#and how its different from what i imagined it to be and that actually i never felt and probably never will feel romantic attraction

[magpies-gold]

I have both eyes and they're both technically functional but I still relate to a lot of this because I also have monocular vision. In my case, the problem is with my brain, actually. It can only process images from one eye at a time because of a defect when I was born that required surgical intervention. Even after the fix, my brain just never learned that I still had two eyes, so it has no capacity to combine the image data like normal people do. As a result, I have no depth perception and I have a dominant eye that I use 90% of the time.

I also have visual snow that's especially noticeable when I close my eyes and at night in the dark, but as there isn't a lot of research on visual snow, I'm not sure if that's related or coincidental. In case people want to know a bit more about life as a person with monocular vision in a two-eyeballs kind of situation: I have a weird trick that I can do that seems to astound folks with binocular vision: I can consciously switch eyes. It's like flexing a muscle and I can decide to use the left one or the right in the same way that I can choose to wave my left or right hand. Trying to use both at the same time just doesn't work, though. If I really try, there's just this pressure feeling in my head, like I'm trying to imagine a colour that doesn't exist, but I can't make the two work together at all. This is likely just a me thing but my non-dominant eye is much worse than my dominant eye, and its been getting worse over the course of my life. It's still useful, but extremely near-sighted, so much so that it alone is legally blind and makes my optometrist and all their staff wince. But I can read very, very tiny close-up writing with it, so it comes in handy when I'm doing things like reading. My dominant eye is a little near sighted but not much. It's pretty stable. Also probably just a me thing: I have one lazy eye, but it relates to the monocular vision. It's my dominant one. If I use the non-dominant eye, you can actually tell when I've switched to it because my dominant eye "switches off" and rolls a little bit up and out. It was worse when I was a kid (my mom saying "Meghan, are you looking at me?" was a common thing) but it still happens nowadays. My non-dominant eye isn't lazy, so when I'm looking around normally with my dominant eye you can't tell that there's anything different about me than your average Joe. It's a mostly invisible disability for me (and I still feel strange calling it a disability because it's just how I've always seen, and yet here I am making a list of complexities regarding my vision, so....) A final possibly-just-me thing is that I hold my pencil like a space alien and always have. The reasoning I've given since I was a kid was because of which eye I use, I wouldn't be able to see what the end of my pencil was doing if I were holding it "correctly", so I draw and write like this:

(Video here, if you want to see the rest of that: https://www.tumblr.com/magpies-gold/699322866172346368?source=share) Can confirm from the above that head-tilt is a thing when one has monocular vision, even with two eyes. Because of the head tilt, I also get people startling me on my non-dominant side a lot, possibly because with my "blind" side tilted back and away from what I'm looking at, they think I'll see them sooner since that eye is closer to looking behind me. Therefore they don't think they're sneaking up on me. That is, right up until they appear, as if by magic, in my field of vision and I go AAAA!

Depth perception problems that I personally encounter: I don't drive so I don't have a lot to add there except that trying to learn scared me too much to proceed. I was not comfortable with how much slower my reaction time was on my left side or how I couldn't accurately judge where exactly objects in front of me were, so I gave it up in my teenage years in favour of a good pair of sneakers and a transit pass. But I will loudly say that going down stairs sucks. I am very opinionated on how much I love and appreciate when stairs have the bright yellow stripe at the edge, or some other marker to aim for. If stairs are all one uniform colour I am hesitant as hell putting my feet down because I can't tell how far a drop it is. I'm slow on descents on unfamiliar stairs and I desperately need the railing to hold on to. Going up stairs isn't bad because I have other visual cues to help me, and I'm much faster there. I also don't do well on really uneven terrain, like the rocky shores we have on beaches here. Watching my fiancé go hopping and skipping over rocks like a mountain goat gives me light wistful despair because I know if I tried that I would miscalculate almost immediately and break all my bones. My tactic is to get low and go slow if I have to cross anything where distances get tricky to guesstimate. I become a crab. I also have friends who know to slow down and will also let me hold their hand (bless). I do have peripheral vision ghosts on the non-dominant side even with two eyes. The most common thing I see is ghost cats. I'll see my cat jump up on a counter in my peripheral vision only to turn and find nothing there. Sometimes my brain will also suggest there might be a person walking in my peripheral vision. It's just overcompensating for what it has to fill in the blanks on. I can't catch things that are thrown at me except by sheer luck. Sports like baseball and badminton were brutal in high school and I got into many a verbal confrontation with my teacher while trying to explain that I had a very good reason to be afraid of the projectile coming for my face. I told him more than once to go close one eye and try it for himself and see what it's like. No peeking! I can't peek. Similarly, I can't fly a drone. I learned that very quickly when I accidentally flew Tim's full tilt into a wall. Oops. >> Drone was okay. I, on the other hand, was absolutely boggled by how I just could not tell where it was in space until boom, I'd crashed it. And that's because another thing is that I was personally born the way that I am, so I'm fully acclimated to it. I know nothing else, and I don't notice all the micro calculations that I do to translate my 2D view into 3D space so that I can move around in it. At least, I don't until I have a situation where the object I'm working with suddenly has no context, like a drone in mid-air, and then I suddenly notice my limitations. 3D movies largely don't work for me. They're basically just regular 2D movies involving stupid glasses. -shrug- Finally, video games with a lot of icons around the edges of the screen are a nightmare for me because I can't see all of my monitor at once. Again: slow as balls reaction time because I have to re-calibrate and turn my head a lot. The concept of a wide-screen monitors makes me go "Jesus, why?"

writing advice for characters with a missing eye: dear God does losing an eyes function fuck up your neck. Ever since mine crapped out I've been slowly and unconsciously shifting towards holding my head at an angle to put the good eye closer to the center. and human necks. are not meant to accommodate that sorta thing.

[drawnfamiliarfaces]

Is there a guide on how you draw and color each of the Homies’ eyes? I noticed each one has their own slight designs to them; maybe to signify their powers and different universes?

dude... its a small thing, but whenever someone notices and brings up details in your designs, its always suh a heart-warming notion that people see the stuff you do... thank you! QwQ this ask just made me so happy ;3 so happy that i actually made a lil guide to explain my design choices! xD

Generally, my artstyle choice is to try and keep as close as possible to the original styles, for several reasons: a) to keep the characters recognizable and b) because im too lazy to try and do something too fancy. xD

Kim was an easy transition from cartoony! Its just her normal eyes, but a bit more anime-like? lol

Jenny's is the same shape, but instead of stylized light, I decided to give her more animatronic/robot like pupil in electric blue & white color, with light in the center (imagine it contracts smaller/bigger like a robot's). Also a bit more color on movable eyelids just for funsies. ;)

Danny's was a bit weird, because I wanted to keep the og big-eyed style, so it resulted in Danny having very big eyes. xD In his ghost form, I decided to give him green sclera and a more narrow (beast-like) pupil, as a nod of other ghosts solid eye colors and a hint to his growing power. ;) (Just imagine when he gets overwhelmed with strong emotions his iris and sclera kinda meld together into solid green!) The growing power is also the reason why I often add green accents into his human blue eyes!

Jake was one of the big changes, since his og cartoony eyes are very plain and boring. So I decided to go a bit nuts. Because of his dragon form, his usual human dark brown/blackish eyes changed colors that range from red-orange-yellow (colors of fire) and his pupil is much narrower than normal human's. The change of eye color can seem like the flare of amber on brown eyes whenever sunlight hits them to other people. And if you notice, I added what seemed to be red eyeliner to his design, which is actually not make-up - it's tough dragon skin! Like Jake's sharper ears its a sign that his dragon form kinda bleeds into his human form, due to his grown strength.

Jun is another easy transition from cartoony to my style! The more notable change I added is that her light brown are now darker and less orange/reddish brown, but more dark pink in shade! It's a hint of her magical power, which is usually in shades of pink (like her hair streak). When she uses magic, her eyes can glow in very light pink colors.

Zak is kinda mix of his two designs, with a dash of my headcanons. Originally his eyes were dark brown, but as his powers awakened more, the color lightened more and more, and after the finale, they gradually turned to his TGIF design color! I kinda like the idea that when he uses his powers now, his pupil glow white amidst the orange/golden. Usually its not that noticable, but its very obvious for other magical beings/wielders.

Ben is another sorta mix, but leaning more towards AF/UA design. I like to headcanon that his eyes were darker green, before he put on Omnitrix again, after which his eyes started to get lighter with that Omnitrix glow which resulted in lighter Omniverse color.

Rex is like... practically his normal eye in my style. xD Maybe a bit more dark browner + sometimes when he uses nanites, the pupil can glow electric blue/white (kinda mix of Zak & Jenny lol).

Randy was actually the biggest pain in the ass and I'm still unsatisfied with it. ;/ I might change it later, but for now its basically the same deal as with Danny! Maybe I'll add something cooler later down the line for him. xD

But, yeah that's basically it! Thank you sm for the ask <3 hehe and i hope you enjoy this lil guide. ;3c

[loveandlegacy]

would love to hear more about your theory that the black rose will torture magic out of mel 👀

lol it's sort of based on nothing but scraps but let's start with the actual opening sequence. we get this glimpse of mel with hands all around her and we know now from the show that the hands are the black rose (their magic manifests as roses/thorns/grabbing hands). but also in general i think it feels kind of important that hands grabbing at a person's body are like generally regarded as a violation of that person right? like mel obviously isn't consenting to being touched, her expression is pained. to me it feels like in addition to the black rose being scary, these people are probably going to try to hurt her physically.

but why would they do that! ig maybe just to get back at ambessa for whatever their "feud" is, but if that were their only goal why would they kidnap mel and not just. assassinate her? that would certainly be more expeditious. that happens all the time. but holding mel hostage and/or torturing her feels a very specific and different choice.

in the lore, the black rose is described a cabal that has been influencing noxian politics for centuries. in the present moment they: "[exist] now to further the clandestine interests of those who can wield the magic hidden within the Immortal Bastion—with its rank-and-file composed of mundane nobles, drawn to rumors of miracles, kept in thrall and ruthlessly exploited. Even the most powerful military commander could only ever serve the cult's true masters, as they fight one another for influence in games of intrigue and conquest, both in the Noxian capital and beyond its borders." (from the league fandom wiki; emphasis mine)

but elora stated that ambessa is LOSING influence. she has been stripped of many of her holdings and seems to have been backed into a desperate corner, so it doesnt seem super likely that the black rose kidnapped mel in order to manipulate ambessa into furthering their power within noxus. she is outside the power structure for now, that's the whole reason she went to piltover in search of hextech weaponry.

instead i think it's more likely that mel has something to do with the black rose's fixation on magic and magic users.

idk how much you know or care about league lore but i'll give a quick rundown here of one particular champion who has not appeared in the show: rell. in league, she's a 16 year old girl who possesses the powers of ferromancy and whose parents basically handed her over to the black rose as a child where they trapped her in a secret academy and violently augment her power thru forced combat and painful magical-medical procedures.

people have a lot of theories about whether or not rell has some relation to the medardas but i am not trying to get into that here. i bring her up mostly to highlight the fact that the black rose's obsession with magic and magic users has shown that they're basically totally okay with torture and child abuse if it furthers their ends of producing/controlling magic users and mages.

and we know from ambessa's MV that mel is PROBABLY touched or blessed or magic-infused by the kindred in some way

idk if this magic is dormant or hidden or what but if the black rose knows about it i can imagine they would be Very interested in trying to harness it (and mel) to their own ends. and especially if it IS dormant or if mel for some reason just doesn't want to use her magic, i can see the black rose resorting to torture to force the magic out of her.

lastly we also have this shot of her from the opening!

i think this is interesting mostly because we've never really seen mel in a state of really unbridled rage. we've seen her get very angry! at ambessa. but never like full-on screaming rage. but here it is happening in the opener! obviously there are a lot of things that could get someone to this point but i do think getting abducted, tortured, and forced into magic use would definitely be. one way. for that to happen. i know a lot of people think that this shot means she's going to somehow end up agreeing with ambessa about might-makes-right but i just don't see that being an arc for her character that makes any sense. she has so firmly positioned herself as someone who opposes both noxus's ideology and ambessa's ideology that i think the only way she could possibly become this wrathful is not because she agrees with ambessa but because something so dramatic has happened to her that she's basically forced to break from her principles in order to survive.

anyway lol! this is so long 😭 i'm sure whatever happens to mel the story will be both interesting and heartbreaking 💔

[mikesautism]

Mike getting Vecna'd???? + mini ramble

I feel like Mike getting Vecna'd would be the most biggest dead giveaway that he does like Will or at least isnt in love with El (and/or is conformation hes hiding something regarding/from Will or El) and I would actually kill to see it. Imagine Vecna targetting at Mikes guilt for not loving El the way he should be as her boyfriend, all the times he didnt say or couldnt wrote "i love you", giving him flashbacks of when he lied to her when she piggybacked from the pizza dough freezer. Or Vecna targets all the bullying hes been through and how he's not normal, but he tries to be. How he's not like everyone else. Telling him he'll forever be different from his peers. How he didnt love his girlfriend like a normal person would. How he never even liked girls at all. And then at the end of everything, maybe getting saved by vecna, he embraces his differences instead. Going up to El to tell her "I actually dont think ive ever loved you in like the girlfriend way and im sorry for lying about it" and she'll be like "i know" and Mike would just be crazy confused. But thats just a little idea

Also, the episode "the vanishing ____ wheeler" everyone is saying that its holly. What if it isnt holly? What if they specifically showed that part of filming with holly to implement it into peoples minds that its holly, only for it to NOT be holly when the season releases? What if its Karen who disappears? She has a s4 poster with the Creel house. And what if its Mike? A fan favorite? Just a thought.

Goodbye tumblr have a good day.

[mangodestroyer]

Right! Yeah, as a biological creature myself, I haven't experienced much of the reproductive drive myself. Idk if I'm on the ace spectrum or just don't find people who I personally find attractive very often. Also heard that it's normal for mammals to not be driven in this way when they are stressed/traumatized. That could also explain some things...

I'm maybe projecting my lack of interest in having kids onto Aziraphale and Crowley. I mean... NG used to say that they weren't biological creatures and were infertile. That made me so JEALOUS! But I'm also realizing that NG is unreliable when it comes to GO world-building... I've always found his input confusing and sometimes even bland? Such as Crowley not actually being a snek? Not sorry, that is one hill I'm always going to DIE on! Am I the only one bothered by this?

Anyway, yeah. Now that you point it out... where did the anti-Christ come from? Satan is his father after all... idk. I thought that happened through magic or "God's will" or something. Idk how things work with Christianity. I wasn't raised with the Bible and never went to church (my parents are atheists and I grew up going to a Native American school), so I'm still learning a LOT about its cultural influences. Um... I suppose I have heard of Bible stories where Demons had offspring with humans to create horrible monsters? Or undercover angels getting "frisky" with the humans as a part of their "mission?" Is that a part of the lore?

I mean... I'm not opposed to the idea of Crowley and Aziraphale having kids ig. But if they are... I personally want it to be weird because they're supernatural and Crowley is LITERALLY a monster. Like, what, does Crowley have a clutch sometimes? Is reproduction done through magic? Do they do weird interdimensional things? The idea of Maggie being their great-granddaughter works. Close enough to still bear a resemblance. I've been told I sort of look like a great-grandparent. Said great-grandparent had auburn hair, greyish eyes (the green in my eyes is very grey), and a very similar facial structure. Apparently, I inherited those "adorable" apple cheeks from her.

As someone on the spectrum, I relate to them tbh. I feel removed from the human experience as well! I can also do math and shit... which is sorcery to a surprising number of people I've met throughout my life? And am also good at memorizing books? Some of my senses are also heightened... but I feel blind/disabled compared to other humans in many different ways too! But they sometimes also seem oblivious to things that feel like instinct to me. That's probably what life is like for Aziraphale and Crowley... especially Crowley! I mean... does anyone ever think about how an interdimensional snek perceives the world? He CLEARLY seems to be able to perceive things in peculiar ways that Aziraphale and biological creatures can't. He's also able to use miracles in ways that other celestial beings can't and has a strong visual imagination that helps him manipulate human technology/ideas. He seems like he could be the autistic version of a celestial being, tbh. It's probably part of why he fell.

Isopraxism

Isopraxism aka Limbic Synchrony aka Mirroring: Intuitive, instinctual, human brain process whereby humans unconsciously mirror the speech patterns, postures, and/or expressions of those with whom they connect and often spend time. Similar behavior exists in the animal kingdom. In a human relationship, especially deep friendships and romantic relationships, it is a sign of firm trust, deep connection and understanding, and a strong, emotional bond.

Example:

Crowley's "well" + Eyebrows expression, seen in multiple scenes, is one of his default responses, yes? We see it in Eden, like below, and in The Dirty Donkey in S2 and even when Crowley does it in while in Aziraphale's body during the body swap.

This Crowley default response is just the kind of expression and speech pattern that a trusted partner might unconsciously pick up after years of time spent bonding with him...

...which is why it's not surprising when Aziraphale, praying in S1, suddenly "well" + Eyebrows...

[jymwahuwu]

I love and think about Emperor Jing Yuan a lot. Like a servant girl getting called in to be the emperor Jing Yuan's Concubine 😋

I love ancient China like the history, art and clothing. when I think about Chinese Emperor Jing Yuan I think of Cinderella Chef (animated version) it's so cute and romantic. I also think about the fic series I used to read in 2020 or 2019 when the reader is the selected tailor for the emperor and the emperor falls in love.

It was such a good story, with many good different story elements to it even though it's was an yandere x reader 😭 and I'm not even exaggerating how good it is. It was slow burn yandere yet sooo good and worth it

I have to read it again cause it's sooo good.

There's sooo many good art of Jing Yuan in ancient Chinese clothing and I love and appreciate it sm 🤤

Jing Yuan kept a servant girl as his concubine, wanting her by his side every moment. As emperor, he faced countless threats and worried constantly for her safety. Yet, he couldn’t resist making her his bride, even though the public and his family disapproved. How could a servant girl from a humble background become empress alongside the emperor? But he paid no attention to their criticisms, choosing instead to live in his Fantasies with her. She was the only woman he’d ever met who cared for him beyond his wealth and title, and he was determined to keep her close forever. 😇

Wow, I also like Chinese palace stories actually!! What you said made me imagine a lot. It turns out that Jing Yuan is so suitable for the palace AU🥰✊

Have you watched "Story of Yanxi Palace"? It was a popular palace drama in 2018, and social media was all about it at that time. The historical prototype of the female protagonist is Empress Xiaoyichun (孝儀純皇后). She first started as a concubine. During her lifetime, she was the "Imperial Noble Consort" (皇貴妃), which was the highest position among the concubines after Empress. The core of its story is about a confident servant woman who starts from the bottom and moves up through the ranks with wisdom and courage.

A negative example is "Ruyi's royal love in the palace". The show still gets a lot of negative criticism in China today (yes, that's happening in 2024) - for its slut-shaming and superiority theories. The lower class people must be loyal to the noble people, otherwise they will be severely punished. There are a lot of torture scenes of women, never criticizing the mistakes of the misogynistic system, vilifying all historical figures just to beautify the female protagonists, advocating that women must be loyal to one man throughout their lives or else they are sluts, vilifying and torturing ambitious women, etc.

Oh, I'm sorry I really hate that TV show so I'm talking too much about it, but to get back to the point, it occurred to me that if Jing Yuan were the emperor, he would be very - very infatuated and dedicated. There was an emperor in Chinese history called "Emperor Xiaozong of Ming"(明孝宗) who insisted on living a monogamous life with only one empress. The same is true for Jing Yuan! Jing Yuan has only married you from beginning to end! You are one of his servants. No matter what your personality is, witty and lively/shy and kind, or even arrogant, Jing Yuan finds you really cute🥰💖He is very happy that you entered the palace and were assigned to serve him. He will sometimes sleep on your lap and ask you to feed him. He was like a big sleeping lion. But no one in politics dares to underestimate Jing Yuan because he always predicts everything.

Jing Yuan built a fruit garden in the palace, as well as a place to raise cats and birds. He got to pet cute cats and birds every day. The kittens purred around him. Maybe you were the servant who took care of the cats here. And he discovered you💖You are so suitable to be the mother of cats. And maybe he's hiding his identity and you care about his health and happiness before his status.

Politics and the harem are closely related. Those ministers petitioned Jing Yuan to marry a girl who matched his status, but he would not marry any girl except you. This is his own business! There was an emperor named "Emperor Gaozong of Tang"(唐高宗) in Chinese history. Despite the objections of his ministers, he insisted on marrying his father's concubine (named "Wuzhao"- 武曌) as his queen and sharing power with her. This is a very real love among emperors! After her husband's death, the queen became the only female emperor of China. The expression of the emperor's love for someone is to give them the best at all costs, including power, fame, wealth, and status. Jing Yuan wants to give it to you. He married you. Based on your status as a maid, you start as a concubine but work your way up. And he will also give birth to kitty babies with you. Those little princesses and princes running happily are all of your blood and his.

And he also decided to discuss politics and decide national affairs with you, collectively called "two saints" (based on Wuzhao's history haha), and share power with you. Because he knows how smart and cute you are, able to sharpen your claws and handle government affairs💖He is also ready to build a royal mausoleum, where only the two of you are buried together (it may be a bit scary, but this is how the Chinese emperors express their love haha). Even after Wuzhao became the empress, she didn’t build a mausoleum independently because she loved her husband. No matter what, you are always together, with sweetness and honor forever💖

[bacchuschucklefuck]

doing chibi is a good design exercise bc it forces u to think on shapes n essential details, essentially thumbnailing ur designs. its also a terrible design exercise bc it ends up looking cute no matter what

[starry-bi-sky]

Blood Blossom Au: Baby's First Commissioner Meeting :)

TL:DR This Post: Danny (orphan) gets poisoned with blood blossom extract by Vlad. He runs away from him and ends up under the care of one Pre-Robin Battinson Batman! Starry is loudly pushing her batdad agenda.

(Also known as "Late At Night, When The Nightingale Sings" on my ao3!)

This was a fun rough idea I've been sitting on for weeks, thinking about how Commissioner Gordon and Nightingale's first meeting might go.

---------------

Commissioner Gordon likes to think that he's adjusting to the new normal of Gotham very well, -- the new normal being grown men running around dressed like bats, in military-grade strength body armor, committing acts of vigilantism, -- and slowly, little by little, he was no longer being surprised when this new normal pops up out of the shadows like the world's most terrifying daisy. His shaving lifespan thanks him for it.

....

The kid is a surprise though.

Granted, he seemed to be a surprise to the Bat too.

There's been a string of murders lately, -- which, in Gotham, is kind of like saying there's been another storm during monsoon season. And there's just been another; in some dilapidated building down in south Gotham, with the broken, boarded-up windows and mildew-crawling walls to match. The victim is a man in his thirties, multiple gunshot wounds to the chest, left in the center of the room for the blood to pool out around him.

The place is already secured when he arrives, the building swarmed with officers and the forensic detectives. The Bat emerges shortly after he does -- or, he might've been here the whole time, hiding someplace dark and shadowy. For his own sanity, Gordon doesn't think about it too hard.

The kid is a surprise, and he appears like a bolt of lightning.

He shows up in the middle of a conversation Gordon is having with the Bat.

A whistle, sharp and loud, slicing through the air, meant for open air rather than a confined space. Gordon's ears pierce and protest the sound, and the solemn, murmured chatter floating through the room abruptly cuts off like the swing of a gavel. As he turns towards the sound -- as they all do -- he swears, up and down, that he sees Batman's shoulders jump, just slightly.

At the source, perched on the window, is a boy. A boy in a gray-blue scarf and an oversized black hoodie, one that hangs off his frame and has ace bandages wrapped around the wrists in some attempt to cinch the sleeves. The hood is up, big like the rest of it, and threatens to swallow the upper half of the boy's face whole in the fabric. What upper half Gordon can see, is smeared with some kind of opaque, black face paint. He's holding onto the side of the frame with one hand, on his hip is a grappling hook. A familiar grappling hook.

Gordon has multiple questions, and his officers tense up.

Martinez puffs up, brows furrowing as his face shapes into a frown. Shoulders rolling back. "You can't be here, kid--"

The reaction is immediate, like a spark to gunpowder, the boy yanks his fingers from his mouth and his mouth twists into a scowl. Head snapping over to Officer Martinez, his hood manages to stay on but Gordon swears that as he bares his teeth, the glint makes them look sharper than they should be. His voice is rasp and quiet and harsh; snappish in its hissing; "Put a fuckin sock in it, Martinez. I'm not stayin."

Martinez reels back, and the boy immediately veers his attention off him. Like a switch, his demeanor drops. Despite half his face being covered, his mouth twists into a cringing, apologetic smile. Slanted and off-beat, embarrassed. It'd be disarming if this wasn't Gotham, and if he didn't just hiss at Martinez like he was about to bite his head off.

"Sorry." He whispers, voice deceptively polite and softer now. Gordon has to strain his ears to hear him. "I was looking for him."

He points his finger towards-- Gordon? No, Gordon follows the direction, and finds himself looking at -- the Bat.

The Bat, who always looks stiff as a pole, now looks even stiffer. Somehow. Well, the explains the grappling hook attached to the boy's waist.

"What are you doing here?" The Bat says, gruff and unable to completely smother the stumble of surprise in his tone.

The boy still holds a sheepish smile, and slips off the window ledge. His feet hit the creaky boards with a near-silent thud, the Batman finds his feet and rapidly begins crossing the room.

Gordon notes the slight tremble in the boy's legs as he straightens. He adjusts his scarf, which droops close to his knees now that he's standing, and slings a backpack -- how long has had that? -- off his shoulders. When the Bat reaches his side, he does as he always does, and looms over the boy like a spectre. A threatening mass of shadows cloaked in all-consuming black. Standing next to him, the boy looks teeny in comparison.

The Bat is a man who terrifies even the most hardened criminals, Gordon has seen grown men shiver in fear at the mention of his name. And yet when the boy looks up at him, he doesn't even flinch.

Instead, his sheepish smile melts away like ice under the sun, holding only traces of his previous embarrassment. It remains as a shadow on his face, a small upturn at the corners of his mouth. The boy pushes his hood back just enough to reveal glinting, ice-flint eyes surrounded in tar-black face paint. He holds the backpack up with one arm. "You forgot this."

[astranauticus]

Director of the False Last Act

[fatedroses]

I offer the frankly hilarious scenario of zenos and estinien having to work together (probably because of tataru) and a little bit of headcanon-ing I have in regards to the one main issue they run in to when theyre a duo.

[radioroxx]

hmmmm mal du pays thoughts tonight

[tears-of-boredom]

ok so...I wouldnt call myself necessarily "artistically talented", and I famously am very bad at perspectives.. but i drew a thing for @bearotonin-international

[torchstelechos]

How pissed do you think Shen Yuan is when he finds out that a different version of himself (that’s living his transmigrator dream WHAT THE FUCK HOWS THAT FAIR-) sold him out to Bingge. Like on a scale of one to SQH made another sex pollen wife plot, how mad?

[dungeons-and-dragon-age]

..that is not what i meant ToT

[loveandlegacy]

so i agree with you broadly! ig my point is generally that there is nothing that could have happened in that scene itself that would have really structurally solved this issue — i do think there are serious pacing and just general writing issues with the first episode and a half, and so the scene feels unearned because, like you said, we don't really have much context for viktor's motivations now. but i think to me something feeling un-earned is distinct from it feeling rushed on an internal structural level.

like i also did not want (please god i cannot overstate how much i did not want) a shippy anything between them, and i think the actual problem with viktor's story thus far is kind of similar to a problem i have with vi thus far. yes vi and cait have more scenes that lead up to their eventual falling out, but as someone else pointed out, it is pretty weird that we get so little of vi's reactions to things like using chemical warfare in the undercity. like obviously she ends up retroactively justifying that to herself, but we never even see her struggle with that cognitive dissonance or with how it affects her feelings for caitlyn (or with how it's affected BY her feelings for caitlyn), so while i can buy that she would eventually tell herself and also jinx that they did it "to protect people", it's also weird that she just seems to have emotionally arrived there without us getting to witness any kind of prior internal struggle over it.

i feel like it's kind of the same with viktor. i can basically believe that he's super weird and kind of brain broken now, and i can believe that he'd just be like 'bye jayce' and go to the undercity but i wish we had more time leading up to that moment to make it land a little harder. to take your examples, it would have been nice to have prior scenes of just him in the hexcore having Visions or whatever to help clarify why he felt that going to the undercity makes more sense than staying in piltover (or why the hexcore thinks that, if he is mostly possessed/brain-broken by the hexcore), because as it stands it's like why....is the undercity the place he'd go. i guess it's his home but he hasn't lived there for a long time. does he just go because he feels out of place in piltover? it's not super clear. similarly more scenes of him having visions might have helped clarify that his sense of self was slowly dissolving or something while the hexcore took over and that's why suddenly he's so cold and weird. but i maintain that that doesn't make the actual argument itself between him and jayce especially rushed, it's more like we are describing the external moments that might have helped clarify that argument. maybe that's nitpicky but i do think those are different things.

i also agree that it's weird that jayce is like 100% fine with the fact that viktor got basically transmuted into what appears to be a completely new life form, and i wish we had gotten more of the fallout from that after viktor left, but i sincerely cannot imagine what he would have said TO viktor about it in the moment that wouldn't have felt as tropey as what he actually already says, a lot of which feels pretty tropey.

so like lest i come off as if i liked the scene or something, i think it has its own internal flaws (primarily with the lines they gave jayce), but i still think the only actual solution for the scene would have been to have like a whole extra episode where we get to sit with all the characters a bit more either before or after something major happens, and in that case i still think it's not that their scene was uniquely rushed. it's that the first and a substantial portion of the second episodes are pretty clumsily written overall because there is no specific moment in the first like.....60-70 minutes in the show that doesn't feel like it either lacked setup or fallout in some way, so the scenes we do get end up suffering from a lack of more lush context.

im going to say something slightly mean which is that i think there is an imagined aspect of jayce and viktor's relationship that the audience is projecting onto them that actually is not supported by the text itself and that imagined facet is the reason people think their parting is rushed more than the issues with the actual show's pacing 💀

like i do think some of what jayce actually SAYS in that scene feels kind of clunky and unearned and sorta tropey, not because of who jayce is, but because it feels like they had to cut some interstitial tissue for the sake of time constraints, but even if they hadn't had to i cannot fathom that scene being extended more than like....a minute. like what kind of argument are they going to have that wasn't the one that actually transpired?

i think it's pointed that viktor is weirdly emotionally stunted and icy after he was such an impassioned person in s1 and he said everything there was to say anyway, just with a colder affect. i guess jayce could have said "hey viktor wait" like. one more time lol but in general if you take everything we have presented by the text on its face their immediate falling out could never have been that long a conversation because there isn't actually that much to argue about. jayce did what he thought was right and what is the normal human thing to do (broke his promise to save his friend that he loves and cares about) and viktor did not want him to do that. which is literally what they said to each other. very directly.

also it's like...supposed to be cold and sad. i don't think viktor is going to be the sole big bad of the show but i do think that the whole point of what we've seen so far in act i is that the arcane is inhuman and strange and kind of hard to understand and viktor has been partly absorbed into that and jayce is still very very human and full of all his hopes and ideals and therefore not able to grasp the arcane's true nature yet. a like. screaming lover's spat or whatever was not going to happen given the narrative positions that these two characters occupy. it doesn't even happen really between the two characters who are actually lovers — cait and vi have an somewhat equivalently long (so pretty short) moment of disagreement before cait hits vi in the stomach and leaves. anything else would have felt like fanfictiony and cheap imo

[goldensunset]

what if they gave you the actual arcphone instead of just a case

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