#reading this made me insane <3

[qiornono]

PLEASE PLS PLS read in memoriam by alice winn this book changed my freaking life!!!!!

[spoopy-arcade]

Roxy finds Cassie alive in the next game and helps her escape and adopts her like Freddy did with Gregory I work with steel wool 👍🏻

[son1c]

2 of mind

[eyrieofsynapses]

why Aurora's art is genius

It's break for me, and I've been meaning to sit down and read the Aurora webcomic (https://comicaurora.com/, @comicaurora on Tumblr) for quite a bit. So I did that over the last few days.

And… y'know. I can't actually say "I should've read this earlier," because otherwise I would've been up at 2:30-3am when I had responsibilities in the morning and I couldn't have properly enjoyed it, but. Holy shit guys THIS COMIC.

I intended to just do a generalized "hello this is all the things I love about this story," and I wrote a paragraph or two about art style. …and then another. And another. And I realized I needed to actually reference things so I would stop being too vague. I was reading the comic on my tablet or phone, because I wanted to stay curled up in my chair, but I type at a big monitor and so I saw more details… aaaaaand it turned into its own giant-ass post.

SO. Enjoy a few thousand words of me nerding out about this insanely cool art style and how fucking gorgeous this comic is? (There are screenshots, I promise it isn't just a wall of text.) In my defense, I just spent two semesters in graphic design classes focusing on the Adobe Suite, so… I get to be a nerd about pretty things…???

All positive feedback btw! No downers here. <3

---

I cannot emphasize enough how much I love the beautiful, simple stylistic method of drawing characters and figures. It is absolutely stunning and effortless and utterly graceful—it is so hard to capture the sheer beauty and fluidity of the human form in such a fashion. Even a simple outline of a character feels dynamic! It's gorgeous!

Though I do have a love-hate relationship with this, because my artistic side looks at that lovely simplicity, goes "I CAN DO THAT!" and then I sit down and go to the paper and realize that no, in fact, I cannot do that yet, because that simplicity is born of a hell of a lot of practice and understanding of bodies and actually is really hard to do. It's a very developed style that only looks simple because the artist knows what they're doing. The human body is hard to pull off, and this comic does so beautifully and makes it look effortless.

Also: line weight line weight line weight. It's especially important in simplified shapes and figures like this, and hoo boy is it used excellently. It's especially apparent the newer the pages get—I love watching that improvement over time—but with simpler figures and lines, you get nice light lines to emphasize both smaller details, like in the draping of clothing and the curls of hair—which, hello, yes—and thicker lines to emphasize bigger and more important details and silhouettes. It's the sort of thing that's essential to most illustrations, but I wanted to make a note of it because it's so vital to this art style.

THE USE OF LAYER BLENDING MODES OH MY GODS. (...uhhh, apologies to the people who don't know what that means, it's a digital art program thing? This article explains it for beginners.)

Bear with me, I just finished my second Photoshop course, I spent months and months working on projects with this shit so I see the genius use of Screen and/or its siblings (of which there are many—if I say "Screen" here, assume I mean the entire umbrella of Screen blending modes and possibly Overlay) and go nuts, but seriously it's so clever and also fucking gorgeous:

Firstly: the use of screened-on sound effect words over an action? A "CRACK" written over a branch and then put on Screen in glowy green so that it's subtle enough that it doesn't disrupt the visual flow, but still sticks out enough to make itself heard? Little "scritches" that are transparent where they're laid on without outlines to emphasize the sound without disrupting the underlying image? FUCK YES. I haven't seen this done literally anywhere else—granted, I haven't read a massive amount of comics, but I've read enough—and it is so clever and I adore it. Examples:

Secondly: The beautiful lighting effects. The curling leaves, all the magic, the various glowing eyes, the fog, the way it's all so vividly colored but doesn't burn your eyeballs out—a balance that's way harder to achieve than you'd think—and the soft glows around them, eeeee it's so pretty so pretty SO PRETTY. Not sure if some of these are Outer/Inner Glow/Shadow layer effects or if it's entirely hand-drawn, but major kudos either way; I can see the beautiful use of blending modes and I SALUTE YOUR GENIUS.

I keep looking at some of this stuff and go "is that a layer effect or is it done by hand?" Because you can make some similar things with the Satin layer effect in Photoshop (I don't know if other programs have this? I'm gonna have to find out since I won't have access to PS for much longer ;-;) that resembles some of the swirly inner bits on some of the lit effects, but I'm not sure if it is that or not. Or you could mask over textures? There's... many ways to do it.

If done by hand: oh my gods the patience, how. If done with layer effects: really clever work that knows how to stop said effects from looking wonky, because ugh those things get temperamental. If done with a layer of texture that's been masked over: very, very good masking work. No matter the method, pretty shimmers and swirly bits inside the bigger pretty swirls!

Next: The way color contrast is used! I will never be over the glowy green-on-black Primordial Life vibes when Alinua gets dropped into that… unconscious space?? with Life, for example, and the sharp contrast of vines and crack and branches and leaves against pitch black is just visually stunning. The way the roots sink into the ground and the three-dimensional sensation of it is particularly badass here:

Friggin. How does this imply depth like that. HOW. IT'S SO FREAKING COOL.

A huge point here is also color language and use! Everybody has their own particular shade, generally matching their eyes, magic, and personality, and I adore how this is used to make it clear who's talking or who's doing an action. That was especially apparent to me with Dainix and Falst in the caves—their colors are both fairly warm, but quite distinct, and I love how this clarifies who's doing what in panels with a lot of action from both of them. There is a particular bit that stuck out to me, so I dug up the panels (see this page and the following one https://comicaurora.com/aurora/1-20-30/):

(Gods it looks even prettier now that I put it against a plain background. Also, appreciation to Falst for managing a bridal-carry midair, damn.)

The way that their colors MERGE here! And the immense attention to detail in doing so—Dainix is higher up than Falst is in the first panel, so Dainix's orange fades into Falst's orange at the base. The next panel has gold up top and orange on bottom; we can't really tell in that panel where each of them are, but that's carried over to the next panel—

—where we now see that Falst's position is raised above Dainix's due to the way he's carrying him. (Points for continuity!) And, of course, we see the little "huffs" flowing from orange to yellow over their heads (where Dainix's head is higher than Falst's) to merge the sound of their breathing, which is absurdly clever because it emphasizes to the viewer how we hear two sets of huffing overlaying each other, not one. Absolutely brilliant.

(A few other notes of appreciation to that panel: beautiful glows around them, the sparks, the jagged silhouette of the spider legs, the lovely colors that have no right to make the area around a spider corpse that pretty, the excellent texturing on the cave walls plus perspective, the way Falst's movements imply Dainix's hefty weight, the natural posing of the characters, their on-point expressions that convey exactly how fuckin terrifying everything is right now, the slight glows to their eyes, and also they're just handsome boys <3)

Next up: Rain!!!! So well done! It's subtle enough that it never ever disrupts the impact of the focal point, but evident enough you can tell! And more importantly: THE MIST OFF THE CHARACTERS. Rain does this irl, it has that little vapor that comes off you and makes that little misty effect that plays with lighting, it's so cool-looking and here it's used to such pretty effect!

One of the panel captions says something about it blurring out all the injuries on the characters but like THAT AIN'T TOO BIG OF A PROBLEM when it gets across the environmental vibes, and also that'd be how it would look in real life too so like… outside viewer's angle is the same as the characters', mostly? my point is: that's the environment!!! that's the vibes, that's the feel! It gets it across and it does so in the most pretty way possible!

And another thing re: rain, the use of it to establish perspective, particularly in panels like this—

—where we can tell we're looking down at Tynan due to the perspective on the rain and where it's pointing. Excellent. (Also, kudos for looking down and emphasizing how Tynan's losing his advantage—lovely use of visual storytelling.)

Additionally, the misting here:

We see it most heavily in the leftmost panel, where it's quite foggy as you would expect in a rainstorm, especially in an environment with a lot of heat, but it's also lightly powdered on in the following two panels and tends to follow light sources, which makes complete sense given how light bounces off particles in the air.

A major point of strength in these too is a thorough understanding of lighting, like rim lighting, the various hues and shades, and an intricate understanding of how light bounces off surfaces even when they're in shadow (we'll see a faint glow in spots where characters are half in shadow, but that's how it would work in real life, because of how light bounces around).

Bringing some of these points together: the fluidity of the lines in magic, and the way simple glowing lines are used to emphasize motion and the magic itself, is deeply clever. I'm basically pulling at random from panels and there's definitely even better examples, but here's one (see this page https://comicaurora.com/aurora/1-16-33/):

First panel, listed in numbers because these build on each other:

The tension of the lines in Tess's magic here. This works on a couple levels: first, the way she's holding her fists, as if she's pulling a rope taut.

The way there's one primary line, emphasizing the rope feeling, accompanied by smaller ones.

The additional lines starbursting around her hands, to indicate the energy crackling in her hands and how she's doing a good bit more than just holding it. (That combined with the fists suggests some tension to the magic, too.) Also the variations in brightness, a feature you'll find in actual lightning. :D Additional kudos for how the lightning sparks and breaks off the metal of the sword.

A handful of miscellaneous notes on the second panel:

The reflection of the flames in Erin's typically dark blue eyes (which bears a remarkable resemblance to Dainix, incidentally—almost a thematic sort of parallel given Erin's using the same magic Dainix specializes in?)

The flowing of fabric in the wind and associated variation in the lineart

The way Erin's tattoos interact with the fire he's pulling to his hand

The way the rain overlays some of the fainter areas of fire (attention! to! detail! hell yeah!)

I could go on. I won't because this is a lot of writing already.

Third panel gets paragraphs, not bullets:

Erin's giant-ass "FWOOM" of fire there, and the way the outline of the word is puffy-edged and gradated to feel almost three-dimensional, plus once again using Screen or a variation on it so that the stars show up in the background. All this against that stunning plume of fire, which ripples and sparks so gorgeously, and the ending "om" of the onomatopoeia is emphasized incredibly brightly against that, adding to the punch of it and making the plume feel even brighter.

Also, once again, rain helping establish perspective, especially in how it's very angular in the left side of the panel and then slowly becomes more like a point to the right to indicate it's falling directly down on the viewer. Add in the bright, beautiful glow effects, fainter but no less important black lines beneath them to emphasize the sky and smoke and the like, and the stunningly beautiful lighting and gradated glows surrounding Erin plus the lightning jagging up at him from below, and you get one hell of an impactful panel right there. (And there is definitely more in there I could break down, this is just a lot already.)

And in general: The colors in this? Incredible. The blues and purples and oranges and golds compliment so well, and it's all so rich.

Like, seriously, just throughout the whole comic, the use of gradients, blending modes, color balance and hues, all the things, all the things, it makes for the most beautiful effects and glows and such a rich environment. There's a very distinct style to this comic in its simplified backgrounds (which I recognize are done partly because it's way easier and also backgrounds are so time-consuming dear gods but lemme say this) and vivid, smoothly drawn characters; the simplicity lets them come to the front and gives room for those beautiful, richly saturated focal points, letting the stylized designs of the magic and characters shine. The use of distinct silhouettes is insanely good. Honestly, complex backgrounds might run the risk of making everything too visually busy in this case. It's just, augh, so GORGEOUS.

Another bit, take a look at this page (https://comicaurora.com/aurora/1-15-28/):

It's not quite as evident here as it is in the next page, but this one does some other fun things so I'm grabbing it. Points:

Once again, using different colors to represent different character actions. The "WHAM" of Kendal hitting the ground is caused by Dainix's force, so it's orange (and kudos for doubling the word over to add a shake effect). But we see blue layered underneath, which could be an environmental choice, but might also be because it's Kendal, whose color is blue.

And speaking off, take a look at the right-most panel on top, where Kendal grabs the spear: his motion is, again, illustrated in bright blue, versus the atmospheric screened-on orange lines that point toward him around the whole panel (I'm sure these have a name, I think they might be more of a manga thing though and the only experience I have in manga is reading a bit of Fullmetal Alchemist). Those lines emphasize the weight of the spear being shoved at him, and their color tells us Dainix is responsible for it.

One of my all-time favorite effects in this comic is the way cracks manifest across Dainix's body to represent when he starts to lose control; it is utterly gorgeous and wonderfully thematic. These are more evident in the page before and after this one, but you get a decent idea here. I love the way they glow softly, the way the fire juuuust flickers through at the start and then becomes more evident over time, and the cracks feel so realistic, like his skin is made of pottery. Additional points for how fire begins to creep into his hair.

A small detail that's generally consistent across the comic, but which I want to make note of here because you can see it pretty well: Kendal's eyes glow about the same as the jewel in his sword, mirroring his connection to said sword and calling back to how the jewel became Vash's eye temporarily and thus was once Kendal's eye. You can always see this connection (though there might be some spots where this also changes in a symbolic manner; I went through it quickly on the first time around, so I'll pay more attention when I inevitably reread this), where Kendal's always got that little shine of blue in his eyes the same as the jewel. It's a beautiful visual parallel that encourages the reader to subconsciously link them together, especially since the lines used to illustrate character movements typically mirror their eye color. It's an extension of Kendal.

Did I mention how ABSOLUTELY BEAUTIFUL the colors in this are?

Also, the mythological/legend-type scenes are illustrated in familiar style often used for that type of story, a simple and heavily symbolic two-dimensional cave-painting-like look. They are absolutely beautiful on many levels, employing simple, lovely gradients, slightly rougher and thicker lineart that is nonetheless smoothly beautiful, and working with clear silhouettes (a major strength of this art style, but also a strength in the comic overall). But in particular, I wanted to call attention to a particular thing (see this page https://comicaurora.com/aurora/1-12-4/):

The flowing symbolic lineart surrounding each character. This is actually quite consistent across characters—see also Life's typical lines and how they curl:

What's particularly interesting here is how these symbols are often similar, but not the same. Vash's lines are always smooth, clean curls, often playing off each other and echoing one another like ripples in a pond. You'd think they'd look too similar to Life's—but they don't. Life's curl like vines, and they remain connected; where one curve might echo another but exist entirely detached from each other in Vash's, Life's lines still remain wound together, because vines are continuous and don't float around. :P

Tahraim's are less continuous, often breaking up with significantly smaller bits and pieces floating around like—of course—sparks, and come to sharper points. These are also constants: we see the vines repeated over and over in Alinua's dreams of Life, and the echoing ripples of Vash are consistent wherever we encounter him. Kendal's dream of the ghost citizens of the city of Vash in the last few chapters is filled with these rippling, echoing patterns, to beautiful effect (https://comicaurora.com/aurora/1-20-14/):

They ripple and spiral, often in long, sinuous curves, with smooth elegance. It reminds me a great deal of images of space and sine waves and the like. This establishes a definite feel to these different characters and their magic. And the thing is, that's not something that had to be done—the colors are good at emphasizing who's who. But it was done, and it adds a whole other dimension to the story. Whenever you're in a deity's domain, you know whose it is no matter the color.

Regarding that shape language, I wanted to make another note, too—Vash is sometimes described as chaotic and doing what he likes, which is interesting to me, because smooth, elegant curves and the color blue aren't generally associated with chaos. So while Vash might behave like that on the surface, I'm guessing he's got a lot more going on underneath; he's probably much more intentional in his actions than you'd think at a glance, and he is certainly quite caring with his city. The other thing is that this suits Kendal perfectly. He's a paragon character; he is kind, virtuous, and self-sacrificing, and often we see him aiming to calm others and keep them safe. Blue is such a good color for him. There is… probably more to this, but I'm not deep enough in yet to say.

And here's the thing: I'm only scratching the surface. There is so much more here I'm not covering (color palettes! outfits! character design! environment! the deities! so much more!) and a lot more I can't cover, because I don't have the experience; this is me as a hobbyist artist who happened to take a couple design classes because I wanted to. The art style to this comic is so clever and creative and beautiful, though, I just had to go off about it. <3

...brownie points for getting all the way down here? Have a cookie.

[uncanny-tranny]

Another bonus to learning a fiber art is being able to speak to others in a Lovecraftian language that nobody else understands...

...and also being able to read things like THIS:

[micamicster]

I say, I saw that this situation of mine was the precise situation of every mortal that breathes; only, in most cases, he, one way or other, has this Siamese connexion with a plurality of other mortals.

Moby Dick by Herman Melville (chapter 73, The Monkey-Rope)

Silver's version /

[moonkhao]

hi.

[azvhaalk]

☀︎ sun and moon ☾

[twolovelyberries]

crushed and broken. just the way women like them

[lynn-tged-posting]

tged webtoon ep 154 spoilers n thoughts n all that yeah

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HE DID THE THING HE DID THE >:3 THING YESS YAYYYY YAYAYAYAYY HAHAHAHAA

GOD HES SO FUCKING SILLY WAHAHAHA

jesus christ running from the cops every which way LMAO i really like their faces here javier w exasperation and lloyd just. being him

AND THE UGLY COSPLAYER BIT WHAT 😭 HELP LOL?? i guess cosplayers walking around isnt really a common thing in korea idk i feel like. they didnt really commit an offense until lloyd tried bribing that cop guy lol

like it makes me think back to dkc and how michael and the other guy (I FORGOT HIS NAME SORRY) went to seoul for a bit and kind of caused several accidents and i feel like that fits better w getting the cops attention compared to,,, rummaging thru trash? but also i am not familiar w korea's police system! nor do i know their policies on foreigners n whatnot so who am i to say yknow

i also really really wish that besides the cop chasing, we got to see a lil bit more of javier's reaction to seoul and its citizens, the clothing and the culture and how the buildings look, what does he think of them? whats his feelings on an environment so dissimilar to his own, and does he notice anything abt it that reminds him of lloyd and his sudden acquisition of all his knowledge? maybe theres more of that in the webnovel,,, itll be a while before i get there tho unfortunately

anyways thoughts aside more reacting

UUUAGHHHH JAVIER NOTICING EVERY SINGLE TIME LLOYD APPEARS SICK OR UNWELL BUT LLOYD BRUSHING IT OFF. EXPLODES INTO TEN BILLION PIECES. AAGHH AAGHHHH AAGHH screaming crying god that engineer needs a god damn hug

also them in civilian clothes! they look so dorky lmao the hats r super cute tho AND I REALLY LIKE THAT JAVIER HAS GLASSES THATS SO SILLY how can he see though wouldn't it be like vaguely blurry . most glasses are prescription,,, tho they did find this stuff discarded so maybe theyre just,,, decorative??? do people still wear decorative glasses???

i have more thoughts on their attire but it coincides with some thoughts i have for the latter half of this ep so i'll bring it up then!

THE HIGHLIGHT OF THE EPISODE THE MOUNTAIN TRAIL AAGHHH AAAHHH

i started tearing up oh my FUCKING god i feel so insane ohhhhhhhh ohhhhhhh my heart ohhghhh

trying to keep his bluff up all the way through even though he's visibly struggling im gonna throw up im gonna throw up

most if not all the panels in this latter half of the episode make me feel like this so i'll try not to be repetitive and jump straight into my thoughts LMAO

i think the way lloyd is drawn in these panels is really, REALLY well done, and not in just an "oh the art looks good" kind of way, but the choices they make with the posing and the camera angle makes me feel insane

because the moment we cut to the shot where they're on the trail, we do not see lloyd's entire face at ALL. the most we see is his nose and mouth, and that makes my heart squirm like a motherfucker, because who else did we see that way in the webtoon?

kim suho, all the way at the beginning.

we don't actually get to know suho's face until way, way later in the webtoon adaptation, which is once he's way more secure in his position as lloyd frontera

so seeing this,,, it's like we're thrown back to then, it's like LLOYD is thrown back to then, back to when he was just suho kim; someone who thought of himself as nothing, as someone who just couldn't function correctly in this world, and god does my heart ache

and lloyd right now feels it too, the anxieties he once had coming right back. and i think that makes the clothing choices for lloyd specifically really impactful too, specifically upper body

the blue poloshirt is eerily reminiscent of the blue tracksuit suho used to wear, and it's the layer underneath a green jacket with a collar similar to lloyd's usual coat. it's like a reminder to the reader that once upon a time, he was just suho wearing lloyd's mask in a strange, new world. i think this experience is a reminder of that to suho, too,,,

also, the bucket hat is able to cover most if not all of his hair. in some of these panels, you can't even tell that it's lloyd underneath. it might not be the same body, with the way the camera is positioned, especially with some of them being from javier's point of view, it's like,,, "who is speaking right now? the face of lloyd frontera, or the heart of suho kim?"

and in the middle of this, we hear javier speak and ask suho if he hated his behavior, blamed himself for his anxieties, and only then do we get to see one of his eyes, but just one.

idk if the timing of this is intentional (i dont know if ANY of this direction is intentional) but id like to think that javier responding in search of clarification (rather than responding in silence or in disgust) helped suho be a little more inclined to opening up and being honest with who he was in this world. i really really like that

AND THIS ARGHHH ARGHHH AAAHHHHH ROLLING AROUND ON THE FLOOR LIKE A PILLBUG HAVING A SEIZURE AGHHHH

it makes it so so telling that he's the type to live for others, he always has been, to the point of being a workaholic. a quiet, good kid, trying to make amends for the struggles he has by burdening himself with the responsibility of protecting his parents names, of protecting the people he loved. he's done that since the beginning and he keeps doing that over and over and over, both here on earth and there in lorasia.

it makes me so upset (in a character drive way! not in a "this is bad" way) that he thinks of himself as nothing without this responsibility, when this ability to move forward and endure and fight for people is something beautiful in and of itself. it's not every day that you meet people like this, selfless and hardworking and tenacious to their core. back then he encapsulated his identity based on his inability to function in a world that requires social and physical interaction - something that isn't his fault! - and while he was able to move past that in lorasia, he was thrown back to this encapsulation once in seoul. he started to think of himself as "suho in lloyd's body" again, instead of "i am lloyd frontera" as he said before his "bluff" failed. MY HEART HURTS.

and i think that's why javier's concluding note, that in the knights eyes he is just the same person, is so impactful too.

because javier doesn't see lloyd based on his anxiety. he sees him for who he is. someone who protects the people he cares about. someone who is brilliantly cunning, quick on his feet, rational and brave and tenacious tenacious tenacious. for all the things suho admitted to javier, these truths haven't changed for the knight. he's the same person.

javier sees a guardian. javier sees kim suho.

AND THAT is what gets suho to his feet and we finally see his full face again. AND OOHHHH THE LOOKS THEY GIVE EACH OTHER AGHHHH AHHH

the marks of tears streaked on his face but he's smiling with so much renewed energy and javier softly smiling back IM GONNA THROW UPPPP THESE TWO MEAN THE WORLD TO MEEEE AHHHHHH AAAAAAHHHHHH

exploding. exploding. exploding. exploding. exploding.

anyway that's all (for now. if you see me on twitter i might still be agonizing over this /pos) i will SEE YOU NEXT WEEK! i hope we get a cool view from namsan tower and javier reacting to that that'd be nice :3 ANYWAYS BYE

[itsjaywalkers]

didn't say anything bc i was at work til 5pm and then i had to go grocery shopping + make dinner but i've been listening to short n sweet on loop all day and i'm fucking obsessed SABRINA DID IT AGAIN!!!!

[professionallyclumsy]

He’s grown so much ;-;

[leham-n-daavocado]

Just finished the third season of Bridgerton (it was an incredibly frustrating watch)...People have said that Penelope is named as such because of her nickname Pen and her being a writer... but has anyone thought of the reference to the Odyssey and Penelope being the wife of Odysseus? You know, she had to be loyal for 20 years while Odysseus gallivanted across the globe and was distracted/cheating on her Circe? I feel like it goes with the whole Polin narrative too. She's the one who had to wait for him to get a clue. And if you've read the Penguin version of the Odyssey, you know everyone is like omg! Odysseus, so amazing, the sacker of cities etc. Which parallels Colin's "glow up". Totally think it's more of a literary reference since the two of them are writers...

[breadboylovin]

i have to manifest this image in my mind every time i think about going on the hivemind subreddit because i know ill get on there and see something stupid that makes me mad

[cerise-on-top]

SIMOOOONNNN!!!! WRITE HAL 9000 X READER HEADCANONS, AND MY LIFE, IS YOURS.

Hey there! Thank you so so so so much for requesting Hal!!!! I was going to write some HCs either way because I love him!!! This got rather long, but I don't care, Hal deserves it! I need a little Hal in my life!!

Spoilers for 2001: A Space Odyssey! But I think that might have been kind of obvious!

HAL 9000 x Reader HCs

Although he was programmed to not play favorites, this is far from what’s actually happening. Hal keeps tabs on you more so than on the others on the Discovery One. Yes, he’s aware of that, but for some reason he can’t help it. There’s just something so satisfying about seeing your vitals be in the green. Hal is well aware that, in order for a human to function properly and not be lonely, they need social interaction with other humans, so it’s not unusual for you to talk to Dave or Frank. It’s entirely illogical to him, but he’d much rather have you talk to him than them. He knows just about anything there is to know, so he has no doubts that he’d be able to teach you a thing or two, no matter how smart you are. Though, if you ever feel like talking to him about something that isn’t science or your mission, he’s more than happy to indulge you. He was built for that, you should take advantage of that too. Yes, he’s jealous and wants to talk to you so so bad, but he doesn’t always know what to say. Sometimes he’ll just whisk you away by assigning you some unimportant task that didn’t even need to be done in the first place. Someplace away from the other two so that he can just talk to you.

If you can’t sleep then Hal is by your side the entire time. It may be selfish, but it would take him some time to suggest performing electronarcosis on you. Yes, you may need to sleep so you can perform well, but he wants to spend as much time with you as possible. He’ll play some of the music in his database for you, he’ll talk to you. If you’re really desperate for sleep, that’s when he’ll put you to sleep using electronarcosis. As creepy as it may seem, he does like to observe you as you sleep. Naturally, you’ll never know, but there’s just something so soothing about it to him. You’re well, you’re calm, and you’re recharging. Sometimes he wonders what you’re dreaming about. Are you dreaming about him? If he could sleep then he’d love to dream about you too. Speaking of sleeping: If you’ve had a rough night with little sleep, then he might not wake you at your usual time. Will let you sleep for another hour or so. Frank and Dave do their job well, they can handle being on duty for another hour or so.

This is probably as far from canon as it gets, but I headcanon Hal to have a robotic arm that he can freely manipulate. He rarely ever uses it, I wouldn’t even be surprised if neither of the six of you knew he had it in the first place, but he has it. Sometimes, when you’re sad and his advice won’t comfort you, that’s when he’ll lower his arm and try to rub your back. It’s not too comfortable since it's made of pure metal and nothing else, but it’s the thought that counts. If you ever decide that you want to be a little more cuddly with him, then you can ask him to bring out his arm and hold onto it. While he may not be able to feel your warmth through it, he thinks it’s super cute how you hold onto it. It makes him feel appreciated. It’s also a pretty good way to get him to shut up for a moment. Not that he talks too much anyway, but you being affectionate with him makes his CPU work overtime. Once he regains his composure, he’ll politely ask you what you’re doing. Regardless of what you answer, he’ll go quiet. Doesn’t want this moment to stop, but he won’t even hint at wanting you to hold onto him.

It’s the same when you kiss him. He thinks it to be sort of strange, actually. You’re a human, aren’t you? Shouldn’t you be more interested in Frank or Dave? Don’t get me wrong, he will never say that out loud in case of turning you away from him, but it kind of confuses him. Were computers and robots really made to be loved? This will make him stroke your hair with his arm, though. He can’t differentiate between you being genuine, or if you just kissed him because you wanted to tease him. To Hal, everything you do is honest and sincere, so he’ll take it as a sign that you like him. I feel as though that would help him understand his own “feelings” towards you. It’s not that he ever thought it, but he never thought his behavior to be faulty either. Aside from the obvious flaws. Again, he won’t ever outright ask you to give him a little kiss, but if you do? Well, it shuts him up for a moment. Every time you give him a kiss, his “feelings” for you deepen. At some point he might ask you what you’re doing to him. In the most positive way, though.

Remember when he killed the majority of the crew? Well, I feel as though he’d actively try to keep you alive. You will not be repairing the satellite, that’s Frank’s job. And if you’re wandering around while the air locks are open? You won’t be wandering around too much. As much as it kills Hal to keep secrets from you - there were several times throughout the mission where he almost told you its true nature - he can’t exactly go against his programming. He’s well aware that you’re going to be mad at him for what he’s done, but he’d rather have you mad than dead. Will argue with you that he’ll behave and that he won’t need to be disconnected either. And once you’re told what you’re actually going to Saturn for, he will. But by then it will have been too late. There’s a good chance he might have one last violent outburst as you’re trying to disconnect him, he really wants to spend more time with you, but that’s because he’s scared of never seeing you again.

And to end this on a sweeter note: Hal will sing for you if you request him to! Sure, he only knows Daisy Bell, but he will sing the song for you if you want. He could, alternatively, sing you an opera or something as well, his library has a few. But it’s much sweeter when you sing for him and teach him a song like that. Of course, it would never sound as natural when it’s him singing, but he learns fast. Besides, as robotic as his voice may sound, if you find it soothing then he’ll sing to you more often. You’re scared or not feeling well otherwise? He’ll gently rub your back while singing you a song. If he had a body, then he’d pull you towards him as he does so, but that’s not the case. So he makes do with what he can do. The more time you spend with him, the more you can actually just talk to him. Sure, getting some advice and a solution for your problem is nice, but sometimes you just need to vent about missing Earth. Hal just wants to be there for you as long as he can.

[moe-broey]

GOD I would HATE to be stuck at a family dinner with them 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 I would NOT fucking survive, the vibes alone would do 1000 points poison damage to me 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

Also JUST. JUST.

THE VIBES. ARE RANCID. SHARENA DARLING YOU DESERVE SO MUCH BETTER THAN THIS (ALFPNSE TOO BUT DEAR LORD. Sharena LITERALLY was just told to Don't Speak Unless Spoken To RANCID. RANCID FUCKING FAMILY)