#also spent way too long on details you cant even see at this resolution ;_;

[webbyghost]

Took a few days but I finished coloring it in time for St. Paddy's Day!

I forgot how much fun coloring can be

(PS Play Paleo Pines)

[powerosewaterpuff]

yo ,i remember a post about sort of reverse batfam , between jason and dick , can you do the headcanons about under the red hood please

yes yes yes yes yes and another yes to top it all off. i really really love the idea, and i love under the red hood in general so thank u so much for suggesting this :) like i spent all day brainstorming (probs shoulda been studying but shhhhh) diff headcanons so i’m pretty excited to write it out. also so the timeline with this is a little tight ig?? i really wanted to include tim as bruce’s new sidekick with dick in the middle of his fallout with bruce but again a lil too tight so we’re just gonna have rebellious dick for now and i also haven’t watched death in the family so i’m basing this purely off of under the red hood :) (oh and fuck dick’s hair in the movie oh my god i’m ignoring that it even exists i’m so sorry)

dick is 17 on the cusp of hitting 18 and he’s so fucking sick of batman. every conversation of theirs was leading to a screaming match where each one tries to push their opinion as fact. it was getting messy and soul crushing at this point, and dick hated it. the rising action of it all was dick getting fired from robin, a role he hadn’t even been formally granted by batman yet he felt it in his power to strip him of it. he felt like a pawn in a chess game that gambled his identity and being off of the mind numbing mantra of be better. do better. faster. punch harder. follow orders. be better be better better. and dick was sick of it, so he shed the robin uniform. swallowing it like a bitter pill because he was forced to do so. but nightwing was giving him clarity as of late. the sheer rush, brilliance and exuberance of it all reminded him of when flying was a much simpler task.

however, dick had an annoyingly unwavering loyalty to protecting bruce’s (less batman then bruce. bruce was his father. batman was not. yet nowadays the man himself was forgetting who exactly was the secret identity and who the real person was.) safety and well-being, even if it meant risking another shouting round. so, once dick catches wind of batman’s whereabouts for the night, he decides to help him with Amazo etc., and dick cant help but realize how well they still mesh together when it comes to fighting. the talking part however, did not come naturally anymore. (it used to. it used to be so much easier)

now bruce, is attempting his best to keep dick out of the loop. he knows dick will furious. and dick’s temper is something not many can tame, but bruce would take the risk. he’d rather dick spit on his memory then be dead in his arms (just like jason was, blown to bits when he should’ve been in his room. safe. sleeping after studying for some test not fighting crime with him in the underbelly of Gotham city, or getting dragged along bruce’s self induced fight with the world.)

dick, of course, does not appreciate this and can very easily tell the bruce is trying to get him off the case. dick doesn’t appreciate that in the slightest, and it only makes him want to push more. to fight bruce on every detail and demand he be apart of this because that’s the only way he can get anywhere with him. it was fair to say, that the interrogation with the joker he had to force bruce into taking him too, wasn’t exactly pleasant. he watches, leaning back against the wall as batman has joker by the neck. some part of him hates himself for not being upset about this, like he’s failing his moral code in some way. but he ignores that half, and tries not to feel angry as bruce doesn’t choke joker out like the rat he is. dick wished, in the darkest parts of his mind, that he could burn joker alive, just to watch in vengeful satisfaction that the man who stole his brothers breath wither in pain. ( and watch that fucking laugh die out)

now, the confrontation goes quite similar. except dick is noticing these little things that resemble jason too much it be a coincidence. too much. he knows how jason fights, he’s sparred with him for years and used to spend countless nights in his room trying to emulate his older brothers swift and hard hitting movements in front of his mirror. he always wished he could hit as hard as jason, as dicks strength at the time was his inhuman flexiblity and professional acrobatic skills. now, when he and batman are against the red hood, fuck it doesn’t feel right to dick. it’s all too similar. it wasn’t even the bigger moves that caught his attention but the little moves in stance that screamed at him that it was his brother. he kept shutting the idea down, because if it was possible dick would have made it happen. he would’ve.

dick gets hurt in the aftermath, but bruce must be a fucking comedian if he thinks it’s going to stop him. they get into another argument, bruce talking him down to nothing and dick frustrated that bruce couldn’t see that he’s been doing this for too long to be lectured on it, and that bruce wasn’t atlas. he wasn’t responsible for the world being held up between his two hands. it simmers down to loud silence, like it always does and dick hobbles out. leaning slightly on alfred.

bruce’s hunch is eating him alive. devouring his soul and heart with a satisfying crunch, not sparing crumb. with the revelation that his son could be alive, and the Red Hood of all people, one of the first thoughts that run through his mind is that he could not tell dick. dick could never know, and will never know. it was a hushed promise, one kept inside his chest, locked like all of his unspoken words. it would crush dick, just like it was crushing bruce now. (or maybe it was because if bruce was on the fence about breaking his moral agenda, he knows that dick would hurdle over that fence. he hates that he knows this but he does. dick wears a bleeding heart on his sleeve for his family, especially for jason. this is the same boy that was set on killing zucco all those years ago before jason and him had stopped it.)

(jason’s tasting bitter green as he mulls over why the fuck dick was there. that little idiot was supposed to be at home. safe. not carrying out bruce’s destructive agenda of self proclaimed justice. he didn’t know whether to be mad at bruce or dick. because of course bruce encouraged this shit, eager to force another child soldier into the suit and send him out to die. but God, did it hurt that dick had taken bruce’s side over his even if he didn’t know it was jason. and that stung like a motherfucker. his little brother, whose fond memories were becoming hazed in a cloud of viridecent smoke, had picked bruce’s side. a little part of himself though, shy and hesitant, whispered that he had hurt dick. he had hurt his little brother and he couldn’t justify it no matter how vengeful he was. but he shoved that part aside, trying to ignore its desperate murmurs as they told him that every time he looked at nightwing or whatever the fuck his new name was, he saw his eight year old little brother smiling up at him).

dick knows that bruce thinks he’s covering his tracks well. he is but dick knows bruce, better then bruce thinks he does. so dick is slowly beginning to formulate a hunch of his own, as he spends countless nights rubbing his formerly injured leg and wondering if he really did everything he could’ve to save jason. if there was something he missed. it’s starting to gnaw away at him, until realization settles into his chest after snooping through bruce’s files. then, he’s dashing to get into uniform, giving a breathless and hasty apology to alfred. itsjasonitsjasonitsjasongogogorunrunrun

batman. red hood. bruce. jason. father. son. bruce cannot stomach the vigor in jason’s words and jason’s heart is giving out at the fact that his father won’t do this for him. to end that pathetic excuse of a fucking life, one that’s stolen from so many people, but it still wasn’t up to his moral standards limit. was jason not enough to warrant a sacrifice for the greater good. (was jason’s desperate need to feel safe of that walking nightmare not worthy to overtake any mission)

it happens in a rush. dick is swinging up to the building, the blood pumping through his ears drowning out the screams of his chest. the joker tackles batman as the timer tick tick tick’s away numbingly. suddenly, dick has kicked the joker off and has one hand over his neck while the other smothers itself over his mouth and nose. why didn’t he do this before? why didn’t he kill the thing before? it didn’t even deserve to be called human, so why would any moral standards apply to a human based code. if batman wanted to be the whole representer of pure justice, fine. he could do that. dick wasn’t though. he was going this kill piece of shit then never let go of jason as long as he lived.

suddenly, there’s a pull at the back of dick’s uniform and at the corner of his eye he catches sight of jason being pulled by bruce as well and he’s just about to call out for him when the next thing he knows a blast rockets through his ears and the world goes black.

jason was no where to be found. and bruce ends up having to shove dick into the batmobile before he lunged after the joker, after realizing jason was missing and that the joker was still alive and kicking. the argument that insues? isn’t pretty. in fact it’s their worst. dick had spun around and asked bruce, ‘who are you? batman or bruce? because im not talking to batman, i want to hear why bruce couldn’t do the one thing his son needed! i want to know why bruce thought it was going to be beneficial not to fucking tell me that my brother-Bruce, he’s my brother! that he was alive, because you thought I was gonna pull shit like this? look at that! the exact thing you tried to avoid happened, you know why? because you cannot trust me, and it blew up in your face!’

it goes on. and on. and on. there’s no resolution, or admittance to what happened. bruce simply shuts himself down, stating this wasn’t changing anything. there was a then and a now, one in which bruce harbours enough guilt to crush his shoulders.

there’s a stony resolution in dick’s voice after bruce tells him to get out with more finality to it then he’s ever said it before, when he says, “fine. batman.”

(jason replays it over and over again in his head. the batarang. bruce turning his back to him. the jokers screechy laugh eating at his mind. eruptions of pain from the crowbar. again. again. again. and dick. smothering the joker. a steely resolve in his brothers eyes he never wanted to see but was secretly glad for. it replays like a broken film in his head, cutting and chopping but creaking out the same tune.)

AHHH OK SO i def wanted to do so much more with this ugh but i really wanted it done td so excuse just how unpolished it is, i might go back with some new ideas in it, but i like where i ended it off. this is more or less the ‘detachment’ phase in dick’s relationship with bruce, as hes nearing the end of high school and cannot do this with bruce anymore (oh college is a whooole other ordeal hehe) but i think dick would be better to tim then what he canonically was to jason. (also because dick is totally not on a mission to get his brother back at all costs and fix this family, nope. not at all.), and i think dick just has a lot more anger in this too? and bitterness here ig? just because he had lost his parents, then his brother essentially, and had to deal with being the emotional support to bruce who was falling apart. it’s a heavy load, and dick is absolutely still himself, just when it comes to jason and the joker as well as his family in general, i think he has a lot more anger as well as less control yk? (oh also i have him less in blüdhaven in this lil thing just bc like he’s still in highschool and is in this weird phase with bruce that hes fired etc., but is now yk fully going into the, ‘i’m not speaking to you anymore’ part. SOO THATS IT FOR THAT THANK YALL SO SOOOO MUCH FOR READING UR KINDA ALL THE BEST TBH AND TYSM FOR THE SUGGESTION AGAIN THIS WAS HELLA FUN :)!!

[tumblunni]

Ehh i think i finally summed up why all of this steven universe diamonds stuff has been so underwhelming.

YES you can redeem a villain

but you have to

actually

TRY

Yes you can write a story about the world’s most fuckin horrible person being really actually sad at heart

Yes you can write a story about an abusive parent actually being able to change

Yes you can write a story about some wild genocidal alien civilization of asshole space rocks actually only doing it because something something societal pressure DESPITE BEING THE ONES IN CHARGE WHO SET THE DAMN RULES I GUESS

But fucking hell its not gonna be EASY and you shouldn’t treat it that way.

All of this shit was SO fucking quick?? And everything else WASNT!

You spent SO long hyping up these guys you spent SO long convincing us that they WERE evil and that they had entirey different motives for what they were doing and EVEN WITHIN THIS FUCKING EPISODE you spent more time showing us White Diamond being absolutely ridiculously existentially horrifyingly awful and refusing every offer everyone gave her to help and refusing every chance and fucking fucking goddamn violating people’s entire minds and just.. fuck.

After all that you cant just fuckin have steven walk up to blue and yellow and say “hey everything you did was bad” and them go “GEE WE NEVER KNEW!” for some reason this time they’re convinced in a single sentence despite it being the same sentence steven said before in every damn episode and pink said to them years before and every person they abused and enslaved and mutilated and KILLED said while they were DYING

And you can’t fucking have white diamond never redeem herself and never change and never admit she’s wrong and steven SOLVE IT WITH FUCKING FIGHTING WHILE SAYING HE DOESNT WANT TO, WHILE THE ENTIRE SHOW TRIES TO CLAIM THE REASON THEY ARE DOING IT THIS WAY IS BECAUSE OF PACIFISM

because seriously he?? just defeated her?? and this made her?? change???

redeeming a villain shouldn’t be easy. redeeming a villain has to have the villain TRY. white diamond has done nothing to prove she really has a heart, prove that she really did all this for sympathetic reasons, prove that she’s able to change, AND ESPECIALLY NOTHING TO MAKE IT UP TO ANY OF THE PEOPLE SHE’S HURT

she just got defeated and basically admitted she’s wrong cos she has no other choice. and i guess her blushing because steven issued a SICK BURN to her is meant to be enough proof that her entire motivation so far has been because of self confidence issues forcing her to put up a false front aka her entire personality we saw so far. If you wanna tell me she’s entirely different to what we saw so far then please could you please give it more screentime than twelve goddamn seconds.

This is like how yellow and blue just suddenly were accepted as part of the family and steven agreed to go with them to homeworld literally just because they realized he “is really pink diamond”. Like they never fucking repented or actually learned to empathise with humans or ever explained why they dont empathise with humans no nope the only answer we got is that they were sad about their sister/daughter/friend dying even though they were already doing all the same evil stuff before that and its what caused her to leave in the first place. no we’re gonna just completely trust them instantly and not even continue making an effort to convince them? we’re gonna trust them so much we’re gonna trust that white diamond will also change just cos we beat her up? COS SERIOUSLY STEVEN FUCKIN DEFEATED BLUE AND YELLOW IN A FIGHT AND THATS THE END OF THEIR ARC, HOW IS THIS PROVING THE POWER OF PACIFISM!! beating everyone up and then saying the same singular sentence again and somehow now it works!! or saying “my mum was pink diamond” and it doesnt convince them but hey if we say it again with magical proof its true then i guess it works now. wow that sure does argue the power of words i guess

everything EVERYTHING they did was just a fuckin misunderstanding cos they dont UNDERSTAND they were doing bad and thus they dont have to face any form of consequences beyond being mildly embarassed i suppose.

if you wanna make that the ending then you need to work to disprove all the hours you spent implying that.. yknow.. they were doing things because they were evil

and even if theyre sympathetic they still did evil things and they still need to work to prove that theyve changed

and ESPECIALLY if you’re making a show very heavy on subjects like LGBT discrimination it shouldnt be FUCKIN WOW UNEXPECTED that the audience would see this plot as a metaphor for stuff like homophobia and abusive parents and.. yknow.. societal oppression in a law system that forces you to live in the closet in constant fear of being discovered and killed. and all the other apparantly accidental undertones of racism and extermination of indigenous people in stolen land which YOU REALLY SHOULD HAVE EXPECTED PEOPLE TO SEE WHEN THE PLOT IS LITERALLY EXTERMINATING PEOPLE TO STEAL THEIR LAND

all of that means you need to do MORE work to prove that that isnt actually what the plot is supposed to be, and more work to redeem villains who are very heavily goddamn triggering to a large part of the vunerable audience YOU SPECIFICALLY MARKETED YOURSELF TOWARDS

this was just so fucking overwhelming and somehow rushed despite being an hour long episode, and i hate it because the show spent so much effort on so much other stuff yet decided to half ass it at the really important part that NEEDED to have thought and time put into it if it was gonna nail the landing

especially after ALL THAT FUCKIN TIME AND EFFORT INTO THINGS THAT ONLY AMPED UP THE VILLAINY AND TENSION OF THESE GUYS AND MADE IT SO MUCH WORSE

like fucking hell how can you be so tone deaf??? this has been in the planning for so damn long and theyve been working on it forever and THIS is what they chose to rush over? this is the priorities they thought were important? even just within this episode if youre struggling to fit it all in then like seriously cut out some of the stuff like the montage of unseen fusion forms that did basiclaly nothing but a few jokes, and the equally as rushed bad lars and sadie romance resolution. Which is another thing that needed a lot of work to fix when the introduction we got to these two was a really unhealthy relationship and a dude who refuses to change despite being given twelve chances but suddenly changes COMPLETELY on the thirteenth one and i guess cos he died that proves he’s all good now. Except he acts all weird and creepy in the very next episode and endangers his new friends by acting all possessive over sadie again and getting angry that she has other friends????

i hate it because ive had to deal with the fandom telling all the people who were rightfully uncomfortable with how these subjects were handled that oh we’re just overreacting and oh wait and see cos they totally have a big plan for the ending or something that’ll make it all make sense. And comparing people being triggered by child abuse and racism to “huhu those dumb su criticals who hate the art style” or whatever...

god, man, its just a deflection of what the issue really is

“oh youre saying NO VILLAINS can EVER be redeemed and NOBODY can EVER talk about dark stuff in shows without being SECRETLY BAD AND SUPPORTING IT IN REAL LIFE?”

no im not saying that im just saying the subjects are fucking depressing to people who’ve suffered from the real life stuff and the villain redemption should be GOOD and should THINK ABOUT THOSE PEOPLE IN THE AUDIENCE if it wants to make up for it

like fucking hell look at how much zuko from avatar went through before his redemption. look at how long he struggled with his morality and how long it took him to realise he was wrong. look at how much detail they showed us on all the people who negatively influenced him into making the bad choices he did. look at how much he went through to make up for what he did and apologise to everyone he hurt. look at how everyone he hurt didnt believe him at first and it took a while for everything to work out. look at how sometimes he messed up and took steps backward before getting to where he needed to be. and look at how he actually changed as a person and continued learning and growing and trying to be a good person even far into the future after the story ended.

hell, fuckin look at PERIDOT! peridot had a full goddamn zuko arc! peridot had more screentime than all of the diamonds combined, and it was way better utilized! she had a full process from being introduced as a scary villain BECAUSE OF MISUNDERSTANDING WHO SHE REALLY WAS, then being revealed as having a fully rounded personality, flaws and redeemable traits while still being a villain. and moments of her proving that she did indeed only become a villain because she didnt understand what she was doing was wrong, and a personality that matched with that reveal rather than having NO INDICATION she was like that until it suddenly happened only after she was defeated. and her redemption came slowly through friendship with steven and it had moments of the other characters not instantly trusting her and also of her making mistakes and struggling with believing steven’s philosophy when it went against everything she knew about life. and speaking of which it was established that she had a very different life which had negative influences pushing these ideas upon her, and tough stuff that made her scared and pressured. Not just being in a high position of ruling over a planet in the lap of luxury and ONLY AFTER BEING DEFEATED do we learn that they feel pressured by the societal expectation to be perfect and they actually would have agreed all along with dismantling the system but they were just too afraid to be honest. Or whatever the fuck that rushed ending was trying to go for! And man even after peridot joins the team she’s NOT redeemed yet, she’s initially only halfway doubting herself and only teaming up with steven because they’re both afraid of the cluster. And she messes up and says horrible shit to her new friends and feels the consequences of her actions and chooses to change. And her ultimate choice to switch sides is REALLY hard, she gets so close to going back to the diamonds and its a great personal sacrifice on her part when she chooses to give it all up and make an enemy of the person she was so scared of!

and GAHHH that good redemption is one in a million episodes that really set up the diamonds Being Bad and should have been a goddamn tally in the “effort required in the fuckin ending” chart!

could we not have even just had one ten minute episode of blue and yellow going around earth and experiencing human life and realizing there’s things worth protecting? or a few damn scenes foreshadowing white being actually insecure and lying to protect herself, rather than GENUINELY ABUSIVE BECAUSE SHE’S BAD?

and seriously even if you hurt people because you hate yourself YOU STILL HURT THEM

a sympathetic backstory should be a reason why they COULD be redeemed, not proof that they already are redeemed just because the backstory was stated in words and nothing else has fuckin changed.

imagine if zuko just lost one fight to aang and said “yes but my dad abused me” and aang was like “oh no now lets team up with zuko to beat up his dad” and none of the bad things zuko did were ever mentioned again and also he keeps his season 1 personality throughout the entire series

imagine if peridot fuckin.. just changed sides cos she’s funny and we like her. people wantedher to change sides as soon as she acted funny and likeable but they still made the effort to actually prove she had changed! the diamonds didnt act remotely harmless or remotely good until they just suddenly are in the very last episode.

hoo

fucking

ray

also why are we constantly just ignoring all these dark things about homeworld? like the episode with holly blue agate and the famethyst slave caste and all the creepy ways the entire place operated. i totally thought thatd.. yknow.. EVER BE REFERENCED AGAIN?? its never even mentioned that anyone even WANTS to go back and save them?? and the human zoo were outright stated to be like.. unsaveable. “oh theyve never known real human life and theyre happy in their slavery so itd be cruel to take them away from it” One off episode, forgotten about. And the creepy as fuck scenes of gems being BUILT INTO THE WALLS AND DOORS AS SECURITY SYSTEMS and the confirmation that more lapis situations are constantly going on yet somehow that singing hairbrush person doesnt get all the sympathy that she did. And steven going daww at the pebbles instead of being horrified that theyre born to work as servants and forced to live in the walls because the noblewomen dont want to look at them? and he asks them to make him a new outfit?? and theres no plot anything involving them except them puttering around in the background outfitting?? like was none of this meant to be seen as PROOF THAT THE DIAMONDS WERE EVIL and PEOPLE WHO NEEDED TO BE SAVED????

goddddd

please say they were rushed or something please say this is all the faultof being given less time than they expected please say there were other plans for other episodes we didnt see that would have given at least slightly more substance to any of this

also why wasnt this even advertised as the last episode if its the last fuckin episode

hhhh well at least obsidian was a great character design and so were the other fusions and new outfits even if they only appeared for twelve seconds. and white’s whole scary evil mind invasion stuff was really good even if it actually hurt the episode by being good, kinda

man im not even mad or anything i just feel mehh and bored and like im actually glad its over. i never wanted to feel that way about a show that used to be so good. i kinda wish the earliest episodes werent so good if the answers to all those well set up mysteries were gonna have so much less effort than the setup itself

...man i should make a whole post about all the mistaken ways i THOUGHT the show was gonna go that actually would have been way more interesting than the real answer.

i’m just super glad that my last theory was wrong cos wow that would have been the only thing worse than this ending! when white pearl first appeared before we’d actually seen white diamond, and it had all this thing that white diamond hadnt been seen in ages.. well i was worried it was setting up some sort of reverse twist where actually white pearl is bodysnatching white diamond instead of vice versa. So the whole evil empire would actually be run by a member of the slave class that its oppressing, and the diamonds/representative of the upper class would actually be poor victims all along. dear god i am so glad i got that wrong! tho im weirded out by how evil white/pink pearl looked in that first hint that she was originally pink pearl??

anyway basicallly im just so fuckin tired

[darveyfics]

Darvey angst where she is feeling down on Christmas Eve and wants to be with Harvey. They don’t work together any more and she barely sees him any more.

Since Donna kissed Harvey they’ve been at a loose end, not talking for months and it gets to Christmas Day and Harvey realises what a dick he’s been and he turns up at donna’s parents house and admits he loves and wants her 

Concept: Your arms are wrapped around me as we lay in bed. We talk and make jokes and call each other empty insults to make each other laugh. You press kisses to my cheek every so often and I can feel your fingers tracing my side. We’re finally together and everything feels right and happy. hungover in bed on New Year’s Day 

AN: I may have gone a bit off prompt here, seeing as how this is only a NYE fic, and I took liberty with adding/omitting some details, but this was inspired by these set of prompts. Anywho, I hope you still enjoy and happy New Years!

“Resolutions”

“Ugh,” Donna turns off the television with a hard press on the remote, a sour expression on her face. She had spent the better part of the last half an hour summoning all of her effort to try and enjoy what she could during the last few hours before the new year. But in doing so, she had to succumb to seeing happy couples being displayed near Times Square, kissing and huddling close in the cold, even witnessing a couple of too-cheesy proposals. She couldn’t take it anymore, couldn’t watch any more of the festivities when her heart was already in shambles.

With a sigh and a shake of her head, she pushes herself off her couch, picking up her empty wine glass and walking over to her kitchen, where she pours herself another helping of red. Her eyes grow watery then, blurring her vision as she watches the crimson liquid filling the glass she held. Donna mentally curses herself, angrily wiping away a tear in the corner of her eye before it could make its way down her cheek. Picking up the glass, she lets out a small dry laugh as she brought it up to her lips. As the bitter taste meets her tongue, a knock nearly makes her spill her drink.

She freezes in place, her breath hitching as two familiar knocks follow. Slowly, the redhead deposits the glass on her kitchen island, watching as a few scarlet drops make their way to tint the white marble countertop.

“Donna,”

His muffled voice makes her eyes close on their own accord, her heart racing its way to rest in her throat, where an uncomfortable lump begins to form.

“Donna, it’s me.”

She stays frozen, hovering over her kitchen island, her knuckles turning white with the visceral grip she held on the counter, a meek attempt to keep herself upright lest she pass out. It’s the first time she’s heard his voice in days, the two glasses of wine already seeping into her system, making her limbs feel like jello upon hearing the low timbre in his voice. She finds herself unable to move, silently willing her former boss to leave, hoping he would get the hint with her lack of response.

“Donna, please, I know you’re in here. I went to your mom’s- she uh, she told me you’d be here.”

Donna finds herself cursing under her breath then. She had only told Louis of her New Year’s Eve plans- telling the name partner that she would probably make a trip up to Connecticut to visit her mom after having been invited to an end of the year party she was hosting alongside her latest flame- one apparently slightly less annoying than the last. And she had planned on going… until she found herself standing in front of her closet, trying to find something to wear, when another sudden wave of sadness washed over her and she couldn’t draw in enough energy to make herself look presentable, the thought of hanging around other other people, putting on a bubbly facade just to mask the current pain she felt and prevent an unwanted conversation with her mother making her feel dizzy. So, she had phoned the older woman, an apology on her lips as she lied through her teeth and told her mom that she wasn’t feeling well and wouldn’t go.

Now, as she continues to grip her countertop, the metaphorical and physical wall separating her from Harvey seemingly growing thicker by the second, her mind starts to cloud over with a plethora of thoughts.

I went to your mom’s.

She wasn’t surprised he had towered over Louis until the shorter man broke under Harvey’s gaze, spilling her plans with no other option. What she did find surprising was that the man in question had driven all the way to Connecticut and back just to talk to her.

Donna shook her head, opening her mouth to speak, hoping her voice could carry its way over through the wall that separates her from the man that she had been equally avoiding for the past couple of days. It had been a mere two weeks since she had kissed him, planted a long-awaited, tension filled kiss as soon as he walked into her office. The arguments had started that night, when she found him on the rooftop of PSL, looking as confused and hurt and angry as she had ever seen him. The hurtful jabs hadn’t stopped there either. It had been a grave experience, having to dive into work everyday with someone she had considered to be her best friend- her confidant- her everything- only to fall victim to the backlash he had expelled on her.

It had been bite for bite, blame after blame, and she had stood her ground, never once faulting under his fierce gaze as he looked at her with what she could only surmise to be hurt, distrust, and something akin to betrayal. His words had cut deep, but she still showed up, countered his words with her own, exuding all the confidence she could muster so as to not break every time he looked at her.

She never expected him to jump into her arms after having kissed him, didn’t expect them to be anything, but she never expected the full continuous wave of anguish she felt every time he spoke to her. Even when she had caught wind that he and Paula had broken up, she still faced his wrath on occasion, until she had blown up on him. She had looked him square in the eye, told him she wouldn’t stand for his shit anymore, and would leave without so much as looking back if he didn’t stop treating her like his enemy. 

That had been a few short days before, the sting of having spent Christmas alone growing ten-fold when he had all but bitten her head off the next morning, and she couldn’t take it anymore. He had backtracked with a look of surprise, and something reminiscent of guilt that she tried to push out her mind. Since then, they had barely crossed paths outside of important meetings, and even then they would use Louis as a buffer, the other name partner oblivious as to what was happening- either that, or he was uncharacteristically stepping out of the way.

Another set of taps on her door shook her out of her thought, his voice mirroring the defeat in his soft knocks.

“Donna… please.”

With a final sigh and a bitter taste in her mouth that had nothing to do with the wine she had been drinking, Donna makes her way to her front door. Her steps were measured and unsure, dragging herself until she stood in front of the piece of wood that separated her from him.

Before she could overthink it further, her hand reaches out, unlocking the door as she swings it open.

Her words catch in her throat as she looks him over- suit disheveled and sans tie, hair sticking up in all directions from when he must have raked his hands through it a dozen times. His brown eyes were nearly rimmed red, underlined by heavy bags to highlight his lack of sleep. She mentally thanked herself then for still donning that day’s makeup, hoping it would mask her own heavy eyes.

Clearing her throat, she musters up as much control as possible, “What are you doing here?”

“Can we talk?” His gravely voice takes her by surprise, and if it weren’t for the lack of alcohol she could smell on his breath, she would’ve guessed he had been drinking.

“Talk about what?” Donna crosses her arms, shuffling her feet and glancing away from his pleading eyes, willing her heart rate to slow down.

“You know what.”

She scoffs then, tilting her head to fix him with a glare that was making her eyes sting, “You weren’t done yelling at me yet? Had a second wind you needed to exercise before you rung in the new year year?”

Her sarcastic words made his lips turn thin, his shoulders slumping at the way her voice cracked and he felt his heart doing the same. “That’s not what-”

“Thats not what?!” She demands, body canting forward in an effort to tower over him, the attempt falling short seeing as she was barefoot and a mere couple of inches shorter than him, “That’s not what you came here for? I’m sorry, I’m also not in the mood for another round of the blame game you were throwing at me, Harvey.”

“Donna,”

“No, I don’t want to hear it, I’m tired, okay? Can’t you see that? If you don’t-” she heaves out a breath, taking a moment to collect herself before continuing, “If you don’t… feel anything, then just let is rest, Harvey. Because I can’t take this anymore.”

Without a word, he’s stepping into her apartment, the sudden bold move taking her by surprise and she steps to the side in reflex. “I do!”

His expel makes her cant backward again, “Do what?” She presses, her eyebrows creased as she stares at the half flustered man before her.

“I do… feel something,” Harvey hisses, his eyes beginning to cloud over, chest rising and falling.

Donna closes her eyes at his small admission, flashbacks to a time in his office taking over her mind.

Love me how?

I told you that so I could make you feel better.

That’s because we have everything.

No, Harvey! You have everything! 

So, are you saying you want everything?

“Feel what?” Donna finally opens her eyes, “Disgust? Betrayal? Because,” she lets out a humorless laugh, “That’s how you kept looking at me for the past two weeks.”

“I-”

“You’ve never been able to tell me how you really feel, haven’t you? Goddammit, Harvey, I really don’t know how much more of this I can take,” a few tears slide down her cheek as her voice breaks, hugging herself close in a futile attempt to protect herself. 

“Donna, please, I just-” His mouth hangs open then, the rest of his words caught in his throat again, and he swallows past the lump that blocks his untimely confession.

“What, Harvey? I’m right here, what the hell is it that you have to say?” Her hazel eyes plead with him, and she hears the distinct sounds of fireworks going off in the distance, knowing that midnight was just right around the corner and the festivities outside her apartment were in full swing now.

“I love you,” he growls in the next second, propelling forward to cup her face in his hands, slanting his lips over hers in a bruising kiss.

Donna always prided herself in seemingly knowing what was going to happen next, what people were thinking, were feeling… but in that moment, with Harvey’s lips firmly pressed against hers, she could confidently say, she never saw it coming.

Her body stays frozen against him, lips barely pursed against his own unmoving ones. It wasn’t until his head tilts to the side, pulling on her upper lip with the gentlest of tugs, does she come alive. Her hands grip the the lapels of his jack, needing something to hold onto as she feels herself falling under a dizzy spell as his tongue snakes into her mouth in a torturous pace. Their lips move over each other like long time lovers, his familiar taste intoxicating her senses, fueling an inner desire she had thought she had suppressed. Her hands find their way to his hair, pulling on the short strands and eliciting a low groan to leave his lips. Before she could fully mold her body to his, he’s pulling back, and it takes her a near full minute to open her eyes.

What she sees makes her knees buckle, and if it weren’t for his hold on her, she was sure she would’ve fallen. 

“I’m sorry, I’m so so sorry,” his eyes are screwed shut, tears free falling down his cheeks as his voice breaks with every word.

Donna feels herself swallowing, her own eyes blurring as she watches Harvey- the man she has only seen cry purely two or three times in all the years that they’ve known each other. His hands slide down from her cheeks then, making their way to rest on her waist as his forehead lands on hers, prompting her own eyes to close.

“God, Donna, I’m-” he shakes his head, lip caught between his teeth as he tries to render in some control, “I’m so sorry,” his eyes finally find hers when he lifts his head, his tears clouding his vision.

“Harvey-”

“I was an asshole, I- I treated you like shit and- I don’t deserve you,” She tries not to get distracted by the way his hands caress her skin over the sweater she wore, his eyes boring into her own in the dim light of her foyer. Donna swallows back the ever-growing lump in her throat, trying to breathe through the stuttering in her chest.

“I fucked up. I screwed up everything because I was too damn proud, too upset, too- confused to tell you…” His voice trails off as he looks at her, the rest of his words getting clogged up amidst the fear and uneasiness he felt bubbling up inside.

“Tell me what?” His earlier confession echoes in her mind, those three little words replaying like a broken record, making her feel dizzier by the second 

“I’m not good at this Donna,” he admits on an exhale, looking every bit as nervous and vulnerable as she had ever seen him.

She purses her lips then, shifting slightly in her stance as her hold on his biceps stays in place, “At telling me how you really feel? Yeah, I’ve noticed,” agitation pulls at her again, and she tries to keep her frustration at bay, hoping he could somehow find it in him to tell her. 

“You think this is easy for me? Being here? Pouring myself out to you?” She nearly flinches at the way his voice grows an octave higher, but she holds her ground, stepping away from him in the next second.

“Do you think it was easy for me? Having to go into work everyday to see the man I’ve considered as a best friend for over a decade look at me like I was the worst thing to ever happen to him? To treat me like absolute crap because one little thing I did?” 

“You kissed me while I was still with Paula! How else did you expect me to react?”

“I expected you to not talk down to me or make me feel like absolute shit after the one time in the last thirteen goddamn years I decided to put myself first!”

Her outburst is like a splash of cold water on him, her voice growing hoarse as the tears slide down, staining her already flushed cheeks.

“Donna,” guilt rises in him, and he takes a step forward again, wincing when she takes a step back in response.

“God, we always end up here, don’t we?” Her dry laugh is followed by another set of fireworks going off in the distance, preceding an echo of laughs and cheers from the street patrons outside of her apartment.

“Where?” He asks her gently, staying put this time.

“Here! With us arguing and you not being able to tell me whatever the hell it is that you want!”

“I want you!” 

She doubles back at his words, her eyes widening and matching his own as he tries and fails to keep his emotions and breathing in check.

“Goddammit, Donna, I-” he rubs his hands over his tired face, his eyes appearing more red than they had been when he had arrived just minutes earlier, “I want more,” he echoes the words she had told him almost a year before. Her mouth hangs open in surprise, silently willing her brain to come alive and provide her with a set of words to throw back in his face, but none come.

“I want- everything with you,” Harvey takes a tentative step toward her, taking advantage of her still frame to take her hands in his own, using his thumb to run circles over her smooth skin.

“Harvey-”

“I’m in love with you,” his eyes study her, taking in the way her lips part at his confession, the words finally slipping out with an unexpected ease. He brings a hand to wipe away the tears that continue to slide down her cheeks, his fingers lingering on her warm skin, “I’m sorry it took me too damn long to realize, to tell you.”

Donna can only nod in turn then, blinking back more emotions as they cascade down her face. “Why-”

“Did it take me so long to tell you?” He murmurs his question, taking another tentative step toward her to gather her in his arms. At her nod, he heaves out a breath, shaking his head, “I’m a goddamn idiot, for one, but I was scared.”

“Of what?” Comes her hoarse response, reaching up to wipe away his own set of tears and he can’t stop himself from taking hold of her hand, kissing the inside of her wrist, the action making her breath hitch.

“Of losing you,” he whispers, his face nearly growing numb when she starts to caress his cheek, “of- misreading your signal, and potentially screwing things up, which, happened anyway because I’m a complete moron, and I was upset with you, but mostly at myself, and I was angry because you kissed me and I was with someone else and I didn’t know what to do, not at first-”

“Harvey-” She tries to interrupt his rambling, but falls short when he continues to rant.

“And even after I broke up with Paula, I was still angry and confused, and it was just an excuse, because that was easier than dealing with what really mattered, who really mattered-”

“Harvey-”

“And God, Donna, I know there’s no excuse, I treated you like shit, and I don’t deserve you, I don’t deserve your forgiveness or even your heart, but I do love you, in every goddamn way I know how to love and I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to prove to you to just that, because I don’t just need you in my life, I never did just need you, I want you,” Harvey takes a moment to expel another breath, watching her own face nearly crumpling and he curses himself for putting that amount of pain in her, “And if you’ll let me…” 

Her lips are on his in a flash, her arms winding around him, nearly making him tumble forward as she pulls herself up on her tiptoes. It only takes him a second to react, his own arms wrapping around her until she was flush against him. Their kiss grows frantic quickly, their lips tangling with their teeth, tugging and pulling in between slides of tongues that has them spilling out twin moans of pleasure and want and need.

“Donna,” Harvey breathes in between kisses, groaning when she pulls at his bottom lip, sliding her tongue inside his hot mouth again, and it takes everything in him not to push her up against the nearest surface. 

“Donna, wait,” she lets out a whimper of disapproval when his lips detach from hers. If it weren’t for the seriousness of the situation, for the way his pants started to grow tighter against every hot breath she exhaled against him, he would’ve laughed at the cute way in which she pouted at him.

“Hey,” he breathes out, using a hand to lock a strand of auburn hair behind her ear, reaching forward to press a feather light kiss to her cheek.

“What is it?” She whispers on a low pant. 

“I’m just- I’m really sorry. For everything. I- I hurt you and I can’t tell you how sorry I am.” 

Donna frowns when another tear slides down his cheek, and she reaches out to wipe it away, her raised feet planting themselves down on her hardwood floor, “I know. You already said-”

Harvey shakes his head, “I just don’t feel like it’s enough. Like it won’t ever be enough.”

Her hand slides down to his lips, slightly caressing the swollen flesh as her eyes look up to meet his, “You did screw up, I think we both did in some way,” she lets out a sigh, “but I already spent the last two weeks feeling miserable and sorry for myself, and hating you just a little bit for how you made me feel,” she doesn’t miss the way his eyes cloud over more at her words, “and I think what we both deserve right now is to be happy, don’t you think?”

“So… you forgive me?” His voice is small when he speaks, and she lets her lips curl up slightly at the ounce of hope in him.

“Yeah, Harvey, I do.”

“Why?” He croaks out, his forehead knit as his eyes rake over her form, nearly becoming dizzy as her scent fills him.

“Because, so help me God, I’m in love with you too.” Her half shrug and laugh makes his chest flutter with something he doesn’t think he’s felt in a long time. He struggles to fight against the way his lips twitch at her words, and he shuffles his feet forward until their lips are grazing each other, their eyes brightly transfixed on one another.

“I’m not going to screw things up,” he promises her then, determination growing in his voice.

Donna hums in response, her hands sliding up his chest until her right hand is resting over his heart, “You better not,” he lets out a watery chuckle at the way she quirks an eyebrow at him, and her own mirth mirrors his.

They sober up in the next second, matching serious expressions on their faces as the gravity of the situation settles in then.

“I am sorry,” Harvey finds himself repeating, his voice low against her.

“I know,” Donna whispers back. Their arms are around each other the next second, pulling each other close together, a tight hold forming around each other.

“I’ve missed you,” her whispers against her, pressing a kiss to her cheek.

“I didn’t go anywhere,” she tells him, though she has an inkling as to what he means. 

“Felt like you did, and I know it’s my own damn fault,” his defeated sigh makes her pull back, her eyes raking over his tired form, eyes still reddened from his tears, guilt written all over his face. She hears more fireworks echoing in the distance now, followed by another round of cheers, and she guesses they were slowly inching their way to midnight.

“You really need to stop beating yourself up, Specter,” she murmurs against him, lifting up on her toes to plant a kiss against his mandible.

“I’m not sure I know how,” he lets out a sigh, his eyes pleading and tired all the same.

“I think I can find a way,” Donna whispers, running a manicured hand through the short strands of his hair.

She almost laughs at the way his brows furrow, confusion written in his still slightly solemn expression, and a sudden giddiness overcomes her when she realizes she can kiss the pout right off his face.

So she does just that.

It takes him a moment to register what’s happening, his eyebrows shooting up in surprise, much like the way he had done when she had kissed him a mere weeks before. And just as he had done then, his demeanor relaxes within seconds, melting right against her, except this time, she doesn’t pull back, his hands are around her, and he reels her in further.

When her hands slide down his chest, blindly undoing the buttons on his dress shirt, his lips pull back from her, “Donna,” he nearly lets out a whimper when her nails sneak inside his shirt, lightly scratching against his skin, “Donna, are you sure?”

Her lips part from his with a smacking sound, hazel eyes appearing black at the way her pupils have dilated. In the distance, she can vaguely make out a countdown.

20… 19... 

Her hands slide up to his shoulders, and in anticipation, he’s hoisting her up, her legs wrapping around his form, the move making them stumble forward. Twin laughs leave them, their teeth clashing in a hurried kiss as he tightens his hold on her, making sure she’s safely secured in his arms.

“Careful, mister, you’re carrying precious goods here,” she murmurs against his lips.

17… 16…

Harvey chuckles at her words, moving in the direction of her bedroom when he finally finds his footing, “Trust me, I’m well aware.”

15… 14…

It’s a mission and a half to get to her bedroom without dropping her, thanks to the way her lips are teasing the curve of his jaw, taking her time to nip and suck at his skin.

12… 11…

When he finally reaches her room, he makes a beeline for the bed, maneuvering in the dark through a space he had only occupied once before.

9… 8…

Depositing her on the bed, she lets out a fit of giggles, the sound nearly foreign to her after weeks of tears and anger. He lets out his own string of chuckles, reaching down to plant a kiss to her lips, his hand moving her golden locks out of the way, until he’s fully able to look into her eyes.

6… 5…

“Hey,” he whispers, his lips hovering over hers.

“Hey back.”

4… 3…

“I love you,” 

2… 1…

Before she can register what’s happening, his lips are landing on hers in another toe-curling kiss, the force of which nearly knocking her off kilter, and she thanks her lucky stars she was already lying down. A string of fireworks go off right outside, one after the other, repeatedly for what feels like ages. She nearly chuckles against him then, the humor of fireworks going off while the love of her life was kissing her not missing her.

“Happy New Year’s, Donna,” his Cheshire Cat grin evokes one of her own, and she’s suddenly feeling light-headed with an overwhelming sense of joy.

“Happy New Year’s, Harvey,” the second the words leave her lips, his mouth is slanting over hers again, and the cacophony of fireworks outside is soon diluted by the rapid beating of her heart, the rhythm growing ten-fold as his own starts to match hers in perfect synchrony. 

His body is molded to hers, right arm strewn across her form over the covers, his face buried in the crook of her neck.

“You okay?” Harvey presses a kiss to her temple, watching as her breathing now settles into a full leveled rhythm.

“Hmm? Oh, yeah,” she sends him a grin over her shoulder, reaching up as best she could in her current position, angling her head to meet his lips in a chaste kiss.

“I could just hear you thinking pretty loudly,” his fingers caress her arm in an up and down pattern, the feeling evoking goosebumps on her skin.

She lets out a snort at his words, “What? You a mind reader now?” 

He chuckles against her, the vibrations alighting her skin on fire, and she bites her lip at the sheer memory of what they were doing just minutes before.

“No,” he presses a kiss to the crown of her head, settling his head on the pillow they shared and coaxing her to turn around until she was fully facing him, “You just seem quiet, is all.”

Her face softens at his words, and her lips curl up into a coy smile, “Yeah well, you tired me out,” she playfully pokes his chest then and he squirms in response.

“Ooh, I forgot you were ticklish,” her eyes grow brighter then, and Harvey takes hold of her hands, swallowing back the slight fear that bubbles up.

“Don’t you dare, Paulsen,” he warns in a low growl.

Donna rolls her eyes in response, a smirk playing on her lips at his sudden semi-panicked demeanor.

“Relax, Harvey,” she lets out a dramatic sigh, bringing her hand up to comb through his hair, “I’m a little too tired to play right now.”

His eyebrows comically wiggle at her words, and she lets out a snort that mixes in with a girly giggle, “You’re ridiculous,” she lets out.

“I’m a very lucky man, is what I am,” he puffs out his chest the best way he could whilst horizontal, causing her to shake her head.

“And cheesy,” she retorts, leaning forward to peck his lips.

“Hmm, I think I’ve found my rights to a couple of sappy words tonight.”

“You were pretty impressive,” Donna purrs against him, teasingly pulling on his bottom lip, causing him to emit a low growl.

“I thought you were tired,” he hums against her, shifting until he was hovering over her again.

Donna licks her lips in response, her eyes hungrily raking over his bare chest, “I changed my mind,” she shrugs.

Harvey shakes his head at her antics, leaning down to start a torturous trail from her jaw to her neck, where he pauses to suck on her pulse point. She finds herself closing her eyes then, the feel of his lips mixed with his tongue on her skin making the room around her start to spin.

“I can’t believe you really drove all the way to Connecticut to look for me,” she breathes out when his lips leave her skin for a second, and the fog in her mind clears up. His head lifts from its place, hovering just over her exposed chest.

Her sudden admission makes his forehead knit in confusion, and he wills his mind to clear up just long enough to take in her words. “What?”

She lets out a small chuckle at the perplexed look he gives her, reaching up to gently stroke his cheek, “Earlier, you said you went to my mom’s in Connecticut, and then you drove back… on New Year’s Eve, when you realized I wasn’t there.” 

“Would it be cheesy if I said I would’ve gone to the ends of the earth to look for you?” He kisses the inside of her palm, giving her a shy look as he still hovered over her.

Donna snorts, “Yeah, a bit.”

“Thought so.”

They share sheepish smiles before Harvey leans down to press a kiss to her lips, just because he could. “I would’ve, you know?”

“I know,” she assures him quietly, her lips turning up.

“Because I’m a goddamn idiot in love,” he sighs dramatically, and realizes all of her dramatic flares have already started to rub off on him.

“That makes two of us,” she murmurs against him before pulling him down for a kiss, “except for the idiot part,” he chuckles against her when she pulls him down for another kiss, their lips melding together, their tongues taking turns to sneak in and tease, tasting each other all over again.

“What?” She giggles against him, watching him in amusement as he breaks their kiss with an uncontrollable fit of chuckles.

Harvey shakes his head, his eyes crinkling with humor and love and something so light he dares to call happiness- pure unbridled joy- settles in his chest.

“I just realized… we basically rung in the new year with a bang.”

She stares up at his slightly flushed expression, eyes bright and wide, staring down at her like she was the best and only thing that mattered in this world. It takes her a full two seconds before she’s doubling back with laughter, the sheer noise making him falter and he’s nearly crushing her as his cackles grow alongside her own.

It’s a while before their laughter subsides, the room saturated with their mingled heavy breathing. Still, little outburst of giggles tumble out of her every time she meets his gaze, and she finds herself wiping away the tears that escape, this time solely due to the joy he had elicited in her.

“That- really shouldn’t have been as funny as it was,” She chuckles, drunk on the feeling of laughing alongside her best friend turned lover, the thought alone enticing another string of endorphins to run along her body.

“And yet…” Harvey grins, kissing the corner of her mouth before he settles next to her again, his body falling heavily against the mattress and he’s reeling her in to him again.

Donna shakes her head, her eyes rolling on reflex. “God, I haven’t laughed that hard in a long time.”

Harvey’s face sobers up for a moment, his smile fading ever so slightly at her words, “Well, I may have just found my new year’s resolution.”

She sends him a quizzical look, her eyes curious and amused, “And what’s that?”

“I’m gonna spend the rest of the year,” he leans forward to press a kiss to her cheek, “the rest of my life,” he presses another to her parted lips, “making you laugh, making you happy.”

Her eyes sting with a fresh new wave of tears and she blinks them back in attempt to keep them from falling. A fluttering settles in her stomach and she heaves out a shaky breath as she inches herself closer to him, her hand finding its way to rest on his cheek as she finds her smile mirroring his.

“Well, you’re already off to a great start, Specter.”

[simonulvsand]

Reflective journal, presentations.

Today was the presentations of everyones videos! It was really fun and nervous all at the same time to see what everyone has been up to these past two weeks. After seeing a video the class(not the group that made video) started off by saying what they saw and how they perceived the video. At first I thought this was a strange way of analyzing peoples work but it was actually really interesting to listen what people had to say. Hearing different opinions and views on the same video made me learn a lot about how you can portray things differently using video as medium. Giving constructive feedback is important and a great way to learn things from your fellow students. People had a lot of good points on how you could do things differently in order for them to understand the concept intended. I felt that I gained a lot of insight listening what the class had to say. Apparently a simple thing like describing what you see in someones video can highlight a problem that is key to understanding the message that you try to get across.  It was also nice to see that people had done very different videos even though we shared the same brief. 

When we showed our video I was a little nervous because I know that we struggled to make the purpose of our video prototype clear and I feared that no one would understand what we had done. Fortunately we got great constructive feedback and I agreed with a lot of things people said. I really like getting good constructive feedback because it has so much to say that you just can’t read up on in the same way. We got a few comments that the visualisation of our blocks weren’t very clear and I totally agree. As I stated in previous posts we didn’t really manage to get everything we wanted to say in the video in a good way and it was good to now that people confirmed that thought. We also got a comment about having a lot of phallic symbols and that could be problematic since our theme was focused for women. We tried to implement it a little bit as a joke but not as much as some people thought. It is definitely something I will remember that humorous details that was the intension can be viewed as something completely different. 

Thoughts

After presenting our video and receiving feedback there are some things I will take with me to future projects. We spent too long on creating a visually pleasing prototype instead of creating a video that was clear in its purpose. We should have spent more time thinking about what our prototype was supposed to prototype and problems we wanted to test. I feel really proud of what we did but there is always room for improvement and reading the literature(Anatomy of Prototypes in this case) and looking at other examples I know that setting a scope and thinking about the resolution is important before you start building the actual prototype. 

[tumblunni]

Thanks to Bogleech’s awesome review of fave FF7 monsters, for pointing out that I spent over a decade mistaking this thing for a spider. WHAT SERIOUSLY ITS BIPEDAL?? look at it, its just got two legs and its balanced really ballerina like despite its even more huge and spindly mantis arms. Seriously, those arent even used as legs?? AND IT DOESNT HAVE ANY OTHER LEGS?? Seriously i cant even just chalk it up to the bad resolution on my childhood TV, I scrolled down that article and was like ‘oh, that spider’ and did a double take when I read the caption.

Man this is like.. an underrated category of monsters. Stuff that resembles a real life animal but is actually a completely different sort of body plan that somehow creatively moves in a similar way to keep up the illusion. My fave FFIX monster (which bogleech also talked about in another great review!) kinda has this factor going on but for like.. 10% of a human? It looks like a gigantic severed head with its jaw missing, even though its actually some sort of bizarre slug/snail/crab maybe.

But what I really like is that it doesn’t just glide along on that false severed neck, they actually went out of their way to think about logical biology for this nonsense magic creature! Its ‘hair’ is actually a whole pile of tentacle-like super long centipede legs and if you pay attention you can see them scuttling mega fast when it ‘glides’. thats weirdly endearing, its working so hard! I’m kinda sad that this creature never got a bigger role beyond a random enemy, cos I can imagine all sorts of other interesting animations it could have, and other questions that went unanswered. I mean we only see the ‘hair’ scuttling, we don’t see if it actually has moveable joints all the way up to the hairline. Can it wave them all the way up? The anatomy seems to imply they wouldnt even look like a mass of tentacles but more like two humanlike hands with the front antennae serving as the thumbs. What does it even look like underneath?? And actually, where is its mouth? Cos we know it has half a human mouth there, but its also clear that it isnt actually a severed head and it has more of a mollusc like foot underneath. (Or, alternatively, they just didnt bother texturing its bottom side, but this game has such detailed textures that I doubt it.) So yeah there’s no throat or tongue underneath, and I mean it would be really painful and hard to eat if it was dragging its whole throat system around on a concrete floor all day. (If I recall correctly, you find these guys in a train station??) So maybe the teeth are more like those iron scales on that ultimate defense snail that lives in underground volcano vents. Just some sort of front-facing shield that evolved to resemble human face parts along with the rest of it.

...actually, man, I really wonder HOW or WHY an animal would camoflage as a giant ten foot tall human head. Who do you expect to fool...? I mean maybe for all we know this used to be a human. The lack of explanation the game gives on the ‘Mist’ that’s made of ‘expired souls’ and ‘causes abnormalities in the mind’ makes the monsters even scarier than they otherwise would be. And the fact people unknowingly use dead people juice to power airships and machines is kinda fucked up. And the fact that they knowingly do it knowing that it’s poisonous as fuck and creates scary ass monsters. i’m surprised we never got a plotline of something springing a leak and wiping an entire town off the map overnight. Though there are quite a few ruins and only one of them is really explained, so it could be fun to headcanon equivelant Tragic Disasters for the others. I’m sad we never got to see what those Mole People looked like, its subtly creepy that they’re the only type of anthro animal person missing in this world and nobody seems to remember or care. Also it sucks that we only got to have a description of the name and culture of one of these animal races, and only one of them was playable, and her story got totally shafted after disc 1. Alas Freya :( Also actually maybe that explains why the Qu race is such a strange sort of unexplained ‘monster people’, and the dwarves look like humans but green. Perhaps that’s just what happens when you live on a continent with a higher ambient Mist content, people don’t die but they end up evolving into cool magic power fantasy races. But then where did all the animal people even come from?? man I think I’m thinking too much about it XD fuck I love this game so much why did i read an article about it i need to replay it for the 15th time aaaa!! I always end up quitting after the intro tho cos i mean I’ve memorized the whole damn thing by now XD i hope someday maybe it’ll get an expanded remake of some sort, replaying it in higher res pc port of the original version is cool but its just an emulation really. aaaaa but this game is SO GOOD sorry bunni is rambling AAAAA WHY DO I GET SO EXCITED ABOUT GAMES!!!!