subtext is an avenue for plausible deniability to worm its way into your art imo

fell asleep in class again 🍇

maybe not a hot take but is anyone else like reluctant to get new atla content lmao. like the series is so genuinely incredible and the last time they tried to capitalise on that we ended up with The Movie and while i AM excited to have more conversation about atla and maybe even another renaissance (god ive seen what youve done for others... *is talking about the zukka renaissance of 2020*) im also very scared of what is going to be made canon. like a whole movie for zuko? you're gonna give that loser an entire movie now? he's going to canonically say a slur i just know it

I am of the DPxDC belief/headcanon that any variation of Danny who grew up poor in Gotham during his formative years before moving to Amity Park would not be friends with Sam without friction at first. It makes things more interesting and imo allows for more exploration of different themes plus character growth for Sam that she doesn't really go through in canon.

(this doesn't only apply to a DPDC au where Danny grew up in Gotham poor, but it was the first thing that I thought of where this might happen considering my Childhood Friends au.)

Now Sam's a compassionate girl, it's one of her defining character traits, but so is her hypocrisy and judgy-ness. She's the Not Like Other Girls' girl. This is in part of the show's narrative framing that makes her out like this, unfortunately though its still showing how she is as a character since its consistent enough to be part of her character description. There are also times where the show's depiction of her activism makes it look like she's performative about it. All of this makes her dynamic with a Danny who grew up poor in Gotham very interesting.

Anyways, Sam is aware of her privilege to an extent, but still has her blindspots - glaring ones, in some cases. Her self-righteous attitude would not go over well with a crime alley kid Danny. He'd like her, at first, but then she'd do something to make him mad - personally I think her judging people for not being vegan would annoy him the most, or at least would be the breaking point for him, because it was only recently that his family started actually being able to consistently put food on the table at all, good food nonetheless. And being vegan is expensive.

Any other behavior he noticed from her he'd slowly stop tolerating - her judging conventionally attractive girls and automatically assuming they're vapid and shallow for being feminine. Her anti-capitalist beliefs start coming off as superficial at worst, and Danny would eventually figure out that Sam either came from a family that was well off, or that she wasn't aware if her family was experiencing financial struggle.

He would still be friends with Tucker, but since Tucker imo is still friends with Sam, they'd still run into each other often enough to butt heads. Sam's got a nasty habit of refusing to take responsibility when she's wrong, but when Danny is arguing with her, and counterpointing her with stuff she can't retort back at without compromising her own beliefs, then forces her to start reflecting on herself. Especially when Tucker eventually starts siding with Danny and agreeing with him.

Does sam genuinely care about her beliefs and philosophies? Survey says yes. However that doesn't mean she's not ignorant, and she definitely is at times throughout the show (like when she released the purpleback gorilla thinking it 'wanted out of its enclosure' despite the fact that it was endangered and in an urban area) and I think it'd be a real fascinating dynamic between Danny and Sam to explore.

This isn't Sam hate btw, nor am I trying to make her out like "the worst person ever" bc she's not, i wanna make that explicitly clear. Sam Manson has a lot of positive traits about her but she also has an equal amount of negative traits that I think should be explored, she is not immune to the character development.

3l!grian is frequently depicted as a tragic figure and sometimes i wonder if we even watched the same series

"I forgive you." It came out like a blood clot—like an artery dripping gore—like an oil spill. Crowley felt his shoulders rise, fall, fall, fall. The air between them hummed, the tension of six thousand years turning every atom electrified and silently screaming. Breath shuddered out of him, human and terrible and hollowing. He had never been more grateful for the swallowing darkness of his glasses, for the way they hid the centuries of pre-emptive grief and wicked terror. The air was suffocating, the once familiar bookshop turned catacomb.

And then, hating himself for it but seeing no other way forward, he spoke the words aloud. "Don't bother". And then he was out in the middle of Soho and the breeze was harsh against his too-warm skin. Stepping out into the sun felt like rising to the surface of some great ocean—the gasping, desperate feeling in his lungs, the sudden crash of noise. A woman across the street called for her wife. A car horn. A dog barking. Laughter, cruel and far-off. He pulled breath into lungs that didn't need it, winced as he felt slivers of cold drive into the soft flesh of his throat.

So that was it; five and a half million years of want and need and burning, aching somedays, cyphered pleas for "our side". All gone in the space between shaking half-breaths and a kiss still seared against his lips.

Fuck it.

He'd ruined it the first time, had forced them both to look directly into the sun, to face the thing they'd been dancing around for the better part of six millennia. He could do better—would do better. At a music café some years ago, a human had been playing the piano—something soft and slow. A jazz number, if the demon remembered correctly. But the remarkable thing wasn’t the song itself, but that they were playing it with their eyes closed. Aziraphale had pointed this fact out to Crowley, excitement lilting in his voice (even then, the sound had thrilled him, sent a stab of warmth through his heart). It was only after the final note reverberated through the room that the artist opened their eyes, blinking in the sudden rush of stage lights. Aziraphale, ever the music connoisseur, approached the musician. The pianist had explained that, for them, reading music never came easy. Rather, they learned by touch, by the way the keys felt on their fingertips. In fact, the only way they could play a song was with their eyes closed. If they watched their hands as they played or thought too hard about their next move, they got confused and tripped over the notes. Muscle memory, they’d said.  It was muscle memory—the galactic familiarity of finding the space between seconds and prying—that guided Crowley now. He hadn’t done it since Not-Armageddon, but it came easily to him just the same. Time, you see, operates kind of like sound, like music; it loops and sways and carries forward in waves. If you know where to look (as the demon did), you can disrupt the flow, send it back towards the shore. 

And this was what Crowley did now. Drawing his hands through the ripples of minutes and seconds and hours and millennia, time stilled around him. It was natural. Easy, like breathing or sleeping. Or loving Aziraphale.  Slowly, the world turned backwards; humans retreating from whence they came, cars driving in reverse, the wind blowing in the opposite direction. If Heaven had taken notice of their "half-a-miracle", Crowley expected them to be able to see this from every edge of the universe. He likely only had one shot at this.

The world aligned itself once more, and time returned to its regular, steady gait—a rubber band snapping back into place. Something hummed in Crowley’s chest. Something bright and burning and the shape of a neutron star.  Hands shaking, he reached for the handle of the bookshop and pushed. The bell above the door rang, clear and and too-loud in the morning air. Aziraphale whirled around, a trembling half-smile on his face. Oh. Oh, somebody, this was going to be harder than he thought. It felt like all the oxygen, all the courage, had been punched clear out of him "Crowley!" A beat, a shuddering breath. "Angel". He pressed his still-trembling hands into his pockets and strode forward. "Oh, Crowley, dear, I've been looking for you. I have excellent news." His stomach did a little flip, something deep within him growing hollow and fearful. "We have to talk," he managed to choke out around the heart still lodged in his throat. "Yes, I quite think we do. I have something to tell you." Aziraphale strode forward, all grins and beauty like a flickering star, all plasma and heat. He could practically feel the agitated warmth roll off of his angel. Crowley shivered. "I just met with the Meta—” "No. Wait," the demon held up a hand, pausing the rushing torrent of Aziraphale’s words. "Just let me say my thing, please." "My dear boy, just—oh, what is that lovely human expression—"

"Hold that thought," Crowley muttered. His eyes burned behind his glasses. Aziraphale looked pleasantly taken aback.

"Yes, how did you know? I—" "No." The angel's eyebrows crinkled in confusion. "No?" "No," he repeated, enunciating each letter with perfect clarity. He was going to do it right this time. He was going to keep him from leaving. He could be good. Right? "I’m gonna speak, and I want you to listen to me without interrupting, m'kay?" Words were building in the basin of his sternum now, pushing up on his airways. He was going to have to say it outright this time; no more waltzing around this frenzied galaxy of emotion. Willing his hands to steadiness, he pulled his glasses from his face, and tucked them into the collar of his shirt. Aziraphale's breath seemed to catch for a moment, meeting the ferocity of the demon's gaze head-on. A deer in headlights. And then, "Crowley, I really—" (Eons hurtled through his mind in a split second, the serrated knife's-edge of want like a being all its own. Aziraphale in the garden. Aziraphale in the tavern, on the cliffside, on the West End stage, in the Bentley, in the bookshop, in the very marrow of Crowley’s bones.) "I love you," he rasped, ichor writhing in his veins.

There, he'd said it., said it fully and completely, without so much as flinching. It was the same love he'd expressed for the past several thousand years in a million little, unspoken ways: an ox rib, a revolution, a church, a burning bookshop and the bottom of a glass and a lost best friend. A yellow Bentley, a lifetime of tethering his life to Aziraphale's, of trailing after him like a moth to flame—like a dog to its owner. "I love you," he pushed on. They were both looking directly into the sun again, Crowley urging them to stare straight into the heat of it all. The words were spilling out of him now, a heaving, thrashing current falling to the bookshop's hardwood floors. "I love you and you can't go to Heaven." Aziraphale froze, pupils blown wide and unblinking, for just a moment. Tension stretched out like a thread between them. And then he pulled in breath like a drowning man (who wasn't really a man at all), and tears were gathering in the corner of his eyes, and oh god, he'd made his angel cry. Fear and guilt and horror slammed into him at a million kilometers an hour and left him halfway between dizzy and nauseous. His fingers tensed at his side, desperate to do something, fix what he'd so obviously broken. Heaven would be on the front step any moment. It was too late, wasn't it? It was always too late. "Crowley—what?" Aziraphale breathed, mouth twisting into a brutal, terrible, heart-wrenching sob. Crowley ached, panic lancing through him like a knife. "I—I really, I can't. You could come with me." He stepped forward, moving to place his hands on the demon's shoulders. Crowley leaned into the touch, almost unconsciously. "Don't go," he croaked, tears beginning to prick his own eyes once again. This time he didn't reach for his glasses, didn't try to hide his fear. If he was going to do this, he was going to do it right. And then Aziraphale could hate him and his desperate, hungry, reverent love in the aftermath. "Don't go where I can't follow. Please".

His angels blue-grey eyes searched his own, and the weight of his gaze was impossibly heavy, pressing down on his chest like a river-smoothed rock. "Crowley, please. I don't understand. The Metatron said—" His palms found the sides of Crowley's throat, thumbs resting gently on the side of his jaw. Crowley sucked in a breath. "Angel," The scent of earl grey—of old books and soft tartan chairs. Aziraphale's hands were shaking. "I know what the Metatron said," he intoned, soft as rainfall. "You can't go. It's not—they won't change. You're better than that." "But you could be an angel. With me," he murmured, soft thumbs running across sharp cheekbones. "Be my second-in-command." "Don't want to be. Want t' be an us," he felt tears—traitorous, burning tears tip over the edge of his lashes and fall against his face. "Crowley, darling, please." A beat. "I love you." The bottom of the world dropped out from under him in that moment. Aziraphale loved him. He loved him and he'd said it aloud and now it was out there in the world and it was as though every nerve on his body was on fire. His angel pushed on, "Truly, I love you. I need you with me. Please, come with me. We can do good, I know it." He could never say no when his angel asked something of him. Especially not when his kind, gentle hands were holding him like something good, something precious. Especially not when Aziraphale had just admitted to needing him, had injected the word with so much warmth he thought his all-too-human heart might beat clear out of his chest. But there was a first (technically, second) time for everything. He drew in a heavy breath, and tilted his head, breaking his angel's hold on him. Aziraphale's hands—now empty, still shook. He made a soft whimpering sound, and Crowley ached to kiss his fingertips, banish the fear. But instead, he looked up towards the ceiling, to a God who was not there—who maybe had never been there at all. He felt the Heavenly Host drawing near, a sense of hollow emptiness, the scent of absence. This was the time of last-ditch efforts, of holding his heart out and hoping Aziraphale might take it as it was, bruised spots and all. "I can't. I won't. I need to be here, on Earth, with you." "Crowley, please. I don't think you understand what I'm offering you," he huffed. A residual shard of anger stabbed at him then, and he turned his gaze sharply back to the angel before him. "Oh, I understand perfectly well, angel. I'm fairly certain I understand better than you do." Aziraphale's mouth drew into a thin line, tears welling fresh in his eyes again. And still, Crowley ached. A beat. Something in the angel shifted, then, turned on its edge—the walls beginning to go up again, and it was just like it had been not fifteen minutes ago. He was watching the same moment play out over and over again; some cyclical, torrential nightmare. "I would like you to come with me, but," Aziraphale paused, voice breaking in the middle. "But I'm leaving, with or without you." And there it was, like it was predestined. Despite the love, despite the want, despite every shared bottle passed between them, every half-accidental touch and glance and whispered word—despite the way he would’ve let Aziraphale run a sword through his chest... It wasn't enough. It was never enough. They were re-enacting their old magic trick, right there in the bookshop, this time with Crowley staring down the barrel, letting Aziraphale pull the trigger. Aim for my mouth, but shoot past my ear. Aziraphale wasn't shooting past his ear. His bloody ribcage felt as though it might splinter apart. Wingbeats in the distance, a grief wide enough to drown the sea. Crowley reached down, pulled his sunglasses from their resting spot against his clavicle. And then the hunger in his eyes was once more hidden, and he was walking towards the door like a man headed to execution. "Crowley—" Aziraphale nearly keened, the wall crumbling for a split second. Without turning, Crowley said the only words he could think of. "I forgive you."

I firmly believe babs and dick are the only two people on earth allowed to call cass ‘cassie’. No I don’t care if canon contradicts this.

May I request a cuddle sesh with Donnie and Leo after nightmares? I just got the image in my head and to see it, LOVE your art!

i’m an older twin donnie truther fight me

carwash siblings carolina dyeing her hair red to be less like their mother, wash bleaching his hair to be more like their family

can we talk abt this miss pauling outfit………. wrow…

forever grateful for the ccc english patch (tho i can't play it myself /sobs) bc THIS. this sums up the true route so well and i write my hakuno before she really develops as a character (cuz i wanna flesh her out thru ic interactions 😤✨️) but i love her growth in canon and can't wait to flesh her out in writing so she can come to understand love like thisss 😭💕

ccc really is all about love and how the characters act based on how perceive that concept and there's a talk about the difference between ai (愛) and koi (恋) but tl;dr hakuno and sakura have koi, which andersen describes as a "dreaming heart" that's more associated with like longing and yearning,,,, IT FITS THEM SO WELL I SOBB

Real queerbaiting almost always has to do with an individual character’s identity rather than any romantic pairings but y’all aren’t ready to have that conversation.

me if i see one (1) more person severely mischaracterize bedman

theres like six of you who Get Me and i want you all to know that your all insanely real to me

every two weeks a bunch of ppl bombard neil gaiman with the same question abt queer representation, and every times hes like. can you people find some media literacy instead of self righteously demanding if smth is canon. and like every single time the thing ends up either being canon but not in kindergarten terms, or just there enough that it literally does not matter

I will admit... svsss really got that "obliviously romantically dense" character trope LOCKED down.