In A Moment, Everything Can Change

𝔗𝔯𝔲𝔩𝔶 𝔱𝔥𝔬𝔲𝔤𝔥𝔱 ℑ 𝔠𝔬𝔲𝔩𝔡 𝔪𝔞𝔨𝔢 𝔦𝔱 𝔯𝔦𝔤𝔥𝔱, 𝔅𝔲𝔱 𝔶𝔬𝔲'𝔯𝔢 𝔣𝔞𝔯 𝔱𝔬𝔬 𝔭𝔬𝔦𝔰𝔬𝔫𝔢𝔡 𝔣𝔬𝔯 𝔪𝔢. 𝔖𝔲𝔠𝔥 𝔞 𝔣𝔬𝔬𝔩 𝔱𝔬 𝔱𝔥𝔦𝔫𝔨 𝔱𝔥𝔞𝔱 ℑ 𝔠𝔬𝔲𝔩𝔡 𝔞𝔠𝔱𝔲𝔞𝔩𝔩𝔶 𝔥𝔢𝔞𝔩 𝔶𝔬𝔲. 🥀

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(this is prob the most girliest thing i drawn so far. but i always had an inkling for classic fairy tales set ups. less for the story itself, more for the aesthetics. an’ i’m also weak for armour an’ knights / medieval related stuff on main. everything during that era looked so pretty, even if it wasn’t super practical. 

i was thinking about various arts / figures, that depict bruce dressed in actual knight's armor, an’ thought about his an’ crane’s situation in arkhamverse. comparison between a pretty princess, who needs a savior cannot be further away from who jonathan is, but at the same time, there are some interesting lil parallels to such stories an’ his narrative. as jon’s mantra in arkhamverse was literally related to this. ‘no more savior. no more hope. no more batman.’ he wasn’t even secretive about it or anything. all those 3 things are intertwined an’ related inside his mind. all of those things make an outline of who the bat was for him. 

i thought about the time, jon had crawled out from the sewers. mangled an’ shocked, an’ in pain. the anger came after. at first, there was a need to do basic things first. to treat the wounds. he’s bleeding pretty badly an’ his leg hurts. his face….i imagine, that it wasn’t pleasant to see in the mirror what became of it. those days are probably hazy for him. he mostly sleeps an’ tends to his re-opening injuries. then, once his mind is clear enough an’ pain is numbers down by meds, he thinks about what happened. how it happened. an' at this point, comes a disbelief that the bat just…let this happen to him. that he just left him to die an’ drown. that he did nothing to prevent this from happening.

crane would doubt this at first. maybe, he just remembers it wrong? but he looks at himself, feeling how he can barely move his leg, how his face is barely a face anymore. an’ no, there is no doubt. the bat had turned away from him, refusing to save him *that’s how he imagines it was, at least* jonathan never realized how much he idealized the bat, how much he relied on him coming to his rescue. with rage, enters a brief grief too. that’s the end of the line, bc if the bat won’t deem him worthy of saving, if he won’t save him anymore, won’t bring jon even a sliver of hope, then he should no longer be batman at all. 

this was basically the concept behind the first art. an encapsulated moment of jon’s hope breaking for the last time. things as intense as they are bleak. the plan is being formed. their mutual un-happy ending creeps near. but in that moment, it's just kinda painful. being abandoned by the only person, who seemed to care enough to at least not let him die.

the second art is more heavily connected with the song itself. in a way, this is an AU concept of them being the prince, who is also a dark knight in secret an’ the lonely, wicked alchemist. the main idea is the same as their story in arkhamverse. jonathan gets to know the knight an’ becomes somewhat dependent on their ‘shared roles’, feeling betrayed an’ scornful, when the knight fails to save him from uh. a dragon. so he returns with a scheme to destroy his once savior, in the end finding out that his failed knight was prince all along. i suppose, the only big difference in this AU be that jon’s ft needle glove is similar to needle in sleeping beauty story, an’ once you get a ‘taste’ of it, you fell into nightmares, but like, literally fall asleep. it’s pretty much similar to what happened to him in the actual arkhamverse as he appeared to be borderline unfunctional in the end. 

but since in this AU they have a bit more time to themselves vs just plot, plot, plot. bruce actually has a chance to grasp jon’s emotions a tad better. having a more clear idea why he was so viciously upset with him. it won’t fix anything, knowing the reason when it’s too late. nothing can be undone with a kiss here. bruce was revealed as brooding prince, who took the persona of mysterious knight an’ jon is in a kind of slumber, that prob cannot be broken.

no happy ending here, either. but it’s a bit softer in nature. as there are just two of them in the ivory tower. the dawn comes, but doesn’t manage to bring any comfort nor break the spell.

at first, i drawn bruce’s mask similar to what a knight’s helmet might look like, but i thought that i actually like it more, when it’s unclear if he’s in the mask or not. when it's hard to tell who he is in the moment, when he looks down at jon. the fallen knight or broken prince. i also like how in arkham knight jonathan saw maskless bruce in his batman attire still, so it's a bit of a call back to this too.

like, this is one version of what happening there. i suppose, this also can be some sort of fever dream, that either *or both of them* have. in the end, it’s free for interpretations. i just wanted to draw smth kinda 'poetic', even if sad for them. i do appreciate all the gloom misery in arkhamverse, but i also like more sappy-ish an’ beautiful things too. esp bc with villains like crane or mysterio, it feels kinda wrong to not use tropes, that they might be familiar with via books / movies. an' that they hiliriously enough often fits into, despite being bitter, twisted middle aged men.

aaaan' that’s about it. 2 takes on arkhamverse canonical events. one is more grounded, the other one is flew off the rails lol. regardless, i actually really like these 2 drawings! i was messing around with colors, trying to use the shades an’ tones, that i usually avoiding. at some point, both of arts were greenish, but it was just such a wrong mood. an' i guess, otp holding each other in their arms is like one of my fav poses ever. it's just so precious to me.)

people who don't experience hyperfixation don't know what it feels like to hyperfixate so much on something that it becomes not only your subject of obsession but also your source of happiness and literally the main reason why you still keep going; literal source of strength and life.

shoutout to my favorite fictional characters, favorite people, favorite ships, favorite movies, favorite tv shows, fanfics and archive of our own

The Witch’s Grave by Artem Demura

do you pronounce it "enemies to lovers" or "unhealthy obsession with someone falling in love with you for your flaws"?

JUDGE ANDERSON!

hey guys have you ever heard of THE CHARACTER. i’m thinking about THE CHARACTER. honestly can’t even get shit done because i’m thinking about THE CHARACTER. i’m listening to a song and imagining THE CHARACTER. all i know and love is THE CHARACTER

been rewatchin' BTAS recently. so here's is some of my absolute fav episodes to name. 📺💥

...

(naturally, that's not all of my favorite episodes, haha. BTAS is just nearly perfect in terms of writing of an animated show. aside from a couple of lackluster eps, an' a few that i just don't personally care about much.

but anyways … 

‘blind as a bat’ was one of those eps, which actually made me so paranoid as a kid. losing your sight is one of the scariest things, which can happen to a person. an’ i love how they portrayed this via bruce, whose whole life is literally him fighting crime, but how will he do it now, when he can’t see anything? like, it doesn’t stop him of course. but man. it was so gut punching. BTAS not only understood batman / bruce, but they also gave him a lot of vulnerable moments like that. i mean, this was also one of like 2 or maybe 3 eps, where we see bruce tear up an’ it’s always gonna tug at my heart strings. admittingly, penguin mostly was there just to be well, an asshole, but i like how much it says about him, when he giddily an’ sadistically corners bruce, fully enjoying the fact, that he’s helpless. 

‘eternal youth’, i gotta appreciate how terrifying this episode is. an’ the utterly messed up the concept behind it. i think, that BTAS had really nailed the fact, that poison ivy is honestly a horrifying person. her rapey gimmick aside, her motivations an’ how far she’s willing to go for it … oh, she’s such a delightful psycho! i love, love ivy who acts like this. a proper female villain to boot an’ who’s also not a one trick pony, but can bring a lot of more of awful an’ chilling things to the table. not to meantion, that it's always good to see batman's other rogues, than the clowns to threaten batman's loved ones, esp if they had no idea that they do it.

‘joker’s favor’, for what it worth i’m happy, that i still can fully enjoy joker an’ harley’s characters at least in some media. i suppose, arkhamverse is fine too, but over the years, i feel like both of the clowns were overused in literally everything under the sun to the point, where i’m unable to stomach them in most outlets nowadays. i jus’ don’ wanna look at them or hear about them or anything … but here? oh, what a blessing! the best harley to ever exist. an’ one of two jokers, that i actually really like. as for episode itself, this has such an interesting flavor to it. not only we get to see what it’s like for a normal gotham citizen to be at the wrong place an’ at the wrong time, but also what smth like that can do to an otherwise a simple, everyday man. also, the joker crawling on his knees like a coward is always great. since i feel like many writers forget that aside from a crazy murdereous psycho, he’s also supposed to be a narcissistic wimp, who’s deeply afraid of death. an’ it was harley’s debut ep too. she’s so casually evil in it as well. an’ that’s kinda why i drew her without a mask btw. since we do see her face in that very ep.

‘nothing to fear’. i’ve talked so much about that ep, but i don’t mind talking about it yet again. a life changer episode for me. i also remember that while ‘pretty poison’ was entertaining as heck, an’ ‘on leather wings’ was breathtaking in some scenes, i’m pretty sure, that it was ‘nothing to fear’, which fully convinced a child me, that i will be always on the clock, sitting next to tv to watch every following episode of this show. so, yeah, forever gentle of this one an’ the concept behind it. also so many parallels an’ bruce’s fee-fees. i love how jonathan would always have that deeper, private key to bruce’s mind. an’ how bruce is always there to terrify him right back. 

‘read my lips’, when i was a kid, the twist of that episode made me so intrigued. bc i wouldn’t have ever thought about who the main villain was an’ how the show would handle it. like, you would expect a villain in typical sense. a man or a woman. or smth like that, not an actual dummy an' person who controls him, but belives that he's not. i love how this whole thing made bruce low-key paranoid as well, bc at some point, he also almost believes that the dummy is alive an’ cursed or smth. i also love how he doesn’t right away realizes that arnold is mentally ill an’ not just pretends like he is. bc it would have been such a clever scheme, if it was one to begin with.

to conclude this all, i will prob for sure ref those eps in my upcoming BTAS fic, bc yeah. i have a tunel vision in a way lol. but mmm, BTAS really feels like timeless classic at this point.)

subscribing to a fic isn’t enough I need the author to blast a bat signal into the night sky whenever they update