diasomnia's "ARBITRARY NATURAL DISASTER" vocals only!! okay first of all, this is just as clean as savanaclaw's diadem, second it's like i didn't even remove the background music because tf you mean it's a whole acapella???? they're so good when you got literal LEGENDS singing (KAZUKI KATO I BEG YOUR FINEST PARDON WITH THOSE VOCALS) and you can hear them much better this time!! IT REALLY FEELS LIKE A MUSICAL HNNNNNNNNNNGH
If Ruggie can shove twenty people down the stairs on a regular day, can you imagine what he can do if he overblot
discourse about batman's no-kill rule is so funny. imagine if a dude was like "i personally will not commit any murders and if any of my kids do i will be unhappy" and everyone booed him
So I’ve been writing a new fic and I know this isn’t a ~new~ concept, but I’ve been thinking a lot about how the characterization in hoo would have shifted if Percy/Annabeth were a lot older than the rest of the seven. (Or just the og pjo characters for that matter)
I’m talking maybe 25/26 while the rest of the seven are still the same age.
First and foremost, I would have loved to see how Percy and Annabeth would have been a decade older.
When the pretty blonde lady comes flying off the chariot and demands where he is and Butch explains that she’s been looking for her husband, Percy Jackson.
(I mean imagine how that would have affected us as readers. Percy and Annabeth weren’t supposed to even be in this series now here they are but older and MARRIED?? that would have fuckin shook me)
Also, this means they’re past the college age, sooooo what have they been doing with their lives??
I imagine they went to school somewhere in New York, not necessarily the same colleges but close to both camp and mount Olympus.
And Annabeth’s been designing for Olympus a near decade.
Percy, of course did get a degree (haven’t decided what yet) but the two of them have basically been the co-leaders of CHB alongside Chiron.
Also, I’m a huge proponent of Annabeth building a “New Rome” equivalent in Camp Half-blood so when Jason, Piper, and Leo arrive to Camp Half-Blood there are houses and we see Travis and Connor and Clarisse as older and alive and doing well.
Piper sees Percy’s and Annabeth’s house and she can tell its a house well lived and loved in. There are dozens of pictures of Percy and Annabeth, a tray of blue cookies left on the counter, blanket and books along the couch, and yet looking at Annabeth, tears in her eyes, it somehow feels cold and empty.
Annabeth, who woke up, with Percy gone from their bed.
The photo in the big house of Percy and Annabeth is one of their wedding.
Now PERCY
Who wakes up with no memories except of the beautiful blonde girl.
Nothing to his name except a pen in his pocket and a ring on his finger and he knows that she must be the one he’s married to.
Now, the second part, is the characterization. Cause the age gape would significantly shift things.
So one things that often get complained about with Percy’s Character arc in hoo is that its the same one from pjo - Zero to hero…. which doesn’t make sense considering how we left pjo.
Percy is the hero. He shouldn’t be treated like the underdog anymore
The arc, I believe, should be more along the lines of Percy not wanting to have to live up to this “hero” legacy.
Feeling like the worlds just waiting for him to fail.
Or maybe he feels like he has too much power.
Also, he’s more hardened. He’s been doing this for thirteen years now.
And he’s powerful. Within canon, Percy’s powers have been shown to grow and grow and grow exponentially in a quick rate of time
now imagine a decade more worth of experience on top of this.
cough*blood bending percy*cough
So Percy finds Camp Jupiter, Hera/Juno tells him the river will wash away the curse.
And Percy’s, whose now had the curse longer in his life than he hasn’t had the curse and knows that he is so used to fighting on strictly offense that he would probably die, forgetting he’s no longer invincible.
Also its simply a “superbly dumb idea to lose a curse like that” and is like - uh, no.
And lifts the River over them instead.
And when he comes onto Camp Jupiter’s army.
He’s like where are your adults.
and they’re like “Oh :) When you’re an adult :) you retire :) the children :) are the ones to lead the army :)”
Insert Percy’s “the-fuck-you-mean” expression.
And when its time for the quest to Alaska, Percy’s actually like “No, I’ve gotta find my wife.”
And Hazel is genuinely like “That’s ok! Frank and I can handle this ourselves!”
And he’s watching this thirteen year old and fifteen year old walk off and he just looks up at the sky, sighs deeply, and says “gods dammit” before following them.
But like, I really would want to see Percy and Annabeth take on a mentoring role to the rest of the seven
The “kids”
I may or may not have just seen into the Spiderverse
Like of course we can still have tension between them all. But I feel in a way this would have encouraged more growth between them all.
I’m not sure if I would still include the Percy and Jason competition, or at least it would have to change into something like Jason feeling like he has to live up to this image of Percy. And Percy would of course be like “No, No you don’t.”
I would also love to see Percy and Annabeth having these moments of watching the young members and realizing “this was me.”
They see Piper and Jason awkwardly flirt and blush and they reminisce about “those old days”
So: you’re new to the DC Comics fandom and are interested in Batman and his family. Maybe you already know a bit about them and are just looking to figure out where to start reading actual comics. Maybe you know nothing. Maybe you know a whole lot about one character but want to start reading more about another one.
Whichever it is, I’m here to help! There’s a wide range of Batman/Batfamily comics (for all ages, moods, and types of people), and I’m happy to meet people where they are and help people dive into comics. On that note, brace yourselves, because this is going to be a long post. Recs start under the cut.
Superhero comics are traditionally written in what’s known as runs; an author gets to have an extended period on an ongoing (or limited) title where they (traditionally) write in 4-8 issue story arcs; think of these arcs as chapters in a potentially never-ending book. These individual issues are colloquially known as floppies. So when I talk about “Tom Taylor’s run” on the Nightwing title, for example, I’m talking about the (as of now) current writer, who’s been the main author on the Nightwing title since March 2021 and whose story arcs begin with Nightwing #78. Every so often, titles end, the principal author on the titles switch up, or they’ll have “guest/interim authors” come in to do single issues or a single story arc.
These story arcs are then collected in hardcovers or ‘trade paperbacks’ (generally referred to as trades, occasionally TPBs); both collect the entire story arc (plus bonus/behind the scenes material, in some cases) in a single paperback/hardback book. Trades are super useful if you want to read an entire story at one time, want to be economical about your comics spending, and/or want to read things in order. Occasionally, if a writer has a particularly long run on a title or a big company event happens, you get published omnibuses that collect an entire event or run (or part of it, if the event is big enough); omnis are very expensive up-front, but ultimately they tend to be good deals and are often curated well. These collections are all generally also released digitally. Frankly, unless you’re into comics collecting, want individual issues for their pretty covers, or are supporting a currently ongoing run, I would default to buying trades/omnibuses where possible. It’s simply cheaper and easier for reading.
List Notes: Each character list is sorted vaguely chronologically according to a combination of IRL publication dates and the character’s personal timeline. Big caveat that these are not all-inclusive reading lists nor are the inclusions inherently indicators of quality; I’m just trying to hit major character highlights. You should also note that many comics contain multiple Batfam members due to the ridiculous number of crossover events and the solid integration of the Batfamily as a whole into each others’ books in the post-90s era. Comic rec tl;drs are given at the end of each character’s list. Most of the links will take you to Amazon/Comixology, but I also talk about various ways to access and read comics at the bottom of this post.
Secondary Note: DC Comics works in three universes: the pre-Crisis universe (everything published from the beginning of DC Comics until the Crisis on Infinite Earths event in 1986), the post-Crisis universe (everything published between 1986 and 2011), and the post-Flashpoint universe (2011-now).
In 2011, DC completely rebooted their universe following the ‘Flashpoint’ event. This new universe (interchangably called the New 52 universe, post-Flashpoint universe, or Prime Earth) drastically changed many characters’ histories, personalities, and relationships with each other (sometimes for the better, most of the time for the worse). The early years of the post-Flashpoint universe are an absolute incoherent mess continuity-wise; DC’s been trying to sort it all out over the past few years with the Rebirth and Infinite Frontier events (with varying degrees of success), and there are definitely some bright bits and pieces, but it is not my favored universe (though I will certainly recommend it where needed or when it’s good).
Now: let’s get started, shall we? Lists below the cut (please click here to view the most updated version of this post on desktop via my blog instead of on mobile/the dashboard, for easy readability and formatting purposes):
Keep reading
Did you know that between 1939 and 1941 the NYC Tax Administration and the Works Progress Administration collaborated to take photographs of nearly every building in all 5 boroughs of New York City? And that you can see these photos today thanks to NYC Municipal archiving? This is, obviously, amazing for hundreds of reasons. For the purposes of this post, it's fantastic because this is a very real address:
And when I put that address into the photo locator map, I get this:
Going from there, we can walk around the surrounding blocks via photographs. And if we assume that Steve and Bucky's pre-war apartment was fairly close to the Barnes', then these photos from 1939 to 1941 are a historically accurate trip to their neighborhood.
So, let's explore some pre-war Brooklyn. For your fic inspiration needs, your feelings, the general Stucky vibes, or just because:
160 State Street, bigger and without the map.
(If you ever feel like making the details of a fic incredibly historically accurate, there are so many real businesses to choose from in these photos.)
Like I said, there are pictures of nearly every building. This is just a small collection of the images I grabbed from the immediate blocks around 160 State. You can walk around the neighborhood in more detail, or anywhere else in 1939-1941 New York you want on the map I used.
how to script your dream life and use it with any method!
hello friends! today i want to share with you how i personally script my dream life, and how this script is both my void list, states list, and precursor to almost every manifestation method i've ever used. i love scripting because it is not only a method in and of itself but it is also a simple list of everything you desire that you can now manifest using any method you love!
check back later for a link to my scripting templates. in the meantime, here are the steps to creating your perfect script from scratch with examples! all you need is a place to write it down.
step one:
time to brain dump! at the top of your page, write out every desire that comes to your head in list format. don't overthink it and don't worry if they sound silly or unrealistic; remember, absolutely anything is possible! you can write out a few desires to start or go hardcore and write out hundreds, whatever you feel inspired by. you can always come back to this step later. here is my example:
step two:
now its time to get organized! look at the desires you've written and figure out what subcategories they fall under. for example, "my eyes are light blue and gorgeous" could fall under the category of "appearance," and "i have $100,000 in my bank account" could fall under the category of "wealth and items." feel free to use any category name that makes sense to you.
step three:
now that you have a couple of categories written out and understand the structure of the script, your mind might start to have even more ideas. "ooh, now that i see revision is a category, there are a couple more things i'd like to revise..." or "why stop at one SP when i could have everyone chasing after me?" for step three, we go a little deeper into these categories and add more details of what our dream life will look like. you can also add new categories that pop into your head - in the example below, i've added "the world and society" and "skills and abilities."
note: the reason why i broke this up into multiple steps instead of just writing "write out all your desires at once" is because our brains can be mean to us and make us procrastinate if something isn't done "perfectly," so that's why adding an extra step is important to bypass the perfectionism.
optional steps:
because scripting is such a creative and expansive process, we might think of ideas we'd like to manifest in the future but not right now/not instantly. i like to organize my script further by adding another category: "future manifestations." these are ideas that i would love to manifest at some point later on but not necessarily while my dream life is manifesting right now.
another idea is separating categories even further into "instant manifestations" (manifestations that happen right now without things needing to unfold) or "perfect timing manifestations" (manifestations that slowly unfold naturally and linearly), if you want to get specific about how they show up in your life! however, these steps are completely optional and just fun details for specificity, and i can make a more detailed post on this later.
how you can use your script with any method:
scripting has been used as a successful manifesting and shifting method on its own forever because it specifically addresses one of the most important steps in the manifesting process - deciding what you want! by writing out what you want in your dream life, you can now decide that your script will manifest on its own or you can use any method under the sun to fulfill yourself within:
the void state: if you enter the void state to manifest, you could affirm "i have everything in my dream life script"
affirming: you can affirm "everything in my dream life script has come true"
visualization: you could create an imaginative scene where all of your desires from your script are fulfilled, or you can imagine looking at your script and smiling because everything came true
subliminals: you can create a very simple subliminal where all of your desires are included, or even a sub where the only affirmation is "i have everything in my dream life script"
the possibilities with scripting are absolutely endless. i hope that this guide has given you the inspiration and direction to write your own wonderful and unique script. now, go and get your dream life!
have fun! bunny 💕
with the way some people talk about shifting… idk maybe they should just consider roleplaying instead
once you realise that fandoms are shaped by white fans and a lot of these fans hold very conservative and reactionary views when it comes to their personal relationship to things all the while professing they’re the fourth wave of feminism or whatever, you stop caring about what any of these people think and you find peace