#<- again barely but i think it counts

[rooniearts]

various little espio and silver doodles + some blazes because i love her so so so much

[suntails]

sacrifice

[lady-harrowhark]

*twirls hair* how big is your book collection

Pretty big

[getvalentined]

Buddy. Pal. Friend. Your agreement with this exact concept of what defines humanity (and therefore defines one's worthiness to exist) is literally your entire character arc in Crisis Core. This line of thinking is what drives you to try to kill your oldest friend, and then lament that you failed. This sentiment is what leads you to force your protege to kill you, even though he doesn't think this way at all and never does.

God, Baby Angie makes me so fucking sad. Because he's right! Not all people are like that! But he is—or he will be, within the next decade.

I can't stop thinking about what the world would have been like if he'd been just a little less scared, or at least willing to admit that he was scared at all. If he'd been willing to ask for help, ever, at any time. If he'd been brought up in a way that allowed him to truly admit weakness and fault, a way that didn't leave him constantly trying to be everything to everyone while refusing to accept that he might be wrong.

But he wasn't. And that's the biggest tragedy of all.

Gillian, when I fucking find you—

[bunnyboy-juice]

oughghgh desperately craving the "reset all needs" pills that dont exist

[interactivefictionramblings]

[Heaven’s Secret 1 spoilers.]

Tbh, I don’t understand why Sepha didn’t just send Malbonte - not Bont or Mal, Malbonte - down to Earth, as a fallen angel, to be with his parents? Like, he wouldn’t have ever been able to come back, right? So it’d ‘solve the threat.’

I mean, I guess the answer is just ‘plot,’ but it’s a boring answer. The little bit we got of Sepha, I got the impression he’s not even able to grasp his own cruelty—like he doesn’t try to be, yet still is, anyway. And I guess part of that makes sense, with him being an unbelievably ancient deity and all, but it doesn’t explain his actions about Malbonte, when Earth was right there.

Like

?????????

[pocketramblr]

Could you talk MORE about ideas and thoughts of Kon and Jemahl becoming friends? What about their individual characters that makes you love them?

Yeah!!! I absolutely can keep talking about them!!!

My love of Kon started decades ago when I was a young child taken to Six Flags by my grandparents, I was too terrified to ride the Superman ride but the giant Super Family character signs around the ride enchanted me, especially the extremely cool looking Superboy. Years later when I actually read Reign of the Supermen I was like "yeah this kid rules" but also realized that John Henry was the most perfect man ever. Superboy as a clone of a dead man trying to find the role he was "supposed" to have while also discovering who he was resonated with me for. reasons. He's a good mix of relatable personally, and reminding me of some of my students- kids who want to do good but struggle with a lack of context or support. John Henry being one of his few early places of support is but one reason why he is so perfect. Anyway, then I started reading Superboy (94). I think the idea of using superhero to explore child celebrity exploitation is a good one but the execution is all over the place, so my favorite parts of the run really are the Cadmus focused segments and my top arc is always Hypertime. I love alt versions of the same character. Yes, yes, look into the mirror and confront those parts of yourself!!! I also love how Kon just does not give up, not in a fight, and not in believing in others. This is partially because he's so much like Superman because he wants to be, and partially because he's two years old. Both reasons are great.

Desiring to read more of John Henry, I then started reading Steel (94), which is, well, a comic about a Black superhero in the nineties whos execution is also a bit over the place. I think it's absolutely worth a read, but... Now, Jemahl is introduced as a 14 year old boy who's getting involved in a gang and obviously his uncle is unhappy with that. His family keeps telling him why it's a bad idea, but to no avail. Now, Jemahl isn't as relatable to me personally, but I am a Jemahl Defense Team Member. Not everyone in the Irons family is exactly the genius engineer that perfect man John Henry is, but they're all smart. Smart enough to figure out Steel's identity even when John Henry had been faking his death for five years at that point.

So, Jemahl is a smart kid who's father was killed* by a gang despite not being involved with anything*, and then his uncle and the family's main financial support was also killed* despite being wholly separated from any criminal activity*, and for the last five years has watched his mother support his great-grandparents, himself, his little sister, and younger foster siblings all on her own. Because they don't have any other family, because everyone else was killed for his grandparents being civil rights activities. So, when Jemahl's family keeps telling him to stay away from that sort of things because it'll be more dangerous... Why would he believe them? Sure, they say it, but all the evidence points to the fact that staying away just means you don't see when it's coming and have no backup when danger and death and bullets comes for you anyway, like it did his father and uncle. Jemahl loves his family and wants to help them. Jemahl is also a Black fourteen year old who is denied agency and opportunity for both his race and his age, which must be incredibly frustrating. Yeah, I really cannot blame him for not immediately jumping to obeying every thing his uncle said when he came back, because you know, this uncle has been falsely playing dead for five years. I know John Henry's a perfect man, but Jemahl's got no reason to! Especially not when more people start dying! If only John Henry returned for a time and could rebuild a relationship with his nephew by offering understanding of his motivations and actual support to act in a better way to reach his goal of protecting people and not feeling powerless. Alas, soon Steel got a new writing team and John and Natasha leave DC and Jemahl is sent away to witness protection program with his mother and great-grandfather and basically never seen again except one issue where Natasha visits for Christmas and it is... Not great. I don't know if him being forgotten at that point is a mercy because at least it means they didn't do anything worse with him, but... Anyway in 2015 DC was reshuffling the timeline again and for a brief, beautiful two issues we saw a world where John Henry took both Natasha and Jemahl with him to Metropolis when he left DC, and taught them how to repair his armor so they could feel like they were a part of helping defend others without putting them in danger themselves. Uh and then they built their own suits and immediately jumped to being heroes themselves because of course they did. Wow! It's like Jemahl flourishes when given the right tools to be the caring and protective guy he is! (This is a little weird though because these issues make him younger than Natasha instead) Tragically after the reshuffling, Jemahl Irons never existed. But they said the same thing about Kon and hey look who came back anyway!

So that's why I love those two guys individually. But I also think they could play off each other in a lot of fun ways:

As John Henry's nephew who has complicated feelings but ultimately respects and admires his uncle, especially when given the chance to follow in his shoes, and as the first kid John really got to help in this way. I mean, Kon knew John before he knew Kal. His idea of Superman is tinted by Steel's advice. I think Kon reminded John of his niblings at first, and so there's some good friendship there. (Much like how I enjoy Kon and Natasha being friends).

People have immediate assumptions when they see Kon and when they see Jemahl, in very different ways. Are they jealous of the other, or are they glad it's not what the other deals with because they at least feel familial understanding for their own problems?

When Match was introduced, the Agenda was intending on making and selling hundreds of Superboy clones to use as weapons, Kon was like, "uh??? Slavery??? Bad?!?!?" And I imagine Jemahl would have opinions on this whole thing as well. In fact, Jemahl would have opinions about a lot of things in the SB run, because part of it is Kon being a few months old at the start and having no context for anything like, you know, the colonization of Hawai'i, and part of it is because Kon's a white boy written for white boys. Not only would Jemahl have opinions, he would love to share them and educate Kon, and only somewhat because he'd get to feel like the smart one for once. (Curse of being only a mildly genius kid in a very genius family ig)

Actually they both do have shades of really needing to feel needed and become depressed, albeit in different directions, when they don't. Also, abandonment issues... So much. I'm sure that's something that would get better with their friendship. Or not. Could go either way, highly dependent on timeline lol

I think they could just also hang out. Like, I think they'd enjoy each other's company because it would come with much fewer expectations compared to basically anyone else in their home/hero communities. They can listen to music together, or play with TTK, or say things about girls that they will absolutely wish they had not said once they are no longer aged 14-16. If this is a post-rebirth friendship after they both get powergirl'd, they can hang out and either talk about the world they miss or Absolutely Not Talk About It and just soak in not being alone, at least in this way.

*yeah his dad and uncle weren't really killed and yeah they were involved but that was secret shhh this is as far as Jemahl knows

[elisedonut]

On one hand I do think it makes sense for Percy to want his control stripped away from him a bit to not have to be the one thinking the whole time for someone else to just make the choices for him to just relax and not think

But on the other I also think it makes sense for him to gain a sense of calm from the control to feel more steady when someone listens to him without fighting him every step of the way to feel more like he has a purpose if he's helping

Which like it's not like they can't coexist obv

Like there can for sure be some things that are strictly up to Percy and some that are not but I do think his partner has to kinda fight a bit to get him to comply or play mind games making him feel like he's the one making the decision when really they are

forcing him to take a bath with them because it would make them feel better

Or asking him to make tea and pouting when he first doesn't take any for himself

or being a brat and intentionally staying awake until he comes to bed

[sskk-manifesto]

Proof that bsd would be a lot better if they just let it pass the Bechdel test more often

[idyllic-affections]

i miss my favorite eldritch horror (yaoshi) (it's yaoshi)

[plumberrypudding]

hm i wonder. i might have moral ocd ?

[brandnewwave]

nother messy doodle

[kjzx]

I've been playing slitherio these past few days, and after some time messing around with nicknames and my own experience with the stuff, I've realized anger is something very easy to weaponize. On my second attempt of having "trans rights" as a nickname I killed a huge ~5k point worm as a teenie tiny 200 point worm simply because it was so desperate to kill me specifically. Anger makes your life harder, but it also makes people really unwise. I fucking bet this is in "the art of war", even though I haven't read it.

[elisedonut]

did I buy more books? Yes

Did I need more books when I haven't started the three I already had? No

But I went to Ollie's because people around me kept talking about it and they had fairly cheap prices on their books so I just kinda grabbed a few that looked neat

this time with a picture so you can judge me

[windrunner2]

btw whenever i say smthn like "i don't care about internet or fictional discourse anymore" now that absolutely Does Not mean i don't care abt the fact that inters*x and tr*ns ppl online are treated horribly or Anything similar. it means i no longer have the time or energy (or desire) to give a shit about anything that doesn't somehow serve the goal of helping myself+everyone like me irl. if i'm going to fight about something i want it to matter