#renaroo

AH YES. so the basic premise is '16/17 yo Usagi, on his way to take service with Mifune, gets yoinked between dimensions by cultists and has an ancestral ghost stuck in his head. good news, the ghost is polite and has family in the area he thinks will help.' this is Usagi's side of things, of course--from the Rise TMNT's side of things, it's more like 'hey!! cultists have kidnapped Casey's ghost Sensei and we are all freaking out about it!! fortunately, we can track him.' unfortunately for everyone, teenage Leo swings first and asks questions later.

Usagi woke up slowly, in an unfamiliar darkness. It was black as midnight, but nowhere near cold enough, and the stone under him was a grainy and unfamiliar texture when he ran his fingers across it, sitting up.

“What…?” he muttered, rubbing at his eyes. The darkness stubbornly refused to resolve. The air was still and unmoving as the heart of a cave.

‘Hey, you. You’re finally awake. You were trying to make it over the border, right?’

“What?” Usagi repeated. He couldn’t determine the source of the voice, and couldn’t sense the heat or breaths of another person in this enclosed space.

‘You know, Elder Scrolls? Hodd Toward? Like the meme?’

“The what?” Usagi said. He didn’t feel like he’d taken a blow to the head. “Where are you? Where am I?”

’We might have a problem. I was hoping you could tell me that. The last thing I remember I was stuck in a jar.’

“How?” Usagi asked, just so he didn’t have to say ‘what’ again.

‘Wish I knew. One minute, I’m talking to the kids, next minute, I’m in a jar, minute after that, I’m stuck to you.’

Usagi patted his arms and legs down. He had his swords, which was good, but he couldn’t find anyone stuck to him. And he still hadn’t worked out the source of the voice.

‘Oh, not physically. I’m a ghost. I should have started with that, maybe.’

“What,” Usagi said, again. There really wasn’t a better word.

‘Don’t worry, it’s not a recent development.’

“That wasn’t, actually, what I was worried about.” Usagi shifted to his knees and started feeling his way around the darkness. “Are you the kind of ghost interested in murder?”

‘Not as like, a general thing, nah,’ the ghost assured him. ‘Also, hi, I’m Leo.’

17. What's the best length for a fic?

It really depends on what kind of fic it is? I love both big sweeping epics but I also adore little 2kish fics that are character studies.

28. What's your dream plot for a story you wish existed?

Listen, I am ALWAYS here for anything you want to send me. <3

And of course I'm delighted to talk about Cass!

"They are soooo cool looking" - I don't think I can say it better than this post did about Cass's classic Batgirl costume: "the only one who is more goth than batman. the pinnacle who will never be beaten. who else would take the batgirl costume and add a skull-looking thing as a part of the mask. who else would look be a silent specter of death in the night. she is the reason i made this goddamn list and i will never recover from this Look"

(Although, as a nitpicky comic nerd, I will note that of course original credit for the costume actually goes to Helena Bertinelli, who wore it first.)

"wasted potential" - WHERE DO I EVEN START HERE. Again, I'm not up on the current Batman comics (but what I hear is often... not encouraging), but in this case I would feel confident saying this no matter what, because even if they were writing Cass magnificently now, it wouldn't make up for the LITERAL DECADES they spent absolutely squandering her character, from poorly-written Heel Turns to shoving her on the backburner to outright ERASING her character from existence when the New 52 started.

"if they were real I would marry them" - I mean, what more can I say here? Cass is Wife Material. <3

"they're deeper than they seem" - I think it's VERY easy for her character to get reduced down to "strong and silent ninja stereotype", and lose all the different layers and facets to her. I think we've seen a bigger push to acknowledge her fundamental kindness and heart lately, but someone (possibly you?) made a fantastic point that even when portrayals get that right, sometimes they just make her too... bland? Cass needs a certain amount of WEIRDNESS and unpredictability to her. And I think it definitely often gets overlooked just how deep her psychological scars from everything she's been through go. You've made some fantastic posts about how she's actively suicidal for a large part of her Batgirl run, and yet I think that often isn't talked about.

"They got done DIRTY by the fans" - In spades, and I'm actually going to call myself out here, because I've been guilty too. When I first joined the DC fandom, I feel like the general consensus was that Cass just wasn't a relatable character and people often didn't understand her, and I just kinda took that at face value and assumed it was true for far too long.

There was a lot of "Oh, Cass is awesome, but I just don't GET her like the other characters", and on the one hand that's fair enough, we all connect with different characters, but I think it creates this endless feedback loop where fandom content isn't created about the character, and so people in the fandom don't start gaining a better understanding or feeling more connected to them.

I also think it can be the kiss of death to put a character up on a pedestal as an Important Character and not talk about the things that make them human, flawed, lovable, etc. etc. - I think people tend to do this from a well-meaning place, but in actuality I think it ends up alienating fans and making them feel like they can't connect with the character. (This was a huge problem with me and Wonder Woman at first, too.) Ultimately fans don't want an Icon, they want to connect to the character as a person, so you have to talk about the characters in human terms. All the more so if they're Important Groundbreaking Representation(TM).

The real interesting part of the trainwreck, I feel, is in the dream sequence where the art went out of its way to de-buff the classic versions of She-Hulk in order to better make their point -- there's been bad art takes over the decades, sure, but I've never seen anyone give classic Jen arms that skinny. One would think that a more self-aware writer would notice something wrong with their script when they have to direct deliberate mischaracterizations of the past

This is a really good point. A lot of artists don’t draw Jen buff enough for my liking, but it’s varied a lot over the years. For instance, Mike Allred’s Jen in 2013′s FF?

Powerful. As. Hell.

It’s truly weird just how much of Aaron’s argument in favour of his version of Jen centres around her appearance -- something that’s ultimately much less of a writing decision than it is an art decision. He’s suggesting that Jen’s current musclebound, physically imposing character design is tied to his space-giant-power-up story, while casually ignoring the fact that it was always an option to depict her this way.

HAPPY LATE BIRTHDAY @renaroo !!!! I would’ve gotten this done on your actual birthday but I JUST GOT HERE OK?? I don’t know when everyone’s birthdays are so as a result I still have to draw something for Blue and Kinetic who’s birthdays were literally yesterday and today and i didn’t know

Aaaaanyway here’s some Hero Time stuff because I started reading it a couple days ago and it’s super awesome so far!!

 “so how sad is it gonna be when adult scott sees the champions again”

but also like. omg the possibilities. The little affectionate smile he has when someone brings up Ms. Marvel. Scott reaching out to Miles and helping him even more than the little help Charles offered a young Peter. Scott seeing the news about the Hulk losing control and going out, without telling anyone, and sitting patiently by Amadeus and protecting him from any government surveillance. Scott sending small, short emails to Viv. Sam being Scott's first contact in spac

I thought it was Ronald Reagan when I read it