#and i wanna parse out why this might be

[lunerat]

I've realized I want to run an actual survey uhhhh, mainly gonna be on asian households and class disparity in the United States?

[madaqueue]

CRAWLING BACK TO YOU

playlists | 'do i wanna know' x hozier

pairing: satoru gojo x gn!reader

themes/content: angst. alcohol consumption, a not-great breakup, sometimes you don't have to say 'i love you' to know it. 18+ MDNI (wk: 1.5k)

a/n: maybe putting this man in a situation will get me out of my writer's block

“Hi, baby,” Satoru’s slurred voice crackles through the speaker, cold metal held to your ear.

At least through the shitty phone you refuse to upgrade, he can’t hear your sigh from the other end. “Where are you?”

“I’m not telling,” he sing-songs, ending with a hiccup he can’t quite stifle.

Not that his answer really matters, only half playing through the otherwise-silent bedroom. You’re already up, groggily pulling on sweatpants and palming for the shape of your keys, lit by the tiny screen blinking his name.

“Well, don’t go too far. I’m on my way.” You hang up before he can complain (not that he would - if you had stayed on the call for a second longer, you would have heard the contented sigh slipping from his lips, a quiet ‘thank you’ that his microphone might have missed).

The bar is sticky and hot, uncomfortable at any time, but especially at 1:30 a.m. when you should be at home under soft sheets and moonlight. Shedding your coat does little to fix the air clinging to your skin like a vice as your eyes scan past neon lights, parsing through the blaring music for something familiar. A flash of white across the room, and your steps fall in a straight line.

When you place your hand between his shoulder blades (gently, of course - you know he startles easily), he manages to pull his head from the haven of his elbows, a temporary shelter along the wooden countertop.

“You came.” His grin is wild and unruly, only half there, but his eyes pierce through you all the same. You’ve always felt too bare under them; you tug your jacket on.

“Let’s go, Satoru.”

He doesn’t protest as you loop one arm around his torso, and lets you pull him to his feet. It’s always a bit of a balancing act to get him through the door, his lanky limbs colliding with yours, his shoes heavier than the rest of his body. Drunken giggles tumble into your ear from where his head rests atop yours, watching you kick his ankles away to keep him upright.

“Were you born with two left feet or something?” you grumble to yourself, muffled by the screeching chatter encasing you.

“Don’t think so,” he says earnestly. With a slow glance downward, he hums. “Nope. Right and left.”

You scoff to hide the giggle that threatens to escape. You wish he wouldn’t do this, wouldn’t charm you and force a smile, wouldn’t make you ache with forgiveness.

The night air is cold and welcome, finally letting your lungs expand fully for the first time in what feels like days, in spite of Satoru’s crushing weight on your shoulders. Opening his door first, he falls into the seat, enveloped by the familiar cloth, and you fasten his seatbelt before stepping into the driver’s side. In the confined space of the car, the smell of alcohol lingers on his breath, slowly making its way towards you, and you sniffle. The engine hums as you drive, roads and turns you know better than the veins coursing below your skin, ones that tingle under a watchful gaze.

With a quick glance, you find Satoru’s eyes lazily fixed on your own.

“You’ve got a staring problem,” you state.

“Just admiring the view.”

The thrum of your pulse picks up. You resent it.

“I still love you, y’know.”

The leather covering of the steering wheel creaks below your tightening grip. “You can’t say things like that.”

“Why not?” If you didn’t know him so well, you’d think he was teasing, playing coy, pushing your buttons until he finds the one that makes you force him out along the highway. Unfortunately, you know it’s genuine.

“Because.” You exhale. “Because you broke up with me.”

A groan is muffled beneath his palm, rubbing into his skin as if he could wipe the words away. It was mutual, you told your friends, who took it well, your parents, who didn’t, as you tried to hide the familiar stinging in your eyes, as though you hadn’t just emerged from the bathroom where the water ran cold from scrubbing salt stains off your cheeks.

“It doesn’t make it any less true.” When he’s forced to hear the click of the turn signal too many times against the silence, he continues. “And I didn’t wanna break up with you.”

Ah, his favorite excuse. It makes you grimace at the bitter taste rising in the back of your throat. ‘I don’t want this either,’ he said as you screamed and cried in his arms, as he held you until the worst of the shaking was over. ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.’

“Whatever,” you acquiesce (he’ll never shut up if you don’t give him something to cling to).

(He only feels sane when he hears your voice. The silence aches for it; it tears at him from the inside out. If his agony could sound like you, he’d suffer like this forever.)

Before he can beg for more, his door opens. You reach across his waist to undo the seatbelt and toss his arm over your shoulders again.

In his hazy mind, he wonders how many times you’ve done this - he never really remembers this part, so it makes it hard to count. But there’s a fluidity as you shuffle towards the garage, punching in a code he never dared to change, as you wait the three seconds for it to rise just above his head and maneuver him inside.

And of course he doesn’t have to guide you towards the bedroom (he has to call it that now, ‘the’ bedroom; he thinks you got upset with him for calling it ‘our’ bedroom once, but that’s foggy, too).

With a huff you toss him onto the bed, every muscle uncoordinated, too out of it to scramble for the shreds of his dignity. Instead, he watches silently as you untie his shoes, unlatch his belt, unbutton his shirt. Even in just his boxers he doesn’t feel bare, not under your eyes, ones too gentle to cut.

“There’s water on the bedside table, and I put some crackers there, too. Please eat them.”

“M’sorry.”

“What?” You try to ignore the way your throat burns, the way your legs can’t move.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t keep you safe.”

“Satoru, what-”

“That’s why.” When he finally removes the arm that had been shielding his face, those bright blue eyes are dull, clouded with tears. “That’s why I - hic - fucked it up. I wasn’t strong enough to protect you. I love you so much and I wasn’t strong enough.” I couldn’t risk anything happening to you, I was too dangerous, I would have gotten you hurt. I should have protected you, he wants to say, but the words get stuck in the thickness at the back of his tongue.

Some part of you, a part you tried to crush and kill and bury, claws its way out. You sit at the edge of the bed and rub his arm.

“It’s okay. I loved you, too.”

Loved. What a wretched thing past tense is. He wants to scream.

“No!” he cries, the sound weak and cracked. “I can’t…I can’t do anything but this, but love you. You’re the only one. And I ruined it.”

He makes no move towards you, curling into himself instead, sucking everything in until you’re captured by it, too. Your hands cradle his face, and let the tears spill over your fingers.

“I’m sorry I called you.”

The sobs have started to quiet, his breathing becoming less labored. He’s shaking less, now, with your skin on his.

“It’s okay.”

Your fingertips travel along his jaw, and you try to ignore how beautiful he looks with tears catching under the moonlight, how the comforter is stained darker beneath his cheeks. You try to ignore the way this hurts worse than any wound could, that you would have rather be killed for loving him than suffer through losing him. You try to ignore the way your heartbeat slows with your skin on his.

Through parted lips, his sleep-laden sighs fall steadier. His forehead is warm beneath your lips.

His protection is a funny thing, you’ve grown to realize. Maybe it’s his upbringing, or his job or his role or something else that has infiltrated and woven its way into his mind, but he seems to get it all twisted up, entangled in the ropes of it. How funny, to protect someone by alienating them; how funny, to make them watch as you destroy yourself.

But you don’t mind. Not really, not when you get to brush damp strands of hair from his neck, when you get to pull the blankets up to his shoulders and watch the soft sheets tickle his skin.

You don’t mind that you’ll always have a space in your heart with his absence carved out of it, that you’ll always leave your keys on the bedside table, that you’ll always come back, even if you’re crawling, your hands and knees will carry you to him. You have to protect him too, after all.

Softly, you whisper, “I’ll always answer your calls.”

[meowmeowmeowmeow4x]

Dark Blue Moon and the Suffering Sun Chapter 14

hope u all enjoy <3 comment and reblog it really means a lot :>

MASTAPOST

The smell of Atlantean was getting stronger, Danny kept himself and Damian invisible as they perched atop a cliff looking down at the town. He could hear Damian licking his lips. Kid, you literally just ate! Was he thirsting for vegetables or blood?

“Excellent. With your camouflage, we will be able to infiltrate and extract the resources without any trouble.”

Danny waved his hands to cut off that notion. “Hold up. Who says ‘we’ are going to raid the Atlanteans? Why shouldn’t I just leave you here and come back and we can be on our way?”

Damian frowned, fins rattling in offense. “May I remind you who has more experience in this field?”

“True, but your dad might skin me if he found out that I let you become a glorified sea pirate.”

Damian tutted. “What father doesn’t know will not hurt him. Now go! We are wasting time!”

With that, Damian attached himself to Danny’s hip, practically hooking his claws into Danny’s scales. The bloodthirsty theory was beginning to gain traction in Danny’s mind, what with how the kid was audibly purring despite Danny not giving any touches at that moment.

Danny let his invisibility wash over his scales, turning his body from translucent to being one with the water, his powers seeping into Damian’s body and hiding him from view too. Hopefully Aquaman wouldn’t be too upset with them.

The boys approached the Atlantean town from above. Danny’s lateral line pinged dozens olf times. Civilians wandered the streets, peddling wares and chatting about the day. On the far side, trainees tossed javelins and practiced archery while an instructor yelled commands at them.

“There.” Damian whispered. The boy tugged on Danny’s fins, and Danny followed the direction to where the market was. “I believe I spotted a cartographer in the crowd. We should be able to obtain our prize from him.”

As Danny descended and swam just over head of the Atlanteans, his ear fins prickled. Chatter in Atlantean filled the water, none of which Danny could parse out. Hell, even his Pacific Siren was pretty choppy, a fact that Sam endlessly teased him about. Ocean languages were tricky! It wasn’t his fault!

Whatever, point is, Danny spotted the guy. Thin, stocky, wearing a dark blue overcoat and tunic, fit with undersea glasses, carrying rolled up paper underarm. The man shuffled into a small corner shop on the street, a good distance away from the bigger crowd in the market. Danny crept up behind him, careful not to bump into any one.

The shop was nothing impressive, just a humble joint probably frequented by travelers or whatever. Maps of the world decorated the walls, accompanied by globes atop display cases that contained even more charts of the local area. The owner kept his back to them as he bent over a bench and filed away his new acquisitions.

“Now, while his back is turned.” Damian whispered.

Danny swam into the shop through the doorway, careful not to make a single sound. The shopkeeper hummed. Danny compressed his hand through the tiny slit of the display case. He reformed it to its proper size on the inside. He grabbed the closest map and spread his invisibility to it, before pulling it out.

The shopkeeper turned around. Danny’s gills stilled. The man stared at the spot where the map had just been, eyes quirked up. He was none the wiser as Danny turned tail, and exited the shop in swift fashion.

Once out of earshot, Danny let himself relax a little. “Welp, time to get outta here then.”

Damian poked him in the side (thankfully below the gills; that would hurt) and chittered. “Negative.”

“What do you mean negative? We got exactly what you wanted?”

“Not yet. Look.”

…

“You know you’re still invisible, right? I can’t see what you’re pointing at.”

“The seahorses!”

Danny’s face blanched. “You wanna eat the seahorses??”

He felt a whack on his sail. “No, you buffoon. I would like to pet them.”

This kid’s priorities. “If you haven’t noticed, we’re kind of in enemy territory here.”

“I am aware, but I have never pet a seahorse before, and I may not get another opportunity like this again.”

Danny’s jaw gaped open. “If you haven’t noticed, there’s an entire ocean ahead of us.”

“Don’t condescend to me. The seahorses are in our vicinity, and there is no guarantee we will come across another school on our journey. Therefore, we go to them now.”

In all honesty, he should’ve expected the kid to be distracted by his love of animals. Hell, Danny could even relate with his own obsession with astronomy.

“Fiiiiine. But I have a bad feeling about this.”

And so Danny flipped fins and brought Damian to the seahorses, as requested. The little things were floating around a coral reef within the town borders, surrounded by a fence. Architectural features like these always reminded him of Dora’s rants about how Atlanteans were essentially humans, and he could see why. What was the point of a fence when everyone and their mother could just swim over it?

Case in point: Danny right now.

Danny lay down on his belly in the sand, keeping a hand on Damian’s shoulder to keep the invisibility flowing. The sea horses swarmed over him, poking curiously at his fins, sensing the disturbance but not seeing it. One particularly brave seahorse even brushed its tail along his gills. Danny had to bite his lip to avoid gasping or giggling from the ticklish sensation. Damian didn’t say anything, but he seemed to be having the time of his life, with how the seahorses’ manes creased from the kid’s touch.

If Danny flexed his ear fins, he could even pick up the slightest cooing sound from the kid. If he could see the younger guppy’s face, he bet it would be split in a huge grin. Then again, Damian didn’t seem the type to express positive emotion so openly like that, but who knows? Maybe the invisibility’s lowering his inhibitions?

A foot brushed his dorsal fin. Danny gasped from the sudden rough touch on his sensitive fin. Dammit!

Maybe he was the one who should’ve remembered they were in enemy territory.

A child gasped, mouth gaped open as she stared at where his tailfin was. Danny pulled Damian back, getting ready to take off. Yeah this was the part where they got the hell out of dodge.

Only for the girl to lean down and poke him. Right in the gills. Ow.

Danny yelped in shock. His body snapped back into the visible spectrum as the little girl went saucer eyed. Outside the fence, an Atlantean woman stood stunned as she blinked owlishly at them.

He chuckled. “Well, thanks for letting us pet your seahorses, but we really gotta go, so see ya-”

“SIIREEEENNNNNNS!!!!!”

Well fuck.

Sam slammed her fist against the punching bag. Every yell brought forth primal rage, and righteous anger. In her mind’s eye, Vlad’s face ate every punch and crunched with every kick. Skulker’s smug mug got caved in. And most of all, Danny’s fucking parents. Her fucking parents.

Didn’t take Superman to hear them screaming upstairs. Hurling accusations, badmouthing Danny for the six hundred and fiftieth time. “Oh how could he lead our precious Sammykins astray like this?” As if they didn’t do that already!

And now she was grounded. Put on house arrest, even. Tucker shared a similar fate. That just left Jazz to monitor the situation. Luckily, Tuck prepared secret burner phones for them for this exact scenario.

Being grounded also meant they couldn’t search for Danny again. In all likelihood he had probably skipped town. Tucker’s forays into the GiW’s servers showed they were still on the lookout, so that was something to be relieved by. If only she and Tuck actually knew what was going on!

She growled and then transitioned into another scream. How the hell did the Fentons even know where to look for them!?

The anger melted away into anxiety. The conversation replayed in her mind. Half the time she wasn’t even sure what she was saying. That was so close. One slip-up and she would’ve landed Danny on the dissection table, not that the result they got was much better. Danny still had a target on his back, and no one could be blamed for it but her. Six months ago while they were just teenagers in over their heads, the idea of caped heroes coming in to save their asses seemed like a dream.

But now? Bruce Wayne funded the Justice League. The fucking Justice. League. It was like Paulina getting a poor girl who bumped into her suspended because of her dad’s wealth. Only replace the poor girl getting suspended with Danny being turned into scientific sushi by the Goons in White, or even worse: his parents.

Oh, and she pissed him off even more. Sam banged her head against the punching back.

Danny was strong. She was strong. Tucker was strong. They had faith in each other. But as yesterday’s hack proved, there were far, far bigger fish in the ocean. And she would destroy anyone who heard her admit it, but part of her was terrified.

Sam retreated to her room, not even sparing her arguing parents a glance. Once in the safety of her private sanctuary, she retrieved her spell book, and began to research anew. She needed to be in tip-top shape to help Danny and Damian Wayne get home. They were going to contact her and Tucker any day now, and she needed to be ready for it.

Please be ok, Danny.

Maddie finished the last of the software updates to the Fenton Sonars, resetting them and reversing the damage Tucker had done. What were they thinking?! Aiding and abetting some of the most dangerous creatures on the planet. All those PSAs and lectures she knew he had sat in on with Danny and the takeaway he had was to play superhero with a savage beast?!

The sonars pinged. Just as she suspected. No sign of Phantom near Amity. The GiW hadn’t found crap in however many hours of search in the surrounding waters, so the bastard probably fled with his tail between his… tail. Maddie scoffed. Some hero.

But that was perfectly fine by her, because she had Phantom’s hydroplasmic signature.

Switching programs, she accessed the Fenton Satellite’s computer programming. One key stroke later, and Phantom’s signature beamed up to the Fenton Satellite. Maddie grinned darkly.

“You finished over there, Maddie?” Jack asked. Glow torch sparks lit up behind her and cast the lab in stark shadow.

“Yes sweetie, now all that we need left is the hardware.”

On the workbench, Jack carefully welded their newest creation. She took up the spot beside him, and began slotting components in as they transitioned to working in perfect harmony together. Jack glanced at her, and she passed over the wrench. A nano-battery array here. A forty-inch radar dish there. A custom Fenton piston set over there. With two children on the line, they worked round the clock. They tested their new inventions rigorously, then broke them down to rebuild them better.

Phantom won’t know what hit him.

[skyloftian-nutcase]

For the prompts :)

word: snort

setting: why not that hdw/power link au thing?

Mask smiled as Link walked up to him, earrings jingling in the breeze. “Hi Chime!”

Link felt his chest warm a little and had to chuckle at the nickname. The little one loved fairies, so between that and his fascination for Link’s earrings, he supposed the boy thought it was a good name. He wouldn’t argue the point - having spent a couple weeks here, it was starting to grow tedious trying to parse out if people were talking to him or the captain every time they called his name. He’d just started assuming they had to be talking to his friend, seeing as there was no reason for him to be addressed or noticed.

Kneeling on the ground to be at eye level with the child, he let Mask slam into him for a hug. “Wanna spar today?”

Mask pulled away, eyes glistening excitedly. “I thought you’d never ask. Nobody here wants to fight me, it’s dumb!”

“Well, I’m pretty sure most of them don’t like the idea of fighting a kid,” Link noted.

Mask let out a snort. “More like they don’t like the idea of being beat by a kid. My age doesn’t make a difference anyway.”

No, age really didn’t matter that much to Link. But he still felt bad that Mask was so young and already so experienced. Maybe that was just factor of Link getting older (was eighteen older? He certainly felt old sometimes) - he wouldn’t have thought much of it when he was twelve.

Honestly, he might have been a little jealous.

But in either case, he’d respect the kid’s abilities. So he raced Mask to the sparring arena, nodding at the captain and Tune as they blew by them.

[cookies-over-yonder]

inside the walls of my skull, waiting for its turn to talk

"I can't... move my legs. Is that normal?" Beverly asks, staring at Alanis's feet, still curled up in the fetal position. "Yeah, that's, like, the grief of seeing little halfling kids get killed..." Beverly keeps trying to move his legs. They won't budge. And they hurt like hell. - In which Beverly has a full-blown panic attack during Episode 51: The Nannerfly Effect

ao3

title from i don't like my mind by mitski

p.s. i am only on episode 53 of c1 so don't give me any spoilers please!!!! thank you!!!!

"I can't... move my legs. Is that normal?" Beverly asks, staring at Alanis's feet, still curled up in the fetal position.

"Yeah, that's, like, the grief of seeing little halfling kids get killed..."

Beverly keeps trying to move his legs. They won't budge.

And they hurt like hell.

And maybe it's the anxiety of the moment but he can't stop seeing not only the brutal destruction of that peaceful halfling village, but also the sight of falling from that tower, and hitting the ground and the worst pain he'd ever felt in his entire life.

Moonshine, Hardwon and Alanis are still chatting, but Beverly can't parse the words.

He only realizes he's digging his nails into the back of his neck when he feels a sharp, piercing pain and the wetness of blood coating his fingertips.

Beverly knows his leg pain gets worse with stress. He knows that. But, sweet P, it's so bad right now.

And he can't move them.

He sucks in a breath and shuts his eyes, but it's all just blood and gore and death.

A hand rests on his shoulder, and he hears Moonshine's voice, though he can't parse her words.

His hands are pried away from his neck, and he feels a faint tingle of magic as the cuts he left there close back up.

"...be I shouldn't have shown him that," he hears.

"Beverly?" Moonshine says.

"I—ah... uh-huh?" Beverly barely hears himself say.

"Can you open your eyes for me, hon?"

He opens his eyes to be met face to face with a concerned Moonshine. She's got her head sideways against the floor just like him, and she puts one hand on his cheek.

"Can we sit up, or do you wanna stay lyin' on the floor?"

"We... sit. We can—we can sit."

Why is it so hard to talk?

Hardwon lifts him by the shoulders and adjusts him into a sitting position, and Moonshine starts running her hands up and down his arms. He isn't sure why.

The sudden movement makes his dizziness apparent, and that's also when he notices his own shallow breathing.

That's not good. That's not good at all.

"I don't—I—I don't know what's... I don't know what's happening," he says between breaths, shutting his eyes again and tearing at his fingernails.

"You're havin' a panic attack," Moonshine says, "It's okay, you're okay, you're fine, I promise. It's not dangerous, it's just stress."

Despite himself, Beverly lets out a childish whine.

"It's okay, you're alright, come here," Moonshine says, pulling him into a hug.

She has one hand on his back, and one on the back of his head, keeping his forehead pressed against her shoulder.

"It's okay, it's okay," she hushes him.

Another hand on his back. "Just breathe," Hardwon says.

"O—okay," Beverly forces out between gasps in a whisper. "Sorry, I—I—sorry—"

"It's okay," Moonshine says, holding him tighter.

"Sorry, sorry, sorry, I—I—I'm sorry, I—"

Moonshine pulls him away from her shoulder and cups his face with her hands. "Young Bev, can you look at me?"

Beverly does so, directing his unsteady gaze to her eyes.

"I need you to breathe with me, okay? We're gonna take some deep breaths, can you do that with me?"

"I...I..."

Beverly gasps, and gasps, and gasps, hyperventilating so hard he might pass out.

Fuck, oh, fuck, he's going to faint, isn't he?

"...erly. Beverly. Beverly," Hardwon says, "Beverly, you're not gonna faint."

Did he say that out loud?

"Beverly, can you tell me five things you can see?" Hardwon asks.

Beverly opens his eyes—not sure when he'd shut them again. "Uh...uh... you. Ha—Hardwon," he says, and he turns his head. "Moonshine. Uh..."

He pauses, fighting and failing to catch his breath as his vision blurs from tears.

"That's two. Keep going," Hardwon says. "You've got this."

"Uh... uh... the—the floor. My—my feet. Your...your feet."

"Good. Can you tell me four things you feel?" Hardwon asks, giving his shoulders a squeeze.

Pain.

Beverly feels pain.

Horrible, horrible pain in his legs.

And light-headedness... both things he felt when he almost died falling off the tower.

"Bev, hey," Hardwon puts a gentle hand on his cheek and tilts his head up. "Four things you feel. Out loud."

"You—your hand. I... I... I feel pain. Pain. Pain. Pain. Is that four?"

Beverly knows that's not four, but it feels worth a try.

"Where do you feel pain?" Moonshine asks, rubbing his back.

"It—it's fi—fine—"

"I can give you a Healing Word if you need it, Young Bev—"

"No, don—don't waste a heal—"

"It won't be a waste."

"It will," Beverly says, barely hearing himself past his own heartbeat. Why won't she stop?

"No, it won—"

"Moonshine," Beverly hears Hardwon say, and she stops arguing. "Bev, can you tell me three things you can hear?"

"Um... your voice. My—my voice. My—my—my breaths."

"Good, we're almost done, okay?"

"Okay."

"What are two things you can smell?"

"You and Moonshine. You—you haven't bathed."

"What's one thing you can taste?"

"Blood," Beverly says, realizing he's been tearing his lower lip apart with his teeth.

"Good job," Hardwon says, brushing hair out of his face. "Can you take in a deep breath?"

Beverly does so, and he's able to fill his lungs nice and slow.

"And let it out."

He sighs a big sigh, and Hardwon does it with him, keeping a concerned look in his eyes.

"Keep doing it just like that. You're okay, see?"

Bev nods and shuts his eyes, feeling a wave of fatigue hitting him.

"I'm sorry for pressuring you," Moonshine says, her voice wobbly.

He shakes his head and waves it off, hoping she'll understand the gesture.

It seems she does, because he feels her arms wrap around him again.

"I... I... ss—sorry..." he mumbles.

"Nothin' to be sorry for."

"I'm sorry I showed you that," Alanis says. "I didn't think it would... uh..."

Oh fuck, she saw all of that, didn't she?

"Alanis—I—I... I swear I'm cooler than this," he mumbles.

She says something in response, but Beverly can't quite make it out with the exhaustion consuming him at an alarming rate.

There's a quiet murmur around him, and then he's being picked up by Hardwon, and so he buries his face against his chest, clings to the fabric of his shirt with a weak hand, and promptly falls asleep.

[amethystfairy1]

Sorry, Allay anon here to apologize.

I think the whole thinking about the Allay mutant kind of goes against the going past your whole timeline thing? In case you were planning any Allay mutants or anything.

Also, I didn't realize there was a whole index about the different hybrids and mutants, and didn't realize that the correct term would be mutants, so apologies again.

Also, thinking back on it, the whole rant felt sort of diminishing of intelligence with how much I explained stuff, and also it may feel like I was taking your au out of your hands. That truly wasn't my intent, and I realize that my over excitedness of it may not parse well through text?

Just a whole lot of apologies for that, I didn't mean to overstep any boundaries or anything, and I just wanted to apologize for that.

I hope you have a good day, stay hydrated and eat and sleep well and take some breaks.

You don't need to apologize at all! I loved your ask about the Allay mutants you came up with and I 100% encourage folks to come up with that sort of thing and PLEASE send it to me, I don't want you to feel bad about that at all! I promise I loved it and you didn't overstep at all, the fact that my AU made you feel creative and inspired and you came up with so many ideas made me so so so happy!

Let me clarify something about that little timeline rule that I'm sure you must've seen in @silver-sunray's TTSBC: Beyond post! What I mean by that is specific events that haven't happened yet. That's why the given examples are a Flower Husbands wedding and Cub's hybrid reveal. Both of these events are things that might happen in TTSBC's future, so I would rather not have folks writing fic or things along those lines that portray those events because they haven't actually happened, and I want to have a chance to write them first 😅

This rule does not apply to hybrids/mutants that have not yet appeared in TTSBC. If you wanna write about an Allay mutant OC, go for it! Please, by all means, I would love to see what you come up with for them! If you want to participate in TTSBC: Beyond with them, all you gotta do is make sure they fit into the TTSBC universe, which I will say they totally do because I did read your ask and I loved it!

It's just that I got back in town from a long, very fun, but also very exhausting con weekend this week, and your ask was so lovely, detailed, and interesting that I didn't want to half-ass a response, so I wanted to give myself a few days to try and restart my brain cells before I typed up a reply to you! I'm so sorry if my taking so long to answer made you think I didn't like it, because that is not at all the case!

Imma go type up my reply to it right now as a matter of fact 🏃‍♀️💨

But yeah, do not apologize because there is nothing to apologize for, I promise! And Thank you for the well wishes, hope you are having a lovely day as well! 💖

[wereh0gz]

Suddenly feeling very dissatisfied with what project: new moon turned out like

Or. Well. I guess I shouldn't say "suddenly" bc I've been feeling a vague dissatisfaction with it for. A while. But only know am I starting to parse out the reasons why I feel that way

With it having been out for a while now, I think back on all the things I could've done or could've executed differently, but didn't think of at the time so I didn't do them

Nox, for example. As a character, he's just kind of a vehicle for the story to happen, a source of torment for Rue, and the reason Sonic's werehog form is brought back. He never got to be much else. He's not very present in the story anyway despite being the main villain, and besides his obsession with Dark Gaia and lack of ethics, he's not really... much of a person

I got really lazy with fleshing him out so his entire character ended up just being evil antagonist. And honestly now I feel his role in Rue's story could've easily been taken by someone like Eggman with only a few changes

Rue's parents could've been way more developed too. They really only exist to make Rue's tragic backstory More Tragic and that's pretty much it. They're even less developed than Nox. Like they're not even characters even by the end of the story

And there's also Specter and Phantom, whom I like and have developed more than those I talked abt above, but I feel like I didn't really show enough of them as individuals. They're just kinda there to be Rue's friends and fight ghosts and not much else

It's like. Idk. I feel like I only really wrote that fic to justify my ocs existing and interacting with Sonic, and justify Sonic's werehog form being brought back even through it wasn't really necessary in the end. It was fun at the time, sure, but that rose-tinted view I had of it has kinda faded. Sometimes I even feel like I kinda rushed it bc I was so desperate to get that story out, since I've been working on these characters and the fic for so long. I was satisfied not bc I felt I made something good, but bc I was finally *done* with it. Now that's biting me in the ass and making me feel like all the work put into it went to waste

Hell now I'm even considering retiring Nox's character entirely (he is like. The biggest part of why I've been feeling crappy abt the fic now that I think of it) and giving Rue another revamp. Tho it feels weird to do it now bc the fic they're part of is out and finished. They are my ocs and I'm allowed to do whatever I want with them, but still

Whatever it is I decide to do, the twins probably won't change much, if at all. Not sure abt Sonic's redesign, I don't really wanna change it but I might have to recontextualize why he looks the way he does in this au

Idk what to do with the story yet, if I wanna rewrite it or not and just have my ocs existing in an au where Sonic never lost his werehog form instead. Really undecided abt all of this stuff rn. I definitely won't be deleting the project: new moon blog or anything tho, just won't be posting there anymore probably

Idk if this post makes any sense of if anyone actually cares but whatever I just need to get this off my chest

[lakesbian]

also re lrb i do think some form of deep-set resentment towards heroes & likely society at large is an important aspect of why alec is so intent on villainy--his family was constantly hunted down and chased around by heroes when he was a child, and no one ever rescued him. at a certain point to mini-alec, that starts parsing as really bitter--people he sees doing dumb cheesy interviews about Doing Good For The World on tv and then just fucking up and uprooting his life when they try to attack his dad and doing nothing to help him in the process. and then he starts getting molded into being his dad, so it's only a fair assumption that they'd want to attack him too. it's just sort of like. that very specific abused kid brand of trauma where people that are held up as societal beacons, as people who are supposed to be helping people like you, just seemingly don't even know you exist, and if they did they might want to punish you. & then he escapes and finds out that yeah, the heartbroken are all over the news all the time, and everyone always talks about the women but never talks about the kids, and society has been watching and putting his home and his life on their evening TV for a bit of voyeuristic drama, and then after 3 seconds of pity in his general direction--if they don't think the kids are all rotten too--they go back to their normal happy lives with their friends and their partners and their children whom they buy things and take out for ice cream and hug and care about. it's why he's so pissed and jealous at sophia, so disgusted and furious that she has a family that actually gives a shit about her and doesn't seem to notice or care--he's carrying around all this unpacked resentment and envy towards Normal People with Normal Relationships who don't realize how fucking good they have it from his perspective. like, he would stab a man to have a real living mother who gives a shit about what happens to him. just so incredibly fundamentally ridiculously lonely, and angry that he's being shut out from everything good everyone else gets to have, and getting that repressed anger he doesn't even realize he has out towards anyone he can justify as Deserving It in his mind. that's where the "eye for an eye, if you don't wanna get back against society for Sucking then why are you even a supervillain" mindset comes from. whether he realizes it or not, he views society at large as being this party of shitty crappy Normal People with happy lives that they don't even appreciate, this impenetrable, envy-inducing group that doesn't give a shit about anyone on the margins like he is, and he wants to Get One Back at it for sucking so bad. now what he really needs is a good hug and about 2 minutes on brian's punching bag (does not have the arm strength to go longer than that) but unfortunately he has yet to realize this and will instead carry on blissfully maintaining that he's totes chill while exploding with rage the second he's given a reminder that other people get to have people who care about them and he doesn't

[melonpalooza]

hi! first of all i just wanna say i love all of your writing! secondly, and to the point of this ask: i admire your ability to code So Much, as someone who has no clue what theyre in regards to code haha. im sending this ask to inquire how exactly you merged the two diff discord workskin codes together for The Last Ronin Becomes A Discord Admin fic? ive been trying my best to parse it myself but i cannot for the life of me figure it out and ive done some searching to see if youve posted about this before and havent seen anything about it so i figured i might as well throw an ask at you while i continue to pull my hair out about it :} thanks for ur time reading this regardless of if u answer or not!

hello! im really bad at explaining so i will do my best. so there's like two main skins i use for discord, let's call them A and B

Both function practically the same, but handle how usernames work differently.

For A, by upredicatbleArtist/wovenstarlight, every username is manually coded, which is why you sometimes find the wrong character talking as someone else if you catch a chapter quickly enough (lol)

For B, by bookkeep each username is "hard coded" into the workskin and you just call on the class to display the correct username, pfp and color. each time you want to change a person's pfp tho, you have to add a new class in the workskin.

A is the first one i found and thus the base

B i found afterwards with elements i found really cool that A didn't have! I basically studied elements that they had that i wanted to incorporate, and copied and pasted it over to code A with touch ups so it would function with the A base code.

everything else that is not found in either A&B were coded by me.

tl;dr, it's an amalgamation with personal touch ups to make them work.

if you ever want to just use the workskin i use go ahead and ask me and i'll upload it

[creatively-cosmic]

make a bad comic... take a bad picture of it..... the starry brain experience simulator 9000

readable(???) stuff below

ever since moving, its been hard to parse any of my thoughts and feelings.

id been wanting to draw my way thru it for a while now but never felt able to.

today why did we cross that out

uh idk

this morning we saw a comic on tumblr that DEMANDED you draw a bad comic [fully blacked out writing] oh it IS a thing my bad!!

to which i said internally

"ON GOD?"

draw bad on purpose

so i thought this would b fun 2 try!!!!

ive been tired of not being able to draw. to create. to work. to think straight. to do anything im "supposed" to. which is stupid

dont say that thats mean!! X(

given no expectations are on me now

Aren't there some expectations?

why can't we live without feeling like we need to do something?

Brother i think it's the trauma

GUYS WE'RE GETTING DERAILED

well this is about whatevers on our mind so :/

SO what im doing is grabbing random pencils or pens out of my Cowboy Bebop™ Ein™ and family Pencil Bag™ (stop writing TM its not funny (FUCK U)) and writing whatever thots we think on here n drawing about it YIPIEE!!

(this is JIMMY)

also we aren't allowed to erase anything

(wanna bet?) (THAT'S NOT THE POOOINT)

THIS IS SUCH A BAD IDEA WE LOOK SO FAKE WHAT ARE YOU DOING

idk who said that lalalala

I HATE YOU AND EVERYONE ELSE HERE

lalala im drawing u dead on the ground with a big ass and writing ur thoughts lalalala

oh i hate this pen

the chisel tip :(((

anyways i don't have anywhere im rly going with this,,,

i just hope this'll b a nice outlet 4 us after our life changed fundamentally however messy it might get

ik i had fun w this one! :3

(goD this pen sucks)

[inventors-fair]

Coming Across the Line: Vehicle Runners-Up ~

Our runners-up this week are @hypexion, @nine-effing-hells, and @real-aspen-hours!

@hypexion — Arcano-Blimp

I think the first thing I have to regrettably wish for in retrospect is I wish this card had its own kind of crew ability somehow. There's the restriction of casting, which is totally fine; having that casting allow for either the animation OR buff would've allowed this card a little more versatility. All the same, I thought about this in an eggs- or storm-style deck first and foremost. The desire to cast a lot of spells in a turn means that this wants cheap, reducible, draw-efficient cards to really go off.

Perhaps without keyword abilities, this card should've been uncommon as well. The more that I look at this card, the more I appreciate the mechanical possibilities and wish there was a little more power behind it. Conceptually this card is quite interesting, and the name's relation to having a purely spell-powered card is unique enough that I understand why the choices to not have it crew are there. Why not have the ability to exile additional cards to animate it as well, perhaps? Also, why not have a blimp gain flying? I wanted to put this card here to showcase its mechanical interest and how it captured me. I do wanna tinker with it a lot more.

@nine-effing-hells — Naglfar, the Keel of Dead Nails

Huh, and it just came to mind that there were two cards that had cards exiled with them in the runners-up. Interesting! Well, no matter—we have a nail-made ship here. Gross-teresting! We've seen creatures similar to this before, but not vehicles in this way, and I appreciate the commitment here. Black and blue haven't really seen each other with this ability-borrowing, surprisingly, not purely. That's fascinating but I mean, it also checks out that it makes sense together here.

There's the Kaldheim-ian aspects that matter and that's all good, with you so far there, even if the mythology isn't in my wheelhouse. The ships and vehicles of Kaldheim's world were cool to me. Did they have too many rare vehicles? I don't remember much having an impact. Regardless, I love the name, and I think while this card wouldn't make waves, it would be a great mythic to open in limited and someone would love to have it as a rule-0 commander. Keyword soup is always fun. I think that's about all we got, right? Good cards are good, haunting corpse-ships are haunting.

@real-aspen-hours — Phoenixflame Chariot

The only wording question I would say is that the second ability might need to say "Phoenixflame Chariot escapes as an artifact creature with a +1/+1 counter on it." Everything else is just a question of: what ORDER do these go in? The escape additions usually come after the escape, so that should be moved down, but where does the crew go? Keywords are first, so that's normal, but the crew cost is weird. Honestly, I think that the flavor text is a little...oddly parsing for me and squishes the text. This was a text submission so it's hard to see, but like, these are a LOT of abilities.

And they work well! This card is wildly powerful for red and needs to be dealt with immediately. I love how hard it would be to actually do so, and having it escape so powerfully is certainly phoenix-like. Whether or not this card would warp limited is a genuine question, but like, everything can be dealt with. I think this card has a lot going for it in terms of power level and I appreciate it a lot. It's a weird vision in the perfect kind of weird that this contest wanted. It's strong and world-based and just looks fun to play!

Commentary shall be worked on all the live-long day, and will be posted soon as I can get 'em done. @abelzumi

[always-andromeda]

I know it’s not historically accurate but… I wanna quote vines at Burt and have him be confused. Like he’ll catch on eventually why “Road Work Ahead?” Makes you die laughing but for now he’s lost.

Sure, he’s your dad boogie… woogie woogie?

uGH, I wanna confuse the absolute shit out of him with silly jokes. 🥰 Like I need him to do that blank, smiley expression, his brow furrowing as he’s computing your words and trying to parse out the joke. And then he awkwardly starts to laugh, trying to communicate that oh, yeah, I get it! even though he isn’t any closer to figuring it out than he was a few seconds prior.

Then you give him those big eyes and tell him that it’s okay that he doesn’t get the joke and that you’re just giving him a hard time before planting a kiss on his cheek. And that’s how he finds himself actually starting to laugh because so easily you turn him into such a scrambled mess. One minute he’s worrying that this is one of those times that the generational gap is being especially brutal and then the next he is right back to feeling like the luckiest man in the entire world because he gets to hear your laugh and see your smile and feel your lips against his skin in the first place.

Burt might be a sharp man, but when it comes to his sweetheart and their goofy little jokes, he feels like the dumbest man alive. But he’ll take it for you. <3

Other Vines that Burt would be confused about:

“Chris! Is that a weed?!” “No-” “I’m callin’ the police!” “911, what’s your emergency?”

“A potato flew around my room before you came…”

“So no head?”

The Iridocyclitis Kid (100% he’d be like “why are they laughing at him 🤨 he tried his best.”)

Don’t even try to hit him with a “wHAT ARE THOOOOOSE????” Because he will literally be like, “…my loafers… 😀”

Vines that Burt would understand:

“I want a Jewish girl that go to…temple…and read her Toraaaah…”

“Hurricane Katrina? More like Hurricane Tortilla!!” (Idk I just feel like that one would make him genuinely chuckle)

“Look at all those chickens!!” (Because haha, those aren’t chickens!! He understands that!! ☺️)

“Watch your profanity.” (Because he’s an old man and he agrees with the sentiment)

“Is that a chickeeen????” (Again, he gets it because haha, that’s not a chicken!! What a silly person!! ☺️)

[csmeanerr]

(packimps) i need some help here. i just came across this species named packimps and i really liked the idea of the species and its lore. however, the species is literally dead bc the owner, lysandrecafe, apparently got into some bullshit and from what i can parse from the few remaining screenshots, took a break but then disappeared from the internet entirely. the discord server link for packimps is open, but the channels are all privated.

now this lysandrecafe person made one final bulletin explaining why they left, and they mentioned that packimps would become ‘semi-open’, where slots can be purchased not for real money, but for fake currency (just paraphrasing lol)

sorry for the long context but, my question is this. can i make a packimp and still call it a packimp, and draw the OC in situations following established packimp lore? the species is literally *dead* and the owner is gone, there hasnt been any updates in the DA group since last year, idk if this would be an “offbrand”, and the species is sorta associated with mignyans as some of the ppl who own packimps are mods in mignyans, and i own some mig slots, i dont wanna get on the wrong side of anybody and end up getting harassed or smth

so in essence wanting to make a legal packimp but the species is dead

I'd say to still try and contact any of the staff on your intentions because they might respond who knows, or asking around on all platforms to show you did make an effort

next would be to contact mignyan staff to voice your worries and see their take on things and if they'd sanction such practice since yours is a unique case

personally i'd love to see people wanting to make a character even if the species is dead, it shows they enjoy it for what it is. you can be upfront that it's not official and explain the circumstances too

i can't say it will turn out how you want or if packimps will ever come back but i don't see why you can't enjoy it either

[mythgirlimagines]

There are four ways Ultimate Survivors Miu and Ouma can end up surviving attacks from classmates:

1. Miu and Ouma can end up snapping them like twigs instead. Ofc they ain't killing them, but to think an Ultimate Florist tried to kill the Ultimate Survivors, even if they didn't know it, feels insulting. These are usually spunky main-character participants who decided killing them would protect the rest of the class, and while that might be true in the context of the story, they don't wanna die, thank you. Easy-peasy, just throw them into a wall.

2. Miu and Ouma come up with a logical reason for why killing them would be fuckin stupid. This is usually reserved for the big boys like the Ultimate Soldiers and Martial Artists, people they can't fight off. These people don't intimidate them at all anymore, sorry. Team DR loves to try engineering an "epic fight" between them and these Ultimates at the cost of throwing the plot out the window. Two minutes of talk usually convinces the participant they're being morons in the context of the story. The story might not be real, but hey, they're tryna stay alive, a little lie is fine.

3. Escape. This is definitely the scenario they're the most alert for, because it implies the attacker is too strong to be subdued and too hellbent to be reasoned with. These are usually attacks from Ultimate Serial Killers or Grenadiers or whatever other edgy criminal combat talent Team DR gave their Resident Very Dangerous Psycho (tm) of the class. These talents are also the ones most likely to be someone's "real" talent, if Team DR decides to do that shtick. Miu and Ouma like to play dead with these guys.

4. Luckily, a witness happens to intervene. The rarest way for an attack to end, but it's definitely a treat when they see it. This is usually what happens sooner or later when a particularly stubborn Assassin or whatever keeps trying to argue with Miu and Ouma's logic. The person is their best friend or love interest, who convinces them not to do it by repeating what Miu and Ouma just said, except this time they listen. It's almost always funny when a witness walks in during a Scenario #1, as morbid as that sounds. They're very grateful to the witness in the event of a Scenario #3 tho.

I went overboard writing this out, but no I don't feel sorry. Anyways. With this info in mind, any headcanons for what they think of V3's cast and how threatening it is? Do they think it's gonna be a rough season, or almost filler with how many of them they'd be able to fold in half?

This made me think a lot about the capabilities of the cast lol

The three biggest physical threats, in their eyes, would be Tenko, Maki, and Gonta. They saw through Maki’s “talent” quickly thanks to all of their experience with “real” talent reveals, and Gonta probably wouldn’t make himself a problem.

Of course, the rest of their “class” would probably be able to come up with traps or other ways to kill them. It would be easier to try flying under the radar, but Team Danganronpa hated when they did that.

Probably the best way to avoid being targeted by others was to keep arguing with each other, and make it seem like they would be most likely to take each other out so nobody else would bother.

That said, though, they still needed to be on their A-games, since there were plenty of intellectual people in this cast. They could probably rely on reasoning with a lot of them, though.

It was an exhausting first few days to parse out all of that information and come up with different plans to stay alive, but hey, it was what they were supposed to be best at. Might as well make that count.

[golisopod-mutual]

i do not dress very femininely, bc it's uncomfy. why do I find it unpleasant? hmmm good question. because I'm so insecure in my body? because I don't dress that way usually and dressing in a way that's uncharacteristic of me makes me feel like I stick out and might look stupid? or do i prefer to present less feminine for gender-related reasons? I don't know!!

basically this:

i don't think i want to be more feminine presenting. but i feel like I need to in order to be pretty. i'm uncomfy in typical girly clothes bc i'm insecure. and i don't really wanna be super feminine. and i don't dress that way so it's unusual and I look stupid. BUT i feel compelled to fit the mold of 'stereotypically attractive young woman' so I feel like I don't present femininely enough, even though I don't really wanna be any more feminine. but if i'm not beautiful i'll peel my skin off so.

anyway. the intersection of 'prefers a less gendered presentation,' 'severe self esteem issues,' 'values herself entirely on physical attractiveness' and 'convinced she'll look stupid trying new stuff anyway' makes this all. um. really difficult. do you see why i take the easy, familiar way out lmao.

overall the body dysmorphia and sex aversion make gender presentation really difficult to parse. like. i want to look like a female movie star. not bc I want to be feminine but bc i'm afab so that's the beauty standard i'm held to in society. i hate having tits not bc I don't want them removed but bc I hate being sexualized.

idk. my feelings on my body are so complicated. how am I ever supposed to untangle which parts are dysmorphia, which are gender presentation, and which are avoidance of being sexualized. head in my hands.

when i do dress femininely I feel like im playing dress up. like im in a costume. idk. it feels weird

[davidmariottecomics]

100 Blogs (Give or Take): FIGHT!

Hello! 

Welcome to my 100th* blog! 

*Or, rather, blog week 101 over on my website. In terms of actual blogs, I'm probably more in the 70s-80s? I try to update as much as possible, of course, but some weeks things've not uploaded properly. Occasionally, I've had just too much life stuff or I haven't really had much to write about. And sometimes, on the extreme ends, I've had way too much to write about and have been overwhelmed at trying to parse out everything I needed to. Last week, when I missed the actual week 100, was somewhere inbetween those: feeling uninspired because I was so tired from both stuff in my personal life and the many many many things happening in the world at large. 

I've, unsurprisingly, still got a lot on my mind. Like 200 organizations have pledged their support for KOSA and sounds like they might not all understand exactly what they're supporting (but you can still make your voice heard on why not to let it pass, namely the continued safety and security of LGBTQ+ folks online who might otherwise get explicitly banned from the most public online spaces, or at least implicitly banned through shadowbanning--as well as all the kids that could be harmed from the inability to access information that they might actually need.).

The U.S. blocked a U.N. call for ceasefire singlehandedly, despite the rest of the security council (minus abstaining U.K. and... that was noticed, guv) being in favor and, of course the overwhelming national and international support for a ceasefire (one progressive thinktank's polling suggested around a 60% US support for ceasefire, to whatever extent those kinds of polls can be trusted, however, the feet on the ground at protests, making calls, sending emails, trying to get into Senatorial offices with ladders, etc show a pretty vocal support for one).

The website formerly known as Twitter gave me just another reason to leave with their new AI. I don't want to see anything about it because I, y'know, get that it's like dunking on the people who wanted to use it for evil and that's funny or whatever, but it's also another AI system that's almost certainly just regurgitating things actually people said and thought and made and ought to be given credit and/or money for the use of. We shouldn't be letting our guard down around an AI just because it's telling transphobes to go fuck themselves--this is still the same shit that is stealing from artists or denying people their medical coverage!

And, also mostly on Twitter because it's a bad place (and I'll remind ya now, I'm leaving by the year's end. I'll be here on the blog and you can find me on Bluesky and I have a couple spare invites if you might need one, but my Twitter's coming to an end soon and I think my Facebook/Insta aren't too far behind...) multiple dirtbag comics guys decided to make the rounds again. They've had their airtime and I have no interest in giving them a platform, but boy, they sure were around. 

Plus, y'know, all the other stuff that has just been continuing, from the continued assault on Ukraine to Covid hospitalizations and deaths going up again.

It's the end of the year and cha'boy is tired. It has been a long, long year and I'm very much looking forward to it ending for whatever that is worth and the time of relaxation I get to have around that end. And so, I wasn't really feeling like writing... but then, I saw a post on Bluesky from Marcus Jimenez asking all comics folks about crafting fight scenes. And so I wanna talk about that this week because I don't often get a chance to talk about the mechanics of comics within comics, and that can be really fun! 

Squaring Up

As someone who has written and edited a lot of fight scenes, there are a lot of different ways to go about it. As I think I've said before, in my own writing, I tend toward a little more description and full dialogue so the artist has those space considerations in mind when working from my scripts. As an editor, I've worked the "Marvel" way where pages are more plotted with with less dialogue and specific action. I've worked with folks who do more of a rough pass where they focus on the concrete smaller moments and then leave a lot of the action up to the artist. I've worked with folks who're even more prescriptive than me. And there's something to finding the right balance on all sides with all these folks--from the writer and artist meshing in terms of what sort of detail they want from each other to having complimentary colors and letters. 

But for myself, and something I have sometimes talked to creators about, one of the first things I focus on when it comes to an action or fight scene is the specific things the character(s) can do. When I think about some of my bigger fight sequences in say Transformers vs. the Terminator or Transformers Wreckers: Tread & Circuits (both available from my webstore, *hint hint*), one of the most apparent things is that I loaded them with a lot of characters doing a lot of things, so... sorry to my artists (no, I know Alex and Jack loved working on them--again, if you can, write to the artist's strengths and I happened to work with guys I knew were excited about these sorts of big scenes). But in that, there are a lot of characters with specific abilities. Generally speaking, right, in TF/Term, we've got three different types of combatants: Sarah Conner is a human, the T-800 is a Terminator, and the Transformers are Transformers. So the skills Sarah has are different from all the robots and, obviously, the Transformers have the ability to convert modes which is something unique to them as characters that can make for really exciting sequences. And even within the Transformers, there are different combat capabilities: Skywarp can teleport. Soundwave has sonic attacks. Megatron has a huge arm cannon. Optimus has an energon axe. The Seekers can fly. And characters like Velocity are medics, who she doesn't really shoot to kill, she can hold her own after millenia at war, but she's not a fighter first and doesn't wanna do terrible damage to anyone. 

To me, it's the same thing as a fight with Spider-Man. You know he's got the proportional speed, strength, and agility of a spider. You know he has web-fluid (unless he doesn't and that sort of circumstance is interesting in a fight). He can stick to things and sense danger and all the standard Spidey tricks. And if you want a scene to be engaging, you wanna know what your characters can do in it that is unique--either to other characters and stories, or within this specific scenario. Seeing Spidey use his webs or his wall-crawling or his spider-sense is more interesting on a page than him just swinging his fists (generally). These are all sort of tools in the toolbox that determine what they can do in a fight. I also think that when you combine them with the circumstances of the fight, you start to see how they'll act in a fight. Why they make the decisions they do. 

So, to use TF again, in TF/Terminator, let's talk about the set-up to the big fight that runs through issues #3 & #4. It starts out with Bumblebee and Sarah scouting out the Decepticons who are up to no good. And the instigating question is, if Bumblebee's a good scout, how does someone sneak up on him? Well, Skywarp is a teleporter. So he just appears! But he's also maybe a little dumb, so he announces himself. Bumblebee's first priority is protecting Sarah, so the best way to do that is for him to shift modes around her as a running shield. They'll go faster. If he gets hit, it'll reduce the impact on her. Etcetera. He could do other things--he could stay and fight and blast at Skywarp, but because the option is open to him to change modes and to drive away, he's going to because that's fun and it makes sense with his character. Then he tries to do some fancy driving to trick Skywarp into ramming into Megatron, but because Skywarp can teleport, hey, he gets away in perfect position to take another run at Bumblebee. But because he teleported higher to get a better position, it also left him more open to get shot by Optimus in the heroic arrival of the rest of the Autobots. The characters' abilities made a really clear picture of the sort of action that could occur with the setting and are reflective of why they act the way they do. 

Throw a Punch A lot of the action is going to flow pretty naturally, from a writing standpoint, once you've got it started. If I know who my characters are, what they can do, and the basic scenario they find themselves in, as long as I've got that in my head, I can just sort of play them off each other and see how the action goes. But there ar some other practicalities I try to take into account as I go. 

1. How many characters do I have to keep track of? Like I said, a lot of my fight scenes have been bigger. I've got groups fighting each other, with civilians to worry about. And while you don't need to show every beat of every action, you do have to keep roughly in mind how everyone is reacting and to what extent you do want to switch between POVs and protagonists. I tend to measure my beats to either pages or page turns, rather than doing too much action switching on a single page unless I'm trying to convey just how hectic things are and just how simultaneous actions are occuring. 

2. How fast is your action moving? Two things I think about a lot when I'm writing action are that a round of combat in Dungeons & Dragons is supposed to be 6 seconds, and that the coolest fight I've ever seen on film is the almost 6 minute fight scene in They Live. (6 minutes later...) I'm back! Okay, so either way, I think what both of those are very representative of are how quickly action occurs in a fight and how much of the time in a fight is the other stuff. It's the non-combat movement. It's catching your breath or setting a trap or focusing on another problem or putting sunglasses on a guy. And in comics, you have the ability to dialate time as you'd like, so each panel can be a second or a matter of seconds, with the gutters allowing time to pass out of frame. You want your action to be logical and continous, but it's okay to have other things happening in the flow, and maybe more importantly, to chose which moments have the most impact.  In D&D, 6 seconds can take like 6 minutes. And on film, you're getting so many constant frames. Comics lets you be a lot chosier in how you expand and contract the time around those moments. 

3. How text heavy is the fight? Here's the other side of things. I know that I tend to be a talker. I mean... look how long it's taken to get to this point! I like dialogue in my comics and often have characters trading verbal jabs during the action. And that takes time and space. As do sound effects. So, I try to balance my fight scenes to the essentials. Much the same as the issue of time, I'm trying to select the moments of greatest impact with what we're "hearing". The more that's being asked of an action panel, the less text I try to give it. Let the art take over. But if I can use the action as a punctuation: If Optimus or Thunderclash or whoever is giving his hero speech and can toss a punch at a baddie to make his point, I'm going to use it. And if action is the visual punctuation to dialogue in this way, SFX are the visual punctuation to the action. They're an exclamation point on what sound is important. A lot of the time, it'll be no sound. But if it'll clarify the action or if it'll enhance the mood, go for it! 

Most important to a fight scene is that *generally* they're supposed to be fun. They're moments of fantasy where a side that's in some sort of right and a side that's in some sort of wrong clash and there's a victor and we all cheer because it's entertaining to see Rowdy Roddy Piper get his ass handed to him up until the end, but when he finally gets one over on Keith David, you know it's because he was right. So while you're thinking of all this stuff, if you give in to the fun, it'll propel you through a lot of it. Now, there're obviously also moments when the fighting is supposed to be building tension or showing the horrors of violence, but I think that goes to a lot of the same mentality as we've already got. It's about making the characters respond to the situation of the fight and if their responses fall in line with that, it'll still be smooth sailing because it'll be what makes sense.

I think that's it for me for this week, but maybe in a coming week, I can do something like a mini-version of something I did on my Patreon when I did an annotated version of the Wreckers #1 script and  do sort of a practical walk-through of a new original fight scene. 

Until next time. Happy Hanukkah to those that celebrate! 

What I enjoyed this week: Blank Check (Podcast), Dungeons & Daddies (Podcast), Reverse 1999 (Video Game), Nancy (Comic), Lego Masters (TV show), Out There Screaming: An Anthology of New Black Horror (Short story collection), Factory Summers by Guy Delisle (Comic), It's Lonely at the Centre of the Earth by Zoe Thorogood (Comic), Slaughterhouse-Five (the Comic adaptation by Ryan North & Albert Monteys), being almost done with all gift shopping and wrapping 2 weeks early, Yu-Gi-Oh: Duel Links (Video Game), Dandadan (Manga), our little mall Model Train Museum, Fire & Ice: Welcome to Smallville (Comic), Blue Beetle (Comic), Birds of Prey (Comic), Christmas lights, finding a good deal on a present for myself (I found the G.I. Joe Bishoujo Scarlett statue for a mere $40 at a local secondhand store and I think she's really pretty), not getting sick even tho Becca was, and I guess The Killer (Movie). Not my favorite Fincher by a lot. We're tentatively gonna see Godzilla: Minus One tomorrow, so looking forward to that and will try to figure out seeing Boy and the Heron, Eileen, Dream Scenario, and maybe The Marvels (tho it being a Disney film makes it a tougher sell) before they're out of theaters... and maybe Priscilla... and maybe FNAF on the big screen since Becca's really into FNAF right now. Too many movies! And I love movies! 

New Releases this week (12/6/2023): Sonic the Hedgehog #67 (Editor)

New Releases next week (12/13/2023):  Sonic the Hedgehog: Winter Jam (Editor)

Announcements: Look for a kind fun thing I contributed to this week! I'll share it when it's live! 

The Cartoonist Cooperative is still doing E-Sim cards for Gaza. You can donate a digital sim card so that residents can get access to the internet and have more functional phones and, in exchange, get some comics or a drawing or whatever else is available from the many participating artists. You can also give more directly. If you don't have money, and I get it, you can call or fax or email or show up at the offices of your representatives. There are a ton of demonstrations happening this weekend and you can see if you can put your actions in on one of those!

If you aren't a Patreon backer yet, remember, it's a great gift for someone or yourself. At my $10 tier, last month, I got Becca to record an Adults-Only podcast called "Abandoning the Premise" with me. You should be able to hear a short sample at the link. And if that seems cool to you, you can get the whole episode, but a bunch of other weird stuff on my Patreon! This month's "Something Weird"s are going to be a root beer review (I bought 6 different root beers and Becca suggested I talk about what I thought of them and there'll be a little more to it that that) and hopefully posting next weekend, a Holiday Gift Guide written, chosen, and designed by me (be careful if you're a person who might get a gift from me... you might see your present in there)! 

And keep an eye out for more news soon. Really hoping to have some cool news in the new year if not before! 

Pic of the Week: So, last Wednesday, I made a trip up to the IDW Los Angeles office. Because we have a lot of people spread out, we have a couple office locations. But the LA office happened to host some friends from SEGA and, specifically, some visitors from Sonic Team! We gave them the tour, talked about the comics, gave them some to take home, all the good usual visiting stuff. But Karasuno-san, Kanemoto-san, and Hoshino-san very generously did some sketches for us before they left. So, should you get a chance to tour the IDW offices in the future, you might see this sketch page hanging on the wall.