#inexpertly?
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robo-dino-puppies · 1 month ago
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eyyyy look who tried to do some modding in veilguard :D
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I love that Rook gets to wear this coat with the feathers but I hated the leather high-collared studded whatever-the-hell shirt thing that was going on underneath. so I tried to swap it with the "civilian" version but keep the feathers :D
the coat and pants clip like hell on my shortass elf, but still! (actually I checked and it clips on the civilians who wear it too... so that's not a me problem lmao)
anyway to elaborate: initially I tried to edit the textures to get rid of the weird shirt thing BUT the chevron stitched pieces are part of the model (BOOOOO) so despite changing their color/texture I couldn't get rid of them entirely. then I saw that swapping armor/character parts was a thing? …that I don't really understand, honestly, but there's a tutorial and I can follow steps. anyway, some civilians in Treviso wear the same coat with this low-cut shirt underneath except no feathers, and I wanted that BUT WITH THE FEATHERS. so. I did it! YAY GO ME!!! not super thrilled with the pants but I like the civilians' boots better too.
here was my initial check to see what it did to npcs that share the outfit:
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and checking the color-changed version next to a civilian npc
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coat and feather colors achieved! now to do the shirt and pants.
to elaborate more: so in the Rook and Ivenci versions, there are three meshes (? correct term idk?) that combine to make the whole ensemble: feathers, coat, and undershirt-belt-arms-pants-boots. can't just make the undershirt invisible bc there's no torso under there lol and it would also get rid of the arms and legs. in the civilian outfit there are two meshes: coat-and-belt and undershirt-torso-arms-pants-boots.
but like. they're basically the same? so I thought I should just be able to leave the feathers in place and replace the coat and undershirt! which worked! (after uhhhhhh several fails. yes I can follow a tutorial; that doesn't mean I can follow it on the first try because using the frosty editor feels approximately like me walking blindfolded through a convenience store knocking things off shelves. or something. idk what the hell I'm doing lol)
I hate wearing the same outfit as Ivenci tho. seriously considering putting Ivenci in something else and giving the random civilian npcs Ivenci's fit lmao. or just dress the civilians in some other civilian outfit? I wonder if I can do that...
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blujayonthewing · 7 days ago
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things you don't want to hear from the microwave repair guy: I'm gonna have to call your warranty company. And let me ask you this....... how handy are you and your husband........?
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their-we-go · 1 year ago
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not a painter by any means but i painted with my family tonight and made this :-)
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labradoriteleylines · 2 years ago
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Nothing more romantic than asking your partner to cut out your tongue stitches.
Last time I did this it ended with a “oh fuck just let me do it”
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portmantaur · 6 months ago
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I can’t believe in heaven. I’ve never been able to get the hang of the idea of a spiritual afterlife. But I do feel obligated to honor the astronomical odds of my existence. For all the infinite combinations of circumstance and antecedents that had to be Just So, it feels like as a human, I’m walking around as someone who was more likely not to exist. And yet I am here. If there is divinity, if there are miracles, that feels close. So it feels like something I should honor.
So I am trying to learn to sow. In small ways, because Against All Odds though it is, my life is small and unremarkable, as I think is the case for many people. Nothing wrong with that. But even the ordinary is a miracle in some ways, at some times. So it should be honored somehow. So I’m trying to grow things. And maybe I will be sowing forever. Maybe I will never reap. Maybe I’ll die mid-tilling, with a hoe in my hands. But if afterwards, a little shoot springs up, and someone else can come and foster that little thing that, against all odds, exists because the impossible combinations that are Me chose to put it there — is that not a little bit like a heaven? If after they clear me away, someone else takes up the tools and crouches over this little sprig, and perhaps knowing better than me sees all the ways in which its seed was improperly planted and its soil was not expertly enriched, but can smile and see the labor and love and nod and say, “all things strive” — is that not a little like an afterlife? Will it not have all been worth it, then?
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yousaythatsooften · 9 months ago
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I really don't like thinking about looks. What happened? Idk...but my friend, who really cares about me and we've taken 14 years to get this close told me that when I smile or laugh, it's as if I'm just getting it over with quickly and then my face shuts back down.
I need a little more time in the workshop Maker.
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chamerionwrites · 1 year ago
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The last three presidential elections I have lived through have been two Trump elections and a Juan Orlando Hernández election and bro. I want off this ride
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sodacowboy · 2 years ago
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do y’all like my jerry-rigged steaming and blocking techniques
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hairmetal666 · 9 months ago
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TW for internalized homophobia and related bad decisions
Steve is 12 and he thinks about finding his soulmate all the time.
You're supposed to find them through touch; your life together will flash in front of your eyes. They're rare, though, soulmates. So rare that most people never find theirs. So rare that some people say they're made up.
Steve wants to be one of the lucky few. He wants it to be a true, unbreakable bond, a love he gets to have forever.
He wonders if he'll find his soulmate at school. He's popular, he thinks. Tommy would say they were popular. But Tommy's definition of popular mostly has to do with the number of kids he can get away with being mean to, and that's not really Steve's deal. Tommy is like a prey animal, the way he can find weaknesses.
There's a new boy at school. Steve doesn't know his name, but they have English together. He's too thin, with huge brown eyes, and all his clothes are too big. His head's been inexpertly shaved and he never looks anybody in the eye. It's only a matter of time before he catches Tommy's interest, and Steve wishes he could stop it somehow, but he's never been good at going against Tommy.
The day comes, of course. They're standing in the hall, the new boy walking towards them, head down, as always. Tommy nudges Steve says, "What a loser."
And Steve shrugs, starts to ask Tommy about football, if the Colts can make the Super Bowl, but the boy is nearing and Tommy is cackling.
"Watch this." Tommy sticks his foot out.
The boy doesn't react fast enough. He falls forward with a bitten off yelp, and Steve moves without really thinking, only knows he can't stand to see him fall. He catches the new kid beneath his armpits, Steve's thumbs brushing the soft skin his arms.
The world around him falls away at the touch.
---
He's sitting on the floor in the band room, Eddie--the boy's name is Eddie--next to him. Eddie's hair is a little longer and Steve's in a green polo he doesn't recognize, and he's never been in the band room in his life. They're leaning into each other and laughing and Eddie's so beautiful.
---
They're in the woods--Skull Rock, Steve thinks. Eddie's hair is curled and frizzed around his chin, and he's laughing, his cheeks pink, his dimples prominent. He tries to pull his hair in front of his face, but it's not long enough yet to reach. Steve is overwhelmed, wants to kiss him so bad. He's never had to wait to kiss someone, or been unsure, or--
He wants to kiss Eddie.
So, he does.
It's hard, desperate, not the first kiss Steve expected, but then they've been waiting for so long.
---
Steve stands in the hallway of Hawkins High. He's wearing a striped, beige short-sleeved polo, and flirting with Nancy Wheeler.
He likes Nancy, she's pretty and smart and fun. And it's easy. He can hold her hand. Can introduce her to his parents. Can take her on dates and kiss her in public.
She bats her big blue eyes at him, and he can't help but kiss her.
He pulls away gently, brushing his thumb against her cheek, and when he looks down the hall, Eddie is there, frozen. His mouth is wide, his eyes glassy.
Steve thinks the way his heart stutters must be what dying feels like.
---
He's sitting on his diving board, facing away from the pool. He smokes a cigarette and there's a bat studded with nails at his feet, what the fuck. Music thuds, shrieks and laughter seep into the cool night air.
He should be playing the gracious host. He should be having a good time. Instead, his eyes search the woods and he taps another smoke out of the pack.
"Harrington?" The voice makes him jump, hand flexing around the bat handle. "It's freezing out. What are you doing?"
He recognizes the voice now, doesn't turn, doesn't respond, can't stand to see another person he let down; another person who could call him bullshit and be 100% correct.
"Do you not have a jacket? C'mon, man."
Something warm settles over his shoulders, and he inadvertently breathes in weed and leather and cedar. He squeezes his eyes shut, like that will make the comforting, familiar scent go away. He'll have to move to shrug off the jacket, though, which would mean acknowledging Eddie's presence.
"Can you at least say something, Harrington? You're freaking me out."
"I'm fine, Ed--Eddie." The nickname falls from his lips too easily. He doesn't miss how Eddie flinches.
His hair is long now, down to his shoulders, brittle looking in the cold. He's wearing a t-shirt and worn flannel, arms wrapped around his chest for warmth now that his jacket is draped over Steve's shoulders.
Steve is an idiot. He's such an idiot. Chasing after Nancy when Eddie is--
"I'm sorry," he says. He turns to face his soulmate, then. "I'm sorry about Nancy, I--"
Eddie jerks back like he's been hit. "Fuck you, Harrington," he snarls.
---
He sits in the back of an ambulance, eyes swollen shut, face throbbing. He's wearing a sailor suit for inexplicable reasons, which is almost more upsetting than the ambulance. He smells like puke and something toxically sweet.
A girl is with him, one he doesn't recognize, but he feels deeply, instinctively protective of her. He holds her shaking shoulders tight, tries to whisper comfort to her through his busted and bleeding mouth.
He's pretty sure he has a concussion.
"Steve!" Someone screams over the sounds of the EMTs and firefighters, of the building burning and collapsing behind them.
Eddie bursts through the gathered onlookers and past the ring of police cars enclosing them. He's falling into the ambulance before Steve has a chance to react.
"Sweetheart," Eddie sobs. He tries to cup Steve's face, but his fingers flutter around the damage. "Sweetheart, oh my god. I came as soon as I heard. Are you--what can I--"
Steve stares at him--his hair falling from its messy bun, his cutoff Metallica tee, concern and love leaking from those brown, brown eyes--and bursts into tears.
---
They sit on the roof of his house, sharing a joint back and forth. It's chilly, bordering on cold, winter just on the horizon. They're laughing, leaning into each other, and Steve is--he's happy. Elated. Could float away with it.
Robin--Robin-- is in the bathroom, or maybe in the kitchen for snacks, and it's just them for now. They're looking at each other, smiles wide, eyes bright.
They're taking it slow. Steve knows it's important, after what he did. They talked about it, his abandoning of Eddie for Nancy, chasing what his dad told him was normal and expected.
He doesn't want to cross any boundaries, wants to do this right. How Eddie deserves. But they're leaning into each other and they're smiling, and he's so in love. Intoxicated with it, lost.
In the end, he doesn't know who makes the first move, just that they're kissing and it's like coming home.
---
He's in a building, a shed or something. It's musty and dirty, smells like oil and gasoline and a building left closed up too long. Eddie's in his arms and he's talking through hiccuping sobs.
"I didn't save her, Steve. I didn't help. I just left her there! She was broken in pieces and I--I--"
Steve holds him close, tight, squeezes his eyes closed to stop his own tears from falling. He never wanted this for Eddie, never wanted him involved. Thought he could protect him from all of Hawkins's terrible things.
They aren't alone. Robin is there, coming up to hold Eddie too, plus a redheaded girl and curly haired boy he doesn't recognize.
"We'll figure this out, Eddie." The boy promises.
"We won't let anyone hurt you. We know you didn't murder Chrissy," the girl says.
---
Steve is in a world he doesn't understand, and Eddie is his arms. Eddie is in his arms, and there's blood everywhere. He's not awake, he's not--his heart beat is soft and slow, too slow, and his breathing stutters, and Steve can't--
"Baby, stay with me." He begs as he runs across the dead and rotting landscape. "Eddie, please. Wake up, okay? Wake up for me. I need to--I need to know that you're alright."
Eddie stays limp in his arms.
"Please," he begs. "You can't leave me. We promised, remember? We promised we'd be together forever. The rest of our lives. Me and You. Our six little nuggets. You promised."
The portal back to Hawkins is less than a dozen feet away, he's so close. Eddie gasps to consciousness, but his eyes are still hazy.
"Hi, sweetheart," he mumbles.
"Hey, hi, you're doing so good. We're almost out, okay? We're almost out and we'll get you to the hospital."
Eddie reaches out a weak hand, touches the edge of Steve's jaw. "Love you, Stevie," he whispers. "Glad you were mine."
He goes still in Steve's hold.
---
The images come faster now--
A hospital room at Hawkins General, Eddie hooked to machines. Steve holds hands with an older man. They wait in terrified silence
Eddie propped in a bed, a bunch of kids around him, Steve and Robin at his side. His eyes keep sliding to Steve, like he's making sure Steve's real, that he's still there
Their bodies tangled together in a bedroom Steve doesn't recognize
Steve down on one knee in a marble room lit only by black and red candles, Eddie standing in front of him
Hand-in-hand on a cliffside overlooking the ocean. The Chief of Police, Jim Hopper, stands in front of them with tears in his eyes and a beaming smile on his face
In a big, green yard behind a cozy little house. A little boy with Eddie's eyes and curls riding on his shoulders. Eddie sprinting around with a tiny girl giggling after him, perfect imitation of the King Steve hair-do on her tiny head
In a park, surrounded by family and friends. Steve has a little bit of a paunch and wears glasses. Eddie's hair streams around his shoulders, going grey at the temples. There's a banner strung between trees proclaiming 'Happy 20th Steve and Eddie!' They're surrounded by everyone they love and it's perfect
---
The images flash too fast for Steve to catalog after that, seconds-long glimpses of a shared future, and then he's back in his body in the hallway of Hawkins Middle, still holding too tight onto Eddie's arms.
Eddie rears back, face pale and terrified, and Steve is too shocked to do anything but let him go.
Tommy's yelling, but Steve only has eyes for his soulmate, who scrambles to his feet and throws himself down the hall away from them.
"What the hell, Harrington? Why'd you catch him? That was about to be funny as hell! I bet he'd have broken his nose--you ruined it!"
Steve isn't listening. He's trying to hold on to the memories of their life together, the ones that are already fading.
The last thing he remembers is that, sometime in the not-too-distant future, he'll find his way to the band room, Eddie Munson, and the rest of their lives.
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annebd · 26 days ago
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winter warmers, day 16: secret santa. ~1800 words <-holy shit.
There’s a little box on the corner of Daniel’s desk, wrapped neatly in green paper and topped with a gold bow. The tag is a small square card, no more than a couple inches across, with a short message on one side:
To: Daniel
From: Your Secret Santa
Daniel opens the box and unfolds the carefully wrapped tissue paper bundle inside to remove the expected Scrabble tile. Today is the letter H. He tucks it into the top drawer of his desk, along with the rest of the tiles. The bow is also gently removed and stuck up on the pinboard next to the other twenty-two bows that he’s gotten so far this month. Some are gold, some silver, a few red and green.
There’s one particularly sparkly bow that’s been shedding glitter on him and all of his possessions for the past week. Halfway through the marketing team meeting last Thursday, Max reached over and brushed his thumb across Daniel’s cheekbone.
“You are all shiny, Daniel,” he said and showed him the sparkles of golden glitter that he’d rubbed off. “Always you’re so handsome, but today you’re like a shining star, too.”
Daniel was pretty sure he’d turned bright red, not even the deep tan in the middle of an Australian summer able to hide the color rising in his cheeks.
“Oh, uh, thanks, mate,” he replied and then turned back to the meeting on the last marketing push for Christmas sales, while trying not to think about the feeling of Max’s hand against his skin.
Today’s bow isn’t quite as glittery, but it does glint prettily in the glow of Daniel’s desk lamp. It’s 8:52am on December 23rd. Early enough that he has time to sip his coffee without interruption for a few minutes as he waits for his computer to boot up and he has to hop into the workday.
He eyes the drawer that holds the Scrabble tiles and decides he’s got time. As he’s done so many times so far this month, he pulls them all out and scatters them across his desk. Twenty three tiles so far. One of them is a blank, but a little question mark has been drawn on in black sharpie.
The ? tile showed up on the 17th, and he assumed that that was the end of it, so he’d spent the entire day trying to unscramble the letters, but couldn’t get anywhere. When another N arrived the next day, he realized that it wasn’t quite over yet.
The first box had arrived on the first of December. He wasn’t expecting it. George, over in operations, had floated the idea of doing a Secret Santa exchange a few weeks prior, but there had been so much hemming and hawing, with no one really wanting to commit, that he’d given up and moved on. Daniel hadn’t given it any further thought until the first box showed up.
Like every day since, the little box was wrapped inexpertly, though neatly, with green paper, and had a red bow stuck right on top. The same note, from “your secret Santa,” was attached. The Scrabble tile that day had been a D. Daniel assumed it stood for Daniel and that someone was either playing a silly joke, or truly had the worst taste in gift giving.
That assumption was only further confirmed on the second, when another box arrived, containing an R, which he could only assume stood for Ricciardo.
Thoroughly confused, he stopped by George’s office to poke his head in the door and ask when the Secret Santa drawing had been and why he hadn’t been involved.
“There was no drawing, mate,” George told him. “You lot were all too cool for the idea, so I didn’t bother. Why d’you ask?”
“Huh,” Daniel said, flummoxed. “Never mind. Don’t worry about it.”
He brought it up to Max when they had lunch that Friday. It was Daniel’s favorite part of the week- getting Max all to himself for an hour, to make ridiculous jokes and watch Max turn pink from laughter.
“Strange, isn’t it? Just a random couple of Scrabble tiles. What, am I supposed to use them to make a name tag for myself?”
“Maybe you have a secret admirer,” Max replied. “And they are, of course, just using the Secret Santa as an excuse to send you gifts.”
“They’re some weird gifts, then,” Daniel said, and took a bite of his pastrami on rye. It was good. Mustardy.
“They might get better. It could be fun.” Max looked over at Daniel, who was in the middle of another big bite of his sandwich. “You’ve got a little-” and pointed to the corner of Daniel’s mouth. He reached out, as though he intended to swipe away the crumb with his own finger, but he pulled back and let Daniel dab at his mouth with a napkin.
“Thanks, Max. And I guess you’re right. But I reserve the right to be annoyed if it’s just a bunch of letters spelling my name.
Day three put a wrench in the name theory when he popped open the box and found a V. So definitely not his name then.
Over the next couple of days, he received a W and a Y. On the following Monday, he showed up to two Ls and another E, each tucked into one of three boxes lined up carefully along the edge of his desk. He’d wondered what would happen over the weekend, and he was quietly pleased that his secret Santa had taken into account the extra days.
And today, as Daniel sits sipping his coffee with twenty two letters and a question mark, he decides that he’s got to be able to figure this out. Christmas is in just two days, which means that he’s only expecting two more gifts. And really, he’s only expecting one gift, since the office is closed on the 25th, and he’s not coming in for anything- even a secret Santa surprise.
Daniel mixes the tiles around, trying different combinations of words. The twenty three tiles at hand read NOIVUHHTLEMIWARELDYNIE?, which he’s pretty sure isn’t a thing. He can spell various words. He’s got the letters for DANIEL, but not RICCIARDO, so he’s mostly ruled out his initial name tag theory.
He’s been able to make a few phrases, some more promising than others. He had “HAVE YOU LET ME DIE?” laid out when Max stopped by his desk last week.
Max had raised an eyebrow at the phrase and given Daniel a disapproving look. “You don’t think that’s what your secret admirer is saying, do you?”
Daniel shrugged. “No clue, mate. Your guess is as good as mine right now.”
Max didn’t offer any actual help, but he scrambled the tiles again so that the question was no longer visible. “I don’t know either, but probably it isn’t about death.”
Daniel tries a few more letter combos, but nothing is jumping out at him. As the clock on his desktop ticks over to 9:00, he gathers up the tiles and places them back into his drawer.
When he heads out of the office that afternoon, he bumps into Max in the elevator. “You’re wrapping up early today!” he exclaims.
Max is always staying late at the office, and Daniel is forever trying to get him to leave on time, have a life outside of work. But Max insists that software engineering waits for no man, and he’d rather just get as much work done in the office as possible, instead of having to take it home with him and continue with it there.
“Hello, Daniel,” Max says. “Yes, today is an early night. I have some things to do today. Before Christmas, you know.”
“I’m glad,” Daniel replies. “See you tomorrow?”
Max gives him a big smile. “Yes. Tomorrow. See you then.”
The next day is Christmas Eve, and, Daniel assumes, the last day of his Secret Santa gifts. He still has no clue what the tiles are supposed to be telling him, but he feels a nervous energy thrumming in his stomach. Something big is coming, he thinks.
He gets to his desk by 8:45, eager to unwrap his final gift and finally figure out what’s going on. To his surprise, instead of just the one little green box he’s expecting, there are three wrapped presents on his desk. The first is the usual green box, but the tag that he’s expecting to proclaim the usual salutations instead proclaims “open me first.” He checks the other two. The box to its right reads “open me second.” And, just to be sure, he confirms that the final box on the end says to open it last.
With a slight shake in his hand, he picks up the first box and plucks off the bow to secure it to the pinboard. He opens it up and pulls out the last tile, another W. He adds it to the stash in his drawer and then reaches for the second box.
It’s the same size as the first, wrapped in the same way- no bow on this one. Perhaps it’s a one bow per day kind of deal.
Inside, there’s a small slip of paper folded in half. Daniel unfolds it to find a clue:
W_ _ _ Y_ _ H_ _ _ D _ _ _ _ _ W _ _ _ M_?
He waffles for a moment. Does he open the third gift, or does he unscramble the letters? The opening instructions didn’t say, so he supposes he could do either. Tiles, he decides.
He pulls open the drawer and tips the tiles onto his desk, then carefully arranges each one face up and pointing in the right direction.
Slowly, he starts moving tiles around. The Y is probably You, he guesses. So perhaps the M is Me? And then H could be Have. W is What? No, he realizes; that wouldn’t make sense. W for Will?
A sentence begins to take shape.
WILL YOU HAVE D_ _ _ _ _ W _ _ _ ME?
Daniel is fairly certain where this is going. He arranges the last few letters into place and then reaches for the third box. He tears open the paper, carefully as usual, and opens the box.
Inside is a card, on which is printed the name of the fanciest restaurant in Perth, which Daniel has been wanting to try for months, but which he has lamented to Max several times is impossible to get reservations for.
Beneath the name of the restaurant is today’s date, the 24th, and a time, 7pm.
Beneath that, there’s a final line, which simply says “TURN AROUND.”
Daniel takes a deep breath, steadies himself, and then swivels in his chair.
Behind him, Max is leaned against the doorframe to his office.
“So?” he asks. “I asked a question, I think.”
Daniel looks back over the tiles, laid out neatly on his desk. He looks back at Max and grins helplessly. “Yeah, Maxy. I would love to.”
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ms-demeanor · 7 months ago
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Do you know of any resources for physical film photo manipulation? Not sure if there's different terms for non-digital stuff, but I'm having a hard time finding anything.
Okay so there are, I'm going to say (casually, informally, and inexpertly - photography experts feel free to correct me or add on to what I've missed), four major types of photo manipulation that are common with non-digital photography. They are: exposure manipulation, compositing, actually photographing weird bullshit, and just straight up painting.
Exposure manipulation gets you things like Ansel Adams "Moonrise." This is what it looks like if it's evenly exposed:
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And this is what it looks like with significant modifications to the exposure:
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That is. Like. SEVERAL layers of different exposures for the final print. This can be achieved through processes called "dodging" and "burning." "Dodging" is creating a physical mask so that the parts of the negative you want to remain darker are exposed to less light. "Burning" is creating a physical mask so that the areas you the negative you want to be brighter are exposed to more light.
This is a process that is really, really easy to do in photoshop, and really really hard to do in film.
Here is a very comprehensive writeup of how to dodge and burn, and why you might want to.
Compositing is a fancy way of saying "copy/paste". But more so. And with more techniques. Compositing is basically combining two or more images to create one new image. You can do this by making multiple exposures (exposing the negative to light multiple times), splicing film negatives together (physically cutting the negatives and taping pieces to each other), or by combining negatives and prints into a new print. For instance the image below is made up of six different photos, which were composited into a single image by Henry Peach Robinson in 1877.
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This is an article written by a photographer who walks you through the process they used to make a composite print in 2020. It involves a lot of planning, cutting, pasting, masking, dodging, and burning. This is a writeup from a photographer who uses a more blunt method of splicing negatives together to create more abstract images.
Actually photographing weird bullshit is what I'm calling "in camera effects." There are all kinds of tricks that you can use while taking a photo to create surreal or magical effects. One that a lot of people know is the speeder in Star Wars:
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The floating speeder wasn't achieved through later manipulation of the film, but instead through mirrors hanging in front of the wheels and vaseline smeared on the camera lens to create a blurred effect.
Light painting is perhaps the most commonly used of these kinds of effects:
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That's a 6-second exposure, the first three seconds were of the cup and saucer still, then the light was lowered as the cup was lifted and light was swept up when the cup was in place to make it look like it was floating.
The Cottingley Fairy Hoax is one of the best known examples of manipulating photos by just photographing weird bullshit. In 1917, two girls cut pictures of fairies out of a book and took pictures of themselves with the paper fairies propped up in trees, then swore up and down that they actually found fairies.
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This seems crude, but hey they couldn't reverse image search the fairies or anything back then. Some of the photos also make good use of forced perspective, which is something that we still use for in-camera manipulations (it was how a lot of Lord of the Rings was filmed in order to make the hobbits look small)
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Here's a listicle with a bunch of "hacks" for using your camera and for testing out some types of in-camera effects.
Just Straight Up Painting is what I'm calling photo retouching. It's a bit of an exaggeration to call it "painting" but yeah sometimes it was literally putting paint on negatives or etching away parts of negatives. It's how you end up with photos like this:
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Here's an article about retouched photos of Joseph Stalin (maybe the most well known examples of pre-digital photo retouching) and an article about the art of portrait retouching. These examples are relatively subtle, but you can also use these kinds of retouching and airbrush techniques to exaggerate parts of an image or add objects to an image (see the text added to the flag in the article about Stalin).
I can't think of any comprehensive resources offhand, but photographers love to tell you how they pulled of their photos (which is why quite a few of the links above are from photographers discussing process). This is by no means a comprehensive list of non-digital photomanipulation techniques, but hopefully it's enough terminology to get you started on what you're looking for.
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suzukiblu · 2 months ago
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. . . anyway LISTEN I told 'yall November was gonna be "obligatory sugar daddy Tim/sugar baby Kon AU" month, and I really did not INTEND to post my daily words for it again this year but also, like, fuck it, we ball. No promises I will update EVERY day this time around but again: fuck it, we ball. ( also uhhhhh I've been writing this fic kinda-sorta-semi out of order lately but there is still a significant chunk of word count I'd already written that I would've pre-gamed and posted YESTERDAY if I'd thought I was gonna be doing this, sooooo hope nobody minds us kickin' off the month with like an extra 5.9k on top of the 1.6k of obligatory sugar that I ACTUALLY wrote today behind this here cut? yes? no?? Bueller???? )
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get sugared, Super-boytoy. Tim, you just . . . you just do your future-supervillain best over there, buddy. you just do what you can with yourself. prev: (( chrono || non-chrono ))
“I wanted to,” Tim says again, and Kon glances away and bites his lip, turning the flowers by the stem again. 
“It’s, uh–pretty,” he says, then clears his throat. “I mean, it’s–cool. Thanks.” 
“If I can’t bring you fresh ones, well . . .” Tim shrugs. Kon glances back to him, and very briefly presses one of the orchid blooms against his own mouth. His face is still all flushed and his eyes are still a little soft, and it’s . . . it makes a picture, alright, even if it's not one Tim's specifically set up to take. Especially with the gold eyeliner and his blue eyes both matching the orchids. 
Tim didn't plan that, obviously, but he thinks it makes up for the sapphire versus ruby thing.
“Um . . .” Kon trails off, biting his lip. Glances down at the orchids from under his lashes. It doesn't make him any less of a picture, for sure. “So, um–do you wanna see the ‘something nice’ I got?” 
Tim blinks, immediately thinks of the most embarrassing option that Kon could possibly mean, and desperately tries to fight back a mortified flush at the idea. But, well–everything he can see Kon wearing is something he remembers buying him already, so . . . 
Oh god, he needs his brain to shut up right now. Immediately. Right now and immediately and forever. 
“Sure,” he says like a normal person, trying not to panic. “What is it?” 
Kon, thank god, pulls a little rectangular package inexplicably–and inexpertly–wrapped in newspaper comics out of the same coat pocket he tucked the jewelry box in. There's plain white string tied around it in a bow. 
Tim . . . blinks. 
If he didn't know better, he'd think Kon had . . . 
“I, um, got you something?” Kon says, and Tim stares blankly at the package. He–what? “For once, anyway. Well, I guess, uh, technically you got it for yourself, and actually this is kinda stupid maybe, you can literally just get yourself whatever you want whenever, obviously, but I just thought, uh–” 
“You got me something?” Tim repeats in surprise. Kon turns pink and shoves the package at him. Tim is too bewildered not to take it. 
“I thought it’d be, uh–fun,” he says, biting his lip and still very visibly blushing. “I mean–that we could have some fun with it. Y’know?” 
Tim stares at the package for another moment, then looks up at Kon. Alright, this maybe isn’t exactly the vibe he was going for here in terms of who’s paying for what and who’s giving things to who, but . . . well, Kon apparently used his allowance for whatever this is, at least, which gives him a reason to have wanted the allowance, so . . . he can work with that, he figures. Like, it’s an “in” to work from; a step in the process. 
He can’t tell what Kon’s gotten him from the shape of the package, though the edges are hard even though it doesn’t feel like it’s in a box or anything. “Have some fun” isn’t much of a clue, though he supposes it does imply something interactive. Maybe it’s a game of some kind, or–
Tim unties the bow and splits apart the clumsy seam of the comic-page wrapping paper with his thumb, tugging through its layers to reveal the package’s contents, and Kon flushes a little darker and watches him just a little bit nervously. 
Tim doesn’t actually know what to say. 
“I just thought, um, a real one’d probably take better pictures than a phone can,” Kon says sheepishly, slanting his eyes away and half-hiding his face behind the orchids. “I made sure the battery was charged and the guy at the store said it's got a lot of storage, I guess, so . . .” 
“You got me a camera,” Tim says blankly, which is the most bewildering possible thing that Kon could have gotten him short of, like . . . no, it’s pretty much just the most bewildering possible thing that Kon could have gotten him. By far it’s the most bewildering possible thing that Kon could have gotten him. 
“You like taking pictures, right?” Kon fidgets a little, then smiles just barely shyly as he glances back at him. Tim's heart skips a few beats. Or more than just “a few”, maybe. “So, um–I thought maybe we could go do that . . . somewhere. You know, after dinner.” 
“Oh,” Tim says, blinking at him a little stupidly. It’s not a particularly good camera, honestly–like, it’s a perfectly functional model for casual amateur use and a decently reliable commercial brand, but he’s got much better ones that are all professional-quality. He hasn’t used any of them in a while and most of them are admittedly a few years old now, but . . . yeah, this was a hundred bucks max, if that, and his cheapest camera was over five hundred. 
Note to self: raise Kon’s allowance. 
Also, apparently now his favorite camera is the kind of camera civilian amateurs just take random family photos on. Apparently that’s a thing. 
Tim really doesn’t know how to feel about the fact that Kon not only remembered something he mentioned having an interest in, Kon bothered to actually get him something he thought he’d have an interest in. That is really, really not the dynamic he’s been encouraging here, for one thing. And also, why even would Kon do that? Like–really? 
“Thanks,” Tim says sincerely, turning the camera over in his hands and feeling incredibly embarrassed about all of this. “I love it.” 
“Cool,” Kon says, biting his lip around a smile. His face is still a little pink and he looks all soft and pretty like that, especially with the flowers still in his hand. Tim really was not prepared for Kon having “soft and pretty” in his repertoire. Like, that was not a thing he ever expected to see from his cocky, crowing brawler of a teammate. 
Kon’s only a brawler because he thinks he’s supposed to be, though, Tim’s pretty sure. Like–increasingly sure, at this point. 
He really, really needs to figure out how to get Kon to tell Robin more about his TTK. Or, like . . . anything about it, apparently. Just literally any single thing, at this point. 
“Thank you,” he says again, inspecting the camera assessingly and making note of all its functions and ports and the generally obvious basics. “We could go take some shots around downtown later, if you’re up for that?” 
Kon turns bright red, and Tim doesn’t understand for about half a second before remembering–the last time Kon had talked to him about taking pictures, he’d offered . . . 
Oh Jesus. 
Tim is either incredibly stupid or–actually, he doesn’t even know. Lucky? Embarrassing? The dumbest moron alive who didn’t even realize he was being flirted with again? All those things and several even worse ones? 
Kon had offered to let him take spicy pics of him the last time they'd talked about taking pictures, whatever “spicy” means to Kon–brash, impulsive, shameless Kon–and Tim’s the idiot whose first thought upon Kon following up that conversation by very literally giving him a camera was to go take pictures of fucking downtown.
He is the most useless “sugar daddy” to ever sugar. 
Well, to be fair, it is Gotham downtown, so it’s very–
“I like taking pictures of streets and buildings,” he blurts belatedly, fumbling to sound like just the oblivious idiot that he is and not some kind of weird fucking perv who’s trying to get Kon arrested for public indecency. Jesus, he’s stupid. “And people-watching is interesting too. You know, stuff like that.” 
“Oh,” Kon says, and looks several ways at once, including both a little relieved and a little disheartened, which . . . okay, Tim would literally die if they actually went somewhere to take spicy pics tonight, so is unfortunately unavoidable. He’s not trying to make Kon not feel–attractive or anything, but he needs at least twenty-four hours to make a plan and also two or three or seventeen contingency plans before . . . anything like that happens. Ever. Even in theory. “Um–yeah, sure. That sounds cool.” 
“Cool,” Tim says, still desperately pretending to be an idiot. It’s not hard, on account of the fact that he very much is an idiot. 
Kon pauses for a moment, then perks up a little, seeming to think of something, and asks–“When’s dinner?” 
“Our reservation’s in forty-five minutes,” Tim says, double-checking the time on his phone just to be sure. “Well, forty-six. I figured that’d let us take our time walking over and maybe we could window-shop a little on the way.” 
And also shop-shop a lot, if Kon gives him literally even the slightest indication that he wants or needs something. Just if it comes up or anything. That’s all. 
Tim definitely did plan their route to the restaurant to cut straight through the middle of the downtown shopping district, either way. 
“We could’ve just met there, dude,” Kon says wryly, but grins anyway, glancing down at the orchids in his hand again. “Forty-six minutes, huh?” 
“Yeah,” Tim confirms. 
“And you like taking pictures of streets and buildings?” Kon asks, his grin turning just a little bit sly. Tim frowns briefly in confusion, not sure what the grin’s about. 
“Yeah,” he says. “Gotham has a lot of really interesting architecture and design. Like, it’s an old city, and one that’s been pretty resistant to updates in a lot of areas or just not had the money for those updates. So you get a lot of places with a lot of character and it’s basically the bastard child of gothic and art deco design with a side of industrial warehouse, depending on the part of town you’re in. Like, Crime Alley and the Diamond District have very different vibes, but they’re both very Gotham vibes, if you know what to look for. It’s–” 
Kon is grinning really widely at him, for some reason. Tim realizes he’s rambling like a moron and turns red. 
“Uh,” he says, repressing a wince. “Yes. Yeah. I like taking pictures of streets and buildings.” 
“Cool,” Kon says, and then he carefully packs the orchids back into their box and it back into the gift bag and transfers the chocolates and jewelry back into it too, then grins even wider at him as he hooks the bag’s handles over his arm and into the crook of his elbow. “Don’t drop the camera, babe.” 
“Wha–” Tim starts to say, and then Kon grabs him by the arm and pulls him into the closest alley, which is terrible survival instincts for Gotham, oh god, but before Tim can say anything about that Kon’s wrapped an arm around his waist just tight enough to just barely lift him off his feet and bolted straight up into the air with him. “Shit!”
Tim doesn’t drop the camera because he’s held onto cameras while falling off literal buildings before, but definitely only because of that. Muscle memory, or whatever. Also he’s been snatched off his feet by Bruce and Dick plenty of times and thrown off rooftops by multiple rogues and thugs over the years and these days gets regularly dragged around by Bart, all while holding very important things he could not afford to drop, so it’s not like either the sudden jolt or the effort to keep his grip on the camera are as disorienting as it otherwise would be. Just . . . 
Ugh, Tim realizes, absolutely unimpressed with himself upon realizing that the breathless feeling he’s having right now is not actually related to the swift and sudden increase in altitude, but is actually just because it’s Kon holding him. 
He is an idiot, isn’t he, he reflects resignedly. Just an actual literal idiot. 
Jesus. 
“Whatcha think?” Kon asks with a grin as he comes to a stop in mid-air with him. He stops very suddenly, but Tim notices a distinct lack of jarring with said stop, which implies Kon’s got his TTK around him again and probably completely around him, which means–
Oh god, Tim thinks, and very quickly makes himself stop thinking about that. 
“It’s cool,” he says, because a normal civilian would think flying was something interesting and unusual, but it’s hard to act too excited about a move Kon probably pulls on literally everyone he–
“I meant the view, babe!” Kon says with a laugh, and Tim . . . blinks. 
And then he looks down. 
They’re hovering a few thousand feet up, and downtown is already lit up bright in the early evening gloom. And Kon . . . 
“Streets and buildings, as ordered,” Kon says, grinning wider with a smug, cocky look on his face. 
Oh no, he’s hot, Tim realizes with dread, and then blinks again. Stares down at the city below, past the whipping wind and down into the busy streets and the bright, dazzling lights cutting through the murky gloom. He’s seen Gotham like this a thousand times, obviously, because of course he has–he’s been climbing these rooftops for years, and every night he runs across and swings back and forth between them and utterly fails to learn how to do more than a double backflip. 
One day, he promises himself distractedly, and then looks back at Kon. 
He’s seen Gotham like this a thousand times, but never just because someone thought he’d like it. Like–not like this, he means. Dick's shown him a few particularly special or exhilarating views over the years, yeah, but . . . definitely not like this. Not for a reason like this. 
And definitely not while peacocking all smug and pretty dressed up in clothes that he bought him and holding him close enough to kiss. 
Kon’s expression turns a little sheepish; a little soft. Not quite shy, but . . . 
“Do you like it?” he asks, his voice pitched a little quieter, and Tim has the much worse and even more dread-inducing realization of oh no, he’s CUTE.
He swallows, briefly, and feels his face burn. 
“Yeah,” he manages in an almost-normal voice. “I like it.” 
Kon grins at him, brighter than any city light, and Tim barely keeps himself from dropping the camera after all. 
“Thanks,” he attempts awkwardly, making himself focus on the camera and resisting the urge to take an immediate shot of that city-light grin. 
Then he takes one anyway, because of course he does. Kon laughs in surprise, then makes a face at him teasingly. 
“Hey, you can buy this face in any cheap gossip rag, focus on the fun stuff,” he jokes, jerking his head towards the city below. Tim looks searchingly at him for a moment, and then for obvious reasons snaps another picture. Kon flushes a little again. They probably won't even come out from this close, but . . . 
“You’re the most fun I’ve had all week,” Tim says, which is definitely too honest but clearly necessary to make a point of saying. Kon turns redder, ducking his head and grinning around his bitten lip. 
“You don’t have to say that kind of thing to me, man,” he says, and it comes across almost like a reflex. Tim hates . . . yeah, just literally everybody Kon’s ever known in his whole entire life, actually? Like, pretty much everybody? Bart gets a break because he grew up alone in VR and is therefore terrible with people and the girls get a break because they haven’t known any of them that long, but everybody else can just take a long walk off a short gutter, in Tim’s opinion. 
Especially any “everybody” from Cadmus. 
Or Metropolis, at this point. 
“I’m not saying anything I don’t want to say,” he says simply, and goes to the effort to frame a few shots of the skyline so Kon will know he appreciates . . . well, not the angle, exactly, but the thought. 
Technically he is usually on top of a building when he’s doing this, so the angle is actually a slightly different one than he’s used to–not that he’s been taking photos lately, just–not the point, really. Kon got him a camera and brought him up here because he clearly thought he’d like it, and damned if Tim is gonna do anything to make him think he doesn’t. 
He has better cameras for things like this–aerial shots and night photography and long-distance and the like, and better cameras for closeup candids too–but he already knows these pictures are all going to be exactly what he wants them to be, even the ones that don't come out. 
Or especially those, maybe. 
He's not sure how he'd explain that feeling to someone else. 
Kon flies them around, staying out of sight behind the light pollution and among the shadows of the buildings, and Tim takes . . . a lot more pictures than he needs to, actually. He was just trying to make sure Kon knew he appreciated him thinking of him, but actually . . . 
Well. 
It’s fun, that’s all. 
It’s . . . been a while, kinda, since he got to spend this much time on just photography and nothing else. Or–any time at all, really. 
Not that this is nothing else, obviously, given that Kon’s holding him and it is very, very hard to concentrate on anything besides that, but it is the kind of a view a standard civilian never gets, and it’s kind of nice to be flying for non-work-related reasons, for once. Like . . . novel, he guesses. A different experience. 
Technically he and Dick do “fly” together just for fun, sometimes, but that’s different. Like–so many kinds of different. It helps them in their work–keeps the rooftops familiar and them both in shape and in sync–but he can’t take photos when he’s trying to keep up with Nightwing across the rooftops of Gotham, and it’s not like Dick’s carrying him either. 
Also, it’s much less flustering and difficult to concentrate through, because again, Dick is not carrying him, and also Dick doesn’t do things like wear clothes he bought or do his eyeliner and paint his nails for him. Or, uh . . . anything like that. 
Also, definitely the “spicy pics” thing is not at all a thing, with Dick. Like, not even slightly, in any way whatsoever. And they’ve also never made out in a changing room or the back of a planetarium or– 
Look, there’s a lot of ways it’s different, okay? 
A lot of ways. 
“I'm not boring you, am I?” Tim asks a little bit sheepishly as Kon lands them on a ledge just behind one of the bigger gargoyles, tucked in tight in the shadows between it and the building it's perched on. “We can probably still fit in some window-shopping before dinner, if you want.” 
“Oh my god, dude, I promise we can do things you don't have to spend money on,” Kon says with a laugh as he lets him down on the ledge. “Though if it helps you technically did spend money on this, given how I got the camera and all.” 
“It's your allowance,” Tim says, because he wants to make sure Kon actually gets that. “You can spend it however you want.” 
“Well, I spent it how I wanted,” Kon says, and then steps closer into his space with a smile. Tim ends up sitting on the gargoyle’s back as Kon leans down to kiss him, and it's not like he's never kissed anyone while perched on a gargoyle before, but somehow it feels like something new anyway. New and electric, bright and easy and smeared with the city lights and thrilling in its shadows, and– 
Kon breaks off the kiss, though he keeps a hand on Tim’s arm, probably to make sure the squishy untrained civilian won't accidentally fall off the ledge and get splatted on the concrete. Tim barely holds himself back from chasing his mouth. 
“It's cool, anyway. Um, doing stuff you're into with you, I mean,” Kon says, looking a little soft and almost-shy again, and never mind, Tim not only needs to chase his mouth, he needs to set up a damn manhunt for it. “You're real cute when you get excited, man. I mean, uh–just–” 
The manhunt is going to require a very significant budget, Tim notes. 
Then he kisses him again, obviously. Kon melts down into it–into him, really–and wraps his arms around his neck, and Tim feels several kind of ways about it. Admittedly, it's the easier option with him sitting on the gargoyle and Kon leaning over him, but Kon's put his arms around his neck a couple of times now, and, well . . . 
That's just not something he would've expected from him, he guesses. Not “cool” or masculine or badass or . . . whatever, exactly, Kon thinks he's supposed to be. 
So Tim . . . likes it, he thinks, that Kon doesn't seem to think he needs to be like that around Tim Drake. 
Robin’s sure as hell never seen Kon in eyeliner. 
Robin's loss, Tim thinks. 
. . . maybe he's compartmentalizing a little too much these days, but still. 
Kon makes a very, very soft little sound between their mouths and then laughs, and Tim promises himself he won't stop at Gotham: he'll take over Metropolis for this asshole one day. Even if that means putting up with Lex Luthor and Superman. And also, like . . . everything about Metropolis. 
He'll figure it out. Supervillainy is still a long-term plan, so he's got time. 
Anyway, if he gives it to Kon after he takes it over he won't have to put up with it, so it's whatever. Sugar daddies do that kind of thing, right? Get their sugar-ees a city? 
. . . okay, definitely not. Like, very definitely not. 
“Okay date idea, then?” Kon asks as he leans back a bit and does a very bad job of biting back a smile, his face a little flushed and arms squeezing a little tighter around his neck. 
Tim will get him Metropolis if it kills Lex Luthor. 
“Very okay,” he says, smiling back at him. Kon grins, his face turning just a little bit redder, and then kisses him again. Tim has absolutely no complaints about that. Ever. He can’t even imagine a complaint he’d have about that, in fact. 
Worst case scenario, he’ll get them in at another restaurant if they miss their reservation. 
He really doesn't know what else he's supposed to do about how easy Kon blushes. 
They definitely spend too long making out against the gargoyle and Tim definitely lets himself get too riled up during it–and does not think about tactile telekinesis or any kind of related passive perception while he does–but by the time he’s the one pressing Kon back against the building, he really doesn’t care anymore. 
The fact Kon is even willing to let him do that when there is literally no way Tim could ever actually pin him anywhere without a way to sabotage his powers is . . . really, really distracting. Just–so distracting. 
Jesus, Tim thinks, breaking off just long enough to catch his breath for a moment. Kon pants softly against his mouth, which sabotages that even worse than kryptonite would sabotage TTK. 
Jesus, Tim thinks again, and then crushes their mouths back together. 
He doesn’t need to breathe that often. 
Kon makes a softer, breathier sound this time, and Tim does not let himself make it weird by letting his hands wander anywhere outside of second base territory. Frankly he’s not sure second base territory isn’t him making it weird, but Kon started it, so hopefully it’s not? Like–logically it’d follow that Kon wouldn’t touch him anywhere he doesn’t want touched, right? 
Well–hopefully, anyway. 
The air feels tight, Tim notices suddenly, like the feeling of sinking into deeper pressure when underwater but all at once, and then realizes–oh. 
Uh. 
Okay. 
“Um,” he says, and immediately the feeling of pressure vanishes as Kon jerks back and claps a hand over his own mouth. Which is mostly him pushing Tim back, given their position, but he does crack the brickwork behind him a little. 
Whoops, Tim thinks. 
“Sorry!” Kon blurts. “Sorry, sorry, that’s–sorry! I just, uh–got a little too into it. I won’t do it again.” 
“It’s really not a problem,” Tim says, with absolutely no idea how to take the idea of Kon getting “a little too into it” when kissing him, or the idea that getting a little too into it apparently involves getting wrapped up in TTK a lot more noticeably than making him bulletproof at the museum did. “I mean–it didn’t hurt or anything, I was just surprised.” 
“I–yeah, I know, it’s just–weird,” Kon says, still looking mortified. “So–sorry. That’s all.” 
“I don’t mind weird,” Tim says, because actually the idea of being temporarily at least as invulnerable as Kon is while making out with him implies being able to devote a lot more attention to said making out, as opposed to keeping half an eye out for snipers or rogues or random rooftop criminals. Not that he’d stop paying any attention to that, obviously, just–yeah. Well. 
It’s a little tempting, that’s all. 
“Uh–you don’t?” Kon bites his lip, still looking a little embarrassed. 
“It kind of just felt like scuba-diving, but with less equipment involved,” Tim says with a little shrug, keeping his tone light because “seriously, you have no idea how much I’d like to not be compulsively keeping an eye out for snipers right now” isn’t a very “civilian” thing to say. “And I’m not about to complain about you enjoying kissing me that much either way.” 
“Oh,” Kon says, and flushes a little. “Uh–really?” 
“Really,” Tim says, smiling at him again and tugging gently at the lapels of his jacket to pull himself back in. Kon blushes, and grins, and meets him halfway for the kiss. The sensation of pressure wraps him up again, gentle but undeniable, and Tim feels several kinds of ways about it. 
Maybe even a little bit safe, or at least as safe as anyplace outside the Batcave ever gets. 
Tim knows there’s no such thing as being perfectly, completely safe, but getting all wrapped up in Kon’s TTK and kissed for it makes it hard to remember that. 
Very, very hard. 
They spend a much longer time making out this time. Tim is vaguely aware that they still have a dinner reservation to make, but . . . well, he did pad the time to allow for window-shopping, so even with the time they spent flying around taking pictures, it's probably fine? 
Yeah, no, they’ve definitely missed their reservation by now. Probably way past missed it. Just so, so far past missed it. 
Weirdly, Tim doesn’t care as much as he should, even though he really prefers when things go to plan and also needs Kon to feel appreciated and like he got properly spoiled and taken someplace nice. He’s going to have to figure out something else on the fly, though, because he really does needs Kon to feel appreciated and also needs the excuse to get him more used to getting money spent on him and–
Tim remembers that he needs to breathe more than he's currently breathing and breaks off the kiss. Kon half-chases his mouth with his own, audibly breathless himself. Tim is not equipped to handle Kon breathless. 
That might actually be more flattering than the TTK thing. Or, uh–flustering, maybe. 
Both, maybe. “Both” is probably accurate here. 
Jesus, Tim does not know what he did to deserve Kon getting breathless over something he’s done to him, much less all soft and pretty and–
They have definitely, definitely missed their reservation. Usually Tim has a better sense of time than that, but usually Tim doesn’t have Kon wanting to make out on a Gotham rooftop with him, Like, he thinks he can forgive himself a little bit of disorientation on that one, considering. 
. . . as long as Bruce never finds out he messed up that bad, anyway. Because Bruce would definitely not like hearing he’d messed up that bad, TTK or not. 
Probably especially involving the TTK, actually. Probably Bruce would not take “yeah I let Superboy get distracted enough to unconsciously wrap me up in his Kryptonian-level superpowers while he wasn’t in full control of them and actually, like, encouraged it, kinda? like, explicitly encouraged it, actually”. 
Yeah, Bruce would not like that. 
“Um,” Tim says, and clears his throat a little awkwardly. “So, uh–hungry yet?” 
“You could say that,” Kon murmurs, then flashes him a sharp, wicked grin with his eyes slit open just enough to fix on Tim’s mouth. Tim spares a moment to compartmentalize just enough to not lose his mind about that, then makes the mistake of licking his lips anxiously, sees Kon’s hooded eyes go hot at the sight, and immediately fails to not lose his mind. 
“Uh,” he manages, and then decides they don’t really need to get dinner just yet and maybe they could just, like–no, no, Kon is definitely not getting enough calories from that stupid barely-legal underground lab’s stupid definitely-not-health-code-compliant cafeteria, Tim is not gonna be a bad enough date to not get his date a respectable amount of calories. That is just not a thing that he’s gonna, like . . . thing, as a thing. Or whatever. 
Not like Superman’s been bringing Kon casseroles or anything, the prick. 
“Um, I–uh, might’ve let us get a little too distracted, sorry,” Tim attempts after a moment of mental fumbling, making himself push back from Kon a little and pulling his phone out to check the time. Yeah, they have definitely missed their reservation. Very, very thoroughly have they missed it. 
Dammit. That is not Bat-quality situational awareness. 
“You think that was just you, man?” Kon asks with a little laugh, just barely ducking his head and biting his lip. It is . . . very distracting. As is his face. And his hands, which are still loosely on Tim’s back, and his TTK, which is still loosely . . . basically everywhere, yeah. Just–way too many places for Tim to be rational about, basically. 
“I mean, I was the one who made the reservation,” he says, clearing his throat awkwardly as he does his best to at least fake rationality. “So, uh, I should’ve been paying attention to the time. I can see if there’s someplace we can still slip in, it’s a little last-minute for a Friday but–” 
Kon kisses him again. 
Tim was saying something, he’s reasonably sure, but he couldn’t remember whatever it was with a gun to his head. A gun to his head while out of his suit and without Kon on the same floor as him, to be clear. 
Kon leans back and grins at him, all bright and pretty and cutting right through the shade and shadows of Gotham like a spotlight-signal lighting up the cloud cover. Tim remains vaguely aware of the fact that he was doing . . . something. At some point. In theory. 
God, Kon is so pretty. So, so pretty. And everything he’s wearing is something Tim bought him, coat and clothes and jewelry and all. Just–all of it, as far as he can see. 
Tim does not let himself think about what else Kon might or might not be wearing right now. Just–that way lies madness, and also Kon not getting a decent dinner and decent spoiling. 
. . . there’s probably some other ways Tim could spoil him, technically, if he just– 
Tim does not finish that thought. 
“You’re so fucking cute, daddy,” Kon says, still grinning just as signal-bright and pretty at him. Tim is not prepared for literally any of that and nearly melts right off the ledge into an incoherent mess of street pizza. 
“Uh,” he says, swallowing roughly. “We should–are you hungry yet?” 
Kon laughs, for some reason. Tim very quietly and carefully burns alive, and then Kon floats up a few inches and ducks around him and back out into the open air, leaning down to grin at him and reaching to–probably he’s intending to pick him up again, Tim’s brain is vaguely aware, but the rest of Tim is thinking more like hurr durr pretty boy, which is definitely why he ends up reaching up to cup Kon’s face in his hands and tug him down for another kiss, pushing himself up on his toes on the edge of the ledge to reach him easier. Kon makes a soft, breathless little noise, then laughs in delight and kisses him back. 
The wind is cold and sharp and the evening sky is all heavy dark clouds and hazy light pollution and Kon’s wearing clothes Tim bought him, some of which Tim even suggested to him, and he put on makeup and painted his nails to come see him and he’s got a gift bag of little things Tim picked out for him hooked in the crook of his elbow and he liked all of those little things, and they’ve not only missed but obliterated their dinner reservation, and they’re half-on a ledge high above the street and kissing and Kon is just so pretty.
And Kon also bought him a camera and brought him up here because he thought he’d like it and called him “cute”, which are all facts that Tim is definitely going to have to compartmentalize to fully process later, or else he really will melt right off the stupid ledge. 
The spicy pics thing, also, is a thing. The spicy pics thing is, uh–very much a thing. 
Tim is maybe just never gonna process that particular fact in, like, self-defense. 
Ever. 
. . . god, he’s going to have to process that fact at some point, isn’t he. God. That is . . . that is a whole thing that he is going to have to do. Like, effectively and well and throughly.
Maybe it’s not too late to just go supervillain right now, actually. Maybe Kon would be open to, like, minionhood or something. Lots of supervillains put their minions up in their lairs, right? That’s totally a thing, isn’t it? 
Ugh, no, Kon deserves a place he can really feel like is his place and also he has not laid near enough groundwork to get Dick to switch sides. Like, Alfred would, obviously. Alfred will be on-board the second the rusty crowbar and shrapnel bomb plan comes up and will probably have useful notes to add. But Dick is gonna require some more long-term finessing and Babs definitely won’t come if Dick doesn’t and– 
Kon laughs into the kiss and cups Tim’s face in return, which is incredibly distracting, and then squishes his face, which is incredibly annoying. 
“Hey!” Tim sputters, and Kon laughs again and leans back just enough to grin at him. 
“You are so weird, dude,” he says. “I can literally hear you thinking.” 
“. . . that’s not me being detached from the situation, I–” Tim starts, unable to repress a wince, and Kon just grins wider, grabs his wrists, and tugs him off the ledge and–oh, okay, that’s a weird sensation, Tim notes, because gravity does absolutely nothing at all to him until Kon’s pulled him into his arms and wrapped him up in them again all easy and secure. . 
So that’s . . . yeah, no, “incredibly distracting” isn’t actually gonna cover this one, considering. 
“Uh,” he says, blinking a couple of times. That. That is definitely not how Superboy holds Robin. 
Frick. 
“I just gotta keep you better attached, right, daddy?” Kon purrs–really purrs, his chest briefly vibrating against Tim’s–and then grins wider at him again with eyes that are, unfortunately, literally goddamn sparkling right now–thanks, gold eyeliner, Tim didn’t need those higher thought processes–before giving him another quick little kiss that Tim actually would like to turn into a four-hour make-out session and maybe also a sleepover and–
God he needs to remember how to compartmentalize. He really, really needs to remember how to compartmentalize. 
Also he needs to kiss Kon’s literal friggin’ brains out, the smug friggin’ asshole.
Mid-air makeouts are the worst possible idea Kon has ever inflicted on him and Tim would sooner fight Killer Croc without his utility belt than point that fact out to him. 
He winds his arms around Kon’s neck and kisses him back, and Kon makes this tiny little–not pleased, not content, but actually happy-sounding noise and kisses back harder. Tim feels gravity stop being a particularly relevant concern again and feels like he’s floating in deep, heavy water but also like he’s the lightest he’s ever been in his life, and it is . . . it is a feeling, alright. 
Kon is a menace. Kon is a problem. 
Kon is so, so damn cute. 
“You are an actual literal brat, baby,” Tim mutters slightly more feelingly than he means to, and Kon’s laugh comes out a little breathier this time and he ducks his head to the side and his face flushes and–
No. Nope. No. Tim needs to not learn anything new about himself or Kon tonight, or, worse, anything about him and Kon. That is just not a thing he has time for in his schedule. He’s got to fit in an anxiety attack and three full files’ worth of casework this weekend, for one, plus his science presentation and that make-up book report, and also come up with someplace else nice enough to take Kon to dinner tonight. 
“So, uh–dinner?” he says very quickly–self-defense, again–and Kon bites his lower lip and grins around it, his face still turned just a little bit away. Tim pretends they’re not effectively pressed together from knee to neck right now. Pretends valiantly. “I mean–um, if you’re hungry yet.” 
Kon laughs, ducking his head lower, the dangling gold teardrop hanging from his ear gleaming warmly in the murky electric city light. Tim goes through multiple stages of emotional processing to keep himself from kissing his neck right behind that earring and completely forgetting about not only dinner, but all his homework and casework and even the anxiety attack. 
Does Kon laugh this much around Robin? 
Tim really doesn’t feel like he does. 
He also doesn’t tell Robin very important things like the fact that he can make other people bulletproof on a whim and map out an entire mall just by standing in it, which is objectively much worse and potentially dangerous a thing not to do, but also Tim is already positive he’s going to miss that laugh like crazy every time he sees Kon with the mask on. 
Robin doesn’t get to see Kon like this at all, even when he lets the asshole eat both stupid boxes of cinnamon bread. 
“Dinner, yeah,” Kon says, grinning again and then taking off backwards across the sky, apparently unconcerned about their chances of hitting a building. Tim’s not really in a proper carry so much as just stretched out against him and wrapped up in his arms, but given the nature of how Kon’s powers work, an actual carry is obivously not really a concern, so . . . 
Oh, Tim realizes as Kon tips back just enough to be reclining in the air, still flying without any apparent care or concern for the aerodynamics of the situation or anything but staying more or less out of view of anyone on the street below. 
Avoiding the street view is good. 
The part where now he’s essentially laying on top of Kon is . . . less good, maybe. 
Maybe he won’t have to convince Kon to go supervillain, at least. Maybe Kon’s already there. 
“Where to, daddy?” Kon asks with a smirk, keeping one arm looped around Tim’s waist and folding the other behind his own head like he’s laying out in a lounge chair on the beach. Tim thinks longingly of smothering him and also of getting him to take down his TTK so he could bite a hickey or five into his neck. Maybe six. He could probably do six. 
Or seven. 
“Northeast towards Broad Street,” Tim says as he tips his head in the appropriate direction, then pulls up the camera again and snaps a quick shot of Kon’s smug smirk, which immediately breaks into a surprised laugh as the other flushes again. 
He takes a picture of that too. 
“You flirtin’ again already, man?” Kon asks with a sheepish little laugh, like the bastard has any room to talk. 
“The position’s pretty good for it, that’s all,” Tim says with a level of casualness he absolutely does not feel. Kon flushes darker and bites his lip again, still just barely grinning. Tim, ethically, has no choice but to take a few more pictures. 
“Oh my god,” Kon says, laughing again and unfolding the arm he has tucked behind his head to hide his eyes behind instead. Tim is maybe a little bit too aware of the line of his throat under the neck of his shirt, without his eyes and the sparkle there to be distracting him into a useless stupid mushbrained might-as-well-be-a-civilian, observationally-speaking. “I’m not a building, you absolute nerd!” 
“I said I liked people-watching too, didn’t I?” Tim points out reasonably, though mostly his brain’s occupied with the question of–“Hey. If you let down your TTK a bit, could a baseline-DNA human give you a hickey? Like, is that physically possible, or are you too Kryptonian for that?” 
“Oh my god,” Kon repeats, laughing harder even as the flush on his face spreads down his neck. Tim wonders how warm that might feel under his mouth. “I, uh–dunno, man. Maybe?” 
Tim silently resolves himself to finding literally any excuse to conduct that experiment and moves a hand to cup the side of Kon’s throat, eyeing it consideringly. Kon makes a slightly weird noise and visibly swallows, and Tim belatedly realizes that he’s paid literally no attention whatsoever to whether or not they’re about to hit a building or a flagpole or a roof this entire flight; he just assumed Kon had it handled. The Bat-paranoia kicks in and he glances up reflexively, and just as reflexively slides the pad of his thumb across Kon’s pulse. Their flight path is clear; they’re high enough to avoid most of the buildings in this area. Definitely still gonna need to keep an eye out for radio towers and billboards, but . . . 
Kon swallows again, the gesture a little bit rough this time. Tim feels the other’s throat flex against his palm. That sure is . . . that sure is a thing that Tim feels right there. That invulnerable throat flexing right there against his palm, and maybe not necessarily having to be invulnerable, if Kon didn’t want it to be. 
. . . . . . he already said he didn’t have time to learn anything new about himself tonight, dammit.
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harrowharkwife · 1 year ago
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i'm so used to there just being random unidentified bones laying around everywhere in these damn books that it finally occurred to me, just now, to wonder where the bones on new rho came from. y'know, the bones palamedes always tried to teach nona necromancy on.
they're his.
palamedes, who always loved teaching, living on borrowed time in a body that's not his own. palamedes, mentoring, teaching- parenting, by sixth standards, mind you. and that boy is sixth, through and through.
and the entire point of teaching nona necromancy in the first place was to try and determine if nona is, well, nonagesimus, right? so it has to be bones, it can't not be bones. bones are, like, her whole thing.
but they're not in the nine houses, anymore. things are different, on new rho.
they burn bones here. dig up the cemeteries. a society terrified of zombies will evolve to dispose of its dead differently.
the only bones he has access to now are his own. (camilla wouldn't let anyone take them- skull or hand, doesn't matter. they're still him, and she doesn't let go, remember? it's her one thing.)
palamedes woke up every morning wearing someone else's body to then gently place the shrapnel of his own in the cupped palms of a girl who's the closest thing he'll ever have to a daughter and try to teach her- how did the angel put it, again? normal school, as much as possible, for as long as possible.
(but hey, in a roundabout way, at least it's a chance for him to touch camilla again, right? nevermind that she's not there to feel any of it because he's in the driver's seat, that he can only stay for fifteen minutes at a time. it's atoms that belong to camilla touching atoms that used to belong to him, and that's close enough. he'll take what he can get, these days- if she can be their flesh, he can be the end. so what if holding his own bones is a mindfuck? so what if looking at them makes him nauseous? surely he can suck it up and deal with it for fifteen minutes. it's the least he can do— his poor camilla was the one who had to scrape the bloody pulp of them off the floors of canaan house.)
(speaking of, here's a fun fact: we actually only see nona practicing with the bones one time, on-page. camilla's final line in that scene, before palamedes takes over, is none other than: 'keep going. there are some bones left.' ow!)
remember, too, that the only part of dulcinea, the real dulcinea, that palamedes ever physically touched, was her tooth- the one that ianthe gave him, pulled from the ashes cytherea burnt her down to. he only ever touched dulcie once, and it wasn't until after she was already gone, but that doesn't matter- it still happened, and you can't take loved away.
in this same roundabout, bittersweet, by-proxy sort of way, palamedes has been physically touched by nona, too: the atoms she currently occupies, touching atoms that he used to occupy, and never will again.
the main interaction we've seen between palamedes and his mother took place back on the sixth, with her acting as mentor and him as pupil: the two of them studying a set of hand bones, juno encouraging him every step of the way.
we know that harrowhark's "most vivid memory of her mother was of her hands guiding harrow's over an inexpertly rendered portion of skull, her fingers encircling the fat baby bracelets of harrow's wrists, tightening this cuff to indicate correct technique."
they're still small for a nineteen year old, but the wrists are bigger, in this new set of memories nona's making. and it's not an inexpertly rendered portion of skull anymore- it's a hand, now, albeit one crafted from [a piece of skull reassembled (painstakingly—passionately—laboriously reassembled) from fragments, manually, and not by a bone magician, from the skull of someone who, soon after death or symptomatically during, had exploded.] and the identity and origin of these bones is no mystery at all. they belong to palamedes, and he's consented to their use for this purpose, and that matters.
but the details are just set dressing, really. the foundation of the memory is the same.
palamedes and his mother, juno and her son.
harrow and her mother; pelleamena and her daughter.
nona and her father-mother-teacher; palamedes and his daughter.
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miasmaghoul · 19 days ago
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Thinking of kidnapped prince Rain/antihero exiled knight Swiss.
Maybe they have some distant, unknown history, but either way Swiss comes to Rain's rescue. Rain, who has been dressed up hyperfeminine and had his face inexpertly coated in makeup by the guys who nabbed him. It's all been smeared with obvious tear tracks, fingertips and perhaps something thicker.
Rain's happy to be rescued, but still shrinks a little when he sees the look on Swiss' face.
"I'm here to rescue the princess," the former knight leers, wiping blood from his dagger. Rain crosses his arms over his chest now encased in lacy ruffles, cheeks pink.
"I'm a prince, thank you very much," he murmurs, trembling no matter how hard he tries not to. No one would believe him on sight, is the problem - not with the corseted bodice, flowing skirt and absurd heels he's been shoved into.
"No you're not!" Swiss laughs, crouching before him with that fucking grin warping his handsome face. "Look at you!"
Rain scowls.
"Yes, I am -"
He cuts himself off with a gasp when Swiss moves in a blink, that still-warm knife now pressed perfectly to the cleft of Rain's chin.
"No," Swiss tells him, eyes dark, free hand coming up to cup Rain's cheek. "You're not."
And then Things happen. Terrible Things. 😏
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katakaluptastrophy · 1 year ago
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Thinking about how Harrow was brought up knowing what she cost. That her price was the death of her House. How she had to be a perfect necromancer to prove to her parents that cost was worth it.
And thinking about who she asks for help when she is at her most desperate.
Harrow, who has never belonged to herself.
He reached out for your hands. You could not refuse him, and in any case had no choice of doing so; your body reacted long before your mind did, and the meat of your meat and the flesh of your flesh belonged to God.
Harrow, who only ever experienced love as a response to her worthiness.
Her most vivid memory of her mother was of her hands guiding Harrow’s over an inexpertly rendered portion of skull, her fingers encircling the fat baby bracelets of Harrow’s wrists, tightening this cuff to indicate correct technique.
And how that colours her entire perception of kindness. Of what those who try to love her want.
“I would like to give you something,” said Abigail Pent. This was to Harrowhark. She watched as the capable hands—strong, for a necromancer’s, beautifully formed and with very even nails—took a bit of folded paper from the table. She passed it to her Ninth colleague as though it did not hurt her to give away such precious material.
How John imagines Harrow as his daughter, but can only love her selfishly; her creation a mirror of his own sins.
You’d make a hell of a daughter, Harrowhark. I sometimes indulge in the wish that you’d been mine.
How Abigail, in loco parentis, having exorcised the children that weren't quite her's either so that she could help to keep Harrow safe, wants to comfort her but can't.
Abigail Pent took off her glasses and popped them down into the top fold of her robe. She reached out to touch Harrow’s arm, and Harrow flinched away; she winced a little in sympathetic apology, and removed her hand.
How Harrow is haunted throughout HTN not just by the actual ghost trying to destroy her, but by the memory of her parents, their touch, and by those who for better or for worse want to parent her. Abigail, who loved the children whose planet she was annexing - a fate Harrow viscerally feared. And John, who will show his love for his unexpected daughter by making her an undead construct. However well meaning, Harrow cannot conceive of parental love without possession, without an agenda.
The Emperor set down his tea and finished off his biscuit, and did that terrible thing that he did, on occasion: he reached over to touch your shoulder in that brief, tentative way, the lightest and swiftest of gestures, as though afraid that he might burn you. Your mother had guided your hands over bloating corpses. Your father had held down the corners of great tomes, and his sleeve had brushed your six-year-old-fingers as he showed you how best to turn their pages. Both of them had pressed a rough rope made of coated fibre into your hands—you recalled the pressure from their palms, their attempts to be gentle. When the Emperor touched you, your body recalled, unbidden, each rare and terrible touch committed by your mother and father.
How the one touch Harrow doesn't flinch away from is Ortus, who acknowledges his failure to protect Harrow and wants to make amends.
It was difficult to know what to do with this type of touch. It made her whole soul flinch, but at the same time opened some primeval infant mechanism within her, as though the embrace were a mirror: having someone hold up an image by which you could see yourself, rather than living with an assumption of your face. It was not like the touch of her father or mother. When she had first sat by the tomb in shivering awe, she had fancied that the Body’s ice-ridden fingers had shifted for hers, minutely. Gideon had touched her in truth; Gideon had floundered toward her in the saltwater with that set, unsheathed expression she wore before a fight, her mouth colourless from the cold. Harrow had welcomed her end, but suffered a different death blow altogether—and she had become, for the second time, herself. She untangled from Ortus, more reluctantly than she’d expected.
And now Abigail Pent and Ortus are (probably) dead. Gideon is John's daughter. The Body is Alecto, awake and on the move, meat loving meat.
Desperately hoping that in ATN Harrow and Gideon have an embrace without agenda where they are both simply themselves.
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yridenergyridenergy · 3 months ago
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Hi! Did anyone translate the speaking part Kyo had at the first Androgynos concert? It was much longer than other concerts I have been to, so would have been cool to understand what he said :)
According to the Barks live report, he said:
「ピエラーのみなさん、私たちを怖いバンドと思ってないでしょうか? そんなことありません。ヴィジュアル系の中で一番優しいです。その場でゆっくり観てていいんですよ。…なんて言うワケねえだろうが! クビ持ってこい!」
which I'll inexpertly translate as:
"Pierres [Pierrot fans], you don't think we're a scary band, do you? Not at all. We're the gentlest band in visual kei. Feel free to simply sit there and watch us at your leisure. ... -There is no way I would ever say that! Bring me your necks!"
Maybe he said something else, but that's the longest quote I saw being passed around.
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