#but still. what are we doing here.

[boyfridged]

hello lovely, robin lives is out. any thoughts or comments? :) absolutely love your meta and writing especially ones about robin jason <33 there's so much heart you put into it, it is lovely. cheering you on.

thank you for this lovely message, i'm glad that how dear i hold his character does come across in my meta! and: i'm sorry, i said one business day, and yet i'm here four days later... however, i also reread in this time, to give a more detailed review, and here are my thoughts so far:

as i already complained: the ableist tirade about "fried circuits in the brain" and cruelty being "chemical," about the "morass of psychosis and sin" at the beginning of it all almost made me close it... it took so much space in this single issue, and was so unnecessary and grim, very out of place compared with the joker image from the 80s, which the story is supposed to relate to after all.

speaking of: the bits that were very clearly referring to aditf & the following issues i liked best (maybe besides dematteis trying to deal with the whole iranian diplomat plotline... there's nothing to salvage there so it was just pitiful). clark's cameo was a very clear throwback. but my favourite was the panel with sheila... that might be my particular weakness to sheila though.

the general framework of a shrink (sigh) brought to "deal" with jason makes me think of gotham knights #45 (derogatory.) also. hello ao3 called they say they want their classic outsider pov trope back-- i need to make it clear: i love outsider povs. but here-- this is just not it.

i have concerns about bruce's portrayal as a father too, and that's where she enters anyway. again, i love to see bruce failing; i love seeing his flaws; and post-crisis bruce is not the most competent parent, we know it... but... "moping" says batman about a child that witnessed (or at least was in presence of, since he was probably unconscious by then) his mother's demise? that is a bit... much you'd think? especially that jason doesn't do anything too offensive in that moment at all?

this is actually something that @iliadicjasontodd said but i have to agree: it is really funny how dick comes in and has one conversation with jason about a completely unrelated topic and acts like this fixed everything. it's not the worst we've seen of dick & jay but it does feel very much like dematteis was just checking a box "dick grayson" on the characters to include/references list and left it at that. and to be fair, the whole issue feels like that, but i do get that it's just the first one and he needs to set it all up...

now! to the reference that is actually interesting to me... the page on the right is imo a very clear reference to batman #414 (on the left). if you've seen this post of mine you know that later, in the same arc, there's a parallel scene in which jason does *exactly the same*, with the dialogue being a 1:1 too. which makes me curious: is the analogous scene here a set-up for jason to mirror bruce's violent actions again? if it is, we'd get the point that it is bruce who dooms jason by projecting on him brought home... and it does vaguely seem that they could do in that direction, no? while i am a fan on this reading, i'm just not sure how i feel about it in an instance of jay lives scenario, where that would be a perfect moment for the a divergence from what happens in his death and post-mortem.

the question at the end... about "why batman brought a child to batman at all" is a question that was already answered with much sensibility. but i won't lie, batman as a title certainly needs a refresher on this one --- so as long as we arrive at the same reply that *is* implied in aditf and many of older batman stories, we are fine. the answer in the 80s was that bruce can cmopartmentalise his identities, but he cannot compartmentalise his family and familiar love. but if instead we get what contemporary canon has been delighting in for decades now: the notion that it's the children who need it themselves, that it's the only way, that they would always end up in the same place otherwise, if not worse off-- i will be severely disappointed.

so far, i think the biggest weakness and what makes the whole thing underwritten is that we don't get to see jason directly after waking up from the coma...? why is bruce having these conversations with him now? why does jason still go out as robin and does so alone...? i'm not saying none of it is plausible, because it could be written as such, but we just don't get any of it. i def wish we get more insight into jay's mind next issue.

all in all, i do not want to condemn it preemptively-- all my concerns from before definitely hold. i just hope i will be proved wrong, though the whole framing of "i should have seen it coming" portending another huge tragedy... not a fan of it.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Hey now, Let her cook!

[coddda]

I wish we could have met in some other way.

Lawlight Week Day 2: Soulmates

If you saw me repost and re-edit this several times uh No you didn't </3

Still frames/Individual gifs:

If you know what every frame is from you get a free cookie. by the way

[egophiliac]

queen of diamonds, upright + reversed 💎

I've redone this like eighty times, I have to just be done with it now and stop staring at all my mistakes oh no 🫠

[inkskinned]

at some point it's just like. do they even fucking like the thing they're asking AI to make? "oh we'll just use AI for all the scripts" "we'll just use AI for art" "no worries AI can write this book" "oh, AI could easily design this"

like... it's so clear they've never stood in the middle of an art museum and felt like crying, looking at a piece that somehow cuts into your marrow even though the artist and you are separated by space and time. they've never looked at a poem - once, twice, three times - just because the words feel like a fired gun, something too-close, clanging behind your eyes. they've never gotten to the end of the movie and had to arrive, blinking, back into their body, laughing a little because they were holding their breath without realizing.

"oh AI can mimic style" "AI can mimic emotion" "AI can mimic you and your job is almost gone, kid."

... how do i explain to you - you can make AI that does a perfect job of imitating me. you could disseminate it through the entire world and make so much money, using my works and my ideas and my everything.

and i'd still keep writing.

i don't know there's a word for it. in high school, we become aware that the way we feel about our artform is a cliche - it's like breathing. over and over, artists all feel the same thing. "i write because i need to" and "my music is how i speak" and "i make art because it's either that or i stop existing." it is such a common experience, the violence and immediacy we mean behind it is like breathing to me - comes out like a useless understatement. it's a cliche because we all feel it, not because the experience isn't actually persistent. so many of us have this ... fluttering urgency behind our ribs.

i'm not doing it for the money. for a star on the ground in some city i've never visited. i am doing it because when i was seven i started taking notebooks with me on walks. i am doing it because in second grade i wrote a poem and stood up in front of my whole class to read it out while i shook with nerves. i am doing it because i spent high school scribbling all my feelings down. i am doing it for the 16 year old me and the 18 year old me and the today-me, how we can never put the pen down. you can take me down to a subatomic layer, eviscerate me - and never find the source of it; it is of me. when i was 19 i named this blog inkskinned because i was dramatic and lonely and it felt like the only thing that was actually permanently-true about me was that this is what is inside of me, that the words come up over everything, coat everything, bloom their little twilight arias into every nook and corner and alley

"we're gonna replace you". that is okay. you think that i am writing to fill a space. that someone said JOB OPENING: Writer Needed, and i wrote to answer. you think one raindrop replaces another, and i think they're both just falling. you think art has a place, that is simply arrives on walls when it is needed, that is only ever on demand, perfect, easily requested. you see "audience spending" and "marketability" and "multi-line merch opportunity"

and i see a kid drowning. i am writing to make her a boat. i am writing because what used to be a river raft has long become a fully-rigged ship. i am writing because you can fucking rip this out of my cold dead clammy hands and i will still come back as a ghost and i will still be penning poems about it.

it isn't even love. the word we use the most i think is "passion". devotion, obsession, necessity. my favorite little fact about the magic of artists - "abracadabra" means i create as i speak. we make because it sluices out of us. because we look down and our hands are somehow already busy. because it was the first thing we knew and it is our backbone and heartbreak and everything. because we have given up well-paying jobs and a "real life" and the approval of our parents. we create because - the cliche again. it's like breathing. we create because we must.

you create because you're greedy.

[hinamie]

thank u canon plant nerd megumi for my life

bonus:

[spitedemon]

i really don’t think it’s “typical dragon age fandom nonsense” for people to be genuinely upset about the world state choices. combat, level design, art direction, gameplay gimmicks, those have all varied across each dragon age game. the one thing that’s remained constant are nods to our previous choices.

i wasn’t expecting my HoF to come riding in on a griffon, but i can’t find a monument dedicated to warden tabris somewhere around the anderfels? lucanis couldn’t have some lines about the time that one arainai boy was stirring up trouble in antiva city? you’re gonna tell me that making a mage the new divine wouldn’t have some impact on nevarra and antiva? on the anderfels, the supposed most devout militant andrastian nation in thedas? you’re saying nobody in the north is paying attention to who rules orlais or ferelden? come on.

[bacchuschucklefuck]

class swap design masterpost for convenience (from top to bottom: bard!riz, cleric!gorgug, sorcerer!kristen, barbarian!fig, artificer!adaine, and rogue!fabian)

[lucabyte]

On autonomy, and what it means to be Obliged to Help.

Bonus:

[vaguely-concerned]

the more I play the more I think lucanis basically knows it's illario who betrayed him right from the beginning (he's had a year in the ossuary to think. not that many people knew where he was going. when you ask him 'did Illario know you'd be on that ship' his only answer is the hardest flattest 'yes' you ever heard). so it's not so much about figuring out who the traitor is (because that's ludicrous. we all know. immediately. they didn't really bother to hide it lmao) as about methodically closing off every single avenue of denial lucanis has clung to that whole time with as much or little gentleness as you might prefer until he has no choice but to admit it. because the moment he has to admit it, he'll have to do something -- feel something -- about it. and that's such a catastrophic event in lucanis' inner landscape (he has had TWO people in this whole entire world up until now and will do anything to hold on to them with a heartbreaking child-like desperation, even at and especially through the detriment of his own self) that he'd rather just. not. what if we quite simply. didn't. what if we just stayed here in the emptiness where we can both pretend you didn't hurt me in a way I should never forgive. I have so much practice in that with caterina already it's always worked out great for everyone so far. (press x to fucking doubt but that's trauma logic for you lol)

after everything illario did, so much of the storm of lucanis' emotions around it is 'what the FUCK did you get yourself tangled up in this time and how do I get you out of this mess safely'. what's worse: the fact that your brother murdered you, or that he put himself in horrible danger doing so and thus exposed you to the risk of losing him forever. lucanis' heart certainly has an opinion here and it's fucking unhinged (affectionate)

the themes of dissociation in lucanis' character in general makes me feel nuts. allllll these contradictory messy things he needs to cut off from each other because they can't coexist or be easily reconciled inside him. but all remain stubbornly true separately anyway and will have their due one day. love and resentment. tenderness and fear and rage. terror and longing. love and freedom don't coexist. the burned out golden child anthem is playing in the background. he was always caterina's favourite and he has to keep striving to deserve that dubious honour with every breath he takes and then, presumably, mercifully, some day he will die and be excused and can rest. and until now he's suppressed all the -- natural, healthy, protective! -- negative feelings that threaten the few attachment relationships he actually has, at the cost of ever actually having his needs for connection and safety met and leaving his core self imprisoned and compromised. and spite goes 'what. no. that's dumb fuck that' (*spite voice* I do not understand that and even if I did I would not respect it) and does not allow him to fall back into that, which I think is what saves his life, ultimately. it took being possessed by a demon for lucanis to even contemplate telling anyone he loves 'no' in any way, but hey. whatever gets you there right lol

lucanis is dealing with the freeze response allll the way down baby. and he was even before the ossuary, that just turbo powered it and brought it to a breaking point way before it could happen naturally. but something was going to break eventually no matter what, and I'm just glad that in the end, through the power of friendship and also pure spite, it doesn't have to be him

[jarrows]

recently i reread a bunch of my favorite sherlock holmes stories (norw my beloved) and felt compelled to create my own diagram for 221B

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Lan Wangji goes to Lotus Pier (No relation to the AU of the same name)

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[delicourse]

lesbian pride moment 😳🌸

[bloodybellycomb]

God the current TV landscape has completely destroyed audiences ability to wait for developments and to accept suspense.

"Why hasn't this couple gotten together yet??" -> it's a slow burn, it takes time

"Why is nothing resolved by the end of the season??" -> sometimes, things have to get worse before they can get better, it takes time.

The best stories take their time because instant satisfaction is not good for storytelling. Rushing things is how you end up with the finale of game of thrones, and no one wants to end up like the finale of game of thrones

[andr0nap-wf]

doggoframe 1999: the protopuppers

[inkskinned]

you were raised in comparison.

it wasn't always obvious (well. except for the times that it was), but you internalized it young. you had to eat what you didn't like, other people are going hungry, and you should be grateful. you had to suck it up and walk on the twisted ankle, it wasn't broken, you were just being a baby. you were never actually suffering, people obviously had it worse than you did.

you had a roof over your head - imagine! with the way you behaved, with how you talked back to your parents? you're lucky they didn't kick you out on your ass. they had friends who had to deal with that. hell, you have friends who had to deal with that. and how dare you imply your father isn't there for you - just because he doesn't ever actually talk to you and just because he's completely emotionally checked out of your life doesn't mean you're not fucking lucky. think about your cousins, who don't even get to speak to their dad. so what if yours has a mean streak; is aggressive and rude. at least you have a father to be rude to you.

you really think you're hurting? you were raised in a home! you had access to clean water! you never so much as came close to experiencing a real problem. sure, okay. you have this "mental illness" thing, but teenagers are always depressed, right. it's a phase, you'll move on with your life.

what do you mean you feel burnt out at work. what do you mean you mean you never "formed healthy coping mechanisms?" we raised you better than that. you were supposed to just shoulder through things. to hold yourself to high expectations. "burning out" is for people with real jobs and real stress. burnout is for people who have sick kids and people who have high-paying jobs and people who are actually experiencing something difficult. recently you almost cried because you couldn't find your fucking car keys. you just have lost your sense of gratitude, and honestly, we're kind of hurt. we tell you we love you, isn't that enough? if you want us to stick around, you need to be better about proving it. you need to shut up about how your mental health is ruined.

it could be worse! what if you were actually experiencing executive dysfunction. if you were really actually sick, would you even be able to look at things on the internet about it? you just spend too much time on webMD. you just like to freak yourself out and feel like you belong to something. you just like playing the victim. this is always how you have been - you've always been so fucking dramatic. you have no idea how good you have it - you're too fucking sensitive.

you were like, maybe too good of a kid. unwilling to make a real fuss. and the whole time - the little points, the little validations - they went unnoticed. it isn't that you were looking for love, specifically - more like you'd just wanted any one person to actually listen. that was all you'd really need. you just needed to be witnessed. it wasn't that you couldn't withstand the burden, but you did want to know that anyone was watching. these days, you are so accustomed to the idea of comparison - you don't even think you belong in your own communities. someone always fits better than you do. you're always the outlier. they made these places safe, and then you go in, and you are just not... quite the same way that would actually-fit.

you watch the little white ocean of your numbness lap at your ankles. the tide has been coming in for a while, you need to do something about it. what you want to do is take a nap. what you want to do is develop some kind of time machine - it's not like you want your life to stop, not completely, but it would really nice if you could just get everything to freeze, just for a little while, just until you're finished resting. but at least you're not the worst you've been. at least you have anything. you're so fucking lucky. do you have any concept of the amount of global suffering?

a little ant dies at the side of your kitchen sink. you look at its strange chitinous body and think - if you could just somehow convince yourself it is enough, it will finally be enough and you can be happy. no changes will have to be made. you just need to remember what you could lose. what is still precious to you.

you can't stop staring at the ant. you could be an ant instead of a person, that is how lucky you are. it's just - you didn't know the name of the ant, did you. it's just - ants spend their whole life working, and never complain. never pull the car over to weep.

it's just - when it died, it curled up into a tight little ball.

something kind of uncomfortable: you do that when you sleep.