ten people you would like to know better (or less)* tagged by @skylarkblue
last song: you're gonna go far kid, the offspring
favorite color: forest green, also fond of dark red, every purple, and orange
currently watching: penguin, supernatural season 2, star trek lower decks
currently reading: a bunch of dc comics, nobody by jennifer lynn barnes, the hunger games, several trauma healing books
current obsession: getting my new apartment set up the way i want it, this apple pie drink i invented (1 packet apple cider + bag licorice spice tea + bag rooibos chai + cinnamon vanilla creamer)
currently working on: my apartment, rhato: roy harper and the outcasts au, a bunch of dick grayson apprentice fic aus, catradora teeth concept, several shorter disability fics, also procrastinating on a bunch of non-dc fics lol
last google search: "tara markov rebirth deathstroke"
Rule: List the first line of your last 10 fics (posted or WIP) and see if there's a pattern. If you don't have 10 fics, then as many first lines as you do have! tagged by @sanctaalia
1. Sam tries not to clutch his side. [from luck be a lady, my drabble challenge fic of the day, supernatural, tried really hard to capture that specific s2 vibe and I think I pulled it off]
2. Dean stares down at the Impala's ruined frame. [from fender bender, my drabble challenge fic of yesterday, supernatural, I rotated that scene in dead man's blood where John says he wouldn't have given the car to Dean if he knew he was going to ruin it and thought okay but what if Dean *did* ruin the car]
3. “Outer space, huh,” Eddie's eyes go a little wide with wonder, like even though the guy's most of the way to a demon with his feet firmly planted in the land of magic, myth, and monstrosity, there's still a piece of him that can look at the stars and feel awe. from Shore Leave, dcu, Jason Todd/Eddie Bloomberg. This is the first posted fic in my sprawling Fireflies AU where the events of Countdown went differently and the Cosmic Mistakes trio just kept traveling the far reaches of space and the universe together, eventually recruiting a crew. It's meant to be Star Trek by way of the DCU. In this particular fic, Jason takes Eddie to see the stars]
4. Roy wheels the car through Arkham Asylum’s front gate and pulls into a complete stop, giving the crisp yellow lines a cursory check from the mirrors. [from Second Coming dcu, JadeRoy. aka RHATO: Roy Harper and the Outcasts which is my Roy-centric Outsiders/Outlaws mashup fixit fic. I am really proud of this one because it wasn't working and I scrapped two existing chapters and rewrote from scratch.]
5. Sofia sees their faces every time she tries to sleep. [from Cut My Lip, DCU. Or I finished Penguin and needed to write Sofia angst]
6. The parking lot is all but deserted when Helena Bertinelli exits Blackgate. from Huntress: Breakdown, DCU. Currently unposted fic where Helena Bertinelli, backed by Sofia Gigante and fresh off of 5 years in Blackgate, assembles a team to take down the Bat. I am tentatively writing this for femslash bang but we will see]
7. The metagene-suppressing cuffs on Claire's wrists keep her from accessing the powers that pulse in her chest. [from Angel Squad, unposted, DCU. Aka the Suicide Squad does Charlie's Angels with a dash of Ocean's Eight, another team of wronged women taking back the narrative, Claire Clover centric.]
8. Jason never touches Sasha. [from ego//dystonic, DCU, my jtodd OCD fic]
9. Talia calls Shiva friend, and Shiva accepts her esteem for what it is. [DCU, currently saved in my docs as "Shiva flower fic", unposted, very rough exploration of Shiva's perspective on relationships, leans Shiva/Talia. I was trying to get this finished in time for an event this week but I'm not sure if that will happen]
10. The entire damn country’s on fire: Most people blame the Gotham riots, point fingers at the Justice League for lighting a powder keg and cite Luthor’s campaign speeches promising to reign it in as the solution. [from a very tentative Mia Dearden-Arrowfam focused fic set in the MFB!verse, kinda a roundabout way for me to get comfortable writing in that verse again given that the main fics are on indefinite hiatus for personal reasons but I miss that universe so we'll see if it goes anywhere]
I do a lot of scene setting with my first lines. Usually I want to establish something about the main character. Shore Leave is an exception because the fic is actually way more focused on Jason than Eddie, but I wanted the dialogue there; the Mia fic is an exception because I went for worldbuilding over characterization and will probably change that if I ever clean it up for posting. I'm always surprised by how much short fic I write, given that I think of myself as an indefinite WIP writer. These are, notably, mostly DC, but I'm glad I finally have some Supernatural fics and not just rambling about it on my blog.
tagging @birdieisnotwriting @skylarkblue @spiritsglade @glitter-stained @saveyourhelplessspite @sasheneskywalker @dchuntress and anyone else who wants to join
*gone through your blog* okay so my feedback for you is YOU GOTTA TAKE MORE PRIDE IN YOUR TALENTS AND WORKS AND THOUGHTS, RYDER!! you are amazing and i appreciate you so much and you deserve to see yourself the way we see you!!! i am so grateful for you 🩵
THANK YOU SO MUCH THIS MEANS THE WORLD TO ME I APPRECIATE YOU SO DEEPLY AND YOU ALWAYS MAKE ME SMILE 💜
WIP acrostic game, tagged by @saveyourhelplessspite and the word is OCEAN
"Old times same and sentiment got you yearning for the shades of gray, cowboy?” Grace pulls herself onto the plywood, desk creaking as she goes. - from RHATO: Roy Harper and the Outcasts concept
Catra's teeth flash in the dimly lit Fright Zone corridor. Adora grins back at her, her cheeks flushing for no reason. She reaches her hand back and finds Catra's fingers waiting, her claws carefully sheathed. - from Catradora teeth concept
Everywhere Claire's ever gone for as long as she remembers, her brother has been at her side. She doesn't know how to do this without him. She doesn't know why to do without him. - from Angel Squad concept
As Raven watches, Tara throws her messy golden hair back and laughs at something Vic’s saying. The familiar sound slices through Raven's shadows and leaves her oddly warm. - from Destroying Angel 7
“No what, Rayner?” Even though Kyle can't see it through the helmet, Jason makes his expression as guileless and innocent as possible. - from Fireflies AU concept
Oh my god can you please share your reading recs for Rose? 🙇🙇🙇 Ideally if it's possible i'd love to see your thoughts on:
-your personal favourite arcs/stories, what you consider essential readings
-if there's a mini/short arc you think characterizes her great and is a good standalone (i.e. for fic writers who want to do her right but don't have time to read a whole rec list)
-some rose meta if you got it? Your own or someone else or you can just yap about her rn i'm curious and invested!
Also I'm curious if there's any fan artist on tumblr who does a great Rose you wanna give a shout-out to?
Sorry for the tall order, feel free to ignore me/just answer whichever you want!
Rose!!! She is my favorite of favorites I would love to answer this
If you're looking for a comic that does her justice to give you an idea of everything she has going on, you want Knight Terrors Ravager. It's just two issues, it's focused on her dynamic with her father and a projection of her childhood self, it's beautifully done and for a current event tie-in comic it has a lot of surprising deep cut references to her canon.
That said. Content warning for *very heavily implied* CSA and on-page abuse in her comics, including Knight Terrors, which means I'm going to be treating both as canon when I talk about her and is why the rest of this is under a read more
Rose suffers from a lot of her core appearances being in Geoff John's Teen Titans run, which is...not good comics but it is the point where she went from "background daughter of Slade who is also Lian Harper's nanny" to having her own storylines. @/roseworth has a more complete breakdown of this era
Ravager origin (Teen Titans 7-12): Rose is manipulated by Slade into taking up the Ravager mantle, drugged by him, they fight the Titans, and she ultimately stabs her own eye out trying to win his approval, there's another short arc where she and her father are working together but they're not the main focus.
After the One Year Later Timeskip, Rose ends up as a core member of the team. She forges a deep friendship with Eddie Bloomberg (Kid Devil), a rivalry with Cassie Sandsmark that gets very catty because it's Johns writing, and wrestles with both the team's distrust of her and her distrust of herself. I hate her writing in most of this. It's all very hypersexual trauma victim by way of a writer who's not remotely equipped to tell that story.
Noteworthy Rose arcs
Note that all these arcs are after Johns left the book and mostly written by McKeever, with Winnick and Wolfman involved in the Deathtrap crossover
The Teen Titans Deathtrap Crossover: Rose and Joey crossover arc that starts in issue 69 of Teen Titans and continues into Titans and Vigilante. Joey is going through an evil phase here.
Ravager Fresh Hell (72-82, with a brief pause for a blackest night tie-in that's also worth reading): this is essentially a Rose solo series focusing on who she is when she's alone, what she fights for, and her inner demons
Rose & Mia friendship arc (99-100): they have a lot of great interactions in these issues, they also interact at Lian's funeral in Rise of Arsenal but I only recommend that issue if you're desperate for Rosemia content
Nightwing 112-117 (Renegade arc, Devin Grayson): this is the 'Rose leaves her father with Dick's help' arc - it's essentially the connective tissue between Villain Era Rose and the Rose we get after OYL
Post reboot
Deathstroke 2016: I recommend at least trying the first arc which has Rose and Slade interacting. This book is messy but it does fascinating things with Rose, her trauma, and her parallels with Tara and Joey. CW for very heavy CSA themes.
I've enjoyed a lot of her post-2016 appearances as well including Brave and the Bold/Wildstorm, Robin/Shadow War, and Man Who Stopped Laughing.
Honorable mention to DCeased, Future State, and the Primer comic as they're Elseworlds but interesting nonetheless.
For backstory completionist purposes
Deathstroke vol 1 issues 0, annual 4, 15, 42-55: scattered early Rose appearances throughout her father's first solo, hard to get through but this is the most Lillian and Rose mother-daughter content we get and I love Lillian Worth.
Titans 26-39: pre-Ravager Rose living with Roy Harper, babysitting Lian, billed as 'a master of the martial arts'
There's a lot of art and meta in my 'rose rav' tag.
My thoughts:
Rose is interesting because the narrative spends a lot of time telling people she's unstable and aligned with her father and a killer -- and for that matter, that she's sexy/horny -- but if you look at what's actually on the page the character's "villain arc" is mostly contained in early issues of Teen Titans 2003, the Renegade arc of Nightwing, two issues of Cass Batgirl (and some not great nu52 arcs). What's actually on page is Rose as a member of the Titans (or currently Stormwatch); a fairly reliable ally to various Bat characters (Jason, Damian, Dick, Cass - I got another ask about her dynamic with the Bats and I'm going to put further thoughts and reading lists for those relationships there because this got long); and a person with an exceedingly complex relationship with her family including her half-brothers (Joey/Jericho and Respawn), dead mother, and shitty dad who she deeply wants to believe in but who keeps letting her down in genuinely horrifying ways.
Rose and sexuality: Rose spends a lot of time flirting and throwing out innuendo, but (a) the people she flirts with don't usually take her up on it and (b) in Deathstroke Rebirth it's repeatedly stated that Rose *isn't actually interested in changing that* (she calls it owning her sexuality and Slade mocks her for it); in Gotham War Red Hood when she tells Jason she'll "lick his wounds" she isn't upset when he says no but instead says she expected he wouldn't. I read her as using hypersexuality as a defense mechanism to prevent people from looking deeper.
There's a really good web weave I reblogged recently that pulls together the panels where Slade is talking about her as his daughter compared to the panels about Tara Markov (whom he canonically groomed in canon when she was 15) and Cass (who he canonically drugged and abused) and the frankly disturbing amount of parallels. If you add Tanya Spears (Power Girl II) and Amy Allen (Bombshell) to the list you get at least 5 on-page situations involving Slade Wilson and teenage girls in canon (I believe there's a 6th with a character named Pop Rocket but I haven't read that run). DC struggles with acknowledging this because they go through periods where they want Slade to be a Noble Mercenary Dad but being an abuser has been part of his character since the beginning, and that's core to understanding his dynamic with Rose, Rose's visible trauma responses, and why it genuinely upsets me how quick various characters in-universe are to dismiss her as "like her father" or "a bad girl who can't be trusted." She's one of the Bad Victims of DC, caught in the constant cycle of looping back to her father (all the way from Teen Titans to Dark Crisis) and then being held responsible/distrusted for it. She's a good girl now, as she says in her OYL first appearance as a Titan, but no one -- not the heroes, not her, not DC itself -- seems to be fully able to take her at her word.
