#<- i am not capable of doing that

[friendofcars]

for the ask game!

"Electric joy surged through Ronan, overpowering the worry."

hi!

my guess: definitely feels like it came from the dream thieves and the word "electric" is making me think it's in chapter 27, which is the substance party chapter (is the worry perhaps about being around gansey and kavinsky simultaneously, or the mitsubishi burning?). i suppose this could also be after ronan dreams the replacement camaro later in the book but i think it's less likely. also as i'm reading my answer back to myself i'm realizing i am biased since i literally just finished re-reading tdt and it might be in greywaren when ronan is sleeping and hears adam talking to declan (chapter 9??? whichever the chapter is when adam tells declan he's deaf in one ear) but ALSO this might be in the sweetmetal sea soul merge chapter. oh wow this is exceedingly difficult but very fun to try to figure out. final answer is the sweetmetal sea "reader, i merged souls with him" sequence. which may or may not be greywaren chapter 25. the "through Ronan" is giving me the sense of not being in a physical body and it would be logical for him to be worried about adam being untethered from his body in such uncharted circumstances.

the answer: it is in fact the sweetmetal sea scene when adam scries and his consciousness finds ronan (although the chapter number is 19, not 25). not sure how i stumbled into the right answer but here we are.

my thoughts on this line: i love how ronan's emotions are described as electric (as things that can surge, like power) given his intrinsic tie to ley energy. and while it was a speculation when i was guessing, i think the fact that ronan (rather than his body) is mentioned emphasizes the fact that he's in his most greywaren-like form, which makes me think back to the dream thieves and how we learn that ronan is both dangerous and beautiful (and manifests both danger and beauty). here, we see him in an otherworldly form but with intense human emotions. the way he swings from worry to joy feels very in character for him, and we learn why his emotions are so intense and all-consuming in the same book. i think it's particularly apt for his feelings regarding adam, specifically, to embody electricity and power given symbols and plot points in trc (the thunder and lightning in the dream thieves, adam essentially rewiring the ley line to give ronan the brief moment of time necessary for ronan to decide to save himself, etc.). the joy is because adam has "come all this way" to find him in the sweetmetal sea, because ronan no longer feels abandoned. he's like a dog with separation anxiety who destroys the house and then jumps for joy when its owner gets home, as if they never left.

i know this chapter gets a lot of criticism for evading what could have been a more satisfying conversation between ronan and adam re: their relationship and i do agree. greywaren could have been 100+ pages longer imo. i think there should have been more writing devoted to better resolution of character arcs and more thorough exploration of interpersonal relationships.

HOWEVER i do really enjoy the chapter itself, even if it's a symptom of greywaren's main weakness as a series finale. i like how adam embraces ronan's eldritch self so readily. i love the refrain of they were wanted, they were wanted, they were wanted. i think it's wild how integral they are to each other's sense of integrated self (this is terribly unhealthy but fascinating to read about). i think due to personal problems the lack of verbal communication is actually kind of appealing in isolation even if i don't condone it. i am thinking about how ecstatic ronan is when adam is with him and how despondent he gets when adam's not and how there's some emotional object permanence issues going on here that i'm a little scared of thinking about. i'm getting off track here but at some point i imagine my focus will shift from trc to td3 and i'll do a much more thorough analysis of the chapter beyond this line/my general opinion.

[smallphoenix13]

every single word of this feels like it was pulled out of a bingo machine

[inkskinned]

at some point it's just like. do they even fucking like the thing they're asking AI to make? "oh we'll just use AI for all the scripts" "we'll just use AI for art" "no worries AI can write this book" "oh, AI could easily design this"

like... it's so clear they've never stood in the middle of an art museum and felt like crying, looking at a piece that somehow cuts into your marrow even though the artist and you are separated by space and time. they've never looked at a poem - once, twice, three times - just because the words feel like a fired gun, something too-close, clanging behind your eyes. they've never gotten to the end of the movie and had to arrive, blinking, back into their body, laughing a little because they were holding their breath without realizing.

"oh AI can mimic style" "AI can mimic emotion" "AI can mimic you and your job is almost gone, kid."

... how do i explain to you - you can make AI that does a perfect job of imitating me. you could disseminate it through the entire world and make so much money, using my works and my ideas and my everything.

and i'd still keep writing.

i don't know there's a word for it. in high school, we become aware that the way we feel about our artform is a cliche - it's like breathing. over and over, artists all feel the same thing. "i write because i need to" and "my music is how i speak" and "i make art because it's either that or i stop existing." it is such a common experience, the violence and immediacy we mean behind it is like breathing to me - comes out like a useless understatement. it's a cliche because we all feel it, not because the experience isn't actually persistent. so many of us have this ... fluttering urgency behind our ribs.

i'm not doing it for the money. for a star on the ground in some city i've never visited. i am doing it because when i was seven i started taking notebooks with me on walks. i am doing it because in second grade i wrote a poem and stood up in front of my whole class to read it out while i shook with nerves. i am doing it because i spent high school scribbling all my feelings down. i am doing it for the 16 year old me and the 18 year old me and the today-me, how we can never put the pen down. you can take me down to a subatomic layer, eviscerate me - and never find the source of it; it is of me. when i was 19 i named this blog inkskinned because i was dramatic and lonely and it felt like the only thing that was actually permanently-true about me was that this is what is inside of me, that the words come up over everything, coat everything, bloom their little twilight arias into every nook and corner and alley

"we're gonna replace you". that is okay. you think that i am writing to fill a space. that someone said JOB OPENING: Writer Needed, and i wrote to answer. you think one raindrop replaces another, and i think they're both just falling. you think art has a place, that is simply arrives on walls when it is needed, that is only ever on demand, perfect, easily requested. you see "audience spending" and "marketability" and "multi-line merch opportunity"

and i see a kid drowning. i am writing to make her a boat. i am writing because what used to be a river raft has long become a fully-rigged ship. i am writing because you can fucking rip this out of my cold dead clammy hands and i will still come back as a ghost and i will still be penning poems about it.

it isn't even love. the word we use the most i think is "passion". devotion, obsession, necessity. my favorite little fact about the magic of artists - "abracadabra" means i create as i speak. we make because it sluices out of us. because we look down and our hands are somehow already busy. because it was the first thing we knew and it is our backbone and heartbreak and everything. because we have given up well-paying jobs and a "real life" and the approval of our parents. we create because - the cliche again. it's like breathing. we create because we must.

you create because you're greedy.

[angry-kid-with-no-money]

"Nora doesn't know anything about the things she writes about" "aftg is terrible queer rep" "the queer characters in aftg are so problematic"

Idk guys maybe the book series abt problematic ppl set in 2006 and written in the mid 2010s shouldn't be expected to hold up against scrutiny of what we consider to be moral and correct now, in 2024

Idk tho, idk

[sharkylad]

Thinking about the fact that Mabel and Dipper didn't know they had two great uncles.

Yeah they are 12 and at 12 I had a shotty understanding of my family tree- But really? Nobody brought up their great uncle? Stanley? Especially since they'll be staying with his twin brother, Stanford?

Shermie never went to Stan's fake funeral, which to me means the twos relationship was strained on some level. If Shermie is older that means his view of Stan was poisoned in some way, that even as kids they weren't close. If the Shermie is younger then he never even got to meet Stan and all he knew about him was how he failed his family. Hell, people probably barely mentioned Stanley TO Shermie.

The fact that Stan had become a black stain upon the Pines family name makes me so vividly upset. Stanley faked his death and the family just- seemingly decided to strike him from the record. To pretend he didn't existed to spare themselves the sadness and shame.

Stanford and Shermie Pines. The only children worth mentioning of Filbrick and Caryn Pines.

It was never Stanford that was lost to the world. It was Stanley, ever since he had to leave New Jersy- it was always him that had to be struck from the record. Change his name, change his state, change his affiliations, destroy the remains of ghost that was Stanley Pines. Kill him so the family doesn't bring him up, doesn't ask questions, stops asking "Stanford" about his twin.

I just keep thinking about the fact that since the day he made one single mistake all the way up until Ford walks out of that machine- Stanley Pines was killed and did not exist. And Stan himself had no one to blame, he had to play the part in his own demise- He is the only one who ever knew Stanley was alive and has been for decades.

He lives in the multitudes of every personality he's ever taken, all in the hope that he himself can stop being Stanley Pines.

[the-muppet-joker]

No one's mupped me there in a DAMN HOT MINUTE

[dykedvonte]

I think depictions of Anya being cruel to Curly or drawing out his suffering are artful and chilling but completely miss the point of the story and her character.

I'm not saying she doesn't deserve to have that "I told you so" moment with him but not in something callous or cold. Even if that is how it happened, she'd immediately feel guilty cause at that point she's not tormenting her tormenter or even the person truly at fault. She's doing something cathartic, similar to how Jimmy likely hits Curly to release rage he can't against the rest of the crew. She'd see herself as no different when she'd come back from the moment and see Curly cowering at her. She wants someone to take responsibility but how does being cruel to the defenseless help? Why would she want the power Jimmy has over her over Curly?

The idea of her extending someone else's pain is just so against the struggles she already faces and how she can't even bring herself to cause someone pain even to help them. Her very desire is to release herself from her own suffering and I doubt she'd even fine some sort of guilty release in being cruel to another.

[bunnieswithknives]

Obsessed with his brain

[lotus-pear]

whatever happens, please don’t break

[p---l---c]

a tall god sits so patient and still, the maskflies all see it as a perch atop a hill.

[serial-unaliver]

[talking to myself in the mirror] hey. you don't have to constantly clarify that you're not a bad person. psychiatric diagnoses and stigma surrounding them are not based in reality. also it's fucked up for a therapist to say it's good you're suicidal because it shows you have a soul

[futuristichedge]

Traditional doodling

[starry-bi-sky]

danny and officer martinez's relationship in "late at night, when the nightingale sings" in a nutshell:

Martinez: FREAK! GET YOUR FUCKING KID!

Battinson, on the other side of the crime scene: he don't bite

Martinez, with Nightingale firmly attached his arm, visibly biting him: YES HE DO!

*points at them* Danny is the Bugs Bunny to Martinez's Elmer Fudd.

Another Officer: i can't believe you're fighting with an actual twelve year old. Martinez: i swear to god that is not a twelve year old, that is a little hellion that crawled out of batman's shadow one dark and stormy night and decided to dedicate his existence to tormenting me. Officer: Are you really that mad about him putting a sticky note on your back-- Martinez: thats not the point

in danny's defense: the word "freak" is. a mini beserker button for him for.... obvious ghostly reasons, so like, even if its not directed at him, he still very much unappreciates Martinez's insults at Battinson. Danny may or may not be projecting.

he's not going to hurt the guy! not in any serious or permanently disfiguring way at least! But he is going to leave mean sticky notes on the square part of his spine that he can't reach, and stick salt in his 3AM Late Night Crime Scene Coffee, and kick the bottom of his heel while he's walking so he stumbles. And other petty, infuriating things that tally up and boil over, over time.

[bruciemilf]

“This reminds me of playtime back home,” Diana’s smile is pearly and smudged with blood, and Bruce struggles not to stare.

He won’t point out that she just ripped an alien apart with her bare hands and way too little effort.

He wants to. Anyone would have words faced with gods, but he doesn’t trust his conversation skills.

“Hn.”

“Boy, you’re a chatty one,” Green Lantern is positively insufferable.

He’s whip-smart, dangerously brave, selfless and tactical when needs be, but insufferable all the same, “ Also, cool boomerang.”

Defensive, Bruce grips the gadget a little closer to his hip, “It’s a batarang.” And it was my son’s idea. Of course it’s impressive. 

The brunette snorts, Diana chuckling alongside him, both entirely too bright for the gore on their clothes, “Oh yeah, that sounds so much better. But you obviously know how to handle it, I’ll tell you that much,”

inwardly, Bruce frowns. Why would he design a weapon he couldn’t use? 

“Yes, your combat skills are impressive! You must do your tribe proud,”

Involuntarily, his head lowers in embarrassment. The cowl feels ten times hotter now, and he wants to snarl at Superman for tugging at the pointy ears. His smile just blinds him too much, that’s all.

Aquaman picks body matter out of his hair, beach sand blonde, sending The Flash a smirk Bruce assumes is teasing.

He can’t quite tell. They’ve known each other for 10 hours, 20 minutes, and 32 seconds, and an odd, familiar energy had settled. “At least you’re not the only nerd in class.”

The Flash is young; Bruce notes the eagerness in his footsteps, the reckless courage, the perseverance to fight for the world and against it;

More than anything, he notices pride sparking a light in his chest.

“Not a nerd!"

"Whatever, speedy,"

"This nerd saved your well-conditioned ass! But anyway, DUDE, – I mean, can we talk about the tech? Just, – I need to know how you designed that utility belt, because holy FUCK, -,”

There’s a full minute of just animated hand gestures, plentiful explanations, queries, and Bruce of course pays attention to all of it. 

The Flash, – Barry, as he accidentally revealed five minutes in, too lost in excitable rambling to notice, – stops, frowns,

“Uh, dude? I mean, obviously, the whole,” he gestures to the entirety of Bruce, “Man Bat thing, that rocks,  but isn’t it easier to just use your powers?”

Superman’s fingers snap, “I was wondering about that! Why didn’t you?”

But there’s an underlying hint that the man already suspects it; It makes Bruce’s teeth grind anxiously, looking around expectant, curious eyes, 

“I don’t have superpowers,” the truth spills in a rush, and Bruce doesn’t take it back in time. 

They share stunned looks between them, but sky-blue eyes, peppered with a ring of brown in the left one, those stay on him. He’s uncomfortable with the appreciative gleam. 

Superman smirks, “We should do this again!”

[fallenclan]

i switched out Gizmo's collar for a braided grass cord--I think that it'd recognize a collar is too dangerous to have in the wild (choking hazard!), but still want to keep the memory of its life before. The bell probably got stuffed with mud or moss to keep it from making too much noise

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[prismsoup]

Do people also have that horrible random moment when your brain bullies you for not knowing enough about a topic you consider yourself passionate about ?