#particularly on the ones with yellow or blue backgrounds

[squid-eevee]

all the klonoa portraits i made for @raysee1999's Klonoa Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Dreams rom hack!

[a-scary-lack-of-common-sense]

There has been requests about getting a full body colour for Kook!Ford, so here he is, in all his beige, white, and brown minimalist glory <3 (THERE’S A REASON WHY HE HAS SUCH A BORING PALETTE I PROMISE)

Stupid colour rambles that are WAYY too in depth and probably mostly far fetched but this is my AU and I get to pick how much over-analysis goes into the characters’ colour schemes, fuck you:

Ford:

Characterised by pale, almost pastel-ish colours to emulate a sort of sick, unhealthy look.

The paler colours add to the illusion of Ford lacking presence, almost disappearing into the background, to convey how his existence often ignored or dismissed by most of the townsfolk.

Without any visually striking or contrasting colours in his palette itself, his own features blend into one another, blurring the details and diminishing any identifiable traits that would have typically identified him as Ford, or even a person (<- if that mindfuck of a sentence make any sense)

Hints of yellow to show remnants Bill's past influence on him. Because I’m dramatic like that.

Fiddleford:

Deep, rich forest greens with golden accents (influences of Bill appearing in his outfit) (I need to hammer Fidds out a lil’ more ngl)

Stanley:

Deep, rich blues and purples (opposite spectrum of yellow, aka. Bill's colour, which means = safety to Ford)

The inside lining of his jacket is vivid red, to reference his original colours palette and as a representation of his past self being hidden underneath the layers of his predominantly blue exterior, colours representative of his new identity (also red = warm and blue = cold)

His colours palette will eventually open up into something warmer on the outside, veering into purple.

Extra notes on his character: Stan (in this AU) is colder and quieter than his canon counterpart. After years of being in the mafia business, and years of running it as well, he has long since learned to mask his facial expressions and master the poker face (*cough cough* resting bitch face *cough cough*). But, his intimidating and serious air does not serve him any favours when it comes to literally anything other than his “work”, his inexperience when it comes to emotions all the more apparent with the twins. He has trouble expressing his feelings outwardly, and despises this part of himself, because it reminds him of his own father. He feels as though he is failing the twins by being too cold and distant, and tries his best to open up more.

Mabel:

Maintains her original colours palette with pink, but has more hints of red in her outfit, similar to Stan’s, particularly around her sleeves (allusion to “wearing your heart on your sleeves.” Yes, I know that it’s tacky)

The red shows she is more inclined to trust Stan, as she is willing to see past Stanley’s exterior facade of cold aloofness to see his “true” colours (good HEAVENS that is disgustingly cheesy to say but idk how else to really word this)

Extra notes on her character: Mabel trusts Stan fully. Perhaps a little too much. She I dolises Stan to an almost unhealthy degree, and is constantly plagued with the underlying fear of somehow losing Stan’s “interest”, as their mother seemed to have lost interest in her and Dipper. Deeply fears being abandoned again, and believes she “owes” Stan for having adopted them. She believes it is her fault that neither of their parents wanted the twins during the divorce.

Dipper:

Maintains original colour palette with blues, but pretty solidly lacks red in his outfit. He serves as the opposite spectrum of Mabel, instead being unwilling to fully trust Stan and takes him at face value.

Extra notes on his character: Dipper does not trust Stan, and is far more hyperaware of what kind of “business” their “uncle” runs. He is mostly worried about Mabel’s slight obsession with pleasing him, and fears that if they don’t behave, Stan might use his dangerous power and influence against them. He is convinced that Stan had ulterior motives to adopting them, cannot fathom what he, a seeming stranger with all the power in the world, could possibly hope to gain in adopting two abandoned children. Even more so, when even their parents didn’t seem to want them.

[batbabydamian]

The Boy Wonder #1 by Juni Ba rambling about why every time i open this book, i stare in wonder...HAHA and ofc!! how cute Damian is!!

Juni Ba’s style is so absurdly effective in telling a fairy tale for the ages. It’s a stunning blend of simplicity and complexity I'M GRIPPING THE PAGES AGAINST MY EYES…

Before getting into the interiors, THE COVER!! It associates autumn leaves to Damian's Robin title through the iconic cape shape/color; and on top of that, for a Robin going through a big transition in his life...a season of change one might say...Juni Ba your brain...

Damian and the leaves being the only colored parts of this cover is nice in focusing on those elements, but i also like to think by not coloring the background it prepares you to expect impressive inkwork in this book.

On that note, the interiors!! Starting off with Ba's backgrounds of Gotham as it establishes the strange new world that our young hero has been thrust into:

We get a neat tracking shot following a champagne glass that gives us a glimpse of Gotham from the upper echelons to the downtrodden in "Underwell"

This opening sequence quickly lays out the environment Damian will be traveling through in this series! It also sets the tone for some silliness with the cute zoom on the champagne glass before it BOKs the robber lol. Along with Ba's inks, O'Halloran's colors makes every part of Gotham pop - especially love the golds of the higher society shifting into the blues of the underbelly!!

Besides Damian’s personal conflict, Gotham feels like its own entity that he has to contend with. The dialogue speaks for itself, but within the art as well!!

"This city of ours swallows and crushes everything it can" -> a gargoyle's beak over Damian, crowds of people, and walls of advertising

"You've seen it too...the way it coils around one's mind from below." -> bridges and a passing train on a rail viaduct towering over a civilian

"A dark voice calling as if to say..." -> literally, "FEED ME"

LOVELY SHOT OF MOVEMENT... and i love how Damian's venture into Gotham opens with him passing a tree - its branches and leaves are the most organic element on the page before getting into the gritty details of the city! Some yammering because the inks are. so cool: the delicate lines of the leaves in the tree to the thicker/bigger lined ones closer to the camera on the right; the background inks allowing space around Damian's form + the fine line of his grapple!! More O'Halloran praise - PRETTY, and love his coloring over Ba's bg lines, particularly here, keeping the leaves darker on the right.

It's not only a pretty page it's just a really clean layout!! Ba exhibits this throughout the book but i really enjoy it here - from Damian nyooming, we head into these last 3 panels. his cute lil "Robin" shape easily draws the eye to the tops of the panels as we take in Gotham's liveliness alongside the lettering/narration

and the "Robin" shape?? SO CUTE. it's instantly familiar to us as Robin!! bold outline and filled with yellow...it's a Robin in movement!!...AN AUTUMN LEAF IN THE WIND... yeah, still not over that 😭

Damian's inciting incident is introduced in the former panel with a gorgeous backdrop of Gotham in the distance (plus itty bitty Trinity cameo haha). The shot parallels!! beautifully!! in the final page!! Damian is now in the depths of Gotham, his objective out of reach. The colors are of note too, where the familiar yellows of Gotham are suddenly a startling green after the demon makes its appearance. The Gotham land looks even more unfamiliar, which prompts Damian to seek help.

Some speculation, but the green could also be associated with the more mythical side of demons and such (like the ghost?? of the thief), but it could even imply there's a connection to the Al Ghuls themselves as it's the only other time green is so prominently used.

Now that the land of Gotham is established, popping in other fav bgs!

More lovely mix of Ba's inks and O'Halloran's colors!! especially allowing some of the brush/marker strokes to show faintly as part of the twinkling sky...STUNNING!! 😭 i love this whole page but this panel gets me weepy, SMALL DAMIAN IN THE VAST UNIVERSE COMBINED WITH THIS LINE "He knew he could be great. How unfair of the world to make him feel so small." KICKS MY ASS... i need to lie down

YAPPING AT MORE WONDERFUL INKING: the suggestion of windows offscreen from the frames casting these thick lines over the walls and stairwell; the minute shadow details over the railing; the hatching on the suits in the portrait; the framed portrait being its own panel!! cute hooded Damian in the gutter space looking in on the portrait/panel!! CUTE HOODED DAMIANS!!

SPEAKING OF PANELS, along with general effectiveness and efficiency, there's more whimsy in others!! like this kickass page of Nightwing whipping his escrima from first panel -> afterimage lines going POWPOWPOW hitting demons from a distance to ones closer to the camera -> and back into his hand!! IT'S SO GOOD AND SO FUN!!

Ba's action employs more diagonal panels, and characters are less restrained within boxes - there's more energy and freedom across the page!

not necessarily focusing on the action for this one, but THE WHIMSY!! the border itself is goop!! Also gotta point out that looming hammer shape!!

Nightwing's critical hit spans the entire page!! from silhouettes of a flip -> flashy stomping pose/Clayface -> to a distant shot of Dick landing

and a smooth finisher page!! love the motion lines on Dick's arms and waist + his head and arc effects popping outside of the borders; then the smaller panels for quick activity, and the final WOOB WOOB WOOB LOL i can hear this sound effect just as much as i can see it

Along with O'Halloran on colors, Aditya Bidikar on lettering works seamlessly with Ba's vision!! The text boxes for the fairy tale narration are like strips of yellowing pages from an old storybook!! Had to look up the term for this lol, but also reminiscent of those storybooks, there's even a use of "drop caps" - the big fancy capital letter!

Smaller things of note, but the bit of "Weakness" text from Ra's has a kind of. grandiose feel to it. Then the cute B< Damian behind the window!! Love how the bubble and text are faded behind the glass too! The end of the bubble tail is a nice touch as it matches well with Ba's bg inking :0

Otherwise, it seems Ba has done a majority of the lettering - dropping a couple of my favs below!!

also just this whole page: the very loud AAAH! text draws both Damian's and the reader's attention to the panel below!! it's a cool transition to a new shot where you can see Damian's silhouette on the building! The final panel is cartoony violence off-page through the bold POW BOOM SLAM haha + DAMIAN'S LIL FIST!!🥺 and the guy's tooth RIP

Pure speculation - Juni Ba's concept art included Carrie Kelley, so i'm wondering if the hostage in the beginning could be her and we'll be returning to this moment in time by the end. The worn Robin colors are similar to the design + their head is conveniently covered.

In terms of story, I'm obviously heavily biased, but the initial read got me rolling in emotions with how it has you caring for Damian. Damian as a character is so fantastical in essence - it’s part of his individual charm in the batfam cast! an heir of two kingdoms, born and raised with great expectations suddenly thrust into an unfamiliar land. he has a sword. he has a dragon bat for a companion. he is haunted by the sins he has committed. he is two apples tall. he's truly fairytale material!!

LIKE...past the panels of only his silhouettes, this is our introductory appearances of Damian. It's laid out clearly in the narration, but this parallel is SO GOOD: from the powerful and ornate visuals of Damian and the Al Ghuls -> to a simple panel of Batman's shadow behind a boy littered in scars, stripped of his home and status

Damian is out of his element and proves himself in the way he knows how!!

just kick me down a flight of stairs why don't you. i don't know which messes me up more, the top 3 or bottom 3 panels. His facial expressions!! his expectations for approval dashed!! Damian's hand reaching for his father!! only to be left alone with the body. The page after this is the final nail in the coffin in feeling just how lost he is in the world before he acts on it. And you root for him the entire way!!😭

Despite Damian's fanciful background there's so much heart to be shown in his struggles and discoveries - and this classic form of a fairy tale lays it out so brilliantly!! It's shaping up to be an amazing balance of heavier elements and whimsy based on this first issue, and it leaves you wanting more!!

Besides being a thoroughly enjoyable read, it's inspiring work!! i've ordered Juni Ba's other books to consume more of his storytelling, and here's the ones i've found so far if you're interested in checking them out as well!!

Mobilis: My Life with Captain Nemo

Monkey Meat

Djeliya: A West African Fantasy Epic

The Unlikely Story of Felix and Macabber

okay shockingly, i didn't blab about how cute Damian is as much as i thought i would, but i think the collage at the top speaks for itself lol

this is all you need to know how cute Damian is in this!! his cheeks are so pinchable, it was done on page!! 🥺 these panels obliterate me

[lover-of-mine]

Blue and yellow coding of Eddie's arc this half of the season just because I feel like making this post.

As usual, the theory is that Eddie will work his way to his yellow in the same way that Buck worked his way to his blue, his blue being the coming out scene blue. (Overview and links to all the posts I made on that here).

Also please remember that in the search for yellow, yellow means gold/honey/sunlight, orangy/yellow type tones.

First of all, no place like home (I made a detailed post on the episode that you can read here), but all the scenes about Eddie include blue and yellow elements and we got out first sandy yellow color when he was talking to Bobby.

His 2 part confession in confessions is also yellow and blue. How warm the actual confessional is, is also an interesting point when you add in the amount of blue elements in the juice shop.

Something that I keep talking about Buck's arc is that he does not match the background during his discovery, but he matches when it's about Eddie (aka the right choice), so the fact that Eddie already matches is worth noting. That's also true for when he's in the 804 yellow, bathenas apartment is very warm and he matches the background pretty well.

That yellow shirt also happens to be the shirt Eddie is wearing during the 601 dinner which happens to be 1 of 2 explicitly blue and yellow buddie scenes. When I say explicitly I mean that's part of the color of their shirt/jacket because that's usually the focus of an outfit.

The other one is the will reveal.

And we have all the blue and yellow elements during the conversation he has with Brad during wannabes.

Something worth noting here is the way everyone is wearing gloves while cleaning. The hose and rags are usually yellow but the addition of the gloves for the blue is intentional, take buzzkill for example, no gloves while cleaning.

Something I think it's particularly interesting is the way that he works as a divider almost, behind him to the left there is no yellow, just blue, but to the right we have all the yellow equipment and the people behind him with the rags. Also because the shelf of white hose highlights the way that the one behind Brad is supposed to be noticed.

There's also that rope behind him hanging in the dining room that weirdly looks like caution tape. That and the little yellow elements in the fridge.

Honorable mentions include: yellow organic fruit leader.

And the blue and yellow coding of the well callback in 806. I put this down here because technically this call is about Chim's plotline but it is an eddie begins callback that is very blue and yellow, so...

But something else I wanna point out is the way that in my post explaining the Eddie finding his color theory (that post can be found here), I mentioned the way that Chris is red. His crutches are red, his glasses are red, he's in yellow and red when he leaves.

And the scenes tend to have all 3 primary colors, most of the scenes also have a lot of red elements, so if we have Chris as the red, Buck as the blue, and Eddie as the yellow and the red keeps being included in the conversation, it's almost as if they are keeping Chris involved because Eddie can't make the discovery without Chris.

That is interesting with the buddie's parenting crisis maroon.

And the red and blue for parenting as a whole that was solidified once again with madney's pregnancy (meta on that applied to buddie and 710 here).

So if we consider the possibility that they are doing some really elaborate color theory game here to make sure Eddie finds all his colors, they are basically making the Buckley-Diaz family its own little group of primary colors so Eddie can make all of them. And considering that my base statement is that they are trying to show that Eddie can't live his life as a secondary color, especially since a lot of us associate green with Eddie, or earthy tones in general, this is a fun theory to think about.

He can't figure it all out without Christoper, but the addition of the blue means he also can't figure it all out without Buck. So the idea that he's stuck right now because he doesn't have one-third of the equation and if he does move to Texas he would also be missing a piece, but choosing to go get Chris and stay in LA will give him all the elements.

Anyway, this got way longer than I expected when I started typing aoksasaok, as usual, if you read this I love you 💜

taglist (interact with this post if you wanna get tagged)

@sparkedblaze @caw-salem @dreamofsomepiphany @100ceruleaneyes @chaosqueery @gina-spike @chimchiminie98 @elvensorceress @singitforthegirls @dangerpronebuddie @steadfastsaturnsrings @sparklespiff @inell @miles--to--go @jesuisici33 @wolfdeans @lunarsolar1 @joshwritesfics @glasscities @kejfeblintz @stagefoureddiediaz @mosaicstardust @eddiedisasterdiaz @hermioneindisguise @queerprincesseddiediaz @lookforanewangle @becausebuckley @lemotmo @thenainitaldisaster @epiaphany @trudayss @shelfthe-reader @alliaskisthepossibilityoflove @buckgettingstruck @scoupsahoy @the-whispers-of-death @iced-coffee-jesus @izzysbeans @thegeekcompanion @sunflower-eddiediaz @bucks-daddy-issues @linus-lucy

@dingdongfries @angelcamael

[djarin]

hi i'm sorry to bother you but do you have any tips on giffing dark indoor scenes? yours always look so good!

hi there! not a bother at all :) i can definitely try to explain the steps i usually take under the cut!

this tutorial will assume that you already know the basic steps of gif-making — if you don't, there are lots of great tutorials floating around on this site that can help you out! :)

here's the gif i'll work with to explain my steps, the bottom being the original and the top being the coloured/brightened version.

before we start, a general tip i recommend keeping in mind: if you want to brighten a dark scene, you'll want to get your hands on the highest quality download you can find. 1080p is decent, but if your laptop can handle 2160p 4k hdr files* without sounding like it's about to explode, that'll get you even better results!

(*colouring hdr 4k files requires a different set of steps — the scene will appear washed-out on photoshop, so you need to make sure that you don't end up whitewashing anyone if you do choose to work with this type of file.)

since most of my downloads are 1080p, i'll use this type of file in this tutorial.

the first step of my gifmaking process with 1080p files is almost always the same no matter what scene i'm giffing. i make a brightness/contrast layer and set the blending mode to screen:

now my gif looks like this:

depending on the scene and how washed out it looks after this layer, i'll play around with the opacity. for this gif, i didn't touch the opacity at all. use your best judgement for this, because every scene is different!

i find that dark indoor scenes are usually tinted in yellow or green. one of my first goals is to try to fix the undertone of this scene before focusing on brightening it any further. i go to colour balance for this, and play around with the midtones, shadows, and highlights.

again, every scene is different, so the amount to which you use colour balance will differ, but for this specific scene, my goal was to neutralize the yellow. i focused particularly on the midtones and shadows of the colour balance layer, moving the scales to the opposite of the reds.

doing so will help with neutralizing the yellow. the only reason i moved the scales towards magenta and blue (therefore making it a bit more red than less) rather than green and yellow in shadows was because i wanted a darker contrast in the blacks. moving them to green and yellow made the overall scene more yellow since there were so many dark spots that shadows affected. (you'll see what i mean when you start experimenting with your own gif — this part of the process really just depends on your preferences!)

our gif might not look that much better yet, but it will soon! our best friend channel mixer is gonna help us out. for an in-depth post about how to use this adjustment layer, i recommend checking out this tutorial.

i'm someone who prefers to make more than one layer for the same adjustment layer for a reason i can't even explain (i just find that it helps me stay more organized). so don't think of this process like i can only use this layer once so i MUST fix it NOW. you can create multiple layers of the same adjustment layer, because every layer on top will affect the ones underneath it.

since my priority is getting rid of the yellow tint, i went to the Blue section of the channel mixer and increased it in all of the scales:

this step alone has helped us out so much, because look at our gif now!

not only does the background look less yellow, but so does izzy's skintone.

now i'm going to focus on trying to brighten the scene even more without destroying the quality. the levels layer can actually help out a lot with this.

the amount to which i move each toggle differs per scene, and i think experimenting depending on your gif works best for this layer.

side note: i prefer not to use the ink droppers on the side because the contrast in the result usually ends up feeling too strong for my preferences, but if you find that this works better for you, then go for it! basically, the first dropper with the black ink should be clicked before you select the darkest part of the scene that you can find, and vice versa for the third dropper with the white ink — click it, and then select the brightest part of your scene.

curves is the next layer that does fantastic work! unlike the levels layer, i do actually use the ink droppers for this. it's the same concept, with the first dropper being used on the darkest part of the scene, and the third dropper on the brightest.

try to think of curves as something that not only further brightens your scene, but also helps with the colour neutralizing process.

i grab the first dropper, then click the darkest parts of the gif that i can see. depending on the undertone of the blacks that you're clicking on, the tint of your gif might actually change significantly. this is why i prefer to click once, then undo the action if i don't like what it gives me. izzy's leather jacket was the sweet spot for this gif.

when i'm satisfied, i make another curves layer and use the third dropper to click the bright/white parts of the scene. for this gif in particular, the lights in the background were a good fit because they carried a yellow undertone — this meant that my curves layer actually helped to further neutralize the yellows in the scene as a whole!

(i manually dragged the curves graph upwards for the third dropper to make it brighter. i don't need to do this if the dropper does this for me automatically, but since the lights were pretty bright, it only changed the tone of the scene and didn't increase the brightness — hence the manual step.)

pat yourself on the back, because this is what our gif looks like now!

this is good, but it's not great — there's still just a bit too much yellow in the scene for my liking (sorry, i'm picky! :P)

i created another channel mixer layer and played with the toggles until i was satisfied:

ta-da! the gif as a whole is much less red/yellow now:

this is when i start fixing the colouring now — namely, his skin tone. selective colour will be your best friend here. i wanted to make his face just a tad brighter and less of a yellow-ish magenta shade, so i focused on the reds and yellows.

then, out of habit, i created another selective colour layer and took out more of the "yellow" in the whites to make them whiter, and increased the black (just by +1, since the contrast is pretty good enough already).

note: i switched to "absolute" for these two colours. basically, relative = less vibrant colour manipulation, and absolute = more vibrant/stronger colour manipulation. i prefer to stick to "relative" for fixing skin-tone since "absolute" can be a bit too strong for that.

our gif looks like this now!

his face looks brighter and much less yellow, so i'm satisfied!

this next step is not mandatory at all — again, i'm just picky and despise yellow-tinted scenes. i personally believe that indoor scenes that are yellow/green tinted make them look more dark than they actually are, so i do my best to get rid of these colours.

i also don't always do this, but for this gif, i just simply went to hue/saturation, selected the yellows from the drop-down menu and decreased its saturation.

be careful not to do this too much. depending on the quality of your download, this can significantly decrease your gif quality. i tend to worry less about this when i'm working with 2160p files, but again, those files require an entirely different set of steps when it comes to brightening/colouring.

since this was a 1080p file download (and one that was actually less than 1GB, oops, don't do that), i played it safe and decreased it by -39 only.

note: you also want to be cautious of colour-washing skintone when it comes to this step. i find that another selective colour layer can help perfect the skintone in case the yellow drains out of it too much, but skip the hue/saturation step if it's too difficult to work with — better to be safe than sorry.

anyway, this is the final gif!

that's usually what i do when it comes to colouring dark indoor scenes! i hope this tutorial makes sense, and if you have any further questions, don't hesitate to reach out! :)

[follows-the-bees]

Filmmaking analysis time!

How cinematography, blocking, and camerawork in S2 eps 6&7 show Ed's and Stede's emotions.

Since season one, red has been used to show the love for each other: the red of the silk and Stede's new red shirt in both moon scenes. We also know that purple comes out more as Ed falls in love with Stede.

So let's talk about Calypso's Birthday and Man on Fire.

The lighting during this scene is full of color, the reds, purples, and blues. Besides being classic bi lighting, it incorporates the red and purple that we know represents Ed's and Stede's love.

They are swimming in it. Yet, they aren't the same blockingwise, they aren't as close as last season, there is still stuff between them that needs to be spoken. They are standing by each other, their bodies turned inward, and a giant red flower sits bright and center between them, showing how large and full the love they have for each other is.

These purples and reds diminish when Ned Lowe crashes the party. His presence brings a screeching halt to the healing and good times the crew and particularly Ed and Stede are having. He not only crashes the party but right before Ed and Stede were about to dance. This giant wrecking ball that symbolizes Ed's pirate past brings in the harsh blue and green lighting and ups the trauma for both men. Green lighting is used to show that things are off, it is off-putting and fills the scene and audience with unease.

Gif credit

The purple lighting stays very subtle during this whole scene, but as Ned insults everyone, and brings up all of the still unspoken insecurities of the men, the blue shines more, especially on Stede as he makes his choice to have Ned walk the plank. We see immediately how that affects Stede, his trauma comes roaring back, he's shaking, and has tears in his eyes. He retreats back to his cabin.

Ed on the other hand is also experiencing trauma here. While helping out and being around Stede, he has been treading water, trying to figure out what he actually wants in life. And the embodiment of that, when he was at his lowest after S1, when he was trying to break the record has come back to taunt him and the man he loves. He chooses to check in on Stede.

This is when the lighting and camerawork change. We are now inside and the lighting is warm, glowing from candlelight. Ed has a yellow glow behind him when Stede opens the door, like he is the beacon of light in this storm of emotion and trauma that Stede is experiencing from his decision to kill Ned. To cross that boundary when with the rest of the crew he used his usual positive people management style.

Pay attention to their positions here, cause this upcoming choice makes this scene feel off. The pull into the room and the subsequently slam into the wall and kiss are flipped. Along with the quick movements in each shot, this triggers a little part of our brain that realizes something is off even if we don't know why. Read more about the mirror shot in this meta analysis.

When Ed and Stede decide to be together for the first time, to numb the traumatic pain in their desperation and love for each other the lighting is different. It turns a warming orange/yellow glow, showing the softness of the situation.

These men desperately love each other and want to be together. They both agree to this night, Stede pauses before kissing Ed, waits until Ed nods his head and gives consent then pulls Stede in.

And when Stede closes the curtains, the lighting is back to red and purple. The two colors symbolizing the love these two have for each other.

In the morning, the bright yellow lighting is back. The beautiful morning sky in the background looks serene and idyllic, but it also puts our characters in a shadowy haze in the foreground.

They are still in the warmth, the afterglow of being together. Ed gets nervous and brings Stede breakfast in bed. (A parallel to Doug and Mary). They have an intimate conversation where Ed opens up about seeing mermaid Stede while in Purgatory. They have now been intimate in all forms of the word.

But there is still something off, just like with the mirrored images. Stede is shirtless, open, feeling safe. Ed has ditched his leather clothing, his Blackbeard persona, and is now in fine clothing. And I can't confirm but the inside of the robe looks purple. But his robe is closed, which can be read as still hesitant, even if it's subconscious. And they have the same body language of all of the last episode. They are sitting apart, not touching, but still comfortable facing and leaning into each other.

And this bliss continues outside where they open up more. The lighting is bright, pretty, they are surrounded by greens and tans, glowing still. Stede tells him about the multiple letters in bottles he has written. They are opening up about things but they are still avoiding what needs to be talked about - the trauma, their different paths that seem to be emerging.

And then finally, when the fight happens, all of the uneasiness from the mirrored shot, the close but not yet close enough body language, all of these choices come crashing down just like the relationship.

The light is muted. They have spent part if not all of the day apart. So the lighting indicates that it is approaching sunset not only in time but in their relationship, the foreshadowing of Ed breaking up with Stede and leaving.

Ed has already made up his mind. He is leaving to be a fisherman. He thinks what happened the night before - and by that - the moving too fast part was a mistake. While they both love and want each other, Ed is self sabotaging - in a direct parallel of last season - thinks he has ruined Stede, spiralling and choosing like he's done in the past to completely run away from the darkness. He needs to learn that he can embrace both (all) sides of himself without losing himself.

Stede tries to save it. Responds to Ed saying "this can be whatever we want it to be." But then things escalate, things aren't explained. Stede doesn't realize what the fish means to Ed, and saying he lied about the quality of the fish is Ed's view of them, "they are the fish."

They need to talk, about what they want, their diverting paths, finding common ground, and learn how to be in this relationship.

They believe the exact opposite of the truth. Ed thinks he's ruined Stede and that Stede won't love him if he's not Blackbeard (the chin convo!) And Stede thinks he isn't good enough for Ed (and everyone, that is why he goes a little crazy when people recognize him - in a direct parallel to Ed during the dinner party in 1x5.) And Ed doesn't love his softness.

All the lighting reaffirms just how much these two love each other, but the blocking, mirrored camerawork, and fast movements show the underlying unresolved tension that has been building up and ultimately leads to this rift.

[kosmicdream]

while not some STRICT 100% ACCURATE GUIDE i have been developing a sort of.. eye color chart association w/ inner demons for NRD and felt like sharing it. while each person comes with usually 8 inner demons (7 red, 1 blue) they are usually not specifically representative of ~one specific~ "sin" and more of a collection of aspects of a person.. but they can have a specific leaning towards one, which is why they'll end up getting classified as.. it is funny because in some pages, Gaueko's eyes might look more yellow than orange which is why i made Greed yellow, as i do think he does lean into that as well.. for inner!welt he is always at conflict with himself due to his ability to see into his outside self, which is why his eyes look like that on the inside. Outside!welt is much more simple and straightforward haha. Currently, Kamila has fused with the demon most associated with his desires, which is why he's been particularly umm.. impulsive i suppose. Blue demons often have orange eyes because they are usually quite prideful in the sense of their own unique status as a demon, but also prideful in the fact that they are the hardest to "soothe." Inner demons are in every person and are essential to them, but its generally not a good idea to let them take too much control of you.. bad things will happen..

Anyway this is just a little snippit. I used to share a lot of various FFAK worldbuilding stuff but I don't do that as much with NRD.. but it still happens in the background LOL..

[gilverrwrites]

Some unprompted headcanons for Babs, Jason, and Tim just because I felt like it.

You know most computers now let you have multiple personalisation settings. Barbara has a different pre-set for each member of the family, and she changes them each day depending on who she’s Oracle-ing for. Very generic grey and black theme for Batman. Blue for Nightwing with a picture of him as her background. Red Robin and Red Hood are both, well, red, but her keyboard lights up yellow for Red Robin. All yellow for Signal, lots of purple for Spoiler. Black and yellow for Batgirl. Robin doesn’t have his own yet, since he doesn’t work alone much, however, she does have a bunch of his drawings pinned on the walls.

Jason is a book worm, yes, BUT he does not treat books well .With the exception special editions or books that are particularly meaningful to him, he carries pocket paperbacks around with him and they get battered; torn covers, singed edges, dented corners. That’s on top of his dog earring the pages and annotating them in whatever pen he can find. If he reads an extract or a poem that reminds him of somebody he will straight up rip it out and keep it in his pocket for days, weeks, months until he remembers to give it to the person.

Tim collects bottle caps. No wait, that’s not quite true, people collect soda caps for him. It started when he was a kid and Zesti Cola released a special edition glass bottle for on of their big anniversaries. He just thought it was cool, so he kept it. Years later while he’s out photographing Robin he steps on a funky looking Soder Cola cap and decides to keep it. When he moves into the mansion Bruce finds those two old and beaten-up caps when he’s helping Tim unpack and latches onto it as a bonding thing, starts seeking out glass bottles whenever he’s somewhere new and tells Alfred to do the same. When Steph finds a trinket tray full of bottle caps in Tim’s room she assumes he's a collector and starts doing the same until one day it’s just an unspoken things that everyone in the family does. When you find a bottle cap you give it to Tim. Tim has never questioned it, but he is running out of space.

[paper-possum-party-pal]

It is time to unveil the final character in the Proctor Lineup!

Meet The Director!

The Director is an oc I made when I was first getting into The Stanley Parable after thinking ‘hey, I associate The Narrator with yellow and squares and The Curator with blue and triangles, what if there was a third one associated with red and circles?’ And thus, The Director was Born.

The three proctors are siblings that collectively watch over Earth to observe humans. They’re not really sure the exact reasons for doing so, other than the vague knowledge of humans being particularly dangerous toward their kind which they retained from the Informis Voxumis they split from. The Director is the ‘middle’ sibling based on how quickly they gained their bearings after the initial split, with the Curator having done so before them and the Narrator after. All of them grew increasingly curious about humans, and while the Curator went to spend time among them and brought one into her space and the Narrator created a human using the essence of one that had recently passed, The Director made a human completely by scratch. Funnily enough, none of them initially realized that the others had started interacting with humans, so for a while they were hiding it from each other until The Curator found out about Stanley through a slip up from The Narrator during a conversation. The Narrator thought he successfully covered it up but was proven wrong when The Curator connected her museum to his parable and added the museum ending. They found out about The Directors human last since they tend to be much better at keeping to themselves, though The Director was aware of the other two’s protagonists.

The Director’s story is called ‘The Allegory of Grey’, because it knew that doing so would bother The Narrator, not only because ‘It’s blatant plagiarism of my work, my ideas!’ but also because Grey’s given last name is Anderson and it’s funny to hear the Narrator rant about the ‘wasted potential, I mean seriously, you could have used alliteration right there! ‘The Allegory of Anderson’ has much better flow and I know you agree so why would you not change it?!’. It loves messing with its siblings and once it finds out about TK they become best buddies and everyone suffers for it. TK loves being the distraction while The Director works in the background. The Director messes with The Curator far less because they know that she has little tolerance for their shenanigans and will toss them out of her space. The Director was the one to come up with the sibling’s last name, and had only chosen it so that when you said it’s full name out loud it would sound like ‘Director’. This bothers the other two, but they don’t argue too much because honestly Torrent is a pretty good last name to be stuck with when you’re as dramatic as these three. Stanley and Mariella are friends with The Director and Grey and will sometimes come down to ‘The Studio’ to hang out, chat, and chill.

Due to the Directors love of horror and built up frustration at having to watch humanity to ensure they don’t become a threat, it builds The Allegory. The Allegory is a sandbox initially made to take their frustration out on a ‘human’ by subjecting them to whatever horror thing they were interested in exploring. The Director takes inspiration from the countless types of horror games and movies that exist in play style, themes, monsters, etc. They think about putting a real human in it, but that would raise some suspicion as messing with the plane of existence humans live on would cause noticeable interference. So they created a human that was essentially an ai that would follow orders and experience whatever new horrors The Director wanted to explore. Grey and The Director initially start out as opposing forces similarly to Stanley and The Narrator, but they slowly warm up to each other as The Director first realizes they are sentient, and then actually considers the impact that living through the allegory might have on their psyche. Grey does not forgive The Director immediately, in fact, it takes a very long time and a lot of effort on The Director’s part to improve for Grey to even consider it. One of the things they bond over is art and painting, which led to them painting each other in their down time once The Director gets a human form.

One thing to note about the siblings human forms is that they are incredibly difficult to make, and trying to make tweaks can lead to accidentally unraveling the form and having to start over. Furthermore, the Informis Voxumis method of splitting into new entities to reproduce has a few requirements to ensure that they are strong enough to use all of their abilities and won’t be stunted when doing things such as taking new forms. This is why all three siblings need glasses and The Director needs hearing aids. The Narrator has asthma and blood pressure issues in his human form, while The Curator has arthritis and several allergies, mostly mild skin allergies but some are more severe. All three get migraines all of the time and have some kind of back problems that occasionally lead to the use of canes.

This post is getting super long so I’ll leave you with these last images. I’ll have a profile for Grey done in the future, but if you go back to the very first piece of artwork I posted, you can see them in the background behind Mariella! That appearance is how they first looked when The Director created them. It’s kind of interesting that there aren’t a lot of original characters that people make for this game. I’ve seen some office sona’s but not really other characters that are like The Narrator or Curator. At least I haven’t seen them so maybe I’m looking in the wrong places. If you have some of your own I’d like to hear about them!

Final Lineup!

[kuradex]

I wanna know about your art style. How you draw like that??

i tried putting down considerations as well as a (very) general step by step of what i do; if there's anything more specific you want me to explain lmk i guess?

first off, general (self imposed) constraints / purpose of project -- this informs what i draw & how i draw it

i.e. "kuradex" is pretty different from my normal art (my 5 latest rough illustrations):

or my monster hunter charms:

or my pokemon tcg contest illustrations that im not allowed to show until june (😉):

although i've said its for merch purposes, ive started drawing these because i wanted to practice conveying "liveliness" and noticing key features / nuances of a given design, but i didn't want to spend a large amount of time on each one.

so what i came up with is

i want to draw things on-model in terms of proportions ( + take note of weight / tapering of shapes / etc )

no backgrounds & minimal "props"

experiment with / practice line/texture/color/flow/rhythm/etc

spend <1 hr on each pokemon on average (this is a bit more difficult for me to track, but for example, the cyndaquil line took me less than 42min to color, combined, and means at some point in time instead of focusing on cleaning up the art as much as i can, i stop after cleaning up most of it)

that said, the pose & the rhythm/flow of lines are key in conveying liveliness, and if i have a concept in mind i usually end up going with it, but i may go thru a few if i dont.

i consider pokemon origin / lore or a key point in its design, and if i'm particularly stuck, i try looking up pokemon card illustrations for inspiration. (i noticed the research i do is essentially a truncated version of how Atsushi Furusawa does research before doing an illustration.

(& even despite all this i do get stuck sometimes and don't exactly understand a pokemon and just opt for "as cute or cool as i can make it i guess?", but i think it's part of the process...?) (theoretically things that are A Shape should be really easy to draw but with what i want to practice in perspective i find them difficult...)

this is from my latest paid req but these are my first sketches of chesnaught -- i was thinking of how one of its inspirations is a warrior / tanker from RPGs, so i drew a pose where it's shielding its face.

i do another pass and take note of details.

in general i draw overlapping shapes and erase (it's a bit visible on one of the spikes)

because i opt for quickness i start coloring at this point -- i just use a colored "color burn" sketch layer for the "lineart" & colorpick official art & lay down messy flats & set the color layer to 60%

60% multiply layer for shadows. i tend to use both hard and soft brushes

for bigger projects i would use 2-3 shadow layers to create more "layered" shadows

here i use overlay layer (60%). this is just throwing colors at it and seeing what works and doesn't work. i personally prefer to throw red under the eye and a yellow or blue near the top of the head. this is mostly done with a soft brush

before this point, everything is under the rough lines, but now i start drawing/painting over it

i just color pick the colors that have been laid down from the previous steps and clean up / render textures (making the green on its arms look fuzzy) / fixing anything that i forgot or looks too off (i.e. the spike on its shoulder and the way the tail curves)

I could potentially keep cleaning this up, but this is where i usually stop 🫡

[blasteffect]

James Webb Telescope's stunning image of Jupiter !

NASA scientists have also released new shots of the solar system's biggest planet, describing the results as "quite incredible".

The James Webb Telescope took the photos back in July, capturing unprecedented views of Jupiter’s northern and southern lights, and swirling polar haze. Jupiter's Great Red Spot, a storm big enough to swallow Earth, stands out brightly alongside countless smaller storms.

One wide-field picture is particularly dramatic, showing the faint rings around the planet, as well as two tiny moons against a glittering background of galaxies.

"We’ve never seen Jupiter like this. It’s all quite incredible," said planetary astronomer Imke de Pater, of the University of California, Berkeley, who helped lead the observations.

"We hadn’t really expected it to be this good, to be honest," she added in a statement.

The infrared images were artificially coloured in blue, white, green, yellow, and orange, according to the US-French research team, to make the features stand out.

AP/NASA

[laughroditee]

🟡 "Hither, Hither / Do Not Come Near"

Hither, hither, love!       Let us feed and feed! –John Keats, “Hither, Hither, Love”

Characters: cryptid!König, gender neutral!reader Location: a (fictional) mountain with forest and caves in Austria. Inspired by the "lamp eyes" in this (second) image by toxooz CW: you are being hunted, pissing (non-kinky) as intimidation, luring, fear, anxiety, dread, inaccurate battery drainage, inaccurate forestry regulations (don’t leave your fire burning while you sleep), inaccurate camping regulations for Austria (basically don't do anything Reader does), profanity Word Count: 2276 AO3 link Mood Music:

The sunlight filters through the trees as you hike the trail up the mountain, taking in all the natural beauty that Austria has to offer.  The rich, woodsy scents of earth, spruce, and pine surround you, the evergreen needles muffling your footfalls as you walk.  Green carpets of rolling grass are dotted with blue and purple, yellow and white, and even little trumpets lining the trail to herald your arrival.  

It’s like The Sound of Fucking Music over here, the sheer splendor of your surroundings making you feel like you made the best decision of your life to do this hike.  You'd researched what trail to pick and what to take with you.  You’d planned on this for months, and honestly, you couldn't have picked a better day for it: three days, two nights, just you and Mother Nature.  Everything was perfect.  

Pulling out your instant film camera, you take a selfie to remember this perfect day by.  Maybe you'll even take selfies all the way up the mountain just to document your journey.  You had enough film packs for it, and this felt like the kind of thing that needed documentation, so why not?

You pose and aim the camera at yourself, looking in the little mirror attachment you'd bought for this purpose, and take your picture, the flash going off in your face.  The camera's motor whirs as it spits out your first instant exposure, and after collecting it, you continue on your hike.

You repeat this pattern every half hour or so or any time you find something particularly interesting or lovely, stopping to take pictures and/or selfies and reloading your camera's film pack every ten exposures.  Soon enough, you notice the sky changing colors and decide you’d be wise to find a good place to make camp for the night.

Under a small copse of trees, you set up your tent on a bed of pine needles, driving the tent spikes into the ground with a stone you find at the site.  After building a small fire a safe distance from your tent and any trees, you start cooking your dinner, taking out your instant camera and the stack of photos from your hike.  

You take one more selfie before you lose the light completely, snapping the picture with a blinding flash that leaves you blinking. You take your newest photo and lay it on your knee, leaning over to stir your dinner in the pot as it's heating, waiting for the shot to develop.  

After collecting your dinner, you look at the developing selfie and notice something strange in the background: two bright dots to the right of your head set in a swath of darkness.  You squint, rubbing the exposure with your thumb despite knowing you’re not supposed to touch it.  Maybe something was wrong with it, something on the exposure itself that kept the light from hitting the paper in those spots, resulting in blank areas.

As the photo develops further and the image takes form, you look closer at those two bright dots — a yellow-green now — and your first thought is that they are very much like eyes, staring at you from the shadows of the forest.

A chill runs through you.  You turn, sweeping the trail with your flashlight, but you see nothing, just bushes and trees; hear nothing but crickets and other small creatures.  Your flashlight flickers slightly, and you turn back to your dinner and your warm, cozy fire, unable to get quite as cozy as you were a moment ago.

How absurd.  It was probably nothing; just a weird fluke.  You continue your meal and look through the stack of photos from the day, carding through pictures of beautiful landscapes and flowers, stopping when you come to your next-most-recent selfie.  You’d found a few edible berries on the trail and decided to take a picture of yourself, your mouth stained red by their juices.  

You’re about to move on to the next photo when you see them: those two dots — those eyes — in the shadows again, further away than in your most recent selfie.  

Your heart stutters.  What is this?

As you arrange your pictures chronologically, you are struck by a chilling discovery.  In each selfie, two bright lights — two glowing eyes — can be seen somewhere in the background behind you, hidden in a large, dark shape or the shadows of the trees.  You card through the photos, heart beating hard, thumb sliding over each one frantically, and they're there in each one, down to your first at the base of the mountain, watching.  Following.  Getting closer and closer to you each time you take a selfie.

It's probably just an animal.  A bear or something, judging by how tall it seems as it peeks around trees and through the thick brush.  Its form is never clear, just a silhouette with those bright eyes looming in the darkness, staring at you. 

You shiver.

Well, if it is an animal, you should probably keep the fire going to drive it away tonight.  Granted, you know you shouldn't leave the fire burning all night unattended, but the idea of being left in the dark makes your skin crawl, and everyone knows animals hate light, right?  Remember our ancestors, the cavemen?  Yeah.  Just an animal.  It'll be fine. 

So you throw some more logs on the fire, wash your dishes, and bury the water in a hole you dug to cover the smell of food.  Then you get into your tent, zipping it up all the way.  So much for a fresh breeze, but at least in this shelter, you feel some sort of safety, some separation between you and the unknown.

Your flashlight still flickers, and you decide to change the batteries now instead of later because you intend to leave it on all night.  Not that you're scared or anything; it's just that extra light means extra animal deterrent, right?  That's how that works, right?

Sleep does not come easily, and you toss and turn in your sleeping bag, eyes jolting open at the slightest sound of nature outside (which, surprisingly, is everywhere — why did you think this was a good idea?). 

It isn't until just after midnight that you hear it: a whistle. You try to convince yourself that it's only something that sounds like a whistle, like the wind or a bird, and you nearly make your case until the next one sounds with a little bend in it.  A little wheee-oooo in the pitch black of the forest, as if someone were pursing their lips, beckoning, just for you.

You hate it.  Instantly, your heart pounds, your ears straining for voices or footsteps; maybe it's another camper hiking this trail, too, and needs shelter. But if that were the case, did they have to be so fucking creepy about it?  You try to control your breathing, listening for anything other than the creak of the trees above you, but still, you hear nothing.  It isn't until the sky starts to turn grey that you feel safe enough to sleep; dawn is on its way.

When morning arrives – too quickly – you're more than happy to get up and break down your camp despite your lack of sleep, deciding that you'll eat your breakfast on the trail instead of at a leisurely pace like you'd planned.  No. The time for leisure has gone.  Judging by the map, you are now closer to the exit of the trail than you are to the entrance, so you decide, uneasily, to keep going forward.

As you hike, you don't dare waste time with selfies; you're too scared you’ll find more of those glowing yellow-green eyes in the background.  Or worse, find the owner of said eyes.  Thinking back to your childhood cat, you know a lot of animals have eyeshine, which helps them to see better in the dark.  They reflect light and make it look like the eyes glow or some shit, especially in photos, making them look like little demons.  You recall that many predators seem to have them and then quickly wipe that little factoid from your mind.

You busy yourself with nature facts for a while, reciting aloud the names of the plants and forageable berries you see along the way.  By the time you find your next spot for camp, you are completely exhausted, not only from the hike or your poor sleep the night before but from the anxiety of constantly looking over your shoulder.  

Instead of pitching your tent right away, you spend most of the time before sunset looking for firewood and building an even bigger fire than the night before.  No whistling bears or campers or whatever the fuck were going to come near your tent tonight.

The fire blazes hot and high as you sit before it, huddled in a blanket with your flashlight and cup of dried food — no smells of cooking tonight to lure hungry animals or hikers, for that matter.  

Immediately, your mind goes back to the whistle, its testing, beckoning nature making the inside of your skull itch with unease.  Maybe it was one of those birds that mimic human sounds that happened to be around at night.  Surely, there were birds like that, right?  It's probably a bunch of things together and not just one thing.  Just a coincidence.  That's the only conclusion you can come to.  Because the alternative — the one that claws at the inside of your head and tells you that something, or someone, is out there — that just can't be.

After dinner, you stoke the fire, load it up with a couple more logs, and retreat to your tent, burrowing into the sleeping bag with your flashlight propped up in the center to illuminate your sleeping area.  Exhausted from the lack of sleep the night before, you drift off thankfully quickly, only to be awakened sometime later.  

The night seems hauntingly quiet, as if nature itself senses something is wrong.  Leaves rustle from a distance away, and you hear the movement of a creature outside, the fire and your flimsy fabric shelter the only things between it and you.  Your flashlight, stalwart watchman of the tent, starts to flicker, the set of batteries you'd put in it reaching the end of their lifespan, and that's when you hear it.  

Wheee-oooo.

Your heart stops at the sound of the whistle, and you hold your breath, hoping that if you’re just quiet enough, just pretend that you’re sleeping, that whatever — whoever it is will just go away and leave you alone.

Thud, thud, thud, thud…. 

Are those footsteps?  

The sound comes closer, twigs snapping under the weight of this person, this creature, and you scramble for your flashlight, slapping it, begging the light to stay on, to stay steady.  A third thwack, and it's clear that your attempts at resuscitation are failing, and the batteries finally die, leaving you and your tent protected only by the dancing light of the fire outside.  You curse under your breath, diving for your old set of batteries that you’d removed yesterday.  Screwing off the top of your flashlight, you fling the dead batteries out and, with shaky hands, slide the old batteries in as, in the background, you hear the sound of water pouring and a sudden hissing.

This gives you enough pause to look at the silhouettes projected on the fabric of your tent: at how the flames of your fire — your precious sentinel — quiver, cower, and die. 

The smell hits you then, the stench alerting you to the fact that this was not water putting out your fire, but in fact, someone was pissing on it to put it out.  The heavy, acrid smell of boiling urine invades your nostrils, making you gag.

You refocus your efforts on threading the cap of your flashlight back on the barrel, your shaking, frantic hands making the threads skip until marvelously, mercifully, you screw the cap on, and the flashlight flickers to life just as your fire dies.

The growl that sounds from outside and the heavy thud-thud of footfalls that draw closer to your tent sound much closer to something human than animal, and you have to wonder who in the world you managed to piss off to make them stalk you so far up a mountain and into the woods at this hour of the night.

Suddenly, the tent lurches, and you scream as whoever is outside rips the stakes from the ground and yanks the entire thing toward them.  You are engulfed in a polyester death shroud, scrambling for your pack and waving your flashlight around blindly.

You need your knife — anything to protect yourself at this point, but as the creature rips the tent open like it was made of paper, all you can grab is your camera.  You point it at him and press the button, the flash lighting up the night like an atom bomb, and he snarls, stumbling back, blinded.

A split second is all you get to see him.  The man is bigger than any person you've ever seen in your life, dressed in black and wearing a black cloth over his head.  

You run.  You don't have time to look for shoes.  You don't have time to look for your knife.  You just clutch your camera and run, hoping that you can find a place to hide.

They don't tell you that the forest floor is not good for running barefoot on. They don't tell you how modern human feet just aren't made for it anymore.  But you know from all the twigs and branches cutting into the soles of your feet that you are fighting a losing battle.  That you are prey and your hunter is going to get you.

You can hear him running after you, those heavy footfalls sounding like the thunder of ten thousand angry gods, and despite your head start, you know he'll catch up to you on those long legs of his.

When you spot a cave, your prehistoric animal brain cries, "safe!", "home!" and like a fool, you listen, running inside, losing all light as you slip into the pitch black of Mother Earth.

Feeling blindly for the wall, you move slowly and hear him enter the cave, a low growl sounding out like echolocation.

You know he hates the light.  Your camera has nine exposures left.  A sound to your left has you pointing the camera in that direction and pressing the button.  Light floods the cave, burning its landscape into your retinas, his dark shape a retreating blur.

Eight.

You have to find the way back out.  Coming in here was a bad idea.  He clearly has an advantage over you, being able to see in the dark.  You’ll have to burn through your exposures to get back out.  Gravel grates to your right, and you take another picture, blinding both him and yourself, the exposure falling uselessly to the cave floor. Absently, you wonder if people will ever find them.

Seven.

Will people even find your body?  

Light blazes through the cave again, and you can move toward the exit, cursing as pain lances into your sole from stepping on a sharp rock.

Six.

You can tell you're bleeding from how the dirt sticks to your foot and from the snarl you hear behind you: the predator scenting his prey.  The next flash exposes his dark shape behind a stalagmite, and you rush in the opposite direction.

Five.

The click of the shutter echoes in the cave as the camera flashes again, your brain trying to memorize the location of obstacles.

Four.

His roar reverberates in the cave, shaking the very air around you and has you screaming, snapping your camera beside you.

Three.

You hear him stumble in frustration and are convinced you actually got him good that time, and you snap again for good measure.

Two.

You move faster toward the exit.  You can actually see the outside world now, so close, but still so far.  You blow an exposure behind you to stall him further.

One.

A breeze from outside blows across the cave mouth, and you can almost taste it if not for the wall you just ran into.

Zero.

Only it’s not a wall.  

His reflective eyes blaze as he looks down at you. The hood-like structure on his face parts down the middle like a pair of bat wings, the exposed red maw lined with dozens of razor-sharp teeth.  His jaw opens far wider than anything you've ever seen or ever will, and then your light goes out.

author's note- this was on loop as I was writing:

[sheena-isa-punkrocker]

cassian andor headcanons

notes: these are my personal hcs for cassian andor. just thought id share them because i never wrote them down before or anything aka;sfl;;

BACKGROUND

that man is AT LEAST 32

idgaf what a star war says he cannot be fucking 26 in rogue one

kenari was a matriarchal society

im probably incorrect but it seemed like there were more girls in the hunting troop he was in in the childhood flashback scenes

it's why he doesn't question vel being the leader of aldhani team or any female leader of a rebel mission. he's like yep that's normal.

also he was raised by maarva carassi andor like cmon

is still fluent in kenari

it's canon that he can speak other languages too so like polyglot!cassian yay

bee had the kenari language downloaded in his system before the empire wiped all public information about kenari

so he could communicate with cassian when he was first brought to ferrix

definitely helped bridge the language gap between the andors and cassian

also helped cassian learn basic

his culture is important to him for sure

i think in his spare time he tries to collect information about his home planet via old holobooks or even physical ones if he can find them

has kept his red and yellow stone necklace in a keepsake box for many years now, likes to take it out sometimes and just look at it.

his necklace connects him not only to his culture but to the few memories of his biological parents

doesn't remember his biological mother much but he remembers the sound of her bangles clinking together around her wrists and her smile

is a back sleeper. they slept in hammocks during his childhood and it's just something that always stuck with him

was definitely picked on at the sipo youth center

like fights in the recreational yard and kids trying to take whatever personal belongings he had on him at the moment

i think at first he kept to himself but over time he grew a small group of friends

safer in a group than on your own when going against the bigger gangs

youth center to military pipeline for sure

he would never see those friends again after the empire transferred him from sipo to mimban for their imperial military campaign

even though he went in as a cook, he still had to do basic training

i think he enjoyed cooking (as much as one can when the empire forces you to do it)

it's the act of providing for others that he likes

ALCOHOL

i hc ferrix as this blue collar community that works in either scrap metal plants or factories which means everyone's a hard drinker lol

like if you don't drink beer at the end of a long day wtf are you doin

there's also a sense of pride to be able to hold your own liquor

it's not a quality that cassian possesses lol

he's not a lightweight but he's def not a heavyweight either

prefers brown liquor over cheap beer tho

SAD DRUNK. MOODY. EMOTIONAL.

not talkative when drunk unless you're a close friend and it's just you two

but he def gets caught in his own depressed emotions and sulks

he's also down to fuck LMAO

SEX&RELATIONSHIPS

bisexual (we all knew this)

total slut (we all knew this too)

i don't think he particularly cares on being top or bottom. he's a true switch if you want to label him

has commitment issues

this is from bix's comment about him being with married women. the marriage forms as a barrier for him not to be too emotionally close to the other person

has definitely paid for sex from prostitutes because of this reason. it's just sex, nothing more. another barrier to prevent closeness

although he mostly did this when he was younger. i think as he got older he slept with prostitutes less, maybe once in awhile

he has also protected hookers from clients that were abusive as well. i can totally see a young cassian that is already filled with rage go apeshit at a customer that was acting violent towards a sex worker he knew

#respectsexworkers - cassian fucking andor

i could go into nsfw hcs but that should be its own post lol

since he and bix were childhood friends, at one point when they were teenagers they tried to date exclusively

they lasted 2 weeks. they took one look at each other and said this ain't for us

doesn't have a specific physical type that he's attracted to

characteristics wise i think he's into people that are confident and can pull their own weight but also someone he can be vulnerable with (he both yearns for intimacy and is afraid of it)

PHYSICAL TRAUMA

while in narkina 5 he received 2nd degree burns on his feet and hands due to the electric shock punishment he experienced

after narkina 5 those wounds healed but the electric shocks had some long term effects as well

sometimes cassian will involuntary jerk his body while he's sleeping

there are days where he'll randomly feel a painful fiery feeling on his feet and hands that will last a few moments before going away

the blaster wound he got in ep 3 left a scar on his arm that never faded away

[portrait-paintings]

Self-Portrait

Artist: Vincent van Gogh (Dutch, 1853-1890)

Date: 1889

Medium: Oil on canvas

Collection: National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, United States

Description

During the first months of his voluntary internment at the asylum, the artist showed little interest in figure painting and concentrated instead upon the surrounding landscape. But in early July 1889 while painting in the fields near the asylum, Van Gogh suffered a severe breakdown that could have been a symptom of epilepsy. Incapacitated for five weeks and greatly unnerved by the experience, the artist retreated to his studio, refusing to go out even to the garden. This painting is the first work he produced after recovering from that episode. In a letter to his brother Theo written in early September 1889, he observed:

They say - and I am very willing to believe it - that it is difficult to know yourself - but it isn't easy to paint yourself either. So I am working on two portraits of myself at this moment - for want of another model - because it is more than time I did a little figure work. One I began the day I got up; I was thin and pale as a ghost. It is dark violet–blue and the head whitish with yellow hair, so it has a color effect. But since then I have begun another one, three quarter length on a light background.

his self–portrait is a particularly bold painting, apparently executed in a single sitting without later retouching. Here Van Gogh portrayed himself at work, dressed in his artist's smock with his palette and brushes in hand, a guise he had already adopted in two earlier self–portraits. While the pose itself and the intense scrutiny of the artist's gaze are hardly unique - one need but think of the occasionally uncompromising self–portraits of Rembrandt - the haunting and haunted quality of the image is distinct. The dark blue–violet of the smock and ground, the vivid orange of his hair and beard, create a startling contrast to the yellow and green of his face and heighten the gauntness of his features in a sallow complexion. The dynamic, even frenzied brushwork lends an uncommon immediacy and expressiveness to his portrayal. In its sheer intensity, it stands in sharp contrast to the other self–portrait he painted at the same time (Musée d'Orsay, Paris) in which the artist appears calmer and more self–possessed. Nevertheless, Van Gogh preferred the Washington painting as the one that captured his 'true character."

[cdroloisms]

Sixteenth Day Event Prompt:

Anticipation & Survival

woo :D was able to participate this time with a little fic, hopefully this means i'll have the time to try and write more consistently again :') hope you guys enjoy 2.8k words of c!Dream being Normal and Fine and c!Sam being absolutely miserable.

---

The prison is working out well. 

Dream spins the clock. The background is mostly a sunny blue sky, with the slightest creep of dark blue rotating in along the right. The sun is a bright dandelion yellow. It’s afternoon. Maybe two, three o’clock. He’s been tracking the days by sunset, when the clock is split in equal halves of blue and navy. Ranboo visits too, to corroborate the time, but it’s a good habit to keep track while he can. It’s been seven days. A whole week. 

Besides Ranboo, there’s been one visit. Tommy. He’s seen three people, since being put in here. Tommy, Ranboo, and Sam. He’s eaten twenty potatoes. Counting is mundane, but so is everything now. There isn’t much to do in prison. Just sweat, and stare at lava, and stare at obsidian when that makes his eyes hurt, and wait for Sam to come in and check that he’s not been doing anything stupid, and wait for visitors, and eat and drink and sleep. It’s not a big room. He wouldn’t say it’s a particularly small one, either. The ceiling’s a little low, and there’s not anywhere to run, of course, but there’s plenty of room to pace and sit and lie down straight and he can sit down on the chest fine without hitting his head on stone. It’s not like he’ll need much space to carry out any plans in the foreseeable future. The cell is absent of certain comforts—a cot, for one, for obvious reasons—but once you get used to that, and the food, and the heat, it’s really not that bad. It’s not like he’s any stranger to roughing it. 

From a certain point of view, it’s almost relaxing. Sam is predictable. Almost more of a clock than the clock he’s given him, which is half the reason Dream throws it in the lava at all; Sam is reliable. His reactions are reliable. He gets food delivered twice a day, once in the morning, once at night. The nightly visit is accompanied by questioning, and occasionally Sam comes into the cell around midday to interrogate him too. Dream cooperates. Why shouldn’t he? He’s already spilled his whole plan to everyone on the mountain, gloated to Tommy, who has surely run his mouth to everyone within earshot by now. There’s no point to him being cagey at this point; no, better to rave and rant about Tommy and exile and his plan in the mountain, better to let Sam get all the information he wants and watch his eyebrows knit in disgust. Sam raises his voice, Dream answers his questions, Sam storms off. He’s even started watching the clock, just out of curiosity, and Sam leaves his cell pretty much the same time every day. Clockwork. 

There was one day when Sam didn’t come at all and Dream had—a moment, admittedly, embarrassing enough, just a string of disconnected thoughts about what would happen if the Warden of the prison suddenly dropped dead and died—but Sam had been right there the next day, looking more miserable than Dream has ever seen him. He made a quip about skipping work that made Sam snap at him; Dream takes it as a good sign, that the man guarding him seems to be more pained about the fact that he left him alone for a day than Dream was bothered about the disappearance of the single person responsible for every aspect of his life for the foreseeable future. That’s Sam, though. Dependable. Dedicated. Never one to not take his job seriously. If Dream put Sapnap in charge of the prison, he’d probably starve to death before the first month was up, but Sam looks like he’d rather fall on his own sword than leave Dream alone for a full twenty-four hours again; Dream has it in him to feel bad that he’s putting the guy to work for the sake of his own vacation. Just, a little bit. 

Back to his point. The prison is relaxing. Really. It’s boring, sure, but obviously he expected that; he’s never had so little to do before. He wakes up at night (he’s been attempting to sleep at nighttime, just because the light apparently is supposed to mess with you, but his sleep schedule has been shot for months so it’s not like it really matters to him all that much) with his brain racing, grasping for a list of tasks to do, only to come up empty. It’s a bit of a marvel. He thinks it’s funny. Yeah, brain, he’s in his—vacation arc. They’re doing nothing. Absolutely nothing. Just like they planned. Nobody’s getting into this place to kill him, not without smacking face-first into, like, a billion security protocols, not without dealing with Sam’s workaholic Warden schtick on their ass. He’s even getting food hand-delivered to him. Full service! Or something. 

He spins the clock again. Tommy gave him books to write. Sam flipped through them, asked questions, Dream answered. He’s not writing answers for them. He might throw them in the lava, if Sam doesn’t just confiscate the damn things; Dream knows he wants Tommy nowhere near him. Fair enough. Maybe he can write some long-ass manifesto about how much he wanted Tommy’s discs for Sam to chew on, if he gets bored enough. He laughs a little at the thought as he thinks it—okay, yeah, nah. He’s not at that point yet. 

He lies down. Horizontal. The ground is hot, but everything’s hot, and he’s getting used to it at this point; better hot than cold, honestly. He’d rather sleep here than out in the snow. The ceiling is a plane of unbroken black stone. Dream raises his hand, splays out his fingers. His nails are starting to get long. Nothing to file them down with in here…teeth it is. Whatever. He lets his hand fall back to the ground, sighing. His eyes glance over at the clock. 

Barely any time has passed. Still hours before Sam comes back. Dream bites back a low groan. Fine, fine, the boredom is getting to him. A little bit. He’s not surprised—it’s not like he’s ever done well with sitting still—but it’s still, annoying. He waves his arms and legs like he’s making a snow angel in the obsidian. Or doing jumping jacks. He should do jumping jacks, maybe. He’s got a basic workout routine to do daily—or several times a day, when there’s nothing else to do (there’s always nothing else to do, but whatever), but he’s not in the mood for it right now. 

He clicks his tongue, just to hear himself. He talks to himself, sometimes, but he has to be careful what he says. Not that it’s not a good thing to keep up, though, for the madman routine. It’s much better to talk to himself when he knows he has an audience, muttering Tommy, Tommy, Tommy in those minutes before Sam enters his cell. Fun, even. Sometimes he writes out evil speeches to give in his notebooks, burning the pages in the lava before Sam arrives. He shouldn’t get reckless with it or anything, pushing the things too far past the point of absurdity, but at this point he could probably get away with saying—just about anything. He could blather on about how he wanted to keep Tommy in a cage and play his dumb little discs to him all day until he goes insane, and Sam would write all of that down in his—book with his face twisted up under his helm while Dream tries not to break down laughing and give away the whole ruse. Not that laughing doesn’t work out for him either, to be fair. He’s gotten pretty good at the villain laugh. 

Dream stands up. He looks at the clock mounted in the item frame; the sliver of night sky on the right side has grown just slightly wider, enough to expose the slightest edge of one white-dotted star. Still hours before sunset. He pulls it off the wall, watching the background tick ever slowly forward. The gold gleams, polished to a mirror finish. 

Sam’s craftsmanship is unmistakable, even with something as small as this. He almost feels bad for what he’s about to do. 

He holds the clock up to the lava, keeping it in his hand for as long as he can handle it before the heat against his palm makes him shove it entirely under the flow, watching it disappear through strings of smoke. The crackling noise fades back into the normal hisses and pops after a few seconds; the smoke will linger for longer. Dream stands there, the lava’s heat at his face. It hurts his eyes to look at.

…whatever. 

He backs away. Then claps, brushing his palms against each other. Clock’s been burned. Another item of his daily itinerary handled—not that he does this daily. Has to keep Sam on his toes, right? The crazy prisoner isn’t supposed to be the predictable one, not like the ever-punctual Warden. This is—important, he’s decided, for his image. Well, not important, maybe, but it’s calculated. Beneficial. Nobody sane takes the one thing they have in their cell and destroys it repeatedly for literally no reason. Sam’s prisoner, the crazy guy that was trying to take over the server, isn’t sane. No one questions why an insane guy tries to control everyone with a bunch of shit he doesn’t even have, why he thinks he can keep someone locked up in a two-by-one box with a couple of iron bars, why he listens to a guy threatening to kill himself when he can literally raise the dead. It’s all set dressing. Method acting. One or the other, or both; it’s not like he’s ever watched a real play in his life. All that matters is that everyone thinks he’s crazy because no one asks a crazy guy why he’s acting crazy, and crazy people do stuff like obsess over stupid pieces of vinyl and talk to themselves and destroy their own shit for no reason. 

(Which probably makes Tommyinnit a crazy person, ha.) 

Sam will come back. Soon. He will bring potatoes with him, and investigate the cell, and see the missing clock. He will complain. He will threaten Dream, rave about the destruction of prison property, telling him that he won’t replace it. He will question him about Tommy. And tomorrow morning, a new clock will be put in its place. Honestly, Sam would probably give himself an aneurysm if he had to look at the cell with one of its components missing. It seems like the kind of thing to bother him too much not to set straight. And tomorrow, maybe Dream will throw the clock into the lava again, and maybe he won’t. He’ll see. 

He’s the one that decides, in the end.

— 

Sam checks his comm again as he waits for the lava to fall, head already pounding. He’s had an on-and-off migraine ever since his night with the Egg, and the current wave shows no sign of abating any time soon. If he could have it his way, he’d be back in his bed, Fran curled up beside him, where it’s dark and quiet and comfortably cool instead of sweating half to death in a suffocating suit of full armor. Instead, he’s nursing a headache that only gets worse with every notification he reads off the log pulled up on his screen; he doesn’t even bother counting the string of [Dream tried to swm in lava] that appears under today’s date. The fact that it’s a seemingly longer list than the days previous does little to help his already bad mood. 

He still has no idea what Dream hopes to achieve by doing this, besides attention. Not that Sam has even been trying to give him that, these days; he visits twice a day, once at 9 the morning and once at 6 in the afternoon, and then leaves the prisoner to himself. Sam doesn’t answer to him. He’s not going to get the same reaction he got the first time he pulled this stunt, when Sam had rushed into the cell in the middle of the night, heart in his throat after running halfway across the server, only to find Dream waiting for him in the middle of his cell with his mask smiling back mockingly. If he’s hoping to stir Sam into a panic again, he’s sorely mistaken. But still Dream continues. He’s probably just doing it to get a reaction out of him. He probably thinks that’s funny. 

Dream is standing, waiting for him. Muttering to himself, he thinks he can hear. Sam pulls the lever for the bridge and steps on it, his sword in hand, wanting to get this visit over and done with as quickly as possible. He might sleep in the Warden’s quarters here, tonight, just to avoid the commute back to his base. Yeah, that sounds good. All he has to do is survive one conversation with Dream. 

The prisoner has stopped talking to himself by the time Sam steps into the cell, lifting his chin as he looks at him. 

“Hi, Sam.” 

Sam makes a vague noise of acknowledgement, not more than a low grunt. His eyes scan the room from left to right, stopped prematurely by the sight of the empty item frame mounted on the wall. His headache grows exponentially worse in an instant, a stabbing pain hammering itself into the back of his skull. He grits his teeth. 

He should’ve expected this. He knows he should’ve expected this. 

“Prisoner.” 

“Sam,” Dream replies, his smile audible in his voice. Sam closes his eyes, a prayer flitting across his overtaxed mind. God help him.

“Where’s your clock.” What’s the point of asking, even. Dream sways from foot to foot. 

“I burned it?”

“Why did you do it. Again.” Dream shrugs. Sam steps forward, shoves him back. “Don’t be so dumb, Dream.” 

The prisoner barely seems to react, his back hitting the wall. His voice is nearly sing-song. “Ohhh. I got you though.” 

Sam wishes, not for the first time, that he didn’t have the work ethic that keeps him from coming into the cell drunk. Surely the prisoner cannot be any more infuriating to handle with the help of some alcohol. He holds the prisoner by his jaw and knocks his head back against the wall, gauntlet digging into the pale skin under the bottom edge of his mask. 

“What is wrong with you!” Dream struggles, slightly. Sam kicks at his legs. “Don’t move. Answer my question.” 

“Let go.” 

“How many times have I told you not to burn the clock, Dream!” He knocks the back of his head against the wall, harder this time. The struggling stops. “Do you think it’s funny? I don’t have to replace your clock!” 

Dream sounds a little dazed when he replies, arms crossed at his chest. “I just wanted to burn it. So I did.” 

“That’s ridiculous. What is your problem.” He shakes his head by his jaw, once, then lets go, giving himself enough distance to swing a fist into Dream’s side, making him double over. He scoffs at the sight, anger white-hot. He knows he shouldn’t be letting the prisoner get to him. Knows that Dream is only doing this to mess with him, mess with him the same way he messes with everyone, trying to get into his head. His skull feels like it’s being split apart. 

Dream stands up straight again. All Sam can see is the flat, smooth plane of his mask, that smile, unchanged. His hands, knotted into tight fists at his sides, shake. The heat pulsing behind his eyes feels like rage, and also almost feels like he’s going to cry.

He can’t do this. The realization is abrupt, but sure. Not tonight, not with this headache, not with Dream. He can’t go through the same song and dance, can’t sit here and examine the cell and give the prisoner his potatoes and go through questioning for an hour, can’t spend the rest of his night going over his words with a fine-toothed comb looking for the nuggets of truth hidden in the midst of the prisoner’s crazed ramblings. Hasn’t he done enough? For the whole server, for everyone, day after day he stands and faces the monster before him and day after day he stands strong; retreating now feels like weakness, but he can’t. He honestly, truly, can’t. He ignores the weight of the potatoes in his inventory and turns. 

“Sam?” Dream speaks again when he’s reached the edge of the cell, sounding slightly winded. “What are you—?” 

Sam pearls across the gap, slamming the lever to lower the lava wall as soon as his vision clears. Tomorrow, he will be the Warden of Pandora’s Vault. Tomorrow, he will stand toe-to-toe against the one he has been entrusted to keep and stand firm. Tomorrow, he will do as he must, as the one responsible for the survival of everyone and everything he holds dear. 

Today, it’s just too much. He looks back to a wall of unbroken lava, only able to stare at it for a few seconds before turning away. 

[a-bit-too-silly]

Would you maybe do a drabble about regressed Logan being fussy about having to take a bath, maybe with CG Wade?

of course! I decided to have a bit of an inconsistent narrator cus Wade talks right to the reader sometimes. Hope this is alright! :]

🫧🫧🫧🫧🫧🫧🫧🫧🫧🫧🫧🫧🫧🫧🫧🫧🫧🫧🫧🫧

If there's one thing Logan *isn't* known for, it's his cleanliness. He takes care of himself most of the time. He's half good at that don't get this twisted, dear reader. But.. well, he's not particularly neat. We'll put it that way.

When he's big he's always getting covered in sweat, grime, blood, ash, he's really the type to roll around in mud like a dog if he thinks it'll make him feel better. 'Feral' is a good word to describe him, even when he's not gone into one of his berserker rages. But when he's little, it's.. yeah, it's the same story. Maybe a bit less blood and no ash since I wouldn't- ehh... *nobody* would let that little guy smoke anything. Not even his beloved cigars. Thankfully he's found some other ways to satiate that oral fixation of his, even if it does mean the occasional bite on the arm every now and then.

Regardless of what he decides to sink those little chompers into, he still manages to get himself coated in just about everything he comes across.

Mud? Oh-ho, definitely. No use in putting him in his raincoat and boots since he'd prefer to stomp around in every puddle barefoot anyway.

Food? You know it. You could be feeding him as neatly as possible only to turn your back for a moment and find some mashed avocado in his eyebrow.

Dust from the floor? Yep. Paint? Sure. Crayons? Somehow, yeah. Blue fur from Kurt? Mhm. Don't get me started on the jam incident. That sweet honey badger found his way into the cabinets.. the evidence of that massacre still stains those poor porous countertops.

I'll hand it to him, he's talented.

Unfortunately... bath time is his worst enemy. Maybe it has something to do with the experimentation, that'd make the most sense. Maybe it's his tendency to sink. Maybe he just prefers to be a stinky little gremlin. It's not exactly my place to ask. He's often too little or too tired to stay standing long enough for a shower, and sponge baths aren't really an option.

With background info out of the way, let's get back to the problem at hand.

-

"Cmon peanut, I made sure to put in the bubbles you like! They're yellow!" Wade says with a small gesture towards the tub. "Al! Tell him they're yellow!"

"You really think I'd be more convincing than you?" She calls from the other room almost incredulously. - oh, right. *Blind* Al.. yeah.. maybe not the best at identifying colors. - Wade looks out the door of the bathroom in the general direction of where Al is seated, minding her business.

"See? Al likes how yellow they are." He says in spite of everything, "Do you want to get in the tub now, munchkin?"

"no. No bat-time." Logan, as little as he is right now, scowls. It doesn't have the intended effect, but Wade lets out a dramatic groan anyway. Toddlers.. can't be reasoned with.

"Unfortunately not how this works, kiddo." Wade says, crouching down next to the tub where Logan has firmly planted himself against the tile. He's no longer wearing his top, seeing as it was an unfortunate bystander to some sticky pancakes and cubed meats. All chopped up nice and small so Logan wouldn't choke but big enough that he could chew on em a decent bit.

"Don' need ta." The adamantium boned toddler huffs in response, "'m not dirty."

"no, but you are sticky, kiddo. And you were playing outside with Storm earlier so I bet you got a bit icky there too." This only makes Logan's scowl firmer. The once little pout growing in such a way that makes Wade's heart ache. If it weren't for the fact that Al would definitely nag him about Logan's sticky fingers, face, chest, shoulders... Logan's general *stickiness*, he doubts he'd ever manage to get the rascal to ever bathe.

"Papa get in first." He said firmly, pointing to the tub like he's the one calling the shots. Which he is. Wade is a weak weak man for his grumpy little guy. "'n no dunking."

'Dunking' in this case stands for dipping the little guy's head under water. Wade would never, but it gets mentioned at least once per bath time. Upon hearing the statement, Wade throws up his hand in a solemn oath.

"Scouts honor." Now, Wade has never been a boy scout, but he's also never been one for hurting kids so the promise still stands. With that, he slips out of his slippers and rolls his sweatpants up to his knees so he hopefully won't get too soaked, and he sits down on the edge of the tub. The water in the tub isn't too deep, only reaching up to around the middle of Wade's calf, with another few inches on top of thick yellowy foam from the bath bomb Logan relished in watching dissolve.

Still reluctant, Logan watches as Wade sits on the edge of the tub for a while. And Wade lets him. It's a slow process, always is, but after a few minutes of pouty glaring Logan tugs off the last of his clothes then clambers up into the tub with a bit of help from Wade. Just to ensure he doesn't slip. The water is still nicely warm despite the slow process, maintained by frequent touchups of hot water and lifting up the plug to let out the cold.

"Good job, peanut." Wade says softly as he grabs an old cup, bright red in color and decorated with a variety of stickers, and starts to ladle water over Logan's shoulders. He's learned the hard way that Logan has the 'if my head gets wet in a dry room I will shake until it's dry' reflex, so hair washing stays until the end.

Logan is quiet and stiff, letting out the occasional whine despite himself. Seems he's on the silent treatment side of the spectrum rather than the 'giving a cat a bath' side. It's almost worse, but Wade knows he'll perk back up once things are done.

So he starts to gently scrub the sticky syrup and dirt from Logan's hands, meeting his eye as best he can. His little one is sulking, lip still pouted out, eyes downcast and sad.

"Bath time is no fun, I know, my sour faced friend." Wade sighs, "anything that could make it better, bubbie?"

Logan stays quiet for a while, only moving when Wade needs to reach somewhere to clean. "No."

"mmm." Wade mumbles, taking the removable showerhead off of its holder so he can quickly rinse off Logan, getting his hair and rinsing off the soap. "Just a moment.."

"done?"

"Yep. All done, honeybun." He says as he stands up to grab a towel from the shelf, that earns him some grabby hands and a desperate search for 'uppies'. Which he gladly satisfies after bundling him up in a towel. Yeah, I can pick him up. Adamantium skeletoned 300+ pound toddler? No biggie. "Let's get you in some jammies and maybe you can convince Nana Al to let you put on a movie. That sound good, bubsicle?"

Logan nestles his head into the crook of Wade's neck and nods a little, his limbs clinging to Wade like a koala clings to a tree. He's really not used to being picked up, regardless of how much he asks for it.

"And then Papa pool is gonna make some chicken nuggets and fries and we're gonna forget all about that icky horrible bath." Wade continues as he carries Logan to the bedroom, patting his back occasionally.

"Dino shapes?" Logan asks quietly.

"Oh, definitely. That makes em more nutritious." Wade scoffs, pulling out a pair of comfortable flannel pants and a T-shirt that still manages to be baggy even on Logan's broad frame. The faded pattern still clearly reads 'Bambi' with the titular character looking up at a butterfly while sitting in a bed of flowers. It's a favorite of his, and maybe Wade has been messing with continuity to make sure it never wears out. Maybe. Come on, every one needs their recognizable outfits!

Logan dresses himself with only a touch of help with the socks. Then he does that silly toddler walk, the one where its more stomps than normal footfalls, off towards Al with Wade following close behind.