will never get over how in death in the family, bruce benched jason for his reckless behavior and bruce yelled at jason “you have to have you head screwed on right for this kind of work.” im like sir ur dressing as a bat and going out at night to fight crime like im gonna have to disagree with you there
There were eight other things Jason had yet to cross off his to-do list that day. For starters, he wanted coffee—and he did it. He made the effort to get up, take a shower—something he wasn’t particularly good at remembering to do, what with his depression—and change into clean clothes. The jeans Bruce intended to donate, the ones that happened to fit him rather nicely. A sturdy jacket. Matching socks. He went out at exactly 10:38 AM, crossed two streets headed north towards Newtown, and meandered west into and around the Giordano Botanical Gardens. After dissociating just long enough to avoid the sound of his own voice ordering a triple espresso, he acquired a cup of coffee.
Check.
The second on his list was marginally easier. 11:01. He turned south, towards Burnley District, and found the library crammed between a nondescript apartment building and a restaurant squashed under the weight of a million and one offices. The assistant greeted him by name when he walked in. Jason politely ignored the thinly veiled judgment when he walked out five minutes later with a random Agatha Christie, poorly paired with Anderson Cooper’s Astor.
Check.
Third. 11:17. He walked into a pole, and somehow, that reminded him that he’d intended to swing by the manor to take advantage of the decent weather and rooftop access. Since that felt like a long walk—roughly eleven miles, half an hour, partially without sidewalk—he instead opted to stroll first east, to the footpath hidden under the wide main road, and then southwest, towards the beach under the Schwartz Bypass.
Partial check.
It was jagged and dark, just like the rest of (aptly named) Gotham. The black sand, glassy in texture and incalculable in abundance, caked the frayed edges of Jason’s boots. Every step sank inches deep until he found the cobbled platform supporting a wrought iron bench looking out into Sprang River’s inky waters. It was an offshoot of Gotham River, albeit much smaller. The sewage treatment plant hid somewhere behind Arkham’s massive facade, painting the water with an iridescent sheen and tinging the air with the scent of chemical something.
11:20. His eyes glazed over the moment he sat down. Agatha Christie’s Death in the Clouds sucked him in faster than expected, and the world dissolved around him as he alternated hands: coffee, book, coffee, book, so on. Jason felt rather accomplished. Granted, little wins in the grand scheme of things, the fact that he managed to pull himself out of bed at all—not to mention, shower, get dressed, and interact with a person outside of his family—was more than he’d been capable of in literal weeks. It was for that reason that he allowed himself a break, so to speak.
He couldn’t recall what that fourth thing on his list had been, anyway.
He read until the sky bruised green, and then purple, and then dark—until the clouds whorled overhead and the scent of chemicals faded into something more pungent as the plant workers abandoned their jobs for the evening. It was the fetor that broke him from his spell first, and the sound of shuffling second.
6:59. Jason turned, the bench creaking under his weight as he shifted back and forth to follow the noise. Slowly but surely, like an old car refusing to start, his brain sputtered to life, and his lazy grasp on reality finally sharpened. A welcome change. Out of all the things he’d wanted to do that day, never mind what he’d actually accomplished, none of them came anywhere close to the thing rising from the vile depths of Sprang River.
Long, spindly legs, ending in frog-themed rain boots much too large for their wearer. Pleather skinny jeans solely apropos to the likes of Vince Neil. An orange raincoat, a Burger King crown, a tie knotted over a shirt with bedazzled lettering. Jason squinted at the text. It was a QR code.
They only noticed his eyes on their back after emptying a good five pounds of silt—and probably human waste, too, knowing Sprang River—out of their pockets. It met the sand with a wet, semi-solid thump, which appeared to confirm Jason’s momentary theory, and there was no backdrop to the sound of them struggling to rearrange the vinyl lining inside their inside-out pockets. It took them two full minutes to grasp the concept of a square, and three more for them to untangle their waterlogged clothes. The silence that pervaded afterwards hung thick in the air, just as palpable as the scent of sewage blanketing the stranger.
Jason blinked one eye at a time. The person opened their mouth, an explanation ready on their lips, and—
That was what he wanted to do today! Laundry!
Jason shot the person of indeterminate gender a nod of thanks for the reminder and quickly walked away. With any luck, Damian would have spare quarters for him.
help I had a thought the other day and I was like what if I drew realistic Hibiki and so I did and I also did Yrjö and I was going to do Xiyang but then I did Yrjö and fucked up really bad and I’m crying this is so funny (I’m only showing you guys my mistakes because I love you)
Hibiki came out semi fine but yrjö…why is he a model that’s not what I meant to do (also the eyes??? Idk it just happened okay this is what happens when you draw in pen) like if you look at any artwork of yrjö in my style you’ll see that he doesn’t look anything like himself but it’s okay because we live and we learn isn’t that right folks
I might do Xiyang too but idk yet that’s a question for another day…but if you have an constructive criticism I’m fine with it I don’t do realism often AKA it’s not my strong suit. Also since I was working from imagination that didn’t really help…I have okay portrait skills if I have a direct reference
hey gang. Yeah, I've been gone for a day, and a day it sure was. I am still going to be on hiatus for personal reasons, but I'm just checking in for now. I got into a bit of a mess the other day, but I promise I am okay. I'm just gonna start talking about things little things that have happened here and there if that's okay with yall.
I don't watch football, at least not the American football, but the halftime show for the superbowl was on while we were eating dinner last night. I think it's safe to say that my parents are very closeted racists and have said some not so great things throughout it that I won't go into detail with. Oh boy I love having a different opinion than my parents😐
Bringing back to a happier note, I recently remembered that I got new markers for Christmas, so I decided to try them out last night. I think I did a pretty good job :)
See, it might look like random colors there, but when you turn it black and white...
SHAZAM!
It just looks normal! Ain't that so cool :D??
Anyways, I hope you're all doing okay, and hopefully I will be back soon. Hasta le pasta!!
i feel like almost everything in utena has sort of already been extensively discussed in the last two (almost three) decades of utena's existence (not that there aren't new interpretations to be made, there always are) besides black rose arc (mikage+mamiya+tokiko). which is why they're so much fun to think about. i think the need to read between the lines makes it unfortunately easy to misunderstand or look past obvious stuff if you don't pay attention, but to me it's always been really obvious that mikage's arc is a literal representation of the erasure of queerness in ohtori (society?) by akio/everything he represents. and that's so fucking tragic! nemuro was never able to find a name for his desires. he lived and died as a puppet in the shadows.
One thing I will always lose my mind over is so many vegans being entirely anti zoos. For the love of everything please educate yourself about aza/eaza/waza zoos and the good they do for animal wellfare and conservation.
Are there a shit ton of horrible zoos? Yes. Should those zoos exist? No.
But actual good waza accredited zoos and facilities have done so much good for animal wellfare and have brought several species back from the brink of extinction in the wild.
Do I and also many many zookeepers in those facilities wish they didn't have to exist? Hell yeah, the end goal should be for zoos to not be necessary. But with how the world currently is and the way humans are negatively impacting virtually every habitat on earth it's just not realistic.
This simply isn't a black and white issue like many want it to be.
Would it be incredible for every wild animal to just be able to live an incredible life in the wild? Fuck yeah! It just isn't possible atm.
Also there is like a world of difference between for example the San Diego zoo and some kind of roadside zoo, which offers encounters with baby animals.
