listened to The Bradys and thought about duck again you all know what that means

Part 15 of Ghost Kid in Gotham

>>Masterpost >>AO3

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Green and Red Emotions, similar but not

Jason leaned against the wall, arms crossed, as he waited. He checked the time one more time and then listened for the sounds in the hallway. The bandage against his arm was causing an itch he ignored skilfully. If there was one thing the little shit was apparently good at in his feral stage it was fucking biting, though it was nothing to be proud at. Well unless you were well versed in the art of fighting dirty.

Eitherway the kid had a sharp set of chompers and apparently some sort of homing sense, considering Jason was only sporting three visible bite marks all on the same forearm and all nearly in the same area. The kid always aimed for that specific spot to bite. Maybe Jason should start considering keeping that arm out of sight for the little shit so he wouldn't latch onto it. But the following worst case would be the kid deciding on a new spot to bite on.

Footsteps caught Jason's attention and he inclined his head slightly. Light with purpose loud enough to make sure people knew they were coming.

So he knew and was not going to avoid him today.

Good, Jason wasn't going to allow his brother to make that choice today anyway. He had waited long enough. His patience lasted long enough for his brother to step into the room fully and flick the lights on, before Jason closed the door behind him. Considering Dick was only simply turning around with a tired smile, confirmed his thoughts that his brother knew this was coming.

"Got enough of avoiding me already? Thought it would take me a week." He could help the teasing dig.

"Jason."

"Safe it Dickbird." He shook his head. "You're good. I don't think the 'kids' noticed anything. No bets on Cass though. She can read any of us like an open book."

He watched how his elder brother sighed, put his hands on his hips and still smiled at him. "What gave it away?"

Eyes traveling over the wary form of his elder brother he considered answering the question honestly. Dick was good at hiding certain emotions, but even he slipped up in the smallest of moments. Moments you wouldn't catch easily if one wasn't looking for them, small tells Jason had gotten familiar with over the years. He could be honest but then his elder brother would attempt to cover these tells in the future so he wouldn't 'worry' them and put even more on his shoulder unnecessarily.

"During that Dinner you stuck close to Demon Brat, little shit and me." It wasn't a lie, but neither the full truth. It was the first thing that tipped him off along with what Dick had said. "Besides that I have my own sources ans suspicions. The little shit has a pit, one that is different from mine."

"Is that going to be your nickname for Teethling, that's not a very nice little Wing?" Dick joked but Jason's expression didn't change as he watched the other. After a moment Dick once more let out a sigh and comped through his hair with one hand.

"If this is about what we found out about Danny's past. We didn't hide anything there. We have found an entire paper trail of his schooling. You know he could use some help with English." The light heartedness of Dick's voice did not carry as Jason didn't take the bait, but instead heard something else out of it.

"So what did you and the old man hide?"

"Jason." He tensed at the seriousness that entered his brother's voice. So it was bad, really bad. He wanted to curse Bruce but he didn't really know for what exactly, it was just one of his go to mechanisms whenever the old man kept something from them.

"Keep talking Dickbird or I will go to Barbie instead." Dick flinched, he refrained from arching an eyebrow but couldn't help the small lift to his lips. It was just a thrown out thread, implying that he would have Barbie hack into the Batcomputer if necessary to get the information it wanted but looking at that reaction. She was involved, and most likely not happy with their handling of the information they had.

As the silence stretched on he got impatient again.

"Chop chop pretty boy. Spill or do I really need to see Barbie?" Was it fair to use Barbara as some sort of weapon here? Probably not, but did he care? Nope, he didn't. He was going to get information on what was going on with the little shit and how much of that fucked up green juice was involved. Though he was pretty sure for the kid to get dragged it must have been a shit ton of it.

Neither of them moved for a while again, and Jason really thought that he might have to go to Barbara for real until Dick once more commed through his hair seemingly finally having come to a decision himself. Turning on his heel the elder went over to his desk and pulled out a laptop, not any laptop but the one with direct connection to the Batcomp Servers.

Jason caused heavily under his breath as he walked over and watched Dick power it up before logging in to access files. Fuck, it must be really bad if they went that far which meant Bruce had intended to keep all of them out of these files should they attempt it directly over the Batcomputer.

Which meant Demon Brat would have no chance of seeing these unless he uses one of the special access ways. The moment Dick pulled up the first image, Jason only half heartedly listened to his brother's explanation as his eyes turned green.

"These fuckers!" Oh he would need to go out on Crime Alley tonight, otherwise he wouldn't know where to put this shit ton of rage. His head sharply turned towards his elder brother for the first time he realized just how much of his own emotions Dick had been hiding from them reflected in the others eyes.

"The bits and pieces of the reports we recovered are even worse." He watched how Dick closed his eyes for a moment before opening them again and focusing them solely on Jason. The rage he had just seen no longer reflected in his eyes but at the same time his brother halted like he saw something else that stopped him for a brief moment before he continued. "It's more speculation based on the bits and pieces we have discovered. Are you sure you really want in on this information Jason? It will not be pretty, and Danny…"

"Will still be a little shit that fucking bites me like I am his personal chew toy." Making direct eye contact Jason attempted to earnestly convey his stand on the situation. Besides now that he had seen a glimps of what was most likely truly going on, he was not going to leave that fucked up shit alone.

Jason only later learned through Dick's admission that his eyes had glowed green throughout the entire explanation of what they had dug up so far as well as what they were suspecting and only turned back once Dick was done and had closed the laptop. If he punched a couple of criminals in close combat just a tad bit harder than necessary in response that night, that was no one's but his own business.

Meanwhile in a Area hidden between Illinois and Gotham

Dan sat on the little hill of unconscious bodies he had created in his ghost form. Originally he was going to go for the headquarters of the League of Assassins. Thing was, having a merged ghost core of two different ghosts, as well as a newly created human side (thanks to his clone body), did intact impact his 'Danny' memories slightly. Which meant he sort of forgot where it was again, but hey instead he remembered where some of the sub hide outs where. Like this one that happened to be close to Illinois.

He kicked the guy squished under the one he was sitting on, enticing a pained groan out of them. They weren't dead, Jazz, Ellie and the twerp had spent a lot of time resocializing him. He was not about to fuck that up by taking a live. Besides, the twerp as well as his human half never really had been able to take a life.

Still he was stuck, now. He had thought that they had been involved. Danny had disappeared without an explanation. Of course there could alway have been the chance that the GIW as well as the twerps former parents had lied in some way. That instead of disappearing, the twerp just got transferred to some other place they didn't know about.

But Dan had remembered when he had seen the world map. He had remembered them. People capable of making people disappear without a trace. Be it permanently or for their body to turn up at a later point as a warning. He wouldn't have put it past them if they had been behind it.

If the old sack of bones had learned of the twerps powers, his tone most likely would have changed. His eyes flashed for a moment just a bit brighter in a muddled red at that thought.

In a way it surprised Dan that he was able to think this way about these people. But then again. He had left his human side behind and merged his core with Plasimus. He did not hold any sympathy for these people anymore. Well maybe only for one of them, the rest could go screw off as far as he cared. And if he knew his former self the way he did then he knew that the only ones the twerp would really care for would be his mother and twin. Which was fine with Dan only to a certain extent, he would only care for one of them and which one it was was pretty obvious in his opinion. Damian held the same value to him that Jazz did.

Talia was a different matter. Without his human half and probably a bit of the influence of Plasimus' core, Dan had a more objective opinion on his shared memories with Danny in regards to her.

Kicking another unfortunate soul on the human pile to give his frustration way, he growled as he sensed a new presence coming closer. When the growl didn't work as warning enough and the presence did not deter in their approach, he turned, flaring his hair and snarled towards the shadows.

His eyes glowed stronger and dangerously warning red as they narrowed at the person that stepped out of the shadows. Observing him and the pile of unconscious bodies stacked under him.

"This is quite the surprise. I did not expect your appearance."

"Where is he?" Dan snarled gloved fingers turning into claws, figures she knew about his existence somehow.

"Won't you at least greet me, Habibi?"

His hackles rose and held out his claws threateningly, preparing for the fight that was most likely to come. "I am no son of yours! Now, where the fuck is he?"

Happy Accidents Allowed

Prompt: “Starry Night” (discord drabble from STWG and a happy birthday to @thefreakandthehair 🥳💜)

-

“That’s a perfect wall right there.” Eddie emphasizes his point by smacking a hand against the still-white, (thankfully) now dried paint. “Don’t ya agree, big boy?”

Steve puts his hands on his hips, letting himself survey every inch of the wall of their living room. It’s actually a small area, right next to the sliding door of the balcony, barely wide enough to fit his own frame even with his arms outstretched. It’s also the only wall in their new apartment left unpainted because Eddie had wanted it blank for a mural he wanted to do. Hence the many paint bottles and palettes around their feet.

Finally, Steve smacked his lips and said, “Better than a horse, I’ll say.” 

It came out less clever than it did in his brain, but Eddie laughed hysterically anyways. 

“Alright, I’m gonna start so do not distract me!” Eddie pointed at him with one of the paintbrushes. 

“Even if it’s for meals?” Steve asked, the corners of his lips quirking upwards.

Eddie paused. “Unless it’s for meals.”

“Even if you need a shower?”

“Unless I have to shower.”

“Even if-”

Steve cackled as he leapt away from Eddie’s attempt to smack his leg. “Even if I have to sleep, yes!” 

He left Eddie alone then. Steve spent a while in their bedroom to finish unpacking the last couple boxes, before he peeked back in the living room. 

Some of the wall was painted in a thick dark blue. Eddie was still hunched over on his spot, but Steve could see that his boyfriend already had some other colours done. They were too dark and blob-y looking for Steve to figure out what they were. But it wouldn’t hurt to ask, right?

“So what exactly are you painting?” Steve tiptoed over, careful not to disturb Eddie.

Eddie hummed, not looking up from where he’s still painting. “Been wanting to try my version of Starry Night.”

“Starry Night?”

“Yeah, you know. That one Van Gogh painting.” 

“Oh, I know that.”

They both fell into a comfortable silence. Steve kept watching Eddie until he finally looked up. “You wanna try?”

Steve blinked, “Huh?”

Eddie grinned, already handing him a paintbrush. “You can try painting too. It would be sort of cool if we did this together, actually. Like, I paint on this side, you paint on that side, we meet in the middle. Might be sweet.”

”Or hideous.” Steve muttered, taking the offered brush. Eddie laughed before turning back to his progress.

Steve stared at the remaining white space. He looked down at his brush. It’s one of the small ones that could do thinner strokes for the details. Probably a good choice Eddie gave him because Steve knew absolutely nothing about painting. Even in art classes as he had followed his teacher’s instructions, his projects always looked like a first grader’s attempt. Hell, he was pretty sure first grade was the last time he genuinely wanted to do painting on his own.

He took a deep breath. He can do this. He knows what Starry Night looks like, so all he has to do is paint what he remembers, right?

Steve sits down, dipping the brush in one of the blue paints. A lighter color. Because Starry Night had lots of cool brushstrokes and it makes sense to start from light to dark. Right?

Steve carefully taps the brush experimentally on the wall. As expected, the light blue paint appears as a new dot on the white wall, inches away from Eddie’s. But an inexplicable wave of dread comes over Steve. The longer he stares at the spot, the more it overwhelms him. 

Because he doesn’t know what to do next. 

Does he have to apply the same paint? Does he just have to bring the brush back and move it up and down? Did he have to add a new one? If he tried a different brush- no, it would just be the same, just more larger. Should he ask Eddie? No, it’ll just distract him anyways. Maybe if Steve left now- no, he would be a fucking asshole-

“I ruined it.” Steve said, blankly staring at the pathetic dot. 

“What?” Eddie blinked at him. His eyes darted to the horrible blue spot and he made a small laugh. “Sweetheart, you just started-”

“I ruined it.” Steve repeated. Pressure started burning right behind his eyes. He immediately pinched the bridge of his nose, careful with the paintbrush he’s still holding. Fucking pathetic. “This was a mistake.”

“Wait, wait, Steve.” Eddie’s hands were on his wrists, gently bringing them down to their laps. Steve looked away, biting hard into his bottom lip. If he had to look at his boyfriend, Steve was certain he would just start sobbing and never stop.

“Steve.” Eddie said softly. His hand carefully cupped Steve’s face. Lingering, not turning his head to face Eddie. “Tell me what’s wrong?”

“Like I said,” Steve clenched his jaw as he spoke, trying to stop the waterworks from going out, “I ruined it.”

There was a tiny rustle of clothes as Eddie moved forwards. His arms wrapped around Steve, easily pulling their bodies together. Steve couldn’t hold it anymore. He buried his face in his boyfriend’s shoulder, inhaling the smell of paint already ingrained in the fabric of his flannel. It soaked up his tears easily. 

After Steve felt like he could breathe without feeling choked up, Eddie spoke again, “It’s your first time painting, right?”

Steve nodded. He turned his head so he could press his face against Eddie’s neck. 

“I’m not expecting you to be a master painter.” Eddie paused, “Though it would be pretty cool if my boyfriend was secretly Van Gogh.” He cackled aloud when Steve good-heartedly pinched his arm in response. When he quieted down, Eddie leaned back so he was staring into Steve’s eyes. His thumb rubbed underneath them to wipe away any stray tears.

He continued, “It’s okay to fail, Steve. It’s okay to make mistakes, especially when you’re just starting something new. Believe me, I get the struggle. Sometimes, I come up with super cool ideas but I just tear my hair out when I can’t draw it exactly how I pictured it.”

“Really?” Steve asked quietly, even though he already witnessed plenty of those moments Eddie had just described, which was mostly amusing. But nothing about this situation feels funny to Steve. Surely, Eddie’s internally laughing at him right now.

But Eddie was only smiling at him, all so fondly, “Really. And there’s a lesson about it. If you think you ruined something, call it a happy accident.”

“Happy accidents?” Steve repeated it under his breath. Eddie’s smile grew wider as he playfully tapped his nose.

“Yep, no calling it a mistake or saying you ruined art. It’s just happy accidents.”

When they both leaned in to kiss, Steve thought about the circumstances that had brought them both here in this apartment, despite the horrors that had caused it. Thought about how if he hadn’t ran back to the Byers house that night, Steve’s life would’ve been more blissful but none the wiser. He wouldn’t have met the kids and known Eddie more this intimately.

Yeah, it sure was a happy accident. And that, Steve wouldn’t regret those spots of paint on his own mural of his life.

Light cone art so powerfully homoerotic someone (me) furiously pumped out a 6k word fic in 2 days. They're going to kill me. 🔗 : AO3

Extensive notes/ramblings below!

-

I have not recovered from the mental power I had to pool to write this lmao I couldn't do anything at work except figure these two out and why Aventurine looked so BESOTTED but the absence of the little white dots in his eyes in the light cone and in the leaked models made him look like there's such an edge to him (someone on twitter pointed out that he has no light in his eyes!) and it really fanned the flames like what the fuck is this GUY ON and why is it directed at Dr. Ratio LMAO (I mean why not Ratio is so pretty)

So then I thought, there is NO WAY Ratio is going to react surprised or scared for Aventurine he's going to be ANNOYED lmao. There are possibly 2 more chances in that cylinder before it's 100% in there and I was looking at the probabilities on Wikipedia and I was laughing at myself at how a gay ship was going to make me STUDY probability when I hated this type of stuff in university and I was like yeah Ratio will probably be like hey, you can't stop there, and pulls twice lmao

And I was thinking they would make eyes at each other homoerotically while doing so because wow sexual tension so potent you can taste it through the screen in the LC art and everything just went from there I really cannot get over how Aventurine seems so... sooooooo in love with Ratio and in my head Ratio is like this man is insane what is he on but he gets a taste of that and it's like wow it's actually a little good but Ratio is also cautious so he won't ride that wave too hard but Aventurine looks really down bad for a man who seems like he doesn't care

So initially I really wanted to wait until Aventurine came out before I start my hyperfixation train because we know so little about him other than key facts I have formed in my head-- -he's perpetual smiler (confirmed by a leak of the loading screen blurbs) and like, idk from his design it just suits him and even in his voice cameo with Topaz his VA sounds like they are smiling while they are talking ALLL the time idk at least I got this one right -mr gambling gambler who is very self-assured about his luck, mr smug man. when I wrote he'd win 99.9-0.1 he believes this and if he dies I think to him it would just mean his time's up for realsies anyway and whatever idk man is not very sane -there's some really weird leaks and I'm not sure if it's confirmed but he was invited to be a Masked Fool which made him ALLL the more interesting for me because as a Sampo Mr Scammer fan it doesn't mean if he joins the Masked Fools he wouldn't be able to amass money but this guy seems to really like the thrill being an IPC senior manager provides then which is like this guy is a lives fast dies young kinda guy -I HC from that neck tattoo he could have been an indentured servant (cough slave cough) or a prisoner of some kind, but eitherway it says he wasn't privileged in any sense of the word but the way his character design is so decked out in rings gold watches and even a bracelet it means he's climbed very far, so he is an ambitious man, lots of "material pleasures" as Dr Ratio puts it in my fic and he still wants more. That kinda guy makes for a very intense lover imo very "I get what I want" type, and I really wanted to balance that with his attraction to Dr Ratio and how he doesn't want to drive Dr Ratio away with his crazy but he's also very horny... Anyway I also totally underestimated his height difference with Dr Ratio I really should have pulled up that leak of them side by side but ahh being a short king dom top is so cute on him

As for Dr Ratio I really cannot see him top unless Aventurine power bottoms why but he's so "diligent" in all aspects but I see him being a pillow princess in bed

I also feel a little bad that I wasn't able to write more bickering between the two of them but I also feel like the normally talkative Dr Ratio keeps HIGH HIGH walls around Aventurine because it's hard to tell what this guy is thinking so he's thinking so hard trying to make sense of it all and he says little as not to give away anything that might be wrong

I feel like adding "all is fair in love and war" in Latin omina iusta sunt amore belloque was a little gratuitous but I also want to subtly sprinkle in that Aventurine is so obsessed with Ratio, so down bad for him, that he reads stuff about Dr Ratio a lot enough to come across a translation of the quote and I'm like no yeah way Ratio can deal with crazy-eyed Aventurine saying/declaring love while he's still computing the electric exchange they had so he's definitely like picking up on Aventurine's obsession/infatuation with him and he's like NOPE DON'T SAY IT and would rather kiss him to shut him up than hear it lmao

I honestly despaired at how I was going to start closing the scenes because it was like nighttime and I wanted to finish it already because they're killing me, so like, making Ratio fall asleep while Aventurine pours his heart out (I asked a friend who read it what he thought Aventurine said and they got it spot on so I figure it was conveyed properly on my end and I was really proud of this bit) seemed like a cute way to do it. The narration lied, Dr Ratio heard it but he got selective hearing and totally did NOT want to reply/acknowledge it. Poor Aventurine, but it's not as if he won't try again

I have waaay more ideas about them and I wonder if I can hold off until Aventurine releases or we get more crumbs idk but I want to write some kuudere Ratio (with a bit of tsun hehe)

Special mentions other than the lightcone art that fueled me: this art from Twitter that and this post that kinda made me think long and hard...

time for me to be obnoxious about an april fool's game at almost may wahoo ft. an unexpected moment of character analysis because i have no chill

TRAIN.

i hope this game is canon because rouge doing petty pickpocketing is my favorite thing actually

he has a wallet? and a home?

i could go on about how much i love these kids being unhinged and chaotic but unless i want to reblog this post a million times i have to cut it down. let it be known that i adore the kids and their antics tho

you know what i also adore? blaze committing crimes in the chaos dimension because she can get away with it. i think i need more of that in my life actually

although right after he says he doesn't wanna do more crimes i'd like to think he grows out of that opinion eventually. let the little guy steal stuff i want him to hang with rouge and have her make him worse actually

look here shadow's had it rough in the writing department for a while but i very much appreciated this plot point of him going out of his way to get concert tickets for amy and even (reluctantly) agreeing to go with her to said concert even if it isn't his cup of tea. i know it's more presented as him trying to y'know be polite and considerate and he's going about it in an edgy way but i'd like to think it's just his way of presenting things if you will? like he know what amy's favorite band is and sees how hard the tickets are to get so he goes out of his way to get them because he cares about his friend and knows how much attending a concert like that would mean to amy. and in terms of this screenshot in particular i also appreciate amy appreciating her friends' presence at her party even if they hadn't gotten her anything! sure it does kinda come across as her being bummed about not getting gifts from them and maybe she is but i think that's okay? like she's 12 (or 13 now i guess?) getting excited about presents is pretty normal, and it's not like she's super upset about it anyway. i think she genuinely appreciates her friends attending her party more than anything

i also found this a lovely little detail lol and it does kinda make sense! the bitch has been in stasis for 50 years and computer technology has taken leaps in that time, of course he'd be a lil rustier with them compared to his peers

more on shadow, this guy's brain goes overdrive the second he realizes he fucked up and needs to get something nice for his friend now. like i don't have the brain power to form it into words atm but i just love what this all says about him as a character!!

i could flail about the art in this game the whole evening honestly it's so lovely and colorful and pretty and i love how this scene is composed and shadow being seated on the windowsill idk this just put a big smile on my face when i saw it :)

frankly obsessed with amy's unhinged energy can we please get more of this bc i live for it

the fucking blowdart. i cannot tell you how fucking off the walls these teens are like espio's instructed to use a blowdart on sonic with non-lethal poison and he's like yeah that checks out and sonic's just like wow cool guess i'll snooze for a bit then like this shit is exactly why teenagers should be given superpowers and be put into Situations(TM) i love it

not an april fools game making me emotional over trains

and why yes i am obsessed obviously

it was a fun game! like tbh with a bit more content i would've been happy to pay a bit for this honestly (like. when im not broke lmao) like it's so charming and there were a lot of fun details and the jokes were enjoyable too. i just think it's neat :)

but yea that is all im glad sonic the hedgehog got murdered it was a great time

Whirl, Swerve, x Weirdcore!Reader Romantic HCs

Reader is portrayed as a gender neutral human.

You have a pet hairless cat.

Tw for swearing and mention of organs such as eyes n stuff

Whirl

Very friggin weirded out by you at first.

"The fuck do they look like that???"

He did like the repeating theme of blood and organs though.

In fact, its what made him talk to you in the first place.

You were chillin at Swerve's with Rewind when he came up to you and was like

"So.... are those real? if so, who did ya kill, and how?"

Was very confused at why you were giggling until you said they were fake and you made them yourself.

".....they look so real- Aight thats it, fleshie. You, me, this evening, my place."

"Wait why-"

"DON'T QUESTION IT!"

Not knowing what else to do, you ask Rung for directions to Whirl's room. You don't know what you were expecting, but you weren't exactly expecting to be snatched up by his giant claw by the back of your shirt and interrogated about your appearance and mannerisms as if you tried to bring a knife on a plane.

You somehow managed to keep calm though.

Over time though, Whirl did warm up to you and one day confessed and boom! Yall a thing now.

Anyways uhh. He also likes the overall unsettling/calming vibes it can give off.

The liminal spaces kinda work on him? Like yes the place does seem a bit familiar to him, but he doesn't feel the strong sense of deja vu like he's been there before.

Likes your hairless cat.... but also doesn't.

"Yeah, its cute and all, very friendly, nice little fleshy.... but why the fuck does it look like that."

Loves any weird accessories you wear, just these teeny random creatures, items, and organs dangling off you.

Stole a necklace of (fake) teeth from you and he has it hanging off his weird antenna thing on his head unless he's off killing cons or whateva.

Kinda likes the the music you listen to??? Hes weirded out by it definitely, but he does like the melodies.

Not one for physical touch but isn't opposed to it.

He usually pats you on the head with a claw, or has one around your torso (gently).

KISS HIM.

Pet names include: Babe, Squish-ball, Teeny, Creepy Crawly, Critter, Weirdo, Fucker

Will attempt to murder anyone who dares hurt you or the cat, mentally or physically. Unless you stop him of course.

He loves you a lot despite your overall strangeness.

Swerve

He loves your style so much, like i'm not kidding.

I mean how can he not? He's discovering a new human thing, that's right up his alley!

Doesn't like the bugs though. Only mildly unsettled by the organs.

And he loves your cat too, absolutely died of cuteness the first time he met them.

"OH MY GOD ROTISSERIE KITTYYYYY!!!"

They get along p well :)

Big fan of your outfits, they're unique, cute, and fun!

Carries the two of you around almost anywhere he goes.

Yall met when you were wandering the ship with your backpack of art stuff and listening to your tunes. You went down a hall you haven't been to yet and stumbled across his bar.

You walk in, staying close to the wall so you don't get stepped on or something. you make it near the main bar when he spotted you.

"Ohmygodohmygodohmygod they're real-"

He excitedly ran out from behind the bar toward you. He did that thing where you jump, land, and slide on your knees in a sitting position. What a dork XD

He landed next to you and started rambling, You couldn't help but let out a small laugh and smile as he went on.

"Oh wait sorry i forgot to say- My name is Swerve, its so nice to finally meet you!! You look so cool, like weird but very cool. It reminds me of something but i can't remember what- oh wait whats your name?"

He put you on the bar counter as he continued his work all the while continuously chatting with you.

Months later yall got together.

Very affectionate. Like i'm not kidding. Prepare to be held gently.

Liminal spaces work on him. Experiencing the Deja Vu and feelings of unsettlement fr.

Pet names are: Sweet-spark, Sugar, Kiwi, Love-bug

Loves weirdcore music. Specifically songs by Jack Stauber.

Swerve set up a lil place for you on the bar, mostly blankets and pillows with weird patterns, along with some plushies. Like a four eyed cow, a two headed dog, and a clay-face plushie of a duck.

Has lots of lil snacks for ya too.

Won't stop rambling about how much he loves you.

173 - ONE HUNDRED SEVENTY THREE

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[click, static]

Okay, I am officially concerned. I don’t know why I didn’t think of this before, but the truck was’t in the drive like usual so I just assumed…

I should have checked the whole house. But I’m so used to never coming into the garage because I know how much you hate your studio being disturbed but when I woke up this morning and you still weren’t home, well, I went in anyway and the truck is still here. In the garage.

It’s running fine—that’s where I’m broadcasting from right now, though obviously I turned the engine off. And I have to say, I’m impressed that you were actually listening when I told you to bring it inside for the winter if you weren’t going to be driving it much. But if you’re not out there driving this truck on a supply run, where are you?

I—I took the other car. Which, I’m sorry to say, is now somewhere in California, having been put out to pasture. But unless you finally decided to take an interest in car mechanics after all this time, I don’t know how else you’d be getting around. I know you love your walks—or, you did, eventually, once you got past the worst of the paranoia, but…you never went on a walk this long.

If you’re—if you’re dead in a ditch somewhere, I’m going to be fucking furious, Harry.

[click, static]

It’s…weird. Being in here. It feels like being inside your head somehow. It’s a goddamn mess, which I didn’t really expect. I’m sure you’ve got your own system—though who the hell knows—but I definitely can’t make sense of it. I’m glad to see you pulled the radio in here though. Maybe you did hear some of my transmissions after all.

Is that why you’re not here? Because you heard me say I was coming and you didn’t want to see me? You’ve enjoyed your life without me so much that you couldn’t bear to have your peace shattered.

Except…you’ve been thinking about me. I know you have. And maybe this is why you never wanted me to be in your studio in the first place.

There’s…a lot of me in here. Paintings, sketches…not all of my face always but you must have known that I’d recognize the curve of my own ear, the shape of my hands.

Have—have you been doing this all along? Or just since I left? Were you always coming in here and spending hours perfecting the color of my hair when some days you wouldn’t even speak to me—

[click, static]

Is this why you asked for the stories behind all my scars? So you could render them in perfect detail, knowing exactly what made them and when? I thought you wanted to know more about me, but maybe it was just an avenue for your art, one of the few subjects that you had access to, too tired of painting birds or trees or images from your own mind.

Or did you ask because you wanted to know? You talked once, about how painting helped you understand the world, or yourself; how that was one of the things you loved about it, one of the reasons you started painting in the first place. Because when nothing else made sense, charcoal and oil and your own hands were able to bring shape to the world.

Were you trying to understand me? Or were you trying to understand what you felt about me? Or was guilt swallowing it all up that you couldn’t uncover anything else.

I just…I need you to come back and explain what this is all about. Because in a room full of canvases and color and stray sketch pages, I keep turning and seeing my own face. I’m everywhere.

[click, static]

There’s a lot of other art too, of course. And it’s all…it’s fucking beautiful. Your art has always been so beautiful.

I…I’ve added to your collection. I picked up a painting when I was in Santa Fe, something that I thought was pretty and that I thought you might—

Well, I’ve left it in here. In case you want to do anything with it. It’s yours.

There are also—well. I wrote you some postcards. But I obviously had no way of sending them to you so I just…held onto them. But you might as well have them now.

I don’t know why I’m saying all of this on the radio like I can’t say it to you face to face. You’ll be back and you’ll probably be annoyed that I left stuff in your studio without asking. There’s no need for me to leave anything for you, not when I can just hand it to you.

But I just have this feeling…

I’m going to look for you tomorrow. Drive to the usual spots, take a walk in the woods behind the house. And because I’m fucking considerate, I’m going to leave a note.

[click, static]

Rei's house

I’m insane and I know a lot about interior design against my will so I used it to make a rough floor plan of Rei’s house

This wasn’t an easy thing to do for two reasons: 1) the only rooms shown so far are the living room and the hallway and 2) Newo doesn’t know how to draw a house apparently LMAO. It’s something I noticed while skimming through the manga to get references but yeh Newo doesn’t put too much effort in backgrounds unless it’s absolutely necessary, what they do is draw the basics to give the reader an idea of where the characters are. I went through their other art and it’s also that way, tho in their pokemon art it has more detail than in knk but I would argue that since knk has to be ready within a month while their other art doesn’t it shouldn’t be surprising it’s drawn that way

Anyway here’s what I could make out so far

Rei’s house seems to be the kind that’s square rather than rectangular so let’s work keeping that in mind

The first room would be the living room which as you can see it’s pretty clear how it’s supposed to look however there are a few weird things going on with it, the first one is the couch on the left that has a ? next to it. I put it there bc there’s two panels where it doesn’t appear at all…those panels being these two

But for the sake of my sanity let’s say it’s there. Then there’s the dinning table and you can tell it’s in the same room since in the front you have the left couch that sometimes disappear. Another thing to take into consideration is the door in the far end, I put it there bc when it opens Rei looks to his right and seeing the direction Tobi is opening it it seemingly opens that way which is weird bc doors usually are supposed to open right next to walls but whatever

Next thing I want to point out is the hallway

This one is interesting bc it shows what seems to be a door close to Rei on the left side and another door in the back to his left. There isn’t another visible door which makes sense he’s probably covering with his big head but yeh I wanted to point this out bc that either means that door goes to the dinning room which wouldn’t make sense when supposedly theres already a door at the back that takes you to the living room OR Newo accidentally put the living room door in the wrong place, which could be, I don’t think they really are thinking about making it consisten which makes sense, you don’t read manga to see rooms you pay attention to the dialogue and characters

The rest of the first floor (kitchen, bathroom, laundry room) are just guesses on my part. Going on a tangent here for a moment but the reason why I made the kitchen like that has a reason you see, kitchens follow this “triangle rule” where the three most important elements of a kitchen (these being the fridge, the sink and the stove) need to be put in a triangle formation so there can be better mobility. Also important to keep in mind fridges need to be far away from stoves. If you look closely to the first picture you’ll also notice the window to the right has also a curtain. Curtains aren’t meant to be near stoves for the obvious reason that they can catch on fire so I put the sink there and the stove the other way. I’m assuming there’s a window there behind the stove too bc something something air circulation there’s a lot of science behind this stuff

Also idk if this is relevant but the entrance is also kinda easy to make out for some reason

Another thing I noticed that made me want to kill myslef is there’s this part where reinochi sits together in what seems to be the couch form the right bc in the front there’s the window HOWEVER in the very next panel you see a window behind them as if they are sitting on the left couch what they fuck 😭😭😭 bitches be rotating….like I know it’s not supposed to be like that and was a mistake Newo overlooked (the same way they’ve overlooked the fact Tobi has a turtleneck in recent chapters but I digress) but after you notice it you can’t just unsee it 😭😭😭

Anyway this house is a mess that’s why I decided to make my own floor plan that makes sense to me

The living room, dinning room and kitchen I kept them all the same as well as the bathroom and laundry room tho the change I made was the mystery door. Instead of it being in the far back I put it in the same place as the door we saw in the hallway and by the end I put the stairs that lead to the second floor and next to it a closet but now that I look at it maybe the stairs themselves can be the closet 🤔🤔🤔 you know how some stairs have like a door and space inside you know what I mean

The second floor is a bit more simple with Rei’s room right next to the stairs. The bathroom is in exactly the same place as the first floor bathroom bc plumbing is all supposed to be in the same place and next to it the master bedroom bc it’s the biggest room. There’s an extra room that leads to hell idk I haven’t thought that far

Anyway it’s almost 3 am idk why I did all this but I hope you get to enjoy my insane ramblings uwu

humanity is worth loving, humans are worth saving

(yes we are. we absolutely are. and cynicism and nihilism is lame)

i was dwelling a lot on that idea a lot this afternoon about my views of humanity and my conviction in us, inspired by the central theme of the show and movies, which is that maybe loneliness and yearning for connection is the most human possible feeling, and that most human beings are to some level closed off from human connection that there's a hedgehog's dilemma among humanity — that fear of connection, fear of being seen as a mirror of what you most fear about yourself/fear of hurt from both vulnerability placed in others and the inevitability of change/the inherent inability to ever be truly known when human minds are fundamentally separated from each other — is inherent to humans

so to contextualize the rest of this post i’ll describe things i’d been thinking about today. evangelion rebuild 2.0 and the ending of that movie, the choice that the characters make there. the ending of life is strange and the choice that you make there (i said fuck arcadia bay). and then the mirror examples, that one episode of angel where angel becomes human, or the ending of final fantasy x. every piece of fiction where people face a choice between saving someone they love and saving the world and they say fuck the world. even when it makes no sense and even if it means they and you both will die soon enough in a destroyed world anyway, even when it’s morally indefensible and unquestionably selfish. every time that question comes up, it’s so obvious what the right answer *should* be, but how human is it to just choose wrong anyway? that’s what i did when i had to choose and i said fuck arcadia bay. at that moment i felt such a sense of connection with what it meant to be human

in the original neon genesis evangelion it’s an argument between a worldview that it’s the inherent flaw of human nature, which would mean that the ideal vision of heaven is all-as-one where all humans exist together in kind of a hivemind free-flowing soup of minds (or with how little we know ourselves, that maybe even worldview is just being so afraid of connection that you’re afraid to reach out and try unless it’s with the safety of it being complete and universal and inescapable)… or whether what is special about humans and the most human thing possible is humans choosing, with full knowledge of the fear and hurt and inability to ever be known and the inevitability of change with passage of time and death, to put fear aside and connect with others

that latter view has long been the frame of thought where i feel most tender and optimistic toward humanity and individual human beings as creatures of grace. what takes away times where i feel jaded or cynical or fatalistic or disgusted or hopeless, which it is easy to be. often when people talk about being proud of humanity is pride at collective humanity and amazed at what the human race could achieve working together, but that’s barely part of the equation for me. it’s just that one single core aspect of the human soul, that every day humans choose to put aside all that fear about things that are right to fear and just choose human connection anyway. better to have loved and lost than never loved at all isn’t a platitude or an expression, it’s a summation of the most fundamental element to being human — its just that it’s not only about romance, it’s about all love — for friends, family, children, pets, characters in fiction, music made by others, art created by others, memories with others

(this made me google that phrase, to learn more about this phrase that puts the deepest truth about being human into 13 words, and turns out it’s by tennyson writing about the sudden death from a cerebral haemorrhage of his friend— or maybe more, we don’t know, but it’s besides the point that it was someone that he loved dearly — arthur henry hallam, who died aged 22 when tennyson was 23. and it’s a line from a 2,916-line, 133-canto poem titled “in memoriam a.h.h.” that he spent 16 years writing. 16 years where the pain didn’t stop. they met each other as teenagers, knew each other for about 3 years, and that was it. when he finished that poem after 16 years, he’d lived almost half of his life with that pain. he’d lived with that loss for almost five times longer than the time he’d had with him. and he still felt it was all worth it. it was better to have had the honour and privilege to feel that love, even at the price of decades of pain, than it would’ve been if he’d never gotten to feel that love at all)

caring about anyone is opening yourself up to a world of hurt in so many ways outside your control and humans are the only beings we know of that actually has that knowledge but we choose to care anyway. we have children, we attach to family, we form friendships, we fall in love, we even get emotionally attached to pets with short lifespans and emotionally invested in fictional characters

animals don’t have that knowledge. it’s easy for me to imagine many rational beings or sentience that could have that knowledge and optimize toward the pain-minimizing path of closing off completely and dying off in a generation. if pain is the price we pay for the ability to live and feel things and love things, is the price of entry worth it at all? i think most versions of a fully realized consciousness that wasn’t human would think that it wasn’t worth it at all. nonexistence over pain feels rational. but we don’t make that choice. human beings choose over and over and over to love things. and when i think about it, it makes me feel proud and giddy even for inherent human nature, it makes me feel in love with the concept of people with the same butterflies, and it makes me a firm believer that we should exist and humanity deserves to exist

one could say that it’s very stupid to love. it's very stupid to make an active commitment to inevitable future pain. it’s suboptimal for an entity that optimizes to avoid debilitating, all-consuming pain in a world where the passage of time can never stop and loss is inevitable, where there is literally no possible ending in which there isn’t an ending. and it’s kind of a miracle that we choose to do so, billions of people, every day

if you liked this, feel free to check out my other 'essays' on internet/pop culture stuff on my homepage. here's a selection:

· “book lovers” don’t love anything about books and it’s weird (or, defending classic novels)

· there are things we owe to each other

· i trained a neural net on 10,000 irony-poisoned tweets and it just gave me cringe?

· what makes someone good, bad, cancelled, or redeemed? i don't know either!

· please tell me if you have a definitive answer on what makes someone a bad person

· ok, fine, my social justice politics feel a bit like religion sometimes and that’s ok

· after the deluge (short story) (dispatch from an island state post climate apocalypse)

REPRESENTATION ANXIETY AND WHY IT’S BAD FOR ACTUALLY PROVIDING REPRESENTATION / WHAT CONSTITUTES AS REAL REPRESENTATION / WHY ITS IMPORTANT IN TV ART/ENTERTAINMENT

Ever heard of the phrase “representation anxiety” when it comes to TV art/entertainment? No, I haven’t just made it up: it’s a real thing/a real concept. It’s something that’s only come up recently actually. See representation - especially when it comes to sexuality/identity/gender - is all over the place now. Therefore it’s nowhere near as restricted/limited as it used to be when writing and producing TV art/entertainment. And so representation is often made a “quota” in the TV art/entertainment landscape now. Creators are encouraged and expected to include it somewhere - usually for selfish reasons - a means of getting more or better ratings (i.e. making more money/gaining more power/success/fame) by the studios, networks or streaming services/companies. It’s a literal quota to meet as if in the business of sales - because technically it is about sales. And so there is an anxiety surrounding providing that representation and meeting that quota of representation by creators in TV art/entertainment. And this anxiety is a pressure and when pressure is involved in creating art/entertainment, things go wrong very quickly out of sloppiness, carelessness, laziness, ignorance. The anxiety is so strong that there is a loss of focus.

Now anybody that suffers with anxiety knows why this is. It’s because you’re so focused on and worrying about and overthinking what makes you anxious that you lose sight of everything else that’s important. In context of creating art/entertainment this means the quality of your writing/producing starts to decline because you neglect the storytelling aspect to focus entirely on the representation aspect - and so representation now becomes something you’re forcing and contriving into your art/entertainment rather than letting it flow and ebb naturally and organically. Plot and character narrative/theme or arc takes second place to making sure you show that gay/queer couple doing gay/queer things as much as possible without a foundation for why or how. Whether it makes sense, is logical, feels realistic or even is at the right place and time for it. All that takes a backseat. All the detail, all the nuance, all the substance just gets sucked out completely in favour of meeting that fucking quota you’re pressured to meet by the higher-ups at the studio/network/company who could not give a shit about your work - what it provides, what it teaches - when or where. They’re not gonna watch it. Executives very rarely ever watch the media they greenlight for production unless they absolutely have to because it’s failing so they can sus out why they believe it might be failing. It’s not for any kind of genuine support or help or in solidarity for your passions, your ambitions, your heart. They don’t care about any of that unfortunately. Creative ideas and decisions don’t matter to them unless those creative ideas and decisions make bank. So you’re not doing yourself or anyone else that cares any favours by forcing and contriving representation. By being so anxious about it that you’ve lost your focus. I get it. It’s not easy when it’s a major project. When there’s people watching you do what you do. But the thing is is representation is not proper or genuine representation if it’s just put in there for the sake of it. When there’s no rhyme or reason behind it. And I’ve watched a lot of TV art/entertainment where this is unfortunately the case. Where I can tell that it’s just a quota to meet and isn’t giving me anything substantial or real. I almost immediately pick that up. Sometimes it’s in a really selfish way like with queerbaiting - which by the way - you can queerbait a canon textual couple just as much as you can non-canon subtextual ones because if your couple is not proper/genuine gay/queer representation anyway… then it’s going to come across very queerbait-y because of all the forced sexual intimacy and then no context behind why or how it happens - no communication between the characters - no aftermath, no set up, no emotional connection, no chemistry - no realism or depth. It’s going to seem like an act - which obviously it is - but your viewers aren’t supposed to think or feel that way. It’s supposed to be convincing, it’s supposed to be well written and performed to the point where it looks and feels real. That’s when representation really works. When the viewers watching are fully immersed or engaged in what’s happening on the screen that they feel things. That’s guaranteed not to happen when it’s forced in.

Here’s the deal. Communication and connection. If you can show this happening between the characters both when it’s in a sexual context and when it’s not - then you’ve got something substantial with which to build on. The main problem with forced or contrived representation is that there is no foundation for it. It just comes out of nowhere. It just happens randomly. There’s no slow burn or anything even remotely close to any genuine connection or attraction or love between the characters that you force into a romantic/sexual relationship. It lacks everything that makes it stand up and holds it up. It lacks foundation.

I personally tend to gravitate towards slow burn and friends-to-lovers or even enemies-to-lovers situations and tropes in TV art/entertainment because there is rich history there between the characters where it actually seems probable and even appropriate for them to develop into romance. You can see and feel the chemistry radiating off of them, the intensity, the longing, the passion - in more than just a sexual way. There’s deep emotions and feelings there that drive the attraction the characters have for one another. I very rarely see that anymore in TV art/entertainment. And I understand the reason why this is - it’s time constraints mostly and it’s not the fault of creators. But that doesn’t make it any easier for me to watch it. I can’t justify watching, supporting and shipping a couple or a relationship just out of time constraints because that makes me feel fake and obligatory and yeah - that’s not something I wish to feel in watching TV art/entertainment. I want my experience to be genuine and real just as much as I want the characters and their relationship to be genuine and real. I’ll be honest - I don’t watch pure romance or love stories because if that’s the only thing that piece of art/entertainment is for or about - it does feel very fake. My niche is action/fantasy/drama because there’s more going on with the individual characters - they have individual stories, arcs, developments and those don’t take away from the romance or love story. Actually,… it tends to help it and cultivate it because if the individual characters feel real and fleshed out, probably, very likely, the relationship also will too because all of the individual detail informs the coupling detail. You see? This gives it foundation.

Xena and Gabrielle are my most favourite gay/queer relationship of all-time despite them not even being textually canon - as in they were never confirmed as canon lovers or a canon couple in the TV show itself. They actually couldn’t be. I’ve gone into the reasons why this is many times before so I won’t talk about it in this post. Anyway, there is a reason why they are and still remain my favourite and honestly the best representation of any romance or love story - gay/queer or otherwise - that I’ve ever since in TV art/entertainment. The reason why is because they’re main characters that have a lot of focus on their individual representation and development each and all of that builds incredibly solid foundation for what becomes their “non-canon” romance and love story. And in every way where it actually matters,… it is what a depiction of a romance or love story should be. This TV show is action/fantasy/drama with some comedy thrown in here and there. It’s truly the most insane, farcical, campy shit ever - but THEY FEEL REAL. They communicate, they emotionally connect, they declare their love, they kiss, they get married, they behave as domestic, they have a baby… Even though they’re not confirmed as a main-textual canon couple in it, they are exactly what representation for romantic/sexual relationships should be in TV art/entertainment today! And because IT’S NOT… that’s why it is still THE BEST. Them being my favourite is a subjective obviously, but yeah, they are genuinely objectively the best representation there is in TV art/entertainment because they’re a same-sex main protagonist couple. Both of them. Not one a main character and the other a supporting/recurring character. Both of them are THE ONLY main protagonists all throughout the entirety of the show. 6 SEASONS length of a show. And their romance/love story is a major storyline. It’s not a textually canon romance/love story, but it plays out exactly like one regardless of the “non-canonity”. So it doesn’t matter. It does not matter whatsoever. Now here’s the problem with watching this show in this day and age where representation is expected. It can come across as queerbaiting that there is so much ‘will they-won’t they’ subtext. I hate queerbaiting with a searing passion. I think it’s the worst thing that we have to put up with in TV art/entertainment in a queer narrative. So trust me when I say that what it may initially look like you - it isn’t. Again, I’ve explained why many times before so I’m not gonna go into it here. But give this show a chance. Seriously, give it a chance. It is an EPIC love story.

I’ll leave this post off by saying that representation anxiety is awful and I do understand the pressure but I cannot support representation that’s forced and contrived. Not when I’ve had a life-changing experience where I’ve gotten so much better and where I know what real representation looks/feels like.

This is not an order. It’s a request.

Do better because representation anxiety is ruining what should be amazing influential art/entertainment that people can really learn from and be inspired by every day that they watch/interact with/engage in your creation be it in whatever format - but it’s especially important in a television/visual format because people look into it and see themselves in it. They would get a sense who they are and what their purpose is through watching this TV show or movie or video with characters that can mean so much to them that have a relationship between them that can be seen or interpreted as a romantic/sexual love story and you have to provide the foundation and honesty and the substance for it to be real representation. Meeting a quota is not worth it and it’s not enough.

If you want to know what you should be aiming for and attempting to achieve instead… it’s actually this:

Alright kiddos, Daddy Jace is going to sit you all down for a long post. With twitter (and probably tumblr?) implementing genai i decided to take it upon myself to test both Nightshade and Glaze so you don't have to. Or to maybe clear some stuff up regarding both programs bc i myself was not able to find info on the quality in relation to stylized art! I'm risking my own butt for this lol

lets start with Glaze since that's just what i opened first. for clarity sake, this is what I'm chucking into it. i decided to go with 3 levels of images, starting with a basic no background fairly simplistic piece, a more detailed subject, and a full background piece from a long abandoned wip in favor of redoing it in a sense.

now there are 3 main settings I've noticed for glaze, its a default medium and high setting (there's render times too, but for this test I'm staying on the default render time which is medium and takes about 2 minutes per image)

For the most part it hasn't crazily distorted my images but you can still see some discoloration in the art. not a big deal for me personally, as you can still make out what's going on just fine. it gets pretty rough in some of the background on the big image, but thats probably the worst of it for this setting. next we will do medium!

haha ooookay just for your knowledge, I'm writing this in real time. OKAY yeah so, medium is where you will see the diminishing return it seems, while it probably really fucks with ai, unfortunately at this point my images look pretty distorted especially in backgrounds and high detail areas. but i will do high just in case anyway

Yeah so this is where the full distortion happens in all 3. again, you can still see the subject and key details, but its a bit unsavory isn't it?

now i want to make something clear. the program itself will give you feedback if the protection is enough, and for all of these tests it was fine so unless you aren't too worried about how the pictures look on social media (ie, if you share a full version in patreon/send the raw com to the owner) you can most likely choose default without any issues.

we are moving onto nightshade! in nightshade it has roughly the same UI, with the option to select a poison tag. we will come back to this later ass you can only use it on 1 image at a time. its settings are low, default, and high with similar rendering times and i will be using the same images to test them out :D starting with the low setting!

Now, i don't know if its just because I'm fresh out of the high settings from glaze, but i personally prefer this setting on my artwork. it doesn't have as much of the "oilspill" look that glaze has and is harder to notice the distortion at a glance. onto the default setting though!

Once again, prefer this over the medium for my style in particular. a lot less muddling and color distortion . obviously still there, but not effecting the details as much. High next!

This is definitely the too much gene lol however i would compare it to the medium of the glaze. Though, and this is important, please choose based off what you feel fits your needs. for me, nightshade is what i will use but it wont be the same for everyone. i just hope this gives a good comprehension on what each program does! now, to explain the tagging. in batches it will automatically tag, but it seems this is just to make an invisible coded footprint if you will in everything you do. you can overwrite them in your results, or if you do image by image (ie, if you make a new image, and put it through nightshade) you can tag it there. i will personally just be using my username as my tag going forward. and to show how that looks on an image with standard settings just to show that's its not effecting your image any extra on a visual front.

and that concludes Jace's decent into madness.

the biggest stipulation, is these are both windows/macos based applications for now

HOWEVER while I am able (given I'm not swarmed) i am more than happy to help those who would like to protect themselves and do not have the means to and i encourage others to do the same if they are comfortable. please reach out. FUCK AI ART

Hear me out, karl heisenberg gets like 10,000 knives and stabs miranda with them. He then spins the knives to create a blender like action so she becomes pulp. Also he could of done that to kill ethan as well there was no need to mutate into a useless tank thing.

Exactly! See, you get it! He had so many options but clearly all four of the lords share a single braincell and it has never been in Heisenberg's possession in his entire life. Either that or the theatre kid ™️ instincts took over and he simply couldn't help but do everything in the most complicated and dramatic way possible (though I argue would that blending Miranda into the world's worst smoothie is sufficiently dramatic anyway). My good sir just decapitate her. Or poison her! Iron poisoning is a thing! And it's stated he has power over electromagnetic radiation which we never see used in game, so, like, just microwave her ass. Air fry that motherfucker until she's crispy chicken. Agian, so. Many. Options. And he went with zombies because of course he did. I mean granted it wouldn't really be a Resident Evil game without zombies (though personally I think the concept of RE works with a surprising variety of antagonists and environmental horror and yes I know this is a hot take that I'm going to get lambasted over but I will stand my ground) so he sort of had to take one for the team but c'mon man. You can indulge your inner mad scientist later, we've got a bitch Mirander to kill.

Also! Speaking of Heisenberg's mutated form, the design fucking kills me every time I see it because like, the top 99% is perfectly fine but then you look at the very bottom and he's got this one tiny wheel he's rolling around on. Unicycle looking motherfucker 😭

Like, look at this shit

"Oh hey, that's a neat design! ... Wait a minute..."

"Computer, enhance!"

FUCKIBG DINKY ASS WHeel Bitch what the fuck my man's popping a wheelie constantly. Also that would wear out so fucking fast man what the hell? I'm willing to bet he weighs a lot in that form and one commercial grade wheel is not going to cut it. How does he even maintain balance with the very visibly insecure weight distribution?!?

Granted, this design, despite being official released art (not concept art) is slightly different to the actual in-game model because in that one he has two wheels side by side like the kind you'd see on a lorry. I get the arguable benefits of less surface area in contact with the ground to an extent but again, in terms of balance and structural integrity sir you are going to fall over. You are not a racing bike Karl you are a fucking tank please act like it. It is arguable that me might not have "chosen" this form (as in, like, building it or something) because with the other two lords who's transformations we see, it's clear that both are entirely organic and involuntary mutations rather than them going "okay I want to put a mouth here, and an arm here" etc, etc. Sort of like when a tadpole turns into a frog it doesn't really go "yeah I'd like spots, spots look cool", it just turns into a genetically predetermined frog. Following that logic it can be assumed that rather than "putting together" a mutated form with various metals around he simply... grew it out of his skin, for lack of better terminology. Of course arguing that it may be pseudo organic or even an inorganic secretion (like those seen on the scaly foot snail) sort of falls short when you factor in the fucking wheel because his powers are over electromagnetic fields, not rubber (which is ironically an insulator). So unless he's been eating rubber bands in his spare time who knows where that wheel came from. Also given the argument of organic mutation, how would his body know "yeah that's what a wheel looks like". Alcina and Moreau's transformations make sense from a scientific standpoint (if we suspend disbelief about the actually transformation sequence itself) because all the traits depicted therein are in fact very real assets possessed by our pre-hominid ancestors and thus from a genetic standpoint could at any point reoccur in a modern human, but never in my life have I seen it heard of a creature rolling around like its showing off it's new heelies in the school parking lot. Look I know it's a video game but this single fucking wheel has sent me on a tangent I could rant about it for hours but I will shut up now so I don't talk your ear off (I have so much more to say but I am using all of my restraint). As much as I love RE 8 there are so many plot holes and things that just plain don't make sense even with the suspension of disbelief that comes with it being fiction designed to entertain for the sake of entertainment. But anyway in conclusion Karl is a dumbass and I love him.

supernatural s11e9 o brother where art thou? (w. eugenie ross-leming, brad buckner)

well i know this episode name and a vague idea something big goes down

saw her face and thought she was familiar but couldn't place her, but out in full lighting i was like whoa that's some deep cleavage oh hey it must be grown up amara who i also noted oddly lit cleavage

LOL please. this angle in that dress. anyway she must have been a busy bee all powered up like this

yes god is sending you messages that involve lucifer gently stroking your cheek,

the um, communicating via burning bush is also a little on the nose

i don't understand why they used this perspective for this argument. slight angled down and in hint of fisheye, it gives like, dream/drunk/incapacitated but then they pull out and they're just sitting at the library table. weird.

DEAN Because it’s crazy, okay! And it’s not going to happen. How many times do I have to say that this is a horrible idea? SAM About as many as I have to say, okay then what else have we got? Listen, I’m all ears. Dean, ordinarily I’d agree with you, but the visions only happen when I reach out to God. I asked him for a way to beat the Darkness and the visions got more specific – and I was in the Cage.

what radio station do prayers play on? angel radio? mentally turning myself in circles "well if you pray to god specifically which isn't that what people do? but don't the angels get prayers in this show? but how does that get divvied up [ad nauseam]" anyWAY. the point being, couldn't an angel pick this up so just because he's specifying god and he knows how to pray to specific angels, unless they have some exception routing for pople In The Know that prefacing with a specific deity or angel means only communicating with the one channel LOL (watch it be no, that's not how prayer works on spn, go to bed)

SAM You know Lucifer was the biggest monster ever hatched, until you and I hatched one that’s even worse. Listen, in the vision, Lucifer touches me and I feel calm, like things will be all right. And that’s not something I would ever come up with. I mean that is the last thing that I would ever feel. DEAN If Lucifer touched you, it would be the last thing you think. Ever.

the whole we hatched something worse thing. how everything is a flaming ball of garbage that just briefly gets put out but oops now we have this bigger and worse problem. i know, that's this show, it's how it works. anyway, i keep reading this and not getting it. like, last thing you think because if lucifer got a hold of him again he'd kill sam?

DEAN Why would God even ask this of you? What proof do we have that any of this is actually real?

okay but shouldn't the question not be real but, who is this coming from? who would have motivation to get you back in the cage? WORK THE PROBLEM, FELLAS

SAM There was a burning bush. DEAN A burning bush? SAM Like in the Bible. DEAN You were in the forest. There are bushes there and sometimes they burn!

okay my official story to myself, because i think the way he keeps treating sam like he's crazy is aggravating horseshit, dean's doing this because he's freaked the fuck out about sam going back in the cage and can't think straight.

SAM Dean, doesn’t it make sense? I mean, Lucifer would know how God ended the Darkness. He was there.

he's got a little snarky thing on the "he was there" but like, if god is talking to you in this scenario and telling you to go chat up lucifer to find out how to whammy the darkness... shouldn't god cut out the middle man and tell you directly? i'm confused. if this were like, Serious about god show, i'd get the whole test of faith or what the fuck ever, but not on this show? where we had gods meeting up at a hotel for a conference in 5x19

i think i'm gonna watch this tomorrow when thinking clearly :S all right, take 2.

CROWLEY (speaking to DEAN) Because she chose you. And you couldn’t control your girlfriend. What happened in that room? Why did she insist on sparing you? SAM looks quizzically at DEAN and then CROWLEY. CROWLEY What is she to you?

outed on the lie (fucking finally) by crowley, good job, dean.

okay so i had not considered going back to the cage was like, for a little interview. we'll pop in, ask some questions, pop out. whatcha think, crowley?? like how are you going in and also coming out? with all the hoopla required to get in there the first time and the mishap getting sam out.

probably just that it's organ but this music in the big reveal is reminding me of interstellar (2014) cornfield chase (great now i'm crying over that)

anna lapwood plays it on the organ

CROWLEY Clearly, if Sam enters the Cage he’s gone. And yes, it’s on my bucket list, now is not the time to be selfish. Need a secure site, a way to neutralize Lucifer’s powers. SAM In Hell? CROWLEY Yes, in Hell! So we have a modicum of control. You think I want that abomination running amuck upstairs? DEAN Is it possible to control the situation because if Sam’s not safe it’s not happening. CROWLEY Goodness mummy, loosen the grip.

of course we need the book of the damned. gotta get everyone back in the fold. and the angels are gonna try yet again to do .... something 😪 this show can't get enough heavenly politics. is that the fault of cas being so well liked?

rowena having a moment over the lucifer reveal

needed this angle again, apparently. for artistic reasons clearly

SAM You’re sitting there with the Book of the Damned and the means to read every word, and you think I’m going to set you free? Do I look crazy? ROWENA Well, you do have unresolved issues with your domineering older brother and the abandonment by your father.

so helpful. she trying to prod him a little to go it alone?

okay so i guess we just didn't have time to talk about dean lying about his and amara's thing, sam made a couple faces and we're moving on. and dean is ignoring sam's call because apparently we need to go to hell RIGHT NOW OR NEVER for no good reason other than getting sam to go alone. so dean can have A Moment with amara. i have a hard time caring about the new random villians of the season they spin up

looks so tiny next to sam

for the record i think this is a whole mess of plot contrivances and i'm not jazzed :p

ROWENA He’s so alpha isn’t he? Probably not relationship material though.

oh no. sam, don't tell lucifer god is talking to you. are we having a little gaslighting parallel where lucifer and amara try to do their little sales pitches to sam and dean

AMARA He encouraged religions as monuments to his ego, promised the fearful safety if they’d adore him. His way or the highway. DEAN Some people find comfort in that. Golden rule, Brother’s keeper. It is his universe. His rules.

me trying to scrape together the 3 brain cells that have any knowledge of christianity. (ok, do unto others blah blah is the golden rule; brother's keeper - well that's what cain says after killing him and god asks where he is? and he's like bro i'm not in charge of him. so i don't get the reference other than the general cain and abel of it all in spn generally and the Brother Drama and falling down on the keeperism at the moment)

LUCIFER And, I need a ride out of here. I mean, I look swell in here and everything, but I’d be so much smoke top-side.

mmmk.

LUCIFER One who is strong enough to hold me, handy, and available now. Catch my drift?

creepy flirting. are adam/michael still chilling alone in the cage elsewhere?

appreciate the effort but did dean think stabbing her with a regular old knife was going to do anything?

can't eat your soul so i guess let's make out

sammy, what are you thinking

so it was lucifer sending the visions, surprise surprise. continue to be disappointed with the way we got here because i think sam knows better, and if he's not running on all cylinders due to the lucifer involvement, dean is his sanity check. big sigh

it is nice to see mark pellegrino, he does a great job with lucifer. one thing i will put blinders on about is lucifer's repeated references to sexually assaulting sam during his time in the cage. (and this episode ended with a question about sharing bunks)

i mainly blog about media interests i have but i actually care a lot about politics and yknow common human decency. i own two cats, and i owned my late finnhorse mare for over a decade. i miss her and still love horses a lot.

i allegedly study cultural anthropology at an university and used to study equine masseusing and art. however im kinda just surviving on disability pension rn. feel free to ask about anything else, i love talking!

right now ive dedicated this blog to t&b ryan goldsmith for funsies but i like various things. more than you could imagine

queue posts once per day and i basically only queue things unless im actively making new posts

i make a bunch of posts that i dont tag at all. good luck finding them bc i sure fucking cant find them. some posts i just end up deleting anyways

i rarely go into any tags bc i have brain fungus but if you wanted to show me a post by sending it to me i would probably love to see it!

i dont usually follow back bc of the aforementioned brain fungus and instead skim through the latest things on the blogs of ppl interacting with me (if you wonder why i reblogged something from you randomly)

even if i dont reply in the case i get really busy irl etc, i still always read everything sent to me, every single reply, tag and ask!

my art tag: #gabriels doodles

wildly varying quality/effort

i do take requests if you want to try your luck in my ask box

my art-only blog, where i only reblog finished-enough art (im so slow at writing captions ill put my art on here one day for real): @limitedhorsepower​

other miscellanous tags & fun facts about me:

#ryanyurikeith

the sun, the sky and the moon with extremely congruent life issues... its so deep and their themes go perfectly together

#gabriels ouroboros kings

barnaby & ryan & keith (side platter of ryan/keith)  

the sternbild royalty (king of heroes x2 and the wandering gravity prince) as antagonists.

theyre all part of ouroboros for different reasons, but more loyal to each other than the organization for various reasons

#gabriels salaryman heroes

ryan/yuri/keith mainly, self-indulgent joke about high school romance tropes in an office building 

more fun facts about me:

as you can see i have a few different T&B AUs that i may post about or just totally forget and never make content for again despite them being perfectly mapped out in my mind but i love to share facts about them

if you ever interact with me here and thought that my answer didnt make sense, it was probably just that my brain (ADHD&co.) actively works against me and i may make really bad typos or straightup forget to type half of the words in a sentence. but hey. i did my best. never be afraid to ask for a clarification though

i also genuinely suffer from being overtly verbose (again... my brain...) and please dont feel pressured to read something if i sent you an extremely long DM reply or made a really long-winded reblog or something. i just communicate like that but i dont mind if you cant read it LMFAO.

my long sentences makes me seem really serious sometimes even when im not but im very friendly i promise!

and let me know if my typing is hard to read, i can switch to proper capitalization and punctuation if needed

Since I’ve failed to keep in touch on certain social medias like this one that I used to be on all the time, I wanted to do a lil update.

I will try to make this as short as I can. (I failed)

I’ve been taking time to reevaluate, work through, come to an understanding and acceptance of certain things. Trying to change within myself & ask myself questions and take my time figuring things out as I tend to be my own worst critic. Trying to move more with love, openness, respect, understanding and honesty are the core elements I desire in life. I will not settle for less but at the same time I will remember that imperfections make us human. No one, thing, is perfect. Everyone fucks up. It’s okay. everyone goes at their own pace in life unless chosen otherwise. Obv depends on the situation but yeah. Moving on… I feel like if I don’t say what comes to mind I’ll forget and it will eat at me if I don’t talk about it or I’ll remember it later and then I’ll talk about it but now it’s too late and it’s considered out of context and then I’m looked at like HUH. So yeah I’m a bit of a mess. LOL.

God I say so much detailed shit that makes 0 sense lmao. This is all a jumbled mess but go on keep reading if you give a shit. ily, for those that take the time to get me, understand my scattered thought brain. You’re dope. Thank you. Anyway, It’s all about within yourself. Feeling your feelings. Experiencing things and surrounding yourself with similar <good> natured people. With Happiness blooms in the bones so to speak. Just doing. Just being. Just flowing. So it goes. Figuring out what I want out of life currently, the people I want to be surrounded by, and work on my mental health. Work on things because I want to and try to become a better person overall. (Speaking of mental, mine hasn’t at all been the best or the easiest this year. taking it one day at a time. Is the nicest way I can put it.Adhd/Depression/anxiety are difficult to juggle.) I know as time goes by life won’t be easy. Trying to accept that. realizations can be impactful. Making actual decisions instead of procrastinations as well as learn and practice accepting things for how they are. For what they were. And not make excuses. I’m working on a lot haha. I’m <trying> to get back into various hobbies such as (art, writing, poetry, photography) as of late all I’ve been doing is working, planning for New York, going out and about, watching films/shows, listening to music, once in a blue moon playing video games (im waiting on my monitor to come in since mine just stopped working for no reason. It’s a Samsung thing HAHA just trust, I’m not the only one it happened to unfortunately) and reading with my time.

For those who don’t know I’m visiting New York for the first time in two weeks and I’m (most likely) moving there in the beginning of the year. Maybeeeee around my birthday (Jan 28th) I dunno yet as of current. But Im thinkin about going to school sometime after everything is settled. I’m taking some time to figure out what I want to do rn. I know I want to take a few classes in art, do something in regards with cinema, maybe do somethin with coding/graphic design??? Idk I have a few things in mind. I just need to take time after running around like a madman getting the house ready/myself ready, work currently and work on balance 🤍🖤 try to not be up in the clouds too long ya feel? I’ve got goals and I’m working at em one day at a time. :,) it’s hard but I think it will all work out in the way it will and it will all make sense eventually. For the first time in a long time, I’m hopeful.

It’s a new start. A new beginning. I’m nervous/excited. More growing, learning shitsy shits to do~

Authenticity is sexy. Consideration. Reciprocation. Communication & understanding is sexy. Taking the time to figure yourself out as well as others is sexy. The realization of truly Highs and lows - flaws and growth not being stuck in one or the other for too long despite them are sexier.

Romanticize •positivity• into your life.

And if you’re going through shit, know that it will work itself out soon. Easier said than done, but it will. Everything will make sense in time. Give yourself that time. 💛

As someone who’s been through a lot of unspeakable but some speakable hell, who gets it, trust me you’re meant to be here.

If there’s a sign, this is it.^ stay. Continue on. But yeah update Im probably most likely moving LMAO.

Okay, Phew.

choose violence ask game 6 bc we both know where this is headed (cough all of them cough)

YEAH YEAH YEAH YIPPEE [immediately turns reblogs off]

6. which ship fans are the most annoying? [interpreting as romantic ship]

so. let's start with what we both know

Katana ZERO

As I said in DMs earlier, I think the only worthwhile KZ ship is Zero x the receptionist (preferably one-sided, but I think someone really smart could make it mutual. I certainly wouldn't be mad if it was confirmed mutual in canon, but I seriously doubt it - one-sided is way funnier, anyway.). I also kind of sort of in theory respect the hustle of people trying to write V and Snow (rarepairs... been there), but I think I could never see it that way; what we have in game of them is barely good enough for anything, which is what makes it hilarious. That said, the most annoying shit here is, as we know...

150 150 150 150 150 !!!!!!

Even their stupid ship name cracks me up. Like, I understand, you can't have a good portmanteau or anything when your ship has numbers, but half the ship is literally Zero (hehe another reason Zerocep[tionist] wins), however... the way you read it is not even conducive to a shipping read. One fifty? One hundred and fifty? Even the number doesn't want them together <3

There was a post somewhere in my KZ tag that actually puts my feelings better than I myself can, but I'll try anyway. Due to the way this game's plot\timeline is framed, all their past interaction is basically implied. They don't really get to exchange any words, no matter how awkward (compare this to the receptionist having the tiniest of character arcs, but still an arc, between the hotel and bunker stages) - Fifteen just shows up, confirms he's the real Dragon, kills the shit out of V, and leaves, and that right there is the closest we get to an interaction (surely you won't say Zero walking in on a conversation later counts?).

How the fuck can you wrangle a ship out of that?

'But muh implications' that's all they are, implications. Not a very fertile ground to build upon. And even then, what they imply is far more like camaraderie than anything, which, while a solid and even necessary (in real life, at least) foundation for a relationship, doesn't MEAN it has to be romantic!! Give me traumatized war buddies that aren't making out with each other, pleeeeeeease...

'But you're reblogging art with them together' YEAH BECAUSE THEY LOOK HANDSOME TOGETHER AND THEIR DESIGNS ARE PERFECTLY COMPLEMENTARY. THAT'S THE ONLY REASON. I'M LITERALLY OBSESSED WITH HOW WELL THEY MATCH IN THIS ASPECT. This is why they should just be fighting together and nothing else <3

Xenoblade (gonna try and be a bit more rapid-fire about the rest of this post, unless the wrathful mood strikes me again)

Shulk and Fiora do not make sense romantically at all to me. They're family, ffs. Same for Shulk and Reyn, if not doubly same. But the fans keep insisting otherwise and often. (Libra, if you're reading this, this doesn't apply to you or other friends of mine that like Shiora. You're the only ones I trust with these two, I just want no part of it myself)

Shulk and Alvis are amazing, but need to be viewed through a lens more complex than typical shipping to be fully appreciated (something I'm still somewhat guilty of and recovering from. Jesus, wider XB1 fandom can be the worst sometimes).

Shulk and Melia as a ship by itself does not offend me, but the fans that weep about how Melia never had any good shit happen to her, and say Shulk not returning her feelings makes it worse... can die in a fire :)

I don't understand how people can take Reyn and Sharla seriously together tbh... but I guess it's more acceptable than the stuff above?

Rex and Nia (on their own, without Aegis in picture) never needed to be anything more than friends. The way Nia gets over being ''''friendzoned''' (hate that word) canonically is better than anything fans have come up with regarding this matter.

Lora and Jin have barely been interpreted by anyone in the wider fandom correctly (that I know of - key word 'barely'). Just stop at this point <3

...I won't be talking about XB3 ships because I heavily dislike XB3 and haven't read anything shippy for it, not even for NoahMio.

PS. Morag and Zeke should get more attention (personally I'm still guilty of somewhat ignoring this as a ship, but if I ever replay\rewatch, I'll be sure to analyze their interactions more, especially bc they're fun no matter how you look)

misc.

I have seen people interpret Ares and Dela (Brandish series) as a romantic ship, and I'd like to see just how much their brain has rotted.

Olivier and Mueller (Trails in the Sky) are very fun as a ship! I'd just like to see people view their relationship through a more neutral lens sometimes. However, the fact that Estelle x Kevin fics exist is the real mind-bender here. HOW? It's called being playful and keeping up a front!! (Also, Estelle x Anelace is slept on the same way as Zerocep and Moragzeke <333)

Frog x Magus and Lucca x Magus (Chrono Trigger) make equally little sense, and yet seem to be popular. Ew. Not even mentioning my personal beef with Frog x Lucca. Don't.

Midna x Link and Malon x Link (Zelda series) were actually my first NOTPs, largely because of annoying fans. I see now I was in the wrong and am largely 'thog dont caaare' about it, but still, important.

Ace Attorney series... tbh its fandom is weird about ships as a whole, but I'm guilty of falling into the Blackmadhi trap, so I can't speak. Almost everything other than Blackmadhi, though, is a tough sell largely bc of fandom.

Any ship involving Stocke from Radiant Historia has to be included in here. I am by and large respectful of most popular stuff with him (especially Stocke x Rosch and the Stocke x Sonja x Rosch OT3), I just think it's more fun to have him not into any of it. Very similar situation to Zero KZ, honestly.