Gus was born to be a showman.
He started doing illusions before he could walk. Adding animations and sound effects to the stories he’d watch his dad tell the world through a crystal ball. His mom would make appropriate noises of approval for every bit of magic he did. She was never one for dramatics, an academic to her core, but that just made her appreciate the pure craftsmanship that went into Gus’s magic. She was the one who saw a prodigy where others saw a show-off.
The older he got the more Gus was drawn into circles of action. Of doing. People used to think of Willow as meek but Gus always managed to see through her awful abomination magic to the core of power beneath. A core that ached to make the world around her grow. Then they met Luz and she was nothing but action. Always doing and acting and influencing the world like no one Gus had ever met.
“How do you measure up?” someone asks him. Someone who doesn’t understand the world like Gus does. “How can you change the world when everything you create is smoke and mirrors?”
Some might think that it’s a valid question but Gus is smarter than that. As a child he sat on his mother’s knee and watched the policies of the Emperor’s Coven change because of the pictures his dad painted with his words. He played god to the entirety of an enemy's world until she ran screaming from his creation. Gus knows the power of smoke and mirrors.
So Gus starts to change things. He covers up wanted posters and Emperor’s Coven propaganda. Then, when that doesn’t feel like enough, he starts to create images of his own. He writes messages in the sky condemning the Emperor. He produces satire about their practices and broadcasts his work right in the center of Bonesborough. Gus builds an insurrection out of illusions.
Gus was born to be a showman. Someone who commands the attention of his audience. Not so many years later he stands in front of a rebellion he incited and he's still holding people's attention. He's still giving them commands.
Gus stands as the architect of an uprising and knows his strength.
Neon Bruce Wayne by Dan Mora
ok but when a police officer says bruce wayne’s name and waves and instead of responding bruce just looks away like a frightened child facing the reality of stranger danger for the first time
I don’t even blame Luther for the apocalypse but I do have two hands so I can’t deny that the option is there
Ren has been in love with Nora for as long as he can remember.
He’s aware that there must be a point when he wasn’t in love with her. Some point before the streets and the orphanages and their first school. A point when he was small with two living parents and not at all sure of himself like he is now.
It’s just that that time seems hazy. More like a dream than something that he lived through. Then he thinks back to being in love with Nora and suddenly his memories are in sharp focus, always with her at their center.
Ren has been in love with Nora for as long as he can remember and he’s been trying to figure out how to tell her for just as long. Nothing’s come to mind yet but, hey, it’s not like either of them are going anywhere.
I tried to make the ‘oh no they can be birds how terrible’ thing make more sense and here it is:
At first it’s wonderful.
Everything’s just as it was before. Tai still flirts with Raven, Qrow still spends too much time on his scythe, Summer still rolls her eyes at them constantly, even if she’s smiling. The only thing that changes is that Raven and Qrow spend their nights spying on their enemies instead of sleeping with their team. Sometimes they change forms during the day and sky-dance for a while, cackling at their freedom with croaking voices.
Sometimes Ozpin will give Raven and Qrow these looks, like he’s already mourning them.
They don’t pay the looks any heed, their second mistake. Their first was taking his poisoned gift in the first place.
Things start to change when the pain begins. It’s a twinge at first, something both of them barely notice, but it gets worse with every transformation. After a few months it makes Qrow throw up for the first time. It’s flecked with blood and specks of something black that leaves an awful taste in the back of his throat.
“Gross.” Raven says in her human form next to him before walking away. She doesn’t tease him about it so Qrow is fairly nice to her when she throws up the next time they need to transform.
Ozpin doesn’t stop giving them those looks. All sad and regretful and grieving.
Tai and Summer start to notice that something’s going on pretty soon after that. They already knew about the extra missions, of course, but Qrow and Raven figured that their new power could be a Branwen Tribe secret. It should have been an easy secret to keep, but then Raven starts to distance herself and Qrow starts to snap and both of them hurt all the time and nothing’s ever easy any more.
“We’re worried about you guys.” Tai says, voice full of concern. Summer nods in agreement, far too earnest, and both Raven and Qrow feel it tear at them a little.
Neither of them have an answer and so they’re forced to find ways to cope. Raven starts talking to their family a little too much, visiting home a little too often. Qrow starts to drink.
It only works for a while.
“Humans are not quite whole,” Ozpin says when Qrow goes to him, begging for answers. “Maybe all it took was a brush with magic for your soul to remember its missing piece.”
The conversation makes Qrow feel worse so he drinks enough that he’s forgotten it by morning. He never fully remembers it, even if his soul always does.
“Hobie did more for Miles after knowing him for ten minutes than Gwen did” my brother in christ one of these characters was presented as having very little fondness, one might even say some derision, for spider society while for the other it was their entire support system they are not the same
compilation of quotes i have saved on my phone that make me lose my mind
Jenny Slate, Twitter
Maggie Smith, Good Bones
Unknown, Untitled
Christopher Citro, Our Beautiful Life When It’s Filled With Shrieks
Anne Carson, Euripides
I.B. Vyache, Conversations Over Sanguinaccio Dolce
@bipeds, Tumblr
Natalie Wee, Our Bodies & Other Fine Mechanics
HBO Succession
Richard Siken, Landscape With A Blur Of Conquerers
people do NOT talk enough about the concept of bruce as a creator like??? two face??? joker??? himself???? the idea of him trying to make up for all his monsters by creating children vicious enough to fight them?????