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alfheimr · 7 months ago

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My Favorite Cheap Art Trick: Gradient Maps and Blending Modes

i get questions on occasion regarding my coloring process, so i thought i would do a bit of a write up on my "secret technique." i don't think it really is that much of a secret, but i hope it can be helpful to someone. to that end:

this is one of my favorite tags ive ever gotten on my art. i think of it often. the pieces in question are all monochrome - sort of.

the left version is the final version, the right version is technically the original. in the final version, to me, the blues are pretty stark, while the greens and magentas are less so. there is some color theory thing going on here that i dont have a good cerebral understanding of and i wont pretend otherwise. i think i watched a youtube video on it once but it went in one ear and out the other. i just pick whatever colors look nicest based on whatever vibe im going for.

this one is more subtle, i think. can you tell the difference? there's nothing wrong with 100% greyscale art, but i like the depth that adding just a hint of color can bring.

i'll note that the examples i'll be using in this post all began as purely greyscale, but this is a process i use for just about every piece of art i make, including the full color ones. i'll use the recent mithrun art i made to demonstrate. additionally, i use clip studio paint, but the general concept should be transferable to other art programs.

for fun let's just start with Making The Picture. i've been thinking of making this writeup for a while and had it in mind while drawing this piece. beyond that, i didn't really have much of a plan for this outside of "mithrun looks down and hair goes woosh." i also really like all of the vertical lines in the canary uniform so i wanted to include those too but like. gone a little hog wild. that is the extent of my "concept." i do not remember why i had the thought of integrating a shattered mirror type of theme. i think i wanted to distract a bit from the awkward pose and cover it up some LOL but anyway. this lack of planning or thought will come into play later.

note 1: the textured marker brush i specifically use is the "bordered light marker" from daub. it is one of my favorite brushes in the history of forever and the daub mega brush pack is one of the best purchases ive ever made. highly recommend!!!

note 2: "what do you mean by exclusion and difference?" they are layer blending modes and not important to the overall lesson of this post but for transparency i wanted to say how i got these "effects." anyway!

with the background figured out, this is the point at which i generally merge all of my layers, duplicate said merged layer, and Then i begin experimenting with gradient maps. what are gradient maps?

the basic gist is that gradient maps replace the colors of an image based on their value.

so, with this particular gradient map, black will be replaced with that orangey red tone, white will be replaced with the seafoamy green tone, etc. this particular gradient map i'm using as an example is very bright and saturated, but the colors can be literally anything.

these two sets are the ones i use most. they can be downloaded for free here and here if you have csp. there are many gradient map sets out there. and you can make your own!

you can apply a gradient map directly onto a specific layer in csp by going to edit>tonal correction>gradient map. to apply one indirectly, you can use a correction layer through layer>new correction layer>gradient map. honestly, correction layers are probably the better way to go, because you can adjust your gradient map whenever you want after creating the layer, whereas if you directly apply a gradient map to a layer thats like. it. it's done. if you want to make changes to the applied gradient map, you have to undo it and then reapply it. i don't use correction layers because i am old and stuck in my ways, but it's good to know what your options are.

this is what a correction layer looks like. it sits on top and applies the gradient map to the layers underneath it, so you can also change the layers beneath however and whenever you want. you can adjust the gradient map by double clicking the layer. there are also correction layers for tone curves, brightness/contrast, etc. many such useful things in this program.

let's see how mithrun looks when we apply that first gradient map we looked at.

gadzooks. apologies for eyestrain. we have turned mithrun into a neon hellscape, which might work for some pieces, but not this one. we can fix that by changing the layer blending mode, aka this laundry list of words:

some of them are self explanatory, like darken and lighten, while some of them i genuinely don't understand how they are meant to work and couldn't explain them to you, even if i do use them. i'm sure someone out there has written out an explanation for each and every one of them, but i've learned primarily by clicking on them to see what they do.

for the topic of this post, the blending mode of interest is soft light. so let's take hotline miamithrun and change the layer blending mode to soft light.

here it is at 100% opacity. this is the point at which i'd like to explain why i like using textured brushes so much - it makes it very easy to get subtle color variation when i use this Secret Technique. look at the striation in the upper right background! so tasty. however, to me, these colors are still a bit "much." so let's lower the opacity.

i think thats a lot nicer to look at, personally, but i dont really like these colors together. how about we try some other ones?

i like both of these a lot more. the palettes give the piece different vibes, at which point i have to ask myself: What Are The Vibes, Actually? well, to be honest i didn't really have a great answer because again, i didn't plan this out very much at all. however. i knew in my heart that there was too much color contrast going on and it was detracting from the two other contrasts in here: the light and dark values and the sharp and soft shapes. i wanted mithrun's head to be the main focal point. for a different illustration, colors like this might work great, but this is not that hypothetical illustration, so let's bring the opacity down again.

yippee!! that's getting closer to what my heart wants. for fun, let's see what this looks like if we change the blending mode to color.

i do like how these look but in the end they do not align with my heart. oh well. fun to experiment with though! good to keep in mind for a different piece, maybe! i often change blending modes just to see what happens, and sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. i very much cannot stress enough that much of my artistic process is clicking buttons i only sort of understand. for fun.

i ended up choosing the gradient map on the right because i liked that it was close to the actual canary uniform colors (sorta). it's at an even lower opacity though because there was Still too much color for my dear heart.

the actual process for this looks like me setting my merged layer to soft light at around 20% opacity and then clicking every single gradient map in my collection and seeing which one Works. sometimes i will do this multiple times and have multiple soft light and/or color layers combined.

typically at this point i merge everything again and do minor contrast adjustments using tone curves, which is another tool i find very fun to play around with. then for this piece in particular i did some finishing touches and decided that the white border was distracting so i cropped it. and then it's done!!! yay!!!!!

this process is a very simple and "fast" way to add more depth and visual interest to a piece without being overbearing. well, it's fast if you aren't indecisive like me, or if you are better at planning.

let's do another comparison. personally i feel that the hint of color on the left version makes mithrun look just a bit more unwell (this is a positive thing) and it makes the contrast on his arm a lot more pleasing to look at. someone who understands color theory better than i do might have more to say on the specifics, but that's honestly all i got.

just dont look at my layers too hard. ok?

#process #art tutorial #unsure what else to tag this as. if this does not post properly i will cry.

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ph4ngz · 2 years ago

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BACKSEAT LOVE || mechanic!bkg x anxious!reader

PART 1

A/N : ITS FINALLY FUCKING FINISHED YOU GUYS *HAPPY DANCE* :D

It's been two days since your last encounter with that gorgeous mechanic.

You'd be lying if you said he hadn't been the subject of your dreams, daydreams, wet dreams… all you can think about is him. Him and that perfect face, you still remember every splatter of grease and oil laid out on his features, you think you may have burnt the image into your brain.

His card is right there in the pocket of your denim shorts, just begging you to pull it out and stare at it for the nth time this Sunday morning. Your legs kick up and down on the bed as you lay on your tummy, doing nothing to help your friends pack up and get ready to leave the motel. Glancing back up at them, your eyes only seem to lose focus and any thoughts of packing your bags are, surprise, replaced by a certain blonde.

You wanted to call him, you really did. Would it be odd to show up at his garage again after two days without contact? It's possible you've missed your chance with him now that you've basically been ignoring the guy. You could pretend something is wrong with your car as an excuse to apologise! Nah, because then he'd check it out...

"Whatcha thinkin' about babe?" A mischievous, high pitched voice and a bounce of your mattress breaks you out of your inner struggle.

"I wanna see him…" you admit, realising too late that you hadn’t told your friends about Katsuki.

"See who?" Another voice, much more softer than Mina's, pipes up. Not many things can grasp Jiro's attention, but regarding you and boys…

Oh god, here we go. You and your stupid brain. There's no escaping this nonsense now. You can already hear the giggling and terrible impressions and they haven't even started yet.

But really, should you tell them about him? There'd be nothing wrong with that! However, something is telling you to keep him all to yourself. Jealousy? Panic? Perhaps he's so perfect that you're wary of other better girls stealing him away from you?

"Oh, just this guyyy, y'know… just this guy who gave her his number? And he’s a mechanic by the looks of things." Mina reads off the card he had given you that day, you having been completely unaware that she'd swiped it from your pockets until now.

"Hey!" You squirm under her weight, an elbow leaning on you as if you were an armchair as she carries on.

"Is he hot? What does he look like?" Jiro grins and leaps onto the mattress beside Mina, and before too long Uraraka is straddling your lower back, keeping you pinned down.

"Is he like one of those guys in the movies? Like, all sweaty and dirty and dreamy with a nice smile…" Uraraka's eyes trail upward to the spinning ceiling fan as she describes your mechanic with deadly accuracy.

Your eyes widen involuntarily.

"AH! Ochaco's right! You've gotta go see him again! Did he ask you out? Have you called him?" Mina squeals beside you, but then her face falls into a state of great suspense.

You know what's coming now. Sigh.

"Don't tell me you pulled one of your specials…" she guesses ominously, referring to your notorious moments of Boy Anxiety™.

Jiro smiles menacingly from behind her, "D-D-Did you?"

You find a smidge of respect for Uraraka for not joining in although you know she wants to. Rolling your eyes, you respond with a muffled "almost" after throwing your head into the covers out of embarrassment.

The hyperactive trio share a quick, knowing glance and simultaneously drown out the click-clacking of the old fan airing the motel room with a loud "AAHHH", Uraraka shaking your shoulders and Mina slapping the bed sheets.

"Where did you even find that anyways?" Jiro asks softly amidst the noise.

"It was hiding in one of her ass pockets." The pink haired thief replies proudly, jokingly smacking your asscheek and making it jiggle as your face heats up, still concealed by the covers.

The girls gossip about you as if you're not even there, and you decide you're perfectly fine with that if it means nobody is nagging you, so you let them talk. A few minutes pass by without a single word leaving your mouth until a finger messily taps on your bare shoulder.

Craning your head around to rest atop of your crossed arms, you shamefully eye the cutie straddling your back, internally smiling at the way her fringe is tied back on top of her head.

"Mm?" you hum groggily, awaiting her next words.

"I can always ask 'Zuku to give us all a ride home...?"

Your grumpy pout swiftly fades into a light and appreciative curl of your lips at her suggestion...

"...We aren't the only ones goin' for a ride today-"

...But soon enough the grumpy pout returns.

Excited cackling, thumping of dancing feet upon the floor and a group rendition of "tryna' catch me ridin' dirty" that is least to be desired fill the small room.

"UGHHughhhUGhhhhh," You exhale a tired groan into the back of your forearm, a wavering one at that, courtesy of Uraraka twirling an imaginary lasso in her hand and rocking back and forth on you like she's at a rodeo.

Eventually, an amused grin makes its way onto your face, with their antics (Mina's horrific excuse for dancing) too hilarious to even attempt keeping a straight face.

|| || || ||

"Oh, so you know Kacchan?" Izuku Midoriya's question almost has you jump as you open the car door to your driver's seat, curse him from coming up behind you like that.

"Who?" you furrow your brows innocently, your back pocket feeling particularly empty for some odd reason. You subtly glance behind the mess of green hair partially blocking your view at the three of your friends singing along to the radio in the backseat of his car.

"Whoops, sorry! I meant Katsuki." The thick fingers suddenly shoved in your confused face hold and point at a certain card you'd only just pried from someones grabby hands. God, this guy too!? Is everybody here a damn pickpocket?

Hastily snatching the card from Izuku's hand, you stutter an unnerved answer, "U-Uh! Yeah! No! I mean, we only met the other day, that's all..."

No way this bastard is going back in my pocket, you think.

"No need to freak out, promise I'm not being nosy or anything. I was just wondering, seeing as me and him are... I guess you could say childhood friends! He's actually doing some work on my Jeep, hence the basic rent-out. I knowww, I don't look like a Ford guy." He drawls on cheerfully, ignoring how you stuff the card inside your bra. You smirk at his choice to disregard your actions, and force down the invasive questions you so badly want to ask concerning your beloved mechanic.

"You better go before the girls set up a makeshift concert venue in the trunk." Beaming, you gesture to his bouncing vehicle.

"Shit, you're right. Ah, it was nice seeing you again!" Izuku waves whilst stumbling backwards, making you stifle a giggle whilst lowering into your own car.

|| || || ||

Pesky butterflies erupt within your chest when you finally pull over, the garage you so thankfully came across on your way to the motel stood conspicuously along the deserted highway. The garage door is shut this time around, the worn metal glinting under the aureate setting sun. However, the smaller door located at the side of the run-down building displays a twisted 'open' sign hanging behind the chalky window.

You've done it before, you can do it again. That's what you repeat to yourself inside your head as you hesitantly exit your car and approach the door. After a two minute standoff between your nervousness and the handle, you decide "fuck it!" and let yourself inside. You peer out from behind a brick wall separating the entrance from the main garage and it's nice, just like last time. Slow guitar and heavy bass emitting from what sounds like a vintage cassette boombox, the strong scent of gasoline and copper, fake potted plants hung up in every empty wall space unoccupied by shelves and posters, a huge dusty jeep... you can't see him though.

He's still here, you can hear a few faint grunts and the clanking of metal from beyond your place leant against the doorframe. You wonder, is he fixing some other girl's car? What if he isn't groaning for the reasons you think? The garage door is closed. Is somebody here with him? You're probably stupid for coming here after two days with no contact, he's most likely fallen for someone else thinking you would never come back. Subconscious curiosity leads you into the main room, fretful thoughts diminishing with no wall allowing your train of thought to stray from its tracks.

"Katsuki?-"

Your meek call of his name dies out on your tongue when the man himself emerges from behind the raised hood of the jeep with a "hm?". He's still as breathtaking as you remember, you reminisce about your last encounter whilst he's approaching you, his heavy booted feet seeming to send vibrations to your racing heart.

Your knees weaken when you realise the mechanic threw off putting a shirt on this time, specks of splattered oil glistening on his hard abs underneath the warm sunset rays filtering through the blinds. Forcing yourself to pay attention to his face instead of rudely ogling at his body, you come to find that he's secured his scruffy hair back with a clip, just like Uraraka, allowing you to view all of his features. He's been observing you for about a minute now, silently enjoying the way you're studying him as if he were a stone sculpture. Just give him a second, he'll say something eventually.

"Voice disappear or somethin'?" He asks cheekily, the sudden movement of a smirk emerging on his face breaking you out of whatever pesky trance you fell into.

"Oh! Uh, no! No, it's here! I can speak… yeah…" You spew a panicked sentence that would've been incoherent if you'd forced it out any harder. The anxious smile you’re wearing slowly fades as you start to chew on the inside of your cheek, nostrils flaring at how self aware you've become. Gosh, you're so stupid. Why can't you just speak like a normal person!? Stuttering and stumbling all over your words like this must look really sad. You hurl a mental slap at your face, scolding yourself for being so pathetic. Bakugo chuckles through his nose at your timid state and lightly scratches his bare stomach, deciding his next move. A big hand impulsively moves to your bare upper arm, mindlessly stroking your soft skin with his thumb for a short moment.

"Chill, it's just me. Stop acting like 'm gonna turn around and kill you." The man says casually with his usually downturned brows raised in amusement, removing his arm from you to take a few steps back and continue his work behind the jeep's hood. It's just him? JUST HIM? Being killed doesn't seem to be at the top of your list of worries right now, but the possibility increases as you're starting to picture your heart failing on the spot purely because of his existence. How are you supposed to "chill" when the sight of his broad, shiny, tanned, firm chest is enough to coax your eyes to roll back?!

You're thinking so damn hard about what to say as he's working, but nothing is good enough. Maybe you should leave and apologise, save your last ounce of self confidence. Maybe you should tell him the truth about your little anxiety issue. Nah, he wouldn't get it. Would he? Before you can stop yourself, a few words come tumbling out of your mouth to form the most unexpected question that leaves yourself dumbfounded.

"C-Can I kiss you?"

You stop breathing once Bakugo peers at you from behind the metal, mildly surprised and overwhelmed by your sudden request. That was fuckin' quick, he muses. Amidst a moment of fleeting courage, you will yourself to continue even if it's dizzying due to your heart beating a million miles per second.

"I’m sorry. I wanted to call you. Or at least— text you! I got so nervous and my friends all make fun of me whenever I talk to a guy so—"

"C'mere." The blonde gestures with his free hand while the other supports his leaning weight by pressing his palm upon the edge of the hood, spanner held tightly between his fingers. Now or never, you chant to occupy your brain. Head hanging low, you do as he says and come to a halt when only a few inches are left between your bare arm and his. Without another word to spare, Bakugo takes hold of your waist and veers your body to the tight space in front of him, caging you in. You fit underneath the metal canopy, the jeep's ginormous wheels providing some serious height. You're still staring intently at the dirty concrete area uncovered by either of your feet, unknowing of how to react.

The boombox in the corner of the room provides the only sound other than your ragged breathing, the music doing its best job to calm your nerves. You want this. You want this so bad, so don't fuck it up. Just move your damn head, that's it! Tears eventually cloud your vision, but before they can drip to the ground your chin is nudged upwards, letting the salty droplets slide down your heated cheeks. You're forced to look him in the eye whilst his heavy touch travels to the top of your muddled head, narrowed crimson gaze boring into your own, guilty and utterly captivated.

When he gently pulls you in by the nape of your neck, and his surprisingly soft lips make contact with yours... it's like all energy is drained from your body. As you kiss, you find your weakening form melting into his broad and hard chest, gradually tipping closer and closer until your bodies are pressed against one another's. Any thoughts previously occupying your mind have vanished without a trace, brain completely blank and depending entirely on the feeling of instinct. You're both sighing contently through your noses, each noise emitted from one has the other deepen the slanting of their mouth until a tinge of ferocity is thrown into the mix.

Your knees buckle abruptly at one point and breaks the kiss in a way that's too depriving of elation to bear, although Bakugo doesn't appear to care that much as he urgently hoists you up by your thighs to recklessly brush all the nuts and bolts strewn across his desk and replace them with your ass instead. A smile appears on the man's face when he catches your shoulders jerk at the reverberating clangour of metal hitting the floor. He situates himself further between your legs after making sure to shield the back of your head from the wall, worried that he'll hurt you with his ungentlemanly tendencies. His heavy breathing is causing your brows to bow in a state of pure bliss, the occasional grunt he sounds causing your jaw to go slack.

The amorous mechanic takes advantage of this and hungrily slips his tongue past your plumped lips to slither in tandem with yours for a while, evoking a muffled and greatly pleasured sob to escape into his mouth more than once, all of which he gladly engraves deep within his memory before yanking you forward by the waist once again, this time positioning your lower half close-packed and pressed to his hips. Bakugo is panting once he separates his face from yours, directing an avid ruby-red glance your way before lowering his head beside your neck.

The summer air is so hot, laced with the scent of diesel and unrivalled desire. Everything is surreal. The moody, crackly guitar in the background, the setting sun decorating the paint-splattered walls with strips of gold, the mess of blonde untamed locks you're tugging on brushing along the line of your jaw. His eagerness is evident with how rushed and sloppily his tongue glides across your skin, teeth providing harsh nibbles just under your ear and his lips hurriedly ghosting over any areas left untouched so he can suck on them hard enough to leave an instant bruise.

He's got his hands beneath your loose tank top, thick and skilled fingers splayed out and exploring every inch of your arching back. The hefty, warm touch backtracks to run over the goosebumps that had formed in its wake, sending intense shivers all throughout your limp form that have the muscles in his arms vibrate with your shaky movements. Venturing lower, Bakugo drags his palms all the way to your hips, almost drooling at how your soft flesh juts out the slightest bit above the hem of your denim shorts. He's acting hastily, like he's been set a deadline, moving to skim his thumbs over your ribs to the ticklish area below the cups of your bra.

Both of your bodies are rolling into each other now, sweat glazing the skin left uncovered by your clothes. The dim lamp and other miscellaneous items rocking back and forth on the desk struggle to stay upright or in place when every brusque, heedless motion of the mechanic's hips comes paired with the sheer power of desperation. Before you know it, he's fervently sucking on your tongue once more with a steel grip cupping the back of your bent knees, blunt nails digging in and making you uncontrollably exhale breathy whimpers that have his ears almost twitching to hear more.

Mixed saliva is coating your lips, an outcome of paying less attention to the kiss when your abdomen started to clench with anticipation. Confidence still a bit on the wobbly side, you take his bottom lip in your teeth and lightly tug on it as you pull away for breath, earning a pleased, sexy open-mouthed groan from Bakugo. Neither of you have opened your eyes in a while, much too focused on experiencing every overwhelmingly delectable feeling as they come. Jaws too tired to close your mouths, the taller man decides to give a harder thrust of his lower half and revels in the little gasps you reward him with, the growing bulge filling the space between your plush thighs gyrating into your pulsing core just right.

Long fingers abruptly spread out over your bra, opting for a quick squeeze before eagerly unhooking the clasp and greedily taking a handful of your bare tits from underneath the loosened cups. It seems he can't be bothered to seductively throw it to the ground like in the movie scenes Uraraka forced you to watch on YouTube earlier. And yet I prefer that, you smile to yourself and let out an erotic moan when your excited mechanic's huge palms rub your nipples. The sudden stimulation coaxes your inner walls to aimlessly contract, as if they're yearning to clench around the hardening, clothed length relentlessly grinding on you. His teeth return to the marked surface of your neck.

The steady speed and strength Bakugo infuses his thrusts with is impressive and you would probably be wondering how he hasn't wasted all of his energy if his hard-on wasn't consistently nudging the thick material of your shorts into your clit, the pressure so perfect it's dangerously close to maddening. The swollen bud throbs urgently at the sensation, a warning which you take notice of a mere second too late. The loud, repetitive knocking of wood swiftly being forced into solid bricks only serves to pull on the knot within your abdomen until only a single fraying thread remains intact. Not for long though, all it takes is simply a short and gruff "fuck" from the focused mans chest to snap it.

"Nnnguh!" your muscles tense instantly as you abruptly cry out, barely managing to yank him in further with the heels of your sneakers pushing at his ass. Bakugo hurriedly opens his eyes, vision blurred a bit when he moves to watch your features scrunch up under the control of absolute ecstasy. Although he's pleasantly surprised by your sudden release, his hips keep moving under the greedy pressure of your feet. Soon enough, your facial expression morphs into one of wide glossy eyes and quivering lips following the slow disappearance of your orgasm. He's smitten, without a doubt. Looking down at you like you're the one he's been looking for all his life, almost melancholic with the unmistakeable glint of rapture prominent in the pretty red rings of his gaze.

"Jesus, what brought that on?" he teases with raised, bushy brows. Ready for an embarrassed excuse, one that he'll remember forever. You’re out of breath already, one orgasm enough to render you far gone, too far gone to watch your words. You see the way he’s looking at you all expectantly, waiting for a reason to pick on you and make you burn up. If he wants an answer, he can have one.

"You, you did." your response has the mechanic blushing like a mad man, the three words prompting a sudden few drops of pre-cum to leak into the fabric of his underwear. Acting as nonchalantly as possible, Bakugo clears his throat and straightens his slumped posture with a try hard grin.

"That so." His voice is a smidge softer than before as he contemplates ripping off your clothes and going at you right then and there. The soggy feeling of his boxers rubbing against the sensitive tip of his cock serves as a reminder. A reminder that he's not the type to hold back when he's inside. ...Alright, he'll wait for you, just let him wash away the oily mess painting his hands first. Hastily propping you up so that you don’t fall, he orders you a quick "sit" then rushes to the sink stationed opposite from you.

You scoff at your own impatience whilst you're unbuttoning the shorts hugging your waist, something that Bakugo catches on his way back to you. "Someone's excited," he murmurs like it's second nature and gestures to you with dripping hands. "Take em' off for me."

Choosing to let his attitude slide, you obey willingly. You hardly get to finish removing the denim before your mechanic is pouncing on you akin to a wildcat, bared fangs hovering just below your navel then hungrily clamping down on the lacy material of your panties. It's fucking delicious, the manner in which the man prises the lace waistband away to release it unexpectedly, letting it snap upon the hypersensitive skin with an addictive sting. A devilish smile plays on the man's lips, the adorable sounds you bless him with doing nothing to lessen the discomfort between his legs.

Taking your underwear in his teeth again, he repeats his last actions. However, the stretching fabric doesn’t make contact with your abdomen this time around, instead they're being dragged just below your knees. Ah, you see. Your restricting panties leave enough space for his head to fit between your thighs, but they don't allow you to spread them any further. Swollen clit pulsing, you grip the edge of the desk tighter with anticipation as Bakugo lifts your legs to situate himself underneath and rests them on his broad shoulders.

"Hngh, please please please~" you whine for him whilst twirling strands of his hair with antsy hands. A genuine laugh from the mechanic blows a few puffs of cool air directly over your pussy and the abrupt change in temperature has your body rolling closer in hopes that his mouth will bring more heat. His fingers are still wet with water as they refrain from touching the top of your thighs, the droplets cooling your skin when they land.

"Gah—!" a pathetic, surprised gasp evoked from you makes the blonde's heart melt into a puddle. Did you think he was going to warn you with a sweet kitten lick? Who do you think he is? Of course he'd start with a harsh suck on your clit. Your grip loosens in Bakugo's locks when he opts to suck and flick his tongue simultaneously, the seemingly endless flow of pleasure sending your body into an exhausted state almost straight away. "K-Katsuki, Katsuki— mnnghWAit!"

Finally, his skilled mouth detaches from your overwhelmed bud with a muted pop and you can take a deep breath. So it looks like having your legs forced to remain in a relaxed position heightens the effects. You're mind-blown, nobody's ever done something so confidently, so assertively to you before. If he had continued whatever that was then you might've…

"Too much f'you? Shorry shweetheart," the muscular fiend muffling apologies beneath you is still gliding his tongue over your saturated entrance, swallowing greedily and peering into your fucking soul with those ruby eyes. "Mnnbut you shoulda known, m'nothing like anything you've ever had before…"

Without a second's notice, Bakugo easily slides his dripping middle finger inside of you, a hot and amused laugh vibrating through you due to his face still being pressed into your throbbing cunt. "Sho eashily…" you hear him comment. You're squirming with every movement he makes, the digit creating pressure within your contracting walls coaxing animalistic moans from your chest that even you don't recognise. It's when his eager tongue begins to lap relentlessly at your clit too that your focus wavers, poor brain trying to acknowledge everything at once. Eventually, the euphoria has you doubled over with your mind seeing nothing but crimson stars studying you from between a pair of weak legs.

"Good girl, yeah yeah yeah," the blonde praises whilst savouring the view above, his jolting cock demanding for him to push three fingers inside just to hurry things up. "So f’ckin tasty and wet for me, think you can take three fingers?" he asks lowly, almost states it. You nod rapidly, barely in the know of what you're agreeing to but you get the gist. It's slightly embarrassing how his thick fingers slide in without an issue, though it doesn't look as if Bakugo has anything to say. Instead, he's elated. If only you could see how rock hard he is right now in this moment, how much of an effect you have on his body. If his dick could get any bigger it would tear a damn hole in his clothes!

"Like you were goddamn made for it." he confirms to himself and nuzzles his face further.

Twisting, turning, tapping, your horny mechanic bullies your narrowing inner walls with his heavy touch. You're holding your breath again, you can't even help it with how insanely good he's making you feel and he's not even inside you yet. The mere thought of his cock draws a long, somewhat frustrated groan from your throat, voice cracking softly when his plumped lips close over your heated pussy to suck on your overstimulated clit once more. On cue, your mouth opens in a silent scream before the words can come out prepared.

"Katsuki! Too, huh, good! I-I think—" you try to warn him as best as you can in such a state but Bakugo proceeds to dart his tongue, coated heavily with your sweet arousal, back and forth over the sore bud until you're clenching on his fingers so much that he can't move them. "Hhhhhoh my god! Again-n! M'cumming!"

And with that, the man between your thighs swiftly withdrawals to stick his tongue out and carelessly skim the convulsing bundle of nerves by shaking his head. Somehow the mechanic expected the clear liquid to come spraying from your sopping cunt, he'd just prepared himself and you saw it. Your body is tensing in ways you've never experienced in your entire life as your juices hit the concrete with an obscene splat. The fact that you're squirting everywhere is shocking enough, but the fact that the man who's face you're currently cumming on already knew exactly how to make it happen...

Your walls are vicelike around nothing as Bakugo savours the flavour present on the tip of his tongue, the fading end of your release enhancing the emptines within. Did he do that on purpose too? To keep you wanting more? Your widened eyes immediately search to be met with his own narrowed and lust-tainted leer, and then you realise something. This guy really does know what he's doing, so much so that you're almost scared by how good you feel. His head certainly would've been crushed if you hadn't tried to keep your legs open. After retreating from his spot in front of you, the mechanic mutters a "let's get these fuckin' things outta my way" breathlessly and proceeds to rid of your cute panties. Your cunt drools arousal as he dangles them in your face, giving his wrist a little twirl before pretending to throw them to the ground. Little do you know, they're actually stuffed nice and cozy in his pocket. How sneaky.

"Need you…" whispering sweetly once he's stood before you again, you reach over slightly to cup his clothed and ever-hardening length. The low-key gasp that's sucked past the burly man’s lips is then exhaled as a deep "ah", the forceful back and forth motion of your palm causing him to feel as if his spirit is about to ascend to fucking cloud nine and beyond.

"Need me, hah?" he asks rhetorically. You don't stop as he's soon hurrying to unbuckle the belt looped around his waist, in fact his visible determination has your blood sparking with newfound energy. A kind of energy that influences the muscles in your legs to feel unused, begging you to ride him until they give out. Bakugo is moments away from letting his leaky cock breathe, finally able to free himself from the painfully claustrophobic material that is his underwear after removing the first layer—

"Wait, wait, in the car... can we? In the back sea-"

The sound of a car door opening hardly registers and you're being thrown playfully into the velvety backseat of a spacious jeep before you can even finish your question. Luckily, you're given a mere few seconds to reposition yourself until the unruly blonde sits beside you, bare legs spread to make room for one hand lazily grabbing and shaking the base of his hard-on beneath damp fabric. Observing his current state, your half lidded eyes are drawn to his shiny pink tip poking out from under the soaked cotton briefs you so badly wish to yank down. It's swollen, trying to jolt whilst being pressed into his abdomen and causing even more cloudy, sticky pre to droop in a string of small beads. The desperate mechanic is also watching with bowed brows, eventually turning his head to you as if to silently plead, simultaneously lifting his ass up to fidget halfway out of his underwear.

Holy shit, he's big. You knew he was big, but… he's big. And veiny. His huge fingers wrap around his bare member for a second time, influencing him to throw his head back and toy with himself. You’re stunned for a good moment, zero thoughts as you play witness to Bakugo’s solo pleasure. You hadn't seen his features contort in such a manner before, as his face had been hidden from your eyes whenever they were open. He's got this look about him right now, like he's totally losing himself in rapture for you. Mesmerising, truly. Those rock solid abs rise and fall at quite a fast pace, you shouldn't keep him waiting but… This guy is fucking delicious, you could just lick him right now. You bet even the sweat coating his face in a pretty shine tastes like salted caramel. You want a taste. Without hesitation, you straddle the man's lap, a firm grip stationed on his shoulders with his cock bobbing involuntarily into your puffy clit. Daringly, you grab him by the chin to lick a clean, wet stripe along his pink cheek.

Such a salacious action offers no small reward, you realise this when a clenched fist in your hair pulls you back just enough to have your noses bumping into one another, a dangerous growl fleeing from behind gritted teeth, straight from the tasty mechanic's dick rather than his brain. You're rather puzzled as he slowly ghosts his mouth over your own, until he speaks.

"M'I okay to rough you up a little? Hm?" Voice gravelly and deeply smooth enough to have your head spinning, he asks impatiently and narrow-eyed. You're most likely getting yourself into some kind of trouble judging by the sheer size of him, but how can you say no to something so utterly passion stoked? Answering with a simple nod and another teasing lick over those talented, wetted lips of his, you lower your already bucking hips. It burns, it fucking burns. Yet it's intoxicating. How odd for such a searing pain to have you wishing time would stop. Whimpering and grimacing, you've just about managed to fit half of his length past your soaking entrance.

"Want me t' rough my pretty baby up in the backseat?" He's asking you rhetorically, almost tauntingly, though somehow there's more than a hint of soothing behind his words. "Take it easy, baby. That's it…" he's being so gentle with his tone, breathing shaky as he memorises every damn detail of the view in front of him.

Fuck, it's stretching you out so much! The slippery, warm tip is squished between your succulent inner walls, gradually nudging them further apart to accommodate more with the shallow rise and dip of your body. "Hngh... fuck— nngh!" your pained grunts and contracting around him both have Bakugo digging his front teeth into his tender lower lip, ruby gaze tracking a lone drop of sweat trickling down your temple. Hyper-aware of your existence, of the velvety soft ridges massaging his length, a subtle smile enhances the shamefully mushy blonde's features and a thumb swipes the rolling droplet from your face.

With every inch nearly a struggle to slide past your tender, wet entrance, the longer and less frequent your trepidatious gasps for air grow. It's the pure fervour dancing in the depths of your abdomen to blame for your lack of air intake, for this overwhelming lightheadedness that makes you feel as if you might just pass out on your mechanic's fat dick. Then it becomes apparent, you've been so focused on easing the pain that the rapturous inferno spreading within yourself has been stealing your breath away. A flustered giggle is pulled from you when Bakugo cracks a stupid joke regarding your breathing pattern.

"Damn, I knew- ah, shit..." he shudders when the sensitive head of his cock reaches deeper parts of you, canines chattering together with a moan before carrying on. "I knew I was hot, but fucking breathe, heheh..."

However, your embarrassed grin flickers in the presence of intense enjoyment as you sense your frame succumbing to the man's increasing touch located at your sides. Rough hands are guiding your hips from their ongoing gentle bob to a faster, shorter and heavier bounce. This new movement finally drives the remaining inches of the mechanic's length inside of you, the harsh impact producing a pornographic splurt to sound as your arousal caves into the building pressure and escapes from your throbbing, stretching entrance.

"GAH—!"

"Oh-hohoooooh, baby..."

He doesn't stop there, either. The back of your thighs smack upon the top of his own, the lewd noises increasing in volume every time Bakugo lifts himself up to brutally slam you back down simultaneously. Strings of your slick connect to his sticky skin, linking the both of you together like some filthy double meaning in a movie. Your insides experience a sinfully pleasing ache with the continuous and vigorous moving, the way he's ramming in and out so fucking fast and rough and perfectly— God, there's absolutely no way that you can delay another orgasm like this, no chance in hell. How are you even supposed to function right now when his cock is so amazingly able to stimulate your over-sensitive clit from the inside?

"Ka-a-at'ski-i~" your near sing-song-ish moan of his name is prolonged by the drag and drop of your weight. It's the whiniest shit he's ever heard, the wavering of your wobbly voice positively addictive to the unruly mechanic.

"I can't stop, can't stop it!" a hurried, raspy whisper into his pink-tinged ear indicates the unstoppable approach of another brain-melting orgasm on your end, and Bakugo really can't help himself from pistoning his long dick as deep as your spasming cunt will allow before the involuntary push of the juicy walls clamping over him can render you empty again. This is the hardest one yet, this time causing your form to lock up as soon as your palms caress the prickly stubble on the blonde's jaw. He's fucking delighted, peeking up at your distressed features from beneath your weak hold. It's so adorable, how you can barely handle the pleasure he's gladly supplying you with, slutty little body already so drunk on sex.

"Ugh-huh! Plea—easeeee," you cry out and impulsively bring the mechanic's head forward to bury your sobs and babbles into his natural, soft spikes. "Mmnn- please, so good..."

He notices that you're not fidgeting anymore. Instead, you've been ultimately paralysed by ecstasy. Your back arched and your trembling thighs raised, needy body in prime position to just fucking take it. You're doing exactly that, perky tits jolting into his chin whilst you let him pound your sweet pussy however he wants. Narrow eyes rolling back, a husky moan breaks the hold of his lips. There's no need to see your face to know how far gone you are, but just in case, Bakugo checks in with a dirty laugh and an utterly sexual "don't even know whatcha' beggin' for, do ya?"

Hardly capable of a simple yes or no, you can only respond with a long, broken hum into his tear-dampened hair. Fuuuuck, the car is rocking with the man's thrusts and it has the act of jutting his hips upward becoming so much easier. After a short moment of sucking on one of your pebbled nipples to have you squeezing his length, he decides a slight change needs to be made before he can cum. Without warning, Bakugo hastily manhandles you so that you're facing away from him with your lolling head leaning upon the headrest in front of you, arms around the seat and gripping on for dear life.

The musky, intimate scent of sex has an incredibly intoxicating effect, neither of you able to get enough of the lusty, hot air filling the vehicle. It influences the mechanic to ram his cock in you once again, but this time he doesn't pull back, choosing to drag you into his broad, glistening chest and guide your tired hips to gyrate in his lap. You're absolutely fucking destroyed down there, he notes pridefully when he lets his fingers slip back and forth over your numbing clit. At this point, you can only feel the pleasure his fingers are bringing you, rather than his actual digits themselves. Your mind is completely de-railed, train of thought tipped over onto its damn side. This guy is literally going to fuck your brains out!

"Keep goin', gorgeous. M' almost there," Bakugo groans whilst one of his hands trails to your throat. He can feel his dick stirring within your tight cunt, he can feel your entrance squeezing the base as your walls attempt to milk him for all he's worth. To be honest, hes lost count of your orgasms. You have, that's for sure. In fact, he doesn't think you could count to 3 right now, even if you tried your hardest. Let's make that 2, he muses to himself just as your clit starts to pulse beneath his dangerously intense touch.

"Ka... Kat'ski..." you mumble through the pressure situated under your jawbone, unable to keep your head from falling back into the crook of his neck with a silent scream. The contracting of your mellow insides circling his blunt tip has the tense mechanic blurting:

"Cum for me, baby. C-cum f'me, m'gonna cum for you too, n'kay?"

Another splash of clear liquid is sprayed from between your legs as soon as Bakugo's words register, his endless rocking and thick fingers creating gaps in stream which only makes everything that much messier. You're still in the end throes of your release when the man behind you loses control of the curses previously sat at the tip of his tongue, all of them falling from his quivering mouth within a matter of seconds.

"Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck— cuh—! Cumming!" he strains into your tangled hair, the hold around your throat gradually tightening with each forceful spurt of white from his jumping cock. Hips bucking lightly during the fading continuation of his orgasm, the brawny man removes his hand from your neck, allowing you to inhale a deep breath.

Then.

Reality kicks in.

Full throttle.

"Oh my fucking god. We need to fuckin' get out."

Slowly coming to your senses, you angle your tired head to peer at your mechanic who seems to be troubled.

"Why's that?" you question and kiss his flushed cheek, face plastered with cute curiosity. However, that cute curiosity is quickly replaced with utmost panic when Bakugo doesn't reply, instead observing the mess surrounding the two of you. "Shit! This is..."

Izuku's fucking jeep.

|| || || ||

Hours pass, all spent scrubbing the entirety of the jeep's backseat area. You'd prefer not to remember the chosen method of exiting the vehicle whilst being impaled and full of cum, although it was pretty hilarious at the time. Oh, right now? Right now you're on a stealth mission, currently waiting for Bakugo to signal your leave with obvious hand gestures whilst Izuku asks about his car. Hm... you feel like you're forgetting something— Woah, shit! He's signalling, okay. Refraining from letting a giggle escape at the blonde's tight-lipped and wide eyed expression, you sneak out from behind his childhood friend and quietly leave the building.

"So it's all good now?" Izuku pats the hood of his jeep, emerald eyes eager for his answer.

"Mm, yup. Stay there a sec while I go get your keys, loser."

You're on your way to your own car, still wondering if maybe you'd left something back there when Bakugo appears from behind the door in the corner of your vision. Spinning on your heels, you tilt your head at the cocky smirk he's blessing you with. You're confused, until you clock him dangling your lacy panties on one finger.

'Wh— HEY!' you mouth at him with a frown of disbelief. So that's what you were forgetting! You're about to storm right back over there, but the manner in which the blonde peers over his shoulder with an awkward face tells you that Izuku's waiting patiently. He doesn't mouth anything back to you, just opts to blow you a mischievous kiss, a kiss that he plants on the fabric of your panties, before cheekily shutting the door on you.

"Unbelievable." your hands flail around as you murmur with an amused smile. Guess you'll have to come back for those.

|| || || ||

Taglist :

@artdumpsstuff @endlessfreaky @passionateuchiha

#bakugou smut #bnha smut #bakugou x reader #bnha bakugou #bakugou katsuki #mha #mha smut #mha bakugou #my hero x reader #my hero acedamia

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petra-creat0r · 3 months ago

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Deltarune: Fool's Fate Chapter 1 Shopkeep

Okay so this should be the last important character ref for Chapter 1, aka the Attic World. (i need a better name for this Dark World.) After this my plan is to post the minor characters like enemies, NPCs, and Minibosses but once those are out, I'm not sure what to start on next. I have many things I could work on, it's just a matter of choosing. Thus why shortly after posting this, I'll be putting up a poll. Anyways! Onto Jeanie!

The shopkeep of the first area, aka the Dusty Plains, Jeanie (like the spirit) is a mystic snake who lives alone in her tent and tells the fortunes of whoever enters. If we're to think in terms of mapping parts of the Attic World to Chapter 1 of Deltarune proper, imagine Jeanie as the Seam of the chapter. Some of her dialogue even makes mention to the cat plush, even though the two have never met proper.

Her name is a play on "genie", being said the same, just spelled differently, and tying to her mystic, fortune-teller vibe and occupation. As for inspiration, asides from taking on the appearance of a hooded cobra (a lot of the Attic World has some snake ties because of Broadway), Jeanie is an old fortune telling machine. I'm not sure if she's the full machine, or just a part of it, but that is her Light World counterpart. Her connection to tarot cards is likely due to the machine incorporating them into it's gimmick.

Being the first shopkeep, Jeanie's wares are rather basic. A healing item found a few times prior to meeting her, aka the Fortune Cookie, a stronger healing item in the Stitched Stew, a basic armor in the Crystal Lace, and a weapon for Chicago in the Fortune Cutters. I have descriptions for each of those items incase anyone's interested.

For a better look at her character, here's a quote from her shop dialogue when you ask Jeanie about herself.

"The name is Jeanie, like the spirit. Mystical Serpent of Mystery. This tent is my where I sell mystical charms and read palms, paws, and tails. I've seen quite a lot in my time telling fortunes. The past, the present... Perhaps even the future. Hee hee hee..."

Aside from asking about herself, during their first encounter with Jeanie, the player would be able to ask Jeanie about the Magician, ask for a Card Reading, or ask Jeanie how she was expecting the party based on her shop enter dialogue (depicted in the image above). Some of her dialogue will change later in the chapter, mostly after running into her a second time in the second area (the Feathered Forest) or once encountering Dorothy (the secret boss) both before and after fighting her. Under the cut is a list of what Jeanie has to say in her talk options.

You were expecting us?

"Legends have spread far and wide of Lightners who will come to seal fountains. Three legendary heroes who will save both light and dark from calamity. More recently, there have been tales and rumors among the Upper Choir of three young heroes destined to replace the Blue Knight and dethrone the High Priestess.

Call it premotion, call it fate, if you will... I simply call it inevitable that we would meet."

The Magician?

"Hmm? I'm afraid I do not know of the cat you speak off." She grins "Hee hee hee. Just kidding. You mean Magico, correct? He is quite the trickster, isn't he? I heard he's been trying capture the Lightners who've come to seal the Fountain. All in the name of the High Priestess. He wasn't always under her reign. None of us were. Our land did not have a singular, set ruler until recently. We were ruled by a collective choir. Until one day, a mysterious knight appeared, and appointed the highest Choir member, the Priestess, into power. After which, she appointed Magico the Head Magician and her right hand. It's been quite some time since this land has seen such upset in the Choir. Not since... Well, perhaps it's better you not learn of that just yet."

Card Reading (Beginning of Chapter, before Broadway joins party)

"The Fool, The Magician, and The High Priestess. It seems your journey is just beginning, young heroes. Yet I sense great potiental and power shining within you. Perhaps such potential will aid you in the facing the powers and entities yet unknown. Even still, buying a small protection charm wouldn't hurt."

Reading (Encountering Jeanie outside of her shop in Feathered Forest with Broadway)

"I left my cards back at my tent, but I can still read your fate through the vibrations of your soul. Hmm... Interesting. I sense a lack of control. A slipping of string. Perhaps brought on by someone close to you interfering with your prior norm? ... I suggest you talk things out with them, young hero."

Card Reading (Back tracking after CK and Remie re-join the party again but before the Chapel)

"Three of Cups, Eight of Swords, and Five of Wands. It seems the rest of your party has returned to you. Though you've been apart for a time, it's important to remember the value of working as a team. Especially since a great challenge still awaits you all on the path ahead. The Chapel and Priestess still lie ahead, young heroes. Be weary not to let your own ambition and feelings get in the way of your collective goal."

Card Reading (Back tracking after entering the Choral Chapel)

"The High Priestess, reversed Nine of Swords, and Nine of Wands. It seems the final leg of this journey lays before you, young ones. Soon you shall duel with the Priestess to end her tyrannical reign. Bringing a new light to this land. However such a battle can wait for a little while. Your adventure has been long and tiring, has it not? Why not take a short rest? I can make some tea and read the leaves before you must set off once more."

Odd Doll (After first talking to Dorothy)

"I sense you three have come across a strange presence oddly familiar but which you've never known. A strange prisoner whom speaks in stitched together tongue? ... So I see. Seems the Magician couldn't hide her from all eyes forever. ... I see many paths if you chose to go down this route more, yet oddly enough... The one in which you try and release her holds the most promise. It would not be my personal advice but... The stars have yet to steer me wrong yet. Perhaps dealing with the doll once and for all will yield a brighter future for everyone. ... Perhaps it was wrong to lock her away to begin with. A key? I do not hold it, but I have a sense as to were the Magician hid it. Hidden among the trees, in the thicket of the dark. You'll find the path you seek, if you chose to take the lark. That's all the advice I can give, so I would advise turning to the Magician if you get stuck further. I wish you luck on your journey, young ones, and my the stars guide your path."

"Gate blocking your path? As I said, I can offer no more advise. Perhaps seek the Magician for assistance."

Odd Doll (After opening Dorothy's cell)

"So you say you've opened the door? That explains the wrathful energy I feel far away..." I'm afraid can't see where your future leads from here. Do tell me how this plays out, if you can. Or don't. I merely predict your path, only you can decide it."

About DOROTHY (After defeating Dorothy)

"Judgment, Reversed six of wands, and The Chariot. I may not have known that doll for long, but I knew her cards, her fate, the path the stars laid out for her. Or perhaps the path she forged herself… Once she was nothing more than a blank doll. No face, no name, no path. She was a fool just as you are. Yet one day, she came across a strange someone and it seemed her stars had finally aligned. She had been gifted an identity and purpose from some higher power, she said. To this day, I still don't quite understand what she meant by that. Rambling on about the Truth, or our purpose, of creating our own stars…Yet I didn't NOT understand at the same time… At some point she was let into the Upper Choir, but even they eventually grew annoyed with her ramblings. And so they cast her out. Exiled her back to these dust ridden plains. She grew enraged, filled with an anger and hatred for all that betrayed her. She had to be locked away before she could hurt anyone else. It shames me that I had to be the one to call the guard… Ever since, I've mulled over the cards and stars, seeking answers to what she said. Yet the skies shone dark and the cards even darker. The only thing I've come back with are more questions than when I started. It makes one wonder…How much of the universe and fate can be understood and predicated… And how much can only be navigated by the blind?"

We Won (After defeating Dorothy)

"The six of wands, the Tower, and the Devil. So, it is true? You really defeated her? Then you three truly must be the heroes of legend after all… However be warned, DOROTHY is merely the first step in your fool's journey. There is still a long way to go, and many more obstacles to face. And one day soon… even the most darkest evil of all. Hee hee hee… Well, I can only wish you luck. Perhaps once you reach that point You can come back here and I shall read your scattered destiny once more."

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31 39s 38, 27 6 7 4 50 39 44, 15 19t 21ly

31 39s 38, 27 6 7 5 50 39 44, 16 6 9

31 39s 38, 27 6 7 1 50 39 44, 41 re49 39

31 39s 38, 27 6 7 3 50 39 44, 40 6 2 25

31 39s 38, 27 48 8st 50 50 39 23, 35 32 27 13

31 39s 35 32, 27 34 4feated. 50 39 35 32, 46s 10 47ed.

31 33s 34 39, 27 34 & 29 50r 18, yet 6 2 45ed

31 28s 22, can 35t 6 11ed 50 28 36, of 26 this 10 20s

31 43s the 24, 27 43s 15 in 47, 30 & 42ess, 34ly 14.

31 39s 38, 24ish 27 39ed 6. 50r 47 37 32. 17 39, will 35t 50?

#deltarune #deltarune fan character #Deltarune: Fool's Fate #dr atticworld #dr:ff atticworld #deltarune oc #petra's deltarune take #deltarune au #petra art #fool's fate #jeanie #deltarune shopkeep oc

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queerholmcs · 3 months ago

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the mind of moriarty 👑🧑🏻‍💻♟️

I had the absolute pleasure of doing the original "the game is now" escape room experience immediately followed by the new moriarty-centric escape room (as though the first one wasn't moriarty-centric enough?) with @victorianpining and @647763 back at the end of July, and I did promise a full write-up when I came back to my senses at the end of it!

First off, I could not have been more pleased with the experience; I do absolutely recommend giving it a go yourself if you have the chance. Now, if you're in the mood for spoilers, I'll be detailing some thoughts and recollections below the cut. 💙

Just in case the first escape room experience didn't quite convince you, Moriarty is dead. It's very important that you know that going into this. He's the most dead anyone has ever been. He's so dead he "wishes he could die twice!", after all! They have to keep saying it because otherwise you might forget it, you see. Especially after Sherlock had a whole drug trip on a plane to prove how someone might have faked their death in such a manner only to conclusively decide that dear old Jimmy boy is in fact dead.

I'm assuming everyone reading this is already relatively familiar with the first escape room, and the whole bit where the Network is operating under the guise of "Doyle's Opticians," so I won't spend any time discussing that, except to say that we did get a few confused looks from the various Stamfords when we reappeared (after finishing the first escape room and making the choice to stick to non-alcoholic beverages at the Mind Palace prior to the second) to say, "Oh, no, we didn't get turned around or anything. We've just got a second appointment." (You mean to tell me that most people who go do one experience and then just... leave? Without doing the second one the very same day? What an absolutely unfathomable concept.)

The opening puzzles before the "John Watson held at gunpoint" briefing video (which was the same as that used for the first escape room) were particularly fun: you're shown a series of four images, and you have to figure out the pattern of what's changing (being mirrored, one might say?) between each one to choose the fifth of the sequence from a selection. (Ref. 1: Into the Woods: How Stories Work and Why We Tell Them, John Yorke.)

And then you go on to 221B Baker Street for photos and a brief moment of shenanigans, and I must add a note here that the Stamford who was working with us on this round was brilliant, you could tell she was absolutely loving her job, and there was a bit of a spiel about observation and logic and deduction that turned out to actually be helpful in solving the puzzles in the first room. (Shocking, that she wasn't just harping on about those concepts for fun!)

Anyway, Mycroft shows up via video feed, per usual, and introduces the premise of this game: James Moriarty (who is most assuredly dead, by the way, it's very important that you remember that) programmed an AI before he died—"an archive of maniacal data"—and your job, as new (read: expendable) recruits in the Network, is to go into a virtual-reality space called the Nexus, where you need to hack into the AI and replace Moriarty's mind with—well, not yours, obviously, you're "far too, as they say, basic"—but with Sherlock's. But why not use Mycroft's mind? you may be asking. Especially if he's the smart one.—because, dear reader, "One Mycroft Holmes is already too great a gift for this world. Two would be an indulgence." And that's verbatim from Mycroft Holmes as protrayed by Mark Gatiss himself. I am going to haunt him in whatever comes after this life. Still can't believe that you give them money and in exchange they insult you for approximately ninety minutes and at the end you say 'thanks, this was so much fun, I will definitely be doing this again!'

Right before you go into the first room, you are helpfully reminded by Mycroft one last time that "despite what video games suggest, you absolutely can die in the virtual world." Bit of a theme they seem to be harping on! It's almost like they're trying to get you to really believe that Jim is actually dead or something!

(Photos are all from the official 221b social media accounts.)

The first room is a sort of fusion of the pool from TGG with a chemistry lab and a hospital corridor, and also a miniature version of Jim's prison cell from THOB is there. There's a mannequin of John Watson decked out in a Semtex vest in the corner, and you get the usual experience of solving lots of intellectually- and tactilely-satisfying puzzles, which included opening a bordering-on-comical number of lockers. The John mannequin has a key in his hand labelled "007" (classic!) and a phone in his pocket so you can text Mycroft. Moriarty reminds you that he's the good old-fashioned villain in this fairy tale, and that Sherlock needs him or he's nothing, and that John is Sherlock's "live-in ordinary person."

I also particularly enjoyed the little chemistry puzzle in this room—they do give you a periodic table on the wall, so you have all you need to solve it without any prior knowledge, but who goes to a Sherlock escape room without a graduate chemist in hand?

(We also decided after the fact that the gift shop definitely should have been selling packs of the stickers seen on the lockers in this room, one of which was notably a pixel-art TV with a rainbow screen and the phrase "brainwashed".)

The highlight here, however, was definitely the prison cell. There's a letter on the chair that's on Pentonville Prison letterhead and signed by Mycroft and otherwise consists of a paragraph or two of fully redacted text. The walls have a number of fun phrases scratched into them, like "THREE SIGNS IS NOT ENOUGH" and "TOO MANY THATCHERS", which continue to live in my mind rent-free. (Some of the other phrases were helpful hints for the puzzles you had to solve, but those two weren't even relevant for the puzzles, as I recall. They were just bonuses. Specifically designed to haunt me, personally.)

At some point in here, Moriarty—no, sorry; his recorded voice, because he's dead, remember! We're just poking around in his virtual mind! ("Jim recorded lots of little messages for me before he died," anyone?)—insults you over the speakers, saying, "Goldfish, goldfish, goldfish have better recall than you!" (Mycroft Holmes in TEH, "I'm living in a world of goldfish," anyone?)

Anyway, you solve all the puzzles and put the phone you were using to text Mycroft in Jim's prison cell and continue on your way, going further into the mind of Moriarty, in the direction of the "Watson Ward" and "No Sherlock beyond this point" arrows. (Big moment for "there's definitely a reason that every other character in the canon has the initials J(H)W or its respectable inversion JM" girlies!)

Also there's an audio clip of Jim saying "choo choo!" as you leave the room. (Big moment for TFP girlies! I think my exact words were "I am going to kill myself.")

Onto room two! Green lasers everywhere! (They definitely intended you to do a fun little acrobatics situation here but we were content to hit the floor and crawl to find the buttons to disable them.)

After you disable the lasers, you get to focus on the primary puzzle of the room: a wall covered with sketches of people and copies of incriminating evidence, and you have to connect the scarlet thread red strings between each member of the jury and the evidence that Jim was blackmailing them with—you know, from way back in TRF? When the key code wasn't important at all, it was just about knowing someone's pressure points? (There's a Mary who's having an affair and is a lesbian, btw. Just like our mystery corpse in the original escape room, we should never assume someone is straight when there's room for them to be gay.) This puzzle as a whole was really satisfying, I will say, though it did make us wish for either a notepad or a massive whiteboard to make notes on while we solved the little logic puzzles to match the people to their blackmail material. (They could give you little branded notepads and pens to take with you through the rooms, and to keep as a souvenir, like the ones hotels give you! It would be so fun!) This was definitely the puzzle we spent the majority of our time on.

And then you get to the highlight of this room: opening the safe to reveal Jim Moriarty himself—well, a mannequin version—decked out in the Crown Jewels, happy as could be. There's a reminder that nothing in the Tower of London is as valuable as a few tiny lines of computer code that can open any door. And Jim's written a silly little poem of sorts and draws far too much attention to both "the rod of power in his right hand's grasp" and "the Orb" between his legs (and then we were at the Tower of London two days later and found out that that's not just a euphemism, it's literally called the Orb? Unhinged behaviour. And I don't even know who to blame for it now. The "rod of power" bit was all him, though. Could have been normal and called it a scepter!) and you have to figure out a code and (spoilers!) the code is 7437. Which is fine and perfectly normal and I'm sure the vast majority of people who complete that room think nothing of it, but unfortunately, we were not a group of "the vast majority" and so our experience was not what you might call "fine and normal", because Mia input the code and there was a little beep of success of and then she, without missing a beat, went on to say, "Oh, that's so funny! That's the numbers for S-H-E-R," at which point Rebs and I immediately sank to the floor to stare into the abyss while waiting for the next door to open.

So, just to recap: the point of TRF was definitely that there was no code, there was never any code, it was just about knowing people's pressure points and getting them to do what you wanted, but now that we're inside Moriarty's mind it's definitely all about codes and there's a silly poem to draw attention to various things including, but not limited to, the Orb between his legs, and the code that you need from him so that you can go deeper into his mind is S-H-E-R. Yeah. Sure. Why not. This is Fine! What really haunts me is knowing how many people will do that escape room and will never know that that's what those numbers mean. Because why on earth would you?

(Just to prove how normal I am about this, I won't even say anything about a potential parallel between Moriarty's "Orb" situation and the globe on Mycroft's desk under Whitehall. See? I'm not even mentioning it, why would you bring up something like that? No M-theory here, no sir! Not a single trace of it!)

Congratulations, you've made it to the rooftop, where Sherlock jumped off a roof and James Moriarty met his end, and I swear Jim has a line somewhere in there complaining about how hard it is to plan this sort of thing. (Whatever that means!)

We've got screens playing clips from all thirteen episodes of the show—okay, that might be an exaggeration; I didn't actually check to see if there were clips from every single episode. But there were definitely clips from series four, which is very funny considering how the universe that these rooms seem to be set makes exactly zero mention of John's wife at any point in time. (Hey, hello, hi, it's me who's writing this. Obviously I noticed when there were shots from TFP on those screens.)—and there are computer-code-esque symbols on the walls and Jim is lying dead on the floor and Sherlock is standing on the edge of the rooftop.

Here are some fun facts for you: the gun is still in Jim's pocket. (He's definitely dead, though! You know how you shoot yourself in the head and then return your gun to its rightful place before you politely lay down and die?) And Sherlock's mannequin is wearing the purple shirt of sex a purple shirt, which is a detail that might not be noticed unless you're thoroughly ransacking his every pocket (twice) to check for a missing key, and I was going to say something about how of course he is, because what else would you expect him to be wearing when we're three levels deep in Moriarty's mind and the code to get this far was S-H-E-R, but then I went back and checked and Sherlock is, in fact, wearing a purple shirt at the end of TRF. (Which somehow still doesn't actually negate any of the above, imo.)

Anyway, the first puzzle in this room involves finding a bunch of physical puzzle pieces to solve a puzzle, and figuring out how to unlock doors to obtain all of the pieces, and some of the padlocks use code words that they give you by putting phrases from their "sophisticated and cerebral" merch on the screen and highlighting letters, and some use numbers that you get by solving other riddles, but one of them is a padlock with a physical key and (spoiler!) it turns out that you don't even need to get the key for that one, because there's another way to get the puzzle piece out without unlocking the door at all! (Was his grand daylight robbery scheme a matter of keys and codes, or was it just about knowing people's pressure points and blackmailing them? You decide!)

And then it's time to manage the final task of uploading Sherlock's brain to the AI, which is accomplished by running around hitting buttons while music plays over the speakers to instil a sense of great urgency. You definitely would not want to do this with fewer than three members in your party. This is where they use Jim's line of "Surprise! You didn't think I'd just disappear, did you?" as seen in one of the teaser trailers, and they also plaster every screen with the classic "Did you miss me?" footage that mysteriously appeared on every screen in the country at the end of HLV.

But when you do manage to complete the task, Mycroft's voice comes back to congratulate you, and to sort of threaten you (though that's par for the course when it's Mycroft Holmes we're talking about, I'll admit), and to leave open the possibility of your returning for another job someday. I, for one, cannot wait to see what they're going to do for round three. (Personally, I think it would be very funny if they put one of the rooms on the Demeter for the next one. No rebranding necessary, no discussion of Dracula at any point whatsoever, but for some reason you find yourself on a boat, in cabin number 9, playing chess with the Devil himself Moriarty! What a shocking and unforeseen turn of events that would be!)

(The only real downside of them doing a third room would be that I would then have to make time to do three of these in one day. And that might be a bit excessive. I mean, three eye exams in one day? Someone's definitely going to say something.)

We had a very lovely time at the Mind Palace bar after that, to debrief a bit, and there was a logic puzzle that I still need to sit down and crack at some point when I have a moment. I was personally very pleased to find drinks called "The Diogenes Club" and "The Lying Detective" (both of which I was contractually obligated to order, naturally), and did you know you can rent out the bar for private events? I'm sure I would be very normal about such a situation. (Good job I'm not local to the area, truly!)

This has already gone longer than I think I intended, and I'm sure I could keep going, given the opportunity, but I'll close things out here, and say again that I do absolutely recommend doing the escape room(s) if you have the opportunity; I could not have been more pleased with the experience. My sole complaint is that they don't let you wander back through the rooms after solving the puzzles to have a moment to appreciate all the small details when you're not working against the clock. And also they should send me the scripts, as a treat. Along with any remaining unused video or audio footage. (Moftiss, my DMs are open, feel free to drop the links at your earliest convenience!)

#the game is now #bbc sherlock #sherlock #*mine #@ rebs and mia feel free to chime in if i missed anything of import here!!!#anyway. need to just post this before i go any more insane today dsfsdlfjs #the mind of moriarty

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foone · 2 years ago

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Ablative Humanity

An old story about mechsuits and identity, copied from my former twitter account (originally written on August 10th, 2018).

So the war comes, and we have to use mechanical exoskeletons to have any chance of fighting back. They're mind-linked, so you control them by just thinking of moving, and they learn from you to get better, predict your motions, and you become a better fighter.

At first you're just wearing it for when you go out on raids, or when you're on guard duty, but after so many surprise raids you end up wearing it all the time.

it's comfortable enough to live in, and with the sensors hooked up you don't really feel "you" anymore, you feel the suit. After a while it starts to feel weird when you have to take it off for a medical check up.

In the early days, you felt "big" in the suit. now you feel "small" when you take it off. You stop taking it off, as much as possible. towards the end of the war you're wearing it for weeks at a time, then months at a time.

Finally, the enemy is pushed back. Security can exist again, the random raids slowly trail off, and slowly things settle down. you remember what "calm" is.

There's never a treaty, but at least you're no longer staying up for days at a time watching the horizon with the suit's far-beyond-human eyes, watching for an attack. You're no longer keeping a satellite feed up in the corner of your vision, watching for movement.

And the day you were waiting for, at least at first, finally comes. You're going home. The war is over, or over enough that you're no longer needed here. You can take off the suit for the last time, and go back to your pre-war life.

You approach that appointment with some trepidation. you've felt so weak and tiny and powerless when you've had to be outside the suit before, will you ever get used to being a normal human again?

It takes three techs and 2 doctors to get the suit open at this point, given all the armor and modifications that have been made. it's basically grown around you like a second skin, just a second skin that can shrug off high-explosive anti-tank rounds.

They start with computer connectors and migrate to screwdrivers and by the end they're using something that looks like halfway between a crowbar and the jaws of life, while you're busy keeping your automatic self-defense reactions from frying them.

And finally they crack it open, and someone vomits from the smell. There's nothing but a decaying corpse inside.

There's confusion at first, someone asks if you're controlling the suit remotely, but they check the dogtags. Then the DNA. It's you. or, "you". Cause you're you, aren't you? This is just a human body... and you're still alive.

The suit's mind-link systems grew into your brain and took over functionality and worked on emulating your reactions so it could do what you want, better, faster.

And at the same time, your mind did what human minds do: they adapt. Humans are naturally cyborgs, you only have to pick up a pencil to realize that. It's part of your body image, and you think of moving the pencil, not moving your fingers to move the pencil.

So your human mind got more robotic, and the suit's computerized mind got more human. At some point you met in the middle.

And then one day on the battlefield when the biological half died, you didn't even notice. It was just another redundant part, just your ablative humanity.

You're still you. You're not the you that was born all those decades ago, but the you that was built and given life by bonding with a biological "you" that you've since discarded.

It's the Ship of Theseus, replacing every plank and beam as they rot, and there never being a point when it stops being the original and starts being a new thing. You have continuity of self from when you were born to now.

It's just that the Ship of Theseus started as a single-sail wooden ship with oars, and is now an aircraft carrier made of titanium and iron, with nuclear fire in its heart.

#my creations #my writing #I'm not saying this is about gender #but this is a little about gender

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cressidagrey · 5 months ago

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Glorious Sunrise - Chapter 2

Summary:

So what happens after the mating bond snaps?

Well-meaning interfering family members, deep conversations and nights spent brooding on the roof like some kind of gargoyle…this one has it all.

Warnings:

People, being horrible, horrible self image, mention of child abuse, acidic burns and broken bones

(thanks to @cafekitsune for the super pretty dividers!)

She got a kiss on the cheek from Azriel as he bid his goodbyes, going to do gods only knew what for the day.

He hadn’t volunteered and she hadn’t dared to ask, especially not over breakfast, not when her Aunt was mustering both of them with these knowing brown eyes and Galena was quite sure that Madja knew everything.

“We didn’t do anything,” she finally said quietly when she could hear the door close downstairs.

Nothing. She hadn’t even gotten a proper kiss, for cauldron’s sake!

“I know,” her aunt responded calmly. Right. She would have smelled that from a mile off. And there had been nothing. Not the thick cloying scent of arousal or sweat or sex. Nothing.

“But it would have been alright if we did?” she asked, staring down at her bread covered with marmalade.

It was…

She wasn’t even sure if she was ready for it. They had time, of course, they had…but the want to touch and to kiss and to hold and to…she wanted him as near to her as she possibly could, she wanted to feel those scarred hands on her own scarred skin…she wanted him to kiss her and to touch her and she wanted to taste him and she wanted…

It was startling her with the pure intensity of it all. How it had hit her…

“You are an adult. That means that you can manage your own, adult relationships with everything that entails,” Madja said, her voice still carefully even.

Her aunt hadn’t offered a single…comment about her mate, not after it all had gone down. They had talked…a little bit. About how Galena hated to go to the Palace of Bone and Salt…of how Madja sometimes forgot that she wasn’t 12 years old anymore…that she had learned and studied and grown up…and how staying in the house and not wanting people to stare at her was a valid choice, even if Madja disagreed.

But still…

“You also are a healer. I trust you know how to brew a contraceptive draught. You also know exactly how basic anatomy and sex works,” Madja pointed out.

It was true, but Galena just…maybe she just wanted some reassurance. That she wasn’t fucking this up. That she was doing the right thing. That this wasn’t…That this wasn’t wrong that she was feeling that way, this bone-deep want that settled in her gut when she looked at Azriel.

Of course, she knew how sex worked. She had studied to be a healer. She knew that.

But she had never…she had never really…

She had never thought that there would be any male that would ever be interested in her.

So she had made her peace with the fact that she was going to die a virgin and that was it.

She would never lay with a male. And touching herself…for decades she had cringed away when she had ran her own hands over her own scarred skin. She wished it was pale and flawless and not covered in scars and dips and…finally, she had just stopped trying.

And now Azriel was there and he made pure desire roar to life within her…and he wasn’t even aware that he did that.

“We should probably refresh the noise-cancelling runes on your doorframe if you keep inviting him in from the cold though,” Madja quipped then and Galena’s eyes shot up at that, at her aunt watching her with a small smile on her face.

“Galena. You two have every right to be intimate with each other. I am not going to say a single thing against it, because that is not my place. And furthermore, that’s a decision the two of you make, and that I have absolutely nothing to do with,” Madja advised her quietly. “But don’t use sexual intimacy as some kind of replacement for difficult conversation or to build intimacy. Don’t use it to bridge a gap you are feeling.”

She wanted to disagree…wanted to open her mouth and tell her aunt that that wasn’t the case and…

But Madja was right.

She was.

They were both tip-toeing around both their traumas, not trying to scare the other away. And that wouldn’t be enough.

“You have never had a romantic relationship, Galena,” her aunt said calmly. “Don’t rush it. Take every bit of time until you feel safe and secure in your relationship and you both want to take that step.”

It was good advice. She did want to savour it. There was only ever going to be him after all. Just him. Her whole life, her whole love, her whole heart...only for him.

“There never was anybody that didn’t see these,” Galena said, splaying one hand across her own cheek.

“I know,” Madja agreed, pain in her voice.

“He doesn’t. He looks at me and…He wants me .” Her. Not anybody else. She was his mate. Nobody else. “And I want him, Aunt Madja. I want him, ” she admitted hoarsely, feeling her blood burn in her veins with her desire for him.

“You can have him, Little Mouse,” Madja told her with some amusement. “Nobody is taking him from you.”

May the cauldron have mercy on whoever would try.

Still…all of it was slowly ruminating in her brain as she did the exact type of work that day that would keep her busy and productive and didn’t really need her thinking.

It was better that way. She didn’t want to accidentally kill anybody with a sleeping potion, just because she put too much of one ingredient in there.

Still, she carefully stirred her batch of bruising balm that evening as she listened with half an ear to Silas closing up the shop and then heard somebody enter…this time through the front door.

It was accompanied by the lightest of tugs from the shimmering gold thread tied to the very heart of her.

“Let him in, Silas!” she called loudly before Silas could turn Azriel away for coming after they technically closed.

Madja was out that evening, probably for a performance in a theatre with one of her many, many friends and so it was just Galena.

“One moment,” she told Azriel, hearing his footsteps enter the stillroom, not taking her gaze from her bruise balm stirring thrice more counter-clockwise, watching how the mixture all came together, thickening beautifully, and then she lifted the whole pot of the stove and covered it with a square of clean linen.

“Sorry, I needed to finish that or I was going to ruin the whole batch,” Galena apologised as she looked up to find Azriel still standing in her doorway.

“It’s alright,” he waved her off, even as she grabbed her cane to say hello to him properly.

He was just so cupping her face, as Silas cleared his throat behind him and Galena just managed to stop herself from glaring at him for interrupting them.

“Ah, Galena?”

“Yes?” she responded drily, turning her head to look at him. “You can lock up, Silas.”

“Are you sure? Shouldn’t I lock the register and…” he asked, and her forehead crinkled because Silas was normally really not in the mood to do more work than strictly necessary. And the register had never been his work in any way. Galena did that.

“Go home, Silas. Thank you,” she waved him off. He stared at her. She stared right back.

“Madja said…” he started to protest, and then Azriel moved…she had thought it wasn’t even on purpose until she realised that his wings twitched menacingly and she bit back a smile at Silas cowered without a second thought.

“...I am…going - Goodbye!”

“Goodbye,” she responded drily, waiting until she heard the front door slam into the hinges.

“Pleasant Fellow,” Azriel commented. She could nearly taste the sarcasm in his words. She rolled her eyes.

“Madja hired him to man the till while Cosima is on maternity leave,” she said drily. “It was either him or me and I am more likely to scare customers away than get anybody to buy some bruise balm,” she commented with a snort. “Though to be honest, customers day in, day out, would annoy me to no end.”

She liked the quietness of the stillroom

“I brought you food,” he said suddenly, holding up a back that she hadn’t even seen. “From Sevinda’s…I thought we could have dinner?”

That was the best proposal that she had heard today.

She grinned, leaning up to press a proper kiss to his lips, allowing herself to lift one arm to twin around the back of his neck and enjoy the taste and the feel of him, of her mate, of…just Azriel.

“You brought me food?” she whispered softly.

“I did,” he agreed. “Good enough to get you to leave the stillroom for the day?”

“Always,” she agreed. “Let me just grab the register.”

She dropped that up in her aunt’s warded safe and then let Azriel up to the attic.

She was surprised to find his shadows fussing at her as soon as they were in relative privacy, untying the apron she still wore to save her dresses from getting completely dirty while doing her work and looking through her cabinets for cutlery and plates and pushing Azriel around so that he pulled out a chair for him.

“They are being…” She didn’t even have the words for it.

“Fussy,” Azriel said with a sigh. “They are being fussy. Probably wasn’t helped that they thought I was an absolute idiot for sitting around on your windowsill.”

She held back a snort at that, letting Azriel put food on the table…

“I thought we could have dinner…and then we could have a talk,” she said, over a bite of absolutely lovely chicken in some spicy red sauce and she watched how he hesitated for just a second. “Nothing bad,” Galena assured him, reaching out over her table to take his hand in hers. “I just…I owe you some explanations.”

“You don’t owe me anything,” Azrile disagreed. She sighed.

“I owe us the truth,” she told him with a smile, the good corner of her mouth ticking up.

She waited until they finished eating and after she had stolen a bar of chocolate from her own cabinets, she led him over to her couch, letting him sit first, wings splaying over the low back of it, so that she could curl against his side, holding out the bar of chocolate for him to break a piece off of.

He took that invitation.

“I always feel better if I get to eat chocolate,” she told him in the same tone of voice that she would use if she told him a big, bad secret and he laughed, the sound so beautiful that she wanted to hear it more often. She wanted to see Azriel smile, wanted to see the corners of these hazel green eyes crinkle up, wanted to see that dimple that was there on his right

“I have the biggest sweet tooth of any creature I have ever encountered,” he gave back in the same tone of voice and she grinned at him, taking a piece herself, chewing and swallowing…letting the sweet taste of that chocolate brush away all the horrible things she was going to bring up soon.

“My mother…My mother is Madja’s younger sister. Sofiya,” she started there because she didn’t know where else to start. The woman who had given life to her, probably was as good a start as any.

“Is,” Azriel repeated questioningly and she shrugged.

“Oh, she’s still alive…She was banned from Velaris. But still lives somewhere in the Night Courts Borders,” she explained with a wave of her hand. Unless of course, she had died in the last 150 years, which of course was perfectly possible…

“I was born to her and her mate. I was their only child. And for the first decade of my life…everything was perfect,” Galena continued, her voice quiet. “I had a mother and a father that loved me…And I was really good at school…and everything was just…as it should be.”

She had never thought then, that it would end like it did nowadays…then she had had skin the colour of peaches and cream and big brown eyes…and she could run as fast as a rabbit and not worry about her thigh or her hip giving her trouble…she had been able to do all of that.

“And then my father died. Killed by some idiot in a bar fight. He was a musician…he was just there as a favour to a friend…” she trailed off and Azriel reached out to hold her hand, pressing it slightly.

“I am sorry.”

She just shook her head.

It was fine. It was a century ago…she had dealt with her grief to the best of her ability…it was just….“I think his death killed my mother too,” she said darkly. “She was still alive of course…but she was an empty shell…and then met her second husband.”

And that…that had been the beginning of the end.

“If I ever met a monster…he was it,” Galena whispered softly. “He was a monster. It didn’t matter what I did or didn’t do…It was never good enough… It started small…bruises…then it…changed.”

It got worse. It was unspoken, but she hung onto Azriel’s hand as she stared out of the window, over the roofs of Velaris, towards the Sidra…

“He was a hunter, a forager…He knew plants…not as well as Madja or me…but well enough…” She touched her face, and felt the texture of her scars underneath her fingertips. “These were a punishment,” she explained, her voice forcibly calm…”Just like my leg…”

“For what?” Azriel demanded his voice cold death.

“Breaking a dish,” Galena said quietly. “I was supposed to clean it, but the water was hot and soapy and I lost my grip and…He was furious. He broke my leg…shattered it in fact…up to my hip. So badly that it would never heal quite right…over and over again…”

She pushed those memories down and away from her, not letting them overwhelm her with the grief she was feeling. It wouldn’t help anybody. It wouldn’t.

“He kept this massive cauldron over the fire… If you boil giant hogweed it can turn into acid…if you add this and that…” she trailed off, letting him come to his own conclusion. “That’s what he did. And then he upended the cauldron over me.”

The scars hurt her with an echo of the pain she had been in then.

“I don’t remember the rest.” Not what had happened afterwards. She didn’t want to remember. It was better if she didn’t.

“Galena.”

“Lost my sigh from that too. Only can see dark shapes with the bad eye,” she continued, blinking away sudden tears. “I lost my mother. Because she thought that if I never broke that fucking plate then he would have never needed to hurt me in the first place. And she wouldn’t have lost her second husband.”

The growl that sounded from Azriel at these words should have probably scared her but all it did was make warmth blossom in her chest.

“Madja spent the next 6 months healing me,” she said softly. “I was in so much pain…I was up here in the attic and sometimes I just spent days screaming myself hoarse…”

She didn’t like to think of that time either.

“I stopped doing that…it wasn’t going to help me…and when I returned to school…the stares and the words started…and I learned that being silent was…it could be my peace too,” Galena recounted quietly.

Her peace. And so after school, she had found her peace in that still room. And even if sometimes it stifled her…it was still safe, still peaceful…her own oasis of serenity, without anybody staring at her.

“I am sorry,” Azriel apologised to her, his voice hoarse. She finally turned to look at him.

“It’s not your fault that this happened to me,” she disagreed.

It was not. He had absolutely nothing to do with it.

“Why tell me this today?” he asked her, looking at her, his eyes soft and she hesitated for just a moment.

“Because I don’t want you to find out through somebody else. I want you to hear the truth, my truth, through me.”

This was a conversation the two of them should have. And nobody else.

She wondered what he would say next, watched his expression shutter and he started at their joint hands, the matching scarred tissue…his skin darker than hers by only a few shades.

“I was born as the son of an Illyrian camp lord…and his long-suffering mistress. I was a bastard…he ripped me from her arms when I was still a babe. When his wife found out. I spent the first 11 years of my life… imprisoned under his keep in a dark cell.”

She had expected a lot, but that wasn’t it.

This was so much worse. This was...

How could anybody do this to a child? How dare they?!

She could just stare at him, his gaze still on their entwined hands, not looking into her face.

“Azriel,” she whispered.

“I was allowed out one hour a day. I was allowed to see my mother one hour a week…” he continued. “I…I have two older half-brothers…When I was 8, they decided to see how fire and oil mixed. My hands were the sacrifice for that particular experiment.”

Everything in her very being locked up at that.

His brothers had tortured him? His brothers had…they had done that to him?

No wonder Cassian had said that he would rather run a sword through them than let them decide anything about Azriel’s healing.

“The shadows came to me after that…they kept me company. They kept me sane,” he explained, as a shadow curled itself around their entwined hands. “Mostly at least. They tried,” he added, some amusement bleeding into his voice.

“Didn’t succeed?” she quipped and he shook his head.

“They get bloodthirsty,” he recounted with a snort. “I killed my father later on,” he admitted to her, his voice quiet… ”I let my brothers live…their mother too. But him…him I killed.”

He said that so matter of factly, but she understood it. If she could have killed her monster, she would have.

“I was young…arrogant, stupid…I was just over twenty…After I was eleven and they had realised what I was becoming..a shadowsinger…the fact that I could be valuable to the Court and the then High Lord through my very specific abilities…they dumped me into another war camp and made me learn . That’s where I met Cassian and Rhys…and Rhys’ mother, who took me under he wing because she used to know my mother,” he said, and for the first time, he seemed mostly at peace as he told her the story. “We survived the Blood Rite…together. We were warriors…fully fledged soldiers…and I went to kill my father.”

“Did it make you feel better?” she asked, curiosity colouring her voice. “I used to wish I could do to him what he did to me…Make him live with the same pain I live with every day,” she admitted quietly. “I used to wish I could do that to my mother…make her understand what her precious second husband did to her daughter…”

“I felt very pleased with myself when I felt his blood drip down my hands,” Azriel admitted quietly. “I never regretted it if you mean that…I don’t know if I would do it again, but…”

“I once healed a male without pain relief because he was a grown man bullying a little girl…Since then Madja thinks I lack empathy sometimes,” Galena admitted, making him snort.

“Do you?” he asked her.

“I don’t think so…I would still do it the same way. He started it. He needed to learn that eventually, people would reach their breaking point and fight back. I would never do that to an innocent fae…but he wasn’t innocent,” she explained. “There is…a line that shouldn’t be crossed…but…” She tried to explain it to him, but he understood it, unspokingly.

“I have done…a lot of bad things in my life. I have killed so many that I lost count…but if I sit still and close my eyes I can still see their faces…I have tortured for information and followed the orders of a madman because I didn’t want to die. I am not proud of what I have done. Not of everything…I regret a lot of that…but…”

“But you did it for the Court,” she ended his sentence and he just nodded.

“It’s alright,” she promised him. They both had a twisted idea of what fair judgment was.

Dark Hazel eyes lifted and he stared at her.

“How can you say that?”

“Not a lot of homicidal maniacs are as beloved by their family as you are,” Galena quipped. Azriel just stared at her.

“Thanks, I think,” he gave back drily.

“I can live with it,” she promised him. “That’s what you are worried about, isn’t it? I am not going to run away screaming the first time you come home covered in blood.”

“You don’t know what you are agreeing to,” Azriel told her tightly, but she hung onto his hand.

“My aunt has been working for Rhysand for centuries,” she disagreed. “I can live with it,” she promised him.

“Can you?”

“If I get you, yes. If I get you, I can live with nearly anything.”

Maybe she shouldn’t have said these words, because he nearly pounced on her. But then, if the result was her stretched out on her couch and him kissing her…then she could live with the results.

Oh, she definitely could.

He kissed her properly, his mouth fused to hers, and she curled her fingers in his dark locks, gasping against him, feeling the current of his wings thrumming in the air behind him…

She could taste him, could taste chocolate and him, that taste that was Azriel through and through…

Her mouth opened in a gasp, and his tongue slipped in, her whole body shuddering…even as he let her gasp for air and kissed down the side of her neck.

“There’s one more thing,” she gasped out. He left off her neck, leaning his forehead against hers, and she stared into these beautiful green-brown eyes, flecked with pure gold.

“What do you mean?” he asked her and she could feel the blush tint her cheeks.

“I…” she was searching for the right words…“You know how I don’t really leave the house?” she asked him and then cringed, because as far as segues went…that was horrible.

“Yes?” Azriel asked her nonetheless, eyebrows furrowing.

“I…I have never done this,” she blurted out.

He stared at her, still not understanding.

“This, Azriel,” she waved between them. Still no recognition. “I have never laid with anybody,” she finally said, spelling it out, watching his eyes widen. “If that bothers you…” Galena trailed off, no idea what she would do if her lack of experience did bother him.

“Why should that bother me?” Azriel finally wondered.

“I don’t know,” she admitted. But if it did.

“I am not,” he told her drily, still balancing over her, the position not even putting any strain on him in any way…he wasn’t squishing her…his weight held securely on his forearms above her.

“What?” she asked.

“I am definitely not a virgin,” he told her calmly and she stared at him.

“I didn’t expect that?” she gave back questioningly. This was just… That hadn't even crossed her mind.

“If that bothers you…” he trailed off and only then she finally got it. She glared at him, even when he pressed a kiss to the tip of her nose, a grin covering his features, the most playful she had ever seen him.

“Be serious,” she requested in a huff. She had worried that he would care about her lack of experience, but it didn't seem to matter to him at all.

“I don’t care, Galena,” he promised her fiercely. “We’ll figure that out. We’ll take it slow. Everything at your pace.”

Something inside her loosened at that.

“But you’ll stay the night, right?” she requested shyly and he nodded.

“I’ll stay the night.”

“And you’ll kiss me?”

“I’ll kiss you every damn day.”

#acotar fanfiction #glorious sunrise #indelible #my writing #azriel x oc #azriel x reader #azriel fanfic #azriel fanfiction

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maximilliansblog · 10 months ago

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Welcome Home Hyacinth Theory 🏠🪻🐛

Hello Tumblr! Most Welcome Home theories are just little bits and pieces or “Wally is evil, guys look!”/”Wally is not evil! He is a goober!” etc.

This theory is fully fledged and provides a plot and evidence. I call it the Welcome Home “Hyacinth” theory, after the myth that it is based on. This will be a very long post so here is a TLDR: Julie kills Eddie while they are playing croquette-bowling out of jealousy because he is getting too close to Frank, who is supposed to be her boyfriend/best friend within the show. Either just Eddie or everyone involved gets replaced, except for Wally, who witnessed everything. This is why we have all of those videos of Wally dissociating.

I have been sitting around in my toom rambling to myself about this theory like a madman for over a week so I decided to share it.

Please reference this post from @/partycoffin (the creator of Welcome Home) when discussing Welcome Home and be respectful in the comments and reblogs.

Extra information from @theneighborhoodwatch:

Welcome Home Observation Document

Welcome Home Livestream Trivia

Welcome Home Archive Links + Backup Screenshots

Fanmade Welcome Home Wiki (I don't recommend the Fandom wiki)

Extra information on exploring the website from @angel-lyah:

Welcome Home Website Secrets

Alright, let’s get into it! I have evidence to back up every single one of those claims, and I will include it in this post.

I want to be very thorough with explaining this. I’ll start by establishing that there are three main plots within Welcome Home (that I have noticed, anyways):

The plot of the late 60’s - early 70’s TV show, Welcome Home - only related to published episodes, books, audios, etc. that would have been shown to the public at the time of airing Welcome Home

“Behind the show” - feelings and actions of the puppets outside of the show (such as Frank and Eddie being a couple, or Frank being nonbinary)

The Welcome Home Restoration Project - people working to restore the TV show, Welcome Home, and find any and all information related to it and who made it

Okay so for the rest of this essay, when I mention BtS, it is related to the “behind the show” plot. I will color these things blue. When I write WtS, it is related to the “within the show” plot. I will color these things green. When I write WHRP, it is related to the Welcome Home Restoration Project. I will color these things pink. I will also mention things that have been said either on Clown’s Tumblr blog, Clown’s Twitter, or old streams. I will say CS, meaning “Clown source” to denote these things and color them orange. Clown source and behind the show areas often overlap, so Clown source information is dominant over behind the show information (if it is both I will just color it orange). Good? Good.

Now let’s establish our characters (only the ones related to this theory) and their relationships to one another. We’ll go alphabetically, starting with Eddie, then moving onto Frank, Julie, and Wally.

I’m going to assume that if you are reading this, you have already visited the website (clownillustration.com) and have a basic understanding of who Eddie is. So I will only focus on the elements of his character that will be relevant in this theory.

Eddie (WtS) is clumsy and overworks himself. He is often dragged into Julie’s games. His house (post office) looks like this:

Note the hyacinth flowers and the butterfly. Eddie (BtS) loves Frank. (CS) He is married to Frank in one art on Clown’s Tumblr. BY THE WAY IT TOOK FOREVER TO FIND THIS IMAGE!!!! THEY ARE IN THE BOTTOM LEFT CORNER!!

Frank (WtS) is Julie’s boyfriend as it is implied that they are a couple within the show (I know a lot of us don’t like hearing this, but remember the three plots) (also for everyone that is going to argue with me on this, go look on their little profiles in the neighborhood section of the website and come back to me) and best friend. His house looks like this:

Note the sunflowers. Frank (BtS) loves Eddie.

(CS) As I said before, in one art on Clown’s Tumblr, Eddie and Frank are married (you can tell by the rings on their fingers in that image) . Frank is nonbinary but uses he/him pronouns (Clown refers to Frank on his blog with only he/him pronouns, so that is what I will use. Nonbinary people do not have to use they/them pronouns! Pronouns are not equal to gender!)

(WtS) Julie is a rainbow monster. Her thing is that she likes to make up and play games. She seems to be very strong (perhaps related to her being a rainbow monster), as she can easily lift Wally and is indirectly referenced to [throw a baseball very well] by Barnaby in the Live Interview audio. She also incorporates bowling into a lot of games where it is unnecessary. She seems to be immature, which is usually used to make her a playful character. Her and Frank are a couple. In several arts, her horns are different shapes or even nonexistent, implying that she has some ability to change her form. Her house looks like this:

Note the heart motif throughout the design. (BtS) Julie is best friends with Frank. (CS) She is genderfluid (she is only referred to using she/her pronouns on Clown’s blog, so that is what I will use).

(WtS) Wally is the main character in Welcome Home. His house is alive and is named Home. Home is often considered to be a ninth neighbor. Wally often communicates for Home. (WHRP) Wally signs Home’s name in the guestbook (as Home does not have hands) (please stop with the tentacles I have seen the art please stop for the love of god where did that even come from). (WtS) The other neighbors frequently ignore and talk over Wally, but he doesn’t seem to mind, saying that he loves all of his friends in the live interview audio.

Okay so now that that is established, let’s look at some promotional art. Promotional art is not necessarily canon and may contain outdated designs, but may hint at the plot of Welcome Home.

There is one more artwork that I would like to add, but it is on Clown’s KoFi. Here is a link to it that you can look at if you are subscribed to Clown’s KoFi:

[link to Clown’s KoFi here]

I won’t describe the image because some of you may not be subscribed to Clown’s KoFi. But if you are, you will see that the image supports my theory.

While we are discussing that image, I would also like to say that I believe that the puppets are some kind of biological organisms. I don’t have much evidence for this right now, but I may make a theory in the future.

We will come back to those promotional arts soon. Right now, let’s look at Frank and Eddie’s houses and discuss some symbolism and mythology.

Frank’s house has sunflowers outside of it. Sunflowers are a symbol of Apollo. Eddie has hyacinths outside of his post office, obviously a symbol of Hyacinthus. Hyacinthus and Apollo were lovers, but Hyacinthus tragically died. Let me tell the story so we have context. (I am really into Greek mythology by the way, it’s always been a special interest since middle school but I am also a Hellenic pagan, you should follow my witchcraft and paganism blog, creatively named @maxiswitchcraftandpaganblog)

So Apollo, god of the sun, art, archery, and LOTS of various other things, loved Hyacinthus, who was a mortal Spartan man. And Hyacinthus loved him too, by the way. The god of the (west? don’t feel like googling it) wind, Zephyrus, was jealous of Hyacinthus, because he also loved Apollo.

One day, Apollo and Hyacinthus were playing discus (like frisbee but the frisbee is giant and made of metal, kind of like a shield). Apollo threw the discus to Hyacinthus, but Zephyrus blew the discus off course with the wind, causing it to hit Hyacinthus in the head and kill him. Apollo created the hyacinth flower from Hyacinthus’ blood as he died, but in some myths made him a god. (read more on Apollo and Hyacinthus here)

I’m going to draw some parallels here. Frank = Apollo, Eddie = Hyacinthus, Julie = Zephyrus. Now Frank’s and Eddie’s parallels make sense because of the flowers, but where did I get Julie=Zephyrus from? Recall that (WtS) Julie and Frank are supposed to be a couple. Now, (BtS) Julie may or may not like Frank in that way, but she certainly enjoys being close to him as his best friend. Since she is already established as an immature character, it would make sense that she would be jealous seeing Frank get closer to Eddie.

Pause. So WtS, Frank and Julie are together. BtS, Frank and Eddie are together. If these are separate, then what is Julie jealous about? (WtS) Frank has been seen getting closer to Eddie even in the official material of the show. An example of this is him telling Eddie that he works too hard at the end of the “Eddie’s Big Lift” storybook record. So his BtS love for Eddie is leaking into the WtS canon. That is a problem for Julie, who is supposed to be Frank’s girlfriend WtS. So she comes up with an idea to fix this, much like the jealous god, Zephyrus.

So what does she do? Let’s turn our attention to the “Just So” song demo. This song was never finished with instrumentals, and for a reason. The puppets function as actors in the show, as it is obvious that they have their own free will, and Julie does something that the writers do not expect later in this episode. So the song was never finished because the episode was ruined.

In the “Just So” song demo, Frank and Julie are about to play croquette bowling. It was supposed to be just croquette, as Frank put on his croquette bow tie, but last minute, Julie added bowling to the mix.

Wally knocks on the door and interrupts their song, saying that Home wants to play croquette bowling too. This implies that Julie told someone else that they would be playing croquette bowling after she added bowling. I feel like Wally and Home overheard Julie telling Eddie that they would be playing croquette bowling. This would make sense, as Wally often stands by and listens while the other neighbors talk. It is not unusual for Eddie to participate in Julie’s games, either, as we see from Julie playing “business woman in the big city” with him. [add a photo]

The song recording ends before we see them playing croquette bowling together. But I have a piece of evidence to tell us how it ends. Look at this promotional art again.

You probably assumed that the figure in the back was holding a hammer, but that could actually be a croquette mallet!

It’s covered in some gory-looking stuff, probably from Eddie. Now look at the flower. Whose eyes look like that? Almond-shaped, round pupils. Only one character: Wally. Wally was a witness, which would make sense for him, since he often watches on as the other neighbors do things.

Julie is holding the flower in front of her, looking innocent. This is a stretch, but I think that this might be symbolism for her saying that she didn’t do it on purpose, Wally saw the whole thing, ask him! And Wally doesn’t know what to do. I don’t know what he does from there.

Maybe this image is a clue? I genuinely don’t know. Once again, promotional art is not necessarily canon, but we can use the concepts from it in theories.

This next part is also a bit of a stretch. The neighbors having a memory of something like that happening would ruin their “acting” (I think they are just being recorded as they do what they would naturally do). The show can’t have that. The solution? Replace everyone involved.

Now go back and look in the promotional art section and look at that art of Frank. It looks like Frank is laying among extra puppet parts. They have extras!

And this is why Wally is dissociating in the videos we see when we click on the bugs. They did not replace him, because like the neighbors, they didn’t even notice he was there.

Okay yeah that’s the theory. It was really hard to get this into a coherent Google Doc and gather all the links. I was just rambling to myself about this in my room over and over pacing around for like a week. But yeah here you go, hope it's a good theory, sorry if it's not lol please be nice to me

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dagwolf · 2 years ago

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Recent viral images of Southwest agents getting yelled at and crying have resurfaced a valuable lesson about the nature of our economic system that’s worth examining this holiday season: the deliberate, built-in ways corporate “customer service” is set up to not only shield those on the top of the ladder—executives, vice presidents, large shareholders—but pit low-wage workers against each other in an inherently antagonistic relationship marked by powerlessness and frustration. It’s a dynamic we discussed in “Episode 118: The Snitch Economy—How Rating Apps and Tipping Pit Working People Against Each Other,” of the Citations Needed podcast I co-host, but I feel ought to be expanded on in light of recent events. Watching video after video, reading tweet after tweet, describing frustrated stranded holiday travelers yelling at Southwest Airlines workers, and hearing, in turn, accounts of airline workers and airport staff breaking down crying, is a good opportunity to talk about how none of this is natural or inevitable. It is a choice, both in corporate policy and government regulation.

There are three main ways capital pits workers against each other in the relationship we call “customer service”:

1. Snitch economy. As discussed in Citations Needed Ep. 118, we are provided with more and more apps, websites, and customer surveys to effectively do the job of managing for management—free of charge, of course. Under the auspices of “empowering” the consumer, we are told to spy on our low-wage servants and gauge the quality of their servitude with stars, tips, and reviews. Uber, DoorDash, Fiver, Grubhub—a new “gig economy” has emerged that not only misclassifies workers as freelancers to pay them less, but hands over the reins of management to the consumer directly. This necessarily increases the antagonism between working-class consumers and the workers they are snitching on.

2. Automation. Increasingly, even getting to the bottom rung employee to yell at is difficult. Under the thin pretense of Covid, increased labor power has exploded the use of automated technology that creates a frustrating maze to get a simple problem solved or task accomplished. Don’t go to the register, instead download the app and order. Scan the QR code, don’t wait on hold, go to our website and engage a series of automated prompts and maybe you can solve your problem. More and more consumers are being pushed away from humans onto automated systems we are told will “save us time,” but instead exist solely to save the corporation labor costs. So, by the time the average consumer does finally work their way to seeing a human, they are annoyed, frustrated, and angry at this faceless entity and more willing to take it out on someone making $13 an hour.

One recent visit to Houston’s George H.W. Bush airport portended our obnoxious “automated” future. To cut down on unionized airport labor, all the restaurants use QR codes and require you to order food and drinks for yourself. Per usual, it’s sold as an exciting new technology that’s somehow good for consumers, but really the basic technology is 30 years old. It’s just a screen—the same ones restaurants have had for decades. The only thing that’s changed is the social conditioning of having you do all your own ordering and menu navigation. The waiter hasn’t been replaced by an iPad, they��ve been replaced by you. Invariably, it’s clunky and annoying and reduces the union jobs that airport construction is said to provide to justify soliciting public dollars. The only winner is a faceless corporation with a Delaware LLC and its shareholders living in a few counties in Connecticut and Texas.

Automation not only annoys and adds labor burdens to the customer, there is also evidence that it is a significant contributor to income inequality. A November 2022 study published in the journal Econometrica looked at the significantly widening income gap between lesser and more educated workers over the past 40 years. It found that “automation accounts for more than half of that increase,” as summarized by MIT News. “This single one variable … explains 50 to 70 percent of the changes or variation between group inequality from 1980 to about 2016,” said MIT economist Daron Acemoglu, co-author of the study. Whether or not, under a different economic system, automation could be a force for good is a debate for another day. But what is clear is that, while both consumers and workers are harmed by this trend, there is a significant want of solidarity between them.

3. Deliberate understaffing. This is a major culprit in this week’s Southwest Airlines meltdown. In parallel with the increased use of forced automation, cost-cutting corporations, facing increased labor power, are gutting staffing to its bare bones and hoping their corporate competitors doing the same will lead to a shift in consumer’s willingness to put up with substandard service and conditions, and overall bullshit. “We apologize for the wait,” the automated phone prompt tells us. Of course a machine cannot be contrite, so the effect is both surreal and grating: You’re not fucking sorry, you don’t exist. You're a recording. But now, who am I yelling at?

...

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sapphire-rb · 3 months ago

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DQB2: The Minimap's Unused 3rd Dimension. (Minimap deep dive)

I want to talk a little about the minimap and how some of its features got scrapped mid-development.

My apologies, I suck at explaining stuff, but just bear with me. ok?

Let's learn about minimaps in DQB2!

So, this is a minimap. It's made of tiles.

All tiles have what I'll call an ID and a Type.

A tile's ID basically tells us what tile it is. For example:

ID 0 is deep water, ID 1 is normal water, ID 14 is grass, etc...

There are a lot of tile IDs, most of them covering all types of coastline water.

A tile's Type tells us what is on top of the tile. Here's an example:

There are exactly 11 tile types. Only 4 are used:

You may ask, "but what about the mountain tiles, those do exist in the final game! They are not unused!"

True, but the game handles mountains in a different way. The above method makes it possible to have mountains in all tiles, which is not true for how the game works in the final release.

You can see in prerelease images how all tiles could have mountains.

Image1-> Shows mountains on grass, Image2-> Shows mountains on sand.

I'll explain now how mountains are handled in the final release, before coming back to the other unused types.

Each tile, apart from having their ID and Type, has 2 other values that can be set to either 0 or 1:

The visibility value, which tells us if the tile has been explored or if its hidden from view.

And a height value, that seems to tell us if the tile is an at elevation?

For example, Lets look at a tiny Cerulean Steppe map and see how the values look:

It's a lot at once, I know.

The most important part here is the height value. There are tiles that look identical but have different height values

Look at the bottom right corner.

These 2 tiles would look identical to the player, but secretly one has height value of 1 and the other one has a value of 0.

What does this value do? It does 1 very specific thing.

It is hard-coded to turn these 5 tiles into these 5 mountain variants:

That's it. That's the only thing the height value does. It handles the 5 mountain tiles that are used and exist in the final game.

So, what is going on with the "tile type" system then? Why does most of it go unused?

Why would the programmers code in such a complex system with 11 different type options, only to scrap most of them and only use 4?

The type system seemed to handle all of the mountain placements just fine. Note that the minimap height value only tells the game what tile should go there. The types 7 through 10 acomplish the exact same thing.

The thing is, it seems that originally the type system was going to handle a lot more minimap and tile variance than what we got, but got replaced by a quick, hard-coded fix with the extra height value smacked in alongside the visibility value.

Now, I've been hiding something from you, back when I showed you the prerelease images, because I saved the best for last.

Let us look to our friend, the only unused icon still in the game, the tower.

This is the only "type" graphic that covers the tile beneath it entirely. This could imply it was a very early, placeholder item that would be replaced with a transparent one later.

What could this tower be? Perhaps a minimedal puzzle icon? An early version of the door icon, intended for buildings?

Well, the prerelease images tell us all.

Look at this photograph.

This is a curious image, isn't it?

Usually prerelease images like this one are trying to showcase something. Locations, story, characters... but this image only shows us some building work, no scenary, no nothing.

If you look closely though, you can see the tower in the minimap.

It's a little pixelated, but it's there alright. Right on top of the big tower building. So I suppose it is an old room tile?

But- wait.. what is that?

It's a little bit small, I don't blame you if you missed it the first time. I sure did. And I was the one that found the location of the image too- and it flew right past me...

It's a house.

A house? But isn't the tower the "room" icon?

Do you know what this image is trying to show us?

Tall buildings (like a tower) would showcase in the minimap with the "tower" tile. Small buildings (like a house) would showcase in the minimap with the "house" tile.

Do you think... I'm reaching, perhaps?

Then, let me explain further.

It's not just that those 2 incospicuous buildings are "tall" and "small" respectively.

The tower seems to be copy pasted. All floors are the exact same. No nuance, no variation. It's looks like the devs built that tower to be so tall for the sake of it being tall. Like the whole point of it is that it had to be tall. For what?

The house has the lowest height possible, at just 2 blocks tall. No windows, no nothing. It's just a rectangle with a barebones roof to show that yes, this is a house. Who in their right minds builds a 2 height room with a roof in this game? That's just asking the camera to break, honestly. Its almost like they wanted to make a squished, low house. For what?

And those builds aren't that pretty or use interesting blocks or anything. They're just... there.

Did I convince you? Well... what this all means is that...

There used to be a mechanic in the game where the tile shown in the minimap would depend on its height.

Artificial (building) or natural (terrain), it did not matter. All tile heights would be represented.

An unused 3rd dimension. The minimap's Z coordinate.

Isn't that cool? The type system was meant to give height variations to all the tiles.

But wait. There's more! One last prerelease image...

This one is showcasing a pretty waterfall and the cool terrain generation. But we don't care about that, let us look at the 120p minimap.

What do we have here? Well, the mountains look interesting, do they not?

It is quite curious that there are 2 of the mountain icons we can see in the final release of the game here. One that looks like a little mound, and another that looks like a robust, tall mountain...

Say, isn't it interesting? In the final game the mountain types are locked to each tile. But here, its almost like the game differenciates between "small elevation" and "big elevation".

Yes. It's not just "high" and "low". When I said "height variations" I meant it.

The mountains were not just "mountains". There would be different mountains for different heights, the same way there are different buildings for different building heights.

So at least for natural terrain, we have minimum 3 height levels confirmed.

Here's a little breakdown of the other parts of this minimap...

It would even account for height in the water tiles, giving them rocky water variants if the terrain rose past the water level!

Maybe thats what the missing 4th and 5th types would have? A house and rocks for water?

Or maybe there used to be more types, but the number got reduced mid-development? 11 is a weird number, especially in programing.

This height system seems to have been scrapped in between April 22 and August 2.

Look at this photograph, from August 2

This is just Al's cabin again. You can see the house as the building icon and the rocky water being still there. But the mountains look like the final release's mountains.

Rip 3rd dimension. March 30-April 22. We barely knew you, but it was nice to meet you, even if just briefly.

Thanks for coming on this minimap journey with me!

Some extra stuff:

The whole rocky water... wouldn't it be cool if that were still in the game? Look at IoA (the area left to the temple):

(Not quite the spot...)

All of that area is just... water.

It'd be really cool to have rocks around there y'know?

Hello there, unused tile.

This tile is ID 5. I've run out of steam so here's a picture of it, alongside ID 21, that was probably meant for all the technology blocks used in the ARK and such.

The building tiles are the last IDs in the list (before all the water begins) so mayhaps it was here when they realised buildings would be bigger than 1 tile, added the brick tiles, and realised big buildings broke the "tower" "house" rule so they scrapped it. (They also appear in the august images but not in the april ones.)

Here are tiles from 21 to 25.

Haha funny ilogical water tiles

The type system takes priority over the mountain system. You can see that in Moonbrooke's map. The trees take priority over the mountains.

All of this info I recompiled for the minimap exporter tool. Give it a try if you want! Next release will include support for all of the unused icons (even if not accesible without hacking)

#dqb2 #dragon quest builders 2 #dqb2 modding #I finished writing the draft of this at 3am without eating dinner. Malroth would be dissapointed

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howler-moon · 12 days ago

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AI advertisement will never stick the landing tbh

Not to drop another essay out of nowhere again but I'm still very much ill and stuck with only my own thoughts to keep me entertained. To be completely honest this topic has actually been on my mind for a couple of weeks and is something I've made imaginary commentary videos about in my head but with the recent AI Coke ad causing a stir and my usual habit of spouting nonsense on Tumblr for shits and giggles I thought no better opportunity than now to put my own two cents on the table since I'll seemingly be stuck in bed for the rest of the week. As both an artist and someone who's doing Business for their Leaving Cert (god forbid) this topic is something that peaks my interest greatly and is something I had more to say about than I thought. If anything, Business has just taught me how soulless companies can be and if I have to learn the Marketing Mix just so I can get the points I need to get into college by god are you gonna hear about it.

A few weeks back I came across a funny Instagram reel with the basic premiss of "guy wakes up after a 10 year coma and only remembers 2010's British adverts" and it was an absolute banger because of how true it was. I don't know if the primary audience who will see this will be familiar with British adverts (I myself am Irish but we basically hog all their tv channels because ours suck lmao) but oh my god you have no idea how iconic they were. I understood every single reference in that reel from the opera singer from the Go Compare ads, to the meerkats from Compare the Market . com to the Jingle from the Lellie Kellie's shoe ad that was drilled into my head like a sleeper agent. 10 year old me may have had no interest in car insurance but by god could I tell you all about Direct Line and their insurance policies because of their funky little red telephone on wheels or perhaps even what Churchill that freaky little puppet bulldog could give you instead. Advertising was so absurd and out of pocket like I have no idea what singing poodles have to do with floor cleanser but you know for a fact I'll start singing along once the Flash ad comes on. There's a reason you often see essentially the same advert run for a company for years and even decades at a time, with just minor edits to keep it fresh. A) Because Marketing is probably one of the most expensive parts of selling a product but B) and my main point of interest being that a single, memorable ad will bring you much further than multiple unimaginative ones.

Moving onto the Coke ad specifically, for the sake of comparison I gave it a watch and holy shit guys was it bad. For those who have had the pleasure of not seeing it yet, this new AI ad is essentially a remake and apparently the replacement of the well known "The Holiday's are Coming" advert that has been running since 1995. Now the impact this ad has on pop culture is undeniable. For many people when this ad starts rolling out onto tvs its considered the start of the Christmas season. The image of the Coca Cola trucks driving through the snow, gathering crowds who watch in awe as all the bright and colourful lights pass by through the night is one of the most iconic things of all time, its the reason the ad has been running for 28 years. The link Coke and Christmas have with each other is genuinely crazy like people credit the company for Santa's red coat, whether it actually be true or not. Coca Cola is an example my business teacher brings up all the time because of how good they (were) with their campaigns. The thing about Coke's marketing is that they're not selling the drink, they're selling the emotion associated with it. They're selling the "happiness" that comes with drinking a Coke they've had campaigns that tell you to "taste the feeling", the whole gimmick behind the Coke bottles with the names on them is the feeling you get when you're gifted with one or find one. There is countless examples of this and that's what makes the new AI ad crash and burn so badly because it's absolutely soulless.

The content of this ad is so stiff and uncanny. The trucks slide around like pngs on seperate layers of a cheap editing program, everything is smooth and lifeless. Sure the people are smiling, but there's not really any joy behind those smiles. They stand there lifeless and unmoving, you could replace the crowd in this advert with cardboard cut outs waving gently in the wind and you would get the same outcome. They react less than the average SSSniperwolf reaction video, instead of her siting there smiling blankly and something interesting enough for her to steal its just a group of people blankly smiling at nothing. Watching paint dry would harbour an more interesting reaction. The movements are slow and unnatural, there's no ease in or out as Santa's food moves across the ground it just moves at a consistent pace like an actual robot. Hmmm I wonder why.. its genuinely actually so funny that Coke prides itself with selling an emotion rather than a product when they take away the very thing that gave their adverts emotion in the first place. They talk about selling nostalgia in a bottle and then tear away one of the most nostalgic things they have ever created. If anything all this new advert does is expose Coke for not holding onto their "core values" and I'm happy people are getting upset as more and more companies try and pass off cheap slop as quality. If the emotion Coke is trying to sell is disappointment then I guess they've won??

The thing about AI ads is that the only thing memorable about them is that they were made by AI. I've seen one AI ad on the TV before and I keep getting another one on Youtube all the time and I genuinely could not tell you what either one was selling for the life of me because all I could think was "oh gross". That youtube one plays in front of almost every video I watch and I STILL don't remember what its for. AI is never going to think of something unique by itself that will hook an audience in. Sure, hypothetically someone could give it a creative prompt, but that requires a creative person, and 9 times out of 10 a creative person isn't going to use an AI to execute their vision, because AI isn't creative enough to do so. Companies have no interest in being unique anymore, what's the use in standing out when you're all owned by the same conglomerate at the end of the day, right? Why spend money when there's a formula everyone uses? why take the risk when there's no competition? Companies genuinely do not care about what you think, only about what you buy and that's just great <333

uhm wow what the fish i like blacked out writing that im so ill rn i apologise if some of this didn't make sense i have the worst fever known to man rn (fire emoji) This is probably something i should come back to and clean up a little bit to make it more clear but i dont give a fuck my dinner is ready have this obscure advert someone sent me on discord a couple of years ago that i hold close to my heart even today to lighten the mood

#coke ad #coca cola #ai #ai sucks ass dawg omg #rant #yapping #coca cola ad #idk dawg #bazinga #what the fish

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reachartwork · 1 year ago

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honestly I find some of the anti-ai art stuff ridiculous in the rhetoric they use, like people saying it's cheating at art, devalues art, or lacks soul. Photobashing, collage, relying too heavily on a reference and with some people using any reference at all, have all been called cheating at art. I never heard people call it cheating when people used computer programs to make photomosaics.

Art has already been devalued, ordinary artists had been able to make a decent living in the 70s, now it's really hard to make a living through art. There's loads of old dramas where people are like, failed artists, and yet they still have a place to live. It's just not a very nice place. Nowadays even pretty good artists can find it a struggle to not have to have a roommate or a rich partner or something. Also people have been saying that something means that art lacks a human touch for ages, humans have drawn clipart, or made vectors from photographs, and those have been considered lacking a soul or w/e Like the valid points people have tend to be that like companies are going to use generative art to replace artists, that's true, but expanding copyright will always protect the companies not the artists. Producing a right to remix would protect individuals better, it's not people like you who are the problem, it's people like Microsoft Activision Blizard. Secondly the consent in generative works isn't good either, nor is the processing power used, but I'm sure ya'll about ethical works are talking about that. Also personally I think if an individual doesn't make any marks on a piece of generative art, or doesn't produce any code, only keywords and choice I think it would be better to say they're a guider or generationist or something. It just feels more descriptive towards the image making, like how a painter isn't a sculptor, but someone who just does found object art is still basically an artist, but they're not someone who sketches.

I know some artists are scared and feel like they shouldn't bother doing art because the computer can do it, but like, people are still mathematicians even though computers are great at calculations. We might not have human calculators any more, but the field is still very important. On either side of things at very least we should be fighting capitalism and not each other. Like fuck adobe, fuck disney, they can make technically ethical systems from their own massive image libraries, but it's their artists who will suffer the most. We need to provide incomes and housing for everyone, and full union support, to ensure that techology benefits humanity, rather than it benefiting only the capitalists.

Also btw I say this as someone who has done professional art both digitally and physically, and I've not used any generated art for any of it, though I have done a paintover and I really like sketching "this horse doesn't exist" and using "this human doesn't exist" for oil painting practice

posting ask without comment

#discourse #ai art discourse #ai art

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gay-jesus-probably · 1 year ago

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you also have to consider that i don't think Zelda had a lot of high thoughts about herself because of everything her father told to her, it's pretty clear she thinks of herself a failure not fit to save anyone or even be a royal in botw especially the closer to the calamity we got in the memories. if they just had her and link go around hyrule helping people (which is what I assume they did) in the timeskip they should attribute people liking her so much to her being helpful and literally fending the calamity off for 100 years instead of being royalty, which they could have done easily because it's pretty obvious she did go around hyrule to help (the school is a pretty good example)! it would make zeldadorf going around being malicious way cooler as link has to clear her name around Hyrule

Yeah, Zelda's helpful and all the level of obsession the NPC's in the world have with Zelda doesn't at all match up with all the (fairly basic) nice things she's done, and ESPECIALLY doesn't work with how everyone is totally cool with Fake Zelda raising hell. Ensuring that one village has an elementary school should not generate enough goodwill to let people forgive brainwashing and attempted murder. Not to mention the long list of Good Deeds she apparently has time for is just... bizarre, and a sign that she's actually a pretty crappy leader considering she has zero time management skills. Like lady, you're rebuilding a fucking kingdom after a century long apocalypse, I really don't think you should be spending your time teaching people how to cook random recipes and helping to plant flower gardens. And the random carved little monuments for everyone who died in the Calamity also strike me as just... no. You can commission the fancy monuments later, everyone fucking knows it happened right now. Hell, why don't any of the villages have memorials for the Calamity victims, they're the ones that actually had to deal with the immediate aftermath. Having Zelda place generic memorials everywhere just makes me wonder why the hell there aren't any old memorials made by survivors in the immediate aftermath, in the places where people actually live and can visit them.

Also while I know all of the memorials having a respawning silent princess flower on them is just the game continuing to be wildly unsubtle about "look this flower represents zelda DO YOU GET IT GUYS", from an in-universe perspective it's absolutely hilarious. Those flowers are extremely endangered, and not even the best pre-calamity conservation efforts were enough to help. They're STILL very fucking endangered, and were believed to be extinct! They canonically cannot cultivate this plant, it's very rare and only grows in the wild... which is why they're picking these extremely rare flowers to use as decoration on a memorial. And now you can't find them growing in any of the spots they used to florish in, except the Lost Woods. They're not even tied to the fairy fountains, because there's none of them growing around the new fountain locations. I like to think that Zelda decided to make all the stupid memorials and have a silent princess flower left on each one, and so her loyal followers have been replacing all the cut flowers every time they wither, and as result the silent princess flower is on the verge of extinction again. I know it's not what the game was trying to say, but it's the logical conclusion to make - people have been picking this very endangered plant all over the country, and now you can't find it anymore. And also it's a really funny mental image that Zelda was so concerned about their conservation back in BOTW that she spent a whole memory talking about it, but now she's having them picked en-masse to make sure her vanity project has the correct aesthetic. I hate Zelda in TOTK for many reasons, but her new habit of intentionally killing an endangered plant is easily the funniest problem the writing accidentally gave her.

Anyways as for her mental state before the Calamity, I do see that as being very complicated. She's got a lot of Issues, mainly stemming from her family, religion, stress and powers. No need to go over all that though, as I think everyone has long since analyzed that to hell and back. BUT at the same time, while her personal life is fucking miserable, we can't ignore that she's still literally the crown princess of an extremely powerful nation, and has spent her entire life being told that she is fundamentally a better person than everyone else. She was being emotionally abused by her father, but that does not change the fact that she's incredibly privileged, and doesn't seem particularly aware of that fact. I mean fuck, the BOTW memories show Zelda had a habit of actively trying to lose her bodyguard and run off alone into the wilderness on a whim. And when said bodyguard caught up with her (with zero judgement or displeasure), her only reaction was to emotionally abuse him. She genuinely did not seem to understand or care that it's a universally bad idea to let an unarmed teenager run off alone into the monster infested wilderness, with nobody knowing where she's going or when she'll be back. And that's without taking into account people actively trying to kill her.

All of that behaviour right there is just a combination of teenage dumbassery and Zelda being extremely privileged. She lives in a world without any serious consequences, why would she need to learn self preservation? And her abusing Link was a hell of a lot more serious than the fandom likes to see it as. Being a knight is literally his lifes work, he's been training since he was a small child, he has no idea how to support himself in any other way. And he answers directly to the reigning monarch, which is currently King Rhoam... but in the very near future would be Zelda. If he doesn't follow Rhoam's orders to be Zelda's bodyguard, he's fired and his life is ruined. If he does follow his orders, he's angering Zelda, and then in the future she'll probably retaliate by firing him, and his life will be ruined. I absolutely hate that most of the fandom has decided Link was reacting to the verbal abuse with just "wow she's so smart and pretty, what a girlboss", because that's completely insane (and in the context of shipping, wildly unhealthy for Link). I see Link silently tolerating Zelda's harassment as just him desperately trying to minimize how much she hates him, because she can absolutely destroy his life on a whim, and her actions all suggested she will absolutely do so. Princess Zelda does not want Link to ever exist in her presence; why the fuck would she want to keep him employed after she becomes Queen?

...To be clear, I think all of this is a good thing. I mean, Zelda being a privileged little shit and coping with stress by abusing her personal servant are very negative traits for her as a person, but as a character I really like it! These are very serious flaws, but they're understandable - she's not a total bitch because she's pure evil, she acts like a bitch because she's a stressed teenager lashing out at the easiest target, and she genuinely does not realize how harmful her actions are. I liked that the game wasn't afraid to show us an uglier side of Zelda, and trusted the audience to understand that she was more than just her worst impulses. I think the closest we've ever gotten to that was Skyward Sword Zelda admitting that she pretended to be in grave danger to manipulate Link into doing her dirty work, and he should not be okay with that... but that wasn't quite as nuanced, because that was more Zelda literally being a god in mortal form, and doing something morally sketchy for the Greater Good. BOTW Zelda is just a person that hurt someone because it was an easy way to make herself feel better. It gives her a depth that very few Zelda's have been allowed to have.

And it really bothers me that apparently all of that is just gone in TOTK. Zelda, who is inexplicably still a princess for some reason, is the unquestioned almighty ruler of Hyrule. The Zora King and Gerudo Chief both swear eternal subversience to her in the ending, and Zelda happily accepts their submission as just what she is rightfully owed. When she's in the past she feels completely entitled to declare that Link will finish the battle for them, even though the last time she saw him he'd lost his entire fucking arm and was falling to his death, and also the entire situation is very political, and she has no idea which side Link would interpret as being correct. For fucks sake, she stole his goddamn house, made extensive renovations, added a large second room for herself, and still did not allow him to have any space in there. They're not sharing that bed, shippers. Link just does not live there anymore. That's why one of the TOTK sidequests is... Link getting a house again, on the other side of the country from where Zelda is living. The game repeatedly tells me that Zelda is actually the single bestest person who ever lived, but she never shows any real consideration for the wellbeing of someone who isn't Rauru, Sonia or Mineru... apart from the opening where she expresses concern that Link was seriously wounded by slapping three keese with his sword and killing them instantly. Which is more condescending than anything else.

And as I think I've mentioned before, all the apparently great and noble deeds Zelda performs are done with the overall goal of ensuring the Kingdom of Hyrule continues to exist under the control of the royal family. She's the current reigning monarch, so literally all of this is for her own benefit. There's nothing wrong with doing good things that also benefit you, of course, but once again the game constantly insisting that Zelda is a perfect selfless martyr... doesn't really track with the fact that she's the only one with a real motive to want Hyrule to remain under her rule. Everyone else has been getting by just fine without her for the last century, and Zelda going missing at the start of a crisis doesn't really cause any issues with leadership; things keep running smoothly, the only issues that ever show up is from Zelda not being there to do specific tasks she said she would do, like help plant a flower garden. Idk, it just leaves a really bad taste in my mouth; there's absolutely no reason for Hyrule to be a monarchy post-calamity, and the fact that everyone is so fanatically loyal to Zelda makes me feel like she's actively working to keep herself on the throne because she wants the power. If her first priority was being a good leader, people wouldn't be scared to question her.

But I'm with you on the Puppet Zelda plotline being wasted, it's like the whole thing was just there bcause the devs realized the main story quest (regional phenomenon) had nothing to do with the supposed main quest (find zelda), and just threw in a fake zelda to chase so the players would feel like they were making progress on that, but couldn't be bothered to make the fake zelda subplot have any consequences. That or they were just cowards with no faith in the audience, and figured if the fake Zelda's actions made NPC's express fear and hatred for the real one, the player would also be convinced that the real Zelda was bad. Which is ironic, considering the NPC's refusing to express any negative thoughts about the fake Zelda is a massive red flag about what the real one is like, and has convinced a lot of the audience not to like her.

#tears of the kingdom #tears of the kingdom spoilers #also for the record i was kinda meh on zeldas memory arc in BOTW #just because i felt they glossed over the whole 'zelda hating link' bit waaay too quickly #and i didnt like that link's entire personality was apparently just him going :| while other people talked #just say the memories are about meeting zelda. dont pretend you're giving link any development here #but compared to TOTK i now love BOTW zelda. she's complicated and interesting and i want to see more of her #totk zelda is about as interesting as the rock she eats #also anon im pretty sure this is just one part in a series of asks you sent #and i have read them all and will try to answer other parts if/when i can #as previously mentioned theres a month old puppy eating a lot of my time

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