#i am actually impressed too

[randompersonimettoday]

Group of teenagers who managed to somehow set off fireworks in our parking lot in a downpour.

They left before my manager found them, but the burn marks can't come out of the concrete. :(

[chloesimaginationthings]

"Oswald's mom has got it going on" - FNAF Pit bonnie

[gourmet-soda-pop]

he's got that sleepy energy that people envy

[mishy-mashy]

Bruce is actually really attractive, and I have enough reasoning to make a list

He's:

Tall (. Tall enough to hit his head on the vault doorframe)

Long-legged

Has a straight nose bridge

Has high cheekbones (more noticeable in 2nd pic below)

Has a strong jawline

Sharp eyes, but they aren't small (plus eyebags if you're into that)

Overall, he has strong, attractive facial features

Has broad, refined shoulders. You can tell he works out (or he did, when he was alive)

Even has a thick, muscly neck

He has MUSCLE. Is SCULPTED. NOICE. VERY NOICE. (nice arms. Nice shoulders. Nice neck. Nice legs. Nice butt-)

(There are actually panels where you can see some of his muscles. Other than those already shown here, he's got bricky thighs-

-and in the panels where we first get his name dropped, he's got those shoulder blades too-)

The one time we see him smile, and he actually has a scary one

Has small, kinda sharp pupils, and his eyes remind me of a cat. We only ever saw him tense or defensive, so his resting/listening face is really cute

Other than the physical appearance stuff, he also:

Takes shit without batting an eye (patience, knowing it's just how Kudo is, etc)

Kudo being all "Cut the crap Bruce and give it to me straight", after Bruce tests his blood and is rightfully Concerned because they just faced AFO

Put up with Kudo's experimenting and testing over Yoichi's transferable Factor

Did ya'll see the look on Kudo's face when he realized he had Yoichi's Factor/will? Kudo was going to start in nonsense and Bruce just dealt with that.

Also something I noticed when looking back at the images here; Bruce has bandages on his arms in the void. But not when he faced AFO in the sewers.

Were he and Kudo cutting their arms open in their experimenting over Yoichi's theory? Is this why Kudo has two gauntlets instead of his one? Why we never see his bare arms in the void? That he always keeps his arms down so there's no slip?

Is smart enough to run blood tests, plus has enough common sense to pick Shinomori as his successor

He picked a guy who avoids society, has an Ability to detect danger so he can always stay away from AFO, is also a coward so he's never going to go throw himself into danger, even without knowing instinctively he stands no chance, etc.

Meanwhile, Kudo chose Bruce, who he played Hot Potato Yoichi with; but he did also trust Bruce, and put the only pure combative Ability in OFA through Bruce.

These two made their choices based on what they valued and saw the Factor needed.

Is logical, analytical, and calm.

He tried advising Midoriya on their Abilities in One For All, especially his own.

Midoriya then tried ignoring him about using Fa Jin for the first time, but found he was right, thinking: "Dammit!! I had [Lady Nagant] right where I wanted her, but... ugh! The Third was right. My parallel Quirk processes are all screwed up!" (ch. 314).

Plus, when Midoriya fixed his processing mistakes, Bruce was analyzing the way he reached his new conclusion. Pure facts, no bias, very calm, just saying it as it was.

We never see him panic. When he's caught by surprise in the sewers by AFO, Kudo, and Yoichi's little bubble event, he immediately reacts. He doesn't falter, he just knows he has to do something right now.

Was more willing to listen than Kudo to Yoichi's beckon, and probably was just following Kudo's rejection of Midoriya

While we don't see Kudo's face, we see Bruce's eyes when Yoichi calls on his heroes. Bruce was more open and receptive, or at least more impacted.

Bruce was also the one to start talking, while Kudo just kept quiet.

He actually communicates a lot

When Yoichi called them to support Midoriya, Bruce started talking to paint a picture of why they thought the way they did, so Yoichi understood where they were coming from.

(Though he seems to beat about the bush sometimes, since Kudo spoke up to be direct on how they couldn't just put their trust in some starry-eyed teenager. Plus, when Kudo tells him to just tell him what's wrong [double Factors])

When Midoriya first used Fa Jin against Nagant, Bruce came out just to tell him he knew what he was trying, but that Midoriya wasn't ready; and Midoriya found he was right. Midoriya just didn't want to listen to him then.

He asks Kudo for clarification after finding Kudo had two Factors in him after the sewer incident ("Just to be sure, All For One didn't touch you, right?") Kudo knew him well enough to go "stop beating around the bush and tell me", so Bruce was probably gonna start with questions, theories, and trying to understand everything in general, before saying "yeah you have two Factors. Don't know why".

Is strong-willed and loyal.

He followed Kudo, even to death, carrying on the cause he started until it ended with him.

Plus, when talking about how AFO needs a strong will to override OFA's own, we first see Bruce, Kudo, and Yoichi.

AFO couldn't steal OFA because the will was too strong for him, and that was back during Banjo's time. Since Shinomori never actually tried opposing AFO and just hid, we can assume the first Three (Yoichi, Kudo, Bruce) already had an accumulation of strong willpower that made OFA un-stealable. Those three are a strong enough foundation, and the main wills, that the other users just become bonuses.

Kudo, also saying that Midoriya needs allies with the same will and drive as him... hey Kudo, you're talking about yourself and your old allies, aren't you? That's why you look at Yoichi and Bruce when you say this.

Not only is Bruce attractive, but he's got good character. THE END.

[weregonnabecoolbeans]

Okay so I just noticed that the kissing scene in challengers literally just tells the whole story

[arsenicflame]

Hornigold's Izzy was the worst, of course. A version of himself that never escaped that terrible place, who lived his life as little more than an object. He still has nightmares about all the things Baz told them, about all the things he didn't.

It doesn't really surprise him, after the first ones, not at its root. To be Izzy Hands is to be someone's after all, though seeing his own face on someone so fundamentally different to him never gets less weird. The people who these other Izzys attached themselves too often left him with more questions than answers. Jack's Izzy, he can understand, from a certain view, though the man himself felt like a fever dream. The less said about Stede's Izzy the better, he's never going to forgive him for the ideas he put in his Stede's head.

Then there was Sam's Izzy.

The first thing anyone noticed about him was that he was happy. He smiled and laughed without thought, and went through life with an ease Izzy didn't think he had ever felt. The crew took to him immediately, accepting him in a way they never did the other Izzys, and certainly not their own. They prodded him and asked him endless questions, and he took every touch without a flinch and answered every question without a hint of a grumble. This Izzy was free. He was open, unburdened, trusting. He was happy.

Sam's Izzy was the one that hurt the most to see. He could accept the worst that Hornigold could've offered, that he would have suffered and been broken. It was infinitely harder to see that he had a chance to be this happy. That it slipped through his fingers.

He's never looked back before, but now? Seeing what might've been? He can't stop himself from considering the possibility that maybe he made the wrong choice back then, going with Ed.

[zahri-melitor]

I read two more issues, to get past the Robins fight, and...still so conflicted.

I can see exactly how, if Damian is your ultimate blorbo and you read for Damian, this story is doing exactly what you want it to do and reflecting back beloved stories.

Issue 5 is explicitly set up as a parallel to War of the Robins from Batman and Robin 2011, and even ends with Damian getting an 'I love you and here have a trophy' speech from Dick, to tie Damian back to Alfred and Dick and the layers of care in the family.

It acknowledges Damian's menagerie and comments that the last thing Damian did before leaving was check in on them. It has Goliath show up and save Damian's life.

It has intense Robin: Son of Batman vibes and the whole repeat of the 'finding yourself on an isolated tropical island and redeeming yourself'.

(I expect the whole Respawn thing to play out with very much the exact themes of how R:SOB dealt with Damian's clones once Damian clues in)

But I keep waiting for payoffs that just aren't happening.

Rose slopes off to call for help for Damian, and then Dick, Jason, Tim and Steph turn up and I'm like "oh! Rose went and called Dick, because she's looking out for Damian on the island in the same way that Dick looked out for Rose while he was training her as Ravager and in a bad place where she was hanging on every one of Slade's words and determined she needed to prove herself as worthy of her father...oh. She called Jason".

And look, I know that there's an underlying push for decades now that Jason and Rose do have a bunch of things in common and would work well together (and also hinting at whether or not they're romantically involved), but a lot of that is inferred off panel stuff while Dick was literally Rose's teacher. If you want themes of 'you don't have to be what your family expect of you' why on earth wouldn't you openly reference that?!?

In terms of who is on this island and is one of Dick's rogue's gallery:

Raptor

Double Dare (both Margot and Aliki)

Lady Vic

Brutale

Nite-Wing (seriously why is Tad here)

Blue Shrike is apparently Shrike's brother???

Is this going to get acknowledged? That a solid chunk of Dick's enemies are here and fighting Damian? That's like half the competition!

Also while I was looking all of this up apparently the Richard Dragon they're talking about is the son of actual Richard Dragon, who apparently got killed in a flashback or something in Green Arrow #32 during n52 and who apparently in that universe worked for the League of Assassins (oh god I am now tearing my hair out, RICHARD IS NOT LINKED TO THE LEAGUE. HE WAS TRAINED BY THE O-SENSEI. STOP DOING THIS TO ALL THE MARTIAL ARTISTS). Huh. Bet that doesn't stick. Richard's too important thematically any time someone wants to write a Question book to be left randomly dead.

And then there's the whole situation that there is a Tengu on this island. I just went down the rabbit hole and this is an import of the Titans villain who is just a Japanese goblin, NOT the Tengu mask that Shiva hands out to people who are trained by her and fighting somewhat under her banner (as seen in Knightsend and in the Circle of Six in Richard Dragon). Which is honestly a waste; if I were going to resurrect a Tengu for this plot, the Shiva and Richard Dragon aligned mask is far more thematic!

And plus, Silver Monkey? Silver Monkey is heavily linked to both Connor's Green Arrow stories, and Shiva (as Paper Monkey), and Deathstroke. It's War of the Dragons and Cult of the Monkey Fist and Brotherhood of the Fist. It's about death and resurrection (as Shiva almost kills Connor and Tim uses his marker with Shiva to save Connor’s life from the time he saved HER life). Is this going to be acknowledged? Because that's where I'd be playing the references by bringing in Silver Monkey.

And look I haven't seen what payoffs we get for Connor yet and there are definitely a bunch of opportunities built in; on top of Silver Monkey you have Constantine Drakon, who's defeated Connor before. Plus there's Artemis Crock, who in DC Comics comics terms isn't linked at all to Connor (she's JSA and Infinity Inc and was in the YJ98 Zandian Olympics team) but obviously has been used for archer purposes in tv and cartoon adaptions.

I keep seeing all these potential stories set up and wondering if there is going to be any pay off on them. I hope so. But also so far the story has slipped around those payoffs unless it's a direct reference to a Damian story.

Also Ra's al Ghul playing the hermit sensei meditating and in touch with the universe on a nearby island is the funniest nonsense possible. Ra's? RA'S? Taking time out to go meditate on the state of the universe? Just so he's conveniently in a place to give Sage Advice to Damian about what personal values he should work on? Pull the other one.

[notbecauseofvictories]

[ St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin — August 2023 ]

[starcurtain]

respectfully the reason people mischaracterize aventurine in the specific way you mentioned in the tags of "canonically not caring about wealth or power" at least is a lot more simple than you'd think; because the devs said otherwise. in the livestream where acheron and aventurine were revealed (so right before we actually got that tb quest where we learned everything) the ceo and the writer outright state that he seems to have an obsession with amassing wealth.

now obviously we can now look back on this with hindsight, they said a lot of things in there that make more sense with context (example; mentioning that his original kit being focused around dodging left him the only party member alive was scrapped even though they joked about it being fitting might have made him look like a jackass, but now recontextualized as being about his luck only saving him) but i would argue that when the writer of the story and the ceo of the company look into the camera while revealing behind the scenes details and say he has an obsession with wealth (even if there are now multiple interpretations of that, from thinking he intentionally plays into that facade to thinking that's how he coped after losing his reason for going on) and that is the first impression a lot of people had of his real character if they didn't follow leaks, it's kind of no wonder that it's so common of an interpretation.

Yeah, I think I take this with a strong does of skepticism though, because:

A) Everyone knows the devs lie in previews in order to keep secrets about characters, and, as you note, what they say about characters tends to be wildly out of context. We all remember those comments about Gallagher not being plot relevant at all lol. Should we still believe that just because it was said by the devs once?

B) At this point, why would you be engaging in the fandom for a character if you skipped or put off doing any of his content in the actual game? Playing through 2.0 alone, let alone 2.1, would reveal to anyone paying attention that Aventurine is a very duplicitous character who puts on a specific persona as a mask to hide the fact that he thinks of himself very differently on the inside.

I feel like we can use the "the devs said this" as an excuse for a little while, but once the character's content has been out for months and provides a completely different picture of the character, if you're not willing to update your "first impression" of the character to an more accurate portrayal of them based on what's actually in the game... then like... why be in that character's fandom at all?

That's just my opinion anyway. This might not be the nicest thing for me to say, but I do feel like if people refuse to move on from an impression they formed of the character before the character was even released... then what they've created is an OC, not a portrayal of the actual canon character anymore.

[schnaf]

22 days until hyeongjun's 22nd birthday

day 22 aka THE COUNTDOWN IS OVER - hyeongjun's past birthday brrrr ppoppos

bonus: 🤫

[silusvesuius]

this tree from my new drawing looking goated afffffff 👑👑

[eyebulb]

Fine, I caved... I'm Stolitz trash, sue me

[narzissenkreuz-ordo]

ah. im gonna leave this link here talking abt aventurine's real life 'inspirations' (link is to the leaks sub on reddit but the comment itself is just abt aventurine's background & its connotations from the 2.0 quest only)

of course this isnt something im overly educated about but its really disappointing and upsetting hyv went with this kind of portrayal when their storytelling isn't suited to be exploring real life cultural commentary with their characters & world building

[mysicklove]

gojo, babe, stop being dramatic. just bc i leave for a couple of days doesn't mean you can pretend to be dead for my attention :/

[jays-doodle-spool]

i never know what to say whenever someone who’s never pursued learning a language asks me “where are you in [language]”

how am i meant to express how far i am when they have no reference points but refuse to accept “im in year 2 of the language” as an answer. what answer do u want. i beg of u.

like, there’s general markers such as saying “i’m getting into more complex grammatical structures with compound sentences” but the person i’m speaking to has no idea what that means for progress

i then get asked if i would be able to “talk to them”

yes?? if they used words i know, which are simple, but still enough for a complete conversation, but not fluent

just ask me if I’m fluent yet if the deepest you’ve thought about language learning is “can speak to a native speaker or not”

idk what u want from me. i missed this lecture on small talk

[nephriteknight]

OKAY HERE IT IS my Book of Hours TMA au, still kind of unfinished

jon (knock lantern) is the 12th librarian, of course. i'm still haven't nailed down his backstory, but BoH literally has a book of children's stories filled with terrible secrets written in a language with "addictive qualities", so there's something good there i just need to figure out specifics

the most obvious choice is to make gertrude (knock heart?) 11th librarian, but i don't think van lauren's whole deal lines up with her at all. granted, she doesn't need to be doing van lauren's thing to work as 11th, but still, considerations. another option is to make gertrude governor of the cucurbit instead? i mean it's pretty terrible even for her, but it fits into her ends-justify-the-means protecting the world from the supernatural thing, so there's something interesting there.

if gertrude is governor, either sasha (knock lantern) or gerry (...lantern forge?) was 11th librarian. not sure who's better for that. if gertrude is 11th librarian, maybe jonah (lantern, and rose?? not sure) was governor of the cucurbit? (but i don't want him to be out of the story lol) if he's alive he's jon's superior at the bureau, if he's dead it's maybe sasha? altho the beureau doesn't seem like her thing. maybe sasha was another previous librarian?

actually wait i've just had another thought. jonah is from way earlier in hush house's history instead, a baron probably, and just like in tma jon mostly finds a bunch of homoerotic letters written to him. he'd probably have tried to become immortal, maybe a lantern long? he could theoretically still be around. probably visits during numa

jon's friend in brancrug is georgie (winter heart) -- not sure what her job would be. also living in brancrug is martin (heart moon)!

jon and martin initially get off on the wrong foot, but eventually jon admits that martin is useful for clearing out rooms and they start spending more time together (jon definitely starts hiring martin even if other assistants would be more efficient sometimes). one day he invites martin up to help out but they get distracted talking about things and never actually get around to work. jon tries to pay martin his promised shilling on his way out, and martin refuses; jon says that even though he didn't end up helping jon still wasted his day, but martin says he spent the day with his friend and it wasn't wasted at all. he spends more time there after that, even without a reason. (one time, they uncover the wine cellar and get drunk together; by the time they realize martin needs to go home it's the middle of the night and a storm is raging, so jon insists martin spend the night at hush house. unfortunately there is way more than one bed, but they will eventually get together).

jon reads and rereads martin's poetry for memories.

among hush house's many visitors are a pair of edge-long, daisy (edge grail?) and basira (edge rose), who sometimes come looking for each other. occasionally their visits overlap, much to the librarians' chagrin (so much collateral damage). jon once put a chess board in front of them and managed to delay the physical fighting long enough to move the breakable things elsewhere.

hmm now that i'm thinking about it, gerry works very well in christopher illopoly's place. had a falling out with his mother, who could easily have been a librarian, then later lived at hush house under a different librarian (gertrude), that's fun.

many more characters show up in this au, some as visitors and some as historical figures jon reads about as he restores the library (many characters will be long gone by the time jon becomes librarian, but they might not be the ones youd expect. reading about historical events and people is such an important and compelling part of BoH, and i think it would be cool to learn about major characters we care about solely from books). i haven't figured out who they all are in this setting, but i've figured out principle aspects for a lot of them!

tim (forge moon)

melanie (edge grail) - maybe moves to brancrug permanently to be with georgie?

jane prentiss (scale grail) (the cross died not but passed within)

oliver banks (winter sky)

the distortion (moth knock). would probably appear in this as a human (or non-human) named helen, since michael shelley makes more sense as someone connected to gertrude and/or hush house

peter lukas (moon winter) - comes by and shit talks jonah. occassionally jonah comes to check on jon's progress, and shit talks peter

simon fairchild (sky moth?)

adelard dekker (heart winter?)

agnes montague (forge and... winter maybe?)

jude perry (forge grail?)

annabelle cane (...oh thats tricky. knock sky?)

robert smirke (sky rose)

manuela dominguez (moon forge)

mikaele solesa (...hm im really not sure?) sells jon books like oriflamme's

well this post was as much stream of consciousness as it was writing down what i'd already planned. in conclusion: jonah as a baron (or maybe the second son of a baron who didn't inherit the estate, which everyone said was probably for the best since he never married or had heirs); mary, gertrude, sasha, and jon as librarians; gerry in a similar role to christopher illopoly; georgie and martin as villagers in brancrug; daisy and basira as an edge-long dyad.

gah this is fun. i wasn't planning to actually write anything for this but now i want to.