#crimsonscloud

[nicktoonsunite]

the way i squealed when you posted i love your art so muchhhh. your designs are so very Gender to me (esp danny) and they just make me really happy

thank you so much! whenever people tell me what they like about my designs it always makes me so happy :')

[four-strangers-one-goal]

"I have an idea, but you're not going to like it." madison & ethan

Ethan takes a long, controlled breath in through his nose, holds it for exactly three seconds, and then pushes the air out through his steepled fingers.

His therapist would be so impressed.

"How is it..." he starts, rubbing his forehead in exasperation at the sight before him, "...that every time you get in over your head on a case, Sam calls me to drag you out of it?"

"He knows that you're the responsible one," Madison responds with a shrug, looking far too comfortable for someone hog-tied to a chair with frilly, pink panties.

"How does he even have my number?" Ethan mutters as he starts to tug at the lingerie restraints, and then slaps a hand over Madison's smug grin before she can answer him, "Do not-- Seriously, Mads, how many serial killers is it now? Five? Six?"

"Eight, actually. But this one's my first girl," she tells him the moment she's free, practically giddy as she rubs the circulation back into her wrists.

"Good to know that you switch it up sometimes," Ethan sighs, and then groans at his accidental innuendo, resigning himself to his fate.

Madison has the gull to waggle her eyebrows. They're in a torture chamber, there are literal bone saws hanging on the wall, and Madison Paige is waggling her eyebrows at him like she's a god damn four year old.

"I'm flexible like that," she cackles.

This woman is his best friend.

"Alright. So we just need to do is get up the six flights of stairs, past the guards, get around the five flesh-eating dogs, somehow catch the ridiculously attractive, cannibalistic college co-ed in the act of eating a mathlete, and then convince Sam to not make me take mandated leave after taking down an actual cult," Madison rambles as she rolls her shoulders, staring at the door as she attempts to sike herself up for what she knows is to come. "Should be easy."

Ethan punches her arm, "Someone with your life should not be playing chicken with Murphy's Law like that."

"Murphy's a bitch. I'll fight him back behind a Denny's if I thought he was man enough to show up," she swings right back at him, and then raises a sudden, expecting eyebrow.

"...What?"

"Well?"

"Well, what?"

"You got any thoughts about how we're gonna do that?"

"Why am I the one making the plans here? This is your mess!"

"Ethan, do you seriously think that I came in here with a plan?'"

"...Fair enough," he concedes. Quickly, he takes an inventory of all of the things he'd seen on his way in, and swears loudly when his brain comes up with the dumbest thought in the history of the planet, "I have an idea."

"Oh, good."

"But you're not gonna like it."

"Does it involve either of us getting eaten by a red head in go-go boots?"

"No."

"Then I'm gonna like it."

Ethan takes another breath, steadying himself before saying, "So you know that maid uniform that was on the banister by the door?"

"...I don't like this plan anymore."

"I told you that you wouldn't--" he cries, arms flailing in indignation. Ethan actually stomps his foot in frustration before gripping her shoulders firmly with his remaining fingers and pressing his forehead against hers, "Look. You trust me, right?"

"Of course, I do," Madison says without a second of hesitation, like it was never even a question and god, he fucking loves her.

"Then trust me on this. It's going to work."

Madison blinks, long and slow and catlike. For a single moment, they breathe as one, beat as one, exist as a single spirit forged bright against the storm. Ethan thinks about broken tether he once shared with Scott Shelby, about the rain-water gray stump at the end of his soul that had been severed and cauterized by the heat of the bullet he'd shoved through the man's black heart. And not for the first time, he looks at Madison Paige and knows that despite Scott's attempts to prove otherwise that she's his soulmate, the true answer that his phantom limb seeks out whenever he's alone in the dark.

"Okay," she whispers, nodding against his skin, her hands clutched tight in the earthen green fabric of his sweater. And then, again, "Okay."

"Okay?" Ethan responds with a third.

"Okay," Madison sighs one last time. When she pulls back, her mouth twitches into a confident, knowing smirk, "But, you owe me two back massages for this."

"I'm the one that's saving your ass here, Mads. I don't owe you a damn thing."

"Three massages. And a mani-pedi. Because you like my ass."

"I've seen better asses."

"You'd literally save my ass for free."

"I should be saving your ass for free," he grumbles, and then turns to face the door. "Alright. Maid outfit. Stairs. Guards. Flesh-eating dogs. Cannibal co-ed in go-go boots. Let's do this."

"Let's do this," Madison repeats, and then slams her heel into the wood above the doorknob, knocking the wood off it's hinges and charging forward with all the subtly of a flying bull.

Ethan can't help but laugh, because somehow this is only going to be the third most ridiculous thing he's done today.

---

"Wait... Why are you getting naked?"

"What? You thought that you were the one that was gonna wear the maid costume?"

"Ethan?"

"Yes, Mads?"

"Next time? Lead with that."

[choraa]

new follower here and your art is AMAZING i love it so much. i’m so glad i wandered into the jimmy neutron tag and discovered it

Thank you so much for following and for the support!

[acelestialcraze]

got anyyyyyy. lamplighter headcanons that aren't spoilers for your fic, or are they all to some degree spoilery?

Yeah! I had to check my notes app really quick because that’s where I keep everything and yada yada it’s a total dumpster fire but I did find them. These aren’t entirely specific to the fic but they do apply to the fic itself.

- Lamplighter stuck out to me because there’s two ways you could look at this character, the more positive light being that he genuinely did want to be a hero and make things right after his worldview was altered by The Incident™️ and waited on Mallory to come find him and be the one to kill him, or the negative one where he thought he was just benched and would find his way back into the big leagues if he kept doing what Vought said, and that’s why he became so dead-set on the fact he was going to die if he testified.. Because if he did, he’d burn all bridges with Vought. As much as I want it to be the former, I think it’s the latter because Kripke said Lamplighter was intended to be a one-and-done jerk and it wasn’t until Shawn Ashmore brought more nuance to the character, I think that’s dumb because he’s supposed to be one of the main character’s nemesis and he only got 3 episodes?.. No wonder Frenchie’s such a lackluster character when not in chemist mode.

- Originally, I was tied between Stormfront or Edgar being the one who supervises the project, I wondered why Stormfront, a new member of the Seven, was the main overseer of Sage Grove — a place only Edgar and herself know about, but upon a rewatch I realized all the patients were white and concluded she wanted to use them for her masterrace army. So, with some divergence, Stormfront’s primary motivations would’ve been relatively the same, taking the charred corpse and injecting it with V to see if revival via V was possible, and if it was, she would’ve been on a downward spiral trying to bring Chloe and Frederick back that way. However, I scrapped this because 1. Stormfront is a very difficult character to write, I don’t want to offend anybody nor do I want to undermine any of the very real elements included in her character and 2. I felt like including Chloe and Frederick in her motivations would paint her in a sympathetic light that could’ve sent the wrong message.

- ^ I ended up going with Edgar because I always imagined the Supes who were around after Payback but before Homelander (Noir, Lamplighter, presumably Marathon) were much closer to Edgar than Stillwell, hence why 2/3 of them were the first ones to leave the team. This comes from Noir being Stan’s hitman and Lamplighter having a line about being invited to see him. Edgar’s motivations are simple, he wants another braindead puppet to do his dirty work.

- Regarding backstory, Lamplighter’s first name is Jasper. I know a lot of people just name him Conrad after one of Ashmore’s roles, but I wanted to provide some difference to my version. So, I picked Jasper because the name, of Persian origin, means ‘treasurer’ or ‘keeper of the treasurer’ which if I reached enough, Lamplighter was the keeper of Sage Grove, also because it sounded neat lmao. Sidenote that I have headcanon names for other Supes who never got a first name, with Translucent’s being Sullivan because it sounds like Susan (as in Susan Storm) and Countess’s being Winona.

- Onto his father.. I’m thinking he was a police officer, living some place where it didn’t rain often so his fire Supe of a son could fully flourish. Massive redneck of a father who flaunted the young LL around every chance he got, blew smoke up his son’s ass to the point where LL thought he was god’s gift to the world and that father ultimately ended up in prison for TBD reasons. He was one of the first people Lamplighter visited upon getting benched and he remarked that he ‘raised quite the little girl.’

- As hinted at in chapter one, Lamplighter’s mother walked out due to being afraid of what her child could do to her. They did keep shaky contact when he became a hero and was ‘safe to be around’ but mainly to send money, Lamplighter didn’t particularly mind being used for cash since he had more than he knew what to do with.

- Butcher’s nickname for Lamplighter is the Torch Twat™️.

- The blackmail video wasn’t Lamplighter with underage girls, I feel like if that was the case Vought would cover it up since they managed to cover up a fish-fucker and voyeur on the same team. I think it was crossdressing or just something that could generally be considered demasculizing since Vought wouldn’t want one of their heroes caught in something that’d go against what they’re directly marketed as, and it aligns with Butcher’s majorette comment.

- Since Lamplighter’s power manifestation was something big enough to be the talk of the town, I’d say he’s been on Vought’s radar since early childhood and was able to skip Godolkin and go straight to contracts because of that. With Golden Boy, it seems fire Supes are fairly popular and I don’t see why they wouldn’t be.

- Lamplighter actually knows a thing or two about health thanks to his time at Sage Grove and having a nursing certification, specifically an associate degree in nursing that he could’ve unwillingly completed during those moments of isolation in 42D. It won’t be acknowledged for awhile since as of typing, he hardly remembers who he is.

- His costume design stems from the fact Noir, a masked hero, was the most popular Supe when Lamplighter was up-and-coming. He knows the costume was tacky and couldn’t stand carrying a torch around (I can’t imagine how going into elevators at Vought tower was, if he could go in them at all or would have to resort to flights and flights of stairs..) but actually liked the hood and googles since he didn’t have to be Lamplighter all the time, whereas the likes of Deep pretty much could never be Kevin and always had to be Deep.

- Out of all the Seven, he’s the most friendly with Marathon, Deep, Translucent, and A-Train during the years they were on a team. I imagine that since Noir doesn’t talk and Homelander and Maeve were a thing at the time, that left the remaining four to become fast friends.. Shouldn’t have been too hard, they were all degenerative and the leaks on Marathon suggest he’s cut from the same cloth.

- I think Lamplighter had his “Women have it hard..” moment when he torched the kids and his entire worldview was altered, becoming more empathetic from that incident, additionally having nightmares and gradually getting less and less sleep, which resulted in him snapping at or being short with Vought employees, showing up to meetings late, being less inclined to make public appearances, etc. There’s a deleted scene where Stillwell tells A-Train he “doesn’t want to be difficult like Lamplighter with the board complaining that he was hard to work with” so, that’s where this stems from, eventually resulting in him being removed from the Seven.

[acelestialcraze]

a song that somehow feels lamplighter to me: Supernatural - Ryan Oakes and MISSIO

I just googled the lyrics, I can totally see this!

[tinaism]

hey! idk if you remember me (or if you’re the same tina, but you liked one of my wotow posts so i hope it is you! if not sorry, wrong person) but i was the suggestions anon that sent you a few song suggestions for your karl blog way back!

hiiii, a good song never dies, right?? it's still on my karl playlist. i do remember you and i am indeed the same tina, just not really active writing wise atm. but kira and me regularly fall back into the wotow brainrot. we have a whole bunch of jeremy & karl nonsense plotted >:]

[noblcedits]

the colorings you use on your gifsets are so pretty!! especially for your bitten ones, the lighting can be a bit…. *interesting* to work with

thank you!!! ♥♥♥ yeah, some scenes make me wanna rip my hair out instead of trying to colour them but i persevere. or give up and rage. both work! 😂 but if it helps, my colouring uses this psd as a base (i've added and made a lot of changes tho for my colouring) which i'm pretty sure is some kind of magic and adjusting it can work wonders on a wide variety of scenes

[four-strangers-one-goal]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Chapters: 3/? Fandom: Heavy Rain (Video Game), Beyond: Two Souls Rating: Mature Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Jodie Holmes & Ethan Mars, Ethan Mars/Lauren Winter, Past Relationships:, Ethan Mars/Grace Mars, Ethan Mars/Madison Paige, Scott Shelby/Lauren Winter, Norman Jayden/Jack Reilly, Ryan Clayton/Jodie Holmes, Jodie Holmes/Jay/Tuesday Characters: Ethan Mars, Jodie Holmes, Madison Paige, Lauren Winter, Norman Jayden, Scott Shelby, Carter Blake (Heavy Rain), Gordi Kramer Additional Tags: Case Fic, Post-Canon, Ethan and Scott's psychic connection, Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Women Being Awesome Summary:

Ethan shoots Scott Shelby atop a crane on the worst day of his life, watches him fall, watches him drown, and thinks, God… It’s finally over.

He could not have been more wrong.

---

Five years after the Origami Killer case ends, another body is found. And then another. And then another.

Ethan deals with the aftermath.

@crimsonscloud