#* meta

[calperna]

if you are not playing rook / do not have a rook canon to your portrayal, i am in general picturing my rook - theodosia ‘theo’ laidir, elf spell blade lord of fortune who is just a ball of chaos and sunshine and who calpernia has no idea how to interact with despite an odd and tentative understanding of each other and their pasts. generally the friendly + humorous choices and the definition of “here for a good time, not a long time”.

[fightwing]

dick's relationship with bruce + the titans too-long meta

there's been so many of these but i have many thoughts on this subject!!! dick's two biggest allegiances are to the batfa.m and to the titan.s and the two simply do not vibe (with pictures!).

for the most part, i feel like (at least in team settings) the titans are pretty vocal about not being batstans and bruce in kind has never put a 'proud parent of a teen titan' bumper sticker on the batmobile. like i feel like there's so many examples of:

and:

and:

i also think both sides thinks dick goes too easy on the other. that dick will always give batman the benefit of the doubt, and he will always answer a titans call. like the titans are constantly grilling dick about why he would listen to batman:

and batman thinks the titans focus too much on the power of friendship:

& i personally do think its a dash of 'what do you mean you're adults you were twelve yesterday'. like all the titans are the original sidekicks to most of the JL, and generally speaking the firsts of their mantle's so i do think there's a dash of parental caution at letting your newly adult kid do whatever they want with their friends. especially considering its not like theyre working at safety & gentle work emporium theyre all vigilantes/heroes and their missions are often life or death. they also are very excessive about each other and would absolutely kill or die for each other given very little prompting (ex: wally literally turned back time and revived dick grayson, thereby killing himself in this very issue). and the titans cannot go a single run without saying 'we didn't create a team... we created a family' and saying shit like:

when they are also (often) the JLs family. But especially in younger years, like the titans were dicks main reason for ever leaving gotham. and in early years robin, dick's sole focus was gotham, bruce and robin. & they worked so well together, dynamic duo who became such a cohesive unit and spent every waking moment together in some capacity (and often enjoyed that time very much)

but once the titans started to meet his duties split and like any teenage kid he found himself wanting to just hang out with his friends rather than his dad sometimes. and dick was so lonely in the early years and naturally sociable that finding other kids who could relate was so important to him. & i just think there's no doubt the titans were the rift that caused b&r to end. at the very least the timeline was sped up by the titans because dick was the youngest of the OG 5 and watched them all break off into their own adult selves and being the first active sidekick i think dick started thinking if they can be adults, can no longer be someone's #2... why can't i? and considering the titans were older than him, dick had several places to land or look for comfort or reassurance in his friends who seemed to have it together more than seventeen year old him. and bruce pushing him away (whole meta on that later) and dick seeing everyone else age out of their sidekick roles, led to stuff like:

and don't get me wrong, no matter the age, i think dick values very few other opinions than batman's. like titans (2016) broke apart because bruce was disappointed in dicks leadership and eventually convinced him wally & donna needed extra supervision (context: wallys heart problems & troia). also, dick rarely leaves things out of reports so im sure bruce saw that /technically speaking/ both dick (bruces son who he is not normal about) and wally died on this mission. but the titans didn't back down:

i also think the titans really respect dick's leadership, and they rarely (if ever) take well to anyone outside the titans shittalking dick grayson (sidenote -- specific titans can do it all they want because they have been a long time dg stan sufferer(TM) but outside of the team it rarely goes over well). but anyway, only dick could convince the titans to not fight this (much) and only bruce could convince dick:

so when dick stopped fighting it and agreed with the JL i feel like it was obvious bruce influenced that.

AND i think super important is that batman/most of the titans aren't super close so all they hear about each other is through dick. and dick can be emotionally intelligent, but he can also be unreasonably secretive. so every time bruce and dick fight or like, those big moments like dick's firing, or kicking dick out of the mansion after jason's death or like any of their big, shocking fights its like dick coming to the titans at his lowest. and because he places so much self worth on bruces opinion on him, i feel like that in turn might make the titans dick does run to in those moments (donna, roy, wally, etc.) resentful because he doesn't always go back into how or why they made up, when they always do.

but anyway all that to say this wouldn't be a problem if dick didn't love them both SO MUCH like:

and:

[woodsmke]

i know it’s nebulous in the book but i don’t believe aly marries cregan exclusively as a transaction to save corlys’ life. she’s not willing to use herself as a piece in a game like that. my headcanon is that they had already grown sort of fond of each other, found some strange solace in each other during the hour of the wolf, and when it came down to it cregan was convinced simply through her arguments & because lbr, she wouldn’t forgive him and he didn’t want to risk it. to be shifted if/when a cregan comes along to plot with but that’s what i’ve got rn.

[phonetrampa]

orla doesn’t like the raven boys bc they’re rich ... which means they are able to tolerate adam solely bc he isn’t ... but really they think blue should be hanging out w/ poor weirdos like the crowd they keep at 300 fox way ... smth abt their baby cousin hanging out w/ boys who wear blazers just don’t sit right them

[larcenousmagpie-blog]

MAGPIE was a child raised in the infamous Honorhall Orphanage. Though aside from that, none can really say they know him at all. He offers very little beyond the very basics. He lives in Riften, and has so for all of his life. And as far as he is concerned, that is all you should know. When pressed further, he’ll often spin long-winded tales, embellished and are more fiction than reality— if at all. 

He often escaped Grelod’s wrath by sneaking off into Riften, where he’d work as a fence for the thieves guild at the tender age of 8. It is there that he learned his skills— Sneaking was useful enough to pry the coin out of a miser’s purse, or even to pilfer misplaced goods, even food. But in truth, Magpie considers these to be lesser skills. General thievery granted wealth, if you were good enough to not get caught. No, he learned from a very young age to listen and listen well. And to him, that was a far more valuable skill.

He learned that secrets were more valuable than gold ever would be. He learned just how careless and arrogant the powerful could be, just how vulnerable they truly became when they believed themselves safe. After all, what kind of a threat would a brat be? 

His years as a spy for the thieves guild proved to be invaluable. To become unassuming enough to gain the trust of his targets, and yet just important enough to not be rid of. To know just enough to remain alive. 

Where the other children had surrendered themselves to their fate, Magpie clawed his way out of that pit. Even if it meant dragging down others in his stead, it didn’t matter to him. Just as he didn’t matter to them. 

[gonslight]

Who do you think fell in love first? Killua or Gon?

i think gon first, but killua more visibly and… viscerally.

killua is, from the beginning, a lot like—“hey, this is a kid my age! who can keep up with me? that’s dope!” it’s not a matter of love or crushes, because killua has no experience with that. he’s never even had a real friend! so i interpret a lot of his initial interactions with gon as curious, interested, amused, etc.

that’s why killua is so focused on saying, i want to be gon’s friend. perhaps at that point his feelings were starting to become more serious (what we would consider love), but his fixation is platonic. he wants to have a real connection with someone that interests him, that’s like him, that can connect with him.

i see gon’s FURIOUS reaction to that—his insistence on their friendship, him storming all the way to the zoldyck mountain, his willingness to be berated, beaten, and tested—as love. absolutely love. and i think gon is only partly in tune with that, but yeah, i definitely believe gon fell first.

but when killua gets to that same point? holy shit. it’s heartbreaking, it’s innocent, it’s gentle, it’s devoted. not to be cliche, but it really is that killua fell slowly, then all at once; he was on the brink of it for a long time, but eventually it’s all he can think of and dream of and see: gon. his LOVE for gon.

[capseycartwright]

i’m literally overflowing with emotions today lads it’s bad