#+ also not to say it’s a failure on The Anime specifically i think it just so happens that dunmeshi is not a good series to adapt into the

[mapsofnonexistentplaces]

i need to catch up with the dunmeshi anime i’ve only seen like the first episode but man it sure is an adaptation that makes you think “wow! i wish i was reading the original manga instead” i think it just fails at getting across all the lore and more vitally all the details about the food preparation and the small diagrams of the monsters and stuff. like yeah that shit’ll flash on screen for a second or two but that doesn’t give it the same time of day as the manga does and the whole commixing of episodes really loses the whole one meal per chapter narrative gimmick that gives the manga its really tight pacing even if the whole chapter’s slower or more character focused. like idk. i think dunmeshi’s skeuomorphism to a proper cookbook and the way it sanctions its timing is very special and uh. good. and the anime missed out on that so it’s not very uh. good

[theresattrpgforthat]

TTRPGs for people with dyscalculia?

THEME : Dyscalculia Friendly.

Hello friend, I’m going to first point you to the Math-Lite Chaotic Murder Hobos recommendation post I wrote up a year or two ago.

What I understand about dyscalculia is that in can affect the ability to do mental math, but I'm not sure how much it affects number recognition. I have a few games here that ask you to read the faces on a die, but I don't think any of them expect you to do any addition. I hope you find something fun on this list!

Cats of Catthulu, by Joel Sparks.

CATS OF CATTHULHU is the beloved rules-light roleplaying game in which the players take the part of ordinary cats, secretly defending human civilization from the Chaos Cults of the other animals. All the players have to do is act like cats, while the Cat Herder arranges exciting challenges for them—anything from snacky time to daringly interrupting dire rituals.

In Cats of Catthulhu, the way the story will go is always a mystery. You and your friends play to find out what happens. One person, the Cat Herder, arranges the secrets and situations, and sets the scene, but even they don’t know where the night will end. The players take the role of individual, ordinary cats. All you really need to do is act like a cat.

It might be a bit difficult to get your hands on them, but the original dice for Cats of Catthulhu don’t have any numbers on them; instead, they have sad cats and happy cats. Whenever a cat does something, they roll 2 of these dice. Rolling a Happy Cat is a success; rolling a Sad Cat is a failure. The reasoning behind these dice is: cats can’t do math!

If you can’t get your hands on cat dice, you can use any old d6, and regard 1-2 as Sad Cats and 3-6 as Happy Cats. You’ll also want to get some kind of physical token to use as Treats, which are player currency used to allow free re-rolls. Cats of Catthulhu is great for groups who are mostly getting together to just have a fun time, ready to act silly and get into all kinds of shenanigans.

DUSK, by Gila RPGs.

Equipped with the latest suntech, you are tasked with venturing out into the Dusk, and helping bring a new dawn to humanity. The Dusk does not want you there. 

Good luck.

In DUSK, you play as Shards, survivors on the planet Obron after the devastating nova-event that saw your world destroyed. Now you wield powerful technology fueled by pieces of your dead sun, in hopes of surviving another day. DUSK uses the LUMEN 2.0 system, and is a diceless RPG focused on resource management rather than luck or chance. 

As a diceless game, DUSK feels a lot different from a number of other diceless games, and I think that’s because of the style of game it’s working off of. LUMEN games are more about strategy than they are about narrative, and in DUSK that’s carried forward in the form of Suntech, items that require energy to power and provide specific advantages.

DUSK is still a relatively new game, but the designer is prolific in the amount of quality work he’s released in the past - and so when he says that there’s more to come, you best believe there’s more to come. If you’d still like to roll dice but you like the idea of the setting in this game, you might want to check out NOVA, which also uses the LUMEN system but gives you dice to roll or LUNA, a game about cultists trying to destroy the moon. Both of these games use pools of d6’s and ask you to look for the highest number, so I don’t think there’s that much math involved.

CASE & SOUL, by Briar Sovereign.

CASE&SOUL is a lightweight tabletop game for telling action-packed stories in the mecha genre. CASE&SOUL is designed for one-shots and short to mid length campaigns. Speed through a lightweight downtime; hire freelancers to pad out your Crew’s skills on missions. Customize your playbooks with SOUL moves, and enjoy a cut-down FITD gameplay with just the essentials for fast and flexible sessions.

Forged in the Dark games use a dice pool, rather than abilities with modifiers. You add dice from various places on your worksheet, and try to roll at least one 4 or higher. Rolling a 4 or 5 is usually a mixed success, and rolling a 6 is a complete success. Personally, I’m a big fan of games that use dice pools, as I’m also not a fan of trying to add up all of those numbers, and having to just look for the single highest dice helps speed up action resolution.

At the same time, Forged in the Dark games can have a lot of moving pieces at once, especially if the GM wants to track a large number of factions, or players want to plan multiple-stage missions. CASE & SOUL advertises itself as a slimmed-down version of these kinds of games, but I can’t tell whether or not that is the case when I look at the character sheets. What intrigues me is the CASE and SOUL tracks; I think your CASE is your Mech, and it receives Harm differently than your SOUL, which is an interesting way to measure how much your mech is (or is not) part of you.

Keyforge: Secrets of the Crucible, by Edge Studio.

In the center of the universe hangs the Crucible, a gigantic artificial world created by the enigmatic Architects and home to countless beings and cultures. Here, impossibly advanced technologies mix with arcane powers to make for a setting unlike any other! Uncovering the secrets of this mysterious world will take all your skills—but the potential rewards are boundless…

Explore this world of boundless opportunity in Secrets of the Crucible, a new sourcebook for the Genesys Roleplaying System set in the KeyForge universe!

You’ll need the Genesys Rulebook for this one, because the main reason I’m recommending Secrets of the Crucible is because of the dice system. Genesys dice don’t use numbers; they use symbols that represent success and failure - and they also have symbols that deepen the nuance of each roll. You can roll advantages or disadvantages that calibrate exactly how much you succeed, as well as triumphs or despairs that give you the same kind of highs and lows as a Nat 20 or a Nat 1 in D&D. This means that each roll tells you so much more about what’s going on around you than just whether you open a door or sweet-talk a guard.

As for the setting, Keyforge is originally a card game published by Fantasy Flight games, about a world called the Crucible, full of secrets that various factions are competing to unlock. It reminds me of the worlds of Magic: the Gathering or League of Legends, with various settings that look very distinct from each-other, and represent different styles of play.

SHIVER, by Parable Games.

WHAT IS SHIVER?

SHIVER is a tabletop roleplaying game that lets players bring their favourite scary movies, spooky tv shows, and horror stories to life. Ever wanted to play through the plot of your favourite film on the tabletop? Or wanted to make sequels, prequels and original stories in the worlds of pop culture you love? SHIVER lets you play that!

SHIVER is setting neutral allowing you to play any story, anytime, and as anyone. Want to play a game of teens in survival mode against a zombie horde? Kids on Bikes who dread exploring a haunted house on Halloween night? Or perhaps a medieval monster hunter looking for a werewolf, vampire or mage? SHIVER can deliver stories and characters for anything from cult pulp classic to Cthulhu fuelled eldritch mystery.

The designer of SHIVER set out with the goal of making games easier for his friends, who had similar struggles with games that had too much math involved. Players roll six-sided and eight-sided dice with various symbols on them, looking for the symbol that represents their character's strengths. The more difficult the task is, the more of the required symbol you need. The game itself is recognized as a class-act horror game, good for everything from pulp-action to gothic fiction to slasher horror. If you don't have the special dice, you can substitute with d6's & d8's, or you can use the free Dice Roller designed for this game.

Tournament Arc, by Biscuit Fund Games.

Are you looking to experience the triumphs and defeats of Space Hyper-Basketball? Need to feel the epic highs and dizzying lows of card games in the post-apocalypse? Want to face the trials and tribulations of the cheese-rolling World Circuit?

Tournament Arc is your very own collaborative sports anime experience, made in the diceless Belonging Outside Belonging engine popularized by games like Dream Askew and Wanderhome. In every thrilling episode, you’ll play the part of the Team as they negotiate the complexities of their daily lives, explore a collaboratively created world, and, most importantly, play the Game.

Tournament Arc is both diceless and GM-less, and is designed to tell stories about teambuilding and competitive sports, although the setting appears to be pretty flexible. The Belonging Outside Belonging game system provides each character type with prompts, and sorts those prompts into different categories. Usually there will be some things you can always do that generate tokens as well as narrative obstacles, and then other things that you can only do when you spend tokens - and as a result, also help characters confront those narrative obstacles. If you have players that like having something tactile to keep in their hands as they play, you might like Tournament Arc.

Warehouse Bitches, by Darling Demon Games.

The Time Worm arrived as it was prophesied just as the crown fell upon his head, and all potentials collapsed into a single haunted citadel, which you call Hex City. You are transgender punks and goths from earth, and in this place your powerful hearts make you witches, daemons, beast-people and arcane architects. We bide our time, smoking and drinking, playing video games and eyeing the crumbling walls of our enemy, The Lord of Olympus.

In Warehouse Bitches, you play as one of the titular warehouse-dwelling trans folk in the hellish Hex City. In this GMless Belonging Outside Belonging game with a unique coin-flip mechanic, you'll wield magic, build allies across the city and fight back against the bastards in subtle ways.

I’ve already explained a bit about how Belonging Outside Belonging works, but Warehouse Bitches adds another layer by using coins as tokens. Using coins, your options are different depending on whether or not the coin is on Heads or Tails. The moves on your character sheet are not just differentiated between Strong and Vulnerable, they’re also differentiated between Heads or Tails, and you must have matching sides of the coins showing in order to be able to use those moves. Characters also have Magic moves, which require the player to flip every coin they currently hold, and reassign those coins based on whatever side they land on.

Warehouse Bitches has only 4 playbooks as it stands now, so a group of 4 players is probably the largest group that can play the book as it stands now. The game is GM-less, but looking at the rules, I think it would be possible to have someone pick up the GM role in order to introduce complications and narrate the actions of various other factions in town. Similar to other BoB games, there are zones that have various elements and details that need to be decided as you play, which will also help provide events and interesting features that keep the game fresh and exciting.

[weeb-polls-with-pip]

Autistic Anime Boys Prelims - Propaganda Division - Group 6

Propaganda:

Kiriwo -

"Seems innocent at first and he's just a guy with a special interest in magic items, but watch out."

Arjuna -

"MASKING KING!!!!!! ok joke aside one of his biggest things is that he's super scared that if anyone gets too close to him they'll notice he's not perfect/has a 'secret darkness' (that's literally just a guy) and overall a lot of his storyline is a strong parallel for being neurodivergent and becoming more comfortable with accepting it. he's also super strict and hard on himself for any sort of failure that isn't in line with what's socially appropriate but at the same time he doesn't always have a good grasp on what that is which is how you get stuff like him blowing up a forest to try and impress someone. it also runs in his family bc his brother is autistic as hell too."

Sherlock -

"God, where do I start? I mean what Holmes adaptation, even if he's not the main character, would this be if he were not autistic coded? And our combo of autism and ADHD is absolute perfection, all tied up with a pretty, excitable face. Hit him with the crime hyperfixation and do not make him wear socks."

Apollo -

"Not canonically autistic but he has ZERO volume control plus he scripts/repeats stuff (“I’M FINE!!!”), sometimes mimics other people’s speech patterns (like replying “ja” to Klavier), sensitive to loud noises (stayed backstage at a concert cuz it was too loud) and bright lights (complained about the stage lights being too bright at the same concert + screamed when opening the hatch to the bright stage at magic show), and has been really into space since he was a kid, which could definitely be a hyperfixation (not to mention how he read every single one of Phoenix’s old case files back when he admired him). Plus he’s a little TOO normal, to the point where it circles back around to making him the odd one out, which is absolutely what masking feels like for me. Even when he tries to be fun and weird he gets strange looks/made fun of for not being weird in the right way. The list of autism symptoms is just a checklist for him at this point."

Heiji -

"90% of the cast in detective conan is autistic but heiji is the most autistic of them all."

Urara -

"Another alien who is so excited to dance with everyone that he does not understand that his intended purpose of inviting people to dance via water communication is brainwashing them into dancing and is causing extreme chaos. He nearly causes an apocalypse by being so excited about dancing but he apologizes and tries to make friends with Yuki at the end of the story. He is extremely soft spoken and try, finding it difficult to begin conversations and fidgeting."

Shu -

"speaking specifically about the first season but he was the "explains everything so the audience knows whats happening" guy. he was pretty antisocial (not sure if thats just how he was or if he lived alone [which was fucked up cause he was 11]) . im trying to think of more but my brain goes hghghhhggggh im just a big fan of him."

Vash -

"ain’t no way i’m the only one who’s submitted him. go look at the gif of him crawling in the dirt like a bug while he dodges bullets and get back to me."

Hyakkimaru -

"Due to a terrible curse he has lived his whole life without several body parts including his eyes and ears. Because of this he is often overstimulated and awkward in new situations (when he doesn't do what he does best, killing monsters and samurai with his sword arms) He can't say or express much, and often comes off as strange and creepy, but he is actually a cutie patootie full of emotions, has a big heart, a keen brain, endless inner strength and loves the people close to him! This adorable, cursed, demon slaying boy deserves everything!"

Kei -

"He has the tbh face. Also he canonically has sensory issues and gets sensory overload. He constantly wears earbuds. He has an extremely rigid sense of morality and considers himself a savior figure. He has a hard time relating to other people and is a bit awkward in his interactions."

[amethystfairy1]

Hybrid chocolate toxicity question(s).

The avians can’t have it, I’m assuming the dog hybrids (Ren and clan) and the cat hybrids (Lizzie) can’t either… how far does this extend? Can Etho eat chocolate? Can Doc? Can Joel?

Additionally, theobromine (the compound in chocolate that is toxic to most companion animals) is also present in tea, cola, and coffee. Do they have to avoid those as well?

Finally, how much does the human hybridization affect the tolerance for theobromine? Humans have about a million poison immunities (because we’re insane and we eat anything), which is the reason why caffeine and theobromine don’t kill us like most other animals. Let’s say a dog hybrid does eat a whole bar of baker’s chocolate. Is it cardiac arrhythmia, kidney failure, and seizures, eventually leading to death over the span of 36 hours? Are they feeling like hell for a week and then fine? Dogs have a slow mechanism for the removal of theobromine, requiring an unusually long hospitalization time for theobromine toxicity (compared to other poisonings). Are dog hybrids also down for the count for that long? Does the human hybridization make it less long?

I really hope you don’t mind the way my vet med brain just went off there, but I’m so curious as to how your world works.

I…

…I’m a humanities masters student…

Those were a lot of big sciencey words 😭

I just made the birds not eat chocolate because it was a bit I read in several other Avian/wing fics and I thought it was funny…and yeah I do intend to make it canon that Ren also can’t eat chocolate…but as for like what actually would happen to him if he did I was just gonna imagine it like a severe allergic reaction, like if Ren did eat chocolate he’d just be laid out like he had really bad food poisoning for a week but it wouldn’t, like, kill him or anything unless he ate a stupidly large amount.

😆 but hey, you tell me! You’re a vet med right? That’s so so so cool! Do you think the hybridization would help and do you think that the reactions would noticeably change?

I’m so glad you love my world of TTSBC I really really love to see people pop off and ask about the specifics of lore but I just genuinely don’t know how to answer your question so I’m basically telling you to answer your question 😆😆😆

Thanks for reading! 💖

[intheholler]

Do you have any tips for being more comfortable using your natural accent in front of people? I was bullied for it as a kid and scrubbed my accent away through teenhood. As an adult, I feel like I still have to put on a neutral accent so people at work won't judge me. I told one of my old bosses that I was from Appalachia and he went on about how he'd seen do many documentaries on Appalachia and what good people we were, but also added that "Wow! I never would have known. You don't have an accent at all. You're so well-spoken!" and it felt bad. I think he had good intentions, but it made me feel like a zoo animal. I always see comments on other Appalachian folks' posts about their accents too, and there's always a handful of jerks who have to say something about their intelligence or make an incest or drug addict "joke".

It all hurts a lot and makes me self-conscious, but I don't want to be this way around my friends. Do you know how I can stop letting peoples' ignorance and classism get to me? Worrying about how I pronounce words or if I'm using region-specific slang all the time is so exhausting.

hi there <3 this is a topic near n dear to my heart because i spent so much of my life trying to avoid sounding appalachian, and the last few years of it desperate to sound so aggressively appalachian that yankees can't understand me, lmao.

that is all to say: this is gonna be long as usual.

first: class solidarity, family <3 this stuff really sucks.

what inspired me to push past the discomfort of using my natural accent after a lifetime of getting rid of it was actually along the lines of what you mentioned: people being shocked that i could be from appalachia, and be articulate at the same time. there are so many nasty, hurtful implications there.

i hate to say it, but there's no easy answer to this.

something in me just… snapped one day about ten years back. i started to look inward, and i discovered this overwhelming pride and passion and love for my home that i had denied myself my whole life, out of fear over how it made me look.

i started doing the self-work and digging deeper into that. it wasn't comfortable, but once i embraced appalachia, i wanted to defend her. the best way to do that for me was to be loud. my pride in where im from outweighed the rest.

maybe you should start there, too. look inward, break down your own subconscious biases about yourself and about our home. find out why you have been made to think this way.

work on loving the appalachian parts of yourself. GET. FUCKING. ANGRY. at those who poisoned your mind with this shit, and use that fury to work on dismantling the beliefs they imposed upon you.

because why shouldn't we talk like our mamas just because some asshole thinks its funny? why should we give up ties to our community and culture, just to be respected? why should every blessed conversation be emotionally and physically taxing just to make a classist more comfortable?

it isn't my shame to carry, and it isn't yours. it is their shame, and their self-work to do. it is not our responsibility to coddle their ignorance. that is on them.

now, when someone hears me talk, it causes a sort of dissonance that they then have to wrestle with. it shifts the discomfort and emotional labor away from me, and puts it on to them instead.

every time i speak proudly, they have to confront themselves and their biases, and how it harms someone that they respect--you.

and if they aren't the kind of person empathetic enough to do that, literally who gives a shit what someone like that thinks about you.

turn those 'jokes' they make about it right back on them:

why is drug addiction funny? why is incest and sexual assault of children funny? why are underfunded schools and a failure to give children across the nation a fair and equal education something to laugh about?

framing it in my mind that i was taking back control in conversations this way helped me speak more comfortably. it made me feel empowered.

i think of it like this: by speaking in my dialect and embodying positive and "unexpected" traits from the region (leftist politics, anti-racism, things like that), i reclaim my power. i use that power to slowly shift the opinions of appalachia with the people i interact with.

it was scary, and it's still scary. but by making a conscious decision every day to speak in our dialect and be courageous even when it's hard, we are reclaiming the parts of ourselves that they took from us. we are bettering the image of the region we love so dearly.

it is INCREDIBLY empowering now to settle into my accent. but it took a LOT of self-work, courage and self-respect to be able to do it.

it ain't easy. i do still struggle with it; i catch myself code switching all the time. i don't think you or me or any of us trying to reclaim our accents will ever fully escape the weight of the classism that dictated our manner of speaking for a huge chunk of our lives, unfortunately.

but if you do that difficult work, it is so, so liberating, family.

you can do it. talk to yourself when you're home alone. let the accent get comfortable again on your tongue. start there, then let that beautiful dialect out for the world to hear <3

[hana-no-seiiki]

YANDERE! BATFAM W/ MILES MORALES (BUT GENDER NEUTRAL) ! READER

[ PART ONE ] [ PART THREE ]

GENERAL CW/TW: Spoilers for Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse. Typical Yandere themes of stalking, violence and whatnot.

PART CW/TW: Reader gets called a beauty (beauty/beautiful is gender neutral fite me).

EXTRA: also uh mind you most of my knowledge on the boys come from reading fics so if i get any of my info wrong feel free to correct me

current status: unedited

summary: reader gets into multiverse related hi-jinx and almost gets their ass broken if it weren’t for a tired, definitely sleep deprived senior catching them. (it’s tim you guys)

Reply if you’d like to be added to the taglist!

WHAT’S UP DANGER

(PART TWO)

“I like tall buildings so I can leap off of ‘em,

I go hard wit’ it no matter how dark it is.”

Turns out being a hero is hard skill to learn. Especially if you were working on a time limit.

You had recently gained the ability to uh- well you didn’t know what exactly. All you knew is that somehow you were at least 5x as strong as you were before and a lot more sticky.

Not to mention your senses were all over the place.

It’s like you could see, hear, smell and feel everything.

You didn’t really want to avoid Damian, but whenever you came across him — or just went within his immediate vicinity. Your “tingles” and enhanced “senses” would flare up and make you dizzy.

Usually it’d only be that bad when there were projectiles or insects around you. You surmised it was probably your powers warning you of the dangers he may potentially bring. Whether it’d be from himself (the heir must have some sort of self defense skills) or his name (you didn’t want to think of the target you’ve put on your back both in school and life in general by being his acquaintance. Jesus [Y/N]. Being distracted by your future and planned failure in academics doesn’t excuse letting that happen. Stupid.).

You were mostly stumbling around with your strange set of abilities until you met this girl named Gwen.

First of all, she was just — incredibly pretty. You couldn’t but just stare at her sometimes and—

Getting back on track — !

After getting some spidey sense feedback loop and ripping off a massive chunk of her hair. You find out that you’re this universe’s “Spiderman.”

And that she, was from another universe entirely.

Even a big sci-fi junkie like you had to doubt her words, but as she showcased her abilities you pretty much went on your knees and begged her to teach you.

The both of you get to work quickly. Investigating how she got to your universe and practicing the use of your powers.

The first part went really well. You even met a few other dimension traveling spider-people (and animal) along the way. After sneaking into a lab, you found out that it was a rich man’s, King Pin, “bring his family back project” that brought you all together. But that his actions were probably going to destroy the fabric of reality if he kept going.

The second part, not so much. Your stickiness was something you just couldn’t control.

Luckily it was winter break and that prevented you from ripping another schoolmate’s hair off.

Your “universe specific” abilities, as the other spider-people called it, like invisibility and bio-electricity only came out at random. Sometimes at the most inconvenient times.

Your webbing abilities were subpar to say the least. Many attempts led to you breaking several bones.

Praise super-regeneration and all

But f u c k did it still hurt.

and it was during one of those web-swinging practice sessions when you fall into the arms of Tim Drake.

Tim was just trying to get some fresh air.

After passing out on duty last night and having to deal with Damian suddenly abandoning his missions for some reason. He decided that maybe it was time for a break.

He didn’t exactly expect to have a young adult falling into his arms during said break.

He was just talking a casual stroll really. In a relatively quiet part of Gotham, he didn’t expect much to be happening much less a pretty/handsome giving him a small wave as they sheepishly laugh at their . . . strange encounter.

“ Hey. ” You smiled at him. Praying to all that is holy that he doesn’t notice the bits of undissolved webs you have littered across your hoodie. Thank goodness you didn’t wear your makeshift mask today. He was going to think you were even more of a weirdo than you already are!

“ Hey. ” Tim replied. Praying to all that is holy that you don’t notice his heart rate picking up and his ears turning red. It was the cold he swears! The cold!

“What’s a beauty like you doing around in a place like this?”

They both ask in sync with completely awkward delivery to boot.

Taglist: @vanessa-boo @w31rdg1rl

[ PART THREE ]

[literary-illuminati]

2024 Book Review #5 – The Tusks of Extinction by Ray Nayler

I read Nayler’s The Mountain in the Sea last year and, despite thinking it was ultimately kind of a noble failure, liked it more than enough to give his new novella a try. It didn’t hurt that the premise as described in the marketing copy sounded incredible. I can’t quite say it was worth it, but that’s really only because this novella barely cost less than the 500-page doorstopper I picked up at the same time and I need to consider economies here – it absolutely lived up to the promise of its premise.

The book is set a century and change into the future, when a de-extinction initiative has gotten funding from the Russian government to resurrect the Siberian mammoth – or, at least, splice together a chimera that’s close-enough and birth it from african elephant surrogate mothers – to begin the process of restoring the prehistoric taiga as a carbon sink. The problem: there’s no one on earth left who knows how wild mammoth are supposed to, like, live- the only surviving elephants have been living in captivity for generations. Plop the ressurectees in the wilderness and they’ll just be very confused and anxious until they starve. The solution: the technology to capture a perfect image of a human mind is quite old, and due to winning some prestigious international award our protagonist – an obsessive partisan of elephant conservation – was basically forced to have her mind copied and put in storage a few months before she was killed by poachers.

So the solution of who will raise and socialize these newly created mammoths is ‘the 100-year-old ghost of an elephant expert, after having her consciousness reincarnated in a mammoth’s body to lead the first herd as the most mature matriarch’. It works better than you’d expect, really, but as it turns out she has some rather strong opinions about poachers, and isn’t necessarily very understanding when the solution found to keep the project funded involves letting some oligarch spend a small country’s GDP on the chance to shoot a bull and take some trophies.

So this is a novella, and a fairly short one – it’s densely packed with ideas but the length and the constraints of narrative mean that they’re more evoked or presented than carefully considered. This mostly jumps out at me with how the book approaches wildlife conservation – a theme that was also one of the overriding concerns of Mountain where it was considered at much greater length. I actually think the shorter length might have done Nayler a service here, if only because it let him focus things on one specific episode and finish things with a more equivocal and ambiguous ending than the saccharine deux ex machina he felt compelled to resort to in Mountain.

The protection of wildlife is pretty clearly something he’s deeply invested in – even if he didn’t outright say so in the acknowledgements, it just about sings out from the pages of both books. Specifically, he’s pretty despairing about it – both books to a great extent turn around how you convince the world at large to allow these animals to live undisturbed when all the economic incentives point the other way, a question he seems quite acutely aware he lacks a good answer to.

Like everyone else whose parents had Jurassic Park on VHS growing up, I’ve always found the science of de-extinction intensely fascinating – especially as it becomes more and more plausible every day. This book wouldn’t have drawn my eye to nearly the degree it did if I don’t remember the exact feature article I’d bet real money inspired it about a group of scientists trying to do, well, exactly the same thing as the de-extinctionists do in the book (digital resurrection aside). The book actually examines the project with an eye to practicalities and logistics – and moreover, portrays it as at base a fundamentally heroic, noble undertaking as opposed to yet another morality tale about scientific hubris. So even disregarding everything else it had pretty much already won me over just with that.

The book’s portrayal of the future and technology more generally is broader and less carefully considered, but it still rang truer than the vast majority of sci fi does – which is, I suppose, another way of saying that it’s a weathered and weather-beaten world with new and better toys, but one still very fundamentally recognizable as our own, without any great revolutions or apocalyptic ruptures in the interim. Mosquito's got CRISPR’d into nonexistence and elephants were poached into extinction outside of captivity, children play with cybernetically controlled drones and the president of the Russian Federation may or may not be a digital ghost incarnated into a series of purpose-grown clones, but for all that it’s still the same shitty old earth. It’s rather charming, really.

[rambleonwaywardson]

Olympics AU: I would love to see Bucky talking about his relationship and his uncertainties with other people, could be Curt but you could also get quite creative with it. He could even talk to Whiskey! An outsider POV would also be a lot of fun in this AU! 💖

I love this ask, thank you so much anon. I actually wrote two separate snippets about this, both very big on the "uncertainties" part of it. One with Curt (which got a bit long) and one with Whiskey, so I'll put them both here 😊❤

Whiskey (takes place after Morning After/Dressage):

“You can just stay here,” Gale says, motioning vaguely to Bucky, Whiskey, and the stall around them. “I’ve just gotta talk to Chick for a minute, I’ll be right back.”

Bucky smiles and tells him to go. Gale asks if he’s sure he’ll be alright in here alone with the horse. “Yes, Buck,” Bucky laughs. “We’re best buds now.” He scratches Whiskey behind the ear and she leans into it, as if to prove the point.

Gale lets a sweet little smile slip, giving Bucky a look that brings only the word 'lovestruck' to mind. It makes Bucky's heart beat faster. Gale nods, though, taps Whiskey on the nose, kisses Bucky on the cheek, and ducks out of the stall.

Bucky shakes his head as Gale walks away and shoots a glance over his shoulder just to double check. Alone with the horse, Bucky tilts his head, looking at this magnificent animal who spooked at her own poop after Gale’s ride and currently has hay all stuck in her forelock after only being in the stall for 20 minutes. She sure is pretty, though.

Bucky strokes her soft neck, scratches her face, runs his hand down her nose as he thinks about Gale. Beautiful, sweet, kind Gale Cleven. Whiskey blows a hot breath and shakes her head before nudging at Bucky's hand for more attention. He obliges. “I don’t know what I’m gonna do, pretty girl,” he says quietly. 

He glances over his shoulder to make sure he’s still alone before letting out a deep sigh. “He’s such a great guy. You know that. I don’t have a whole lotta experience with good guys. I-”

He laughs mirthlessly, shaking his head at himself. He’s really standing here, unpacking all his baggage onto a horse. But, hey. That’s what Gale does, isn’t it?

“He deserves better than me,” he whispers as he scratches up under the horse’s forelock. “I’ve got too much baggage, Whiskey. Too much shit I’m working through. I’ve never had someone like him in my life…” He takes a deep breath and lets it out real slow. Whiskey rubs her head against his shoulder, and he smiles weakly. “I don’t know how to love someone. I don’t know how to let them love me. I don’t know if love is something I get, you know? It hurts too much.” 

His sister. His ex. His shitty dating history. His fear of commitment. His fear of failure. His fear of loss and pain and heartbreak and betrayal and love. His inability to let himself be happy. Something that he never had a single problem with before 2021, but ever since has assaulted him day by day out of absolutely nowhere. It’s all shit his therapist has tried to work him through, but he just can’t seem to believe that he deserves something good like Gale. 

“I love him,” he whispers. And he hates that he feels the hint of tears welling up behind his eyes. “But I’m worried that I can’t.”

Curt (takes place during Event Finals Part 1):

“Ow, what the fuck?” Bucky glares at Curt, who just flicked him hard on the side of the head. “What was that for?”

“Stop bein’ an idiot,” Curt tells him. 

They’re sitting across from each other in the dining hall the morning before their rings and vault event finals. Bucky had looked longingly at the chocolate muffins, but, hours before a competition, opted instead for eggs and a bowl of fruit. It doesn’t much matter, because he’s hardly touched the food on his plate. Instead, he’s staring at his phone, which is sitting face up on the table. Displayed on the screen is an article about him. Specifically, it’s about him and Gale and the whole saga of John’s messy dating life, including his forced coming out. 

“That’s actually not possible. I’m an idiot by trade,” Bucky mutters. 

Curt rolls his eyes and grabs Bucky’s phone. He exits out of the article, turns it off, and tucks it beside his own plate of eggs and bacon. “Quit readin’ that shit, it’s no good for you.” He takes an aggressive bite of his eggs, swallows, and points his finger at Bucky. “You need to get your head on straight about Gale.” 

Bucky pouts and takes a hesitant bite of a piece of pineapple. “Care to elaborate?”

Curt cocks his head, unamused. “Quit psychin’ yourself out over him! Every single time you catch yourself bein’ happy with him, you get all antsy. He’s literally the perfect guy. You’ll never find anyone better. And for some reason he really likes you. Why can’t you just let yourself be happy?”

Bucky’s pout deepens as he slouches in his chair, playing with the eggs on his plate. Curt wishes he’d fuckin’ eat something. He can’t go into rings finals on an empty stomach, but it seems, short of Curt shoving those eggs down John’s throat, it’s not gonna happen until they address whatever this is. 

“You know why,” Bucky mumbles. There’s about a thousand different reasons why.

Curt rubs a hand over his face and takes a sip of orange juice to keep from screaming at his best friend. 

“John,” he says. “I know it’s been hard the last few years. I know you’re freaked out ‘cause of your sister. I know you’ve had shitty luck with guys in the past. I know that asshole screwed you over and violated your privacy to the highest fuckin’ extreme, and trust me I hope his life is a living hell for that. But you’ve stumbled upon the jackpot of possible boyfriends. So don’t you think, maybe, you need to just give it a damn shot?“

“You know it’s not that easy,” Bucky says defensively, setting his fork down aggressively before picking it up again with a shake of his head and returning to shoving food around his plate.

And yeah, Curt does know. He’s watched Bucky go through it all. It’s been almost exactly three years and one month since his sister died, and Bucky has never recovered from that loss. Curt knows he’s scared of letting someone into his life, because he’s scared of losing them. He’s scared of heartbreak. He’s scared of getting close to someone. He’s scared of letting them close to him.

Curt was there when Bucky went off the rails. He was there when that shitty ex told the whole world that Bucky’s gay. He was there for the backlash and for the support and for the rollercoaster of figuring out how to work through that exposure. He had to tell his fair share of people to fuck off when they got in John’s face about it or talked shit behind his back. 

“I know,” Curt says. “But you have to start somewhere. Don’t you think Gale is worth that?”

Bucky is quiet for a long time. He takes two bites of eggs, and Curt watches every move. Finally, he says, “I… I think I’m scared?” He shifts in his seat, avoiding eye contact as he says it. But hey, that’s a lot of progress right there.

Curt nods, thinking maybe that therapist Bucky’s been talking to since the accident is actually worth something beyond getting him back in the gym. It’s amazing, he thinks, how much the world doesn’t know about John Egan. All they see is the gymnastics golden boy with a winning smile, back for another round after being dragged through the shit. They don’t see this part of him. 

“I know,” Curt says.

“I haven’t had a real relationship since I’ve been out. Curt, I don’t… that fuckin’ sucked, man. I can’t deal with that again. I can’t-“

“Do you really think Gale is the kinda guy to hurt you like that?”

“No,” Bucky admits. No doubt about it. Because Gale isn’t that kind of guy. At all. 

“And you can’t be forced out of the closet twice,” Curt points out. “So isn’t it time to let that work in your favor? Let yourself have a real relationship, without carin’ about anyone else?”

Bucky shrugs uncomfortably and his voice gets all quiet. “I don’t know how.” 

Curt laughs and rolls his eyes again. “You just do, John. You’re doin’ it already. He makes you happy, you guys are attached at the hip, you look at him like he hung the goddamn moon. And he looks at you the same fuckin' way. Just stop bein’ stupid about it.”

He hesitates over his next words, unsure if they’d be a step too far right now. When Bucky still has a day of competition left. But he takes a breath, and he says it anyway. “She would tell you the same thing.”

Bucky nods and hides his face in his hands. “I know.”

“She’d want you to be happy,” Curt adds, pushing on. “It would kill her if she knew you were bein’ stupid cause of her.”

Bucky nods and grips his hair between his fingers, clenching his jaw. He squeezes his eyes shut. Curt sighs and reaches a hand across the table to lay on Bucky’s bicep. “She’d want you to find someone to love. That loves you. She’d want Gale for you. I know it.”

“I miss her,” Bucky says quietly. 

“I know,” Curt says again. “I know.”

It takes a few minutes to recover, but Bucky finally pops a grape into his mouth. Then a strawberry. Then he gets back to work on his eggs, slowly, slowly. He looks up at Curt, works his jaw nervously. “You went to school with Gale, right?”

Curt nods. He didn’t know Gale real well, but they had classes together. They talked here and there. Hung out at a party or two when Marge would drag Gale out a few times a year. 

“Has he always been like this?” Bucky asks.

“What?” Curt quirks an eyebrow up and smirks. “Hot? Sweet? Funny? Smart? Humble? All around lovely?”

Bucky laughs a little and nods. “Perfect, yeah.”

“Yep,” Curt says. “He has.“ And he’s telling the truth. That’s just quintessentially Gale Cleven. 

Bucky shakes his head and swallows another bite of egg. Curt breathes a quiet sigh of relief. But then Bucky gets all quiet again. “I’ve never dated anyone who… just… I’ve never…”

Curt sighs. “Never dated anyone who treated you well.” God knows that’s true. Of all the guys that Curt has seen Bucky date, not a single one has ever seemed to truly care about him in any meaningful way. They’ve all been manipulative or noncommittal, just in it to say they had sex with John Egan. Just in it to say they could claim John Egan. Just in it for his body, for his face, for his name. Like he’s some carnival prize. Not a single one has ever treated him like the actually amazing guy he is.

Bucky nods and frowns, shrugs sadly. “Maybe I don’t deserve someone like that.” 

Curt won’t stand for that. Because it’s the most absurd thing he’s ever heard. “John, look at me.”

Bucky flicks his eyes up, and Curt holds his gaze. 

“Usually I’d be an ass and say you’re right cause that’s how we work. But I’m gonna tell you this ‘cause I care about you.” He sets down his fork, reaches a hand out again to poke Bucky’s arm. “You deserve the world, man. You deserve every good thing comin’ your way. And it’s not because you’ve been through hell. It’s ‘cause you’re a great guy. You’ve worked hard. You deserve it all, okay? You deserve someone like Gale Cleven who will love you and make you happy and take care of ya. Hear me?”

Bucky shrugs again, and Curt flicks him on the side of the head. Again. Bucky glares at him. It’s not a lesson Curt expects him to learn right here and now. It’ll take an awful long time, if Bucky ever learns it all. But Curt can at least play his part by telling him, in no uncertain terms, that it’s true.

“Stop bein’ stupid,” he adds. “If you don’t hold onto this guy with all you’ve got, it’ll be the biggest mistake of your life.”

[typellblog]

Tsubasa Tiger - An Analysis

This is an arc about personal identity, which is fitting for the first book in the series narrated by someone other than our main character. Tsubasa’s halting attempts to discover herself feel almost in parallel to Nisio’s attempts to expand her internal world beyond that perceived by Koyomi.

It quickly becomes evident that Hanekawa Tsubasa does not know herself, the usual catchphrase of ‘I only know what I know’ recontextualised with the understanding that there are many things she does not know on purpose. This is what Izuko tells her, and note that for all her talk of Tsubasa knowing nothing, the specific facts that she focuses on - the tiger, Tsubasa’s feelings for Koyomi, the cram school burning down - are things that Tsubasa should know about. Izuko doesn’t stun her with information that would be impossible for Tsubasa to obtain, but rather things that it should be impossible for her to not know.

This absence is at the heart of this arc’s central oddity, the titular tiger. It’s rendered variously as the Tyrannical Tiger, Hystery Tiger, History Tiger, etc. I think the most immediately relevant things to draw on when talking about it are how it symbolises both the past and Tsubasa’s strong emotions. However, in her usual fashion, neither of these are immediately obvious in the tiger, which appears out of nowhere, rooted in no history, motivated by no emotion. It is singularly uninterested in these things, and that is precisely why it is useful to her. 

Its role is to burn the past. It is powered by her ‘dark’ emotions, but is not itself touched by them. Its habit of arson is found in her envy, the repressed desire for a home of her own leading her to destroy those of others. She also, in a more personal sense, envies the family. Her parents growing closer to one another. Hitagi and her father. The Araragi siblings and their mother. 

The reason, then, why she manages to stop herself from destroying their houses as well is because of the genuine intimacy and love that she manages to build with Hitagi and the Fire Sisters (as partially represented by the shower/bath scenes). She never manages to hate Hitagi for ‘taking’ Koyomi from her, because despite loving Koyomi she ends up a little bit in love with Hitagi too.

Over all three of Tsubasa’s arcs we’ve slowly been approaching the truth of the similarity between Koyomi and Tsubasa. The difference between them and Hitagi, or Kanbaru.

Tsubasa is someone that resists change, refuses to move forward. To some extent the backwards chronology of her first two arcs doesn’t matter because the conclusion is almost the same. Just don’t worry about it. Continue as normal.  This can seem a frighteningly noble thing, from Koyomi’s perspective. It is a frighteningly broken thing, to Tsubasa. 

Hitagi says she’s a ‘failure as a creature’. That she has no sense of danger, simply accepting everything as it comes. The concept of the ‘wild creature’ invoked here is obviously connected to how her oddities manifest as animals, holding the instincts and impulses that she rejects in herself.  She eats her food unseasoned, not because she prefers it that way, but because the difference in taste doesn’t matter to her. She approves of goodness to the exact same extent she approves of tediousness, of flavourlessness, of banality. In that sense, Hitagi questions, can even her love for Koyomi be considered real? Does she have a reason to prefer him in particular?

We’ve been told that she’s the ‘real deal’ in comparison to Koyomi’s fake, but what that turns out to mean is simply that Koyomi has a basic level of self-awareness. He knows how it looks to others, to be so self-sacrificing. It makes you stand out. Tsubasa fails to recognise this - how else would she still have the misconception that she’s been correctly acting as a ‘normal girl’?

Besides that one point, the two are remarkably similar. Their lack of self-regard drives them into service of others, all the while stubbornly refusing to reach out for help on their own. Koyomi fails again and again, repeating the same mistakes, accepting his old hypocrisies, and through it all, remaining himself. 

That’s why she loves him. Because he ‘confronts his own weakness’. Because when he saved Shinobu he was crying, and Tsubasa can’t remember the last time she herself cried. 

The second chapter ends with Tsubasa noting that she always gives thanks after a meal, for the plants and animals that have been killed ‘for my sake, of all creatures.’ Especially after spring break, she says. After encountering a vampire, after witnessing what it is to be a vampire, to devour someone else’s life for your own sake. But here I also think about the cat. An animal that died on the side of the road. A predator, whose energy drain selfishly takes from others. 

Just as Koyomi and Tsubasa are alike, so are their oddities. They both take the form of creatures that are capable of imposing on others, of asserting their own desires over those of others, and for that reason the both of them are deathly afraid of letting them out. They shrink back inside themselves, trying their best to avoid bumping into anyone else, to avoid cursing them with their touch. 

But where Koyomi, in his fumbling way, makes progress & reconciles with Shinobu, Tsubasa casts her cat aside. She loses the memories of its rampage after it leaves. This doesn’t seem strange at first. We assume this is how the oddity works. It is how it works! For Tsubasa. The cat isn’t the one removing her memories, she just went ahead and did that on her own. Like she does with everything. 

There’s a conversation between cat and vampire in this book. Shinobu brings up the tale of Napoleon sleeping in the bath & points out that two very abnormal things can combine to seem normal. Black Hanekawa is one such abnormal thing, an oddity, but going down this train of thought has Hanekawa wondering if she isn’t one herself, if her own ability to ignore inconveniences and tolerate the intolerable isn’t also something ambiguously supernatural. 

Episode says that she had an ‘overwhelming presence’ when he met her during spring break, that she almost seems normal now, having since cut off the cat from herself. Having cut off the tiger. It’s almost a contradiction. The more she relies on supernatural powers, the more normal she herself becomes. 

Perhaps the model student persona of Hanekawa Tsubasa was also a constructed identity, constructed for the purpose of protecting herself, just as Kuro was. 

After all, to a vampire’s eyes, there’s not much of a difference between human and oddity.

Again we have the oddity as a twisted reflection of its master. Shinobu sees everyone equally as food, while to Koyomi both humans and oddities are equally in need of his help. He saves Shinobu despite her monstrous nature, he saves Mayoi despite her being the cause of the incident. To him there’s no distinction, both Kuro and Tsubasa are Hanekawa. 

We are going to be seeing nightmares for the rest of our lives, he tells Tsubasa in Neko Kuro. You will never stop being that person. Because when it comes down to it, he doesn’t, and neither does she. 

It feels a little off. People can change, can’t they? People can always change. Does she really have to drag that cat, that tiger, around with her forever? In this book we get a more complete picture. What cannot change is the past. What happened, what you’ve done, that never goes away. You can become a different person as much as you like, as long as you never deny it. That the cat, the tiger, they were, are, both you. You can change as much as you like, but all of those changes, steps and missteps are still Hanekawa Tsubasa. 

Her mistake was pretending that the cat wasn’t her, pushing everything onto Kuro as though it had nothing to do with Tsubasa herself. 

As Gaen points out though, this is normal. Everyone goes through their life lying to themselves & each other to cope. Tsubasa isn’t special. What makes her special in this arc is accepting the oddities as part of herself, asking them to come home. Supposedly they’d disappear on their own. From both an oddity’s perspective, and a human perspective, that’s the preferable outcome. But just like Koyomi, Tsubasa doesn’t see this from an oddity’s perspective, or a human’s perspective. To her the cat and tiger have become family. 

The theme of this series, then, really hasn’t changed from the first arc, where a girl without her weight takes back her emotions. 

Hitagi and her own self-driven changes are vital to this arc, her affection for Tsubasa driving the girl to accept help freely given. Tsubasa still resists the idea of calling Koyomi, taking up his time, making her feelings known to him, and so both Hitagi and the Fire Sisters end up demonstrating the virtues of kindness freely given, what a family ‘should’ be like. This helps Tsubasa understand the character of her own family situation, one that she finally bluntly articulates as abuse. 

Both Tsubasa and Koyomi have that tendency, looking away from uncomfortable truths in order to maintain their way of life. Take, for example, the situation with Kanbaru, where he’s just a bit too charitable, doesn’t quite understand how much she wants him dead. He’s unable to solve the incident on his own, unable to realise the problem with getting himself killed to solve it, and in the end is only able to provide a justification for Hitagi and Kanbaru to meet. To buy time for her to get there. 

It’s an overstepping of bounds, a needless intervention, an unwanted favour. But it’s not pointless. 

It’s a classic Koyomi-narrated arc, in that way. He’s a bit slow to understand the mind of the ‘victim’, is unsuccessful in his attempts in intervention when compared to Oshino, the specialist, and Kanbaru has to just go ahead and save herself. 

Consider, now, the structure of Tsubasa Tiger. For once, our protagonist isn’t Koyomi. And yet, in a similar manner to Koyomi Vamp, we find the narrator herself to be the one afflicted by an oddity. 

She’s a bit slow to understand what’s going on in the mind of the victim, has the situation laid out for her by Izuko, the specialist, and in the end - 

Her attempts at intervention are unsuccessful. She can’t defeat the tiger on her own. She can only buy time. 

Just as Koyomi’s business with Kanbaru is an overstepping of bounds, a needless intervention, an unwanted favour, Tsubasa’s business with the tiger is ‘impossible, reckless and-’

Not futile. Never pointless. 

Isn’t the point of Koyomi in Suruga Monkey that without him risking himself, the two may never have come back together? That despite being unwanted, his selflessness is, in the end,  appreciated? 

The point of Tsubasa Tiger, then, is that people will come to help you if you call them. Koyomi demonstrates this in Nekomonogatari Kuro, with his text message trick. Here, in Shiro, Tsubasa returns the favour, finally reaching out to him by sending a picture, escaping the carefully constructed boundary of her school uniform, letting him know that she wants to stay in touch with him, that she doesn’t mind imposing on his time a little. 

One might question the role of Koyomi in this narrative, appearing at the end to save the day. Isn’t this arc supposed to be about Tsubasa? Doesn’t she have to resolve her own issues? Do we not all have to save ourselves?

That was never true, though. Koyomi’s appearance at the end is almost an afterthought. It’s Oshino’s final proposal in Koyomi Vamp. It’s Hitagi’s arrival in Suruga Monkey. It’s Shinobu’s emergence from the shadow in Tsubasa Cat. 

The protagonist role Tsubasa inherits from Koyomi is not the ability to solve incidents, it is the ability to help, to be there for someone. Just as Koyomi was able to face her feelings head on in Tsubasa Cat, willing to give up his life for her in Tsubasa Family, just how she was able to be a friend to Koyomi at his lowest point in Kizumonogatari - 

For the first time in a while, the one that Tsubasa Hanekawa tries to take care of is herself. 

And that's all for now. This arc is great. Gonna have to hurry up a bit if I want to finish this before the new season comes out . . .

[minas-linkverse]

Do you have any tips or tricks on how to start a comic like this? Or even just how you got started?? I've had my own au for years that I so badly wanna put out into the world but I've been struggling with finding a good way to start it!!!!

Hm!! Ok!! This is a tough question with many different answers even just from me. I'll do my best to answer tho!! 😮

The main bit of advice I want to give, and which I think is vital to anyone creating anything:

☆ Know yourself.

When looking up advice for creating, people love to tell you that by doing things a specific way is the best and only way to go. Often advice of this sort has solid points, you should plan ahead, you should have easy character designs, buut... You don't have to.

I do not work well with outlines or scripts. I dislike sketching. You'd think that'd make being a long form comic artist impossible for me, but nope.

I know theres things I cannot do, so I've put all my practise to what I can do. My lineart style allows me to almost skip sketching completely, my scripts are more of an A to B structure than law. I improv 90% of the time when making pages. It's kinda like dnd with myself.

I would absolutely not reccomend what I'm doing to others, but I know it works for me. People can tell me I'm doing it wrong but its either wrong or no comic at all, SO. Suck it. 👍

Er. Rambling now.

My point is, figure out what you can and cant do, and do your best to give yourself the ideal work enviorment and process.

☆ Deal with being overwhelmed

Making just a few panels and suddenly realising its gonna take years to get anywhere is SO demoralising. It's gonna happen and its gonna happen again, and again, and—

But continuing with the earlier advice, you gotta ask yourself what would help you. Are you willing to sacrifice quality? Do you just need a break? Maybe you're like me and like to include smth you love in every update so you'll have something to get excited about making.

That feeling of overwhelm is trying to tell you something, so figure out what that is so it wont end the project for you.

☆ Start it

You wont like what you make when starting. I've never heard of an artist who has.

I'm not saying start this instant, not everyone is as into improv and flailing around as me. But I will say you'll never feel ready. Figure out the minimun of what you need to start and do it. Show friends first if youre afraid to post.

Also where to start? Well sure there's lots of good advice online about that, but you can also just doodle random stuff until you feel like diving deeper. That's what LV started with, just Twi and Wild hanging out with animals and some headcanons. It may not be the most tightly written work but theres beauty in the humanity of a mess.

☆ Extras

A "failed project" or "forgotten WIP" is only a failure if you let yourself feel that way. Yea it can be a hauntingly strong feeling thats hard to deal with... But it can be beaten. WIPS are proof you tried and not everyone can say they have.

Lv is far from done and I have no intention of dropping it, but because the journey has been so nice I'd satisfied even if I had to call it here. Its smth that helps me with the overwhelm... What I've made is beautiful even now.

Comparing yourself to others is gonna rip your heart out. I love that theres other links meet aus out there and hope the best for those artists but I caNNot follow any of them or I'll crumble to dust.

So Uhm.

Basically. Have fun and be yourself. 👍

Ps. Readability is basically the most important thing for a comic artist to pay attention to, that and not destroying yourself with details and rendering. 🙌 Good luck out there!

[insertsomthinawesome]

Hi! Do you have any TWST friendship headcanons about the dormheads? They are definetely a chaotic friend group!

Also love your art! It's so pretty!!

OH ABSOLUTELY. First of all, Thank you so much!! THat makes me so happy to hear ;;v;; ONTO SHENANIGANS: A LOT if not pretty much all of this falls into non-canon-compliant territory, and I'm only partway through Book 5 so I could either totally guess soimething or completely mess something up, but here are my braincells

Vil and Leona: I LOVE these two. I think they have some of the most fantastic worstie to bestie potential. And in a weird way??? I think Vil is the kind of person Leona needs? Like, Vil can be a little too harsh, and in my personal opinion too much of a perfectionist (Not for the character tho, just if he was a real person xD As a character trait its 10/10 good writing) but the fact that he refuses to stop seeing the potential in Leona??? Thats something that I really think Leona NEEDS. People who are like "What are you talking about? You have the possibility to be so much if you just tried." Like that last part is harsh yeah, but I think Vil really has this... he has this Rook-like ability to believe in the potential of other people in a way that isn't actually as cynical as it comes across. If he learned to work more with Leona than against him, I actually think the two of them would have such a strong power duo potential.

Leona needs to see Vil for the Roses rather than the Thorns. He needs to see more of what Vil is SAYING, where he's coming from rather than just the words themselves. I think if Leona really comprehended how much Vil believed in him, like, ACTUALLY believed in him, i think he would be genuinely moved, genuinely shook and full of wonder that somebody saw so much potential in him, as so much more than being a failure or a freak.

However I think if they actually became friends Epel might have to take a week off for mourning because he could no longer go to Leona to escape the wrath of Vil xD

Idia and Malleus: Okay so starsending started me on this one, I think they would actually really vibe. Idia is an introverted Loner, he has a hard time with high energy people who make a lot of noise. Mallues CAN be a lot, but honestly he tends to... not be. Its more like the A Lot follows him. ei when he interacts with Yuu and essentially just ends up being a nerd. The specific image i've had in my head, is i feel like Idia could play animal crossing with Malleus watching him, and the two of them could vibe for H O U R S. Malleus would make the occasional comment or go on the occasional tangent, but he seems less like he needs people to engage with him sometimes, and sometimes just like he needs people to listen. And Idia isn't actually that bad at engaging with people!! He's got internet friends (lilia lol) which means he does know something about sustaining relationships and talking to people I also think that Malleus would probably find Idia's way of talking fascinating SLDFKJSDLGJSLDJG. As long as he wasn't mocked for not understanding, he'd probably find it downright interesting to listen to Idia explain internet memes from 2010 and talk about the history of Loss. I also think that Idia could really be a safe and quiet spot for malleus when things are hard. I feel like part of Malleus's frustrations, and why we see him run away from Sebek and Silver, despite both of them being family he obviously loves, is that, with the exception of Lilia, Both of them make a BIG DEAL out of things. Silver tends to be quieter and less explosive, but they both do. Sometimes I think Malleus just wants to be alone to process, or not be pestered or questioned. I think Idia could potentially be that safe and quiet spot where he's ready to listen, but not necessarily interested in making a big deal about it. If they became better friends he might not even ask, just offer quiet empathy.

Kalim and Leona: -Spoilers for Leona's Union bday card, since it hasn't released in English yet- OH BOY.... THESE TWO. First of all!!! ANother relationship that I think could do a lot of good for Leona??? Kalim doesn't really need him for anything, but he's a well of low expectation positivity, somebody who I can see dragging Leona out to do things, or even just, once in a while so honestly state the worth he sees in Leona that it causes Leona to stutter and pause. Like, Leona's union bday card mentioning that he'd have Kalim with him on a deserted Island cause people would come ot rescue Kalim....... O U CH??????? There's a running Narrative that Kalim doesn't really see the value in himself, and this would be another person (like Azul) who would contradict that. Leona sees a more cynical version of his value, but its still value all the same. And Leona likes to gripe and groan, but he's adopted like, half the characters who are younger than him, I don't think he's immune to Kalim Al-Asim at ALL. It doesn't help that Leona is already a Tsunderely doting uncle, I can see Kalim triggering the Uncle-Instincts in him sometimes... or a lot. The loud and upbeat disposition Similar to Cheka's wouldn't help. Specifically, because I've thought about these two being friends before, I've always loved this idea of a post book 4 sequence where Kalim like, kind wanders into the greenhouse to find somewhere to cry privately, but he runs into leona napping. Leona doesn't really want to deal with Kalim, so while he's blubbering through his explanation he's just like "Fine you can chill here as long as you're quiet" Kalim accepts... but Leona has beastman hearing, so even what might be considered reasonably quiet is loud to him, and he eventually caves and asks whats up. Just to get Kalim to shut up eventually. I think maybe I had a conclusion or an idea for what advice leona would give kalim, but I don't remember it at the moment, but yeah just. Them :) I think their dynamic could be really interesting.

Malleus and Leona: So ya'll who saw my whumptobers already know I have some bad braincells for these two clowns. I think they are jealous of each other, because they think the other has what they want, they think that they see the other squandering the gifts they've been given, being fools and idiots who don't appreciate what they have. Leona craves being accepted, having the crown, having the power to fix what he sees that is wrong, to actually have and impact in people's lives, to matter and to fit in. Malleus craves normality, he craves to be one of the masses, just another man among many, he doesn't wish for power, and he cares little for the catastrophic effect he can have on other people, he just wants to be invited. He just wants to be included. Leona sees Malleus as having the power to do what matters. Malleus sees Leona as having the gift of Normality and camaraderie. Ultimately they're both miserable where they're at (though not entirely. Leona loves his squad, Malleus loves his family, both of them have things they'd never dare give up.) and they think if they just had what the other had, they would achieve the things they deserve and desire. I think both of them would have to sort through a LOT of emotions if it ever clicked for them just how similar they are. They're of course seeing each other through rose colored glasses. Leona is not an everyman, he's feared by his own family, Malleus is not all powerful, he cannot stop the tick of death. Leona is persecuted for being "less than" his brother, Malleus is held so far above everybody else he can't be reached. This would take some time for both of them to process, but I think once they did there would be a chance for them to become good allies, and potentially even really good friends. THose are my main braincells!! I honestly think that making any of the dorm leaders interact is fantastic food for thought and relationship building. I would love to think over what it'd be like to grow a friendship between Azul and Riddle, or Vil and Malleus. Leona and Azul would be INCREDIBLE and fascinating!!! Like man, there's so much to work with in TWST. I realized this might be a little to the left of your question ^^;; Haha, If you were asking about more like, I guess lighearted headcanons, I'm not sure I have any yet!! But I'm sure with time I totally could :) Writing or playing with TWST characters intimidated me for a bit there, since the quality of the writing of the game was SO GOOD I felt there was no way I could do it justice. Now I feel a lot less intimidated, so i feel like I'm more likely to dig my hands into shenanigans and thoughts.

[tossawary]

The AVALANCHE group in "Final Fantasy 7: Remake" keeps cracking me up. They're not wearing any face masks to hide their identities when busting into secure SHINRA facilities full of surveillance cameras??? They don't even change outfits when they're not running missions??? It's killing me.

Assuming that they are not outright killing every SHINRA trooper they encounter (maybe they are, idk), even if they weren't being caught on a bunch of surveillance cameras (the opening mission shows this happening), there's like dozens of people who should be able to give relatively detailed descriptions of them??? (Also, I laugh every time the screen says that Cloud has "defeated" a SHINRA trooper. If he's a super soldier swinging that much sharp metal around at high speeds, he should (realistically) be cutting people in half. It is amusing to me to see the people enemies just fall over and the machine enemies get trashed. I find it very cartoony.)

(I am still failing to properly watch my way through this series during work. I personally don't super love the hyperrealistic dolls design style and I don't think it jives all that well with the incredibly cartoony world building, clumsy "as you know" exposition, and wacky gameplay execution so far. It's just not my thing. Yet I found "Ace Attorney" utterly intolerable to watch but very fun to actually play through the wackiness, so I'll give FF7 the benefit of the doubt there and say, "Sure, I assume this is still really fun to actually play and that the world is immersive enough that way.")

This game is a "AAA" remake of a super popular game in a super popular franchise, but they apparently couldn't be bothered to make secondary "civilian" models for Jessie, Biggs, and Wedge? What is this? A cheaply made cartoon series? These characters are waltzing around the slums in their matching bright red bandanas and Jessie, who is apparently a former performer and therefore especially recognizable, is always wearing her silly tit-sculpted armor. AVALANCHE took a crowded passenger train home from their opening terrorist mission when they should rightfully all smell and look awfully beat-up and suspicious after fleeing a massive reactor explosion???

Like, I don't really care if the characters think they're hacking the camera systems here or if the game wants pretty character faces to be visible at all times. I also don't really care about faithfulness to the original setup. They could yank facemasks down during specific cutscenes? Cloud could lose his facemask at a dramatic moment during a cutscene? And Jessie could exclaim over how cute Cloud is at the end of the mission or whatever; you can frame all of their faces as a rewarding reveal at the end of the opener. I know that character models removing clothing is super hard in 3D animation, especially games, but there are storyboarding and model swap tricks for that. You can fake ripping off a facemask relatively easily.

If the point is for SHINRA to know it's them all along and to set them up to take the fall for something later, then AVALANCHE taking greater precautions and the Turks catching them out anyway could be used to make both AVALANCHE and the Turks look more competent / dangerous. Maybe you could generously interpret SHINRA's apparent failure to catch our protagonists out as the corporation being a bloated wreck of greed and incompetent, overly reliant on their technology and wealth, but that still doesn't really excuse for me making the AVALANCHE characters look this reckless. Jessie later visits her SHINRA employees PARENTS' HOUSE in her TERRORIST UNIFORM??? JESSIE, NO!!! That's so dangerous.

There's so much detail in the backgrounds here already! If it's a matter of resources, surely some random mob NPC models could be cut so that I could see Jessie, Biggs, and Wedge in cute civilian wear outside of their missions! I am already suspending so much disbelief for so much of FF7's wacky worldbuilding, but these little details are what's really tripping me up for some reason, like, come on. SHOW ME that these characters are good at what they do by having them take some basic precautions.

I laughingly shared these thoughts with someone and they said (jokingly critical of the game as well) that Barret probably doesn't bother with secrecy because he's already apparently the only big black guy around and almost certainly the only big black guy with a gun for an arm. Which is a point! But also, BARRET!!! YOU'RE A FATHER!!! SUNGLASSES ARE NOT SUFFICIENT ANONYMITY HERE!!! THINK OF MARLENE, MAN!!!

[theresattrpgforthat]

Have you ever come across a game with a deckbuilding element? I've seen deckbuilding games with some roleplaying adjacent additions (Like the arkham horror card game), but not the other way around.

THEME: Deck-building Games

Hello friend, so I think I have a few that are in the same kind of field as deck-builders, although your mileage may vary. I certainly hope there are also folks who see this and know of some more games to add to this little list!

This Ship Is No Mother, by Thomas || New Madras.

This Ship Is No Mother is a game about people in space, working jobs that are probably going to get them killed. Inspired by movies like Alien and games like Mothership and Dread, this is for fans of tension, creepy-crawlies, and general horror. Mechanically, it's a card-based Forged in the Dark game, first in the series of games currently called the Cardsharp Sonata.

In this game, players start with a full deck of cards and as you play, that deck will run down. When the deck ends, there is a climactic moment of panic as one of the characters is going to do something stupid and get themselves (and maybe everyone else) killed.

I’d say that This Ship Is No Mother is kind of adjacent to a deck-building game. You use a regular deck of playing cards to resolve actions, but the resolution system takes inspiration from Blades in the Dark. Your cards don’t stay in your own personal deck; but you can choose to hold onto certain cards in your hand so that you can play them in dramatically appropriate moments, or spend them to make sure your character succeeds when they need to. The game was originally designed to run Mothership scenarios in a more story-game friendly way, so if you like Forged in the Dark mechanics, you might want to check out this game.

Perfect Draw!, by Double Summon Games.

Perfect Draw! is a tabletop role-playing game based on the Powered By The Apocalypse framework that combines Trading Card Games with collaborative storytelling - allowing you to tell stories similar to card game anime like Yu-Gi-Oh!, Duel Masters, and CardFight! Vanguard.

In Perfect Draw! you can make any deck you imagine using our open-ended card creation system - then, clash ideals with villains and allies alike in tense card game combat. Your deck is an extension of your beliefs and the blade that allows you to change the world. Use your passion, skill, and friendship to get the upper hand on foes and save the people you care about most!

Perfect Draw is a game in which you design your cards as you add them to your hand. Your cards exist as physical objects in your hand as you play, but they also represent special attacks and moves in the fiction of the game. As you play, you’ll gain more cards, but rather than relying on symbols or text to tell you what these cards do, you’ll have to author them yourself, using guidelines and inspiration from the specific character playbooks. You’ll also be rolling dice in the style of PbtA games, thus combining the feeling of a card duelling game and a TTRPG.

If you want to emulate the tropes of card-collecting games while designing your custom moves as you play, you might want to try out Perfect Draw!

Cardsharps, by Pageantry Games.

Armed with a deck of cards, this game helps you to nimbly guide your cast of characters on a merry waltz from mishap to catastrophe. For the tone, think of an old-timey farce, or a Coen Brothers movie, or perhaps your own muddled and terrifying existence.

Another game that uses playing cards, Cardsharps looks like it can fit a number of settings, with the four suits representing your stats. You shuffle your hand whenever you enter a test of some kind, and draw a random one - if you draw the Suit you need, you do it, if you get the same colour but wrong suit you get a mixed success, and if you draw the wrong colour completely, it’s a failure.

The randomness that comes from the shuffle reminds me a little bit of deck-building card games I’ve played in the past, although you’re not really adding anything to your hand. I think the core concept is interesting though, and might be something you could play around with to make a game that suits your tastes.

Orchidelirium, by Æther Corp.

Take on the mantle of a grizzled and hardy orchid hunter in 1865, traversing the depths of uncharted territories in search of rare, elusive, and above all, expensive orchids for your shady employer, J. Carmichael & Associates.

For the Games Master, Orchidelirium provides a simple ruleset, an adventure, and improvisation tools to help build an adventure of discovery at the table.

Orchidelerium is another game that uses playing cards with some cards in your hand being used as resources, while others are pulled from the deck to represent obstacles. I don’t know if it’s exactly a deck-building game because your hand is so small, but it does have a few similarities, namely the fact that different cards have different values, and thus will be used differently depending on the nature of the obstacle. The game itself revolves around orchid-hunters in the late 1800’s, which means that colonial themes are going to be present - a good thing to keep in mind when introducing this game to your play group.

Parselings, by Smunchy Games.

Parselings is a modern Deck building RPG about using collaborative word magic and discovering your place in it. The game takes place in a world like our own, but with one major difference – to some, words have literal power. Parsecytes, swarms of ravenous ink-like parasitic organisms, have emerged into the world causing irreversible changes to society and our ecosystem. 

When a Parsecyte invades a human host, it forms a symbiosis with them, together becoming an entity known as a Parseling. At a glance, Parselings are indiscernible from most other humans except for the labels on their skin and the ink mixed into their blood. When brought together in groups, these individuals become greater than the sum of their parts. The infected hosts can use their tattoos to form phrases and sculpt the world to their desires. This power has come to be known as a Parse.

You will play as one of these beings. Struggling to strike a balance between appeasing the Parsecyte within, and proving you are a complex human being who cannot only be defined by a few careless words. This is both a curse and a blessing, but with the others that share your affliction, the world is your oyster. 

This is the first game I think of when someone asks about deck-building ttrpgs. Each player gets a deck that uses regular playing cards to represent core aspects of your characters. The game isn’t dice-less - you still need some d6’s and d10’s - but those dice will only be rolled by the GM. Card decks aren’t the only interesting mechanic in Parselings - you’ll also construct pieces of your character with words that describe who they are and how they fit into the world around them. I think this might be a neat game to check out if you want to explore questions of identity while mixing in a little bit of the supernatural.

Smunchy Games has two supplements for Parselings: Infer Memorial Station, which works as an introductory adventure, and Nominal City Guide, a setting for groups to pick up and explore.

[rynnthefangirl]

Okay, so I finally got around to watching Fall of the House of Usher, and I have so many thoughts. I especially loved all the cool ways that the deaths of the siblings play into their individual characters, and I may or may not eventually do an analysis for each of them. But for right now I want to talk about one of my favorite stories and deaths in the show, Leo's.

So with Leo, everything with the cats is symbolic of his own sins plaguing him. Specifically, like many of the Ushers, Leo expects to get what he wants without bearing any responsibility for his actions, and this is exemplified by his relationship with Jules. He clearly wants to be in a relationship with Jules, and I think he does get more out of it that just sexual pleasure. However, he only cares what HE can get from the relationship, and doesn't consider his partner's desires and feelings. Leo regularly cheats on Jules, a betrayal he knows would hurt Jules but he simply does not care as long as he gets away with it. He values drugs more than he does his partner, and ignores or shuts down any discomfort or concern Jules has with his drug abuse. He won't even properly acknowledge Jules as his partner by bringing him around to meet the family, an action that would give more seriousness to their relationship and perhaps raise the expectations for how Leo should behave.

Leo's hallucination of killing Pluto is a subconscious manifestation of his failures as a boyfriend. It parallels his infidelity: he does something horrible that would break Jules' heart (fittingly as a result of drugs), and instead of feeling remorse for what he has done, he is more preoccupied with how to avoid getting caught. Except now it's no longer a girl that he can hide out on a balcony, but an irreplaceable beloved pet. Despite this severity of the situation, Leo persists in trying to hide his sins, to prioritize his own comfort and desires over honesty and trust.

So Leo goes to the pet store to find a replacement cat, and Verna is waiting for him. And this is where his test comes in, the chance to change his fate that Verna gives all the siblings. Option 1 is to leave with another cat who needs a home, and resign himself to the consequences of his crime. Had he done that, he certainly would have found that Pluto was actually unharmed, which may perhaps (although I could be excessively optimistic here) have even served as a wake up call that the drugs are becoming a problem. He would've died regardless, but he could've died peacefully and somewhat redeemed, instead of traumatizing himself and his boyfriend. Option 2 is to take the easy way out, the way that avoids all responsibility, and use his wealth and power to get the perfect replacement kitty Verna tempts him with. Leo of course, chooses the second option.

In fitting irony, Leo's attempts to avoid consequence straps him with the biggest consequence of all. The cat is seemingly out to get him, hissing and scratching as if she's directly punishing him for his choices. Interestingly, the cat herself also seems to mirror Leo. Leo satisfies himself with drugs and women, bringing them into the home he shares with Jules with no concern for Jules' feelings; the cat satisfies herself by killing small animals, bringing their corpses to the apartment with no concern for Leo's discomfort. Considering the animals as a symbol of Leo's infidelity, it's fitting that the first one is found in their bed as Jules is performing oral sex on Leo and that the discovery of it results in them being interrupted and Jules being hurt. The cat also explicitly stares down Leo in this scene, as if in judgement for him enjoying his boyfriend while he himself is unfaithful and gives nothing in return. Verna later herself explicitly draws a connection between cats and Roderick Usher, saying that they both destroy to fulfill a deficiency in themselves. The same could be said for any of the Usher children however, Leo included.

Of course, being tormented by a manifestation of his sins (combined with the drugs) begins to drive Leo insane. We see further parallels between the cat and Leo, as both suffer eye injuries at the hands of the other. Leo eventually tries to kill the cat with a hammer, which is naturally as fruitless an endeavor as taking a hammer to the abstract idea of personal failure. All he manages to destroy in his rampage is the home he shares with Jules— yes, the cat is a literal homewrecker.

I don't think Verna's choice in which cat to bring home was actually Leo's point of no return, but simply the last moment that she herself will try to intervene and convince him down another path. Even without Verna talking him down, Leo has two moments of near clarity during his rampage, both of which center around Jules. One is early on in his delusions, when he realizes that what he's seeing is crazy and muses that maybe Jules was right about the drugs. The second is when Jules comes home, and Leo realizes first that Jules cannot see the woman and cat in the wall and then that there is no woman and cat in the wall at all. In both these moments, Jules could serve as a lifeline to Leo, but to take hold of that lifeline Leo would need to put aside himself and his obsession, to ignore the cat taunting him and instead put his focus on his boyfriend. Admit that Jules was right about the drugs, admit that Jules can see more clearly than him. But Leo cannot do this. He sees the cat on the balcony, and all thoughts of Jules are wiped from his mind. He HAS to get the cat, he HAS destroy the symbol of his sins so he can continue to live free of consequence. And that final decision, that refusal to listen to Jules and put aside his immediate selfish impulses, dooms him. He flings himself right off the building, not only killing himself but emotionally destroying his boyfriend, as he was always going to do.

[boyfridged]

in your fic “paint it over” is that how you imagine jason making it out of the explosion at the end of utrh? not exactly the events that follow, but the preferable characterization of bruce digging jay out of the rubble and carrying him to help. and how do you think jason made it out canonically (without the help of bruce) also!!! what are your thoughts on the specifics of jason’s scar and how he’d behave toward it. i liked the part of your fic where jason was temporarily unable to speak due to the trauma his neck received. i think the scar is something that rests on the junction of his shoulder/neck, and that can be hidden with whatever clothes he wears -> no one knows he has it (or how he got it) either. i like to imagine while bruce knows his batarang made contact with jason’s throat it’s never fully registered to him that it scarred until he sees it for himself (and while i believe bruce would turn the moment in head over and over again until it’s engraved in his brain, his delayed realization—to me—is due to his repression of the occurrence)

oh i adore this whole ask. some of it i explained in my notes, but this fanfic is quite dear to me, so i will elaborate.

short answer to whether this is how i imagine jay making it out of the explosion: not exactly?

the premise that i wanted to explore with paint it over is almost the opposite of a fix-it, and definitely not what i believe it should be in canon.

what i wished to explore there is, however, the part of utrh that is perhaps the most shocking to many readers: that bruce leaves jason to die.

in-universe, i think the answer why it happens is surprisingly simple enough: bruce does not come because he is just... not there. my understanding is, that in a way, the events of under the red hood did not happen. there is nothing to follow. that purple mist in the finale of the utrh, that is often read as a force resurrecting jason (not technically wrong, either)- i believe that is the timeline already rewriting itself, making the whole story into something that was not.

and the reason for the above is the infinite crisis. if i'm not wrong, it's also the inifinite crisis miniseries where bruce meets dick right after the explosions in (or of) bludhaven-- that in batman clearly happens in the background of his confrontation with jay. however, in infinite crisis (#4, just checked it now), bruce tells dick: "i wanted to make sure...you're alright... i was in new york when it hit. got here as soon as i could." which could be a lie or a matter of the editorial not being synced enough- but i'm willing to give them a benefit of the doubt given how it ties with that sudden, stunted ending of utrh.

this makes sense for canon for several reasons. in the animated movie, since it spares us the infinite crisis tie-in, bruce says of the whole incident: this changes nothing. it changes nothing because although aditf isn't, utrh is a tragedy; it changes nothing because since his death, jason is necessarily always pushed at the peripheries of the narrative, no matter how much the fate itself tries to fix it, becoming a tragic footnote. the dead have one right and it's the right to remain silent. and that is ironically ensured on a cosmic level, with his violent attempt at being seen hidden in the folds of the timeline. you can also see it clearly in canon -- i believe it was not until the infinite frontier that the events of utrh got just tangentially mentioned (before that, even lobdell barely touched upon it). other than that, they have no consequences; they are barely ever spoken of; they seem to slip out even from jay's solo comics.

this move was necessary for batman, as a character and as a title: let's say bruce does hold red hood as he does in the alt cover of annual 25 (and the cover of the deluxe edition of utrh.) that would implore a reckoning with his failure and his (suddenly non-productive) grief that would either reconstruct the whole myth or lead to some terrifying implications. these terrifying implications are, essentially, what paint it over is about. it's about the worst happening and about there being no way back from it. and jason, in receiving what he wanted (his father's love and care) wants to deny that reality. they both want to. yet even jay cannot ignore it completely -- and i chose to use the batarang injury to emphasize it.

and about the scar: i mentioned it briefly before, but in the au jason aggravates the wounds on purpose, hence it will scar worse and cause long-term issues for his voice. it's a theme i also keep in some of my other stories (to come...) and i very much think this is what would happen in canon if he had to take care of that injury. yet as it healed, i believe he'd take to hiding it, mostly. still, as it stands, my primary take might be that in canon (if it was to follow the interference into the timeline from the crisis at least) jason would simply end up with no scar at all, and only memories for evidence of what happened, which is perhaps worse for him too (but of course better for bruce. and as it happens, this is bruce wayne's story and everyone else is just living in it- or dies in it- for better or worse. and if we're ignoring that metaphysical timeline bullshit, as you said, i believe bruce would repress it all anyway.)

[jessiarts]

Seeing the difference in coverage (news media vs social media) on the Feb 3rd train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, USA on and all the issues caused by the incident, I want to see something;

The incident summed up (and there may be even more I missed):

train carrying 150 cars, twenty of which contained hazardous materials, derailed due a failure of a wheel bearing, due to poor inspection because inspections were cut from 3 minutes per train to 90 secs per train. (Remember the railroad strike? Yeah. Part of what they wanted, in addition to better conditions, was more time to inspect trains and to get faulty parts fixed. They were refused, and now we're here.)

the derailment (of 50 cars) caused a fire which threatened to make a car(s) with the vinyl chloride explode, so a controlled release (burn) of the vinyl chloride (toxic, flammable gas) was done to prevent this

residents within a 1 mile radius were evacuated beforehand

the event resulted in contamination of the air/water and mass deaths of animals like fish and chickens

residents were told it's safe to return home a week after the evacuation, and found their pets dead; water smells wrong; air smells and/or burns their eyes

People miles away are having the same issues with animals dying (schools of dead fish in water, livestock sick/dying) and water contamination

The chemicals are contaminating the Ohio River Basin (which is more than just the Ohio River, and effects/includes KY, WV, TN, IN, OH, and parts of IL, PA, VA, and NC) and could potentially also lead to the whole Mississippi River Watershed being contaminated. (that's like, 40% of the continental United States and starts to touch into Canada.)

That all said,

Please reblog if you vote so we can get a larger sample size!

Many think the Railroad company (and the government, because they sided with the railroad company in ending the strike) are trying to cover this up in the news as much as possible, and that most coverage is coming from social media (specifically TikTok) and I want to see just how true that is.

I'm not not kidding when I say I have people IRL, who do keep up with the news, who never heard about the derailment at all until I told them just a couple days ago. It doesn't look good.