#(or split the sequences up a bit but this will work for now!!!)

[peachesofteal]

Through Me (The Flood) - secret baby fic Simon Riley / female reader - warnings: postpartum depression, 18+ brief sexual content

"Okay, Ry ry, come on. Work with me. You're alright, baby, it's okay."

You're pacing back and forth across the living room in only a nursing bra and Simon's favorite pair of your shorts, the ones that barely cover the soft pleat where the tops of your thighs meet your cheeks. The coverage of your ass is just barely there, crescent moons creased in invitation for his tongue- willing him, tempting him to lick long lines from outside to inside until you’re spread wide over his face.

Now is not the time, however.

He watches you carefully, analyzing, cataloging, categorizing. Looking for a sign, a symptom, a warning that you might not be feeling as good as you let on. Tough little kitten. Stronger than you think.

The doctor told you to get better rest, eat more nutritionally dense foods, and hydrate. If the dizziness and fainting doesn’t improve, you’ll have to see a specialist.

He’s been breathing through his nose a lot, since you told him. Willing his heart rate to slow, urging himself to be calm.

Still-

His nightmares are no longer made up of his past, but his future. Sequences of you, unconscious on the floor, baby screaming in his crib. Simon nowhere to be found, hundreds of miles away with his finger on a trigger.

You slump in defeat. Orion screams at the top of his lungs, angry at what, you’re not sure. He's tried not to hover, opting to cook dinner instead, but when your voice cracks on your next plea for Orion to stop crying, he breaks away from the kitchen and settles behind you, firm hand rubbing circles into your hip. "Let's give you a break, mama."

You sniffle. "I don't know what's up with him tonight. He won't latch, but he has to be hungry. I don't know what to do." Simon slides a forearm under yours, supporting the baby’s weight, the other one palming your belly. Your head tips back against his chest, heat radiating from your body like a furnace, and he sways you side to side, careful and slow, rocking the two of you in a gentle rhythm. You're both overheated, and you've long stripped Ry down to a diaper, hoping it would alleviate some of his misery.

"Let me take over. You're exhausted." He kisses your neck, using the light shiver shuddering over your skin to his advantage. His touch gentles you, reins in the stubborn streak that keeps surfacing, and he carries no weight of regret when he twists you up with it a little bit. He’s been standing at the bottom of the well, waiting to catch you when you break. "Go get in the shower, and I'll try a bottle in a bit. See if I can't get him calmed down." He presses his lips to your shoulder.

"But... dinner..."

"It can wait. Go on." He lifts Orion, sitting him upright on his chest, and then gives you a gentle swat on your ass.

It doesn't take much convincing after that.

He tries to get Orion to take the plastic nipple of the bottle, tries rubbing on his cheek to trigger the rooting reflex, like you've taught him, to no avail. "Alright, little man. Let's give it a try, c'mon." He doesn't, but the vibration in Simon's chest when he speaks seems to distract him momentarily, enough that his crying stops for a split second, before returning to its high pitched wail. It’s a shocking sentiment. A startling discovery, one that burrows deep, slides under his skin, slicing him open. Could his son really be soothed by his own voice?

“I wasn’t there when you were born.” He smoothes a hand over the top of Orion’s head. “I didn’t know about you, but that’s not mama’s fault, daddy kind of… disappeared, and she didn’t deserve that. I should’ve been there. I know it was probably scary, for both of you.” The wailing and shrieking turns into a mewl. “I’m gonna make it up to you, and her, everyday, I swear. ‘m gonna keep you safe, you and mama, watch you grow, go to school, lose your first tooth. I’m gonna be there for your birthday parties and holidays, as much as I can.” Orion stares at him with wet, tearful eyes, cries turned to quiet whimpers. “Daddy doesn’t have a… normal job, but we’ll make it work, won’t we? You’ll see. I’ll always be here for you, bub.” The broken cries and whimpers almost stop all together, and Simon’s heart glows with pride. He did that. “That’s better, huh? Let’s go see if we can get you to eat something before bed, alright?” He keeps up a steady murmur, pushing open the door to your room, expecting to see- hoping, to see you just out of the shower, but instead-

he finds you in an oversized t shirt and panties, curled up on top of your blankets in bed. A wet towel sits crumpled on the floor, a pair of pajama pants lying on the bed frame by your feet. It looks like you did plan on making it out of the bedroom, but succumbed to your exhaustion instead, and he doesn’t blame you. Today was hard.

“Sweetheart.” He rubs your shoulder, mattress dipping with his weight. Your eyes open, bleary and confused, a question etched across your brow. “Hey, you fell asleep.” You nod, still not with it, lashes fluttering.

“‘m sorry. Baby?”

“He’s right here. Got him calmed down, think he’s ready to eat though.” You yawn, pawing at your shirt, trying to tug it up over your head, eyes closed again. “Alright, I’ve got it, here-“

“Did I miss dinner?”

“No honey. I put it in the oven to keep warm. When you’re ready I’ll bring a plate in f’you, alright?” You sigh, sleep drenched like your lungs are wet, ponderosity sunken in across your body. He thumbs your temple, trying to rouse you a bit more, urging you to roll onto your side, tucking Orion in next to your breast. It must be instinct, the way he finds you in the dark, and you breathe deep once he settles.

“Sorry I fell asleep.”

“You’re exhausted, mama.” Ry makes a little ‘k-ahh’ sound, like a soft puff of air, and you tug at your shirt half heartedly, trying to shuck it upward again. “Do you want this off?” He fingers the hem, and you nod, lifting an arm as he maneuvers around you and the baby.

Bloody hell. You’re a sight, only in your underwear, Orion at your chest. The hall light dips and drags over your body, painting you in yellows and shadow, broad brushstrokes of a goddess splayed out in front of him, feeding his baby.

He can’t tear his eyes away.

“What is it?” You croak, his fingers tracing the valley of your hip and stomach in an answer.

“You’re stunning.” He cradles the back of Ry’s head, leaning close, brushing his nose against yours before kissing you slow, letting it linger, losing himself in the moment.

“You’re not so bad yourself.” You hum into his mouth, still dewy from the shower, fresh spring rain falling from your lips. You’re more awake now, unhurried and sweet, and he slips to his knees at the edge of the bed, smoothing his hand over your shoulder and down your waist. The rolling meadow of goosebumps chasing his fingertips heats his blood-

Until your stomach rumbles. He chuckles. “Hungry?”

“A little.” You cup the back of Ry’s head and nod sheepishly.

“Okay.” He kisses you again because he can’t help it, can’t stop himself or hold back, the physical ache of being so close, yet so far away drives him to touch you, feel you, as much as he can. Before he’s gone. “Sit tight. I’ll get your dinner.”

Later, after he’s fed you (by hand, lifting a fork to your lips over and over as you sat like a perfect little kitten, propped up on a pile of pillows) while Ry nursed, and then put him down, cleaned up the dishes, and placed the baby monitor in its usual spot, he leans over you in bed, where you’re nestled under the blankets, sleepy and sweet. “Hey sleepy girl.”

“Hi.” You whisper, snuggling farther into the covers. “He go down okay?”

“Like a champ. Think he tired himself out with all the yelling earlier.” He presses a thumb to your bottom lip, sliding it back and forth before cupping your cheek. “Get some rest, I’ll get him when he gets up in a few hours.” He jerks his head towards the living room, where he usually takes his post before heading back, a block over, and then anxiously tosses and turns in bed until he hears from you in the morning.

He shifts closer to press his lips to your forehead, but you grab his wrist, grip tight, and there’s a hitch in your breath, a reedy, fragile thing that strikes his heart with bullets. “It’s supposed to get easier.” A tear tracks down your cheek, and he wipes it with his thumb.

“Oh sweetheart, it will. I promise it will.” He tries to soothe you, taking the hand that’s cemented to his wrist and interlacing his fingers with yours. “Postpartum is hard. You have to give yourself a break.”

“I know, it’s just… sometimes I feel like someone else should have been his mum,” your voice breaks, his stomach pitches, heart pounding in his ears. He could drown in the guilt, slip beneath the swell and fill his lungs with it, sink to the bottom with its weight. “Like he was meant for someone else, like someone else would be better. I was so sick when I was pregnant, and when he was born it was… traumatic…” you trail off, desperate, glassy look falling over your eyes before you close them, hand shaking in Simon’s grasp. He wants to wipe it all away, wipe it clean and fix it, patch the gaping wound he left. “Sometimes all he does is look at me and scream, like I’m a stranger. Like he doesn’t… love me, know me. Why aren’t I good at this?” Your chest is stuttering now, short breaths being choked off with sobs, and pulls you into his chest.

“You are good at this, mama.” He kisses your temple. “It doesn’t feel like it, because your head is a little… messed up with all the hormones and changes, but our son is healthy, and happy. He’s safe. You did that. You took care of him all on your own.” You’re still crying, tears spilling over your cheeks, and Simon cradles your face. “I’m so, so sorry I wasn’t here sweet girl. I’ll never forgive myself.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“It is. I’m the one who left you like a… like a ghost. I’m the one who didn’t care about the consequences and left you to face it on your own. You didn’t deserve that, and I don’t deserve you or that boy… but I’m going to try to do everything I can to make it up to you. I’m here, okay? You’re not doing this alone anymore. I’m here.” And you’re never getting rid of me. He doesn’t say it, not willing to disrupt the clearly fragile equilibrium of your emotions, but he feels it all the same. “Orion was meant to be yours, ours. No one else’s. You understand?” You nod, lower lip trembling. “Tell me, mama. Tell me you know our baby loves you like you hung the moon in the sky.”

“I- I know.”

“Come here.” He keeps you in his arms, settling back on your mountain of pillows, keeping a palm at the back of your head, other one rubbing up and down your spine. “That’s what you are. The moon. You and Orion, moon and stars. My moon and stars.” You manage a watery sigh, and then burrow your face into his chest, finally calm enough to take some long breaths, seconds turning to minutes as he holds you in the dark.

“Stay.” You whisper against him, nearly asleep again, and he answers with a kiss to the top of your head.

“I will. I promise.”

[koushirouizumi]

AAA I'm glad you appreciated the stageplay inclusion, because at first I wasn't sure if it or Kizuna's moment were fitting EnoughTM {Kizuna's moment is more like "the timeframe of daylight left before sunset sets [more fully] in"} but I'm glad if you appreciate seeing it!!!

(YES I've also noticed re how Koushiro's name is often autotranslated, I've also seen "Hikaru" come up more recently+more randomly at points which cracks me up every single time, {not just because I've had an OC dear to me with the name for a while now, and it used to be my own old penname for that reason!!} but also since "Hikaru" leans more specifically towards "Shining" than just "Light"/{Hikari})...

I've watched the Tri stageplay numerous (more than 10~15+!!) times by now, so I do have a lot of the script memorized, but I think by this point I got a little confused if the red light was signifying just "flashing red lights" {indicating technological 'Error!!' emphasis} at every instance it was used or "{sunrise??}"-esque effects after they "got out of" the darker area (back into the initial natureesque scenery?), since that scene was much more {calmer to a degree??} for Koushiro and Taichi, and the scene right before it was MetalGreymon's evolution so yes they were mainly using that lighting for MetalGreymon['s fire-like effects] (but then Koushiro emphasized, "{this [domain] is} still {very} full of 'Error'", and then the lighting went more of a calmer yellow so) but either way it feels SymbolicTM to me (and yes the scenes before it were very dark/with glitch-like effects, and we know for a fact ""night"" did pass at least once!) {The sleepover/camping-like scenes, etc!}

"And in general {Koushiro} is made for the LIGHT side"

= HEAVY AGREED!!!!!

(Thank you very much for kind commentary!!)

{D I G I M O N} Adventure (F r a n c h i s e) ~ Adventure, 02, tri., tri. S t a g e-p l a y, L a s t E v o l u t i o n: Kizuna, & Adventure: [2020 R e b o o t] + KOUSHIRO I z u m i + {F R A M E D In} S U N S E T {S}/{C O L O R S} + {KOUTAI} / {Taishiro} / {TaiKou} (Koushiro{u} I z u m i & Taichi Y a g a m i) {As S H I P} + Koushiro & M e n o a Bellucci

+ {L O O K I N G}/A i m i n g Towards the F U T U R E {F O R W A R D}

Originally I wanted to make this for @taikouvember 2 k 2 4! (It could have fit for "L i g h t"!) {Though I made it a bit e a r l y!}

[arcanetoymakerau]

*read right to left*

*reminder that tm!Jinx has Viktor's accent.

[Next TBA]

FINALLY! Sorry for the waiting, real life happens...and backgrounds are my weakness.

Let's go with this comic already! It's in manga format, so read right to left (for those who aren't used to, I've numbered the speech balloons in horizontal sequence).

This short comic will show some of the rework I did on Toymaker Jinx; it's mostly how her powers works and a bit of lore related to it, everything else you'll see it here about her was already in the previous version.

If you're not into League of Legends' lore: the beings following Jinx are Kindred. They are a single entity split in two: Lamb and Wolf. Their "duty" is of a reaper of some sorts or even death itself (depending on how you interpret). While Lamb hunts those who accepted their death, Wolf hunts those who didn't.

In theory, material living beings shouldn't be able to see them unless they are at the very edge of dying (and that's still a "maybe" from what I gathered). But Jinx messed up with things she shouldn't have, and now she's able to see them even though she's not dying/dead.

[strxnged]

TIGHNARI: # deliver me.

word count. 3k. genre. adventure, pining.

overview. news of your patrol squad's brutal defeat by eremites reaches tighnari's ears. he wastes no time searching for you to save you—but in the end, who will be saving who?

warnings. blood, action sequences, tighnari & y/n both being badass AND down bad for each other. read at your own discretion.

Tighnari shifted his weight to his other leg, trying to focus himself on his work at hand. A dark cloud had been looming over his mind all day. It had obscured his path to understanding the recent outbreak of withering zones all across the forest; he seemed to have hit a roadblock in what to anticipate in coming weeks. Some information from forest logs pointed to the archon’s situation, and other clues pointed to misconduct of both Akedemiya researchers and bands of Eremites. Still others seemed to lead him somewhere deeper, somewhere within the very Ley Lines of Teyvat. But there was more that was bothering him today which he could not lay his finger on.

“General Watchleader, sir!” 

He looked up to see a Forest Watcher at his doorway. 

“Come quick,” she said. “Something’s happened to this morning’s patrol squad.”

Tighnari wasted no time following her to the infirmary hut, where but one Forest Watcher was lying wounded on one of the beds. It was indeed one of the Rangers that had been sent out this morning, along with you and two others, who he did not see now.

“Kamran, what happened?”

The poor man clutched his bleeding side, which was dressed mildly with a makeshift bandage from his scarf. Tighnari gently removed this to treat the Ranger’s wound, listening to his tale.

“Eremites, General Watchleader. We were ambushed, and they—they had no mercy. The two others died, sir, and our patrol chief told me to get out of there. I made it out by the hair on my neck. Or rather, my side—yahhh!” Kamran yelped as Tighnari applied an ointment along the edge of the wound.

“Sit still, Kamran.” Tighanari tried to steady his hands. He’d elected you chief of this patrol—and so, it was his fault if you were dead. He might not ever forgive himself for this. He should have sent stronger defense along. He should have seen this coming. 

Damn, he might have lost you, now, and might never get the chance to tell you what you meant to him.

He tightened a liquid bandage over Kamran’s wound. “Tell me, Ranger: where did this occur?”

<*+`,.>

Tighnari’s boots were laden with mud by the time he and two others had reached the reported location. Rain was falling hard, emphasizing his growing dread and causing his ears to fold back. Finding nothing initially, one of the other Forest Rangers suggested they split up.

“Hold that thought, Ranger,” he said, kneeling at the sign of discolored mud. On closer inspection, he realized: “Blood.”

None of them could locate directional footprints near this point, but there was a clear indication of a fight, one that ended quickly. The three swept the riverbank for more clues with no luck. But upon a tree Tighnari noted a fresh gash around half of its trunk. It looked like one your knives might have made it, though it was higher than you would have naturally reached.

Perhaps you had been carried. Perhaps they kept you alive.

“We go West,” Tighnari declared. “Iraj, take the Southernmost route! Shirin, you take the Northernmost one!”

“Sir,” they nodded, gathering in front of him.

“Don’t stand there. Lives still may be saved today!”

And off they ran, all three praying he would be right.

Tighnari was relieved when he found another fresh cut in a tree several paces West, indicative of your survival past the ambush. He later found the ground to be firmer, and the marks of several footprints created a reliable trail. Now he had a feeling he was drawing closer—but at the same time, a feeling he might still be too late.

The discovery of one of your blades in the dirt a bit further along concurred.

It had occurred to him quite soon after Kamran’s arrival that this may be a trap for Tighnari. The Forest Rangers of Gandharva Ville had had a rocky relationship with Eremites, and being known as the leader placed a target on his back. However, he feared more the blood of the Rangers on his hands than any of the enemies of the forest he may face. He had no doubt now that it was a trap, but knowing it served him very little. He’d sent the others further away so that they might not have to get involved; he only hoped they hadn’t come near enough to locate the camp. 

Only then did he hear distant chatter. It sounded like Eremites, no doubt, and additionally, the whining tone of Treasure Hoarders. As he approached the camp, he quieted his paces and kept to the shadows, eyes peeled to the men and women around the wet firepit with their weapons at the ready. 

Tighnari crept around the outskirts of the camp, far enough away that any rustle in the trees would be indistinguishable from the storm. He spied you, soon enough, sitting in a crude wooden cage similar to ones he’d seen at other Treasure Hoarder camps before. Guilt sank his heart to his stomach. He would get you out of this mess, no matter what.

Tighnari aimed his bow at the back of the Eremite guarding your cage, considering. If he alerted the camp of his presence, he would have to face all of them at once. If he lured some away, however…

He pointed and shot his arrow to the trees near the path, and watched a few shout and scramble over in that direction. He snickered to himself. Knuckleheads.

Back at the camp, he could just make out you standing in your cage, peering over in that same direction. He refocused, noticing how muddy your face and back were.

There would be no easy way to save you, he knew. But hesitating would make things harder, and so he crept closer to the camp. The mud was slippery and thick here, gathering a slight stream downhill. If he had sprinted for you, he would have wiped out and given himself away. 

Ah. That would work.

Tighnari at last sent an arrow at the Eremite leaning on your cage, and she staggered to her feet, whirling around. “He’s there!” she shouted shrilly, and soon, a larger portion of the camp was racing towards him. He simply jogged a few steps away, turned, and readied his weapon.

Sure enough, each Treasure Hoarder and Eremite that ran close enough slid on their heel and landed on their ass. Defeating them with a few well aimed shots was no problem. A cryo-thrower tossed a solution from further away, and Tighnari just managed to dive out of the way. Gathering his elemental energy, he sent three shots at the foe and made a dash for the camp.

“Welcome, Tree-Hugger. Eat this.” A kick from an undetected Eremite struck him clean across the face and he stumbled backwards.

“My,” he said, simply. “No need to play dirty.”

“You don’t know when to drop the act, do you?” the Eremite said. She slashed her dual hydro-blades at her, and just barely missed his chest as he dodged. “You’re dead.”

He dodged another attack. He wouldn’t be able to defeat her from this close a range. He’d been hoping to emancipate you before dealing with the rest, but it seemed he had no choice.

Or, at least, that’s what he was thinking, until the Clearwater grunted and froze in place, before crumbling to her knees.

He noticed the handle of a blade stuck deep into her shoulder. Not just any blade. Your blade.

“C’mon, ‘Nari, get me out of here before I scream. They’re awfully loud bastards.”

He chuckled, noticing you watching him from the cage. Truly an ineffective sport and ineffective piece of technology, trapping someone without taking away their weapons in such a wide-barred, single-person cage. He wondered if you might have shimmied out between the wood had you not been surrounded by Treasure Hoarders.

“Alright, alright. Be patient, Patrol Chief.”

You groaned as he went to make work of the lock. “You can’t be serious. You don’t even have the key.”

“I can pick locks,” he said matter of factly, “you know.”

You chuckled. “Yeah, well, I can do this—” He halted as you wrapped your hands around two parallel wooden beams and pulled them apart, successfully snapping them and opening yourself your own doorway out. You tossed the splintered beams to the ground and dusted off your hands. 

“You could have done that before I got here and saved me the trouble,” Tighnari quipped, watching you step out. “Now, then, I do apologize you landed in this mess all because—”

“It’s not your fault, Tighnari. I can be responsible for my own ass sometimes.”

Tighnari curled his lips unashamedly.

“Don’t respond to that,” you said, trudging over to the female Eremite to draw your knife out of her shoulder. You wiped the blood off with the inner elbow of your sleeve, peering into the sky. “So, how’d you find out what happened?”

Tighnari followed you, checking you over for injuries. “Kamran stumbled into camp and I was alerted,” he said, and then deemed you to be in one shape and acquiesced to your resistance.

“That coward.” You huffed and shook your head. “I don’t know what he told you, but he ran off almost immediately. And he was supposed to be our combat support. Our analyst didn’t make it.”

“Not your fault.”

“It ain’t yours either, ‘Nari. Eremites can just be ruthless. I knew they wanted you, but I was hoping Kamran wouldn’t be able to find the way back so that I could handle it myself.”

“Patrol Chief, you were still in your cage when I made it here,” he said. “I don’t think it was going as well as you claim it was.”

The Clearwater Eremite groaned, writhing on the ground. Tighnari gave her a good kick in the side. You raised your eyebrows at him. “I was just waiting for the sun to come out. It seemed awfully inconvenient to deal with the situation in the pouring rain.” You pointed into the sky. “A bit of sun’s coming out now. I would have gotten out by now with or without your help.”

“No ‘thank you’?”

You shook your head. “Nope. Not when you put yourself in danger like that.”

Tighnari shook his ears with a resigned sigh. “Well, at least it’s all over now.”

“Not yet it ain’t,” a voice boomed. The two of you whirled around to see a burly Eremite clomping into the camp. Tighnari did not recognize him from the ones he dealt with earlier. He was larger, more handsomely clothed, and angrier. “I’ve been waiting for this day.”

“Of course you have,” Tighnari muttered.

“You should be more afraid, tree hugger,” demanded the Eremite.

“No need,” he replied, readying his bow unwaveringly.

The Eremite laughed heartily and drew a long, narrow blade, eyeing both of you with evident bloodlust. You clasped the hilt of your dagger in your belt, but Tighnari raised an arm in front of you.

“Fight me all you want, but leave them out of this.” At this you started to protest but a severe look from Tighnari silenced you at once.

“Someone’s protective of his pet,” the Eremite responded. He stepped closer, dragging the tip of his blade in the mud. “Seems we were right.”

Tighnari’s face was dark. You were grateful not to be on the receiving end of that look. “You Eremites wish you had any kind of sense. Luring me here was a mistake.” 

He fired an arrow at the man’s chest, knocking him back and angering him further. You stepped out of the way as Tighnari had instructed you, watching him dive towards the edge of the camp to avoid a swipe of the Eremite’s blade. You wanted to help, but you didn’t want to complicate things.

Tighnari shouted, tossing a Dendro bomb at the Eremite’s feet. He stumbled back—only to charge at Tighnari with greater force. You could just barely hear him swearing under the thundering rain, dodging the blade again. It went on for several minutes; you watched with great interest, only bothered by the fact that you weren’t part of it. It seemed that the General Watchleader was attempting to exhaust the roaring Eremite, but it was taking a while. Both Tighnari and the Eremite’s movements were becoming sloppier. The Eremite showed no sign of letting up, however; he looked like he’d been waiting for this his whole life.

In a moment that seemed to last several seconds, you saw Tighnari’s foot slip a little in the grass, causing him to stumble a little. You did not hesitate to reach your arm back and fling your dagger at the Eremite. 

It sunk into his back a moment too late—the Eremite had landed a deadly strike on Tighnari.

Tighnari fell to his knees as the Eremite crumpled into the grass, groaning.

“Damn it, Tighnari!” you ran over to your leader, kneeling next to him.

“My love…” He fought to keep his eyes open. “I apologize. I thought I could—” He cut himself off, holding one hand to his mouth to cough hard. His other hand was clutching his chest. Blood came from both locations.

“‘Nari,” you whispered.

Neither of you had the time to process the use of such a term between you. You could feel his shoulders in your hands, tremble and falter. Your heart stopped as he fell forward into your arms. Your thoughts blurred as you ripped the Eremite’s scarf from his neck and tied it around his chest, trying to hold enough pressure to his collarbone to stop the bleeding. Once you were satisfied with the tautness, you took a full, deep breath, dragged him to a standing position by his armpits, and pulled him onto your back.

“Shit. You’re heavy, asshole,” you breathed. It was going to be a long walk back to Gandharva Ville. And you were not going to think about him calling you his “love.”

<*+`,.>

Tighnari came to in a very comfortable bed with a very uncomfortable pain in his chest. He could barely breathe. It was like he’d been stabbed in the lungs.

Oh. He had been. The events of the Eremite camp sharpened in his memory. He’d been trying to lead the Eremite far enough from you that you could escape. But he didn’t remember anything after being stabbed. Where were you?

His vision was peppered with dots but he forced them to focus. He was in the infirmary, no doubt. But whoever had treated his injury had done an egregious job, and he did not attempt any movement. His mouth tasted like iron. Like blood.

Tighnari heard a fuss across the room and footsteps ran into his direction. You leaned over him with evident worry. And red eyes.

“You’re awake,” you said with a tense sigh.

“No shit.”

You stared at him. Your face, previously clouded in misgiving, reconfigured to a relieved smile. “You’re quite awake,” you said.

“Haven’t you got,” he said, taking short breaths between words, “anything else to say?”

“Yeah. You’re awake thanks to me.”

He opened his mouth to voice a retort, but his throat clenched and he turned his head to cough. “I should have given you… lessons… on how to treat a chest wound.”

“I figured it out myself.”

He tilted his face back to look you in the eyes. “Barely.”

“I’m sorry, ‘Nari,” you said. “But at the same time, you could have been dead. You could have been dead because you didn’t let me help.” Tighnari noticed a tear escape your eye, which you wiped away immediately with the heel of your palm. “Asshole,” you added as an affable afterthought.

Tighnari studied your face, feeling emotions threaten his own expression. He wiggled his fingers, testing the pain. Satisfied that it was bearable, he reached up to your collar and pulled you towards him. 

“Thank you,” he whispered into your ear, “for saving me. You did well.” 

You seemed to hesitate. Then, ever-so-gently, you rested your head next to his and placed a careful hand on his shoulder. You were warm, and he didn’t know you were capable of such tender affection.

As you stood up straight again, you flicked his forehead with all your might.

He gasped, and then howled as his hand involuntary jerking up to his head caused his chest to strain and ache. “Ow! That was unnecessary!”

“You’re welcome, Tighnari,” you announced with your back to him. He did not fail to notice the redness of your ears.

He clicked his tongue. “You used the wrong ointment on my wound, Patrol Chief.” He took a deep breath, wincing again. “Is this Padisarah itching cream?”

You scoffed. “You can treat your wounds yourself from now on.” With that, you marched through the door of the hut, leaving Tighnari quite immobile on the bed.

He allowed himself a small smile. Alas, neither of you were dead. And something told him he would get the chance to tell you what you meant to him.

author's note. thanks for reading. if you enjoyed, a reblog would mean the world!

[mister-qi]

Mr. Qi Friendship and Romance Mod: 4/19 Progress Update

It's a working title, I'm trying to come up with something less wordy that still will pop up in Nexus searches.

I wanted to be able to track my progress, mainly for myself, but if you're curious, this is the state of the mod right now:

Writing:

Heart Events - the 2 heart event is fully written (with blocking directions), and the 6, 8, and 10 heart events are outlined. The 4 heart cutscene currently has me a bit stumped; I have ideas, but nothing concrete yet. I definitely now understand why Sam's 4 heart cutscene is him dropping an egg. 14 hearts is on the back-burner as a little treat to myself once I get further into things.

Generic Daily Dialogues - about 1/3 done, probably the highest priority for writing. I'm leaving his vanilla casino dialogue as the two heart dialogue, and the vanilla Walnut Room dialogue as his four heart dialogue, with a few small changes. And, since it's me, I have more marriage dialogue written than anything else...

Day-Specific Dialogues - very few written, lower priority. Hoping to have a lot of these made eventually, and I have plenty of ideas, but they aren't necessary for the core of the mod so they're on the back-burner for now.

Gift Dialogues - all 5 generic gift response dialogues are written, with an additional 22 dialogue lines for specific items/groups of items. I'm also up to around item 530 in figuring out what item corresponds to which dialogue/whether or not he likes it. Certain item groups, like cooked food, still need more lines, however. This is definitely something that should be low priority, but also something I'm really enjoying working on. Some personal favorites so far are-

[if given a fish (hated)]: "Eugh, it's all slimy..."

[if given a legendary fish (disliked)]: "If you must give me one of the rarest fish in the valley, can you at least wrap it so I don't have to touch it with my bare hands?"

And I think that's pretty funny.

Art

Portraits - 3 new portraits finished: "deep frown" "glint" and "glasses-less". I'll probably be messing with "glasses-less" for a looong while; it's first shown at a dramatic moment so it needs to look good. Blushing portraits are next on the docket.

Here's "glint" btw, with a background thrown on so I can have a custom icon. You know I gotta make him do the anime glasses thing a few times.

Sprites - no progress yet. Walk cycle is up next after I finish the blushing portraits. Did you know he doesn't have a walk cycle at all? [1.6 spoilers] in the cheated Summit cutscene where he attacks(?) you, he literally just slides at you very fast. Anyways, I may also change his map sprite a bit as well, since it was drawn to match his old portrait and doesn't actually have the same color scheme as his sprites. Note to self: is it possible to make the sparkles on his outfit prismatic?

Maps - no progress yet. The 6 heart and 10 heart cutscenes both require custom maps, with the 6 heart one being a fully custom asset. 10 heart recycles some existing assets but will still need some custom stuff done as well.

Misc Sprites - in my head, there's a dream version of the 8 heart cutscene that has so, so many unique sprites. Like an incredible amount of stuff. I think it'll kick ass, but also that sequence could be done with a few lines of text. So, for now, it's low priority. But maybe in a few months I'll put out a request for help.

Implementation

Not totally sure how to split this into sections yet, as I'm very much still in the preliminary stages so far. To say that I'm feeling overwhelmed is an understatement; documentation on the wiki swings wildly between "an asset is a file in a video game" and "this is an advanced tutorial. Read these 4 other pages first before continuing."

I've started using Ms. Coriel's NPC Creator which has been good for setting up the basic file structure, but ultimately doesn't cover some of the more complex stuff I want to do. EDIT: Turns out it's completely outdated for 1.6! Had to throw out a bit of work, but I still learned from it so it's fiiine.

I think setting up his "schedule" will be a challenge, in that I don't actually want him to have a real schedule like most NPCs. Not to pull back the curtain too much here, but I want him to "exist" in both the Casino and the Walnut Room simultaneously, which is to say, he does not exist in two places at once in the narrative, just in the code. This will change after marriage, however.

My next goal is to set up placeholder cutscenes for each of the heart events, and then to implement the generic daily dialogues once those are finished.

Final Notes

God, this will be a work in progress for a while, but I'm enjoying it! Definitely enjoying the writing more than anything else, but hey, that's how it be. I've got around 70 lines of dialogue written, a bit of art done, and I've started learning how to actually get stuff in game. I've always been more of a designer than a coder, but it's getting there!

ADDITIONALLY I've decided that if I abandon this project for more than 8 months, anyone is welcome to request my work so far and use it for their own mod. If this blog hasn't posted in a long while, feel free to send me an ask or message! I may say no, however.

Ultimately, I want this mod to exist in some fashion. While there is an existing one, I have a pretty different take on the character and I want to share it with you all! Every line of dialogue, every heart event, every little detail needs to share something interesting about a character and their world. Yet, Mr. Qi is a mysterious guy, and I think some things should be left up to player interpretation. And I think it's crucial to be able to match his tone and voice to the vanilla game, while also expanding on his characterization. It's a fun challenge to write, and I hope the finished product, uh, well I hope it gets finished mostly, but I think it'll be pretty good.

Thanks for reading all this. This is largely just a stream of consciousness for myself, but I hope it's...interesting, or something?

[rin-and-jade]

Torn Apart or Stitched Back: A Guide on Identifying Splits and Fuses

Halved, merged, halved again, and merged again.. a never ending sequence of our system life. Will it ever stop?--Sadly no, as it is a natural process of our adaptation.

But can we atleast know how to identify, be able to anticipate the first signs, and know what to do accordingly? Yes! We do, and being educated will make a huge difference on how you'd handle a situation, for example, like today's topic.

This is what the guide is all about: Making your life a little bit easier.

TLDR FAST PASS: AVAILABLE!

Can you recap us first?

So you've caught the drill!

In general context, a split means: "to (cause to) divide into two or more parts" - Cambridge Dictionary

And, in general context, a fuse means: "join or blend to form a single entity" - Oxford

In system context, this would be to a more specific split/fuse when it comes to identity, memories, and feelings. As to how dissociative disorder works, sometimes, other things can be compartmentalized, such as senses or physical pain, that can be split apart or fused.

Dissociation and integration are the main players in this topic, these two will be used to explain everything related about splits and fuses!

Why does this happen?

Both splitting and fusing actually serve a very important role in how we adapt and navigate certain situations.

This is to how splits can be a great shortcut to disconnect and detach from overwhelming elements in order to continue and stay functional within the current stressful moment. Although, splitting do have their own cons too,, and usually cause some problems--though some alters got split for the better, containing painful experiences within fragments in a way that it would not disturb daily functioning,, until the right moments to assess them arrives. They're not meant to be floating around and waiting, you know?

When a split happens, it is better to counter it with a fuse, because when you are too fragmented, this often leads to a small scope of awareness, or harder time accessing knowledge, or separated qualities that hinders performing a skill that requires multiple aspects of experience. Fusing can be very beneficial and is a natural process when it comes to healing--because it is all about integrating and demolishing the walls of dissociation.

If you fuse, you will be able to combine and utilize various knowledge that was once compartmentalized, creating a more flexible and creative way to navigate life. I will help you with this, too.

Ah.. How does it work though?

Splits? oh, actually;

This process exists outside of system context too, its where you detach and intentionally deny or separate your experiences, in order to keep our identity going and update our sense of time, or memories, or situations that happened is by accepting them and consider them as a part you have went through.

If you do not accept and deny that you went through, or experience such,, this detachment would be strong to create something equivalent to a fragment (for us, system) which holds and identifies with the things you denied at the first place.

Remember, your body records everything, splitting doesn't mean you fully eradicate the painful elements or memories. You only create distance between it, but it isn't going anywhere.

Fuse is basically about undoing all these walls of dissociation, it would be understanding, as if its on a telepathic level, or closest to like a best friend,, where you can integrate these different views to conclude a singular answer. Who says you're gone or mashed up into something different? Fusing is just the same as how you'd treat your best friend, appreciating those different pov and insights, but not let it blindly take the wheel without your cooperation!

To the main topic of the post:

Now that you've been told the basics and the mechanics, it is more than enough to start identifying, taking action, and handle an aftermath!

All about splits!

When it attacks you: - Often, in times of stress - Moments of denial - Periods where specific qualities needed got separated to maintain functionality, solving a situation.

These are the 3 main circumstances that creates a higher chance to split. There's more, though it happens seldom. --

Signs of pre-splits: - Noticeable mood swings - Stabbing head pains - More disoriented than usual - Becoming more forgetful - Think in 2 (or more) opposite views back and forth--unable to integrate as one conclusion

Sometimes, a split can cause severe headaches or pain around other areas. Splits are often companied by an increased amount of dissociation or brainfog which can be very uncomfortable and disruptive. --

What to do when a split happens: 1. Gather intel and find the cause of a split 2. Understand and accept the new split alter/frag They're oftentimes scared/confused/emotional, tend to them. If they are not, explain or ask what had happened 3. Identify what the split part holds 4. depending from number 3, you can: let the split exist and complete a certain task / learn to re-integrate back / heal it's hurt and address it's problems --

Ways to prevent a pre-split from completing: - Accept and feel your feelings--do not push them away - Trust yourself you can make it through, practice stress control - Understand and acknowledge every facets you have, do not deny - Assure yourself you want to keep these memories and experiences integrated, that your brain doesn't have to detach it for you

These tips above will lessen the chance of your stress and friction causing your brain to split a part of yourself into a new alter/fragment. --

How a split can manifest: - Creates a new alter/fragment This is when the part who is stressed intends to separate a quality, or a painful element out from its awareness. - Creates a subsystem This is when the part cannot fully detach a quality as it still retains a cohesive sense of connection, rather creating a less dissociative result of only detaching facets. Though still a part of the alter.

and - Amnesia-present split This is when the split was intended to create a barrier between memories, or other qualities it deems needed to be compartmentalized. Usually this type creates EPs - Amnesia-absent split This is when the split was intended for integration issues--though not done out of a need to separate or compartmentalize a quality. Usually this type create ANPs

All about fuse!

When it does the magic: - Bonding with other alters, understanding their views and emotions (Lvl 1) - Doing activities together, co-fronting together and have a seamless experience (Lvl 2) - Perceive them as a part of you and your identity, both still feel separately yet one (Pre-fuse)

When it comes to fuse, different levels of integration can be noticed, everything exists in a continuum ofcourse, just like how you can find different kinds of parts such as shards, fragments, and alters!

Detecting levels of Integration:

Level one: lowest form of integration, dissociative barriers still stands tall, but you are starting to learn and hear more insights and pov outside of your own. You can also start to recognize which alter who you are talking to without fail.

level two: Moderately getting there, you start to understand and feel other part's favorite activities and foods--and start to find joy and like them too! Thoughts and feelings flow much better, and you can vaguely understand what the others are feeling intuitively.

Pre-fuse/functional multiplicity: You can understand the in-and-out of a part or multiple, as in, you can understand why they feel, or do something. Oftentimes leaks of behavior, likes and dislikes, or thoughts got into you,, being a sign of achieving the lowest dissociation barrier. You still can choose to be multiple, but this is an effective moment to prune some member count or pursuing final fusion.

What to do when a fuse happen: - Integrate by accepting these aspects to further solidify and steady your new, fused self - Explore how you feel, learn to navigate your life again in a new state - Accept that fuse is part of a natural process, to lessen the chances of splitting (yes, you can split-relapse)

Sometimes, fuse is not as seamless either, it would take some time and practice in order to be one without popping off accidentally. If it doesn't work first time, don't worry! Keep practicing.

Takeaway: A Paper, Scissor, and Glue

So basically, your brain has a habit to snip up these paper to pieces, its up to you to let these pieces live or glue it back together,, there are no right or wrong ways to function!

May this guide, and the rest of the unplanned bonuses written along the way, be able to prepare you to when the next scissors will be picked up, and how to protect your integrity of the paper--or glue it back. Go attempt to freestyle. If you want my devious advice, it would be glueing the scissors, slam shut. All your problems would disappear aint it?

Happy paper-crafting, ciao.

--

TLDR SECTION

General Definitions

Split: To divide into parts (identity, memories, feelings).

Fuse: To join parts into a single entity (integrate dissociated parts).

Why Splits and Fuses Happen

Splits: A mechanism to handle overwhelming situations, detaching parts to maintain functionality.

Fuses: Integrating split parts to reduce fragmentation, enhancing awareness and skills.

Identifying Splits

Triggers: Stress, denial, need to separate qualities for functionality.

Pre-Split Signs: Mood swings, head pains, disorientation, forgetfulness, conflicting thoughts.

Handling Splits

Identify the cause.

Accept and support the new split part.

Determine what the split part holds.

Decide to let it complete a task, reintegrate, or heal.

Preventing Splits

Accept and process emotions.

Trust in handling stress.

Recognize and integrate all facets of yourself.

Reassure yourself to keep memories and experiences integrated.

Manifestations of Splits

New alter/fragment

Subsystem

Amnesia-present split (creates barriers for memories)

Amnesia-absent split (for integration issues)

Identifying Fuses

Levels of Integration:

Hearing and understanding other parts.

Enjoying activities and foods together, intuitive understanding.

Pre-fuse: Feeling as part of one identity with minimal barriers.

Handling Fuses

Accept and solidify the new fused self.

Explore feelings and navigate life anew.

Practice and embrace the process.

- j

[cannibal-wings]

WIP Wed for You Pay the Cost.

Been a while huh? Sorry about that, I've been furiously rewriting this section. (this is my third full rewrite of this sequence). It's been gnawing at me, it wasn't quite right before. But now I think it is.

Ok, this is a bit of the Water Room/Hall section. Just a bit. The sequence is long and I don't want to share the whole thing.

Trigger warning for my namesake. Leon eats a guy. (It was bound to happen eventually)

He yanked enough control back for himself to leap back to the pillar and then across to the overlook next to him. He made short work of those archers too. His knife was just as deadly as his claws and felt better to use, like the haze was lifting slightly from his mind. His heart had stopped roaring in his ears and he felt like for just a moment, he was going to be ok. Then he heard Ashley scream and all semblance of humanity fled him in an instant.

Leon jumped from the railing and landed hard on the back of a cultist, if he didn’t die on impact the foot claw to his throat finished the job. He looked from the various cultists that were gathered around him. Reinforcements from deeper within the castle. They all brandished weapons, spiked flails and shields, long, curved scythes, and a couple daggers.

Leon ignored them all and searched for Ashley, he spotted her running along the perimeter of the room, someone was chasing her. He bellowed out another roar. It was enough to make the cultists flinch. Leon started to move, he felt different, he felt predatory, his hands weren’t reaching for the guns strapped to his back, nor the knife that was missing from its sheath.

A blade dug into his side, one of the scythes. A cultist had managed to get a hold of herself and struck him, she managed to hit a spot that was still soft, the carapace underneath his shirt hadn’t fully moved in and hardened over that spot. It was luck. The last bit of luck her life held. Leon spun on her, grabbed the blade and yanked it free from his body with a hiss. Then with another hand he grabbed the shaft of the weapon and pulled. For a second, she tried to fight back, her hands gripped her weapon instead of letting go. This got her within striking range. Leon stepped on the scythe, snapping the shaft in half and raised his own scythe like claws. She was dead before she even realized she was in danger. One claw sliced across her throat while the other spilled her guts to the floor.

Leon looked away from the gore and back to the edge of the room. He spotted Ashley, she had lifted her bolt thrower and shot at the person pursuing her. He growled low in his throat, deep, and started to stalk over to her side. But he stopped when the person went down and Ashley again ducked behind the safety of a pillar. He felt a smile break across his lips. She didn’t need him, not right now at least. That meant he had all the time in the world to finish up what he was doing.

He spun on the cultists who had started to advance. That grin only grew wider, he could feel his jaws split and his mandibles pull away from his face. Leon moved much faster now, almost too fast for his mind to catch up, instead he started to rely on instinct, and let his body move without his input. He was able to dodge another scythe, he turned out of its reach and one of his secondary arms lifted itself to block a dagger, he heard the sound of metal and sharp claw clash. He kept his momentum and jumped straight over the heads of two of the shield wielding cultists. From behind he raked his claws across their back, he could feel them snag on bone from the spinal column and he ripped.

Humans, he was quickly learning, were very, very soft. Even infected humans. They were soft and weak and so easy to play with. Now that he was stronger, now that he couldn’t be hurt easily, it was the perfect time to begin to test his own abilities. He licked his lips and swallowed. The sweetness of the water still lingered, he wanted to replace it.

A cultist with a dagger tried to stab him in the back, the blade bounced harmlessly off and Leon turned. The cultist took a step back, his eyes full of fear. Leon could see that he was fighting with himself, trying to decide if he should hold his ground or run. Leon made the choice for him. He disarmed him with a quick slash to the wrist, his claw carving straight through the man’s arm, detaching the hand completely. It fell to the floor but Leon could hardly hear it over the sound of his own blood pounding in his ears. He flared his jaws and advanced on the man. The cultist had a hand over his stump, trying desperately to stop the bleeding. He looked back at Leon and screamed.

The scream was cut short when Leon’s outer mandibles covered part of his face, neck, and shoulder as he bit down. He opened his inner set of jaws, feeling them spread wide too as he chewed through the skin and muscle. The strength in the cultist’s legs fled and he tried to drop to the ground. Leon felt the weight shift and shoved his two clawed fingers into the torso of the man to hold him up. That sickly sweet taste was finally covered up with an addicting salty wash of blood. The cultist under his jaws had died, the last weak pumps of blood faded. He had likely been choked out, either by Leon’s jaws or his own blood.

Leon didn’t mind, the body was still warm, and he was hungry. So hungry. He hadn’t realized just how so until just now. Suddenly all that mattered was filling his gut. He wondered if just one cultist was going to be enough? He had his face buried in the man and didn’t see the other cultists backing up, giving him space. He also wasn’t aware of the archers as they all took aim. If they hadn’t begun to fire upon him, there’s no telling how long Leon would have stayed and feasted.

The arrows peppered his back, and a few of them wormed their way in between his plates. Lucky shots that finally pulled his attention away from the corpse he was eating. It was the smell of singed fabric that got him to look up. The pain from the arrows he hardly felt. Leon dropped the body; it landed in a crumpled heap by his feet. A large portion of the man’s neck, shoulder, and chest were missing. Leon’s jaws dripped with red instead of black this time. He licked his lips but there was too much to clean off, it was just spread around his face. He shook his head and sent droplets flying. More arrows rained down him, he noticed several cultists picked up shields and held them up. Leon simply raised his arms while he looked for a perfect angle of attack.

While he still couldn’t reach their level in one jump, he could grab hold of a decorative banner that was strung up between two of the balconies. It held his weight as he climbed it, his claws leaving tears in the luxurious fabric. Arrows continued to zip past him. Some bounced harmlessly off of his back plates, others caught the fabric, but most missed and hit the wall in front of him. Leon ignored them, they weren’t a threat to him, not a real one, but they could hurt her and that was unacceptable.

He made his way up to the stone railing and hauled himself up and over. At close range the archers were nearly useless. They couldn’t get an accurate shot off, and Leon’s carapace deflected most of the energy in the bolts if they did hit. He growled low under his breath when one did strike him in the chest, but the tip didn’t penetrate, it didn’t even crack his shell. Leon quickly cut them both down. With a loud roar he put one leg up on the railing and looked out over the water hall. He could feel that the cultists were regretting attacking them. He saw the way they shrunk back, how they flinched when he roared.

The stone under his feet cracked as he pushed off and leapt to the next balcony. He felt invincible. He felt good. As he tore apart more archers, he wondered why he ever resisted in the first place? It was a gift and he had been foolish to squander it. He was confident he could protect her now, and forever.

Ashley kept moving along the perimeter of the room. She kept herself out of the line of fire of the archers up top, but she also got the feeling that she wasn’t their target. A loud roar reverberated through the room. She clutched her ears at the sound. It wasn’t like anything she had ever heard before; no animal came close. It was like something out of a science fiction or horror movie. One-part velociraptor screech and one-part big cat roar. After the initial roar it would taper off into a vibrating growl.

She couldn’t spot Leon, he had vanished from view, and she only hoped that whatever it was that made that sound hadn’t torn him apart. There were bodies everywhere. She could still hear the sounds of combat, they were still after something, and the couple cultists that tailed her, told her all she needed to know about the situation. It wasn’t over. Worry was starting to creep over her when another horrible growling roar overtook the chanting of the cultists. She hadn’t heard a gunshot in what felt like ages.

Ashley was moving quickly, away from the edge of the room that dropped off to the second floor. She didn’t like the idea of accidentally going over the edge. But when she rounded the corner to the other side she stopped. There was a cultist with a shield, he was backing up himself, taking cover from something. Then he spotted her and began to hurry towards her. He was speaking something in Spanish to her, that she couldn’t understand. It wasn’t chanted, it almost seemed normal. He was afraid of something and kept pointing up to the balconies above them.

“Leon?” Ashley called out and moved back. In the back of her head, she had considered the thought that it was Leon who was responsible for the state of the room. But she also reasoned that if it was him, then this level of brutality was necessary. The man was still walking towards her, he was still trying to say something to her. By this point another had joined him. This woman wasn’t trying to speak to her though, she was just interested in doing her job.

Ashley hefted her bolt thrower up, it was loaded. She had already taken someone down and retrieved her used bolt. Later she could sort through her thoughts on that action. But right now, she needed to make sure she survived long enough to make it that far. She was confident she could take out the one without the shield, but there was no way her bolts were getting through that thick wood.

Wordlessly she aimed and fired. Her first shot went high and to the side, it dug into the cultist’s arm and she howled in pain. She gripped the shaft of the arrow with one hand and started to pull. Ashley quickly readied another shot and fired. This one missed completely and she took a deep breath. She wasn’t sure if she’d have time to reload, she had to make this last one count. Leon’s words ran through her head and she tried to imitate what he did, how he fired. Strong through her core, through her upper body. Don’t hold your breath, have steady arms. When the woman looked up Ashley shot. This time the bolt went straight into her chest. She dropped to the ground.

Ashley had made it to the opposite wall, she was still wary of the archers above her, but her main focus was on the man with the shield who was still moving towards her. “Leon!” She called his name hoping he could hear her over his own fighting. She would need help with this one, she knew it. Ashley dug bolts out of her bag and began to feed them into the bolt thrower. Maybe she’d talk to the Merchant next time they met about that extended magazine, because three shots were not cutting it. “Leon!” she tried calling out again, a bit of panic creeping into her voice. “Leon I need help!”

The man was too close for comfort now, she debated running straight across to the room to the other side, to put real distance between them while she figured out another plan. She was going to call Leon’s name again but as the words left her mouth something rammed into the man with the shield and pinned him against the wall.

The man had only moments to adjust the shield in a way that let him turtle up behind it, hiding all of his appendages while he sank lower to the ground. Leon snarled and began to tear at the shield with his claws, they left deep gouge marks in the wood. Ashley watched, stunned, as Leon threw himself at the shield, jaws snapping, as the man pleaded.

Leon managed to tear a hole in the shield and he shoved his hand inside to make it bigger. He wanted to be able to rip the shield in two, split it, but his hand was too large to fit inside. He growled in frustration, the motion vibrating his whole throat and chest. The strong wood of the shield was preventing him from getting his kill and he was getting beyond frustrated. He shoved his body weight against the shield, pressing the man into the wall. Then he backed off and heaved himself against the shield again, and again. Then went back at it with his claws. Each one tearing chunks of wood away.

Ashley watched him work at it. She shook her heard. “No,” she whispered. “No that’s not Leon, that’s not… that’s not Leon.” The creature in front of her wasn’t a man, it was a monster. If it wasn’t for the guns still strapped to his back, he would have been unrecognizable to her. He was covered in blood, it dripped from his jaws, it ran down his arms, and coated his hands. That roar she heard earlier was him. The thing that ripped apart the bodies around this room was him. “Leon stop!”

Immediately he froze and turned to look at Ashley. She gasped and ducked back behind the pillar. Her heart was hammering in her chest. The way he looked at her, for just a moment, like she was something to be hunted. Again, she thought, that isn’t Leon. She tried to steady her breathing, calm herself down. When she poked her head around the pillar he was still standing there. He was still looking her direction, only now he seemed thoroughly confused. He tilted his head slightly, his pedipalps raising a bit. The glow in his eyes dulled. “Leon?”

She watched as he opened his mouth, but no words came out, just a warbling sound, and a soft growl. Then the man with the shield decided to act and shattered the brief moment of peace. He pushed off the wall and rammed Leon with the shield. The movement caught Leon off guard and his feet slipped on the wet tile. He could feel himself hit the railing and lean back over it. But he didn’t go in. Two of his hands gripped the rail and his head whipped back to face the cultist. He let out another roar and spread his mandibles wide.

Ashley moved back behind the pillar and put her hands to her ears to block out the sound of screaming and flesh tearing. The wooden shield had snapped loudly, Leon had gotten through, and she wasn’t brave enough to look at what he was doing to that poor man.

---

Hopefully I don't rewrite this bit again. I really wanna nail this feral side of him, and I keep going back and changing things slightly, and redoing parts.

oh ho ho what could have caused this????? Why is he acting like that?? Will he come back to his senses??? I know these answers and soon you will too!

The estimate of getting an update done by tomorrow was uh, hopeful. It's not going to happen. I'm hosting some friends tonight, and I have DnD tomorrow. I still have to rewrite the whole fight with the Garrador after I lost it two weeks ago (I was so mad I just skipped it and started to rewrite Water Room), and I have to do the treasure puzzle room too. Then it's just the last scene after Water Hall. I'm like, 70% done with the chapter, but I don't think I can pump it out tomorrow. So it'll be a few more days.

[hockybish]

Turning

l Brock Faber l Brock Faber x Dancer l masterlist l

"Five, six, seven, eight." Maggie Walker counted out loud to herself as she spun around.

"Knock, Knock" A voice called into the studio she was renting. Brock popped his head in. "Hey Mags" he smiled.

Maggie ignored that man standing in doorway, continuing to work on the big turn sequence, it needed to be perfect. She needed to be perfect. She wasn't going to be the one that messed up by falling out of a turn or hesitating on the aerial. The dance team had a legacy to uphold.

"Hello? Maggie? I brought dinner, you want some?" Brock interrupted her concentration by holding up a bag full of their favorite foods from Chipotle.

"What you and Sammy not want to cook again?" She chirped noticing what he had brought along to share with her.

"Something like that or maybe we don't have any clean dishes." He joked along with her. He started to unpack the bag. Setting up a makeshift picnic on the side of the room. He looked up at her when he was finished expecting her to come eat.

"You go ahead start eating. Gotta keep working on this." Maggie began again.

She pliéed deep, pushing off the floor, going into the same turn she been working on. She went into that side aerial. She must have place her foot in the wrong spot because instead of flipping over she slipped and fell.

It was whatever. Maggie got back up, prepping to do the sequence one more time. The result same as before. She hesitated before the flip and help. Slamming her fist on the ground in frustration.

"Take a break Margret Walker. Eat something, you can try again afterwards" The rookie defenseman rushed over to help the dancer up.

Maggie nodded letting Brock guide her to the food that for sure had cold by now. Nonetheless she still began to eat the chicken, rice, bean, cheese and salsa burrito bowl. She used a chip to scoop up a chunk of the mixture for a bit of added crunch.

"Feel better?" Maggie nodded with a toothy smile. She made sure not to eat too much of the filling meal, she had to get back to work and she had a late night class to teach.

The elite dancer got into place. She taking a deep breath, she pliéed and began to spin but it was short lived. She started felling the nerves again. Getting into her head, Maggie lost count and fell out.

"Do you think you could count for me?" Brock agreed and Maggie instructed him on the tempo.

Maggie got back into her starting position as Brock started to count. "one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight" Split jump down to a roll, formation change, roll again, pirouette á la seconde times 10, aerial into three more pirouette á la secondes, and finishing off with two regular pirouettes.

"I got it!" "You did it!" The two friends cheered jumping towards each other in excitement. They ended closer than they thought with their noses practically touching and his hands on her waist.

Brock's eyes were focused on her lips. He felt as though he should kiss her. It's not like her hasn't ever thought about it before. It was more that, her brother's one of his good friends and teammates. And you don't date your teammates sisters. But she was so pretty and funny, kind and -

"Oh my god, is that the time? I'm gonna be late for class." Maggie slipped away, hurriedly collecting her things. Her feet were out the door before she turn back to him. Standing on her tip toes she kissed him.

Pulling back she grinned at him "We'll finish this later"

[salemsimsrender]

Beginner Blender Tutorial Basic Render: Part One (Importing a Sim and Adjusting Textures)

To learn the basics, we'll begin with a super simple render: one sim, one pose, one background.

But first, the anatomy of blender.

(image & list courtesy of Blender's online manual)

Yellow - 3D viewport (workspace) The 3D Viewport is used to interact with the 3D scene for a variety of purposes, such as modeling, animating, texture painting, etc.

Green - Outliner The Outliner is a list that organizes data in the blend-file, i.e. the scene data, Video Sequencer data, or anything that gets stored in a blend-file.

Blue - Properties The Properties shows and allows editing of many active data, including the active scene and object.

Red - Timeline The Timeline editor, identified by a clock icon, is used for manipulating keyframes and scrubbing the Playhead.

The tools I use most I've highlighted below:

I won't outline their uses just now, but we'll be going over them as we use them.

Different creators like to split their blender window up in different ways, but this is my preferred setup when I'm working:

I use the yellow half of the screen as a render preview/3D workspace

I use the blue half for shader editing, posing, etc.

You can set yours up like mine or find what's comfortable for you.

When you first open blender, you'll be greeted by the default cube, lamp, and camera.

Delete them! You can do this two ways:

Click and drag your mouse over all 3 and delete or Select all 3 in the side menu and hit x on your keyboard

Step 1: Importing our Sim

After deleting the default items, we'll import our sim. This tutorial assumes you've already ripped your sim (if you haven't, check here for how to do so!)

Now, let's import.

Click file -> import -> collada (dae) Select your DAE and click "import"

Your sim will look a little... off (thick eyelashes and a weird shine), but that's okay we're going to fix it! Your sim might also look solid white. If that's the case, make sure you're in the right mode. You can adjust modes by clicking on one of the four circles in the top right of the screen.

These are your viewport modes.

Wireframe (far left) - good for mesh editing Solid (middle left) - good for posing Material Preview (middle right) - what we work in most, shows everything with textures (color) Rendered (far right) - this shows your render preview We'll be working mostly in Material Preview

You can also switch between modes by hitting z on your keyboard then selecting which one you want I'll be using mostly keyboard shortcuts but I'll show you how to do both as we go along

Step 2: Adjusting Our Sim's Textures

Let's fix our sim's textures.

First. set up your workspace. Separate your workspace into two windows (as shown in the picture above with a yellow half and a blue half) and select "shader editor" in your right-side window. Like this:

Next, navigate to your Outliner and click the little dropdown beside "rig"

Under "rig" you'll see your sim's body parts listed. We're going to select "Body" When we click "Body", these colored blocks will appear in our shader editor window.

These are called Nodes. We use Nodes to adjust textures for various items in blender (sims, walls, furniture, etc). To add a new Node, you can select "add" in the top bar, or hit Shift+A on your keyboard and add in the node you need.

We're going to add in a Mix Shader and a Transparent Shader (both found under the Shader tab) and adjust our nodes this way:

Snug the Mix Shader between the Principled BSDF and the Material Output. Now we have to connect our Nodes and adjust our Principled BSDF. For the sake of this tutorial, I'll show the basic Node & Shader adjustments, but we'll go into each of them in a later tutorial.

Adjust your Principled BSDF like this, then connect your Node lines exactly like this:

You'll see that our SIm's body looks a bit different from her head, hair and shoes. That's good! Now we need to duplicate that texture to the rest of our sim.

Navigate to your Outliner again, and use Shift+Click to select the rest of the body parts in the list Don't select pose or rig.001 and make sure the Body is selected first EDIT: You'll only see "body" if your sim has a full body outfit on! If they have a shirt and pants, you'll have "Bottom" and "Top" instead! In this case, select "bottom"!

Now, hover your cursor over your sim/the 3D viewport window, and press Ctrl+L on your keyboard. This brings up the Link/Transfer data window. Select "Link Materials"

Our sim is looking better, but her eyelashes are still dark, let's fix that now.

In your Properties area, navigate to Material Properties (the little red ball)

Change your Blend Mode to Alpha Hashed We will always set Blend Mode to Alpha Hashed

Now our sim looks right!

In Part Two, we'll pose her, set up the scene, and run the render!

[tactical-mode]

After a rushed release, I took my time re-editing and reshooting and am now happy with the final product. Lesson learned. Perfectionism is the enemy of putting a product out, but I can afford to take the time to be proud of it.

Between where we left Cloud last time and where we find him in this opening shot, I actually filmed multiple scenes using Remake that took us into the station house, through a combat, up the stairs, and back out onto the street. These scenes were cut because they weren’t in the OG, it’s as simple as that. The 76 shots and ~15 minutes of good footage are waiting on the ancillary hard drive to be used in a music video or something.

[Chapter 01] Scene 10:  Meeting AVALANCHE

(see my post from Episode 1 to read about why I enumerate scenes this way)

This is the first major overhaul to a scene from 7R, and I cut a lot, refilmed, and moved shots around much more than folks might notice, and I had to manipulate a lot to make it seem like Biggs is interacting with Cloud, which he doesn’t actually do in the Remake scene.

The character’s mouth animations surprised me by how well they could be interpreted to be saying the PS1 lines, especially:

Jessie: “--s, this, uh, what was his name again?”

Jessie: “SOLDIER? Aren’t they the enemy?”

Biggs: “He’s a professional, unlike the rest of us.”

Biggs: “He quit them, and now he’s one of us.”

For the dialogue in this scene I blended PS1 and EC. Forever shout out to Yinza for preserving the PS1 script.

(remember to turn on closed-captioning for the dialogue!)

Scene 11:  Opening the Gate

There’s some stage blocking here and another instance where I decide to go with Remake and/or EC’s dialogue over OG. In OG, Barret tells them to split up (they don’t), the player is given the option to rename him, he tells Cloud that he doesn’t trust him, and then he tells the player how to use the controller buttons to run. Yeah, that won’t work. We’re going to keep his one line about trust:

“Ex-SOLDIER, huh? Don't trust ya!” (PS1/Beacause)

“You’d better be worth the money, merc. Every last gil.” (7R)

For this, 7R’s line is the most evocative and gives us just a bit more context for the situation at hand. I’m not super thrilled that it extraneously introduces us to the concept of ‘gil’, the fictional currency of FF7’s world, which isn’t relevant to the story right now (in the OG, Aerith introduces it when selling the player a flower). But the line is just so damn cool. Barret is so damn cool.

I cut the extraneous chatter between Cloud and Wedge here. I added a couple of shots around the door opening, such as moving one of Wedge’s face-muggings and a wide shot of Jessie and Biggs being sneaky.

I blended the different movements of the soundtrack here to match the iconic tilt of the camera up at the reactor. I also made sure to keep the entire sequence timed in such a way that Barret’s cold turn back is accented by the tense cellos. They haven’t said which one of Remake’s many composers is responsible for each individual diversion from Uematsu’s original score, but I would put good money on Shotaro Shima for the cinematic variation that plays during this scene. The forevariance of the Main Theme here is a particularly nice touch.

Scene 12: Combat: Cloud vs. 1 MP and 1 Guard Hound

A combat has begun, which means that our major story moments for the episode are behind us. That’s not to say that there won’t be plot in the following few minutes, but there won’t be dialogue. Enjoy the slow-motion feast for the eyes and ears, I really enjoyed making it.

Because Cloud is the only combatant in these, it’s easy to actually choreograph and re-shoot the fights, finaggling the enemies into the same locations as I use the same moves on them. This fight can be repeated after opening a nearby chest, allowing me to quickly restart it without having to reload, with only minor changes to the starting positions. For instance, in the first scenario, the members of AVALANCHE start on the battlefield and spend the first few rounds taking the lift, whereas they’re already at the top at the start of the second fight.

I really loved the naturally moody lighting on the crew in the warehouse, and cutting back and forth allowed me to mask some of the “jumping around” that the enemies and Cloud do – although not all, as eagle-eyed viewers will see. This will become less possible when more characters become involved in fights, but for the opening encounters I thought it would be important to show how this slow-mo thing could give the impression of fights progressing. Here's my favorite from the cutting room floor:

Scenes 13-14: Through the Warehouse

At three separate times, I mask edits to the score. At the end of the combat, Cloud sheathes his sword, allowing me to cut out 14 bars and restore Uematsu’s original score structure. I then put this opening piano on loop, extending it until enemies are on the screen (it’s masked again by the sound of the lift and by Jessie cutting the wires. In Uematsu’s structure, loops of the song don’t include the timpanis and orchestra hits from the beginning, but 7R’s version does include them, which I think is an oversight. However, it had the unintended upside of scoring the arrival of enemies from behind Cloud really well! Also, we can associate the orchestra hits with Cloud once more as they punctuate him whirling around and preparing to fight!

Fun fact: Bombing Mission has a bpm of 136, so when I found editing the music too repetitive I would use placeholders with the same bpm and then fine-tune it later. Highlights from the playlist I made were Rocket Man, Thunderstruck, Go Your Own Way, Jump (For My Love), and, heh, Sandstorm. 

Scene 15: Combat: Cloud vs. 2 MPs, 1 Guard Hound

With this combat, I chose to introduce the viewer to magic - specifically, Cloud’s ability to cast lightning and ice. In OG, the player learns this by taking control of Cloud down on the train platform, but its quite possible in a playthrough for Cloud to never use magic – and indeed, in 7R he begins with different spell abilities altogether!

However, I feel like this short encounter was the way to introduce magic with the maximum hype possible, and I’m proud of the result. Cloud zaps one MP, dispatches the other with a quick sword slice, then fires off an ice spell to nab the pup.

I tried to have the materia in focus while Cloud was casting in order to provide a visual clue as to where this magic comes from, because it won’t be exposited with dialogue for some time yet.

Scene 16: Combat: Cloud vs. 2 MPs

Around 1 minute of combat footage represents about 2-3 hours of shooting, and about 5 hours of editing. This one took a bit longer because I remained in bullet time so that I could get coverage of the crew running out onto the bridge.

For this combat, I cut out a chunk of the score to make room for the section that uses a variation on the Main Theme, accenting a Cloud hero shot.

Scene 17: The Bridge

This was pretty straightforward to shoot except for cutting out a door puzzle that triggers AVALANCHE running into the reactor. Filming around that was a bit tricky. I also dabbled in my first bit of colour-correction here, as jumping from the gap between sectors back into that metal tunnel was hard on the eyes.

A quick clip of the music to ramp up towards the credits, and about a hundred reshoots of that camera so that it passes between the pipes and not through them. And we're done.

Final Thoughts

I can’t believe anyone reads these things, but if you did, hey thanks. Let me know what you think of the series! And dOn’T fOrGeT tO LiKe aNd sUbScRiBe!

[anomalocariscanadensis]

alright time to get less vague about the System.

The System is my attempt at rendering mathematical proofs into music. I created a quick-and-dirty Rust version of LambdaPi and hooked it up to the infrastructure I built for my synth experiments with FunDSP. LambdaPi is a dependent-type system, allowing us to represent propositions as types and proofs as values of those types (or computations which produce such values). Functions act as universal quantification/logical implication (e.g. f: A -> B is a proof that A implies B, f: (a: A) -> B a is a proof that for all a in A, B holds of a), finite types act as truth-values (False is represented by the empty type, True by the type with a single value), and so on.

The main proof I'm concerned with, and the one displayed above, is Girard's Paradox, a type-theoretic equivalent of the famous Russell's Paradox. The particular version used here is derived from Hurkens's simplification (and the Agda implementation here of the Hurkens version). The key problem is that if the type of Type is Type, we run into similar problems as having a set of all sets, though rather more technical, as types are more restricted than sets. Any serious proof assistant avoids this by defining a whole sequence of universes of types. Type has type Type1, Type1 has type Type2, etc. LambdaPi, however, is a tutorial which doesn't bother with the resulting complications, so it has Type-in-Type and thus the paradox.

Terms in LambdaPi are structured as a tree of constructors which contain other terms that are themselves trees of constructors. This is pretty standard but it leads to our method for representing these things sonically. Each base constructor is assigned a little fragment of melody on a certain synth instrument (later we might separate the notes played from the instrument playing it but for now they're together). Then we take the term and assign it some duration in which to play its fragment of melody, and we simultaneously break up that duration into two (sequential) pieces which we hand to its subterms, and have them play their melodies in that time period. The diagram below gives a crude schematic of how this works (colors correspond to specific terms within the tree, not the melodies being played).

There are a few ways we can split up the time. Perfectly even splits have some rhythmic upsides but lend themselves to enormous boring stretches interspersed with losing a lot of the detail in the interesting parts, but splitting purely by the size of the term makes it harder to distinguish between levels. I've mostly settled on splitting up time by the square root of the term sizes (other comparable functions might win out but the principle is similar). However, to preserve some rhythmic alignment, we do some rounding involving powers of 2 of the base duration (still not perfect of course).

Once the broad structure is set up, the main room for creative variation that isn't determined by the structure is what melodies and instruments are used for each term constructor. At first I basically just put things in at random to get the structure up and running. I've put a bit more thought into it, and I'm happy with the result for the amount of work I've put in, but there are still some very arbitrary choices involved. I'd like to write a set of melodies which work for the specific structure of the output for the Girard term rather than a generic set of fragments that'd work for everything. If I make another term of sufficient scope, I'll want to redo them for that. Genericism is worthless here.

Another goal I have is to get term evaluation involved. That'll require me to do two things. First and easiest, write a small-step evaluator for LambdaPi terms, which are heavily designed to be big-step evaluated - it uses bidirectional typing so there's a split of checkable/inferrable terms AND uses higher-order abstract syntax for values which makes them a separate type from syntactic terms. Second, and much harder, is that I'll have to figure out a way to represent evolution of the structure over time when I'm already using time to represent the structure itself. This is why I'd like to have two dimensions of time. These are both difficult but neither is impossible.

Also my local library has a copy of Xenakis on formal structure in music so I'm going to check that out. Xenakis seems really cool

[tinyozlion]

--The Gundam Wing Drinking Game! (*you don’t actually have to drink)--

Happy Eve War Armistice Day, everyone! As we all gather around the warmth of a flickering screen with friends, family, or discord buddies to celebrate the beginning of True Peace between Earth and the Space Colonies-- WHICH WILL SURELY LAST FOREVER-- why not play a little festive anime parlor game? This can be played with beverages, snacks, points, or the penalty/reward system of your choice!

THE CLASSICS— take ONE any time:

1) Someone shouts: "IT’S A GUNDAM!" or "THAT’S A GUNDAM!" 2) Magical Gundam Transformation Sequence 3) The BFG: the buster rifle beam canon does what it does best. 4) Relena Yells At The Clouds 5) "Omae o korosu!": Heero threatens to kill someone and then doesn’t. 6) THAT'S SO FETCH: Duo calls himself the God of Death or says one of his catchphrases. 7) BOOBY TRAPPED: Heavyarms fires its chest missiles. 8) SAFETY FIRST: Quatre wears his goggles. 9) GO-GO-GADGET: Wufei uses the dragon claw extendo-arm.

THE SPECIALS— take TWO whenever the following occurs: 1) A fruit or vegetable is given meaningful screen time. 2) Episode title is the opposite of what occurs in the episode. 3) VA Hall of Shame: a voice actor fumbles a line or really chews the scenery. 4) This Is Big Nose: An impossibly silly military call sign is used. 5) Someone with Special Eyebrows conveys normal information in a straightforward way. 6) FOUND FAMILY: The Maganac Corps shows up to save the day. 7) Bee-bee-bee-bee-bee-bee-bee!

SING ALONG AT HOME— you MUST CHANT whenever:

1) KAIJU SHOT! KAIJU SHOT! a mobile suit looms into view of a window and horrified onlookers. 2) CRAB! CRAB! CRAB! CRAB! any time you see a MS Cancer or its aquatic friend group. 3) CLOWN! CLOWN! CLOWN! CLOWN! any time you see a clown. 4) HEEEEEEROOOOOO: you know what to do. *Stackable with article 1 section 4. 5) PUSH THE BUTTON FRANK: an ominous button is pressed to devastating effect.

POUR ONE OUT— take TWO and go "Oooooo, YIKES!" whenever one of the following occurs:

1) Someone REALLY should have locked their mobile suit hatch. 2) One Day From Retirement: a hapless schmuck gets got immediately after giving the all clear. 3) A gross failure to correctly estimate the impact tolerance of gundanium alloy despite all documented evidence. 4) Heero takes it on the dome or otherwise hits the ground at speed. 5) Duo gets used as a punching bag. 6) The Bright Noah Special: someone gets slapped or hit in the face. 7) Brutality: A mobile suit makes direct lethal contact with a human target. 8) Red Card: a fencing move does damage to a person or their equipment. 9) The Can Opener: Something gets split in half by a beam or heat weapon. 10) Fuck This Thing In Particular: A mobile suit (or other vessel) self detonates-- *stackable with article 3 section 5. 11) Up-Skirt Shot: A mobile suit or its pilot gets an unflattering camera angle.

HALL OF FAME— FIRST ONE TO SPOT one of these gets a freebie:

1) BRAND NAME: shout the Improbable Brand Name™ featured on background signage or product. 2) QUICK CHANGE: A character somehow gets into or out of a space suit off screen with no indication how. 3) GOOD BOY ALERT: There's an animal on screen (end credits don't count). 4) THE FUTURE IS NOW: State of the Art 90's Tech in use. 5) IMPORTANT PERSON SITTING AT A DESK ON THE LEFT SIDE OF A ROOM WITH A LARGE WINDOW BEHIND THEM: An important person sits at a desk on the left side of an empty room with a large window behind them.

EXTRA CREDIT: SLAP THE TABLE and call "DID YOU KNOW" to win a chance to make the FRIEND OF YOUR CHOICE take a penalty-- IF:

1) You can correctly identify one of the main voice actors in a bit role. 2) You spot an easter egg or reference to something from Universal Century. 3) Space Physics Don't Work That Way: you can explain why physics don’t work that way in space. 4) Actually Physics DO Work That Way: you can explain the science or theories behind an element of space tech, tactics, or engineering. 5) You can name a real-world location used on a map or background shot.

Happy holidays, enjoy responsibly, and have fun! -Wesley, and to a lesser extent, Tinylion

[rmorde]

Trigun Manga Reaction

Now back with Volume 1 - Chapter 3

I like this. Simple pose but very interesting with the "imbalance" I guess with the tilted head, shadowed face, and slightly lower slope of one shoulder. It's not "stiff" and it's easy to imagine the wind blowing through Vash's coat and hair.

A thought occurs tho, Did Trigun predate Tetsuya Nomura's obsessive belts, belts, and more belts design quirk? Did Nightow and Vash started that anime fashion trend?

Uhuh. Says the people who tried to shoot a GRENADE at that same one guy.

I kinda put these three panels in a sequence because... we know Vash is a good guy. Of course, he's going to save the women but the emphasis on the Nebraskas reaction to his rescue is really interesting.

Vash gives them a side-eye. He's either gauging their capacity for mercy or already clocked in that they are capable of mercy and silently hints for them to wait just a moment.

Father Nebraska understanding and just waits as he smokes. Then confirms first if Vash is ready to rumble again.

Idk. It's a moment of humanity not only for Vash but for the Nebraskas too imo.

AND IT'S WEIRD! In '98, Father Nebraska tried to get a cheap shot on Vash while he was still carrying someone to safety.

Yeah, assholes. Vash is doing his best to keep the women in the clear while you guys just throws grenades willy-nilly into buildings who have people in them. Smh.

Ngl. This sequence confuses me a bit. But, going with what happened earlier, the Nebraskas were not targeting the women. The punch was intended for Vash - which he dodged easily. However, instead of running further away, he shielded the women from the flying debris that the punch caused.

WHICH AGAIN, I REITERATE, IS REALLY WEIRD FOR '98 TO DEVIATE FROM!

In the '98, they are bonafide bad guys but in the manga they're still bad but not "Muwahahaha I'll shoot the injured women Hahahaha!" bad . The Nebraskas have some semblance of honor here.

I guess this is why TriStamp has a much more nuanced presentation of these characters. It's closer to the manga.

Oof... Owww... Vash... ���

Another gorgeous art. I like how Nightow's way of using perspective here!

Junior is established to be huge - a giant. He always take up so much space in the panels/pages like below:

However, when Vash finally "duelled" them seriously. Doesn't Junior suddenly "feels" smaller and Vash really big?

It's really cool how it instantly shows that Vash isn't goofing off anymore and the Nebraskas stand no chance in winning this.

Ragey Baby Girl no longer smiling.

Sigh. Gotta admire their one track mind.

Ngl. The line work here gave me Junji Ito vides for some reason. Vash's eye look haunting, cold, and really old.

Linework carrying hard on this page. Vash is obviously quicker with how much lines are there in his entire arm - convincingly too fast of a blur. Meanwhile Junior has less lines which makes his fist less blurry and, therefore, slower.

Clever use of the sound effects in the first panel.

I don't know what the fuck is going on in the second panel. I've been staring at it too long already and I still can't understand except it has something to do with Junior's arm?

Third panel is the crazy detail on Vash's eye. His glasses seem like he is looking at the side. However, on closer inspection, Vash is actually not looking away from the incoming attack.

The following pages is really great at building the tension on how would this duel end. The '98 anime captured it very well!

Looking cool, Vash!

Also, is it just me or does he always look for opportunities to show off his flexibility and long long legs. Must he really split here?

...

...

YES. YES HE MUST.

Oh. Ooooh! So that's what happened!

In '98, this conclusion was given to the bandit in Episode 1. His own enhancements crunching his body until he passed out and lost to Vash. However, they can't exactly rehash this in Episode 5. So, we have the "LOVE AND PEACE!" scene instead.

Admittedly, I prefer the "LOVE AND PEACE" conclusion more.

I like how, so far imo, Nightow just gives no fucks about anatomy in his art. I mean... Look at this! Even if we reason that it's because his coat is dramatically billowing with the wind, Vash's body is not proportionate. However, it doesn't matter! It looks cool and it evokes the right emotions just fine: fear and awe.

OMFG?!!! The trials these two are going through! These poor insurance ladies! Milly hanging on for dear life to that pillar. Meryl just screaming her lungs out EVEN WITH A MEGAPHONE!

AND IT WAS FOR NOTHING!!!! OML

Being considered as someone equivalent to a natural disaster shouldn't bring joy, but damn it... LOOK AT HOW HAPPY VASH IS!!! AWWW BABY GIRL!!!

Wow. They blame HER!!! How dare- Meryl beat them up! No, Milly. LET MERYL HAVE THEM!!! THEY DESERVE TO BE CRUMPLED LIKE TISSUE PAPER AFTER THROWING OFF GRENADES LIKE CONFETTI EARLIER AT VASH!!!

Awww. Their first interaction is SO CUTE!!!

In '98, it's funny and amusing. Ditto on TriStamp. But this one is sweet since Meryl and Milly kinda saved Vash in here.

I mean. Yeah, the townspeople are scared because Vash just beat the Nebraskas, but they are desperate for money. Desperation can override fear given enough time. Vash would've been hunted all over again.

I take it back. The insurance ladies climbing up to that bell tower was not for nothing. It was enough to allow Vash a moment to breathe and, as he rejoices, be free (even just for a while).

Wonder what exactly went through Vash's head here. Confusion? Fear? Dread?

HELL YEAH!!! BADASS LADIES IN LONG COATS! STRIKE FEAR TO THE HEARTS OF EVERYONE!!!

Oh. Some responses to the a couple of tags:

@alena-reblobs

Thanks! Glad you're having fun too because I sure am. I appreciate the warning and I'm kinda nervous because the action this chapter was kinda confusing to understand. Hopefully, it won't get worse (will it?) I agree that they are very cool nonetheless!

@eldritchneuro

Thanks for explaining! Paneling is always fun to study in mangas because they usually follow a 3 or 4 panels which mangakas creatively breakdown to evoke a feeling among readers.

Trigun is interesting because its from the 90's! So, some of the paneling are probably "prototypes" of the crazy ones we'd see in modern mangas.

I guess, Nightow's aiming to make the page very "cinematic" with slo-mo (sparse panels) and hyper focus on details (graphic weight). It draws us readers in to the story more effectively as if we are there too with the townspeople looking at the Humanoid Typhoon.

[kaiowut99]

Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters GX Episodes 108-109 Subbed (Finalized)

(Previously: Episodes 106-107 Subbed [Finalized])

(Check out my Subbed!GX Stream Masterpost!)

TURN-108: Professor Cobra's Assassin

Professor Cobra announces the "Disclosure Duels," a system of publicizing one's skill and performing duels openly. He also provides all of the students with their own Dis-Belts to gauge their fighting spirit through their passion, focus, and decisiveness in those duels. Cobra then orders O'Brien to duel Judai--and to do so in a way that brings forth all of Judai's latent abilities. Putting his strategy into action, O'Brien takes Shou hostage and duels Judai.

TURN-109: Judai and the Fiery O'Brien

O'Brien aims to bring out all of Judai's latent abilities by using Shou as a hostage. As expected, Judai causes a serious battle to unfold, which he responds to using his Fire deck, activating his Firewall Permanent Trap against Judai's direct attacks to negate his attempts to attack him directly. For his part, Judai Contact-Fuses Neos with Flare Scarab, summoning Flare Neos for a counterattack, but...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sorry, didn't mean to leave these two episodes hanging for just over a month~ sorry Shou

Episodes 108 and 109 are now finalized! Professor Cobra comes in and starts up the Dis-Duels, which will play a big role in this early part of the season, and we get more time with O'Brien as he duels with Judai on Cobra's orders and ends up having a little fun with it towards the end. It's a fun duel, O'Brien makes a fiery entrance with his Blaze Cannon/Blaze Cannon Trident cards, and I love the sequence in 109 as Judai uses Flare Neos with probably my favorite use of the "Fervent Duel" OST track. Also, 109 in general is a fun episode because of all the top-notch artwork going on, with some interesting angles or some really good motion frames from the animation team (Judai ordering Featherman to swoop in against O'Brien [which gets reused once or twice] is so good). Also nice character moments with Shou about reconciling his ideal from Ryou about respecting opponents with the need to have all-out heated duels to survive, a nuance that gets lost in the dub for the most part. Though speaking of the dub, I did like Axel's (O'Brien's) dub voice for the most part, though it has a rough spot or two later on when he's cowering from the Supreme King.

Animation error-wise, we mostly have some quality-of-watching touch-ups, as there weren't any card errors I picked up on; 108 had one minor touch-up near the end, while 109 had just over a handful of mostly split-screen touch-ups. Details below the cut for the interested, as always~

Quick housekeeping: in case you missed it, I reuploaded 105-107 after noticing I didn't catch an update to one of the names under the In-Between Animation credits, along with some minor consistency fixes in the rest of the credits; these were reposted over on NAC and updated in the Masterpost linked above, and 108-109'll join them on NAC in the next day or two.

Anywho, enjoy! With these done, I'll probably go back to some fixes I've been working on for episode 1 that I missed, then I'll get a bit more looked over on Tag Force Special stuff (in case you missed that news~) before working on 110 as a quick two-parter break; stay tuned!

Fixes/Edits! (108)

Near the end of the episode, as O'Brien draws for his turn, there's a coloring error with some shading along the bottom of his left shoulder where the shading is lighter like with the lighter spots higher up; it's fixed for a few frames but then goes back to lighter. Fixed this by recoloring that shading spot in the frames during the quick zoom-out that happens using Photoshop, then masked out and held the shading in the last fixed frame for the rest of the shot.

Fixes/Edits! (109)

After the 108 recap but before the OP, we get this quick scene with Cobra watching on and saying that, even if he loses, O'Brien has to bring out all of Judai's Duel Energy (a scene cut from the dub [I wonder if this error is why]), but there's an odd animation error that happens where the line on the upper left of his mouth (his left) and the jaw shading are pixels away from where they should be--this only happens for the frames where he has this fully open lip-flap and his semi-open lip-flap going. Fixed this in Photoshop by redrawing the mouth line and filling in the jaw shading along the shading that was there.

Later, after O'Brien activates his Firewall and asks Judai if he thought weak attacks would work on him, Judai notes that O'Brien didn't summon any Monsters so it wouldn't be any fun not diving right in; a semi-surprised O'Brien slides in on a split-screen acknowledging this, but there's a quick frame as the split-screen is completed where the border flickers into its final position--fixed this in Sony Vegas by just replacing the earlier frame with the latter. Then, as they split off the screen to show Shou behind them, Judai's side takes a frame longer than O'Brien's to fully get offscreen; fixed in Vegas by using the frame after in that frame's place.

Later, Judai grunts after O'Brien uses Burial from a Different Dimension to return three Fire-Type Monsters to his Cemetery, and O'Brien slides in on a split-screen to say that he's removing one from it to activate Firewall against Flare Neos's attack--but Judai starts moving for it a couple of frames before O'Brien actually starts sliding in, and along with that, the border on their split-screen ends up being off-center. Fixed these in Vegas, first by redoing the split so it's timed with Judai moving, then ending the slide-in with the border centered, moving O'Brien's side into place so that his mouth and hand move properly for the rest of the split-screen. Then, a frame before they start splitting apart as Firewall activates, O'Brien's side moves but Judai's stays still; fixed by holding the split-screen still over that frame.

A bit after, once Judai uses Contact Out to de-fuse Flare Neos and attack to make O'Brien run out of Monsters to remove from play, O'Brien grunts as Judai slides in on a split-screen to remind him about Flare Scarab's power-up effect--but like with Judai in #3 above, O'Brien starts moving for the split-screen a couple frames before Judai starts sliding in. Then, as their split ends, there's a quick frame where they start to split apart to show Flare Scarab behind them but don't actually split; this is likely why their splits then end up sliding out unevenly. with Judai's taking an extra frame to fully slide out. Fixed these all in Vegas by first redoing it so that Judai's slide-in is timed with O'Brien moving; then, I masked in part of Flare Scarab from the next frames over them as they start to split, adding a new border to O'Brien and Judai's splits; and then finally, I redid their split-outs so that they were timed evenly.

After the eyecatch, we see more of Cobra watching the duel, and Judai and O'Brien come up on a split-screen with their current LP counts--they start to split apart a frame before their LP counts disappear to show Cobra, with this quick frame having just white behind them, along with O'Brien's split missing its border. Fixed this in Vegas by just holding the previous frame over it so that the split-out starts in the next frame, once the LP counts are gone.

[continued below because of dumb characters-per-"block" limits]

(6) A bit later, after O'Brien lets Shou go, Cobra looks on in surprise, but there are a few quick frames where the shading along his jaw is incomplete; fixed in Photoshop for the lip-flap frames where it happens, then placed them in the footage in Vegas and moved it into place as needed for the panning shot here.

(7) After O'Brien loads his Volcanic Buckshot into his Blaze Cannon Trident and deals 2000 damage to Judai, he starts to explain Trident's role in that, but Judai's betting that there was more to it; O'Brien slides in on a split-screen to say as much as he explains Buckshot's role, but his split-screen's already halfway into the screen in its first before sliding the rest of the way in, and like with #3 above, the border on the split-screen somehow ends up off-center. Fixed these in Vegas by redoing his slide-in so it slides in more fluidly. Then, because of how off-center the split-screen is, as they split apart, O'Brien's side takes longer to slide out; fixed this, after re-centering the split-screen, by redoing their slide-outs to be timed evenly.

[livesincerely]

possessive jack in the merlin au in these trying times??? (no pressure though i love your work sm any writing of yours at all is enough fuel for weeks worth of my bedtime stories)

The upcoming tourney means that training has increased tenfold, which means that the amount of time David spends repairing, cleaning, and polishing Jack’s armor and weapons has also increased tenfold.

Granted, it could be worse: David’s managed to pawn off the worst of his duties to poor Garth so that he can focus on tasks too important to leave to others—namely the aforementioned armor and weapons. Which is why he’s sitting on the edge of the training grounds with a pair of pliers and a set of Jack’s chainmail, carefully replacing any rusted or damaged links with fresh ones, a gentle breeze tempering the worst of the afternoon sun.

Jack is properly in his element out here, watching with a keen eye as the knights run through their drills, calling out corrections and critiques in equal turns. Every now and then he demonstrates a particular sequence himself, the edge of his blade glinting majestically as it slices through the air.

David’s attention is so thoroughly split between his work and keeping watch over his Most Royal and Most Exasperating Pain in the Ass that it takes him a moment to realize that the shadow that’s fallen over him isn’t from a cloud, but from someone sidling up beside him.

“Uh, hello?” he says, squinting up at the unexpected company. “Can I help you?”

“I certainly hope so,” the stranger says. He’s dressed in a dark tunic with a sword sheathed across his hip, leather braces strapped around his wrists and a plate buckled across his chest. “Do you know if visiting knights are allowed to train on the grounds or should I find somewhere else to run through some drills.”

“That’s a question quite a bit above my station,” David says, recognizing the crest stamped into his armor as from one of the northern delegations. “Sir Sean or Sir Albert would be the ones to ask, to be sure, but in my experience the answer will likely be no. I think there’s a separate area set up in the East Courtyard.”

“Could I trouble you to show me the way?” the knight asks. “I find myself becoming hopelessly lost when I try to navigate the citadel alone.”

“I’m sure I could slip away for a moment,” David agrees, setting aside his pliers. He glances back across the training yards and Jack seems more than occupied, walking one of the younger knights through a disarming sequence. “I understand more than most how difficult it can be to find your way around the castle.”

“Thank you, kindly.” He offers David a hand up, and once he’s on his feet, he bows low over their clasped hands and presses a kiss to David’s knuckles. “I am Sir Camden of Rhodia, and graciously in your debt.”

“Oh, it’s no trouble, really,” David says, blushing furiously at the gesture. “My name is David.”

“David,” Sir Camden repeats. “A lovely name for an even lovelier creature.”

He offers his arm as David tries not to stanmer, thoroughly flustered in the face of such an unexpected compliment.

“There’s no need for flattery,” David says, hoping he doesn’t sound as ruffled as he feels. “I’ve already agreed to show you the way.”

“There’s always time for flattery,” Sir Camden disagrees lightly, his expression bright with good humor. “Especially for one as clearly deserving of it as you.”

“O-oh, well—“

“David!”

David turns towards the shout to find Jack stalking toward him at a steady clip, jaw clenched and brow furrowed.

“And where do you think you’re going? We’ve still got several more hours of training,” Jack informs him sharply, as if David wasn’t already fully aware.

“Prince Johnathan,” Sir Camden says, sinking into a deep bow at Jack’s approach. “It’s an honor to finally meet you, I am Sir Camden if Rhodia.”

“A pleasure, I’m sure,” Jack says, crisply polite. He’s got his war face on for some inexplicable reason, the look in his eyes as hard as stone. “And why, exactly, are you attempting to abscond with my manservant?”

“My apologies,” Camden says carefully, his eyes flitting uncertainly between David and Jack and back again. “David had just agreed to escort me to the secondary training grounds—I’m afraid I’m still at a loss when it comes to navigating the castle grounds. Perhaps, if he could be spared for a few minutes—“

“He cannot,” Jack cuts in firmly, offering no further explanation. “However, I’m sure Sir Anthony would be more than happy to show you.”

Tony steps forward as if summoned from thin air, face settled in a polite mask. “It’s right this way.”

“Of course,” Sir Camden acquiesces, nodding politely at the clear dismissal. “Thank you, my lord.”

Jack doesn’t respond, returning Camden’s farewell with a curt nod of his own. The moment the two of them are out of earshot, David swats at Jack’s arm.

“What was all that about?” he demands.

“Getting friendly with the visiting nobles, are we?” Jack asks with a scowl. “I thought you were convinced that one of them was some kind of assassin in disguise?”

“I was just being nice! He’s the one that came up to me,” David defends, though he’s not quite sure what it is he’s supposed to be defending. “And it would’ve been a great way to gather information on the delegation from Rhodia if you hadn’t interrupted.”

“Oh, is that what they’re calling it now?” he mutters. “Because Sir Camden,” —Jack spits the man’s name like it’s the vilest of curses— “seemed interested in a lot more than a friendly escort.”

“You’re being ridiculous,” David informs him, rolling his eyes.

“I’m being— I’m being ridiculous?” Jack somehow manages to make sputtering look handsome and regal because he’s an ass that way. “If he’d taken any more liberties he might as well have asked for your favor!”

“Oh, please,” David scoffs. “As if I’d give my favor to anyone but—“

He stops, the rest of the words caught in his throat.

Jack wheels on him like a hunter who’s finally caught wind of his prey. The look in his eyes has shifted somehow, that flinty gaze settling into something softer, but no less intense, his irises glinting like twin flames.

“Anyone but…?” Jack echoes softly.

David takes a deep breath, his heart hammering against his rib cage. “You’re impossible,” he murmurs.

“I could say the same thing about you,” Jack replies, and he reaches up, catching the edge of David’s neckerchief between his thumb and forefinger.

“Jackass.”

“Smartass.”

They share a smile, only for the two of them.

Finally, Jack says, “Back to work, Jacobs. And don’t let me catch you flirting with any more visiting knights.”

“So, the Manhattan knights are fair game?” David jokes.

Jack’s smile sharpens. He tugs at David’s neckerchief: just the once, just enough for the fabric to bite into his skin.

“The Manhattan knights know better,” he corrects.

And with that parting shot, he saunters away.

[nutteu]

Saltburn Jumanji AU

[rambling compilation]

ok so, i've just rewatched jumanji, all three movies, and i think i'd like to see saltburn with 'welcome to the jungle' (movie, 2017, with jack black and the rest) because it'd be easier to integrate the casts and everything, and because i think there should be more of van pelt in the story, don't you think?

like, felix as spencer, venetia as bethany, farleigh as fridge, maaayyybe annabel as martha (or not, idk yet) and oliver, oh dear oliver would be alex, because it'll be fun, having oliver as the one being stuck in the game for twenty-two years. sure, it works for felix too, but i have something in mind with this arrangement.

the kids got into the game, they got trampled over by rhinos and hippos and whatnot, yadda yadda yadda. then, they met oliver, the pilot (master of the air, hahaha), romance happens, but also misery, because we always need drama and misery for them, don't we?

at the final sequence, we find out that it was all a trap, all along. oliver had been waiting for people to go along the journey, so he can finish the game as well, yes. but it changed the moment he met felix, and was told that he had been stuck in the game for twenty-two years (he came from 2002, felix and the rest from 2024), and realized that even if he got out of this cursed place, there is a risk that he won't be able to see felix. so... why not just stay? he can't say that to the others, though, they'd refuse immediately, even felix. oliver has to make him stay one way or another, make felix see that they should stick together, side by side, with no one else and no way home to ensure that felix would be there with him.

oliver has been working with van pelt, has been reporting the situations to the man as he embarked on the journey with the jumanji team, with felix. we of course got a scene where he was accidentally bit by a mosquito, his weakness in the game, and felix saved him by giving him his life (he didn't lose any heart s the way spencer did because fridge shoved him off the cliff, farleigh can be ruthless but not that heartless). we got a kiss, and oliver cementing his decision to chase after felix because felix had just literally saved his life.

at the end, after the revelation and oliver's realization as well as making the plan for felix to stay, the team went towards the jaguar statue, except this time, instead of going together, they got separated one by one as per oliver's instruction to split up, because of the jaguars running after them and van pelt's men as well. it was a ruse for oliver to orchestrate their death, because they were liabilities and were prone in reminding felix that they have to go home. this way, there will be no reminder, no loved ones, and it will give an illusion of despair in felix's head because he lost his cousin and sister.

at that moment, when felix has reached the top of the statue, ready to receive the jewel for the eye from oliver, the last act of treachery will happen. oliver didn't get him the jewel, instead, he acted like he had been captured by van pelt and the only way to save him was for the jewel to be traded with his life. it's a precarious situation, because at this point, felix has lost one life to save oliver, one from being torn apart by the jaguars because he slipped from the trees, and only one left to risk. and it is risky, because there's no resurrection after this, no more second chance. it's either the jewel or oliver, who also only has one life left.

at the end, looking at oliver's terrified face, the tears streaking down his cheeks, felix gave up the jewel and let van pelt have it. he gets oliver back, crying and apologizing profusely to felix, because he says "it's my fault-- it's my fault felix, i'm so sorry. i shouldn't have told them to split up; should have been more careful with van pelt. now they're dead and we're stuck. we can't go home. i'm so sorry."

felix wants to be angry, of course he does. he lost people close to him and the only chance for him to get out of this god-forsaken universe, to go home. but he can't blame oliver for it (poor, gullible child) and at least... at least this way, he won't be alone, the way oliver had for twenty-two years. at least they have each other, and that should be enough.

even though he has to sacrifice his life; even though he has to let go of the world as he had known it. it's okay, because he'll be with oliver, and they will be all right, even though they'd never, ever make it home.

end. (happily ever after, at least for oliver, because come on, he's been gone for twenty-two years, the least jumanji can do to atone is giving him felix. for now; for eternity.)