#it’s all a clusterfuck

[ghost-bxrd]

Prompt:

Both Jason and Damian think the other has died during their time with the League.

Jason, in his grief, goes back to his plans of making Batman pay and beating his replacement into the ground.

Damian goes back to his assassin training like a madman, vowing to find the person who took Jason away from him.

It all gets a little complicated when he finds out Jason may not actually be dead at all.

[porschesbabydaddy]

Absolutely heinous of kinnporsche give us a timeline of events and ages that then immediately contradicts itself

[spoopy-nevermore-dump]

I think Lenore should go insane actually

[canisalbus]

a few quick questions on Machete, what breed is he? I love the angles of his snout and the proportions remind me of a borzoi though I don't think he is one. Also, does he have a set age for when he's a cardinal? I picture him to be around mid-30s or so. Wonderful art! love your stuff and find you an inspiration :)

He's a fictional breed called Podenco Siciliano, which is closely related to modern day Ibizan Hound (pictured below) and other Mediterranean rabbit-hunting podencos. I usually just default to calling him a sighthound since he's somewhat of a provincial mongrel and not meant to be purebred anyway.

As for the age, mid-30s sounds about right. I think the current timeline goes something like this:

0 - Born to a lower-middle class family in Sicily, father is a tradesman, has three older brothers. Generally considered a runt, is weak and sick all the time, parents suspicious of his unusual colors.

3 - Gets left at a monastery and raised by monks as a foundling. Nervous and meek kid, but the monks think he's endearing and do their best to support him. Is taught to read and write, which is a massive advantage at that day and age, and learns rudimentary Latin through exposure.

9 - Apprenticed to a Neapolitan priest, moves to southern part of mainland Italy (or Kingdom of Naples as it was called, it was ruled by Spain actually). Does chores and runs errands in exchange for education and experience.

15 - The priest gets elevated to a bishop and decides to sponsor Machete's further studies at an acclaimed university in Venice (in Northern Italy). There he studies theology, medicine, arts, law, philosophy and gets fluent in Latin and adequate in Greek. Befriends Vasco but their relationship is short-lived.

21 - Ordained a priest. Leads a parish somewhere in Papal States (Central Italy). Is generally well liked but doubts his career choice from time to time.

26 - Becomes a part of the Papal Court in Vatican, mostly because of the recommendations of his former mentor and professors, good reputation, excellent track record and sheer luck. Still a priest but assists bishops, cardinals and the pope himself directly. Moves to Rome. Becomes pope's unofficial confidant due to his obedient and hardworking nature and because of his lack of prestigious family connections that would render him a threat. Slowly starts to gain wealth.

30 - Created a cardinal (which is the second highest position in the church after the pope, and it's at the sole discretion of the pope who becomes one). Is also a bishop as a technicality. Handles administrative jobs, tons of paperwork, at some point he's in charge of a lot of the political correspondence and diplomatic missions. Still the old pope's trusted advisor but disliked by the majority of the cardinals, who see him as an outsider, sycophant and a potential disruptor of the status quo.

34 - Meets Vasco again. Vasco has become a succesful politician in Florence, he's married with three children.

38 - The pope dies and Machete's status falters. He starts to work with the Roman inquisition more. Oversees trials, torture, excommunications and executions of heretics, witches and most of all, protestants (since we're reaching Counter Reformation times and the Vatican is Very Worried about the spread of Luther's ideas). Isn't having a good time at all but keeps up the appearances. Gets infamous. The beginning of the true villain era.

40 - Grows increasingly more disillusioned with life and his ideals, as well as the corruption of the Curia. Burned out, paranoid and desperate. Uses scare tactics, extortion and legal trickery to expose and undermine his enemies, but gains them faster than he can keep up. Employs spies, thugs and assassins. Feared and loathed.

43 - Gets assassinated and dies in disgrace.

[brother-emperors]

CAESAR AUGUSTUS AND MARCUS LICINIUS CRASSUS

this is about the spolia opima that crassus was robbed of lmao. like, yeah okay octavian could've asked him not to claim it, but nevertheless. a kind of theft happened there.

Fact and Fiction: Crassus, Augustus, and the Spolia Opima, Catherine McPherson

[hashtagnevermore]

lenore and annabel: *quite literally putting on a live show in the hallway*

the other students: BOMBASTIC side eye CRIMINALLY OFFENSIVE side eye

[sonic-adventure-3]

an incredibly rough comic. i think star fragments would taste like a scintillating phantasmagoria of light, a severe electric shock, a newfound gambling addiction, and a hint of the nastiest artificial grape flavour you’ve ever tasted. sonic is imbued with the power of slot machines now

[vaguely-concerned]

I have seen people question whether dios apate minor really needed to happen the way it did. it's the 'this could have been an email' of htn. 'augustine this did not have to be a threesome', I hear people saying. and boy do I have an obnoxious amount of things to say to protest this perfectly sensible assertion so here we go haha

1) yes it absolutely had to be like that. It says so on this piece of paper *hands you a piece of paper that says "because I said so and also it's narratively and thematically Sexy"* in my half-legible handwriting. seeing tamsyn muir describe harrow the ninth as a book about being a kid and realizing your parents probably had sex has given me such validation, I am unstoppable now. (to be serious for a moment, harrow the ninth is essentially a bildungsroman, and the threesome scene does a whole lot of thematic heavy lifting around harrow glimpsing elements of adulthood, relationships, and sexuality she clearly finds at the same time repulsive, bewildering and fascinating, and around opening her and especially our eyes to how much john is just a man with human longings still, under the god stuff. dios apate is crucial plot- and character-wise too -- it's a loadbearing threesome in terms of delivering the clues you need to piece together the mystery plot of the book, which is simply delightful -- but even more so thematically. and then the scene at the end where they confront john gives gideon some of that same opportunity to peek into adulthood and go '...well shit I guess', as a sort of mirror, just without the french kissing that time and more murder. the things magnus and abigail model for the girls about love and adulthood? mercy and augustine are providing the opposite-day batshit insane version of that fhdskjfa, you know, for contrast and spice)

2) listen... it gets lonely out there in deep space with your 'legendary unamorous' brother, two infant pathetic baby kitten sisters who you'll probably have to kill one day when you take another stab at god if they don't manage to get themselves killed along the way on their own, and the two people you've spent the last ten thousand years having separate yet connected married & divorced arcs with and also btw one of them is god... honestly a threesome over the dinner table is probably The most well-adjusted reaction one might hope for under those circumstances

3) on a characterization level I think Augustine is actually doing something incredibly deliberate with it: he's presenting John with yet another chance to admit what he did. which is notable especially since the deal he and mercy agree on as a condition for the threesome to happen at all seems to be that they're going to give the ol' godslaying another game try sooner rather than later. (I get the sense that it's not so much that he disagrees with her ultimate goal so much as that he thinks she's being dangerously indiscreet and hasty going about it, before. “though I think it will be the death of us,” huh.)

notice how he's structuring the whole thing: he's invoking the intimacy and love in their strange little threeway relationship and how long it's been by truly playing along with john's 'we're a happy family really when we're at home! :)' delusion (helped along by lowered inhibitions via enormous amounts of alcohol and what I've previously described as a joint mercy/augustine leyendecker themed thirst trap. ah, a classic). he brings up alecto and what happened to her -- or rather, he is clever enough to make john bring up alecto and how she is totally dead, right?? by seeming to make a careless statement that leads there and then acting contrite about it after. he (helped along by mercy, who I think realizes exactly what he's doing -- this is very much a two-man con) brings up how much they all loved their cavaliers, and wow funny how that's been haunting us for ten thousand years now huh :) wow, a lot of our other lyctor friends slash family sure are super dead in the name of some unknowable greater reason neither of us quite grasp and that you won't fucking tell us, aren't they. these are all the main grievances he and mercy confront john about at the end of the book, but put forth much more subtly and not phrased as an accusation -- he's baring his and mercy's vulnerabilities as bait, essentially. if john had, say, a conscience where his conscience should be instead of a black hole, it probably should have stirred something in him.

(also let me just say... the way augustine just takes a pneumatic drill to the TWO tender spots g1deon seems to have and then has the audacity to be like 'oh dear. did that upset him. ooof my bad *loooong dead-eyed slurp of his wine*' is just sooo... he's such a bitch!!! he's the only person who could ever have held their own in a ten-thousand-year bitch-off with mercy and I love him so much. well even if it wasn't all to get g1deon into murder range for harrow I think he wouldn't enjoy sticking around for the 'getting our tongues on god' part of the evening so maybe it's a kindness, really, and totally not pent-up aggression from the last twenty years or so breaking through)

he is all but shaking john by the lapels begging him to just... come clean about it already, to stop thinking he's still kidding everyone else along with himself. it's clear throughout the book that augustine knows exactly what john is at this point -- and all of the most cynical things he does say about it turn out to be distressingly right. john is always less sentimental than you'd think. john wouldn't forgive mercy, he will abandon in a heartbeat anything that isn’t necessary to him anymore, whether emotionally or in some other way. and still he seems to hold out some desperate absurd hope that the man he wants, the man he thought was there, is in there, somewhere deep deep down, if he just gives him the chance to show himself.

(mercy definitely has her own side of this whole thing, I'm just focusing more on augustine because this evening was like. his idea in the first place and I feel like we can Read Some Things into that fact lol. now that we have both ntn and htn to go from I sort of have this sense that the things augustine wants from john are more... personal? more interpersonal? they both love him equally, but mercy's love seems tinged slightly more towards the religious (augustine accuses her of knowing 'only worship without adoration', which like... also the eight house's entire Vibe lol) -- mercy at the end of that book is totally a person breaking up with GOD, not just with john -- while augustine's vibe is more like a man in the last not-with-a-bang-but-a-whimper days of a marriage that sort of felt like it could have been something real and good once but all your illusions about it have since been taken from you and trampled underfoot into the mud and you've had the divorce papers signed and ready in a drawer for over a year now, hell, as it turns out, is other people etc. lmao)

having a threesome over the dinner table with god is one thing, having a threesome over the dinner table centered on the one man and god who has yet again let you down in a way so fundamental it can barely fit into words and who you both still love in a way anyway, miserably, and also just reaffirmed your joint resolution to murder (all under the pretense that it gives your baby sisters the chance to murder your brother of ten thousand years yeah that's why this is happening no other underlying aching emotional motivations here haha)... listen mercy and augustine are simply on a different level, theologically. they've added horny shrimp colours to the religious spectrum. who else does it like them

[solarpunkani]

I think one interesting thing I’m grappling with in my quest to solarpunkify my life is how little control I have over what I can do in the stage of life I’m in now.

Like my ideal self would have a big, booming garden with dozens of food plants and bench seats and swings and a bunch of pollinator gardens in the front and backyard with a pond for wildlife. I can grow tons of food for neighbors and community initiatives, and host get togethers (bonus points if I have a fantastic colored-panel greenhouse like I’ve fantasized about before). I’d have solar panels wherever they’d fit, all kinds of lovely decorations, and live as green as possible. I’d eagerly give out seeds for pollinator friendly plants in one of those front yard seed boxes I’ve seen, maybe have a community fridge nearby as well. I’d be able to guerrilla garden and help with community initiatives, but still have free time to spend on myself, my art, my crafts. And a cat.

There’s plenty that gets in the way of that though. I don’t have a job, so I can’t have the big booming garden of my dreams. I live with my parents, and they don’t want the kind of lifestyle and decorations and such that I would. My mom doesn’t even like cats, or half the neighbors in the cul de sac. I can encourage and poke and prod my parents all I want, but at the end of the day its their house and what they want/can afford goes, and its not really what I want. Not to even mention that I’m shy, overall not very corageous, and more or less have no idea what I’m doing or how to navigate this world.

It’s definitely an interesting position to be in. And frustrating.

[demynom]

The thing about the ffvii remakes is that you will enjoy them more if you’ve played the original. You will also hate them more if you’ve played the original. It is impressive.

[sheryl-lee]

no because i just remembered a few extra things that make the teen wolf m*vie even more of a pathetic exercise in clownery:

allison staying Alive and getting back together w/ scott means that they’re doing a dan/serena in s3 of gossip girl (in that they are dating. while their parents are ALSO dating. ew. gross. what the fuckkkkk)

the age gap between malia and parrish is JUST as gross as when they tried to make lydia and parrish a thing in s5 and it’s disgusting and i hate parrish on the basis that he is an empty husk of a character who’s always Just There and Shirtless Whilst On Fire

speaking of, derek dies by setting himself on fire. FIRE. the same thing that killed HIS FUCKING FAMILY????? and he sets himself on fire in front of his own son which he would never do because he went through the same thing when he watched his family die???? 🥴 huh?????

isaac took the box that contained the nogitsune in it w/ him to like france or whatever. so how the fuck do liam and discount!kira have it with them in JAPAN????? 

the logistics of derek having a 15 yr old child is so ridiculously dumb like they didn’t even TRY with that it makes no sense and the only person who could be the mother is fucking kate argent (derek’s literal rapist) and i hate that so much

stiles would never leave the jeep behind. the jeep is the only thing he has left of his mother. why would he leave it in beacon hills and then never return to beacon hills. lmao.

in the s3 finale, the pack defeats the nogitsune with a WOLF BITE. because he “can’t be a fox and a wolf” (direct quote!). so how the fuck does the nogitsune come back and turn into a *squints* FOX WOLF HYBRID is this even real-

lydia said that her grandmother had banshee premonitions of her own gf dying, and even though she tried to prevent it, her gf died anyway. so how can lydia be 100% sure that if she breaks up with stiles, he still won’t die????? lmao

how are derek and scott both true alphas if there’s only 1 in like a 1000 years or whatever the fuck i forgot but. it’s still stupid

there’s probably more but yeah this is what happens when you can’t just leave well enough alone. let things end. not every piece of media needs a reboot revival requel sequel spinoff whatever. just let things go instead of sacrificing your fans and creativity for a soulless cash grab 🫥

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

Do you listen to music? And if you do what artists/genres/songs do you like? ^w^

music! yeah! that sure is a thing i listen to! um. i like a lot of it <3

[arospecsyourblockdudes]

I’d like to throw my two cents in on the “Tango dies needlessly curse” subject, and say I disagree. I don’t think it was pointless this time

Is it a trend that he dies in a silly and stupid manner? Yes. Is that the case this time? In a way. Scar just broke the floor from under him and let him drop.

But it was a death borne of revenge for an act of revenge for a violent task. Scar wanted the Heart Foundation dead, and he dedicated himself to making that happen. Are the consequences of the tasks pointless? Especially for Scar, where the tasks he was given left him alone and hated?

Tango also just…knew it was coming. He was a dead man walking, no matter the amount of gifted hearts. He could’ve gone on a rampage, frantically setting traps, rushing in to score kills, never being able to let down his guard because anything could kill him. Or he could do what he did, which was spend time with his allies, goof off with them, and follow the man he knew would kill him. I think he was at peace with it, because any other action would be to live paranoid and violent and reckless, and who wants to go out like that? Best to go out laughing and setting something on fire for the hell of it. Is that choice pointless?

[ekat-fandom-blog]

Team Phantom have joined the Teen Titans. Sam and Tucker are reserves because they're still learning to control their powers. Jazz is less a member and more a trusted adult who's been relegated the team mom and a go-between for the Titans and the JL/YJL if absolutely necessary.

While Jazz is teaching some of the members a few practical lessons that she picked up from her college dorm mate, some changes the channel on tv to the news causing a fight (because Cyborg was watching that!). Splitting them up was easy enough. Then the actual news caught their attention.

The Young Justice League was fighting a new magic user. This new magic user seemed to be losing pretty badly. As Jazz reached for the remote to find something both teens actually watching tv would enjoy, The Young Justice League disappeared.

Jazz called as many Justice League members as she could while Robin attempted to do the same, but neither could get ahold of anyone. So Bumblebee, Cyborg, and Tucker quickly start trying to hack the Justice League bases. They find that the Justice League was also on a mission to fight a few new magic users and disappeared just moments before the Young Justice team.

[tainted-esau]

Woa

[beepborpdoodledorp]

their relationship is the only thing I unironically care about anymore and Ruin can rip it from my cold dead hands