#this got really long and rambly im sorry

[starry-bi-sky]

i need to get this out of my head before i continue clone^2 but danny being the first batkid. Like, standard procedure stuff: his parents and sister die, danny ends up with Vlad Masters. He drags him along to stereotypical galas and stuff; Danny is not having a good time.

He ends up going to one of the Wayne Galas being hosted ever since elusive Bruce Wayne has returned to Gotham. Vlad is crowing about having this opportunity as he's been wanting to sink his claws into the company for a long while now. Danny is too busy grieving to care what he wants.

And like most Galas, once Vlad is done showing him off to the other socialites and the like, he disappears. Off to a dark corner, or to one of the many balconies; doesn't matter. There he runs into said star of the show, Bruce who is still young, has been Batman for at least a year at this point, but still getting used to all these damn people and socializing. He's stepped off to hide for a few minutes before stepping back into the shark tank.

And he runs into a kid with circles under his eyes and a dull gleam in them. Familiar, like looking into a mirror.

Danny tries to excuse himself, he hasn't stopped crying since his parents died and it's been months. He rubs his eyes and stands up, and stumbles over a half-hearted apology to Mister Wayne. Some of Vlad's etiquette lessons kicking in.

Bruce is awkward, but he softens. "That's alright, lad," he says, pulling up some of that Brucie Wayne confidence, "I was just coming out here to get some fresh air."

There's a little pressing; Bruce asks who he's here with, Danny says, voice quiet and grief-stricken, that he's with his godfather Vlad Masters. Bruce asks him if he knows where he is, and Danny tells him he does. Bruce offers to leave, Danny tells him to do whatever he wants.

It ends with Bruce staying, standing off to the side with Danny in silence. Neither of them say a word, and Danny eventually leaves first in that same silence.

Bruce looks into Vlad Masters after everything is over, his interest piqued. He finds news about him taking in Danny Fenton: he looks into Danny Fenton. He finds news articles about his parents' deaths, their occupations, everything he can get his hands on.

At the next gala, he sees Danny again. And he looks the same as ever: quiet like a ghost, just as pale, and full of grief. Bruce sits in silence with him again for nearly ten minutes before he strikes a conversation.

"Do you like to do anything?"

Nothing. Just silence.

Bruce isn't quite sure what to do: comfort is not his forte, and Danny doesn't know him. He's smart enough to know that. So he starts talking about other things; anything he can think of that Brucie Wayne might say, that also wasn't inappropriate for a kid to hear.

Danny says nothing the entire time, and is again the first to leave.

Bruce watches from a distance as he intercts with Vlad Masters; how Vlad Masters interacts with him. He doesn't like what he sees: Vlad Masters keeps a hand on Danny's shoulder like one would hold onto the collar of a dog. He parades him around like a trophy he won.

And there are moments, when someone gets too close or when someone tries to shake Danny's hand, of deep possessiveness that flints over Vlad Masters' eyes. Like a dragon guarding a horde.

He plays the act of doting godfather well: but Bruce knows a liar when he sees one. Like recognizes like.

Danny is dull-eyed and blank faced the entire time; he looks miserable.

So Bruce tries to host more parties; if only so that he can talk to Danny alone. Vlad seems all too happy to attend, toting Danny along like a ribbon, and on the dot every hour, Danny slips away to somewhere to hide. Bruce appears twenty minutes later.

"I was looking into your godfather's company," he says one night, trying to think of more things to say. Some nights all they do is sit in silence. "Some of my shareholders were thinking of partnering up--"

"Don't."

He stops. Danny hardly says a word to him, he doesn't even look at him -- he's sitting on the ground, his head in his knees. Like he's trying to hide from the world. But he's looking, blue eyes piercing up at Bruce.

Bruce tilts his head, practiced puppy-like. "Pardon?"

"Don't." Danny says, strongly. "Don't make any deals with Vlad."

It's the most words Danny's spoken to him, and there's a look in his eyes like a candle finding its spark. Something hard. Bruce presses further, "And why is that?"

The spark flutters, and flushes out. Danny blinks like he's coming out of a trance, and slumps back into himself. "Just don't."

Bruce stares at him, thoughtful, before looking away. "Alright. I won't."

And they fall back into silence.

Danny, when he leaves, turns to look at Bruce, "I mean it." He says; soft like he's telling a secret, "Don't make any deals with him. Don't be alone with him. Don't work with him."

He's scampered away before Bruce can question him further.

(He never planned on working with Vlad Masters and his company; he's done his research. He's seen the misfortune. But nothing ever leads back to him. There's no evidence of anything. But Danny knows something.)

At their next meeting, Danny starts the conversation. It's new, and it's welcomed. He says, cutting through their five minute quiet, that he likes stars. And he doesn't like that he can't see them in Gotham.

Bruce hums in interest, and Danny continues talking. It's as if floodgates had been opened, and as Bruce takes a sip of his wine, it tastes like victory.

("Tucker told me once--") ("Tucker?") ("Oh-- uh, one of my best friends. He's a tech geek. We haven't talked in a while.")

(Danny shut down in his grief -- his friends are worried, but can't reach him. When he goes back to the manor with Vlad, he fishes out his phone and sends them a message.)

(They are ecstatic to hear from him.)

It all culminates until one day, when Danny is leaving to go back inside, that Bruce speaks up. "You know," He says, leaning against the railing. "The manor has many rooms; plenty of space for a guest."

The implication there, hidden between the lines. And Danny is smart, he looks at Bruce with a sharp glean in his eyes, and he nods. "Good to know."

The next time they see each other, Danny has something in his hands. "Can you hold onto something for me?" He asks.

When Bruce agrees, Danny places a pearl into his palm. or, at least, it's something that looks like a pearl. Because it's cold to the touch; sinking into Bruce's white silk gloves with ease and shimmering like an opal. It moves a little as it settles into his hand, and the moves like its full of liquid.

Bruce has never seen anything like it before, but he does know this; it's not human. "What is it?" He asks, and Danny looks uncomfortable.

"I can't tell you that." He says, shifting on his foot like he's scared of someone seeing it. "But please be careful with it. Treat it like it's extremely fragile."

When Bruce gets home, he puts it in an empty ring box and hides the box in the cave. He tries researching into what it is. he can't find anything concrete.

Everything comes to a head one day when Danny appears at the manor's doorstep one evening, soaking wet in the rain, and bleeding from the side.

[askkonbart]

Hey!! Wanted to know, what's your favorite place to go on a date?

Dates and stuff

[lovesickeros]

lord its so dark in here the sahara desert of tsaritsa content you are like a shining oasis. your characterisation of her compels me & mihoyo would be hard pressed to top it imo.!! caaaaan i humbly request yr thoughts on her first meeting w a reader of any kind, or maybe even multiple kinds (sagau, sagau god au, isekai, etc) if you so desire...

it really is like a desert here. being the fan of a character we aren't getting until the last damn nation is driving me up a wall but i will persevere bc if nothing else i support morally bankrupt women in media. we r in a severe drought over here but i do my best. unfortunately nothing i say is ever coherent so pull out your translation notes its abt 2 be messy

also this got out of hand but thats bc first meetings w the tsaritsa are tricky to write + a LOT of her characterization lies in deeper exploration then just surface level yknow...NOT A DIG AT YOU this is just my excuse for rambling. gently pats the tsaritsa she can hold so much complexity i do not have the word count to delve into it completely :]

gonna talk cult au for a bit here though because that's 99% of my content. and honestly? she thrives in sub au's of the cult au like villain au + imposter au. it's basically made for her. i mean, early days, the imposter au had been going around for a little while but one of the first few ideas was the Fatui taking reader in so like. it kinda technically actually was. pretty sure cult au Tsaritsa popped up because of the imposter au. a lot of it's writers kinda left though which. man am i getting old or.

anyway.

there isn't much of a chance her first impression is all that positive. at best it's usually neutral, imo, but rarely if ever positive. specifically because i view the Tsaritsa as someone who isn't as fanatical as most of the acolytes typically are towards the creator. she's not exactly going to worship the ground you walk on unlike a certain geo lizard. which is partially why i think she thrives in the sub au's i mentioned.

imposter au, for example. she meets you at your lowest. there's no gaudy extravagance or pampering from the acolytes waiting for you because your own acolytes have turned on you. for all intents and purposes you aren't a "god" at all. which is why i don't think she meshes well with normal cult au reader. the Fatui are made up of outcasts, basically, and imposter au slots right in just perfectly. you're weak, at your lowest, when you meet the Fatui in the imposter au. and the Fatui can help you, too.

a mutual exchange, really. the Tsaritsa sees a tool she can use to one up the rest of the nations and especially Archons, and she has no qualms about you using her and the Fatui in turn. you both want something out of it, after all. whether you just want to be safe from the rest of the acolytes, or you want revenge, or whatever else..she'll give you the power to fulfill it, and she gains the strongest piece on the chessboard when all is said and done.

the best way i can describe the first meeting is "practical", i suppose. she sees an opportunity in you. the ultimate gamble. because if she "saves" you, and you dont trust anyone else because they tried to kill you, well..she holds all the cards, doesn't she?

but the Tsaritsa, imo, is just as capable of being just as fanatical towards you as anyone else. she just won't worship you as the creator. but as yourself? clawing your way back to your divine power and taking back what belongs to you? the Tsaritsa is, to me, a character who's character flourishes in long-term fics more because she changes a LOT between "just met reader" and after having been with reader for some time. she's practically apathetic at the beginning but a lot of her character, in my characterization, shines through LONG after the first meeting.

[coolnonsenseworld]

Omg your instagram story is so right! I can’t believe I’ve never even noticed that, probably because in fanon keith and shiro are so close that I’d forgotten that isn’t canon :0

Deserves this awesome quote which I had to dig out of my sideblog reblogs

[hisfluer]

Hi!!!! I hope you don’t mind answering and if you need more context, I can give it but any tips for worshipping Lucifer?

hello hello! oh, i love to answer questions! i don't get to talk about him a lot so i really had a lot to say, haha! this got so long. tl;dr at the bottom!

i can give you what i have and if you need more direction or have more questions, let me know! my dms are open!

let me start off by saying that my specific approach to lucifer is specific to me. the way i view him might be different from the way that you see him. keep an open mind! he might appear to you in a way you were not expecting and it might take away to understand.

the way i worship is through action and prayer. and i know these things work because when i don't do them, i feel myself falling apart. it is incredibly important for me to make time to pray, make time for action, make time and space for him to visit with me.

prayer, i think, is pretty self-explanatory. if you'd like me to go into it with more specifics, i can.

i think the number one tip i can give you is to ... learn who he is to you. what is drawing you to him? rebellion? or perhaps knowledge. is it as a breaker of chains or as someone who is fallen? freedom? enlightenment? i think it's important to know this, know why you're seeking in order to find the answers. ( i highly suggest journaling this out, it might help bring a sharper insight to where you are and why you're seeking. )

& sit with him. invite him in with a single candle ( or approximate ) and linger in that space with him. when he comes to your mind, what do you think about? what's the image you see? do you have something like that that you can bring to the next session? for me, it was apples. when i thought about lucifer, i thought about apples. when i decided to approach him, i brought an apple.

one of the first things he told me in my asking to know more about him was to ask him. if the answers that he gave me did not suffice, i could go looking for more but i was to draw my conclusions from him first. with eros or hermes, i had a basic knowledge of their myths that allowed me to seek them out for specific things but i didn't have that with lucifer. i knew the basics about the morning star, the pride of the fall, and that he was the father of lies. there was nothing about him as a figure of worship, only as a figure to be reviled.

so, he was asking me to see him as he came to me without the stories of everyone else. if i didn't like the answers, i was free to look for them but i never did. ( well, i did but purely out of curiosity to see what others were saying. i didn't look until i knew what i believed and what i didn't and i wasn't going to be swayed by what i learned. and i discovered some things that i didn't agree with and some that verified my interactions. )

lucifer, to me, appears as a figure of knowing. in my understanding of him, i combine his mythos together as an ancient figure from rome with the father of lies and the christian canon that was put on him. this is because i resonate very strongly with him being cast down. he's the only remnant of that faith that i keep but i don't fully associate him with it. he isn't purely a christian figure, he was made to play a role. and to me, it's in the breaking of these roles, these chains, these assumptions and knowing himself is where i find my strength.

i went through most of my life thinking i was stupid. i never made good grades, i always felt i couldn't contribute to the conversations, book intelligence was valued over everything growing up and i always felt like i could never be 'smart'. but i love to learn, i love to read, i love to know about the secret ways of the world. i love to hear the secrets, i love to find them and lucifer helped encourage me to do that without taking on the stories of others.

knowledge, awareness, knowing the ways people both use you and help you, these are the things i go to him for. he is the knowing of ones strength and the knowing of how to better oneself to use it. it's seeing through the stories and revealing the truth of it. as the morning star, he brings forth the light despite the darkness. as a figure of hate, he is also a figure of love. he is the one that i seek when i feel lost. he is the star to guide me forward — but not in that he solves my problems but that he tells me to look for the solutions and if i can't find any, how do i open my eyes more in order to see them. he guides me towards knowing, towards fulfillment, towards bettering myself so that no one can put a story on me that i don't agree with.

through action, which in this case is through learning, i am able to show him my worship. i am able to show him that i am taking him and his lessons and his guidance to heart and that is how i worship him.

beyond that, set a small place for him with a candle and linger there. you're not summoning him, you're not asking him to be there, you're just showing him that you are there. i do that by action but it might be that you should journal and that is what draws you closer to him. it might be music, snails, the holy figure of the rabbit, trees, or it might be through something else entirely. it is your experience and your unique perspective is what he is drawn to and it will be that through which he will speak to you.

an apple to me is different from an apple to you. it might not mean the same thing or have similar connotations. why would he use an apple to you if they have no significance in your life? it might be the peach or the pomegranate that inspires him to you.

my tips aren't a list because worship and relationships with the spirit and divine are so incredibly personal. listen to what the god is saying to you and, if it agrees with your spirit, follow through. if it feels like you must pray, pray. if it feels like you should light a candle for a week, do that. if it feels like you should read or take a class, do so. it doesn't have to be elaborate. your worship can be as simple as getting sweaty outside in the garden or as complex as a ceremonial ritual of devotion! it is so personal and not something i can really direct you in. it might be as simple as "i'm brushing my teeth for you, dark lord!" and if that satisfies your spirit, that's all you need to do.

if you want to talk about it more or if you have more question, feel free to dm me!

TL;DR: my tip is to get personal with him and he'll direct you the way you should go to follow his path.

[thrumbolt]

It’s not true that Feyre’s trauma only shows up in the spring court or that it disappears in the night court. Just as she only once when surprised freaks out at the red of Lucien’s hair, she only sometimes is triggered in the NC. The first time she and Rhys fly after she leaves the spring court, she panics when she feels caged by his wings and Rhys has to back off. Mor doesn’t wear red for a bit to not trigger her. Then there’s the whole Prison plot where she can’t handle the Prison the first time because of her trauma and even when she eventually goes in, she’s freaking out.

Her trauma gets better with time even though she is still struggling on acowar and obviously it’s not every second or she wouldn’t have spent so much time with Lucien and been fine with his red hair all times except once when surprised

Thanks for the anon! You bring up some good points, but I still have to complain haha.

My issue is that she is not just triggered at Lucien's red hair. She is also triggered by red paint and red rose petals....and then never again. Red carpet at Rhys' just a few pages after she gets 'saved' from the spring court? Whatever. Cassian's red syphons? Nothing. That's bad writing, in my opinion. Either the dang color red reminds her of blood and triggers her, or it doesn't, but how it is almost immediately forgotten - that's just inconsistent (it would be definitely much more meaningful, if it slowly improved). Honestly I don't really remember her having any hangups in Acowar at all. And neither has Rhys. He gets like what, one nightmare and one sex position hangup? I was really disappointed that it just....went over so quickly. Maybe that's why I latch onto Tamlin? At least his issues aren't gone after a book. They even get worse as he doesn't seek help. It's just more compelling to me.

My biggest beef in this regard is that Feyre gets triggered getting locked in, but the first time she gets taken by Rhysand and HE locks her in a room, she's totally fine, despite being actually low key scared of him at that point still and him not taking her home despite her asking him to. It just makes no sense, even with the added wing scene (which I did not remember, so thanks for that). I get that in the Tamlin version she is hysterical (for lack of better term) so it ends in a panic attack, but still.

There's also the part of how she has all these freak outs in the spring court while she is totally able to just literally re-enact her UTM experience in hewn city. Did that not bother you? Yes Rhys calms her and shit, but I couldn't help but eyeroll at that.

In the end I think it's just very manipulative writing to prime you on Rhys good, Tam bad. Spring Court lame, Night Court awesome. When SJM wants something to happen in the plot, it will happen, no matter if it makes sense. Be it the Tamlin-Rhys switcheroo, the UTM sexy scene, the pregnancy plotline, what have you. It's why every new book retcons something from the previous ones.

Personally, I can float with that and accept the silliness of it all quite well. But in consequence it also means I do not take the trauma plot as serious as some and I really do not care whether or not Tamlin is abusive and so on....

[nanatsuyu]

I feel like it’s not talked about enough that early in the books Kevin is the only person we see Andrew initiating any type of physical closeness/touch with at all … also thinking about how they’re described physically with each other in Son of Nefes like. so much tenderness (@ your tags about how Andrew carries himself around Kevin and Neil)

I definitely think their closeness in the beginning gets overshadowed a lot by how close Andrew and Neil get later in the series. And that's not a diss on andreil! I think it's important to Andrew's character to see that while Neil played a very large part in letting Andrew explore his boundaries and grow comfortable with physical affections, there were others that helped in that healing along the way too.

One of my favourite scenes is the one where Kevin takes his glove off for Andrew to inspect his hand for any damages. It's written in such a way that implies they weren't paying any attention to the rest of the world around them. Matt had been carded, the play was over and a fight had broken out, and during that sliver of time, either Andrew had hailed Kevin over or he'd gone of his own volition to the goal for Andrew to give his injuries a one over. Kevin knew he was going to get swapped out, and they both turned somewhat surprised when Dan called out to Kevin, as if the game being in play was an afterthought. (Which, considering it's Kevin, seems somewhat ooc since he always knows what's going on on court).

And, although we don't have the exact words regarding Andrew's deal with Kevin, it was implied in the most basic terms that Andrew would protect Kevin from Riko. (There's obviously nuance here given Andrew's bodyguard tendencies when Kevin gets into later spats with people, but for the sake of how vague most of Andrew's deals are spoken aloud, I think it's safe to assume he promised to protect Kevin from his big bad not sibling in the same way he promised to have Neil's back). All that just to say... It wasn't really in their deal for Andrew to protect or look after Kevin outside of his affiliations with the Ravens. And yet, even after threatening to break his own hand before all this, because Kevin annoyed the piss out of him so much, here he was, inspecting Kevin's hand and putting the game on hold to do so.

This injury has nothing to do with Riko or the Ravens. So, in terms of their deal, he didn't really need to dote on Kevin like that. And yet.

And yet.

And this is really only one instance of them being glued at the hip. Andrew does a lot of redirecting of Kevin's person in the same way we see him do later with Neil. Like you said as well, Kevin's the only one for some pages that we see Andrew physical with that isn't necessarily reactionary or defensive. I know Andrew was still on his meds at the time, but this line came across to me as him literally shoving Andrew down court who didn't seem to take much issue with the it:

He doesn't make much mention of it, but if I had to wager a guess, these moments of familiar contact are not a new thing upon Neil's arrival.

(Also it's been a hot minute since I skimmed through son nefes (the ec and I are on cherry picking terms most days) but I know Renee saw it too.)

Like it makes me insane to think about how their deal didn't have to incorporate all that closeness. It didn't require Andrew to become intertwined with the rest of Kevin's life and daily going on's. He could have agreed to keep him on a leash from getting dragged out of the fox den by the Ravens and called it a day, but we can see clear as day that Andrew treats his relationship with Kevin far more delicately than that. In terms of canon, the best friend (platonic soul bond or whatever title floats your fancy) behaviour jumped out of Andrew so fast, I'm shocked how anyone could overlook it.

And I haven't even touched on how Wymack views their relationship, or Kathy's show, or the role Andrew plays as Kevin's other half post Evermore, or the first genuine smiles are the ones they give each other, or the pseudo threat of the butter knife scene, or whatever they had going on here:

Like, there are certainly motions that can be considered varying levels of tender, but I do think it's important to remember that Andrew's gestures should not be measured with the same scale as say someone like Renee. We can obviously see in later chapters that Andrew can be incredibly gentle (ie the hip kiss that ruined my life), but I think it's a disservice to Andrew's character to understate how close he and Kevin are through the series, both physically and emotionally.

[xxplastic-cubexx]

sorry if you've already mentioned but what (re?)ignited your love of comics/x-men/cherik? curious because there are so many different adaptations of them

i think im gonna speak for a few (or a lot of) people when i say that TL;DR the wolverine x deadpool movie that came out this summer is what pulled me back into comics and i COULD leave it there but i will go into excruciating and unnecessary detail instead because i love an origin story and i love oversharing.

under the cut tho because im nice sometimes (there's also wxdp doodles in here. if you want to see that)

ironically (and probably commonly), growing up i was more of an avengers kid. Kinda. Loosely <- binge watched the cartoons and movies and read copious amounts of comics and fics and i am hoarding fanart in my old dresser as we speak ok 'loosely' is a modest lie.

embarrassingly i remember getting into discus cause of captain america LMAO so yeah needless to say i was a Humble Fan- me joining my school's comic class/club didnt help either (shoutout to my teach from that she was the realest one out there for. A Multitude of reasons). she definitely is was inspires me to even draw still and make comics and i often think bout the tips i learned from her class tbh she was great

back to the movies t and comics tho, i got into em because my brother would offer to take me and that's how we'd hang out (i rarely saw movies in theaters and i even more rarely went anywhere as a teenager. still kinda like that today tbh ooops) and yk. it just snowballed after that.

my brother and i have always liked comics- he just more than me for a while (though he still very much loves comics and As We Know From My Posts we still talk about them whenever i see him To An Exhausting Degree)

durin then i was really into stony and i have a few surviving doodles i made but those are between me and god. and anyone who asks tbh LOL

'snap can you make this related to x-men again this is long' ok so fast forward to This Summer again I Still Don't Really See Movies but my brother offered to take me and this was the first time i'd actually seen an x-men movie in full

as a kid i only remember seeing the 'perfection' scene between erik and raven in first class while i was channel surfing. pretty sure i changed the channel after seeing mystique naked cause i was scared my parents would get mad at me if they caught me watching it LOL

BUT MOVING ON As A Kid i think it's also natural you'll sometimes watch 92 if it's on And I Did though evidently it didn't stick too hard (i do remember really liking beast and gambit though.... still do really): my knowledge of x-men was. INCREDIBLY sparse. like diabolically so so i didnt have too much expectations (aside from the fact i vaguely liked deadpool beforehand).

tbh i dont know why my bro never took me to see any of the x-men movies. it's not like he doesn't Also like x-men (90% sure nightcrawler's his favorite but my brother will be caught dead saying he has absolute favorites like that)- he owns a bitch load of deadpool comics/omnibus sets too (of which ive read over the years and reread this year) but Shrug moving on

Much Like Most Of The Internet i fell down the rabbit hole that way. i have some doodles i made a couple days after seeing WxDP that i now have an excuse to throw at all of you Look And Perceive

and so. As I Do. i got curious and told myself i'd binge watch all the x-men movies the week before i went back to school And Then I Did ft. My Brother Sometimes and then i said i'd binge watch all of '92 and And I Did That ft. My Brother Sometimes But Less So and now we're here. currently watching Evolution...

once i got to school i realized i lived near a comic shop and started getting into the comics that way (the first ones i got since going down this rabbit hole was Magneto Was Right!, The Resurrection of Magneto, and The Trial of Magneto. if you were curious !!!!! clearly i didnt care too much about context i just needed to see My Guy jelvejlkvj i have no regrets and Evidently ive read more since)

i'm pretty sure what dragged me into cherik specifically was the fact i saw a clip of The Famous ending to 92 where erik's aghast at the notion jean even has to question his love for charles. i think that was what officially had me refocus my lens on them: not a single poolverine thought after that LOL (all the cherik posting i saw on twitter definitely helped too but that was the nail in the coffin for any other interests i had: i was locked into cherik and x-men in general now)

that clip specifically, i was surprised at the fact they- frequently even- have the x-men franchise say erik loves charles and vice versa so bluntly. even if it's not meant to be romantic, i fear im just a fan of how casually the word's thrown around with them two and i got tender bout it all. Then Yk. i just live for the drama. the hilarity even. the sincerity .... they make me sick if i think of them too long so im gonna end it here

before i go tho ironically enough, the first x-men issue i owned was This one (story a this is that while stuck in some wacko dimension charles accidentally gets himself trapped in logan's mind while utilizing his astral projection. if you were curious). pretty sure i got it for free with another comic set i got years ago since our old comic shop loved to do that, but it's poetic aint it. maybe ill doodle something referencing it..

i should probably look into finishing this arc someday im Dummy curious to even know how it started and how it ends.....

[thedrotter]

not-yet-dead-person

silly comic of a conversation in-game i thought was too funny not to make something proper for instead of a doodle ww

(timelapse + wip images (thus silly process commentary in read more if you like artist commentary :3)

i think the sketch looks silly and goofy and funny so i find it important to share with you the mere presence of the faces i drew on it. i drew it on top of the boxes without staying inside its borders because i find my proportions can get wonky if i draw them cropped in a restricted space. and I feel trapped otherwise and i will draw BAD!!! give me spaceeeee to go wild!!!!

the head circles are there for emotional support

very low res speedpaint because truth is the canvas was much bigger than the space where my comic was placed. i didnt account when exporting my timelapse in 720px that that tiny space would look so pixelated ... but it's able to be percieved, so its okay.

(i will now comment on my process and it is not brief sorry)

usually i would try to clean up my sketches and figure out what goes on top before jumping into linework, but since there are multiple panels and drawings i chose to jump into inking right away for the sake of brevity. i just went in with a brush that uses pen pressure and drew what was needed. i added extra line thickness and contrast in areas around the face because it helps direct your eyes there more easily that way.

according to her equipment rei has a chain belt but i only remembered it existed once I was going to color, and i did not like that discovery... I chose to ignore it to maintain my peace. i already have the color palettes for these characters figured out, and i didnt really want to think about a new element at the moment www I tend to overthink those things a lot so i skipped it

the rest is rather straightforward! not that anything else wasn't, but in here i could turn my brain off and sing. linework and sketching require mumbling so i cannot turn my brain off. just block in the characters with a solid color so i can have a mask (something along those lines,) where the color can stay inside. then just color in !!!

Base colors just had slight cell shading on the skin, and for the hair i airbrush a bit of the skincolor in low opacity near the forehead... I'm not sure what it means, but i can look at the faces easier with it somehow. i like the gentle subtlety it adds even if you cant really tell. it makes things look nice.

background was just me blocking in the color of the wall and floor, shade the wall a bit, then slap a noise and free use wood texture on top. work smarter not harder ! yet it took a bit to make it look stylistically fitting with the characters, and even now i think bottom middle panel looks odd. whatever!!!

for the middle panel i thought itd be funny if the background was a solid silly and colorful one to contrast the next panel's sketchy black one. a contrast to how the word widow is seen. on that note my handwritting is not pointy. i gaslighted my hand into thinking that it was indeed pointy in that moment so i could write "not-yet dead person" in letters that didn't seem cute. my hand did not fall for it but it complied anyway

that's basically it! I'm not sure what else i could say that doesn't feel barebones because it really is that straightforward. if you're curious I used clip studio paint for this. only special brush used was for linework (a brush named Lemon Brush), the rest used were just the default. my computer gets the least credit. it was trying to convince me a 20mb file was going to nuke it all the time and hardly let me save multiple times so i do not appreciate it

[cerealmonster15]

IM GOING TO TALK ABOUT ALHAITHAM AND KAVEH AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!!

i love this fuckin argument kaveh and alhaitham have on the port ormos bulletin board

it's one of those instances where kaveh and alhaitham are arguing and alhaitham is saying that like, while he disagrees with kaveh lol, he also doesnt deny theres truth to what kaveh says.

but i also think it's funny how alhaitham is like "end of conversation. ALSO-" like bitch you kept going IMMEDIATELY fkjsjfklds and then that stupid bit where theyre like "he said this" "he did not fucking say that" "he did" "no he didnt fuck you" "he did give me a month ill prove it!!!!" THEYRE FIGHTING LIKE CHILDREN ON A PUBLIC MESSAGE BOARD😭😭😭

also i have this one bit stuck forever in my mind from kavehs hang out

[video source i screenshot from]

MAYBE im reading into it way too much bc i have terminal haikaveh brain. maybe. BUT!!!! art is subjective i can do what i want :^) anyway i think a lot about this part because TO ME it sounds like kaveh keeps assuming the worst from alhaitham - makes sense, they argue all the time and they def have a turbulent relationship. HOWEVER!!!!! while alhaitham does like poking fun at kaveh and gets annoyed with him dskjfdsklf i FEEL LIKE theres an implication that he like, does not enjoy seeing kaveh suffer the way kaveh just assumes he does.

like here, kaveh is like oh, youre not hoping to see me make a fool of myself are you >:(?? just bc alhaitham was like. in a location unexpectedly. lol. and then alhaithams phrasing is just so specific where he like, doesnt say yes but doesnt say no either lol. hes like "oh so you think i get joy from seeing you in pain day in and day out? well if that were true id be entertained always because youre always in distress"

but like. I DUNNO MAYBE IM BEING STUPID BUT JKSDLFJDKL to ME it felt like he was deflecting the question. to be fair it was a silly question so maybe alhaitham didnt think it worth answering lololol but like "are you here to watch me struggle" "why do you assume i enjoy you struggling" is the vibe i get. but then with bullying also bc alhaitham is still poking at him and his distresses lol jdkslfdskl

and then like the moment the traveler is about to be like "kavehs feeling sad" and kaveh tries to deflect it, i personally think alhaitham managed to come up with a distraction to get kaveh to walk away for a minute so he could hear about kavehs troubles bc hes IMMEDIATELY LIKE

ok now that hes gone tell me about kaveh and his issues. and then goes on to explain kaveh and his behavior

and there are SEVERAL INSTANCES i mean this is an obvious thing lol but like, many such cases where kaveh and alhaitham will be like "yeah this guy is incredibly smart but his personality is fucking unbearable" i just enjoy that as much as they rag on each other theyre still like "no he is a genius though im not gonna deny that" AND ALSO [help]

alhaitham says stuff like this a few times, i think hes got a teapot line or so where he says similar things 🤔 but hes like "yeah people go about their lives doing different things and thats fine everyone should stay in their lane as long as theyre not disrupting the lives of others" AND YET!!!!!!!!!!!! he and kaveh endlessly fight with each other on how they go about their lives. trying to get the other to see their way of thinking even though i think they both acknowledge [or it says somewhere in the lore that they do] that it is a losing battle bc theyre both really set in how they see things and their methods of doing things. I JUST FIND IT REALLY INTERESTING that alhaitham is like, "mind your business and ill mind my business what ever bye" but when it comes to kaveh hes like. no actually i have to debate you. the way you feel isnt wrong however your actions make your life really hard for yourself and you could be living better if you changed" like he cannot stay in his lane when kaveh is involved!!!!! and like the whole reason he's even IN the parade of providence event at all was bc he was pursuing a thread of research that he figured out was connected to kavehs dad and his disappearance!!! mister "i dont want to get involved if it doesnt disrupt my life" got involved to give his boy some closure on the haunting of his dead father!!!!!!!!!! I am going to explode now goodbye!!!!

[mamawasatesttube]

I am lost in the sauce of thinking about how Bruce would react to Robin!Kon. Does he obsess over the fact that an alternate version of him lost and replaced Tim? Does he feel guilty for not taking Kon in in this version of reality? Is he paranoid about and/or intrigued by the potential of a Superboy with full Robin training?

(Knowing Bruce, it’s probably option D: all of the above, but expressed in the worst way.)

he would stand on the roof and brood. so much.

GOD okay no but delving into the bruce and kon dynamic is so... HNG. it's thorny because bruce has been written as warm and kind to kon AND an anti-meta racist asshole to kon. because of who i am as a person i tend to ignore and throw out the latter bc i want to like bruce and its really impossible to make him consistent as a character without picking and choosing stuff to throw out, but... whoof.

but with that established it's so... augh. the idea of having lost tim (who only ever became robin because he lost jason first - that's two robins, two kids, dead, one after another) absolutely would haunt him. the idea of superboy (an alternate universe superboy, no less, one he knows very little about) knowing all the bat secrets and tips and tricks... well, it's not as bad as it could be, since he does trust clark's judgment and clark trusts superboy and all, but. it's not his favorite thing.

honestly, i think main universe bruce would be so fucking awkward with robin kon, more than anything. he wouldn't know how to handle the horror of his existence + this version of kon who knows him so much better than he knows kon.

what i think is really fun, though, is robin kon's relationship with his own bruce.

tim dies. bruce spirals hard. he's in a dark pit. this is jason all over again - worse, in a way, because he never fully got over jason and now it's happening again and all the old wounds are reopening but now there's new ones on top. he is in a deep, dark pit.

and then superboy joins him there.

this is a young kon. he's still sixteen. he's never experienced loss before. his first brush with grief is his best friend being ripped away from him, and he's barely even a year old. it consumes him.

so he gravitates to the other person being wholly consumed by grief. and here's bruce, broken and grieving hard and furious with the world and himself, faced with another child who loved the child he just lost so much he can't let go. what can he do? can he bring himself to turn aside a boy who loved his boy? tim's best friend? can he really?

of course he can't.

they don't make each other better so much as they just... keep each other on a leash. bruce can't let himself go too far, get too reckless or suicidal or masochistic in punishing himself, because if he has a near-scare there's a boy waiting for him back home to cry and scream and rip into him that he can't do that, he can't, i've already lost tim you can't make me lose you too you can't do that to me you can't.

he trains kon to act as a robin. to wait, to listen, to learn. to hide his strength and his flight, to keep secrets bigger than himself. he trains kon and puts him behind robin's mask - another child in that costume, wearing new colors this time - and hopes he's not making a mistake.

but hey. at least this kid is more... crowbar/explosion/bullet-proof?

[gojuo]

Are you the strongest because you are gojo satoru or are you gojo saturo because you are the strongest? I never understood why geto said that to gojo, can you explain to me? Did he want to give gojo a reality check?

Actually, he wanted to give Gojo an identity crisis lmao. In other words, what Geto's saying is that: Are you you? ("Are you the strongest because you are Gojo Satoru?") Or are you letting your strength define your sense of self? ("Are you Gojo Satoru because you are the strongest?").

In that moment, Geto was completely defeated/resigned/pessimistic (I can't find the right word arghggg) because he realized that what he wanted to achieve, he never could. But Gojo totally could because in the year between Riko's death and that moment, he had surpassed anyone and everything, and had become — for a lack of a better term — an untouchable god (Infinity automatically on at all times; RCT & RCT: Red; Hollow Purple; Domain Expansion mastered; in the process of mastering brain healing 24/7; etc.).

What Toji did to Gojo was turn him from The Strongest to Stronger Than The Strongest (omgggg romance <3 Tojigo agenda never ends). Essentially, Gojo had become far stronger than Geto, a fellow Special Grade and part of "The Strongest Duo", was and had risen up to be in a league completely on his own. This event in his life + Geto going rogue gave way to the worsening of Gojo's identity crisis.

That identity crisis I'm talking about is Gojo's lifelong status as "The Strongest" and his role in Jujutsu Society from the second he was born.

"The curses' increasing strength... At that moment, I understood the reason why! It's because of him! It's because of Satoru Gojo!! It's like when a seemingly unbeatable track-and-field record gets broken! Or when figure skaters suddenly have to add more spins to their jumps due to a single athlete's prowess!! When Satoru Gojo was born... the balance of the world was altered!"

From the second Gojo was born, he was not allowed to be Gojo Satoru (himself; "Are you the strongest because you are Gojo Satoru?"). He was pushed into a role by his birth family, his clan, other clans, and the entirety of Jujutsu society. Gojo was never just Satoru, the child, or Satoru, the person. From birth on, he was the Six Eyes, the Limitless ("Are you Gojo Satoru because you are the strongest?"). The bounty on his head was already over a hundred thousand before he turned 10 years old.

When Satoru Gojo was born, the balance of the world was altered.

This meant that he was raised as The Strongest, a role not only pushed onto him by the society and family he was born into, but by fate itself (the Tengen affair — remember that the Six Eyes is connected to Tengen and the Star Plasma Vessels through fate. A fate broken by the only one who lives outside of it: Toji Zen'in the man with absolutely no cursed energy at all. TOJIGO AGENDA NEVER ENDS GRAAAAAAAHHH)

Being raised as a thing instead of a person would lead any child to an identity crisis. He says it himself in ch. 236

He feels like nobody truly understands him, because there is nobody on his level of being. Nobody can stand beside him because of the disparity in strength between him and everybody else. He feels like he can't ever let anybody inside. He feels this way because Gojo defines his own sense of self — his identity and his own existence — through the strength he holds ("Are you Gojo Satoru because you are the strongest?"). Because he was raised to think like that. Because he was pushed into the role of "The Strongest" by fate, his family, all of society before he was able to define himself as just himself.

Gojo going to Jujutsu High in his teens would have been the first time he actually spent meaningful time with people who live outside of rigid clan society and culture. Geto, Shoko, Nanami and Haibara, none of them are from clans, so none of them would have treated him as if he were the Six Eyes and the Limitless first, human second. They would have treated him as just Gojo Satoru, their classmate in high school. Like a normal person. His belief system would have been challenged for the first time since his identity wouldn't be characterized by how strong he is, by his role as The Strongest in Jujutsu society. He'd just be another kid to his classmates.

Now that doesn't mean that his issues with his identity and Jujutsu society's dogma he was force-fed since birth were all fixed and everything was dandy, it just means that that line from Geto and his betrayal worsened what was already there and continuously reinforced and reaffirmed by Jujutsu society's penchant in making him a pariah (Nanami participated in this after Haibara's death btw, "Can't we just leave everything to him from now on?").

Are you the strongest because you're Gojo Satoru? Or are you Gojo Satoru because you're the strongest?

Geto asked this because he was angry at the world, defeated by it, and hurt by what Gojo had just said to him.

Because the thing is... Gojo is totally capable of killing all of humanity and creating a world only made up of only sorcerers. Gojo is The Strongest. Far stronger than Geto is. In the year between Riko's death and this moment, Gojo had far surpassed Geto in strength. The Strongest Duo — something that was a double-edged sword since it reaffirmed Gojo's belief that the measure of one's strength and prowess defines one's sense of identity BECAUSE there is now another Special Grade that is as strong as him, on the same level as him, therefore feeding into his confirmation bias — was no more. Gojo achieved enlightenment, Geto did not. Therefore, he was upset by Gojo saying that Geto wanting to create a world with only sorcerers was meaningless and impossible. And so Geto hit him where it hurt: Are you Gojo Satoru? Or are you just the role assigned to you?

Are you the strongest because you're Gojo Satoru? Are you your own person?

Or are you Gojo Satoru because you're the strongest? Or are you just a thing? A thing called The Strongest?

The second Gojo was born, he was dehumanized. Not just by his family, not just by Jujutsu society, but by the world itself. He was born into a world that adjudged him to be a thing — in his own words: an adored flower standing far above humanity and therefore untouchable in every sense of the way — not a person, an actual human being with his own identity. His time in high school, where he lived and existed outside of the confines of clan culture for a short period of time, was probably the first time in his life where he felt human. There were kids his age who weren't raised in clans, who weren't fed Jujutsu dogma from the second they started breathing, who didn't know him as The Strongest. He was just a fellow kid. And there was Geto, who was a Special Grade just like him, someone that Gojo would have categorized to be the same as him and who he would have projected his uncertainty about his own identity onto as well (because of his confirmation bias).

And then Toji comes along and changes his life forever. It's so ironic (and also the biggest reason why I love this ship so much), the one and only person who lives outside of the confines of fate (zero cursed energy) destroys and redefines the one person who came into existence precisely because of said fate (the Six Eyes is born because fate calls for them to be born in order to help Tengen with the merger). Gojo dies and comes back to life enlightened. All because "a monkey who couldn't even use Jujutsu" killed him. The poetry of it all, my god....

Okay anyways I'm getting distracted (Tojigo agenda never ends) what I'm trying to say is that Geto went through a complete different experience than Gojo did, and got left behind basically. While Gojo grew stronger and stronger (not necessarily a good thing for him), Geto went off the deep end and stayed stagnant on the powerscale.

This happening to Geto leads to his betrayal + him asking that question which in turn led to the worsening of Gojo's identity crisis. Because Gojo chose to define himself through the strength he holds and not through being his own person. And that belief only got reaffirmed more and more because Gojo truly became untouchable, truly reached enlightenment and lived on a plane not a single person could reach, not even the other person who was also called "The Strongest". So when Geto asked him, "Are you the strongest because you're Gojo Satoru? Or are you Gojo Satoru because you're the strongest?" he's asking, who are you really? Are you a person who happens to be the Strongest also? Or are you The Strongest, and nothing else?

Gojo, throughout his entire life up until that point, was raised to be and treated by everyone as the latter. During high school and his time together with another "The Strongest" around, he found a taste of humanity within his own self. Geto then goes rogue and asks this question, and Gojo decides that yes indeed, he is the latter. He validates his own dehumanization through making that choice.

And what's awful about this is that, he didn't need to do allat. He didn't need to isolate himself, he didn't need to decide that no one would or could understand him, nor did he need to resign himself to the role of "adored flower" that was pushed onto him since birth. Why? Well, Shoko says it best here in ch. 220:

Gojo made the choice to let his sense of self be defined by his status as The Strongest ("Or are you Gojo Satoru because you're the strongest?"), when that shit wasn't needed at all. But as a child, when all the people that surround you, the people who gave birth to you, the people who raised you all parrot the same shitty idea that he is The Strongest The Strongest the strongest the strongestthestrongestthestrongestthestrongestthestrongest, and then that kid escapes to high school where he has a few years of being allowed to be a normal teenager and then his BFF decides to become Jujutsu Hitler and throw that The Strongest crap back into his face right where it hurts? Well, what did anyone expect? It's just fucking sad.

And that's also the reason why I hated his death and the conclusion to his character, because Gojo dying without ever getting over being "The Strongest" while he was alive means that his character stayed stagnant throughout the entire story. And I cannot explain to you enough how much I hate that. But that's a topic for another time, so I'm ending this analysis that got way longer than I intended here. I hope this helped you understand that scene better ♥

[kyunsies]

hi loves i have neglected mx info since i've been on vacation i will hopefully be back on a normal schedule soon <3

[ask-mark-stuff]

I once left 23+ asks in this box and I haven’t seen them all

Sorry kids! Me and Mark are a little busy with our lessons and activities sometimes, so we don't really get to answer everything quickly!

Yeah..we love every ask though! :}

[conspicuous-clown-car]

ougghhh next month is gonna be BUSY

finish playing all fnaf games (SL-HW2) on twitch, make (as in like literally sewing) an outfit for a concert, ARTFIGHT which will probably take up most my time, putting together/making several cosplays for a con (one im not excited to cosplay as but im doing it for my partner), plus some other stuff i definitely forgot, all on top of working. wwouughbh

[tagiscool]

I'm doing great