#I tried so many new things when making this comic and I think I learned a lot!

[loreic]

The True Face: In-depth analysis

Okay now that I had a few hours to process all... that, I think I can analyze this objectively without crashing tf out 

Heavy, heavy analysis, speculation & theories ahead 

[Spoilers for the insane new Mizi comic obviously]

So the comic opens exactly where we left off after Weige right after Round 7 (the fact that Round 7, Weige, Arise and Walk, and now this happens in like the span of a few minutes is absolutely diabolical btw). Mizi is crashing tf out and just staring at Till’s blood literally on her hands, which immediately just shouts GUILT in all caps. 

We are then immediately jump scared by this.

Which is gonna give me nightmares for a whole week (thanks for that Vivinos), and sets the tone of this whole situation, giving us a glimpse at Mizi’s incredibly fragile mental state. Keep in mind that she had just had her life completely thrown upside down, witnessed Till get shot, then Hyuna two seconds later, all while still coming to terms with the fact Sua is gone. 

Girl is literally two seconds away from cracking. 

We then cut to a flashback set during their ANAKT Garden days. Considering how old they look and Sua later mentioning that they were running out of time and will have to take the stage soon, I’m suspecting this probably happened fairly recently, possibly within the year and not long before their graduation. 

The following sequence starts off tame enough, starting with this Luka-knockoff-looking ex-classmate cornering Mizi about her relationship with Till, which Mizi mistakenly assumed that he was asking about Sua. 

We come to find out Sua hasn’t been around much (god is anyone else kinda extremely creeped out by Neigh?), and that they have apparently been fighting. Which is rather interesting to me considering that mizisua has so far been portrayed like the perfect yuri couple doomed by the narrative (or at least slightly less convoluted and toxic when compared to ivantill and hyuluka anyway, ain’t nothing healthy in alnst). I do wonder what they were fighting about.

Then we get the whole heteronormality spiel from the Luka knockoff (which damn I could totally do a whole nother post on with how much lore that gave on life in general in the ANAKT Garden). Dude tries to confess, gets cut off, and things just immediately escalate from 1 to 10000. Like fking hell just look at this image: 

Luka knockoff goes on to accuse Mizi of being willingly oblivious to how half the boys have been crushing on her (keep in mind these kids raised by aliens with zero functional social cues or an accurate concept of how relationships are supposed to work), and Mizi absolutely loses it. 

I mean look at this face. 

Girl is Hyuna-grade levels of mentally unwell (I like how this seems to be a trend with vivinos, feeding us information about a character, lulling us into a false sense of security and then doing a complete 180 in their comics and giving them twenty different dimensions we never considered). She is literally having a mental breakdown and still trying to keep the friendly, innocent mask and smiling through it all, which just ends up coming off as slightly deranged.

Mizi ends up running to Sua (cue obvious unhealthy coping mechanism and codependency), and then she makes the mistake of using the exact same words Luka knockoff did 

It must be nice. 

Nice to remain willingly oblivious to it all, nice to be pretty enough to make others love you, nice to be loved by so many. That obviously wasn’t what Sua meant in her own context (it was also interesting to learn that Sua does envy Mizi to some degree, which I I think is a nice add that just makes her more human on a whole), and Mizi just reacts.

Considering how she immediately catches herself, I genuinely don’t think she meant it, but holy shit was that fked up. 

We’ve seen IvanTill fighting as kids and the whole thing with Luka and Hyunwoo that ended in tragedy but considering this and what the Luka knockoff did earlier, I’m getting the vibe that physical violence in the ANAKT Garden may be way more common than what we initially thought (or it could be that these poor kids have just never really properly grew out of that play-fighting-as-a-child phase, and it just escalated as they grew into young adults since corporal punishment from the aliens is normal and their humanity’s all kinds of screwed up) 

We then cut back to the present where we have apparition Sua accusing Mizi of being cunning, and ditching all of them. Now this took me a hot second to understand, because as far as we are concerned Sua was the one who left. She chose to die to save Mizi (and probably so that she didn’t have to deal with the pain of being the one left behind if we’re really going for that toxic angle). But then I realized I’m an idiot and that this was being written in Mizi’s pov and this version of Sua is literally a figment of her imagination and a personification of her guilt. 

Mizi still thinks she is responsible for Sua’s death. In that sense she did discard her for her own survival (unintentional or no) and on top of that she did leave the others. She did let herself be reduced by the rebels, she left Till and Ivan, all while knowing that they would most likely die. Is it her fault for being rescued? Hell no. But she definitely still feels guilty for leaving them. You could argue that she also, quite literally, ditched Hyuna in order to rush of to rescue Till, which indirectly ended up causing her death (It was Hyuna’s choice but Mizi sure as hell didn’t know that). 

We then cut to a flashback with Till (TILL IS ALIVE TRUST) and Mizi ends up confronting him, telling him that she loves Sua and asking if it is that hard to not like her. She asks him why he like her and Till (bro why) ends up responding with 

I mean, valid, but I think this properly confirms just how shallow Till’s love for Mizi is. He likes the idea of her, and though it doesn’t mean his feelings aren’t pure or true, it’s more of a crush really. Cute but almost entirely superficial, and just look how Mizi reacts: 

Her collar is RED. She knows people care and are attracted to her on a superficial level, that the Luka knockoff was right, but seems to decide to just ultimately let it be, to remain purposely oblivious. 

We cut back to the present and there we see apparition Sua has now become Mizi, the version of her from Round 1, the version of her that ‘killed’ Sua, which really just solidifies the fact that all that blue dialog is literally just her guilt taking.

This entire comic is basically centered around Mizi battling her survivor’s guilt, but honestly, as much as I hate to admit I think the Luka knockoff/evil Mizi were also right about her being purposely oblivious (to both her classmate’s affections and their situation on a whole). All the facts point to the fact that she was much more aware about everything than we were initially led to believe. I think she did have a vague inkling of what was going to happen, but ultimately decided to look away/remain in denial (I mean in hindsight how tf does one live 15-ish years in the Garden and not eventually find out the truth even by accident?). 

Evidence 1:  

First we have this with the Luka knockoff.

What a shame.

Shame she had to kill him? (lmao no, but am really frikin hoping she didn’t Hyunwoo him with how this guy pops up again with the back of his head broken in the subsequent art lol)

Not sure if I’m interpreting this one right, but I do think what she meant by it being a shame was the fact that he had to see her broken down this way. I do think this is the first time anyone actually noticed and called her out for her habit of remaining purposefully ignorant, hence the mental breakdown (also cause she got, you know, slapped in the face while she was at it). 

Also with how her collar light was green when talking about Sua but immediately turns red when Till is mentioned... yeah she's definitely not clueless about any of it.

Evidence 2: 

And then of course we have this whole sequence with Till. Hardly any explanation needed.

Basically both flashbacks imply that she is not nearly as ignorant and naive as she lets on (and what we as the audience were led to believe), but she puts on a harmless, innocent front. 

As for why she does it is pretty debatable, but I suspect that it was simply easier to remain blissfully ignorant, and it was just her way of coping with their less than ideal reality. I highly doubt she spent all that time taking advantage of being likable and playing dumb just so she could survive (again the one praising her for it is literally her guilt personified). Maybe a tiny part of her did subconsciously want to survive and decided to roll with it, but I think it’s pretty obvious she does genuinely care about the rest of her classmates and wasn’t actively trying to get them killed (unlike say Luka). 

What happened to Sua, Ivan, Till, and Hyuna definitely wasn’t her fault, but she isn’t entirely guiltless either. 

Honestly, I’m not too sure what to make of it, considering on one hand we have been led to believe that Mizi was this sole innocent girl who knew nothing about truth behind Alien Stage until Sua literally died in front of her, but on the other hand man do I love how we are getting more of layers to her character. 

[februaryart]

Part 1 here 🍀 🌻

This fic is based on: Lovebirds by kiwithief

Thank you for reading! If you liked this please reblog, and read the original fic!

I had so much fun working on this comic, and so much love and thought went into making it! It ended up being so much longer than I ever thought it would be. This is 39 full pages, and I've been working on this since Nov 2022! Drawing them is a delight, though :)

[madamspellmans-met-tet]

what are your lilia calderu headcanons?

this is what I could think of right now! :)

SFW

Backstory

The Maestra was a mother figure to her but she didn’t get everything she needed from her. She wasn’t warm enough since Lilia has always been a gentle soul. The hardened, sarcastic exterior she now puts on with new people she adopted because of her Maestra.

Heavy on the survivor’s guilt. For one, because of her coven in Sicily and also because of her witch sister who were killed during the trials, where she managed to get away after being tortured.

She had a wife who fell victim to the witch trials and who she’s been looking for ever since hoping that their paths will cross again in the form of a reincarnation.

In the comics she has a son apparently whereas in AAA we don’t know. Either she didn’t have children bc a) lesbian and b) she was scared to miss out on too much because of the “gaps” or she lost her son too in a similar fashion where she saw it coming but was powerless against it. In this case, if the son existed in this universe, I believe the vampire Lilia fought and got the scar from turned him and he went on to live with the other vampires since he was afraid he’d hurt his mother if he stayed with her.

She met Stevie Nicks in LA when she and Lindsey were doing small gigs. Lilia had a little crush on her. More on that here

General

Loves stuff like needlework, knitting, crocheting. Her maestra taught her and it’s her way of remembering and feeling less alone.

She’s also made all the beaded curtains herself in meticulous detail. It kept her company on many nights.

Amazing cook, grows weed, incredible singing (other ppl have mentioned this before so putting it in one point bc I so agree)

She’s worked as a singer in small jazz bars but eventually stopped because the tips dwindled as the centuries went by and the signs of age began to show. The pay wasn’t enough on its own.

Severely touch-starved. When someone touches her she freezes at first and then gets really emotional (without showing it) and will not leave the side of the person who touched her because she hopes they’ll do it again.

At the same time, she’s a recluse by choice. With her psychic business, she can dose human contact so that she doesn’t get overwhelmed with other people’s feelings and the visions she gets about them and the helplessness she feels.

Because she’s been on her own for so long, she’s very much stuck in her ways and particular about how she does things. So when you start dating her, you have to learn and adapt. And she appreciates this greatly.

She buys jewellery every time she visits a new place.

Big on little kisses.

She knows she’s hot.

NSFW

this woman has a thing for being called “mama” I don’t make the rules. Her mommy kink is bigger than reader’s. She started it and she gets off on it. (maybe because she missed out on being a mother bc of her “gaps” cf SFW section)

after having lived for more than 4 centuries, she’s tried just about anything and ended up being almost bored by sex. this is why she focuses more on connection and closeness during sex rather than the act itself. She can be really filthy when the mood strikes her though.

She likes to soft dom but also bottom. And she’s really big on rewarding you, whether that be with praise, kisses, cuddles, or orgasms.

She prefers soft yet intense over rough unless you specifically ask for it.

She likes having her tits played with. It makes her emotional.

Knows how to use her unique nose for your pleasure. Especially loves having you ride her face.

[mrschwartz]

Alex Turner for Rumore Magazine (September 2013)

Seventies Heads and Modern Loves or I Don't Know What I Want But I Surely Want You

by Elia Alovisi

Until he opens his mouth, Alex Turner looks like he stepped out of the Nevada desert. Leather loafers, a belt, slicked-back hair, sunglasses. But as soon as he starts talking, between “summat” instead of “something” and “me” instead of “my,” he transforms back into a boy from Sheffield who grew up on cocktails and DJ sets. The discrepancy between the way he looks and the way he speaks is strange: you would expect a cocky and arrogant rock star, but instead you have before you a relaxed and thoughtful boy who carefully measures his words, but does so with a smile and not a frown. The lyrics of AM, the fifth album of his band, mainly revolve around difficult and elusive women. There are many questions. “Do I want to know?” “Are you mine?” he says; “Why do you always call me when you’re high?” she says. There is no shortage of desires: “I want it all,” “I want to be yours.” Absent, however, are the answers. We tried to get a few out of him.

How was it to be back at Glastonbury as a headliner five years after the first time?

Fantastic. Absolutely wonderful, this time it was very natural. Everything was harder in 2007, we had done a lot less shows and had a lot less songs. Now we have learned to move better.

After the experience of Humbug, you collaborated again with Josh Homme.

Yes, Josh is on Knee Socks, towards the end of the piece. We gave him carte blanche and he decided to sing a sort of counter-melody that reminds me a lot of Bowie.

Are knee socks your favorite piece of underwear on a woman?

[Laughs] What do you think?

If she has the right legs.

Exactly, yes. The best is the garter. But then they would not be Parisian anymore, right? And then they are thicker than women's stockings. However they are not my favorite underwear, I go with the push-up.

In the lyrics of Arabella you talk a lot about the universe.

I wanted to use that linguistic palette to try to describe a woman. There are many songs that use those sorts of words… galaxy, interstellar, constellation, things like that, but usually they are used just for the sake of being used. Instead I wanted to make them an active part of a description, they are images that I find very interesting. In England, on the BBC, there is this program called Wonders of the Universe, with Professor Brian Cox. And it is one of my favorite programs [smiles, pleased].

Barbarella also pops up in the text.

Yes, although I haven't read practically any of her comics and I've only seen a small piece of the movie. I don't really like B movies. To know her, you just need to have seen a poster, that's all you need. I just used her to make a comparison with the costume she wears.

How does the suite you sing about in Fireside relate to room 505 in Favourite Worst Nightmare?

Yes, I’m talking about a suite in my heart… or in her heart? Well, in someone’s heart. Room 505, in my mind, is something very concrete. I wrote that song on a train between Philadelphia and New York, my girlfriend was in a hotel waiting for me and I just wrote about that [Turner’s voice becomes increasingly whispered as the sentence progresses]. In Fireside, however, it’s all figurative.

So how much of your real self is in your lyrics and how much is just imagination?

There's no rule, sometimes there's a lot of me in the lyrics when you least expect it. I put little secrets in them. What I try to avoid is that people who listen to one of my songs say, 'oh, he's talking about that girl'. You know when you read a novel and, somehow, in your mind you see its characters with the faces of some of your friends, or your favorite actors? That's where I want to get to with my music, I want it to be like being in front of a story, not the evidence of two people with a name and a surname who are kissing. It's up to the listener to give them both a face. When I write I pretty much always have someone or something in mind, but it doesn't really matter.

How did you come up with the idea of ​​using John Cooper Clarke's words for I Wanna Be Yours?

We wrote most of the songs on this record on a four-track that I got for my birthday. I spent a while recording ideas on it, sometimes we'd loop a bass and drum melody for five minutes and the fact that it was on tape gave it an incredible color. Then I'd sit there with headphones and a microphone humming melodies, or making up silly lyrics to start coming up with ideas. One day, while I was jamming, the words I wanna be yours came out and I remembered that they were the title of one of his poems. I thought it would be cool to use someone else's words – and especially his, I'm a big fan of his. It's one of my favorite songs on the record, the lyrics alone make it different from anything we've done before. And then I love the juxtaposition of the slow, sexy, flirtatious music and his words.

The party you talk about in No. 1 Party Anthem seems a lot more laid back than the ones you’ve talked about in the past, like the house in This House Is A Circus.

That’s true, but the parties we go to are still pretty messy. They’re just twice as long.

Am I supposed to be imagining some sort of indie celebrity party?

Indie celebrity party? [Laughs.] No, no, no. The slow tempo of that song gives it a bit of a Los Angeles feel. It’s a city that I’m told is very similar to what we’re portraying on the new record, and I’m starting to think that might be true. Not that it sounds like the Eagles, you know.

It's like your sound is becoming more and more American.

Yeah, maybe. There's something special about that part of the world. Everything that came out of California owes something to '70s rock, the spontaneity of those rhythms also comes back in West Coast hip-hop. But then came the fucking '80s and… a lot of fucking bands that don't fit into that theory. I think there will always be something English in our sound, it's something we can never detach ourselves from.

How much does Sheffield still mean to what you do?

Well, you know… [he taps two fingers on a tattoo on the inside of his arm: the Yorkshire rose and underneath it the word “SHEFFIELD”].

There are three songs on AM whose titles are questions.

You don't notice things like that until you sit there and write the titles of the songs one after the other. I hadn't noticed until then, there are also a lot of wanna.

The protagonist of R U Mine? is wrapped up in a certain western imagery, you portray her as “a lone cowboy riding in an open space.” And in All My Own Stunts you talked about “watching cowboy movies on gloomy afternoons.”

I love the western style. The leather ties, the belts… Hey, look at this one I’m wearing! [He stands up and shows me his leather belt, turning his back: it has “TURNER” engraved on it, on either side of the horseshoes.] A friend gave it to me for my birthday, this year was really nice, between this and the four-track. I also love western movies, especially the ones about Butch Cassidy. I also love Ennio Morricone’s soundtracks, obviously.

How do you usually celebrate your birthdays?

They’re nothing too devastating. I have a birthday in early January, everyone is still recovering from Christmas and New Year’s, so the average response I get is usually “forget it.”

Why'd You Only Call Me When You're High? brings back the drunken text messages you mentioned in The View From the Afternoon.

We've all done that at least once, come on. Those lyrics might have come off the first record, but the music is fully invested in what we're doing now. I just wanted to write something simple.

While we're on the subject: when was the last time you got bounced at the entrance of a nightclub? It's not like From The Ritz To The Rubble anymore, is it?

Shit, that was like four weeks ago! [Laughs.] We were in Stockholm, we were trying to get into an area of ​​the nightclub and there was no way we could get in.

What are those Mad Sounds you're talking about?

That song is about those moments when you put on a song and it's like it's talking about exactly how you feel. It's a song about those songs, and I hope it can become one of them. I get that feeling from some songs by Lou Reed, John Cale, or Harry Nilsson. It's like sometimes they really understand how I feel, and you're like, "What the fuck..." and you almost tell them to go fuck themselves.

The point where the song explodes is when you start singing a series of ooh-la-la-la. What is the la-la-la moment that sticks with you the most from the music you listen to?

Definitely the do-dodo-dodo-do-do-do-do from Walk on the Wild Side by Lou Reed.

By the way, who came up with the idea of ​​calling a song The Hellcat Spangled Shalalala? What does that mean?

It came up one day when we were making up names for guitar pedals – sometimes they have crazy names. The Blond-o-Sonic Shimmer Trap  would be perfect for a fuzz, for example. The Hellcat Spangled Shalalala, however, comes from a bar we hung out in a lot while we were writing the previous record. The room was full of glitter and there were a lot of weird chicks all winking, like cougars.

The lyrics to Snap Out of It revolve around hypnosis. Do you think there's any real power behind it or is it just persuasion?

I've never been hypnotised, but it all seems pretty real when you watch hypnotists on telly. There's this show in the UK where this guy, Derren Brown, gets people to do all sorts of things. Crazy stuff like, "rob someone!" Nothing I'd want to be involved with.

In I Want It All you say, “Leave me listening to the Stones 2000 light years from home.”

I’m actually a Beatles guy, no doubt. But I like them both, I saw the Stones at Glastonbury and it was great.

Don't you think it's better for a band to go at the top of their game than to keep going and going and risk having nothing left to say?

What the Stones have managed to do is really extraordinary. I mean, they're seventy years old and they're still on stage. It's very difficult to have an opinion on something like this because I don't think I've reached that level yet. I'm very excited about the new album, we've reached the point of being a good live band and, speaking as an artist, I think I've reached a certain excellence this time. I want to build on that, explore new things. We still have a lot of places to go.

I think the main difference between AM and your previous albums is the small amount of guitars.

This time we didn't want to sound like four guys playing in the same room, while that's exactly what we wanted to sound like in Suck It And See. We immersed ourselves in a more minimalist idea. The guitars are perfect, sometimes they don't even sound like guitars from the way they're played, or from the effects we put on them. They sound a bit "spacey," they would be good for the stereo of a flying saucer. Then we came out with some bass and drum parts perfect to be played at full volume through the speakers of a car. We also worked much more with the vocal lines, especially with the choirs.

There are actually a lot of songs where you put backing vocals and backing vocals, especially One For The Road.

Matt, Nick and I do them. Jamie is the only one who doesn't want to have anything to do with them. It all started with R U Mine? , the part where we all start going: [hums the backing vocals]. As soon as we tried that part we realized how good it sounded, we especially liked the fact that it was something we hadn't done before. So we just went for it.

[sirfrogsworth]

2 new things I learned about Mormonism.

Thing the first…

Joseph Smith once held a sorta Mormon Comic-Con where he invited all of his followers and claimed he was going to perform miracles and talk to God and other nonsense. He set up a faith healing demonstration with an audience plant and they pretended to be suddenly stricken deaf and dumb.

Joseph was all, "By the power of Jesus, alakazam, you can now hear and speak again!"

Everyone clapped.

Joseph did not seem to have the foresight to realize other people might want to have their chronic maladies cured. So he was ready to wrap up his little magic show and move on.

But an old dude in the audience was all, "I've got this fucked up hand. Would you mind unfucking it for me?"

In his head, I'm sure Joseph thought, "Well, shit."

But he decided to give it a go. I mean, when I was young I would try to use force powers "just in case." Like, how do you know you don't have force powers if you never try to use them?

So he did his routine again on the fucked up hand and the old man stretched out his fingers for a second and Joseph probably thought "Oh shit, did that really work?" and then they curled back into their fucked up state. He tried his best to make an excuse and hoped that was the end of the faith healing portion of the show.

But then…

A man walks in carrying his little boy.

Who is super dead.

He's like, "Yeah, I was going to take him to a doctor, but everyone said you were coming and I should just wait. Would you mind un-deading my little boy real quick?"

In his head… "Fuck fuck fuckity fuck fuck..."

Out loud… "Jesus Christ and the almighty Father, restore life to this very dead child!"

And the boy opened his eyes and smiled and everyone clapped…

Would have been a great ending to this story.

But he was still quite dead.

Thing the second…

I knew that when Mormons turned 18 they went on a little mission. I always thought they picked a poverty stricken country somewhere and went to help the poor and build houses and give people food and medicine using the church's immense wealth and resources. That seems like it would humble a young person and give them a valuable life experience.

I suppose I just assumed that considering that's typically how Catholics do missionary work. They do a bunch of good deeds and when people are happy and grateful for their help, they pull out a Bible and start their sales pitch. I always had mixed feelings about this but I thought "at least they were helping people." (Not always the case. Sometimes missionaries do more harm than good. But that is the idea, at least.)

Mormons skip the helping people and just do the sales pitch.

They honestly believe converting them to Mormonism is more valuable than food, shelter, clothing, money.

Being a member should solve all of those things, right?

Well, that is essentially what these young mission kids are told.

And they don't just go to poor countries, they often go to rich areas in the US. One might go to the Congo and the other... Beverly Hills.

These 18 year olds are thrust into an unfamiliar place with a few weeks of language training and are tasked with getting people baptized. They have to pay for this "honor" and are judged by how many people they convert. They are often housed in sketchy places and in order to keep them from going rogue, they are attached to another 18 year old who must stay within sight and sound at all times.

Mormonism relies heavily on tattling to keep people following the rules. Seriously, I think the glue that holds all of it together is "snitches get riches." BYU even has an official snitching office where you can narc on someone for getting coffee.

The point is, no one is helped and these kids are essentially slaves for 2 years. They work 80 hour weeks with no pay just trying to get baptisms.

[justcallme-ange]

Happy 1 Year Little Comforts!! <3

Give or take a couple days - oops ^^;

One of the longest projects I've done to date!! <3 <3 <3 Thank you all so much for the support, as well as all the comments and tags! I love going through them and reading all the lovely messages. They're a great pick-me-up whenever I'm feeling demotivated. So thank you again <3

So for the anniversary I wanted to do a little thing where I point out some details in the comic I'm very proud of XD (Yes I'm tooting my own horn - shhh)

Three Wishes Dream asks Techno to promise him something 3 times. And only on the third one does Techno agree. I tried to frame it as both Techno being cautious about agreeing to things Dream proposes (a la favor) but also as Techno finally agreeing when everything was laid out and there was nothing Dream had left to hide. (It's like a fairytale trial - 3 challenges with the last having a great reward.) Forget-me-(k)not I don't know how prevalent they are now a days, but growing up I was a really forgetful child, and learned somewhere that by tying a knot on your finger when you need to remember something supposedly helps in you actually remembering. Which idk if true, it didn't really work on me, but the knot itself actually stuck, so in this case I used it for 3 things: A reminder that Dream was stuck in prison and needed help, a reminder that Phil needed to get Techno out of prison (eventually), and a reminder that Techno promised Dream he would free him. Scars So all the scars that I drew Dream with all actually have canonical reasons. So in order - the one across his nose was from Techno during their duel, the ones on his neck and chest were from Tommy taking two canon lives, the one on his lips were from Sam after first being detained, and the last on his chin (and arms) are from Quackity. Continuity The armor that Phil is wearing at the end is a reference to another illustration I did of the Doomsday Trio. It's post prison break so maybe it's a sequel? (This is less a detail and more just a personal thing - but my favorite page has to be page 7 - where Dream's image crumbles. It usually takes me at least 2 tries to get the look I want - this was one and done ^^) More behind the scenes - this comic (final version) started with the hug. I said initially the comic was supposed to be 6 pages at most, but I wanted to make the hug work so bad that I literally rewrote the comic. Only the first two pages are part of the original draft. Everything else was new. My brother literally sat with me for days going over each scene and making edits. OTL There were so many iterations - in the end I think there are at least 7 drafts of this comic. Cut Content Bonus: Unlike my other comic where the vision was there from the beginning, Little Comforts had some growing pains, and a few scenes had to be cut for it to work. So here ya go!

This was cut in favor of the shaking scene, some levity was needed to let the scene breathe, plus quoting my brother "It's more Techno".

Also wanted another hug, but editor and I felt that it took away from the pay off in the end.

Alternate version of 'he's a child' - originally it was supposed to go at the end of the comic, as an epilogue. Timing wise it ended up not working, which ended up with an even better gut punch so I'm not too upset. I may still render this....

[alcorianight]

I did not realize this got so long, so rambly word vomit under the cut

I do think more attention should be paid to the absolute horror Jason must have felt after coming out of the Lazarus pit like a foot taller and built like a damn fridge.

Like he died at 15, tiny, still small due to malnutrition and then the leading theory is that the Lazarus pit cures that and beefed him up. For one, that's gotta mess with his motor control a ton, especially when you consider that normal growth spurts cause a period of clumsiness (think jarring steps, toe stubbing, knocking your elbow on doorknobs or whatever), so a total body overhaul -Lazarus Edition™ - might be enough to keep him from even walking properly, let alone fight skillfully and gracefully.

Even if you say he got his coordination back from training or comic book science meant the pits didn't fuck that up, being small was probably a major part of his identity. Consider Jason before Bruce. He was tiny, but still resourceful and strong enough to jack tires. But being tiny was useful. Being tiny meant more hiding spaces were available. It meant he was unassuming. It meant people's eyes skipped over him. It meant avoiding attention. It meant safety.

And sure, Jason probably complained about being small when he was Robin. Probably even dreamed of being big as a street kid because being big meant having power, but being big on the streets meant being noticed and he knew that. It was something to dream about when he was older but not what he needed then.

I've also seen people headcanon that Jason is claustrophobic from the coffin, and I kinda vibe with that, and being bigger also screws with that because things feel so much bigger when you're small. If you think about it, elevators and the like probably felt a lot more spacious when you were a kid. So not only has his body been drastically changed without his consent (and I haven't really touched on that here, but also consider how it has to affect Jason Todd (who champions consent and autonomy and personal safety of the little guy) to have experienced nonconsensual body modification first hand like that) but it can actively cause him more mental distress.

And I think, coming out of the pit, the memory of his death still fresh in his mind, and stuck in the League of Assassins, maybe being small would have been comforting. He could still access all the same hiding places he would immediately clock. And while the image of a big man hiding somewhere clearly too small for him might be funny, it's also heart wrenching because he's lost so many safe places in a single moment.

Of course when Jason does go back to Gotham he's learned to use his new body and the fact that it makes him intimidating as hell, but I think there's another negative there as well. Because as Robin he comforted people. No Robin is ever soft but they are all almost definitely better at comforting victims than Batman (maybe not Damian, but he's a baby which is simultaneously more and less comforting) and a big part of that is because they're kids. Kids just aren't as intimidating as giant ass adults and I can imagine that this probably messed with Jason when he first got back to Gotham and tried to talk to the street kids or the working girls because those are groups of people who are going to be suspicious of men built like a goddamn fridge. He can't come up to them like he did as Robin, and I'm sure over time he's won their trust and they find him a symbol of safety, but the first few interactions have to hit hard because it feels like he doesn't belong in a place that's been his first home. That somehow he no longer fits right where he always did before.

I also can't imagine how disconcerting it must be to not recognize your reflection for like every part of yourself. Like, this one time I had makeup done for an event (not my idea) and it was so heavy that I didn't recognize myself and I felt so uncomfortable with that and that was just my face. My hair, my height, my build - all of that was still familiar, comfortable, but can you imagine being unable to recognize even that? And if he avoids mirrors to avoid seeing his reflection, he might not even be able to recognize himself in pictures and videos. (There's a fanfic with this idea and it definitely inspires this post because I honestly never considered this before and I thought it was so well written and such a good point that we don't pay enough attention to. You should totally check it out if you got this far.)

The last point I have for this post has to do with his relationship with Bruce. So typical timeline (I think) for Jason is he dies at 15, crawls out of his grave about 6 months later, is catatonic for 3 years, and then spends a year mentally present training with the League of Assassins on his world tour or whatever. I am fuzzy on the details here but basically from his birthday, Jason can't be older than 19-20 when he comes back to Gotham (I think 19 is the accepted age) but mentally he's 16 and for some fucking reason DC artists like to draw him like he's over 30. THIS IS A PROBLEM! Like this is an extremely fucked up 16 year old kid that should be trapped in a 19 year old's body but instead it's so much worse because (and I've seen someone describe him like this before) he's actually trapped inside the body of a 35 year old divorcee AND THAT IS NOT OKAY! Like even if we're gonna say that the Lazarus pit alters the body to peak physical health that would be like 22 or some shit. Past 30 is not a physical prime. You can be fit for sure at 30 but that doesn't change the fact that your ability to build muscle and heal and whatever else are probably better in your early to mid 20s and hey guess what that's still younger than Dick's accepted age (or maybe about the same (I have stayed up too late writing this to keep proper track of numbers)). But Jason looks older than Dick more often than not (the Gotham Knights game will never be forgiven for whatever the fuck happened to Jay's character design).

Okay sorry for the sidetrack, but Jason looking older is gonna fuck with Bruce because Bruce is gonna have a real hard time seeing his tiny, malnourished, never gonna top 5'4 Jaylad in this giant hulk of a figure, especially when the age is so off. Like imagine you have a kid who goes to college and does a ton of internships or research so you don't really see them for 4 years, you're still gonna expect your kid to look like they're 22-23. If they look like they're 35 you sure as hell are not gonna pinpoint that as your kid. So Bruce sees Jason and it makes sense that he doesn't think that's his kid BECAUSE THAT DOESN'T LOOK LIKE HIS KID! (I'm ignoring the moral differences in this post) So Bruce doesn't see a kid when he looks at Jason but Jason is mentally 16 and, despite everything he says to the contrary, he sees his dad when he looks at Bruce. Jason doesn't see an equal, someone who is just another adult. This is his dad, an authority figure in his life, someone whos opinions and words hold power over him whether he wants them to or not. But Bruce can't see that. Because Bruce doesn't see a kid. He doesn't see his son. He sees an equal and that's tragic because you're always supposed to be your parents' baby. Even when you're 50 with your own family and nearly adult kids, you're still gonna be your parents little baby. Because parents see their kids at all the ages they've ever been and it's the fact that Jason doesn't have someone who looks at him and sees him how he was when he was 2 and 7 and 10 and 13 and 15 when he still feels 16 that makes this so sad. Because no one's been his parent for long enough to really build that and Bruce can't see Robin!Jason in the Jason that came back.

Wow, uh, I'm really sorry to anyone who reads this. This really got away from me and it's super unorganized and I just kinda word vomitted all over this. This was just supposed to be about how his body was different. How did Bruce end up in this?

[jesterkoops]

Gemma might be out of that basement, but man if I still don't have a ton of questions about her, and I am not sure how many of these are even a thing that will be addressed next season versus things that I am overthinking. Buckle up for my Gemma masterpost!

Why is Ms Casey so different from all other innies?

Ms Casey is different from the other innies, even Gemma's own testing floor innies. While we now pretty much know that the innies are a blank-slate version of their outies once they're stripped of all memories and conditioning, MsCasey feels more like an AI learning to be a person, rather than a person stripped of her memory. Her lack of personality also has nothing to do with how long she's "been alive" since we saw with Helly that innies do have a personality immediately after awakening. Yet, she is still Gemma and still shares the same chip as Gemma, so this is not some kind of hardware/body difference? Is her being weird just because they wanted a funny innie sort of comic relief figure, or is there something more meaningful behind it?

What is Cobel's deal with Gemma (and Mark)?

We now know that Cobel is the mastermind inventor and "principal investigator" behind all of the severance program, and that what was going on down on the testing floor was her own project (cue also the intro from this season). I really like this explanation from @emmas about Cobel's motivation in "helping" Mark and Devon. But this still doesn't answer one of the questions that puzzle me the most. If the goal of the project was to design a chip that would prevent any spillover whatsoever of trauma and pain, essentially creating a stronger barrier than the current version of the chip which does allow some pain to bleed through (see Mark sculpting the tree during the wellness session) why is Cobel so obsessed with Ms Casey and Mark remembering each other? Surely, she should want the opposite?

Yet, she tries again and again and again throughout S1 and is disappointed every time it fails. Milchick picks up on it too: "You know it's a good thing they don't remember each other? It means the chips work". He is also baffled at every attempt she makes, like sending Mark for one last wellness session, or sending Ms Casey to observe Helly. This last one in particular intrigues me because when Milchik asks her why she did that she said she is "trying something new". Why would watching Helly help her achieve the goal of Ms Casey and Mark remembering each other?

Maybe Ms Casey is a different project to the one she was carrying out with Gemma's testing floor innies, with a different goal, perhaps even unbeknown to the rest of Lumon (besides Milchick, Graner also seems puzzled about her off-duty 'research' in S1, and he doesn't know what she's up to). That could partly answer my question above about why Ms Casey is so different from the other innies. Maybe she wants to test some kind of contingency that strips away all memories except those of the partner, allowing only love to transcend severance? This seems like an awfully "fluffy" kind of project to have for Cobel though, and it still doesn't explain why Cobel thinks Ms Casey watching Helly would help her achieve that goal.

Why was Dr Mauer yelling "You'll kill them all!"?

Just as Gemma gets in the elevator we hear Dr Mauer yelling "Gemma! You'll kill them all!" as the doors close. What is he referring to here? He could be referring to her innies, which we know he seems to have a creepy kind of infatuation with. But wouldn't the completion of Cold Harbor automatically mean their death anyway, once she's gone? Or is he referring to all of the innies on the severed floor, because once her chip is gone there'll be no work for any of them and so they'll just never come back to work? Or to something else entirely?

How did Gemma end up in Lumon exactly?

This might be just weakness in the storyline and therefore me overthinking it, but I find the idea that Lumon kidnapped her to hold her in the basement a bit odd. Petey mentioned the testing floor as back as early S1 already and spoke about it as if there were people (plural) down there that never get to leave. So I presume Gemma isn't the first and only subject. Surely if Lumon were going around kidnapping people to hold them in a basement, there would be more reports of missing people? I also don't get why, for the purpose of this experiment, you would need to kidnap people. Just as you find people willing to undergo the established severance procedure for work, you would find people desperate enough that they would willing undergo an even more extreme experimental severance procedure with the potential of never having to feel pain again? I mean, Mark Scout himself would have been a perfect candidate for this? Gemma herself in trying to overcome the trauma of the miscarriage would also be a perfect candidate? It might be that I'm overthinking it and the kidnapping is just to up the level of ethical and moral corruption of Lumon, but idk. I think this is where they lose me a little because what I liked about S1 in particular was the more realistic, grey area about people willingly choosing to sever themselves and the ethical controversy that entails, rather than a more black-and-white scenario where the company is clearly the devil and the subjects the victims.

TL;DR: I wonder if Ms Casey being "off" compared to all the other innies might be due to her being a different type of project Cobel was pursuing perhaps behind Lumon's back. One where for some reason she does want some level of transcendence. That's maybe why it is so important and emphasised again and again in interviews that Mark feels nothing for MsCasey; maybe there's something in this idea of what exactly makes love transcend severance that is key to whatever Cobel is after, but something even she hasn't yet figured out.

[erithel]

Hi! Happy birthday! (If it still is in your timezone, and if it's not - happy belated birthday!)

Seeing your latest post, i wanted to tell you how much your fics, comics and art in general changed my life.

Reading your fics got me through the hardest times of my life. It's written to a degree so high it's astonishing. No fic i have ever read has made me feel the way yours did. Each and every one of them - even the unfinished ones - are so important. To me and so many others who have read them.

The things you write about, the angsty, sad and angry parts of life many are afraid of - they make processing the accidents that happened in your readers' lives so much better. Reading the characters letting their feelings out, reading them talk about the harsh truths, is what makes doing it in real life so much easier. It makes it less frightening.

Through your fics i learned how to communicate so many problems and difficulties in the last two years of my life, i genuinely don't think i would be alive today without them.

Your art has made a place in my heart at least 3 years ago. Your art has been a lighthouse in a dark, dark ocean. Always saving the lives of so many.

Your art-style, your comics, are some of my favorites. It's so beautiful, and it's so delicate - every detail perfected to a fault. The plot in your comics is, in my opinion, on par with the plot of your fics. Every plot twist is masterfully crafted, each word impactful. The characters never lacking in any way.

Your effort is showing in ever comic page, in every new chapter of your fics. It's been a pleasure to follow your art for so long, seeing the new things you tried. It's never invisible, never wasted. The thought you put into every single piece of any form of art is appreciated, and very viable.

Your art is never going to be replaced as long as people buy and read it, and i know it's never going to be replaced because i am one of those people. I will always be exited to see your url on my notifications, never mind the state i'm in or how uninterested i am in the fandom at that point in time.

Your art saves lives, and it's not going to stop doing that. Never.

Thank you for continuously putting out your art, even at times when you felt like giving up on it.

I hope this made you feel a little better about yourself in that regard. Your existence itself, and not just the art you put out, is important and appreciated. By many. Please never stop doing what you love as long as it's not hurting you.

I had to sit on this message for a bit just to process it.

Now, I think I want to say three things in response.

This is incredibly meaningful and the fact that you took the time to type this all out means the world to me.

I hope that you are okay. Obviously since this is posted anonymously, I cannot reach out to you directly or privately, but learning how to process emotions and communicate issues is such a tough road sometimes. It's one I'm learning to do, myself, and I am so happy to hear that you are learning what works for you. Progress might not feel like it's there at times, but it is there, I promise.

Everything that's been written here should be validating for anyone who writes or reads fan content. Personally, I have always written stories that hold personal importance to me, and I know I am not alone. A lot of people use fanfiction as not only an escape but as a means of catharsis. It feels more personal, in a way, than some traditionally publishes books or widely available shows/movies. And it makes sense because people aren't writing about things that will do well in the market at the time, they are writing about things they truly want to write about. Things that often hold deep, emotional meaning to them, and they are simply using the form of already established characters to convey those things. Creating fanfiction can often feel like something not to be taken seriously (and, to be fair, there are those who truly just do it for fun). But I know I need to remember — and others probably need to remember, too — that you never know who might find your story at the exact time they need to read it. You never know how much these things might stick with someone, or what they could mean to someone other than yourself. Thank you for reminding me that even though these fan creations aren't taken seriously by so many, the chance that they might actually have an impact on even one person is the thing that matters.

[umbrella-show]

Platonic Yan Rottmnt

「 ✦ 𝐏𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐨𝐧𝐢𝐜 𝐘𝐚𝐧 𝐑𝐎𝐓𝐓𝐌𝐍𝐓 𝐱 𝐌𝐮𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐓𝐮𝐫𝐭𝐥𝐞 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫 𝐏𝐭.𝟐 ✦ 」

Part 2 is finally here and there will be a part 3 to finish off this mini series! \(^▽^)/ I'm sorry this took so long to post. A family member recently passed away and I was processing that while having to go to school and being swamped with schoolwork. Finals are also coming like next week but after that I get a two week break so I'll definitely be writing some more when that comes. Anyways I hope yall enjoy! Words : 2,411

THIS IS IN NO WAY APPROVING OF A ABUSIVE OR TOXIC RELATIONSHIP Warnings : Delusion, Kidnaping.

‧˚₊꒷꒦︶︶︶︶︶꒷꒦︶︶︶︶︶꒦꒷‧₊˚⊹

Being stuck for many months in what you learned was the Hamato brother’s lair was tiring. No, scratch that, it was exhausting. All of them were clingy, needy and especially overprotective. They also began addressing you like you were family, and started trying to spend time with you like you had lived with them your whole life.

Mikey was always trying to cling to you, whether it be holding your hand, carrying you throughout the lair, or just unexpectedly jumping on you and piggyback riding off of your back, clinging to you for dear life like a koala. He basically begged for your affection, trying so hard to take up all of your time with art, cooking, baking and anything else he could think of that would keep you occupied with him. He also called you his twin. Which, sure you were basically the same age as him, and you both were mutant turtles, but you had no connection to any of them whatsoever. You had learned how the Hamato’s had become mutants in the first place, but you all had never met before you or they were mutated, and you two didn’t even share the same birthday. Yet he seemed persistent to call you two twins.

Leo was obviously the jokester out of the four. He makes multiple one-liners around you, trying to make you laugh. He also made many jokes about New Jersey of all places, which you didn’t get. He wasn’t as touchy as Mikey, but he liked to occasionally put an arm around your shoulder or rest his elbow on your head. He seemed more possessive of you, making plans with you to read Jupiter Jim comics and get defensive when his brothers tried to take you away to do something else with them. He also liked to mix in some Spanish into his speech at times. He mostly calls you hermana/hermano.

Donnie was very protective of you. He made sure you balanced out your nutrients and ate food that would make sure your blood sugar levels were at normal rates. He knew what foods you could and couldn’t eat. He made sure you were hydrated and healthy. He knew most about your species. He had spent time studying your behaviors for the first few days you were brought to the lair. He also forbade you to do things that he thought you could harm yourself doing. Even simple things, like reaching items from up high, because, according to Donnie, the item you were reaching for could fall on your head so hard it could knock you out or cause you a concussion. Yeah, you didn’t get that rule. You had to ask either Donnie or his other brothers to help you. He also placed multiple cameras and alarms throughout your new room at your arrival, making sure he can monitor you at all times.

Raph was somewhat of a more tolerable one. While he was a bit more overprotective of you than Donnie, he was the one that gave you the most space and privacy. He was already worried he could possibly hurt you because of his strength, which made him back off a bit. He also was the only one who insisted on your personal space when Leo or Mikey were being too overbearing with their affection and touchiness. He made sure you at least ate breakfast, lunch and dinner, and sometimes would walk up to you, give you a small snack, gently pat your head like one would do to a cat, and anxiously leave without a word. You knew he could be a little shy around you, most likely due to an insecurity that you might not like him or think he’s not doing enough for you. He also occasionally likes to carry you in his arms.

Hell, even their dad, Splinter, grew attached to you. He calls you Yellow due to the spots on your body and shell, and practically treats you like one of his own. Except he makes more of an effort to talk and spend quality time with you. You found out he used to be a movie star named Lou Jitstu before he was mutated by some sheep guy named Baron Draxum. 

Overall, you despised it here. You just want freedom. To see the sky again. To try and adjust to the circumstances of becoming a mutant by yourself and live a peaceful life where you're not constantly babied by everyone around you. That’s why you tried your first, and hopefully last, escape attempt.

—

You mentally went over the plan again and again in your mind, looking for possible flaws. A sense of doubt gnawed at the back of your mind. What if the plan didn’t work? What would happen to you then? You huffed at your own anxious thoughts, turning to face the curtain that was the door to your room. It led into the main room of the maze that was the Hamato’s lair. Thankfully, there was an extra room in the lair that the brothers had converted into a bedroom for you, despite Mikey’s protests and insisting you slept in his room in a separate hammock. 

You took shaky deep breaths in and out a couple times to calm down. You could do this. The timing had to be just right. Speaking of time, you glanced at the digital alarm clock that rested on your bedside table. 5:21 AM. Okay, just a few more minutes and your plan would be set in motion.

You decided a time closer to the morning would work better, considering the brothers seemed to be active most in the night. A time closer to morning was usually when they slept. It would be the perfect time to sneakily leave your room. You decided trying to sneak straight to the manhole wasn’t an option. You knew Donnie would have some kind of security near there. Not only to keep you in, but to also keep unwanted strangers out. Luckily the lair had multiple entry and exit points that mostly led into the tunnels of the sewers. From there, you would have to try and find your way out from there. It wasn’t the most thought out plan since you had only gotten to explore the tunnels when Raph went Savage. If everything goes wrong and you end up with the brothers on your tail, your next bet is to swim your way away. Or at least try to. You assumed you could at least swim pretty well since you were a turtle now. You hoped that you wouldn’t have to resort to that though. Those waters looked disgusting and dirty and gross. Glancing at the alarm clock again you realized it was about time for you to activate your plan. A few minutes had passed since the last time you had looked at the time. Propping yourself on your elbows in the bed you took another deep breath. The time was now. You could do this. You slowly lifted your body into a sitting position, letting your legs dangle off of the edge of the bed for a few moments before pushing yourself to stand. Your crept towards the curtain, holding it open slightly so you could peek through the other side. Nothing. Everything was dead silent. Good. Slowly and soundlessly pushing the curtain further aside, you made sure to take slow steps to make as little noise as possible. You soon were standing in the middle of the main room, in the center of the natural light that came from the ceiling, the moonlight shining almost a spotlight on your figure as you continued to creep closer and closer towards the tunnel entry. A loud heavy bang of metal made you harshly flinch and hitch your breath. You froze up, staying as still as a statue. After a couple agonizingly long seconds, you turned your head towards the source of the noise. Light came from inside Donnie’s lab that spilled out of the door. You could barely hear sounds of metal objects being moved around in there and mentally cursed. Of course Donnie was awake. Why did you not think of that!? He basically ran on coffee 24/7 and was known for pulling multiple all-nighters on tech and inventions. He didn’t seem to notice you were out of your room though, considering he hasn’t come out of his yet. From the sound that came from his lab you assumed he was building something and was most likely putting his full attention on it. You hoped at least.

Whatever. You had no time to ponder. You took another slow step forward, keeping a slow and silent place towards the large metal entry to the labyrinth of sewers. Even after you made it beyond the tunnel entry, you still continued to slowly tiptoe your way until you were sure you were completely out of sight. After turning a quick corner in the tunnel, you laid your back against the stone wall and slowly panted with wide eyes. You took a moment before snapping out of your shock trance. No time to stop and rest now. Forcefully pushing yourself off of the wall you bolted down the tunnels, desperately looking for any traces of a possible exit. Your feet slapped against the cold stone floor, turning multiple corners. You could only briefly remember the paths that you had taken when exploring the sewers looking for Raph. Adrenaline pumped through your veins as you skidded around another corner. Luckily, there were graffiti drawings on most of the walls, most likely done by Mikey, that you used as a map. And based on the graffiti, you were almost there. You were almost free!

Your blood suddenly went cold when you heard it. Another set of feet slapping against the floor at a rapid pace somewhere behind you. No. No way you were stopping now that you had gotten this far. You urged your legs to run faster, using all of your strength to keep going. You glanced at a graffiti drawing of a smiley face melting and a small light of hope shone in you. This was it. Bolting around the last corner, you took only a few swift steps before leaping into the canal of green murky water that splashed violently along the rounded walls of the sewer tunnel. You ungracefully crashed into the water with a loud splash, the strong current taking you away. 

You poked your head out of the water, coughing a bit, Another splash came from somewhere behind you, and snapping your head in that direction, you saw a Donnie hot on your trail, swimming without a problem towards you. How did he know you had left so quick!? He must have placed some kind of alert in the sewer tunnels too. You panicked, taking in a gulp of air and submerging yourself back under the water. You swam as fast as you could, violently kicking your legs as the current continued to sweep you to what you hoped to be the exit. You held your breath for as long as you could, occasionally throwing your head above the water to take in a large heave of air before continuing to swim with the overpowering tide.

You didn't know how long you had been swimming. What was probably seconds felt like forever. You could swim pretty fast. Almost faster than Donnie, but he was catching up. 

A dead end with a tunnel. You could see a tunnel ahead, blocked by a rusted circular vault door with a wheel handle. Looking over your shoulder you could see Donnie's faint silhouette swimming towards you at a scarily quick pace. You needed to get the vault open and quick. You could feel your lungs desperately begging for air. Your hands gripped the wheel as you placed your feet against the stone wall, using all your strength to turn it. The wheel had obviously not been used in a while, from how hard it was to turn and how slow it did. You panicked slightly, using more of your strength. Bubbles left your mouth as your hands gripped the wheel tighter. Slowly but surely the wheel began to turn and after a few more seconds you were able to pry the metal vault open. You swung it open and hastily swam through the tunnel. You turned around, catching a quick glance at Donnie who was dangerously close, and slammed the vault shut, turning the handle as far as it could go. You then felt the wheel break off from the vault in your hands. You flinched when you heard a loud bang from the other side, and quickly fled. 

Your lungs burned. If you didn’t get oxygen soon you would drown here. Swimming as fast as you could, you saw not far ahead was the end of the tunnel that led to more water, except the water was cleaner. Kicking your legs fiercely, you swam out of the tunnel and immediately swam up. Your head burst out of the water, taking in a loud gasp of air. The harsh inhale of air prompted you to cough harshly. You looked around for land, still coughing violently and wheezing. A wooden dock was the first thing you saw and you promptly began to weakly doggy paddle towards it. Your hands gripped the edge of the dock, slowly pulling yourself on it. You flopped on your stomach, panting heavily as water dripped off of your body. You rolled on to your back instead, spreading your limbs in a starfish position. 

You looked up at the sun, squinting your eyes at the bright light. Using your arm to shield your eyes, the realization hit you with a burst of joy. The blue sky. The bright sun. You were free. You were finally free! You sat up, the adrenaline wearing off slowly. You knew you couldn't stay for long. Who knows when the brothers would be after after Donnie alerts them you had run away. You got up, having a bit of trouble from your shaking and sore legs from all of the tiring running and swimming. You stumbled as you walked at a quick pace across the dock and towards the tall city buildings that could be seen from your location. You need to get as far as possible from the escape exit you just took. You hoped you never saw those turtles ever again.

[leapdayowo]

5. What piece of art are you still proud of to this day?

I have a couple I’m still quite proud of! I tried to pick stuff that’s around a year+ older, and this isn’t really an extensive list. I’m proud of different works for different reasons, not just because I think they look pretty still to this day. That being said:

this piece is almost a year old (I can’t believe how time flies!) and I’m still proud of the lighting, poses, textures, and how this piece directs the eye around. These were all things I intentionally wanted to improve on with this piece as well as paint multiple characters in a scene, and I think I was successful :) I also used this piece as part of my portfolio which helped me get a couple scholarships, so definitely proud :D

I’m proud of the 30+ ceramic pieces I made my freshman year in college! Some of them turned out really neat, and I managed not to make many of them weigh more than a stack of bricks lol I learned a lot making these and gained a love for ceramics. I gifted at least half of them to friends and family which was a bonus :3

This is a ceramic charm I made last spring using the ashes of my beloved and late cat Toby. There are ceramic beads inside that rattle softly when you shake the charm and it reminds me of him always (Toby was a house cat, but he was able to travel to Portugal and to college with me due to the charm). I think I’ll always be proud of this piece and how I processed my grief to make it

This is a sketch from 2019 that I’m actually still really proud of? I never did anything with it, but I really liked how I drew the character. This really stood out at the time because my art abilities were not what they are today

This piece is three years old! I still like the staging and how I was trying to convey a story in a single moment and kept the playful tone of the moment :) I especially liked how I painted the bottle and Impulse. I was also trying to incorporate backgrounds at this point. I’d like one day to maybe do a redraw of this piece cuz I can’t help myself from a redraw :3

And I’m also quite proud of this series of redraws (which I might do one more of this summer). I think it demonstrates my progress as an artist very well over the last six years and shows how I’ve developed my identity/art style

I’m also proud of this mural I painted for a church a couple summers ago! I’d never painted something this large and I had to take into account how the clouds would distort based on where you were looking since it isn’t a dome (90 degree corners). I’m a short person, so there was a lot of precarious walking on the scaffolding and doing some not so OSHA approved methods of reaching the purple arch (fortunately I’m not scared of heights too badly!). I used muscles I didn’t know my body had by trying to reach awkward angles. I did a smaller mural on the opposite side above the entry door. Both paintings brought a new life to the church that I was happy to provide even if I’m not all that religious

I’m still proud of this animation of chicken knight :D It was my first, non-flour sack animation on toon boom and I feel I did a very good job with being so new to digital animation at the time! The turnaround scene was very fun to do and getting the bloody floating tendril things to crack the egg was difficult to time out. I also became determined after this piece to always incorporate my watercolors in some way with my digital animations (which I still abide to to this day!)

Last one! I’m also proud of everything I did for the goop!wally au. It was the first time I stuck to making an au for an extensive amount of time, and I made a lot of art for it! I’m especially proud of the comics I made and how I could make a more heartwarming and fluffy au for people to enjoy :) I may return to this au since I left a lot unfinished, but despite my efforts to learn from past long term comics I still ended with lots of burn out so I still need to recover. Regardless, I’m proud I attempted to learn from my past mistakes and pace myself better making art for goop!wally! ask game <—— ask me a question :D

[blog-moved-lol]

Jason Todd Canon Lore Stuff:

@jashjdh Ask and you shall receive! :D this is sort of part 2 to this post of mine, where I did the same thing for Dick Grayson. Here, since there are so many comics and so much conflicting lore, I read the fandom . com entry for the character and then type out the most important bits of what I learned, both to help myself remember it, and to teach others ^w^

!TW for Batman-like things, such as spoilers, mentions of injury and death, a brief mentions of drug use, a brief mention of sewerslide and r(😬)e, etc)!

•To begin with, a lot of people argue "Jason is the angry Robin!" Or, "Jason ISN'T the angry Robin!" I think for the most part, this misunderstanding happens because originally, Jason was a very calm kid. In his original appearances he had a similar backstory to Dick Grayson(Being an acrobat in the circus) and was much more chill, however in the post-crisis revamp, he became more violent and troubled. In the words of the wiki, "the post-Crisis Jason is impulsive, reckless, and full of rage."

•Jason lived a troubled childhood, with his father being a petty crook. His dad at one point served a jail sentence for his crimes, but even once he got out of jail, he never came back to the family. This left Jason alone, taking care of his drug-addicted mother. He would rip and remove the parts from cars around the city, selling them for cash to make sure they were fed and clothed. His mother eventually died from an overdose so he took to the streets, continuing to take apart cars for cash.

•One night he came upon the Batmobile parked in an alleyway. Batman had just replaced the tires, but had not yet put on his new custom hubcaps. Jason took this opportunity to snag the tires, and managed to get one and out of there before he came back for a second tire. This is when Batman caught him, hence the iconic interaction of him throwing his tire iron at Bruce and calling him a 'big boob' as he ran away.

•Batman tried putting Jason in a boarding school for troubled kids, however this didn't work out either because the owner of the school was actually running a program to train young criminals. When Batman busted the criminal operation, he decided that perhaps Jason's anger could be used for crime fighting, so he took him in because he was worried that if he didn't, Jason would become a criminal. While Jason wasn't an acrobat like Dick, he was strong, and had lots of skills from his time on the streets.

•On their first official mission together, though, it was revealed that Two-Face had killed Jason's father. Despite the fact that Jason's father had abandoned him, he was still enraged by this and he went on a rampage. However, he showed restraint when he allowed Two-Face to be arrested instead of killing him, which made Bruce very proud.

•As much as Jason was a good, enthusiastic student, he was also a very troubled one. His time on the streets had raised him with a tilted sense of morals, and with the tendency to lash out and get violent when threatened because of his street survival instincts. Because of this, Jason often had the opposite ideals and morals to his mentor. He tended to use excessive force when trying to stop criminals, such as how in one adventure he was asked to 'hold off' some villains, and he immediately shot at them despite Bruce's dislike of using guns.

•The most notable of these times was on the case of Felipe Garzonasa, a man who had r(😬)ed a woman, an event that led to her sewerslide. Jason tracked this guy down, and moments after Jason arrived, Felipe fell to his death off of his apartment balcony. While it was never confirmed nor denied, it's fairly possible that Jason pushed Garzonasa off, breaking Batman's no kill rule. (We love a man who respects women ✊)

•Bruce was so afraid that Jason was going to possibly kill someone, either intentionally or with his reckless actions, that he called Barbara Gordon and asked her to work a case with Jason, in an attempt to figure him out. They did work together, however Barbara could come up with no real way to help him, and simply warned Bruce that there was 'a darkness in Jason'.

•Jason eventually discovers that his mother was not actually his biological mother, so he runs away from home on a mission to find his real mom. He follows lots of leads, but eventually ends up in Ethiopia, finding his bio mother Sheila, working as an aid worker. He's incredibly happy to be reunited with his real mom, but he soon discovers that Sheila is being blackmailed by the Joker, being forced to supply him with medical treatment. Sheila herself has been embezzling funds from the agency, and to keep from getting caught, she directly hands Jason over to the Joker who brutally beats him with a crowbar and leaves him and Sheila in a warehouse with a bomb. Batman is unable to save them on time, and both of them perish in the explosion. Bruce is obviously devastated (and starts going crazy because of this a bit later on), and the bodies are both buried in Gotham City with the cause of death on Jason's death certificate being labeled 'smoke inhalation'.

•Jason is dead for at least a decade, his memory constantly haunting Bruce as his 'greatest failure', keeping Jason's Robin suit on display in the Batcave. Bruce begins to spiral over the thoughts that he himself had failed to train Jason properly, and that he had also failed to save Jason from the Joker. (Personal opinion, I don't know if I actually blame Bruce for 'Not saving Jason in time'? Because the way the wiki framed it, it made it seem like Jason ran away and didn't tell anyone that he was going to do this, plus I don't know how Bruce would've known that the Joker was blackmailing Sheila to begin with? Idk, maybe I'm missing some context here)

•Many years later, while Bruce is fighting with Hush, Tim gets kidnapped. When he confront the kidnapped it ends up being 'Jason', but it turns out that this version of Jason isn't Jason at all, and is just Clayface pretending to be Jason.

•Superboy-Prime, trapped in the Paradise Dimension, alters reality. This shift results in Jason's revival, as he's once again given life. He breaks his way out of his own coffin with his bare hands, and drags himself 12 miles before eventually collapsing (since he still has many lasting injuries from the Joker's beating). He's found at some point and hospitalized, where he stays in a coma for a full year, and even when he awakens he has amnesia. At some point he's recognized by a petty criminal, who informs Talia. Talia brings him to the Lazarus Pit, where she immerses him in the water where her father Ra's is also bathing. This restores Jason's memories and his physical health, however it's implied that the Pit's energy + Ah-Gul's energy messed with his mind and personality (Though it's always possible that these changes really just came from his trauma)

•Jason Todd takes up the mantle of Red Hood, and returns to Gotham City.

•Jason goes to find the Joker (who had been run out of town by Hush), and gives him a beating with a crowbar just as the Joker did to him, though he keeps the Joker alive to use him against Batman later on. He also assumes the control of several gangs, and starts a mini war against the Black Mask criminal empire. His general plan is to clean up the cities violence and drug dealings(probably because he doesn't want anyone to end up like his non-bio mother), as well as kill the Joker for revenge. Because of his intense and violent methods, he has many brushes with Batman. It's around this time that Bruce finds a Robin mask in the Batmobile, one that never belonged to Dick or Tim, but looked like a mask in the style of Jason's old Robin costume. He also realized at this time that Jason's coffin is empty, and that's when he starts to believe that Jason may have genuinely come back from the dead.

•Jason, hearing that Tim had replaced him and was supposedly a 'better Robin' then him, he got angry and broke into the Titan tower to confront him. Wearing a newer version of his own Robin costume, Jason makes quick work of immobilizing the other Titans. He was absolutely furious that there was no memorial for him in the Hall of Fallen Titans (Despite the fact that he was only a Titan for a very short time), Jason demands Tim tell him if he was really as good of a Robin as Jason himself was, and Tim stubbornly says 'Yes' before he passes out. As Jason is leaving the tower, he rips the 'R' logo from Tim's costume. However, it's revealed in the epilogue of that comic that Jason actually holds some respect for Tim now, begrudgingly saying an "I'll admit. He's good." As he ponders how he could've been a better Robin had he acted more like Tim.

•At some point Jason kidnaps the Joker and uses him to lure Bruce to Crime Alley, where they had first met all those years ago. Jason is of course angry that Bruce never 'properly avenged' him by killing the Joker, since Jason believed that Bruce would because the Joker had "Taken me away from you". Bruce explains that it would've been easy for him to kill the Joker, that he continuously fantasized about taking the Joker away, torturing him and eventually killing him, but that he wasn't willing to cross that line (Partially because he wasn't willing to stain the memories he had of Jason [that he clung so tightly to while losing his sanity] with blood). Jason decides on a deal. Either Bruce kills him, or he will kill the Joker. So he holds one gun to the Joker's head and gives the other to Bruce, counting to three. However Bruce, obviously not wanting to kill Jason but also not wanting Jason to commit this crime, uses a Batarang to cut down an object that ends up slicing Jason's throat. The Joker uses this time to detonate some explosives and plunge both of them into the waters. (I don't even know what to say about this part, I have a lot of opinions here. I will say though, I think that if Tim hadn't become Robin, Bruce might've legitimately killed the Joker.)

•Jason shows up again after about a year, now as an evil version of Nightwing. Jason uses this costume to taunt Dick, suggesting the two become a crime fighting team, but Dick refuses because he doesn't want to be associated with Jason's violent methods. Not long after, Jason is kidnapped by unknown mobsters. Dick, albeit hesitantly, saves him, and they team up to defeat the Pierce brothers. After the fight Jason leaves New York and drops the Nightwing mantle, leaving Dick a telegraph that says he has returned to normal, and that he still considers Dick family.

•Jason's kidnaps a girl named Mia, wanting to convert her to his side since they both had somewhat similar pasts and he feels they're kindred spirits. She refuses, so he blows up her high school. (WTF JASON???? 😭)

•I dunno how to explain this one too much, but basically he went on a mission with a Monitor that he called Bob? And he met an alternate reality version of Batman, who had started killing after Jason's death.. And then the Darkseid thing happens and Batman 'dies', which makes Jason absolutely furious (Because he cares about Bruce despite not agreeing with the way that he handled things back when he died).

•Jason, back as Red Hood, tries to take control of some gang wars to calm things down, but it actually makes things worse. Since Batman is supposed to be dead, and Nightwing is unavailable, Tim is the one who has to help clean up the mess. Jason asks to team up, but Tim refuses because of Jason's questionable methods. Due to a combination of some things, Jason gets shot in the leg and arrested. When the gang war is resolved, Tim stops by the prison Jason was in, using a disguise and a fake name to deliver Jason the code that will let him out of his cell because he believes Jason deserves a chance at redemption.

•After his escape Jason is summoned to the Batcave, where he is brought in to hear his part of Bruce's Last Will and Testament for him(Y'know, since Bruce is supposedly dead lmao). He listens to Bruce's final piece as he talks about out of all his failures, Jason was his biggest, and how he regretted not getting Jason actual help or showing much empathy over him hardships, instead dressing him up and having him fight. Unfortunately this heartfelt message is what makes Jason fully snap.

•Jason began dressing up in a Batman-like outfit, leaving slips of paper saying 'I AM BATMAN' where he worked, however he used much more aggressive and lethal forms of punishment on the criminals he fought. Due to the violent nature of his vigilantism, Nightwing and Damian are after the fake Batman. Dick figures put pretty quickly that the imposter Batman is Jason, and after an argument, Jason shoots Damian. Tim is also searching for the fake Batman at this time, dressing up as Batman as well to demonstrate how Bruce would've really acted. Tim finds Jason's fake Batcave, but has to be saved from a boobytrap by Catwoman. Jason returns to his 'cave' and finds them there, impaling Tim with a Batarang. Dick and Jason fight, with Jason thinking and claiming that Tim is dead, while Damian and the Squire are actually busy saving Tim. Dick kicks Jason off a moving train, but when he tries to pull Jason back up to safety(Because he still considers him family, just as Jason does him), Jason refuses his help and falls to his 'death', while claiming they'll meet again soon. This is when Dick becomes Batman.

•When Jason returned, having survived the fall, he decided to become direct competition to Batman and Robin, making it his mission to get to all of the criminals before them and become the new Gotham Hero. He even got his own sidekick, a girl named Scarlet. Jason was very public about this, posting things on social media, talking about how killing the villains was the best way to do it, and a lot of people actually agreed. At one point Jason kidnapped Dick and Damian, locked them up and stripped them both naked(😰), claiming online that if the post got enough attention, he'd reveal Batman and Robin's secret identities. However his plan was interrupted by an assassin names Flamingo, that he and Scarlet weren't strong enough to beat. Dick and Damian escaped and saved them from death, though Damian got pretty seriously injured.. Jason just ran Flamingo over with a truck- Jason was taken into police custody and as they took him away, he claimed that if the Lazarus Pit could revive him, why couldn't it revive Bruce too?

•After Bruce's revival, Jason files an appeal to Arkham Asylum, wanting to be released because the tests show that he's perfectly sane, just willing to kill. He ends up being transferred to a Gotham prison, where as soon as he arrives, the sewerslide rates spike and there are several homicides(Though these mainly occurred in self defense from Red Hood killing people in the prison who attempt to kill him first). On top of this, Jason poisons the food and kills 82 inmates, making 100 more sick. He's immediately taken back to Arkham Asylum, but is quickly broken out by some mercenaries. Jason breaks free from the mercenaries and fights them off as Batman and Robin arrive. At the end of this mission, Red Hood and Scarlet escape in a helicopter, warning Bruce and Damian not to chase them because he planted bombs all over the city months ago, and he's willing to detonate them. Dick doesn't do anything about, deciding that Jason was lying about the bombs, and that even if Jason decides to do better he'll only rejoin the family when he's ready to.

•Jason, trying to reform, forms his own hero team called the Outlaws. He changes the red symbol on his chest to a bat, a sign of his somewhat awkward but slowly-beginning-to get-back-on even-ground relationship with the Batfamily. The costume he now wears also used to belong to Dick. His relationship with Tim is now at least neutral, if not a little friendly, as the two can be seen eating together and making some jokes. However his relationship with Bruce is still strained, and a bit hostile. While he keeps his aggressive and lethal style of fighting, he now only uses it when he believes necessary, and doesn't always shoot the second he sees a problem.

•At some point his team disappears, and he goes back to being a solo hero.

Extra Fun Fact! Because of the Lazarus Pit, Jason no longer ages and he heals much much faster then a normal human!

TAADAA! I might do more if I get the motivation ^w^

[gay-barbarian]

Lettre à Fox

A few weeks after the night from hell, Mercy decide to write a letter to Fox.

You can read it under the cut or on ao3

Dear Fox,

We haven’t got the time to learn much about each other, but by being here where you lived I think I got you figured out. From what I heard, you’re the heart of the Warriors, someone that carries all their hope in a better future. You also kind of sound like a nerd. Not that it’s a bad thing, unless you consider how many comic books they had to divide between all of them. Swan only took one, Rembrandt got most of them. 

They miss you, y’know? They’re still moments of silence in discussion where you would have spoken up. I had a hard time at first figuring out what was the conversation just naturally stopping and what was you. You should have seen the look they all shot me when I spoke over you, I was sure I was gonna get jumped. I got better at hearing you, I just wish I could hear your laughter like they all do.

Ajax has finally returned from jail and almost killed me on the same day. It was scary at first, but now that I know she’s a softie, it’s almost funny. She told me about you exactly one time. We were coming back from the bar and she realised it was midnight and that it was your birthday. You probably have seen her cry before, I wish I never did but at the same time I’m glad it happened. She told me you were afraid of her in the beginning, but once you guys started training together a bit more you became actual friends. There's a new pair of fighting gloves waiting for you in a wrapped box somewhere in Ajax’s room. Happy late birthday I guess.

Cochise braided my hair the other day. She seemed distant so I asked her what’s wrong. She said she misses you. She used to do your hair, right? She probably did those space buns you had that night. Thank you for lending me your hairdresser, she’s really good.

This morning Swan and I found Cowgirl passed out on the couch, again. Swan told me she wasn’t always like that before. She also told me that you were usually the one taking care of her when she came home too late. I wanna tell you you don’t have to worry about her, we’re taking care of her as best as we can. I have to admit I have no clue how to repair a cowboy hat, but Cochise helped me find your sewing kit so I can probably figure it out. Oh by the way, I’m borrowing your sewing kit, I hope it’s okay.

What’s the deal with Cleon? I get she's a warlord and all, but is she always that serious? It’s been weeks and she hasn't smiled at me once. She always looks at me like she’s seeing a ghost. Now that I think about it Rembrandt does the same thing. What is it with them? I tried asking Swan, but she just gets sad and tells me I remind them of you. I don’t know how similar we really are, but I chose to take it as a high compliment. 

Talking about Swan, she acts all tough in front of the others but really she’s a huge mess. I wish you could tell me how she was before. All I know is that now she’s an anxious mess that sees danger everywhere. She thinks about you a lot y’know? Is there anyway you could tell her she doesn’t deserve to torture herself for that night? I tried telling her myself but it’s you that she needs. They all need you.

For what it's worth, you’re the bravest person I have ever met. I can’t believe I’ll never get the chance to see you smile or laugh or argue with the others or be a kid. In a way, I think I too need you. But we’ll find a way forward, cause I’m sure you’re here somewhere. 

Thank you for all you’ve done. I’ll keep watch on your family, make sure they get back on their feet. 

-Mercy

PS: We got them home alive, just like you asked. 

[sualne]

Sorry if you're already working on this but with Luffy in Croc dad what's his hobby?? Like he's the biggest ball of energy and I think if wasn't fighting wild animals as a kid he would vibrate into another dimension from lack of stimulation. Does he draw and develop his art skills, has he taken up music or is he invested with the void century with Robin? Croc wants to keep him inside and safe so what did he think would be best to entertain him or does he buy a new thing every week that Luffy says he suddenly wants to do. Yes he looks at books but is that it. Also sorry if you answered this before and I've missed waht you said, I am pretty sure I've seen all your comics on this but I haven't seen all your ask answering questions.

i hadn't gotten these questions and im so glad you ask!! :D

so! luffy doesn't have one specific hobby and croc does end up giving him whatever he wants when he suddenly gets a new obsession, one of the reason he's so excited with finding the jewelry box and getting a dagger is because it's finally something new! after that he gets really into rings and knives until it gets bored of it and switch to something else again.

about him and learning about the void century with robin i actually got a comic later for that so i won't say anything here!

im going to make this a list and explain how it goes, under read more:

Fighting: this luffy doesn't know how to fight, but he still love the concept! he gets really excited hearing stories of fights, duels, martial arts and all the rest! In practice though, since he's been so sheltered and only ever saw one real fight that ended up with people being killed in front of him as a kid, if (haha) he were to witness another real fight he wouldn't be as giddy about it as when he hears stories. he does also learn the tiniest bit of kenpo from bonclay!

Dancing: luffy in canon loves dancing (and partying), here too! he doesn't know/master any specific styles but likes to drag people into dancing with him, if no one is around he'll grab some of the smaller bananawani instead.

Singing: he's still very bad at it.

Music: croc noticed how he'd taps on thing and tried to get him to learn some percussion, unfortunately for him, luffy doesn't care about music theory and just does whatever makes him happy. he also love loud noises and croc has to find a way to stop him from making a racket at any hours of the day, it gets worse when luffy loses some of his hearing and needs to make everything even louder. eventually he gets bored of it too.

Cooking: him and croc cooks together pretty often, if no one is there to supervise him luffy will ignore recipes and common sense, making all kind of abominations. it's a miracle he never set the kitchen on fire.

Bugs: he loves them! he collect them! alive. croc is horrified one day when he finds out baby luffy has been letting some food to rot so he could observes flies and larvae going through their little bug lives cycle. later croc gives him those pinned dead bugs collection boxes thinking luffy will like it, he doesnt.

Board&Cards Games: he mostly has to play them by himself, he doesn't like being alone so he'll often ends up playing it "with" the banawanis. after he loses a few too many times against the banawanis and can't get croc to join in for the millionth time he gives up on them. even when robin joins baroques works he still expect her to be too busy to play with him and doesn't ask (she would have accepted if he had asked).

Art&Craft: he tries a bit of everything, doing it his own way meaning most of it is kind of hideous or about to fall apart, canon luffy is completely fine with that, au luffy though, he's having ton of fun at first but when he gets old enough to see that his dad cant quite fake his enthusiasm or interest towards his disastrous creations he gets frustrated and stops for a while. later, robin finds an old drawing of his and thinks its cute so he start doodling a little again for her.

basically, he struggles keeping a hobby, some like fighting, dancing, bugs and staring at pictures in geography books he keeps through his life but mostly, he's very lonely and bored out of his mind, he's depressed, that's not something that can be helped for as long as he's isolated.

when robin becomes a part of his life everything gets better for him! she spends time with him, read stories for him, helps him get out more often, they even meet bonclay and for a few years he's genuinely happy.

[sharkuccino]

Spider-Man Jaw•Va Project | The Mentors

Lately, I've been reading a bunch of the Venom comics and just hanging my head. I don't have any solid rewrites or anything like that, but I can play around with the characters. Unorganized rambles below the read more. My thoughts are a jumbled mess which cannot be tamed when I have just so many of them.

Peter isn't actually important to this at all, but it feels wrong not to include the main guy himself. So, first off, @yotakuboi, your Spider-Man redesigns are everything to me. Thank you 🙏🏾 I always thought it was weird/wrong to have the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man become a tech billionaire CEO. It feels so against everything the character stands for. Could he do it? Oh, absolutely. But WOULD HE? Everyone and their mom has thrown around the idea of high school teacher Peter Parker, and I am no different. I think Peter works best as a "little guy," and a teacher gives him a place to inspire people outside of hero work. Plus, it gives him the opportunity to be a mentor to Miles but more on that later. I'm picturing everyone's favorite Science teacher who is also in charge of robotics club and the annual science fair. More organized, sorta, but still runs around like a madman to make the whole superhero thing work. But you can like tell he's practiced. Probably still struggles to pay the bills on time. Lives mainly on cheap take-out. I love the way his black suit design in Venom War makes it look likes he's got white fingers.

Eddie Brock is still an anti-hero in this. He probably still accidentally kills bad guys if they piss him or his other off, but he's trying really, really hard to keep them alive, honest. I always thought King in Black was a step too far for Eddie, but then again, I've never been a big fan of established characters becoming gods. I think he'd switch between working with Liz Allan/Alchemax (or against them, depending on the week), helping out the Agents of the Cosmos, and making sure his son is going to school and generally staying out of trouble. We believe in Good Dad Eddie superiority. He still worries about Venom's anger. They're more honest with each other, but he can tell his partner doesn't tell him everything. It sort of fuels his inferiority complex, esp regarding Flash [(nothing too serious; he's working on it) I never was a fan of writers acting like Flash was a waaaaaay better host than Eddie and giving him grief about it; however, just a sprinkle can be an interesting character conflict]. I want to make his design wider. Big fan of wide work-out buff Eddie.

Venom can form independent of Eddie (as established in Space Knight) but has to return to him, or any host, every so often to live. He probably still doubts his place in the Brock family every now and then thanks to lingering insecurities left behind by Tel-Kar, Spider-Man, and the Klyntar. He's learning to talk it out, though usually with Flash, Pik, or the other Agents since he doesn't want to give Eddie any more reason to doubt him. Loves going on space adventures with the gang but hates leaving his children behind. Dotes on Pik's daughter Hilla. Feels more parental towards Dylan and Sleeper than his past spawn. Probably embarrasses them a lot too. Trying to repair his relationship with Toxin. Can speak in whole sentences but likes cutting them short for fun/ease. I like how the spider insignia changes over time/hosts. Tried to quickly jot down my thoughts on it.

Flash Thompson is still dead and resurrected. Like Eddie, Flash bounces from thing to thing but does not work with Alchemax. He keeps an eye out for Carnage activity on earth. He made lasting friendships with the Agents of the Cosmos and does work with them every now and then. He always has Andi in tow; she's become a surrogate daughter to him and he vows to never abandon her like he did the first time he ran off to space with the Guardians. Besties with Pik Rollo. Trying to get 803 some new hobbies. Somewhat struggling not to flounder when there's no hero work for him to do. Still thinks he has to make up for his bully years even though he's well-regarded by just about everyone he's ever met in the time since. Not the best with relationships despite exuding charm/allure (he does not acknowledge this). Loves TV/movies and making references to them. Great mentor. Still besties with Venom and will watch Sleeper and Dylan for him if not busy. Something of a weird mentor/dad to Bren [(shared with Eddie) Toxin feels more comfortable with Flash] since Ozkar's not the best role model. Could cover Flash's prosthetics, but I love when artists just leave them out in the open. Love that 803 canonically made him legs in Space Knight.

[emeraldspiral]

Headcanon:

Since Zib can't be the true "Number 1 Zim" because he isn't a Zim at all but a Dib, that makes Number 2 the actual Number 1 Zim. Following this idea, I theorize that where Zib is the only Dib to have defeated his Zim, Number 2 is the only Zim to have defeated his Dib and conquered earth.

This gives them a unique connection because they're the only versions of each other who can relate to one another's complicated feelings of regret and longing for the past. Zib couldn't handle destroying the only person who understood him and gave him a purpose, only for no one to care, so he merged with Zim's PAK as the only way to be with him again. Number 2 went through the same thing, destroying his Dib for the Empire only to learn the Tallest never cared about his mission. But since there was no way for him to get his Dib back, he coped by joined Zib willingly to get revenge on the Irken Empire, and was the only one to know the truth about "Number 1".

If you're wondering how Number 2 can be unique as the only successful Zim when there's another Zim who won in an earlier comic, well...

At the end of that comic, Zim claimed that defeating himself in the future somehow undid the past, although Dib pointed out that made no sense. But in the Zimvoid, following another train of non-logic, Zim erased every alternate version of himself by feeding them packing peanuts to merge their timelines, which both Dib and Zib point out makes no sense. But since the latter ended up working out due to Rule of Funny, I'm inclined to think the former did as well. Except it actually does hold up to logical scrutiny when you think about it, just not for the reasons Zim thinks.

Earlier in the Future Zim comic, Zim tried to find out from his future self which of his evil plans was successful, but the only thing he finds out is that it wasn't the one where he covered the earth's atmosphere in cheeto dust. Later, at the start of the Virooz arc, we see Zim attempting this very plan despite being told it wouldn't work. So either Zim was so enamored with the idea he blocked out all memory of being told it would fail, as he usually does whenever someone tells him something he doesn't want to hear, or he deliberately attempted a plan he was told wouldn't work just to spite his future self. Either way, meeting his future self altered the course of Zim's destiny because meeting him caused him to make different choices, thereby rewriting the future and erasing Future Zim's timeline. So Future Zim no longer exists by the time of the Zimvoid adventure. Then the timeline branched at some point, creating a new Zim variant who instead of conquering the earth and then putting on a fake beard and high heels somehow grew taller naturally and could throw Vibrating Irken Death Blades with 99.4% accuracy.

I've theorized before that because timelines are always splitting Zib can never truly be erased. After the Zimvoid adventure, ETF came out and created a new timeline that split off from the first comic, creating a universe where the events of the Zimvoid haven't happened yet and therefore Zim hasn't gone back in time to feed everyone packing peanuts to erase them, thereby restoring Zib's existence. I think the nature of the multiverse pretty much guarantees that there will always be a version of Dib who wins and a version of Zim who wins. Zib always comes into existence and creates the Zimvoid while Victorious Zims take many different forms, Future Zim and Number 2 just being two of the infinitely possible examples.