#I am learning how posting works

[flamingpudding]

Next part of Ghost Kid in Gotham

Previous Part: 1

Next Part: 3

Literal Ankle Biter

"Fuck!"

"Red Hood are you okay?

Jason let out a grunt as answer before a muttered "I am fucking fine." followed and he attempted to shut off the coms on his helmet again. This was the third time Oracle had decided to reactivate his coms and fuck did he not want to deal with his siblings in his ears right now.

"You little shit, why do you have such sharp teeth?!" So far no blood had been drawn by these sharp chompers. But he would probably have bite mark shaped bruises.

"Oracle put his video feed on the Batcomputer!" He heard one of his siblings over the coms, great that was the last thing he needed right now. Swiftly he turned off the coms again but he had no time to remove his helmet to chuck it into one of the dark corners of his apartment as sharp teeth lunged for his arm again.

He held up his gun and the sharp teeth chomped down around the barrel of his gun. He let out a fleeting chuckle as he spied a grimace on his small attacker's face. "Ha, not so fun chewing on metal is it now?"

"HOOD WHY THE FUCK IS THERE ARE CHILD CHEWING THE BARREL OF YOUR GUN?!"

Wow actual cursing from Dick that must really look bad to them.

"A CHILD IS DOING WHAT?!"

"SHUT THE FUCK UP. The magazine is empty and there is no bullet left in it." He yelled back into the coms as he dropped the gun, and with that the child, to the floor to finally take off his helmet to throw it into the kitchen. His siblings in the Bat Cave can have some fun staring at his title flooring there.

Meanwhile he stared down at the kid that was staring back at him from the floor, the gun no longer between their teeth. The kid was staring at him the same way it had earlier sitting on the ground like a cat ready to pounce on their prey.

When he had first entered his apartment he had noted that it was way colder than it should be. At first he had thought his heater might have broken but then two Lazarus Pit green orbs stared back at him from the darkness of his room. His first instinct was, of course, to pull out his gun and aim it.

Then his brain kicked in with reasoning and he started cursing Nightwing over the coms accusing him of attempting to prank him. Because he was the only one coming close enough to his apartment on today's patrol to pull off a prank on him and not trigger all the alarms that were set up.

He will never admit to the little scream that came through the coms before shutting it off as he flicked his lights on and found a literal kid wearing an oversized Nasa shirt perched on his living room table staring at him like he was the intruder to his own apartment.

Before he could even ask a question, that feral kid pounced with their mouth wide open, sharp teeth glinting in the bad lighting of his apartment and ready to chomp down on any of his limbs. He had gotten a hold of the kid a couple of times but every time the kid somehow managed to slip out of his hold. Before attempting to gnaw on his arm or leg again.

Of course his grunts had alerted his siblings every fucking time Oracle had to switch on his coms when he switched them off on fucking purpose. Seriously he did not need for his siblings to hear or see him struggling agains a fucking child of all things. In his defence the kid was fucking feral and obviously wanted to make him its new chewtoy.

"Okay kid, we can do this the easy way or the hard way." He lifted both his hands letting his palms face the kid who of all things started hissing at him. What kind of child fucking hisses like a cat?! A fucking kid that pounces and attacks like a cat apparently.

Well there went his throw blanket as he swiftly ripped it apart and made the kid bite on that instead of his arm and tie the ripped off strip around the kids head. Once the kid was properly gagged with no choking danger, he wrapped the rest of the blanket around the kid so it wouldn't start thinking about using his hands and feet to fight instead of only its teeth.

"Don't glare at me like that. I gave you a choice." The kid was glaring daggers at him and he could only smugly smile down at them before he frowned.

Now that he finally got a better look at his small attacker, he noticed some things. For one there was the glaring fact that the kid looked way too much like the demon brat when he had been younger like a carbon copy. His first thought was that the kid was a fucking clone but so far any clone they came across was at least same age as the demon brat, that feral kid didn't look any older than seven or eight.

Second thing he noticed was that the kids' eyes flickered between the Lazarus green and a sky blue, both colors were glowing though. So was this a meta kid? Or considering the clone theory, a failed experiment the bitch Talia had dropped in a Lazarus Pit?

Then there was the fact that the Pit in his mind was strangely quiet and not the least bit aggressive or angry by the feral kids presence, no in fact the pit felt the calmest it ever had in a long time, even a little protective if he interpreted part of the silence correctly.

Who the fuck was that kid?

The sound of snapping teeth ripped him out of his thoughts and he stared down at the kid again just in time to pull his leg away from shape chompers. Somehow that feral brat had wiggled his way over to his legs and had also chewed his way through the makeshift gag that lay discarded at the kids former placement. "The fuck is wrong with you little shit?!"

--------

By the time Jason rolled with his bike into the Bat Cave, his siblings had fallen into a state of absolute chaos arguing back and forth, the footage from his helmet still playing on a part of the screen while a screen shot from the time the kid used his gun as chewtoy was taken and zoomed in to get a close up of the kids face.

Not that it helped considering the image was tat bit blurry but had enough quality that his siblings could see the kids similarities to the demon brat. Which probably was the cause for them arguing back and forth if that kid was a clone or some sort of experiment considering the age boy appeared to be.

"Jason?! What happened to the child?!" Of course it had to be Dick that noticed him first.

"Dropped him off the Wayne tower, what do you think?" He snarked back as he lifted the buritoed child that was aggressively gnawing on a gag made from bat wire. He rolled with his eyes at his siblings' gasps. Look they didn't have to deal with the kids biting or attemtping to bite them when they drove a fucking motorcycle. The wire was reassurance, after the kid managed to chew through at least three ropes, and two cloth made gags. The boy had razors as teeth and Jason had not been in the mood to risk crashing on his way to the Cave, okay?!

"Damn he does look like Damien but in small size." Tim mentioned as he got a little closer, curiosity getting the best of him before turning to the teenager in question. "Think it's a clone?"

"<tt> of course it is. Most likely a failed one Mother didn't dispose of for some reasons." Dick arched an eyebrow as Jeason just studied the youngest among them. The way the demon brat had said that felt wrong and by the way Dick was looking at the brat, he wasn't the only one that noticed.

"The fuck you want me to do with that little shit?" He was getting tired of holding up the kid like the boy was some prize he caught. Well he did catch that little biter in a way anyway.

Tim let out a shriek and jumped back from Jason and the kid, a syringe in his hand with a little blood drawn from the boy. The older could only raise an eyebrow as the younger gave the biter a wary look and shuffled back to create more distance. The kid still bound by blanket burrito on the other hand had managed to chew through fucking bat wire and was snapping and hissing in Tims direction eyes brightly growing green.

"Carefully he bites."

"His eyes they…"

"Glow Lazarus green, yes."

Really did he need to state all the obvious things to his siblings.

"We should just get rid of that thing." Oh gee demon brats, solution to everything. Just get rid of it. Even if it was a clone, he was holding up a fucking kid here. He may kill but even he wouldn't step so low as to kill a fucking child just cause it would be convenient.

"Now, now let's just figure out if the kid is really a clone or maybe a Meta." Ever the peacemaker Dick tried as Jason and Damien glared at each other while Tim made his way to the Batcomputer to analyze the little bit of blood he had been able to withdraw before the kid started snapping at him. Suddenly the blanket in his grip felt lighter than it had before. Staring at the empty blanket burrito a curse escaped his lips alerting his other two siblings.

"Where did the child go?" Dick asked panicked but let out a yelp as something rushed past his feet deeper into the bat cave.

"You imbecile can't you even keep a child contained?"

"Shut the fuck up, the blanket burrito was secure enough to at least get here with that feral biter. I wanna see you try to not get fucking biten by the kid when driving a bike!"

"<tt>"

[anneapocalypse]

So, just curious how many writers and creators will have to be forcibly outed by relentless harassment before we acknowledge that "This queer characters was written by a cishet person and that's why they're bad" is not good criticism.

[sergle]

When I talk about something bad I've experienced, Baked In to my experience as A Woman, I am not "making my little cousins feel like shit for being women", because I am talking in a space with, allegedly, adults. I am not bringing my problems to children in the first place. That said, I don't HAVE to make my baby cousin feel bad, because she's already experienced sexual harassment in her life, and she's only 8, and doesn't even understand what any of it means yet. And everyone in her family can try to instill confidence in her, and never talk about our bodies in a negative way. But she can still feel like she's too chubby, because she still goes to school, and talks to other kids and their parents, and still sees ads, and still watches tv. We can be positive, but we can't fix the root of the problem. And I don't HAVE to tell trans women that "pain is a rite of passage", because that's not a Rule being enforced (by me), because I've already sat and listened to my friend complain about constantly shaving as a Baseline necessity and how it hurts her skin and she has to put makeup onto fresh cuts on her face because going out without a full face of properly feminine makeup would make her life worse, and being anything less than thin and lithe makes her "less feminine", and ALL the things that can make her "more feminine" are behind a paywall. And I can try to make her feel better, and I can hear her experiencing the tenfold version of problems I relate to, but I can't fix the root cause of her problems by just telling her not to complain. Forcing happiness as a core personality trait for women is not the Girlboss Feminist move that you think it is, and no amount of gender euphoria in the world will make you immune to systemic oppression.

[demigods-posts]

one thing that'll always kind of bug me is how the conflict of percabeth's relationship the year percy turned fifteen goes unaddressed after they get together on his sixteenth birthday. because dude. percy has never owned his life. he's only perceived his existence a nuisance to gabe, a burden to his mother, or a plaything for the gods. so he spends the year before his sixteenth birthday avoiding everyone that reminds him of that because all he sees in the reflection of their eyes is a dead man walking. meanwhile. all annabeth has ever known is instability. first it was her father, then thalia, then luke. and the pattern continues when she falls in love with the boy who always has one foot out the door. and despite it all. she does everything in her power to ensure his permanence in her life. but is wise enough to know the odds are stacked against her. just because luke died and rachel swore off dating doesn't mean those problems stopped existing.

[chipthekeeper]

"Everyone has their own rebellion." - Vel Sartha

@andorappreciation Week, Day 1: Favorite Characters/Character Dynamics -- Aldhani rebels

[andoutofharm]

from now on we are enemies vs miss missing you vs the last of the real ones

pete talking about miss missing you, the last of the real ones / amadeus summary / patrick talking about miss missing you / kerrang

[treasureplcnet]

also quite obsessed with karl being as detached from the story as he is. there's nothing that makes him have to be the detective that has to be involved, but he unknowingly dooms himself by agreeing to work with the KYAL cult. every other detective basically deals with elias head on except weissman, who only meets him right before he kills him. like he's right when he says "by my choices" because everything that leads him to being mixed up with the mannix cult is himself. it's the gambling debts and the choice to do the dirty work for an organisation he knows nothing about. he's the only one that doesn't encounter that body doing police work and it's specifically because he's told to cover it up. he gets himself into the mess and eventually fixes it but the fact that esther always dies in the doomed timelines and he's always too late even if he starts wanting to change things ("till this child. esther.") it just makes me very ill

[chiropteracupola]

The People Have Requested A Granby, and By Golly, A Granby They Shall Have!

[tradingjack]

having fun with colors for once :P

thanks @creepycoffins for the awesome dtiys :D

[oldmanffucker]

writing House fanfic is writing what you want them to say, then going back and editing it to say those things in the most convoluted, sarcastic, and metaphorical way possible, and then not resolving that actual meaning for 1-48 hours in-universe depending on how meaningful said thing is

[insertsomthinawesome]

I'M BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACK!!! Okay so honestly I have been very very inconsistent over the years with just disappearing for periods of time due to various things 😂 So it probably seemed pretty normal to most people.

But it felt different on my side, so I'm excited to be back in business. I took a month long hiatus! 31 days of not drawing digital art. Its not something I talk about on here? But I've been suffering from some serious long term Art Burnout for.... a really really long time. Long enough that I should've taken a break probably years ago. It finally got so bad that I could barely draw. I was scared to do it (cause it always looked "bad" in my eyes [i'll come back to that]) and doing it was exhausting and disheartening.

I talked it over with somebody and realized that the fear and anger and frustration I felt towards my own artwork was uh. Not Normal or Healthy. And I finally committed to taking a real break for once.

I still drew a little bit by hand? Traditional art has always felt like it has lower stakes for me (i don't often share it online, and sometimes I don't even share it with friends) so I did some of that when I felt like it. But Digital art was completely off the table.

I had put such an immense pressure on myself to make my digital art perfect, to make as much of it as quickly as possible to satisfy something. It wasn't fun anymore. I'm proud of what i've made over the years! But for a long time now the stuff I've been making was made while hating every second of making it. With some rare exceptions.

I hated my art! It was a combination of Perfectionism, taking in too many external expectations, and the burnout. If you hate doing something its kinda hard to love it even when you want too lol. It wasn't "Bad" in the sense that the quality was low and it was ugly! It was "Bad" in the sense that it was unhealthy for me to keep doing it at that point in time.

I'm glad to report though, that with my hiatus officially over as of Wednesday last week: I am once again. In Love. With doing art, and being an artist :)

I put off taking a break for years cause I was scared that taking a break would mean that I would never achieve all the things I wanted to do with art. I was scared it was a stupid and lazy thing to do that would mean I'd never achieve my dreams. And Also even though I kinda hated drawing, I also loved making art. Its a weird duality that I can't even really explain??? I hated it but I also loved it. I wanted it but I also wanted to run from it. It wasn't until I was more mature and had more clarity and insight (and unfortunately also until the problems got worse) that I was finally able to let go of those fears and just do it.

And I'm really really glad I did. It was everything I needed. And I hope to strike a better balance in the future with art. Taking more breaks when I need them, or just when other things have my attention like reading or Video games (Some star rail got played during this time xD)

From the outside things probably aren't going to be that different?? At this point I don't really have any sure plans to post anything I've been drawing since my Hiatus ended. I might or I might not xD I'm still a hobbyist artist taking things at her own pace, but I hope that it shows how much happier I am :)

Whumptober 2023 is being officially put to rest by this post btw! I was in major burnout when that event started, and I'm ready to just, move on from all the past expectations I'd shoved on my shoulders. If I feel like filling any of the prompts or going back to any of the ideas I'd come up for it I will! But I'm not going to worry about doing it unless the desire sets in. Thanks to everybody who's been so kind to me throughout my time on here as an artist! Ya'lls tags and screaming and kind words, the fanfic, the asks and the responses? Its been fantastic :) You guys have made me laugh, smile, and cry tears of joy. I hope from here that things only get better and sweeter! And if I have bad days again, that's okay too.

Here's to 2024 and whatever it may bring ya'll :D 🎉🎉✨✨🧡💜

[anghraine]

I think it's interesting that when Gandalf describes Denethor's ability to "perceive, if he bends his will thither, much of what is passing in the minds of men," he ties it less to his wisdom or general insightfulness (though he possesses both) than to his difference from "other men of this time," his near total Númenóreanness, and as bolded here, the active exercise of his will.

Tolkien also attributes Denethor's resilience against Sauron (by contrast with Saruman) to not only his right to use the Anor-stone, but "great strength of will." He notes that Sauron had no servant with greater mental powers than Saruman or Denethor, and Gandalf remarks that Denethor was "too great" to be subdued to Sauron's will.

Denethor and Gandalf have a strange and unsettling silent confrontation, carried on by their gazes, yet it strikes Pippin as like "a line of smouldering fire" and "as if reading each other's mind." Gandalf afterwards says Pippin was stuck between two "terrible old men," lumping Denethor in with himself. Pippin also sees some kind of kinship between Denethor and Gandalf, as Sam saw between Faramir and Gandalf.

In his letters, Tolkien said that the ancient Númenóreans became barely distinguishable from Elves in appearance and in their powers of mind. In Unfinished Tales, he notes that they loved their horses, and when a Númenórean had a strong bond with a horse, it was said that the horse could be summoned "by thought alone."

In LOTR, Faramir—who has inherited Denethor's Númenóreanness/wizardliness—has a reputation for command over both animals and men. When everyone else is thrown by their horses upon being chased by five Nazgûl, he not only keeps his seat, but mysteriously gets his horse to ride back towards the Nazgûl. And during the retreat across the Pelennor, the soldiers in the city conclude that Faramir must be with the men who are managing to retreat in order, repeating Beregond's remark that he has some undefined command over both men and beasts.

Gandalf suggests that this is a result of Faramir pitting himself against the effects of the Nazgûl in some way, but his abilities (whatever they are) are outmatched. In the event, the effect of Faramir's Aura of Courage commanding abilities remains until he's shot and finally falls to the Black Breath.

Faramir also makes repeated references to perceiving or reading things in Gollum's mind. At one point, he describes Gollum's mind as dark and closed, yet unable to prevent Faramir from detecting that he's holding something back about Cirith Ungol specifically. Noticeably, this only happens when Faramir orders Gollum to look at him (which Gollum does "unwillingly"), and the light drains from his eyes as he meets Faramir's. It seems decidedly reminiscent of the later Gandalf vs Denethor duel-by-eye-contact.

Faramir's exact words about Gollum's secrecy are "That much I perceived clearly in his mind," in reference to his earlier questioning of him. He says that he can "read" previous murders in Gollum and Gollum cries out in pain when he tries to lie to him.

When Faramir gives staves to Frodo and Sam, he says that a "virtue" of finding and returning has been placed on them, with zero explanation of what he means by that. He adds a hope that the virtue will not altogether fail under Sauron's power in Mordor. He describes the people who did the woodwork but not who placed the virtues (it doesn't seem inherent to the wood itself, given his phrasing).

We do know that Dúnedain can potentially embed enchantments into items. The Barrow-daggers carried by Merry and Pippin are specifically enchanted against the Witch-king of Angmar by an unknown Dúnadan of the North, and when Merry stabs the Witch-king, the dagger breaks enough spells for Éowyn's ordinary sword to finish the job.

Meanwhile, Aragorn uses his healing powers to help the city, wishing for the presence of Elrond, because he is their eldest of their kind and more powerful. Aragorn, also, has at least some part of this ability to actively exercise his will and mental powers, perhaps an equal share, though he uses it less often.

In the book, he doesn't physically attack the Mouth of Sauron, but instead holds his gaze (again, eye contact is important!). There's another silent struggle that involves no weaponry or any other contact.

He prevails in some way over the Mouth of Sauron (not a warped creature of Sauron in the book, but a cruel Númenórean who has "learned great sorcery"). The Mouth indignantly says he has diplomatic immunity and can't be attacked like this.

But, I mean, maybe they're all just smart and perceptive, it's really unclear.

[kinnbig]

I just think Big should have been allowed a knife. or two. as a treat.

[crossbackpoke-check]

Why I Am Not Coming In To Work Today [abridged], Jess Zimmerman

part one | part two

[studyblr-perhaps]

I really want to make a series of posts explaining in simple terms the different maths/physics concepts I struggled with when I first learnt them.

Would anyone be interested in it 👀👀?