#but i was inspired to annotate lol
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bembembembis · 2 years ago
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iiiiii started it
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stuffyflowers · 4 months ago
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finally refined my amalgamate kanako take a little bit. was gonna annotate my thoughts on the image but i hate making compositions lol, so ill just talk below the cut in a semi-ramble. enjoy!
she is fused with a few other dunes monsters. when she woke up in the lab without her mother, i feel like she wouldve latched onto the most familiar looking monsters for some semblance of comfort and spent the most time with them before... everything went wrong. if you haven't guessed already, they are:
a dunebud (eyes)
a cactus monster (back spikes)
a monster of the same species as bryan (guy you give the hard hat to in the mines) (general long body, arms, slug-like tail)
(i would like to give each of them more defined individual personalities/names/etc at some point too, but i havent settled on anything yet. stay tuned for that if you want i guess)
much like how crystal (snowdrakes mum) seems to be the 'main' host in her amalgamate, kanako has the most control in this amalgamate (probably something to do with her having a stronger soul than most monsters). when this is the case, the left side of the face is visible and the left ear perks up. when one (or several) of the other monsters are fronting, this occurs for the right side instead.
for anyone who didnt know, the uty devs confirmed they intended for kanako to be the spoon amalgamate who tucks frisk in, which my take on her is inspired by. when she starts to lose memories of her old self as all the amalgamates do, she holds onto the faint memory of ceroba tucking her into bed. one of her daily routines in the lab is neatly making every bed until one of the others makes a mess of it, then rinse and repeat. again and again.
like how frisk helps the other amalgamates remember their old lives through acts, they help kanako remember her mother more clearly when they hop onto the bed, hence why she fondly pats their head as she can now remember ceroba doing after tucking her in every night.
the unfortunate side effect of her regaining a large chunk of her memory is that her guilt over 'failing' the experiment resurfaces, and she convinces herself that her mother wouldnt want to see her, even if they were ever allowed to go free. she ends up being the last amalgamate alphys reunites with their families, it takes a lot of convincing from her as well as the other parts of kanako that want to see their families to get her to leave the lab.
to keep it short, kanako and cerobas bond after the barrier breaks starts off a little rocky. ceroba is of course overjoyed kanako is alive, though it does take her a long while to get used to her being made up of three other monsters. they both still have feelings of immense guilt towards each other due to the incident that got them in this situation to begin with, which also takes a long time to smooth out. regardless, they are both doing their best to move forward and make the most of the second chances theyve both been given.
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superhaught · 8 months ago
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I Mean It Different Than You Do
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Pairing: Leighton x Reader
Warnings: surgery recovery, pure fluff
Word Count: 2500
Anonymous Asked: Hi! Could i please request a Leighton x fem reader that’s kind of based on the episode of slocg where Kimberly has her surgery and the Kansas guy takes care of her and she thinks hey only thinks of her like tiny Tim lol but instead it’s with Leighton x reader and leighton takes care of a sick reader and finds out that they have feelings for each other and it’s full of fluff! Sorry if this is confusing lol
Took inspiration from Reneé's song "I Do" as well.
Leighton and reader are best friends. Leighton helps reader through their wisdom tooth surgery.
You had found a friend in a very unlikely person. 
The first time you noticed her, she was trying to get drunk off of tiny disposable cups of wine while volunteering at the Women’s Center open mic night. 
The second time you noticed her, she was sitting down in the seat in front of you in your spring semester astronomy class. 
After working on a class project together, you discovered that she was actually a very sweet person underneath her designer clothes, perfectly straightened blonde hair, and chilly attitude. You became fast friends over that second semester at Essex and ended up spending a lot of time together outside of class. 
You watched as Leighton Murray grew more and more comfortable with her sexuality over time. As her friend, you supported her exploration of being out and were there for her throughout the ups and downs of her relationships with Alicia and Tatum. 
You invited her over to your off-campus apartment when she needed some time to decompress from Essex life. You watched movies together almost every weekend. You forced her to experience some natural New England beauty with brief hiking trips and lake days. 
She brought you to parties, took you along shopping and out for lunch and dinner, and earnestly tried to get you more involved in the dating scene. Leighton even set up a dating app profile for you once and you just giggled and said, “I don’t want to meet someone through an app!” 
She rolled her eyes at you, “I give up! Don’t you want to start seeing people?”
“I dunno,” you shrugged, “I feel like I have everything I want right now.”
“How are we so different?” the blonde mused, turning her attention to her own phone, which was constantly blowing up with messages. “Well, whatever. I’m not going to force you to date just for the sake of it, but I feel like you’re missing out.”
You didn’t say anything in response. You were reading in your bed and Leighton was laying next to you comfortably. You were holding a highlighter in between your teeth and occasionally shifting so that you could annotate in your book. You had noticed that Leighton had been glancing over at you a few times but you didn’t say anything about it. 
She flipped her phone to face you at some point, showing you an instagram post announcing an upcoming Theta party, “wanna go?”
You looked at the date of the party and frowned, shaking your head, “can’t. I’m sorry, Leight. I’m getting my wisdom teeth out that day.”
“Aw shit, really? That sucks…”
“Yeah, I’m sorry. I’m going to need the weekend to recover. Actually, I was going to ask you if I could get your help with a ride to and from the dentist but you should go to the party so don’t worry about it.”
“No, I'd love to help! You think I’d rather be hanging out in the rancid Theta house than eating popsicles and binging Housewives with my best friend?”
You laughed, “Well I don’t know, would you rather hang out with me after getting wisdom tooth surgery than go to a party and potentially meet a hottie to spend the night with?”
Leighton smirked at you and shifted a little bit closer to you in the bed, leaning her head on your shoulder, “nah… lately, you’re the only hottie I’ve been wanting to spend my time with.”
“Yeah, right,” you snorted. 
“I’m being serious, dumbass.”
You both looked at each other for a moment. You were thrown off by her words, surely she didn’t mean…
“What are you reading, anyway?” Leighton asked, quickly changing the subject.
“Oh, nothing too exciting…” you go on to tell her about the assigned reading you were doing for your poetry class and she listened to you, letting the awkwardness of the earlier conversation fade away. 
Leighton hung out at your apartment, enjoying the ability to do her homework in the easy quiet with you rather than amidst all the chaos of the dorms and her suite. You ordered take out and watched a show on your laptop and then she reluctantly got ready to leave to go home for the night. She was packing up her tote bag and then you just blurted it out, “stay.”
She looked up at you, “huh?”
“You could just stay. You don’t have to go back to campus, if you don’t want to, I mean. Like, I’m not kicking you out.”
“Are you saying that I don’t have to go, or are you asking me to stay?”
“Are those two different things?”
She nodded, “yes.”
You took a deep breath, “then… I’m asking you to stay, I guess. I don’t want you to go. Sleep over.”
Leighton smiled and let go of her bag before joining you on the bed again, “okay, let’s watch another episode then.”
You ended up watching another two episodes of tv, eating microwave popcorn in bed and laughing over stupid things. 
Life was easier with Leighton. 
Your neck was hurting you. You blinked a few times then realized that you and Leighton had fallen asleep cuddled up with each other and left the laptop playing the show. You were now staring at the screen that read “Are you still watching?”
You shifted your body slightly, trying not to wake Leighton up. She moved and you thought you had woken her but she just sniffled slightly and hugged you a little tighter. You carefully got rid of your laptop and adjusted yourself in the bed so that you could lie down fully and Leighton came with you, sleeping on her side with her head tucked into the crook of your neck. 
You smiled and pulled the blankets over you both, then turned off your bedside lamp and fell back to sleep with Leighton in your arms. 
Leighton had woken up that following morning with a cute smile and said, “that was the best sleep.” The blonde pressed a quick peck of a kiss to your cheek before she got out of the bed and went to the bathroom. She didn’t bother closing the bathroom door all the way. You glanced over at her while she looked in the mirror and fixed her hair. 
You didn’t talk about any of it and you didn’t know what to think. Leighton was your best friend. She didn’t have feelings for you. She would’ve said something by now. This was just what it was like to have a close friend, you assumed. 
The rest of your week was fairly standard. Classes and homework sucked up your time, but you and Leighton had developed a routine that you always stuck to. You met at Sips for coffee on Monday afternoons. You ate dining hall lunch together on Tuesdays and Fridays. You walked to astro and sat together every Wednesday, and hung out at your apartment Wednesday nights before going to the observatory for your nighttime astronomy assignments. 
And in all that time, you never once discussed the cuddling, or the little kiss, so you convinced yourself that you were overthinking it and tried to let it go. 
When Friday came around, Leighton had shown up outside of your apartment building that morning with one of the fancier Ubers generously paid for by her father ready to take you to and from your surgery. 
You came outside wearing comfy clothes and she smiled and opened the car door for you.
She then got into the car on the other side and sat next to you, “I already went shopping and got everything I thought you might need this weekend to recover and I have a ton of low-energy-investment plans to make sure you don’t get bored. I’m going to stay with you for as long as you want me to, unless I drive you crazy, of course, but-”
“Leight, you didn’t have to do all of that…”
“It’s nothing! I want to take care of you.”
“You do? Why?”
She shrugged her shoulders, “cause I want to, why else?”
“I… I don’t deserve you, Leighton.”
“Oh, shut up. That’s not true,” she paused for a moment then said, “you’re my best friend and I love you.”
“I love you too…”
Leighton waited with you until you were taken back to be prepped and put to sleep for your wisdom teeth extraction. The last thing she said to you was, “I’ll have my camera ready for when you come out of the anesthesia!”
You stuck your tongue out at her angrily as you were whisked away and went unconscious while imagining seeing her face when you woke up again. 
You woke up in a different room, lying down flat on a recovery bed. You felt weird but not particularly bad.
Your vision came into focus slowly and the blonde was sitting in a chair beside the bed scrolling through her phone. You made a noise and she turned and looked at you, “hey there,” she said softly, sliding herself and the chair a little closer to you, “how are you feeling?”
Your mouth was all swollen and your head was all wrapped up with ice packs on either cheek. You mumbled, “fine.”
She smiled, “the dentist said everything went well so you should expect a pretty easy recovery.”
You nodded slowly then looked at her quizzically and mumbled, “do I look pretty?”
Leighton laughed, “do you look pretty? Well, I’ll admit that you’ve had better days but you’re still your gorgeous self, why?”
“I dunno… I thought maybe I wouldn’t be pretty anymore… all swollen…”
“You have nothing to worry about, trust me.”
“You’re so nice, Leighton… some people think you’re mean but you’re not mean you’re so nice… and you’re gay and I love that about you…” 
Leighton shook her head and laughed and just held your hand gently while you rested and came back to your senses over the next half hour or so. 
Leighton helped you to the car and let you lean against her on the drive back, then she helped you get comfy in your bed and made a little station nearby with drinks and foods that were safe for you to have, and pain meds if you needed them. 
She got into bed next to you and fired up Netflix before saying, “you can cuddle against me, whatever is comfy for you.” 
You nodded and said, “thank you, baby…” 
She raised an eyebrow at your word choice but didn’t say anything. You watched Netflix for a little while but you eventually dozed off against Leighton’s shoulder. You vaguely felt her playing with your hair and scratching your scalp lightly while you rested. You let out a pleased hum and cuddled against her even more closely. 
She gently woke you up later and quietly said, “I can hear your stomach growling, wanna eat something?” 
You took a second to process what she was saying but then you nodded and she grabbed a cup of applesauce for you. 
You took it happily and started to eat carefully, wincing slightly at the experience but feeling happy to have some food.
“You’re the best friend ever,” you began, “taking care of me like this… seeing me in such a pathetic state.” 
“I wouldn’t call you pathetic, not at all. You’re cute.” 
You groaned slightly.
“What’s wrong? Are you hurting?” 
You shook your head, “no, no… it’s nothing, nevermind.” 
She lightly poked you in the side and made you giggle, “come on, now. You can tell me anything. Is something wrong?” 
You were quiet for a minute, thinking. Overthinking. Playing your entire friendship with Leighton back in your head.
“I see those gears turning, what are you thinking about?” 
“I shouldn’t have asked you to take care of me,” you finally stated. 
Leighton looked concerned, “What? Why not? Am I bugging you?” 
“No!” You exclaimed, “no… you’re perfect… that’s the problem.” 
“I don’t understand…” 
“You’re so perfect. So perfect. And incredible. And beautiful. And I think I’m an idiot.” 
“An idiot? You’re not an idiot… I’m lost, babe, what is this about?” 
“I’m so stupid,” you sighed, “you’re never not going to see me as more than a friend are you?”
Leighton stared at you. 
“I don’t want to be cute,” you tried to explain, “I don’t want to be just cute to you… I want more… but I’ve gone and fucked it up…” 
Leighton started to understand and nodded slowly, “okay, first of all, I just want to state for the record that you have some pretty serious painkillers in your system right now, but with that being said, you haven’t fucked anything up… why would you think that?” 
You started to tear up, you couldn’t help it, “you’re never going to like me now… not after seeing me like this. I took too long trying to figure out my feelings…”
Leighton’s brows furrowed, “I like you plenty, this doesn’t change that… wait, what feelings?” 
“My feelings… for you… you’re my best friend, Leight… and I thought that was just how it was always going to be… but I think it’s more than that for me and I just didn’t realize and it’s too late…” 
Leighton took a deep breath in through her nose and spoke softly, “it’s not too late…” 
You looked up at her face and saw tears welling up in her eyes.
“It’s not too late,” she repeated, “not for you and me… I’ll wait for you forever. I’ve been waiting for you to be ready…” 
“Leighton… what?” 
“I love you, you incredible, oblivious sweetheart.” 
You were genuinely shocked, and your reaction was only amplified by how loopy you were feeling, “what?! You love me?! Like, love, love me?” 
Leighton laughed, “yes. I thought I was being obvious!” 
“You love me?!” You exclaimed again. 
Leighton wrapped her arms around you in a hug, “I love you. Are you trying to say that you have feelings for me, too?” 
“Yes! That’s what I’m trying to say… I love you, too, Leighton. I really love you. More than a friend. I want to kiss you and I want to be your girlfriend. I don’t want you to go on dates with anyone else. I want to cuddle with you every night. I want you.” 
Leighton’s smile was the biggest you’d ever seen it, “that’s what I want, too.”
You looked at her and then your face fell into a frown.
“What’s wrong?”
“I can’t kiss you!”
Leighton laughed lightly, “that’s okay. We’ll kiss when you’re all better, but for now…” she leaned in and gave you a kiss on your forehead, “there.”
You smiled and nuzzled against her, cuddling closely once again, and whispered, “I love you, Leighton.”
“I love you, too.”
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tomiyeee · 1 year ago
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donnie had. SO. much concept art lol. i really enjoyed the whole design process though. his base design is very difficult to work with because of the battleshell, but it gave me a lot of chances to get creative and i'm happy with the results :)
(also as a disclaimer so i don't get asked about this: i don't have motivation to finish raph or the wish art for donnie, so i'm just posting what i've got)
i didn't annotate these as much since there'd be a lot to write, but i'll write out some of my thought processes and go into some detail about his final design below the cut if you're interested! (it's long. i'm talkative 😔)
1st row - first iteration; much more literal 1:1 translation of his design into a fantasy setting. very steampunk-y. ended up completely scrapping it because, simply put, he looked more like an npc than a playable character. obviously, several features did still carry over throughout the design process :3 also wanted to imagine his attack pattern cuz i thought it'd be fun to incorporate his spider arms.
this was actually the first design of any of them i'd come up with! i've definitely learned a lot about genshin's character design style since then and i think it shows 😂
2nd row - playing around with the idea of a floating battleshell (rather than a backpack-like one in the the show & first version), inspired by nahida's cape. also hard light constructs/attachments. was leaning too into the sci-fi and rectangular motifs with the design, but i liked the idea.
3rd/4rth rows - concepts for his final outfit and shell designs (the colored/more-detailed pics are the more finalized ones). took a lot of inspiration from sumeru this time around. it's a lot sharper, shinier, and less rectangular than his og aesthetic, but i think it's more in-line with genshin's design philosophies.
5th row - not entirely sure why i went through all the trouble of making a 3d model for this. i mostly just thought it'd be fun and good for reference. i was right, but i don't know what to do with it now lol. can't be bothered to be a perfectionist about it though, so don't look too closely at it 😭
6th row - incomplete thumbnails of his burst/wish art. not super sold on that "wing" design in particular, but i do like the idea of his shell splitting and deploying hard light weapons/rocket launchers/etc sort of like in canon.
battleshell/misc notes - i'm thinking his battleshell is controlled using the pink sensor on the back of his coat, possibly in combination with his headset. it floats behind him by default and is sturdy enough to protect his back, but he can also freely fly it around like a drone if he wants. the holes on the side are mainly for the spider arms and the banners(?) and handles(?) with the blue/pink gradient are made of hard light and only appear when the shell is in use.
i imagine like in the series, his tech here isn't necessarily very reliant on his vision/powers; much of it he likely made himself long before he received a vision and he just uses his vision to enhance it.
his burst is a barrage of missiles from his shell that lock onto an enemy and deal a large burst of electro damage in an AOE. not sure if i want his skill to be a deployable or some sort of electro-infusion/boost 🤔 maybe something that involves deploying his shell to boost his damage while leaving him vulnerable, like a glass canon? though i'm not sure he'd be that sort of risk-taker... 😅 dunno! his signature weapon would totally be his tech bo though.
that's about all i can think of. thanks for reading!
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chaithetics · 6 months ago
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frothing at the mouth for any norm fics
Gaps of Sunlight
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Pairing: Norm Maclean (Fallout) x f reader Word count: 4.5K Gif by @klausbens Warning: Barely proofread, pining, longing, maybe a little fluff and angst? a jab at Chet's weird crush, this is set before the events of Fallout S1 so some 'foreshadowing' I guess but doesn't have any spoilers! Mitski inspired! A/N: Ask and you shall receive 🙏(translation: thank you for enabling me!!!) This is my first time writing Norm and it's the most fun I've had with writing a fic in a long time! I feel like I'm a more descriptive writer and I haven't had an idea flow like this in quite a while. I feel like this is similar to 'Porce and the Shark' in terms of writing? Idk how well this flows as a story lol?!?! I've barely written any angst and I haven't really done any yearning, so I hope this is good! So please validate, I just felt like I was never going to finish or/fix it enough so I thought I'd post it as is. Thought about the queen of angst, @inknopewetrust's work a lot when I started writing this. Comments and reblogs are really appreciated 🫶
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You lay in bed as you couldn’t help but think about it all. Once again. You could go outside to the corn fields but all that could offer you was a projection from a time and place well before you were even conceived as an idea. You’d never really know what the sunlight felt like, how it would heat your chin and what it would be like to bathe in that light. You had tried to live vicariously through that with what approved, classic literature had survived the war and through the vaults. Shakespeare didn’t offer you much beyond metaphors that were just out of your grasp with relatability to your environment, you hadn’t particularly enjoyed Chaucer, an opinion you’d kept from your father. While the Brontë sisters were able to perfectly let you know what rain in a different continent would’ve felt like against your face and how it would’ve smelt and made your shoes feel to run across an English countryside, they never enlightened you about what being bathed in sunlight would feel like. There were only so many times you could read and annotate Homer’s works awaiting a revelation. 
Despite how everyone else moved around Vault 33, it was impossible for you to not help but wonder more of life. What it all was, and what it all meant. 
You pull yourself out of a possible mental spiral and quickly get ready for the day as it eases on just as every other day does in the Vault. There’s breakfast with a pleasant conversation with your family, and you teach English classes to the youth of Vault 33, you participate in other extracurriculars just like most of the other Vault dwellers but teaching takes up the bulk of each of your days. You don’t mind that at all though, you enjoy it, even on days where everything feels like a complete rut. The mornings when the blue of the vault suits feels like too much, the pleasantries feel more like programming than authentic connections. 
It had started like every other day and classes had happened accordingly, there was now the communal reprieve of lunch. As you slowly chew you look up and see him across the dining hall, despite being from the poster-perfect vault family, he’s Vault 33’s very own black sheep, Norman MacLean. He’s sitting there silently while his dad and Lucy are happily chatting away. Each taking turns trying to lure him into conversation, which he rejects each time with a quick, blink and you’ll miss it shake of his head. The same expression he always wears these days and has for years is etched onto his face, a chronic look of apathy. 
You can’t help but stare at him for a moment, watching the way he looks on almost blankly. Even from across the room, you can see every thought in those brown doe eyes as if he’s saying them aloud. How is it that he’s still so misunderstood? 
You’d grown up with Norm, he’d always been nice to you, even when you were at school. But that wasn’t exceptional, that was the whole thing with vault-dwellers, being nice people, even from a very young age. It’s not exactly a melting pot of cultures in the Vault like you know the surface once was but the culture is to be nice, chirpy, and practical. 
Norm was nice, he had a quiet charm, he’d be a good politician, just in a different way and style as his father, he was practical but he didn’t have a cheery disposition. He lacked enthusiasm and at times it seemed to almost fascinate him how much that little rebellion could bother people. He didn’t put himself out there and you remember how he was smart, he knew answers to the questions that were asked but he’d never put his hand up for them. 
It made you wonder at times if he was scared of his own voice. You feel your eyes squinting as you look at him wondering that question, as if studying his jawline for another minute or watching him lift his fork up to his mouth will tell you. 
With a deep breath, you tilt your head discreetly to look around to see if anyone noticed your infatuated staring but nobody seems to. You still put a polite, chirpy smile on your face in case anyone did. That should be enough for anyone to notice anything your eyes might’ve been betraying. 
Your mind still stays on him, because as always, you might see him better than anyone else but he is still a puzzle with pieces you have yet to find the corners to.
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You’re sitting near the cornfield, trying to live vicariously in a world that’s not yours, one that will always be out of touch, just trapped into ink on a page and repeated for the ears of children, to fulfil a mission. But it’s his voice that pulls you out of the inner world of classical Greek horrors. 
“Sunny day today.” He says as he looks down at you as you sit on the chair and look at his standing form. He says it as if it isn’t sunny every day with that projection meant to convince you of what the surface once knew and not instead fall flat and be more reminiscent of golden Hollywood-esque crops on sets of the films that have survived. Norm’s voice is quiet, he’s just as soft-spoken as you remember him being so long ago. His tone is bored, but it doesn’t deter you, how could it when he’s standing in front of you looking into your eyes? 
He looks into your eyes, taking in the colour, worried that someday he could forget the flicks closest to your eyes. They might rearrange if he doesn’t look at them for another ten seconds to appreciate them. He could forget them. But he never would. 
“Just like your disposition.” You quietly tease, offering him a shy smile. 
Just as if it’s somehow not always sunny, a rare occasion worth being spoken about, so is his unchanging character. But beyond adding in a couple of cups of more confidence perhaps, you don’t think there’s much else that could be worth editing. 
“And for that exact reason, I’m surprised I’m getting a job transfer with the reasoning being my enthusiasm levels.” He says with a breathless chuckle. 
You tilt your head as you look up at him, he’s still standing, the toe of his shoe almost toying with something invisible on the artificial emerald green grass. You’d put your thumb in your book when he’d arrived but now you put your bookmark in and gently close it. Placing it gently on your lap. 
It hadn’t been that long since you’d both finished your education, having had jobs and duties in the vault was important for its efficiency and functionality. But still, this wouldn’t be Norm’s second job. You were still the teacher you’d been assigned at the start of your adult life, most people in the vault only ever had one job, sometimes they would change and so have had two in their whole life and of course, there would be a change of two or sometimes three for overseers, but three while still being so young was very rare. You had questions and internal crises about this world all the time, there was always a moment somewhere in your world that you felt slightly out of place. But still, contentment had found a way to settle in your bones much easier than it did for him. 
“What were the enthusiasm levels?” You ask quietly, slowly blinking. You already know the answer. 
Norm looks down at the ground, at the grass he could tug out and it would just never grow back. No matter how desperately everyone would want to pretend it would. His foot is so close to yours, mere inches away, the toe of his shoe could just brush against yours and no one would know. 
“Nought.” He says with disinterest, he slightly shrugs his shoulders as his eyes stay planted on the ground. 
“Something will stick eventually.” You say. 
You say stick, you don’t say that there will definitely be something he loves or that it’ll all be okay, it’s not what he wants to hear and you don’t know if there’s a role in this world that you both live in that would fulfil him as much as his father is fulfilled by being Overseer. He appreciates that. But he needs to change the subject. 
“Is a literature teacher always reading?” He questions as if it’s a riddle that might amuse him. 
“More likely to happen than finding them counting.” You say as you tilt your head. You don’t remember the last time he approached you for conversation, or the last time that he did and there were this many words. It would’ve been back when you were younger, still classmates. You can’t track an exact memory down which surprises you.
“So, what’s that one?” He asks looking at the book in your lap for a moment before his eyes slowly gaze back to your face, making eye contact for the first time in over a minute. You can’t help but feel your cheeks heat up at this. You feel seen as his eyes rake up and take in every facial feature and unique mark on you. 
Everyone makes a false and fatal assumption about Norm. They assume that because he’s not extroverted and over-the-top warm like Lucy or Hank, that he’s not charming. That’s complete crap. You know it’s false. He’s not the same as his family or a lot of the people in your home vault but without a doubt, Norman MacLean oozes charisma. He knows just when to turn it on and how to utilise it in the best way with each person. And right now, it’s working on you. 
“The Three Theban plays, by Sophocles.” You whisper as your eyes bore into him, you don’t dare to blink. Too scared that he might just disappear if you do, and that when your eyes open again, this will all be confirmed as another of one of your many daydreams about him. “They’re tragedies, I’m reading Antigone, at the moment.” You feel yourself latching each word onto the next word as if you’re climbing a ladder and need to build more rungs at the same time, there’s some intrinsic need in you to draw this out for just a few more moments. His presence gives you some kind of glow. You finally blink, your eyes not able to hold it anymore, he’s somehow still standing in front of you once your lids open. You immediately wonder if you’ve said too much and try to fight the urge to sigh but the urge to not let on how embarrassed you feel is more of a priority, you need to keep that internal. 
“And what has that taught you?” He asks with a small smile. 
Someone else might’ve found the tone cold. If someone else had asked that exact question, it might’ve felt condescending. But you know exactly what it is. 
Norm knows better, not better than you, he’s not that kind of arrogant. It’s because he’s always known that he knows better than most in these reinforced concrete and metal walls you all live in. But you live in a meritocracy. Everyone is in constant pursuit to be kind and to better and upskill as a contributing member of Vault society. Of course if someone’s openly reading it’s an academic pursuit, to be more well-read, that they can learn an important tale and moral lesson, or to use it as a quote to whip out at a convenient time in a council meeting or for intellectual criticism of another philosopher or writer’s thesis. And you both know it’s why each book that was chosen for survival by Vault-Tec was carefully curated, all in the name of intellectual pursuits and other reasons beyond either of your imagination. 
“Just further proof why we have rules against familial relations.” You reply after a slow blink, you remember what his sense of humour used to be like in class, how teachers would occasionally stifle an eye roll and sigh or would take a moment to then replaster their smile back on. You look at him, and your eyes can’t help but take in the shape of his nose as if you hadn’t already committed it to memory a thousand times before now. 
“Hah.” He says quietly, as if it’s amusing, which he finds to be a little as he lets out a small chuckle and his mouth quirks up and that makes you happy. It’s an expression that doesn’t grace his handsome face often. “Might need to pass that on to Chet, if that’s the case, I doubt he’s read it.” 
You let out a chuckle at that, and Norm’s brow furrows for a mere second as he takes you in. His mouth is still in a small smile but not many people find his humour to actually be humorous, his father and Lucy love him but he earns more small sighs and tired smiles from them than anything close to a laugh. 
“I’ll let you know when I’m done with this copy.” You reply with another slow blink. 
You watch his mouth, mentally tracing his lips with your eyes as he sucks his lips for a moment and nods, his eyes dropping to the ground again. It’s only then that you realise how close the toes of your feet are to each other. He couldn’t be looking down because of that, or thinking about that though. You are cursed to yearn in silence. “Appreciate it.” He says with a small smirk as he looks up at your eyes, he raises his eyebrows slightly to replace any verbal goodbyes and he walks off. 
Norm leaves you as he found you minutes before, all alone in false sunlight with a book in your hands. You still haven’t found the missing puzzle pieces. 
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It had been four days now. Four days since you’d had that conversation with Norm, there had been plenty of stolen glances, and a few returned smiles when your eyes met across corridors or the dining hall, but Norman MacLean was still, one of the only things occupying your mind.
You wouldn’t complain, why would you? How could you when the fact that those glances, and snippets of conversations were now a supercut in your head that provided comfort whenever you started to get into another emotional crisis about vault life and what the history was that had brought everyone to this point. But still, you couldn’t help but sometimes worry over this yearning. How unrequited it could be. How unrequited it felt. 
You felt a hunger in the pit of your stomach each time that you saw his shadow, each time you two made eye contact you couldn’t help but feel as if it was a caress on your skin, even though the only time he’d touched you was to help you up when you’d fallen over outside when you were seven. He’d insisted on being the one to put the excessive amount of band-aids on your grazed hands. Hank had stood back and watched, finding it endearing, how concentrated Norm’s face was at such a young age. Maybe they should’ve thought about trialling him in medicine, but no, he probably still lacked the desired enthusiasm during the first-aid training vault-dwellers did. 
You were seated with your family for a council update, everyone gathered to sit on the folded chairs, you and your family were always extremely punctual, you sat with them on one side while the other was still a row of a few empty seats. 
As people slowly trickle in you see Norm come in, he looks mentally fatigued as he looks around, you turn your head to face your family so you don’t catch his eye in hopes of him not noticing your stare. How pathetic would he think you are if he saw you looking at him like a wide-eyed puppy, begging for love? You can imagine, but you don’t want to know. After a moment you hear somebody sit down next to you, the chatter of people finding seats fills your ears but you don’t hear any from whoever sits down. You feel their arm brush against yours, you know it’s nothing but you instinctively turn to see who it is and to give them a polite and welcoming smile. 
It’s Norm. Of course, it’s Norm. But why is it? He’s just facing ahead so he hasn’t acknowledged you yet, although you’re sure he can see your smile and look in his peripheral vision. “Hey.” You say quietly in a warm voice as you look at his handsome side profile, he shouldn’t look that good. His face shouldn’t be so perfectly sculpted. “Hi.” He says quietly as he tilts his head giving you a small look that seems dramatically playful which makes you smile, and let out a silent chuckle. Norm’s face turns back ahead to face the front where his father now stands and the council sit. Your eyes follow his gaze and you turn back in your seat to look straight ahead as Hank MacLean starts his updates in his usual down-to-earth, selfless leader tone. 
You can’t help but wonder if this is a sign, him choosing this seat, you even wonder if his arm brushing against you was intentional as he sat down and then again you wonder if you were being crazy for wondering that. As Hank’s words go on to fill the air, they don’t really fill your head, that’s too busy being at full capacity with thoughts of Norman. You rub your chin after a moment, hoping the feeling of your fingertips and nails against your chin might create a sensory distraction. You get a completely different kind of sensory distraction when his arm gently brushes against yours as he leans back in his seat, he adjusts himself so that your shoulders are touching and you can feel his arm against yours. You can’t help but silently gasp, hoping he doesn’t hear it and your breath traps itself as you hold your breath. Feeling far too scared to move. It has to be intentional, you look at him through the corner of your eye as you try not to move. He’s still looking ahead, his expression unfazed as he looks at the people in front of him but he’s still sitting in that position. He hasn’t moved his arm. 
It’s intentional. 
You try to breathe again as your cheeks heat up, and you bite the corner of your lip. The feeling of his arm against yours sends shivers up your spine and you can feel the warmth of that small point of contact radiating throughout the rest of your body. 
The connection you feel with Norm is deep and for the first time in quite a while, this simple gesture of touching arms makes you wonder if these years of yearning maybe aren’t unrequited. You feel your shoulders start to slowly rise and fall again at this thought, this movement hasn’t disturbed Norm away. A smile grows on your face like the corn that’s picked around the year, as you smile and look ahead. The meeting continues like this, it isn’t till the end that you lose that gentle, physical touch, sweet connection that you long for as Norm gets up and leaves to carry on with his day, you smile as he stands up, he gives you as small smile and walks away. You’re now touch-starved all over again, and you think it feels more hollow after feeling a touch from him. 
Maybe one day it won’t be just your arms touching but instead your hands, your hands will brush against each other and then your fingers will interlock together. You’re better at camouflaging but you’re certain that your souls are made of and connected by the same things. 
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It’s been what feels like an eternity since you felt Norm’s simple touch, it’s occupied every thought and been the reason behind nearly every smile since it happened. The question is though, has it been haunting Norm at all? You know he isn’t seeing anyone, secrets like that don’t exist here and it would certainly be talk with how introverted Norm is. 
Hours is the amount of time you’ve spent trying to think of a reason to approach him but nothing feels right and you decide against it anytime you get close to it. You try to find any excuse to visit him and the one you can think of is beyond pathetic, and you know that. 
You find another copy of a collection of plays and decide to give it to Norm, for him to decide whether he wants to read it or to fulfil a bit. It’s not a good reason, but it’s the best you’d been able to come up with. And at least with the book in your hands there would be some comfort in the pages, the smell of them and the remaining dust that haunted the corners that had been facing the wall. It can ground you and be something to hold onto anxiously while you make a fool of yourself. Norm conveniently answers after you’ve knocked at the MacLean family unit. He looks at your face and raises his eyebrows slightly, his face switches from an apathetic expression to one a bit warmer. “Hey.” You say, smiling at him but you think it must come off as panicked and scared as you look at him with wide eyes and feel an anxious parasite growing and feeding off of you in your brain. 
“Hi.” He says as he steps back letting you come into the unit. You walk in, and it’s nice and tidy but it’s the same as essentially your family unit and every other unit in Vault 33. You blink as you look around for a couple of seconds and your eyes land back on him, he’s been watching you the whole time. 
“After Lucy?” He asks and you feel your cheeks heat up, you liked Lucy, she was an extremely lovely person and you did consider her a close friend. “No.” You shake your head, the admission makes you feel like coming here was an even worse idea than what you thought it was just a few minutes ago. “I brought a copy of tragedies, in case you needed any dark reading, or wanted to… pass them on…” You continue and bite your lip for a second. 
Norm lets out a little chuckle that shakes his shoulders for a second but it’s borderline silent, almost not real. He looks into your eyes and takes a step closer, you’re not sure if he’s going to do the hospitality script you learn from a young age of offering a glass of water or cup of old Joe. 
Instead, he quickly steps closer and Norm places his hands on the back of your neck, you sharply exhale and you know that the hair on the back of your neck is standing up. The feeling of goosebumps on every inch of your skin overwhelms your senses as his lips finally crash down. 
His lips are slightly chapped and you can feel that against yours, the fine lines and cracks as they press against your mouth. There’s nothing you can do but melt into his touch as you’re overcome with warmth. But there isn’t anything else you’d want to do anyway. 
There’s nothing else you can imagine feeling that feels this good. You kiss him back instinctively and put your hand into his hair as he deepens the kiss, his hair is soft and you run your fingers through it as you feel his tongue, and it’s a clash of your mouths against the other. 
You immediately wonder if the physical warmth of where your bodies come into contact, his breath against your face, his warm lips, and the warmth that envelops you internally is what sunlight feels like. This feeling basks you in what you imagine would be similar to being basked in the light of sunrays would. 
You don’t know how long this lasts, it feels like a sweet lifetime but still deliciously short as you kiss and feel his hair while his hand is gentle on the back of your neck. Like all things, it eventually ends. You look at each other with widened eyes and pant as your lips are no longer in contact. Your cheeks heat up and you almost want to giggle. You see his face is flushed and his eyes shine, you think it’s adoration but you could be projecting. 
“My dad will be back soon.” He whispers knowingly as his eyes look glassy. “Oh.” You look around as if that’ll help you feel more composed. You weren’t expecting this to end so abruptly, this felt like something straight out of a dream and now it was a cold end, something want to shapeshift into a nightmare. You know you should leave, you’re feeling far too flustered to try and have a conversation with Hank and you know this isn’t a conversation Norman wants to try navigating around with his father. “We um… Well, we need to talk…” You breathe out. 
He smiles and whispers your name, the tone is reverent as he says each syllable. “Not now.” His eyes look a little less glassy but it’s still a visible sheen and you can see it, the sun has withdrawn a little.  
“Not now?” You repeat, it comes out as a shaky question though as you feel every muscle in your body tense.
This is rejection, this is what puts all those protagonists you’ve read of into a depression that only the seaside can cure if anything can cure it. Being in this vault, you don’t think you can ask for cornfield projections to change to windy cliffs with waves crashing and the artificial grass to be replaced with manmade sand. You’d always wondered about the sunlight but now you’d have to wonder what sand from a beach felt like as well. 
“No.” He whispers. “That isn’t fair. Tomorrow?”
“I don’t know.” He blinks and his cheeks are flushed as he looks at you. 
“When?” “Maybe when you finish the book, not a copy, your book.” 
“Not a copy?” Your face scrunches up, as your brain runs screaming. 
“No.” He answers. “Yours probably has thoughtful annotations or something right?” He asks. 
“Or something.” You whisper back. 
“I’ll read that.” He says. 
You nod, as you pick up the spare copy and walk out from the MacLean unit, you don’t feel like you’re controlling your body right now, it must be some form of muscle memory.  Maybe you need to read and reread every book in the vault to further investigate if what you just felt was sunlight. Or, you wonder, are you still under gaps of sunlight, missing Norm more than anything?
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mysteryanimator · 2 months ago
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ANIMATION BREAKDOWN PROCESS OF THIS LETS GO (Sorry for any grammatical errors!)
SCRIPT/STORYBOARD: (you can watch here)
Now THIS. The script was very weak because I wanted to board immediately, so it started strong then fell off at the end (also generally I'm not a stronger writer, which haha fics my beloved). Now I know this, spending more time simmering with the script will genuinely only 1) stronger compositions for storyboards 2) it will be so much faster to board. Like I can board fast, but I can board fast AND well if I sit with the idea a bit longer. This will be a massive running theme how I like my shots earlier rather than further in.
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side note I LIKE PANEL 11 A LOT, I just feeI didn't translate it well enough into animation which sucks because its a pretty panel and you get a softer moment from Olrox which I found was important to get across.
Also at some point, the 180 rule (which keeps characters on like one line behind the camera... not sure if I worded that right) gets broken and it bugged me for AGES but decided I had to just move on LOL.
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These are my thumbnails b4 I go to animatic/cleaned storyboards which are SO MESSY (I'm a lot better at annotating my thumbs now LOL). The original prompt was top service blood bag x powerbottom vampire and i don't think i portrayed that well enough throughout BUT i think the intro did a good establishment. Which fun fact, this was scrapped but there was actually 20 seconds of Mizrak eyeing Olrox "What is it like? Blood?" Then Olrox leans down and commences the thigh glide.
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These backgrounds are a mix of texture-bashing (walls/floors) along with some good ol' painting materials from scratch. Also, these are olddd and I can do a lot better yay, but was a good test to see how to make a consistent-ish scene.
ANIMATION: (You can watch the rough anim here)
I'll be super upfront how I don't like most of it AHHA. From starting this in July to posting this in September, I've improved a lot since then.
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Since this was a bit ago, I don't remember too much but I remember going ham onto learning material from Dong Chang and animation servers. However in all honesty I think this was only really applied to the earlier shots. I got super frustrated with my "slow speed" so I tried to jump ship and do cleans super early on, which like lets be honest- pumping out two rough anims a day with uni on top is not slow idk what I was on about. This ended up giving me MORE work during the line/colour stage PFFT because I would end up correcting my mistakes in my roughs. Like Myst stop, this is for fun and you're learning, please take it easy LOLOL.
COMPOSITING:
Working on compositing this time around was slightly different, and I'll also admit it is not my favorite composite I've done (and again, I like my earlier shots then my later shots). My after-effects layers looked insane keeping track of the highlight glows on their clothes BUT it definitely paid off. Skin tones however were SO DIFFICULT (mostly in part to the fact I decided to experiment with how I approached it, so it definitely skewed how I worked with this)
I also definitely struggled between the dreamy look and keeping it clean and crisp, and while the dreamy blurred aesthetic does work in some cases, I opted out for the sake of clarity.
Beloved edge light my friend. It's making me learn SUPER late into it how I probably should have planned out a third shadow pass since edge light at the point is a crutch and I think planning it out ahead would get nicer more precise shadows LOL.
Because I brain rotted so hard for this animation I actually commissioned two people to help me work on this! I'll briefly talk about their stuff but please check out their work!
MUSIC: Astralbardkeep
Due the fact I don't have voiceactors, and I had a very specific vision in mind, I decided to go "you know what, let me be super self-indulgent". I had a lot of notes and inspirations for the music, BUT i wanted to have Olrox's theme from the original games peek through, which you will notice happens at the bite AND at the end.
TITLE CARD: Hataui0
This might've seemed overkill, but this friend of mine is very talented at making graphics/typography to suit the requirements of each individual project. (Also a secret ploy to make him make nocturne fanart /lh). So that entire end bit, he illustrated it along with that title, in which the themes I bestowed him were Mucha and Gothic art.
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Thank you for reading if you got this far! Suffice to say this was supposed to be a compare and contrast between the animation I did in February, and while I may not quite find this body of work up to my normal standards, it substantial amount of improvement, which is the most important thing here! With the ten billion other things in my life going on, I can only be happy with the progress thus far :D
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February on the left/September on the right
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obstinaterixatrix · 7 months ago
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Do u know any good mob psycho 100 fanfics?? Or authors??
well obviously my sister but I’m guessing you’re the same anon so 1) you already know her fics 2) you want different recs from what’s on her list (some of them being fics I rec’d to her lol). recs will skew heavily seri/rei and I’m just going through my bookmarks so it’s gonna be most recently read to oldest read. also seconding sister’s recs of bobmoss and crookedturtle. but I’ll add a fic from each anyway because I already wrote something for one while I was drafting this (oops)
Recollection by CowardlyBean
This is the journal of missing 31 year old Reigen Arataka, distributed with permission from friends and family. The version presented in this document has been kindly edited with added commentary by a loyal customer of his. -Editor’s Note
gen, experimental and in progress at 14k so definitely deserves more love than it’s getting. inspired by house of leaves; as the summary says, it’s some rando writing annotations about reigen’s journal, but Something Weird Is Going On. the 4th chapter updated so I actually need to catch up. also, sister rec’d this fic to me
Like Acid Reflux, or Love by partingxshot
Dating Reigen is like dating a single dad—only with more children, weirder scruples, and an extreme ruthlessness vis-à-vis group takoyaki discounts. He's not hot enough for this.
OR: "Me, You and Steve" by Garfunkel and Oates but with fifteen million teenagers.
OR: Outsider POV exploring Reigen’s dedication to his gaggle of bizarre children through an ill-fated dating attempt.
OR: Serizawa gets bruxism.
gen(/pre-relationship seri/rei), oneshot, 7k. oc/reigen breakup lmao. extremely funny concept, extremely good execution
Dream Dial by Alakazamboni
For the better part of nine years, Arataka has proudly worked in customer service at a behemoth of a company. At least, that's what he remembers, but a strange illness and a mysterious caller keeps trying to convince him otherwise. It doesn't help that this caller has the power to distort reality.
seri/rei, in progress, 16k. great uncanny atmosphere, and also reigen is trapped in time prison as a miserable office worker. hasn’t been updated for a while but read it anyway, the stoping point is fine
What We Make by crookedturtle
Reigen and Tome are kidnapped from the Spirits and Such office to be used as leverage against Mob. They have two goals: to contact the outside world, and keep each other safe. In doing so they engage in a dangerous game of lies and manipulation with their captors—a game with potentially deadly consequences.
gen (bg seri/rei), complete, 36k. Good for whump and high stakes interpersonal maneuvering & drama. I liked how the story extends beyond rescue and goes into how everyone navigates the fallout
Man's Best Friend by bobmoss
A cursed dog gets left at Spirits and Such. Anyone who pets it is doomed to die a horrible death.
Reigen, of course, pets it.
seri/rei, oneshot, 4k. funny and cute and sweet :) there’s a very charming tentative & tender vibe
heart line by ruthwrites
It doesn’t really matter, he reminds himself. He’s making a change, just like all of Reigen’s clients. What’s on his hands isn’t set in stone. He just has to make sure Reigen doesn’t see it— even if it might feel nice to have that steady attention, Reigen’s hands that are so much nicer than Serizawa’s folding around his.
(or: Reigen starts offering palm readings as a service, leading to Serizawa having to confront his feelings for his boss.)
seri/rei, oneshot, 6k. getting together fluff, a fun light read that also highlights serizawa’s insecurities—the internal narration has good character voice
If you won't believe me when I say it, believe me when I don't by deathdefied
Two years after Reigen invited Serizawa to work for him, he still can't quite categorize his feelings for his coworker. Instead of actually dealing with those feelings like an adult and talking to his friend, he decided to get really paranoid and overthink everything Serizawa does.
seri/rei, complete, 26k. reigen drives himself nuts lmao
Obvious by skeilig
Tome’s perspective on Reigen and Serizawa’s developing relationship.
gen (but about seri/rei), oneshot, 3k. I like outsider perspective getting together fics, especially when the perspective character is like ‘I’m actually not invested in this except when it affects me directly’
Cover Me by flecksofpoppy
Reigen’s shadow seems longer as the days move forward, more solitary. The cuts on his face heal and the ache in his bones go away, but a new sting replaces it. It’s loneliness, the thing he had managed to avoid ever since a primary school-aged kid who could make cups float stumbled into his office so many years ago.
seri/rei, oneshot, 3k. getting together fic that shows off a little of reigen’s gloomier side, it’s cute
loved you just a little too much by shcherbatskayas
You learn how to let go.
(It doesn't come naturally.)
gen(ish), oneshot, 2k. 2nd person character study of serizawa’s relationship with touichiro, I liked the ambivalence; effectively captures development over time with a relatively short wordcount.
offering genuine help with genuine results by suitablyskippy
“The curse was pretty clear on me not telling lies,” concedes Reigen. “It was pretty clear on me telling the truth. But,” as he lifts one finger, already sliding into the same educational tone he generally uses for imparting wisdom to Mob about life and love and the overall holistic benefits of making sure he’s always available for unexpected overtime work on weekends, “telling the truth isn’t necessarily the same as being honest, is it?”
“You’re the professional liar,” says Dimple. “You tell me.”
(Being cursed to only tell the truth and being cursed with Dimple as an employee are pretty much equally bad, as far as Reigen's stress levels are concerned.)
gen, oneshot, 2k. the tags include friends with no benefits whatsoever, which is very apt. Very funny to have reigen and dimple be petty and shady
a slightly more miraculous miracle by suitablyskippy
“Rumour has it that something impossible’s happened. Something that could never have happened. That shouldn’t have been able to happen.” In a single slick move Mezato produces a tiny voice recorder from an inside pocket, flips it open and active, and holds it up before Mob’s mouth to ask him, in a tone of devastating intensity: “Do you know anything about… a miracle, Mob-kun?”
Mob doesn’t hesitate. “We had maths homework to hand in,” he says. “But now we don’t have to. We don’t even have to go to the lesson.”
(The sun is shining, the birds are singing, Salt Middle School has been closed by an unexplained miracle, and the only thing wrong in Spice City is the fact that nothing is even slightly wrong at all.)
teru/mob, incomplete, 55k. for the most part I haven’t been repeating authors on this list, but listen. listen to me. I need you to listen. it is extremely unlikely for this fic to ever be completed. but hark, lest this sad probability turn you away and leave you dispassionately scrolling to the next fic, I need you (you specifically) to know that if I were in the same room as you, I would be wrestling the phone/mouse/trackpad/touchscreen/etc from your hands and furiously clicking the link. when I bookmarked this fic in 2017 I described it as having “some breathtakingly sensical prose and the funniest misunderstandings I’ve ever read”. trust me from seven years ago. open your heart.
skylight by inexhaustible
unconnected snapshots in what might, in some worlds, be something a little like recovery.
seri/rei, oneshot, 2k. character study that nails the tension of an escalating romantic atmosphere.
come on, come on, come over (take it off your shoulder) by mortarsmayfall
Reigen's free hand cradles Serizawa's head, curled under his ear just so to turn it for a better angle. He feels his pulse pound under Reigen's fingers, shivers just the slightest bit. If Reigen notices, he doesn't say anything about it.
seri/rei, oneshot, 2k. when I first read this I saved it as a private bookmark because I was so embarrassed by the sheer intimacy of haircuts with severely unresolved sexual tension. I’m guessing this was written after studio bones gave us reigen cutting serizawa’s hair. crumbs no more; for once we had a feast to enjoy. short & sweet getting together fic
Off-White by reigreitz
Some habits are tells.
seri/rei, oneshot, 1k. snapshots of pre-relationship and established relationship scenes, I’m quite fond of it. on my first reading I’m pretty sure I remember not paying attention to the habit piece at all (even with it being right in the summary) so at the last scene I was hit by the double whammy of ‘oh so that was what serizawa was reacting to’ and ‘AW… THAT’S SWEET…’; I think the fic does a great job of hiding/not acknowledging certain things the perspective character knows and is reacting to, which makes it fun to reread and pinpoint what exactly serizawa’s previously more opaque train of thought was. like, it’s the same stuff, but you get to read into more nuance.
the seven stages of falling in love by reigen arataka by matsunoble
You suppose one of the weirdest times to realize you've fallen deeply and irrevocably in love is when it's fuck o'clock in the morning and you're blearily checking your fridge for leftover curry.
seri/rei, oneshot, 3k. I was quite taken by the mundane (and sometimes unappealing) descriptions of love, and I like when serizawa has the upper hand
Mr. Psychic by beefstatic
Looks like trouble in Spice City...
seri/rei, oneshot, 4k. Serizawa Acts Like An Intimidating Bodyguard During Tense/Shady Situations. fun emphasis on that potential aspect of his character, I like how it’s done.
Late by hamlingo
For the first few days after hiring Serizawa, Reigen couldn’t help but be alarmed when the door opened at eight o’clock sharp in the mornings. He got used to it eventually, and in a month’s time he was more surprised when the door didn’t creak open right on time.
This was one of those mornings.
seri/rei, oneshot, 2k. this is actually among the first seri/rei fics I bookmarked so I can say with relative certainty that on may 20th 2017 I decided that maybe seri/rei was not just a joke of me indulging my own spurious unreasonable whims. fun character study and has that enjoyable tension of pleasant pre-relationship uncertainty.
Quiet Talks by krypkaktus
At some point, Reigen cutting his hair twice a month had turned into a mutual habit.
seri/rei, oneshot, 600 words. another charming snapshot of pre-relationship uncertainty, pleasantly embarrassing unresolved romantic tension.
walk in by ruthwrites
It was then he realized that the reason Reigen and Serizawa were standing so close was because they were kissing.
Mob was not really sure what to do with that information.
(or: mob leaves something at the office, comes back, and walks into something he wasn't supposed to)
seri/rei, oneshot, 3k. an extremely popular fic for extremely valid reasons, this is a shining example of the outsider POV shipfic where the perspective character is like. I’m 14 and did not want to see you guys kissing. and the couple is like. we also did not want you to see us kissing, this is excruciatingly awkward.
tomorrow isn't always another day by suitablyskippy
It’s like Reigen’s been waiting for the question. He stops dead on the pavement, grips Mob by the shoulders, and stares down into his eyes with an expression as haunted as though every ghost the pair of them has ever exorcised has taken up residence behind it. “Mob,” he says. “Mob,” he says again. “Tell me, Mob. Look at me and tell me. Tell me truthfully. Do I look cursed to you?”
Mob looks at him, and tells him truthfully. “No.”
“Well, you didn’t look very long,” says Reigen. “Let’s just stand here for a moment, like so, and you can have another look, a nice long look, and really think about it...”
(There's nothing strange about being called back to exorcise the same haunted photocopier six days in a row. It must just be a very haunted photocopier.)
gen, oneshot, 18k. I didn’t mean to rec the same author three (3) times but this is also one of my top faves. extremely funny time prison where nobody is on the same page ever.
space voyage by Anonymous
Tome Kurata is slightly famous—or notorious, more like—for being... a weirdo, to put it simply. She's definitely a person of interest. Just not exactly in a newsworthy way, which is obviously the only way that matters.
mezato/tome, oneshot, 1k. charming pre-relationship contention, they’re the same type of self-absorbed and tunnel vision (affectionate)
I was thinking of not writing up recs for sister’s fics but since one author got three (3) fics on the list I’m gonna also put 3 of my fave fics of sister’s
Reigen's Comprehensive Fool-Proof Guide on How Not To Be Next Door Neighbors With Your Employee (because that'd just be creepy) by MalkyTop
Reigen hires Serizawa and they somehow end up as roommates.
seri/rei, complete, 17k. a fic sister wrote for ✨ME✨ that shows off reigen’s neuroticism and his decidedly not-normal attempts to come across as Extremely Normal, The Most Normal Man Alive. there are so many comedic setups and payoffs. there are so many shenanigans. reigen gets frog-boiled into romance. actually, I drop that term a lot but I’m not sure it’s a common enough to intuitively understand. it refers to the boiling frog metaphor
If At First You Don't Succeed, Find a Loophole by MalkyTop
Reigen keeps dying; Serizawa keeps trying to save him.
seri/rei, complete, 18k. sister was insane for this because she trapped all of her readers AND herself in time prison by releasing one chapter a day. it was really funny to witness because I was the only person not in time prison by virtue of editing privilege. while we were watching mondays: see you next week (an office time loop movie), sister was saying she was impressed at how effective/efficient the movie was at picking which scenes to repeat. this is to say, as someone who notices these details, sister was very intentional about when things changed and how things changed from the perspective of a character completely unaware of time prison. also, the emotional momentum is extremely good, I loved reading serizawa’s increasing desperation from reigen’s context-less perspective.
in absentia* by MalkyTop
After what was supposed to be a routine exorcism, Reigen wakes up in the wrong body.
serirei, complete, 26k. slowburn bodyswap with mystery and intrigue. a solid casefic! I can be biased and right. there are metanarrative elements that I find fun and that, in my opinion, highlights how sister did in fact get a degree in philosophy. there’s also some fun subtle and messy characterization notes, like when serizawa asks reigen not to cook for him. it’s hard to talk about what I like about this fic without giving away a lot of specifics, so go read it.
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bonesandthebees · 4 months ago
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Hi Bee! You seem to read a lot of books, and I've been trying to get back into reading books rather than fanfiction as of late (which is going good atm). I used to read a lot of actual books when I was younger, but once I was a pre teen I'd discovered fic and had trouble reading actual books unless I had to for school lol. Anyway, my question is do you have any book recs? While for right now, it is going well, I only have two books I'm planning on reading after I finish the two I'm reading simultaneously right now. So it'd be nice to have some more for once I finish those as well. :D
Another reason for my wanting to get back into reading actual types of books is studying a more formal written literature to improve my writing, and to observe what author's do with their writing style that I'd want to incorporate in my own writing. If you have any tips for studying/observing, I'd also love some of those.
While this doesn't really have to do with the whole book thing, I just wanna say that you definitely inspired me to want to write more. Most of your titles always sound so cool and make me wanna read anything of yours solely based off them, and your plot, descriptiveness, metaphors, Greek mythology references, and so many other little things about it make it so enjoyable to read and something I'd strive to be within my own writing. A little silly, I know, considering it's MCYT fic, but your writing is genuinely so cool.
That's all I wanted to say, bye bye.
this is so kind thank you!! it seriously makes me so happy anytime someone tells me my silly fic writing inspired them to start/improve their own writing. writing is such a beautiful art but it's also a skill you have to put so much time into. you're off to an amazing start already with recognizing that you have to read published novels to improve your writing. it seriously helps so much.
I can definitely give you some recs! I'll put them under a read more, but since you asked for tips when reading novels:
try to pay attention to things you like and don't like about the author's writing style. like if you're reading a novel and there's a line of description that's particularly gorgeous or sets a scene super well, consider annotating the book with a pen or highlighter or if you don't own the book itself, copy down the line/paragraph somewhere (notebook, notes app, smth like that) to refer back to later. or if you find yourself super immersed in a conversation going on between two characters, take a step back to notice how the author writes out the conversation. is there a lot of physical description of what the characters are doing while they speak that lets you picture th escene easily? or is the dialogue rapid fire back and forth which forces you to just be sucked into it? what about it do you like?
or, on the contrary, if you find yourself struggling to enjoy a book try to notice what about the writing style is pulling you away. is there too much flowery description that makes you want to skip ahead? is there too much exposition so you feel like you're just getting an infodump instead of a narrative? take stock of what your own thoughts are as you read and then try to figure out why that is.
also, a tip I heard once is that you can always try to emulate a specific style. if you want to improve your writing and you just read a book with a writing style you really want, maybe try and write a random scene in that same style. it doesn't have to be anything original or even good, no one ever has to see it, it can just be for your own practice. just keep the book beside you and try to pick out what makes the writing style distinct, and try to emulate that. not saying you have to adopt that style, but just trying out a new style can give you some variation to help you develop/improve your own.
okay now book recs time, this'll get long so putting it below
now you didn't specify what kinds of books you like to read so I'm going to just throw in a few from a few different genres I've read. most of these are books I've recced here on my blog before but they're all a bit scattered so I'll rec them again. now, I mostly read fantasy or historical fiction because I just like those genres but I'll try to include some variety here
Genre: Fantasy (Typical Medieval)
The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon
one of my all time favorite novels. incredibly expansive fantasy worldbuilding that draws from a variety of cultures that's not exclusive to just europe. of course there's one country that's fantasy england, but you also have countries that take inspiration from asia, africa, and the middle east. you follow several characters that vary in age, race, gender, sexuality, etc. and they're all wonderfully fleshed out and fascinating. the story itself is also just fantastic and the world really swallows you whole. there's also a prequel to this called A Day of Fallen Night that I actually think I liked a bit more than Priory, but I'd recommend reading Priory first because it's easier to get into the world through that one whereas ADOFN is a bit more dense.
Genre: Fantasy (Apocalyptic? Sci fi? Kind of?)
The Fifth Season by NK Jemisin
similar to priory, the fifth season is a masterclass in worldbuilding and creating interesting worlds. that's where the similarities end though. technically speaking The Fifth Season is a fantasy and not a sci fi, although it feels more like sci fi to me tonally. The Fifth Season explores a world that is so regularly tormented by apocalyptic natural disasters that everything is formed around survival and it makes for such an interesting culture. the story also does an incredibly interesting and unique thing with POV that I rarely see in novels so that's also super fascinating to dig into for writing study. currently reading the sequel to this one and I love it so far.
Genre: Historical Fiction
Hild by Nicola Griffith
alright if you really wanna stretch some writing/reading muscles this is definitely a book you can try out. but be warned, it is dense. I'm a fairly fast reader and it took me so much longer to read this than I was expecting just because of how dense the writing is. this story takes place in 7th century Anglo-Saxon Britain so there's a lot of Old English words thrown in, and while there's a glossary at the back it doesn't cover everything. this is a really interesting novel though that dives deep into the time period and the specific life of one girl as she grows up at the heart of the political machinations of the Anglo-Saxon kings. really great if you're like me and think learning a lot about what life was like in this time period is super fun, but I could see it being a drag for people not super into history like that. I still think it's a really good story though on its own, especially with how the main character is characterized as she grows up, and how it represents all the politics going on at this time
Genre: Satire/Dystopian Fiction
Chain Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
I'm including this because I'm trying to give you a bit of genre variety. If you want to read an adult dystopian book for our modern day this is definitely an excellent one to pick up. warning, it's incredibly effective as a dystopian novel because all I felt was dread and fear after finishing it. it takes place in the near future where the prison industrial complex has been combined with the entertainment industry. prisoners who are serving a sentence of either 25+ years or life are given the option to compete in televised gladiator style death matches. if they survive 3 years, they'll be released. the novel is incredibly on the nose and not subtle whatsoever about it's criticisms of capitalism and racism, especially the racism that the prison industrial complex is built on. the horrifying thing about reading it is how easily I could see this becoming a reality, especially the brand sponsorships. it made me want to laugh and cry at the same time because of how ridiculous but realistic it was.
Genre: Mystery/Thriller
Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
And here we have my all time favorite novel. this novel is a great example of unreliable narrator and how to tell a story two different ways. if you don't know the twist for this already, go into it blind, I promise it'll be more fun that way. the premise of the story seems simple—the morning of their 5th anniversary, a man's wife goes missing and the story follows his attempts to find her. but it gets way messier than that. this novel is an excellent example of how to characterize horrible people and still make them enjoyable to read about. also, if you're like me and enjoy media about two shitty people having an unhealthy and fucked up relationship, you'll adore this.
Okay that's a lot so I'll stop there for now, but feel free to pop into my inbox if you want anymore recs! especially if there's a specific genre you're looking for. if I've read anything that fits what you're looking for I'd be happy to throw it your way!
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saint-jussy · 8 months ago
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Hi! Just realised that I need to properly thank you for uploading the La Révolution française with English subs on YouTube! You did a great job.
(Also, I feel that your comments in the subtitles for the second part is what initially radicalised me, opened my eyes um, inspired me to research more context and try to formulate a more nuanced view of what happened in 1794?)
So again, merci citoyen
Omg I'm so glad to hear this because I get SO MANY ANNOYING COMMENTS about my annotations on Part 2 from people who refuse to think of the movie as anything other than a masterpiece lol
As if I was gonna let normies walk away thinking SJ ever put a hit on Camille!!
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pemberlyprose · 11 months ago
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How Greif Devours Identity in Hamlet: An Informal Short Essay
Inspired by If We Were Villians, I took it upon myself to freshen up on my Shakespeare. So, last night I finished reading Hamlet for the first time since my freshman year of college! It was a trip to relive all of my old annotations and notes on the play, and to dive back into Shakespeare after such a long time. Thank Folger Shakespeare Library for footnotes!
A few things caught my attention, especially the theme of identity and grief being so intertwined. So let's talk about it for a moment~~
As somone who has experianced a little too much grief in my lifetime, it was cathartic to read Hamlet and appreciate others processing loss. Shakespeare, the master of words and human emotion that he is, has painted the transformative... if not transfiguring... powers of grief on the human mind. This is not exclusive to the character of Hamlet himself, though his madness is the center of the play, but includes all the characters.
Since I have made myself promise this will be a short essay, i'll localize my thoughts on a specific passage:
"Not where he eats, but where he is eaten. A certain convocation of politic worms are e'en at him. Your worm is your only empoeror for diet. We fat all creatures else to fat us, and we fat ourselves for maggots. Your fat king and your lean beggar is but variable service-- two dishes but to one table. That's the end" (Act 4, Scene 3).
So, here's the thing... I took this a little differently than Shakespeare may have intended in this scene. The talk of the "worms" which feast on us when we are dead made me think of The Corpse Bride by Tim Burton.
In Emily's ear is a maggot that acts as her concience. He eats at her mind and replaces her thoughts with his own. I couldn't help but feel that is exactly what grief has done to these characters. Like worms, fattening upon each character, sorrow, revenge, fear, and guilt all crawl into the ears of the court and feast until there is nothing left.
For example, take Hamlet at the end of this play. Hamlet is "not where he eats," which would be an action of taking the King's life and digesting what has happened to his father, but ends "where he is eaten" by the guilt of not being able to override his character and seek revenge on Claudius until the last moment. Try as he might to change the course of fate (hah, get it course lol), the ending remains the same. Which leads to the line "two dishes but to one table."
We see this all throughout the novel as different sets of characters come to the table: Claudius x King Hamlet, Hamlet x Claudius, Hamlet x Mother, Opheilia x Hamlet, Laertes x Hamlet... etc. Even the lesser characters die in pairs like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Two lives devoured together at the same table.
I think this is an interesting way of looking at volitile emotions and understanding how people struggle to cope. Grief can eat at you, literally, and it not only leads to a physical deterioration but to a death of self. No matter how clever and careful you are going about it, no matter what reasons you have, acting against one's character will always eat at one's concience. Especially when you look around and see the other people in your life feasting on the same meal at the same table.
So while grief can feel like a worm in our minds, it's also more common among our companions than we see. Too blinded by our own struggles, we let emotions devour our sense of self, and can't see how our behavior reflects and is reflected back to us. We are what we eat, in all senses.
Which is why I think that Hamelt is an exceptional play on how emotions can play (or prey) on us!
Updated edition of the Folger Shakespeare Library edited by Barbara A. Mowat and Paul Werstine used in this essay :)
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ophernelia · 1 year ago
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! LONG READ
I heard you want to make a machinima. I think I could help with that. Welcome to the first session of machinima bootcamp!
Alright, stop booing me. I know I kept you waiting for months. It took time and I had so much more learning to do myself! I am by no means an expert, but I think I could offer some helpful advice. This is just how I do things so feel free to use what resonates. “Where do I start? It’s as easy as opening the game up and recording, right?” That’s one way to do it for sure. The way I do it requires a lot more planning. Blame it on me being a Capricorn lol. A LOT of work goes into making Lykaia. Episodes usually take me a week or two to make. From writing the script, to filming and editing, it takes hours upon hours to produce. I love doing it. It's like a passion project, so the hours of free time I pour into it are really healing. Whatever you create, make sure it’s something you really do love. Here’s how I made Lykaia and how I intend to make other series going forward. 
*Lykaia specific info is annotated.
One thing you have to have before anything else is a story. One that you are genuinely interested in and enjoy telling. It’d be best to refrain from doing whatever gets views or whatever you think the community might enjoy. In order to stay consistent, you have to enjoy what you’re making. You have to know what story you want to tell. You don’t have to have everything planned out from start to finish, but get a good idea of what you want to explore first. The first season of Lykaia was just for me to try out machinima making. I didn’t have much direction with the story. Lykaia is just the cinematic version of my gameplay save. Lou and Imogen were my current household, so I figured I’d tell their story. It can be something as simple as that. A favorite household you love playing. A favorite story trope you’re into. Whatever inspires you. Try not to focus on how the masses will react to it. There’s an audience for everything. The viewership will come. Don’t let that discourage you or be your main focus. Enjoy the process of creating. Create for creation’s sake, not for praise or viewership. 
What makes a good story? I’m not sure. Sorry! I still wonder if Lykaia’s story is good. Though, even if it isn't, I just like telling it! Having interesting or complex characters is a good tip though. I quite like the idea of there being very few or no true villain in a story. Complex lives, complex people. It’s good to get an idea of who your characters are. What do they like? What do they dislike? How do they behave around people they’re close with? What was their childhood like? How do they speak? What do they look like? Where are they from? How do they handle conflict? How do they handle romance? There’s a bunch of questions you can ask to work on building out your characters. Once you’ve got a good idea of who your characters are at this starting point, you can build outside of their world. Make their friends, make their family. Figure out where they’re from geographically. How does their environment impact their life? What’s the place they live in like? Do they like living there? Where is it? What’s the climate? Are you using in-game world names, making up your own, or using real life places? How does all of that impact the story line? Are they a small town person or a city person? Go in depth thinking about all these questions. I’ll include a list of these questions for you to answer. You don’t have to share these with me! It’s simply for you to plan things out on your own. Again, you don’t have to have everything planned out. Nothing has to be permanent. Watching characters grow and their environment change is entertaining. Just know where you want to start at least. Playing the game can help give you some inspo too! The sims have a habit of being pretty messy on their own. Once you figure out what story you want to tell, you’re ready to move forward. 
*Like I mentioned previously, Lykaia is essentially the cinematic version of my gameplay save. The stories I told myself when playing their household, I am now telling to you. However, over the course of making the show for the last few months it’s really grown and developed. With the addition of characters like Savannah and Owen, to developing a thoughtful storyline for Rory, all of that has come as I’ve worked on the show. I’ve always had a thing for storytelling growing up. Won young authors competitions all throughout my schooling, but never did much with it in adulthood until now. When I say I take the time out to really develop the cast, I do. Lykaia takes place in several worlds. I even develop those out too. I think about the culture there. How close they are to other worlds. All of that really helps build a deep lore for your series that your audience and yourself will enjoy. 
As for making the cast, I won’t go in depth about actually making your characters in CAS. That process is pretty straight-forward and solely up to you. Make your cast look however you want them to. Use cc, make the cast with vanilla TS4, it’s up to you. I can’t offer much advice about that. It’s a pretty personal process. (Personal as in, you do what you wanna do lol. Not in a ‘I don’t wanna share my process’ type of way.) 
The next step after that is world building. This part should be a lot more simple if you’ve planned out your story. I mean literally world building. If you want a really unique looking series, it’s time to start building babe. Build your own lots, edit the worlds, do it all. I mean really go in! You can use inspo from Pinterest to help. I do that often. Check out the world building inspo for Lykaia here. On occasion I’ll use a build made by the community, but for the most part I make my own. It makes you feel like you’re actually immersed in the world of Lykaia. It’s a different San Sequoia, a different Copperdale, etc. It’s important to make your worlds your own. Get an idea of street layouts and everything. Try to envision the world your characters live in. “But there’s only so much you can do with TS4!” I actually disagree (Well, since discovering these mods.) and there’s a few mods that really help drive that home. These are the most pivotal, but there’s a variety of other ones that are helpful too! Like the Better Build/Buy mod and even CAW by TwistedMexi but it isn’t out yet. Still in development. 
The TOOL Mod by TwistedMexi. The TOOL mod allows you to take objects off a lot, but that’s not all you can do. Rotate, duplicate, scale objects and more. If you ever wonder why my game looks different from the EA base worlds, it’s because I edit all of them. Add more trees, add more deco buildings, add more debug objects, etc. World customization is essential. However, it is a very tedious process. Editing San Sequoia for S2 of Lykaia took me about a week in total. Primarily because I’m still learning how to use TOOL effectively, but because I put a lot of details into my worlds. I add cars around. I use S4S to make hidden objects show up in-game. It’s a long process, but having a world that’s really unique is so rewarding. Sure, we all have access to the same sandbox but we don’t all make the same things. That’s the best part about the community. The creativity is boundless. Have you seen that one person with an Ancient China savefile? Bonkers. So creative. You can do some crazy stuff with this game. Don’t be afraid to push it to its limits. 
The All Worlds are Clickable Mod by Awingedllama works so well in conjunction with the TOOL Mod. I’d say it’s almost necessary to have both. This mod does just what it says on the tin. It makes all worlds in TS4 clickable. No longer will you see that red circle with a line through it. You can walk anywhere. It also helps to place objects using the TOOL mod. Sometimes figuring out the grid is hard, it's easier to point and click. I highlight an object with TOOL and click wherever around the world I want to place it. Now, this will cause some routing issues with your sims. They’ll walk through stones, lakes, etc. Taking the mod out is an easy fix for this whenever you want to just play your game normally. I rarely play my game these days, but when I do I leave it in, it’s kinda funny to see Victor Feng running through the lake in San Sequoia. 
Emptied Newcrest & Willow Creek by Awingedllama is also a great mod if you want to take things a bit further. It gets rid of everything and I do mean everything. Think TS3 empty create-a-world. It does so by hiding certain objects, so don’t be surprised if they don’t show up in game for other worlds. It makes things look a bit wonky, but if you really wanna start from scratch, then this is a great way to do it. You can completely customize the look and layout of your world. Add more tropical vegetation or more tepid vegetation. It’s up to you. It does take an immense amount of work and I’d recommend following this tutorial to get the backdrops for the worlds in game. Also this tutorial if you’d like to add custom debug houses.
* Lykaia’s world is based on TS4 worlds, but with real life influences. Copperdale is meant to give that east coast small town vibe. Heavily wooded areas that experience a lot of rain. (Just because I love really gloomy weather irl.) It also makes doing ambience easier. The sound of rain is easy to throw in. San Sequoia is meant to be like San Francisco. Del Sol too. I usually just go in and add more trees and vegetation. Place more cars and deco people to make the worlds feel more full. I also add in other little objects that are specific to the series. More places to sit. Just to overall make the worlds feel more lived in. TS4 can feel like a ghost town at times. Green Haven is a new area within Lykaia that I am currently working on. It’s a full town I’ve built from scratch using the emptied Newcrest and Willow Creek mod. Inspo for it is on my pinterest. It is supposed to mimic small towns in upper Cali. 
In the next session we'll start talking about filming, sets, lighting, etc. If you ever have any questions, just send me an ask!
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loverssfevers · 2 months ago
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terence doesnt annotate his books because there’s a high chance his borrowed them from the library or will be passing it down or selling it. if its a textbook- he has a parchment open next to him that he uses to write down interesting quotes or his thoughts along with the page number etc on it to look back on. but thats the most he annotates. If his reading a book his more likely to bring it up to his friends saying things like ‘i read something interesting today… I can’t stop thinking about it… what do you think?’ i think he benefits from conversation.
adrian underlines. theres no massive paragraphs about his thoughts but he will only only underline things he finds interesting and important. or quotes he really likes. i see adrian reading mostly… biographies lol but he does dabble in more. but he would be underlining inspirational sayings or things he thinks will help him or the team. even his friends tbh!! everyone thinks his so wise and he IS but thats cause he reads!
graham reading is rare i fear, annotating even more scarce. all his books, textbooks are all in perfect condition. id say if he was to read it would be a book his already read multiple times, one he knows back to front. it could be some sort of comfort. i dont see him actively seeking out another good book cause his attention just wont stick around for a book he isnt sure on. which is so valid! his just a hands on learner!
miles dog ears his books im so sorry guys but he does and he definitely cracks the spine bending that book ALL sorts. his much like terence where he intends to sell or pass down the book so he doesn’t annotate and if he does its with a pencil to rub it out later. he doesn’t write anything anywhere else though he just assumes he will remember (he wont) (or he might but it definitely wont be at the right time or right place).
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hel-the-growl · 2 years ago
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Nezha Reborn annotations - Part 1
Since New Gods: Yang Jian is about to enter NA theaters this week, and before I do a huge information dump about that movie, I wanted to write about its prequel - Nezha Reborn.
I've already seen Yang Jian twice in cinemas here in Australia, and the animation has markedly improved in the one year since Nezha came out - it's definitely worth seeing on the big screen. You don’t need to watch Nezha before Yang Jian but if you’re interested in the lore, then you should lol. It's on netflix.
My original thread on twitter.
Background
Nezha is one of the most well-known characters from the 16th Century Chinese Novel Investiture of the Gods (IOTG), with countless adaptations based on his legend.
New Gods: Nezha Reborn is one of the latest portrayals of the character, and is the first move in Light Chaser Animation Studios' attempt at establishing a New Gods cinematic universe.
Nezha’s origin story
Nezha was born as a round ball of flesh after his mother Lady Yin was pregnant for three years. His dad Li Jing thought he was demon spawn, so tried to kill him but was spared by the immortal Taiyi Zhenren who became his master. At seven years old, he caused a lot of trouble like accidentally killing a demon from 1000 miles away and killing the dragon king Ao Guang’s third son Ao Bing as well as his right hand man the Yaksa Li Gen. When Ao Guang demanded retribution from Li Jing, Nezha chose to sacrifice himself instead. His master later resurrected him using lotus roots to construct a human body, and he came back more powerful than ever. 3000 years later...
Breakdown
Donghai (East Sea). It was the mythical underwater city that Nezha once conquered, now depleted of all its water resources. Set design is inspired by Republican-era Shanghai and Manhattan in the 1920s and 1930s. The poor Chinese style backdrop is contrasted against the glitz of the Western style architecture in the rich area. Rickshaws were commonplace on the streets.
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Fashion is also blend of east and west, like the guy wearing kung fu shoes with a denim jacket.
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The qipao was a favored dress among women at the time, popularized by Chinese socialites and high society women in Shanghai. Flapper fashion also influenced Kasha’s outfit, blending eastern and western styles.
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Li Yunxiang shares the same surname as the original Nezha. His brother Jinxiang’s name is also similar to Nezha’s eldest brother Jinzha. Jinxiang’s look is very typical of the republican era - complete with his center-parted hair and round glasses.
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Old Li has the same temperament as Nezha’s dad, The Pagoda Bearing Heavenly King Li Jing.
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Who is Yunxiang’s adoptive sister Kasha? She’s an orphan of Belarusian descent, however not much else is known about her past. Her name means porridge in Belarusian. It might be a corruption of Katyusha (喀秋莎) with middle character removed in order to follow Chinese naming conventions idk.
If you know the history of the Republic of China, there were many girls like Kasha in that era. Her father was a soldier and left Kasha and her mother after the war.
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✨Princess✨ Ao Bing~~ and the Yaksa Li Gen. Ao Bing is the third son of the Dragon King of the East Sea. The Yaksa Li Gen is the dragon king’s right hand man.
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The four big clans - De, Li, Shun, Song (德家、利家、顺家、松家) - actually corresponds to the titles of dragon kings of the four seas. King De, Dragon King of the East Sea; King Li, Dragon King of the South Sea; King Shun, Dragon King of the West Sea, King Song, Dragon King of the North Sea.
A netizen looked this up and really wanted to kneel to Light Chaser for their worldbuilding.
Fun fact: the white horse from Journey to the West is the third son from the Song family.
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H*rley-D*vidson Darrley-Hudson product displacement on the arm of Kasha’s jacket:
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Actually the film has left some hints about her past. There are some Soviet-style badges pinned to her jacket, along with some small badges that Kasha herself added as well. Since this jacket is huge, it can be assumed that it was left to Kasha by her biological father.
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The giant buddha statue is reminiscent of the Longmen Grottoes in Luoyang, Henan.
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Daddy! Ao Guang, the dragon king of the East Sea.
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Art deco details on the hood ornament, decals and invitation card.
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Monkey’s suit is basically a hot pink version of the Zhongshan suit, a style of menswear introduced by Sun Yat-sen during the republican era, adapted from Japanese student wear. The four pockets are said to represent the Four Virtues of propriety, justice, honesty, and shame. He's blinged up his prayer beads too.
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Does this mean Dr. Su is a descendent of Su Daji, the femme fatale of IOTG? Or could she actually be Daji’s reincarnation? Now I don’t know whether to trust her or not.
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All these sea creature demons. Why? Chinese dragons are aquatic. They live underwater, and command water-based attacks, unlike western dragons who breathe fire. So it makes sense for them to control an army of demons that came from the deep.
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So this is the crystal palace.
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After Nezha’s death, Li Jing found out that Nezha’s mother had built a temple in his honor and burned it down because he was still angry at his son for all the trouble he caused to the family. The soul of Nezha was pissed and after his reincarnation, began to pursue his dad with the intent to kill. It took several parties to step in before matters were resolved.
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Looks like monkey likes to listen to Peking Opera.
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The Pukui fan, commonly known as the cattail fan, is a fan made from palm leaves and stalks. Lightweight and cheap, it is the most widely used fan in China.
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Part 2|Part 3
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sorryimananti-romantic · 4 months ago
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who knows, maybe i'm a glutton for lengthy written pieces of fiction but i can't imagine anything better than reading a thought-out, detailed and intriguing story.
20k-30k wc usually takes me around 2 hours to read (when i am not annotating on the side or running laps in my room to calm down from a scene) and even though i do love me some drabbles, imagines or scenarios - sometimes they're so great but oh so short that i end up feeling hungry for more lol.
idk. maybe there is some over-consumption or fast-media issue that's infiltrated even the fanfic community and readers feel less overwhelmed reading fics under 10k? apprehension giving bad/wrong feedback? author burn-out? somebody go ahead and open the field for research already.
there is an overwhelming amount of short fics daily on my dash and not so often bigger oneshots or even series but i've always assumed it's because they take so much more time and effort into creating - which then motivates me more to leave nice feedback when you authors work so hard on them :) vice versa it's a nice feeling when authors take time to acknowledge feedback
like you saying you look forward to my reblogs and i'm over here like.. i have been noticed 👁️👄👁️ and i am being relied on to lose my own mind over your amazing mind. i can't disappoint this co-dependant author-reader-ship 💪 /j
also, miss "yumi in her break era" only five days ago, once again offering to write a fic to my tastes?! you will be the death of me. hand in marriage right now 🤝 /j but also, new series.. ? ✍️👀
○ chron 🃏
lucky for you, i'm physically incapable of writing short fics and loren is an actual witness. whenever i start a fic and go 'yo this actually be short like under 20k) it usually ends up being 26k+ 🤡 and tbh for me personally nothing can top a well-planned detailed fic no matter the length of it!
you're right! there's only so much you can do in a short scenario/imagine/drabble they're like fun little treats, kind of like appetisers/snacks as opposed to lengthy oneshots which i feel like are a full multiple-course meal (and then we have series which are like a whole buffet banquet feast you name it)
yeah there are a lot of factors. even as a writer i know that i prefer reading sth short when i don't have much time to spare but want a little break. reading lengthier works require a lot of time (like you said, about 2 hrs) and you gotta be in the mood all cosy and relaxed to fully enjoy them!
there's def so many shorter works being produced in huge quantities and consumed very rapidly too. writing them takes less time, you don't gotta work out so many details and lose your mind in the process (from my experience writing the few hcs and drabbles i have) and it's... fun? gets a greater audience, more notes? definitely. there are literally so many factors as to why people prefer writing/reading scenarios/drabbles over the lengthier works and i could honestly list them all but i feel like not everyone wants to hear that 💀
personally, i've been pretty consistent with writing the lengthier works, inspired by ppl here who've written so much such excellent monster works AHAHA and since the lengthier fics culture is pretty much dying (let's face it on tumblr it is dying slowly but steadily) i'm devoted to continue contributing to that specific part of the atinyfic community. i could always cook up some short scenarios (i plan to when it's time to retire but i still have ideas that i wanted to write) but for now, we write and write. we write endlessly without a care for the word count :')
there's honestly nothing wrong with wanting to read or write shorter works. i just wish the people who work so hard to create such beautiful and lengthy masterpieces got the attention they deserve. and i wish they do not compare their works to drabbles/scenarios (which you might have observed get a lot of notes in a very short amount of time) and continue writing for themselves and for the readers who appreciate them :')) we're always so incredibly grateful for the feedback we get bc we get some great quality feedback which is our pride :D
you have been very much noticed! me and loren were actually talking not too long ago about how you are one of the few ppl whose reblog we anticipate eagerly ahaha you've spoilt us honestly :') and when i saw your reblog last night (i was feeling incredibly low) i just smiled with tears in my eyes LOL ngl (co-dependency atp fr fr)
miss yumi has always been a clown who goes back on her words esp when it's about taking a break (i actually will be taking a two week break soon like actual break bc i'll be travelling so i'll be back mid aug) but miss yumi also loves writing bc it's the only interesting thing going on in her life and she would love to write for you too (proposal accepted let's pick dresses now :D)
as for the new series... 👀 the current word count is about 70k and i'm not even halfway- this might be the most intricate worldbuilding i've ever done like with the characters and how they're connected to each other (on par with take me home series, might even surpass) and it's... mafia! but the different kind, uniquely yumi LOL and the pairing hmm will remain a secret (take your guess come on)
i look forward to posting it so much it's become my comfort fic. i'll try to start posting it before 2024 but no promises yet bc i wanna finish writing it (or at least nearly finish) before i post the masterlist or teasers.
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rollercoasterwords · 1 year ago
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do you have any advice for someone who wants to start writing but is terrible and has never been good at it? or translating what’s in their head into words?
yeah my advice is to stop trying to write well and instead just try to have the most fun possible. standards of "good" and "bad" in writing are all entirely subjective anyway, and there's no god in the sky waiting to smite you if your writing doesn't meet their standards. if you're not where you want to be writing-wise, that's fine! writing is a skill just like anything else, and you'll only get better as you practice. and the best way to stay motivated to practice (imo) is to not put too much pressure on yourself to measure up to a certain standard and instead just try to have a fun time making up stories!
the other piece of advice i have is to read a lot of books, and try to read books from a variety of writers with different styles. maybe annotate a bit--underline or highlight the parts that you like, the sentences that really stick out to you. then go back and look at those sentences and think about why you like them--is it the word choice? the arrangement of sentence structure? is the writer doing something stylistically that surprised or intrigued you? the more you read, the more you'll begin to notice nuance amongst different writers' styles, and the better you'll get at recognizing what you might want to try implementing in your own writing.
writing is not a skill with a linear trajectory, where you start out at square zero and eventually reach the finish line of being A Good Writer and stop there. it's a skill that you develop over time and with practice, and that you continue to develop for as long as you do it. i genuinely think that the biggest block to most people who want to start writing but are too worried about the quality of their work is not skill, but that worry--the worry of not being "good enough." but who gives a shit if your writing is bad (<- again, totally subjective measure)! do you wanna know what the first story i ever shared on the internet was about? it was called "kidnapped by dragons" and it was about a girl who got kidnapped by four (later i added another one, so five) handsome men who could turn into dragons, and also she had secret magical powers and needed to save the world and there was a mermaid living in the lake in the garden who became her bestie (i was twelve). by my own (current) standards it was Not Good, and now i laugh about how cringey it was. but you know what? there were a handful of random tweens on quizilla.com who ate that shit up, and i had the time of my life writing and posting it, and that mattered so much more than any other measurement of quality. and it wasn't until i got older and started worrying about writing "high quality" work that i stopped sharing my writing and wrote less and less, because i was paralyzed by my own preoccupation with arbitrary standards.
so...yeah there's my advice lol. if you want to develop your writing, try to stop worrying about how good it is, pick something fun to write about, and just write. and when you need to get inspired, read some other writers and think about why you like the way they write!
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ipsen · 1 year ago
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EtoKen Mini-Fic
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inspired by @tatatatatara's tags. been sitting on this one for a LONG time LOL Root A-esque narrative. Some time during the timeskip after the 11th ward raid.
"Sneaking into Tatara's room now, are we?" Eto giggled.
Kaneki would have flinched had he not heard her flitting down the hall seconds before. He held up his excuse in his hand— Sen Takatsuki's The Black Goat's Egg— as a meager defense for his trespass.
"It's still wrapped," he half-explained.
It reminded him of more innocent days, when he was ignorant to the whims of the world and all the things distorting it. The fact that he was drawn to it because of that was an unfortunate affliction, one that he had to squash.
"So it is." She leaned on the doorway, arms crossed. "You know Takatsuki, then?"
He pursed his lips, hesitating for a second. "I'm familiar."
He gave away some, but not all. A bond with a fellow executive, especially one who knew more than she let on, was vital, but he had to keep his distance lest he lose focus. Still, as long as they weren’t trying to kill each other, it couldn’t hurt to indulge so long as he kept himself in check.
"Oho..." Eto stepped into the room, browsing the rest of Tatara's stack. "There aren't a lot of readers here in Aogiri, you know."
"So I noticed." Ayato didn't care. Naki was curious, but lacked the vocabulary. "Seeing something like Takatsuki was... surprising, was all."
“He has a strange fixation with her, for whatever reason,” Eto said, fingers brushing against the book spines. “Yet he can barely read kanji.”
Kaneki hummed. “He's from China, right?”
“Yep. He claims kanji gives him a headache.” She took one from the middle, letting the ones above it topple onto the table. “Oh, I was looking for this!”
He raised a brow. “Hakushuu?”
“You know him! But of course you do.” She held up the cover to show him. “This is actually my copy, did you know that? Turns out Tatara’s a bit of a thief too!” She cackled.
Upon closer inspection, he saw the black of ink staining the edges of the pages, much like all of the books in his satchel that she, apparently similar to Tatara, had stolen. “You like to annotate your books?”
“It enhances a reread.” She stowed it away into her cloak. “You prefer scribbling them in a notebook.”
“To preserve the original experience,” he explained. “And if someone else wants to read it, there won’t be spoilers.”
“Such foresight.”
Kaneki got the feeling Eto was mocking him. Or maybe she was complimenting his consideration. Either way, he didn't like it; he'd had enough of being toyed with to last a lifetime.
And yet... something stirred within him. Something like... relief. Yes, relief was the word. Relief that, at the very least, someone might actually be able to keep up with him. Relief that, inside this beast's belly, there was a fire to warm himself by before he journeyed to its heart.
However, there was still a beast to slay. Weeds to uproot. And it was his responsibility, as the one who knew, to be the one to dirty his hands with blood and dirt. He couldn't always waste his time whiling away the hours at the fire-- no matter how much he wanted to.
He made to leave, but before he got to the hall, he felt something get pushed into his hands. When he looked at what it was, it was Eto's ink-stained book of Hakushuu poetry.
"Tell me your thoughts when you have the time," she said, expression a mystery behind her bandages. "A reread always offers a new perspective."
Kaneki thought out all sorts of responses, many of them outright rejections, but ultimately settled for, "Maybe."
"Hmph. Half-ass," was all she said before trotting past him and leaving, unusually quiet.
Not only that, but the room was colder than when he entered.
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