It’s hard to believe that one in four trees in the eastern US used to be an American chestnut. Last year I ordered a sapling, and it just came in the mail this week. Excited to have one in my yard, and hoping it makes it to 500 years.
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Don't Read My Mind
I'm having some thoughts about this panel. This one line in particular. It comes from Titans(2016) - #19. The Titans were trying to help Donna and shit went sideways so the Justice League shows up to shut them down. Wally's power is fritzy and Donna's not herself at the moment. Batman has started to question Dick's leadership in front of the entire team and Dick walks away. Then there is this throw away line from Batman "Don't Read My Mind".
Why not, Batman? What would she find out about you that you don't want Dick to know? First of all, isn't it already established that Batman can block mind reading efforts - unless he's super distressed. Context clues want the reader to think that this is Batman being Batman, but it's something else entirely.
He's afraid. He's worried that this is the time he's pushed too far. He's here insisting that Dick shut down the Titans, the ONE thing that Dick has put passion into beyond his own career. One of the major, original sources of conflict between the two of them was Robin choosing the Titans over Batman, in Bruce's mind at least. He could lose Dick, again, over this. Nightwing doesn't walk away when Batman is speaking. Nightwing stops when Batman calls to him. Dick isn't being the good soldier this time.
Truthfully, Batman knows that while Dick's team dropped the ball optically, they did the right thing by helping a friend and that the Justice League would've made the same calls. No one would have dared call them on it, either, despite the genuine risk to the greater population. He can't say that. What he can say is, what he says on the next page. It's hard to run a team of demi-gods. Optics are important, results be damned. Dick soon asks "Have I disappointed you?" and Batman says nothing. In Dick's mind, he's despairing. He failed Bruce again. He failed his team, he failed in front of his heroes. He isn't good enough to do what he does at the scale that he wants to do it on - the Titans will never be good enough. He failed everyone. Again.
Batman isn't disappointed. Batman is glad Dick stopped to listen to him just one more time. Batman is glad Dick heard what he was saying, but more glad that Dick stopped. This time, he stopped walking away. He didn't disappear off the face of the Earth to re-emerge as someone else. Batman doesn't want the mind reader to tell Dick the truth: He's terrified that Dick will leave him again. Dick is in the right here, even if he took some chances. His team was in the right.
Trouble is, Dick has to be better than right. Nightwing has to do it cleaner than anyone else. He has to be more transparent than anyone. Someone is going to have to be able to call the League on their bullshit. That will be Nightwing, but first he's got to do it by the book every time, feelings and loyalty be damned. In Bruce's mind, the very first loyalty damned will be Nightwing's loyalty to Batman. Someday. He'll push too far and Dick will use the ethics / standards Bruce impressed on him since he was eight and disappear forever. Just not today, it seems.
Look at the art for a second. Bruce and Dick only see each other obscured by shadows. Really their logos, their professional identities, are the only thing they see of each other at this point. Nightwing is turned, storming away from Batman. It isn't until Batman calls Nightwing by his real name that they start to see each other. Now it's Bruce and Dick in the light. If that is not symbolic of a whole hell of a lot between them and their personalities, I don't know what is.
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For @keikakudom's reset resort au
Sorta non-canon comic, I guess?
Context is that Vox is the hotelier instead of Alastor, and he has a contract with Lucifer (through which Lucifer is getting updates on Charlie)!
Lucifer and Charlie's relationship
Notes below the cut:
This all started because of a thought I had: since Vaggie doesn't fall here, Charlie would have had to brave many of her early struggles alone, which somehow turned into 'yknow maybe charlie sees the contract with vox as her dad's way to support her, and that leads to a rare instance of her making contact'.
But anyway here their relationship is still pretty strained and despite what he says in the last panel, Lucifer prefers to remain distant from the resort and the whole redemption thing; but Charlie's life pretty much revolves around the resort now, so there isn't really a way to be part of her life and avoid it.
Also the room in the first panel is a super rough attempt at a therapist's office, LOL
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:D:D:D
Reads manga style/right to left not left to right. :D
This is an amalgamation of a pre-existing shoujo manga, (A Sign of Affection) and Ascendance of a Bookworm. Since as you can probably see, I replaced the main characters, (Yuki and Itsuomi) with Rozemyne and Ferdinand. I'm kinda trying to 'study' manga layouts- (*cough- great excuse for reading copious amounts of manga *cough) so I tried using a few pages as reference to see what the composition was like and all that. This is my Shoujo example. I've got some half-finished Shonen ones as well, but this was the first one I got on to finishing since action shots are not my strong point. Even if I have the appropriate reference.
And no, that last picture was not in A Sign of Affection, I just have a certain inability to draw anything completely seriously so I couldn't help myself. It was also a case of-
Would Ferdinand and Rozemyne actually act like that? I mean... I dunno if they would, but if it was someone else's misinterpretation-
Which is where Hannelore came in. Because I can definitely imagine her fangirling on the sidelines.
Anyway.
This took way longer than I thought it would, (Random insert- I HATE drawing Ferdinand's profile. It is so HARD to draw!! >:/ Doable, but it is not one of my favourite things. That's for sure) but it was worth it. I think. Looks cool anyway.
:D
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