#this is exactly the second time i’ve done exactly this in less than 24 hours

[angeldrawsstuffs]

Just wanna get down some of my thoughts about Monstrosity’s release date because, while I am excited for it… I absolutely HATE the way this release has been done for a multitude of reasons.

Again, getting this out of the way so nobody gets it twisted: I AM EXCITED FOR MONSTROSITY AND CANNOT WAIT TO WATCH, I AM PURELY TALKING ABOUT THE MARKETING AROUND IT HERE, NOT THE SHOW ITSELF, I’M CERTAIN IT’S GONNA BE FANTASTIC. WE GOT THAT? GOOD. /lh

Ok so the fact we didn’t know when exactly this thing was coming out on streaming until THE DAY BEFORE is absolutely wild, right? Like, no matter what franchise you’re talking about, fans not knowing for certain when something will be released until the day before is a terrible idea. Over the past few weeks I’ve heard so many different rumored release dates thrown around and none of them were correct. Actually- less than a day before, really.

The fact it only got one trailer is actually like- legitimately something I’m not upset about. It’s a short spinoff series, one trailer is pretty much the standard for that.

Ok, second of all, I won’t harp on this one too much because I’ve talked this to death in other posts but Lego- please for the love of all that of holy let your other themes EXIST without needing to insert Ninjago into everything for two minutes please. Like- Dreamzzz S3 got 10 days to itself before Monstrosity. I get it, Ninjago’s the golden child moneymaker, but that also means new Ninjago content can WAIT to let other themes breathe. Honestly every time this happens it distracts me more and more from the new Ninjago thing because the frustration with this repeatedly happening and Ninjago overshadowing other themes keeps growing. Like, at least give your other stuff two weeks Lego, I thought we learned this lesson the past bajillion times you’ve done this.

To another point why I think this whole release has been a mess… You’d have to be in dedicated fandom spaces and/or checking Lego’s YouTube channel to know that it’s coming out tomorrow (technically today as of writing this cuz it’s past midnight). Like, all other reasons aside, I think we can all acknowledge that’s just a terrible marketing call. Like, I will not be surprised if people who aren’t constantly checking social media (so like- most people) don’t realize Monstrosity came out because there was, and I repeat, less than 24 hour’s notice of it happening.

Also- a Sunday? Ok I know that’s pedantic but Sunday is such an odd day to drop the series, especially with the very sudden release.

One last thing, I feel like dropping the series on streaming only three days after showing it at a convention feels pretty soon. Like, you’d want to wait to build up the hype more and make the early screening for those who were at the panel feel more special, yeah? Cuz like- idk about anyone else but three days doesn’t feel like a lot of time in terms of getting to see it early. Maybe a week would’ve been better?

If I think of more I’ll post about it but- yeah. Overall my opinion is now just that Lego is terrible at marketing any of their animated media that isn’t mainline Ninjago (as in the main show, not any spin-offs or other such things like Monstrosity). Seriously mainline Ninjago is like the ONLY show that gets halfway decent marketing (even then they fall into the issue of it getting excessive- yeah I’m still hung up on the two months straight of weekly DR S3 “trailers” reusing the same footage and presenting it like new stuff).

Am I just losing my last marble or does anyone else feel this way? Like- that the handling of Monstrosity’s release has been… iffy at best.

[art-of-manliness]

Make a Week of Cheap, Easy, High-Protein Breakfasts in Less Than an Hour

If you’re looking to eat healthier, one of the best things you can do to make that happen is to make eating healthier easy. Like stupid easy. So easy, you hardly have to think about it. One way to accomplish this is to prepare your meals in advance so you know exactly what’s in them, and so that when you’re pressed for time, you don’t default to eating whatever unhealthy options are on hand or getting expensive, no-good-for-you fast food. When it’s time to eat, you just grab your ready-made meal from the fridge or freezer. You know, meal prep. One make-ahead meal I’ve been enjoying recently is a high-protein breakfast bake. I got the idea from a fella named Johnny Hadac on Instagram who serves up easy, affordable meal prep recipes for people looking to lose weight/eat better. This breakfast bake takes about 15 minutes to prep. The thing that takes the most time is dicing up your veggies. Bake time is about 35 minutes. When you’re done, you’ll have six tasty, high-protein, low-carb mini breakfast casseroles that will leave your belly feeling nice and full, but without a ton of calories.  Just take a look at the macro breakdown for each bake: * Protein: 50 grams * Carbs: 12 grams * Fat: 22 grams * Total Calories: 452 Cost per bake is $3.50. You’d pay about $13 for a similar breakfast bake from one of those companies that sell ready-to-eat meals online. I know, because I’ve bought them before. So these babies are tasty, healthy, and cost-effective. Here’s how to make them. Ingredients * 6 eggs * 24 ounces egg whites * 24 ounces low-fat cottage cheese * 12 ounces mild cheddar cheese * 6 precooked chicken sausages (you can buy them already cooked) * 1 onion * 3 bell peppers * Salt and pepper Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit Queue up the Art of Manliness Podcast Great to listen to while you’re prepping these. Dice Onion and Bell Peppers This is what will take most of your time. Lay Out Six Cooking Pans on a Table We’re going to prep these like they’re on a Henry Ford Model-T assembly line. I used these aluminum meal prep pans that you can buy at most grocery stores. I recommend doing the same when you first try this out. If you decide to make this a regular thing, you can buy some Pyrex pans. It will save you money, and you’ll be able to reheat your bake in the microwave right in the dish. Spray Each Pan With Cooking Spray Crack One Egg in Each Pan Add ½ Cup of Egg Whites to Each Pan Add ½ Cup of Low-Fat Cottage Cheese to Each Pan If cottage cheese makes you squeamish, don’t worry, you don’t taste it. But it gives the bake more protein and some bulk. Add 1 Diced Sausage to Each Pan I used Al Fresco Sweet Apple Chicken Sausages. Why? Because it was the only precooked chicken sausage available at my local Walmart Neighborhood Market. You could use whatever precooked meat you want to use: bacon, ham, ground beef, whatever. I used chicken sausage because it’s lower in fat and higher in protein. Add ¼ Cup of Mild Cheddar Cheese to Each Pan Add a Handful of Veggies to Each Pan Sprinkle With Salt and Pepper and Mix Ingredients Together You can also add other seasonings as desired, like Old Bay. You know I love me some Old Bay! Bake in the Oven for 35 Minutes Bam! A Week’s Worth of High-Protein Breakfasts If you baked them in the aluminum pans, just slide them onto a plate to reheat in the microwave. ~90 seconds should do the trick.  These actually taste really good cold.  I like to hit mine with some sort of hot sauce before consuming.  Enjoy! The post Make a Week of Cheap, Easy, High-Protein Breakfasts in Less Than an Hour appeared first on The Art of Manliness. http://dlvr.it/T2WgsP

[rosy-toast-and-moons]

13 reasons why

‘The clerk wrapped the package. The same shoebox that sat on my porch less than 24 hours before; re wrapped in a brown paper bag, sealed with clear packing tape, exactly as I had received it. But now adressed with a new name. The next name in Hannah bakers list. “Bakers Dozen.” I feel disgusted for even noticing it.’

omg this book broke me. I don’t think there was a chapter I was happy. Like genuinely I think Asher wants to keep me deep in my bookworm induced depression. 

‘You can’t stop the future. You can’t rewind the last. The only way to learn the secret

…Is to press play.’

Clay Jensen returns home from school to find a mysterious box with his name on it outside his front door. Inside he discovers a series of cassette tapes recorded by Hannah baker- his classmate and crush. This should fill him with joy, but instead he only feels dread. Hannah committed suicide two weeks earlier. On the first tape Hannah explains that there are 13 reasons for what she did to herself and clay is one of them. If he listens clay will find out how he made the list- what he hears will change him forever. 

The style of writing is not one I’ve seen before and I have not seen it since but I thoroughly enjoyed it. Clay is a heartfelt narrator you can’t help but side with as he listen to the tapes recorded by his former classmate, desperate to find out what he could have done to make her want to kill herself. Every character seems to have a small part in a big picture, no matter how unknown or useless they seem. Whether they are part of Bakers dozen or an anonymous in the crowd. I fell in love with this book a million times while reading. While the ending was not a happy one, but an open bittersweet one, I did not feel like the story had ended badly. Although at the time I was desperate to know if there was a second book, or even a few missing pages from my copy, the ending never left more to be desired and was perfect in my eyes (though I’m still desperate for a sequel Asher, please I know it’s been like 10 years, but still). 

I recommend avout 12/13+, with the obvious themes of suicide throughout there is also several mentions of the types of things the dozen did to her. I will not put them in this post as not to spoil any of the book but if you need to you can search it up. I read it earlier this year and it hooked me in immediately. I regardless of what you usually read you should give this book a stab at, you never know how a few carefully selected word might change you. 

[kyleondemand]

My Neurodivergence

Hi 👋

This feels a little melodramatic, to be truthful. But I just wanted a place to write my thoughts down.

I’ve been on a hell of a journey lately, a lot of it discovering the quirks that make up my process, what interests me and why, and discovering all kinds of outcomes. But there are two major discoveries about myself I’ve only just learned in the past couple years. For the record, I am almost 38 years old as I write this. Had I any clue about these quirks, I wonder how different my life would have wound up.

The first major discovery:

ADHD.

I can hear the groans from all the way over here.

These days this “disorder” is a ton less scrutinized but when I was growing up no one had any idea what it really meant, hell there are movies that point out the super weird hyper kid in the corner who can’t keep his motormouth shut as simply “that’s the kid with not just ADD, but ADHD; steer clear of that nut case”. Not so anymore, as the condition has become so normalized these days it’s now seen as an endearing trait in media and they’ve even removed ADD altogether, merging it into a general “ADHD” umbrella.

3 years ago, I came across a simple YouTube short entitled “ADHD Simulator” and not 10 seconds in my jaw was on the floor. Every, SINGLE, frame showcased exactly what I’ve considered just normal brain doing normal things but painted under the light of.. maybe this isn’t normal afterall.

You mean to tell me… that there are people out there that DONT have a song playing in their head 24/7? They also DONT have 2 to 6 different conversations speaking over that music? They also DONT have that constant nagging voice speaking directly to you at all times reminding you of shit you were supposed to remember hours ago? They also DONT have another voice cracking the whip constantly reminding you to get shit done? All simultaneously? You mean there are people out there who can look at a task and just get the task done and not need to worry about getting 2 or 6 other tasks done first before they can get to that one? How do you just DO the dishes and not completely clean the kitchen first? I can’t even fry eggs on the stove without making sure every counter top is free of clutter that could get in my way first.. but then doing that might not leave much room for getting the dishes done.

See that’s the thing is it’s not “OCD”, it’s a need to break tasks down into smaller more manageable chunks but then the number of chunks adds up into something overwhelming. And when the mind of ADHD gets overwhelmed it shuts down or simply loses interest and off to the next thing we go. What passes off as laziness or slacker type behaviour being unable to focus on the task at hand winds up simply being a case of not enough time in the day to get all the foundational stuff done first.

Are you the type of person who can reasonably work on long term projects and be perfect happy? Then there’s me when I finally hit a challenge I’m either uninterested in overcoming or find it overwhelming to get to solving and just find myself starting a new project instead.

The more and more behavioural analysis I do on myself as I look back at my own history of decisions, big and small, and looking at how I dealt with situations and how things wound up the way they did.. every sign points to ADHD.

But ok, maybe that’s just confirmation bias. Maybe I’m looking for excuses to brand something on myself as a scape goat. So I turned to my family to ask them about it. We got my brother diagnosed back when we were teenagers, why not me? Turns out.. a lot of what I’m asking about my mother confessed to also having. Turns out, maybe the reason I thought I was more normal than I was was because by sheer coincidence almost everyone I lived with growing up also had it and didn’t realize it.

The name of the disorder also didn’t help to knock me off the scent. Because I’ve never had a problem paying attention to things. But that’s of course not what it really means. Sure makes my resulting grades in school make a lot more sense. A+ in the subjects I had even a passing interest in and teetering near D for everything else despite trying my actual best. Turns out people can still get decent grades in subjects they don’t care about because their mind isn’t constantly wandering off to something more interesting at the time.

So what does all this mean? Let’s play advocate for a minute and say I do have (undiagnosed) ADHD? What’s different now? Nothing.

Nothing changes. But, it does provide a ton of introspective insight into how I work, and I can try to work with that. I do plan to get officially checked for it, so I can definitively say one way or the other. But until then, if I could get the chorus from Weird Als Like a Surgeon on infinite repeat out of my brain so I can get to sleep already, that’d be great.

Aphantasia

No not the thing Bruce Willis has. That’s Aphasia.

This one’s a bit harder to nail down.

Where did you land on that scale?

Because to me? I sit someone between 4 and 5. I know what an apple is and what it’s supposed to look like. Can I visualize one in my head? Ehhhhhhhhhh. It gets tough. I have just about 38 years of life experience with working eyes to draw from. Like I said I can define the general appearance of an apple. Can I visualize one in my head right now? If I’m being honest, not really. Like it’s extremely vague to non-existent, likely best described as just abstract colors I’d like my apple to be.

Ross O’Donovan, aka RubberRoss, the animator, describes his own experience with it, as an artist and animator. Interesting right? How can someone illustrate.. without being able to visualize it in your head first? It’s a fair point, and that’s when Ross dropped the bomb on me: despite the fact that he can’t visualize a character like Goku in his head, he can define what shapes make up the character, and the rest comes down to what he called “muscle memory” from having drawn the character (usually from reference) so many times.

Suddenly, a massive aspect of my own life made sense, one that I didn’t even knew needed to be made sense of. I was watching that video and suddenly asking myself… wait.. other people walk around with photogenic pictures in their head of the thing on their minds?

I’ve always struggled with a blank canvas. Not just in the “I don’t know what to draw” kind of creative block, but in the.. even if I wanted to draw Sonic i dunno I know he’s blue and got big rectangles down his back and big red. Sites.

As a professional full stack web developer it’s got me in some.. interesting situations, where someone’s asking me to design a page… I’ve always had to work with designers for such situations. Once I got the mock up, I can crack my knuckles and get to work with the integration with convincing accuracy. But I needed that mock up first, you know?

This one’s still rocking my world a little. And I’m still trying to find some more information about it as time goes. Like, when I’m awake there’s nothing there but the ever increasing audible loudness of the conversations and looping music and of course whatever problem my brain has allowed me to focus on at that moment… but when I’m asleep, while there’s often nothing at all until I wake up, sometimes, occasionally, I dream very vividly; the dreams that stick with me after waking up are often very grounded in reality, with only a few exceptions in my life time. They’re things that can very much happen, and involve those who I have seen in real life. But the second I’m awake, poof.. gone.

Ok, it’s 2am now. I think my eyes are getting tired. Time to get some shuteye.

PS. Star Ocean Second Story R kicks ass.

[pisoprano]

Back when I posted the page before this one, I thought to myself, “I’ve done a bunch of work up front for this next page, so it will probably be out sooner than normal, right?”

Wrong. This page needed so much tweaking to get everything to fit (I shrunk so many things to make them take up less space) and juggle all these characters (especially the spot that’s just Oni-Chan mowing down all the temp heroes) and to draw all the little details (because where the characters are and what they can see are important information instead of just set dressing) and to have it all flow narratively (so many iterations went through for what exactly Carapace and Catwalker would say) and then to try to present it all in such a way to not confuse the reader with all these jumps (I’m still not convinced I got that right, but the transcript should help clarify a few things for anyone who’s scratching their heads)…

But none of that was the biggest obstacle to getting this page done. No, that honor goes to the fact that things in my personal life kept conspiring to keep me from being able to do the work.

(The rest is all just personal stuff, not comic commentary, so feel free to check out now)

First, we have my laptop. It has a touch screen that I can draw on with my stylus and it is what I’ve used to create every page of my comic thus far.

It decided to go into a coma.

So while I wait for it to come back from the repair guy, I took some time off, did a bit of writing for my other WIP on my phone, and then it happened: Loveybug.

What is Loveybug? She’s basically the opposite of Catwalker in that she’s an alternate Ladybug identity who is very over the top in love—me, blur0se, and asukiess all spent way too much time playing with her and the madness has now spread through the fandom here on tumblr. (Go look through the #Loveybug AU tag, she’s very fun and I love her).

About this time, my computer got fixed and I gladly brought it home and promptly started drawing this picture with everyone’s Loveybug designs at the time. I did start work on the comic again shortly after that, but my laptop was back in my possession for only a week when it decided that, no it did not want to deal with my enormous art files anymore and it would rather be dead instead.

I sent my computer back to the repair guy to get it fixed again, but shipping parts this time of year takes forever and I was not likely to see my computer again very soon. Taking advantage of a sale, I purchased for myself the cheapest drawing tablet I could find and plugged it into an old desktop computer that I ended up with when the company I used to work for abruptly closed. It’s a fairly clunky setup that’s uncomfortable to use, but I eventually got it to work well enough to make decent pictures. But still, I wanted my old laptop with its much more familiar drawing setup.

Finally, after a month of waiting, my computer was fixed a second time. Sure most of my files weren’t actually able to fit on the laptop anymore, but the repair guy gave me a hard drive with backup copies so it wasn’t completely lost. And, being the conscientious person I am, I decided to run a scan on the backup hard drive before I started trying to migrate the files back to my laptop.

It became a brick. Again. Not even 24 hours after having it back this time.

So now I am still waiting for my laptop to be fixed for the third time and I have been using a half-baked setup to draw to finish up the comic. I was hopeful that I’d be able to spend much of Christmas to get everything I needed to done to post it the following day.

My stomach had other ideas.

I’ll try to not get too into the details, but for the week leading up to Christmas, my stomach went into full-on boycott mode—it didn’t want food, it didn’t want drink, it didn’t even want water. And when your stomach refuses to let you even drink water, that can lead to this little thing called dehydration. Fortunately the hospital was able to give me something to help my stomach to chill out, but it also meant that all my plans to work on the comic on my day off were instead replaced with many hours with medical professionals trying to figure out what exactly was wrong with my body. Fun.

Fortunately this final delay only pushed me back by a week and I was FINALLY able to finish this page and post it.

Now I turn my face toward the next page in the pipeline and hope that I’ll be able to handle juggling everything I want to have happen in the next phase of this fight—it’s going to be a lot, so I’ll see you guys whenever it’s done.

Part 25. Best Friend Erasure (Oni-Chan 2.0, part B)

< First | < Previous | Next >

Description below the cut

Catwalker approaches Ladybug as she stands on a roof.  She points off in a far away direction.

Catwalker: Ladybug!  Oni-Chan is back, and this time her powers are—

Ladybug: I need you to go to one of the rooftops way over there and stay right there.

Catwalker: Are you sure?  I could do more here if I—

Ladybug: Just.  Go.

Catwalker: ...Yes, Ladybug.

Ladybug swings towards a rooftop where the other heroes have congregated near a Find Adrien billboard.  Viperion looks up at Ladybug.

Viperion: Ladybug!  Why isn't Catwalker with you?  Did you talk to him about... that thing I told you?

Ladybug: We talked.  He wasn't hiding what you thought he was.

Viperion: Oh.

Ladybug stands in a ‘take charge’ pose right in front of the billboard with Adrien’s face.  Most of the heroes gather in to look towards her, but Carapace looks off towards the direction Catwalker took instead.

Ladybug: And everybody, gather around! You should all know this.  Catwalker is on probation until further notice.

Viperion: Probation?  Isn't that kind of extreme?

Ladybug: I have my reasons.  He's keeping his miraculous, but you're the people I'm going to rely on to beat the akumas.  For now, consider him an observer and just ignore him.

Carapace starts using his shield as a phone to text his girlfriend.

Carapace (texting): Rena, why is Catwalker allowed to keep his miraculous?  We *have* to stop him from causing more damage.

Rena Furtive (texting): I'm watching him, don't worry.

Cut to Rena hiding on a rooftop as she uses her flute simultaneously as a telescope to spy on Catwalker and a phone to tap out a reply to her boyfriend.

Rena Furtive (texting): But if you want to try to get more info out of him as Carapace...?  I'm sure Ladybug wouldn't mind...

Carapace leaps towards Catwalker, who looks at him suspiciously.

Catwalker: Carapace?  What are you doing here?

Carapace: Ladybug said you were alone, and I thought you shouldn't be.

Catwalker: You should go back.  Ladybug needs every hero she can get.

Catwalker perches himself on the ledge of the building he’s atop of.

Carapace: Then why did Ladybug send you all the way out here?

Catwalker: She needs me.  I just... need to wait here.  Until she comes up with a plan for how she can use me.

Carapace: If you want to help, we can always work to protect Adrien Agreste.

Carapace opens his arms wide and tries to give a disarming smile, but he can’t help but show his underlying malice.

Carapace: If you know anything at all, I'm all ears!  Even if it's something you need to keep on the down low, I can be your confidant.  I'm a hero, after all!  You can trust me to keep secrets.

Catwalker, completely uninterested in going through another round of ‘my best friend pretends to like me when I know he’s secretly mad at me’ points his finger in accusation.

Catwalker: I see what you're trying to do and I'm not going to fall for it.

Carapace: Whaaat?  I'm not trying anything!

Catwalker: Nino.

Carapace: How did—I mean, who's Nino?

Catwalker: You forgot to tell Adrien that he shouldn't reveal secret identities to anyone.

Carapace, completely off put, tries to make this new bit of information add up.

Carapace: He told you about me?  Why would that even come up?  Unless...  Did he tell you he had a superhero for a best friend to try and convince you he didn't need you?

Carapace points an accusatory finger at Catwalker. Catwalker tries to placate, but he’s distracted by a burst of red light in the distance in the direction of the other heroes.

Carapace: And then you forced him to leave when he didn't want to and—

Catwalker: You have it all wr—Oh no.

Oni-Chan rapidly teleports between temporary heroes (all of whom had just been staring towards the giant face of Adrien) and hits them with her sword in quick succession: Vesperia, Viperion, King Monkey, Purple Tigress, Polymouse, Pegasus, and Pigella are all frozen before they can do anything to fight back.

Oni-Chan: You!  Won't!  Get!  In!  My!  Way!  Anymore!

Oni-Chan lunges for Ladybug, but she manages to swing out of the way with her yo-yo and escape, unable to be tracked because she was the only member of the group who hadn’t been staring at Adrien’s face.

Catwalker: Come on!  Ladybug needs our hel—

Catwalker leaps into the sky to follow Ladybug, but as he is in midair, a green sphere forms around him.

Carapace: Shell-ter!

After the sphere hits the ground, Catwalker looks up at Carapace, who stands at the edge on top of the nearest building tauntingly.

Catwalker: I don't want to fight you.

Carapace: Good!  Because you won't be able to fight anyone!

Catwalker: Look, we're both heroes right now.  We need to be able to work together to help Ladybug.

Inside the sphere, Catwalker kneels and looks down dejectedly.

Carapace: Ladybug doesn't want your help!

Catwalker: Maybe not right now, but—

Carapace: Why did you think she sent you so far out of her way?  She can't even stand to look at you!  No one needs you.  No one wants you.  You should just give up your miraculous and save us the troub—

Carapace’s attention is caught by something happening across the skyline of Paris: with the Agreste mansion at the epicenter, a flurry of black ribbons launches into the sky, each one racing toward a Find Adrien billboard.  Where each ribbon touches, the place where Adrien’s picture should be has been replaced by an empty white void.

Carapace (to himself): What the...?  ...the Adrien billboards...  All the pictures of Adrien...  He's gone.

Carapace points down at Catwalker accusingly and brings his shield in close.

Carapace: Why couldn't you have just done nothing and let his real friends help him?  Some magic ribbons just wiped Adrien from existence!

Catwalker: That's impossible.  A sentimonster probably just got rid of the Adrien ads.

Carapace: You don't get it!  He exists nowhere!  And I'll prove it!

Carapace uses his shield to navigate to the pictures on his phone.  His hand touches at the shield when it displays a picture of Nino and Adrien smiling together, nothing erased.

Carapace: I'll show you how this picture of the two of us is—

Catwalker: Wait.  Carapace, you need to drop it.  Now.

Carapace (to himself): Huh...?

Catwalker: Adrien is alive, I promise—

Carapace (to himself): He's still here with me...?

Catwalker: —but she's going to find you if you keep looking—

Oni-Chan pops in and out of existence just long enough to stab Carapace in the back, sending his body off the edge of the building.  Below them, Catwalker looks up and destroys the sphere around him.

Oni-Chan: Begone!

Carapace: Ack!

Catwalker: No!  Cataclysm!

Catwalker leaps into the air, arms reaching towards Carapace’s petrified body, all while the shield Carapace dropped in the commotion falls next to them.

Catwalker: I've got you!

Catwalker tearfully embraces the frozen Carapace from behind.

Catwalker: I am so sorry.  For everything.

Catwalker continues to hug Carapace tight as a flood of emotions spews forth.

Catwalker: I never wanted to hide behind a mask, especially not with you, Nino.  You've always encouraged me to be myself.  Even though I've never been able to fully show you everything I am, you accepted the 'me' I could give.  It meant so much to know that you cared, not just about the idea of me, but the real me.  And now I'm less 'me' than I've ever been.  Maybe it would have been better if I did nothing. But when she tried to kill me, I just... ran.  Ran and insisted I was fine like I always do.  And now you're the one paying for my rash decisions and I feel so powerless to stop it.  I hope one day you'll forgive me.

Catwalker places Carapace’s body upright and touches his back in a gesture of farewell.

Catwalker: I wish I could talk to you for real.  But I can't.  I can't leave when I might be needed.  Even if everyone hates that I'm here, I've got to help however I can.

Catwalker gives Carapace a fist bump in one final promise of their friendship.

Catwalker: I'll come home as soon as it's safe again.  I don't know how long it'll take, but I promise I will come back.

Below is the same image as above, only without text:

[goblinbabe666]

there really is something to be said about eating an entire raw tomato standing over the sink. just absolutely ham-fisting that shit into my face hole. juice running down my chin and hands. i am primal and i am free.