#i actually have no idea how you organize stuff like this

[liedownquisition]

Every time someone, whether in-universe or in meta tries to say that Jason's a "loner" I think about two things:

First of all, the fact that Bruce is frequently referred to as a loner, both in universe and out, as if he doesn't literally constantly have his emotional support child and a rotating cast of lovers (sometimes multiple in any given story at once). In this instance, it's used to try and make Bruce seem "cool," which whatever ig.

Batman #359, which, is so fucking funny to me because this is before Batgirl and Talia showed up in this story. Catwoman too. It was a real fucking ensemble. He's berating himself for snapping at Dick, and sending some civilians (The Todds btw) to die, against Dick's advice, because he's being bitchy about Catwoman. Like, my man, you have a mental breakdown every time you're truly alone. You're not a loner but maybe you should be.

Secondly, is Jason a loner or is he just always alone and isolated? Is he a loner or does he just not know how to be any other way? Jason consistently through both pre- and post-crisis express a lot of desire to be around other people/build connections, as well as referencing factors that isolate him from them. (I'm not sourcing every incident here but here's Jay trying to bond with Bruce right after he gets taken in, and some stuff wrt Jason at school)

Detective #527 (Pre-Crisis)

Batman#395 (Pre-Crisis. This is him being jealous of Catwoman, sure, but given how often in this arc it's referenced that he's isolated from the other kids in school- despite being on some kind of presumably sports team. I think it's baseball? I'm trying to find the exact issue that it actually SHOWS him on said team but it is referenced in the issues leading up to when they switch over the histories.)

Batman Annual #12 (This is Post-Crisis)

In Brothers in Blood Jason's trying to reach out to Dick. I'm not saying he did it the right way or that Dick was wrong for rejecting that, but he did literally expressly say that he was trying to reach out to him. in his brief period that he worked with the Titans, it's explicitly stated that he'd had to sneak out from under Batman's nose to join up with them. Jason has a sparse few interactions with mostly adult heroes in Pre-Crisis and the only hero his age he gets to meet is Kid Devil/Eddie Bloomberg and that's nebulously canon or not since Pre/Post-Crisis was a soft, slowly rolled out reboot where they changed a lot of things in retrospect but also implicitly kept others. (N52 was also like this but I get the impression Crisis was marginally more organized.)

UtH was Jason reaching out to Bruce for connection. Again, not really the right way to go about it but he pretty obviously/expressly wanted affirmation that his relationship with Bruce DID matter to someone other than himself because he felt it had been stripped from him and false.

Someone who keeps reaching out to other people, but gets rejected because they did it wrong, is not a loner.

When those attempts fail and he reaches out less and less, that's not loner behavior, that's lonely behavior, maybe even a dash of self-loathing. When he starts sabotaging his relationships further he thinks they're already fucked, that's not loner behavior, that's bad coping mechanisms for childhood trauma. I don't care that they state it exactly that he's some kind of "loner," his actions don't agree with that statement.

Is his status something of a self-fulfilling prophecy at this point? Yeah. I keep seeing people refer to him this way and, jesus. y'all wanna ostracize him so badly sometimes. You don't want him here you don't want him there. You use the "loner" rhetoric to enforce the idea that his isolation is a good thing that he wants. They use it IN UNIVERSE from the mouths of characters who have biased views about him.

If he's such a loner why does he keep going back? Why does he answer every call? Like a beaten, but unfortunately faithful dog that can't help but return to their abusive master.

[tomatodogplush]

So, as a society, do we want to do a Jayvik secret Santa with fanfictions/art this year or-

[icewindandboringhorror]

indeed my exact process once every 8 months or so

[trainingdummyrabbit]

Never heard of these guys before, but just got Lark on the uquiz... I've gotta know who this Lark character is

oh shit hey!! welcome to the My Bugs!! theyre my lobcorp/pm ocs ive been tossing around for um.. almost two years now! good lordt. so um, were pretty much rockin with that being the baseline understanding :] check it out if you havent, this has!! SUPER spoilers. it started as just wanting to make some little guys but then it turned into a series of "yknow whatd be really funny"s and now theyre Doing Things.

essentially, as it is now, the concept at its core is "what if there was a really fucked up lcorp branch in which things just went Comically sideways." aka local lcorp facility does such a shit job trying to get itself together that it Completely misses the fact that its entire wing exploded overnight. And Also People Are Turning Into Creatures Now. fucked up little petri dish of a facility.

lark is theeeeee third? character? ive made for their little group. and ive spoken about him exactly Once. in the quiz, yeah; that was the only time. but hes been here the whole time basically. hes intended to be the first 'pov' of the entire narrative thread, some newbie whos trying his damn best. aaaand hes also the first one to die! yippy 🎉

the actual context of where he comes from is still undefined (ithink i was considering making him an Index guy way back then?) but the main pin in his character is the unshakable belief that something specifically is Out To Get You. They Said Your Name Exactly, Yeah. the inherent expectation of cruelty. that someone is watching you, waiting for any misstep to make your life absolute hell. its.

hes hard to describe. because 'paranoia' is the easiest description, but thats not quite It. invisible lines you cant (and shouldnt) cross; the fear of perception crossed with the fear of solitude, because if someone isnt watching and directing you then something Will go catastrophically wrong. teeth pointed inward, an "i need to do this Myself because someone else will get it wrong, will mess it up." like he has something to prove. Just Do It Right.

and on the one hand, its mostly something he developed in order to cope with pressure he cannot change. bbbbbut on the other hand, he happened to be dropped into a situation in which 'someone is out to get You Specifically in an act of uncaring cruelty' is 100% true and real and he cant really do anything about it. and nobody really believes him. Because Nobody Knows Yet. which means he gets astronomically worse.

his corrosion stems from the snap decision that he doesnt just want to sit around and fawn and grovel for someone- something- that is just going to kill him anyway. if they want something to watch-- some big Show, some Game-- he was going to give it to them. to inflict as much carnage as was saddled onto Him. as Much collateral as physically possible. he'd pull this entire place down with him if he had to. he doesnt get the chance to, of course, but its the thought that counts little buddy.

so um, yeah, hes doing great 👍

[hana-bobo-finch]

jørgan clan my beloved. you guys are so messed up

[caitas-cooing]

All those how to be successful in work and school courses are all the same and none of them are actually that helpful imho

[strangerhands]

if any of you ever notice me liking, un-liking, and re-liking your posts, (sometimes multiple times a day. sometimes multiple days apart.) please (try to) ignore me. i am sorry. i am insane. thank you. have a good day

[studentbyday]

Day 1 // 100 days of code

I told you I don't take aesthetic pictures... I didn't actually code today (but I finally finished all this week's submissions for chem today...) but I did read the description for cs50x readability. And I can't store all the info in my sleepy brain so I wrote things down. I still have more questions but Google needs to answer them. Preferably tomorrow. Got another covid shot today so I'm REALLY hoping I won't feel absolutely terrible tomorrow and for the next couple of days like every other covid shot before... But it's good knowing that my immune system will be smarter for it 😷👍 K goodnight

[nomaishuttle]

omg also im soo mad i e been listening to rhis worldbuilding podcast at work and it was giving me lots of ideas but i had to turn it off bc i took like..an hour on a room bc i was so focused on jt and my beautiful world.. and i forgot all the ideas i had 😭😭 all i can remember is my fairy thing and that isnt even a from today thoufht

[paracosmicka]

sonic tma au? 👀👀👀👀👀

OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD I CAN’T BELIEVE IT’S BEEN SO LONG SINCE I’VE POSTED IT ABOUT IT EVEN THO I HAVE SO MUCH STUFF ABOUT MY SONIC/TMA AU

Okay to start out with, I’ve been calling the “Primal Fears au” and it started out as a working title but I don’t really have any better ideas and the tag I have on all of my posts about this tma au is #primal fears au (idk how to imbed a hyperlink into text but like if you go into the search thingy over my blog and just type that tag in you’ll see all my previous posts about it that are from OVER A YEAR AGO IT’S BEEN SO LONG 😭)

Okay uhhhhh idk how to organize this so just get ready for a shit ton of sketches and art lol

here are some more fleshed out character sheets (than my very post about them) for Sonic and Shadow, they’re not final yet tho obviously

was fighting demons drawing Shadow’s main design for some reason

general sketch ideas for Sonic and Shadow

And my favorite part of this au is that I just get to categorize all the Sonic characters into which fear entity would they serve so here are some character sheet ideas:

Okay this last one is Infinite and I know he’s not everyone’s favorite bc he’s just so…..mid ig in the games but redesigning him as an avatar of the Spiral has been so fun. Also bonus points if you know what Doctor Who episode I stole this dialogue from lol:

and finally I thought I’d just share an idea I had of a “cover” for my Primal Fears au

Okay I think those are all the presentable sketches I have but there are so so so many more ideas I have and it’s not going to help bc I’m feeling the annual urge to relisten to The Magnus Archives again especially bc the new season of The Magnus Protocol comes out soon.

But yeah anyway feel free to ask any questions/share ideas if you’d made your own TMA/Sonic au I love yapping about horror and this au is like my child. Actually that’s not a very good analogy bc all of my sonadow aus are my babies. I just love sonadow sorry I will continue to be insane

[deadsetobsessions]

“I ate paint once,” Danny nonchalantly threw out in the middle of game night.

The entire table stopped. Heads whipped towards Danny.

“Yeah, me too. Cardamom yellow was my favorite. Ugly as hell but the chemicals just tasted right.” Tim replied, using the distraction to nab some of Bruce’s money. Monopoly money, that is. Everyone’s heads snapped towards Tim, only Cass and Danny (who was part of the scheme) caught him cheating.

“Really? I think mine was those spray can blue cosmos paint. But that might have been more my thing for space than the actual taste.”

“WHY WERE YOU EATING PAINT?!” Dick asked, looking like he wanted to lunge over the table and shake Danny until he puked out paint. Bruce looked like he was about to have a heart attack.

“Yeah, what the fuck, Tim?” Jason snickered.

“In my defense,” Danny grinned. “I was left unsupervised. Also, Steph, you owe me $24 in rent.”

“Ugh! I’m almost out of money! Can’t you loan me some, Alfred?”

“I am sorry, Miss Stephanie, you are not qualified for another loan. In fact, one of your properties is about to be confiscated as per the collateral agreement.”

“Noooo!” Stephanie made dramatic dying noises.

“What was your excuse, Timothy?” Damian asked, eyes glued to the board and determined to win the game.

“Hey, I was probably less supervised than Danny was.”

“Yeah,” Danny perked up. “My parents brought us down to their lab all of the time. Taught us a lot of stuff.”

“Really? Like what?” Duke asked, casually slapping away Tim’s sneaky hands.

“Oh, like what a rocket launcher sounded like up close! And how to build a laser gun! Oh! And what human organs looked like when they’re fresh!” Danny chirped, collecting his money from a stunned Stephanie’s hands. He looked up.

“Oh, don’t worry! I at least learned what not to do when it comes to lab safety. And we wore hazmat suits to protect ourselves from the radiation.” Danny smiled in a ditzy fashion as the table fell silent in a horrified manner. Cass tapped his arm amusedly, but allowed his bullshit to stand. After all, it’s not like he lied.

“Radiation?” Duck’s voice raised a couple of octaves. Oh yeah, Danny’s going to laugh about that pitch for a long while.

“Organs?!” Jason’s hands closed around the plastic house he was holding rather forcefully.

“Do you even know what basic lab safety practices are, Danny?” Damian demanded, finally looking up with brows furrowed. He rolled the dice and grabbed a mystery card. He gets $100 from Alfred.

“How old were you??” Duke asked.

“Like… 8, when they first brought me in?”

“Eight.” Bruce rumbled, slipping into a more Batman like persona. When Danny sent him a confused look, Bruce straightened back into his Bruce persona. “Wow, they must have trusted you a lot!”

“Sure?”

“What were their names again?” Stephanie asked sweetly, Cass nodding at him.

“Jack and Maddie Fenton.” Not that they’ll find them here, considering his parents are dead and in another universe.

“Cool, cool, cool!” Stephanie blinked, beaming as her hands formed lethal fists underneath the table.

Danny blinked and tilted his head in an unassuming way, pretending like he had no idea what Stephanie was thinking of. He sneakily handed over $600 to Cass in order to complete his monopoly on his side of the board.

Danny stood up and spread his hands out, one hand clutching his new found victory.

"Well, lady and gents, you've all been floundering against the inevitable tide of capitalism. I am here, as a reminder that you can never win against the hopelessness that will be your financial ruin! I, Danny Fenton, have obtained a quarter of the board and therefore have won against even your best efforts!" He cackled, holding up his fan of properties triumphantly. He shot a mischievous grin at Cass, who held up a solemn thumbs up in support for his monetary takeover.

"... Danny, are you... planning on a career in villainy?" Bruce asked, after a brief and total wave of shocked silence. Damian looked like he was having a conniption at having been bested, unknowingly. Yeah, Danny was disarming like that.

"Yeah, that was concerning." Tim piped up, nabbing a ten from a shell-shocked Damian.

"Hey! The Riddler gives surprisingly good monologues! And he's really loud, so it's hard not to pick up on things. Duke, your turn." Danny sat back down, pouting. The villainy comment was a little too close to his fears.

"Damn it." Duke, who had rolled, landed smack middle of Danny's territory. He handed over a sheaf of bills to a grinning Danny.

"Wait a minute! You have cheated!" Damian bolted upwards from his seat, finally done running through the purchases he remembered Danny making. "You acquired that property not within the games' rules!"

"Okay, first of all, the rule book is a suggestion, like lab safety rules," Danny saw the others open their mouths to protest, but he quickly shut it down. "Second, there's totally no rules about selling and buying places from a private owner so suck on it. And thirdly? Cass sold it to me, so you all can take it up with her."

"Diabolical!" Damian muttered indignantly.

"... Dammit." Dick sighed, falling back into the chair and balancing on its two legs. He couldn't say anything, considering his current of bankruptcy.

"Danny. Danny, I'll buy a property from you." Jason said, eyeing one of Danny's other properties near his own cluster.

"What do you have that would interest me?" Danny asked, falling back into his Vlad-like imitation.

"Ew, don't do that," Steph reached over to jab him in the arm.

"Yeah, Jason, what do you have?" Duke said, the lovely subtle instigator that he is.

"Red Hood's signature."

The others blue-screen, gaping at the actual audacity Jason had to offer up something that would take him no effort. Danny, prepared with a poker face that came with lying straight to Jazz's ever perceptive eyes about whether he nabbed the last of her ice cream or not, was prepared.

"Red Hood? The condom guy working out of the... um. Upper East Side?" Danny asked, pretending to hesitate. He knows where Jason operated. That doesn't mean he couldn't simply pretend otherwise. For science, of course.

...

...

...

The table howled with laughter, Jason's indignant spluttering unable to say anything against Danny's wide eyed look of innocence. Cass leaned against the table, chuckles falling out of her mouth and eyes crinkled in mirth. Dick had fallen out of his chair, helplessly wheezing on the floor. Duke is hiding his face in his hands, mirroring Bruce's pose as they both shake from silent laughter. Damian is smirking, wicked and sharp as he smugly stared at Jason. Stephanie and Tim are leaning against each other, repeating "the CONDOM GUY" in alternating and increasingly louder voices. Alfred had a smile on his face and a tight grip on the bills in front of him that betrayed his amusement.

"He's a crime lord!" Jason exclaimed, indignant.

"Uh, okay. Well, I mean, why would I want a crime lord's signature? I don't want to be on his radar. Or echolocation or whatever. He's... a Bat, right? That's what you guys call that group, yeah?"

"How do you know the Rogues better than the vigilantes?!" Jason glared at his unhelpful family. Those assholes better prepare for a load of rubber bullets the next time they're on patrol near Crime Alley.

"Hey, it's not my fault the vigilantes here are unsociable. Maybe if they monologued more, I'd know who they are."

"Wouldn't- wouldn't that make them more villain like?" Tim asked, stuttering from his laughter.

"I dunno?" Danny replied, enjoying his the family's unabashed joy. "I mean, they're pretty legit and they help people already so I guess they don't need to be sociable... but still I swear I haven't heard anything about Batman other than that he grunts and is mean towards criminals."

Is mean towards criminals, Duke mouthed at a recovering Dick who was in the process of heaving himself back up. It sent him careening back down to the floor with restrained giggles. Cass tapped Danny, reminding him to eat some food.

"Tt. Of course not. They're efficient at their jobs and have no need to be seen as welcoming to criminals." Damian puffed up.

"Yeah, but they've gotta feel safe, right?" Danny shrugged as he plucked a cookie from the cookie platter. "The... one with the sword, what was it?"

"Robin." Damian supplied, eyes narrowed and trained on him.

"Yeah, the baby bird. The kids think his swords are cool so they trust him. But like, the others? The flippy blue one? Not so much."

"Wait," Dick said from the floor. "They don't trust Nightwing?"

"Nah, they trust him to protect them, but he has a history of bringing the kids to the police, you know?"

"What's wrong with that?"

Danny shrugged. "ACAB. But also because everybody knows that half the guys in the GCPD and CPS are child traffickers."

"Wait, what?" Jason and Tim straightened.

Bruce piped in, the emotional whiplash of amusement to concern to amusement to concern visibly making itself known on the man's baffled face. "I thought Batman and Commissioner Gordon took care of that?"

"Sure, the obvious ones." Danny hesitated. Well, he's pretty sure they think he's a meta so... "There's... a meta trafficking ring that they're a part of. That's. That's kind of what I was running from."

Danny looked up pleadingly. Cass placed a hand on his arm in comfort, not knowing that he was fibbing about running from them.

Danny was on the streets helping his own Alley metas to run from them.

Danny is as feral as she was, and that meant he could hide just as much as she could read off of him. Cass was the best and he felt kind of bad about lying to her, successfully or not.

"Uh. Some people said you know Batman, Bruce. I know- uh, that might not be the case but if you do, could you ask him to look into it?" Danny made his eyes tear up. "And maybe he wouldn't care about me much, I mean, I know he doesn't really like metas but if he helps out, I could totally like, leave the city once the kids are safe, promise."

Ooh, Danny put a little too much sincerity into that. He could practically hear the hearts breaking in the game room as everyone glared at Bruce.

"You won't have to leave."

"... Promise?" And Danny's voice was a little too desperate, too hopeful, because Bruce's eyes tugged down in sadness.

"Promise." He rumbled, all Bruce Wayne and all Batman. Danny's core warmed. Danny also saw the rest of the family's faces darken in pure agreement. And partial wrath.

"Yeah! We'll kick Batman's ass if he even thought about kicking you out!" Stephanie proclaimed.

"He's far more proficient in combat than you are, Brown." Damian immediately leapt to Batman's defense and that was that.

Well, later, as Danny was "sleeping" and Phantom was hovering in the cave, invisible and intangible, he got confirmation that his Alley meta kids were going to be safe, soon.

After all, the entire Batclan was suiting up and baying for blood, with Oracle's all encompassing presence behind them, fingers reaching for their enemies' weak points.

[icewindandboringhorror]

Other Misc. Rambling Thoughts on the topic:

(~ !!!!!!!!! if you're just reblogging this post for the Poll section, please reblog the original post without this addition* lol. ~)

(*not that there's anything super personal or weird about the addition, just that it's meant to be kind of casual Side Commentary, not really part of the Main Point Of The Poll, so it would feel kind of weird for it to be emphasized by being included in reblogs unless the reblogs were explicitly about the side commentary, etc..... if that makes sense.. ANYWAY!)

It's neat to read the written descriptions that people are mentioning in the tags, since it's almost like I can see or conceptualize the idea as well, but it's just.. I'm not SEEING it.

Like for example: I can imagine a vase, it's a muted mint green and slightly translucent, elaborate golden birds sprawled down the side in streaks of thin rough watery paint, the base material shimmers gently in the light, there's a small chip where it's cracked on the handle, etc, etc. .. But as I'm thinking about this I see literally nothing.

It seems like perhaps some people can visualize an object first, and THEN describe what they see. But I sort of work backwards. I am building the object in my mind, I can never see it, but it's a collection of concepts. Rather than visualizing all details as a whole at once, I am adding each detail one by one, building onto the IDEA of the thing.

The vase doesn't have a crack on the handle because I just automatically visualized a vase with a crack. It was more that I cognitively understand the concept of a vase, what they tend to be made out of, how they tend to look and feel, the properties they have. So based purely on that knowledge, I can imagine "a chip is something that a vase could have, it would look this way and behave this way" - more like... I'm constructing a bullet point Fact List about the object rather than seeing it.

So if you tell me to imagine an object, I can, in a way, imagine that object in great detail, but it's just.. I'm not SEEING those details, more just knowing it's qualities in a purely conceptual way. Sometimes in the tags when people are like "yeah I can see the skin of the apple, texture, little dots on the surface" it's like… I can imagine that too, I can know it's there, but just with no visual attached.

I guess rather than SEEING something and going ''ah. I know what this looks like because I have seen it''. I more just skip that visual step entirely and go ''I know what this looks like, I just randomly have a list of information about the concept in my mind.'' etc. Maybe similar to how sometimes in dreams, even though a house may look completely different and be in an entirely fake 'dreamlike' environment, you just somehow KNOW intuitively that it's meant to be your childhood home or something. Even when it looks nothing like it in reality. There's a built-in base knowledge of the properties or information of some things within a dreaming mind, etc.

--

This also makes me wonder about like.. how storytelling and myth is so important to cultures all across time. Or how this could tie also into concepts of religion.. etc. etc. If so many people really can kind of conjure these vivid images in their mind, then maybe that's part of why certain things are so meaningful to them? Like a "religious experience" being something you can actually really SEE/feel/lingering with you in your head, rather than just abstract words on a page, detached purely theoretical ideas, etc... hmmm

.

Plus also just for average emotional stuff too, even outside of broader cultural conceptual attachments..

Like, I don't think there's a direct 1 to 1 link (obviously not all people with mental illnesses that significantly reduce their emotional or expressive capacity also MUST have aphantasia or vice versa), but it's interesting as someone who DOES also have a much more lessened emotional range/pretty flat affect/etc. etc. to think like.. Maybe I WOULD be more emotional, in a way, if I could have these vivid experiences..?

Perhaps memories would hold deeper significance if they could really stay with me vividly. Or storytelling would evoke more of a deep emotional reaction to me if I could really picture and feel the things that are going on. If things were more TANGIBLE in my brain, rather than always merely conceptual highly abstracted ideas.

Kind of like, it's probably easier to get over the death of a pet or something, if after not seeing them for an hour you already don't remember what they looked like (beyond just a vague fact list of traits), and you have no vivid memories or mental reminders of them (beyond just factual information stores). COGNTIVIELY you can appreciate the idea of their absence, of course, you still miss them, but there's just no remaining visceral sensory ties. A very "out of sight, out of mind" sort of thing in terms of attachments, memories, emotions, etc. Maybe certain things are easier to "get over", when you're not having constant mental sensory reminders that occasionally rekindle your feelings about the event or etc.??

(like for example, maybe someone could remain angry about an argument longer if they could vividly replay it in their head over and over again. VS just like.. 'Yes I can factually recall the fact I had an argument, and I do have knowledge stored about what precisely was said, but any sort of sensory data such as sights/smells/feelings, etc. from the actual moment of the event are long gone and can never be conjured again in my mind." etc.)

Which again, I think lessened emotional permanence and image permanence in the mind are NOT inherently linked, can all be caused by different things for different people. And, since I can't visualize anything in my head, maybe I'm misunderstanding how it happens and the effect it may have on stuff like remembering things you miss or replaying arguments, etc. etc. But it's still a little interesting to think about, if they could influence each other to some degree.... :0c --

Lastly, It's also weird because I'm actually pretty good at estimating distance and spaces? I can quickly assemble furniture without an instruction manual, pretty easily have a concept of how much space a chair may take up in a room, how two mechanical parts might fit together - BUT, I am literally not actually visualizing anything. I cannot see 3D objects in my mind at ALL. It's like.. just based on the pure List Of Facts About Things Which I Have Observed.. I can intuitively go "oh this works like this/this is this size" just because.. I know it's that size. I don't have to see anything to know..?

But then on the other hand, I'm terrible at directions without a map (I guess because a 3d outdoor environment has WAY more complexity than like.. "Will this square fit into another square?"etc. lol ).

BUT, I also draw/sculpt/etc. entirely without references, and seem to do mostly okay at that..? Like.. I can't even remember the last time I actually used a reference or looked at anything whilst drawing. It's all muscle memory, and me just adjusting as I go until something "looks right" on paper, I never have a set image in my head (or external reference) before hand.. Hrmm....

AND.. I used to say that I had a photographic memory when I was younger, which I know NOW is not true (I always thought it was just an expression, not that people could literally see things in a photographic way). But what I was describing is, I do often associate information with imagery, just... without imagery....

Like "Oh, I know that I took my medicine earlier today because I have a distinct memory, a snapshot of a moment in time, of me rattling the pill bottle in my hands as I looked up at a stop sign while in the back seat of a car". When I say this, I can't ACTUALLY see/feel/hear a pill bottle, or vividly picture a stop sign, but it's more just a factual recall, of. Even though I don't see these things, I know they happened, the information of them happening (me hearing a sound and also looking at a stop sign at the same time) has been stored in my brain as a memory, a collection of linked facts. --

As for other senses, I cannot taste or feel anything in my head AT ALL.. wild that some people mention that. I mean, again, I can have a purely factual recall as if reading a textbook, knowing the information of 'X item typically has X texture, therefore I can imagine what it may be like to feel it' or 'X usually has this taste' etc. - but I can never actually experience those senses in any capacity in my mind alone. I would say audio is my strongest mental sense (maybe a 2.5 or 3 (if it were translated onto the above scale where 1 is most vivid and 5 is nothing)), then visual (4.5 at most, usually 5), and then taste and smell and such are just complete 5, absolutely nothing, I didn't even know people could experience taste or feeling just in their mind alone.. lol...

I know this is just a silly bad quality random screencap of a screencap that I found on facebook lol, BUT it's a succinct enough image to easily describe the concept in a quick/accessible way hopefully :

-

(and of course, feel free to elaborate in tags, etc.! (especially elaborating about other senses as well.. can you "hear" in your mind just as well as you can "see"? taste? etc.) It's an interesting topic to me, as someone who's like a 4.5 at MOST lol. I'm curious what option will be the most common :0c )

[wakayrd]

More theatre stuff! I've started to put all the theatre doodles I do under a tag called "isat curtain call" because I wanted to be organized lol

MIRABELLE! Mirabelle is kind of a powerhouse at the theatre. She acts in a lot of the plays they put on (and gets really nervous before going on stage). She has lots of folks who are her neighbors or friends who attend shows and always overwhelm her with tons of flowers. She appreciates it but it can be a bit much! She's always around to help- She will show up for set construction, set decor, lighting design... anything- and all on top of acting! She's even the theatre's health and safety rep! (the little bit at the bottom is inspired by true events... yeah...)

Bonnie!! Bonnie started volunteering with the theatre recently after coming to see a pantomime for Peter Pan. They love to help out with the snack bar, and even wear nice clothing for the shows to look all professional. They also usher sometimes! All with adult supervision of course. They are allowed to come help with set decor (painting the set!) but NOT set construction. They sometimes convince their older sister to stop by the theatre when everyone else is working to drop off homemade goodies. They also like to hang out in the sound/light booth, the stage looks so different from up there! They're close with Odile, who shows them a ton of stuff. They hope that sometime they can also start doing the light cues during a show. They don't want to work near Siffrin backstage, even though that's something they could perhaps start doing now.

Sometimes... it feels like there's something in the theatre, hanging out in the catwalks, judging silently. Maybe... someone... But if you turn around to see them, they're gone! The theatre might be haunted, who knows. That seems the most plausible theory... Siffrin tends to spend a lot of time on the catwalks as well. Perhaps he'd know more about this mysterious spirit of the theatre?

The Spirit of the Theatre! (Loop!) They're always around. They're actually convinced that they're not able to leave the theatre. The hat? They stole it from the costume room! It makes hiding that glow ever so easy- Sometimes they steal coats or matching robes from there, just to make hiding easier. They're so knowledgeable in all things theatre, especially the theatre the group operates out of. Sometimes they spend their time alone at the theatre straightening up the props room or making sure all the actor's props and costumes are in their proper places. It really seems like they consider themselves an integral (and invisible) part of the team. They like to watch from afar, that's all. Meeting Siffrin was an accident, one that The Spirit of the Theatre couldn't avoid. Now they have to deal with Siffrin coming to talk to them often, even looking for advice. It's unclear how long they've been there, and when asked for a name, will only say they're the "Spirit of the Theatre."

And that's it from me today I promise I am normal lol I am having fun watching this all form in front of my eyes a little. It's mostly silly goofy stuff and as much as I'd love to stick to canon best I can, I may have to fiddle with it to get it to make sense... especially for Loop :) but if you have any ideas or stuff my inbox is so open I love talking about this- these drawings were stacked up from the last couple of days just me preparing to post... teehee!!

[imsobadatnicknames2]

ok but i need the evrart claire essay

Okay just be warned that this is gonna be less of an "essay" and more of a loose collection of thoughts, and I don't know how fresh or novel any of these ideas are going to be when it pertains to popular Disco Elysium fan discourse because I don't really do fandom, you know?

Anyway, I think the most obvious factet of Evrart's character is how he very intentionally calls to mind a caricature of corrupt union leaders, the image of a sleazy mobster who only cares about his own personal gain but pays lip service to leftist politics and pretends to care about the interests of workers as a way to obtain and maintain his power. And I think a lot of people straightforwardly read him as such, because that's the way he carries himself and the type of character the game is riffing on. There's also the question of how much of Evrart's manipulative, duplicitous attitude is just how he normally acts and how much of it is him specifically acting that way towards Harry and Kim specifically, it's important to have in mind that your main character is a cop and that would definitely play a role in making Evrart go out of his way to be a bit more of a bastard and toy with you a bit before he decides to actually do anything helpful.

However, once you dig a little deeper into his characterization, it becomes clear that he's pulling a very interesting double bluff, because it becomes apparent that the shady mobster who only cares about his personal gain is an act he's putting on. He's very self-aware about the fact that he's playing the villain, he seems to actively revel in it, but ultimately, it seems like he does it because playing the villain is the way he gets shit done.

This is not to say he's not actually corrupt, or that he's not ALSO involved in all sorts of shady stuff and taking advantage of his position of power, but the game does make it apparent that on some level he DOES have the interests of the people of Martinaise at heart.

For example, it is textually stated that the harbor doesn't need a night watchman, and Evrart created the position specifically to provide a source of income for René. He knows the pension Rene gets is not enough for him to live on, but he's also aware that René is the sort of right-wing guy who would rather starve to death than take a handout (especially from those dirty union commies), so Evrart created a job position which pretty much involves doing nothing for a few hours every night so he could help him with his economic troubles in a way he wouldn't refuse out of principle. René hates his guts, ideologically stands against everything his organization represents, and is generally an unlikeable asshole and a fascist prick, but he's also a disadvantaged member of the community and that seems to matter more.

Even when he asks you to get the signatures to build the community center, which is definitely one of the most morally questionable things he does during the events of the game (as it will improve the community, but at the same time displace the people from the fishing village), his intentions seem to be ultimately good. Due to the very nature of his character and the act he puts on, it's purposefully hard to tell when he's being sincere and when he's being manipulative. However, if Harry's drama and empathy skills are high enough when he's confronted about it, you'll be able to tell that he's not lying about his motives for wanting to build a community center or about the fact that he intends to provide better housing for the people displaced by the project, and that he feels genuine rage about their current living conditions. It can still be said that he's ignoring their self-determination and essentially forcing these people out of their current homes, but he does seem to have good intentions and think he's doing a good thing for them in the long run, even if his methods are morally questionable at best.

In that way, the Union is an extension of him in this regard too. They're pretty unapologetic about the fact that they're openly operating as a crime syndicate, but the game doesn't give you any reasons to believe they're lying when they say they're doing it as a way to muslce out all the more dangerous gangs and crime organizations out of Martinaise, or that their involvement in the drug trade is at least partially motivated by a desire to make sure it's not controlled by more dangerous and violent crime organizations. Again, they're playing the villain as a way to fill that power vacuum and make sure more dangerous people don't fill that role (but of course, that doesn't erase the fact that, noble as their intentions may be, they're still involved in all these shady activities and turning a pretty substantial profit from them too)

Of course, on the other hand, just because the game seems to hint at the fact that Evrart and the Union are, deep down, a force for good, doesn't erase the fact that he's done plenty of bad shit to further his interests, and the game doesn't shy away from this. He's still extremely corrupt, his long-term plan to wrestle control of the harbor away from the company and turn it into a worker-owned operation (which *would* massively improve the material conditions of the dockworkers if succesful) involves endangering the lives of a lot of his own workers, he and his brother Edgar pass the position of union foreman back and forth between each other to circumvent the term limit and keep themselves in power indefinitely, and if you explore all dialogue options with the Deserter it's all but explicitly stated that they rose to power by getting him to assassinate the previous Union forewoman.

These are things that Evrart himself would probably rationalize as sacrifices that need to be made for the greater good. After all, it is implied that the previous union forewoman was also corrupt, except in favor of the company's interests, and might have even been a company plant. However, this doesn't make those things morally right. Good intentions nonwithstanding, it's clear that the Claire brothers are very "the ends justify the means" kind of people, they probably see getting the previous Union leader killed or endangering the lives of the dockworkers to overthrow the company that exploits them as "pulling the lever" in the trolley problem, which is extremely callous at best.

Here's where we get a little more into "disjointed thoughts" territory, but Evrart can also be seen as a critique of the limits of trade unionism and social democrat politics. Something that I completely missed in my first playthrough but was able to catch on during my second is that the people of the fishing village refuse to unionize, and as a result they don't get the same level of support and protection that the union provides to the people of the more urban section of Martinaise. This is apparently widely known enough for characters other than Evrart to comment on (I forget what character I learned this from, but it was definitely not Evrart). So it's clear that Evrart and the Union put their interests of the members of their own organization over those of other working class people, which is one criticism that can be leveraged against the way a lot of leftists seem to treat unions as the ultimate tool for worker class liberation.

Similarly, when Evrart tells you his long-term plans, it's clear that his ultimate goals don't involve complete worker liberation. As far as the game shows, he's a socdem who's still looking to work within the confines of capitalism. There are more radically left wing characters in Disco Elysium, but Evrart is the only one with any actual power to affect change, which kinda speaks to the lack of presence of more hardline leftist positions in mainstream politics. As someone living in Latin America, I kinda ended up seeing a bit of a lot of our currrent socdem politicians in him in that respect, I guess, but i'd need more time to articulate this thought properly, I guess.

Ultimately, I think Evrart is an amazingly crafted character. He evokes a well-known archetype of a shady, corrupt, power-hungry union leader, but he adds a lot of depth, self-awareness, and nuance to it and subverts that characterization in several ways. I think he atually serves an important role of ideologically challenging players who share the developers' and writers' political leanings. I think it would have been very self-congratulatory and autocomplacent to make the most influential leftist character in the game an unambiguously good paragon of workers' rights and working class liberation. By instead giving us someone who's an absolute callous bastard who definitely has a bit of blood on his hands, who's a socdem at best and a self-serving mob boss at worst, but can ultimately be interpreted as a force for good, and asking the players to decide what they think of him I think it brings interesting questions to the table of our commitment to material gains, what sorts of people we're willing to work with, and the sort of acts we're willing to tolerate, and makes the game a lot more thematically rich.

I also think a good analysis of Evrart is incomplete without an analysis of the ways in which he serves a a charater foil for Joyce, but I don't feel like getting into that rn.

[muffinlance]

Fandom Trumps Hate Charity Auction: MuffinLance Edition

Hello, MuffinLance here. Author of Salvage and some other stuff ("some other stuff" best viewed while logged into AO3.)

The FTH Charity Auction is upon us again! Bidding opens on 2/25/25; winners donate directly to the organization they choose, and I proceed to Write The Thing they asked for. I've got three auctions up for grabs this year. One is relatively affordable, two are "I double dog dare someone to bid".

Auction 1: Bidder's Choice

Minimum Bid: $30 This auction is for either: an original prompt OR the next chapter in an existing fic OR one of the stories from my "want to write but haven't found the time" list, which I shall gladly share with any interested winner. The minimum word count you'd get is 300; the max is 20k; the actual length will depend on what you pick and how excited I am to write it. In 2024, the winner of this bid chose "the next Dark Night in Ba Sing Se chapter please," and got a completed fic with 5 chapters and 18k words. We'll work through email to bounce ideas and settle on something that we're both excited for! I look forward to working with you, and thank you for supporting one of the many good causes in this auction. >>>Auction 1 Link<<<

Auction 2: Kindling AU Part 3

Minimum Bid: $100 This auction is for the next Kindling AU installment; it's the equivalent of the Blue Spirit episode in that "Aang got caught" is the premise, but it is INCREDIBLY AU YOU HAVE NO IDEA. I've got this fully outlined and partially written, but as it's going to be somewhere between 8k-20k once I'm fully done fleshing it out, I haven't had time to actually sit down and write it. If you feel like donating lots of money to get my butt in the chair, please do. Working title is "Snow in the Fire Nation", and it's going to get into how the Water Tribe POWs are treated in this AU. Expect lots of screen time for Katara, Sokka, and of course Zuko. Can't say more without spoiling major things.

>>>Auction 2 Link<<<

(Kindling series link, for those unfamiliar.)

Auction 3: Finish the Current Book of Towards the Sun You Stupid Author

Minimum Bid: $500 This is the "MuffinLance sit your butt down and finish the current book of Towards the Sun" auction. It costs lots of money because that will take lots of work and I'm double-dog-daring someone to call my bluff (it's going to be approximately 9-30k words to finish depending on how verbose I get). If someone wants to donate $500 to make this happen, I will get it done, so help me. To be clear, this is finishing the current book (NOT finishing the entire story); this will get us out of "Zuko stuck in the Northern Water Tribe prison" limbo and to a really satisfying turning point in the story. We will also see dragons. Tiny squiggly baby noodle dragons. You know you want them. >>>Auction 3 Link<<< (Towards the Sun link, for those unfamiliar.)

Do I expect anyone to bid on those last two? No. If someone does, will I stare them in the eyes while I vindictively type-type-type? Absolutely.

Happy Fandom-Trumping-Hate, everyone!

@fandomtrumpshate

[snippit-crickit]

wakeup new oc idea has dropped,,,,

When Felix got thrown out of artschool for his skibidi performance and was a little depressed, Parragon approached him saying he likes his art and that he does similar weird stuff with paper and that they should start an artclub together for weirdos! So they did and the anomalous artclub grew!!

Parragon was the person who was in charge of majority of things and organized everything, people like him very much and he likes people. and felix is just doing his thing, they have a bit of a symbiosis, and an artstyle merge... Parragon is actually the person who taugh Felix how to enter prints : ]

i will be your canvas and give you a space to grow and you will make my life a little bit more weird and colorful

however something happened that caused Parragon to show up less and in the end dissappear completely locking himself up in his studio, basically going awol

Felix and the rest of the artclub got left on ice and that really hurt him and because he is still very sentimental about the club and theoretically IS vice president so he tries to be the boss but he has no idea how to do it and everybody wishes for Parragon to come back