#this is that one panel WE ALL KNOW THAT ONE PANEL

[thechekhov]

You know, I love this comic dearly, but ever since I've put it out into the world, I realized that

I made a grave error in my script.

A lot of people in the comments have, understandably, tried to correct me on my choice of words, most specifically on this panel:

"And yet a chimp can not learn language the way a human can."

And I'm here to admit my mistake.............

I forgot to put a disclaimer reminding people that I do, in fact, know what the fuck I'm talking about.

Alright, I know that there's a fun little factoid that gets passed around a lot - that gorillas/apes/chimps can learn sign language, and therefore CAN do language as well!

And the thing is - no, that's not actually true. Not in the way you may have come to believe it.

If you want the TL;DR of it:

most, if not all, projects involving great apes and sign language were started and largely led by people with no actual native OR near-native understanding of sign language. Even if the apes DID learn signs, they did not learn ASL in any meaningful way.

the tapes used to prove that the apes were effectively communicating in 'sign' were heavily doctored and cut in order to make them seem more cohesive and convincing than they actually were

through a thorough review of the tapes, the apes (gorillas, chimps) involved were found to be effectively signing random things until the handler saw one that they thought was 'correct'

the handlers were often incredibly close to the apes and were often giving their charge signals - sometimes signing things for them to repeat, and the apes were often determined to be only copying signs their handler threw up, which was counted as 'correctly answering'

many, many apes often signed in an extremely limited manner - although they had the ability to sign many words, they rarely, if ever, asked questions - one of the main hallmarks of 'true' language use

human language is thoroughly agreed upon by linguists to be a specific ability, and it has been determined that current apes do not have anything similar, though - importantly!! - they are still able to communicate in a multitude of incredibly complex and effective ways!

For further reading, I would suggest the following:

Here's some reading about Nim Chimpsky, one of the more famous chimps, whose life was pretty horrible and frankly tragic by all accounts, even human ones

Here's a wiki article with an overview of various ape language experiments and their surrounding issues

And HERE is a very succinct podcast episode that neatly summarizes the entire issue within an hour and twenty minutes:

if you think about it, every time we tranquilize animals to transport them safely to another place, we are the sleep paralysis demon

[kyri45]

✨ShadowPeach Bio Parents Bio AU Q&A! 06/01✨

Welcome to the Q&A! A space where I can answer related or similar question about the Shadowpeach Bio Parents AU! If you submitted your ask anonimously, then you’ll have to check the whole post if it’s answered here, if it’s not, worry not! Your asks might have been used for a future comic or just in the queue~

Anonimo ha chiesto: Do the little monkeys on Flower Fruit mountain ever see at Wukong and Macaque bickering like an old married couple and think to themselves 'just kiss already'?

Yes. They keep doing and Wukong tries to stop them otherwise Macaque could hear them (he already does)

Anonimo ha chiesto: Been reading up on Macaque Body Language and found this: "A peculiar behaviour displayed by macaques is lip smacking. Between macaques, lip smacking is used to show submission, affection and reconciliation. This behaviour is a form of communication and is sometimes accompanied with cooing vocalisations and mild raising of eyebrows." So now I can't stop imaging Monkey King and Macaque just smacking lips and raising eyebrows to each other instead of saying "I love you" or after a fight just smacking lips and then hugging. But then I also started questioning, do the two monkeys in your AU actually use monkey body language to communicate? Or is it just human language they use? Great work on your AU btw! Loving the art and story ^^

Mm some? Like a little but not too much. But that’s an adorable trivia!!

Does macaque know about Wukong's stage fright?👀

Yes.

Anonimo ha chiesto: Baby MK lives in my head rent free. If Wukong or Macaque were trappen in the calabash than their perfect world would be one where they could raise mk without him having to fight or get hurt and traumatized

I THINK the fanfiction series Squashed Apricots is just about this if it can interest you.

@abbytheslothwitch ha chiesto: In your AU or your general opinion, which monkey dad is the taller one; Wukong or Macaque?

Macaque

Anonimo ha chiesto: The way you draw Pigsy honestly is one of the best I've seen I mean just look at him!!! He doesn't have the proportions of a regular human because he's not human and it works so well! I dunno he just looks cool in your artstyle and design That all I had to say :]]]]

Thank you so much!!!♥️♥️♥️ He’s honestly quite hard to draw exactly bc of that, but it’s good practice! Him and DBK are generally harder, I’m not super used to draw animals.

@peach-fury ha chiesto: Ello! Sorry, it's me again But just had a thought, sense Macaque has died and went to Dìyù or the underworld. (I think that's were the book of death is) Wouldn't he be at least scared or nervous to go back? Idk like bad memories like their fight or the lady bone demon or something? Idk maybe overthinking or that I just like angsty :P (P.s I fricking love your art and your AU's so much!!!!)

Yes. I believe he wouldn’t like the idea. I like to think he”s actually terrified. But he wouldn’t care less if it means to protect and help his baby.

Anonimo ha chiesto: will MK try to try change his name into nobody or something form of loophole name so that can be like ohhhh nobody us in trouble! Everyone is safeeee! And nezha’s dad is like wait no

Ahah that’s a good idea! Unfortunately that isn’t the plan

Anonimo ha chiesto: Hear me out we know Wukong made the bed because he made it bigger. It's made out of peach tree wood. And carved moon and suns and stars on the headboard.

AWWWW!!😭😭😭😭😭

@a1teruniverse ha chiesto: What's the hardest panel you've drawn

It is a panel if it’s an animation?

Anonimo ha chiesto: Will u ever do flash backs for shadowpeach thats “happy” like them first meeting realizing there in love a jealous mac courtnapping the monkey king just being young and in love.

Mmm yeah i wanna do smth like that. Don’t know when or how but i wanna.

Anonimo ha chiesto: does Wukong ever/will ever let glamours down and let like everything hang out like Mac would come in and his husband just causally has his boobs out and he’s like sweet my husband got hotter bc he’s pan(?) like I think you said that in an earlier post

I mean. I don’t think he has any issues dropping his glamours in front of macaque. I don’t think he would stay too much without his glamours bc still, I guess he would have some slight dysphoria. Also I mean, yeah Macaque loves him with or without boobies. But if Wukong could choose he would prefer not to have them out if he can.

Anonimo ha chiesto: which bottle is every ship in your lmk comic chugging? (I’m talking about your red bubble stickers for ao3 tags I would find it but I’m lazyyyh)

Shadowpeach is hurt & comfort (which I saw now I didn’t uploaded but yeah I got that one as well.), slowburn, enemies to lovers, and angst cause- duh.

Spicynoodle I would say is fluff, oneshot, enemies to lovers, found family.

Anonimo ha chiesto: im so embarrassed to ask about this but, later when mk and red boy r dating, who would ask the other first on a date? What would the date be? Also what does dbk and pif personal opinion of their relationship? SORRY IF THIS HAS BEEN ASKED BEFORE😭

I think MK, because dates are something a little more human, and cause Red Son is a workaholic. It can either be something like a training session, a videogame session at Red castle, or just also the traffic light trio being competitive. DBK and PIF are supporting, mostly bc they know their family will be even more powerful with an union such as theirs. Of course PIF is supporting also cause MK is Mac baby.

@kandymaneuwu ha chiesto: On a scale of 1 to 10 how fluffy is macaque this is very important

10 with merits

@5hadowm0ch1 ha chiesto: When will Shadowpeach kiss? It's always head-to-head Pats (I'm trying to predict what happening)

b-b-b-b-b- but head-to-head pats are cute…

@majesticgazell ha chiesto: Ooohhh I’m just imagining Li Jing catching wind of the plan and activating MK’s fillet while he’s in the shadows… maybe he wouldn’t lose himself under normal circumstances, but with that thing tightening around his head? 👀 Just a thought

Hehe, isn’t that a possibility?

@nataszaluiz ha chiesto: So I have a few questions. First: do you plan on ending it before Season 6 releases or do you plan on continuing it and mixing it up with your AU? Second: have you heard theories that a fragment of Azure's Soul is placed in the blue flower that appears after it's sacrifice? Third: Will characters like Yellowtusk and Peng appear in your AU?

S6 seems to either happen next year or never, so I ve3ry much hope i finish my story sooner.

no i haven’t

mmmm i don’t know

@cheddarcheesebiscuit1 ha chiesto: I gotta ask, if MK would to ever get injured in his monkie form, then would Macaque/Wukong try to take him to a human doctor or a vet?

I know we all want to see Macaque and Wukong freaking out when their baby is sick, but I think we forget sometimes that, even though they aren’t medics, Wukong has a basic understanding how to heal wounds and medicine. Macaque is head-canoned many times to be an expert in fact. And I think there are demons/demonic doctors in case MK has some kind of curse or demonic sickness, which would be what actually makes them worry in the first place.

@ainnur ha chiesto: Mei and Wukong team up?! Wasabi Duo the party crasher🎉✨ Love them💕 They need more love as a duo

Their name IS WASABI DUO????????? AAAWWWWWW

@sleeo-goos10 ha chiesto: Hi kyri! Thank you for sparking my LMK hyper fixation and I’m really curious: Will we get more Nezha? How will he react knowing that the Buddha approved this? IF the Buddha approved it at all 👀

Yes you will have plenty of Nezha. Also if youo guys really want to know, yeah, the Buddha themself approved of this. No, Li Jing wasn’t lying.

@saphstories ha chiesto: KYRI PLEASE IF I ASK FOR NOTHING ELSE I NEED TO SEE HELICOPTER AUNT PIF AND UNCLE DBK IN THAT FIGHT BECAUSE *HEAVEN DID WHAT TO THEIR NEPHEW???* And I'm sorry but of freaking course Red Son being the brat he is would call Mommy and Daddy to tattle about how mean Heaven is for stealing his Monkey before he could. 😂😂 Can you tell how insane the extended Monkey Fam makes me? 😂😂😂 I love this AU, I can't wait to see more!

When they heard the news they wanted to come to help attack the palace as well, but Red Son stopped them saying smt like “HE IS MY FUTURE HOUSBAND AND I GET TO KIDNAP HIM OUT OF HEAVEN MOM!”

@anxiousbb-witch ha chiesto: Do I have a reason to fear the possibilities of the golden headband being used on MK and all the emotions and tears coming from it?

oh year, absolutely.

Anonimo ha chiesto: I just have the funny thought that MK woke up one morning in his true form and get jumpscared by looking at himself and see he has boobs again

nooouuuu poor baby! But yeah it’s a funny image

@monkieshad0w ha chiesto: HELLOO HELLOO! What’s ur opinion on sundial duo :D (if you don’t know what sundial duo is, it’s basically Macaque and Wukong being duos and besties but not lovers) :3

oohhh well I do live any pf my ships as besties as well! Platonic love is just as important as romantic one for me personally!

[simlicious]

CC Creation Tutorial: Smooth Seams in Blender

In this tutorial, I will show you how to make your mesh seams smooth inside Blender (no Milkshape required!) and walk you through the process step by step. We will make a perfectly smooth mesh and transfer the normal data from that mesh to our main mesh using the Data Transfer modifier.

I am using Blender 3.6 in this tutorial (though you should be able to follow along using other versions as well)

You do not need to have much previous knowledge to follow this tutorial, but I assume you know some basics in Blender like how to select, things, navigate around, etc, and know how to import the meshes and put them into Blender.

For this tutorial, I exported the Sims 3 afbodyEP4DressPromBigBow mesh with TSR Workshop. You can use any clothing mesh you like though, and works on any meshes, not just Sims 3 ones.

This is our mesh. You can already tell that it has the dreaded seams on the neck and the rest of the body.

First, we need to make a copy of the mesh (in Object mode, select the mesh and hit Ctrl+D Shift+D to duplicate it, then hit Esc to stop it from moving around).

Rename the mesh (I added Seamless to the mesh name).

Make sure the original mesh is hidden (click the eye symbol) and select the Seamless mesh.

Press the Tab key to go into Edit Mode.

Now we select the parts that we want to have smooth seams. Let's select everything that is skin (you can select a litte piece of the mesh and then press Ctrl+L to select the entire piece)!

Now, press M and in the menu, choose By Distance. (in older versions, this is called Remove Doubles).

This will remove all double vertices at the seams on the selection we made.

It will show you how many vertices it removed. The skin looks nice and smooth!

Let's switch back to our original mesh: Make sure you deactivate the eye on the Seamless mesh and activate the eye again on the main mesh. Then, select the main mesh.

Now, let's add a data modifier to our main mesh. Click the blue wrench icon in the vertical list of the properties panel and then onto Add Modifier, then choose Data Transfer from the list.

As the source, we choose our Seamless mesh.

Also toggle on Face Corner Data and click the Custom Normals button.

Hold on, there is a message saying that we should enable Auto Smooth in Object Data Properties. Let's do that next! (if the message does not appear for you, maybe Auto Smooth is already on).

Click the green inverted triangle button and in the Normals section, toggle on Auto Smooth.

Now we can switch back to the modifier tab by clicking the blue wrench icon again.

But hang on, what happened to our mesh? There are now black spots over the dress and shadows on the legs!

This is due to the Data transfer modifier's Mapping setting. If we change it to Topology, our mesh goes back to normal again. Phew!

Now that the normals look good, we can start the transfer of our new smooth normals from the seamless mesh to our main mesh. To do that, we hit the Generate Data Layers button. This button works destructively, so you cannot undo what it did, just FYI.

Note: On newer versions of Blender, Generate Data Layers may not be enough to transfer the normals and you may need to apply the modifier instead.

You can toggle the modifier's visuals on and off with the little screen icon to see the results after you click Generate Data Layers to see if it stuck. If it did not (and you see the seams of your base mesh when toggling it off), try to apply it instead.

I switched from textured to solid shading because the differences are just more noticeable in this mode. This is how our mesh looks now with the modifier turned off.

Because we clicked the transfer button, the normals have been permanently applied to our mesh. The skin is smooth now, and so is the dress (even though we did not smooth that one, hmm...)

If we toggle the modifier back on, suddenly the dress has seams again! What's going on there? I'm not exactly sure why, but Auto Smooth seems to be doing some smoothing on the dress mesh as well.

I am not sure if this is normal behavior or not, but let's pretend that this did not happen and the modifier in fact did not smooth the dress.

Maybe we just forgot to smooth some areas on the Seamless mesh that we noticed only later on. That's no problem. We simply modify our Seamless mesh again!

So let's swap back to the seamless mesh and select it (remember to click the eye icons so only the Seamless mesh is visible).

Let's select the main dress parts and press M -> merge by distance on them. We cannot smooth the whole dress all at once, because then that would remove some seams that we want (like those for the backfaces and the middle section of the dress where the bow is attached).

If we remove the wrong seams, we ruin our normals and will have black splotches.

Now, let's select the backfaces and areas we left out before and repeat this process: M -> merge by distance.

Look at how perfect our Seamless mesh is looking now! Now, let's transfer those beautiful normals to our main mesh.

Select the main mesh and toggle the eye icons again, to hide our Seamless mesh and reveal our main mesh.

Once again, we will use the Generate Data Layers button in our Data Transfer modifier. If you have previously applied the modifier, just add the modifier again to the main mesh and use the settings shown here.

And that's it, you are done! You have a perfectly smoothed mesh that you can export now.

Final Note: it is best to transfer the normals at the very end of your meshing process because any action that recalculates the normals can reset our custom-made smooth normals again.

Of course, you can simply use the Generate Data Layers button again to re-add them, but it saves you time to only do this step at the end.

I almost forgot to say: You still have to use Mesh Toolkit to fix the seams on the edges of your mesh and do the usual shenanigans.

[rheitais]

DP x DC One shooting star later. Pt 1.5

This is more snips and bits about the batfam interactions with the Nightingales/Fentons.

Original post here^

_____________________________

In a local cafe (way before the joker incident):

Ellie: I am just saying the villains here? In all honesty are like a joke.

Jazz, studying to be a therapist: Mhmmhm, hey do you think I would be able to catch Dr. Quinzel next time shes out of Arkham?

Dan: Probably, stop stealing my food, what are you, Catwoman???

Danny: Oh please I don't have the body for that. She's very fancy, don't compare me to a queen.

Ellie: I thought you would be more insulted because you were excused for thievery.

Danny: Do I look like Dan to you?

Dan: Hypocrite says what?

Danny: Mass murderer says what?

Tim in the next booth: ????? *Aggressively texting the batfam group chat*

__________________________________

Dan: why do we need to be together again?

Danny: So you can't kill anyone again and I don't start killing people.

Dan: right, right.....

Danny:

Dan:

Dan: So.... What do we do with this?

Danny: Look clowns are really freaky. I know jazz told us to stay out of trouble since we are kinda on the bats radar but he kinda sneaked up on *us*. Again mind you. This was fully deserved. Right?

Dan, standing over the joker's dead body: Yeah, but we did just kill him in someone else's haunt.... We aren't even supposed to be over here.

Danny: Call mom?

Dan: Call mom.

Red hood overhead staring at the 2 halfas and a dead joker: Fck if they didn't already have parents I would pull a bruce with these 2.

__________________________________

Maddie: And that is how you make an energy gun that uses solar panels. No bullets and litter required and 100% effective.

Poison Ivy, who kidnapped Maddie and Ellie: Would you like to work for me?

_____________________________

Jack at a gala since his family was invited: IT IS GREAT TO MEET YOU MISTER REPORTER MAN! *Aggressively shaking the reporter's hand and honestly just man handling him the whole time*

Bruce: Ah, Mr.Nightingale I think ya wife is looking for ya?

Jack: Maddie? OK BYE REPORTER MAN AGAIN.

Clark: How the hay is he so strong?? *Still dizzy from the handshake*

Bruce: Hm. *Also had that whiplash when he first met the man*

__________________________________

Ellie: The teacher is so dumb, " Benny didn't invent anything, if anything he sucked at it. A guy named Lewie actually made it way better"

Damian: You mean Lewis Latimer?

Ellie: Yeah! He is actually a really cool dude. It's so dumb the teacher didn't mention him :(

Damian: While I would have to agree that the lack of proper credit is missing in the textbooks, I am intrigued by your opinions on this matter.

Ellie: Please I'm not fancy or anything i just travel and spoke to a lot of people for a while. Plus stuff about history is more my brother's thing, I am a chaotic art girlie myself.

Damian: Interesting.

__________________________________

Just an idea

[princess-of-purple-prose]

[ID: Two MDZS comics. The first features Xue Yang and Jin Guangyao in a secret room of the Fragrant Palace. Xue Yang looks over a manuscript plastered in talismans and thinks, "Of Wei Wuxian's surviving manuscripts, this is the only one I've yet to study... But it seems to be protected by some kind of array..."

He does something that makes a large "boom!" go off, and Jin Guangyao, working across from him, doesn't blink as he says "Keep it down, Xue Yang." Xue Yang, now sooty and banged up, opens the now unsealed manuscript and shouts, "Finally!!! The seal is kifted!! Maybe this one can tell me how to revive Xiao Xing---"

We see the pages, which feature Wei Wuxian's writing in cursive talking happily about meeting Lan Wangji in Yiling. Xue Yang stares in silence, flips through the book, and stares more. He then furiously kicks the book hard enough to send it crashing into a bookshelf, and Jin Guangyao says "Xue Yang" in disappointment.

The next is titled "Choosing the New Chief Cultivator." Nie Huaisang is labeled as "not paying attention" as he happily thinks to himself, "Ah~ Now that my 10+ year long quest of revenge is complete, I can finally go into early retirement and live out the rest of my days in blissful leisure..." Meanwhile, someone is saying, "Onto the next order of business-- finding a replacement for the late Lianfang-zun..."

Nie Huaisang continues to grin to himself, "I have so many ideas for new paintings...!! The death of my nemesis has filled me with inspiration--" This is derailed by Wei Wuxian loudly exclaiming, "I think Huaisang-xiong should do it!"

Nie Huaisang stops fanning himself, going HUH? and turning black and white in shock. Someone offscreen says, "Oh? Wei Wuxian, would you care to explain why?" and Wei Wuxian happily says, "Of course!!! I know everyone thinks he's a bit spineless and pathetic, but the truth is, he's actually one of the smartest people I know! He handed Jin Guangyao's funeral and sealing spectacularly, and after everything he's gone through with Chifeng-zun's corpse, don't you all think he deserves it?"

People exclaim, "Well said!!" "I agree!!" "I must say me makes some good points..." "Nie-zongzhu, you have my full support!" Meanwhile, Nie Huaisang and Wei Wuxian communicate solely through eye contact. Nie Huaisang, chewing miserably on his fan, cries, "Wei-xiong!!! How could you?!! After I went through so much truoble to make your Hanguang-jun related dilf fantasies a reality--!!!" Wei Wuxian pulls down an eyelid and sticks out his tongue without sympathy. "This is for endangering my nephew and son. Have fun with all that paperwork."

The final panel shows "The Candidates" for Chief Cultivator, all drawn simply:

Lan Xichen crying solemnly: In mourning/seclusion

Jin Ling sweating: Literal teenager

Nie Huisang laughing nervously: Say he doesn't know but he does

Jiang Cheng glowering: Jiang Cheng. End ID]

[mochimochimona]

Rewatching Arcane Only For Viktor and Jayce, analyzing for storytelling purposes as an artist* -S1 EP:4 or Viktors staring is sus

I loved that scene, where Jayce firstly implies Viktor to keep sitting so he doesn't need to crawl up and also for taking the blame completly.

A little disclaimer here because it might be confusing why I am doing this analyzis (?)...sss english is not my native language sorry - so I am an artist and Arcane is a huge inspiration for me and I wondered what the animators did to imply Jayce and Viktor being really close to each other, even having feelings for each other. And I do get the impression Viktor always had feelings for Jayce because he acts different in a lot of interactions with him. Body language is also an implication, so I will take a closer look on that as well. So I am going through scenes of them together and asking myself what makes me think they wanted to imply something more than lab partners, what makes me think that and HOW I would have done it differently to AVOID that. Also I want to know if I misinterpreted Jayce's behavior and read too much into it. So, here we go. It's actually part #3 already, I will put a post on tumblr with all of my guesses later. If you wanna share your thoughts, please do so!

Knowing what will happen and how sick Viktor gets, seeing it (really, seeing it because I can pay attention) and Jayce not noticing because he is so caught up in playing political figure hurts. Really hurts. And also I am sure now that Mel used Jayce most of the time to get what she wants (not in an evil way, honestly, she does take a liking to him later one, but I will say not as much as we get the feeling Jayce and Viktor care for each other) and she makes advances to Jayce, using his insecurity and jearning for acknoledgment.

I mean how can Jayce not tell that Viktor is immensly sick? I mean those two were working their asses of in the lab I get that, but I think it started right then and there that Jayce lost their dream, really, and the fact that Viktor is his best buddie (or whatever) and it got worse after he holds the speech.

And Viktor is clearly more devastated, which might even shocked Jayce too, than Jayce was, I mean the reaction:

Jayce really was surprised Viktor was so desperate. Viktor knew he was gonna die sooner or later so I think he thought with studying hextech he might find a cure for himself in the process. He didn't touch him, though, so Viktor wasn't shy, just shocked.

This scene made me laugh and choke, I have flashbacks of Jayce being in the Future but instead of seeing Mel and Viktor through the fire, we see him. Interesting choice to make the appearance of Jayce like that. Is that...is that foreshadowing again???? This makes my brain hurt.

Why am I doing this to myself again?

LOOK HOW HE LOOKS. WHY IS NO ONE ADRESSING THIS. Why am I doing this to myself, SEND HELP? Viktor was confidently asking "where have you been, they asked me to do the speech (or whatever)" but when Jayce touched him, said they were partners, he got a bit shy and even stuttered a bit. Okay so IF you are fine with your homie....anyway, the next thing:

"Not in front of" - there is a pause, his look:

"...all of them" and then THE STARE. Why would you do that? I am an artist myself and when it comes to visual storytelling, I am always asking myself what I want to tell people with frames and panels (if you make comics), so I am really wondering from a storytelling point of view: what did they wanted to make a point about? Apart from highlighting Viktor in this situation, to imply that he isn't comfortable in speaking to others okay. But his pause. Looking at Jayce...?

Because clearly Viktor is staring. Honestly, if they didn't want to make it read as longing, or something similiar/else, you would have took a different shot after he told "not for all of them", because if you did that, you wouldn't imply that he would have done it maybe in front of everyone, but not with Jayce staying there because it made him nervous being in front of him. ALSO really important thing I noticed here: when he interacts with Jayce in close proximity and out of context of research, he gets shy but he usually is a confident person.

And again, you could have approached Viktor not wanting to perform in front of a huge audience differently, if your only goal was to make that clear. Ya know, him being touched by Jayce on the shoulder, saying "You are my partner" and keeping a wide shot, making him gesticulate that he isn't comfortable, "in front of all those people" (he would do it in front of Jayce though). DOES ANYONE GETS WHAT I MEAN?

Still staring, or paying a lot of close attention to your lab partner.

And then he says "you - pause", AGAIN WITH THE CLOSE SHOT. I HOPE for the love of god that some people from the Studio will be at the Art Department in Berlin because I really want to ask about this. And I hope I won't get spooked so I ask lol. Because that's really what is interesting about this.

And then comes a really interesting thing, I guess. Sky approaches and she looks at Viktor. A short, acknowledging look from Viktor and he gets back to Jayce. So I was wondering why they made the shot like that again and showing she has interest in Viktor, but Viktor is just respectful.

And right back to Jayce but the next shot is a perfect masterpiece, I laughed so hard.

Replacing Vikor with the mug, where Jayces "Man of Progress" can be seen is, again, peak foreshadowing and storytelling. Again, you could have showed it differently, but every scene has a message and wants to convey something, so this is an important shot. Man, these guys from Fortiche are madmen. Stopping here or the post will get too long.

[cantareincminor]

Day 7: Best Moment

Hands down, Chapter 86 of the manga. I know it's not a single moment but I can't really boil it down to just one.

The entire mole hunt arc was top notch. The ending made it even better. And not just because of the infamous Twilight Shower Scene.

It starts in the sewer, when Twilight tells a half-truth to Nightfall about why he spared Yuri:

I'm a sucker for whenever Twilight has these moments (of which there are several in this arc). That exact expression. His eyes say it all. He's defeated, shaken, not "himself." He can barely admit the truth to himself, but he has to come up with some kind of explanation to satisfy his colleague and the rest of WISE when he writes the mission report.

That "for the mission" defense isn't holding up so well anymore, is it, Twilight?

His solemn, defeated mood continues as he heads home as an ordinary civilian:

Again, the eyes say it all. He looks up at his apartment with something like dread. It takes effort to raise his head. He looks to be walking slowly. Like he doesn't want to be there. He knows he's heading into a difficult conversation after an already difficult day where he made a nearly fatal "mistake" and almost lost his life.

Then, against all expectations, Yor welcomes him with the sweetest smile, to the point where she has a halo around her head in his eyes. Once again, Yor defies all that he thinks he knows about human nature and women!

Look at him. That tiny dot of a mouth looks so cute. He's stunned, unable to process. I won't copy paste all the fainting he does since I don't want to copy paste the whole chapter!

So many miniature golden Twiyor moments and shoujo filter close-ups of Yor here. I love how soft her expression is, the contemplative look in her eyes and the shape of her smile. Yor isn't the best at expressing herself in words, especially when it comes to her own wants and desires, but when she tells the truth, it hits hard. She feels comfortable enough with Loid to tell him what's really on her mind, what she wants! What a major milestone for her.

Twilight looks so adorable up there! He's listening and absorbing her words. His mind is not on overdrive. It's just focused solely on Yor. What a sweet, slow moment.

Then, there's this beautiful panel of them in the midst of all this white space. Completely focused on each other, at face level, sitting on the ground. Not putting on a front, just talking as husband and wife. Other fans have analyzed this a lot so I won't say much more.

Side note, it's kind of funny that right after this Yuri bursts in, and while Loid springs to his feet immediately, Yor is still sitting on the ground. I wonder if Yuri noticed his sister was randomly sitting on the ground? What could that have implied? Allow me to have a bit of a dirty mind here, lol, it reminds me of this iconic sentence in @miss---nothing's amazing fic Little Deaths, "What makes you think we haven't sullied the floor?"

Ahem. Finally, there's Twilight's reflection on all of this:

Finally admitting that Yor is a weakness. That she is the reason he "slipped up" so horrendously and left himself extremely vulnerable, not only with debilitating injuries he could have avoided (which then cost him the fight with Wheeler), but by leaving an SSS agent alive and wondering why the hell the most notorious spy of the West would spare his life! That is a HUGE risk to take!

I just love the character development, the epiphanies, that shine through in this chapter. Twilight's still taking baby steps emotionally, but when we really think about it, he legitimately fulfilled his vow he made all the way back in Chapter 14:

He took a bullet for Yor!! Literally!! Actions speak louder than words.

He won't admit he loves her (probably will take 100 more chapters for that LOL), but he sees her as a "weakness." Which places him on the path toward that elusive point in the distance.

All in all, this is the chapter I have reread the most. It'll take a lot to top it in my mind!

[the-100-days-of-junkan]

Day 99

Yeah I didn’t even bother coming up with a cover for this one lol, mostly cause i couldn’t think of a title.

It’s another Comic!! I hope ya’ll liked it! For the longest time I’ve wanted to do this. I would say like, Day 70 at the very latest, but it was probably closer to around Day 60 that I decided I wanted to do this. Because like, how could I not, y’know? What better way to mark the end of the project then with a Wedding. Because yes, if it wasn’t really obvious, today is the Proposal, tomorrow is the Wedding, but I’ll talk more about that tomorrow.

I decided to make this a Silent Comic, partially cause I thought that would make it unique from Day 60, and also because I really didn’t have it in me to try and write dialogue for this. Also yeah this was way before The Gift of Mikan was even a concept in my mind, and god can I just say that I performed a huge jump in skill when it came to actually prepping for these. There was like, no fucking script for this one, at best it was a brief description of what the page would be. Meanwhile Gift of Mikan had panel by panel descriptions and the dialogue written out ahead of time. Not fully professional but partially professional and that’s just enough. 

Honestly though? I don’t have much to say here! I just wanted to make a nice comic of Junko proposing, because that feels like such a special, wonderful moment for these two that I wanted to depict. There was a part of me that really wanted to do Mikan proposing in this instance, but I think I’ve done plenty enough role reversal for this project, so let Junko actually get to do something in line with the dynamic. But hey. Maybe a fanfic down the line? who knows!~ 

Uhhhh, the room number for their hotel! It’s 36, which is what happens when you add their birthdays together. There’s a fun fact. Right?

Hm. Uhhhh, oh! We came back to colored sketches one more time! As this was before my body just became biologically inclined to be capable of freehanding the two. Yeah that’s vaguely interesting.

Yeah alright people, I’ll just see you tomorrow, I know i’ve been talking your ear off the past like, week with all the fanfic stuff but I really got nothing interesting this time around. Rest assured, tomorrows a big day. And while I might not be able to talk about the art itself (maybe?), I do have to end this project off properly. It’s gonna be long, sappy, and maybe even a little more personal, who knows! I haven't written it yet!

As always, Reblogs, Comments, and Little Notes in the Tags are appreciated!~ They always make my day!~

[lynn-tged-posting]

tged webtoon ep 174 spoilers and thoughts that i'm actually kinda happy about but there's just a little bit more that i wish we got to see this ep but possibly maybe itll show up later,,, maybe,,, i hope,,, and more below the cut

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BEFORE WE BEGIN. WOW. HI ALICIA. WOW!!! WOW!!! SIRENS!!! HOLY BINGLE! GOOD MORNING YUOR HIGHNESS UR GORGEOUS. HELLO!!! WOW. YES. ANYTHING YOU SAY MA'AM. YES MY QUEEN OF COURSE ANYTHING YOU SAY

SHE'S GOT ABS AND MUSCLE SHE'S TONED AND HER LEGS R STRONG AND WOW. WOW GOOD MORNING HI. YES. THANK YOU KHS THANK YOU IM,,, WOW,,, I LOVE STRONG WOMEN,,, BEAUTIFUL!!!

ok back to the ep LMFAOO

it seems i kiiinda misunderstood what was happening last ep, everyone relevant to the railroad construction is in the time bubble it's just that javier isn't going up to the mountains with lloyd,,, i see!!!

"i wanna go to him and make sure he's safe" ooogh,,, oh javier,,, u love him sm,,,, ooohhhh

tbh at first i was like, a lil confused that javier didn't go up to check on lloyd esp since javier is so willing to do anything to protect lloyd. its clear too that he knows abt lloyd's heart freezing,,, though i suppose at the same time, javier trusts lloyd's word so much that when the noble says he'll be fine, javier accepts it as he always has,,, either way his desire to run to protect lloyd and his willingness to trust that lloyd will be okay are both very sweet,,, the mutual trust always makes me so happy,,,,,,, ohhh javier ilysm,,,,,,

i am glad then that alicia went up to go check on him and that javier is reassured by this!!! look at his smile ooohhh hehehee

i think choosing to have javier trust his queen instead of sowing conflict btwn the two is rlly nice, tho mostly bc i am biased bc i tend to prefer sweet reliability over infighting,,, he trusts her to take care of lloyd the way javier would take care of lloyd,,, (is this alillovier propaganda? perchance,,, /lh)

it makes so much sense that they'd be on the same wavelength n get along,,, two peas in a pod,,, powerful and clever and oh so loyal to the person that they've come to admire, respect, and love,,, the person that's saved them time and time again,,, heehee,,, truly the besties of all time!!! red and blue!!! i love it a lot!!!

and now for lloyd,,, hehe

i need it to be known that the moment i saw this panel, lloyd wearing alicia's sweater, i yelled and kicked and nearly cried. very loudly. what the hell. THATS SO?? THATS SO. IDEK

still forever thinking abt how javier is always the first one to his mind they truly r the duo ever,,, regardless of whether theyre platonic or romantic they're literally each other's number ones and the first ones they turn to im so. thats so. ghhh my heart,,, (ALSO HI ALICIA)

his stupid face,,, HIS PANELS THIS EP WERE SO SO FUNNY AND SO SO CUTE,,, i love u,,, HE JUST LOOKS SO SHOCKED AAAAHHH SO CUTE,,, wide-eyed and dumbfounded . lloyd i love u

the gags this ep were fucking amazing too HAHA i didnt add it above but the bit where alicia was like "lol next ur gonna tell me he's the demon king" and then just turns and oh hi theres demons LMFAOOO THAT WAS GOOD

AND THESE TOO SO SO SILLY i love when they're silly like this,,, goofy ass inchworm,,, its not helping u beat the bug allegations buddy,,, ily

LIKE THIS FUCKING GRABBING BIT I CACKLED SO FUCKING LOUD HAHAHAHAHAA AND LLOYD ROLLING AWAY GOD THEYRE SO FUNNY I LOVE THEM

and then she shared her mana w him,,, the little smile she gives and LLOYD BLUSHING BACK IM SO. THATS SO CUTE. HE LOOKS SO CUTE. THIS IS SO SWEET,,, AHHH,,, AAAHHHH CUTE CUTE CUTE CUTE CUTE

though smth to note here, i am quite confused as to why javier's mana is suddenly rejected when he tries to absorb it? but alicia's works just fine? and javier has shared mana with lloyd before, my mutual reminded me of the namaran wall arc where siluria and javier both help lloyd with absorbing the hell knight,,, however the fact that javier's mana components have yet to break the law of causality during this arc, aka he wasnt a grandmaster yet. maybe bc of his status as a grandmaster now, where he has the same otherworldy mana lloyd does, that makes it not possible to properly absorb the mana?

alternatively, javier technically is never fated to die/be transformed in the original story, whereas lloyd should be dead and alicia should be tainted with dark magic, so bc the two of them have warped their fates at the moment, it works? and javier's doesnt bc he's technically not? idk if that makes any sense,,, i was told by my mutual that javier has shared mana with lloyd a lot in the novel before, so i'm not sure why they made this change! i hope they expand on it a lil in the future,,,

also, while i'm yapping here, i like that alicia is straightforward abt what she likes abt lloyd, but i wish they got to have a longer conversation than this,,, like this is a good start but it didn't really go anywhere (besides some really wonderful panels of lloyd but i mean like, narrative-wise lol)

as i mentioned in my last liveblog, alicia and suho share a lot more common experiences than they probably realize! and i think if they got a chance to talk about that, talking about their past circumstances, how they became who they are now, and just more in general on what led alicia to fall for lloyd besides what he's capable of,,, this ship would actually sail pretty well, yknow?

unfortunately though with the pacing of the manhwa and i guess just their episode length requirements in general, it makes sense that they couldn't get to that,,, i just wish it happened,,, maybe in snippets in future episodes? but seeing as we're getting pretty close to the end afaik, the chances are slim

i mainly love llovier but i also really love alilloyd, and i think alilloyd as a whole would have a much better leg to stand on if they actually talked about their experiences and had more instances of saving each other, of supporting each other, the way javier does with lloyd. it's too few and too far between for alicia and lloyd, so it feels like it's flatter than what it could be, y'know?

a part of me hopes that they did get to do that in the novel, but from what i recall hearing, alilloyd didn't have a strong leg in the novel either,,, i distantly recall someone telling me that the manhwa is actually doing alilloyd stronger justice than the novel did (i may be misremembering tho so don't quote me on that lol), and seeing as the manhwa's interpretation of alilloyd is so few and far between as is,,,, it makes me worried that the novel never actually got to touch upon how their relationship evolves (if im wrong, please correct me!!!)

i just want them to do well,,, they're super cute,,, please,,, ueueueue

anyway,,, this leads us to probably my FAVORITE panel of this week,,, this one of lloyd completely flushed EEE EHEHEHHEHEHEHHEE

SO SO SO SO CUTE. I YELPED WHEN I SAW THIS,,, I LOVE THAT ALICIA FALLS FIRST AND THEN LLOYD FALLS SO MUCH HARDER THAT'S FUCKING ADORABLE. methinks it's like that with javier too. lloyd falling and tripping up over realizing someone has romantic affection for him is probably one of my favorite things EVER. that's adorable. I LOVE HIM AAAHHH CUTE CUTE CUTE

one last thing to mention is just that,,, it seems like theres a mage messing w the weather conditions up in the mountains and i aaaam a lil worried that itll kickstart fate for alicia,,,, esp considering we,,, havent seen worthroad in a while. whatever that guys name was,,, what if its him and he's gonna fuck everything up!?? im really worried for them,,, please be okay,,,

and that's all for this week! i really REALLY enjoyed this episode,,, the panels and art were so so good, and while there were some things i wished would happen i think it was still really good overall, it gave me a lot to talk about! the gags were balanced and their interactions were so fun,,, yay!

i'll see yall next time,,, im so excited to see whats next,,,!!!!!

[talkativeanxiousturtle]

I wrote this a while ago but didn't know if it was worth posting. Found it in my notes and it made me feel sick. We'll see. Johnlock angst, trigger warning for death.

Tick, tick, tick, tick.

"It's alright! I can fix this, I will fix this, just, give me a second, I need to...."

"Sherlock..."

"SHUT UP! I just need to go to my mind palace, just shut up..."

Tick, tick, tick, tick.

"Sherlock..."

"JOHN! What don't you get in 'shut up'?! Stop distracting me!"

"Sherlock!"

"I'M RUNNING OUT OF TIME!"

"... There is no more time. We're done."

Sherlock looks around, and his shoulders drop, letting the weight of the world slide off.

"No... I can still... I can..."

"Even if you found the code now, we can't access the panel anymore. It's over, Sherlock. The game is over."

John puts a hand on Sherlock, and he's not mad. He smiles at him. After the worst mistake of his life, Sherlock gets a smile as punishment.

"John... I'm sorry."

"Sorry? You never apologize. Why start now?"

"Because! Usually..."

He sighs, and lets himself fall to the floor. Rock bottoms are comfortable to him. Familiar.

"... Usually, the mistake isn't so bad, or, I have time to... Fix it..."

"Maybe. But not always."

"What?"

"Not always, Sherlock!"

John laughs. It's the best sound Sherlock has ever heard, when knowing he's about to die.

"Sometimes, you say something, or do something, to our clients, and you just... You never apologize. And you never fix it. You never see those people again."

"Doesn't matter."

"What? Your mistake?"

"No. Them. Besides, one would argue that by fixing whatever problem they came to me for, I fixed my own blunder times a thousand."

Sherlock knows John. He knows John wants to say something to that.

Tick, tick, tick, tick.

He knows John won't waste their time bickering. 

John laughs.

"Alright, Sherlock."

They sigh, and there's silence, as they sit next to each other, waiting for the room to swallow them whole. They're going to be crushed. Mashed into each other. Their bodies, if they're ever found, are going to be indistinguishable, a gruesome mix of blood and gore. Inextricable. Sherlock finds the thought oddly comforting.

"I love you."

Sherlock didn't expect John to waste their time lying.

"What?"

"I love you, Sherlock. I have, for a while. Maybe since the start."

He shrugs, with a casualness that's heartbreaking, in context.

"Since we're gonna die, I just thought I'd let you know. You don't have to say anything, I know you don't..."

John looks at him, and even now, there's hope in his eyes. Sherlock isn't about to waste this. What use are masks when the mascarade is over?

"I love you too."

"No, I mean..."

"I know how you mean. And I love you too."

There's a silence, as they both stare each other down.

May the stages of grief begin.

-----

Denial.

"Wh-what? No!..."

"Yes, John."

"No! No you don't... You don't love me! I mean... M-maybe you do, but you're not... In love with me! Sherlock!"

Sherlock sighs. Weary.

"I am, John. I tried hard not to be. To pretend otherwise. But I am."

"But... But..."

John looks angry. Perhaps he will waste their time with bickering after all.

----

Anger.

"But why!"

He finally explodes. Sherlock is confused.

"Why what?"

"Why... Why... Why didn't you say anything!"

"Why didn't you?" 

Sherlock's counter accusation is enough to catch John off guard. 

"I... Because, I..."

"Because you were scared."

Sherlock's tone is cold, implacable truth.

"I was."

"And so was I."

"And so were you."

Silence. No, not silence. Tick, tick, tick, tick.

"... We're really two idiots, aren't we?"

Sherlock laughs, because it's true. They are. And he'd rather hear John laugh than cry.

----

Bargaining.

"Well, then."

John gets up. Slaps his knee. It's about to be too small in here to do either of those things. He looks at Sherlock, beckons him with a nod. Sherlock hesitates and gets up. John pulls him closer, and Sherlock swears that this will be enough to make time stop, to delay the inevitable.

John kisses him.

Sherlock eventually backs away, stunned.

"What? What's got you so wide eyed?"

"I... You... Kissed me."

"Yes, I did."

John smiles. He kisses Sherlock's hand.

"It's my last chance to. I'll take as many seconds as I can get."

Sherlock breathes again. He shakes his head.

"We... We have to get out of here."

"Sherlock..."

John watches, as Sherlock paces along the narrow corridor, trying to get his thoughts in order.

"We have to get out of here, John. I have to figure this out."

"Sherlock... Sherlock!"

This time, John isn't as patient. He pulls Sherlock by the wrist, and kisses him again. Puts a hand on his cheek. Looks at him, sorrowful.

"It's over, okay? It's over. Let's just... Make use of the time we still have."

"But... If we get out of here, I... I could..."

"I know. I know what we could be. Could have been. But it's too late for that. Let's just... Take what we can, while we can."

He pulls him closer. Sherlock feels himself die in that moment, even if the walls haven't crushed them yet.

-----

Depression.

Sherlock falls into John's embrace, and the men are too close to pretend the other isn't crying. Their tears mix on their cheeks, and Sherlock feels John's leg trembling against his. He's scared.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

"Don't be."

"I am, John. For everything. For not getting us out, for bringing you here, for never saying anything earlier..."

"Don't apologize, it isn't like you."

He kisses his neck as he says this.

"And I love you."

Sherlock wants to cry so badly. But it isn't like him. And John loves him. He'll give John as much of what he loves as he can.

-----

Acceptance.

"There isn't enough time."

"Even for a quick one?"

The two men laugh at the whispered joke from Sherlock. The detective knows it's unlike him, but by God, is John's laugh addicting. And caving to addiction is very much like him. 

"Sherlock..."

Their bodies are pressed against each other now, and it's pleasant, not that they have a choice. Sherlock felt the breath John took to say the word against his own ribs.

"Get your hands off of me!"

"Well, it's not like there's ample room to move about, John."

"Sod off, you know what I meant."

Oh, he knows. But he won't die without feeling John's package, not when he has the option to do so. It's not so much that the context is conductive to that sort of mood, or even that this half-measure press over the jeans is anywhere close to what Sherlock really wants, really craves, but the little endorphins he gets from it help. You know, with acceptance. Of what's to come.

There's a moment of silence, as they gently kiss each other, as John ravages Sherlock's neck, as Sherlock tries not to be bitter, or think of what ifs. It's harder than it looks.

"John..."

He hasn't said that name enough in his life. He could've lived forever and still wouldn't have said it enough, really.

"Yes, Sherlock?"

There it is. There's little room to breathe now, let alone speak. Those are his last words, Sherlock knows it. Not that anyone is here to record them. Well, John has always been the only ear that's mattered, anyways. He'd be lost without his blogger.

The Great Sherlock Holmes, about to draw his final breath. A mind so incredible, few even believed in it. But John did. John always did, no matter what. What words will best undo his time on Earth, unravel all that he is and bring to it a satisfying conclusion? What would be enough to summarize him?

Sherlock takes a deep breath, for the last time.

"I love you, John."

So pathetically cliché.

"I know, Sherlock. I could read it in your eyes, in your every word and silence. In your everything. My everything. My amazing."

And how fitting, that the writer's last whisper is so much more eloquent than snotty Holmes could ever hope to be. So much more fulfilling. Sherlock sighs and holds him, and he hopes John knows that Sherlock could read it, as well. In every line of his blog. John's love for Sherlock was so engrossing, the world even fell for it, even started to love Sherlock as well. Every flutter of every heart, every smile on every face caused by Sherlock Holmes' great mind, really was caused by John Watson's greater heart. And Sherlock hopes John knows, no, knows John knows, because he's John, and John knows everything that matters, always has, even when Sherlock was blind.

And their bones start to crack. And it's starting to hurt.

And the detective hopes that his last thought is John's name, because nothing else in that brain of his matters now. Nothing else. That's the flaw of genius, it needs an audience.

The genius holds his audience captive, not with words, but loving arms.

And the soldier holds his allegiance back, with the strength and fervor of a fighter, and the tenderness and care of a healer.

And why would you want to read what happens next?

[kalinara]

So recent posts have got me thinking about the Throuple, and how I personally feel about it. And I'll be honest. I dislike it and I love it.

I dislike it because, ultimately, there really isn't much there. A couple of suggestive panels, a house schematic, one scene of expressed attraction between the guys, one scene that seems really heavily implied that they'd intended to go to bed together (I'll post that later, it's from early X-Force and it's pretty suggestive, IMO), and a few cameos in pride issues.

If Marvel was advertising this relationship, I'd call it queer-baiting at best.

But I always kind of wonder about the background of things. And I tend to assume that the Throuple was never intended to be a thing by the suits and higher ups. I think maybe a few creative types kept slipping things under the radar.

It does mean, unfortunately, that, in terms of actual story or emotional development, it's lacking. I mean, look, biased Scott fan that I am, I would have REALLY liked to see Logan apologize for basically everything AvX onward before those two characters hopped into bed together. I'd like to see Jean get to have opinions about everything that happened while she was gone (many things that she'd now remember from her younger self's point of view), before that happened too. These are characters with a lot of history.

So in terms of execution, the Throuple is a fizzle. (Hell, even the Jean/Logan side barely got off the ground. Some bits where she kept him alive when he was trying to save Xavier through time - which she'd have done even if he were just a friend. And one sex scene in the hot springs. That really feels like a satisfying culmination of decades of yearning. If I were a Jean/Logan fan, honestly, I'd probably feel cheated.)

But you know, I do love it for other reasons. Because however shitty the execution, the IDEA is firmly planted and that idea isn't going away.

All you have to do is go on reddit or tiktok and see anytime one of those toxic masculinity fanboys starts bitching about how Logan is 100% straight "blah blah woke agenda", and you get at least three people jabbing back "yeah, except on the moon".

And that's the genius of it. Because NO one likes those particular fans. And so even people who are utterly indifferent to the idea of the Throuple. Even folks who dislike the execution are very pleased to troll that hypothetical dude at every chance.

Marvel can say what they want. Brevoort (whether he believes it or is just Marvel's spokesperson) can say what he wants. The fact that the annoying fanboys go "I'm so glad he didn't walk back his denial and cater to the wake agenda" are just admitting that there's something TO deny.

I'll be honest, I suspect the issue is Logan's fanbase. It's the largest by far and Marvel doesn't want to alienate the straight men in the crowd. But the thing is, they're aging out. And younger generations of fans are more openly queer than we are, and definitely more than our parents were. This is going to be a non-issue. Especially when the new generations start running the asylum.

It'll take a long time, of course, and there'll be a lot of bullshit before then. But you can't put the genie back in the bottle. The idea is out there. And like Kitty, Rachel, Betsy, Bobby, Mystique and Destiny, Rictor and Shatterstar, EVENTUALLY we'll get to the point where Marvel admits what we all know. (And we knew for a while. The Throuple didn't come out of nowhere.)

Marvel's most famous and popular X-Men character is queer.

More than half of the Original X-Men, that earliest dream that creators never seem to be able to stop revisiting, are queer*.

The flag ship pairing of the X-Men involves a woman and a man who are queer*.

That's pretty awesome.

(*I know technically we're talking about an MMF throuple and it doesn't rule out Jean being straight, but let's be honest here. Jean's got more than enough suggestive interaction with Storm, Emma, Lorna and Wanda to make a strong enough case for bisexuality in her own right.)

[grlsbstshot]

listen to james lucas's newly released double album, midnight & dawn

Also! Don't miss his appearance on everybody's favorite podcast, Rhythm & Tea

Chapter 12 of Neon Lights debuts this Wednesday

The cozy studio was a blend of modern and vintage aesthetics: warm wooden panels, sleek microphones, and an inviting couch that contrasted with the walls adorned with vinyl records and photos of past guests. James Lucas sat in the middle of it all, leaning back in his chair with a casual ease that belied the intensity of his thoughts.

He wore a crisp black turtleneck and dark jeans, his watch catching the light every time he gestured. Across from him sat the podcast hosts, Tasha and Lea, both vibrant and intrigued— clearly starstruck but maintaining a professional demeanor that James could respect. The interest in the room palpable as they volleyed questions back and forth.

It didn’t matter what he said, they probed for more. His charming quips bringing giggles and swooning from one of the hosts. The other just seemed to enjoy how unnerved her friend and partner was to be in front of a man they both admired.

“So, James,” Tasha began, her voice smooth and welcoming, “Midnight & Dawn has been called a masterpiece by a lot of critics already. Two disks, two distinct vibes—what made you decide to take on something so ambitious?”

Jameson smiled, a little shyly. “It wasn’t really a decision at first. It just…happened. EJ, my producer and writing partner, was working with me on an album but it didn’t feel done. So we pushed it back by a year. Everybody got on my ass about it but it felt right to push it. We took a break and then went back to it. When we started back work on it, I was an entirely different place and the music sort of split itself.”

“Can you give the people -- not us because I've already heard it and I'm obsessed with you...I mean, the album. But can you give them a little hint of what each side is about?” Lea spoke up, leaning forward in her chair.

When Jameson redirected her gaze to her and laughed, she blushed.

"How'd you hear it? It's not out until February 6th." "Don't worry about me, James Lucas. I got connections."

He laughed louder and she flipped her hair over her shoulder, proud of herself for it. “Midnight is about the darker emotions—grief, heartbreak, anger. Over time, I ran out of those emotions. So Dawn became about finding hope again. It’s a journey, you know?”

She nodded. “That makes sense. You can really feel that duality in the music. Was there a moment where you knew the project had to be a double album?”

“Yeah,” Jameson said, his gaze distant for a moment. “After we wrote ‘Simple Things’. It was incredibly different from anything that we’d done before. A little lighter. I stepped out of my personal experiences and just spoke broadly. It didn’t fit fully into what we were crafting. It was the other side of it. Originally, we were going to shelve it but EJ thought it was a shame to do that to a song we both liked so…we kept it on the track list. The more it started to expand, that’s when it came to me. Double album. I couldn’t tell the story in just one part.”

Tasha tapped her notepad, intrigued. “Speaking of storytelling, your lyrics are incredibly personal. Do you ever worry about being too vulnerable?”

Jameson chuckled softly. “No. I think that’s the point, right? Vulnerability is what makes music resonate. If I’m not honest, then what’s the point of any of it?”

"Okay, let’s get into details. It’s called Rhythm and Tea. Where’s the tea?” She teased him. “We love your new single, Burn. We have to know, James, is it about anyone in particular? Because we have our theories."

"Let me hear the theories." "One of our producers think it's about your latest break up with our girl, Imani. Is that true?" He hesitated before offering a chuckle in response, "Yes, we wrote it a year or so ago. Around the time we broke up."

Lea’s eyes went wide and she said “Ooooh.” Much to the amusement of her co-host but Jameson continued. “But I mean — it's Mani. She's a phenomenal woman. You lose someone like her, you feel it. For a long time. But I'm lucky. She and I have managed to be friends. I respect that so that's all I'll be saying."

The hosts exchanged a knowing glance, but they didn’t press further.

Tasha changed the subject. “Alright, we got enough tea. For now. Let’s talk process. Are you someone who writes every day, or do you wait for inspiration to strike?”

“I try to write every day, even if it’s just a few lines or a melody,” Jameson said. “But the best stuff usually comes when I’m not expecting it. Like, I’ll be driving or making coffee, and suddenly a lyric will hit me. I have a hundred voice memos of me humming into my phone while swerving through the streets because I got the phone to my ear trying to catch this random ass melody.”

The room erupted in laughter.

As the conversation continued, Jameson grew more animated, talking about the producers he’d worked with, the late-night recording sessions, and the risks he’d taken musically. But even as he spoke, there was a part of him that felt detached, like he was watching himself from a distance.

Tasha nodded, making a note of his answer. “Have you seen yourself transforming through your music?”

Jameson took a deep breath, considering the question carefully. “Well, when I first started out, I was just trying to make music that people would like. I was 18 when I signed my first deal. 19 when the album came out. What the hell did I know about life? But as I’ve grown and experienced more. I’m a few months from 30. My music has become much more personal and reflective of my own journey. I learned very quickly how powerful it can be. I learned how to express myself and my emotions in a way that I never could before.”

Lea jumped in excitedly. “And we can certainly hear that transformation in your new album. It’s raw and honest.”

“Thank you,” Jameson said with a smile. “I think that’s the beauty of music – it connects us all through our shared experiences.”

Tasha nodded in agreement before leaning in with another question. “Speaking of shared experiences, critics have been buzzing about one song in particular – Confessions. Can you tell us more about the meaning behind it?”

Jameson’s expression turned serious as he thought about how to articulate his thoughts on the track. “Confessions is a very personal song for me,” he began. “It’s about coming to terms with my mistakes and taking responsibility for them. Realizing you’re the villain in your own story is….hard.” He looked down at his wrist, fiddling with his watch nervously before continuing. “Whether it's infidelity or some other kind of betrayal -- to be able to face ourselves and confront our fuckups is needed to move forward. And Confessions is my way of doing just that.”

The hosts nodded understandingly, giving him a moment to gather himself, nodded appreciatively, thanking him for his time as the recording ended. As the studio lights dimmed and the crew began packing up, Jameson stayed seated for a moment, lost in thought. His mind wandered to Imani—her laugh, her stubbornness, the way she always saw through him. He wondered if she’d listen to the album. If she’d understand. With a deep sigh, he stood and shook hands with the hosts, thanking them for having him before making his way to the next promo opportunity, the weight of her absence pressed heavier on his chest each time he heard the music.

[galaxysupreme17]

Summer Homecoming

Y/n = Your Name

AgathaRio x daughter!reader!

The car rolled up the driveway, its tires crunching on the gravel, the sound mingling with the soft rustle of trees swaying in the evening breeze. Y/n practically flew out of the car before it had fully stopped, her duffle bag slung haphazardly over one shoulder and a bright grin lighting up her suntanned face. Her hair was lighter from the sun, streaked with gold highlights that seemed to glow in the fading light, and her skin bore the telltale signs of a summer well spent: freckles scattered across her nose and cheeks, and the sharp, ridiculous outline of her Chaco sandals stark against the tan on her feet.

“Home!” she shouted, her voice echoing through the quiet house as she flung open the front door. “I’m home!”

No response. The house was unusually still, its usual hum of life absent, but Y/n’s excitement didn’t waver. She dropped her bag with a thud by the door, kicked off her sneakers, and padded through the familiar halls. Each step brought a rush of memories: the creak of the third stair, the faint scent of lavender lingering in the air, and the way the sunlight filtered through the stained glass panel by the front window, casting colorful patterns on the walls.

The living room was empty, the cushions on the couch perfectly arranged, and the kitchen was still, save for a few mugs drying on the counter. A knowing smile tugged at her lips as she caught sight of the open sliding door leading to the backyard.

“They’re outside,” she whispered to herself, her tone carrying a hint of fondness.

She stepped onto the patio, the warm evening breeze wrapping around her like a familiar hug, carrying with it the earthy scent of freshly turned soil. Sure enough, there they were: Agatha lounged in a chair with a book, her legs tucked under her, while Rio knelt by her garden, carefully pruning the tomato plants. The scene was so quintessentially them that Y/n’s heart swelled with affection.

“Mami! Mama!” she called, her voice bright and full of joy.

Rio turned first, her expression lighting up as she saw her daughter. “Y/n!” she exclaimed, dropping her shears and bounding over in a near sprint. The speed surprised Y/n, who barely had time to brace herself before she was enveloped in a tight, warm hug.

“Look at you!” Rio said, pulling back to take her in, her hands resting firmly on Y/n’s shoulders as if to confirm she was really there. “You’re so tan! And—what is that?” She pointed to Y/n’s feet, her eyes narrowing playfully. “Is that the world’s worst sandal tan?”

Y/n laughed, kicking her foot out to show it off with exaggerated pride. “It’s a Chaco tan, Mami. A badge of honor.”

Rio rolled her eyes but couldn’t hide her grin. “A badge of something, all right. Did you spend the whole summer chasing the sun?”

“Pretty much,” Y/n replied cheekily, reaching out to brush a stray leaf off Rio’s shirt. “You’ve been busy, too, huh?” She gestured toward the garden.

“Always,” Rio said with a wink. “These tomatoes won’t grow themselves.”

Agatha joined them then, her book forgotten on the chair as she rose with a grace that belied her casual demeanor. Her arms opened, and Y/n stepped into the embrace without hesitation. Her heart settled as she felt her mother’s familiar warmth. One of her hands cradled the back of Y/n's head, and the other rested on her back, her lips pressing softly to her daughter’s temple.

“Welcome home, darling,” Agatha murmured, her voice low and full of emotion. “We missed you.”

“I missed you, too,” Y/n said, her voice muffled against Agatha’s shoulder. “So much.”

Dinner that night was a feast of all of Y/n’s favorites: a big pot of spaghetti with rich marinara sauce, garlic bread fresh from the oven, a crisp Caesar salad, and a triple chocolate cake Agatha had baked earlier that day.

“This is heaven,” Y/n said between bites, twirling another forkful of spaghetti. “I forgot how good home-cooked meals are. Camp food is… not this.”

Rio chuckled, leaning back in her chair as she sipped her iced tea. “We’ll keep you fed, don’t worry. Now, tell us everything. How was it?”

Y/n’s face lit up as she launched into stories about the campers, the activities, and the late-night campfires under a sky filled with stars. Her voice was animated, her eyes sparkling as she described pranks pulled by the counselors and the silly talent show that had ended in a chaotic pie fight. She gestured excitedly, nearly knocking over her glass at one point, which made Agatha raise an eyebrow and mutter a playful “Careful, darling.”

“And there was this one camper,” Y/n continued, barely pausing to breathe. “She was so shy at first, but by the end of the week, she was leading the campfire songs! It was amazing to see her come out of her shell.”

Rio and Agatha exchanged a glance, their expressions a mix of pride and amusement as they listened.

“Sounds like you had quite the adventure,” Agatha said, her tone warm. “We’ll have to hear more about these pranks later.”

“Oh, you will,” Y/n promised, grinning mischievously. “And after dinner, I’ve got a slideshow. You’re gonna love it.”

“A slideshow?” Rio repeated, her eyebrows rising. “Should we be worried?”

“Probably,” Y/n teased, popping a piece of garlic bread into her mouth.

The conversation flowed easily as they ate, punctuated by laughter and the occasional clink of forks against plates. The kitchen was filled with the comforting aroma of marinara and garlic, the sounds of a family reunited, and the unspoken understanding that this moment was one to savor.

Later, the three of them crowded around the living room TV as Y/n connected her laptop. “Okay, so, I took like a million pictures, but we will just go through the first couple.”

The first few slides were of the camp itself: sprawling fields, rustic cabins, and a sparkling lake framed by towering pines. There were shots of sunsets turning the sky into a canvas of orange and pink and early mornings where the mist curled over the water like a living thing. Then came the pictures of the campers, their faces painted with joy during activities like canoeing, hiking, and tie-dye sessions. A group of kids held up their creations, a rainbow of swirling colors proudly displayed.

“This is the arts and crafts cabin,” Y/n said, pausing at an image of kids seated at picnic tables, their hands smeared with paint. “It was a total mess every single day, but they loved it.”

But it was the counselor photos that caught Rio and Agatha’s attention.

“Who’s this group?” Agatha asked, pointing to a picture of Y/n with a group of six counselors standing in front of the campfire pit, arms slung around each other’s shoulders.

“That’s my crew,” Y/n explained, her face lighting up. “There’s Connor and Sam—” she gestured to two boys, one tall and lanky, the other shorter with a mischievous grin. “And then there’s Lily, Harper, me, and…” Her voice trailed off as she pointed to the last girl.

“And Taylor,” Rio finished, her tone teasing. “Isn’t she the girl who lives a few houses down?”

Y/n shrugged, her cheeks tinting pink. “Yeah, so?”

Rio smirked. “Interesting. Go on.”

The slideshow continued, showing the group setting up for a camp party. Y/n and Taylor were stringing up lights, their heads close together as they laughed at a shared joke. Another showed the duo with Lily and Harper, all four of them covered in flour from a failed baking attempt. The image captured their unrestrained laughter, the kitchen in chaotic disarray behind them.

“This was the Great Cookie Disaster,” Y/n explained, grinning her head. “We tried to make chocolate chip cookies for the campers but forgot the baking powder. They turned into… rocks. Literal rocks.”

“Sounds like an adventure,” Agatha commented, her lips twitching with amusement.

But the picture that really caught Rio and Agatha’s attention was one of Taylor lying on her back on the floor of the counselor cabin, her hands resting casually on Y/n’s waist as Y/n sat on her, carefully applying glittery makeup to Taylor’s face.

“Oh,” Rio said, leaning forward with a grin. “What’s going on here?”

Y/n groaned, burying her face in her hands. “It’s nothing! We were bored, and the campers wanted us to look ridiculous for skit night.”

“Sure,” Agatha said, her tone dripping with mock seriousness. “Because everyone lets someone they’re ‘bored with’ put glitter on their face while holding them by the waist.”

The next slide showed Y/n and Taylor onstage during skit night, dressed in mismatched costumes. Y/n wore a long, flowing dress and a crown of flowers perched lopsidedly on her head while Taylor held a toy sword in one hand and gestured dramatically with the other.

“This was our grand performance,” Y/n explained, trying to steer the conversation away from the glitter photo. “We did a ridiculous parody of ‘The Princess Bride.’”

“Let me guess,” Rio said, pointing to Y/n. “You were Princess Buttercup?”

“Of course,” Y/n replied, laughing. “Taylor was Inigo Montoya. She got way too into it.”

“And the glitter was part of the plan?” Agatha asked, her eyebrows raised.

“You two are impossible,” Y/n said, though her laughter betrayed her exasperation.

As the slideshow continued, the room filled with stories and laughter. The three of them basked in the warmth of shared memories and playful teasing.

After the slideshow, Y/n stretched out on the couch, her head resting on Agatha’s lap while her legs sprawled across Rio’s lap. Agatha absentmindedly ran her fingers through Y/n’s hair, a soothing rhythm that made Y/n’s eyes flutter shut, her body melting into the comfort of home. Rio sat with one hand resting lightly on Y/n’s knee, her other tracing absent patterns on the fabric of the couch.

“I’m so glad to be home,” Y/n murmured, her voice heavy with exhaustion and contentment.

“We’re glad to have you home, sweetheart,” Agatha replied softly, her tone brimming with maternal warmth. “It’s been too quiet around here without you.”

Rio chuckled, her fingers giving Y/n’s knee a gentle squeeze. “Though I have to admit, it’s nice not having to scrub glitter out of the bathroom sink every other day.”

Y/n groaned playfully, covering her face with her hands. “I leave for one summer, and you act like I’m a tornado of chaos.”

“Not a tornado, exactly,” Rio teased. “More like a glitter bomb.”

Agatha laughed, the sound rich and warm. “And you know we wouldn’t trade our glitter bomb for anything.”

Y/n peeked out from behind her hands, a smile tugging at her lips. “Even when I bring back scandalous photos?”

“Especially then,” Agatha replied, leaning down to kiss Y/n’s forehead. “You keep our lives interesting.”

“Not a chance,” Rio chimed in, her grin widening as she gave Y/n’s shin a playful pat. “Those photos are going in the family album.”

The three of them stayed like that for a while, the soft hum of the ceiling fan and the occasional chirp of crickets outside filling the cozy silence. Y/n’s breathing slowed, her exhaustion catching up with her as she relaxed completely between her mothers.

“Love you guys,” she murmured sleepily, her voice barely audible.

“Love you more,” Rio whispered, brushing a strand of hair from Y/n’s face.

“Always,” Agatha added, her voice a quiet promise.

As the night deepened, the house was once again filled with the quiet joy of family, the bonds between them stronger than ever.

[a-bad-case-of-the-stephs]

What're some Steph Brown moments you think should be talked about more?

Thank you sm for asking me this…

This one is actually really hard for me to answer because I think society should be talking about every stephanie brown moment all of the time. Additionally, I genuinely don’t think I can tell what moments w her are underrated anymore.

That being said I have made a list:

1. This Scene w Crystal in cataclysm

Robin #54

Really shows some extremely interesting parts of their relationship. This is like one of our first indications Crystal and Steph’s relationship might be on the mend. We get a look into how close they are despite their many issues. We have a minute where Steph jokes about Crystal blaming herself for the quake “too” implying Crystal often blames herself for things out of her control, which as I’m always discussing is a Stephanie Brown classic trait. The idea that this is something Crystal might do as well is so compelling to me. And throughout it all, we have Steph trying to protect Crystal, taking care of her, even tucking her in like a parent would their child. (Cough Stephanie brown parentification cough cough)

2. This panel from GK37. The way Batmans silhouette steps forward while Steph’s silhouette stands starkly still. The purple overcast sky with the flakes of snow (the whole weather/environment in gk37 kills me). The emphasis on ‘go to hell’ as after a comic of bargaining Steph finally comes to terms with the fact that she can’t rely on anyone else, that Batman going to her and telling her she could be something, that she could be good meant absolutely nothing to him. Amazing. Imprinted into my brain.

4. Steph’s conversation with Natalia about the stars in Robin 104. Gorgeous panel with an interesting look into Steph’s brain.

5. The Riddle scene in Robin 113, because I’m not smart enough to break down the Riddlers riddles and put together the implications which I assume are there and I want someone else to do it for me. Additionally, the lighting is absolutely gorgeous as we get to see Steph at this low point.

6. Robin #92, the scene where Bruce talks to Steph about the future, deeply unsettling her to the point that months and months later at the very start of war games she’s still thinking about it

7. The moment after Tim Drake’s birthday gaslighting bonanza where he commiserates with Steph abt getting tested by Batman. I’m imagining that he feels guilty for his role in her own test. For the record I’m hallucinating that guilt. I think it’s possible Lewis straight up didn’t know how Tim lied to Steph in Batman Family. But on the other hand the parallels to GK37 are insane and clearly there for a reason. Thinking about this lots. The repetition of “I know” vs “go to hell”. Their reversal of roles…I’ve already blabbed abt this on my blog but I’m still putting it here also bc I’m thinking abt it always.

Robin #120

8. All of GK22 as a reflection of how Batman’s loneliness post officer down is actually inextricably connected with his decision to sanction Steph as Spoiler. But specifically this scene because it makes me sick and ill and because it’s my header. Love the decapitated head side eyeing Batman.

9. Okay last one. One moment I’ve been thinking about a lot recently is Stephanie’s first interaction with Batman post War Games. Like the first thing she says to him after returning from her faked death is her essentially asking permission to patrol in Gotham.

Robin #174

Which is so fucking insane. She was unironically and genuinely spiritually broken by the events of war games. One of the very core tenets of her characterization, her willingness to be Spoiler no matter what regardless of the consequences, is fractured and entirely reversed. I have a lot of thoughts about this, and in general how post war games pre bg2009 Steph has healed physically but something big has clearly changed in her and not for the better. If you ask me, that period of time is stephanie brown at her lowest point. Will be posting abt this more eventually because writing this out has given me worse brain worms than normal.

Thank you so much for the ask again, sorry this took me a second I kept writing out way too much. I’m unfortunately a rambler at heart. Would love to hear anyone’s thoughts on any of these moments or other moments I missed.

[lol-jackles]

I was pursuing your “Destiel” tag (thank you for posting it for that anon, btw, and bringing it back to my attention), and came across this statement from you:

“As a result, douchy Jensen + going off script = other actors trying to cope. My favorite was 2016 because that was when my girlfriend leaned close to the screen and said, "Jared, blink twice if you're being held against your will". Since then Jared had figured out how to handle these ~unscripted~ moments, but Misha hasn't.”

What was the moment in particular at 2016 JIB that made your girlfriend say that? Or what was Jensen going at that one? Wasn’t Gen at that one, too?

Also, what would you say Jared’s strategy has been in dealing with Jensen (when drunk) on stage at JIB? And why does Jensen seem “meaner” to Jared at JIB than at CE or AHBL cons? Which is closer to thier actual dynamic, do you think?

And I just have to add, it was pretty amusing seeing Misha momentarily (sadly not longer) regret his life choices at, was it 2019 JIB, where he pointed out the Destiel shirt and Jensen yelled about “where is it real?” Do you think Jensen was actually annoyed in this panel? I say yes, but my brother says no.

Jensen seems to keep it together more at JIBs post pandemic, but I was at JIB 13, and he gave off a huge air of just being over the whole thing by his solo Sunday panel. And he and Rich were essentially running out the clock by being loud idiots (my ears still hurt from being near a speaker).

They all claim to love JIB, but they also all seem pretty over it come Sunday.

Sorry that got long. Would love to see your response to any parts.

This was the first time I briefly talked about the infamous Jib con. Back in 2016 I used to think their co/dependent friendship was doomed at the 10-year mark because when one isn’t adjusting to the changing time, then the idolatries friendship can’t last more than 10 years at best.  I listed a few examples (X) from a feminist blog about women ending their female friendships, a woman ending her friendship with a male friend (X) Oliver Broudy’s story of ending his 10-year friendship with a college friend (X).  These friendships ended because one of them was stuck and making more and more demands on the unstuck friend.  We know happened after season 10 wrapped up (X) (X).

Anyways, what got my girlfriend's attention was Jared looking like a tug of war rope between Gen and Jensen and the boys. Regular corporate SPN cons in the U.S are already a male-dominated atmosphere bordering on frat boy shenanigans. At least there are corporate handlers and security to help keep the actors in line, plus alcohol are banned for actors. Jib cons are fan-run with no handlers and alcohol are allowed, and usually there are no actresses because the cost of the extra Jensen/Misha and Jared/Misha panels means some actors are going to get cut out and it’s usually the actresses. Without female colleagues around, the men really rile each other up at Jib cons, it’s part of their bonding and one-upmanship rituals. I think why Gen rarely participated in SPN cons is because she didn't want to be around all that dude energy. But 2016 was different because I think she blamed herself for leaving the 2015 British con early and is still traumatize that she nearly lost Jared few days later, so Gen agreed to let Jared drag bring her to Jib con. Men don’t like wives/girlfriends homing in on their bro times and Jensen was noticeable irritated that Jared’s wife was there and during the closing ceremony Jensen used air quotations marks while talking about Gen’s marriage to Jared who had his arms wrapped around her. He looked peeved at Jensen and then then laughed it off because what else could he do on stage?

(Side note: it’s not easy for men to find male friends and keeping them.  I hated the movie I love you, man because it was too familiar, and Paterson made me uneasy because Adam Driver's character has no male friends and he's more than okay with that because he has a wife.)

Jensen seems "meaner" not just to Jared but to every actor there, especially Misha. At these fan-run conventions, there are no "scripts" (guidelines actually) to follow. Most actors were still going by the guidelines from corporate-run conventions when they're on stage, but not Jensen because it's part of his upmanship as a way to both bond and dominate others. It's a Ryan Seacrest and Brian Dunkleman type situation. Maybe Jensen learned this trick from Ryan who used to be his roommate. Misha is not a natural improviser, his guest appearance on Whose Line Is it Anyways shows that, so he's the least apt at handling Jensen's off script moments. Half the time Jensen wasn't actually drunk but acts like it to avoid the inevitable asinine Destiel-loaded questions from the hellers in the audience.

Jared's strategy was about the same at pre-2016 JIB cons and CE cons because he's pretty apt at smoothing things over between Jensen and the fans. At the infamous 2013 New Jersey con a self-claiming bisexual girl tried to ask Jensen a loaded Destiel question and he snapped at her with, “don’t ruin it for everybody” and Jared immediately calmed Jensen down and salvaged the rest of the experience for sane fans.

Stuff like this is closer to their real life dynamic as the Giver and the Taker. If you read the "codependency tag", Jared the Giver cleans up the messes the Taker make. Givers think they're helping but they're actually enabling and don't improve things. Jensen's reputation took a slight hit, and it took a few years for the New Jersey con to be memory-holed. Apparently Jensen didn't learn from this and 3 years later mocked a girl wearing a "Destiel is real" shirt at the 2019 JIB. Misha told Jensen to not “fight with fans” and Jared was gesturing to a fan in the front row as if saying don’t look at me look at him. That may answer your question, Jared stopped trying to calm Jensen down and instead focus on heading off fans who gets too snippy at Jensen, like at a DC con few years back where a girl was trying to look cool but came off sounding hostile towards Jensen, so Jared left the stage and hugged the stuffings out of the girl, deflating her hostile-sounding voice.

I don't think I've seen Jensen's solo panel at JIB13, but he's usually looks like he's watching the clock during his Jared-less panels so that's nothing new. It's been the case for many years and a common complaint by fans, it's why CE stopped having solo J panels early on because Jensen needs a scene partner. It goes back to why Jensen works better as a scene-stealing supporting actor instead of a leading man. How Jensen made Dean Winchester have memorable moments was by putting his focus on the other person.  By using this method, Jensen can stop worrying about how he’s going to say his lines and speak intuitively, this helps make Dean appear truthful to the audience.  It may be why Jensen doesn’t read scripts ahead of time.   Jensen doesn’t go into a scene looking to do a scene, instead he goes in looking to be open and give over to how the other person (in this case, Jared playing Sam) makes him feel.  This method worked great for Jensen when his character has Sam to focus on, and Jensen has Jared to react to.  It’s why Dean’s dying moments with Sam in the barn works so well in the series’ finale.

.

You probably heard of the saying, “acting is reacting”.

A demon’s acting philosophy in The Good Place: “Demons have to learn that Acting Is Reacting.  And Reacting Is Pre-acting. But Pre-acting? Well, that’s just being.”  

While “acting is reacting” gets mocked in the acting community because it’s a trap alot of actors fall into by adjusting their truthful inner life to their assumptions about the text.  Good acting is adjusting the text to your authentic emotion which is the result of the other person.  This where Jensen’s good acting comes from and it’s become his comfort zone and made him a multimillionaire by his mid 30s.  He’s in what my acting coach calls “the truthful contact”, it’s where actors are taught the first stage of authentic acting.  The next stage is “crafting”.  When you’re working solo without a screen partner, your skill at crafting becomes vital.  Crafting means anywhere from ability to endow meaning to objects so they have emotional meaning is important, or effectively get across justifications and point of views.  

[eschergirls]

January 2025 Update & 2024 Supporter Thank You

Hi everyone! December is over so it's time not just for the January update and thank you post, but also to thank everybody who supported Escher Girls in 2024!

This month has no major external site updates, but we have updated the site internal software which should hopefully fix some errors. We've also fixed the formatting in the way the site displays gifs and videos in previews in the tags, so there shouldn't be giant white spaces between each post.

This month I didn't have a lot of time to fix up old posts because I've been jumping from appointment to appointment for the health thing I mentioned before. But I was able to fix up a few posts.

Specifically, I restored this post of Kevin Nash's short-lived comic book, a panel of Gamora's butt sucking in her thong and also her entire body I guess?, this cover of Shanna: The She-Devil in a boobs and butt pose, Nikki Doyle being turned into a snake by a snake, and two really good fan-art/redraws of Nikki Doyle, one by Keskerist, and another by JustTheMiles. I also fixed up and sourced the Samurai Champloo bomb-boobs video from a very old post.

All restored/fixed posts have working images, videos, and animated gifs (a lot were broken or deleted by either Tumblr or during the move to the new site), and have added image descriptions for screenreaders, sources, and link to the corresponding cross-post on Tumblr and vice versa (except for the cases where Tumblr removed the post entirely either because the submitter deleted their blog/submission, or Tumblr's algorithm mistakenly tagged something as nudity, usually a solid coloured bodysuit, in those cases I've tried to find an archived version to link to). For very old Tumblr posts that don't allow image captions, I've linked the images to the image hosted on EscherGirls.com which does have image captions.

And now I want to give a big thank you to Escher Girls' Patreon subscribers for all of 2024 regardless of when you subscribed or for how long. I really appreciate all the help people give me to help keep the site up, pay for hosting and domain costs (which keep going up due to inflation v_v), and allow us to keep the site updated.

So thank you so so much to the following people for being 2024 Patreon subscribers:

Anne Adler Cat Mara CheerfulOptimistic Chris McKenzie Em Bardon First Time Trek Greg Sepelak Karrius Ken Trosaurus Kevin Carson Kim Wincen Leak  Manuel Dalton Mary Kuhner Max Schwarz Miriam Pody Morgan McEvoy randomisedmongoose Rebecca Breu Ringoko  Ryan Gerber Sam Mikes Sean Sea Who Used To Be Much More Annoying SpecialRandomCast  Thomas Thomas Key

And also special thank yous to JohnnyBob8 and PJ Evans for their donations through Ko-Fi in 2024!

And also a huge thank you to everybody in general who reads, submits, reblogs, comments, and otherwise interacts with the blog! Escher Girls' audience is truly great and I love seeing all of your responses to my posts and your captions!

Also, if anybody is on Fedi and wants to talk to me, I'm at https://urusai.social/@ami_angelwings.

Thank you so much and see you next month!

Ami

PS: As a reminder, we added a button that links to the Escher Girls Tumblr and to our RSS feed for those who want to follow that way. (For newbies, RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication and is basically a feed you can read using an RSS reader. Simply copy and paste https://eschergirls.com/rss.xml into an RSS reader and it will keep you up to date on Escher Girls!)

Make sure it is eschergirls.com and not eschergirls.tumblr.com, as that is Tumblr, and not the self-hosted site.

If you have any issues with the site or suggestions to improve it, please do not hesitate to contact me and let me know!

If you wish to support Escher Girls, you can subscribe to our Patreon at: https://www.patreon.com/ami_angelwings or donate through Ko-Fi at: https://ko-fi.com/amiangelwings.