#Working Scientists

[joculine]

diversity win! this spider is forcefemming its prey!

(full article)

[xtruss]

Breaking Ice, and Helicopter Drops: Winning Photos of Working Scientists

Nature’s Annual Photography Competition Attracted Stunning Images From Around the World, Including Two Very Different Shots Featuring the Polarstern Research Vessel.

— By Jack Leeming | 23 April 2024

Glaciologist Richard Jones captured the moment a crew member on RV Polarstern prepared to rescue a measuring device trapped in ice.

Nature’s Annual Photography Competition Showcases Stunning Images From Around the World. By Jack Leeming. This image, taken on top of the ice­ breaker research vessel Polarstern, shows the delicate process of retriev­ ing an instrument called a CTD (short for conductivity, temperature, depth) that had become trapped under sea ice off the coast of northeastern Greenland. CTDs, which are anchored to the sea floor, measure how ocean properties such as salin­ ity and temperature vary with depth. At some point, the sea ice had closed over the top of this one, forcing the Polarstern to skirt carefully around the equipment, breaking the ice to rescue it from the freezing ocean.

“You’re crashing into ice and breaking through it. So it wasn’t particularly calm sail­ ing for the majority of the trip,” remembers Richard Jones, who took the image in Septem­ ber 2017 and is the winner of Nature’s 2024 Working Scientist photography competition. His research aims to improve estimates of the rate at which ice is being lost from the world’s glacial ice sheets. Jones, a glaciologist at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, highlights the photo­ graphic contrast between icebreaker and ice that he’d become used to in his five weeks aboard the Polarstern. “All you really see is

blue and white. And sometimes that might feel pretty monotonous, but the colours from the CTD instrument and the orange of the crane contrast the scene and also complement it quite nicely.” We received more than 200 entries this year from researchers working around the world. The winner and the four runners­up (highlighted on the following pages) were selected by a jury of Nature staff, including three of the journal’s picture editors. All will receive a prize of £500 (US$620), in the form of Amazon vouchers or a donation to charity, as well as a year’s subscription to Nature.

Work/Careers! Library Ofleaves! PhD student Kim Castro took this photo of her colleague, postdoctoral researcher Luiz Leonardo Saldanha, in a herbarium that they both work in regularly. It's shared between the University of Zurich and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich. Both Castro and Saldanha investigate the medicinal plants of the Amazon at the Department of Systematic and Evolutionary Botany at the University of Zurich, although the two have very different approaches: whereas Saldanha investigates their chemical diversity, Castro looks at how the plants are perceived by Indigenous communities in the Amazon, specializing in how the plants smell. A herbarium, Saldanha says, is "like a library - but instead of books, there are plants here". Saldanha posed with this particular sample (Palicourea corymbifera, collected in 1977) because it comes from his home country, Brazil, but is used by the Indigenous Desano people in Colombia as a medicinal herb. "So it creates a commonality between South American countries," he says.

“Only 130 of These Birds 🦅 Remain On Earth. A Single Mosquito Bite Can Kill a Kiwikiu." Reaching the beak Conservation biologist Ryan Wagner snapped this photo of field biologist Sonia Vallocchia feeding a recently caught kiwikiu (Pseudonestor xanthophrys), in January this year. It was taken on Haleakala volcano on the Hawaiian island of Maui. Wagner, a PhD student at Washington State University Vancouver, was on an expedition to the island as a science communicator, hoping to raise awareness of the plight of the endangered birds. "Only 130 of these birds remain on Earth," explains Wagner. "Their numbers have crashed due to avian malaria, which is spread by invasive mosquitoes. As climate change warms the island, mosquitoes have advanced upslope into the high-elevation refuges where native birds survive. A single mosquito bite can kill a kiwikiu." He hopes that ornithologists such as Vallocchia, who works for the Maui Forest Birds Recovery Project in Makawao, will help to save these birds by bringing some of them (by helicopter) to the Maui Bird Conservation Center, also in Makawao. There, they will be treated for malaria and join a captive breeding programme, he says.

Mountain Drop-off! In this dramatic image, taken from below the still-spinning, deafening blades of a military helicopter, scientists shelter with their equipment after being dropped off at the top of a remote mountain in northern Amazonia. They are taking part in a biodiversity-research expedition to Serra Imeri, an isolated mountain range that rises through the forest canopy near the border of Brazil and Venezuela, in November 2022. "A total of 14 scientists and dozens of military support personnel took part in the expedition, which lasted for 11 days and resulted in the discovery of several new species of amphibians, reptiles, birds and plants," says photographer Herton Escobar, a science journalist who works with the scientists pictured, at the University of São Paulo in Brazil.

Go With The Floe! Emiliano Cimoli, a remote-sensing scientist at the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies at the University of Tasmania, Australia, took the second photograph featuring the research vessel Polarstern in this year's collection of winning images. Here, Carolin Mehlmann and Thomas Richter, mathematicians at the University of Magdeburg, Germany, are measuring the depth of snow across a giant ice floe drifting in the middle of the Arctic Ocean. The image was taken during a two-month voyage organized by the Alfred Wegener Institute, based in Bremerhaven, Germany, in August 2023. The goal of the expedition was to evaluate interactions between the ice physics, biology, hydrography, biogeochemistry and biodiversity of the Arctic ecosystem, from the sea ice to the sea floor.

[fanartsandstuff]

I just love ao3 authors

We live in a beautiful era of people not giving a single fuck

[yandere-writer-momo]

Yandere Head Canons:

My Purpose

Mad Scientist Husband x Reader x Yandere Clone

Now your husband, Dorian Goodman, truly believed he was doing you a favor with his newest creation… or should he say creations? He felt like a horrible husband by being away from you for long hours but he was allergic to pet dandruff so that was out of the equation… so why not clean himself? That way you wouldn’t be lonely! He only had his genius to blame for the horror he inflicted on you from this…

So imagine waking up to see your husband laying beside you in the bed still? His arms felt colder than normal and he smelled like preservatives… something was off but you couldn’t put your finger on it… his black hair was still long and beautiful just like his dark lashes. But something in your gut told you this wasn’t him.

And that’s when the figure beside you wakes up and gives you a bright smile. “I’m Dee. I’m your husband’s clone to keep you company while he’s away.”

You never shot up from the bed so fast to call your husband. You were extremely upset with him for creating a replica of himself rather than spend time with you himself… the nerve!

But your husband reassured you it was fine. That Dee was essentially him in every single way and that Dee could be your companion. He brushed off your concerns on this being cheating since Dee was a complete biological copy of Dorian himself but Dee could be deactivated by Dorian’s voice… it frustrated you. Why couldn’t he just leave his silly inventions behind and just spend time with his own spouse once and awhile? You were so lonely in this mansion…

But you didn’t take your frustration out on Dee. The poor clone was as clueless as you but he insisted he was created to serve you. Dee’s purpose was to take care of your needs

Dee would clean around the house and do the yard work. He was the complete opposite of the stoic Dorian. He felt more like a real human being than your own husband… minus how abnormally cold he was. He didn’t talk much but he was there. You started to grow attached to him

You spent a lot of time with Dee. He’d cover you with a blanket if you sat in your reading nook to read, he’d brew you your favorite coffee/tea, and he’d rub your shoulders. You constantly had to tell Dee that it was okay. That he didn’t have to be at your every beck and call but he would always say, “you’re my purpose.”

And Dee took notice of your sexual frustration when he peaked in on you touching yourself in the privacy of the bathroom within the glass shower walls. Curiosity began to settle in him. The cute whimpers and cries from your lips stirred something within him and he pushed the door open

You nearly screamed when Dee entered the bathroom, the only place he wasn’t beside you. But what shocked you more was the large erection in his gray joggers. It seemed he was more human than you thought and you were aching for something inside of you…

You let Dee have his way with you. He truly was a copy of your husband from how much he stretched you. Dee felt so good. He was so big and he was so strong. And he oddly smelled like your husband now… like clean linen and citrus. It was comforting and sexy. It was like Dorian was with your right now. Like Dorian was inside of you.

And in your passion it spilled from your lips once your orgasm rocked through you. Three little words that changed Dee forever, “I love you.” Dee held you while he rode you through your orgasm until his finally came. His strong arms held you up and his cheeks were filled with color. You loved him. You loved him. Dee didn’t want to ever be deactivated. Des wanted to be with you.

Dee would big spoon you every night. His large body pressed as close to yours as physically possible. There was a change in him. He was starting to become warm. Warm like a furnace. It was strange…. Dee became more and more human as the days turned to months. Your texts to your real husband became less and less but he probably didn’t even notice since he was busy with his inventions.

Dee would make you breakfast every morning and have his face between your legs to please you while you ate. Breakfast and sex became the norm for you and him. It felt so wonderful to feel wanted again. And every time, Dee begged you to tell him how you loved him. He would do anything to you to hear those words. Anything.

A shame you started to neglect your real husband. Dorian was shocked to see you folded up in a pretzel in your bed while Dee slammed into you like a mad man. This wasn’t what the clone was built for. He wasn’t built to fuck you. What the hell?

And that’s when Dee gave him a smirk. It was like looking in a mirror except there was something terrifying behind those ice blue eyes. Something sinister and Dorian didn’t like it at all. Dorian needed to get rid of Dee quickly… Dorian gave Dee one last look before he walked out of the room before you noticed

Dee kissed your head as he tucked you in. “I’m going to go get some water, okay?”

Dorian waited in the kitchen for Dee to come to him and the clone did. Dorian and him stared at each other for a few minutes before Dorian sighed.

“Deactivate.” Dorian told Dee but the clone remained standing there menacingly rather than deactivating like he was supposed to. “I said deactivate-“

And that’s when Dee launched himself toward Dorian and began to strangle him. His ice blue eyes filled with glee as the color slowly drained from Dorian’s face. An evil smirk on his face.

“It’s my purpose to make (your name) happy and there not happy with you so you can’t deactivate me anymore.” Dee whispered in Dorian’s ear. “They don’t love you. They love me.”

Dee ended up burying Dorian in the backyard before you woke up. He didn’t want you to be sad about your old husband any longer….

Dee slipped the ring he took off Dorian’s finger onto his. The shiny gold band now proudly on display. A smile on his face. Your real husband was with you now and he’d make you happy.

[snaileer]

You Don’t Know Me

“We’re so glad you’re showing an interest in our work here, Mr. Wayne!”

“Of course! It’s just all so new!” Bruce said through a hollow laugh, “It’s almost unbelievable!”

“Believing in ghosts is the first step to finally getting rid of them!”

Bruce fought to keep his face flat as the director enthusiastically continued his tour of their facility.

Their ghost hunting facility.

Where they had funded and government sanctioned labs purely for the persecution of an entire inter-dimensional species.

“-Truly, the Drs.Fenton were an inspiration to the entire field of ectobiology! We wouldn’t know half the things we know about ghosts if it wasn’t for their early research!”

Bruce forced a thin smile, “Oh? Will I get to meet them? Or can I at least see some of their work?”

The man faltered almost imperceptibly, “Ah well.. that might be a bit, Fentons can be a bit.. overzealous and-“

“I’m sure it would go a long way to understanding the need for such a large facility. If it’s worth it even, perhaps I could fund an expansion…” Bruce let his voice trail off.

The man’s eyes sharpened at the mention of his financials- of course, what more could you expect from a shark who’d joined an operation like this- and the man quickly smiled.

“But of course Mr. Wayne!” He turned around, leading them towards an elevator, “Our labs are just downstairs, easy access you know, and well.. with any new specimens it’s always best to start right away!”

Bruce’s eyes narrowed. They already had subjects? Their reports, their research had indicated they weren’t there yet, but if they were, this could quickly turn into a rescue mis-

“-It’s an absolute honor that we even have one of the Fenton’s themselves working with us!” Bruce sharpened his senses, one of them was here? The people who had laid every base for a hateful crusade against another dimension, all for their own ambition?

“Our labs are right through here,” the director said as he pushed open a door, “Dr. Fenton is working with our prize specimen right now, I’m sure!”

Bruce quickly scanned and analyzed the entire room. Testing tubes, jars filled with green, centrifuges, a sample fridge, glassware, plenty of counter space, all taken up by various tools and materials. And standing in front it was the reason for it all, dressed in a white lab coat over garish latex.

He turned around as they entered, “You know me too well, Director,” the young man spoke, ignoring the green splattered over his gloves, “My work with him isn’t finished yet.”

“Mr.Wayne, meet our frontier scientist, Dr. Daniel Fenton.”

Bruce Wayne scanned the young man, no older than 26, with a height similar to his own and shoulders only halfway less.

A scientist. An unknown. A threat.

Fenton smiled at him, “Tell me Mr.Wayne,” Daniel said, and his smile went sharp, “Do you believe in ghosts?”

[on-the-clear-blue]

Dead Man's Diner pt5

Danny groggily propped himself up as he heard the loud bang of his door being thrown open

"DANIEL VLADIMIR FENTON!"

Blinking a few times to get the sleep out of his eyes, Danny glared at Tucker, "Middle name? Really?" He hated it, so very much, hated that he thought it was cool when he was a kid, and hated it so much more after the portal incident, it wasn't enough for his parents to have Vlad be his godfather, Danny's middle name had to be that fruitloops as well.

Damn his parents for being such caring friends.

Tucker met Danny's glare as he crossed his arms in the doorway into Danny's room

He would cut an intimidating figure if Danny didn't know him, suit and tie perfectly pressed with a PDA held in one hand.

"I know you said that you got the Bats at the diner place thingy you are working at now last night, but did you have to call them out? Red Robin and Oracle have been trying to track you for the last 5 hours, I have had to summon Technus in the WE employee bathrooms! Thank God Mr Wayne included baby changing stations in each stall or I would have had to carve a sigil into the fucking wall! And I think *he* bricked the Batcomputor!" Tucker screeched as he paced the clear area of Danny's messy room

Scrubbing at his eyes, Danny sat up fully, more awake than he was a minute ago, "S-sorry? Didn't really think about them being sore bitches about it, I tagged them like once and set it online, they probably get hundreds of tags an hour. How was is supposed to know that they would read it?"

Tucker snarled, holding out his PDA for Danny to see "Not just Nightwing and Red Robin, half the God damn Young Justice team, The Titans are all over Nightwing, and all the rest of the bats are laughing their asses off! Look!"

<@Superboy_(the_hot_one)

[@not-that-red-robin.real wow Rob, if I knew u were broke I would have have asked Lexie to give u some cash]

<@Beep-Beep!_(official-Impluse)

[ @not-that-red-robin.real that's not very lit fam Gucci of u RR not very rizztastic and definitely isn't skibidi

@living-legend(Yes_that_wondergirl)

<@not-that-red-robin.real for fucking shame Red Themyscira has laws for bitches like you comere I am gonna cut off your thumbs.

Letting out a laugh, Danny was grinning as he scrolled through to Nightwings part.

<@theonetrueblueborg

[@.realwing: it's giving "my daddys rich and will take the bill" wing]

<@veggiemonster

[@.realwing: bro

:BRO

:Broooooooooooo]

<@Goth (Taylor's version)

[@.realwing: shame.]

Danny was full on laughing now, ad from what he could see through tears, so was Tucker, standing up with a weaze, "O-oh my Ancients....ugh t-that is just great"

Letting out a few more chuckles, Danny handded the PDA over to his friend, "I am sorry about getting the Bats aware of me, but I am not sorry for calling them toxic thinks."

Tucker sighed, running his forehead but still had a smile on his face, "You do know #NightwingsAssIsCancelled is trending right now?"

Danny couldn't hold back the cackle that shot through him at that.

---

Tim held his head in his hands, above him was his laptop, cycling through rebooting and then crashing, it had been five minutes so far, and if the last cycle had told him anything it would be up to that for another five minutes.

Groaning, Tim dragged himself up, he hadn't slept much last night, spending most of it trying (and failing) to get any information on the employee of Big C's, Danny nolastname he could find.

That was part of the problem, anytime he got even a smidgen close, it was like someone bitchsmacked him away. Even Babs was having trouble, she got a single thing before getting locked out of her own systems with baby shark playing on loop through her speakers.

He didn't know what to feel, humiliated that he was being actively cock blocked for information or excited since this is the first time in a while something was so difficult! The bear fact that he was being blocked so hard meant that there was something to block with this kid!

Stumbling down to the dining room, Tim didnt spare the table of his family a glance until he had gotten the pre-made cup of coffee from Alfred, letting the bitter drink wake him fully.

Finally turning to the family at large, he saw Bruce doing his best impression of a stone statue (Normal Damian was openingly glaring at him (slightly less normal), Dick was face down in a bowl of cereal (vaugly normal) and Cass was giggling while putting clips and sparkling things into Dicks hair (okay back to normal again)

Sitting in his spot across from Damian, Tim sighed, which seemed to be enough for Damian to go off on him.

"Are we paupers Drake? Has the CEO position at WE pay so little? And what of your own company? I was unaware that Drake Industries has fallen on such hard times!" Damians words rolled out like a lazy river, smooth and uncaringly cold.

"Oh my God, I am already planning on going back tonight and settling the fucking tab Dami, lay off it." Getting the expected "language" statement from both Bruce and Alfred, Tim drained his coffee cup, not so slamming it down but close to it before Damian could respond.

Eyes shooting to Bruce he huffed, "Meeting. Vlad Masters. One ish hours away."

Bruce's eyes shot to Alfred who only raised a brow at the two and Bruce stiffened "We can speak later in my Study Tim, eat something other than coffee and we can go do that." Getting a nod from Alfred, Bruce seemed to deflate with a sigh.

Grumbling, Tim picked at the plate of food Alfred placed in front of him, before forcing himself to eat, he would need energy more than coffee.

After managing to finish half his plate, Tim stood, "Come on, I need yo clue you in to somethings I was researching last night B..."

---

Bruce stayed silent as he sat down in his office, a tablet on his lap as he went through the test results once again.

"...are you saying me and Dick had Lazarus water laden food last night?" Tim said with frigid calmness

Biting back the urge to clam up and try and keep his son from worrying, Bruce nodded, "Trace amounts yes, I am unsure of its origins, the samples I was able to pull were much more pure than we are used to. How are you feeling?"

He watched as Tim held his face in his hands, massaging his temples before speaking, "Fine really? A little tired, appetite isn't there but that's normal...been feeling a strange sensation in my side but that is just likely phantom pain."

Noting everything down, Bruce nodded slowly, "Dick mentioned that he was still full feeling after a night's sleep and that some old wounds were feeling strange, I can only assume you are feeling your splenectomy scar?"

Sighing at Tim's agreement, Bruce noted a few more things down, making holding the last line to ask Damian if he had any knowledge on eating food effected by the pits, and another one not to tell Jason about this all in case it triggers something in him

"Putting that aside, B, what about Masters? Vladco makes medical stuff right? Shady business practices?" Bruce gave a grunt, switching the tabs on his pad to show him thr information on Vladimir Masters.

"Age 48, male, standing 6'1, weighs about 180, doctorate in theoretical quantum mechanics, had a lab incident preparing for a theise that left him hospitalized for some time, after he recovered and graduated is when his suspected criminal activities began, since then he has had several business owners simply sign their lively hoods to him...I suspect he is Meta with some sort of mind control abilities, the lab accident would make sense in awakening his Mets gene."

Bruce spoke as he handed the tablet over to Tim, "He sponsors several scientists with various types of study, two that stick out are Doctors Fenton and CADMUS."

Tim pulled a face as he followed along through the tabs of research "CADMUS? Really? So we are looking at some Midwestern millionaire that is totally not a supervillian in the making...what's up with the Fentons?" Handing the tablet back Tim flopped down into the chair opposite to Bruce.

"I am trying to figure that out, so far I know they went to school with Masters, and were there with him during the lab accident, the continual funding Masters is giving them makes me suspect they are just as involved in what ever Masters is to to..." Bruce was going to continue when there was a knock on the study door, and Alfred poked his head in.

"If you wish to be on time to your meeting, I would suggest Master Timothy get dressed now so you both might be in the car while I drive it to Wanye Towers."

Bruce frowned, but nodded, giving time a small smirk as the teen begins to realize he is just in a winkled t shirt that Bruce was 95% sure was Conners, and a pair of shorts that Bruce was very sure were Barts.

[thelesbianthespianposts]

hey btw every time you dumb down a superhero in order to make the resident Bat look smarter an angel fucking dies

[obsob]

making and weaving and loving! like we have done for millennia!!

[naffeclipse]

A sort of mad scientist AU where Y/N is, of course, a mad scientist. You suffer from chronic illness and you are desperate to make your experiments work but you struggle without help. You refuse to take on a human assistant out of a desire to not be treated as lesser--as if you can't conduct great, horrific experiments like the other crazed scientists. You stubbornly set yourself to work without any such succor in your tower and the days pass, wearing heavily on your soot marked hands and aching, waning body.

A solution appears right at your feet one evening while rummaging around for some material in the grimy streets (dead animals, toxic waste--the usual to carry out unethical tests) and discover two abandon animatronics in the back alley, left to rot and turn to rust. There's close to zilch hope for the two but you're not a mad scientist for no reason. You drag the endoskeletons home before prompting collapsing for a day or two after overextending yourself and paying the price.

Once you get your strength back (and cursing your weakness) you turn all your effort to cleaning and preparing the endoskeletons. The celestial model of the animatronics would be helpful in your work, no? One after the solar ball of gas which beams heat and light onto the world and the other after the gray rock which brightens the night and tugs on the tides. Sun and Moon. You solder wires and revamp the servos. You hold and handle the limbs and heads of the animatronics as if they were sleeping. Soon, they will wake.

There's just one problem. They need a spark. Not a bit of ember from fire or the first crack of electricity from a splitting fork of lightning. A spark of life. And you contain such material within yourself. It's dangerous to lord over life and play god, but you need them.

The night storms when you prepare the animatronics with their chassis open, lying down on tables. You are steady despite the buzz in your veins in the face of the most dangerous experiment you have conducted yet. With these two are your side, there will be many to come. You spill your blood, split away two pieces of your pulsing core, and set two tiny sparks of life from your beating heart into the animatronics. Your head spins with pain and hope. The hum of servos whirling to life touches your eardrums. A great rumble of thunder shakes the tower. Your vision is slowly swallowed by darkness as you start to collapse but before you fall, two glowing pairs of eyes open.

When you wake, you're in your bed, in the dark, and your chest is bandaged. You hardly have the strength to touch the blood-stains soaking into the gauze but a silver and blue hand stops you. Red eyes pierce you at your bedside, a dark personage holding your wrist. Standing on the other end of your bed is a tall figure with ghostly pale optics falling over you. Dread fills your marrow at what exactly you brought back from death. A raspy voice raises a question. Who are you?

The animatronics. They're alive. They want answers, and you are more than willing to supply them. You give a very detailed, breathy response about how this all came to be, and when you propose that they become your assistants in your endeavors, they silently share a glance and nod in unison.

Though you fear you got off to a rough start with them putting you into bed after making sure your heart was still beating, they prove to be everything you want—and more. They have no desire to return to whoever tossed them to the street and left them as scrap metal, and you finally have extra hands to hold together metal contraptions and nimble fingers to set the exact scalpel blade size you need in your hand when cutting into a carcass.

They do not infantilize you in your sickness, much to your aching relief. Sun, however, is poignant in reminding you that pushing yourself past your energy capability, such as walking into town and dragging back a metallic frame for a killing contraption, will result in you needing a day of recovery. Moon sharply remarks that willingly subjecting yourself to an overnight of experimenting with beating hearts and lightning strikes will most likely cause a pain flare, but they never stop you. They never decide for you. They see you—not the unending illness clawing at your edges and leaving its marks on your flesh.

Though you learn to manage yourself better—for science, of course. You request Sun's assistance for lifting heavy plates into place before you bolt and screw them down. He's all too cheerful to lend a hand. When it grows late, you allow Moon to lead you to bed before the fire in your muscles becomes a roaring inferno. He tells you softly that he's been recording the number of good and bad days you have, and that your flare-ups don't appear as often when you have a full night's rest. Your assistants are pleased—with the improvement in your experiments, of course.

It's rare, but sometimes you'll catch an odd sentence or two from Sun about where they were before, and how much nicer it is here. You give them much. You don't shout or throw things at them. He lays a hand over his chassis and smiles. Moon will look at you sometimes, and when you ask why he's staring, he says that you have never raised a hand to them. It's strange. He thought all mad scientists were the same. He's glad to be wrong.

You're glad they're with you too. Your science has never been madder and you don't lay through bad days alone anymore. You don't like talking about your chronic illness. The discussions you've had in the past with peers and professors revolved around how you're handling it and what it's doing to you today. Can you still do your work? It's not mad or experimental or new—it's just sad. Other people think you're sad and pitiful, and you would rather die trying to conduct a hazardous experiment than ever stop to tend to yourself.

Sun and Moon learn to take your mutters and curses in stride when another flare-up hits. They ask questions occasionally, wondering how long you've lived with this and if it would ever be cured but they seem to already suspect the answer. Sure, you've tried several times to manufacture an antidote to whatever poison sits in your veins, but such endeavors have only ended with you waking up, lying in your own vomit. They don't give you pity, not like the others have. No, Sun holds your hand between his large digits and asks if you've eaten anything yet. Moon touches your shoulder when you stare out of the circular window in your tower and asks if he can walk you to your bed.

They need you, and they know what great work you're doing here, crafting weapons of mass destruction, simmering glowing liquids, and putting together new creations—not like them, no. Nothing compares to your assistants.

[reasonsforhope]

By the way, when I say that I really do believe that we will make it, I am 100% saying that as someone who has been following good news extensively + basically daily for over two years now, and has come to that conclusion slowly and deliberately, based on extensive available evidence. It's not a platitude. I genuinely do mean it, and I could write you a whole dissertation on all the reasons why.

(you know. if I had the time and an in-progress doctorate. rip.)

[hypewinter]

After winning a science fair, Danny's intellect gets noticed by a genius billionaire. That's how he ends up getting a scholarship to work personally under Lex Luthor at LexCorp. Cool! Who's Lex Luthor?

[abby-howard]

I'm going to be asking a lot of artists I follow this question, but how did you develop your style? It SEEMS like most people find their style and stick with it forever, just making improvements and iterations. I tend to work in a lot of different styles because I enjoy doing that, though I know there are things I gravitate towards as well. But I wonder what your journey was and how you got feedback and improved while staying true to what you enjoyed?

Hi there!

I definitely wouldn't say that I've found my style and stuck with it forever-- I feel like each of my projects has asked for a certain kind of art, and has presented new challenges that push me in new directions.

Some of that comes from seeing someone else's work and having something click into place that might fix errors/faults in my own, and then I might try to incorporate that, such as bigger outlines on my characters to help distinguish them from the background, or maybe a way someone else simplifies eyes that can help make mine look less weird.

When I first started drawing, I can see where I encountered certain influences because my sketchbooks suddenly switch to incorporating some new stylistic element that I liked from whatever I was reading/watching at the time. But it was never QUITE right, it was never just copying, there was always something ~wrong~ with it. And that wrongness was my style! As much as I hated it, that was what distinguished my art from being just a copy of someone else's. I hate it less now, and understand that other people see something there that maybe I don't, because it's just what happens when I filter other people's work through my head. My soul, if you will.

There are definitely through-lines with my work, driven by what I like drawing and what comes easily to me-- hatching is almost always a major component, and I like making expressive characters. Here's some of my earliest available stuff, from my old webcomic:

Then not long after that, I started The Last Halloween, which pushed me to challenge myself in both layout and style:

And here's the same comic, years later:

And here's a series I did for kids, where I had to use full color and lay off on the hatching, as well as learn how to reconstruct animals that we have no photo references for, which is definitely a place where style comes majorly into play, whether I wanted it to or not:

Then there was the horror book I did, where I tried to push my work to be less cartoony overall, and to work very hard on improving my hatching:

Then I started work on Scarlet Hollow, where I incorporated a limited/muted palette and had to once again push myself to make less-cartoony art, as well as learn more consistency so I could draw sprite sets. This was a big challenge for me, and has helped me grow as an artist so much!

And most recently, I wrapped up work on Slay the Princess, which required that I go back in the cartoony direction, but in a very different way than I was used to. This took a lot of sketching to figure out, and there's still a decent amount of artistic stumbling in Chapter 1 while I settled into it.

She's drawing on anime/Disney influence, but each Princess required a bit of stylistic variability. Some are more anime, while some are more realistic than even the Scarlet Hollow characters.

So I wouldn't worry too much, honestly! A person's style is often something that reveals itself over the course of their career, rather than something they choose and then try to stick to forever.

Even if you don't think you have a style, you do. It might vary a lot piece by piece, especially if you're trying to closely imitate another person's art, but the more work you do, the more you'll figure out your own strengths and interests!

[puppetmaster13u]

Prompt 209

Now Jason was planning on, well, a lot of things, when he came back to Gotham. He had a lot of plans, several of which had to do with the old man and even more that had to do with cleaning up Crime Alley, making it safer and all that. 

What he was not planning on was to find some sort of lab in the basement of where he was planning on setting up a safehouse. Nor was he planning on finding several literal children in cages inside said lab. Oh and Lazarus Waters- but children! With muzzles! Being experimented on!

Now he’d like to say he had a plan in what happened next, but if he’s honest everything had gone Green and he didn’t remember what happened next, only that he’s back home with said children and covered in blood. Oh and everything smells of smoke. 

… And apparently there’s more of these things dotted around Crime Alley with the rest of these kids, er, siblings? Family? Fright does mean family? Okay kids, he’s not turning into Bruce but you can stay here while he deals with this… however long that takes. 

He better not be turning into Bruce he swears-

[california-112]

[stimpry]

mad scientist eridan au doodles + sprite edit i gotta write all my ideas down for this or something maybe make a fic abou tit who knows i just really really like this au i made check the tags for my ranting about it

[tyoffee]

beta miguel…