#i'm a little stressed because

[hanzajesthanza]

[benevolenterrancy]

(Unseen Academicals, Terry Pratchett) I think Shang Qinghua and Ponder Stibbons should have tea and compare notes about somehow accumulating so much behind-the-scenes power by doing menial jobs no one else wants that they could basically run the show if they wanted...

meanwhile we have Shen "meh good enough" Qingqiu

[nipuni]

Once again I bring you some Eriks 😊

[tapakah0]

[farshootergotme]

"Dick Grayson has anger issues-" okay, but does he actually? When I thought that was true I come to find that most of the evidence to make that claim come from a time in which Dick was being mentally controlled by Brother Blood or right after the death of his parents which obviously would cause anger after finding out they didn't even die naturally but were murdered on top of that.

[hamandeggbun]

I hope this isn't weird but I've been reading this by @batmanisagatewaydrug and I had like the sudden, strongest urge to make art properly for the first time in ages, so uhhhh have some Jessie (or Jess? Can I call her Jess because I love her?) who is a terrible wet cat of a woman!

I wanted to get this done fast and human anatomy is not my forte so I traced a picture of Natalie in the City, who's a fashion blogger and has some cute fits, though no supervillain ones as far as I'm aware :3

[mionkings]

Making Heads Turn 🫨

Jason had become a father to a little baby boy, taking him in when he found the poor thing on the streets, in a cardboard box, wrapped in a space themed blanket.

While the obstacles a new parent goes through is tough. He knows it's worth it to have Danny, his baby, his son in his life. He doesn't regret adopting him.

Danny is now at the stage of his little life that he babbles and giggles, Jason always had fun having a conversation with his baby. Although Jason's sure that his hair is getting whiter with the chaos Danny brings now ever since Danny's baby brain realized that he can CRAWL to PLACES >:D

However this new development... is a little strange.

Whenever Jason puts Danny down in his crib to make dinner or any other important errand. Danny will begin to babble to the air, as if his little tyke is trying to talk to someone, making grabbing hands and scooching over to grab someone's attention.

It sent a slight shiver down his spine...

Ever since he made his introduction to Gotham as Red Hood, for the first time to those gang leaders with the bang of the AK-47. Taking over the Gotham underworld by storm with anger and precision.

He always felt a chill down his spine... When he was alone, yet... the Pit Madness flared everytime, making him feel enraged and paranoid. As if he was just waiting for a fight... for a confrontation...

Being alone in his apartment, having nightmares, more like repressed memories of what he had done... Lots of things, but for some reason—his mind... keeps going back to the moment he threw that duffel bag at the table infront of the gang leaders that night... the night he went after the lieutenants, taking their heads.

He doesn't know why.

But ever since the precious cargo that was his baby Danny, arrived in his life. That all went away as he took care, fed, and loved his baby boy.

Jason never had an episode with Danny; he couldn't bare the thought of hurting the child.

Jason was even having less episodes when he was with the Bats!

The chills; however, Jason still feels them occasionally... but they would always disappear the moment Danny would demand attention or to nap.

And instead he would feel something else hang over his baby everytime Danny slept peacefully...

———

Second ever DPxDC prompt that I've ALSO been getting brainrot over ❤️ I'm having fun 😄

Basically this prompt idea is Jason adopting a baby Danny, while seemingly unaware that he's being haunted/watched by the people's he's killed to become a crime lord. More specifically, being haunted by the heads/headless ghosts of the lieutenants Jason killed as Red Hood.

While Jason can't seem to see them, he can feel 'chills' from them. Danny, however, CAN see them mostly because I based this on that thing where babies/toddlers can see spirits in those typical YouTube videos that list ToP 5 ScArY gHOstZ VidEOz!1!1

Whatever happened though, this causes the ghosts to instead focus more on Danny than on Jason.

How much will Jason freak the fuck out when he finds out? Who knows ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Although Danny is absolutely having fun here ^^

Anyways, I might add extra stuff soon to this!

[thegreatpeanut]

about the way we dream, and live, and love, during this time of our lives called "high school"

My 2024 HQ calendar <School Days> is available for preorder!

thegreatpeanut.bigcartel.com

Aahhh it's been 2 years since my last mp100 calendar project. I really didn’t think it would take this long to complete this new one, but I wanted to take my time to make sure I can really put in the love that this series deserves ;-;

one of my favourite things about haikyuu (and sports anime in general) is the feeling of being in high school and living your day to day with those who are chasing the same dream with you, together. So although this is a haikyuu fanwork calendar, I've put a lot of my feelings about adolescence into it which I hope can be felt universally.

I hope you will be reminded of that springtime SEISHUN feeling of youth throughout 2024 with this calendar !!

I've also updated my shop with lots of new stuff! Thank you very much for checking it out!

[the-punforgiven]

Hey, I'm really sorry to have to ask y'all, but my family and I are being evicted from our home and we can't really afford to live anywhere else.

We've been saving up for a while and we've found a place we can almost afford, but we're still short about $4,400. So like, if you have anything you can do to help I'd greatly appreciate it, but like, I get that times are tough all around so I totally understand if you don't

Here's a link to my paypal, but like, please only donate if you've got the cash to spare, I don't want anyone to go hungry on my account

[dimension-20-every-introduction]

Everyone Introduced in Dimension 20's Fantasy High: Junior Year episode 17

[fromtheseventhhell]

Imagine being 9 years old and asking your dad about the things you're interested in doing when you grow up and he's like "No ❤️! But you can get married, have babies, and then maybe your sons can do those things ☺️🫶 "

[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

[nathaniel-underwood-is-an-intj]

Looong rant about chapter 16 Ptolemy's Gate and how being passive can add to the cycle of ab*se.

oof so I just read when Nat goes to see Ms Lutyens and I can't help but be absolutely furious at her??

I know that's maybe a little bit unfair given she's frightened of him as a magician and is obviously angry when she finds out the department he's responsible for, but honestly it kinda brings up the problem with inadvertent bystanders to child ab*se in my mind.

And I'm definitely not blaming her solely for who Nat becomes but it makes me think of all those people in huge child ab*se cases who give interviews to press about all the things they noticed that were wrong but they just...never do anything?

She stood up for him against Lovelace, and when Nat thanked her- "I wanted to say that I know you were trying to save me, and-"

''Yes, and I'm sorry I didn't" Like girl be for real did you really think that alone would undo the years of indoctrination and abuse he's already suffered and prevent years worth of the same in the years to come? And she won't take responsibility - "My job is with children, not the adults they become" and again while it seems harsh to blame her for who Nat becomes, it's so much easier to pass the blame to people who are more directly responsible rather than acknowledging you also play a part.

I think it hurts so much more because it's her specifically- Nat goes to her in sheer desperation, it almost seems like a goodbye- he wants to thank her, tries to set her up in a job that will pay well and struggles to communicate he's trying to help. At this point he thinks Bartimaeus has been summoned by another magician and his birth name will be revealed. He's sure he's about to die and if not he'll be stood on trial and lose everything.

He goes to her because she represents the peaceful moments from his childhood when he got away from his master. He's scared and feeling lost and really it's call for help; but he doesn't ask for anything he just wants to make her feel proud of him- he's looking for that validation that he's been chasing since childhood.

And that shows he still does have that little bit of childhood innocence in him; he thinks she will be proud, thinks she'll see him as the same little boy in the garden gazing up at his teacher in adoration. He can't quite grasp why she's separated the man stood before her from that little boy. Because in that moment the child inside Nathaniel is seeking comfort AND THAT'S WHY it makes me so angry. She's completely given up on him when he's at his lowest ebb, because she doesn't want to be associated with the magician he's become. As if it isn't a massive step in the right direction that he saught her out in the first place- what other magican would bother? I wonder if that's why she reacted so strongly to seeing him again? Before that moment she could go about her life wondering if /pretending her attempt to protect him was enough, and now she realises it wasn't, of course it wasn't, and the image she had of Nathaniel's childhood innocence is completely ruined in her mind.

Or was her contempt for him even grater than Nat realised? She was naturally disgusted by the rhetoric he'd started to repeat from a young age, and gently tried to correct him although she was clearly angry- was she just resigned to the fact that there is little else she could do to change his future? I always thought- couldn't she have looked for him? The Underwood house fire was in the papers and they mentioned the apprentice was being searched for. Did she ever worry about him? Surely something must have been in the papers since- an announcement of new ministers, ANYTHING! Look at how much research Kitty did to find out about Bartimaeus and Ptolemy. I just don't think Rosanna Lutyens cared enough, realistically Nathaniel wasn't hard to find- but he was no longer her responsibility so she could turn a blind eye.

And sadly it's not just her- I know everyone loves Martha Underwood including Nat; but I think her submissiveness to her husband has a negative effect on Nathaniel as well. In AOS when Nat is locked in his room for ages after setting the mites loose, and is forbidden to have any contact with anyone and she won't talk with him. I know she's been told by Mr. Underwood she can't, but it still boils my blood. She's an adult and going along with ignoring Nathaniel because her husband told her to...I can't even begin to imagine the psychological damage that would do to a 10 year old child. (It could be argued she's frightened of the consequences if her husband finds out she's disobeyed him which is fair, he could always be watching through magic- but this is Arthur Underwood we're talking about. He's lazy, oblivious and weak I doubt he'd expend all that energy each day to check up on her.)

And It's even more painful that Nathaniel is often described as fiercely loyal to her and I think to Ms Lutyens as well- he doesn't expect to be treated well by Arthur Underwood but he loved Mrs Underwood and Ms Lutyens so much he started to view them through a rose-coloured lense. He never feels betrayed by either of them, even though they absolutely let him down, because the pedestal he's put them on is too high AND THAT ABSOLUTELY DESTROYS ME.

Would things with Nathaniel have been any different if Mrs Underwood hadn't died? I don't really think so. Do you think she'd see Nathaniel's temper at 14 years old and be reminded of Arthur Underwood? He was awful, absolutely awful to Nat and to her; but he was under so much stress in an underfunded departement, where pressure was being put on him by superiors to accomplish far more than they knew him to be capable of, and he took it out on the easiest target. Nathaniel ends up in exactly the same place and he starts to take it out on the only person around him- Bartimaeus. Would he snap at Mrs Underwood all the time if she were still there? Because he's learnt that behaviour from his father figure, and subconsciously learnt from his mother figure that she'll put up with it. He learnt from the woman he loved so deeply, that if you don't resist, people will walk all over you. So you have to maintain control even if it ends up hurting people you care about because no one will step in to stop the suffering no matter how much you love them, no matter how much you want them too.

It's easy to blame Arthur Underwood and Simon Lovelace and the magicians that actively hurt Nathaniel but I just feel like it's a bit disingenuous not to acknowledge the role of those doing passive harm. It's really mean to say it but even Bartimaeus plays a role- he knows Nat is clinging on to him because he can't 'bring himself to break this last connection' (to his childhood) but instead of bringing it up properly he 'taunts' Nathaniel- a boy who has been taunted for his weakness by his master for years. And even in AOS when Nathaniel tells Bartimaeus he was beaten for the mites incident Bart just kinda shrugs it off. Like I get it, why should Bartimaeus do anything, he's suffered way worse due to the system so he doesn't owe Nat anything right? But from Nat's point of view this is the first and only time he's mentioned to anyone what has happened to him and nothing changes. It's like another lesson learnt: telling someone about it doesn't help. Another nail in the coffin.

And I like all these characters, I feel bad for them. They're all victims of the system, I think the chapter with Ms Lutyens is just the straw that broke the camel's back for me. All of those little opportunities that are insignificant to the narrative over all; the commoners have it worse, Nathaniel is in a privileged position in society, exerting control over others. He's very morally grey, crossing over into objectively bad person territory but I love him with my whole heart and all of those insignificant moments would have been massive to him whether he was conscious of it or not.

And it goes all the way back to the beginning with Nat's parents giving him up to the magicians at 5 years old. I can't get the image of that little boy sat crying all alone in the government building. And he's not going somewhere safer, or somewhere he'll be happier and more loved. Giving your child over to a total stranger, oh he'll be totally fine won't he? He'll grow up to be a magician and far richer than you'll ever be, he'll be happy and comfortable and be grateful he got to grow up in luxury. There's no way a stranger you've never met, who the majority of society is terrified of would ever hurt a vulnerable little kid right? And if they do? Well you aren't responsible anymore, how could you know? What could you possibly do against the magician taking care of him?

Every little thing is another grain of sand tipping the scale. Did anyone else have to analyse An Inspector Calls in school? It feels like that to me- those BIG moments and all the little moments in between that add onto the pile.

And it goes on to cause problems in wider society too- ab*se is so normalised to the magicians, they casually ask Underwood if he hits Nathaniel like it's nothing. Because to them it is nothing, they've all grown up in the same circumstances and are repeating what they've learnt as children. I can't help but feel a little sorry for them all, especially when they aren't looked at through the black and white lense of 'argh these people are the evil arseholes look at how they treat everyone around them, screw these guys.' When we see those little glimpses of humanity like Simon's anxiety with the amulet; looking to his master and father figure Schyler for reassurance, and what's sad is that Nat is "reminded...of his own master's cold impatience" It's clear Simon looks up to his master, wants to make him proud and loves him. But it seems like Schyler has just trained Simon up so he can get power through him later on. I love the little hints of similarities between Simon and Nathaniel; the anxious mannerisms like fiddling with his hair that Nathaniel starts to develop, the way their master's talk to them. Even though they're actively working against each other in AOS and Simon is placed firmly in the baddies category and Nat in the goodies category at this point in the series; these things always hinted to me they had similar childhoods, how was Simon treated? When he had the imp beat Nat into unconsciousness, was it because he'd had the same punishment used against him? Did he know the magicians in the room would do nothing to stop him because no one stopped it from happening to him? Did he ever have a teacher stand up for him only for it to change nothing in the end because all the negative influences were so much stronger? Is the reason he loves Schyler like a dad because he's almost developed Stockholm syndrome? It looks like love because he's never known anything else.

And Arthur Underwood- who doesn't think his upbringing, and being taken away from his family ever did him any harm- doesn't realise the harm done is that he doesn't even know another way of raising Nathaniel, because he was never shown another way. His childhood may also have been filled with people who hurt him and the people that didn't do enough to intervene.

There are so many psychology studies that show children copy everything they see the adults in their life doing. Nathaniel copies the magicians behaviour towards spirits and on a subconscious level I think he copies all the submissive people in his life. How many times does he end up upset and frustrated with the fact he seems to be going nowhere and how many times does he just hope things will be different rather than taking postive action.

I dislike the actions the magicians end up taking but I also find them fascinating to analyse. I tend to prefer villains in media because they're usually slightly more complex individuals and I love to think about how they ended up that way. They can all be seen as victims of their circumstances in a way, despite all the power and privilege they have had terrible and traumatic childhoods, and if the commoners had no valuable worldy possessions at least they had a sense of togetherness; of love and understanding and selflessness. I wonder if the magicians hated them at least partly because of that. Because out in the sea of faces of the commoners talking about nothing important, doing nothing great and noble- could be the parents that abandoned them. And when your life is on the line daily because of working with spirits, and your colleagues want to stab you in the back, sometimes not being responsible for anything important looks good. But you can't leave your life as a magician, it would be too difficult; you have nowhere to go, no real friends, no one who really loves you. So it's better to stay and be a submissive bystander in your own life because it's so much easier.

Doing nothing is doing something- being passive can be just as harmful.

[mbirnsings-71]

Day 1 of writing 400 words Daily in an attempt to finish any of my WIPs before the end of the year- Went way over my goal by writing 1.2k words- Boys this is a hell of a time for me-

[tea-time-terrier]

Such a nice morning with the girls!

[a-tale-of-legends]

Like I love Piers. I do. But it will forever erk me on how he just. Pushes so much on Marnie. I don't think it's malicious by any means, it's clear he adores her. But again, the " team yell situation would've been out of control if it wasn't for her" as if he's not the adult there. Or the " I'm not much of a gym leader, so I want my sister to take over for me", despite her interests being. Not that atm.

And I don't exactly hate these flaws for Piers. I think they're really interesting! But both the game and masters kinda don't do anything with it. At least masters goes " yeah, my sister wants to be champion, so I'm still gonna be a gym leader for now and let her do her own thing " but it's still banking on the fact Marnie will eventually become the gym leader in her place. Like he doesn't mean to do this, but he's putting so much pressure on the girl. Him and team yell! And I don't think that's fair! But nah, they still have a good relationship - and I want them to! But I also want them to address this. I think their entire situation is just messy, and pokemon isn't exactly showing that.

I do think it's interesting, according to Marnie, she feels like the reason her and Piers don't argue is because Piers is holding back on her. And that she would want that sibling squabble. Like! God that's so interesting! And kinda sad! To know your older brother is holding back emotions for your sake! There's so much you could do with these two I swear, and yet! We don't get much!