#changed light world axis colors

[scorchrend]

dark world college sprites featuring some minor edits to the others

[moon-upright]

Rare Smiles - Julian Devorak

(the one in which Esme gushes talks about her lover's smile...)

(esme is something of a writer so why doesn't SHE answer this prompt, huh? why should i do it)

♡

Julian's Smile: A Thought by Esme Noble

Julian's smile isn't rare, if by “rare” you mean “infrequent.” On the contrary, he smiles all the time, and for a variety of reasons, I find.

He smiles sometimes when he's nervous, sometimes when he's sad, or to make people comfortable, or to keep a secret (his version of a poker face is a relaxed smile as opposed to stoicism)… Just off of the top of my head. That doesn't even mention how he smiles when he's happy, and how even within that one emotion he's got different shapes of smiles — his raffish grin, a teasing smirk, a small smile of awe, a smile of endearment, a beam of pure joy.

It's like a reflex to him; if you catch him unawares, he's likely to smile in surprise at whatever you did or said. (Especially if he's falling asleep. If he's barely awake and you speak to him, half the time the corners of his lips curl up and his eyebrows raise before he's even processed what you said. It's the funniest thing. The cutest.)

His smile is rare in the sense that something about it is so unique to him. It's Julian's Smile. That's why it looked so odd to see him grin while in disguise as Asra. It just didn't fit who Asra is.

It's everything that Julian is. It's sharp, it's dramatic, it's flirtatious.

If you went into a bar and asked around about him (“What's the first thing you think of when you hear Julian Devorak? ”), you would hear a variety of answers, from “You mean the tall one?” or “The one with the hair?” to a heartily laughed/sneered “That bastard!” And certainly included in this list is “The one with the smile?” Or some variation of it. I mean it, I've heard it myself. He is the one with the smile so bright that it burns itself into your mind.

I suppose even I am not immune to a pretty smile — when we first met (the actual first time, before the Plague), it was what I initially noticed about him. Some people have that ability to smile naturally in such a way where all you want is to see them smile again. I imagine that I'm not alone in this feeling either, where Julian Devorak bursts into your life, all grins, and it makes your heart soar into some Ether realm full of fire and light and color. To smile like that, and change someone's life forever, to change me from someone who was not particularly inclined toward anything, and tilt my world on its axis, is magic.

Though I figure it wasn't only the smile that did all of that. It would be meaningless if not for the person behind it. Julian Devorak and his magic.

[siremasterlawrence]

Yes Chef!

“Smoking! What a nasty habit chef?” I say to the second in command.

“Don’t start with me”

“Relax! Imagine the smoke forming shapes”

“Watch as it flowers in to the air “

“Forming new shapes “

“As they change colors “

“Spinning on its own axis”

“The world whirls”

“As the smoke lifts in the air”

“It is infiltrating his nostrils “

“Blow out”

“Your eyes light up “

“Everything grows blurry”

“Your vision crumbles “

“You are at my mercy”

“Be a good boi”

“Inhale”

“Exhale “

“What do you desire chef?”

“Uuuuggggh!”

“No slurring your speech”

“I desire respect “

“My own kitchen”

“Five stars”

“Take this sheet”

“What is it?”

“It’s a special recipe”

“It will rock your socks off”

“One whiff and your life will change “

“You will owe me big time”

“Well get up”

“Clean yourself up and start to prep “

“You look like shit”

“Why can’t I move?”

“You can’t till I command “

“One more inhale “

“You accept me”

“I am your leader”

“My commander “

“You serve only me”

“I am the beginning and the end “

“Hear me out”

“Kneel and submit “

“Yes Master Lawrence “

“Kiss my ass”

“I own you “

“You work for me”

“I am your love”

“You will cook for me”

“All day “

“Morning, noon, night at work and home “

“Chef!”

“That was a banger “

“Everybody loves it “

“Of course “

“What’s in it?”

“Never mind”

“Yes chef”

“I love you “

“My boss wants to speak with you “

“I think he wants “

“To sell it to me”

“All according to plan”

“You are my God!”

“The center of my world “

“Yes Chef”

“Thank you chef”

“I’ll be back soon”

“Knock him dead “

The owner of the restaurant is so fucking hot and super sexy with that gorgeous face of his smiling at me and I knew I had to have him for good because he belongs to me now and it was my cue as he walks all the way in to the room Before he walks in to the room I take a deep inhale of my magical aroma consuming the room because I let it settlein to the room as it flows every hitting him dead on and I can see it from a far as his eyes drop downward as he looks at me.His face is totally becoming vacant as it is becoming a blank slate abandoned of any and all expression as he approaches me his hand out for a firm shake to which I swat it to the side due to my need to settle control on him. He looks stunned and quite appalled with my poor behavior according to him any action took could be misconstrued at this very moment. “No need to speak why don’t you inhale instead, you can’t think anyway except service to me.” I repeat

“Everyone this is your new boss”

“Chef Lawrence “

“I submit to him”

“I love him”

“He loves me”

“I am promoting the new chef Jeremey”

“He is now my commander”

“His kitchen “

“Masters Employee”

“Take a deep breath”

“Inhale”

“Exhale”

“Forget it all”

“He loves you “

“You love him”

“Give in”

“Yes we surrender “

“We love you “

The end

[sgtbradfords]

Chenford + Love Confession ❤️

Lucy pulled the blue cotton sheet higher over her chest, holding the fabric there as she sat upwards on the bed. Suddenly, she felt undoubtedly exposed.

"You're leaving."

A stillness fell over the bedroom, while her thoughts ran freely. The silence was deafening, maddening, and done nothing to help the pounding sensation that was currently happening inside her head.

She found a scoff falling past her lips, an odd mixture of shame and disbelief before she pulled her mouth closed, rolling her tongue along the inside of her cheek.

It seemed as though that was all the man, who stood at the foot of her four-poster bed needed.

Hastily he tucked the grey t-shirt that had once been on her bedroom floor, back into the waistband of his jeans. Normally Lucy would have found herself staring unabashedly, but this time, it was different.

"What else did you expect?"

Last night when he eased her back on the couch, she had drunkenly hoped that something had changed, that he had changed. Even when he had whispered, 'Nothing's changed Luce.' against the curve of her neck.

She had been an idiot for ever letting him through her front door.

Humorlessly she released a laugh, removing her hand away from her chest as the sheet pooled around her waist. She gestured animatedly in front of her, "I expected us to finally talk about it!"

His ministrations faltered, his hands pausing with his black leather belt mid loop. Not once did his stare waver from her own, giving her every bit of the non-answer she needed. They were never going to talk about it, certainly not now anyways.

Lucy turned her head towards the window, ignoring the pain that was spreading like a wildfire inside her chest. She could see that dawn was rapidly approaching outside, the early morning light casting her room in a paleness that matched the mood inside the room.

"You lost the right to show up here and fuck me when you broke up with me, Tim."

Had her stare been turned towards the man in question, she would have seen him flinch.

"That's not-"

"Then what was it?" Bitterly she laughed with the turn of her head. "What was last night? This morning? A drunken mistake? A lapse in judgement? Why did you even come here?"

Silently she pleaded for the tears that were welling in her eyes to hold off for just a minute longer.

Tim done nothing more than gape at her, his mouth wordlessly opening and closing as her words rendering him speechless, tilting his world a little further off its axis.

"Did you mean it?" Her voice was low, roughened with traces of sleep and the weight of holding back a dam of emotions from cascading over the top.

Her question brought him out of his stupor.

He tried hiding the shift of weight from one foot to the other. He tried hardening, schooling his features into one that hid his emotions. He tried containing the clenching of his jaw and the flexing of his hands.

He may have tried, but he undoubtedly failed.

"Mean what?"

"What you told me last night."

She blinked once, a rogue tear sliding down the slope of her cheek but she never made the motion to swipe it away.

The look Tim had been projecting, fell away within the blink of an eye. It was once again every bit of an answer, but she needed to hear him say it again.

"Of course I do, Lucy." His voice was as soft as the look he was giving her, soft yet firm. Almost as though he would vehemently deny ever being told otherwise. "I'll always love you."

"But?" She whispered, bringing her knees up to her chest as he moved around to what had long since been her side of the bed.

Lucy knew what he was about to do when he bent at the knee, the fingers of his left hand becoming entangled in her coffee colored strands. She could have stopped him, should have stopped him. But she couldn't find it in herself to.

His lips pressed against her forehead softly, lingering for a second. Two. Five before he pulled away to look at her in earnest. His thumb swiped across her cheek as he tenderly told her to, "Get some rest."

The tears began to fall more freely as he walked out of the room, but her sobs only start after hearing the soft click that came from the front door.

Lucy thought she knew heartbreak but this... this was worse than any stab wound or gun shot. This was something that permeated itself deep into her heart, her soul, her mind, and the only cure had readily sealed their fate.

Read part 2, here!

[luciaiscool7]

The Disastrous Life of Saiki K. - Superhero Roundtable

How do structural mythology, cultural studies, and cultural history reflect the series’ world and world-building around superheroes? 

The Disastrous Life of Saiki K centers on the titular character, Saiki K, a highschool student with Superman-esque levels of psychic power. He has trademark pink hair and must wear green glasses and antennae in order to limit his powers. Saiki, as one of the only actual psychic characters in the anime, actually doesn’t want to solve problems, or help anyone with his powers, and most of the show he uses his powers to minimize attention and keep to himself. His only really widespread use of power was changing everyone in the world’s hair color to also be colorful so that he doesn’t stand out as much. In direct opposition to Saiki’s nonexistent need for attention and immense psychic power, his classmate Kaidou, has no power whatever but claims to be The Jet-Black Wings, the only person standing against The Dark Reunion, an evil organization running the world behind the scenes. This is played for satire as Kaidou loudly brags about being the Jet-Black Wings and blames every mishap on the Dark Reunion, wears red bandages on his arms to “control his power,” and a dramatic action song “Judgement Knights of Thunder” plays everytime he does anything. 

Saiki K is a comedy anime satirizing the idea of a “superhero” through Saiki K, who kind of sucks and doesn’t care that much about other people, but even in using his powers selfishly, ultimately helps the people around him. This show challenges the idea that superheroes would necessarily swing to complete good or complete evil, and makes fun of those ideas in the example of satirizing binary thinking through Kaidou’s fake enemy, The Dark Reunion. Although the show begins with Saiki K doing everything he can to avoid attention and making friends, he warms up to his classmates over the show and uses his powers for their benefit, even as he convinces himself he’s just trying to help himself. 

The origination of manga in Japan was influenced by the globalization of American comics, including superhero comics, brought during WWII. Interestingly, as members of the Axis Powers, Japan and Japanese characters were featured in American superhero comics as enemies to the nation, often depicted as racist stereotypes for wartime propaganda. On an international scale, superheroes are associated with the US, as a national export and national representation of American might and power. This can be seen in superhero anime like My Hero Academia, where All Might represents the All-American superhero figure. Shows like Saiki K and Mob Psycho 100 have superhero-like characters and themes but distance themselves from calling them that, positioning themselves as psychics rather than superheroes.

In what ways are the superheroes and their abilities informed by their racial, gender, sexual, and cultural identities? 

Saiki K definitely participates in the de-racialization of characters as Will Bridges spoke to in “The Past Tense and the Future Perfect,” which we read for Cowboy Bebop. All of the characters are assumed to be Japanese, and are very homogeneous in appearance, save Nendo, whose butt-chin and weird mohawk are played for laughs. In many ways, Saiki represents the ultimate hegemonic male character who is conventionally attractive, cishet, middle class, and extremely able bodied. The only way that Saiki represents “other” could be through his lack of romantic or sexual interest in the show, much to the chagrin of Kokomi, the self proclaimed queen of the school, who appears with a halo of light around her at all times and has caused multiple stampedes of men chasing after her. The character Kaidou, who isn’t very popular with his classmates (somewhat because he always talks about the Dark Reunion), could be acting out social rejection through his fixation on being a superhero fighting evil, above the social dynamics of highschool.

In what ways do costumes and concealing identities further separate the superheroes from normal society? How necessary is it for the superheroes to hide their true identities to successfully achieve their goals? 

For Saiki, hiding his identity is his goal. To this end, he has changed everyone’s hair in the entire world to be colorful so that he doesn’t stand out. When the school has a sports test in gym class, Saiki has to tone down his supernatural speed and strength to blend in, including teleporting a ball back when he throws it so far that it can’t be seen, and squeezing a grip strength monitor so hard that that needle goes all the way around and it looks like he has an average score. For many superheroes, putting on a costume/disguise is necessary to carry out their goals, but for Saiki, his physical appearance is connected to his supernatural abilities, and the antennae and glasses he wears serve not to express his powers or his superhero role, but rather to minimize and control them.

How do the economic, political, and social events that occurred during the series’ creation and broadcast cultivate and inform the superheroes’ decisions and actions? 

The Disastrous Life of Saiki K first appeared as one-shot manga chapters published from 2012-2011, then serialized in Weekly Shonen Jump from 2012-2018. The anime based off of this manga was aired from 2016-2018. I think Saiki K intentionally builds off of the context of preexisting superhero media to satirize it, questioning the characterization of other characters with superpowers as good and selfless or evil and self-serving- Saiki is literally just some guy and he doesn’t feel any pressure to use his powers for anyone. The anime creates a depoliticized superhero- he isn’t connected to any hero organizations or governments, he doesn’t have any enemies. He is so depoliticized and inactive as a superhero figure that his morals swing all the way around into questionable because he is so powerful, and could solve so many problems, but only changed everyone’s hair.

How do the superheroes question themselves, each other, and their obligations and duties to the people around them? 

Saiki K as a show challenges the superhero trope of questioning their purpose, sense of self and obligation to others by making Saiki antisocial and feel pretty neutrally about everyone besides himself. He always ends up helping the people around him, even when he doesn’t mean to, often doing so because it’s the easiest way to avoid being exposed, or not taking action will negatively impact him in some way. In one episode, he watches a magician on TV being locked in a box, and when it seems like he won’t be able to escape in time, Saiki teleports onto the set to save him. He does this in order to save the magician from a deadly incident which could potentially delay the rest of the tv channel, including Saiki’s favorite mystery show that after the magic show. He does help people, but his obligation is (allegedly) to himself first.

@theuncannyprofessoro

[fullsunrise]

Delicate - Chapter 8

Dark jeans and your Nikes, look at you Oh damn, never seen that color blue

Word Count: 1.4k

Warnings: Descriptions of insomnia, description of a panic attack, smoking. Please don't read if you're uncomfortable with these themes!

Previous Chapters: Posted on Masterlist

Ever since she kissed Haechan, Ji Woo found it impossible to fall asleep. It had only been a few months, but she was sure the lack of sleep was starting to slowly eat at her. The deep shade of lavender under her eyes was proof enough, along with the fact that she had been practically dozing off in her lecture class. It was dark by the time the class ended, the moon hanging low in the sky.

Her dark, empty, and quiet apartment greeted her. Not even bothering to turn on the lights, Ji Woo dragged her tired body to the one place that used to offer relief. The comfort might have allured her body, but her mind knew she wouldn't get any sleep. She had tried everything to ease her mind but nothing worked. Normally the melodic hum of the heater helped. Now it mocked her.

It was the same endless loop of thoughts that replayed every night. The moment she closed her eyes she pretended that everything was okay between her and Haechan. In some scenarios they would be friends. Other times they were lovers who would face the world together. But no matter how much Ji Woo wanted to mend the damage, it was already done. The wound had been festering for months, still unhealed.

She thought her problems would've ended the minute she blocked Yuta’s number in December. It was a battle that she almost lost. Despite the hurt, her body still craved his. If he tried to worm his way back into her life right now she wouldn't even put up a fight. She was too tired to resist his touch and sly words.

Yet the idea of never seeing him again made her heart ache. Whether Ji Woo wanted to admit it or not, Yuta knew every inch of her body and knew exactly the right things to say to get her to come crawling back in his bed. Somewhere along their first night together and the endless times that followed, Ji Woo began to believe he was all she deserved. But Haechan had to tilt her world on its axis. Never in her life had she held something so delicate in the palm of her hand. Only to crush it the moment it became too real.

Ji Woo didn't even want to know what the time was, but the bright hue dusting the edge of the window told her to give up on any hopes of sleeping now. The sunlight was only a false hope until the cycle repeated again. And again until the day she swallowed her pride. Ji Woo cursed at the unwelcome sunlight.

Still in a daze, the dull pounding in her right temple hit her not a moment later. Whether she wanted to or not, she had no choice but to get up and start her day. Starting a new semester was hard. Yet Ji Woo was determined to take Jaemin’s advice and try for once. She would take it one day at a time, and maybe the campus library wasn't a bad place to start.

The smell of dusty books and stuffy study rooms was never the ideal location. As she walked through seemingly endless filled rows of tables, there was finally an empty spot. There was a guy hunched over with his headphones resting around his neck.

“Can I sit here?”

“Oh, hey. Ji Woo, right?” The boy perked up from the textbooks sprawled out on the table in front of him.

“Oh, hey…,” she replied, his name just on the tip of her tongue. But the longer Ji Woo looked at him the more she realized she never once caught his name. It didn't help that he changed his hair color practically every month. Today it was a deep shade of blue. It was a striking color, to say the least.

“Jisung,” he kindly smiled.

“You’re in Professor Haden’s late class, right?”

“Yeah, that's the class you're always falling asleep in,” he said, then quickly covered a snicker.

Heat raced to her cheeks. Damn, this was the first conversation she had with the kid and he was already acting like he knew her. She couldn't pretend like his confidence was annoying. No, it was almost refreshing. Just who was this guy?

“Damn, no need to call me out,” she rolled her eyes then flashed him a grin. It was perhaps the first time she'd smiled in, well, a while.

It was his turn to blush as his eyes widened and he quickly waved his hands out in front of him. “Oh! No, I didn't mean it like that,” he defended himself, scratching the back of his neck bashfully.

“I'm just messing with you,” she said teasingly. Ji Woo didn't know why he had her acting like this, rose pink dusting her cheeks with a permanent smirk plastered on her face.

“Ah,” he sighed with relief. “I guess I deserve it, don't I?”

“Kind of, but you're not wrong,” she shrugged, pulling out her laptop from her bag. “Mind if I sit here?”

“No, I’d actually like the company,” he smiled awkwardly.

After a few hours seemingly flew by, Ji Woo learned quite a lot about Jisung. He was an avid dancer, he despised oysters, and he loved the color green. But most importantly, he happened to be the top student in their lecture class together. So when he asked her if she wanted to grab coffee, Ji Woo couldn't say no.

“What do you want? It’s on me,” Jisung said with a warm smile. There was something magnetic about him that kept pulling at Ji Woo.

“I’ll have a drip coffee,” Ji Woo told the barista. She turned her head to look at Jisung. “Thanks for the coffee, I owe you one.”

“Deal.”

The cafe was lively this time of day, with the acoustic guitar floating through the air from the speakers. The small band was playing covers of pop songs and each familiar tune rang in her ears. It should've been relaxing. But the music was getting louder and Ji Woo could barely hear what Jisung was saying.

What was she doing here? Sure, Jisung was kind and warm. But he was too nice. Ji Woo was a fool to think she deserved someone like him. It was fun flirting back and forth, harmless. But something in her gut told her that he felt more. Ji Woo wanted to lie to herself that this wasn't a date. It was just coffee, but he looked at her like a lovesick puppy. She could feel her heart tightening with each beat, the flow of blood pulsating in her ear.

“Ji Woo?”

“I’m gonna step out for a second,” she said loud enough for him to hear her across the table.

“Do you want me to join?” he said with slight concern on his face.

“No it's okay, I’ll be back,” Ji Woo replied with a strained smile.

The late February air burned and Ji Woo wanted it to just end already. She’d rather deal with the rainy spring than have to deal with the cold any longer.

But there had been hints of spring throughout campus, a few sprouts here and there. It would be a while until the cold dissipated, but the first signs of spring still promised warmer days.

As she took a long drag, the smoke cloud temporarily blocked her vision. But when it faded away, Haechan was standing right in front of her.

“I thought it was you,” he said softly.

It had been December when she saw him last. It wasn't his one-sided smile she noticed, or how his eyes gleamed with hope. No, the first thing Ji Woo noticed was that his hair was longer. Just at his nape, bangs covering his eyebrows.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn't have-”

“I left him,” she confessed at the same time he spoke.

“Oh, Ji Woo,” he started. “That's great.”

“I thought I’d feel better,” Ji Woo scoffed. “But I just feel like shit.”

“That makes two of us,” he said. Before she could reply he sat down next to her on the bench. “Listen, I hate the way we left things between us.”

The disappointment in his voice, the warmth of his lips moving against her own. The smell of warm cinnamon on his sheets, the emptiness she felt beside her.

“Me too.”

“Can we start over?”

Starting over, back to square one. Maybe she could finally erase the memory of his heartbroken face that was etched in her brain. They could replace all the hurt and confusion with laughter and understanding. They could be friends. But friends didn't feel like the right word.

“I’d like that,” she smiled lightly.

[crush-zombie-drawan-sfw]

From the beginning, I knew I wanted it to light up...

I read up about forges, how they were used, what they were built like, etc. The burning coke I figured I could make out of colored resin to let the light through, but firstly I needed to make a mould, and to make a mould I needed to make the coke itself to be replicated...

I got the world's stinkiest latex mould builder because I didn't wanna work with silicone, and made a test piece from DAS clay and built it on... layer by layer... 10 layers and like, 12 hours between, urghh ;; Worked, though.

So then I measured a chunk on some cardboard and made sure it fit in the forge before carving the burning coke into it.

I really enjoyed this part. I discovered I have a love of carving I didn't know I had before, lol.

I tried to get that Y-axis in there with careful carving, and to make some pieces literally stand out I broke them off and glued them back into place.

I couldn't find any pictures of the actual layering process but trust me, I made a mould of it, mixed up some pouring resin and put a tiiiiny bit of orange paint in there... just enough to color it but not make it totally opaque. Did you know resin bubbles are banished by heat?? The instructions say "use your breath" so for a bit I was like "?? Does carbon dioxide make the bubbles lift somehow...?" but as it turns out a gentle hairdryer is more effective, lol

Glorious, dangerous, hot coal... Inevitably there were bubbles, so I filled them in with Mod Podge.

Did it fit?? Yes!! Did it glow?!? YES!!! I was very satisfied with the amount of transparency. I then painted some of the top with red and then black "highlights"...

And then glued a string of miniature lights onto the bottom to make it MAXIMUM BRIGHT

HECK YEAAAAAA

Then I had to figure out how to fit that battery case in there in a way that I could change the batteries when necessary. The case itself slides open, so I just had to be careful what way I secured it inside--

This is it (finished), it's pretty tight, lol. Something I also wanted to pay attention to was...

...the part in the bottom where you can see the used up coke-ash being lit up. I UGHHHH and UERGHGHH'd until I made a liiiittle cardboard pocket at the bottom to make it look like there was a chute of ash coming down... and the light from above would illuminate it!! ❤

It's one of my favorite parts... It's not 1-1, but... creative license lol

Next I'll post about items inside the workshop 👍

[mortemoppetere]

TIMING: shortly after nora's decrystalization LOCATION: axis investigations PARTIES: @honeysmokedham & @mortemoppetere CONTENT: infidelity (mentioned very briefly in reference to PI work) SUMMARY: a look into the average american workforce.

The desk Nora used was an old broken thing they’d pulled out of a dumpster and “fixed up”. Fixed up is a loose term here, the uneven leg was made even with the use of a stolen library book, specially selected from their cultivated shelves not for its contents, but for having the perfect amount of pages to keep the desk flat. The desk’s overall structure was patched together with an extreme amount of duct tape, super glue, and force of will. If Nora did anything too fast on her desk, its legs would shift as if the thing would collapse at any moment. A large chunk of wood protruded from the side, to the point a comment had been made they could shove a vampire into it if ever needed. In short, the desk was an OSHA violation waiting to happen. 

Nora loved her desk. She’d made a hobby out of covering its scraped wood surface with monsters of her own creation. Today, she sat at her desk, rickety chair squeaking every now and then with her movement. The laptop she had stolen - she decided using Emilio’s old windows 90 or whatever would not do for research - sat open next to her, displaying an unread article. Adds flashed on the side, changing the lighting across her from one bright color to the next. Instead of focusing on her work, researching the identity of Dawn Burnbook, Nora was busy staring at her arms. They were smooth and flesh. It distracted her. 

Generally, when Nora was in the office she came to work by herself. But since her stint in the mines, her roommates had taken to following her everywhere. As if she would touch another crystal and rejoin the mine cult. As if the temptation to get her body of crystals would overwhelm her. They were right. Babadook was laid out on the floor, tentacles moving toys around Perro in an attempt at normal dog play, while Munch, the sad clown doll haunted by a ghost, stood on Emilio’s desk, seemingly judging everything the man was doing. Nora didn’t think Emilio could hear the string of commentary coming out of the ghost's mouth, but it included multiple suggestions that would make his case file organization more efficient, a suggestion to not drink alcohol while working to maintain professionalism, and a few pointed jabs at Emilio’s outfit. 

—

The office was a lot more crowded than it usually was. Normally, Emilio might complain about that. He’d gripe about how he’d hired Nora, not her platoon of extra ‘helpers,’ would bitch about Babadook being too big to properly sit in his living room floor or the haunted goddamn doll interrupting his work. But now? After so long of having the office empty of anyone but himself and Perro, after spending such a long time alone in these four walls while she’d been off in the mines with Teddy and the world had been falling to pieces? Having a crowded office felt just fine.

He flipped the page in the case file he’d been working on, glancing up at the doll standing on his desk. “You keep looking at me like that,” he said quietly, “and I’ll put you in the floor for the dog to chase. I mean that.” He didn’t. Nora would be upset if Perro ripped a hole in her friend, and Emilio would feel bad even if he’d never admit to it. But he was good at threats, anyway, and he did kind of want the doll to stop looking at him. It was a little unnerving. 

Nora’s desk creaked, and he looked over to where she sat with a quiet hum. “You don’t have to stick around today if you’re bored. Been slow since people started coming back from the mines.” A lot of ‘missing persons’ cases had been solved by clients’ loved ones sheepishly reentering their homes, newly crystal-free. Most of them were happy about it. Nora didn’t seem to be. Emilio tried not to think about it too much. He was glad to have her back, whether she was glad to be back or not.

—

Munch was immune to threats. The ghost was already dead, and perhaps he thought finding a new doll to haunt would be easy. Or perhaps the idea of being a tattered sad clown doll was appealing to the ghost who had found refuge in a family of monsters who took pleasure in scaring people. What was scarier than a sad clown doll? Who looked like it had marched through the depths of hell, clawed its way out of Satan’s grasp and now went around the living trying to send them to death. Or not. It was all speculation. 

“He thinks you’re bad at organizing.” Nora informed Emilio. Munch was tugging at some of the paperwork, trying to get it to budge so he could show Emilio exactly how he should organize his desk. “He also thinks your office is a mess, and you shouldn’t drink at work. I didn’t realize Munch was a bootlicker, or I wouldn’t have freed him from the ghost trafficker.” Nora ducked as an angry clown doll flew at her head. Her microsmile, the normal one that her friends and loved ones had taught her, flitted across her expression as she dodged the little doll with practice ease. Munch had anger management problems. He was in good company.

“No air conditioning in the crypt.” The crypt didn’t need air conditioning. It was cool all year around, basically a freezer in the winter. She made a mental note to obtain a space heater before winter rolled around. More more blankets. “Don’t want to melt.” More like she didn’t want to be alone with the thoughts of how perfect she had been, how she’d fallen into mind control so easily. How she still considered touching a crystal just to go back. “Even if yours barely works.” Because Axis was not allowed to be better than the crypt. “Hace calor.” Nora added in Spanish. At least she hoped it was Spanish, and not an abomination of an attempt. 

—

“I’m not taking advice from someone who haunts a doll,” Emilio replied, rolling his eyes. “I know where everything is. This means it is organized how it needs to be organized.” No one else would be able to make any sense of the mess on his desk, he knew, but wasn’t that just an added layer of security? Didn’t it just mean that anyone who broke in would have to search all the longer to find anything of real value? If he let some doll organize his shit in a way that made sense to the masses, he was just inviting trouble. He tried not to do that.

Glancing back to the doll, he made a show of lifting his bottle of whiskey to his lips and took a long swig, just to spite the damn thing. Nora was on his side here, at least; the doll flew at her at the insult, and Emilio let out a quiet huff of a laugh. “Maybe you should send him back,” he offered. She wouldn’t, and he didn’t expect her to, but he liked the idea of successfully pissing the doll off.

The window unit blowing cool air through Axis was on its very last leg, made a god-awful noise every time it kicked on, but it did work. Emilio raised a brow when Nora mentioned it. “Ah, so you’re saying Axis is better than your crypt? This is what you mean?” He looked as smug as he sounded, which was to say… very. “Barely works is better than not existing, isn’t it?” His smile softened briefly as she added in some Spanish, the expression flickering across his face so quickly that some might have missed it. “Sí. Es verano.” It’s summer. Dry humor, in every language.

—

“Yeah. Send him back to the ghost trafficker. You can get locked in that trunk for a few more years. When you come out you might get an attitude change.” Yelling, cursing, punching. Punches didn’t matter when the ghost was a doll the size of her hand. “You should have been an angry clown, instead of a sad clown.” Nora dodged another blow. Shutting her laptop, she made the executive decision that she was going to get no more work done today. But it was nice to be there. In the crowded apartment. It held the same comfort as being in the fort with Cass and Teddy. Same comfort, different font. Being normal wasn’t so bad if this was normal. 

Emilio was being smug. Nora hated when he was smug. She bore him down with a deadpan stare. Face blank from emotion. She let the space between his statement and her eventual answer swell. Allowing him to come to the conclusion that she thought he was stupid for even saying that. “No.” She answered finally. “The crypt doesn’t have loud neighbors who tear down my signs constantly. Or Jeff.” To be fair, with the way Jeff terrorized the building it was only a matter of time before he ended up in a graveyard. God forbid it was hers. “Verano.” Nora repeated the word, just to keep the feel of it in her mouth, and not to comment on it. “

“No more work.” Nora announced. Her mind wasn’t going to let her focus on the case anyway. “Do something interesting. Do a flip.” Nora placed her chin on her hand, eyes staring expectantly at Emilio for entertainment. As if the dogs had been tuned in the conversation, their play stopped as well, their eyes seeking Emilio’s in the ways dogs always look at humans. Patient and kind. 

—

“Angry clowns are stupid,” Emilio replied, shrugging a shoulder. “So are sad clowns. And happy clowns. All clowns are stupid. Maybe you should have been something less stupid.” How had this become the norm for him? Bullying a doll that had a ghost inside of it while a yeth hound chased a three-legged dog around the living room. Three years ago, if you’d suggested to him that he’d end up here, he would have called you a liar. (He might have also punched you. He’d always been good at that.)

He snorted as Nora glared at him, looking unbothered by her stare. He’d grown pretty accustomed to all of Nora’s blank stares, well enough to know the difference between them all. This one meant she thought he was being stupid. He got this one a lot. “Ah, you like Jeff.” It wasn’t true, because no one liked Jeff. Jeff was a goddamn scourge on this building, and it was only a matter of time before that knife he liked to play with wound up in someone’s gut. Considering Emilio’s luck, he was pretty sure it’d be his gut, which was fine. His gut could probably take it. “If you put a sign outside your crypt, someone would definitely tear it down.” Probably Emilio, just to prove a point. He nodded in approval as she repeated the word, pronunciation shaky but not wrong. She was a quick learner; a lot faster than he’d ever been. It wouldn’t be long before her Spanish was better than his English.

“I didn’t know you were doing work to begin with,” he replied dryly. “Seems to me you only came here to enjoy my air.” He crossed his arms over his chest, raising a brow as he looked down at her. “Sure. Just did one. You catch it? It was quick.” They both knew he couldn’t do a damn flip. He could barely walk. There’d be no flipping.

—

Munch had told Nora the story of how he ended up in the clown doll before. Nora forgot most of the details, but it boiled down to a freshly dead ghost was scared of going to the light so he hid in the nearest object. A clown doll. There were a lot of questions Nora had about what he was doing around clown dolls at the time, but Munch had steadfastly refused to answer all of them, saying that it was privileged information. Nora figured that to mean weird sex things and was happy to leave that line of questioning. Munch, however, was sensitive about his blown body being called stupid and made a ruckus about it. The world ignored him, as the world ignored ghosts. The dead were meant to be forgotten. 

“I don’t like Jeff.” Nobody liked Jeff. There was a running conversation between the two of them that went along the lines of Nora telling Emilio they should stab Jeff first, and Emilio telling Nora that would be too much work to clean up. “The crypt will always be better than Axis for as long as Jeff is here. He’s negative a billion points.” Nora stood up from her desk, stretching. Most of her movements were still exaggerated, a habit from making room for crystals. The crystals were gone now and the movements were clunky and awkward. She ignored her body. “I don’t want a sign at the crypt. The crypt doesn’t have visitors. I like that.” That wasn’t necessarily true anymore. Nora had friends now, people who cared about her and stopped by to see her. Weird where life took people, wasn’t it? 

“You caught me. You really are the best detective in all the land.” Nora pulled the words out in a dry monotone. “My plan for free air, foiled. Whatever will I do? Real work?” Despite her lack of face or tonal expression, Nora threw herself on the couch in a fit of drama for the joke. “Woe is me.” Her eyes flicked to Emilio, claiming to do a flip. “That was the worst flip I’ve ever seen.” 

—

The clown doll was making a ruckus in the only way a clown doll could make a ruckus, which was a very easy thing to ignore. And Emilio knew that that would only piss the thing off more, because if he were destined to spend eternity haunting a tiny clown, he’d be pissed to hell if everyone ignored him. But he couldn’t quite bring himself to care, either. It was what it was. He’d rather focus on the living in the room than the dead; the latter never gave him much of anything to do worth doing.

“Sure you do. You’re always asking me about Jeff.” Has Jeff stabbed you yet, mostly, or when do you think Jeff is going to stab you. Sometimes it was did Jeff break in and steal the TV remote again, too. “I think if Jeff is negative a billion points, all the shit in the graveyard should also be negative a billion points. You got undead shit in your back yard, kid. That’s worse than anything Jeff can do.” But maybe she had a point about the sign. If Emilio didn’t need to make money, he wouldn’t bother with a sign on Axis’s door, either. It was more trouble than it was worth, sometimes. People found him when he didn’t want to be found, people spoke to him when he didn’t want to be spoken to. At least Nora didn’t have to deal with all that in her crypt… not that Emilio would ever admit to thinking so.

Huffing a laugh, he rolled his eyes. “That’s why they pay me the big bucks,” he replied dryly. He rolled his eyes again as she continued, dry as ever. “You and me both know you’re not going to do real work. I’m not sure you know how.” As if Emilio did. Most of what he did wasn’t exactly within the range of what any other PI would call ‘reasonable methods.’ It got the job done, sure… but not usually in the best way. “Okay. You do one, then. Go on, show me a trick.”

—

“You have a weird obsession with Jeff and we both know it. Stop trying to project it on me.” One time Nora had joked that they needed to make a Jeff’s Stab Meter, because some days Jeff was more likely to take a swing than others, resulting in the two sharing warnings with each other. Jeff probably had no clue that he was as common a topic as the crypt vs Axis. An easy point of banter between two people bad at words. “Maybe you should invite Jeff over. He’d like your knife collection. You two could stab people together. Wouldn’t that be romantic?” The idea that Jeff was capable of anything other than murderous intent was funny. Actually, maybe he should be their friend. The more she thought about it, the more Nora thought he’d fit in. 

“The graveyard is positive three million points.” Nora corrected Emilio. “The undead give it character.” Emilio constantly reminded her that there were things going to kill her in graveyards. Nora logically knew he was probably right. Emilio was always right. Boo. But nothing had attacked her yet. In fact, she had a bunch of ghostly friends. It was like having nice neighbors who had adopted her without Jeff. “The crypt is in the lead. Sucks to suck.” 

“Big enough bucks to buy a better air conditioner?” Nora retorted. “If this one breaks I need to find a new job, nobody wants that.” By nobody she meant herself. Other jobs probably expected her to work. Van, Thea, and Wynne were all very expressive about their jobs, and Nora thought it sounded tedious. She was much better suited for detective work. It gave a whole new reason to break and enter. “I do the work my boss taught me to do.” Nora added with a shrug of a shoulder. “If he’s doing bad work, I’m doing bad work.” Do a trick. A challenge. Nora loved challenges, but it was a lazy afternoon and the effort was low. Emilio’s flip had been fake. Her trick would be just as fake. “For my next trick I will become taller than you.” Nora stood on the couch, and took a bow. “Tada.” 

—

“That’s you, actually.” In all honesty, Emilio felt a little bad for his neighbor. It was clear that Jeff wasn’t entirely there some days, that something was missing. In a town like this one, the list of things that could have made him that way was long and winding, and it was hard not to feel at least a little sympathetic. That would probably change, of course, when Jeff finally did manage to stab him one of these days, but for now? Emilio would humor the guy. “I don’t have to invite Jeff over. Jeff comes over all on his own.” Usually because he mistook Emilio’s apartment for his own and wandered in yelling about someone moving all his furniture. The idea of anything romantic with the guy, in spite of the detective’s almost-fondness for him, brought a disgusted look to Emilio’s face, and he wrinkled his nose. There were a lot of people he’d rather sleep with than Jeff. 

“Ha,” Emilio replied dryly. “Undead are not for character.” In spite of the undead friends he’d made here, there was still an instinctive level of disgust that came with the sensation in his gut that told him something undead was nearby. He knew it was a shameful thing, but it wasn’t something he could shake, either. When you’d been raised all your life to believe that the undead were bad and wrong, it took more than a few friendly vampires to erase that instinct. He was trying. It was slow going. But he didn’t stab on site anymore, and he thought that must count for something. “The crypt smells weird, you know.” As if this building smelled any better.

Glancing over at the rickety window unit, Emilio shrugged. “It gets the job done. Why would I waste my money on a new one?” That was his philosophy with a lot of things in this apartment, from the sofa he’d found in a dumpster to the bare mattress in the bedroom. As long as something was functional, even if the definition only applied at the bare minimum, Emilio saw no reason to replace it. “Then I guess we’re both doing bad work. Who would have guessed.” He snorted as she climbed up onto the couch. Standing, he approached her and climbed up to stand beside her, a little wobbly and not without a flare of protest from his bad knee, but at a height that once again put him above her. “Not anymore. Bad trick.”

—

Nora rolled her eyes, letting the exaggerated movement once again tell Emilio how dumb he was. He might as well have said 'I know you are, what am I?' "Sure he comes over. But it's always Jeff get out and never Jeff hang out for a bit. Maybe if he got to chill he'd leave the remote."  The romance joke hit and Nora was rewarded with a look of disgust and nose wrinkling. That was how Nora knew her blow hit. Good. Nora would count that as a win. An illusion of Jeff's face appeared next to Emilio. It was making kissing faces. "I think he really likes you," Nora added, a fake heavy sigh as she said it. The kind of sigh that was supposed to say, isn't that dreamy? Practiced from a childhood of watching movies where girls in Disney movies signed over princes like that. "Your own prince charming." 

"Undead are for character. Spooky scary skeletons are in. You're just old." Nora pointed an accusatory finger at him. As if being old was a crime that made a person automatically out of touch with the rest of the world. Home Depot or whatever was now selling giant skeletons to stand in people's yards. Those were made out of plastic and the dream to be the spookiest house on the block. Imagine how jealous they would be to find out that Nora had hundreds of skeletons in her yard. They were all free. And sometimes a few of them would come back to life in different stages of decomposition. They would literally be so jealous. Nora hadn't seen any of them come back yet, but with the amount of emphasis Emilio put on it, she was sure it would be any day now. "Better than here." Nora retorted without a second thought. "Someone who uses 5-in1 can't comment about smell. It's on the fine print of the bottle." Nora would add that to his 5-in-1 Irish Spring soap bottle eventually because she always upheld the bit. 

"Because it's going to break, and Perro is going to be hot. Do you want Perro to be hot?" Getting to know someone, Nora had learned recently, included learning about what motivated them. Nora could Emilio refuse to lift a finger to help himself, then turn around and jump through hoops to do anything for Perro. Nora often wondered if Perro was his first dog. Sometimes Perro would do something all dogs have done before, and Emilio would be staring at the little guy in rapt attention. Was it exploitative to use Perro against him? Probably. Nora still wasn't sure how interactions were supposed to go. But if it helped him, it was okay, right? Because Nora wanted to help Emilio. 

"No work, just arson!" The couch squeaked under Nora as she bounded on the worn-down cushion. To her surprise, Emilio was being fun today. Fun in the most annoying way possible. Bad trick? He had the nerve to put zero effort into his trick, but hers was bad? Nora threw off her jacket, making one of those spur of the moments decisions. "Fine," Nora answered. Snap. Crackle. Pop. Her body was a burst of pain and then she was a bear. White fur cascaded down her body where flesh had been. Nora yodeled into the air above Emilio's face. Because as a polar bear on her hind legs? She was much taller. A shower of illusionary sparks twinkled around her as if to say, "Tada! How's that for a magic trick?"

—

The illusion wasn’t entirely unexpected, because it was a very Nora thing to do. Emilio swatted it absently, breaking it up and forcing it to dissipate. “Ay, cut it out. I think you’re, uh…” He searched for the word, shrugging when he couldn’t put his finger on it. “Saying I think what you think. Maybe it’s you who has a crush on Jeff. Kids your age always have bad taste in men, you know. When my…” He trailed off, sucking his teeth and offering a shrug. When my sister was your age, he’d almost said. Almost told a story about Rosa and her terrible boyfriend, the one his mother had hated. Looking back, he wasn’t sure how bad the guy had really been. In all likelihood, his mother had hated him because he wasn’t a hunter, and because any of her children dating someone who wasn’t like them ran the risk of grandchildren who weren’t hunters, and that was not something she would risk. She’d been angry enough that Emilio married a ranger instead of a slayer; he could only imagine how pissed she’d have been if Rosa had stayed with the human boy she’d claimed to love at twenty, if she hadn’t ‘come to her senses’ after the punishment Elena doled out.

Still. That guy would’ve been better than fucking Jeff. Even joking about it was a little gross.

“Maybe I am. There are worse things to be than old.” Most wouldn’t consider thirty-four to be old at all, but to Emilio, it felt ancient. In hunter circles, it kind of was. Most people born into the life he’d been born into were dead before they hit thirty. People like Rhett, who was nearly fifty now, were unheard of. Emilio was under no illusion that he’d live as long as Rhett, not when he felt half-dead already, but maybe there was still something of an accomplishment to the years he had under his belt. Enough of one that he didn’t care about being called old. He did dislike being called smelly, though. “It is soap. Soap smells fine. I’m not going to spend twenty dollars more than I need to just to buy soap that people approve of and keep a dozen bottles in my shower.” His soap did five things, with one soap. How was he the only one who realized what a deal that was? Everyone else acted as though he were committing some heinous crime just by using it, like they weren’t the ones who’d been fooled. 

Emilio glanced to Perro, hesitating. Was the dog hot? He didn’t seem to be bothered, chasing Babadook around in circles with a joyful wagging of his tail, but Emilio didn’t know much about dogs. “I’ll buy him a fan,” he decided, crossing his arms over his chest stubbornly. Get the dog a fan, let the rest of the apartment suffer. It seemed a fair enough trade… and it let him refuse to bend to Nora, which felt important here. Hey, kids needed boundaries, right? He’d been a shitty father, but even he knew that much.

He raised a smug brow as she hopped off the couch, waiting to see what ‘trick’ she’d come up with next. When she began to shift, he blinked. “Nora, wait —” But there was no stopping her. There was a goddamn polar bear in his living room, and he glanced briefly to the floor as if to determine whether or not he could trust it to hold her. It creaked a little, but didn’t collapse. Pleasant surprise. “Very funny. Come on, kid. Back to a person, before you scare the dog.” Perro, for his part, wagged his tail excitedly, yipping as he ran happy circles around the bear’s massive feet. Emilio, even from his spot on the couch, had to crane his neck to look up at her.

He decided he hated it.

—

The bear was tall. It was a towering expanse of snow white mass. A snowy mountain in the middle of Axis. She didn’t know how tall her bear was, it was hard to walk up to a measuring stick in bear form. Humans were normally around and they never reacted pleasantly to a surprise bear appearance in the wild. But, if Nora had to guess, and today she was guessing, she would say she was ten feet tall standing on her bear tippy-beans. Which was much taller than Emili’s tiny five foot something stature. Her head brushed against Axis’s ceiling. Emilio couldn’t even reach the ceiling without standing on something. Ha. She was going to get him a mug that said Short King after this. He’d hate that. Bear’s couldn’t smirk. Nora wasn’t sure if it was the elongated snout, or her own inability to master facial expressions, but she did her damndest to try and put a smirk on the bear’s face.

Emilio was complaining. Perro was a good sport. Nora was very cognizant about being careful not to move. The bear was big, and could crush a little fellow like Perro, which was exactly what she didn’t want. Babadook and Munch on the other hand? Unimpressed. The traitors that lived in her crypt, rent free, had no interest in the shenanigans. As if turning into a bear lost its novelty the more you saw someone do it. Whatever. At least she had Emilio’s annoyance to make it up for. Nora raised her bear arms up, accompanying the movement with a shower of illusionary sparks. TADA! 

Nora let herself drop back into the human. Her body once again breaking and repairing until she was the human, standing there. Nora bent down to give the best audience member some well earned pets. “You’re just jealous that my trick was good. And because I’m taller than you.” Nora retorted to her worst audience member. 

—

Somehow, the bear looked smug. Maybe it was just because Emilio knew that the bear was Nora, and knew Nora well enough to know that she’d be immeasurably smug about having ‘won’ this particular argument, but he could have sworn he saw a damn smirk on the bear’s face. He crossed his arms over his chest, looking decidedly unamused as the bear towered over him. Her ears brushed the ceiling, and Axis didn’t have particularly tall ceilings — it was a cheap apartment in a building full of cheap apartments, meaning there was very little space to speak of at all so that more units could be squished in for ultimate profitability — but it wasn’t something Emilio could reach. 

He glared at the bear, and Perro sniffed at her foot with his tail swinging wildly back and forth in spite of his owner’s insistence that he’d be terrified of her. Emilio wondered, absently, if Bear Nora and Nora Nora smelled the same to the little dog, if he could tell, somehow, that the massive form in front of him was the same small girl who often fed him carrots and scratched him fondly behind the ears. Emilio could only roll his eyes as the bear’s arms raised, the motion very human in spite of the giant paws. Mocosa.

As she began to revert to human, he averted his eyes and grabbed the blanket someone had left on his couch. (Javi, maybe? Arden or Wynne?) Without looking, he tossed it in Nora’s direction. “I think it’s cheating if you have to turn into a bear to be taller than me,” he insisted stubbornly. “I think it doesn’t count.”

—

Nora grabbed the blanket being tossed at her, wrapping it around herself. Belatedly she looked down at the pile of shredded clothes at the feet. She owed Van a new shirt. And pants. Those had been Van’s clothes she was wearing today. At least Van would find this situation funny when she explained it to her friend later. Luckily her jacket was safely stowed on the back of her chair. Her piercings had also fled during the transformation. Nora really had to be more careful about taking things off before transforming, but that really would have ruined the hilarity of the moment. 

“But I am the bear. The bear is just the body I don’t use often.” Nora countered. “I am the human and the bear at both times. All times, right? Which is why I’m never a human. Which means I am always taller than you no matter which body I’m currently in.” Part of coming to terms with being a bugbear had been coming to terms that she wasn’t human, which was weird considering she had a human form she could and mostly resided in. But she was the human and the bear. It was all very confusing. “I am taller than you.” Nora reasserted. “It’s okay. People love short kings, Mimi. It’s okay that you are the tiniest human known to all of humanity.” 

—

There was a t-shirt laying on the floor. One of Emilio’s, discarded God only knew when, God only knew where, but Perro must have brought it into the living room at some point. He did that, sometimes; collected Emilio’s things and dragged them under the couch, build a little nest for himself with them. Emilio had often found socks, shirts, boxers, even a pair of jeans in the dog’s little lair from time to time. It came in handy now. He tossed the shirt at Nora, figuring that in her ‘human’ form, it’d probably go down past her knees. 

“That’s not how it works,” Emilio insisted, even though Nora wasn’t wrong. She was always the bear, even when she didn’t look like a bear. A bugbear was a bugbear the same way a hunter was a hunter, but shifters made Emilio’s head ache in a way other supernatural creatures didn’t. He didn’t think he’d ever understand them entirely. But he didn’t really need to, either, did he? It was all right, he was learning, to just let things be. “I’m not — I am not short. Or tiny. I am taller than most people.” It wasn’t his fault that Wicked’s Rest evidently attracted giants alongside supernatural creatures. Anywhere else in the world, 5’11” was fairly tall. He’d been taller than both Edgar and Rosa — the only real edge he’d had over his siblings. And he was taller than Nora, no matter what she said. “I am going to make you do extra work. For being terrible.”

—

Nora caught the shirt, it was nice that she wouldn’t need to walk back home naked except for the jacket. That was thoughtful. But what wasn’t thoughtful was that Emilio was telling her she was wrong. “That is how it works.” Nora insisted. “I’m always the bear, and the bear is tall, so I am always tall.” It was logical, probably. Presumably. “You’re just jealous that you are shorter than me. And everyone else.” Nora said, knowing full well that the gang of friends she hung out with were all the same size as her human and her human was not very tall. Nora rolled her eyes as he began threatening her with extra work. “You’re being unbearable.” 

Snap. Crackle. Pop. Nora was a bear again. The blanket fell to the ground intact and she clutched the shirt he had given her in her paw. If he was going to be unbearable, she was going to be a bear and taller than him. Nora let out a bellowing bear roar as if to say “Try and give me work now, Mimi.” and “I’m taller than you!” All at once. 

—

“I am not shorter than everyone,” Emilio insisted. He was beginning to wonder if he should buy some kind of a chart marking average height just to prove Nora wrong. But, knowing Nora, she’d claim the chart was all fabricated information, anyway. She had a habit of that, he thought fondly. But he was careful not to let this fondness show on his face. Instead, he only rolled his eyes at her pun, waving a hand in her direction. “Terrible,” he said again. “I’m going to give you the worst case files. The ones with guys in tracksuits.” He wasn’t even sure what case files they had on their agenda at the moment, but there was always at least one mind numbing enough to serve as punishment.

And punishment would certainly be just. He could see that glint in her eye, offering the briefest of warnings and eliciting a groan before she grew again, stretching up, up, up as she morphed from girl to bear. The bear roared in a way that shook the walls, though that was hardly a difficult task. “You are going to get me kicked out,” he said pointedly. “Jeff is going to call the landlord and complain. And then what? I live in your crypt? No.”

—

Nora would take the men in tracksuit cases. She would take the ones that involved her sitting in place for a few hours for a chance to snap the photo they needed. She’d take the ones that involved getting in a dumpster and digging through heaps of discarded junk. Because this was funny. The ever growing frustration as Emilio realized he was fighting a losing battle. A new dynamic to the banter that was theirs. There was a second, a brief moment, where she wondered if this was what growing up bugbear would have been like. A place where the bear was an accepted part of her and not something she had to hide away from everyone. If her own dads would have groaned and scolded her for being a bear when she should have been human. But those thoughts were not something to hold onto, not when there was mischief to be made. 

Emilio was complaining again. Jeff would call the landlord and he would have to live in her crypt. He would be so lucky to live in her crypt. It was the best place to live in Wicked’s Rest, and she knew she didn’t even have to say it. Nora let out a bear grumbling noise to convey the thought. But she relented, if only to make sure he didn’t live in her crypt. She’d never hear the end of how unsafe it was. “Nora there’s a zombie outside. Nora there are ghouls here.” Or some shit and they would only show up because he was there. The graveyard had been perfectly safe so far. A girl again, she threw on the shirt. “The weather is great up there, in case you were wondering. Not that you’d know. Only having short people air.” 

—

Emilio had never been particularly good with people. He was gruff, he was short-tempered, he was bad at understanding things that everyone else seemed to pick up on with ease. It was why Axis’s reviews were so shitty in spite of his decent skills as a detective — he was good at the investigation, but he sucked at dealing with the people who asked for it. Delivering someone news that their spouse was, in fact, sleeping with someone else wasn’t something he knew how to do gently. If it were him, after all, he’d want the facts without any sugarcoating. Most people, unfortunately, wanted that sugar. Interpersonal relationships were another thing he struggled with. He could do casual acquaintanceships, but anything deeper than that? Anything that required him to show more of himself than he wanted to show? He was bad at that. Most people didn’t like that much, but not Nora. Nora was fine with Emilio the way he was.

Even if she was a little annoying about it sometimes.

Luckily, he knew that she didn’t want him living in her crypt any more than he wanted to live in a graveyard. They’d both be utterly miserable with the arrangement, which Emilio would insist upon despite having at least one or two other people who’d probably allow him to crash with them if he got evicted. He’d make himself miserable and live in a crypt if it meant Nora would suffer, too, just to be petty, and she knew that, so she shifted back into human form and threw on the shirt he’d tossed her. When she was dressed, he turned her way again, arms crossed over his chest. “You are the worst,” he told her seriously. “I’m going to fire you.” An empty threat. They both knew that, too.

—

“You can fire me if you want.” Nora replied easily, aware of the empty threat. What would be the point? Nora had grown into Axis like a mold, creeping into a space they hadn’t known existed and finding she belonged there. Even if Emilio didn’t want a mold growing there or not. “It’ll just mean I can do less when I come to enjoy your free air conditioning. Say goodbye to my computer, help goodbye, I’m a fired freeloader.” Nora paused for a second, “With all my new spare time, I can invite Jeff over. We’ll become best friends. I saw friendship bracelets in a show once. Maybe we can make matching ones. With knives at the end. For stabbing neighbors.” 

Truth was, and Emilio probably knew it, even if he fired, he she would still show up and do what had become her job. She enjoyed the work. She loved the investigation. She hoped to be as good as him one day. The job, the thrill of chasing answers, was almost enough to get someone to forget the crystals that had coated her body. The perfect example of who she’d always wanted to be. Almost. But nothing would truly get the taste of perfection out of her mouth. “Jeff is taller than you.” Nora wasn’t sure if that was true or not. Both of them were taller than her human, hard to compare when she hadn’t seen them next to each other. “He’ll understand how nice the weather is up there.”

—

Even if the threat did carry weight, she was right that firing her wouldn’t really change much. Nora would still come over and Emilio would still let her. She’d do just as much ‘work’ as she did now, which was to say very little. But he liked calling her his assistant, and he was pretty sure she liked telling people she was a detective. “Do not invite Jeff into my house,” he warned. “He comes here enough with no inviting, anyway.” Even if he weren’t gifted with a built-in undead detector, he would have known Jeff wasn’t a vampire. The guy barged into his apartment without invitation every other morning. “And don’t get him a bracelet. I think he would eat it or something.” There was really no telling with Jeff.

He shot her a glare as she spoke again, and anyone who didn’t know him well would think it a heated look. For Nora, though, and other people who’d spent enough time with Emilio to grow used to his various expressions, it would be fairly obvious that there was no real anger behind the expression. If anything, the look carried a certain softness to it, a fond exasperation. “Jeff is not taller than me.” He actually wasn’t sure. He didn’t think he’d ever seen Jeff standing up straight. “Are you finished being annoying today? There are things we need to be doing.”

—

The look of exasperation coupled with the subject change, Nora took that as her victory. Both had thrown around empty threats. Both had bantered as if life was normal again. As if Nora had never been a crystal obsessed with the mines and trying to get everyone she knew to move in there. Because the world did go on, no matter what devastating events happened. She wondered if anything new was happening with Emilio. Wynne had hinted at a few things, but the conversation between the two of them had been so normal. So regular. It was nice, for this moment, to exist and be happy. “Finished being annoying? No can do boss. That’s what I get paid the big bucks for.” Nora made her way back to her desk, folding herself back onto the chair, careful to retain balance so it didn’t fall to the ground. “Imagine if I stopped annoying you and you felt comfortable in your own home.” Nora shook her head, as if that would be the worst possible outcome. “Don’t worry, I can be annoying and get to the things that need doing.” Nora opened her laptop, flipping past the tab with all her research on it and opening up youtube. There were a few videos she just knew Emilio would hate seeing. She started sending them to him. 

(bonus banner bc me and fish accidentally made two)

[spinningbuster98]

The Metroid Prime Remaster

Welp! I played it! So here’s my personal thoughts

I think everyone knows by this point that this is mostly a face lift of the OG, meaning that structurally it’s the same game. This means that any issue you might have had before will still be there, like the Artifact Collecting. Personally I’m fine with this, as the game is very honest with what it is, it’s not a Remake.

However there are a few new options, such as settings for people who are Color Blind, the option to turn on or off the Pal Narrator, and of course at least 4 different control options: Dual Stick, Gyro, Classic and Hybrid (a mix between Classic and Gyro). I’ve only tried out Classic since that’s the one I’m most familiar with, and it’s....mostly fine. I immediately noticed that movement felt looser than in the OG, causing me to “slip around” and make inprecise jumps. Thankfully you can adjust the sensitivity in the options so I was able to recreate the feel of the OG controls much better, though they’re still not 100% precise, around 90% on the way there.

I’ve seen people whining about the Y axis controls being reversed....and yeah they are....but there’s an option to revert them back guys XD

As some have already pointed out there is a sort of delay with the charge shot, if you keep holding the button you will first shoot a couple of shots before actually charging (with the exception of the Ice Beam). This wasn’t the end of the world and it’s relatively minor but I still hope they patch this

But enough about this, we all know what we REALLY wanna talk about here

The graphics

This is honestly the best looking Switch game I’ve seen, it genuinely looks like a PS4 title. Yeah some textures are pretty simple when you look at them up close, and you can sometimes tell that this is actually a 2002 game, but it’s still goddamn impressive, especially since it runs at a consistent 60 FPS, no drops whatsoever!

However I wanted to adress something that I’ve only seen few people talk about. Yeah the game is really pretty, but does it preserve the original’s atmosphere?

Because here’s the thing: remasters and remakes often have the bad habit of screwing up the OG’s aesthetics in an attempt at making the game look prettier, usually by messing with the lighting. Some famous examples being Sonic Adventure DX with its brighter-than-the-sun lighting and plastic characters, or the 3DS remasters of Ocarina of Time and Majora’s Mask.

Prime Remastered is generally more colorful than the original, and brighter also. And yes I do believe there are a couple of instances where this messes up a little the look of some parts of the game.

An example being Flaahgra, who is now too brightly clolored for a corrupted, poison producing monster plant, or the Hive Mecha Room, whose green fog effect is too saturated. Anothet example are the leaves throughout the Chozo Ruins: in the OG they were a dull red color, indicating they were rotting, but here they’re bright orange.

However I believe the game is mostly careful in preserving the original’s atmosphere.

The Tallon Overworld certainly emphasizes its greens, giving its natural setting a stronger feel, but on the whole the picture is still “greyed out” due to the overall rainy atmosphere, just like in the original.

The brighter oranges of Magmoor Caverns emphasize its “hotness” pretty well.

The Phazon Mines are still pretty dark looking and now Phazon is more bioluminescent than ever, emphasizing the area’s neon-like atmosphere

Phendrana was mostly unchanged from the original in regards to lighting I found.

Perhaps the areas that received the biggest makeovers were the Space Pirates’ labs and frigate: the areas are now brimming with a new cool-blue color pallette generated by all the computer screens and force fields, though they’re still quite dreary looking at points. I’m of two minds here: on the one hand it sorta changes the OG’s atmosphere quite extensively here, but on the other it replaces it with something that is still pretty effective in a way, as i think this serves to emphasize the areas’ more cold and sterile feel (they are laboratories where amoral genetic experiments are being performed after all), and naturally their Sci-Fi flavor.

In general I’d say the game knows when to crank down the brightness, sometimes even more so than the original

The room with the dead parasite queen on the Frigate is noticebly darker here, making it moodier, and the room with the Omega Pirate is generally darker, letting you mostly see its phazon spots, and with the area lighting up in response to attacks

I genuinely believe these two instances (and others) add to the OGs atmosphere!

However even the original had many instances when in wanted to be more bright and colorful, to emphasize the beauty of its locales, and the remaster does an absolutely outstanding job here, with completely new assets, particle effects galore, and plenty of “light beams coming from the sky” kind of shots giving places like the outdoors of the Chozo Ruins, Phendrana, and especially the Underwater Frigate (which made my jaw drop) an almost heavenly feel!

When it comes to graphical details many from the OG’s Gamecube release are kept and even enhanced, like the after effects of each beam’s charge shot, water droplet that not only fall on your visor and arm cannon but actually trail downwards or upwards depending on the curvature.

In the original there were some jet streams that didn’t fog up your visor, like the ones in the depressurization room on the Frigate, but they do now.

The Space Pirates on the Frigate have missing chuncks of flesh and are bleeding (though for some reason some of the ones you find already dead don’t have this feature, weird)

Not only can you sometimes see flashes of Samus’ face, but for a split second she will be looking at whatever direction you’re aiming at

The Ice Beam doesn’t register on the Thermal Visor, but the Plasma Beam appears bright yellow

The lava in Magmoor produces heat waves

When you enter a bright area from a dark one the brightness level will initially be higher before being toned down, to give the idea that your eyes are adjusting

There’s a lot more here. However there are also some details missing strangely enough

Your beam shots don’t light up hallways anymore

Some light effects are missing

The mirrors in the Chozo ruins don’t reflect your image anymore (though they do reflect thye rest of the room which is something the OG didn’t do)

The scar on Tallon IV visible at the beginning is far smaller for some reason

In the room with the two big broken test tubes that used to contain two Parasite Queens the left one used to be covered in lots of green slime that formed a trail leading to a big open vent, indicating that that’s where the Queen you fight came from. Here there’s far less green slime giving a much less clear visual message

While you can still see Samus’ arm with the X-Ray Visor you can no longer see its blackened silouhette for a split second when switching beams

There’s more, and it’s a shame but for the most part I’d say the original’s sense for attention to detail is kept and even enhanced.

Some enemies have also received some slight redesigns which....are not bad but I tend to prefer the originals, like the adult Sheegoths having “angry looking eyes”, or Meta Ridley being slightly more organic. They’re minimal, so I don’t have any big issues.

For some reason on Normal Hive Mecha shoots the same number of Wasps for each phase, only on Hard does it correctly mimick its original behaviour which is weird.

 The Log Book entry for the Metroids has been modified to specify that they’re TALLON Metroid, a new variant born from Phazon Mutation, which is a nice touch.

The Wasp Hive on the ceiling of the room with the Incinerator Dron is now scannable, nice.

So is this the definitive version of Prime? Depends

The multiple control options and the better graphics are enough for most people. I think this is probably the best version to date overall though still not 100% definitive, due to those litle snags regarding the controls and those few instances where the atmosphere is not quite up to snuff with the original, and the missing effects.

Still this is overall one of the best remasters I’ve seen, especially in an industry where the word remaster is often synonimous with “half assed”. There was lots of genuine love and effort put into this and for this it should absolutely be commended.

Please give us Prime 2 and 3 as well Nintendo, you dirty money goblins! Releasing the Trilogy most likely one game at a time when stuff like the Crash Nsane Trilogy exists...

Also no Fusion Suit, can’t wait for the DLC :^)

[still-single]

HEATHEN DISCO BEST OF 2023 SHOWS

They're in the can, check 'em out.

For those still wondering, the Ryan Davis record is the best release of 2023.

Set 1: Reissues/Archival + 20 Tracks from 2023

Arthur Russell – In the Light of a Miracle

Dorothy Carter – Autumn Song

Laurie Styvers – Imagine the Lights Have Gone Out

PG Six – Unteleported Man

Thinking Fellers Union Local 282 – Flames Up Yours

The Dark – Resurrection 

Fury – Circle of Lies

INU – Don’t Eat Food!

Las Mordidas – Surrounded

Spike in Vain – Opus I & II

Africa Corps (Savage Republic) – Real Men (live)

Sonic Youth – I Love Her All the Time (live)

Masayuki Takayanagi – Mass Hysterism Part II

Milford Graves with Hugh Glover – March 11, 1976 III

Les Rallizes Denudes – Eternally Now (live CITTA ’93) 

Maxx Traxx – Reachin’ For It

High Rise – Sadducces Faith

Wolf Eyes W/ Spykes – 4

Tolerance – Sacrifice

Shizuka – 6 Gram Star

Rubber Blanket – Gandy Dancer

Khanate – It Wants to Fly (excerpt)

S*GLASS – Sorry About the False Bounce

Föllakzoid – V-III 

Monocot – The Voice Came

Daniel Villarreal – Chicali Outpost

Equipment Pointed Ankh – Late Night A.I.

Witness K – How Do We Count Your Poses

Coffin Prick – Town Without Pity 2

Olimpia Splendid – Jacksonin Paita

Terry – Jane Roe

Nusidm – Arm Unemployed

Dippers – Encouragement in Brackets 

Guardian Singles – Com Trans

Civic – Born in the Heat 

Married FM – I’m Gonna Find It 

Connections – Bird Has Flown

Son of Dribble – Shed

The Serfs – Club Deuce

Corker – Edge of Teeth

Set 2: 39 Songs from 2023

Stella Kola – November

Wheatie Mattiasch – Not the Angels

Maxine Funke – River Said

Suishou no Fune – A Rainbow Is Floating

Jana Horn – Love in Return

V.I.P.P. – Dancing

Famous Mammals – Like a Shadow

Non Plus Temps – Hide Away

Now – Rattray

Spiral Dub – High as Fuck

Violent Change – Whipping Boy 

Disintegration – Time Moves for Me

Home Front – Nation

Lifeguard – Alarm

The Toads – Nationalsville

Ulrika Spacek - Diskbänksrealism

Retirement – No Refund

Mother’s Milk – Xerox Cloak 

Glittering Insects – Remote Viewed Orgasm

FACS – Class Spectre

Skull Practitioners – Intruder

Los Mundos – Luz Perversa (en vivo)

Cheater Slicks – Fear

Emily Robb – Solo in A

The Sundae Painters – Thin Air

Animal Piss, It’s Everywhere – Pink Dolphin

Sparks – Nothing Is As Good As They Say It Is

The Clientele – Garden Eye Mantra

Lewsberg – Debbie

Usurabi – Even If It’s a Lie

Luxor Rentals – A Hallway

Drop Nineteens – T

Melenas – K2

Exek – On the Ground Floor

Silicone Prairie – Mirror on the Wall

Feeling Figures – Movement

The Smashing Times – Tuesday, Coming into Time

Colleen – Les parenthèses enchantées (Movement III)

Jaimie Branch – Take Over the World

Set 3: The Last 41 Best of 2023

Chi To Shizuku – Kawaki

The Lewers – O Karina

The Native Cats – Suplex

Cuticles – Know Not What

En Attendant Ana – Wonder

Tirzah – 2 D I C U V

Seekersinternational – Caught Up (Heart Breaks)

Ron Morelli – Gun Smoke

Leda – 2

Zuli – Bussra

Smirk – Polyrhythmic Ticks

The Dissidents – Patronized

Consensus Madness – Animosity

Stress Positions – Flaming Sword

Life Expectancy – Land Worm

Collate – Guilty Collector

Blue Dolphin – Docile Jannette

Flat Worms – Orion’s Belt

Los Llamarada – Waiting For Your Eyes

Dion Lunadon – Diamond Sea

Natural Information Society – Immemorial

Quade – Measure

The Split Bell Chime – You Can Tell Me Anything

Matmos – Why?

GUB – 4

DJ Manny – Ooh Baby

Tyvek – What It’s For

Gaadge – Candy Colored

Surveillance – Obvious

Miss Espana – Lirio Blanco

Axis: Sova – Join a Cult

Al Karpenter & CIA Debutante – Fuck You All to Fade No More

Beau Wanzer – Warm Waterboarding

Thee Retail Simps – Wrong Direction

Wireheads – Persistent Resistance

Adulkt Life – Blackout

Sharp Pins – Bye Bye Basil

The Tubs – Sniveler

Meg Baird – Star Hill Road

Ryan Davis & the Roadhouse Band – Flashes of Orange

Water Damage – FUCK THAT (Reel 13)

[dangleboots]

The relationship wasn't perfect, or even that great at the end of things, but God, did I care about her. I loved her. Just thinking about her gave me a rush of endorphins. She was the Earth, and I was an asteroid set on a collision course directly for her. I probably didn't make that big of an impact on her, but she was huge to me.

I use a lot of space imagery when talking about her, and that's because I associate her with it. She was as vast and unknown as the cosmos to me, as beautiful and stalwart as the moon. She shone as brightly as the stars above, and she had the gravitational pull of the sun. As warm as the sun's rays and as comforting as the moon's light. It is with the certainty of the Earth spinning on its axis that I know I would've always fallen for her.

She was my type to a t, but she was also just special. She was positively vibrant to me, an explosion of color in my life like the northern lights.

But she also hurt me, and while I do love to wax poetic about the ones I love, I can't put her on a pedestal. I can't sugarcoat how bad the relationship made me feel at times by only focusing on the good. That's not healthy.

She wasn't trying to be, but at times she was like a black hole to me. Silent, drawing me in inevitably but giving nothing in return. Like the moon, I could never truly reach her. Without the sun, the world starts to grow cold. The stars are beautiful, but they're projections of the past. The cosmos is wonderful in its vastness, but you can get lost in it so easily.

It hurt me a lot to be ignored. Especially when she wouldn't give me any reason why, so I was stuck there wondering and worrying over what I must've done wrong. I cried over her a lot. Radio silence for days and weeks at a time takes its toll. She refused to talk about her problems in the end, no matter how much I begged her to just let me help. She said she needed "time", but never gave me a timeline.

The end felt as inevitable as her. I tried to make it "easy" on her by being understanding and gently asking her to let me know if she still wanted to be together. She said it felt like I was treating it like a business transaction. That felt like a punch to the gut. I know how tough health and life problems are- I didn't want to add to her stress and pain. But maybe I was too impersonal while trying to do that. I certainly didn't mean it that way.

In the end, four months ago, I said I wanted to stay together if she did too, but that I needed to know if she didn't. She never answered. A month and a half later, I finally sent a breakup text for some semblance of closure. No response. I blocked her two weeks after that because I was so stressed that I was having nightmares about her for multiple nights in a row. The nightmares were about how she could blame me or hurt me with words if she finally responded, so my solution was making it so that she couldn't respond. It worked, the nightmares stopped, but maybe it wasn't fair of me. I knew that she'd never actually do something like that, but my fears still took over.

I don't know why I unblocked her or am still hung up on her. No- that's a lie. It's because I love her, still, despite everything. I shouldn't. "Your silence says just as much about your character/as your words do". She never said it with words, but her actions spoke loud and clear. She didn't want me, or didn't have the communication skills necessary to keep me. I can't help but give her the benefit of the doubt, though. That she truly misses me and regrets what happened. Maybe it's just to make myself feel better.

I want her back in my life, but I'm also assuming a lot in that want. I'm assuming she's changed and has better communication skills. I'm assuming that she still cares about me. I'm assuming that she even wants me back in her life.

When things started falling apart, she mentioned that I'd be better off without her. That I'd be happier with someone else. And if you're reading this, my love, you were wrong. And right. You were right that that version of you I dated wasn't good for me in the end. That I'd be happier without worrying over you every day. But while I am happier, I am not happy. I miss you dearly, and I pine over you daily. If you could communicate this time, we could start as friends. For while my life is technically "better" without a cloud of worry over my head, it is not better without you.

[capyquest-logs]

Daily Log #11

I'M ON TOP OF THE WORLD!!!

9/29:

Colored capybara model (fun!)

Made cel-shading texture for the capybaras (AAAAAAHHHH)

Added a blob shadow under the capys (nice)

Okay, so starting out, I went into Blender and unwrapped the first (and so far, only) capybara model. I will learn how to unwrap UVs in Maya eventually, but I'm more familiar with Blender's system, so I'm sticking with that for now. Painting the capy was so fun, and it turned out adorable, if I do say so myself.

Alright, story time, and fair warning, this is going to be long. I was expecting it to be pretty simple to get the cel shading texture done. Then, I tried working on it, and realized I was screwed.

The problem is, cel shading is done post-process, and would apply to the entire scene. So, if I wanted a cel-shaded capybara, I would have to have the entire game and landscape be cel-shaded. After all the work I put into the environment, I was NOT happy with this.

I was so excited for the stylistic choices I had made and really didn't want to give up. After lots of research, I figured out I had five options:

Cel shade the whole scene (not a chance, bucko).

Use complex nodes that I have no clue about, and that have almost no notation online to learn from, to sort of mask out the capys (WAY too confusing, and believe me, I tried my best... but my best wasn't good enough).

Create a post-processing cube, and copy and paste it around the capybara model like some kind of weird post-processing skin, which would take absolute ages and would break as soon as I started animating.

Take the L and choose a different style for the capy characters (I admit, I almost just gave up and went with this one).

Fake it.

I chose option 5.

Let me tell you, it was a eureka moment when I thought of how to do this. I realized I could use what I learned creating the tree leaves texture and, hopefully, rearrange the hell out of it, add to it, and get it to work. I worked on it for so long, but eventually...

IT WORKED! I literally jumped out of my chair in excitement.

So, the way it works is that it detects the direction that the material normals are facing, and basically selects them based on this direction and applies a different color. For the trees, I used just the Z axis for shadows on the bottom. A little tweaking, and I could adjust it for all three axes. I put in a parameter for each so I could change the direction the "light" is coming from. So, unlike real cel shading, it doesn't respond to the actual lighting of the scene. You arrange the shadows yourself. I'm sure with more complex code I could get it to respond to a single light source, but I highly doubt I'd ever get it to respond to multiple light sources.

I used these as the alpha/mask for a lerp node. I could then set up the base color as the A value in the lerp, and then plug in a bunch of modifications (like saturation, darkness, etc.) to the base color and put it in the B value, so I could adjust the shadow's appearance.

The next problem was, the shadow color was applying beautifully, but there were still default shadows from the engine itself. I needed to get rid of all the shadows. My solution? Well, lights don't cast shadows, so if the capybara was emitting even just a little, tiny, itty bit of light, it wouldn't collect shadows. I took everything that I plugged into the base color pin and plugged it into the emissive color pin. It messed up the colors, but it did remove the shadows! With some more adjustments I got the colors correct again.

Here's the finished code:

One final problem: If you look above at the capybara screenshot, it's not casting a shadow. Obviously, it's emitting light, so it makes sense that it wouldn't, but it looked like it was just floating there. Solution: add a blob shadow!

I tried just putting a plane underneath the capybara actor and applying this texture. Unfortunately, my landscape is really varied in height, but the shadows were just flat horizontal, and would clip into the ground or hang over the top of the ground (and sometimes both at once!)

After some research I learned about decals, which cling to the landscape. I could just create a decal actor and nest it to the capybara actor in the level itself (technically not perfect; I was hoping to be able to combine them in the actor blueprint itself, but it's such a quick fix that it's simply the best and easiest option).

VOILA, IT WORKED! Now the shadow is always applied clinging to the landscape, so no weird clipping!

Here's the final result of hours of texturing:

Don't mind the little gear-shaped icon, it doesn't appear during play.

After all that, I went to bed and passed out immediately (it was like 6 in the morning). Best sleep I've had in weeks. Totally worth it!

This was a really long post, sorry for yapping but I'm sure you can understand how proud I am of myself. I just had to gush about it.

Have a good one!

[integrating-sphere]

Uneven CIE Yxy Color Space of Colorimeter

We know that the quantification of color and light is in an abstract sense, so the differences in color and other physical differences are distinct. For example, when we use a measuring stick to measure the length of an object, people often arbitrarily divide it into uniform small segments. Even small lengths that cannot be distinguished by the human eye can be judged by measuring tools. But when people use Colorimeters to measure the color of objects, it is different. Firstly, people cannot correctly distinguish the amount of color difference, and they cannot use physical instruments to analyze and measure colors because color data has meaningless numerical values. This is also the reason for the emergence of color difference meters, which are precision and complex color detection tools. In colorimetry, people call the color difference (range of change) that cannot be felt by the human eye the wide capacity of color. The capacity of the color scheme reflects the distance between chromaticity points on the CIE xy chromaticity map. We know that the chromaticity diagram plays a very important role in the development of color difference meters, with each color occupying a unique point on the chromaticity diagram. However, for people's visual perception, when the color coordinate position changes slightly, the human eye still considers its original color and cannot sense its change. Therefore, in colorimetry, the amount of color difference within the distance (or range) of visual effect change is visually equivalent. In 1942, D.L. Macadam, a researcher at the Kodak Institute in the United States, published a paper on human visual capacity, which remains the fundamental work in quantitative calculation and measurement of color differences to this day. In order to study the visual difference, McAdam selected 25 color chromaticity points at different positions on the CIE xy chromaticity map as standard chromaticity lights, with chromaticity coordinates x and y. Then draw 5~9 straight lines in different directions for the chromaticity points, take the colored lights on the opposite sides to match the color of the standard colored light, and the same observer will allocate the proportion of light to determine the wide capacity of color discrimination. Calculate the standard deviation of the chromaticity coordinates obtained through 50 repeated color matching experiments. Namely: As shown in Figure 1 below, radiating lines are emitted in various directions around the established standard chromaticity point, and it is found that the distance varies in different directions. Around standard chromaticity points, point trajectories with a distance of one standard deviation in different directions are connected to form an approximate ellipse. At the same time, we can also see from the graph that the ellipses formed by 25 different chromaticity points on the chromaticity map are of different sizes, and their major axis directions are also different. This indicates that in the xy chromaticity diagram, the width capacity of colors in different positions and directions is different. The same geometric distance on the standard CIE xy chromaticity map corresponds to different visual color differences in different color regions and directions of color change. The wide capacity of each ellipse in Figure 1 is plotted as 10 times the standard deviation of the experimental results. Portable Colorimeter/Chroma Meter is an innovation color measuring tool with powerful configuration to make color measurement easier and more professional; It support Bluetooth to connect with Android and ISO devices, Portable Colorimeter/Chroma Meter will take you into a new world of color management; It can be widely used to measure color value, color difference value and find similar color from color cards for printing industry, paint industry, textile industry, etc. Lisun Instruments Limited was found by LISUN GROUP in 2003. LISUN quality system has been strictly certified by ISO9001:2015. As a CIE Membership, LISUN products are designed based on CIE, IEC and other international or national standards. All products passed CE certificate and authenticated by the third party lab. Our main products are Goniophotometer, Integrating Sphere, Spectroradiometer, Surge Generator, ESD Simulator Guns, EMI Receiver, EMC Test Equipment, Electrical Safety Tester, Environmental Chamber, Temperature Chamber, Climate Chamber, Thermal Chamber, Salt Spray Test, Dust Test Chamber, Waterproof Test, RoHS Test (EDXRF), Glow Wire Test and Needle Flame Test. Please feel free to contact us if you need any support. Tech Dep: Service@Lisungroup.com, Cell/WhatsApp:+8615317907381 Sales Dep: Sales@Lisungroup.com, Cell/WhatsApp:+8618117273997 Read the full article

[sanjaylodh]

the weather is colorful

the weather is colorful

what season is this

Results for Rajpur Sonarpur, Kolkata, West Bengal

 ∙ Choose area

Light Thunderstorms and Rain

26°C°F

Precipitation: 35%

Humidity: 75%

Wind: 6 km/h

Weather

Tuesday, 5:00 pm

Light Thunderstorms and Rain

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What Is Weather? - UCAR Center for Science Education

UCAR Center for Science Education

https://scied.ucar.edu › how-weather-works › weather

What Is Weather?

Rain and dull clouds, windy blue skies, cold snow, and sticky heat are very different conditions, yet they are all weather.

Weather is the mix of events that happen each day in our atmosphere. Weather is different in different parts of the world and changes over minutes, hours, days and weeks. Most weather happens in the troposphere, the part of Earth’s atmosphere that is closest to the ground.

Weather

National Geographic Society

https://www.nationalgeographic.org › topics › resourc...

WEATHER

Weather is the state of the atmosphere, including temperature, atmospheric pressure, wind, humidity, precipitation, and cloud cover. It differs from climate, which is all weather conditions for a particular location averaged over about 30 years. Weather is influenced by latitude, altitude, and local and regional geography. It impacts the way people dress each day and the types of structures built.

Explore weather and its impacts with this curated collection of classroom resources.

Weather

Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Weather

Weather is the state of the atmosphere, describing for example the degree to which it is hot or cold, wet or dry, calm or stormy, clear or cloudy.[1] On Earth, most weather phenomena occur in the lowest layer of the planet's atmosphere, the troposphere,[2][3] just below the stratosphere. Weather refers to day-to-day temperature, precipitation, and other atmospheric conditions, whereas climate is the term for the averaging of atmospheric conditions over longer periods of time.[4] When used without qualification, "weather" is generally understood to mean the weather of Earth.

Weather is driven by air pressure, temperature, and moisture differences between one place and another. These differences can occur due to the Sun's angle at any particular spot, which varies with latitude. The strong temperature contrast between polar and tropical air gives rise to the largest scale atmospheric circulations: the Hadley cell, the Ferrel cell, the polar cell, and the jet stream. Weather systems in the middle latitudes, such as extratropical cyclones, are caused by instabilities of the jet streamflow. Because Earth's axis is tilted relative to its orbital plane (called the ecliptic), sunlight is incident at different angles at different times of the year. On Earth's surface, temperatures usually range ±40 °C (−40 °F to 104 °F) annually. Over thousands of years, changes in Earth's orbit can affect the amount and distribution of solar energy received by Earth, thus influencing long-term climate and global climate change.

Surface temperature differences in turn cause pressure differences. Higher altitudes are cooler than lower altitudes, as most atmospheric heating is due to contact with the Earth's surface while radiative losses to space are mostly constant. Weather forecasting is the application of science and technology to predict the state of the atmosphere for a future time and a given location. Earth's weather system is a chaotic system; as a result, small changes to one part of the system can grow to have large effects on the system as a whole. Human attempts to control the weather have occurred throughout history, and there is evidence that human activities such as agriculture and industry have modified weather patterns.

Studying how the weather works on other planets has been helpful in understanding how weather works on Earth. A famous landmark in the Solar System, Jupiter's Great Red Spot, is an anticyclonic storm known to have existed for at least 300 years. However, the weather is not limited to planetary bodies. A star's corona is constantly being lost to space, creating what is essentially a very thin atmosphere throughout the Solar System. The movement of mass ejected from the Sun is known as the solar wind.

No matter what the weather may be, it is because of this weather that there are many lives here on this earth, both in water and in soil.

Translate Hindi

मौसम है रंगीन

यह मौसम क्या है

राजपुर सोनारपुर, कोलकाता, पश्चिम बंगाल के लिए परिणाम

  ∙ क्षेत्र चुनें

हल्की आंधी और बारिश

26°C°F

वर्षा: 35%

आर्द्रता: 75%

हवा: 6 किमी/घंटा

मौसम

मंगलवार, शाम 5:00 बजे

हल्की आंधी और बारिश

तापमानवर्षापवन

मौसम क्या है? - विज्ञान शिक्षा के लिए यूसीएआर केंद्र

विज्ञान शिक्षा के लिए यूसीएआर केंद्र

https://scied.ucar.edu ›मौसम कैसे काम करता है› मौसम

मौसम क्या है?

बारिश और सुस्त बादल, तेज़ हवा वाला नीला आसमान, ठंडी बर्फ़ और चिपचिपी गर्मी बहुत अलग स्थितियाँ हैं, फिर भी ये सभी मौसम हैं।

मौसम हमारे वायुमंडल में प्रतिदिन घटित होने वाली घटनाओं का मिश्रण है। दुनिया के अलग-अलग हिस्सों में मौसम अलग-अलग होता है और मिनटों, घंटों, दिनों और हफ्तों में बदलता रहता है। अधिकांश मौसम क्षोभमंडल में होता है, पृथ्वी के वायुमंडल का वह भाग जो ज़मीन के सबसे निकट होता है।

मौसम

नेशनल ज्योग्राफिक सोसायटी

https://www.nationalgeographic.org ›विषय›संसाधन...

मौसम

मौसम वायुमंडल की स्थिति है, जिसमें तापमान, वायुमंडलीय दबाव, हवा, आर्द्रता, वर्षा और बादल आवरण शामिल हैं। यह जलवायु से भिन्न है, जो किसी विशेष स्थान के लिए लगभग 30 वर्षों में औसत सभी मौसम की स्थिति है। मौसम अक्षांश, ऊंचाई और स्थानीय और क्षेत्रीय भूगोल से प्रभावित होता है। यह लोगों के हर दिन कपड़े पहनने के तरीके और निर्मित संरचनाओं के प्रकार को प्रभावित करता है।

कक्षा संसाधनों के इस संग्रहित संग्रह के साथ मौसम और उसके प्रभावों का अन्वेषण करें।

मौसम

विकिपीडिया

https://en.wikipedia.org ›विकी› मौसम

मौसम वायुमंडल की स्थिति है, उदाहरण के लिए यह वर्णन करता है कि यह किस हद तक गर्म या ठंडा, गीला या सूखा, शांत या तूफानी, साफ या बादल है।[1] पृथ्वी पर, अधिकांश मौसम संबंधी घटनाएं ग्रह के वायुमंडल की सबसे निचली परत, क्षोभमंडल, [2][3] में समतापमंडल के ठीक नीचे घटित होती हैं। मौसम दिन-प्रतिदिन के तापमान, वर्षा और अन्य वायुमंडलीय स्थितियों को संदर्भित करता है, जबकि जलवायु लंबी अवधि में वायुमंडलीय स्थितियों के औसत को संदर्भित करता है। [4] जब बिना योग्यता के उपयोग किया जाता है, तो "मौसम" का अर्थ आम तौर पर पृथ्वी का मौसम समझा जाता है।

मौसम एक स्थान से दूसरे स्थान के बीच हवा के दबाव, तापमान और नमी के अंतर से संचालित होता है। ये अंतर किसी विशेष स्थान पर सूर्य के कोण के कारण हो सकते हैं, जो अक्षांश के साथ बदलता रहता है। ध्रुवीय और उष्णकटिबंधीय हवा के बीच मजबूत तापमान विरोधाभास सबसे बड़े पैमाने पर वायुमंडलीय परिसंचरण को जन्म देता है: हेडली सेल, फेरेल सेल, ध्रुवीय सेल और जेट स्ट्रीम। मध्य अक्षांशों में मौसम प्रणालियाँ, जैसे अतिरिक्त उष्णकटिबंधीय चक्रवात, जेट स्ट्रीम प्रवाह की अस्थिरता के कारण होते हैं। क्योंकि पृथ्वी की धुरी उसके कक्षीय तल (जिसे क्रांतिवृत्त कहा जाता है) के सापेक्ष झुका हुआ है, वर्ष के अलग-अलग समय में सूर्य का प्रकाश अलग-अलग कोणों पर आपतित होता है। पृथ्वी की सतह पर, तापमान आमतौर पर सालाना ±40 डिग्री सेल्सियस (-40 डिग्री फारेनहाइट से 104 डिग्री फारेनहाइट) तक होता है। हजारों वर्षों में, पृथ्वी की कक्षा में परिवर्तन पृथ्वी द्वारा प्राप्त सौर ऊर्जा की मात्रा और वितरण को प्रभावित कर सकते हैं, इस प्रकार दीर्घकालिक जलवायु और वैश्विक जलवायु परिवर्तन को प्रभावित कर सकते हैं।

सतह के तापमान में अंतर के कारण दबाव में अंतर होता है। उच्च ऊंचाई कम ऊंचाई की तुलना में ठंडी होती है, क्योंकि अधिकांश वायुमंडलीय ताप पृथ्वी की सतह के संपर्क के कारण होता है जबकि अंतरिक्ष में विकिरण संबंधी हानियां ज्यादातर स्थिर होती हैं। मौसम का पूर्वानुमान भविष्य के समय और किसी स्थान के लिए वातावरण की स्थिति की भविष्यवाणी करने के लिए विज्ञान और प्रौद्योगिकी का अनुप्रयोग है। पृथ्वी की मौसम प्रणाली एक अराजक प्रणाली है; परिणामस्वरूप, सिस्टम के एक हिस्से में छोटे परिवर्तन पूरे सिस्टम पर बड़े प्रभाव डाल सकते हैं। मौसम को नियंत्रित करने के मानव प्रयास पूरे इतिहास में होते रहे हैं, और इस बात के प्रमाण हैं कि कृषि और उद्योग जैसी मानवीय गतिविधियों ने मौसम के पैटर्न को संशोधित किया है।

अन्य ग्रहों पर मौसम कैसे काम करता है इसका अध्ययन यह सम���ने में सहायक रहा है कि पृथ्वी पर मौसम कैसे काम करता है। सौर मंडल में एक प्रसिद्ध मील का पत्थर, बृहस्पति का ग्रेट रेड स्पॉट, एक एंटीसाइक्लोनिक तूफान है, जिसके बारे में माना जाता है कि यह कम से कम 300 वर्षों से अस्तित्व में है। हालाँकि, मौसम ग्रह पिंडों तक ही सीमित नहीं है। एक तारे का कोरोना लगातार अंतरिक्ष में खो रहा है, जिससे पूरे सौर मंडल में एक बहुत ही पतला वातावरण बन रहा है। सूर्य से उत्सर्जित द्रव्यमान की गति को सौर पवन के रूप में जा��ा जाता है।

मौसम चाहे जैसी भी हो मगर इसी मौसम के चलते ही यहाँ इस पृथ्वी में कई जीवन पानी में भी मिट्टी में भी

[gertlushgaming]

ARK: Survival Ascended Review (PlayStation 5)

For this ARK: Survival Ascended Review, we play a reimagined from the ground up into the next generation of video game technology with Unreal Engine 5! Form a tribe, tame & breed hundreds of unique dinosaurs and primeval creatures, and explore, craft, build, and fight your way to the top of the food chain. Your new world awaits!

ARK: Survival Ascended Review Pros:

- Beautiful high-quality graphics. - 70.64GB download size. - Platinum trophy. - Action survival gameplay. - Full controller speaker support. - Graphics settings - motion blur film grain, color grading, light bloom, and light shafts. - Ui settings let you change the size and color of the Crosshair, what notifications you get, the chat window and how it shows, and transitional effects. - Camera settings - Invert Y axis, sensitivity sliders, camera view Bob, third-person camera offset, TPV camera lateral offset, disable third-person camera interpolation, player camera mode (off/tight/mid/loose), Dino camera mode (same as before), FOV slider, camera shake scale, and first-person riding (on/off). - Full mod support with search, filter, and featured. - Create and join the game option. - Advanced settings - network bandwidth (low/medium/high/epic), console access, disable menu music, blood visuals, voice chat channels, disable loading screen music, and more. - Shows a mouse and keyboard as a supported controller. - Three difficulties - Easy, medium, and hard. - Create game options - single-player or nondedicated, mod settings, game rules (such as damage/resistance/food drain, etc) for player/creature/structure/world and rules, advanced settings for - PVE, PvP, world, wild Dino, tamed Dino, player, exp multipliers, and miscellaneous. Engrams round it off and this is crafting recipes and their behaviour. - First and third-person camera view. - You have a lot of control over how your game world plays out and character progression. - Character creator - name, voice, body composition, overall height, skin color, body template, head, torso, arms, and legs. - You choose your spawn and respawn point by region with each region showing the Dino population and difficulty on the world map. - Fast loading times. - Cutscenes are a mix of in-game and FMV. - Goes with the traditional survival mechanic of punching trees to get wood and then building tools to make it faster and easier. - Tool types dictate what resources you get from them. - It's a living world full of deadly dinosaurs. - Earn exp from doing everything and level up to increase stats and unlock new engrams (recipes). - A beautiful-looking island with many memorable places. - Play how you want. - The map fills in as you play. - Upon death you drop everything but can get it back, your death spot shows on the map. - Full day and night cycle with weather effects such as rain. - On-screen icons to show hunger and drink levels. - Character load out for clothing is - head, torso, legs, hands, offhand, and feet. - Armour and clothing can affect stats. - You can see objectives and personal markers on the map along with the Coordinates showing. - The engram unlocks are dictated by your level and your choices, you earn points and use them. - In Single Player, you can actually pause the game. - Pop-up text over dinosaurs and other players. - You can see the Corpse of your previous body. - Dinosaurs will attack each other, you can kite them into each other, and attacking one dinosaur usually has the rest of the pack hunting you down. - Save when you want. - You can craft weapons and items to hunt the many animals. - Basic tools, weapons, and clothing can be crafted in the inventory menu whilst bigger things require a crafting table. - You can just hold down the action button for swinging axes and using weapons etc. - Very addictive for those who like to craft and explore. - Territory flags help keep structures and items together but you can get raided in PvP. - Weapons and tools degrade with use and eventually break. ARK: Survival Ascended Review Cons: - So many options everywhere it's almost overwhelming. - Cannot rebind controls. - Animals don’t move and react that well. - A lot of the performance can be up and down. - A big undertaking. - Griefing can get out of hand quickly. - Building and surviving on the PvP side of things is really tough. - Few hit detection and building detection issues. - Shows a survival of the fittest mode but it's coming soon. - Using the stick as a mouse cursor is not ideal in the menus. - The game has small text and I couldn't find an option. - When changing any settings with a slider it always brings up the screen keyboard and puts the slider at zero. - Combat is very button-mashy. - You can completely break the game with the settings. - Uses so much from the first game that you can be forgiven for thinking you bought the same game again. - Using the menus overall is just clunky and slow, even the engram unlocks requires too many clicks. - No tutorials. - Just chucks you straight into the game. - So much to take in. - It takes a really long time to unlock and progress to a point where you can actually survive and progress. Related Post: Jet Set Knights Review (Nintendo Switch OLED) ARK: Survival Ascended: Official website. Developer: Studio Wildcard Publisher: Studio Wildcard Store Links - PlayStation Read the full article

[igoldenlaser8]

CO2 Laser Cutting and Engraving Machine

iGOLDEN laser engraving machine offers precise and aesthetical engraving and cutting of non-metal materials. The machine primarily uses CO2 gas along with electricity to produce a laser beam that can cut through or engrave most materials. A glass tube helps to focus laser beam onto the surface of the material, the beam goes down the tube and out the nozzle through focus lens. Once the beam exits the tube, it comes in contact with the surface of the material to be engraved. The speed can be controlled to ensure smooth and reliable engraving moreover the worktable it comes with is able to work with hard materials such as wood, acrylic etc. The machine comes with a control panel that displays the progress of the graphics.

iGOLDEN laser engraving machine is widely used for fine engraving and cutting, hollow carving of acrylic, leather, paper, MDF, rubber, organic board, two-color board, wood board, bamboo products, glass, cloth, resin, plastic, rubber, ceramic tile, crystal, bamboo, organic glass and other non-metallic materials. The machine can cut and engrave various texts, graphics, images, trademarks, etc. CO2 laser engraving machine is suitable for both home and commercial purposes.

Features of Laser Engraving Machine

Safety Protection: It will automatically cut off the power when the top access door is open, which protects the operator from any harm by the laser, increasing the safety, stability, and reliability of use and maintenance.

Water Cooling Protection: To avoid any damage to the laser tube the machine will not fire the laser if the cooling water flow is not detected.

Red-dot Positioning: the machine uses a red light indication method to achieve precise positioning of the laser beam.

Breakpoint Continuous Engraving: In case of any power cut the machine will continue working from where it left off last .

Worktime Preview Function: It can demonstrate real working time with accuracy up to the millisecond level, and also support dynamic display of machining path and coordinate points, real-time display and tracking of machining progress.

A CO2 laser engraver is an automatic etching system that uses a 10.6 μm wavelength CO2 laser beam to act on the surface of the substrate to vaporize the excess material to form pits, so as to make an engraved project. It is a carbon dioxide gas laser engraving cutting machine that uses the computer to control the X-Y console to drive the engraving head to move and control the switch as required. The CAD/CAM software generates a file from the designed pattern or text and stores it in the computer.

This is the LCD control panel，User Friendly LCD control panel allows the user to quickly change selected program and modify machine operational conditions. You can Start, Stop, Pause, Reset, Datum, Test Fire, Outline engrave project area, Move the X or Y axis, LCD Viewing Display, Z-Axis up/down, Control Interior light.

Laser Tube

The standard laser tube is 80w. wood laser engraving machine supplies high quality 80-180w laser tube for your choice, you can choose according to your work and the workpiece thickness.

The laser output is stable. The discharge tube is catalyst coated，the working life is much increased. Compared to similar product, the tube body length is shorter, the laser beam mode is better, the cutting speed is higher.

Laser Engraving Machine Applications

Compared with manual wood engraving machines and hand wood engraving tools, laser wood engraving machines have greatly improved the working efficiency for your laser engraving business plans. They can make the engraved surface more smooth and round, quickly reduce the temperature of the engraved non-metallic material, and reduce the deformation and internal stress of the engraved project. It can be widely used in the field of fine engraving of various non-metal materials. So far, you can meet laser engraved wood projects everywhere in the world, and it has become a common power tool in our daily work. Now, it is widely used in woodworking, sign making, advertising industry, crafts making, toys making, shoes, clothing, mold making, construction industry, printing industry, packaging industry, decorations, leather industry. The nonmetal laser engraver is suitable for woods (hard wood, soft wood, plywood, MDF, veneer, coniferous wood), leather, acrylic, textile, fabric, cardboard, rubber, paper, plastic, bamboo, ABS, PVC, fiber and composite materials.

How Many Types of Laser Engraving Machines?

Laser engraving machines are classified as laser wood engraver machines, metal engraver machines, leather engraver machines, stone engraver machines, fabric engraver machines, plastic engraver machines, rubber engraver machines, paper engraver machines, glass etching machines, acrylic engraver machines based on the engraving materials. Laser engraving systems are defined as CO2 laser systems, fiber laser systems (the best tool to engrave metal), and UV laser systems (the best tool to etch glass) based on the sources.

Laser engraving tables are divided into mini types, handheld types, compact types, desktop types, portable types, 2×3 engraving tables, 2×4 engraving tables, 4×4 engraving tables, 4×8 engraving tables, 5×10 engraving tables, large format engraving tables according to the working area. These kits are classified as home kits, hobby kits, commercial kits, industrial kits based on applications. These kits are defined as laser jewelry engravers, pen engravers, iPhone engravers, gun engravers, ring engravers, signage engravers, art engravers, logo engravers, cup engravers based on industries. If you are working for 3D engraving, the rotary engraver kit is the best solution.

How does a CO2 Laser Cutting Machine Work?

You may want to know how to laser cut leather, how to laser cut fabric at home, or how to laser engrave acrylic. But first, Co2 laser cutter how it works?

Laser machine tool lies in laser beams. CO2 laser machine uses a CO2 laser tube with a CNC system to irradiate the laser beam to the surface of the object. At the same time, the glass laser tube releases high energy heat to melt and evaporate the object surface to achieve CNC CO2 laser cutting and engraving. And in a CO2 laser engraving machine, light is produced when an electric current is passed through a gas-filled tube with mirrors at both ends. One mirror is fully reflective, while the other only lets some light through. Next, these mirrors direct the laser beam into the material to be cut. And the gas is usually a mixture of carbon dioxide, nitrogen, hydrogen, and helium.

In addition, CO2 laser beam is a very high-intensity beam of light. It is a kind of infrared ray with a single wavelength or color, which is invisible to the human eye. When the Co2 laser beam passes through the beam path from the resonator, its diameter is only about 3/4 of an inch. So, it may be reflected in different directions by many mirrors or “beam benders” before it is finally focused on the plate. And the focused CO2 laser beam passes through the nozzle hole before hitting the plate, as well as the compressed gas such as oxygen or nitrogen. Besides, higher CO2 laser power is for cutting and lower CO2 laser power is for engraving. Actually, the CO2 laser power is adjustable during operation. Laser power also affects the depth of CO2 laser engraving and the thickness of CO2 laser cutting.