#also within the last month:

[dreamlogic]

E has dubbed this spring the "season of pain" and she's. not wrong.

[pokimoko]

I can't keep being fundamentally changed as a person by animated movies, it's just not sustainable.

[dear-ao3]

the most devastating part of being an adult by far has been realizing bit by bit that Every food opinion i had when i was 13 was entirely wrong

[batbabydamian]

Hellooo it's a been a minute- feel free to ignore BUT if you'd be so inclined... thoughts on the latest batman and robin issue? I absolutely adore Damian volunteering at the hospital, it's such a sweet step in his character arc (also something abt how Thomas AND Ras were both doctors, Talia was studying medicine in Cairo when she met Bruce, Alfred was a personal surgeon for Bruce for years...the one thing his family has in common is healing) and I'm very interested in the whole "Damian maybe quitting robin" thing. I doubt they'll commit to that (bc then they don't have a book lmao) but it's still an interesting question to ponder. I've seen ppl speculate that the doctor Damians volunteering for is a suspect and he's trying to drive a wedge between batman and robin?? So that's a possibility.

Anyway yeah! Sorry for the big blab but I like your Damian thoughts and figured it was worth striking up a convo. Hope you're well!

Damian blabbing is always appreciated!! 😤 i’m swamped with irl responsibilities so rambling about the series has been delegated to yapping sessions with @gotham-snark LOL so i’ll tag her in for any further thoughts!

Damian volunteering at the hospital!! is so sweet!! orz hopefully it becomes a part of his civilian life or a future in the medical field… i lean toward Damian pursuing something wholly his own but this healing route is something i’m still happy with, especially for the reasons you mentioned with both sides of his family! 🥺 also like you said, just a beautiful character arc for him when fighting has been the priority for most his life, which Bruce has pointed out enough lol

idk if Damian will have the same medical skillset in this run, but i like the idea of him being this incredibly capable lil hospital volunteer 😆

Detective Comics (2016) #995, #996 (it’s a simulation in these panels but his skillset's gotta be part of the database) not that they'd let him but imagine this kid participating in surgical operations at the hospital haha

Damian's comment about quitting looks more like a nagging thought after all the recent events, from the incident with Emma to learning more about himself and Thomas. another glimpse of his uncertainty in his future!!

but ykw i’d take him quitting the vigilante life over becoming Batman in whatever future TKing’s hoping with Trinity now being canon sdfghj please PKJ take Damian far from that i’m begging... seriously though, yeah! he's absolutely not quitting when he's making regular Robin appearances in other books and confirmed for a movie in the future (the latter idk for better or worse...)

it’s interesting to get more in depth with how Damian is affected when he “loses” a civilian on his watch - even worse that she’s a child, and Damian mentioning that he was mean to her augh 😭

it reminds me of how much responsibility Damian takes when he feels that he's failed people, like Sasha/Scarlet and ofc Pennyworth. not to mention the entire Year of Blood

Batman and Robin (2009) #6

with Sasha, it was briefly explored. Damian expresses his feelings to Dick, who replies with a joke. Damian helps Sasha against Flamingo and ends up getting shot, but it's not clear whether he calls it even for taking the bullets to his back or just for the save. alternatively, she did leave Damian with Flamingo to run away, kinda like how Damian left her with Pyg. either way, that inner conflict's quickly resolved!

Batman: Alfred Pennyworth R.I.P. (2020) and Robin (2021) #8

with Alfred...what a mess asdfg but disregarding Bruce/Alfred being the ones at fault, Damian's guilt spans over so many titles from 2020 to finally having a resolution just this year

all this to say again!! that this Batman and Robin run is an amazing jumping-on point for new and old readers to read a complete arc with this kind of conflict for Damian!! very invested in how he's been trying to deal with it, along with the ensuing drama with his father!! even though we're not getting Damian's full thoughts yet, the image of Emma lying on the ground replaying in his mind has been so impactful 😭

speaking of Alfred, this!! cheering!! Williamson's made an attempt to show it was Bruce's mistake but still ended up making Damian the instigator. so it's nice to see PKJ continuing to make it clear!!

Shadow War: Alpha (2022) and Robin (2021) #14 the way i cheered in Shadow War then sighed at Robin 14 hhh it's like Damian can only make jabs at blaming Bruce in the heat of the moment. is it a rule not to say that Bruce made a wrong call back then and got Alfred killed...

Dr. Bashar lol we can count him out based on him being too obvious a suspect like the classic finger pointing of “it’s the doctor!!”. he was supposed to be trapped in the ballroom with Damian and the guests which should've been in flames. he's also just been v nice with Damian 🥺 OR SLAPPING MY CONSPIRACY BOARD Bashar could be part of the Nicodemus Crow cult/Mementist/Memento 🤔

a friend of the late Waynes and met Bruce as a child? introduced along with a new villain that’s themed around reenacting past tragedies? HUH

some headscratchers in issue #16!

Damian's learning more about Sacred Heart from Thomas's journals, so could there be more to the restored hospital? and then there's the convenient mistake in scheduling Damian during the setup at Arkham, putting Bruce at a disadvantage and a lack of a rebreather

clearly we need to wait for further issues to know more about what went down between Bruce/"Jack" and Memento, but just funny how Bruce says this while Damian is probably with Bashar at this moment lol

it also doesn't help that the Jack flashbacks are being paralleled to Damian in the present day, so whatever's the final flashback could mean big trouble or big reveal

extra details i'm squinting too close at, like really reaching here:

Bashar and Memento are both mr. worldwide...

if Bashar's aware he has people against him, he could've been the "supposed sympathizer" supplying weapons to the thugs to encourage a break-in. if Bruce hadn't gone down to the lower levels to deal with them, he wouldn't have had that face-off with Memento in the boiler room

Emma’s mother as a nurse recently stationed at Sacred Heart? could even see a possible interaction with Damian

EDIT: i was so caught up on Bashar, i failed to mention Lautrec LMAO (i even missed reading an entire panel about her until Nico mentioned it hsjddj BLESS) but she seems to be a big player just based on the fact that PKJ and Mendonca are selling the issue as a “first appearance” for her!

GODD THIS RUN IS FUN every issue is meaty, and always leaves us hungry for more like woah!! potential character development!! family drama!! engaging mysteries and detective work!! DAMIAN!! i rambled more than i thought haha I'D LOVE TO HEAR MORE BATMAN AND ROBIN (2023) BABBLING!! OR ANYTHING DAMIAN!!

THANK YOU FOR THE ASK LADEL, I HOPE YOU'RE WELL TOO!! ☺️

[potato-lord-but-not]

Hey,

Do you have a plan for when your sticker shop will open up again? No stress, I was just thinking of buying some as a present

!!!! second week of October is the goal- I’d do the first but that’s gonna be pretty packed. There’s been some changes and restocks so !! yay !

[punkrastination]

Harlan Guthrie really is this era's Steven Moffat isn't he

[ambivartence]

he's pookie ur honor

[vlasdygoth]

now play nice

[pricegouge]

Sometimes all I need is dick. Or Gillian Anderson.

(How’s life going?🫶🏻)

-🦌🍷

or a lobotomy 🙂‍↕️

and life is going like this:

[born-to-lose]

Good thing that despite all the depression and constant rock bottom over the last years I've been hoarding lots of writing so when I finally start working at the library and going to media school I could try to use connections and get some stuff published or just put it out there for people 🙏🏻

[cyncerity]

Hey New AU Time!!

i’ve been planning this one for a while so please ask questions or comment or lmk if you wanna see more! It’s very much inspired by my love of analog style horror and i made it after watching Vita Carnis in one night if that tells you anything

The story here:

Tommy is your average high schooler in a normal world. Well, normal to him. This world is infested with mutant bug monsters that have been around for centuries.

Originally, humanity reacted like it was the end of the world, and the apocalypse lasted a few decades. Over time, though, humanity learned to evade these insectoid monsters, and now have adapted to living in a much more dangerous world. Point is, it’s normal nowadays to hear of a massive man eating bug creature in the woods near your house! Just means a few days off of school while you hide in the mandated fallout shelter houses have now! Fun!

Anyway, back to Tommy. He’s got good grades, nice friends, a good dad and adopted brother, and two new foster brothers that he’s very close with! Nothing could go wrong!

Until it can, of course.

Tommy begins hearing a voice, someone under the command of a “Saint,” whatever that meant. Plans for an invasion. Plans for what “each of them” needed to do to take the city down in the coming months.

Tommy, baffled and more than a little terrified eventually just starts pleading with the voice to stop. To his surprise, it does!…until the speaker tracks him down and finds him in person.

Turns out Tommy’s been unwillingly listening in on a hive mind plan between “the Parasites” and their “Saint” (Saints are high ranked Insectoids sent specifically by The Queen to watch over certain areas) in this area leading them to finally come out of hiding now that their numbers were up for the final stand against humanity. Which is a huge problem since bugs aren’t people, they are massive mutant bugs. Theres never been a human looking bug. Until now, apparently, as Tommy learns that Parasites have existed for years, infiltrating and gaining trust in human society to take it down from the inside. And now Tommy is the only one who knows this. The speaker, Dream, as he introduces himself, says that he’s the head leader of the charge in this city specifically, and emphasizes (mildly annoyed) how important it is for Tommy to do his part in the coming fight.

The only issue? Tommy is, like, 99% sure he’s not a Parasite. He goes to a human school, has human friends, a human family, and so on.

He explains this to Dream, and subsequently fails all tests Dream throws his way to test if he’s Insectoid (verbal tests, anyway; Dream doesn’t know how to test physically since Tommy isn’t old enough to have developed insectoid traits yet anyway). Dream gets super confused how he could hear the hive mind, then, and deduces that surely Tommy must be a bug of some kind. Tommy disagrees and tries to leave to tell some sort of authority that the city is full of bug people readying to attack, but Dream is smart enough to realize what he’s doing and threatens his human family that Tommy so desperately cares about as a way to keep him silent. He also says he’ll be keeping an eye on Tommy and conversing with his Saint to see just what’s wrong with him and what they should do.

Now it’s up to Tommy to try to keep delaying Dream’s attack plans and try to subtly hint to his family and friends that things are about to go to horribly wrong.

Dream, on the other hand, starts his master plan of bringing his dumbass Parasite friends to Tommy to help him figure just what exactly he is, and maybe break him of whatever attachment he has to these humans around him so that they can recruit him to the Insectoid cause.

All the while Tommy is trying to grapple with the ever increasing odds that he may not be as human as he once believed…

[birdblitz]

If you were to cover all your character in your favourite store bought glue, which would stick to a wall first if you kept repeatedly throwing them at one? This reflects on you and your characters morally.

charlotte, a) because she's a ninja and they can like cling to walls and shit and b) her height combined with her lack of mass means she has plenty of surface area to stick to the wall with little weight to pull her down

[normasshearer]

i was tagged by @anthonysperkins and @womansfilm to share my favorite first watches of March! thank you!!! <33

Malcolm X (1992) dir. Spike Lee Queer (2024) dir. Luca Guadagnino Heretic (2024) dir. Scott Beck & Bryan Woods End of Watch (2012) dir. David Ayer

tagging: @slayerbuffy @hayaomiyazaki @trainstationgoodbye @charitydingle @genes-tierney @tennesseewillams if you want!

[supercantaloupe]

happy sleepover saturday

ummmm kind of looking forward to see what the next season looks like for vaopera— hoping for good stuff.

the bug is snug in a rug...

OH so i actually might have some insider info on that one. vaopera hasn't made a season announcement anywhere as far as i can tell but my friend claims to have the scoop, and given the level of detail he relayed to me i think it's reasonably credible. he says that next season will be la cenerentola, intelligence (by heggie and scheer, of moby dick fame), and aida. this is not confirmed in any official capacity yet, but, much to consider regardless

[ask meme]

[infinitycarrot1]

new year, same (yu)me(ship art)

(ignore how i finished this after a whole week into the new year shhhhh)

also heres a cropped version also so you can see the part i actually put effort into without being flashed by me and Linus aggressively making out ദ്ദി(˵ •̀ ᴗ - ˵ ) ✧

[moonshynecybin]

ooh I’m always thinking about the same age au! with vale at the height of his theatrical celebrations, do they have any silly funny role play? like, the first time they race each other at COTA?

i’m ignoring that cota’a inaugural year was 2013 who cares. mindpalace. i LOVE. the fun cota roleplay i do have a post about it that i wrote in the airport at austin ahshdhb… and in same age auuuuu i do think. vale is pretty hot and cold about it. mostly hot. because in these scenarios he’s WINNING so it’s fun and they can be friends yayy. like if marc were doing the same sort of stuff would he be so gracious? hmm no i don’t think so. but i also think vale LOVES to surprise people. aquarius. contrarian. prankster. didn’t tell marc about the chicken joke for a WHILE in this world. loves to see his face transform into delight as he cottons on to whatever scheme vale has planned. and because of THAT ! and weird HAH i TRICKED YOU valentino rossi style powerego complexes ! there really is no one he loves to surprise more than marc.

the thing with that is. i’m being honest there’s no way pre-arm marc doesn’t absolutely clear cota 7 years in a row like he does irl. so vale has to like. truck his little cowboy hat and vest and lasso and assless chaps and sheriff star outfit sadly to texas every year on the off chance marc fumbles the bag and he can bring it home. for seven years. and then arm. and he’s like. okay why bother marc isn’t here :( the show is for HIM. and POST arm it’s. okay it’s fraught for a bit bc marc feels like it’s COTA and he should be WINNING. but i was also there when he got p2 in the sprint and decided to shake ass in front of god and literally my mother, so i don’t actually think it entirely precludes him from having a GOOD TIME especially if it’s like it is this year and he’s carefully managing expectations around pace and aging and injury and switching bikes (sidenote. does he. hm.). and when vale wins he (IN AN OUTFIT ! which i have to admit he hasn’t done for a celebration in a few YEARS at this point) lassos marc on the podium and he nearly falls OVER with joy