more nonsense. I NEED HELP! I’m on a hunt for awesome artists and/or animators for my thing. I’m hosting an audition for artists to join my rank to make this story come alive! ....uh..speaking of story, maybe I should explain that first before I go any further, shouldn’t I? ^^’

Ya’ll remember Allister, right? He was that tall guy dressed in black in the SQ comic? Leader of Tutopia? Right, that guy. Well that’s him right in the middle of the pic there, and this is him AFTER Septic Quest.

The story is he’s stuck on Earth for unknown reasons (to the audience that is) and is forced to live on Earth with humans and limited powers. Along the way, he meets a young little girl named Melody (the little cutie blond dressed in green) who is strangely an angel almost just like him! Except this little girl is being hunted down by an organization called the Child Protection Agency (CPA) where they take care of lost kids in the streets. Lately, they’ve had their eyes on her because of the powers she has. Allister, being the only one who has actual knowledge of her powers, sees it upon himself to take care of Melody and keep her from any humans who may want to take advantage of her. Along the way, he meets some strange new friends as well as old enemies, and shenanigans ensue thus creating an opportunity for a little show to create!

So there ya go, that’s the synopsis of what’s going on. Now for info on the show itself. Like you saw in the promo (if you clicked it, if not, here it is again), it’s going to have original everything: original voice acting, original score, original animation. But it’s not FULLY animated since that would take WAAAAY too long for just one animator. This is where I need help. I made the mistake of not asking for help when I first created Septic Quest, and so I don’t intend on making that same mistake here. If any of ya’ll are interested in being part of this project along side me as an animator/artist (and/or if you’ve got nothing better to do), this is an opportunity for you!

However, this IS an audition. You are going to have to live up to my standards of art in order to be on this team. You won’t necessarily need to learn how to animate. You’ll mostly need to know how to draw some....complicated poses. All of the art is gonna be done like you see in the promo. I figured that was just the easiest way of doing this. Also, this is all voluntary work, so unfortunately you won’t get paid....I probably just lost a bunch of you just saying that.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So here’s what you’ll need!

1. Pen Pad/tablet (or whatever you wanna call it) 2. Any GOOD art program you own, like Photoshop, Flash, SAI, ect. Stuff like MSPaint or sketchbook drawings won’t due. If you draw on a mobile device, I’ll have to look at it and approve it cuz that’s always up in the air. 3. A way of exporting files/images to me. A lot of this pics I’m going to want in PNG format, but JPEGs are also fine in some cases. 4. A Skype or Discord to keep in contact with me just to make things easier. If you’re one of those younger kids who have parents who don’t trust you on the internet (you know who you are) then PM me via however you can, weather it’s through this blog or my main blog, my twitter, my DA, my email (if you can find that one), or anywhere else I guess. But preferably, I would like to have you on Skype or Discord.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If you have these things and you’re STILL interested in helping out, well then here’s how you’ll audition.

The way you’re going to be animating this is I will either give you a shot or a character or even a whole scene to animate depending on where your skills lie. You are first going to give me 3-5 pics of your best art as well as a pic or two of whatever character you want to animate (choose however many you want from the pic above). If you can draw that character well, then I’ll add you to the team. If not, don’t feel bad. I’ve got a special place for ones who try ;)

After that, there’s gonna be more info about how I’m going to separate ya’ll into drawing what. There’s gonna be deadlines for these things, so be prepared for that world of pain. In fact, the deadline for your auditions will be sometime after I get back from Bronycon (August 11-13) where I’ll be part of a panel featuring a sneak peak of the first episode all drawn by me. You can submit your auditions through tumblr submissions cuz idk how to work other internet things that involve submitting things. Submit them with your contact name and who you want to draw. It can be as many characters as you want.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Okay, just a brief review of auditions cuz I know I’m gonna get questions later:

1. 3-5 pics of your best art. 2. One or two pics of whatever Al & Mel character you wanna animate (can be as many characters as you like. *refer to the pic up top*). 3. No MSPaint or sketchbook picture taken images. Only good digital art. 4. Have a Skype or Discord for contact purposes. 5. Submit to my tumblr @luximus with your pics along with your contact name. 6. Deadline is August 19. I’ll give several heads ups along the way.

If you have any more questions, ask me on my main blog. DO NOT ask in the Septic Quest blogs cuz these are unrelated to SQ. If you do, I won’t be able to answer them for you, so you have been warned. (watch as it happens anyway -_-)

~~~~~~~~~~~~

aaaaand I think that’s about it. Don’t be afraid to submit your stuff early. The earlier, the better! Thanks for listening, happy drawing! ^^

#not a page #announcement #Al & Mel #spread the word!!!

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runesandfaes · 7 years

Text

Spell-Cleaver’s Grove

Content: Elucien first date fic. Very fluffy and magical.

Rating: SFW

Word Count: 3,750 words

Link on Ao3

I have been dying to write something Elucien because I love my babies so, so much but couldn’t come up with a prompt till finally, I could. I feel like I could have done better, but I absolutely love the setting and this fic and my heart is very full right now. Also if you enjoy it, please don’t forget to like, reblog and leave a comment, thank you so much c: A special shout-out to Luiza ( @cassiancalore ) for pitching me ideas for the crap the Inner Circle puts Lucien through. Love you babe <3 -CONTAINS ACOWAR SPOILERS REGARDING LUCIEN-

Today, Elain walked in on tears streaming down Lucien’s uncharacteristically blotchy, red face. The Inner Circle were all already at Rita’s, given she arrived a little late and could now see Mor, Cassian and Feyre breathless with laughter and noticed Azriel and Rhys in a corner with their hands clamped over their mouths. Nesta and Amren both had smirks on their faces as they watched her mate with amusement. Lucien however, was downing glass after glass of milk and wiping at his face indignantly to rub away the sweat beading across his forehead and upper lip, cursing with absolutely no filter at his companions; well, as much as he could between the drinking and swollen mouth and tongue.

“Seems like you don’t have fire running through your veins after all, Fox Boy” said Rhys with a sly grin.

Lucien on the contrary, fixed him with a hard glare and said, “Don’t tempt me to prove you wrong.” The sentiment didn’t sound quiet as threatening as he’d like it to be considering his current state. Rhys just chuckled.

“What’s going on?” asked Elain. Suddenly, everyone seemed to notice she had walked in-none more aware of her presence than the auburn-haired Fae. The moment he became alert of her appearance was the moment he went completely still and wide-eyed; an absolutely mortified look on his face.

“There’s the lady of the night” Feyre smiled at her as she came to embrace her. Elain returned it quite distractedly, her eyebrows scrunched up in confusion as she asked them again what was happening.

“Well, our little Lord here was trying to prove his undying devotion and worthiness of you by trying to down an entire bowl of Rita’s spiciest food available-to, you know, confirm he indeed had fire running through his veins; just as you asked us to let him know, earlier.” Cassian winked as he responded.

“I’m not your ‘Little Lord’” Lucien said through gritted teeth as he looked down, the redness off his face now slightly giving away to his natural, tanned skin again.

“I—what?” Elain, got out, completely baffled. “I never asked you to-OH, NOT AGAIN YOU GUYS.”

This had been going on for weeks now. Ever since Lucien decided that he’d wanted to take her out on a date and formally court her after they finally got to talking one day, and she thought it would be fun to make him wait around and work for it a bit, the Inner Circle made it their personal mission to make Lucien do the most ridiculous things possible and make a fool of himself. They decided to tell him things they assumed Elain would adore and Lucien, even though unsure and skeptical, gave those a go JUST IN CASE she was into them. She wasn’t and the entire situation was comical but she did in her heart feel a little bad for him.

Last week, Feyre let him know that Elain had a complete weakness for well-sculpted, oiled up, thighs and thought it would be sexy if he dressed in a panel of clothing, similar to the one Feyre wore Under the Mountain, which would put his assets entirely on display. And he did exactly that, showing up in front of her in a black, silk article of clothing covering his behind and manhood and splitting to reveal most of his muscled chest and torso, held in place by a loose weapons belt. She’d never seen him look this embarrassed and the sight of him immediately made her blush intensely-though she had to admit, he did have impressive thighs-amongst other things.

Lucien, to his credit, immediately started apologizing to her as soon as he noticed how uncomfortable it made her and made a point to cover himself up and didn’t stop till Elain assured him that he was forgiven.

This was just one of many of those incidents and tonight again, they decided to bait him. When Lucien realized Elain didn’t ask this of him yet again, he just gaped at them, frustration starting to rise to the surface of his face. She genuinely felt bad for him by now and was finally ready to give him the chance to court her, so she warmed up to him finally. She placed a hand on her waist and with the other, she rubbed her forehead, exasperated. They were all a bunch of children, no matter how many centuries old they might be, she thought shaking her head.

“All right you all, you tortured him enough. No, Lucien, I didn’t ask them to let you know to do any of the things they keep making you do” she glared at them as she spoke and finally, at her mate “but I appreciate the effort you put in each time. So, I think it’s time you gain a little something from them.” She lowered her hand from her forehead and smiled up at him. Something inside her melted as she saw the glimmer of hope ignite behind his russet eye and his metal one started whirring and saw his entire face lighten up; the ordeal from a few minutes ago complete vanished from his mind. Elain approached him shyly, never breaking her gaze from his and Lucien too, stood up and proceeded to meet her halfway. When they were just mere inches apart, Lucien took her hand in his and held it gently. “Would you do me the honor of gracing me with your company for an evening, my fair lady?” he asked Elain with a lopsided smile, charming as ever.

Elain gave a light laugh and agreed to it. At her confirmation, he brought her hand to his lips and placed a feather-like kiss at the back of it. She immediately averted her eyes and a faint smudge of color tainted her cheeks at the courteous gesture.

She heard the Inner Circle complaining about having to stop messing with Lucien now but could see in their faces that they were all somewhat glad for the pair-except Nesta, who looked pretty indifferent. Mor just shrugged and said “Eh, it worked, didn’t it? You finally convinced her to go on a date with you.” she grinned at Lucien who just grumbled. “I say we were successful”. With that, the group dispersed for the night, going their own ways, leaving Elain and Lucien behind. They walked back to the townhouse together in comfortable silence. Just before they were about to go to their own respective bedchambers however, Lucien stopped her with a hand on her wrist.

“We’ll leave after breakfast tomorrow. It might be a long day. Is that okay?” he asked her earnestly.

“What are we doing?”

“It’s a surprise. You’ll see” he grinned.

“But...no hints? What should I wear?” Honestly, he now had her interest piqued and she itched to know where he was taking her, but knew he wouldn’t crack. So she tried to grasp a hint from the attire she’d be donning on.

“Whatever you wish to wear, Elain.” She was still getting used the way it made her feel whenever she heard him say her name-the lilt of his tongue, the depth of his voice and the way it made her yearn to keep hearing it.

She nodded.

He smiled at her softly again and they wished each other goodnight. Elain wouldn’t admit it to anyone, but she was squirming with excitement about tomorrow and she realized she was looking forward to spending the day with her mate; however that might be.

The morning breeze carried in the sweet smell of roses and the various other flowers Elain had planted in her little garden on her terrace, and cocooned her as she woke from her slumber. It took her a few minutes to get her bearings straight and when she realized what day it was, she sprung up and out of her bed to clean up, take a bath and look her best. It still felt foreign to her, the butterflies that formed in her stomach at the thought of her date with Lucien. She still didn’t know where they were going but she decided to dress a little bolder today-from her armoire, she picked out a dress she had been aching to wear for weeks. Not too scandalous, but still far from the modest attires she was used to wearing. It was an off-the shoulder white gown, printed on with colorful floral designs, that spilled around her graciously on to the floor. The bodice and waistline were snugly fitted around her body, outlining her slim waist and displaying her bare shoulders, collarbones and a hint of cleavage.

Outfits like this were a little new to her, but ever since she started getting used to her transformation, she decided to try new things on as well-and when she was out roaming the town with Mor and Feyre one day, she saw this simple, yet elegant dress on display and it just called to her. Without any hesitation, she bought it and ever since then, it stood in her closet, unworn and untouched. She never quiet found the right occasion to wear it-until today of course.

With some help from Nuala and Cerridwen, Azriel’s shadow-wraiths and spies, who had gotten very dear to Elain in the recent months, she arranged her hair golden-brown hair to remain unbound over her shoulder in some loose waves, shaping her face beautifully. She applied a hint of rouge on her lips and cheeks for some color and set off to the dining room to greet the rest of her family.

Lucien was waiting in the dining hall table with the rest of the Inner Circle, seemingly keeping a calm demeanor but was extremely fidgety on the inside with his nerves on high alert. He had prepared a picnic basket for him and Elain to have lunch with help from Feyre, who helped him pack his mate’s favorite delicacies. He had never been one for anxiousness and was almost always confident while courting a lady, but this time was different. This was his mate and their relationship, whatever of it there was, was still very delicate; he didn’t want to mess it up before anything even began. He had planned this day out ever since he discovered his true lineage-as the sole heir to the Day Court. The moment he entered where he intended to take her today during his travels, he was mesmerized-his first thought was of Elain and how much she would adore this, from what he knew about her. So, it wasn’t too hard to decide how he wanted to spend the day with her.

The male was rummaging through him stream of thoughts when her scent hit him and his heart stopped as he looked up. She was gorgeous with her floral white gown, intricately detailed with bursts of color- a stark contrast against her pale skin. Loose strands of her hair framed her lovely, delicate face which held a hint of blush. He honestly tried not to, but his eyes nonetheless dipped below her face descending down the column of her neck to her exposed shoulders and the curves of her breasts, making Lucien’s breath hitch as he forced himself to drag his eyes up to meet her own brown ones, which he found to some satisfaction, following his every move.

Before Lucien could speak up, her sisters broke the silence by proceedin to wish her a good morning and then fawning over her outfit, Mor joining in with them soon enough.

“Good morning, Elain” Lucien finally said as a way of greeting, smiling up at her from his seat. She returned the gesture and grabbed the seat opposite his and started on her breakfast.

After one good hour, they were finally set to go. As a goodbye, Feyre told Lucien to not give her much trouble and then proceeded to wink at him and winnow away to Cauldron knows where. He was waiting for Elain on the doorstep of the townhouse when she made her appearance.

“Shall we?” Lucien asked his mate as he offered her his arm. Nodding, she placed her hand on the crook of his elbow and he told her to hold steady as he winnowed them away.

Elain wasn’t really sure where she was but she knew for certain it wasn’t the Night Court. The entire feel of this place was different from what she was used to and was eager to know where she stood.

“Where are we?” She asked Lucien. “The Spell-Cleaver’s Grove of the Day Court. I discovered this place after I had just found out Helion was my father and I finally started accepting the fact, figuring I might as well embrace it. So I decided to roam around a bit when I stumbled upon this place and fell in love with it instantly” he rambled on wistfully, which Elain found a little adorable. “I hope you’ll find this place to your liking and find it in your heart to return the sentiment”. He looked down at her and smiled a little nervously.

The place WAS lovely, Elain had to admit. Under the canopy of tall, majestic trees, a path was laden out for them, completely covered in a blanket of wildflowers so vibrant in its diversity in colors that it sung to her senses. She was enthralled by their beauty and kept on walking forward, her eyes wide and mouth slightly agape. She was mesmerized by the tantalizing smell of the flowers and shrubs, of the eerie calm and the rays of afternoon sunshine darting their way through the gaps within the trees. She had never seen anything like this before. As they walked, they chatted a little and Lucien told her of the various plants and blossoms that bloomed here and across Prythian, having her completely hooked in his words and craving more. He told her of his own love for the wilderness as she noticed his face come alive with light, looking exactly like the Prince he was at this court.

He asked Elain about her own life, her hobbies and where her love for gardening stemmed from. And somehow, for Cauldron knows what reason, this grove made her come alive too and she told Lucien of her life and of her passions and what she aspired to come out of it. Lucien listened with complete dedication and it was a pleasant conversation filled with light laughter and stolen glances. The topic about his last few weeks’ ordeal was also brought up, of the hilarious antics the Court of Dreams put him through. Lucien’s ears and neck were a rich shade of crimson with embarrassment and Elain was breathless from chuckling too much, reassuring him eventually that it was perfectly fine, though he looked utterly ravishing in the black dress. Lucien thanked her sarcastically, saying if she did indeed find it so beguiling, he should give his wardrobe a change. He earned a smack on his arm in response and just laughed a deep, throaty laugh that reverberated deep through her bones.

In the distance, she could now make out the end of this long path and could notice the trees giving way to an open platform-like place. Her newly attuned Fae hearing could now pick up sweet, melodious tunes floating to their direction, drawing her in. She had never heard music like this before and it made her want to close her eyes, throw her head back and sway on her feet. This grove was absolutely enchanting; a thing of fairy tales and dreams. And her mate had just made it real for her.

“Songbirds” he whispered in her ear, his breath brushing against her neck, making her shiver. They had reached the end of their path and she could now see that the platform-like place she observed from far away was surrounded in a circle by large rune-stones.

“Would you like to dance?” Lucien had moved from beside her and into the hollow place between the stones and was offering her his hand with a grin on his face-his previous nervousness dialed down to more genuine glee.

Without any hesitation, Elain look his hand and let him guide her forward. As soon he place his hand on her small of her back and pulled her close, his scent hit her and she almost lost control. He smelled of the forest and wild things and it was absolutely bewitching, stirring something deep within her. Taking the lead, he twirled them around in sync to the music from the songbirds, enveloping them as the tune grew more and more intense. She suddenly saw her surroundings brightening up and realized it was the rune-stones, glowing brighter with every step of theirs. She caught Lucien’s eye and saw his pupil widen with surprise, the metal one whirring again- but as soon as he caught her gaze, he quickly masked his features back to delight. She didn’t know how, but she somehow just FELT her mate’s magic coursing through him and suddenly erupting around them, manipulating the light and the rays-making them bend and dance to the music of his own magic; Elain realized she had never seen anything quite so unique and captivating. The beauty of his play on lights had her in thrall and she couldn’t tear her eyes away from it. She could feel Lucien watching her the entire time, that hint of nervousness back in his gait-as if seeking confirmation to see if she enjoyed them as he waltzed them around one last time, dipping and whirling her to her utter joy that a delighted laugh escaped her mouth.

Lucien finally brought her back up and they gazed at each other, both panting from lost breath, but absolutely ecstatic. Elain had tears shining in her eyes from everything she just experienced and was at a loss for words to let him know what all this meant to her. That he conjured up something so foreign, something of her dreams and made it so real. So she stood up on her tiptoes, placed her arms around his neck and pulled him down to place a firm yet soft kiss on his cheek, projecting her gratitude and affection in it. His arms around her waist seemed to stiffen initially due to his surprise at her gesture but then he pulled her close, his eyes crinkling shut and his lips forming a slight, boyish smile.

When the stones had started shining in the grove during their dance, it did indeed take Lucien by surprise. He had heard tales of this- of those rune-stones becoming luminous whenever a couple who were truly destined, whose souls and hearts were one, danced among them but he never believe it, not really. Not till he saw it with his own eyes and his heart had skipped a beat. They were glowing for him-for him and his mate, letting him know they weren’t just selected for breeding powerful children but that their hearts beat as one; that they’d be able to love each other with no end. By the end of the evening, he had no doubt they could, for this woman, his mate, was headstrong and genuine and lovely. Her hidden strength that not many acknowledged, her humor, her passion, her utter positivity was staggering and he felt honored to even get to spend this day with her. It had been a long, long time since he felt this at peace and he was not going to question it. Not that he was going to tell Elain about the stones and their legend either; no, he’d let her choose, let her make her choice. Let her decide if she wanted to love him and give him the honor of sharing her heart because she deserved everything and more. And perhaps if she someday did, he’d tell her.

A better part of that afternoon was then spent in that grove with them having lunch and laughing and talking some more. At one point, some pixies and forest nymphs appeared and left flower crowns for them both which Lucien put on their heads with much enthusiasm. The male looked regal in it and she promised herself she’d weave one for him from her gardens one day. He did take her out to explore the Day Court a bit, which was extravagant in its own way and she loved it. They got some ice cream from a cafe on the town and Elain decided that one could never have enough of it. Lucien did finally winnow them back to Velaris by dusk and was content with dropping her home but she wasn’t. She wanted more-she wanted more of this male’s company and warmth and stories. So she asked him to stay and he complied happily. They grabbed some dinner from Rita’s and took a walk by the bank of the Sidra, finding a quiet, secluded spot under the stars. It was getting a little chilly and Lucien wrapped her in his jacket, carrying Elain’s thoughts back to the first time he ever did that. Shadows suddenly appeared in her eyes at the memory and Lucien was quick to take notice. He lay down a blanket on the ground for them to sit on and Elain finally opened up to him about her struggles and the hard days. She had Lucien reciprocate the gesture by sharing his own hardships with his family, with Tamlin and Under the Mountain. He told her of his scar and him metal eye and of friends he made throughout his time. They shared the stories of lost love, of Jesminda and Graysen, of their own insecurities and heartaches. Elain’s heart went out to the male beside her but she never pitied him-no, she thought he was one of the strongest people she ever had the good fortune of meeting and one of the kindest and felt herself connect to him in a way she did with no one else.

They talked and talked well into the night, till only the stars and their own heartbeats remained as company. Sometime during their conversation, the mates had fallen asleep beside each other, their fingers intertwined. Elain’s head was tucked into Lucien’s shoulder, nestling in his warmth and just before sleep took him too, he stole a glance at his sleeping mate’s face-completely calm and carefree, and realized he’d be glad to have this everyday for the rest of his immortal life.

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