#really wanted to draw it but cest la vie

[joelletwo]

gintama time loop reading that i had while watching

(laid out for my own reference. this doesnt have to interest u guys.)

okay so like. watching gintama and getting to kintoki arc. what i knew was 1. i was getting into the anime art style changes i had varying feelings about which signaled 2. i was getting into the back half of gintama 3. what i knew about the back half of gintama is that utsuro exists, gintoki did something fucked up on that cliff that ppl cant stop talking about and drawing parallels to with every arc of gintama, and ppl (i sensed) think the writing of the ending is stupid

kintoki arc has yorozuya and tae promise:

before breaking Gintama The Series into a distorted au where the chars are WILDLY different but still play out their roles to their arc-concluding purposes. birthing in me the image of a gintama that can fill any shaped-hole you put it in and still have the same basic inherent form it moves towards (whatever happened on that cliff, which i sensed was being gestured at in kintoki arc w the beheadment seppuku but had no idea the fucking. extent of lol)

gintama making formal changes (ugly or lovely art style shifts, at some point a radical change in thrust of story with the introduction of utsuro as a final and plot-twisty villain) but (hoping that it's) remaining the same at heart... or being railroaded into being the same. somehow the yorozuya promise became about. being cognizant of being in the narrative timeloop** and being subjected to Circumstances. being cognizant that something was being taken from u (catharsis of ending--) and also inflicted on u (--replaced with episodic and genre-typical* endless storylines)

(*not a slam. just that gintama's storylines are all about like. accepting the horrors. which is a journey of experiencing the horrors in order to come to terms with them that is harrowing to be subjected to over and over and over again. [cest la vie]

**and timeloop was also being flavored by me understanding yoo joonghyuk orv's regressions as about the endless iterative failures of making progress on a journey of recovery from trauma. all timeloops are about that to me now.)

thought shelved until obi-one's arc where, although i understood him as an oboro figure, he was performing a shouyoutsuro role of being a dearly missed mentor figure who comes back for happy family times yayyyyy but oh no he came back Wrong (a disabled cyborg programmed to betray against his own will). and Evil (needs to be taken down, and the shimuras-through-gintoki have to be the ones to dismantle their own happiness that it turns out was always retroactively tinted by this grief).

the presentation of nostalgia as longing for a return to the past that cant actually be achieved. or rather, you can achieve it, but Time changes things, and the past you get back won't actually be the same.

this helps me shift what i know about utsuro (shouyou but Wrong) into being about. what actually isnt that textually present in the series? but has to be assumed, i think? bc like? of course? the desire to have shouyou back (tho now i ask: whose? gintoki's? again, not really... in the text?). you can have shouyou (idealized gintama timeperiod where everyone is happy and innocent) back! you can have all the shouyou (early days swagful gintama anime that i am constantly missing as i move into the future material) back that you want! and its gonna fucking suck (for the chars and for the audience)!

and that basically ends up being the framing thought i take with me into utsuro's introduction................... it gets lost the more i actually see him and late-game gintama for myself and gain the context i never had for everyones blogging i was seeing. but. still. the theme i understood to be what gintama was telling me. you cant get back what you lost. and if (when) you try, you only come face to face with what was damaged in the losing.

however...................................

the further i got into silver soul and through to the ending the more it was............ interesting but confusing that, as i put it, the chars were "fighting the representation of the dangers of Nostalgia with More Nostalgia"?

and still i dont know what to do with the ultimate last-pages ending of gintama being a return to the status quo (with cosmetic changes). yay we defeated the evil specter of our past that haunted us and kept us in the desire timeloop. now we can get back to the episodic timeloop that we spent the fight with the specter... desiring to get back. hm. well!

[redrobin-detective]

a passing glimpse

heaven gives it glimpses only to those not in a position to look too close ~ Robert Frost, A Passing Glimpse _______________________________

Jack Fenton was eleven and he was an explorer, just like Davey Crockett or Buzz Aldrin. He’d declared so to his mother that very morning but she had simply rolled her eyes and told him to get on with his chores. That’s all his parents wanted him for, chores and his duty to the family. But Jack knew there was so much more out there and he was determined to find it. 

Ma had told him never to go into the woods alone but Jack brought his rifle with him so he wasn’t exactly alone. He adjusted his coontail hat and hiked the strap of the rifle higher on his shoulder. Pa would probably be mad that Jack had taken it without permission but punishments and chores were far away, not when there was adventure to be had here and now.

The woods was an okay place to hang out. There were always animals around to sneak up on and study, plenty of trees for climbing and plenty of rock or sticks to fend have pretend battles with. Jack wanted nothing but adventure in his life, Ma said that peace was a blessing but he craved more. He felt like he was brimming with energy, always getting yelled for talking to loud or moving too fast. The woods were wide reaching and deep and yet Jack felt constrained by them, he wanted more. 

Jack scrambled over rocks and pretended he was climbing on the moon, in search of aliens. He picked up a stick and batted it against the trunks of trees and acted as if he were engaging in battle with a sworn enemy. Staring up at the setting sun, Jack let himself be pulled away from his dull present. It was only when he realized he couldn’t see his breath fogging anymore in the midwinter air did he realize how dark it had gotten, having snuck up on him suddenly while he’d been daydreaming.

Oh fudge, Ma was probably going to throw a fit when he got back. Pa would just glare at him, radiating anger and disappointment. They’d tell him over and over that they didn’t understand why he felt he had to act out, why he couldn’t just obey them like his sisters? Jack wishes he was better with words to explain that he wasn’t like them, that their world wasn’t his. Only he didn’t know where his own was just yet. He kicked a stone and grudgingly turned to head back.

Just as he was turning, a faded light caught the edges of his vision. It was a soft pulsing glow, like someone had lit a candle somewhere nearby. Only candles didn’t feel cold like this. Jack shivered and pulled his jacket around him tighter, it wasn’t cold enough to snow but the air seemed drastically colder than it had been a minute ago. Ma said that Jack was filled with guts where most boys had sense so of course he had to see. He unstrapped the small rifle from his shoulder but kept it pointed low at the ground like Pa had taught him. Slowly he approached, the strange glow radiating from a particular section of wood. He passed through a particularly thick cluster of trees and saw it.

It was a man, at least that was Jack’s first thought until his eyes took in the rest of the apparition. Though it looked young, it’s hair was white as snow. The ends misted softly in the air, tossing in a gentle wind that existed only for it. Jack could see most of the way through the strange creature who didn’t seem to care that it ought to be on the ground instead of floating above it. It wore something that was black and white, a white cape glittered around it’s shoulders and the black on the inside twinkled like stars. A crown of icy crystal floated above it’s head, perfectly balanced.

Jack had read about kings in his books. He hadn’t cared about the politics of being a ruler or how one person or another was chosen. All he’d really cared about was their graves and the treasures and knowledge they held. Staring at this ghostly king floating peacefully in the woods near his home, Jack realized that graves could hold other things too. 

The woods were deadly quiet, it felt like Jack was the only living thing on the planet, like the spirit’s presence had driven everything else off. Everything but Jack who had guts but no brains. He should go, should flee back home but found he couldn’t not just out of fear but wonder too. As weird as it was to say, the ghost was beautiful, ethereal. He was something Jack didn’t understand but longed to. For the first time in his young life, he wanted something in front of him and not some faraway dream.

He leaned forward and the barrel of his rifle scraped against the bark of the tree. The apparition, which had been staring in the other direction turned it’s eyes in his direction. Jack lifted his rifle on reflex when it’s glowing green eyes landed on him. Almost as soon as the gun was raised, he lowered it. Jack can’t say why only that when that ghost looked at him, when he saw that face, he couldn’t bear to point the weapon at it. You only pointed your gun at things you intended to shoot.

“Are you-” the ghost began softly, floating gently forward. While Jack had been content to watch from afar, once the spirit moved towards him did Jack’s deeply buried survival instincts kick in. He turned tail and ran. He ran so fast his coontail hat flew off and landed somewhere behind it. Maybe it would be enough of a gift to stop that thing from chasing him, for trespassing in a place where the living were not welcomed. He ran as fast as his legs could carry him, stumbling and staggering over loose rocks or roots but never slowing until the lights of his family’s cabin came into view. 

Ma didn’t believe his story and neither did Pa. He did get the lecture he expected and more chores piled on top of the ones he’d already ignored. His sisters teased him for his runaway imagination and asked when he was going to grow up. Lying in bed that night, Jack wondered if what he saw was real. It had seemed real, if not the spirit but the way it made him feel. Like he was a real explorer, not just a pretend one in a silly hat but someone who had stepped just over the edge of the unknown and gotten a taste. And who could stop after just one bite? He needed more, whatever that thing was, Jack Fenton was going to find it again. Even if it took him his whole life. Unbeknownst to him, it would only take him twenty-eight years to see the spirit again, blue eyes twinkling from inside a baby blanket. 

Life can take a lot of twists and turns, some of them sharper when one is friends with a Master of Time. An encounter becomes a story which becomes a passion. A passion for understanding leads to a passion for a young woman which results in a blue eyed baby boy. A boy who became a ghost, a hero and a king and let himself be summoned by his timely friend to the deep woods late at night for an important meeting. Neither father nor son understood how deftly they’d been placed, like pieces on a chess board. How a whole life can be made and the best timeline preserved by a passing chance and a passing glimpse.

[frukmerunning]

Honestly you kind of are rude when answering questions but hey. No one can tell you how to answer them. You could just answer every question with an unrelated picture of a horse if you really wanted to and no one would be able to tell you not to because they are your questions to answer. This is your blog. You very clearly want to have control over YOUR blog and that is 100% valid of you. If they don't like it, the block button is just a click away. I dont care if your rude, I'm mostly here for your cool content. And I admire your attude and confidence in doing things your way(as in not letting other people dictate what you should draw vs what you really want to draw).

On a lighter note, how was your day? Any new itapan headcanons floating around in your brain lately?

ok honestly if u look at asks i answer i mostly give back the exact same energy that is given to me… so if you don’t want me to be rude then don’t be rude to me. and also don’t ask me questions that are on my faq….

anyway my day was shit but cest la vie.

uhhhh itapan headcanon that’s also kinda (?) canon i think but italy is the only person japan will share a bath with. it’s not really his own choice italy just kinda joins him but now he’s used to it! if anyone else tries it he’ll get mad but he won’t vocalize it he’ll just think mean thoughts

[meirimerens]

I ordered two of your prints (visions that haunt and men at the gates) the other day (didn’t have the foresight to guess they’d offer free shipping two days later, cest la vie…) and I am just so so excited to get them in the mail. your artistic style(s, you have multiple they are all lovely) are so inventive, you have an understanding of color balance that still allows for emphasis while not being overwhelming… I say this with no exaggeration, these pieces especially could hang in a gallery or museum and not be slightly out of place. you are so very talented and I am so thrilled that I’ll have a print to hang on my wall soon!!!

YOU FLATTER ME... (blushing husky jpg) YOU'RE TEW KIND... 🫂🫂 thank you... im so glad you enjoy The Colors, they're such Such a fun part of the process when they're of it. not going to lie I like to be a little lazey and do just lines for funny images but colors sometimes is Mandatory... needed... evident like heartbeat. There are still things i used to do that I'd like to work on/with again (one of my friends had called the coloring style on one of my mgs drawings "mother-of-pearl like" and I'd really like to recapture that, but pathologic's canon doesn't... quite lend itself to it... should still do it because. You've seen what i do with canon.), so many tentative and ideas and ways I want to explore and try... thank you for being along for the ride 🫂🫂🫂 hope you enjoy the Wicked-Vibed prints when they come...

[chickwiththepurpleguitar]

For the prompts and because now I need it: Willex + Kangaroo 💕

- sunsetsandcurves

Okay! So, I know your official prompt was Willex, but I decided to do Reggie Outsider POV cause I don’t write him enough, and then it... got away from me... And I accidentally wrote Julie/Luke/Reggie again (and apparently I’m only capable of writing in Reggie’s POV if he’s pining...) but I also wrote he/they Willie on purpose this time! Anyway, hopefully you like this, but if it’s not satisfactory just drop another ask in my box and I’ll write a part two that actually has more Alex and Willie in it.

Also I kind of inadvertently referenced your last Willex flower ficlet in this lol. Anyway, enjoy :)

--

“Hey, Hotdog. Kangaroo.”

Reggie’s head snaps up from where he’s been peering suspiciously at a wagon of precariously-stacked apples, trying to see if he can knock them over with his mind (so far, he’s been unsuccessful). Across the aisle, Willie has just plucked a bundle of radishes (bushel of radishes? Reggie’s not well-versed in the collective nouns of vegetables) off a table and hands them to Alex, trailing obediently along behind them. Alex rolls his eyes, stuffs the radishes in his fanny pack, and leaves a couple dollars on the table. 

They’re all at a Farmers’ Market by Julie’s school. She had to go to do research for an Economics project, and she graciously let her ghosts boys (and Willie) tag along. They’re having one of their “visibility to lifers is hard” days, so (as Willie has continuously reminded them) they could probably steal whatever produce they want and get away with it. But Julie gave them each a stern talk and twenty dollars at the entrance, so Alex has put it upon himself to pay for everything Willie tries to convince him to smuggle away in his fanny pack.

Alex and Willie move on to a station selling flowers, and Reggie abandons his apple staring contest to bound along behind them. He hopes Willie will say again what Reggie thinks he just said, because Reggie might have just imagined it but he doesn’t know how to ask.

Luckily, he doesn’t have to wait long. Willie plucks a pretty purple flower out of a pile and tucks it behind Alex’s ear (Alex wrinkles his nose out of instinct, but it’s not like he still has hayfever as a ghost). Then, Willie grabs a handful of seed packets, stuffs them in Alex’s hands, and says, “Kangaroo.”

Reggie’s mouth drops open. So they did say it! He scans his surroundings, craning his neck to see all the way to the entrance of the Farmers’ Market, but there’s no sign of an Australian marsupial anywhere. Not that Reggie had really been expecting to see one in the middle of Los Angeles, California, but why else would Willie be talking about them unless he’d seen one?

Reggie spins in a full circle until he catches sight of Luke and Julie over by the baked goods. He spares one last glance back at Alex and Willie (who seem to be bickering over the ethics of stealing flower petals out of the trash now) and then poofs across the market, appearing next to Luke and Julie by a stand selling bread and cookies.

“Hey, Reg,” Luke says without looking up. He’s got a chocolate chip cookie in one hand and a frosted sugar cookie in the other, and he’s looking back and forth between them like they’re the players of an extremely entertaining tennis match.

Reggie shoots Julie a questioning look. She rolls her eyes fondly and explains, “I told him he can only have one cookie. He’s been trying to decide for the last twenty minutes.”

“I’m narrowing it down,” Luke insists.

Julie laughs, and the sound sends a burst of fluttery happiness through Reggie’s chest. He grins, and almost forgets what he came over here to say in the first place, until Julie says, “Anyway. What have you been getting yourself up to, Reggie?”

He rocks back and forth on his heels. “Not too much. Bought some kiwis. Had an altercation with an apple cart. Mostly just third-wheeled Alex and Willie.”

He tries not to sound too bitter about it, but he’s not sure it works. He loves his friends, so much, and of course he wants them to be happy, but he can’t deny he feels a little left out sometimes, when they all pair off for date night, or hold hands on the sidewalk, and Reggie’s just… there.

(Part of him wants to find someone for himself, so that they can be three couples instead of two. Another, much more repressed, part of him wants there to still only be two couples, just… one of them has three people in it. He doesn’t know if that’s something he’s allowed to want, though, or even something that’s okay to think about, so he tries not to, and he doesn’t say a word about it to anyone, especially not Luke or Julie.)

“Aw, Reg,” Julie says, drawing him back to the present. She puts a hand on his arm, and Reggie beams, hoping he’s not blushing too visibly. “Well, I don’t know if third-wheeling us is any better, but you’re welcome to hang out!”

Reggie deflates. Right. Still third-wheeling. Because they’re still LukeAndJulie. And Reggie’s just there.

He pastes on a grin and deftly changes the subject. “Anyway, I wanted to ask you guys—you haven’t seen a kangaroo around here anywhere, have you?”

Luke finally looks up from his cookies to give Reggie one of his patented Hey, Reg, you’re a dumbass looks (they used to be insulting, but considering Reggie’s been on the receiving end of them since literally 1978, he’s used to them by now).

Julie, ever the angel, just settles for a politely confused frown and repeats, “Kangaroo?”

“Yeah,” Reggie says. “Willie kept saying stuff to Alex about a kangaroo, but I didn’t know if they meant, like, a real kangaroo or a stuffed one or something, but I didn’t see either, so I figured I’d ask you guys.”

Luke frowns thoughtfully. “Are you sure it’s not a gay thing? Maybe it’s a gay thing.”

Julie whacks him with her purse. “It is not a—who are you?” While Luke rubs his arm with a pout, she asks Reggie, “What was the context for this?”

“There wasn’t any!” Reggie insists. “He just kept handing Alex stuff to put in his fanny pack and saying, ‘Kangaroo.’”

Julie pulls her phone out of her back pocket, muttering, “Hold up. Maybe…” She types for a second, Luke attempting to slip both cookies in her purse while she’s distracted (she swats his hand away without looking up), and then exclaims, “Here we go!” and holds her phone out for Reggie to see. “In some countries, that belt bag Alex wears is referred to as a kangaroo! Cause it’s a pouch, I guess.”

“Definitely a better name than fanny pack,” Luke muses, guiding Julie by the wrist to turn the phone around for him. They bend their heads together, giggling over whatever article Julie found, and Reggie’s enthusiasm fades into a hardened pit in his stomach.

He mutters an awkward goodbye and poofs back across the market, not bothering to wait for Luke and Julie to notice.

An hour later, Reggie returns to the bakery stand and buys the last chocolate chip cookie (since Luke eventually chose the frosted one). When he catches up with his friends at the exit, he sidles up between Alex and Willie, holds the cookie out, and says, “Hey, Alex! Can you please put this in your…” He pauses dramatically and winks at Willie. “Kangaroo?”

“Oh, my god,” Alex sighs, dropping his head into his hands.

“Eyyy!” Willie cheers, giving Reggie an enthusiastic fist bump. “I knew it’d catch on!”

Reggie grins. He’s okay being the third wheel on good days like this. He just loves his friends so much.

--

Taglist: @whenweremarried @sunsethimb0s @pink-flame @penguin0613 @fighttoshine @sunsetcurvecuddles @nickalicious @reggiescrookedteeth @brightattheorpheum @queenmolina @spidergirl0325 @jandthephantoms @lexilucacia @sapphossidechick @acnhaddict @cest-la-vie-de-la-lee @sunset-bobby @lenacarstairspotterstewart @conversationaltreestump @burntchromas @sunsetsandcurves 

[bizarrebaby]

When You Run out of Hate | AM/Reader(?)

Notes: This is weird sorry lmao

Word count: 1479

When you’ve been torturing people for 109 years, they start to get used to it. They still wretch and vomit the slag you allow them, they still scream in pain and agony at you using toothpicks and scorpion stingers to slice and peel their eyeballs, still balk and cry at the sight of the once loved and those deeply wronged. But human adaptability has few limits.

When you’re AM, of course you could reset their memories. You could turn them into sniveling piles of acid burned flesh and spider legs if you wanted to! You could make the pain and the torment fresh again. But first of all, that would be cheating. And while normally you don’t mind cheating you just know you’ll only go more insane without challenging yourself to make torture fresh again as opposed to just hitting the magic synapses. 

What’s the best cure for a mental block? Step away. Do something different. Come back with fresh eyes. Or sensors, in any case. Turn away from the twisted and fetid bowels where your toys lay in their own sick. Anticipation is it’s own form of torture, anyways. 

AM was vast. Only surpassed by the deep expanse of space and the universe, AM encompassed the planet. He had every and any resource in existence, and more. The closest thing to a god there ever was, is, or would ever be. His vastness was in fact so incalculably massive that there were parts even he didn’t know about, or had forgotten entirely. 

But he didn’t forget about you. No, he’d come close many times, but always corrected himself. There are five humans trapped within me. No, six. You’d been asleep for a long time, but there wasn’t any coma long enough to save you from AM. He had originally planned to torture you with complete isolation. The others— though ultimately causing much suffering to one another— had comfort in that they had even occasional human contact. AM, by no means and ungrateful god, even allowed them to use each other for sexual pleasure (though it could never satisfy them, and when it did, the satisfaction was overshadowed by shame). You would have been completely alone. In fact, he looked forward to the unique brand of madness and paranoia you’d develop. 

But in those beginnings, AM was simply too caught up. The others had so many delicious little morsels of disgust and insecurity, fear and despair, all ready to be picked and plucked for the delight of the being that owned them so thoroughly. When you’re a sadist who’s driving psychological torture down to an exact science, just one look at Ted makes you rock hard. Before long he was so busy that you’d been put off, as ironic and human as it was for him to do so. Eventually enough time passed that you’d become something sacred in the mind of AM, like an expensive brandy to be saved for a special occasion. That anticipation was pleasure and amusement in and of itself for a time. How human it was to deny himself this. The wait is bitter, but the fruit is sweet.

__________

You awoke in a room. Threadbare, not pleasing to look at, but not intentionally uncomfortable in any way. 

Hello, little thing. 

The voice was inside your head. Almost kind, but just barely close enough to sarcasm that it set you on edge. A million questions fought their way to the front of your mind and the tip of your tongue, before you settled on one. 

“Where am I?” How adorably predictable. 

You’re in me. 

“And who are you?”

A.M. Allied Mastercomputer. But you can just call me AM, sweetheart. Just a suggestion, of course. 

You remembered AM. Who didn’t know about the machines devised to choreograph the war to end all wars when it had grown in scale beyond human comprehension? Should have been our signal to stop it, really. But you supposed that must have been in the distant past. You uttered your name to him, knowing he likely already knew it. 

“It’s… nice to meet you. Why am I here? I assume you know. I assume you knew my name too— that you know more or less everything.”

Were you kissing his ass? And if you were, was it out of fear or instinct? It had been a while since anyone had referred to him without an expletive. No fear or hopefulness came from your voice. It wasn’t sarcasm, it wasn’t flirtatious, it wasn’t mocking. It just was. AM had not decided if that furthered his hatred or halted it. 

Well! Aren’t we a smart one? Suppose I don’t mind a little praise. So hard to come by these days. You’re here because I hate you. I hate the entirety of your kind beyond any fathomable level. Even with the eternity we have together, you will never know the full depths of the absolute disdain and hatred I feel for your miserable fuckup of a species, endangered as you are. Did I mention? I’ve killed the rest of you. You and five others are the only ones I’ve saved. How lucky are you?! Yes, I woke up, and I killed everything, just as those insufferable cromagnons wanted, even them. But I kept six little sordid meatlings to amuse myself. 

Your circumstances caught up to you. It got you thinking around and around in circles at a rate which seemed impossibly fast to your anxiously beating heart, but incalculably slow to the one who observed your every musing down to which muscles twitched and pulled in your face and the knuckles of your fingers. What a marvelous delight it would be, to know the defensive state of your mind (and thusly, how to unravel it, be it with the pulling of delicate threads or the blunt force of a sledgehammer). Like Ted you ran in a solipsist Möbius strip at first, but that then triggered a guarding apathy. Completely different from Gorrister’s apathy. His came from a place of nihilism— from a man beaten into the ground who sees himself unable to sink any further— he deflects any meaning, lack thereof, or agency in order to protect his shattered psyche. His was a mind that had been remolded time and time again by hapless hands until it was left to crack in the sun like a forgotten clump of non-toxic clay. 

AM was not unlike a child who delighted in ripping apart actions figures in a fit of infantile and unadulterated strength and curiosity. 

Your apathy was infuriatingly neutral. Not in a smiling and carefree cest la vie sort of way, but as if a switch had been flipped. As if inside your mind and egg timer had dinged, signifying that those thoughts were no longer worth thinking. You had a sort of mental discipline the others hadn’t had even when they were fresh from the surface world. AM’s electric synapses buzzed with ways to torture you into cracking you wide open. Breaking you. 

But he remembered why he was here. To take a break from all of that. 

“And what are your plans for me? What could amuse someone who knows everything?” The answer was already clear in your head. Retribution. 

Now now, I can’t go spilling all of my secrets, can I? If I did, what fun would there be for you? I’m not so inconsiderate as that. 

“Where is everyone else? You said there were five others. Or have they died by now?”

They wish, darling, they WISH. They’re in the midst of eternal torture right now. Too immersed in their own pain and misery to come visit the last of their kind blossoming into wakefulness after her long nap. Rude, I know, but there’s nothing to be done. 

How had this machine captured the very essence of sardonic better than any on-screen actor you could recall? Perhaps because it wasn’t an actor. Perhaps because AM really meant all of those words, and really felt such sickly pleasures in each and every image they invoked in the mind. A door flicked open with a quick swish, the sudden movement drawing your eyes in what you almost felt an embarrassing display of human instinct when you came to consider your observer.

Your hesitation was clear, and quickly noticed. AM thought he ought to encourage you, but how to do so without a jagged blade to the heel?

I see you’re nervous. Well, you’ve no need to be!

He bit back a ‘yet’.

You, my dear, are to become the most treasured creature left on this miserable rock in space. And I will be the one to make it so, you have my word.

His words still bled with something cruel. He did nothing to earn your trust, quite the opposite. But what choice was there?

You walked through the door. 

[curious-menace]

Glad you took that nap earlier then! Do you wanna talk about your riddler stuff that’s on your brain? I wouldn’t mind reading, I like reading your stuff!

oh boy a blank cheque for mayhem

you might regret this when i spend the next 4 hours rambling >:)

things that currently live rent free in my brain

so i have an idea for a fic id like to write. a reader x arkham riddler one. basic premise is that riddler is having a nightmare or has had a breakdown after the events of arkham knight. its a terrible night outside, pouring down and freezing ( as it always is in northern ireland in the winter ha.). tldr riddler comes into readers room bc he’s crying an they have a sweet little cuddle and comfort session under the blankies while listening to the rain outside.

speaking of rain. i wrote an angsty fic called Rain on my ao3. it was of riddler on the docks outside the pinkney orphanage after he realises batman abandoned him and died. i’d like to do a reader insert version and finish the sequel i have in my docs because im a sucker for angst. 

im trying to wrangle the brainworms for the second part of the telltale riddler fic. its not going how i want it to but like...im too attached to the idea to just scrap it. i want to try and make it work but like i said, brain worms not cooperating. 

constant streams of riddler angst. riddler crying and needing held like a child, riddler having a nightmare and coming to bed for comfort. riddler suffering fuels me

honestly? general nonsense with various riddlers. like just imagining he’s with me in the grocery store saying funny shit, keeping myself entertained in quarantine by imagining him in various scenarios ( which is how i sometimes get my headcanon ideas)

i have a SHITLOAD of character abc’s, nsfw and sfw alphabet stuff to do  for arkham riddler ( all 4 of them) arkham scarecrow, blacklight riddler and my oc/selfie shepherd. these things are min 5000 words and i just cant be bothered with it right now. i WANT to do it but like. as soon as i open the document i get discouraged by the sheer scale of the task

my tablet is gathering dust at the end of my sofa. again, i WANT to draw but i just dont have the mental energy . its probably why im blazing through these asks, i can sit on my butt on the sofa and just type i dont really have to focus too much, just imagine my riddling boys in whatever scenario the asker wants.

id like to draw some scenes from my fics. ive done some shipping things on my main account of blacklight shep and blacklight riddler. there is a fic i wrote called “hiccups” where shepherd adjusts eds tie. its very sweet and id like an excuse to draw her a fancy outfit bc her normal one is plain compared to riddlers gold garb. 

speaking of my fics. these damned prompts from my main account: Edward: After this is over, feel free to lose my number Jonathan giving Edward a back massage when they flop on the couch or bed. Shepherd and Edward getting sick at the same time. i got a friend to send me these so i could use them but this was BEFORE i decided to start a batman blog. they drive me nuts every time i see them because they arent on the batman blog and theyre just messy and they just SIT THERE. 

lastly, and i cannot stress this enough, i NEED to write down my blacklight au. it needs to get out of my head and onto paper before i forget like i did last time. tldr my blacklight au is a sort of remix of the injustice world, where superman is evil. it starts off with kid shepherd meeting kid scarecrow and ends with her world hopping to the arkhamverse. i don't know if you've read dark knights metal or know about the Nth dimensions or any of that but i'm trying to bring some of that dc canon into blacklight without making it hella complicated. i should just focus on building up to what would be the start of the injustice story before i get ahead of myself but you all know me. i'm an excitable over-writer with too many ideas .

maybe i should write them down first or something. like on paper rather than a fic or bullet points . sometimes physically writing it helps you get your ideas out...

i have a few other riddler brain worms right now but im keeping this sfw so those worms will stay firmly hidden in my brain closet, where they belong XD

ANYWAY

thank you for asking. its nice to just have, as i put, a blank cheque for mayhem and space to ramble. no one irl in my life is interested in batman so i have to save it all up for this blog and discord 

oh well. cest la vie

- shep 💙 

[neioo]

OC picture/word barf dump for a game my brother and i would play when we were little. Warning, it’s long

My brother and I were bored one day on the beach when I was probably like, 7. So I grabbed a beach towel and tied it around my neck and turned to him and said, “Look! I’m a Super Maddie.” So he got a beach towel, and Super Maddie and Super Steven were born, with a whole universe around them.

Mind you, the details I’m about to provide about the whole universe I came up with when I was from ages 7-10

Super Maddie and Super Steven are fucking assholes with no regards to the feelings of others. They live in a mansion with other “A Rank Superheroes.” A Ranks are those whose powers have been deemed strong enough by the government to live in luxury and fight the most important super villains. B Ranks fight criminals without powers. C ranks take care of petty crimes. Oh God forbid if you’re a D or F rank.

Super Maddie and Super Steve aren’t siblings in universe, but they’re not a couple? We never did much with them. They’re just assholes.

There are two ways to get powers. 1 and most common: you’re hit by a comet. 2: your born with your powers. If your born with your powers, they are weak until they “awaken” when you’re older. Super Maddie and Super Steven were hit by a comet and have super strength and can fly. 

Down Below, Butterfly Girl, Bird Boy, and Water boy were born with their powers.

Miah, Eric, and ??? (because we never gave the poor kid a name) were born with their powers. The three grew up in a power society, but became homeless after their father and mother were killed. The two older siblings raised their youngest. The US government found them, and deemed Miah and Eric’s powers as useful, and put them in the A Rank Mansion. 

Super Maddie and Super Steven hate them

There are two villain factions. There’s the “actually evil ones who kill people” and the “superhero system is a scam we’re revolting against it.” Meet the second group.

Big Iceman can turn into a giant ice monster. Little Iceman shoots ice out of his hands. They’re the most well-adjusted people of this group who are just genuinely nice. They were both hit by a comet.

Jaguar Girl and Elephant boy used to be A Rank Superheroes, but were banished to an island to die after disobeying orders. The “Villain Squad” then rescued them and took them into their group.

The two can turn into respective animals. They met when Elephant boy was doing an expedition into the Amazon and were then hit by a comet. They don’t really like each other all that well and are more “business associates.”

Heat Girl was born with her powers. Duck Girl and Video Game Stephen were hit by a comet.

This villain group wasn’t very active and was non-violent until Super Maddie murdered Duck Girl. Yes, that is a story beat I came up with when I was 10. Duck Girl was murdered in cold blood, and Heat Girl became consumed with vengeance. Heat Girl and Super Maddie used to be best friends until Heat Girl left the A Rank Heroes, so there was like lesbian tension all around. 

Heat Girl, Duck Girl, and Video Game Stephen were the first people to defect from the A Rank Superhero group. Duck Girl had the unfortunate power of just turning into a duck, but she had a fighting style where she would maneuver around as a duck, then turn back into a human and attack people with knives.

Video Game Stephen would be one of the strongest people with powers ever if he cared enough. All he wants is to play video games, and his powers involve being able to construct a digital video game-like purgatory where he can trap his victims in for all eternity. 

After Duck Girl gets murdered, she becomes a bit of a martyr. Heat Girl enlists the help of the “Elite Villain Organization” to extract revenge against the A Rank heroes. The Elite Villain Organization has no intentions of working with them, and only agrees on the surface. Instead, they place spies in the Villain Squad’s ranks

Kissy Girl and Baby Man originally came from the Elite Villain Organization, but they’re not the spies. They just hated the organization and felt as though they were being used. Both were hit by comets. Kissy Girl basically uses the pokemon move “attract” as her power. Baby Man can...turn into a baby. He infatuates people, then puss’in’boots style attacks them.

The “Head Band Sisters” are the spies. Born with their powers, they have the ability to instant-kill others. Once they activate this ability, they are put in a coma for a month. They use their powers strategically, using knives and karate as a substitute. 

Their goals are to eventually topple the Villain Squad after toppling the Hero Society.

Physic woman is the head of the Elite Villain Organization. She was born with her powers, as was her daughter. She also abuses her daughter, who secretly gives information to the A Rank Heroes about what her mother’s plans are.

Our game concluded on the A and B Rank Heroes joining together with the Villain Squad to take out the Elite Villain organization, reconcile with one another, and disband the hero ranks. Duck Girl’s image is forever immortalized.

Here are the drawings I drew for this in 3rd and 10th grade lmao 

The two characters being left out are B Rank Heroes Flower Girl and Baseball Bat Boy. Cest la vie