#but changing a character's... well- character to fit them into a box you'd like them to be in is a little odd to me

[licorishh]

Listen I don't like to headcanon every character in everything as being neurodivergent because for one thing that's not realistic to have everyone in a random group of people be that way and often times it involves actually changing certain aspects of a character just to fit what you want which is not very cool, and for another thing I feel like it kinda minimizes the seriousness of things like autism and ADHD that really shouldn't be seen as "cute little quirks" BUT Alhaitham and Kaveh have one of the most autism + ADHD dynamics I've ever seen

Like realistically just taking the way they are

Mr. "Very Blunt but Not Because He Thinks He's Better Than Everyone, He's Just Extremely Intelligent and Matter-of-Fact, Can Only See Social Cues if They're Logical and on a Cognitive Level but He Doesn't Read Much Into It, Major Auditory Sensory Issues, Hates Talking Too Much With a Loathing, Doesn't Make Eye Contact For Longer Than Like Ten Seconds, Actually Talks a Lot When He's Talking About Something He's Either Planning or is Interested In," and Mr. "Constantly Frazzled and Squirrel-Brained, Loses Everything He Owns, Extremely Particular About Having The House 'Just So,' Has Tons of Financial Issues Not Because He's Lazy But Because He's Overly Dedicated to His Hyperfixation and Forgets to Live in The Real Word, Very Impulsive, Gets Easily Overwhelmed When He Has Too Much in His Head at Once and Too Many Expectations, Takes Alhaitham's Blunt Comments Wayyy Too Personally and Constantly Lives in Fear of Failure and Disappointing the People Who Count on Him," yeah you see where I'm going with this

This guy made a super interesting (and very underrated) video where he explains it really well!

I personally didn't agree with what he said about Kaveh, though. I think Kaveh's constant arguing and baiting comes from a place of wanting affirmation and desperately wanting to prove himself, particularly to the guy who used to be his best friend and now acts like he can't stand him (I know that's not the case and that Alhaitham mostly just thinks he's immature), and I think he has a lot of self-esteem issues that drive his behavior towards Alhaitham. I don't think it comes from a place of hate. I think he wishes they could communicate better and that they didn't have such a rift between them, but Alhaitham's failure to pick up on Kaveh's desire for affirmation and assurance (which I think is because Kaveh's not making it at all clear to him) isn't helping anything.

Tl;dr Kaveh's not actually immature, just has his own issues to work through including poor self-esteem which leads to him constantly asking for Alhaitham's opinion and constantly getting upset when Alhaitham disapproves or corrects or scolds him yet again because in his mind he thinks he hates him and he's desperate for him not to but he doesn't and just isn't good at making that clear. It's a loop, I think.

This turned into "Man look at these silly little relatable guys lol" into "Here let's do a character analysis" ksjdfhk

[cursedcupcakemaster]

can I order a Poison apple pie and candy violets with and get Spider Cider. With a ghost!reader , this is the same person who requested the other Spider Cider, hope you have a nice day❤️

Of course so we are looking for a deadly friendship with Skully are we ?

Order; Poison apple pie with a side of candy violets and a glass of spider cider

Notes; I do not own twisted wonderland, Skully or the reader,Skully and Twst belong to Disney as well as the brilliant mind of Yana Toboso, reader belongs to themselves, this is just my interpretation of how this would go with the character, reader isn't neccesarily Yuu but if you want to imagine they are you're welcome to, y/n, reader is you

Warnings;yandere, Skully may or may not have killed a few people, implied death

Yandere Skully J. X ghost reader

🪦Best friends forever🪦

You could hardly remember what happened to get you where you are now

A spirit haunting a house that hardly anyone would pass by except for one boy

He was tall and quite pale wjth a rather pleasant smile and sharply dressed at that

Skully would always come to visit you every day when the sun went down and would talk with you about the outside world that you couldn't explore much due to being bound to the house

It always made your afterlife feel just a bit easier to deal with and there was something about Skully that seemed familiar to you but it wasn't really clear what

Sometimes Skully would ask to bury things in the back of the house and you allowed him to but he never really told you what was in the yard

It just made you happy to have some company in your lonely house that wasn't the spiders weaving their pretty webs or the rats scuttling about

Skully would sometimes bring things for you, like teddies or dolls so you could possess it or little trinkets you seemed to like such as music boxes or books that you seemed interested in after he told you about them

The one thing he never really seemed to want to let you see were newspapers

It was odd but you shrugged it off its not as if much of it could really effect you considering you weren't alive

Another peculiar thing was that he seemed to know your house better than even yourself, particularly the attic

There was something about it that kind of unnerved you

Particularly a trunk in the corner of the room, it was a charcoal black and when you tried to phase through it you couldn't do it

It was rather shocking to yiu considering there weren't many objects you couldn't get through but the last time you tried Skully seemed a bit upset and yelled that there was nothing for you go see in there

He quickly changed his tune when he saw the look on your face before

The only other time you saw him act like this was when some punks came in to wreck the place, they smashed photos, the windows, and all the nicer things that Skully had brought into the house

He told you to not show yourself to them and that he'd take care of it

Doing as he said the last thing you heard of those punks were their screams before Skully came up smiling letting you know everything was fine

When you thanked him he said "it's really no problem, you're my best friend after all"

Somehow those words meant something to you, like you'd heard them before

After this incident a few more holes were dug in the back yard

One night Skully dropped something on his way out, it was a small skeletal key and the lock seemed to fit the shape of the odd trunk

Fitting it inside and lifting the lid you saw several things including photos of you, only you were....alive and you had a family

Beside you was a boy who looked an awful lot like Skully both of you wore friendship necklaces in the shape of a skull with heart shaped eyesockets

The photos weren't the only the only odd thing, there were some news clippings including "Teenagers missing" and "Mysterious deaths of local family "

There was one last object and it was a shovel

Going outside you took the shovel with you and began digging

What you found only made you feel ill and grateful you didn't have organs any longer

There were the corpses of the punks that tried to destroy your home, the people that were once your family and finally your own bones, you knew it was yours thanks to the friendship necklace shaped like a skull with heart shaped eye sockets

You felt a chill before you turned and saw Skully and he did not look the least bit pleased

"You finally saw it huh" he murmured

"W-why why would you do this?" You asked your voice dripping with fear at the boy who was once your friend

It seemed your question made him smile at you

"They were going to take you away from me. I couldn't let that happen, as for those other ones they deserved it for ruining our house"

Skully took a step toward yoh making you float backwards until you were cornered against the wall as he spoke again

"Don't you see, I did this all for you that's what friends are for~ and we're best friends forever"

You knew he wouldn't likely stop with his sinister projects unless you agreed to what he wanted

"Skully, please no more ,no more killing if you're really my friend please no more"

Ectoplasmic tears ran down your cheeks making him look at you with his face softening before wiping your tears with his thumbs

"Will you stay with me forever then?" He asked

"Best friends till the end" you replied before the skeleton like boy pressed his lips to your own cold ones

[bedoballoons]

BUT I LOVE THEM SHORT! 😭 Ngl, I struggled with this one a little so I apologize if it's not the best!! Thank your for your request and I hope you enjoy!

I'm doing well thank you and I hope you are too!!

─⊰⁠⊹ฺ❄️𝔾𝕖𝕟𝕤𝕙𝕚𝕟 ℍ𝕖𝕒𝕕𝕔𝕒𝕟𝕠𝕟𝕤⊰⁠⊹ฺ❄️

{༻~Growth spurt??~༺}

CW: Pretty much crack headcanons, GN! Reader!! Mentions of the character now being taller than the reader! Slight brat vibes for the reader in Wanderers!

(Includes: Lyney, Albedo, Xiao, Wanderer, and Aether!)

𑁍༄Lyney:

Lyney sat up in his bed, stretching his arms out and yawning sleepily. It took him a minute to fully wake up and even then he still felt a little off, but he decided to ignore it. Moving the covers aside and walking slowly into the kitchen to greet you. "Mmm mon amour, good morning~"

You spun around with a smile, "Morning Lyney- LYNEY?!" You dropped your plate of toast, having to tilt you head up just to make eye contact with the magician, it was like he'd become a giant in his sleep! "What in tevyat happened to you?!?! You're so tall!" He stared at you questionably, like he didn't really understand what you were saying, "What do you mean I'm so tall, I'm many things but tall was never one of them."

You hopped over the shards of glass, disregarding it as you stood next to him, raising your hand above your head to measure the new difference in height, "Lyney, you literally have to look down to see me now. You had like, some sort of crazy growth spurt!"

Lyney thought about it for a moment, leaning down so he could kiss your cheek, "Well well well, I'm not complaining then. Though I'm slightly worried about some of the tricks Lynette and I would normally do...CAN I EVEN FIT IN THE MAGIC BOX NOW?? Oh no...oh no!!"

𑁍༄Albedo:

Albedo had been staring at himself in the mirror for almost ten minutes at this point, wondering why the angle was different, why his body didn't seem right...he was a scientist, one who delighted in waking up to the usual because his work was always so unusual...but this was unlike anything he'd ever experienced. Perhaps he was just...crazy? "Love, could you come here for a moment?"

You set down the book you'd been reading and followed after him, stopping dead in your tracks once you saw his figure looming over the bathroom sink..."A-albedo?!" You covered you mouth in shock, your eyes starting at his feet and trailing, up up all way to his hair. "You're so tall...was this one of your experiments??"

"I almost wish it was, but no...I've just had some sort of insane growth spurt apparently. I wonder if anything else has changed besides my height. I'll have to test it.."

"...what else do you think changed Albedo..."

𑁍༄Xiao:

"You're staring again..is it really such a big difference?" Your cheeks blushed as Xiao crossed his arms, clearly unimpressed with your sudden interest in his height, but in your defense...it actually was a big difference. He went from being a short Yaksha to suddenly taller than all the adepti...and it hadn't just affected his height, it was like he felt even more confident in himself as well.

Everyone who walked by averted their gaze as if him being taller meant he was stronger than he had been before...and he seemed to be indulging in it alittle. Glaring at other men who even dared look at you...and intentionally kissing you in front of everyone whenever there was a opportunity... maybe it was just in your head, but it left you finding it hard to look away from him. "Sorry, I don't mean to stare Xiao, you're just-"

"Different...in a good way?" His yellow eyes met yours and for a second you could have sworn he had a small smirk play on his lips..

"Yes...in a good way, in a very good way"

𑁍༄Wanderer:

"Wanderer, shut up!" You stomped your foot down, clearly annoyed with him, though he didn't really seem to care. Ever since he woke up with this whole foot of height over you he hadn't stopped teasing you about it, just leaning over you and watching as your cheeks blushed or grabbing things you couldn't reach and intentionally moving in closer then needed.

"Say that again and I'll make you shut up instead." He shot you a glare under the brim of his hat, his mouth turned up in a thin smirk as he yet again made your heart race. You crossed your arms and turned away from him, why did his height make him even more of a confident ass? "Yeah right."

"Idiot. I'll show you what this new height can do then~"

𑁍༄Aether:

Aether tilted his head to the side like a dumbfounded puppy, listening to you and Paimon as the two of you panicked about his new height, every possible answer only leaving you both more confused. He on the other hand, wasn't really that interested in a why or how, he just wanted to take advantage of his new found height, something he'd wished he'd had not long ago.

"I don't know, but growing that tall over night can't be good right?"

"I don't know Paimon, but it's definitely worrisome-"

"I think it's a good thing..." His voice was quiet, barely above a whisper as the two of you turned to face him, "I've always wanted to try something at this height actually..." You raised a eyebrow at him as he stepped closer to you, holding out his hand like he wanted you to take it. He smiled at you softly as you placed your hand in his and then in what seemed like slow motion, he pulled you close to him,his face moving in close to yours as he kissed your lips. Your heart skipped a beat, electricity shooting through your body..."A-aether!"

ଘ(੭*ˊᵕˋ)੭* ੈ♡‧₊˚~Have a nice day!~*⁠.⁠✧

[kewpidity]

kewpie's slapdash tips and tricks for making moodboards

ive been asked a few times about how i make my moodboards and my MethodTM so here it is!

this is an image heavy post and as detailed and comprehensive as i can possible make it, if you have any questions let me know and i'll help if i can!

also, this is made with sites and apps for desktop- i have no experience editing on mobile so if that's what you're looking for im afraid i cant help you, sorry! ↷↷↷

Choose Your Fighter

let's get right into it- first thing first choose a character, or a ship or a series or whatever! i'll be doing a ship because it's a teeny bit more involved than just a single character or series

the ship will be grim x mandy from the one show

Picking Pictures

obviously the most important part of a moodboard is the Pictures

i use pinterest personally, and finding them on there is usually pretty easy, especially if i have an idea of things i want to include. a lot of people already have boards made up for characters as well, so just searching the character names under the 'board' option will usually get you where you need to go!

but i know some people prefer sources with free to use, royalty free type images, so i included those as well:

pixabay unsplash

you can have as many or as little as you'd like, but personally i prefer the classic 9x9 grid style moodboards, so im obviously gathering 9 photos

as for what pictures to choose, here are some things to ask yourself:

do you have a color scheme you associate with this character/ship? are there any themes that are relevant?

these are the pics i choose for my board- they're raw, unedited, and uncropped, which we'll be changing here in a bit

notice that ive chosen the color scheme of pink, black, and white because that suits them and is also the colors in their actual character palettes

ive also picked some things that feel relevant to the ship and its vibes- mandy is associated with daisies, so i got a picture with a girl with a daisy in her eye, which i also paired with a skull with a flower in its eye socket, bringing them together with a common theme. there are also little black shoes and a bloody knee for mandy, a psythe and what could work for cerberus for grim, and since their ship is kind of gruesome and mean spirited (affectionate) as well as the show having pulpy vibes, i got a heart shaped steak, a pulpy romance/horror cover, and an old horror movie card with their VibesTM

Formatting

now that we have our pictures, its time to figure out the formatting! i went ahead and already did that with the pictures above using a site ipiccy, specifically the 'collage' options

ipiccy

once you press 'collage', you'll open up to this menue, where im choosing the 9x9 grid, but as you can see there are other options there if you wanna use them! then you're gonna press 'add images'

then you add images here (mine are already loaded in):

afterwards, you play around with the placement of the images- its okay if they clip or dont properly fit in the box, this is Only figuring out where you want the pictures to go, we'll place them properly later in a different program

when im placing them i like to consider patterns and shapes- top left square is a 'mandy' square, so bottom right should be a 'grim square', as well as echo each other- in this case the flowers in the eyes thing, and so on, even down to the pointy little shoes and the pointy little sythe this part can be v subjective, so i encourage you to play around until it clicks for you

i hope my scribbles kinda help explain visually what i mean:

also as a small personal tip: when i make moodboards i want to capture the feeling of a character/ship/what have you Without just Saying it. because of that i lean more heavily on the pictures themselves and Only ever use One that has text on it. again this is subjective, but to me its a 'telling vs showing' thing and too many words makes the whole thing feel v cluttered with little room for the actual characters involved

once you're satisfied with your placement, take a screenshot to reference your placement, and then we move on to

PS/Photopea, Templates, Adjustments, and PSDs

this is where we get really into it

firstly, i know most people either dont have PS or are nervous about downloading a cracked version (def do not click this because it is def not a link to older ps files you can dl for free) but luckily there's an extremely comprehensive in-browser option that is totally free called Photopea, which can be found HERE

its basically a 1 to 1 rebuild of the real thing, and since its more accessible i'll be using that to finish up my board!

first, you'll wanna throw your template in there, here's the one im using

once you open it, you also need to open the pics you chose to use- i suggest doing this one at a time to not overcrowd the program

once the pic is open, copy it and paste it over onto the moodboard, and then right click the layer and set it to 'clipping mask' which will keep the pic within the bounds of just the template:

then go over the toolbar on the right, press the 'rectangle select', then right click the board and select 'free transform' to move the picture around freely:

now is where you look at the screenshot you took of the ipiccy placement, and then you simply move the picture in the proper place in the moodboard! you might need to select and cut off the part that doesnt fit neatly into the square

continue doing this until you have it all filled out, and take some time to properly fit the pics (for example, the pic with the text needed to be (to does this is photopea drag around the corners while in 'free transform, and if you dont want it to scale at the same dimensions press 'shift' on the keyboard while you drag, which is what i had to do with the text or the flower-in-the-skull to make it fit properly))

its important that All your layers are properly set to clipping mask, otherwise it'll be all messed up! so it should look like like this when you're done, and hopefully everything will be layered on the board properly, and we end up with this:

you could stop here and be done with it, the entire moodboard can be finished now, but i like to tweak things like contrast and value and levels, which are found here in the 'image' section at the top- ive been as tutorial-esque as i can be so far, but this one really comes down to playing around with it and making adjustments until you like the outcome (each layer can be changed individually)

i try to make it so everything feels even- the blacks match and the whites match and none of them feel particularly lighter or darker or more saturated than the others

so we go from this:

to this (if you cant tell the difference i didnt do it well ljksdf, its helped further along and made more obvious by the next step) :

and Finally the secret sauce: PSDs!

these are premade colors/effects that you drop on top of board to help even things out, maybe make some colors Pop

there are a Ton of them free to use on tumblr and deviantart, and Here is a tutorial on how to use them! (its done on mobile but works functionally the same as on desktop)

feel free to make adjustments to the photos more under the psd until it looks right to you

once ive selected and used the psd i wanted, i export it as a png, and this is the result!

i hope this is helpful and not Too confusing, if anybody has any questions let me know and i'll try to help!

[avaphantomau]

Welcome all, to the Phantom of the Opera AvA AU!

Fans of Alan Becker's incredible animations, as well as any who have ever seen the masterpiece that is Phantom of the Opera, I welcome you to this blog!

This world is still very much in the making, and I'd like to involve the AvA community as much as possible!!

That means I am asking for suggestions, requests, your involvement and interaction, because this world is for you!

Now, let's get to the primary information we have so far, starting with the cast!

The main characters of the ava will be taking the place of the main cast, but fear not! Should you want any of your oc's in this world, and now fear that they'll be hardly featured, let me put that to rest!

As this is an au, I want to keep the phantom of the opera vibes and main idea of course, but I also want to make changes, to help fit with ava better, to add more events involving the minor characters, and so forth!

This ask box will be open for suggestions or requests of that like, Indefinitely!

Now! I shall have my questions for you, after the Cast Listing we have so far!

Main Cast:

(PotO character: which stick will have that role)

Christine: Dark

Raul: Chosen

Phantom: Corrupted!Victim

The new theatre owners: King and Purple (Purple in this au will be about half King's age, in his mid twenties, with King in his forties)

That elder lady who tries to keep the others out of danger and knows the phantom: Second

The retiring theatre owner: Redwood(corn dog guy)

The Color Gang are part of the performance crew

Investor in the theatre that hangs around: Victim

OC cast roles so far:

Prima Donna: Savage

Second's secret daughter/eyes and ears: Fallen (referred to often as Effsie)

Prima Donna's minion: Cherry

Meg: Shin

Conductor: TTB

Background stage crew member #5: TLB

Background stage crew member #2: Yimbo

Performer/singer #6: Luna (TSL)

Backgound stage crew member #7: Heavy

Performer/singer #8: Light

That one guy who's somehow always lucky enough to miss or be missed by any damage: Greg

And that's all we have so far! If you'd like your oc to be in this, and or if you have a role/new role in mind, please please please ask me! I'd love to include them!

Now!

There are things about the au that haven't been settled or decided yet! I would love your help to decide these things, or to get new questions to answer!

Is there a major change we should make to this au to fit the theme? (For example, i found an rotg fic that changed the main theme from singing, to dancing, and there were many things that were different because of that, but it still felt like a phantom of the opera thing)

This one isn't as much of a major change, but should Chosen and Dark be brothers, or shipped? (I'll make a poll for this tbh)

What are some new events or scenes i could add to feature the ocs more? I already have ideas for a cast party scene :D

SPOILERS BELOW

Currently, I have C!Victim as a glitched stick, which is what earned him people seeing him as a freak, like phantom was in the thing. Is this a good idea? Should I change anything and are there any specifics I could do?

I want Dark to have some kind of cool and useful glitch that is really neat, but the mere fact of having a glitch is why Alan sent him to this performance theatre, as well as the reason for C!Victim's obsession with him. It would be something that would enhance him when performing in some way. What are some ideas y'all have for what it could be?

Since there is a Corrupted Victim, I want to have a non Corrupted victim that is more like some of the gentle phantom interpretations. I'm considering having him be some kind of investor in the theatre that is always hanging around. Is this a good role for him, and what could be a reason for there being two victims?

Alan would just be this larger than life background memory of a character that never makes an appearance, but is referenced when that scene of Dark and Chosen are talking about the past, when it is mentioned that he sent Dark away all that time ago. Should I do anything more with him?

And that is all I have so far!

Please spread this around to your ava friends or mutuals, as hopefully this will be a whole community thing!

[ashyswoyaus]

About the Lord Wander AU, are there any episodes that would not exist? The characters being shuffled around change the dynamics so drastically, there's no way a canon episode would take place?

Or, are there episodes that do happen, but occur with such different context or with very different events, to the point of being borderline unrecognizable?

Much love!

ooooo yes!!! this is something i've thought quite a bit about—there'd have to be loads of changes like that. most episodes i think, even, would have to be changed significantly. for episodes not existing, there's a Lot that definitely seem like it at first, and i even made a list, but after thinking on it a little more...they might fit more into the second category, where they're pretty majorly reworked. for episodes i haven't really been able to come up with anything for, there's the box, the lonely planet, the tourist, the helper, the boy wander, the heebie jeebies, and the sick day. the good deed, maybe? (but i think it might work, if you replace wander's stubbornness in his beliefs with dee's struggle to be a good person. you could perhaps even insert wander in there, since he's meant to be a bit of a recurring character in s1) perhaps the epic quest of unfathomable difficulty. those episodes are really wander-specific, and putting dominator in those positions renders them kinda pointless (like with the nice guy, how she just buys the thunder blazz without any trouble). and i can't think of any work-arounds to keep the basic premise of each, unlike with some other wander-specific episodes.

oh, but also, you'd have to get rid of like. the Entire hater crush arc in s2. so that would get rid of the matchmaker & the rival...but that arc would likely be replaced with something else. i don't know what that would be yet, but maybe something where you could keep the new toy, the show stopper, the cartoon, and my fair hatey, while getting rid of the "impressing dominator" part. have to brainstorm a few ideas for that but i'd like to believe it's possible

and onto some episodes that would instead be majorly reworked: the hat, of course, and by extension the bad hatter. and together with them i'd put the bot. since i feel like the position of the dombots and wander's hat would be switched in these cases! sylvia has to learn to work with the bots, bot 13 accidentally gets onto the skullship (and gets his name), wander's hat somehow falls onto the beach...real question is whether beep boop or the hat dies...i don't know if the hat can die. maybe it gets stranded in space. that'd be a pretty major change for wander, though, so i'm not really sure. then again it is supposed to be a bit of a darker tone than the show so...it might work. i think i'll probably do more on this topic at a later time!

there's also stuff like the bad guy, the big job, and the rider, revolving around wander's lack of toughness compared to sylvia—dee's pretty tough, moreso than sylvia even, so she wouldn't have these issues, but you could probably keep the settings of these episodes and just change the main conflict. for the bad guy, dee and syl use a ship to get around rather than orbble juice, but you could easily have them needing fuel instead. and dee would fit in pretty well with ryder's attitude, so separating her and syl would be difficult...i'll keep trying to figure those ones out though!

this is getting long so i'll skip over most of them for now since i feel like i'd be repeating myself...i think the big day would be one of them, but dee wouldn't suggest a wedding-like ceremony. some other big event, like a funeral. and for the night out i actually have something Very specific for it: it moves placement in the season to the first arc, before lord wander is revealed as the wandering weirdo, and is titled The Day Off. while the night out was about letting loose and wild, it's a girls' night, brawling being something syl doesn't get to do so often—she gets plenty of that in the AU, and instead, the day off is all about relaxing, taking it easy and getting some rest, which is what this syl doesn't get as much of. oh! and something to do with wander's doing good deeds to stave off bad karma—while dom started the episode bored, and decided to go out to have fun, wander i think would start off somewhat Stressed and anxious because of how much Evilling he's been doing lately and take this day off to go help people, to keep in the universe's good graces. this is another one i'd like to do more on later when i get the chance!!!

there's tons of episodes i think would change (like...all of them) so if you (or anyone else) ever want to hear about a specific one or more about one i mentioned here just ask :)

[fantasyfantasygames]

Pandora

Pandora: an Autobiography, pandora, 2018

This game about the mythological Pandora's Box. I'm reviewing it back-to-back with Tales of Pandora, with is the Avatar movie series RPG. I did this partly so people wouldn't confuse them with each other.

Pandora is a game about the aftermath of giving in to temptation, dealing with blame, and seeking equilibrium when there's no forgiveness.

No, just kidding. This is a game where you, as Greek pro wrestlers, personally powerbomb and chokeslam demonic personifications of all the evils of humanity. On the cover, the game's title sits neatly juxtaposed against a drawing of just that, which would fit nicely into the Cartoon Guide to Philosophy.

The game uses a d6 dice pool inspired by Weapons of the Gods, where you look matches and turn those into numbers from 11 to 66. For instance, four 3's is a result of 43, and one 5 is a 15. The twist is that your attributes are all negative. You start with 6d6 and subtract dice from it if your stats indicate that you'd be weak against a particular evil. Are you wrestling with Greed but you have a Need score of 2? You're down to 4d6. Most of your rolls are going to be between 3d6 and 5d6. I like the implication that your characters are super-competent and really only held back by their own failings. You can draw on actions from your signature move set, which attach status effects to the Evils if they're successful. You lose dice fairly quickly against them, which is ok because fights are intended as a tag-team effort.

By default Pandora is your quest-giver, the Charlie to your Angels. However, you can also decide to include her in your team so that she can suplex rage itself or tackle influenza personally.

The art is all black-and-white cartoons. The Greeks are drawn Flintstones-like, with exaggerated arms, hands, and shoulders. A handful of them are very dark-skinned, possibly intended to be African. Men and women are both bare-chested, so maybe don't read this on the bus, but none of it is titillating. The Evils are drawn in an even more exaggerated manner: eyes bugging out of their heads, misshapen limbs, horns, warts, gaping mouths, sometimes wings, and each of them unique. The layout incorporates the cartoons very well. It's clear that they were crafted together to work as a single piece.

A short chapter talks about variations on the myth of Pandora. It doesn't go into exactly how those changes might impact the game, but that's clearly the point of it. One full page of that is dedicated to a diss track against legendary misogynist Hesiod, writer of some of the most complete and slanderous Pandora stories we have. That page gets a chef's kiss from me.

The author, lowercase pandora, has written a few one-page RPGs that test out systems used in this game. As they failed or succeeded, the system in this game got revised. Revisions are named for famous wrestlers. Version one was Andre. Currently we're on Foley. If you want to see how the game's going to evolve next, keep an eye on those one-pagers.

[jimintomystery]

Foodfight! (ugh)

I voted for Dex Dogtective in a poll the other day and it reminded me that I never actually watched that shitty Foodfight! movie from 2012. So I did. This was not a good idea.

There isn't a whole lot to say about Foodfight! that hasn't already been said. The project was in development hell for so long that it defaulted on its debt, and investors took over to at least get something out the door. The most obvious issue is the bad animation, though that speaks for itself.

But here's the thing: This movie could've had Pixar-quality animation and it'd still be hot garbage. "What if mascots for popular products lived in your local store?" is a middling idea at best, and the story mishandles it every step of the way.

It would be easy to say this movie needed a lot of popular corporate mascots to really work, and the best they could do was Charlie the Tuna and the Vlasic stork. But I remember thinking the first Toy Story wouldn't work without heavy hitters like Barbie and Lego, and yet they got along fine with just Mr. Potato Head and Etch-a-Sketch. Similarly, Wreck-It Ralph succeeded with a cast of skillful pastiches of familiar video game characters, and mere cameos by the big names. In theory Foodfight! could make up a cereal mascot that reminds you of Tony the Tiger while leaving room for changes to fit the plot. But in execution we get...Dex Dogtective.

Dex is the mascot for Cinnamon Sleuth cereal, and also a detective, and also a dog, and also he dresses like Indiana Jones, and also he likes raisins, and also he runs a nightclub like Rick Blaine in Casablanca. So he has like six different gimmicks, and the cereal mascot part is easily the least important. The only reason you'd even suspect Dex is a character from a box of cereal is because he's in a movie about brand mascots. Indeed, none of the characters created for this movie look like they were designed to sell anything, least of all groceries.

The strongest concept in the movie (which isn't saying much) is that the brands are facing an invasion by the evil Brand X. This makes sense, seeing as Brand X is by definition generic, with no iconic mascot except the pejorative and mysterious implications of that term. Listen, I know this sounds dumb, but you could do something with this. In a world of where brands come to life in the form of their mascots, who or what emerges from a brand without a mascot? How would such a being differ from the likes of, say, Count Chocula? Such a character might reject some fundamental principle that the good guys hold dear.

At this juncture, a sharper "secret lives of things that aren't alive" movie could make some insightful point that ties the story together. Something about how the world needs brand mascots, I suppose. But nobody actually needs brand mascots, for pete's sake, except for the people who came up with this movie. So there's no core idea for Brand X to oppose--the good guys' world exists just to exist, so the bad guys exist just to destroy it. With that baseline laziness established, Brand X paradoxically has lots of mascots, all of whom look like Nazis for some reason.

Well, okay, technically Brand X's leader, Lady X, looks less like a Nazi and more like the Baroness from Cobra. But it figures that she doesn't quite fit in with the rest, since she created Brand X! Yeah, so at the end it's revealed she was a mascot for a poorly-marketed brand of prunes, and when she was discontinued she went to Brazil (???) for plastic surgery (???) to make her all hot. Then she somehow amassed the resources in the real world to create Brand X, complete with a human-sized android (!!!) so she could pass herself off as a real person and sell her wares to stores.

Dex is astonished by this backstory, since the mascots are like three inches tall and can't even leave the store. Lady X explains the plot hole by saying "Humans! When you look like this you can get them to do anything. Size only counts for men."

"Size only counts for men."

"Size only counts for men."

(She's talking about fucking.)

(fucking)

(-ucking -ucking -king)

Anyway, I need a nap now. Please don't watch this movie.

[klm-zoflorr]

@decafeined-moth was having some issues working out how to post on AO3, so I thought "hey, why not make a step-by-step post dedicated to this, this way it can help other people too?" So here's the

Guide On How To Post On AO3 For Noobs

First, keep in mind that 1) AO3 is a website with a lot of functionnalities and it's normal that it seems a bit intimidating. Thankfully, you can just plain ignore some of them, and only use them when you've learned what they mean! 2) If you need any more information about what some options mean, you can click on the small blue question mark! They provide information that is imo pretty helpful. Or you can ask me, I'd gladly answer any questions you have! And 3) All of the information that we're gonna fill out now is modifiable later. So if you make a mistake or you realise something doesn't fit, don't stress!

So, for starters, you're gonna need to have your first chapter already written out before creating the work. Well, you can technically write it on the website itself, but the page might reload and you'd then lose everything. So rather use google docs, or the notes on your phone, or emails, or anything of that nature.

You also need an AO3 account to post, i'll try to link another post regarding this particular matter.

First step: Go on the top of the website, and click on "post" -> "new work"

Second step: The tags

"Not rated" and "Choose not to use archive warnings" are basically the default for rating and archive warning, essentially the "i don't know". You should try to tweak them as soon as you understand what they stand for, but it isn't necessary.

"fandoms" is a very important one. You're gonna enter the name of your fandom. It could be Lord Of The Rings, Star Wars, Hermitcraft, RPF (Real People Fiction), and a whole ton of other fandoms. Chances are if it's a book or movie or even youtube series, there already are works for it. If you don't know how your fandom is called, use the search function on AO3 and it'll probably come back with SOMETHING.

Categories: Is there a main romantic relationship between two characters in your work? If yes, then select the kind: Female/Female relationship, Female/Male, Male/Male. Or select "Gen" if it isn't the case, it means General.

Relationships: relationships in your work. They're either 1)Romantic relationships, separated by a slash (Blorbo/Shitto) 2)Platonic relationships, separated by a "and" (Borbo & Shitto). I am unsure of where Queerplatonic relationships stand in regards to this. Do not type in ship names (ex: reylo, destiel,...)

Characters: names of characters that appear in your work. This category auto fills as well. It's usually not considered very polite to put in characters that are only briefly mentionned in a throwaway line in your work, however it's perfectly fine if you intend to mention them more later. It's alright to tag them if they briefly appear, or if they're thought about for a big portion of it. Basically, if you could cut them out and nothing changes, maybe don't tag them.

Additional tags: You can basically enter whatever information you want to inform your reader of that didn't fit in the previous categories there. Ex: Fluff, angst, hurt no comfort, Protective Shitto, carrots, Time-travel, Established blorbo/shitto & any additional comment you want to add, like "i wrote that at 3am". People sometimes add in whether the work has been beta'ed or not with "no beta we die like men" or fandom-specific "we die like [name]" (ex: We die like Kenny, We die like Scar, We die like Ice Pick Joe), but it is by no means necessary

You're gonna have to add a work title and a summary of your fic. Summaries can be a lot of stuff including an extract from your fic, an actual summary, a series of open-ended questions made for the reader to want to find out what it's about,... Be creative with it!

Finally, you can check or uncheck the "notes" boxes to add author notes!

Now we're getting into the complicated/superfluous part. Thankfully you can just ignore most of it! You may learn what it means later, or not, but it does offer some great additional options!

We need to focus on this part tho:

Ignore the "set a different publication date".

If your work is gonna have multiple chapters, you should check the "this work is gonna have multiple chapters". Then you should enter the number of chapters. You don't have to name the first chapter if you don't want to, if you leave it blank it will simply show as "Chapter 1"

You need to choose a work language

You may now finally enter your first chapter/the text of your one-shot!

The website works with html, which means that to make some text italicised or bold you gonna need to enter a special set of characters before and after. You can find some explanations online very easily. Or, it also work in rich text, it switches to it if you click the "rich text" button.

We're finally done! You can then click on "preview" if you want to check the formatting, or "post" it directly!

[hallothere]

43 for Ranger of choice? (I love your writing!)

43. Fake Character Death/Missing aaaaa that's so sweet thank you rolled the dice and the dice said Lothrandir

Saruman wants to know about the Ring- the One Ring, of all things- and your best defense could be that you don't know much. You know things he could guess at, surely. Half-overheard stories and tales and wild conjecture. You could tell him you don't know, or lie, or guess and protect the truth well. Give him a different answer every day, or say something ridiculous and make clear you know nothing.

But your friend's best defense? You aid them best pretending that you know something very important indeed.

You might not get to try this ploy. You made it very clear that you're the human shield. You're the protector, not necessarily the brains of this operation. But, that was your plan from the very beginning. It made your friend look more fragile and valuable, and it's been going well from everything you can gather.

You hear your friend was sent to Morflak, so it does you well to act angry and concerned. But you can guess better than the Wizard and his lackeys think. Morflak is in a position of some power down here. He says jump and uruks jump. The one that told you spoke the name with respect if not a particular liking. Morflak wasn't a lash master, he was a supervisor.

He wants a well-performing labor force. Your friend is going to be just fine.

You, however, have been in this same room in the tower for the past two days, as far from Morflak and his domain as possible. The Wizard's lackeys gave you one excuse, and you grit your teeth against the memory of another reason. But he can't pry your mind open, and your friend hasn't seen fit to tell him anything either. You know, you see, your head still aches with the fruits of the Wizard's anger. He'd be happier with answers, more cunning and less eager to take it out on the backup plan.

It changes the day of the explosion. You feel the tower rumble first, but don't hear anything inside. Not an invasion, but you assume it's some kind of accident.

The comes your second day with the lash master. It's worse than the first. But you have something to fight for and you won't give in that easily.

Then you have your audience with the Wizard and nothing could prepare you for it. He says your friend is dead. Dead in the explosion. And now you're the only iron-clad box he has left to pry information out of.

He says he's not going to enjoy it with a sigh and a somber look. That tactic did not, apparently, work on your friend, and so it won't work on you. You determine to fulfill that prophecy and not in the way he means it.

Because if he has killed your friend, if he has brought harm to the last person in the world you have- had- left to protect, well, you're going to have them avenged. If it means keeping the Wizard busy, if it means spitting on his shiny robes, if it means making his day a little more miserable by only degrees--

If he's lying- and you feel like he is, the way he's not quite as silky and smug about it as he means to be- then you're going to take this chance and run with it. It means your friend is alive, and you've got the chance to distract Saruman from the chase.

You could mourn or pretend to mourn. Instead you wait, and launch yourself at the old man when he least expects it. The Wizard might have his own consequences for misinformation, but so do you. If he's going to lie about the friend you'd fight and die for, he's going to pay for it. Inch by inch. Uruk by uruk. Until you just can't kick anymore.

[elfwreck]

no eye for what's wrong, no thicker skin for constructive criticism and feedback, no basic artistic training in perspective and functionality in what they're making

The AI is not the core problem here.

It is certainly A problem here. It is part of the problems, and part that won't exist if they just ban AI prompters from their art team.

But the core issue is: Creating art for someone else's requirements, rather than just making "cool pictures," requires actual art skills. Requires an understanding of composition and perspective. Requires an acceptance that the client is sometimes going to say "change this detail that you think is not important but I want it different." Requires an awareness of how the picture is going to fit into a larger project, if it's not just "print it, frame it, and hang it on the wall."

(Even if it's "throw it on a t-shirt or coffee mug," there are details that will change or get lost in the production process. An artist needs to know what works on the chosen media.)

AI image generators can make many amazing pictures. It's easy to get "wow, awesome" pictures from them. And that part's a glorious boon for those of us who can't make art and want a picture of our TTRPG character, or a forest scene for our computer desktop, or a random spaceship for our TTRPG so we can say "it looks like this."

But that's near-worthless for commercial art projects. Pictures of Random Cool Stuff do not make a viable sellable item.

Y'know what AI generators are terrible at? Modified animals. They can do horror pretty well - they have a baseline for that - but wow they are not able to add extra legs to a mammal without crossing it with a spider. They also can't do changes of position. They don't know what a swimming elephant looks like. And they're terrible at musical instruments. They also can't do right/left differences - like, a woman standing in half in shadow, with flowers blooming on one side of her, and barren winter trees on the other side.

They're terrible at anything specific.

There may be good, ethical uses for AI art. If you want to brainstorm dozens of logo ideas, AI may be a way to start.

If you already know what you want on your logo... you can roll the dice and hope the AI bot gets it right the first time, because it's not going to be able to do "make this part a little bigger" or "curve the top section to the left" or "make it fit in an octagon."

AI-gen images could be a base for specific art - but for that to work, you'd need AI-prompters who understand how art works.

And the people jumping on the AI gen bandwagon are not artists; they're people who are thriled at being able to make awesome pictures appear by throwing some keywords in a box.

(I get it. I am also thrilled by this. I just haven't tried to make a job out of it. Because I know the difference between "an awesome picture" and "the picture someone asked me to produce.")

This machine kills AI

[theradicalscrivener]

Hopefully I am not wrong about this, but so far you mostly write about transformation, right? I ask because I often read body swap stories, and I probably got recommended your blog by Tumblr due to the proximity in themes. And also because of cock shrinking, but that's beside the point.

Truthfully, what I'm curious about. Have you ever thought about writing a body swap story? I could understand if you didn't see the point. Since you often write stories that involve stealing a specific feature (muscles, height, cock size, etc), making body swapping kind of redundant. I guess. I also could understand if it doesn't appeal to you as trope.

But it would be interesting to see how you'd handle it.

Also, I'm both excited and sad because of Acorn. Excited because the story it's reaching its conclusion, and I really want to know what you have plan. But sad because it's probably one of my favorite stories of yours (alongside No dick December, Alpha Omega, Gifted Exchange among others... I really have a very obvious taste, don't I?). I would love to be able to become an Acorn boy someday, since they seem to all be hot as well as lacking endowment.

Hopefully you are having a nice day. Have you had any problems with your new ears, or have you adapted well? I hope it's the latter.

Well body swapping is interesting because there's a lot of potential. A lot of what I have fun with is how a character reacts to the things happening and not just the actual transformation. Body swapping would be interesting because I would assume that both characters swap bodies so maybe one person gets a really good deal and the other maybe gets a really bad one, but I also kind of balk at that trope because the more I think on it, the more it kinda spirals since like, it's very rarely you just end up in their body and everyone around you accepts it as fact. You start to quickly get into Freaky Friday territory where it's like. Do you try to keep the act up around friends/family? Do you have to take on their life? That's where I start to spiral a bit, and I get so far from the plot that it kinda collapses around me.

I hope to not take too long in wrapping up Acorn, but I have a lot of boxes I want to check off in the finale, and I kind of keep going back and forth on the pacing, etc. I've kind of been bouncing around between the epilogue and the finale and sort of doing those in tandem, but I don't have a whole lot physically on the page right now, because it's mostly snippets, thoughts, notes, etc that are a bit of a mess rn.

I've actually had a few people mention that they'd love to sign up to be Acorn boys. I guess the whole Greek ideal of being incredibly fit but incredibly small between the legs, strikes a chord with a lot of people. I get it though. It's a good look, hehe.

Things are going... well? Classes just started back up, so I'm a little bit more limited on free time than I had been. I spent most of the last month binging Dawntrail, but I am pretty much current in that game which frees me up to focus on other games in my very limited free time.

As for the ears... It's great, but I'm dealing with a lot of technical difficulties, especially on the left side. Volume keeps spiking at random, and sometimes I just get loud, long, extended bursts of noise. Like getting caught in a wind tunnel. It's unclear if the left ear is defective in some way, or if my phone is just so old that the bluetooth is not 100% compatible. Although, I am not sure how much difference the phone makes, since it shouldn't need to be paired with the phone all the time. The phone just has an app that gives me the option to change the settings on the ears whenever I need to. (I'd tried experimenting with them because some of the options turn off specific mics to focus the angle and direction that I pick sound up in. there's a setting for restuarants that turns off all the mics except the forward facing ones which is supposed to help listen to the person across from you. I've had mixed success with it.) Aside from when I am loading a new profile, the link to the phone shouldn't make a difference.

Although, aside from the technical difficulties, it's nice being able to understand things. Like, I saw a clip of Fairy Oddparents the other day, and it was kind of jarring being able to understand what they were saying. A lot of the reason I never super got into a lot of cartoons as a kid was because a lot of the over the top, cartoony voices were completely incomprehensible to me. I'm kind of feeling like I should try and binge spongebob, since that's one that always looked fun but I could never get into due to not being able to parse the speach.

[findroleplay]

FANDOM: Stranger Things // THE PLOT // imagine supernatural and mythical creatures you hear about in stories, and see in film, actually existed all over the world. beings like vampires, werewolves, witches, fairies, mermaids, and more everywhere you turn. you'd imagine some wouldn't get along with their differences and stereotypes humans have forced them to fit into for thousands of years.

now imagine a small town that didn't believe in those stereotypes. a town where all different kinds of beings coexist and try their best to find understanding. some wouldn't believe in such a city, with the way the world is today.



out in bigger cities it's a fight just to survive, most humans not accepting of other kinds. but if you haven't heard of it, then you've never been to hawkins. the town thrived on their diversity, the way everyone tried their best to get along and understand the others. working together to build a great community and stick together with a world around them that vowed to hate each other. martin brenner saw sight of that, and as a scientist with a curious mind on how he could take advantage of the abilities some of these creatures had -- decided to set a reward. calling any hunters to come to this town and capture creatures he could do studies on. it wasn't his fault he was born unlucky, and he believes anyone should have the right to have the advantage in this world. as of now, friends and family are disappearing without a trace -- and the citizens of hawkins are starting to grow worried something more could be going on. they're not sure what, but they've now started to watch their backs.



this is the end is a supernatural/mythical creature stranger things au where all the characters are different species. it's set in modern time and revolves around the older teens now navigating life as young adults. whether they've found the town for solace, or have been there their whole life. while as well, trying their best to not be a statistic as another creature to go missing from the town. can they figure out the reasonings behind this? or will their small population only grow smaller?

// MORE INFO // we have pre-selected creatures and have created bios for the open characters, this can be changed upon request. for the other roles you will get to decide on the creature, and we will create the bio for you. -tupper box is mandatory (if you're unfamiliar I can teach you!) -members are allowed to play as many characters as they can handle -hunters are npc's unless you would prefer to play your character as one -only accepting the older teens. (fc changes are accepted per admin approval) -OC's are allowed, but need to be run by the admins first. -if interested, please one or both admins on discord! djoekeery and youreonyourownkid. (with the period)

// ORIGINAL CHARACTERS // [TAKEN] chrissy, robin [OPEN] steve, eddie, billy, jonathan, argyle, gareth, vickie, heather, nancy [OTHER CHARACTERS] tommy, carol, jason, barb, eden, etc.

.

[findyourrp]

FANDOM: Stranger Things // THE PLOT // imagine supernatural and mythical creatures you hear about in stories, and see in film, actually existed all over the world. beings like vampires, werewolves, witches, fairies, mermaids, and more everywhere you turn. you'd imagine some wouldn't get along with their differences and stereotypes humans have forced them to fit into for thousands of years.

now imagine a small town that didn't believe in those stereotypes. a town where all different kinds of beings coexist and try their best to find understanding. some wouldn't believe in such a city, with the way the world is today.



out in bigger cities it's a fight just to survive, most humans not accepting of other kinds. but if you haven't heard of it, then you've never been to hawkins. the town thrived on their diversity, the way everyone tried their best to get along and understand the others. working together to build a great community and stick together with a world around them that vowed to hate each other. martin brenner saw sight of that, and as a scientist with a curious mind on how he could take advantage of the abilities some of these creatures had -- decided to set a reward. calling any hunters to come to this town and capture creatures he could do studies on. it wasn't his fault he was born unlucky, and he believes anyone should have the right to have the advantage in this world. as of now, friends and family are disappearing without a trace -- and the citizens of hawkins are starting to grow worried something more could be going on. they're not sure what, but they've now started to watch their backs.



this is the end is a supernatural/mythical creature stranger things au where all the characters are different species. it's set in modern time and revolves around the older teens now navigating life as young adults. whether they've found the town for solace, or have been there their whole life. while as well, trying their best to not be a statistic as another creature to go missing from the town. can they figure out the reasonings behind this? or will their small population only grow smaller?

// MORE INFO // we have pre-selected creatures and have created bios for the open characters, this can be changed upon request. for the other roles you will get to decide on the creature, and we will create the bio for you. -tupper box is mandatory (if you're unfamiliar I can teach you!) -members are allowed to play as many characters as they can handle -hunters are npc's unless you would prefer to play your character as one -only accepting the older teens. (fc changes are accepted per admin approval) -OC's are allowed, but need to be run by the admins first. -if interested, please one or both admins on discord! djoekeery and youreonyourownkid. (with the period)

// ORIGINAL CHARACTERS // [TAKEN] chrissy, robin [OPEN] steve, eddie, billy, jonathan, argyle, gareth, vickie, heather, nancy [OTHER CHARACTERS] tommy, carol, jason, barb, eden, etc.

.

[noodleswithsoba-blog]

Soba's Soapbox: How I Use Horrible Situations in Art to Delve into the Darkness and that's Okay (Fiction is Your Oyster!).

CW: A lot of dark subject matter such as Abuse, Neglect, and violent acts will be covered here in service of a point I'm trying to make. You may scroll on if you wish but this is a topic I wanna yammer about.

Greetings, True Believers! (Stan Lee Reference go Brrr.)

In my years on the internet as an Older Gen Z in his early 20s, I've seen much discourse over darker subjects in fiction and how it is something I've personally grappled with.

In the online discourse I have seen, it mainly stems from younger people wanting to inject real life morality into fiction, and while not applicable sometimes and others unavoidable with real life criminals using fiction as a scapegoat for what they did. (The Catcher in the Rye being the primary example here.)

Now with this, and me being a writer of fanfiction and hopefully a writer of fiction I want to say this...

It is COMPLETELY OKAY to use dark topics in your work! Granted you do proper research and try not to hamfist it. In my own writings I write about Abuse, Neglect, emotional and physical harm, and a lot of other such things such as death and gore and blood.

That doesn't mean I am a those things or wish that on others. It serves my story, it helps me deal with those dark times and those thoughts.

In the same vein it's alright to do as you wish with your fiction. Age characters up, down, change their personalities, do anything you want because fiction's your oyster.

As long as you're not harming others in real life. Because I've seen a rather concerning lack of a divide between reality and fiction lately too but that's for another Soba's Soapbox.

Keeping yourself in a box is not a good thing, it gets cramped and hot and you keep your thoughts in that box thinking you can't do this, or can't like that, or you'd become a pariah for something you enjoy and like and want to share with the world.

At the end of the day it's something you love and something you want to share with the world. Writing is an act of love, of creation, of working something into being with the pure magic of words.

So why? Why is there so much doxxing and harassment and death threats and sheer hatred in fandom spaces just because people like other things than other people, and people ship whoever they want to ship?

Because it's how we're wired as a species. Race, Class, Political Leanings, how we like our food, all of it circles right back to the days where we were just tribes of people out in a world that didn't have cities or cars or electricity or anything at all like that.

We're all just throwing stones at the people we don't like. We just hate blindly because we were hurt or offended because something didn't fit our worldview or our comfort or we were conditioned to by authority figures. It could be anything really. You might look at my walking stick or brace straps and decide you don't like them and want to snap at me for them.

But back to fiction. Back to the magic.

How I handle anything I don't like is simply this. I don't read it, I don't interact with it beyond a simple, "Well, I don't like that." said to myself, and move on to another thing.

Ships, Fics, Art, anything really. I just go, "Oh well, I don't like that." and move on. There have been times I've voiced my displeasure and have hurt people because of it and I can't get that back now.

That's something I live with. That's something at least all of us have to live with. Yet the screen gives us carte blanche to say whatever, to do whatever, to hurt and hate whatever and whoever is on the other side with impunity.

We can destroy anything with these.

Yet we can also use these screens to make entire worlds, to make dreams reality, to become remembered for all time for things we've done and build and grow and shape.

Yet sometimes I've seen horrible things. I've heard about horrible things. Done because someone didn't like a fic they did or art, or even music and other things.

In short, you don't HAVE to interact. You don't HAVE to hate. You don't HAVE to hurt others. It's easy to hate, it's easy to hurt. But it's hard to be kind and hard to heal.

Now I'll stop yanking your ear and let you go with this...

Fiction is your oyster. Go make something extraordinary.

Excelsior!

Soba.

[cyrah-is-cool101]

My Take On: Black and Bruised

This is my take on the 2003 boxing video game, Black and Bruised.

(Note: Black and Bruised belong to Digital Fiction)

So, everyone knows Punch Out but ever heard of Black and Bruised? Some of you may not know but it's a video game with wild characters, decent control and a surprising story-driven single-player mode. Casual gamers looking for a new boxing game will find Black & Bruised to be a charmingly fun, albeit overly simple game to play. Hard-core boxing aficionados chomping at the bit for a new boxing game should pass on this one, since its gameplay revolves around power-ups that often have more influence on the outcome of a bout than the player's boxing skills do. The game features six different gameplay modes: single-player exhibition, two-player exhibition, survival, tournament, training, and boxer's life. While the first five modes listed here are self-explanatory, the game's main single-player mode, boxer's life, is fairly unique. The boxer's life mode is a career mode of sorts that imparts a good deal of its story through prerendered cinema sequences that play in between the matches. Every fighter has his/her own story line, and these stories are not only entertaining, but they also tie directly into the gameplay of the bouts. While the point of any boxing game is to punch your opponent while trying to minimize the damage your fighter sustains, Black & Bruised also features a power-up gameplay element. At different points during each bout, an icon will appear in between the fighters' health bars that represents one of an assortment of power-ups, such as invincibility or super punch. When this icon appears, you and your opponent will literally fight to win it--if you put together a good combination before your opponent does, you'll get the power-up. Once you have it, you can use it right away or try to build its power by landing more punches. Every punch you land gives you a star that appears above your health meter. Once you've filled the line, the stars will change color and start building up from left to right again. You can do this three times, since each power-up has three levels of power, much like the super moves seen in some fighting games. With each level you gain, the power-up you have becomes even more effective. This power-up mechanic is extremely effective, and it is very often the deciding factor in a match. The controls are fairly simple and offer the basic punches you'd expect, such as hooks, uppercuts, and overhand rights. The game does include a number of combinations for each fighter, but the game's default difficulty setting doesn't really require you delve into them very much. On the harder difficulty settings, though, you'd better know your stuff, since the AI doesn't let you get away with just landing one or two punches. In terms of graphics, Black & Bruised uses cel shading to create a cartoonlike look. This approach, coupled with the fact that the game's 19 fighters are all extremely unique in their design, definitely makes for a solid presentation. The lack of transitional animations and the blinding speed at which the fighters move from one position to the next do hamper the game's impressive presentation to a certain extent--the animations don't blend well from one to the next, which makes it look a bit like the fighters are just jumping from one punch to the next. When they are just moving around the ring, though, the fighters look great. Both versions of the game are similar in terms of visual quality, though the GameCube version is a bit smoother and more colorful than its PlayStation 2 counterpart. The audio includes quite a bit of voice work, most of which is campy but well executed. The dialogue fits the game's overall over-the-top style and adds a great deal to the characters' personalities. The game's upbeat music and cartoonlike sound effects also help set the game's lighthearted tone. In any case, any serious boxing fan will want to look elsewhere for sim-styled boxing. But in the end, Black & Bruised is a fun arcade-style boxing game that casual gamers will find entertaining for awhile. So, here's my take on Black and Bruised:

The game will have a more graphic change

Adventure mode (more on it later)

More variety of side characters or background characters

Added protagonist and new antagonist

Let me introduce the protagonist (aka my Black and Bruised OC)

Meet Lilith

Hometown: Cebu, Philippines

Height: 5'8

Weight: 145 lbs

Career: 12-6-7

Biography: Both a city and country girl with a heart of gold and a dream to become a boxer. She was introduced in the boxing scene as a rookie and gets along with some of the female and male boxers. Lilith, as her name stated, is a literal 'she-devil' because of her fiery temper and fierce snarkiness. She then faces of with her first challenger, Abraham Van Hellsing III, who is a bounty hunter and he's after Lilith's head. She and Kid USA were a couple during middle school but broke up after graduation, now Lilith has a new crush and his name would be Mickey Mcfist.

Palettes:

Yellow and Orange

Teal and Pink

Fuchsia and Peach

Blue and White

And the antagonist (2nd Black and Bruised OC)

Meet Abraham Van Helsing III aka Hunter

Hometown: Saxony, Germany

Height: 5'9

Weight: 178 Ibs

Career: 12-8-9

Biography: The descendant of famous vampire hunter, Abraham aka Hunter is after Lilith's head because she may be a demon however Lilith denies being a demon nor her name has any relationship to anything satanical but Hunter could not listen to her reason and swore that he will have the title of champion and her bounty.

(Note: If you defeat Hunter at the end of the main story and you can play him as a 2nd protagonist)

Palettes:

Red and Black

Lime Green and Yellow

Orange and Purple

Green and Brown

Returning Characters

Mickey McFist

Knuckles Nadine

Tiny

Pharaoh

Kid USA

Royal Pain

Bronto Sore

Jackpot

Holly Vixen

El Luchador

Ally Gator

Major Flak

Jumping Janet

Maiaguru

Matador

Old Master

Odiva

King Khan

Adventure Mode:

You control Lilith/Hunter as she/he travels the world of Black and Bruised. Complete missions of each of the boxers and receive rewards. You can either fight or play a mini game based on the mission.

Boxer's Mission (Part 1)

Mickey's Missions

(His Casual Outfit)

(Irish Fight) Fight Mickey in the ring 7x (Rewards: $170 and Lucky Charm)

(For Lilith) (Kiss Me, I'm Irish) Go on a date with Mickey (Rewards: $270 and Lucky Necklace [Accessory])

(For Hunter) (A Note from Mickey) Fight Royal Pain, Bronto Sore and Old Master to teach them a lesson (Reward: $370 and Hoodie [Outfit])

(Cheers, Lad!) Have a pint (Mini game) (Rewards: $140)

(Dance of the Clover) Irish jig (Mini game) (Rewards: $160)

Nadine's Missions

(Her Casual Outfit)

(Rodeo Star) Fight Nadine in the ring 3x (Rewards: $130 and Rodeo Golden)

(For Lilith) (Showdown Photoshoot) Change into a cowgirl costume and pose for the rodeo camera (Rewards: $250 and Cowgirl [Outfit])

(For Hunter) (Movie Mayhem) Beat up Pharaoh in the ring (Rewards: $250 and Cowboy [Outfit])

Find missing guitar (Rewards: $150)

Square dance (Mini game) (Rewards: $255)

Tiny's Missions

(His Casual Outfit)

(Mighty Lumberjack) Fight Tiny in the ring 4x (Rewards: $190 and Squirrel Plush)

(Forest Hand) Help Tiny collect wood for the mill (Mini game) (Rewards: $70+, Tree Hugger Necklace and Hat [Accessory])

(Protest No More) Fight Ally Gator and convinced her to stop protesting about saving the trees (Rewards: $400)

(Lumbrejack Heart) Take a picture with Tiny (Rewards: $78)

Pharoah's Missions

(His Casual Outfit)

(For The Glory) Fight Pharaoh in the ring (Rewards: $503 and Bastet Statue)

(Protect the King) Protect Pharaoh from the paparazzi (Mini game) (Rewards: $650)

(The King and the Devil) (For Lilith) Help Pharaoh regain some fans from Odiva by making an ad (Rewards: $456 and Egyptian Tiara [Accessory])

(The King's Orders) Fight Royal Pain and give back money he borrowed (Rewards: $680)

(Continuation)