#but probably not successfully

[hinamie]

I'm always pushing you away from me / but you come back with gravity / and when I call, you come home

[shushmal]

Let it be known that Steve has zero problem with Eddie. Like, negative problems. So little problem that it kinda turns itself inside out and becomes a DIFFERENT problem. But, not like, a problem problem. Just a teeny tiny little maybe issue. Maybe. Whatever.

Anyways, Eddie's a hugger.

And, like Steve said, it's not a problem. Except that it kind of is.

"Oh, dude," Robin had said when he'd told her as much, and stared at him with this incredibly pained look in her eyes. "You have so many issues." And after that, he gets daily a Robin hug.

Which is great. But doesn't solve his not-problem with Eddie hugs.

Well, in a way, it does. Regular Robin hugs means that Steve isn't freezing up and freaking out when he gets an Eddie hug. Steve's really glad for that, because he'd been terrified that he was going to make Eddie think that Steve hated the Eddie hugs.

Which would be awful, because Steve kinda sorta maybe absolutely would-die-for the Eddie hugs. Steve loves the Eddie hugs, okay? Eddie should be hugging Steve all the time, actually.

He does, too. It's kind of awesome. Steve waives a late fee? Eddie's clamoring over the counter to hug him. Steve picks up the nerds from their nerd jail game? Eddie's half way through his window, hugging Steve's head. Steve brought pizza to movie night? Eddie gets his arms around Steve's waist and sighs happily into Steve's neck. It's pretty great.

It's the best thing ever.

And Steve knows logically that he's not special. Eddie's usually draped over someone for extended periods of time until he get's swatted off. He hugs everyone. Steve's not special. He does have to tell himself that a lot.

"Oh, dingus," Robin had sighed when he'd told her as much. Her look this time was a lot less pained and more exasperated. "So many issues." And he was rewarded with two Robin hugs that day.

Anyways, Steve has to remind himself all the time that he's not special. So it comes as a little tiny sorta maybe surprise when Eddie one night wraps Steve in his arms, sighing all happy and contented like he usually does, and says, "You're my favorite, Harrington. You give the best hugs."

And then he presses a kiss to Steve's cheek.

And a lot of things go through Steve's head in that moment. He doesn't have a clue what any of it is, but it all scrolls by like the Star Wars intro on too much sugar and too hard to read. Still, he arrives at the correct conclusion anyways.

"Oh," Steve says, before Eddie's lips have really left his cheek. "I'm in love with you."

Eddie reels back, his hands still on Steve's shoulders, big brown eyes now bigger than ever. Steve watches as his face goes pink, and pinker, and then bright red.

"Huh?!" It's a really ugly sound that Eddie makes, and Steve bites his lip to keep from laughing. It's cute.

"Yeah," Steve says. "I'm in love with you."

"... What?!"

[fisheito]

He's a magician

[jeeaark]

All is ash and meat indeed.

Might be harder to turn magic bows into ash though. Might need to just hide those.

Companion Durge having 'I can fix them. I can make them worse better' thoughts after seeing Greygold not fully optimizing their half-orc savage attacker feat. Just so much 'embrace murder' approval and so much confusion why they intentionally avoid splitting skulls in two.

Not sure how Durge's approval system would work, but I like to think sometimes Embrace Dark Urge rears their lil bloodthirsty snoot and tries to entice Greygold to join 'team murderize'. Would be fun(?) not knowing if you were raising Resist Urge Approval or Embrace Urge Approval until he started giving you a hug or a bloody heart (sometimes from your own chest).

[im-totally-not-an-alien-2]

Danny, desperate to get someone competent to help him with his growing problems in Amity, travels to a dimension full of heros and villians and in true Phantom fashion, overshadows one of the first Heros he sees- Nightwing.

He immediately tried walking away to a more discrete location to create a portal but was interrupted by Nightwings allies who were very suspicious of Nightwings sudden change in behavior. Unfortunately for Danny, he wasn't fooling anyone and made a run for it. He wound up ditching Nightwing and disappearing.

Danny, seeing how amazingly competent these people are, only becomes more determined to kidnap them and take them to Amity...

[sketchz]

can I offer you a couple of odiles in this trying time?

[foundfamilywhump]

see like the thing with 'carewhumpers' as a concept to me is it just like... i know this is prrrrobably not really how it's meant but something skeeves me out about the idea that kindness or caretaking mixed in with hurting someone can somehow meaningfully complicate or dilute the harm done to the point of making that character no longer a 'whumper' whereas someone doing the same 'bad' things but not ever being gentle or caring for them would just be a straight-out whumper. when like... that's how 90% of irl abuse dynamics work? so i just... don't really get the point, i guess. like to me it implies something about the 'care' provided somehow mitigating or combating the harm done that. i just do not personally appreciate or enjoy.

[qqueenofhades]

Why in gods name is pressing a cartoon paw 3305566580 times on a terrible blue website so fun?

[fumifooms]

Jinx’s eyes and lost innocence

This sequence.

A bomb like she made in her youth. Except that unlike then, this one works, this one explodes… With paint and glitter and powder, instead of intending to kill or hurt.

The man who shielded himself from it sure that it would be his end, surprised, checking himself for wounds with disbelief, covered in paint, as if it was just some harmless prank. Relief. But the second surprise comes with the sound of the gun behind him. We see their eyes shift, both of them, her steeling and readying her shot without urgency and him understanding with urgency that yes, he is going to die, at her hand, and the bomb was just a fluke, a cruel prank, a distraction at best.

And this. These are the seconds that interest me, what ties it all together. The way we linger. The way she lingers. To, during a fight scene, slow down the pace to watch her face as she pulls the trigger and feels the recoil of her gun, watch her take in how she just took another life, watch her mouth part and her eyelids flutter when she notices the kid.

There are not enough emotions on her face for someone who just killed, but also there are more than there should be for a cold-blooded killer showing as much practice ease as she is. Does she always have this moment when killing someone? Did seeing her paint bomb go off, shooting someone covered in her paint and glitter of it, make her feel anything? Did she see the change in her that empowered her that she both loathes and clings onto in that split moment, too? Why did she even remake that first bomb? Why make it work and make it work to shoot off harmless fun showy things? Why indulge in this remnant of her past, why with that innocent intent intact stills if it didn’t get warped with the use of distracting an enemy to better sneak attack? Why taint that memory? Is the reaction only when she sees the kid?

Why does the camera linger, why does she linger? We’re not sure, and I’m sure she herself doesn’t know, but what we know is that she’s changed, and yeah, we’re low.

The kid, watching the fresh corpse fall, with curiosity more than anything.

Jinx with the gun gesture, reflecting their earlier conversation, referencing it. A shared secret, shared smirks, a relationship forming. Complicity. Jinx is knowingly or not taking her under her wing, shaping her by example like mentorship. A little girl that she resembled once getting desensitized to violence at her hand, encouraged to see killing positively. Empowering.

Episode 2 explores her past and upbringing in many ways, talking about Silco, her many mistakes, seeking out Sevika the last remnant of a person of her life with him and sticking with her, doing something for her despite knowing she should be betraying her any minute now. But fast forward to episode 3, the next time she has to confront it and herself.

Jinx praises Vi for finally using the right name for her, Jinx, and Vi talks about how she’ll kill her so she stops sullying the memory of Powder, blahblahblah. They exchange some punches and rows of bullets, we see Jinx’s eyes take in and calculate and shift here too, react and then react. Vi using the same mirror Caitlyn shot into intending to kill Jinx to shield herself from Jinx’s shot.

But this is it. When Vi uses her huge metal hextech fists to rip her invention, her gun, apart. Jinx is not the only one sullying memories, Vi is here, as an enforcer for Piltover, using Vander’s choice of weapon, and she uses it to hurt her, destroy her things, her inventions whose worth was such a source of insecurity and identity growing up.

This is when Jinx sees so very closely, at the other end of it, her sister’s rage and murderous intent as she rips metal apart.

We see her expression shift again and again during these few shots and the ones before and after. Her face as she watches Vi’s through the wires of her gun. As Vi roars. She grows less confident, less sure, more nervous, dare I say more fearful.

The music kicking up. Jinx’s face right then cutting to Jayce’s with a very similar expression, staring at something he doesn’t understand. "What have we done" he says.

Vi has always always been stronger than Jinx, inventions were how she made herself strong, and Vi can destroy them, Vi can rip metal apart.

And oh. Oh. This is truly really for real now. A fight to the death. No punches pulled.

She crawls away from Vi and it’s only the hextech malfunction that saves her.

Sevika smiles at Caitlyn biting her hand, with newfound respect as she draws blood. At her will, her bloodthirst, how far she’ll lower herself to hurt and fight. This is a scene about corruption arcs.

Jinx stands before Vi whose symbol of corruption just failed her, chained her to the ground vulnerable, and Jinx pulls the trigger just like Caitlyn, just like Vi was ready to do. No punches pulled.

Except they are. Jinx has steeled herself but Vi is softening. Vi is strong but she is vulnerable too and she can be made weak with Jinx’s guns and bombs.

And despite this when Jinx falls from her own weapon misfiring at a shot meant to kill her Vi is reaching out to catch, not hurt. Hold, not claw. Deflect, not counter.

Push, not punch.

Jinx’s eye shines pink like shimmer and this is when Vi shifts on the offensive, just before Jinx fires the shot that barelly misses her as she throws Jinx roughly at a wall.

And now they’ve fully switched places. The longer Vi has to fight Jinx the more she’s conflicted, the more Jinx loses herself to the fight the more she rages.

The chorus swells. "Just when you’ve done it all / you will turn it all / to ashes and blood" No words left to say, nothing left to mend.

She’s ready to die when she lunges at Vi with only her fists, she expects to die, hopes so. Knows from experience their respective results in that punching arcade game full well, even if she were to try with all her might, having tried all her might. She’s felt cursed by fate for a long time and she accepts it, just wants to go out with the most fireworks, to have been seen, to have mattered one way or another.

Vi punches the altar next to Jinx even as she’s got her pinned down defenseless and she readies her fist. And she has all the time to do it, she could have done it, except she couldn’t. And it costs them the chance to killl her.

The scene as a whole has a split focus on Jayce, Jinx and Vi centrally, and the song lyrics match that quite well. The full ones lyrics are worth looking at but to keep it quick: "How does it feel to reach the line that no one ever got to cross? Does it make you a god now?" A rethoric question of course, the song spells it out like it’s a damning wake-up call. The scene is all about regret. Our choices have led us here, it says. Jayce is dreading and afraid of what he’s done, Jinx is empty and as self-loathing as ever, Vi wants to stop blaming herself and is still conflicted on what side she should be on. "Catch the fire burning out your soul / Just make it die or you will turn it all / To ashes and blood" Jinx, accepting this is where she dies. She’s said in episode two she wants to kill the last of her family, but we all know it’s a lie, she’s never wanted to destroy and break things, never wanted to cause ashes and blood. She wants to fix things. She wants things to fix. She just wanted glitter bombs and arcade games. She wants there to be something left she can fix, but it’s all just dust now.

Jinx has never been in that place before, she took the time to draw all those Powders and Vis on pillars while waiting for her to show up so they can kill each other. She’s lingering on the past again, bringing it into the now to use it as a stage for battle.

Jayce is reckoning with the consequences of what he’s created and done, that he might cause a lot of ashes and blood. Vi being corrupted too, by Piltover, by rage, by Jinx, by Powder. Vi is being turned to ashes and blood, this is what jinx has made of her, what she’s made of herself. Vi is being corrupted too, by Piltover, by rage, by Jinx, by Powder. Vi has changed, too. Their whole society, their whole lives, their world figuratively and literally, it’s all crumbling.

"Every sin will be forgiven / If you lay down your weapons to the ground" But that’s not really how this works, is it. Jayce or Jinx can’t fix what they’ve done. Vi can’t say this, can’t fix her. No, they’ve dug their graves and the ground is where they’ll all be. Powder is dead.

Just when you think you’ve lost everything. Everything can get ruined and marred a little more, always. The past is not only in the past, it’s here and it’s haunting. Jinx will keep sullying the memory of Powder for Vi and Vi will keep tainting Jinx’s memories of her sister and their childhood.

[lunapegasus]

@adhd-sonic-the-hedgehog's Flicky Omega because he's oh so small and angry and I love him

[bob-artist]

I was forcing myself to take yesterday and today off because I worked way too many days in a row, but then my hand slipped and now I'm 3200 words into a new Into the Smoke short story. 😬 So, uh, special gift to my patrons coming soon I guess!

[mixelation]

one of those "everyone is convinced character is lying about having a partner, only for it to be revealed they really do" except itatori

it seems more likely to happen to tori but it'd be funnier if it were an itachi plot. all of ANBU thinks he is lying. no woman but his mother could love him

[buglaur]

updated gp roster

[pluvio-floret]

I enjoyed chilaios week a lot!! I wish I’d done more for it, but alas, artblock… I did manage to do this quick thing for them for day 7 however (and on time!! (rare for me!)), so yay :))

[tj-crochets]

So it turns out there's a big craft guild organization thing only a few hours from where I live (I saw an ad for their craft fair), and I got like half my holiday shopping done on their website, and the box arrived today! The thing I was most excited to see in person is fragile, though, and it's really well wrapped in bubble wrap and I don't want it to break when I mail it to the friend it's for, so I am not unwrapping it, but oh man the temptation is there lol I also got myself a little metal bug made of a bottle cap and some wire. It lives on my little corkboard where I put postcards and thank you cards now